Chapter Four
The Rifleman's Sword - Minami Kuriyama (Osaka, Japan, March 6, 1980)
The Coalition's Operation Fairway task force, Task Force Nova, has entered their fourth year of operations in the Japanese theatre. It was some time before the nuclear fallout on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the operation's primary objectives, dropped to tolerable levels. Since the establishment of their base of operations at Wake Island, the Coalition has launched hundreds of reconnaissance missions and several dozen recovery missions on the Japanese islands, aimed mainly at major city centers and military bases. After a prolonged snowstorm during the winter, Task Force Nova resumed operations with search and recover missions bound to Osaka and Kobe. The consecutive missions will be part of an assessment of the Kansai region and the neighboring Chugoku region.
It was PFC Minami Kuriyama's second mission to the Japanese islands and had an idea of what to expect based on her previous mission to Wakayama months before; clear out the area, ensure any Titans encountered in the immediate area are lured to and dispatched by primary combat squads, sweep buildings thoroughly as possible for intel, document obtained intel, then repeat as necessary.
As predicted, the concentration of Titans became heavier as Task Force November inched closer to ground zero. After hard learned lessons in earlier mission sorties, a platoon of soldiers plus auxiliary support became a sufficient force for preliminary recon missions, with the force of a full company following up on successive deployments. General Edward Meyer opted to reinforce the mission complement with additional platoons in preparation for the resistance they will encounter. The ever changing environment in the Japanese theatre required the Coalition to adapt and expected the unexpected. The last thing they expected however, was for the Titans to adapt to them.
To distract the Titans from the CH-53 Super Stallions that carried the recon force, a flight of AH-6 Little Birds would fly ahead and draw their attention with low flying maneuvers and 20mm autocannon strafing runs. This would draw the Titans' attention to the agile strike craft and chase it down, leaving the Super Stallions open to unload their cargo and retreat. The only problem this time was the Titans didn't take the bait. They continued on towards the low altitude transports, vulnerable with the hatches open and the ropes deployed.
Three Super Stallions were able to deploy their squads before they were in any immediate danger. The other two transports at the west end of Kobe were still maneuvering in position to deploy their squads. By the time the AH-6 pilots relayed the information to the pilots, it was too late. The fourth transport deployed its ropes to deposit Sierra-Zero-Four onto a street leading into the west side of Kobe, where three 7m Class A Titans moved to greet them.
Unexpectedly, one of the Class A's climbed onto the roof of an abandoned house and jumped towards the transport. The pilot was forced to juke the craft right, tumbling many of the squad members off balance and severely injuring those who fell onto the street. The jumping Class A grazed the massive rotor blades and had its left arm cut off before landing flat into another abandoned house. The juke maneuver lowered the transport's altitude enough for another Class A to smash its powerful arm into the cockpit, killing the flight crew and compromising its flight ability.
Unable to control its descent, the massive transport rolled over on its side and crash landed onto the street. Fortunately enough the rotors perforated the Titan's head before they were pulverized by the asphalt. However it would not save the surviving squad members from the two remaining Class A's that greeted them.
Sierra-Zero-Five, Kuriyama's squad, was luckier as two of the squad's four fireteams managed to deploy before a Class B smashed its head on the Super Stallion's tail rotor and sent it flying out of control.
She laid on the ground, feeling a massive ache all over her body. She was halfway down when the rope was cut off by one of the squad members before its tail rotor was destroyed. The act probably saved her at the expense of falling hard a few feet off the ground.
"Marco, Marrice, get your heavies on that window and fire!" the lieutenant commanding Fireteam Three screamed out, pointing at a two storey house next to where they landed.
"Everyone else, get to cover and unload on that Class B!"
She was dazed from the fall, her vision blurry and all of the sounds she was hearing were magnified by five. There was intense gunfire and shouting that rang all around her, an officer barking commands to the right of her, and the crackling of concrete to her distant left. She closed her eyes, thinking of how painful her death was going to be when she heard a set of booming footsteps coming behind her.
"Kuriyama!"
She felt the touch of flesh on her neck, followed by the sound of a distant crash and explosion.
'This is it. All I ever did in the end...'
But it was not the raggedy-textured feeling she was expecting. It was another human's hand. She felt someone checking for a pulse before the fleshy feeling was cupped around the back of her neck.
"Hey!" a female shouted to her, the word echoing deafeningly in her head.
Kuriyama opened her eyes to find a dark skinned woman screaming at her face, snapping her out of her line of thought. It was Sergeant Major Gale Sparrow, her fireteam's XO.
