New Mainland Territories of the Greater Empire of Yamatai (Occupied Shirakawa)
January 1942 (Shiwasu 2601)
The glass bottles on the sturdy mahogany table rattled as the irate older man firmly slammed his half-finished glass of Yeongseoni soju onto the table. He reclined in the plush leather couch, a poor example of a man in uniform. The rank of colonel adorned the collar of his dark green uniform, unbuttoned to reveal a sweaty, hairy chest and a rotund belly wrapped with a stained haramaki. He sat like a squatting toad, legs splayed open, his left arm casually draped over the backrest. Nestled next to him was one of the dozens of attractive, disenfranchised local women, driven from their rural homes by the war and left with little other option in life.
Activity buzzed around the lively izakaya, at least two thirds of its patrons in some form of uniform. This was of course to be expected, given that this establishment was right in the middle of the city's governmental district. For months now the Shirakawan front lines had been drawing ever closer, and perhaps only their sentimental desire to avoid too much damage to their own cities and people prevented the bombing raids from being much, much worse, as were those being directed against the Home Islands by Yeongseon. In that drinking establishment, young women in questionable dress roamed and flirted with these off-duty soldiers, their shrewd business sense leaving the lower-ranked enlisted men clustering together in loneliness. The music was a Yamataian classic from the 20s by a famous female Yamataian singer, being ruined by a grating Shirakawan man with a lively shamisen who was missing his two front teeth. His companion beat her little drum with great enthusiasm, cheering every time one of the drunk sailors threw her another few hundred En.
Sometimes she opened her yukata too.
With a harsh grunt, the colonel leaned forward and clumsily grabbed at the bottle of Yeongseoni alcohol. Steadier, younger hands reached there first, reaching over half-finished plates of Yashiman finger food and empty glasses left by companions who had long since stumbled back home, or to their posts.
"Sir, I'll do it, if you don't mind," the young captain had the flat demeanour of a businessman, still unfazed by a night's worth of drinking. Contrary to his superior, his khaki combat uniform was properly worn, belt buckle still shiny, the iconic cap with sun-flaps resting neatly next to him on his couch. His face was overwhelmingly generic, small, piercing eyes, a pencil moustache and thick lips painting him as the very stereotype of a Yamataian soldier. He deftly poured the colonel's drink, then his own.
Grabbing his glass, the colonel raised it up high, the yellowish light of the establishment refracting through the clear alcohol swirling in the container.
"A toast to the Imperial Marines," he yelled out, "who have driven those fuckers off our Tsushima and will soon fuck off from here!"
His slurring speech was drowned out by the background noise, but a few officers of indeterminate service at the neighbouring table raised their glasses as well. The captain smiled and raised his.
"Kanpai!"
With one mighty gulp, the man downed his entire glass. The captain followed suit, the liquid burning its way down his throat. The clink of satisfied, empty glasses echoed briefly as the participants dropped their glasses to the table.
"Who are we kidding," the colonel slurred, pulling the Shirakawan woman closer to him, "there's no stopping them."
"Sir, this kind of talk could be treasonous," the captain steadily warned, pouring another glass for the colonel, then himself.
"Fuck the kenpeitai. Fuck this shit, it's every man for himself down in Kiiromori," the colonel abruptly jerked away from the woman and banged a fist against the table, "you young fucks won't know, you're fresh from the Home Islands, aren't you? I was there during the first offensives, I was a private back when we took this fucking land. Who the fuck wants to live here, anyway!"
"Sir, please," the captain raised one hand consolingly, "I am sure we will be able to find a way to end the war favourably..."
"Yes," the colonel suddenly started to laugh, a deep guttural sound that sent a chill down the Shirakawan woman's spine. The captain remained stoic.
"There's a way, son. There's these... Secret Navy guys," the colonel was panting heavily now, "they found some kind of ancient weapon or something on some island. They say they can turn the tide of the war. I'm leaving tomorrow morning on a plane, this right here," he patted the cylindrical scroll container next to him, "this is going up to the Empress herself."
"What kind of weapon is it?" The captain probed, leaning back against his couch casually. He waved one of the Shirakawan women away as she attempted to slide next to him.
"I don't know, I don't care," the colonel shook his head, "I don't think it will make a difference, fuck. This city has a matter of months. The seas are owned by them now, no way we can get everyone out in time. We're all fucked. We're all..."
Trailing off and barely comprehensible, the colonel's eyes suddenly rolled back and he keeled over, his puffy face almost glowing red. Saliva rolled out of his mouth. The captain leapt to his feet, placing a finger on the man's neck to check for his pulse. The Shirakawan woman simply smiled.
"Nothing out of the ordinary, kid," she said in a matronly manner, "he'll be alright in the morning."
"I'm counting on it," the captain handed her twenty five thousand En, wartime inflation having driven 'normal' prices up to such an astronomical height, "take good care of him, ma'am. And I'm sorry, but this is a matter of national security so I'll be taking this. When he gets up, tell him I've brought it to his office."
