Hiro and the Snow Maiden: Part 1

Notes: This story takes place after the events of Book 7 of the Confessions of the Magpie Wizard series. (Which was formerly the back end of Book 6, before I split it).

Expect an update of about the same length each week.

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Editor’s Note:

The following story has an unusual origin. At this point, in the year 2087, I didn’t think there would be anything new to say on the subject of Hiro Takehara.

After all, stories about his life are always in high demand. There have been three different best-selling biographies of the man translated into a dozen languages (my personal favorite being A Wizard of Little Promise, focusing on his struggles during his schooling at the Nagoya Academy of Magic), and he’s been the subject of several movies and streaming shows.

I remain anonymous here because I might have used illegal methods to uncover this story. I was friends with an employee at the facility who mentioned that the Hiro Takehara had rented one of their lockers and even handed out autographs when he’d stopped by to drop off his effects. That friend might have then found his key card to the facility had gone missing, and that there was a suspicious downtime for the site’s security cameras and access control system.

If any of that happened, of course, it was only with the best of intentions. I’m an independent investigative reporter by trade, and I was convinced that there had to be some dirt behind Takehara’s aw-shucks, salt of the Earth facade. The public deserved to know which skeletons were locked in his closet.

I didn’t find anything useful, unfortunately. I’d taken photos of one of his old diaries, and there wasn’t anything incriminating when I went over it later. Well, aside from him maybe having a few too many fantasies about his girlfriend, Yukiko, but I didn’t think they were noteworthy.

That was until I stumbled on this bizarre story towards the end of the journal. It stood out since it was written more like a memoir than a diary. There had never been a hint of these events in the public record. I thought I’d hit paydirt, but I realized I’d run into a problem.

If the Anti-Demonic League or Wizard Corps knew about this story, they had kept it to themselves. If I published it and it got back to me, I could be arrested for disseminating top secret information. If they didn’t know, Takehara would figure out how I’d learned about it, and I’d get into legal trouble for stealing the journal.

If I’d found out about some impropriety or an actual crime committed by Takehara, I’d have taken the chance. Whistleblowers are protected by the League Treaty on Press Freedoms, after all. However, this tale doesn’t incriminate anybody who matters. It’s just… strange. I’m not aware of another wizard ever having an encounter like this.

Despite the risks, I couldn’t stand not publishing it after everything I’d done to bring it to light. So, I’ve dropped it on a quiet corner of the internet. We’ll just have to see how far it spreads.

I worked to keep the meaning of the text the same as I translated it to English from the original Japanese. Although I’m not a professional translator, I’m confident enough that I’ve captured Takehara’s voice. Some might disagree. Who’s this nervous, unconfident boy, they’ll ask? Where’s the commanding statesman and soldier they see in interviews?

The simple answer is that in early 2051, he was still a young man struggling to master his magic, coming off a year of schooling packed with more battles than most frontline wizards see in three. In fact, at the time of his writing, he was just coming out of his famous encounter with the Horde’s forces in North Ireland. They’d managed to save the King of England from sure disaster. However, while Hiro emerged from the battle unhurt, not all scars are physical…

Chapter 1

Belfast, North Ireland

Friday, April 7^th, 2051

The briefing with local law enforcement had been, well, brief.

Is that why they call it that in English? But some of them can be pretty long… English really makes no sense.

I wished I’d studied it more in school, but Mom thought that with the United States gone and the United Kingdom on the ropes, I’d be better off focusing on another language from one of the other surviving island nations. I took some English in school, since it was a requirement, but I picked something else for my main language focus.

Turns out, Mom wasn’t always right. Half the people I met in the Wizard Corps were native English speakers, and I was stationed in North Ireland for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, I was still waiting for Tagalog to come in handy. But Mom had meant well. She always did.

Unfortunately, Mom’s idea meant that I’d missed the point of the briefing again. I could follow better than I used to, but with their speed and the local accent, I got maybe half of it.

At least I understood when the policeman said, “Dismissed.” Soon enough, we were on a public bus, on our way back to our security posting at Stormont Estate.

After casting a Zone of Silence over us, Yukiko Sato gave me a questioning look. “Do you need the executive summary, Hiro?” she asked, switching to Japanese.

“Sort of,” I said with a chuckle. “Y’know, that spell’s just going to get us more attention.” I pointed at the gawking mundanes all around us. Some had already gotten their phones out.

“They were already staring at us,” she said. “We’ve been in the news so many times by now; we’re rather famous. This just keeps them from coming over and asking for an autograph. We wouldn’t want somebody to overhear us and spoil the surprise for our targets.”

“Makes sense.” I waved back at a little boy two seats ahead of us; he was waving at us so hard I worried he might hurt himself. Once I noticed him, he turned to his mother and pointed excitedly at us. That had made his day; heck, maybe his week.

