Ch 13: The Crescendo

I wobbled my way back onto my feet, holstering my pistol and looking around. My brain was still fuzzy from the concussion of that ridiculous sea mine going off, warping my eyes and ears. Everyone moved around with a slight lag as I blinked, the flash of swords and concussion of stolen muzzle-loading weapons giving everything an odd rave-like aura.

Brody was still hammering away with her M249, steam pouring out of the third floor of the castle as if a fog machine had malfunctioned. Spells hissed and shrieked back and forth from both the castle, the castle grounds, and the walls themselves, while those suffering the effects of life ending determinations made their howls of anguish known. Explosions ripped along the gatehouse, Deckard making use of his grenades that he had stashed around the walls.

I turned around, still blinking, and saw three Oni had found Tano.

They were dragging her away towards one of the side walls, and the world snapped into a vibrant focus with such speed that nearly shocked my system.

“No!” I bellowed, pulling my Socom up and pulling back on the trigger as I ran.

The heavy 7.62 rounds ripped through a brawny male oni with red skin, and he toppled over into a gurgling heap as the bolt locked to the rear.

The other two dropped Tano and turned towards me a few heartbeats before I was upon them, unable to spare the time to reload in case someone was waiting near the wall. I flipped my Socom around in my hands, my wet gloves sizzling on the barrel as I swung it and cracked it across the yellow, female Oni’s face.

While the desired impact was felt, my Socom had a modern, polymer stock that, while tough, shattered as it made contact with her helmet.

I dropped the remnants of my Socom as her ancient samurai helmet spun to the side, blinding her as she stumbled backwards in shock and fell over Tano. I pulled my pistol and combat knife as I ducked a swing from the last red skinned, male Oni, the massive pole-like hammer he wielded humming over my head like a flying telephone pole.

“They’re too close! Displacing!” Brody screamed into my ears as I swung with my combat knife, the keen edge screeching across the Oni’s armor and glancing away.

I ducked another swing by the Oni and pumped three rounds into his left knee, the man howling in anguish as his leg buckled.

“I’m low on shells.” Deckard said, more annoyed than worried. “Falling back to the crate.”

“Get them to fall back with you!” I yelled into my mic as I plunged my combat knife up into the Oni’s neck, his lack of a guard allowing the blade to slip into his throat with a spray of blood. “This is it!”

As soon as the words left my mouth, the Oni slugged me across the face with his armored gauntlet.

Stars erupted across my vision as that big bastard spun my ass, my combat knife left stuck in his neck as he struggled to his feet.

I hit the slush covered stones of the castle grounds with a wet smack, rolling onto my side as blood poured into my mouth from where my teeth had cut my tongue and cheek. My earpro was askew on my head, I could feel blood pouring down my face, and my hip was screaming at me in pain.

Snow fell harder around us as the yellow Oni woman shook her head and regained her footing, and I heard a moan of pain from Tano from where she lay on the ground.

The Oni roared something at me in whatever language they spoke, some kind of ancient Japanese, and I spat the blood out of my mouth as I raised my pistol with a shaking hand.

“Fuck you, come get some!” I bellowed, dropping my partially empty mag and slamming a new one home with practiced hands, in spite of how numb they felt.

Despite not likely knowing my language, I think the Oni understood the contempt in my tone of voice and came charging at me when I rolled up into a wide legged sitting position, met by the rapid pulls of my P229’s trigger.

It was close, some of my rounds failing to penetrate the thicker armor on his chest, but dropping a few rounds into his balls and then tracing a line up to his face seemed to do the trick.

What it didn’t do was stop his momentum forward, and the sack of meat that was now his body slammed into me like a semi truck hitting a smart car.

His helmet bashed into my face like a hammer, opening me up along my forehead as I screamed in pain. Jagged parts of his armor were jammed into my stomach and thighs, and the weight alone had me pinned in place.

“Fuck!” I screamed, throwing my body back and forth to try and get my pistol hand and legs free. “Son of a bitch! Deckard, I’m pinned!”

“I can’t get to you!” Deckard yelled into my ears, and I looked back at the castle, my vision angle causing everything to be upside down. “We’re having to fall back to the last stand position!”

