CHAPTER 15
Turn Over
A drenched Llenn stood next to the staircase on the starboard side’s long vertical hallway of Deck 5, watching the 1:35 scan go by.
“What? Why? What in the world happened up there? A betrayer is gone!” she shouted in disbelief.
Fukaziroh, also drenched, and with her MGL-140s in each hand, suggested, “Maybe Pito killed them?”
“That’s crazy,” Llenn said without thinking.
But M, who was recovering hit points beside Fukaziroh, refuted, “No, I wouldn’t put it past her.”
For one thing, near the conclusion of SJ2, M had died because Pitohui was furious that he’d sided with Llen, even slightly, and shot him.
“If we let it happen, Pito herself could completely demolish the rest of the betrayers’ team.”
“That sounds great, M. Should we chill out here for a bit longer?” Fukaziroh said, half-joking and half-serious.
“It’s not a bad idea, but it’s not going to be an option. The water’s rising again,” M noted, glancing down the staircase.
“Already?” Llenn looked down the staircase they’d come up and saw that the level of the seawater was slowly approaching, evidence that the ship was taking on more and more water. The submerged lights farther down were still visible, wavering eerily through the cloudy churn of water.
Until this point, they’d been taking a strategy of delaying going up to the next floor as long as possible. If they came across an enemy team, they agreed to run and hide, avoiding battle as best they could.
There were two reasons for this.
One was to wait for M’s HP to recover. He’d lost nearly all of it in the battle against Tanya, so to get it back to full, they would need all three of his emergency med kits and nine full minutes. That was a vast amount of time in Squad Jam, and it was difficult to go that long without any fighting whatsoever.
The other reason was to get their rivals MMTM to fight Team Betrayers instead. If MMTM came after LPFM, they would be in big trouble.
In total honesty, if they determined that not everyone could escape, M would set up his shield in the hallway and stay behind as a sacrifice. They even considered having Fukaziroh hurl plasma grenades from behind to destroy both M and the enemy together.
Fortunately, however, MMTM chose to fight the betrayers instead. Whatever exactly happened wasn’t clear, except that the four completely vanished five minutes before.
All they knew was that the punctured ship continued to sink as water flooded on board. One of the biggest holes being their own responsibility, of course.
First the water rose toward Deck 3, so they moved up to the fourth. When it threatened Deck 4, the trio had no choice but to climb to Deck 5. Llenn took the lead up the stairs, P90 in hand.
“Is this ship really safe, taking on so much water…? Are we gonna sink?” she wondered.
“No idea,” said M.
“Damn that bitch!” David swore, loudly because he’d turned off his earpiece, as he ran up the stairs.
They were stairs with spacious landings, where passengers might have greeted one another with smiles when this had been a luxury cruise ship. But now they were faded and filthy, with countless rags draped over the handrails—perhaps someone’s ancient clothes.
At the top of the stairs, the open space of Deck 17 came into view, with the door leading to the bridge up ahead. He sprinted the rest of the way, the STM-556 with grenade launcher propped against his shoulder. If he saw anything moving, he was going to view it as a target and pull the trigger.
But strangely enough, David was certain: Pitohui would not make any attempts at him along the way.
She was waiting for him in her lair, the bridge.
“I’m coming for you, demon lord!”
As Pitohui had done when she first came in, David kicked open the door to the bridge. It was a method only someone certain there would be no hand grenade booby traps would use. Indeed, there were no traps.
“Here I am!” he announced.
Naturally, he had his gun at the ready the whole time. If he saw any movement, he was going to open fire on it.
“……”
But there was nothing moving on the ship’s bridge.
David had the entire space in view, about the size of a classroom, but there was no one present.
About ten feet ahead on the right side was a sci-fi soldier in armor and helmet, lying facedown and utterly still. An XM8 assault rifle was on the floor beside him.
The console was in the center of the bridge, but there wasn’t enough room for a person to hide behind it.
David’s eyes moved swiftly—and then he spotted it.
A break in the thick glass of the previously intact windows. In the farthest window to the left, there was a hole barely large enough for a person to squeeze through. The wind moaned softly as it traveled through the hole.