It was still weird to me that anybody knew my face in a crowd, much less looked up to me. Then again, after Magpie had been reassigned, they’d brought me out to be the face of the Wizard Corps for the battle at the shipyard. It felt like stolen valor, with how much harder he’d fought.

Yukiko rolled her eyes when I mentioned this to her. “Hiro, you need to stop selling yourself short. You’re a great fighter, and you deserve your reputation.”

“Sure, but I didn’t do that much. That was Magpie’s op. I mean, you’d think I’d saved King George myself, instead of…” I left the rest unsaid, but my mind decided to bring it to my attention.

The orc must have been three meters tall, or maybe he just seemed so big because Yukiko was so tiny in his arms. I didn’t need to speak his language to see the hungry look in his eyes as he ogled my girlfriend, eager to play with his new toy. I was too busy fighting two of his buddies to rush right in, and I nearly got skewered by one of their scimitars while I was distracted.

He’d underestimated Yukiko, though, and she turned her Gravity Shift affinity on him, doubling and tripling his weight before our eyes. His knees quavered under the intense pressure as her magic surrounded him in a bright, red aura.

Unfortunately, Yukiko had underestimated his strength, and the wooden dock gave out before his legs did. What happened next was a blur as adrenaline and Immortal Form pumped speed and power into my muscles. Abandoning the fight and everyone else fighting the orcs, I blindly jumped into the frigid water.

And then…

“Hiro!” Yukiko snapped her fingers in front of my eyes, forcing me out of my memory. “Are you alright?”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” I said, chuckling again to cover up for the awkward silence. “So, uh, back to the mission. I understood that we’re backup for the mundane military while they raid another one of those demonkin terrorist cells.”

“That’s cheating; this is our fourth identical raid.” Yukiko smirked up at me, a playful glint in her blue eyes. She had to look up a little to do it, since she was a short girl. Adorable as heck, too, but I was biased. “What did they tell us specifically?”

“W-well…” I thought back through the rapid-fire English the officers had spewed at us. “It sounds like we’re working off intel from Source A again.”

“More cheating, Hirokins,” chided Yukiko. “That’s just like the other missions. If this ‘Source A’ is who I think it is, I’m amazed it’s been this accurate.”

I shrugged. “That woman was pretty quick to run when things got rough before. Not surprising if she sold her buddies out.”

[Editor’s Note: I’ve been unable to figure out who “Source A” was; Hiro never comes out and says it in this memoir. It seems likely that it was somebody involved in the attempt to kill King George, but anything beyond that is speculation.]

“It smells like a trap. Things have been too easy on these raids.” Yukiko had the cutest frown, which was a problem when she was trying to be serious… which was pretty much all the time. Some people, especially Magpie, said she could be scary, but I’d never understood that.

“Easy? You almost got shot last time!” I said.

Yukiko smiled up at me and patted my forearm. “Almost doesn’t count. Don’t worry so much; there’s always healing magic.”

“What if you get hit in the head?” I countered. “And Mariko’s nerve damage is proof that healing magic can’t fix everything. You need to be more careful.”

Yukiko waved me off. “We’re soldiers. Danger comes with the territory, and I chose to be in a front-line unit. There’s a certain amount of risk that comes with it.”

“You could at least let me go in first instead.”

“And then I’d have to try to heal you, and you don’t have the energy reserves for serious healing magic,” she countered. “You don’t need to baby me; stop sounding like my father.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m worried about nothing,” I said, chuckling again as I gave up arguing. I knew from experience that as soon as she invoked her father, Hitori Sato, she wasn’t going to budge. “Anyway, that’s all I got from the briefing. What did I miss?”

“It sounds like this cell was involved in more than espionage,” she said. “They were arming up for some fifth column activity in case the Horde made a real play for Ireland. Each of our squads is getting paired with a different mundane commando unit, and we’re hitting four safehouses on the same night so they don’t have a chance to bolt.”

“Fifth column?” My jaw set as I fumed. “Dirty traitors. What do they possibly think they’d get out of working with the Grim Horde?”

“Power? Revenge, maybe? There’s a lot of locals who have a grudge against the United Kingdom Remnant, especially in the Republic of Ireland.”

“Oh, are we leaving North Ireland this time?” I asked.

“You really didn’t understand much, did you?” Yukiko chided. “I swear, I don’t know how you’d get by without me.”

Her words sounded like a rebuke, but she couldn’t keep a straight face, which let me know it was only a tease. She didn’t smile often, so it always felt special.

I wanted to hug her tight and kiss her right then. However, that wouldn’t be proper, and I didn’t want to humiliate her in front of the civilians. So, I satisfied myself with squeezing her hand out of sight of the other passengers. “I don’t either, Yukikins.” If I did my job, though, I’d never find out.