He gingerly unclipped the bamboo cylinder from the colonel's belt, uncapped it to glance at the contents, then screwed the cap back on, before clipping it to his own belt. After putting on his cap, he adjusted the sword at his belt with drilled, crisp movements. He gave the woman a slight bow, and briskly pushed past a pair of marines, patriotic hachimaki wrapped around their heads as they drank sake directly from the bottle, to the 'delight' of three women, perfect actors who managed to look like they were having a good time for hours on end. The captain shook his head as he pushed through the back door, leaving that den of opulence behind to step into the back alley. A questionable smell rose from the gutter, light snowfall leaving an unpalatable slush that was a mixture of ice and the smog from the city's dozen wartime factories or burning buildings.
Taking a deep breath of the crisp winter air, he turned towards the street and stepped out of the light. No sooner had he crossed the threshold of the warm glow emerging from the drinking establishment did a harsh shout echo down the alleyway. Sighing in annoyance, the captain turned on his heel to face the newcomers. The sight saddened a part of him.
Two young men, barely eighteen, perhaps even seventeen, stood before him. He could tell they were Shirakawan natives based on their accent, but they wore the khaki of the Imperial Yamataian Army, the uniforms a bit too big for their thin frames. Around their left arms were the armbands of the kenpeitai, the Imperial Army's military police corps, used to patrol the streets after the local police forces proved too susceptible to corruption and traitorous acts. The two were privates, definitely locally conscripted grunts and probably directly under a sergeant of the same age (or younger), the only distinction being that he had been born in the Home Islands.
"Excuse me, where are your identification papers?" The one on the right asked aggressively, a twitchy hand fingering the bokken at his waist.
"Are you sure, Kentaro? He's a captain," the one on the left whispered a bit too loudly. A look of doubt and fear crossed the right side one's face, and he snapped his arms to his sides.
"It's alright, you're just doing your jobs," the captain yielded, pulling out a piece of paper.
"Sir, this is..." The right side one looked up at the captain, confused now. The captain smiled. He caught a glimpse of the Nanbu pistol that the left side one carried, glinting in the dark.
"It's all in order, isn't it?"
"It's all in order," the kenpei replied, staring into the captain's eyes. The captain shifted his attention to the left side one, who stood passively with a slight slouch.
"Listen, there's a colonel in there, who has done some treasonous things. He cannot be allowed to live. You will go up there, and you will shoot him," the captain said methodically, staring deep into the youth's eyes. The young man's pupils dilated, as though in a trance.
"There's a colonel in there, who had done some treasonous things. He cannot be allowed to live. I will go up there, and I will shoot him."
"Have a good evening, soldiers," the captain nodded to them. The two snapped to attention and saluted him, then bowed deeply. Blinking a few times, the two of them suddenly sprang into action, ramming the izakaya's back door open and charging inside. Roars and screams of protest immediately echoed out.
His fingers moving quickly, the captain folded the blank sheet of paper into the shape of a crane. He appreciated for a moment his chosen animal, given that it was one of the national symbols of the state of Yamatai, but then again their shared culture meant it was also just as significant for Shirakawa. He carefully placed the white crane on the snow-covered edge of the dumpster beside him, then stepped into the shadowed darkness of the alleyway.
Far above the skies of Wanshi, as dark aerial shapes approached the northern, manufacturing zone of the city and the sky began to light up with Imperial anti-aircraft artillery, a single red-crowned crane soared on the updraft. The graceful national symbol of the Greater Empire of Yamatai, the state that had cast its dark, imperialist shadow over this entire region for far too long. Hanging securely around its long neck was a single bamboo cylinder, potentially holding either very good or very bad news for at least one side of this devastating war.
For while the normal world fought with guns and bombs over petty ideology, and even deadlier war was also being fought, almost continuously, for thousands of years. A war with even more devastating consequences, should information leak to the conventional masses. And as the crane toting the now-dead colonel's former property soared towards the Shirakawan lines, it was a war that, at least, could be mitigated for now...
Activity buzzed around the lively izakaya, at least two thirds of its patrons in some form of uniform. This was of course to be expected, given that this establishment was right in the middle of the city's governmental district. For months now the Shirakawan front lines had been drawing ever closer, and perhaps only their sentimental desire to avoid too much damage to their own cities and people prevented the bombing raids from being much, much worse, as were those being directed against the Home Islands by Yeongseon. In that drinking establishment, young women in questionable dress roamed and flirted with these off-duty soldiers, their shrewd business sense leaving the lower-ranked enlisted men clustering together in loneliness. The music was a Yamataian classic from the 20s by a famous female Yamataian singer, being ruined by a grating Shirakawan man with a lively shamisen who was missing his two front teeth. His companion beat her little drum with great enthusiasm, cheering every time one of the drunk sailors threw her another few hundred En.
Sometimes she opened her yukata too.
With a harsh grunt, the colonel leaned forward and clumsily grabbed at the bottle of Yeongseoni alcohol. Steadier, younger hands reached there first, reaching over half-finished plates of Yashiman finger food and empty glasses left by companions who had long since stumbled back home, or to their posts.
"Sir, I'll do it, if you don't mind," the young captain had the flat demeanour of a businessman, still unfazed by a night's worth of drinking. Contrary to his superior, his khaki combat uniform was properly worn, belt buckle still shiny, the iconic cap with sun-flaps resting neatly next to him on his couch. His face was overwhelmingly generic, small, piercing eyes, a pencil moustache and thick lips painting him as the very stereotype of a Yamataian soldier. He deftly poured the colonel's drink, then his own.
