An Adult's Responsibility Chapter 8:

Chapter 8:

I was awoken by the sound of explosions and raucous laughter. The hand that had been running softly through my hair jolted, Nonomi’s head snapping up towards the sound of the conflict. Sleepily, I moved off of her lap, allowing her to get up and start to gather her equipment.

“It appears your rest is over, Sensei.” She spoke, looking back to where I was attempting to blink my eyes open, “I apologise!”

“No, that’s…” I struggled to respond, searching for the words, “I shouldn’t have done that-”

She leaned down, placing a firm hand on my shoulder, “None of that now, it was my decision. You didn’t do anything wrong, okay? Now, we should go greet whoever decided to disturb us.”

I wanted to argue, but the sound of another blast reminded me that there was a more pressing situation afoot. Shaking away the last of my drowsiness, I drew my pistol and re-buttoned my jacket, that apparently Nonomi had loosened while I slept. Confirming that the Chest was present and powered up, I looked towards Nonomi, who had also drawn her own pistol.

“We don’t know how many are out there or if they are inside the school yet.” I spoke, getting a serious nod from the blond, “We will clear our way to the armoury, get you geared up and then move to help the others. I can hear Shiroko’s drone out there, the rest should be nearby.”

“Got it Sensei. I will protect you, but be careful, okay?” She fretted slightly, steeling herself as I held up a hand with three fingers extended.

“I’m glad you girls care about my safety.” I smiled, counting down with my fingers, “But I’m not as fragile as you all seem to think.”

Without letting her respond, I dropped my final digit and yanked open the door, sweeping left with my handgun.

“Clear.” I called, not seeing any movement in the dim corridor.

“Clear.” Nonomi responded, starting to move up to the next junction, “The armoury is this way, Sensei.”

We cleared a few more approaches before Nonomi held up a fist, single finger extended. The signal for being quiet. She then tilted her head, not peering around the next corner, which if my memory was correct lead to the Armoury. She started to sign at me.

‘Three hostile, haven’t heard us.’

‘I’ll take point, take out the further two.’ I signed back, getting an angry glare from the girl.

‘No, I’m point.’

I didn’t bother arguing with her, walking past her and dodging her attempt to grab my arm to stop me. My bullets were infused with Mystic, but seeing as I couldn’t juice them up myself, it would take most of the mag to take down a single enemy. Thankfully, even with their Halos’ protection, the students here still had some similarities to humans that I could exploit. I peeked past the corner, taking a quick inventory of the three student’s positioning.

I ducked back around the corner, noting that Nonomi was about to grab me. Before she could, I burst into motion, running around the corner, pistol already up and aiming at the furthest thug. They were wearing hard hats and pink work suits, reminding me of the type of outfit a construction worker wore.

They were taken by complete surprise, the one that was fiddling with the door to the Armoury yelping and dropping her tools. The one I shot at dove into cover, her mystic only taking a small amount of damage from the shots that were on target. The last, who was closest to me, was in the process of turning around before I was on her, lifting her off the ground with an arm around the neck.

“What the fu-ugh!” My victim choked out, my arm that was wrapped around her neck putting pressure on her carotid artery in a typical choke hold.

It had been quite a while since I had to do one in person, but it was somewhat like riding a bike, a skill that tended to stick with you.

The other two recovered, but were swiftly taken out by Nonomi, who managed to down both of them with a single mag. Their hesitation to fire on their own friend allowed her to find the opening to do so.

Speaking of, her panicked struggles subsided, the grip restricting blood-flow to her brain rendering her unconscious, her halo flickering weakly before winking out. Seeing the sure sign of her being down, I gently released her, lying her down on the floor and putting a hand near her mouth while checking her pulse and breathing. Seeing both were present, I stood up only to be greeted by an angry Nonomi.

“That was very dangerous Sensei. What would I have told Shiroko-chan if you had got hurt by them?” She demanded, hands on her hips.

“That it was my choice and you tried to stop me?” I offered, to little success, “Regardless, lets get you geared up.”

She pouted, clearly wanting to argue with me, before accepting the distraction, “Fine. But this isn’t over, you hear me?!”

“Loud and clear, Nonomi. You can complain at me all you want once this is over.” I promised, watching as she opened the heavy door with her key card.

“I’ll hold you to that, Sensei.” She vowed, picking up her minigun and grabbing several grenades, Prepare for a stern lecture!”.

I also restocked, refilling my pistol and taking out a spare magazine from the Chest.

Soon enough, we were both fully stocked and ready, moving towards the entrance of the school where the firefight sounded like it had picked up in intensity. Along the way, we were brought up short by the eruption of gunfire in a hallway adjacent to the one leading to our destination.

