Chapter 16

Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

2:23 P.M.

Ikeda Kurumi

“Ao, what’s happening?” I asked my daughter as her words made my levels of worry and fear spike up once again on this damned, damned day.

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

“Don’t tell me there’s one in this place!” Moe cut in with a worry filled voice. A moment later a fresh wave of screams and the smell of smoke started coming from the direction where the Skinchanger soldiers had run to.

The only response I gave to this turn of events was to close my eyes, stop standing on my knees and sit in seiza, and plant my face into my hands with the intention of just shutting out the world for a few seconds of peace.

I wasn't given that peace. By my daughter, no less.

"Ms. Moe, could you start making that wind spell against bullets, but wait until I say activate it?"

"Ms. Ao, we should not start – "

"These nobles know us, Ms. Moe," Ao interrupted Moe in a shrill whisper. "I don't know how they knew when the Skinchanger who left our house didn't tell anyone not from his country, but they recognize all of us who were in that fight in our house. And because the noble Papa killed is from one of the richest families in their Empire, that family is offering a big, big reward for killing me and Mama and Papa to anyone who wants to take it."

I looked up at my daughter and stated the word 'what.' And at the same time as Ms. Yamato and Mrs. Taro at that.

"How big is the reward?" Moe whispered back at my daughter in the manner. She then turned her head around and stared at something, which prompted everyone but Ao to look at the same direction.

It only took a second for me to see it was two Skinchanger nobles positioning themselves a few meters away from us, one directly to my right and one to my forward right and both looking at me and my daughter.

They wore different attire from those back home at Matsumoto, and from all the other Skinchanger soldiers who were shooting at me since earlier this day. They had these knee length, long sleeved coats made of chain so fine and beautiful that the maker could make lots of money making more beautiful weird clothes like that. And metal helmets shaped like the tip of a fine tipped ink brush and had this funny looking bar of metal going down from their helm to their chin.

Oh, and they also have guns and swords.

"Uhm…converted to yen…Eleven billion, Twenty Five million, One Hundred Ninety Nine thousand and Eight hundred yen for all three of us.”

I didn’t take my eyes off the Skinchanger nobles, but I might as well have done so because I wasn’t seeing them.

I was seeing red at the thought of so much money I could use to pay for a house, for Father’s medical bills, school fees for me and my fiance and my daughter, and a store where I could pursue my chosen occupation of sewing or cooking that would supplement Ichigo’s future salary as a Self Defense Forces member until he retires and...and all of that lying out of reach because we all had to be dead to get that fucking money.

It was because of all that rage that when I heard my daughter yell "now," I charged and tackled the Skinchanger to my right onto the forest floor, and started to strangle the bastard while he was stunned while screaming something.

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Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

2:23 P.M.

Ohta Ichigo

I was glad that Kentaro was holding the end of the stretcher adjacent to Dad’s head otherwise Dad's head would slide and hit the ground when I let go of the stretcher, as his feet did just now.

As for me…I sat on the forest floor, squinting at the bullets embedded into my right arm and right side of my stomach. Around the bullets my blood flew out in a continuous trickle while dead leaves whirled all around us thanks to Moe’s magical anti-bullet wind.

“Well,” I heard the bastard who shot me with an automatic rifle at full auto. “That's – what in the name of Sssh?!”

It was only then I heard Kurumi howling, of all things, “Eleven billion yen” over and over again as if it was a battle cry. A turn of my head showed a scene I won’t ever forget from this moment onwards, one that I wish to never see again.

My wife was strangling a Skinchanger noble lying on his back on the forest floor, her nails gouging bloody canyons into his unprotected neck and screaming “Eleven billion yen” into his face over and over again like a crazy woman. On the other hand the Skinchanger noble was only squeezing Kurumi’s face with both palms for some reason as opposed to punching her, while the grass under his body was on fire.

And then I noticed Mrs. Taro and Ms. Yamato, stamping the flames around Kurumi and the Skinchanger while holding fire axes with –

“Papa, duck!”

I did as Ao yelled, and barely dodged the sword that would have chopped my head into two. And then an armored fist was heading for my face, so I raised my two hands to catch it –

I howled as my right palm burned, and then fell silent when my weakened hands slammed into my forehead, quickly followed by the back of my head hitting the forest floor.

