Invaders of the Rokujouma!? Volume 6

by Takehaya

  “Glad to see you safe, Shizuka.”

  “As a martial artist, using goggles like this kind of feels like cheating. I’m supposed to do this kind of think with my mind’s eye.”

  Shizuka took off her goggles while talking to the unmanned fighter Theia’s voice was coming from. The goggles allowed the user to see infrared light, which was how Shizuka had been able to fight in the smoke.

  “D-Damn, to think you had that kind of ambush lying in wait...”

  Tayuma, who had been knocked down by Koutarou, stood up. As he did, the clay doll moved away from Karama and Korama and went to its master’s side to protect him.

  “So what will you do now, Tayuma? Are you still planning on fighting?”

  Kiriha approached Tayuma, still wearing the blue gauntlet on her left hand. She was determined to use it if she had to.

  Despite his obvious disadvantage, Tayuma gave Kiriha a cold glare and boldly responded, “That goes without question! If I can turn you into a sacrifice here, the People of the Earth will still choose war!”

  Even if Tayuma and his group were defeated here, as long as Kiriha died, the remaining members of the radical faction would manipulate the truth to incite the People of the Earth. That way Tayuma would still get what he wanted. He only had to ignore whether he personally won or lost.

  “Do you think you can do that in this situation?”

  “I don’t.”

  Not just Kiriha, but Koutarou and the others all had Tayuma surrounded. He knew killing Kiriha would be difficult now. But in spite of that, he still laughed.

  “But the sacrifice doesn’t have to be you!”

  Tayuma smiled triumphantly. It was almost as if he had predicted this outcome from the start.

  “So your aim isn’t me, it’s—”

  In that moment, Kiriha realized what Tayuma was after.

  “Jakko, release the safety device!”

  “Gaaaaa...”

  “Karama, Korama! Focus the spiritual energy field around that automaton! Maximum output! I don’t care if you burn out your circuits! Keep it contained no matter what!”

  “You’re too late! Jakko, self-destruct!”

  “Gaaaaa...”

  Kiriha and Tayuma gave their orders at the same time, but Tayuma’s simple order registered much faster. Karama and Korama’s field wouldn’t make in time. Even if it did, it was still weakened from the erosion, so it was uncertain how much of the explosion it could actually contain.

  “Muahahaha! I win!”

  Convinced of his victory, Tayuma burst out laughing. Things were going according to plan. Tayuma’s strategy had a primary goal and a backup goal. The primary goal was to assassinate Kiriha with his own hands. Once it became apparent that was impossible, he simply moved on to his backup goal.

  The backup goal was to self-destruct the clay doll and make himself the sacrifice. Although they might not have had the influence of the Kurano clan, the Shijima clan was still a considerably powerful clan. With just a small twist of the truth, the radical faction could claim that Tayuma had been attacked by the surface dwellers and his automaton exploded in the process. They could spin Tayuma as a martyr. A victim of the cruel surface dwellers. The best possible outcome was if the explosion also managed to take Kiriha with him.

  The reason behind the several scouting parties was to lure out the surface’s combat squads. By doing that, the radical faction could pin the blame on them. That was why Tayuma waited to attack Kiriha until the Sun Rangers arrived. Once they appeared, all the radical faction had to do was destroy Karama and Korama, and subsequently their records of the events. The entire reason Tayuma had brought a clay doll with the ability to erode spiritual energy fields was to make absolutely sure that Karama and Korama would be destroyed. All he had to do was buy enough time to erode their spiritual energy field.

  Once that had failed, he’d chosen to become a sacrifice and ordered the clay doll to self-destruct. The ideal scenario was to catch Kiriha in the blast too, but all it really had to accomplish was destroying Karama and Korama. Without any records of what had happened, Tayuma didn’t expect the People of the Earth to believe Kiriha over the entire radical faction. So with Tayuma’s death, he could make sure the People of the Earth would no longer trust surface dwellers.

  “With this, the People of the Earth shall reclaim their glory! And I shall stand alongside the heroes of history!”

  Tayuma had won. The clay doll would explode and he would die. It would also wipe out the haniwas, meaning no evidence would be left behind. The rest of the radical faction would exploit the situation and call for revenge against the surface dwellers. It would be the first step to ushering in the age of war Tayuma had dreamed of.

  The clay doll exploded, but Tayuma’s laughter didn’t stop.

  “Wh-Whaaat?!”

  At least, it didn’t until he saw that the explosion was prevented by Karama and Korama’s spiritual energy field after all.

  “How?! That’s impossible!”

  The field should have been deployed too late. Tayuma had finished issuing his orders first. Even if the haniwas had made it in time, their energy field was damaged by the clay doll. Either way, they shouldn’t have been able to prevent the explosion.

  “It seems like the explosion was smaller than I thought.”

  With Tayuma dumbstruck, Kiriha didn’t miss her chance to close the distance between them. He saw her coming, but he was too shocked over the failure of his plan to react in time.

  “As if that could happen! Quit messing around! This is some kind of mistake!”

