The sound of splintered wood reached everyone’s ears as Hana’s shield damn near split in two, but with the strength of ten men she kept her arm raised above her head, preventing the gargantuan demon from crushing her to the ground. With her other arm, she thrust her spear into its eye, causing it to release an awful bellow of pain.
“Archers!” Hana called, as her and her front line lowered their bodies to give a clear shot to their ranged comrades.
A hail of arrows pierced the demon, causing it to yelp as if stung by a wasp. Despite blood pouring from its eye and dripping from the dozens of arrow wounds, the demon stayed standing and let out a deafening roar that would scare lesser soldiers frozen.
It raised its hand above its head, another enormous fireball growing upon its palm. Then, with the force of a thousand suns it brought its arm crashing down towards the front line again.
“Barrier!”
Some six or seven voices called in unison, together erecting a magical barrier with just enough strength to stop the demon’s arm dead in it’s tracks. The sound of its arm shattering was drowned out by its cries of pain, and the ball of flame it was carrying detonated upon its own body.
As the upper half of the demon’s body flailed about in pain, Hana and her front line attacked its legs with their spears, causing it to tumble to the ground backwards. The wound to its eye, combined with the multiple stabs to its legs and the burning of its upper body caused it to writhe and squirm in agony, until eventually it stopped moving altogether. The massive beast had been felled.
“The commander is hurt!”
“Bring a replacement for the commander’s shield!”
“Get the commander off the front, we’ll hold fast without her!”
As the beasts body began to burn, and the fighting ceased for a moment, many calls drew attention to Hana. Though she managed to stop the blow intending to crush her, there’s no doubt that it had the power to shatter her arm. She was barely able to hold a shield.
“Shin, help me carry Hana out of here. I’ll tell one of the other leaders to take field command for a while.”
“Copy, let’s get her to safety.”
Presumably due to Saki’s telepathic orders, the Sisterhood moved Hana from the front line and immediately replaced the spot she left, a new girl I hadn’t met now barking orders to the soldiers. Once she was a safe distance from the front, Saki and I moved her away from the formation and toward the makeshift medical tent where we had been housing wounded soldiers.
The other wounded had already healed and rejoined the Spartans in the reserve groups, so it was just Hana, Saki and I in the tent when we got there.
“Easy, girl. You may heal fast but that arm is busted hard, you need to let it rest for a while.” Saki reprimanded Hana, who already seemed adamant on returning to the fight.
“Without my power they can’t hold the line…”
“Don’t underestimate your girls. They’re strong, fierce and disciplined. They can survive without your presence for a while.”
She continued to shut down Hana’s attempts to leave, until the latter begrudgingly relented.
“Actually, let’s turn this into an opportunity. We should discuss what we just saw.” I wanted to make sure any and all observations made their way back to Hana so she could properly prepare. This would be one of few moments where she would be undistracted. “The imps at the start were clearly just there to test our manpower, but I think that ogre-ish demon was a test too.”
“A test? A test for what?” Asked Hana.
“How much we can withstand without using magic.” Saki finished my thought before I could, seemingly making the same observations as me. “That demon was way bigger than the ones we’ve met, but also way stupider. My guess is that they sent in this “ogre” thing to force us to use magic. Now they know that consistent pressure of that level or higher will cause us to eventually run out of magic.”
It was a scary possibility. With just 300 of us here, it was impossible to tell if we would be able to withstand much more of this. Magic reserves varied wildly, but constant use for any more than a few minutes was generally enough to exhaust someone.
“Saki… lead them in my place for a while… your power can substitute for mine…”
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With the adrenaline fading, the pain in Hana’s arm finally seemed to be getting to her, as it was hard for her to speak.
“I’m on it. Hang in there, Hana.” They bumped fists (with the arm that hadn’t been turned to paste) and Saki left the tent. Immediately after, three new guests entered to check on Hana’s condition.
“Yikes, you really got the worst of that, huh?”
“You coul- ouch- say that.” Hana tried to turn her head towards Hikari, only to accidentally put pressure on her shattered arm.
“Let me see that.” Suzume calmly walked forward and beckoned for Hana to lie flat on her back. She then gently touched the broken arm, eliciting a few quiet yelps of pain but little more. “Kyouma, bring me a sling from the medical supplies.”
“At your command.”
Kyouma began rooting around in a large box full of first aid supplies and other medical equipment before producing an arm sling kit. She and Suzume proceeded to sit Hana up and gently attach the sling to her arm, causing a few more gasps of pain but managing the short procedure with practised perfection. It was a short and simple process, but they both moved as if it was completely routine to them.
