[The End of Osamu Ashikaga]: The Battle of Yakutsk

The raven sky was set ablaze by the light of thousands upon thousands of rockets soaring up from the western horizon. They ripped through the Siberian darkness like meteorites before arching downward towards Hima’s moonlight dragon. Awed by the sheer firepower she was faced with, Hima coiled her dragon body around its head to protect herself and the others. Akatsuki and Omagatoki stepped forth, both of them clasping their hands tightly.

“We’ve got this!” Omagatoki assured, standing beside Hima.

The rockets were mere seconds from slamming against the moonlight dragon before they suddenly stopped right in their tracks, suspended in the Siberian air.

“Sis!” Omagatoki shouted.

“I know!” Akatsuki chided, forming the Zai seal with her hands.

One by one, the rockets rapidly vanished from in front of the dragon, re-appearing above the Russian trucks that fired them. The crews in and around the trucks stood in dumbfounded terror as they watched their own rockets suddenly come fly towards them. The truck doors flung open as the screaming troops tried to escape, but all of them were blown away in a barrage of explosions.

Before the Shoku Twins could celebrate, the moonlight dragon was suddenly struck in the back with eight laser-guided missiles fired from the fighter jets in the far distance. The sheer force of the blasts rocked the inside of the dragon’s head, even with its improved defenses. A gaseous veil of black smoke covered the moonlight dragon as the jets turned off the right, flying in the direction of the rest of Russia’s forces.

“Everyone okay?” Hima asked.

“I’m good!” Osamu said.

“Yeah, we’re okay too!” Akatsuki assured.

Ear-piercing stating blared out from Osamu’s radio before Katya’s voice broke through. “Lord Osamu, we’ve got them in our sights! Firing now!”

Sixteen, thunderous pops echoed from the distance where Katya’s anti-air defense unit was stationed, followed by stinging whistles that traveled through the air. Surface-to-air missiles flew out from Yakutsk’s north end, prompting the Russian fighter jets to scramble and pop flares to throw off the missile guidance systems.

The flares lit up the sky like fireworks, causing the missiles to violently veer off in their direction before slamming into snowy hillsides and ice-coated mountains.

“Katya, thanks for the help!” Osamu said. “They’ve fallen back for now, but keep your guard up.”

“Will do!” Katya replied.

Hima’s gaze crawled across the landscape, spotting swarms of Russia’s mechanized infantry units racing across the snow. At least three-hundred IFV’s raced towards the city’s western end, their formation spread out across the vast landscape.

“Shit!” Osamu growled, calling Borya on the radio. “We’ve got IFV’s coming towards the west end! They’ve spread out to reduce their casualties! I don’t think we’ll be able to get them all.”

“Understood!” Borya said. “Getting ready to engage! IFV’s on the way, people! Fire at will!”

“We’ll take out as many as we can before they get into Borya’s firing range!” Hima said, swooping her dragon low towards the IFV’s.

The vehicles aimed their 30mm autocannons at the moonlight dragon, firing at Hima in unison. The barrage of high-calibre, armor-piercing rounds slammed against the dragon’s protective aura, each round denting and deflecting off its target. Hima’s dragon slithered through the IFV formations like a snake upon the snow, ramming dozens of vehicles over and throwing them across the flatlands.

Some of the IFV’s exploded upon impacting the ground, while others caught fire with their men trapped inside the cramped interior. With the rear doors caved in from the impact, the men trapped inside couldn’t leave their burning vehicles. They were effectively trapped inside brazen bulls with ten other people, all of them screaming in agony as the heat and smoke made it impossible to breathe.

Hima ascended back into the sky to create some distance between her dragon and the IFV’s. She noticed the Shoku Twins adjusting their hand signs in preparation for a long range attack and aimed her dragon’s maw towards the vehicles.

“We can get a few more of them with this!” Omagatoki yelled, channeling a thin beam of white-hot flames through the dragon’s mouth. The beam instantly dozens more vehicles into radiant blobs of molten metal, burning all personnel inside.

The sky was painted with towering trails of smoke emanating from the plethora of burning IFV’s. Hima managed to cause a lot of damage, but just as Osamu thought, their formation was too spread out to get all of them. Hundreds of vehicles slipped past the moonlight dragon and came within range of Borya’s anti-tank units just outside the barrier.

Borya’s defensive line was reinforced with three T-12 anti-tank guns, their long barrels aimed upwards so the rounds would fall upon enemy vehicles. In addition, the Minavere National Guard and Eastern Military District troops had RPG teams lined across the rooftops on the west end, as well as eight Kornet ATGM’s mounted on tripods.

