Sunbathing in a Battlezone

"Waaahhh!!! The clouds are below us!"

"A-Amazing…!"

"Ahaha! Don't push on the glass too much, okay? You might break it and the air outside might pull you out."

To Chiasa and I who are from the past world that treated air travel as a common thing already, the plane trip to Kiko was just as how we expected it except for the quite noisy sound of the propellers that we weren't used to back in the modern day. After all, the civilian transport planes were usually jet liners.

"Lookie, lookie! Ai-chan! The birds are flying below us!"

"Wow! They really are!"

In comparison to us two, Kichi and her caretaker and best friend, Ai-chan, are happily sticking their faces on the plane windows and enjoying the sight of having the clouds below them and flying formations of migratory birds swerving away from our plane.

"F-F-Fuujin-kami-sama! P-Protect us from your gales!"

"R-Raijin-kami-sama! Do not manifest your storms though we trespass your skies!"

"N-Namu…"

Some of our servants began to chant prayers to either Shinto gods or to Buddha for protection as this was their first time riding a vehicle that flies through the sky.

"Can you lend me the fifth volume already? I'm tired of waiting here."

"Just hold on, will you? I'm not even halfway done. If you're really bored, then join in the poker game to pass the time."

Meanwhile, another group of our servants are either reading light novels from Kiko or playing poker without keeps… it seems like Chiasa reprimanded them about gambling while being seen by Kichi since it would be a bad influence on her.

"Chiasa-sama, here is your meal."

"Thank you… Kichi sweetie, come and eat now."

"B-But I still wanna watch the clouds below…"

"Nn! You skipped lunch earlier since you got too excited after seeing the airplane. You eat now or we're going back to Yamato!"

"N-No! I wanna go to Owinawa and the beach!"

"Then eat now and so that you can play on the beach later. If the big fishes at the sea hears your tummy grumbling, they'll know you're a naughty kid and gobble you up."

"A-Anything but that!"

"Then sit down on my lap and eat now. Come on, sweetie."

After being tricked by Chiasa, Kichi sat down on her lap and began to eat her lunch as quickly as she can.

"Nn! Chew properly! Your tummy would be upset if you eat too quickly."

"O-Okay…"

"Ahaha… Seeing you two like this is quite the treat."

"Muu… Don't enjoy this, Sora. I'm trying my best to make our daughter grow up like a fine lady."

"Well, you can let her loose at some things. So long as she learns how to take care of herself and do her responsibilities, that's already fine with me."

"I know that… But she still needs some instruction while we can still teach her about things. Once she starts maturing, she may not listen to us anymore."

"Don't worry too much about the future, Chia-chan. That's still years later…"

While we were talking about our daughter, Kichi suddenly tugged on my sleeve and spooned up a bunch of green bell peppers towards me.

"Sweetie… what did I tell you about not being a picky eater?"

"B-But I hate bell peppers!"

"Those are veggies, they help you grow strong and tall."

"But they're so bitter and hard to chew!"

As they are arguing, I just sighed and ate the spoonful of bell peppers to end the problem.

"Ah! Thankies, papa!"

"S-Sora! That was supposed to be eaten by her!"

"…These are almost ripe. It could've been too spicy for her."

"…"

"D-Don't stare at me like that… It really is spicy, you know."

For the rest of the flight, Chiasa seemed to have been annoyed a wee bit about what I did. I decided to apologize to her as soon as we got a moment to ourselves later.

"Honor guards! Show reverence!"

"""Hut!"""

"…It is our great pleasure and honor to be graced with your presence, Shogun Amanogawa-sama!"

"The pleasure and honor are all mine, Commander. I thank all of you greatly for giving us this warm and wonderful welcome."

"If I may request, Shogun-sama. Please let me lead you in your trip around the airbase. As for Lady Chiasa and your entourage, let our civil officer lead them to your hotel to rest."

The newly constructed airbase in Okinawa was placed on its largest island in the version of Japan of this world. Although it only has one runway and three hangars, it was already pretty advanced considering that it was patterned after the same airbase owned and operated by the US in Okinawa in the past world.

"Well, well… What do we have here?"

"I am glad that it has caught your attention first, Shogun-sama. This is our new radar system from Kiko that we have just installed this week. Unlike the old system that can only track the location of an object in two dimensions, this new radar can also track their altitude and their speed simultaneously… E-Eh? Shogun-sama, what are you doing?"

"Just checking its guts… I wanna know something about this new toy that you boys got from Kiko."

Everyone seemed to be surprised after I noticed that the key to the access panel of the radar console is still there, and I opened it up to check it out.

"Uh-huh… I was right."

