Chapter 83: The Eighth Fleet’s Collapse in the Early Stages
A bioluminescent bird once again played its own name with shameless vanity, then fluttered down the bars of the prison cell to land atop Hao Ren's head.
"Isn't this the keepsake from Kira and Aslan's union? Why would it be here?" Hao Ren was quite taken aback, having only just obtained two top-quality summoned beings.
By the way, that "Fury of a Chosen NTR Victim" was basically the negative effect of "NTR"; Hao Ren would receive no hints whatsoever from the central intelligence. A kind of compensation for the one being cheated on, perhaps.
Hao Ren plucked Tory from his head as the bird pecked his forehead from time to time, then held it in his hand for a closer look. Suddenly, he noticed something amiss.
Did the original Tory have a display screen on its belly?
And that bird's head, why was there an antenna right in the center? Was it a green trio?
And the buttons from zero to nine on its back—no matter how he looked at them, they resembled the wreckage of that Sharp thing...
"Hey. Stop making that noise and say something human now that you're alive again, or I'll tear off your wings!" Hao Ren grabbed Tory with utter inhuman ruthlessness, seizing one wing and pretending to yank.
"No, no, no! Master! Master! I was wrong! Sharp was wrong! I'm falling! I'm going to fall!" Sharp's beak, no longer Tory's, suddenly emitted a thick middle-aged man's voice, and it struggled violently in Hao Ren's grasp.
The foolish bird was thus tossed into a corner, half dead.
Why had such a bizarre thing happened?
After this fellow had been smashed into powder, before he had time to repair himself, he had been targeted by Tory, a mechanical bird with only rudimentary animal-level intelligence. Oil dribbled from the bird's beak, and in the end all those neatly broken, flour-like fragments of Sharp were swallowed by the bird.
It was said that devouring an artificial intelligence of a higher level than oneself could raise one's own intelligence rank, and this information had always existed in Tory's mind.
But the middle-aged uncle Sharp had been utterly underestimated by a bird; he simply counterdevoured it, and Tory's pitiful animal program collapsed at once.
Thus Sharp gained himself a new body, one that could even act cute.
"Right. Were you trying to tell me something?" Hao Ren knew that although this thing usually did nothing but sexual harassment, it could still be quite reliable when it mattered, such as in the matter of piloting the unicorn...
Even though it had been reduced to a half-cripple by this very fellow.
At the thought, Hao Ren's temper flared again, and he was ready to make Sharp bleed from every orifice.
"Wait! I still have something to say! Big sister, save me!" Sharp's bird wings pushed weakly against Hao Ren's shoes, and his wet, pleading bird eyes turned toward Hime on the side, wearing the expression of someone who could still be saved.
Unexpectedly, Hime looked thoroughly disgusted, staring at Sharp as if he were trash, while Shirou was excitedly interested, as though he wanted to poke him with a branch.
"What the hell?" Sharp was stunned. He had not even managed to carry out his usual daily sexual harassment, so why was their attitude like this?
Why Hime hated Sharp so much would be a story for another day.
"Go on, then..." Hao Ren had not finished speaking when the Great Angel issued a level-one alarm.
"All personnel, first battle configuration! Repeat, all personnel, first battle configuration!"
"Zaft is here fast enough," Hao Ren said, his expression tightening as he turned on his heel.
Hime, Shirou, first go wait in my dimensional space for a while. If you need anything, go find your companions. You should be able to sense one another. A great battle is about to begin." Hao Ren gave his newest orders to the two freshly joined companions.
"Black Flame Dragon, please be very careful," Hime said, bowing deeply to Hao Ren. Such a polite good girl.
"Understood. Come back soon," Shirou seemed not to fully grasp Hao Ren's meaning, but remained as cheerful as ever.
With a flash, both disappeared, then appeared in the broad street of Crossbell, where Rean Schwarzer was waiting for them.
"Come with me."
As always, she wore a kimono with a jacket over it, but for some reason, Rean Schwarzer's gaze had grown sharper and sharper.
