Horizon:GT2 Chapter16
Chapter 16: Horror and Confession[edit]
Ta la ta ta ta ta ta
Ta la lan ta ta tan
♪The constant hesitator is you
Point Allocation (Hey!!)
○
Horizey: “It’s time to bring up a spicier issue, so you kicked a bunch of people out! I take it Masazumi-sama will be negotiating now?”
Unturning: “So…war?”
Art-Ga: “I love warrrr! I can’t resisssst!”
Vice President: “Don’t draw up a storyboard while saying that! What the hell is going on in that doujinshi!?”
Bell: “S-so everyone else…was cleared out…but I…brought some tea.”
●
Masazumi bowed to the girl who brought her some tea. She was short and skinny, but she had an oddly motherly air to her. Her bangs covered her eyes, but based on the sensors attached at her ears and hips, she was probably blind. She placed the teacup on the tea table.
“I will…um…be in there.”
The girl pointed to the left wall. There was probably a waiting room there.
I shouldn’t have to speak very loud with her, concluded Masazumi.
“Are the others in there?”
“Eh?”
The tremble of the shoulders suggested Masazumi’s voice had caught the girl by surprise. She held the tray to her chest.
“Eh? U-um…oh…sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken so suddenly.”
The girl nodded twice, more to reassure herself than to affirm anything. But…
“The others…are in there…um…playing a game.”
Masazumi felt a brief surge of meaningless anger, which she wrote off as a personality flaw. But…
“They say this item is…rare? So it…almost never drops. But with four playing…the odds improve.”
“Um, yes. That was popular in Mikawa too, so I know the basics.”
“Th-that’s…good.”
It was not at all good.
○
Bell: “S-sorry…Masa…zumi.”
Asama: “You don’t need to apologize, Suzu-san. You really don’t, okay?”
Flat Vassal: “If I remember, the inn didn’t have the best divine transmission signal, so everyone had spread out to the hallways and washroom to play. I think we were playing GekoHun which came before GekoJae.”
Circle Be: “GekoHun? That really takes me back. I gave up on it and switched to an offering game called Maikomaster where you manage a maiko like you own a racehorse. And I happened to draw an ultrarare Rare Maiko.”
Vice President: “You people never miss a chance to goof off, do you?”
●
As if to say “now then”, the girl bowed and shut the front sliding door, leaving Masazumi alone.
The rear sliding door remained open, giving a view of the garden, where evening was turning to night.
She could hear a divine transmission test being run on the stage out front.
But when she looked at the rear garden itself, she occasionally glimpsed people here and there. They may have been tending to the artificial woods or pond. Yes, the point of this plan was to leave her alone and show her off as bait.
“If wonder if the criminals really are here on the Musashi. I hope these people can intercept them.”
●
“Okay, Persona-kun! One of the criminals went your way!”
Asama gave instructions while viewing a map of the garden on a sign frame the size of a tatami mat.
There she could see someone appearing and disappearing among the trees on the shore of the pond.
“Prepare yourself!”
But a giant hand emerged from the behind the trees, grabbed the person by the head, and dragged them away.
After a short pause, Asama heard a scream and one of the red “criminal” dots disappeared from the map.
Neshinbara sighed when he saw it.
“That makes seven. It’s fortunate we could get Mitotsudaira-kun’s assistance by calling them ‘festival attackers’. There sure are a lot of them, though.”
“I know. And they remain ordinary passersby until they make an actual attempt to harm a ‘festival attendee’, so we do have to take a reactive stance here.”
Asama gasped when she spotted a new red dot on the map. No, two new dots.
“Naito, Naruze. You’re up!”
●
Up on the inn’s roof, Naruze lay below some thatch roof camouflage and fired a 10-yen coin sniper shot at the same moment as Margot.
…These people followed Honda Masazumi here.
“I bet they knew this was a trap, but they went for it anyway since they couldn’t accomplish anything in Mikawa.”
