An Unlikely Magical Girl and An Unlikely World War48.28%

Chapter 13

Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

1:53 P.M.

Ohta Ichigo

“With all due respect I don’t think this is legal Major Suzumoto,” I answered once I was able to stop myself from only staring at him. “I apologize but I won't have any part of this.”

“We’re at war Ichigo,” Major Suzumoto replied. “And we are currently in the middle of an emergency. That's why I assure you that accepting the help of anyone is quite legal.”

"Mrs. Taro from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is somewhere around here. She's going to complain about involving Ichigo in this," Kentaro reminded us.

Before Suzumoto was able to reply a soft golden light swam through the air, followed by an ever beautiful twang. An instant later almost every able bodied person within sight, including me, suddenly had a bayonet tipped bolt action rifle and a satchel full of what I presumed to be bullets hanging on their shoulders by the slings. The only exception was a frantic Ran who was rapidly taking off the rifle and ammunition off a very surprised Ms. Yamato while saying something to the school teacher.

As everyone recovered their balances with squawks and yelps of surprise, I glared at Krauncha’s direction to see his glowing, cross leg seated self pluck the string of the same musical instrument that he had from our house in Matsumoto a second time.

The soil several meters away from us to the north suddenly moved, felling trees and creating a cacophony of smashing objects and panicked screams that could probably be heard all the way to the hospital. Within moments what emerged from the soil was a sloped earthen rampart that was taller than the trees around us by one and a half times, stretching from...I don’t know in the East to I don’t know in the West curving down to I don’t know in the South.

“What are you doing you bastard?!” Suzumoto yelled as he pulled out a pistol on Krauncha. “That must have been heard all the way from Camp Fuji!”

“They already found us out before I did that!” Krauncha yelled back at him while continuing to play his musical instrument. “Instead of screaming at me, get your men and any volunteers ready to fight now! Ran and I will provide magical support beside you folks! And forget all your pistols and submachine guns! You need heavier bullets to crack those magic shields! Use the Smellie rifles!”

After a couple of seconds of glaring at the Indian, Major Suzumoto roared out the following orders to the men around him. One of them will run to their radio and call for help. Half of the men will round up all the civilians and send them to the center of this enclosure Krauncha created. The remaining half are to go to their fellows and get organized to fight a battle.

“And how did the magical aliens know that we’re here?!” I screamed out at Krauncha as this was going on, with the added pandemonium of panicking civilians in the background.

“I’m sorry. I think it was my fault.”

My glare morphed into an incredulous stare as my head turned towards my wife, who was covering her face with her two hands in embarrassment.

Before I was able to ask her for more clarification, someone grabbed my shoulder and turned me around.

“Do you know how to work a bolt action rifle?” Akio asked me with his own rifle in hand.

Yet again I was interrupted before managing to say one word, this time by my father in law.

“What the hell are you doing! You want to make him fight in a war?!” he yelled at Akio's back, while behind him Magdalena and Mom walked beside Dad as the stretcher he was on was being carried by two Self Defense Forces personnel, followed by Ms. Yamato trying to navigate the wheelchair that Moe and my daughter were using past the tree roots and through the sea of autumn leaves.

“Yes! Where’s your gun?”

The look that Kentaro gave my resurrected ancestor was an answer all by itself.

“Coward,” Akio scoffed after a few moments, turning away from Kentaro as if he was a smelly pile of garbage and towards me.

"And you Ichigo? Will you protect your family alongside us three?"

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Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji Regional Hospital, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

1:54 P.M.

Ikeda Kurumi

I watched my boyfriend as his eyes kept moving from ancestor in law Akio, to Papa, to me, and back again to Akio.

"Ichigo, you don't need to fight. Leave all the shooting to the professionals and the war freaks and come with us to safety," Papa pleaded with my fiance while Mama hovered just behind him.

"Don't listen to this coward Ichigo," Akio retorted at Papa in a backhanded manner. "You are now the head of your family, so it is your responsibility to protect them by fighting the enemy."

