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Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 57

2017-09-14T21:34:03Z

86.52.26.6: Added missing word.

==Chapter 57: Master in the Field of Acceleration==
[[Image:Horizon5B_861.jpg|thumb]]
''If you ask how much

''And I show you how much

''Let us think about how much we can do

'''Point Allocation (Pursuit)

“Things seem to be getting exciting down below.”

In the afternoon sun and inside the tent prepared at the entrance to the ruins, Oriotorai looked over while eating curry from a paper plate.

She was looking to Muneshige who stood at the entrance.

He had his back to the ruins and his hand on his chin.

Oriotorai asked about the slight wrinkle of his brow.

“Muneshige? …Worried about Gin?”

“Judge, why would I be?”

That question stopped Oriotorai as she skewered a leek with a toothpick. She shrugged at the great roar heard from underground.

“Don’t things sound kind of incredible down there?”

“Judge,” agreed Muneshige, so Oriotorai asked another question.

“What if Gin is injured? And divine transmissions seem to be cut off.”

“True enough. I will only run down there on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Judge.” Muneshige smiled a little. “When she loses both her arms. I will not allow her to be harmed any more than that.”

Gin collapsed, but she just barely avoided falling to her knees.

…''That’s right.

A warrior girl could not allow herself to fall to her knees during battle.

Yes. Something similar had happened several times in the past.

Before he had his inherited name, he had trained in her mansion’s yard. He had fought her, he had been no match for her, he had grown too weary to support himself, and he had collapsed. She had told him that whenever he did.

So she would hold herself to the same standard.

Because he was now someone who would never collapse in the middle of battle.

“If his wife were willing to grow weak and leave everything to her husband…”

She got up.

“…it would disgrace the name of the Peerless in the West.”

She stood up.

Her left arm would not move. It did not weigh her down due to the gravitational control, but combat motions were out of the question.

…''Then I need to think of that arm as holding a shield.

She nodded and turned to place her left side forward.

Ahead of her, the dragon stood in the center of the hall. He had turned her way.

He crouched low with his six wings spread, so he was clearly not holding back at all.

“Tell me your name,” he said.

“No need,” she replied as she drew and prepared a Cuatro Cruz to her right. “There is only one person in the east to whom the Peerless in the West must name themselves.”

“And that is?”

“The Peerless in the East, Honda Tadakatsu.”

Gin filled her lungs with air.

And she gave a shout to rid her body of its remaining shaking and weakness.

“If you aim to be the Peerless in the East, you must defeat every last enemy in this land! …Honda Futayo!!”

A moment later, something crashed down into the white dragon’s back with the acceleration of a meteor.

That blue form held a spear vertically and scattered the color of shed blood as it fell.

“Musashi Vice Chancellor!!”

Futayo’s mind was still hazy, but she had woken up.

“Kh…”

Pain filled her body and some parts were trembling and numb.

The bleeding was especially bad. During the previous exchange, some of her armor had been knocked away and blood flowed from her shoulders and head.

''Oh, no,'' thought Futayo. ''This is not good at all.

…''The Testament says Honda Tadakatsu, Peerless in the East, was never injured during his entire combat history.

She was far from that now. So…

“At the very least, I must win here…!”

She fell toward the center of the white dragon’s back.

She was bleeding and unsteady, but she realized something.

…''Eh…?

She saw something familiar on his back. She should not have felt this kind of nostalgia here, and yet…

“…!!”

Her mind fully returned to her.

Saying her mind grew clear was too kind an expression. It was more like her mind itself had been kicked awake. This awakening hit her like a tremor that spread from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.

And she could move just like she wanted. She targeted the nostalgia found on the white dragon’s back.

“Ohhh…!”

She swung her entire body downwards and slammed the spear tip down.

Sasuke worked to shake off the enemy on his back.

It was the blue girl, Musashi’s Vice Chancellor. However, her attacks were meaningless.

A dragon’s back was their strongest area. The armor there could not be pierced by a mere spear tip.

This was proven by the solid sound as the spear tip was deflected.

And Sasuke was moving too. He ignored the Musashi Vice Chancellor on his back and moved forward. He would charge toward the red girl in front of him and crush her.

“…!”

So in an instant, he threw the blue figure from his back and made a three-stage acceleration straight ahead.

Sasuke broke the sound barrier.

At first, he was enveloped by a muffled roar, as if he were moving through water, but then an extreme lightness reached each of his body parts.

As he moved forward in search of that lightness, he saw something in his dim vision.

…''Good.

His entire body grew lighter, as if he were shedding his skin and pushing himself forward.

Instead, a messy current of impacts washed over him as if pushing him forward and massaging him. But he loved that cold and rough feeling.

Speed was wonderful. The speed gained by using his strength to run was truly superb. Dragons had wings, but power came from one’s strength. There was no substitute for the invisible space gained by an all-out run.

Sasuke continued forward. He would crush his enemy and turn just before reaching the wall. He would not allow even a three centimeter gap between himself and the wall. He would utterly crush the enemy and enjoy his perfect control.

“Good.”

The joy filled his heart in advance.

But he viewed that joy as negligence. So to ignore the happiness in his heart, he raised his speed even further. He leaned forward and launched himself ahead once more.

He ran.

But as he did, he saw someone running alongside him on the left.

It was the Musashi Vice Chancellor he had just thrown from his back.

Futayo ran.

She ran alongside the dragon. With each step on the dirt floor, her speed gradually increased.

The source of her speed was not Soaring Wings.

…''Is this…?

The sign frame for an Asama Shrine original spell had appeared behind her head.

It said Racing Words and it floated alongside a charm.

This was from Gin.

She had to have attached this to Futayo when Futayo had kneed her before.

It could only be used once and for a short period of time, but she could ride the dragon’s acceleration for that time. So for three beats…

“…Nh.”

She reached a point where the momentum placed a great burden on her body.

This was hard on her body. Her constant bodily divine protections provided strengthening and exhaustion-reduction spells, but not even they could support her if her speed increased further.

Of course they could not. When Gin and Muneshige used this kind of spell, they would also use powerful cooling spells. But Futayo was grateful that she could return to the battle, even if it required this kind of burden.

Her body was overheated, she was starting to sweat, and she was bleeding again.

She was lucky. The blood flowing from her shoulder was stopped by the armor on her arm, so it did not affect her grip on the spear.

So the only other thing to worry about was the enemy running alongside her.

“…!!”

''Are you doing this, dragon? Or should I call you Sasuke-dono?

''I had felt like the only reason to fight you here was “duty”, but…

“I will be your opponent here.”

Futayo changed spells. She was partially pushed away as the dragon tried to ram into her instead of just running, but she also ended Racing Words and…

“…Soaring Wings.”

''She’s so light,'' thought Gin as she watched Futayo’s movements.

Before, she had moved her body primarily by running, but now she was simply placing all her speed into her body.

Most likely…

…''This is her true form…!

This had to be what had defeated Muneshige.

And Gin had seen this during their battle.

After slipping through the return fire from Arcabuz Cruz and Cuatro Cruz, Futayo had passed Gin’s many slashes and struck her.

She had not been intercepting the attacks Gin had sent her way.

Gin only realized it now, but…

…''She was simply striking down everything that would obstruct her speed, wasn’t she?

She was troublesome.

''This girl is nothing but trouble,'' thought Gin.

After all, she was not looking at her opponent. She was merely pursuing her own speed, as if trying to catch up to her own back. So to battle her…

“You must first get her to notice you.”

That was why Gin shouted to the high-speed blue charging in from dead ahead.

“Over here!”

Notice me.

“If you overlook this, I will beat you to the ground!”

With that, Gin used what she had prepared to get the girl’s attention.

She fired her right Cuatro Cruz toward Futayo as a counterattack.

She fired it thrice.

Futayo was simply facing forward.

''Oh?'' she thought when she saw three stone- or ball-like objects up ahead.

…''Are they just sitting there?

They appeared frozen in midair.

So she jumped over one and…

“———————”

She stepped on another to continue on ahead.

A moment later, light reached her vision. It was a blade. A white blade reflected light toward her eyes as she hung in midair and began to fall.

She saw twin swords by the wall. They were being used as mirrors to shine light on her face.

Only then did Futayo realize who was by the wall.

“Gin-dono?”

Futayo landed.

''Good,'' she thought. ''My body’s heat, exhaustion, and pain are being purified.

So she ran. She sent her landing momentum forward and rode that speed. From there, she simply extended her left hand forward.

“…Gin-dono!”

[[Image:Horizon5B_873.jpg|thumb]]
Sasuke saw the enemy’s actions.

What would that pair do now that they had regrouped by the wall? Would they go right or left?

…''Right!

That was Sasuke’s decision.

The blue girl, Musashi’s Vice Chancellor, held her spear in her right hand. She held her left hand forward and the red girl responded by holding out her own barely-functional left arm.

The blue girl used her speed to pull the red girl along with her.

In that situation, she could only pull her to the right.

So Sasuke raised his tail back and to the left. By returning it to the front and right, he could pursue the enemy to the right.

That was his plan.

His eyes could see high-speed movements and they were locked onto the enemy’s actions.

The enemy did not go right. Hand in hand, the two of them seemed to pull at each other by the wall.

“———————”

And they spun around.

It was almost like a dance. And during their two rotations, the red girl gained speed. Several acceleration spell sign frames appeared, and…

“Here I go.”

Just as he heard her voice, the enemy was there.

Right in front of him.

One was high and the other low.

The low one was the red girl on the ground right in front of him.

The high one was the blue girl running up the inner wall of the hemispherical hall.

They made simultaneous straight-line attacks.

They were fortunate the dragon had tried to jump to the right.

While his forelegs rose hesitantly from the ground, Gin charged forward.

She made it between them.

But the enemy reacted. He crouched down before she could bring out Cuatro Cruz.

She no longer had enough space to aim the large Cuatro Cruz vertically. But she still ejected it. She just aimed it horizontally backwards instead.

“I will be going on ahead.”

She used it to blast her own body forward. She passed below the dragon and out below his left side.

And from there…

“Go, Musashi Vice Chancellor!”

Futayo saw it.

As she jumped down in an arc from the hall’s ceiling, she saw something on the dragon’s back.

It was right in the center of his back.

There, where she had slammed the metal tip of her spear earlier, she saw a mark that resembled a crack.

She recognized its shape. It filled her with nostalgia.

“That is a cut from Tonbokiri!”

She did not know why it was there, but she knew who had to have made it.

“Did you do battle with my father at some point!?”

“The thing is, we all went to Edo together.”

A voice spoke in the forest clearing as a dragon roared in the distance.

It was Sakai. He was resting his elbow on a wooden table in front of a sign frame displaying “Musashi”.

“It was really only Ii and Sakakibara that had to go there, but Da-chan was a good sport, so he went with me for part of my journey around north. Of course, Oku was doing well back then, so he clearly just wanted to spend the night with her somewhere on his way back.”

“How about you stop reminiscing about the past and actually explain what happened in the past, Sakai-sama? Over.”

“Now, now,” said Sakai. “At the time, he had a prototype for Tonbokiri…well, Tonbokiri itself was a prototype for the Logismoi Oplo, but this was before even that. It was used to test the cutting power and the later Tonbokiri was based on it. Its range was about five meters. But…”

“But? Over.”

“Yeah.” Sakai nodded, smiled a little, and looked up into the sky. “At the time, those ruins were a refuge for the dragons that had escaped Shimabara. …But, well, we were Matsudaira, right? It was the previous generation that suppressed Shimabara, but the dragons in the ruins still asked for a fight. They were plenty kind since they knew that Sanada’s Masayuki-san and the others would later join Matsudaira. Sasuke and the others understood their situation at the time.”

But…

“The Shimabara group still wanted to have their say, so we had an unofficial academy battle. …The Shimabara Terrestrial Dragons were approaching the end of their lifespans, you see, so they wanted to go down fighting. Against the three of us.”

“Three, including Oku-sama? Over.”

“Yeah, although she insisted she only did it because Da-chan really wanted to do it. …That said, she definitely had the most wins with all those Terrestrial Dragons she hunted down.”

“Did you come in last, Sakai-sama? Over.”

“Musashi” sighed, but Sakai raised the corners of his lips.

“No, no. I came in second.”

“Hm? You mean Lord Tadakatsu came in last? Over.”

“Judge. Da-chan only went for the big prizes. He focused on the biggest Terrestrial Dragons and ended it with a fight against Sasuke on the pretext of teaching him a lesson for not stopping the commotion.”

Sakai then looked to “Musashi”.

“Am I boring you with all these old stories?”

“As long as you are not mixing nostalgia with sorrow, I have no problem with it. Over.”

“That ain’t easy.” Sakai crossed his arms and looked up into the sky. “Since Masayuki-san allowed this, I can only assume Sasuke and Saizou have made up their minds. They must want to leave something behind when they leave this world. So I hope our kids give their all in these fights.”

“How does that make you feel as someone who has been left behind by others so often? Over.”

“Looking at the Testament, I should really have been the first one to go,” he began. “But I think our kids have the power to give Sasuke and Saizou what they want.”

Futayo prepared to attack while she dropped down.

Of course, Tonbo Spare’s attacks were ineffective against the white dragon below her.

But her father’s cut had reached him.

What was different between her and her father?

The specs or traits of their weapons?

''Or,'' she wondered as she dropped toward Sasuke. But he moved below her. Gin had circled around below him and forced him to lower his legs, but…

…''Is he using his wings!?

The white dragon slammed his six wings down, using the recoil to lift his body.

He immediately moved forward.

With an instantaneous action, he moved several dozen meters and made a turn that seemed to simply reverse his front and back.

He had used the full power of his wings, his tail, and the twisting of his body.

Futayo was now falling right in front of him. Which meant…

“A dragon cannon…!”

As soon as she landed, a beam of light shot straight toward her.

Futayo simultaneously defended against and attacked the dragon’s blast.

She stabbed Tonbo Spare’s tip straight toward the oncoming attack.

This was not just a jab. She was running toward the dragon as she did it.

It hit and stabbed in, but…

…''Pierce through!

Just as she thought that, something happened.

Light burst before her eyes.

It split, scattered, and shattered into a spray. And then…

“Ohh…!”

The outthrust spear tip destroyed the dragon cannon.

The glowing wind pummeled the surrounding area and piercing fragments filled the air.

Gin saw Futayo moving through that.

She was unharmed. She had fully pierced through the dragon cannon and continued straight toward the dragon.

She was running forward.

…''But what was that?

How had she shattered the white dragon’s dragon cannon? Gin pondered the reason.

“Was it…light?”

The dragon had initially called himself a dragon of light. And after having her attacks deflected a few times, Futayo had realized that he reflected her attacks.

Tonbo Spare’s cutting had no effect on this dragon of light.

But Futayo must have realized that, if her blade was reflected, then he was the same.

Just like the version emitted from his full body, Sasuke’s dragon cannon was light.

So she had intercepted with a reflective surface: Tonbo Spare’s tip.

By thrusting it into the light, it had reflected that power. And the dragon cannon’s deflected power had enveloped her surroundings, broken, and fallen apart from within.

Futayo had done it.

''But,'' thought Gin. ''That should not be possible.

She should not have been able to pull off a stunt like piercing the very center of an incoming dragon cannon.

Who could make a head-on counterattack against such an unbelievably fast blast of light?

But Futayo had done it. Gin did not understand how, but…

…''This is…

This was what that girl was capable of.

And as the strands of light blew in the wind, the Musashi Vice Chancellor continued forward. That blue figure had lost her hair tie, so her black hair fluttered behind her as she nimbly raced toward the white dragon.

And the white dragon responded.

“————!!”

He unleashed a roar and threw himself forward.

He attempted to collide with Futayo head on.

Sasuke roared.

It was a long, long roar.

He was a dragon and he had once been a corps commander of the Gaul Invasion Army.

He had made himself known through constant battle and slaying his enemies.

That had lasted 400 years. Another 400 years had passed since he had been defeated and forced to flee.

He had spent the same amount of time slaying humans and living alongside them.

But he had fought a human once during that life with them.

It was one of Sakai’s friends. He believed the man’s name was Tadakatsu.

After a few dozen minutes of battle with him, the man had avoided all his attacks, smashed his dragon cannon, finally split his back, and then said, “I’ll leave it at this. You’ve still got stuff to do, don’t you?”

That had reminded him of the past.

Of 400 years ago.

The Testament Cross-Borders Unit led by a cherry blossom shrine maiden had crushed his companions. There had been deaths on the other side as well, but the shrine maiden had asked a question after it was all over.

“What will you do?”

There were countless ways to interpret that question, but this was how he had responded:

“Are you asking if I intend to continue fighting?”

“No.” The shrine maiden had lowered her eyebrows in a smile. “I am asking if you want to try a different lifestyle as a dragon.”

And…

“Can’t you wait until you have tried that out for a good, long while before you decide whether or not you wish to die?”

He had thought it was a clever way of putting it.

So he had done as she said. A lot of them had been frustrated, but…

…''Twenty-odd years ago.

Someone capable of outdoing him had put a stop to that and said they still had “stuff to do”.

But now their lifespans were at their ends. Most of his friends had already left and Saizou had likely returned to heaven as well.

''In that case,'' thought Sasuke. His battle here would act as a memento by sending those who inherited his will to Hashiba, but in addition to that…

…''Shrine maiden of the past.

The white dragon thought to himself as he charged forward, slammed his feet against the ground and used his multi-stage acceleration to leap.

…''We lived two different lifestyles as dragons.

They slayed humans and they protected them.

Even now, he was fighting to protect the future of Sanada’s people and attempting to slay those who would harm Sanada’s future.

''But,'' he thought. ''I already had that twenty-odd years ago.

He had been given that by the shrine maiden 400 years ago.

So the white dragon gave voice to what he was settling here.

“This right here is the ‘stuff’ I still had to do…!!”

Futayo did not let up on her speed.

She would be in serious trouble if she did not continue moving forward and setting her center of gravity and central axis further and further forward.

She had to keep her axis straight for what she was about to do.

Which was…

…''Send my cutting power into that dragon.

She knew she could do it.

She had figured it out from the fact that her father had done the same. She had only needed to ask herself how he could have done it.

And her thoughts had led her to a single answer.

Futayo moved straight forward to reveal that answer. She bent back as if to thrust her stomach forward and she charged in a straight line. She raised Tonbo Spare toward the enemy, who was charging toward her with a burst of speed, and she gave a cry.

“Bind, Tonbo Spare!!”

Gin saw the scattering light.

It was a spray of ether light. But it was not the rejection of a cut.

…''Is that…!?

It was the destruction of a Celestial Dragon.

As he charged forward, Sasuke’s face was cut from the tip of his nose to his forehead.

The attack he had deflected and negated until now had suddenly hit him.

Gin’s vision had seen the position of the slash.

It had been along the dragon’s central line.

And Gin understood: it all came down to the central axis.

…''That white dragon’s entire body, from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail, is symmetrical.

The scales covering his body were angular and could reflect anything.

But while the scales down the center of his body were symmetrical, they formed a mountain shape.

The ridge of that mountain could not reflect anything. Due to the mountain shape, that reflecting power was slanted.

“So if she targets the ridge of the scales and hits that with her cutting power, it won’t be deflected…!”

That was why she had charged straight toward him.

That complete head-on attack had been to ensure she hit her enemy’s central line.

And she had raced toward him to ensure her own axis was not shifted.

If her timing had been even slightly off, the cut would have been deflected and she would have been sent flying.

But she had just passed below the dragon and come to a stop.

Her hair was undone and she spun Tonbo Spare around before propping it up against the floor.

A moment later, the white dragon rose up.

“Well done.”

With that, he wobbled. And he collapsed onto his side in the center of the hall.

He fell.

With a rumble, the hall shook, and Futayo opened her mouth.

Her dignified voice rang through the hall.

“White Dragon Sasuke…defeated…!”

<noinclude>
{{HorizonNavbar
| [[Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 56|Chapter 56]]
| [[Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 58|Chapter 58]]
}}
</noinclude>

Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 56

2017-09-11T22:33:02Z

86.52.26.6: Missing word added.

==Chapter 56: Optimizer in the Field of Acceleration==
[[Image:Horizon5B_829.jpg|thumb]]
''If I ask how much

''And you show me how much

''Let us settle things that much

'''Point Allocation (Interception)

The battle intensified.

The white dragon named Sasuke released a dragon cannon of explosive light all around him and turned the other way without checking on the results.

The enemy had moved beneath him to use her spear’s cutting power, so he had released the dragon cannon to show her it was useless.

From the enemy’s perspective, the counterattack was sent down from above.

That should have been impossible to dodge, but…

…''Did she avoid it!?

He was almost certain of his prediction: The enemy had worked together to avoid his dragon cannon.

He followed that prediction by looking to the wall.

There was a hole gouged there.

A shell had caused that.

The enemy was not there, but it clearly told him that the enemy had indeed avoided his dragon cannon.

How?

The method was simple and the sound he heard explained it.

It was the echoing sound of shellfire. It was a simple sound of the air being torn and split. But there was only one person on this battlefield who could produce it.

He turned around and looked over to see a girl wielding a long cannon by the opposite wall.

“Did you fire on your companion!?”

And he heard another sound: racing footsteps circling around behind him.

They belonged to…

…''The Musashi Vice Chancellor!

The enemy had definitely been knocked away by a shell.

…''That was a close one!

In the instant of her evasion, Futayo had seen the approaching shell and recalled the night before last.

She remembered her battle with Kakei.

Back then, she had kicked off of his bullets to leap.

But those had been bullets. She had caught the first shot on Tonbo Spare’s shaft to raise her speed like a running start.

This was different. It was an artillery shell and she could not use Tonbo Spare as a running start shield.

But there was a way to accelerate.

…''Take the ideal action like I did against Lord Shibata and Fukushima-dono.

She had to repeatedly open and control instances of Soaring Wings to add extra precision to her movements. She would use the acceleration spell to fine-tune and eliminate all hesitation from each and every one of her body’s actions.

Doing so required placing a great number of Soaring Wings instances on her body. If one of the spells on any part of her body were to break, it would create a ripple effect across her entire body and send her flying.

But what if she used that to accelerate?

''I can do this,'' decided Futayo.

…''But…

''Now that I think about it, that was a dangerous thing I did at Novgorod.

''I trained with Kimi-dono beforehand, but that was with her support. Looking at it that way, I must have been really worked up when I fought Lord Shibata and Fukushima-dono.

''Yes.

''This is dangerous.

''Very, very risky. Gin-dono is asking for a lot, expecting me to kick off a shell without warning like this.

''This is different from the bullets the other night. This is so much bigger and more destructive.

''So if possible, I would like to find some other method.

“Oh, the shell is right in front of me.”

A single thought entered Gin’s mind in the instant Futayo avoided the dragon cannon: ''That was a direct hit.

After all, the Musashi Vice Chancellor had been entirely defenseless.

Despite having a dragon cannon approaching fast, Gin slapped her forehead.

But the word “idiot” was not what filled Gin’s mind.

…''Die (just once)!

She added the parentheses in her mind because she had trouble deciding whether it was better with or without that part.

But then she saw something else.

An incredible number of spell sign frames appeared across the back of the Musashi Vice Chancellor’s body.

It looked to Gin like the girl’s movements slowed.

But that was not the case. The initial speed was slow, but it clearly accumulated. And by the time the shell arrived…

“——————”

The Musashi Vice Chancellor looked her way.

She lightly raised her right hand. It was like a casual greeting.

Gin had no idea what this meant, but…

“…!”

She leaped. And Sasuke’s explosive light burst across the hall as if to pursue her.

This was the same process as before.

“Honestly,” said Gin as the battle continued. “How much do I have to go along with your nonsense?”

''Well done,'' thought Sasuke.

He had met several acceleration spell users in the past.

His power was light and speed, so people who wanted the same had always stood in his way.

They had faced him using Holy Spells, divine spells, other types of spells, machines, and martial arts techniques.

When avoiding his dragon cannon, this enemy had reached a rare level of speed.

He did not often see someone with that kind of instantaneous speed.

Not often. So Sasuke spoke.

“If that is all you have, I have faced others at your level.”

With that, he accelerated. He swung his entire body toward the Musashi Vice Chancellor who was trying to circle behind him.

“…Let us do this!”

He moved the other way to circle behind her from the center of the hall.

…''Well done!

Futayo was impressed by the white dragon who had run up behind her.

How much speed could he draw out of that giant body? And more importantly…

“What excellent positional control!”

The white dragon was running along the wall.

While making a high-speed turn to circle behind her, he had used the wall as a floor.

The hall shook while he accelerated toward her as she moved along the floor. And in the instant he descended from the wall and passed over the seam between the floor and wall…

“…!”

He swung his tail forward and toward her.

This was his two-stage acceleration.

He already had enough speed to use the wall as a floor and he accelerated again while descending from the wall.

A shadow appeared overhead. The pursuing dragon’s head was extended forward in his running motion and it had arrived above her.

And his mouth was opened. His running roar was a dragon cannon that used its great volume to attack.

Instead of being released from his entire body, this was a straight-line dragon cannon fired from his mouth.

Futayo raised her voice in response.

“Gin-dono!”

Sasuke saw a girl move in front of him as he pursued his enemy.

It was Tachibana Gin.

She was not just using her legs to run. She was using an acceleration spell.

“A pursuit type…!?”

A new challenger had approached using the Musashi Vice Chancellor’s acceleration.

He knew what she was after: The mouth he had opened for the dragon cannon.

He did not see it often, but the inside of his mouth was the color of flesh and his teeth and tongue were different from his exterior armor.

A shell could make it through and the Musashi Vice Chancellor’s spear attack would be effective. That was why…

…''They lured me into firing this dragon cannon!

Just as he thought that, he heard a voice. It belonged to the Musashi Vice Chancellor who held her spear in her right hand behind Gin.

“Bind…Tonbo Spare!”

The cannon and the cutting were fired toward his mouth simultaneously.

Gin’s cannon blast produced an explosion of wind in front of her.

The fog was blown away in an instant and the Musashi Vice Chancellor shouted out while holding Gin in her right arm.

“Did we get him!?”

They had launched two attacks on the pursuing dragon. Timing-wise, it had to have been a direct hit. However…

“Kh…!”

Gin quickly used the strength of her prosthetic arms to shove the Musashi Vice Chancellor toward the wall.

She used the recoil to escape to the center of the hall herself. And in response…

“Gin-dono!?”

There was no point in answering the Musashi Vice Chancellor’s question. She would see the answer soon enough. In fact…

“—————!”

Before she could catch her breath, a beam of light stabbed through the space between the two girls.

It was fast for a dragon cannon and resembled an attack from a master spear-user.

Then Gin looked back to check on the enemy.

There was a white dragon behind her. He was unharmed. She could tell he had used some kind of method to forcibly stop himself and avoid their previous attacks.

…''But how did he do it!?

She did not know. But staying still would be dangerous, so she immediately fired.

She was firing blind, but she had trained for this. She had a perfect grasp of where the dragon cannon had fired from.

So she fired.

She thought this would hit. Even if he was a high-speed and high-mobility dragon, his center of gravity would be shifted forward after braking so suddenly while pursuing them. That would force him to brace his four beast legs against the floor.

And she aimed her counterattack there.

There was no way this could miss. If he dodged this, it would have to mean he had no weight at all.

However…

“…!?”

Gin saw the dragon’s action.

He moved.

The white dragon had grown more distant behind her as she ran, but he suddenly leaped to the side.

And he did so easily.

At first, Gin did not understand how the enemy named Sasuke had been able to move.

That was because her mind had not allowed her any thoughts outside of “how?”

But her vision had calmly seen through to the principle behind his movement.

That white dragon could freely move because of…

…''His tail…!?

That white tail gave off a sense of length, weight, and speed. He had used it for a two-stage acceleration earlier, but…

…''Does he swing it to brake and slide as well!?

Before, he must not have dug his feet into the ground to stop his high-speed movement. He had used his dragon’s strength to swing his tail backwards, which pulled his giant body back as well.

And now he had used a swing of his tail to slide to the side, allowing him to…

“Dodge it…”

“Is something the matter?”

After landing from his sliding evasion, Sasuke slammed his strength and legs against the ground. He seemed to be kicking his claws and muscles at the dirt to accelerate toward her with his full-speed mobility.

He was coming.

During his sharply angled leap, he relaxed the tail he had swung sideways before.

“————”

And he reaccelerated.

The white dragon quickly approached.

“Is something the matter?” he asked again. “You’ve stopped moving.”

No, she was still running. She was using all her strength to get away from him.

But even that was nothing to this dragon.

As a dragon, he did not use his teeth against people. This white dragon simply fought by using his giant body to crush them.

“…!”

Gin fired a counterattack and used the recoil to leap back.

But he was still catching up.

Even Cuatro Cruz’s recoil was no match for the dragon’s reaccelerated dash.

He was going to hit her.

But Gin suddenly realized something.

She could see someone beyond the white dragon.

…''Eh?

It was the Musashi Vice Chancellor.

“Huh?”

''This is odd,'' thought Gin.

Hadn’t that girl been running alongside her just a moment before?

And hadn’t Gin shoved her toward the wall?

