Horizon:Volume 10A Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Mid Range Successor

Would you like

A blade that cuts

The vein first

Or the artery first?

I can provide either one

Point Allocation (Be Honest)

●

Sakon was being pushed back.

…Whoa!

Her opponent was a girl with prosthetic arms. Her name was Tachibana Gin and she was a name inheritor. The blond boy next to her was her husband and they were both originally from Tres España.

…Why so much lore on her?

That had been her first thought, but once the fighting began she discovered Gin was quite strong.

Sakon found her to be quick on her feet. She seemed to send back three attacks for every one of Sakon’s. Unlike Niwa, not every one of those attacks could take her out, but there were so many of them. If Sakon went in for a hit, she could easily get cut down.

Like what was happening now.

Gin made a jab with her right sword and Sakon deflected it outwards with her wooden sword Southern Sky, but then Gin’s left forearm sent Gin’s left sword upwards, slicing through Sakon’s arm.

But before Sakon could even wonder when that had happened, Gin’s right sword rotated with a mechanical motion of her shoulder, jabbing in, and followed by repeated jabs from both swords.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!”

It took around three seconds for Sakon’s left arm to regenerate, but she took more than 30 attacks in that time.

She honestly felt it wasn’t worth it.

Kohime: “Onitakemaru-san, she’s really strong!”

Onitakemaru: “Well, you are unlikely to run across anyone weak, Kohime.”

She looked to the side where, a dozen meters away, Ootani was being pushed back by Gin’s husband. Curious how he was doing, she listened in.

“Hah! Take this! How about that!? There! Yes, that’s right! This time for sure!”

Those are some odd things to say while being pushed back, aren’t they?

Kohime: “Mitsunari-sama? Has that bugged guy gotten his defense voice lines mixed up with his attack ones?”

6: “That happens sometimes.”

Kiyo-Massive: “I saw that happen once and it was funny even though I don’t know much about games.”

848: “Eh, eh? I don’t think I can open his options menu right now, so have him go on the attack to check!”

Makes sense. Sakon understood now, so she asked.

“Ootani-san, Mitsunari-sama wants you to go on the attack!”

“Mitsunari-kun does!? Testament! Then I shall go on the offensive!”

He was pushed back even harder than before.

Onitakemaru: “You can’t say ‘I’m going to attack now’ and expect the enemy to say ‘okay, go ahead’.”

That’s true, she thought, agreeing with him for once, but then Gin nodded in front of her.

“You get distracted too easily!”

Gin chopped off her head.

●

Ootani realized this was his first time seeing Sakon decapitated while he was at his full size.

I get the feeling she is only getting more careless with time.

She had been blown away a lot at Aki, but, come to think of it, she had also died a lot during Shizugatake earlier.

He had thought the advantage of being a regenerator was not dying, but in Sakon’s case, it felt more like she did die but without the usual consequences.

At any rate, he wished she would be more careful.

Fortunately, none of the people who were accustomed to Sakon’s death were nearby.

Hirano and her “nice death!” and Kasuya and her “Oh, dear!” were both fighting elsewhere.

…No one here has been numbed to these things.

While watching Sakon’s head fly, Ootani saw something else.

Ahead of him, Tachibana Muneshige noticed Sakon’s death. He turned toward her for only an instant and…

“Oh, my!?”

Ootani shuddered.

●

Gin had beheaded someone.

That said, most anyone at the special duty officer level would do that at some point in their career.

A beheading was a lethal wound and, generally speaking, meant an instant death.

But in the present day, a beheading did not mean death.

Slicing through the neck did not actually damage the brain.

There were times when the disembodied head would glare or bite at the grass or rocks.

It was the same as being paralyzed below the neck. As long as the initial shock didn’t kill them, there were two main obstacles to survival. One was the lack of oxygen to the brain due to the bleeding and the missing respiratory system and the other was the wound getting infected.

Besides, this world had history recreations of executions, which differed from suicides.