Grabbing his glass, the colonel raised it up high, the yellowish light of the establishment refracting through the clear alcohol swirling in the container.
"A toast to the Imperial Marines," he yelled out, "who have driven those fuckers off our Tsushima and will soon fuck off from here!"
His slurring speech was drowned out by the background noise, but a few officers of indeterminate service at the neighbouring table raised their glasses as well. The captain smiled and raised his.
"Kanpai!"
With one mighty gulp, the man downed his entire glass. The captain followed suit, the liquid burning its way down his throat. The clink of satisfied, empty glasses echoed briefly as the participants dropped their glasses to the table.
"Who are we kidding," the colonel slurred, pulling the Shirakawan woman closer to him, "there's no stopping them."
"Sir, this kind of talk could be treasonous," the captain steadily warned, pouring another glass for the colonel, then himself.
"Fuck the kenpeitai. Fuck this shit, it's every man for himself down in Kiiromori," the colonel abruptly jerked away from the woman and banged a fist against the table, "you young fucks won't know, you're fresh from the Home Islands, aren't you? I was there during the first offensives, I was a private back when we took this fucking land. Who the fuck wants to live here, anyway!"
"Sir, please," the captain raised one hand consolingly, "I am sure we will be able to find a way to end the war favourably..."
"Yes," the colonel suddenly started to laugh, a deep guttural sound that sent a chill down the Shirakawan woman's spine. The captain remained stoic.
"There's a way, son. There's these... Secret Navy guys," the colonel was panting heavily now, "they found some kind of ancient weapon or something on some island. They say they can turn the tide of the war. I'm leaving tomorrow morning on a plane, this right here," he patted the cylindrical scroll container next to him, "this is going up to the Empress herself."
"What kind of weapon is it?" The captain probed, leaning back against his couch casually. He waved one of the Shirakawan women away as she attempted to slide next to him.
"I don't know, I don't care," the colonel shook his head, "I don't think it will make a difference, fuck. This city has a matter of months. The seas are owned by them now, no way we can get everyone out in time. We're all fucked. We're all..."
Trailing off and barely comprehensible, the colonel's eyes suddenly rolled back and he keeled over, his puffy face almost glowing red. Saliva rolled out of his mouth. The captain leapt to his feet, placing a finger on the man's neck to check for his pulse. The Shirakawan woman simply smiled.
"Nothing out of the ordinary, kid," she said in a matronly manner, "he'll be alright in the morning."
"I'm counting on it," the captain handed her twenty five thousand En, wartime inflation having driven 'normal' prices up to such an astronomical height, "take good care of him, ma'am. And I'm sorry, but this is a matter of national security so I'll be taking this. When he gets up, tell him I've brought it to his office."
He gingerly unclipped the bamboo cylinder from the colonel's belt, uncapped it to glance at the contents, then screwed the cap back on, before clipping it to his own belt. After putting on his cap, he adjusted the sword at his belt with drilled, crisp movements. He gave the woman a slight bow, and briskly pushed past a pair of marines, patriotic hachimaki wrapped around their heads as they drank sake directly from the bottle, to the 'delight' of three women, perfect actors who managed to look like they were having a good time for hours on end. The captain shook his head as he pushed through the back door, leaving that den of opulence behind to step into the back alley. A questionable smell rose from the gutter, light snowfall leaving an unpalatable slush that was a mixture of ice and the smog from the city's dozen wartime factories or burning buildings.
Taking a deep breath of the crisp winter air, he turned towards the street and stepped out of the light. No sooner had he crossed the threshold of the warm glow emerging from the drinking establishment did a harsh shout echo down the alleyway. Sighing in annoyance, the captain turned on his heel to face the newcomers. The sight saddened a part of him.
Two young men, barely eighteen, perhaps even seventeen, stood before him. He could tell they were Shirakawan natives based on their accent, but they wore the khaki of the Imperial Yamataian Army, the uniforms a bit too big for their thin frames. Around their left arms were the armbands of the kenpeitai, the Imperial Army's military police corps, used to patrol the streets after the local police forces proved too susceptible to corruption and traitorous acts. The two were privates, definitely locally conscripted grunts and probably directly under a sergeant of the same age (or younger), the only distinction being that he had been born in the Home Islands.
"Excuse me, where are your identification papers?" The one on the right asked aggressively, a twitchy hand fingering the bokken at his waist.
"Are you sure, Kentaro? He's a captain," the one on the left whispered a bit too loudly. A look of doubt and fear crossed the right side one's face, and he snapped his arms to his sides.
"It's alright, you're just doing your jobs," the captain yielded, pulling out a piece of paper.
"Sir, this is..." The right side one looked up at the captain, confused now. The captain smiled. He caught a glimpse of the Nanbu pistol that the left side one carried, glinting in the dark.
"It's all in order, isn't it?"
"It's all in order," the kenpei replied, staring into the captain's eyes. The captain shifted his attention to the left side one, who stood passively with a slight slouch.
