Italica was a city on the brink of downfall.

She saw its doom in every exhausted figure that manned its depleted forces, heard it in the cries of the dying wounded that overran a church turned hospice, and smelled it in the corpses that blanketed the streets in the stench of decay.

But more than that, more than the shouted desperate prayers of the throngs of worshippers for salvation, more than the gaunt and sunken cheeks of tired, starved men, the sight before her would leave no doubt as to the state of the ongoing siege.

The walls of Italica had been torn down.

Lelei's gaze passed over the scattered stones, over the shattered rock and burned earth that was all that remained of the southern gate of the city. Once, it would have been an impressive structure. Thirty pes tall with layers of brickwork built upon a concrete core and laid with ballistae and fortifications throughout its expanse. It was a wall that had been built to be unbreakable under the siege engines of any army. Beyond a mere structure, it was a symbol of Italica's prosperity and of the Empire's unrivalled capabilities – a bulwark that would have been built to last through the end of the world if need be.

Now, here it was. Defiled and burnt to fragments of brittle charcoal. Its stones sundered, defenders nearly broken, and foundations ground to dust, the road to Italica lay open for the marauding army that lay in wait.

"They do not fight like men," the princess said as they stared over the ruins. There was a tremble in her voice, a mix of steel and exhaustion that leaned less on the side of resignation and more towards seeping desperation not unlike a wounded beast that was backed into a corner. "They care not for pain or mercy. Their allies die around them yet they crawl uncaring over their corpses. Their arms are broken and useless yet they bite at the neck of any who come near. Their entrails spill onto the ground yet they smile and laugh as they throw themselves onto our battlements."

Piña led them as she walked along the wooden palisades that encircled the hole in their lifeline. It was a shoddy and laughable ramshackle defense but of the favors she needed to construct something better – workers, engineers, time, and the whimsical mercies of luck – none saw fit to fall into her hands for this battle.

From here, Lelei could see the mound of corpses that had been thrown on top of the rubble. Rather than allowing them to be strewn haphazardly around the field, they had been arranged along the breach and stacked atop each other like cut logs. The realization came soon after that. The corpses of fallen foes, now used as literal meat hurdles to bolster Italica's already faltering lines.

"They do not stop until every last one of them is dead." Piña's hand gripped a wooden stake, clenched so hard that the leather of her gloves began to creak. "It is as if Emroy has taken all of their minds."

"And yet I know that Emroy has bestowed no such boon." Rory smiled, a speck of innocence bellied by the war axe on her shoulder and the stench of blood that pervaded her presence. "You would believe my god truly sent such troublesome pests into your lands? I suppose I ought to apologize for his discourtesy."

Piña stopped and realized just how accusing her words might have been. The young princess-knight turned, stammering out her explanations as she eyed Rory's gargantuan 'relic' as if it would come swinging down onto her neck at any moment.

"M-my apologies, Priestess of Emroy. I meant no offence. I...it was a poor choice of words."

"These men," Lelei spoke before Piña could further put her foot in her mouth, "what are their numbers?"

"A-at least eight hundred," she answered, more than happy to draw attention away from her accidental blasphemy. "Perhaps more considering how many we've killed and how they never seem to run short of bodies to throw against the walls." She looked towards the gaping hole to Italica's heart. "What is left of it, at least."

"The breach. Was that the work of mages?"

It was hard to believe any siege engine could so thoroughly decimate Italica's defenses. At the same time, the sheer destruction laid upon the field could hardly be the work of one lone magic user. Lelei didn't believe even her mentor, Sage Kato was capable of such a feat. Not without a good deal of preparation and some high-quality regents. Perhaps a weapon employed by the Men in Green could've accomplished it but Itami had been adamant that none of their forces apart from his own squad had been deployed around the area.

Even if they were, the weapons of the outsiders didn't leave such a scar on the land.

Whatever had caused the collapse of the defenses, it had done more than bring down the walls. It marred the very land with its blight. Lelei could feel the miasma of foul magic hanging in the air, a cloying stench that prodded at her senses like a droning siren.

