"H-hey, look at that..."
The first person to notice was a low-ranking grunt in the Heike Army.
"Shut up! I'm a little busy here!" his teammate barked, firing wildly. "Dammit, where did these trash mobs even come from?! If we don't clear them out now, Shana's gonna be all over us!"
"No... I think Shana's already here..."
"Huh? What are you talking about? Just keep shooting!"
"Look up there..."
"Will you give it a—wait. Why is there a Genji flag flying over the central keep?"
As the chaos and screams erupted below, the members of the Genji Army were lounging in their absolute safety zone atop the walls, casually chatting.
"Talk about rats in a bag," someone remarked.
"The guys at the North Gate can run if they want, but the South Gate crew? They're done for."
"Well, sucks to be them. Guess they'll just have to accept their bad luck."
Shana turned to his specialized team. "Alright, I'm leaving this to you. Sinon, Tarako, and... Tohma. This is the Degtyaryov's debut. Rosa, I know that thing was a nightmare to haul around because of the weight, but just a little further to the North Gate."
"I'll do my best!" Rosa chirped.
At the South Gate, Shizuka stepped out onto the ramparts, looking down at the trapped players.
"I-it's Shizuka!"
"Are you kidding me? The Genji main force is really here?!"
Shizuka offered them a bright, polished smile, greeting the doomed Heike Army with the grace of a refined lady.
"Good day to you all," she said sweetly. "And goodbye."
Her expression shifted to one of cold command as she turned to her squad.
"Fire!"
On her signal, the Genji ranks lined the walls and unleashed a torrential downpour of lead. Trapped between the monsters and the stone walls, the Heike players had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Some were torn apart by the mobs; others were turned into Swiss cheese by Genji bullets.
"Damn... I shouldn't have joined the Heike just because the reward looked good..."
"Nothing good ever came from being on this side..."
"Even the neutral players started giving us the cold shoulder."
"At least it's over now. I'm just gonna enjoy the rest of this as a spectator."
With their morale shattered, the South Gate forces stopped resisting. They fell in heaps, unable to even aim at the enemies perched so far above them. In minutes, the southern Heike contingent and the monster horde were annihilated.
Meanwhile, at the North Gate, the atmosphere was different. Garret and Shishi-oh Richie were positioned there—not by accident, but because the moment Shana's silhouette appeared at the South Gate, they had both decided a "Commander" should stay in the rear. Unlike XeXeeD, who had stayed to fight, they had fled toward the exit.
"Dammit, the Genji got us... I'm getting out of here. Hurry up if you can, Richie!" Garret yelled.
"Easy for you to say! This gun is too heavy to run with!"
"Not my problem! That's what you get for using such a ridiculous cannon!"
Garret turned his back on the Genji flag and sprinted for the exit. A split second later, a massive, jagged hole tore through his back. Richie's eyes went wide.
"H-hey, Garret... what's that hole in your back...?"
Garret didn't answer. He turned around, his face twisted in a mask of tearful shock as he looked at Richie. Then, he shattered into a cloud of light pixels.
"What...? Was that... a sniper?" Richie stammered.
Around him, the remaining Heike players began to scream.
"Look! What is that thing?!"
"Is it an anti-material rifle? I've never seen a gun like that!"
One of the gun otakus in the crowd shrieked the answer: "It's a Degtyaryov! That's not an anti-material rifle—it's an anti-tank rifle!"
It took a moment for the gravity of that statement to sink in. When it did, the Heike Army broke into a panicked rout.
"You've gotta be kidding! How are we supposed to fight that in this terrain?!"
"Why do all the legendary snipers end up on the Genji side?!"
"Just run! Survival is the only thing that matters now!"
The sheer speed of their retreat actually saved them; enough players managed to escape to keep the army from being totally erased. Shana's hand-picked snipers took down dozens, but in the sea of fleeing players, Shishi-oh Richie managed to slip away.
"Richie got away, huh?" Shana noted. "But Tohma, you did great. That was one hell of a debut."
"Yes! Thank you, Boss!"
"Rosa, you worked hard too. Good job."
"Shana-san," Rosa said, leaning in with a playful grin. "Can I have a headpat as a reward?"
"Sure. You earned it."
Rosa happily accepted the headpat, and Tohma, seeing her chance, timidly chimed in. "I... if possible, I'd like one too..."
"I don't mind. You both did excellent work."
As Shana patted their heads, the rest of the squad watched with complicated expressions. Rosa looked like a stout, maternal figure, and Tohma was significantly taller than Shana. Sinon, who knew their real identities, just sighed, while the others could only manage awkward smiles.
"So, how many squads did we wipe out?"
"Felt like there were more enemies at the North Gate, didn't it?"
"Yeah, I noticed that too."
"I wonder why..."
The reason, of course, was cowardice—the same reason Garret and Richie had been there. But Shana's team didn't know that. They regrouped in the now-empty center of the fort, and Shana opened his comms to Rosalia.
"Rosalia, what's the current tally?"
"Genji 8, Heike 53... wait, it just hit 52."
"What?"
"Something wrong?"
-------------------------------
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