Arc 1 Chapter 7: CODE GEASS — SHINJUKU GHETTO
[Wake up, guys! We have arrived!]
Hikigaya Hachiman slowly opened his eyes.
For a brief moment, everything felt normal. There was the familiar sensation of wind brushing against his face, the distant sound of air rushing past his ears, and the uncomfortable feeling of being woken up before he wanted to be.
Then his half-asleep brain finally processed something important.
The wind was a little too strong.
His body felt strangely weightless.
And the sky was beneath him.
"...Wait."
A few seconds passed.
His eyes widened.
"WAIT WAIT WAIT, WHY THE HELL ARE WE FALLING OUT OF THE SKY?!"
The sleepy confusion vanished instantly.
The three boys were thousands of meters above the ground, their bodies plummeting toward a sprawling city below. Buildings, roads, and vehicles appeared as tiny dots from this height, but with every passing second, they rapidly grew larger and larger.
The roar of rushing air filled Hikigaya's ears as panic immediately took over.
Unlike certain insane people he knew, Hikigaya had absolutely no experience with being dropped from the sky.
Nor did he want any.
"This is bad! This is really bad!" he shouted while flailing helplessly through the air. "People aren't supposed to be up here! Gravity wasn't designed for this!"
Not far away, Shirou was surprisingly calm.
The red-haired boy glanced downward, studying the rapidly approaching city beneath them. Despite the situation, his expression remained thoughtful, almost as if he were trying to solve a minor inconvenience rather than an immediate life-threatening crisis.
"This is definitely a problem," Shirou admitted.
The fact that this was the strongest reaction he could give somehow made the situation even more concerning.
Meanwhile, Tsukasa was falling with his arms crossed. He spun around once before returning to a normal falling posture.
Somehow maintaining a composed posture while hurtling toward certain death.
"Lucia," he called out with a sigh, "you're surprisingly troublesome sometimes."
[Hehe~]
"Don't 'hehe' me."
[In my defense, the transit system worked perfectly.]
"It dropped us in the sky."
[Technically, you arrived in the correct world.]
"That wasn't the complaint."
Hikigaya stared at the invisible AI in disbelief.
"OI! STOP ARGUING ABOUT THE DETAILS!"
His voice cracked halfway through the sentence.
"We are currently experiencing the very important issue of me definitely dying!"
The city below continued growing larger.
Shirou seemed to realize that perhaps they should do something before becoming decorative stains on the pavement.
"That's true."
"THAT'S TRUE?!" Hikigaya nearly choked. "Why the hell are you saying that as if it's a normal Monday?!?!?!"
Tsukasa looked toward Shirou.
"You got a plan?"
Shirou looked toward Tsukasa.
"You got a plan?"
The two stared at each other.
Then both turned toward Hikigaya.
Hikigaya felt a sudden sense of dread.
"...Why are you both looking at me?"
The ground continued rushing closer toward them.
"Hey, Lucia, any idea?" Tsukasa asked while looking toward the sky. The wind continued to roar past his ears as the city below grew larger with every passing second. Normally, falling from several thousand meters in the air would be enough to make most people panic, but after everything he had experienced as Kamen Rider Decade, this wasn't even close to the strangest thing that had happened to him.
A holographic screen suddenly appeared beside them before Lucia's projection materialized in midair. Despite the fact that three people were currently falling toward the ground at terminal velocity, the AI looked completely relaxed.
[No.]
For a moment, Tsukasa simply stared at her.
"...You can't be serious."
[I believe in you guys!]
That somehow made him even less confident.
Shaking his head, Tsukasa looked toward Shirou and noticed golden particles gathering around the redhead's right arm. A few seconds later, a massive shield materialized in his grasp. It wasn't one of the countless swords Shirou usually projected. The shield was nearly as tall as he was, covered in intricate patterns centered around a large cross-like design.
"...That's new," Tsukasa muttered to himself. His voice was drowned out by the wind, while his curiosity about Shirou continued to grow.
"Guys, hold onto me."
Neither Tsukasa nor Hikigaya argued. Both immediately grabbed onto Shirou as the distance between them and the ground rapidly disappeared.
[500 meters.]
The buildings below became clearer.
[300 meters.]
Rows of aging apartment blocks and crowded streets filled their vision.
[100 meters.]
