A Young Girl's Guerilla War

by RagnartheSemiGreen

Tanya dies in an artillery barrage on the Rhine Front, contrary to both her and Being X's plans. Unwilling to let his chew toy escape so easily, Being X reincarnates Tanya back into Japan... Six years before Britannia conquers Area 11. (First posted on Space Battles)

24. Chapter 23: A Leadership Exercise

(Thank you to MetalDragon, Sunny, Aminta Defender, Afforess, MitchH, WrandmWaffles, and Siatru for beta reading, editing, suggestions, and their encouragement, as well as the lovely members of my Discord. I appreciate it.)

Chapter 23: A Leadership Exercise

APRIL 21, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
2004

"Regrettably, Naoto won't be joining us for this meeting." Ohgi folded his hands on the table before him and blandly smiled at Diethard as he spoke in Japanese. "That man needs his sleep more than he needs yet another meeting."

"True enough." I nodded from the end of the small table, equidistant between Ohgi and the reporter, replying in the same language. "I didn't think that Kallen strictly needed to be in attendance for this meeting either, so I sent her back home. No need to take unnecessary risks with her other identity, after all." I turned to Diethard. "Anyway, despite the lack of Kozukis in attendance, consider this your introduction to the Kozuki Organization."

"Charmed, I'm sure," Diethard replied, smiling sardonically at Ohgi, who for his part, just gazed back with a bland passivity I distinctly remembered from endless meetings back in my first life.

"Ohgi, meet Mister Diethard Reid," I began the introductions, "a journalist and producer with Hi-TV. Mister Reid, meet Kaname Ohgi. Together with Naoto and I, Ohgi is in charge of the Kozuki Organization as well as the Rising Sun Benevolent Association."

"Oh?" Diethard blinked languidly, before visibly giving Ohgi a once-over, eyes tracing over my fellow officer's admittedly greasy pompador, long sideburns, and battered jacket, and deliberately turning away from the only pure Japanese leader in the Organization to look at me. "Are you sure I can't meet with Nathan? Usually, stories with a more… charismatic cast sell better."

I noticed the slight stiffness in Ohgi's shoulders, and internally commended him for refusing to rise to Diethard's obvious bait. No need to give the Brit any reason to fall back on the "savage Eleven" stereotype, after all.

Still, Diethard is my problem, so it's my responsibility to see that he stays in line.

"Mister Reid," I opened conversationally, "if you attempt any social engineering to adversely affect the Organization, its leaders, or its members – especially in such an overt manner – I will take it as a betrayal of the spirit of our agreement."

I let the comment hang in the air for a moment and stared at the infuriating man, trying to convey exactly how unimpressed I was with his antics before giving up and opting to convey my feelings as unambiguously as possible. "Just so there aren't any misunderstandings here, Diethard, let me be blunt." I spoke in slow, carefully enunciated tones while I maintained direct eye contact with the madman. "You will treat Ohgi with the same level of respect as you do me or Naoto. This is Shinjuku, and the heart of the Rising Sun. You are here at my discretion. Do not abuse it."

I paused and gave the words a moment to sink in. "Do I make myself clear?"

The man's infuriating smirk dimmed, and the deranged newsman gave me a nod that was almost respectful. "Crystal."

The itching in my fists died down, but I could still see the spark of madness twinkling in his eyes.

It truly is Schugel all over again, I grumbled to myself, I'll have to make sure he's kept on a tight leash. An insane genius like that is as useful as they are dangerous.

"So, Mister Kaname," Reid continued, turning back to Ohgi, "what is your role in this Organization of yours?"

"I am… I handle… internal management…" Ohgi replied, speaking slowly as he groped for the words.

While my fellow officer had familiarity with Britannian, dating back to his childhood friendship with Naoto, he wasn't exactly comfortable with the language. Worse still, he once confided to me that stressful situations made it harder for him to articulate his thoughts in the Emperor's tongue. I had wanted to help him refresh his familiarity, since knowledge of the enemy's language is frequently useful, but there was just never enough time when we were both free.

"If you have… problem or argument, or if you want to join… I handle that. I also help with training program."

"Fascinating." Diethard's dry reply, again skirting the very edges of rudeness, was blatantly insincere. "Well, as Miss Tanya already mentioned, I am a journalist and a producer, which means that I specialize in finding engaging stories, and presenting them to the general public." He paused, and smirked. "Let me know if I'm going too fast for you."

I suppressed a sigh. I really am going to need to figure out how to deal with this Brit shit stirrer.

"I understand," Ohgi replied, stoically ignoring the bait. "Keep going."

"Well, to put it simply, I can really help your organization out in two ways." Presumably finished with petty one-up-manship for the moment, Diethard finally got to the point of the meeting. "First, narrative management and dissemination. I can help shape your organization's story, and I can make sure that it gets into the public consciousness. Second, I am a fantastic investigative reporter; between my own skills and my multitude of contacts, I can provide all kinds of useful intelligence to your organization. I already gave Tanya a free sample!"

"A free sample?" I broke in sharply. "Mister Reid, you assured me that everything you possessed was on that drive. Do we need to go back to the alley to help shake loose whatever you were hoarding?"

I have not lied to you, not once," Diethard replied calmly. "After all, it is very important to establish trust between a subject and an interviewer. That drive contains the sum of my investigative work to date, but if there's one thing I have learned in my trade, it's that there is always another secret. I am sure there's plenty more dirt for me to dig up."

"Alright." Oddly enough, I did believe him. In a strange way, Diethard wasn't unlike Schugel – the lunatic scientist and engineer who had haunted the final years of my past life. Just like Schugel, Diethard was a fanatic, and like Schugel, a slave to his obsession. In large part, that was why I'd assured Kallen that I understood Diethard – I had dealt with his ilk before. "Propaganda and intelligence; both quite handy for an organization like ours."

"That they are." Diethard practically oozed smug satisfaction. "Honestly, you're quite lucky I decided to follow Lady Stadtfeld to you. The rest of the Fourth Estate here in Area Eleven, sorry, Japan, have no idea how to spin a story. They're all so used to appealing to an audience of one that they've forgotten how to appeal to anybody else."

"Fourth Estate?" Ohgi asked, turning to me for clarification. "What's that?"

"The press, the media, journalists. All of that," I explained in Japanese. "Anybody who isn't directly employed by the government and makes a career out of peddling information to the public."

"Ah, I see. Thank you." Ohgi turned back to Diethard. "Question: if news are all talking to Prince Clovis, what good is 'narrative management'. And, what about censors?"

I sat back, curious to see how Diethard would respond to those points.

"I didn't mean that all of the news stations and papers are solely addressing Clovis," Diethard said with a smile that was only slightly patronizing. "They make sure that he hears what he wants to hear and say what he wants them to say. The thing is, a good producer knows that any story can be told a multitude of different ways. If we're discreet and clever, the censors will wave any story we tell through with only minimal pro forma changes."

"You're quite sure of yourself, Mister Reid." I studied the newsman, attempting to determine how much of his confidence was warranted and how much was bluster. "Please give me an example of a story that you think could be aired that would advance the goals of our organization."

"The goals of the organization?" Diethard lifted an immaculately shaped eyebrow. "You haven't actually explained what your long-term goals are to me. Considering the soup campaign and the hearts and minds campaign you're running, I assume that this is more than a paltry gang, but beyond that I'm in the dark."

I paused, rewinding our negotiations in the alley, the brief conversation we had on the way to the apartment building and the course of the meeting thus far. Damn, he's right; I completely forgot to explain what the point of all this is. I rubbed my nose, suddenly aware of how long today had been and how tired I was. In my defense, it wasn't like his recruitment followed the standard pattern.

"My apologies, Mister Reid." Realizing that I was still holding the bridge of my nose, I folded my hands in front of me, aiming for a slightly more professional look. "That particular oversight was an error on my part. You have joined a group dedicated to the liberation of Japan from the Holy Britannian Empire, and the re-establishment of the Republic of Japan as a free and sovereign entity."

To my surprise, Diethard threw back his head, laughing, and finished with a round of enthusiastic claps. I blinked and looked at Ohgi, who shrugged at me, equally confused. "Excellent, excellent!" Diethard all but crowed, eyes wide and shining. "I knew you'd have a story worth telling! Lady Statdfeld was merely an appetizer, a starter! This is the story! My story!"

"You're free to tell it once we succeed," I replied sharply, trying to throw some figurative cold water on the excited reporter. "In the meantime, you still haven't answered my question."

"Yes, yes," Diethard waved off my concern, "don't worry, I know exactly where to start. Think about it – who has Clovis been cozying up to for the last six months or so?"

"The Purists?" Ohgi ventured, before turning and speaking to me in Japanese. "That's what they're called, right? 'The Purist Faction?' They're the same ones who took the credit for the Station and who you targeted for Kyoto?"

"Yes," I replied in Britannian for the benefit of both parties. "Viceroy Clovis has been providing political support and clearly preferential treatment to the Purist Faction. This has given the Purists license to aggressively pursue their own policies, such as the fratricidal attacks on Honorary Britannian units last winter."

