Enid stood with Toyo waiting for her promised horse. It was before dawn. Toyo had his hands folded behind his back. Enid was wearing a more subdued kimono over her Atlantean armor. She had Lucius strapped over her shoulder. She’d left Hazel’s armor and sword for her daughter in case she did not return. Under the kimono she also wore a utility belt, two glocks full of blessed bullets and several blessed grenades. There was a lot of clinking when she moved. Toyo glanced at her.
“I thought your armor had no ties or belts.”
“It doesn’t. The noise is from weapons.”
Toyo nodded. Enid was spared further explanation by the arrival of the handler and a horse. Enid patted him on the side. She quirked an eyebrow, she looked to Toyo.
“This is your horse.”
“Yes.”
“I may not return.”
“Then he will die a hero.”
Enid sighed and patted the horse again. She pulled herself up on to the horse.
“Thank you, Toyo-san.”
He bowed. Enid nodded to him and started off into the slowly brightening darkness of the pre-dawn morning. She glanced at the map every so often to confirm the landmarks. If she was reading it right she was had a few hours of travel. She patted the horse’s side.
“I had a horse once, his name was Noctis. You remind me of him.”
The horse neighed. Enid smirked.
“Well things are going to be very loud when I am fighting. So don’t you go running away on me. I promise it’s just noise.”
The horse neighed again, and she kept trotting him ahead. She was letting him go at his own pace rather than forcing a gallop. She was trying to save him in case she needed a quick getaway.
*****
Enid had gone half a day’s ride from the Ashikaga Compound. If her map was right the cave was a half a mile forward, or so she guessed. She tried off the horse’s reins. She found the grassy bank of a mountain stream. She patted the horse’s side.
“I’ll be back soon.”
A short distance from where she had parted ways with her horse she started to see rocky protrusions. One of the formations was on the map. She climbed to the top and pulled her military style binoculars out of her pack and looked through them zooming in. She could see the remnant of the demon army milling about. There still were two or three dozen. Some were going in and out of the cave but the seemed to be a confused mass still in disarray from the battle with Enid and Hazel. She used the binoculars to range find.
You can’t fight that many as a mortal.
Enid whispered her response.
“I’m not going to go down there swinging you around I was going to use an RPG or three.”
What…oh, I see.
She slide down beneath the rock face.
“Its two hundred + meters. It’s a hard shot. But I don’t have any non demonfire rockets left. And I need to get in the cave.”
She pulled out her AR-15 and leaned it against the rock. Then her RPG. She looked through her crate of ammo for the blessed frag grenades. She counted them out, she had eight. And four blessed incendiaries. She pulled out three magazines of blessed ammo slotting one in her AR-15.
I keep forgetting you are from the future and have access to these…things.
“Now you see why I couldn’t bring Hazel. She has no skill with them, and these aren’t neat and tidy weapons. They are explosive and burst weapons.”
Yes.
Enid laid out two frag grenades and one incendiary.
You’re only going to have surprise for the first shot.
“Then I better make it count, hmm?”
Enid put the launcher over her shoulder and looked through the iron site and adjusted the arc for the range and launched her first frag grenade. It hit the biggest of the demons in the chest and he started to dissolve instantly then it exploded showering the entire area with blessed metal shrapnel. Several of the demons were writhing on the ground screaming. She loaded the next frag grenade and launched it into the cave mouth where several of the demons were fleeing. It blew them backwards. She’d cut their number down substantially. The remaining demons had identified her vantage point and were starting to climb the rock. She dropped the launcher and picked up her AR-15 and looked through the scope. Flipped it from safety to burst and started shooting demons. None made the two-hundred-meter distance. She flipped the magazine and slotted her next thirty rounds.
Impressive. You look like you’ve used these a lot.
“Military made us qualify on all weapons we might run into when I was doing navel intelligence. We had to do it every three months. And let’s face it, demons from the fourteenth century are not going to have any clue what is hitting them. It was luck.”
