"Tap... tap..." Footsteps echoed through the corridor. Mei Raiden walked at the front, her right hand resting on the hilt of Plasma Shadow Show as she remained alert for enemies that could appear at any moment. Yu Luo brought up the rear, while Kiana stayed in the middle, ready to provide fire support at any time.
In the end, with no better options, the three of them voted. They ultimately went with Kiana's stupid plan and began searching every floor for Bronya.
However, things did not go as they wished. Just like the floors below, this one held no sign of Bronya—not even a single robot. It was as if the only connection between ME Corp and that mysterious organization was the underground hangar and the ME Corp insignias on the robots.
"Could that brat have already run away?" Kiana finally voiced the question she had been holding in for a long time. This time, though, it was Mei Raiden rather than Yu Luo who refuted her.
"Impossible. An artificially modified girl weapon like her would never abandon her mission!"
"Mei..."
Mei Raiden stopped before the door leading to the next floor. Yu Luo sensed something strange as well. A scent that should not have been there lingered beneath his nose, and he blurted out, "Machine oil!"
"The same machine oil smell those robots had!" Mei Raiden confidently concluded. "There must be robots ahead!"
"Then what are we waiting for?!" The moment Kiana heard there were enemies, she perked right up. She stepped past Mei Raiden, grabbed the handle, and shoved the door open. "Maybe that stinky brat is there too!"
The instant the door opened, a violent gust blew in. The hems of their clothes and their hair whipped wildly in the wind. Standing at the very back, Yu Luo had Kiana's twin ponytails constantly lashing across his face in the gale, stinging badly. Annoyed, he grabbed both of Kiana's ponytails.
"What are you doing?!" Kiana turned and glared at Yu Luo.
"Quit talking and get out already. It hurts like hell!" Yu Luo complained irritably, squeezing directly through the gap between Kiana and Mei Raiden.
The moment he stepped outside, he saw an empty rooftop. From this height, all of Changkong City lay in full view. At the same time, Yu Luo saw those familiar white robots. Except...
"Tch, there are kind of a lot of them!" Yu Luo clicked his tongue. There were at least forty or fifty white robots on the rooftop. As if they had planned it all along, their dark gun barrels were uniformly aimed at the doorway. Bronya sat expressionlessly atop that strange white robot, watching them.
When Mei Raiden and Kiana emerged, Bronya turned her gaze toward Mei Raiden. Her mechanical voice rang out. "Target A has reached the designated area. Operation entering final phase. Capture commencing!"
"Looks like they deliberately lured us here." Mei Raiden calmly analyzed the situation. "They think this is the top floor of the ME Corp building, so we have nowhere to run. Is that why they chose this as the final battlefield?"
"Why do people like you always assume others will run away? Have you never considered that if you lose, you'll just get wiped out in one go?" Yu Luo speechlessly mocked Bronya's thought process.
Bronya tilted her head and said in that mechanical voice, "According to Heavy-Oni Rabbit 19C's calculations, probability of successful capture: 88%. Probability of target escape: 10%. Probability of capture failure: 2%."
That emotionless voice paired with her utterly blank expression struck some strange cute spot in Yu Luo's heart. He immediately raised his head to the sky, trying to prevent some suspicious liquid from flowing out of his nose as he shouted, "No, I can't handle this! Mei, can I defect?!"
"If you dare defect, I'll put two holes in you right now!" Kiana viciously jabbed Yu Luo twice in the back with the Electromagnetic Hand Cannon. Her actions scared his face pale, and he quickly jumped away, shouting furiously, "Are you trying to kill me?! If that thing misfires, it'll leave more than two holes!"
"Teacher Yu Luo, Kiana, I'll leave the surrounding robots to you. Create as much room as possible for me to approach Bronya!" Mei Raiden drew Plasma Shadow Show. Kiana nodded, while Yu Luo worriedly suggested, "How about I subdue Bronya instead?"
