Kofuku just kept staring at the older man, her face blank.

“Oh come on, don’t be like that,” he said, stepping in between the three of them. “It’s been a long time. Not even going to say hello?”

“I remember you,” Falano said. “Thought you died in the war or something.”

“Is that what she told you?” He flicked the front of Falano’s helmet. “You’re a lot more machine than last time, Dr. Duran.”

“And you’re a lot more wrinkly than I recall.”

Richard snickered. “Why do you guys look like you’ve been rolling around in mud for weeks?”

“They probably have,” Kofuku said, keeping the wrapped sword close to her as she turned her body to face them. In the dark of the chamber she counted five, maybe six ashirgaru, and a large, towering figure in the back as the seventh. That made Kimura the eighth. “How long have you been camped out here? A month? A year?”

“I expect nothing less of my favourite student,” Kimura said. “But I’m going to have to ask for the sword now.”

She shook her head. “Come take it then. Field’s not dispelled yet.”

“As you said, the field is reflected from the sword’s grudge into itself. You can toss it over here and not have to take a single step.” He reached out. “Give it to me.”

“And if I just stand here? Then your men shoot me, and you still can’t get the sword.” She looked around at the rest of them. “You’ve never cared about the sword, sensei. You actually thought it was a good thing my father kept taking it with him offworld. So you’re not here of your own volition. Who are you working for?”

Kimura smiled. “Looks like your observation skills are still just as sharp, hime-sama.”

“And yours has dulled.” She held up the sword, loosening her grip against the growing vibrations going through it. She eyed Falano’s mask, which had been locked in the direction of the weapon the entire time, transmitting continuously on full blast - they just couldn’t hear it. “Here you go.” She pulled her arm back and threw the sword right at him, feeling the rest of the compromised war pass over her as she did so.

Kimura instinctively reached out to grab it, but in that moment, the strain of the focus of the spell and Falano’s signal was too much, and each of the stone pillars erupted, blinding the ashigaru surrounding them with dust and high-speed shrapnel.

Falano took the opportunity to duck and draw his own pistol, magnetised to his leg, blowing holes through two of the soldiers in quick succession and then lifting an arm, unleashing a barrage of micro-missiles that exploded against the domed ceiling, breaking it apart into large chunks as it fell towards them.

Kofuku grabbed the sword in Kimura’s hands as he was distracted by the collapsing ceiling and kicked him hard in the stomach, ripping the bundle from his grasp before she threw herself out of the way, the piece of the ceiling only grazing her back as she landed in the area outside the domed room. Dust filled the air, forcing her to clamp the sleeve of her jacket over her mouth, and slid the wrapped sword into her belt next to the ceremonial one, before rising to her feet, flashlight of her machine pistol trying to cut through the haze.

She found Falano’s robotic arm sticking out from one of the tunnel doorways that the ashigaru had come out of. “This way!”

As she stumbled over to it, she saw a flash of lightning and swung her beam to watch Richard fan the dust around himself away, while an ashigaru fell to the ground screaming, the magazine of their rifle having exploded and taking their entire hand and wrist with it. She made sure to note how lucky she was that she had a cloth to her nose and couldn’t smell it, and ducked in after Falano, motioning for Richard to come along. The pile of debris in the middle of the chamber, now well-lit by the outside sunlight, was beginning to shift, the large figure from earlier pushing its way out from under the remains of the dome.

Falano sent another missile from his shoulder around the bend in the tunnel, striking an ashigaru in the middle of their chest and ripping it open, then grabbing their rifle and handing it back to Kofuku.

She took it and held it out to Richard behind her.

“Nah.” He gave her a devilish smile. “Who needs guns when you can ride the lightning?”

“Suit yourself.” She looped the strap around herself and advanced behind Falano, peeking the barrel over his shoulder.

At the opening into the next room, consisting of a heavy stone casket that vibrated with magical energy, Falano stopped her, before jumping through the doorway and shooting the rifleman hiding around the corner. “Sneaky bastard,” he said, picking himself up.

Kofuku took a wide berth of the casket, not wanting to find out what else was contained down here, especially now that the central ward was gone. She stepped sideways to peek down a different tunnel, and seeing nothing, kept her aim there while Richard hurried past. She saw a shadow move and fired two rounds to suppress anyone coming through, before backing towards the wooden door Falano was trying to bust open.