"Listen, there's a colonel in there, who has done some treasonous things. He cannot be allowed to live. You will go up there, and you will shoot him," the captain said methodically, staring deep into the youth's eyes. The young man's pupils dilated, as though in a trance.
"There's a colonel in there, who had done some treasonous things. He cannot be allowed to live. I will go up there, and I will shoot him."
"Have a good evening, soldiers," the captain nodded to them. The two snapped to attention and saluted him, then bowed deeply. Blinking a few times, the two of them suddenly sprang into action, ramming the izakaya's back door open and charging inside. Roars and screams of protest immediately echoed out.
His fingers moving quickly, the captain folded the blank sheet of paper into the shape of a crane. He appreciated for a moment his chosen animal, given that it was one of the national symbols of the state of Yamatai, but then again their shared culture meant it was also just as significant for Shirakawa. He carefully placed the white crane on the snow-covered edge of the dumpster beside him, then stepped into the shadowed darkness of the alleyway.
Far above the skies of Wanshi, as dark aerial shapes approached the northern, manufacturing zone of the city and the sky began to light up with Imperial anti-aircraft artillery, a single red-crowned crane soared on the updraft. The graceful national symbol of the Greater Empire of Yamatai, the state that had cast its dark, imperialist shadow over this entire region for far too long. Hanging securely around its long neck was a single bamboo cylinder, potentially holding either very good or very bad news for at least one side of this devastating war.
For while the normal world fought with guns and bombs over petty ideology, and even deadlier war was also being fought, almost continuously, for thousands of years. A war with even more devastating consequences, should information leak to the conventional masses. And as the crane toting the now-dead colonel's former property soared towards the Shirakawan lines, it was a war that, at least, could be mitigated for now...
MAGUS ORDIS
THE ISLAND OF INFINITY
THE ISLAND OF INFINITY
North-West Shirakawa
January 2019
Bursting through the fluffy white snow, a dark diesel train drove its way through the snowed-over tracks, human industry proving its strength against mother nature once again. These tracks were not used often, travelling deep through forests and valleys that people did not normally enter, even with the endless marathon of progress that the nation and the region had faced since the turn of the century. Snow-covered trees flanked the track on both sides. The train cars had no windows, and the only lights were the headlamps and the driver's cabin, which too had tinted windows. This was a train that never officially set off, and would never officially arrive, either. After the drive unit were two train cars, three flatbeds with cargo covered by flapping tarpaulins made up the rest of the train, and then a final car acting as a caboose.
The moon hung high in the sky, as the hour approached close to midnight. In such a remote place and at such a remote hour, there was nobody around to notice this secret cargo. Yet there were numerous satellites and three drones watching this very train - though only some of them belonged to Shirakawa.
Seemingly from thin air, the ends of four sturdy polymer belaying ropes dropped onto the second train car. Emerging from nowhere, four dark shaped slid down the ropes with trained precision, dressed in all-black combat uniforms and tactical webbing, bearing three-lensed multi-vision goggles, and of course toting the usual black assault rifles of the 21st century. They touched down onto the freezing metal roof of the train with nary a sound, two immediately spider-crawling towards the rear of the train - and the flatbeds. The other two remained atop the train car, one pointing his weapon towards the front of the train and the other pulling out one of their high-tech gadgets, a breaching foam that burned at several thousand degrees. The regular armed forces had not received this technology yet, nor would they for another decade. To stay alive in this world, particularly this one, the average man had no choice but to keep himself ahead of at least one of the curves.
Even with their superior training, physics still could not be escaped, and the four men barely hung on as the train threw itself around a bend at high speed. The ropes were pulled back up to some invisible space above the train. Once the train stabilised, the men at the rear dropped onto the flatbed. And then, a development.
Echoing over even the deafening wind and the sound of the train tearing through the snow, the mountains seemed to reverberate with the gunshots that burst from the rear train car, three of the Shirakawan security officers having finally woken up. The bullets flew long, arcing over the train and into nowhere. The commandos returned fire, as the one with the breaching foam quickly drew a circle on the roof and watched the pyrotechnics burn through the metal. After a few seconds, a new hatch had been generated in the roof of the train car, liquefied metal rapidly cooling in the winter air. While waiting for the hatch to cool enough for himself to safely jump in, he raised his rifle and aided his two comrades, barely holding on to the train with the help of electromagnets strapped to his forearms.
One Shirakawan soldier was hit twice, going down. However, five more Shirakawans emerged from the caboose to join the fray, and the team quickly advanced to the second flatbed. Three stayed behind at the last flatbed, working on the tarpaulin. The commando at the hatch quickly jumped through it, landing deftly in the middle of a train car filled to the brim with shelves of boxes and folders. A strangely comforting smell pervaded through the cabin, similar to that of an old library and mixed with the sweet and inexplicable scent of Wednesday's Flower. Almost immediately, the soldier was attacked by one of the Shirakawans inside the car, who fired a submachine gun at him. Diving to avoid the bullets, the commando rolled and came up to the Shirakawan, bodyslamming him while stamping on the opposing soldier's foot, a satisfying crack echoing out. The Shirakawan dropped his weapon and pulled out a combat knife, while the commando struggled to put him into an arm lock.
