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CHAPTER 43
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Flashback: 14 December 2024
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"Task Force VALKYRIE Command Council, all present and accounted for, Sir."
"Thank you, Paul," Adams said as he regarded the giant multi-panel display before him. As with the previous times, it showed all the commanding admirals of the shipgirl programmes and their respective chiefs of staff of the nations in the task force. "Ladies, gentlemen, thank you for making the time. Hippolyta sends her apologies for having to be absent again."
Sympathetic nods and other gestures of acknowledgement followed. No one envied Nagara for having to run interference and burn under the hostile inquisition of the result-hungry, failure-intolerant politicians and top brass. Few of these truly understood the magnitude of the problem.
There were more than a few haggard, darker-eyebagged-than-usual faces in the crowd, despite hasty imbibing of coffee or other stimulant. The conference had been thrown together at the first available instance after the previous day's debacle. Despite the frantic best efforts of the analysts, the timeframe was far too short for anyone to have much more than hurriedly thrown together first-pass reports barely removed from raw data and logs.
"
Kaishō Kamiki, we're sorry about Yamashiro," Wen said, offering a solemn deep nod. "
Shao Jiang Shao knows no apology or restitution can suffice, but he still wishes to offer a thousand apologies for dallying instead of acting sooner."
Kamiki and his subordinate returned their Chinese counterpart's gesture wearily and wordlessly. There was no energy to take offence even had any of them wanted to. As bad as he was having it, that was nothing compared to what was on Minami's plate. Everyone present understood that, Summoned/Manifested ability to bounce back faster than most normals notwithstanding, she once again in barely two weeks had a grieving flock to shepherd anew.
"How is he?" Zeleska asked.
"'Catching Hell', I believe the saying is, from the CMC about the override. However,
Shao Jiang Shi was, after we got through his initial reluctance, very grateful for a reason to be let off the leash, and is standing alongside him. All is not lost." Wen made an attempt at a reassuring smile. What came out instead was a rictus of death.
Zeleska now turned to Adams. "Husk, how is Lieutenant Commander Greer?"
"From the last message I received, she's still on the operating table," Adams said. His frown intensified. "We have the best working on her, Maria, but the prognosis is still up in the air."
"What do you mean?" The burn-scarred Russian asked, frowning back.
"You are aware of the aggravating effects exhibited by known Jötnar equivalents to and means of recreating the functionality of… fairy-forged weapons, such as the 'thaumium' Northampton attested to?"
Tons grimaced. The intense geological damage to Cherbourg caused by Nevada and Pennsylvania, barely days old, was still very much fresh on her mind. Kamiki sank further into his seat at the unintentional reminder of Second Tassafaronga and Takanami.
"The bombs used by the Exarch's planes have demonstrated the same ability to… exert a hostile reality and therefore ignore, nullify or weaken Enlightened effects, including healing and repair." The jargon still didn't quite sit well with Adams, even two years in. "The surgical team has discovered that this applies both to applications in the field and those in a proper facility. The exact mechanics and any relation to primium's disruption of Infrastructure remain presently unknown, but what is certain is that the majority of the operation is being conducted conservatively and with mundane methods not because of desire or laziness or cost-saving, but because we have no choice." Adams fought off the urge to further facially express his frustration, but his hands twitched nevertheless.
"There's something else, isn't there, Jeff?" van Doorn asked.
There was no immediate response but for a slight shift on Adams's face.
"Husk?"
Adams allowed himself to sigh and look more like an old man fearing for the life of a loved one than a flag officer who was a lynchpin of humanity's defence against genocidal invasion. "Yes, there was more in the message. The team is doing its best in spite, it seems, of the commander's apparent efforts otherwise."
"Like... she feels she doesn't deserve to live after her fatal failure?" van Doorn asked grimly.
Adams nodded. "The situation appears as such."
"Survivor's guilt, we all know,
oui?" Tons asked heavily and rhetorically.
There was a momentary quiet immediately after the Frenchwoman spoke, followed by a flurry of acknowledgement and commiserating gestures and sounds. Everyone present had lost peers and subordinates, most even before the abyssals had kicked off this war. Even if they had been all cleared as psychologically fit for service, none of them had been left wholly unscathed by the experiences. Tons had gotten it particularly bad; while she hadn't achieved flag rank yet during the Terror, she had been close enough to those circles. Her nation being one of the leaders in its Ending meant that while no assassin had personally sought her head, she had known many who had died and been died for.
