Forest Near River
0720 Hours
The target location was within visual range through the black and white trunks of the round leafed trees of the forest just South of the fork in the river North of Caitel proper. It was a traditional diaojiaolou stilted house with
verandah patios on both levels and was painted a deep red. Lanterns hung from the SouthEastern edge and a wind chime made a dull thud from the other corner of the house. The roof was peaked at every corner, and it was built with wooden columns coming from the bottom, which raised it off of the ground by fifteen meters.
The team of seven Minkan and Nekovalkyrja hovered over the mossy forest ground, behind a slope while they assessed where to position themselves. They ascended up from the South to hold positions on the SouthEastern, NorthEastern, and NorthWestern corners in that order. Sangō and two infantry Neko from Hoshi's team took a forward position as she planned to barrage the front Northern door. Nobody had disengaged volumetrics and they blended in with the black and white of the trunks and greenery of the forest floor below.
When Hoshi was sure they were all in position, she took one final glance of the stilted, tiered building. There were emerging silhouettes in the shadowy and transparent
shōji walls that she could see through an opening in the first floor's verandah doors appearing that had not been there a moment ago.
Hoshi made a
soft cooing sound, as if made by a lovebird. At that signal, her forward team encroached on the Northern entrance, a walkway that ascended upwards to the first floor's patio verandah.
The stilted home's two corners, NorthWest and SouthEast, were then greeted by the appearance in the slatted light of the morning light coming through the surrounding trees. Dressed in a circular patterned
haori and the deep royal blue
hakama and white
yukata of a
journey woman of the Ketsurui Clan, one
samurai appeared with a hand on the worn cloth
fuchi hilt of her Zesuaium
katana to the SouthEast. To the NorthWest came a diminutive headband-adorned samurai of similar white and blue Ketsurui journey woman apparel but with no haori jacket. Hoshi noticed them from her position to the NorthEast and called out to the SOFT members.
"Engage! Systems online!" Hoshi ordered as she saw the AIES of all of her team pop to life and she began relaying information to Sangō's team in the kura storehouse while hers began moving in on the samurai appearing at the corners and entrance. The Chusa watched Sangō and the two infantry Neko attack the Northern samurai who wore a
furisode on her long body, which was accentuated by tall red
geta and white
tabi on her feet. Red maple leaves fell down the pure white of her kimono until they ended in a puddle of crimson tears at the base of the dress. Two katana and a
wakazashi dangled on either side of her obi belt while she took slow, steady steps until she was at the edge of the verandah, in front of the walkway Sangō and the two infantry Nekovalkyrja were storming.
The
infrared vision of the enemy
Eihei samurai would see past the volumetric displays on the team's suits and the samurai coming out of the Northern entrance swiped out a dangerous flying sword, which thrusted into the air in front of her. Muyomi and Lauren both had to step back, but Nimoru Sangō was struck by the first strike. Spraying out from a ten inch long slash,
hemosynth covered the bottom of Sangō's face as she gripped her own katana's hilt and jumped forward, drawing the blade moments before her opportunity to make contact with the white and red kimono-clad samurai.
Just after that, the SouthEastern samurai sprung from the diaojiaolou's verandah patio and stayed in the air, legs up and bent, as if to pounce, before plunging directly at the Shibui-clad Star Army of Yamatai technician below. Takedo raised her palm based weaponry and shot it out several times through her AIES and the samurai was struck by the plasma blasts. Junko could smell the searing
passive subdermal armor of the samurai's body. Depite that, the plasma burst's harm was mostly stopped by the
epidermis active armor of the resilient Eihei's body.
The samurai, undeterred from the blasts, crushed the
Minkan woman deliberately into the ground below her with the intent to strike her immediately afterwards by raising her back hand into a fist. Junko rolled with the momentum of the Eihei body coming towards her and was sure to gain some kind of small advantage on the Eihei. All she managed to do was move her upper body a half foot to her right while the lower half of the Eihei's body crushed into Takedo Junko's hips, pinning her lower legs. Instead of being attacked by the punch that had been directed at her, Junko was able to avoid that one assault, but the samurai was not done with her.
To the NorthWest of the house the samurai coming from the open shōji wall's door had once been training her attention on Reina Madoka, who was now flying up from her ground position at an incredible rate. Instead of engaging Madoka, the samurai ran to her right and towards the assailants of the Northern samurai wearing the ornate maple leaf furisode.
