Chapter 25: Deadline

-Clatter, Sssss-

As the Evolys was aimed, smoke spread with a clattering sound.

There were no gestures such as the woman wearing a hat rolling a smoke grenade, so I have to assume that there are collaborators around.

My side is in a state where movement is sealed because I’m storing a large amount of ammunition in the weapon case in addition to the Evolys being belt-fed, and I’ve connected it with a belt.

Even if I put up my wings as a shield, as long as I’m standing still, the opponent knows my location and shoots at me, but I’m just shooting wildly because of the smoke.

If this continues, I’ll be the one to fall someday.

I need to change the situation.

I release the guard of my wings, spread them wide, and flap them.

It’s impossible to fly because the balance is not right and there are many considerations, but the purpose is wind anyway.

I create wind to disperse the smoke.

“Hmm… I thought it wouldn’t be just one person…”

Two figures jumped out from the receding smoke.

The woman wearing a hat kicks off the wall and rushes in the air.

A small masked child lowers her posture and rushes with a submachine gun in her right hand and a small dagger in her left hand.

First, it would be better to deal with the one in the air.

I hold the Evolys with one arm, keep the trigger pulled, and swing it upwards.

I swing it along the movement path of the hat guy, as if the barrage is a single sword.

“You have good skills…!”

The guy rotates greatly in the air to correct the trajectory, goes behind me, and lowers his posture.

Of course, I also swing the Evolys with one hand to pursue.

It would be impossible for a normal machine gun user to do this, but I adjust the recoil with my strength and swing it.

Because the direction I was looking at changed greatly while pursuing the hat guy, the masked child rushes from behind, holding up the dagger.

I roughly know how she’ll rush, so I operate my wings in a different way than before.

I don’t look back and swing it like a club.

-Thud, clatter-

A dull impact sound and the sound of something rolling on the ground were heard.

A smoke grenade, the smoke grenade that obscured my vision at first, flies towards the hat girl and hides her from my sight.

They work well together and are good at fighting people.

It doesn’t seem like they’ve done this once or twice…

-Tap, tap, tap-

How long has it been since she was hit by the wing, the masked girl was rushing at me again from behind.

There is still plenty of ammunition left in the Evolys, so I just scrape it with the barrage again and swing the Evolys.

“What?!”

I don’t know if a new technology was developed without my knowledge, but the bullet that was flying straight suddenly changes its trajectory in front of her mask.

I can’t waste time with surprise.

I take my hand off the trigger, hold the Evolys with both hands, raise it high, and then slam it down hard.

The masked girl lowers her posture, avoids it with a slide, and scrapes something with her dagger as she passes.

The Evolys’s belt connected to the weapon case, the belt was cut.

“Haaat!”

At the timing, the hat girl rushed from behind.

Although the belt was cut, it wasn’t completely cut close to the Evolys, so I pulled the trigger of the Evolys, which had about a dozen rounds left, and swung it while rotating greatly.

I create wind by swinging my wings according to the rotation to clear the smoke and use a small amount of available barrage to check.

I follow up with a kick to push the hat girl away.

In the meantime, she raised her gun to reduce the impact of the kick on her body.

” …”

“Yeah… It’s good that I listened to the advice…”

The masked girl communicates with the hat girl with sign language.

I don’t know if she can’t speak or if she’s trying not to give information to this side, but… One thing is certain.

Those women…

“How many people have you buried?”

They are used to burying people.

There is no hesitation in fighting, like the Justice Task Force members, but they are used to working together.

They are used to facing a small number of enemies, and they try to cut off the means I have one by one and choke me.

Even when they first tried to rush at me in close combat, they rushed with a difference in the interval and axis between them, so that at least one of them was safe from the Evolys’s fire net.

As soon as they judged that they couldn’t stop the Evolys’s fire, they completely changed their approach direction to gain an advantage.

“You don’t need to know.”

The hat girl naturally speaks, pointing the SIG Sauer, and the masked girl points the CZ Scorpion.

