Several armored samurai carrying Steam Rifles stood guard beside the firing ports, warily watching for movement outside.
Their gazes swept back and forth between the barren land and the distant hills. Their fingers remained on their triggers, ready to face hordes of Kabane that might surge in from any direction.
At the front of the train, several workers operating the locomotive kept shoveling coal into the boiler. Sweat slid down their dark faces and dripped onto the scorching furnace walls, evaporating with a hiss.
The roar of the steam engine mingled with the clatter of wheels rolling over the rails.
In the middle of the train, a young woman in a kimono sat upright, her hands folded in her lap, her bearing dignified and graceful.
She had a lovely face, with both youthful innocence and composure in her features, but her slightly furrowed brows still betrayed her anxiety.
Ayame Yomogawa.
Every departure from the station was a gamble.
Although this exchange of supplies had gone fairly smoothly, they could still come under attack by Kabane at any moment until they were back within the walls of Kongoukaku.
She prayed silently, hoping their return journey would pass without incident.
Just then, a samurai at the forward lookout suddenly shouted urgently, "Lady Ayame! There are unidentified people beside the tracks ahead! And... and two enormous monsters!"
"Are they Kabane?"
Ayame sprang to her feet and asked anxiously.
The samurai opened his mouth, but his expression turned strange, as though he had no idea how to describe what he had seen.
"N-no, they aren't Kabane, but..." He stammered for a long while without managing a coherent explanation.
Ayame frowned. Rather than wait for him to explain, she gathered up the hem of her kimono, hurried through the carriage, and climbed the ladder onto the roof of the Kotetsujō.
As soon as she poked her head out, fierce wind rushed into her face, whipping her long hair into disarray and almost forcing her eyes shut.
Instinctively, she raised a hand to shield her eyes and squinted to keep out the windblown sand.
As her view gradually cleared, she finally made out the two figures beside the tracks ahead-
Then she froze.
Two enormous figures stood on an open patch of ground not far from the tracks.
Their forms were nothing a human should have possessed. They had the upper bodies of human women, but below their waists were thick, winding serpentine bodies.
One was covered in bronze scales, her massive body like a moving hill, her upright upper body alone several stories tall; the other was slightly smaller, her ocher scales giving off a dull sheen in the sunlight, yet radiating an equally suffocating pressure.
They looked like monsters formed by combining snakes and humans. Their mere presence was enough to chill anyone who saw them.
A fear unlike anything she had ever experienced washed over Ayame like ice water poured over her head, leaving her momentarily unable to react.
Then the samurai beside her asked cautiously, "Lady Ayame... should we stop?"
Ayame snapped back to her senses. After a brief moment of frantic thought, she gritted her teeth and made her decision. "No. Accelerate. Go straight through!"
Though her voice still carried a trace of trembling, her tone had regained its firmness.
Once a steam locomotive like the Kotetsujō stopped, restarting it took considerable time, and accelerating to a speed sufficient to ram through obstacles required an additional stretch of track.
If those monsters truly meant them harm, that would give them enough time to do something to the Kotetsujō.
Rather than stop and leave themselves at their mercy, they were better off accelerating straight through.
If the monsters really tried to block their path, perhaps the Kotetsujō's own weight and speed could knock them aside.
"Yes!"
The samurai hurried off to carry out her orders. Soon, the Kotetsujō's whistle let out a piercing blast, the engine's roar abruptly intensified, and steam gushed beneath the wheels. The entire armored train began accelerating, charging straight toward the two enormous figures.
The distance kept shrinking.
Ayame stood on the roof, gripping the railing tightly with both hands.
Only as they drew closer could she truly grasp just how enormous those two monsters were.
When they were right before her, the sheer visual impact was almost suffocating. Their figures blocked the sunlight, casting shadows over the entire Kotetsujō.
And those two monsters were watching them, too.
Those two pairs of enormous slit-pupiled eyes, like deep, shadowy lanterns, remained fixed on the armored train racing past.
Their bodies did not move. They merely watched in silence, as though observing something interesting.
Clack, clack, clack-
All she could hear was the thunder of wheels rolling over the rails and her own heartbeat.
The Kotetsujō raced between the two massive figures, kicking up a cloud of dust.
At the very moment they passed beside one of them-
The enormous snake head suddenly lowered, drawing close to Ayame on the roof.
Ayame's breath caught, and for an instant, her heart seemed to stop.
It was a serpentine face large enough to swallow her whole in a single bite.
Up close, she could clearly see the bronze scales, each the size of a palm and gleaming with a cold metallic luster.
Those golden slit-pupiled eyes were right before her, watching her coldly. A forked tongue quivered softly in the air, almost touching her cheek.
The uncanny valley effect reached its absolute peak at that moment.
That face looked human, yet was not. The eerie sense of something caught between the two almost froze Ayame's blood.
Yet the enormous snake head merely watched her quietly for a while before slowly withdrawing.
Nothing happened.
The Kotetsujō passed safely between the two monsters and continued racing along the tracks, leaving the two enormous figures far behind.
Only when those figures were completely out of sight did Ayame finally release a long breath. Her legs went weak, and she nearly collapsed onto the roof.
Only then did she realize that her back was soaked in cold sweat. Her kimono clung tightly to her skin, chilling her.
"...Keep going. Return to Kongoukaku at full speed," she ordered, forcing herself to remain composed.
