Author note: happy new year and all that jazz, while everyone partied, I wrote the next chapter, so enjoy!
"You are healthy enough to speak. You want to ask me something, yes?"
Louise slowly opened her eyes to find herself staring up at the familiar sight of the ceiling of her room in Yukari's home, and then slowly turned her head to the side to find Yukari kneeling beside her futon with a very small smile edging off the corner of her lips. "H- How long have I been out for?" Louise asked carefully, each word being a strain to even say.
"Three days," Yukari replied quickly. "I took the liberty of writing a short quick letter to your mother, stating you were fine and would be visiting when you could."
"I see. T- Thank you." Louise said with a hoarse cough as she turned her head so she was staring back up at the ceiling. Many minutes passed with nothing said and Yukari was preparing to leave, when Louise spoke up, uttering words Yukari did not quit expect to hear so soon. "I need to get stronger."
"You are already very proficient with a blade, Louise, and your skill with oblivion magic is impressive as well when you consider that some magicians in history tried for decades to use it without any success."
"I know that, and, and I know that oblivion magic is extremely hard for humans to use. But, my father almost beat me through sheer rage powered strength. He broke every rule of Halkeginian magic when I fought him, but I still couldn't beat him. Even using just one oblivion spell left me almost too exhausted to fight."
"Yes, but you knew it could have. I fail to see-," Yukari began to say, before Louise interrupted her and continued her words.
"If what you said is true, then whatever is coming to Halkeginia is too powerful for any one at this point. I – I can't just let something like that destroy my family. I have to get stronger so I can stop it, so I can stop anything I need to!" Louise affirmed strongly, her throat now moist enough that her words did not cause her as much pain.
Yukari let out a sigh as she stood up and walked to the door, turning her head to Louise before she opened the door. "I can see that you have made another choice. Just be sure it is the right one. You are not well yet so go back to sleep. It will be a few days until you can move on your own, I'll ask Kusae to bring you some food later."
"Okay. Thank you, Yukari-sama." Louise said as she closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep.
Waiting a moment Yukari turned and slid the door open, stepping out and closing it behind her. She turned around to find Marisa and Youmu standing behind her, their faces stoic, but with traces of worry in the. "Louise is recovering fine, you don't need to worry."
Youmu shook her head, causing her perfectly cut hair to flail around slightly. "It is not that."
Yukari raised a brow as Marisa stepped forward and spoke up. "We heard the conversation you just had, and we want to help Louise, but more than that, we want to know what that strange feeling was as we left Halkeginia. That magic was unlike any I had felt before, and I swear I heard words along with it. What was that, and why is it so dangerous.
Yukari let out a heavy sigh and looked at Marisa and Youmu, her face so serious it caused both of them to freeze. "It was powerful beyond what most people could comprehend, but aside from that, I truly do not know what it is at this time. I only know that it felt like it had ill will towards all things, living and dead." Yukari explained, her words chilling the two girls to the bone.
"B-but if even you don't know what it was then . . . " Youmu stated, not sure how to continue her own sentence, the shock of what Yukari had told them making her very worried.
"I know. And I have asked Ran to look into some things for me. Until she returns nothing can move forward. We can only wait, and ready ourselves." Yukari stated as she turned and walked away from the two girls.
"It sounds like you want to defeat whatever it is too!" Marisa called out with a snicker just as Yukari opened the door to her own room further down the hall.
Turning her head to them Yukari smiled. "Of course I want to find out more about it, its strength may surpass my own, so I have to rectify that. . . . May I request something of the two of you?"
Both girls nodded, though seemed surprised that Yukari was actually asking them.
"Help Louise get better and improve herself by any means you think she can take. I shall be doing so as well, but I must do something else first."
"We would have without you asking." Marisa said proudly as Yukari smiled and walked into her room, closing the door behind her.
