Horizon:Volume 8C Chapter 83

Chapter 83: Reunited Ones on Main Street

The annoyance of finding this

More exciting than troublesome

The trouble of finding this

More thrilling than annoying

Point Allocation (Self-Made Problems)

Fusae arrived at a renewed understanding of Byakko’s power.

Its power as one of the Four Sacred Beasts was the Path. Looking at its power system, OS, and balance, it had to be the best god of war in the world for close-quarters combat.

Its frame was sturdy. The frame was forged from Orei Metallo and black steel and it had survived even when the rest of the machine had been damaged.

But that sturdiness wasn’t where it truly shined. Orei Metallo could conduct ether. That meant the vibrations from the shoulder devices reached the extremities of the frame.

“I rarely use this, though.”

This locked up Byakko’s entire body for a moment.

And the instant Byakko’s raised right hand was enveloped in ether light and contacted the transport ship’s front guard, the ship’s bow swelled out in a sphere. The hardened wood, the port and starboard frames, and the hull armor were all destroyed like it had crashed into an invisible beast and been devoured.

The sound it made was not of impact. It was an overwhelming cacophony of tearing and breaking. The powerful vibration propagated beyond where Byakko was directly touching and tore a large volume of ship to smithereens.

The bow was destroyed within a 12m radius and the rest of the ship bounced upwards.

“There you are.”

Even as the bow was destroyed, the transport ship continued to fly and the Musashi crew was visible on the upside-down deck located on the very bottom.

…It’s been a while!

Gin wasn’t there. Neither was Muneshige. But Musashi’s 6th Special Duty Officer was, the 5th Special Duty Officer who had fought Takakane was, and the Vice Chancellor was…not. Well, she’s always something of a mystery.

At any rate, Fusae knew what she had to do. She would fire Roar Deterioration from the shoulder cannons this time. They were charging toward her on their own, so she could take them all out at once.

So she opened Byakko’s shoulders and noticed the destroyed bow moving past her. Byakko did not have unlimited fuel and the vibration devices would overheat if she used Roar Deterioration too many times in a row. So she would draw the enemy in and use it as few times as possible.

“Roar Deterioration!”

Just as she shouted that name, a shell flew in from the right and exploded in Byakko’s face.

Gin had sniped a perfectly-aimed shot from an elevated point to the west.

Gin knew Fusae’s timing.

…Byakko opens its shoulder cannons and braces itself before firing.

Byakko’s vision was sent to Fusae, but due to structural constraints, the Roar Deterioration cannons on the shoulders blocked the shoulder-side head sight devices. There were secondary sight devices on the shoulders, but they were much less effective than the primary ones when it came to detecting things long range. It was also fortunate for Gin that Fusae was on the left side of Byakko.

That meant she could not directly see an attack coming from the right.

Gin, meanwhile, couldn’t snipe from too high up because the transport ship acted as a lid.

She had made the shot from 1.5km away, on the roof of some ruins to the southwest of the imperial palace. The building had apparently been a railroad train station.

The 1st Special Duty Officer’s advance team had helped with the range finding. They were currently sending out information while disguising themselves as local guards and assisting the evacuation of Kyou’s people.

Gin’s shell had clearly hit, but she frowned and jumped down from the station roof.

“Master Muneshige! I will join you!”

“I am currently mopping up the eastern group, but I will join you when I am finished!”

Of course he had everything under control.

Their job was to secure an escape route for Musashi and provide support.

They knew the baseball team’s outfielders had taken control of the city gates and were now gathering at the imperial palace. Muneshige was eliminating the eastern group so Musashi could use that gate to escape. Gin was assisting Musashi’s entrance with long-range fire.

But she still felt like she should go assist Muneshige. She could hear sounds of battle over his divine transmission link.

“Hello, long time no see! How have you been!? Same old, same old, eh? Oh, and you? Is your wife doing well!? You have a new child!? That is wonderful news. And you…a grandchild!? I’m jealous! The secret to health is alcohol, you say!?”

