Chapter Twelve: Past and Present
A few days had passed since the occupation of the old city.
In order to expose Raphtalia’s appeal to as many as possible, we were showing her off around the city, dressed in her miko outfit. Having already captured two-thirds of Q’ten Lo, the country now basically belonged to us. And in the eastern city representatives of each race from across the nation were turning against the Heavenly Emperor and choosing to join our forces.
Atla and her party had been stamping out fires too, extinguishing much of the drama caused by the Heavenly Emperor’s forces. While it seemed that the opposing water dragon’s miko priestess had apparently given orders to end the terrorist-style attacks, many of those on her side were not paying much attention.
The main suspects, of course, were the underlings of the poisonous power behind the throne. She had to be quite the imbecile herself to believe that was all it would take to defeat us.
Honestly, I’d started hoping that the water dragon’s miko priestess would quickly switch to our side and just end this. The standing Heavenly Emperor was getting quite the reputation for trickery and deceit, and the more damage those tactics did, the more people turned to Raphtalia.
On the other battlefields after taking the old city, Ren and Itsuki had taken an advance force and marched on the eastern capital—but all the village and towns along their route had capitulated without bloodshed.
The water dragon’s miko priestess, who had fled in the face of the enemy, had been taken back to the city in the east. The sakura destiny spheres deployed by any who did resist were, as we had expected, canceled out by the sakura destiny spheres placed by Raphtalia, who now could do that since she underwent the rite of succession.
With that shift in the balance of power, the Heavenly Emperor’s forces couldn’t touch Ren, Itsuki, or Sadeena. Atla and her party were continuing to put down any resistance that occurred behind us. Atla was working well with the forces coming in from Siltvelt, and the suppression was apparently proceeding apace. Ren had been quite complimentary about the techniques possessed by this nation, but now it was possible to just muscle through on the basis of our superior stats. Sorry, did you say civil war? What civil war? That was basically the point we were reaching.
In all honesty, it almost looked like we could just end the Q’ten Lo invasion and return home, but I was yet to achieve my goal of punishing those who had started all this.
“Mr. Naofumi.”
“Hmmm?” Raphtalia appeared during a moment of downtime in planning our operations. Sadeena and most anyone else who could fight were away on the front lines. I was going to join them tomorrow. S’yne was posted in front of my room as I took a break. She’d completely become my bodyguard. Tomorrow we were going to take Filo, who was waiting on standby. With her speed, so long as we didn’t meet any enemies, we’d reach the eastern capital in a single day.
We were getting pretty close.
“What direction is the operation going to take?” she asked.
“For a start, we need to secure the opposing Heavenly Emperor. He needs to be punished, of course, and if we don’t completely extract the festering pus at the heart of this nation, we’re just going to end up repeating all of this again,” I said. According to our incoming information, the current Heavenly Emperor was simply being used. He’d been raised up without even realizing it, and the real ones pulling the strings were those around him.
“If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right.”
“Exactly. That said, I think learning about your origins, Raphtalia, has been one good thing about all this.”
“I’m not really bothered about all that. I’m happy to learn about my father and mother, but I’m still just myself. Raphtalia from Lurolona, that’s all I need to be.” I looked at Raphtalia’s face. She clearly had complex feelings about this whole queen business. Once we saved the world, and once I’d gone home, which path would Raphtalia choose? By some measure, it looked like the results were already in.
“Sure, Raphtalia, but still. It’s a fact that the political situation in Q’ten Lo is unstable. If you choose to hide yourself away, a large number of people are going to lose their guiding light.”
“I know.”
“I understand you don’t want to accept this burden. Until you can step aside, then, it’s about how much we can settle things down here, or who we can leave it all to.”
“Yes—you’re right.” Not exactly convinced but having no choice anyway—that was the kind of nod Raphtalia gave. We did have options though, all sorts of them. We could open the borders and merge with Siltvelt, even! I was sure that side of things would work out.
“Rafu.”
“Master, is the meeting finished?” Raph-chan and Filo said as they poked their heads into the room.
“Not yet. Working the details out between all these races isn’t easy. Everyone is so concerned about saving face. Seriously, I wish we could just cut these guys loose!” It was all such a pain, the politics so corrupt, I wanted to toss it all over to Siltvelt, seriously. It was no better than Melromarc. Talk about power corrupting completely.
That said, there were also some promising individuals—but spotting them wasn’t easy either. I also had to keep an eye on those who had flipped to our side. Just in case.
Still, in either case, we couldn’t count out the pressure from Siltvelt. They knew how to pile it on. The authority of the Shield Hero was pretty easy to use. A big factor was also using Raphtalia’s Return Dragon Vein to use the dragon hourglass to bring in some of Siltvelt’s best. Rumors were spreading of the returned Heavenly Emperor calling forth an infinite army of warriors, just like a real god.
With this rapid accumulation of forces on our side, it really didn’t take that long for us to march on the eastern capital.
Around the time the eastern capital came into view. A messenger was sent forth, exactly like at the old city.
“We’ve got another request for a battle between representatives,” a reporting officer announced.
“Is there any need to give them the time of day?” I retorted. We had them on the ropes, surely. There were a settlement and large town to the north of the eastern capital; maybe they planned on running away up there?
That said, the opposing water dragon’s miko priestess seemed to have quite a keen sense of duty, so I was almost thinking of taking her up on the offer.
“If the Heavenly Emperor’s forces should win, then so long as we retreat, they promise not to press the attack. That note is included, swearing to stand by these promises as a general—and as a miko priestess of Q’ten Lo,” the officer reported. There was indeed a note, written with some kind of letters and symbols. Hmmm, had I seen that writing before somewhere?
“Oh my, they look serious this time. Are they planning on buying some time, perhaps?” Sadeena commented.
