Fantasy Stellar ARMOR Satellizer (Ranix Aurus & Admiral19)

[Admiral19]

"Oh dear, I'm sorry...did I interrupt you?" Aoi twirled the spear once in her hand, then pointed it towards Kanae. "By all means, as you were, Ms. Saitou...although, since Kaiserin expressly told me to bring the medallion back, I'll have to pry it off of you if you transform."

Kanae ignored her. "Suit, up!" Her armor was on and ready in a matter of seconds, alongside the system callout: "ARMOR ON. HEAR THE LION'S ROAR."

Aoi sighed. "Shame. I was hoping you'd comply. You seem like a nice enough girl to do something like that."

"You barely know me!" Kanae lunged at Aoi, swiping at her with her claws—

Aoi swiftly raised her spear to block the attack, pushing against Kanae almost effortlessly.

"I know enough. For example..." With a push forward that Kanae wasn't prepared for in the slightest, Aoi practically slammed her back into the apartment, shoving the door wide open for everyone to see her new regal attire.

"...I know that your technique is still very much unrefined. Not noble in the slightest. Quite ignoble, actually."

 

[Ranix Aurus]

Akira was already tensed up just by listening to the ruckus happening beyond the door. He couldn't hear what the women had been saying, as their speech were covered by the clashing of their weapons. When the door was blasted open, everything was laid bare for the others to see.

Seiichiro was the first to recognize it. Although he wasn't familiar with this system, but he could tell from a glance that it wasn't your basic ARMOR suit- it was a medallion-powered one!

"Young lady! Be careful! This one is more dangerous than the monster from before!" He shouted, although Kanae would've been able to tell after exchanging blows just now. The spider-lizard was slow, its movement partly controlled by beastly instinct. Aoi on the other hand had the finesse of a human's intellect, but with an explosive strength that rivaled Kanae's own. It would be a tricky battle.

"W-what the heck?! Cosplay, you guys are cosplaying, right?" Mikawa was frantic, especially when the tip of Taurus's spear scratched the wooden panel, leaving a deep mark on the floor. He gulped. "IS THAT A FUCKING REAL SPEAR-?!?"

As for Akira... he was frozen in place. His brain was essentially on cooldown. SO COOL! Those two words were repeating in his mind nonstop.

 

[Admiral19]

"As much as I'd love to deny your cosplay coping claim"—The tip of Aoi's spear playfully pointed in Mikawa's direction—"I don't have anything to say to you right now. Now, as for—"

Kanae shot her body towards Aoi, holding onto her spear and struggling against her. "You talk too much!" Not wanting to destroy Mikawa's place(any more than they probably did already), Kanae charged into the elevator, hitting Aoi against the walls.

"Akira!" She called out as Aoi continued to push against her. "I'm gonna lead her to the metro! Get—aack!" She received a particularly hard kick to the ribs. "Get Uncle and Mikawa there fast!"

She pressed a button on the elevator, and as the doors closed, shouted: "Mikawa! Find something to record us with! Don't stop filming no matter what!"

As the elevator began to go down, Aoi chuckled. "Oh, trying to expose me, ah?" She couldn't move her spear as easily in the cramped elevator, but she could still send jabs Kanae's way just fine. "Can't have that. Kaiserin has prided herself in her research on the PAS...if you were to expose that"—she thrust a knee up to Kanae's stomach that she barely missed—"she would tear me a new one for sure!"

"Fuck your Kaiserin," Kanae said, "I'm trying to figure you out!" She scratched at Aoi's chest, managing to create a long claw trail from her abdomen to the armor covering her chest. "Are you working for OLYMPUS, or what?!"

Aoi stopped. Even without her face visible, Kanae could see the contempt in her face.

"No. In fact, you saying that feels like an insult."

The elevator reached the bottom floor. Aoi grabbed Kanae by the helmet and threw her, causing her to crash into the reception desk where the guard was previously peacefully sleeping.

"I am part of something far larger than your feeble mind can comprehend!"

The blunt end of her spear smacked against Kanae's helmet, disorienting her enough for Aoi to knock her to the floor effortlessly.

"I am an exactor"—her boot was planted firmly on Kanae's chest—"here to claim the Kaiserin's tribute! And you..."