That notwithstanding, what was it about the loss of a shipgirl, no matter how many links down the chain of command, that hurt emotionally like no normal soldier's death did?
Then the moment passed and all present put their game faces back on. "Right. Ladies and gentlemen, we have many things to discuss and not much time," Adams said. "I know we have a laundry list of demands and questions in light of yesterday's events: How we messed up so badly, the sheer scale and breadth of the effects our Exarch must have been throwing around despite their individual simplicity, the deficiencies in our Shockwave Code authorisation... the list is neverending. First, though, let us get onto the main reason we're here. Last chance to check we're secure."
There was a flurry of activity, and one by one each delegation gave the all-clear.
"Good. Have you all had a chance to look through the agenda?"
There was a chorus of affirmatives.
"We're all aware of what we learned from yesterday about our foe, assuming that what we got from…" Adams's tongue caught briefly on the terms, "Yamashiro's Overclock-powered hypercram is indeed true."
There was a brief hubbub of low-intensity murmuring at this. The sudden headache had cleared up as quickly as it had come, leaving no aftershocks like a normal migraine might have, but it had nevertheless been a cripplingly intense experience. Some of them had been awoken from sleep, however fraught, by the agony. The information they had found themselves in possession of afterwards, which they were strangely incapable of talking about in the presence of those who had apparently been deemed untrustworthy, had only helped deprive the small-S sleepers of the desire to return to slumber.
"It is true that the countermeasures that hid the Exarch from hyperstat modelling and other direct observation have yet to be cracked any other way, and as with any other intelligence, it remains to be verified. Whether it can even be independently corroborated remains to be seen. That said, using the information from the hypercram and other clues left by abyssal activity, our cleared analysts, conventional and Enlightened alike, are otherwise in tentative agreement."
"The clues were there right in front of us, and we couldn't piece them together, or didn't want to… Task Force Two. Halsey's command at First Pearl. My God," Smith said. As always, he minced no words. "We knew the abyssals had a particular hatred for Japan and the US. This explains so much. Too much. If we had some dedicated, unified information and analysis branch, perhaps we might have caught it earlier."
Zeleska shot him a look that, tempered by mutual respect, fell short of condescending. Her reply was nevertheless filled with cynicism born of experience. "You think too highly of us if you don't think the Exarch won't also hoodwink that the way she did all our previous effort. Granted, it is fortuitous that abyssal movements show no known sign of being informed by cross-dimensional espionage, the so-called 'scrying'; perhaps they need local assets to serve as relays. That being said, there is so much where our mundane best still falls short of Enlightened procedure. Just this protection against accidental direct leak of the identity alone, twisted in the hands of an enemy, could do great damage. How do you know, either, that this new order of the world's would not just be ivory tower academicians with a head full of theory but no practical experience?"
The retort prompted dark but not unkind, stifled snorts from the rest.
"We can't just continue on having done nothing!" Smith shouted back, allowing some of his frustration and helplessness to leak out in this secured space where none of his peers would condemn or despise him for it. Britain had not been hit by a Jötunn yet, but no one was under the illusion that any of their nations would be spared.
Zeleska held his gaze unblinkingly for a few moments. With an eventual conciliatory nod, she went on to say, "Now is not the time to regret, though. What do we do with this?"
"We can't let this get out any old how. Protection against direct leak is one thing, but can you imagine the fallout if some ultranationalist or well-intentioned fool got wind or pieced things together and started airing it in public?" van Doorn said. "Even without factoring in the increasing presence of influencing hyperpsych and other cognitohazards in abyssal pamphlets recently and how that might affect the inadequately inoculated, the last thing we need is some indiscreet junior officer or scoop getting word out of context and putting it out there."
The Japanese delegation winced. After all, they knew a thing or two about junior men doing their own self-righteous thing to the detriment of all involved.
"A problem we face too," Adams said, somehow turning even more grim than usual. "You've brought up the cognitohazard risk; the repercussions if my countrymen decide the Exarch is right and turn against the rest of us in her name scarce bear thinking about, to say nothing about her XOs."
