Horizon:Volume 9B Chapter 40

Chapter 40: Dead One at the Beheading

This isn’t

Your usual dead person

Point Allocation (Used to It)

●

Ootani realized he had witnessed an inordinate number of decapitations.

…Yes, because Sakon-kun died a lot back at Aki.

He had nearly died a lot too, but Sakon was exceptional because she really did die. He had his pride as a data entity, but if he died, he really would die. A shame, really.

The same thing happened here. Just as Niwa dashed by, Sakon’s head flew from her shoulders.

Ootani had seen basically the same thing several times while they fought the Terrestrial Dragons.

Kasuya had always had a reaction at Aki. At first she had asked “Are you alright?”. Around midway through, she had shouted “Not again!”. By the end, she had settled on a simple “Oh, my!” That seemed like a rather subdued reaction to seeing someone’s head lopped off, but people could get used to just about anything.

Ootani had a clearly-defined role during that fight, so when Sakon died, he had called out to let them know he had filled in the hole in their formation. Usually, “That’s all right!” or “I’ve got you!” Neither one seemed all that great in retrospect. Meanwhile, Hirano had always reacted really strongly. At first, “Eek! That was a real neck-slicer!” And later on, “Okay! Nice death-hustle!” She did seem to be making up new words as she went, but she may have been the most normal one among them.

Anyway, the same situation was playing out now.

Onitakemaru immediately released the mobile shell’s neck joint. When Sakon’s head first flew off, it hadn’t yet turned to the bloody mist that allowed it to regenerate, so her eyes briefly met Ootani’s. He clearly read the words “I died” on her lips, but he chose to pretend he hadn’t seen that.

Soon thereafter, her head turned to bloody mist and returned to her body. And her long arm reached out to catch Onitakemaru’s helmet with a wooden sword.

She did it all instantly.

Behind him, Ootani heard the sound of scraping dirt stretching out like something licking across the ground.

Niwa was adjusting her posture. And Sakon turned to face her.

“Whoa, watch out,” said Sakon just before a second decapitation.

Niwa had rushed in and attacked just as she made her turn.

…That was fast!

At the same time, Ootani sensed danger.

Could Sakon not keep up with Niwa?

●

Niwa’s previous attack told her who she was up against here.

…A regenerator!

She had heard of research into transformation powers as a way to protect former M.H.R.R. Emperor Rudolf II and the rest of the imperial family.

And that this girl had been one of the test subjects for a few of those abilities.

Her greatest ability was her regeneration. Nothing could kill her.

The same was true of Niwa right now.

In that case, Niwa knew just how to defeat her.

How did you defeat someone who wouldn’t die no matter how many times you cut them and pierced them?

The answer was simple.

“You sew them up.”

She used cloths as a weapon. When swinging what looked like decorations, her dance spell could adjust their hardness and flow. The cloths could represent winds, serpents, and even the paths of celestial bodies, but by combining several of them and gripping them with her hand or foot…

…They can act as a blade!

Before, the earth dragon had acted as her weapon.

But with it gone, she had to acquire a different weapon.

In the flow of her dance, she drew the cloth sword and continued the dance.

The sword dance had its origins in Mlasi lands. Combining different dance forms into a single dance was a lot like combining different martial forms into a single technique.

So she danced the sword dance with no issue.

Her feet rubbed across the dirt below as she changed direction. She leaned her body over and kept her momentum intact as she converted her turn into a dash. She struck at Sakon’s right arm as the girl tried to swing it.

Their height difference was striking as she passed by.

Sakon was so tall that Niwa had to constantly look up at her.

And instead of sending her blade out ahead, she had to raise it and strike upwards.

But her sword reached. The belly of the blade struck below the armor on Sakon’s right armpit.

“Kohime!”

Too late. The mobile shell sensed danger and purged that armor joint.

And the blade entered through the gap.

The muscles of the shoulder had bundles of tendons wrapping around and stacking on top of each. But the armpit had a hole. So once in there, Niwa only had to move her blade along the seam between muscles.

“…!”

She sliced through.

The initial weight on the blade vanished and the tip of the blade shot out.

The severed right arm soared through the moonlight.

And as Niwa passed by, she looked back and spun around.

…Here she comes!