The spear's tip lined itself up between Kanae's eyes.

"...are but an oblation to the Minotaur."

 

[Ranix Aurus]

The trio left behind were in different state of shock. Seiichiro was the first to snap out of it. He rushed over to Mikawa's desk, taking a camcorder, and then smacked it into Mikawa's hands, accompanied by a bloody cough.

"Whoa, are you okay?!" The sight of blood brought Mikawa back to reality. "Wait, wait, what are you doing???"

"What else? You heard the young lady. Start shooting! Cachk-!" Seiichiro was sure that some of his wounds had reopened from that impatient moves. "Go, go! The young lady isn't familiar with her ARMOR system yet. She won't be able to hold up against an experienced user for long! We need to help her!"

"Wait, what?" Akira whipped around. Something seemed to click in his head. "Young lady... you mean that was Kanae?"

"Who else?!? Didn't you hear her calling out to you just now?" Seiichiro yelled in frustration. Why was this boyfriend so slow on the uptake?

Akira's expression would be best described as 'abject horror'. Seiichiro felt like coughing up more blood when he saw that. Without saying anything else, Akira dashed out of the room, bolting straight to the elevator. Alas, the cheap apartment only had one elevator for the entire building, and it was taken by the two ARMORs. It was climbing its way down to the ground floor. Making a split-second decision, he rushed to the emergency stairs instead.

"Hey, young man? Young man?!? Goddamnit, get your ass moving, Mikawa! We're going after them-" Seiichiro's voice disappeared in the distance as Akira practically slid through the starcase, skipping two-three steps at once, sometimes leaping past an entire section just to get down there a tiny bit faster. When he reached the bottom, he slammed the door open, just in time to see Taurus pinning down Kanae on the floor.

"Hey! Leave her alone!"

Panicking, Akira grabbed whatever was closest to him -a vase, which he miraculously was able to lift with the help of adrenaline overdrive- and threw it at the enemy ARMOR. The momentum pulled him forward as well, hurling him to his knees.

 

[Admiral19]

Aoi turned her head to the sound at about the same time as the vase came crashing into her, throwing her off balance and off of Kanae. Enraged, she began approaching Akira, spear raised to stab. "Grr...Insolent boy! I will—!"

Suddenly, Aoi seemed to stop, then double over, holding her head in her hand. Kanae, who had managed to get up by now, looked over at her in confusion as she began...talking? To who?

"Wh-what...? I was trying to recover the Leo...well, I didn't want to be out here so long, but she had to be a little—overexerted? ...Ah, it was them again. Hah. Very well."

After Aoi seemed to return to normal, she looked around, mostly at Kanae, Akira, and the two men who were coming down the emergency exit. One of them was holding a camera. Holy shit, this was going poorly for her...

Aoi twirled her staff once before holding it to her side. "You've lucked out...all of you. The newer member of our ranks forgot their limits again..." She gave a sarcastic chuckle. "Reminds me of you, dear Leo. I'm the one assigned with taking care of them, so I need to sort this out."

She figured the rooftops would make for a good exit. "Aoi Kaneshiro. Please, do your best to remember that name, and do your best to not let the Kaiserin curse yours. Until next time~!" Aoi took a bow, stepped outside, and jumped, soaring above the complex and up to the high-rises.

Kanae remained in her armor for the time being, watching Aoi hop from rooftop to rooftop.

 

[Ranix Aurus]

Akira watched the entire scene unfolding before him, his eyes opened wide. The tip of that spear had been aimed at him. The tension back then was... real... it wasn't just a game. That person really intended to stab him right then and there! He'd just realized that his heart was beating way too fast. He clutched his chest, trying his best to calm himself down.

"Young lady! Lad! Are you guys okay?" Seiichiro was tumbling down the stairs with Mikawa's help. The latter had his camcorder at the ready, although his shaky hands cast doubt over the quality of the captured footage. His brain was a complete mess. The reporter was running on autopilot, obediently following what Seiichiro was yelling at him.

"I... wait, Kanae! Are you okay?!?"

Akira fumbled back to his feet, only to fall again. His legs were shaking as if they were made of jelly. The second attempt had better result, as he was able to slowly make his way to Kanae, who was still in armor. He wanted to check her condition, but looking at it again... she seemed to be mostly unharmed? He actually looked worse for the wear. His clothes were covered in dirt.

