That was exactly what happened.
As the words were realized, metal panels fell from seventy meters up and stabbed into the narrow pa.s.sageway.
A great din sounded and all of the structures around the pa.s.sageway were brought down or thrown into the air. A great creaking rang out and the area management program opened a warning display inside the Ariake.
The wind caused by the heavy fallen objects washed over Neshinbara as he thought to himself.
…That was a close one, but I made it.
I need to calmly leave without speaking a word or looking back, don’t I? I can contact the guards once I can send divine transmissions again. This could only get better if it all exploded behind me. Oh, wait. I need to rescue the guards who were collapsed back there.
“…Huh?”
He heard an unexpected sound. It was not the sound of confused people running up after noticing the commotion. He heard a five meter long armor panel only now crashing to the floor.
It was not that its fall had been delayed. Mountains of Words was a spell that caused phenomena, so he would need to specify that the fall had been delayed for that to happen.
…So did something else make that one piece fall later!?
With a loud sound of rustling clothing and a sharp footstep, he turned around.
But there was no one there. He only saw the armor panels stabbed into the pa.s.sageway and collapsed against the other piles of materials.
However, he did see something below the delayed armor panel.
It was a sword. The sword belonging to one of the injured guards was broken. And it was in the perfect position to support one of the fallen armor panels.
Someone had swiped it from the guard and used it to create a safe s.p.a.ce from the falling objects.
In that case, realized Neshinbara as he immediately started moving.
He did not know where the enemy was, so he tried to move as far away as possible.
A moment later, he caught sight of a blade circling in from behind him.
…A scythe!?
Someone was behind him. And they were trying to slit his throat while making a leap identical to his own.
He knew he had to avoid this, but…
“I’m in a hurry. Let this end it.”
He heard a female voice, but not from behind him.
It came from beyond the materials on the left. Someone stood on the other side of a pile of metal frames.
The figure raised their weapon.
When he saw the person and their raised weapon through the holes in the materials, he gave a shout.
“Y-you!?”
A single attack brought it all to an end.
“A new job?”
A female voice spoke in the dim light.
A blonde in an English girl’s summer uniform walked down a Musashino pathway with piles of materials on either side. She held a bucket with a change of clothes and other bath supplies below her chest and her hair swayed as she looked to the person walking to her left.
Her blue eyes found a boy whose Far Eastern boy’s summer uniform was made into a ninja outfit. He looked to the blonde walking to his right and spoke.
“Well, I suppose you could call it a job.”
“Heh heh. Is that so? You just keep finding new jobs to do, Master Tenzou.”
“Judge. This work is important for us at the moment. We need to finish remodeling the Musashi as soon as possible so we can get the cooperation of Date and Mogami in Oushuu.”
“Oh, my. You know a lot about politics, Master Tenzou.”
“Judge. Most of our lessons in cla.s.s have been focused on it lately. But…”
Tenzou faced the blonde.
“Could you please stop pretending to be Mary-dono, Toori-dono?”
Tenzou saw the idiot give him a look of surprise, but he knew reacting would be playing right into the other boy’s hands. Instead, he chose a comment to restrain the idiot.
“Besides, your face is nothing at all like Mary-dono’s.”
The blonde crossdresser froze in the middle of lifting his giant fake b.r.e.a.s.t.s with the bucket. The idiot then dropped the bucket in the pa.s.sageway and took what he probably thought was a tragic pose.
“What’s wrong with my costume!?”
“For one, you aren’t anything like Mary-dono. The size and jiggle are completely wrong, you’re completely insane, and I would go on but I don’t want to hurt your feelings. Really, you should just stop this.”
“Y-you don’t hold back, do you!? And you hurt my feelings by trying not to hurt my feelings!”
The idiot gave an exaggerated sigh in a troubled pose.
“And now that you’ve ‘Scarred’ my heart, I really am your wife.”
He’s as creepy as ever, so I need to ignore him, calmly decided Tenzou. I need to change the subject.
“Why are you here? Given where we’re meeting, shouldn’t you be there ahead of everyone else?”
“Well, I peeped on the girl’s bath at Asama’s place and now she’s trying to kill me.”
He looked up to see several targeting sign frames rising from the Asama Shrine while displaying parabolic arcs of the predicted ballistic course. Those sign frames searched for their target from the sky above the Musashi. Tenzou noticed people screaming and running away whenever the sights landed on them.
“W-wait, Toori-dono! Those are sights for slaying sub-dragons! I really don’t want to be caught in that blast, so please get away from me!!”
“Ehh, but Blondie doesn’t want to die aloooone.”
“Toori-dono, when shaking your b.r.e.a.s.t.s, you need to do it more like this and this.”
“Oh, I’ve been doing some training with imaginary b.r.e.a.s.t.s while watching Asama, but I guess it wasn’t enough!”
“Judge. You’re focusing too much on it. Yes, be more restrained. …Judge. Very good. You’ve got the hang of it now, so go die on your own.”
“Y-you aren’t listening at all, are you!?”
Please shut up, thought Tenzou as he ignored the idiot who was jumping up and down and waving his arms in protest. And you aren’t controlling the bouncing properly when jumping around like that.