"Exactly! That must have been an excellent Christmas present for you – your enemy fighting their native allies in the streets of the Area capital itself!" Diethard's smile ripened with manic enthusiasm and unhinged glee. "And since the Prince can't admit that he screwed up by backing the Purists, he made their narrative his own, doubling down on his error again!"

"It was an… unexpected outcome," I carefully replied. "One that exposed a surprisingly sharp division in the enemy's ranks."

"And there you have it!" Diethard smacked the table, emphasizing his point. "That's the story you tell! Clovis is chained to the Purists, who are dedicated to forcing all Honorary Britannians out of the military. If you want to run stories against the Britannian military, smear the Honorary Britannian units. The censors will hear 'Honorary Britannian' and wave you through and suddenly you have anti-military content on every news channel in Area 11!"

"Every channel?" I mulled the idea over. "Ah, because once one channel runs a story and gets a positive reception, the others will follow suit." Diethard nodded as I followed his idea to its conclusion. "And once every channel's running it, well, then it must be true in the minds of the consumers, yes?"

"See, you're getting it!" Diethard reached into his pocket, causing Ohgi to tense, but only pulled out a small notebook. After a moment of fumbling, he started jotting down notes as he continued to speak. "Once you've got that sort of consensus on your side, you can run almost anything, as long as you localize it to the specific issue. Rampant inflation? Well, it could be the Prince's new vanity project, or it could be the Honorary Britannians. Nobody's going to check."

"That's just basic scapegoating, though. Hardly anything revolutionary." Even as I pointed out the lack of sophistication, I realized what a foolish objection it was. Propaganda didn't need to be revolutionary, it just needed to work. "Besides, we have other priorities at present besides the Honorary Britannians." I paused, and then threw Diethard a bone. "Thank you for the example, though. That did indeed answer my question."

I turned over the example in my mind as I quickly caught Ohgi back up with the conversation. He'd started to look slightly lost as Diethard's speech had enthusiastically accelerated. I was still leery about openly targeting the Honorary Britannian population. Not only were the collaborators the only ones who had been educated over the last half decade, they were also a natural way to get saboteurs, or at least assets, into the Britannian war machine. Besides, targeting the Honorary Britannians would put the Kozuki Organization at odds with the Six Houses in their role as the 'Numbers Advisory Committee', the foremost Honorary Britannian authority in Area 11.

"I think that we will start with a more local concern," I decided, turning back to Diethard after a quick consultation with Ohgi in Japanese. "It's long past time for the Rising Sun Association, and through it the Kozuki Organization, to assert control over all of Shinjuku. The surviving gangs represent an unnecessary complication in our plans and are a drain on our resources and attention. Their continued operation also flies in the face of the mission of the Benevolent Association."

"Gangs?" Diethard looked slightly put out. "You're just focusing on… gangs? That's… rather pedestrian. Quite boring, in fact."

"Strong empires require steady foundations," I retorted, "and clearing the board here in Shinjuku will enhance our organizational footing. Besides, I think you might find this assignment interesting. After all, aren't you eager to shake up the comfortable, stagnant lives of the nobility?"

"Oh?" The fanatical glimmer returned to Diethard's eyes. "Guilty as charged, but I don't see how Eleven street gangs have much to do with the nobility. Where are you going with this?"

"I'm putting your investigative and production skills to the test with a tight deadline," I smiled humorlessly at the newsman, "think of this as a crunch session. In two days, I want to turn on HI-TV and see a report about how select members of the local aristocracy have been undermining Clovis's reign and concealing taxable income from his Administration via an alliance with local street gangs."

Diethard worried at his lip for a moment, then shook his head. "I can't fabricate something that big and expect it to run. It might get past the censors, if it even got that far. Tangling with nobles means Legal would get involved, which means Corporate would need to see my evidence and sign off before I could get my script anywhere near a teleprompter."

"Oh, no need to worry about fabricating anything." I replied dismissively, "What's that Britannian phrase again? 'The best lies have a grain of truth in them'? Well-" I smiled at the newsman, letting just a hint of teeth show under my lip, "in a few days, I will be providing you with all the evidence you could ever want when I handle them personally."

My smile dimmed and I gave him a pointed look. "However, if I simply cut down the weeds without pulling the root, they'll just come back. Which is where you'll come in."

"...Well, you're definitely not boring," Diethard conceded, although his tepid praise was undermined by the renewed gleam in his eyes. "Still, I'm not sure you're going to find a smoking gun sitting in some gang squat. I mean, I'm not doubting that some nobles are using local criminal groups as foot soldiers, but why would they write anything down?"

"Someone's got to take inventory," I pointed out, "and someone's got to be handling the money. More to the point, I'm not trying to take the noble backers to court; that's not the point of this operation. The point is that you make a big public stink about it, phrasing their alleged activities as an insult to the Viceregal-Governor's royal dignity. Clovis either publicly says that it isn't, making him look weak and foolish, or he acts. If he acts, he'll be isolating a slice of his backers, introducing further divisions into the Settlement."

I tried to ignore the expression of awe on Diethard's face; it was honestly disturbing, the way he was looking at me. He really is like another Schugel… And just like Schugel, he is utterly infatuated with his pet obsession. This is not a rational actor.

"Anyway," I continued briskly, "it's about time for you to return to the Settlement. Ohgi will escort you to one of the brothels near the checkpoints, where you can blend in with the crowd and exit the Ghetto. Please give him an email or a phone number where we can reach you; I assume you've handled confidential sources before, so use the same procedures. We'll be in touch to schedule a pick-up for any materials we capture in the raids."

"Y-yes! Absolutely" Diethard finally found his tongue, and all but bounced to his feet. "Yes, it is time to go! Two days? Two days?! I've got so much to do!" He turned to Ohgi, who was slowly standing from his chair. "Come on, hurry up! I don't have a minute to lose!"

I exchanged nods with Ohgi. "Hurry on back," I commanded him, switching back to our language, "and make sure you keep your radio on. Boar and Mallet should still be downstairs – I'll tell them to keep a discreet eye on you two." I chanced a quick look at Diethard, impatiently hovering near the door to the apartment we'd used as an improvised conference room. "Don't trust him."

"No need to tell me twice," Ohgi grumbled, ruffling my hair before he stumped his way across the room and out the door, closely followed by Diethard, who thankfully left without any pretense of a friendly goodbye.

Finally alone, I leaned back in my chair and yawned, closing my eyes for a quick moment. I'd have to get back up soon, since I planned on spending the night in my usual place in the apartment I shared with the other two leaders of the Kozuki Organization, but I let myself rest for a moment. It had been a long, long day, full of seemingly endless meetings. And tomorrow morning, I'll need to wake up early to see Ohgi off.

It would be strange, being away from the man after months at The School. It was good to be back, something I would never have thought about Shinjuku before enduring Major Onoda's company for an entire season. Hopefully Ohgi can keep our other ally of convenience in check. It was almost enough to make me miss the clean divisions of my previous life. At least then everybody on our side had worn the same uniform.

APRIL 22, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
0550

The next day began early, as Naoto and I woke early to see Ohgi off as he began his journey back to Gunma. We ended up accompanying him halfway across Shinjuku before finally saying goodbye; any further and our presence might have drawn attention to the lone man slipping out of Shinjuku and disappearing into the dawn.

Then came a shared breakfast with Naoto, which started quite pleasantly but became quite fraught when I briefed him about Diethard. As I had anticipated, Naoto was very upset to hear that anybody had been stalking his beloved little sister for months, and decidedly disturbed that the newsman had managed to dig up so much information about her. Fortunately, he mastered his anger quickly enough and gave his retroactive blessing to my actions, agreeing that Diethard was a valuable enough tool to justify recruitment. Explaining why I was so certain that Diethard wouldn't betray us had taken some effort, but in the end Naoto accepted my logic.

"I still think you're playing with fire," the leader of the Kozuki Organization cautioned me, munching on a rice cake. "The man's clearly fucked in the head. Who's to say that he won't find some new 'next big story' to distract him, eh? And don't give me that mutually assured destruction crap," he waggled a finger at me from across the table for emphasis, "the man was willing to walk straight into Shinjuku in a cashmere suit. He has no self-preservation instinct."

"I don't deny that in the slightest, Naoto," I sighed, taking a sip of my orange juice. Bless his heart, Naoto had remembered – or perhaps been reminded by Ohgi – how much I had enjoyed the oranges. Fresh oranges were hard to come by, but my other roommate had stocked up on concentrate to make into juice. "I'm not trusting his self-preservation to keep him inline; he signed up with us, after all. I just think that he's a deeply obsessive man who cares for nothing but his so-called great work."

"I know, I know…" Naoto grumbled slightly, taking another bite of rice cake. "I'm not doubting you, nor your instincts. Kami knows, you've been right so far."

"It's perfectly understandable to dislike the man," I replied reasonably. "Speaking frankly, I dislike the man as well. I was… less than pleased to learn that he had been prying into Kallen's affairs, and I would have shot him in the alleyway for that offense alone if I hadn't thought that he was more useful still breathing. Plus, I didn't want to have to haul the body all the way back out of the Ghetto to obfuscate the circumstances of his passing."