Yari and naginata blades were swinging and flashing in the light of fires, while enchanted katanas burned through the air, leaving visible trails as they were wielded. Students stood all along the stairs to the castle, firing arrows down into the charging Oni as Brody was firing from a crouch, students struggling to get a jacket onto her so she wouldn’t freeze in her sports bra.

Deckard was hauling out two crates, one longer than the other, and was yelling at Brody. There were some folk fighting around us, but everyone was too busy dealing with their own problems at the moment to really pay me much mind.

A noise caught my attention and I looked back forward, and saw that Oni woman glaring at me from where she stood on the other side of Tano. She looked down at Tano, then back to me with a fierce grimace, and pulled a long blade from her waist.

“Shit!” I screeched, screaming out in rage as I struggled to get this giant sack of shit off of me. “Fuck! You fucking fuck!”

My gun was pinned between me and the dead Oni, and this bastard must have weighed over three hundred pounds before he strapped all this damn metal to himself. My eyes were filling with blood as my head wounds bled down past my eyebrows, and I shook my head with another yell, blinking past the blood as I flecked the snow with crimson.

The Oni advanced on me, twirling the blade in her hand as I continued to struggle.

“Fuck you!” I cursed at her, then spat my blood towards her as I continued to thrash back and forth from under the dead, red Oni. “I’ll see you in hell, you piece of shit!”

“Shut up.” The Oni woman said down at me in modern Japanese, coming down onto her knees beside me in order to give me the finishing blow. A subtle click made her stop and spin around on her armored greaves, and she suddenly went rigid.

I blinked and squinted through the blood in my eyes, but I had enough vision to see Tano pull my M110 across her chest.

“Don’t talk to him, you milkhorn.” Tano said lowly, then pulled back on the trigger of the rifle.

When the gun continued to spit lead after the first pull, I realized that Tano had pushed the selector switch all the way over to full auto.

I closed my eyes, waiting for one of the rounds to hit me.

From where she was laying and firing it one handed across her chest, it was only a matter of time before a round found its way into my body.

I heard the bright “plinks!” of the rounds penetrating the frontal armor of the yellow Oni woman, then the wet splacks of meat and blood being blown out of her back. Her hot blood splattered across my face and I spluttered as it hit my lips, other rounds ripping right above my head with loud cracks as they passed by with mere inches to spare.

To my shock a few rounds hit the dead Oni on top of me as the recoil caused the rifle to climb across her chest, but the magazine went empty before anything else could go wrong.

I laid under the dead Oni, the now dying yellow Oni falling down beside me and looking at me with wide eyes. Blood was slowly flowing from her nose and mouth, pooling on the stones below us and mixing with the white snow. Her amber eyes never wavered from mine as fresh snow flakes fell along her face, melting on her hot skin and tracing her cheeks with false tears.

I glared at her as she died, blood streaking down my face as if I had caught a few swipes from a massive cat with broken glass for claws.

“Ronan?”

I dragged a breath into my lungs and lifted my head as much as I could, spotting Tano slowly getting up to her feet as chaos still boiled around us.

“I’m here.” I croaked out, then hissed out in pain as some other jagged shard of metal jammed into my leg. “I’m stuck under this huge bast-”

My words left my throat as Tano fully stood and looked at me, her eyes so brightly purple that they radiated with lilac light. She looked angry, that same kind of hot anger she had worn when the castle staff were spying on us.

“Are you okay, Ronan?” Tano said calmly as she walked towards me, dropping the empty magazine and loading in a fresh one.

Her eyes were so bright that the snow glowed as it fluttered in front of her face, and she had an eerie calm about her.

I grinned up at her with bloody teeth, trying to sound calm despite my pain. “I’ve been better, beautiful."

Tano lifted the dead Oni off of me with little effort and threw him away like he was nothing more than an unwanted blanket, the corpse rolling with loose limbs across the snow. She looked down at me, and tears began to fall from her eyes.

“Oh, Ronan, I’m so sorry…” Tano said softly, coming down onto her knees and holding my face with her hands. “Look what they did to you…”

I smiled up at her, one of my eyes swelling and causing me to squint. “Hey now, it’s alright. I’m alive.”

“They’re swarming in.” Tano said with fear in her voice, helping me to my feet and placing one of my arms across her shoulders. “He is here.”

She was oddly strong again, and I didn’t seem to have much affect to her as she supported me.