Ichigo didn't respond to their words. Instead, he stopped his eyes from roving between people and to give me an intense stare.

"Kurumi? Do you have anything to say?"

I can't help but smile in gladness that he took what I said about acting macho to heart. But since we were pressed for time I summarized my sentiment with four words that made Akio groan in defeat.

"Ichigo, we need you."

Ichigo looked at me for a few, nerve wracking moments. Then he nodded to himself and opened his mouth to tell us his decision. That was when Krauncha spoiled the moment.

"Whatever you decide, Kurumi must stay here. Congratulations girl. You will now learn how to use a light machine gun."

'Say what?'

I barely had turned around to stare at the glowing Indian when plucked his instrument one more time. An instant later I found myself standing somewhere else that was still inside a forest, with Krauncha sitting cross legged on forest floor near me and continuing to play the musical instrument on his lap.

“What on – “

I was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a long and heavy gun before my stomach, which dragged me down by the neck a moment later via its sling.

“This is a Vickers Berthier Light Machine Gun – “

“I don’t care what this gun is called! Didn’t you say that I wouldn’t need to fight!” I yelled at Krauncha while taking the sling off my neck, and then tossing the contraption at his feet in anger.

“We need to buy the Japanese soldiers some time!”

“Why me! Can’t you do it?! Or how about Konohanasakuya-hime?! Wasn’t the goddess of volcanoes and cherry blossoms dropping lava somewhere in the south half an hour ago?!”

“With that ring suppressing casual use of magic, I can't perform anything lethal easily! And take a look at Mt. Fuji to get your answer!”

“How can I do that when we are in a forest you idiot!”

Krauncha stopped playing his musical instrument and let out a scream of frustration while shaking both hands in mid air. He quickly followed that up with a vicious right handed strum of his musical instrument’s strings while his left hand controlled the sound with the use of a slide and he visibly muttered something.

All of a sudden every tree within my sight sunk into the ground, leaving behind tree trunk sized holes from which the topmost one meter of the trees peeked...

“Now can you see the stupid volcano?!”

I whimpered and fearfully pointed behind him, at the far off army of Skinchangers in the middle of forming up in lines who were now staring at us and –

I screamed as I dropped prone onto the forest floor, dodging the bullets that the enemy soldiers sent my way.

Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji Regional Hospital, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

1:54 P.M.

Ohta Ichigo

“Where’s my daughter?!” Kentaro yelled as I looked this and that way for my wife, amidst the running Self Defense Forces personnel all around us.

“Mr. Ichigo, get up here! Ms. Kurumi and Krauncha are that way!” Ran shouted at me from some distance away.

I quickly pinpointed her location in a moment. The young inari was at crouching at the top of the rampart near Hisashi and Yasuhiko, waving at me as she pointed her fingers over the top of the rampart?!

‘Damn that Indian rat.’

I quickly ran towards her, the rifle and ammunition filled bag Krauncha had created earlier bumping against my body at every step. Within moments I was going up the gentle slope of the rampart, absentmindedly noting the sound of several people running after me.

I had barely thrown myself prone on the slope and started to look over the top of the rampart when gunshots permeated the air. All of a sudden I was dragged back down the slope through my legs.

“You idiot! What are you doing?!” Major Suzumoto and Akio shouted at me at the same time, which made them briefly glare at each other before turning back to me.

“Looking for my wife!” I yelled back while quickly noting the scene around me.

In the brief moment that I looked back at the two men, Ran had changed positions from crouching less than ten meters away to my right into standing at the top of the rampart in broad daylight, with both arms stretched forwards while visibly chanting something I can't hear at this distance and her waist length hair starting to move without any wind gust. Several meters to my left were Hisashi and Yasuhiko, slowly crawling to the top of the rampart with rifles in their hands.

By my feet were the aforementioned Major Suzumoto and Akio, rifles also in hand and currently stalking up the rampart. And to my great surprise, Kentaro and Magdalena were crouching several meters behind them.

