Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon - Volume 4B - Chapter 37

Chapter 37: Wing Users in the Sky

It is a type of light

It bites at the darkness

It approaches strength

Point Allocation (Attacker)

Black and white lines travelled through the blue sky above the green earth.

They rode Schwarz Fräulein and Weiss Fräulein, specialized hulls provided by Edel Brocken. Schwarz Fräulein and Weiss Fräulein were pulled forward with excellent acceleration.

The wind that not even an atmospheric buffering spell could prevent washed over the white Technohexen as she sent out words using the crop mark frame Magie Figur she had drawn with her right hand. Her voice itself was drowned out by the wind, but the words still appeared in the speech bubbles.

Mal-Ga: “Margot! I can see them! They’re eight kilometers away!”

Gold Mar: “Judge! Let’s swap positions once we’re within five kilometers!”

Mal-Ga: “Judge! We’ll be making a turn, so switch over your turn settings!”

They had a single goal: stop the ship that Sviet Rus had sent toward the Ariake.

…And do it in a nondestructive way!

They would demonstrate that they could shoot down the ship, but they would intentionally avoid doing so.

They intended to destroy the rear thruster to knock it off course. After all…

…That will show that’s all we need to do to erase that threat! The transport ship attacks at Magdeburg happened at night and when the divine transmissions were out.

Mal-Ga: “But we’ll show them that we’re here now!”

Naruze upped her speed.

She had to hurry because Margot had not hesitated to accelerate in front of her. Naruze desperately pursued her through the hole in the wind created by Schwarz Fräulein and the golden wings.

She could see the light created by the Schwarz Techno acceleration spell. Beyond that, she saw Margot’s main wings stretching straight back and her skirt fluttering up in the wind.

Gold Mar: “Ga-chan, is it just me or are you forcing yourself to stick to that spot?”

Mal-Ga: “I can see every contour of your butt in those tights, so I’m only obeying my instincts!”

Gold Mar: “I’m glad to see you haven’t changed at all. …We’re in range! That means…”

“Judge,” replied Naruze as she pushed back the accelerator with the back of her thighs. She leaned forward and pursued Margot while making sure not to be blown away by the wind.

Mal-Ga: “Here we go, Margot!”

Gold Mar: “Well, I was actually thinking I should tell you to watch out. Look.”

The color white passed by over Naruze’s forward-leaning head.

…An ice shell!?

She assumed it had come from the Sviet Rus fleet, but she was wrong.

Mal-Ga: “It came from the transport ship!? It isn’t unmanned!?”

Gold Mar: “There are no life signs onboard! So…”

Naruze understood. The enemy had predicted this counterattack. And…

Gold Mar: “Ga-chan! Their attack is coming! It’s multi-stage!!”

With the Technohexen three kilometers away, thirty-two projectiles resembling white spears were launched from different parts of the approaching transport ship.

They were ice spears. The spears themselves were made from Orei Nero and the spell dissolved into them reacted.

“Orthodoxia: Attack Spell: Multi-Shell Split and Homing: Confirmed.”

They each broke apart into eight different spears and an acceleration spell activated on the back of each one. A moment later, they drew arcs through the sky as they flew straight toward something.

In the early summer sky, the many pillars of ice turned at sharp angles, let out a spray of light, and surfed through empty air.

Their targets were the two approaching Technohexen, but then a red light appeared on the sight device on the bow of the unmanned transport ship.

“Additional shells: Confirmed.”

More frozen multi-shell attacks were scattered about for a second and third stage.

The temperature difference created a white mist in the sky. Some of the ice pillars were caught in the wind, collided with each other, and shattered, but the unmanned ship did not care. The white ship continued scattering white spears through the sky as it flew straight toward the white and black Technohexen.

After forcing her way past Margot to move out front, Naruze saw it.

…Would you call this a white rain shower?

More than just a barrage or a barrier, a solid space of enemy projectiles appeared before her eyes wrapped in mist.