Just two seconds had passed since David barged into the room.
“Shit!”
Pitohui had gotten away. But then he noticed something else wrong in the room.
Something that should have been there was missing.
David turned his gun toward it, and it rose to grab that gun at exactly the same time.
“Ervin” squeezed the barrel of the STM-556 with both hands and yanked with total weight and strength—while making sure the muzzle was pointed away, to prevent being shot.
Rather than trying to hold on and being yanked along and losing his balance, David chose to give up the gun. He let go and reached for his holster with his free right hand to grab the M9-A1 pistol there.
“Die, Pitohui!”
He opened fire on the armored person who was throwing his assault rifle across the room.
A series of shots echoed across the bridge, and fourteen empty cartridges flew into the air—but the person in the armor did not fall.
All the 9 mm pistol rounds bounced off the breastplate and helmet of the suit of armor.
“Dammit!”
The slide stayed back on the M9-A1, and then the armored person took one big stride forward and smacked the pistol with an open-hand slap, knocking it all the way to the corner of the room.
David leaped back to three paces away, and he and the armored player stared at each other.
“So first you kill him, then you steal his gear?! Have you sunk to petty thievery now?!” David shouted, derision clear in his voice and expression. The armored player’s left arm waved a little bit, and the armor came off.
The armor broke free and fell away, starting with the limbs, then the chest and the back. The full helmet pulled back from the face first, then rolled entirely off the back of the player’s head.
It all clattered dully on the floor of the bridge, revealing the person inside: a woman in a skintight navy-blue bodysuit, with no weapons or items whatsoever, and geometrical-patterned tattoos on her cheeks.
She was smiling.
“Ah, I see your point. Stealing the equipment of the dead is bad. But those it might happen to in this situation are asking for something like this to happen, aren’t they? I’m sure Ervin will understand,” Pitohui said happily.
David smirked back. “You won’t blame me, then, when I kill you? Because I’m the kind of guy who feels like he needs to do that to make it up to his team.”
“Aren’t you supposed to say you’d rather starve than do what I did? Come on, you’ve got to stick to the script.”
“How long are you going to keep this up…?”
“Don’t be such a downer, Daveed! Remember, the next scene is where you rip off my clothes and run away yelling ‘Hya-hooo!’”
“I’m not doing that! The audience will think I’m a pervert!”
The audience in question had been watching since before David rushed into the bridge room, so they knew who the “Ervin” without a DEAD marker really was.
As they watched him rush to the bridge with murder on his mind, they wondered, “Why is he trying to kill Pitohui?”
“Because she killed their teammate, the armor guy?”
“I don’t know why she did that, either… Though I get why she obliterated T-S…”
Then they watched, breathless, as David barged onto the bridge, and Pitohui—in the guise of Ervin’s body—leaped up and yanked away his assault rifle, defended against his pistol shots, and they reached a momentary cease-fire.
“Check this out. A quiet stare down before the storm…”
“What are they saying to each other? You’d think they could at least pipe in the mic audio at a moment like this.”
“They must be trading some super-badass lines…”
But none of the people watching had any idea that, in fact, they were largely joking about references to Akutagawa Ry?nosuke’s short story Rash?mon.
“It’s time for me to kill you, bandit woman.”
On the bridge, David’s arm moved smoothly. He reached for the weapon in his waist pouch that had previously been cutting down the wires holding up the rescue boats—his trusty lightsword.
It was a black-handled photon sword that was sold at the store under the name Nosada N2.
There were rules for the names of lightswords. First, it had a name taken from a traditional katana, which identified its general design and function. The letter after that indicated the length of the blade, with A being the shortest and Z the longest. Lastly, the number at the end corresponded to its color.
“Huh? You aren’t going to ask why I killed Ervin?” Pitohui teased, reaching into the one large pouch on her suit, around the back. She pulled out her own lightsword, the Muramasa F9.
“Why would I expect a reasonable answer? It’ll probably be some reason like, ‘Because the sun was so bright.’”
“No, it’s not something as literary and abstract as that. Ugh, I’m going to have to spell it out, aren’t I? Fine, it’s the souvenir you can take to the grave with you.”