"Kanae, you..." Akira was at a loss for words. What should he say in this situation? His best friend was wearing a suit of armor taken directly from an old era's children show. She had fought another person who had a similar kind of armor. And it was all real. He could tell since he was at ground zero. "That means, that monster thing that you told us before, that's also real...?"

Fuck. How did this happen? This doesn't make sense!

"Ah..." Mikawa finally made some noise. He was checking his camcorder's display. "I... I caught it..."

Seiichiro leaned over to check. In the footage was a shaky scene of a shadow rushing out of the front gate before leaping from rooftop to rooftop. There was barely any detail to see.

"...You didn't catch anything, you fool!" he slapped Mikawa on the head. Goddamn youngster had no guts! They would've been able to make better recording if they got down faster!

 

[Admiral19]

Kanae didn't care about the bad footage. She didn't care about the vase, or the armor still on her body, or even about Aoi. No, in that moment, seeing Akira struggle to form words to describe what he just saw, what just happened to him...

Without another word, Kanae pulled Akira into a hug. She held onto his shirt carefully, as tight as she could without tearing it with her claws.

She could have lost him. If whatever happened to Aoi happened a second later, Akira could have been gone. She held him tighter, her armored form wrapping around him and arguably protecting him better than it could protect her. She wish he didn't have to get involved. She wished he'd believed her from the start, then she wouldn't have to drag him into death to prove herself.

"I'm sorry." Sorry he saw her in danger this morning, sorry he got dragged into this, sorry Hotaru got dragged into this, sorry her two best friends in the whole fucking world might never be safe again, sorry she couldn't just Nemean Fist everything that could hurt them. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

 

[Ranix Aurus]

Akira grew flustered inside her hug. "No, please don't apologize," He was about to return the hug, but his arms froze when he realized that the armor looked... sharp. In fact, he was quite lucky that the way she pulled him closer didn't manage to rip his skins apart from mere frictions. "I understand. I know it's not your fault-"

...Was it not her fault? In the first place, everything wouldn't have happen if she didn't take that medallion. Or the wristband. Hmm Akira was feeling more and more difficult to justify his friend's sloppiness...

"No, relatively speaking, I'm the one who's at fault. Young lady has nothing to do with this. If you want to blame anyone, blame me! I'll take responsibility!" Seiichiro stepped forward, and then tapped his chest. The hit was a bit too hard, making the researcher cough up blood.

Akira stared blankly at him. According to Kanae's story, wasn't he the one who used this ARMOR thing and then proceeded to get curbstomped in less than one minute? What kind of responsibility could he take? Was he even capable?

"Alright, you guys are too emotional right now! Calm down!" Akira half-shouted to everyone. They need to keep themselves in check for now. They had an enemy bent on killing them on the loose, and he suspected that Taurus wasn't the only one out there. "We need to think of our next course of action! Time is of the essence. But more importantly!" He looked at Seiichiro, then to Kanae. "How did that king-looking ironman suit manage to find us? Does someone here have a tracker on them or something?"

 

[Admiral19]

But it was her fault, that was the thing! Everything spiraled because she decided to be curious and take the medallion...so much of the past day could have been avoided had she just—!

"...Tracking device?"

Well, maybe if she could just...Oh, she realized that she didn't know how to take her armor off normally. The last time she popped out of it was because of fatigue, after all. Maybe just..."ARMOR off?" Kanae shrugged, hoping the command would—oop, yeah, within a few seconds, the armor practically dissolved. Perfect! From there, she patted herself down, searching for anything that might have led Aoi to her—

From the inside of Kanae's jacket, something clattered quietly. Wait...oh, didn't Aoi bump into her while she was on the train? She could have been tagged with something then!

 

[Ranix Aurus]

When the armor dissolved into nothing; a strange phenomenon indeed. How would it work with the law of conservation of energy? -Akira was left with a gap between him and Kanae. He was this close from pulling her to him this time, getting her into his embrace, but he refrained in the last moment. No, this wasn't right. Kanae wasn't thinking calmly right now. It would just be him exploiting her in a rare moment of weakness.

