[Kitsuna POV]
More armor moved through the trees.
Grey helmets pushed through the scrub beyond the outer rocks. Rifles came up. Shields followed. Then more bodies behind them, spreading out in practiced groups instead of rushing in like the first fools had done.
Chinada stayed flat on the ruin, scope fixed on the trees. "Fifty. Maybe a little more."
Rin asked through the comms, "Fifty?"
Brit shoved her shield into another Federation soldier and knocked him into the dirt. "Focus."
"I am focused. I am also complaining."
"That is not focus."
The first Federation group was already breaking. Brenda had them cut into ugly pieces, but the second unit changed the whole field before she could finish the job. The new soldiers did not come in blind. They saw dead bodies near the entrance. They saw their own people pulled out of formation. They saw shots coming from above. More important, they saw me.
One of the new soldiers shouted something, and three of them pointed towards the top of the ruin.
I clicked my tongue. "Well, fuck."
The first volley came a second later.
Shots cracked against the stone around Chinada and Sirone. Chips flew. Dust burst up in ugly little clouds. One bullet snapped close enough to Chinada's scope that Sirone grabbed her collar and yanked her back before the second shot took the same place apart.
Brenda's head snapped up. "Chinada, Sirone, move."
"Already moving," Chinada said.
Another volley hit the top of the ruin.
This one came with something heavier.
A dull metal cylinder hit the stone two body lengths from me, rolled once, and started screaming.
I kicked it off the edge before it could do anything clever.
It dropped into the air, burst halfway down, and threw white fire against the side of the ruin.
"Rude little fuck," I muttered.
Below, the explosion made both sides flinch. Brenda used the flinch better.
"Brit, shield up. Rin, left. Toma, cover. Sarian, pull back. Do not let them connect with the fresh group."
Her voice carried over the fight, hard and clear.
Rin slid left, blade low, and took a soldier in the ribs before he managed to turn. Brit stepped over the body and lifted her shield as the second unit started firing into the mess.
Now it was no longer one clean ambush. It was a battlefield trying to become a pile of bodies.
Chinada and Sirone moved along the top of the ruin. Sirone had the backup rifle ready, but she was using it more to keep heads down than to chase kills. Chinada fired once, dropped one of the soldiers aiming up, then shifted before the answer came.
The new unit had better discipline.
They did not all shoot at the same place. Some kept Brenda's group pinned. Some fired at Chinada and Sirone. Some moved around the left rocks to cut off Rin and Brit. Another group started climbing the broken side of the ruin.
I looked at the three soldiers pulling themselves up the stone with hooks and short blades.
"Really?"
The first one looked up and saw me standing there with the sword in my hand.
He noticed me, but he did not care and kept climbing.
Dumbest thing he had done all day.
Brenda's voice came over the comm crystal. "Captain, stay with the box."
"I am with the box."
"They are climbing towards you."
"I am not blind, Brenda. Worry about yourself right now."
I stepped to the edge as the first climber reached for the top. I let him get his hand on the stone. Then I cut through his wrist and kicked him in the face before he could scream properly.
He fell backwards into the two below him.
All three dropped.
One hit the lower stones with a crack I felt in my bones.
The box stayed cold against my back.
"Still missing my tree more," I said.
The second unit hit the field properly. They folded around the broken first group instead of trampling it. Shields came forward. Riflemen dropped behind them. Two charm throwers started lobbing little ugly stones that sparked red and blue when they hit the ground.
Olivia shouted, "Charms on the right!"
Mia pulled Ava down just before one burst against the rock besides them. The air twisted where it hit, and a skeleton standing too close folded into itself like someone had stepped on a bug made of bones.
Nekro hissed. "I hate them."
"That makes two of us," Apricot said, yanking one of her puppets back before another charm ate the wire around it.
The fight widened.
That was the real problem.
Brenda's squad was good, but they were still one squad. The enemy had bodies to spend. They could push from three places at once and still leave enough soldiers to watch the trees. The first group had been caught wrong. The second came in ready to make the field ugly.
Chinada fired twice more from the top, but now every shot pulled five answers. Stone broke around her. Sirone grabbed the back of her gear again and dragged her behind a carved block as a heavy round punched through the place her head had been.
"We can't help with cover anymore," Sirone said over the comms.
Chinada did not argue. That told me enough.
Sirone fired one last shot at the climbers moving towards the side, dropped the front one, then pulled her rifle close. "Coming down."
"Use the broken slope," Brenda said. "Do not jump blind."
Sirone looked over the edge. "Too slow."
Chinada gave her a look.
Sirone shrugged. "I said what I said."
I had already jumped down from the top on my side, not needing the cover to begin with.
The two of them moved fast, not stupid. They slid down the broken side where Toma and Sarian had opened the path earlier, boots hitting stone, hands catching cracks. Halfway down, another volley ripped across the upper ruin and tore chunks from the edge.
Ava shouted, "Above!"
I stepped back as more stone fell.
One chunk smashed into my shoulder and broke apart.
The box scraped against my back, and cold ran down my spine.
"Why are you getting worse?" I said to it.
The second unit pushed again.
This time the pressure reached Brenda's squad.
