Chapter Fifteen: If We Don't Turn Up the Intensity, the Art Style Will Become Pico / Chapter Sixteen: Even Shouldering the Abyss, I Forgot the Rest

"Okay..." Lisa flattened the ketchup with a pout.

"It's true that growth achieved through hard work is more admirable," Shiko said, "but improvements gained through shortcuts can still provide guidance for future practice, right?"

"Definitely." Nijika swallowed the food in her mouth. "After that song, the way I felt when playing the drums became completely different."

During the discussion that followed, Shiko kept talking, as if she were still immersed in the joy of having successfully looked cool. Watching her, Kita instead felt somewhat heavy-hearted.

Shiko's performance, tone, movements, and attitude were all perfectly normal. Yet Kita kept sensing a strange dissonance. It was as if disorderly undercurrents lurked beneath a calm sea.

Besides, she still remembered how she had felt when she first refined [Love and Separation]. At the time, she had felt she was only one step away from completely losing control. Shiko had just refined her own [Love and Separation]. Could she really have felt nothing?

Under the table, she quietly nudged Shiko with her elbow. Shiko turned her head, and Kita leaned close to her ear and whispered, "Are you really okay?"

Shiko's eyes flickered slightly. She leaned close to Kita's ear as well. "I'm much better now, thanks to everyone."

Kita sighed and continued whispering into her ear. "You can show your real self, you know."

"Well, unfortunately, I haven't figured out what my real self is either." Shiko said this with a proud expression. At first, she had only pretended in order to get along with Ichiri. Gradually, it had become something she enjoyed, and now she was instead somewhat confused by the concept of her "true self." Which one was really her? The socially anxious girl who had been much like Ichiri when she had first met her? The one who had tried every possible way to get Kita to join Kessoku Band? Or the increasingly outgoing one she had become after her second transmigration?

Shiko's thoughts slowly wandered onto this question. Suddenly, her gaze passed over Kita and landed on Ichiri, who was watching the two of them pressed together with a foolish grin.

"You two are really close..." Ichiri said.

"We are." "No, we're not!" Their reactions were completely opposite.

Sayo looked at the empty plate in front of her. She had finished the fries. She glanced toward Shiko's side. Fries were a simple food; originally, she could have simply asked Shiko to hand her a pile. But the atmosphere over there seemed just right, so she shouldn't disturb them.

"Here, Sayo, there are more over there." A fresh plate of fries was placed in front of Sayo. She looked up and saw Lisa. Lisa had just gotten up to pour herself a drink, and after noticing Sayo's predicament, she had filled a plate for her along the way. The food everyone liked was always prepared in advance on the food cart.

"Thanks." Sayo's face flushed slightly.

After dinner, Sayo carried the oil lamp used during the live performance and returned to the lodging area with the others. After saying goodbye to everyone, she left the bustle behind and returned to her room. When she pushed open the door, the plain room was empty. That was only natural. Even so, a trace of loneliness still rose in Sayo's heart. She glanced at the neatly folded quilt. It was still early to sleep. She placed the oil lamp back on the table. Two stacks of letter paper sat beneath the table's left and right corners. The stack on the left was smaller. Those letters were meant for the other Shiko and would be handed to Shiko for safekeeping regularly. As for the stack on the right—

Sayo randomly pulled a sheet from the stack on the right. This pile was for Hina. She didn't know whether she could bring these letters back with her to the present, but even if there was only the slightest possibility, she still needed to record everything from the journey this way.

"This way, it'll be as if my sister and I were never separated!"

"(Hina would definitely say something like that.)" Sayo thought bitterly. She could only imagine Hina's every word and action in this way, using it to comfort her ever-growing longing. Ignoring that nightmarish, dreamlike experience, how long had she already been separated from Hina? Sayo no longer wanted to calculate it.

"(Forget it. I don't want to think about this. I'd better finish today's section quickly.)" Sayo thought this, but instead of taking out fresh paper from the drawer, she opened the letter in her hand. Before writing a new one, she wanted to reread the previous letters.

However, the moment she saw the first line, her expression rarely turned to shock.

Chapter Fifteen: If We Don't Turn Up the Intensity, the Art Style Will Become Pico

Sayo looked at the first line of the letter again:

To Wu-san

"(This letter... is for Wu-san? Then where's the one for Hina?)" Sayo searched through the stack of letters. Two minutes later, she stared grimly at the letter in front of her for a long while.

