C-Rank Ranked Match — Balancer Is Specialist

Shiina is a Balancer. A Balancer’s starting values are:

Armor: C (60)

Thruster Output: B (80)

Thruster Capacity: C (60)

Precision: C (60)

Radar: C (60)

Stealth: C+ (70)

EN Capacity: C+ (70)

Stats built around balance, exactly as the name says.

From what I can tell, Shiina’s armaments are the handguns in both hands and the flower-shaped shield mounted on her right shoulder. The Shield Pieces are probably one slot’s worth, fifty of them. Every so often she also whips a white cloak around herself. A Stealth booster, most likely, same as my Dust Mirage. There are Saber terminals in the holder at her waist too, six of them. The last two slots are anyone’s guess.

“…”

I want to ask ChaCha about that shoulder shield, but with Niko right here, it’s hard to. I’ve gotten used to talking with ChaCha one-on-one, but one against two is still too much for me…

“Ahh, this is bad.”

Six… no, eight Space Girls light up on Shiina’s radar. She’s already boxed in.

“Why are there so many…”

“Because she’s marked.”

“Shii’s a bit of a celebrity, y’know, so she gets hunted first, top priority. Even with nobody arranging it, the other teams just naturally start teaming up to take Shii down. And once it gets to this point…”

Up against all of that, there’s no way…

“Well, I never expected to beat the Crimson Wings on my own, so I had assumed there was no chance of victory either way.”

Shiina says it calmly.

“Why not just go down quietly? No point showing your hand for nothing.”

“No. This is a good opportunity to show Shiki what I can do.”

“Huh— uh, m-me…?!”

“Yes. Then first, allow me to show you my secret weapon—my strongest armament.”

A secret weapon, just like that?!

“You’re not seriously—!”

“Activating the railgun.”

A-a-a railgun?!

“Wh-whoa whoa whoa…?!”

Shiina stows her handguns and materializes a weapon, calling it out of data and into solid matter.

“That shape, it really is—”

An electromagnetic cannon. A railgun.

The barrel is long, a meter or so, its muzzle rectangular. A railgun, of course, is a cannon that hurls its round at monstrous speed on nothing but electromagnetic force. To a gun nut like me, this is what you’d call a romance cannon…!

“Effective range, two hundred meters. Muzzle velocity—”

Current surges down the length of the cannon, and Shiina levels the muzzle at the apartment block beside her. Two seconds later, the round fires. A brutal crack, a flash of light. It punches clean through the apartment block and wipes out one of the enemy icons on the far side of it.

“Not a speed anyone can follow. And the Power is more than adequate.”

Strong. Far too fast. There’s no reading a shot like that on reflex.

“It does have its drawbacks, however. Once fired, it needs a charge time of one minute and twenty seconds. And the report and the flash are both dreadful, so, as you can see.”

The net around Shiina snaps shut in an instant. Every side, every angle, sealed off completely.

“The enemy converges on me all at once.”

Space Girls come down on Shiina from every direction. She keeps up her explanation even as she turns their attacks aside.

“My basic style is dual handguns. The red one in my right hand is a semi-auto built around a single heavy shot; the blue one in my left is a full-auto built around volume of fire. Next, this flower-shaped armament on my shoulder—”

“How is she parrying an assault like that and still talking…”

“…Yeah. Seriously…”

Every last thing about the way Shiina moves is on another level. She’s unquestionably a class above Kurenai or Niko.

“This shoulder armament is an ‘Attack Piece’, a derivative of the Shield Piece. Its armament name is ‘Six Petals’.¹”

The flower on Shiina’s shoulder splits into six petals and scatters. They stride through the air the way Shield Pieces do and come down on the enemy units, their tips honed to fine points, with enough Power to punch straight through a Space Girl’s Armor.

Six remote-controlled sabers, basically. No reach on them, and they aren’t all that fast, but having to deal with those while Shiina is also putting rounds on you has to be rough.

If it were me, I’d take some damage and shoot the Six Petals down first. With a numbers gap this wide, you’d think at least one of them could commit to clearing the petals. But they’re a group thrown together on the spot, so their coordination is clumsy.

“This is, so to speak, an offensive-type Shield Piece. It can be used to guard as well, but its defensive strength is not great. These Six Petals and the two handguns are my core, and depending on the situation I also use a saber, a shield, and a sniper rifle.”

So: handgun, handgun, sniper rifle, saber, shield, cloak, Six Petals, Shield Pieces… railgun?

That’s nine armaments…?

“Hmm. I am about at my limit, I am afraid.”

“Five kills out of a net like that? That’s plenty good.”

“Talk about overdoing it! Seriously, her pride is out of control!”

Shiina has already lost her right arm and her left leg. The match is decided.

Watching Shiina get cornered, step by step… it gets to me. Because the one who put her here is nobody but me. It’s my fault Shiina is being hounded like this.

Niko took down three. Shiina took down five. And me… kill count, zero.

Aaah, I’m dead weight… we lost because of me… because of me.

With nothing left she can do, Shiina is deleted.