Naoto laughed, and the mood finally lightened as the last vestiges of his sulk dissipated. "Yeah, for sure! How were you planning on pulling that off, Tanya? Were you gonna… magic… him through the checkpoint?"I could tell that the last question was only half-joking at most. I couldn't blame him for his curiosity.

"Nothing so fanciful," I demurred, waving my hand as if to dissipate the idea into the ether, "and nothing particularly complex either. There's no shortage of gang-infested subway tunnels around here, and at this time of year, there's got to be at least a few that aren't flooded. I'd just find my way through and leave the body somewhere on the other side of the wall.

"Which," I put down my cup, "actually brings me to my next point. I think it's time to finish cleaning house, Naoto. You'd know best, as the man on the ground for the last few months, but in my opinion, we aren't going to get a better opportunity any time soon. Not until the next cohort graduates from The School, at least."

"Oh?" The redhead leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest.

It was amazing how much better he looked after a single good night of sleep, plus the two full meals Ohgi and I had supervised. While the dark shadows were still under his eyes, some of the exhaustion lines had faded, and some of the color had returned to his waxy skin. Before putting him to bed the previous night, Ohgi had forced his best friend into the icy shower, dealing with the worst of the stench as well as the rough stubble, now cleanly shaved away. Instead of "dead on his feet", Naoto just looked worn to the bone.

"Yes," I replied firmly, "I'm firmly convinced that now is the best time to strike at the surviving gangs. If we wait too long, information about the newly trained fighters will leak out, reducing their effectiveness."

I paused, realizing that I'd slipped up already. Hadn't I just reminded myself of how skilled Naoto was as a leader the night before? I had been so impressed by his achievements in Shinjuku that I'd recommitted myself to following his guidance while implementing my plans. All of that had gone by the wayside as I'd recruited Reid at my own initiative, without consulting the leader, the one who had guided Shinjuku's rebuilding project over the last three months.

I just got back and I'm already overstepping my authority! I got so used to a near independent command that I forgot my place in the chain of command entirely! Naoto's generally relaxed, but if he thinks I'm trying to usurp his hard-won authority? I needed to make things right, before Naoto could build up a head of steam and become truly upset. A show of renewed submission would do the trick.

"Naoto, I apologize." I stood up from my chair and bowed, lowering my head and humbling myself before my leader. "You're the one who's been fighting the gangs for the last several months, and you're the one who organized the local citizen militia. What are your plans? Please, let me help you refine and implement them!"

Naoto laughed. "Oh yes, my great and mighty plans! I've got 'em, masterpieces all of them!" He paused for a moment, looking at me expectantly. I kept my head lowered as my mind raced, trying to figure out what response he was looking for.

"…Oh, come on Tanya!" Naoto rolled his eyes, the amusement in his voice mingling with exasperation. "Lift your head and sit back down. My plan at the moment is to listen carefully to what you have to say. You say it's time to go after the gangs? I agree."

"Oh." With careful grace, I returned to my seat, folded my hands in my lap, and looked back up at my leader, my face carefully blank. Thankfully, Naoto was merciful, and he gave me a moment to repair my dignity before continuing.

"I think we should probably grab Inoue first, though. I've… uh… been pretty occupied, and I don't have a great grasp on how our supplies are looking at the moment… And…" Naoto had the grace to look away. "I owe her an apology, I think…"

"For almost working yourself to death?" I asked, a hint of frost touching my voice, "Yes, Naoto, you should apologize to Inoue for that. And you should also apologize to her for offloading talking to Kallen onto her shoulders. Kallen's your sister, Naoto. Trying to cut her out of your life is bad enough, especially because you know that doing that just makes her more determined to be involved."

"Yeah, yeah… Haa…" Naoto sighed, but with a fond smile. "Man, Inoue's really been doing a ton of good. I couldn't have done any of it without her, you know. She's the one who kept everybody fed, who found all the building supplies we needed, who got the work passes to get people into the Settlement… It's pretty incredible, Tanya…"

Huh? I blinked, and frowned at Naoto. It sounds like… But, I was so sure that he and Ohgi… I shook my head firmly. It doesn't matter. There is no reason to dig through a coworker's personal life, even less to intrude on a friend's.

"She is definitely a fine quartermaster," I replied, "and not a bad analyst either. In fact, she was the one who explained how the gangs in Shinjuku worked to me."

"Well," Naoto checked his watch and got to his feet. "No time like the present. She's probably already up at the Meeting Hall. Breakfast is supposed to start in half an hour, so…"

"Great, we can take the opportunity to feed you again." I followed Naoto out the door and down the stairs, continuing to expound on how work was no excuse to miss meals, absentmindedly gesturing to Tsubaki and Kino as we passed through the lobby. The squad leader and her subordinate peeled themselves off the wall and fell into step behind us as we made the short walk to the Rising Sun's Meeting Hall.

As expected, the Meeting Hall was already jammed full when we arrived. Less than an hour after dawn, and a queue already stretched out the door, full of surprisingly talkative people, all chatting with their neighbors or family members as they waited for their morning porridge. Inside, the central room was full of collapsible tables groaning under the weight of bowls, cups and elbows. People ate hurriedly, and as soon as a seat opened up the next person in the queue was waved in and a bowl of breakfast thrust into their hands. It took me a moment to find Inoue in the swirl of bodies, before I eventually noticed her leaning against the wall by her office door, at the rear of the building.

Almost at the same moment, Inoue noticed our arrival. "Tanya! You're back!" The logistical officer of the Kozuki Organization and the manager for the Benevolent Association's day to day operations bustled through the hall, clearing a path by force of personality alone."It's been way too long! You were supposed to come by last night for dinner! Did you forget how to get to the Hall or something?"

As she fussed at me, Inoue wrapped her arms around my shoulders, pulling me close for a speedy, if warm, hug. After a second's delay, I returned the embrace before hastily letting go of her again. I had never particularly enjoyed shows of public affection, but… Well, I wasn't in the military, and it was very important to maintain personal bonds within our organization, and equally important to show solidarity in the face of the general public.

Besides… Being hugged isn't that much of an imposition…

"Look at you, girl!" Inoue gushed, enthusiastically ruffling my hair and easily evading my halfhearted attempts to swat her hand away. To my embarrassment, I saw some of the people in the line smiling and chuckling at Inoue's enthusiasm. "You're not a stick anymore, are you? You're finally putting on some muscle, huh? And you must've gained, what… Five centimeters? Six?"

"It's… Good to see you too, Inoue," I replied, somewhat lamely. "Naoto gave me the highlights, but it sounds like you have both been very busy. Ohgi and I were both astonished at how much Shinjuku has changed since we left. It's truly impressive."

"We've been keeping busy," Inoue smirked, before turning to Naoto. Sobering up, she gave him a long, thorough look. He smiled awkwardly back, and displayed his strategic acumen by holding his tongue and waiting for Inoue to have the first word. "Naoto. I see that Ohgi convinced you to actually sleep for a change."

"He also forced me to take a shower and clip my nails," Naoto rubbed his head, clearly anxious under Inoue's glare. "It kind of felt like I was twelve again." With a nervous chuckle, Naoto forced himself to straighten up and meet Inoue's eyes. "Look, I'm… I'm sorry, Inoue. I know I've been blowing you off lately…"

"Let's go to my office for this," Inoue cut in, seemingly remembering where we all were. "No need to make this a public ordeal, after all."

Moments later, all three of us were in Inoue's office, seated around a table hastily cleared of its stacks of folders. Somewhere along the way, Naoto and I had acquired bowls of porridge. I took an experimental bite – bland, but less than I'd expected.

Inoue noticed my inquisitive look. "Curious about my secret recipe? It's nothing too much; whatever cereal is cheapest, usually brown rice or millet, with onions and cheap meat finely chopped and stirred in to boil with the grain. Each bowl costs less than thirty pence to make, since we buy all the ingredients in bulk!"

"I really wish that you'd been in charge of the common pot back when I was on the labor gangs," I replied honestly. "If we'd had this instead of the watery stuff we got…" It was hard to put the depth of the emotion into words. So many people had wasted away, spending calories that their bodies couldn't spare, just in the hope of warding off starvation for another day. "Things might have been different."

"True enough," Inoue agreed easily. "But, that's our job now, right? To do the best we can to bring in a new day."

I nodded, and shut up to enjoy my porridge. Naoto, finally given the opportunity to speak, immediately took the plunge back into his interrupted apology.

"I'm sorry for blowing you off, and I'm sorry that I ended up pushing family stuff onto you," he began, "I didn't mean to, but I should have expected Kallen to be persistent. And… I'm sorry that I was acting like such a prick and not eating or sleeping. I was supposed to be a leader, and I offloaded a ton of responsibility onto you."

"Naoto…" Inoue sighed, "I'm not angry with you. I'm not even disappointed with you. I know that you throw yourself into whatever you do. You did that back in college, and you're still doing it now. I just wish that you'd… Ugh!" She untied the bandana from around her head, letting her shoulder-length dark blue hair pour down her shoulders. "I just wish that you wouldn't get so damned obsessed, dammit! And yes, stop ignoring Kallen. I'm tired of running messages between the two of you. That's not my job!"