Then she spun the dial on the handle with her thumb to extend the glowing blade outward.
“You see…”
The audience in the pub saw David look momentarily stunned, then break out into a childlike smile of delight. He extended his own red blade.
“What do you suppose she told him?”
“That was the perfect thing to hear at the end! Now you can die without regrets!”
David moved first. He closed the gap, swinging from the right side. The red blade moved so fast that it seemed to smear in the air.
“Hya!”
Pitohui moved her right arm out to the left, then added her other hand for extra strength, shielding against the strike with her own blade.
Bshak! The blades made a bursting sound as they collided, spraying little motes of light.
These lightswords—officially called photon swords in-game—were more of a novelty inserted into GGO by one of its designers than a serious weapon.
The designer figured If you’re going to create a sci-fi future world, why not throw in those famous weapons from the legendary movies about stellar warfare? You think swords are weird in a world of guns? Not my problem, pal.
So while the names and designs were different—at least, just different enough not to be actionable in court—the way they worked was essentially identical.
So like real swords, and like in the movies, the lightswords clashed and smashed like physical objects, meaning fighters could get into a deadlocked pushing match with them.
Pitohui blocked David’s blow and used the full strength of both her arms to keep him from overpowering her. Skillfully, she rearranged her feet so she could dart backward, quickly moving across the wide-open bridge. She lifted the lightsword up to a direct stance before her.
“Whew! Very fast. And your swing is pristine and focused. You must have practiced quite a lot, eh?” she gushed.
The lightsword’s weight was entirely in the handle alone, so the wielder didn’t feel like they were holding a three-foot blade. It could be dangerous; if they were careless, they might swing it and cut things around them—or even themselves.
Swinging an object that light around, quickly and directly, required more practice than a gun did. Unlike the sword-centric VR games, this one had no system assistance to help the player swing.
David let his arm fall so the tip of the sword dyed the carpet red, and he smiled. His handsome, camo-painted features were twisted a bit, his right eye open wider than the other.
“Yeah…and your expectations were spot-on. After being skewered like a sardine last time, I swore to skewer you back…”
Pitohui responded to his snarl with a vicious smile of her own. “Very nice. I suppose I’ll have to fillet you this time.”
“Shut up!”
David was the first to move again. As he rushed her, he started to slash from the right again—only to stop one step short and abruptly spin.
“Shaaa!”
He slashed down toward Pitohui’s right shoulder with the momentum of his rotation.
Bshak! She did not buy his feint—and raised her blade with both arms to block him from cutting her in two.
This time, Pitohui’s physical strength won out. David’s lightsword bounced back up, and she made a thrusting pose—but did not follow through.
“Whoa!”
That was because David had rotated the handle of the lightsword in the hand holding it high, so he could swing it down backhanded. If Pitohui had taken one step closer, it would have skewered her right through the head.
Exactly like the sardine he announced he would make her.
After two exchanges, the duel was not yet over. David and Pitohui distanced themselves again and exhaled at nearly the same moment.
“Phew…”
“Wheeew…”
David slowly lifted his sword arm and rotated the weapon in his hand to return to a forehand grip. As he did so, he glanced at the little silver tube.
“Aha! So you noticed.” Pitohui grinned at him.
“Same goes for yours,” David said, showing his canines. Pitohui opened her hand to display the silver tube in her palm. There was a tiny little display panel on the side.
The bar graph on the display showed the energy reserve of the lightsword. A player could see that information in the lower-right corner of their field of vision, but it was quicker to glance directly into one’s hands and didn’t take your eyes off the enemy as much.
The energy level of both swords was almost exactly the same: nearly depleted. The displays were red, indicating just a few percent of overall power left.
“And you don’t have a backup energy pack, do you?” she taunted. “Though I’ll admit, they’re a pain in the ass to exchange.”
“Hmph!”
“The energy expenditure of a photon sword is based on the length of time its blade has been out. And when they slash against each other, that also eats up a ton of power. Did you know that?”
“Are you saying…you knew that, and you got me to cut down the wires to the evacuation boats on purpose?”
“What if I did?”
“Well, it puts you in the same…boat!” he yelled, rushing forward even quicker on the third attempt.