Looking further afield I saw the figures of Self Defense Forces personnel, all crawling up the earthen rampart...

“Major Suzumoto, how many men at arms do we have?!” I yelled in worry as I noticed that out of everyone defending the rampart...the group I was in was the biggest I could see.

“Fifty men, not including the medical staff! Not enough men for this, if you ask me!”

“50 men! Only 50 men for this whole place?!” Grandfather Yasuhiko screamed from where he was lying prone near the top of the rampart.

“Well sorry! That’s all the men the 105th logistics battalion can spare for the hospital! Everyone else was busy with loading up war shots for the artillery school unit and the tank school unit! Look, the numbers will go up once the medical staff join us after rounding up the civilians!”

Akio seemed ignorant of the significance of Major Suzumoto’s words as he finally positioned himself at the top of the rampart and started aiming his rifle. I recognized the significance...but I also remembered that historically there were some rear echelon troops who were able to create miracles in battle. So I did nothing but hope for the best.

It was Hisashi and Grandfather Yasuhiko who reacted to the news with groans of dismay.

“Don’t look down on us staff personnel, bastards! We’ll do our best!” Suzumoto growled out at the two.

“The only time I would trust staff personnel to hold a position is when they are manning machine guns, preferably two men at one machine gun! Do you see any of those here!” Grandfather Yasuhiko shouted back.

“And that is why I’m looking for my wife!” I intervened before Suzumoto got sufficiently riled up by my two ancestors. “Krauncha was with her! If he knows how to make these...’Smellie’ rifles then he knows how to create machine guns with magic!”

“No need young one! I see the two of them right from over here!” Akio suddenly shouted.

Two seconds later I was looking over the top of the rampart.

I saw holes with tree tops, I saw lines of aliens, I saw a dome of light, I saw my wife crawling through fountains of dirt.

I fired the first shot from our side.

Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji Regional Hospital, Sunto District, Matsumoto

May 11, 2013

1:58 P.M.

Ikeda Kurumi

I crawled as low as possible back to the rampart, maneuvering my way around the tree holes and squinting my eyes from all the soil raining around me thanks to bullet impacts –

I yelped in embarrassment, indignation and pain as yet another meaty smack echoed from my very sore butt.

“Madar Chod! Help me out here Kurumi!” Krauncha yelled at me from behind as he continued playing his musical instrument, to what effect I don't know as the music was drowning out anything that wasn't a gun or someone shouting near me.

“No way! I’m going to die from the bullets!” I yelled without looking back, for fear that I would get shot in the forehead.

“Chutia! You did notice that bullets have been hitting you all this time, right?!”

“My butt will be full of bruises tomorrow! And if I bruise, then I could die from being beaten to death!”

“So make some armor on yourself!”

“I still can’t read the language!”

I already tried the same thing as I did back in Matsumoto the very moment the Skinchangers started shooting at me.

I wanted something, and my perception of time slowed down again. It was followed by a Windows XP Start button showing up in front of me . I thought about pushing it and the button clicked only to show me the same damned writing as back in Matsumoto, with the only difference being that I can see the letters better now because there are now capital and small letters as opposed to the all capital letters back in Matsumoto.

"Can't read?! Let me see that!"

The music instantly stopped, followed by a golden dome of light suddenly surrounding me, then followed an instant later by Krauncha appearing beside me and slapping his hand on the top of my head.

“Fuck you! What was that for?!” I roared out in anger because of that slap.

“So I could see into your mind!” the bastard nonchalantly shouted at me as he started plucking his musical instrument again and vacantly staring at the base of the rampart that was only several meters away from me at this point in time.

"What does it take to make those idiots understand koine had stopped being the common language of our part of the world for over one thousand years already!" Krauncha screamed in frustration several seconds later.

“Can we go up the rampart now?!” I politely shouted amidst the background noise of guns being fired, seeing I had won the argument about my active participation in a war.

