Paul Holmes stood on the battlements of Izanami’s … well they were calling it a castle for now. He was staring at the Yamato through a pair of ordinary binoculars, forgoing the low-light-level amplification goggles that hung at his belt. His lips moved silently as he read the flickering of the signal lantern. After a moment he held up the small green light laser pointer, aimed it at the battleship, and with a short series of on-off flickers acknowledged the message.
He’d only just lowered the binoculars when he heard footsteps behind him. He half turned, his hand already on the butt of his pistol, but paused as he recognised Major Tanaka, the platoon leader.
“Sir… search teams confirm there’s no sign of Inari Okami anywhere in the building. We’ve encountered a number of hostiles but none that posed any real threat. There are however a large number of former Kami prisoners. We’re working to render aid. I’d say we ought to get them to proper medical facilities, some of them are in very bad shape, but our medic says they’re already… um... dead, despite being up and about.”
Paul nodded.
“Understood. The Yamato signalled just now. Inari apparently didn’t wait around to be rescued, and has made her way aboard.”
Paul chuckled wearily.
“I should’ve guessed she’d do that. Oh well. We’re switching to secondary objectives Major Tanaka. Lets get the prisoners out of here and as they say, fuck shit up.”
The Major grinned.
“I’ve already got some men planting C4 charges on some important looking stuff. Although there’s one target I’d like your input on sir. One of the recon teams found this chamber with a really huge crystal in it, and whole lot of weird magic circle things.”
Paul nodded slowly, abstractedly.
“Hm, yeah. I was expecting something like. Izanami is dead, technically. She’s not able to process mana into magic by herself even if she is a Goddess. She has to have some kind of focus or energy conduit, to channel it.”
Major Tanaka nodded.
“Right, and that crystal is it? But if I understand our briefing correctly, she’d need a kind of battery wouldn’t she? Shouldn’t we make that a target as well?”
Paul nodded.
“Essentially correct. But we can’t attack that.”
The major frowned at Paul, incomprehension on his face.
“Why not?”
Paul shrugged.
“It’s too big. Look around you Major. All this black rock Yomi is made of? It’s haematite, a type of iron ore. The whole place is one vast battery! Not as efficient as the ones we have, but that doesn’t matter on this scale. The whole realm is designed to drain and store ambient mana, funnelling it here through the fault lines that run everywhere. That’s why this castle is so weirdly shaped I think. It’s not really a castle, it’s a sort of collimating lens for mana, focusing on that crystal.”
The majors eyes went wide as he looked round.
“Oh.. we’re inside one of those mana generator things? Is it dangerous for us to be here?”
“I don’t think so. It doesn’t seem to be able to leech mana from the living, only residual energy from the recently dead. I’m guessing that a living aura binds the mana too tightly for the drain to work, and the Yamato’s is big enough it’s shielding the whole ship, ghosts included.”
Major Tanaka nodded, once, briefly.
“Understood. So if we blow that crystal, that should throw a spanner into the works.”
“Well… we could do that, yes. Or I could tinker with it, and see if I can reverse the polarity of the mana flow. Drain Izanami instead.”
“You can do that?”
“Maybe. It’d worth taking a look anyway. Because even if we cut her off from her battery, she’ll still be carrying quite a hefty residual charge herself still. Enough to cause a lot of trouble before she runs out of juice.”
The Major nodded.
“Right. Sapping Izanami sounds like a good tactical choice then if it’s possible. Because it’s a safe bet she’s going to be a rather annoyed at us shortly either way. Lets get to work while Team Yamato are keeping her distracted.”
Paul nodded.
“Yeah. Katsu is holding her own against Izanami, and Su-metal is on standby in case she needs help. So we should have a few minutes. Have your men start ferrying out non-combatants out the back door while I take a look at what we’ve got.”
The major nodded, and had a quiet word with one of the soldiers as he guided Paul to the crystal chamber.
The chamber was huge, easily the size of a small baseball stadium, it’s ceiling lost in shadows, while the rest of it was lit by the purple hued glow from the towering crystal, hanging suspended by chains, mid air between five stone pillars. The floor was inscribed with multiple nested circles of some inlaid metal that glowed with a dull blood red light.
Paul whistled a low note, turning around as he took in the design and layout.
“Whoa.. well that’s impressive.”
“Isn’t it just Paul-san!”