“Teiyaa!” he screamed, rushing in with the blade overhead. He swung down with all of his fury and power, determined to finish the fight with this blow. The red sword rushed at Pitohui’s head, set to cleave it in two.
“Sei!” Pitohui turned her sword sideways with both hands to block it.
“Daraaa!” David had more than one swing in him. Two, three times he smashed at the same spot in succession.
“Rgh!” With each sizzling impact, Pitohui was pushed a bit farther back, and the angle at which her lightsword blocked it decreased.
“Daaa!” On the fourth strike, Pitohui’s lightsword lost the battle, and its tip pointed down to the floor of the bridge.
“I’ve got youuuu!” David’s fifth swing headed straight for Pitohui’s unprotected face.
Bshak! Again, the two swords were joined in a tussle of strength.
“Wha—?!”
“You see? You got so worked up that you forgot about the last time.”
Though the lightsword hilt in Pitohui’s hand was still tilted downward, the glowing blue blade was now extending from the bottom end rather than the top.
It was a feature of her Muramasa F9 that the control dial could be spun in either direction to make it emerge from either side of the tube. That was how David got speared through the brain last time.
“Shit!” he swore, gnashing his teeth.
Once again, they were locked in a struggle, David with normal downward grip and Pitohui with a backhand from below. The image was similar to their final duel in SJ2, except that there had been only one sword that time.
Their strength evened out, and they were deadlocked. The blades crackled where they intersected. In the meantime, their energy levels plummeted.
The blades of light began to shrink at last, shortening at nearly the same time and speed. They had no more than ten seconds left.
“So we’ll end it with a fistfight! That suits me perfectly fine!”
“What, you like punching women? I’m not into violent guys like that.”
Even as the deadlock sapped the last moments of their lightswords, they traded verbal jabs.
“Like…like you’re one to talk!”
“Well, I’ll pass on the fistfight idea.”
“I won’t give you time to surrender!”
Their blades were no more than eight inches long now, more like daggers. With so much less shining-light surface to go around, they could actually view each other’s faces better.
That’s when David saw Pitohui smile—a pleased, utterly wicked smile.
“The biggest downside of lightswords is that they’re stupidly expensive, but the biggest upsides are that they can cut anything, and…”
Just before the blades went out, both combatants leaped away from each other.
As they did, they let go of the hilts together. Two swords clattered to the floor, nothing but tubes now.
“Daaaa!”
David gingerly clenched his fingers and swung a blow with the base of his palm.
“…They’re light to use!” Pitohui finished, reaching behind her back with both hands and pulling them forward again.
In her right hand, a lightsword.
In her left hand, a photon sword.
In other words, she was dual-wielding sabers. She had two extras hiding in her little backpack.
“Ah! Crap!” Pitohui shouted, looking panicked with the lightswords in her hands. “I forgot; I said I was gonna fillet him! I was supposed to slice him vertically! I’m so stupid!”
It was a feature of Squad Jam that bodies didn’t remain in place in a gory aftermath, so the pieces of David’s body shone as they silently gathered together into the peaceful form of the recently departed, faceup on the ground. The DEAD tag floated over his body.
Alone on the bridge, Pitohui waved her left hand in the air to call up her menu, then chose to materialize her entire preset of gear in her inventory, returning her to her full outfit.
The headgear appeared on top, her bulletproof vest was next, then the XDM pistols on either thigh, the M870 Breacher at her left side, and lastly, the KTR-09 appeared in her hands.
Once she had them on her person, Pitohui wobbled and fell onto her bottom. “Whoops…”
She exhaled and murmured, “Phew, this is rough… I feel kinda sick, actually. I think I’m gonna throw up.”
“I believe you require rest,” Clara said with concern. “Please don’t neglect your physical condition.”
“Oh, I’m fine…”
Pitohui got up using the KTR-09 as a crutch, then swung it on the shoulder sling. She got her feet going, scooped up David’s STM-556, and moved over to the console area.
“You have no presently designated destination,” said the system. “Where shall we go now?”
Pitohui replied, “Well, Clara, why don’t you take me across the River Styx to the Third Street of Hell?”