Wherever they had been before the Abyssal War started, none of the senior officers present were idiots. Even if they hadn't had specific knowledge about World War II naval history previously, they now knew too well the nigh-sacred regard certain quarters held for the
Arizona. She was the most famous of the fallen at the place that America had rallied around, that which had broken the resolve to not intervene. She was a stupendous star even against the shining sea of sorrow, story and symbolism that had shaped shipgirls. Whatever nationbuilding had been done in the century and change before, First Pearl had been the spark that had started the fire, made America grow into a superpower rather than remain just another contender. There was a compelling power to Arizona Vult even before considering any explicit magic that Enterprise and co might work through that Name.
"A day may come when we can admit to our children or their children that America's greatest warships and heroines have become traitors to surpass Benedict Arnold, but today is not that day." Adams directed his gaze to Wen. "You told me previously that CSTE had something in mind about… Infrastructural lockdown to counteract waveform extraction, Captain Wen?"
"Yes—"
"Husk, wait one," Kamiki suddenly said.
"Masaki?" Adams could not entirely stop himself from looking askance at the alien strength now present in Kamiki's expression and voice.
"If it's really Task Force Two back to finish Halsey's fight, I fear I know what we need to do… but there will be many of my countrymen who will not like it." He chuckled bitterly. "Apologies for my interruption---"
"You… want to spell that out for the slower ones among us, Prosperity?" Smith asked, too bewildered and concerned to wait his turn. "Surely not the Archangel buggers—" Paling in sudden realisation, he added, "You don't mean RAGNAROK or a Fenrir, do you?"
"Not RAGNAROK." Kamiki paused, then added, "Not directly." He proceeded to explain, and some of the admirals' eyes widened in surprise and horror as they belatedly realised what they had failed to put together. Others frowned with grim acceptance and resignation.
"No apologies needed,
Kaishō Kamiki," Wen eventually said. He had been one of those to find the proposal grim, and while it would have been well within his right as a son of China to get
schadenfreude out of it, he knew all too well what was at stake to express anything other than thoughtful understanding. "I have had such thoughts, especially in light of knowing our mutual foes' motivation, but thank you for helping me give voice to what I had been reluctant to embarrass you and yours by doing. I know it must have been incredibly painful to do so. Now…"
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A few days later
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{Down with Japan!} The sign said in French. Its Parisian holder was far from the only one holding such a sign.
On the Champ-Elysees and the Place du Châtelet, rapidly-growing crowds gathered once more like they had in years past. Heedless of the winter chill cutting through their coats, the thousands were well-equipped with banners, megaphones, placards and signs. Their cause was rather different this time, though.
No everyday causes were they fighting for today. It was for what had happened at Cherbourg that they were protesting about. Pennsylvania had not sunk any of the shipgirls, but the destruction down to the bedrock and seabed of the base had been thorough and indiscriminate. A bursting 14in shell still turned human bodies into chunky salsa and pincushions by mundane effects alone even if its Enlightened payload was optimised to shatter Matter rather than end Life. A few fast and lucky souls near the base borders had managed to escape in time, but the slaughter of the humans was otherwise total. The escapees, overcome by terror, had lacked the presence of mind to keep their mouths shut, and the content of their babbling and ranting had been quickly confirmed by gawkers armed with long-focus lenses and camera-mounting drones. By the time the French government, reeling from the defeat, had managed to set up a sufficiently large cordon, photos and videos of the reshaped coastline had already gone viral beyond reasonable hope of containment.
The protests had started small and local. That had not lasted. The abyssal dropping of propaganda pamphlets had never stopped, the carrying planes too small for still-crude human-made Or Energy sensors to reliably detect. Their seductive messages found fertile ground in the distressed, outraged minds of the French.
{What are we fighting for?!} A second sign asked.
{Remember the prisoners of the Citadel of Hanoi!} A third protester shouted.
{We owe Japan nothing!}
An old woman held up a photo of a younger man in uniform. {Give me back my Marcel!}
{How many more must die like my Julie did?!} Another woman also with a photo, this of what was clearly her daughter, shouted.
The atmosphere was getting heated both figuratively and literally. Heedless of the winter chill, the officers of the
Gendarmerie mobile on site in their riot gear were starting to sweat.
{No more dying in Japan's wars!}
{No more French blood for Japan!}
{No more of us must die!}
{If we help fight Japan, we'll be spared!}
{
Force de dissuasion do the right thing!}
Who cast the first stone would be lost in the chaos that followed. Cast it was, however.
There was a yawning chasm of a pregnant pause after the rock rang loudly against a helmet and clattered to the ground.
The officer staggered back from the impact. More projectiles flew. The blob advanced even as the officers tried to stand their ground. Some rushed for the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, seeking its most eminent occupant. The fight was on.
