Chapter 4

Currently, Sakura Floating Island was immersed in a commotion that the spring festival could not contain.

On every holographic light panel in the nation, from tech districts to traditional markets, the image repeated itself in a frenetic loop.

The main newscast, broadcast over the network that connected the entire Japanese Empire, presented a detailed report that kept the population in a state of alert and amazement.

"We repeat the news that has paralyzed the capital," the presenter said, her voice reflecting the gravity of the situation. "Just a few hours ago, an entity of unknown nature, combining biological elements with an internal mechanical structure, broke into the central district. The Ministry of Security has contacted other powers and confirmed that there is no record of this technology in the databases of the Solomon Union or in the war archives of the Latin Confederation. It is reported that the Mech will be transferred to the research facility in Neo Tokyo for further analysis."

"However, what seems to interest many people the most is that the aggressor, the six-meter-tall Mech, appeared to have a single objective: the capture of a young woman of unidentified origin."

The screen displayed footage from nearby security cameras. The resolution was clear enough to show a young man with brown hair intercepting a blow that should have leveled a building.

—"What experts are calling a 'martial prodigy' was the intervention of a civilian student. Without the support of tactical units or large-scale enchantments, the young man managed to neutralize the threat using only his inner strength and an Aura control that rivals even the best martial geniuses of United China, clearly in their early teens. Is this the emergence of a new lineage of martial artists in Japan that rivals that of the families of United China? Authorities are on high alert, while citizens debate the identity of the boy who defeated it and the girl that this machine of horror was pursuing."

Online, the rumor was unanimous. It was practically all anyone was talking about. Several influencers were already discussing it, and one in particular stood out with very clear videos of the battle scene obtained using modified civilian drones.

She was a beautiful girl, dressed in a way that would make Emma shout "Magic Girl!" with her pink dress and ruffles.

Of course...if your image of a magical girl is that of a seductive-looking teenager with two great physical assets....

"Hello everyone~! It's me, Mari Magi-chan, your beloved number one idol of the Jade Net!" exclaimed the red-haired girl in pigtails in a charming voice, blowing a kiss to the camera as small animated hearts floated around her.

Behind her, the image of Emma—her fist crackling with static electricity just before impact—filled the entire screen. The viewership counter had already surpassed one and a half million.

"Today we'll be talking about this very attractive young man here, our Golden Aura Warrior!" Mari twirled, her pigtails sparkling with light. "This powerful and extremely handsome warrior is the man who, with his bare fists, defeated a blasphemy against life as if it were the most normal thing in the world!"

The video played at the command of her "magic wand." It showed part of Emma's fight against the Crimson Mech, with several epic and enchanting sound effects to liven up the scene.

—Of course, our hero didn't work alone. Someone like him, gallant and strong, is naturally accompanied by beautiful maidens who help him!

The video showed an adorable cat-like Therian playing with holograms in the air—clearly interacting with a very advanced interface—and saying something to the boy, who nodded earnestly in response. It also featured, of course, a beautiful and sexy priestess with long black hair helping evacuate civilians while protecting them with barriers, whom many recognized as Sakura's famous "Hime-Miko."

Their final act of sealing the enemy's movement with divine chains invoked with Shinto Theurgy caused a wave of comments among Japanese netizens, many of whom expressed their admiration for the girls' beauty and their envy of the martial artist who acted as the group's main fighter.

"Now that's quite a harem for a hero, don't you think?! He literally has our Hime Miko and a beautiful catgirl helping him!" Mari Magi exclaimed energetically, watching the battle with bright, heart-shaped eyes...literally, as she turned to "look" at her spectators. "I feel like joining them~!"

Those words only provoked more comments full of envy and hatred on the jade network, many even praying to the Kami that their idol would not fall into the clutches of the brown-haired one.

Wasn't it bad enough having an adorable kitten, an imperial princess, and a pretty, exotic-looking girl? Why does it seem like their idol wants to throw himself into the arms of a womanizing beast?