Out from behind one of the pillars stepped Akio. Paul glanced around and as his eyes adjusted to the weird light, he saw his other two apprentices and Shoko, examining the place.
Paul grinned at Akio, not surprised she’d be there.
“Looks like something from an old fantasy movie, one with a really big SFX budget. Been able to make any sense of it yet?”
Akio shook her head.
“Some… all of the power collected out there is funnelled down here. Dot thinks the castle itself is acting like a wave guide, channelling mana into this chamber.”
“That tracks with my observations… Yomi is one huge mana battery, or sink. Fed by residual energy from the dead.”
Dot walked up, and nodding at Paul added.
“Figured you’d see that, but that ain’t all. It’s at saturation, or near enough. Can’t even imagine how much power is stored here, but it’s a load. Enough to make a whole new reality, or destroy one.”
Paul whistled again… then muttered a swear word under his breath.
Raising his voice he called out to the Major who was nearby, conferring with the sappers.
“Major.. tell your men to start removing that C4, carefully.”
The Major turned, and looking puzzled asked.
“Sir? I thought the plan was to blow the place if you couldn’t tinker with it and reverse the flow?”
Both Dot and Akio winced as Paul shook his head.
“Yeahhh… slight problem with both those ideas. The battery is full, or damn near.”
The major’s expression conveyed his lack of understanding. Paul sighed and by way of explanation asked.
“Major… what would happen if you overcharged one of the battery packs for the ATV’s? Or punched a hole in it?”
Behind Paul Dot mimed an explosion.
Enlightenment, then concern flooded across the major’s face.
“Right, understood… Sargent, you heard the man. Remove and safety the charges.”
“Yessir!”
As the sappers worked to remove the demolition charges, Paul made his way to near the nested circles, and studied the pattern. Tipping his head back he stared upwards into the shadows.
“Anyone been up there? I think I can make out an opening directly above the crystal.”
Chiyo raise a hand.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
“I took a look… it’s a big round chamber with lots of niches in the walls. In each one there’s a … well, they look like crystal hearts. I didn’t examine them too closely because they were warded. I think it’s Izanami’s trophy room, like a serial killers stash of things taken from their victims.”
Paul stared upwards, his brow furrowed in thought. After a moment his expression changed, and he swore slightly under his breath.
“I don’t think those are trophies… at least, not only. I think what those hearts are the magical or spiritual cores taken from each kami Izanami has killed. But they’re not just some grisly mementoes, they’re part of this whole set up. I would guess that crystal isn’t just redirecting mana, it’s converting it.”
Paul looked over his shoulder at his three apprentices and Shoko.
“What we have here is analogous to a mana convertor. I thought the design looked sort of familiar. Only instead of converting electricity to mana, it’s stepping up mana to divine energy, call it.. uhh.. Prana, yeah..Prana. The ‘hearts’ up there are storing that energy I would guess, and channelling it to Izanami. That’s how she’s still able to use her divine magic despite being dead.”
Akio nodded her understanding, while Dot looked upwards thoughtfully.
“Right… gotcha. So to defeat her, we need to break that link, yes?”
Paul nodded at Dot.
“Correct, problem is, this set up is like one of the early nuclear reactors. Zero safety factors built in, and only one step removed from being a bomb. We monkey around with it, without understanding how it works, and it’ll end badly.”
There was a moments silence as they all looked at the towering faceted pillar of crystal, until Akio remarked thoughtfully.
“You know… Izanami has to have something, a crystal heart probably, to act as a receiver for all that power.”
Paul nodded.
“That’s right. It’s like Nikola Tesla’s idea of wireless power transmission. Hmm...but each kami has their energy frequency, so those cores would all have a different frequencies making them incompatible without it. How did she solve that I wonder? There has to be something up there that takes all this energy, and converts it to her unique... ahh, Pranic frequency. Then her own divine pearl or core, would resonate with it, even if it’s dead. It’s like the twin resonating coils in Tesla’s wireless set up. I can’t see it working any other way.”
Dot nodded enthusiastically.
“That has to be it. It explains the wards Chiyo saw, she would’ve had to isolate the hearts..er, cores, otherwise the power would resonate with the original owner and power them up instead.”
There was a moments silence as all four of them jumped to the same conclusion. It was Paul that voiced it aloud however.
“If we can nullify those wards and break Izanami’s link without blowing ourselves up, then all that power is going to go to the other kami instead of Izanami… Well done Dot!”
