Infinite Stratos, Volume 1, page 8
“By the way, Houki.”
“Hm? Yeah?”
Oh, she was in a good mood. I decided to just throw the question I’d been wanting to ask at her straight away.
“Did you have to go to the bathroom, or something, earlier?”
Bam! The bamboo sword had struck right between my eyes.
◇
Fssshh.
The showerhead spread warm water across her body; droplets broke on her skin and slid slowly down her frame.
Cecilia had always been proud of the elegant beauty in which her body’s well-balanced proportions were arrayed. Her legs were long, seductive and well-shaped; easily able to compete with models, and more beautiful than most of them.
Her breasts were somewhat modest compared to those of other white girls her age, but since they also emphasized the curves of her body more, she could accept them. On the other hand, compared to a Japanese girl’s, her breasts were quite large.
The water ran down her chest as she stood still, lost in thought.
—That battle...
She still didn’t know why Ichika’s shield energy suddenly had hit zero. Who knows what would have happened if that final attack had connected? Cecilia was always confident in her ability and wanted to improve her skills, but the uncertainty over what had transpired made her very unhappy.
—I won, but...
She didn’t understand it. There was no enjoyment to be had.
—Orimura... Ichika...
She thought back on that man... The flames of determination in his eyes. An unwillingness to desist, the burning desire to succeed. Cecilia was suddenly reminded of her father, as a stark contrast.
—My father was always waiting for my mother to tell him what to do...
He had married into an important family, and must have felt vastly inferior to her mother. From the time she was very small, Cecilia had been looking at her father, determined not to marry a weak man like him. And after the IS was invented, her father had become even more servile and slavish. This had begun to frustrate her mother, and she developed a habit of refusing to talk to him.
“.........”
Her mother had been a strong woman. One who had found success in society, even before women had begun to completely dominate men, and had her own company. She had been strict and austere. Cecilia had always looked up to her as an ideal.
Yes— in the past. Her parents were no longer. They had died in an accident three years prior.
At that time, they had been living apart already. Cecilia didn’t know why they were together on that day. There had been numerous conspiracy theories around their deaths, but they didn’t match up to the circumstances: a train had vaulted off the tracks. It was a huge tragedy, and more than a hundred had been killed or injured. And just like that, her parents had disappeared. Time had passed quickly afterward.
Her parents had left her a very large inheritance. She had spent a lot of time learning how she could protect it from the vultures. As part of her efforts, she had received an A+ on the IS aptitude test. The government had offered extensive privileges to entice her to keep her nationality, and she had accepted immediately. It had been the easiest way for her to protect her inheritance. She had been picked as the first-generation test pilot of the third-generation IS, Blue Tears. To gather combat experience and test data, she had come to Japan.
And here... She had met him, Orimura Ichika. That strong man she had dreamed of.
“Orimura Ichika...”
She tried saying it. She could feel her chest tightening. Her heart pounded as she ran her fingers over her beautiful lips, which droplets of water rested upon. Her lips seemed to want to be touched, and it excited her.
“.........”
It was a sweet, warm feeling, full of happiness and longing. Her curiosity was piqued. What was that torrent of emotion that filled her chest the moment she paid attention to it? She wanted to know more: what this was, and what it would lead to. She wanted to know more... About Ichika.
“.........”
She ran the water in the shower for a while longer.
◇
The next morning there was a short homeroom again. The impossible had happened.
“Well then, the representative for Class 1-A will be Orimura Ichika. Ah, it’s good we got this sorted out.” Ms. Yamada went on, happily.
The girls in the class also seemed very happy. I was the only one who made a gloomy face. The only damn one.
“Teach, I got a question.”
I raised my hand. That was the proper way to do it. The fundamental way.
“Yes, Orimura?”
“I lost the battle yesterday, yet now I’m class rep anyway. What gives?”
“Well...”
“I pulled out of the race!”
Cecilia had stood up and put her hands on her hips. It looked good, and— Okay, anyway. Why had she pulled out? And she looked kinda psyched about it, which didn’t really make sense to me. She’d been so angry until then, and now she looked positively happy? It was strange.
“Well, you did lose the battle, but that was really never in question. After all, your opponent was I, Cecilia Alcott! Nothing else could be expected.”
I had no words to say to that. I lost, after all.
“You see, I’m regretting that I was so childishly angry.”
—You what?
“I have decided to let you be the representative... Ichika. Combat experience trains an IS pilot like nothing else. It seems to me you need this experience more than I do.”
What a mixed blessing this was.
—Did she just use my first name? Nah, can’t be.
“You really get it, Cecilia!” someone cheered.
“Exactly! We’ve got the only man in the world who can pilot. We have to support him!”
“We’ll learn a lot of great things, and we can sell the info to the other classes. Orimura is the gift that keeps on giving!”
—Hey, I don’t remember agreeing to becoming a commodity.
“Alas!”
Cecilia cleared her throat and put a hand on her chin. This was a different pose from before. I wondered what it meant? It probably meant something, but I wasn’t sure what.
