Korrina and the Black Eagles

Chapter 14: Return of the Flame Empress

5 years had passed since the battle of Garreg Mach. What should have been a single battle evolved into a continental war with no signs of even slowing down. That whole time, Korrina was nowhere to be seen. Some assumed she was dead while others never gave up and continued searching for her no matter how much time had passed.

When Korrina finally came to, she was in a village and house she didn't recognize. Someone found her body and placed it on their bed, but who? It didn't take long for that question to be answered, as a relatively unassuming man came to check on her. Upon realizing she had awoken at last, the man was quite estatic. He also seemed to know Korrina's name, which both confused and concerned her. The man realized what was going on and became somewhat disappointed. He said, "You don't remember who I am? It's me. Alm. The old gatekeeper." Upon hearing this name, it all came flooding back to Korrina: their numerous chats before missions, their mutual admiration of Catherine, the promise they made at the Goddess Tower, and especially the fact that he chose her over Rhea. Upon realizing this, Korrina leapt out of bed and embraced the former gatekeeper for what felt like hours. She never forgot who he was; she merely wasn't used to seeing Albein without his armor on. When the two finally let go, Albein turned towards the door and said, "There's someone else who would be happy to see you" before beckoning Korrina to follow him. The two then went outside, where Alois was watching over the town. He had lost a ton of weight since the last time Korrina saw him, but she could recognize his face anywhere. Although the former general's first reaction to Korrina being ok was to make a few jokes about how long she was out, Korrina knew that Alois was also relieved to see she was ok. Korrina then asked how long she was unconscious, to which Alois replied by saying 5 years. Alois then followed up on that with a few more jokes about how he was going to wake up Korrina, but she didn't mind. After all, making jokes was just something Alois naturally did when he was happy about something. Apparently, him and Albein both quit their jobs to search for Korrina. When they finally found her by the riverbed, they took her into the nearest town and brought out a house to keep her safe in until she woke up. Albein would preserve the body while Alois would protect the town from bandits and anyone who wanted to finish the job. Neither of them ever reported the discovery, as they didn't want word of this reaching Edelgard or Rhea until Korrina was awake and able to defend herself again. After Korrina thanked them, her next thoughts turned to Garreg Mach. Korrina asked if anyone still lived there. Albein responded by saying that Edelgard slightly rebuilt the monastery and made it into her military base. After a bit of thinking, Korrina said, "Take me back there. My sister needs to know I'm alive." Neither Albein nor Alois were ok with sending Korrina back in the fray so soon after she woke up from a 5-year coma, but they agreed that it would give the Empress some peace for the first time in 5 years and decided to accompany her. With this, Korrina let out a column of God Ki to symbolize her grand return and departed for her former home.

When the 3 arrived at the monastery, it was almost as if everyone was waiting for Korrina to return home. Not only did the soldiers let them in without even asking who they were, but nearly everyone stood in awe at the fact that Korrina was still alive. Korrina asked a random soldier where Edelgard was, to which he replied "She's usually on the top floor with Hubert. Almost no one sees her anymore. It's almost like she's…waiting for somebody." Instinctively, Korrina climbed as high as she could, as if she still knew every corner of the monastery despite all the time that passed. Thankfully, the soldier was correct. Edelgard was looking out the balcony at the top floor. She hadn't grown an inch, but she certainly looked older. Edelgard now wore heavy armor at all times and wore her hair up like true medieval royalty. The difference between Edelgard 5 years ago and Edelgard as Korrina saw her now was quite striking. When Edelgard laid eyes on her sister for the first time in 5 years, she didn't want to believe what was in front of her. None of the search parties she sent out came back positive. Not one trace of Korrina was found in those 5 years. Surely, she had to be dead. Yet here Korrina stood, as if nothing had changed at all. When Edelgard finally accepted the truth, Korrina embraced her and said, "Sorry to keep you waiting, sister. It's hard to do anything when you're unconscious." Edelgard still had a few questions about what happened, to which Korrina simply explained that Alois and the old gatekeeper found her and kept her body a secret to protect her from Rhea. Edelgard was hypocritically annoyed that Alois kept this from her the whole time, but she would have to deal with him later. For now, it was time to fill in Korrina about what all had happened in the 5 years she was gone.