Chapter 2

Castleblaney, Republic of Ireland

Saturday, April 8^th, 2051

I didn’t get to see much of Castleblaney; we arrived in the dead of night in an unmarked, windowless van borrowed from the local government. All we’d been told was that it was a small town that was further inland and just across the border from Belfast.

It gave me plenty of time to talk with my other squadmates. At least, for part of the drive. Antoni Gajewski and Rafal Kowalski were, like always, keeping up a steady stream of chatter and inside jokes in Polish. The two refugees had grown up in the sizeable “Little Poland” in Gunma Prefecture, though they’d never met each other before we’d been assigned to the same unit. Ever since our first night at Stormont Estate, the two were just about inseparable. They’d switch to Japanese when they wanted to include the rest of us, though it wasn’t as often as I’d have liked.

The two contrasted each other. The rail-thin Antoni wasn’t much taller than me, and I’m a bit below average. He didn’t take up much room in the van, and his English was even worse than mine was.

I preferred riding with Antoni to Rafal. Rafal was a giant and still slightly chubby, no matter how much drilling the Wizard Corps put him through. I didn’t have any issue with his size; it was his living shadow, Buddy, that worried me. Rafal had gotten the creature under control, but I’d seen what Buddy did to those orcs we had fought. If the jet-black creature ever decided to turn on us…

Well, let’s just say that I always sat between him and Yukiko whenever we shared a vehicle. I don’t think she noticed I was playing human shield; otherwise, she might have objected.

Gabriella Hernandez was also left out of the Polish chatter, so she mostly talked with us.

“Have you ever visited Ireland before?” I asked.

“No,” she said, responding in accented Japanese. “I’ve always meant to, though. It’s the only bit of Europe that’s free, and I want to get some memories while it’s still here.”

I didn’t like her doom and gloom attitude; if we did our jobs, Ireland would stay free of the Horde. I kept that to myself, though. No sense making trouble before a fight. “You can cross it off the bucket list, then.”

She let out a little sigh. “I still don’t think this counts, Takehara. We’re going to be in and out before we can even see anything.”

She always used my family name, and I had a pretty good idea why. She had been transferred from Magpie’s squad after she fell out with them for reasons I won’t go into here.

[Editor’s Note: Which would make things much more interesting for me, of course. The polite little bugger keeps leaving out the juicy details!]

Magpie had mentioned her being a little, ah, flirty with him, even though he was dating our mutual friend, Mariko. Gabriella had moved on quickly, and just like a lot of other girls, it’s like she took one look at me and decided to try her luck. Little things started happening; leaving a few buttons undone on her uniform, compliments on my strength or hairstyle, and covering my tab at a local pub when we were on leave.

(No, I didn’t get why that kept happening to me, either. I thought I’d finally gotten past that phase where my life was like a bad harem anime.)

Well, the first time she sidled up to me and gave me a teasing little hug, Yukiko had gotten… territorial. I’ll leave it at that, but there was a quick visit to the infirmary involved, and Yukiko had been on toilet duty for a week. Still, the message had been sent, and Gabriella was very polite to me after that.

“We’ll have to come back some time when there’s daylight,” I replied, trying to sound relaxed.

“If we ever get more than a few hours of leave again,” groaned Gabriella. “I hope we get off high alert soon.”

“Maybe this will be the end of it,” I said, injecting a note of hope into my voice. They all looked to me for leadership, after all, and they needed to see strength.

“Depends on how many rats there are on this island,” said Yukiko.

“Seems like there’s a never-ending supply,” added Antoni in Japanese; apparently they’d been listening in after all.

“Too bad St. Patrick got rid of the snakes,” said Gabriella. “They’re good at dealing with rats.”

“But then we’d be out of work,” said Yukiko. “Do you just want to laze around all day?”

I think Yukiko’s biggest problem with people was her tone. Somebody with the right delivery like Magpie, or a gentle voice like Mariko, would have sold the joke. Yukiko made her banter sound more like a reproach.

“As if you need to work, Princess,” said Gabriella.

Oh, no…

“Everybody needs something to keep them occupied,” said Yukiko, visibly bristling.

“I guess you’re right,” said Gabriella. “Without the military, where would you go to feel better than everyone else?”

Yukiko’s eyes narrowed. “Without the military, where would you go to meet other people’s boyfriends?”

Gabriella’s tan face flushed with anger. “Listen here, you—”

“Sato, Hernandez,” I said in a flat voice. “Can the chatter.”

They took the hint. Now, I’d have preferred if they’d stop fighting permanently, but I didn’t see that happening. I’d have to enjoy the ceasefire while I could.

I swore I could feel Yukiko’s annoyance in the air, but she kept things professional. “I apologize for my behavior.” Well, besides the venom in her voice, but it was professional by an irritated Yukiko’s acerbic standards. Gabriella said something halfhearted in response.