"What is that, Shogun-sama?"

"It seems like Kiko has made a generational leap from Generation 2 to Generation 3.5 quickly because of Mizuki island's new semiconductor fabrication factories."

"W-What?"

"This new computer of yours aren't using transistors anymore. These integrated circuits are half-way to becoming microprocessors. It must've helped greatly that Rin landed on that island just before Kiko mounted an attack onto it."

As I continued to examine the circuit board where the new generation of our computation technology is placed, the people around me suddenly spoke something that snapped me out of my trance.

"Y-You speak in mysterious ways sometimes, Shogun-sama…"

"T-True. There are times when none of us understand what you are saying, sir."

"A-Ahh… sorry, I got too enamored in my own world. It's been a while since I saw things like this, you see…"

I closed the access panel and they returned to touring me around the airbase until just before sunset when I was finally allowed to go to our hotel room where I immediately removed my clothes and hopped onto the bathtub to relax in the hot water.

That night, a small gala dinner was held for my arrival which was attended by some military officers and the local town mayors and village chiefs of Okinawa. There, I got to talk with the local leaders and even managed to talk about more meetings with my government in the near future.

It seems like the Okinawa leaders wanted to be recognized as their own separate province and region, which meant that they also would desire to have their own government structure and laws, but still remain as a land under our sovereignty. With my internal affairs officer talking with local government officers, I said that I will arrange for a meeting with my subordinate soon and that I would make sure that it will pass before the year ends.

The night passed relatively peacefully except for the fact that Kichi said that she's having difficulty sleeping in her own room and Chiasa let her sleep between us two… I had to settle for a good night kiss and some sweet words from her that night.

"I-I-It is a great honor to be under your tutelage, Shogun-sama!"

"N-now, now… No need to bow that low. It's not like I need it."

Because they took an overnight ferry from Fuku, the foreign affairs officers sent by the young Yamaguchi lord arrived just that early morning and made a courtesy call to me as soon as they arrived in the city of Youna where we relocated by noon.

"We will be visiting Camp Shintoki after lunch where we will converse with the prisoners of war. I take it that at least some of you are fluent or able to comprehend English and German?"

"U-Umm…"

"O-Only English, Your Highness."

"Sister Dormer was our teacher in Aoya University, so we didn't get German in our curriculum itinerary."

"That's understandable… I'll leave Officer Zettour to translate German to you guys then."

Instead of a carriage, we rode an army vehicle to Camp Shintoki since not much of the roads has been paved enough for carriages to properly travel on them. This troop carrier, which is basically a tank without weaponry, has caterpillar tracks that easily traversed the rough terrain towards the main military base of Okinawa.

"That is the extended barracks that we repurposed as a holding facility for the captured men, sir. We've looked after them for a while and there are little to no problems with them so far."

"I see… Did the camp's cooking staff made sure to cook food that are familiar to them?"

"Yes, Your Highness… We made sure not to culture shock them at all. Although some of the sailors did become "too interested" in soy sauce after they had them with grilled fish which made us order more."

"Soy sauce, huh? It does add a lot of flavors in food. It's good for them to eat well to at least raise their spirits. Anything else that your camp psychiatrists have noticed?"

"Ah! It's not much, Your Highness, but it seems like… someone… left their manga in the barracks after it was repurposed as a holding facility and since then, some of our prison guards has been bugged by the sailors to read it to them which at least kept their boredom at bay. I don't mean to ask something like requesting translations to these books in English, but if it would keep them docile, I think it is a good thing to consider."

"Well, I'll go inform Ouji-sensei to do just that. It's his books anyway."

"Y-You know Ouji-sensei personally, Your Highness!?"

With that reaction, I already knew who that "someone" was that he trailed off to hide the identity of. However, we already came inside the prison camp, and I switched to my Shogun self.

"Sister, Hans… I'll be depending on you to keep this conversation going well. They are your fellow countrymen. Having you there would at least keep them docile and reasonable."

"Understood, Your Highness. I shall do my best to be of help."

"I'll do it dutifully, sir. No need to feel unsafe."

On a separate room with a speaker and one-way mirror that lets them hear and see into the interrogation room, the trainees from Fuku took their seat and because the first prisoner that I would talk to is from Britain, it was Sister Camilla who joined me inside, with Hans being left on the room with the others. After I and the sister took our seats, the prison guard spoke to the first in line using simple English phrases and I greeted him with the same language.

"You. Get in."

"U-Understood… w-what?"

"Good day, young man. Take a seat."

