Act 5 Have It Both Ways 1 Having lost its connection to the other world creating the ancient dragon, the Ploutonion was nothing but a giant cave. An ant colony–like maze that the Moujuu guided Yahiro et al. through. “Unbelievable! We’re riding Moujuu!” “Is this…a dream?!” Zhu and Feng were still worked up. Yahiro, meanwhile, could not even be surprised at this point. And Giuli was already pulling out her comms like nothing in order to call her subordinates. She got in touch with Paola Resente, on standby outside the Moujuu colony. “Paola! Can you hear me?” “Yes, but we’re in combat.” “Combat? With whom?” “Jiguan Xia’s men. CFA troops. Not very hard, but too many. Wouldn’t hold ground without the Moujuu’s help.” “Oh, so they’re keeping their word to Iroha.” Giuli chuckled at the report of her taciturn subordinate. Jiguan Xia must have taken his squad with him to wipe out Paola’s while he was heading out. He must not have expected the local Moujuu to help the Galerie. “Don’t worry anymore, we’re almost there. Prepare yourself.” “I see you. I see why you say that.” Paola sighed from the other side of the line. She had lost contact with Yahiro’s group for a while, and now they were back with a herd of Moujuu. Of course she would sigh. “What about you two? You’ll be treated as traitors, won’t you?” Yahiro asked Zhu and Feng, hanging from the Moujuu’s mouths. One could easily imagine how awkward things would be if they just charged into the fight against the CFA. In reality, they were the victims of betrayal, but only Yahiro’s side could attest to that. And if they continued following Iroha, they would become enemies to the CFA. “We will follow Waon. Either way, we have no place in the army now that Shangxiao Xia has cut us off.” “Why would we even want to be back with him to begin with?” Perhaps they were feeling resolved after surviving the dangers of the Ploutonion. “I guess I get how you feel, but…” “No, this is still for the good of our homeland. Personally collecting Relicts and making private use of the Deservers is a clear deviation of Shangxiao Xia’s authority.” “The truth is that the mainland ordered us to look into his actions. Too bad he made us fall into the Ploutonion, though.” “Wait, you were monitoring Xia?” “The top brass figured individuals like us would be clear of suspicion.” The two of them laughed, while Yahiro grimaced. So they realize they’re weird. “That’s okay, but either way, I don’t think you’d like to point your weapons at your compatriots. Just catch up with us later, okay?” Giuli waved at them before signaling Iroha. “Got it.” Iroha nodded and gave instructions to the Moujuu carrying the soldiers. “Uwah?!” “Lady Giuliii?!” Zhu and Feng screamed as the Moujuu threw them away. The others ignored the pair rolling on the ground as their Moujuu made their way across the forest. At the end of it, Paola’s squad was in the middle of a shoot-out, using the armored truck as a shield. The CFA soldiers fighting them immediately fell into chaos as the Moujuu herd suddenly appeared for their counterattack. A few Relict Deservers could not stand their own against a couple dozen Moujuu, including a Grade IV. They lost their will to resist without putting up much of a fight and scattered away. “Kept you waiting, huh, Paola? Any wounded?” Giuli got off the Moujuu and approached her. Paola’s team had eleven people. A quick look said they were all fine. “Only minor wounds. We can still fight.” “And we can still use the truck. All right, time to go back to the Nagoya Station Fortress. Looks like the Moujuu are coming, too, hm? Iroha, catch.” Giuli took a portable device out of her pocket and threw it at Iroha. Iroha caught it by reflex and gave a puzzled glance at the map on the screen. “What’s this?” “The way into the Nagoya Station Fortress. Let the Moujuu know. With how many transport routes and sewers that huge fortress has, I knew there had to be some secret path.” “…How did you find them, though?” Yahiro looked at her with surprise. The Galerie arrived at Nagoya two days ago; too little time to find a secret path into the city. There should have been no spare hands to investigate it in the first place, considering their forces were already split by the Moujuu colony search. Giuli grinned. “Honoka’s trio looked for it, with the help of our biodrones.” “You made them do that?!” Iroha glared at her in disbelief, shocked that her children had been given such a dangerous mission without her knowledge. “Ugh… Oh well. It’ll help these guys, too.” Iroha sighed in resignation after a short while. Yahiro was surprised to hear her conclusion. He thought she would hate the idea of using the Moujuu as tools. “You’re gonna make them destroy the artificial Relict factory?” “That’s what they want. All the Moujuu here attacked the fortress in order to stop the CFA from making the artificial Relicts to begin with.” “That’s what they were doing?” Yahiro