Sharing a quick glance, we checked it out, only to be greeted with more of the helmeted attackers taking cover from someone who had stacked several desks together in a makeshift barricade. Without even thinking, Nonomi and I opened fire on the enemies, who had their backs turned to us. We took them by complete surprise, Nonomi’s chain-gun downing most of them with my own fire being little more than suppression.

One of them leapt over the barricade to try and find cover from us, leading to the sounds of a scuffle and a burst of gunfire, which continued long after Nonomi and I cleared up our own targets, Running to assist, I scaled the desks only to be met with the sight of a panicked Serika unloading her assault rifle into a prone thug, tears shining in her eyes.

Noticing the Halo flickering in and out despite the thug clearly being unconscious, I moved over and hugged the cat girl, forcibly directing her gun away from the unconscious girl.

“Serika. Serika!” I called out, wrestling with the kicking and biting first year, “It’s me, it’s Albrecht! They’re all down, you can stop shooting!”

“Get off me you-! Ah, huh?” Serika’s struggles slowed, before stopping, “Sensei? What’s-?”

“My my, getting a hug that tight, aren’t you lucky Serika?” Nonomi tittered, concern in her gaze at odds with her teasing, “Are you okay?”

Serika jolts, ripping herself out of my grip. I didn’t fight her, seeing as she had calmed down significantly. She sniffled, aggressively rubbing her eyes and gripping her rifle properly, looking back at her senpai with a brave face. The shaking of her hands betrayed her next statement, however.

“I’m fine. Let’s go help the others.” She spoke, causing Nonomi and I to share a concerned look.

“Are you sure? You seemed pretty tense-” My question was cut off by her grabbing my tie and forcing my face to lean close into hers.

“I. Was. Not. Scared.” She stressed, glaring at me, “Got that?”

“Perfectly.” I responded, strained.

“Good.” She let me go, letting me loosen my tie again, breathing deeply.

“Poor Sensei, dealing with young girls isn’t easy, is it?” Nonomi teased, a grin on her face as she offered a hand to help me mount the barricade again.

No, it really wasn’t.

---ARARAR---

“Kufufu!” A giggle was the first thing we heard as we exited the main school building, “You girls are really fun!”

The source was familiar to me, the Gehenna student Mutsuki throwing a duffel bag towards Shiroko with a wide grin. The wolf girl dived out of the way, the bag exploding as the smaller girl shot it just before it landed. Shiroko was rocked by the shock wave, but rolled to a stop in a controlled manner, resting in a kneeling shooting position as she brought her rifle up and snapped off a few retaliatory shots.

The impish student ducked behind her own cover, still giggling all the way, causing Shiroko to tsk, “Annoying.”

“Just annoying?!” A boisterous voice sounded out, the horned figure of Aru revealing herself from her sniping position at the back of the battlefield, “We will have to try hard-!”

She was cut off by a pink blur slamming into the ground she had just been standing on, eyes wide and arms flailing as she tripped over herself in her attempt to dodge. Hoshino quickly followed up, shotgun coming up to point directly into the panicked face of her quarry, only for it to just barely be knocked off course by the purple form of Haruka.

“Don’t you dare harm Aru-sama!” She shouted, purple beret bobbing as she unloaded a full round of shells into Hoshino, point blank.

Hoshino was forced back from the force of the blows, but her halo shined as brightly as ever, closing in just as Haruka ran out of ammo. Flipping the taller girl over her shoulder, she slammed her into the ground and smashed the butt of her own gun into her face, knocking Haruka’s head back and causing her halo to flicker.

Before she could follow up, the overall wearing thugs intervened, lighting up the leader of the FTF in a corona of gun fire.

“Nonomi!” I shouted, my voice causing Shiroko and Mutsuki’s eyes to snap onto my form, “Cover Hoshino!”

“Got it!” Nonomi replied, her chain gun spinning up and unleashing a torrent of fire across the battlefield, causing everyone on it to dive for cover or risk being taken out.

Hoshino took advantage of this, rushing back to our side of the field, not noticing as Aru resurfaced, a glowing rifle aimed at her back.

“Oh no you don’t!” Serika yelled, lobbing a grenade like a baseball right at her head, causing her to yelp and duck back down.

The explosion kicked up a cloud of dust, which combined with the sand that had been sent flying by Nonomi to create a temporary smokescreen between both sides of the conflict. Shiroko made her way to where we had appeared, while Hoshino slid to a stop besides us.

“Uhe, thanks for saving my bacon there. Kids hit way too hard these days, these old bones can barely keep up.” She scratched her cheek with her finger.

I somewhat doubted that, seeing as she was not at all out of breath and seemed to have not a scratch on her. Still, better safe than sorry.

“Here Hoshino, it looks like this could be a long one.” I spoke, pulling out the Chest and procuring a Mystic Booster for her.