The T-12’s fired first, managing to disable some of the IFV’s and halt their advance. While the guns loaded their next rounds, the Kornets fired off their missiles from the rooftops, but the IFV’s responded to their guidance systems with flares and chaff launchers. The IFV’s came to a stop and opened up their doors, letting the infantry out.

To cover the infantry’s advance, the IFV’s fired smoke canisters in front of them, obscuring the enemy’s line of sight. The troops manning the autocannons switched to thermal camera view, allowing them to see Minavere’s troops right through the smoke. As the Russian infantry charged towards the smokescreen, the IFV’s fired right over their heads and pummeled Minavere’s soldiers with explosive rounds.

Their fire tore apart Borya’s fortified positions and the men taking cover behind them. Body parts, kevlar vests, and ballistic helmets flew across the snow in a rain of gory terror. Just as quickly as the IFV’s made their approach, they suddenly pulled away from Borya’s front. It was clear they were anticipating another salvo from the T-12’s set up behind Minavere’s infantry lines. The anti-tank guns fired off their rounds just as the IFV’s pulled away, managing to disable a few of them while the others got out of range.

Osamu caught what was happening in the corner of his eye while Hima went around destroying as many of the incoming vehicles as she could.

Borya’s voice came screeching through Osamu’s radio. “This is Borya! We’re taking heavy small arms and IFV fire! We need a little help here! Just take out those vehicles and we can handle the rest!”

Hima cocked her head to the side, overhearing Borya’s voice. “Hang in there, we’ve got you covered! Girls, can you hit them from here?”

Akatsuki gritted her teeth and focused her energy in unison with Omagatoki’s. “Yeah!”

The Shoku Twins unleashed another white-hot beam directly at the retreating IFV’s, managing to scorch most of them from a distance. Just like the others, they were reduced into a soup of molten metal and burning flesh.

Without vehicle support, the Russian infantry were left to break Borya’s defenses on their own. A harsh gunfight between the two fronts ensued, with Borya’s forces having the cover and fortifications needed to hold out.

“Borya, we’ll leave the infantry to you!” Osamu said. “We need to take out the other vehicles!”

“That’s all I needed! Thanks!” Borya laughed as bullets crackled above his head.

“Hima, look!” Omagatoki urged, tapping Hima’s shoulder and pointing to the northwest.

At least a hundred more Russian IFV’s and Tigr trucks raced towards Katya’s anti-aircraft, trails of snow lifting into the air from behind their wheels. They had completely slipped past the chaos of the main assault.

“Damn it!” Hima shouted. “They’re going to flank Katya!”

“Katya, come in!” Osamu said into his radio.

“I’m here!” Katya responded.

“You’ve got a wave of vehicles coming your way!” Osamu said as Hima’s dragon raced towards the incoming IFV’s. “We can’t lose our Tunguskas! Fall back into the barrier until we’ve cleared them out!”

“Understood!”

Hima clasped her hands together, summoning thousands of moonlight halberds that flew alongside her dragon. Even the hue of her moonlight weapons had been dyed red, their powers accentuated by Inari’s blood. Hima launched the swarm of halberds at the incoming IFV’s, arching their trajectory so they would come down directly upon the vehicles.

The halberds covered the entire area and skewered the vehicles, pinning them in place. The blades pierced through the IFV’s reactive armor like thumbtacks through paper. The infantry were forced to dismount their vehicles, pulling their wounded comrades out of the wreckage.

Osamu spoke into his radio as he watched the Russian infantry scatter across the snow. “Borislav, can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, My Lord.” Borislav responded.

“I need you and Anatoli to send detachments to help Katya.” Osamu said. “She’s going to have a lot of infantry coming her way.”

“Copy that, we’ll roll some troops out right now.” Borislav said.

“Thanks. If we can keep this up, we’ll bleed the enemy dry.”

Hima’s dragon suddenly came to a stop as she turned her head to the north. “Wait…do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Akatsuki asked.

“Something’s coming through the air.” Hima warned. “It sounds like a jet.”

“Osamu!” blared Katya’s voice over the radio. “The northern garrison just fired six A-235’s. They’re anti-ballistic missiles. Don’t take them down. They detected six cruise missiles headed our way.”

“Cruise missiles? We didn’t pick up any aircraft other than the jets we saw earlier.” Osamu said.

