Chapter 15

Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

2:15 P.M.

Ohta Ichigo

As I looked on at Magdalena worrying for her relatives, I started to wonder about the status of my own relatives at this moment in time.

On Dad's side, Great Grandpa Iori and Great Grandma Taeko live in Higashikushira, Kagoshima while Botan, Daiki, Shinpachi, my other second cousins, Dad's cousins and my great uncles all living in the neighboring communities of Kanoya city, Kagoshima city and Kinko town. On Mom's side, Grandfather Aratetsu Kisho and Grandmother Aratetsu Chiaki reside up north in Nishiwaga, Iwate.

They all should be safe since there are no JSDF or American bases in or near any of those places...but if ever they were to encounter any of these magical alien soldiers...everyone but my grandparents and great grandparents would be safe because they have normal lives.

Grandfather Kisho, the current mayor of Nishiwaga, was a right winger that made other right wingers that knew him scratch their heads or stare at him warily because of the things Grandfather espouses. He was also a former member of the 291st regiment, 79th Infantry Division of the Kwantung Army during World War 2 and fought the Russians at a place called Mayusan, a mountain located between Onsang, North Korea and Hunchun, China according to my research.

If Grandfather does not get executed out of hand for being the mayor of the town, he will most certainly start a resistance movement on the same day Nishiwaga gets occupied by the magical aliens. And it won't be an amateur attempt that would get everyone involved killed. It would be a movement based on everything Grandfather learned during his time with the Kwantung Army, augmented by modern technology and the latest tactics from the Middle East.

Worst of all, Grandmother Chiaki would go along with Grandfather out of love for him.

Great Grandpa Iori was also just as problematic, for other reasons.

Great Grandpa Iori was in most ways a normal Japanese farmer, just like most of his neighbors. But there is one crucial difference that sets Great Grandpa apart from his neighbors and most Japanese farmers. And that is the Ohta ancestral farm, which comes complete with a site for a house and our very own burial mound.

According to Great Grandpa Iori, that Daikon farm had been under the ownership of the Ohta family for a very, very long time. And he swore, to his father and ancestors, that it would remain so until the end of the world.

If the magical aliens ever got it into their minds to seize the family farm and kick Great Grandpa and Great Grandma out of the place for whatever reason...

Great Grandpa would plead and protest at first. If that doesn't work and the magical alien soldiers kicked them out of the place instead of killing them for the act of pleading and protesting, then...Great Grandpa would find Great Grandma and himself a safe place. Then he would call a family meeting.

When the entire family gathers, he would definitely ask for help in murdering the thieves one by one until the farm is given back to the Ohta. And even if everyone else doesn’t help him, which was the likeliest result of such a meeting, Great Grandpa has the experience to do it by himself.

He fought the Americans at Okinawa as a Boeitai, the Japanese Home Guard, with nothing but grenades and rocks and his own throwing arm. He can certainly make do again with...well...something.

So I hope, really really hope, that no Lighteater or Skinchanger has reason to go to Nishiwaga or Higashikushira because of how high a chance I had of losing my Grandfather and Great Grandfather.

A poke at my left side brought me back to the here and now. Upon looking, I saw it was Kurumi.

“Ichigo?” my wife whispered with a puzzled tone.

“I’m thinking of Great Grandpa Iori and Grandfather Kisho.”

Judging from the ‘tsk’ that she let out and the shaking of her head, Kurumi understood what I was worrying about. She meets my relatives regularly during the annual weeklong Ohta family reunion at Higashikushira, and the triannual visits to our family by Grandfather and Grandmother. And Grandfather and Great Grandpa...are people you will remember forever from just one meeting.

"Let's just hope Earth wins this war before those two meet some magical aliens," my wife comforted me with a rub to my back.

Whatever comfort I felt from her kind words was instantly erased by a woman's scream coming from the North.

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Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

2:16 P.M.

Ikeda Kurumi

Everyone reacted to the scream in different ways. Some warily looked around them, some loudly asked what the scream was about, Ichigo started to reach for the rifle and the bag of bullets that I had placed in front of us, and I pulled him away from it with all my strength.