That's unacceptable!

—Look at that pose as the electric sparks swirl around him, those arm muscles ♥! It's like he stepped straight out of an ancient animated video ♪! And let's not forget the mysterious "Blue-Haired Damsel" he saved from that Mech....

The scene was shown in almost detail: the boy destroying the interior of the Mech and the beautiful girl in tribal clothing on the ground, looking at him as if he had stolen her soul.

Finally, it was shown how he tried to lift her off the ground, only for her to suddenly pounce on him seductively...provoking what from a distance was clearly seen as a "Shuraba" with the other two.

Comments such as "Are you serious!?" and "Damn, that whole 'making girls fall in love by saving them' thing only works if you're handsome!" or "Didn't I have enough with two beauties!? And now the other two are clearly showing their jealousy!" instantly filled the room with laughter, making Mari Magi very pleased.

—Another one for his harem? You guys must be so jealous! Could this be the start of a romance with a maiden pursued by evil? Or a tragedy? My idol heart can't handle so much mystery!

Mari leaned towards the camera, with an expression of overflowing emotion.

—But the most shocking thing is what my sources say: This kid isn't a soldier, he's a student! And rumors travel faster than a plasma jet... They say he's one of the students who will be on the Transport Ship to Atlantis! Can you imagine having a warrior like that as a classmate? I can, because I'll be a student at Atlantis... Kyaaa!

The idol squealed happily, then—ignoring the comments that seemed to suggest many netizens were crying at those words—continued with a wink, her pupils sparkling. "Stay tuned, my sweet followers! I'll be following the trail of this 'Sakura Warrior' very closely. Will we manage to uncover his identity before the ship takes off? Magi-Magi-Love to all!"

Its broadcast went even more viral...

In a country where strength used to be mediated by artifacts and spiritual arts, seeing someone defeat a bio-mechanical chimera with their bare fists was a reminder that, even a thousand years after the fall of the old civilization, human potential remained an unfathomable mystery.

It didn't help that the guy was surrounded by beautiful women and that a famous internet idol showed interest....

Meanwhile, in a nearly forgotten and dirty corner of Neo Tokyo where the dregs of society used to gather, some men stared at the holographic screens of their Holoarcanes, curiosity and greed blossoming on their faces.

"Not even the eight powers have official records of that thing? I don't know if it's true or not, but if it's an illegal government project, its parts would surely be worth a fortune, right?" one of them commented, to which four others smiled unpleasantly in agreement.

—Hey! I just confirmed that parts of the Mech are already being sold...the figures are astronomical!

-What?

Upon hearing their colleague's words, the others quickly gathered around him. Looking at the figures, they breathed heavily.

—A single finger cost a million sakuras...!

—Place!

—We definitely have to steal some of that!

—With Chief AV on our side, it shouldn't be too difficult to steal from the government, right?

—Of course! The moment those fools try to move the Mech to those facilities, it'll be toast!

They all nodded in agreement, completely confident as they plotted to rob the government itself.

What they were saying in that dark and abandoned place in the district sounded like the highest level of madness... but if the legends of the man they simply called AV were true, then they had grounds for their trust.

After all, AV—Vector Alpha—was the most dangerous psychic and criminal in the entire Japanese Empire.

♦♦♦♦

There was a place called "Cyber-Nick," a hole in the lowest level of Neo Tokyo where sunlight never reached and the air always smelled of burnt cigarettes, stale sweat, and the sweet chemical aroma of illegal synthetic drugs.

It was a den of contradictions.

The floor was sticky from decades of spilled energy drinks and the bare concrete walls sweated moisture, but the combat stations lined up on the metal tables were processing beasts that would make a Solomon Union engineer drool.

Curved 240Hz monitors illuminated the pale faces of virtual reality addicts and neural stimulants.

In the back booth, the darkest one and the one with the best equipment, was Vector Alpha. Or simply "AV" for the few unfortunate souls who dared to speak to him directly.

