Grimoire Blastia

Rated: T for swearing, violence, ETC.

BB Pairings: Ragna/Noel

ToV Pairings: Yuri/Rita and Estelle/Flynn

Disclaimer: Not mine. Neither of the series. The story idea was developed between myself and someone else on deviant art.

Warning: Ragna is really a grumpy person. Combine that with the ability to cuss…and you get a grand old mess.

AN: Can you catch the reference to the Bandai Namco game hidden in this chapter? Ohohohoho...Hint: They're only described, not named.

Chapter 10

Guild Capital

Your silence will not protect you.

― Audre Lorde

"Well…" Yuri gave Estelle a tiny grin. "Take care on your way back to the capital."

It was the morning after the fiasco with the blastia. Both Noel and Rita were up and moving around perfectly fine. Now, the party was seeing Estelle off, as the pinkette was about to leave them for good, to return to Zaphias.

Yuri gave the princess a stern look. "Do you have everything? Wouldn't want to have to come back later." She nodded. "…Okay, let's go find Flynn. I'll take you that far."

Karol was straggling behind, a downtrodden look on his face. To Ragna's immense relief, Noel moved back to talk with him. It was soon made clear. "Guys…If we're going to find Blood Alliance, we're going to have to…go to Dahngerst." He wilted at the thought. "Man, if I go back there now, they'll all just laugh at me..."

"Dahngerst…" Noel mumbled. "Well, I don't care. I won't laugh at you, Karol." The young boy smiled weakly at her.

"Hey…if that's the guild capital, it would be a great place to get information about creating a guild," Yuri said in an off-hand manner.

Rita frowned. "Guild..?"

Karol nodded once. "Yeah, I asked Yuri if he wanted to start a guild with me and well…" There were murmurs of understanding before the party moved out from in front of the Inn. They needed to find Flynn.

Unfortunately, it seems Flynn was long gone. "Where the hell did he go?" Ragna grumbled, irritation evident on his face.

Ruffling her bangs, Rita seemed oddly delighted. "Doesn't look like that Flynn character is around here anymore."

"Does that mean you're staying with us for now?" Karol asked, a curious look on his face.

"Well, I..." Estelle clasped her hands in thought. "Would that be all right?"

Yuri seemed about to disagree but was interrupted by Commandant Alexei. "You cannot simply do as you wish. Your highness must return to the capital. Flynn has already set out to tend to other business. Now then." The silver haired man turned to Rita. The mage gave him a wary look. "Rita Mordio, we would like you to investigate yesterday's blastia malfunction."

The female brunette scoffed. "That's pointless. I already looked at him this morning and couldn't figue anything out."

Alexei shook his head. "No, we would ask that you go to the forest of Keiv Moc."

"The hell does Keiv Moc have anything to do this?" Ragna snapped. Noel nodded in agreement, though she sent the silverette a scolding look for his wording.

Karol glanced at the older man. "The plants affected by the disaster here look just like the ones in that forest. That's probably why." Noel 'Oooh'ed in understanding and Ragna shrugged, somewhat uncaring of that fact.

The Commandant ignored the side conversation. "We have reports of tree mutations and of monsters increasing in both number and aggressiveness. Messengers have gone to the capital, but much time will be wasted finding a gifted mage." Rita sighed and merely denied any ability regarding the plants. Alexei didn't buy it. "Consider their connection to the aer. I imagine that is within your league."

"Besides." Rita suddenly announced, ignoring him. "If…Estelle is going back to the capital, it would be best if I went with her."

"What…does that mean?" Estelle asked, looking confused.

On the other hand, Alexei was giving the mage a stern look. "You are a researcher in an imperial blastia laboratory. You must undertake the tasks assigned to you."

Estelle clasped her hands with a frown. "Um... Then there should be no problem if I accompany her to the forest, right?"

Alexei sighed softly. "Princess, please do not make suggestions that are clearly out of the question."

"If this has something to do with Aer, sir, wouldn't it be helpful to have Estelle and her healing artes around?" Noel asked weakly, trying to look like she wasn't trying to boss the man around.

"Even so…" Alexei sighed. He was about to deny the blond request when, to Ragna's disgust, Hazama showed up and signaled to the silver haired knight. The commandant leaned down and the green haired snake whispered something into his ear and the man nodded one. "On a second thought." He addressed Noel. "Perhaps it would be best if she went with you. My only condition is that these four come with, Princess, Rita Mordio."

