The blue sky was as eerily featureless as ever.

Dodging the rubble of collapsed houses and apartment buildings, Hazuki and I ran together.

Victoria was paired with Hibari as usual, while Raika was probably with Mana. It was an unusual combination, but when it came to Raika's judgment, I had no objections.

I never let my guard down. This was already the enemy's territory, after all. I could hear the sounds of other Matoi-hime fighting a little farther ahead. Joint operations with Matoi-hime from other squads were rare. That alone showed just how serious this abnormality in the sky was.

Hazuki slowed her pace slightly to match mine.

"...Hazuki, I'm sorry. You asked me to figure it out, but in the end, I still couldn't understand what Raika was thinking."

Now that we were alone, I spoke to Hazuki. Without slowing her steps, she glanced back at me and gently shook her head.

"Take your time. I never expected you to get an answer so quickly."

"...Yeah."

There was no impatience in her voice.

"How many times more than you do you think I've had to deal with that liar? I understand her that much. So don't make that face."

Ah, Hazuki was as awkwardly kind as ever. I could understand why Raika worried about her, too.

We continued forward in silence for a while.

The high-rise building we were using as a landmark was just ahead. I wondered what kind of form the enemy Raika had described as troublesome actually had.

Were we about to make contact?

Just as I thought that, a sudden chill ran down my spine. It was as if an icicle had suddenly been shoved down my back, sending a shiver through my entire body.

It was a premonition.

Somewhere, something was targeting us.

"──Shota!"

Almost at the same time as I heard Hazuki's warning, I raised the sword I carried for self-defense.

I looked around, but I couldn't see the enemy anywhere.

"No, up there!"

I looked toward the sky.

The eerily featureless blue sky—and just in front of it...

There was a woman who looked as though she had stepped straight out of a painting.

"Is that... an angel?"

A winged woman stood silently in the sky. Her features were unnaturally beautiful, as though they had been manufactured. Her perfectly proportioned body, reminiscent of a sculpture, was wrapped in loose white clothing.

She held a sword in her right hand and a trumpet in her left. It seemed like an odd combination, yet somehow it looked perfectly natural in her hands.

She was so regal that I found myself captivated by her presence. Then she smiled and spread her wings.

The next instant, just as I thought her figure had vanished, Hazuki intercepted something flying toward us with her sword.

"Tch..."

"..."

The angel had moved as though she had teleported. I couldn't see her movement at all.

While locking blades with the angel, Hazuki shouted.

"Shota! We don't have time to hold back! Use my power!"

"Got it!"

I concentrated and enveloped myself in Hazuki's power. Bluffer Wearing didn't merely allow me to wield a Fantasy Armament; it also enhanced my physical abilities.

Hazuki's fantasy gradually settled into my body. Bluffer Wearing allowed me to faintly understand the feelings of the person wielding their Fantasy Armament.

Her dream was fierce, yet honed toward a single purpose. I borrowed her nobility—the pride of a samurai's ideals that she wore even as she genuinely loathed the way her family clung to the values of the warrior class.

"──Shota, to your right!"

The angel spread her wings again and flew toward me. She charged from midair along a trajectory impossible for a human being to follow.

But this time, I could track her with my eyes.

"Fh!"

I deflected the thrust aimed at my torso with my sword.

The angel's stance was thrown completely off balance.

Quite literally, she had no footing to rely on. The force behind her attack was tremendous, but her skill with the sword wasn't all that impressive.

If this was all she had, Hazuki's wooden sword was far more frightening.

"Fantasy Style──Waterfall."

I swung up the Japanese sword I had manifested and brought it down in a swift slash.

The strike from above cut deeply into the angel's body.

With Bluffer Wearing, my swordsmanship had temporarily reached a level comparable to Hazuki's.

The angel collapsed, blood spilling from around her chest.

I was far more accustomed to using Bluffer Wearing than before.

It was probably because I had seen Hazuki's past.

Now I properly understood what she felt when she used this Fantasy Armament.

She admired the pride and ideals of the warrior class while simultaneously despising them. Her bravado, her way of being a member of the warrior caste—she had always been caught between admiration and hatred for it.

"...I'll finish this."

I drove my sword into the fallen angel's body, putting an end to her life.

The tip of the blade had certainly taken her life.

But just before that happened, an overwhelming assault of sound struck me.

"Tch... What the...?"

The dying angel, lying on the ground, summoned the last of her strength and blew into her trumpet.

A grating sound reverberated throughout the surroundings.

An angel's trumpet was, in other words, a harbinger of the end of the world.

This was merely an imitation of a biblical passage, and it possessed no power capable of bringing about calamity.

Even so, it could summon others of its kind.

Black specks appeared in the vivid blue sky, like drops of rain.

They grew larger and larger, until their true forms were finally revealed.

"Shota! Those are angels just like this one! There are nearly thirty of them!"

"...What?"

At Hazuki's unbelievable words, I narrowed my eyes and stared.

The black specks floating in the sky continued to grow larger, until even I could make them out.

She was right.

White wings sprouted from their backs. Their bodies were beautiful, like figures from a painting. They were lined up in the air as though forming some kind of formation.

Cold sweat ran down my back.

Even though we'd managed to take down the previous angel in a single blow, its mobility was a serious threat. I didn't know whether we'd be able to handle them if we were surrounded.

Even so, I forced the corners of my mouth upward.

Like a certain liar, I put on a brave face, even if it was only on the outside.

"That's thirty of them, huh? I really don't want to think about this, but... do you think we can manage with your power, Hazuki?"

"We have no choice but to do it."

Hazuki quietly raised her sword, but her expression was tense.

Then a figure came running toward us.

"Shota, Hazuki. I finally caught up."

