Chapter Sixty-One: The Red Thread of Fate

In the midair, a thousand meters above the ground, inside the silver-white fighter jet.

Mio Ito sat in the cockpit with her helmet on, her right hand gripping the throttle at her side, her fingers deftly tapping the touchscreen. She operated the fighter jet with an amused interest, manipulating it as effortlessly as a toy, darting freely through the sky.

“…We’ve bombed multiple times already, and with the missile just dropped to destroy the command center, only two air-to-ground missiles and two Joint Direct Attack Munitions remain on the launch rack. Even so, dropping just one could cause thousands of deaths in a crowd. Such a cruel weapon,” she sighed softly, marveling at the deadly nature of modern warfare technology.

Yet, from the public communication channel on her helmet, several furious voices erupted:

“Michael, what did you do?!”

“Why did you fire at the command center? Are you committing treason?”

“Michael, do you want to face a military tribunal?!”

Smith, the advisor, had not used the public channel earlier, instead confirming mission execution with the pilots individually through a private channel. So the pilots were still unclear about the situation, seemingly believing it was their colleague Michael who had acted.

Meanwhile, on Mio Ito’s radar display, she could see several other fighter jets approaching. Before long, their silhouettes pierced through the clouds, visible through the canopy—like giant iron birds, their tail fins glinting with cold light.

She smiled slightly, about to speak, but before she could, the last remaining pilot who had not spoken finally broke his silence, his voice trembling as he warned his comrades:

“Careful! I suspect this guy isn’t Michael… He’s already been consumed by that monster!”

A hiss sounded in the channel, as all three other pilots drew sharp breaths in unison. Mio Ito shook her head in regret, and with her true voice, spoke gently over the public channel:

“What a pity—I won’t be able to interact with you as a fellow pilot. But let me say this: it wasn’t consumption, it was salvation.”

The four pilots promptly cut off the communication channel, and the four fighter jets scattered in panic, fleeing in all directions like birds startled by a raptor. Not a single one thought, at that moment, to avenge their comrade or their superiors.

Anyone trained as a fighter pilot possessed basic scientific literacy and logical reasoning. Anyone could see that even the previous intense bombardment hadn’t solved the problem of this monster before them. Instead, she had seized a pilot’s body and a state-of-the-art fighter jet. Now, with only these four jets remaining in the sky, how could they possibly defeat her?

Their only solution—was to run, and run as well as they could! Retreat to Yokota Air Base, let the command and the Pentagon figure out how to deal with her!

“Damn it!”

That was the only thought left to the four pilots.

Moreover, as they fled, the four jets instinctively chose four different directions to avoid being taken out en masse.

Watching the radar display as the four targets climbed and fled, Mio Ito’s lips curved into a confident smile. She pressed the launch button, and the remaining four munitions on the rack surged forth—

“Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!”

Now possessing Michael’s memories and consciousness, she handled the controls like a veteran pilot, launching four munitions in succession toward four different directions, tracking the fleeing jets. Then—

They all missed.

Naturally so. Whether air-to-ground missiles or Joint Direct Attack Munitions, these were designed primarily for ground and maritime targets. Against agile fighter jets—especially the latest American models—the targets easily evaded pursuit.

In such circumstances, only the highest-precision air-to-air missiles might threaten these jets. Unfortunately, as the target for today’s operation had originally been Mio Ito alone inside “France Manor,” the fighter jet had not been equipped with any air-to-air missiles.

But that didn’t matter.

Though the previous munitions failed to track their targets, they forced the four jets to alter their flight paths, preventing them from widening the gap between themselves and Mio Ito for a brief moment.

That was enough.

Even a delay of less than a few seconds was sufficient.

Because, in that instant, Mio Ito’s creation caught up with them.

It was an extraordinarily thin red line.

Four in total, each pursuing a different jet.

Each line was less than one millimeter thick. In such a night, scarcely visible even to high-precision cameras.

The four red threads extended from Mio Ito’s wrist, taut and swift, traveling over a thousand meters at more than twice the speed of sound, in an instant attaching themselves to the cockpit windows.

Like the so-called “red thread of fate.”

Ordinarily, the red thread of destiny binds lovers.

But Mio Ito’s red thread connected lives.

And so—

She clenched her fist lightly.

In the next moment, a barely perceptible hiss sounded at each cockpit window. Instantly, the red thread pierced the breach, stabbing into each of the four remaining pilots. Moreover, more and more red threads surged from Mio Ito’s body, one by one piercing the fighter jet she occupied, and spreading across the sky.

…

The aerial battle and breakthrough took less than a few minutes. Meanwhile, on the ground, the troops assigned to this operation were still in chaos following the explosion of the command center.

“What just happened…?”

“A fighter jet fired a missile—Colonel Kenichi Yokoyama died in action!”

“Is this some American plot?”

“Why are US pilots bombing Tokyo again?! It’s not eighty years ago! If we don’t sign the security treaty, we get bombed; if we sign it, we still get bombed?!”

“Is Colonel Kenichi Yokoyama the highest-ranking officer ever killed in an American bombing of Tokyo?!”

“Stop with the hellish jokes… Hurry and figure out what to do!”

A jumble of voices came through the communication channels, the squad leaders’ private frequencies filled with excitement, panic, and unease. The Self-Defense Force members, barely seasoned by combat, had managed a semblance of an attack at first, but faced with such sudden emergency, they immediately devolved into headless chaos.