Lieutenant Lin, the commander of Liu Li Lei’s escort detachment, was actually a spy for the New Soviet Union. Enemy spies often tried to occupy important positions in organizational structures, especially between countries with long land borders.
Since this happens often, countries monitor for penetration of spies very closely. The Great Asian Alliance was no exception, and the selection process in choosing an escort for their official Strategic Class Magician, Liu Li Lei, many suitable candidates were selected and screened extremely closely with a truth serum. Many candidates lost their identities during processing as the Great Asian Alliance attempted to brainwash them.
Even so, there was always the possibility for there to be a spy among them. Spying and counterintelligence played a vicious back and forth to counter each other’s methods, and in this situation, the New Soviet Union came out on top. Lieutenant Lin’s special ability was stronger than the anti-spyware measures of the Great Asian Alliance’s military, allowing her make it through screening.
Her ability is hypnosis – not mental interference magic, just hypnosis. It was considered a special ability because to use it as Lieutenant Lin had, one needed to be able to use the advanced technique at an extremely high level.
Lieutenant Lin’s hypnosis could penetrate deep into the subject’s mind at a level similar to mental interference magic, and she could use it on herself. This is how she was able to bypass the effects of the truth serum – she hypnotized herself in order to pass the Great Asian Alliance’s tests.
This is much easier said than done, however. She needed to set up a situation in which she would pass the screening while not acting overly suspicious, all without knowing the specifics of the screening process. This isn’t even accounting for the difficulty of the technique – and she couldn’t “cheat” and use magic anywhere or the GAA would have noticed the trick. Luckily, her trick didn’t use any magic and she wasn’t a particularly high-skilled enough magician for the GAA to be wary of her.
Even entering the country and receiving orders from the NSU was beyond difficult –
in addition to the state, a multitude of other armed groups monitored invasions of enemy magicians.
However, despite all the difficulties, Lieutenant Lin managed to find a position as the escort of Liu Li Lei, but now everything seemed to be on the verge of falling apart.
Lu Ganghu was leading a sabotage detachment from the GAA that seemed to be assigned to kill Liu Li Lei.
Lieutenant Lin needed to quickly find a way out of the situation. Her one advantage was her nonmagical hypnosis ability, which ignored magic resistance.
***
The residential buildings provided to Liu Li Lei and her escort detachment were guarded by magicians preventing both outsiders from coming in and the refugees from leaving. They were chosen with priority given to resistance to mental intervention magic over offensive strength, and were given anti-magic projection to add onto their already-high resistances.
The government was confident that the guards were safe from external control, giving Lieutenant Lin a big advantage – not only was her technique not guarded against, the enemy had grown complacent thinking they were safe.
Knowing this, Lieutenant Lin began her plan to get out of the situation.
“I need something that I can’t get inside the base… it will only take an hour. May I have permission to leave?”
Lieutenant Lin directed her request to the soldiers responsible for guarding the residential building while Li Lei took a bath with Akane.
The soldiers looked at each other, puzzled, before turning back to Lin.
“What exactly do you need to buy?” one soldier asked.
“Something necessary for women from the GAA.”
“I can buy it for you.”
“…no, it’s embarrassing,” Lin responded.
Any further attempts the soldiers made to argue this only caused an embarrassed reaction from Lin.
“Why at this time?” the other soldier asked, changing the topic after seeing the progress made on the original topic.
“While Lieutenant Liu Li Lei is in the bathroom, I don’t have to worry that Ichijou Masaki will lead her away.”
For some reason, this answer convinced both soldiers and they conceded this topic, allowing Lin to go outside on the condition that they escorted her to the store themselves despite not getting permission from base command.
The soldiers posted at the gates of Komatsu base in order to protect Liu Li Lei were vigilantly waiting for an attack from the outside by Lu Ganghu, so they weren’t paying much attention to Lin, leaving through the gate of the base accompanied by soldiers from surveillance.
***
Mari watched the army convertible driving past her with suspicion. Some time earlier, when Naotsugu was explaining the current situation to the group centered around Liu Li Lei, she noticed a flash of anxiety flash in Lin’s eyes.