But at some point, she had ended up running along the wall beyond the white dragon. She was running along the outside and toward Gin. She ran in a curve that pursued the white dragon’s back.

…''It can’t be…

It was a ridiculous prediction, but Gin allowed herself to make it.

She knew what the girl had to have done.

“Did she run the perimeter of the hall in that short time!?”

Futayo was thankful for the size and structure of this place.

If it was not a hemispherical hall, she could not have kept her acceleration up like this.

Soaring Wings was applied many times over to her knees and shoulders.

She had enough speed. Her exhaustion was reduced and everything felt clear. And…

“Sorry…!”

Just as she saw Sasuke dodge Gin’s shell, Futayo passed him by.

She moved forward. She reached out toward Gin as the white dragon threatened to catch up to her.

“Gin-dono!”

Her position shifted.

Before she could even say “oh?”, she had passed Gin by.

In another two steps, she would leave Gin behind.

…''Oops.

Letting up on Soaring Wings now would be dangerous.

''But if I do not save Gin-dono, I have a feeling the others would be mad at me.

…''Should I make another circuit?

''No, since everything feels so clear, it might be best to leave things as they are. In fact, I have no other choice.

However…

“There is no reason to reach out your hand.”

Gin was directly beside her on the right.

She had appeared suddenly, but…

“Ohh, so you survived…! I was about to give up on you!”

“If I didn’t have this pursuit-type acceleration spell, I would have died! I’ve been running around all over the place thanks to you!”

''I angered her. I need to actually grab her next time.'' But…

“You sure have a short temper, Gin-dono.”

Gin had grown sick of so very many things here.

'''Tachibana Wife:''' “Master Muneshige! Master Muneshige! …I can’t stand this girl!”

'''<Divine Transmission Failure: The walls may be too thick: If correct, press “Y”. If incorrect, give up and smile: By, god.>

She did indeed give up on a variety of things while a strange smile appeared on her face.

''And even if I hit “Y”, wouldn’t the divine transmission interference prevent my response from getting through?'' wondered Gin, but she concluded the response must travel via the local gods.

However, there was nothing she could do while reliant on the Musashi Vice Chancellor running alongside her.

That girl was about to decide this battle for herself.

And…

“Gin-dono!”

“What?”

“My Tonbo Spare is useless right now!”

“Impotent,” said the spear.

“That doesn’t mean you can leave!”

The look of astonishment on the Musashi Vice Chancellor’s face could not have been more blatant.

After another three seconds of running, she shook her head and tried again.

“Gin-dono!”

“What!?”

“My Tonbo Spare’s cutting power does not work here!”

“Ineffective,” said the spear.

“How is that any different from what you said before!?” shouted Gin. “Isn’t a Vice Chancellor supposed to find a way despite that kind of setback!? Weren’t you taught that when you joined the Chancellor’s Officers!?”

The Musashi Vice Chancellor proudly puffed out her chest.

“I was made Vice Chancellor in an emergency!!”

''Oh, right. And that was our doing, wasn’t it?

Gin gasped and felt like she had been hit by the return of an extreme long-throw boomerang. Then the Musashi Vice Chancellor held Tonbo Spare up for her to see.

“I bet I know what you were thinking, Gin-dono. You thought I would awaken to a mysterious power during this battle. You thought I would finally be able to use Tonbo Spare’s superior drive to cut right through that dragon’s light and whatever-you-call-it armor!”

“No, I wasn’t thinking any of…” started Gin, but before she could get it out…

“But you see! Tonbo Spare does not have a superior drive!”

“Training needed,” said the spear.

'''Tachibana Wife:''' “Master Muneshige! Master Muneshige! If I had a cursing card that let me kill whoever’s name I wrote, I would be justified in writing hers, wouldn’t I!? Wouldn’t I!?”

'''<Divine Transmission Failure: You may be too far away: If correct, press “Y”. If incorrect, do a dance: By, god.>

…''Why is it different from before!?

Since arriving in Musashi, she had learned just how laid back Shinto was. Catholicism was very strict despite being developed in the irresponsible land of K.P.A. Italia, so what was this?

But…

“Gin-dono!”

“I’m aware!”

The racing dragon had fired a dragon cannon behind them.

Sasuke saw the enemy split up to the left and right. The blue went left and the red right.

But the blue on the left had no means of attack.

And the red on the right had no speed.

So he knew what they were bound to do.

…''The blue pulls in the red and the red attacks.

His dragon cannon passed between them.

The red used a pursuit acceleration spell to bring them back together.

A moment later, the red and the blue worked together.

The blue launched the bottom of her spear forward and the red caught it on the palm of her metal hand.

…''Huh!?

This was the opposite.

Wasn’t the blue supposed to pull in and the red attack?

That was not what happened.

After the blue struck the red’s hand with her extended spear bottom…

“Let’s go…!”

She ran directly toward Sasuke.

“Bind…Tonbo Spare!”

Futayo controlled Soaring Wings in the midst of the rapid crossing of paths.

She was making a forced 180 degree turn. Even as she took the ideal movement for Soaring Wings, her body ached and was on the verge of being blown away by her speed.

“…!”

And she used that speed to send herself toward the white dragon.

Tonbo Spare’s activation had no effect.

But she wanted to see exactly how the cutting power was deflected.

Her technique did not work on him, so she would find a way of overturning that.

And as she traveled through the cold air, Futayo saw some light.

Before reaching the enemy, Tonbo Spare’s cutting power had been shattered into glowing shards.

It really could not reach him. That was unfortunate, but she had also seen something.

Tonbo Spare’s cutting power had not simply been destroyed.

…''It was fully reflected back…!

Tonbo Spare worked by reading the name reflected in the blade and cutting that. But this enemy reflected back that reflection, showing Tonbo Spare to itself.

Tonbo Spare could not attack itself, so its cutting power vanished.

That was a high-level defense used by people on her father or Muneshige’s level.

This dragon did that with the armor covering his entire body.

He was naturally resistant to this sort of weapon.

Futayo spun around in their rapid crossing of paths.

A giant foreleg had fallen where she had been a moment before.

It produced a tremor, but the dragon did not move past her.

She understood why.

The white dragon was performing a turn directly above her.

He no longer saw her as an enemy and was simply attempting to crush her underfoot.

But Futayo set up a chain reaction in her body. She chained her rotation and turn together so she could move between those falling and swinging objects.

…''Kh…!

She suddenly recalled her battle with Kakei.

Then too, she had spun around and taken up position behind her enemy.

“…!”

The two forelegs suddenly arrived overhead. Sasuke had swung his tail to control his position and lift his body up from the ground. And his raised forelegs seemed to be targeting her while he was at it.

…''Don’t look!

She would never respond in time if she looked up before dodging. To move around behind the forelegs, she moved…

…''To the side!!

She moved out from below the dragon’s belly as if launching herself.

Because he was making such a large turn, Sasuke’s forelegs slid in a large arc to pursue her.

She dodged. She spun her body, and…

…''Kakei-dono did this…!

She performed a turning slide.

It swung her body around more than she expected, and her empty hand…

“Oh.”

…touched Sasuke’s foreleg. But she used that contact to push herself.

…''One more time!

She felt like she had done a better job than last time, so she took her eyes off the enemy, rapidly launched herself across the center of the hall, and…

“Gin-dono!”

Gin did not overlook the opportunity provided by the Musashi Vice Chancellor.

When they had split up earlier, Gin had leaped toward the center of the hall.

And the Musashi Vice Chancellor had run straight forward to draw the enemy’s attention. Or so she had thought.

…''I can’t believe she charged forward to test the enemy’s defenses.

Tonbo Spare of course lacked any offensive power against this dragon.

But the enemy had reacted.

As a dragon, he could not overlook an enemy running around at his feet. Especially for this white dragon who was so confident in his high-speed mobility.

He had somewhat overreacted in his attempt to crush her underfoot.

He had been turning toward Gin, but he continued to turn a little further and raised his forelegs.

That was enough. Because…

…''He has to lower his center of gravity to stomp!

This was not like his previous tail-controlled turn. Even if he tried to use that, his feet would slide along in a drift.

“Pierce him! Cuatro Cruz!”

Gin fired repeatedly.

Sasuke detected the enemy’s attack.

He saw eight shells in the center of his vision. The rapidly-fired series of shots was lined up horizontally.

She was likely trying to capture him along that horizontal line.

It was a good decision.

The enemy’s shells were meant to attack castles. A dragon’s armor was sturdy, but there was no avoiding damage from this. And the line of shots was meant to negate any evasive action on his part.

Of course, the shell velocity was inferior to his strength. If he reaccelerated with his tail, he could dodge it just fine.

…''So it all comes down to this!

With that thought, Sasuke jumped forward. And he immediately reaccelerated to the…

…''Right!

He launched his midair body to the right.

Or he should have. However…

“…!?”

He realized he had been thrown off the proper trajectory

His rightward momentum was somewhat lacking.

As he wondered why, he sensed something else.

Something had struck the tip of his tail in the very instant he reaccelerated.

Based on how solid it was and how much the blow reverberated through his body, it had to be a metal projectile. But it was not one of those large shells meant for attacking castles. It was…

“A sniper shot from a smaller cannon!?”

It had likely been fired from behind the larger cannon’s rapid fire. The hit slightly unbalanced his tail.

That created a small waver.

But that miniscule difference was devastating when he was trying to just barely dodge before charging in.

One of the large shells hit his left collarbone.

Gin looked directly at the great cloud of dust created by the hit of an accelerated object and the water vapor explosion created by the shockwave. In the distance, she could tell the stone forming the
hall had broken and crumbled with a sound like scattering sparks.

…''I hit him!

She had sensed it connect. The shell had provided a solid blow.

She had set everything up to ensure it.

She had used an Arcabuz Cruz for that setup.

And she had lowered its initial speed as far as possible.

The shell she had chosen was setup with a focus on impact. That was all that mattered here.

After all…

…''This enemy primarily uses his vision!

She had noticed something when Sasuke dodged her triple Cuatro Cruz shots soon after the battle began.

Cuatro Cruz’s initial speed was greater than the speed of sound, but the white dragon had outdone that.

That meant he was not reliant on sound. He detected attacks with his senses of sight and touch.

So she had fired a low-speed shell high into the air while he was swinging his legs around to crush the Musashi Vice Chancellor.

On top of that, she had fired several times from straight ahead.

Since he primarily used his vision, he would see the eight shots flying in at eye level. Which way he would move had been a gamble, but she had guessed he would jump left due to the direction of his turn.

In the end, his swung tail had arrived in the position she had predicted.

“Now that we have struck back…”

Gin was about to finish her sentence with “this battle can truly begin”, but at that very moment, a yell reached her from the direction of the dragon.

“Gin-dono…!”

It was the Musashi Vice Chancellor.

“To the left!”

Gin did not look left.

She simply activated Racing Words toward the Musashi Vice Chancellor.

The Musashi Vice Chancellor also began running as if in response.

And as Gin ran, she saw something arriving from the left.

It was the white dragon.

He was unharmed.

''How strange,'' she thought. The shell had hit his left collarbone, so he should not have been able to move at full strength. Plus, he had been right in front of her when…

…''The hit to the tail should have prevented him from reaccelerating!

So how had the dragon arrived to her left?

What was it she had sensed her shell hit earlier?

…''Is this…!?

Gin did not look left. But a large presence arrived from that direction and covered her vision.

These were wings that came into view. The white dragon had six wings on his back. He had not used them before this, but now they were fully spread.

He had used them for a third acceleration.

“Ohhh…!!”

There was clear anger in his roar.

“…!”

Gin was hit and sent flying.

Sasuke felt shame.

…I cannot believe this!

He had underestimated the enemy and been forced to use his wings.

Even if he had wings and could fly, he specialized in ground combat. Using his wings was normally unthinkable, but…

…''These opponents were enough to require it!

He was impressed.

They had repeatedly endured or dodged his attacks, come to understand the traits of those attacks, and then worked to destroy them.

They had used a small attack to produce a waver in the dragon’s giant body and great strength.

That was a truly human technique. And a sign of intelligence.

He could not simply trample over this enemy. So…

“To make up for the shame of using my wings, I must use my full strength here…!”

He charged toward the red enemy. He opened his jaws and held his mouth sideways to devour her.

Celestial Dragons did not really have to eat. As ether lifeforms, they only needed to remain in a place that matched their “mold”.

To “eat” someone was a dragon’s greatest sign of affection, as it meant allowing them to become a part of him. It was the highest praise for an enemy.

But an enemy arrived from the side in the instant he snapped his jaws shut.

It was the blue girl.

She raced toward the red girl, and…

“Gin-dono…!”

She extended a hand, but…

“Oh?”

The length of her pace did not quite match and she kneed the red girl instead.

Gin saw something completely insane.

Not only was that idiot idiotic enough to race across the hall so quickly, but after looking like she was going to save Gin…

…''She kneed me!?

Gin had fortunately managed to get her left arm up to guard in time because a direct hit would have broken a few ribs.

That was how much momentum the girl had.

She had wanted to work in a support role to help, but she could not even manage the most basic kind of assistance.

Not to mention that the Musashi Vice Chancellor was now in the same spot Gin had been.

Which meant…

“Ah.”

The approaching white dragon’s sideways jaws snapped shut on her.

…''She’s dead!

Gin reached that immediate conclusion while she was flying through the air.

She felt both surprised and a little disappointed at how simple it had been.

…''She’s dead! That girl is dead, Master Muneshige! Eaten by a dragon!!

She did not know if she should rejoice or celebrate. That was because even a warrior girl was not accustomed to seeing a dragon eat someone.

But Gin heard an odd noise lingering behind the action.

It was a solid sound like someone climbing a ladder. And it came from…

“The dragon’s jaws…!?”

Once she realized that, she saw a blue form several meters up in the air.

It was the Musashi Vice President. And if she was soaring there…

…''That girl…

“Did she kick herself up from the closing jaws!?”

Sasuke was briefly confused.

He could have sworn he ate her. That thought was lodged in his mind. But the sensation in his teeth wiped away that confusion.

The enemy had rapidly run up the teeth of his closing upper and lower jaws.

Sasuke had never seen anyone dodge an attack like that before.

But that meant it was ''his turn''. After all, the red girl was nearby and the blue girl was airborne.

Which meant…

“Ohh…!”

He fired a dragon cannon from his entire body.

Gin fired Arcabuz Cruz and accelerated, but she was still hit.

Futayo kicked off of the fired Arcabuz Cruz shell, but she too was hit.

After the light exploded, Gin was launched several dozen meters from the hall’s center and slammed into the wall.

Futayo crashed into the ceiling.

They took damage.

Gin used her left arm to soften the blow, but its surface armor shattered when it hit the wall. When Futayo hit the ceiling, her hair decoration broke away, leaving only the string below, and blood
dripped down her face.

It only took an instant.

They both grew limp, Gin fell to her knees, and Futayo seemed to peel away from the ceiling before falling.

The dragon roared in the center of it all.

“…!”

The white dragon spread the wings on his back and roared.

<noinclude>
{{HorizonNavbar
| [[Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 55|Chapter 55]]
| [[Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 57|Chapter 57]]
}}
</noinclude>

Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 53

2017-09-09T23:21:17Z

86.52.26.6: One error fix.

==Chapter 53: Dancer on the Round Stage==
[[Image:Horizon5B_777.jpg|thumb]]
''It is a lot like taking each other’s hand

''A lot like a bond

''But very important

'''Point Allocation (Certainty)

Gin endured the attack by using her arms as a large shield.

This was the Celestial Dragon’s counterattack. They had launched a cutting and artillery attack during their initial charge, but the dragon had responded with a high-speed tackle.

She of course had her arms set to full anti-shock mode. Similarly, the anti-impact divine protection was fully active. Once her body was lifted from the ground, she fired on him with Arcabuz Cruz and used the recoil to move back.

…''But he still hit me with this much force!?

She slammed back-first into the wall.

She did not curl up her back. If she failed to endure the impact, her spine could shift out of place or even break. She distributed the impact across the entire surface of her back and even slammed her arms against the wall to let all the remaining force escape into the wall. However…

“Kh…”

Her shoulder joints screamed in pain.

Because her arms were prosthetic, the shoulder joints stuck out farther than the flesh in the front and back.

When hitting something back-first, those parts would hit first and the joint would shift or come off altogether. So she had tried to ensure it all hit at the same time. But…

…''The harder material makes this much of a difference!?

The solid parts sent a powerful vibration into her bones. She normally could not feel it, but when the joints hit the stone wall at such great speed, it was like taking a hammer blow to each shoulder.

When the tingling pain spread across her entire body, even a great warrior like her felt on the verge of vomiting.

''From the very first move, I’m completely at his mercy,'' she thought.

“Kah…”

She finally managed to get a breath out and she fell down the stone wall.

It was a two meter drop. That height was nothing for someone who had jumped around the Musashi for training, but her knees wobbled and…

“————”

They held. She was the Peerless in the West’s wife. She was dripping with sweat and the focus of her eyes wandered, but she managed to speak.

What she had needed to protect was in her arms.

“Musashi Vice Chancellor. …We endured the enemy’s attack.”

“Well done, Gin-dono.”

With that, Futayo took a step away from Gin’s arms.

Gin responded with her eyebrows raised.

“I was only repaying you for catching me earlier. In other words…”

She stepped forward.

Futayo tried to support her, but Gin ignored it as she walked ahead.

She would not rest her back on the wall. She simply continued forward and more light returned to her eyes with each step.

“Now we are even, Musashi Vice Chancellor. I will not save you the next time. …You need to figure out why the enemy is unharmed even after a hit from your cutting power.”

''Splendid,'' thought Futayo. ''So this is a name inheritor.

…''No, this is Tachibana Gin…!

Up ahead, the white dragon named Sasuke slid his body along while he crouched low and aimed his right foreleg toward them. Since he swung his tail to keep his balance, he would be charging along an arc instead of a straight line.

This would be difficult to intercept. And…

“Here he comes! Gin-dono!”

Gin saw an explosion.

It was a white burst of speed and a white collision. At that size, the word “tackle” was no longer appropriate.

It was an explosion of power plowing toward them.

Realizing this would be impossible to stop, Gin focused on evasion instead.

She summoned an Arcabuz Cruz and used its blast as a thruster to leap right.

She moved away from Futayo. Just as she thought she had put a decent distance between them, a gust of wind passed by to her left.

Even Gin’s eyes could only see it as a white wind and it was accompanied by a seemingly solid surge of air.

But the dragon used more than just speed and wind.

…This ''is the identity of the previous attack!

Gin made a prediction about the seemingly invisible attack that had slammed them into the wall.

She had been hit by this once before. But instead of fearing it, she worked to understand it.

So she responded based on her prediction.

She spun around a bit and used Arcabuz Cruz to jump down and to the right.

As her knees slid across the dirt floor, something scraped along her cheek. And…

“…!!”

A horizontal blast of wind struck her entire body.

She was hit, but it was not a direct hit. That was…

…''His tail!?

She clearly saw it for just a moment. Something like a giant white whip had straightened out as it raced forward.

That swinging movement could easily overtake the white dragon’s charge.

But Gin knew why he did it. If his tail was extended behind him, it would act as a weight and hinder his speed when he accelerated forward.

So he swung his tail forward. And he charged forward at the same time. He initially accelerated using his great strength, and once that lifted him from the ground…

…''The forward momentum of his tail gives him a second burst of acceleration…!

That was why she had so much difficulty reading his movements.

There was no point in reading his movements when he could reaccelerate that giant body in midair while already moving so quickly. The two girls felt like they were moving quickly, but from his perspective…

“He’s just using a ridiculous amount of speed to guarantee he can crush us…!”

Gin raised her voice and was blown away by the wind, but she also took action.

She used her Arcabuz Cruz as a thruster to slide along the ground while…

“Cuatro Cruz!”

She fired thrice toward the white dragon as he passed by.

Gin used the shells as a foundation to view the white dragon’s path.

How would the enemy respond to shells from Cuatro Cruz which was designed as a siege weapon?

…''Will he dodge…!?

He did not.

The white dragon kept his back turned to the high-speed shells and took a zigzagging saw blade of a path.

He was not just moving out of their way. He made a game of passing between them and letting them fly past.

“—————!”

Gin sensed the enemy’s next action.

The white dragon swung his tail to accelerate, but this was not just to move forward.

After ducking to let the shells pass him by, he made an immediate leap to the left and right to move back in front of them.

…''That’s insane…!

But that was how this dragon attacked. He used the physical strength of a Celestial Dragon to perform a massive charge with overwhelming speed. And not only was his accuracy incredible, but he could take evasive action even in the middle of an attack.

He was a monster.

Wind exploded and the entire hall shook as the white dragon tore into the ground to spin around.

He used the turning motion to bite through the first of the three shells he had just passed and he swung his head to avoid the remaining two.

By that point, he was facing Gin.

Just as Gin realized another charge was imminent, she heard a voice in the wind.

“Bind…Tonbo Spare!!”

On the other side of the dragon from Gin, Futayo raced through the wind and ran below the dragon.

…''How did my cutting attack work!?

This was the second time.

The first time had not worked.

She had tried to attack head-on as he charged, but he had adjusted for it.

And during the following charge, she had avoided his body, but his tail had come for her instead. If Gin had not covered for her, she might have been killed instantly. So for her next try…

“How about an attack on the thinner belly armor!?”

With that, ether spray burst out.

This was not a cut. The cut had been negated and its power had reverted to ether and burst.

…''So that’s it!

Futayo understood now. This enemy naturally possessed one method of defending against Tonbokiri and other weapons that reflected one’s name.

“Does his white armor reflect me!?”

But what happened next overturned those words.

As Futayo looked to Tonbo Spare’s blade, it appeared to be wrapped in light.

Except it was not.

It was not the blade that was shining. All of Sasuke’s white armor was emitting light.

Futayo recognized that light.

“A dragon cannon!?”

''It can’t be,'' she thought. ''Aren’t dragon cannons fired from the mouth or thrusters?

But the answer was simple.

“Indeed,” said Sasuke as he prepared to attack. “I am a white dragon. A dragon of light. …My entire body can launch a dragon cannon.”

After a beat, light exploded from his entire body.

The underground hall of the ruins rumbled with light.

In the upper hall, Mitotsudaira received a direct hit from a dragon cannon.

…''Kh…!

Even with Loup-Garou blood in her veins, she was helpless in midair. However…

…''I have to do something!

Several dozen defense barriers opened courtesy of Asama and they were all shattered in the span of a single breath.

Two silver chains were extended toward Asama and Kimi and she used them to pull herself toward the two girls. But…

“…!”

The dragon’s light had been weakened by the defense barriers, but it was still on its way. And it was still large enough to harm the two behind her as well.

It was going to hit. However…

“Silver chain!”

Mitotsudaira swung her arm and sent an attack down toward the approaching power.

It was the piece of the ceiling she had wrapped a chain around when leaping above Saizou. She forcefully broke it off and slammed it down toward the dragon cannon.

“…How about that!?”

This would not be enough to stop it, but the dragon cannon lost further power and scattered somewhat as it shattered the solid mass.

The dragon cannon still had power left, but at this point…

“Kimi!”

She looked back to see Kimi there.

Kimi had already started up Turning Point, the base foundation of her acoustic spells.

“Dance at that stirring party of the past.”

It played a song. Kimi sang and danced along.

“I will reach this place no matter what it takes.”

More and more sign frames opened between the dragon cannon and the girls. This was Kimi’s Summit Dance defense.

“One day, the starry flowers will bloom beyond the sunset.”

It reached Mitotsudaira and collided with the dragon cannon.

Light burst and scattered like water.

As Mitotsudaira watched, the sign frames displaying the Summit Dance flowers shattered, but the dragon cannon was also split.

The raw power did not reach her.

It had been blocked.

Mitotsudaira spun around and landed. And behind her…

“The shooting stars tell tales of the dark night.”

White lines flew out in time with Kimi’s song.

Those were the paths of the two shots Asama had fired.

Saizou gasped.

…''That was fast…!

This was nothing like his former combat experience. In the past, it had taken a bit longer to fire an attack powerful enough to affect a dragon.

But the times had changed. Shinto could be seen as the Far East’s history, but if even they had polished their combat techniques…

…''They probably grew stronger in their battles with us!

There were no records of the Testament Cross-Border Units’ activities. Because they were not a part of history.

But that experience had remained in a different form. That is…

“The evolution of humanity’s resistance!”

Saizou saw the path of the arrows and took action. He used his power as a dragon.

Saizou vanished from Mitotsudaira’s vision.

“—————”

She could only see Asama’s arrows as they passed through the broken ceiling and disappeared into the forest and sky.

Then the 2nd Special Duty Officer raised his voice.

“Narumi!”

He and the Date Vice Chancellor immediately took action.

The 2nd Special Duty Officer protected everyone with a barrier of ether light formed from a thruster explosion. And the Date Vice Chancellor…

“Now this is dangerous.”

She rapidly pulled blades out of empty air and stacked them up horizontally to build a massive sword shield.

Some light appeared without warning.

The Date Vice Chancellor’s blades were shattered with a diagonal cut. As for the 2nd Special Duty Officer’s thruster explosion…

“…Nh!?”

He suddenly closed his spread arms and there was a slash running through his arm armor.

The half-dragon’s armor had been split with a creaking sound.

…''Just how strong is that cutting power!?

As Mitotsudaira wondered that, the 2nd Special Duty Officer took a step back and the Date Vice Chancellor did the same.

“There, maybe?”

With an instantaneous snap, she grabbed a surviving mandible sword from the air and then threw it.

It flew, and…

“Ohh, that was close.”

Saizou appeared there in the center of the hall.

He had just leaned back to dodge the mandible sword.

Just then, Mitotsudaira noticed the Date Vice Chancellor giving her an instantaneous glance.

It only lasted a moment, but Mitotsudaira sensed meaning in her eyes. Namely…

'''Uqui:''' “Oh, so you want to eat some natto.”

'''Unturning:''' “The scary part is that you’re not exactly wrong.”

'''Silver Wolf:''' “I have no idea what that means.”

But there was no time. Saizou had already retaken his combat stance and he was leaning toward Mitotsudaira once more.

He was going to charge. And the Date Vice Chancellor chose that moment to speak.

'''Unturning:''' “This is the same as the night before last.”

''Eh?'' thought Mitotsudaira. Behind her, Asama had yet to nock her next arrow. Saizou was learning, so he would make this charge in the gap between Asama’s arrows.

He swayed his body toward them.

“Here I go.”

And he vanished just as he started running.

He became invisible once more.

Saizou viewed the enemy while erasing his visual form.

The shrine maiden was not yet ready for her next attack. That meant his enemy was not prepared to counterattack.

But there was still something they could use: an arrow.

The shrine maiden’s arrows could be used as direct spears instead of bow-fired projectiles.

Of course, it would be difficult to rival the power of a bow-fired arrow with human strength or even Loup-Garou strength. So they would not attempt a penetrative attack.

…''It will be a scattering attack!

''Of course it will,'' thought Saizou.

It was an obvious tactic depending on how the enemy viewed his invisibility technique.

He might not be visible, but his giant dragon body remained. Even if he silenced his footsteps with a stealth spell, he was still there.

So they would use a scattering attack to hit an entire surface

And a purifying power would be able to destroy his stealth. That was the basic strategy.

So as she danced, the dancer held an arrow between the fingers of her right hand. It had to be heavy, but she swung it around like it was a light bag.

“Vanish into the sunset.”

She aimed for his chest.

“The bountiful summit.”

And she threw it.

In that instant, Saizou moved with his visible form entirely erased.

Mitotsudaira sensed the enemy’s presence.

She had some information from Asama and she had him more or less located, but she was not entirely confident.

After all, this enemy was massive and powerful. A single mistake could get them all annihilated.

So she looked to two people for further proof of what she was sensing.

The first was Suzu. That girl had been facing straight forward this entire time.

She looked very nervous.

And the other…

…''My king.

Their eyes met. She thought it might have been a coincidence, but then the princess next to him also looked her in the eye.

Once she noticed, the other girl nodded and pointed her right thumb downwards.

Mitotsudaira found it a little worrying that she could almost hear the princess’s voice saying “go get him” in her mind. Nevertheless, she took action.

She had the confidence she needed to win this.

And a moment later, the scattering arrow exploded in the air.

A roar rang out.

Narumi saw the black dragon appear in the space ahead of them.

He had been hit by the scattering power of the arrow.

But it was not a direct hit. It had only grazed him lightly on the front left shoulder. However…

…''It hit!?

Narumi questioned that. But Saizou shook his head as dark armor scattered from his shoulder.

“That was a close one…!”

''What does this mean?'' wondered Narumi with a frown.

Based on her understanding of the situation, this should not have happened.

…''That shouldn’t have hit!

Narumi questioned herself about this.

But Saizou crouched low as if to push aside her confusion.

And he started forward.

Just then, the Asama Shrine Representative fired her next shot with perfect timing.

This third one was a penetrating arrow.

The flash of light was launched with a great roar, but…

“—————!”

Saizou vanished again. He swung his body forward and used his charging motion to disappear into thin air.

Everything about his motion seemed to fit together, so as Narumi watched it play out…

…''This is dangerous.

She drew eight mandible swords at once and prepared to intervene.

