◇

  “So this is Paris. ...It’s cold!” Ichika shivered as he stepped off the train in his IS Academy winter uniform. The weak December sun did little to warm him.

  “You’re not dressed for it at all!” Charl reached into her bag and pulled out a scarf before wrapping it around Ichika’s neck.

  “Ahh, that’s nice and warm.”

  Charl giggled, “Amb plaisir, Ichika.”

  Charlotte’s smile shone brighter than that dim winter sun—and meanwhile, Laura and Kanzashi, left out the night before, were all icicles. It didn’t help that they were both too nervous being trapped in there with Chifuyu to sleep well.

  “Ichika. Bienvenue en France! Bienvenue à Paris!” Charlotte’s coat flowed around her as she gave a polite curtsy.

  From behind her, an older man cleared his throat and spoke, “Pardon, ma Dame. If we do not leave soon, we will be late.” It was Charlotte’s butler James, a man of perhaps 55 or 60, with an obvious tender respect for her.

  “Of course. Let’s go!” Nimbly taking Ichika’s hand, Charlotte led him down the steps of the station to a waiting limousine.

  Well, it seems like she’s doing fine so far. Just seeing the smile on her face was a relief to him.

  As he relaxed, Charlotte cupped a hand over his and said, “I’m able to relax because you’re here, Ichika.”

  “Mm? Really? I don’t really think I did anything...”

  “It’s not that.” She giggled. Just him being by her side. That was enough for Charlotte.

  ◇

  Paris, France. A man stood before the gates of the Dunois company’s IS arena. Company president and Charlotte’s father, Albert Dunois. An expensive suit, a beard, and harsh words.

  “Any time now.” He stared down at his watch, and the limousine bearing Charlotte and Ichika arrived. As they slowly got out, his anger reached a peak. “You’re late.”

  His first words to Charlotte at their reunion. That alone was enough to set Ichika off, but Charlotte spoke before he could, “My apologies, President. There was traffic.”

  “Did I ask for an excuse?”

  “...Pardon me.” Charlotte hung her head, to a derisory ‘hmph’ from Albert.

  “Where the hell do you get—”

  “Orimura!” Ichika was appalled that he’d treat his own daughter like that, but Chifuyu held him back. “I’m sorry that my pupil is so rude.”

  “I’ve heard worse.”

  “Thank you for your forbearance.” Chifuyu continued to hold his head down as she spoke. Ichika had had more than enough of this, but she brusquely whispered in his ear, “Don’t you realize that it’ll only be worse if you do that?!”

  “Ugh...” Ichika winced.

  “Get yourself together. I didn’t bring you here to pick a fight.”

  “Understood, Chifuyu...”

  “Call me Ms. Orimura.” She pinched his ear with enough force that he let out a wordless yelp.

  “Oww...” Enough force that he could barely speak. Ichika’s face flushed red as he fought the pain.

  “Anyway, let’s get to the point,” Albert Dunois began to speak intently. “We’ll be moving Charlotte Dunois to a third-generation IS. The preparations are already complete.”

  As the words echoed, he strode into the arena.

  “But wait,” Charlotte began to object. “I can’t just change... I can’t just leave Revive like that!”

  Her eyes blazed in refusal, but Albert brooked no argument.

  “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

  “Ugh! You’re always like this!” Charlotte shouted, clenching her fists. “You don’t understand anything! Not about Revive! Not about my mother!”

  “No parent should just force their child to do something they don’t want to!” Ichika butted in.

  “It’s a newly-formatted core. It has none of Charlotte’s combat data. It will fail,” Laura followed suit.

  Slipping by Chifuyu’s guard, they stood between Charlotte and her father like human shields.

  “...Very well,” Albert spoke, irritation clear in his voice. “Shall we gather some of that data with a mock battle? If the Revive wins, perhaps I’ll choose to forgive this little indiscretion.”

  ‘Forgive’ was the last word on Laura and Ichika’s minds, but Charlotte stood to accept the challenge, “I accept. We won’t lose. Not me, and not the Revive.”

  With a ‘perhaps,’ Albert resumed his stride toward the center of the arena.

  “Then see if you can overcome the Dunois third-generation IS ‘Cosmos.’” His words awakened the Cosmos, and its petal-like thruster wings spread.

