Intel mission - Tokuko

   Tokuko checked the driver of their ship thoroughly before leaving the navigator room. She has been the one who controls this ship since the start of this mission. But now, she's switching to another role that is much more important: sneaking onto the first ship and stealing the vault key, which is secured very well. When the sun is rising, the sky is dimmed with faint light, and the new-day clouds are dyed a pastel pink tone. Tokuko has fluently mastered the control board and all buttons; now she's guiding the next driver, a human from Ihrutia. Just 5 minutes later, when the clock chimed 5 a.m., her radio caught a signal and transferred a voice. Tokuko checked it, having a short conversation with another Faun commander, then turned the radio off. She counts the humans that are on the ship right now before going to prepare the required equipment. There is Yukino, slightly wounded and tired, sleeping inside her soundproof pill. The Matsuhiro sisters, who just finished cleaning themselves and had some meals, sit on the ground trapdoor, exchanging information. Tsukino is taking a nap; she has been working so hard today with just 3 hours of sleep before continuing with her commanding task. Yukari is reading the intel and writing down everything Yukino has said, finding a way to connect them all and make them reasonable. Yashi is in the rear compartment; she hasn't talked or communicated with the rest of the team since the mission started, claiming that the devices are having problems that require immediate fixing. Tokuko knows why she's keeping a distance, but she took it as a good development and decided not to ask.

   Where is Tamao? Tokuko feels a sudden wave of uncomfort and anger just by thinking about that girl. She messed up the formation and was the major reason why the enemies were alerted about them. Where the hell is she right now? Tokuko doesn't care if she is lost or in danger, but she worries about how she'll sneak into other enemy ships and cause more trouble for them. She loads her high-tech gun with deadly armor-piercing bullets, then places it inside her 3-dimensional backpack together with other helpful tools: a blanket that reflects light to help her become invisible, a flashlight, ultra-regenerative pills, sound eraser pads, and more deadly melee weapons or bullets drenched in Ihrutia's exclusive venomous plants' juices. These are all expensive and rare. At the start of that day, she helped an ally ship finish another alien ship, so they thanked her with these weapons. A short-haired Faun girl has told her she can't waste the stuff they gave her; it's for the most important mission, and it's not going to be a failure. Tokuko checks them again for the 10th time to make sure she knows clearly how to use them and nothing is wrong, even the slightest off. It's quite peaceful—too peaceful for a morning like this. She checked the clock again; it's 8.

- Hello! Tokuko is receiving the signal and reporting from a captured alien ship.

   Half an hour ago, she was taking the radio call to answer a Faun commander. He explains the harsh situation they're in, and people from the force on his side are falling down. He was unable to contact the head ship. All they can do is wait and defend themselves weakly. The last time their main Faun ship reported was at 3 a.m., and the signaling place is near the east side of Ihrutia. He theorized that their main force ship was missing; maybe they were too busy chasing the enemy ship, or worse. That means the strongest force is not available, and neither are they. He thanks the human ship for providing information about the vault key, but none of their ships were in the ready state to take on the mission of obtaining it. Tokuko only remains silent and says nothing when she ends the call.

- Don't worry. We're available. End.

   If she says it's a pleasure to take on this mission, it's a lie. Right now she's having a headache that follows and gradually kills her for days, and every single crewmate here is very exhausted after rough missions. Tsukino surely will not be available; she looks like she's about to explode at any moment. Tokuko's eyes stopped at a figure in red.

Yashi.

   She called with a calm voice, but it broke the thick silence in the cabin. Yashi, just as expected, was startled and looked at her with wide-opened eyes. Tokuko sits down next to her, answering her shocked face with deep black eyes that look doll-like.

- Why did you shoot Tamao?

   Yashi doesn't hesitate for long; maybe she has predicted that this question will come. Her voice was hard to hear.

- I tried to hide from Tamao. But now, when I face her, I can't miss the opportunity to retrieve my freedom.

   Tokuko looks at Yashi, disgusted like looking at a killer, as scornful as she was laughing at a useless coward. She raised her hand, then clenched and punched at Yashi's chest. The sound of her collapsing down and coughing has woken Yukino and Tsukino. The Matsuhiro sisters came to stop her from doing anything harmful, but she has already stopped. There was no sign of expression on her face—no frown, no anger. Tokuko only stares at the woman on the floor and talks calmly with a terrible, threatening aura.

- You let us down; now Tamao is missing and out of our control, thanks to you. You let personal grudges take over. This is a war to protect the realm, not a drama centered around you and your dear sister. You're so weak and insignificant, I think you should be fed to the next deadly mission.

- Tokuko!