“I have no port registered under that name.”
“It’s right here,” Pitohui said, propping the STM-556 against her shoulder and firing five shots into the console in a semiauto burst.
“Please stop. I will lose functionality,” Clara said in the same tone she’d been using previously.
“I know.”
Pitohui continued shooting. The active monitors went dark as bullets pierced and shattered them.
“Please stop. I will lose functionality. Please stop. I will lose functionality. Please stop. I will lose functionality.”
“Oh, just go to sleep already,” she said, emptying the thirty-round magazine.
“Yes, ma’am. Good night,” said Clara, and she fell silent for eternity.
It was 1:39.
“No-hyo?”
Llenn gasped when the ship suddenly lurched as she skulked in the Deck 6 hallway, waiting for the 1:40 scan to arrive. Aside from having to continually go up floors to escape the rising water, it had been a smooth voyage until the ground shook under her feet just now.
It was an unpleasant kind of shaking, too, tilting and rocking, like standing atop a board placed on a balancing ball.
“What now?” Fukaziroh murmured. She was sitting on the carpet, arms around her knees, spacing out because nothing else was happening. “It’s like we’re on a boat!”
We are on a boat, Llenn thought.
“This isn’t good,” M commented. “Feels like we’re losing stability.”
“What do you mean…? Are we gonna sink?” Llenn asked.
“That’s possible.”
No sooner were the words out of M’s mouth than the interior of the ship lurched and tilted. This time it was a forward motion, the nose tipping down with a sensation like car brakes being slammed.
“Hyooo!”
The water had been below the stairs moments ago, but now it splashed into the hallway. Llenn’s group was already drenched from the sprinkler water, so getting wetter wasn’t a problem now, as long as it didn’t involve drowning. The water level rose and rose.
“Run! Go up!” M commanded.
“But the scan—,” Llenn protested. Her boots were already submerged, and the damage effect was starting to kick in. If she stayed there, she was either going to drown or suffer damage until she died.
As the trio started up the stairs, the deck they’d been on mere seconds ago was being swallowed by the cloudy murk. The air being displaced by all that water flooding into the interior blew past their damp skin, causing a chill.
“How high are we going to go, M?!”
“As far up as we can!”
“But won’t Pito be watching the scan and waiting for us?”
“Probably.”
“Then—”
“You wanted to talk to her, didn’t you?” said M.
“Yeah, so it’s perfect!” Fukaziroh chimed in.
“I know, but—! Arrgh! Shit!” Llenn swore, tensing. Then she burst forward, fast enough to leave the other two behind—and indeed did—as she rushed up the rocking stairs.
The time was 1:40.
On the terminal device’s screen, Pitohui saw Llenn and company moving up the stairs as she maintained balance on the rocking floor of the bridge.
Then she said to herself, “I’ll need to welcome them. Where should I do that?”
Since there were no battle scenes happening, the stream in the pub gave them a rare long-distance shot of the cruise ship racing across gray seas.
“Whoa! Is it tilting forward?”
The audience noticed something was wrong.
“That’s true… Did it start taking on more water when it hit the building?”
“Nah, it’s been in the process of sinking ever since the start.”
As that person said, the waterline had been rising up the side of the ship for a while, but it was harder to notice the problem when Clara was actively managing the balance of the craft.
The balance of the ship between fore and aft was called trim. With the front of the ship tilting downward, that meant it had “positive trim.” The cruise ship, dented prow and all, continued to kick up waves at top speed, but it was clear to the naked eye that it was leaning quite a bit. The state of the ship was obviously abnormal.
“I don’t want it to sink before the final battle and have there be cochampions because everyone drowned at the same time…”
“Yeah! We’re here to watch a death match!”
“The two remaining teams are Pitohui and Eva; and Llenn, Fukaziroh, and M.”
“Two versus three…”
On another screen, Llenn’s group was climbing up the stairs. Just then, she finished clearing ten-plus floors and emerged on Deck 17. This was the deck with the wide-open space and the bridge at one end.
From the inside, Llenn had a better sense of the ship’s current state than anyone.
It was tilting forward at the moment—and wobbling irregularly. The scary thing was that it was still rushing forward at full speed.