Enid slid down the cover she’d been using and put her RPG launcher and the unused ammo away. She hopped over her cover. Keeping low. She had her AR-15 strapped over her shoulder and her right hand. She was using her left hand to slow her descent as she skidded down the rocky embankment. She pulled the cap off a flare and tossed it into the cave entrance. She took cover on the wall at the edge of the mouth of the cave and peaked around inside. There were several demons that were writhing in pain. They had dragged themselves in. Some were missing limbs. She slung her AR-15 over her shoulder and drew Lucius. She started stabbing the demons as she went. Enid could hear someone ranting in the language of angels up ahead. She came to a bend, and she sheathed Lucius again and peaked around it. She saw the source of the expletives It was obviously a fallen angel. She had the same twisted wings of her brothers. The angel’s fists slammed on the barrier that Taichai had erected. Enid crouched still in the cover over the corner and aimed at the angel’s center of mass and flipped the AR to full auto and pressed the trigger holding it down. The fallen angel started screaming in pain as flashes of white light started coming form its chest and wings. It was writhing on the ground Enid switched clips and continued to spray the angel with blessed bullets. It kept trying to get up but the force of the bullets and the many searing blessed bullets were keeping it down. Enid switched clips again and unleashed another spray at it. By this time, she was on top of it, and she let the assault rifle go and held Lucius over her bare chest.
“Go home or be erased from existence.”
The angel twitched and Enid stabbed there was a flash of green as the energy from the angel was sucked into the blade. Enid looked at all the spent casings and sighed.
“Fuck. I’m going to need to clean all of this up.”
You just…eradicated that…thing.
“Yes, but next time they’ll know what’s coming and it won’t be so easy. Or hell they might have assault rifles and RPG’s”
Enid pulled the last magazine out of her AR-15 and confirmed it was empty too.
“I need to make sure we collect one hundred and twenty casings. This is going to take forever.”
Enid started looking around the cavern.
“How the fuck am I supposed to close a hell portal?”
She sighed and pulled her rocket launcher out and slid her last blessed demonfire into the launcher and targeted the portal and launched it inside. The ever-burning lake of holy fire would slow ground-based demons down. She started collecting casings it took several hours to make sure she had every single one.
“Ugg, this is going to use the last of my Semtex and wire.”
Enid pulled out one of the Atlantean tablets and started scanning the cave to determine the best places and type of charges to use. She could see demons through the portal. She had an audience. She stuck her middle finger up at them and went back to work laying the charges and wire which she wired to the bend and hooked up a detonator.
So, what is that supposed to do? It looks like clay.
“When I press this red button, you’ll see, and hear, Hell the Samurai probably will.”
Enid backed away, making sure she still had a signal. She took cover behind a bolder, covered her ears with ear protection and pressed the trigger. The ground shook. She waited for a couple of minutes then stood up. Dust was still coming out of the cave. But it would definitely not be used by demons for a very long time. Especially with Taichai’s barrier.
What… in the name of the gods.
“Plastic explosive. You can use it to cut rocks to cause cave ins, if you shape it right. Drill holes and the like.”
Why did you not lead with that?
“Because random chunks of plastic explosive while destructive aren’t meant for killing people. That’s what fragmentation grenades are for.”
Enid started collecting the spent shell casings from the rock she’d taken cover behind.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Have to get Ezekiel to seal that one.”
After another hour of searching, she accounted for twenty-nine.
“Damn it I am missing one. Stupid mortal senses.”
Enid signed and looked at the sun that was lower than the rocks and tugged out a sleeping bag from her pack and her military tent she could string between two trees. She went back to the stream and tied it off slipped into the sleeping bag and drifted off. She leaned Lucius against a tree as her guard. She wasn’t sure how long she had slept when Lucius woke her by shouting into her mind. She snapped her eyes open. She moved slowly forward and slipped her pack over her shoulder and snagged the end of Lucius’s sheath. She found herself surrounded by… it took her several seconds for her brain to register the clothes. They were ninja.