"Hey! You alright? Can you fight?"
Kuriyama moaned.
"It hurts all over."
The woman laughed then helped her sit upright.
"Good! Come on, we're flanking around that 9m while Fireteam Three distracts it."
After being helped up by Sparrow, Kuriyama felt the energy rush back into her consciousness and managed to suppress the pain. She reached around her back, looking for the good luck heirloom she always brought with her. It was still mounted on the back of her vest.
'There it is. Really is good luck.'
Once she confirmed it was there, she picked up her AR-210 battle rifle lying on the ground and regrouped with the remaining members of Fireteam Four. From Kuriyama's fireteam, only the XO, the radioman, and two riflemen made it down from the transport.
"Sir, who else made it off?" Kuriyama asked Sparrow.
She pointed at the officer that was directing the second fireteam, 2nd Lieutenant Kendrick Bazemore.
"It's just us and Fireteam Three."
'Oh fuck. Captain Nichols, Sergeant Munroe. Jim...'
"Hey, snap out of it Private!" Sparrow said.
She shook her head, still feeling slightly nauseous from her fall. Half of her fellow squadmates were potentially dead and until they checked on the transport's crash site, there was no way of telling for sure.
'No. We'll make it out alive. All of us.'
"Lieutenant just ordered us to flank around and take out that Class B. Let's make this quick people."
The five-man fireteam moved around one of the houses that were still standing in the area. The area was strewn with debris from former buildings reduced to jagged foundations, a result of the American bombing campaign against Japan during World War II. They moved towards an intact house just a ways from Fireteam Three's position, in front of the Titan. It's attention was directed at Bazemore's fireteam and started lumbering towards them.
"Kuriyama, Gutierrez, get on the roof. When you get a solution, take it."
"Yes ma'am," Kuriyama and the other rifleman answered.
They climbed up one of the ruined walls and onto the tiled roof. Before the two could ready their rifles, the radioman called out from below.
"Sergeant Sparrow! Multiple contacts coming in from the west!"
The exclamation was enough to draw the attention of the Class B Titan, noticing Kuriyama and Gutierrez on the roof first.
"Signal the Enteprise and tell them to send QRF!"
The Titan, now meters away from the intact house, raised up its left arm and swooped down, intent on sweeping the duo off the roof in a single strike.
"Get down!" Kuriyama yelled at Gutierrez.
Kuriyama ducked below the incline of the roof, barely avoiding the edge and falling over two stories. After falling three stories from a helicopter, it was something she wasn't keen on doing twice in a row. She looked up in time to witness the Titan's left palm swat an unlucky Gutierrez off the roof and to the ground behind the house, leaving a trail of blood in front of her.
"Shit."
The Titan then swung its right arm around to smash her, barely managing to evade it with a roll. The force of impact knocked her back considerably and threw her rifle off the roof, leaving her no other weapons to effectively fight with. The Titan still had its fist stuck on where it tried to splatter Kuriyama.
Her squadmates were repositioning to engage the new Class A contacts coming out of the treeline from the west, moving to a standalone wall and using the debris around it to support their weapons.
'Fuck, my rifle's on the ground and my sidearm's no good. What am I- wait...'
She realized that she had a weapon, but it's extremely risky to use, especially in their current situation: her good luck heirloom that was mounted on her back. It was given to her by her parents as a gesture of good luck. Also "so that God will be watching you."
'Would it really count for something right now?'
She rose up and reached for her good luck heirloom. She pulled out the handle from the sheath and held it in front of her. Her family's black-handled wakizashi, passed down from and maintained since the 19th century.
The Titan continued to pull out its fist to no avail while Fireteam Three continued drawing its attention once again. SGM Sparrow and the rest of the fireteam were still repositioning. Its fist was almost free and its vision was directed away from Kuriyama.
'There's no time. Let's go!'
She wielded the wakizashi in her left hand and started sprinting, intending to run up the Titan's arm and reach its nape so she can slice it out herself. The potential deaths of Captain Derrek Nichols, Sergeant Claude Munroe, Corporal Jim Butler, and now Private Gutierrez is motivating her to kill the Titan itself.
'No way I'm letting you get away with all of this.'
Her peripheral vision became faded and she felt her eyes throbbing, as if they were going to pop out from the intense mental pressure building inside her.
"Kuriyama! 'The fuck are you doing?!"