“Looks that way,” Raluva agreed.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“That symbol there is like a promise, made as the representative of the race, the defender of the town. If you break it, it means throwing mud on the deepest trust. It’s not just one’s house, or one’s clan, but on the level of not being able to live in Q’ten Lo at all.” So a promise that absolutely could not be broken. It sounded as serious as a slave seal.
That said, this was the idiotic Heavenly Emperor’s forces who had been breaking the seals on monsters sealed away since ancient times, so wasn’t it just the teensiest bit hard to trust them?
“They have also designated our representative, however. The previous water dragon’s miko priestess. What shall you say?” the officer finished. We all looked at Sadeena.
“Oh my. Me?” Sadeena exclaimed.
“Yes. It seems the present water dragon’s miko priestess really wants to fight you. If we agree to this fight, she is even willing to wait a few more days,” he explained.
“So what? We’ve no obligation to accept this. I don’t see any reason to take part in an operation that will just let the enemy general run,” I snorted.
“Then we reject the proposal and attack?”
“Not sure about that either.” Unable to make a choice, I was deep in thought—
“Huh!?” Filo looked up at the sky. A sudden wind was blowing up, causing a tornado that passed right in front of our forces. It was a pretty dense little twister.
“That’s some powerful magic. The raw power is making my skin tingle.”
“It’s the ritual magic Great Tornado. Being able to perform magic of this quality, they’ve got someone with real skill leading them. We won’t be able to take them with a rapidly formed force.”
“I still think we can break through their lines.” So what was this? Some kind of warning? Hmmm. Honestly speaking, we had no obligation to listen to them. I could only make the decision based on the rumors we had heard so far—and that tornado pushed my impression in a pretty negative direction.
Still, it could be considered a better proposal than pointless bloodshed.
“What happens if we win?” I asked.
“The water dragon’s miko priestess will surrender without resistance.”
“And the Heavenly Emperor? Are they going to surrender too?” The reporting officer shook his head in reply. Of course not. So this was hardly a discussion—and yet she had proven good to her word once already. This was starting to feel like a general simply suffering under a stupid ruler. Taking her up on the offer might not be a bad idea.
“Little Naofumi, I’m happy to do this,” Sadeena offered.
“She’s your kid sister, right? You sure?”
“She’s also an opponent I clearly have to overcome, and as the previous miko I have a responsibility to show the present miko exactly how strong I am.”
“I see.” It looked like Sadeena wanted the fight, so why not accept?
“Very well. Spectators can at least attend, I presume?”
“Yes. However—” The reporting officer turned his gaze to Raphtalia. Yeah, good point. It might be safer if Raphtalia didn’t go.
“Mr. Naofumi—” Raphtalia really looked like she wanted to go along. Honestly, she was safer at my side anyway. If I deployed Shooting Star Shield, we could deal with any sudden assassination attempts too.
“It’ll be fine. I, as Shield Hero, will be there to protect her.”
“Thank you!” Raphtalia was very happy to hear she got to go. Honestly, I would be more scared to have her away from me.
“Rafu.”
“I’m coming tooooo!” Filo sounded a bit too cheerful.
“Nhh—” S’yne had her hand up too. She didn’t want to leave my side. We were well beyond a second, third, or fourth by now. A full crowd was going along.
“Very well, all of you. Just stay alert.”
With that, then, we set out to where the present water dragon’s miko priestess was waiting to engage her sister in battle.
Maybe battlefields during Japan’s warring states period were like this? Just an idle thought as we proceeded as the representatives of the revolutionaries. It looked like the miko and others from the idiot Heavenly Emperor’s side were coming toward us.
In the middle of the territory between the two forces, there were people —well, a number of soldiers—and then a killer whale therianthrope holding a katana and waiting.
So she was a katana user.
Perhaps matching her opponent’s style, Sadeena also went therianthrope and closed in. I turned my attention to the opposing miko.
She was a little shorter than Sadeena and looked well-rounded in places. When I compared them, they had different colors too. Of course, their clothing was totally different. Sadeena favored a waistcoat and loincloth-like fold while her counterpart had a heavy vest, holder, and baggy pants. How was I telling the difference between a waistcoat and vest? Just the atmosphere. Considering the newcomer the second-player color . . . was too video-gamey a way to look at it.
Also, she had some kind of pattern of red tattoos across her body. She looked a bit more like a shaman than Sadeena, perhaps. There was a different atmosphere about her compared to Zodia too, but I still couldn’t tell for sure if it was her or not.
I was about to say something, and then Sadeena took a step forward. If she didn’t notice me at this distance, anyway, she was surely someone else. Such a string of ridiculous coincidences couldn’t continue forever.
“You are my sister?” Sadeena asked. No reply. The killer whale therianthrope representative gave a wordless nod, then took a bottle from her vest pocket and drank it down. What was she doing, some kind of doping?
After finishing the bottle, she took out another and threw it to Sadeena, who took off the lid and sniffed the liquid.
“Oh, I know that aroma. A local brew!” she said. Okay, this wasn’t just a gift of wine, right?
“Now our conditions are the same, Sadeena! I’m going to prove myself superior to you, once and for all!” the opponent shouted.
“If you’re an oracle, I’d say that makes you superior.”
“You are joking! Do you have any idea the extent to which I’ve been compared to you?” Her animosity was like a palpable wave.
“No idea at all. It isn’t like I was rated that highly myself.”
“You have no idea how this nation suffered without you, do you?! Don’t you understand how feared you were? What a monster you were considered?” So Sadeena’s departure had negatively impacted stability in the region. I took a look at the troops arrayed behind her opponent, and it backed up this story. They weren’t taking any chances against Sadeena. It was quite the number of troops.
“You shouldn’t believe all the rumors,” Sadeena quipped.
“But there were so many of them! Now just imagine being forced to follow in the footsteps of the one who created them all!” Wow, she was really holding a grudge. I guess this was one possible family scenario. In my case, my younger brother was the golden child, so things were a bit different.
“I did feel bad about that. Even after I found out, I didn’t expect those two to try this hard to make a replacement for me,” Sadeena explained.