Represented in a line drawing, there would have been little white space and they would end up being drawn in black even if she tried to draw them white. That was how solidly the space was filled with enemy projectiles.

“Not bad. If all they have to do is fire a ton of multi-stage homing shells, a transport ship will work as well as a warship. It’s useful enough for resisting a short-term counterattack.”

Naruze felt she should complain. She felt she should curse and verbally abuse the enemy for doing this, but…

“Hah!”

She heard her own voice in the wind. She wrinkled her brow, but stared at her opponent and let out a roar, without knowing if she should twist her mouth into a smile or into a look of anger.

“Don’t underestimate Technohexen, Sviet Rus!!”

She opened the rail wings on either hip so they extended back on either side. The backs of her knees caught on the accelerator and she raised her butt.

“Watch this.”

She held Weiss Fräulein between her knees and forced the accelerator back.

She held down the device as it was buffeted by the wind and she cut forward through the sky.

She simply focused on that forward movement.

“Here I go!”

It sure is cold, thought Naruze.

The chill of the air felt like a premonition. There was no sound in her vicinity, she felt the softness of her body parting the air like water, and she saw the many lines of white ice approaching.

“Heh…heh.”

It almost looked like her entire field of vision turned white.

…It’s just like a manuscript page before you’ve drawn anything.

Now, then. Where to begin? Where should I place the pencil tip to begin the initial roughs?

The top right, I suppose. But starting with the characters there would be too standard. I’ll divide up the panels, of course.

This time, I should start with the background on the top right. I should keep the background dense on the right and thin it out toward the center to draw the eye leftward.

And looking to the left will bring you to the heroine’s face. Then looking down from there will show the heroine walking this way, from the top to the bottom of the page. She’ll be a bit of a dark girl who likes to avoid things.

But the heroine isn’t looking this way. She’s looking to the bottom right of the page. The mid-level panel will show a friend running up from behind the heroine.

That friend will be cheerful but will seem at home no matter where she goes. She’ll be calling out to the heroine as she runs up. The sunlight will be shining this way from above her. That should give a nice sense of the season.

The panel frame will have a close up of the friend’s face with a flower next to it. A white flower. A camellia would be nice and Far Eastern. And while linking that flower to the heroine, it can scatter some of its petals on the heroine’s side to represent some slight unease.

If I were to plan the next page, it would have the heroine turning back toward the friend with a clear blue sky in the background.

No, maybe a ton of flowers would be better.

Well, I guess I’ll go with that.

Mal-Ga: “I’m in combat range!”

As soon as the white Technohexen arrived within two kilometers of the transport ship, she ascended to the upper right.

She continuously fired four guided coin bullets while flying in a gradual ascending arc. The black Technohexen followed. Like a school of fish, the transport ship’s homing shells increased their density on the upper right. But…

“Over here!!”

While Weiss Fräulein rose to the upper right, the white Technohexen was sticking her butt in that same direction as she fought to maintain control of the device, but then she forced her butt to the left. This pointed the white hull in that direction.

“…!”

She almost seemed to jump over to the upper left of the ship.

The enemy shells could not keep up. Their density was still focused on the upper right, so they quickly created arcs of pursuit.

But Naruze was already circling around below the ship. She dropped straight down in a gouging line and the pen tip on the back of the hull drew a guiding line.

“Wah.”

But even using that guiding line, the speed-focused black Technohexen could not follow. As if dancing or bouncing through the air, she started pursuing the white Technohexen in a diagonal line from the upper right, but…

“Margot! Don’t force yourself over this way!! Keep going straight!!”

As the enemy shells resumed pursuing her again, the white Technohexen swung her body, but she was not changing direction. She pointed her back down and the bottom of her hull toward heaven.

“I can see you!”

She held the hull toward heaven as a shield and pointed the pen in her hand toward the pursuing enemy shells. As the pen tip raced through the air, it drew three-dimensional lines that reached all of the flying ice pillars.

“Herrlich!!”

Coin bullets launched from Weiss Fräulein as it took high-speed evasive action and flipped around.