AV was sprawled in a gaming chair whose synthetic leather was peeling. His feet were propped up on the desk, right next to a mechanical keyboard that cost more than a small car.

In one hand, he held a plastic container of "Mega-Spicy" instant yakisoba that he'd heated with a small pyrokinetic pulse because he was too lazy to go to the microwave. With the other, he moved a wireless mouse with a speed that defied human vision.

—This group is messed up... The tank doesn't know how to hold, the healer must be staring at butterflies... —AV muttered with his mouth full of noodles.

His dirty gray hair fell over his face in greasy clumps, partially obscuring bloodshot eyes that looked as if they hadn't blinked in hours.

She had deep dark circles under her eyes that marked her pale, angular face, a face that, ironically, many girls in the slums found morbidly "sexy" because of that mixture of danger and broken vulnerability.

She was wearing a black hoodie two sizes too big, stained with soy sauce and ash of dubious origin.

On the table, next to the keyboard, were several small metal inhalers containing bioluminescent liquids. "Fairy Mist" and "Spectre Dust." Psychoactive drugs designed to dull the senses... or in AV's case, to silence the "voices."

The buzzing in his head never stopped.

They weren't human voices, they were echoes. Cries of ghosts trapped in the ether, whispers of lesser demons trying to slip through the cracks in his mind.

His "gift" was not a blessing; it was an open door to hell that someone had forgotten to lock.

Drugs were the only thing that turned that constant roar into tolerable white noise so he could concentrate on the only thing that mattered to him at this moment: ranking up in his favorite MMO.

—¡Boss AV!

The voice interrupted his killing spree. AV didn't turn around. His fingers continued flying across the keys, casting spells on the screen.

Four men approached his booth. They were the usual scum: thugs with cheap cybernetic implants and faux leather jackets who reeked of desperation and greed.

"Boss, we've got something big. Seriously." The one speaking was Koji, a guy with a secondhand cybernetic eye that was always buzzing. "You're not going to believe us."

"If you make me lose this qualifying match because you found a wallet with a hundred sakuras, I'm going to liquefy your frontal lobes," AV said in a monotonous voice, hoarse from disuse and smoke, while noisily slurping a long noodle.

The men swallowed hard. They knew it wasn't a metaphor.

"No, no! It's about the festival incident!" Koji hurriedly pulled out his Holoarcane, projecting a series of numbers and a blurry image of the biomechanical Mech. "That thing that attacked Kaminagi... The government is transferring it! And parts on the black market are fetching seven-figure prices per gram!"

AV finally stopped clicking. His character on the screen died, but he no longer cared. He slowly turned his head. His red eyes, which seemed to contain a static storm within, fixed on Koji.

The thug felt an immediate pressure on his skull, as if an invisible hand were squeezing his brain.

"Seven figures?" AV repeated, leaving the half-eaten yakisoba container on the table.

"Y-yes!" Koji stammered, feeling his nose start to bleed. "A contact in logistics says they're moving you to the most advanced research facility in Neo-Tokyo tonight. Security will be tight, but... but with you, Chief AV, it's free money!"

AV looked at the holographic figures. Money meant nothing to him. Money couldn't silence the ghosts whispering nonsense to him. But the target description... "Biomechanical." "No record."

His psychic mind extended a little into the astral plane, extracting some of the information he needed from the vague image he was given. He could feel the lingering echo of that thing, and he knew it wasn't an ordinary machine.

It had a disgusting presence. Viscous. Like the clotted blood of something that shouldn't be alive, but was forcibly animated through the sacrifice of blood and lives; the act of a Warlock who doesn't value life.

He could even hear the voices of the dead, filled with surprise and betrayal at a man who should be serving the divine... although he didn't fully understand it.

An arrogant smile slowly spread across his tired face, his eyes gleaming with coldness and contempt, as he thought of past memories that ignited his fury.