     Tsukino called from the other side of the room, but Tokuko had already grabbed Yashi's shirt collar. A handgun was pointed at her forehead. The girl with deadly black eyes cruelly speaks to everyone in the cabin, which is alert.

- If you don't want this girl to die, leave us alone. I'll take her with me. An hour and a half ago, after taking the call from a Faun commander, I told the pilot to drive into Ihrutia's east side zone. We're close to where the missing ship is. I'm sure the portal lies there. Our chance to steal the key is in front of us. There's no time to pity this useless person; I'll be guiding her on what "business" is.

     Tokuko said while glancing at every girl's face when they surrounded the two. Nobody dares to move. Tsukino tries to pacify her.

-  Calm down, Sugiura. This is meaningless, since I know you'll do much better without carrying anyone. They'll become a burden compared to your agility and speed. Do you want to take much longer for a mission on an enemy ship that can kill you two?

- It's not the matter, commander. Don't worry, I'm nothing like the past me. If you consider me talented, it'll be possible for me to carry another one. And most of all, she needs to understand what the heck is wrong with her head and actions.

     Tokuko answered shortly when she's still grabbing Yashi, aiming her muzzle at her head, and slowly moving out of the cabin. They head to another cabin with a door and some equipment to prepare for another realm of travel with only the two of them.

- Hands up.

      She told her "prisoner." Yashi raised her hand without saying anything.

- Where's your companion?

     The artifact critters are powerful in an unexpected way, and Yashi could actually turn the table if she was still having her companion by her side. Looking at her slightly changed expression, Tokuko knows this woman has planned to stab her from behind because she looks awfully uncomfortable knowing she'll be separated from her companion. A white cake with a large sparkling fireworks fuse crawls out of its owner's loose dress, angrily ramming her legs using its whole body. Tokuko carelessly grabs and picks it up, then tosses it to the side, far away from its owner. She released her shirt collar, but her gun remained in the same place. She opens the lid of a window nearby. They're at a very impressive height from the ground, the sun is burning above, and every scene outside shines in its bright light. But there's a large mist blocking the light from reaching deeper, which prevents them from seeing the ground. A thick brown mist. Tokuko tells the pilot to lower the altitude. Gradually, a vast scene of steampunk towers appears in front of their eyes. They're all old and rusty; some even emit black smoke. Tokuko and Yashi look out the window. This is definitely the east of Ihrutia, where they have never been. It looks like a large, moldened dystopia realm that's separated from the other locations of Ihrutia. This looks like the main city, but it's not crowded at all. Living conditions seem very much downgraded, and people or fauns here don't know about the outside world, for sure.

     What an ideal place to hide a portal back to Armanite! It's very quiet and peaceful here; there are no sounds of aircraft flying around or shooting battles. The aliens don't want to occupy this old and dying land. Or do they just feel it's unnecessary to fight here? Tokuko looks down, feeling lucky for not being teleported here in the first place. Noxving is still deadly, but at least it's not dying.

     She heard the sounds of a door getting opened. Her eyes were locked on a little green figure standing at the throne, opening her large, sparkly eyes to look at the two. It's Yukino. Tokuko remembers how she underestimated that little kitty, how she scared her, and how she made her run away in tears. She lowers her voice.

- What do you want here?

     Yukino seems like she's still putting her guard on towards Tokuko, slowly walking to her place, eyes locked.

- I only want to give you some more information that I just remembered. Can I?

- Alright, say it. Does Hoshi tell you when the alien will start realm-hopping?

- She does. From the intel she collected and decoded, the aliens will return to Armanite twice every day at 0 a.m. and 12 p.m. In the meantime, I think we should find a place to hide and not alarm their security system.

     Tokuko nodded, then checked the clock. It's already 11; she commands the pilot to stop and drive back to where it's safe enough to land. Other humans on the ship don't intervene or say anything against Tokuko's commands. For now, she may be rough, but she's the one who put this whole vault mission on her shoulder. The ship landed on an empty lot full of ashes, maybe from burned houses. It seems like someone's property, but she doesn't mind. They can't fly now because a single aircraft in the sky is the most suspicious thing ever. Also, they cannot just drop Yashi and Tokuko here and leave. The girls need this ship to pick them up as fast as possible after the mission is successful. After landing, Yukino describes a unique tower that the alien will open the portal on, then suggests they get there using one of the small emergency escape planes. It took them another 20 minutes to find the exact tower location. There's an old abandoned lookout cabin right near the portal, so Tokuko and Yashi chose to hide there. Everything was done in a short amount of time, and Yashi doesn't even dare to resist. It's almost 12 a.m., and the time is getting closer.