The number of lines was the same as the number of destroyed ice pillars.

White flowers blossomed in midair and the white Technohexen made a shallow ascent as if to fly between the scattering light.

The boxy front of the transport ship released several beams of light.

“Ether cannons!!”

They flew in straight lines at first, but they did not maintain that straight path. They were homing versions. Light sprayed out as they took a winding path toward the black Technohexen who was following from a little behind, but…

“Could you be any more obvious!?”

The white Technohexen rapidly fired homing coin bullets toward the ether cannon beams approaching from behind her partner like sunlight.

However, she was not targeting the ether cannon light itself. She instead targeted the homing multi stage ice pillars also approaching the other girl. Those many ice spears were a means of attack, but at the same time…

“They’re what the ether cannons are tracking! It’s blatantly obvious if you look at the trajectories!”

Sure enough, the ether cannon blasts were flying in diagonal trajectories that more closely followed the ice shells than the black Technohexen herself.

The white Technohexen chose to avoid the shells pursuing her and focused instead on the ones pursuing her partner.

“Margot! Trust me!!”

She drew a straight guiding line to herself, so…

“Judge!!”

The black Technohexen flew straight to the white Technohexen without any fear.

The ether cannon light released from the ship like sunlight continued pursuing her, but that did not matter.

The white Technohexen fired. Her repeated shots overlapped, grew to a true rapid-fire, and repeatedly shattered the ice pillars still pursuing her partner.

White flowers burst in the sky and sounds of destruction blossomed.

The flowers were split apart time and again as the ether cannon light swept through the air, but…

“Herrlich!!”

She fired one last bullet to finish her drawing and that led to the conclusion.

The icy pursuers had vanished from behind the black Technohexen. As soon as only the rough wind and blowing mist remained, the ship’s ether cannon beams ended their winding pursuit. And…

“Ga-chan!”

The black Technohexen caught up to the white one as if leaping into her chest.

Without even looking back, the white Technohexen drew several lines around herself and smiled.

“C’mon, Margot. You need to come straight toward me.”

Her rapid-fire shattered all of the ice pillars remaining in the blue sky visible above the horizon.

The shattering white flowers colored the sky, but the black Technohexen smiled within the blossoming and scattering flowers.

“But Ga-chan, having your butt right in front of me is really distracting.”

“So now you know how I felt?”

“Judge!”

With that reply, the two blushing Technohexen accelerated. They ascended toward the transport ship they were just about to pass by.

They did not hold back on the speed and the white one pulled ahead due to her greater acceleration.

“Here we go!”

The black one moved forward to pass the white one.

Naito’s plan to intercept the transport ship was a simple one.

In order to load cargo from the top, transport ships barely had any armor there. So just as she passed by, she would force her trajectory up and around to fire on the engine division below the rear deck.

…I don’t know what we’ll do if they have armor on the top.

She decided to keep her thoughts positive. She saw transport ships flying and maneuvering on a daily basis aboard the Musashi, so her instincts told her this ship had nothing heavy on the top. So if she was to trust in and have confidence in herself here…

“Here goes!”

She flew up. She knew Naruze was following thanks to the movements of the wind she felt in her wings. She lit the five acceleration spells opened for Schwarz Fräulein’s mobility, but…

…Eh!?

She was confused.

The wind around her suddenly flowed downward like a massive muddy stream.

Before she could question why, she saw the answer up ahead.

The transport ship was turning.

It had been flying toward the Ariake, but it began a large roll as if to avoid their attack. Looking at it from the front, it would have been a clockwise roll. As the starboard side started moving up, the starboard deck turned away from Naito, as if to avoid exposing its back to her.

Also, its ether cannons began firing sweeping blasts through the air without even aiming.

The smell of the air roasting and the rumbling of wind reached her and she saw a giant glowing sword of power racing through the sky, but…

“Let’s go, Ga-chan.”

She simply accelerated as if to ascend through the rotation of the air.

“Oh, my…”

Kiyomasa watched the scene from a rocky hill in the forest.