The impact made me see stars and white spots. As I blinked them away and propped myself up on my undamaged left hand, I saw that Kentaro was backing away from a walking and snarling Skinchanger some meters to my front and right with a tree branch in his hands that had snapped in half and whose dangling half was on fire. And while doing that he was frantically looking around him for something to use as a weapon.

All of a sudden Mom wordlessly charged pass me, the ‘Smellie’ rifle that Kurumi and the others hid earlier held with both hands for a bayonet thrust.

The bastard whirled and parried the bayonet heading for his neck with a downward right swing of his sword, accompanied at the same time by a flash of fire at the point of impact. Then he placed his sword hand and his hand that suddenly had a green and circular shield the size of my head side by side in front of him, and thrust them sword first at Mom along with a step towards her.

As Mom sidestepped and slashed at the Skinchanger's leg, Kentaro suddenly ran at the Skinchanger and then delivered a flying drop kick into the Skinchanger’s lower back.

Upon impact the Skinchanger staggered from his defensive posture, giving Mom a perfect opportunity to stab the Skinchanger in the face. Whereas earlier the Skinchanger parried the stab, this time he was out of position to parry and had to awkwardly dodge the bayonet by jumping and rolling away.

After rolling far enough he crouched, stood and backpedalled until he was facing Mom and…just Mom.

Kentaro was moaning on the forest floor in pain, from whatever burns he suffered when his shoes burst into flames the moment they touched the Skinchanger’s body and he took said burning shoes off in a panic with his hands.

I quickly started to get back onto my feet without taking my eyes off them, and was thinking of how to help kill this bastard.

“Wait Papa!" My daughter suddenly yelled from the left. "Look at your right hand!”

I blinked as I stood. I looked at Ao and then at my right hand, and hissed in dismay upon seeing my blistering and worryingly white colored right palm.

"Don't worry Papa! Use this with your left hand and help Grandma! Ms. Moe!?"

An instant later an all metal riot shield straight out of TV news plopped onto the ground right beside me.

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Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

2:24 P.M.

Ikeda Kurumi

The twisting of my ear and a yell into said ear started to blow away the red haze in my eyesight.

"Kurumi, he's dead! He's dead! Stop that now!" Mrs. Taro's voice continued to filter in the same direction as the kicks I was getting on my left leg. And in a few moments I saw she was right.

The Skinchanger noble was dead, eyes rolled back into his head, mouth open for air that never got to his lungs, his neck bloody and misshaped by my hands. And then I coughed as the noxious scent of urine and smoke wafting through the air finally registered in my mind.

"Are you alright now, Ms. Kurumi?" Ms Yamato timidly asked me.

“I think so – the others?!”

I looked around and hissed at what I saw.

To my right, meters beyond the wheelchair Moe and Ao were on, Papa was moaning in pain on the ground with his hands and bare…very red colored feet up in the air for some reason. Some distance away from him, Ichigo and Mother were in a stand-off with a Skinchanger noble, both sides constantly shuffling for a better position to defend or attack from…or just trying to avoid the spreading fires around the forest floor without making it obvious.

And behind me...

I stared at the scene between Mama and her opponent.

The Skinchanger had body armor, a sword and a glowing green, circular shield the size of a dinner plate. Mama only had an ice pick in her left hand and an all metal police baton with rubber around its handle in her right. And yet it was the Skinchanger who got bloodied in their fight.

He was limping, from the ice pick that was embedded in his bleeding right foot.As for Mama, the only casualty was her hair. What used to be mid-back length straight hair was now an ugly bob cut –

“Kurumi! Help me out here!” Mama suddenly yelled.

Her yell made the Skinchanger jerk, and made him shuffle for repositioning. It was at that moment my Mama struck.

She swung the baton at the sword hand of the Lighteater at the same time as she stepped to her front and left. As the hand went down, Mama suddenly stabbed the ice pick up into the Skinchanger’s chin.

The next moment the Skinchanger dropped onto the floor, the ice pick stabbed through his chin up to the hilt. Mama followed up by kicking the body over onto its front, and then starting to hammer another ice pick that appeared in her hands up through the Skinchanger’s nape with her hands.