Niwa had guessed right.

Sakon jabbed her left wooden sword behind her where she couldn’t see. As a regenerator, she showed no shock over losing a limb.

That body part was no more than a body part, so she launched a counterattack even as she took a serious injury.

Her surprising accuracy had to be the result of some excellent training.

But it wasn’t enough.

Niwa dodged the wooden sword directed toward her face and pierced her cloth blade into Sakon’s left upper arm.

She pierced it in from the outer side inward.

The cloth sword sliced through muscle and struck bone. But it didn’t cut the bone. Doing that would trigger regeneration, possibly of the entire arm.

That wasn’t what Niwa wanted. Instead, she sent the blade tip into the left side of Sakon’s back while it still skewered the left arm.

The mobile shell had armor, but it was hard to design fully sealed armor when it was primarily used for close-quarters combat.

So the cloth blade had plenty of gaps to slip through.

It entered one.

Niwa aimed for the space below Sakon’s shoulder blade. There was a gap there so the joint could rotate the arm around to the back. Thanks to Sakon’s height, Niwa could easily see that gap from below.

To build up momentum, Niwa used a backhand grip on the blade and spun herself around as she made the jab.

Dirt flew into the air as the attack landed.

The blade smoothly passed into Sakon’s side and between her ribs.

Like stabbing a kitchen knife tip first into meat, there was some resistance and Niwa thought “young skin is so nice!” as she pushed it on through.

She pierced the blade forward.

Slicing the lung felt a lot like crushing small fish eggs. What should I have for dinner tonight?

After sensing the cloth sword had found its mark, Niwa moved away. She continued her spin as she put three steps’ worth of space between them.

Sakon was attempting to turn toward her.

But her left arm was currently pinned to her back. She tried to move it, but the cloth was no longer a sword. It was cloth and created a lot of friction. It was jammed into her flesh and trying to yank it out was like filing down her nerves.

That must hurt like hell. I definitely wouldn’t want to do it. Come to think of it, they said in elementary school that I go out of my way to do to others what I wouldn’t want done to me.

“Ah!” shouted Sakon.

She could regenerate, but supposedly she did feel pain. That had to hurt. A lot. But she still tried to force her arm to move. Is she crazy?

And Sakon’s right arm had recovered.

The cloth had pierced out the front of her body, so it would be hanging down inside her chest armor. She couldn’t pull it out that way. The only way would be to pull it out from her left shoulder or back.

So Sakon reached her recovered right arm around to her back. But…

…That was a mistake!

Niwa was about to show her why.

She calmed the part of her mind telling her to hurry and directed the acceleration of her turn into her feet.

She had the speed, so there was only one thing left to do. Instead of just using that speed, she passed by Sakon and spun toward the right side of the girl’s back.

The long right arm was searching her back for the pinned left arm.

Niwa pierced that right arm with another cloth sword.

…This is why!

Just like with the left arm, the blade entered the gap below the shoulder blade armor, sliced the lung, and exited from the chest.

That pinned both of Sakon’s arms. As a finishing touch, Niwa tied both arms together with another cloth.

This wasn’t enough to trigger regeneration.

And she couldn’t move. So…

“It’s over!”

Niwa delivered the finishing blow.

She aimed for a gap in the back of the armor to pierce Sakon from the left side of her back and out the front.

The blade stabbed right through the heart.

●

Sakon was in a lot of pain.

During her time in the castle used as a lab, she had come up with her own unit for measuring pain: how many times better would be to die? This one was pretty bad, so death would be 5 times better.

Her arms were pinned to her back with cloths that sliced through both her lungs and both sides of her chest and she had a ribbon tied on her back.

On top of that, her heart had been stabbed from behind.

Niwa had done quite a number on her.

Especially because she couldn’t regenerate this away.

In her case, the destruction of a vital organ like the heart would trigger a regeneration.

But if it could still function or if something remained stabbed through it, it would instead be transformed to a shape that avoided the obstacle.

Musashi’s 5th Special Duty Officer had taken advantage of that once.

She had stabbed right through Sakon’s throat, but because her respiratory system had still been functioning, her body had created a hole in her throat to avoid the blade.

Niwa’s heart stab was a more advanced version of that.

