Chapter 22: Partially Destroyed
It was the dead of night, a far cry from daybreak. Normally, the castle would be silent aside from the faint footsteps of the soldiers on night patrol, but the hourly disturbances sent a whirlwind of activity, unbefitting of the quiet night, throughout the halls.
Amidst the activity, Jade pushed through at a brisk pace. Behind him was Ruri, her entire body covered in a long robe to hide the fact that she was still alive from the Reapers. She followed behind Jade, the hood of her robe concealing her face. Perhaps it was because of Jade’s long legs, but as she tried to match his fast stride, she found herself breaking out into a tiny jog. And following behind her was Kotaro with Rin and Chi riding atop him. They were all headed for Euclase’s office.
Euclase had assumed leadership in Jade’s absence, and people were taking turns coming in and out of their office.
As soon as the five entered, Jade stated, “Everyone except for Euclase, leave,” and cleared out almost everyone in the room. Seeing Jade’s stern demeanor, not a single person wasted their breath in talking and instead immediately exited the room, leaving only Jade, Euclase, Ruri, and Ruri’s entourage left.
Once everyone else was gone, Kotaro put up a barrier in the room. “I’ve put up a barrier. No one on the outside will be able to see or hear us conversing.” No one knew if the Reapers were watching, so this measure was put into place.
“Appreciated,” said Jade.
“Has something happened? I take it you went off in search of Ruri. Were you able to locate her?” Euclase asked, their brow furrowing from what they perceived in Jade’s urgent tone.
Ruri decided this was as good a time as any to inform Euclase that she was safe, so she removed the hood from her head.
Once they saw Ruri standing in the flesh, relief spread over Euclase’s face, but their expression took a stern turn soon after. “What happened?”
Ruri proceeded to tell Euclase the same story she’d told earlier.
“...I see. I can’t believe it. Either way, I’m glad you’re safe and sound, Ruri.”
“Yes, you can say that again,” Ruri said, shuddering to think what would have happened if Chi hadn’t followed along.
“Well, now that Ruri has been found, I will recall the soldiers searching in town. We need all the manpower we can get since we have no idea where in the castle the Reapers have slipped into.”
“No, wait,” Jade interjected. “If you recall the soldiers, there’s a chance the Reapers might realize Ruri is still alive. No good will come from them finding out and potentially fleeing. We’ll let the soldiers proceed with their search and catch the Reapers with the remaining soldiers in the castle.”
“But, Sire, we have no idea where they’ll pop up,” Euclase replied.
“We know their path into the castle, so Lord Kotaro said he’d be able to search for the Reapers using his powers.”
“Quite. All I need to do is search for rats wearing bracelets, correct? It will take some time since I’ll be searching the gutters and whatnot as well, but it shouldn’t be an issue,” Kotaro added.
“Also,” Jade started, “the Reapers are likely going to show up wherever Celestine or Azelda are. Those cretins were apparently employed to kill Ruri, and my guess is that their employer was the Church of God’s Light. I’m certain of it from our apprehended raider’s use of the word ‘glorious leader.’ Added to the fact that they mentioned Ruri’s supposed death, it’s safe to say they knew about the crime the Reapers committed. Since the Church of God’s Light has been persistent with targeting Beloveds thus far, I wouldn’t put it past them to come gunning for their mark once again. Which is why we’re going to lay a trap.”
“Understood, Your Majesty.”
Once Jade thoroughly explained what he intended to do, Euclase exited the office in order to prepare said trap. However, just as they were halfway out the door, Jade added, “Also, investigate the belongings of the raider we’ve already apprehended. Considering they made it past security into the castle, it’s likely they can transform into a rat or something just like the Reapers.”
“I will check right away,” Euclase replied.
The raider was apparently locked in the dungeon, but if they possessed the same bracelet as the Reapers, then they could use their small rat body to slip out of their cell. Fortunately, seeing as how there were no reports from the dungeon, it seemed as though they hadn’t escaped just yet, but checking as quickly as possible was entirely necessary.
