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SHIZU

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Shizu felt like she was being squeezed right through a tight hole. The numbers around her screamed power and confidence, her [Move] obliterating everything in its path as the explosion of black and green around her left nothing of their enemies to even be buried. She couldn\'t help but grin madly, the feeling of pride and nationalism overwhelming her as she laughed aloud.

"Hahahaha! Who\'s the superior nation now?!"

Elation flooded her very being, her heart sprinting madly inside her chest as she breathed like a feral animal. Looking around, her [Code Watcher] gave her so many more targets for her to show her Empire\'s superiority, her home\'s magnanimity as she raised her fists in triumph. She felt unstoppable.... Invincible!

"Shizu!"

But just as her thoughts were starting to spiral out of control, the sound of her God\'s voice brought her back down to reality, her fervent nationalism simmering back down as shook her head. What was that all about?

"That was amazing," Moriya praised, her cheeks blushing at the attention. "Since when have you had that [Move]?"

The princess blinked in thought before she replied. "Well, it just felt like I had access to it all this time..." she hesitantly explained. "Kind of like it\'s always been there... I just didn\'t see the need to use it before..."

The numbers around her shifted and ebbed, moving as if everything had just been displaced by her one attack. Still, her mind\'s eye kept telling her that it was fine. That there was nothing to worry about and that she shouldn\'t bother her Goddess by telling her observations.

"Well, judging from how tired you sound, I don\'t see you repeating that stunt any time soon," he chuckled. "I suppose you\'ll have to keep that one in the back pocket on a rainy day in case we need it."

Shizu blinked once more, her mind seemingly lagging behind the conversation before she quickly nodded. "O-Of course!" she weakly smiled. "I\'ll use it sparingly then!"

She said that, but she didn\'t even know if she\'d be able to call upon such a [Move] that easily again in the future. For some reason, she felt really off, like even her own thoughts were not her own despite being pretty sure that she was still herself. She didn\'t like bloodshed, but she constantly felt like wanting to go in and smash heads using her fists... and the Numbers.... They kept telling her where to go?

"Shizu?"

Caught off guard, she yelped when she turned to Lady Guidance, her Goddess smiling proudly at her in a way that made her heart skip a beat.

"Y-Yes?"

"You can have some rest if you want," her Goddess told her with a warm expression. "Moriya and I can both tell that you\'re tired from that stunt you just pulled, and we\'ll understand if you\'ll want to stay behind us for a while to recuperate."

The princess found herself frowning. Tired? But she didn\'t feel that winded yet?

"Yeah," Moriya chimed in. "I\'ll take point from here on out. In the meantime, have Guidance heal you back up. You\'ll be up and running again in no time."

"Moriya, how many times have I told you that healing doesn\'t work like that?"

Shizu stared blankly at her two Gods bicker like they\'d usually do. Somehow, it felt like she was moving further and further away from them despite standing perfectly still. Her vision was blurry, the Numbers muddled while also being crystal clear at the same time. Was she... was she actually tired.

Shaking her head, the princess refused to accept such a notion, especially not now while they were in the middle of a warzone. They needed her strength, and she needed their support all the same.

Taking a step forward, Shizu didn\'t even get her foot into the air before she fell to the unforgiving ground, her last thoughts still being that of how why her thoughts seemed aggressively not her own.

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"Shizu?!"

Before we could even move, Guidance and I stalled as Shizu fell to the ground. Immediately, Guidance went to her side, her [Manifest] already glowing as she quickly cast her healing [Moves] for her.

"She\'s... She\'s not responding?" the dev quizzically asked aloud. "Why isn\'t this working?"

I frowned. Apparently, healing only applied to wounds, with only a bare amount of it going to exhaustion as a way for \'balance\' to be maintained. I was pretty sure that she could\'ve just coded it to work regardless, but I really didn\'t want to get into any sort of argument with anyone until we were safe and sound back on the [Rig].