This was the first riot.
It would not be the last.
Even as protests turned into riots, the abyssals started employing less conventional means of attack.
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Return to present day (give or take a bit)
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{Sir? I just got a strange output from Ishana Daitensho,} the JASDF's Iruma Air Base's systems operator for the JSDF's oracle engine said.
{Strange? How so, Morita-
san?} The duty officer in the operations room asked with trepidation. "Strange" was not good in their line of work even under normal circumstances, never mind this war that was constantly redefining the boundaries of "reality" and "fantasy".
The operator frowned. {It says there's inbound, but only gives me limited and nonsensical data. Altitude 401 miles? Airspeed Mach 42.9? "Halo Original Soundtrack #8"?}
Why, the duty officer wondered, did that sound so familiar, like he should know what it meant—
A very distinctive klaxon suddenly started screaming, followed by a phrase from the automated warning expert system that everyone within the room had been hoping not to hear.
{Veil piercing detected.}
The other duty personnel stared at each other, surprised.
{Veil piercing detected.}
None of the pickets or early warning systems for an air attack had been tripped, and such should have been approaching from the sea in the first place.
{Veil piercing detected.}
Who carried out an attack at 8.30am, when almost everyone was awake and alert, in the middle of the weekday rush hour---
{This is not a drill. I say again, this is not a drill.}
The pieces fell into place, and the personnel looked to their systems in horrified realisation. With well-drilled speed, if hitherto untested under real conditions and long hoped to never need, they went about making necessary verifications and announcing their findings as soon as they came in.
{OEDAR contact! Altitude 641.6 kilometres!}
The Ishana operator was quick mathematically, and her face twisted into a "You got to be kidding me" expression at the futurecast being correct.
{JAXA states no near-Earth objects projected or exoatmospheric tests scheduled for today!}
{JEXRA states no exoatmospheric tests scheduled for today!}
{OEDAR contact's signature is 99% match for formation of portal! Projected coordinates of LZ: 35.693°N 139.728°E!}
The duty officer stared at the display on the front wall of the room, a descent path automatically drawn based on the apparent orbital mechanics from the forming portal to the projected impact zone, and a sinking feeling grew in the pit of his stomach. There was only one plausible reason why the abyssals might be targeting that part of eastern Shinjuku City. Ishana's inability to generate a coherent or complete futurecast or even any at all - just like with Northampton's attack or Maury's, or Chaldea's Sheba and NAVENSCIWARCOM's Exordium failing to see Cherbourg or the DesFlot Two packs coming - only strengthened his suspicions. He promptly punched a button on the emergency alert panel. {Code Brütal Legend!} The tight tone he shouted in as soon as the hotline connected with his superior did not adequately hide barely-controlled panic. {Code Brütal Legend! Code Brütal Legend!}
{Yamada, say again!} His superior, startled by the shouting of a dreaded codeword he hadn't seen coming, ordered.
{Code Brutal Legend, Sir! Readings are consistent with CECM-shielded Jötunn executing a Code Brütal Legend via Code British!}
{... Fuck.} The superior growled as the dreaded terms sank in. The data that had been passed on to him the moment the alert had been called was just an unnecessarily horrid cherry on top. "Decapitation attack via exoatmospheric kinetic strike" was not the sort of threat vector the average civilian considered in naval warfare, but the Chinese making antiship ballistic missiles A Thing meant it was now very much a possibility even from a mundane perspective. He immediately began issuing orders to the rest of his subordinates. {Tateyama, get Hyakuri and Komatsu to scramble.}
{Sir.}
{Ueda, alert Gotemba and Matsudo.}
{The Antiaircraft Artillery, yes, Sir.}
{Nakata, alert the 1st and 4th.}
{The Air Defense Missile Groups, yes, Sir.}
{Akihara, alert Yokosuka.}
{Sir.}
The superior now hesitated visibly. {Nakazawa, alert Ōminato,} he eventually said.
This one was met with befuddlement. {Sir?}
The man's lip curled in indication of his complicated feelings on the matter. {We need their Enlightened interceptor.}
{Sir!}
After Tateyama got the order through, alarms began going off at Hyakuri and Komatsu Air Bases. {Alert crews scramble,} the bases' PA systems announced. {This is not a drill. I say again. Alert crews scramble. This is not a drill.}
The scrambled alert crews raced to get their planes into the air while already-airborne patrols were vectored to intercept, for all the good that would do. The way things were going, even the fastest of them would be too late.