“Xu.”
Mari turned to face Naotsugu. She was walking with him along a city street.
“Did you notice something?”
Naotsugu stopped searching for suspicious shadows in the neighborhood to face Mari.
“Lieutenant Lin was in the car that just passed by.”
Naotsugu knit his brow after hearing what Mari said.
“The commander of Lieutenant Liu’s escort and guard? I asked them to refrain from going outside.”
Naotsugu trusted Mari and didn’t check if she was certain – she would have said so otherwise.
“She was with two soldiers from her surveillance.”
“Then it isn’t surprising she was able to leave…”
Naotsugu made a slightly confused comment.
“No, it’s still strange she was able to leave as a refugee in this circumstance. Usually it should have been impossible to go outside without permission.”
“…yeah, that’s how it should have been.”
Staying alert, Naotsugu agreed with Mari’s argument. He wasn’t sure how to process the events so far.
“Did the supervising soldiers receive an important clue about the agents penetrating the country, or are they being manipulated?” Naotsugu said, thinking out loud.
“Mental interference magic?” Mari asked Naotsugu with a slightly pale face.
It would be a terrible nightmare if a skilled user of mental interference magic penetrated a military facility. They would be able to mass produce traitors and spikes without spending time, effort, or money.
“No, if magic were used on the base, it would quickly be detected and dealt with.”
“…yeah, that’s how it is. Sorry, I panicked.”
“You calmed down too quickly, Mari,” Naotsugu said, his face becoming more serious.
Mari’s face seemed relieved, but Naotsugu chided her. The most likely scenario was that the soldiers were being manipulated, and it became much harder to deal with if it wasn’t done with magic.
“You don’t need magic to manipulate other people. You have a technique like that too, don’t you?”
Mari’s eyes shot open in surprise. As Naotsugu said, Mari had a technique that manipulated airflow to mix various harmless, legal aromatic substances to loosen a target’s mind.
“Per haps Lieutenant Lin is manipulating the supervising soldiers with a non-magical method,” Naotsugu finished.
“Like with a drug?” Mari asked.
“No, she wouldn’t have been able to carry drugs into the base. Lieutenant Lin is a woman, so she must have used something that doesn’t arouse suspicion.
…perhaps, hypnosis with the use of precious stones.”
“Hypnosis can allow one to impose their will on another?”
Mari asked this question since her technique could only lower people’s willfulness. She couldn’t completely subordinate someone’s will.
“I don’t know the techniques very well, so my answer could be wrong, but… even if it’s impossible to gain complete control of another person, I think’s its at least possible to manipulate their will in a specific direction.”
“…to direct their will? You mean direct their thinking?”
“Lead their thinking? …hmm. Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
Naotsugu thought about Mari’s paraphrasing before aggreging with it.
“That wording is more appropriate. It doesn’t matter whether it’s hypnosis or something else – when you need to convince someone of a different opinion, you need to lead them along. You can’t just directly explain your thinking to them – you need to lead them to the way you think.”
“You think so? So, even with hypnosis, you can’t force the target to do something they are completely against, but you can nudge them towards the path you intend for them to go.”
“Yeah. Then, it’s likely she was able to deceive the guards into removing themselves from the base.”
“…I understand the theory.”
Mari quickly collected her thoughts before looking at Naotsugu.
“If the soldiers surveilling her are manipulated, then it’s a serious matter, Xu.”
“Yes. This isn’t something where we stand on the side and just let things happen. We don’t have time to leisurely discuss everything.”
As he said this, Naotsugu pulled a portable army terminal out of his breast pocket.
“Xu, what are you doing…?”
“We need to temporarily stop looking for Lu Ganghu. We can’t just let Lieutenant Lin execute whatever her plan is – it’s too much of a risk.”
Naotsugu answered Mari while writing commands with his finger on the mobile terminal screen.
“The current location of their vehicle should be easy to track. They shouldn’t be moving stealthily… great. I found them. Let’s leave for Lieutenant Lin now.”
