"And that arbitrary territory they're using—actually, this ship is equipped with arbitrary territory too. Maybe you don't really understand it, but that's the power of a spirit. The shield I used before to block their bullets was an arbitrary territory. You have to know, that's an ability unique to spirits. Which means..." Without paying any attention to everyone's reactions, Tohka kept explaining everything she knew. As for that spirit who'd been captured, she had already come up with a rough plan to rescue her. But she'd still need Miku's help eventually. Alone, she had no idea where that girl was being held, so there was no way to start.
"Ahem—enough. Now isn't the time to talk about that. Shido, you need to head to the scene right away." At that moment, Reine Murasame cleared her throat several times and cut Tohka off before she could say anything else. She was becoming more and more puzzled by Tohka—she not only knew so much, but also seemed to have sensed parts of her plan.
"So? Are you going or not? If you go, I'll handle the AST." Having been interrupted, Tohka didn't bother continuing. Instead, she turned to Shido. Watching the Four Lolis crying as they were chased around, she honestly couldn't stand it any longer.
"Are you sure you're okay? Your spirit power has already been sealed, you know." Kotori asked doubtfully when she heard Tohka. Since her power was sealed, she hadn't seen Tohka use any of her spirit abilities, so she didn't know that even sealed, she could still fight.
"No worries—leave it to me. Even if I can't knock them all out like before, stalling them won't be a problem." Tohka was quite confident in her strength. After all, she didn't have to wear her broken spirit armor to fight this time. She also wanted to see how powerful the knockoff Oni Armor Tony had given her was.
"I think we should let her go take a look. If something goes wrong, we can always teleport her back immediately." Hearing Tohka's reply, Kotori still looked hesitant, but Reine was the first to agree. She knew that even sealed, a spirit still had plenty of ways to defend themselves. Also, she was curious to see what other cards Tohka had up her sleeve—because this girl was giving her a truly strange feeling.
"All right. I'll leave it to you, then." After Reine spoke up, Kotori didn't say any more and just nodded to the others.
"Let's go. I'll draw the AST away, and you handle rescuing the little loli—hehe." Glancing at Shido, Tohka couldn't help letting out a mischievous laugh.
"Uh..." Feeling her stare, Shido had to look away. He could tell this spirit had a truly poisonous tongue—it was better to just say nothing.
"All right. Over there is the AST—we'll leave the little loli to you." With that, Tohka stepped off the top of the building. In an instant, black-purple armor covered her whole body. Instead of flying straight up, she started sprinting along the roof, charging toward the AST member closest to her.
"That armor is a projection device... no, it's different. Damn, where did this little girl get a suit like that? Looks like it's probably stronger than AST's equipment." Reine glanced at the data readouts and began comparing the two sets of gear. It wasn't exactly that Tony's tech was better per se—it was that Tohka already had enough innate spirit power, so there was no need to equip her with systems for energy supply. As long as she had the amplifiers and weapons, it was enough. Meanwhile, most of the AST gear was dedicated to solving energy problems. Even though they were magicians, compared to Tohka they were far too lacking.
"That gear of hers... it's clearly not spirit equipment." The others were thinking about the same thing as Reine. Seeing Tohka in that armor left them stunned.
"Hehe—found you." Tohka had no idea what they were thinking—nor did she care. She had to admit, this hand-me-down armor Tony had built for her was really useful. At least it felt much stronger than her crippled spirit armor.
She leaped off the rooftop behind an AST member who was firing a machine gun at the Four Lolis, and brought her sword hilt crashing down on their helmet.
"Ah!!!" None of them had expected an ambush like that, so the AST member let out a miserable scream and plummeted from the air. Although she'd only knocked them unconscious—and the armor would protect them from fatal injury—getting hit like that would definitely break a few bones. At the very least, they wouldn't be fighting again anytime soon.
"Who is that? Some magician?" The soldier's scream had attracted everyone's attention. But because Tohka wasn't wearing her spirit armor, their detectors didn't pick up any spirit signals. Combined with her unfamiliar gear, even the ones who had glimpsed her before couldn't recognize her right away. But just because they didn't recognize her didn't mean everyone was clueless.
"That's the 'Princess'!!!" Sure enough, even though the others were confused, Origami—who'd just spent an entire day glaring at Tohka at school—recognized her instantly. Even if all she could see was Tohka's back, she knew exactly who it was.
"Are you sure? Our scanners aren't picking up any spirit readings." But Ryoko Kusakabe still sounded uncertain—her equipment hadn't detected any spirit signals. Then again, their suits had a lot of spirit-related shielding themselves. As long as the amount of spirit energy didn't exceed a certain threshold, the alarms wouldn't go off. Clearly, Tohka hadn't exceeded that limit yet, which was why she hadn't been flagged.
"Captain, you handle 'Hermit.' I'm going after the Princess." Without waiting for her commander's reply, Origami's eyes gleamed with murderous intent. She tossed aside her machine gun, drew her energy sword, and used her back thrusters to blast straight toward Tohka.
While they were talking, Tohka hadn't been idle. Even though this armor didn't have flight modules, she could fly under her own power. So, she'd already dealt with another AST member.