Chapter 9: And we're back!
The first thing I saw when I woke up, was the rapidly approaching floor.
"Fu-"
*THUD*
"Hell of a reintroduction to the world," I mutter as I pry myself off the floor. Okay, considering a bed is behind me, I'm going to assume I rolled off the bed and woke up just in time to realize that gravity's a bitch. Damn brain, choosing that moment to wake up. Also, considering Louise is also asleep in the bed and is wearing a nightdress of sorts I have no recollection of her ever having, I bet she woke up before me, got that thing from somewhere and knows more about what the hell's going on then I do.
Wait a second. I put a hand on my neck and feel for a pulse. And there is one! I'm alive! Now what was my first thought about the fact that I took on an army and survived? ... Really regretting not getting that Facebook account now. Wait, no. Even then I couldn't post about it because I don't have any internet here. Damn. Well, maybe I can convince someone to make some pizza to make up for it. My priorities are as in order as ever I see.
Priorities or not, I should probably wake Louise up and have her explain everything in great detail.
"Hey, Louise, do you know what the hell's happening?" I ask her as I poke her cheek to see if she'll react.
"No, I completely understand," she murmurs in her sleep. "Kitties are really fuzzy."
... Can't argue with that.
"Oh? Already? O... Okay. G'bye kitties..." then she yawns, and I make my move.
"Louise, time to wake up," I say as I giver her a flick to the head.
Louise jackknifes into a sitting position, whirling her arms around and generally acting as if she's a robot being rebooted.
"Cat ears are sexy!"
Hell of a reboot.
Louise scans the room and then blushes when she notices me.
"Good morning?" I offer, trying to ignore her previously mentioned completely true statement.
"...You didn't hear that, did you?" she asks with what I can tell is intent to kill.
"...Hear what?"
"Good," Louise says, then she seems to realize something. "Wait, Josh! You're up!"
It took you this long to notice?
"Yeah, I'm up, and all I know is that the two of us take on an army of 70,000 and kind of win and then I wake up here. I was kind of hoping you could fill in the logic between those two events."
Louise ponders as if wondering where to begin. "Well, after we both passed out after the battle, your sword used some kind of ability it has to manipulate the magic it absorbed to move you like a puppet and take us into the forrest in hopes of finding that legendary fairy to help us."
Mental note: Kill Derflinger next time I see him. I don't care if he's a sword and thus technically an inanimate object, I'll find a way. We had this discussion already!
"Considering we're both alive and well, I guess it worked, right?" I ask.
Louise nods. "Right. Well, sort of. See, she's not a fairy, she's-"
"Oh, you're up?" A voice I've never heard before asks from behind me.
I turn around to see who's talking and see the supposed "fairy." I don't think I need to mention she was really and elf, like Emily suspected. The elf had long blond hair that came down past her shoulders, you could see the tips of her pointed ears coming out of her hair, and she had huge... Tracts of land. I give a silent prayer to any god of your choosing that Kirche wasn't here. Even she'd be jealous of these watermelons. Hmmm... Watermelons? I wonder what else everyone would be in regards to fruit. The elf's melon, Kirche'd be... I dunno, coconut? Emily would be apple? Momo would be peach? Louise would be lemon? Tabitha... Cherry? More importantly, why am I bothering with applying food based analogies to them and their chest sizes?
"Yeah, I just woke up," I tell melons. "May I inquire as to your name?" and allegiance while we're at it? Wait, never mind, a little applied Heightened Awareness and... Boom! Blue aura! Check Louise! You can never be too sure!I can practically hear my inner paranoia that is in no way sentient yell at me. A quick glance shows Louise as blue and friendly as well. Satisfied, me? And yes, I am, if I must ask.
"My name is Tiffania, though please call me Tifa," she tells me with a smile and a small bow. "Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too Tifa," I say before turning to Louise. "And she's the one who nursed us back to health?"
Louise opens her mouth, but is cut off by Tifa. "I did help Louise, but she insisted on making sure you were all right," Tifa says with a smile.
Louise starts blushing but says nothing.
"Really Louise? So that's how it is?"
Tifa smiles a bright smile that honestly reminds me of a child's in the best way possible. It seemed completely innocent and just full of cheer.
"From the second she woke up Louise insisted on taking care of you! I asked her to rest because she might not have been fully healed but she insisted. 'He's my boyfriend so I should be the one to take care of him!' were her words, I believe."
Louise is blushing even more, and you know what? I think even I'm starting to redden.
"I d-didn't say that!" Louise yells while whirling her arms.
Tifa seems genuinely confused. "Really? But I thought-"
"W-wrong!" Louise says. "I p-probably said the boy's my familiar and that's why I should take care of him! That's it! You're mind just heard 'boy' and 'f-' and automatically and incorrectly filled in the gaps wrong!"
Doing things wrong incorrectly is often a cause for concern.
"Really?" Tifa asks. "I apologize for my mistake."
"Not your fault," I remark. "Louise is pretty much a queen of mixed messages."
"And what's that supposed to-"
"Well, please feel free to look around," Tifa says with a smile while completely ignoring Louise before stepping back out.
Then there's sort of an awkward silence which I let happen while Louise fumes a bit. Eventually...
"So did I miss anything important while I was out?" I ask Louise. "Has the apocalypse happened yet? I'd hate to have slept through that."
"Nothing of that caliber yet," Louise tells me, "But I guess you might have missed a thing or two."
Here's the gist of it: Gallia betrayed Albion, blew the shit out of them, that emperor dude who's name I've forgotten is dead and the war has ended! I predict another two months before the next war. Short reaction: Yay. Long reaction: Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.
"So now what?" I ask as I stretch out a bit. Turns out being asleep for a few weeks or so can really do a number on your back. "I mean, we're both alive, we fought off an army, can we go home? I'm honestly starting to miss that pile of hay I occasionally slept on."
"I don't know," Louise says. "I was kind of focused on making sure you were okay, and didn't think how to get back to the academy. I don't exactly have the money to get us back home from here. I guess I could ask Tiffania for some gold, but she needs it to keep the orphanage running."