Seiichiro noticed Kanae's reaction when she patted her jacket. "Pardon me," he pulled out his phone, and then put the backside over her pockets. Now that Akira was taking a closer look, the old man's phone wasn't exactly normal. Instead of the thin and sleek design of modern smartphone, his was bulky, with jagged edges over unknown device extensions clasped all over. He thought it was the phone case, but when he saw a red dot blinking on one of the square end, he realized that those were legit.

His brain was slowly coming to term that everything had been real. More real than gold.

"Darn it! Apologies, young lady!" Seiichiro grabbed into Kanae's pocket, and then pulled out a small spherical object. It was really tiny, no bigger than a prayer bead. He immediately threw it away. The thing bounced off the floor tiles with a metallic clank, bouncing off a few times until it rolled over to the corner.

"We've been had... no, it might've been worse than that," he frantically ran over his coat and Akira's pants, and found identical beads lodged inside their pockets. All this time they had been guiding their enemies to Mikawa's place!

"You've gotta be kidding me..." Akira hitched his breath. This reminded him of a spy movie, but they were the ones getting tracked by the super spy protagonist instead. They were like small ants, circling about on the palm of something far bigger and stronger, not knowing when a finger might came down and squashed them to dust. "Right, old man, are you absolutely sure that your phone is safe? What if it's hacked? No, it might have a tracker built inside the machine too!"

"Fuck!" Seiichiro was about to throw his phone, but refrained at the last moment. "No, I might be able to check it. Just give me a moment. As long as I turned it off and removed all source of power, even if there's a tracker in it, then it wouldn't work," He ran over to the overturned receptionist desk and then rummaged about on the floor until he found a pen. Not ideal, but usable.

As Seiichiro fumbled with his phone, taking it apart piece by piece with a writing tool, Mikawa trembled on his feet, not knowing what to do. "H-hey... what... what should I do now...? They, they won't come back, right? T-They're just targeting you guys, right? I'm... am I safe?? I'm safe, right???"

"I dunno man, didn't that ironman thing saw you with a camera?" Akira blurted out.

Right, whether he had gotten a complete footage or not wasn't important. They thought that he had a scoop on them, and Mikawa was completely aware of what would happen when a reporter had accidentally dug too deep. The realization drained Mikawa of his blood. His face went completely white.

 

[Admiral19]

Kanae ran a hand through her hair. "Shit...this is all my fault." Chased down, tagged, swatted, discombobulated, all within half a day's time? Could today not throw her a single fucking bone?! Ugh, the minute she got home, Kanae would need to take a long damn nap.

Home...wait, home!

"Akira!" Kanae grabbed both of Akira's shoulders. "Do you all wanna stay at my place?!"

They couldn't stay here, and they sure as hell couldn't go back to Akira's place; people knew where those places were, and they would come back for them. Not only was Kanae's place the safest for right now, but there was also another ace in the hole they could start looking through.

"I've only been with you and Hotaru since I came back, right?" Kanae's smile grew hopeful. "Not only are we gonna have a safe spot, but my Dad's worked with OLYMPUS before; he's gotta have some connections we could use to make a game plan!"

 

[Ranix Aurus]

"T-t-t-to your p-place??" Akira jolted up, even though it was unnecessary. He already had her staying over in his place, what's the difference? Still, he couldn't calm down. There was a difference, alright, there was a big difference!!!

"Your father worked with OLYMPUS, young lady?" Seiichiro chimed in, pleasantly surprised. "That's a great coincidence! What's his name? Maybe I know him? Wait, now that I think about it, what's your names again?"

Oh, right, it seemed that they haven't been formally introduced yet?

"I'm Akira. Akira Tanaka," Akira raised his hand. "The girl you saw before is my sister. She's Hotaru Tanaka. My old man is Genki Tanaka."

"Professor Tanaka from T.U.? I know him!" Seiichiro gaped. These random kids he met on the street actually were related to bigshots? "It's a pity that he resigned from teaching position, but I still respect him a lot! His papers were instrumental in our own researches! Please send him my regards, young man."

Akira grunted a non-commital agreement. He didn't seem comfortable when talking about his father.

