After perhaps a soggy hour of hopping over buildings with the bubble machines, jumping down cliff ledges when they realized they couldn't go further in that direction, and slaying giant turtles, umbrella like creatures, thorn-ed tadpoles and frogs, and small bird monsters, they finally found other humans. On the other side of a stream, of course, but humans none the less.
"...So it looks like the Blood Alliance..." Estelle whispers, watching the people.
"...Aren't here after all." Yuri notes that none of them looked like the Blood Alliance men they'd seen so far, and none of them were Barbos.
"Those guys are the Hunting Blades." Karol says, blinking at the group.
"Th-that man..." Estelle blinks, pointing at one with a large sword on his back. "We saw him in Deidon Hold."
"Ah, now that you mention it, we did see him." Yuri turns to glance at Karol. "so he's the leader of your guild, then." Lloyd looked like he was having trouble thinking.
"Yeah, he's Clint, the leader of the Hunting Blades." Karol says. Through the rain, they could see the large dark-red haired man taking his blade from his back and holding it before him as if he was saluting the large beast before him. Yuri recognized it as the one they had to fight with its pups on the way to Capua Nor.
"He's gonna fight that monster all by himself?" Yuri asks, remembering how much trouble they had with one of the similar type. Clint proceeded to smash the beast once, and it fell over with a cry and scream.
"Wha!" Rita yelped, while Lloyd blinked, tilting his head to the right and glancing off in that direction. "No way, man!"
"He took it out in one hit...?" Yuri mutters, looking a bit startled.
"That was a fatal strike." Karol says.
"A Fatal strike?" Yuri asks.
"It's a crazy-powerful technique that extremely skilled swordsmen can use." Karol explains.
"Hmmm... So how do you do it?" Yuri muses.
"How do you do it...?" Karol looks at Yuri like he's crazy for asking him. "H-how should I know?!"
"Fatal Strike – A strong attack which throws your opponent off balance, followed by a single, well-timed strike to finish the enemy." Estelle quotes.
"Is that something else you read in a book?" Rita asks deadpan.
"Y-yes, it is..." Estelle blinks.
"I see... It sounds like it's easier said than done." Yuri says.
"Not that hard to do, really." Lloyd says, shrugging when eyes turned to him.
"... What?" Rita frowned at the twin blade.
"I'll show you." Lloyd's grin was somewhat evil. Before anyone could do more than blink, Lloyd had slammed into Yuri, his armored shoulder slamming into the dark-violet haired man's breastbone to nearly knock him over. Estelle gasped, Karol yelping while Rita shouted as Lloyd's hands went to his blades as Yuri staggered. Two movements had one sheath on Yuri's shoulder for his neck, the other on the opposite shoulder angling in and down to cleave his torso – if the twin-blade had done more than stop his arms where they were resting and let his shoulders continue, and if those mismatched blades were unsheathed. "That's one." Lloyd lifted his head to grin at Yuri while the other swordsman regained his balance and registered he was only bruised and winded.
"You... you're insane!" Rita snaps. "You could have hurt him badly with those!"
"I know that." Lloyd shrugs, straightening and taking a step back to slip his sheaths back into their places at his side. "Whether it looked like it or not, I knew what I was doing." Yuri felt his shoulder, then looked to Lloyd again.
"So, do Strike Artes work for that too?" Yuri asks, thinking through what Lloyd had preformed on him. "I don't think I can throw my weight around like you do."
"Mmhm." Lloyd tilts his head a bit, smiling. "It makes things easier, definitely. Helps you find different ways to hit them too. Up, down, back, to either side... just depends on what you use before."
"Huh." Yuri says. Since he didn't seem particularly angry at Lloyd for his almost-attack, Rita couldn't do more than glare at Lloyd, and Estelle look worriedly between the two blades-men. "... Anyway, what do you think they're doing with such a large contingent?" Yuri indicates the large group of Hunting Blades. Estelle blinks, taking her gaze off Lloyd to the guildsmen.
"Yeah, if they wanted to take out that monster we saw, one person would've been enough." Estelle says.
"This is actually the first time I've seen this many guild members gathered in one place." Karol says slowly.
"Really?" Estelle asks, tilting her head.
"Yeah, a lot of the members are loners. They tend not to travel in groups." Karol explains. "And the chief being here is out of the ordinary, too."
"Curiouser and curiouser..." Rita mumbles.
"Want to...follow them and see what they're up to?" Karol says it with a curious note to his voice, like he either wanted to, or really didn't.
"Nah, that sounds interesting." For a second Yuri's words didn't make much sense, but he turned and faced them. "But I'm gonna keep going."
"He's looking for members of the Blood Alliance, after all." Estelle says. "Right, Yuri?"
"Yeah, I don't want to worry about two guilds." Yuri returned to watching the Hunting blades despite his words. "One is more than enough!"
"... Would anyone mind explaining this to me?" Lloyd scratches at his head, eyes flicking across the lot of them. "All I know is that something called an Aque Blastia is involved, and Yuri really wants to knife the guys responsible.."