"Well, we're in reasonably good standing with the princess, right? Why not just send her a letter asking for help getting a ride back to the academy?"
Louise's face lights up. "Why didn't I think of that! Of course the princess will help us get back! I'll get started on a letter right away!"
Louise jumps up off the bed and makes a rush for the door, forgetting both her state of current pajama-like attire and the fact that I'm still in the room. The second one was more important as she somehow managed to ignore my existence until the point where she ran into me and knocked us both onto the floor. Second time I've hit the floor today. At least the company's better.
It takes approximately three seconds for the current position of everything and turn of events to register in Louise's head. That is, it took about three seconds for Louise to realize we were both on the floor with her on top of me. After that it only took about a millisecond for her to hit maximum embarrassment overload. Hmm... What's the word I'm looking for?
"Louise, you apparently became slightly clumsier in the past few weeks. Did I miss something?" trying to remain clear headed.
Louise responds by combat rolling off to the side and off of me. She stands back up and starts walking towards the door.
"You're going out dressed like that?" I ask. "You seem to have gotten... What's the word, bolder? If you're going out dressed in next to nothing." Of course maybe Louise was always an exhibitionist and I never realized it. Considering the dreams she has on occasion, I wouldn't be surprised if she was more perverted then she let on.
Louise looks down and notices what she's wearing. That is to say, a sleeveless, semi-translucent green night dress and nothing else. Not even shoes. If you're wondering, I can only tell Louise isn't wearing anything else under that because of that quirk of her's where she can't sleep if she's wearing underwear. The morning I found out that quirk apparently wasn't pleasant for either of us, especially me. I say apparently, because here's my memory of that event. My alarm clock that day was a fist to my face that knocked me clear across the room. After seeing Louise on the bed frothing with rage and embarrassment and with an outstretched fist, I proceeded to ask what I did to deserve that pleasant wake up call. After stammering over herself for a while, Louise got dressed and stormed out to the bathroom to cool her head. I dunno, by splashing some water on herself or something. After coming back, she "calmly" berated me for taking advantage of her little sleeping problem. After seeing me be confused as hell and realizing I didn't do whatever it was on purpose, the conversation turned very awkward. Fun times all around.
Back in the present day, Louise blushes and opens her mouth to do what I assume is order me out so she can change without showing me everything, but I've already stepped out expecting such a thing.
"Alright, let's check out this so called orphanage," I say to myself. "What's the best way to do that? ... Where's the nearest and tallest tree?"
I snoop around a bit and find a suitable tree. Tall, sturdy, and with tons of branch to use as hand and foot holds. A'ight, let's get some morning exercise.
After climbing as high as the tree would let me, I scoped the area out. It really wasn't that big, just a few buildings here or there. Can't really blame it for not being huge, considering it looks like Tiffania is the only one running it. And it's in the middle of a forrest so I'm happy with it no matter what. Climbing trees is always a good time. Well, I don't see and bushes or hay bales that look soft enough to cushion a fall from upwards of 100 feet, so let's work our way down slowly. One branch. At. A time. Damn, I really wish I had that gravity shifting cat that always followed Kat around. Hell, I'd take Raven's... Raven, for those gravity shifting powers and the ability to nullify fall damage. It'd suck to fall and break every single bone in my body after just waking up from being on the brink of death.
Okay, last branch, annnnnnd dismount! Perfect 20 point landing!
"Whoa," I hear behind me. I turn around and see a small group of kids looking at me in what I can only hope is amazement. They didn't look old, maybe 4, 5, the oldest ones looked 8. But I can't estimate a person's age to save anyone's life so they could be 37 for all I know.
"Did you just fall out of the tree?" One of them, a girl with short blonde hair, asks me.
"Well, not fall, but I did jump out of a tree," I explain.
"Why did you jump out of the tree?" another, a boy with shortish brown hair, asks.
"Because I was in the tree and needed a quick way down."
"Why were you in the tree?"
Why do kids ask so many questions? Because they're awesome, that's why. Kids, not questions. I've always loved how kids feel the need to question everything. It's probably one of their most endearing traits. I wonder if I was like that. My memories of me aged 9 and younger are a bit fuzzy.
"I was in the tree because I was climbing it." One of them opens her mouth, but I beat them to the punch. "I was climbing the tree because I wanted to get to the top, and I wanted to get to the top so I could get a good view of this entire place. That and it's fun."
"Did you get to the top of the tree?" A small boy asks.
"Stupid!" The blonde girl berates him. "That tree's too tall! It's not possible-"
"Actually I did, and it was easy," I interrupt. Ah, I shouldn't do that. Maybe I'm giving myself too much credit by assuming these kids would ever try and copy me, but what if they start interrupting people too? That wouldn't exactly be good.
The blonde girl's eyes widen. I notice they're a shade of green. "No way."
"Yeah. Want me to prove it?"
Some of the kids cheer out. Yeah! Let's see! Climb! I like trees! Things like that. The girl seems more surprised then anything. She looks like she kind of expected me to say I could climb the tree, but then make some kind of excuse to get out of it. Well, no time for that, time to climb some trees!
As the kids watch, I work my way back up the tree. I think it's because I've stretched out a bit and loosened up from my nap, but climbing the tree was actually easier this time. After I get to the highest point of the tree, I look down at the group. I can't quite tell what their expressions are from here, but their body language appears to indicate excitement. Awesome, I'm now a children's entertainer. I should start coming up with acts other then "Climb tall object." I think they'd get bored of that pretty quickly.
Hmmm... I'm contemplating yelling something down to them like, "Okay, I'm coming down now!" But I have the feeling if I do that then I'm sealing my fate and will fall and hit every branch on the way down. And probably break every bone in my body. That's bad for business.
Wordlessly, I make my way down, and once again dismount and 20 point landing in front of the children who then burst into cheers.
"That was awesome!"
"Yeah! I never thought anybody could climb a tree that big!"
I never thought kids could be so enthused about someone climbing a tree!
Everyone's cheering, except the girl. She looks really angry. I contemplate asking what's wrong, but then she walks up to me and kicks me in the shin. Hard. Crap, my one weakness! Little girls kicking me below the waist!