Those eyes that had slain gods and Buddhas.
It seemed many nearby beasts had fallen beneath her blade.
Intimidated by that blade-like stare, the two girls, whose attributes far surpassed Rean Schwarzer's, obediently followed after her.
"Well then..."
Hao Ren looked at the tense Isaac across from him, smiling with considerable malice.
"Nemea!"
"Master, do you need me?" A shadow flashed, then hung directly around Hao Ren's neck.
"Yaya!"
"Tia Yu is really quite intimidating..." Yaya, who appeared to have been chased to exhaustion, began complaining the moment she showed up.
"Golden Darkness!"
"Combat, understood."
Having returned to her taciturn state, the little dark one was, as ever, adorable.
Several icy flashes swept by, and the bars of the prison cell became a baton.
"Come on, girls. We're merging again."
Hao Ren's words carried a double meaning, though only the little dark one would actually fall for such a simple tease.
Destination: the maintenance room.
"Yo, Kira, so you really did stay behind." Hao Ren, parading through the place with his high-quality girls in tow, discovered the ever-present Kira Suits.
"I'm just here to find Tory," Kira Suits said, rather shyly and with a touch of tsundere embarrassment.
Pretty cute. What to do?
"Cut it out. I bet you just can't bear to leave your friends on the Great Angel, right? Did you run into anyone just now?" Hao Ren draped an arm around him, making the most of his mocking talents.
"Mm."
Though he answered thus, what flashed through Kira's mind was the figure reflected in the floor mirror inside the bathhouse during the soul exchange—a figure of breathtaking beauty.
Pink, pink, and more pink. You know what I mean.
If he went back onto the battlefield, perhaps he would have another chance to see that figure again, even if only as an enemy.
Kira was excellent at concealing emotion, and Hao Ren saw through nothing at all.
"Ah, sorry, I forgot. In that case, let's set out too." Hao Ren had forgotten that he still had not swapped Fraw and Sai back yet, and since the chairman was still alive, that scene of Fraw throwing herself into Kira's arms and sealing it with a kiss was probably gone.
At present, because of her body, Fraw had not gone aboard the shuttle with her father. Instead, she was hiding in some corner of a room, drawing circles in the floor.
Sai, wearing that charming body, had torn up the discharge agreement together with the classmates and remained on the Great Angel.
Tsk, tsk. It seemed he was gradually growing accustomed to this body. When he spoke and acted, he carried more allure than Fraw herself, so much so that everyone who knew the truth began to wonder whether he had already broken.
In a sense, yes.
Because of Admiral Halberton's orders, the Eighth Fleet began full-scale cover for the Great Angel's retreat.
The Earth Alliance's main mobile suit, the Mobius, and Zaft's main mobile suit, the Zaku, began clashing head-on, each pair exchanging blows with unmistakable relish.
Mobius:
Class: A
Power: 8400
Attack, Defense, Mobility, Movement: 7
Compatibility: Space A
Weapons: 40 mm vulcan cannon, anti-armor linear rifle, anti-ship missiles
Zaku:
Class: S
Power: 8600
Attack, Defense, Mobility, Movement: 5
Compatibility: Space, ground, underwater
Weapons: heavy beam saber, heavy assault rifle, Gatou's 500 mm recoiless cannon, Warlus Kai heavy special blaster cannon
Zaft's official claim was that one Zaku could equal five Mobius units, which was why Pant, despite being at a disadvantage in national strength when the war first began, had nevertheless been able to seize the upper hand on the battlefield.
Well, one could argue either way.
Mobile suit and pilot were both indispensable. If Kira were to pilot a Mobius, he could still take on several Zakus alone.
But to speak from fact, the situation on the front line was indeed grim.
The Zaku's combat power clearly surpassed that of the Mobius, and those Gundam weapons like the Aegis, Buster, and Blitz were still wreaking endless havoc. Several mobile suits and warships had already been sunk, and the Eighth Fleet was presently in a state of complete disadvantage.