The stab through the heart had been exceptionally sharp and the cloth had blocked up the hole to stop the bleeding afterwards, so her body must have decided it was a foreign object.

Her heart was currently creating an outer wall around the cloth, essentially creating a tunnel through itself.

This was being avoided by transformation rather than regeneration.

This would of course hinder her heart’s functionality.

The altered shape would lead to poor circulation.

But if the circulation still functioned at all, her body would accept it. When the burdens piled up too much for her body to last, she knew it would trigger a full body regeneration, but…

…How long will that take!?

And the damage to her lungs was pretty bad too. Because it kept her from breathing. The cloths had passed horizontally through her lungs, pinning them to her back and chest, keeping her from breathing properly.

She tried her best to suck in air, but…

“Kah, koh, kee.”

She made weird noises. Which is really lame.

“Are ‘kuh’ and ‘keh’ next!?” asked little Ootani down at her feet.

I will remember you turned my suffering into a weird gojuon joke.

But even more suffering hit her suddenly.

“Kh.”

Her heart was beating in a distorted way.

That’s not good. Why isn’t it good? Because I’m not feeling any definite pain. Dying would be better, but that’s why I can’t die. It’s all come to a stop just before death.

“Kwah!”

Instead of death, the cloths inserted into her brought a simple burden on her body. They created the maximum amount of suffering without making her body remake itself.

Anything related to her heart had always been a weak point for her. Even though she liked eating animal hearts at yakiniku places.

…Because it’s yummy.

But this isn’t, she reminded herself as pain, or an itchy heat, spread across her body. Her distorted heart was creating a rhythm separated from her pulse and breathing.

Her heart had been crushed and stopped a few times during the regeneration experiments and this was on the same level as that.

She remembered what the doctor in charge had said back then: “Okay, raise your hand if this hurts. ...Oh, wow. I didn’t think you could still move like this!”

Thinking back, that had been an awful thing to say, but it had hurt too bad for her to notice at the time.

An unbearable ache covered her entire body. She hadn’t felt this in so long.

“Kh!”

She got me, she thought.

I can’t believe it, she added, wondering what she should do when she toppled over.

“Kohime!”

An incredibly loud voice rang in her ears.

“You’re going to fall, dammit!!”

I know thaaaat!

●

Niwa couldn’t believe her eyes.

The girl with the slashed lungs and pierced heart was about to fall over when…

“Oh.”

She stumbled forward a bit instead. And…

“Oh, oh, oh, oh.”

“Don’t hop!”

After her helmet shouted so loud even Niwa could hear it, the girl tensed her body a bit to stand tall. And…

“There!”

That word sent a lot of blood spilling from her mouth. It was coming up from her lungs. Her lungs had to essentially be sacks of blood right now. But she still managed to speak, sounding like she was pushing water bubbles out from her throat.

“Po! Ponitakeparu-tan! P-Pi pid it!”

“Huh!? I can’t understand you!”

“Pidiot, pidiot!”

“Damn you!”

This was incredible, in a way. Nevertheless, she couldn’t last long like this. But just out of curiosity…

“Um, how can you still move? That has to be excruciating.”

“Huh!? Are you stupid!?”

…Oh, well, I never thought I was particularly smart, if that’s what you mean…

That helmet was older than Niwa, but it was still a bit of a shock to be asked that so directly. We artistic types are sensitive, you know? Can’t that shogun take that into account?

But the helmet spoke quite clearly.

“You fool! Kohime has a lot more experience in dying!”

●

Onitakemaru recalled something from quite a while ago.

“Listen up!”

I know all about her.

“Kohime is lazy! So…”

Yes, that’s right. She’s always been like this.

“She has a bad habit of giving up or admitting defeat before she can die!”

I remember back when she would apologize before she died. But not anymore.

“Now she can die! Before she loses or gives up! If death leaves nothing behind, then how can we afford to lose or give up either!? So the only remaining option is victory! Because…

Because…

“If Kohime gets lazy again, I’ll give her a talking to!”

●

This is absurd, thought Niwa.

What could this mobile shell’s words do to change anything? After all…

“That won’t work. I mean, her breathing and pulse are all out of whack, so she’s lost all her strength.”

She knew exactly what was going to happen.

