Horizon:Volume 9A Chapter 20

Chapter 20: Scattered Reporters

Activate shake reduction

Confirm picture tuning

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No one else in the frame

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Point Allocation (You Forgot to Hit Record-cord-cord)

●

The destruction began instantly.

The two ships forming the Sakuma Fleet’s vanguard were immediately reduced not just to rubble but to metal dust.

Those lead ships, which had already been evacuated on Sakuma’s command, were obliterated by the force of the artillery coming from all sides, combined with the shockwaves of those blasts and…

“Explosion spells. Shaja.”

An external broadcast sounded from the flying threat.

Red flowers blossomed in the night sky above the snowy forest. It began with just two ships. And…

“Nothing is obstructing the Azuchi’s progress. Continue onward. Attack swift and strong. Enemy fleet in our path, please be on your guard. The Azuchi is in a hurry to travel the unlimited expanse of the sky. Shaja.”

True to those words, there was nothing in the Azuchi’s way.

What had been there was now gone.

The Azuchi’s six ships had separated and fired from their positions above, to the sides, and below. The main cannon blasts rumbled out like the ringing of great bells, punching through defense barriers, piercing and tearing armor, and devastating the ship beyond.

The concepts of defense, armor, metal, and size no longer mattered. In the face of such great destruction, the enemy fleet could only scatter in the wind.

Much like a vegetable on the cutting board being sliced from one end to the other, the Sakuma Fleet was rapidly crushed from one end to the other.

“Shaja.”

The Azuchi spoke via its external broadcast.

“A unified shaja. A unanimous shaja. A shaja from our six ships.”

The destruction showed no sign of slowing. In fact, it sped up.

“This is the Azuchi’s privet for the night. I hope you enjoy it. Shaja.”

●

While the Azuchi began its artillery bombardment, preparations for their next move were already underway within the ships.

At the power management system that functioned as the Azuchi’s core, requests from the power system and command system were piling up.

“But letting the power fluctuate too much is bad for the thrusters and conduits.”

Hirano was controlling several management systems at once. The largest was the management lernen figur for the power peak line which was enlarged and linked with everyone else’s. As time passed, the available power was displayed as a bar graph and the bars would change size based on the requests coming in and as they either provided support or canceled power to one system to reroute it where it was needed more.

When the bar briefly dropped too far, she would bring back support supplied at another time or, if a specific factor was drawing too much power, either find a fix for that factor or delay sending power to that factor.

But none of these were isolated issues. They were all complexly entangled with other issues. Trying to delay sending power to one factor would mean delaying other issues as well, which could cause problems.

That was especially true with all the artillery fire going on. The fire control system required a fixed amount of power, but given the maneuvering the Azuchi would have to complete soon, she wanted to avoid having a constant drain on the power like that.

Furthermore, if the fluctuation of power was too great, it would reduce the force of the power system and recovering from that could be a challenge.

You couldn’t shift up a gear right away.

That left her struggling to solve a constantly changing puzzle, but…

…The thrusters aren’t losing power as much as I expected.

Hirano could claim it was her team’s skill at power management, but she knew it was thanks to Ikeda’s work repairing the thrusters. She opened another lernen figur.

“We should send a divine mail to thank Ikeda Terumasa-kun. He did a good job and submitting our thanks will help increase our overall divine protection.”

When she directed the lernen figur toward the sweaty shrine maidens with rolled up sleeves, they quickly began fixing their hair.

●

Standing below the stars, Ikeda checked and found the Battle of Shizugatake had already begun.

He was working in a jinmaku near Mikawa Bay. Because…

…Summer break is over, but the academy still hasn’t told me to come back.

In fact, the academy had told him not to come back until he had finished his work.

He couldn’t really blame them. He had inherited his name despite not having any real skills. A major nation had given him a job as a name inheritor, so he knew the academy would want to prioritize that over his school activities.

“In elementary school, an endless summer break was the kind of thing I dreamed about.”

