Ch. 34 Seiryu (aka Azureflame) The knights of Alkavana are from Atelier Iris 1, of course.
As of this point I have absolutely no advance chapters written, fourteen thousand to go on NaNo, and three days after NaNo ends to get the next chapter done. Yeesh.
At the head of the group was Iris, except when Nell's excited orbit moved her in front of her. She was trying to strike a balance between hurrying and reassuring Nell, who was practically bouncing, wanting to get caught up and show how happy she was that Iris was back. Well, not back, not yet, and Iris didn't know how she was going to tell Nell, tell either of them, that she needed to stay here until she graduated. Well, she could use the power of Uroboros to go home on breaks, but even then she would need to study and work on projects instead of going on Guild quests all the time.
Maybe if they could rescue Yula Nell would be too happy to have her heart broken by that disappointment?
Flay would have been at the front, except he and Tony had started fighting again. Who had started it was immaterial: they were both idiots. They had this endless cycle of provocation and challenge that was like the chicken and the egg only with idiot teenage boys. Renee knew better than to blame it on the infamous Norse redhead temper, she had Viking blood herself and they didn't see her acting like this, much less like the usual blonde French noblewoman.
They were sparring more than seriously trying to kill each other, really. A dead enemy wouldn't know that they were beaten, and this was about showing off and making the other acknowledge that they were beaten, not actual blood. She'd seen idiots like this at dozens of tourneys.
That little girl… right, her name was Anna, in Flay's workshop, had asked about Renee's marriage prospects once. Was it hard for women who had trained to the sword to get married here, too?
The idea of noblemen not liking warrior woman was just weird, really. Everyone knew that a nobleman's wife had to be able to defend the property while her husband was away, and that meant the ability to manage an armed force. Of course, most of that was watching the food supply, making sure the walls were in good repair and so on, but it always helped to be able to keep the troops in line and oversee their training.
Not to mention that young teenage boys liked to show off. That was what tourneys were about (well, that and the more serious aspect of displaying why people shouldn't mess with you). A typical lady fair might think it was quite nice if you won carrying her favor, but there was a difference between her thinking that you looked good because you hadn't looked bad and winning the acknowledgement of someone who knew what all the maneuvers were called, how difficult they were to pull off, and could tell what your actual skill level was. They wanted someone who could talk swords instead of needles.
A wimp thinking that you were strong didn't mean anything. The acknowledgement of someone strong?
Renee had told Anna that she should learn how to ride a horse and come out here during tournament season if her family had trouble finding her a husband, before she figured out that Anna had really been asking if Renee was engaged (which she was, not that it was any of her business) and if she was interested in Flay. Which she wasn't.
Flay had no true heroic qualities. It was all about him and his ego, not helping the helpless. This fight was a case in point: he was picking a fight with Tony to pick on him and look good in front of her. He might not be truly evil, but he was far, far too selfish. Not to mention an idiot. If defeating Tony would win her heart, it would have happened by now, and picking on someone under her protection was not going to endear him to her. She would have challenged him herself and fought with her full power in order to teach him a lesson, but he would have liked that.
Tony, on the other hand, needed to learn some self control and stop letting himself be provoked so easily, but whatever. She'd just remind him of that later. Again. He might be a commoner, but if he couldn't deal with people provoking him she would never be able to present him at court even when he did get a mana and become a notable alchemist. He'd get eaten alive and that would, like, totally defeat the purpose.
She was hanging back at the rear of the group so that she could keep an eye on everything, especially the monsters that thronged around them. She'd walked through monsters before, with a treasure cape, when she didn't want to be bothered with picking on such weak opponents (it was really beneath her to kill anything that could be defeated with a single sword slash and was no threat: hardly chivalric behavior), but despite Iris' promise that this wouldn't just wear off, they still bore watching.
She would have preferred it if Edge had stuck near Iris instead of having the same idea of playing rearguard. It meant she couldn't study him without turning her head to the side and being obvious about it.