Anyway, I throw away the Evolys, which has no ammunition left, and take out the Type 99 and rush.

I use my wings as a shield and rush with the bayoneted Type 99 held like a spear.

Almost all of the barrage was blocked by the wings, but several rounds of SIG Sauer bullets flew through the gaps that the wings couldn’t cover.

I was a little flustered by the ridiculous shooting accuracy, but I don’t stop.

When the distance gets close enough, the masked girl stands in front of me, holding a dagger.

I could easily tell that the hat girl was separating the magazine from the firearm from behind, so she was buying time to reload.

If not now, I have to continue to fight in a 2-on-1 situation.

I’ll make a gamble now.

I swing the bayoneted Type 99 quickly and strongly towards the upper body.

The masked girl avoids this by greatly lowering her posture, but…

-Crack!-

“Ugh..”

I knee her in the face, mask and all.

I don’t know how sturdy it is, but the mask was fine, but I’m also quite confident in my strength, so the masked girl’s body floats in the air.

That masked girl, for some reason, the bullets aimed at her change their trajectory in the middle.

If I keep leaving her, she’ll grow up, so… I grab her by the scruff of the neck in mid-air and slam her to the ground.

-Crash!-

With a roar, a crater is created on the floor with enough power.

But she won’t fall with this much.

To prevent her from interfering in the future, I probably tear off the pouch that would store smoke grenades.

After that, I take a preparatory stance to strike down with the Type 99 as if to confirm the kill.

The hat girl chokes me from behind as I raise my right arm high in the preparatory stance for the downward strike.

“Fall…!”

“Ugh…”

My consciousness fades, and that’s the end.

The judgment must be quick.

It’s impossible to shake it off by swinging my wings.

I take out the Daedalus from my pocket with my empty left hand and shoot the side of the hat girl who is choking me.

It’s obvious that one shot won’t be enough, so I put in all five shots.

Certainly, when I put in all 5 large-caliber bullets, I feel her strength loosening a little, so I throw her.

It wasn’t intentional, but she was thrown to the masked girl who was adjusting her posture and getting up, so the opponent’s posture collapsed on both sides.

“Haa…haa…”

I gasp for breath and mount the Type 99 on my back, reloading the Daedalus.

After quickly reloading with the Rapid Speed Loader, the hat girl slowly got up.

The masked girl… She’s unconscious, and her halo is off.

From the time she tried to get up, there was a little noise in her halo.

She was probably close to her limit when she was slammed to the ground…

One-on-one… The opponent was hit by 5 large-caliber bullets in the left side.

Her outfit was one that exposed her abdomen, so the bruises were clear.

My side is…

“It’s not easy…ha…ah…”

My left wing was tattered, and I was hit by bullets that came through the gaps in the wing.

In addition, I haven’t fully recovered from the hypoxia caused by the chokehold that came in cleanly, so my vision is a little blurry.

The opponent is not in perfect condition, but… My side is in worse condition.

It’s getting dangerous to keep using my left wing as a shield.

I usually hold firearms with my right hand, so the wing I mainly use as a shield is my left wing.

If I use my right wing as a shield, I have to shoot with my unfamiliar left hand, so the accuracy drops significantly.

In other words, I lost my shield, and now I’m behind in firepower, so the only option left for me is close combat.

Anyway, my specialty is close combat.

I lower my posture and prepare to rush.

The hat girl corrects her shooting posture.

“Vanitas Vanitatum!”

The hat girl’s halo flickers.

Yeah, that girl was also that side… I raise my still-healthy right wing.

One big shot will definitely come.

She holds the SIG Sauer with one hand…and shoots.

A blue flash rushes in and hits the wing.

There aren’t many humans who can fire that kind of thing in rapid succession, so at the moment I endured the first shot and was about to kick off the ground, the pistol that she hadn’t used even once from the beginning was in her hand.

Blue flashes flood and hit the wing.

When it reached the fourth shot, including the first shot, the wing couldn’t withstand the impact and was pushed aside.