'...who would dare do something like that? To the point that I find out...I'd like to greet him... A little fire that destroys minds'

"That thing..." AV picked up one of the inhalers from the table, took a deep drag, and exhaled a bright blue vapor. His eyes shone with renewed intensity. "Sounds like an interesting entity I'd like to investigate further."

He leaned back in the chair, interlacing his fingers behind his head. The pressure on Koji's skull vanished suddenly, leaving him gasping.

"Fine. I'm bored of farming in this dungeon anyway," AV said, glancing back at the "GAME OVER" screen indifferently. "Avriola!"

Shouting that name, the void near AV distorted in less than two seconds to manifest something quite unheard of in an environment like this: A Maiden with strange iron gauntlets and horns on her forehead who bowed before the man.

To be more clear, she was a Maid; one of those girls who dressed up in cute and attractive maid outfits, with a skirt short enough to show off her tail in motion.

She had short, neck-length hair, droopy eyes that seemed to glow faintly from their poisonous green pupils, and a pretty but emotionless voice. "Yes, AV-sama?"

AV looked at her and casually ordered, "Prepare the equipment for this mission. You're going to watch the government convoy until they get it out of Kaminagi and into my district, while you—" she gestured to the delinquents who were looking at the girl named Avriola with a mixture of lust and fear—"make sure you're in position to detect any troublesome interference, or even disrupt it if necessary... I want to see where that biomechanical piece of junk will take me once I have it in my hands, and I don't want to waste any time, understood?"

-And!

The four subordinates cheered with a mixture of relief and pure greed, not understanding that for the monster sitting in front of them, this was not a robbery for money.

It was just another side mission to kill time while the abyss in his head continued to scream.

♦♦♦♦

In the Futsu family's living room, the atmosphere was that of any ordinary afternoon. Goro was sitting in front of the television, but he wasn't watching local news.

I was tuning into an international military analysis channel that was reporting on the border movements of the Latin Confederation and its recent experiments with bio-enhancements for its Therian explorers.

"Nonsense..." Goro grumbled, scratching his beard. "Trusting strength in a serum instead of the strength of the bones. Those Latin Therians are going to turn to jelly before they're fifty."

Aoi was a few meters away, leisurely arranging some ancient scrolls, not paying much attention to the screen, until the television audio suddenly cut out.

A national emergency beep echoed through the room, followed by the national emblem of the Empire of Japan: A cherry blossom leaf floating above the vast ocean.

"—We interrupt our regular programming to report a Grade B incident at the Heisei-no-Haru-Matsuri in Kaminagi Ward..."

Goro frowned, his tone of voice turning dangerous.

—The festival? Those kids were around there, weren't they? And someone actually dared to venture into Futsu territory...how audacious.

The screen displayed shaky security camera footage. It wasn't a recreation; it was raw reality: a six-meter-tall Mech, a red, metallic mass, roaring through the festival.

But what made Goro lean forward, almost breaking the edge of the table, was not the machine.

It was to see Emma.

On screen, the boy intercepted a blow that should have turned him into mush. The sound of the impact, even through the poor-quality speakers, was a dry thunderclap.

"What the hell is that idiot doing?!" Goro exclaimed, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. "I told him to go have some fun, not try to demolish our entire district with his fists!"

Aoi dropped the scroll she was holding. She approached the television, watching with a mixture of shock and intense curiosity.

"Goro-chan... look at her stance," Aoi murmured, pointing at the screen as Emma launched the upward kick. "She's exposed herself. Her center of gravity was shifted two percent to the right. If that thing had a quick counter-attack system, Emma would have lost a piece of her boot."

"Two percent!" roared Goro, though his voice held a hint of relief hidden beneath his fury. "Two percent inefficiency because he can't land his heel properly! He lacks precision! He's fighting like he's in a neighborhood gym!"

"—Authorities at the Crystal Sanctuary confirm that the Holy Miko Keiko is safe after assisting in the evacuation and subduing. However, they haven't released much information about the Mech's target, a clearly foreign girl in unusual attire...."

They fell silent when the camera captured the girl with blue hair and cyan tattoos.