But now that he was living that dream, he found he did kind of want to return to the familiar environment of the academy. He was also self-consciously aware that he didn’t like being removed from the category of “normal”.

…But you could say the same thing about Asano, Nabeshima, and Kani.

“And there’s that bastard Nagaoka who went to the summer ImMoral manga and bought gold disks with his busty wife!”

He had seen that on the divine network news. Every nation was interested the actions of each other’s name inheritors, so you could find articles on them if you looked. Since Nagaoka and the Swedish Chancelor had gotten together at the Battle of Nördlingen just before the break, there had been several articles about them during the break. The first few Ikeda read, he had managed to keep a mature attitude: “They’re just making stuff up, aren’t they? Nagaoka must hate these.” But when he saw an article titled “Hashiba’s Ikeda Team plays with Nagoya cochin all day. Are they alright? A tour of the best foods in destroyed Mikawa☆”, his reaction changed: Has the entire world’s press turned against me? We are not here to shore up Hashiba’s food reserves! My team members are getting better at managing the farm, though! And their schedule was entirely based on looking after the cochin now, so while everyone used to stay up with him when he worked through the night, he now only had the night guards for company. Well, them and Osakabe-hime.

“Teru-Teru-ru-ru-ru? What are you doing-ing-ing-ing?”

“I’m restarting the salvaged automata. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’ve gotten this far.”

A few automata were lined up on the table in front of him.

They were originally Houjou models, but they had been heavily modified in Mikawa. He had assumed that was so they could function in New Nagoya Castle, but he found they were actually made to perform a lot of everyday tasks instead. He had trouble getting a read on Lord Motonobu’s character.

But he had also recovered some of New Nagoya Castle’s wreckage from the bottom of the ocean.

“I found some automaton repair data in their few remaining memory units and record banks.”

“What are you going to do-do-do-do?”

“Restart them. I already said that.”

If he got the process wrong, he could damage the automata. He didn’t like that idea because it felt like killing someone, but doing this right was part of his job. If this went well, would he get to go home sooner or would they make him stay here longer? He wasn’t sure.

“I have more work than I thought and they keep giving me more,” he sighed.

“Teru-Teru-Teru. Mail-ail-ail.”

“Mail? From who? Asano or Nabeshima?”

I could be in trouble if it’s from Kani, he thought. But…

“The Azuchi!? Aren’t they doing Shizugatake right now!?”

●

“Oh, I got through! This is the Azuchi’s engine division ether management team. Ikeda-kun? When you repaired our thrusters, did you use Shirasagi Castle tech by any chance?”

Hirano addressed her question to the lernen figur showing a boy illuminated by a faint light with night scenery behind him. He frantically bowed as he responded.

“Oh, testament! I got Osakabe-hime’s help, so we used a lot of that!”

“I helped-elped-elped? Teru-Teru is troubled-oubled.”

The other shrine maidens cried out. They were all students, but they were currently on the job. Some quickly hid behind the equipment and others nonchalantly did up their hair while continuing to work. The older veteran shrine maidens saved the image, and…

“Ho ho ho. I feel young again.”

“Oh, dear. I ran a deeper search and found his address.”

Are they planning to stalk him? They sound young enough as it is. But for Hirano…

…So it did come from the Shirasagi Castle.

Shirasagi Castle worshiped Osakabe-hime. If she helped repair the Azuchi, then the Azuchi would automatically receive her divine protection. But that was external support, so…

“Excuse me, but I will submit this to you under the name Shogyobu Daimyojin, okay?”

●

Ikeda realized Osakabe-hime had suddenly gotten up.

What is this? he wondered as a lernen figur appeared over her head. It was labeled Shogyobu Daimyojin and the text <Reset: P.A. Oda Internal: Local: Unrestricted Movement: Manager Ikeda Terumasa: Approved> scrolled across it. That was when he realized it was resetting Osakabe-hime’s privileges within P.A. Oda.

…I did pick her up as a stray, which put her in a restricted state.