"You're right, you're right," Naoto replied, doing his best to look as contrite as possible. "I should have handled that better. And… Look, I know that you didn't tell me about how Kallen and that Brit kid were talking. I'm sorry that I made myself unapproachable on the matter. That was stupid of me." He sighed heavily. "I know I get defensive about Kallen, and I know that it's stupid, but… Overreacting in the past to the point where you didn't tell me something that I really should have known was really stupid on my part."

"I was in the wrong too on that," Inoue admitted, resting her head on her hand. "I knew that I should have looped you in, but honestly, it looked like Kallen had it handled. I knew you were, uh… not at your best, and I figured that there was no point ruining a good thing, but… I didn't really have the authority to make that call. It could have been important."

"Well, tell me next time, alright?" Naoto smiled at Inoue, the awkwardness gone and something like his familiar boyish charm came back again. "I promise I'm not gonna bite your head off or throttle the kid!"

"I'll hold you to that," Inoue winked across the table, smirking at our fellow leader. "But y'know, some biting and choking could be okay, depending on how you play your cards, Kozuki."

I choked on my porridge.

"Gah!" Naoto jumped in his seat as I coughed up boiled grain, his face suddenly catching fire as he remembered that I was still here. . "You… uh… okay there, Tanya?"

My only response was a hacking cough. What do you think, moron?!

"Ah! L-Let me get you some water, Tanya!" Inoue panicked, face blushing just as brightly as Naoto's, presumably since she realized she'd been flirting in front of a twelve year old. "The, uh, porridge can definitely be kinda sticky going down. You should take smaller bites!"

Smaller bites?! I shrieked internally. You… You damned pent up idiots! I was just trying to enjoy my meal when you suddenly just… Just… Gaah!

I held in a ragged cough just long enough to shoot the two horny morons a smoldering glare that let them know exactly how amused I was about my brush with death via porridge. "

"Ah-ha… right… It's, uhh… good to be cautious." Naoto, at the very least, looked appropriately apologetic.

Inoue, the infernal minx, now had a damned smile on her face despite her blush. "You still want that water, Tanya?"

"I'll be fine," I rasped as I massaged my sore throat, doing my best to be professional if no one else wanted to be an adult in the room. "Moving on?"

Naoto still looked embarrassed as he nodded, looking away slightly. Inoue, on the other hand, had no shame. "So, how was your trip to the mountains, Tanya?" She smiled brightly, utterly unrepentant. "Did you make any new friends?"

"It was quite educational," I replied coolly, not rising to the bait. "And indeed, I think I have an idea in mind to demonstrate just how much I and the other returnees picked up over the spring. But, I will need your input, as well as Naoto's, to make it work."

Almost three hours later, I said my goodbyes to Naoto in front of the Meeting Hall. Regrettably, we each had full schedules for the day, and I likely wouldn't get the chance to see him again until evening. It was all important work though, and the core of leadership is obligation. While Naoto went off to his scheduled weekly meeting with the assembly of local notables, I veered east. Off to meet two of my own obligations, one long overdue.

I found Tanaka Chihiro high above the streets of Shinjuku, holed up with her three surviving snipers as well as a company's worth of other armed women in a crumbling hotel off Naka Street. Coincidentally, the hotel she'd chosen to make her personal stronghold was located only two blocks away from the collapsed office building sealing the tomb once known as Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station.

Fortunately for me, the Shinjuku Ghetto community grapevine was just as strong and well-connected as I'd remembered; news of my appearance at the Meeting Hall had already spread to the handful of guards outside the former hotel's entrance. While they were only crudely armed with home-made spears and knives, all four of the visible guards looked very competent with their cruelly edged weapons, and it had been a relief when they just smiled at me and waved me inside.

Chihiro was less delighted to see me.

"So, you're back, huh?" The hotel room, peeling walls spattered with mildew, stank of unwashed bodies and the cheap but strong hooch commonly brewed in Shinjuku. "Took you long enough. We've been busy as hell here while you were fucking around in Gunma!"

I stopped a foot into the room. Chihiro was sprawled over the moldering queen-sized bed, drunk at nine in the morning though thankfully still dressed. Her face, pitted with a multitude of tiny burn scars, was even more blotchy than I remembered, and her typically short cropped hair had been shaved away entirely.

And not by a skilled barber either, judging by that cut over her ear.

"Good morning, Miss Tanaka," I replied, stepping over a discarded pair of pants and discreetly running my eyes over the room. Thankfully, the scoped rifle Naoto had once given her – a gift courtesy of some gang's armory – leaned in the corner by the door, far away from its intoxicated owner. "It's been quite some time. How is your sister doing?"

"Chika?" Chihiro's face twisted for a moment, before settling back into her disdainful sneer. "You've probably seen her more recently than I have. She spends all her time out at the Meeting Hall now, helping Kasumi and Inoue, which is… Fine."

"Would you rather she be here with you?" I asked, not trying to needle the mercurial woman but genuinely curious. I'd never really understood Chihiro; she was fanatical in her antipathy towards all things Britannian, she always leapt at the chance to inflict violence, and she had a strange love-hate relationship with men in general. On the other hand, before I'd left for three and a half months, she'd also been very close to her younger sister, her sole surviving family member.

"Obviously!" Chihiro swung her legs off the bed and rose until she was seated upright. "But she refuses to pick up a weapon, not even a knife! I tried so hard to get her to join me, since… You know, we've got an extra rifle and all. And the little idiot refused!"

"I see." I didn't, but Chihiro's family life was her own problem. As long as Chika wanted to help, I was confident Inoue would appreciate the extra hands. Still, it was time to get to the reason I'd climbed five sets of stairs to visit this squalid room. "I'm sorry to hear about Makoto. It's very hard, losing someone under your command. How are your other subordinates taking it?"

"How do you think?" Chihiro snorted incredulously. "Having a ball of a time with it, obviously. Fuck's sake, I thought you were supposed to be smart!"

And that's about enough of that. I had come to visit Chihiro in good faith, and all I had gotten in exchange was unwarranted abuse. The temptation to slap the smirk off of Chihiro's face was almost overwhelming.

I'm better than that. Besides, it's not my job to keep discipline in the ranks.

"Thank you very kindly for your hospitality, Miss Tanaka," my voice was flat, measured, and cold. "I will give your regards to your sister. Hopefully she will be happy to hear that you're still alive. I will also pass on your regards to Naoto and Tamaki for their consideration of disciplinary action."

I turned on my heel and stalked out of the room. "We have an operation planned for tomorrow," I called back over my shoulder as I left, "and if you show up drunk, I will feed you your own rifle."

While I left the crumbling hotel in something of a huff, I still took the time to stop and speak with the guards on duty, complimenting them on their diligence, promising them better gear and action more exciting than standing sentry soon, and generally getting to know the members of the small militia that had congregated around Chihiro and her squad.

Every woman had her own story of her own path to the Rising Sun. Some had stories very similar to my own – long hours spent in backbreaking labor, with the prospect of a better life a lure leading to nothing but another day with a hungry belly. Others, the former sex workers jumping at the chance to get some power back after years of helplessness, had stories that reminded me of someone else entirely. Plenty had signed up after the Christmas Incident, and some had been rescued from gang strongholds while I was away in Gunma.

All told, a hundred and thirty two stories, of which I only had the chance to hear a three to four sentence highlight before bowing and moving on. All hundred and thirty two were united under the banner of the Rising Sun, and were united in their unwillingness to ever consider relinquishing their weapons. A particularly angry girl, offended by my question, pointed out that she could be put up against a wall and shot any day, so there was no reason not to fight; she was very surprised when I clapped her on the shoulder and told her I'd used that same line myself, when I'd joined.

I spent two hours glad handing and talking to the militia women, as well as Misato, one of Chihiro's snipers. While I was their leader by dint of institution, I wasn't a leader they knew personally, or really had any reason to trust. For the most part, that would be fine, so long as the leader they were personally loyal to trusted me. With Chihiro's personal dislike for me just as intransigent as always, I needed to give these militia members a distinct reason to trust in me personally.

After I passed on my condolences about Makoto to Misato and asked her to convey my sympathies to Aina and Inori, I finally left the ruin on Naka Street. I had another home visit to make, another obligation to discharge.

The tiny room was just like any of the others in the tenement, clean and orderly. The people who lived here cared about their home, and wanted it to look nice. It showed an investment and an interest in the future. All together, it was a lovely contrast to Chihiro's wretched hotel room, but kneeling on a cushion in Sumire's apartment made me long for my reluctant comrade's abrasive company.

Instead, Sumire's husband knelt on his own pillow, across a low table from me. His remaining arm cradled his son, almost four and looking at me with big, curious eyes, in his lap. I couldn't say that I saw any of Sumire in her son. Babies and children had always looked more or less the same to me, across all of my lives, and I'd generally done my best to avoid them when possible.

No escape was possible from this child.