Akio nodded.
“Ok, how do we break her link?”
Paul stared upwards, and shook his head.
“We don’t. It’s safer to destroy the receiver I think. But it’s going to take some careful timing, because we’ll also need to interrupt the flow of energy or there’s a risk of feedback from the pranic storage into the convertor once it has nowhere else to go...and I don’t know if the process is bidirectional, but if it is that feedback would ground through the convertor and overload the mana battery. At which point we’d be at ground zero for a new Big Bang.”
Dot nodded.
“Yup, that’s what I figured too. You thinking that if the Yamato can hit Izanami plumb square in the chest with that magic nullification beam you cooked up, that’ll do it?”
Paul nodded.
“It should do. If we divert the power from the convertor at the same moment, it would prevent any feedback. I hope anyway.”
Dot nodded thoughtfully.
“Yeah… helping create a whole new reality sounds cool… but only from a safe distance like. It’s gonna be close, this whole thing is pretty slap-dash jerry rigged it looks. Wouldn’t trust it to hold more than a minute or two without somewhere for all that power to go.”
Paul nodded.
“Agreed… order of operations then. We set it up, but hold off pulling the switch until Katsumi takes out Izanami’s core. Once that’s done, we flip the switch pronto and hold on tight while the other kami power up.”
Akio raised her hand out of school-room habit.
“Um.. Paul-san, what will happen to them if their hearts..um… divine pearls..cores? Whatever, what will happen to the kami if they’re not inside them?”
Paul sighed, slowly shaking his head.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I think they’ll either grow a new one, or they’ll somehow reintegrate. It ought to be survivable. Inari went through it once, I think. But we’re in uncharted waters here. Worst case scenario, the kami’s spiritual bodies are too damaged and can’t handle the power surge. In which case...er.. Hm…”
Paul paused, thinking for moment, then sighed.
“I wish I was a better physicist but my best guess is since they’re fundamentally patterns of spiritual energy at present, somehow made solid here, then the surge of divine pranic energy could make them lose coherency and they’d dissipate.”
Akio blinked, and then in tones of disbelief said.
“You mean, they’d disintegrate?!”
“Sort of, yes… but kami are tough and I think they’d pull back together eventually. Especially the ones with active worshippers still. Any forgotten ones… I don’t know. That might be permanent. But even if that happens, and it might not, it’s still a better fate than anything Izanami has planned. I still don’t know for sure what her end goal is, but seeing all this… pretty sure it involves either remaking reality itself, or blowing it up. Either way, she’s not going to need a load of empty husks of former kami lying around.”
Akio nodded.
“Right… even if the other kami are collateral damage, in comparison that’s an acceptable loss. I understand. Chiyo, you fly up top, you can act as our signals link to Yamato. Dot and I will assist you Paul-san.”
Paul nodded, then raising his voice he called.
“Major Tanaka, we have a plan to disable Izanami and safely sabotage this… this God-scale mana convertor. I’ll need a squad to guard our backs while we work, but if it goes right we can kill two birds with one stone and use the energy to reinstate and heal the kami prisoners, so I’ll need them somewhere safe nearby as well.”
The major nodded.
“Yes sir. I don’t pretend to understand any of this magic stuff, but we’ll stick to doing what we do best sir.”
Paul grinned.
“Right. Keep your heads down and kick ass then.”
Lowering his voice as the major got busy giving orders to his men setting up perimeter defences, Paul looked at the eager but serious faces of the four young girls gathered around him. Paul sighed, they were all far too young for this level of responsibility. Not that he thought they couldn’t handle it, but they shouldn’t have to. Still, they were here, and they were all he had… and they would probably be insulted at the suggestion they step away from this now.
“Right, Chiyo, head topside and signal the Yamato. Tell them the plan and tell them to wait for us to signal we’re ready before they shoot Izanami with the ‘wave motion’ gun. Shoko, I’ll need you to act as relay between us and Chiyo, ok? Everything depends on you and how fast you can run. We can’t radio through these thick stone walls, so you’ll have to physically relay the message.”
Shoko nodded, eager now that she had a part to play.
“Yes Paul-san. Shoko is a helpful little fox spirit! I’ll outrun the wind!”
“Good. Ok… lets get to work...and if the worst comes to the worst, know that I couldn’t be any prouder of you all than I am right now.”