“From what I’ve seen of Rudolf II’s records, if his respiratory system is obstructed and he suffocates, his body either creates a windpipe somewhere or gathers oxygen in his body. But what happens if a ‘foreign object’ is inserted into his respiratory or circulatory systems and he can’t get enough oxygen or blood? And I mean if the damage isn’t enough to trigger a regeneration.”

There was only one answer.

“Take a rest, born immortal. Life must be agony for the undying.”

After that, the tall girl fell to her knees.

For just a moment, her bloodshot eyes turned toward Niwa. But…

“Kohime!”

The mobile shell’s voice failed to reach her and she collapsed.

The pull of her pinned arms’ weight made her fall backwards.

●

Niwa took a breath.

And she slowly spun around in her follow-through pose.

She had defeated her current greatest enemy.

“Ha.”

They had claimed to have a plan to use against her, but she had defeated them before they could use it.

Of course, Sakon would eventually regenerate. The growing burden on her body grew would trigger a full reset.

...But who knows how long that will take.

It wouldn’t be right away. What little Niwa knew was enough to know that.

She felt comfortable declaring victory here.

But something else bothered her.

“Ootani,” she called and there he was. But not close by.

He was running – fleeing.

Even in the light of the full moons, his glowing body was easy to spot.

The Mouse-like data entity was running desperately toward the fortress wall of ships.

The lower pathway of the southern gate ship remained open. Kiyomasa’s team had already entered through there and appeared to be engaged in battle. Was Ootani on his way to inform them of the danger? Or was he just afraid of what might happen to him?

“Hey, wait.”

Niwa had no intention of harming him at this point. She had defeated her greatest enemy. Even if he was a virus data entity, he couldn’t put up much of a fight while that small.

The only possible threat there was if he acted as a virus to take control of a warship or some other device. She needed to capture him and prevent him from causing any trouble.

So she jogged toward him.

“Hey, come here. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Huh!? Don’t lie to me, old hag!”

Now she was going to hurt him. Yes, quite directly.

She dashed toward him. With the lightning beast and the phoenix supporting her, she caught up to him in no time.

And when she crouched to scoop him up…

“–––––”

She saw something odd on the ground.

The moonlight cast her shadow on the burnt ground.

She was crouching to grab Ootani, yet her shadow remained standing.

Was her shadow not following her movements? No, that wasn’t it.

…Is someone standing behind me!?

There was only one person it could be: Sakon.

But it couldn’t be Sakon. Her arms were bound and her respiratory and circulatory systems had been partially incapacitated. While her mobile shell had put on a strong front, she had only just collapsed, hadn’t she?

…So that shadow can’t be there!

Niwa took a large step to the left and spun around to see who was there.

A tall figure stood in the light of the full moons.

It was Sakon.

She was on her feet, albeit weakly.

Niwa could see Sakon’s bound arms had been roughly torn free. The cloth piercing her arms had been torn and it blew in the wind where it dangled out of her back.

Blood dripped from all over her upper body, scattering into the wind where it disappeared.

Sakon was simply standing there, not moving at all. However…

“How did you free your arms!?”

●

Sakon didn’t understand.

She felt like she had just been sleeping. In fact, she had been. Soundly.

However, this awakening was far from a pleasant one.

She didn’t know why anyone would want to do this, but her arms had been pierced by cloths. She had thought they were held in place with belts at first, which had led her to assume she had fallen victim to someone with a weird fetish, but those were cloths. Thank goodness.

The cloths were also embedded into her back. And the front of her chest.

How does that work? she wondered, but…

“Oh.”

She hadn’t fully woken yet, but two parts of her were doing a lot better than before she went to sleep.

Namely, her lungs and her heart.

She remembered having trouble breathing before sleeping. She also remembered something wrong with her pulse. She remembered suffering from a sensation like a great heat filling her until she thought her body would burst, but that never happening.

How long had it been since she’d tested what happened when her heart was destroyed or her lungs were crushed?

It was so painful. But at least…

…It keeps oxygen from reaching my brain, so I pass out.

Fainting actually felt kind of nice. Addictively so.

…It’s been so long since I passed out like that.

It had happened all the time back at the lab, so this reminded her of old times. And if it reminded her of that, the suffering wasn’t all that bad. So…

“Nh.”