Between the holes in the sides, the huge hole Fukaziroh accidentally put in it, and the damage to the prow from smashing into the building, it was anyone’s guess how much water was entering the ship every second.
But for now, all she could do was keep moving.
She’d left Fukaziroh and M behind and gone as far up the stairs as they would take her: Deck 17.
When Llenn burst out into the wide-open space, she was greeted by a smiling Pitohui.
“Hi there! Long time no see!”
“Eek!” Llenn shrieked, readying her P90 on reflex. “……”
But she did not shoot.
They were in a spacious hall. It was an open, flat space, dozens of yards to a side. Here and there were load-bearing pillars to hold up more construction.
Whatever had been here once, the refugees had probably taken it out. The area was totally empty. Here and there on the red carpet were dark stains a foot or two across. Either someone had spilled something…or someone’s blood had been spilled there.
The room was quite dark. There wasn’t a single window here, on the inside of the ship. Only a third of the lights on the ceiling were on; the rest had been removed, probably for use elsewhere.
Pitohui stood leaning back against one of the pillars. The KTR-09 was slung at her side, and there was nothing in her hands. She was about a hundred feet away.
Llenn with her P90 in position, Pitohui with her hands dangling. They faced each other in silence for about five seconds.
“Oh? You aren’t going to shoot me? You’re so nice, Llenn,” Pitohui drawled, totally unconcerned.
“Pito!” Llenn shouted, loud enough to echo across the entire hall. She was furious.
“Whoa! There she is. Oh, hey! Been a while!” came another careless voice, after the sound of footsteps tromping up the stairs behind her.
“Hey again, Fuka!” said Pitohui, waving.
Last came M, and though he didn’t say anything, Pito gave him a bracing “Yo! You survived. That’s some good fighting; well done.”
Then she peeled off of the pillar and took a few steps against the tilt of the ship that was getting even more pronounced and spread her arms.
“Well, here we are. LPFM versus Betrayers, but now it’s three on one. What do you say, Llenn? Shall we?”
There was something Llenn really wanted to ask Pitohui.
It was why she had struggled to survive this far.
Yet, she no longer needed to ask it.
“Three on one… I knew it! I knew it! I…I knew it!” Llenn screamed to the ceiling.
“You knew it?”
“You knew what?” Fukaziroh and M asked their teammate.
“Oh, I get it! So this is what you were thinking the whole time, Llenn,” Pitohui said, smirking as she walked closer. “What if the betrayers’ team actually got two members from our squad?”
“……”
Llenn said nothing. Pitohui crossed the red carpet, her boots pressing into the surface.
“Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh,” she murmured. “Well, Llenn, I’ll admit, the possibility is higher than zero.”
“……”
Pitohui walked past Llenn and approached Fukaziroh and M instead. “But this possibility is much more likely: that I was just a huge liar.”
“……”
Fukaziroh then let go of her grenade launchers and let them hang from her shoulders. Then she smacked her fist into her palm. Apparently, she’d let go specifically to perform this gesture.
“I see! And that’s why it’s three on one! Meaning that Pito and M and I are on LPFM, and Llenn is on Team Betrayer!”
“So are you saying you weren’t actually chosen, Pito?” asked M.
“Did you see the evidence?”
“Hmm?”
“Did anyone actually see the message on my device that clearly stated You are a betrayer?”
M had no choice but to shake his head. Fukaziroh added, “You know, you’re right. I didn’t see it.”
Pitohui was standing next to Fukaziroh and M now. Llenn turned around and faced the three at a distance of a few dozen feet.
“At first, it was mostly a joke. I mean, it had to be, right? I had no idea that the weird flying thingy was going to let a person who wasn’t picked ride it anyway. If I wasn’t allowed to get on, I’d stick out my tongue and go ‘Whoopsie, turns out I wasn’t picked after all!’”
“But you were able to ride it.”
“That’s right, Fuka. It gave me the room to just barge my way right into the betrayers’ team. Was it a loophole in the game system? Or was that another intentional feature of GGO, the game where participants can even kill their own squadmates? I met up with the other betrayers, and we started our own party. I was able to fight alongside them.”