Muneshige was actually stabbing and cutting down those people one after another. He would raise his left hand in greeting while he did so, so Gin had dubbed it the One-Handed Hello Strike. His social skills are something the Tachibana family never had. It even scares me and I’m his wife. I need to rush there and assist those he has greeted.

But she could already hear some high-speed mechanical noises from the sky. The gods of war had detected her earlier shot and were rushing this way. And the instant she landed, Gin saw the result of her shot. The shell’s explosion cleared to reveal…

“Byakko was unharmed!?”

Just by starting up, Roar Deterioration had devoured the shell.

That meant it had been powered up since she last saw it.

Fusae felt a chill in her gut.

…Not bad, Gin!

That sniper shot had been excellent. If Gin had used Cuatro Cruz’s anti-ship attack, Fusae would have had difficulty stopping it. That thing fired air shots, so it was a poor matchup for Roar Deterioration.

But that hadn’t happened. The ultra vibration destruction system was shaking the air and was ready to go.

“Let’s do this!” she shouted.

That was when the enemy all moved at once. They jumped down to the ground and split to the left and right. Musashi’s 6th Special Duty Officer in particular stayed until the last possible moment while holding Musashi’s acting captain.

“Suzu!”

Fusae thought she heard a quiet “okay” from beyond the deafening vibration. And…

“F-full…purge!”

Fusae sensed a great mass overhead.

Musashi’s transport ships had a certain structural trait. Since the Musashi’s base hull was created from wide blocks and long blocks, most of their transport traits were given sizes based on multiples of wide blocks and long blocks.

…So are the ships made from the same block structure?

They were. Wide block-sized pieces fell out from the center of the ship, from stem to stern. They were more than 90m long and 18m thick. And they were dropping from the transport ship like hammers.

The flat-design transport ship had a lifted bow, so if the very front of the ship was destroyed, Fusae had assumed she would get a view of the people hidden behind that slant while the ship itself passed overhead. But instead, the contents of the ship fell toward her.

“Musashi sure has gotten a taste for the flashy lately!”

Fusae considered whether or not she should attack with Roar Deterioration. She wasn’t sure if that would stop them, but it would definitely slow them down. However…

“Captain!”

Below, a group of people rushed toward her all at once.

Those boys and girls of the track team reported to her. The boys formed up on the left and the girls on the right.

“Leave this to us!”

With that, they drew the long objects from their backs and threw them at a high angle.

Those were javelins that doubled as throwing spears. The boys’ were about 2.7 meters long and the girls’ were about 2.2 meters long. With over a hundred athletes, over a hundred javelins were stabbed into the transport ship.

But it wasn’t enough to stop the falling ship blocks.

So they readied themselves and raised their voices. They raised their right fists and then swung them back down.

“Jump!”

That voice command caused the javelins to extend downwards.

That pole vaulting feature was used to jump over the defenses and walls of an enemy formation or fortress.

The series of attacks instantly and noisily brought the front of the transport ship down to the ground.

In a motion much like a pole vault, the poles jabbing down on the front of the transport ship caused its stern to spring high into the sky.

From Fusae’s perspective, the sky seemed to ascend.

The upwards spring of the ship’s stern was greater than the falling speed of the purged blocks. Also, the boys and girls had parted to the left and right, so…

…They added left and right angles to the springing!

Since the girls on the right were, on average, shorter, the ship would slant rightward as it stood up and collapsed forward.

That would keep it from traveling down the main street.

“Leave the street!” they all shouted.

Fusae nodded and faced forward to see the Musashi group that had evacuated the transport ship.

With one job complete, Tres España’s track team shifted focus to their next job.

They had removed the transport ship from the main street. Now they had to attack the Musashi group.

The baseball team would show up eventually, but they had heard the eastern group had already had been devastated by their former colleague Muneshige. That meant they were fighting their former 1st and 3rd Special Duty Officers, but…

“It is what it is. We’re mercenaries, so we can’t choose who we fight!”

That couple’s strength was unfortunate, but hardly a surprise. Still, they had managed to focus on their current task and they had successfully eliminated the transport ship. So…

“Let’s do this!”