“How are the students?” I asked her as we hobbled towards the castle, the walls and the courtyard a boiling clash of weapons and bodies.

“Some have died.” Tano said sadly. “Some teachers have died. We are holding, but they are too many, even now.”

I tried to key on my mic, but it was damaged, so I ripped the radio from its pouch and keyed it on manually “Deckard, what’s the word on the crate?”

“I nearly have it set up.” Deckard said back, his voice loud over the open radio. “Brody has the deuce almost set up too.”

“Save the deuce for the big bad, he’s coming up.” I said into the mic, then threw it away. “Tano, we have to get to the keep.”

Tano nodded, and pulled her fan from nowhere again, flicking it out with a crisp “clack!”

“I will get us there.” Tano said calmly as her eyes burned brighter, and she turned to look at me from the corner of her vision. “No one will touch you.”

I was prepared for many things, but to watch Tano wade into a melee, with my arm across her shoulder, was not one of those things.

Nor was I prepared to see Tano bisect a fully grown male Oni down the middle with her fan, his organs spilling out of his body as if someone had split open a grocery bag filled with noodle soup.

Grimacing and wielding my P229 in my off hand, I pulled the trigger and covered the militia where I could, but Tano pulled the majority of the weight here within the heart of the melee.

She threw spells onto melee weapons with her fan, causing them to glow that odd lilac light, and they split through bodies like giant razor blades. Tano ripped limbs apart with her fan as she spun it around her hand, dissecting bodies apart with ease or simply hewing them in two.

By the time we made it to the steps and she had set me down near a statue, I was wide eyed and looking at that fan like it was the demon core itself.

I dropped an empty magazine and loaded in my last fresh one, looking up at her as I heard a few rhythmic, cycling clicks from near the front doors of the castle. “Where is the bastard leading these pricks?”

“There.” Tano answered, pointing at the figure that had just shouldered open the third gatehouse like it was the door to a naughty child’s room.

Prince Aozora was a huge red Oni, dressed from head to toe in ornate armor normally reserved for Shoguns. In his hands he hefted a pair of duelling kanabo, and his eyes were glowing black, as if in opposition to Tano’s lilac.

“Brody!” I screamed over the din, and Brody popped her head over the top of the stairs. “Duece on that huge bastard in front of the gate!”

My strength was fading, and just yelling took the wind right out of me. I slumped against the statue with a wheeze, Tano coming down to my side and cradling my head.

This appeared to piss off the heavily armored Prince Aozora, as he started yelling out challenges and pushing his troops out of his way, making a beeline towards the final stand area… and me.

He seemed pretty confident, smacking yokai out of the way with his kanabo… but I don't think that energy stayed after the first six rounds of .50 BMG hit him in the chest.

Brody, screaming out her own war cries as she pressed down on the butterfly trigger, kept the M2 Browning thudding, raining brass and links down the stairs. The rounds hit Prince Aozora like hammers, causing him to raise his arms in a protective stance and stumble backwards.

Wards flared to life in bright colors as they activated, spitting motes of light or sprays of sparks as the M2 rounds were deflected, but the fire was withering.

“Suck on this a-one tiiimmmeee hahahaaaaa!!” Brody laughed from the stairs, her rain of brass falling down the steps like a waterfall.

Prince Aozora seemed surprised, but his rage must have been untenable as I flipped him the bird, Tano crouched down next to me and glaring at him from across the melee.

There was not much he could do as three M2 rounds penetrated his armor, and he backed further away from the melee, and back through the gates of the third tower.

If we had a chance, that was it, but the clincher came when Deckard came surfing down the stairs on the flat of the crate.

Attached to an external battery and sitting on an impact pintle was a M134 rotary gun, Deckard holding the assembly together as he went flying past us on the stairs.

“Arihada, now!” Deckard bellowed, and the blood stained archery instructor lifted her arrow shaped wand into the air.

Deckard’s crate bottom lifted a few inches, allowing him to smoothly coast off of the stairs and onto the snow, sliding to a stop near the middle of the melee.

Deckard then slammed the M134 onto the ground and pulled the ring on the impact tripod. A loud “crack!” split the air as the explosive charge shot the mounting rod through the stone floor of the castle ground, anchoring the pintle.