His punches finally broke the wood beside the metal lock, and he jammed a wrist blade into it to break the mechanism apart and open the door into another tunnel, this one sloping gently upwards.

Heavy footsteps rang behind them, coming from the direction of the central chamber. Kofuku held her position in the doorway, waiting to see what would emerge, and the moment she saw a shape, she pulled the trigger once. The bullet deflected off the chest plate of the hulking figure, stretching to its full height of over two metres, covered in heavy metal plates barely resembling what a samurai would wear. Most striking was the bright red demon mask with fangs, welded directly onto the flesh underneath, with pinprick holes for eyes. The giant looked towards her, tilted its head, and began striding.

“Go. Go!” She pushed Richard forward in the tunnel to make space for herself.

“What the hell is that thing?” Richard asked, lightning running across his fingers.

“Ronin unit,” she said, backing down the tunnel. “Think Falano but much worse.”

“I heard that!” Falano used up another missile to fire into the ceiling, bowing a metal hatch into the open sky above. His mechanical limbs propelled him up the ladder at inhuman speed, and he reached down to grab Richard as he climbed up after him.

Kofuku stood at the end of the tunnel, her gun aimed back to where she heard the Ronin coming, before turning back and climbing as fast as she could Falano helped her out into the grass, where she fell on her side. “Where are we?”

Falano peered over the grass, and pointed. “There!”

It wasn’t that far out, certainly less than the distance they had walked to the village. “They’ll be waiting for us,” Kofuku said. “You got a plan?”

“Shoot them before they shoot me.”

“That’s kind of useless for me!”

“I’m doing my best, okay?” He tilted his head and touched the side of his mask.

The ground erupted again as the Ronin launched itself out of the hole in a superhuman jump, landing before them in a crouch and to its feet.

Kofuku, closest to it, began opening fire in a panic, but the gun was batted out of her hands, spraining her wrist and its strap yanking hor to the ground. She rolled to the side as the rest of Falano’s missiles exploded against the Ronin, taking chunks out of the armour attached to its body, but it simply turned towards him, striding up and drawing its ōdachi-sized sword and attempting to take his head off with a horizontal swing. He ducked and let off a plume of flame, setting the Ronin on fire but this too did nothing, forcing him to dodge another monstrous swing that almost came around to reach Kofuku.

Kofuku emptied her machine pistol into Ronin's back, to little visible effect, not even getting its attention, but Richard projected lightning from both his hands, causing the giant to stagger with the metal bits intertwined into its exposed, skinless muscles beginning to heat up. Falano ran a circle around it, firing into what visible flesh he could see, but the tissue density prevented the plasma from doing as much damage as it should. The Ronin fell back on one knee as Kofuku scrambled away from it, its electronics overwhelmed by the constant lightning, punctuated only by the sound of Richard’s laughter. Smoke was coming out from between its plates as the flesh began to cook, even as it tensed up, ready to spring forwards.

None of them had the time to react as the Ronin burst forth, cleaving a powerful upwards arc, and the lightning stopped as Richard watched his own left arm from the shoulder down come off his body, spinning as it emitted blood like a sprinkler and dropped somewhere in the tall grass, vanishing from sight. Richard stared in shock at the space where his arm was, blood spurting from the wound, before he fell over and screamed, grasping at the wound.

Kofuku rammed her ceremonial sword into the side of the Ronin, where the missiles had stripped the armour off. The length of its was resisted by the semi-metal musculature, but she pushed in further, using their height difference to angle it upwards, where she knew its organs were still human. The Ronin shuddered, dropping its massive sword, and grabbed her head, the muscles in its hand beginning to squeeze her skull, attempting to crush her even though its muscles seemed to be malfunctioning. Kofuku kept there, squeezing her eyes shut as her vision began to warp and distort, pushing the sword as far as she could make it.

The grip relaxed, and the Ronin went limp, falling over with a metallic sound.

Kofuku fell to her knees, cradling her head, feeling the bruises on the sides of her head, and watched as the flayed face behind the Ronin’s demonic mask looked at her one last time before going completely still. There were no words, no mind, no soul - just a weapon, a relic of the old UCF finally laid to rest.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Richard screamed.

Falano was crouched over him, the flamethrower in his arm reduced to just a small jet of fire, which was cauterising the Venator’s shoulder. As soon as he stopped seeing bleeding, he switched it off and forcibly dragged Richard to his feet. “Come on Ritchie! Hang on in there! We’re almost out!”