They shot past several buildings, close enough for people below to notice them.
A man carrying a box looked upward.
"...Huh?"
His eyes widened.
Several others followed his gaze.
"What the hell is that?"
"Britannian military?"
The crowd immediately became restless.
"What are those bastards doing now?"
"First the checkpoints, now this?"
"Get inside!"
A woman hurriedly grabbed her child and pulled him away from the street.
Meanwhile, Hikigaya was far more concerned with the immediate issue.
"PLEASE, SHIROU!" he shouted while desperately clinging onto him. "I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"
Shirou ignored him.
His eyes remained fixed on the rapidly approaching ground.
Then he raised the shield.
"Lord Camelot."
Golden light erupted from its surface.
A colossal fortress wall manifested beneath them.
The structure appeared so suddenly that the people below froze.
"A Knightmare Frame?"
"No..."
"THAT PEOPLE"
The next second—
BOOOOOOOOM!
The impact shook the entire street.
Dust exploded outward as the fortress absorbed the overwhelming majority of the force. Even then, the remaining momentum sent the 2 boys flying. Tsukasa rolled across the ground before landing on his feet. Hikigaya bounced twice before crashing directly into a nearby wall. Shirou in another hand stay holding the giant shield on his hand, lying on the sheild.
THUD.
Several civilians stared at the the massive castle wall,
Nobody knew what had just happened.
The only thing they knew was that something had fallen from the sky, a giant fortress had appeared in the middle of the ghetto, and somehow three teenagers had walked away alive.
"...Britannia is testing some new weapon."
"I'm telling you, it has to be."
"What else could explain that?"
Here's a version that keeps your style but adds more detail and smoother flow:
The colossal fortress wall began to disappear.
Countless blue particles drifted into the air as the massive structure slowly dissolved, fading away as if it had never existed in the first place. The golden glow that had illuminated the street moments ago gradually vanished, leaving behind only a large crater and dozens of confused witnesses.
Tsukasa brushed some dust off his clothes before turning toward Shirou.
"Emiya, you alright?" he asked.
Shirou was still standing where he had landed, the enormous shield planted beside him. The projection remained for a few seconds longer before it too broke apart into blue particles and disappeared.
"Yeah, I'm alright."
Meanwhile, Hikigaya slowly peeled himself off the wall he had become intimately acquainted with.
A piece of concrete fell from his shoulder.
"...I-I lived."
For several seconds, he simply stood there staring into empty space, as if trying to process the fact that he had just survived falling out of the sky.
"Unfortunately," Tsukasa replied immediately.
"Shut up."
Around them, the residents of Shinjuku Ghetto cautiously emerged from buildings and alleyways. Some stared at the crater. Others stared at the spot where the fortress wall had been. A few simply looked up at the sky, wondering if more people were about to fall from it.
Nobody had any idea what had just happened.
Above them, Lucia's hologram suddenly appeared once again.
Her cheerful smile somehow made the situation worse.
[Congratulations!]
[Successful landing achieved!]
Not a single one of them felt thankful.
In fact, Hikigaya was seriously considering filing a complaint to whatever outer god out there.
Unfortunately, he had a feeling Lucia would be the one reading it.
Letting out a sigh, Hikigaya finally took a moment to look around.
Only now did he realize just how many people were staring at them.
Men, women, and children stood at a distance, watching the three boys with a mixture of confusion, suspicion, and curiosity. Considering they had literally fallen out of the sky moments ago, he supposed that reaction was reasonable.
What caught his attention more, however, was something else.
The people looked Japanese.
Not just their appearance, but the way they dressed, spoke, and reacted to one another.
"Seems like we landed in Japan."
His gaze wandered further across the surrounding area.
Rows of aging buildings stretched across the district. Some were missing sections of their walls. Others were patched together with mismatched materials. A few structures leaned at angles that made him question how they were still standing at all. Broken windows, rusted metal sheets, and cracked concrete were common sights everywhere he looked.
Several buildings had partially collapsed, leaving behind piles of rubble that had never been cleared away. Others resembled dominoes frozen in the middle of falling over.
Even the buildings that remained intact looked neglected, as though nobody had properly maintained them for years.
"Post-war Japan, I presume," Hikigaya added.
"Japan lost a war?" Shirou asked while looking around the district. "Could this be sometime in the 1900s?"