"(It seems I mixed up the letters at some point without realizing it. The one for Hina was given to Wu-san, while the one for Wu-san was left here instead.)"

"(Damn it, why did I make such a beginner's mistake...?)" Sayo pressed a hand to her forehead. "(Have I been living too leisurely lately? Looks like I need to increase the intensity of my regular training. Both music and combat.)"

Sayo snatched up the mixed-up letter from the table, picked up the oil lamp, and headed for the door. She had to exchange the letters as soon as possible. According to Sayo's memory, it was still early for Shiko to go to sleep.

"(If Nagi-san had done something like this... it would actually seem pretty normal?)" The thought surfaced uncontrollably in her mind.

Sayo tucked the folded letter paper into her pants pocket and knocked on Shiko's door with her free hand. Hurried footsteps came from inside. The door opened, and Shiko's face appeared behind it.

"Sayo? What's wrong?" She moved aside to let Sayo in. She hadn't changed into pajamas, so it really wasn't bedtime yet.

"Well..." Sayo's cheeks reddened. She didn't enter, instead explaining what had happened while standing outside.

"It sounds like something Yukina would do..." Sayo was certain she heard Shiko mutter this under her breath. She pretended not to hear.

Shiko went "tap tap tap" as she hurried off to retrieve the letter. Sayo waited at the door. Footsteps came from around the corner. Sayo looked over and saw Yukina approaching, carrying an oil lamp just like her. Yukina's other hand also held a sheet of letter paper.

"Futatsuki-san is...?"

"I accidentally mixed up the letter for my family with another letter for a Wu-san earlier." Yukina's expression did not change at all.

"..."

After exchanging the letters, the two of them headed back toward their rooms while Shiko struggled to hold back her laughter.

"Looks like we both need to increase our training intensity," Sayo said.

"Indeed." Yukina agreed. "Speaking of practice, I just remembered that we've all been slacking off on combat training these past few days."

Most of the threats the airship encountered could be completely blocked by [Daniel Intelligent Shield], so they never needed to fight. The airship had also been designed with the need for combat training in mind, but considering the durability of enchanted materials, they had ultimately abandoned the idea.

"Should we land and practice?" Sayo asked.

"No need. The airship took longer to land and take off than a hot-air balloon. If we kept repeating that process, there would have been no need to build an airship in the first place."

"Every gain comes with a loss," Sayo sighed.

Hurried footsteps came from behind them. The two turned around. Shiko came running over, holding a torch. She didn't even have her own glowing jade slip anymore.

Shiko stopped behind the two of them. After taking a short breath, she revealed the information she had just discovered: "The map reacted!"

Everyone gathered urgently in the bar. They surrounded the round table and waited for Shiko's report.

Shiko pressed a finger to her temple, and a miniature sand table gradually appeared on the round table. With their current position at the center, the nearby mountaintops, forests, rivers, and lakes were all marked out. It was clear that they were flying over a basin. The mountains surrounding the basin were not high, but they were steep. Vegetation grew luxuriantly throughout the basin, and a lake lay at its center.

Shiko pointed at the lake. "A glowing point suddenly appeared here on the map."

"A glowing point? Has one ever appeared before?" Yukina asked.

Shiko answered without hesitation. "No."

"Isn't the map derived from a... giraffe?" Nijika said. "Have you asked it?"

"If I could just find it whenever I wanted, that would be great." There was no lack of resentment in Shiko's voice. "If it doesn't want to see me, I can't find it."

"Then... should we go take a look?" Lisa looked at Yukina.

"Also, of the five newcomers we detected earlier, three of them have been wandering around this basin the whole time," Shiko added.

"Then we definitely have to go," Sayo said. "Wu-san, can you still not see their specific information?"

Shiko nodded. Everyone looked at Yukina.

Yukina didn't hesitate. "Have the airship travel to the vicinity of that area today." She stood up, her gaze blazing. "We'll set out tomorrow."

Shiko snapped to attention and saluted. "Yes, sir!" She turned around, raised both fists to her waist, leaned forward, and ran off while silently chanting, "One, two, three, four."

Ako also rose to her feet, braced both hands on the table, and let black smoke rise behind her. "Heh~ heh~ heh~ Ako can already see it... the lost ancient capital, the buried conspiracy and blood..."