“Got it.”
Naotsugu and Mari ran in the direction of the car they were tracking using high-speed movement magic.
The soldiers accompanying Lieutenant Lin brought her to the a pharmacy of the Hong Kong Pharmacological Network located a few minutes away from the base.
There weren’t any official diplomatic relations between Japan and the Great Asian Alliance after the last war, but there was still economic exchange in the private sector, and many companies operated in both countries.
“Please wait here,” Lin told the soldiers and entered the pharmacy. The front wall was made of glass, and one could easily see what was going on inside from the road, so the soldiers allowed her to go in alone as long as she only approached the counter.
Lin stopped in front of a counter with a female cashier that looked to be in her 20s behind it. The cashier had black hair with matching black eyes, as was typical of the East Asian demographic. Her appearance was innocent enough, and didn’t appear at all connected with the GAA or the NSU, but this was intended – who would choose a suspicious looking person to infiltrate enemy territory? The cashier was, in fact, Lin’s contact with the NSU.
“I’m having problems with Asian dust1.”
Lin spoke to a Cantonese saleswoman about a seemingly honest topic, but it was a cipher. “Asian dust” was code for the Great Asian Alliance, and Lin’s words indicated that she was fearing an attack.
“Really? I thought the busiest season already passed.”
The saleswoman also answered in a cipher. Her words meant “large-scale military was not observed.”
“It seems that a little dust still made it here.”
“Then, do you want a test drug?” the cashier asked.
“No, I would like you to prescribe the ointment before the symptoms appear.”
But reconnaissance wasn’t enough anymore. Lin wanted them to send an opposition detachment.
“As you wish.
…and what is the dosage?”
Suddenly, the saleswoman stopped using the cipher, and spoke as one would expect in the situation. Lin found this strange.
“Has anything unusual happened?”
1Dust clouds affecting East Asia originating in the Gobi desert in Mongolia, Northern China, and Kazakhstan where high speed surface winds kick up intense dust storms.
This mainly affects China, North and South Korea, Japan, and parts of Eastern Russia.
She was actually asking if Lin wanted the reconnaissance squad to search for them.
Suddenly, Lin heard a voice from behind her.
“Lieutenant Lin.”
Suddenly hearing a voice she had hoped not to hear, she turned around in confusion and panic.
“Captain Lu!” Lin shouted, clearly startled, but she couldn’t say anything more.
Lu Ganghu’s huge hand grabbed her neck, and she couldn’t speak further.
“You did will. You aren’t needed anymore,” the Man-Eating Tiger said to the NSU agent acting as a saleswoman.
After Ganghu said this, the agent headed to the back of the store. Seeing this, Lin understood everything.
The agent had submitted to Lu Ganghu before she had arrived. She had probably been tortured, even though she had no external wounds.
With his skills, Lu Ganghu could give the victim enough pain for them to wish for death without letting any of it show on their exterior. The pain making their lives a nightmare deprived the victim of their desire to resist. It wasn’t surprising for the agent to succumb to his torture.
Lu Ganghu smiled while Lin was in despair.
She was about to face the same unfortunate fate as the agent she had just been talking to.
Except, in her case, it wouldn’t end with just torture. All that awaited her was death.
Lin’s last thread of hope was on the street, but when Lin found no hope when she looked toward where the soldiers escorting her had been.
Two Japanese soldiers sat with their heads down in the seats of their convertible. They looked to be asleep, but this wasn’t the case.
Lin intuitively knew they were already dead. Lu Ganghu would never have left them alive.
Lin probably should have expected this – the soldiers escorting her were not even close to being Lu Ganghu’s rivals – but she had at least held hope that they could distract him for long enough for her to escape.
“Traitor, Lin Yiyi.”
Lu Ganghu called Lieutenant Lin by her full name without a title, scorning her.
“Call Liu Li Lei for help,” Lu Ganghu said as he slightly loosened his grip on her neck, allowing her to clear her throat.
Lin thought about Lu Ganghu’s goal.
His plan probably wasn’t as simple as luring Liu Li Lei here to kill her. The Japanese army wouldn’t just allow her to leave the base.