Hikigaya shook his head.
"No. If we were in Hiroshima or Nagasaki right after the war, this place would look far worse than this."
His eyes wandered across the surrounding streets. Most of the buildings weren't destroyed. Some were damaged, others were clearly falling apart, but people still lived here. Stores were still open. Life continued despite the poor conditions.
The situation felt less like a city recovering from a war and more like a district that had simply been left behind.
"It feels more like an invasion-type war," Hikigaya continued. "The kind where the country loses and somebody else takes over."
Could America have actually invaded Japan and won?
The thought briefly crossed his mind.
Maybe this was some alternate timeline where things had gone differently.
Still, something didn't quite fit.
The buildings looked modern. The roads looked modern. Even the vehicles he could spot in the distance looked far newer than anything from the early 1900s.
"This definitely isn't our Japan," Hikigaya concluded.
Around them, the residents continued staring at the three strangers who had fallen out of the sky.
A small crowd had begun gathering around them.
At first, the residents had been staring at the crater left behind by their landing. Then their attention shifted toward the three boys themselves. More specifically, toward the clothes they were wearing.
"...School uniforms?"
One man frowned as he looked them over.
"Japanese school uniforms."
The murmuring immediately spread through the crowd.
Seven years had passed since the conquest of Japan, but that wasn't nearly long enough for people to forget something as ordinary as a school uniform. Most of the adults here had worn similar uniforms themselves before the war. Some still remembered the days when Japan was called Japan rather than Area 11.
The uniforms themselves weren't strange.
What was strange was seeing them here.
"They're not Britannian."
"I've never seen that school before."
"Did they come from another settlement?"
"You mean they come from the sky right"
"Why would students be here?" let alone from the sky
Suspicious gazes quickly fell upon the trio.
Meanwhile, Hikigaya finally looked down at his own clothes.
His eyes widened.
All of them were still wearing their school uniforms.
A horrifying realization struck him.
"Fuck, we forgot to change."
His voice came out louder than intended.
Unlike certain rich magus and dimension-hopping weirdos, Hikigaya only owned one school uniform. If something happened to it, he would be completely screwed.
"Who is 'we'?" Tsukasa asked.
Hikigaya slowly turned toward him.
The destroyer of worlds was casually adjusting his blazer as if they were preparing for class rather than standing in the middle of an unknown ghetto after falling from the sky.
"I wore this on purpose."
A brief silence followed.
"...What?"
"I think it looks good."
Even Shirou looked mildly confused by that answer.
The people around them were also beginning to question what kind of person would willingly wear a school uniform in what was very obviously not a school-related situation.
Then Hikigaya suddenly realized something.
His expression slowly changed as he looked at Tsukasa. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that there was no way this idiot had chosen to wear a school uniform for a normal reason.
This was Tsukasa.
Nothing was ever normal with him.
"...You just want people to know we're students, don't you?"
Tsukasa blinked.
"What makes you say that?"
Hikigaya ignored the question.
He could already picture it in his head. Some powerful enemy would show up. A fight would inevitably break out. The enemy would spend several minutes talking about how dangerous they were, only for Tsukasa to casually reveal that the people standing in front of them were just high school students.
The realization made Hikigaya want to bury his face in his hands.
"You actually planned this, didn't you?"
A small smile appeared on Tsukasa's face.
That alone was enough of an answer.
"You wanted everyone to know we're students."
"It has a certain impact."
The residents watching nearby could only stare at the increasingly bizarre conversation. They had expected many things after witnessing three teenagers fall from the sky.
This was not one of them.
Then, without warning, Tsukasa stepped forward and stood in front of the crowd. The civilians who had gathered around instinctively focused their attention on him. After all, it wasn't every day that three teenagers fell from the sky and survived.
"Everyone," Tsukasa announced.
The crowd fell silent.
Hikigaya immediately felt a bad feeling creeping up his spine.
"We are heroes from another world."
The street became quiet.
Several civilians exchanged confused looks while others simply stared at him, trying to determine whether they had heard correctly.
Tsukasa placed a hand against his chest.
"Kamen Rider Decade, at your service."
For a few moments, nobody responded.