When a living dead helper or name inheritor could not be found, they could (as the Vice President might put it) “head off” having their head off using an interpretation. In those cases, the head could be quickly reattached to the body, allowing them to survive. There could be lasting effects depending on the length of time, though.

In fact, some of their survival divine protections and spells helped with that. When a part of the body was lost, the protection would act as a replacement. In Gin’s case, if she lost her prosthetic arms, not only would the wound be sealed up, but a protection would provide the same ether consumption and readings as if she still had the arms. The same existed for each body part.

…Otherwise, you couldn’t be remade into a god of war like father.

If anything, it was more dangerous when an artillery shell or blunt weapon caused the entire body to rupture or a broken bone injured an internal organ. The former left no real chance of survival, but since the Reine des Garous recently recovered from that with a power boost and caused a lot of trouble for a portion of Kantou, maybe it wasn’t quite so deadly after all.

Compared to those options, decapitation wasn’t that big a deal.

So during an official international history recreation, there was no real need to hold back when using a blade.

Smashing the bone would make the reattachment difficult, so it was best to make a clean chop when that was an option. And to not when it wasn’t. There were schools of sword fighting that taught these ideas and it wasn’t limited to the head. Whether or not an individual could pull it off, they were taught ways of ending a battle without permanent injury by slicing off a limb or through the torso. And when a teacher belonged to a species that liked that sort of thing…

“Now! Test it out on me. Show your teacher what you can do!”

And so in the first term of her third year of elementary school, Gin had made seven severings. And received a seven for her fifth dan rating.

But this was different. She had just seen someone die without any of that happening.

None of those protections or spells had activated here. But…

…The Mito Lord mentioned this before.

Former M.H.R.R. Chancellor Rudolf II and Shima Sakon.

They both had the same regeneration ability, so they would recover no matter how much they were cut or crushed.

According to the Mito Lord, “Yes, if that ability could be modified and applied to beef or pork, it would revolutionize the food industry, so what is M.H.R.R. doing?”

M.H.R.R. probably never imagined their emperor’s safety measure would be compared to yakiniku and then rejected, but who was the winner here exactly?

However, Gin had seen the body below catch the flying head. By reducing the distance between the two…

…She’s shortening the regeneration time!

It wasn’t a big difference, but Sakon wouldn’t let it go to waste.

Well done, thought Gin, but she ended up saying something else.

“Why not just avoid the attack in the first place?”

●

Onitakemaru briefly considered Gin’s suggestion. And he decided he had to defend Sakon here.

“The problem with that, woman, is that Kohime is bad at dodging.”

“Then why are you here? Even if you can survive being cut when you don’t dodge, you still have to wait to regenerate. To me, that seems like too much wasted time to be useful.”

“O-Onitakemaru-san! What is she saying? It’s too confusing for me.”

“Listen,” he said. “She is saying to respect your superiors, to treat your possessions with care, and to not stay up too late.”

“She is not saying that! She is not! Right!?”

“Those are all good lessons, actually,” said Gin.

“Ahhhhh! I’m surrounded by enemies!”

Do not let it bother you.

…I knew from the start Kohime is generally bad at combat.

In that case, he decided just as Tachibana Gin readied a sword in each hand in front of them.

“So you’re going to fight?” he asked.

“Judge. This is my first time fighting someone who can regenerate, but the Tachibana name is Peerless in the West.”

Then she smiled and eyed the seam between his head and body.

“In the second term of my fifth year of elementary school, I received a ten for my fifth dan rating.”

●

Kiyomasa ran with the others at the bottom of the battlefield.

She was on the Musashi’s third port ship.

She hurried aft along the edge of a base hull hole.

She had expected the view atop the Musashi to be nice with the center missing, but it wasn’t. To raise a defense barrier across the large hole, the rails for each individual block of the base hull were being used to position the defense barrier activation torii and the emblem-engraved armor panels on each level and section.