“I have—I have seen hell! How hard do you think it’s been for me, trying to become an equal to you?”
“Isn’t it just crazy, trying to create someone to fit into the hole I left behind? Someone who can do exactly the same things that I could?” she said. Seeing as Sadeena was so exceptional, had they thought a younger sister would just be the same? These were some really twisted parents.
It also looked like they really had evaluated Sadeena highly. Mocking her for not being an oracle had clearly just been harping on her single weak point.
“I can see why the water dragon would abandon you, doing all this even after you could talk with him. I’m going to have to go and have some words with those two, as well,” Sadeena offered with no condemnation but also no sympathy. She sparked with electricity. “You stipulated me for this battle, and as one who was the water dragon’s miko priestess, I’m going to have to take this fight seriously, aren’t I?”
“After all this, you’re the one the water dragon turned to! I will never accept that!” Spilling over with intent to kill, the present water dragon’s miko priestess pointed her katana. Sadeena already had her harpoon raised, ready to fight at any moment. She was clearly in a better place, mentally, and starting out, that looked to give her an advantage.
Huh? What now? Her opponent was starting to be wreathed in wind?
“Sadeena. I hear you’ve received the blessing of a spirit implement. You’ll need to fight me at full strength!” the opponent roared.
“Oh my. I’m far stronger now than I was when I left this place behind. Are you sure you want me to use everything?”
“Of course. I’ll reply with all of the powers that the Heavenly Emperor has bestowed upon me. You’ll also get a taste of my own powers! The powers of an oracle!” The other miko took more wine from her pocket and drank it down again. Huh? It looked like the patterns on her skin were starting to glow.
“It would be rude not to share my name with you, of course. I am Shildina, the current water dragon’s miko priestess and the priestess of carnage. That’s also the name of the one who has surpassed you, Sadeena! I am most proficient with wind magic. Now you’ll learn to fear the power of the oracle!” Her voice had changed from a voice filled with anger to a tone more like the one Sadeena normally used.
“Oh my! You actually are an oracle?” Sadeena exclaimed.
“Let me show you the power of the voices of the heroes and our ancestors!” With that, Shildina took a rectangular card-like object from the holder at her waist and threw it into the sky. It fell back to the ground, depicting a beautiful arc—almost as though the moment it landed was the signal for the fighting to start.
“Haaaaaaaaaaaah!” she screamed, and the instant it landed, Shildina dropped her body low and charged in, swinging her katana in a wide arc. Sadeena lightly deflected that attack with her harpoon while at the same time using that energy to spin on the spot and attempt a pound with the harpoon’s handle.
“You swing that katana like a broom! Try to be more elegant!” Sadeena prodded. For a moment, it looked like the handle of Sadeena’s weapon was going to land on Shildina’s back.
“You’ll need to do better than that!” Shildina replied. The wind that Shildina had deployed behind her absorbed Sadeena’s attack and blew up into a massive gale.
“That’s a clever little trick. I’ve got a few of those myself.” Sadeena caused lightning to flicker across her entire body in an attempt to forcefully push back the wind.
“Hah!” Seizing the opening, Shildina thrust her hands in front of her and pressed what looked like a ball of wind into Sadeena’s stomach.
“Getting too fixated will only slow you down!” Skillfully exploiting the opening in the incoming attack, Sadeena used her tail to strike Shildina on her waist, and then she followed up with a kick for good measure.
“Uwah.” Sadeena won the first attack, then. Shildina swiftly swung her own tail, however, as though repelling those attacks, and struck hard at Sadeena’s thigh.
“Oh, so you hit me too!”
“You mock me, sister. Ancient magic can also be used like this! As the source of your power, I order you! Read the truth once more—”
“Do you really think that will work on me?” Sadeena sneered. She could use the Way of the Dragon Vein. There was a possibility she could even stop Zweite-class magic using that.
Sadeena too began to chant. “Oh Dragon Vein, oh power of the earth— oh my, impressive! You have some resistance to enchanting impediments too. Well done.” It looked like even Sadeena’s powers of disruption weren’t enough. Then it all came down to the skills of the user, meaning Shildina and Sadeena were likely around the same skill level.
I tried reading the spell too, just to see if I could cancel it.
What the hell was it?
The magic being cast by Shildina could be called both magic and Way of the Dragon. It was bordering on cooperative magic!
“Wind God, become the power to defend me and blow away my enemies! Drifa Wind God Armor!” Shildina completely took her hands off her katana and crashed into Sadeena with her entire body. Of course, with wind also wrapped around her.
It looked a lot like Filo’s Spiral Strike. No, perhaps more like Sadeena’s Water Dragon Destruction?
“Cheeky!” Sadeena skillfully twisted her harpoon to leap into the air, avoiding the attack. “Here I go!” One instant Sadeena was attempting to use the opening to attack, striking at her opponent’s back. The next moment she canceled the attack and back-stepped away.
Why didn’t she attack?
“Maaaster, that girl is incredibly skilled with wind magic. If Sadeena had finished that attack, she would have only got cut herself!” Filo explained. So she was fighting someone with command of invisible blades? I narrowed my eyes and looked more closely.
Yeah. Using both Way of the Dragon Vein and life force, I was able to perform an analysis. Didn’t help me work out what was going on though! It could be called magic, maybe. But what was it—some kind of attack that continuously emitted wind?
“Oh my, you’ve got some interesting moves,” Shildina quipped, continued to be wreathed in blowing wind. It was almost like armor swirling around her. Then she used her magic to make the katana she had previously discarded rise up into the air. It was like Float.
That reminded me. Ren had Float skills unlocked, but he didn’t like to use them. He said that moving the sword used too much of his concentration. Did Raphtalia also have similar skills? If so, they might be useful, I thought idly, spinning my Float Shield.
“Mr. Naofumi, are you thinking about something else?” Damn, Raphtalia had noticed me. I needed to concentrate on the battle.