He didn’t know much about shrine stuff and he had planned to submit to have her registered as an OS once the Shirasagi Castle was fully repaired, but…

“Teru-ru-ru-ru? This-this-this.”

“Um, yeah. An important person is saying you’re necessary.”

That was actually because she had helped repair the Azuchi.

When repairing the Azuchi, the OS adjustments had been a lot easier when using programs taken from the Shirasagi Castle, so he had used quite a few of those. They seemed to be working well, but the Tsurugi Shrine managers probably wanted to purify all the data to use Tsurugi Shrine divine protections instead.

“So to thank you for everything you have done, the entire Azuchi power management team would like to say- oops.”

Hirano was interrupted by the entire screen shaking. The Azuchi had accelerated.

●

“Oops,” said Hirano and braced her feet against the shaking from the acceleration. She nearly lost the lernen figur linked to Ikeda, so she grabbed it and pulled it close. She took a look around to see the others similarly bracing their feet or holding onto the railings to stay in place.

“Now, we’re really flying!” said one of the older shrine maidens. “It was just like this when we entered Kantou!”

Those were the words of someone who had been here longer than Hirano and had been a shrine maiden longer too. Hirano quickly gave her instructions.

“Everyone, prepare for acceleration!”

Tension instantly ran through the space.

●

Tension ran through Ikeda.

Yes, the footage from the Azuchi was concerning.

Hirano had pulled her lernen figur in close to her, providing him with footage he could only call…

…Enormous!

Uh, oh. Will I have time to open a console and record this? Please have time. Yes! I made it! Wait, it’s still happening! In fact, they’re filling the screen now!

Oh, thank god I was exiled to Mikawa. Well, not that I was actually exiled.

“Ikeda-kun? We’re a little busy right now. Is that alright?”

“Testament! This is perfectly alright! Nothing has ever been more alright! Thank you! Thank you so much!”

For now, he accessed the P.A. Oda Religious Committee page, found the Tsurugi Shrine at the top of their shrine list, repeatedly made 3000 yen offerings, and drew plenty of Shinto Surprise cards.

He heard some quiet laughter and an alarm coming from the Azuchi.

“Anyway, until we meet again.”

The divine transmission ended. The screen went black and Ikeda bowed his head and clasped his hands in prayer. He ended the recording and prayed some more. He looked to the side and found Osakabe-hime was mimicking him. But isn’t she supposed to be on the receiving end of prayers? Anyway…

“Sounds like the Azuchi is having a rough time.

“Can they win-win-win?”

“Hmm, in their position, it’s not so much about winning.” He copied the recorded data and saved the copy as a backup. “Whichever side wins or loses, both sides are winning and losing. Hashiba and Shibata are fighting a civil war here.”

This was part of his job too. He needed to…

“I want to restart these automata and, if possible, ask them what happened at Mikawa.”

This job came from Takenaka of Hashiba.

He honestly didn’t know anything about the Battle of Mikawa, Lord Motonobu, or New Nagoya Castle. He thought Takenaka and her group would know more than him, but…

…What is this about?

Was there something they still didn’t know and wanted to find out?

“Ah,” said Osakabe-hime, looking north while glowing faintly from her hair.

A red light shot from Mikawa Bay and scattered into the north, but…

“There was-was-was artillery-ry-ry-ry.”

Was she receiving feedback from the Azuchi?

“It hit-it-it-it,” she said.

Fierce fighting was underway in the northern sky. If Hirano’s thanks had been legitimate…

“Has the Azuchi started firing!?”

●

Niwa saw unilateral destruction as a barrage of lights soared through the sky.

…Wow.

The Azuchi vs. Sakuma Fleet battle had developed into a powerful hammering.

The Azuchi had three-dimensionally arranged its ships around the long line of the Sakuma Fleet and charged in.

The 1st central ship flew backwards and upside down up above and the 2nd central ship flew below to attack from both vertical sides. Then the four port and starboard ships were all concentrating the fire on the enemy and pummeling them.

The attacks tore into them.