How much pride and righteousness did they sense in what they were doing and what they were working toward?
Naruze and Margot knew their location based on the coordinates sent to their Magie Figurs. Naruze fired her “bullet” into one’s throat and Margot fired hers into the other’s solar plexus.
“Two hits. One head, one body,” said Margot after confirming the hits via binoculars spell. And after a breath, “Maybe we should officially make our own sniping spell. We don’t want to miss, right?”
“One we can use in flight would be great. But other than that, what’s wrong with this one?”
“Sure, we have this one for simply launching the bullet by accelerating it at the base of the broom and using the handle to guide it. It’s working here and it’s worked in the past, but I was just thinking we could use something a bit more stable.”
“So you want peace of mind first and hope the results will follow?”
“This one works great when we can take a stable sniping position, but like you said, it’s unstable if we’re in flight.”
Another pair of instructions arrived from Asama, so the two of them took care of it.
“Also, this spell can’t deal with anyone equipped with decent armor,” added Margot. “Like this, we won’t be able to fight back if a major nation picks a fight with us, right?”
“Planning to fight a war?”
“Who knows,” said Margot, shooting another one and updating the total to 16. “But I get the feeling these people are doing this for their nation, for themselves, and for the people close to them. Even if what they’re doing about it is wrong. But…”
But…
“I was wondering if we had anything like that.”
“When you see someone fall into a pitfall, don’t you feel the urge to climb in there with them?”
Hearing that, Margot turned around below the camouflage.
She kissed Naruze. Naruze gasped in surprise and Margot’s tongue moved as if trying to tell her something.
“Good point.” Margot pulled away and licked her lips. “You say some great things, Ga-chan.”
“Do I?”
“You do,” said Margot. “But personally I’m not interested in pitfalls. I prefer flying as high as possible.”
“Now who’s saying some great things,” said Naruze with a small smile.
Asama sent another instruction. Noriki and Nenji were already dealing with others below, so…
“19. So, have you all noticed?” Naruze confirmed what she was saying by snapping a photo of her target with a light amplification spell. “These people are Far Eastern.”
They were the ones who had targeted Masazumi and they all had distinctive clothing. It resembled a Far Eastern uniform, but…
The colors and armor resembled a different nation.
“That cross armor and vermilion color are Tres Españan, but these aren’t Tres Españans, are they?”
She knew the answer. Or she did now. So she explained it.
“Not many Far Eastern reservations officially include Tres Españan elements like this. If they’ve submitted to Tres España but are still considered valuable, they must be from the Kyushu reservation. The Testament says a lot of the people there converted to Tsirhc for trade.”
●
Margot could more or less guess the situation.
…The Far East has a lot of Catholics in Kyushu.
But according to the Testament, trade with other nations led to a lot of trouble and the influx of foreign culture and weapons was too much for Edo and Sunpu to control. A variety of factors led to a major uprising of Tsirhc worshipers at Shimabara, which led to the Far East banning foreign religions.
The Shimabara Rebellion’s history recreation had been completed in advance and Sakai’s generation had caused further trouble, so in most parts of the Far East, the only permitted religions were Shinto and Buddhism.
That was why Asama had to arrange the hidden setting for other religions, but thanks to the protection of certain nations – especially powerful ones – the spread of Tsirhc was allowed in some reservations as part of that nation’s history recreation.
…The provisional rule means that nation’s situation trumps the Far East’s.
These people had to be from somewhere like that. But…
“Oh.”
The enemy Margot was watching grouped up. They were working as a small team instead of as individuals.
“Margot! Naruze! Take care of any who get past the others!”
Margot heard a loud impact near the garden entrance.
Mitotsudaira and Adele had crushed the enemy with their shield.
●
Mitotsudaira realized the enemy was grouping up. Instead of moving covertly as individuals, they had decided to try and win this as a group. And for them, winning meant getting an attacker to Honda Masazumi, so…
…They split between defenders and attackers, didn’t they!?