The ground-based air defence was painfully obviously a fillip too. None of the Types 03, 11, 81 or 91 being mobilised were rated for ballistic missile defence. The Patriots were theoretically up to the task, but given the existing track record of mundane weapons against the abyssals, no one was in a hurry to bet on it.
8.30am was theoretically a very bad time to try a sneak attack, for reasons already given. This one, however, had been very well Timed indeed, and most of Yokosuka's forces were out of position to respond before it was too late.
JS
Kirishima (DDG-174) was available, though, even if the shipgirl she shared a name with was at a different base. Her duty crew leapt into action immediately.
The AN/SPY-1 was not normally used while in port due to the potential danger its powerful beams posed to those around. Under these dire circumstances, their orders authorised the making of an exception. The tactical action officer promptly authorised counterlaunch and the radar officer unsecured the SPY in preparation to receive the imminent attack.
Even as Yokosuka's tenants went into action militarily, alerts also went out to the various Port and Harbour Authorities of the nearby cities. They immediately began broadcasting warning messages. "To the crew of all ships in the Uraga Channel, any not involved in immediate maneuvers are to turn away from all windows, hunker down, put on eye protection and cover your faces immediately. This is not a drill. I say again---"
Far to the north, Shimakaze received the notification that had been passed through JMSDF Ōminato. Emergency warnings formed on her interface while specific tones sounded within her. The meanings of these had been drilled into her head until even she had no problems remembering.
In response, the yellow lightning she was emitting began to intensify. "I am one with the Speed Force," she incanted. "The Speed Force is one with me."
She was already breaking off from her patrol route and on her way back to JMSDF Ōminato before Kishu could speak up. Remodelled systems with better throughput than before, fed by more supplementary Power on top of an even more possibly unparalleled number of sidelinks than the first time she had encountered Ayaka, sent her Mach number rocketing into the second digit and beyond, the water around flash-boiling as the surrounding air distorted and glowed blue-white from the sheer speed of her passage. She was Speed, and little things like the intermittent lack of water beneath or the suggestions of aero- and hydrodynamics were no longer an obstacle the way it would have been to a normal ship. Fear was audible in said air battle manager's voice despite the tightness that indicated an attempt was being made to repress it. {Seal, Kishu. Imminent Code Brütal Legend via Code British. Farcaster is standing by. Accept datalink and slaving of portal control.}
{Roger!}
The abyssal portal finished opening with a flash in low Earth orbit, heedless of the nearby satellite that was overwritten more thoroughly than any normal weapon could destroy. There was a fleeting glimpse of more-real-than-real visible through the rent in material reality that made the Unenlightened human eye ache and mind refuse to understand even through any telescopes looking in the right direction. A N700 series
shinkansen, already glowing and smoking in a recognisably abyssal manner brightly enough to stand out against the day sky even before reentry heat could take effect, surged out. The portal slammed shut after it.
{Inbound projectile detected!} Kishu relayed as soon as the info came in. If this had been happening in a story, he might have found amusing the aptness of a bullet train being used to blow out the brains of the SDF, but this wasn't the time to be thinking of such things. {Two Jötunn-class Or Energy signatures on board! Airspeed… Kilo—14.57 kilometers per second!}
(401 miles? Mach 42.9? It's her!} Shimakaze snarled, equal parts angry and anticipatory.
Even without the symbolically vital numbers, it was still not hard to guess who the two Jötnar were. This was an unorthodox approach to anyone from the Second World War. Only someone else who was also Speed would consider such, and where it went, the other one followed.
Shimakaze knew she was not traditionally considered smart the way, say, Choukai was. Neither did she have the specialist benefits of the air defence types. What she did have, though, was the extreme processing ability necessary to fight at the speeds she could achieve and plenty of Power for it. That computation capability was already working on the needed targeting solution based on the data being streamed to her. At the sheer velocities of interceptor and target, there was no time to turn around for a second try before the strike hit.
Back down south, the Aegis Combat System on board
Kirishima finally managed to acquire a contact and recognised the presence of an inbound threat. The commandeered train was a big enough target as to limit the effectiveness of the abyssal countermeasures, and its not being built from the ground up as an abyssal construction didn't help the attackers. VLS cell doors flipped open, the deck glaring with light as SM-3s rapidly roared out. The Patriot batteries on land contributed their own PAC-3s. At the same time, the handful of shipgirls that had managed to get into position in time began firing skyward. The air quickly filled with tongues of flame from the missiles, as well as beams apparent from the streams of tracers the shipgirl railguns intermittently fired.