The van came to a stop, and the mundane policeman in the front told us to get into position. I felt my spine straighten as I went into squad leader mode. “Gajewski, get the back open and prep a Fireball. Kowalski, have Buddy go out in eye stalk mode and get a sweep of the area. Hernandez, Sato, we don’t expect any wizards with the enemies, so prep defensive spells to deal with projectiles and other mundane weapons.”

“Do we have to do this again?” asked Gabriella. “There’s no way they know we’re coming.”

“Yes, we have to do it again,” I said, using a commanding voice I’d stolen from our former teacher, Mr. Maki.

It did the trick, and the objection was dropped. Despite the occasional argument, I was proud of the way my team snapped into action. Antoni had the back doors open in an instant, and Buddy flowed from Kowalski’s body like a stream of ink. Before the shadowy creature was out of sight, Antoni’s hands were ready to fling a Fireball at anything that looked at us funny.

As Buddy carried out his orders, I was glad that he’d grow his hideous, pupilless eye stalks out of sight; I didn’t need more fuel for my nightmares. Yukiko and Gabriella put their hands into position to cast a Svalinn’s Mercy and a Slow Barrier respectively. The differing defensive spells would counter different types of bullets or shrapnel. The way they moved together, you would never know that they’d been three seconds away from slinging spells at each other.

I drew a throwing knife, patterned on traditional kunai blades. I’d learned the hard way that I needed a way to reach out and touch people if I wasn’t going to be tossing around Fireballs like everyone else. I hadn’t had to throw one in anger yet, but there was always a first time.

We waited in complete silence while Buddy did his sweep. After a few moments, the shadows at Rafal’s feet rose up, taking on a humanoid form. His jagged teeth formed something like a friendly smile, and he gave us a thumbs up.

“See?” asked Gabriella. “I told you everything would be alright.”

“Don’t get complacent, Hernandez,” I said. “Buddy, did you see the others?”

He nodded, pointing through the van’s wall exactly where I’d expected.

“Perfect,” I said. “Gajewski, Kowalski, you take point. Gajewski, prep a Svalinn’s Mercy; you can get those off fast. Kowalski, keep Buddy ready to go. Hernandez, you bring up the rear. Sato, you’re with me.”

From the way Gabriella rolled her eyes, I knew what she was thinking. She’d said it out loud the other times: Yukiko was always with me.

It was a little selfish to keep my girlfriend in the center of the formation, but that was fine by me. It made tactical sense to keep her Gravity Shift ready to respond to attacks from any direction, and I felt more relaxed with her nearby.

We’d parked about half a kilometer away from the target, since we didn’t want our engine to give us away. We were on the edge of town, parked by the side of a poorly maintained road.

The policeman who’d driven us from the border came up alongside me as we made our way through a stand of oaks towards the rendezvous. “Can you hurry it up? We’re running late as it is.”

I replied in English. “I am not walking into an ambush.” Not again. “We have time.”

He frowned, but kept it to himself. It was his jurisdiction, but there were perks to being a wizard. Local authorities tended to defer to us, even when we were being unreasonable.

After a few minutes, we met up with the others. There was a mixed group of about ten men and women there. A couple were from the local police (probably there to make the Irish government feel better about us being there), but the rest wore standard Anti-Demonic League forest camouflage.

Their leader, Sergeant Green, walked up, and we exchanged a quick salute.

“Nice to see you again, sir,” I said.

“Likewise,” he replied. “I’ll call having you around a good luck charm after you saved our hides last time. Never got the chance to thank you properly.”

I shrugged it off. “Nothing any other Corpsman wouldn’t have done.”

“Don’t know a lot of other wizards who’d jump on a grenade,” he countered.

I winced at the memory; even with Immortal Form to protect me, it had stung. “No, they’d have cast a spell to get rid of it with less fuss; I just played the cards I had,” I said.

He shook his head. “I’ll disagree with you later. If your squad knows their positions, we can get started.”

It was a simple plan; Source A had revealed that there was a cell of demonkin in the area, and intel had found out they were meeting in an abandoned barn on the edge of town. Our mission was to get in there, kick down the doors, and overwhelm the devil-lovers before they could scatter. It was meeting night, and we wanted as many of them alive as we could manage.

They split us into two groups as we moved through the trees and thick brush. Antoni and Gabriella would hang back on the opposite side of a pond, near where the demonkin had parked their vehicles. If any of them made a break for it, Gabriella could use her Water Walker affinity to dash across the pond and take them by surprise.

Me, Rafal, and Yukiko were going with the mundanes. We wizards weren’t going in on the first wave, which annoyed a couple of the soldiers. To be fair to them, they did try to hide it, but Tagalog finally came in handy. The League liked to mix up soldiers to keep any national governments from having too much influence over the multi-national forces, and these two must have been from the Philippines.

