Miluna trusted Yonira’s big brain to help her and the others achieve their present objective – getting their hands on some of the overdrive syringes the enemy possessed according to Rose and Neana – just like she had done with a hundred other objectives before. The rocky beauty did after all come second in terms of intelligence after Keiry D amid the girls in a similar way to how she came second when power was concerned after Annabel. Both of those not being present in the underground tunnel the group of hot heads was currently in, the time for Yonira to shine as bright as she could had come and she never failed to take full advantage of such opportunities.

The moment the undead deviant soldiers revealed themselves, however, any hope Miluna had evaporated. Most of them had already injected themselves with all three syringes they had, some having just got to the third injection as the lieutenant colonel leading them commended Rose’s group for cutting this deep in the enemy ranks.

Neana was the one to intervene then, slamming her foot in the floor while gritting her teeth with more fury and defiance than any of the students around her had seen. Before the deviants with complete injection cycles could attack and those with incomplete ones could administer the final injection, restructuring waves of small concrete cubes constantly mixing and changing places with each other reached them. The waves spread throughout not only the floor, but the walls and ceiling of the tunnel as well, sounding as if the entire area was roaring with the voice of Sunbird’s headmistress. Plenty of pain was mixed with the other emotions that voice was conveying now as streams of blood came out of Miss Ilre’s skin in multiple places, smoking burns forming in many others.

The waves she had released had had a shocking effect, leading to the complete absorption of the villains with no syringes left in the tunnel’s bowels of concrete and the partial absorption of those that still had unused syringes on them. In particular, their hands holding the syringes had been spared any restructuring effects, currently sticking or hanging out from every tunnel surface in a most unnatural and blood-curdling manner. And yet, the roar that came out of the bloodied and burned headmistress as she turned to the Martian girls with eyes shining in an even brighter hue of blue than their usual color brought much more terror to their hearts.

(Neana) ‘GET THE SYRINGES, NOW!!!’

Hardly had Neana said that when she collapsed, spilling disturbingly large amounts of blood from her mouth afterwards and continuing to cough. While some of the students went to check on her condition, Miluna was the one to lead the way through the hands coming out of the floor, walls and ceiling to collect the syringes held by them. As she did that, cracks formed on the surface of the concrete bulges all the undead consumed by the tunnel had become, Sairoid particles bleeding through those cracks more and more, proving the hot heads had little time to complete their task.

Another issue was also present – while they could not see anything in their trapped state, the soldiers with syringes left still instinctively channeled Sairoid through their free hands either to thwart any attempt to steal said syringes or simply as a panicked response to being sealed in the first place. Violet-colored energy projectiles were shot in all directions in a random barrage that was very difficult to fully evade, Miluna rushing beyond it and beyond the fear she felt as she partially clad herself in acid streams, causing the disintegration of some of her swimsuit without caring about ending up naked amid the battle one bit.

She had managed to collect three syringes by the time several enemies successfully freed themselves, looking over at Rose and some of the Martian girls who had joined her in the hunt for injections, each of them having grabbed two syringes. With no more time left to collect or to think, Miluna proceeded to do the only thing she could. Holding one of the syringes between her teeth, she injected the contents of the other two in her neck from both sides.

This was her first time experiencing the effects of an overdrive shot and other than giving her an output beyond the 15% she could now freely use, it hadn’t even crossed the dark-skinned beauty’s mind what it would cause her to feel once she injected herself. First came the heat. A heat that spread throughout her whole body in mere seconds with such force, it made her feel dizzy.

The heat dissipated a few moments later, but the dizziness remained, Miluna no longer being able to hear anything as the pounding of her heart was all her hearing could register now, a sort of rush coming over her that seemed to free her from any restraint. While not having used drugs in any from before, she imagined this was what they would feel like to a certain extent, only the overdrive shot was even better. And given how good it felt, she wasted no time and injected herself with the last syringe she had, another heat wave coming over her body, followed by more lightheadedness.

The pounding of her heart was now even louder, her excitement – even greater, the dark-skinned beauty wondering if this was the reason why the color scheme of her surroundings changed as well, taking on a slight pale green hue. In all honesty, that didn’t even matter to her. She wasn’t certain what mattered to her anymore. The thrill of the injections was so overwhelming that she had temporarily forgotten why she had even injected herself in the first place, not having paid any attention to her allies or her enemies.

Apparently, none of the others to have injected themselves, who included Yonira, Rose and Neana, the last of the three being barely back on her feet, had been as affected by the injections as Miluna, having focused on fighting the undead Sairoid users right from the start. The other Martian girls supported them, but were forced to redirect their attention to the angry ordinari soldiers who had shoved their way through the ranks of the deviants to reach the targets over the elimination of which they had been arguing initially.

Miluna intervened then, Neana going over to her side with a face full of reproach that suggested she knew exactly what was going through the acid user’s mind at the moment as she put a hand on her shoulder.