  At the same time, they awakened a faraway memory in Charlotte.

  “Maman, what’s your favorite flower?”

  “Why, Charlotte?”

  “It’s almost your birthday.”

  “Well... It’s one I have a lot of memories of.”

  “Memories?”

  “The flower my love gave to me. The—”

  Her mother’s smile, her gentleness, her warmth, all came rushing back. Along with the scent of cosmos...

  ◇

  “Ugh, it’s strong!” As soon as the battle began, Charlotte was on the back foot. The Cosmos had been built as an improvement on the Revive, and outdid it in every way.

  Bullets skimmed off its third-generation ‘Le Bouclier de Pétale’ energy shield like drops of rain. Charlotte’s Rafale Revive Custom II was an especially poor match for it. Like a blossoming cosmos, it spread open to reveal weapons suited for both attack and defense. Its ‘Vertu’ .48-caliber hybrid long rifle, the mainstay of its armament, fired both energy projectiles and bullets. Meanwhile, its ten-barreled 28-gauge ‘Tarrasque’ shotgun kept her from getting in close. Charlotte was forced to dodge wildly, hoping for a close-in fight where she could inflict some damage—which seemed to be exactly what the Cosmos’ pilot, Schokolade Chocolat, wanted.

  The pilot remained silent. Her face was hidden beneath a full helmet visor, but she was obviously quite skilled.

  “If I have to—” Charlotte fired off an ignition boost, taking the full brunt of the Cosmos’ attacks before firing another.

  “That’s too dangerous, Charl!” She could hear Ichika’s voice from far away, but she knew she had to risk it all.

  Feinting with her Grey Scale pile bunker, she backflipped into the air with a rising kick. Chocolat flinched at the unexpected attack, giving Charlotte the opening to hit her with a shotgun blast.

  And as her visor cracked...

  “Tch!”

  “Wait, you’re—” Charlotte gasped. The face below wasn’t Schokolade Chocolat at all, but the Phantom Task member Autumn.

  “Dammit! I had to cut my hair for this disguise!” she yelled.

  “What?! What’s going on?!” As Charlotte shouted, Albert’s face twisted into an uncharacteristic panic.

  “I’m taking this new IS, that’s what’s going on, you stupid kid,” Autumn jeered.

  “Monsieur Dunois! Lock the arena shields!”

  “I’m trying! I’m trying, but it’s being hacked!”

  The image of Chloe Chronicle’s face flitted through Chifuyu’s mind. Immediately she called out, “This was a trap! Kanzashi, try to counter-hack it!”

  “Yes, Ma’am!” Kanzashi opened the Uchigane Nishiki’s consoles, and her fingers raced over the keyboards as a wall of information filled the screens.

  “Chifuyu!” As she wavered, Ichika leapt forth. “I can neutralize the arena’s shields! And then we can help Charl!”

  “You idiot! That’s exactly what they want! As soon as the shields go down, she’ll escape!”

  “We can’t just watch this happen to her! CHARLOTTE!” Laura yelled. She could barely stand to watch, either.

  “I’m a failure as a father...” Albert mumbled, his powerlessness weighing on his mind. “I put my daughter in danger again...”

  “Again?! What do you mean, again?” Ichika turned in confusion.

  “There was an attempt before, within the Dunois group, to remove Charlotte,” he replied. “By the simplest means, assassination.”

  “Assassi—”

  “But there’s no one in the world kept as safe as IS pilots are,” Albert continued. “That’s why I gave Charlotte the Revive.”

  “That makes no—”

  “At IS Academy, she was beyond the reach of our family.”

  As he thought of that being the reason Albert pushed her away, the blood rushed to Ichika’s head.

  “I’ve heard enough!” he yelled. It didn’t matter. Anyone who would hurt Charlotte like that was Ichika’s enemy.

  Albert swayed on his feet from the sudden punch before swinging back at Ichika.

  “You stupid brat!” Albert yelled back. “What do you even understand?!”

  “I don’t know what your reasons are! I don’t care what your reasons are!”

  Chifuyu just let them fight. At this point, it changed nothing.

  “Ms. Orimura! I’ve found the source of the hacking!”

