Regrouped, Eiji and the main part of Unit Mirai proceeded to assault the governor’s palace. When the revolt reached its peak, the Meihonese governor had been captured here, dragged to the public square outside and cut to pieces, head and innards tossed to the wailing crowd as if to hungry dogs.
Yuuhei and a detachment of fifteen made for the unknown building indicated on the map. Their path took them through an old residential area, the sumptuous remnant architecture of the apartments cracked and smeared with layers of caked mud and dust, the narrow alleyways hellish in the rancid heat. The smell of sewage, garbage and cooking, oily and piquant, permeated the whole neighborhood. Onji children, dark and shoeless, shirtless, some naked, stared at them from windows and doorways as they passed. Old men and women looked up from weaving looms and pottery wheels, mortars and pestle and bags of sallow vegetables; they sat hunched on makeshift wooden verandas and balconies, under awnings of ragged cloth in frameworks of twigs against the tropical sun overhead. Their eyes generally fixed on Yuuhei, that broad-shouldered and imperious figure in his armor, coated with congealing blood, his face a lattice of pale gloss scar tissue.
They passed through a bazaar stinking sweetly of rotten fruit, on top of the ever-stronger stench of putrefaction and spice. It was empty but for a number of goats lashed to a pole and some crows cawing and roosting on their haunches on the awnings of nearby buildings. Yuuhei lifted his hand and the soldiers with him held their weapons at the ready as they moved through the marketplace, steps slow and careful now. They could hear men’s voices murmuring lethargically in the adjacent homes and storefronts.
“Fuck off!” called a man’s voice in Onji-accented Sekaiseigo from within one of the shops. It must have been intended for them, but it could have been the coincidental spike of a conversation already in progress, the voice raised only in natural irritation. They continued on.
Past the marketplace was a medium-sized open-air park, or what might have been a park. Patches of grass and burnt trees scattered over hardened earth. Beyond loomed their destination, and immediately each recognized it for what it was: a temple. A church. A mosque. Some ornate community hall of ritual worship. None among them knew well the religions of this region. It wasn’t the sort of thing trainees were educated about in the military academies, but the photo-familiar spires and engravings and gilded iconography were all there, characteristic of the region from central Onji up north and east through Bariabia, parts of Ajanum and outer Kolsiv, Arsapia, and all the way to the coastal city of Hebstanul of Henetolia.
While they were standing and staring, a shot rang out from a window of the building, dropping the soldier just beside Yuuhei to the ground. The rest of the Reizei lifted their rifles and let loose a volley of lead at the window, scattering as they did for cover. Yuuhei dragged the shot soldier on his back behind him as he made to duck behind a low wall. Bullets began ripping across the square at them from the various orifices of the church.
The shot soldier shook free of Yuuhei’s grip, pointing at the broken shoulder-plate of his armor, which had taken the force of the bullet and spared him any harm. He rolled into a crouch behind the low wall dividing the marketplace from the square, lifting his rifle on the windows and doors of the mosque.
“We need grenades in those windows,” Yuuhei called out to the other Reizei.
“What about the locals?” shouted Toru Matsuo over the rifle fire.
“The situation suggests that those in the building are hostile combatants.”
“I mean the ones out here who will see,” Toru shouted back. “It’s still a church.”
“Hearts and minds is not military business,” said Yuuhei. “We don’t have time. Tsuyoshi, Tanaka, Yanegawara: grenades free. Everybody else: covering fire!”
The soldiers peeked out and hosed the windows and doorways of the building with rifle fire while Yuuhei and the other three lobbed grenades across the courtyard and into the temple. No small task at that distance. Each ball of metal cleared its point of entry. A moment passed before the series of explosions rang out, and then Yuuhei called a charge. The Reizei leapt out over the dividing wall and rushed frantically to reach the temple before the defenders resumed firing.
And then they were inside, Yuuhei and the soldier named Tanaka in the lead. Firing point blank into the heads and chests of the Onji rebels.
They swept through the temple, cutting or gunning down anyone who was armed. To be sure, frantic as their pace was, there were times when it was necessary to throw a grenade through a blind doorway. At such times, a gnawing behind the eyes or no, they did not stop and count that the number of guns on the ground matched the number of bodies. The thought never occurred.