Both men fell over, the commando landing on top, twisting the Shirakawan's knife arm until the blade was now pointed at the Shirakawan's throat. Though he put up a very spirited resistance for his life, the application of the commando's entire body weight onto that arm drove the cold steel into it's owner's own neck. Spurting for a few moments, the man lay dead. Returning to his feet, the commando suddenly jabbed his elbow to the back, knocking the wind out of the second Shirakawan who had attempted to sneak up on him. Pulling out his own razor-sharpened tanto, he parried the Shirakawan's aggressive thrust and caught the man in the chin with his left elbow. Stumbling backward, the well-trained Shirakawan suddenly pulled out a handgun and fired, though a sudden jerk in the train sent his aim off, the bullet ricocheting through the skeletal metal shelving. Leaping forward, the commando grabbed the Shirakawan's core, throwing both men to the ground. Pushing himself off the ground with one hand, the commando easily brought his tanto down into the heart of the Shirakawan soldier.
He stood up, raised his slung weapon, and swept the entire carriage cautiously before bowing in respect to the two men he had just killed in close combat. Then he pushed his goggles onto his helmet and pulled down his balaclava, catching his breath. A strong, chiselled jawline gave way to empty cheeks and high cheekbones, his small eyes - similar yet different to the men he had just faced - clearly betraying his ethnicity as a pure island Yashiman. In other words, a soldier of the modern Empire of Yamatai, once the mortal enemy of this land but now its best friend - most of the time, at least.
The Yamataian immediately got to work, applying his breaching foam to the most secure-looking filing cabinet he could find. When the cabinet popped open with little protest, he found nothing but old historical records. No, there was something they were specifically looking for, over half a century after it was lost. He ripped open a cardboard box from inside the cabinet to find a strange doll which looked Valeyan. Snarling in frustration, he moved to the next cabinet.
The three Shirakawan men on the last flatbed pulled off their tarpaulin, revealing a pair of heavy machine guns mounted in a dual anti-aircraft mount. One of the Shirakawans got in the gunner's seat and began firing wildly into the sky, his rationale only revealed a second later when his bullets actually hit something in the sky on the left side of the train. In a blink, a Yamataian utility helicopter - unremarkable and used by all branches of the Imperial military - suddenly appeared out of thin air, the deafening sound of the blades chopping through the air suddenly competing with the wind and train.
Far more interesting would be the woman leaping off of the helicopter, dressed in the red and white of the Yamataian Michi religion's Miko priestesses, albeit with a military-issue plate carrier strapped over her upper body. She carried a yumi longbow, drawing two arrows and releasing them as she travelled through the air and landed on the train with inhuman grace. The arrows curved through the air to strike both Shirakawan soldiers manning the machine gun in the heart. Drawing another two arrows, another two Shirakawan soldiers were killed shortly, easing the pressure and enabling the Yamataian commandos to finally move forward.
Suddenly, a sickening sound of screeching metal echoed through the air, alongside the terrible sound of metal being bent and torn to its breaking point. The miko immediately drew three arrows and fired them into the sky, where they suddenly turned in various angles and intercepted metal beams that flew from behind the train, knocking them out of the sky with dull thuds. The train's caboose literally burst open, the metallic fragments exploding outwards but hanging in the air as a wizened man in a similar uniform to the Shirakawan security forces - yet with some embellishments - emerged imperiously, his ancient white beard fluttering in the wind. With a yell, he launched five of the fragments at high speed towards the Yamataians, four of which the miko intercepted and one which tore straight through the chest of one of the Yamataian soldiers with a spray of blood.
High caliber machine gun rounds peppered the flatbed as the helicopter strafed the train, the side-mounted machine gun firing on the Shirakawan warlock's position. He effortlessly blocked the rounds both from the helicopter and the commandos with his metal fragments, and just as easily batted several of the miko's arrows away. Levitating himself onto the top of the caboose's remains, he reached to the rear and violently made a tearing action. Half a second later, a section of the train track itself flew at high velocity through the air, breaking right through the wooden arrow sent to intercept it and smashing into the flatbed with great force, barely missing the miko as she dove away at the last second.
Making a motion similar to freestyle swimming, the warlock narrowed his eyes, hurling sections of the train track at the miko and the remaining commando, who barely managed to take cover behind what was quickly revealed to be a light utility vehicle under the tarpaulin on the second flatbed. His skill was such that none of the dozens of rounds fired at him - either by the remaining commandos or the helicopter - had even grazed the man. Evidently, though, he grew tired of blocking the helicopter's attacks, especially after they fired a rocket at him, which he easily blocked with the levitated remains of the anti-aircraft machine gun from the train. With finality, he turned around and made a grandiose clapping motion, the track behind the train seeming to come alive as it reared up and bent sickeningly towards the helicopter like grasping tentacles.
Time seemed to slow down, as the tentacle-tracks inched closer and closer, and then stopped altogether.
The bullets fired from the commandos' rifles hung in mid air. The warlock's beard hung in mid air, flying on a now-non-existent gale. The wind stopped completely, leaving the air stale and heavy to push through, as though walking underwater. The commandos, the warlock, the helicopter's blades, all did not move. A glance to her right confirmed that outside of the bubble, time was still flowing as it should, the trees on either side of the track still bending in the natural breeze. The gale, after all, was caused by the movement of the train. She looked down and saw how her blood was flowing from the tip of her shaking index finger onto the ofuda she had just deployed, similar to those attached to her arrows to give them their homing capabilities. The abilities of this world manifested themselves in very different ways across the multitude of cultures across the world.