She heard the sergeant screaming distantly behind her. Kuriyama paid no attention to it and continued sprinting, finally reaching the base of the Titan's fist. She stepped on just as it was freed from the roof. From her current perspective, it was a wasted effort.
'Fuck. Fuck.'
She felt the sensation of vertigo overcome her and started panting heavily. Her vision was strained and she was about to black out. Before her consciousness faded into darkness completely, she watched herself sprint forward up the Titan's arm and wield the wakizashi with expert precision. She heard one thing come out from her mouth just as darkness overtook her.
"Die."
Kuriyama opened her eyes, facing the grey cloudy sky above her while she lied on the ground. An overwhelming sensation of disappointment and failure rushed into her head.
'Was that it? Was that all I could do? How pathetic.'
It was a bit of a fall from the roof of the house, still shorter than the distance she was dropped from the transport, but-
'Hurts like fucking hell.'
It was both a good and bad sign.
'Why aren't I dead? Why can I still feel my back throbbing out?'
All she can recall is the death of Private Gutierrez right in front of her and getting knocked off the roof herself by the Class B Titan. She thought for sure she would be a goner. Several sets of footsteps echoed behind her, as well as the sounds of soldiers... cheering for her? "Goddamn did you actually do that?" and "whoa, that was friggin' awesome!" were the two phrases she could hear clearly out of the rest.
'Great. There's no need to rub it in my face. I'm suffering enough here.'
She was going to give them a piece of her mind when they got over but when they did, she realized they weren't laughing at her. They really were cheering her on. They helped her sit up and leaned her against the cement wall.
"Hey, Kuriyama."
She recognized the voice as Sergeant Sparrow's and looked up. This time, she didn't sound as concerned when she first approached her earlier. Sparrow stood over her, joined shortly by Lieutenant Bazemore.
"I'm sorry ma'am," Kuriyama replied.
"What're you saying sorry for?" Bazemore asked.
"I... I failed."
She looked down on the ground, constantly replaying her supposed final moments as some sort of punishment for failure. She didn't notice Sparrow's demeanor change to a surprised one.
"What the hell are you talking about Private?"
"The Titan, I didn't get it. I almost died from it."
Sparrow and Bazemore looked at each other in confusion before she replied, with an answer she wasn't expecting to hear.
"More like it died because of you. It's dead now."
'What?'
There was no way she could've killed the Titan. It was so clear in front of her: she climbed onto the roof of the house and saw Gutierrez get swatted off before she got done in herself.
"What? How?"
"You sure you're alright?" Bazemore asked her.
"I guess. Just tell me again, how did I kill it?"
He cleared his throat before starting.
"You pulled off some hot shit by running up to the Titan's nape and you started your slice 'n dice with that sword of yours."
'No...'
She wanted to confirm her disbelief, reaching for her good luck heirloom on her back. Once she got a hold of it, she'll know that they're just messing with her and that her heirloom once again saved her from the jaws of death. Twice. There was a problem with that logic though.
'Huh? Where is it?'
She sat up and patted her back, concerned that she lost her heirloom somewhere after the fall. There was no way that she would carelessly let it slip out, especially during the middle of combat.
'Wait...'
Noting what Bazemore said about killing the Titan with the sword, she looked up at the Class B carcass. Through the soft streams of smoke, she could make out a long sharp object sticking out of the nape. Once she focused her vision on the object, she widened her eyes and gasped. It was Kuriyama's black handled wakizashi, her family's good luck heirloom.
'That's not- wha... Why don't I remember any of this?'
She remembers clearly, once its left arm swept the room, it brought its right arm down onto the roof. She looked up to confirm that it did happen. A part of the wall above her was dented in and had small chunks of tile that were barely clinging on to the ruined roof. The force of that impact was what knocked her to the ground now. Right...?
"Bullshit, you just put it there after you guys killed it," she tried to deny.
"Me? Bullshitting?" the stern lieutenant barked at her.
"I should be the one shitting on you if you pull something stupid like that again."
She stared at the wakizashi, hoping that it will induce some sort of flashback as to what really happened. Unfortunately, something so predictable doesn't work as easily in reality.
"So I really did kill it?"
"Yeah, you got really lucky Kuriyama. Now stop rubbing it in and grab your gear. We need to move out."
The soldiers prepared to move north to their crashed Super Stallion in hopes of recovering anyone who survived that ordeal. Kuriyama climbed up onto the carcass to retrieve her wakizashi. She stared at it intently. If she did kill it, it did not register at all in her memory banks.
"Holy shit."