‘Ok. Two down, one to go. Do I help there or not?’

“Ms. Moe, uh...please give Mama an axe?” Ao asked Moe as I stood up from the Skinchanger I strangled and stepped away from it. “She needs to help Papa and the others.”

After a few seconds passed, an axe appeared lying on the ground beside my feet.

“Ao, what happened to Papa? Why is he raising his hands and feet up in the air and moaning in pain?” I asked as I picked it the weapon with both my hands.

“Lolo kicked the Skinchanger from behind. But these Skinchanger nobles were using a spell that would make anything not metal that touches them burn, so his shoes caught on fire. That’s why his feet and hands have burnt skin.”

I looked back at my daughter, saw her looking back at me seriously, and gritted my teeth so I won’t let out any bad words within Ao’s hearing range.

I gave a nod in her direction, turned back towards Ichigo, Papa and Mother and strode forwards with the axe held in my hands. After a second or so of walking, I heard two sets of footsteps from behind me. But I didn’t pay them any attention, because I had other concerns.

I first went to Papa. I asked him if he wants to get moved away from the incoming fight. He quickly apologized, saying he would only trust a medical professional to move his injured body. He then told me to help my boyfriend.

Within moments I stood at Ichigo's right and Mother’s left, with enough space between us for me to touch their shoulders by stretching both arms. I was quickly followed by Mrs. Taro and Mama who were respectively on Ichigo’s other side and beside Mother at roughly the same distance.

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Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

2:25 P.M.

Ohta Ichigo

The Skinchanger reacted to the arrival of Kurumi, Mrs. Taro and Magdalena in this fight by making several slow and small steps backwards with that two hands side by side stance while keeping all of us in his view, leaving behind more fires that were fanned by the wind around us.

”Ichigo, what happened to your arm?!” Kurumi asked from beside me in dismay.

“He did,” I said as I pointed my chin at the Skinchanger noble, while lightly shaking my right arm for emphasis.

My right hand hurt, and I could feel the swelling around the bullets in my skin, but I thought I could still fight. The improvised monocle was on my left eye, and I was holding the riot shield with my left arm, so nothing would change other than me not swinging something with my right hand.

“Bastard,” my wife hissed. “First Papa and now you.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll make him pay,” I sincerely replied while looking around at how many people were with me.

After taking note of Mom with bayonet and rifle, Magdalena with police baton and icepick, Kurumi and, of all people, Mrs. Taro with an axe, I shouted for them to follow me.

I then started to walk forward, peeking at the Skinchanger through the screen of holes that serve as the peephole of this riot shield. A moment later I heard everyone else start walking too.

And then Moe suddenly shouted at us.

“Everyone, don’t walk forward for a moment!”

At the same time as she shouted at us, out of the ever present wind that Moe created to neutralize the usage of enemy guns a few very small tornadoes formed and swept through the area that the Skinchanger noble had just vacated, to reveal objects that weren’t there moments ago.

They appeared to be similar to the Type 98 Hand Grenade, the Imperial Japanese Army’s copy of the famous potato masher grenade of Germany.

The Skinchanger’s potato mashers were embedded diagonally into the ground heads first and tails up. And the ring that served as the fuse of the potato mashers were...tied, for lack of a better term, to glittery green threads of magic that led to the Skinchanger’s left foot.

The Skinchanger glared at Moe, and then pulled his left foot. A second later the grenades exploded, to no other effect than making me jerk in surprise thanks to Moe’s magical wind.

“Damn you! Why are you interfering with this unfair fight?!” The Skinchanger screamed at Moe.

“At least you admit this is an unfair fight! You’re already in armor and had a proper weapon and yet you’re adding magic into the mix right from the start!”

“What are you talking about?! It’s unfair for them to come at me all at the same time!”

After a few seconds of no one dignifying the Skinchanger’s childish reply with a response passed, the inari continued talking in a mocking tone of voice.

“It’s a good thing that this suppression field is present then, even if those of us from Earth's pantheons are also inconvenienced by it. If not, then instead of being unable to use any dangerous spells at a safe distance from your bodies...who knows what spells you and your friends and all the other Skinchangers will be throwing around instead of spells that had defense as its purpose?!”