Looking down from above, the base hull hole was like a labyrinth of irregular rows formed by armor panels jutting up from below like walls.

Hashiba’s research had been rushed, but they had discovered the defense barriers themselves had a sensor protection applied. Those allowed the power to be boosted automatically when the barrier took an attack, but they could also be used to watch from the barriers.

That meant Kiyomasa’s group had been thrown into a 3D labyrinth in which they could be monitored.

And on the starboard side, the armor rose high to assist the barriers. That made it harder to obtain a visual of the bridge and other significant points the closer one got to the central ships.

The important Musashi warriors would be guided through the maze by a traveler’s god protection, plus an Izanagi protection would temporarily move or remove the barriers or walls, allowing for shortcuts. As Kiyomasa saw it…

“The Musashi doesn’t provide as nice a view as it seemed looking down at it.”

…I can see up, but I can’t see horizontally.

The defense barriers forming the floor here had vanished to drop a few Hashiba groups as they tried to cross. But on closer inspection, there were also armor panels being used as barrier emitters.

“Could we get across using those?”

“The Ten Spears and the scouts probably could, but the rest of us couldn’t make it.

“Also,” said the unit captain, gesturing out ahead.

Below the barriers, the armor panels were being rearranged by moving them along the base hull rails.

“If that happened while they were crossing, I doubt even the scouts could manage.”

“So only we could get across?”

That was rough. But the divine transmission officer raised her hand. She was keeping them in communication with the other teams while avoiding the divine transmission interception and restrictions found on the Musashi.

“The Fukushima Team is letting Fukushima-senpai head across on her own.”

I should have known, thought Kiyomasa as everyone’s eyes gathered on her.

While she wondered why that would be, they all exchanged a glance and the unit captain raised a hand as their representative.

“Aren’t you going to go?”

It took Kiyomasa a few seconds to realize what that meant. Oh, she thought as the blush arrived before the words.

“You don’t need to worry about that!”

“Then you have a plan?”

She had meant it in that way, but she also wanted to say that wasn’t what she had meant. But what were they to do?

“We will secure the central corridor running left to right at the stern up ahead. When the enemy heads to the port battlefield from their third ship, or possibly their rear central ship, they must pass through there.”

Even as she spoke, she heard a voice from that destination. It wasn’t calling to her.

“Here they come! Those are Hashiba warriors!”

Some Musashi warriors were defending the corridor.

The bow side of the long corridor was sealed with a base hull hole and the elevated structure on the stern side created a wall. The enemy was waiting for them up on that aft elevated area.

“That’s easy enough to read. They intend to wear us down from above as we travel the corridor.”

“Then I will use the corridor. Can the rest of you go up top?”

This was a good chance to “break in” her mobile shell after replacing some of the parts.

The team scout launched up an observation spell and the enemy activated a few obstacle spells from the elevated area to hide themselves. It hadn’t looked like there were many of them, but…

“They’re trying to make it look like there are more of them using stealth to hide, aren’t they?” said one of the team.

Is that what this is? wondered Kiyomasa with a nod. So she pointed to the elevated area and…

“Then shall I go up top also?”

“You can’t go there ‘also’!”

They scolded her. And just then…

…Oh?

She felt like she was hearing an odd sound from beyond a mountain.

No, there was no mountain on the Musashi. But this sudden sound was arriving from the distance where a similar structure existed. It was…

“A storm?”

●

Ootani saw a storm.

A human body was blown away before returning. As the action repeated, wind, ether light, and blood flew, becoming a storm circling the center point.

That was Sakon.

Her body was always missing something. It wasn’t so bad when it was a finger, a hand, or a foot. But more often than not, it was an entire arm or leg severed with such force it flew out into the air.

This is odd, thought Ootani.

“Usually a sharp blade will not send the body part flying!”

The husband nodded in front of Ootani.

“It is strange, isn’t it? But Gin-san is a special person.”

Had he just encountered the person most worth collecting data on in his entire life as a data entity?