Brit took the front, but even she could only block so much. Three soldiers hit her shield together. Rin cut one down, but another used the opening to stab towards Brit's side. Sarian caught the blade on a stone brace and kicked the attacker's knee backwards.
Toma raised cover.
A charm blew the cover apart.
Olivia killed the next charm before it landed, but two more came from the trees.
Too many hands. Too many weapons. Too much fucking grey armor.
Brenda saw it. "Fall back to the broken wall. Do not give them your backs."
That was the right call.
Rin hated it anyway. "We almost had them."
"We had the first group," Brenda snapped. "This is not the first group."
The squad pulled back in pieces. Brit shielded. Rin cut at anyone trying to chase. Apricot's puppets snapped wires across ankles. Nekro's skeletons threw themselves into shots and died badly. Mia and Ava moved behind the stone cover, pointing out threats before they became holes in someone's chest.
Chinada and Sirone reached the lower side just as the new unit tried to close around them.
Chinada shot one soldier through the face from three steps away.
Sirone fired the backup rifle into another one's chest and then kicked him off balance before he fell.
Very rude for a healer.
Then the enemy noticed the space around me. They wanted it, including the box on my back.
With them finally noticing me down in the ruins, they sent a squad after me.
I sighed.
"Brenda."
"I see them," she said.
"You have your hands full."
"I said I see them."
"And I'm saying they are my problem now, okay?"
A pause.
Then Brenda said, "Do not leave the box exposed."
"That is the whole fucking point," I said, annoyed.
I dropped from the upper stone onto the lower ridge, landed hard, and kept going. The first shieldman lifted his shield too high, expecting a heavy strike.
I went under it.
My sword cut across his thigh, then came back through his throat before his body understood which wound mattered more.
The second fired.
I turned my shoulder so the box stayed away from the shot and slapped the bullet aside with the flat of my blade. I stepped into him before he could fire again and put the point through the gap under his helmet.
He dropped.
The charm thrower panicked.
That was always nice.
He tried to light the stone in his hand.
I cut his fingers off with the charm still between them, then kicked him down the slope.
"Should have thrown faster."
A rifle cracked from my left.
I twisted. The shot clipped my sleeve and burnt my skin.
My healing closed it before I cared.
The soldier who fired saw that and made the face people made when they realized their plan had been written by an idiot.
I killed him next.
Below, Brenda shouted orders through the chaos.
"Brit, hold the center. Rin, stop drifting. Chinada, take the tree shooters. Sirone, with Olivia. Toma, close our back. Sarian, left side. Apricot, keep those wires low. Nekro, more bones if you have them."
Nekro's answer came thin. "I am running out of pretty ones."
"I did not ask for pretty."
"Then yes."
More skeletons crawled out of shadow and old dirt. Half-broken. Badly shaped.
The Federation's second unit kept coming.
Fifty fresh bodies was not a clean number when they were all trying to kill you. They pushed into the broken ground, stepping over the first group's dead and dragging the living out of the way. The first unit had been beaten. The second was trying to use that mess as cover.
I cut through the group climbing toward me and landed on the lower field near the squad.
Rin saw me and grinned. "Finally."
"I am not here to entertain you."
"You say that, but here you are."
I stepped past her and split a soldier from collar to chest before he could flank Brit.
"See? Entertaining."
"Focus before I throw you."
Brit shoved another soldier back with her shield. "Please do not throw my partner."
"No promises."
Brenda moved through the center, sword out now. She was not fighting like Rin. Not wild. Not hungry. She stayed where the orders needed to come from. She cut when someone got close, moved when the field shifted, and kept the squad from scattering.
They pressed the trees. They pressed the rocks. They tried to pull Rin away, tried to force Brit to turn, tried to make Chinada choose between shooting and moving. They were not low-level idiots. They had numbers and enough training to use them.
Still not enough to make me struggle.
Two soldiers came at me together. One high, one low.
Cute.
I kicked the low one in the face hard enough to cave his helmet inward, caught the high one's blade on mine, and drove my knee into his ribs. He folded. I cut once and moved on.
A shot came for the box.
I felt it before I saw it. Not magic. Just the tiny wrongness of aim.
I turned and caught it on my sword.
The bullet snapped apart.
"Stop shooting my fucking luggage."
Rin laughed somewhere behind me.
Then she cursed as three soldiers pushed into her at once.
Brit slammed into the side of them and gave Rin space. Rin used it. Two cuts, one kick, one body down, another screaming until Chinada ended him from behind the wall.
Chinada had changed rifles again. Her main one was too long for the close mess, so she used the smaller backup and moved like she hated every second of it. Sirone stayed near Olivia, watching both her and the battlefield. When a soldier tried to rush Olivia from the side, Sirone shot him once, then dragged Olivia down as a charm burst overhead.
The charm painted the air green for half a second.
I did not know what it did.
I did not want to know.
"Olivia", Brenda called.
"Working on it."
"Faster."
"I am not cooking soup."
"Then stop stirring and kill it."
Olivia twisted the dial hard. The green shimmer popped like a bubble and vanished.
"Happy?"
"Very."
Then another wave hit.
