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Bond of Tears and Blood is a short story which was included in the second Kana Ishida Art Works volume.

Set during the New Soviet Union's invasion of Sado Island in 2092 while Japan's attention was focused on the invasion of Okinawa. The story follows a young Ichijou Masaki and his father, Ichijou Gouki as they fight off the invaders, leading to Masaki's fated meeting with Kichijouji Shinkurou.

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Summary[]

Spoiler

A soldier with no identifying marks takes aim at Ichijou Masaki, but Masaki casts Rupture first, killing the soldier. The grotesqueness nearly makes him vomit.

Masaki is here with his father and their volunteer army to fulfil their duty to the Ten Master Clans.

Today is Monday the Eleventh of August 2092. The eyes of Japan are focused on Okinawa which is being invaded by the Great Asian Union. And while their forces were distracted, the New Soviet Union took advantage of the chaos and attacked Sado Island.

At around 8:30am, a military ship disguised as a cargo vessel docked at Ryoutsu Harbou, and a force of more than one hundred combatants disembarked riding twenty military vehicles.

None of the vehicles or soldiers bore any form of identifying marks or insignias as a means of denying the attack afterwards. Their target was a magic research facility located on the island.

It is now 4pm. And the militia led by the Ichijou Family have reached the depths of the ruined research facility.

Gouki scolds Masaki for having been slow to react and nearly been shot. Warning Masaki that he needs to be extra vigilant when fatigued, Gouki orders Masaki to fall back and search for survivors.

◇ ◇ ◇

Masaki searches for survivors with some of his father’s subordinates. He had been advised to get cleaned up, being drenched in the blood of his enemies, but Masaki decides not to and focuses on the search.

So far, the team hadn’t found any bodies or injured due to how thorough the enemy soldiers were. The aim was likely to prevent calls for help. In fact, this had been so effective that the attack was only noticed at all because an orbital camera noticed an explosion by chance. Because of this, and the fact the enemy seemed to have known about the location of the facility’s shelters in advance, there are likely no survivors. Especially when all the shelters they have checked were filled with nothing but corpses.

Masaki’s team are hoping to find a hidden shelter that wasn’t on the blueprints.

◇ ◇ ◇

A young boy is hiding alone in the darkness desperately trying to avoid making a sound.

He is hiding in a hidden safe room which was originally a storage room. It is small but a woman and child could have fit in there. However, he was shoved in here alone because his parents were part of the facility’s management and had emergency duties to perform.

Anxious, they boy tried not to think as he trembles alone in that narrow space.

◇ ◇ ◇

Masaki’s team have found a small shelter that wasn’t on the plans.

So far, they have checked every shelter on the blueprints and found no survivors.

Masaki’s team form up around the door and open it, to be greeted by a gun barrel.

Masaki quickly neutralises the enemy soldier. However due to his lack of control the spell hits the enemy’s entire body rather than just his right arm. Masaki isn’t at the level where he can target individual body parts yet.

Once it was safe, one of the others enter the safe room.

When he comes out and shakes his head, the entire team is disheartened until Gouki’s younger brother rally’s their resolve with some encouraging words.

Upon returning to the main entrance, Masaki’s group returns to the depths of the facility and meets up with Gouki’s unit which have finished their clean-up operation.

Hearing that they have had no success finding any survivors, Gouki takes Masaki and the pair head in deeper in silence.

Gouki stops in a room with six corpses. Four had been killed with Rupture, meaning the other two were researchers.

Gouki tells Masaki that these two acquaintances of his had a son Masaki’s age. Masaki notices his father’s tone and realises they were likely more than mere acquaintances. After a few moments of silence, Gouki tells Masaki that their son is rumoured to be a genius who put adults to shame and was working here over the summer to help his parents with their research. Masaki asks if they’ve found his corpse, and when Gouki states they haven’t, Masaki resolves to find him.

◇ ◇ ◇

The young boy hiding in the shelter looks up at the control panel.

The light indicating that living humans have been detected in the lab has lit up.

It’s not the first time it’s lit up. It lit up shortly after he hid in here, likely the invaders raiding the room for research materials. Wondering who it is, the boy gets up to operate the console. But there is no camera, an oversight by his parents when they had it installed. The counter reaches five, but then suddenly starts dropping one at a time, quickly falling to one. The boy instinctively knew they were killed.

Unsure if it was researchers being executed, or the rescuers killing the invaders, the boy settles back on the floor and doesn’t get back up.

◇ ◇ ◇

Masaki finds the sliding door to a miscellaneous goods store and calls his father over to open it.

Once they check it’s safe, Masaki goes inside and discovers an intercom for a safe room.

When the door doesn’t open, Masaki uses the intercom to try to contact whoever is inside.

◇ ◇ ◇

When the boy inside the shelter hears the intercom, the realisation of what it means that it’s not his parents calling him, as well as the relief that rescue has arrived, breaks the dam on his emotions and he breaks down into tears. Once he’d calmed down, he got up to respond.

◇ ◇ ◇

After five minutes, a response finally comes from the intercom and the door opens.

The boy sees Masaki covered in blood and upon hearing that it’s the blood of the invaders, the boy thanks Masaki for avenging his parents before breaking down into tears again.

Masaki asks the boy his name, and he replies that it’s Kichijouji Shinkurou.

After some basic pleasantries, Masaki suddenly asks Shinkurou to be his friend. Even Masaki himself is unsure why he did it, though it might be akin to love at first sight. Or simply the excitement of his efforts in his first battle being acknowledged by someone from outside his family and their personnel for the first time.

Shinkurou is initially left stunned, but quickly recovers and agrees.

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