But on the other side, the wife held a hand to her cheek and spoke.

“Muneshige-sama, please do not compliment me on the battlefield. I do not want my hand to slip.”

Sakon’s head seemed to tilt as it flew through the air and Ootani knew very much how she felt.

That said, the enemy’s skill level was completely absurd. He had fought the Mito Lord, some dragons, and others, but this was different.

…Are they swordsmen!

To call yourself the Peerless in the West, you at least needed to be comparable to the Peerless in the East.

If that was who they were up against here…

“Sakon-kun!”

As soon as he shouted that, he saw Sakon’s body sliced to pieces.

●

Gin handled her swords with precision.

The human body had joints and the bundles of muscle were smaller on the inside of those joints’ movable range. So the standard choice for slicing apart someone’s body was to attack the inside of the joints from the outside. And…

…To slam the blade into the gap in the joint.

The blade had to be inserted into the gap and yanked upwards.

You wanted to make the cut along a gap between the bones. Then you only had to slice through muscle and tendon instead of hard bone.

It took force to either jab the blade in or to place the blade against it and push it through.

So it was best to place the blade against the target area near the base of the blade and then pull back to cut.

Calling that “shaving” was probably a turn of phrase unique to the Far East.

But even so, a bisection was difficult. Any target would be moving during battle, so their joints could twist, bend, or tense. It was best if the target joint was opened and, if possible, stretched out, but…

“Now, then.”

Gin completed her task with a sense of unity.

To stretch out the enemy’s body for easier slicing, she had used her slicing to cause the enemy’s body to collapse.

●

Muneshige heard something as he closed in on Ootani.

Gin’s sword strikes sounded nice. Instead of ripping or slicing empty space, she was making it reverberate in the air.

That meant she was making proper use of the blade’s edge.

Most of the swishing sounds made by a blade came from the blade being tilted diagonally and vibrating. In other words, it was the sound of the blade beating against the air. Some people mistook this for the force of the attack and simply swung their blade as strongly as possible, but that wasn’t true.

When truly swinging a blade, it would slice the air and make no sound. If it did, it would be the sound of the sliced air returning to its original position. Adjusting the timing there could lead to other techniques such as sword pressure.

Gin was a thorough person.

When holding a kitchen knife, she would slice vertically through the vegetables. She would filet a fish horizontally and she would dice the tofu. Only the Tachibana family had tofu with such sharp-looking edges.

She was the same when chopping meat.

That required inserting the blade into the meat, but her blade would travel straight.

And it would make a sound.

The blade would vibrate and reverberate in the air.

When the tip of the blade entered the flesh of a joint, it made a wet sound. And when the blade slid in up to the base…

“–––––”

The cutting sound came from the “drops” similar to bubbles forming in the air. According to Gin, the sound made when cutting through many blood vessels reminded her of bubbles popping.

The occasional intermittent bursting among the bubbles was likely the sound of tendons being cut.

She was good.

Muneshige couldn’t take it this far and would simply bisect his target, but Gin understood the structure of what she was cutting and would cut it along the easiest line.

Her process was also impressive.

First, she cut off her opponents’ head. This opponent was tall, but Gin was short to begin with. She had plenty of training in how to deal with an opponent taller than her.

That head three meters from the ground would be like targeting Tachibana Muneshige’s head from a position right down on the ground, so how different was it?

In the Tachibana family, that was no more than a margin of error.

Gin filled that margin.

She took off that head right from the start. It had seemed sudden, but that was important.

If the enemy could see you, they could respond to your actions.

Thus, the head.

And when the opponent reached her hands toward her head, Gin severed her non-dominant left hand.

The right arm caught the head, but the left hand was gone.

With no left hand, the opponent tried to hold her head between her surviving right hand and her left forearm.

But that meant raising her left arm.

Gin sliced through from left armpit to shoulder.

The right arm attempted to hold onto the head with the support of the left.