It was Mana, coming to reinforce us.

She ran toward us still wearing her school uniform, and unusually, there was a sense of urgency in her movements.

"Mana. Having you here is a huge help. In that case, we'll have you provide support right away..."

"No. The two of you need to go to Raika. Quickly."

"Mana!? That's way too reckless..."

"It's fine. I'll handle this."

Mana's normally expressionless face showed the faintest hint of emotion.

It was anxiety.

"Raika is probably in danger right now. The 'Invasion of Fiction' she's dealing with is stronger than anything we've encountered before. I estimate that the two of you are required."

"Raika...?"

Suddenly, I remembered the last time I'd spoken with her.

The way she'd asked us to fight a battle that could cost us our lives.

The sincere expression on her face, as though she hadn't been lying at all.

"...Could this be Raika's lie?"

By drawing us away from the powerful enemy and keeping it occupied by herself, she could ensure that, even if they ended up killing each other, she would be the only one sacrificed.

"That damn idiot... What the hell is she thinking?"

"I presume Raika is not behaving like her usual calm self. Otherwise, she would never choose to distance us from her and fight a powerful enemy alone."

I felt angry at her for trying to throw her life away on her own. And, ultimately, I was furious with myself for failing to see through her lie.

"That's why you need to go. I'll deal with the flying enemies."

"B-but leaving Mana alone..."

"──Shota."

Hazuki looked me in the eyes.

"Trust Mana at full strength. When it comes to destructive power, there is no one who surpasses her."

"...What?"

Come to think of it, I had never heard the details about Mana's power.

Her explanations were difficult to understand, so even if I asked, I probably wouldn't be able to make sense of them.

All I knew was that she equipped herself with a gigantic mechanical arm whenever she used something called "Limited Deployment."

That was all I knew.

Which was why I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw her go all out.

"──Full Armament Deployment."

Mana's weapon was a gigantic mechanical arm. Firearms mounted onto the rugged mechanical limb fired bullets and explosives.

But this time, that wasn't all.

Bulky mechanical components began covering her entire body. Thick armor encased her torso, while her legs grew thicker to support its weight. The weapons mounted on her arms became even more imposing than they had been during Limited Deployment.

Despite its stocky build, there was a sense of functional beauty to it. A powered suit with everything unnecessary stripped away, leaving only what was needed.

It was an armament perfectly suited to a girl who thought about everything in terms of pure rationality.

"Fantasy Release. Activate 'Maxwell's Demon.' Initiating extermination sequence."

Completely encased in armor, she immediately transitioned into an attack.

She thrust her right arm forward and locked it into a gun mount that extended from beneath her arm.

"Prerequisite conditions entered. Commencing fire."

An explosive roar, like a drill tearing into asphalt, reverberated through the area.

The enormous machine gun mounted on her arm roared to life, spewing fire. Bullets with a caliber of over 20 millimeters were fired at tremendous speed.

A weapon of this size would normally be mounted on something like a fighter jet or warship. Its recoil was far beyond what a human body could withstand.

Yet Mana managed to handle it by locking her center of gravity in place with the gun mount on her arm and anchors fired into the ground from her legs.

The angels floating in the air were struck by the bullets and fell one after another. Faced with a machine gun capable of spitting out more than five hundred rounds per minute, the angels were shot down before they could even approach.

Mana, meanwhile, didn't change in the slightest.

She operated the machine gun with mechanical precision.

Under normal circumstances, every bullet fired would consume energy.

If any other Matoi-hime attempted such a ridiculous barrage, she would run out of power in an instant.

But Mana's Fantasy Release allowed her to temporarily obtain an infinite supply of energy.

Her machine, "Maxwell's Demon," was based on the fictional demon once proposed in the field of thermodynamics.

Its existence would amount to a denial of the "Second Law of Thermodynamics."

In other words, if such a being could actually exist, then humanity's dream of perpetual motion would also be possible.

That was the dream Mana had made use of—the dream of those scholars.

Since the hypothesis had never been proven and no perpetual motion machine had ever been created, it was nothing more than a dream born of fantasy.

It was fiction. A lie that had been proven to be impossible.

A perpetual motion machine capable of fundamentally solving humanity's energy problem did not exist.

And yet, in this space where fiction and reality were intertwined, the demon born from that dream existed.

A fictional demon stood against the angels of a fictional world.

It was a scene that looked as though we had wandered straight into the world of mythology.

"Shota, let's go."

Hazuki didn't look surprised in the slightest. She must have already known how powerful Mana was.

I, too, realized that Mana would probably return safely, and nodded at her words.

"But where is Raika?"

"Without a doubt, it's over there."

She pointed toward a mass of thick, dark clouds.

In the blue sky, where not a single cloud could be seen anywhere else, they were unmistakably out of place. Lightning fell from the black clouds, striking straight downward as though guided by some kind of will.

"Let's hurry. Then I'm going to punch Raika."

"Go easy on her, okay?"

I gave a wry smile at the fury in her voice, then immediately broke into a run.

Mana Kazunomiya

Profile 2

What she wears is rationality—a 100% logical version of herself. Yet for someone who strives to become a perfectly rational being but can never completely cast aside her irrational emotions, it is nothing more than "bravado."

Through rational consideration, she reached the conclusion that she should equip herself with a powered suit. In other words, firepower is justice.

Most of the time, she fights wearing only mechanical arms attached as extensions of her own arms. (Limited Armament Deployment)

A close-combat blade is mounted on her left arm, while a machine gun is mounted on her right. Because firing subjects her to recoil that a human body cannot withstand, she deploys a gun mount from beneath her arm and anchors it to the ground.

As a result, she is unable to move when unleashing her maximum firepower.

The Fox Squad's ultimate firepower.