"Stupid!" she yells at me. "What if you fell? You could have been seriously hurt!"
Oh my god, Louise cloned herself into a small blonde child. Someone, help. Please.
One of the boys puts his hands behind his head as if he's just going through the motions and says in a perfectly relaxed tone, "Geez Yunica, were you worried about him?"
The little blonde girl, Yunica, actually blushes a little. "Gim! I don't want big sis Tifa and big sis Louise's efforts helping him go to waste!"
... Big sis Louise? I mean, I get the Tifa part, she's been raising the kids, but big sis Louise? And I can't even get a big bro Josh? That... Actually kind of depresses me.
"But he can do things like that on his own," Gim remarks. "Don't you remember big sis Louise's stories?"
Note: ask later. Apparently the other kids can see that Yunica and Gim are going to have an argument of sorts (must happen on a schedule) as they slowly back away, leaving me with the two arguing 8 year olds.
"So what if he can handle himself?" Yunica asks. "What if big sis Tifa was climbing that tree? Wouldn't you be worried?"
"Of c-course I'd be worried about big sis Tifa!" Gim remarks, slightly red faced. "B-but would she ever climb a tree or do something stupid like that if she didn't think she could?"
Let's ignore the fact that you called what I did stupid.
"If I may interrupt," I throw in. "Let's try and keep things civil. I climbed a really tall tree. I could have fallen but I didn't, I am okay, and Tifa will probably not climb trees. Does the argument need to continue any longer?"
Silence. Then Yunica kicks me in the shin.
"Ow!"
"Just don't do stupid stuff again," Yunica says before turning and walking away.
"I don't get it," I remark.
"Me neither," Gim remarks. "Girls are confusing."
"Glad we can come to an agreement on that point."
Well, this conversation's over and that means I can go ask Louise now about some stuff instead of putting it off and eventually forgetting about it. That makes things easier, get the info straight from the source ASAP. Now where is she?
After wandering around a bit, I had the bright idea to go back into the building where I first exited this morning. Great job, me. So I went inside and found Louise sitting on the bed in her academy uniform.
"Josh! Where have you been?" she asks me.
"Well, funny story about that."
Then I told Louise about what happened. Oh, and she had pretty much exactly the same reaction Yunica did to the tree climbing thing. You're an idiot! You could have seriously hurt yourself! Do you have a death wish of some kind? Things like that.
"So you're wondering why Yunica acted like that?" Louise asks.
"What? Oh! Yeah! Forgot about that. I was kind of focused on the "big sis" and "stories" part."
Louise gives me a look that I swear screams "You are the biggest idiot ever," but then she sighs in resignation to my idiocy.
"Well, it started a little after I woke up," Louise began. "After I had decided to take a quick break from making sure you were alright, one of the kids came up to me. It's been a few weeks so I can't exactly remember which one of the kids, but after asking if you were going to be okay, they asked how we wound up in our situation."
"What, people don't wind up dying on the orphanage's doorstep more often?"
"I was just as surprised as you were to find that out. Anyway, I decided to be truthful and explain how we got into our situation. Some of the other kids heard me talking and joined in. A few asked how we met so I started telling them stories of what we've done since that summoning ritual."
"And how far are you along in that regard?"
"Caught up to the present."
"Darn, that means no more stories." I put a hand to my chin and think. "I got it!" I say with a snap of my fingers. "I've got some stories. They're fiction and I might have to change a few details to fit with this world's viewpoints on stuff, but I'm sure they'll eat them up."
"Did you hear a word I said?" Louise asks angrily.
"Huh. What? You were talking? Sorry, I was thinking."
"That's a shock," Louise says dryly.
"Ouch. Anyway, what did you say?"
"... Never mind. I'm sure you can figure it your on your own."
Louise seems pissy for some reason. Well, let's let her cool off and go do something to pass the ti- wait a second. My brain just registered that failed spot check from a while ago. Try again. Spot check successful! Observe my left hand and... nothing's wrong with it. Why is nothing wrong with it?!
"Louise, you mentioned once a long time ago that the only way to stop being a familiar was for either the master or the familiar to die right?"
Louise looks confused. "Um... Yeah. Why?"
"So then who's dead, you or me?" I say as I show her my left hand clear of those fancy runes.
"What! What happened to the runes?!"
"Soooo I'm not a familiar anymore because-"
"Either partner's or the missy's heart stopped back then."
"Crap! When the hell did you get in here Derflinger?"
"The elf brought me in while you were out climbing trees," the sword tells me. "Anyway, like I said, either you or the missy was so close to death that the contract thought you did die, so it ended."
Well that's stupid. Almighty magic can't even tell the difference between a corpse and a not-corpse?
"Well, what does Louise do without a familiar?" I ask.
Louise actually hesitates for a second. "I could always just summon another one but..."
"But... What?" I ask.
"... Nothing," Louise says. "We'll find a way around it and try to get the contract between us set back up."
So? Can't we just summon someone else and get some backup? I could always go for a combat in arms. Hell, maybe it'd be someone I know.
"Well, see if you can come up with anything," I tell her. "Worst comes to worst just summon a new one."
This conversation's over, I think. I guess I'll go talk to Tiffania or something. It would probably be nice to learn about the elves here. With my objective set, I walk out of the building... Unnecessary dramatic pause... And bumped into Yunica who looked like she was either thinking of entering, or eavesdropping.
"Um... Yunica, was it?" I ask to confirm. "Mind saying what you were doing here?"
Yunica's face slightly reddens. "Nothing," she says defensively. "I didn't come to..." her voice trails off a bit rendering me unable to tell what she's saying but I have no way of indicating that other then directly saying it, which is annoying to me.
"Sorry, I didn't catch that. What didn't you come to do?"
She responds by kicking me in the shin again. Crap! That's like, three shin kicks in like 20 minutes! That is annoying as hell!
"Nothing!" Then she turns and runs off into the forest. I'd say that's a bad idea, but she's probably been here longer then I have, so I'm sure she knows better then to do or go somewhere stupid.