  Tayuma couldn’t accept the situation. The clay doll had more than enough power to kill him. He’d gone over this countless times in simulations. He was absolutely sure of it. Karama and Korama shouldn’t have been able to prevent an explosion like that. But they had nevertheless, and now Kiriha was closing in.

  “Then you were simply abandoned by the goddess of creation!”

  The gauntlet on Kiriha’s left hand began glowing. The gauntlet worked by turning the wearer’s spiritual energy into fire or electricity. Right now, Kiriha was channeling hers as electricity.

  “There will be war! I will become a hero! The People of the Earth’s history will—”

  “Allow me to advise you on something.”

  Kiriha’s left fist sunk into the body of the screaming Tayuma. As it did, the electricity from her fist flowed into him.

  “Gwah!”

  Through precise control of her spiritual energy, the electricity knocked Tayuma out without killing him.

  “Next time, don’t skip out on your prayers. For your own sake.”

  Tayuma hit the floor. Kiriha watched it happen with a somewhat sorrowful look on her face.

  “Ah, it looks like it ended safely.”

  Someone was looking down on Kiriha and Tayuma’s fight. However, it wasn’t the goddess of creation that Kiriha had mentioned, but rather a girl wearing a frilly pink costume. And that girl was none other than our magical girl, Rainbow Yurika.

  “Now I can finally climb down...”

  Suppressing her fears, she had scaled a tall pillar to watch over Koutarou and the others from afar and support them with her magic if necessary.

  “I feel like I’ve gotten good at using my magic in secret.”

  Yurika had set up a ward to keep people from gathering, reduced the falling speed of the blown away Sun Rangers to keep them alive, and protected the amusement park and its visitors when Tayuma’s subordinates began firing at random.

  “I’m so glad everything worked out.”

  And to top it all off, she had contained the clay doll’s explosion by casting a defensive spell on the inside of Karama and Korama’s spiritual energy field. The explosion had terrific power, but thanks to the twofold barrier of magic and spiritual energy, it was successfully contained. While she almost hadn’t made it in time, Yurika still somehow managed to pull it off. Nobody knew, but the hero of the day was indeed Yurika.

  �
�Now all I need to do is head back to Ruth-san and everything will be fine.”

  However, unlike every other time this had happened before, Yurika believed that it was a good thing that nobody knew. It was always important to tackle difficult problems with your own power. If people knew that there was magic to do the heavy lifting for them when they needed it most, there would be lots of people who stopped trying to do things for themselves. And the fact that she could appreciate that now was also a sign that Yurika had matured.

  That being said, Yurika’s actions were also for her own sake. She wanted to stay as a normal girl for as long as possible, and that meant keeping people from finding out about her powers.

  “But how do I get down from here...?”

  After casting spells to her heart’s content, Yurika had temporarily used up all of her mana. And without some magical assistance, weak Yurika was left stranded, unable to climb down from the pillar she was on.

  “Please save meee, Satomi-saaan!”

  Yurika was now more concerned with surviving the crisis she found herself in than who did or didn’t know about her being a magical girl.

  A few days later, another evaluation meeting was being held in the office of the Sun Ranger’s base. They had finally gotten their five individual colors straight, but today they were all wearing white. The damage they had suffered from the explosion and following crash wasn’t anything to be sneezed at. Each one of them was all wrapped up in bandages.

  “All of our previous dilemmas have been resolved and we’ve confirmed that the enemy is active in this region as well, but now we have discovered a new set of problems.”

  Like last time, Professor Roppongi was writing on the whiteboard.

  “...And that’s that. We’re all terribly weak.”

  “We didn’t even stand a chance.”

  The White Shine with short hair sticking out from under his bandages slumped his shoulders. As he did, the short White Shine next to him continued talking.

  “Besides, in the other regions, the underground people would run as soon as they saw rangers. But here, they came straight for us.”

  “Yeah. They shot at us without hesitation. Their guns really packed a punch too,” the White Shine wearing sunglasses said bitterly.

  He was confident in his counter-firearm abilities, so he was quite dissatisfied with such a defeat.

  “Still, we were saved by the strength of our suits. It’s almost a miracle that we survived.”

  “I was sure I would die when Megu-chan came falling down on me.”

  “Daisaku-kun, you don’t need to say it like that!”

  When the fat White Shine had been blown away, he hit the ground first and ended up as the female White Shine’s landing pad. Thanks to that, his injuries were that much more severe. The female White Shine felt bad about it, but since she had a stubborn side to her, she protested when the topic was brought up.

  “On the other hand, the underground people were defeated by civilians that happened to be at the scene.”

  “Which means that their weapons are powerful, but the soldiers themselves aren’t all that strong?”

  “Most likely. Those soldiers might just have been recruits as well.”

  “I see... So the situation was the same for both of us, but we lost due to the difference in firepower...”

  “If my prediction is correct.”

  Roppongi and the White Shine with short hair nodded at each other. However, the mini White Shine had a different opinion.

  “There’s also the possibility that the civilians who defeated them were just special. It was Baron Demon-san and the others that did it, right?”

  “That’s right! Baron-sama is super strong!”

  At the mention of Baron Demon, the female White Shine’s eyes started sparkling. In her head, Baron Demon was already godly. Hearing of his victory, it was like she was dreaming.