It didn’t work. The head was pushed left from its original position.

The now-empty right hand was severed.

In a panic, the handless right arm still pursued the head. But the same thing happened again. When the right arm lifted, the armpit was wide open.

Gin severed the right arm from the armpit.

Once the opponent had lost both arms, her head collapsed into bloody smoke. Maybe it was time based and maybe she had given up on providing any help, but the regeneration had begun.

Gin sliced both of Sakon’s knees.

She didn’t slice through them. As if scratching the back of the opponent’s knees, she sliced the ligaments hidden behind the kneecaps.

The knees bent inwards, lowering the opponent’s stance.

The bloody smoke attempting to return to the head’s position found nothing there.

At the same time, the arms turned to bloody smoke.

Then Gin severed both of Sakon’s feet.

With no support, her body was pulled by the inwardly collapsing legs and tilted backwards.

And when Gin sliced through both thighs, disturbing Sakon’s stance even more…

“––––––”

The head returned.

So did the arms.

Before Sakon could respond, Gin severed the newly-reformed arms. Sending them outwards.

The arms flew around a dozen meters and attempted to turn to bloody smoke on the way, but Gin…

“Like this, correct?”

After cutting off the head again, she stabbed her blades into the base of the thighs that had become bloody smoke and kept them there instead of slicing through.

And when the legs returned…

“–––––!?”

With the blades inserted during regeneration, Sakon’s body couldn’t reject them and she collapsed.

●

“Hah! Take that! There! Here, yes!? Victory is mine!”

Ootani thought to himself while sticking to defense with his opponent keeping the upper hand.

Sakon could regenerate, but there were ways of sealing her. The best option was to insert something into a regenerating area.

The regenerating portion would avoid the foreign object, but that meant her circulatory and respiratory systems would regenerate around it. Even with a blade stabbed into her, she would regenerate with a gap there.

Of course, if her blood vessels or respiratory pathways split in two, it would place a burden on her.

“Yah! Toh! Hohhhhhh! Excellent! Entertain me, will you!?”

…Why are my defense voice lines so embarrassing!?

Looking at her records, that was how she had lost to the Mito Lord in her first battle.

And at the Battle of Shizugatake, Niwa had “sewn her down” using that regenerative ability.

So Sakon would be cautious of that.

He unfortunately had to qualify that with a “probably”, but she did have the shogun with her. Surely the great shogun would have come up with a countermeasure… I mustn’t doubt him. If I doubt, I lose!

“Ha ha ha! Are you blind!? Now, smile for me! Perfect! What are you even doing!?”

…What is with these voice lines!?

But Tachibana Gin had come up with another method.

Not even the shogun could use his mobile shell to interfere with this.

She was targeting the joints that not even the mobile shell could defend against.

She stabbed her blade into Sakon’s regenerating body and dislocated the ball and socket structure of the joint. And with the blade still in there…

“––––––”

She pierced Sakon with her next blade.

First, the returning leg. From the base of the thigh, the side of the knee, and the ankle, she sent the blade into each joint from the front.

The joints extended and did not bend.

Then she stabbed her blade into the base of Sakon’s neck from the side. She probably thought piercing it front to back would slice through the brain stem and count as a death.

That was correct.

And as the arms returned, she pierced the shoulder joints and left her blades there and pierced the elbow and wrist joints and left blades there too.

“This ends now.”

With a stopper blade in each joint, Sakon collapsed onto her side.

Instead of the sound of struck flesh, the piercing blades hit the floor, scattering metallic sounds.

At the same time, the mobile shell’s head and limb armor, which had left the wearer after those parts turned to bloody smoke so many times, finally fell noisily to the deck.

She didn’t move.

There was nothing the shogun could do at this point.

Sakon had been sealed.

“Take this! You’re not bad! Is this a game to you!? A mere jest!? I am only an afterimage!”

…Again, what is with these voice lines!?

●

848: “Ahhhh! Sakon-sama! Sakon-sama!”