“Ugh…!”

“What will you do next?!”

My posture collapses and the guard is removed.

In that gap, she grabs my neck and throws me down, putting her weight on it.

“Ugh…”

She really likes necks… Before I reach my limit, I grab the wrist that grabbed my neck in reverse.

With the maximum grip strength I can produce…

-Crack-

“Ugh…”

I was thinking of breaking it, but I couldn’t break it because my strength didn’t go in properly because of the grabbed neck.

But it was enough to loosen the strength, so I kick her in the stomach and blow her away.

“Cough… You really like necks….”

“…. “

If we fight in this state, I’ll probably be the one to reach my limit first.

It’s a gamble, but I have no choice but to try…

First, I empty the cylinder.

It’s not familiar, but it’s definitely effective.

Revolver fanning.

Anyway, I don’t need to hit.

The purpose is to completely empty the cylinder of the Daedalus.

-Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!-

That hat girl showed ridiculous reaction speed.

It’s a roughly swung fanning, but she lowered her body greatly in an instant and avoided it all.

But I didn’t need to hit anyway, so I don’t panic and continue the next action.

I hit the ground with the maximum force I can produce now.

Do you remember? The pouch I ripped off?

-Boom!-

“Ugh… You b*tch!”

With a roar and vibration, the pouch exposed to a strong impact poured out a large amount of smoke.

It was a gamble, but I’m glad.

I take out only one bullet, a 12.7x41mm bullet, from my pocket and hold it as if it were a precious thing… I concentrate.

A gunshot is heard in the smoke.

I’m conscious of something that I used to do naturally, like moving my arms and legs.

I hear footsteps.

I feel.

Something that I used to do instinctively, just like breathing.

Like blood flowing through blood vessels, something heterogeneous is flowing in my body.

I flap my wings.

As I did when I cleared the smoke at first, no, a stronger wind than that blows around.

The smoke gradually recedes.

With a familiar and familiar hand movement that I must have done hundreds of times, I insert the one bullet I was holding preciously into the Daedalus.

“It’s useless!”

She aims a pistol at me.

A blue flash rushes towards me.

“Fall to the ground…”

-Boom!-

The Daedalus spits fire with a ridiculous roar.

A red flash cuts through the void and advances.

It pierces through the blue flash and advances.

Her head is thrown back and she falls to the ground.

Her halo is fine, so she hasn’t passed out yet.

I drop the Daedalus to the ground, take out the Type 99, and approach.

My consciousness is blurry, so I approach slowly.

-Clink!-

-Boom!-

“Ah…”

My head is pushed aside greatly.

My consciousness fades.

Sniping… Yeah… There was a sniper… I don’t know why she hasn’t revealed herself yet…

If I’m hit in the head by a large-caliber bullet in a battered state… There’s no way I can maintain consciousness…

The explosion and impact that follow… My consciousness ended there.

“Ugh…”

My head hurts… That guard… At the end, she awakened the usage of mystery.

Unlike us, who were intentionally awakened by Madam, she awakened on her own.

Maybe someday she’ll reach a similar level to Trinity’s strategic weapon or Gehenna’s Prefect Team Leader.

This is by no means an overestimation.

Even though the terrain was unfavorable for us and the equipment was superior for the opponent, she endured the joint attack of the two and suppressed me and the princess.

-Clatter…, Drip-

Blood flows from my head due to the ridiculous impact, and the shattered mask falls to the ground.

Hiyori’s sniping and Misaki’s missile impact knocked her out, but the fact that Misaki and Hiyori’s support came in means that the deadline, the operation end time, is approaching, and it’s difficult to drag out the time any longer.

-Boom!-

The belated explosion sound coming from the target’s room.

Azusa finally succeeded.

Listening to the collaborator’s words, I put me and the princess in, but it was possible because Azusa was also put in, thinking that time would be delayed.

“Phew… Princess? Can you get up?… It’s impossible.”

I pick up the completely unconscious princess and move to the escape route.

Mission accomplished.