“So, we get to kick in the door again,” said the first one.

“Sounds like it,” said his partner.

“I’m really sick of being a human shield for wizards,” said the first one. “Just about lost my head last time.”

“Plenty more of us where we come from,” said the second. “Only a few thousand of them.”

The first one made an annoyed grunt. “Must be nice, getting to wave a wand around while the rest of us are fighting.”

I was really tempted to say something, but I kept it to myself. No sense making them go from resenting us to hating us. I’d just have to prove them wrong.

The mundanes spread out to cover the main entrance to the barn. That left us with the pair of Filipino soldiers and Sergeant Green. We had all kept under cover, which was good, since a man with a pistol stood guard.

“They were begging to get noticed,” said Yukiko, peering through a magic-powered night vision lens.

“Because of the guy with the gun?” I asked.

“No, the fact that a half-rotten barn has a brand-new door and a security card reader,” said Yukiko.

One of the soldiers leveled his rifle at the man, but I put my hand on the barrel. “That will make too much noise,” I said in English. “Let me handle it.”

I drew a kunai from my bandolier as Immortal Form empowered my right hand.

My relationship with my affinity was definitely… complicated. It had taken years of training, but I could finally strengthen just the parts of my body that needed it, instead of it all spilling out of me at once. Still, every time I tapped into it, there was a moment where I felt like a dam about to burst.

Once I had it under control, though, even I was surprised at what I could pull off. Even though we were about ten meters from the barn, the dagger flew through the air like a shot and found its target. The blade sank into his throat, the momentum carrying it through him until it embedded itself in the barn door behind him.

Rafal turned at me and clapped me on the arm. “Great throw—”

Before he could finish the compliment, the gun fell from the lifeless man’s hands and hit the ground. The discharge filled the still night air, and before the guard’s corpse had hit the ground, there were muffled sounds of shouting and activity from inside.

“Idiot didn’t have the safety on!” shouted Green. “Move in, move in!”

Chapter 3

My heart raced as we advanced on the barn, our plan completely spoiled. My legs pumped as I tried to take the lead, because I knew that if I didn’t…

Yukiko rocketed past us, her body wrapped in red energy from Gravity Shift. Her magic looked like telekinesis if you didn’t know how it worked, but it was trickier than that. She could strengthen or weaken the gravitational pull between any two objects.

I just really wished she wouldn’t use it on herself… especially to rush at an enemy hideout like that. She called this her Slingshot, where she’d suddenly increase her body’s attraction to an object, then reverse the pull to bring her to a gentle landing. Once she came to a stop, she tried to open the barn door. It didn’t budge.

Immortal Form propelled my legs faster as I caught up with her. “Yuk… Sato, I thought you said that maneuver wasn’t combat ready.”

She curled her fingers into casting position. “I worked out the kinks.”

I frowned. “But if you got the magic wrong, you could be ripped in—”

“Magical Bludgeon!” she said, cutting me off. Golden runes circled her hands, coming together to force Yukiko’s will on reality. A perfectly circular disk of energy formed in the air in front of her and slammed into the door, creating a hole the size of a manhole cover.

I pulled her away from the opening, worried about enemy fire.

Yukiko glared up at me. “What’s wrong with you, Hiro?”

My answer was cut by the commotion inside. Men shouted at one another, and I could make out that they’d noticed Yukiko’s newly made porthole.

A green object flew through the hole and landed at our feet. I gulped; where did these demonkin keep getting grenades?

Proving my point with Sergeant Green before, Yukiko leveled her hand at the explosive, and she tossed it into the sky with a wave of her hand. They must have heard the explosion all the way in Castleblaney proper, but Yukiko didn’t so much as flinch.

The mundane soldiers and Rafal had been closing in, but after the grenade burst, Green’s group changed their course. They shifted to our right so the demonkin wouldn’t have a straight shot at them through the hole.

Rafal couldn’t turn very well once he got moving, but he had a different approach. Buddy flowed up his body, encasing him in a second, jet-black skin.

Antoni’s reedy voice buzzed in my fabricata earpiece. “What was that? Should we move in?”

“Negative, stick to the plan,” I said. “They might try to bolt.”

The barn door was wreathed in red energy as Yukiko thrust her hand forward, hurling it open. We finally got a good look in their makeshift bunker.

There weren’t that many of them, maybe ten. If this was their entire fifth column, I felt a little better about the morals of the human race. The barn door wasn’t the only thing they had spruced up; there were worktables and machining tools all over, and something large in the back covered by a tarp. We’d find out later that they were making unregistered firearms to distribute to other demonkin cells.

In the moment, though, I was more concerned that there were guns pointed at us than if they had their permits.

