Chapter 8
[Retaliation]
On the afternoon of the day that the secret relocation of the Yotsuba Main House to Miyakishima had been internally decided, a group of private soldiers in the employ of the Hozumi family was crossing the mountain ridge near the former Fourth Institute.
Looking down at the valley where the institute was reported to be located. The valley in sight was a sparse grove of trees and weed-covered open space. No village, houses, or even an isolated hunter's shack in sight. However, there was no doubt this is where the very heart of the Yotsuba is located.
The scenery in their eyes was not a real image, it was an illusion produced by the wards surrounding this place.
"Reporting back, ma'am," declared an officer kneeling in front of Tokika. He is in command of the scouting detachment.
"Good work. Did you find a path in?" Tokika inquired of the results. She earlier ordered his team to find a way down to the Yotsuba family's village.
The attack on the other day could be considered a successful probing of defenses, but for the Hozumi, it served as a warning that their target would never make their approach too easy.
Asuha and Tokika already expected their attacks would have a quick and heavy response. And even though they knew of another tunnel leading to the Yotsuba village that branched off from the main road, they were unlikely to have more success, and reach the target, through that route.
Therefore, Tokika would approach the village by crossing the mountains.
"Unfortunately, it would be difficult for the entire unit to go down together, we would likely be spotted mid-way and be under targeted fire. But, a small team may be able to make a safe descent."
As expected, since they shared the same location as the former Fourth Magician Research institute, whose secrecy was especially high even among the magician institutes, access was quite challenging. And if simply crossing over the mountain was an easy way in, there wouldn't be the need to worry about hidden passageways. Even less likely is leaving a loophole open that a large number of people can pass through.
"So, small teams then. How large of a group do you suggest?"
"With four to five at a time, with an interval, the risk of detection should be low enough. But I would still be careful, because it's bright even if it's a little overcast. Fortunately, since we would approach via the western slope, it would be in the shade at dusk. Then is when it would be the safest."
It was currently 2:00 pm. The man in charge of the scouting party suggested that Tokika should wait here for at least three hours.
What would be an unthinkable proposal to be made in the face of a gilded princess, was taken with a straight, "Then let's go with that," from Tokika.
She is the granddaughter of the Head of the Hozumi family, and in time she will be in that very capacity. And while the status of a member of the Senate is not hereditary, if she so becomes the woman at the center of her family and in command of its power and influence, one could easily say that her seat was guaranteed.
Yet, despite assumptions of her upbringing, Tokika was far from the frail princess who would shy away from hard, physical exertion. As it is already clear from the fact that she is here, leading a private army, she has received a rather tough education.
Her learning experiences went beyond spartan education behind a desk, taking her to situations where she would sometimes get covered in mud, sometimes draw blood. Everything that was deemed necessary was done, even if sometimes bordered on abuse.
All to teach her of the most important skill for those in power: how to survive. You can always hire experts if you need skills in law, economics, and the like. As long as you are able to keep going, even at the expense of all your subordinates, you will always have another chance to get back up. That has been the cornerstone of the Hozumi family's imperialism philosophy to this day. For all the ups and downs throughout their long history, they survived, and because of that they are where they are today.
Tokika's nullifying magic superpower was a major deciding factor as to why Asuha's chose her as her successor instead of her son, Tokika's father, but it was not the only reason. The next reason was who was more successful in their survival training.
Tokika set up a lookout and ordered her men to take a break.
She herself went into a one-person camouflage tent and laid down in rest.
" ─Tokika-sama." Hearing her name being called out of a sudden had Tokika jumping upright, only to remember that she is in the privacy of her own small tent. Just in time before she hits her head on the canvas.
She propped herself up on her elbows and looked around to the left and right.
"Tokika-sama." Again, that same voice calling her name. The voice she felt was whispered in her ear came from outside the tent. "This is Kuroba Mitsugu. I am terribly sorry for the inconvenience, but I have a matter I must bring to your attention."
"I'll be right there," Tokika replied to the owner of the voice outside the tent without raising her voice.
And she did not ask, or told them to "wait for her". For Tokika, it's a matter of course that others would accommodate things in her favor.
When she leaves the tent, she finds Kuroba Mitsugu kneeling on one knee with his head down. Another common scene in her life.
The two soldiers on lookout rushed over in a hurry, seemingly only now having noticed Mitsugu.
Tokika stopped them with a hand before they could seize Mitsugu. Then she looked down at the man and urged him to speak, "Kuroba-dono, if you please."
"Yes. I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but Yotsuba Maya has vacated the village."
"So, is Yotsuba-dono absent…?"
"Yes. It also appears that no prominent members of the branch families have come to the village today."
"If I am to understand what you've brought me," Tokika started. It took a dozen or so seconds before she would complete it, "Then, the strength of the Yotsuba family is decentralized, and the defenses of the Main House are severely compromised."