As the transport ship rolled clockwise, the black Technohexen flew straight up. The black light shot up in a straight line as if to look down on the rolling ship.

But even Kiyomasa could tell the black Technohexen’s trajectory was a reckless one.

…She’s going to be launched straight up!

The black flight device was built with a focus on high speeds and its current speed was simply too high.

But another color showed up to support the black: white. The white Technohexen seemed to pass below the black one.

The white Technohexen’s flight device was more focused on acceleration and it swept across the rotating ship’s armor in a grazing trajectory. The line of light passed right over the ship as if peeling an apple or sweeping everything away. Meanwhile, she drew something.

It was a guiding line to keep her black partner from leaving the ship. It was hand-drawn and it did not reach the black Technohexen overhead, but…

“Is that…?”

The white Technohexen opened a Magie Figur with the hand not holding the pen. As soon as she placed her hand on it, an evenly-spaced grid grew from her line and one portion hopped upwards like a whip.

She had applied a transformation to the line using a program.

The wavy guiding line grasped the center of the black Technohexen’s hull as she nearly strayed off course.

From there, a circus began. Because she was held by the guiding line, the black Technohexen revolved around the ship without losing any of her speed.

By sliding the back of her hull forward as if falling back on her butt, her hull performed a reversing loop.

The hull spun around like that, but the black Technohexen herself did something else. She let go of the hull and did not let herself rotate.

“Is she is preparing to fire!?” guessed Fukushima next to Kiyomasa.

That was exactly what happened.

In the blowing wind, the rear thruster of the rotating black hull pointed upwards. The black Technohexen threw five long rolls of hundred-yen coins that likely had about five thousand yen each.

Fukushima had been sitting next to Kiyomasa and healing her, but her hands had stopped.

Her eyes were focused on the white and black Technohexen who accelerated as they began to disappear on the other side of the rolling ship. The white one skimmed just around the ship, pulling the black one as she did. The black one held the rotating black hull below her arm and aimed the rear thruster like a cannon.

…Herrlich.

In place of a trigger, she grabbed the accelerator with one hand.

The Technohexen finally moved out of sight beyond the rolling ship.

A moment later, the ship transformed as it was passing overhead.

The rear hull swelled out as if it were filling with water. The hardened wood armor split and changed shape due to the internal pressure. That pressure could find no path out, so it blew to the front and upwards.

A great rumbling soon followed.

Next, something exploded from the unseen upper deck and into the sky beyond the ship.

“Oh, my!”

It was the destruction of the internal engine, surrounded by a white water vapor explosion.

The engine division below the rear deck had likely exploded and its shockwave had decorated the sky. With the sound of the air being torn into and split apart, the ship’s path dropped down and the aft end swayed downward.

It was falling.

But Fukushima suddenly spoke up.

“It would be quite rude of them to leave it like this! …If it falls, it will cause damage!”

As she asked what they would do, Fukushima squeezed Kiyomasa’s arm without noticing. She was probably just excited, but since it was on the verge of breaking the arm, Kiyomasa moved the arm.

“—————”

“Nh? What is it, Kiyo-dono!? Is this exciting thee as much as it is me!?”

“No, um, w-wait. m-my arm, my arm.”

Fukushima finally seemed to catch on. She quickly let go, descended to the bottom of the rocky hill using Headfirst Fall, and prostrated herself on the ground.

“I-I am so very sorry! I very nearly harmed that precious body that could likely pull off the Giant Breasts Defense!”

…She would be fine if it wasn’t for things like this. …And what was that last thing she said?

The two of them were the young leaders of the Ten Spears, so she wished Fukushima could calm down a little.

But just as she was going to tell the girl not to worry about it…

…The sky.

She felt something like a chill in the sky, as if something were being removed.

She heard a single light sound like a thin sheet of metal being struck, but it had reached her from a distant part of the sky.

She looked up to the falling transport ship and saw the black and white Technohexen returning to the Musashi, but the sound had not come from the two of them.