Madoka blasted though the exterior patio of the NorthWestern side as she gave chase to the samurai, creating several poles and panels of wood to burst as she made her way to the samurai that was now moving towards the Northern entrance.
As the samurai jumped from the verandah's edge towards the infantry Neko near the Northern entrance, Madoka thrusted through the wooden poles of the verandah and barreled through the air. She caught the samurai in her arms by adjusting her flight path twice while the samurai compensated for being pursued. The pair tumbled down to the ground below the walkway that led to the samurai's diaojiaolou house.
Hoshi communicated to Sangō's team and her own clerk back at the grain storehouse while the beginning of the fighting ensued.
"Targets engaged!" Taiyou Hoshi called out as she watched the samurai versus the Star Army of Yamatai personnel battle unfold. "Working on the three known rogue elements now."
Meanwhile, the samurai at the Northern entrance in the kimono raised a second sword from her obi belt and thrust the Zesuaium blade against Sangō's own. The Nitô Juni pushed deep into the strike of her katana before using her gravity manipulation to fly away from the other Nekovalkyrja's when the immense strength and pressure from the Eihei body of the samurai became too much for her NH-33 body to stand up against. Muyomi stepped forward and slashed up and at the samurai that Sangō was retreating from. The dark black hair of the samurai moved gracefully in the dull orange light of the morning in wintertime of the Caitel forest. Nearby the gurgling and flowing of the icy blue river tried to speak over the clash of blades and bodies against one another.
In the SouthWest corner of the small and stilted building near the Caitel river, Takedo Junko's last dodge seemed as if by coincidence or luck as she was now dealing with an unfriendly barrage of the Eihei's fists. Her helmet was struck by a denting blow once by the Eihei's right fist and then Junko was again punched on the sternum with the samurai's left hand. The sternum punch resulted in the Eihei lifting off of Junko's hips marginally and in that instant Junko used her wherewithal to thrust upwards, bucking the Eihei off of her.
The samurai that had been pounced by Madoka and had tumbled down to the ground with her was not to be deterred and was now spiring into the sky. The circular haori-clad samurai was now jetting up like one of the two-toned trees around her in a completely vertical path away from the infantry woman that had thought she had snared her. Madoka pounded her fist into the ground as she hopped off of the dirt below the stilted house's walkway and flew into the air after her.
The fight took to the air while those on the ground continued moving against one another. Hoshi watched through her own scans as well as through the
head-up display of every other member of the team. She moved from her position behind the NorthEastern slope and began following the path the infantry Nekovalkryja and Sangō originally took towards the stilted house. After cresting the hill where her heat signature was more apparent, the Northern samurai honed in on Hoshi's position and the Chusa felt her hemosynth run cold as she saw the night black eyes of the samurai watching her now slowed movements. Hoshi began to find a new position amongst the charcoal and white trunked trees. Hoshi watched the samurai had once again found a grip on her flying sword.
The moss underfoot slid out from around Hoshi's Shibui-clad suit's foot pads and she felt herself slipping. In a small moment, she could see the way things were going to go for her if she did nothing. Her body fell, almost cat-like, low to the ground and each of her digits of her left hand pressed against the verdant greenery of it while the rest of her body, save for her feet, were off of the ground. The flying sword swept through the air where she had been and then made a long, slow arc towards its owner, the white and crimson kimono-clad samurai.
The two infantry Neko that had been taking turns trying to hack at the samurai there were both split open in several places by now, but were still fighting. Blood-like hemosynth sprouted from their mouths and leaking wounds while Sangō put a hand up for them to stop. When Muyomi and Lauren backed away from the quick arm of the samurai, the Nitô Juni took over. Sangō hopped up, off of the walkway, which was the only ground they had managed to gain, and forced herself through the air in order to kick over the area where the samurai's white obi belt was centrally located. The samurai moved within an instant before Nimoru Sangō's attack could land and the samurai used the blunt end of her katana to follow up the attack on herself with a hard blow to the Nitô Juni's head. It was then that Sangō fell forward, into the creamy, nearly transparent shōji wall behind the black-haired samurai.
The two infantry Nekovalkyrja barraged the Eihei Nekovalkryja with another assault with their weapons held high, but in two swipes, Muyomi had lost an arm and shoulder and Lauren Strong was without a large part of her digital brain. Both stumbled and fell to the floor of the verandah, near Sangō. The samurai's blade's tip sat against the wood of the walkway and then she took a slow, careful step forward on her red geta and white tabi before she lifted her blade and pointed it deep into the forest, into Hoshi's position.