She took it gingerly from my hand, inspecting it with narrowed eyes before shrugging and jabbing herself with it, her halo’s glow brightening before fading back, unchanged.

“Thanks Sensei. For that and for finding my lost kouhais.” She spoke, eyes flitting over the forms of Nonomi and Serika, who nodded back to her, “I’ll be interested to know where you were when all this started, but that can wait. Ayane is speaking to us through our normal channel, she wants me to ask you to patch in.”

As she spoke, Shiroko handed out earbuds to Nonomi and Serika, looking at me in concern. I nodded back to her, getting a small smile in response, while I looked down at the Chest and set up the comms channel.

“Sensei? Can you hear me?” I heard the worried voice through my earpiece.

“Loud and clear Ayane.” I responded, getting confirmations that the comms net was working from the rest of the girls, “Those are the students from Gehenna we met as Shiba Seki, right?”

“That’s right.” Hoshino confirmed with a nod, “I recognised them as well.”

“What?! Why would they be attacking us?!” Serika asked, looking pissed.

“Doesn’t matter.” Shiroko opined, getting a hum of agreement from Nonomi.

“Shiroko’s right, we need to teach these naughty kids a lesson first before we can worry about why they are doing this.” She spoke, chain gun spinning up as the dust started to clear.

“That might be hard girls.” Ayane’s voice was strained, “They seem to be getting reinforced.”

“More of them? Where do all these idiots keep coming from?” Serika goggled at the news.

“You’ve set up the entrance of the school to be a funnel, so their numbers don’t matter that much.” I spoke, causing the FTF to look at me, “So long as we are careful, we should be able to win this. Ayane, are you safe?”

“Yes Sensei. I’m secure and my drones are all online. They did try to get at me, but those claymores you gave us stopped them.” She confirmed.

“Glad to hear it. Patching into the Drone feed now, let’s give them hell!” I spoke, taking up a spot where I could oversee the battlefield but not present too much of a target.

Even before visibility fully restored, the conflict resumed. A charge from the invading force was broken as Hoshino slammed into them, her shield sending students flying every which way. Nonomi immediately fired through their backlines, causing the hostile forces that had taken up firing positions to have to duck under cover, allowing me to direct Shiroko and Serika to flank their forwardmost units.

The helmeted enemies recovered remarkably quickly, opening up a tempting gap that I directed the FTF away from exploiting, seeing the trap for what it was. We held the choke point, breaking formation to chase after temporary advantages would only lead to our defeat by their superior numbers. Whoever was coordinating the other side realised the bait was not being taken, quickly arranging for another probing attack, this time led by the shotgun wielding Haruka.

I attempted to capitalize, using Nonomi’s firepower to peel her away from her support and surround her, intending to incapacitate her to use as a hostage with the rest of Problem Solver, only for Hoshino and Shiroko to be delayed by the explosives of Mustuki, which allowed Haruka to retreat from her over-exposed position.

From there the assault continued, dragging on for over half an hour of intense combat. Casualties piled up on the side of the attackers, but they rotated the frontlines to keep their fighting units fresh. The person in charge of the coordination of the enemy units was competent, if a bit unpolished. They used the helmeted group as disposable pawns, sacrificing them by the dozens without flinching, yet gaining absolutely nothing for the expense.

She was sticking to solid strategies, not coming up with anything brilliant, but not committing any major mistakes either. That, combined with the advantage in numbers that the attackers held meant that the fight dragged into a tight stalemate. Taking on somewhat of a siege mindset, I tallied what we had to make our defence.

Our ammunition was well stocked, not running out anytime soon,. The FTF girls were much better fighters than the opposition, meaning that the Mystic Boosters were also hardly used, the girls taking limited fire, if any. Still, even with that our numerical disadvantage meant that we would be ground down through sheer exhaustion if nothing else.

At least our rear was not going to be attacked anytime soon. With the Chest allowing me to assist Ayane in controlling her drones over the battlefield, she was able to clean up the enemies we had left behind us, gathering them all into a room where she could watch over their tied up forms.

That meant it was time for me to come up with a plan, which I had just used the last few minutes to do.

“The one that’s directing the enemy is the black and white haired one in the hoodie, Kayako, if I remember right. If we can take her out, we might be able to mop of the rest of them in the confusion.” I explained my plan to the FTF in a pause in the fighting.

“That’s very risky, Sensei. It would require at least one of us to leave our defences to get at her.” Ayane brought up the issue immediately.

“Nn. I’ll do it.” Shiroko immediately volunteered.

“No way.” Hoshino was emphatic, “There is not chance that this oldster could live with herself if you get isolated and hurt out there.”