“As you can see, I am a superior, elegant, beautiful— nay, perfect human being. If I teach you the ways of the IS, then surely success is just around the corn—”
Wham!
Houki slammed her hand on the table and stood up.
“Sadly, the position of Ichika’s teacher is filled. He asked me to do it himself.”
There was a strange amount of emphasis on the word “me.” Houki glared with a rare level of hostility towards Cecilia.
—You’re going to freak her out if you look at her like that...
A week ago Cecilia would have pulled back from the engagement, but not now. She answered Houki’s gaze in kind. If anything, she looked a little prideful.
“Oh, aren’t you the C-ranked Shinonono-girl? Is there anything you have to say to an A-rank like me?”
“Th-The rank doesn’t matter! He asked me! I-Ichika said that it has to be me!”
That was a lie.
“Wait, you’re Rank C, Houki?”
“The rank doesn’t matter!”
She got really mad. I was Rank B, apparently. However, the rank was based on the training unit, and Chifuyu had told me not to pay it too much heed.
“Sit down, you idiots.”
Chifuyu walked over to Cecilia and Houki and hit them both on the head. Of course Japan’s former representative, and the first world champion, wasn’t afraid of anything. Both of them sat down, saddened.
—You could say, satened. Hahaha.
Wham!
“Wipe that grin off your face, you idiot.”
She was hitting us with the attendance record, by the way. I’m sure my sister Chifuyu didn’t know it, but the binding of the record was quite hard. If my sister didn’t, I certainly did.
“Your ranks are worth nothing. The way I see it, you’re all green behind the ears. Like chicks inside the eggs; trying to break through, but still putting on airs.”
I could see Cecilia wanted to say something back to Chifuyu, but she didn’t.
“I told you all the National Cadets need to study just like everyone else. People say that teenagers have to be allowed their immature fights, but I’m the one in charge here, and I won’t have that nonsense.”
I never knew that Chifuyu was such a strict person at work. It surprised me. I’d only ever known her as the person who grumbled over too much salt in the soup. Now that I was living in the dorms, how was my sister getting by?
—I should visit her this weekend.
Was the place even occupied? Was she doing her laundry properly? I was always in charge of doing it for her. If only she would at least put her underwear into the laundry bags herself— they always ended up damaged when they found their way into the main laundry, and that would usually upset Chifuyu.
—At least do that much, Ms. Respectable Member of Society.
Wham!
“You were thinking about something rude, weren’t you?”
“I-I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Uh-huh.”
Wham! Bam!
“I’m sorry!”
“Good.”
Virtuous citizens, subjected to endless abuse. What a cruel world we lived in.
“The class representative is Orimura Ichika. I believe there are no objections?”
The entire class yelled excitedly in agreement. The needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the few; I just wished it would take my side for once.
Chapter III: The Transfer Student Is a Second Childhood Friend
“Well, then. Orimura, Alcott, do some flying. Show me some basic IS flight maneuvers.”
We were in the last week of April by now. The last cherry blossoms had fallen. My sister Chifuyu was still a demon in class, but I was doing my best.
“Hurry up. A trained IS pilot only needs a second to generate their unit.”
I focused my mind as she egged me on. Once the IS was fitted to the pilot, they carried it around as an accessory. In Cecilia’s case, it was her left earring. In my case, it was a gauntlet for my right hand. Normally it was supposed to be some kind of simple item, so I had no idea why mine was an armored gauntlet, of all things.
“Focus.”
My impending doom— another hit from Chifuyu— was imminent. I stuck out my right arm and gripped the gauntlet with my left. I had played around with a bunch of different methods, and this was the one that let me focus my mind the best. The vision of my IS expanding filled my thoughts.
—Come to me, Byakushiki!
Immediately, I could feel a film spreading out over me from my right wrist. It took 0.7 seconds to encompass me. Bright particles of light flooded across my body, then seemed to harden out around me into the IS unit.
My body grew light. The IS sensors linked up to my consciousness, and my perception of the world became much sharper. Byakushiki had materialized in the blink of an eye, and now we were floating off the ground some 10 centimeters up. Cecilia and Blue Tears were also levitating. The bits I had destroyed in our battle had regrown.
“Okay. Now, fly.”
Cecilia acted immediately. She spun away into the sky and stopped, almost out of sight, above us. I followed, but my rate of climb was significantly slower than hers.
“What are you doing? Byakushiki should be much faster based on the specs.”
I was being remonstrated over the com-link. We’d learned about high-velocity rising and falling the day before. “Imagine a triangle pointing upwards” was what they had told us, but it was hard for me to put into practice.
“Ichika, having a good, solid mental image goes a long way. It might be more constructive to think of a better one that works for you.”
“Maybe... But I’m nowhere near used to flying yet. How does it manage to levitate, anyway?”
Byakushiki had two wing-shaped extrusions on the back, but no matter how I looked at them, they didn’t seem capable of making the suit fly. Besides, it didn’t matter where they were pointed; the unit could fly about regardless, so the whole thing was pretty mysterious.