“Everyone back!” Noritada screamed out, gesturing to Deckard with a well-bloodied katana blade. “Behind Gunmaster Deckard! Back!”

Brody continued hammering away with the M2 after a quick belt change, cutting down the remaining Trolls and other monstrous yokai like they were nothing more than paper.

Deckard hefted the handles of the M134 rotary gun and depressed one of the triggers, the barrels beginning to spin with a loud whirr.

“Check six, assholes.” Deckard called out as he pulled the other trigger, and the barrels began to spit out their deadly payload.

Massive waves of 7.62 sprayed a line of death as Deckard pivoted the handles back and forth, wiping away yokai soldiers en masse as they were cut down in swaths of spraying blood and shredded meat.

The assault of lead and noise caught them all so off guard they stumbled backwards en masse, the victorious charge coming to a halt as soon as Deckard released the machine to do its bloody work.

The rattle of the spinning barrels and the deluge of brass pouring from the bottom of the weapon managed to overcut the noise of the M2 still being fired by Brody… and I just sat there with a smile, wrapping my arm around Tano’s back.

“See.” I said weakly, my head feeling light and fuzzy again. “Ain’t no one gonna get in here and take you.”

Tano looked down at me with a smile, then frowned as she glanced at my leg. “Ronan, your leg!”

I looked down at my leg and grimaced, spotting the large hole that was still bleeding a spring of bright blood down onto the stone below me. “Oh, damn.”

Tano quickly slapped her hands to the wound and applied pressure, looking up at Brody with wide eyes. “Brody!”

Brody glanced down at her, still hammering away with the M2, then let go of it as if it had scalded her. “Oh shit! I’m coming!”

I didn’t really hear much after that, just watching Deckard slowly trace the M134 back and forth across the enemy. Oni and yokai were falling back in a panic, hundreds of them falling every time Deckard painted them with his brush of death, and I smiled.

His gun ran dry, but he had done the work; Thousands lay dead, and we had the numbers now.

Noritada and Arihada screamed as they charged forward, students, militia, guardsmen and anyone else hefting a weapon following them in. Yari, naginatas, katanas, hammers, and axes were held aloft as they charged down into the fleeing yokai, cutting, stabbing, and crushing anything they came into contact with.

The rolling wave of infantry was a sight to behold, and I let out a quiet laugh as I took it in. I always saw stuff like this in the movies, but it was always something else to see it play out live before you, to be one of the elements that caused the victorious last stand, and lay down the path for the killing blow charge.

I didn’t feel cold anymore, watching as Brody tightened a tourniquet onto my leg while Tano followed her instructions, jamming combat gauze into the apparent huge hole in my leg.

I bet that Oni poked me when he fell on top of me, and I had been bleeding ever since Tano hauled him off of me.

Ah well.

I looked up from them to the snow falling on the ruined castle, then let out a weak chuckle; The targeting dummies were out and fighting too, bludgeoning down yokai they got ahold of, or drowning them in the mud by pushing their faces down into the wet puddles. The castle staff were getting in on it too, hacking with kitchen cleavers and stabbing with their own spears.

It was something else to watch a suit of armor slice someone in half, and I now realized that some of the samurai in the melee had been just suits of armor wielding ancient katanas.

That was pretty neat.

I felt someone wiggling my head and slowly turned my eyes towards Tano, who was slapping me lightly on the cheek. She was saying something to me, but I couldn’t hear it.

I couldn’t hear much of anything right now, but I smiled at her, letting my eyes get lost in those purple gems she had. I had gotten used to looking into her eyes, whether it was when we were talking along the castle walls, cuddling, or when she had her arms wrapped around my neck in the more intimate moments.

I had become rather attached to that face of hers, the way she grinned when she teased me, the way she softened when I teased her back, the way she always got nervous when she wanted a kiss…

She looked worried now, but I didn’t understand why. Somehow we had won, and she was safe again, for now anyway. It would take that prick Prince Aozora more than a few years to rebuild the numbers I killed here on this castle, and with magic they would get the walls back up and running in no time.

She should have been happy, but she was crying.

Crying and holding my face.

I kept smiling at her, but my eyes were getting heavy. I felt warm, and light, and my body didn’t hurt anymore.

I closed my eyes, and let out a long sigh.

My job was done now, and all I wanted to do was rest these weary old bones of mine.

Just for a little while.