FALL SEVEN TIMES
by Ulquiorra9000
Chapter 20
Mizuki kept up a good sprint on her war horse with Azrael and Ayano on either side of her, but she knew better than to rush too far into the Phyrexian's ranks. Instead, she stayed in Battalion C's formation and watched as the other two battalions opened fire.
Long arcs of smoke and flame formed across the damp air as Battalion B's trebuchets rolled into position and flung their incendiary payloads. Mizuki heard samurai and mercenaries cheer as the explosive rounds peppered the Phyrexians' endless formations, and the very ground shuddered from the sheer force. In sheets of flame and sparks, countless charred Phyrexians were sent flying. The remaining Phyrexians slowed their advance, scrambling to reform their ranks.
"Watch Battalion A go forth," Ayano shouted over the din. "They will drive our enemies right back and create flanking opportunities for Battalions B and C."
Mizuki watched, and sure enough, whole companies of samurai, ronin, monks, mages, and war tigers crashed into the Phyrexians' scattered ranks. Katanas clashed loudly a thousand times over, echoing in the damp air. Black oil sprayed everywhere as Phyrexian cyborgs, chrome hounds, golems, and battle priests fell under the onslaught.
Not long after that, Battalion B, as Ayano had promised, charged at the Phyrexians' open flanks. Scores of oily cyborgs and artifact horrors fell, and the process only sped up as more trebuchet rounds blasted apart squads of Phyrexian warriors. Colorful battle mage spells flew every which way, creating a gisly light show through the haze of smoke, blood and oil.
Mizuki felt herself grinning. This is incredible! We've got forward momentum!
"I'm bringing in Higure now," Ayano declared. She drew the summoning scroll and activated its enchantment.
"No mercy, I see," Azrael commented. "Good."
Mizuki was in awe as Higure appeared out of thin air, landing easily in a ready pose. Without a word, the master ninja sprinted forth, keeping pace with the war horses.
Then Battalion C took its turn.
Mizuki shouted as her fellow warriors bore down on another large cluster of Phyrexians. She pointed her Fiora sword, and her hair whipped around as its intense red-white aura charged to full power. Then she got an idea. and she swept her sword in a wide arc, willing it to release its energy along that path.
A wide whip of flame, intensified with white lightning, slashed through the Phyrexians' ranks, burning away over a dozen in one sweep. Then the leftover energy scattered, taking out another handful of hostile troops.
"That was new," Azrael commented. "Good to know that you're still innovating, Mizuki."
"Try and keep up, Azrael!" Mizuki teased him.
"Then I will." Azrael leaned forward on his horse, his red hair and blue cape billowing behind him. Then he shot out his left fist.
A thick ribbon of blue-red-black mana whipped out and branched into a dozen thinner tendrils. These tendrils blasted away every Phyrexian they touched, and once a huge Phyrexian hulk advanced, the tendrils bound it by the wrists and dragged it down to earth.
Taking this chance, a dozen ronin in blue-black armor charged forth and sliced the golem apart with their enchanted katanas.
"Okay, that was new, too!" Mizuki hollered.
Ayano, too, fought off every nearby foe with her blade, but it was Higure who led the way. The ninja moved faster than Mizuki's eyes could track, his body a blur of blue robes as he darted among the enemies' ranks. He set off explosive hand bombs seemingly at random, always keeping the Phyrexians off-balance. His punches, kicks, and knife attacks felled the Phyrexians even faster than they could converge on him.
"He's created a path," Ayano called out, pointing. "We can surround and eliminate that wurm siege engine without interference. Let's go!"
Mizuki saw Ayano's point. There were half a dozen such wurms on the field, and before long, they'd turn the tide and make this battle very difficult! Taking a few out right now could give hope.
Led by Higure, a squad of mercenary ninjas and monks kept stray Phyrexians clear while Mizuki's trio, plus several squads of ronin and battle mages, confronted the massive metallic wurm. The great metal beast let out an angry howl as ronin blades sliced at its steel plating and mage fire roasted its metallic innards.
Then the wurm dived head-first into the ground and burrowed, faster than Mizuki thought possible. All two hundred feet of its long body sank into the hole and out of sight.
"That metal bastard!" a ronin archer shouted. "What the hell do we do now?"