Kimee: “What happened to Sakon? Tell me.”

848: “She should really just die, but she won’t do it!”

Kimee: “Testament, I understand…that I shouldn’t have asked.”

AnG: “Ignoring all that, it seems to me you should install some bombs or something across Sakon’s body so that you can blow her up and kill her if she won’t die right.”

Super Justice: “That would work, but it would be a nuisance in other ways!”

848: “And it’s inhumane! Not even close to humane! You’d be no better than an animal!”

AnG: “I point out my boss’s mistake and get yelled at for it!?”

●

Gin used a quick back step to distance herself and took a breath.

Sakon lay before her, each of her joints pierced and locked.

Gin had used this joint locking technique plenty of times before. When she had needed to fight back against the dragons and beasts in the New World, it was better to lock up one of their leg joints than to seriously fight them.

This wasn’t quite the same, but the result was the same. It was possible Sakon had some method available to self-destruct, but there was no sign of it happening.

And after a few seconds…

“I will check.”

She pulled a sword from her dual pitch space and tossed it high into the air.

With the night sky and the artillery fire in the background, it began to drop.

“Take this.”

The torso was the one part of Sakon’s body that hadn’t turned to bloody smoke. While it lay on its side, the long blade pierced through it from below the ribs and down into the floor.

●

…You’re kiddiiiiing!?

What is this? was Sakon’s first thought.

It was a little too amazing. She was impressed.

Niwa’s methods had been effective against her, hadn’t taken much doing, and had inspired fear in her, but this opponent was a little different. She wasn’t fighting, defeating, or winning.

It felt like being packed up.

She couldn’t move.

She had strength in every part of her body. Her blood vessels and such were behaving normally. Breathing was a challenge since her throat had been cut, but the cut had been above her trachea.

Oh, so you can do this to me too, she thought, but this was not good.

A follow-up attack hit her torso a bit later, which provided disturbingly little pain. Probably because the blade had pierced her right on a seam in her muscles. It was probably similar to how acupuncture didn’t hurt.

That’s amazing, she thought, moving her eyes to see Onitakemaru’s head.

That wasn’t all. His right arm, left arm, and both shoulders had been scattered all around her.

That meant there was nothing he could do to help. That hadn’t been option once the connections had been cut.

“Hey! Kohime, wake up!”

“I’m already awaaake!”

“You need to avoid being taken prisoner! Do you understand what you need to do!?”

“Um, bite my tongue and die?”

“That would take too long. And in your current state, that would return only your head to normal.”

“W-well, do you have a better idea!? Don’t just reject my idea.”

“Hm, why not find a way to summon a spell and, for example, blow yourself up?”

“I don’t carry dangerous spells like that around with me.”

“Now who’s rejecting ideas!? Damn you!”

Meanwhile, she heard a voice from behind her as she ley on her side.

“Are you all right, Sakon-kun!?”

It was Ootani as he continued to be pushed back.

●

Ootani saw Gin coming this way after dealing with Sakon.

…Oh, no!

He was already having so much trouble against the husband, so the wife’s presence would be far too dangerous.

And as soon as Ootani realized he needed to turn this around, the husband made a move.

He had been attacking primarily with jabs, but now he raised his weapon as if sliding its course upwards.

…To swing it down!

A data entity’s reflex and comprehension speeds were far greater than a human’s. So it was easy for Ootani to recognize this as a feint.

So he needed to reverse his and his opponent’s positions here. And he had an idea of how to do that.

…If I catch that blade on mine, he will hit me with a return blow!

Just as the impact pushed him down and his arms were fixed in place, the husband would send a jab toward the center of his chest. Ootani could predict that much. So…

“Secret Art! Swordless Grab!”

He abandoned his ether blade and used his reflexes to move in and grab his opponent’s sword.

●

Gin saw Muneshige’s attack slice through his opponent from head to hip.

Afterwards, Ootani’s hands audibly clapped above his head.