They saw how he lunged at Emma and how Hanako and Keiko reacted with an aggression that the news report tried to portray as "heroic cooperation," although for the nanny and grandfather it was clearly something else.

"And who's that?" Goro asked, scratching his head, genuinely confused. "She doesn't look like a citizen of Japan. Or Westphalia. Or anywhere I know... Huh? She seems familiar... Hatsuno... I don't know... Isn't she like one of your favorite figures? Did Emma pull her out of one of her boxes of magical antiques?"

"I don't know..." Aoi narrowed her eyes, analyzing the young woman's appearance. "I've never seen anyone with those marks on their body. But look at our boy, Goro-chan. He's as red as a tomato. He defeats a war machine without breaking a sweat, but a girl hugs him and he looks like he's about to short-circuit... or scream 'Kyaaa~' with excitement."

At Aoi's teasing of his grandson, Goro snorted, crossing his arms and sitting back down, though his leg was rhythmically tapping the ground from the residual adrenaline.

"That kid... goes out to buy caramel apples and ends up teaming up to fight a metal chimera," Goro shook his head. "He's a magnet for trouble. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole town comes to bother him when they find out who it is, asking him how he's so strong or something..."

Aoi just let out a small laugh, regaining her composure and returning to her tea

.

"Well, at least we know her reflexes haven't rusted from watching so many DVDs," she said sarcastically. "But that girl... she's a variable no one had planned for. Do you think the Council will let her leave the island with them?"

"Um...at this point, I doubt anyone can separate that girl from Emma without losing an arm," Goro declared, recalling how aggressive Maru had been in the video. "Because if there's one thing I can say...that girl is stronger than she looks."

♦♦♦♦

Far from public scrutiny, in the depths of a warehouse that Emma used as a refuge for the 21st-century relics she obtained from clandestine sales by scrap dealers, time seemed to have stopped in an electric tension.

Emma was sitting on a reinforced wooden box, surrounded by objects that to the rest of the world were worthless junk, but to him were the fragments of a past life that only those brave (or crazy) junk dealers would bring from the Mirror World.

In front of him, the girl with deep blue hair and tattoos that glowed like neon cyan stared at him with absolute focus.

Keiko and Hanako were just a few meters apart. Hanako, with her cat ears perked up and her tail rhythmically tapping the ground, didn't take her hand off her personal terminal.

Keiko, enveloped in a calm that was more terrifying than any scream, kept her hands hidden in her sleeves, but her presence filled the place with a purifying coldness.

—Emma-kun —Keiko began, her voice soft but sharp as a blade of glass—, could you...explain why this woman is looking at you as if you were going to become her wife?

"I already told you!" Emma exclaimed, raising her hands in a gesture of innocence. "She just appeared out of nowhere, being chased by that monster. I don't know who she is or why she's looking at me like that."

The unknown girl, completely ignoring the hostility of the other two, took a step forward.

For her, the concepts of "language" or "modesty" were irrelevant in the face of the evidence of the senses.

In her land, a warrior's strength was the measure of his soul, and this man was not only strong; he possessed combat skills she had never seen before.

He knelt slowly in front of Emma, ​​right between her legs, ignoring the young man's start. His tattoos began to throb with a pinkish hue, and his fair skin emanated an intoxicating scent of wildflowers.

"Emma, ​​move her away!" Hanako hissed, her pupils narrowing. "Her body temperature is rising! My sensors are detecting a spike in pheromones that shouldn't be possible in a stressful situation!"

Emma gave him an expressionless look: Just say she's excited...

Hanako stared back, eyes wide: As if!!

The way they communicated with their eyes in this situation was astonishing. Perhaps the most unexpected thing, though, was how Emma noticed that "Miku-chan" had sexual desires for him... or rather, with what she was doing, it was hard not to notice.

At that moment, just before anyone could intervene, the girl leaned towards Emma's neck.

