Date A Mysterious Being

Chapter 22 - Gabriel

"Six wizards...five dolls," Origami said quietly, counting the signals displayed on the sensor projected onto her retinas.
Eleven targets left. Which meant that she had dropped two-thirds of the original number that were here.

"..."

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the corpses of the mechanical dolls she had just attacked plunging to the ground. She exhaled.

Massive arms on slender frames. Legs that bent backward, as opposed to forward-facing human knees. A smooth head that resembled a full-face helmet. And the CR units affixed to those bodies in key locations.
She had seen these machines modeled after people before.
Two months ago, when they went to Arubi Island for their school trip, Origami had tried to go after Shidou when he went out in the middle of a storm, and the same model of robot had blocked her way forward.

She was surprised when these dolls-Bandersnatches or whatever they were called-had shown up with the DEM wizards, but now they were a piece in a puzzle that was starting to make sense to Origami.

Mechanical dolls that used Realizers. Equipment that supposedly couldn't be activated unless connected to a human brain. Back on the school trip, she'd wondered if they belonged to DEM Industries, given how far beyond the normal technological standards this was, and now she was certain of it.

She had learned the reason why these dolls appeared on her school trip and also why there had been zero investigation into countermeasures when she reported their existence to her superiors.

"I won't let you lay a finger on Shidou." She clenched her teeth and issued orders in her mind.

She set her sights on the wizards and dolls in her field of view and deployed limited point Territories. The precision was low because she had deployed a line of more than ten of them, but even so, they would stop her enemies for a moment or two. She opened up numbers five through eight in the container and launched missiles at her targets.

The wizards all escaped their restraints and just narrowly dodged these, but one Bandersnatch took a hit in the head and another was struck in the torso, and both dropped out of the sky.

"Dammit! Dammit! What the hell are you?!"
Naturally, Jessica and the other DEM wizards still in the air were opening up with whatever weapons they had at Origami.

But Origami wasn't the sort to simply sit there and let it happen. She fired the high-output thrusters equipped below the weapon container and moved the enormous bulk of White Licorice through the air at a seemingly impossible speed.
Attacks she couldn't evade, she defended against by either deploying a point Territory on the anticipated trajectory or bestowing defensive capability for just a moment to the Territory in the location where the missile hit.
As flesh and blood, Origami hadn't been able to do anything up against the Bandersnatches. But with White Licorice, it was a different story.

Drones that used Realizers. This was indeed amazing and menacing, but in her assessment, they didn't begin to compare to the human wizards in terms of simple battle power. They were an order of magnitude worse than the wizards at fine operation and Realizer control. And now that Origami boasted the firepower of an entire squad all on her own, they were great targets.

"Shoot! Go!"

The wizards pressed the attack. Enough warheads to fill her field of view closed in on her.
Even Origami in her current state wouldn't be able to completely evade this many missiles. She shifted the Territory enveloping her body to defensive mode. It wasn't a huge amount of force. She could take several hits and still-

"...?!"

The world shuddered abruptly.
Her Territory was momentarily disturbed, and several of the warheads ripped into White Licorice's armor. The incredible impact rocked Origami, and a slight nausea came over her.