“I know. It’s possible the enemy is using strategic bombers to deliver the payload.” Katya warned. “If that’s the case, they can fire cruise missiles from outside our radar’s range.”

Osamu and the Shoku Twins heard the same jet-like sound Hima warned them about. They looked to the north and saw six bright, orange lights darting across the sky like miniature suns, lighting up the entirety of Yakutsk as they passed by. The flew over Hima’s dragon and raced westward, their fiery light fading from the area.

Six thunderous explosions ripped through the air as the anti-ballistic missiles collided with Russia’s cruise missiles. The missiles broke up into a shower of shining, burning pieces that produced far-reaching, hellish lights in the sky. The pieces descended slowly over the wintry landscape of Yakutsk, putting on a horrifying light show for the Russian forces. For the people of Minavere, those fiery lights were beacons of salvation. People watching from the windows of grocery stores, schools, and hotel rooms released massive sighs of relief.

No one breathed easier than Minavere’s soldiers. Though they still had infantry and vehicles to deal with, those cruise missiles would’ve obliterated them before they could’ve retreated.

“God bless the northern garrison!” Hima cheered. “It was a good idea to keep them stationed up there. How’s Borya doing?”

“Borya, come in. What’s your status?” Osamu asked into his radio.

“We’re fighting them back! They’ve got no cover out there!” Borya said.

Osamu looked towards Borya’s front, seeing legions of bodies lying down in the snow in front of the fortified front. Borya’s machine gun nests and snipers were making short work of the Russian infantry. Had those IFV’s been able to regroup, it might’ve been a different story. It only highlighted the importance of stopping Russia’s armored advance.

After the cruise missiles failed to land, the fighter jets that retreated earlier made their return. Hima heard their thrusters from a long distance away, turning her dragon to face the northwest. At the same time, Osamu and the Shoku Twins noticed Russia’s infantry retreating away from the fortified fronts defending the city.

“Something’s coming!” Osamu said. “Katya’s AA unit is still in the barrier!”

Each of the six fighter jets shot off two missiles, then broke formation. One of the missiles flew straight at Hima’s moonlight dragon. Instead of exploding on impact, the missile broke apart and spit out several streaks of bright, white smoke that reeked of burning garlic. The smoke stuck to the dragon and ignited after being exposed to air, setting the entire dragon on fire.

The other missiles had the same effect, but while Hima and the others were protected, Minavere’s infantry was showered with the white, flammable payload. Hundreds of soldiers across all the west-facing fronts were set ablaze and screamed in agony as they rolled in the snow. The searing flames couldn’t be quenched, not even with Siberia’s unforgiving snow and frost.

Their skin melted, the patterns of their uniforms burned onto their bodies, and their pink flesh was burnt black like char. Borya and his surviving troops were forced to fall back, as even the gases emitted from the payload burned their throats and lungs.

“What’s happening? What was that?” Omagatoki asked, watching as the western perimeter of the city was completely veiled in rising, white smoke.

“You’re kidding me…” Hima said, her mouth agape.

“They used white phosphorus.” Osamu said. “Those bastards are going to burn our defenses away and force us back into the barrier.”

“Osamu, come in!” Borya screamed over the radio. “We’re falling back! We got hit with incendiary munitions!”

“I’m sorry!” Katya cried. “I couldn’t reposition our Tunguskas fast enough!”

“The armored push was to get us to pull the AA back.” Osamu said. “Once we fell for it, they tried to hit us with cruise missiles. If that didn’t work, they had white phosphorus ready to go. Everyone, pull your units back and get inside the barrier. Tend to your wounded and take up your secondary positions.”

“Will do!” Katya replied.

“Copy!” Borya answered.

“We should’ve known they’d be willing to go this far to stop us.” Hima said. “I guess it’s finally a fair fight now. I wonder what they plan to do about the barrier.”

“I’d rather not give them a chance to try anything.” Osamu said. “You guys still good to fight?”

Hima nodded. “Yeah, let’s mop up this armored advance so we can get our AA back out here. That white phosphorus took out a lot of our men and wounded more. The only silver lining is that the flames stick to the ground. They won’t able to advance through the west anymore.”

“Yeah.” Omagatoki chimed. “It’s probably why the cruise missiles were their first option. Whatever their next move is, we need to be on top of it.”

“Agreed.” Akatsuki said, cracking her knuckles.