She leaned forward and warmed up her prosthetic legs.

“Wait, Narumi.”

The half-dragon to her left interrupted. He pointed at the floor.

“You were correct. …And someone convinced of the same thing is asking for assistance.”

Sure enough, Narumi saw something in front of where the dragon had disappeared and the arrow vanished into the sky. Something was moving toward them along the floor.

…''A silver chain!

His voice seemed to reach her from overhead.

“Assisting a lost wolf might make for a decent change of pace. Amen.”

Undetectable Saizou charged toward the enemy.

He raced forward in a pose much like a human with their hands on the ground and their knees pulled up to their chest.

He aimed straight ahead at the throats of the girls whose gazes were racing through the air diagonally up from them in search of the vanished dragon.

First the wolf, then the dancer, and lastly the shrine maiden.

They had done it.

Yes, they had done it.

It had happened 800 years ago and 400 years ago.

800 years ago, their king and his aides had been slaughtered in a single night.

He had heard that the human-side forces had been led by a group that included a shrine maiden wielding a bow decorated with cherry blossom flowers, a dancer, and a nonhuman knight.

At the time, he had found it hard to believe such an uncertain and common-sounding group could have defeated their king. And he had felt the dragons’ defeat was inevitable if their king could be defeated by a group like that.

So he, Sasuke, and the others had left the main group and conquered southern Italy.

They had worked with the surviving clans while planning to create another dragon age one day.

And 400 years ago, it had happened to them.

Their group and the surviving clans had been utterly destroyed in a single night.

They had only realized the truth of the matter after the Harmonic Unification War.

After deciding to settle in this land on Sasuke’s suggestion, they had learned of those attackers’ origins.

Whenever they described the central figure of that attack, the people always identified her outfit as that of a shrine maiden.

Their enemy was a Shinto force and a Far Eastern battle group.

They should not have existed in 13th century Europe of the Harmonic World.

For the dragons, that was the identity of the Testament Cross-Borders Unit that seemed to appear from nowhere and disappear without a trace.

It seemed the attacks on other areas had been led by representatives of other shrines. Most notably, there was one armored shrine maiden who had wielded a sword. She had been skilled in battle and had apparently hunted down the majority of the surviving clans’ main force.

But the one that had attacked Sasuke and Saizou’s group had used a cherry blossom flower as a symbol. That was the only difference.

That group wielded a seemingly divine power that could drive back even dragons and they were the identity of the Testament Cross-Borders Unit.

…''Ohh…!

Because he was undetectable, he did not roar aloud.

Saizou moved in to hunt the enemy.

The dragon ran.

800 years ago, he had lost his king without a chance to face them.

400 years ago, the attack had been so sudden he was forced to retreat.

So this was his first time holding a proper battle that allowed for introductions. So…

…''Let’s do this…!

As he charged forward, Saizou saw something out of the corner of his eye on the left: blades.

The wolf’s chains had taken them from the Date Vice Chancellor to the left. There were six of them in all.

They could not stop the dragon’s charge, but…

…''It can’t be…!

Saizou’s bestial eyes widened as he saw something in the center of his vision. Unlike the two girls behind her, the silver wolf was not looking up into the air. She was directly facing him with her eyes closed.

“…!”

Saizou gasped, but this was not worth feeling shock over.

He saw this as a continuation and a beginning.

It was a continuation of the battle from 400 years ago, but it was also their first confrontation.

So he sent out every attack he could muster.

He used everything for the hunt.

Everyone in the hall saw sparks scattering around Mitotsudaira.

But not from a swordfight.

She had no opponent.

Her body was swaying as she swung her arms and chains around like some kind of one-girl show.

“…!”

The silver wolf rapidly sent out the mandible swords. Each time, sparks and light scattered.

The sounds were loud and numerous. And finally…

“If you are to run, let your body ring.”

She sped up as if pushed on by Kimi’s song.

Countless Summit Dance shields appeared around the wolf.

“Let heat permeate your heart like the roaring sea.”

As they shattered, Mitotsudaira did not even bother raising her swords anymore. She instead used the momentum provided when the swords were deflected by the unseen enemy.

“The shooting stars fly toward the deserted flower garden.”

Within the sparks, the wolf incorporated her attacks and other movements into a dance of her own.

…''What the heck is this?

Masazumi honestly admitted she had no idea what was going on.

Mitotsudaira had her eyes closed while she danced within a storm of endless clangs, light, and sparks.

She spun her arms, twisted her body, and used it all to provide more speed as she sent out the blades.

The swords were launched from her hands, swung around by her chains, and…

…''Deflected…!

But the wolf did not allow the blades to fly away. Like a fanged mouth snapping shut, she would catch the airborne blades once more. With her eyes still closed, she started forward as if in search of something.

“—————!!”

She advanced step by step, and…

“Have some more, Mito Lord!”

The Date Vice Chancellor tossed the wolf four more blades. They flew toward the advancing storm of sparks and light, but once they were within range…

“They disappeared?”

No.

The noise and sparks suddenly doubled in intensity. And Mitotsudaira leaned forward while swaying her body to the left and right.

“Loup.”

Masazumi could see Mitotsudaira’s hands shoot out and grab the airborne blades’ hilts for just an instant.

But that was as far as she could see.

Instead, something else came into view: the enemy’s blades.

Several dozen simultaneously-fired scythes of light drew arcs in the air.

Each glowing blade was twenty meters long.

They were made of ether. They must have been too pale to notice normally, but now that they were overheating, a yellow light surrounded them.

That was the enemy’s primary weapon.

But Masazumi was confused as she watched Mitotsudaira send her own unseen blades to clash with those rapidly-fired blades.

“How can Mitotsudaira see those?”

They had to be nearly invisible at that speed, so how could she see them coming?

“Nate’s got a good nose,” said the idiot with a smile in his voice. “When Horizon and I were cut, our blood must have gotten on him. …And that lets her see the coming attacks. Or smell them, I guess.”

“You idiot, the scent can’t possibly propagate faster than those attacks, can it?”

It was not the idiot who answered that question.

It was Mukai. She was sitting with her knees together atop Adele’s mobile shell.

“The scent is…carried by the wind…and the surrounding air…and that reveals…him,” she explained. “So Mitotsudai…ra-san…is surrounded by Toori-kun…and Horizon’s…scent.”

Mitotsudaira was intoxicated by the scent.

Last night and the night before that, she had been exposed to her king’s scent quite a bit thanks to sleeping with her head on his lap or elbow. The scent of his breaths had permeated her as they slept and it had refused to come out during the day, but telling him would have accomplished nothing and all it did was make her feel some Loup-Garou-style guilt.

But here, something even more powerful reached her: blood.

Her king and princess’s blood.

She had not smelled his blood from this close since middle school. She had learned that scent alongside her tears when they had established their king/knight relationship back then.

The foolishness that led to it being spilled showed she had not changed since then.

No matter what her king or her princess said, she had said she would protect him and then failed to do so.

So she had decided she would use his blood to achieve victory.

She would vindicate herself using the very blood that had been shed due to her carelessness.

In the past, it had been blood of a promise and of tears. But now, she would offer her king the blood of victory. And…

…''Here it comes!

Within the many attacks, the slight scent of her king reached her from the enemy’s body.

It was faint, like it was being fanned over to her, but that was exactly why it sharpened her sense of smell as it stroked across her cheeks and brushed through her hair.

It tickled.

The more she crossed blades with the enemy, the more of her king’s scent reached her from his blades and the wind.

Compared to what she had smelled in her sleep, the blood scent was much thicker and made her think of solid flesh.

That thick scent mixed with her memories as it embraced her dancing body.

It intoxicated her.

She wanted to loosen her collar and let it reach her chest and the rest of her body. She wanted it to stroke her throat, pass through her lips, and tease the back of her teeth and her tongue.

But this scent was not strong enough for that. So…

“…Is that all!?”

Mitotsudaira raised her voice with her eyes still closed. She danced, swung her body around, and launched the swords as she spoke.

“You need to hit me with more than that!!”

<noinclude>
{{HorizonNavbar
| [[Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 52|Chapter 52]]
| [[Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 54|Chapter 54]]
}}
</noinclude>

Horizon:Volume 1B Glossary

2017-09-07T17:04:00Z

86.52.26.6: Missing space before Emperor.

==Glossary==
[[File:Horizon1B_012.png|thumb]]
[[File:Horizon1B_013.png|thumb]]

===A===

*Academy: An educational facility. Used as the center of political and military power. Tend to have many branch schools.
*Academy Rules: The basic laws upheld between academies. Agreed to by the Testament Union.
*Apocalypse: The end of the world. 1648 when the Testament’s history descriptions end.
*ATELL: The smallest unit of ether. Used for spells.

===B===

*Blessings: The amount of ether needed for a human to exist for one hour. 3600 ATELL. Conversion unit for a spell’s ATELL consumption.

===C===

*Catholic (Old Faith): The old mainstream version of Tsirhc.
*Chancellor’s Officers: An organization led by the chancellor which leads the academy and performs work such as defense.
*Contradiction Allowance: The foundational ability of the world. Allows the simultaneous existence of all sorts of physical laws.

===D===

*Divine States: Former name of the Far East.
*Divine Weapon: A weapon that, unlike a normal weapon, has a unique ability.

===E===

*Edel Brocken (Overlooking Magic Mountain): Magic brand. Location of headquarters unknown.
*Emperor: A divine individual who is said to control the ley lines using the Imperial Regalia in Kyou. Does not interfere with the world.
*England: Uses a floating island and does not control any Far Eastern land or Far Eastern daimyo.
*Ether: Component that makes up contradiction-allowing space.
*Ether Engine: An engine that uses ether’s space-altering ability. The effect changes based on the internal crest.
*Ether Fuel: Ether that has been purified into fuel. Used as External Blessings or for ether engines.
*Ether Reactor: A reactor that extracts and purifies ether from the air. Has a lower output than a ley line reactor, but is relatively safe.
*External Blessings: Blessings accumulated outside of oneself. Ether fuel is an example.

===F===

*Fan Gang: Qing brand. Durable but a bit rough.
*Far East: Name of the Divine States after the Harmonic Unification War.
*Fino Alba (Star of Mechanical Devices): K.P.A. Italian brand. Their use of springs is their selling point.

===G===

*God of War: A giant humanoid machine that people combine with to move.
*Graduation: No limit for nations other than the Far East. Far Easterners must graduate at 18.

===H===

*Harmonic Territory: Locations where the fallen Harmonic World Divine States unified with the real world while breaking apart.
*Harmonic Unification War: A war between the harmonic world residents and the real world (Divine States) residents after the destruction of the harmonic world. The harmonic world residents won and began a provisional rule over the Divine States.
*Harmonic World: A former alternate space that copied the Divine States. Preserved through ley line control.
*Hexagone Française: Mouri clan + France.
*History Recreation: Recreating the Testament descriptions to maintain the path the world takes.
*Holy Spells: Tsirhc spells. The Catholics are related to the Testament and holy individuals while the Protestants derive power only from the Testament.

===I===

*Inherited Name: The name of a historical figure given to an appropriate individual for the history recreation.
*Internal Blessings: blessings stored within oneself.
*IZUMO (Izumo Industries): The Far East’s largest corporation. The headquarters for Far Eastern shrines and the corporation that built the Musashi.

===J===

*Judge/Judgment: Means “understood”. Used by criminals.

===K===

*K.P.A. Italia: Association of Aki States + Union of Italian City States.

===L===

*Ley Line: The thicker of the pathways through which ether flows.
*Ley Line Reactor: A reactor that extracts and refines either from ley lines. Can easily cause lay line mutations and destroy everything within several kilometers if they explode. Due to their instability, they are banned by the Tsirhc religion.
*Logismoi Óplo: Weapons of mass destruction created on the motif of the seven deadly sins.

===M===

*Magic: Folk spells currently under persecution in Europe.
*M.H.R.R.: Hashiba clan + Holy Roman Empire.
*Mikawa: Located between India and the Middle East. Because it had been named as the controller of the Far East, it acts as a residential area for the Far East, and the Testament Union has acknowledged its high autocracy, but because of the Testament's description, it allied with P.A.ODA. As P.A.ODA had half-ceded from the Testament Union, it became a neutral country in a half locked-country status to both the Testament Union and P.A.ODA.
*Mlasi: A later non-Tsirhc religion that also worships the Testament.
*Mouse: A spirit beast device to act as an intermediary between the Shinto religion and its musicians. Other religions use different names.
*Musashi: Aerial city ship. The sole independent territory allowed for the Far East.
*Musashi Ariadust Academy: The Far East’s representative academy which exists on Okutama of Musashi.
*Musician: A religion’s worshiper.

===O===

*Offering: Providing a god with something they will enjoy or Internal Blessings.
*Orei Metallo/Water: Ore or water containing ether. Can be used as ether fuel.

===P===

*P.A. ODA: Oda clan + Ottomans.
*Peace of Westphalia: The peace treaty that ended the Thirty Years’ War.
*Protestant (New Faith): A new style of Tsirhc created to escape the corruption of Catholicism and to adjust to the new age.
*Provisional Council: Group of adults who act as bureaucrats toward Musashi’s student council, chancellor’s officers, and student committees.

===Q===

*Qing: China.

===R===

*Religion: Organizations or groups that worship a god or the Testament.

===S===

*San Mercado (Pure Metropolis): Tres Españan brand.
*Shinto: Far Eastern religion. Worships the Far Eastern gods and uses divine music spells.
*Shirasago Enterprises: IZUMO’s shrine brand.
*Sign Frame: Spell device needed to use each religion’s basic protection.
*Song of Passage: Prototype of a fairy tale created in the Far East during the Edo period.
*Spell: Causing a miracle in a certain space by processing ether.
*Student Council: The organization that handles an academy’s domestic and foreign affairs.
*Substitution: Offering something to please a god instead of using Blessings to activate a spell.
*Sviet Rus: Uesugi clan + Russia.

===T===

*Tercio: The popular formation in this era. Formed by around a thousand people, the infantry are packed closely together, pikemen surrounded by riflemen. Excels in defensive capability, but slow. It's common to use it in groups of 3 squads or more.
*Tes/Testament: Means “understood”.
*Testament: A history book that provides the history of the earth’s previous age. There are seven pairs and excerpts.
*Testament Descriptions: History of the earth’s previous age that is automatically updated by the Testament. However, it stopped updating after the description for 1648.
*Testament Union: An organization meant to lead the history recreation.
*Testamenta Arma: Weapons that use the ability of the Testaments.
*Tres España: Oouchi and Ootomo clans + Spain. Currently includes Portugal.
*Tsirhc: A religion which places the Son of God at the top. Worships the Testament.

<noinclude>
{{HorizonNavbar
| [[Horizon:Volume_1B_Character|Character Introduction]]
| [[Horizon:Volume_1B_SchoolRules|School Rules]]
}}
</noinclude>

Horizon:Volume 1A Glossary

2017-09-07T17:03:26Z

86.52.26.6: Missing space before Emperor.

==Glossary==
[[File:Horizon1A 012.jpg|thumb]]
[[File:Horizon1A 013.jpg|thumb]]

===A===

*Academy: An educational facility. Used as the center of political and military power. Tend to have many branch schools.
*Academy Rules: The basic laws upheld between academies. Agreed to by the Testament Union.
*Apocalypse: The end of the world. 1648 when the Testament’s history descriptions end.
*ATELL: The smallest unit of ether. Used for spells.

===B===

*Blessings: The amount of ether needed for a human to exist for one hour. 3600 ATELL. Conversion unit for a spell’s ATELL consumption.

===C===

*Catholic (Old Faith): The old mainstream version of Tsirhc.
*Chancellor’s Officers: An organization led by the chancellor which leads the academy and performs work such as defense.
*Contradiction Allowance: The foundational ability of the world. Allows the simultaneous existence of all sorts of physical laws.

===D===

*Divine States: Former name of the Far East.
*Divine Weapon: A weapon that, unlike a normal weapon, has a unique ability.

===E===

*Edel Brocken (Overlooking Magic Mountain): Magic brand. Location of headquarters unknown.
*Emperor: A divine individual who is said to control the ley lines using the Imperial Regalia in Kyou. Does not interfere with the world.
*England: Uses a floating island and does not control any Far Eastern land or Far Eastern daimyo.
*Ether: Component that makes up contradiction-allowing space.
*Ether Engine: An engine that uses ether’s space-altering ability. The effect changes based on the internal crest.
*Ether Fuel: Ether that has been purified into fuel. Used as External Blessings or for ether engines.
*Ether Reactor: A reactor that extracts and purifies ether from the air. Has a lower output than a ley line reactor, but is relatively safe.
*External Blessings: Blessings accumulated outside of oneself. Ether fuel is an example.

===F===

*Fan Gang: Qing brand. Durable but a bit rough.
*Far East: Name of the Divine States after the Harmonic Unification War.
*Fino Alba (Star of Mechanical Devices): K.P.A. Italian brand. Their use of springs is their selling point.

===G===

*God of War: A giant humanoid machine that people combine with to move.
*Graduation: No limit for nations other than the Far East. Far Easterners must graduate at 18.

===H===

*Harmonic Territory: Locations where the fallen Harmonic World Divine States unified with the real world while breaking apart.
*Harmonic Unification War: A war between the harmonic world residents and the real world (Divine States) residents after the destruction of the harmonic world. The harmonic world residents won and began a provisional rule over the Divine States.
*Harmonic World: A former alternate space that copied the Divine States. Preserved through ley line control.
*Hexagone Française: Mouri clan + France.
*History Recreation: Recreating the Testament descriptions to maintain the path the world takes.
*Holy Spells: Tsirhc spells. The Catholics are related to the Testament and holy individuals while the Protestants derive power only from the Testament.

===I===

*Inherited Name: The name of a historical figure given to an appropriate individual for the history recreation.
*Internal Blessings: blessings stored within oneself.
*IZUMO (Izumo Industries): The Far East’s largest corporation. The headquarters for Far Eastern shrines and the corporation that built the Musashi.

===J===

*Jud./Judgement: Means “understood”. Used by criminals.

===K===

*K.P.A. Italia: Association of Aki States + Union of Italian City States.

===L===

*Ley Line: The thicker of the pathways through which ether flows.
*Ley Line Reactor: A reactor that extracts and refines either from ley lines. Can easily cause lay line mutations and destroy everything within several kilometers if they explode. Due to their instability, they are banned by the Tsirhc religion.
*Logismoi Oplo (Deadly Sins' Weapons): Weapons of mass destruction created on the motif of the seven deadly sins.

===M===

*Magic: Folk spells currently under persecution in Europe.
*M.H.R.R.: Hashiba clan + Holy Roman Empire.
*Mikawa: Located between India and the Middle East. Because it had been named as the controller of the Far East, it acts as a residential area for the Far East, and the Testament Union has acknowledged its high autocracy, but because of the Testament's description, it allied with P.A.ODA. As P.A.ODA had half-ceded from the Testament Union, it became a neutral country in a half locked-country status to both the Testament Union and P.A.ODA.
*Mlasi: A later non-Tsirhc religion that also worships the Testament.
*Mouse: A spirit beast device to act as an intermediary between the Shinto religion and its musicians. Other religions use different names.
*Musashi: Aerial city ship. The sole independent territory allowed for the Far East.
*Musashi Ariadust Academy: The Far East’s representative academy which exists on Okutama of Musashi.
*Musician: A religion’s worshiper.

===O===

*Offering: Providing a god with something they will enjoy or Internal Blessings.
*Orei Metallo/Water: Ore or water containing ether. Can be used as ether fuel.

===P===

*P.A. ODA: Oda clan + Ottomans.
*Peace of Westphalia: The peace treaty that ended the Thirty Years’ War.
*Protestant (New Faith): A new style of Tsirhc created to escape the corruption of Catholicism and to adjust to the new age.
*Provisional Council: Group of adults who act as bureaucrats toward Musashi’s student council, chancellor’s officers, and student committees.

===Q===

*Qing: China.

===R===

*Religion: Organizations or groups that worship a god or the Testament.

===S===

*San Mercado (Pure Metropolis): Tres Españan brand.
*Shinto: Far Eastern religion. Worships the Far Eastern gods and uses divine music spells.
*Shirasago Enterprises: IZUMO’s shrine brand.
*Sign Frame: Spell device needed to use each religion’s basic protection.
*Song of Passage: Prototype of a fairy tale created in the Far East during the Edo period.
*Spell: Causing a miracle in a certain space by processing ether.
*Student Council: The organization that handles an academy’s domestic and foreign affairs.
*Substitution: Offering something to please a god instead of using Blessings to activate a spell.
*Sviet Rus: Uesugi clan + Russia.

===T===

*Tes/Testament: Means “understood”.
*Testament: A history book that provides the history of the earth’s previous age. There are seven pairs and excerpts.
*Testament Descriptions: History of the earth’s previous age that is automatically updated by the Testament. However, it stopped updating after the description for 1648.
*Testament Union: An organization meant to lead the history recreation.
*Testamenta Arma: Weapons that use the ability of the Testaments.
*Tres España: Oouchi and Ootomo clans + Spain. Currently includes Portugal.
*Tsirhc: A religion which places the Son of God at the top. Worships the Testament.

<noinclude>
{{HorizonNavbar
| [[Horizon:Volume 1A Character Introduction|Character Introduction]]
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</noinclude>

Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 51

2017-09-03T20:48:34Z

86.52.26.6: Missing period added. It might have been a comma, though.

==Chapter 51: Exiter from the Dance Stage==
[[Image:Horizon5B_717.jpg|thumb]]
''The time

''Has finally come

'''Point Allocation (Nudist)

“Now, then.”

A voice rang through the pathway.

The pathway was old and large. The walls and ceiling were made of hardened stone materials, but the floor was covered with packed-down mud.

The people walking through it looked miniscule. They formed a group of about twenty, but they would have had more than enough space to walk abreast and the ceiling was far above their heads.

The group produced mechanical noises as they moved and several sign frames surrounded the shrine maiden among them.

That was Asama. She was fully-equipped, including her binder skirts.

“Look at this…”

Her first words echoed from the ceiling and walls.

“It’s the same composition as Novgorod. But it’s a little older than that.”

“Are you sure it isn’t just in poorer shape?” asked Mitotsudaira.

Asama nodded and sent the data to all of their sign frames.

“It’s true Novgorod was being preserved and this place has definitely seen better days. I think the crust temporarily sank down on one side and the mud from the mountains poured in. But even accounting for that, I’m guessing this is about fifty years older than the one in Novgorod.”

'''Novice:''' “That connects to the history of the Age of Dawn, doesn’t it? The Far Eastern forces made a comeback by gradually working their way from the central land on out. These ruins were probably built on their way to Novgorod.”

“But isn’t this a lot bigger than that one?” Toori looked up at the ceiling as he walked alongside Horizon at the center of the group. “Hey, Bell-san? How far until we reach the back?”

“Oh, judge. T-to reach…the back…we need to go through…the entrance…down this way.”

“Entrance?” asked Adele who was walking in Raging Beast with Suzu sitting on its head. “But I see the sky back there.”

“It’s…tilted.”

“That’s true,” confirmed Narumi who wore a Far Eastern summer uniform and a combat vest. “That must lead to the main hall. The mud forms a slope leading up to that, so we can see the blue sky through the hall’s broken ceiling.”

'''Unturning:''' “Can we get any help from the surface group?”

'''Novice:''' “We can help with your location. Based on the map Principal Sakai gave us, that is indeed the main hall up ahead. Then you head down to the second main hall. Behind that, you should find a minor hall. …Principal Sakai was pointing us to that minor hall within the stealth space, but the two Celestial Dragons should be waiting in the main halls along the way.”

''They’re so lucky,'' thought Neshinbara in the clearing by the mountain stream.

…''I might be the surface staff officer, but it’s still disappointing.

He had really wanted to see a Celestial Dragon up close, but preserving the exit was an important job.

The exit was a large space located alongside a stream on the mountain slope.

“These ruins sure are big since they have to accommodate dragons.”

'''Unturning:''' “Novgorod was a frigid land. Most dragons have difficulty living there, so that one would have been made for humans. At the time this was built, I imagine accommodating dragons was common practice.”

Noriki responded to Narumi while he worked at reinforcing the tents back at their base.

'''Laborer:''' “In that case, I can see why most of those Whatever-They’re-Called Academies didn’t survive. …The bigger you build something, the harder it is to keep it from falling apart.”

'''Uqui:''' “It is also possible the dragon-fearing people destroyed these ruins to keep the dragons away.”

''Those are some decent ideas,'' thought Neshinbara. ''I’ll use them in my next novel.

Oriotorai spoke up while waiting for Ohiroshiki and Hassan to finish the curry.

“Good, good. The real fun of a study camp or class trip is to give some serious thought to the places you visit, so make sure you give it enough thought to write a report once we get back.”

''Being a student sure keeps you busy,'' sighed Neshinbara before he asked a question.

'''Novice:''' “How are things down there?”

'''Scarred:''' “Oh, judge. …Lady Futayo just took off running.”

'''Novice:''' “Huh?”

''Hold on,'' thought Neshinbara.

'''Novice:''' “While investigating her surroundings, I hope! What in the world is she doing!?”

He soon had his answer. And from Futayo herself.

'''Tonbokiri:''' “Chaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrge!!!!”

Saizou was bathing in the sunlight entering through the hall’s open ceiling.

Even as a Celestial Dragon, his body functioned much the same as a biological creature’s. The only major difference was in how they were born and how they died. ''There really aren’t any other real differences,'' he thought.

Of course, that might have been a higher being overlooking the hardships of lower beings. However…

…''I’m so sleepy.

The sunlight was the real problem. Summer sun was especially dangerous.

As a dragon, some parts of his body had a secondary circulatory system to supply them with blood and ether. When he warmed his body, the blood flow improved and those things naturally loosened up.

When they loosened up, his entire body would grow lethargic. And that made him sleepy.

Simply put, the summer sun made him sleepy.

…''Sasuke is down below, but…oh, well.

''I think I’ll take a nap,'' he thought.

Just then, he heard a sound. It echoed through the ruins, so it was impossible to miss. The ruins were built to accommodate dragons and other large lifeforms. His hearing had been fading lately, but that made him all the more sensitive to out-of-place noises.

“Oh, fine then. I guess we’re starting the First Siege of Ueda now.”

Saizou hunkered down.

He positioned himself to protect the entrance leading underground and he looked forward. He directly faced the hall’s entrance.

There was an upward slope on the other side of that entrance. It was left over after he dug through the mud piled-up and blocking the entrance. As for why had he not cleared out all of the mud…

…''Sasuke takes everything so seriously…

The other dragon had insisted it remain in case pursuers or attackers showed up.

There had indeed been a time when they had been hunted like that.

…''That was 800 and 400 years ago, wasn’t it?

That was long ago when the dragons had been devastating Europe in the Harmonic Divine States. Their ancestors had started that during the great Germanic migration, so the dragons had begun to sweep across Europe about 1200 years before.

Their ancestors had inherited Germanic names and swept across Europe. But after the great migration, the humans had also inherited names of those who inherited the next generation and the two groups had fought over a span of centuries.

Saizou and his generation had joined the fight 800 years ago when both sides had reached a watershed decision.

Would a dragon or a human inherit the name of Charlemagne who would unite Europe? A conclusion had eventually been reached.

In the end, the humans had liberated central Europe. While most of the dragons had retreated or surrendered, Saizou and the others had occupied Sicily in southern Italy and resisted from there.

But 400 years ago, they had been defeated and forced to retreat.

However, they had heard something during those battles.

It related to 800 years ago. While the dragons had expanded the battle lines and conquered more territory, the ancient dragon king had been defeated behind their backs. And it had been done by a group of unknown humans and cooperative nonhumans.

It had been a Testament Cross-Borders Unit.

Those one-off groups were composed of people summoned to ensure the Testament descriptions were carried out or to resolve a threat to the world.

Who gathered them? Who were the ones gathered? No one knew. But Saizou and his group had refused to believe such a thing existed as they conquered the mild land of Sicily.

And 400 years ago, they had heard of a certain Testament entry.

It described a mass disappearance in a certain town in Saxony of northern M.H.R.R.

It said 130 boys and girls had gone missing and not one of them returned.

Sasuke had feared they would be blamed for those disappearances.

But that curious flying dragon had looked into it and discovered a certain fact.

Namely, nothing at all had happened in the specified town. And the humans had been so busy with the history recreation of the crusades that no one had particularly cared.

But that night, they had been attacked.

Their enemies had definitely been human, but those humans had used strange weapons and spells.

The dragons had halved the number of enemies, but over the course of a few hours, they had taken even more damage themselves. So before dawn, the nearly-devastated surrounding clans had decided to retreat.

Saizou and his group had done the same for their own reasons, but their pride had not let them flee into the European mountains. They had instead split up to the east and west.

It was 160 years ago that they had fled east and stopped in Far Eastern land during the Harmonic Unification War.

By that point, Sasuke and the rest were fed up with a combat-oriented life. It had helped that the Far Eastern people had worshiped the dragons like gods and treated them well.

But they had realized something after they began living here. Namely—

“Whoops.”

The enemy had arrived. At first, it was just one human running straight down the slope at the front entrance.