"I, uh..." was all Mizuki could say before the ground rumbled in the distance. Then she yelped in horror as the same wurm blasted upwards from the ground, right in the middle of Battalion C's rear formations. Tons of dirt and rocks sprayed everywhere like a fountain, and the nearby kitsune, monks, and clerics scattered in terror.
Too late. The wurm issued a rapidly-expanding cloud of green-gray miasma that washed over the mortals' ranks. Horses and people alike withered to the bone in moments, collapsing all over the place. Scores of medics and backup mages... dead.
Ayano went pale. "No! We needed all of them... move out, people! Stop that wurm!"
"How?" another ronin snapped. "Lady Ayano, you got a plan to deal with that miasma?"
Ayano was silent.
*o*o*o*o*
Radiah could hardly believe it. So many native Kamigawa races had combined into this lovely coalition! And those trebuchets! She'd never imagine akki technology laying down fearsome cover fire while samurai, ronin, monks and more tore into her Phyrexian legions. Minions of the Machine Orthodoxy and Progress Engine found their clawed hands full of trouble.
Until it was time for phase two.
Radiah, still standing atop her wurm's head, raised her staff and shouted as she released her summoning spell.
Now for the fun part!
*o*o*o*o*
The other wurm engines advanced, and as Mizuki watched, the great beasts paved the way for a Phyrexian counter-attack that decimated the ranks of Battalions A and B. Just as many Phyrexians fell, but damn, they could afford the loss of numbers by far.
Mizuki lost count of how many golems, cyborg samurai, and war hounds she slew with her Fiora sword, and its fearsome echantment dimmed a bit every minute. She panted for breath, her face streaked with sweat and dirt as she frantically slashed at any Phyrexian that came too close to her horse. Azrael and Ayano did their best, but their fatigue was clear. Higure had to draw back just to fill the holes of their defenses; no longer could he afford to lead the charge.
"A wurm falls!" Azrael shouted at some point. "Look, over there!"
Mizuki wiped her brow with her free hand and felt a surge of hope as the stalwart warriors of Battalion A first broke up a coiled wurm engine, then slew its smaller halves. Near the wurm's remains, Phyrexians retreated, unwilling to fight without its support.
Shrieking voices filled the air.
"What are those?" a monk cried.
Mizuki felt cold as several angels, all of them armored in oil-streaked porcelain, swooped on the battlefield. She had seen a few angels patrolling the skies of Bant... but these would freeze Morrel's heart.
The angels swooped low on tattered, grimy wings, and they sliced into the coalition's ranks with crooked claymores. Mercenary archers loosed flights of arrows, only to miss as the angels gracefully arced upwards and out of range. Down below, the Phyrexians resumed their charge, and they, and the other wurms, kept pushing the coalition back.
"Winged warriors?" Ayano cried in disbelief.
"Angels," Azrael grated. "Winged women common to other planes, you see. But these are angels of a Phyrexian vision. We'll be lucky to escape them."
He was right: while one angel retreated as a squad of archers hit its wing with a lucky volley, the others inexorably turned the battle's tide, backed up by the wurms. The huge Minamo Academy seemed impossibly distant as Mizuki fell back with the others, determined to keep the Phyrexian hordes from slaughtering the last of their forces. Various clan banners were still held high, but they seemed more vain and desperate than proud and imposing.
"Lady Ayano! I cannot allow you to fall today," Higure told her, keeping pace with her horse. "We must leave the battlefield at once and pray that those winged warriors do not catch us."
Ayano winced. "If the leaders flee the battle, what can we possibly -"
"I am not responsible for this whole battle, my lady!" Higure shouted. "I am responsible for you! Daimyo Kirinji will sooner have me killed than allow you to suffer harm under my protection. We must go!"
Tears trickled down Ayano's cheeks. "I..."
"We've gotta do somethin'!" Mizuki shouted back, her heart tight with terror. "C'mon! You're the best ninja around! Think of something!"
"I only act for lady Ayano's protection," Higure insisted, his dark eyes like obsidian chips. "Fight and die if you wish, Mizuki, but I have my orders from Daimyo Kirinji."
Azrael stared, his lips moving soundlessly. Mizuki understood the battle in his mind: abandon the chance to slay his hated enemies to protect Ayano, or stay, and uphold the Planeswalker Code against these horrors?