As the two sisters headed towards the council chamber, Korrina was disappointed to learn that Arundel was still alive and in a position of power, and from there it was clear who was really running the show in these 5 years. Despite the moral outrage behind Arundel's methods, Hubert still thought him enough of an asset to outnumber Edelgard 2 to 1 when it came to making decisions. If there was one thing Arundel was good at, though, it was keeping everyone on topic despite everyone taking shots at him at every opportunity. Once tensions temporarily simmered, Edelgard let Korrina in on the details. After Rhea was buried in the rubble of her own chapel, it was the Blue Lions who came to her rescue. Dimitri in particular blamed Edelgard for the whole mess and declared war on her to her face. Edelgard still recalled with startling clarity the way Dimitri lashed out at her upon seeing her. Since that time, Dimitri became the new King of Faerghus and given Rhea and the remaining church staff refuge in his capital city of Fhirdiad. Since then, Faerghus and the Church of Seiros have made a powerful alliance and the Knights of Seiros are more numerous now than ever before. Meanwhile to the east, Claude has succeeded his grandfather as the new leader of the Leicester alliance and has maintained a very strict policy of neutrality throughout the last 5 years. Both sides are currently deadlocked, and with the Leicester Alliance refusing to pick a side, it is unlikely that said deadlock will break anytime soon. Even more disheartening was the hit the Adestrian Empire's reputation had took over the years. The poor character of Edelgard's allies combined with the fact that she and Korrina started the war made it all too easy for Dimitri and Rhea to paint the Adestrian Empire as the villains and Korrina a false prophet who failed 5 years ago. However, everyone at the council believed that Korrina may be the key to breaking the stalemate and pulling out a victory. After all, Korrina had the powers of a goddess and her very presence did wonders for morale. Korrina, meanwhile, was determined to prove once and for all that she was no fraud and restore the Adestrian Empire's reputation. One could only imagine Korrina's surprise when Hubert told her that their first move would not be to go after Rhea, but to invade the Leicester Alliance instead. Korrina naturally responded by saying "What!? But Leicester is neutral!" This prompted Hubert to elaborate in the situation in Leicester. As it turned out, the alliance was not as united in its neutrality as it seemed. Houses Gloucester and Ordelia had vocally expressed their support for Edelgard as well as their desire to join forces with her, but houses Riegan and Goneril (Hilda's house) actively prevented any vote on the matter from taking place. Hubert's logic was that removing Claude from power would give houses Gloucester and Ordelia the freedom they need to side with the empire without repercussion. Unfortunately, Korrina was not convinced. She believed that an unprovoked invasion of a neutral territory would only lessen the chances of anyone from that region allying with them. Hearing this, Edelgard stepped in and brought Claude's character into this. She reminded Korrina of how untrustworthy and intelligent Claude was back during this time as students before accusing him of waiting out the war and siding with the winning team in the last minute for the sake of gaining favor with the victors. Edelgard and Hubert then took it a step further and lied about Claude secretly supplying the Church of Seiros with men and weapons behind the scenes. At this point, Korrina realized that she wasn't going to dissuade anyone and reluctantly agreed to lead the charge. Just before the meeting was adjourned, however, Edelgard had one more favor she wanted to ask of Korrina.

The two sisters made their way to the grand hall, where everyone present in the monastery had gathered. After a moment of waiting for the noise to stop, Edelgard spoke. She said, "Proud men and women of the Adestrian Empire, I have come here today to confirm the rumors. The goddess, Korrina, has indeed survived, and has come home to us at last. Come forth, sister.". Korrina then presented herself before the crowd, inspiring quite a few words and cheers. Edelgard continued by saying, "I don't need to remind you of the disgusting rumors that the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus has spread about us, but my sister's continued survival proves them wrong. We are the true successors to the Church of Seiros, and we will not rest until Rhea, Dimitri, and their campaign of lies and slander have been brought to a halt. Finally, I have an announcement to make. I hereby elevate Korrina to the title of co-empress. From this day forward, my sister and I will share titles, responsibilities and burdens. Together, our bond shall help the Adestrian Empire soar towards a bright new future." The move was unanimously popular among Edelgard's soldiers, who were beginning to feel that she had lost her way after Korrina disappeared. Korrina, meanwhile, was beyond honored that her sister would do this for her. This was, beyond a doubt, the best thing that ever happened to her.