PAC-3s and SM-3s were designed to destroy ballistic missiles built tough enough to withstand reentry. The train was moving at speeds around twice what they were expected to counter, though. That divergence would have been protection in of itself from a mundane perspective, even without the chronoentropic countermeasures employed by its drivers. The majority missed. None of the shipgirls present were air defence specialists either. Without the advantages that, say, a Duck or
Dido had, or the raw Power to burn through the CECM at a safe distance, their rounds went wide or only managed glancing hits. The Speed being used as an instrument was a cherry on top, and it warded off the more exotic methods employed against the train.
By sheer luck, a few missiles managed to hit anyway. Against the supernal reinforcement conferred on the train by its abyssal drivers, which also prevented it from breaking up in midair the way a meteor might, they weren't even birdstrike. They were flies splattering on a windscreen. The fragments and shrapnel from the shipgirls' antiaircraft and Type 3 shells were equally ineffectual. Perhaps the AP or P-charged rounds might have worked, if any actually had managed good hits. The train fell on unhindered. From emergence to impact, it would only need approximately 44.05 seconds, and that time to target was dropping with frightening speed.
Up in the north, Shimakaze finished generating her own intercept and activated the slaved farcasters. With only the need to tunnel intrauniversally, a portal formed ahead of her in a bright flash with what would have been to human reaction times a dangerously small margin of error. Its other half opened in Tokyo Bay, angled diagonally upwards.
The warnings from the Port and Harbour Authorities were obeyed barely in time by the shipboard crews. The glow of the portal that formed was inconsequential compared to the blinding blue-white-yellow streak, brighter than any flashbang or floodlight, that emerged from it. Like one of Hou Yi's sun-snuffing arrows, the blazing soaring trail reached for the inbound falling star. The noise of her passage languidly followed much later.
Shimakaze's impact with the descending train, powered as much by Force as by Prime to unravel the supernal protections, created an eye-searing flash and deafening thunderclap as the target exploded into the world's largest blast of hypervelocity buckshot. More than a few unfortunate birds were torn apart by the explosion, shockwave and shrapnel. A few civilians, looking the wrong way and either too far from the water to hear the warnings or having yet to properly process them, fell over crying in pain from the blinding light. With this tens-of-kilometres-high intercept, she had used her grasp of Forces to shape the blast into an upward-inclined cone rather than an omnidirectional airburst, letting the fragments have more time to disperse further and bleed off airspeed. Even so, northern Kantō and southern Tōhoku would be feeling the effects of their impacts for a long time to come. Farcasting was not yet capable enough to automatically catch so many targets simultaneously.
11515 (imperial) tons moving at 14.57 kilometres per second had a kinetic energy of approximately 1.241 petajoules or 296.6 kilotons, almost 15 times the yield of Fat Man and slightly less than that of the W87. Even though that wasn't enough to flatten the entirety of Tokyo Metropolis, or even merely the 23 special wards, the kinetic strike she had just thwarted, apart from decapitating the SDF, would still have leveled sizable parts of Chiyoda and Shinjuku Cities had it hit. Easily tens if not hundreds of thousands would have been dead from the energy release of the initial impact alone. The overpressure and shockwaves created would have scythed outward and turned any bits that had not immediately disintegrated in the initial impact into the mother of all fragmentation grenades, painting the dense confines of said wards red. Compared to that kind of destruction that would have made Little Boy and Fat Man look like a campfire gone wrong, leaving some scattered scars on a few steadily-shrinking villages in the northern
inaka was undoubtedly the lesser evil.
As Shimakaze smashed through the commandeered train, in her accelerated perception she saw through the fragmenting wreckage Maury and Chester in the driver's cabin, beginning to fall. The former was staring murderously at her. The latter waved with an uncanny cheer. Even as she flew clear and called for a farcast portal to get her out, a rainbow pillar came down with a thunder of thunders and spirited the two attackers away.
It was the first, slowest, most poorly-executed attempt that those two would make.
It would not be the last.
The goals of these hypervelocity kinetic strikes would not be limited to decapitating vital infrastructure, but also to wrecking Japan's cities and terrorising its populace.
Not all would be successfully or as cleanly intercepted.
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