A great power had pierced through the falling ship from front to back.

“A physical shell!?”

The tremor of an explosive blast filled the sky, followed by the waves of light caused by red flames and scattering ether.

The transport ship had exploded.

The ship shot down in the Technohexen attack had been destroyed to prevent it from falling any further.

“I’m guessing that was a physical shell with a breaking spell added on. Those have an effective range of around ten kilometers and it looks like it was enough to break the ship’s keel. I’m guessing they thought destroying most of it with a spell was far better than letting that great mass fall and cause damage on the surface.”

In the floating festival, Shigenaga commented on the outcome as she viewed it through an Orthodox sankt okno displaying a magnified image.

As she watched, a giant silhouette appeared in the eastern sky.

“So the Ariake is showing itself. …Quite an extraordinary view for our festival sky.”

Light raced through the sky like sea spray and a white surface came into view from south to north.

It was the Ariake.

That specialized dock for the Musashi was a giant mass of metal that looked something like a flat and thick cloud, but a single spot of red was visible on top. It was the god of war belonging to Musashi’s 6th Special Duty Officer.

…Isn’t that the Something-Or-Other Suzaku?

A Tres Españan aerial god of war’s wings were equipped on its back, but it was currently lying flat on the Ariake’s upper armor. As it did so, it was holding something and aiming it this way.

“So they modified an English-style ship’s gun into a god of war sniper cannon, did they? The English-style ones really are a little too accurate.”

Tenzou viewed the divine transmission from Naomasa.

Smoking Girl: “I might not be a match for Asama-chi, but I can manage well enough with sniping spells. All of the recoil and heat is handled by the wings on the back, so jams can be a real pain in the ass, though.”

“Also,” she added.

Smoking Girl: “There are a few others who can use these things. Can you see them?”

“Judge,” confirmed Tenzou.

The sign frame he was viewing with Mary showed a unit of a few heavy, middle, and light gods of war aiming a total of eight sniper cannons in various directions.

Naito and Naruze’s presence was one way they were warning the three nations, but also…

…We’re showing that we can accurately locate so many enemies.

Those sniping positions could not be taken immediately.

The Ariake had removed its stealth barrier not just to show off the god of war sniper unit, but also to show they could target the enemy even from inside the stealth barrier.

The Ariake had essentially revealed the source of the attack to the enemy. Even with the sniper cannons, they had chosen to harm their own position to harm the enemy.

The Ariake’s Kantou IZUMO representative Mishina Shouichi was speaking in another window inside the sign frame.

481: “How about that!? How about that, dad!? Jizuri Suzaku’s sniper cannon is pretty cool, ain’t it!? It’s still using the main barrel and hasn’t even expanded its full barrel, and it’s already this cool! Isn’t it just plain adorable!?”

Mr. Mecha: “What? Are you stupid? If you’re gonna have the Suzaku fire, you’ve gotta start with shooting a ton of homing beams from the ends of the spiky wings. Don’t act like you’re all-that after using a long gun instead of the wings, you amateur.”

481: “You’re exactly the kind of adult I hate! You always act like you know what you’re talking about!!”

Such a fulfilling relationship between father-in-law and son-in-law, thought Tenzou as Shigenaga looked his way.

“Using gods of war for movable cannons is a decent idea. Each of the Musashi’s ships can move independently and can cruise at high speeds, so I can see why you would need cannons that can move on a moment’s notice. When using them for real, do you have sniping stations where they can fire while at least kneeling?”

Everyone looked Tenzou’s way when she asked that, so it looked like they wanted him to respond.

…Well, it probably would be best for me to respond since she can’t see my expression.

The nudist acted like being a nudist was his job, Horizon would begin using her Horizon Logic, Mitotsudaira was likely still full of energy after the battle in Mito, and he would feel bad leaving this to Mary.

So he quickly answered “judge”. He had no real reason to actually answer Shigenaga’s question, so he decided to change the subject.

“How did you like that physical shell? Nice, wasn’t it? Those are the true romance of men.”