“That’s not enough! Not enough to stop me!” Sadeena spun her harpoon, causing a rain of sparks. She was clearly being assaulted by multiple wind blades. Into that was mixed Shildina herself and the floating katana.
Sadeena jeered, “Oh my. Such an interesting line of attack! I think this might be fun after all.” It was frankly a little scary that Sadeena could keep up with the pace of her opponent. “After all those attacks from Raphtalia and Atla, this is nothing.” She was incredible.
Personally, of course, I would just throw out Shooting Star Shield and block them all. It wasn’t easy to visualize wind magic, but there were still ways to handle it.
“Hmmm. Wooooow! I wanna try it tooooo!” Filo chirped.
“I bet you could, Filo, if you put your mind to it.”
“I don’t know how to speak with two voices like that though.” That did raise an interesting point about Shildina’s spellcasting. She only had one mouth, but it was like she was speaking using two voices, each saying different things.
Was that magic-casting using her oracle powers?
“Now then, after the little show you’ve put on for me, time I gave you a performance of my own.” With that, Sadeena quickly incanted some first-class magic.
“First Lightning Bolt! First Chain Lightning!” Lightning sparked around Sadeena.
“That won’t work on me! I can simply blow magic of that caliber out of the air!” With that confident response from Shildina, wind sliced across Sadeena’s magic and knocked it away. “In fact, I’ll even use that lightning for myself!” Shildina’s wind gathered Sadeena’s lightning together and then unleashed it back at her, mixed with her own katana and the blades of wind.
The conducted lightning, the slashing katakana and wind, and then Shildina’s own body tackle all closed in on Sadeena.
“Well now! Did you think that’s the only level of magic I can use? Next try this!” Sadeena looked up at the sky. “If you think wind magic is exclusive to you, that’d be a big mistake.” Sadeena drew in power from the clouds and the air.
“I, Sadeena, draw on the power of the air and beg that you fulfill my request. Dragon Vein, defend me and repel my enemies! Wind Seal!” With an audible crunch, magic with wind resistance appeared in front of Sadeena.
“I’ll shred those defenses in an instant!”
“Oh, did you think I prepared all this just to stop your attacks? Magic can also be used like this!” In the same moment that Sadeena stopped Shildina’s attack, she also used the wind defenses to stop the impact of her opponent’s wind.
It was little more than water thrown onto a hot stone, however, and her defenses were shredded in an instant. Of course, for just that moment, the density of Shildina’s wind armor also looked to drop considerably. That was all though. Nowhere near close to actually stopping it.
“That’s it? Really? Talk about a disappointment!” With a confident smile, Shildina unleashed an attack of wind and lightning at Sadeena.
“Oh, I’ll meet your expectations yet, sister! The very idea of using lightning against me was a foolish one!”
“What!”
Sadeena snapped her fingers and the lightning Shildina had been using increased in output and bounced back from her. “I unleashed it knowing you would make use of it with your wind, so of course I also expected this!”
“And so what if you did?!”
“Oh my. Can’t you tell? Can’t you see what’s happening around you right now?” At Sadeena’s words, Shildina took a startled look around.
Static electricity was crackling in the air, and the ground was starting to spark as though—yes, as though lightning was about to fall. Right where she was standing.
When using the Way of the Dragon Vein, too, and perhaps on purpose, clouds had gathered and formed.
Indeed, the sky had quietly been filling with thunderclouds.
“I’ll just summon up a gale and scatter those clouds!” Shildina spouted.
“No, you won’t. There’s too much of my lightning spread through the wind,” came the reply. With a mocking tone, Sadeena swung her harpoon down at the ground. “It wasn’t easy to set this up without you interrupting it. So I’ll cast it quickly. Let’s see which of us can endure the most. Drifa . . . Thunder Bolt!”
Shildina tried to get some distance, but Sadeena skillfully drew her in with the harpoon and then dropped the lightning on both of them together. Amid a brilliant, sparking flash, a thick bolt of lightning dropped from the clouds above and struck the two of them.
Shildina was the one who let out a cry, her wind armor being forcibly stripped from her by the lightning, gradually being peeled away and turning into mist. The wind blades were already gone, and then the katana became a lightning rod and sucked the lightning into the ground. Shildina was left breathing heavily.
“Oh my, you did well to withstand that. However, I’m not going to stop attacking you now,” Sadeena bellowed. They had been bathed in a massive amount of magic, and yet neither had suffered any substantial damage. Shildina at least had the decency to be breathing heavily.
Sadeena continued. “Drifa Lightning Speed and Thunder Guard! Come on, you’re not done entertaining me yet! I’m going to start incanting even faster!” Once imbued with lightning, Sadeena had the ability to drop attack magic onto herself and make use of it. Certainly not someone I wanted to fight. She pressed her attack with precise, tight movements.
I still ached, sometimes, from the Zeltoble coliseum.
“Don’t get too full of yourself!” Shildina reformed her wind armor, narrowed her eyes, and pointing her katana at Sadeena. “We’re just getting started! I’ve got plenty more power than this!”
“So go ahead. I’m not stopping you from using it!” Sadeena shouted, and she and Shildina had both dropped back a little and glared across the intervening gap. The lightning and wind from each were still clashing around them, but this wasn’t magic they had unleashed on purpose. Just a secondary effect of their preparations for their next attack.
“T-this is quite incredible,” Rishia muttered as she observed the fight. She wasn’t wrong. Had sibling rivalry ever been taken to quite this level before? Not to mention it was all being unleashed by two killer whale therianthropes. Seriously, there was no telling how deep Sadeena’s well of power went.
Still, watching this battle, with Sadeena using lightning and Shildina wind, it looked like a battle between the gods of those respective elements. I probably felt like that due to Descent of the Thunder God, which I had used before as cooperative magic with Sadeena. They also probably both had water magic, acquired from the Way of the Dragon Vein.
