Listening to that utterly absurd tirade.
Kijima Matako's face had already gone dark as the bottom of a pot.
Suppressing the urge to draw her gun, she forced the words out through clenched teeth. "Senpai!"
"Please stop spouting that twisted nonsense already!"
"That's why I'm saying you're wrong." Takechi Henpeita sighed.
He shook his head as though faced with a hopelessly slow student who simply could not be taught.
Putting away the photograph, he spoke in a tone of final conclusion.
"It seems you truly cannot understand."
"I've already explained it clearly. I simply... like little girls."
The air seemed to freeze for a second.
"That's exactly what a lolicon is!" Kijima Matako's fury finally exploded.
"And 'liking little girls' is an even worse way to put it!"
"You hopeless pervert!"
Takechi Henpeita seemed somewhat irritated as well.
"It seems there is a fundamental gulf in our understanding, idiot."
"You're the idiot!"
"Takechi Pervert!"
"It's 'senpai,' not pervert. Please mind how you address your superior and elder."
As the two continued their quarrel, which had evolved as routinely as a daily mission into another dispute over the definitions of "lolicon/feminist/pedophile"—
"Hm?"
Kawakami Bansai, who had been quietly listening—or rather, had long since grown accustomed to ignoring such noise—suddenly let out a questioning hum.
He keenly sensed an unnatural, faint tremor running through the ship beneath his feet.
Immediately afterward, the steady sensation of cruising vanished.
It was replaced by a distinct feeling of descent.
Kawakami Bansai immediately raised his head and looked to both sides.
The other airships, which had been flying parallel to them, now seemed to be pulled by invisible cables.
In perfect unison, they began lowering their altitude toward the city streets below.
"We have yet to reach the designated airspace."
Furrowing his brow, he said, "Why