Combatants Will Be Dispatched - Volume 7 - Chapter Pr

Prologue

After barging into my room unannounced, Alice begins rooting around my belongings and speaks up after flipping through a photo album.

“Hey, Six, who’s this nervous-looking beauty standing next to Lady Lilith and Lady Astaroth? I can't find her in my database."

I peer over her shoulder at the picture in question to see who she’s talking about, and I’m greeted by the image of a beautiful woman sandwiched between Lilith and Astaroth, smiling shyly at the camera as though she’s shrinking back from it.

The photo’s from back when I first joined Kisaragi, when the beauty in question intervened to smooth things over after Astaroth and Lilith had gone at it with hammers and tongs.

Though gorgeous, the woman in question always tended to hunch forward because she was uncomfortable with her own height.

"Um, are your circuits shorting or something? That’s Lady Belial before she got her enhancements.”

At my comment, Alice does a double-take and looks at the photo a second time.

“...This black-haired, cultured-looking chick is the same person as Lady Belial, the redheaded bombshell?”

In the photo Belial is dressed in a plain white kimono.

Then again, in the same picture, Astaroth’s wearing a skirt and suit like some office lady, while Lilith’s wearing a regular school uniform.

Astaroth is making no effort at concealing her displeasure, while Lilith is rigidly facing the camera, a serious look on her face.

“Yup. Before she got modded. Lady Belial was the most normal person in all of Kisaragi. She was kind and well-mannered yet weirdly erotic, and I went out of my way to tease her whenever I had the chance.”

“You sexually harassed a gentle-looking person like her?” asks Alice with a note of exasperation as I think back to how Belial used to be.

“At the time. Lady Belial lacked a lot of confidence despite the fact that she was pretty much the best fighter out of all of us. She was also smart as a whip and had a banging body. I only harassed with the best of intentions, to get her to understand she had a lot to offer.”

“Whatever the intentions, sexual harassment is still sexual harassment, you idiot. God, what an asshole.”

Because she lacked confidence in herself, Belial was skeptical that others found her attractive, so she tended to leave herself open a lot of the time.

I didn’t want to do it, but I knew that someone had to sexually harass her to make sure she wouldn’t be caught off guard by someone with sinister motives.

Then again, looking back, it sometimes felt like she left herself vulnerable to me on purpose, as though she was hoping I’d one day act on my advances. The things I said never really seemed to bother her that much.

“Still, how the hell did this woman end up like the current Lady Belial? Didn’t Lady Lilith do the enhancement surgery herself?”

Seems Lilith hadn’t installed that bit of data into Alice’s brain.

“Yeah, that's right. Lady Lilith handled the surgery... Hey, you know why Lady Belial’s the most powerful person in Kisaragi?”

“It’s because of her amazing pyrokinesis powers that she earned the title of ‘the Incinerator,’ right? I’ve also heard she’s had the most enhancement surgeries of any of the combatants in all of Kisaragi."

Kisaragi’s been enhancing its soldiers through superpowers gained through brain surgery for a while now, and Belial’s biggest asset is the pyrokinesis she gained from that procedure.

When Lilith told Belial that the amount of power gained from the surgery was correlated with the amount of brain capacity devoted to that ability, Belial didn’t hesitate for a moment in choosing to maximize her power.

As a result, Lilith pushed the limits of just how far she could take the surgery without impacting Belial’s personality, memories, or ability to function, but...

“Lady Lilith screwed up. When the other researchers checked in on what happened, it seemed she’d gone way past the line that shouldn’t be crossed when modifying Lady Belial’s brain.”

“Of course she did.”

That was a hell of a time. I had to talk Astaroth down from executing Lilith, calm the mutants that wanted to kill Lilith, and stop the Combat Agents who wanted to string Lilith up on a light pole.

“Lady Lilith insisted that she’d been careful not to cross the line and that someone else had messed up the settings, but everyone was a hair's breadth from snapping at her because of her attitude. That’s when Lady Belial stepped in and told us that it was fine, or rather that it was exactly what she wanted.”

“Isn't Lady Lilith the way she is now because Lady Belial wouldn’t give her a kick in the ass when she needed it?”

It was an egregious case of malpractice, but given that Belial herself seemed fine with it, Lilith is just about the only one who’s still bothered by the outcome. However...

"Seemed Lady Lilith did feel kind of guilty about it, so she’s still trying to restore Lady Belial’s memories. She’s tried things like showing Lady Belial old videos and pissing her off or delivering a strong blow to Lady Belial’s head to jog her brain, only to get smacked in return."

"Obviously, she’s not actually trying to fix her. Still, must’ve been a hell of a thing to deal with, partner. I don't know anything about what things were like at the time, but Lady Belial’s now the definition of a loose cannon. Based on the photo, it looks like she was the gentle type—right up your alley,” Alice says teasingly as she looks over the picture.

I mean, it’s true. I did love the Belial who was kind, a little shy, and interested in erotic things but went out of her way to pretend she didn’t enjoy my lewd advances, although...

...I’m pretty fond of the current Belial, who’s basically an uncontrollable force of nature, too.