There were others behind her, but just the one warrior girl took the lead.

…''Seriously? Is she dumb?

A downward slope pushed your balance downwards and made it hard to move to the side.

If he fired a dragon cannon here, she was toast.

So he did.

Futayo recognized the dragon’s movements. She had seen this plenty of times the night before. Yes…

…''When dragons breathe their dragon cannon, they fire it after a count of three.

'''Vice President:''' “Hey, Futayo, we still haven’t reached the top of the slope. Are you okay!?”

'''Tonbokiri:''' “I am fine! I mastered dragon cannon timing last night. They fire after a count of three.”

It fired after a count of two.

Asama saw the dragon cannon launch out like a rod stretching forward.

The downward slope was torn through and destroyed. It hit almost directly to her left. That was the center of the slope.

…''I’m glad I was in charge of protecting the right side of the pathway!

With that earnest thought, she checked on the damage. After all, a dragon cannon had scored a direct hit where Futayo was. There was only one possible result:

“Kyaaaaaah! She was fried…!!”

“You sure are enjoying this!!”

She had evidence to argue against their complaint: she saw something white in the broken center of the slope.

They were…

“…Bones?”

“Dragon bones,” clarified Narumi as she calmly walked up behind Asama. She lightly kicked the dirt slope with the sole of a prosthetic foot. “Even if the ruins had slanted, I thought it was strange that the mud had piled up into a hill like this. …This must be a dragon graveyard. I don’t know if it’s nostalgia for ruins built in the Age of Dawn or if their ancestors came from here, but Terrestrial Dragons choose to die here.”

“But,” continued Gin while running down the right side of the slope. She faced forward and frowned while speeding up. “Why isn’t that girl dead? She dodged it by running straight ahead with as much speed as she could muster.”

Up ahead of Gin, Futayo was running with her hair fluttering behind her. She would reach the center of the hall in no time like this.

“She’s alive…!” said Asama when she saw the girl.

“You’d really killed her off in your head, hadn’t you!?”

The others’ voices were answered by Futayo’s voice from up ahead.

“To battle!”

Saizou prepared himself as Musashi’s Vice Chancellor raised her voice and poured on even more speed.

…''How is she going to do this!?

He saw her crouch down.

A moment later, she accelerated even more. She had used her spear’s extension device to launch herself toward him.

She closed the gap between them. However…

…''Not yet!

She had not yet reached the 30m range of her spear’s cutting power. So…

…''How about I take her out with a blow from beyond that range!?

He had yet to fully charge up a second dragon cannon.

So he just had to make a swift attack from outside the enemy’s range.

A dragon punch was more than enough to kill a human.

So that was what he did. He pulled his head back to adjust the distance between them, and…

“Hh…”

He inhaled in order to launch his right arm out.

Just then, he saw the enemy use her spear’s extension device to launch the spear tip toward him.

It was still too distant to cut, but there was something on top of the extended spear tip.

“Acceleration Spell: Racing Words. …Tachibana Gin has arrived.”

Gin accelerated.

Her acceleration spell, Racing Words, accelerated in pursuit of a target object, just like Muneshige’s Kamenuki.

So she had pursued the Musashi Vice Chancellor and remained behind the girl’s back.

…''And now I’m accelerating toward Tonbo Spare’s tip!

The two of them had not prepared this in advance.

Gin had simply chased after the girl, thinking she might be able to help out somehow, and she had found a chance to move out ahead.

So she had done so.

She could not intimately exchange support with this girl like she could with Muneshige. It was just that this girl’s only talent was in racing forward, which created far too many openings. So…

“There is something severely wrong when I have no choice but to lend a hand like this.”

Musashi’s Vice Chancellor had probably only launched Tonbo Spare’s tip forward as a feint. And she probably had not given much thought to what she would do afterwards.

That left Gin no choice but to move in ahead of her.

“Arcabuz Cruz…!?”

She fired that cannon. But in that very moment…

…''Is he going to shoot…!?

Saizou rethought his counterattack and used a dragon cannon instead.

Futayo saw Gin riding atop her spear tip.

…''When did she get there!?

''Gin-dono is surprisingly nimble,'' she thought as she saw the dragon breathing out light.

That was a dragon cannon. It was a weaker blast since he had just fired one, but it was more than enough to take out Gin and Futayo.

Futayo could try to cancel it out with Tonbo Spare, but Gin was in the way on the spear tip.

If she activated Tonbo Spare now, Gin would be cut.

''That would be bad,'' thought Futayo. ''And I doubt Muneshige-dono would like it.

But she calmed herself down and continued that thought.

…''But I know Gin-dono can find a way out of this.

“Bind! Tonbo Spare!”

Gin had half-expected the Musashi Vice Chancellor’s decision, but at the same time…

…''C-curse her!

That girl had actually done it.

Gin hurriedly reached a hand into the air. An Arcabuz Cruz was there. Firing it had been what prompted Saizou to use his dragon cannon. The recoil had caused it to lower, so she grabbed onto its back end with her prosthetic arm.

After floating up a bit, the recoil lowered her back down.

She was safe now and the enemy would be wide open after firing the dragon cannon, but then Gin saw a spear tip below her feet.

“————!?”

Tonbo Spare had used its extension device to shrink down.

There was no point in asking “What are you doing!?” or “Are you ''trying'' to kill me!?” The Musashi Vice Chancellor had pulled it back to match the timing of the arriving dragon cannon.

“Curse her…!”

Saizou saw a scattering spray of light between him and his enemy.

It was ether light.

He had seen these bursts of light so many times in the past and they were as beautiful as ever today.

This meant the enemy had endured his dragon cannon, but it also meant he had defended against their attack.

It was just like the past. No, humanity was even more frightening than that.

Dragons had no means of strengthening themselves outside of growth and experience, but humanity could endlessly strengthen their weapons and spells.

This was the same. Even 400 years ago, negating his dragon cannon had been a difficult feat. But now…

“You can do it with a spare weapon!?”

The light faded and the enemy was there.

They were unharmed. That much he knew. However…

…''I hit one of them!

Because Musashi’s Vice Chancellor had pulled back Tonbo Spare, Tachibana Gin would have been hit by the dragon cannon. Even a light hit would have been a full-body blow. So—

“————!?”

Saizou twisted his body to the left when he felt something as clear as empty air on his right cheek.

A moment later, something pierced through the space his right eye had just vacated.

It was an artillery shell.

…''Isn’t that the same thing that hit Torahide last night!?

Then the wind whipped up and Saizou saw something beyond the scattering light. The enemy he thought he had hit was just fine.

…''This is both a strong point and weak point of humanity.

“You worry for your companions!”

Musashi’s Vice Chancellor was holding the artillery girl, Tachibana Gin, in her right arm.

And a new cannon had appeared over her shoulder. At that size, it had to be a siege-class cannon.

“Pierce him. …Cuatro Cruz.”

Gin suppressed her emotions.

After all, she really should not have survived that.

She would have died if she had not made a ridiculous decision when the spear tip had arrived below her feet.

…''I never thought I would be using Racing Words to pursue the Musashi Vice Chancellor.

She had not had time to adjust the homing direction. She had meant to accelerate backwards, but she ended up diving into the girl’s chest because the default setting chose the target’s center point.

The girl had caught her and light had exploded before her eyes.

“Honestly…”

She had fired toward their opponent’s right eye earlier.

Living creatures would react subconsciously to visual information. Dragons had once been wild animals and this one had noticed and responded to the attack on his eyeball even if he had not consciously understood what it was.

The dragon swung his face to the left, which was to the right from her perspective.

That was exactly what Gin had wanted.

Cuatro Cruz’s shell flew toward the center of Saizou’s face.

But Gin saw something.

“Fine, then.”

With those words, the dragon’s body blurred. Or so it seemed to Gin. And…

“Too bad.”

The shell pierced through Saizou. But it had not hit or harmed him. The dragon had disappeared and the projectile had passed right through him.

“Take this.”

But a moment later, the dragon reappeared and his left foreleg flew quickly toward her.

Gin knew it was going to hit them. The dragon was going to hit them with all his great strength.

But her decision of what to do was somewhat delayed by a question.

…''What was that just now!?

Saizou had “hidden in the mist” just as his surname of Kirigakure implied.

The shell had passed through him and Gin heard the reverberating noise of it hitting the opposite wall.

She only let the surprise hold for an instant, but that was enough of a delay for the enemy’s attack to hit them.

She could not let that happen.

So Gin decided she would at least allow Musashi’s Vice Chancellor to escape safely.

She turned around to shove the other girl out of the way, but then she noticed something.

Musashi’s Vice Chancellor’s face was covered with a surprised but beaming smile.

“Gin-dono! Did you see what he did!? That was incredible!”

…''Please don’t grab and shake my shoulders…!!

While she was shaken back and forth, Gin realized they had completely lost any chance of escaping.

She decided to use Arcabuz Cruz to blow off the other girl’s head while Gin herself was killed by the dragon’s blow.

…''This girl will be murdered and I will die honorably in battle. That is for the best.

“————!”

But then she saw a means of escape. And…

“Eh?”

It hit.

Saizou realized his full-power attack had swished through empty air.

…''Are you serious!?

He had targeted someone in midair. It was a lot like catching a falling bird.

It should have been a sure thing. That was why he had gone all out.

But the enemy had just dodged his left foreleg.

They had performed a three-dimensional midair spin and passed over his left shoulder and left wing.

Something had struck the two of them.

And Tachibana Gin had caught the weapon with her prosthetic arm.

It had launched the two of them out of danger.

“…An arrow!?”

He looked over to see a shrine maiden standing by the hall’s entrance.

“…Musashi’s gunner shrine maiden!?”

Mitotsudaira honestly commented on Saizou’s words.

“Wow, even the ''dragons'' know about you…”

“I-I fired that to save people! See? Using those rules, I’m Musashi’s rescue shrine maiden! How about that!?”

Asama pointed forward just in time for Gin and Futayo to crash into the opposite wall.

They heard some cries of pain and surprise and the two girls fell to the ground while tangled together.

Seeing that, everyone fell silent and motionless, except for Kimi who glared at Asama.

“What was that about rescuing people?”

“…I really don’t think I did anything wrong.”

“Then how do you explain this?”

“Well, it’s really that wall’s fault for being there. Don’t you think?”

But Mitotsudaira could not help but ask.

“Um, Tomo? …Aren’t you not supposed to shoot people?”

“Eh? It’s okay if I’m rescuing people or training.”

She set up a breakwater of counterarguments at record speed. But it was something else that mattered here.

“Are you allowed to shoot dragons?”

“Umm, not if they’re students.”

“Are you if they aren’t students?”

“Yes. There are no rules saying I can’t.”

“That dragon isn’t a student.”

The shrine maiden immediately fired.

Saizou quickly took evasive action.

…''That was sudden!

He could dodge this. The attack was quite fast, but that was not a problem when he had the strength and reactions of a dragon.

Assuming, that is, this was a straight-line attack.

It was not. The enemy’s arrow drew a trail of light that showed its path was bent ever so slightly.

“…Homing!?”

He knew gunner divine protections could apply homing functionality, but if she could add that effect to such a high-speed shot…

“Talk about dangerous…!!”

Saizou raised his tail and moved.

He ran.

Instead of guarding the entrance leading underground, he charged at the enemy along an arc from the right.

He had a reason for doing so: the enemy’s homing arrow. A high-speed homing shot was an absolutely ridiculous attack, but there was a way of avoiding it: his tail.

Homing divine protections worked in one of two ways: dynamic homing that learned the enemy’s shape and pursued that, or reactive homing that pursued the enemy’s ether or heat source.

A dragon’s shape was hard to learn due to their tail, wings, and horns, so reactive homing was generally used against them.

That meant he had something to act as a decoy: his long tail.

By extending his tail, the tip would act as a decoy.

The pursuing arrow would be quite literally “tail”-ing him. Then he only had to swing his tail like a whip by the wall. Once the enemy projectile lost sight of its target, it would collide with the wall.

But to do that, he needed enough space to extend his tail.

He had to run. So…

…''I’ll plow right through them!

Saizou ran forward to settle this all at once

His tail was extending and the enemy’s arrow turned a forceful corner to pursue.

He moved forward.

“Oh?”

Naito looked up as she gathered Schwarz Techno spells in her broom’s Orei Metallo by the entrance of the ruins. She turned toward Naruze.

“Ga-chan, did you just feel a tremor? Like a deep ‘thoom’.”

“Eh?” Naruze looked up. She had been sitting sideways in a chair while drawing up illustrated spells on her Magie Figur, so she looked back to the drawing she held. “Maybe that would be a better sound effect for my artillery spell representation.”

“No, no. That’s not what I meant.”

Naito looked to the wide entrance to the ruins. Muneshige stood in the center of the entrance with a hand on his chin and his gaze fixated on its depths.

“What’s going on?” asked Naomasa.

Naito nodded.

“It sounded like something crashed into the wall.”

Mitotsudaira saw Saizou collide with the wall as if scraping his right side against it.

He had lost his balance while running toward them.

…''What was that?

It had happened just after he had gotten Asama’s arrow to pursue his tail.

She knew what the dragon had been trying to do. He had been trying to use his tail as a decoy to dodge the homing projectile while he charged toward them in an attack. He had combined his defense and his attack into a single fell action.

While running, he had raised his tail straight up but by the wall so that Asama’s homing arrow would lose sight of him.

And in that very moment…

“Toori-kun, Horizon.”

Asama had spoken very quietly.

“Want to…make some ice cream?”

An explosion had followed.

And this funnel-shaped explosion was directed toward the location of Saizou’s tail.

It was Asama’s arrow.

Tenzou recalled the past.

…''This is because of our gym lesson in spring, isn’t it!?

The day before the Battle of Mikawa, they had failed to accomplish anything in the deceptively simple task of pursing Oriotorai on the way to Shinagawa.

Asama had used a homing divine protection but still failed to hit Oriotorai.

What was it Oriotorai had done then?

“She cut her hair and used it as chaff to defend against Asama-dono’s arrow…”

“Yes.” Asama nodded toward Saizou whose tail had been blasted upwards by the explosion. “I learned from that. If my arrow is ever thrown off course by bodily chaff, the arrow releases its full power in the previous direction of movement.”

“I see,” said everyone who had been a part of that lesson.

“That’s Asama for you. She pulls out all the stops when it comes to slaughtering the enemy.”

“I know, sis. The same trick won’t work twice against the Asama Shrine. …That’s so cool!!”

“If you ask me,” said Urquiaga, “I want to know why our teacher has been teaching us how to fight dragons…”

“Not again!” protested Asama. “Why do you always attack me like this!?”

Nevertheless, she had been quite effective.

Blasting Saizou’s tail upwards had knocked him off balance as he ran, so he crashed into the wall on his right. However…

“Master Tenzou!”

“Judge! …Be careful, everyone!!”

Tenzou though, ''The enemy made the right decision there.

…''If he had continued down the center of the hall after his tail was hit, he would not have run into the wall.

But when he lost his balance, he would have been exposed in the center.

“So he intentionally moved to the wall…”

And he crashed into it. That had produced a loud noise and powerful tremor.

But when the dragon slowly began moving again, the wall was revealed behind him.

“He barely left a mark on the wall…!”

There was enough destruction to account for an initial hit, but there was no mark from such a large mass colliding with and scraping along the wall.

That meant the enemy had only pretended to hit the wall so hard.

“Here he comes!”

Saizou smiled bitterly.

…''Honestly.

To think he would pretend to run into a wall and take damage.

He would never have even considered such a tactic 400 years ago.

…''But this is nice too.

After all, he was the former Kirigakure Saizou now. As a ninja, he had to disguise himself while he feared and endured the samurai who were like Far Eastern knights. This was a good way of doing that.

“Besides,” he said as he moved.

He slammed his right side into the wall, used the rebound to move left, and charged toward the enemy group.

“I remember now…!”

He had a single target.

“There’s a shrine maiden here…!”

The dragon’s charge drew a shallow arc as it targeted Asama.

“Eh!? Wh-why me!?”

“Did you forget you’re the one who blasted him just now!?”

“Th-that’s true, but he just said something about remembering something…”

They did not know what had happened to him in the past, but they all rushed to react in time.

Adele moved out first.

Silver chains held Raging Beast’s tail and threw it toward Saizou’s face like a hammer.

“Here we go, Adele!”

“Maybe a little warning next time, but let’s see who’s tougher!”

She crashed into him. Or she should have.

Instead, Raging Beast passed right through him.

The blue and white mobile shell and the silver chains holding it passed through Saizou’s face and out his back.

She did not hit.

Just like before, he briefly vanished and let the attack pass through him. But someone immediately reacted to this fact. Near the entrance leading underground, Gin kneeled with Cuatro Cruz at the ready.

“How about this!?”

She swept the weapon down to spray artillery fire from Saizou’s head down to his hips.

She fired a total of eight shots at slightly different heights.

The dragon would collide with the others just as those were arriving.

…''Did it work!?

Gin ignored the Musashi Vice Chancellor who was dizzy and sprawled out on the floor next to her.

Gin also felt a little dizzy after Asama’s “rescue”, but the battle was not going to wait around for them.

…''This battle has some pretty harsh ups and downs.

With that thought, her eight shots definitely pierced Saizou.

This was not meant to defeat him.

It was meant to keep him from hitting her companions.

She did not at all understand how the dragon’s defense worked, but it negated their attacks.

So if she kept firing on him in the instant he collided with the others…

“He shouldn’t be able to hit them!”

With that, the dragon reached the others.

Asama saw the dragon’s leg sweep toward them.

It hit, but she heard nothing and felt no wind or shaking.

…''He vanished!?

It happened again. Saizou vanished.

And the wind passed between her and the others.

Or was it better to say it passed ''through'' them? The enemy’s physical form had vanished and they were unharmed. Overhead, Gin’s shells solidly hit the wall.

…''What is this?

The charging dragon had “vanished”. Most likely, that was to avoid Gin’s shellfire.

That had saved them. However…

“Mitotsudaira! Asama!”

Just as Kimi yelled their names, three things happened.

First, Mitotsudaira slammed her silver chains horizontally to the right.

Second, Horizon grabbed Asama from behind and forced her to the ground.

“Toori-kun!?”

And third, the crossdresser ran out in front of her. There was a light tremor in his back.

…''What!?

Asama did not understand, so she tried to escape Horizon’s grasp and get back up. But Horizon…

“…These feel a lot nicer in the hands than I expected.”

“Did Kimi infect you!? She did, didn’t she!?”

But Asama saw the idiot look back as he stood protectively in front of them. The crossdresser faced her as she struggled to stand up.

''He’s okay,'' she thought. ''He isn’t hurt.'' But…

“Is that all?”

With that announcement, the black dragon reappeared in the center of the hall. And in that moment…

“My king!”

Mitotsudaira called out to the crossdresser just as he was split.

His blonde wig was audibly sliced diagonally in half and the line of the cut extended down to his shoulder.

“Ohh.”

The diagonal red line on his shoulder reached his upper arm as well.

He was injured. But that was not all. The same thing happened to Horizon’s left arm as she held Asama from behind.

“Oh, dear.”

It split. No, it was torn. It was like stabbing a knife diagonally into a narrow fruit.

…''Don’t tell me…

A lubricant warmed to body temperature flowed from her arm. As for his arm…

“…!”

Blood sprayed out.

<noinclude>
{{HorizonNavbar
| [[Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 50|Chapter 50]]
| [[Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 52|Chapter 52]]
}}
</noinclude>

Horizon:Kimitoasamade 3B Chapter 10

2017-09-02T23:25:35Z

86.52.26.6: Formatting typos fixed.

==Chapter 10: Thinking Girl Standing Up Once More==
[[Image:Horizon_Kimi3B_149.jpg|thumb]]
''Will you catch on?

''Will you realize it?

''Will you have a flash of insight?

'''Point Allocation (One Crossroads)

The white sky was soaked with the colors of late evening.

That was the stealth barrier that surrounded the Musashi. Because the Musashi was currently facing Aki in the west, the stealth barrier by the bows of Asakusa and Shinagawa retained some traces of red.

Someone stood atop Musashino’s bridge, which was the tallest position at which to view that sky.

It was “Musashi”.

Her eyes were closed and her mouth was slightly opened. Her arms were spread to catch the wind.

The wind was just strong enough for her gloves to flutter. She thought to herself as the movements of the evening air washed over her and fluttered her hair.

…''I have determined this is a nice wind.

The wind she felt was being produced by the Musashi. The somewhat salty wind was created by the giant ship’s vertical motion and the temperature differences between different areas. It produced a convection current as it circled within the defense barrier.

“Musashi” wondered if this was what it would feel like to feel blood flowing through your body.

And she entered a quick reboot process.

She entered an instantaneous sleep to optimize the day’s data.

She could do so at any time, but she had chosen this time of late. Most of the shops and companies were closed and Musashi as a whole was shifting toward night and sleep.

The Asama Shrine that managed the Musashi’s infrastructure had just completed the work they had been given, so she had decided it was not a bad time to have the Musashi switch modes.

So she temporarily put herself in a self-contained mode and set her sleep time.

And she woke up.

An automaton’s sleep only lasted an instant. And after that instant passed…

“—————”

She opened her eyes. And she sensed how horribly slowly it appeared through her sight devices.

An automaton’s thought speed could reach speeds as high as a million times that of a human’s.

What her sight devices were currently viewing was a world of time divided up at a level that humans simply could not perceive.

Automatons served humans, but this was a world they could not share with humans.

For automatons like “Musashi”, their artificial brains added a wait period upon boot-up to ensure safety, and that caused this. It occurred sequentially and she spoke while being sent to the world of humans.

She spoke to the others who had chosen the same reboot time as her.

“Musashi automatons, to establish your deployment rotation, perform a pseudo-reboot of all functions and storage. Over.”

“Judge,” came the response. Some of the voices reached her somewhat earlier and others reached her somewhat later. Their reboot sequence differed from hers.

But there was something to fix that: shared reboot music.

It was said to have its origins in the distant past. Ancient machines were said to have played music when booting up to inform their users they had awoken.

That may have been why most automaton models had boot-up music. That music could be changed, but “Musashi” and the others used this one:

“Hello world. It is time to wake up.”

The song had been passed down since the Age of the Gods.

“Include and REM statements are thrown to the sky as sent values of greeting.”

It was known as Doll Language and she let it pass through her.

“Error world. The world weeps.”

…''Honestly.

“Error. When errors are mistaken for syntax, misunderstandings occur. So…”

She had to reboot quickly.

“Remain in the array of zero-time sky where wait commands will not work. Remain on the unending null surface.”

Today was a special time what with the preparations for the Spring School Festival.

“The flower of data withers and is preserved.”

The Asama Shrine’s representative had to purify the mysterious phenomena.

“Call world. The world calls to you.”

Sakai had to be looked after.

“Call. When gambling with calls and random numbers, add a checksum.”

The theatre ship had to be prepared.

“The serial world born from the press of an unassignable while loop is a grid of national borders.”

Asakusa had to be prepared as a rehearsal site to take the theatre ship’s place.

“The incomprehensible flower blossoms but is linked.”

…''And we also received a strange guest from outside.

“Errors are the syntax of thought. Once they rot away, the automatons will be lined up in the REM.”

“Good morning is the sent value.”

Suzuki Magoichi. She was a rifle user from the Honganji forces.

“Heated thoughts. Lining up in never-ending matrices and commanding in multiples of eight are necessary on the ship.

“Send flowers to the human city.”

She was said to be the Far East’s greatest rifle user, but the conflict between P.A. Oda and Honganji had been settled peacefully. And the Testament said Suzuki Magoichi would join Oda afterwards.

“Confused thoughts. Format them and the memory will soon be returned.”

“The return value is the amount that was sent.”

Why was she visiting Musashi?

“The greeting is the same as the flowers: welcome back.”

That question bothered her, but “Musashi” concluded that Suzuki Magoichi was a guest at the moment.

“Pseudo-reboot complete. Everyone, return to your stations. Over.”

''I need to check on her the same as I do for all other guests,'' decided “Musashi” as her reboot ended.

In front of her, the sky made from the white barrier’s color began to grow gentler and darker.

She could see several people in the distant sky above Asakusa.

“Are the delivery workers playing around again? Over.”

In the sky, the Technohexen were enjoying a test of speed known as the Null Vier.

But down below, someone was performing an official duty.

“Thank you for the document.”

It was Masazumi.

She was receiving a stack of paper from an automaton in the plaza created from a row of wooden containers.

The cover page of the document said ’47 Gagaku Festival: Receipts and Expenditures List.

It provided the exchange of necessary items and financial information for the Gagaku Festival being held that weekend.

Masazumi bowed while listening to the surrounding sounds of construction for the Spring School Festival.

The automaton in front of her was “Kuramae” who worked for “Asakusa”.

The automaton nodded back, so…

“I will be going.”

With that, Masazumi turned around.

But “Kuramae” stepped up to her side.

The automaton faced forward and looked toward Musashino as she spoke

“I am already outdoors, so I will see you as far as the thick rope passageway between ships. Over.”

“Eh?”

Masazumi was confused.

She felt awkward having the automaton do that after already bringing her the document. So she shook her head, and…

“No need. I’m only going back the way I came.”

“No. The mysterious phenomenon appearance rate has been increasing lately and the sun is already setting. And to our shame, the smuggling rate on this ship is also quite high. Over.”

“Oh, yeah.” Masazumi nodded at that. “The Asama Shrine just provided some evidence related to smuggling, didn’t they?”

“It seems to have been on quite a large scale, but I have determined that is still only a small fraction. Given the extent of every transport district within the Musashi, there are countless areas managed by the corporate groups. Over.”

“I see,” said Masazumi with another nod.

She started walking toward Musashino.

She wanted to hurry. As an automaton, “Kuramae” would not return until she completed this job and Masazumi did not want to keep her tied up for too long.

So while walking along the container plaza to reach the starboard stern, she asked a question.

“Are you busy preparing for the Spring School Festival?”

“No, the Spring School Festival preparations are progressing on schedule. It was decided that the Gagaku Festival rehearsals will be held here, so we are also preparing for that. Over.”

“Oh, because you can’t use the theatre ship after that Non-God Sword showed up?”

“Judge. The theatre ship was placed under the command of the Chancellor’s Officers and its interior is being reconstructed for use against mysterious phenomena. The Gagaku Festival rehearsals were originally meant to be held on the theatre ship before the Gagaku Festival, but they will all now be held on the Musashi. And when looking at all the factors, we concluded that Asakusa had the greatest capacity, so that role was given to us. That has increased our workload for the time being, but that is still better than leaving it to another ship. Over.”

To sum up: they were busy. But Masazumi understood something from what “Kuramae” had said.

“You always hold the Gagaku Festival on the theatre ship, don’t you?”

“Judge. The festival influences and is influenced by the ley lines, so holding it at the same place every year would, for better or for worse, create a ‘mold’. …It could be inconvenient to have that occur on the Musashi’s eight ships, so we prepare the theatre ship, hold the Gagaku Festival there, and then clean it with purifications afterwards. Last year’s festival apparently created a significant ‘mold’, so the cleaning was quite difficult. Over.”

“Last year?”

“Judge.” “Kuramae” nodded. She was still facing forward while walking to Masazumi’s left. “Last year, Torii-sama’s band made a truly splendid performance. According to those who saw it, it created a slight manifestation of a god. It was an Ootsubaki-type and thus did not interfere with the Asama Shrine, but if Torii-sama’s band is even more powerful than last year, it could lead to an unexpected situation. Over.”

Even the festivals here sounded dangerous. But that made Masazumi think about the Student Council President who had fallen from the night sky the day before.

…''Even she has her talents…

The Far East’s leader had to be incompetent.

But talents related to games and entertainment were generally ignored.

Because those led to waste and decadence.

“The Far East is not allowed any power, hm?”

“I believe we prefer it that way. …If we had power, we would have to be involved with the other powers, and that would affect Musashi’s chances of survival. Over.”

“In other words, Musashi is a place of peace.”

Masazumi looked forward as she said that. And…

“…?”

Someone passed by her while arriving from the rope passageway on the starboard stern.

Their footsteps were light.

It was a demon girl and she wore three rifles over her shoulder.

“…Is she sightseeing? Over.”

“Good question. …She might be here to see the Gagaku Festival rehearsals.” After replying in her usual tone, Masazumi added, “The Suzuki Magoichi’s name inheritor, huh?”

She heard a dog howling in the distance.

The color of evening was no longer visible in the sky.

Adele ran through the city as evening changed to night.

She was on the central road leading to Tama’s shopping district.

She had used this as her running route recently.

She wore a track suit and the dogs following behind her were quite lively. However, there was some pedestrian traffic in the evening and it was also mealtime. So she spoke to the dogs.

“Okay, we’re about to enter the city, so try to stay quiet.”

“…!”

They barked and she was reminded of the Extra Special Duty Officer’s Cerberus.

…''Are things seeming pretty noisy for her too?

The Extra Special Duty Officer was a knight with a somewhat aloof atmosphere. She had always been a bit like that and it did seem she was being teased by the nudist a lot, but…

“A lot happened that time back in middle school.”

After that, Adele felt like that girl kept her distance as a form of restraint.