Enid stood up and drew Lucius.
“You folks should leave.”
A blow dark came flying at her and she rolled away. Her sword slicing through one of the trees like butter and sent the ninja that was firing at her from its branches down into the rocks with it. Two came at her quickly their swords drawn she sliced through their blades easily. Unlike her display for the Shogun, she was treating this as a real threat. A spiked chain came out of the shadows and wrapped around her Lucius she tugged, and Lucius sliced through the chain easily. One came from behind her as she was dealing with the chain, and she side stepped striking for his throat hard enough her target would be incapacitated and possibly suffocate. Three of them were left.
“Come on guys if I actually have to kill you, you’re going to lose your souls.”
The remaining Ninjas attacked at once. Enid managed to parry one blow by hitting the attacker’s wrist with the edge of her palm. She sliced another’s blade and the third managed to slash her lower back the armored plates forced the sword to go flying. She swept her blade around slicing his other sword in half stopping by his neck.
“Stop! I’ve been playing nice with you, but if you keep this up some of you will die.”
Enid felt a hand grab her wrist. She used the Atlantean armor’s enhanced strength to send him flying into a tree. The sound of cracking bones made her wince. She willed the helmet onto her head. And prepared for the next attack. The armor’s night vision kicked in and she was easily able to see her assailants. Arrows peppered her from a distance. They barely made her armor’s energy reserves flicker.
Enid had been holding back until now, her assailants still hadn’t seemed to catch on. She threw Lucius up in the air and did a spinning kick to the one that had struck her breaking his upper armor and sending him flying. She turned around the last remaining close-range attacker and punched him. He tried to block but she snapped his forearm with the armor’s enhanced strength then followed up with a palm strike to his chest cracking his ribs and he fell to the ground she caught Lucius and sheathed him. By now her kimono was in tatters and her black armor made her one with the night. The archers were shooting towards her last location and seemed surprised when the person they had been shooting at lept over the rise and started taking them down one by one as their ineffective arrows bounced off her armor.
She looked down from the rise. On the slope were three men, one was wearing a ridiculous looking kimono for being out in the middle of the night. The other two seemed to match the rest of the mercenaries. Enid picked up a bow and took aim.
“Why did you attack me?”
“You are with the Ashikaga clan.”
“Yes, and I’m out here alone because I’m an army onto myself. Collect your fallen and leave me be or I will execute all of you.”
She let loose the arrow, it sliced through the sleeve of the apparent leader’s kimono sleeve tearing a piece of fabric off.
“It is not a hollow threat. I could have killed you all, everyone still lives because I am merciful.”
She nocked another arrow and pulled the bow string back. The two mercenaries put down their swords and bowed to her. Enid slowly let the tension off on the bow string. She placed the bow on the ground and turned away and went back to her camp. She petted the horse’s flank.
“Its okay boy. All taken care of.”
She stood by the horse patting him gently to keep him calm while the still mobile mercenaries collected their injured. Only three of them would need assistance to move. She looked at the damage she had caused and sighed inside the helmet. With a frown she let the helmet slip into the armor.
“I can help tend to the injured, if you would allow it.”
One of her mercenaries that had been guarding their employer bowed to her and pulled his head covering off. He was an older gentleman.
“One of the injured is our best healer.”
Enid nodded. Enid pointed to one of the men who she’d broken his forearm with a forceful block. The bone was sticking out.
“Start with him, that needs to be fixed right away or he will bleed to death.”
Enid kneel beside the man who was on a makeshift stretcher. She pulled out one of her field surgery kits and injected him with morphine then went about fixing his arm. She motioned for the next and then the next. When she was done she’d patched up eight of them and it was nearly dawn. She found herself yawning. It was reminiscent of her time as a resident, though being a vampire, she never tired then.
You know so much about the human body. How do you do it?