After Euclase’s office door slammed shut, Ruri turned her attention back to Jade. “Will this be all right? I know you’re setting a trap, but if they overhear talk of the plans, then...” They didn’t know where the Reapers-turned-rats could be listening from—the gutters, the vents, behind the ceilings...
“I’m confident. We have special code to relay important information if there’s a chance of enemy troops eavesdropping.”
“Oh wow, I didn’t know that. In that case, it’s just a matter of whether you can really pull the net over them or not, then.”
“We’ll make do on that end. You, on the other hand, need to evacuate to safety,” Jade declared as if that was how it was supposed to be.
“Huh?!” Ruri replied in protest. “What are you talking about? I’m going to help catch the Reapers as well.”
“What are you talking about? They almost killed you. Do you want to be exposed to danger again?”
“I’ll be fine; Kotaro and Rin are here. I need to give them some payback for what they did to me.”
A silent staring contest ensued. Ruri had no intention of backing down, holding her glare on Jade. Their deadlock didn’t last for long, though. Jade was the one to crack first.
He heaved a reluctant sigh. “Don’t leave Lord Kotaro or Lady Rin.”
“Rest assured, I won’t!”
“I will be placing a firm barrier around Ruri.” Kotaro had already placed a barrier around Ruri, but he summoned a breeze that wrapped around her in order to fortify it even more. It was clear that the invisible barrier protecting her had grown even sturdier.
“There. Now neither arrow nor magic will be able to so much as touch Ruri.”
“Thank you, Kotaro,” Ruri said, thanking him. “Oh, right. Jade-sama? Do you have the good-luck charm that I gave you before?”
“Yes, you mean this?” Jade asked, pulling out the charm with beads the same color as Ruri’s eyes from his breast pocket.
“I hate to ask after giving it to you as a gift, but would it be all right if I had it back?”
“Sure. I wouldn’t mind, but do you have something in mind?”
“It’ll come very much in handy in fighting back against the Reapers,” Ruri said, making her decision based on what the spirits had told her before she came here.
She took the glass beads, which the spirits had transformed into a rather dangerous good-luck charm, from Jade. She had initially passed it off to him, but she regretted doing that now as having it might have prevented the Reapers from almost killing her. However, the fact that they’d almost killed her was exactly why she could use this dangerous charm without any feelings of guilt. She wasn’t about to waste sympathy on a couple of attempted murderers. To coin a phrase from her spirit friends, “complete annihilation” was in store for them.
“I see. That charm saved me as well. I was taken aback since I was convinced they were just some glass beads under the guise of a good-luck charm,” Jade admitted.
“Huh? Did something happen?” Ruri asked, knowing that something must have befallen Jade if the charm’s powers activated.
“Yes, somewhat. However, the good-luck charm not only protected me, but it also helped apprehend the raider.”
“Oh, did it? Well, that’s great news.”
The spirits had infused the glass beads with their power without a single consideration for the consequences. Fearing the danger that would come from the beads activating, she had given them to Jade since he seemed like a relatively safe option. However, it seemed they had carried out their function as a good-luck charm after all.
Ruri was actually relieved that her worries were unfounded and that nothing dangerous came out as a result. That being said, since the charm had already protected Jade, there was a possibility that the beads had lost their power, meaning they would prove useless against the Reapers.
“So, does that mean it’s already drained of its effects?” Ruri asked, unable to tell at a glance.
Kotaro brought his nose over to the set of glass beads, deducing, “No, I can still feel power within them. Only a small fraction of its power was used.”
“I see,” Ruri said, now at ease knowing that the charm was still usable. “I can use it against the Reapers, then.”
“That force was only a small fraction?” questioned Jade, slightly in awe at the amount of spirit power imbued within the beads.