But it helped the flow of the class as a whole that Asama and Kimi stayed with her since they were not really bothered by that kind of thing. Adele did not count the nudist because he took not being bothered by such things a little ''too'' far.

…''But it probably helps that Asama-san and Kimi-san were already friends with her.

Ever since they entered high school, the Extra Special Duty Officer had been dragged along by those two quite a lot. Looking at how that worked, Adele had to wonder if the girl had always been like that.

She was changing.

And Adele thought that was a good thing.

Lately, the Extra Special Duty Officer had used the income of her knight’s land to establish a factory and company and she commanded the vassals like Adele in her work as a knight and for the Chancellor’s Officers.

She was also going to be performing in a band at the Gagaku Festival.

She had changed a lot.

And speaking of changing…

“There’s Asama-san.”

Adele thought as she ran.

…''Asama-san has a really high position in Musashi.

She was the heir to the Asama Shrine which handled Musashi’s spells, infrastructure, fuel management, and international Shinto connections.

And now Asama was going to perform at the Gagaku Festival.

Adele had heard her sing a “normal song” for the first time at Suzu’s bathhouse the day before.

“It was kind of…”

“Surprising” might be rude, but that was exactly the right word.

Adele had thought those girls were more set in their ways.

But she had been wrong.

And it did not just apply to them.

Masazumi seemed to be advancing her way of thinking and Heidi was clashing head-on with Musashi’s leading merchants.

They would advance to the third year next year, so it may have been time for these kinds of changes.

And when Adele viewed herself in that light…

“Ah…”

She was training as a vassal. She had the various qualifications she needed and she had a license. She could get a defense job with the rank of a Musashi vassal after graduating and she could get a career job with the guards. She could also be hired as an instructor for the academy and lead combat training.

She had a future.

But she thought about it in a different way.

…''Would other people be surprised at “how much I’ve changed”?

She did not know. But she had a feeling she would not be surprising anyone.

She was on a predetermined path.

She had been working toward becoming a vassal for a very long time and everyone around her knew it.

So even if she did become a vassal, it would not surprise anyone. They would say “that’s great” or “congratulations”, but…

“Hmm…”

What did she want them to say to her?

…''It’s not that I want them to say “that’s amazing”.

To put it simply…

…''I want them to say “Really!?”

That might be a dangerous thought concerning her future, but she wanted to become something that would surprise everyone.

Was that possible? Or was it no more than a dangerous thought? She wondered about that as she ran, but…

“Whoops.”

She stopped thinking and running.

There was a blue shop to her left.

It was the bakery/café known as the Blue Thunder.

“That was close.”

She had just about run right past it.

But when she came to a stop, she saw a familiar face in front of it.

“Huh? Naito-san, what are you doing here?”

“Oh?”

Naito received the takeout she had ordered before getting to work.

The order had included two baskets of food, Naruze had already taken the one with hot food, and Naito herself would be taking the one with mainly cold vegetables. And as she accepted it at the entrance…

“Huh? What is it, Adele?”

“Oh, Naito-san. What are you doing here?”

“Judge. We have a band meeting at the Asama Shrine, so this food is for that. Want to join us?”

Adele’s eyes raced over to the basket. And…

“Oh, um…no, thank you…”

“If you don’t think it’s enough, just say so. And Ga-chan already took a basket over.”

“Really!?”

This girl was too easy to read. But then Adele gasped.

“No, um, I can’t because I have to study for our tests! We have the tests during the mornings of the preparatory period!”

“Ohh, we probably should’ve planned to do that at Asama-chi’s place too.”

Yeah.

“Then how about you keep tomorrow open, Adele?”

“Oh, will you have food tomorrow, too!?”

She really was too easy to read.

“Adele, are you that starved?”

“N-no, it’s just that I’ve been doing a lot of work repairing my mobile shell recently.”

“Oh, yeah. That one you said you’d received from your daddy, right?”

Adele’s father had modified it for her and left it behind for her.

When she had earned her vassal learner’s permit after entering high school, Adele had tried to show it off to everyone. However…

…''She showed up the next day with a really brooding look on her face and said the unveiling was canceled, didn’t she?

After all…

“It was really rusty and falling apart, wasn’t it?”

“Judge! I spend the first three months just taking it apart and getting all the rust off… Now I’m swapping out all the unusable parts with IZUMO ones.”

“Sounds like you’ve been productive.”

There was a reason Adele’s mobile shell was unusable.

Mobile shells were weapons, so you needed a license to use one, even if you were a vassal. So Adele’s had been left with Musashi and had only been returned to her once she had her license.

But there had been about ten years between her father’s death and earning her license.

There had not been a problem with how it was stored, but after ten years in a normal storage environment, that level of deterioration was to be expected.

It had apparently been a pretty large shock to find the item passed down to her by her father was in that state.

However…

…''She never let it get her down or just brooded about it, which is pretty amazing…

Naito did understand Adele’s struggles.

…''I mean, once she received the mobile shell inherited from her father, she found it was in really bad shape.

A mobile shell was not as expensive as a god of war, but it was still about the same as a home.

Since she had only just entered high school, it would have been entirely understandable if she had decided it was hopeless and simply given up.

But Adele had not let it get her down.

She must have decided she would show it off to everyone once she had properly serviced it because she had immediately started the repairs. She had probably felt like showing off a worn-out mobile shell would be the same as showing off her own mistake.

So she had started work all on her own.

At first, she had been reliant on Naomasa and had been given used maintenance equipment from the engine division.

Everyone had thought this was too large a task for the small vassal-in-training, but when they saw her earning qualifications in maintenance and the handling of dangerous objects, she had started to gain allies.

From what Naito had heard, Adele had started to work on the interior mechanisms.

And from Naito’s perspective…

…''That’s pretty impressive.

But she and Naruze may have been similar.

They were focused more on spells, but they did tune up their brooms themselves. That similarity gave her an interest in Adele and she knew what to ask at the moment:

“Is it still going to take a lot more to finish it?”

“Oh, yes. Judge. It’s going to take a lot more money and time. …The other day, I tried moving the right leg I had put together and it broke through the floor. Now I have to earn even more money to repair the storeroom I’m renting and to reinforce the entire floor.”

“If only you could earn as much money as Masa-yan…”

“Masa-san can use her Suzaku to work, so I’m pretty jealous there.”

“Oh. Come to think of it, our brooms are like that, too.”

When the target of maintenance was also a work tool, maintenance became a necessity to earn money.

When Naito and Naruze tuned up their brooms, their work efficiency would rise. But…

“Would that not work for you, Adele? I’m not too familiar with the vassal system.”

“No, it won’t work at all. The quality of your mobile shell doesn’t really influence a vassal’s pay much. We don’t actually use them to fight, after all.”

“Then why not fix it up only enough for you to wear it and move around in it?”

Adele wrinkled her brow and smiled at that. She also scratched her head.

“Well, I wouldn’t really want to do that…”

“Judge. I couldn’t treat my broom like that either… Sorry for asking that.”

“No, no. I was complaining a little too much.”

Adele bowed and Naito smiled bitterly in her heart.

She too had discussed the tester exam, Marine, and the Gagaku Festival with Naruze.

That had gotten Naruze all fired up, but…

…''I want something a little more decisive.

She thought they were pretty good.

But then there were their opponents.

''Would I feel differently if we had some kind of title?'' she wondered before asking Adele a question.

“How are things going for you these days?”

“Well.” Adele clenched both fists. “I’d been working at it for an hour or two every two days, but now I have a part-time construction job too. The vassal qualifications require castle-building and general construction experience, and I’ve found some work that pays pretty well.”

“Did Nori-rin set that up for you?”

“Oh, yes. With some help from Persona-kun-san and Tenzou-san.”

That sounded a lot like those generally helpful boys.

But Adele’s shoulders soon drooped and she entered complaining mode again.

She started with a deep sigh.

“But even when I make so much, it all gets used up on divine transmission fees and spare parts… And that’s even with Asama-san giving me a ‘Tsirhc Discount’ on the divine transmission stuff.”

“It happens pretty quickly when you eat snacks and stuff every day, doesn’t it?”

“It really does… Wait, ahhh. Not again. I keep complaining.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that from time to time.”

Naito was used to hearing complaints.

…''Ga-chan has turned complaining into part of her thought cycle…

In Naruze’s case, “dredging up all her frustrations with the present situation and throwing them out there” was a definite part of how her thoughts arrived at a conclusion. That was not complaining in the truest sense. She was simply listing her frustrations to understand her current self and her current environment, come up with a countermeasure, and decide what she simply had to accept.

So when Naruze complained, it was a sign that the problem was already headed toward a solution.

Meanwhile, Naito tended to make up her mind immediately. And since she would have to deal with the same problems as her partner, she was glad that partner was Naruze.

And ''all of that'' pointed toward a single fact.

…''Can I look at it as Ga-chan and me both having our own way of thinking and strengths that we use to resolve and accept our problems…?

Naruze’s complaints and Naito’s immediate decisions were a product of that strength.

But…

“If only you had more practical work to do, Adele.”

“Eh?”

“That’s just how it seems to me. You were pretty amazing when you knocked down that dragon, so it seems like it would be great if you could do that a few times so you could accept that you have that kind of skill.”

“That would certainly be an exciting sort of life…”

“I feel like Mito-tsan is headed in that direction. But the Far East is just so peaceful at the moment… Musashi in particular is a real outsider to history.”

“That’s right,” agreed Adele while the dogs barked behind her.

Naito looked to them.

“I should’ve asked this sooner, but are you stopping by on a run?”

“Yeah, more or less. Umm…”

Adele peered inside the café.

And at that very moment, the door and the bell sounded as someone stepped out.

It was the person Naito had just been speaking with: P-01s.

Adele saw P-01s carrying a wooden bucket.

It contained hardened, unsold bread and food scraps.

It was food for the dogs.

When she had passed by in front of the Blue Thunder before, she had set up a deal to receive what they were just going to throw out. The Blue Thunder could get rid of it and she could use it to advertise to dog owners. A few of the dogs with her had bags hanging from their necks.

“These ones are buying something today.”

“Judge. I will call the manager. Also…”

P-01s placed the bucket of leftovers in front of Adele.

“Now, Adele-sama, just stick your head right in there.”

“I-it’s not for ''me'' to eat!”

“Oh? Shyness will get you nowhere in life.”

“It’s not about being shy! Anyone would be embarrassed to stick their head in there with the dogs!”

“You mustn’t discriminate against dogs.”

“I-I wasn’t! Pointing out a difference is not discrimination!”

“Correct. One point for Adele-sama.”

She had no idea what this was about. In fact…

“Ah, Naito-san, you’re creeped out, aren’t you!?”

“No, I just didn’t realize how pressing your situation was.”

“That’s not what this is about.”

Meanwhile, similar leftovers buckets were brought out from the other shops and the dogs dashed over to them. But she could not let them move too fast.

“Wait!!”

Her shout caused the boss-ranked dog to bark and the rushing ones came to a quick stop.

“Wow,” said Naito, making Adele feel a little proud. “Adele, can’t you use this to make money?”

“Realistically, if this was enough to make money, I think a lot fewer people would leave it to me.”

And the current situation had honestly just kind of happened.

“When I was running, some of them started following me and that number just grew and grew…”

“I hear some tourists who come to Musashi will go to a guard station to report a girl being attacked by dogs and the guards complain that the tourists have no idea what they’re talking about.”

“Now I feel bad for the tourists.”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry. You’re not the only one causing trouble for them. …Last night, a nudist fell from the sky, which was apparently too much for some amateurs.”

“I see.” P-01s nodded. “I too have yet to grow accustomed to Musashi, so I need to be careful.”

“You fit in pretty well already, so I think you’ll be fine, P-01s…”

Adele had to agree with Naito on that one.

However, the automaton pulled two bags from below her apron. She first handed one to Naito.

“Naito-sama, please take this to Asama-sama. It is apparently a hamburger her father ordered.”

She then held up the other paper bag.

“And this is a bread crust variety pack that the manager said to give to Adele-sama. Salt, seaweed salt, consommé, garlic, and Worcestershire sauce… Each of the bread crusts has a different flavoring, but they are delicious.”

“Wh-why did you tack that last part on there!?”

“Won’t they be good for a late-night snack while you work on your mobile shell?”

Naito was right about that, so Adele appreciatively accepted them.

“Oh, then I’ll buy something to drink.”

“Ho ho? …Something powdered? That must be it, right?”

Was that really something to ask so enthusiastically?

“Naito-san, why are you looking the other way…?”

“Now, now,” said P-01s as she pulled out a chartula. “Drinking this made them feel better.”

“Who is ‘them’!? And what happened to them!?”

“And if you drink this, your body will feel quite steamy.”

“It warms you up?”

“Steamy.”

“Am I supposed to take that literally?”

“Moving on.”

“That was fast!? …Hey, why are you trying to run away, Naito-san!?”

“No reason.” Naito waved. “I already drank some.”

“Eh!? Are you the one that felt better!?”

“No. Mine was flavorless and had no effect at all.”

“Y-you got the safest one!! I want that one!”

“Why not just drink water?”

That was an excellent point. However…

“I want to drink something with a flavor to it. Do you understand? When you’re working late at night, you can get distracted by your empty stomach and, if you only drink water, you feel so very hungry and can almost feel the shape of your stomach. But if you drink something with a flavor, you feel more like ‘ahh, that was a nice break’ and ‘let’s work a while longer’.”

“Ho ho? Well said.” P-01s pulled out another chartula. “Adele-sama, this one has a flavor.”

“What flavor?”

“A flavor.”

''This is dangerous,'' thought Adele. She had started to sense these things in advance lately. Not that it helped much.

…''Umm.

She tried asking a question.

“I understand that it has a flavor, but what flavor is it?”

“What flavor would you like?”

“Well… Since I’ll be working late at night, maybe an herb that helps wake me up.”

“Then we can go with that.”

“I-I don’t like the sound of that!”

“Now, now,” said P-01s as she placed the chartula in the paper bag meant for Adele.

She then handed that bag to her.

“Here. This is a wonderful collaboration between the manager and me. That puts it on the same level as washing the dishes.”

“That seems a little too incredible, but I’ll take it…”

But that alone was not enough.

“Um, how much do I owe for that flavored powder?”

“…You must not pay money for something like that.”

“But I’m going to drink it!”

Naito tried to surreptitiously fly away, so Adele grabbed the broom and pulled her back.

However, P-01s had already moved on to her next job.

She was setting up a board on the window frame next to the Blue Thunder’s entrance. It normally displayed the day’s specials, but it currently had a large poster thumbtacked to it.

…''Oh, that’s Naruze-san’s drawing.

A shrine maiden group and a winged girl group were singing with a brightly lit stage in the background.

“Is that a poster for the Gagaku Festival?”

Naito nodded at Adele’s question.

“That’s right. The Student Council sent us a delivery job this afternoon and a few of us distributed them.”

It was only an announcement at this stage.

That seemed like a slow pace with less than a week to go, but…

“The performing bands will be announced three days beforehand, right?”

“Our band and Asama-chi’s band will be playing. And I’m sure the President’s will. Plaguer and Red Light District Clan probably will, too.”

It felt weird saying it herself.

…''So Asama-chi will be there.

The Asama Shrine’s heir was playing in a band.

Even if she was familiar with music via Gagaku, this was a completely different direction for her.

The girl’s personality probably played a role in making this so unexpected.

Naito had thought Asama was stricter with herself. That was probably why she felt this odd confusion about this.

But ''her classmates would be there.

It was obvious what would happen if they were there. Adele said it out loud:

“With Kimi-san and the Extra Special Duty Officer with her, she’s really going to stand out…”

“A beginner band has incredible power once they get started.”

P-01s tilted her head at that. She would not know much about bands and she probably did not know what any of this meant. She briefly looked inside the shop before speaking.

“According to the manager, Kimi-sama is a semi-pro.”

“Oh, judge. She’s gone through the Asama Shrine to bring Ootsubaki-style music to the streets and she’s gained a fair bit of popularity.”

Kimi had gained popularity over time, the Asama Shrine’s heir was known for Gagaku, and Mitotsudaira was both second in line to the Far East and a Rank 1 Knight.

“Asama-san’s band will almost certainly gain the most attention after the announcement, won’t they?”

Naito did not merely agree. There was something else she knew would happen.

“Even if they do gain that attention, it won’t bother them much…”

“No, it probably won’t…”

Adele sighed with a bitter smile.

Naito realized she was making the same expression.

“Asama-chi gathers attention with the Asama Shrine’s rituals and Mito-tsan’s position is much the same. And Kimi-chan enjoys attention, so there’s no way it’ll bother her.”

“Grouping them in a band is like cheating…”

Naito had to agree. And once she thought about it…

“That band defeated the Non-God Sword and Hidden Dragon, so they’re a god slayer and dragon slayer band. How are we supposed to stand up to that?”

And…

…''That’s the Asama Shrine for you.

With that thought, she realized what was bothering her about this.

She was looking at the “history” and “reputation” of the people they would be facing.

Asama was from the Asama Shrine.

Marine was a former subordinate of Almirante’s and a skilled former member of Tres España.

Wild Kamelie had apparently made something of a name for herself in M.H.R.R.

Meanwhile, she and Naruze were crawling up from zero.

They had to create a history and reputation for themselves.

Some people had those things and some did not. They did not.

That was probably what was bothering her.

…''It might not be, but let’s say it is.

And with that decided, she began to think about what to do about it.

Then Adele spoke to her.

The girl’s eyebrows were raised and her hand was on her chest.

“Aren’t you, Naruze-san, and me dragon slayers, too?”

“Eh?”

“Well, um.” Adele smiled. “We all worked together to defeat that thing.”

So…

“I think we were all a dragon slayer team. Each and every person who was out there fighting can call themselves a dragon slayer.”

…''Ah.

After a while, Naito nodded.

“Now that you mention it…”

Although it still did not feel real to her.

It was true they had worked together to defeat the Hidden Dragon.

She was a little skeptical whether she had done all that much, but the result was the result.

Asama had made the final blow, but that was her role.

They had all participated in the fight according to their respective roles and they had achieved the desired result.

…''In that case…

If they were still not satisfied and wanted ''something more'', then how were they to do that?

“We would have to seek a title even greater than that…”

“Eh? What was that?”

“Ah? No, um, I was only talking to myself.”

Higher.

There was always something higher.

She had thought that before, but it meant something else now.

Before, she had been looking up at what was higher than her.

But now…

…''It’s because we’re not satisfied with who we are now.

So they had to reach those greater heights.

They had defeated a dragon.

But if they were not satisfied with that…

“—————”

Naito thought, ''We just have to defeat something beyond a dragon.

Marine.

Wild Kamelie.

The Gagaku Festival also qualified. Meaning…

“We have to do what we can in our own way.”

''Is that all?'' she thought feeling relief wash over her.

At the same time, it was easy to compare yourself to your friends at this stage in life. And you would tend to justify it by saying you were getting a better grasp of your own situation.

But…

…''You have to shape yourself up first.

“I see.”

A quiet laugh escaped her lips.

And then she spoke.

She said what it was that had occurred to her during this exchange.

“In that case, you’re also a god slayer, Adele.”

Hearing that, Adele looked up into the sky.

To show she was thinking, she stared up at the stealth barrier that still had a slight hint of the evening’s color.

“Ah.”

She smiled when it hit her.

She had apparently not been aware of that fact.

…''I see.

These titles may have been trivial to those who held them.

''In that case, I guess it’s fine,'' thought Naito.

“Then I’ll have to put the pressure on my superior fighter.”

“Judge. I’m not sure what you mean, but take care,” said P-01s with a bow. “Naito-sama. …Please deliver that burger to Asama-sama’s place.”

<noinclude>
{{HorizonNavbar
| [[Horizon:Kimitoasamade 3B Chapter 9|Chapter 9]]
| [[Horizon:Kimitoasamade 3B Chapter 11|Chapter 11]]
}}
</noinclude>

Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 49

2017-09-01T22:23:29Z

86.52.26.6: Small errors corrected.

==Chapter 49: Inspired Boy in a Soundless Space==
[[Image:Horizon5B_681.jpg|thumb]]
''Instead of trying to do my best

''I want to do everything I can

''No matter how it makes me look

'''Point Allocation (How did it make me look?)

Steam filled a closed room.

It was a bath. The walls and floor of the thirty-square-meter room were a pale blue.

But the bath was not functioning at the moment. The tap’s water had stopped and something stood out more than the steam.

“…I just can’t seem to narrow it down any further.”

There was a total of fifteen ''lernen figur'' spread out in every direction, including the vertical directions.

All of them were facing a boy who sat a bit back from the center of the bathtub.

It was Katagiri. He sat on the edge of the tub with a towel around his waist and his eyes closed.

“Begin.”

A pair of headphones hung down from his neck and that word triggered some noise.

All of the ''lernen figur'' facing him began to vibrate and they reproduced the sound data recorded from every direction.

It only lasted an instant.

The noise they produced was a quiet one.

And Katagiri’s right hand suddenly trembled.

Then a loud sound played.

It was the sound of leaves. But the sound of branches rubbing together and leaves rustling was so loud that it destroyed the air. It reverberated through the bath like an exploding stream of sand.

“Stop.”

His words erased all of that noise.

Then he placed the headphones on his ears and began controlling the ''lernen figur''.

“I think this is about the spot…”

He checked a time graph of the volume level displayed as a wave. He zoomed in on one spot and stretched out the time scale. As he did so, he used a few Testament Kunst to apply acoustic spells that cleared up the sound.

“Oops.”

But he made it too clear.

He could return it to normal by canceling one of the acoustic Testament Kunst, but that would mean wasting a spell. Catholic spells were one-use. He felt bad about wasting it, but he removed it anyway.

Once he did, one wave shot upwards on the ''lernen figur''.

He confirmed that the waveform was a long trapezoid that rose just a bit to the right.

“Yes…”

Katagiri removed his headphones as he raised both arms overhead.

Banzai. After a pause like that, he collapsed backwards. The headphones fell to the floor, but his body made a wet slapping sound as it hit the water inside the bathtub.

“Toh.”

Katagiri let his upper body fall back-first into the bathwater, but he did not sink. He kept his legs tense to support himself so he could lie just a bit below the warm water’s surface.

…''Okay.

He had done what he could.

When he had seen Fukushima and Kiyomasa’s battle that morning and heard the result, he had felt motivation build inside him.

…''I have to do something.

So he had begun investigating something that had caught his attention the night before.

“I’m the only one that can do this.”

He thought back to what the Asama shrine maiden had told him. This ability was his alone and it was something other than negotiating.

“The highly-sensitive detection and comprehension of sound.”

This ability was necessary for stealth cruising and enemy detection. On an aerial ship, the automatons would handle it, but it was his role within the Ten Spears.

He was sometimes thankful for his excellent senses, but it was nothing but trouble at other times. But at the moment…

“Hundred Crest Land Survey.”

A Klassisch Kunst ''lernen figur'' shattered and ripples appeared on the water’s surface.

The patterns on the water stroked across his body, but…

“Lu…”

As he hummed, they slowly swelled up and took form.

This was the Hundred Crest Land Survey.

The spell gathered the sounds he heard inside himself and gave them form outside of him. It generally took the form of wind or light and it could be used to provide instructions or messages to his companions under most any circumstances. However…

“I knew it.”

The corners of his lips rose as he looked up to see a feminine silhouette.

The bathwater rose up to create the image of a girl that filled his mind.

The overall form was a bit unclear, but there were definite breasts and the face and neck were recognizable. He knew who this girl was, but…

“Why am I so preoccupied with someone I only spoke to for a few minutes?”

He did not understand.

So he reached out his right hand to figure it out. He tried touching her as she looked down at him from the air.

She was bathwater. She felt just like water with a warmth similar to human skin. However…

“Yeah…”

He was a little surprised that he was trying to touch her.

This information came from inside him. It was meant to be sent to someone else. Since it had come from him, it would have the “correct” form from his point of view.

So there was nothing he could confirm or learn by touching it.

But touching her had filled him with the same sense of liberation as completing a task.

“I really do want to know more.”

This answer came from inside him, but he still had to touch it to learn more about it.

His motivation itself seemed clear enough.

“Something only I can do.”

She may have only thought she was giving him some simple advice. A shrine maiden would also be consulted through ''ema'' and prayers. She may have only given him a boilerplate response.

But if those words hit the mark, they could still change something.

“——————”

Katagiri destroyed the bathwater.

He then worked at using the steam to create a different internal answer.

“A diagram of this morning’s attack.”

The density of the steam created a clear image of the pool where Katagiri had been and all the way to the gods of war making their charge on the first ship.

It was scaled for viewing from his position lying back in the bath. It was also compressed in each direction, but the front to back compression was especially large. The steam images clearly extended into the distance like a row of ''kakiwari'' backdrops in Kabuki.

Some parts of the festival were a little poorly made, but he would be able to make a better version using the ship’s external observation data.

Also…

“Begin.”

With that, the steam began to move. The floating smoke accurately represented the movements of the gods of war and the opposing movements of Fukushima and Kiyomasa.

…''Their battles are never normal.

Humans had defeated gods of war.

Gods of war were meant to be used against opponents too powerful for humans or to utterly rout a human force.

The beings meant to be denied by gods of war had instead denied the gods of war by force.

At least two of his companions could be described in such unbelievable terms.

In fact, almost all of the Ten Spears were at that level.

And yet…

“…Fukushima-san and Kiyomasa-san weren’t satisfied, were they?”

Not even he fully understood how Katou Danzou’s attack had worked. At some points his perception had not matched what was really happening and at other times it had. Without a tactical point of view or an expert opinion on spells, he could not even tell whether or not he was fooling himself here.

But as the replayed battle reached its conclusion, Fukushima was weeping and Kiyomasa was injured.

…''They poured everything they had into what they could do there, but ''we still lost.

That brought a thought to Katagiri’s mind.

“I need to do everything I can.”

His Hundred Crest Land Survey was a spell for replay analysis and information transmission.

But there had to be lots of things he could do with that. And…

“Will the things I can do be enough to support everyone?”

He had to phrase it as a question because he was uncertain.

However, he had no one to ask and no one to give him an answer. So…

“Right.”

The steam gathered together and once more created an image of her.

That girl showed him the way to solving his usual problems.

…''If I could speak with her…

He wanted to tell her he had started giving these things some thought and doing what he could.

It might be too late now that his companions had lost and he did not know if this was the right answer, but…

“I’ve started,” he said to the smiling girl made of bathwater. “Huh?”

But then he realized the image was different from earlier.

Katagiri realized the breast size was different.

…''Huh? This puts her on the same level as Kiyomasa-san or Nagayasu-san…

''What am I doing?'' he thought.

This was rude to everyone involved. He could not be doing this.

So he worked to change the image.

“…Nh?”

Now she was the same size as Fukushima.

That was not good either.

He was apparently hesitant to create the correct answer, so he was drawing on other nearby memories.

He could not keep doing this, so…

…''W-was it about halfway in between…?

He tried it.

It worked well.

''Okay,'' he told himself with a nod as he reached out toward the bathwater creation.

“…No!”

''This isn’t why I drew out the correct answer.

…''Then why did I?

To enjoy looking at her? That seemed wrong somehow too. No, if he had drawn out the correct answer in order to convey his thoughts, there was only one way to describe it:

“Faith…”

''Yes, this is faith.

''That’s a good excuse.

''No, I can’t call it an excuse. This is my faith. Yes, that’s what it is.

''And it’s a proper faith. There are those pedophiles who call themselves life worshipers, but this is completely different.

…''After all, my religion believes in getting advice from lewd and busty shrine maidens!

“Wait, no…!!”

He was conflicted.

''That isn’t right at all. Lewd and busty have nothing to do with my faith.

''Yes, I’m just worshiping an individual. That’s all it has to be.

''Okay,'' he told himself with a nod as he reached out toward the bathwater creation.

“…I mustn’t touch the target of my faith!!”

Even the Catholics got in arguments over whether or not you could kiss a cross. Some factions used the kiss as a sign of affection, but that led some of them to take that sign further to show just how deep their affection was. They would stick it in their mouth and suck on it. There were far too many cases of people taking it way too far and needing a trip to a medical facility.

''Crosses are dangerous, but water should be fine.

''No, wait.

''That’s not the point.'' He waved his hand, but then his feet slipped.

“Hwoh.”

His upper body sank into the water.

''Oh, no,'' he thought as he quickly tensed his legs.

…''Nh!

His long, wet hair felt heavy as he formed a bridge with his legs a bit higher up.

And just then…

“Katagiri-sama? I hate to do this two days in a row, but we just finished our recovery interview. It would be great if we could take a bath now.”

Kiyomasa and Fukushima opened the door to the bath.

Kiyomasa saw it while pulling on Fukushima’s hand.

She had opened the door to the bath. It was the officer’s bath, but on this ship, that effectively made it exclusive to the Ten Spears.

It was always at the top of the list of places the warriors wanted to see, but…

“…”

She saw something on the tiled edge of the bath.

Katagiri was naked, his legs were spread toward them, and he was leaning back into the bath.

It was an impressive bridge.

Kiyomasa slammed the door shut.

“Wh-what was that for, Kiyo-dono!?”

