As a dust-laden wind blew across Hanabusa, its residents continued to gather in the central square. The numerous open squares within the city were designated evacuation points. The obvious course of action was to get out of the way of the Darkness, since it was walking in a straight line, but not everyone could do that. For those who were in the middle of the city already, this was a last-ditch effort at finding protection.
"Hey, Takatou. Is there any way you can deal with that thing?" Tomochika asked, looking up at the approaching giant. They were still standing in the middle of the central square. For some reason, the crowd had stopped attacking them, but the wall of people was still thick enough to prevent their escape.
"Probably."
"Yeah, I guess that's asking too much — wait, you can?!" Tomochika reacted late to his smooth reply.
"Really?! Please! I'll do anything you ask! Please, save the city!" Ryouta cried, all but clinging to Yogiri. Matching Yogiri's previous perception of him as an actually decent person despite his position working under the Sages, it seemed Ryouta was truly concerned about the well-being of this place.
With each step it took, the Darkness destroyed more of its surroundings. Anything its hazy body touched instantly turned to sand. They had no idea what its objective was, as it was simply walking in a straight line through the city.
"Then hurry up!" Tomochika cried.
"I don't know, I have a bad feeling about this. I guess I can't just let it go either, though."
He wasn't especially concerned about saving the people of the city, but the more damage the thing dealt, the longer it would take to get the trains running again.
Yogiri looked at the Darkness. It seemed like nothing more than a mindless black haze. Its actual body was likely incredibly small, if it even had one to speak of. In any case, if it was a single life form, there shouldn't be any problems.
"Die."
Yogiri unleashed his power. At the same time, a massive impact struck the city, and countless strands of black signifying danger suddenly appeared.
"Get down!"
Grabbing Tomochika, Yogiri threw her to the ground to avoid the lines of killing intent. Seeing them, Ryouta hurriedly dropped to the ground as well.
A moment later, something passed by overhead and screams filled the air as the people gathered around them cried out in their final moments. The wall of civilians that had trapped them in the square was destroyed. All that remained was a scattering of broken, shattered bodies.
"Wh-What was that? Was it an attack from that Darkness thing?!"
"No, I killed it," Yogiri said, pointing at the creature. The already hazy form of the giant was growing fainter, as if it were a natural fog now dissipating.
"What? So something else attacked us?!"
"Yeah. It seems like they tried to use the Darkness to hide their killing intent."Whatever it was had punched through the buildings and crashed into the ground, creating a shockwave that had destroyed everything around it. Still more attacks were raining from the sky, seemingly intent on wiping out the entire city. An onslaught of attacks at a speed the eye couldn't follow. The problem was that they weren't aimed at Yogiri himself.
"So this is targeting us as well?"
"Yes and no. It seems like they're trying to get around my power, but I have no idea what's going on."
Although it felt like they were being carpet-bombed, he couldn't see what was actually happening. They could avoid the scattering debris, but that was only an indirect danger to them. By the time the debris struck, the attack itself had already ended.
"So what do we do now?"
"We can avoid the debris, so I guess we should just wait until it's over."
"Well, it is over, so could you let me go?"
"Huh, I was just thinking the ground was strangely soft."
Yogiri was still lying on top of Tomochika after having tackled her to the ground.
"Could you please not enjoy my body in a situation like this?!"
"Could you please stop holding each other like this is a Hollywood movie and do something about this?!" Ryouta shouted angrily, crawling along the ground towards them.
"We're not holding each other! This is all him!" Tomochika yelled back, her face a deep red.
"That's easy to say, but I don't even know what's attacking us."
"Uhh, I know it's kind of hard to believe, but if I tell you, can you promise not to laugh at me?" she replied.
"What is it?"
"There are a bunch of women in red dresses falling from the sky."
"Your eyes really are amazing," Yogiri was once again impressed by her eyesight. Apparently, she wasn't just good at seeing things from a distance, she also had a great eye for high-speed objects.
"Can I please stand up?"
"For now, I guess."
The city was still in the process of being destroyed, but the area immediately surrounding them hadn't been attacked for some time. Lifting himself off the ground, Yogiri set Tomochika free. Rising to her feet, she pointed up at the sky.
"They're coming from there."
"I still can't see them."