Lin’s task as an NSU spy was to escape with Li Lei to Japan to create an excuse to start a war. She had already completed her task, and there was no chance that the NSU
would send help – to them, she was just a consumable item, and she didn’t hold enough value to make her worth saving.
She also didn’t hold much value to the Japanese army. They may feel a bit of shame that a refugee was killed while under their protection, but to the Japanese government, she was just an addition to Liu Li Lei. The Japanese government also wouldn’t see her as worth saving.
Even if she cal ed for help, the Japanese army wouldn’t do anything if it put Liu Li Lei in danger.
Lu Ganghu definitely understood this.
Lin was confused. She shouldn’t hold any value as bait, but Lu Ganghu still took a mobile terminal from his pocket and handed it to her after searching her body with his free hand.
Ignoring her confusion, he said, “You don’t have a choice.”
She could try to tell Lu Ganghu it was pointless, but she did as she was told and opened a communication channel to her subordinates still at the base.
Komatsu base was in chaos.
“Why was Lieutenant Lin released from the base?”
Shouts could be heard around the base.
“Why is Lu Ganghu in a store in the middle of the city?”
“If this guy tried to create chaos, damage to civilians is inevitable! This is a replay of Yokohama!”
Cries were being exchanged throughout the base.
“Why would he appear there? Even if he is the Man-Eating Tiger, didn’t he trap himself?”
Most soldiers didn’t understand what was going on in the chaos and a variety of opinions were being formed based on incomplete information.
Lieutenant Lin had been taken hostage by Lu Ganghu, and part of Komatsu base’s command felt that Liu Li Lei should be notified since she would find out anyway if Lieutenant Lin was killed – and the probably of her dying was quite high.
The base command didn’t want Li Lei’s opinion of the Japanese military to deteriorate as a result of them hiding the information, so she was informed that Lieutenant Lin was taken hostage.
“Let me go!”
Liu Li Lei begged the Japanese soldiers guarding her to let her leave to find Lieutenant Lin.
Her reaction was quite predictable – it had been the main argument for hiding the information.
“You can’t. You are under the protection of our army.”
Still, the army had prepared for this reaction.
“But! If I don’t go... Lin-jiejie…!”
Liu Li Lei had lost her composure from distress. She usually only used called Lieutenant Lin “Lin-jiejie,” equivalent to calling her “Lin-neesan,” in personal conversations between the two. Most of the soldiers understood this, but some of the more dense ones wondered who Lin-jiejie was.
“Lieutenant Liu, even if you go, Lieutenant Lin will probably not be released. All you will do is allow Lu Ganghu to kill her sooner.”
However, Liu Li Lei had lost the ability to understand rational arguments and could no longer think soberly.
“Then what do I do…?”
She looked around with pleading eyes, but no one responded to her looks.
“…nii-san, can’t you do something?”
Liu Li Lei hung her had, looking ready to cry, completely hopeless. Watching this, Akane asked her brother if he could help, looking as if she too, was about to cry.
Her voice and Li Lei’s pathetic look touched Masaki’s heart, but…
“Sorry, Akane.”
He couldn’t help.
“I don’t know why he showed up at a pharmacy in the city instead of the base, or why he took Commander Lin hostage, but I do know one thing for sure.
Lu Ganghu’s end goal is Lieutenant Liu. I need to stay here at my post in order to protect Lieutenant Liu if all else fails.”
“….”
Akane bit her lip and continued to look at Masaki, but she didn’t say anything further.
Masaki also bit his lip and turned away from her gaze.
He was facing a dilemma.
As he had stated, Lu Ganghu’s goal was killing Liu Li Lei, so her protection needed to be given priority, but at the same time the Japanese army couldn’t simply stand by and observe the murder of Lieutenant Lin. They didn’t yet know Lieutenant Lin was a NSU spy, so to them, Lieutenant Lin was a refugee who needed to be protected.