Hmmm... Then again she is, what, eight years old? While most kids I've met are smarter then I first gave them credit for, they can be kind of naive at times, can't they? I kind of feel like a jerk for saying this, but let's just let her be. I'm sure she'll be fine.
...
I really want to climb a tree. I know I should go get an info dump from Tifa about elves and stuff like that, because I'm sure she's important this story arc, but prior to today, the last time I climbed anything was when I was tailing Fouquet, Wardes and the other chick. I feel like I need to make up for lost time. Besides, it's easier to think while climbing. Exposition can wait till evening, right?
*Scene Break*
Climbing really relaxes me. Leaping from handhold to handhold, climbing around, it's just zen like. It frees up your mind to think about whatever flows in. Unless you fall, break your neck and die, but death's a surprisingly common potential in things I do. Don't really know why. It's still kind of weird. I mean, I remember that she always-
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
Oh? That sounds interesting. Just monkey my way around the trees here and there and... What the hell. I mean... *sigh*
Okay, it was Yunica confronting two thug looking guys. They looked maybe 20 or 30, looked like they could rip her in half, and she was busy looking angry and yelling at them at the top of her lungs. I know I mentioned they looked like they could, but I should probably point out they also look like they were going to rip her in half any second. Maybe I gave her too much credit in assuming she wouldn't get in trouble.
You know, I'm not surprised. She and Gim are the only two kids here whose name I actually know, and of the two, Yunica's the only one I could actually describe if asked too. I doubt she'll have much to do in the grand scheme of things, but for a sort of breather arc before we head back to the academy, she's bound to at least give something to do.
Anyway, despite yelling at the top of her 8 year old lungs, I can't quite make out what she's yelling.
Let's pause for a minute. I could easily turn on Heightened super sense whatever and instantly get a read of sorts on everything, but that just won't do on it's own. I need some kind of short catch phrase to say whenever I activate. It's practically a rule. I guess I'll just have to try out various ones until I settle on something good.
HA Engage. I don't think I need to tell you that the thugs were clearly bad guys. Yunica was also had a sort of blue outline, which I'm taking to mean unimportant, but friendly character. Looking at the two thugs, I can make out their weaponry. The one closest to Yunica is armed with naught but an admittedly scary looking knife/dagger thing. The second guy, who's standing behind is much less armed, only a hunting knife of sorts and a bow and arrow. It was a pretty nice, if standard looking bow and arrow. Even if I took archery a bit back home, I'm not too knowledgeable about the subject. My lack of gandalfer familiar status probably won't help me in that regard.
Apparently the two thugs are getting fed up with Yunica, because they're starting to reach for the weapons with an annoyed look on their faces. Yunica decides to help out by kicking one of them in the shin. everything. Now is not the time for something like that! The guys are now clearly furious and reaching for their weapons. They can't really be considering killing an 8 year old, are they? Them pulling out their weaponry, specifically the dagger for the first and the bow for the second, and Yunica going silent tells me yes. Should I help?
Option 1: YES YOU IDIOT!
*Click* - Option 2: Yes
I like the second option better. Of course, I can't do much from up here in a tree. Let's just slowly make our way downwards and ignore the fact that they're slowly approaching the slowly backing away Yunica. Okay, safe drop distance reached.
Having reached the minimum required safe distance, I proceed to jump off the tree and land right between the thugs and Yunica.
"Hell yeah! That was awesome!" I can't help but say.
"J-Joshua?" Yunica says.
"And who the hell are you supposed to be?" Thug 1 asks, putting away his knife for now. Why? Do you think now everything'll be fine because one guy just dropped from the sky? That's stupid.
"Who am I? Just who the hell do you think I am?" I ask in retaliation, but not with as much ham as I would have liked.
"A complete idiot," Thug 2 says, his bow also put away.
"I asked who you think I am, not who your partner is," then I give a sympathetic look to thug 1. "I'm sorry sir, your lover thinks you're an idiot."
That set both of them off.
"You little fu-"
"Hey! Watch it! There's a kid here. Didn't your mother ever stuff soap in your mouth for that language? Speaking of which, why are you trying to hurt this kid?"
"She's annoying us," Thug 1 says.
"Okay, good," I say while nodding. "Yunica, why are you supposedly annoying these men?"
"They're hunting!" She says while using me as a human shield to protect herself from them. "They were trying to kill the animals!"
"Good. Please explain why this is bad to the men."
"Why would you want to hurt animals?" Yunica asks them. "Animals never did anything wrong!"
Aww, she's still in the "Every animal is the most adorable thing ever," mindset. Cute.
"So you're saying I should beat these guys up for trying to hurt the animals and then trying to hurt you?"
The two men laugh. "You honestly think you can do that? You're just a kid!"
"It's nothing personal, but you two would be better off gone at this rate, so let us take care of that. So just sit back and don't fight it. Nothing you can do about it anyway," Thug 2 says.
!
"Yunica, go get Louise or Tifania. Now."
"B-but-"
"Now!"
Yunica looks briefly startled, but turns and runs off to the orphanage.
"Ah, trying to play the hero?" The first thug asks.
"I suppose we can spend some time with y-"
The second thug doesn't get a chance to finish. I took the initiative and punched him in his face, sending him backwards. The first thug immediately pulls his knife back out and slashes at me. A quick step back sends the knife through nothing but air. I take the opportunity to grab the guy's wrist and apply enough pressure to get him to loose his grip on it. I then have his forehead meet my own to disorient him and I force the knife out of his hand.
I hear a slight sound and turn to see the second thug, having gotten back up, notch an arrow into his bow and aim it at me. He releases the arrow and it goes flying at me. There's a brief sound as the arrow bounces off of the blade of the knife I used to deflect it. The first thug, having recovered, advances and tries to punch me. I respond by stepping back, dodging the blow, then stepping forward and plunging the knife into his side. He cries out in pain and tries to pull the knife out. The archer's weapon may not be suited for close quarters combat, but a weapon's a weapon, making him a higher priority target. Even if the first one will be armed again soon, that wound should slow him down too much to be a threat.