He didn't know exactly what their plan was, but it seemed like an effective strategy against Yogiri. If they had launched straight at him, he could have just killed the people responsible. But if the attacker simply threw themselves at a speed he couldn't follow, and at no particular target, there was nothing he could do. Since they weren't targeting him directly, he couldn't kill them before the attack happened, and since they moved faster than he could see, he couldn't kill them mid-attack either. The biggest problem, though, was that by the time the attack was finished, the person who had launched it had already been scattered into a million pieces.
"Dammit! If she's wearing a red dress, that must be Lady Lain! What is going on here?! Seriously, this is insane!" Ryouta was beside himself. Clearly, his superiors and his colleagues were all awful people."How many of these Lains are there?"
"She's probably just cloning herself. Lady Lain's regeneration is strong enough that she can easily make copies of herself."
"I see. In that case, there's something we can do." Ryouta's explanation was just the help Yogiri needed. The fact that she was willing to destroy her own city amounted to betrayal, as far as he was concerned. "But I don't have a way of getting to her. It would help if she targeted me directly." If he was personally targeted, he could counterattack, but his opponent was fighting this way specifically to avoid that outcome.
"So if she targets you directly, you can do something about it?" Ryouta asked. It seemed like he had a plan.
◇ ◇ ◇
"My class is Mayor. I'll leave out the long explanation, but in short, I have the ability to oversee cities. Looking at the situation here, it looks like there's a pattern to the attacks. She never attacks the same place twice, and she avoids attacking places near where she has already struck as well."
Yogiri thought that may have been an unconscious decision. Even when doing something randomly, people had a tendency to add a sense of uniformity to it.
"So basically, we can make a guess as to where she'll attack next. Although even if we know that, it's not like we can get there fast enough."
"That's not a problem. I can teleport to anywhere in a city that's under my control. I can even bring a small number of people with me.""Oh, really?! Wait, then why didn't you run away earlier?!"
If that was the case, he should have been able to escape at any point regardless of how many people were surrounding him.
"I need a wide-open space to teleport to and from. If I'd used it earlier, I would have blasted away all those people. More importantly, how could I just abandon them like that?!"
"Wow, this guy is really nice for a Sage's attendant."
Yogiri decided to go with Ryouta's plan immediately. Using the Mayor's power, they moved instantly to a part of the city that hadn't been attacked yet.
They were now in a park in a residential area. There were no signs of other people, making it seem like the area had already been evacuated. Yogiri and Tomochika stood side by side, hand in hand. Ryouta had teleported elsewhere just in case. If things didn't go well, he would come back to take them to a new location.
"There isn't really a reason for you to be here either, Dannoura. I'm sure I can figure out a way to do this by myself."
"I can see better than you, so that'll help, right?"
In addition, my powers of perception might be useful, Mokomoko added.
The attacks were happening in varying intervals, anywhere from a few seconds to half a minute apart. There was likely to be some sign of the next attack coming relatively soon.
Looking up at the sky, Tomochika squeezed Yogiri's hand. That was the signal. He immediately matched her movement as she broke into a forward sprint. Running full tilt, Yogiri felt a shiver run down his back. A pitch-black shadow appeared, drawing a line of guaranteed death straight into the ground. Turning toward the source of that danger, Yogiri unleashed his power."Mokomoko!"
Something slipped out of Tomochika's uniform. The object transformed into a dome, covering the two of them in an instant. The sound of something smashing into the ground nearby came immediately after. Shaking briefly from the impact, the dome fell still, and the area around them was silent.
"Man, that is not something to do on the fly. Feels bad for my heart."
I figured it was rather solid, but I wanted to test it out myself.
Even if the attacking Lain had been killed, her body had still been flying towards them. They had been protected by the object given to them by the robot Aggressor. While it was made of something similar to an artificial muscle, and therefore wasn't quite as resilient as the robot's armor, it was still tough enough to deflect a hit from a person moving at supersonic speed.
But isn't killing her clones simply a waste of time?
Mokomoko's doubt was well founded. After all, their opponent could continue to make any number of clones. But Yogiri's response was calm and natural.
"I think it's okay. I feel like it went well."
After waiting a while, no further attacks came. It appeared that his power had successfully reached the Sage's main body.