“Fire!” I wasn’t sure if it was Green’s voice or one of the terrorists. Either way, the darkness lit up as the two sides opened up on each other. The League soldiers couldn’t get a straight shot into the barn from their positions, but Rafal was right out in the open. After a gout of black liquid flew from around his right arm, the Polish wizard had the sense to throw himself to the ground and start casting defensive magic.

A stray bullet flew through the wall near us, and Yukiko flinched as it whizzed by her ear. The pained expression on her face reminded me of…

Jumping into the half-frozen water beneath the dock was like being punched in the gut. I nearly let my control of Immortal Form slip, but I forced the magic back into my limbs, knowing I’d need the speed. I didn’t have time to focus on the chill as I treaded water, searching for a sign of where Yukiko and the orc had gone.

I caught sight of churning foam a dozen yards away. I dove in after them, but I could barely see anything. The water beneath the docks was deeper than I’d expected so close to shore. It must have been dredged out, since it was meant to fit battleships and aircraft carriers coming in for repairs.

I couldn’t see them! I wished I could be Magpie and spot them by his Mimic Sight, or force the water out of the way like our classmate Paul Wilson. Unfortunately, I was the only one there…

A garbled scream behind me led me to them. I could see Yukiko still in his grip, the red aura surrounding the demon showing that he was still weighed down by Gravity Shift. Unable to cast more spells without air to breathe, she struggled, kicking, punching, and gouging at the orc.

Her body was illuminated by the glowing orc, and I could just make out her face. Her eyes met mine, silently imploring me to help, to do something.

That was when the orc’s meaty fist slammed into the side of her head, killing the aura around him.

As if summoned by the intense memory, Immortal Form flooded through my system. I was burning through magic reserves like mad, but panic gripped me, and I knew I had to get us out of there!

Yukiko was easy to carry even when I didn’t have magic turning my muscles to steel. In a heartbeat, I had her in my arms as I leapt straight up onto the barn’s roof, thinking it would get us out of trouble.

Yukiko turned towards me mid-leap, moving in slow motion from my enhanced perspective. “What are…”

Unfortunately, the demonkin hadn’t thought to keep the roof maintained, and the rotten wood gave way under our combined weight. If I hadn’t been carrying Yukiko, I’d have been able to roll to absorb the fall. Since I was, my knees got to suffer for my snap judgement, and a loud clang echoed through the whole barn when I landed.

Wait, a clang?

I’d landed on the lumpy shape covered by the tarp, and a quick tap of my feet confirmed that I was standing on something metallic.

We had bigger concerns in a second, though, as the demonkin whirled around and leveled their guns at us.

“Shit, wizards! Light ‘em up!”

“For the Dark Lord in Rome!”

“Svalinn’s Mercy!” Yukiko was quicker on the draw than them, thankfully, and their bullets ricocheted off the hovering shield of red energy.

One of the parts of Immortal Form that isn’t obvious to other people is that when my whole body was charged, more than my strength was enhanced. I guess when a normal-looking guy like me can suddenly punch through steel plate, they can miss the subtle implications of the power.

I was regretting one of them, as my enhanced hearing made the rapid gunfire even more deafening. That’s what finally made me drop Immortal Form, not any worry about running out of magical energy.

“Let me go!” Yukiko forced her way out of my non-enhanced grip. Her arms were at her sides as she glared up at me. “What the heck were you thinking?”

“We were under fire,” I protested.

“I was about to cast a Svalinn’s Mercy when you dropped us right into the middle of them!”

Oops. I guess that explained how she’d prepped the spell faster than they could pull the triggers…

Yukiko’s shield was starting to crack under the terrorists’ barrage, but my little maneuver had put all eyes on us.

That was a mistake; you never want to take your eyes off Buddy. Black tendrils whipped out from Kowalski’s shadow, laying into the startled demonkin like the tentacles of an angry octopus. Two were clubbed unconscious in an instant, and the cries of their allies split the attention of the rest.

The mundane soldiers weren’t far behind him, with Green in the lead. “Drop your weapons or we’ll drop you!”

Yukiko added to the threat by prepping her own cast spell, and I made a point of drawing two more kunai to menace them. There was a tense moment as the men weighed their chances of blasting their way out.

I’d met two types of terrorists as a cadet and soldier. The Holy Brotherhood of Mankind, motivated by an extremist desire to do whatever it took to save the human race, would have stood and fought to the last man. In their view, their lives were a small sacrifice for the greater good.

These demonkin were different, and slowly placed their weapons on the ground. I guess you had to be pretty selfish to pledge allegiance to the biblical Satan and his representatives on Earth. Once demonkin saw that they had no chance, they tended to surrender and hope for good terms.