She naturally noticed a sudden movement as a small girl in a black and red kimono, looking about fifteen, emerged from behind the miko.
"I apologise for the need for you to act, imouto," the Miko said, bowing slightly, the sound distorted by the frozen air.
"It's alright, I was bored on the helicopter anyway," the younger gleefully said. She stepped back out of the miko's line of sight, then stepped out from behind the Shirakawan warlock. Smiling at his frozen face, she extended her arms and embraced him.
Natural sunlight filtered through the light pink flowers of a grove of cherry blossom trees. The dainty petals of the trees swirled around the clearing, to the left was a babbling creek, fed by a stone-lined pond on the right, into which a waterfall emptied with a strangely low amount of noise. Standing opposite him in the clearing was a little girl in a black and red kimono, pale skin, raven hair and unnaturally neutral expression adding to the uncannily unsettling aura she emanated. He pushed himself up to a sitting position with his aged yet muscular arms.
"Where am I?"
"Somewhere safe. But only temporarily," her voice seemed to come from all directions at once.
"What are you?"
"I'm not really sure either," she smirked ever so slightly.
"Release me, child."
She laughed, a cloyingly sweet sound with a disturbing undercurrent.
"Later," she smiled, the stepped behind a thin tree and disappeared.
The Shirakawan warlock slumped against the rock, noticing that there appeared to be a figure meditating behind the waterfall to his right.
Tearing open another cardboard box and discarding its shredded body onto the floor, the commando in the train car finally found what he was looking for. A nondescript bamboo scroll container, inscribed with its owners' details: the 16th Area Army, Yamatai Imperial Army. Unscrewing the top, he gingerly pulled out the scroll and unfurled the aged paper. This was one of many copies made of an original, all of which had been destroyed or lost over the years. This was the last known copy still in existence, the last known copy that would lead to the rediscovery of that...
He drew his pistol and shot the Shirakawan coming through the door in the chest, dropping the man immediately.
Pulling out a disposable camera, the commando took several photographs of the scroll, written in strange symbols with annotations in coded Hyokana* script added by the nation's archaeologists over 70 years ago. Dominating the entire image of course, was an archaic-looking map of a region that one could clearly make out was the Crosswind Sea, in south-east Escar and on the border with Osova.
"This is Higashida, I have the scroll," the soldier reported.
"Very good, we have Shirakawan fast-movers and helicopters coming in in about three minutes," the helicopter pilot replied urgently.
"Fighters? They're really serious about this shit, calling in conventionals. Everyone back to the helicopter, we've got what we came here for."
Hovering over the slowing-down train, ropes were dropped from the helicopter for the remaining commandos, the miko and the corpse of the dead commando to be brought on board. No evidence could be left behind of Yamatai's involvement here, just like little evidence of the world they operated in could be left behind for the world at large to see. As they boarded, the miko released a small measure of her blood to seal a different ofuda talisman, affixing the slip of enchanted paper to the fuselage of the helicopter.
In the blink of an eye, the entire aircraft once again disappeared, and the sound of the blades no longer existed.
The warlock blinked and suddenly saw the familiar stars of the night sky over Shirakawa. Gasping for air as though he had been underwater, or perhaps overjoyed he was breathing the air of the correct realm once again, he was partly embarrassed to admit he was terrified of the experience despite his decades of experience.
A jet fighter - probably part of the reinforcements he had called in - cut through the sky above. He knew those conventionals would be unable to find the assailants.
The train was slowing down.
Friendly helicopters were closing in.
The moon hung high in the sky, as the hour approached close to midnight. In such a remote place and at such a remote hour, there was nobody around to notice this secret cargo. Yet there were numerous satellites and three drones watching this very train - though only some of them belonged to Shirakawa.
Seemingly from thin air, the ends of four sturdy polymer belaying ropes dropped onto the second train car. Emerging from nowhere, four dark shaped slid down the ropes with trained precision, dressed in all-black combat uniforms and tactical webbing, bearing three-lensed multi-vision goggles, and of course toting the usual black assault rifles of the 21st century. They touched down onto the freezing metal roof of the train with nary a sound, two immediately spider-crawling towards the rear of the train - and the flatbeds. The other two remained atop the train car, one pointing his weapon towards the front of the train and the other pulling out one of their high-tech gadgets, a breaching foam that burned at several thousand degrees. The regular armed forces had not received this technology yet, nor would they for another decade. To stay alive in this world, particularly this one, the average man had no choice but to keep himself ahead of at least one of the curves.
Even with their superior training, physics still could not be escaped, and the four men barely hung on as the train threw itself around a bend at high speed. The ropes were pulled back up to some invisible space above the train. Once the train stabilised, the men at the rear dropped onto the flatbed. And then, a development.