She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply her scent, and then, with a slowness that made time stand still for everyone present, she ran her tongue over the skin of her neck.

It was a sensual, deliberate gesture, charged with animal devotion, a lick that traveled from her collarbone to the base of her ear.

Emma froze, feeling the wet heat of the girl's tongue and the vibrant purr emanating from her throat, resonating directly into his own bones.

"YOU!!" Hanako shouted, leaping forward with her claws extended. "That's territorial marking! He's licking my... this idiot like he owns him!"

"That's enough," Keiko declared, and a shockwave of clear, pure light filled the warehouse, gently but firmly forcing the girl to separate from Emma. "Whatever your custom may be, we will not tolerate such disrespect here. Emma-kun, I think we have much to discuss before the authorities come for us."

The unknown girl licked her lips, looking at Keiko and Hanako with a warrior's smug expression, as if she had just won a sacred right. She pointed to herself and then to Emma, ​​uttering a few words and what sounded like a name with a melodic intonation:

—"Maru-than....Mashi...Emma"

—It seems...that Maru-san has learned my name—Emma whispered, covering her neck with one hand as she tried to stop her heart from hammering against her ribs.

Hanako and Keiko just stared at him in silence.

♦♦♦♦

In the dimness of the warehouse, Hanako no longer wasted time with nonsense.

The Therian cat's fingers moved across the screens displayed by its neural interface with the precision of a surgeon, interacting with the invisible while its expression betrayed a persistent annoyance.

Maru sat opposite her, watching Hanako's hand movements with a vague curiosity that could be seen, even with her clear dissatisfaction.

To her, it seemed like Hanako was just being silly or performing some kind of ritual.

“It’s not a dialect from recorded human history, nor is it listed in the Jade Grid index,” Hanako stated. Her voice was dry and focused. “However, the phonetic structure of your language uses a combination of glottal stops and nasal resonance that requires a very specific sinus configuration. It’s a linguistic system as real as any other.”

Emma crossed her arms, watching the girl in blue.

—Can you identify any patterns?

“I recorded four hundred seconds of their interaction,” Hanako replied, looking at sound wave graphs that only she could see. “Their language is agglutinative. It combines short concepts to form complex ideas, similar to Turkish or Old Finnish, but with a syntax that prioritizes the state of the environment over the subject’s actions. To understand it better… she might refer to you indirectly, saying things like, ‘In the strange land, the man Emma fought,’ or something like that.”

Maru uttered a short phrase, pointing to Emma's chest: "Vahr-sha nura mashi."

“There you have it,” Hanako pointed to a spike on the spectrograph. “'Vahr-sha' appears to be a particle of respect linked to physical strength. 'Nura' is a spatial location. It's not an inhuman language; it's the language of a civilization that lives in spaces where acoustics and position are everything. Their vocal cords are denser than ours, allowing them to produce harmonics that we simply cannot replicate. It's not that they aren't 'human,' it's that their linguistic evolution has followed a different path of optimization.”

Hanako closed the terminal.

"If we want to communicate with her effectively, we'll need a translation algorithm that learns her cultural context, not just her words. For now, all I know is that she recognizes you as the central pillar of her security. Which, frankly, is a management problem for us."

—Yes, I only understood that she has an unknown language from an unknown civilization that presumably exists in some unknown land

Emma nodded with complete seriousness, making Hanako roll her eyes.

—But she comes from a place no one knows anything about…—Keiko began, narrowing her eyes slightly as she crossed her arms under her breasts, emphasizing them "involuntarily"—How did she suddenly appear on Sakura Island?

Emma tactfully averted her gaze from that sight as she spoke. "She wondered... she's a mystery on the same level as that Mech. I can't quite imagine how that thing appeared without triggering a security alert across the entire island." "Woah!"

Maru, although she didn't understand anything she was saying, narrowed her eyes at Keiko, stood up nimbly, and suddenly hugged Emma, ​​causing the latter to have an eye twitch.

"What the hell!?" Hanako couldn't help but extend her claws.