Being completely silent Yukari flitted across her room to its far wall and opened a Sukima, stepping into it immediately. Stepping out the other side of the Sukima she found herself in a small stone room with a single bed, a small bedside table beside it with a barely lit oil lamp upon it. On the bed was the well-built form of a woman, no older than her thirties in age. Her blonde hair was rough and tangled from growth, but Yukari could tell it had been taken care of normally. The woman's body was completely still and her breathing was shallow. With a sigh Yukari stepped closer to the woman and pressed her palm onto the woman's chest, her palm and entire arm sinking into the woman's body like it was not even there. A moment later Yukari pulled her arm back out and shook her fingers, opening a Sukima up again behind herself.
"I am sorry that my familiar's familiar was a little rough with you, and I had been planning to heal you in the first place," Yukari said more to herself than to the sleeping woman, "but why do I get a nagging feeling that your role will be important? I guess we shall see how fate plays its hand over you, Agnès Chevalier de Milan."
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"What do you mean you can't find her?" Vittorio Serevare demanded at the top of his lungs, causing his familiar, a young man named Julio Chesaré, to cringe slightly.
"I, I am sorry my lord, but the Void mage my Hawk was following has completely disappeared, and none of our people have been able to find even a trace of her or the children she had following her. I am so very sorry."
Vittorio sighed and looked to Julio, staring right into his bicolored eyes. "When did she disappear? Do we have any idea where she disappeared to or escaped to? Finding her is essential!"
"I know this, but we have found no trace of her, or those she travelled with. It's as if they disappeared into thin air.
"Brimir's breath, we-." Vittorio suddenly stopped and grabbed the sides of his head with both hands.
A usurper who cowered behind tricks and deceit, defying us and our power, denying us our right!
"Aaarggh, get out of my head, demon!" Vittorio screamed, causing Julio to look at him in shock, completely unsure how to react.
Demon? What a funny idea. Thou hast no conception of what it is beyond what your usurper claims. Does the head of land concede to a dead man?
"I said be gone, you Brimir be dammed voice!" Vittorio screamed once more as the veins on his head began to pulse and strain.
Very well, but we have already returned, and our voices are eternal, we shall never leave for good. Not ever again!
Very slowly Vittorio's breathing steadied, and a moment later he removed his hands from his head, showing small bleeding nail marks on it. "I- I'm sorry you had to see that, Julio."
"W-was that the attacks I heard the servants talk of?" Julio asked, seriously worried about what had just occurred.
Vittorio nodded. "They started two days ago after the battle in Tristania ended. More specifically they started after that faint pulse of magic that only a scant few seemed to feel had dissipated.
"Do you think it's related?" Julio asked, taking the supposed energy pulse as truth, even though he had not felt a thing at the time of its supposed happening.
"I'm sure of it, but I'm not sure how. At first I thought I was cursed or possessed, but both proved untrue when I used the most powerful healing and exorcising spells on myself. I don't know what the voice is, but it speaks heresies and defamations to me on a nearly constant basis. Its voice is like steel striking glass.
"But what is it? I didn't hear anything, but perhaps I can look into it for you."
"No one else seems to hear it. It appears to wish to drive me alone insane, but I will not break to such a simple thing. I am a void mage of Brimir, and His will shall be done. But let us speak of other things, can you please tell me of-," Vittorio went on speaking with Julio about things less serious to lessen the tense atmosphere, not realizing the voice he was hearing was far worse than he could realize.
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Only a handful of our speaker lines still exist.
Yes, three, if the world is read correctly.
What must be done then?
We break them out!
The old beasts, demons, and monsters imprisoned by the usurper?
The very same; we break them out and let them wreak havoc.
While we regain our true strength?
Yes, I agree, let us do this.
The old demons and monsters of the world shall show our children what they have forgotten.
Only through suffering can they remember why we mattered.
Only by despair and loss can they regain our gifts.
Only by fear and terror can they remember our names.
Then let us release the past.
To recover our future!