“Hoshino’s right, losing any one of you would mean that the defences fall regardless.” I backed up their leader, “So if we do this, it needs to be an all or nothing gambit.”

“It’s that or just sit here and hope they eventually get bored, right?” Serika asked sullenly, to which I nodded.

“Well, if this continues we will eventually lose anyway.” Hoshino considered it, before nodding, “Alright Sensei, I’m in. Lets hear the plan.”

“Well, first we would need to use some of Ayane’s drones to-” I started to explain the idea I had before a sharp, shrill whistle sounded out across the gateway to the Abydos Highschool, the culprit soon showing herself.

One of the pink clad helmeted students was waving a white piece of cloth with one hand and holding a whistle in the other. Seeing us staring at her, she pocketed the panties she was using as a flag and cupped her hands over her mouth so shout at us.

“Hey! Our time is up, we’re done fighting. Will you let us pick up our girls that you knocked out and leave, or will we have a personal problem?” She paused at the end, obviously waiting for a response.

We looked at each other, confused, before Hoshino shouted back, “You want to stop fighting?”

“Yeah!” Came the response, “We were only paid for three hours, that time’s up. Our employers didn’t pay for an extension.”

“WAIT!!!” the red haired Aru came strutting over in a huff, still smoking sniper rifle slung on its shoulder strap, “What nonsense are you spouting?”

“We’re sticking to the contract.” We had started to move closer, the rest of PS68 soon showing up behind Aru as the whistler responded, “If you don’t like it, you shouldn’t have signed it.”

“We almost had them!” Aru sputtered.

“Lady.” Helmet’s voice was dryer than our surroundings, “They got over half of us. You’re welcome to fight them yourself, me and my girls are going home. If they’ll let us, of course?”

The last bit was directed at Hoshino, who scratched her cheek before she shrugged, “Uhe, why not. You can pick up the ones out front, the ones that got inside are all tied up in a storage room. Follow the red drone, it will lead you right there. We’ll speak to your former employers in the meantime.”

“Sounds good.” she tipped her helmet as she chirped, turning around and barking orders to her subordinates.

Aru stiffened, noticing the very hostile energy that was emanating from the Abydos girls in her direction.

“Wait wait wait, this wasn’t personal!” She spoke quickly, hands outstretched, “We were just doing a job!”

“Oh really?” Nonomi smiled, without warmth, “Mind telling us for who?”

Aru straightened up, puffing her chest out proudly, “Problem Solver 68 never betrays a client!”

There was a brief beat of silence, only marred by Kayako audibly sighing before Mutsuki started giggling to herself behind her hand and Haruka gripped her shotgun worriedly.

On the side of the FTF, the first to respond was Serika, stepping forward and cracking her knuckles, “Right then, we’ll just have to beat it out of you then.”

Aru yelped as she stumbled back, retreating behind Mutsuki who skipped to the front of their group while waving her hand, “Ah ah ah! Careful there, wouldn’t want me to accidentally press this button, no?”

In her grasp was detonator. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed several bags that were spread around the area, any of which could contain the explosives the detonator was linked to.

“You’ll be caught in the blast.” Shiroko quietly observed.

“Yes, but we all have Halos. Sensei here doesn’t, does he? Kufufu.” She grinned impishly, “Surely you want him to be safe?”

The FTF had varying reactions to the threat, none positive. Before I could say that I would be fine, the Shittem Chest protecting me enough that they could take down the others after the blast, a shot rang out.

It was a single shot, fired over a considerable distance from a rifle. Mutsuki cursed as the detonator in her hand exploded, bringing it close to her body and hissing in pain. The FTF moved quickly, gunfire starting as they attempted to subdue the Problem Solver girls while I looked for the shooter, only barely catching a glimpse of red in the distance.

Moving backwards, I looked towards the fight, only to be surprised as Kayako threw a dark cylinder directly at me. I was already tensing to dive before two bodies slammed into me, driving me to the floor as a massive boom and a bright flash of light sounded out. As the flash-bang faded, it revealed the fact that the Problem Solver girls had made good their escape.

I blinked the lingering spots from my eyes, looking up at the two girls who had thrown themselves at me to protect me. The first was expected, a blushing Shiroko staring down at me in worry, searching for injuries. The other surprised me, a sheepish looking Hoshino.

“Are you okay Sensei?” Shiroko asked, causing me to smile and nod towards her.

“I’m fine Shiroko, it was only a flash bang. Thank you for trying to protect me, both of you.” Shiroko pouted at that, but I gave a single pat on the head and she brightened up, face easing.

“Yeah well, don’t get used to it. I’m too old to be moving so quickly.” Hoshino spoke, not looking in my direction as she picked up her shield.

Such a quick reaction towards danger aimed at me… Was she starting to trust me finally?