furrowed his brow. Sure, more Deservers would mean more trouble for them. But he couldn’t believe the Moujuu would be intelligent enough to think of stopping the production of artificial Relicts. “Artificial Relicts are basically degraded versions of crystallized dragon factor, remember? Mass-producing that would naturally spread crude dragon factor into the sewage and emissions,” Giuli answered. Yahiro was honestly surprised to hear that. “That’s what they wanted to stop? Then that’s also why Iroha couldn’t reach them?” “Yup, another effect of the dragon factor. For starters, the dragon factor here was abnormally dense after they broke the seal on the ancient dragon.” Giuli wore a nasty grin. “If there’s an artificial Relict factory currently operating inside those walls, then that’s the fortress’s weak point. We’ll force our way into the Nagoya station while the Moujuu plunge the army into chaos from within.” “Wouldn’t that get us on the Chinese Federation’s bad side?” Yahiro gave her a look of worry. The CFA’s military strength was great even without the Relict Deservers. It didn’t feel like a smart idea to make enemies of them outright. Then, surprisingly, Iroha agreed with Giuli. “They started the fight. Too late now.” “Iroha?” “They won’t get away with trying to lay a finger on my dear little sister.” Iroha sneered as she glared at the Nagoya Station Fortress. At that sight, Yahiro finally realized. Iroha was mad this whole time—furious at the Chinese Federal Army for breaking their promise and going for Ayaho. 2 A Nuemaru-riding Iroha led the way into the Nagoya Station Fortress underground. Part of the thought-to-be collapsed subway tunnels remained, allowing them to infiltrate the fortress. “Is this the right way?” “Yes. The Moujuu are noticing something, too.” Iroha nodded confidently at Yahiro’s worried question. It was not feasible to build everything anew inside the sprawling Nagoya Station Fortress, so they recycled many facilities of the old station, such as the underground shopping centers. Yahiro’s team made their way through desolate areas to reach the center of the artificial Relict factory unnoticed. “I had no idea there was a place like this inside the fortress,” said Lieutenant Zhu, who somehow caught up with them, as he looked around the factory with surprise. “Why didn’t you know?” Yahiro asked in puzzlement. Zhu and Feng were Relict Deservers; how could they possibly not know of the factory? “This factory is Melora’s, and not even the Deservers could get in.” “Except for the deputy commander, I guess.” Yahiro snorted at their response. “Jiguan Xia has a personal connection with Melora, for sure. Maybe he pushed you into the Ploutonion to keep that hidden.” “Now everything begins to make sense. If Melora has a monopoly on artificial Relict manufacturing, then maybe it wasn’t the Chinese Republic, but Melora who decided to go after Ayaho,” Giuli inferred. “What?! So it really was just greed!” Iroha fumed. While the conversation went on, they reached a dead end in the underground corridor. Unlike other paths haphazardly blocked off, this one was dammed up by a thick wall. The core of the Relict factory had to be on the other side of it. “Yahiro!” “I know. Iroha, keep the Moujuu back.” Yahiro stepped before the wall, gripping his sword’s hilt. The reinforced concrete was about a dozen feet thick. A regular uchigatana could never hope to break it. And yet, Yahiro did not doubt for a second that he could. This barrier was but a paper screen compared to the ancient black dragon. “Blaze!” Yahiro’s katana was engulfed in the flames of purification as he slashed the thick wall, melting it away like butter. It sliced a square in the wall that fell to the other side with a quake, revealing the modern interior of the factory. The Moujuu jumped into the opening one after the other. It was a positively pressured clean room, reminiscent of a semiconductor factory. It was mostly automated—almost no people were around. The Moujuu destroyed the modern and spotless production lines without mercy. “M-Moujuu?!” “Wh-who are you?! Don’t think you can get away with thi…” Factory supervisors yelled as they noticed their intrusion, but Yahiro grabbed one of them by the neck. “What the hell is this?!” Yahiro spat aggressively, pointing at the culture tanks in glass cases. Moujuu were trapped inside them, tubes cruelly connected all over their bodies. “Why are there Moujuu in here? Wasn’t this an artificial Relict factory?” “I-in order to excite the Relicts, we need the original Relict Regalia and their Deserver…” the supervisor wheezed, still grabbed by the neck. “I know that! But what’s this?!” “P-people compatible with the Relicts aren’t found that easily. If we forcefully embed one in a non-Deserver, their body won’t be able to take it and they’ll die.” “And…?” Yahiro gripped his neck tighter. Stricken by fear, the supervisor explained rapidly in a