This was an indiscriminate attack.
“Summon hard carbon. Forcibly inject the target with the all-range anti-lithography code.”
Golden threads left her hand and just barely reached the gun in time. Bullets were launched from the flame-spewing machineguns, but their direction was smoothly changed by the solid threads and they only punched holes in the ground.
The heated wind pushed at them and the ground shook as it was turned to Swiss cheese, so Saya and the others fell onto their butts. But luckily, no one was hit by a bullet.
“Mission failed. Switching to Plan B…positive.”
The helicopter did not give up on its massacre. With the central gun neutralized, it instead ignited a missile on each of the wings.
But by then, Machina’s threads had already reached the helicopter as a whole. She overwrote the machine’s command for an emergency shutdown of the missiles.
At the same time, the helicopter itself was given new orders and it slowly descended where it was.
A military helicopter was one of the greatest weapons of the publicly-known world, but a mere Springloaded was no match for a Witch.
“Fujita-kun, this way.”
And because she won so decisively, she knew this had to be no more than a diversion.
The enemy would be on their way to reach Mutsuki. She had already sent another thread to the seat where Mutsuki sat in a daze and she attached it to him to bring him to safety…
“————!”
But the enemy was faster.
Another girl stood on the heart-shaped table.
She was short, her red hair was cut to shoulder length, and she wore a fox mask.
She held a strange sword in her hand. It looked like human and animal hands, legs, and faces sewn together into a rod shape with a blade crudely attached to one end.
It had already cut away the golden thread meant to secure Mutsuki.
“Hee hee. I’m impressed you took care of my Viper in just 3 seconds. I guess that means I’m still not as good with tools as a Witch.”
The girl giggled while pointing the tip of the blade toward the boy’s paled face.
Machina knew he had been taken hostage, but she did not panic.
It was true she had taken care of the helicopter in 3 seconds, but 5 whole seconds had passed since the attack.
She had bought plenty of time.
“Move away from Fujita.”
With a rude noise, the girl’s horrific sword was deflected. The face visible on it wailed as if in pain.
It had been struck by a short sword beautifully decorated with a platinum color.
It belonged to Ren who immediately pulled Mutsuki to her and sent her sword toward the girl’s mask.
The girl dodged at the last second, but…
“I have to agree with you there: Don’t touch my Mutsuki-kun.”
Her foot hit something as she dodged and the parfait float fell over on the table.
The unfinished juice seemed to have grown dark red and then it shot out in the shape of a blade and coiled around the girl’s neck. The hilt portion grew to form a scythe and Lucia had appeared on the other end to hold it.
Ange had apparently been in the middle of changing. She was still fixing her uniform’s ribbon, but she was already just outside the cafe. That was 10 seconds since the helicopter attack began. The attacker already had Ren and Lucia right next to her with Ange and Machina in place to cut off any route of escape.
“Kh…tch. Looks like your bodyguard layer is perfect, Fujita Mutsuki. And here I thought I could take you pretty easily.” The girl clicked her tongue below the mask.
“I have to say, that was some nice teamwork. Angels and demons working together and getting along with FeTUS? Aren’t you embarrassed as representatives of your respective worlds?”
“I’m not getting along with anyone.”
“This is no more than a job.”
“I’ll use anyone if it’s for Mutsuki-kun.”
The human, angel, and demon were all unfazed by the provocation.
Even if they were enemies, they would not be shaken when it came to protecting Mutsuki.
The teamwork that Fujita Mutsuki had built up between them was not going to be broken, so the girl raised her hands as if to surrender.
But then her body rapidly floated upwards.
She had golden threads wrapped around her hands and the other ends were attached far, far overhead.
There was apparently a second floating object waiting up there. By attaching threads to it, she could escape into the sky.
“I won’t let you escape. …Hey, human, make sure you protect Mutsuki-kun!”
The girl shot up to a height of 500m and Lucia was the first to respond.
Angels and humans required some preparation to fly, but a greater demon who was familiar with all sorts of lifeforms could easily use the same movements as a flying animal.
The back of his band outfit split apart as his shoulder blades swelled out. Then they spread out to the side like a transparent membrane.
They were wings. Insect wings. They moved so quickly they seemed to just be vibrating.
“Hold on! Taxi!”
“Wah! You’re way too heavy, idiot!”
He wobbled when Ange climbed onto his back, but he still managed to ascend.
Left behind, Machina and Ren considered finding another route into the sky, but…
“We can leave the pursuit to them. Miss E, we have another job.”
“Yes.”
Ensuring Mutsuki’s safety came first, so they could let the other two handle the enemy.
30 seconds had passed since the helicopter arrived. The cultural festival was in complete chaos now. People were screaming and something had to be done about it.
“What happened? Miss B, was it an enemy attack?”
“Miss C…you’re late! The people are going to panic, so bring out the illusion tool.”
Subaru arrived quite late. The enemy targeting Mutsuki seemed to have left, so she worked with Ren to settle the situation here.
“Kurikara-san, are you hur-…ah.”
Since he was not hurt, the boy ran over to his friend who had been shot at.
She had avoided being hit by the bullets, but she must have been hit by a few fragments sent flying in the attack. Her white clothing was covered in dust and had a few small red stains.
Saya had tears in her eyes from the pain and the shock of the abnormal situation.
Mutsuki was somewhat used to these things, so he called out to her to calm her down.
“…”
Machina stood behind him while entirely expressionless.
She stared at injured and frightened Saya.
Almost like she was trying to suppress some kind of intense emotion welling up within her.
It was not another helicopter waiting 500m up in the sky.
It was a transport plane. It was a proper aircraft with no propellers. It could not hover in place, so it had a masked pilot keeping it in a slow rotation.
“Tch. Get us out of here! Hurry!”
“Understood!”
The plane flew off as soon as the masked girl arrived and climbed inside.
Lucia and Ange pursued with all the speed they could muster, but while the insect wings allowed them to ascend rapidly, their top speed was limited. The enemy’s transport plane could move at 400km/h and they could not keep up if it used even half of that.
“This isn’t going to work. …Sorry, Satowa.”
“Eh…?”
Ange kicked off of Lucia’s shoulders.
“I really do feel bad about this!”
“Dwah!”
Metatron’s flames burst from her shoulders.
Metatron used physical flames, so she could use it as a rocket engine that launched her small body weight forward at Mach speed.
Although that surrounded her with an explosive blast, so she had been afraid it would half-destroy the school if she used it in the schoolyard. But now that she was this high up, she would only do damage to a single demon boy.
Ange caught up to the transport plane without even glancing back at Lucia who was fried and fell from the sky.
She kicked through the door the masked girl had jumped through and she climbed inside.
“Hi?”
The bizarre sword immediately grazed her throat.