Ch 14: A Passing Grade

I didn’t know how long I was asleep for. A few times it didn’t feel like I was sleeping at all, but floating. A few times a bright light kept appearing, but then someone was screaming somewhere above me, their voice muffled and threatening… and the light would go away.

I would then go back to floating, peacefully, in an odd void of stars.

Things began to change as this suddenly painless void stopped being so painless, and the void began to muddy with murky images.

My leg hurt, I could tell that much but couldn’t really do anything about it. Then my head began to hurt, then my arms, and soon my entire body felt like it had been caught in a blender with baseball bats for blades.

The first time I got a clear picture of where I was, was when I managed to crack open my eyelids for the first time. They were heavy as shit, and it hurt to even blink, but I got a quick glimpse around me.

If I had had the strength to, I would have screamed in surprise, but all I could manage was a twitch of my lips when I saw Grand Dragon Keishi sitting next to my bed.

“Awake?” The old man asked me, and I blinked at him twice.

He let out a soft chuckle, patting me on the hand. “Tano is going to be quite upset she missed you waking up, but I made her finally go take care of herself only a few hours ago. She hasn’t left your side for weeks.”

Weeks then, eh? Rather long time to be asleep.

“You died, on the stairs.” Grand Dragon Keishi went on, resting back in his chair. “Bled out below the statue of the coiled serpent. Your fellow, Gun Mistress Brody, kept you going with chest compressions while Tano ran and fetched a healer. They barely managed to bring you back.”

I looked up at the ceiling of the apothecary wing, trying to remember any of that, but nothing came to my memory. I looked back at Keishi, and he nodded to me.

“It appears I should have heeded your words more carefully, but I had also never known the Oni were collecting your people’s weapons of war.” Keishi said tiredly, his age showing harder now than ever. “A lot of people died, but more were saved thanks to you. I lost a few teachers, more students than I would ever allow, but the grand majority were preserved thanks to your paranoid nature.”

I grunted at that, trying to laugh, and Keishi held up his hands.

“I mean that in a positive sense. If it hadn’t been for you, this castle would have fallen in less than an hour.” Keishi said with a gentle laugh, patting me on my chest. “You sent Prince Aozora scuttling back to where he came from, with the remnants of his forces. I would wager that he won’t be back for a very long time, and this castle can rebuild. As for you, you had broken more than a king’s share of bones in your body, and we had to repair your leg with a bit of creative medical magics.”

I gave the foot of my wounded leg a little wiggle, and it felt good enough.

“Gun Mistress Brody and Gun Master Deckard served expertly, might I add.” Keishi added on, nodding towards the doors to the apothecary wing. “They have been visiting and checking up on you, as well as the crows. They got a bit fussy after we kept cleaning up their little gift piles of trinkets, so they have instead been moved to your room. We have been in communication with your home office and have been singing your praises, of course, and other schools are reaching out to your unit to also seek their services. Many of the magical community have declared this a ‘watershed’ moment, and are fortifying themselves appropriately now that it is being understood that magical non-Humans can wield weapons normally held by non-magical kind.”

That made sense to me, and I knew that my boss would get a real kick out of expanding out this kind of work.

Not many people paid in pure gold or silver, afterall.

“We have suspended schooling for the rest of this year, for obvious reasons.” Keishi said, reaching over and grabbing a soft waterskin. “Thirsty?”

I nodded weakly, and he dribbled a little bit of it onto my lips. I licked at it, and it tasted like ambrosia to my dry mouth. After a bit of working my lips back into function I managed an actual drink, exhaling out with a sigh.

“Students are heading back with their families, and we are rebuilding the villages around the castle this time, now that the old ones have been ransacked and ruined. As well, we are requesting that more of the local magical community move into these villages and around the castle. We’ve been dragging our feet in rebuilding our communities, and the losses today have put a fire under us to replenish our numbers.” Keishi said with a frown, but then smiled as the doors behind us cracked open. “Oh… and we have opened a permanent position for you here, if you would like it. Pay is okay, but I believe you would find the company quite worthwhile.”

“Ronan?!” Tano cried out, sprinting down the aisles of beds before letting out a scream and coming right at me.

I couldn’t move, but just hoped that it wasn’t going to be too painful when she came running into me.

As she fell upon me with a wail, I made a point to not make any sounds of pain despite the agony that rippled up and down my still healing body, and not even Grand Dragon Keishi could make her reconsider.

“Tano! Come now he is still healing, he’s going to be in pain!” Keishi groused out, moving to stand.

He stopped when I looked at him with eyes that said “It’s alright”, then smiled at him as I lifted a hand, setting it on Tano’s.

Tano laid on me and cried for several minutes, pressing her face into my neck as she sobbed, and I stroked her hair with my other hand. A few tears slipped past my eyes, more out of the sheer pain I was in rather than softer emotions, but when it was clear that I was in no danger, Keishi relented the room to us.

“I thought you were dead...” Tano choked out into my neck, clutching at me with her strong, yellow hands. “You had lost so much blood, and your eyes weren’t focused, and your heart stopped beating!”

I swallowed, trying to lubricate my throat, but managed to croak out a few words.