"So… That's it, then." The words fell from Mister Tokihaku's lips like paper, slowly wafting down to the ground and landing too softly to hear. Scarcely a whisper. "That's it, then… S-Sumire's gone…"

"I doubt it will help, but she died a hero," I replied absently, my eyes caught on the boy's. "She and another comrade covered their squad's retreat. Everybody else made it out alive, thanks to their sacrifice."

"I see." Silence filled the room as Mister Tokihaku contemplated my reply. I waited patiently for his response; while I had many other things to do today, this was important. "Was… Was it worth it, then? Whatever it was you people did… Was it worth my wife's life? My son's mother's life?"

The man just wants reassurance, something to cling to. Sometimes, an easy answer is better, even if its veracity might be debatable. I should give him what he seeks.

"…I can't answer that question, not in a way that will satisfy you," I replied instead of the vague platitude I'd lined up in advance for just such a question. "She was not my wife, not my mother… I can't tell you that the loss you and your son will bear will ever be worth it, no matter what we accomplished."

Dammit! I was just supposed to soothe him, not give an honest answer! I'd be a terrible politician.

"If you want the cold comfort of a more objective answer?" I continued, deciding that the only way out of the hole I'd dug myself into was to dig deeper, "then speaking as her commander, it was worth it. The operation was a success, and losses, while painful, were less than they could have been. Many Britannians died as a result of the operation, and Britannian interests in the operation area might very well be permanently impacted."

I paused. "Does that help?"

"No…" Mister Tokihaku replied, "No, it really doesn't… I'm… I'm happy that she was able to help others, but if you'll pardon me for saying it, Miss Hajime… I wish the rest of her squad, the ones who ran, had been the ones to die instead."

"You have the right to feel that way." His statement had been full of painful, quiet anger, held as tightly to him as his son; Far be it from me to deprive a freshly minted widower of the right to grieve. "I don't doubt that I would feel exactly the same, were I in your position."

My news delivered, I rose from the floor, came to attention, and bowed to the still kneeling Mister Tokihaku. "You and your son have the right to food, medical care, and financial and material assistance from the Kozuki Organization, and from the Rising Sun Benevolent Association. If you need anything, from repairs for your apartment to a babysitter to oranges, come to the Meeting Hall. Do not hold back; we owe your family a debt of gratitude."

The child gurgled, and the father bowed his head. I left the tiny, clean apartment, closing the door behind me. A good leader tends to their followers, and ensures that they are valued and cared for. Loyalty offered must be repaid, otherwise no one will ever be loyal to you.

I fervently wished that I'd never have to make another such house call, but I knew that I wouldn't be so lucky. I knew that fulfilling my goals would demand a high price. I also knew that I would use every scrap of my knowledge and ability to drive that price down as far as I could, to make my number of house calls as low as possible.

Loyalty and obligation. Duty and leadership. For the first time in weeks, I thought of my mother. Duty is a chain, and obligation is a burden. But in the end… It was a chain that you picked up willingly, didn't you, Mother? You had every reason and opportunity to throw me away, but you didn't. Was it worth it, in the end, for you?

Was I worth it?

APRIL 23, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
0103

The sounds of drunken laughter and throbbing bass spilled out from the building below me as a knot of intoxicated partygoers staggered out the front door. The noise blended with the cacophony of similar sounds escaping from the lesser brothels and clubs surrounding the former Shinjuku Bunka Theater. As always on the weekends, the outlets retailing hospitality only blocks away from the Kawadacho Checkpoint were doing a brisk business.

My business with the brothel under my feet had begun much earlier in the night. Three hours earlier, I had mustered two of the five man squads I had brought back with me from The School; we had spent the intervening time slowly creeping into position, painstakingly picking our way through the many alleys and side streets of the Ghetto. While I typically preferred blending in with the crowd to skulking in shadows, my unit was packing entirely too much military hardware to resemble a gang of laborers coming home after a long shift.

Thankfully, the only tricky part had come when we'd arrived at the old theater building itself. Earlier reconnaissance by a pair of Naoto's Sun Guard militia had determined that two guards were posted on the roof. While the sentries were seemingly tasked with keeping watch over the street outside the gang's headquarters and thus more focused on looking out than guarding the roof itself, both had rifles and at least one had a they had noticed our ascent, it could have led to all kinds of complications.

So we climbed the brick exterior very, very slowly. The mortar was badly decayed after six years without maintenance, presenting abundant finger and toe-holds. By the time I had quietly pulled myself over the lip of the rear wall, at the head of the advancing unit, my shoulders and arms burnt despite my enhancements.

I'll have to thank Onoda, assuming he hasn't attempted to appropriate The School for the JLF, I mused, ducking behind the wall sheltering the entrance to the internal stairwell as the rest of my unit clambered over the top. If it wasn't for all of those exercises, I don't know if I could have made that climb.

Soon enough, all the members of A and B squads were hunkered down behind the stairwell's wall, which meant that it was time to wait. My unit was not the only group of Kozuki Organization members and auxiliaries out and about tonight, and in order for the plan to work, we all had to synchronize our efforts.

And on that note…

I slid my hand down to my pocket and pulled out the burner phone I'd picked up from Mister Asahara yesterday afternoon, along with a number of other useful tools. I sent a text to the one number saved in the contacts, before flipping the phone closed and returning it to my pocket. I wasn't expecting a response; if things were going according to plan, the next time the phone vibrated, it would be time for action.

After a short eternity of twelve minutes, I felt a buzz against my pocket. As I reached down again, I could almost feel the tension as ten sets of eyes tracked the motion. I quickly flipped the phone open, and grinned at the message. Inoue had been confused when I'd suggested "Tora, Tora, Tora" as our go-sign, but she'd indulged me.

Flipping the phone closed, I peered around the wall; the two sentries were leaning against the lip of the building, looking out onto the street below, and appeared to be smoking. I returned the phone to my pocket, and drew the knife hanging off my belt before gesturing to Tsubaki, although for tonight, she was B-1. I held up my empty right hand, and gestured at her, and she nodded – message received, just as we'd trained.

Carefully, I padded out from around the rooftop access, moving smoothly and deliberately. I wasn't too worried about the sounds of my boots on the gravel, considering the sheer volume of noise from down below, but I didn't want to make any sudden motion that might catch in one of the target's peripheral vision.

I angled towards the guard on the left, the further of the pair, as B-1 broke off towards his partner. We got closer and closer, the two men still utterly unaware of our presence. Both had propped their rifles next to them, and neither seemed to have any other weapon. My target had a walkie-talkie clipped to a belt loop; I would have to move fast. They were talking, but I couldn't hear about what. It didn't matter.

From the corner of my eye, I saw B-1 slowly raise her empty right hand as she approached her target, just the same as I had done. Then, I was focused only on the man in front of me, the way his stink – cigarettes, sweat, and body odor – filled my nose, and how he still hadn't noticed me and then-

Just as Onoda had instructed, I thrust my right hand forward, past the side of his neck, and grabbed his chin. I poured energy into my strength enhancement as I rose up, lunging forwards on my tiptoes, mashing his jaw shut and forcing his head up and back in a single smooth motion.

The knife in my left hand flashed forwards, the scarce illumination of the scattered and weak lights of this corner of Shinjuku glittering off the polished steel, before I rammed the blade into the side of my target's neck, slamming it in as hard as I possibly could, forcing the wedge through the muscle and into the vital bundle of tubes within.I heard a gurgling scream, but I didn't know whether it came from my target, or from B-1's. Gritting my teeth, I twisted down hard on my knife, forcing the wound wide open, and jerked the blade forwards. It tore free from his neck just above the shoulder, leaving an ugly gash of a wound behind.

My target was still thrashing limply, so I kept my right hand in place, holding his mouth shut and pulling him back over me. I took a half step back, dragging him with me to make sure he didn't topple forwards off the roof. Dropping my knife to the gravel surface below, I grabbed the radio off his belt, and with a bit of groping managed to clip it to the back of my own belt.

I'm probably getting blood all over this shirt. I couldn't help but laugh internally at the petulant thought. It was an utterly trivial concern, but the thrifty survival habits of earlier years were hard to shake. Speaking of survival...

The hand over his mouth felt no breath, and he'd stopped thrashing.. Below the heel of my right hand, I felt no pulse in his surviving carotid artery. Satisfied that the man was quite dead, I lowered the corpse to the ground and looked up to check on B-1's progress, and saw that she was rising back to her feet, just as blood soaked as I probably was.

Objective complete.

I gestured, and the remaining nine members of my team hustled over to join us. "Squad B," my voice was raspy and harsh after hours of minimal conversation, not to mention the hard climb, "you're up top. Squad A, you're with me on the cross and on point. Let's go."

Waiting just long enough to see ten acknowledging nods, I turned and opened the door to the internal stairwell. The knob turned easily; between the incompetent guards and the absence of any lock, the Eleven Lords, the gang based out of the old theater, clearly hadn't placed much of a premium on security, relying on intimidation in place of preparation. A good sign.