The archer notches another arrow, but before he can fire, I'm already right in front of him. He panics and tries to fire, but I gently push the bow towards a tree, which is then shot with an arrow. I strike the archer in the stomach with my knee, and rip the cheap, wooden bow from his hands. I then use it as a blunt instrument and strike him over the head with enough force that the bow shatters in two. Noticing that he's still conscious, but most likely in no shape to fight, I grab two arrows from his quiver. The first goes directly to his knee, the second to his shoulder. Then I push him down to the ground, where he doesn't get back up. He'll more likely then not live, but he's done for now, I think.
!
There's the sickening sound of a knife piecing through flesh. The first thug looks surprised and scared, and his eyes flitter between looking me in the eye, and looking at my left hand, with the knife through it.
"Wha-"
"Surprised? You're about as stealthy as a medieval knight in full armor. You're faster then one though. I almost didn't have enough time to turn and catch it."
"C-catch? The knife's impaled your hand!"
I then slide my hand backwards to get it off the now blood red knife. I then use that same hand to grab the man's wrist, and direct the knife towards him, until the sharpened edge touches his throat.
"Are you going to kill me?"
"Most likely, but it depends on your responses from here on out. Weren't you two about to kill me and an innocent little girl?"
"I thought we said nothing personal? It's just that you two were annoying us!"
I press the knife against his throat a little more.
"And that's an acceptable excuse? We were annoying you?"
"And what's your excuse for killing me and almost killing my friend?"
"Self defense. Unlike your's, that one holds up as an excuse."
"Does it? Just slit my throat and be done with it," he declares indignantly.
"As you wish. Rest in peace."
"Joshua! Back up!"
I instinctively push the guy to the forward and roll to the side just in time to see a sort of magic blast sweep over the two thugs.
I look in the general direction of the blast of sorts and see Tifa holding a wand pointed at the two thugs.
"Tifa? When'd you get here?"
Before she can answer, another head pops out from behind her.
"Big bro!" Yunica cries as she runs forward and hugs me.
"Big bro?"
Yunica pouts. "Didn't you complain about how Big sis Louise and big sis Tifa were called that, but you were never big bro?"
I vocalized that thought? I never realized. Whoops.
"Well, thanks for listening to me."
Yunica smiles, then screams in horror.
"Ah! What is it? Are we being attacked or something?"
"B-big bro! You're hand's bleeding!" Yunica yells in horror.
"Is it?" I take a look at me left hand, and nearly recoil in terror. "My hand has a hole in it!" Medic! "I don't know whether to think that's terrifying or awesome!"
Tifa's eyes widen when she sees the hole in my hand. "H-hold on!" she cries out. "We need to stop the bleeding! think I have some bandages with me."
One impromptu medical procedure later, my hand was now bleeding significantly less. Tifa seems slightly calmer, but still in a panicked state.
"T-that should hold it, but we should get you to a water mage as soon as possible," Tifa says.
"Um... Yeah, that'd probably be nice. Fix the stab wound and whatnot. What do we do about these nice gentlemen?" I ask, gesturing to the two thugs who're unconscious on the ground.
Tifa thinks. "The memory removal spell I used on them should keep them from remembering anything from before they entered this forrest, so if they wake up, they'll likely go back home after realizing they don't remember anything."
"Right. Now, what about that knife wound the one guy has and the arrows in the other one?"
Tifa seems confused, then she notices the thug's injuries. "Wh-what happened here?"
"Big bro beat them up so they wouldn't hurt me!" Yunica declares.
"What!" Tifa declares shocked.
"Um... Yeah, sure," I just throw out there. "Tifa, how did you heal me and Louise?"
"M-my mother gave me a ring and-"
"Sorry to interrupt, but could you still use that ring?"
Tifa thinks, then her face lights up. "Ye-yes! It should still have enough energy to heal them and you!"
Yay! No more hole in hand! It would have made climbing significantly harder.
*Scene Break*
After the mass healing, which sadly drained the ring of the rest of its magic, Tifa, Yunica and I went back to the orphanage. I'll keep what we talked about to a minimum as much as possible. In a nutshell, Tifa's only half elf, her mother was an elf and her dad was some kind of archduke, or something. Her mother was killed, but she used the memory deleting spell to protect herself. Taking into account the odd effects of her spell and royal lineage (which I think was occasionally mentioned as being a pre requisite of some kind) I deduced that Tifa might be a void mage. She denied it vehemently. After all, how could she, a simple orphanage owner be a legend! I was still able to convince her to go talk to Louise and Derflinger about it.
After we got back, Tifa went to go check on some of the other kids, leaving me with alone with Yunica. An awkward silence formed almost immediately.
"... Thanks," Yunica says, a blush on her face.
"For?"
"For saving me!" she yells at me. "Those two would have killed me!"
"That's a rather dark way of thinking for a kid, isn't it?"
"It's true!" Yunica insists. "I saw them draw their weapons and didn't know what to do. Then you dropped in from nowhere, trying to be all cool, and failing miserably."
"Trying? Failed? Can't I get a little more credit?"
"Nope!" Yunica says with a bright smile.
"Just a little? Please?"
"Nope! Sorry big bro!" Then Yunica's expression becomes much sadder. "S-sorry big bro."
"What's with the change in attitude?"
"Because of me you got really hurt, didn't you? It's my fault you- Wh-what are you doing!" she asks as I start poking her in the cheek.
"What's with all this?" I ask. "I thought you'd have realized I tend to get hurt a lot. It's not your fault!"
"Your hand had a hole in it!" Yunica says. "If you hadn't had to fight them off you wouldn't have been in danger."
"I'm sure one of these days I would have accidentally impaled my hand on something anyway. It was kind of an inevitability, I believe."
"You're just saying that to make me feel better, aren't you?" Yunica asks.
"Maybe, maybe not. Either way, this has been a long day, and I kind of feel like taking a nap. Night Yunica."
"Um... Yunica's kind of a long name, isn't it?" No longer then my name. "You can just call me Yu, or Yuca, if you want."
