Kurogane Span — Mainland Landing Zone
October 17, 2102__
11:55 [Imperial Standard Time]
Yamada did not retreat.
He watched the convoy turn—watched the taillights smear red across smoke and salt as engines screamed toward the bridge. Toward Inoue territory. Toward survival.
Good.
He raised his hand once.
The remaining Yoshima men understood immediately. No words. No hesitation. They fanned out across the pad, taking positions that favored cover, sightlines, crossfire.
Professionals.
The landing zone lights flickered again.
Then went dark.
Not all at once—section by section, as if something were walking through the power grid and snuffing it out with intent.
Yamada exhaled slowly through his nose.
"So," he murmured, adjusting his grip. "That's how you want it."
The airship above them did not fire.
It descended.
Silently.
Its shadow slid across the concrete like a living thing, swallowing range markers, erasing the outlines of hangars and towers. No warning klaxons. No broadcast declaration. Just weight. Presence. Certainty.
The first Yoshima man fell without a sound.
No muzzle flash.
No report.
He simply folded—head snapping sideways as something punched through the joint beneath his helmet and out the other side. His body hit the ground a second later.
Yamada spun.
"CONTACT—!"
Another man dropped. Then another.
Still no sound.
Then the shapes moved.
They emerged from the darkness between structures—not running, not rushing. Advancing in measured steps, each movement precise, synchronized, economical.
Imperial Special Task Force.
Not Agents.
Something worse.
They wore full mechanical combat frames—layered plating over black synth-fiber musculature. The armor echoed samurai design: overlapping lamellae across the torso, reinforced shoulder guards flared like modern sode, segmented greaves locking silently with each step.
Their helmets were demons.
Not decorative. Functional.
Angular masks of obsidian alloy, etched with subtle Imperial sigils that only caught light at certain angles. Eye-slits glowed faintly—crimson, shifting, adjusting. Horn-like sensor arrays swept the field with slow, deliberate arcs.
No faces.
No humanity.
Only purpose.
Yamada fired.
The shot took one square in the chest—dead center mass.
The Agent staggered half a step.
Then corrected.
Its head snapped toward Yamada.
"Threat confirmed," a distorted voice reported—not shouted, not taunting. Merely logged.
The Yoshima men opened up.
The landing zone exploded into motion—rounds sparking off armor, concrete fracturing, tracer lines stitching the dark. One Agent went down under concentrated fire, armor breached at the neck seam.
It did not scream.
Another lost an arm and kept advancing.
Another Yoshima man fell.
Then another.
No shouts. No last words.
Just bodies hitting concrete—one by one—until the landing zone fell quiet except for wind and distant surf.
Yamada stood alone.
Blood pooled at his feet, slick and dark, reflecting the demon-red glow of Imperial visors. Spent casings crunched beneath his boots as he shifted his weight, blade still raised, shoulders rising and falling with controlled breath.
Yamada moved.
Fast.
Too fast for his age. Too fast for someone who was supposed to be retired.
He closed distance under fire, sliding across broken concrete, came up beneath an Agent's guard and drove his blade through the joint behind its knee. The armor collapsed inward. He pivoted, wrenched the weapon free, and buried it up through the mask.
The demon face shattered.
Two down.
The Imperial Agents adjusted formation immediately—spacing widened, angles recalculated.
Yamada straightened, breathing hard now, blood spattered across his sleeve—not all of it his.
"Still sending children to do butcher's work," he called out lightly. "Empire hasn't changed."
One of the Agents stopped.
Its helmet tilted.
A soft hum followed as its visor pulsed—scanning.
Yamada felt it crawl over him: infrared, biometric, neural pattern recognition. His old scars prickled.
The Agent spoke again.
"Identification confirmed."
A projection flickered across its visor—data streaming faster than the eye could follow.
YAMADA, TAKUMI
Former Imperial Samurai Agent — Black Tier
Status: Defected / Reassigned (Yoshima Protection)
Threat Level: Catastrophic
Estimated Neutralization Cost: Extreme
Conditional Bounty (Unaligned):
¥4.2 BILLION
Yamada barked a laugh.
"Only four?" he said. "Inflation's really hurting you people."
The Agent did not respond to the humor.
"Your continued resistance is statistically inefficient," it said. "Stand down. Relinquish the asset."
Yamada shifted his stance—blade lowering just slightly.
"The girl?" he asked. "Right. Thought so."
He glanced once—just once—toward the road where the convoy had vanished.
Then back at the demons in front of him.
"You know," he went on conversationally, "for a special task force, this is bold. Coming after Kaede Yoshima's son. Empire must be nervous."
No reaction.
"So let me help you out," Yamada continued. "You're not here for me. You're not here for honor. You're here because someone upstairs decided that tonight—of all nights—balance was inconvenient."
The Agent raised its weapon.
"Final warning."
Yamada smiled—small, tired, sincere.
"Yeah," he said. "That tracks."
The darkness moved again.
He would not win.
He knew that.
But he didn't need to.
He just had to make it hurt.
And buy time—for the heir who did not yet understand how much the world wanted him dead.
Above them, the airship hovered.
Patient.
As if it already knew how this would end.