Lightning that seemed alive struck at Shildina, who dodged an attack from the harpoon while diverting the lightning with a stream of water mixed with wind.
“This is quite odd. This entire battle is starting to, well, look quite beautiful,” Raphtalia remarked.
“I was thinking the same thing,” I noted.
Both sides had no choice but to watch the unfolding struggle, captivated by this clash of incredible techniques.
“Think you can handle this? Lightning Strike Harpoon!” Sadeena threw her lightning-charged harpoon at Shildina, who repelled it using her katana enwrapped in wind. Sadeena raised her hands and the harpoon made a circle in midair and flew back to her.
She even had control of magnetic forces? Lightning was pretty versatile.
“Want to push this harder?” Sadeena entreated. The harpoon took on more lightning with a further crackle, growing three massive prongs. Sadeena herself also took a moment to top up again, more lightning striking her.
“Hmmm. I need to refill my magic a little,” Sadeena mentioned as she took a bottle of alcohol out and started to drink. Even now, she seemed totally at ease. Shildina, however, did exactly the same, knocking back her own drink with a satisfied sound. “Oh, you like to drink? We can settle this with alcohol, if you’d prefer,” Sadeena remarked.
“I won’t lose to you at that either! I’ll show you, hic, the true power of an oracle!” Hah, was she starting to get drunk?
“Sis, please. I’ve had my suspicions for a while now, but don’t tell me, you’re already drunk?” Sadeena asked, somewhat in surprise. For her part, she always acted like she was drunk even when she was sober.
“I’m not drunk. I’ve got this,” Shildina turned to look at her own troops behind her, and a single harpoon was thrown at her feet. A rusty harpoon?
“Oh my! That’s quite the blast from the past. My old harpoon!” Sadeena gasped.
“That’s right. The harpoon that you left here in Q’ten Lo,” Shildina explained while gripping it tightly in her hands.
“Rafu?” Raph-chan started to look intently.
“What’s going on?” I asked her.
“Rafu, rafu!” I couldn’t tell if she was trying to explain something or just upset. I turned to Filo.
“Right, she said something moved from that harpoon and went into the little sister,” Filo translated. Was this another oracle thing, then?
“It’s not often I’m forced to do this. Very well! Allow me to show you the true power of the water dragon’s miko priestess!” With that, Shildina tossed the harpoon aside again and gave Sadeena an unsettling smile. What was going on? The very air surrounding Shildina seemed to have changed in quality.
“Drifa Lightning Speed, Thunder Guard!” Hold on! Shildina activated the same lightning support magic as Sadeena! “Of course, I’ll be using this too.” She also reapplied her wind armor, looking very pleased with herself as she was enveloped in both lightning and wind.
“Oh my! You can even use lightning magic? That’s odd though. Your magic felt the same as mine, right there,” Sadeena remarked.
“This is the power of an oracle! You, the miko without any oracle powers, will now be defeated by the very ideals that you cast aside!” That sounded like the crux of her resentment, but what ideals? “After one extraction, I can then seal them in a card like this!” I saw it for myself this time. She took out a white card and sealed some kind of magical power inside it. That caused a pattern to appear there—an illustration of lightning and a killer whale?
It looked suspiciously like the card that Zodia gave me.
“I see. So this is what it really means to be an oracle. You can transfer the intent imbued in objects and other things into cards, carry them around, and then replicate them for yourself when needed. That’s quite incredible!” So the reason she was reaching the realms of cooperative magic was perhaps due to some application of this oracle power.
Shildina used wind magic. That made it possible to perform simulated incantations using the vibrations of the air. So she used the oracle power for the awareness and her magic for the incantations. Maybe that would allow one person to use cooperative magic?
Hey, and maybe Filo could copy that to perform cooperative magic alone too.
“You can use wind magic too, right, Filo?” I asked. “Think you could use it to create incantations and cast two spells at once?”
“Huh? Hmmmm—” Filo crossed her arms and thought, then tilted her head as she tried to cast the magic. “I tried to make two spells from a single spell, but I couldn’t do it. The magic all just spins around,” she concluded. Yeah, while Filo’s explanation was inept and difficult to understand, it was clear that this was an extremely high-level technique. It wasn’t something that could be copied easily.
Still, to be able to collect the emotions remaining in the harpoon that Sadeena had left in Q’ten Lo and turn them to her own advantage . . . Could she do that? So all she needed was relics from other great heroes to get stronger and stronger? If that was the truth of this “oracle” ability, no wonder it was given such importance.
“You might be impressed now, but that’s soon going to change to terror,” Shildina promised. It looked like Shildina’s personality was also being affected, however. She was starting to sound more and more like Sadeena.
Shildina continued to proclaim, “If I combine my own powers with those of the miko still called the strongest of recent times, there’s no opponent I cannot defeat. But just to make sure—” A katana flowing with twisted power suddenly burst up from the ground, and Shildina grabbed it. Wow. That thing was clearly a seriously cursed item. Should she really be handling something like that?
“Guwah! Now! Bring it on!” she shouted. The life force around Shildina was starting to change color. It clearly didn’t look like she was up to any good.
Maybe it was time for us to help out? Even as I had that thought, Sadeena glanced over at us and played the situation down. “Impressive. Being able to capture the awareness held in anything is not something you can do just by getting drunk,” Sadeena commented, voice still casual. “Well then. I’m going to show you the biggest attack I’ve picked up recently.” A deep rumbling sound started to reverberate from around Sadeena.
“You barely deserve this, but I’ll finish you in a single attack!” a voice that didn’t even sound female rang out.
“Uwah!”
“Rafu!” Filo and Raph-chan were looking at Shildina in terror.
“I think you’d better stop her quickly,” Filo offered. “It’s so sad, looking at her.”
“Rafu.”