“They’ll be waiting at the ship,” Kofuku reminded him. She grabbed the sword in the Ronin, to try to pull it free, but it was stuck fast. She gave up on that, and elected to reload her machine pistol instead. “We need to stay low.”

“He’s not objecting to that at least.” Falano pointed at Richard, who had passed out from the pain and blood loss. “So what, we keep low? They’re probably also hiding in there.”

“Don’t you have thermal?”

“The moment I shoot one, they’re gonna know where I am.”

“Then don’t. Go around them. I’ll be right behind you, and we can just run for the ship and get cover that way.”

“The landing gear? Are you crazy?”

“Do you have a better idea?” She looked back at the village, expecting a technical or something to be approaching. Instead she only saw the same pillars of smoke, still burning into the sky.

“...no. But you carry him.” Falano got into a low crouch achieved by folding his legs in, and began advancing into the grass. “Pray they can’t also see us.”

Kofuku grabbed the back of Richard’s shirt with one hand, and put her other on Falano’s back as he led them in a wide arc off to the right. They went less than half a metre at a time, minimising the amount of noise the dry grass around them made, even though dragging Richard behind her made it quite unavoidable. Hopefully, she thought, the distance he put between them and the soldiers lying in wait was enough to offset that. It would be ten solid minutes before Falano changed direction, reorienting them towards the ship. He took a few short steps forwards and then stopped, making Kofuku stop as well.

She sucked in a breath and held it, watching the tops of the grass around them.

Falano threw himself forwards, driving his arm-blade into the chest of the bewildered ashigaru just above his plate carrier, collapsing his lungs and preventing him from screaming as he was pushed down into the ground. He stabbed the man a few more times until he went still, and quickly moved on, taking Kofuku with him.

A shout came from another soldier somewhere out in the field, and they sped up, getting closer and closer with each micro-step they took, until finally, they came to stop very close to the large, bulbous tree next to their transport. “Good news and bad news,” Falano whispered. “They managed to get the ramp open, but there’s one up in the hold and I have no idea if there’s more inside.”

“Can you make it inside and use the ship’s guns?”

“Not with this many signatures in the field. There’s no cover between here and there. If they hit one of my legs I’m done for.”

“...what if I distract them?” She set Richard’s body against the tree, straightening his head on his neck. “My gun is a lot louder than yours. They’ll be all over me and you might only need to deal with a couple.”

“Tempting…until you die and my head explodes. Or did you forget that part again?”

“I didn’t forget. You want to be the distraction, then?”

“I’m not confident you’ll survive against two people on the ship, let alone three.”

“Okay, what do we do, huh?”

Falano straightened up a little, looking over the grass. “I don’t think we’re going to have to do anything, actually.”

Kofuku heard it before she saw it: the sound of powerful combustion engines, old school and reliable, thrumming louder and louder as it got closer. A clean white pickup cut its way through the yellow grass, a machine gun secured to a stand on its back, its camo-clad operator immediately opening fire and cutting a swathe through the brush. The ashigaru in hiding sprung up and began shooting back, only to be mowed down, and after the fourth they began to scatter, wading their way back towards the Tengoku.

Falano led his own charge, running out parallel to them and scoring a headshot on the closer ashigaru, while Kofuku dragged Richard towards the ramp, providing suppressive fire at the distant runners to prevent them from firing back.

She pulled the Venator up into the hold and almost collapsed, bracing herself against the wall. She tugged at the top buttons of her shirt, ventilating herself, and slid down into a sitting position as the truck came to a screeching stop at the end of the ramp, the guy on the back still shooting at the fleeing soldiers.

One of the doors opened, and a similarly-uniformed man in tiger camo of the same colour as the surrounding grass stepped out, saluting towards Kofuku.

No, she thought, and followed her gaze to Falano.

“You took your fucking time!”

Kofuku squinted. “How do…you know these people?”

“Right.” He moved his hand to aim at her face, spraying an aerosol directly at her.

She was already inhaling at that moment with her adrenaline level, and it made her dizzy almost instantly.

“Sorry princess,” Falano said. “But it has to be this way.”

The last thing Kofuku saw before losing consciousness was the shape of Kimura’s warship coming over the horizon.