When they had first walked through the city's gates, it had started as nothing more than an echo that throbbed at the back of her skull. A burden that weighed heavier as they approached the wreckage of the southern defenses and the epicenter of the corruption, growing and growing until Lelei could not ignore the crawling frost that tunneled its way up her spine. So close to the origin, it took a conscious will to keep her breath even and her hands steady.

To those untrained in the arcane, they would have dismissed it as cold feet. Anxiety from the battle and revulsion towards the mound of dead that now littered the ruins. But Lelei knew otherwise. And if a human mage like her could notice it then…

"…the spirits here are silent." Tuka wrapped her arms around herself, barely even aware that she was shivering. "I don't like it. Something has scarred this place."

Rory hummed, a sharp edge in the corners of her usual smile. "I find myself agreeing with the elf. Little princess, you say you led the defense of the city personally. Did you catch sight of the mages that cast the spell? Any banners or markings that might have distinguished them?"

"It was no group of magi," Piña said, hands clenching at her sides. "The man who leads them. He was the one who destroyed the wall."

"One man?" Lelei frowned. "You are sure?"

Piña nodded. "I saw him cast the ritual that obliterated that wall. I lost nearly a fifth of my men in that hellfire alone. Along with one of my officers." A flicker of pain flashed in the knight's features, a crack that shined over waves of unbridled frustration that lay beneath her veneer of composure. "Norma Co Igloo. I knew him ever since we were children. We ate, trained, and bled together long before we were even knights…and now he's…now, I lack even a body to give the rightful honors."

Piña turned back to Lelei, narrowed eyes burning. Whatever semblance of fragility she might have shown was buried underneath a layer of tempered steel, and it was a reminder that though she carried the title of princess, Piña Co Lada had been raised for war.

"So, yes. I am certain of the accursed bastard who destroyed the wall. My honor demands that I not forget the offense he has caused me and mine—not until I have mounted his head over Italica's gates, bled his band of marauders like swine to slaughter, and tossed all of their rotting carcasses into the Blue Sea."

"Such resolve." Rory approved of the knight's rage. "I suppose we shall see if there is any merit to it."

Lelei continued. "This man. For him alone to have caused this much damage, he must've been a mage of renown. Did you recognize him or the spell that he cast?"

"No. He looked no different from any of the vagabonds assaulting the city. As for whatever devilry he committed, I've not the slightest clue." Piña shook her head. "All I saw was a flash of red from where he was overlooking the battle, and in the next moment, the ground beneath the walls had erupted into flames. No recorded mage in the imperial records has ever shown such a capability for destruction either."

Tuka furrowed her brow. "No useful knowledge of the spell that was cast, and no knowledge of their identity. Is there anything we do know?"

"We know the title that his men have given him." Piña grimaced, casting her gaze meaningfully towards the black reaper in their midst. "They call him the Apostle of War."

XxX

"Apostle?" Kuribayashi repeated. "Like Rory?"

"Dunno." Itami shrugged. "Might have been a mistranslation or something. Rory wouldn't say much more."

They looked towards the reaper who had taken a seat atop a pile of sandbags and had then, for the lack of a better term, proceeded to brood for the next half hour. 'Apostle' must have meant something here in the Special Region; it was clear that it had a special, perhaps cultural significance for it to affect Rory so much. All the same, their ignorance about this world's perspective had left them clueless on how to deal with her foul mood.

Lelei, bless her soul, had tried to explain what she did know but had not been able to share much beyond general knowledge the layman would be privy to. Tuka did her best to help but was even less familiar with the subject, and while Rory might have been capable of giving a better picture considering she was an Apostle herself, none in the Third Recon Squad were particularly eager to try bugging the diminutive Goth Lolita for answers when she still looked positively murderous.

"Whatever the case, we'll have to keep an eye out for that magic." Itami rubbed his neck and sighed. "I've called in reinforcements from Alnus. Hopefully, they should be here as early as tomorrow morning."

Kurata looked nervously to the gaping hole in the wall. "Think they'll get here before that Apostle guy blows us all up?"

"Don't jinx yourself, you idiot." Kuwahara slapped the younger soldier's head before dragging him off. "If you've got enough time to piss your pants, you've got enough time to help Furuta and Katsumoto set some more wire on that breach. Move it!"