“Sad?” I wondered. So this was what might have happened to Sadeena if she’d remained here and grown up in such a twisted environment. It really was feeling like we needed to step in—
Sadeena and Shildina were ready to launch their special attacks. Shildina got there first. Her two black katanas, wreathed in lightning and wind, swept down toward Sadeena. That was all it took to send two dragons roaring toward her.
“Eat this! I am the ultimate priestess of carnage!” Shildina yelled. Then she transformed—no, created out of magic—a black and white killer whale, sweeping both of her swords down again to send it chomping toward Sadeena.
The two dragons and killer whale-patterned wave attack headed straight for Sadeena. The target of these attacks, however, just placed her harpoon in front of her and concentrated, repeatedly chanting more magic.
Then the attacks landed.
“Try this! Thunder God!” A rain of lightning flashes descended from the heavens, scattering the dragons and the killer whale.
Hold on! Thunder God? That was magic that had totally looked exclusive to beast transformation support, but now she could use it even without my aid? Or maybe she only had to do it once and then she could do it all the time?
Raphtalia asked, “Can Sadeena use that magic even without your help, Mr. Naofumi?” Lightning continued to crackle around her, like some crazy battle manga.
“Guwaaaaaah!” Shildina got a bottle-nose full of high-density lightning and was sent flying away.
“Those attacks looked strong, but you’ve got a density issue. To put it simply, you diluted them too much, letting me just shrug them off,” Sadeena scoffed.
“Kh-kuwah—”
“Fohl didn’t use any particular special attacks when he was transformed. Maybe she just pulled it off on instinct?” I guessed.
“I wonder,” Raphtalia responded. I looked at Sadeena and she had the audacity to wink. Hilarious!
Still, depending on how we used it, beast transformation support showed the potential for realizing great growth. Shildina stuck her swords into the ground and climbed back to her feet.
Was she just tough, or was this also due to the blessing from the Heavenly Emperor? It didn’t look like she was using Astral Enchant. I narrowed my eyes to check, but—as I expected—I couldn’t tell what was going on. It was support magic with some kind of special criteria, making it impossible to judge using my eyes.
“There’s something else too. You may have recreated my feelings from the past, but surely it goes without saying that the me from right now is stronger than the me from the past. Right? Don’t you understand that?”
Sadeena pleaded.
Yeah, I mean, good point.
Maybe she could trace the awareness of Sadeena from the past using an item that she once used, but trying to use that against the current Sadeena clearly wasn’t going to work; that past copy couldn’t match the experience of the current one. As well as the cursed sword, she was also likely doping with other stuff as well, but that only prevented any kind of unification.
She continued. “You’re like one of those people who have multiple elements all patched together. You need to learn to use them more effectively.”
Thinking about it now, Rishia was someone who had multiple elements. Elemental—the all-round element that combined the elements of fire, water, wind, and earth. It was both difficult to control and there were few who could use it, due to issues with its basic nature.
It was magic that suited Rishia’s general “jack-of-all-trades” persona, anyway.
Sadeena continued to lecture her. “I do sense incredible skills and hard work, that’s true. But—indeed, because of that—the more you borrow abilities from other people, the bigger the openings you leave.”
“Borrow from others? You’re joking! This power is mine, plain and simple!”
Sadeena shook her head, sadly responding, “If that’s the power of an oracle, then I’m glad I never had access to it. But it’s placed you in a better position than me, right? So just be happy with that.”
“I won’t—won’t accept that! I have to prove, beyond any doubt, that I’m the true miko!”
Sadeena did not let up. “Not to mention, magic is seriously influenced by your emotions. You won’t defeat me fighting in such a deranged state! You need to find a little more leeway. Get a little more comfortable.”
Shildina plucked another card from her holder and held it up. Her wounds immediately started to heal. So that let her use healing magic too? Pretty convenient. Like an all-around warrior who could handle almost any situation alone.
Sadeena had monster-grade strength, that was true, but her opponent was no slouch either. Shildina took out something that looked a lot like a rucolu fruit, crushed it in her hand, and licked the remains.
“Oh my,” Sadeena exclaimed, looking on enviously. Shildina hiccupped but stayed standing. Oh? She could handle it? So there was someone else capable of eating it—other than me.
“This is no time to be howding bwack, but I really didn’t want to have to use this,” she babbled. She had started to slur her speech. Shildina took out a card and struck a pose. The card showed a hammer and a ying-yang symbol.
“Rafu!” It definitely got Raph-chan excited about something. Though vague, there was something cherry-pink colored emitting from the card. What was it?
“Hmmm. What do you think that is? It looks different from the blessing,” Raphtalia wondered.
“You can see it too, Raphtalia?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Dis my fwinal twump card!” She was almost unintelligible now. “Just you wapch dis!” Appearing to have received some kind of power from the card, Shildina’s pattern started to glow. At the same time, growing—faintly —what looked to be a tail made of magic, Shildina turned into her demi¬human form. But due to her far faster movements than before, for a moment I couldn’t even track her with my eyes. Wreathed in highly concentrated wind, I could barely make out more than a vague human shape.
Staggering steps quickly changed to fast ones. She was definitely moving better than she had done up until now. Then, multiple Shildina-like shadows appeared, surrounding Sadeena and attacking her. That tail—it reminded me of someone.
I slowly turned to look at Raphtalia.
She and Raph-chan were following one of the shadows with their eyes.
“Oh my! Illusions? You think that’s going to be enough to confuse me?” With that, Sadeena skewered one of the Shildina clones with her harpoon. That wasn’t the shadow Raphtalia was watching though.
“You poor fool. So you’re using sound waves to detect them. Fine, but you can’t even tell that I want you to see through them, eh? You need to be more careful, eh!”
Eh? Her mannerisms had changed again. Was this her trump card?
Shildina grabbed the harpoon sticking into her, turning it into a ball of wind, and sent the weapon flying away. In the same moment the other copies all jumped at Sadeena.