Yuri shrugged, Karol nodded his agreement, Noel smiled gently, and Ragna? Ragan grumbled a grudging agreement: It wasn't like he wouldn't protect the two girls.

Alexei turned away as the Kritiyan woman from before appeared. "Flynn left you a message." The commandant told Yuri. "'Take care of Her Highness.'" The dark haired swordsman gave Alexei a somewhat wary look before nodding.

Karol cheered. "All right then, it's the forest of Keiv Moc by way of Dahngrest!"

"Hey, Estelle?"

"Yes, Noel?"

"What were you, Rita, and Yuri talking about? All I heard before the Dragon Rider showed up was something about your blastia and healing artes…"

"E-eh?" Flustered. "U-um well…"

"…Oh! I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?"

"No…it's fine…Um, so are you and Ragna going to join Karol's guild…?"

Hesitant. "…Maybe. I'm not sure yet."

"Oh…"

"This!" Karol cried in very proud voice. "Is Dahngerst, my home town!"

Ragna whistled. "Pretty big."

"Yeah!" Noel clapped. "It's a lot bigger then Aspio or the other towns we've been to!"

Karol nodded knowingly. "Dahngerst is the second largest city in the world. The first one? That's the imperial capital!"

"Impressive," Yuri said, ruffling the hammer wielder's hair. Ignoring his yells of 'stop that!', the swordsman stepped forward. "…Of course, I'd thought it would be more dark and dank, you know? Like a den of villains."

"Yuri!" Estelle scolded. "It's just the bad reputation of the Blood Alliance is to blame for that, I'm sure of it."

The young brunette sniffed lightly. "Yeah. Jeez, Yuri. You make it sound like I'm a villain."

Rita snorted. "If you're a villain, then what does that make Yuri?"

"Ouch!" Yuri gasped. "How cruel. I would of course be the dashing hero." He starts laughing at the deadpan look that he received from the irritated Rita. "Anyway, how should we go about tracking down Barbos?"

"Welll…" Karol mumbled. "My best bet would be to go to the Union and check in."

Noel tipped her head to the side. "'Union'?"

"'A guild collective run by the five so-called 'master guilds'," Estelle said, "Right, Karol?"

The boy nodded. "Yeah. The Union also serves as the city's government."

Ragna frowned. "Isn't the Blood Alliance one of the Five Master Guilds?"

Yuri let out a sight. "Which means if we try and take him out, the Union will probably be on us too." Karol bit his lip. "…What's wrong, Karol?"

"...We won't know the answer to that until we ask the Don." The brunette mumbled.

"Don?" Noel asked, looking confused.

Rita sighed. "Don Whitehorse. He's the head of Altosk, one of the five guilds in the Union." The blond let out a soft 'Oh' of understanding.

"Well then, we'll just have to go and see him," Yuri said.

"Hey wait, he's not the kind of person you can just meet... I don't really know if...!" Karol mumble-cried, startled by the request. Both Noel and Estelle gave him a 'kicked puppy' look and the brunette wilted before their combined power. "…Union Headquarters is in the north part of town."

The streets were teeming with people. Every now and then, the party would come across a stall selling food and water. "…Is this many people normal?" Noel finally asked as they passed a stall with a shooting game, where a silver haired man was handing a large plush bird to a young blond girl in green.

Karol glanced at said stalls. "It's the Fall Festival—It starts in a couple of days so some people always set up stalls early. It's normal, don't worry!"

Reassured, the party kept moving down the cobblestone street. Every so often, people passing them will give the young hammer wielding brunette mocking looks: Ragna and Yuri glared back at them in response.

It was half way to their destination that Karol stopped. "Hey, what're you doing?" Rita snapped, being one of only two not to have noticed the looks he had been given along the way there.

He winced slightly. "What? Uh, n-nothing. I'm not doing anything!" Unfortunately, his shout garnered the attention of a pair of armored men nearby. The two shared dark smirks before stepping over to the group.

"Well, well! If it ain't little Karol!" The tall and leaner of the two guffawed. "Why are you coming back here, you little failure?" Noel twitched slightly at the title.