But, thought Tenzou as he looked back to the crossdresser.
“You really don’t change do you, Toori-dono?”
Or is he only pretending to be the same? Even this crossdresser has to have felt something from that loss. He has to have. Right? S-surely even he would…w-wouldn’t he? I can count on that, can’t I? B-but he is an idiot. Wh-which is it?
“Nnnn, Tenzou-kuuun? What’s the matterrrrr?”
“Kh. D-d.a.m.n this boy!”
At any rate, reacting to the idiot would help nothing.
“By the way, Toori-dono, isn’t Adele-dono supposed to be your bodyguard?”
“Yeah, but she peeped on the bath with me and now I think she’s soaking in the bath thinking about the unfairness of our hierarchical society.”
Adele-dono has a lot to worry about too, thought Tenzou.
Her mobile sh.e.l.l had been damaged in the previous battles. Musashi King Yoshinao knew a lot about its maintenance for some reason, so he was repairing it. But…
…He had to order some parts from Hexagone Française recently, didn’t he?
They were in Mito which had a connection to Hexagone Française, so that had apparently not been too difficult to arrange. At the same time, they had ordered some equipment from Kantou IZUMO based on their experience in the battle against Maeda Toshiie’s “Million Prison Gate Army” (name by Neshinbara) near Magdeburg.
Others were also working to strengthen their equipment, their spells, or themselves, but…
…That could easily be a sign of how worried we all are.
How much will the improvements here really matter? wondered Tenzou.
Their enemies were P.A. Oda, the Oda clan, and Hashiba who would later rule the Far East according to the history recreation. Not only did Hashiba have the backing of P.A.O.M., the primary academy of P.A. Oda, but they controlled half of M.H.R.R. and had conquered K.P.A. Italia to obtain the authority of the Pope-Chancellor.
They essentially controlled the Testament Union at this point.
…Our enemy is powerful.
Meanwhile, what were they doing?
The Musashi’s weapons and other modifications were meant to fight that enemy, but no one knew if they could actually win.
Most likely, the Musashi and everyone else were strengthening themselves as a way of sweeping aside their unease. To put it another way…
…We only just barely trust ourselves.
The student council led by the crossdresser had been the ones to decide on the Musashi’s modifications and to continue with their current policies. No clear opposition had turned up, but that was only because the residential districts of the different ships had been split up on the surface and because Neshinbara was using his knowledge of the public opinion to manage information on the divine network. So…
“We need to move on to the next step as soon as possible.”
“Tenzou.”
The crossdresser smiled his way while squeezing and lifting his giant fake b.r.e.a.s.t.s between his elbows.
“Don’t rush things, okay?”
“What are you talking about?”
He decided to answer the idiot this time and someone standing at a corner up ahead turned his way.
“Master Tenzou.”
He looked over and found the real one.
“Mary-dono.”
The idiot clung to his right arm and wiggled his body.
“Master Tenzouuuu, who is that girrrrl!?”
“Oh, my. Master Wet Man, are you visiting the human world dressed like a girl today?”
“I kind of expected this, but she isn’t listening at all…”
The idiot hung his head, so Tenzou started dragging him toward their meetup point. Meanwhile, Mary laughed quietly in her throat.
“Heh heh. Master Wet Man, you’re a little tired, aren’t you?”
“…Is he really?”
“Hey, Tenzou. Why do you look so surprised? I get tired too, you know? I can’t give you any details, but, um, well, I’ve been up late at night a lot, you know? You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”
“Do you have any idea what it feels like to be told something you really don’t want to know?”
“Now, now.” Mary cut in with a bitter smile and looked toward the crossdresser. “Judge. The ether surrounding your body has had that color for a while now.”
“Ehhh?”
The crossdresser frowned, but Tenzou could not tell if it was for show or unintentional. But Mary had the blood of a high-level spirit and she could use spirits, so he could trust what she said.
“Mary-dono, how about we take this…thing…by early and get something to eat?”
“Judge. We’re meeting up at the Blue Thunder, aren’t we? In that case…”
Mary lined up alongside them and faced starboard, toward Tama.
Suddenly, Tenzou’s attention turned in a different direction.
A few large sign frames appeared to sound the alarm and to tell everyone to stay away from the materials yard on the port side of the ship’s stern.
“What…?”
…Did some of the materials collapse?
Tenzou opened his own sign frame, instructed the members of his 1st Special Duty team to investigate the scene, and then sighed. Mary asked a question while looking in the same direction.
“Should we examine that materials yard on the way to the Blue Thunder on Tama?”
“Oh, um, I just arranged to have that done, so no. And we aren’t going to Tama.”
“…? But that’s where the Blue Thunder is.”
“Judge. It certainly is.”
As they walked down the residential road, a home/restaurant came into view on the right. The restaurant portion was small, but Mary read what the metal sign on the edge of the eaves said.
“Blue Thunder?”
“Judge. There’s a Blue Thunder here too. …This one is Toori-dono and the Aoi family’s home.”
And…
“This one is also known as the Main Blue Thunder. It’s where we’re going to prepare for the meeting with the Date clan tonight and confirm our future plans.”