◆ ◆ ◆ ◆
After Jade rescued Azelda from her run-in with the invader, Azelda didn’t return to sector two of the castle. Instead, she rested in a room prepared for her in sector one in the interests of security. The room was tucked in a corner at the very end of sector one, and despite the soldiers hustling and hurrying about the castle, there wasn’t a single one of them around. The only people around, in fact, were several soldiers posted outside the door acting as security. Inside the room, it was dead silent.
“Well then, Lady Azelda, we will be outside, so please notify us if something arises.”
The current resident of the room, dressed in her nightwear and wearing her brown hair down, nodded to the soldier’s words. She waited for him to exit the room and then extinguished her lamp and climbed into bed. It wasn’t long after that the somber sounds of sleeping sighs drifted through the darkness.
Everything was quiet, as if the commotion up until that point had never existed. However, in this silence came a noise—the clicking of door tumblers.
The door to the bathing room slowly opened and out stepped the duo of Reapers. They carefully approached the bed where Azelda was fast asleep. The wooly carpet muted their footsteps, preventing her from noticing their presence. Once he was close enough, the man placed his hand over Azelda’s mouth so she couldn’t yell. That was when she finally opened her eyes.
“Heh heh heh, don’t scream now,” the man said, flashing his murder weapon in a threatening manner in front of her face. It was dark, but with eyes accustomed to the darkness, it was clear that it was a bladed weapon. “Well, not like you’ll be able to scream in just a second anyway.”
As he kept his hand over Azelda’s mouth, the man plunged his sword toward her chest—it hit its mark, lodging itself deep inside. Muffled moans came from her gagged mouth, but they weren’t loud enough to reach the ears of the soldiers posted outside. When the man pulled out his blade, her chest started to stain the sheets with blood.
Seeing Azelda go limp and close her eyes, the man smirked to himself. “Mission complete. Now, let’s get the hell outta here.”
“Right,” replied the woman as the two turned around and prepared to flee. That was when it happened.
“Get ’em!!” echoed a voice out of nowhere, breaking the silence. Simultaneously, a huge fisherman’s net dropped from the ceiling down on the Reapers, incapacitating them.
“Eek! What is this?!” cried the woman.
“Wh-What the hell is this?!”
The lights in the dark room flickered on, and a wave of soldiers flooded in with Joshua leading the charge. Even inside the room, several soldiers came out from the furniture, from under the bed, and even from the ceiling like ninja. In a matter of no time, the duo were surrounded, leaving them frozen in place and dumbfounded.
However, their surprise didn’t end there.
“Yowch!!” Azelda, who had been stabbed just a few moments ago, arose as healthy as could be, clutching her chest.
“Huh?! How?! I stabbed her for sure!” exclaimed the man, shocked that the young girl rose from bed so nonchalantly that it was impossible to guess she had just been stabbed through the chest. He hadn’t noticed, however, that Azelda’s exclamation was much deeper in tone than one would expect from a dainty young lady.
Clutching her chest, drenched in blood, Azelda glared daggers at Joshua and said, “Hey, what was the hold up on the orders?! I got freaking stabbed over here!”
“My bad, my bad. My timing was a teensy bit off,” Joshua replied with a lighthearted smile that looked in no way apologetic.
“That ‘your bad’ doesn’t actually sound like it’s ‘your bad’!”
“C’mon, don’t get so mad. He just gave you a poke. Give it two or three days and you’ll be good as new. Good thing you’re dragonkin, eh, Ewan darling? If you were a human, you’d be long dead by now.”
“Don’t call me ‘darling,’ you jerk!” The girl that was assumed to be Azelda pulled at her hair—it was a brown wig. She slipped it off, revealing brown hair that was shorter and more amber in color than Azelda’s. “And another thing, why in the hell do I have to dress up like a girl?!” he asked, dressed in girl’s nightwear. He threw the wig, which was the same length and color as Azelda’s hair, straight to the floor.
“What else were we supposed to do? We didn’t have anyone else around with feminine enough features to pull off ladies clothing. They wouldn’t buy some burly dude in drag for a second and you know it.”
“And tell me why couldn’t you do it?!”