"I-I…"Karol trailed off as the stockier and shorter of the two man barked a laugh.

"Yeah, I don't see Nan." They could see a smirk barely hidden by the shadows of the helmet he wore. "She already ditch you? Ah hah hah hah!"

Karol leaned back, his eyes closed. Anyone could tell that the brunette was in a lot of emotional turmoil." N-no way! She wouldn't stop nagging so I took off!"

The two men continued to laugh, but that was enough. Noel snapped. "Stop that! Karol is a far better person then either of you two could ever be!" The blond's hands were curled into tight fists and Ragna's own hand was drifting close to her shoulder.

"So are you the latest guild to take him in?" The taller man laughed. "Don't delude yourself! This guy is a definite loser."

The stocky man snickered. "All this kid can brag about is the number of guilds he's joined! Oh, right, that's a bad thing."

Yuri gave them a friendly smile. "So, are these your friends, Karol? ...You could do way better then these losers."

"Yeah." Ragna smirked as the two began to splutter. "I'd say this guys are rate A slackers."

"Why you…!"

Estelle glared. "How undignified!"

The short man growled at her to shut up, but Rita spoke over him in a very loud voice. "You sure have a way of saying things. I mean, you're right, but..." She shrugged.

The men look about ready to attack the group, which would have ended badly for them, but a set of bells interrupted whatever bull crap was going to come out of their mouths next. The two men seemed to know what was going on, judging by the fact that they ran off, but the party was immensely confused. What was going on?

"Alarm…" Karol mumbled. "The monsters are here."

"M-M-Monsters?" Noel gasped, looking startled.

The pinkette healer clasped her hands behind her back. "So this shaking…is caused by the monsters?"

Ragna narrowed his eyes. "That's odd. Halure, I can understand them attacking, being such a small town and all, but Dahngerst with how damn big it is?"

Yuri nodded along slowly. "If that shaking is caused by monsters, they've brought quite an army."

"Yeah, but don't worry. Even if there have been a lot of monsters around here lately..." Karol reaaused the party. "Our barrier is strong and has never been broken before and the guilds take care of the monsters outside the barrier..."

Rita glanced up. "Well, the Union better scratch that off their bragging list, because the barrier is crashing."

"W-what?!" Karol looked up, followed by the rest of the group. Above, the blue rings that signified a barrier were beginning to disappear. "Crap!"

Estelle gasped. "The barrier...disappeared...?"

"Oh no…" Noel whispered. "The monsters will get in!"

"Calm down!" Ragna snapped. "There are plenty of guilds here that should have some about of fighting ability!"

Yuri nodded once. "True, but why don't we provide some back up for them, hm?" The party hesitantly agreed before setting out back the way they came.

Once they arrived Noel let out a gasp of shock. There were a loud of monster running about and tearing up the stalls for the Fall Festival. Thankfully, the stall owners weren't there. "This is crazy. Where are all these monsters coming from?" Yuri mumbled.

"This isn't right…!" Karol mumbled, confusion lacing his words. Ragna couldn't help but agree, there was something very off with both the situation and the monsters.

Estelle seemed to agree with him on the monsters. "Doesn't something seem different about the monsters as well?" Right after she said this, Rita hissed a warning as the monsters nearest them leapt forward to attack.

They were a pair of salamanders that were intent on deadly harm upon the party. Unfortunately for the monsters, they were quickly slashed to bits and taken care of. The group repeated this process several times when some of the still evacuating citizens were about to be killed. Yuri hurried over to help the woman but was nearly killed himself by the monster…if Ragna hadn't barreled in and cut the monster straight in half.

"Idiot!" The silverette snapped. "Don't go running off without someone on your back!" Yuri gave him a thankful grin before shooing the woman after the other citizens.

However, just as Yuri and Ragna moved to back up their group, an older man wielding a long sword attacked from above. "Don Whitehorse…" Karol breathed, surprised at the man's appearance. Behind Whitehorse trailed a group that was clearly his guild. The Don then orderd his men to begin their defense of the town.

Estelle was healing stragglers from the fleeing citizens and was the first to notice the blond knight that came running past. "Flynn!" The Captain was offering his aid to the Union Leader, but Whitehorse rejected the offer.