Everyone froze in place for about three seconds before Gin finally broke the silence.

“That was an impressive failure.”

“He was a fearsome opponent.”

Muneshige pulled Kamenuki out of the data entity who had clapped over his head after being sliced from head to hip.

“I clearly had the advantage yet he continued to react as if he were winning, so I was very nearly convinced it was true.”

“That would be a challenging opponent for someone with communication skills as advanced as yours.”

“Judge,” agreed Muneshige as the data entity turned to light and crumbled.

Gin took a breath as the wind carried away the scattering light.

…That is two defeated now.

Just as she was wondering if she should announce that defeat…

“Gin-san!”

Muneshige’s voice led her to look up.

…Did something happen?

She looked over to see her own prosthetic arm.

Her own left arm was raised and directed toward Muneshige.

She of course had no memory of doing that. But that arm really did spring up and produce a sign frame.

“Arcabuz Cruz!?”

If it were launched, the cannon would fire on Muneshige. But just before it did, she saw something.

…What!?

As Muneshige attempted to take evasive action, Kamenuki danced up as if breaking free of his grasp.

That pseudo-divine weapon could accelerate toward its target and now it had clearly turned toward her.

“…!”

The blade, which was long for a spear, flew toward her chest.

●

Muneshige realized what had happened.

…An illusion!

He didn’t entirely understand, but his weapon and Gin’s arm were moving on their own.

He didn’t know how it was done, but they could deal with it. So he exchanged a look with Gin and…

“Gin-san!”

“Muneshige-sama!”

They shouted as one and he launched himself. He used the acceleration spell Racing Toes and grabbed the butt of flying Kamenuki from behind with his right hand’s index and middle fingers.

Immediately afterwards, Gin purged her prosthetic arm.

Beyond the arm, Arcabuz Cruz aimed toward him and released a roar.

…I can still make it!

With that thought, he extended his right elbow and wrist and threw the blade held in his right hand’s fingers.

Kamenuki stabbed deep into the purged arm.

At the same time, Gin took a step. She sank down on the inner edge of her purged prosthetic and worked with him as he held Kamenuki that now extended from the palm like a lever.

“Go!”

They both tackled the arm to shove it over. Arcabuz Cruz’s launched shell tore into the surface of the arm and ricocheted up into the sky.

The shell hit an automatically-deployed Musashi defense barrier and shattered. But…

“Gin-san!”

Past the prosthetic arm which was rotating from the impact, Arcabuz Cruz was turning toward him.

Muneshige reached out his left hand and Gin handed him the sword held by her remaining arm.

He felt like she was leaving this to him. So…

“Amooooore!”

He threw a kick into the spinning arm to send it flying.

The arm crashed into the Arcabuz Cruz as it turned toward him and sparks flew.

He could see it. So…

“Gin-san.”

He turned to the side and held the sword vertically in his right hand. He placed his left hand on the back of the blade and…

“Time to end this.”

He stabbed the full blade through the prosthetic arm and into Arcabuz Cruz’s barrel.

●

A prosthetic arm, an Arcabuz Cruz, Kamenuki, and a long sword.

Gin saw them all fall to the floor as a single mass.

That’s Muneshige-sama for you, she thought because he had stabbed through the center of the arm yet only through the barrel of Arcabuz Cruz.

He had done no unnecessary damage.

…A stark contrast to my duel against Honda Futayo…

However, that was merely a difference in their “character”. If Futayo had Muneshige’s character, Gin would have been at a loss.

That aside, this incident was the result of their carelessness. She understood what had happened.

“That was Ootani Yoshitsugu’s virus, wasn’t it?”

“Was it?”

That you responded appropriately without knowing what it was is a testament to your communication skills, Muneshige-sama. At least you are good at ad libbing.”

But Gin nodded and…

“Most likely, Kamenuki was infected when you split Ootani Yoshitsugu. I think my arm was infected by the scattering ether light afterwards.”