(Neana) ‘I know what it feels like, Milu, trust me. The freedom the shot gives you … it’s unlike any other feeling. But as hard as it is, you must overcome that feeling right now, because even with the power-up, we’re getting killed out here against this many enemies. I’m not saying to hold back. Just keep in mind we need to find where the controller is exactly right now, so …’

Much as it had happened earlier, the dark-skinned beauty didn’t let the headmistress finish what she was saying, instead throwing Neana on her back while blowing out plenty of smoke from her wide open mouth twisted in a grin.

(Miluna) ‘How long will these injections’ effect last?’

(Neana) ‘You’ll get a 150% increase in output for a minute and a half and then a 75% increase for another minute and a half. That goes for all four of us as we got three shots each. And after that …’

More and more cracks appeared on the walls, the ceiling and the floor, all these structures suddenly being shattered in a flood of acid that hit both friend and foe while Miluna laughed and spoke with her voice exuding more mad joy than one had ever heard.

(Miluna) ‘I DON’T CARE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS AFTER!!! ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS THE DESTRUCTION WE’LL UNLEASH NOW!!! YOU JUST MAKE SURE YOU HEAL ALL THE GIRLS, SENSEI!!! AND I’LL GET TO THAT CONTROLLER FOR YOU!!!’

Only for a second did the acid deva user turn to the former school nurse, within that second receiving all the confirmation she needed that Neana was indeed Rale’s sister. The face of terrifying bloodlust he had made on several occasions during the Class Battle was identical to the one presently displayed by Sunbird’s headmistress. Knowing the monster she saw now was on her side rather than an enemy, though, Miluna grinned even wider than the woman she carried on her back, surfing on a wave of acid toward the nearby enemies.

(Neana) ‘I like that spirit, brat!! I’ll heal any damage you do to the girls, so don’t worry about that! Feel free to show me all the power you have!!!’

This was it. This was the moment. A moment Miluna would later deem as one of the most important ones in her life. A moment she would be eternally grateful for, despite all the carnage and horror that moment bore witness to. Never before had she been given the opportunity to use such an output and much less so – to do it with no constraint whatsoever. She had always been told to control her deva and try to contain the damage caused by it as much as possible, while now Neana was actually encouraging her to go on a rampage.

Maybe this made both the headmistress and her student monsters. And if that were true, Miluna wouldn’t mind it one bit. For they hadn’t become monsters simply for the sake of the bliss the overdrive shots gave them. They had chosen to do this to give all of Deckstoru a fighting chance while faced with an enemy that outmatched them in too many ways to count.

In times like this the line between hero and monster was strongly blurred. If this rampage was successful, what the two of them deemed monstrous now could one day be remembered as heroic. And maybe this was true for all who were called heroes – they had started out as people so willing to save lives, they would go as far as to become monsters to do it.

While Miluna had been thinking about her monstrously heroic nature, she and Neana fought on through the ranks of ordinari and deviants amid the storm of devas the tunnel was barely able to contain at this point. Restructuring formulas ran rampant all around, changing the environment, but in this case Miss Ilre focused solely on offense. Circular blades came out of the walls in some places to cut their targets horizontally in half, giant spikes – out of the ceiling in others to pierce those below them, concrete blocks forming on the floor and quickly growing in height to hammer the ones standing on them in the ceiling and smash them like a hydraulic press.

Any ordinari who were unable to block these attacks had their weapons destroyed along with their bodies, each weapon exploding in pale green energy afterwards to add even more chaos to the battle taking place. But that was nothing compared to the onslaught of acid Miluna unleashed, some Sairoid users managing to pierce through the acid-falls she had made every now and then only for a new wave of her deva to be crushed in them, boiling them alive in seconds.

Their cloaks of violet energy didn’t protect them, nor did their teleportation speed. Nothing could protect them, because while they were fighting with an intention to contain the damage and protect the chip controller hidden somewhere behind these walls, their enemy had let loose on a purposeful destruction quest. The dark-skinned beauty’s attacks were bigger, faster and stronger than they ever had been and although the deva with widest representation in this battle was the Sairoid one, no other element was spread as much as her acid. Without paying particular attention to the combatants, all one would see when looking at the tunnel section where the hot heads and the undead were fighting was a blur mixing acid green and electric violet.

Amid all that emerged the rock walls made by Rose and Yonira, the former being back on the latter’s back due to the injection with three overdrive syringes in a row causing Hikaru’s grandmother to lose almost all motor function, that duo being in charge of defence. The main obstacle on the path of all the streams, projectiles, bullets and other piercing-type attacks made of Sairoid were the constructs those two made, Yonira mainly using cubes as a base for her creations and Rose – pyramids to protect the other Martian girls as they fought the ordinari. The cubes and pyramids also served as a tool to defend the girls from Miluna’s rampage, occasionally drops of her acid reaching them and burning away what little clothing they had on them in the form of their swimsuits and the skin under them.

Neana’s reaction was almost always instantaneous at times like this, making sure some of the restructuring formulas she had spread throughout the tunnel section would reach her wounded allies to patch them up. During their healing, the youngsters never failed to scream from pain as they were often suffering more damage from the enemy while the one their classmate had caused them was being repaired.