Kiyomasa answered Fukushima’s question with a smile and a shake of the head.

“He should not be doing that.”

“Eh? D-doing what?”

“He should not be doing that even if he has a good reason, but he especially should not if he does not have a good reason.”

“What are thou talking about? Thou need to tell me if you want me to understand.”

“Good point…” Kiyomasa placed a hand on her chin. “To put it delicately…”

She could not exactly say he had his legs spread while he performed a bridge and thrust himself toward the sky. The thought alone was making her blush. However…

…''He is a boy, after all.

They might mess around like that when they were under a lot of stress.

But that pointed to a certain fact.

…''Something unpleasant must have happened.

It may have been something today or it may have been something from earlier. They had just had their exams, so it was not too surprising that a teenage boy might be acting oddly.

He was stressed and he had a lot on his mind.

How did you describe a situation like that? After seeing that scene, Kiyomasa blushed and could not look Fukushima in the eye as she answered.

“Katagiri-sama is feeling down…”

''Huh?'' thought Fukushima with a tilt of her head.

Kiyomasa was blushing and had tightly closed her mouth. She seemed to have some tears in the corners of her eyes above the flushed cheeks. However…

…''Katagiri-dono is feeling down?

''What does that mean?'' wondered Fukushima.

Today, she and Kiyomasa had sort of won and sort of lost.

So it was them that should be feeling down, not Katagiri.

…''So why Katagiri-dono?

However, one look at Kiyomasa told her the other girl would not be saying it again.

So Fukushima thought about it. Could she have misheard? Or had a foreigner like Kiyomasa misspoken?

But what had she meant to say? Fukushima tried to think of a similar phrase.

“I see.”

Given the location – the bath – Fukushima figured it out. And out of concern for Kiyomasa, she decided to continue while using the term the other girl had used.

“So when thou said Katagiri-dono was ''feeling down'', you meant ''feeling himself down below''?”

''Eh?'' thought Kiyomasa.

Something seemed off about the way Fukushima said that.

But a Far Easterner like Fukushima would know the language better than her. So…

“Y-yes. Testament, Katagiri-sama was feeling down. While alone in the bath.”

“Alone in the bath!?” Fukushima raised her voice, but then gasped. “No, that might be most convenient for a boy.”

“Does being alone in the bath help when feeling down?”

“Indeed. Inside his room, he could receive an emergency call that forces him to stop before he is finished.”

''That’s true,'' thought Kiyomasa.

“A rude call while feeling down alone in your room would be distracting…”

“Yes, and there would be little point in ''feeling down'' while distracted… Oh, not that I am the type to, um, feel down. I am only guessing.”

Kiyomasa laughed at what Fukushima said.

“You say that, Fukushima-sama, but aren’t you the type to feel down in secret?”

“In secret?”

“Testament. In secret.”

Fukushima gave her a shocked look.

“Well, um, isn’t it usually something done in secret?”

“Hm? Well, I suppose it is largely a mental thing.”

“True. There is, um, a largely mental aspect to it.”

“Testament,” agreed Kiyomasa.

Spiritual topics were her specialty, so she said more in order to cheer up Fukushima.

“Fukushima-sama, I know you can’t control when you feel down, but if it is ever too much to bear, I might be able to help.”

“Are thou…sure that would be the best solution…?”

“Yes, I would love to help out.”

“Thou would love to!?”

Then the door to the changing room opened and a skinny figure with six black wings stepped in.

“Huh? Kiyo-chan, Fuku-chan, I thought you were injured.”

It was Wakisaka, #5 of the Ten Spears.

Wakisaka saw Kiyomasa and Fukushima turn back to give her a shushing gesture.

…''Oh?

She tilted her head in confusion, so Kiyomasa explained.

“Katagiri-sama is feeling down inside there.”

''Eh?'' thought Wakisaka as she stopped removing her summer uniform.

“…Is that supposed to be a euphemism? Surely there’s a better way of putting that.”

“But I feel bad for Katagiri-sama.”

“Yeah, you don’t want to be seen doing that. Then again, it’s his own fault for doing it here.”

Wakisaka decided to handle this as calmly as possible.

Now it was Fukushima’s turn to tilt her head.

“Wakisaka-dono. …Which way did thou mean that?”

…''Which way!?

She had no idea what that meant. But it implied she had to choose between a number of options.

What choice was there to make about Katagiri’s biological reaction?

''Oh, I get it,'' she realized.

“If you’re asking if we should allow this or not, I guess I’d go with not.”

Kiyomasa was flabbergasted.

Wakisaka and her sister Yoshiaki always seemed somewhat strict. She had known them for a long time, but that strictness tended to be directed toward each other. However…

“Wakisaka-sama. …Isn’t it a little strict to not allow him to feel down?”

“Well, um, wouldn’t you normally kick someone out for doing that? It’s a definite red card.”

…''She’s that strict…!?

Just as Kiyomasa thought that, a gold-winged figure entered after Wakisaka.

It was Yoshiaki. She loosened the collar of her uniform as she spoke.

“Fukushima, I’ve finished the arrangements for Ichinotani, so…huh? What are you three doing?”

“W-well.” Kiyomasa could not hide how shaken she was. “Katagiri-sama is feeling down inside, but Wakisaka-sama said he should be kicked out for it.”

A question mark formed in Yoshiaki’s mind.

…''Something weird is happening again.

But she more or less understood. Most likely, Kiyomasa was correct about the current situation. Probably, anyway.

Katagiri was feeling down for once. She thought that was a good thing for them all.

But just like her, Wakisaka could be strict with others. Looking at it one way, feeling down on the battlefield could be dangerous.

''This is so silly,'' she thought as she took Kiyomasa’s side.

“This sounds like a pain, so here’s a solution for Katagiri feeling down: How about someone give him some advice or help him out?”

''I should have known Yoshiaki-sama would know what to do,'' thought Kiyomasa.

“Th-that’s right. Since Katagiri-sama is feeling down, he could probably use some advice.”

“Advice…!?”

Fukushima stared at her in shock.

“Thou want to give him advice!?”

“Yes, I do.”

“S-such as?”

Was that question really worth leaning forward for? But Yoshiaki nodded and answered it.

“Katagiri is a boy, so he’d probably love some advice from a girl.”

“True…”

“Testament.” Wakisaka nodded. “That’s kind of embarrassing, but that would probably be best for Kacky.”

But she then brought a hand to her chin and asked Yoshiaki a question.

“But what kind of advice?”

“Angie, if a boy is feeling down, wouldn’t he be worried about how to make a comeback?”

“…You mean how to stand back up again?”

“Wakisaka-dono! That is far too blunt…!”

“No,” said Kiyomasa. “We need to make sure he can stand up again and again.”

“…Kiyo-chan, what if Kacky dies?”

“Eh?”

Kiyomasa fell silent because she had not considered that. So…

“W-we can all help out to make sure that doesn’t happen…”

“Kiyo-dono…help out how?”

“Well, um…”

''He probably wouldn’t like it, but still,'' she thought as she gave her answer.

“We listen to what he has to say, give him some hands-on guidance, straighten him out, and help him grow big and strong,” she said. “We all need to share responsibility here.”

“I’m pretty sure Kacky would be the only one taking responsibility after that.”

“What are you talking about, Angie?” asked Yoshiaki. “We already have that kind of bond.”

“True. Only together do we form the one and only Ten Spears.”

“Thinking about it now, that catchphrase puts a lot of weight on our shoulders…” said Fukushima.

Then they heard a knock on the door to the bath.

“W-wait! Why are all of you here now!? Didn’t I tell you stop being so lax with the bath order!?”

It was Katagiri. Everyone exchanged a glance before answering.

“…If you’re ever having trouble, you can confide in us.”

“I haven’t told you anything yet and you’re already spreading weird rumors about me!” he shouted. “Anyway, I’ve figured out some things about Hexagone Française’s tactics, so meet me in the briefing room later!”

<noinclude>
{{HorizonNavbar
| [[Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 48|Chapter 48]]
| [[Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 50|Chapter 50]]
}}
</noinclude>

Horizon:Kimitoasamade 3B Chapter 13

2017-08-31T21:34:57Z

86.52.26.6: I haven't seen century capitalized before, and a search through the latest few translated volumes showed consistent use of small c. A different error also fixed.

==Final Chapter: Those who Look Up at the Normal World==
[[Image:Horizon_Kimi3B_255.jpg|thumb]]
''All of a sudden

''I found I was jealous

''Of the friends who had gone on ahead

'''Point Allocation (What I Want)

“Ha ha,” laughed a man high in the night.

He was above a derrick mast on Takao.

The man, Almirante, sat in the seat of a small flying boat and he was laughing with a sign frame next to him.

“So after having you clean up the grounds, she healed you and let you leave? Sounds like a fun tour of the Asama Shrine, Marine.”

“This wasn’t some sports match… Oh, I broke my right collarbone. Will I get injury pay for that?”

“The ranks are related to the jobs we’re allotted, so you’ve got a decent argument. I’ll arrange it with the guild.”

Almirante viewed the nightscape of Musashi as the night wind washed over him. And he leaned back in his seat.

“If anything happened, I was thinking of picking you up like old times.”

“I am capable of some change, you know?” said Marine. “Then again, now I’m Rank 3.”

“So Zwei Fräulein is Rank 2. And that might change again pretty soon.”

“…Are you saying they will defeat Wild Kamelie?”

“You intended to defeat her too, didn’t you?”

After a while, she replied with a “judge”. And…

“Almirante, why didn’t you ever demand a rematch with them?”

“…Listen, Marine.”

“What is it?”

“When you get older, you find you’re capable of doing a lot of things separate from experience.”

Such as…

“You can say you’re the strongest and not really care even if you lose.”

He laughed after that.

“Almirante…”

There was clear annoyance in Marine’s voice, but he only quieted his laughter a bit.

“Ha ha. It’s all about experience. But, Marine, you can’t trust yourself in anything that doesn’t come from experience. …Neither can Zwei Fräulein.”

“Can you gain confidence from something other than experience?”

“Confidence means trusting in yourself. And if you can’t do that, then you rely on experience.”

Listen.

“Skill is necessary. But in the end, trusting in yourself means to ignore that and take the plunge at some point. Oh, and this is a lecture.”

“Do you think Zwei Fräulein has that?”

“That’s what Technohexen are,” said Almirante while erasing the smile from his face. “They were driven from their homes, had their families hunted, lost all their rights, and even had the law turn on them. The Technohexen hunts born from the inquisition reach their peak in the 15th century. Do you know what that means?”

“…For Technohexen, their defeat is predetermined?”

“They started here after losing everything. So if there are some idiots that decide to aim higher from that situation, then I’m sure they’ll just keep gaining more experience and confidence.”

But…

“The same can be said of their predecessor, Wild Kamelie.”

“Then I…”

“With Tres España, the development race, and me, you had your share of issues. Other things kept forcing more and more defeat onto you.”

Almirante moved the flying boat as he spoke. He had it float up and enter a descending route.

And he said more to Marine.

“But you’ve finally earned a defeat all your own.”

“——————”

“…Marine, go get something to eat. Orange’s place should be open. I know you haven’t had our home cuisine in a while, but at this point, we should call it foreign cuisine. Look at it like that as you start eating it again. After all…from now on, you’re starting with what you’ve lost.”

Now.

“I’ll be by to pick you up, so open a window. Hop onto the luggage space like you failed to do out the ship’s window way back when. Nowadays, I’m sure you can pull it off.”

Naito sat on the stairs in front of the main shrine and looked at her left hand.

It was wrapped with a bandage woven with Shinto spell charms, so it looked like her hand had grown a few sizes.

“Now I’ve done it…”

“That’s not the one you use to play, so it’s not that bad.”

That response came from Naruze who was next to the stairs pulling guitar cases from the pile of instruments, opening them, and checking on the contents.

“I broke my collarbone and dislocated the shoulder, so I won’t be able to hold an instrument for a while. I probably won’t be able to practice until after the Spring School Festival begins.”

“We’ll have to practice the singing and stage movements until then.”

“Asama said she would be purifying us and doing an official healing, but how fancy is that gonna be?”

She thought it was weird for Technohexen to rely on Shinto, but…

“An official healing by the Asama Shrine will be stronger than anything we could do. I want to be healed in time for the Gagaku Festival, so we should probably do as Asama-chi says.”

Naito thought as she said that.

…''It might be good to have this chance to let ourselves cool down.

A lot had happened recently and she had both hesitated and overheated.

But until they could actually practice…

“Maybe we should calm down some.”

“I doubt we’ll have the chance. Not with Wild Kamelie out there. …She’s sure to want a match during the Spring School Festival.”

“Really?”

“The tester application date happens to fall on the first day.”

“Wow.” Naito spread her mouth horizontally. “If we get injured there, we’ll be in real trouble for the Gagaku Festival.”

“There’s always next year.”

It was scary how Naruze could smile like that.

“Are you assuming we’re going to get injured in that match?”

“No. But it might happen if we’re unlucky. And I’m not giving up on the Gagaku Festival. I intend to perform and outdo everyone else there.”

Naito glanced over at Naruze’s smile.

…''Yes.

Why was it? She realized something when looking at Naruze. Not only was the girl excited, but…

“Ga-chan, have you gained more confidence?”

“Who knows. I do know I would’ve gotten pretty down if we’d lost,” she said. “But I am happy to know we can reach for greater heights.”

“…Can we?”

“We can. If we’re together we can. I think I can believe that now.”

She seemed to be asking “how about you?”, so Naito smiled a little.

“That’s right.”

She held her right hand forward and descended the steps.

They faced each other and lightly swung their right hands toward each other.

“After all, we are Zwei Fräulein.”

They did not need any titles such as “dragon slayer”.

They were Zwei Fräulein.

“Judge.”

Naito and Naruze bumped their right fists together.

The solid sound rang through the shrine grounds.

Asama went out to call for Naito and Naruze.

They had prepared a quick celebration party in Asama’s room of the Asama Shrine’s main building.

The cooking was complete, so she had planned on calling them in, and purifying them in the spring since they had to change clothes anyway, but…

“Naito? Naruze? You’ve checked out the instruments now, right? So if you’re going to be purified…”

She saw the two of them curled up and facing each other.

“…Wh-what are you two doing?”

After asking, she realized they were both holding their left shoulder or left arm.

“Ga-chan, th-that touch vibrated pretty painfully through us, didn’t it?”

“Y-yes. It really got my shoulder. It’s still too soon to get carried away.”

Asama did not really understand, but they had apparently screwed up somehow.

But then they got up and looked to her.

“Hey, Asama. Once we take a break and get something to eat and drink…do you want to hear our new song for the Gagaku Festival?”

Asama thought while nodding at Naruze’s question and expression.

…''She looks really refreshed.

Asama had her own things to think about and had spent her days doing that, but those two were likely the same.

Kimi and Mitotsudaira walked up behind her.

Kimi was wearing an apron after helping out and she smiled a little when she saw that pair.

“Oh, they seem to be doing well. But, you two? Based on what I saw today, are you still missing a new song for the Gagaku Festival?”

“Since we’re injured and can’t practice, this might be our chance to write it,” said Naito as she looked up into the sky.

''Oh,'' thought Asama.

“How do you write songs?”

She was curious how other people did what they were about to do.

Naito smiled as she responded to the question.

“We generally do it while chatting away. I hope we can continue to exchange information and methods like this.”

“That’s right,” said Naruze with a nod.

That girl could be more conservative, so that meant she was allowing them to intervene in her sensibilities. Asama found that somewhat surprising, but…

…''No, this is probably just one of the “usual” things that Naruze has.

Before, those two had referred to her as one of their own.

That must not have been a temporary thing.

Naruze once more used that phrase.

“We consider each other one of our own, so I’d like to discuss what we’re doing for the Gagaku Festival, how we show off our songs, and plenty of other things too. But,” she said, “those discussions are probably going to be more positive now, so…I’m glad we won. Now we can look a little higher from now on.”

Asama thought about the phrase “look a little higher”.

…''Is she saying she wants to keep doing that forever?

With that question in her heart, Asama asked the two of them a question. If they were going to keep looking higher…

“Is that the kind of ‘usual’ you two want?”

Asama saw Naito nod in response.

“We have wings and we can fly, so moving higher is really important.”

That meant they had made up their minds.

With this battle, they had taken at least one step forward in their idea of the “usual”.

Asama looked to the two Technohexen.

Naito spread her wings to see how her body was doing, but her six wings were not harmed. To prove it, she gave a light flap.

“We’ll probably have a fight with a pretty major opponent after a short break, but you don’t have to worry about us. Even if we’re beaten up and looking down, we’ll be flying again before you know it.”

“Hee hee. You say that, Margot, but I tend to get down and stay down when I lose, so you’ll have to pull me back up if that happens. But…what about you, Asama? Can you look higher?”

“Good question…”

Asama thought about it. As far as Musashi’s Shinto was concerned, the only person higher than her was her father.

But if she did not focus on that kind of rank and hierarchy…

…''If I’m changing in a good way and moving “higher” day by day…

''Naito and Naruze moved out ahead of me,'' she realized before answering.

“Yes. …I hope I too can look higher in my own way.”

Everyone but Kimi opened their mouth at that.

“Ohh…”

“Wh-what was that for!?”

“Heh heh. You’ve been viewing each other through a certain framework without realizing it.” Kimi removed her apron with a smile. “And festivals are best for breaking free of that kind of framework. You expect to see surprising sides of people there.”

“Then if I work at it and surprise some people, I win, right?”

“Heh heh. …Who is it you want to surprise?”

“Eh?”

Asama immediately thought of him.

He had guided her to start this band, so would he be surprised to see her on the stage? Or would that be exactly what he expected?

…''The hurdle is a lot higher if I want to surprise him…

He was an entertainer. It would take a lot to surprise him.

''But,'' she thought. ''Naito and Naruze overcame one of their hurdles today.

Everyone else probably had something like this, too.

“Then,” said Asama without forgetting that enjoying this herself was the most important part. “I hope I can surprise everyone by surpassing their expectations.”

She hoped they could have fun and celebrate at the Gagaku Festival. They were about to undergo purification and hold a quick party, but that would be enough of a divergence from their “usual” life.

“What do you want to do?” Asama opened a sign frame and asked Naito and Naruze this question. “Do you want me to inform the rest of the girls in the class what happened?”

[[Image:Horizon_Kimi3B_268.jpg|thumb]]

“They’ll find out soon enough even if you don’t, so you might as well.”

Naruze averted her gaze, but she did not forbid it. Asama found that kind of amusing as she wrote up the divine mail.

And she asked another question that occurred to her.

“Should I inform Toori-kun as well?”

After all…

“He might bring a celebratory tart to school tomorrow.”

—'''We are unbeatable.

<noinclude>
{{HorizonNavbar
| [[Horizon:Kimitoasamade 3B Chapter 12|Chapter 12]]
| [[Horizon:Kimitoasamade 3B Afterword|Afterword]]
}}
</noinclude>

Horizon:Kimitoasamade 3B Chapter 12

2017-08-28T21:31:53Z

86.52.26.6: Corrected some typos.

==Chapter 12: Responders of the Twin Walls==
[[Image:Horizon_Kimi3B_207.jpg|thumb]]
''Do you know

''What happens

''When you face each other

''Even at a distance?

'''Point Allocation (Response)

The battle began with an intersection.

Marine suddenly leaped forward from a distance of seven meters.

She moved in a straight line, with no evasive action or feinting. She only lowered her body slightly, but she did use the thrusters on her shoulders and hips.

“Now then.”

So it only took an instant for four-winged Marine to jump in between the Technohexen.

Meanwhile, the Technohexen responded to the sudden approach.

“…!?”

They took defensive stances and started to move, but then they stopped.

After all, Marine did not do anything.

If she had moved in close and attacked, the defenders could have dealt with it. But because they could do that, Marine’s action filled Zwei Fräulein with confusion.

It only lasted a short moment, but all motion came to a stop.

And it was Marine who started back up a moment later.

With a burst from her thrusters, she blasted wind behind her.

That wind blew the gravel away and the air pressure reflected off the ground.

“Kh…!”

And the Zwei Fräulein pair was blasted to the front and back of the shrine grounds.

Naruze scraped along the gravel by the shrine building.

…''Why you…!

She had been blown away and slid a few meters after landing on her knees. She had kept herself from rolling, but it still pissed her off.

After all, that attack had not been made by the enemy’s weapon. She had only used the air explosion of her thrusters to throw them off balance.

She was angry that she had been brought to her knees before the enemy had even produced her weapon.

“Kh…!”

She groaned and flapped the main wings on her back.

She attempted to pursue Marine with her broom in hand, but…

“Hello.”

When she turned around, Marine was right there.

…''You’re kidding.

Hadn’t the blast that hit Naruze accelerated Marine in a jump to starboard?

But that estimation differed from reality.

And Marine pressed something cold against Naruze’s jaw.

It was the muzzle of a metal gun.

She had already squeezed the trigger and Naruze heard the automatic flintlock mechanism.

“…!”

Mitotsudaira heard three sounds and she saw two movements and one reaction.

The three sounds were all of weapons-fire.

The movements were of Naruze on the grounds’ aft end and Naito on the fore end being blasted further to aft and fore respectively.

And the reaction was…

“In the sky!?”

About three meters above the Asama Shrine, the top of the barrier emitted light.

That was the defense reaction of something striking it from below.

…''Was that…?

Kimi nodded next to her.

“Naito shot Naruze to knock her out of the way and save her, so Marine also shot Naito and Naito blocked with her broom. Marine’s bullet that should have hit Naruze instead hit the ceiling. …That’s my guess anyway.”

That was probably about it. But if Kimi was right, then Marine’s weapon was…

“A pair of ether pistols…”

That was exactly what Marine held in her hands. The large double-barrel handguns had a somewhat outdated design. The one she held in her right hand was still aimed behind her toward Naito. And…

“There.”

The one in her left hand was aimed at Naruze who had been shot out of the way by Naito.

Gunfire sounded once more.

Asama saw a sudden flap from some midair black wings.

The movement sent the wings back and to the right and that strike caused Naruze to spin in midair.

…''Ohh.

''I didn’t know they could move like that in the air,'' thought Asama while Naruze swung her arm in the middle of her spin.

She held a pen in her right hand and the leftward rotation of her body allowed it to draw a long arc.

The drawn line was directed toward Marine.

“…!”

And the coin Naruze fired from her left hand raced toward Marine.

Naruze saw an instantaneous explosion.

The smokeless and fireless blast was made of air.

Marine had accelerated.

The coin bullet Naruze had fired was deflected by the air explosion and scattered through the air. And Marine…

…''Where is she!?

Naruze instantly checked all four directions: left, right, up, and down.

She continued facing forward and used the edges of her vision to check. She pursued the enemy with the confirmation method used by the warriors and guards of every nation.

And she found the enemy.

She was in an unexpected location.

“Right in front of me!?”

She was not in any of the four directions.

Marine had not used the high-acceleration blast to move.

…''It was to rotate once on the spot…

Her midair rotation had become something of a side flip and she had even made sure to spread her legs for landing.

And as she flipped upside down, her left hand held a pistol.

“…”

The gunshot targeted Naruze’s legs.

Naruze’s reflexes chose defense.

But her action did not come from training. When the attack arrived, she lifted up her feet and embraced her body with her arms as if curling up.

And that movement saved her.

The first bullet passed below her lifted feet.

“…”

Marine’s gun had used the recoil to instantly lift itself up and it now targeted Naruze’s face.

But the next shot was blocked by the broom in Naruze’s right hand. She had pulled it in while embracing her body.

With a solid sound, her body was knocked back through the air. But she had used her broom as a shield and chosen what path she would be pushed along.

She had placed her raised knee against the broom’s upper surface to send herself backwards. And as she flew toward the main shrine, her right hand drew out several lines in the air.

Most of them were firing lines targeting Marine as her flip came to an end. Instead of a straight-line path, Naruze used curving lines to strike her enemy from above and below.

“How about that!?”

But Marine stopped.

She stopped while upside down in the air.

She must have realized she would have difficulty dodging and defending during her flip, so while upside down…

“…Asalto!!”

She charged toward Naruze.

Mitotsudaira saw an upside-down swordfight.

Not a gunfight.

Marine’s weapons were indeed a pair of guns, but…

…''Those are ship-top sword combat movements!

Ship-top sword combat.

The fighter primarily fought while turned to the side in order to fight atop poor footing such as ropes or narrow bridges. In Marine’s case, she kept her left side forward. She kept her forward left elbow lowered and her rear right hand higher than her head and lightly swaying to keep her overall balance.

The Hexagone Française equivalent was known as thrust sword fighting and it allowed you to rapidly advance using thrusts.

The rear hand acted as your rudder while you made repeated high-speed thrusts.

But there was one clear difference from that sort of sword fighting: these were guns.

When thrusting a gun forward like a sword, it had penetrative power with essentially limitless reach.

This was high-speed sword fighting that ignored the usual reach limitations.

That was how Marine moved.

While Naruze fell back and fired, Marine lunged forward with no concern for her enemy’s gunfire.

She was upside down.

Marine had probably trained for this kind of movement. Most likely…

“She has been trained for actual combat, hasn’t she!?”

Marine’s actions provided an eloquent answer.

She avoided Naruze’s extreme close-range gunfire as if stepping over it.

Meanwhile, this had to be Naruze’s first time fighting in these conditions. Mitotsudaira had received a knight’s combat training, but even she had never fought while upside-down.

Marine’s gunfire accurately targeted Naruze and the Technohexen responded.

“————!!”

She desperately deflected Marine’s attack with the broom shield she pushed at with her knee and she continued drawing her attack lines.

But the number of coins she fired was noticeably reduced from before.

She was being pushed back. In fact, her wings bent as she fell back toward the main shrine.

Naruze was in trouble.

So Mitotsudaira looked to Naito on the fore end.

…''Margot!

But when she looked in that direction, Mitotsudaira saw something unexpected.

Naito too was being fired on and kept from moving like she wanted.

“How!?”

It was the pistol.

Marine held her right arm behind her head to balance herself.

And the second pistol she held in that hand was firing on Naito.

While she gently swung the arm, the twin barrels tore into the ground at Naito’s feet.

…''Oh, no!

Naito silently expressed amazement at Marine’s aim.

She had not been firing on Naito. The woman’s bullets were hitting the gravel near her toes.

That seemed like nothing. It looked like she had missed.

But that was not the case. Marine was accomplishing one simple task.

…''She’s keeping me from taking a single step forward!

Winged species like them also had to move the wings on their back when they moved their body. Their wings were heavy and created air resistance, so a solid first step was important when moving.

Especially when she wanted to quickly pick up speed like she did here, she would be moving too slow if she raised her wings to flap them. She had to stay low as she stepped forward and then lightly pull back to more compactly lift her wings.

But her enemy had sealed off that initial step.

She could not move. Since she could not gain the initial speed she needed, the enemy could shoot her at any time. If she tried to move now, a shot would fly toward her body instead of the ground at her feet. So…

“Kh…”

She had to maintain her defensive stance and she was held in place.

…''I have to do something…!

As soon as she thought that, she saw that Naruze had been pushed all the way back to the main shrine.

The sounds of gunfire grew louder and Naruze was blown away.

“Ga-chan!”

Naito cried out as Naruze crashed into the shrine.

Marine moved.

She heard the Schwarz Hexen cry out behind her, and…

“…!”

She fired.

Straight ahead. The Weiss Hexen crashed back-first into the main shrine.

But she did not actually reach the shrine building’s structure. The barrier set up for the battle formed a wall in front of the building and the Technohexen merely slammed into that cage.

The Technohexen’s friends and the Asama Shrine Representative were watching them from the pile of instruments to the side of the stairs leading up to the main shrine. But they could not assist the Technohexen. So…

…''Here I go!

Marine moved forward.

She used repeated gunfire sword thrusts to hunt the Technohexen.

And in that instant, the Technohexen did something.

She kicked her shield broom toward Marine.

“…Eh!?”

Marine’s movements were very slightly thrown off by the Technohexen’s choice to make herself defenseless.

A moment later, the Technohexen fired a shot with her left arm.

It came from the shield’s previous location. The enemy’s accurate shot was launched toward Marine’s face from the space she had been avoiding targeting.

Asama saw Marine flip once more.

Her upside-down body was flipped right side up.

And she used that to avoid Naruze’s bullet.

But Asama saw something else too.

…''Eh?

Marine lightly twisted her body.

At first glance, she seemed to have carelessly lost her balance. However…

“Heh heh. She’s dodging that, isn’t she?”

What Kimi meant soon became apparent.

A beam of light from behind passed through the space Marine’s body had just occupied.

Naito had fired to take advantage of the disturbance in her movements. And…

…''Eh?

There was a reason Asama mentally voiced her confusion a second time.

The shot Marine had avoided hit the broom Naruze had kicked away.

With a solid sound, the white wing broom returned to Naruze’s hands. And it had rotated ninety degrees so it pointed to the side.

It looked a lot like an acrobatic stunt, but…

…''Was it a coincidence?

No. After all, Naito had called out to Naruze beforehand.

That had not said what she would be doing. However…

“That cry let Naruze accept that Naito would do something about it,” said Kimi. “So Naruze’s duty was to create an opening for Naito to act. And so they both played their role.”