However, a few of them had avoided our little trap. A loud rumble started beneath my and Yukiko’s feet, and I had to catch her as the tarp-covered monstrosity lurched forward. The heavy sheet slid off the hidden vehicle as it picked up speed, and we were nearly carried with it as we crashed through the wall of the barn like it wasn’t there. The half-blind drivers weren’t slowed down any more when they smashed through one of their own cars parked by the pond.

Gabby’s voice popped up in my ear. “Is that a tank?”

I didn’t reply, since the answer was pretty obvious. I even knew the model, thanks to years of playing War of the Arcane and other strategy games.

The British-made Longbow wasn’t much of a tank by pre-Horde standards; demonic technology jamming made it pointless to pack any sort of advanced scopes or weapons on the devices. Their job was to get into position quickly before their motors were disabled, then have their simple cannons loaded, aimed, and fired by hand to try and punch through defensive magic. They weren’t as good at it as wizards, but the League could crank out more of the simple machines than they could train magic users.

Longbow crews didn’t tend to last long once they were swarmed by fast-moving orcs, though. Hopefully, Yukiko and I could do as well as them.

“Source A didn’t say anything about enemy armor!” Yukiko’s voice was nearly drowned out by the roaring diesel engine.

“Must have left it out!” I shouted back. “Do you think they have any shells for the gun?”

I got my answer soon enough; the turret had been pointed straight ahead, but it began to swivel around as Gabby and Antoni peppered the tank with Celestial Arrows. The golden, pointed bolts of energy were designed to pierce armor, but they weren’t big enough to do anything but get stuck in the Longbow’s thick, steel plates.

One of them nearly hit me in the head, removing the red cap from my head. “Cease fire! Cease fire!”

Immortal Form flowed into my limbs again and I threw myself against the turret, pitting my strength against the simple hand-crank some desperate demonkin was furiously turning. I could feel the metal in the gun barrel starting to bend beneath my fingers, but I was losing ground since I couldn’t get any traction on the slick surface.

Yukiko’s solution was direct, as always. Using the distraction I’d provided, she focused Gravity Shift into the vehicle. Objects with more mass were always harder for her to manipulate, but it didn’t take much more weight to make the ungainly tank sink into the wet, grassy soil in the clearing.

I kept my death grip on the tank’s turret, but the sudden stop threw Yukiko clear of the vehicle. She let out a started shout that was cut off when she slammed into the ground.

Free of her magic, the Longbow’s driver reversed course and managed to get out of the twin ruts it had dug itself. I was impressed that the rugged little vehicle hadn’t slipped a track under twice its normal weight.

I didn’t have long to appreciate British engineering as a hatch opened to my right. A demonkin with impressive muttonchops popped up and leveled a pistol at my chest.

“Damn League bootlicker!” He fired twice, catching me twice above the heart.

Unfortunately for him, my enchanted fabricata uniform was up to the task. Drawing on my magical reserves, the runes woven into the black wool turned as hard as steel plate. All he’d done was bruise me, and I was used to those.

“Lick my boot!” I kicked him straight in the face, the force carrying him out and away from the tank. He probably had a broken neck.

I didn’t care; the traitor had gotten what was coming to him.

The vehicle came to a sudden stop. A loud clunk was audible over the diesel engine, and I gulped as I realized they were loading the main gun. I planted my feet and squatted beneath the gun barrel shoving upwards with all the magical strength I could manage.

If I’d been Superman from one of my comics, I’d have tied it in a bow to add insult to injury. I was no Superman, but I didn’t do too badly as I left the barrel with a bend like a hockey stick. If they tried to shoot at anything, they’d probably end up misfiring and blowing off the whole top of the tank.

I gulped as I realized I was also on top of the tank.

The Longbow’s crew seemed to realize firing the main gun was suicide, though, and the engine roared as they drove forward. I was just about to jump down the hatch and show them why you don’t deal with demons when I realized that the stunned Yukiko was right in their path.

My heart skipped a beat as unwanted memories played through my mind.

“Yukikins?”

My arms and legs felt like lead. I was better off than the orc, though; I’d been able to grab a fresh breath before I wrestled him. It had been a near thing, but a sharp blow to the stomach had forced him to inhale a lungful of seawater.

Yukiko was motionless when I’d gotten us back to the surface. Had I taken too long? I’d planned to head right back to the main battle with the others, but…

She wasn’t breathing. Not when I’d swum us to the shore beneath the wooden pier, not when I’d tried to force the water out of her lungs, not as I gave her mouth to mouth.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I felt so helpless; I could wrestle an orc or bend steel bars, but I couldn’t do anything for her frigid, motionless form.

Maybe I could do something about her body temperature, at least. The spell Bernard’s Charm used her own magical reserves to warm her body. The way I’d manipulated her energy shocked her awake, and she’d coughed up enough seawater to fill a goldfish bowl.