The Sakuma Fleet’s tightly-packed line formation proved to be a devastating mistake. They were only able to face the Azuchi’s three-dimensional formation with two ships at a time. And…

”Niwa-sama! The Azuchi’s rate of fire is increasing!”

Niwa could tell. The Sakuma Fleet’s vanguard couldn’t form a wall against the Azuchi’s main cannons. And since the port and starboard ships would be overkill against just two ships, they began firing on the ships further back.

Something exploded.

Some of the Azuchi’s shells must have included explosion spells.

“They’re firing penetrative physical shells to break through the armor and following that up with explosion spell shells to bring the ships down quick.”

It was a common tactic in fleet battles. Physical shells could penetrate. Spell shells covered a wide area. So after smashing through the enemy’s armor, you sent spell shells through the hole. And that destroyed the enemy from within.

Or if the armor was too tough for that, spell shells would be sent in first to apply light damage over a wide area and that softened up the armor enough for the physical shells to cause real damage.

Which came first changed, but they were always used in conjunction.

But, thought Niwa.

“Those armor-piercing shells can only break through so reliably at night because of the Azuchi’s high level of firing control.”

The progress of destruction was keeping up with the Azuchi’s speed. The continuous metallic sounds and explosive booms reached Niwa, sounding more like the air itself being shredded.

“Niwa-sama! Is Sakuma-sama not going to ram the Azuchi’s 2nd central ship with her fleet!?”

“Further gathering her fleet for that would only get them destroyed before they could reach that ship. She has an eye for these things, so she knows that. Bringing down the enemy would require a dense formation, but that would only let the Azuchi concentrate their fire more.”

The attacks from the sides were especially devastating.

The Azuchi’s main cannons were arranged lengthwise along its deck, so the ships directly above and below the Sakuma Fleet had difficulty getting a good angle of fire.

But not so for the ships to port and starboard. Their main cannons – including the aft ones – only had to turn to the side and fire at will. If the Sakuma Fleet all descended at once, they would be targeted by the port and starboard ships first.

So Sakuma had chosen a different tactic.

“She’s scattering her fleet. Not to run away, but to ‘retreat and win’. That sends all the ships on their own courses, making them harder to predict. Which means the Azuchi will have a hard time telling which ships are on a course that can hit them.”

So how would she describe this situation?

“Sakuma-san hasn’t given up yet!”

●

Takenaka looked up and checked the current status.

This ship was apparently flying upside-down. She could hear constant artillery fire, the dining hall shook around her, and when she looked out the window she could see flames and ether light coming from overhead, which meant from the ground.

A fierce battle had begun.

She raised her right hand and bowed toward the chef who had given the order to charge.

“Thank you. You saved my rear there.”

“Don’t sweat it! And don’t just throw your ero bag around! Put it in the trash can!”

Kimee: “Why is our commander being scolded by the chef?”

AnG: “Doesn’t Musashi’s Chancellor get scolded by like every single other Musashi resident?”

●

“Hm…?”

Toori woke up in a dark room.

“I feel like someone’s talking about me…”

He took a look around, but he only saw Horizon sleeping next to him and the arms looking up at him. Nothing out of the ordinary there. He was a bit disappointed to look down at Horizon’s sleeping face and find she hadn’t woken up, but he also bowed deep toward Asama, Mitotsudaira, and Kimi’s rooms. He was truly thankful.

He saw the arms mimic the action. And…

“Oh, whoops. I triggered an alert with the compressed sleep.”

He went back to sleep.

●

Katagiri got up from lying down.

Takenaka had a lernen figur in front of her to display the view straight out from their ship. For the other visual checks, she relied on the more general information coming from the Azuchi and she opened Three Thousand Worlds. He sat down alongside her.

“I will assist you!”

He took the footage coming from the Azuchi’s sight devices and lined them up around Takenaka. It didn’t provide a full 360 degree view, but it provided a much wider view. And he used that data to…

…Examine it with Hundred Crest Land Survey.

His spell let him manipulate surrounding water or light to his will. The process used ether, so he could affect lernen figurs too.