She already had a fairly good idea of how he ticked, though. Obviously she'd had to make her feelings on the subject of him attacking Tony (even if he had meant to attack Crowley and Tony had just gotten in the way) clear.
Those feelings consisted of 'you take his head off, I take yours,' which was simple enough to convey to a fellow warrior with body language. You couldn't finish training without attaining fluency in macho posturing. The really nice thing was that if she killed him he'd stay dead: no Wings of Icarus.
His response had been the same, only about Iris instead of Tony, obviously. If he'd wanted to be the one to protect Tony, then they would really have had a problem.
At that point, they'd understood each other well enough, which was possibly part of why he was sticking close to her. That type could only take so much chatter per day, and Nell and Iris' reunion had already used his quota for like, the week, and they showed no signs of stopping unless something important happened. He was probably relieved to find someone sensible in this den of weirdos and alchemists.
It was good to have someone else reliable in this group, so Renee could watch them instead of just watching their backs. It was kind of obvious why Isolde had sent them with this group: it kept the wild cards out of her hair. Well, except that Crowley guy, but of course Isolde was going to keep the maybe-possessed guy near her instead of near them. She got excessively noble herself sometimes, like the way she'd kept what was up with Vayne a secret. Obviously Flay would have wanted to be in the group in front: Tony kept him distracted and Renee could watch them all for her.
Frankly, Renee was as glad as he was that no one was trying to talk to her. She was a noblewoman, she could be impeccably courteous and cutting to her worst enemy, but Al Revis had made her rusty when it came to that, as well as everything else, and her mana wasn't as walled off as he usually was.
The little mana-collector girl was why, obviously. Azureflame had been caught by more power-hungry alchemists in his time than just the one Renee had rescued him from. He did not trust her, and if it weren't for the fact that he was star-fire instead of another breed of it, he would have already attacked. No, he knew how to watch and wait, his vengeance had long grown cold as his flame.
Still, while normally his emotions didn't bug Renee too much (she didn't know how the others could possibly like having something else in their heads, messing with their composure and discipline), being around her was putting her on edge, in that way it got when you knew that there was a bad guy out there and you couldn't do anything about it yet.
Fortunately Edge was painfully straightforward and couldn't see through an act to save his life, so he didn't know that she was feeling cold fury towards the one he protected (even though it wasn't her own fury).
Or maybe it wasn't just Iris. Renee and Azureflame didn't talk. He'd been through enough and it wasn't like there was any point in prying. He knew that she didn't like the fact that he'd pacted with her against her will, which had forced her to go to Al Revis so she didn't get locked up as an unlicensed alchemist, and she knew that forcing her to spend three years away from her career as a knight errant hadn't been his intention. He hated being here a whole lot more than she did. He'd been experimented on and tortured by too many alchemists for them not to make his scales crawl.
Still, if she had to suck it up, he had to too, and she'd rescued him. That meant she'd take responsibility.
If whatever was going on had something to do with imprisoning mana, like the mana Iris had pacted with, then it was a threat to him.
He burned with fear as well as anger, she could tell, but it would be mean to, like, say anything about it. He could break his pact with her at any time, she certainly wouldn't mind, but he'd still come down here.
It was brave of him, to face that fear, to stand with her against the enemy. He fought alongside her because she didn't use his power. Sure, sometimes he gave her strength, but the sort that came from an ability, not the kind that came from an alchemist controlling their mana's power. She didn't expect it or acknowledge it. Saying thanks would have been speaking of it, and he wasn't up to that.
"Do you know anything about Crowley?" Edge asked, but she didn't mind when it was important information instead of chatter.
Sadly, her response was, "Not a thing."
"Has he been trying to hire people for jobs, tempt them with power?"
"No." That, she would have noticed. She was one of the top three rumormongers on campus, after all. "You should ask Flay. He's, like, an idiot, but he keeps track of his minions pretty well." Whatever captured his interest.
His dismissive snort conveyed what he thought of the idea of trusting Flay's judgment.
"He'd just tell you whatever would have the most interesting results, anyway," she agreed.
Now Edge was looking at her again, as though he hadn't already figured her out.