"As for us, this is Yuusuke Mikawa, a freelance reporter, as you already know," Seiichiro energetically slapped the trembling guy's shoulder. "And I'm an ex-Lead Researcher from OLYMPUS R&D Division, Seiic- cahock-!"

He coughed up blood again. What was going on with his body?! Running down the stairs was fine, but flailing his arm for a bit sent him hurtling down the pain train?!

"Just... call me Uncle," Seiichiro wiped the blood off his mouth.

"Aite, Uncle...?" Akira muttered with low confidence. "So... I guess we'll be heading to Kanae's house then." He knew where it was, he just never had the courage to come over by himself. Not to mention staying the night?!? What is this, a rom-com manga?? He had a thought about not wanting to bring danger to Kanae's place but at this point it seemed to be too late. Too fucking late.

"Wait, Hotaru!" Akira slapped his forehead. He forgot about his baby sister in this entire chaos. If they knew his house's address, then there's huge chance that his entire family had been targeted too. His old man can rot in hell, but he can't let Hotaru get harmed! "Kanae, I'll go get Hotaru. You guys go first. It'll be safer for me to go alone without Uncle or Mr. Mikawa slowing me down."

 

[Admiral19]

Oh yeah, amidst all the chaos, Kanae forgot that they barely knew each others' names. "Right, I'm Kanae, then! Good to meet you all properly!" Better late than never, ah?

She shot a teasing smile in Akira's direction. "What's up, Akira? Can't handle a girl inviting you over?" Ah, this was about what was expected; a Kanae that was less concerned about the heat and more about the flavor; a Kanae that was willing to poke fun at her best friend; a Kanae with a slick tongue and slicker dance moves.

For a while, Kanae wanted things to be normal...and, well, this was the best she's got.

Oh shit, wait, hang on, Akira was right! Hotaru probably didn't even know that they all left! Kanae didn't tell her anything either...who knows what could have happened to her?! Bad childhood friend, bad! "Alright, cool, go, get right on it! Uncle, Mr. Mikawa, we're heading to my place by metro! Let's go go go!"

Thankfully, the ride to Kanae's place was free of strange people trying to tag her with tracking devices, and soo enough, they arrived at the Saitou household. The house was a fairly large affair, probably enough for her family and at least a couple other guests; working for OLYMPUS had paid her dad nicely enough to get them something like this.

The moment the three of them entered the main room, Kanae collapsed into her favorite chair and sighed. "Fucking hell, I needed that. Ahhh, man..."

Clearly, today had not been kind to her.

 

[Ranix Aurus]

Akira opted to take a different ride from theirs, so that it would be harder for their enemies to keep track of everyone at once. Seiichiro had no complain. Mikawa was there to substitute Akira anyway. Dude might be faint-hearted, but you don't need courage to be a walking stick.

Kanae's house was bigger than Seiichiro or Mikawa had expected. Such a rich family! Seiichiro was used to OLYMPUS's luxurious facilities, so he blended in right away, but Mikawa was a true-born peasant. When Kanae and Seiichiro relaxed, he went to the corner and crouched down in a fetal position.

"...Mr. Mikawa? Hello?" Seiichiro's mouth twitched.

"Don't worry about me... I'm just a speck of dust... I'm nothing..." The reporter muttered self-deprecation in rapid succession like he was chanting a sutra.

"...I think we broke the poor bloke... Ahem, right, how's your body feeling, miss Saitou?"

It was the second time that Kanae had used the ARMOR system. The onboard AI should've started its adjustment process.

"I've been thinking about it. This is just a conjecture, but it seems that my body got more resiliant thanks to the ARMOR system. You know that my team is the one who developed the system, right? I've been personally testing it since its inception. During the transformation process, nanobots are deployed by the artificial intelligence to scan your physical state, and then apply minor adjustments in the molecular level in order to achieve maximum potential..."

The scientist rambled on for almost five minutes with highly technical buzzwords thrown in three-fourth of the time. He froze when he realized that Kanae most likely wouldn't be able to process all of that unless she had graduated from college thrice.

"Ahem," he coughed. "In short: the more we use the ARMOR system, the stronger our physical body will become. There are still limits, of course. We won't suddenly become superman who can tank bullets or punch through walls. Our bodies will just be a bit sturdier, and we heal faster from non-fatal wounds. Like me right now."