“Whaa? Get real. I don’t wanna get dressed as a girl.”
“Well, neither do I, jackass!”
“Now, now. Calm down.”
Joshua’s tone caused a vein to pop on Ewan’s forehead, but as if he remembered that now wasn’t the time to be fighting, he turned his attention to the netted pair. The man and woman seemed to finally comprehend the situation as their eyes glared at everyone around them with disdain.
“Goddammit. How did you know?” the man asked.
“Hmph,” chortled Ewan back at the grimacing pair. “Someone saw you both turn into rats and infiltrate the castle via the gutters. So long as we knew where you were, all we had to do was ask the spirits to search for you. We knew where you were walking like the back of our hands. We purposely divulged which room the Beloved of Cerulanda was staying in so you’d listen in. Then we laid a trap.”
“Tch!” The man clicked his tongue as he struggled under the net.
“Welp, as anticlimactic as that was, that wraps up this little ordeal. Take them away,” Joshua said, giving orders to the nearby soldiers.
As the soldiers slowly walked closer to them, the man and woman looked at one another and nodded as they both struggled under the net to pull out something from their breast pockets—a bracelet. They smirked at Joshua and the others before putting on their bracelets and transforming into rats. Now with their bodies smaller than the holes of the net, they effortlessly slipped out and made a break for the door. The soldiers tried to catch the small animals, but their bobbing and weaving proved to be a challenge. Darting out of the room, they exited into the hallway with the soldiers quickly in pursuit.
The rats ran around in search of a way out, stumbling upon a vent they could seemingly crawl into. They tried to hop into the hole, but some invisible force bounced them both back. They went on to find another likely getaway path, but they were met by the same invisible wall blocking their way.
The reapers continued to flee and search for a way out, oblivious to the fact that they were being herded in, little by little. They eventually ended up in the garden, where soldiers were stationed in a circle—almost as if they knew the rats would be coming in the first place. Even more soldiers stood on the second floor overlooking the garden, bows drawn and at the ready as they aimed toward the Reaper rats. Jade also stood on the second floor, prepared to give his men the order to shoot at any time.
The Reapers were completely trapped. They were clearly freaking out; no need to even ask.
A robed figure stepped up to the two rats and removed their hood—it was Ruri. They stared at her in shock, their eyes begging for answers as to how she was still alive.
“Hate to burst your bubbles, but I’m alive and well! Now give up and go to jail!”
The Reapers took off their bracelets and returned to human form. “Goddammit. We’ve got no other choice but to take you hostage now,” the man stated. He took out his weapon and charged at Ruri with his partner.
Jade lurched himself over the second floor terrace in a display of panic, but he soon remembered that Kotaro and the others were right beside her and pulled himself back.
“Oh, heavens! Someone, anyone, please help... me!” the battle-ready Ruri said in a contrived manner, tossing the lapis-colored glass beads toward the two.
The marble-sized beads traveled in a clean arc that would put a pro baseball player to shame, flying toward the furious looking Reaper duo. Ruri honestly had no idea what would happen, but the spirits told her to throw the beaded charm at them since it would deliver ample punishment. Apparently, the spirit power stored inside would unleash once the beads reached them. Without thinking much about what that meant, Ruri tossed the charm as hard as she possibly could.
Although she didn’t know what would happen, Jade had mentioned that it protected him. Since he had no objections to the idea, Ruri assumed that this “punishment” wouldn’t be too much of a deal—at least, that was what she extrapolated from everything. She assumed it would be a small hit back against the people who tried to casually kill her because they were hired to do so.
However, Ruri underestimated the sheer power the spirits had loaded into the beads for the sake of their Beloved. Once they reached their target, there was a bright flash followed by a loud, thunderous explosion and a deep tremor. White smoke filled the area, and the various yelps and screams of people all over could be heard along with crumbling debris.
The shroud of smoke prevented Ruri from knowing what was exactly going on, but there was one thing she did know—this turned out to be way worse than she imagined. (Oh, wait. Did I do something bad just now?) Ruri muttered in her mind, fearful.