"What?"
"Why are you here? At this school." She seemed too sensible to be an alchemist.
"Not because I wanted to be. A mana chose me, and I had to come here."
"…does Iris?" Did it really make a difference? Would she die if she didn't train here or something?
"It's not like your town's signed those treaties. Zee Meruze disappeared before the school was founded. Your ruler isn't obligated to force her to come here."
That was a relief. "What did you do before you came here?"
"I was a knight errant. Defeating bad guys, rescuing the helpless, all that good stuff." She examined her nails casually, trying not to show that she cared or missed it.
He seemed a little surprised, but also a little relieved. That was something he understood, something familiar in this place of crazy alchemists. "That sounds like the Guild."
"Guild? What do you guys do?"
"Fight monsters, deliver medicine, investigate strange things, help end hostilities." He shrugged. "Whatever the job is."
"Hmm." She nodded. "Sounds good." Ahh, that was why she had felt like she knew this guy. There had been plenty like him training alongside her. There were those for who it was about glory, and the ones who got the job done.
"Do you have a Guild here?"
"They're called chivalric orders. I'm a Knight of Alkavana." She tilted her head. "It's, like, Professor Isolde's job to take care of demons and stuff like that, ok? If she decides that you're right about Crowley, we'll help you out. Otherwise, it's none of my business." So he could stop trying to sound her out.
It was distracting, especially since they had arrived at a large area full of nothing but strong monsters. The blank-eyed delinquents were bad enough: it grated on her to have to leave people she recognized down here instead of fighting them so their Wings of Icarus would trigger and get them to campus so they could hopefully be freed from this.
This place wasn't a lair of strong monsters, this wasn't a home: they were in a barracks, some kind of sick storage room… or a gauntlet.
When Flay and Tony called an unspoken truce and separated, Flay going forward to take point and Tony falling back a bit and going so far as to wave her forward instead of yelling for her to catch up, then it was kinda obvious that there was something nasty up ahead. The Nell girl was walking on her tiptoes, Edge had gone forward to guard Iris' other flank, and even Iris (the most stereotypically alchemisty alchemist Renee had ever met, and she'd only known her a few hours) was spinning her staff, going through a few of the moves she used to sketch out glyphs automatically, warming up, as she looked around them with eyes that would have looked veteran if they hadn't seemed too much like those of a kitten trying to be fierce.
"Should we make Flay stop so we can wait for the others?" Tony asked.
"No." She shook her head. "Repellant won't get the others through that mob without a fight. Watch our backs." She dashed forward to reach Flay. "Edge and Nell don't have Wings of Icarus, so don't do anything rash."
"Ah! Now that's more like it! I am honored to take instruction from such a fine lady of war."
Calling her fine? Ugh.
She wished she'd gotten a chance to see Nell's skills instead of only a few of Edge's, but if Flay didn't think that they were in serious danger (he wasn't saying that he'd protect them or anything, and he'd be doing that if he didn't have some reason to think they were both strong), she'd trust his judgment. If there was one thing she trusted Flay to know, it was who would put up a good fight. He'd picked her out of the crowd of freshmen right away, after all.
Their only options were to fall back out of this area and wait for the others, have Iris escort them to the enemy a few at a time, or forge ahead, find out what they were up against and either handle it themselves or send Iris back with the two who didn't have Wings to meet the others and escort them to the battle a few at a time once she knew what they were up against and could tell Isolde.
If Edge and Nell weren't liabilities, the last plan was a lot less risky.
Iris could only use this ability on so many at a time, and they couldn't fight while she was using it on them. On the other hand, this might guard against conventional attacks but who knew what a demon could manage? It was better if Isolde knew what they were up against before she got here.
Or was that an excuse? Renee might despise meaningless, honorless battle, but this was a real fight. She'd missed those.
Training fights against weak opponents or disciplining miscreants just weren't the same.
Fighting something that might be on par with a grand duke or Amalgam itself?
Now that was more like it.
She spun her sword in front of her, grinning in a way it felt like she hadn't in years.