Yukiko was always so confident, but there was fear and confusion in her blue eyes when they snapped open. She quashed it when she realized I could see, though.

We’d returned to the fight again, but I knew how close I’d come to losing the woman I loved. I’d promised myself that I’d never let anything like that happen to her again. Not again.

“Not again!”

My head threatened to split open as I blasted through more of my magical reserves. I’d spent months refining the way I used Immortal Form, learning to save my strength, to conserve every drop of my energy. It’s how I’d survived lengthy fights against the Horde and the Holy Brotherhood.

Right then, I didn’t give a crap about endurance. So what if I put myself in Wizard’s Desolation? She needed me!

My blood pounded in my ears, and I was between Yukiko and the Longbow before I could blink twice. Every part of my body felt like it was about to burst with energy, and I needed an outlet.

Good thing I had a volunteer.

Maybe it was just my Immortal Form-enhanced hearing, but the Longbow’s engine sounded like the deafening roar of a dragon as it bore down on us.

I met its charge, my hardened body slamming into it shoulder first. My feet dug deep furrows through the soft soil as I tried to force it to stop. I was slowing the tank, but I didn’t have the leverage or footing to do more than that. The tank’s engine struggled under the load, yet we still inched closer and closer to Yukiko’s unconscious form.

Even as panicked as I was, I realized it was a losing battle.

I drew my fabricata sword, pumping the katana’s blade with as much magical energy as I could spare. When I was done, arcs of orange energy skittered across the surface of it like lightning.

Normally, the passive runes built into the blade were only meant to help it avoid shattering when crossing blades with a superhuman demon. I was after a more hardened target, though, and I prayed the weapon wouldn’t fail me.

I flopped to the ground, letting the tank pass over me. Hopefully that rulebook for War of the Arcane hadn’t lied to me about where the Longbow’s engine was…

Putting all of the energy I had left into my sword arm, I stabbed upwards into the underside of the tank. Oil and lubricant rained down on me, and I could feel the glowing blade twisting as it cut through the tank’s steel hull.

The engine sputtered twice before dying completely, stopping the Longbow in its tracks.

I wanted nothing more than to let sleep take me; Wizard’s Desolation was catching up with me, feeling like a hangover and an all-nighter had a baby.

“Not yet,” I grunted, getting onto my hands and knees. My right wrist protested as I went, still sore from my stunt with the sword, but I forced myself back to the front of the tank.

Longbows normally had crews of five, but we’d later find out we’d caught three of those demonkin in the middle of repairs. One of their comrades had thrown the tarp over the vehicle to try and hide it when they realized they weren’t alone. Unfortunately for them, I’d outed them before they could spring the trap and put that cannon to good use.

That left only two of them to deal with. One of the survivors had already hopped out and was darting for the woods.

The other one was out for blood, and he was already leveling a pistol at Yukiko. It seemed like he hadn’t noticed me yet.

My feet moved before my mind knew what was happening, and I found myself between Yukiko and the gunman. My enchanted armor tried to resist the bullets, but they pulled from my magical reserves the same way my Immortal Form did, and the last fumes of energy weren’t enough.

I kept on my feet, somehow, knowing that if I went under, I probably wouldn’t wake up again.

Like Yukiko had mentioned before, one of the downsides of my poor magical reserves was that I couldn’t be healed easily. Healing magic used the recipient’s energy more than the casting wizard’s. When I was at full power, fixing those bullet holes would have left me a little drowsy, but when I was already on empty… Well, I’d have to deal with some pain.

Nothing I wasn’t used to, though. Wizard’s Desolation and I were old buddies, and if you’re stubborn enough, you can power through it for a while. If anything, it helped deaden the pain from my bullet wounds.

The demonkin couldn’t believe his eyes as I not only didn’t fall, but advanced on him. A soldier would have fired again and dropped me. Lucky for me, I wasn’t dealing with a soldier. Anybody who would sell out his home to the Horde rather than fight for it was simply a coward and a bully. Bullies are easy; if you show them some backbone, they fall to pieces.

Wizard’s Desolation doesn’t affect muscles much, and while my left arm was throbbing with pain, I didn’t need Immortal Form to clobber him with a right hook. Something in my wrist snapped when the blow landed, so I wasn’t sure I could manage another.

Thank goodness Gabriella had finally caught up with us; the demonkin kept his grip on his pistol as he staggered back, but her Magic Bolt put him down before he could pull the trigger again.

“Is everyone alright?” I asked Gabriella.

Her eyes went wide as she got a good look at me with my uniform shredded. I must have looked awful, covered head to toe in blood and the contents of the Longbow’s destroyed engine.

“Yeah, except you,” she said.

I tried to look encouraging. “Good. Patch up Yukiko for me, ‘kay?”

And with that, I pitched forward, unconscious before Gabriella caught me.

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