Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 991: Global Broadcast

Across the yard, the Circle’s squads waited in parade order, pressed uniforms in slate and white, blades at hips, watching Eclipse’s happy chaos with expressions caught between decorum and open curiosity.

At the rack line between the two guilds, a Shogunate spear-user had drifted over to a Runewoven girl warming up her floating daggers. He bowed to her before speaking. ”May I ask what keeps them up?”

”Spite and mana. What does your spear fold out of?”

”Blessed paper. Several shrines’ worth of prayers.”

”...Okay, trade me.”

Both of them were grinning by the time she floated a dagger across for him to examine.

The far side of the yard belonged to the broadcast.

Six production trucks stood in a row trailing cable everywhere, and each crew member swarming them wore an armband with two crests printed side by side: Eclipse, and the Shogunate Circle.

In the middle of it all, the Media seat of Japan’s ruling council was personally bowing to Kira and Rika.

”We would be honored by your guidance,” he said, in careful English. ”You know these feeds better than anyone in the world.”

The twins held their professional composure for one entire breath.

The high praise instantly won them over.

”We accept!!”

”We want to see the control room!!”

The Media seat had explained the arrangement himself, beaming. Today would go out as a joint stream, Eclipse and the Shogunate Circle side by side on one broadcast.

Japan carried every cost of it, the trucks, the crews, the satellite time, the small army currently running cable in the sun. And every viewer, every subscriber, every yen of revenue still flowed to Eclipse’s channel, exactly as if the family had produced it alone.

”Do you have any idea what a production this size costs?” Alexandra whispered, pale with secondhand sticker shock. ”And they’re paying for all of it. We just show up and receive viewers.”

”They set the table, they wash the dishes, and they hand us the tip jar,” Nyx said warmly, watching the crews work. ”I love this country.”

”Guys!!” Leia had found the promotional posters stacked beside the nearest truck and held one up in each hand. ”There’s an ad campaign. There are two ad campaigns.”

”The Circle purchased advertising for today’s broadcast,” Sonoda explained. ”The first campaign is domestic. It runs on every network, every train station, every public screen in the country.” She nodded at the poster in Leia’s left hand and translated its text: The man and his exotic family you have watched every day for months now fight beside Japan.

”And the other one?” Emily asked.

”The second campaign was purchased on overseas networks and platforms.” Sonoda’s crispness did not quite cover her pride. ”It airs tonight in most countries.”

Leia turned the second poster around for the group. Kaiden Grey stands with Japan.

A not-so-subtle flex, and a fuck you to every nation Japan had grievances with. By tomorrow, half the planet would like the country a little more for it.

”I’m framing one,” Leia decided.

”It’s trending in three languages,” Emily reported from behind her tablet, scandalized. ”It isn’t even live yet!”

”The Media seat wrote the line himself,” Sonoda offered. ”He is very proud of it.”

They found the Blades seat on the steps of the command hall, asleep sitting up.

She was a woman in a black haori, sitting with one knee raised and a sheathed katana leaned against her shoulder, head tipped back against the post, breathing slow.

She was somewhere in Scarlet’s age band, and she was gorgeous. The haori hung loose enough to be a rumor, long bare legs folded under her, a mouth smiling faintly even in her sleep.

Every squad crossing the yard bent its path wide around her, respectful and automatic.

”Lord Grey,” Sonoda said, quieter than her usual crisp. ”May I present the Blades seat of the Circle. Shura Kanzaki.”

One eye opened before the introduction finished. It went to Kaiden and stayed there, unhurried, and the sleep drained out of her face as she read him from the gauntlet up, liking what she found more with every pass.

”Huh,” she said in accented English, both eyes open now. ”Wanna fight?”

”Maybe later,” Kaiden grinned.

”Yo, samurai psycho,” Scarlet said, looking her up and down with open delight.

”You’re the drunk who booked me.” Shura rose in one motion without her hands, gave the crimson warrior the same long read, and a yawn stretched through the middle of it.

”Aww... Stop speaking as if we’ve never met!” Scarlet grinned.

”I forget weaklings quick.”

”Ahaha! This little jester is far too funny!” Scarlet clapped, genuinely amused.

Two battle junkie egos flared. They were ready to throw it down here and now.

”Kanzaki.” Yunohana’s soft voice reached them ahead of her, hands folded, serene in the morning light. ”The backlog first, if you would. Fight after.”

”...”

”...”

”...Yes, yes.” The Blades seat propped the katana on her shoulder and started down the steps toward the parade ground, past the whole gathered family.

”My lord.” Sonoda checked her folder, and there was open anticipation under the crispness now. ”It is time. The assembly is formed.”

...

Kaiden walked his family onto a main parade ground that had swallowed both guilds whole.

Eclipse held the western half in team blocks, hundreds strong, banners up. The Circle’s squads faced them from the eastern half in perfect ranks, blades in lines.

Between the two halves, projected in pale light against the morning sky, hung a map of Japan the size of a building face.

Forty-one red marks burned on the islands. Around each one spread a shaded stain, the ground its overflow had taken.

Those stains were the reason for everything.

They were cordoned land the country could not take back, because the fighters who would have taken it back were either holding the other gates or still in hospital beds from the outbreak.

On the dais beneath the map sat the council and a row of ministers in dark suits, Yunohana at their center in white and vermilion.

The Gates seat had brought his list. He held it with both hands, beaming, a man whose day had finally arrived after days of being told not to bring it to dinner.

In the control room, a countdown that had been running all morning reached zero, and Japan went live.

”National feed up!” Kira reported.

”International feed up!” Rika confirmed. ”Chat is already unreadable and nothing has happened yet!!”

”On it!” The three moderators entered work mode, supported by the team Japan had provided.

Along the western edge, tall boards lit with rosters, and Eclipse surged toward them in a wave.

The teams themselves had been built back home, in those last restless days on the compound gravel with a federal audit parked close enough to watch. Each one was a handful of fighters balanced around the same skeleton: a frontliner to hold the monsters, a support to keep the frontliner standing, and damage around them to do the killing.

The damage part usually ended up being a mix of three people with different specialties, such as a swordsman, archer, and rogue.

No team was allowed to dive into danger alone. Each gate on the list received a raid group, several teams stacked together and matched to the gate’s difficulty. The teams made up of low level rookies drew the mildest gates. The veterans drew the stains.

”Raid group nine!” Eugene Wexler’s bellow rolled over the blocks. ”Nine, baby!”

Vanessa Sloan read her assignment twice before she believed it. ”...We dive with one of their squads. The whole run.” She looked up at nobody in particular. ”Huh.”

That was the joint half of the design. Every Eclipse raid group had a Shogunate squad folded directly into it, locals who knew their own gates down to the smell of the third floor, diving shoulder to shoulder with the visitors as guides, teachers, and comrades at once.

That was what the joint in joint operation meant: not two guilds waving at each other across a yard, but mixed groups walking into the same dark together.

From the platform steps, Kaiden ran the sum and let himself enjoy it. His guild still counted its age in a handful of days, and Japan had just handed it a live training ground with experience on tap, and teachers to fight beside, whose classes existed nowhere else on earth.