Chapter 77 – I Find the Examination More Irksome Than the Injury Itself…

The hangar hatch slid open without a sound, and both Makina glided back into Syn-Fibra's secure bay.

Waiting for Letaria and Steshia as they climbed down from their cockpits were Grain -- who offered a brief, quiet "well done" -- and Milea, whose expression had moved beyond irritation into something closer to resigned acceptance, though with a thread of undeniable relief underneath it.

"I'd very much like to lecture both of you about flying off without permission... but I'll say this much: at least no civilian was harmed. That I am genuinely glad for."

She exhaled the words with a sigh, and then immediately shifted her sharp gaze to Arden.

In the same instant, Letaria's shoulders flinched. She opened her mouth with tentative care.

"Um... Milea?"

"What is it, Letaria?"

"Well... the Photon Saber didn't come out, you see... and so..."

It was unusually halting, even for Letaria.

Unable to deploy the blade, she had fallen back on the machine's heavy metal fists and feet -- a completely unrefined brawl. However little she understood of the technical specifics, she had gathered through their time together exactly how precious these trial components were. She had surely dented the new arms horribly -- and so she watched Milea's expression with cautious, wincing attention.

Milea's gaze returned to meet hers.

"I wasn't expecting combat to break out during what was supposed to be a basic movement test run, so I didn't mount the Photon Saber. Obviously, the Grave Arc wasn't loaded either. ...But."

She looked up at Arden's limbs again.

"Take a look. There's almost no damage, is there?"

"Pardon?"

Letaria's eyes went wide. She looked at her machine's arms as though seeing them for the first time.

There were faint friction traces -- marks of the intense close-quarters exchange -- but dented plating, warped frames, structural deformation? None of it, to a startling degree.

"My, my... but how? I struck a metal-shelled creature with everything I had..."

She murmured it and drifted toward Arden. Steshia, who had just climbed down from her white Rasta, fell in at Letaria's side and peered at the limbs and legs with obvious curiosity.

"Those components were sourced from headquarters with the specific assumption that you would be the one using them -- they're made from a special crystalline alloy called Hardilite."

"Hardilite... is it? Is that something like 'mithril' -- some manner of magical metal?"

Letaria asked with complete sincerity. Steshia immediately burst out laughing.

"Letaria-san, mithril doesn't exist! This isn't a game! ...Wait, hang on -- Hardilite!?"

The second half of the sentence came out at a completely different pitch as Steshia registered the weight of what had just been said. Milea gave a matter-of-fact nod.

"That's right. A special crystalline alloy with exceptional defensive performance and hardness against both ballistic and energy-based weapons alike. Pre-prototype or not, it is substantially more durable than any standard mass-production Makina you'd care to name. ...Which means, as a happy side effect, your impromptu brawling also generated extremely valuable structural rigidity test data."

"Wounds that turn into benefits," Milea murmured -- and at that moment, the camera drone that had been floating at Arden's back throughout the operation descended toward a nearby dock with a soft system chime.

"This one held up too. Even under Electra Duro's heavy jamming, it kept operating. The footage data should be intact -- very grateful for that."

Milea tapped her data pad with quiet satisfaction. Letaria watched her and tilted her head. "Come to think of it, this little one was there as well... I wonder if it was near me throughout the battle."

"Rasta's performance wasn't bad either, by the look of it."

Grain turned to Steshia with an easy clap on her shoulder. She had been waiting for exactly this, and puffed up with immediate and supreme satisfaction.

"Captain Grain! With the vigilante corps' great new hope, the super-ace Steshia Rinin, aboard -- any new machine would perform about this well!"

At that unbridled confidence, Grain smiled with fond exasperation.

"Well, taking down that troublesome organism was an achievement worth crediting. Whether 'super-ace' is quite the right word... that said, yes -- keep it up."

"What!? Is that not a bit dismissive of me!?"

Steshia, who had clearly expected nothing short of raving praise, protested with visible indignation. Grain laughed openly.

"No, no, I genuinely mean it. My apologies -- I'll take you out for a proper meal afterward, somewhere good, so don't sulk."

"...Really? Then I want the place with the most expensive steak!"

While that lively exchange played out beside her, Milea quietly shifted her expression and looked at Letaria with focused attention.

"Letaria -- your custom pilot suit, the Noble Lotus, still wasn't ready today, so you've been in the standard corps suit throughout. Are you all right? How does your body feel?"

"...Hm?"

It was only when Milea said it that Letaria became aware of it. As the adrenaline drained away, the muscles across her entire body had begun to ache -- her shoulders and sides in particular.

"Ah... now that you mention it, everything does seem to be... throbbing. I believe during the sudden acceleration in Trace Mode, I was jolted quite hard against the seat walls..."

It was the brutal, concentrated weight of G-forces she had not felt in a long while.

With her usual custom suit, the shocks and physical loads that came with Trace Mode were substantially absorbed -- even when the cockpit was throwing her around, the suit bore most of the impact. But she had been in a standard suit today. And the reborn Arden's movements were far sharper and more volatile than the old version. Some degree of strain on her body was, in retrospect, entirely inevitable.

"...As I expected. We're running a full check just to confirm there are no fractures or minor internal bruising -- come to my lab immediately. Steshia-san, you too, precautionary check for both of you."

"Understood... I find the examination more irksome than the injury itself..."

"Yes, ma'am! Off for my check-up so I can have that steak dinner!"

Milea watched them go -- Letaria distinctly unenthusiastic, Steshia bright and energetic -- and let her eyes drop to the data pad in her hand, where the test results were still displayed. She allowed herself a small, quiet smile.

The next moment, the full weight of what lay ahead came back to her: the fabricated incident documentation for the Bureau, the layers of cover story she would need to construct and maintain for the unauthorized deployment of two classified machines.

She closed her eyes, and let out a long, deep, quietly suffering sigh.