The first to be brought to the interrogation room is a lower-ranked English sailor by the name of Jonathan Wade. From the observations of the prison guards and what they managed to hear from their cafeteria hall about him, he's an experienced sailor that used to sail only in the Atlantic between their homeland and their colonies in North America. However, after his ship was damaged by a Spanish galleon that mistook them as pirates, he was reassigned to the reserve expeditionary fleet to India and after Britain received Sister Camilla's letter, he and the ship he is serving was made to join the punitive naval force.

"I-Is this a torture chamber? A-Am I being made to spill what I know about my country?"

"No. It is an interrogation room, but no blood is to be shed here, nor will you be hurt intentionally. Besides, we have a woman of the cloth in our presence, it would be gravely disrespectful to do that."

"W-Wait! You are-!"

"It's a true pleasure to meet a fellow countryman so far away from home, isn't it, sir?"

"A-A nun from the Church of England… wait, could you possibly be-"

"Camilla Dormer. I was the one whose letter was received by his Majesty and informed them of this new land."

The sailor broke into tears after confirming that Camilla was indeed a fellow countryman… it seems like being away from home took a toll on him.

"I do not mean to rush you, lad. But you are not the only one that I would be talking to, so I highly request that we get to business already… Tell me just whatever you are comfortable with speaking about. My main points of interests are about the state of affairs in Europe and how much of the Americas has been colonized."

Jonathan, seemingly a bit trusting now after confirming that we are not abusive captors or enemies out to fight their nation but instead understand it for now, gave me little tidbits of what he knows and whatever he felt wouldn't be treated as treasonous leaking of information.

"Most of the upper part of the new continent is under British and Prussian control. The middle and the south part are being fought over to this day by Spain and Portugal to the point that the Asberg noble house has been threatening both nations of expulsion if the conflict is brought to Europe."

"So, there wasn't a proper treaty between the two nations yet about the extent of their colonial borders?"

"No. As far as I know, they have basically been trying to outdo each other in shipping out gold and other products back to Europe."

"Hmm…"

Seeing that I am deep in thought, Sister Camilla spoke to me in Japanese after she deduced that it must be something not good to let the English sailor to hear and understand.

"Is something wrong, Your Highness?"

"I believe you have some knowledge about it, Sister. But if Spain and Portugal are extracting gold in South America to ship it back to Europe, it would mean an oversupply of the precious metal…"

"…and an economic collapse. I heard about it from Chiyo-san once."

"It seems noteworthy to add that to my memo. Let's make economic collapse through gold oversupply a possible scenario."

After noticing that we spoke in a different language, Jonathan seemed uneasy and asked me if something is going on.

"S-Sir? Is something wrong?"

"Nothing. We just found it amazing that the Asbergs hasn't disowned them yet."

I decided to hide the true subject of our conversation in fear that they might be troubled with it. My interview concluded when Jonathan said that he has nothing more of note to say and I let him leave.

"Next. You. Get in."

"Alright… What…?"

"Take a seat. We have a lot to talk about."

Next in line is a ship officer of the British by the name of Connie Callaghan. What was gathered about him is that he's a gunnery officer in one of the ships and seems to have some degree of authority amongst the other sailors so much so that he was entrusted by the prison guard captain to inform them if ever someone got sick. Unlike Jonathan, who is just an enlisted sailor amongst many others, this man is a naval officer and knows the extent of what he can say and cannot say. Worst case scenario, he may never even speak about anything at all. Because of that, I took this slowly and steadily.

"I would like to introduce you to the person who sent the letter that was the cause of your deployment in this part of the world. Sister, if you may."

"I am Camilla Dormer from the Passchendaele nunnery of the Church of England, sir. I am pleased to make your acquaintance."

"As I am, sister… May I ask why a fellow subject of His Majesty is now seated beside this foreign gentleman?"

"I am a guest of His Highness in the land that he holds. I was allowed to start a church here and be the bridge between our nations… Although I was quite surprised that a punitive force was sent here instead of a diplomatic mission."

"You have to understand, sister… Things are not going well in Europe right now. Having a subject of His Majesty stuck in such a faraway land would be a smear on his promise to preserve our people's safety."

"Hmm… I guess you are right. Still, the display of military action was a tad too much."

After their exchange, I made it a point to show that I understood what was spoken.

"It seems like King James Anson-Capell XIII is a monarch who loves his people dearly. That is admirable indeed."

"Do not speak His Majesty's name as if you belong to the same rank, mongrel… You bring filth to his name."

"-!"

"Sister, please don't be bothered."

"Hmph! Know your place. Just because you managed to defeat our miniscule force and hold us as prisoners of war doesn't mean that you can boast about your power."

