Broke the tense atmosphere of the mission room is three students from class 1-A… those brats barge in despite the warning sign placed outside…
“Didn’t I tell you not to disturb?!”
“But sense…. Orimura-kun….”
“What?!”
“Orimura-kun…. Orimura-kun is…”
Nohotoke began to shed tears for some unknown reason; they’re really concerned about Ichika.
Without hesitation, I, Yamada and O’Brien charged out of the mission room, directly after Ichika’s room.
What I saw is him, wore a brand new set of I.S. outfit, walked out of his room. The silver gauntlet on his right hand constantly shines, and the projected screen indicated some kind of adjustment parameter.
I have a bad feeling about this….
“What are you doing, Orimura”
His brown eyes gleams of red as he smiled at me frankly, then laughed.
“This is not the time for me to slack off, Chifuyu-nee”
“But…. Orimura-kun, your wounds?!” Yamada tried to approach him, but her instinct apparently old otherwise as she quickly stop and even backing down.
A massive explosion of energy caused us to straddle for a while, taking some distance from that… stupid brother of me. He is engulfed by a bright sphere for a moment.
As the glowing ball of energy disappears, materializing in front of us is something completely different than usual.
A pair of large wings sprouted out of his backpack, and instead of one mounted on the back, two fusion reactors are visible on the base of those wings… his left gauntlet has enlarged massively, forming a huge shield-shaped device.
And his simple halo morphed into the shape of a glorified headgear, enclosed his cheek and temples, with antennae sprouting back from each side. His armor now covers more places, and the shape is refined as well.
Befit the pilot's nature, ByakuShiki's body is no longer that of childish Squire, it's now a rebellious, but otherwise talented, elegant Knight in its puberty.
“….… you must be joking…” O’ Brien, still trying to throw some lighthearted remarks, apparently can’t bear himself to laugh at all. “Second shift?”
This is stupid… but…
I can’t bear myself to stop him at all, as I stretched my arm to stop Yamada from interfering.
“I’m going…”
In a single step, the new ByakuShiki had left the housing complex, climbing with a velocity unmatched by everything else, not even old ShiroKishi can show this kind of raw power.
However, something reflective dropped out just several meter from our place…
I recognized it as Yukihira Type I, custom version compatible with Weapon Archive system.
Pulled out the I.S.-scale scimitar out of the dirt, I felt a familiar sensation, the shape of the handle… the weight… it’s all the same, with slight difference that it has limited version of fold-out armor, allowing it to combine with other sword…
Ichika purposefully left it here… but why?
My intention shifted to Yamada, shivering, holding her anger directed at me, until she finally release it.
“Orimura-sensei… just what were you thinking?”
This is the other side of Yamada I knew, serious and professional, more so than people can think. Yet, she never lost that caring, motherly side of her.
Above everything, she prioritizes the safety of the students, looking at them like her own child.
“We’ll officially resume the operation… as for Orimura’s safety; I’ll take full responsibility of it…”
“Orimura-sensei….”
“…. Once again, I want to believe that he’s able to break through such tiny concept as expectation”
Yamada tried to protest again, but O’Brien is holding her shoulder to ease her, and shook his head.
If I can, I want to wail about my foolishness.
I simply forgot how to…