As it turned out, most of Korrina's former students managed to survive the war up to this point and were now a key division in the Adestrian Army called the Black Eagle Strike Force. Most of them were out in the field at the time of Korrina's coronation, so the next move was to wait for them to return. While this was happening, Hubert pulled aside Korrina to privately discuss some matters with him. Hubert started by going into detail about Lord Arundel's character and the role he played in the Insurrection of the Seven. Korrina did not understand what Hubert was trying to say and responded with a deadpan "Your point is…". This response annoyed Hubert, but it also convinced him to get to the point. He said that Korrina reminded him a lot of Arundel. Korrina, naturally, took offense to being compared to the man that experimented on her sister and responded with an angrily defensive, "Don't you dare compare me to that beast!" Hubert maintained control and elaborated by saying that he always sensed a second half to Korrina, much different from her public personality and even conflicting with it sometimes. When asked if that description sounded familiar to Korrina, she replied by saying "If you're talking about the 22 years I had Sothis inside my head, yes. I hated her with every fiber of my being…but she's gone now. Converted herself into all this power that I use." Unfortunately, Hubert found this answer unsatisfactory. He then gave Korrina a parting threat about proving her usefulness quickly, but before he could leave, Korrina interrupted by pointing out that he would technically be killing a co-empress if he made good on those threats. Hubert only replied by dismissing the move as a sentimental mistake before disappearing. Hubert supposedly cleaned himself up while Korrina was gone, but as far as Korrina was concerned, the shorter hair and more formal clothes ironically made Hubert even more terrifying. Thankfully, the Black Eagle Strike Force returned shortly afterward.

Because none of the Black Eagle Strike Force had caught word of Korrina's return let alone the fact that she was now co-empress of Adestria, they were all overjoyed to see her again after so long. Dorothea was the first to welcome back Korrina, embracing her quite warmly. Caspar joined in too, but because he had gained so much muscle mass in the last 5 years, he ended up hurting the both of them. It took a friendly reminder from Lindhardt for Caspar to finally let go of the two and let them recover. While Lindhardt healed Korrina and Dorothea, Ferdinand told Korrina with his usual tone that he for one never lost faith that Korrina would one day return to them. Korrina initially did not recognize Ferdinand because he gained a few pounds and grew his hair out, but once she heard his voice, she knew it was him. Petra then chimed in and eagerly told Korrina about how much they grew throughout the last 5 years, and Korrina believed her. Petra had blossomed into an Amazonian queen in the time that Korrina was away and certainly carried herself with far more dignity than ever before. Now that Korrina had the time to really look at her former classmates, a lot of them had undergone some major changes in the time Korrina had been missing. Caspar bulked up like he always said he would and became one of the highest-ranking generals of the Adestrian Army. Lindhardt was still as narcoleptic and uncaring of other people's opinions as ever, but at least looked the part of a noble now anyway. Bernadetta in particular cleaned up herself and seemed to exude a lot more confidence now (as much confidence as someone as broken as her could have anyway). Silvain, however, was still the nihilistic womanizer that he always was. After a few minutes, Edelgard and Hubert showed up to fill in the Black Eagle Strike Force on what was happening. A lot of them were shocked that Korrina was now the co-empress of Adestria, and Ferdinand and Lindhardt agreed with Hubert that the move was probably made too hastily. However, the rest of the Black Eagle Strike Force was largely supportive of Edelgard's decision and believed that Korrina's past leadership experience made her a perfect fit to rule an empire. However, Hubert quickly changed the subject and gave the Black Eagle Strike Force their next mission. He said, "There has been a change in plans. Since our battle with the Kingdom of Faerghus has gone nowhere, we have decided to invade the Leicester Alliance instead. Our first target is the Great Bridge of Myrddin, guarded by Judith Von Daphnel. The road that goes across it is by far the shortest route leading from here to Derdriu. If we can secure this defensive position, the rest of the alliance will be deprived of its closest reasonable position for a counteroffensive, and from there, the remainder of the alliance territory should fall in less than a month. We move out at the end of the month, so prepare however you can. That is all." None of the Black Eagle Strike Force truly liked the idea of invading a neutral territory, but they agreed that they would have more success there.