Junko, meanwhile, was beginning to lose consciousness at the hands of the samurai wearing the circular printed haori in the SouthEastern corner while Muyomi fell from the sky with a small and soft thud in the ground next to the stilted diaojiaolou. She cried out over comms as did Junko a moment later from the pain of the samurai's attacks.
Hoshi moved in quickly towards the black haired samurai in the Northern entrance and unsheathed her katana and then started moving her blade in a pattern that was difficult to follow. She wielded it against the samurai who had only recently changed her position. She was now in the middle of the walkway and Hoshi brought he blade down on her, only to be deflected by the samurai's upper block with her own katana. Hoshi noticed the tsuba's flying crane cutouts and the fine interlay work of the Ketsurui clan.
"Why..." Hoshi began over her helmet's speakers as she bounced away from the offensive maneuvers of the samurai. "Why would you create this chaos?"
"When the samurai were disbanded and asked to give up their way of life," the samurai spoke out to Hoshi, holding her sword at the ready as she went on, "we were not given any options but to be cut off from PANTHEON and torn from our bodies."
Hoshi asked, "Why have you wrought havoc on the community?"
"This is a protest against that. The clan knows that." She swiped at Hoshi then after her last statement and the Chusa hopped back once before slashing forward with a succession of blows not meant to make contact, only meant to push the samurai back.
"That was a massacre, not a protest," Hoshi said as she gained ground on the samurai before the Eihei gasped, having been struck.
Sangō had risen and slowly crept towards the Eihei before plunging her Zesuaium Sword into the back of the samurai's neck, down into the chest cavity. The Nitô Juni grunted as she did it and then made the same sound once more as she pulled the katana up and away from the black hair of the samurai. The
kaede leaf kimono of the samurai slumped down onto the edge of the verandah and pathway, then the samurai in her entirety tumbled down to the ground near the base of the stilted home.
Sangō moved to the SouthEastern side of the building as Hoshi began looking around at the team's HUD with more focus on them rather than the cleared Northern entrance. She caught sight of the samurai in the deep royal blue and white garb as she was bringing her sword above her right shoulder to impale it against Reina Madoka's splayed body.
Hoshi saw this scene to the North and flitted through the air while speaking out to Nimoru Sangō's team in the storehouse.
Hoshi said curtly, "One down."
The Chusa flew to the rogue samurai with all of her one hundred pounds of mass. The blade of the samurai's katana entered Madoka's vulnerable body. She had sliced through Madoka's navel to her collarbone before pulling her blade from the infantry Nekovalkyrja and had then turned her attention to Hoshi. The samurai moved marginally away from Hoshi's incoming attack, so the Chusa pounced against the ground and leaped through the air, back towards her intended target. The samurai turned towards her, but Hoshi was already blasting out her plasma weaponry while her forward foot aimed an attack at the samurai in the form of a kick that impacted her so much she was momentarily swept off of her feet.
When she had regained her footing once more, the samurai made a series of lunges towards her assailant. Hoshi managed to hop backwards five times before the samurai changed her lunging technique to favor a less offensive one and she dove backwards, waiting for Hoshi to follow.
Give chase the little Chusa did not. Instead, she lifted the knuckle of her index finger and shot out a laser, directly at the samurai's gripped hand on her hilt. The laser shot did nothing more than impair the samurai enough to loosen her grip on the katana, as if to drop it. It was at that moment that Hoshi rocketed forward, upturning grass and moss around her body as it displaced the air in the normally still and tranquil forest. The chunks of earth and terra splayed out around her as Hoshi brought the Star Army of Yamatai issued Zesuaium katana into the Eihei's gut, then hopped off of the ground and adjusted her body's position before being able to kick out and unhinge the samurai's body away from her as it began gushing hemosynth out of the belly's deep gash. She did a one-handed backflip away from the samurai as she sheathed her katana with her free hand.
Hoshi looked in on her head-up display to see that the medic had tag-teamed with Sangō to gain an upperhand on the samurai in that corner of the stilted house. Chusa Taiyou Hoshi then refocused on her own situation and powered through the wilderness of black and white trees and grassy green earth to the samurai as she then looked up to Hoshi. She jumped reflexively away and a shimmering of hemosynth propelled from her as she moved upwards, splattering Hoshi's helmet's transparent visor in a fine red mist. The small officer moved through the air, towards the Eihei.