The instant the words were out of their mouths, someone dropped down between them. Two someones, technically.

The Musashi Vice Chancellor had landed while carrying the Vice President.

She nimbly corrected her position with her hair swishing behind her.

“Oh, excuse me a moment.”

She readied her spear while the track team was still turning her way to see what this was about. She held the blade horizontally so it would reflect the poles they had set up.

“Bind, Tonbo Spare!”

Juana descended to the main street while continuing to command the firing of the banned book cannons.

She began running toward the imperial palace when she heard a loud rumble up ahead.

She knew what had happened. The many poles working to eliminate the transport ship had all broken at once and the ship had fallen diagonally onto the street.

The bow fell straight down and the vertical ship had bounced and skipped. But the impact had knocked all of the blocks out of the ship, so it made a half rotation toward the main street and began to skid toward Juana.

…Uh. oh.

She couldn’t say for sure what had gone wrong, but she knew no one could stop the battle now. If victory would be found after bringing down every opponent they came up against, then it was best to stick to the original plan.

“Fusae!”

Juana gave her command while running.

“Go for it!”

Fusae knew the track club behind her was not out of the fight.

They were quick runners and she knew they would have dodged the transport ship, so their attack would continue. Meanwhile, she had Byakko run to eliminate the enemy force in front of her.

The Musashi force had only just dropped down from the transport ship up ahead and on either side.

She had an effective attack for the closest ones.

Roar Deterioration was already starting up on Byakko’s shoulders. So…

“Let’s do this!”

Fusae looked to the opponents directly in front of her: Musashi’s warriors and their 6th Special Duty Officer. The officer was not riding her god of war. Fusae briefly found that disappointing, but…

“Fire, Byakko!”

There isn’t much I can do, thought Naomasa. Their opponents had set up this battle, but it had come as a surprise encounter for Musashi. They had gone as far as using the transport ship and purging its internal structure, but the opponent had survived it.

Naomasa knew exactly what she had to do now.

…Deal with Roar Deterioration!

She knew what kind of attack that was. The attack range wasn’t that large, but when used while running, it could destroy everything along a straight line. Their best bet was to…

“Scatter to the sides!”

Her shouted instruction was answered by Byakko accelerating. It was coming right for her.

…Damn, it’s fast!

This isn’t going to be easy, thought Naomasa. She was slowed down some by carrying Suzu, but it mostly came down to Byakko’s speed.

She considered purging her prosthetic arm and using that as a shield to escape with Suzu. It would look bad, but Roar Deterioration expanded from the shoulder cannons. A shield would have an effect. So…

“Suzu?”

Suzu held tightly to the prosthetic arm.

The action clearly said “don’t get rid of it”. Naomasa wondered what that was about.

“––––––”

Byakko was coming, but Naomasa figured it out. The air-rattling attack might shatter the ground out ahead, but she realized what Suzu’s action meant.

“Come!” she shouted.

She gave Suzu a gentle pat and then raised her prosthetic arm into the sky.

“Suzaku!”

An instant later, a vermilion color collided with the white. A six-winged god of war had flown in from the western sky where Musashi flew.

It was Jizuri Suzaku.

“Am I living in a horror story?”

Yoshiyasu pointed into the sky from the large hatch of Musashino’s god of war hangar.

“Do gods of war normally leave their docking station, crouch down to politely open the hatch, and fly out all with no pilot inside?”

“In this case, there is technically someone inside. And I much prefer it unlocks the hatch like that instead of forcing it open and breaking things. Also…” The maintenance chief pointed at Yatsufusa at the docking station directly ahead. “I get the feeling this one’ll be doing something similar eventually.”

“Hmm. I have a feeling Yatsufusa would just break through the hatch, so sorry in advance. But…”

Yoshiyasu sighed while locking her Righteousness into its docking station.

“I was thinking of going to help, but that thing beat me to it.”

“I can get yours ready if you want. I’ll need to swap out the joints for urban warfare, though.”

“The battle will be over if you’re only starting now. Still, maybe I could help them on the way out.”