An enemy carrying two swords rushed in. He had a pair of defenders on his left and his right. When the group clashed with Mitotsudaira and Adele, a defender was stripped away from the left and right.
“They got through!”
As soon as Mitotsudaira gave that report, a translucent arm extended from the pond and dragged away the remaining defender on the left.
…Nice one, Nenji!
It looked like something out of a horror movie, but he couldn’t help that. The enemy even looked back in terror. But…
“There’s still more!”
“Ugh, fine!” said Asama’s voice.
The very next moment, an armor-clad enemy’s back grew in Mitotsudaira’s vision.
Eh? she thought as Adele yelled next to her.
“Watch out, Extra Special Duty Officer!”
Adele tugged her down to the ground. And…
“Ahhhhh!!”
Having taken an arrow to the gut, the enemy flew overhead like a line drive.
Up ahead, Asama was completing her archery follow through in the waiting room next to Honda Masazumi’s room. And…
“Oh…”
Far behind her, Mitotsudaira heard what sounded like a bunch of buckets toppling over.
He flew really far. I almost feel bad, she thought, but Asama had not yet nocked her next arrow.
“Th-the enemy attacker remains!”
●
Mitotsudaira watched as a man armed with a pair of swords ran towards Honda Masazumi’s room.
“Oh, no!”
Nenji crawled from the pond, Itoken emerged from the ground, and Persona-kun ran from the trees.
The silhouettes visible in the inn’s lights showed Tenzou and others rising from the pond, so Mitotsudaira began to seriously wonder if they were horror monsters attacking in the night.
But at this rate, the horror monsters would be too slow.
“Kimi! Are you there!?”
She looked to see the front door behind Honda Masazumi slide open, revealing Kimi.
Kimi raised her hands and did a little dance, but Honda Masazumi failed to notice.
○
Vice President: “Did that really happen!? And I really didn’t notice!?”
Silver Wolf: “Yes, she danced, shouted ‘hey!’ at the end, grabbed one of the snacks on the tea table next to you, waved, and left through the front door.”
Tachibana Wife: “Her skill is terrifying, but what was she hoping to accomplish?”
Unturning: “Swipe a snack from the Vice President?”
Vice President: “Now I feel deprived for no good reason…”
●
Naito needed to hurry down from the roof.
An enemy was rushing toward the room below. She wished she could shoot him, but the angle of fire was too low. Her broom cannon wasn’t made to stack effects on the bullet and the spell couldn’t handle that either.
…We really do need to make our own spell!
Using an acceleration spell alone wasn’t easy, but it was still frustrating to be beaten at the last second like this. There were a few times in the past when I missed a crucial shot too, she thought.
“Ga-chan!”
“Judge,” replied Naruze, joining Naito in tossing the camouflage away and descending from the roof.
They threw themselves off the edge, raised their wings, and dove toward the enemy below.
…Oh?
All of a sudden, someone emerged from the room below, appearing from below the eaves.
She was foreign. Long-lived. Short blonde hair. Her clothing was Far Eastern but with a hint of…
…Not quite Tres España. Maybe more Tres Portugal!?
No, based on the earlier discussion, this wasn’t quite the same. It had to be…
“The Kyushu Far Eastern reservation!?” said Naito, coming to a stop.
In that same moment, the woman below landed a counterattack.
●
Mitotsudaira saw the skill behind that instantaneous attack.
This had to be the bodyguard Honda Masazumi had mentioned. The foreign woman ran right by the incoming attacker’s side.
“––––––”
That was when she made her move.
She sent a knife below the enemy’s right arm he had raised for a diagonal strike down at his target.
The muscles in the flank were linked to the arm. Even a minor slash there would cause the arm to retract and the body to curl up to protect its side, more from the pain than the blood loss.
The attacker groaned and fell out of his attack stance.
“I am sorry,” said the woman as she swept his feet out from under him.
The attacker flipped halfway over, collapsing headfirst to the ground.