The stairwell was dark, without any functional light sources illuminating the narrow path through the accumulated detritus and trash. This wasn't part of the brothel headquarters where guests were allowed, and I doubted the gang's officers came here either. Fortunately, that meant we'd have the element of surprise for a bit longer.

I reached over my shoulder, and grabbed the barrel of my newly issued rifle, ducking under the strap as I unlimbered my weapon. It was a bit large for my frame, but I knew from experience at The School that I could easily compensate for that with my strength enhancement. I was fortunate that the coilguns of this world had such minimal recoil, compared to the chemical propellant weapons of my previous world, otherwise I would have been stuck bringing a pistol to this mission.

The knapsack that had hung just below the coilgun rattled as I hoisted my weapon, heavy with as much extra ammunition as I could carry, as well as the cylindrical devices I'd picked up from Mister Asahara last evening. Just like the rest of my soldiers, I had packed simply but not lightly for this mission; rifle, five thirty round magazines, three of the freshly acquired devices, and my phone. It would in all likelihood be more than enough.

Then, with a quick breath in and out, I gingerly took the first step down into the dark of the stairwell. The darkness was difficult, but not impossible to navigate, and thankfully, we were only going down a single floor's worth. Every jostle and every scuff rang like a heavy bell as my ten comrades followed me, but I knew that I could only hear those sounds because I was focused on them. We were professional, and our enemies were foolish and unaware.

After the five men of A Squad navigated the last few steps, I carefully cracked the door to the theater's interior open. This was the point where the mission started to get somewhat risky; we didn't have any contacts inside the Eleven Lords, so we didn't know what the interior of the theater looked exactly like now, other than the basic knowledge of where the main stage was.

Fortunately, as the door slowly opened, there wasn't that much to see. The mezzanine lobby had been divided up into some improvised rooms, with a hallway of sorts connecting the doorway I hid behind to the two sets of central stairs leading down to the main lobby. I could see a pair of men in ill-fitting suits standing by the nearest entrance to the amphitheater balcony, but apart from the two bored looking men, the only other presence stood just inside the closest "room".

A lone man, a Refrain addict judging by his wild and feverish declarations as well as the trackmarks on his arms, was shouting at a pair of tired looking women in soiled lingerie, while an older man in very ragged clothes tiredly pulled the sheets off a queen-sized bed. I waited, listening to the addict ramble for a moment, before leaning back inside the stairwell.

"Three present," I muttered to A Squad, as well as B Squad behind them. "One's tripping. Low priority. The two by the entrance are sober. Plan Three."

Not needing to wait for a reply, I stepped aside from the door, and let A-2 and A-3, both significantly bulkier than me, pass before slipping out myself, A-1 by my side and A-4 and A-5 behind me. The important thing here was to minimize noise for as long as possible: judging by the sounds, the lobby down below and the theater inside were packed full of people, and the longer they remained ignorant of our presence, the better.

A-2 and A-3 were picture-perfect in their takedowns of the two suited guards, the pair a credit to Major Onoda's expert tutelage. Before either of the targets realized it, my comrades were on top of them. The guard furthest away got out a quickly muffled squawk of surprise, but that was all.

Meanwhile, as the rest of A Squad and I jogged towards the nearest central set of stairs leading to the house lobby, I could hear the very brief sounds of struggle as two of B Squad sent the Refrainer to sleep. Thankfully, the apparent slaves didn't make a peep that I could hear.

I slowed down and crept up to the very top of the stairs, and looked down the other half of the mezzanine. The upper level only had a matching set of bored guards idly chatting by the other entrance – they'd be my first target. Then, I looked down into the lobby.

The Eleven Lords had climbed to the top of the Shinjuku flesh trade on the dual strengths of their connections and their skill at marketing their flagship establishment to the seedy yet upmarket crowd of decadent Britannians looking for something special. Their slick presentation and the wide range of debaucheries for sale got the crowds in through the door, and their alliance with the Crowned Heads, the gang with the largest laboratories in Shinjuku, meant that party favors were always available.

And so, it truly wasn't a surprise that the lobby was jam packed with a crowd that was almost half Britannian, clustered around a variety of what I could only call "side shows", for all that the term made light of what those shows consisted of. Gang members in tacky gilded jackets, dripping with frogging, hobnobbed and chatted with the crowd, presumably offering all kinds of wares, ranging from drugs to tickets for the main "floor show" inside the theater to a more private and specialized show.

I looked back, and saw that B Squad were clustered around the door to the Mezzanine. I didn't see any sign of the three slaves we'd passed, although if they had any sense they were hiding up on the roof, or at least in the stairwell. I caught B-1's eye, and lifted two fingers to my brow. She nodded, returned the salute, and slammed the door to the balcony open and disappeared inside, followed by the rest of her squad.

"Ready grenades," I hissed the command as I focused on pushing mana into my basic enhancement suite. Reality drew into sharp focus: the reactive enhancement overclocked my mind's processors, making the world seem to move slower as my perception sharpened, while my muscles itched with their sudden potential, waiting to unleash a wave of violence. "I'll suppress, all five of you throw as soon as we hear B go-"

Before I could get the word out, someone yelled from inside the balcony, followed immediately by three cracks as someone fired a burst from their coilgun. Dammit, Tsubaki must have run into resistance! Our cover's blown!

"Now! Now, now, now!"

Before the first of the devices cleared the stair railing, I was on my feet, the butt of my rifled firmly pressed into my shoulder, and the pair of suits in the iron sights. I caressed the trigger, softly squeezing it, and the fiberglass butt jerked back into my shoulder as three five millimeter bullets hyper accelerated down the magnetic rail in a fraction of a second. I didn't linger on my first target, immediately tracking the barrel onto the second target even as I squeezed down again.

As soon as I saw the suit jerk, I let go of my rifle, letting it swing from its strap as I spun on my heel. I dropped back down onto my knees below the stone railing of the old stairs and jammed my hands over my ears just in time. From below, the noises of consternation and growing confusion from the party guests and gangsters aware enough to notice the gunfire above their heads suddenly vanished, overwhelmed by a wall of pure sound.

Before the screeching tinny echo died away, I was back in my feet and my rifle was back in my hands. The rest of my squad weren't far behind me – by the time I'd lined up my sights on a gangster whose jacket bulged with a poorly hidden handgun, A-4 was already firing on another target.

The lobby erupted into pandemonium, as the deafened and blind crowd realized that it was under attack. Britannian and Japanese, client and criminal, slaver and enslaved, all exploded into a mad scramble for cover and safety. I fired a burst into the back of a man scrambling for the door, and the woman next to him screamed as his blood splashed across her face. As one, the crowd turned and rushed for the presumed safety of the theater itself, trampling the slow, the bound, and the unfortunate, spurred on by our unmerciful fire as we continued to rake the back of the crowd.

The theater proved no refuge. I saw a brief flash of white light from the double door, wide open and choked with bodies, and I heard the same roar as B Squad threw their first round of Asahara's stolen flashbangs down from the balcony, closely followed by their own hail of gunfire.

When I was a young man, literal lifetimes ago, I had once witnessed an exhibition of classic fishing techniques. One of those techniques suddenly came to mind, as I swapped my rifle's magazine and fired again into the panicking crowd, a technique where the school of fish was guided into increasingly smaller nets, until they were so tightly packed together that none could move. Then, the fishermen would lift the entire school out of the water, onto the boat, and beat all of the fish to death with oars.

In essence, my two squads were using that same technique. When the crowd fled from the punished hail of gunfire in the theater, they ran straight into A Squad's line of sight. When they were herded back into the theater, Squad B fired down at them from the balcony. And when they tried to huddle under the balcony and against the wall, where we couldn't get them?

"Next round, go!" Each soldier had left the Meeting Hall with three flashbangs, and there was really no need to be stingy. The eye-searing light lashed out again, the deafening sound drove the bloodied mass back out into the open, and the soldiers who had ducked behind the railing and covered their ears stung them once again with a fresh hail of gunfire.

Of course, the fact that we weren't trying to kill all of the "fish" trapped in our nets made things a bit more tricky. While I had no interest in taking any of the gangsters or their clients alive, I wanted as little innocent blood on my hands as possible. I'd ordered my men to shoot with care, reminding them that the enslaved Japanese weren't willingly servicing the twisted desires of Britannian and Eleven tyrants. Still, in the tangled throng of desperately rushing forms, only so much discretion was possible.

The crowd had begun to thin out by the time my squad was forced to reload, and the surviving targets grew increasingly canny in their attempts to escape their fate. I saw some try to hide among the bodies, only to cringe at the sudden detonation of a nearby flashbang, or to recoil when some other desperate figure tripped over them. A Britannian tried to hide behind a collared woman, and I winced as both were cut down.

Then, I saw a few of the luckier gangsters scramble through a door I was reasonably confident led to what had once been the theater's backstage offices. Those would have to be a priority; if the Eleven Lords had likewise been using those rooms, I couldn't let the escapees destroy or conceal any of the paperwork I was hoping to recover.

"A-4!" I elbowed the man next to me, and waited until he lowered his rifle and turned to me. "Go tell B-1 that A-1 and I are going into the office. Keep up the pressure, but let her know that she has command of the rest of A Squad too. She can start clean-up when she's ready."

