Infinite Stratos, Volume 8, page 4
“That wasn’t what I was confused about!” Rin’s fists shook at her side.
“Indeed! This... This ‘cyber-dive’ is...” Cecilia trailed off in confusion, and Charlotte took over. “So we’ll be using our IS synchronization and nanomachine signaling to enter cyberspace...”
“It’s not dangerous in itself. It just doesn’t seem useful. Normally you’d be better off just getting directly at the software, or at the computer itself.”
Laura’s reassuring explanation was met with an objection from Kanzashi, “But when you’re in cyberspace, won’t you be completely defenseless? I’m worried about if anything happens.”
Finally, Houki summed up their worries and piped up asking, “Isn’t it too dangerous to gather all the pilots in one place?”
Chifuyu, having considered these worries, rejected them in response, “No. This operation requires entry into cyberspace to repel the attackers. No objections. If you have a problem, leave!”
She was forceful enough to cow the students.
“I mean, I wasn’t that mad about it.”
“It was just a bit of a shock.”
“We can do it. Right, Laura?”
“Yeah. We can.”
“I’ll try my best.”
“We’ll show you we can do it.”
With everyone in agreement, Chifuyu clapped her hands together to break up the meeting, “All right! Get to the access room, and get started! Dismissed!”
Spurred on, Houki and the others filed out. With that, only Chifuyu and Maya were left in the room. Chifuyu, Maya, and Tatenashi.
“I have separate orders for you.”
“Which are?” Tatenashi’s usual playfulness was gone.
“With the Academy’s systems down, I’m expecting visitors.”
“Unwanted ones?”
Chifuyu had gleaned that, in their current situation, a third force may try to take advantage.
“That’s right. And the others won’t be able to fight. So sorry, but I’m putting it all on you.”
“Mission accepted.”
“It’ll be a hard fight.”
“But I am the student council president.” Her cheeky grin did nothing to cut through Chifuyu’s stoniness.
“Your IS took more than a few scratches in that last battle, though. Isn’t it still being repaired?”
“Yes. But I’m Sarashiki Tatenashi. I know how to fight from a disadvantage.”
The student council president wouldn’t yield an inch. Seeing the determination in her eyes, Chifuyu sighed, then fixed her with a stern stare and said, “It’s all up to you.”
Tatenashi bowed in acknowledgment and left. As the door slid shut behind her, Chifuyu and Maya spoke regretfully.
“What are we doing? We’re supposed to be protecting our students, not sending them out to fight.”
“Ms. Orimura...”
She wanted to say ‘we have no choice’ but she couldn’t. There was no excuse for putting children on the battlefield. Both of them knew it, in the depths of their hearts.
“There’s no time to sit around. We have our own jobs to do.”
“Yes!”
Chifuyu and Maya began their own preparations.
◇
Chifuyu, wearing a black bodysuit like a ninja’s, looked up as she pulled the straps on her cavalry boots tight. Before her hung six sheathed IS blades, each filed down to the narrower profile of a katana. Sliding them into the holsters at her hips, she took on the appearance of a strange modern samurai.
“I haven’t had my hair up like this in a long time.”
She pulled it into a ponytail and tied it off with a braided cord, then picked up two more katana.
“Let’s go.”
The door slid open. Striding into the darkness, she was lit only by the emergency lights in the floor. Her face, reflected in her steel, showed a smile.
◇
“All right, then.” Tatenashi slipped through the hole she’d blown in a defensive shutter, making a light landing. “Evacuation is almost complete. So it’s okay to come out now.”
She snapped her fan open, revealing the word ‘welcome.’ But the greetings would be delivered not with a smile but with an iron fist.
[Intruder alert! Intruder alert!]
An alarm rang out from Tatenashi’s phone. Opening it up, she looked at the screen. A separate array of cameras not on the Academy network—that is, unauthorized cameras—showed her enemy. She couldn’t tell, under their camouflage which looked like bundles of autumn leaves, whether they were men or women, but there were six of them. At first glance, the camo looked almost like ghillie suits, but it was far more advanced.
“Those must be the new stealth suits that capture their surroundings on one side and then display it on the other.” The ‘leaves’ were flexible pieces of treated film which, when switched on, wrapped around their wearer. By displaying their surroundings, they made the wearer seem transparent.
Our systems haven’t been down for long, either. And they already got a special ops team with the latest gear here? Something smells fishy. It did have to be a separate faction, though. If it was the same one behind the hacking, it would have been more effective to begin the assault at the same time as the power went out. They must have us under observation. How... Crude.
It may have been IS Academy, but it was also a school for young girls just on the cusp of blossoming. Do they have us under 24-hour observation? Where’s their sense of mystery, of romance?
“Oh?”
The hallway stretched out into the distance. Unblocked. Silently. But something was there.
“Why, to think that I’d already meet you here. I truly am blessed.”
Pssht. Pssht. Alloy bullets shot forth from silenced pistols, only to stop hanging in the air in front of Tatenashi.
“......?!”
“Mmhm. That’s just my Active Inertial Canceler.”
