Omnibus Anime: I and the World's Top Daughters Have Our Five Senses Linked

The Tuner was just about to retort when he suddenly stopped.

He tilted his head, as if listening to something.

"...Did you hear that?"

The vice-captain frowned.

"Hear what?"

"A hissing." The Tuner's expression turned a little strange. "Very faint, like... insect wings?"

The vice-captain said nothing, only quickly raised the early-warning system's sensitivity by two levels.

There was still nothing on the screen.

"The system isn't responding," she said.

"Then maybe I'm overthinking it."

The Tuner rubbed his ears and put his hand back on the touchpad. But his fingers hovered above the screen for several seconds before he tapped it half a beat late.

"Position nineteen, prepare to deploy—"

At the rear of the bridge, a young technician who had been silent the whole time suddenly stood up.

He took off his headset, his face not looking good.

"Vice-captain."

"Speak."

"There's static in the comms channel."

"...How bad?"

"I'm not sure." The young technician pressed his lips together. "I just separated it from the background noise—it's not an equipment malfunction. It's an external sound source. The frequency is rising."

The vice-captain stood, walked to the technician's console, and bent down to stare at the waveform on the screen for a few seconds.

The waveform was jumping.

It was not a regular, periodic jump. It was as if someone had scattered a handful of shattered glass across the screen, every waveform exploding into a field of tiny spikes.

She took the headset and put it on.

Inside the headset was a sound that should not have existed in a vacuum.

Hiss—

Hiss, hiss, hiss—

That was not static.

That was the sound of beating wings.

The vice-captain took off the headset. The motion was not fast, but it was forceful, her knuckles turning white.

"｀All hands on alert, level