Ryo had already stood up and was preparing to leave. Rinko caught up with her. "Should we... run through that song a few more times... so we'll be more practiced by then..." Seeing this, Ako hurried after them too. "Wait for me, Rinrin!"

"I want to go see what Shiko's doing. She might pull another all-nighter..." Ichiri said to Kita. The two of them left together as well.

"Then I'll go prepare some breakfast. Eat more tomorrow morning." Lisa waved and left. "I'll help too~" Nijika followed her.

Only Yukina and Sayo remained where they were. The two stared at the sand table on the table and fell into a brief silence. The tiny lake on the sand table looked no different from its surroundings, yet no one knew what danger it concealed.

Sayo crossed her arms. "Looks like we'll finally get a proper fight."

"Exactly." The corners of Yukina's lips lifted in a nearly imperceptible smile. "We'll need to give it everything we have."

"In battle, you have to fight with everything you have..." Sayo stood up.

"...That's Roselia." Yukina finished.

Outside the command room, Ichiri and Kita peered inside through the crack in the door. Shiko stood in the middle of the pitch-black room, passionately issuing orders to nonexistent subordinates. "Turn on the main searchlights! Put the entire airship on first-level combat alert! Search and destroy! Search and destory!"

"She looks like she's having fun." "We'd better not disturb her..." The two quietly slipped back into the shadows.

Somewhere in the basin in the distance.

"Are we running low on water?" A blond, somewhat fierce-looking girl peered into the wooden water flask. In contrast, she wore a dark indigo school uniform in the style of a young lady. The uniform was badly damaged, but one could still make out the snowflake emblem.

Standing in front of her was a human-sized suit of armor made primarily of black metal, with cyan LED bands around it. A somewhat arrogant voice came from inside the armor. "PAREO~"

"Yes, CHU?!" Another petite figure jumped down from a nearby tree. "There seems to be a lake in the distance!" She wore black twin tails, a white jacket, a purple T-shirt patterned with keyboards, and a pink skirt with sky-blue trim. Though there were a few holes in them, it was still clear that their owner had carefully maintained them despite the harsh conditions. Compared to the blond girl, she wore many more accessories: beaded bracelets on her wrists, a magical-girl-style pendant around her neck, and pink ball-shaped braids. Even without anything else on hand, she still did her best to remain cute.

"However, CHU?, surely you can see farther at night, right, CHU?!" Although the girl called PAREO addressed her as CHU?, her tone was not particularly reverent. Their difference in status did not seem strict; it was more like a game.

"You're so noisy." CHU? raised her head, seemingly sensing something, and looked toward a corner of the horizon.

"Sorry, CHU?~"

"Wait." CHU? raised a hand to silence PAREO. Inside the armor, an unnatural object appeared on the display. "Something huge seems to be coming from that direction."

She enlarged the object appearing on the horizon. The AI automatically processed the image, allowing CHU? to barely recognize it.

It was an airship.

Chapter Sixteen: Even Shouldering the Abyss, I Forgot the Rest

Inside the command room of the airship CHU? had seen.

Shiko leaned against the porthole, gazing at the distant lake by the light of several searchlights. The surface of the lake was smooth as a mirror. There were no monsters to be seen, nor any anomalies worth noting.

Yet that was precisely the greatest anomaly. With a thought from Shiko, the searchlights focused beneath the airship, illuminating the swaying black shadows that could be seen everywhere among the forest. Several of the shadows were startled and howled pointlessly at the airship. A few spread their wings, leaped straight into the air, or even flung part of their bodies directly at the airship. Without needing the shield to act, Shiko's eyes flashed. Metal growths sprouted from the monsters, stopping them all in midair.

Shiko extended a hand. As her palm moved, countless flying swords appeared in the air outside the airship. Her hand suddenly clenched. At that command, the swords filling the sky descended together, and what sounded like wailing rang out as black mist rising from the forest nearly buried the forest itself.

Shiko watched it all expressionlessly, feeling her numbers rise.

"Even without a jade slip, I'm still the protagonist." She didn't know whom she was speaking to. She cast one last glance out the window, then turned and left.

The airship extinguished all its searchlights and hovered in midair. From the outside, it seemed completely disconnected from the world, like a blurred projection from another dimension. Only when a monster occasionally struck the shield, the resulting firelight illuminating the "Roselia" or "Kessoku Band" emblem, would anyone realize it was there.

