Chapter 161 – Unruly Does Not Begin to Describe It…

Before Letaria's eyes, the single shot that had been slipped in from her blind spot bore down on her without mercy.

It's going to hit...!

In the very instant she sensed a direct hit, the machine leapt in a violent motion that left her will behind.

Caducus swung its right arm forward in a flash. A shrill clash of metal rang out through the black void, and the bullet that had been bearing down within a hair of her nose was knocked away amid violent sparks.

The sudden recoil rocked the machine hard. At the edge of her vision, a damage alert blinked red, flagging minor damage to the right arm.

"W-what... what just happened...?"

Letaria was flustered by the movement she had not intended. But a fierce sense of wrongness swept over her and overwrote that fluster, as though text were streaming straight into her mind.

"This is... the 'Imperative System'...?"

A splitting headache took root, as though the depths of her consciousness were being hammered awake.

"Ngh...!"

Back when she rode her beloved Arden, there had been times when the machine moved as if answering her own peril. This phenomenon recalled that, but this time it was decisively different. She herself was not touching the control stick at all.

Rejecting Letaria's commands, Caducus quietly set itself in a posture to confront the enemy.

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"What...?!"

In Acuitas's cockpit, Marei's eyes went wide in shock.

The bullet he had loosed at a timing that should have made dodging or defending impossible -- the lethal trump card only he could handle, hidden behind a double trap -- had been knocked back with ease right before his eyes.

"Damn it...! Haa... haa...!"

Pushing Acuitas to its limits placed an extremely heavy physical burden on its pilot. Using the "trump card" had rapidly drained Marei's stamina. If he did not settle this quickly, he would be the one to collapse first.

Looking up, he saw the silver Caducus, its posture recovered, beginning to accelerate in a straight line toward him.

"Fine...! If you want to do this, I'll crush you by sheer force!!"

With bloodshot eyes, Marei shoved his control stick forward and sent his machine charging in at full power.

◆◆◆

From the moment she thought she was done for, it had started moving on its own again...!

Enduring the intensifying headache, Letaria desperately tried to move the control stick. But her input was nullified, and the machine was acting entirely autonomously.

Before she knew it, built-in high-frequency blades glowing a pale blue had deployed from both of Caducus's arms. What had knocked away the enemy's bullet just now was the weaponry hidden in those arms.

"Is it responding to my overwhelming feeling that I must act or be killed...?!"

The instant Letaria's thoughts raced to that, Caducus, as if answering her words, pushed its thrust up even further.

The dark-green giant Acuitas loomed before her.

Marei readied the claws of his right arm and loosed photon bolts from point-blank range.

The moment Letaria sensed the shot coming, Caducus smoothly evaded the photon bolts in a flowing motion. As they passed, it flashed the high-frequency blade of its right arm.

But Caducus's slash was caught by Acuitas's heavy claws.

Blade and claws crashed against each other violently.

"My head...! I cannot go on in this state any longer...!"

The headache, like her brain being scraped raw, grew worse still.

At the close range where blade and claws were locked, Acuitas's free left arm began to glow.

It's coming...!

At the same instant Letaria sensed it, Caducus reversed the thrusters in both legs and quickly threw itself into a backward boost.

A moment later, photon bolts rained from Acuitas's left hand in a continuous stream, like a downpour.

"Ngh...!"

Letaria endured both the splitting headache and the fierce G-load of the machine's sudden braking.

Holding an exquisitely precise distance, Caducus continued to weave through the narrow gaps in the fan of spreading bolts and evade them.

"Haa... haa...! What the hell are you?! Quit screwing with me...!!"

Marei's ragged breathing and furious shouts came over the comm line.

It was nothing like the calm manner he had shown when they first met -- a raw voice, like a beast with its emotions laid bare.

He was as wild as a different person... but what weighed on her far more was Caducus itself, moving on its own.

"Unruly does not begin to describe it... what on earth is this one?"

With distance put between them, Caducus's savage movements settled down slightly.

The rapid retreat had opened a good gap between the two machines. Even if he scattered continuous photon bolts blindly from his left hand, they would not hit at this distance.

Cornered, Marei began charging photon energy into the palm of Acuitas's right hand. He meant to take a one-shot-kill sniper shot, pushing muzzle velocity and penetration to the limit.

"With this, I'll finish yo--"

Marei's triumphant words suddenly cut off.

An instant later, an energy round flying in from somewhere struck Acuitas's left shoulder and burst in a shower of brilliant sparks.