All four girls nodded, then stepping forward they group hugged Paul, much to his bemusement and delight!
After a moment he laughed.
“Alright, alright, enough hugging… work, now!”
With laughter they disentangled themselves and took off, in Chiyo’s case literally. Shoko tagged along with her, easily keeping up with the winged witch.
On the bridge of the Yamato, everyone was watching the single combat between Katsu, Goddess of Battles and Izanami. So far, it seemed to be an even match. Katsu was clearly the more skilled swordswoman, but she lacked Izanami’s raw power and was bleeding from several minor cuts. However, it was obvious even from this distance that the small wounds were already festering, leaving Katsu pale faced and sweating. It was obvious to all that the longer the fight went on, the more of a disadvantage Katsu would be at... yet, she was unable to force a conclusion to the fight.
The wooden railing by the window was splintering in Tatsuo’s grip, as he watched in grim faced, impotent silence.
Into this eye of an emotional hurricane, the signals officer approached the Yamato’s captain, and with a few quiet words handed him a slip of paper before withdrawing. The Captain scanned it quickly, and then cleared his throat to catch everyone’s attention.
“Honoured Inari Okami, it would appear that your Herald has a plan. He has requested that we stand ready to fire the ..ahh.. ‘wave motion’ gun and target Izanami’s ‘spiritual power core’ upon his signal.”
Katsumi grinned.
“Great! I finally get to use it! That’ll stop Izanami! Oh… one question Inari-sama. Where do I aim?”
Inari looked thoughtfully at the combatants outside.
“I’m …. not sure. It could be several places. Her heart, the hollow of her throat, or just underneath the breastbone behind her solar plexus.”
Katsumi sighed.
“Ok, that’s a problem. We’ll only have one shot. If she was human sized again, I could just aim for the middle of her chest and the beam would be wide enough to hit all three of those. But as it is, I don’t know if I can hit all three targets at once. If I made the beam wider maybe… but then she’d have to be closer because it would spread out, and we don’t have time anyway to make alterations to it.”
Katsumi paused, staring off into the distance as she mentally communicated with Katsu. Then she nodded.
“Ok, Katsu says to do it. Captain, she’s going to try and expose Izanami’s core first, so we know where to aim.”
Suz-metal who’d been standing by the open door to the bridge, out on the balcony-like flying bridge that wrapped around the towering superstructure, leaned into the room.
“I’ll help. You said Izanami is weak against lightning, yes?”
Inari nodded.
“She is, just be careful. You are not physically strong enough for this fight.”
Suz-metal grinned cheekily at Inari
“I know okāsan, I’ll be careful!”
Inari sighed, shaking her head.
“Such a difficult daughter…”
Tatsuo stepped forward, surprising them both.
“I will help too.”
Inari raised an eyebrow.
“What do you have in mind? Even an oni is no match for Izanami’s strength right now.”
Tatsuo nodded.
“I know. But I’m thinking that it would be a lot easier for Suzuka-san to hit her with lightning, if Izanami had a lightning rod attached to her.”
Finding himself being stared at by both Goddesses, Tatsuo ducked his head slightly, then lifted his chin and stared right back.
“I noticed there are a number of large steel rods lying chained down on the forward deck. They’re almost the same size as a spear… and I have some experience with spears. I am confident I can hit Izanami with them.”
Suz-metal grinned.
“Can you target where you hit her? Because if you can then I can be sure to blow holes in her where we need them.”
Tatsuo nodded gravely.
“I’m sure.”
Katsumi glanced between the oni and the Metal Goddess of Storms, and slowly smiled.
“Katsu says go for it, she’ll welcome the help. Once we’ve exposed her core, she’ll make sure Izanami holds still so we can blast it.”
Tatsuo nodded, then looked oddly hesitant as he spoke..
“Could you tell Katsu that I...I..”
Katsumi held up her hand, forestalling whatever else Tatsuo was about to say.
“She knows, and feels the same.”
Tatsuo nodded, his relief at avoiding admitting his feelings plain for everyone to see.
“Good… thank you. Tell her to focus more on her defense, not attack, and fall back. Let Izanami think she’s driving her back and lure her to high ground, where we can target Izanami.”
Katsumi nodded.
“Done, Katsu says that’s a good idea. She’ll pretend to be weaker than she is.”
Tatsuo flashed a small smile.
“As Paul-san says, we’ll let her think she has us right where we want her.”