Once close enough, she grabbed the Eihei's ankle and made to yank her down, though that was not the intent. The intent was to gain some kind of leverage to allow Hoshi to swing her lower body upwards and over her upper body so that her foot could make contact with the side of the Eihei's face. The samurai was slammed out of her flying position and crashed into the earth, throwing rocks and dirt about the lush ground as she did. Hoshi, again, rocketed forward and drove her own body into the samurai's. She could feel the pressure of the samurai's body under hers and Hoshi brought the katana from its sheath and drove it into the samurai one more time before the samurai used her energy manipulation to create a small pocket of gravitational enegy in front of her sternum and bounced it off of her own body in order to push Hoshi away. The Chusa was thrown backwards, into a tree. She fell down to the base of the trunk as a small exhalation of concern escaped Hoshi's lips.
The samurai shakily picked themselves up and knelt on their katana as they meandered towards Hoshi, who was picking herself up via gravity manipulation and looked as if her neck, shoulders, and elbows were all being pulled by strings. Her head rose once the samurai was done closing in and Hoshi spoke.
"You have no right to live," the Chusa of the Star Army of Yamatai said. "Consider this your punishment!"
Taiyou Hoshi then lunged through the air, only for the Eihei to sidestep the attack. Hoshi was prepared, though, and moved in behind the samurai and, much like she had seen Sangō do before, she aimed for the neck and swept at it and could feel the heavy resistance after she had made it through the passive layer of armor. She strained to slice through the epidermis armor of the Eihei's body, but pushed forward with all her effort. She continued pressing the blade further through the strike until the samurai's head had been lopped off and had fallen to the soft, lush ground of the forest.
Panting, Hoshi called out once more, "Two down." She looked down at the samurai's face in its final moments and saw it was one of a calm and resolute demeanor. Hemosynth soon stopped pouring from the head and Hoshi shook her head dismally, slouching a little in exhaustion.
"I could use you, Chusa," said Sangō in reply and Hoshi looked to her head-up display to see Sangō herself was laying against the ground with a missing leg. She also suffered from the blunt force trauma of a well placed series of kicks and energy manipulated punches from the circular haori-clad samurai in the SouthEastern corner of the stilted house.
It seemed she had been able to get the weapons off of the samurai, but they still continued to pulse out with intense pressure on Sango's body. Hoshi had to pick her way carefully through the forest as she flew from the area where she had only just slain the second samurai and made no long task of taking the attention of the jacket-wearing samurai away from Sangō and on to Hoshi, instead.
The woman thrusted a ball of energy towards Taiyou Hoshi as she charged towards the Chusa. There was little the two of them could do besides impact in a clash of the energy ball that the Eihei extended from her body, working against the gravity around her body to push Hoshi's strike of her katana away from her. Hoshi's face cringed as she felt the katana being pushed away from the samurai and towards herself. She huffed out and gritted her teeth then pushed herself up in the middle, as if pulled from the sky, while her shoulders and arms pressed down. She pushed against the ball of energy being manipulated between the samurai and herself and, soon, had punctured through the torso of the Eihei by a few inches. Hoshi almost didn't have the strength left to push it further.
The samurai clutched the sword at her breast with one hand and hemosynth seeped from the gash. She looked up to Hoshi with a lack of emotion in her sienna eyes. Hoshi could tell, she was ready.
The sky blue and white haired Nekovalkyrja took a step back and, a moment later, the samurai re-positioned her grip on the blade of the katana. Soon, her hands were being sliced through while she pushed the blade deep into her own torso, then slid it horizontally, opening up the cavern of her organs. Her eyes were distant, still emotionless, as she stared at nothingness. A spray of hemosynth splayed out from the opening and soaked the white yukata and then her hakama.
When the samurai fell to her knees, Hoshi gripped the hilt of the katana and pulled it from the body of the Eihei before she let her fall to the ground with a slow descending motion.
Hoshi touched her hand to Sangō's collarbone and trailed her finger towards her shoulder and off her body. It seemed Sangō had lapsed into an unconscious state. Hoshi picked herself up slowly and looked at her team around her. Seeing the dead and broken bodies of everyone save for herself was gut-wrenching. She wished she could administer aid where she could, but the SOFT members, all six of them save for Hoshi, were no longer with the living.
Hoshi comm'd in to Sangō's team and her clerk to tell them of the situation.
"All targets have been eliminated," Hoshi said. There was the stink of the open wounds, burnt layers of flesh, and broken bodies. Hoshi heard the storehouse team's chatter as if from a fishbowl while she laid Sangō down and simply added to her previous statement.
Hoshi's voice was cold and distant, "Ready for extraction."