She woke up.

●

“Hot!”

Niwa heard Sakon’s voice.

…She woke up!?

Sakon reacted like all her body’s senses had suddenly returned to her. Even her fingers stiffened from the cloths piercing her arms, but…

“Ow, ow, ow, ow!”

She reached behind her back and pulled the cloths out.

She extracted two cloths stained dark red. But they were shorter than the ones that had been driven into her back. They had been roughly torn apart, including the pieces remaining in her arms.

And something else fell to the ground.

It fell from the center of back to the ground between her legs. It had the silhouette of a thick blade.

It was a wooden sword.

Why had it fallen from her back? And why now? Niwa instantly realized that was the trick. In other words…

“Did you fall on top of your sword while it was sticking blade up so it would split your own heart!?”

●

Sakon heard Niwa’s shout as she threw away the cloths she had pulled from her back.

…On top of...my sword?

What are you talking about?

No, she had noticed one of her swords fall away when she pulled the cloths out of her back.

So had that been embedded in her back too?

…Huh?

She had armor on her back. It was currently closed up, but…

“Onitakemaru-san, are you up to something again?”

“Why would you phrase it that way!?”

Oh, I get it. I think I know what it probably maybe was.

She recalled what had happened to her. Her heart had been sewn in place from the front and back and her lungs had been sliced.

But now only the cloths doing the sewing remained. Her lungs and heart had regenerated to refresh things.

And if her her back armor had temporarily opened, there was only one explanation.

Onitakemaru had guided her so she would fall on top of the wooden sword placed on the ground.

Of course, Onitakemaru could only provide power assistance. He couldn’t actively move her. Even his support during battle was only guidance – he couldn’t force her to move. All her movements had to start with her.

But he could also assist movements like falling to her knees or falling over.

So in that brief moment, he had made his move.

During the battle, he had noted the position of the wooden sword she had dropped when her arm was caught, and he had “assisted” her movement.

He couldn’t have done that on his own. The fallen sword landing with the blade directed upwards would have been too much of a coincidence.

It must have been Ootani.

She didn’t know if he had done it so she could collect it or if he had predicted this, but he had placed the sword like that.

Ootani was currently near Niwa.

If Niwa had been chasing after him, then he had been…

…Distracting her.

So she wouldn’t notice Sakon falling and regenerating. And now that Sakon was back on her feet and awake…

‘You need to stop losing yourself in your thoughts!” said Niwa, immediately lopping off Sakon’s head.

●

Ootani saw Sakon’s head leave her shoulders again.

…Sakon-kun dies an awful lot.

This was the same as before.

But what happened next differed.

Sakon didn’t fight it.

…Yes.

During the training camp at Aki, Kasuya had started off saying “Are you alright?”, but by the end she had been saying “Oh, my!”

Because at first, Sakon had resisted her death. She had worked to hold her ground or act as a barrier even in death.

Which was why Kasuya had been so worried.

But by the end, that had changed.

Onitakemaru had probably given her some advice. Probably that resisting her death made it harder.

Sakon had protested at first, but she had eventually figured out what he had meant.

And she had proven it here.

What happened when Sakon was beheaded or had an arm or her entire upper body chopped off?

The severed part would turn to bloody mist and return to the rest of her.

So when she resisted, the “rest of her” would end up farther away from the severed part.

But what happened if she didn’t resist and just accepted it?

Then the “rest of her” would collapse or be thrown in the same direction as the severed part.

Both parts would end up close together. So…

“It speeds up her regeneration a little!”

Sakon hadn’t been ready the first time because it had caught her by surprise and hadn’t been against a Terrestrial Dragon.

But not this time.

Like Onitakemaru had said, she had “a lot more experience in dying”.

Even how she died was a part of her skill.

So Ootani looked to Sakon’s severed head lying next to Niwa. Only the stump of the neck turned to bloody mist as she instantly regenerated.

And if she didn’t try to fight the cutting action…

“Kohime!”

Sakon followed Niwa’s movement.

“Die well!”

That reprimand pushed Sakon to run.

Divinely-imbued Niwa made her next attack.

Back to Chapter 39

Return to Main Page

Forward to Chapter 41