“Kurumi?” he asked in shock as I stood up and started to bury the items by pushing as many dead leaves and fallen twigs as I can over them.

“Tell me, if the magical aliens are also in that direction what does it mean for us?” I asked back at him. I then turned to look at Mother, Mama, Papa and Mrs. Taro who were all looking at me.

“Help me hide the gun and the bag,” I asked them.

The rifle and the bag of ammunition quickly disappeared under a pile of dead leaves and tree branches in the span of a few moments, thanks to their help and spurred on by the successive waves of panicked screaming and irritated yells in badly pronounced Japanese, calling for everyone to shut up, getting closer and closer to us. That done I turned back to Ichigo, who was still sitting with a glum expression on his face.

"Ichigo?"

"Those screams mean that the Skinchangers have flanked the Self Defense Forces from – everyone keep calm. They’re here," Ichigo suddenly said while grabbing my hand and squeezing it tightly.

By the time I looked for them, a lot of Skinchanger soldiers had already strode out of the forest’s shadows into the sunlight. They were all warily keeping their distance from all the cowering or screaming or fearfully staring civilians.

“Ichigo, if they look this way would Hayato be safe?” Mother suddenly asked Ichigo.

“I’m not worried about Dad. He’s not wearing anything that would identify him as a member of the JSDF,” Ichigo replied. “I’m worried for Moe, Ao and Kurumi. Kurumi, sit here now. To my left.”

Those ominous words echoed in my mind over and over again as I sat down beside my boyfriend and the Skinchangers walked towards our group, the only thing steadying me was the tight grip that my beloved had on my right hand. Within moments, I let out a small sigh of relief as the soldiers at the very front of their lines peacefully passed our group by.

The moment of relief cruelly turned into so much dust in the wind when several Skinchanger soldiers who were about to walk past us or were just approaching slowed down and started staring at our group. In no time at all a small but growing ring of soldiers surrounded us, aiming rifles at us.

At that moment I was paralyzed by indecision, because I wanted to do so many things at once.

I wanted to shout that we had nothing to do with their war. I wanted to scream and scratch out their eyes. I wanted to take my daughter and run away with everyone. I wanted to hug my daughter and break down crying.

And then Mrs. Taro happened.

“Pardon me for asking, but is there anything we can do for you gentlemen?” She suddenly spoke up with a voice full of authority.

Turning my head towards her, I saw Mrs. Taro giving the Skinchangers around us a polite smile.

After a brief discussion among the soldiers, one Skinchanger soldier stepped forward from among their ranks. His reply made me snap my eyes to my daughter and Moe with fear in my heart.

“We are under orders to arrest every magic capable human we come across, no matter how weak their ability was, and bring them to our lords. If they resist, we were to immediately kill them on the spot. And in this group of yours, the girl with no legs and the injured child sitting on her are magically capable.”

‘Only two? What about me and the ring?’

Before anyone in our group were able to verbally react Mrs. Taro beat us to it by following up that statement with a question.

“Are you sure, sir? I don’t know anything about magic so I can’t tell whether you’re telling the truth or not.”

The spokesperson for the Skinchangers around us barked out in laughter before he answered it in a dismissive manner.

“It matters not whether you believe us or not. These two have magic, we can sense it, thus we will bring them over to our lords.”

‘None of you noticed the magic from my ring? What's going on here?’

“You want to bring a hospitalized four year old child and a disabled young woman to your superiors? Are you confident that your lords will appreciate being presented with the disabled and the extremely young and injured?"

After a few moments of uneasy silence among themselves, Mrs. Taro's question sparked a discussion among the Skinchanger soldiers that lasted...long enough for me to get bored by the time some kind of consensus had been reached and the spokesperson replied.

"Very well. We didn't encounter any magically capable humans on our way, and you only saw us walking by from a distance."

"Yes, we saw you moving through the trees from a distance and checking every human you had met for some reason known only to you. It's a pleasure to reach an understanding with such rational people."

"That's nice. But be assured that when our lords conquer this entire world these two won't escape notice, no matter how magically weak they are. Because the stronger one is in magic, the more sensitive to magical sources they are."