Enid just smiled instead of speaking to Lucius and appearing absolutely nuts. When she had finished patching up the last of the mercenaries, she rinsed her armor’s gloves off with alcohol from her pack, then rinsed her surgery kit’s tools off. It was the best she could do. She folded it and put it in her pack ensuring that she left nothing behind to be an anachronism in the future. When she stood up and dusted her hands off, she found herself being stared at by several men. They all bowed to her.
“You will never face us in battle again. We are the Kirihana clan. We will present ourselves to the Ashikaga with our former employer, so we do not further anger the spirits.”
Enid quirked an eyebrow.
“As you wish.”
Enid started packing her camp up. Dawn was coming and she would catch up on sleep once she arrived home. She pulled herself onto the horse and rode at the head of the sixteen men she had recently pummeled. Their employer had been part of the Imperial court. Enid did not envy his return home. When they arrived at the Ashikaga gate they were met with armed men. Enid hopped off the horse and took its reins and started leading it through the gate. The Shogun and Toyo met her. Enid bowed.
“I have defeated the Oni. These mercenaries attacked me I suspect they were tasked with assassinating you by the emperor. I defeated them and they wished to make penance to the Kami by presenting themselves to you to enter your service. The one who hired them is bound.”
Enid pointed to the man in the bright kimono. The shogun looked Enid up and down.
“An army of Oni and a clan of assassins in one day and night. Is there anything you are not capable of?”
Hazel had appeared and heard army of Oni. She was giving her mother a dirty look. The shogun looked to his men.
“Disarm them, tend to their wounded and put the rest in cells, under guard. Bring their leader to me.”
He looked to Enid.
“You will join us.”
Enid bowed and prepared to follow him. The older man who had spoken to Enid briefly before surrendering to her had been bound and deprived of his weapons. The Shogun had taken his place on the dais, he had four guards with him. Enid bowed, as did Toyo. The man who was bound did so as well. Enid stood with the man between her and Toyo. The shogun looked at him with his usual piercing gaze.
“Who are you?”
“I am Kienji of the Kirahara clan.”
“You were hired by the emperor to attack us?”
“Yes.”
He lowered his head.
“And one warrior from my house was able to defeat your entire force?”
“Yes, we underestimated your men, and women. We will never accept a contract against you again. If you will allow me to return to my clan to explain.”
The shogun looked to Toyo.
“Do you think we should show mercy to these assassins?”
“Perhaps they may make useful allies of use in the future.”
Toyo bowed. The shogun looked at Enid next.
“You have fought these men. What do you have to say about it?”
“They did not surrender until I threatened their employer who demanded they surrender. They were faced with an unstoppable opponent. At least they honored their contract, however it shows a lack of wisdom when their opponent offered them an opportunity surrender at every turn. Allies yes, I am not sure of their use to a strong clan such as yours.”
Enid bowed. The shogun looked Enid up and down.
“Why did you offer them mercy?”
“I knew they could not harm me. I believed it would be dishonorable to slaughter those weaker than me.”
“Very well. You shall return to your clan with Enid-san as my representative so your leaders may see a woman of my clan brought you low. Then you shall send one of your leader’s daughters here to live under my roof as a show of respect. Enid-san shall escort her back. If your clan agrees, then I will release your men, your injured who are too wounded to travel will be cared for and returned once they are able, if they survive their injuries.”
Enid kept a straight face, but mentally she was not being polite. All of a sudden, she was a part of the Shogunate? She knew what the shogun was doing however, a hostage to secure peace. He was sending Enid to make sure they saw his strength, and she could ensure the hostage was of strategic value. She’d been down this road before. She’d have to just do it, who knows how long she’d be here, and the protection of a shogun, roof and food would be helpful, in her mortal state. Enid bowed.
“As you will it, Ashikaga Takauji-san.”
Enid silently wished she could look up his name on the internet. That would tell her the exact date, or close to it. He looked to Toyo.
“Yoshiakira, ensure that Enid-san’s daughter is cared for in her absence.”
Enid glanced at Toyo. Toyo bowed.
“Yes father.”
“See to it he is fed and has a restful sleep for his journey.”