Hikigaya slowly dragged a hand down his face. They had arrived in this world less than ten minutes ago. They didn't know where they were, who controlled the area, or even what year it was. Any normal person would have tried to keep a low profile until they understood the situation. Tsukasa, however, had immediately chosen to tell a crowd of complete strangers that they were heroes from another world.
Beside him, Shirou blinked in confusion.
"...Should we stop him?"
Hikigaya looked at Tsukasa, who seemed completely satisfied with his introduction.
Then he looked at the increasingly confused crowd.
"I think we're already past that point."
A man near the back of the crowd frowned.
"...They're Britannian experiments."
Several people immediately nodded.
"Yeah, that makes more sense."
"What else could explain this?"
The three boys immediately caught that unfamiliar word.
Britannian.
Hikigaya frowned. The name sounded vaguely similar to British, but not quite. More importantly, nobody he knew would ever call someone from Britain a Britannian. The reactions from the crowd also suggested it wasn't referring to an ordinary nationality. Since they had already attracted enough attention by falling from the sky, there wasn't much point pretending they understood what was going on.
"Oi, old man," Hikigaya called out. "What's this Britannian thing?"
The question immediately drew strange looks from the surrounding civilians. Several people stared at him as if he had just asked what the sky was.
The old man looked genuinely baffled.
"What do you mean, what's Britannia?"
"Exactly what I asked."
For a moment, the man simply stared at him before his expression slowly turned into disbelief.
"Are you serious? The Holy Britannian Empire! The people who conquered Japan seven years ago!"
The atmosphere around them shifted immediately. The irritation and bitterness in the man's voice wasn't something that could be faked. A few nearby civilians lowered their heads while others clenched their fists. Whatever Britannia was, the people here clearly hated it.
Hikigaya exchanged a glance with Shirou and Tsukasa. That single sentence had already answered several questions. They were definitely not in the Japan they knew, and this world apparently had a nation powerful enough to invade and conquer the entire country.
"Conquered Japan?" Shirou repeated.
"What rock have you three been living under?" another man asked. "You don't know about Britannia?"
The suspicion in his voice was obvious.
Before the situation could become more awkward, Hikigaya shrugged.
"Well, from our perspective, hearing that sounds pretty weird."
"Weird?" the old man snapped. "We're practically slaves because of them!"
That statement immediately bothered Hikigaya.
"Slave? We were proper Japanese citizens a few minutes ago."
A few people gave him confused looks.
Hikigaya paused for a second before correcting himself.
"Well, technically we're still proper Japanese citizens."
"Of another world," Tsukasa casually added.
The crowd looked even more confused than before.
Hikigaya sighed. Somehow, despite all the evidence, Tsukasa was still committed to telling the truth in the most unbelievable way possible.
"Hey, Hikigaya," Tsukasa said while glancing at the crowd. "They don't seem to believe we're isekai heroes."
Hikigaya stared at him.
"they supposed to?"
The three of them had fallen from the sky. Not from a building. Not from an aircraft. The actual sky. They had somehow survived, and Shirou had summoned a massive shield larger then motorcycle.
That should have been convincing.
His eyes drifted toward the enormous shield still standing nearby.
"Shouldn't Emiya's big-ass shield be enough to prove it?"
"I don't think that's working."
Sure enough, the civilians weren't looking amazed. They looked nervous.
"It's Britannian technology."
"Has to be."
"What else could it be?"
"They must be connected to the Empire."
Hikigaya buried his face in his hand.
Apparently, when people lived under an occupying superpower for seven years, their first explanation for impossible things wasn't magic or other worlds.
It was Britannia.
But they had already come this far because of Tsukasa. At this point, failing to convince the locals that they weren't Britannian agents would only make things more troublesome. The crowd clearly didn't trust them, and trying to explain interdimensional travel to a group of strangers wasn't exactly working either.
Hikigaya looked around at the suspicious faces surrounding them before deciding there was no point standing in the middle of the street arguing.
"Hey," he called out. "Bring us to your leader."
The crowd immediately fell silent.
Several people exchanged glances.
"...What?"
"If we're really Britannian spies, your leader can deal with us," Hikigaya replied. "And if we're not, then explaining things to one person sounds easier than explaining them to fifty."
The civilians looked uncertain, but after a few minutes of discussion, they eventually reached a decision.