"H-hey, Sarge! I'm moving! I'm moving! Jeez…"

Kurokawa frowned. The medic turned to Itami and muttered, "Badly put as it was, Kurata does have a point. Commander, are you sure we'll be able to hold the gate by ourselves? Especially given what this Apostle can do? I mean, the princess didn't even give us a detachment of militiamen to help with the defense."

"Too few men," she had said. "Other gates needed those numbers."

The explanation fooled no one. Though unwilling to challenge the princess in her territory as they were, that didn't mean none of them could see that they were being given the most dangerous position in the hopes that they would suffer the most losses. Admittedly, it was expected but still, none of them appreciated being used as meat shields.

"Frankly, I'm not sure of anything," Itami admitted with a casual shrug. "I especially don't like that we might have to end up facing a juiced-up Flame Alchemist but we're in it for the long haul now."

"What about Rory?" Kuribayashi asked.

"Rory?"

"Will she be okay? She looks as if she's gonna take off any moment and go hunting for this Apostle guy herself."

They glanced at the Reaper. None missed the displeasured tick of her lips and the impatient tapping of her fingers nor were the oblivious to the white knuckled grip she kept on her weapon. Even now, anyone who passed by instinctively gave her a wide berth as if lingering too long in her proximity would be taken as an open invitation for an impromptu amputation.

Itami sighed and bit the bullet.

"I'll talk to her. Go do your guys' thing."

Kuribayashi and Kurokawa exchanged glances. They were not good glances. They were the sort of look that conveyed that they thought this was probably a bad idea but at the same time, neither party was willing to stop it if only to see what would happen. It was like they were about to watch someone tap dance through a mine field. Itami willed himself to ignore it, unwilling to discourage the already shaky resolve he had scrounged together as he approached the goth loli that was perfectly capable of breaking him in half with her bare hands.

Rory, thankfully, did not in fact break him in half with her bare hands. She eyed him as he came closer and smiled. Somehow, it did not comfort him.

"Itami," she greeted. "This is a fine mess you've been pulled into yet again, isn't it?"

"Don't remind me." Itami rubbed at his neck. "This Apostle guy has got everyone on edge. I don't suppose you know anything about him?"

Rory shrugged. "Truthfully, no. He is not an Apostle that I've ever met; I know none of them who could command this sort of magic by themselves." The little priestess jumped to her feet, casually flicking her long raven locks behind her. "That said, I can't say if he's entirely lying. Gods and Apostles, especially those with conflicting dominions, rarely ever convene in the same place, much less socialize. He might be a new Apostle appointed by one of the other gods for one reason or another. He might be an impostor who laid claim to the title without any legitimate source. Who's to say?"

"Is that why you're in such a bad mood?" Itami asked. "Because this guy might be an actual Apostle and he just upped and attacked this city without a reason?"

"Heavens, no!" Rory scoffed. "It is not rare for Apostles to involve themselves in warfare according to their god's whim. Sometimes, they do so on their own if only to break the monotony of the eons. Even if it were one of my…siblings, destroying a city or two is not entirely out of character. It's expected even."

"Oh," Itami said. He wasn't sure what else to say to that admittance of casual slaughter. Was it a cultural difference? Or maybe all Apostles really were just as crazy as Rory. That was a scary thought. "Then…what's the matter? You look like this guy's really gotten under your skin."

"Because war and madness are Emroy's domain." Rory smiled, voice ladened with sweetened venom. She met his eyes, purple orbs searing Itami's soul like twin pits of magma. "No one, absolutely no one, may take that mantle apart from myself. To hear this vagabond claim dominion over war is like watching a thief parade around naked in your own home. It is a personal grievance, Itami. An insult not just to my god but to the very being of 'Rory Mercury', and while I enjoy a bit of banter before bloodsport, this has indeed, as you say, 'gotten under my skin'."

"Good to know." Itami inched back, eyes glancing to the axe head gleaming in the noon-day sun. "You're uh…you're not gonna go chasing after this guy on your own, are you?"