He created symbols with light and sent them into the lernen figurs to provide notes.

The shells. The enemy ships’ courses. The overall currents and trends. Writing every little thing would just be overwhelming, so he summarized and, if he deemed something irrelevant, omitted things. And…

“Katagiri-kun, keep that up. I’ve found it!”

He didn’t need to ask what she had found. He had seen it too.

“Is that Sakuma-sama’s flagship descending to ram our 2nd central ship!?”

●

“Azuchi” confirmed how clever the enemy was.

“Sakuma-sama can fool even machines? Shaja.”

After all, she had trouble grasping the Sakuma Fleet’s positions.

No, they were fighting. She knew the enemy fleet had to be descending past the 12th line they were destroying.

But she couldn’t confirm that.

Sakuma’s ships were performing feints with their courses.

This was nothing as simple as zigzagging. They were using the depth as seen from the Azuchi’s perspective. They used their virtual oceans and thrusters to make it look like they weren’t moving when they actually were.

The most confusing part was the idling of their acceleration systems. They had acceleration light scattering down from them, which the Azuchi interpreted as them ascending.

But they weren’t. That was no more than an explosion of ether light created by dumping ether into the acceleration system without actually using any acceleration spells.

It was a simple trick, but it was extremely deceptive. The only countermeasure was to run calculations to verify the results of their scans, but that doubled the calculation load they were forced to complete.

However, the enemy was using feints and tricks like that.

Sakuma clearly understood how these things worked and was accustomed to taking advantage of it. Meanwhile, she was moving her own ship into position and taking aim.

Sakuma was attempting to ram her ship into the 2nd central ship flying below.

This was part of a strategy that was more than scattering her fleet to run away.

Kuro-Take: “Her scattering fleet is a calculated diversion, so I would love it if someone could measure out the movement of all the obstacles between us and her ship.”

Azuchi: “Katagiri-sama! Can you handle that!? Shaja.”

The Boy: “I’m working on it!”

Katagiri’s Hundred Crest Land Survey was sending over results.

…Predicting ship routes is not our forte.

But people were a different matter.

They could hesitate to make decisions, but they could read their enemy’s intentions based on their “intuition” rather than probability or logic and work together to reach an answer.

“Azuchi” could see this quite well in the data Katagiri sent over.

A lot of his notes didn’t fit with the result she had in mind. But…

“Those parts are generally unrelated to the whole. Shaja.”

Only the routes moving toward the 2nd central ship were necessary. The rest had less detailed information, but that would be Katagiri focusing on what mattered.

But this provided enough guidance. She sent all the data to the 2nd central ship and took back control of the chain of command. That way she could…

“Clear a path! Shaja.”

“Azuchi” fired the cannons. Instead of spreading destruction across the enemy fleet like before, she took aim at just the ships blocking the 2nd central ship’s path and providing a defensive diversion for Sakuma’s flagship, the Kariya Castle. She swung her hands forward.

“Open fire. Shaja.”

●

Everyone in the Kariya Castle felt the change in the impacts reaching them as sound. And…

“Our scattered vanguard!”

Their fleet had been blocking their view out front, firing shells and scattering charm chaff, but now they were being pushed back.

This was not just ships being destroyed one after another as before.

Only the ships working to protect the Kariya Castle were targeted and each one received concentrated fire from one of the Azuchi’s 6 ships.

One ship was smashed downwards by the 1st central ship flying above it.

One ship was blasted to port and starboard by the ships on the opposite sides.

It looked like it was receiving a brutal combo from the sides. And…

“The Azuchi’s 2nd central ship is approaching from ahead and below!”

That was fast, determined Sakuma. It was progressing more quickly than she had anticipated.

She had sacrificed the rest of her fleet in order to ensure victory here. And yet…

“You’re still going to outdo me, Ten Spears!?”

This wasn’t Hashiba. She wasn’t here. Sakuma was only up against the Ten Spears, but…

“Charge! Tell all ships that’s my final command!”

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