As I expected, an officer of the navy cannot possibly be someone who can be reasoned with easily… and his way of speaking and admiring his monarch made it clear to me that he also holds a noble rank, albeit somewhat lower in the hierarchy.

"I wish to clarify that I myself am a monarch of a nation, officer Callaghan. I believe that I do not need to add honorifics to your king's name and have the privilege of speaking to him as equals."

"Hah! Utter rubbish, I say! You may be a monarch, but your nation is too small to compare to our great empire! And you dare protest to refer to His Majesty as equals? You will regret even thinking of that!"

After he said all of that bluster, the door to the observation room opened and one of the camp officers brought me a rolled paper which I immediately recognized.

"…I fail to see the point of your words."

"W-Wha-!?"

"Tell me, officer… who is really the one at a disadvantage between the two of us?"

It may seem petty or it really is petty for me to do this… but I won't let anyone to slander my nation in front of me and never pay dearly about it.

"For people like you who hasn't even managed to confirm that the world is round, nor mapped out the entirety of the world, you speak as if you are technologically superior."

"T-This is… the world?"

"Another thing… here."

"-!"

"We've seen and have been following you since you passed through the Dutch East Indies. This should remind you of the number of your force that our lone patrol ship didn't even broke a sweat to decimate in one engagement."

I showed a few photos to him that was taken by Okinawa's air patrol wing ever since their sea radar found an unusual fleet of ships whose bearing heading has been pointing to the islands. That meant one thing to him…

"You've been watching us from the sky… this whole time…?"

"Right. We've known where you are, which islands you landed on to resupply and when you would arrive at our sea borders. That's the reason why that patrol ship was able to intercept you."

"You lie! It's not possible for these portraits to be true! No creature save for birds and the angels has the ability to cross the heavens! Do not feed me your swill of falsehoods, you mongrel scum!"

"…It says here that after getting past the Dutch East Indies, you were tasked by your ship captain to mop the deck floor of the ship after it was drenched by a monsoon storm. You then took a stopover at an island where you restocked on drinking water after some of your barrels was tossed overboard by the same storm. While in there, you and your fellows that man the 12-pounder cannons in the second level deck managed to find a Chinese pirate hideout and stole from it provisions such as salted pork, dried fish and a crate of tea leaves."

"-!"

"You and your lads hid this away from the eyes of the other crew by hiding it between your gunpowder kegs and cannonballs. During the night, your group would slip out to the rear of the ship deck to enjoy your spoils and when the second mate found out about this, you bribed him with tea, something that he cannot resist."

"…How did you know?"

"I already told you. We've been watching all of you since you went near our sea. I don't intend to let you know how, but while you and your men are still wading around at the sea, my people have already conquered and claimed the sky for our own."

"-!"

"Give us some time and I assure you that the expeditionary fleet of your nations wouldn't meet a fellow ship but instead… a hail of bombs from the steel birds made by the hands of my people."

After learning how little his pride and fervor for his nation matters when put against the sheer technological strength that my country possesses, it broke his spirit and he sunk on his seat like a puppet whose strings was cut off.

"Now… tell me whatever you can say about the current events in Europe and the colonization of the new continent. Don't even try to lie, I'm just asking all of this to see if you lot are worthy to be used as hostages against your nations."

Connie became a bit more docile and spoke all that he knows about what I was asking for… In the end, after interviewing all of the sailors that the prison guards deduced to be worthy of questioning, I had a concise yet properly made list of information about what is going on in the west.

First of all, Britain and Prussia's alliance and coordinated royal lineage runs deeper than we initially expected. Since in this world, the Holy Roman Empire is in France and not in the German states, a vast majority of the duchies and other feudal lordships in eastern Europe were free to do as they wish and represent themselves abroad until the rise to power of the infamous Asberg noble family that made all of them independent only in name and now subject to the directives of the main family line. Being the main enemies of the Asbergs as both nations' royal families declined the offer to marry into the Asbergs, Britain and Prussia have been helping out each other for so long that there are those who say that a merger of the two families and nations may come sooner than expected… and once that happens, those two nations would probably be the biggest political power in Europe for decades to come.

Secondly, the Asberg family may have united almost all of the continental European nations politically, but it cannot do the same in the economic and military side of the nations that it controls from the shadows. To put it simply, Europe has been suffering through a number of disasters for the past few centuries, there is of course, the fall of Rome and the roman empire, the dark ages that brought in a return to tribalism and anarchy across the continent and just when things seemed to have livened up after a number of monarchies arose amongst the rubble of said disasters, the Islamic takeover of the Holy Land forced several crusades to be formed with brutally high death rates for both sides, the religious schisms in the heart of the continent became an actual war that drove more people into slaughter, and just a century or so ago, there was the Bubonic plague that basically brought back an encore to the Dark Ages. Although the Asbergs did unite these weakened countries, they cannot control the people who are now rising to riches and amassing private armies from the Age of Exploration.