"Yes ma'am!" A-4 slung his rifle over his shoulder and hastily trotted away as I turned and tapped on A-1's shoulder. "We need to get into the office," I shouted over the cacophony of -2, -3, and -5's rifles. "I saw a few of the rats scramble inside."

"Understood!" The squad leader stepped back from the line, and started yelling at the remaining three riflemen. "Listen up, you bastards! Backpack and I are heading into the office. We'll be able to handle ourselves, so there's no need for you to shoot the place up while we're inside. I'll be very, very angry if any of you shoot me, got it?"

A collection of "Aye's" later, A-1 and I descended down the stairs into the lobby. A knot of bodies covered the last few steps; it looked like at least some of the Eleven Lords had realized where we were shooting from after the first flashbang, and instead of panicking and running like the rest of the crowd had tried to climb the stairs and dislodge us. Unfortunately for them, one of my soldiers had dealt with their attempt, and I hadn't even noticed in the confusion and noise.

The lobby was an absolute slaughterhouse, the floor choked with the dead and the dying. Broken fingers scratched at my trousers as bloodied faces turned upwards, begging for help, for relief, for an end to the hammering from above. The carpeting was soaked with blood, and squelched unpleasantly as I picked my way carefully across the killing ground, rifle in my hands. Most of the blood and filth, fortunately, came from the heaped-up corpses of Britannians and their lackeys, but a few innocent eyes met mine, accusation in their cold glances.

I continued to approach the office, finger on my trigger, ready to put down any gangsters who might rise up from hiding places amongst the fallen. A-1 followed two paces behind me and one to my right, carefully checking for any stray gangsters hiding up against the wall of the staircase A Squad had turned into a shooting platform.

The deafening, rupturing crack of a flashbang echoed out from the theater, and few survivors broke and ran, sprinting from the shadows of the theater hall itself with wild-eyed desperation. They barely made it two meters into the open before the bullets slashed down from above. I watched as a girl only a few years older than me, a collar chafing her neck, pitched forward and slammed face first into the floor, a quarter of her head missing. There was no time to reflect on the terror I'd briefly glimpsed in the slave's eyes before she'd been cut down with dispassionate, if erroneous, efficiency.

Someone, presumably one of the lucky few who had scrambled to temporary safety within, had locked the door to the office. Perhaps they had been trying to keep me out, perhaps they simply wanted to keep the rest of the crowd out. Either way, while the lock was still shiny and fresh, the door itself was not. Old, weathered, and presumably poorly maintained, simultaneous kicks from A-1 and I easily tore it off its hinges, the lock's bolt tearing free of the frame as the door gave way.

As soon as the door thudded into the office, I hurled myself down in a forward roll, my rifle cradled against my chest as I followed my shoulder to the floor. I came up in a half kneel, finger on the trigger and rising up on my left foot as I quickly scanned the office. Behind me, A-1 dove through the door and skidded on his kneepads to the dubious safety of a battered filing cabinet.

Thanks to our dynamic entry, the welcoming salute from the rats hiding behind the overturned desk near the back of the room went high, the wild spray of bullets pulverizing the drywall and sending a storm of snowy flakes down onto our heads.

How kind of them to broadcast their positions.

I didn't bother trying for anything fancy; this wasn't a shooting gallery, and I wasn't here to show off. I simply returned fire, straight through the impromptu, yet insufficient, desktop sanctuary. The hyper accelerated rounds easily tore through the particle board and, judging by the screams and the lack of returning fire, through the men and women who had been sheltering behind the desk. In the interest of thoroughness, I held the trigger down and emptied my magazine into the desk, in case anybody had considered playing possum.

"Reloading," I grunted, slotting a new magazine into the receiver behind the trigger guard. I kept my eyes moving, scanning every corner and niche of what had been a surprisingly neat office, looking for any other stragglers. "Do you see anybody?"

"No," A-1 replied, "I think you might have got them all…" He swallowed heavily, and I could see his Adam's apple bob under the scarf wound around his face. "Good shooting?"

"Good," I replied briskly, "then you can keep watch on the door." A-1 kept a dutiful eye for any further hostiles, as the sounds of Tsubaki, B-1's, assault continued outside the office. As the sounds of the clean-up operation continued, I quickly searched the office.

Most would be surprised to learn how much paperwork a gang like the Eleven Kings had, but I had counted on it. Just like any other profit-making organization, a gang had to account for income streams, expenditures, and outlays. They had to track inventory and payroll, and compile reports for backers and higher-ups. Fortunately, it seemed like the gang's leadership had opted to do most of their business on paper, and I quickly found two ledgers, one of which looked like a "black book", a list of frequent customers often kept by brothels.

The Eleven Kings seemed to have shunned computers, perhaps reasoning that electronic records were a security risk. The entire office only contained a single laptop, a shiny aluminum-jacketed device that had unfortunately caught at least two bullets in the fracas. My eyes narrowed as I noticed that a cable was still attached to one of the computer's ports. It looked like it was supposed to connect to a device, but I couldn't see anything that looked like a digital storage unit anywhere near the workstation…

I spared a look down at the tangle of bodies slowly filling the office with the scent of mixed blood and shit as their bowels relaxed in death. One of them had dressed nicely, in a somber suit instead of the usual gangster tat. In fact, the suit looked far too subdued to be party wear, which made it unlikely that he was a guest either.

Perhaps he was one some sort of retainer for one of the customers? Or perhaps he's the accountant?

I heaved the body up from the pile, pouring more energy into my strength enhancement as I lifted it up onto the broken remnants of the perforated desk. He'd been a well-fed man in life, at least by Shinjuku standards, and I grunted with relief when I dropped his bulk down onto the surface. I quickly ran my hands over his pockets, and just as I'd hoped, found a matte-black cube in his jacket, featureless except for a port that matched the free end of the cable.

The cube and the cable joined the two ledgers in my knapsack, followed by the possible accountant's wallet. While the high denomination pound notes inside would be useful, I was more interested in his ID and cards; if he'd been managing the drive, he might have put a password on it. Having his basic information on hand could be very handy, in that situation.

After a moment's thought, I shoved the remnants of the laptop into the bag too. Perhaps the drive can be recovered?

I continued to scour the office, stuffing receipts, correspondence, and anything else that looked vaguely important into my bag, cramming the nylon sack full. While extinguishing a faction competing for control over Shinjuku was the primary justification for this raid, seizing the gang's records had been the true objective of the night's work. With Diethard's much vaunted production skills and plentiful connections, those records would be a hammerblow to either noble credibility or Clovis's reputation. A net win for the Japanese, no matter which party ended up burnt.

"Backpack?" I heard B-1's voice from the door, "Are you about done there? The rest of the building's been emptied."

"I think I've found everything worthwhile," I replied, slinging my pack onto my back and picking my rifle back up from where I'd leaned it against the desk. "Report. Any casualties or problems?"

"No ma'am! A totally clean sweep!" I followed A-1 out of the office, and joined B-1 and her combined squads in the lobby. The men were scattered around the room, and despite the presumed eradication of the opposition, I was proud to see that their guards were still up and their eyes still scanning for threats. A knot of women and girls huddled in the middle of the lobby, most of them in varying states of undress. "I don't think we had any runners either! I had A-4 and -5 stick around by the front door, just in case, and all of the side doors were chained up from the inside!"

"A very unsafe practice, but probably put in place to keep any of their victims from escaping," I mused, casting my eyes over the lobby and noticing how many of the sprawling bodies had collars around their necks, despite my earlier instructions. My stomach twisted uneasily; I'd known that it was all but inevitable that some of the slaves would get caught but… There's so many. "It's… It's ironic."

"Because it meant that the bastards had nowhere to run once we showed up?" B-1 fell into step behind me as I walked towards the theater itself. "I guess that is irony, isn't it?"

"It is," I acknowledged, "and yes, that was one of the reasons I find the situation ironic. One of two. By the way, can't you find them some blankets or something?" I gestured back towards the lobby where the newly freed women huddled. One of the men, who'd clearly been eavesdropping, startled and saluted, before heading up the stairs purposefully.

The theater was as tasteless as I'd anticipated, complete with an array of garish lights and a spotlight still moving on an automated track, playing over the three poles on the stage, as well as the front rows of the house. The middle area had been set up more like a dining area, with plenty of small tables and comfortable chairs, and the rear had been divided into a number of shadowy booths and semi-enclosed rooms. The décor, lurid at the best of times, had been turned nightmarish with the application of the gore of at least a hundred bodies.

"Oh?" B-1 primly stepped over a badly trampled arm, the bone protruding from the skin and the flesh black and pulpy, stamped into formlessness by hundreds of frantic feet. "What's the other reason?"

"Well, we ensured that a fair number of their victims will never escape their captivity, unless you count death," My tone was cool and detached; the sick heat in my gut was anything but. "I know that civilian casualties are sadly inevitable, especially when in situations as chaotic as that mob, but… It truly is a pity that we couldn't aim solely for the pimps and the clients."