Echoing over even the deafening wind and the sound of the train tearing through the snow, the mountains seemed to reverberate with the gunshots that burst from the rear train car, three of the Shirakawan security officers having finally woken up. The bullets flew long, arcing over the train and into nowhere. The commandos returned fire, as the one with the breaching foam quickly drew a circle on the roof and watched the pyrotechnics burn through the metal. After a few seconds, a new hatch had been generated in the roof of the train car, liquefied metal rapidly cooling in the winter air. While waiting for the hatch to cool enough for himself to safely jump in, he raised his rifle and aided his two comrades, barely holding on to the train with the help of electromagnets strapped to his forearms.
One Shirakawan soldier was hit twice, going down. However, five more Shirakawans emerged from the caboose to join the fray, and the team quickly advanced to the second flatbed. Three stayed behind at the last flatbed, working on the tarpaulin. The commando at the hatch quickly jumped through it, landing deftly in the middle of a train car filled to the brim with shelves of boxes and folders. A strangely comforting smell pervaded through the cabin, similar to that of an old library and mixed with the sweet and inexplicable scent of Wednesday's Flower. Almost immediately, the soldier was attacked by one of the Shirakawans inside the car, who fired a submachine gun at him. Diving to avoid the bullets, the commando rolled and came up to the Shirakawan, bodyslamming him while stamping on the opposing soldier's foot, a satisfying crack echoing out. The Shirakawan dropped his weapon and pulled out a combat knife, while the commando struggled to put him into an arm lock.
Both men fell over, the commando landing on top, twisting the Shirakawan's knife arm until the blade was now pointed at the Shirakawan's throat. Though he put up a very spirited resistance for his life, the application of the commando's entire body weight onto that arm drove the cold steel into it's owner's own neck. Spurting for a few moments, the man lay dead. Returning to his feet, the commando suddenly jabbed his elbow to the back, knocking the wind out of the second Shirakawan who had attempted to sneak up on him. Pulling out his own razor-sharpened tanto, he parried the Shirakawan's aggressive thrust and caught the man in the chin with his left elbow. Stumbling backward, the well-trained Shirakawan suddenly pulled out a handgun and fired, though a sudden jerk in the train sent his aim off, the bullet ricocheting through the skeletal metal shelving. Leaping forward, the commando grabbed the Shirakawan's core, throwing both men to the ground. Pushing himself off the ground with one hand, the commando easily brought his tanto down into the heart of the Shirakawan soldier.
He stood up, raised his slung weapon, and swept the entire carriage cautiously before bowing in respect to the two men he had just killed in close combat. Then he pushed his goggles onto his helmet and pulled down his balaclava, catching his breath. A strong, chiselled jawline gave way to empty cheeks and high cheekbones, his small eyes - similar yet different to the men he had just faced - clearly betraying his ethnicity as a pure island Yashiman. In other words, a soldier of the modern Empire of Yamatai, once the mortal enemy of this land but now its best friend - most of the time, at least.
The Yamataian immediately got to work, applying his breaching foam to the most secure-looking filing cabinet he could find. When the cabinet popped open with little protest, he found nothing but old historical records. No, there was something they were specifically looking for, over half a century after it was lost. He ripped open a cardboard box from inside the cabinet to find a strange doll which looked Valeyan. Snarling in frustration, he moved to the next cabinet.
The three Shirakawan men on the last flatbed pulled off their tarpaulin, revealing a pair of heavy machine guns mounted in a dual anti-aircraft mount. One of the Shirakawans got in the gunner's seat and began firing wildly into the sky, his rationale only revealed a second later when his bullets actually hit something in the sky on the left side of the train. In a blink, a Yamataian utility helicopter - unremarkable and used by all branches of the Imperial military - suddenly appeared out of thin air, the deafening sound of the blades chopping through the air suddenly competing with the wind and train.
Far more interesting would be the woman leaping off of the helicopter, dressed in the red and white of the Yamataian Michi religion's Miko priestesses, albeit with a military-issue plate carrier strapped over her upper body. She carried a yumi longbow, drawing two arrows and releasing them as she travelled through the air and landed on the train with inhuman grace. The arrows curved through the air to strike both Shirakawan soldiers manning the machine gun in the heart. Drawing another two arrows, another two Shirakawan soldiers were killed shortly, easing the pressure and enabling the Yamataian commandos to finally move forward.
Suddenly, a sickening sound of screeching metal echoed through the air, alongside the terrible sound of metal being bent and torn to its breaking point. The miko immediately drew three arrows and fired them into the sky, where they suddenly turned in various angles and intercepted metal beams that flew from behind the train, knocking them out of the sky with dull thuds. The train's caboose literally burst open, the metallic fragments exploding outwards but hanging in the air as a wizened man in a similar uniform to the Shirakawan security forces - yet with some embellishments - emerged imperiously, his ancient white beard fluttering in the wind. With a yell, he launched five of the fragments at high speed towards the Yamataians, four of which the miko intercepted and one which tore straight through the chest of one of the Yamataian soldiers with a spray of blood.
High caliber machine gun rounds peppered the flatbed as the helicopter strafed the train, the side-mounted machine gun firing on the Shirakawan warlock's position. He effortlessly blocked the rounds both from the helicopter and the commandos with his metal fragments, and just as easily batted several of the miko's arrows away. Levitating himself onto the top of the caboose's remains, he reached to the rear and violently made a tearing action. Half a second later, a section of the train track itself flew at high velocity through the air, breaking right through the wooden arrow sent to intercept it and smashing into the flatbed with great force, barely missing the miko as she dove away at the last second.