“Ungh! Koff, koff!” Ruri waved her hand in front of her to clear away the dust, even though she knew it was a fruitless endeavor. She could hear shouting, cries of panic, and cries for help all around her, but she couldn’t tell what was going on since her vision was impeded by the smoke screen. After a few moments, the dust finally settled and everything became clear again. But the sight that greeted her made her eyes widen and her face tense in shock.
The beautifully maintained garden had been thoroughly ruined. Flowers lay horrifically scattered about, and parts of the castle building fell in crumbling masses. Not on that, but she couldn’t see the soldiers that had been near where the building crumbled, possibly signifying that they were buried under the rubble. The shrieks and cries for help were probably from them—no, they were definitely from them. Even now, she could hear cries from under the rubble saying, “Get this off me,” and “Ugh, it’s so heavy.”
Although they seemed to be pinned under the debris, Ruri felt less pressed to respond to their cries of help since they were all dragonkin. They were tough and sturdy people, so they would be just fine.
Either way, after witnessing her decimate the castle in the matter of seconds, all of the soldier’s eyes fell squarely on Ruri. They all looked at her as if to say, “What in the hell did you just do?!”
“E-Ehehe, maybe I overdid it just a little?” Ruri said with a guilty and embarrassed smile.
“‘Little’ my foot!” Joshua snapped back.
The slew of stink eyes stabbing into Ruri was causing her to feel uncomfortable. She had no idea that those beads would have this much force. She only wanted to give the Reapers some light comeuppance, but she wound up practically leveling sector one along with them. A good-luck charm from the spirits was nothing to take lightly.
“The castle...” Jade murmured as he stood with his mouth agape at the sight of the destroyed walls. He quickly regained his senses, however, and ordered, “Search for the Reapers!”
The spot where the Reapers once stood was a veritable mountain of rubble. Since they weren’t dragonkin, this was actually bad news. This was supposed to be a slap on the wrist, but it seemed like anything but.
“Hey, hold on, are they dead? Leave the soldiers for after! They’re not gonna die if they’re pinned under some rubble. Concentrate search on the Reapers!” Joshua commanded, leading the charge with the other unscathed soldiers to move the rubble from the mound.
What would take human beings heavy machinery to accomplish, the physically powerful dragonkin soldiers were able to accomplish with their bare hands as they gradually cleared the debris. Soon, the soldiers excavated the two Reapers, who had taken the blast from the good-luck charm head-on, from the bottom of the pile.
Everyone was convinced that they were dead, but aside from being knocked unconscious and banged up, they were in stable condition. Their injuries were light—too light for an incident of this magnitude—which had everyone scratching their heads.
“I put a barrier up just before impact. It wasn’t as strong as the one I have around you, admittedly, but good enough to protect against mortal harm,” Kotaro spoke up.
“Kotaro, good job!” Ruri responded. Since they needed to interrogate the both of them later, their deaths would have put a damper on that plan. Ruri praised Kotaro’s decision, which pleased Kotaro enough to send his tail wagging in a frenzy.
“Retrieve their bracelets so they can’t turn into rats,” Jade ordered.
“Yes, Sire!” replied his soldiers as they took the bracelets off of the Reapers’ bodies. With their means of turning into rats out of the picture, they could be safely placed in the dungeon without fear of them escaping.
“That about wraps this up here... I guess?” Ruri said, trailing off into a question as she surveyed the disaster zone before her.
The Reapers were apprehended, but sector one was partially destroyed. Taking the aftermath cleanup into consideration, it was dubious whether you could say that everything was ‘wrapped up,’ but at least the culprits were caught.
Then began the task of excavating the soldiers pinned under the remaining debris. Dragonkin were so sturdy they could walk off a stab to the gut. The fact that they could get away with only a few light scratches from being pinned under heavy debris was fortunate.
With that, the long night came to a close and Ruri heaved a deserved sigh of relief.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login