- Area 11 Resistance Hideout -
The trio was escorted through a maze of narrow streets and abandoned buildings before arriving at what appeared to be a resistance hideout. Several armed men watched them carefully as they passed. None of them looked particularly welcoming.
A red-haired man walked behind the three boys with a rifle slung over his shoulder. He wore a faded red headband and had a small patch of facial hair along his chin. The way he kept glaring at them suggested he was only a few seconds away from losing his patience.
"Oi, oi," Tsukasa said casually while walking with his hands behind his head. "Aren't we supposed to be heroes from another world? Why are you treating heroes like criminals?"
The man immediately scowled.
"Shut the hell up, you Britannian-loving traitor."
"it's hard to work with a guy that can't hear."
The man stopped walking.
"What did you just say?!"
"I said it's hard to work with a guy that can hear."
"...That's not what you said!"
"Then your hearing must be better than mine."
A vein appeared on the man's forehead.
Meanwhile, Hikigaya buried his face in his hand as he continued walking through the hideout. They had been in this world for less than an hour, yet problems were already piling up one after another. First, they fell out of the sky. Then Tsukasa announced to an entire crowd that they were heroes from another world. Now they were being escorted through what appeared to be some kind of resistance base while armed men watched them like potential terrorists.
Why couldn't they do things normally?
Hikigaya let out a long sigh.
In most light novels and isekai stories, people usually tried to hide the fact that they came from another world. They would gather information, learn about the setting, maybe blend in for a few chapters before revealing anything important.
Tsukasa had apparently skipped that entire process.
The moment they arrived, he had proudly introduced himself as an interdimensional hero.
The worst part was that he technically wasn't lying.
A voice suddenly called out from further ahead.
"Ohgi! There are some people here who want to meet you!"
The group entered a larger room where several resistance members were gathered around tables covered in maps, radios, and scattered documents. The atmosphere immediately grew quieter as dozens of eyes turned toward the newcomers.
A man with short brown hair looked up from a discussion and frowned slightly.
He didn't look like a soldier. If anything, he looked more like an ordinary adult who had somehow found himself leading a resistance movement.
"Me?" he asked.
The armed escort nodded.
"These three."
The man's gaze shifted toward Shirou, Tsukasa, and Hikigaya. A confused expression immediately appeared on his face. They looked far younger than he had expected. In fact, with their uniforms, they looked less like suspicious infiltrators and more like ordinary high school students who had somehow wandered into the wrong place.
For a brief moment, the sight stirred an old memory from before the war, back when Japan was still Japan and students could attend school without worrying about military checkpoints or Britannian patrols.
"Why did you bring me students, Tamaki?" Ohgi asked, unable to hide his confusion.
His eyes lingered on their uniforms. They certainly weren't Britannian school uniforms, but they didn't resemble anything he recognized either. Maybe they had come from some distant settlement. Then again, finding a functioning Japanese school these days wasn't exactly easy.
Tamaki shrugged.
"Don't ask me."
He pointed toward the trio.
"People said they fell out of the sky. Some swear they landed without a parachute. Others said they survived some crazy impact."
Tamaki scratched his head.
"Honestly, I don't know what happened, and I don't really care."
He then lowered his voice slightly.
"though Most of the people there were calling them Britannian subjects."
That immediately caused the atmosphere in the room to change.
Several resistance members looked toward the three boys with renewed suspicion.
Ohgi's expression also became more serious.
Students or not, nobody in Area 11 could afford to ignore a possible connection to Britannia. Especially not when the people in question had supposedly fallen from the sky and walked away unharmed.
"Oh, and they call themselves heroes."
The room instantly became quieter.
Ohgi blinked once, convinced he had misheard something.
"...Heroes?"
Tamaki nodded as though this was completely normal information to share.
"Heroes from another world."
A strange silence spread throughout the room.
Several resistance members exchanged glances. One man slowly lowered the cup he had been drinking from. Another rubbed his forehead as if trying to process what he had just heard. A few of them had expected many things when Tamaki brought in three suspicious teenagers, but heroes from another world had not been one of them.
Ohgi remained silent for several seconds while looking at the trio. The uniforms, their young age, the reports of them falling from the sky, and the fact that they had somehow survived the landing—none of it fit together. If someone else had told him this story, he would have dismissed it immediately.
Even so, "heroes from another world" sounded absurd.