After the spokesperson said that the ring of Skinchanger soldiers around us broke up, and all of them walked away at the tail end of the wave of Skinchangers who walked past us.

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Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

2:21 P.M.

Ohta Ichigo

"Well, that happened," Taro said while staring at where the Skinchangers disappeared from sight. Those words unleashed a wave of sighs of relief from us, and started a lot of different actions.

Mom closed her eyes and hugged Dad’s right arm to her chest, while Kentaro released Magdalena from a hug meant to restrain her from doing anything foolish. Magdalena promptly turned around and gave him a look that didn't know whether to become a fond one or a glare.

Ms. Yamato, who was behind Moe's wheelchair and prepared to protect her student with her own body, promptly sat down on the dried leaves and dead twigs while shivering in fear. Moe quickly turned her head around and started to comfort her terrified teacher.

As for Kurumi...my wife stumbled once, stood up properly the next moment, walked all the way over to where our daughter sat on Moe's lap and gave her a light hug while whispering something to her.

And I stood up, walked over to Taro and thanked her from the bottom of my heart for protecting us.

"I'm just doing my job as a government employee, Ichigo. Just doing my job," she confidently replied. "Although I must admit that...Skinchanger?"

"Skinchanger. Apparently their race is called Skinchanger if translated into Japanese."

"That Skinchanger soldier’s parting reply was...hard to take seriously."

"...may I ask how?" I asked in pure curiosity.

"Conquer the entire world? That’s the stuff of my childhood anime and children’s live TV shows. I never thought I will hear that phrase being used in the same context as it was used in those anime and TV shows. But I digress. I see Yamada Moe here, but where is Yamada Ran?"

My curiosity quickly died the moment she asked about Ran, because she certainly won’t take the news about what the inari is currently doing very well.

“Ohta Ichigo, where is Yamada Ran?” Mrs. Taro repeated, this time mixing in suspicion and concern in her tone of voice.

Before I was able to speak up, a familiar voice made the air and the forest tremble with its echoes.

“I, Ran of the Yamada of Gifu, desire a flood of Ball Lightning to destroy my enemies with! Let it happen now!”

A moment later an unending wave of explosions erupted from the direction of the earthen ramparts, which itself set off screaming inside the forest from the ranks of the hospital patients and their families.

"Is she fighting alongside the Self Defense Forces?!" Taro shouted in shock and anger as fearful, panicked screaming started all around us.

"She is!” I answered while mentally thanking Ran for breaking the news to Taro herself. “Without her help all the Self Defense Forces personnel up there on the rampart would be dead by now, and alongside them me and Kurumi!"

Taro momentarily stood frozen there, filled with I don’t know what emotions under the poker face that suddenly appeared. A moment later she sighed and said something too soft for me to hear through the screaming and the explosions, and then she followed it up by giving me a brief nod and walked towards the wheelchair.

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Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

2:22 P.M.

Ikeda Kurumi

I turned my head around as Mrs. Taro kneeled at the left side of the wheelchair and asked Ms. Yamato and Moe if they were aware that Ran is currently fighting alongside the Self Defense Forces.

“I know my sister is fighting. I saw her run off to the rampart when Mr. Krauncha raised it from the forest,” Moe replied with a tone that had an equal mix of worry and pride in it.

After giving the inari a disbelieving look, Mrs. Taro looked at Ms. Yamato, who had a complicated mix of embarrassment, sadness and worry on her face.

“I wasn’t given the opportunity to even raise an objection. One moment Ran was right beside us, the next she was running up that rampart,” the school teacher said to Mrs. Taro.

“And you didn’t go after your wayward student Yamato?!” Mrs. Taro asked with a tone of incredulity.

Ms. Yamato looked too ashamed to say anything in her defense.

“Mrs. Taro, please don’t bully Ms. Yamato,” Moe suddenly replied while giving the child welfare officer a very stern look.

“I’m not bullying her,” Mrs. Taro replied back just as sternly.“I’m asking her why she didn’t do her duty as your sister’s teacher. And why do you sound so supportive of your sister’s decision?”

Moe looked at Mrs. Taro and gave a very hair raising reply.