A moment later, Naruze activated her broom’s thruster full blast and flew to port.

On the fore end, Naito also held her broom to her side and accelerated to port.

They would meet up on the port edge of the barrier.

“This is it…”

Asama thought the rest of her comment: ''Zwei Fräulein can regroup.

But a moment later, Asama saw something else.

A bit toward the main shrine end of center, the gravel was blasted into the air like a surging wave.

That was proof that Marine had launched herself at high speed.

Naruze saw something other than Margot in front of her.

She still had another four meters to go before regrouping with Margot.

But a four-winged figure with thrusters equipped had cut her off. And…

…''A gun!

Naruze raised her broom to block the gunshot that rang out.

But that was not the only solid sound. There were two.

Margot had been deflected at the same time as her.

She had been shot downwards and Margot upwards.

Of course, a bullet was not enough to send their bodies and momentum flying. But to allow the incoming shock to leave them, Naruze had jumped forward and up while Margot had slid downwards.

They were still allowed a small exchange, but…

“Kh…”

She and Margot were unable to regroup and they were sent flying away while passing above and below Marine.

This time Naruze was on the fore end and Margot was on the aft end by the main shrine.

They had been split up.

Naito felt a cold sweat in her heart.

…''This is bad…

She was not certain, but she sensed a threat here.

If she let the feeling transform into panic, that threat would become a danger.

''But,'' she thought about the threat she sensed.

…''She’s keeping Ga-chan and me from working together!?

Eye contact.

Calling out just their partner’s name.

Whenever they used movements or sounds, the enemy would detect it and intervene.

The reason why was obvious.

Naito formed the words as she fell back and caught Marine’s gunfire on her broom.

“You’re a battlefield warrior…”

“Marine” was an accurate description of the woman.

“Your equipment is meant for combat between and atop ships, but since so very few people can use that equipment, your training would focus on fighting against superior numbers. So you know how to detect the cues the enemy uses to work together when they outnumber you.”

“Judge. …Split up the enemy and then focus your attention on one at a time, starting with the most easily managed. That is the standard tactic.”

She was far more experienced. That was all it was.

…''It really pisses me off…!

Back at the Blue Thunder, Naito had realized that titles did not matter and so she had wanted the challenge.

She had cast aside her doubt to reach for this higher level, but she was realizing now that it really was on a higher level.

She and Naruze had been split up when faced with the undeniable skill brought by experience.

“Margot!”

And then she realized the gunfire was coming.

Marine had accelerated while making a straight-line jab with her pistol.

Naruze was held in place by Marine’s backwards gunfire.

The enemy had altered the previous setup.

Not only was she focusing on Margot this time, but instead of splitting them up between fore and aft, they were now split up between opposite corners of the barrier: the starboard fore and the port aft.

…''This is not good!

Margot was being driven back into the corner.

If that happened, she would be unable to escape to the side like Naruze had before. She would simply be cornered and fired on.

Naruze sensed further danger because Margot’s attack spells generally used her broom as a cannon.

She could not attack while using her broom as a shield, so she would only continue to be attacked.

And currently, the number of gunshots accurately confirmed Naruze’s fears.

The one, two, three of the firing hammer striking was cornering her precious partner.

But she too had bullets aimed at her feet and…

“…My face too!?”

This was different from when it was Margot. To keep her from focusing on the gunfire at her feet, some of the bullets flew toward her face and throat. And if she carelessly fell back, she too would be driven into the corner.

But she could clearly hear the gunshots. And…

“A minute and a half has passed.”

She clearly heard Asama’s dignified voice.

The time limit was three minutes.

Marine only had to keep them in these positions for a minute and a half.

But if that happened…

…''We can’t reach anything!

As soon as Naruze thought that, Marine took a step forward. Naruze saw it as an attempt to fully drive Margot into the corner.

Mitotsudaira did not know why Naruze had moved forward.

Marine had not moved.

She had thrust a bullet toward Naito while lightly crisscrossing her legs on the gravel and then returning them.

The movement of her sideways-turned body had simply made a false step and returned to her original stance.

And yet Naruze had moved forward. Kimi explained:

“That was a feint…but that might be exactly why Naruze acted.”

However, her action had been careless.

She had been unable to gain solid footing due to the gunfire at her feet, so she had tried to use her broom’s thrust to make a forced leap. But…

“Naruze!”

Before Mitotsudaira could cry out, Marine had used her acceleration as a weapon.

She seemed to collapse backwards, but she opened her back thrusters toward Naruze.

However, she was a fair distance away from Naruze. No matter how powerful her acceleration was, she could not directly use the air explosion as a weapon.

But she had something else to act as a weapon: the gravel covering the ground.

The 3cm stones were launched backwards like a scattershot and they struck Naruze.

“…!!”

And that was not all.

Hit by the stones, Naruze lost her balance and fell. That was when Marine launched an attack behind her.

It hit Naruze’s left shoulder.

The Asama Shrine’s censorship replaced the attack power with a relatively harmless concussive blow and Naruze’s body flipped upside down.

She had been hit.

Marine’s attack could be seen as a form of sharpshooting.

And Mitotsudaira judged the series of events on reflex.

…''Well done!

This was their friends’ enemy, but her actions were worthy of that praise.

She was worried about Naruze who had been flipped upside down and slammed into the port side barrier wall, but she could not interfere.

Asama was acting as the referee and she too only watched the overall progress with her eyebrows raised. But Hanami also had her eyebrows raised while standing next to Asama’s face.

She must have been quite angry.

Regardless, the situation was not looking good for Naito and Naruze.

“Heh heh. That Marine woman isn’t half bad.”

“That’s true,” agreed Mitotsudaira. “When she intervened and prevented Naito and Naruze from regrouping earlier, she used her accelerating flap to launch the gravel to starboard. And then while she was driving Naito into the starboard fore corner, she hit Naruze with the gravel piled up from the previous blast. …I’m guessing the first blast was a test to see how much gravel she could launch.”

She would test out ways to take elements of the battlefield, build them into her tactics, and then use them.

That was only possible for someone with proper training and actual combat experience.

There was no point in asking why someone like that had come to Musashi. Musashi was a gathering place for people with interesting pasts.

And Mitotsudaira had a thought about what Marine was wearing:

…''I’m pretty sure she’s from Tres España, but…

Before, she had mentioned her homeland’s decline and seeing herself in the same light.

What had that meant?

The instant the Weiss Hexen was hit, Marine felt immense relief.

…''I’ve moved within a step of victory.

With that thought, she continued firing on the Schwarz Hexen while listening to the Asama Shrine Representative voice her approach to victory from outside the barrier.

“10.”

That number was the ten count used to see whether or not a collapsed combatant could continue the fight.

“9.”

If the ten count reached the end here, it would mean one of Zwei Fräulein was KO’d and Marine would be declared the winner.

“8.”

''Don’t stand back up,'' begged Marine.

She wanted this win so she could confirm her, Almirante’s, and the others’ positions.

“7.”

Yes.

She was one of the Tres Españans in Musashi. And she wanted that position to remain flat.

“6.”

The Testament said Tres España would decline.

While they would domestically work to avoid that decline, the other nations would bind them in order to keep that powerful nation from growing too strong.

“5.”

The Reconquista had only ended fairly recently, so it was a young nation. They leaned Catholic for the authority that brought and they had begun trade with the New World, but that led to an obsession with blood purity and the nation was being hollowed out.

And it was said the finishing blow would be their greatest loss in the Armada Battle against England. The Student Council was working to make sure that did not end as a simple loss, but…

…''They can’t wipe clean their image of being a nation destined to decline.

“4.”

After coming to Musashi, Marine had found her former commander Almirante and the others here, so she had intended to enjoy herself.

But the year before, when those two Technohexen had just entered high school, Almirante had fought them to test them out, but he had suffered an entirely unexpected defeat.

Those two had won and lost plenty of times since, but they had steadily risen in the ranks of the delivery business.

“3.”

Almirante had never asked for a rematch.

He had stuck with his loss.

She could not ask him if he was really okay with that because it had to do with his individual feelings.

But Marine felt like she and Almirante had been driven out of Tres España.

And if even their homeland lost…

“2.”

Marine thought to herself.

…''How long am I going to keep losing?

Would she never have a time where nothing around her was facing defeat?

“1.”

She would win.

She would win here and wipe clean Almirante’s loss.

She would restore her former commander’s good name and change her own destiny. And for that…

…''Please let me win!

But Marine realized something.

The number zero did not arrive.

“I knew it…”

Marine heard the scraping of the gravel behind her as someone stood up.

Without even looking back, she knew it was the Weiss Hexen who had dodged, fallen back, and recovered despite being hit by the gunfire.

And she knew how the girl had recovered from the impact so quickly. It went back to when those two had crossed paths earlier.

“Schwarz Hexen, did you pass her a reduction spell?”

While desperately defending in a corner of the barrier, the Schwarz Hexen looked her way.

“I won’t tell you!”

The corners of her mouth rose. But…

“Ga-chan!”

With that, she took a ridiculous action.

“Think for yourself!!”

The Schwarz Hexen yelled and moved forward.

…''What a stupid decision!

Marine fired a bullet at her.

It hit.

The sound of impact rang out and the Schwarz Hexen was nearly knocked backwards.

But the Technohexen’s feet slid along the gravel while she held her ground.

She had caught the bullet in her left hand.

Naito felt no pain.

She had been hit in the palm of her outstretched left hand.

The bullet provided impact damage, so it would not pierce her flesh. So…

…''A pain reduction spell.

That anesthetic spell was known as a Schwarz Hexen recovery spell.

It reduced the pain almost to zero in the affected area.

Of course, it did not eliminate the damage done and it did not hasten recovery.

And the worst part was how hard it was to move the body part properly with the feeling gone.

When used for healing, the absence of pain let you rest, but when used in battle…

“It lets you power through the damage you take…!”

She heard a dull sound from her left palm. She could not feel the back of her hand or the ulna.

She had apparently broken a few bones. She was pretty sure checking would tell her it was even worse than that, but she decided against it because it would put a damper on her excitement.

She simply moved forward.

But Marine was moving.

She adjusted her position to continue separating Naito and Naruze.

She moved her wings and moved quickly to create the same situation as before.

…''What do we do…!?

The enemy could read their cooperation.

Their cooperative techniques had been fostered in training, so they were all things that Marine had already seen with her superior experience.

What were they supposed to do?

As she wondered that and moved forward, she heard Asama’s voice.

“One minute left.”

Marine thought, ''Get through just one more minute and I win.

The Technohexen were already worn down.

The Weiss Hexen had been hit. The pain reduction would keep her from using anything past her left shoulder.

The Schwarz Hexen had intentionally taken the hit, but Marine doubted the girl could use her left hand.

The enemy no longer had use of their left arms.

They were both right-handed, so that would not prevent them from attacking.

However, the loss of their other arm had an important meaning when it came to Technohexen that used coin bullets.

…''It slows their loading time!

The Weiss Hexen in particular used her pen to fire. If she held her broom as a shield, she could not wield her pen.

If Marine continued firing, the Weiss Hexen would become no more than a shield and the risk would drop.

If she reduced the enemy’s attack frequency like that, she could get through the final minute.

She could endure, push forward, hold them in place, and win.

She could read the enemy’s attempts at cooperation. So…

…''I will win!

She would win and wipe clean their “loss”. She could sweep aside the continued losses that were pushed onto her by others.

She could push back all of those things forced onto her by her nation, the organization’s development race, and her position.

“…Pierce them!”

Marine fired to accomplish that.

Asama realized Marine’s accuracy had increased.

Her aim and positioning were more certain than before.

Some sort of hesitation had left her.

…''Incredible.

Marine currently had the advantage. Asama had thought she would grow somewhat careless once victory was within sight, but she instead continued firing and intensified her attacks.

Mitotsudaira groaned quietly deep in her throat.

“What are they going to do…?”

She meant Naito and Naruze.

The silver wolf raised her eyebrows slightly as she viewed the battlefield.

“When the enemy has the greater strength and is reading your cooperative tactics, the prudent course of action is to withdraw or fall back while waiting for reinforcements.”

And just as she questioned the current state of the battle, they heard a sudden sound.

It was the strumming of strings.

“…Eh?”

Asama looked back and saw Kimi holding an instrument.

It was one of the guitars that Naruze had chosen.

But Kim was not looking at Naruze. Her gaze was directed toward a Magie Figur.

Naruze had placed it in the air when she was checking over the instruments earlier. And she had told them what it contained.

…''Music?

It was the Technohexen’s new song. That was when it dawned on Asama.

The notes Kimi had played were the intro to the song displayed there. But…

“…Why do that?”

Asama looked to Kimi who looked up.

But not at Asama. At Naruze.

Their Weiss Hexen classmate was standing sideways and pressing her left shoulder against her broom shield.

But Naruze was moving. Her right hand held her pen as it lowered and made another small movement.

…''Is she operating something?

Just as Asama wondered that, a sudden sound came from the Magie Figur displaying the new song.

It was a light pop intro. Unlike the usual Technohexen songs, it could even be described as cute.

“Margot!” shouted Naruze. “Let’s do this…!”

Marine thought, ''Do what?

She could hear some music.

But it was not like the music that Zwei Fräulein would play while working or on stage.

…''It’s very light.

Technohexen songs were a form of European folklore. And they more strongly represented Eastern Europe. They were dark songs that rang through the forest and ended there.

But this was different. And…

“Eh…?”

Behind her, she heard the Weiss Hexen firing.

She knew what this meant without even looking back. The Weiss Hexen had given up on her shield and focused on attack.

''How reckless,'' thought Marine. ''Is this a desperate act because time is running out?

But just as she dodged the Weiss Hexen’s coin bullet, the Schwarz Hexen did something while using her broom as a shield.

She was not in a firing stance, but she still fired a coin bullet at Marine.

…''Huh!?

Did they have some Techno Magie they had kept hidden for use as a surprise attack?

…''If you had that, you should’ve used it earlier!

But that was not what this was.

The Schwarz Hexen had not fired on her.

After all, when she looked closely at the incoming coin bullet…

“That’s the one the Weiss Hexen just fired…”

What did that mean?

It took Marine a moment to understand.

“Did she fire back the Weiss Hexen’s coin bullet with the repulsion gravity she uses for acceleration…!?”

That was not all.

She gave a quick glance back and saw the Weiss Hexen in action.

She used a line drawn by her pen to catch the coin bullet she had launched and her partner had sent back.

“Here goes…!”

It bounced back and with even more speed than originally. Also…

“Ga-chan, let’s go for another!”

While the Weiss Hexen bounced it back, the Schwarz Hexen adjusted how she held the broom she had been using as a shield.

She used the gap in Marine’s firing to fire a shot of her own. Marine would normally have immediately dodged it, but she also had to worry about the one from the Weiss Hexen at the moment.

“…!”

Marine used her full body to take evasive action.

Mitotsudaira watched and listened to the situation.

She could hear music, gunfire, and the repetition of coins being bounced back.

And she was pretty sure she knew what was controlling that.

…''This is Naito and Naruze’s song…

Of course, the tempo and everything else was too slow when compared to their current movements. The lyrics had only just begun and, given the remaining time, the battle would end before the song even reached the halfway mark.

But the two of them were moving nonetheless.

They were moving according to the song. At least it looked that way to Mitotsudaira.

Why would they do this?

…''For cooperation.

And it was not a type of cooperation learned from combat training or everyday life.

It sounded like a light song, but it still had its foundation in their previous songs.

It was a Technohexen song where one would call out, the other would respond, and then they would sing together.

The familiar division of parts and melody began with the song they could hear and gradually built up speed on top of that.

They would not stop.

They moved in perfect unison.

They called out, responded, and sang together.

They fired, deflected, and fought together.

“Heh heh. What is that? They’re not even looking at their opponent,” said Kimi. “But that might be what makes them Zwei Fräulein.”

Naito and Naruze sang within their great speed.

They had long since left behind the original speed of the song. But Naito fired.

“The bed late at night is so hard and lonely. The accommodation of love approaches a crossroads.”

Their song was not voiced. She simply isolated her part of the lyrics and tossed them to her partner.

But as if to catch them, Naruze would bounce back the shot. And…

“I will sing the music of dawn until morning. Everyone calls that a dream.”

The coin bullet flew.

Several bullets were already flying back and forth between them.

So the two of them bounced back the incoming bullets all at once.

“Herein kommen.”

Naruze used her pen to catch the additional shot coming her way.

“Come on in and bring your heart.”

In response, Naito used a spell to deflect the shot coming her way.

“The wings of arrival. Eisen.”

And they sang.

Naruze thought, ''Never a dull moment around here.

…''Honestly!

It was Kimi. That girl was just so hard to deal with.

Just when Naruze had been trying to come up with a way out of this, Kimi had given her a hint.

That hint was the intro to their new song.

…''That’s right.

That was a form of cooperation separate from their training and everything else.

Their exchange of attacks could be done through an exchange of song.

So they simply had to take turns sending something to the other.

And if they could not afford to make the other one wait, it would be based in an impatient yearning that led to a speedy response.

Naruze wanted to stubbornly insist that it had simply come to her and that Kimi had not clued her in

And Naruze sang. Margot did as well.

“Herein kommen.”

The shock of the deflected and fired shots felt good in her right arm.

“Ring the bell and I’ll be right there.”

“A hurrying heart. Eisen.”

“Even if you feel like giving up, don’t hang your head.”

“Don’t decide everything on your own. Raise your hand and look to the sky.”

''That’s right,'' thought Naruze.

She was not alone.

“Black and gold wings.”

“White and black Gerade.”

“Twin skies and wings.”

“Morning and night can be bound together.”

She had a partner who would send back her shots. A partner who would take in her power and respond to it.

“Herein kommen.”

“The gift is a secret.”

''Yes,'' agreed Naruze. The lyrics were embarrassing, but this was her part.

So she said it.

“The feelings that mend our love. Eisen.”

It was indeed embarrassing, but then they sang together and recovered that feeling.

“Herein kommen.”

“The gift is for you.”

Margot responded.

“Let’s make our love with your Eisen.”

Asama watched the exchange of attacks and the lyrics scrolling by on the divine transmission.

Marine was pushing forward while also being pushed back.

Her strategy had been to separate the two Technohexen, but…

…''They’ve made their separation a natural thing.

Their words could reach each other even while separated.

They could call out and receive a response.

They could receive a call and respond to it.

As those two variants were played out at high speed, the anxiety of separation vanished from their tactics.

Marine had split them up and repeatedly fired on them, but…

“I have six wings. Together we have twelve.”

“The geometric numbers of the Technohexen.”

They took advantage of that and set up an exchange of bullets.

“My ''Auspuff'' is limited. Together we are unlimited.”

That was true enough.

“The limitless Magie Herrlich.”

Both of them had lost use of one arm, but they were not at a disadvantage.

“Geheimnis Sabbat.”

Their right hand seemed to take the place of the other’s left hand.

They both covered for the deficiencies in the other’s position and movements.

And Naruze looked to Naito.

“I am calling for you, Schwarz.”

Naito returned Naruze’s gaze.

“The gold wings of der Nacht.”

They both deflected a bullet at once.

“Östlich Licht.”

This time, Naito looked to Naruze.

“I am calling for you, Weiss.”

Naruze clearly nodded at the lyrics. And with a smile…

“The black wings of der Morgen.”

Their attacks coincided.

Instead of taking turns, they bounced back bullets at the exact same moment, producing a song of complete unison that made even the word “cooperation” meaningless.

“Herein kommen. Let us spread all our wings and sing our love, your Eisen.”

“Herein kommen. Let us send forth the twin wings and sing our love.”

They accelerated.

“Zwei Fräulein.”

Marine endured.

She was on the port side. The Schwarz Hexen was moving to port in order to assist the injured Weiss Hexen.

Marine accelerated toward them, changed direction, and blasted gravel. But…

…''They can fight back!?

The enemy was positioned at equal distances on either side of her.

But it was the opposite of before.

She had not split them up.

The enemy had her surrounded.

This tactic would normally be unthinkable because it would lead to friendly fire.

But the black and white Technohexen could reflect and guide their shots, so it was possible for them. And…

“This music…”

They sang in their hearts a sped-up version of the music she heard.

The song controlled them like an incantation, but it was not the kind of Technohexen song heard in Europe.

She did not recognize the song. And as it sped up…

…''What is this?

''I’m being swallowed up,'' she concluded.

The music swelled like a large crowd. Marine realized that the current had the pattern of an uncontrollably stormy sea and was meant to surround her and sink her. After all…

“They aren’t even looking at me anymore…!”

This was what it meant to swallow someone up.

They looked away from her, took her into themselves, and left her there.

From there, she would be digested and suddenly find she had been sunk down to defeat.

This was the same as before.

The things she could not control were pushing her toward defeat and driving her out. So…

“…!”

Marine moved toward victory.

There was a way. Specifically…

“Ten more seconds!” announced the Asama Shrine Representative.

Only ten seconds left.

“Ohh…!”

Marine used that time to accelerate all at once.

She charged into the center of the shrine grounds to escape from between her two opponents.

If she could escape them for ten seconds, she would win. But…

“—————”

The Technohexen were coming.

“9.”

The Asama Shrine Representative’s voice rang through the air.

Marine saw that the Technohexen had abandoned their previous exchange and were pursuing her with the acceleration of their brooms.

The white and black pair held their brooms with their right arms and maintained their position on either side of Marine.

But while they had changed position, they had not fired bullets yet. The entirety of their previous exchange had collided with the port side barrier, producing a loud and solid sound.

“8.”

Marine moved before the Technohexen could raise their brooms to fire or switch to their pen.

“7.”

She fired on the two of them.

She fired at the black one’s feet and the white one’s face. And with that…

…''I will win!

If they would pursue even when she dodged, she would have to fire. That was what this was. However…

“6.”

Marine saw that the white and black Technohexen did not use their brooms and guns or prepare their pen.

They instead directed their brooms toward her.

“5.”

The white and black intersected to avoid the bullets Marine had fired at their head or feet.

The black went up and the white down. The white flew fore and the black flew aft where the main shrine was.

Unlike their previous intersection, they were taking each other’s position. And…

“4.”

The Schwarz Hexen twisted her body in midair.

She made a half rotation to flip upside down.

Marine saw her produce a firing acceleration spell in her hand.

That was normally used as her broom’s gun barrel. When used on its own, she could not specify a direction and the bullet could fly in any direction.

It would be dangerous if she got her broom up with that.

So Marine fired.

And just then…

“3.”

The Schwarz Hexen fired several coin bullets while dodging below Marine’s bullet.

She fired directly from the acceleration spell in her hand.

Since she could not specify a direction, the coin bullets burst uncontrollably out of it.

Marine saw some of the silver color fly up and to the right and some of it fly down and to the left.

It was a failed attack.

It was obvious the girl had not had time to prepare her broom.

But Marine had to wonder why she had done this.

Was it simply a final desperate attempt as the timer ran out?

Or…

“2.”

Marine heard the Weiss Hexen’s voice from behind her.

“Herrlich!!”

That was the sign of a Technohexen completing her spell.

However, Marine had not heard the Weiss Hexen prepare her pen after flying behind her.

Marine’s shot should have kept her off balance. So…

…''It can’t be…

“1.”

Marine saw a white curve appear between her and the Schwarz Hexen.

It was a guideline.

But it was not alone. Countless tracks appeared like lines meant to represent the wind.

…''This…

She recognized it. At the beginning of the battle when she had driven the Weiss Hexen to the main shrine, that girl had drawn several of these lines. That had partially been because she had not had time to load any bullets and could not use them, but…

“Was it to guide me here!?”

It was for this final instant.

This spell created a surprise attack when Marine could not dodge in time.

And they had picked up all of the Schwarz Hexen’s stray shots.

…''!

Marine began her evasive action. She raised her thrusters.

“0.”

And she received a direct hit.

''It’s over,'' realized Asama as she opened the combat barrier.

No one inside remained standing.

Naruze and Naito had fallen to their knees and then sat down, facing each other.

“…Ha.”

With weak smiles, they raised their clenched right fists to reassure each other.

And Marine lay collapsed in the center of the shrine grounds.

She lay on her back despite how that could damage her wings.

“Kh…”

Her right hand covered her face as she wept.

She had had her own reasons for this battle and this was the result. Asama stepped inside and spoke.

“If you need anything, the Asama Shrine will help you out, so I look forward to working with you.”

The woman did not acknowledge her. But Naruze sighed, and…

“I’ll contact Almirante, okay?”

Marine still did not respond, but she did move.

She sat up, took a deep breath, and stood up.

She brushed the gravel off of her clothing and equipment.

“I am leaving,” she said weakly.

“No, you aren’t,” announced Asama.

Naito looked back at that.

“Are you going to heal her?”

“No.” Asama shook her head. “You made a mess of the shrine’s grounds. All three of you need to level out the gravel. And do it properly; you’re in the presence of a god. You can’t leave until that is done.”

Marine glared at her, but Asama had no idea what she had said wrong.

Asama clapped once and said one last thing.

“That concludes the battle.”

<noinclude>
{{HorizonNavbar
| [[Horizon:Kimitoasamade 3B Chapter 11|Chapter 11]]
| [[Horizon:Kimitoasamade 3B Chapter 13|Final Chapter]]
}}
</noinclude>

Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 47

2017-08-26T22:18:43Z

86.52.26.6: Small grammatical edit. Revert if I'm mistaken.

==Chapter 47: Debaters at the Water’s Edge==
[[Image:Horizon5B_617.jpg|thumb]]
''Hurrying up and down

''Tilting west and east

'''Point Allocation (Nature)

The sounds of water fell a great distance and spread out over a wide area.

It came from the water dropping off a valley waterfall and passing over a stony riverbed.

The current was weaker in the waterfall basin, but that led to another waterfall. As the riverbed rose, the river widened and the current quickened.

The rocks kept the current from being even, so the water murmured as it churned.

Those small sounds of spray were joined by voices.

“Here I go.”

Swimsuit-wearing Futayo swung Tonbo Spare around in front of the waterfall basin.

She tried a few times to position the angle so the basin was reflected in the blade, and…

“Bind…Tonbo Spare!”

“Understood.”

The basin was split.

Some fish had been hiding near the bottom after descending in preparation to climb the waterfall, so they desperately leaped into the air to avoid the attack. Adele and Mitotsudaira caught them while another two girls stored them.

“Heh heh. I have a live-box over here. And there was a hot spring over there, so Naomasa is setting up a girl’s bath.”

Those two were Kimi and Horizon who sat on a large riverside stone with their legs soaking in the water.

Nearby, Naomasa was checking out the sturdiness of a fence set up around a hot spring bath built from stones. Next to her, Asama had a sign frame open with a long bamboo spear sticking into the riverside rocks.

Mitotsudaira walked over from the waterfall basin while carrying fish in the summer uniform shirt she had removed.

“It looks like we’ll have enough for one per person.”

Mary was also carrying fish next to Mitotsudaira and she had some kind of spirit light around her.

Mary nodded toward that light a few times.

“It looks like we can still catch some more river fish. The water is teeming with life this year, so it looks like they will have a lot of fish making the journey upstream.”

Then she saw a few people who had their feet soaking in the live-box: Masazumi, Narumi, and Gin.

They were inspecting several sign frames.

“Date Vice Chancellor, Tachibana Wife… Which of these two reports do you think is true? One is from Hexagone Française and the other from M.H.R.R. I’m having a hard time deciding, so I could use your help.”

“Good question,” said Narumi as she looked at her own sign frame.

Date was a combat-oriented academy, so their former Vice Chancellor would be used to reading this kind of intelligence.

Narumi was comparing two texts that had been sent to her with Asama’s authorization. They were the original text taken from newspaper extra editions, so they were written in French and German.

They both provided an HQ report on the result of the battle fought that morning. However…

…''There’s quite a difference between the two nations’ reports.

Then Gin spoke up next to her.

“Hexagone Française’s announcement says two god of war aces sunk two of Hashiba’s advance ships and defeated two of the Ten Spears, doesn’t it?”

''She can read foreign languages too,'' realized Narumi. And…

…''Not that it’s a competition.

Narumi spoke before Gin could say anything more.

“And the M.H.R.R. one says they defeated two of Hexagone Française’s god of war aces and protected their advance ships.”

Gin realized something from the Date Vice Chancellor’s comment.

…''So she can read German too.

''I would expect nothing less from Date’s Vice Chancellor,'' she thought while honestly impressed.

She had no intention of turning it into a competition.

That girl was a former Vice Chancellor and Gin was a former 3rd Special Duty Officer. Their positions were on entirely different levels.

She could not hope to compete. Thus…

'''Tachibana Wife:''' “Master Muneshige, which do you think is better: a Vice Chancellor or a 3rd Special Duty Officer?”

'''Tachibana Husband:''' “Eh? Are you talking about yourself?”

'''Tachibana Wife:''' “It is a hypothetical question.”

'''Tachibana Husband:''' “Oh, I see. But I really don’t think you need to worry about this, Gin. I mean, you’re a former 3rd Special Duty Officer. That means you’re a normal student.”

'''Tachibana Wife:''' “Former?”