“It’s okay.” I said softly, kissing her on the cheek. “I’m alright.”

Thankfully, Tano got a hold of herself and moved mostly off of me to instead lay beside me, my arm under her head as she snuggled in close.

She filled me in on what happened after I bled out, and what had happened till now, all while clutching my free hand in hers.

After Deckard had cleaved the enemy lines and started the route of Prince Aozora and his forces, the militia, students, and teachers had cut down everyone they could, only stopping when their strength finally drained away and they had to stop at the ruined first gate.

The dead were counted, and thousands of yokai lay slain, including some greater witches and spiders of the hills. The villages had been laid to waste, killing hundreds, while in the castle only forty three students had been killed, as well as ten teachers. The militia managed to keep their numbers strong, but they too had suffered losses holding the last stand position in front of the castle.

Noritada and Arihada had survived, though gaining more scars, and Professor Rinji had been beheaded due to cowardice.

That one had caught me off guard, but he had apparently been hiding behind the students and caused a second year student to be killed, kicking the student in front of himself to instead take the blow from an Oni warrior.

I didn’t feel a need to shed any tears for him, though, and instead managed a chuckle.

The castle was being rebuilt, as well as the walls, and the villagers would be staying within the castle until they had time to rebuild the villages. Japanese citizens of the magically aligned world were coming in droves to the ancestral lands to help rebuild, as well as bolster their numbers.

The magical government of Japan had issued edicts for programs designed around growing the number of magical families, and gold was being used as a carrot to get that ball rolling.

Tano, secured in the castle once again, managed to dredge up a handful of yellow Oni that had been hiding in the hills nearby and sending her signals via stolen mirrors. These renegade Oni were now in the castle and helping rebuild it under the watchful eye of both Tano and the teachers, but they appeared to be happy to do as they please, no longer under the will of Prince Aozora.

Food then came to the apothecary wing from castle staff, sent by Grand Dragon Keishi more than likely, and Tano appeared to take great pleasure in helping me eat.

I tried to take the spoon from her once, and she whacked me on the forehead with it before feeding me more rice.

As I slowly sat up on the pillows and rolled my torn shoulders, Tano poured me a measure of warm sake.

“I also spoke with the new Grand Dragon coming to run the school, since Keishi is likely to retire on the grounds.” Tano said, holding the cup near my lips. I drank, and she smiled at me before speaking again. “I convinced him to hire more of your company to watch over the school. That way you will have more manpower here and won’t have to make bombs out of the castle walls.”

I smiled at that as the sake warmed me, and I set my hand on her knee. “What did he say?”

“He is more than willing to hire on an entire Platoon, and outfit them as you see fit. Speaking of which, Furen Dorobo repaired your rifle!” Tano said happily, pulling apart a small mochi cake with her fingers.

I squinted at that name, as I didn’t recognize it.

“Furen... Dorobo?” I asked her, opening my lips so she could shove a little piece of the mochi into my mouth. “Who’sh tha’?”

Tano pulled off another piece of the sticky rice cake, and placed it into my mouth. “He is the teacher that has been supplying you with explosives and all that, he teaches students the more magical artforms of Ninjutsu.”

“He’s a magical ninja?” I said after swallowing the mochi, everything clicking into place. “So he has been stealing our shit this entire time?!”

“He sees it more as tactical acquisition." Tano said cutely with a shrug. “Besides, he is quite good at what he does.”

I gave her a wry look at that, but just shook my head. “Alright, I think we’ll just leave it at that and hope no one from McAlester comes poking around wondering where their claymore mines went missing.”

—

I had to stay in the apothecary wing for a few more weeks, but Tano made that time go by a little more pleasantly. There was a fight over the damn spoon after the first week, but I managed the right to feed myself once she got tired of whacking me on the knuckles with it.

When I was cleared by the medical wizards, I was allowed to start trying to walk, which turned out to be a rather painful leg of my healing journey. It took a bit of doing, and a lot of fussing from Tano since she kept wanting me to wear traditional Japanese clothes, but I managed to find Deckard one day after working on my repaired muscles.

“Well look who’s up and walking around.” Deckard said cheerfully, leaning back from the table he was playing cards at. “If it ain’t the bossman himself.”

I chuckled at that, Tano close to my side as I limped my way into the room. Deckard was playing cards with a few of the students that had remained behind since their families were at the castle, and he was teaching them poker.

“Are we so relaxed that we can play cards during work hours?” I asked cheekily, stepping forward and accepting the hug from Deckard.

“Only after your team lead decides to bleed out and die.” Deckard mused, tousling my hair since I was too weak to fight back at the moment. “Besides, Brody is watching over the castle from the high tower and hanging out with the crows.”

I sat and watched him continue teaching the students the finer ways of poker, catching my breath and building strength for the next leg of my walk, but bid them goodbye as Tano and I made our way down the halls.

When we passed by a window I stopped when a smell hit my nose, and I back tracked a few steps to look out.

A massive, smoldering pile of bodies was still smoking near the woodline, and I let out a long whistle as I raised my eyebrows.