A resistance member near the wall finally broke the silence.
"So they're crazy."
A few people nodded.
Honestly, it was the most reasonable explanation available.
Another man folded his arms.
"I liked the Britannian spy theory more."
At least spies made sense. Britannia was always spying on someone. Heroes from another world, on the other hand, belonged in children's stories.
Hikigaya rubbed his forehead and let out a long sigh.
"This is giving me a headache..."
At this point, Hikigaya was beginning to understand why most isekai protagonists kept their origins a secret.
Meanwhile, Tsukasa crossed his arms and looked around the room. The expressions staring back at him ranged from suspicious to outright convinced that the trio had escaped from a mental institution.
"Alright then," Tsukasa said. "How do we convince you that we're exactly who we claim to be?"
Tamaki immediately snorted.
"Oh really? Then why don't you create something out of thin air?"
His grin made it obvious he wasn't taking the challenge seriously.
Without even looking at him, Tsukasa turned his head.
"Emiya, do the thing."
Several resistance members exchanged confused looks.
Shirou blinked.
"...The thing?"
"The thing."
"...That's not very specific."
"The magic thing."
"Oh."
Shirou nodded as if that explained everything.
A moment later, he quietly muttered a few words under his breath.
Blue particles gathered in the air.
Then, right in front of everyone's eyes, a sword materialized from absolutely nothing.
The room froze.
Several resistance members stared at the weapon.
One rubbed his eyes.
Another leaned forward as if getting closer would somehow make the sword less impossible.
Tamaki's confident expression vanished.
"T-That must be some new Britannian technology."
"Yeah."
A nearby resistance member immediately nodded.
"Definitely Britannian technology."
"Has to be."
Nobody sounded particularly convinced.
Tsukasa stared at them for several seconds.
"...Seriously?"
Apparently, yes.
With a sigh, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his belt.
The familiar device snapped around his waist before he drew a card from his deck.
"Henshin."
[DECADE]
Light flashed around his body.
The next moment, the magenta-armored Kamen Rider stood where Tsukasa had been.
The room became completely silent.
One resistance member slowly raised his hand.
"...Britannia developed power armor?"
Several people immediately latched onto the explanation.
"That sounds possible."
"Yeah, they make Knightmares."
"They probably made armor too."
Tsukasa lowered his head.
"...I hate this world already."
Meanwhile, Shirou seemed began try he best to help those two convince the resistance group
A dark portal opened beside him, and he casually reached inside before pulling out a package of meat from the supermarket.
The resistance members watched him pull groceries out of empty space.
Then they looked at the portal.
Then at the meat.
Then back at the portal.
"...Portable storage technology?" someone guessed.
"Definitely portable storage technology."
"Britannia keeps making weird things."
At some point, the resistance members had become more committed to blaming Britannia than actually processing what was happening right in front of them.
Hikigaya stared at the room for a few seconds before finally giving up. There was only so much disbelief a person could deal with before accepting that the conversation was never going anywhere. They had shown magic, dimensional storage, and an armored transformation, yet somehow every explanation still ended with "Britannian technology."
"Oi, let's go," he said as he turned toward the exit. "I've had enough of this. These people won't believe anything."
The room grew quiet.
Hikigaya glanced over his shoulder and pointed vaguely around the hideout.
"No wonder Japan ended up like this."
The reaction was immediate.
Several resistance members shot to their feet. Chairs scraped against the floor while angry voices erupted from different corners of the room.
"What did you just say?!"
"Watch your mouth!"
"The hell do you know about us?!"
Just as the argument threatened to escalate further, another chair moved.
Ohgi slowly rose from his seat.
The room gradually quieted down. Unlike Tamaki, most of the members respected him enough to listen when he spoke.
"I believe them."
For a moment, nobody reacted.
Then the room exploded into confusion.
Tamaki stared at him as though he had suddenly lost his mind.
"Oi, Ohgi... you can't be serious."
Several others looked equally shocked. They had expected many things from their leader, but agreeing with the three strange teenagers was not one of them.
"Oh, and why not?" Ohgi asked calmly.
"Because they said they're heroes from another world!"
Tamaki pointed directly at the trio.
"One of them pulled a sword out of nowhere! The other transformed into some weird armor! And that guy keeps taking random stuff out of black portals!"