Making a motion similar to freestyle swimming, the warlock narrowed his eyes, hurling sections of the train track at the miko and the remaining commando, who barely managed to take cover behind what was quickly revealed to be a light utility vehicle under the tarpaulin on the second flatbed. His skill was such that none of the dozens of rounds fired at him - either by the remaining commandos or the helicopter - had even grazed the man. Evidently, though, he grew tired of blocking the helicopter's attacks, especially after they fired a rocket at him, which he easily blocked with the levitated remains of the anti-aircraft machine gun from the train. With finality, he turned around and made a grandiose clapping motion, the track behind the train seeming to come alive as it reared up and bent sickeningly towards the helicopter like grasping tentacles.
Time seemed to slow down, as the tentacle-tracks inched closer and closer, and then stopped altogether.
The bullets fired from the commandos' rifles hung in mid air. The warlock's beard hung in mid air, flying on a now-non-existent gale. The wind stopped completely, leaving the air stale and heavy to push through, as though walking underwater. The commandos, the warlock, the helicopter's blades, all did not move. A glance to her right confirmed that outside of the bubble, time was still flowing as it should, the trees on either side of the track still bending in the natural breeze. The gale, after all, was caused by the movement of the train. She looked down and saw how her blood was flowing from the tip of her shaking index finger onto the ofuda she had just deployed, similar to those attached to her arrows to give them their homing capabilities. The abilities of this world manifested themselves in very different ways across the multitude of cultures across the world.
She naturally noticed a sudden movement as a small girl in a black and red kimono, looking about fifteen, emerged from behind the miko.
"I apologise for the need for you to act, imouto," the Miko said, bowing slightly, the sound distorted by the frozen air.
"It's alright, I was bored on the helicopter anyway," the younger gleefully said. She stepped back out of the miko's line of sight, then stepped out from behind the Shirakawan warlock. Smiling at his frozen face, she extended her arms and embraced him.
Natural sunlight filtered through the light pink flowers of a grove of cherry blossom trees. The dainty petals of the trees swirled around the clearing, to the left was a babbling creek, fed by a stone-lined pond on the right, into which a waterfall emptied with a strangely low amount of noise. Standing opposite him in the clearing was a little girl in a black and red kimono, pale skin, raven hair and unnaturally neutral expression adding to the uncannily unsettling aura she emanated. He pushed himself up to a sitting position with his aged yet muscular arms.
"Where am I?"
"Somewhere safe. But only temporarily," her voice seemed to come from all directions at once.
"What are you?"
"I'm not really sure either," she smirked ever so slightly.
"Release me, child."
She laughed, a cloyingly sweet sound with a disturbing undercurrent.
"Later," she smiled, the stepped behind a thin tree and disappeared.
The Shirakawan warlock slumped against the rock, noticing that there appeared to be a figure meditating behind the waterfall to his right.
Tearing open another cardboard box and discarding its shredded body onto the floor, the commando in the train car finally found what he was looking for. A nondescript bamboo scroll container, inscribed with its owners' details: the 16th Area Army, Yamatai Imperial Army. Unscrewing the top, he gingerly pulled out the scroll and unfurled the aged paper. This was one of many copies made of an original, all of which had been destroyed or lost over the years. This was the last known copy still in existence, the last known copy that would lead to the rediscovery of that...
He drew his pistol and shot the Shirakawan coming through the door in the chest, dropping the man immediately.
Pulling out a disposable camera, the commando took several photographs of the scroll, written in strange symbols with annotations in coded Hyokana* script added by the nation's archaeologists over 70 years ago. Dominating the entire image of course, was an archaic-looking map of a region that one could clearly make out was the Crosswind Sea, in south-east Escar and on the border with Osova.
"This is Higashida, I have the scroll," the soldier reported.
"Very good, we have Shirakawan fast-movers and helicopters coming in in about three minutes," the helicopter pilot replied urgently.
"Fighters? They're really serious about this shit, calling in conventionals. Everyone back to the helicopter, we've got what we came here for."
Hovering over the slowing-down train, ropes were dropped from the helicopter for the remaining commandos, the miko and the corpse of the dead commando to be brought on board. No evidence could be left behind of Yamatai's involvement here, just like little evidence of the world they operated in could be left behind for the world at large to see. As they boarded, the miko released a small measure of her blood to seal a different ofuda talisman, affixing the slip of enchanted paper to the fuselage of the helicopter.
In the blink of an eye, the entire aircraft once again disappeared, and the sound of the blades no longer existed.
The warlock blinked and suddenly saw the familiar stars of the night sky over Shirakawa. Gasping for air as though he had been underwater, or perhaps overjoyed he was breathing the air of the correct realm once again, he was partly embarrassed to admit he was terrified of the experience despite his decades of experience.
A jet fighter - probably part of the reinforcements he had called in - cut through the sky above. He knew those conventionals would be unable to find the assailants.
The train was slowing down.
Friendly helicopters were closing in.
OOC:
*Hiragana irl