That was all.
But Mitotsudaira heard a voice. The attacker spoke just before hitting the ground.
“Why are you doing this!?”
●
“I was careless, Honda-sama.”
Masazumi saw Protasius facing away and catching her breath with the dark garden out ahead.
Shortly thereafter, she heard the festival opening ceremony beginning on the stage in the background.
She could sense the distant rumbling of the cheers as she at back down below the eaves.
“Protasius. I’d like to say thank you…but sorry would be more appropriate.
“No,” Masazumi corrected herself. “Protasius. If I am to address you as a Far Eastern name inheritor, it would be more accurate to call you Hinoe Reservation Representative and Hinoe Academy Student Council President…Arima Harunobu, wouldn’t it?”
●
Masazumi saw the woman calling herself Protasius sigh with her back still turned.
She nodded once before turning around.
She faced Masazumi and, despite being older and a name inheritor, bowed her head and slowly kneeled with eyes closed.
Masazumi wasn’t familiar with it, but this was likely in line with some form of etiquette.
The woman opened her empty hand, placed it on the ground in front of her, and spread out her fingers.
And without raising her head…
“Honda-sama. I have come to you with a request.”
●
Suzu heard a voice.
…U-um, Prota-something-san? Or Arima-san?”
She wasn’t familiar with the name inheritance rules. If you had two was it a double name inheritance or something like that? Or…
“It’s a baptismal name,” explained Adele via divine transmission. “Arima-san is Catholic and Protasius is a fairly popular Catholic baptismal name.”
“What’s a…baptismal name?”
The front door burst open behind Suzu and Kimi barged in.
“Not baptismal – bath-tismal! It’s the name you use when you take a bath! In the soap kingdom!”
Asama-san turned around with her bow still at the ready, so Kimi-chan slammed the door shut and ran away.
●
Asama saw Neshinbara in the corner of the room with several sign frames open.
“Neshinbara-kun, have you figured something out?”
He shoved the sign frames behind his back before turning to face her.
“Heh,” he laughed. “It was simple really. According to my information network, Arima…um…”
“You can cheat if you want.”
“N-no, I don’t need to! Because I’m smart!”
“Harunobu,” whispered Suzu, but she was too quiet for Neshinbara to hear. Meanwhile, he held a hand to his chin in thought.
“I more or less get it now. This is all about the banning of foreign religions.”
“Yes,” agreed Asama with a smile. “Honda Masazumi-san already told us that.”
●
Masazumi sensed some kind of tense exchange occurring in the neighboring room. But she had her own exchange to deal with.
Hinoe Reservation Chancellor and Student Council President Arima Harunobu.
“You can think of Hinoe as Shimabara. Because the Hinoe Domain later becomes the Shimabara Domain. It has a lot of Catholics and the Testament says the Shimabara Rebellion occurs there later, but that was done in advance for the history recreation. She, Arima Harunobu, was Shimabara’s domain lord who traded with Portugal and others in the time period before that and she converted to Catholicism herself.”
“Ooh, you’re better at explaining things than Neshinbara-kun. We’ll let you do it,” came a divine transmission from the shrine maiden.
Really? Whatever.
At any rate, the name inheritor woman was bowing in front of her.
Masazumi knew perfectly well what her request was.
“Honda-sama, please grant me one request.”
Namely…
“I, Arima Harunobu, recently attacked Tres Portugal Captain-Major Pessoa’s ship off the coast of Nagasaki. I caused what goes on to be known as the Nossa Senhora da Graça Incident.”
“I thought Tres España was handling that internally?”
Something about the way she put that caught Masazumi’s interest, so she asked about it. And…
“Testament. This history recreation pertains to our reservation, but Tres España claimed it was theirs and is dealing with it accordingly.”
“I came here with Paulo – that is, Hinoe Domain Extra Special Duty Officer Okamoto Daihachi – to speak with you directly. We ask that you grant us the history recreation following the Nossa Senhora da Graça Incident.”