“Other members of BTRY died on the ship. Did you do that, Pito?” M asked, still calm and collected.
“I did, M. In fact, I sliced one of them into ribbons earlier!” said Pitohui happily.
“Wow, Pito! That sounds like a major accomplishment!” bubbled Fukaziroh.
It all made Llenn wonder What in the world was I doing, then…?
The entire battle flashed back through her mind.
First of all, she hadn’t wanted to enter SJ3 at all. Her only reason for registering was to fulfill her promise to Boss. That hadn’t worked out at all.
She appeared on the same team with Pitohui so she wouldn’t have to fight her, and she ended up as an enemy anyway. The nasty sponsor’s betrayers’ team rule just added a lot of headache to her experience in the end.
Whose fault is all of this?
Is it my fault?
No, not at all.
The old Llenn probably would have jumped to the simplistic conclusion that, yes, it was her own fault. Then she would have gone into a sulky mood, claiming Oh, boo-hoo, I was born only to suffer like this…
But after all the battles she’d been through, Llenn had toughened up, in ways good and bad, and now she no longer thought that way.
She wanted to beat the stupid writer half to death, but really, the biggest cause of trouble this time around started with the letter P and ended in I.
“Gosh, have I just been the star of this whole event? Tell me more! Sing my praises!”
The one with the tattoos on her cheeks, smiling blissfully and chattering to herself.
This asshole.
“Y-you…asshole…”
She finally spoke her thoughts aloud.
“Exsqueeze me? Did you say something, Llenn?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What was it?”
“Pito, you’re an asshole! Why would you do such a thing?!”
“Well, uh…” Pitohui shrugged her shoulders theatrically, grinned, and said, “Wouldn’t you say this is your fault for being fooled that easily?”
Snap!
Llenn felt something inside her mind give way. It was the last of her patience.
Her little body began to tremble. Because her agility level was so high, even her shivering seemed to happen faster. It was so rapid that it created an afterimage, a blurring of her outline.
After trembling for roughly 2.58 seconds, Llenn sucked in a deep breath and yelled, “Pitooooo! I’m gonna kill you! This is the perfect chance! You’re my enemy, so I don’t need to show you mercy! Or forgiveness! Just defeat!”
“Ooh, scary! So scary! Gimme all ya got! That’s what I want—it’s why I tricked you like this! It’s true!”
“I really will beat you! I’ll seriously beat you! I’ll beat you right now! I’m gonna make you cry!”
“Come on and do it, if you can! You’re welcome anytime!”
The two women bellowed at each other, pure competition pulsing out of them. It was a screaming match between two people armed with guns.
Suddenly, Pitohui lowered her voice and said with mock concern, “Oh, but three on one is kind of unfair, don’t you think? What should we do?”
“Urgh…” Llenn clenched her jaw so hard, her teeth felt likely to break.
“No, it’s three on two,” said someone else.
A bright-yellow light shone in the dark space, passing between Llenn and the other three. They momentarily lost their ability to see.
“Turn around and run!” said a voice. Llenn did as it commanded. She couldn’t see, but she did not hesitate. It was an all-out sprint.
“Wha—?! Oh, shoot!” Pitohui hissed. She took the KTR-09 down from her shoulder right as the second signal flare passed before her eyes.
The flares were meant to be clearly visible against the distant, cloudy sky. So what happened if it passed ten feet in front of your face? Nothing but afterimage burned into your eyes.
“Dammit!” Pitohui yelped, and she gave up on aiming her KTR-09.
“Aaah… My eyes! Myize!” Fukaziroh said, running about in a panic. “Is Llenn running away? Can I shoot? Can I shoot now?”
“No way! Are you trying to kill all of us?!” snapped M, who remained logical even when he couldn’t see. He had no choice but to stop her. Fukaziroh was more than capable of firing another plasma grenade in this situation.
“Dammit! I was so fixated on Llenn that I forgot about Evaaaaaa!” wailed Pitohui, who seemed to be sincere in this regard. She hunched down in a defensive position. “I’m just not in my right mind today… I’m so stupid, stupid, stupid!”
A third, then fourth flare shot through the space over her head.
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