This one came with shields locked together and rifles firing through gaps.
Not bad.
They were trying to pin us long enough for the rest to swing around.
Brenda saw it at the same time I did.
"Toma, wall. Sarian, break right. Rin, do not chase the bait. Brit, center with me. Captain—"
"Stop trying to give me orders, Brenda."
I stepped forward before the shield group reached us.
One soldier fired.
I turned the shot.
Another fired.
I ducked it and closed.
The first shield hit me in the shoulder.
I did not move.
He did.
His shield bounced back into his own chest, and the surprise in his eyes was almost funny.
I drove my sword down through the top of the shield, through the head behind it, and into his chest. Then I kicked the shield and body into the soldier behind him.
That opened the gap.
Brenda took it.
"Now."
Rin went through the opening with Brit behind her. Sarian smashed the right side of the shield group with a stone kick that made the ground jump. Toma raised a broken slab behind them, cutting off the retreat for half the formation. Apricot's wires dropped low and caught knees. Nekro's skeletons surged in like trash with knives.
I kept moving at the edge, not too far from Brenda, not too far from the box's safety, which was stupid because the box was on me. Every time someone got near my back, I turned and killed them. Every time a rifle lifted toward the artifact, I put steel in the way.
The cold from the box kept pressing through the straps.
It felt pleased.
That pissed me off more than the soldiers.
"You are not enjoying this," I muttered.
A soldier rushed me with a spear.
I cut the spearhead off.
Then I cut him down too.
"You especially are not enjoying this."
The second unit started to slow.
There is a point where numbers stop feeling like power and start feeling like bodies stacked in the wrong place. They had enough soldiers to pressure us, but the terrain was broken, the ruin forced them through ugly gaps, and Brenda was not letting the squad get pulled open.
That was why this was tense.
Not because I was going to lose.
Because one bad order from Brenda would turn the squad into little fights, and little fights were how people got dragged down by numbers.
She did not give the bad order.
"Hold the broken wall," she called. "Do not spread. Make them come into us."
Rin groaned. "I hate waiting."
"Then kill what reaches you."
"That I can do."
Chinada fired from behind the wall and dropped a charm thrower. Sirone dragged a wounded Sarian back behind cover and started healing her.
Sarian blinked. "Thanks?"
"Bleed later," Sirone said.
Sarian grinned and went back in.
I blocked another shot aimed too high for Brenda and too low for Chinada.
The box.
Always the box.
"Who told them to aim at the fucking backpack?"
Olivia shouted, "Probably everyone."
"Not helping."
The second unit regrouped near the trees and outer rocks. Someone was giving them better orders now. They pulled back just enough to stop feeding us one small group at a time.
A tall soldier with a white stripe across his helmet lifted his arm.
The Federation shifted.
Rifles lowered.
Shields angled.
Charm throwers moved behind them.
"That one," Brenda said.
Chinada already had her rifle up.
The tall soldier moved before she fired.
The shot took the soldier behind him instead.
Chinada clicked her tongue.
That was new.
"He's better," she said.
"Then shoot him faster," I said.
"I am trying."
The tall soldier gave another order, and the next volley came low.
Not at heads.
Legs.
They were trying to slow us down.
Brit caught two shots on her shield. Rin jumped one and cursed when another clipped her boot. Toma pulled Mia behind the stone. Ava dropped flat. Apricot lost one puppet to a shot that tore through its head, and she made a sound like someone had stepped on her favorite toy.
"That was expensive," she snapped.
Nekro looked at the broken puppet. "Do you want me to raise it?"
"No."
"It would be funny."
"Shut up."
I stepped into the next group before the volley could reset.
The tall soldier saw me coming and finally looked worried.
About time.
He pointed at me.
Five rifles turned.
I smiled.
"Bad choice."
The first shot went wide because I was already moving. The second hit my sword. The third I let pass because it was not aimed at the box or anyone useful. The fourth burnt across my thigh. The fifth hit the box.
The bullet sparked against the cloth, and the box pulsed cold into my back hard enough to make my spine lock for half a heartbeat.
I stopped smiling.
The soldier who fired lowered his rifle slightly.
"Oh," I said. "You fucked up."
I crossed the space between us and cut him from shoulder to hip.
Then I turned on the others.
Brenda shouted something behind me, but I did not need the words to know the meaning.
I cut three more down and stepped back before the group could close around me. The box still burned cold against my back, and my fingers tightened on the sword.
Then the trees behind the Federation flashed black.
A flare rose through the branches and burst without sound, spilling dark smoke that rolled low across the ground.
The Federation paused.
They did not know that signal.
Neither did Brenda, from the look on her face.
I knew what that was, even though I did not lower my sword.
Not yet.
The smoke thickened behind the second unit.
The first soldier in black armor came out of it without shouting.
Then the second.
Then more.
Quiet armor. No banners. No bright marks. Just dark plates formed for high mobility, covered faces, and weapons already raised.
The Federation's rear turned too late.
The first black-armored soldier cut one down before the man even finished moving his rifle.
Then the rest stepped out of the smoke.
I lowered my sword a little.
"Well," I said. "Someone finally invited the quiet bastards."