I blinked. And then I started to remember all the feats that I saw and heard back in Matsumoto. Moments later I shivered as I recalled how my hand was burned, and the flash of fire that happened when the rifle Mom held was parried. And then I glanced at all the mysteriously sputtering fires the Skinchanger’s footsteps left everywhere and had a realization.

If Kurumi wasn’t wearing that ring I would not only have burns on my right hand, I would have lost my right hand and my head. If that ring wasn’t here the rifle Mom wielded might have exploded in her hands and stomach. And I refuse to imagine what should be happening instead of burning footprints if not for that ring’s presence.

“I have a right to use what I was born with in any way I want! What right does anyone have to make me stop using magic?!”

A gunshot suddenly sounded, the Skinchanger bended over his stomach in the manner of someone who got punched there, a glittering metal object dropped among the ashes and burning dead leaves under the magical alien, and then he went back into his stance and glared at the person who shot him.

“So the armor is bulletproof,” Mom stated as she worked the bolt of the rifle. “I’m now glad I didn’t waste a bullet ear – ”

“Close your eyes!” Ao screamed. An instant later eye tearing light flashed from the Skinchanger.

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Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

2:26 P.M.

Ikeda Kurumi

It was because I looked at Ao when she screamed that the sudden flash of light didn’t blind me.

When I looked back in front, the Skinchanger was already charging towards Mother and Mama while everyone else was still blinded, with his sword and a shining grey magical barrier held out side by side in front of him.

I quickly ran. Within a heartbeat or two I was in front of Mom and Mama, facing the rushing Skinchanger with the axe ready to swing.

When he was close enough, I swung the axe in total expectation that the axe would connect with the noble.

What happened instead was that I missed him. The Skinchanger stopped just outside the arc of the swing, let the axe pass through, and then he stabbed –

A moment later I was hunched over my right breast, breathlessly pressing my hands on it because the bastard managed to hit me there.

And then I dropped to the ground when something slammed into the back of my head.

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Woods around JGSDF Camp Fuji, Sunto District, Shizuoka

May 11, 2013

2:26 P.M.

Ohta Ichigo

As my vision returned to normal I saw my wife hunched over, clutching her breast for some reason. And then she slammed face first into the forest floor because of an almighty swing of the sword from the Skinchanger to the back of her head.

I instantly moved the riot shield in front of me, glared at the bastard through the screen peephole, and charged to get him away from Kurumi.

In three steps I was about to slam into him when all of a sudden he moved left. At the same time something hit the left side of the riot shield, changing my straightforward movement into an awkward whirl that almost hit the prone figure of my wife.

A moment later I managed to stop moving and saw the Skinchanger rip open Mrs. Taro’s cheek with a thrust.

As the social worker let go of her axe and backed away with a howl of pain, I slammed the shield into the Skinchanger, who was looking at me and in the process of moving to face me. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to knock the bastard to the ground.

Thus we spent a moment there, locked in a pushing match using the riot shield while glaring at each other through its peepholes.

“I’ll kill you for hitting my wife and everything else, bastard,” I hissed at him while noticing that the riot shield was starting to get warm.

“No. You die,” He replied. An instant later he yelped at the same time as I felt him move and a sound of wood hitting metal came from the other side. The next moment I felt him lose his balance, but it was so sudden that I also ended up falling to the ground on top of him.

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

May 11, 2013

2:27 P.M.

Ikeda Kurumi

‘I swear to God that the first word of ‘koine dialektos’ that I would learn is helmet’

After that mental promise to myself, and the complete disappearance of my headache, I finally sat up and opened my eyes to see a scene of dangerous comedy.

Ichigo had pinned down the Skinchanger to the forest floor with the riot shield, and was doing his best to keep on top of the magical alien. The Skinchanger was also doing his best to buck my fiance off of him with arm and hip movements that would be comedic if it weren’t for the sword waving around and the flames under the alien’s body.

And around them were Mama and Mother, standing just out of sword range…and then Mother laid down on her side, aimed the rifle under the shield in that position, and then fired four times.

And thus the last of the three Skinchanger nobles died.