The line she wrung out was a guess that did not require that much thought.
"I would agree with that assessment." Mitsugu nodded his head in a reverential manner. Nothing in his expression gave away his impression that, "She didn't seem to have her head in the full game."
"Alright, I'll take you at your word, Kuroba-sama."
"There is no doubt, I assure you, with my own head on the stake."
"Good, then," Tokika arrogantly assented, then turned her attention to her private army, who had gathered around them in the meantime.
Her soldiers kneeled down in unison.
"Prepare yourselves to launch an all-out assault." Overlooking them, Tokika determined their next move.
Descending the mountainside slope, that could very well be a cliff, the private army rains anti-magician weapon fire into the now visible village, exactly where there was a vacant lot. Kuroba Mitsugu did not participate in that attack.
From the seemingly empty valley, came a fierce magical counterattack.
While there was certainly high volume and intensity of magic, the power behind those was quite underwhelming, to say the least.
Unbeknownst to Tokika and her forces, they weren't engaged against any magician of the Yotsuba, or one of their foreign contingent led by the Hanabishi butler. The current enemy forces were a group of captured criminal magicians whom the Yotsuba were using as experimental subjects, and brainwashed to fight back.
The Yotsuba family refused to become tools and rebelled against the former Fourth Institute, then took their test site and built their own residence there. But it's because they didn't want to become tools, but that sentiment was not extended to all and every magician.
Although the Yotsuba family would never trample on the human rights of the average bona-fide magician by their own standards, when they are called upon to deal with magicians on the bad side of the law, that's a different story. Those cases are generally when there is a high-skilled criminal that the judicial system finds trouble arresting, and if the Yotsuba family doesn't take on the job, the arrest attempt shifts to a on-sight, shoot-to-kill policy. And since those are especially in cases with little to no prospect of rehabilitation, the Yotsuba doesn't have qualms in using them as their test subjects.
At present, the magicians pushing back against the Hozumi family forces were those whom the AI determined that a trial would surely result in a death sentence.
Among their support base, the Hozumi family has a number of old religious and sorcery groups. The private army deployed in the attack on the site of the Former Fourth Institute was protected by an ancient-style magical protection technique from an esoteric tantric Buddhism expert. This technique nullifies not only direct attacks with magic, but also magically created wind and oscillations.
The attacks of the brainwashed criminal magicians defending the village were invalidated by the ancient-style protection.
Had there been magicians of the Yotsuba present, they would have been able to do something like collapsing the cliff and, in so, inflict a heavy blow on the invaders, but the criminal magicians lacked that capability.
By contrast, the high-powered firearms endowed to the Hozumi family's soldiers pierced the village wards, whose main purpose was concealment, and took out the defending magicians one after the other.
By the time Tokika made it to the bottom of the slope, the counterattack had ceased.
Tokika approaches the wards.
Her magic nullification field, which she is constantly and unconsciously active, comes into contact with the magical barrier that hides the village.
In the next instant, the gigantic concealment ward collapsed from the point of contact with Tokika, revealing the Yotsuba Inner citadel under their cover.
◇ ◇ ◇
In Miyakishima, Tatsuya learned of the collapse of the wards at the same time it happened. So did Maya, Hayama and Hanabishi. All main members of the Yotsuba Main House gathered in front of a large 100-inch display that displayed in real time the Main House losing its invisibility after its wards were broken.
Prior to their escape, they set up hidden surveillance cameras all along the four hillsides surrounding the village.
"Tatsuya-san, if you please," Maya calls for Tatsuya, the implied order was clear. "Understood." Tatsuya first slightly bowed to her, before drawing one of his pistol-shaped CAD [Trident] with his right hand.
At the other end of its muzzle was the screen which displayed a series of viewpoint transitions.
"As previously discussed, I'll begin to destroy them in sequence."
Tatsuya watched as the Hozumi Family forces stormed the vacated buildings one after the other with their muddy boots and then pulled the trigger on his Trident.
◇ ◇ ◇
"Begin the sweep. No mercy for those who resist." Faced with the newly emerged stronghold of the Yotsuba family, Tokika ordered her men to begin a mop-up operation.
The armed group, equipped with high-powered rifles, thermobaric grenades, and other high-performance weapons, dispersed in three-man cells (fireteams).
It happened when most of them had gained entry to the nearby buildings.
Without a bang or flash, the building suddenly collapsed.
Traditional wooden houses buckled and crashed, sucked into the sunken ground. Just as easily, reinforced concrete air defense shelters dotted around the area crumbled to the ground.
When the buildings collapsed, it also trapped and engulfed the soldiers of the Hozumi family within, one after the other. To their luck, the forces still outside interrupted their movement, freezing at that sight in disbelief.
Their highest-ranking leader, Tokika, was likewise dumbstruck.