Meanwhile, the ship shook below her feet. She looked up to the ceiling and the maintenance chief shrugged.

“That was fast. The Musashi is already purging its base hull.”

“So the residential areas are being removed?”

“Judge. Things aren’t looking good in Kyou. It’s possible this will lead straight into the Honnouji Incident set up in the east. So instead of going through a quick purge then, they want to do a full one now. First Asakusa, Shinagawa, and each ship’s warehouse district. Because that’s all dead weight during combat. The residential areas will have to come later and the academy is too big to be purged.”

Yoshiyasu knew where he was going with this.

“This is all so we can fire Kanesada at any time, isn’t it?”

“Because for Musashi, our leaders are more important than Kyou. The idiot isn’t here, but we can probably fire Small Kanesada after only a minimal purge.

“But anyway,” said the maintenance chief. Some noise was reaching them past the wind, rumbling transport ships, and purging of the wide and long blocks from the base hulls. “You can hear the inhumanly rapid sounds of clashing metal coming form Kyou, can’t you? That’s Byakko and Suzaku.”

“How’s it going?”

Yoshiyasu wanted to know about that battle, but the maintenance chief shook his head.

“It’s two of the Four Sacred Beasts playing together. Once they’ve had their fun, it’ll end, but Suzaku has its flight devices now. Byakko has basically already shown us what it means to add flight devices to Suzaku which already has that Swamp acceleration, but the question is whether or not Naomasa can control it.”

He sighed.

“Either way, it’ll be over in the blink of an eye.”

Naomasa harnessed Suzaku’s power.

It was armed with a midsized wrench in each arm. It wrapped its fingers around the hook-like rings and either swung them to attack or held them like a tonfa when she needed a narrow shield.

She was especially careful when striking. After all, Byakko would ignore the blow and make a punch of its own. If the wrench was deflected, it could possibly damage Suzaku’s wrist or fingers.

…And it doesn’t have any emergency spare parts or repair spells equipped!

It must have come out on its own. She had known about its recent autonomous actions, but now that it had gotten so obvious about it, she felt she should have been stricter with it. However…

“The flight devices!”

To fly all the way here, Suzaku must have completed its initial link with the flight devices. That left her with one thing to do here.

…This is a lot like when I fought Integrity at Satomi.

The flight devices’ acceleration could give a boost to all of Suzaku’s attacks. The thrusters could also be swung around to provide short dashes for evasion. If she could repeat those actions with enough precision…

…This should count as a test run!

Her opponent was Byakko. There was no better test opponent.

Suzaku had been improved, but there was no way to give it heavy armor. Taking a single hit would mean defeat against this opponent. But that tension was…

“Pretty nice.”

It seemed wrong to feel that way in combat, but she said it anyway.

“It’s been too long!”

Yes, thought Fusae when she heard Musashi’s 6th Special Duty Officer.

…She is much more accustomed to combat now.

When they had first fought, Naomasa had responded to Fusae’s brute force tactics with force of her own. That had let Fusae mercilessly shatter that force, but during their second battle, Naomasa had used trickery and then activated her Sacred Beast. Fusae had lost because she was too shaken by the activation of the Sacred Beast OS and seeing what was inside Naomasa’s god of war.

She hadn’t been able to predict that.

She should have known her opponent would be carrying her own burden and have things not even she understood.

This time, Fusae remained cautious since Suzaku appeared to be what she could only describe as “fully equipped”.

Mountain, River, Path, Swamp. Each of the Four Sacred Beasts had their own power. Byakko’s was the Path. It could create a virtual field that let it run through the sky.

That Path power did not only appear when Byakko was running through the air. Its specialized power system would convert its Path power to move the god of war.

The Roar Deterioration ultra vibration destruction cannon was part of that. By intermittently sending the path-creation power outwards, it created a vibration. That could also be sent through the god of war’s frame, but…

…What about her?

How could Suzaku’s Swamp be used? And aside from that…

“That sounds nice.”

The metallic impacts and evasions sent sparks soaring along Kyou’s main street.