"Never mind that. I\'ll carry her on my back," I shook my head as I knelt down and positioned myself in a way where my back was ready to receive our sleeping beauty. "Hoist her on top of me."

Guidance took a bit of time before she nodded, momentarily sheathing away her keyboard before gently moving Shizu\'s unmoving body up and onto my back. The sensation of my passenger\'s chest pressing against my back was of course something to behold, but again, now wasn\'t the time to think about such things.

"What now?"

"Now, we keep moving," I answered, forcing my knees to straighten themselves as I stood up. "There\'s no telling how much longer our friends can keep our enemies at bay, and with Shizu out of commission for the time being, we\'ll actually have to be sneaky now."

That wasn\'t even to say the fact that I was essentially crippled for the time being. I had to use one arm to keep Shizu from falling off my back, leaving me with just one free hand to shoot my [Manifest] from. Sure, I could still fight this way, but the princess\'s extra weight would also prevent me from moving as quickly as I wanted to, leaving me completely defenseless unless Guidance just went ham and spammed shields over me like it was going out of style.

"Are you sure you\'ll take point?" she worriedly asked. "Wouldn\'t you be risking both yourself and Shizu like that?"

I hummed in deep thought. I did say that I was going to do that, huh... "Would you be okay to carry Shizu on your back then?"

Guidance stared at me for a brief second before she nodded. "Yeah, but we should swap at a safer location. We have to move."

Following her eyes, I clicked my tongue as a rather sizeable number of reinforcements began coming into view from where we stood. Based on where they were coming from, I was pretty sure that they\'d only arrived from other parts of the city itself, which probably meant that we were well on our way to becoming public enemy number one.

Giving each other a nod, we disappeared into the ground, keeping a low profile as we moved from one pile of rubble to the next. Slowly inching our way towards our friends, the sound of enemies lurking around every corner became the only sign we could rely on without Shizu\'s eyes to cheat our way to victory. And speaking of Shizu, as much as Guidance and I tried to find a place to swap places and have her carry our princess, there were just too many of these Academics roaming around that staying in one place was practically impossible.

"How many of these foreigners are there for us to arrest?"

"I don\'t know... Some say they\'re a group of sellswords that were actually Imperial spies, so maybe around seven or eight?"

Guidance and I held our breaths as we heard a group of Academics talking out loud. We were only a few minutes away from our friend\'s at least, the sounds of fighting becoming closer and closer the more we inched our way to our destination.

"The Head Intellect\'s orders have changed. If we are to fail in arresting the foreigners, we have full authority to kill them on sight."

"Ugh... Really? I hate this..."

Guidance shifted beside me, clearly uncomfortable as she whispered, "That\'s... that doesn\'t sound like any of the Marquee that I\'ve made..."

"Why? Is Marquee supposed to be a pacifist nation?"

"Yes," she nodded, her voice barely a breath as we kept our quiet. "Their leverage against Vestyge and Kattleyna is the fact that they\'re the only ones capable of making [Rigs] that actually work. Without their technology, the Shallow Deep is basically impossible to navigate..."

I couldn\'t help but squint as I immediately found some glaring holes in her explanation. If that were the case, wouldn\'t it have been more practical for Marquee to just stop exports altogether? If they had the sole means of sailing these dangerous seas, why even bother selling the means to their enemies?

"Hey, did you hear that?"

My eyes widened. That was our cue to leave, I think.

Nodding to Guidance, the two of us began our arduous crawl once more, and just in time too as we saw some of the Academics we were just eavesdropping on suddenly go around and check on our previous hiding spot.

"That was close," I couldn\'t help but chuckle.

"That was stupid of us," Guidance admonished, frowning at both me and herself. "We should just keep quiet until we\'re ready."

Shrugging, we kept on crawling. What\'s done was done, and we\'ll both keep our mistakes in mind for the future. For now, there were still a lot of meters we had to crawl.

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