     Boom! A large light explosion comes with deadly sound waves that suddenly appear in mid-air. Every scene got whited out for a short moment, like they just got a flash grenade right in the face. When the light slowly returned to normal, the two girls saw a giant alien ship that was as large as the sky itself. Tokuko takes out a paper piece that Yukino gave her and reads again the location of the room where they store the key. This paper came with a low-quality map of this first ship; maybe it's because the aliens printed it as an unimportant copy. Yashi was still having a headache; she couldn't stand up by herself. Tokuko tries to calm her down while not leaving her sight of any moment of what's happening outside. The ship slowly moves; its colossal size makes her start to admire the head force for fighting it for the whole time. She already knows this will happen, but she cannot stay indifferent when a portal, even bigger than the ship, opens right above them. The winds are starting to get very crazed, like they could blow the two human girls away at any time. Tokuko grabs Yashi's wrist tightly and pulls her out of their hideout, facing the terrible winds. Yashi seemed very scared and freezing, but she was obedient and didn't try to run away. That's everything Tokuko needs.

     She looked up at the giant ship again, watching it go inside the portal. She needs to fly up there, maybe using a hook armed with a drone and a rope. But hooks may cause loud sounds when they get to the ship. Tokuko took out her tool; she had already prepared for this situation by using a slime-like magic glue that was inseparable to cover the hook before throwing it up. The auto-detecting drone drives the hook to get to the right spot and prevent it from falling. It successfully sticks to the ship's bottom. Tokuko sets the rope into auto-compact mode, then brings Yashi by one hand and ties them into the rope while it's withdrawing in the direction of the hook. When they're doing that, half of the ship has gone through the portal. Tokuko told Yashi to take the map out of her shirt pocket to see where they were going. After a minute, Yashi answered.

- It's the combustion chamber! We're going to die! Oh, wait, there's a storage room for fuel nearby. Can we enter from that way?

- Let me see.

    Tokuko looks up again. Now that they are very close to the ship, she can see some more trapdoors leading to other rooms. It's just harder to reach since they're clinging to the bottom side of the ship and getting affected by gravity. She remembers the map again; there is a trapdoor that leads to the fuel storage, where they can climb up. Without hesitation, she checked the backpack and took out a pair of gloves.

- Grab me on my shoulders, Yashi; I'm going to make my way to that door.

     She points to a trapdoor that's just 3 meters away. Gladly, the tool hooked up in a convenient place! Yashi weakly answered. Tokuko wears the gloves, pinches out a little bit of magic glue on the hooks, and spreads it on the gloves. The glue will make things inseparable if it interacts with a surface for more than 5 seconds. That's why the hook is now unremovable and can no longer be used. In order to move, she'll need to stick her hand onto the ship's hull, then use the second hand to grab a spot in front of her, then release the other hand to grab another spot and repeat it. It's such a dangerous method because she was carrying another person on her back. Tokuko thought of the bones of her hands. The glue won't drop them, so all the weights are damaging her arms whenever she moves. It's not a problem; she has the healing pills ready. But the pain is not a skippable thing. Tokuko clenches her teeth as she gets closer to the trapdoor; now it's unbearably hurt. But she grabbed the door knob already, and with a full-strength pullout, the door had already been opened. In the second moment, Tokuko thought she might have lost all of her consciousness. She saw Yashi quickly climb inside the ship. The reddish woman now looks at her with eyes full of determination when she grabs Tokuko and pulls her up, removing her hands from the gloves, which are now stuck to the ship hull with the glue on them. She successfully gets the two inside the biggest Arma Caeli ship. They had a quick break. Yashi looks pale as a dead person; maybe she has a fear of heights, while Tokuko breathes heavily and tries to move her red arms. More than some little bones were broken, and she's not someone with strong hands to do this. It's pretty dark inside the storage; there's only one faint source of light from the glowing yellow material that the aliens use to fuel their ship. It's so mysterious and has never been seen. Suddenly, even before the girls can take a breath, they feel a strange wave run through their bodies. Tokuko fiercely yells:

- It's the realm hop! Yashi, connect to your companion and use the artifact power right now! Or we'll be left behind, or even worse!

Both of the girls' companions appear; they seem ready to be called out. They provide a strong bond of magic when using their power together. The ship has already left Ihrutia; they know that sudden waves keep affecting their consciousness. This is the same as the reflection realm. They're hopping under the protection of their pets. The two girls remain unmoved until the hop has ended. Tokuko simply took out one of the pills and swallowed it while standing up.

- Haiz, I never thought I would waste one this quickly. But fuck it, let's go.