Summoning Our Country - NHS Kai

Chapter 29.5: Destined for Demise

NOTE: Sorry that the next chapter/s took this long. It was supposed to be only one chapter, but the story we wanted to tell this time took on far too long for a single chapter, so we will release two.

Discord: https://discord.gg/wEp44XuaT3

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Cent. Calendar 23/12/1639, Prime Minister's Official Residence, Tokyo, Japan, 14:20

Darkness filled the conference room at the official residence of the Prime Minister as equally gloomy storm clouds gathered ominously over the blackout-stricken capital. The National Security Council, the highest committee in Japan responsible for the nation's defense policies, was in session; but they were not going to discuss some vague, indeterminate policies for a far-flung future beyond their tenure in government, but rather something in recent memory that requires decisive action to be made in between now and yesterday. But where have they last seen such a grueling challenge to the bureaucratic megalith that is the Japanese government, and what exactly happened after they tackled such a problem? Unfortunately, the answers to such questions are known all too well by this cabinet, especially Prime Minister Takamori.

Bzzzzzzz...

But all was not darkness—at least, not inside the conference room where the council was currently convening. The room's built-in projector cast an eerie white light from across the empty space and onto a flat, featureless wall on the other side, painting a moving picture of the gray ocean in grainy yet tolerable fidelity. A low, somewhat mechanical hum played from the hidden speakers playing surround sound—the powerful growl of turboprop engines of a Lockheed P-3C maritime patrol aircraft, muffled artificially by the device that had taken the footage.

The oceans in the footage, grainy as it may have been, visibly sloshed around back and forth, the lack of any discernible movement from the aircraft determinant of just how far it was from the scene taking place. Then, the camera swayed ever slowly to the upper left, before long revealing a singular feature that stood out from the rest of the unimaginative wave-splashing background: a warship painted in a lighter shade of gray than the surrounding sea steaming towards the direction just offset to the left of the camera. There was hardly any indication of its actual size—in fact, it appeared more like a remote-controlled vessel than an actual ship—but the slow speed at which it threw itself at the angry waves and the almost vexing rate at which its gun battery fore of the superstructure rotated to face the left side of the camera give the viewer a feeling of how life-like it was.

To most of the men present in the National Security Council, it was none other than some old pocket-like battleship, the closest vague image they could conjure in their heads was the legendary Mikasa battleship in Yokosuka; but to the more knowledgeable about the military who were present, it was resemblant of a late 19th-century ironclad that had more in common with the turn-of-the-century pre-dreadnoughts than the American Civil War-era monitor ships. Divided in their interpretations, the men were unanimously on the same side regarding one clear fact: this had happened in real life. As absurd as the circumstances of the transfer phenomenon may be, what they were witnessing did indeed take place; the blue and white battle ensign flying above the warship indicated she was fighting on behalf of the Kingdom of Altaras. Moments after her guns had stopped moving, a bright flash assailed the video footage for a split second: the guns had just fired, sending semi-opaque clouds of burnt powder all across the ship's side and obscuring roughly a third of the ocean seen on the footage.

The camera then warped to a different focus: the ocean was still there, but this time it featured an ironclad warship of more conspicuous crude construction flying a battle ensign of red and gold—the Parpaldian Empire's colors—with its guns facing the opposite direction to the Altaran warship's. Mere moments after the camera adjusted its focus, pillars of water erupted at random places along the Parpaldian warship's vicinity as it, in turn, unleashed its own volley of shots back at the direction of the Altaran warship.