"Roselia... Kessoku Band..." CHU? recognized the words on the logo.

"Could the people inside belong to a band too? Just like us?" PAREO strained her eyes toward the distance. Without armor's convenient night vision, she could only make out a blurry black shadow on the horizon.

Two hands settled on the two girls' shoulders.

PAREO turned around. "MASKING-san?"

MASKING's eyes were still somewhat fierce, though that wasn't her intention. "I'm saying, whatever that thing is, let's survive tonight first, okay? The cave is already dug."

PAREO's gaze passed over MASKING's shoulder and landed on a fresh mound of earth, beside which was a pitch-black opening barely large enough for one person to crawl through.

The next day, Shiko was once again awakened by the radiance of sunrise. Still drowsy, she covered her closed eyes with one hand, but the light still seeped through her fingers.

"(Did I stay up too late again last night...?)" Her thoughts continued drifting everywhere, floating between reality and dreams. She was already used to this, though.

At times like this, she should... A cup of iced coffee appeared in her right hand, and she poured it over her own face.

She woke up.

She sat bolt upright. The ice on her face vanished into thin air before it could slide off, and the water droplets falling from the tips of her hair did the same. Hunching over, she climbed out of bed and shuffled to the washbasin, where she quickly washed up. Then she rubbed her cheeks, instantly turning her expression into that of an energetic girl, and casually opened a hidden door marked "EMERGENCY USE" that connected to the room next door.

"Ichiri--! Good morning--!" She yanked off the quilt, shaking the pink-haired girl wrapped inside onto the sheets.

A knock sounded by the door. Then the main door opened, and the equally energetic Kita stood there. "Gotou-san, time to get up-- Oh, you're here too." Kita glanced at the hidden door standing open in the wall and the sign reading "EMERGENCY USE." "You wrote that sign yourself, didn't you...?"

Ichiri sat up with a yawn. After living together for so long, even she no longer had an episode when someone else woke her up.

"You're all up so early... yawn..." Ichiri glanced out the window. "It's just sunrise, right...? Please let me sleep a little longer..."

"Is this early?" Kita's confusion was written all over her face. "I get up at this time every day."

"Me too," Shiko said. "Maybe it's because the summer solstice hasn't arrived yet, so sunrise keeps getting earlier every day. Speaking of which, has the summer solstice arrived yet?"

Leaving Ichiri to fall back asleep, the two of them walked out of the room, remembering to close the door behind them.

As usual, the time before breakfast was reserved for individual practice.

At the breakfast table, the genuine energetic girl Nijika was giving a pre-battle pep talk. Shiko wanted to listen to what she was saying, but the instinct automatically trained into her by countless principal's speeches had already muted Nijika's voice. She sipped hot cocoa while recalling the battles she had fought before obtaining the jade slip. Although she had said some cool-sounding things last night because of her chuunibyou tendencies, the truth was that she still relied too much on the jade slip in battle. As she recalled it, she gestured in the air with her fingertips.

After a while, Yukina gave a soft cough. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned toward her, except Shiko, who was still daydreaming. Yukina glanced at her and gestured toward Ichiri beside her. Ichiri poked Shiko. Only then did Shiko react. She looked around and realized that everyone had already finished eating, and the bowl in front of her had somehow been emptied as well.

"Oh, are we setting out?" She looked at Yukina.

"Exactly." Yukina cleared an area on the table. "Wu-san." Shiko understood and arranged a new sand table in the empty space. This time, the scale was smaller, covering only the small area between their position and the lake.

It was clear that the entire area was flat, with no mountains or rivers. In other words, as long as there were no other obstacles, they could reach the lakeshore quickly on foot.

"Is there any open ground beneath the airship?" Yukina asked.

"No. The vegetation coverage is very high." Shiko had caused quite a bit of destruction last night, but it shouldn't have affected those ancient trees that had probably grown for countless years.

"Then Kita-san, go burn out an area later," Yukina said, glancing at Kita.

"Okay."

"After landing, everyone will use the formation we've used before. I'll lead the way. Kita-san and Gotou-san will take the flanks, Ako will stand behind me, and Sayo will stand behind her." Yukina methodically laid out the plan. "Yamada-san, are the two of you currently stronger in support abilities or combat abilities?"