"OI, Whitehorse!" Rita roared. The man jerked his head back towards her. "Look, if we don't get the barrier back up, people will die no matter how strong you are! So let me go check it!" The Don seemed about ready to argue, but seemed to give in—After all, they didn't have any blastia researchers currently available to solve the problem.

While Noel was hesitant to leave the guilds to the fight alone, Ragan managed to convince her in very few words that they should get moving. After all, they'd have less to fight if they brought the barrier back up.

Once they got to the center of town, they saw the blastia. Rita frowned as she tapped away at the magic circles on it. "It's…been deactivated from the inside of the city!" She was furious: That fact meant someone from inside Dahngerst had deactivated the barrier…on purpose.

Cursing, Ragna moved over. "Can you reactivate the damn guy?" She shot him a disapproving look as if to say 'Of course I can!' Unfortunately, she didn't get a chance to say a thing as just as she was going to say something to the silverette, a long silver katana flashed down between them.

The two were both fast enough to dodge the attack, and so weren't even touched by it. Noel gasped at the owner of the blade. "Y-you? B-but…how? You weren't even there!"

"Hmph." Hakumen, one of the Six Heroes of their original world, scoffed. "So I have finally found you, Dark One." Ragna's eye twitched: He was still calling him that? "Today will be your end."

"Do you two know this guy?!" Yuri yelled at the two off-worlders as the party scattered from the long reach of Hakumen's blade.

"You could say that!" Ragna yelled back. "He mostly wants me dead for some reason or another—He was never very specific as to why!"

Rita dodged an attempt to behead her. "Dear Vesperia, you're just as bad as Yuri when it comes to people who're after you!" The silverette made a face at her.

Hakumen scoffed. "Stop playing around, Dark One! Or, else all of you shall die!" The long spiel about being 'The White Void' fell out of his mouth and Ragna resisted his urge to face-palm: Rita could set off two spells during that long speech, Estelle and Yuri could have stabbed him through, and Karol could have finished him off.

Idiot…

Though, he couldn't deny that the samurai was skilled—seeing as he nearly lost his head just now. When he dodged under the blade, Ragna didn't even see Hakumen's foot slam into his chest, which sent the red clad swordsman into a nearby brick wall.

Hakumen snapped over and Ragna, almost against his will, shut his eyes tightly, ready for the end.

...

Huh?

"I'm afraid I cannot allow you to do that." Came a man's voice. Ragna's eyes opened and he jerked his head up to see a cloaked man. His face was covered by a steel mask and a single steel spike went straight through his head and could be seen poking out the back of it. One of his hands was raised to catch Hakumen's blade between two fingers. "For you see, my master needs him, and the girl, alive."

The Hero growled. "What insanity are you spouting? That man…He needs to die!" Hakumen was furious, and Ragna knew exactly why: This man was radiating the same type of loyalty that Tager showed to Kokonoe and everyone who had met the hero knew that he despised the pink beastkin.

Well, that, and he stopped him from killing Ragna.

"Ragna!" Noel called out from behind the two, Bolverk raised to shoot. It was a straight up stand-off, until Hakumen pulled his blade back, glared at the man (or so Ragna thought), and left the party without a backward glance.

When the man who had saved him was about to leave, Ragna forced himself to his feet. "Wait just one damn moment!" He growled at the unknown. "Who the hell are you and why the hell did you save me?"

The man paused. "…You may call me The Chronicler. And as for why I saved you, my master wishes for you to continue breathing. Stopping Hakumen from cleaving your head in two does follow along that goal." The Chronicler, if that was even his name, walked away and vanished down the nearby alleyway.

Before Ragna could play catch up, Flynn appeared. "Is everything alright?" The blond Knight questioned, his concerned eyes on Estelle.

"We're fine." Rita snapped from by the blastia. She was once again tapping away at the magic circles. "Just got attacked by a silver psycho intent on bludgeoning Ragna and Noel."

"…Ha?" Flynn glanced at her weirdly. "Am I supposed to take that literally or…"

"She's serious." Yuri shrugged. "That guy really didn't like them…Or more to the point, didn't like Ragna. What was that crap about 'Dark One' anyway?"

Ragna shrugged, wincing slightly as it stretched a wound on his shoulder. "Hell if I know. Bastard has been trying to kill me since we first met."

"Sounds like you and Zagi, Yuri." Karol said jokingly while Repede let out what had to be the dog version of a laugh.