"Understood Yuca. Coincidentally, I prefer Josh, to Joshua."
"Got it, big bro!"
Not that it matters when that's apparently my new name. Yuca appears to realize something, because she blushes a little.
"Um... I can call you big bro, right?"
"Have I said no to it at any point since you started calling me that?"
Yuca looks confused. "So..."
"That's a yes."
Yuca smiles and throws her arms around me in a hug. "Thanks big bro!"
"It's fine. Anyway, it was fun talking with you, I'll make sure to do it again tomorrow, but I'm going to sleep for now."
"You promise we'll talk tomorrow?" Yuca asks.
"I promise," I say and give an affectionate patting of the head for good measure, causing her to blush.
"See you tomorrow big bro!" Yuca says with a smile before turning and running off.
Well, I better do what I keep saying I'm going to. I just hope Louise isn't in that room. It's going to be hell to explain all that red in my sleeve. Let's just not mention it and hope it doesn't come up. In semi unrelated, I'm not entirely sure what to make of Yuca. I mean, she seams nice, but I don't know what to do about this, I've never had a younger sister before.
*Giggle* Big bro's a liar!
Shut up Joc. Just, shut up.
*Scene Break*
After that, nothing really happened much. Just some stuff that wouldn't be out of place in your average slice of life anime. Well, minus the mage, half-elf and talking sword. Things went on normally. Chores were done, people talked, and trees were climbed. The usual. I probably should mention that since Louise had kind of run out, story time duty was given to me. It went... Better then suspected.
"Sinon decided even if Hecate didn't have it's scope anymore, she still needed to at least try and help Kirito, so she gets ready to take the shot anyway. She does her best to line it up using nothing but her own eyesight, and then she pulls the trigger. Despite her technical handicap, her bullet still manages to hit Death Gun's... Gun, directly in it's weak point, causing it to explode and never be able to be used again."
"Whoa! Sinon's so cool!" the kids cheered out.
Even in worlds where they don't exist, kids love video games. Who would've thought? Louise objected during the first parts of the story, something about how telling kids about a bunch of people like them were trapped in a kill or be killed game could have adverse effects or something, but she still sat in to hear the story. She didn't go very long before she got as into it as the kids did. Had she been raised on Earth, Louise'd probably be huge into video games. I can just feel it.
Speaking of Louise, she did send that letter to the princess at some point. Louise said that if everything goes well, it'd take a few days for the letter to reach the princess, then maybe another week or two for a ship to come and pick us up, assuming she does get to send one. I'm sure we'll be fine.
Also, Tifa did talk to Louise, and Derflinger, which I didn't expect, and they're both convinced Tifa's a void mage. Tifa herself still isn't as sure, but she's willing to believe us which is nice.
I kind of wish more stuff happened so that I could describe it but nothing did. It was just sort of business as usual. It was kind of boring, to be honest.
One evening I went out for some exercise (read: Go climb some more trees because its fun as hell). After a bit of that, Louise showed up.
"Josh! What are you doing out here?" she asked me.
"Climbing trees because its fun," I say, anticipating her next question to have been "Why are you climbing trees?"
"Well stop! What if you fall and severely hurt yourself?" Louise asks. "Get down here this instant!"
"Killjoy," I mutter as I head for ground level. "Louise, if I can't climb trees, what am I supposed to do for exercise?"
"Maybe I can help with that," says mysterious voice from somewhere other then here.
"Yes! A new challenger approaches!" I say while pointing at the woods. "Come and show yourself!"
Then a woman pops into view, visibly confused. Also, it was the woman I saw with Wardes and Fouquet a while back. I'm not surprised, I had a feeling we'd probably bump into each other eventually.
"New challenger?" she asks. "What are you babbling about?"
"Forgive him, he gets like that at times," Louise says.
"Hey. What's... That?" I ask, giving a vague gesture.
"I thought you would have known what a woman is," Louise says dryly.
"No that... Thing on her face."
"What? There's something on my face? Purple lady asks.
Instead of answering, I walk up to her and use my hand to lift up her bangs.
"These things! What the hell is this!"
"Those runes! You're a void familiar like Josh was!" Louise exclaims.
Purple lady slaps my hand away and takes a step back. "Yes! I am Myoznitnirn-
"Is that your name?" I ask.
"What? No, its-"
"Josh, who would be stupid enough to name their daughter Myoznitnirn?" Louise asks me. "I'll admit, there are some pretty stupid names out there, but I doubt anyone's parents are that inherently cruel."
"Myoznitnirn is the name of the familiar class I am!" Myoznitnirn shouts at us. "I'm not telling you my name because I don't want to, nor is there a need for it."
"Well that's stupid. Do you see me going around saying, 'Hi, I'm Gandalfar, nice to meet you!' No, because it's stupid!"
"And inaccurate," Louise points out.
"Anyway," Myoznitnirn tries to continue.
"Hey, do you have a nickname?" I ask. "Myoznitnirn is a little long. Maybe Myoz? How does that work Myoz?"
"Would you just-"
"I don't think Myoz likes it," Louise points out.
"Myoznitnirn, what's your name?"
"Sheffield. No! Wait!"
"Sheffield?" I ask. "That's not a bad name."
"There. She's Sheffield now. It's much better then Myoznitnirn," Louise points out.
"But wait. Sheffield's a void familiar, which means she has a void master, right?" I point out.
Sheffield sighs. "What do you think?"
"Louise, how many void familiars are there?" I ask.
Louise ponders, so Sheffield answers in her stead. "Four total. Gandalfar, master of weapons, Vindalfar, master of beasts, Myoznitnirn, master of magical objects, and no one knows the fourth one except that it exists."
"Thank you," Louise says.
"Don't mention it," Sheffield replies glumly.
"So in that case that's two," (Well one, technically) "Void familiars accounted for, with three masters."
"You know the third void mage?" Sheffield asks, visibly and utterly confused.