Time passed by. Akira had departed earlier than the three, but somehow there had been no contact from him yet. An hour later, he finally made a call to Kanae's phone. His voice was trembling, as if he had lost his spirit.

"Kanae..."

At the other side of the phone, Akira clenched the hand-written paper in his hand.

"They got her. They... Hotaru was kidnapped!"

 

[Admiral19]

Honestly, she didn't blame Mr. Mikawa for breaking down; if Kanae was suddenly exposed to all of this at once, she would have crumpled up and cried too. Still, he should be...fine...

Anyway, there was the whole thing with the ARMOR system strengthening her body. "So you're saying...wearing the thing wears me down, and then the system builds me back up and makes me stronger? Hm..." This felt like some ship of Theseus type stuff...how long until she just wasn't Kanae...?

Ok, now she was overthinking. She needed some sleep...

Actually, that's what she ended up doing right in the chair! She knew it'd be a while before he came back with Hotaru, so might as well get the rest while she could. She ended up sleeping longer than expected, but the ringing of her phone managed to wake her up. She drowsily brought the phone to her ear. This better be important—

"They got her."

Kanae stopped. No. No, no, no... "What do you mean?!" Could today not throw her a fucking bone?!

 

[Ranix Aurus]

"They left a note, and- I'll get there soon!" Akira cut off the call frantically.

Seiichiro was in the process of taking his phone apart at the moment. He had a bad premonition the moment he saw Kanae's expression. His hands moved even quicker than before. They would need all the tools that they could get right now.

It took around half an hour before Akira returned. The poor boy looked disheveled. His chest was hurting; he was running with all his might for half the travel. He threw the crumpled paper in his hand on the table as he sunk into the couch.

It was a common notebook paper with ripped edge. The writing on it said, "I have your little friend. Come to this address at midnight if you still want to see her alive. Bring the medallion with you." Under it was an address, pointing to an industrial warehouse complex.

"That's a bad writing," Seiichiro commented. It looked like chicken scratches.

"Yeah, I know right- wait, that's not important!" Akira groaned. "This is a trap! I'm sure of it! This is such a cliche in shows and movies!"

 

[Admiral19]

"But what are we supposed to do, then?!" Without the slightest show of hesitation, Kanae raised her voice. They'd be expecting her, they'd have something ready for her, and she couldn't let anyone take the medallion, not while she's been through a day's worth of hell trying to keep it! This entire damn day has been nothing but hard left turns, and she, for one, just wanted to rest!

But she couldn't, not while whatever force that was lurking in OLYMPUS was still out and about. The question was, what were they supposed to do now?

Frantically, Kanae began to pace across the floor. "We just got here! We have leads! We have a chance to relax, so why fucking can't we?!"

 

[Ranix Aurus]

"Actually, that's a good idea," Seiichiro suddenly commented. "Relaxing, I mean. The note says that we should come at midnight. There's still some hours before then. You and Tanaka need to have some rest first."

"But, Hotaru-!"

"Kidnappers don't hurt their target, not before they get what they want, anyway," the researcher added. "Tanaka, I know that you're worried, but there's nothing that we can do, short of barging into OLYMPUS straight away. What we can do, is to make sure the young lady is well-rested and ready to fight. With the power of Leo Medallion, we might have a chance. Especially if our opponent is still underestimating us."

He turned to Kanae. Akira did as well. "What do you think, miss Saitou? You're the core of our strategy. We'll go with whatever you decide," Seiichiro threw the ball back to her.

 

[Admiral19]

Kanae wanted to throw that hypothetical ball at literally anything. She really did, and she really could, to be honest; this was her place, she wouldn't have to worry about paying anyone's damages. But everyone else was trying to keep a level head about this whole thing, and she needed to as well.

So instead, she opted throw herself into bed.

Kanae tossed her phone to Akira and started storming upstairs to her room. On the way, she pointed to the front door. "Unless something charges straight through that door, don't wake me up."

 

[Ranix Aurus]

Fair enough. Seiichiro went back to his work, while Akira crashed on the couch. He wasn't being level-headed at all, he was just at a complete loss. So, just like Kanae, he gave up and went to sleep.

Time passed so slowly on their side as tension rose, but on the other side, it couldn't be more exciting than this.