The wall of white smoke veiling the west end obscured Taeko’s view of the battle’s aftermath, allowing her only a glimpse of Hima’s moonlight dragon taking off into the distance to kill the Russian troops. She ran out of Johan’s office, through the halls of the senate building, and down the descending stone steps onto street level.

“Holy shit…” Taeko gasped, gazing at the burning, west end.

Lord Anya followed close behind, her blonde hair tied into a tight bun and a kevlar vest over her blue dress shirt. She and four SSK agents flung open the doors to the senate building as dozens of transport trucks raced down the street with scores of wounded and dying men loaded on them.

The wheels screeched as the trucks came to a halt and slid across the frosted, concrete road. The troops in the driver and passenger seats all jumped out and opened the rear cargo space of their trucks to get to the wounded. Dozens of nearby SSK agents and Minavere National Guardsmen on standby rushed in to get the wounded onto stretchers and inside the senate building where Anya’s medical corps could tend to them.

Spotting Borya standing like a stone amidst the chaos, Taeko ran to him, tugging his arm to pull him out of his trance. “Borya! Are you okay?”

Borya lifted his arms and checked himself. It seemed things got so chaotic on his front that he hadn’t checked if he was hurt or not. His arms were black with soot and the skin on his face was dry and flaky from the heat of the phosphorus.

“A few cuts and bruises is all.” Borya said. “I’m lucky I didn’t end up like these guys.”

“They’ve all got severe burns. And it smells like…burnt garlic and hair?” Taeko said, sniffing the air. “They used white phosphorus on us?”

“They want us dead that badly.” Borya chuckled. “Can’t say I don’t understand their desperation. Their entire species is on the line here. Everyone positioned west has fallen back into the barrier. The flames and fumes ought to prevent the Russians from advancing from that direction too. White phosphorus was the only way they could shut down our front. But now the challenge is being able to crack this barrier.”

“This is way more powerful than the one that was used during the Inari Standoff.” Taeko said. “Looks like it’s blocking out the smoke and fumes too. Hima and the Shoku Twins did excellent work. What about Osamu and the others?”

“Looks like they’re going to hunt down the enemy, prevent them from regrouping.”

“Did you guys see any exorcists out there?”

“Exorcists? Now that you mention it, we only engaged their standard military. We didn’t fight any exorcists.”

Taeko’s eyes widened in stunned confusion as she turned and watched Anya help the wounded men inside the senate building. “Something’s not right. They must’ve known we’d retreat into the barrier after they deployed white phosphorus. Why push us back into the city where they can’t touch us?”

Just as the west end of the barrier was up in smoke, so too was Johan’s political career. He sat isolated from the rest of the senators in the assembly hall, squeezing the soft flesh of his palm with his thumb. His life was effectively over, yet he still wore the same devilishly calm aura he had in the solitary confinement cell of the Steplag.

His ocean-blue eyes surveyed the room, glancing at the armed SSK agents lining the elevated, outer circle of the assembly hall. Then he turned his attention to the senators. Most of them sat in frightened silence. Waiting for the distant explosions and gunfire to cease was utterly agonizing. Even though the fighting had come to a pause, the senators were hearing shots and blasts that weren’t there.

The end they all wanted had come, but it wasn’t at all what they imagined. Instead of being able to live out the rest of their days in their frigid, isolated haven, they’d meet eternity through Russian bombs and bullets. Their deaths would be painful, violent, and miserable, just as it was for the Japanese and Korean people. In a way, it felt fair that their deaths would be just as difficult as humanity’s, but even those who had come to accept death as the punishment for the sins of Dracula and the old country couldn’t bear to swallow the violent fate awaiting them.

“He’s killed us…” one senator muttered, beads of sweat dripping down his bald head. “We’re all going to die because of Osamu and Hima. What were they thinking? That they could just destroy the world and it wouldn’t fight back?”

“They knew exactly what they were doing.” another senator chimed, his long, black hair slicked back. “Out of all the devils they released unto the world, the worst one lied within our own people. They were embittered and angry about the state of the world before Osamu and Hima arrived here. Those two simply stoked the flames of nationalism and gave them a war to rally around. And now it’s been revealed his greatest opposition was run by a fraud and a traitor, the people won’t trust the Scarlet Senate. Isn’t that right, Johan? What’s your real name anyway?”

All eyes turned to Johan, who sat alone on the opposite side of the room. He closed his eyes and lowered his head, still fiddling with his hands. “I was born without one. I took this name from a man whose life was nothing but a series of failures, a man whose dreams far exceeded his own ability. Think of me what you will. None of you would’ve ever come this far without me.”

