Chapter 306: Mission: Impossible (Patreon)

Amamiya Rin stood at the center of the burning ruins. Through the dusk, his gaze behind the mask locked onto the airliner tilting and plunging from the sky.

Its left wing trailed a thread of black smoke that grew fainter by the second. Fuel was leaking and altitude was dropping fast, sending the plane sliding toward the ground on an irreversible course.

Three minutes, maybe less, and it would crash.

"Rin, that thing weighs several hundred tons, you know."

Tomie stood before the cafe's floor-to-ceiling window, coffee cup in hand, her tone as light as if she were discussing tonight's menu.

"Several hundred tons of steel dropping from thousands of meters up. Even in that tin suit of yours, you couldn't take it, right?"

"Though honestly, watching it come down would be pretty spectacular. Want to watch the fireworks together?"

Hearing Tomie's voice, Amamiya Rin said nothing. He only kept staring at the airliner in the distant sky, his expression growing graver.

(Wow, now that's a spectacle.)

(How big a crater will that thing make when it lands? How many will it crush? A hundred? Two hundred?)

(Who cares? It's not like we're on board.)

(Tsk, tsk. That dead bastard Babirus really knows how to pick his last words.)

(Rin, you're not seriously going to meddle again, are you?)

The [Tomie Network] had long since erupted. There was not a shred of kindness in it, only the sharp-tongued relish of spectators, like a crowd in the stands picking over the tragedy unfolding in the sky.

But before long, one Tomie noticed Amamiya Rin's reaction.

Inside his chest, his heart was hammering. Blood surged through his veins and adrenaline spiked.

It was plainly the state of a body preparing to act.

(Why bother? Rin, you just came out of a brutal fight. In your condition, can you really stop this disaster?)

(You couldn't even do it at full strength. You're not a real Ultraman. The power of horror tales belongs to the spiritual world, and you've already experienced how weak its influence on the material world is.)

(Don't tell me you plan to stop it with that mortal body, that battered wreck? That's going to be a bit difficult.)

(Not a bit difficult. Extremely difficult. Even with enough power it wouldn't matter. Do you plan to pierce that airliner with your body?)

(Come on, darling, you're not Superman. You don't have a biofield.)

Every Tomie was trying to talk Amamiya Rin out of it. Not one of them supported stopping the falling airliner.

Because it was pointless. Even if Amamiya Rin flew up there and threw himself at it, it would only be wasted effort.

Everyone on that plane was going to die anyway, so why waste the strength?

Amamiya Rin didn't answer a single word.

He shut out all the noise from his consciousness. The core at his chest flared with a blinding blue light, and his ether energy surged to its peak in an instant.

"Full thrust engaged. Flight mode activated. Target: three thousand meters east, airliner."

The instant the mechanical voice finished, the thrusters on his back and soles opened together, and pale blue ether energy erupted with a roar.

In a flash, the silver-and-red armored figure shot up against the dusk like a blade piercing the heavens, trailing a long tail of light as it drove straight toward the colossal mass plummeting from the sky.

The city below shrank rapidly, its streetlights blurring into a river of tiny stars. The howling wind scraped across his armor with a shrill whine.

Several hundred meters vanished in a blink. Only when Amamiya Rin truly drew near the airliner did he feel the full weight of its oppressive presence.

The left engine had stopped completely, its casing charred black and curled. The fuselage tilted past thirty degrees, and the wings shook as if they might break apart at any moment.

Figures flickered faintly behind the windows. The screams and panic were sealed off by the thick bulkheads, but even without hearing them, Amamiya Rin could tell.

What should he do?

There was no need to think, because there was only one way!

Ultra Psychokinesis!

It was a skill of [Horror Tale: Seven], one Amamiya Rin could use only by overdrawing his life and his soul.

Life could be replenished by the The Reanimator's Sword. His soul... never mind that.

The only uncertainty was whether the strength of his psychokinesis could hold an airliner of such enormous mass.

Maybe it could, maybe it couldn't. Both were equally likely, and all Amamiya Rin had to do was try!

He shut the Tomies' voices out of his mind. His entire being narrowed to a single thought!

Stop this airliner before it crashes!

In a single thought, Amamiya Rin's body began to change.

The metallic sheen of the armor faded, replaced by a purer light, and silver-and-red stripes spread across his form. His soul, freed from its shell and fueled by unwavering resolve, became a Giant of Light dozens of meters tall!

Next, the silver-and-red patterns crept along his torso, and his shoulder guards extended outward, transforming into pale-gold Reverse-Scale Armor.

The Beam Lamp on his forehead ignited with a molten-gold flame, and a pale cyan pattern of Wings of Wind unfolded behind him like a pair of translucent wings.

Amamiya Rin spread his arms and carefully embraced the falling airliner.

"Ultra Psychokinesis!"

An invisible force field burst outward, forming thousands of layered transparent membranes that wrapped the entire plane.

The airliner's fall was checked for a moment, but its several hundred tons, carrying the violent acceleration lent by gravity, bore down on him without restraint.

Even a stronger physical body couldn't withstand an impact of at least 500 tons, let alone a horror-tale form with weaker influence over matter.

Amamiya Rin could feel every inch of his body of light trembling under the strain.

Fine cracks even appeared at the seams between his shoulder guards and chest plate!

The Ultra Psychokinesis was nearly torn apart. Or rather, the psychokinesis wrapped around the plane had already been burst by the impact, only for Amamiya Rin to force it back together in the next instant.

"Not enough? Then... Heavenly Cluster Gale!"

The Wings of Wind snapped open. The air between heaven and earth gathered from every direction like a roused beast, forming a thick wall of wind beneath the airliner.

The rapidly spinning current acted as a huge cushion, bracing the plane's underside, stripping away the crushing downward force layer by layer and scattering it into the surrounding air.

The airliner's rate of descent slowed further, but even so, it still wasn't enough to stop the fall.

The wall of wind and the Ultra Psychokinesis bulged under the pressure like a bowstring drawn to its limit, their edges beginning to fray. Hundreds of tons pressed relentlessly on that air cushion, and every tremor split another crack through the wind wall and the psychokinesis.

Amamiya Rin's body was shaking.

What he was holding felt less like an airliner than a mountain sinking.

Under that terrifying mass, every muscle cried out on the verge of tearing. The indicator on his forehead flashed violently, warning of energy exhaustion.

The wall of wind kept collapsing and the cracks in the Ultra Psychokinesis grew denser. Normal energy consumption was no longer enough, and Amamiya Rin instinctively burned his own soul to wring out even greater power.

But it still wasn't enough.