Kienji bowed. He was led out by the guards and the bindings on his hands removed. Enid looked at Toyo.
“Yoshiakira-san, why do you not use your real name?”
“Toyo is a nickname; My father gave me it because I am so clean shaven all the time.”
Enid smiled.
“What should I call you?”
“Toyo-san is fine, it is why I gave it to you. My name is used only in official meetings. You have impressed my father. He would not send you on this diplomatic mission otherwise.”
“Perhaps he is trying to keep me out of his sight?”
“No, I could tell he was quite impressed by you. He didn’t deny that you were part of our clan.”
“Hazel will not be happy.”
“She took to training very well, even with our difficulties communicating verbally. The men were hesitant at first, but she is very strong and has impressed them. She will be quite happy here in your absence I think.”
Enid bowed to Toyo.
“Thank you.”
He returned the bow.
“We have not discussed your future.”
“Perhaps when I return from my diplomatic mission? I am very tired and need to see Taichai.”
Toyo bowed.
“Of course, Enid-san.”
Enid returned the bow and made her way to see Taichai. She shoved the slab off, much easier with the Atlantean armor’s strength. She made her way down the steps and into the cave.
“You’re back and in one piece.”
“Yes. I’ve dealt with your problem; I could not seal the portal, but it was not part of our agreement.”
“But you made it impassable.”
“Yes.”
“Excellent.”
“Now for your part of our bargain.”
“You are not barred from Limbo.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe me or not, you are not barred from Limbo.”
“Then why can’t I go there and get home?”
“Because you are trying to get to the wrong home.”
“I don’t understand, this is useless information. As I expected you are screwing me over. And why the fuck am I mortal?”
“Why are you mortal? What purpose does it serve you here?”
“Seriously?”
“You’re asking the wrong questions.”
“Just tell me how to get home.”
“Focus on something where you want to go. Something other than Limbo.”
Enid sighed.
“This isn’t helpful.”
“I am being very helpful. I cannot help it if you aren’t listening to me.”
Enid’s scream of frustration echoed in the cave.
“Do you feel better?”
“No. Tell me something useful.”
“There are more fallen angels that have escaped their prison. Someone broke things.”
“Is that why I’m not home? Is it because God is fucking with me again?”
“I cannot say who is making the choices that are bringing you into conflict with the demons. Perhaps you are?”
“No, I want to go home.”
“Do you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you really think you’re the happily ever after type? You’ve had that, and you gave it up.”
“You have been no help. As usual you have fucked me over.”
“Look Enid. I have a solution to your problem. Take some time, smell the cherry blossoms, let your kid train. Enjoy being a mortal. Maybe you just need a vacation? Its not like Hazel is going to age.”
Enid blinked.
“What?”
“Oh, you haven’t noticed. She hasn’t gotten any more mature since you started travelling has, she?”
“Sure she has, she turned sixteen.”
“But is she different, bigger, more mature?”
Enid’s lack of patience was showing in her tone.
“Just spit it out you rotten bag of sushi.”
“Fine, you’re no fun. Once she skipped out of her time she stopped aging, mortals were never meant to travel this way. It has…costs.”
“What do you mean?”
“She can’t start aging until she is at the furthest point into the future she’s gone.”
“So…she’s past that now.”
“Is she?”
“What year is it?”
“Japanese calendar, Chinese Calendar or that church calendar you’re so fond of?”
Enid clenched her fists and screamed again.
“You fucking angels. Why are you always so fucking cryptic?”
“It’s the way we were made.”
Enid stormed towards him raising her fist. Taichai raised his hands.
“Hey, don’t kill the messenger.”
“I’m…not I’m just going to hurt you!”
Enid threw up her hands.
“Fuck!”
“That’s right, let it out.”
“If I never see you again it will be too soon!”
Enid stormed off. Taichai called after her.
“It’s the fourteenth century by your reckoning.”
Enid pointed her hand back to Taichai and stuck up her middle finger as she walked up the stairs.