A blonde woman stood from her seat, his hands balled into her fists. “And look at where it’s gotten us, surrounded by guns inside and outside the city!”

Johan smiled and sat back in his seat with his legs crossed. “I admit, Osamu has the advantage. He and Taeko picked up on my deceit and exposed the truth. They’ve ruined all I’ve built throughout the decades, and now we’re faced with an enemy that will stop at nothing to see us all dead. If I didn’t have a way to fight back, I’d say he outright defeated me.”

“…What did you say?” one of the senators asked as gasps filled the room.

“You’re all right about one thing.” Johan said, standing up from his seat with his hands behind his back. “It’s because of me that you’re here right now. It was my ambition and my intellect that brought Sommerism to the forefront of vampiric politics and gave all of you your seats. As self-righteous as you are, you owe your lives to all the people that were killed in the Second Chechen war.

“It was all thanks to that conflict that you had any power to begin with. You thought your service in the Scarlet Senate would be…an atonement, or even a service to the people who lost their lives. But the war was initiated by vampiric hands in the first place. Do you truly believe you’ve honored the dead? Do you think they’re happy that the same people that enabled their deaths are using their stolen lives to amass power for their self-righteous cause?”

The senators fumed and stood from their seats, their faces marred by scowls of rage. Their retorts and shouts of anger muddled into a single, dissonant mass of sound that filled the hall. And yet, Johan smiled and kept talking.

“No matter the place, no matter the generation, it seems even the best Sommerist is naive at best and a hypocrite as worst.” Johan chuckled. “Never willing to do what is needed to make a change in this world. You’ve all inherited my father’s meek spirit and feeble resolve, so it’s only fitting you share is his fate like the gaggle of failures you all are.”

The rage in the room exploded. The male senators charged at Johan, tackling him to the floor as they filled the assembly hall with roars of anger and vengeance. Seeing the room get out of control, the SSK agents aimed their guns at the crowd as they mercilessly punched and stomped on Johan.

“Stop! Stop or we will shoot you!” one of the agents shouted, to no avail.

Several of the agents rushed in as they fired warning shots towards the ceiling, but even that didn’t break up the fight. Just like the people of the Steplag, the senators had nothing more they could lose. Fervent nationalism had taken a vicious hold of their people. The city was besieged by enemies that would stop at nothing to kill them. Their new king and queen had destroyed any chance of achieving the true goal of Sommerism.

Even if they somehow survived the siege, there were only two futures awaiting them: complete annihilation at the hands of humanity, or the end of humanity at the hands of Osamu. When the SSK approached the crowd, the senators turned their rage upon them. They reached for their guns and were shot in their stomachs in return. The women screamed and ducked their heads behind the seats as the shots rang out.

The senators managed to take down four of the agents and wrestle the guns out of their hands. Realizing the danger the senators now posed, the agents positioned in the rear of the assembly hall opened fire upon the crowd. The flurry of bullets chipped away at the upholstery of chairs and veiled the bottom of the assembly hall in a haze of smoke and gunpowder.

Dozens lied dead in the aisles of the assembly hall while the rest of the senators cowered and sobbed behind their seats. Alarmed by the gunfire, Taeko barged through the doors, the stench of blood and gunpowder flowing into her nostrils.

“What happened?” Taeko asked.

“A fight broke out, Lord Taeko.” one of the agents answered, his sights still trained on the surviving senators. “They nearly fired back at us. I’m sorry. We couldn’t take that chance.”

Taeko put her head on top of her head as she realized what happened. The assembly hall was a bloody mess and many of the men died unarmed.

“Gather the wounded!” Taeko urged. “We need to help them!”

Four of the agents and several more troops from the Minavere National Guard rushed in to help. They put the wounded senators on stretchers and carried them out of the room to receive immediate medical treatment. Cries of agony traveled from the bottom of the assembly hall and out through the door as the troops carried the wounded away, leaving droplets and spatters of blood trailing behind them.

“I want the rest of the senators zip-tied.” Taeko said aloud to the national guardsmen. “No one gets up from the seats. No one talks. If they have to use the bathroom, they go with an escort.”

“Yes, Lord!” the men responded in loud and proud unison.

With the crowd back under control, Taeko asked the SSK to take stock of which senators were left in the room. After counting the survivors, it was determined there were twenty-six casualties. Fourteen of them were killed during the shooting while the rest were wounded and in critical condition.