“That is a lot of bodies.” I said lowly, estimating at least three thousand corpses stacked on the mound.

Curled spider legs, blackened bones of large skeletons, and the smoldering husks of floating heads adorned the center of the pile, while the curled limbs of the lesser yokai smoked from around the edges.

“Took a while to gather all the bodies, but the cold has at least kept them from stinking too badly.” Tano said loftily, smiling smugly at the blackened bodies of her once-kinsmen. “We managed to finally get it lit this morning, but it may take a few more cycles of flames to get them truly to ashes.”

Viewing the castle grounds was equally bitter, as the ancient walls were a ruin. Brody and Deckard’s heavy weapons had riddled the tertiary ring and partially eradicated the parapets, while the gatehouse doors had been removed for repair. The sea mine had left a massive crater in the space between the secondary and tertiary gatehouses, the soil so disturbed that they had given up trying to fill it in.

“They’re going to turn it into a pond?” I asked incredulously as we were walking along the walls one day, my strength slowly growing, but the idea was so absurd that it caught me off guard.

Tano let out a giggle, her arm snaked around mine. “Well, they don’t think they can manage to fill it in with soil, so instead they are just going to ring it with ruined stone from the castle walls and turn it into a koi pond.”

“There are like, dozens of people in that dirt!” I laughed out, then wheezed out a cough as my repaired ribs panged me. “Are the koi going to be okay swimming around in a pond made from the essence of people?!”

Tano rolled her eyes. “They’re fish, Ronan, they are not going to care that a sea mine created the hole they are in.”

“I would mind.” I tittered. “Rather ironic if you think about it. Imagine being a fish and never knowing that your new home on land was made by an explosive fished out the ocean.”

Tano slowly swiveled her head towards me as I continued to giggle to myself, and she lowered her eyelids. “I’m starting to think your head is still concussed and you need a few more days in the apothecary wing…”

This only made me laugh harder, which ended up giving me a coughing fit and requiring us to stop walking for a while so I could catch my breath.

The walls were a ruin, that much was for sure, though the broken artillery was being left where they were as monuments. Even on our daily walks, I got to see the streams of scattered villagers and members of the magical community come to the castle to rebuild it and the villages. More benign and friendly magical entities of Japan stopped by as well, including Kitsunes to help rebuild the temples, Kodama to reseed the trees set ablaze by the Oni, many Tanuki, and a legion of Baku to help the children sleep.

I got a look at the yellow Oni when they stopped by the castle to check in with Tano, as they had been busy chipping and hewing at stone for blocks to be used on the walls.

When they saw me, they seemed surprised that I was “so short”, as they had heard from the fleeing Oni of a “brown haired warrior that spat fire from his hands and fled from nothing”.

I found it rather disjointing to be standing in front of them now, after having just been filling them with lead after such a little while ago, and it was odd seeing them next to Tano. Tano was shorter and more lithe, while these were far more… muscular, even the females having a fair amount of brawn to them.

To my amusement, Tano did not tolerate the female yellow Oni looking at me for too long, including a moment where she whipped out that fan of hers and threatened a pair of females that she had heard talking behind their hands about me.

I had asked about that, but all she did was blush and pinch my lips together, chiding me about “minding my business”.

As time slowly crawled along, it turned out that both Brody and Deckard were considering staying at the castle. It had been brought up one day during breakfast, and to my surprise it was Brody that led that charge.

“We can stay here, right?” Brody asked me while I was pouring frosted flakes into a bowl, both Deckard and I looking up at her from our seats on the bench.

“Well, yes.” I said, slowly setting down the box that had been brought in by a more modernized supply train. “It is an option to us. The office has told as much.”

Brody looked at Deckard and I, cutting into her American breakfast of eggs, sausage, and pancakes. “Well… you know. I could see us hanging around, y’know?”

“Is that what you want, Brody?” Deckard asked her, setting down his bowl of rice. “To stay here?”

Brody rolled her eyes, shoving a forkful of pancakes into her mouth and chewing as she spoke. “Well it’s like, this is more our less our post now. We have a lay of the land, we know the enemy, we have a sweet mix of guns, and the locals like us enough.”

“The new Grand Dragon has told me that he is more than happy to give us all our own rooms in the castle.” I said quietly, spooning some fresh frosted flakes into my mouth and crunching on them happily. “They’ll hook us up with electricity as well, and there is a line on some modern tech if you know who to speak to…”

There was a quiet stall between us as we all chewed on our breakfast, Deckard itching his calf with his ridiculous split toed shoes and Brody sniffing as she cut at her food, and it became clear they were both waiting for me.

I let the pause stretch for a few minutes, the staff, students, and civilians chatting quietly around us as they too broke the fast of the night.

“So.” I said, taking a long drink from the milk in my bowl before setting it down on the table. “Should I tell him to get us some rooms ready?”

Deckard smiled. “I wouldn’t mind something with a nice view.”

“Plenty of room to stretch out when I wanted to, plus space for a big ass flatscreen, know what I’m sayin’ Deckard?” Brody said with a broad, toothy smile.

The two of them laughed while I just stared straight ahead, slowly eating my frosted flakes while they high fived over my head.