“They killed Mommy, so in revenge we will kill a hundred Skinchangers.”

Mrs. Taro and Ms. Yamato stared at Moe, as if they suddenly saw a stranger in place of someone they else they expected to be there.

Moe seemed affected by their stares, so she started to give an explanation.

“Mrs. Taro, Ms. Yamato, my sister and I are fourteen year old girls. We do things and think things that other Japanese girls our age also do, like cellphones, and school, and teen idols. But we are also half-kitsune, members of the community of the supernatural – “

“So you’re claiming to be living under a different standard of conformity than normal Japanese, like Yakuza, Aum Shinrikiyo and the various foreign communities and their offspring?” Mrs. Taro interrupted.

I was only able to briefly glare at her for mentioning the half-Japanese community in the same breath as the Yakuza and Aum Shinrikiyo when Moe suddenly responded to Mrs. Taro’s question.

“The normal lifespan that Ran and I would enjoy due to being half kitsune would be between two hundred and two hundred forty years. Just that fact alone would already make some changes in how we think compared to normal Japanese, never mind that the supernatural community of the entire world is full of immortals who learned and lived the best and the worst that humans can do to the world around them and will teach that to every newborn and newcomer to the community.”

“…you half humans are going to be the greatest challenge in the history of the Equal Employment, Children and Families Bureau,” Mrs. Taro muttered with a dismayed tone.

The conversation between Moe and the two government employees was interrupted when Skinchanger soldiers suddenly started appearing from the direction of the rampart, where they had marched off to a few minutes ago. Many of them had no rifles, many others were dropping rifles everywhere, and some persisted in carrying their rifles. And all of them were running away from...

“They look so beautiful,” Ao stated in awe as all the so called ‘ball lightning’ that Ran created earlier silently came into view.

They were fuzzy edged, watermelon sized balls of fiery electricity in several colors ranging from orange and red to yellow and white. They also brought along with them the smell of ozone and sulfur, and chased after the Skinchangers in a riot of every describable movement bar those which involves going backwards.

“Those things aren’t going to hit us, will they?” I asked in worry as I saw several of these balls go through trees and through the forest floor, without any visible effects on the objects involved.

“They shouldn’t. Ran did say the words ‘enemies in front of me’ when she cast that spell. We certainly aren’t her enemies,” Moe answered in a confident tone.

She was proven right a few moments later as the balls avoided every human being in their way while dancing after the Skinchangers.

“How dangerous is this ‘Ball Lightning’ that the magical aliens are all running away from them?” Mrs. Taro wondered out loud.

“Mrs. Taro, ball lightning are very, very dangerous,” Moe started explaining in the manner of a teacher, something which brought a small smile from Ms. Yamato beside her. “They go through solid objects like they weren't there. They are hot enough to melt holes in glass. And they also explode when they hit humans and animals, either killing them with a combination of electrocution and explosion or leaving behind debilitating burns."

Her words were punctuated when a straggling Skinchanger came running into our view. He tripped over something in midstep but managed to recover his stride, only for the ball lightning that was chasing him to finally catch him by hitting the back of his head.

An explosion later and the Skinchanger was faceplanted with his butt raised into the air like tip of a mountain, and his clothes turned into rags by dint of exploding away from his body. But what was supposed to look funny wasn’t, not when steam visibly wafted from the very unmoving body.

All of a sudden Ao suddenly whimpered.

"Oh no. What happened Ao?"

“I got surprised Mama,” my daughter whimpered back at me.

“Did anything move when you got surprised Ao? I’m going to…”

I trailed off as I realized all the doctors and nurses present earlier were Self Defense Forces personnel first and are currently shooting the Skinchangers from Krauncha’s rampart.

"I...don’t know Mama. It just hurts.”

Before I had a moment to say anything, Moe spoke up and said she would take a look at Ao.

After a few moments of whispering to herself, the inari declared that my daughter’s ribcage was still just in the same position as before, and that the pain might just be the broken bones rubbing against each other from the scare earlier.

"But really," Moe continued as I gave a sigh of relief. "She shouldn't be allowed to get surprised in the first place. May I recommend giving her ear muffs?"

