Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 992: Brave Warriors of Japan

Kunoichi who fought from shadow and smoke. Onmyoji who folded their spells out of paper talismans. Sword saints whose schools had been cutting for centuries before mana ever arrived to empower them. The spear-user at the rack line had been one glimpse of a whole national arsenal.

Kaiden climbed the platform without notes. The parade ground went quiet at two different speeds: Eclipse in a ragged wave of shushing, the Circle as one.

He had considered easing his people in with a week of joint drills. Looking at the yard now, he shelved the idea for good. What they needed was the leash taken off.

"Good morning," he said, and the joint feed carried it into every living room on the islands. "I’ll keep the theory short, because everyone standing on this yard already knows it."

He hooked a thumb at the burning map behind him.

"Every monster loose in those shaded zones crawled out of one of those forty-one gates during the global dungeon break disaster, and every gate grows from a core. Break the core, or put down the boss guarding it, and the dungeon dies."

"And when a dungeon dies, everything that ever walked out of it dies with it, wherever on this earth it happens to be standing."

"So the job is simple. We dive, we clear, and the stains on that map shrink one gate at a time."

He looked out over his own team blocks, and the warmth in his voice was audible from the last row.

"This country has treated my family and my guild like royalty since the moment our wheels touched its runway."

Then he looked at Yunohana and smiled softly. "Actually, long before that. Miss Yunohana has been one of my stream’s earliest sponsors. Without her generosity, Valhalla’s Sinners wouldn’t be where we are today."

Yunohana paused for a moment, not expecting the personal mention. Then, with a tender expression, she rose and bowed to Kaiden, low and unhurried. "Such words are wasted on me."

Kaiden chuckled but let it stay at that, instead looking back at his own members. "Starting today we repay it all. And while we do, the fighters of this country, who have resisted a terrible disaster on half a roster, finally get room to breathe."

It was meant to be a passing line. But saying it turned his gaze to the eastern ranks, and what he found there stopped the next sentence in his throat.

The Circle’s squads stood at attention, and they had been standing that way too long, eyes fixed a careful distance above his head. Up close, the pressed ranks told on themselves: a wrapped forearm inside a crisp sleeve, one squad standing a fighter short with the gap left open in the line.

In the front rank, a captain with a burn-scarred neck gripped her spear as if the inspection of her life were passing, knuckles white on the shaft.

Kaiden knew that posture. It was pride, braced for a blow. These were the fighters who had held their entire country while half their comrades filled hospital wards, and the world’s cameras had just arrived to film them accepting help.

Defeat.

That was what they were feeling.

Their nation invited an outsider because they weren’t enough.

Kaiden turned to face the eastern half of the yard. "But make no mistake. This country is a nation of brave warriors I respect greatly."

The eastern ranks got straighter, eyes full of shock.

’What did he mean?’ they wondered.

"The country we flew here from ended its dungeon outbreak fast. The USA is powerful, and it has great strategists. But that alone wasn’t what allowed them to achieve such a feat."

More and more confused eyes found him, listening attentively.

"Money. They did it with money. Talent bought from every continent, at whatever price the talent named. That is America’s way."

He let that sit.

"Japan never bought its army. These brave warriors held these islands for ten years with their own people, their own classes, and their own dead. They’re still holding them today, on half a roster, while the other half earned their hospital beds keeping everyone else alive."

In the eastern ranks, nobody moved. A long breath finally came out somewhere in the pressed lines.

The burn-scarred captain was staring straight at him now, and the shame she had carried onto the yard had nowhere left to sit. All this time holding a line meant for twice their number, and a foreigner had just said out loud the thing nobody at home was allowed to say: they had done it well.

"That is why," Kaiden’s voice deepened, eyes boring into his own people, "I will not tolerate any offhanded comments toward our Japanese hosts. Is that understood?"

"YES!" Hundreds of Eclipse throats answered as one, and there was no play in it anywhere. Fists went to chests across the western blocks, and the recruits’ faces set hard with purpose.

The eastern ranks did not shout. Discipline kept every spine exactly where it stood, but it had lost all authority over the eyes, and fighters who had held formation through the entire address were blinking hard now.

In the front rank, the burn-scarred captain bowed her head toward Kaiden on the platform, one slow inch, the deepest gesture her post allowed her.

"We’re not here to rescue anybody." Kaiden’s voice stayed level, and the yard leaned into it.

He looked at the eastern ranks.

"We’re here because being the first foreign guild ever to stand in your ranks is an enormous honor, and every man and woman on the western half of this yard knows it. So starting this morning, we hold these islands with you, with our heads held high, hearts filled with pride."

Yunohana’s smile arrived slowly and stayed.

Down the row of dark suits, shoulders came off their braced line one minister at a time, and the Gates seat hugged his list to his chest.

Analyst Sonoda stood at parade rest below the dais, blinking a great deal for a woman on duty.

In the eastern ranks, the burn-scarred captain’s knuckles eased around her spear, and backs that had spent the morning braced straightened into plain pride.

"Darling!!" Calypso’s roar rolled across the parade ground, her axe spinning overhead one-handed. "Which gate is ours?!"

Eclipse went up around her.

"First dive! First dive!" someone bellowed from the team blocks, and a hundred voices trampled it into a chant. "E-clipse! E-clipse!"

Luna was on top of a truck within seconds, both fists in the air, gamer girl screeching into the noise. Scarlet’s laugh boomed over all of it. "To work, you beautiful bastards!"

"That’s my big brother," Alice informed the nearest camera, dead serious, and turned back to the platform without waiting for a reaction.

Aria did not shout at all. She stood with her hands pressed together at her lips, and the pride filling her chest stung with its fierceness. That was her Kai up there, handing a wounded army its dignity back.

"A proper king," Bastet declared over the noise, tail swaying.

Then the eastern half answered.

The burn-scarred captain stepped out of the front rank and drove her spear at the sky. "With Eclipse!!" she roared. "To the gates!!"

Hundreds of Shogunate throats came in behind hers in one massed shout that slammed off the equipment halls and came rolling back. Dust jumped off the truck roofs.

For a moment the two noises fought each other across the parade ground. Then they became one noise, and the joint stream poured it out past the islands, into a great many living rooms that were not ready for it.

"The counter is spinning!" Kira yelled inside the control room.

"The Japanese viewers are literally worshipping Kaiden now!!" Rika shouted back.

"I am recording this for strategic purposes," Sonoda said to nobody, filming with her personal phone as well.

Kaiden stood in the noise until it began to bank. Then he looked toward the yard one last time.

"You already have your squads assembled, and you know your teammates." He waited, easy, while the yard hushed itself for him. "This is Eclipse’s first undertaking. Begin."

The parade ground broke into motion around his words, team blocks streaming toward the convoy line with Shogunate squads folding in beside them. Above all of it the map of Japan burned red, waiting to be put out.