Suzu sensed the metallic clash which was destroying the street.

She had experienced something similar at Sendai Castle. That had been Urquiaga and Narumi flirting in a way that was easily mistaken for a battle, but this was fundamentally different. Naomasa doesn’t love older sisters. Or does she? I guess I don’t really know. The point was, both sides saw this as no more than a battle with no consideration for international negotiations.

They attacked. They struck, they parried, and they dodged.

Their movements were largescale. Their actions were carried out using turning slides with a radius of about 5m.

But Suzaku flapped its wings to accelerate and Byakko used its great strength to leap. Their actions were based on separate things, which made it all the easier for their movements to mesh together in a sort of dance.

Suzu thought it was beautiful. The pavement was shattering and she kept hearing steel sounds, but their movements were picking up speed.

“Oh!” roared Naomasa.

Byakko roared back.

Suzaku’s striking power was far inferior to Byakko’s. A single solid hit from Byakko would be devastating for Suzaku, but a hit from Suzaku’s wrenches only made Byakko’s armor strain.

But Suzaku did not run away.

Because as long as it remained there and stopped Byakko, the others would be safe. And…

“Right.”

The wrenches. Naomasa was aiming for Byakko’s joints with the midsized wrenches she was using as attack and defense.

A wrench struck Byakko’s shoulder joint and locked it in place. Once Byakko couldn’t move…

…It accelerated?

Suzaku used its Swamp acceleration to power a tackle leading into a high-speed body slam that pushed Byakko back. Byakko was being cautious – probably because of that accelerated charge. It had trouble responding to that attack, much like Suzaku did with Byakko’s attacks.

And as the exchange of attacks continued…

“Let’s go…everyone!”

Suzu’s shout was answered by a roar of voices as the group that had evacuated the transport ship advanced down the center and sides of the street.

“Let’s go!”

Leading the charge front and center was the lieutenant commander of the warriors.

He was from Mikawa. He had served as Futayo’s lieutenant on the guard ship during the Battle of Mikawa. When the time came to decide what to do, he had supported the status quo decision and held the line. And when the time came to rescue Horizon, he had held back the Testament Union warriors rushing to the execution site and again held the line until the Vice Chancellor returned.

“So we do the same here!”

The others would follow him.

They formed columns on the left and right and charged the Tres Españan track team up ahead.

The transport ship was falling onto the main street in between the two groups. It had collapsed a bit diagonally, but…

“Run on top of it!”

The bottom of the flat ship formed a flat arch. By climbing up the rear thrusters, it formed a bridge to the battlefield. The Vice Chancellor had to be leading the way and fighting beyond it.

He knew exactly what to do.

“Charge and focus our attacks!”

The first to respond among Tres España’s track team were the ones who had fought in the Battle of Mikawa. They had used defensive formations back then, but the Far East excelled at one thing: breaking through enemy lines. And to do that here…

“Their side formations are on the move! After them!”

The columns of Far Eastern warriors rushed toward them on the left and right, joining together to form a wall. That wall was angled to the sides and held up defense barriers to protect the center and deflect any attacks outwards.

They were setting up a fully defensive advance so they could break through without fighting, but…

…Far Eastern defense spells use purification!

They didn’t reflect. They would break if the load was too great, but in general, they purified any received attack power, weakening it enough to slip away.

Moving in on the sides and then gathering in the center slowed Tres España’s response for just a moment. And even when the track team persistently caught up, their power was weakened and deflected by the defense barriers.

“Damn!”

They were furious, but they did have one effective attack to use against the group attempting to break through.

It came from the sky.

The god of war monitoring the transport ship had lost its target, but if they could hear it roaring by overhead…

“We could use some help, A3!”

A3 attacked.

Firing along the main street while traveling so quickly was dangerous. His allies were there and he couldn’t afford to damage the surrounding buildings. So if he was going to do this, it had to be…

…From directly above!

He fired straight own on the charging Musashi group.

But as safe as that choice seemed, it was in fact quite dangerous. Because…

“Musashi’s Technohexen are paying me a visit!”