“Oh my. You’ve improved your density already. This is pretty tricky magic too. Almost like—” Sadeena began. Of course, Sadeena avoided the incoming attacks with her lightning magic and physical prowess, but it was starting to look like she could actually be in trouble.
“Sadeena!”
“Rafu!”
Raphtalia and Raph-chan both shouted just in the moment that the demi-human Shildina smashed down with her sword, now transformed into what looked like a giant hammer wreathed in a whole storm of wind.
However, even that was just another wind clone. A ying-yang pattern unleashed by Shildina bounced onto Sadeena and turned into geometrical lettering, binding her.
“Oh my, that’s quite a unique spell. I can sense it slowly scattering my own magic,” Sadeena said, still sparkling with charged lightning. She clearly couldn’t keep up.
Then Shildina, still wreathed in her wind, looked over the battlefield. Spotting Raphtalia and me, she let out a murmur.
“Hmmm—”
With a snap, Sadeena broke free of the bonds and charged at Shildina, of course, in combination with a lightning-charged harpoon attack. Shildina dropped her wind-wreathed hammer to her waist and then stepped in, quick but dangerously deep.
“Five Practices Destiny Split!” A ying-yang appeared on the head of the hammer and then crashed into the charging Sadeena.
Of course, Sadeena avoided that while thrusting with her harpoon—
“O-oh my?” The power of the ying-yang hammered into Sadeena as though guided by an unseen hand, scattered her lightning. A magic trigram appeared, and five balls started to circle around Sadeena.
“Earth Defeats Water, eh!” In the same moment Shildina murmured that, Sadeena collapsed.
“W-what’s going on here? You’re moving—much better than before,” she murmured.
Shildina responded, “Impressive. Being able to take that attack and still speak? That’s a passing grade. Still not sure if I can defeat you, eh!” Sadeena was resisting, but it was like something was binding her down, preventing her from even standing up. “You’ve got some moves, I’ll give you that. Previous miko, in actuality, this victory belongs to you. I’m cheating to win, eh!”
What was this, then? Some kind of transformation with a time limit? It had to be oracle-related. An attack involving possession by a god, perhaps, and having it fight in her stead? So rather than things like Sadeena’s residual thoughts from the past, now she was possessed by far a more powerful awareness.
But then, for some reason, Shildina pointed out from among her wind at Raphtalia.
“Defeating those currently in power could be fun too. I’m not going to let this chance slip by, eh,” she went on. With that, the wind scattered and the demi-human form of Shildina was revealed.
“Huh?” I checked out Shildina again. Yeah, so I’d been right.
Coincidence can be a frightening thing.
“I knew it. It was Zodia.” In the moment I said that, Shildina—no, Zodia —looked at me and opened her eyes wide in surprise.
“Nuh! I’m becoming unstable, eh—” Shildina said and her unnatural tail suddenly vanished. She really was messing with some bizarre and dangerous powers. Although the direction was likely different, it felt close to a hero using the Curse Series.
“Oh my,” Sadeena exclaimed, and her therianthrope also ended. Trying to stand, she collapsed again. She continued to try to stand but didn’t appear able to do so. That was a pretty powerful binding spell. However, Shildina was looking only at me, as though the battle with Sadeena meant nothing at all anymore.
“Sweet Naofumi. What are you doing here?”
“Because I’m the Shield Hero, of course. Didn’t you notice me standing right next to Sadeena and Raphtalia?” Maybe not. She’d certainly been concentrating hard. Thinking about it now, the name “Zodia” was also close to the ring name that Sadeena had used in Zeltoble, “Nadia.” That wasn’t the only thing about them that was similar. The noises she made as she got drunk —indeed, just the fact that she loved to drink—and her response when I ate the rucolu fruit, all were exactly the same too.
“You’re kidding.” Zodia was looking at me, sobering up and looking pretty sleepy.
“Do you two know each other?”
“Yeah, this is the girl with no sense of direction who I went drinking with, accompanied by Motoyasu II. She wanted to play with me—and I mean that completely innocently,” I noted.
“Becoming friends with an enemy, without each side realizing? That old chestnut again. Just like when we fought Sadeena,” Raphtalia sighed. Ah, now even Raphtalia was spotting the tropes.
“Please, give me some credit. I’m not that dense. I had plenty of suspicions.”
“Say, Naofumi, if you’ve got a moment—”
“What? If you want to fight, bring it on! I take it Shildina is your real name?” I sneered. If she had the strength to contain Sadeena, she had to be quite a monster. This battle wasn’t settled yet, but she definitely had some nasty attacks at her command.
“You’re lying, aren’t you? You can’t be the spirit implement user who accompanies the revolutionary Heavenly Emperor. You just can’t!”
“Yes, I can. Can’t you see this cursed shield?” It was insane, having to point all this out.
“So you’re Sadeena’s boyfriend?”
“No! Where did that come from?”
“Oh my! What’s going on, exactly?” Sadeena was also puzzled about this interruption to the battle.
“Oh dear.”
“Don’t tell me, Shildina, you’ve taken a shine to Naofumi? Then why don’t we all play together?!” Sadeena shouted.
“What are you talking about?” Tension turned to exasperation. “I thought this was a serious battle!”
“I think we’ve moved a bit beyond that now, haven’t we?” I wasn’t happy about it, but I actually agreed with Sadeena. Shildina was acting really odd.
“Does sweet Naofumi already belong to you, Sadeena?”
“What are you talking about? You must be kidding!” My reply made Shildina’s expression visibly brighten.
“So—” she began, but the next moment her patterns started glowing on her body. Then Shildina gave a cry and wrapped her arms around her chest.
“Guwaaah!”
“What now!”
“Rafu!” Raph-chan pointed at the holder at Shildina’s waist. That was pointless, though, because we couldn’t see anything. Shildina was still breathing heavily.
“Are you okay?” I drew Shildina to me and checked her over. It was instantly clear that those markings were the problem.
“Rafu, rafu, rafu!”