coughing fit. “The Moujuu… Their cells can excite any Relict. The only issue is that the replica ends up largely degraded from the original, but if we can find how to overcome that…” “And what happens to the Moujuu?” “…What?” “What happens to the Moujuu when you embed the Relicts in them?” The supervisor blinked, confused as to why he would ask that. “Well… They die, obviously… But they last about seven times longer than a human, which is enough to replicate the Relict, so…” “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?! The Moujuu used to be humans!” “Y-yes, so I’ve heard.” He nodded, dumbfounded. He did not seem the least bit remorseful about treating the Moujuu as expendable to fabricate the Relicts. “I see. You can shut your mouth now.” “Wha?” After his quiet whisper, Yahiro let the supervisor go. He stumbled as he fell suddenly, but his eyes lit up with relief. Then Yahiro put his entire body weight into punching the supervisor in the face. The attack was hard enough to break Yahiro’s fist. He would heal soon thanks to his Lazarus powers, but the supervisor could only writhe in agony before losing consciousness, never realizing what happened. “So this is why Melora Electronics built the artificial Relict factory in Japan instead of the Chinese mainland,” Iroha muttered sadly as she looked at the place burning and collapsing. Iroha did not try to help the Moujuu in the culture tanks. She knew that nothing would save them. That their only salvation was the destruction of the factory to put them to rest in peace. “I’m guessing another reason to use Xia was to get the live samples,” Yahiro said flatly, holding in his wrath. “Maybe the Moujuu weren’t attacking the Nagoya Station Fortress because of the dragon factor, but because they knew their brethren were being killed,” Iroha said, as though in a prayer. “Yeah.” Yahiro sighed softly. Then a sneering voice complemented their comments: “But that is all over now…” “…!” Yahiro raised his head at the mature-sounding voice, finding it familiar. Right by the ceiling, standing on the maintenance catwalk, was a beautiful woman with long black hair. The dragon medium who disappeared from their sights back in Yokohama—Miyabi Maisaka. “Miyabi?! What are you doing here?!” Iroha asked in shock. Yahiro put up his guard. Who knew why she would show herself here and now? Could it be she was cooperating with the Chinese Federal Army? Only one thing was certain: she was not on their side. “Allow me to add: the one leading the manufacture of the artificial Relicts was the founder of Melora, Liu Ryland. He bought out not only Jiguan Xia, but the fortress’s chief executive too, to do as he pleased.” Miyabi walked the catwalk with firm, loud steps. Her draconized left leg was exposed—no point hiding it now. “But that’s over. I imagine they will send a person with more scruples for their next chief executive.” “Miyabi! Wait!” Yahiro exclaimed with a serious tone before she could leave. Miyabi turned around with a smirk, and then he saw the silver-colored case in her hands. “That’s a Relict Regalia, isn’t it?” “Yes. Good catch,” Miyabi replied with an impish smile. She held a metal case that was about three feet long. Just about the right size to carry a sword. “One of the three regalia of the Heavenly Imperial House. I figured I ought to take advantage of the trip.” “The Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi…! That was your goal?!” Yahiro ran toward her. He had no idea what her endgame was, but he felt he should not allow her to take the sword. The Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi was a Relict Regalia powerful enough to seal that ancient dragon. Who knew what could happen if it fell into the wrong hands? “Who asked you for it?” Giuli appeared in Miyabi’s way on the catwalk out of nowhere. She had used her wires and some acrobatics kicking off the wall to climb all the way up near the ceiling. “Going by what you said, I can’t imagine it’s Liu Ryland.” “My employer is Salas. Ganzheit’s Alfred Salas.” “Ganzheit…!” A shadow cast in Yahiro’s eyes. Ganzheit’s usual stand was to not get involved with the Relicts. Something had to be up if they were going against that to get their hands on the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi now. “Yahiro.” “I know. Catch Miyabi, right?” Yahiro approached Miyabi so as to put her in a pincer attack. The catwalk was less than three feet wide. She had nowhere to run. Still, she kept her expression unchanged, smiling serenely with the Relict case in her arms. “My. Should you be wasting your time on me?” “What do you mean?” “This isn’t the only Relict Regalia Ganzheit wants. I may not be the only dragon medium they hired.” “Not the only…?” Violent anxiety struck him. He could not believe there was anything more valuable to Ganzheit in Nagoya than the Heavenly Imperial House’s Regalia. But there was someone.
Chapter 58
13 min read