Chapter 24) Invasion

I doubt that there is anyone who hasn’t heard about the invasion of Japan by now and will likely have to hear about it many more times in the future.

After all, it's not like it going to be the last time our world gets targeted.

Some people are calling it the day the world changed. But I got new for them, the world changes every day, it's just on that day that they noticed, and had to acknowledge it.

This is my take on it.

Some people said that of course, they would choose Japan to invade. Japan is the place that loved Isekai stories so much they named the genre.

But I think was more that Japan was a relatively small, densely populated, industrial country with only a limited military defense force.

One that was surrounded by hostile, weak, or both countries which would not or could not come to their aid, and their closest ally the US, was already over committed to helping out other countries that weren't even officially allies of ours or dealing with our own problems.

So, plenty of loot, weak defenses, and standing alone. And a chain of islands to boot.

I doubt there was a better target for the Auric Empire. Hit them hard with a gate in every major city, then sweep out to the shores in all directions.

The Auric Empire had spread across dozens of worlds due to being able to sync up with different time frames. New Orsim, the world they invaded from had only started mixing gunpowder weapons with alchemy when they got overrun thirty years ago and had only given up their resistance in the last generation.

The Auric had taken and killed hostages to get the last of them to give up.

They were not nice people. I’d like to think that to someone looking at us from the outside, Earth looked nice. We aren't, but sometimes we try.

But nice is not weak.

Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, and the old capital of Kyoto were the five cities they targeted as breach points.

We, the United States, turned out to not be the only nations to organize a defense against people from other worlds.

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Remember, Japan named the Genre. The people who run the place grew up on those stories. They had effectively spent at least the last two generations gaming scenarios about what might be coming at them one day.

Osaka had an entire boarding school of returnees of various levels of power. All of them responded to the Seventh Orc Calvary as they rode out of their gate, cutting people down in the streets. The kid calling himself Raiden was the first to arrive.

Lightning is hot enough to turn the moisture in anything it hits to steam, trees struck from the sky tend to blow up because of this. Orcs… made more of a mess.

Cell phone cameras showed the lighting crackling around people with touching them to hit the invaders, the kid’s control is that good. Either that or that lighting is alive in some way.

Could be both.

Kyoto had three story tall Mechas with glowing crystals sticking out of their backs. I’m not sure what that was about, but considering they came in five familiar looking colors I half suspected them to combine somehow.

Nagoya, well, the phone shots seemed to show the city itself coming to life. The pavement of the streets swallowed up Legionaries in full body armor. Trees uprooted themselves and rushed the gate for our first counterattack against another world, dozens of flowering Sakura trees made it through before the gate closed from the other side.

Yokohama didn't have much in the way of defenders, not until a supposedly abandoned industrial city called Battleship Island opened up its own gate to the city with another one opened up to a military base and armored vehicles began to pour through.

Bullets don’t go through magic armor, but the force of it can still kill dark elves from the impact. Shoot enough of them and even the Auric Empire’s elite Shadow Guardians will go down.

In Tokyo…

Remember Orihime Takana, or to be correct, Takana Orihime?

It’s Shogun Takana now. High Commander of the Sakura Guard. Liege lady of Battleship Island.

The Summoner.

The Yokai of Japanese lore had only been waiting for someone to make them real. To call them from stories, and to feed them live screaming meat.

The Shogun was able to call up a whole lot of them with the promise of a feast, then lead them to the gate the invaders had opened up with Japan’s capital.

It closed before she reached it.

My sister was wearing a white porcelain mask my mother had painted half black with a yellow moon on the forehead. She had kept it even after it had gotten broken, I had no idea that Imogene had fixed it. Or that she had made allies in other countries.

I guess she was really committed to the whole protected the Earth bit.

She’s a dimensional mage, tearing the gate in Tokyo back open and letting Shogun Takana take her horde of skittering, hopping, and giggling Yokai with blood stained hands and mouths to give the leadership of the Auric empire a good talking to.

Imo didn’t come home that night shaking and crying like when we had to put down things that came to Earth and could not be sent back, or allowed to live. Instead, she brought souvenirs.

The two Sakura saplings will go in the front lawn to replace the Maple tree that my Father had removed so he didn't have to rake up the leaves anymore. The Dark elf helmet went up on a shelf in the rec room.

And Orihime Takana’s autograph got laminated and hung up on the wall above my desk.

“You have stepped up to Brenner San.”

She's been a fan ever since she did a Google search on her own name and found my first blog entry. It was also the reason she decided to get in contact with my sister.

Peace talks are in the works with the Auric Empire, and an international force is in discussion to deal with any further large scale incursions.

I would worry about Imogene overworking herself, but she just snorted at me when I mentioned my concern to her.

"Don't worry brother mine, I got a nice little place on a world that runs twenty times to Earth that I get to take some nice little vacations at. I'll show it to you some time."

Well, I guess I am getting taken off to other worlds by mysterious women now, but it’s just my sister, and she promises to bring me back.