Really, the IS Mysterious Lady had already begun to scatter its aqua nanomachines. They may not have been able to block IS weapons, but small arms fire was another story. Tatenashi grinned at her unseen foes’ sudden hesitation.
While under normal circumstances she wasn’t able to sense them directly, but with the aqua nanomachines, it was easy. Even invisible and soundless, they still took up space in the hallway. And where the nanomachines weren’t... Then—
“Click.”
Tatenashi mimed pressing a button. A moment later, an explosion tore through the hall.
“That was one of Mysterious Lady’s little tricks. Did you enjoy ‘Clear Passion’?”
Indoors combat was Mysterious Lady’s specialty. It was an IS built around spreading and controlling nanomachines. Meanwhile, no matter how well-trained and well-armed her foes were, they were only human. Even an IS which couldn’t fully deploy was still an impossible foe.
“I feel like I’m bullying you,” Tatenashi sighed, but then chuckled. “And honestly, I enjoy it.”
She gave her best impish grin. Still, though, she was fighting against a raid targeted mostly at unarmed schoolgirls. Her cause was just.
“All right, here it comes. Let’s go! Tatenashi Five!” As Tatenashi spoke, she split into five. Five Sarashiki Tatenashis, all lined up in a school uniform but holding a lance. “Well, really, it’s all Mysterious Lady, but whatevs.”
Really, they were phantoms of the mist, formed of aqua nanomachines and projected by nanomachine lenses. The problem was picking out the real one. And even if most of them were mist, they could still—
“Boom!”
They could still explode. Yet bullets would do nothing to them.
“Captain! We can’t take much more—”
“Whooooa!”
Man after man, the elite of the elite, fell before her. Another squad showed up to reinforce them, but it made no difference.
“Fall back! Fall back!”
She was just 16. Her IS, and she herself, were in no condition to fight. Yet still, the battle went her way. It was a reminder of how the development of the IS rewrote every rule of war.
Tatenashi grinned, giggling, amidst the fire and the flames, looking every inch the villain.
◇
A woman advanced through the darkened passages as she listened to the explosions from above. This infiltrator of IS Academy’s secret subterranean complex was the leader of the American special operations force ‘Unnamed.’ She was equipped with an experimental stealth version of the IS Fang Quake. This model had several subtle differences from Iris’s assault type. To begin with, its custom paint, rather than flashy tiger stripes, was the deep blue preferred by the Navy SEALs. Completely undecorated, without even unit insignia.
But that was a given. The ‘Unnamed’ had no nationality, no race, no faith, no name. They truly lived up to their one name. There was no official record of their service or association with the American military, either. Such a unit would have, as a matter of course, no insignia.
This woman, too, had no name. Only the title of ‘squad leader’ for communication. The cruelty of her training had driven what name she might have had from her mind. Now, she was a nobody. An unnamed leader for an unnamed squad. This was her world.
Without a word, she advanced. Her objective, the unregistered cores stored at IS Academy after the previous battle. With those, the US wouldn’t just gain access to more IS. It would gain access to highly-effective drones. This was even more important than increasing the number of IS available. Yes. With this technology, the plan would be complete.
And with that, we could redraw the map of the world... She didn’t know the details. She didn’t care. All that mattered to her was her mission.
“......?”
The Fang Quake’s forward floating drift stopped. Its sensors picked out a human form in the unlit hallway.
“En garde!”
“......?!”
Two words, then a sudden assault. With the sudden ring and spark of blade on scabbard-mouth, a shadow leapt toward her back. Suddenly, the passage lit up like the light of day.
“Brynhildr...” the squad leader gasped in surprise.
A woman stood tall in the light in front of her. It was Chifuyu, in her jet-black bodysuit. From her hips hung six sheathed katana, three on each side. In her hands were another two. Those were the blades which had struck at the Fang Quake.
Is she serious? That was the first thought which leapt to the squad leader’s mind. No matter how many times she checked her sensor, Chifuyu was wearing no IS, only the bodysuit. Cut like a scuba diver’s, it covered all of her body which was visible, except for the heavy cavalry boots and the martial arts gloves on her hands. Only her face was visible. But still—
How does she think she’s going to put up a fight with just a Kevlar suit? It might be bulletproof against small arms fire, and perhaps even cut-resistant. But in front of an IS’ firepower, she may as well have been naked.
“What’s wrong?”
“......?”
“Bring it. You’re facing off against the first Brynhildr. The first woman to be recognized as the strongest in the world. Show me what you’ve got, soldier.” Chifuyu smirked. Smirked with supreme self-confidence.
◇
“This must be...”
Houki, Cecilia, Ling, Charlotte, Laura, and Kanzashi filed into the access room. Everything inside was painted a bright, reflective white. To their sides were six reclining chairs, three on each side. It was almost like a hair salon.
“Relax in the chairs. I’ll cover you from the desk.” As Kanzashi spoke, the others laid down in the chairs.
“What is this place, anyway? It’s like something out of a movie.”
“Indeed. I’ve never seen anything like it. How about you, Ling?”
“Mmm. There’s nothing like this in China. And why’s it underground, anyway? This is weird.”