“Suzu wanted to be a doctor and Kyouma planned to join the JSDF as a combat medic, so these two have pretty much become our on-site doctors for anything that we don’t use healing magic for,” explained Hikari
“Man, I’ve gotta start hanging out with less impressive people. Makes me look like a chump.”
“Brother, you said it.”
Though still in a lot of pain, Hana seemed to at least already be more comfortable now that her arm had been slung up for her.
“Even with the magical girl healing factor, that bone is in way too bad of a condition for you to hold a shield for a while. You won’t be able to command from the front lines today.” Suzume spoke with authority. It was clear that, even if Hana was the commanding officer, Suzume’s word was final on issues like these.
“Thee must also remain here until I give thee thy leave. Thee cannot lead effectively with thy mind clouded by pain.”
“I get it, I get it, you two. I’ll wait whi- fuck- while the pain is wearing off. Shin, Hikari, help Saki any way you can. We still need an opportunity for your infiltration, but we won’t even last that long if we crumble now.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Replied Hikari.
“We’ll see that it’s done,” I added
Hikari and I left the tent to see yet another ogre crumble to its knees, it’s gargantuan body blocking the portal entrance. Saki had taken Hana’s place at the front, while Mai and Nao were still off to the side with the reserves.
“Mai, give me a sitrep.”
“Shin, you’re back. We just took down a second one of those big dudes, and we didn’t take any casualties this time. The girls are learning quick, but we have no idea how long this onslaught is gonna go on.”
“Any weaknesses in our structure?”
“Big enemies or attacks force our front line to retreat slightly. Several in a row could break our ranks at this rate. Saki’s doing her best, but without Hana’s ability I can’t guarantee our lines are gonna hold. How’s her condition?”
“Arm’s shattered. They’ve slung it up but she won’t be in any position to fight for a while. Reckon we can spare a magic healer?”
“I doubt it’d be much help. Other than Nao, our magical healers can mostly heal cuts and bruises, not shattered bones.”
That was bad news indeed. Even if she could lead from the sidelines, she’d be unable to fight until she healed naturally. That’d be a big blow to the morale of the troops, and it put one of our best fighters out of commission for a while.
Saki, anything we can do to help the next time one of those bastards comes through?
Grab a bow and open fire. Aim for the eyes. We need to keep these guys at bay until Hana can get back out here.
Hikari and I followed Saki’s order, both grabbing a bow and quiver of arrows, returning to the reserve company to get a better angle and preparing to fire at any ogres that made their way through.
The onslaught picked up in intensity, with imps and ogres now attacking together, keeping the entire front line busy without a moment of reprieve. We successfully blinded each and every ogre to step through the portal, and the front line continued to cut down every imp in their vicinity, but it was clear that energy was starting to run thin. While the line never faltered or broke, Mai and Nao had to carry every member of the original front line away, plus several more, due to the steadily increasing rate of injuries. We were holding fast, but exhaustion was making us sloppy. We had fought through damn near the whole night, and it would be just minutes before the sun began to rise once more.
Eventually, we made a critical error.
Every imp in the area had been slain, but an ogre remained, and our arrows failed to reach their mark. It swiped its club sideways, slamming several soldiers on the front line and forcing a falter. It then used this opportunity to raise its club above its head, aiming for the temporarily immobilised Saki. She had no space to dodge nor no chance to block. It was a death sentence.
“Hey, asshole! Catch!”
The voice of the commander with a still slung up right arm rang out amongst the battlefield, as her spear sailed through the air at the speed of sound. It struck the ogre’s club arm with such force that it was almost torn off, the spear coming to rest having pierced half way through the tree trunk like arm.
Desperate to utilise the opportunity given to her by her kouhai, Saki readjusted herself and desperately leaped up towards the ogre’s head. With a powerful vertical slice, she split its head down the middle, her spear coming to rest at the bridge of its nose.
Unfortunately, with her weapon so deeply lodged into the ogre’s head, she was unable to remove it as the beast fell backwards through the portal, dragging her into hell with it.
“Saki, fuck! Hussars, with me!”
Mai, Nao and Hikari followed close behind me, while Suzume and Kyouma trailed slightly behind as they emerged from the medical tent.
We crossed through the portal to find Saki surrounded by hundreds of imps with only a spear and shield to protect herself.
I intended to grab her and pull her back, the portal way clearly being too full to risk our assault now, but as the sun made its first peak out behind the horizon of Earth, the enormous fiery portal disappeared entirely.
The seven of us were stuck in hell, surrounded by enemies.