Mei Raiden shook her head, rejecting Yu Luo's suggestion. "I'm the one who wants to save her, so I have to be the one to do it. Besides..." Mei Raiden suddenly seemed unable to continue. Her eyes darted away from Yu Luo as she said, "Teacher, the expression on your face is too dangerous. I'm not very reassured."
Only then did Yu Luo realize that Mei Raiden had labeled him a lolicon. His image was utterly ruined. "No! Mei, I'm really not a lolicon! You have to believe me! You're actually the one I like most!"
"No, no, no. You like anyone as long as they're pretty, don't you?" The system suddenly popped up to mock him. "After all, you're just that kind of filthy DD!"
"Huh?!" Kiana suddenly stared at Yu Luo warily. "You want to steal Mei from me?!"
"Keep dreaming. Fight, girl!" Yu Luo irritably flicked Kiana's smooth forehead and vented all his frustration on the surrounding robots.
"Fire!" Bronya had already begun exchanging fire with Mei Raiden. The thick cannon barrel suddenly spat sparks, and shells fell toward Mei Raiden's predicted landing points. But things were different now. Mei Raiden drew Plasma Shadow Show, and its beautiful ice-blue blade streaked through the air, leaving a trail of icy mist in its wake.
A single slash cut the shell in half. Its cross-section was smooth as a mirror, coated with a faint layer of frost.
Warning: Target combat capability increased. Probability of successful capture: 65%.
Meanwhile, Kiana was like a husky let off its leash, excitedly wielding her newly acquired Electromagnetic Hand Cannon as she darted through the hail of bullets.
"Witness the power of this young lady!"
Electric light flared from the Electromagnetic Hand Cannon's muzzle. An orange beam shot out at a speed too fast to react to. It was practically a laser cannon, effortlessly piercing through a robot's head. Its momentum did not diminish; after piercing every robot in its path, the orange beam continued for nearly two hundred meters before the bullet burned away from the heat generated by friction.
"Hehe! What do you think?!" Kiana proudly puffed out her chest. Before she could bask in her pride for long, another barrage swept toward her. She flipped over, narrowly and awkwardly dodging the bullets.
"Fine, you two are amazing. One of you dodges bullets, the other cuts shells in half." Yu Luo looked speechlessly at the two girls with superhuman combat power. Without transforming, he was just an ordinary shut-in. At most, he could use a Noble Phantasm Card to strengthen himself a little. Asking him to dodge bullets would be better replaced with telling him to go wash up and sleep—he could have anything he wanted in his dreams.
"Luckily, I have my own method!" Yu Luo charged straight into the robots with Raikiri in hand. The robots began firing wildly at him. Yu Luo could not see the bullets' trajectories at all, but just as they were about to hit him, blue lightning flashed through the air around him, and the bullets fell weakly to the ground.
"Clatter..." Countless bullets dropped helplessly to the ground with crisp sounds. Yu Luo charged into the robot horde as if invincible and began slaughtering them. Like a knife through tofu, Raikiri's dark-blue electric blade chopped every robot into scattered parts as easily as slicing vegetables.
"I'm telling you, Raikiri really is an incredible Katana!" Yu Luo exclaimed. Its description had said that Raikiri could use the Super Electromagnetic Field to protect its wielder. For a normal person like Yu Luo, it could not have been more suitable.
It gave him a certain degree of self-defense even without transforming.
Warning: Target combat capability increased. Probability of successful capture: 40%. Warning: Target combat capability increased. Probability of successful capture: 15%.
Bronya, who was using the robot beneath her to attack Mei Raiden, spoke in her mechanical voice. The originally predicted 88% success rate had fallen to 15%. In Yu Luo's group's eyes, though, the chance of success was tan 90°.
"Probability too low. Retreat recommended." The white robot beneath Bronya retracted its cannon barrel and prepared to retreat. Mei Raiden shouted angrily, leaped forward, and drove Plasma Shadow Show into the white robot's body without resistance. With her right hand, she grabbed Bronya, who was sitting atop it.
"You're not going anywhere!"
Before you continue