“You can't!” Krauncha insisted. “You and I are the only people stopping the Skinchangers from reaching and eventually killing most of our brave, outnumbered friends on the rampart above."

‘What?’

I looked up the multistory building tall rampart to behold Ichigo, my ancestors in law, and Major Suzumoto among others firing their rifles as fast as they can while Ran stood in full view of the Skinchangers behind me, arms stretched out to them while her hair and her clothes billowed at full blast in the same direction.

A quick look to my East and West made horror start crawling all over my inner self.

There were very few Self Defense Forces personnel manning the ramparts above, and that was already including the doctors and nurses from the Self Defense Forces hospital. A simple glance backwards showed me they were outnumbered by at the very least a hundred times.

Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji Regional Hospital, Sunto District, Matsumoto

May 11, 2013

1:59 P.M.

Ohta Ichigo

"Got him," I muttered to myself as the Skinchanger I targeted collapsed down onto the knee high mud that the forest floor had suddenly turned into, the green magical shield that I spiderwebbed with my rifle dissolving into nonexistence at the same time. I then performed the laborious process of reloading the rifle while using it with my off hand, something I was forced to do because of the makeshift child of a monocle and an eyepiece that I was currently wearing.

First I moved the rifle butt away from my left shoulder. Then I worked the bolt open with my left hand, followed by refilling the magazine with another 5 round clip using my right hand, then closing the bolt again with my left hand and bracing it against my left shoulder again.

All done in the span of seven heartbeats.

As I started to take aim yet another time, I heard Kentaro yell my name over the din of rifle shots drowning out anything softer in volume.

“What is it Father?!” I yelled back while deciding to crawl backwards, away from the rampart' top and until I could safely turn around.

“Where’s my daughter Ichigo?! Why is she still not here yet?!” Kentaro yelled with an anxious face once I turned around, while flinching every time a rifle barked near us. Magdalena wore an equally anxious face beside him, but in contrast to her husband her only reaction to the rifle shots was a twitch of the eye.

“She’s already at the base of the rampart! The only problem is all the bullets flying in her direction!”

I quickly started thinking on how to get my wife out of there.

Going down the rampart to fetch Kurumi with the protection of Ran’s magical wind was not an option. Ran had already warned everyone on the rampart earlier, in the form of a voice from inside of our heads, that her wind could only protect the top of the rampart.

If I were to run down there, I would get shot and die.

The only option left is to make Kurumi come to us. The question now was how...

"Mother! Father! I’m going to ask Ran to tell Kurumi to climb up!"

If Ran was able to give a telepathic message to around a hundred people at the same time, then she could surely send a message to my wife.

"Won't she get killed if she does that!" Kentaro asked.

"Kurumi is wearing that magical ring right now! The same thing allowed her to tank several gunshots to the head back in Matsumoto! As long as she covers her head she'll be fine!"

"You sure about that Ichigo!"

"I'm sure! I'm now going to Ran, so stay please here where it's safe!"

With that said I left them, stalking towards Ran and passing by Major Suzumoto and Akio in the process, who were both silently and steadily sending bullet after bullet at the enemy soldiers in the distance.

I was halfway between my ancestor and Ran when I heard Akio yelled something that grabbed my attention.

"What is that girl doing?!"

Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji Regional Hospital, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

1:59 P.M.

Ikeda Kurumi

"And done!” Krauncha yelled all of a sudden, letting go of the magical ring on my finger at the same time.

I quickly looked up at the sitting bastard from my prone position and asked him what he did.

"I can’t do anything about the language! It’s still koine dialektos! But I changed its input method! It’s no longer mental point and click but speech recognition! ”

“I don’t know how to speak this koine dialektos language!”

“But I do! Tell me what you want, I’ll say the koine equivalent, and then you try to say it. Don’t worry! Koine is pretty forgiving with pronounciation!”

“Then I want a shield! Give me a shield that covers me from head to toe!”