Ohgi remained silent for a moment before looking toward Shirou, Tsukasa, and Hikigaya.
Then he looked back at the others.
"Exactly."
The room became quiet again.
Tamaki blinked.
"...Exactly what?"
Ohgi folded his arms.
"If they were Britannian agents, why would they introduce themselves as heroes from another world?"
Nobody answered.
"If they wanted to infiltrate us, why announce themselves in front of an entire district after falling from the sky?"
The resistance members exchanged uncertain looks.
"And if Britannia truly possesses technology capable of creating weapons from nothing, opening dimensional storage, and transforming people into armored soldiers..."
He paused.
"...then why are we still alive?"
The room fell silent.
Ohgi gestured toward the armed resistance members surrounding the trio.
"They walked into our hideout. They let themselves be brought here. They've been surrounded by guns this entire time."
His gaze swept across the room.
"If they really have abilities like that and work for Britannia, what exactly is stopping them from killing everyone here?"
Nobody had an answer.
Tamaki opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Ohgi sighed.
"I'm not saying I understand what they are. I'm saying they don't act like spies."
The room grew quiet.
After a few seconds, one resistance member scratched his head.
"...When you put it that way, it does sound weird."
"Still sounds crazy," another muttered.
"Oh, it's definitely crazy," Ohgi agreed.
He glanced toward the trio.
"But somehow, heroes from another world sound more believable than Britannia inventing all that and not conquering the world already." he then continue ask them.
Ohgi remained silent for a few moments after the discussion died down.
The room had finally stopped arguing about whether the trio were spies, lunatics, or heroes from another world. None of those labels really mattered right now.
What mattered was something much simpler.
"If you kids really are who you claim to be..." Ohgi began, his eyes fixed on the three teenagers. "What can you do?"
The question caused the room to become quiet.
This time, nobody interrupted him.
Because everyone understood what he was actually asking.
Outside the hideout was the reality of Area 11. Britannian soldiers patrolled the streets. Japanese citizens were treated like second-class people in their own homeland. Families had been separated, homes had been destroyed, and countless lives had been ruined since the invasion.
Ohgi folded his arms.
"If you're heroes... can you do anything about this?"
For a brief moment, nobody answered.
Then a familiar voice suddenly echoed throughout the room.
[Guys, bad news.]
A blue holographic screen appeared out of thin air.
Several resistance members nearly jumped out of their seats as a girl with long blue hair materialized in midair.
[My systems have detected hostile forces approximately two kilometers away.]
The room instantly became chaotic.
"What the hell is that?!"
"A floating woman?!"
"Where did she come from?!"
Several people pointed toward the hologram while others stared in disbelief.
Lucia immediately crossed her arms.
[Hey, that's rude!]
She puffed out her cheeks and glared at the resistance members.
[I'm still way too young to be called a woman!]
The room somehow became even quieter.
Nobody knew whether they should be more concerned about the incoming enemy or the floating girl arguing about her age.
Here's a tighter version that keeps the essay/story style while removing the repetition:
"Lucia, status?" Shirou asked.
Several holographic screens appeared around the blue-haired AI as her usual playful expression disappeared.
[Enemy forces closing in.]
[Current distance: 1.5 kilometers.]
"That fast?" Hikigaya blurted out.
Before anyone could say anything else, the hideout erupted into motion.
The resistance members immediately sprang into action. Some rushed toward weapon lockers while others ran to relay messages deeper into the building. Whatever operation Britannia was conducting, nobody intended to be caught unprepared.
"It's the Britannian Army," Ohgi said.
His voice cut through the chaos.
"Tamaki, contact Kallen. Gather everyone."
Without wasting another second, the group hurried outside.
The moment they stepped into the open, several people stopped in their tracks.
Aircraft.
Dozens of dark silhouettes could be seen moving across the sky in the distance, steadily approaching the Shinjuku Ghetto. Even from here, their numbers were enough to make several resistance members curse under their breath.
At the same time, strange distortions suddenly appeared nearby.
Blue light gathered in the empty air before two enormous humanoid machines materialized out of nowhere.
The resistance members froze.
Their attention shifted from the incoming Britannian force to the giant machines that had just appeared in front of them.
Lucia floated beside them with a proud smile.
[Everyone, the mechs are ready.]