"Not to sound callous…" Tsubaki's voice was tentative, trailing off into an implicit question, and I waved for her to continue. "Not to sound callous, but what else were you expecting with that plan, Ma'am? I'm not questioning it or anything – it worked great! – but I am kinda surprised that you're… upset about it."

"It was my plan," I acknowledged, "and we completed the objectives we set out to meet with it. Hopefully, our comrades are having similar levels of success. And yes, I knew that it was highly-likely that innocents would get caught in the crossfire. I had hoped to be proven wrong, and… I'd hoped it would only be one or two. Optimistic, I know, but..."

"…That's just what happens, Tanya." Tsubaki was blunt, but not cruel. Her warm hand on my shoulder was comforting. "I mean, I'm not telling you to not hope for the best, but..."

"But always plan for the worst, I know." I closed my eyes, and breathed in, then out. "I expect I'll countenance far worse before we're done, Tsubaki. I hate to acknowledge it, but… We are at war, and cannot afford the luxury of squeamishness. Civilians die in times of war just as much as soldiers, if not far more."

My words rang hollow, for all that I spoke with complete sincerity. I wondered who I was trying to convince. Any one of them could have been Mother. They could have been me, if things had gone differently.

I wondered if I could have planned the mission differently. Perhaps we could have struck when the girls, the slaves, had been off the floor. Maybe if we'd attacked before they opened for the night or after closing. But if we had, we would have missed the chance to catch the esteemed clientele. Just killing the pimps without touching the clients would have all but guaranteed the rise of a replacement organization elsewhere. To truly achieve a lasting effect, innocents had to be present, serving as bait in the center of our trap.

Did leaders of the rebel groups of my youth express similar sentiments? Every Britannian they had killed had brought death to a hundred Japanese, and I had witnessed several of the mass executions personally. How many Japanese had I condemned to death for tonight's work? I'd estimated half the crowd was Britannian, so… a hundred? A hundred and fifty? Multiplied a hundredfold…

Of course, that presupposes that the Britannians realize that the gunmen were Japanese.

The flashbangs I had purchased from Mister Asahara were, like all of the weapons sold by the Six Houses, Britannian Army issue, as were the rifles and ammunition used in the night's raid. When considered along with the opinions of Japanese intelligence and organizational ability held by the general Britannian population, it was entirely possible that the blame would be assigned to some other Britannian faction who had come to massacre some subhuman competition. The clients may have been people, but the gang were just Elevens, after all.

Of course, it's entirely possible that the Britannians will still just default to flailing around wildly and killing every Japanese person they can find, but frankly, that's a risk no matter what we do. We could all just sit on our hands, and they'd still kill us on a lark. I smiled bitterly to myself at the thought. It was still shocking at times just how badly managed the occupation of Japan truly was, and how the policies were so short-sighted that they'd driven a law-abiding person such as myself into armed rebellion.

"We're done here." I shoved my private introspection on what could have been away, down into the dark. Navel gazing was never productive, and I was still on the clock. "B-1, get the rest of the squad together. Force open one of the side doors – we'll exit out that way. Once we're out, your squad is tasked with getting the rescued prisoners to Chihiro. If she's drunk or pissy, take them to Inoue instead."

"Yes ma'am!" The warm hand left my shoulder, and B-1 trotted back to the lobby, already shouting for the men to form up. I took a moment to commit the theater to memory, and turned to follow her.

I walked out of the charnel pit with my shoulders back and my head up. I regretted the deaths of those slaves who had been unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire, the people who I had wanted to help and protect, but I couldn't slow down and let myself think too much about it. I was at war, and I would prosecute it to the greatest of my ability. When the cost of defeat was the death or slavery of my entire people, any means was justifiable, so long as it represented a net benefit. That was key: their deaths had to be justifiable. I had no desire for wanton death among my people, but I could not afford to be squeamish, especially since my enemy had no such qualms.

Any means, even if it meant the death of daughters, sisters, fathers and sons. Or mothers. I didn't want to make any further house calls to the widows and orphans of my comrades, but in the end, it would be worth it.

There will be plenty of time for regret and self-castigation later. I will make sure that the loss of civilian life isn't forgotten, when this is all said and done, but I will do what I must until then.

All for the cause of a reborn Japan.

Nothing less was worthy of the millions of losses I could lay at Britannia's door. There would be no rapprochement; there could be no cohabitation on these islands. Victory or death.

APRIL 23, 2016 ATB
SHINJUKU GHETTO, TOKYO SETTLEMENT
0700

The Meeting Hall was packed with citizens of Shinjuku, crammed to the point that everybody was standing shoulder to shoulder and cheek to jowl. Unlike the typical breakfast rush, the crowd was almost completely silent and the atmosphere was tense with anxiety.

Standing on a chair in front of Inoue's office, the side of the room furthest from the street entrance, I could feel the weight of eager eyes in their hundreds pressing down. It was a familiar weight, entirely unintimidating, even if the nervous energy in my audience was almost palpable. Naoto stood on my left and Yoshi, one of the two squad leaders from the mission to Niigata Prefecture, stood on my right. Even with my prop, I was only barely taller than the two men, but every eye was fixed on me.

I had tried to get Naoto to take point, to be the one to make the announcement. He was, after all, the Kozuki for which the Kozuki Organization was named, as well as the one that had led this community for the last several months. He had demurred, insisting that the announcement would be much more meaningful if it came from me.

"You're the prodigal daughter, come back at last," Naoto had pointed out, "and also the one who first forged the Rising Sun Association. Believe it or not, Tanya, you're the one they're going to listen to most closely. Me? I'm the day-to-day guy. You, on the other hand, are a symbol."

I wasn't sure if I bought that excuse or not, but I'd acquiesced. Naoto was my leader, and to be frank, he still looked quite disheveled. Perhaps that had been one of the reasons he'd been so strenuous in his argument that I handle the public speaking?

"Brothers and sisters, my fellow citizens of Shinjuku, I wish you a very hearty good morning!" My voice carried easily over the room, and the dull mutters ceased almost immediately. "Of course, I'd greet any one of you with a hearty morning greeting any day we met, but today is a very good morning indeed!"

I paused and the crowd stirred, a low buzzing as people wondered aloud to neighbors about what I meant. I let the buzz continue for a few seconds, the anticipation building, before I resumed.

"Brothers and sisters, you know me, and I know you! I know how hard we've worked just to survive, how every bowl of soup and every grain of rice is dear, purchased with hours of straining labor in all weather and seasons! I've worked for my food too, always hungry and never satisfied! Nobody will ever say that living in Shinjuku is easy – there are no cushy lives to be found here!"

The appeal to shared misery and familiar working-class bonds worked. The voice of the crowd murmured of agreement as frowns settled into familiar creases, everybody remembering long shifts of thankless work in the steaming heat of summer or the biting cold of winter.

"Yes, life in Shinjuku is hard," I continued, picking up steam, "but there's no shortage of parasites determined to make it a hell of a lot harder than it has to be! You know them too – the bastard landlords charging an arm and a leg for a piece of floor, the foreign thieves whose gentry collect from those bastard landlords and whose commoners content themselves with grabbing anything of ours that they want, and most of all, the petty tyrants who have risen amongst us! The gangs!"

A rumble of anger echoed forth from deep in the crowd, and frowns of frustration sharpened into angry glowers. The buzzing intensified and heated as a thousand abuses and tiny miseries came to the minds of all present.

"No more!" I cried out, lifting a clenched fist above my head, thrusting it upwards in the universal sign of struggle. "No more thieving, no more raping, no more slave-taking or kidnapping! No more extortion, no more murdering, and no more holding all of our arms back and distracting us from our real enemy! A new sun has risen over Shinjuku, brothers and sisters!"

A sea of fists rose up in solidarity with mine, and the crowd bayed for blood with one voice. Beside me Naoto and Yoshi raised their fists too, knifelike smiles below their hard eyes.

"Last night, we killed every last member of the Eleven Lords, the Crowned Heads, and the King's Men!" The crowd almost exploded with howls of celebration, and I had to enhance my voice just a bit so I could shout over them. "Last night, they went the way of the Kokuryu-kai and every other gang in Shinjuku! They will never steal from us again, never take without giving back! Most of all, they will no longer act as middlemen, catering to the sick pleasures of our esteemed lords and masters!"

"Rejoice, brothers and sisters!" I cried out, pouring even more power into my voice. "Rejoice, and make ready! The Sun is Rising, and we all must rise to the occasion! Look to your block leaders and to the council of notables for daily assignments, for there is still much to do in Shinjuku, but keep your ears open – the call could come at any time! Train well and eat hearty! Work as hard as you can and become strong! The sun will rise on the rest of our native land once more, and we must be ready for that day!"

I paused, teetering on the edge for a moment, then grinned. "Long live Japan! Long live the Japanese people! May they rule for ten thousand years! Banzai!"

The crowd replied as one, as a people given fresh hope, as a man dying of thirst drinking deep from a crack in a stone leaking cold, pure water. "BANZAI! BANZAI! Long live Japan! Long live Japan! LONG LIVE JAPAN!"