" ──! All units, retreat!" The first to come back to their senses was the de facto commander of the private force, who was ostensibly under Tokika's command. "Tokika-sama, may I order a retreat?" Only after he did it on instinct, the man remembered his current status and asked for Tokika's approval.
"…Our objective was to destroy the wards, and that has been achieved. We may withdraw." It is a disgrace for a superior to be seen as unable to cope with a sudden development in the situation. So, when posed with a query by a man under her command, Tokika tried to cover up her mess.
The Hozumi family's private armed forces left the village site in which the Yotsuba family was based in a rush, leaving even their comrades caught in the collapse of a building behind without rescue.
◇ ◇ ◇
All the buildings in the Yotsuba family's village, both those that had stood since the days of the former Fourth Institute and those that were newly built after the family's independence, had basements or underground structures of equivalent size to the above-ground constructions. In other words, both wooden and reinforced concrete buildings were built atop a basement foundation.
And Tatsuya decomposed the basement portion. While the above-ground buildings varied in configuration, the underground were mostly uniform, from materials to construction and structure. Therefore, it was easier to use [Decomposition] on those, regardless of their numbers.
"All the buildings that were infiltrated by the enemy have been destroyed. Do we dispose of all the rest?" Tatsuya asked Maya after watching the enemy retreat.
Maya answered without hesitation, "As previously discussed. Destroy everything."
Even if that place held many of her happy memories of before the incident. After which her own sister altered her mind to perceive everything at their base value, as information to prevent a mental breakdown. Even so, she did not feel that the village should be spared.
"Understood." Even more than Maya, Tatsuya had never felt a shred of attachment to this place.
With those brief words, he turned the village, which once served as the home and roots of the Yotsuba family, into ruins.
◇ ◇ ◇
Both Hozumi Asuha and her granddaughter Tokika usually spend most of their time at their mansion nestled in the mountains of the southern Kii Peninsula. But that is not to say that they do not have residences in metropolitan areas. Though, it follows the pattern of their several other vacation homes, which would be understated to be described as "houses" and more like "pavilions". After withdrawing from the Yotsuba family village, Tokika followed the plans and returned to their vacation home in Kofu. She had been staying there since the day before yesterday for this retaliatory operation.
At the same time, Kuroba Mitsugu, who had vanished since before the all-on assault, was heading west in a self-propelled car.
He was not accompanied by anyone.
He did not inform anyone.
He was acting completely by himself.
Mitsugu drove the car to his destination on the lonely road where twilight turns to night.
◇ ◇ ◇
That evening, Miyuki stood at the rooftop helipad waiting for a VTOL from Miyakishima.
At her side is Hanabishi Hyougo, whose figure was usually found in the shadows of Tatsuya. But, in a change of pace, he has been ordered by Tatsuya back to Tokyo along with the small VTOL they used to get to Kobuchizawa, so that Hyougo would be there to support Miyuki in his absence.
Although Miyuki's escort role was filled by Lina, the American wasn't apprised of all the ins and outs of the Yotsuba family's business. And, since Miyuki is nothing short of the next in line of the leadership of the family, having someone like Hyougo at her immediate call would be a welcoming support.
A VTOL arrives.
The passenger who came down from the aircraft was Maya.
"Good evening, Oba-sama. Welcome to the Tokyo Headquarters."
"Thank you for your welcome."
Miyuki greeted her with a reverent bow, to which Maya responded with a confident smile.
"I am aware you will be staying at a hotel, but in any event, I have arranged for a room, if you would like to stay here."
The aforementioned room is an apartment in the same building they are currently standing on the rooftop of. However, contrary to what one might expect, it wasn't located on the top floor. The top floor was reserved for Tatsuya, Miyuki, and staff at their service. Which includes Lina, who lives in a separate employee room in her capacity of escort
Maya's wishes were the main reason why she was kept out of the top floor suites. Mindful of Tatsuya and Miyuki relationship, and the fact that they will soon become a newlywed couple, Maya expressly requested her designed apartment to be not on the top floor, so as not to disturb the couple. Besides, until this incident erupted, Maya had no intention of leaving the family's mansion in the village.
Plans for a new mansion in Miyakishima are already in the works. Since today, planning has already begun for the construction of a new residence befitting the head of the family instead of the top floor of the existing Miyakishima branch's residential building.
"Thank you for your consideration. But I'll be staying at the hotel as originally planned." Maya declined Miyuki's offer with a smile.
"I understand. Will you be leaving for the hotel right away?" Miyuki did not express any feelings of relief, but she also did not look disappointed in the least.
"Yes. I'll be doing that."
Miyuki bowed again, "Then, would you allow me to accompany you to your car?" "Yes, thank you. That is very kind of you," Maya accepted Miyuki's offer, this time the smile was paired with a nod.
Although, this smile didn't seem at all heartfelt.
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