The man rolled his eyes before turning back to Flynn. "So, didn't listen to the Don, huh?"

Flynn's cheeks reddened slightly. "I'm just doing what I can to help. How's the repair of the barrier blastia going?"

Yuri tapped a finger on his chin. "Well, that'll depend on our genius mage, here." He turned to Rita. "So, what's the diagnosis, doc?"

"I'm not a doctor," Rita said, shooting him a dark look, "But…well...The core is still there. They just fiddled with your formula a bit and stopped it, didn't they? What the...? This is...an amplifier?! And this formula again... The same as they were using back on Ehmead Hill..."

Noel was busily patching up her arm when her head snapped up. "I just remembered!" The blond cried. "I thought it was odd that the barrier disappearing and the attack happening at the same time. I don't think that's a coincidence."

"…Probably not…" Flynn conceded.

"So does your appearance here mean this is tied up with all of the empire's problems?" Yuri gave his knight friend a somewhat wary look.

Flynn furrowed his brow. "I don't know." He admitted. "That's why I came here to check things out."

"...That goes there, and this goes...here!" Rita clapped he hands. "Aha!" The blue magic circles that consisted of the only visual form of the barrier popped up above their heads.

Estelle clapped her hands gleefully. "That's our Rita!"

Ragna smirked. "Nice going, Brat." Rita puffed out her cheeks and shot the silverette a dirty look for the 'brat' title.

The blond Knight let out a soft sigh. "All right, time to clean up the monsters outside the barrier! The guilds won't be able to complain if we fight monsters outside the city." Flynn led the way back to the entrance of the city, waving goodbye to them over his shoulder.

"Time to go check out the Union, right?" Yuri smirked before they too left the barrier blastia behind.

"Man, Hakumen is freaking persistent. He even chases me to another world just so he can kill me…"

Sigh. "Well, it could be worse!"

"How?"

"…Um…Tsubaki and Jin could be here…?"

"Oh, great, my psycho little brother and brainwashed girl. And with my luck, they would be…"

"R-Ragna!"

"Who are you all?"

The speaker was a young ginger haired man wearing a full suit of armor. It bared the crest of the Union and he stood in front of the Union building, which could only mean he was a guard.

Yuri placed a hand on his hip, trying to look relaxed (and succeeding). "We need to talk to the Don about something. Help us out, could you?"

"It's a matter that concerns the five master guilds," Karol said.

"I haven't seen you around here recently. What guild do you belong to?" When Yuri denied beign connected to any guild, the guard gave them a cautious look. "…Unfortunately, the Don has left town in pursuit of those monsters."

Ragna grumbled. "Well, isn't that just our luck? Damn…this just had to happen right now…"

Yuri crossed his arms. "I see…thank you for letting us know. Come on, guys." He gestured to the party and they left the guard behind. Once away, he sighed lightly. "Ah, well. Wanna go look for information in town?"

"We're not going to go and help the Don?" Karol asked, looking surprised.

"Do we know where the nests are?" Noel asked back, slightly upset she couldn't do much to help out.

Karol winced. "Good point…"

Rita rolled her eyes. "Since it seems like you won't be making progress anytime soon, I'm going to go check out Keiv Moc." Whe Karol glared at her, she snapped back; "I just want to get it out of the way as soon as possible."

"Then does that mean Estelle's going along with you?" Karol gave in.

"Yes." Estelle confirmed. "I told Alexei I was going to go, after all... Don't worry. We'll be fine between the two of us."

"Yeah…how about 'no'?" Ragna drawled and Yuri echoed him. Estelle seemed rather surprised by this. The silverette crossed his arms. "Do you really think we're going to let you go out into a forest that is probably filled with monsters like the ones that attacked the city?"

Karol glanced at the dark swordsman. "Are you really going too, Yuri?"

He laughed slightly. "I did promise Flynn I'd protect Estelle. And, well, we don't really have any good leads around town that we're following, anyway."

"Then it's decided! Let's go to the forest of Keiv Moc!" Estelle beamed at the party.

Chapter 10

Guild Capital

END

NOL Profiling

Hakumen

One of the Six Heroes. This samurai is a deadly warrior with even deadlier precision. The only person currently on record to survive his onslaught is RAGNA THE BLOODEDGE.