White and black schale besens soared up from below.

Those two had defeated ace pilots at Mikawa. At the Armada battle, the Technohexen under their command had shot down A3’s comrades and the two of them had devastated the mechanical phoenixes. So this time…

“Here goes!” shouted A3.

As soon as he took his downwards course, a shot flew up from below.

It was a roll of 500-yen coins. And it was guided by a route drawn out by the Weiss Hexen. As things were, it was guaranteed to hit him.

So what could he do?

…Steel myself!

He accelerated straight down. Part of him wanted to crash into the group below like a high-speed tackle.

This group was worth it. He was sure of it.

But if he had a guiding path following him, he just had to outperform that path’s maneuverability. Relative speed would help him there. He could effectively add the shot’s speed to his own.

“Down!”

He passed between the rising Technohexen and the shot.

His Cavaleiro Azor excelled at maneuverability. It created that maneuverability with its acceleration and it had far greater short-distance acceleration than any previous god of war.

Those Techohexen wouldn’t have seen speed like this before. In an instant, they were in the sky far behind him and they looked back as the coin roll exploded.

He was already firing. He was bound to do some damage to the Musashi group below. But if they raised their defense barriers, they had already lost. Because those barriers would get in the way of any antiair fire they might have used.

He flew on. He kept a straight course while firing. He knew exactly when he needed to begin pulling up.

…No!

In that same instant, something passed by his flank. He thought it was another Technohexen shot, but then his auditory devices picked something up.

“Lovely to see you again! Your brother will be starting high school soon, won’t he!?”

When she saw a god of war explode overhead, Asama recalled what Suzu had said.

…Oh, right. This is supposed to be a privet.

When Naito and Naruze’s attack had missed, Asama had thought she would need to fire overhead, but…

“How serendipitous I ran across you on my way to intercept the western outfielders! Battling my old home is such fun since I keep running into familiar faces. Anyway, it’s a shame I couldn’t provide a proper greeting before you ejected. Now, if you will excuse me, I am off to the greet the next group!”

With the god of war explosion and forced ejection overhead, Asama saw Muneshige “fly” into the western sky.

Then Gin came running up from the east. She charged in to stop the track team’s right formation.

“Long time no see.”

Those four words were enough for the track team to stop and take up a defensive formation.

Their captain must have told them what would happen if they attacked her. Gin bowed toward Asama’s group before running off after Muneshige.

That just left Asama’s group on the ground and…

Gold Mar: “Wow, that was a close one! Sorry our old data wasn’t any help. I didn’t think we’d need to redo the entire launch process.”

Art-Ga: “We were lucky Muneo and Gin were here. I need to draw up a storyboard once this is over.”

Worshiper: “To thank them or harass them?”

But the enemy was in disarray. And the Musashi group was past the transport ship and moving on ahead.

Or they were trying to. But…

“…?”

Suddenly, Asama sensed something from the left and right. The track team attempting to pursue them suddenly scattered.

Asama’s group was heading toward the transport ship. At 100m long and 20m high, it would provide a lot of cover. Had the track team given up pursuit because of that?

…What is going on?

In the hopes of finding an answer, Asama looked back toward the track team.

At that very moment, the tail end of the Musashi warriors was blasted into the sky.

“…!”

She heard two roars of impact. They sounded metallic and were followed by the sound of breaking armor.

…Huh!?

It happened again before she could figure anything out. The tail end of their group – closer to her this time – was hit by something.

Asama saw a pair of metal balls. Her Konoha prosthetic eye ran a scan and told her the two metal balls had suddenly flown in from quite close by.

…What in the world?

They hadn’t come from above or below. They were just suddenly there, like they had teleported.

They likely came from beyond the transport ship up ahead. And…

“A 3rd set is coming!”

Her warning was drowned out by the metallic impacts.

But these impacts did not cause any damage. They were the crash of an attack intercepting the balls.

They had Noriki to thank for this. He smiled as he caught the two airborne metal balls.

“So we meet again,” he said. “Valdes must have improved his disappearing magic ball.”

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