[This is beyond simulator training.]
[I hope all of you are prepared.]
A grin immediately appeared on Tsukasa's face.
"Sweet."
He cracked his knuckles before walking toward one of the machines.
"I've been waiting to use this thing in an actual battle."
Still transformed as Decade, he leaped onto the mech's arm and climbed toward the cockpit without hesitation.
Hikigaya watched him for a moment before letting out a sigh.
Of course this idiot was excited.
Shaking his head, he followed after him.
Meanwhile, Shirou remained where he was.
Hikigaya paused halfway up the machine and looked back.
"Not going?"
Shirou glanced toward the approaching aircraft.
"I'll take the ground."
Before anyone could ask what he meant, a faint glow ran through his body.
The ground beneath his feet cracked.
Then he vanished.
A loud boom echoed across the area as Shirou shot forward, crossing the street in an instant. Within seconds, the red-haired teenager had already disappeared between the buildings, leaving behind only a trail of dust and several very confused resistance members.
Silence fell over the area.
For a few moments, nobody knew what to focus on anymore.
The Britannian aircraft were still approaching. Shirou had just launched himself toward the battlefield at a speed no normal human should have been capable of reaching. Two giant machines had appeared out of thin air. And somehow, all of this had happened within the span of a few minutes.
Tamaki was the first to recover.
"Holy shit, that guy is fast!"
His eyes remained fixed on the distant street where Shirou had disappeared. Even now, a faint trail of dust could still be seen between the buildings.
One of the resistance members immediately pointed toward the giant machines.
"Forget the running part! This kid has a Knightmare!"
The statement caused several others to pause.
Looking at it again, however, the machine didn't quite resemble any Knightmare Frame they had ever seen before.
It was humanoid, certainly, but the similarities mostly ended there. The frame appeared bulkier, with armor plating that looked far heavier than the machines used by Britannia. There were no familiar markings, no military insignias, and no indication of which nation had built it.
The more they looked at it, the stranger it became.
Tamaki slowly walked closer.
Eventually, he found himself standing directly beneath one of its legs.
His head tilted upward.
"...Why does a high school student own something like this?"
That question had been bothering everyone since the trio arrived.
Ohgi remained silent as he studied the machine from a distance.
The problem wasn't simply that the boys possessed strange technology.
The problem was that nothing about them made sense.
A metallic sound suddenly echoed through the area as one of the cockpits began closing.
Tsukasa leaned out before it fully sealed.
"Try not to break anything while I'm gone."
Several resistance members stared at him.
Tamaki stared the hardest.
"What do you mean don't break anything?" he shouted. "You left this thing in front of us!"
"I know."
Tsukasa nodded as though that was completely normal.
"That's why I'm telling you not to break it."
Before Tamaki could respond, the cockpit closed.
The machine's eyes lit up.
For a few seconds, the resistance member simply stood there staring at it.
Then he slowly turned toward Ohgi.
"...I don't like these kid"
--
"They got away?!"
The large man slammed his hand onto the table, while looking at the map.
"And you call yourselves the Royal Guard?!"
A crackling voice immediately answered from the communication device.
[Forgive us, my lord. The explosion was primarily directed upward, but the collapse of the bedrock beneath the site created an unforeseen escape route.]
The man's face twisted further in frustration.
"Do you understand why I only informed a handful of people about this operation?!"
His voice echoed throughout the command room.
"Something that should never have been lost has been lost!"
The radio remained silent for a moment.
[W-we will continue the investigation immediately, my lord.]
Before the angry man could continue, another voice spoke.
"The plan has already moved to the next phase."
The room fell quiet.
Standing nearby was a blond young man dressed in purple.
Unlike everyone else present, he appeared completely calm.
"Your Highness!" the man protested.
Clovis glanced toward him.
"If knowledge of her existence becomes public, I would be better off dead than alive."
Nobody dared argue further.
Clovis slowly rose from his seat and adjusted his coat.
For a few moments, he simply stood there in thought before giving his next order.
"Inform the media that we are conducting an urban renewal operation."
"As Clovis la Britannia, Third Prince of the Holy Britannian Empire, I hereby issue this command."
His expression remained calm.
"Destroy the Shinjuku Ghetto."
"YES, YOUR HIGHNESS!"
To Be Continued...