  “Aaah! I want to be captured and tortured by Baron-sama as soon as possible! Ohohoho...”

  “...Megu-chan’s opinion aside, if normal people could come out victorious, won’t things work out if we try harder?” the large man covered in plaster casts said in summary.

  If Baron Demon could overcome the difference in firepower with skill, they should be able to do the same if they tried hard enough. Really, they had a much higher chance of succeeding than Baron Demon thanks to their suits.

  “Daisaku-niichan, do you mean that we should practice our moves and come up with strategies?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Practice, huh? That’s my specialty.”

  “Strategies... Hey, I’ve been thinking, but can’t we just stealthily snipe them? We have the detectors on our side.”

  “Stupid. Do you want to be scolded by Baron-sama again?”

  “Then if we increase our numbers—”

  “Quit messing around! Hayato, you really don’t get it, do you?! Did you not listen to a word of what Baron-sama said?!”

  “I-I did, but...”

  The discussion once again deteriorated into a dispute. Their first battle might have been a loss, but their morale was still high. They wanted to be able to produce results for their next mission. All five members could at least agree on that much.

  They’d finally gotten the chance to do some real work since their demotions, so a failure or two was no obstacle. Whether they were defeated or made fun of, they would get up as many times as they had to. At least in that aspect, they could be called heroes.

  Really, the Sun Ranger’s battle had only just begun.

  Roller Coaster

  Monday, December 21st

  With Kiriha apprehending Shijima Tayuma, his plan ended in complete failure. Karama and Korama’s recorded footage served as proof that backed up Kiriha’s testimony. Tayuma was now in custody awaiting investigation and trial.

  And with his plan exposed to the world, Kiriha’s political rivals, the radical faction, temporarily withdrew from the limelight. With public opinion of the underground dwellers changing, there was little they could do now. Even if Kiriha were to somehow die, those of the radical faction would be primary suspects. They would have to ride out this storm before they could make any further moves. As a result, Kiriha’s life peacefully returned to normal.

  After surviving the ordeal, she used her winter vacation to take Koutarou to the amusement park again to thank him.

  “You don’t really need to thank me.”

  However, to Koutarou, he hadn’t done anything that required thanks. He and Kiriha were friends. It was only obvious that he would help her out and defend her.

  “Don’t say that. I love this place. There are lots of rides I haven’t tried yet.”

  That said, expressing her gratitude was mostly an excuse. In reality, Koutarou coming along was just a bonus. What she really wanted to do was ride the roller coaster. She’d almost gotten a chance to before, but Tayuma showing up had gotten in the way. But Kiriha was determined to ride it today, and she’d been enthusiastic about it since morning.

  “Well, in that case... it’s fine.”

  “Good. I’ll be happy if you enjoy it with me.”

  “You can count on me. Having fun is my specialty.”

  The two of them were leisurely walking through the park in the direction of the roller coaster. However, just before they reached it, Koutarou stopped for some reason. Noticing that, Kiriha stopped too and turned to look at him.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Over there,” Koutarou said with a nod of his head. “I was just noticing that they’re already working on fixing the hole.”

  He was looking at the place where Tayuma had appeared with the subterranean submarine. It had left something of a crater in the park grounds, and there were several workers in the middle of filling and repairing it.

  “Koutarou, having a big hole like that here would be a waste.”

  “Well, as long as there are happy memories being made here, everything is fine, right?”

  “That�
��s right.”

  “And now I guess you want some happy memories on the roller coaster?”

  “Of course.”

  After giggling with each other, they began walking towards the roller coaster again.

  Thanks to Yurika’s magic that day, the incident had ended quickly. Because of the ward she cast at the same time the Sun Rangers appeared, no one had seen the fighting and the incident was written off as a mysterious sinkhole.

  Koutarou and Kiriha, of course, had no idea what Yurika had done either. Koutarou just thought they’d been lucky. Kiriha assumed that the surface government was carefully regulating information on the incident. And while their rationalizations were different, they were both just happy that the incident had been safely resolved.

  “As long as happy memories are being made, huh? Koutarou, are you happy being here with me?”

  Kiriha eyed Koutarou suspiciously as she walked next to him. They were closer than ever. So while he would normally panic in this kind of situation, today he instead smiled and nodded.

  “Yeah. You’re not that bad the way you are now. And I don’t have to worry about anything weird since I now know what you’re really after.”

  Up until recently, Koutarou had been uneasy because he didn’t fully understand Kiriha’s intentions. For example, when she had tried to seduce him, he didn’t know if she was kidding or if she was being serious. But things were different now. Knowing that Kiriha had someone she loved, it was obvious that she wasn’t seriously pursuing him. And he knew that she was loyal. In fact, it would be more trouble for Kiriha if Koutarou took her seduction seriously.

  But with things the way they were now, Koutarou completely trusted in her. She might play mind games, but she didn’t play with people’s hearts. And knowing that, he was no longer anxious around her. Like he did with Kenji, he was able to just enjoy hanging out and playing around with Kiriha.

  “It sounds like you’re calling me a capricious woman though.”