Steel Puppets

In a protected corner of the inner courtyard, surrounded by sandbags, Natasha sat in the lotus position. She didn’t move, appearing like a statue amidst the hellish chaos. Yet, her heterochromatic eyes burned with a feverish intensity, lighting the darkness of her hiding spot.

Around her, Ken, Yamato, and Shinji formed an unbreakable defensive triangle. “Don’t let anything get close!” Ken yelled, decapitating a small creature that tried to vault the barricade. “Break her concentration and she could die!”

Natasha was using a high-risk technique: Kijin Neural Link. She had imbued a dozen combat drones buzzing overhead with her own life force. Her mind was up there, in the gray sky.

With precise mental commands, Natasha hurled the drones against the Karasu-Tengu. The small machines lacked the firepower to kill, but Natasha used them as rams, striking the beasts’ wings and eyes, destabilizing them so ground-launched spears could finish the job. It was an exhausting dance. A trickle of blood ran from Natasha’s nose, but she didn’t blink.

Meanwhile, on the Eastern perimeter, the situation was crumbling. A group of young Kijin recruits, boys no older than 16 who had barely finished basic training, were running to bring ammunition to the towers. They passed near a wall.

BOOM!

Without warning, the reinforced concrete exploded inward. An armored Oni burst through the wall as if it were cardboard. The shockwave and debris flew at lethal speed. The youths had no chance. The impact hurled them several meters back. They fell to the ground like broken dolls, lifeless, their ammunition crates scattered over the ash.

From the Command Room, Kaori saw the massacre on one of the screens. She clenched her fist until her knuckles turned white. “Wall 4 is breached!” she shouted. “Kyosuke, get there now! Plug that hole!”

“On it!” Kyosuke’s voice crackled over the radio, accompanied by the sound of thrusters.

But just as Kyosuke arrived at Wall 4, another explosion rocked the North side. Then the South. “They’re breaking through everywhere!” an operator yelled. “They’re encircling us!”

The base was large, but the enemy seemed infinite. Onis poured through the breaches, roaring, overwhelming the defensive lines. The Kijin soldiers fell back, swamped by brute force. Time was running out.

Kaori watched the map rapidly turning red. “They leave us no choice,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion. “Initiate Plan 2.”

The operator nodded and turned a master key on his console. “Activating Automated Ground Defense.”

In the central courtyard and main corridors, where hand-to-hand combat had already begun, the metal floor slid open. From hidden hatches, automated turrets emerged: six-barreled, rotating Vulcan miniguns.

The sound was deafening. The weapons, remotely controlled by Kaori’s team, opened fire on the tide of monsters. The 7.62mm rounds bounced off the tougher hides of the elder Onis like hail on a tin roof, unable to pierce. However, the kinetic impact was brutal. The hail of lead stunned the beasts, forced them back, and momentarily blinded their senses.

“Now!” a Kijin captain roared.

Seizing the moment while the monsters were covering themselves from the bullet storm, the Kijin warriors counterattacked, driving their spears and swords into the exposed weak points. Kaori’s strategy was working: an ancient feint to create a lethal opening.

The chaos was absolute. On one side of the field, a hundred meters away, the Regent and the blindfolded girl observed and gave silent orders, moving their troops to exploit the breaches. In the tower, Kaori maneuvered her turrets and squads to counter them. It was a duel of titans. Two generals from different worlds playing with lives as if they were chess pieces.

For a moment, it seemed humanity could hold. The miniguns kept the horde at bay, and Natasha kept the sky clear.

But then… there was a shift. Something that changed the air. Something that violently tipped the scales of war to the other side.

The Regent, weary of watching his toys being stalled by mere antiquated bullets, slowly raised his right hand, palm open toward the blackened sky.