Rory laughed. "Of course not. There is no need to trouble myself." The Reaper twirled, painted lips set into a sly grin as her axe planted its haft into the ground. "He will be coming to us."

XxX

Rory's prediction had come true.

It was one thing—Itami realized that night—to hear and think about the capabilities of magic and another thing entirely to see these miracles brought before them. Fireballs, immortals, and elemental spirits…bread and butter curiosities from books and TV shows in their world had suddenly become all too real. Not just imagined tales but actual observable phenomena that side-stepped more than a few natural laws and upended their belief in the natural world around them. He was almost certain that dropping Lelei alone into a lab would have sent half of the world's physicists into an existential crisis and the other half into an alcoholic fervor.

It would be a lie to say that some part of him hadn't gushed and remembered fantasies from his youth, of calling a flame with a snap of his fingers or of flying through the air with nothing but the energy of his soul. Yet nothing—no anime, no movie, and no manga in the world could have prepared him for the real thing.

Rory's prediction had come true. And here they were, stuck in the middle of that hell.

The cloud ridden night sky had covered the roads beyond the city's walls in a pitch-black. Without the moon and the stars, Italica had become a beacon of dim torchlit streets in an ocean of darkness. An oasis in the bleak desert. Beyond what little light the walls could offer, there was only a vast expanse of shadowy hills.

It mattered little. The first assault did not come by land as they had expected but over the air. From the clouded sky, a hail of flame descended upon Italica, burning wood and stone edifices alike. The only thing that warned them was the grating screech that each meteor emanated, white hot flames scorching the heavens in an orchestra of glowing fury.

"Incoming!" Itami screamed out, throwing himself into cover just as the first fireball met the earth.

The ground shook as the barrage landed, gouts of flame and condensed heat battering the city in a continuous fiery bombardment. Buildings toppled as their cornerstones were incinerated. Streets were turned into pockmarked ruins, sending plumes of smoke and smoldering ash into all directions.

Every explosion battered Itami's eardrums like someone had taken a baseball bat to his head. He did not dare move from where he'd fallen: crumpled in the dirt and on his stomach behind a too small pile of sandbags. And as a wave of upheaved soil and charred rocks pelted his prone form, Itami could only cover his face and wish that his shirt buttons were just a millimeter thinner.

By the time the bombardment ended, his ears were ringing. He stood up, rifle clattering against his side and looked around their position. The rest of his team looked fine if a bit shell-shocked but the earthworks had been pockmarked by holes along their expanse. The barbed wire they had painstakingly set up had been all but obliterated, and they had lost the LAV after a lucky meteor had scorched through the roof and blown the entire thing to bits of shrapnel.

"Casualty report!" he shouted over the smoke and dispersed ash. "Did anyone get hit?"

Kurokawa waved from where she was crouched down, "We're alive, Captain. Rory, Tuka, and Lelei are alright too."

That was something at least. Itami almost let out a sigh of relief before Tomita spoke with a disbelieving tremor.

"The…the east gate…"

Itami looked to the walls and saw a blazing inferno. Another one of Italica's gates had fallen, its stone and mortar reduced to fuel for a bonfire visible from the other side of the city. Great gouts of fire tainted the night sky with an orange and crimson glow, and if Itami tried, he could hear the far-away clash of steel and the screams of dying men.

It was a full-blown assault.

"We have bigger problems!" Kuwahara shouted, drawing attention back to their own breach. "OPFOR coming from the hills! They're charging straight at us!"

Itami cursed. "Katsumoto, get back on that 5.56! All squads, open fire! Open fire!"

The enemies that came from the darkness were not men. Instead, they were an assortment of beasts. Centaurs clad in leather armor and armed with recurve bows, kobolds with glimmering swords and fangs, and brutish orcs who charged with pieces of mangled steel that could barely be called sharp. There were more among their ranks but between the panicked flurry of battle and the tangled mob of limbs that bore down on them, Itami couldn't name them all.

