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“Yep, surprising. Kaiju are full of surprises,” Raleigh said. “Now how are we going to kill it? Both plasma cannons are shot. We’ve got no—”
“There’s still something left,” Mako said. “One of my upgrades.”
“One you didn’t tell me about?” Raleigh asked.
“You would have seen it if you’d looked,” she answered. She hit a switch on the motion rig’s command console and a glowing sword appeared.
“This is irony, right? Because Otachi is a kind of sword, isn’t it?” he said.
Mako ignored his joke. “Like I said, my father was a swordmaker.”
“Altitude coming up on fifty-thousand feet,” Tendo Choi said.
Mako flicked her wrist. Raleigh felt the motion and duplicated it.
From Gipsy Danger’s right gauntlet, a long whip made of serrated metal segments woven together with a high-tension cable spilled out into the stratosphere. Mako clenched her fist. Again, feeling and anticipating the motion, Raleigh did the same, even though he didn’t know what she was up to.
The whip stiffened and its links knit together and drew taught with a rattling clank that vibrated throughout the Jaeger. Otachi kept hacking away, and with her wounded arm Gipsy Danger kept parrying.
“What the hell is that?” Tendo Choi asked.
“Ask Mako,” Raleigh replied.
“Are you really going to—”
Tendo never got to finish his question. Mako pivoted on the command platform, and their perfect Drift drew Raleigh into the motion as well. He could feel the weight of the sword in his hand, balanced and deadly.
“Kamei no tame ni!” Mako cried out. For my family’s honor!
They let go of the kaiju, shoving away for a few meters of critical space.
The sword was so thin and moved so fast that all Raleigh saw was a line of reflected sunlight passing diagonally down through Otachi’s body. The kaiju’s wings curled, one of them coming loose and fluttering away. A long moment later, Otachi’s upper torso divided cleanly in two, the halves peeling apart and beginning their long tumble back to Earth.
Seven, Raleigh thought.
Two, Mako answered.
“What do you call that thing?” Raleigh asked. She shrugged. The words “Chain Sword” floated into Raleigh’s head. Plain but descriptive. Okay, he thought. Chain Sword.