“I don’t mind explaining it to you, but it’s not a short explanation. It uses anti-gravity wings and flow-wave interference.”
“Flow... What? Fine, just don’t explain it.”
I turned her down immediately. I wasn’t going to understand it anyway.
“I see. Too bad. Hehe.”
Cecilia was smiling gleefully. It was an honest, simple smile, not an ironic or derisive one.
After our battle, Cecilia had been teaching me and giving tips whenever she could. I was really grateful for that, of course, and Cecilia was really good— as you’d expect of a National Cadet. But I did have to wonder: what had brought on this change of heart? I couldn’t believe how different she’d been at first.
“Ichika, I will teach you again after school if you would like. Then we can be alone and—”
“Ichika! How long are you going to stay up there?! Come down!” came a yell via the com.
I looked over and saw that Houki had taken the radio from a shocked Ms. Yamada. The IS hypersensors incorporated long-distance telescopic sights and other vision enhancements; I could make out Houki’s eyelashes from about 200 meters away.
—It’d definitely be possible to use this for all sorts of evil purposes...
“I should add that the sights are, technically, limited to a certain range. But the IS was designed for use in outer space, where it’s necessary to determine your position based on stars hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, so distances this short are trivial.”
Thanks, model student. She really knew a lot. In contrast to that, Houki’s explanations went like:
“It goes, uhh... It goes dadum, and then bazoom!”
Not very helpful. I wasn’t even sure if Houki could actually pilot an IS. We hadn’t had any practical training yet as a group, so I had no idea how well Houki could fly. Cecilia always barged in during Houki’s weird explanations, and the two of them ended up arguing a lot. Just as Cecilia had become friendlier with me, she’d become less friendly with Houki. It was kind of strange how that was.
“Orimura, Alcott, show me a rapid descent, then deactivate your units. Target altitude is ten centimeters.”
“Roger. See you in a moment, Ichika.”
Cecilia dropped from the sky like a stone. I looked after her disappearing unit and was mildly impressed.
“She’s good...”
She’d already deactivated her unit without any problems.
—All right, time to follow her.
I focused my mind and pictured a roaring flame being ejected by the wing-shaped objects on my back, followed by the fire blasting me towards the ground.
Vrrooom!
I arrived at the ground— or rather, crashed into it. The unit protected me from the G-forces and initial impact, but the laughter from my classmates still hurt my soul.
—Why didn’t the IS protect my soul as well?!
“Moron. Did I tell you to bury yourself in the ground? Are you trying to dig a foxhole?”
“I’m sorry.”
I used the altitude control system to levitate off the ground. Due to the IS shield barrier, there wasn’t a speck of dust on Byakushiki.
“Pathetic, Ichika. Didn’t I teach you this the other day?” Houki said, arms crossed and eyes narrowed.
—Taught it to me? If you could call all those weird sound effects teaching, then sure.
Houki was able to make jokes now. How times have changed.
“You’re thinking something rude right now, aren’t you?”
—Are my thoughts leaking out again somehow?
“Besides, Ichika. You’re the kind of guy who always—”
Houki was starting to rail on about my failings, but she was interrupted.
“Are you all right, Ichika? Are you hurt?”
“N-Nah... I’m fine.”
“Good. That’s very good.” Cecilia smiled.
Which poet was it who’d said the whims of girls were like the autumn sky? I wanted to smack him. To me, girls were way harder to predict than the weather.
“There’s no way he’d get hurt when he’s using the IS,” protested Houki.
“Oh, Shinonono. Worrying about each other is the most natural thing. That goes for IS pilots as well. This is called ‘common decency.’”
“Says you? You’re trying really hard to look nice and innocent.”
“Better than trying to look like a monster.”
BzZzzZz.
I could see the sparks flying between them. I mean, there weren’t physical sparks. But it had kinda looked like it... Maybe the IS hypersensors were capable of seeing this as well? That was kind of amazing, but also useless. Anyway, those two girls were becoming more and more hostile by the day.
“Hey, morons. You’re in the way. Do this in a corner somewhere.”
Chifuyu came up to me, pushing Houki and Cecilia away in the process.
“Orimura, bring out your weapon. You can do that yourself, right?”
“Y-Yeah...”
“The right answer to that is ‘yes.’”
“Y-Yes.”
“Good. Do it.”
I turned sideways. I had to make sure nobody was standing in front of me, then I held out my right hand again and gripped it with my left.
I pictured a blade. A sharp, hard blade. A strong weapon...
—Come!
My left hand gripped my right wrist even tighter. When my concentration had reached its peak, light gathered in my palm, congealed, and then took shape. When the light had hardened out, my hand was holding the Yukihira Nigata.
—Good. I can bring it out whenever I want now.
It was hard to do this reliably at first. It wasn’t like they taught you how to materialize a sword in your hand in school.
“Too slow. You have to do this in 500 milliseconds.”
Argh. She found fault with everything! I never got any praise. I’d worked at this for a week straight and I was pretty proud of it.