“Round or oval – no. Let’s go with the oval ones! An oval shield that covers you from head to toe, is that alright?”

“Yes!”

“Repeat after me Kurumi! Ei gar tosoutos gignoito thureos epi noto osos ego autos!”

After a moment or two of hesitation, I tried to say the same words as he said. A few more seconds passed before it became apparent what I said didn’t work.

“Oh come on! Classic Attic pronounciation needed?! Those Yavanas! Ok, again! This time, listen closely to my pronunciation! Ei. Gar. Tosoutos. Gignoito. Thureos. Epi. Notoi. Osos. Ego. Autos.”

“εἰ γάρ τοσοῦτος γίγνοιτο θυρεὸς ἐπὶ νώτῳ ὄσος ἐγὼ αὐτός.”

An instant later, an object of some weight appeared on my back and shaded my view of the smiling Indian bastard.

“Now that you have your own shield, decide what you want to appear next! I’m going back to making the enemy's lives miserable!”

As the golden glow started fading and the music returned, I quickly shifted around and held the shield in my hands while getting up onto my knees. Within moments, I had to brace myself and grip the shield tight as it vibrated from the downpour of powerful blows which threatened to smash the shield into my face.

The shield, as Krauncha said, was oval and as tall as me from tip to tip. It was also, to my great surprise, seemingly only made out of vertical planks of wood glued together at the edges and a thick felt wrapping that enclosed the shield from the front to about halfway between the centrally placed shield handle and the edges of the shield.

I snapped out of it when I heard Ichigo’s voice, from the inside of my head.

“That’s good Kurumi. Cover yourself with that shield, then walk up here.”

After going into a half kneel for a stable position while slanting the shield over my head, I looked back over at the rampart top and instantly gasped in terror at what I saw.

Ichigo was now standing tall at the rampart’s edge right beside Ran, with his right hand on her left shoulder and a rifle slung over his left shoulder, heedless of all the bullets that were flying around.

“What are you doing?! Get into cover Ichigo!” I screamed at his direction. A couple of seconds later it became apparent he can’t hear me when Ichigo told me everything was going to be alright, I just had to go up to them.

Once more the music stopped again. Krauncha then suddenly placed his hand on my shoulder, and told me that I’m now connected to Ran’s telepathic communications.

“Ichigo, what are you doing standing there in full view of these aliens! Hide yourself! And Ran too!”

“It’s alright Kurumi. Ran’s performing the same bullet stopping spell that the inari cast in our house! You on the other hand should get up here now. The enemy soldiers are trudging through the mud towards you."

I resisted the urge to peek around my shield upon hearing my boyfriend's words, seeing as the shield was still threatening to fly into my face.

"No! She can't go up there you idiot!" Krauncha yelled from inside our heads. "I need her to stay down here and help me keep them away from the rampart!"

Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji Regional Hospital, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

2:00 P.M.

Ohta Ichigo

"Fuck you. Why does she have to do that?" I growled out into the air, glaring down at Krauncha’s floating cross seated figure beneath that golden dome of his.

“Because the Skinchangers have the numbers and willpower to kill everyone on the rampart regardless of losses. The only thing that will stop or delay them from doing that is if Kurumi helps me make a stand down here.”

“No. Instead of that I propose that you make us some machine guns, you idiot,” I hissed as I glared at the hundreds of Skinchanger soldiers engaged in a cycle of trudging through the dead leaves and branches in a very sickly manner with magical shields floating in front of them, slowly stopping and aiming while their shields go out of existence, firing their rifles, and working the bolts of their rifles or reloading in a very exhausted manner while the shields come back into existence, interspersed with the instantly killed dropping dead, the writhing wounded slowly healing themselves with magic, and Skinchangers here and there vomiting for some reason, in the treeless no man’s land between the rampart and Camp Fuji.

Krauncha’s answer filled me with hopelessness and anger at the world for all the bullshit I had experienced.

"I can't. I need to know all the parts of a machine gun to create one with magic."

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