They knew that the guards escorting Lieutenant Lin had already been killed by monitoring their vital signs, and given the situation, it was clearly done by Lu Ganghu or his subordinates. Since Lu Ganghu also posed a threat to public safety, the base needed to send soldiers to preserve their honor and eliminate this threat. The only question was how many people to send.
Was capturing Lu Ganghu possible if enough soldiers left immediately, or was Lu Ganghu acting as bait to reduce the number of soldiers and therefore the strength of the base?
How many soldiers were necessary to capture one of the strongest melee fighters in the world?
Lu Ganghu was able to use Steel Qigong to reflect shots from firearms, making him a formidable enemy no matter the situation. Sending a small number of people to be safe would just be giving them a death sentence, but sending too many people raised concerns for the base.
Komatsu base was in a deadlock. They didn’t know what move to make. The only way out of the situation lay in the unknown activity happening behind the scenes.
In this case, only Chiba Naotsugu and Watanabe Mari were in a position to pull Komatsu base out of this situation.
Naotsugu and Mari arrived at the pharmacy 5 minutes after Lu Ganghu captured Lieutenant Lin.
The building was currently off limits to civilians, and the entire quarter was cordoned off by the police. Using a convenient excuse, they restricted people from both entering and exiting the area.
Dressed in military uniforms, Naotsugu and Mari passed by the police without being stopped. They were concentrating on high-speed movement magic, so they still didn’t know about the incident with the hostage.
After arriving at the location, Mari noticed Lu Ganghu inside the building while searching for Lin.
At the same time, Lu Ganghu saw Mari standing outside.
Lu Ganghu roared from inside the building, letting out his battle cry. He threw Lin’s body threw the window of the pharmacy, but Mari didn’t have time to catch her.
Lu Ganghu was right behind Lin, jumping through the now broken window. His fist was on a trajectory directly towards her face. While his attack seemed to be rash and impulsive, Mari wasn’t in a defensive stance and didn’t have time to react.
She was inches away from death when Naotsugu stopped his attack.
“Xu?”
Chiba Naotsugu, the Illusion Blade, and Lu Ganghu, the Steel Qigong clashed, sending sparks out.
“Chiba Naotsugu!”
“Lu Ganghu!”
“I’ve been waiting for this!” Lu Ganghu yelled.
Chiba Naotsugu and Lu Ganghu were among the best melee fighters in the world and were worthy adversaries.
And with that, the battle between the young master of the “Art of the Thousand Blades” and the mad tiger began.
Mari had nearly died from Lu Ganghu’s sudden attack, but now she was focusing on the magnificent image of her lover and savior.
She watched as Lu Ganghu’s fist, strong enough to mow down thick trees or crush rocks, flew towards Naotsugu.
Rather than try to parry the fist’s strength, he used the sharpness of the sword to counter the strike, knowing that he didn’t hold the advantage in a battle of brute force.
Mari’s eyes were riveted on the techniques of her beloved.
It took about ten exchanges for Mari to finally come to her senses and start analyzing the situation.
Her first action was to rush to the convertible that brought Lin.
“Damn. They’re dead.”
Seeing their state, she entered the pharmacy. Lu Ganghu didn’t have the ability to stop her and didn’t try, so she entered easily. While she could have tried to join the fight, she would probably have caused as much harm as she did help – Naotsugu would start to focus on protecting her, and she couldn’t do much in this battle.
Suddenly, as she entered the pharmacy, she heard a gunshot suppressed by a silencer.
Slightly inside the pharmacy was a woman – the NSU agent acting as a cashier – pointing a gun at Lieutenant Lin. Having hit her target, she quickly shifted her aim to Mari, but before she could pull the trigger, Mari slashed the woman’s gun-hand.
The gun toppled to the floor, and Mari stepped slightly closer to the woman.
She still held her three-piece sword in her right hand, but she instead reached out with the three cylindric containers in her left hand. Inside were various scents, and using magic to manipulate the airflow, Mari directed the scents into the woman’s naval cavity.
A moment later, the woman fainted.
Confirming that the technique had worked, Mari set the woman onto the floor and headed to Lin, sinking down beside her on one knee.