“Oh?” said Shigenaga as she raised the right corner of her mouth and nodded.

When she crosses her arms, her breasts look quite large, but even that trick doesn’t bring her anywhere close to Mary-dono, he noted as she pointed westward with her chin.

“Did you shoot down that ship in response to the threat of an enemy ship containing a dragon line reactor, just like during the fall of K.P.A. Italia?”

“Does Sviet Rus view the dragon line reactors as a threat?”

Tenzou asked while realizing he was making a precarious tightrope walk. Shigenaga did not nod, but she did smile a little.

“Long ago, a ley line reactor went out of control in Sviet Rus land and caused wide-scale destruction. That land still exists as a Harmonic Territory, but it remains a ‘man-eating land’ where mysterious phenomena occur and it fills with ether mist on moonlit nights. Shadows of aerial ships, sounds of war, and human cries fill that land.”

“Well…”

Tenzou had heard rumors of that. As a history recreation interpretation, the event had officially “never happened”, but that was just how it was.

At any rate, Shigenaga nodded in front of him.

“Testament. There are likely distortions and misunderstandings introduced as the story was passed down, but before the Harmonic Unification War, a civil war broke out in Old Moscow as a part of the history recreation. Apparently, that led to the city’s annihilation. That is why the Kasuga Gora Kremlin has functioned as Moscow ever since the Harmonic Unification War.”

Tenzou listened to Shigenaga.

“My mother was one of the returnees…that is, one of the people who returned to the real world from the Harmonic Territories. As the front-line defender here, I believe I understand just how important runaway ley line reactors are to Sviet Rus.”

“In that case,” said Tenzou while raising his right index finger as if indicating their selling point here. “With us around, you do not need to worry about transport ship attacks like that.”

“What? Make no mistake here. Even Sviet Rus can intercept a ship like that. We just need a few average or higher flight-capable demons and someone who can use a penetration spell.”

Mal-Ga: “The ninja’s crappy sales pitch just wasted all of our efforts out here. Sob…”

10ZO: “You’re willing to pretend to cry if it means making fun of me!?”

Marube-ya: “Anyway, you can’t come back until you make up for what we lost there.”

Fine then, thought Tenzou as he raised his right hand again.

“Then how about this?”

“About what?”

He worked at cheerfully responding to Shigenaga’s question.

“Since both Sviet Rus and we can at least defend against transport ship attacks, we know we both understand the threat that dragon line reactors pose. And in northern Kantou, Sviet Rus is in the west and we are in the east, so with the two of us there, we can reduce Hashiba’s influence and power in Oushuu. Isn’t that right?”

Did that do it? he wondered as he looked her way.

…Huh?

Shigenaga had narrowed her eyes sharply.

“We cannot leave the protection of Oushuu to you.” She had wiped all expression from her face. “Someone else is much better suited to that role and we have promised to protect the west until they return. So even if you have shown your strength by intercepting that transport ship, you have not earned any more points than that.”

She was quite definitive and she turned to the side with a snort.

She had utterly rejected them.

Asama: “I had a feeling that would happen… Maybe Tenzou-kun used up all his diplomacy skill back in England.”

Azuma: “Oh, sorry. I’m just getting some snacks for ???, so continue on without me.”

Worshipper: “Welcome! Welcome, Tenzou-kun! You’re one of us now!!”

10ZO: “I had a feeling you would react like this, but you didn’t actually have to do it! But you know what? I don’t care! I’m solidly on the Mary-dono route, so I know I made the right decision here!!”

Vice President: “Don’t screw up our diplomacy because you don’t care!”

Uqui: “Heh heh heh. There’s a world of difference between that and my definite progress on the elder sister route.”

They were the same as always, but then Shigenaga sighed and turned back toward him.

“But what will you do, Musashi? We will continue firing, you know? The three nations are still approaching the Ariake, so the force of our bombardment will only grow. And…”

Smoking Girl: “Urquiaga! Check what they’re doing there! The cannon fire from Date is growing fixated!”