  “Good work, Kanzashi!” Chifuyu readied herself to go after Chloe, then grimaced when she saw her position. “A kilometer overhead... Eesh.”

  Chloe’s IS Kurokagi may have been specialized for cyber-warfare, but it still retained the basic function of flight. Chifuyu had forgotten that in her focus on it being a set of grafted cybernetic enhancements. As she frowned, the ceiling of the arena began to spread open. Autumn was about to escape. She’s going to get away! But this is our chance to go on the attack!

  Before she could, though, Autumn moved to finish off the panicking Charlotte.

  “And now it’s time for payback.” A point-blank barrage of shotgun blasts shattered the Revive’s armor.

  “Guh!” Charlotte recoiled.

  Leveling her rifle at the exposed IS core, Autumn fired a finishing shot. All the others could do was watch as the Revive’s core began to crack apart.

  “Oh no!” Laura snapped her IS Schwarzer Regen open. “How long are you two going to keep that up?!”

  Yanking Ichika out of his fight, she slapped him across the face. This was the second time she’d hit him.

  “Let’s go, Ichika!” she yelled.

  “Got it!”

  Only Charlotte’s voice stopped his swing of Reiraku Byakuya.

  “No! Stay back!” Breaking their way in was exactly what their enemy wanted. “Please! Give me your strength, Revive! Not for me! For her! For my mother!”

  She wouldn’t let her mother’s beloved cosmos be disgraced like this. Her will burned like a flame, and in response, the Revive’s core gleamed.

  “A second shift? Now?! Stop, Charlotte! It can’t take it!” Chifuyu yelled. Ignoring her warning, Charlotte focused all her energy.

  “I won’t let that happen!” Autumn dove in again on the attack, not wanting to leave Charlotte a single opening. Yet as she did, the Revive began to resonate with the Cosmos’ armor, and the two IS were bathed in light. Charlotte and Autumn were both thrown from their IS to the ground.

  “I don’t know what’s going on, but I like it! I’ll take them both!”

  “I won’t let you have them!” Charlotte shouted out. “Come, Revive! Rein Carnation!”

  Her voice, her hopes—were heard. The two IS transformed into a swirl of light, then a halo, wrapping around her. Wrapping around her like a mother’s love. Like a father’s pride.

  “Life will be hard for her.”

  “I know. But we must love her anyway. Love her as much as you loved me.”

  “...I understand.”

  The voices of Charlotte’s mother and father resonated in her head.

  “It’s so warm... So this is my mother’s and... and my father’s hopes...”

  That was the first moment in her life she’d accepted Albert as her father. As the light washed over her, the world’s first dual-core IS—the Rein Carnation—was born.

  The wings and armor of an angel. A form, and an armament, in the shape of a cosmos flower. And the combat data of the Revive. An IS all Charlotte’s own.

  “Tch!” Realizing her defeat, Autumn opened her IS Arachne and turned to flee. But Charlotte, the Angel of War, was not so forgiving.

  “I’m not letting you escape! Not after disgracing the name of the cosmos!” Rein Carnation took flight, like the divine messenger of an angry god. The reborn .48-caliber Vertu II hybrid double rifle glowed with an unearthly light as it sprayed fire.

  “Laura! Ichika! You handle the one up there!”

  “Got it!” At Chifuyu’s order, they burst through the arena roof.

  In the blue heavens above, Chloe, wearing a black gothic lolita outfit, awaited. A fateful encounter for Laura.

  “So there you are...” muttered Chloe.

  “You... Your face!” The same face. The same hair. The same skin. It was as if Laura was looking in a mirror.

  “Why, if it isn’t the perfected Lorelei. I am you. Another Laura who couldn’t become you.” Her words flowed like a song, echoing uncannily in Laura’s ears.

  “Lorelei?! What are you talking about?!”

  “It’s better for you not to know. And you, the man beside her. Orimura Ichika.”

  “Me? What about me?!” Ichika gasped, unable to contain his surprise at being singled out by name.

  Again, words sprung liltingly from her lips “A complete maverick. Someone who must be... Removed... For my mistress’s sake.”

  “What?!”

  An incoming transmission snapped Laura and Ichika out of their confusion. “What are you two doing?! You’re looking at a projection!”