It was already too late. The bullet had hit her vitals, and Lin died instantly.
Mari quickly prepared to interrogate the woman who shot Lin. Naotsugu and Lu Ganghu were still fighting outside the building, but Mari felt she would be most useful if she learned more about the situation first.
***
The battle between Naotsugu and Lu Ganghu was completely even. Lu Ganghu fought with his usual style, forcefully suppressing his opponent with pure power, but Naotsugu countered this with a style less familiar to him, relying on his speed to defend.
Naotsugu usually fought using magic to control his inertia, accelerating and stopping his movement instantly. This gave off the appearance of after images, seeming to be an illusion – hence the name of the style.
However, now Naotsugu was only defending against his enemy’s attacks with the sharp, strong blade of his sword. His techniques as a so-called “Genius Swordsman” worked well.
The nervous one in this situation was Lu Ganghu.
Naotsugu had come here in pursuit of Lieutenant Lin, who was acting suspiciously, but his initial purpose had been searching for Lu Ganghu. This random turn of events coincidentally aligned with Naotsugu’s main mission, so he was eager to fight Lu Ganghu and was prepared.
On the other hand, Lu Ganghu hadn’t expected a battle with the young master swordsman of the Chiba family. His only mission had been to prevent Liu Li Lei from falling into Japan’s hands and becoming a weapon against the Great Asian Alliance by executing her.
He had attacked Mari out of anger and revenge after she defeated him in Yokohama, but he hadn’t prepared for a match of this level at all. While he was ready to fight in general, his mental state wasn’t as focused as he would like it to be, and he still needed to concentrate on his mission, so while he was eager to fight Naotsugu again, he worried that this fight would be at the expense of the success of the mission.
A fine line separated victory and defeat in this fight, and Lu Ganghu’s mental state was bringing him down. The difference between them came not from a difference in skill, but from a difference in readiness.
Naotsugu attacked with a horizontal swing perpendicular to Lu Ganghu’s vertical punch. While Lu Ganghu’s technique protected him from having his hand cut off, he couldn’t stop the force of the swing and his fist was drove away from its path.
Despite this, Naotsugu’s legs both sunk into the ground as a result of this clash. Seeing an opportunity, Lu Ganghu started to use one of his most powerful technique: a crushing blow with both palms. He wrapped his palms, his tiger paws, in Steel Qigong, and started the technique stronger than a tank’s front armor.
Had Naotsugu been hit, his body would have been torn into pieces as if he had a stick of dynamite in his mouth.
However, the attack was not enough to finish Naotsugu.
Lu Ganghu had been mistaken about the distance of the strike, and half a second before the impact, Naotsugu started controlling his inertia.
He hadn’t abandoned using his Illusion Blade – he had abstained from using it to make his enemy forget about it, saving it for a decisive blow.
Naotsugu lunged towards Lu Ganghu’s chest, but Lu Ganghu caught the blade with his hands, protecting his vitals.
He couldn’t get away from this unharmed, however, and right before he grabbed the blade, Naotsugu turned the blade a quarter of a rotation causing it to dig into Lu Ganghu’s right fist.
Still, his left fist was enough to stop the sword, and he grasped the blunt side before it stabbed his chest.
Lu Ganghu smiled. While his right arm was injured and his left was grasping the sword, he still had his legs and Naotsugu was stuck holding onto his seized sword.
However, Lu Ganghu’s kick never happened.
Naotsugu exhaled and let go of his sword while Lu Ganghu collapsed, still holding the sword.
He only released the sword when he finished falling backwards. Once he confirmed that everything was over, Naotsugu relaxed.
“The prick of the shadow… a technique of the hidden sword,” Naotsugu murmured to himself.
He had thrust with a sharp psion blade. The technique mimicked the heart being pierced. It wasn’t mental interference magic, which only affects one’s consciousness – the technique deceived the very soul by directly affecting the psionic information body accompanying the physical body.
A hidden sword which stops the heart.
Naotsugu’s temples showed sweat flowing in streams, and he sunk to his knee, exhausted.
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