Zero bent down, resting one hand on Lu Mingfei's rigid arm and pressing the other to his forehead. It felt cool. Reassuring, and achingly familiar.
"You were in a deep coma for the past ten minutes. While you were unconscious, I gave you an intensive massage. The pain in your limbs is normal."
Lu Mingfei saw sweat beading on Zero's forehead and a flush coloring her cheeks, but her voice remained calm. "For the next ten minutes, you should relax your muscles as much as possible to prevent cramps."
"Thank you, Zero."
"You can close your eyes and rest a little longer."
"No need. I'll just look at you. I feel safe with you here."
The downpour outside the cabin filled the silence. Zero sat beside Lu Mingfei, watching his IV drip intently, the blush never leaving her face.
As the ship lurched violently again, the water in the lower hold rose above waist level. Floating engine oil spread a rainbow film across its surface. The damage-control timbers began to bend under the pressure of the bulkhead, like matchsticks about to snap.
"Hold it! Switch out!"
The warping bulkhead gradually pushed the wooden wedges loose. Chief engineer Kumagai Naoki braced himself against a support timber, his bones creaking amid the tremendous sounds of compression. He could no longer hear the shouting around him. All he could feel was the cold river water creeping over his nostrils, inch by inch.
The sailors worked in teams of three. Two held a support timber in place while the third swung a hammer, driving wedges into the gaps. Amid the tension, their only communication was a series of clipped commands: "Hold," "Hammer," "Switch."
"Crack!" A load-bearing timber finally gave way. Its sharp, splintered end sprang up and plunged into a nearby sailor's shoulder.
Before he could scream, the sailor pitched headfirst into the water and lost consciousness.
"Pull him up! Take his place!" Kumagai Naoki seized the sailor's collar, the muscles in his arm bulging as he tossed him to the men behind him.
"Pfft, cough, cough!" The pump suddenly sputtered, and a plume of black smoke belched from its exhaust pipe.
"The pump's broken!"
With a sharp pop, compartment two went dark.
"Short circuit!" someone shouted in the darkness.
"Cut the power! Cut it, now! Cough, cough..." Kumagai Naoki shouted in the dark, accidentally choking on river water. "Cough, cough... Everyone, get beyond compartment two's bulkhead! Seal the compartment!"
Seamanship no longer meant anything. The entire vessel was like a broken bathtub toyed with by a giant hand. Every plunge from a wave crest felt as though it would snap the keel in two.
"Bearing one-eight-zero! Directly below us! It's lashing its tail-it's creating cavitation bubbles!"
Ye Sheng lay slumped over the console. His last few words had become slurred, and his pupils were beginning to dilate.
"Ye Sheng! Don't you dare fall asleep!" Selma shrieked and lunged toward him. Gripping the tactical tourniquet around his thigh with both hands, she gave its windlass a hard twist.
"Aaah!" The metal handle bit deep into his flesh. Agony stabbed into his nerves like red-hot wire, and Ye Sheng threw back his head with a scream, dragged forcibly back from the brink of unconsciousness.
"Give us coordinates! Keep reporting!" Selma roared through her tears.
At the breach in the lower hold, Mans knelt on one knee in the water, his chest heaving.
Another impact came without warning. Mans slammed both palms against the water, and Word Spirit: Realm of Dust took shape instantly.
The invisible repulsion field collided head-on with dozens of tons of physical force. The main beam groaned as it twisted, and the air filled with flaking paint dust and flying metal fragments. Mans grunted as he was hurled into the ceiling, then slammed onto the deck strewn with broken glass. He spat out a great mouthful of bloody froth mixed with pieces of his internal organs.
On the upper deck, second mate Gunayal kicked away the jammed heavy machine gun. Its barrel glowed red, streaming white vapor in the rain. Heaps of spent casings clattered down the sloping deck and into the Yangtze River.
"The barrel's overheated! We're out of ammo!" Gunayal bellowed in despair.
Aki knelt in the wind and rain. The backlash from the intense light of Blazing Sun had blurred her vision until she could see nothing but swaying shadows. She cradled two Alchemy Torpedoes in her arms. They were the last heavy weapons they had.
Ye Sheng's bloodshot eyes suddenly flew wide. "Starboard! It's surfacing! Charging straight at us! Seventy knots!"
Grayson lunged desperately for the wheel, but there was not even time to turn it hard over.
"Aki! Throw the bombs!" Gunayal roared.
"Get back..." Aki bit hard into her lip and shouted into the gale. "Wait until it's right on top of us! These are all we have left!"
The river surged back with a thunderous roar as the Dragon Servitor parted a wall of water and tore through the night. At seventy knots, the enormous beast became a heavy torpedo. The suffocating pressure of death seized everyone by the throat.
Thirty meters.
Twenty meters.
Fifteen meters.
Aki closed her eyes in despair and pulled the safety pins from the last two torpedoes.
But the anticipated shriek of tearing steel never came.
"Clang-"
A regular hexagonal shield of dazzling golden light appeared out of thin air, without warning, directly in front of the Dragon Servitor's snout. Then two more appeared behind it. Three golden geometric walls, each two meters wide, drove themselves between the enormous dragon and the Morania.
The pureblood ancient dragon, weighing dozens of tons and traveling at seventy knots, crashed headfirst into the first wall of light.
"Boom!"
The first wall exploded along with the dragon's scales. The golden light flashed and died, and dark blue-green scales shattered like ceramic struck by a hammer. The dragon's head burst through the barrier.
Its speed dropped by more than half, but its remaining momentum was still enough to smash anything in its path. Wreathed in shattered scales and blood mist, the Dragon Servitor slammed into the second golden hexagon.
"Crack, crack-"
Flesh and broken scales sprayed from the Dragon Servitor in a broad fan. The wall of light shattered soundlessly once more before its twisting body.
That terrifying force, enough to break the main keel, struck the third wall of light. The tremendous recoil sent the arrogant beast flying straight back into the churning river like a bird hitting bulletproof glass.
Everyone still breathing stared blankly at the miraculous sight in midair.
Beneath the storm-lashed night sky, Lu Mingfei wore his Cassell College uniform. His face was pale, and a hemostatic adhesive bandage still clung to the back of his hand. He simply watched the charging Dragon Servitor as though it were a fly hurtling toward tempered glass.
Just minutes earlier, Zero had still been holding him down in the therapy chair. The ringing in his ears as he hovered on the brink of shock had left him briefly unable to tell whether he was on the Yangtze River or in Tokyo-3. In his daze, he had seen Shinji roaring inside Unit-01 and Rei Ayanami clutching an N2 Bomb in a suicide attack.
He had returned carrying the memories of the previous world. Why did he still have to reenact this absurd script of throwing their lives away?
Lu Mingfei let out an irritated sigh, utter exhaustion and vicious anger showing in his eyes.
The gale and pouring rain were repelled by an invisible force half a meter from his body. Golden hexagonal panels lit up one after another beneath his feet, then silently went dark after he passed. Walking up those golden steps, he placed himself between the battered Morania and the enormous dragon rolling and keening in the water.