Tired Out

„What will we do now? Just die? Without the full range of your powers, we don’t stand a chance against that thing, Miss Matsumoto. I don’t want to die this early. I wanted to retire at thirty, start a farm and live off the land with my wife, have a few kids and die surrounded by my countless grandchildren.”

“This is no time for jokes, Ōhara. We both know none of that is true.”

“I’m sorry ma’am, I just tried to lighten the mood a bit.”

“I’m pretty sure that didn’t work, judging by the look on her face. Are you alright, Laura?”

“Y… Yes, I’m fine,” I stuttered. I was still working through the absolutely unbelievable amount of pain my body just experienced, even topping what happened the first time we fought. And much more invasive than before. My own blood was trying to kill me.

“So, what’s the plan? Surely, we can’t just wait it out or something right?”

“Actually, that’s the only thing I could think of so far. Ōhara’s right, without risking my death, we can’t exactly win against her in this current state. To properly fight her now, the state the earth below us is in, I’ll have to reach deep into the ground on a large scale to stand a chance.

That could force an opening, but We’d have to hold her off at least an hour for me to manage that. We need to totally overwhelm her to even get a chance of beating her.”

She looked back and forth between me and Ōhara.

“I could, of course, do that right now, but not even you could save me then, Laura. I don’t plan on breaking the last promise we made, so it’ll take time to fully grasp the weight below us.”

“But that’ll take an hour, didn’t you just say that? Either this box breaks before then, or we’ll suffocate in here. Besides, I’m not planning on going through all of that paperwork again for the damage she’ll definitely cause in the meantime. What if she loses interest and wanders off?

Nobody stays focused on one thing that long without getting any reaction to work with. Especially not with that brittle mentality.”

“Then, can you two manage to keep her busy for more than thirty minutes? That would probably even tire me out. I’ve lost contact to my sniper, so that’s out of the picture for now. This box doesn’t exactly improve reception.” Takako stared at both of us.

“I could manage ten, if I go all out. Probably even twenty. Then there won’t be anything left around here anymore though. I already increased the pressure within the sparks to counter her water, but that wasn’t quite enough to stop it from breaking through just now,” Ōhara responded.

“Besides, you would then have to deal with me after I beat her. I can feel a good fight from a mile away when going all out. And there wouldn’t be anything holding me back from attacking you in that case.”

“If you’re willing to do that, Ōhara, then do it. I’ll deal with you if you actually manage to win against that thing out there. I’m sure the public won’t like it at all, though. And you, Laura? Can you manage to hold her off for long enough? It seemed like you were an even match before.”

“I suppose I could try. But I doubt it’ll end up any differently than compared to what Ōhara just said. That girl is a different beast. I’d probably die fighting against her for ten more minutes. My ice just isn’t thick enough, and I’m too slow to actually react to her attacks directly.”

The ceiling above us began suddenly showing slight cracks.

“It seems like there’s not much time left. I’m currently sustaining it as good as I can, but her intensity is still increasing. It’s almost exponential.” Takako’s legs shuddered a little as she said it.

I wondered what horrific ordeal could possibly curse someone with that much power. If it even scared Takako in terms of strength alone, then it must have been an international headliner in the news back then, at least. Was she even still in control of her ability? What if her current state was just an escalation of what happened to Takako last week?

An incredibly strong vibration hit the box, again and again.

Rapidly, more cracks showed up. Through the small tears in the structure, the water sounded as if it itself was screaming in agony. It begged for its suffering to finally end.

“I’ll confine myself in a thicker layer of that as soon as it breaks. Buy as much time as you can, and please don’t die.”

“Wait. I think she’s in pain. Just like you were, Takako.”

“Takako? Can she call you that, Commander?”

“It’s fine, Ōhara. What do you mean, like me? You may be right, her unrelenting attacks do mirror a loss of control over one’s Traumata. Alright. I’ll hurry, and try to create an opening faster. You need to exploit that as good as you can, not lose control yourself, and survive at that. Can you manage that and try to help her? That may be the only way to end this without all of us dying here.”

I nodded, just as the ceiling broke. Water immediately came flooding in.

I froze the first wave, but that was quickly broken by another crashing through it. As long as it was slow enough for me to react, I would be fine. The entire box quickly disintegrated after that, Takako fully encasing herself inside a thick layer of the same material she had just previously created.

Now, this had turned from a pure battle against time into a rescue mission.

I encased myself in a block of ice, slowly rising back to the surface of the giant pool of water that had formed around us.

The five giant spheres around her were still slowly spinning, releasing an unending barrage of water aimed towards me.

Ōhara followed immediately after me, propelling himself through the water and into the air once again, this time already surrounded by a small flurry of sparks. He directed them around his body in a circular motion, replicating what Takako had done to defend against the first barrage of hers.

As the beams approached him, being kept above ground by a perpetually occurring explosion below his feet, the circle around him slowly broke out into an orchestra of endless explosions. Still, he produced even more sparks and propelled them toward her.

He laughed maniacally during the entire escapade. By embracing his trauma, even thriving in whatever had happened to him, he didn’t seem bothered at all. He was more fired up than before, even.