The Third Recon team unleashed a salvo of bullets into the horde. There was no need to aim. The coming army blotted out the horizon in a stampede of dust and bodies—none of the JSDF could miss if they tried. Rounds of ammunition ripped through the monstrous vanguard as they thundered towards the JSDF's entrenchment. Luka and Lelei joined in with their assault, chanting indiscernible words of power to add to the bombardment. Blades of wind cut swathes into the ranks of the horde as crackling whips of lightning burnt holes into their lines. The marauders did not care. They trampled soil and corpse alike, crossing the fields beyond the breach with monstrous agility. Three hundred meters. Then two hundred. One hundred.

Rory stood waiting for them.

The Apostle of Emroy released a mad laugh as she leaped into their ranks, the glint of her ax shining wickedly in the moonlit battlefield. Its edge split limbs as if they were dry twigs and its flat crushed bones as if they were as fragile as porcelain. Dozens fell within the first few seconds of her massacre and many more would be sure to follow.

Between lead, spells, and demigoddess, the bodies they left all but drowned the earth in blood. But it wasn't enough. More maddened beasts flooded in, and soon the battle descended into a desperate effort to hold the line.

Itami raised his rifle, catching the edge of a scimitar on its barrel. He kicked the furious kobold on its snout, sending it reeling as Itami aimed and wrenched the trigger back. The canine soldier shook, three fired rounds entering its chest with a rapid thu-thu-thuk of punctured sinew. Itami didn't watch as it fell, already moving on to the next targets that circled around the whirling dervish of death that was Rory.

"Don't aim at the ones beyond the wall!" Itami shouted over the battle. "Kill the ones getting past Rory! Leave the rest to her!"

Katsumoto heard him, concentrating the mounted LMG's continuous fire on the holes in their formation. Somewhere, he heard Kuribayashi yell something he couldn't understand over the chaos before a grenade left her hands and splashed into the enemy's ranks. Boom. Crimson splotches of gore mixed with upturned dirt, pieces of fragmentation ripping chunks out of the unlucky beasts that were caught in the blast.

Itami didn't stop to retch at the smell. He kept firing.

He didn't know how long they fought. Minutes or hours. Itami only realized that daybreak had come after the last centaur released a pitiful whine as Rory drove her ax into his side and Nishina finished it with a shot to the forehead. The horse-man crumpled to the ground—just another to join the mountain of bodies that encircled Rory, the little reaper drenched in blood and looking far too pleased with herself. She was the only one judging by how the rest of his team looked as if they were dead on their feet.

"Captain," Kuwahara called to where Itami had collapsed into an exhausted pile next to the truck. "Hayato got stabbed and Daisuke took an arrow to his leg. Kurokawa's stabilized them and given what treatment she can but they need a medivac, ASAP."

Itami sighed. He let the back of his helmeted head hit the vehicle's door with a dull metallic thunk.

"Crap. Where the hell are those reinforcements?"

"Tired already, Itami?' Rory asked as she approached, stabbing the heel of her poleaxe into the ground. "There's still a battle to be fought elsewhere. Do you really have time to relax?"

"Give me a break," he whined. "I nearly soiled my pants when that first bombardment came down. I swear my head is still ringing."

He was going to need to see a doctor when they got back to base. Even now, Itami could barely think straight from exhaustion, and that blasted pounding in his skull was making it even harder to focus. It was almost like it was vibrating down his neck and into his toes—a steady, scraping shriek that sounded as if someone was banging a steel bat onto the hood of the truck over and over.

Lelei frowned from where she rested atop a pile of sandbags. "That is not your head."

Itami frowned, turned to where Lelei was looking, and felt his heart crawl into his throat.

Beyond the hills of Italica, they came.

Men in plated steel marched in formation, spears glinting in the morning sun. Their shields, once as pristine as mirrors, had been desecrated—charred by flame and broken by gunfire upon the hills of Alnus. Upon their damaged surface, they had carved a jagged emblem of chaotic lines and uneven shapes as if in rebellion to the feudal lords that had abandoned them and the defeat that had bloodied them.

Their numbers shook the earth with every step. A thousand. Two thousand. More. They flooded in from every creek and crevice—a deluge ready to sweep him and his team away. The centaurs, the kobolds…they were all just a vanguard, meant to keep them fighting and exhaust them for when the real force arrived.