Close to their appointed hour, a man slipped into the warehouse complex, making his way toward the largest building near the center. The power of the Kaiserin is amazing. With near-infinite money on his fingertips, it was child's play to rent the warehouse for an entire week, making sure that nobody could bother him with whatever that he had planned to do.

A lone couch sat at a lonesome corner of the emptied warehouse. Worn-out from the sun, it looked like a secondhand furniture bought for cheap. A girl laid unconscious on it, peacefully sleeping. Kidnapping her wasn't difficult. Clad in ARMOR, it was trivial for the man to overpower her before knocking her unconscious. She would be his bargaining chip, but that was just part of the plan.

He pulled out a syringe out of his coat's pocket. The inside was filled with colorless translucent liquid. On his wrist was the familiar white metallic wristband.

His lips curved up into a smile. Come, quickly... he couldn't wait to relish in the upcoming tragedy.

 

[Admiral19]

As the man prepared his elaborate deal, a dull thrum would run through his head.

"Everything going as planned, Sir?" An almost infuriatingly polite voice rang out, as if the dull headache he was being given wasn't enough. "I truly don't mean to rush the "master", but I'm asking for the sake of the Kaiserin...you know what she says about time and money."

Ah, yes, how could any of them forget.

 

[Ranix Aurus]

"Scram!" The man shouted. But then he remembered that he wasn't really talking to the other person. They were communicating through electrical signal fed into the implant that was then connected to the private satellite network... and whatever tech mumbo-jumbo they said to him before. He couldn't be bothered to remember.

"You can fuck off. The Kaiserin told me that money isn't a problem as long as I bring results!"

That would be the case if this man hadn't blown up a small nation's worth of military expenditure in just one operation. Ever since then, his expenses had been tightly monitored. Renting an entire industrial warehouse complex paled in comparison to that disaster of a mission, but some accountability still need to be had.

He directed his gaze at the sleeping Hotaru. A sadistic glint flashed in his eyes.

"Don't you worry your little ass. I'll be sure to retrieve back the thing they stole from us, and get more research data in the process. Two birds with one stone!"

 

[Admiral19]

"Well, your money-to-results ratio has been...skewed as of late. Just be glad it's me telling you this and not her; she wouldn't be nearly as kind about it."

Ah, yes, the infamous "Operation Seafarer". Out of all the individual plans the four of them were tasked to carry out, his had went the worst...Hopefully whatever he has planned now won't go up in flames. Although, given what Aoi has seen of Leo before...

No. No, that was a fluke. Her retreat was a fluke. If it hadn't been for that infuriating boy, then...

"Well, I'll leave you to your "masterpiece", then. Rui still needs some time to recover—bless their heart—so I won't be in your hair for a while, thankfully. Do take care!"

With that, the dull ache in the man's head slowly ebbed away. Thank god.

 

[Ranix Aurus]

It was close to the appointed time. Seiichiro had Mikawa knock on Kanae's door, while he took the job of waking up the dead plank known as Akira Tanaka. How could a boy sleep so deepky? He had to smack him hard with his blocky reassembled phone before Akira stirred awake.

"Do you want to rescue your sister or not?!!?"

"Whoah, I overslept-" Akira groggily got up. His sleep-addled brain had taken another minute before Seiichiro's words clicked. "Oh, right! What time is it? We need to leave!"

Seiichiro rubbed his temple. Why were these kids reliable but also unreliable at the same time?

He took a coin-like object from the table. It was the thing that he had been working for the last few hours. The metallic surface glimmered when it reflected light. "This will be our trump card," he said with a grin. On closer inspection, the object had a Leo sign plastered on it. It was a convincing replica of the Leo medallion.

 

[Admiral19]

Kanae managed to wake up a little faster than Akira, though that wasn't saying much. There was that residual sleepiness that kinda dragged her down, but other than that, she was just about as ready to go as everyone else was.

"C'mon, sleepyhead," she said, "we've got a rescue mission to go on." She took the piece of paper Akira crumpled up hours earlier and looked up the address on her phone. "Now let's see how far we gotta go..."

The fake medallion...that was an absolute stroke of genius! "Hold on, that's brilliant! How did you manage to make this in the space of a few hours, Uncle?"