She bowed her head further.
“Only you can do that.”
●
What is this about? wondered Naito, taking a deep breath.
She was atop the eaves that Honda Masazumi and Arima Harunobu were speaking below. Or rather, she had halted her jump down and was trying to keep her balance after landing here. Naruze stood next to her, so Naito took her hand and tried to keep her trembling toes from slipping. But…
“What does she mean?” Naito asked via divine transmission. “Is there a history recreation after the Nossa one?”
Honda Masazumi down there was not a name inheritor. Why would a name inheritor like Arima Harunobu bow to her? But…
“She mentioned a name just now, remember? Okamoto Daihachi. An incident bearing his name follows the Nossa Senhora da Graça Incident. Yes, I refer to the Okamoto Daihachi Incident.” Neshinbara’s voice arrived via divine transmission. “The retaliatory attack in the Nossa Senhora da Graça Incident affected the Far East’s reputation, so the Hinoe Domain directly visited the shogunate afterwards. The shogunate sent Okamoto Daihachi to the Hinoe Domain as an inspector then, but some trouble occurred later on.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“A portion of Hinoe land was lost in a battle with Ryuuzouji and others. So the Hinoe Domain hoped to use the Nossa Senhora da Graça Incident to ask the shogunate for that land back. Inspector Okamoto Daihachi promised to deliver this request to the shogunate.”
He took a breath.
“The knife Aoi-kun delivered to Honda Masazumi apparently bore the name Paulo. Just as Protasius was Arima’s baptismal name, Paulo was Okamoto’s. So both of them are here. If Paulo’s knife was broken, he must have run into trouble.”
“Then,” cut in Asama. “Protasius, aka Arima Harunobu, and Paulo, aka Okamoto Daihachi, both arrived in Mikawa? All to ask Honda Masazumi-san for their land back?”
That would be the ordinary conclusion. Looking at Arima Harunobu’s situation alone, that had to in fact play a role. But…
“Incorrect,” said Mitotsudaira. “Most likely, this is something else.”
The wolf sensed danger.
●
That’s what I thought. Margot agreed with Mitotsudaira.
“If she was only here to ask for their land back…why would her own people be attacking her?”
“Judge. Exactly,” said Mitotsudaira. “The attackers – who we have in custody now – aren’t saying a word, but I heard that final one ask ‘why are you doing this?’ after seeing Arima Harunobu. He was asking why she is opposing them.”
Meaning…
“She is not here to recover their land. She has come here to ask for something that will bring harm to Hinoe.”
What could that be? Neshinbara gasped and rejoined the conversation.
“The Okamoto Daihachi Incident is an unpleasant affair that began with Arima Harunobu’s request. You see, Inspector Okamoto Daihachi demanded a bribe in exchange for taking the request back to the shogunate. And after receiving a hefty sum, he covered it all up and tried to make off with the money.”
But…
“But his attempts to cover it up failed. The shogunate was furious with him for taking a bribe and had him burned to death. Arima Harunobu was subsequently ordered to commit suicide for giving the bribe. Of course, Arima Harunobu, being Catholic, could not do so and was decapitated instead.”
And…
“The shogunate official who accused Okamoto Daihachi of his wrongdoing was…Honda Masazumi, confidante of the shogun.”
●
Masazumi saw Arima Harunobu bow her head even deeper.
“Honda-sama. Please declare the Nossa Senhora da Graça Incident to be under Matsudaira jurisdiction, so Tres España cannot handle it all internally. If you do so, we are prepared to complete the Okamoto Daihachi Incident as well.”
She had more to say.
“We three – the name inheritors of Arima, Okamoto, and Pessoa – can repay the favor if you report as such to the Testament Union.”
“Repay it how?”
Masazumi more or less already knew and she received exactly the response she expected.
“We can recommend and support your inheriting the Honda Masazumi name as a split name inheritance.”
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