“Yeah. Something’s not quite right. The operations room earlier was pretty heavily fortified, too.”
“Wait, Charlotte. You scanned it with your IS?”
“Yeah. A little bit, at least.” Charl held her finger to her lips.
“I don’t recall any facilities like this in Germany, either. What’s going on at this school? Is it really just a high school?”
The others were silent as they mulled the implications of what Laura had said. It was something they’d all wondered before. ‘IS Academy has too many secrets.’ It was something none of them had said, but all of them had felt.
“I need to get this working...” Kanzashi half-whispered. The others nodded and connected their IS to the terminals in the chairs.
“All right, to connect your IS to the core network, I’m going to need you to set them to software priority.” Kanzashi had already opened her Uchigane Nishiki, called forth a console, and was typing away.
“Ah...” Charlotte spoke up. “I remember reading a book about going into a game world. Is it going to be like that?”
The others were surprised at her palpable excitement.
Clearing her throat, Kanzashi answered, “I mean, it is a virtual world. I’ll be backing you up from out here, so focus on reactivating the core system... I’ll guide you while you’re inside, too.”
“Got it,” Ling answered energetically.
With that, the five laid down and began to focus.
“Here goes!”
Kanzashi activated the system. In the blink of an eye, they passed out as if in comas, their consciousnesses transported to a fantastic world.
◇
“Where am I?”
The first to speak was Cecilia. Before her, grassy moors spread out as far as the eye could see. A gentle breeze tempered the heat of the June sun. Just as the hum of nature enveloped her, Ling’s voice rang out, “Eeek! What the hell is this thing?!”
As she shouted, she clutched at the hem of her dress. It was a vivid blue, with a white pinafore tied over. Just like Alice in Wonderland. Surprised by her sudden shout, the group looked around at each other.
“This is...”
“We’re...”
“All wearing the same clothes?”
Their confusion was broken as a window popped open in midair, “This is Kanzashi. How’s it going in there?”
“It... It’s like a storybook...”
Kanzashi thought for a moment before replying to Charlotte.
“It must be...” They could hear the clatter of her keyboard as she spoke. “I think I understand... The virtual world you’re in is being hacked. You’re going to need to play out the role you’ve been assigned.”
“Role?!” Ling, speaking for the five, grimaced in astonishment.
“Wait, you mean we have to be Alice?!”
“I’m not sure. The space you’re in is very unstable.”
“So if we’re Alice...” Charlotte glanced over at Laura.
“What is it?”
“I figured if anyone was going to be the rabbit, it would be you.”
“Hmph. Don’t compare me to a mere pet. We proud Schwarze Hase—”
“Ahh!” A sudden yell from Cecilia interrupted them.
“Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!”
Hoppity-hop-hop. The rabbit took a watch from its waistcoat pocket, looked at it, and then hurried on.
“There it is!”
“Catch the rabbit!” The five nodded in unison at Kanzashi’s order.
“Hold it right there! Agh... Dammit! It’s impossible to run in a dress!”
“Ling, you just need to hold up the hem like this—”
“Hmph. I’ll go on ahead, then.”
“Hurry up! It’s almost to the woods!”
Cecilia pointed as the rabbit disappeared amongst the trees without a glance backward. Chasing, the five followed into the dense forest. Tracing a path overhung with foliage, they soon reached a clearing.
“And what’s this?”
Five doors stood in the middle of the woods.
“Are we supposed to go in?”
“I guess so...” Kanzashi hesitantly replied. They could see bursts of static overlaying her face. “Signal——breaking up——going to have—make your way to—yourselves—”
“Roger!”
Nodding, each of the girls opened the door before them and stepped through.
◇
“Mmm...”
Ling waited until the dazzling glare around her faded before opening her eyes. As she took her first step through the door, she had felt her consciousness torn asunder from the world around her as the world faded to white.
“Just where the heck is this, anyway...” She glanced around, a question mark floating over her head. “Wait, am I—”
It was a backdrop she knew well. An atmosphere she’d felt many times: a classroom in the middle school she’d attended with Ichika. The orange haze of sunset filled the room, and far away, she could hear the baseball team practicing.
“But why middle school?” It was only in her confusion that she realized her clothing had changed. “This is the sailor uniform they had us wear...”
A deep blue, nearly black collar. Wearing it every day, she’d always found it unstylish, but now, it had a pleasant nostalgia.
She quietly paced the room, getting her bearings. It seemed real. As real as could be. The heat, the humidity, even the smell was just like she remembered. But it wasn’t.
She tried to call forth her IS, but she couldn’t find its standby bracelet form on her arm.
“...This must be a trap.”
Realizing it, she decided to make her escape before its author could come calling. Making her way to the door— Rattle.
“Huh?”
Before she could grasp the handle, it rolled open in front of her.
“Hey, Rin.”
“I-I-Ichika!”
Before her stood Ichika, in the stiff-collared jacket of a retro school uniform.
◇
Clang! Chifuyu’s blades rained slash after slash on the armor of the Fang Quake, but not one managed to cut through. Four had already dulled to the point of uselessness.
