29 The Moment of Choice 5

Three minutes.

Something that would normally pass in an instant—just pour hot water into a cup noodle and kill time for a bit.

“Damn it, reinforcements have arrived!”

Outnumbered.

The enemy presses forward relentlessly, throwing more units at Chi in a bid to crush him.

It's impossible to handle them all.

Reduce the power output of the ether rifle.

Redirect the excess power to the thrusters.

Compensate for the lost maneuverability from the overlight preparation.

The reduced firepower must be made up through ingenuity.

The ether rifle, now significantly weakened in power but enhanced in rate of fire.

Use it to suppress the fellow pilot forced into solo combat.

But even that is barely more than a nuisance—enough to reflexively dodge, nothing more.

Unless it strikes a sensor array, it causes no damage at all.

Thus, some units ignored the hits and closed in on the target.

That movement was exactly as Chi had anticipated.

But.

"Idiot! Why’d you fall for something so obvious!?"

She unleashed a charge attack, voice cracking as if on the verge of tears, despite the enemy’s perfect trap.

Firing alongside the barrage, the ether charge released was barely equivalent to a single standard shot.

In other words, enough force to down an assault frame with one hit.

One-unit, high-impact strike.

To break the deadlock, Chi had been thinking desperately.

Among the scenarios considered, Jin’s actions stood out as a model.

The monster that had torn through the cybernetic squad’s encirclement.

What would Jin do in this situation? This was what she had just thought of while considering that possibility.

Control the enemy’s actions.

Jin achieved this by combining foresight with mastery at a high level.

Chi could manage something like that too.

As Jin once remarked, Chi was remarkably similar to him—right down to the methods of harassment.

One Gryphon was destroyed, its cockpit pierced and detonating in fragments.

Unlike ordinary troops with minimal contact points.

There was no doubt someone Chi knew by face and name was aboard.

The enemy must have understood they were fighting Chi.

What did they think in the moment of being shot down? Such thoughts were meaningless—yet they drifted through Chi’s mind.

“…………I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t something that could be fixed with an apology.

He knew.

When he had worked on the Laitera Project, such actions had crushed the resolve and hopes that now shaped him.

And now, by opposing them, he was trampling the desperate hopes of his former comrades.

He knew it—still, it was painful.

He knew how desperately they had clung to those hopes.

He knew that he was trying to reclaim a lost past.

The longing, the agony of performing menial tasks. It was because they shared that same resolve that he had considered them comrades.

The line of fire intensified abruptly.

He evades the barrage using thrusters, but midway through, Chi realizes the movement is flawed.

He is being drawn into the enemy’s rhythm.

Ahead lies the heart of a trap, meticulously constructed—inescapable.

There is no choice but to gamble.

How well he understood the tactics of the cyborg squad, as a member.

Now, the moment of reckoning arrives.

Remaining—120 seconds!

Aiming fire to guide the trajectory.

One of them—seize it. There is no alternative.

Ether coating focused on the palm.

Other areas left defenseless in exchange.

Seize the ether rifle shot he cannot otherwise avoid—with this palm alone.

Closing the distance with the Gryphon unit.

"If it were Jin Tōgō, he'd definitely do this!"

Chi was certain that man would never merely flee.

Exhaling, thrusting the thrusters to maximum output.

Orienting the craft's apex toward the enemy, minimizing frontal cross-section.

The rifle held in readiness, the palm raised.

The only shield a Gryphon unit without a shield can possess.

The Gryphon unit, wary of powerful attacks, had no choice but to avoid Chi's feint shots.

They could not predict when the decisive shot would come.

A wall-like barrage approached.

But not simultaneously.

Enhanced motion perception detected minute timing discrepancies, revealing a narrow passage.

Chi charged forward, trusting the opening.

Attacks that came straight and predictable were easy to evade.

The unavoidable shot was caught in the palm.

Jin might have countered it with a return strike, but no one else could do such a thing.

"Got it!"

Closing the distance.

Pushing the thruster output to a level where control became impossible.

The violent acceleration surpassed the enhanced G-tolerance granted by cybernetic augmentation.

Gritting teeth against the pressure, unfamiliar after so long.

Rushing past the final distance at an unexpected speed.

A single Gryphon’s head was shattered.

The ether coating on the fist, focused for impact, crushed the target in one blow, amplified by velocity.

Seizing the shoulder of a Gryphon whose vision had failed and movement had ceased, the thrusters were reversed.

Chi’s Gryphon, decelerating sharply, circled around to position itself behind the Gryphon whose head had been crushed.

Straight ahead—using the griffin as a shield, she rained fire upon the griffin unit.

The sound of someone calling him a coward seemed to echo.

No matter how the words are smoothed over, a hostage operation remains nothing but cowardly.

But what of it.

They have repeatedly carried out that cowardly act.

The Laitera Project, too.

There must be countless people who wish to change their past.

Everyone has something they’d want to do over.

To fulfill their own desires while ignoring the wishes of those people.

What else could one call it but cowardly?

The enemy faltered, even as allies were used as shields.

This place was also a gamble.

If there were no lights, it could be as if they never existed.

There was nothing Chi could do if the shields were all shot through one by one.

Such cruelty is beyond me.

She had known it. The work they were never permitted to show to the surface.

Thus, their cohesion with one another was stronger than that of other units.

Having anticipated that it could not be easily resolved, Chi acted accordingly.

Sixty seconds remaining.

Can do it! Push through! At the edge of Chi’s vision, something moved.

No radar contact.

No reactor signature.

Perhaps a trick of the mind. A hallucination from a momentary lapse.

In the next instant, a shot from nowhere struck Chi’s arm unit.

"Where from!?"

The fire does not cease.

Shots come from multiple directions—yet no shooter is visible.

"Ah! Right!"

Second Fleet’s stealth technology—the optical camouflage-equipped drone, the Lombardia-class battleship.

Then it is not unreasonable for the same to be mounted on an assault frame as well.

Chi fires the rifle toward something closing in from all sides—yet feels no resistance.

Despite that, multiple shots respond in kind, striking Chi from the very point just fired.

Attempting evasion proves futile; it is impossible to anticipate attacks from unknown angles.

The knee is shattered; the lower leg detaches.

The rifle held aloft explodes, torn apart.

Chi activates the back thrusters to flee—yet even that is anticipated and destroyed.

Each shot lacks significant power.

But when they converge at a single point, they breach the griffin’s ether coating.

“Gh!”

Inside the cockpit, Chi’s body jerks violently.

She dove in without pilot suit or helmet.

Blood trickles from her forehead, as if she struck something.

A single hit grazing the cockpit could vent the air—her final moment.

Thirty seconds remaining.

Yet—her unit, barely intact, had no unharmed section left.

And the source of her injury was becoming clear.

"That... is..."

Ironically, only in her paralyzed state could she perceive it—so small, so fast.

A cluster of small units circled her griffin.

Not one or two.

Ten, twenty—perhaps more.

These were the ones that had pierced her griffin.

Indeed, their size explained their minimal impact.

The units synchronized, moving in unison toward a single direction.

Ahead—unknown mobile weaponry stood in wait.