  “......?!” Chloe disappeared, and darkness fell over the sky. A sea of inky blackness replaced the blue yonder, the pale moon rose in place of the yellow sun. The whirl of clouds around them transformed into a maelstrom.

  “This... This is a World Purge!” Laura cowered as the world faded around her, but Ichika was there to drag her back to reality.

  “Let’s get out of here, Laura!”

  “Have you gone crazy?!”

  “Get a hold of yourself! If we stay up here, you’ll be sucked in again!”

  “...Understood.” Calmed by Ichika, Laura followed him back down to the arena. Lorelei? What was that supposed to mean? Just who am I? Still shaken by the World Purge, her heart sank as fast as her altitude while she thought quietly. Of her birth. Of her past. Her heart ached as she looked back.

  Chloe Chronicle... What are you... She hadn’t understood. Not a single thing. But now, everything was falling into place. That’s right. I’m—

  One of the ‘Boosted.’ An enhanced humanoid. Engineered for strength. A marionette made for battle.

  “—Ra! Hey! Laura!”

  “Wh-What?!”

  “Good, you’re awake. Are you okay? You’re pale as a sheet.” Ichika looked at her concernedly, and her knees turned weak.

  That’s right. I’m... It didn’t matter who she was. What mattered was who she is now. Now that she had something to fight for.

  “Oh, nothing. And anyway! You’re too close! Back off!”

  “You don’t have to hit me! I’ll move! I’ll move!” If nothing else, she’d livened up a bit by the time they’d touched down.

  There, the battle was over. Charlotte had her rifle leveled at Autumn’s forehead. “You’re not getting away this time.”

  “This shit again... Son of a bitch.”

  And thus, the action at the arena drew to a close.

  ◇

  “Oww... I can’t believe that brat actually punched me.” In the medical office at the arena, Charlotte’s father Albert was being patched up after his fistfight with Ichika.

  “It’s your punishment. For being a man who dared to love two women.” The nurse applying ointment to his face was his wife, Rosenda Dunois. Rosenda, a woman who looked every inch the wife of a baron of industry, smiled teasingly.

  “Hmph...”

  Ichika was receiving treatment in another room. And Chifuyu was interrogating Autumn.

  “It’s been years since I’ve seen you this worked up,” said Rosenda, peering into his eyes.

  “It’s all because that brat doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut!”

  “Of course.” Albert fell silent, his rage politely ignored. “...You must have known, then. That I could never have a child.”

  “.........”

  “That’s why you took another woman. Because there was no other way you could still love me.”

  “Perhaps.” Rosenda cut through the tense mood with a chuckle. “You should be more honest with me.”

  She playfully dug a finger into his scrape.

  “Oww! Don’t!”

  “The girl needs to be loved. I’m sure I’ll come around to her, too.”

  “Yeah...” Albert fell silent, at a loss for words.

  “More importantly, what about the IS? I believe we’ve lost one?”

  “How will I be able to explain it... There’s no knowing what the government will have to say. I’m sure they’ll want someone to blame.”

  “Oh my.”

  “But it’s a father’s duty to take responsibility.” Albert puffed out his chest pugnaciously.

  “Indeed it is.” Rosenda smiled, showing a woman’s forbearance.

  “But telling them we’ve developed the world’s first dual-core IS will keep them at bay,” Albert continued, as if already rehearsing his excuse. “That will likely keep them quiet.”

  “Well, then, the company’s problems are solved. But how shall we handle the girl?”

  “...Hmm.” Albert fell silent, which was as good as an answer. “...I still don’t approve of her taste in men.”

  Rosenda chuckled. “Ahh, young love.”

  “Hmph!”

  The only witness to their conversation was the setting sun outside the window.

  ◇

  “Oww... I can’t believe that old bastard actually punched me.” In another room, Charlotte was caring for Ichika.

  “Well, you punched him first, right?” Charlotte stifled a giggle as she wrapped gauze around his face.

  “What kind of grownup acts like that?!”

  “It’s because you pushed him so far. Now hold still... There we go.” As Charlotte repacked the first aid kit, she gazed at Ichika.

  Noticing, he tilted his head quizzically. “Is something wrong?”

 

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