32 Two grown men killing each other with toys they don't really even know how to use

"Pseudo ... lam ... fa, fa, fa." She sobbed in apparent anguish.

"Ph-phase interference is the-the tt-TAROS ... Hn ... ah. No. N-n.

But not."

Kaname grabbed her disheveled hair and arched her back.

Kurz couldn't help getting the willies from the manifestation of her madness.

"Hey!" he called, but she did not respond.

"I ... won't lose!"

With that, Kaname bashed her head against the tree trunk.

The recoil knocked her down, and she rocked back and forth vigorously.

Curving her body backward, she spewed gibberish in an inverted crying Voice.

"Kaname!" Kurz thought he might go crazy, too, just from watching. What the hell is this? I'm a soldier, not a nurse in a nut house! What am I supposed to do about something like this?"

"Ha! Ha. K-Kurz ... " Kaname stood in front of Kurz and attempted to speak, but she couldn't quite inspire her tongue to the task.

She glared at him with ghastly eyes, inhaled, and said, "Ku. Kurz. G-give me your transmitter."

It was entirely urgent, a different tone from before.

"Fine by me, but why-"

No matter how many times Sousuke, your AS is also equipped with a Lambda Driver. That's why you're still alive!"

"Lambda Driver? That's the phrase the Arbalest used."

Lauren's AS was only about a hundred feet away now.

"Surely, you thought about protecting yourself, right? The mechanism reacted to that. With it, strong images in your mind take shape!"

"Images? In my mind? No weapon like that could ever-"

Stopping in front of the Arbalest, Lauren's AS glared with one red eye.

With no warning, the surrounding atmosphere waved and distorted.

Trees, grass, mud, and rocks flew about as though hit by an intense gust.

It was another shockwave.

There was no stopping it in the blink of an eye, it hit the Arbalest.

"Oh!"

The top half of the mech bent back.

However, this time, it was not as bad as Sousuke expected.

After taking several steps back to steady itself, the Arbalest regained its posture.

"Was that it?"

"Yes. Your opponent thought he would break you into pieces just now, but he wasn't able to. You can counterattack, too. Focus hard!"

"Focus on what?"

"Think about taking out your opponent. Put your spirit into it, all at once, like a Kamehameha or something!"

"Kameha-what? "

"Proximity warning!" alerted AI.

Bearing in, the silver AS thrust its knife. The Arbalest barely managed to stave it off.

Inside his mech, Lauren laughed. ''That just might be it!"

He took a few swipes at Sousuke, and they began a dizzying knife fight.

"You're protecting a Whispered! No wonder you have it."

"What?"

"You know my specialty is knives, right?"

Thrust, parry, slash, strike, lure, resist!

Every time a monofilament blade grazed armor, white light illuminated the area.

"Come on, don't be so slow!"

Lauren's attacks were fierce and skillful enough and that the ordinary pilot and AS wouldn't have lasted three seconds.

With his mech's main sensor half-destroyed, Sousuke gradually lost ground.

"Do you remember how I hacked those villagers to pieces, Kashim? Like this!"

Lauren's knife cut through the Arbalest's chest armor.

"Come on, put some spirit into it!" Kaname shouted through the wireless.

''I've been doing that! I can't just make a force field!"

"Here's how you use it!" Lauren shouted, right before a large shock hit Sousuke.

Falling backward, the Arbalest rolled a few times. Sousuke's vision went dark, and stars flickered in his head. Still, though, he was able to get right back up. This time, he adopted a defensive stance against the incoming mech.

Laughing sadistically, Lauren seemed to enjoy making sport of Sousuke.

"Ha-ha-ha. It's absurd: Two grown men killing each other with toys they don't really even know how to use, eh?"

Seeing the shot cannon he dropped earlier about a hundred feet away, Sousuke made his mech crawl toward it to pick it up again.

"Oh, What are you going to do with that? Shoot me?" Sousuke grunted.

"You know it's pointless, right? I mean, you barely even know how to use your equipment!"

This was undeniably true. Even if Sousuke fired the shot cannon here, Lauren easily could use another force field to reflect the shells. To some degree, at least, Lauren understood the principles of the system and he appeared to be experienced at handling it.

This was not the case for Sousuke.

Withstanding Lauren's attacks was about all he could do. Skillfully, the silver AS twirled its knife as it approached the Arbalest at a leisurely pace.

The next time it came in, Sousuke probably wouldn't be able to fully defend himself. The cockpit would be pierced, and Sousuke would be done for.

"Listen, Sagara," urged Kaname. "The important part is momentary concentration! Breathe in slowly, and then breathe out all at once. In that instant, envision your own willpower going into the shell!"

"That's easy for you to say."

He couldn't do it. Sousuke couldn't apply Kaname's advice.