"Not important now," I say quickly. "Okay, if there are four familiars, that means there are only four void masters. In order for this story arc to be fair, it'd need to be 2v2. Louise and the other void mage makes one team, and am I correct in assuming that you were sent by your master to dispose of or otherwise exterminate or delimit us in a likely gratuitously violent mannerism unbefitting of one such as yourself?"
Sheffield seems confused. "Um... Yes?"
I nod once. "So far so good for my theory in which case whoever the fourth void mage is, they're likely to either be with you or just plain against us. Putting that aside, would you mind telling us who your master is for future reference?"
"N-no! I'll never tell you about Josep-" She covers her mouth with her hands.
"Joseph? Hm... Joseph, Joseph, Joseph. Louise, according to the legends, are there any prerequisites before one acquires the use of the void capabilities?"
Louise ponders, but this time Sheffield doesn't butt in.
"I believe that really the only requirement is to have some blood of the royal family. The reason I think I have it is because my father was the illegitimate child of one of the dukes," Louise says.
"Okay, so you're technically royalty, Princess Louise."
"Who're you calling Princess!"
"And the other Void mage is in a similar situation if I remember, which means that this Joseph guy is probably also the child of the result of an affair or the straight result of a king and queen judging by the pattern which has a fifty percent success rate-"
"Because 2 out of 4 is a good time to state something's a fact," Louise points out.
"Well, we'll find out eventually because we're sure to encounter him, hell, maybe he's our main antagonist for now. What do you think Sheffield?"
"... Joseph only said to capture you, but I don't think he'd mind if I had my golems rough you up a bit first."
As fast as lightning, Sheffield pulls out some bead looking things from apparently out of her ass (considering I didn't see a single pocket on her) and threw them on the ground between us and her. Then 8 stone golems rise out of the ground. They kind of looked human. I guess? They were golems, did it matter what they looked like?
"Josh, what do we do?" Louise asks.
"You have your wand?" I ask. Louise nodded in reply. "Good. Start casting Dispel to take out the golems and I'll... Do something."
"You don't even have a weapon!"
"Like it'd help much in my current state. Don't worry, I got this," I think, I add silently.
"Yeah, that's good and all, but would you mind dodging to the left?"
What? Who's that?
"Idiot! I said dodge it, Josh!"
Yes Archer! Whatever you say! I then proceeded to step slightly to the left-
*BANG*
And got the pleasure of watching the head of the golem in front of me just sort of explode.
"What-"
Me, Louise and Sheffield are all cut off when another shot rings out, and another golem head explodes.
"-The hell's going on!" I manage to finish the question we were all wondering.
"I'm just going to work on dispel now, if anyone's wondering," Louise says before starting to chant.
Another gunshot blows away another golem and- wait a minute, are they reviving?
"Yes, they are," Sheffield says, apparently being able to read minds. "The question was written all over your face."
"Cheater!" The sniper yells. "Fine. I have other means."
I hear rustling so I look around to try and pinpoint it. Unsuccessfully. The mysterious sniper then proceeds to fall from the tree above us and use me as a landing pad.
"Sorry!" she says as she gets off me.
"S'kay," I mutter into the dirt I'm lying face down in. ... Dirt tastes really bad. I roll over slightly and see the mysterious sniper discard her sniper rifle and pull out two pistols from under her skirt. Hah! I can recognize those guns! M1911 pistols! The gold standard of pistols!
Since I can now get a good look at the back of the girl, I can describe her. To the best of my ability. Well, she had black hair tied in two twin tails and was wearing a black long sleeve shirt with a matching black skirt. I feel a sense of deja vu.
The golems immediately gang up on the girl, but she whirls around and kicks one in the face. Another one tries to come up behind he but she whacks it in the face with one pistol before shooting it point blank in the face with the other one.
It's... Weird. I never thought I'd see gun kata in real life, but it kind of looks like that's what she's doing. There's just as much melee involved as bullet shots. Whenever she runs out of ammo, she just ejects the magazines and takes one off the belt she has hung around her chest.
...
How much ammo did she bring? And why is Louise taking so long? Either way, I wish. This girl. Would stop. Moving. For just a minute. So I could see her face clearly! I'll settle for HA telling me if she's a friend or not. ... And she is! Awesome! Blue auras all around! Except for the golems and Sheffield obviously. They were red.
The pattern continues for, I dunno, a minute? An hour? Time's relative when you're on your back watching someone rack up all the kills by being a complete badass.
Eventually, as it must happen eventually, Louise finishes her spell and releases a huge shockwave of energy that goes through the forest. The golems briefly stiffen, then crumble and dissolve into the dirt that spawned them. Sheffield's nowhere to be seen, so I guess she hauled ass when she realized that this wasn't working.
"Bring more golems next time!" The dual gun wielding badass yells into the forest before turning towards us and smiling.
"Yo! Nice to know you two aren't dead!" Emily tells us.
"Emily?" Louise asks in surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"Technically I never left," Emily says as she puts her pistols back in the holsters under her skirt and goes to retrieve her other gun. "Business just wouldn't stop in Albion, so I volunteered to help uncle Scarron with the temp inn until things settled over. Besides, I can't look for you two if I'm at the academy, can I?" She said with a wink.
"Right, right, now where the hell did those gun skills come from?" I asked.
"And why did you drop in from the sky?" Louise asks.
"For the guns, years of training," she says as she pats her sniper rifle. "A guy showed up at the village once a couple years back, not too long after I wound up there, actually. The guy was dying, so we, meaning me, my brothers and family, took care of him. Once we healed him up, he gave us his guns as gratitude before going off to wander the globe. That's how I got this baby and these babies," she says as she gestures to under her skirt. "As for being in the tree, well how else am I supposed to get into a good sniping spot? You expect me to snipe from ground level?"
"If you were in the trees, then why did I need to move a bit to the right?" I asked.
"Well as you saw, I was pretty much right on top of you all. It can be kind of difficult to snipe directly above or below. For me anyway. So what I did instead was rebound the bullets into their targets. Not as easy as it sounds. Josh, you happened to be standing right where one of the rebounds would have gone, and I imagine you would like to keep your head on your shoulders."
That tends to be a solid idea most of the time.