…Growing fixated!?

The trajectories of the shells were growing simpler. That made it easier for the Ariake to defend, but it also meant Date could focus on doing something else. And then Urquiaga sent a divine transmission back.

Uqui: “They seem to be launching gods of war toward the Ariake. Ones capable of aerial combat.”

“Yes.” Shigenaga smiled. “That would be the Date clan’s prized Dragon Knights made up of anti-ship gods of war.”

But that was not all. A sign frame opened with an “emergency” designation. It was a warning from the Musashi.

Musashino: “Something is happening on the Jurakudai in the south! Someone has appeared on the bow deck!”

It was…

Musashino: “Someone thought to be Hashiba Hidetsugu-sama has come out!! Over.”

“Hashiba’s nephew? They let someone that important out on the front lines?”

Naruze had returned to the sky above the Ariake and she was using a Magie Figur to view the information from the Musashi’s bridge.

The Jurakudai approaching from the south was drawn in the crop mark frame, but as the panels advanced, it zoomed in and a boy could be seen standing on the bow.

The boy with long black hair stood weakly with the blue sky in the background. He looked skinny, but his most noticeable feature was the dragon horn growing from the left of his head above his gentle eyebrows.

Margot narrowed her eyes when she saw it.

“That’s Hashiba Hidetsugu? He’s a dragon-man? Are you sure this isn’t cosplay?”

“Judge. I think it’s a real horn. But that isn’t all. You can see that, can’t you?”

Naruze pointed at the boy in the Magie Figur.

He stood on the Jurakudai’s bow, but the ship’s bridge was visible through him.

She clicked her tongue at the fact that he was transparent.

“He’s a ghost. …In other words, he still has some kind of regret, so he’s sticking around in this world to fulfill whatever it is. This isn’t good.”

“Judge. But as Technohexen, we might not be the best ones to say this isn’t good.”

“True.”

As Naruze smiled bitterly, something else occurred on the Magie Figur footage. A girl stepped up alongside the dragon horn boy. She had long ears.

…A long-lived?

No, her ears were covered in fur. She was a nearly humanoid half-fox girl. And…

“Another ghost…”

But that was not all. Yet another person arrived behind the two of them.

It was a tall woman in a P.A. Oda uniform with her hair worn up.

“Musashi. It would seem you can see us from there. In that case, we will hold Lord Hidetsugu and Lady Komahime’s greeting here.”

A dog-like Mouse appeared on her shoulder. Naruze’s eyebrows rose when she noticed the number “2” stitched on the woman’s uniform.

“Don’t tell me… Is that #2 of P.A. Oda’s Six Heavenly Demon Army!?”

The woman with the Mouse answered that question with a smile.

“I am Niwa Nagahide, P.A. Oda’s 3rd Special Duty Officer as well as #2 of the Six Heavenly Demon Army and the Five Great Peaks.”

Naruze’s eyebrows rose further when she heard Niwa’s name.

“Niwa Nagahide was in charge of constructing Azuchi Castle, right? Is that why she’s here?”

“Ohh… I always thought that name was pronounced Tanba.”

“Everyone does at first, Margot.”

Meanwhile, Niwa spread her sleeveless arms in the Magie Figur. Those arms supported the two ghosts standing in front of her.

When the fox-eared girl gave her a troubled look, Niwa smiled back.

“This girl is…Lady Mogami Komahime.”

She then looked to the motionless dragon horn boy whose eyes remained closed.

“And this is Hashiba’s nephew…Lord Hashiba Hidetsugu.”

She continued speaking while standing back up and narrowing her eyes northward, toward the Ariake.

“Lady Komahime recently had a rushed marriage as Lord Hidetsugu’s concubine and the Jurakudai is here so that she might greet Mogami. Lady Komahime and Lord Hidetsugu faced suicide together in their Testament descriptions. …Nations and academies, try not to do anything careless.”

The cannon fire continued and Niwa spoke over the din.

“Now, please continue the festivities.”