"I could just make occasional peeks into the future for that," Ao replied. "Mama, can I do so from now on, so I don't get surprised?"

The two fellow women and two girls only had a few seconds of looking at me before I made my decision.

"Alright. You can peek into the future whenever we are in danger. But you have to tell me first when you will do that, ok?"

"I will. Can I do it now?"

"Go."

My smiling daughter quickly closed her eyes. Five seconds later, her smile faded away. Ten seconds after that, she opened her eyes and said something that brought my stress levels up again.

"That's not good."

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Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

2:23 P.M.

Ohta Ichigo

I was sitting beside Mom, both of us watching Dad peacefully sleep on the stretcher Ao was using earlier this day. That was the reason why I heard the entire conversation that my wife and daughter participated in, which included Ao’s comment of something not being good.

As I turned my head towards them, Kurumi asked the question that I was about to give my daughter.

“Ao, what’s happening?”

“Mama, do you remember the two Lighteater nobles who attacked us back home?”

“Don’t tell me there’s another one in this place!” Moe cut in with a worry filled voice.

Her words were instantly followed by a more focused concentration of screams and the smell of smoke coming from the direction where the Skinchanger soldiers had run away to earlier.

I turned around and saw to my horror not one, but three Skinchangers walking towards us. Presumably nobles too, judging by my daughter’s words.

They wore a completely different attire from those of the ordinary Skinchanger soldiers I was shooting at earlier.

Instead of a bowl shaped helmet with two holes for a rope to serve as a chin strap, they had a conical shaped helmet that had a bar running down the middle of the face up to the chin, and a thick inner lining of some black colored material attached to the helmet by several rivets along the helmet edges.

Instead of vests, armguards and shin guards made up of rectangular pieces of metal laced together, they had a knee length...raincoat like garment made out of shiny, intertwining chains that I suppose must be an armor of some sort. And underneath that was...a kevlar vest worn over a white silk shirt and thick kevlar leggings.

Instead of bolt action rifles with attached bayonets, these nobles were all toting... Browning Automatic Rifles, BAR for short and bane of the Imperial Japanese Army, and had swords, secure in their scabbards, hanging by the sides of all three of them.

And then I finally noticed the smoke rising from anywhere they stepped, leaving behind foot sized fires that were slowly eating and growing their way through the mat of dead leaves and branches that was the forest floor.

The multiple spreading fires, in turn, finally did what Skinchanger soldiers and flying ball lightning was not able to do. It made all our fellow patients and hospital visitors run away, or get awkwardly carried by the stretcher, in every direction. And on that note...

“Everyone, we really should move now,” I said out loud as I stood up and put my hands on one end of Dad’s stretcher. Within moments Kentaro was at the other end without me needing to say anything, and we quickly coordinated to lift Dad up by the stretcher to waist level.

And then we stopped at that point because one of the Skinchanger nobles was beside me, looking at me.

“Can I help you?” I asked, wondering what this was about. But instead of an answer, the noble replied with a question that sent alarm bells ringing in my mind.

“Did you know that the Lighteaters were trialing an experimental armor in the town you Japanese call Matsumoto?”

“...huh?”

“Yes. Light skintight uniform that gives those people the ability to camouflage themselves like us Skinchangers when naked. Magic circles that was supposed to slow down any solid projectiles that would hit the area of the circles. It’s even got a feature that was supposed to be their counterpart to uh...what’s the term...’network centric warfare’?”

For a second I was puzzled, because this noble was talking about a term that came from the Americans.

Network centric warfare was quite simply warfare that concentrates on having a very good, very short and continuous communication loop between the soldiers on the ground and the decision making generals and destroying...

...communication?

“So...how do I put this...did you know the Lighteaters had video and audio records of everything that happened in your house until your wife wore that ring, Ichigo?”

‘FUCK’

“So even if that half human over there is using her magic to conceal the magical ring’s presence from us Lighteaters and Skinchangers, it is nothing but wasted effort. We already know your entire family’s faces.”

After a beat of silence, in which I just stared at the person in front of me, the noble continued talking at me with a perverse smile.

“So without further ado, die and make us rich.”

And then he started shooting.