Stepping over bullet casings and congealed blood suffused into the carpet at her feet, Taeko took another headcount to make doubly sure it was accurate. Her eyes suddenly widened in confusion as she looked towards the SSK agents.

“Where’s Johan?” Taeko asked.

The shocked expressions on their faces told Taeko they thought he was still in the room, or perhaps he was one of the injured. Taeko grabbed her radio off her belt and checked in with each of the men that handled the wounded.

“All troops, which one of you grabbed Johan? What’s his condition?” Taeko asked, responses pouring in immediately.

“I don’t have him, My Lord.”

“Yeah, we don’t have him either.”

“Negative, we don’t have him.”

“That’s…not possible…” Taeko gasped, scanning the faces of the senators in the assembly hall to make sure. “He’s not here either, so one of you must have him.”

“My Lord, I don’t think we heard from Mendeleyev or Borodin.” responded one of the troops over the radio.

“Mendeleyev, Borodin, have you seen Johan? Do you have him?” Taeko asked. Her question was met with radio silence. “Mendeleyev, Borodin, come in.”

Private Mendeleyev and private Borodin both lied dead inside a janitor’s closet in the west wing of the senate building. Bearing the elderly face of the bald senator that spoke out against him, Johan stood over their bodies as they bled from the knife wounds in their necks. He took both of their radios off their bodies and shut them off before throwing them back into the room and quietly closing the door.

Johan’s face morphed back into the the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and beautiful devil that he was. He walked away from the janitor’s closet with a satisfied smile on his face, his hands behind his back.

“The thing about barriers, Osamu, is that none of them are perfect.” Johan said. “With enough energy, even the strongest barrier can be shattered.”

Johan looked out the window, staring at the flaming west end of the barricade and the smoke obscuring the Siberian wilds beyond the city. In an instant, the flames were suddenly squelched and reduced to thin trails of wispy smoke. Not only did the white phosphorus stop burning, but the thousands of wrecked vehicles off in the distance as well.

Johan pressed his thumb into his palm twice more before relaxing his hands. What no one knew was that Johan wasn’t just messing around with his hands the whole time. He was communicating with Russia’s Far East Exorcist Division.

Realizing Johan tricked them, Taeko ran out of the assembly hall, barking urgent orders at her men. “He must’ve disguised himself to escape the room! Find Johan and kill him!”

Far to the east of Yakutsk, nearly five-thousand exorcists stood atop the snowy hills overlooking the city. Their long, black vestments bore embroidered symbols of the cross on the back and long, floral patterns along the waists and sleeves. Each of them had their hands clasped, they eyes closed, and heads bowed.

They needed enough energy to blow apart the barrier put up by the Shoku Twins, and the destructive, first battle gave them exactly that. The exorcists were able to gather the thermal energy produced by the phosphorus and burning vehicles, gathering it into a golf-ball sized fireball that shined as bright as the Northern Star.

The star lifted into the air and disappeared behind the scarlet aurora borealis, its twinkle getting the attention of Osamu and Hima even as they were hunting down the Russian forces. Hima’s moonlight dragon pulled away from the horde of Russian IFV’s and transport trucks that had repositioned to the south. She flew out of their firing range and hovered in the sky among the aurora lights.

“What the hell is that?” Hima asked.

Just as soon as the light vanished, it came back down with a great flash that briefly illuminated all of Siberia like the rising sun. The light slammed into the city’s barrier, setting the entire, protective dome ablaze. Pieces of the barrier cracked and fell into the city like shards of glass, fading into crystalline fragments before smashing into the ground.

Osamu, Hima, and the Shoku Twins watched as Yakutsk, the beating heart of Minavere, lost its only protection from the enemy. Osamu’s plan and the last of Hima’s race were just one bombing run away from being obliterated.

“The city!” Hima screamed.

“What happened? How did they break the barrier?” Osamu stammered, taken aback by the sight of the burning barrier.

“Look!” Akatsuki said, pointing at the scorched land where the phosphorus burned. “All the flames are gone!

Hima gnashed her teeth as her dragon unleashed a tremendous roar into the raven sky. All of Siberia shook beneath Hima’s rage. Tremors emanated from the dragon and rocked every mountain, tree, house, and person in the land. Every terrified citizen, wounded soldier, and devout exorcist hiding in the far east felt the vicious force of Hima’s anger.

“We’re going!” Hima roared. “Humanity destroyed my home once before. I won’t let it happen to Minavere! I’ll wipe every one of those animals off the face of this earth!”