Her prosthetic arms communicated through her nervous system and had a control system for commanding Arcabuz Cruz. It was only a simple system and OS, but he must have targeted that.

“Kamenuki is as pseudo-divine weapon. I thought he had assumed its OS security was strict and so pretended to try to catch your blade to bring him in contact with it as long as possible, but he only tried to catch the blade after seeing your strike. I think he only found a way of making the most of his own self-destruction.”

●

Kohime: “Onitakemaru-san? They’re really talking crap about Ootani-san back there.”

Onitakemaru: “I actually agree with them in this case.”

●

“But,” Gin heard Muneshige say.

He was viewing the unmoving remains lying on the floor.

“I was careless. I must apologize to Principal Sakai.”

“I will accompany you. I get the feeling he enjoys stories like this.”

“Judge,” he said. And, “Gin-san.”

“Judge. Take this.”

She ejected another long sword from her dual pitch space and handed it to Muneshige. He took it and stepped forward. A single tall figure was already starting to stand up nearby.

“Shima Sakon-sama. Did Ootani Yoshitsugu help you recover?”

Gin turned around to see a miniature cartoony version of Ootani standing on Sakon’s right shoulder.

She knew what he had done.

“Did he use an illusion?”

Muneshige-sama gave me a smile for that one, which filled something inside me to 80% capacity.

●

An illusion? wondered Sakon with a tilt of her head.

She knew Ootani had worked hard only for the enemy to talk crap about him. While he was using his virus to pit the Tachibana Couple’s weapons against each other, his small version came this way and infected the mobile shell components surrounding her.

Onitakemaru: “And his virus removed the power assist limitations. Well done, Ootani.”

Onitakemaru’s mobile shell generally provided power assistance for her movements but could not move autonomously. But that was mostly enforced by the safeties, so it didn’t mean the power system was physically incapable of doing so.

“I had my virus activate the autonomous movement to gather the pieces.”

The armor pieces were crawling along and dragging other pieces with them. It was a somewhat horrific scene, but that was unavoidable. When the swords stabbed into Sakon’s right elbow and wrist were removed, she had a real path to escape and reequipping the mobile shell.

She gathered up the head armor and placed it over her head.

“It feels like forever since we saw each other, Onitakemaru-san.”

“I was facing you the entire time.”

“Sure, sure,” she said and faced forward.

The husband was there. With a long sword in his right hand. So she pointed at it and…

“Ootani-san, work your magic.”

“That is a purely physical sword with no OS, so I can’t!”

“Then what good are you?”

“I-I literally just saved you!”

“Yeah, but,” she said. “I really don’t think I stand a chance against the husband and wife in a sword fight.”

●

“You mustn’t complain, Kohime.”

Despite his words, Onitakemaru agreed with Kohime.

…This is indeed a poor matchup.

For one, Kohime’s sword fighting was only useful in a battle with a medium range between her and her opponent. When she swung her long arms so quickly, she needed an accurate idea of her opponent’s position and a wide-open area that allowed her to take up her own position. Both of those were true here, but…

…These opponents will move the fight closer in than her optimal range.

The Mito Lord and Niwa had both been able to fight at close and mid range.

The former with her weapon and chains. The latter with her martial arts and spirit summoning.

In a way, those battles had come down to who could control the battle at a range they both excelled at.

But these opponents were different.

The wife was a perfect infighter at close range. But she could also switch to long range at any time.

The husband was also a perfect infighter at close range. And to make matters worth, he had no long range attacks, so if he did battle Kohime, he would be constantly on the attack.

Kohime had little combat experience. She could go on the offensive and push in at her opponent, but she wasn’t used to holding the enemy in her domain. And that would be a challenge with someone in these opponents’ class.

In that case, thought Onitakemaru.

“Ootani, care to make yourself useful?”

“What might I do for you, shogun!?”

An excellent response.

Now then, he decided.

“Kohime. You can do this. I will prove it.”

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