"Oh, right." Yuri blinks at Lloyd. "I forgot we haven't explained anything while we've been dragging you along with us."
"You guys aren't dragging me along." Lloyd shrugs. "I'm following you guys 'cause it looks like things are interesting. Dragging implies that I don't want to be here."
"Are you saying you want to be here?" Rita asks dryly.
"The scenery could be better." Lloyd grins. "It probably looks much nicer when it's sunny." Rita gave Lloyd an incredulous look, while the twin-blade looked about. "Explain in here?" he jerks his thumb to the house behind them. "I think we're wet enough."
"All right." Lloyd forced the door open, and they found that the place wasn't that damp inside. Finding seats on not-so-rotten furniture, they gave a rundown of things that had lead up to them meeting in Capua Nor. Mostly Estelle and Yuri, until they met Karol, who gave his observations on the happenings, then Rita joined in with her own, mildly cynic view. They also told him about hunting Rhybgaro while Estelle made sandwiches.
"Huh." Lloyd pushed his hair out of his face, nodding his thanks to Estelle as she passed him a sandwich. "Sounds like you've been busy." He pauses before taking a bite, looking inside the sandwich. His expression turns to one almost of horror.
"Is... something wrong?" Estelle asks worriedly, checking inside her sandwich to see if there was something wrong with hers as well.
"Ahh... Yes and no?" Lloyd opens the sandwich, and gingerly picks up a red fruit ring as if it was toxic and would try to attack him if he wasn't careful. Yuri raised an eyebrow as the swordsman gingerly throws it out the door, then tediously picked the stray seeds out of his sandwich.
"You don't like tomatoes?" Yuri asks, calmly munching through his own lunch.
"They're disgusting." Lloyd mutters, whipping his hands off on his pants and inspecting his sandwich for any more seeds he might have missed. "They're related to nightshade." Satisfied that his sandwich was now tomato-free, he put it back together and took a bite. "And they make me sick." He admitted with a slight grimace.
"Ah.. Sorry." Estelle looked down at her sandwich. "I didn't realize you were allergic..."
"It's not that bad of an allergy." Lloyd says, smiling to reassure her. "I just feel really bad, get sick, and feel better."
"Say, Lloyd..." Karol studies the man as he takes another sandwich bite. It was vanishing rather fast. "Can you even use Strike Artes?"
"Hmn?" Lloyd blinked around his sandwich, swallowing and tilting his head. "Yes, why?"
"It's just that you never do." Karol points out. "I mean, you used something on that gate in Ragou's place, but you never used it since."
"Oh." Lloyd grins. "That's because it's too easy if I do." Karol blinked, and Lloyd continued. "I've already gotten really good at using Strike Artes, so I don't use them.. but I've only known I could use magic for a ... couple of years, so I'm working on that... when it's not likely that I'll blow the wrong things up."
"So, what kind of magic can you use?" Rita asks, watching him.
"Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth, Light." Lloyd ticks off on his fingers. "And Healing. I'm just really bad at control. I can't quite figure out how you're supposed to tell how much to put in a spell..." Lloyd finishes his sandwich.
"They're supposed to teach you that." Rita says, frowning.
"I taught myself, so..." Lloyd shrugs.
"I'm surprised you aren't missing any limbs." Rita mutters.
"I learned to heal first." Lloyd's grin wasn't reassuring. Yuri stands, having finished his sandwich.
"I want to try to do that thing." Yuri says, swinging his sheath a little.
"What was that just now?" Estelle blinks, standing as well.
"That fatal strike thing." Yuri says, rolling his shoulders.
"Is it something that can be done so easily...?" Estelle asks, tilting her head.
"Oh, yes." Lloyd hops to his feet from his seat, grinning. "I'll walk ya through it if you want."
"Whatever." Yuri heads out, Lloyd behind him to find one of the monsters that lurked in this place. Karol wolfed down his sandwich to dart after them, and Estelle, Repede and Rita followed.
"Stagger it, then whack it good when you spot an opening." Lloyd says, smirking a little as he watched Yuri dispatch monsters down to one. Yuri slung an Azure Edge into the remaining monster, blinking once.
"See it!" He shouts, slashing through the beast. "You need a little skill.." Yuri says, straightening to look at the very dead thorned-frog. "But it's not really that hard." Yuri glances at Karol. "You think you could do that from watching me?"
"I don't think that's something anyone but you could learn from watching anyone!" Karol says, looking a bit awed.
"You can pull it off!" Lloyd says, grinning as he spots movement. "Here, test!" Lloyd darted forward, kicking into one of those umbrella-like monsters before unsheathing both his blades into its side, slaying it before tossing them back into the hands he usually wielded them in.
"It's a lot easier if you use an Arte!" Yuri comments, staggering back from having just attempted to what Lloyd had, and succeeding marginally. The monster was dead, and that was all that mattered.