Chapter 24: Forcing the Kotetsujō to a Stop
Ayame Yomogawa had just breathed a sigh of relief, thinking how fortunate it was that they had not attracted those two monsters' attention and brought disaster upon themselves.
She was pondering just what those two enormous figures could be.
Could they be a new type of Kabane? I've never heard of Kabane evolving into anything like that...
Just then, a samurai's panicked shout came from behind her. "L-Lady Ayame! B-behind us! They're catching up!"
Ayame's heart clenched, and she whipped around.
The two enormous serpentine figures were slithering at high speed through the wilderness on either side of the tracks, pursuing the Kotetsujō.
Their thick serpentine bodies undulated across the ground, each twist propelling them dozens of meters forward. Their speed was astonishing, and the distance between them and the Kotetsujō was visibly shrinking.
"Quick! Go faster!" Ayame practically shouted.
"Lady Ayame! We're already at top speed!" Despair filled the samurai's voice.
Ayame gritted her teeth and forced herself to calm down, issuing an order in a grave voice. "Notify everyone! All samurai, prepare for battle!"
The order was swiftly relayed.
Soon, the samurai inside the carriages poured onto the roof and into the firing positions along the sides, gripping their Steam Rifles tightly and aiming at the two enormous figures drawing ever closer.
Yet when they truly saw those figures in full, a chill shot through every one of them from the soles of their feet to the crowns of their heads.
These were simply not beings humans could fight.
The snake woman on the left was covered in bronze scales. Her upright upper body alone stood ten meters high, while the serpentine body below her waist stretched for dozens of meters, gleaming with a cold metallic luster in the sunlight.
Her eyes had golden slit pupils, and she was coldly watching the tiny humans aboard the Kotetsujō, as though looking down at a swarm of ants.
The snake woman on the right was slightly shorter, but still stood around eight meters tall. Her ocher scales radiated an equally suffocating pressure.
Her gaze was just as cold, her forked tongue quivering softly in the air.
The two enormous creatures flanked the speeding Kotetsujō like moving walls, shrouding the entire armored train in their shadows.
That crushing presence at such close range made breathing difficult for every samurai, their gun-gripping hands trembling uncontrollably.
"Y-you've got to be kidding... things like these..."
"Monsters... they're really monsters..."
Fear spread among the samurai like a plague.
At last, one young samurai could no longer bear the mental strain. He broke down with a scream and pulled the trigger.
Bang-!
The report of the Steam Rifle rang out across the wilderness, and the bullet struck the torso of the bronze snake woman on the left.
That shot was like toppling the first domino.
"Fire! Fire-!"
"Kill them! Kill them!"
Driven by terror, the samurai pulled their triggers one after another. Gunfire erupted, and a dense hail of bullets poured toward the two snake women like a raging storm.
Gun smoke spread and muzzle flashes flickered, the entire roof of the Kotetsujō engulfed in the sound of Steam Rifles firing.
"Wait... everyone, stop!"
Ayame tried to stop them, but her voice was feeble and powerless amid the deafening gunfire.
Yet when the smoke cleared a little and they saw the scene before them, every samurai's heart sank.
The lead bullets struck the snake women's bodies, only to bounce straight off their hard scales without leaving so much as a white mark.
The bullets fell to the ground with clear, ringing clinks, as though mocking their futile efforts.
The two snake women did not even dodge, letting the bullets strike their bodies.
Saint Dio stood atop Sandersonia's head, looking down from above at the armored steam locomotive racing along the tracks, his white hair streaming in the wind.
"Grab the front of the train."
He gave the order evenly.
Sandersonia did not hesitate. Her enormous arm shot forward, her five fingers spreading before clamping onto the front of the Kotetsujō like an iron vise.
Clang-!
A piercing metallic crash rang out.
The front of the Kotetsujō was forcibly caught, but its wheels kept spinning madly, steam hissing from its exhaust valves. Without friction against the rails, however, its driving force instantly became idle spinning.
The entire armored train shook violently from its momentum. Objects and people inside the carriages tumbled about like dice in a shaken cup, cries of alarm and screams rising one after another.
On the roof, Ayame lost her balance at the sudden stop. Her foot slipped, and she pitched over the edge.
"Lady Ayame-!"
The samurai's alarmed cries sounded behind her, but Ayame could only feel the wind whistling past her ears as the sky and ground spun rapidly through her vision.
She instinctively closed her eyes, waiting for the agony of hitting the ground-
Yet the impact she expected never came.
Something abruptly caught the back of her collar in its mouth, leaving her dangling in midair like a fish on a hook.
Still shaken, Ayame opened her eyes and looked up. A slender snake's body was coiled around the back of her collar, and beyond its head, its other end connected to the White Hair boy standing on the ground.
At some point, the sword in his hand had transformed into a living snake.
Saint Dio flicked his wrist, and the snake released its bite. Ayame dropped onto the dry ground, her legs giving way as she landed in an undignified seated position, her knees bent inward and her feet splayed to either side.
The hem of her kimono spread out, covered in dust. Her bun had loosened, and several strands of black hair hung beside her cheeks as she breathed in rapid, uneven gasps.
Before she could recover from her fright, a long, powerful hand reached toward her, pinched her chin, and forced her to look up.
Ayame's gaze met a pair of pitch-black eyes.
Those eyes were calm, as though, to him, there was no essential difference between her and a stone beside the road or an insect in the grass.
"Stop!"
An angry roar came from the direction of the train roof.
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