Chapter 1.1 - Love is War

Love is War
looked both ways before turning the steering wheel to the left.

she apologized to the person in the passenger seat, keeping her eyes on the road.

Black★Rock Shooter ignored a red traffic light, continuing along the empty road.

corrected Sora, with a weak voice.

There was a pause. sighed Black,

Sora did not respond as she looked out the car window. Black knew exactly what the matter was.

They reached the Chelmsford branch building. It was an office block with glass outer walls so the security guard at the secretary desk could see them approach. Sora noticed Black glaring at the guard as they reached the front door. Then when Black took hold of the front door, her mobile phone rang, which suitably had the instrumental of her theme song as her ringtone. She took the phone out of her cloak pocket, looked at the name of the caller and answered it.

asked Black. Sora could not hear Miku talk back. There was a long period of silence before Black turned her head round and looked up into the sky. Sora followed her gaze. The sky was cloudless. It was early evening so the sun was slowly descending and had already come out. Otherwise, there was nothing else to look at. The Hakurei Barrier was not visible from the United Kingdom.

spoke Black, Black hung up, put the phone back in her pocket and turned to Sora,  She looked back up into the air,  she shouted into the sky. Sora suddenly heard the sound of propellers and descending from the sky was a girl with each leg in a tube with a rotor, known as s, immediately recognising her as a. She was carrying a huge antitank rifle that Sora noticed being an out-of-date model by almost seventy years.

introduced Black,

nodded Lynette.

Black got back into, and she sped off at high speed, Sora noticing blue flames coming out of the exhaust. Lynette slipped out of her Striker Units but struggled to hold both of them as well as her rifle.

asked Sora with concern.

stammered Lynette.

The two of them entered the building, Sora with each Unit strapped over a shoulder. Lynette took the lead and walked up to the male security guard who was clearly a human. She handed over an ID card confirming her position in. Sora followed suit with an ID card for the Black Squad that she had received that morning. The security guard let them through and the two entered a lift. Lynette waited for the doors to close before speaking up as the lift ascended.

commented Lynette.

explained Lynette, with pity in her eyes,

shrugged Lynette,

The elevator reached the fifth floor. In Britain, the floor above the ground floor is the first floor and the doors slid open into a huge room full of office cubicles with low barriers, allowing the two of them to see the entire room. Sora thought that was a little odd, at least expecting a corridor to the room. She assumed it was for enhanced working efficiency.

At each desk was sat a person at a computer and everyone looked in the direction of Sora and Lynette. dressed in ordinary office clothes walked up to them.

she greeted,

Suddenly, Sora's mobile phone rang. She ignored the woman and flipped the phone open, answering the call, noting that the phone didn't recognise the number,

asked the caller. Sora recognised the voice immediately but wanted to confirm her suspicions. Unlike Black's phone, Sora's did not effectively dampen the caller's voice so both Lynette and the woman could hear.

Sora noticed the woman grimace.

Sora made eye contact with the woman, clearly aware that she was following the conversation so far.

stuttered the woman, panicking, considerably different to her confident attitude earlier,

Rin heard the excuse,

Sora paused,

Sora was struggling to keep her voice level.

threatened Rin,

Sora gritted her teeth,

stuttered Lynette,

Silence. Then Sora's phone emitted a hollow buzz, indicating the call had ended.

Lynette sighed,

Sora looked at her phone, Right on time, the phone rang, recognising the caller as Black. Sora eagerly answered the call, There was no response from the other side.

stated Black.

Sora froze.

protested Lynette.

The buzzing sound came up again as Black terminated the call.