“Let’s seeeee. According to Raph-chan, she has a hole in her soul, which is a really weird shape. She was fighting by putting some kind of power or something into that hole in her soul,” Filo translated for Raph-chan. Raph¬chan could see ghosts, after all.
So this was the truth of the oracle power? A technique to create a gap in your soul and then be possessed by spirits of your ancestors?
“And?”
“Rafu, rafu!”
“She had something incredible in her soul back there, but now something nasty has entered from those patterns and is trying to take her over,” Filo went on. Some kind of soul interference?
“Very well. Get back,” Raphtalia said and turned her sword into a spirit blade and adopted a slashing stance. “I’m going to cut the flow now. That should sort this out.”
“Rafu.” Raph-chan jumped onto Raphtalia’s head and pointed. It looked like she knew the spot to cut.
“What are you doing to the water dragon’s miko priestess? You men! Take the life of the imposter Heavenly Emperor!” an enemy soldier shouted. Agitated by our actions, some of them were preparing to fight. It didn’t look like they had any intention of keeping their promise not to get involved. There was only a small group of them, however, with most of the enemy Heavenly Emperor’s forces looking worried and confused.
In any case, the soldiers attacked us with arrows, spears, swords, katanas, magic, everything they had.
“Sakura Destiny Sphere, Shooting Star Shield, Air Strike Shield! You guys! Put anyone who strikes first back in their place!” At my orders the revolutionary forces gave a shout, piling into the enemy charging toward us.
“Right there!” With a downward slash, Raphtalia chopped around Shildina’s shoulder. With a snap, part of the text came off her body. The pattern had started to flash less, but it continued to flash nonetheless.
“Guwaaah! S-stop it! Uwaah!”
“Rafu.”
“We’ve suppressed the encroachment, to some degree, but seriously! Just what is this pattern?” Raphtalia asked.
“It looks like slave markings, but the color is a bit different. Perhaps— yes, like this!” Sadeena said and drank some wine, then touched the pattern while imbuing it with magic. The flashing slowed down even more, but it still didn’t stop.
“Release me!” Shildina knocked Sadeena and me back, unsteady on her feet, and glared at us. Something was really disrupting her calm, but what?
“No one wants me, do they?! I’m not wanted—uuuh—I only have one who accepts me! This is the proof of that! Don’t get in my way!” Shildina shouted and stood up, as though protecting her patterns.
“Someone accepts you? Who?” Sadeena furrowed her brow.
“But Lady Makina’s orders are absolute! I must kill Sadeena and then take the life of the false Heavenly Emperor! Guwah! Stop it—get away from me!” Shildina raged, striking herself as she went. More of the patterns flaked away.
“Rafu?”
“Hmmm.”
“Oh my!”
“What now?”
“Well—the flow of evil-looking power that I saw with Raph-chan’s help has scattered, and a large light went into Shildina,” Raphtalia explained.
“You saw beautiful power flowing in from the surrounding Dragon Veins, right?” Sadeena inquired. Shildina stood, watching us, her arms hanging down.
“Hmmm. Not bad for emergency measures, eh? Pretty good, eh?” Shildina started again. This sounded like the personality Sadeena had previously contained. She looked over at me and nodded a few times.
“Holder of a spirit implement, justice is with you, eh! I have a job to do myself.”
“Huh?”
“Stop fighting at once, eh! Our forces are surrendering to the revolutionary army! Consider those who will not comply to be our enemies! Join the revolutionary forces in capturing them! Those are my orders, eh!”
“What the hell?” I think everyone around me may have said it at the same time. The confused defenders proceeded to attack those fighting us from behind and capture them. The command structure seemed pretty solid.
“Right, I’m off to finish this quick, eh,” she said, and with that Shildina wreathed herself in wind and vanished.
“Huh? What was that?” Raphtalia and Raph-chan were looking into the sky. What now?
“She vanished using magic and then used wind magic to fly through the air to the castle in the city.”
“Wind magic can do all that?” I asked.
“She can fly? I want to try!” Filo was shouting.
“I’m not sure. I’ve never seen magic like that.” We were talking about someone capable of incanting cooperative magic alone, so it probably wasn’t something anyone could copy easily.
“What happened to my fight? Can I go and let off a bit of steam?” Sadeena appealed. I guess her fun had been interrupted. Looking around, I noticed that a serious fight was starting. Everything was moving a bit quickly, even for me. The defenders of the city had started fighting among themselves too.
Just what was going on?
“Rafu?”
“Hmmm?” Filo and Raph-chan were both looking at me for some reason.
“What’s up?”
“Well, Raph-chan says that your pocket has started glowing, Master.”
“My pocket?” I looked down at the pocket Rafu-chan was pointing at and then took out the card that Shildina had given me.
What exactly were they? Shildina had definitely used them to trigger some kind of ability. They weren’t the same as the talismans from Kizuna’s world. They looked more like playing cards.
“Rafu.”
“What? Well, apparently, she can hear a voice from there asking for help —that part of her soul is there inside.”
“I see.” I wasn’t sure why she gave it to me after we only just met, but it seemed pretty important. When I thought back, she’d really had a great time drinking and playing cards. The expression on her face had been totally different from when she was in battle.
“I’d like to help. Should we go after her?” Raphtalia inquired.
“Yeah, okay.” We turned toward the eastern capital. It was small when compared to, say, Edo but still large enough to be a town, with a castle and everything. “If we get in there and capture the Heavenly Emperor, their commander, then we’ve won. She’s the one who ran off in the face of the enemy. She can’t complain if we go after her.” Smoke had started to rise from the castle in multiple places. What was Shildina doing? I was starting to think we could just leave her to it and everything would get wrapped up, but we really did have to go ourselves.
Ren and Itsuki came over.
“We can’t let this chance slip away. We’re going in.”
“Okay!”
“Off we go!”
“Rafu!” With that, as energetic as ever, we mobilized our forces and struck out into the eastern capital.
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