All the while, the search for the chip controller compartment continued, Yonira being the one to succeed in spotting a clue to its location just when a piercing ray of Sairoid was aimed at her, the Martians’ chief female defender smashing a fist in the floor to raise a cube meant to block the attack. The cube hardly managed to delay the ray’s advance by a second as it pierced through it, whoever was using that ray clearly having a stronger deva than the other wielders of this energy compound in the vicinity. Therefore, someone with better defence was needed to block such an attack, Yonira turning her back to the ray and calling on Rose for help.

(Yonira) ‘Mrs. Summerbolt, cover!!’

The two had bonded well enough during the ordeals they had already suffered, Hikaru’s grandmother immediately following the order she was given and cladding herself along with Yonira’s entire body in multilayered rock armor. Unfortunately for the lady duo, the ray had served as a diversion, a massive projectile with even greater piercing power being hidden within it and while even that couldn’t break through all the layers of defence Rose had put up, it did something else instead. The projectile changed its direction slightly in order to hit exactly the area where the veteran’s torso touched the student’s back, cutting both her stomach and Yonira’s back as it passed through there and also managing to separate the two.

The pyramid maker was now crushed into a pile of debris nearby, the hit causing a stream of blood to run down her forehead, the projectile in front of her transforming into the very woman who had revealed herself earlier as the leader of the entire chip controller protection force. At the same time the ray initially shot at Yonira also changed its shape to reveal a male ordinari captain who wore the partial high-tech armor typical for his rank, the only part of the armor missing being his helmet, both him and the violet lieutenant colonel grinning at their opponents.

(The Violet Lieutenant Colonel) ‘That’s enough from your troublesome duo. Using overdrive shots was one thing, but I didn’t account for such teamwork. I can’t make walls to protect my comrades like you two can, but splitting you up is a good enough way to make sure you don’t get in our way anymore.’

Rose’s own confident smile didn’t falter one bit in light of the lieutenant colonel’s words, her eyes looking at something other than her opponent’s face at present. They were fixed on the part of the tunnel walls Yonira had looked at before the two’s separation, a part of the concrete having crumbled there to reveal something under it. It was something made of a very dark grey, almost black metal with a specific shine to it. And knowing these tunnels in and out, Hikaru’s grandmother was aware there weren’t supposed to be such metal structures behind the walls.

(Rose) ‘Doesn’t really matter if you split us up. Soon enough all us syringe users are going to become pretty useless.’

(The Violet Lieutenant Colonel) ‘Yep. For two minutes, anyway. I’d bet I’m a better fighter than you without my deva, though, so I’m actually looking forward to those two minutes. Before they elapse, I’m going to kill you.’

(Rose) ‘No use threatening me like that, girl. I’m not fighting to live right now. I’m fighting to save my city.’

(The Violent Lieutenant Colonel) ‘Right. You don’t seem to be doing too well on that front, do you?’

Rose put her palm on the floor then, manifesting a boulder that smashed both Miluna and Neana in the part of the tunnel wall where the concrete had crumbled, the further destruction caused by this leading to the revelation of an entire door made of that shiny grayish-black metal.

(Rose) ‘And it’s about time we change that! Girls, break through that door, now!!!’

Miluna didn’t seem to hear her at all, but luckily she had presently turned her back to the door, giving Neana access to it.

Miss Ilre put her hands on the door’s surface, concentrating a number of restructuring formulas in her palms, causing a hole with a gradually increasing diameter to be formed on it just when three giant Sairoid orbs ripped through Miluna’s acid curtain. A concrete wall restructured from the floor blocked the orbs, but couldn’t hold them for long because of the power behind them, their makers most likely being other members of the enemy forces’ elite.

By Neana’s estimate, there wasn’t much time left before the overdrive shots’ effect ran out. Rose and Yonira could no longer be counted on to help with the respective battles each of them was fighting. And now she and Miluna had been cornered as well. Only one way was left to proceed toward a successful resolution of this situation, the headmistress shouting her final order to the student carrying her on her back.

(Neana) ‘Milu, get all the girls through this hole with you acid!!! I’ll heal them, so you …’

She hadn’t even finished assuring the acid deva user none of her classmates would suffer permanent damage when she swung with her arms in opposite directions, laughing all the while.

Whether this was because Miluna herself had realized her overdrive time had almost run out or because she had reached the height of her madness induced by the injections, the former school nurse could not say. And in reality, the cause for her behavior wasn’t important. The only thing that mattered in this most decisive moment of Deckstoru’s history was what the girl’s actions resulted in.

Some of the acid waves she had spread around now carried the seven members of the controller chip destroyer group other than Rose, Neana, Yonira and Miluna along with the enemies around them aside with high speed. Eventually the waves were gathered in one, the creator of that wave steering it toward the hole in the door with her mind, waving at her screaming and burning classmates as she did that with an even wider smile.

(Miluna) ‘Sorry, girls! Time to burn for Deckstoru!!’

The sight of this was so shocking to the undead, all among them who weren’t carried by the wave froze for a few moments in a state of total disbelief, within those seconds the wave further melting the door to the chip controller’s compartment and pushing the people in it through the hole. Thus, the compartment was finally breached just as the effects of the overdrive syringes wore off.