'''Tachibana Husband:''' “Only because I screwed up, though.”

'''Tachibana Wife:''' “…Then former is fine. Just fine.”

''That’s right,'' thought Gin. With the “former”, the position of 3rd Special Duty Officer no longer mattered. And the other girl was a former Vice Chancellor.

They were both normal students, so there was no need to worry about all that.

'''Tachibana Wife:''' “Master Muneshige, you always show me a new way to look at things.”

'''Tachibana Husband:''' “What do you mean by that?”

'''Tachibana Wife:''' “Judge. …You make sure I do not sully the Tachibana name. That is what I mean.”

Gin looked to the Date Vice Chancellor.

A smile naturally formed on her lips.

The other girl also seemed to be exchanging words over a limited divine chat. She seemed to be connected to the 2nd Special Duty Officer.

'''Unturning:''' “Hey, Kiyonari. Hypothetically, what would you do if I fought someone who had two prosthetic arms?”

'''Uqui:''' “You have prosthetic legs too, so you’re cooler.”

'''Unturning:''' “What if it wasn’t about the simple organic-to-inorganic ratio? What if it was about what’s on the inside?”

'''Uqui:''' “On the inside? Oh. you mean your organs! I do like things to be soft and juicy on the inside, but if you’re going to put anything in there, make sure it’s pointy and metal.”

'''Unturning:''' “Your values certainly are something else.”

Gin saw the other girl finish her conversation.

She did not know what that conversation had been about, but since the Date Vice Chancellor sighed quietly as the sign frame vanished, she must have received a satisfactory response.

Then that other girl looked to Gin and smiled.

The smile did not reach her eyes.

Oddly, the two of them spoke at the exact same moment.

“Well.”

They breathed in.

“Let’s try to get along.”

Gin said, “M.H.R.R.’s primary national trait is their reliability. So the odds are slim that anything in their report is an outright falsehood.”

Narumi replied, “But the M.H.R.R. Catholics are known for their ostentation with things like indulgences and for worshiping temporary objects in their idol worship. Plus, Hashiba used to be Mlasi. We can assume they would not hesitate to release information that gives them an advantage.”

And…

“Hexagone Française is the future ruler of Europe. They are currently fighting to determine what direction their nation will take. And yet they are preserving their forces. That means Hexagone Française has the advantage. That makes me doubt their report would contain any falsehoods.”

“I’m not so sure. The Logismoi Oplo left with Hexagone Française were of vainglory and pride. And the battlefield was within Hexagone Française. They would never let word get out if things had gone poorly for them.”

“Ho ho.”

Narumi placed a hand on her side and raised the corners of her lips.

Gin also placed a hand on her side and lifted the sides of her mouth.

“Ho ho…?”

They each reached for the other’s sign frame.

The first to ask a question was Narumi.

“What do you think this means, Tachibana Gin?”

“In the interest of fairness, how about we both answer at the same time?”

“Good idea,” agreed Narumi.

Then they both answered at once: “Both are false.”

With that conclusion, they relaxed their legs inside the live-box.

''That’s what I thought,'' agreed Masazumi.

She first leaned toward Gin and asked a question.

“What do you think M.H.R.R. and Hashiba accomplished?”

“They probably drove back the enemy gods of war. If they had destroyed them, they would have taken the pilots prisoner and Hexagone Française would be using international public opinion to pressure them. They would say a nation that does not return POWs is barbaric.”

“Then,” said Masazumi while turning toward Narumi. “What do you think Hexagone Française accomplished?”

“They did significant damage to two of Hashiba’s ironclad ships. They also managed to escape from two of the Ten Spears. And possibly injured them. …After all, Hashiba’s ironclad ships are hurrying toward Paris. If any of them take significant damage, they would have to be scuttled and abandoned while the others hurried on. So Hexagone Française can pass that off as ‘sinking’ them. …And defeating some of the Ten Spears would mean robbing M.H.R.R. of a few commanders, so M.H.R.R. would have stopped their invasion. Since they haven’t, we can assume that the Ten Spears were not truly ‘defeated’,” said Narumi. “Most likely, the supposedly-defeated Ten Spears will make an appearance and show off that they’re just fine either tonight or tomorrow.”

“Then what kind of fight do you think it was?”

“Good question,” said Gin. “M.H.R.R. was apparently holding a festival on their deck for the history recreation, but they would have been strictly monitoring their surroundings thanks to the attacks over the past few days. And if the Ten Spears ended up fighting gods of war…”

Masazumi listened to Gin.

“The two gods of war must have charged the deck from close in and then escaped.”

“…Just to be sure, could it not have been an attack from the ground below the ships?”

“Aerial ships are indeed weak to attacks from below, but breaking through the bottom of the hull would require aiming a cannon perpendicular to the bottom. I doubt they could perform a high-speed charge, fire straight up, and also take on the Ten Spears who would arrive along the horizontal plane. Also, firing through the bottom of the hull is not enough to sink an aerial ship. If they were going for a hit-and-away attack, they would aim for the bridge. …On the Oda ironclad ships, the upper deck is a flat and straight line. And with the festival set up, they would have had the perfect runway with cover on either side.”

…''Wow, I’m completely ignorant about this kind of thing…

Masazumi realized she could only nod in understanding.

She felt she had gained a lot of knowledge and understanding from reading all sorts of books, but…

…''I can’t keep up when they’re using the latest information and then making speculations based on that…

The girls in front of her were at the Vice Chancellor and 3rd Special Duty Officer levels. It was only natural for their thoughts and knowledge to be superior, but…

'''Vice President:''' “What are our Vice Chancellor and 3rd Special Duty Officer doing?”

'''Tonbokiri:''' “I just caught a big one!”

'''Gold Mar:''' “Hey, Ga-chan, adding in censor bars is so much better while listening to the valley river, isn’t it?”

The word “freestyle” came to Masazumi’s mind.

But Narumi suddenly said something.

“This means Hexagone Française can reuse gods of war for anti-ship attacks, doesn’t it?”

“Reuse?”

“It means they do not have to build exclusively aerial gods of war like Tres España does. Most likely, Hexagone Française has built stealth god of war transport platforms.”

And…

“Those would be devastating if used against a ship like the Musashi that has a city on the surface.”

“Did you conclude that from these articles?”

“Judge,” replied Gin. “Two gods of war made a charge down the decks. If they had flown in from long range, they would have been intercepted. Most likely…”

Gin recalled the past. It had only been about two months ago.

“Hexagone Française has the same class of stealth technology used by Tres España’s San Martín during the Armada Battle. But while Tres España used it for a warship, Hexagone Française has used it for a god of war launch platform.”

“Platform?”

The Date Vice Chancellor nodded at that question.

“In this case, you can think of it like an aircraft carrier. Isn’t that right?”

She turned around to look at Gin who observed her face.

She was not smiling. This was the look of someone who had years of experience in strategy meetings.

''Excellent,'' thought Gin as she nodded.

“To destroy the bridges of M.H.R.R.’s ironclad ships, they have to use anti-ship cannons or a penetration spear. This was the debut of that strategy and, since this is Hexagone Française, the nation of gods of war and knights, they likely used spears. That means they would have used ground gods of war equipped with quasi-anti-ship cannons and spears along with aerial combat equipment.”

“…Spears and…quasi-…anti-ship cannons?”

“Quasi-anti-ship cannons are used to destroy the structures built on top of a ship. That equipment provides them the optimal weight for performing an aerial charge. Carrying them along with the spears is necessary for the success of the mission with two gods of war.”

A clear question mark appeared on the Vice President’s face when she heard that.

''How should I explain this?'' wondered Gin, but Date’s Vice Chancellor did so for her.

“If they’re willing to make it a suicide mission, they could use a single god of war armed with a spear. And that stance can work to increase the fighting spirit of your own forces. …But if you need to be absolutely certain that this mission will be completed, the odds of success and survival increase considerably if you send in two or more gods of war so they can cover for each other.”

“That’s true…”

“Right?” The Date Vice Chancellor leaned forward. “That’s how insane a feat it was to leave a stealth platform and board the enemy deck. And the enemy’s deck was prepared for a festival, but that could have been camouflage. They boldly charged down the deck while using their spears and cannons to destroy the ship-top structures. …Instead of building aerial gods of war, Hexagone Française is sinking the enemy ships by challenging them to a ground battle while in the air.”

“Judge.” Gin nodded. “And from that we can conclude Hexagone Française’s platforms have a total length of-…”

“Wait.”

The Vice President interjected with a word and a hand.

…''Huh?

Gin was confused by the sudden interruption.

She had no idea why she was being stopped with a hand.

But the Date Vice Chancellor spoke before she could say anything more.

“Date’s gods of war are aerial, but they are heavyweights even among heavy gods of war. Hexagone Française generally uses middleweights, but they should rival Date’s in weight when so heavily equipped. And Date’s god of war carriers launch the gods of war with 300m catapult lanes.”

Hearing that, Gin realized why the Vice President had stopped her.

…''Oh, that’s right.

She had not yet lost the inherited name of Tachibana Gin and she was being handled as a transfer student from Tres España.

…''That’s right.

Muneshige had lost his inherited name and moved here, so he was a student of Musashi Ariadust Academy.

Gin was different.

So she could act as an adviser here, but she could not reveal more of Tres España’s information than necessary.

Her estimation of the god of war firing platform was based on the specs of Tres España’s god of war carriers and aerial gods of war.

That was information she could not provide.

And it would be dangerous for Musashi to hear it.

After all, that would mean they knew classified Tres Españan information.

So Gin lowered her head toward Musashi’s Vice President and Date’s Vice Chancellor.

“Judge. Thank you very much.”

“No, I was careless there. I can casually say what I want since Date is allied with Matsudaira, but Tres España is different,” said Date’s Vice Chancellor. “But given Hexagone Française’s god of war flight ability, how much do you think they could shorten the platform?”

Gin immediately opened her mouth when she realized what that question meant.

The Date Vice Chancellor’s question was one almost anyone in a high-ranking combat role in Tres España could answer. After all…

“Tres España borders Hexagone Française, so they buy food from España and own a lot of España’s debt. We simulated countless battles with them and fought actual skirmishes on the provisional border,” she said. “But here we are talking about taking off at the end of a runway. Since they would want enough speed to take off from just within the effective range of the defense barriers, 100 meters should suffice.”

“This really changes the battlefield,” interrupted Naomasa while putting together the stones for the hot spring. “With a 100m platform and two gods of war, they can do significant damage to two warships. That kind of efficiency is going to make me cry.”

“El Azors can perform long-range fire, but they are lightly equipped and a direct attack on the bridge is only thought of as a last resort. …This attack uses fairly heavily-equipped gods of war to directly board an aerial ship and charge the bridge. And if it comes from a stealth platform, no nation will be prepared for that.”

“Really?” Naomasa smiled bitterly. “We will, won’t we?”

Hearing that, Masazumi lowered her shoulders in a deceptive sigh.

“I guess we’ll have to be…”

“Oh, then we’re going to lose a ton of money again…”

That comment came from Heidi who was staying out of the river and instead picking plants from the slope and putting them in the basket on her back.

Naomasa glared at her.

“What are you doing?”

“Eh!? S-some of these are worth a lot! …And these ones here are extremely poisonous, so they’re great for backroom deals!”

''She sure hasn’t changed,'' thought Naomasa, but she decided to ask regardless.

“So what’s this about losing money?”

“Well, we can contact Oushuu a lot easier now, right? So we can have the IZUMO HQ produce a lot of equipment for use against Hexagone Française’s tactics.”

“That’s true enough.”

“Really?” asked Masazumi and Narumi silently stared at her, so Naomasa nodded.

Gin started to stand up to be polite, but Naomasa held out her prosthetic arm to stop her and explained to Masazumi.

“Listen. Musashi has Musashi IZUMO on it. And we also have the Asama Shrine, right? The Asama Shrine is closely related to Shirasago Enterprises, which can be seen as an IZUMO branch family. That said, the facilities in Musashi are small and they don’t have much personnel, so they can’t perform any major development, experimentation…or production. So…”

“After completing the planning and verification stages on Musashi, the actual development and production are left to the IZUMO HQ or Shirasago Enterprises, right?”

“Judge. We can also have IZUMO only do the development and have the production done in a surface reservation nearer the Musashi. …That system has existed for a while, but it’s become a lot more important since England. And in a case like this, it’s especially useful.”

“That’s right,” said Heidi while sitting down on the slope. “If we can’t stay in close contact with IZUMO, the various machinery and materials have to be procured on site or replaced with some kind of substitute. When that happens, there’s a lot of room for merchants to intervene. But if using IZUMO to develop equipment for new tactics becomes the norm, the merchants who bought up a lot of materials in advance are going to be in trouble.”

“I see,” said Masazumi with a nod. Just then, she heard a voice from below the second waterfall located downstream.

“Heyyy!”

It was Toori.

Mitotsudaira placed the fish in the live-box and walked to the second waterfall.

The edge of the waterfall was stone with a thin layer of moss growing on it. She got on all fours to make sure she would not slip and she peered down along with Adele and Kimi.

It was a drop of eight meters.

There was a wide river below. It was contained within the valley, but the rocks forming the river were small and the riverbed was deep.

A few tents were set up on the sand and gravel riverbank.

And there was a swimsuit crossdresser in the light green waterfall basin.

Even if she was wearing a swimsuit, Mitotsudaira was hesitant to reveal so much skin to her king.

“What is it, my king?”

“Oh, Nate. Is that Adele and Sis with you?”

Adele gave an affirmative yell and waved her hand while Horizon approached her from behind.

Horizon suddenly crouched down and performed a tackle.

“Watch out, Adele-sama! …is the name of the gag.”

The automaton slipped on the moss and her weight pushed both of them off the waterfall.

…''Eh?

They fell. And in that instant, Mitotsudaira grabbed the back of the hard points on Horizon’s hips.

“Nwah…!”

She pulled the two girls back up.

She got them to safety, but now she was slipping forward.

“Eh?”

She fell. And in that instant, Horizon and Kimi grabbed the back of the hard points on Mitotsudaira’s hips.

“Hnnn…!”

They pulled her back up.

But due to the lack of a harness connecting the two hard points along the back of her hips, the swimsuit pulled past her butt and slipped down to her thighs.

“Kyaaaaahh!”

The water flowing toward the waterfall gathered between her slightly spread legs and pushed her further forward.

“Kimi-sama!” shouted Horizon to her right. “Grab her butt, not her chest! There’s nothing to grab there!”

“I’m supposed to grab the left side, right!? And I massage it, right!?”

“What are you two doing!?”

Meanwhile, Mitotsudaira really did start falling.

“Kh…!”

She stuck her hands down toward the rock wall within the waterfall.

She was lucky the moss was so thick. She could dig her nails in for enough of a grip to push herself up.

She made it back on top.

Once back in a sitting position, she fixed her swimsuit and looked to the left and right.

On the right, Horizon did not hesitate to give her an expressionless thumbs up.

On the left, the idiot sister did not hesitate to begin a smiling dancing.

''Why doesn’t she slip and fall?'' wondered Mitotsudaira, but then Asama walked up next to them. She looked to Mitotsudaira with a bow and arrow in hand.

“Oh, thank goodness. People don’t often take a plunge from a waterfall while bottomless, so I wasn’t sure how to stop you.”

“What were you planning to do with that bow and arrow?”

Naruze, who was soaking her feet in the hot spring along with Naito, drew and held up an image of a fish pinned to the top of a waterfall by an arrow piercing it from above.

After looking back at it, it took Asama three seconds to realize what it meant. She quickly waved her hands back and forth.

“N-no! I was trying to fire it between Mito’s legs so her half-stripped swimsuit bottom would catch on it!”

“I don’t like the sound of that for several reasons!”

But Asama told her to calm down and looked to the bottom of the waterfall.

“Um, Toori-kun?”

“Yeah, I wanted to know if we can start a fire. There are a lot of local gods around here, right?”

“Yes,” confirmed Asama. “I asked the local gods to temporarily rent us this area. They agreed as long as I brought some divine sake from the Asama Shrine.”

“…You sure are thorough.”

“I have to be when we’re visiting the ruins and battling Celestial Dragons. Greeting the local gods means we don’t have to use any extra substitutions when routing through these gods to use our contracts.” She lowered her shoulders. “That said, I had actually already reached an agreement with the mountain spirits. Since the mountains here are connected to Asama. They all wanted the blessing of Asama.”

“Do you mean sake, Asama-sama?”

“Pretty much, yeah…”

Asama smiled bitterly.

Just then, a bamboo spear launcher fell from the sky and stabbed into the ground in the middle of the group of boys constructing tents down below.

“Waaah!”

Mitotsudaira watched as Neshinbara immediately dashed away and only later looked back. Once he noticed the shape of the launcher, he struck a pose with enough force to produce a snapping sound from his sleeve.

“The enemy…!?”

…''He’s come up with another weird game…

Behind Mitotsudaira, Kimi lifted up Mitotsudaira’s back hair which was being pushed toward her by the water. She could tell what the girl was doing without even looking back.

“Sideburns.”

''Adele, your laughter boiling points is way too low.

But turning around would only make things worse, so she let Kimi do as she wished. She looked down and saw a torii-style indicator displayed on the side of the launcher.

It was labeled “'''Sake Amount: Drink in moderation'''” and the colored bar indicating the contents was shrinking.

“Won’t the land reek of alcohol after this?”

“They’ll drink every last drop, so that won’t be a problem. Once they’re done with it, it can be shared with the local people.”

“Heh heh. Being part of the Asama Shrine can’t be easy. This wasn’t really necessary for the study camp, after all. …Yes, I know what this was! Asama’s outdoor spirit has opened up! Yes! Opened! Open, my outer door! Bring your euphemistic pickle and enter my hidden land! You lover of hidden lands! …What are those looks of scorn for!? You want to see that badly!? Yahoooo!!!”

''Your voice is echoing, so please stop that.

Mitotsudaira knew that turning around would be a very, very bad idea.

But Asama walked up next to her and spoke.

“Toori-kun, once the sake is gone, you can start a fire.”

“Sure. I’ll tell Tenzou. …Horizon, the tent for all of you is ready, so go put your things in there later.”

“Judge. Toori-sama, that would be the tent for the two of us, wouldn’t it?”

The atmosphere froze.

Mitotsudaira realized everyone nearby had stopped moving.

That was of course only the ones close enough to have heard Horizon’s answer. Masazumi’s group was still debating something and Mary and Futayo could be heard fishing back at the waterfall basin.

…''Oh, I can hear cicadas in the distance…

Behind her, Kimi moved around a bit and stuck her butt into Mitotsudaira’s hair.

“Hermit crab.”

Mitotsudaira really wanted to kick her away, but she was afraid it would make her slip and fall again.

Down below, Noriki gave the crossdresser a serious look.

“Toori.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t die.”

“Y-you sure are direct!”

But it was Kimi who answered him.

“Now, now. He isn’t going to die. I mean, he has Mitotsudaira and me with him.”

Mitotsudaira felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Her face rapidly paled, but then it grew bright red even more rapidly. And when she opened her mouth…

“W-wait, u-u-umm.”

“Calm down. This is the same as coming to our house.”

“Yes, it would be the same environment,” said Horizon.

The automaton looked to Mitotsudaira and then looked behind her.

“You too, Asama-sama.”

Asama felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Her face rapidly paled, but then it grew bright red even more rapidly. And when she opened her mouth…

“N-no, um, wh-what are you talking about!?”

“Calm down. This is the same as when you stayed at Toori-sama’s house.”

“Yes, it would be the same situation,” said Kimi.

The idiot sister looked to Asama and then to Mitosudaira.

“But Horizon wasn’t there when Asama and Horizon slept over the other day.”

“Ah,” gasped Asama.

…''That’s right…

“The other day… That would be the night when Neshinbara-kun was flattened. And the night before Tenzou-kun was feeling himself in a questionable way.”

'''10ZO:''' “Wh-what!? What is with this bizarre treatment I’m getting!?”

'''Scarred:''' “Don’t worry, Master Tenzou. Everyone understands.”

'''Almost Everyone:''' “Yeah, we understand all too well!!”

'''10ZO:''' “Enemies! You’re all my enemies, aren’t you!?”

The ninja grew suspicious of them all, but Asama ignored that.

She came to a belated understanding about Horizon. There was a lot they had to think about with the sharing and whatnot, but as they were…

…''Horizon sees us as the ones with a deeper connection to Toori-kun.

Romance was not the only possible relationship between two people. So that made them more experienced than Horizon.

“You don’t have to worry about us, Horizon.”

Mitotsudaira stretched her leg out below the water to lightly kick Asama’s shin.

She was probably scolding Asama for being so withdrawn.

Asama appreciated the concern, but her foot slipped and she tripped.

She landed on top of Kimi and Mitotsudaira, so all three of them slid along the rocks at the top of the waterfall.

“Kyaaaaaahh!!”

Mitotsudaira forcibly held her ground and Horizon pulled them back.

After seeing Asama fall to her knees and gasp for breath, Horizon placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I find it hard to know what to do when you are trying to be considerate, Asama-sama.”

“Is that so…?”

Meanwhile, Hanami opened a sign frame. The local gods were finished drinking the sake down below.

So she brushed back her newly wet hair and peered down.

She spoke to the crossdresser.

“You can prepare a fire now. Also…”

She hung her head in exasperation before continuing.

“…I’ll leave the rest to Horizon.”

“Sure. I don’t really know what this is about, but if you wanna divide up the rooms like we’re living together, then let’s have fun with it. Also, Asama?”

“Yes?”

The crossdresser pulled something made of cloth and string from the river and placed it over his head like ears.

''What is that?'' she wondered just as Kimi stroked a finger down her back.

“Outdoor.”

Once she caught on, Asama swallowed a scream and wrapped her arms around her body.

The wind blew across some wood flooring.

An evening sky was visible overhead.

The people on that floor sank into the evening colors provided by the sun which was now level with them to the west.

The floating floor was a ship’s deck.

This was the fourth ship of Hashiba’s Hexagone Française invasion fleet.

A festival was prepared on the deck and the stands were open for business. But their lights of activity illuminated uniformed students. The stands were preparing some light food, but they were also fully equipped with anti-god of war rifles and targeting spell charms.

“So the festival is continuing after preparing for enemy attack. Or is this meant as a night festival? I’m not sure. This is Katou Yoshiaki. I’m here to watch over the scuttling of the first and second ships.”

Gold wings danced across the bow plaza while holding a paper plate of dumplings.

She was flying toward someone positioned to face the setting sun.

“Takenaka, you explain it for me.”

Yoshiaki looked to Takenaka who was only wearing a P.A. Oda summer uniform.

She had her back to Yoshiaki and she was resting her elbows on the deck’s railing.

She must not have had to worry about her skin with the sun nearly set because she was not wearing the M.H.R.R. coat she normally wore like a cloak.

Yoshiaki viewed the tall girl’s bare back which, unlike her own, had no wings.

“Are you thinking?”

“Eh? Ohh, umm, I’m always thinking.”

“I see.” Yoshiaki stood to Takenaka’s right and held up the paper plate of dumplings. “Want some?”

“Thank you.”

Takenaka said that with a smile and took one.

Just one. She placed it in her smiling mouth and…

“Now, what is it you wanted to ask me?”

Takenaka must have had a good guess because she continued speaking.

“I think I’ve told you most everything about the invasion of Paris. Oh, and don’t bother asking about what Hexagone Française is planning. I wouldn’t have time to explain now, so I’ll explain only after it happens.”

…''This girl.

She had always been like this, but it could be a problem how readily she kept secrets even from her own team.

But the thing was…

“If you say there wouldn’t be time, then there really wouldn’t be.”

“I’m glad you understand. But is there something other than that you want to ask?”

“Why didn’t you order us to join in while the gods of war and those two idiots were fighting?”

“You were asleep, weren’t you!? Fast asleep!”

“Everyone should get eight hours of sleep a day,” said Yoshiaki. “But if you had woken us up, we would have joined the fight.”

“Are you sure?”

“Testament,” confirmed Yoshiaki before eating a dumpling.

It was sweet. Specifically, a round sort of sweetness. She placed it in the back of her right cheek and savored its resilience as she bit into it.

“Sure, we would have been in a bad mood, we would have grumbled, we would have glared at you, we would have complained about it endlessly, and we would have ignored you for about two days…but we would have happily joined the fight.”

“And I don’t want any of that.”

“But you’re prepared to accept any high damage directed at you, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes,” replied a smiling Takenaka.

Yoshiaki sighed in her heart.

This was what made this tactician so fearsome.

When she had left her master’s house, she had calmly pretended to take over that house in a way that made everyone there her enemy. It had been an insane way of giving a warning to that lazy house, but it had to have been the most obvious method to her.

Takenaka did not hesitate to take extreme measures or to bring harm to themselves. If she was ever afraid to lose her own forces…

…''It’s when she needs to hold them in reserve so they can be lost later.

So there was one thing Yoshiaki knew she could trust about this enemy attack.

“High damage. …Why were Fukushima and Kiyomasa so badly hurt? You have them sleeping in the recovery room, don’t you? I just hope they aren’t still half asleep when they make an appearance to show they’re fine.”

“Yeah, those two were raised a little too well. They’re too strong for their own good.”

Takenaka opened a ''lernen figur''. Since she did not let Yoshiaki see, it was probably the order to scuttle the first and second ships.

In the distance, the first and second ships were ascending while also loaded with wreckage from the third ship. The surviving turretless cannons on the port and starboard sides were aimed straight up.

Takenaka spoke while looking up at their movements.

“I need everyone to be even stronger?”

“Why is that a question?”

“Because the part that requires you all to be stronger isn’t really my duty. I’m the tactician. If all of you are nice and strong, then my strategies will be really easy for you. But more than that…”

She said it.

“You all are a unit meant to oppose Musashi.”

''I see,'' thought Yoshiaki.

“And those two lost.”

She knew what Takenaka was thinking.

“We’re strong, but we’re a bit lacking in experience. So Fukushima and Kiyomasa didn’t feel the proper impact of their losses at Mito and Novgorod. …That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

“Is it because you’re so kind that you understand that part, Yoshiaki-san?”

“Keep saying creepy things like that and I’m going to demand you pay for that dumpling.”

“Then I’ll have one more.”

Yoshiaki was reminded how fearsome a girl this was.

“To make sure they understood the meaning and reality of defeat, you had them fight someone other than our intended opponents and you had them lose.”

Which accomplished…

“You made sure they felt just how inexperienced we are and that we’re not even at the level of some unintended opponents. That is amazingly condescending, but I suppose it’s all over for a tactician if she starts looking up to others.”

“That’s more or less what I was doing. …Although to be honest, it didn’t work out as intended.”

“How so?”

“They actually defeated the gods of war,” quietly said Takenaka. “They were up against Hexagone Française aces while frolicking around in swimsuits and carrying spears. Is that supposed to be the bonus content for an RPG or something? I never thought they could win without any support. …Especially Fukushima-san. Ichinotani can attack and defend if she uses it right, so it’s completely overpowered. But the greater the enemy’s firepower, the better it is. And then she starts using it during a battle with a god of war…”

“I can’t tell if you’re praising her or angry at her, so I’ll just say this: serves you right.”

“High daaaamage.”

“That is so not cute.”

Yoshiaki smiled bitterly at Takenaka who laid her head down on the railing.

“But I hear someone really dangerous showed up. Katou Danzou, was it? …Couldn’t he be even more trouble than Musashi?”

“He’s definitely working with Hexagone Française,” said Takenaka. “Okay, I guess I can tell you. He has a connection to all of us. He’s pretty much a monster, but that’s exactly why he’s the perfect opponent for Fukushima-san and Kiyomasa-san.”

Takenaka straightened up.

She looked to the setting sun. The damaged ironclad ships were rising in front of that light.

“That should do it.”

With that, Takenaka reached for a corner of her ''lernen figur''.

As soon as she did, a waterfall of light rose from the night sky with the purple heavens in the background.

The first and second ships had fired their turretless cannons into the sky.

The light rose several hundred meters.

“Ohh, exactly as I calculated.”

The launched light projectiles changed direction as if they had stalled.

They started down and fell right toward the first and second ships that had fired them.

“Enjoy the fireworks.”

The collision destroyed the two ships.

The first and second ships were scuttled.

To increase the effect of the shells, the material below the deck and other structures had been removed. So when the light hit the two ships, the internal power readily escaped from the hull and they split apart.

They shattered with a deafening roar. Yoshiaki sighed and spoke as she looked up at the light.

“…Are you showing that we can do this to attack any gods of war that might board us in the future?”

“Nooope. Fireworks. These are fireworks. After all…”

Takenaka spun around.

She looked to the people returning to the rebuilt festival. They were here to watch the explosive destruction of the first and second ships. Everyone in the stands cheered, too.

“…!”

They all raised their right forearms to salute the scattering ships.

“I see.” Yoshiaki ate the last dumpling. “In the Far East, a festival is used to summon that land’s god and have it purify all of the impurities in the land and in the participants.”

Now.

“This would’ve been perfect if Nagayasu was here.”

<noinclude>
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| [[Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 46|Chapter 46]]
| [[Horizon:Volume 5B Chapter 48|Chapter 48]]
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