Mizuki's eyes stung as she watched the battle become a slaughter. No samurai, monk, kitsune, or tiger could resist for long as the blue and white Phyrexians butchered them. The blood and oil-soaked battlefield was slick with red as the coalition's forces stumbled back.
We're lost!
The Phyrexians were bound to conquer the whole plane, weren't they? It was obvious, in the face of that endless horde, the wurm engines, the twisted angels...
What was hope or courage against all this?
Mizuki bowed her head and blanked out every thought except for one: survival. Her sword felt heavy in her hands as she fended off stray Phyrexians that got too close.
Then, a great surge of blue mana in the distance filled the heavens.
Combined shouts and cries of shock and wonder filled the coalition's wary ranks. Mizuki dared a glance over her shoulder and beheld Minamo's defensive enchantments falling to the Phyrexians' onslaught. Two wurm engines, some hulks, and hundreds of cyborgs had broken away from the battle, and now, the famed Academy lay bare before them.
Minamo had fallen.
It was all over.
*o*o*o*o*
My word, that school had some of the finest enchantments I ever saw! I think that part of me is sad to see it end like this.
Radiah wore a wide smile as her wurm finished pounding on Minamo Academy's barriers, and the ancient enchantments fell in a fizzle of blue. Like the mist, the broken enchantments faded in the air for all time.
Then, she turned and watched the ragged coalition continue its strained retreat. Radiah shrugged, then held out her staff to carry her thoughts to every Phyrexian minion: "Let them go for now. We have what we want. They can never again pose a real threat to us."
It wasn't exactly pity, but Radiah found no point in beating a broken enemy. And besides, if her warriors were lured too far from the exposed school, what if another coalition force was waiting to take advantage of that? Such a ploy was unlikely, but not impossible.
Mission accomplished, at any rate.
Radiah prepared to planeswalk back to New Phyrexia to deliver the exciting news. Then she'd be right back to take care of business!
*o*o*o*o*
"They... let us go. I still can't believe it," Ayano said in a hollow voice, staring into her campfire.
It was evening. Barely one-tenth of the coalition remained, camped out at the edge of a forest under the deep purple sky. The first few stars were already out, along with a moon.
Mizuki nodded silently, too shocked to speak. Around her, over a hundred tents had been set up, and campfires dotted the place with warm orange light, cooking the wild animals that the coalition's scouts had caught. Men and women spoke in low tones over the flames, their helmets held under their arms, their eyes haunted. All the while, a handful of samurai patrolled the perimeter on horseback, still carrying their clans' banners. Out of pride, maybe, or denial.
Azrael finished a strip of beef jerky. "The Phyrexians are patient. They got what they came for; their objective was merely to prevent us from breaking the siege on Minamo Academy."
Ayano shook her head. "I'm astounded that they didn't exterminate every one of us."
"The Phyrexians know that time is on their side," Azrael explained. "Their numbers grow by the day as their oil-spreading machines soak the earth and rivers with their contagion. Their confidence is well-earned."
Ayano sighed, hands clasped in her lap. "I fear for my father. His estate won't last long under Phyrexian dominance on utsushiyo."
Mizuki didn't say a word. She'd heard confirmations that the Phyrexians couldn't invade kakuriyo, the kami half of the plane. But Minamo Academy was a well-known bridge between the worlds. No doubt that the Phyrexians had plans for the kami. But what? The oil had proven incapable of infecting the kami; not one kami had been sighted among the Phyrexians' ranks.
Just another mystery in this hopeless mess!
"This camp is secure, right?" Mizuki finally said.
Ayano nodded. "As secure as we can make it. We will at least have warning if any Phyrexians come after us."
Mizuki stood. "I'm goin' to bed early, if no one minds."
Azrael shrugged. "I have no objections. You fought well, Mizuki. Have some rest."
"I'm... gonna figure something out," Mizuki said vaguely, heading back to her tent. She lifted the flap. "I'll be back soon, okay?"
Ayano merely raised her eyebrows, but Azrael had a knowing look on his face. Good luck, he mouthed. He gave an approving nod.
Mizuki lowered her gaze as she slipped into her rent and activated her black-green mana aura, her backpack heavy with supplies on her back.
She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "See you guys soon," she muttered.
Then she activated her planeswalker gate in the privacy of the tent's canvas walls.
She stepped through.