From somewhere to his left, he heard someone that sounded like Kurata say, "Fuck,"

"Rory." Itami muttered, standing to his feet. The Apostle regarded him as he walked past her and went through the motions of checking his rifle and ammunition. "Send Mari and Kuribayashi a message, would you? Have them load up the wounded in the other truck then tell them to take Tuka and Lelei and get out of here."

"Hm? Not going to include me in that order?" Rory tilted her head and smiled. "Should I be hurt?"

Itami shook his head and chuckled. "Would you go with them? If I asked you to?"

"Not in your life."

XxX

In another world, in another time, and in another place, a boy and an old man spoke. From one savior of humanity to another.

"Wizard Marshall, we accept your task."

"Hoh? So quickly? No second thoughts?"

The boy shook his head.

"I had offered this to you out of impulse, but I had not expected you to agree without an ounce of hesitation. You realize there is no need for you to endanger yourself? I could seal off this plane of existence and allow the infection to run its course. You need not risk your life."

"People are people. What does it matter if they're from another dimension? We'll save them anyway."

To turn away from a world in need would be the same as spitting on the face of everything they had fought for. It would dishonor the man that had given them a future. The boy would not be able to stomach it.

The old man chuckled.

"Hmph. You remind me of another young man. That one always talked about 'saving others' as well. Out of curiosity, you wouldn't happen to be related someone with orange hair? Bit of a pushover? Unhealthy fascination with swords?"

"No?"

"Pity." Zelretch smiled. He raised his hand. "You two would've gotten along."

The Magician of the Second Magic snapped his fingers, and the world went black.

All procedures cleared.

New Grand Order commencing operation.

XxX

It is something else entirely, matchlocks.

Itami had heard gunshots for the better part of his adult life; he spent as much time handling firearms as he did fiddling with his phone depending on his deployment, really. But those were modern weapons – jacketed bullets and intricate mechanisms that had been born from the burning battlefields of the first World War. To be used in an era where a single well-placed armament could slaughter scores of men before they could even return fire. When marching lines and volley formations would only provide a group of clumped targets for a machine gunner. Itami was a soldier but he was a modern soldier, built for modern wars to be fought with modern instruments.

Tanegashima were not modern and so, it was understandable that the opening volley of hellfire terrified him just as much as any of the ancient knights that he stood against.

Lines of overlapping arquebuses rained fire upon the field. The collective crack of igniting black powder washed over the defenders of Italica like a deafening wave of force, rattling kevlar, leather, and plate alike as streams of crimson energy – so hot that the air all but screamed as they flew overhead – streaked across the dawn's sky. They crashed thunderously upon the enemy lines, punching into and then through the armored torsos of the frontmost men before exploding into superheated winds that threw disembodied carcasses into the air like leaves caught in a hurricane.

"I recognize that sun sewn onto all of your shoulders."

A girl watched them from above, inconceivably standing atop one such matchlock rifle that floated closer. Long tresses of raven black hair spread like feathered wings from her back. Red eyes, the shade of a blazing wildfire, gazed upon them with curious relish like a child that had found a new toy.

"Once, I fought for that sun."

Some small part of him that acted beyond conscious thought couldn't help but compare her to Rory – saw the same sort of air in the weight of her presence that belied her short stature, the out of place uniform that looked like it was fit for a cosplay convention, and her almost inhuman beauty. But that comparison was just as quickly discarded. Because no matter how honestly terrifying Rory could be, she had never made him feel anything that could match the tumultuous cocktail of awe and blood curdling dread that seeped into his bones at the sight of this demon in human's clothing.

"I fought when that sun was fractured and broken – dreamt of uniting it once more."

This girl was not an apostle. This girl was not even an existence that should be possible. Itami didn't know how he knew but every single iota of his being screamed at him that she was not something that should be within this world. More than elves, more than immortal priestesses, more than dragons, this girl was the most frightening monstrosity he had come across.

"Tell me, children of Nihon."

The girl's breathtaking features twisted into a corrupted caricature of their fairness, and it was all Itami could do to keep from screaming. Crimson eyes morphed into twin orbs of madness, lips stretching inhumanly in a horrific grin – an asura come to life.

"How fares the nation of the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven?"