"Now to ask what's been bugging me, those are weapons from back home," I point out. "How'd you get ammo for them or figure out how to use them?"
"Simple. Practice," Emily says with another smile. "Enough practice, trial and error and you can figure out how to use anything! The bullets were harder. Obviously guns here and guns there use slightly different ammunition, so we learned how to make 'em ourselves! Turns out the materials are cheap. Who knew?"
"Well, since apparently this is the time for an info dump of sorts, Emily!" *SLAP* "Emi! You know things, don't you?" I ask the gun toting maid.
"I like to think so. Why?" she asks with a tilt of her head.
So I explained the situation about the whole "no longer a familiar" thing. Emily thought about it, then told Louise to try the summoning spell. Which she did. Nothing happened.
"Why didn't anything happen?" Louise asks nervously.
"Keep calm and don't panic!" Emily says. "Okay. I have a theory, but I need both of you to close your eyes to make it work."
"... Why?" I ask.
"Because this here gun says so," Emily says with a gesture towards her sniper rifle.
Louise and I both shut out eyes.
"A'ight, let's see. Move like this, position this, move this one here," I hear Emily muttering to herself. "Aaaand, alright! Fixing problem in 3. 2. 1."
Then I felt something push against my lips and opened my eyes in shock. I saw Louise kissing me, looking just as shocked as I felt. The kiss lasted for a few seconds before Louise pulled away and glared at Emily. Louise opens her mouth to yell something, but Emily holds up a hand to cut her off. Incidentally, I felt my hand starting to become hot. I examine it and notice the gandalfar runes successfully carved into my hand again. Yay.
"Thank god it worked," Emily says happily. "Because if it didn't in this situation I'd probably have to kiss Louise! Not that I'd necessarily mind that."
"Wait, wait, back up, what just happened?" I ask.
"Well, Louise summoned her familiar, you, but you were standing next to her so there was no need for a portal of any kind," Emily explains. "You just needed to finish the contract by making out."
"You couldn't have told us?" Louise asks angrily. "You had to force us into a surprise kiss?"
"It was the quickest way," Emily explains. "Otherwise you two would have been all embarrassed and all 'I can't do that in front of Emi! We have to wait until we're alone for snuggling!"
Emily then narrowly dodged Louise's fist that was aimed for her face.
"Wh-wh-who's snuggling!" Louise yells, as red as a tomato.
I ignore the imminent cat fight (just barely succeeding in my willpower saving throw) and pick up Emily's sniper rifle which she put on the floor, just to make sure we haven't just deluded ourselves into thinking the contract worked. I pick up the gun, my runes light up, and information fills my brain.
"PGM Hecate II, anti material rifle," I mutter. "Adjustable front bipod and rear monopod for increased accuracy. Used mostly for demolition against long range targets. 30.42 pounds and 54.3 inches long with the stock on."
"Show off!" Emily yells at me while dodging more of Louise's punches.
"In any case," I say as I sling the gun over my shoulder. "I think we're about done here. Let's go before Fouquet takes Emily up on her offer and comes back with more golems."
*Author's Notes*
Uncreative: ... Writing's hard.
Josh: How so?
Uncreative: It's been, what, four or five months? In that time I've gotten a total of one and a half chapters done. This, and part of the next. To be fair, I've also been working on a few other stories in that time, but the point stands. I know I said I wasn't going to post anything until all of part two was done-
Josh: You did?
Uncreative: But at the rate It'll be a few years. Disregarding how much I suck at doing this, moving on! As stated, it's been a few months so reintroductions may be necessary! Hello, I'm the Uncreative, I'm the author of this work of fiction.
Josh: Joshua Springfield, main POV.
Uncreative: ...
Josh: ... Where'd she go?
Uncreative: Ariana left. Something about hot spring reservations with a friend.
Josh: Ah. That makes things simpler. Okay, anything especially noteworthy about this chapter?
Uncreative: A few things. First: As you may know, I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to this and just sort of make things up as I go along. With this chapter, I knew what I want to start with, and I knew what I wanted to end with, but I didn't know how to fill in the blank.
Josh: How do we go from Louise foreshadowy dream sequence to Emily against Sheffield?
Uncreative: I have some things to say about that dream, but we'll get to that. Since I didn't know how to fill in that black, I came up with Yunica. I mean, why not? It's an orphanage, of course there are kids there! Let's give one a name and some interactions! Quality wise did it work? Eeeeh, probably not.
Josh: I didn't mind. I liked hanging out with her.
Uncreative: Right. Second, there used to be a dream sequence here!
Josh: Yeah, what happened to that?
Uncreative: That plot thread got snipped, so keeping that sequnce would have created some question that would never be answered, so the sequence got snipped.
Josh: Neat. Anything else you wish to enlighten us with?
Uncreative: Thirdly, I figured I'd mention that voice that Josh hears. You know, the one calls itself Joc, short for Jocelyn?
Josh: Oh yeah. I almost forgot about that. I didn't even know I replied to her that time.
Uncreative: It happens. Anyway, originally there was a few more occasions where she piped up, but you never responded to any of them, so I cut them out. I almost cut out the last one too, thus removing her existence from this story entirely, but I kind of liked what I could do with it so I left it in.
Josh: I already know, but for the sake of those who don't, I'll ask. Who is she?
Uncreative: She's completely unrelated to this story, that's what!
Josh: And there you go. If she's unrelated, why keep her in at all?
Uncreative: Like I mentioned, I did contemplate cutting her out, but I liked it too much. Ah well. Okay, finally, the fight scene with the nameless thugs was originally quite a bit different.
Josh: How so?
Uncreative: Originally, Yunica didn't run off, Tifa came on her own, you didn't flip out, nobody got stabbed, no bows were broken, and you even got to use that bow as it was intended, and I at one point considered letting you keep it.
Josh: Really? That's definitely a bit different.
Uncreative: Yeah. It's been a bit so I can't remember exactly why I changed it, but I like this version better.
Josh: I don't. My hand gets stabbed.
Uncreative: I think that's about it. See you whenever I finish the next chapter. We're done here.
Josh: See you around.