Lastly, there is an issue about the colonies in the Americas that will mix us up in the mess of the westerners… and that is the fact that Hiroshi has placed oil wells and a few military outposts of Kiko's armed forces in Alaska to supply our country with oil. Although he did say that he intends to disassemble the structures and hide all of the traces of our presence in the area as soon as the war ends and we won't need oil as much as we need it now, the fact that the European sailors mentioned that there is a great push in their royal courts to extend the colonies westward would surely make them aware of our existence sooner than we want them to do so.

"Waaah!!! It's the sea!"

"Kichi-chan, don't run around too fast or you'll fall down, alright?"

Tomorrow morning though, was our family outing and I tried my best not to think about work for a while to enjoy the sun and the sea with my family.

"Well, well… Who's this fine and sexy lady over here?"

"Ehehe~! Did you like it? I bought it from Naka fashion street while the plane was refueling."

"I like it along with the woman wearing it. Mnm… but I don't want anyone else to see it."

After seeing her swimsuit and praising her, I went behind my wife and gave her a hug that also wrapped her in a towel.

"My, my… I sure have a pretty overprotective husband."

"Who wouldn't want to protect someone like you if they were your husband? Chu!"

"Aaahhh! S-S-Sora!"

"Ehehe~! I really love teasing you so much."

To her surprise, I kissed her nape which is one of her sensitive tickle spots which made her shriek a bit before turning around and hitting me in response.

"Ai-chan! Lookie, lookie! It's a big konpeito candy!"

"A-Ah! Kichi-chan! That's a sea urchin! Don't pick it up!"

"Wah! There's starfishes here too!"

"That's a sea coral! Don't break it off!"

Meanwhile, Kichi and Ai-chan are wading and swimming around the shallow sea water where they found all kinds of sea creatures and objects that they must've only seen now in their entire lives.

"Come on! Swimming race to that stone over there! Last to arrive is going to pay for lunch!"

"Alright, I'm in!"

"I'm joining in too!"

"You guys are too slow! I'm hoping off now!"

Meanwhile, some of our female servants who are out of their duty joined in on the fun and even put forward a swimming contest between themselves.

"Alright, lads! The honor of the Shogunate Security Corps are on your shoulders! Don't let those rookies get the better of you!"

"""YES, SIR!!!"""

"Don't underestimate us! We're frontline troops too! Boys, let's show these folks how we bring down all of those that stand against us!"

"""Understood, sir!"""

For our security corps and the local navy regiment that are off duty today, they are having a sand castle building competition that seems to be turning ugly every so often when one side would roll moist sand into a ball and throw it to the other side's sand castle to damage it.

"Haah… it's good to bask under the sun every so often, isn't it?"

"Geez, you sound like an old man all of a sudden. Are you feeling well though?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm alright. Maybe even a lot better than when we were in Yamato. The sea breeze and the gentle sunshine sure made me feel better than before."

In this reclining chair meant only for one person, Chiasa squirmed to lay down beside me and rested her head on my chest. It was quite the fit, but I guess it is sweet of her to do this in its own way.

"Still, something seems to be bothering you."

"Well… there do is a wee bit of thing in my mind that's concerning me… but we shouldn't talk about it for now. We're in vacation anyway."

"True… you're right in that."

As Chiasa and I cuddled on the chair while watching over the rolling waves and the gentle sunrays of this beach in Okinawa, little did I know that my fellow Otherworlder and current ally, Iwasawa Hiroshi, may soon not have this kind of life as we do.

"W-What…?"

"Iwasawa-kou-sama says that he will face you at the right time, Chiyo-sama…"

"B-But-!"

"For now, he said… that you should recover back to full health and don't mind the outside world."

"H-Hiroshi…"

"Everything will be alright soon, and we can go back to how things were before… so please, just wait for me."

It has been two months since I woke up and have been able to at least sit up on my bed. I wanted to talk to Hiroshi about my dream and how I finally learned what we two were in our past lives.

"Asada-san… please tell me…"

"…"

"Just what is Hiroshi… doing out there?"

"I cannot speak of it, Chiyo-sama… That would be against the orders he gave to me."

"…"

"Please just rest… that is all that I ask of you so that you can help Iwasawa-sama later on."

I wish that what I think he is doing isn't true… I don't want him to turn into a monster… not anymore… not again…