C-Rank Ranked Match — Enter ChaCha

Deleted, I’m transported into a capsule bed.

I… I lost…

Aaaargh, it’s so infuriaaatiiing!!

I stayed frozen on that rooftop too long at the start. That’s what lost it. Ugh, come on! I’m furious with myself!

This place…?

I climb out of the capsule bed and step into what looks like… a command center? Five big LCD screens line the wall, two of them showing Shiina and Niko. In front of them, a Space Girl sits tapping away at an electronic keyboard.

“Yoo-hoo. First time meeting in person, isn’t it~”

She scratches at her shaggy brown hair and turns around.

“You’re…”

“That’d be ChaCha, in charge of mechanics~. Nice ta meetcha!”

ChaCha makes a peace sign and touches it to her forehead.

“Btw, this is the Operator Room. A Space Girl who loses in a Ranked Match gets transported to her team’s Operator Room. There’s no death penalty or anything, so relax~”

A lollipop in her mouth, baggy work overalls, thick gloves on her hands. Big round eyes, a face with a cat-like charm to it. Cute.

“Ah, um… it’s nice to meet you… ChaCha…”

My shoulders slump under the weight of my guilt.

“Hnah. What’re you so down about?”

“B-Because I went down right away…”

ChaCha turns back toward the screens.

“That one couldn’t be helped~. Two of the Crimson Wings jumping you right out of the gate? Shii or Nikki would’ve ended up the same.”

No, the real problem goes back further than that. It’s that I let a one-on-two situation happen at all.

“ChaCha is right. Please do not concern yourself.”

Shiina’s voice rings through the Operator Room.

“You held out that long for us. The responsibility lies with us, for letting them regroup first.”

“If we’d been the ones grouped up first, the result would’ve flipped. None of it’s on you. Seriously.”

“Yep yep. If anything, ChaCha wants to give Shikki a pat on the back~. Going toe-to-toe in close quarters like that against an Attacker way above your level? Shocked ChaCha.”

Th-their kindness hurts… making them pay me compliments like this!

The least I can do is cheer them on…

“…How are things looking right now…?”

“They’ve changed the rally point and they’re working on linking up. Guess there won’t be any fighting for a while~”

“ChaCha. Until the fighting starts, please give Shiki some commentary and the like.”

“Roooger~”

ChaCha spins her chair around and faces me.

“Anything you wanna ask?”

“…U-Um, so…”

Talking to someone face to face is rough.

B-But I don’t want to throw all that goodwill back in their faces. Come on, me…

“Ch-Cha, Cha-Cha…!”

“…‘The Toys’ Cha-Cha-Cha¹’?”

“It’s not ‘cha-cha-cha’!”

Calm dowwwn…! It’s one on one. You managed to talk to Tsukigami just fine, didn’t you? Deep breath!!

“Ch-ChaCha, please tell me what you think my mistakes were. Why I lost.”

“Don’t really think Shikki lost, personally, though~”

“E-Even so, I don’t think my play was flawless.”

“Hmm~, if you’re going to insist that much, ChaCha will answer from her own point of view. Reason number one you lost: staying up on that rooftop too long. Shikki knows that one already, right?”

“Y-Yes.”

I stayed up on that roof because I was weighing whether to self-destruct. That’s how I set up the worst possible outcome.

“But the biggest mistake was not throwing on your Stealth-boost cloak before the fighting started, I’d say.”

“Ah! …I completely forgot.”

“The reason Kurry came straight at you first was almost certainly that Shikki turned up on Kurry’s radar. Kurry’s an Attacker, so her radar performance is low. If you’d had the cloak on properly, you’d never have shown up on it.”

I see. If I’d thrown that cloak on before the fighting started, my Stealth would have gone up 1.5× and I’d never have been found.

“But y’know~, this was Shikki’s first Ranked Match to begin with, so of course you wouldn’t know theory like that. Short on time or not, the one at fault here is ChaCha, for not telling you to put the cloak on. Soz.”

“N-No! Not at all!”

Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that I was spacing out at the start. If I’d been concentrating properly, I would have noticed the cloak myself.

“Those two are about the only reasons I can name. Honestly, the moment it turned into a one-on-one up on that roof, you were pretty much checkmated already~. But your tactics from the moment she closed in? Flawless, all of it! Way past anything ChaCha imagined~”

“Thank you very much…”

It’s not as though I’d been underestimating them, but the radar-type stats really do matter… Just handing the enemy the radar advantage makes it that easy to set up a many-on-one.

“A-Also, if it’s all right, I’d like you to tell me about those wings Kurenai had equipped…”

“Those are Wings. Armaments that boost your thrusters. Thruster Output and Thruster Capacity roughly double.”

“Huh?! Isn’t that an absolute cheat?!”

“They’ve got plenty of drawbacks, though~. First off, the right wing and the left wing eat one armament slot each. Next, EN consumption is brutal, so you’ve got to dump stat points into EN Capacity. Third, while a Wing is running your Stealth drops to zero. Painted right across everybody’s radar. Fourth, Wings don’t self-repair, so once one gets broken it doesn’t come back for the rest of the match. Lose a single wing and the performance dies~”

Losing two armament slots is brutal. This fight taught me Shield Pieces are mandatory, and Wings plus Shields alone would eat four slots. And if it wipes out your Stealth on top of that, it’s a bad fit for a Sniper.

“Looks flat-out strong, but it’s a surprisingly high-maintenance thing. Case in point, Nikki’s an Attacker too and she doesn’t run them. Ah, a fight’s about to start.”

One unit shows up on Niko’s radar. Just because the rest aren’t showing doesn’t mean there aren’t several more of them. I can hear footsteps.

“Awww, maaan~. Got caught by some team before she could link up.”

“Niko, I will be arriving shortly as well. Do not push yourself—”

“Hmph. Small fry like these? I’m plenty on my own!”

Niko pulls out two Saber terminals, equips one in each hand, and takes them in a reverse grip.

“Th-that’s an unusual stance.”

“The reverse grip, yeah~. It isn’t rational, but honestly, Nikki really is stronger like that than holding them the normal way~”

A reverse grip… so cool.

“Right! Time to go wild!”