As preparations went fully underway, Korrina couldn't help but look around the monastery to see how much had changed. Predictably, the skirmish 5 years ago had done massive damage to the monastery, and reconstruction had been quite slow what with the war going on. Korrina figured it would be like this, yet even she was shocked at the ruined state of the monastery. The chapel where they fought Rhea in particular now lied in complete ruin. Maybe it was because Korrina spent so long at Garreg Mach but seeing it in this state made her instinctively want to repair it all. It took a few hours of negotiating, but Korrina was eventually able to convince her sister and co-empress Edelgard to assemble a team to help put the monastery back together again. During this preparation stage, Korrina also wanted to check out the Holy Tomb and see if the place had sustained any damage during that fight. Once Korrina had a few hours of spare time, she took Uncle Alois and headed back down there. Thankfully, the Holy Tomb was so far underground that the fighting 5 years ago had not touched it at all. This sight greatly relieved Korrina, as despite what happened in there 5 years ago, Korrina did still hold a degree of value for the place. Instinctively, Korrina sat back on the throne she was supposed to get a revelation or not. It wasn't as big of a deal to Korrina as it was to Rhea, but she was still curious as to whether the whole revelation thing was true at all. It took a few minutes for Korrina to feel anything. But thankfully, Rhea was not there to constantly press Korrina for info this time. Eventually, it hit Korrina all at once. She saw the past, present and future at the same time. She saw the beginning and end of the universe all at once. She saw the building blocks of life assemble and divide. She saw the world flood and then go back to normal like nothing happened. She saw man turn to beast and beast turn to man. She saw 12 men band together to defeat a great evil only for their descendants to fight amongst themselves and unintentionally revive said evil. She saw a pitiful man attempt to emulate her powers only to be consumed from the inside by demons. Finally, she saw dragons similar to Rhea lose their minds and be overthrown by man. "This must have been the revelation that Rhea was talking about", mused Korrina as she gradually returned to her throne room. In the span of a few moments, Korrina had achieved omnipresence and realized her role in life: to help mankind in their mission to seize their destiny from the dragons who controlled it for so long, then do everything possible to prevent mankind from fighting amongst themselves.

As the day to attack the Bridge of Myrddin approached, Hubert approached Korrina in hopes of speaking with her once more. Korrina immediately responded with, "Here to threaten me again, Hubert?" Thankfully, this was not the case. Hubert merely wanted to warn Korrina about Lord Arundel. It was true that Hubert was allied with him, but that is only because they share a common enemy. In reality, Lord Arundel operated with his own interests in mind rather than those of the Adestrian Empire. Hubert kept a very close eye on Lord Arundel and his followers, but he still hasn't decided whether they would continue to be of use after the war is over. Hubert wanted to ensure that Korrina could also hold off on the criticism of Arundel until after the Church of Seiros has been dealt with, as his magic, devious nature, and monster army were still vital assets to the Adestrian Empire. Korrina gave a halfhearted ok, but both of them knew that Korrina would never accept Lord Arundel as an ally.

As it turned out, the supposed Great "Bridge" of Myrddin was actually a complex network of smaller bridges connected by buildings on both ends of the river. Knowing this, Korrina and Edelgard decided the best course of action was to once again split the party. Korrina, Edelgard, Hubert, Caspar, Alois, Hanneman and Lindhardt would take the lower network that would take them straight to where Judith was waiting for them. Ferdinand, Silvain, Bernadetta, Petra, Dorothea, Shamir and Manuela would take the upper network and ambush Judith's forces from the back. At first, this seemed to be a solid plan, and morale was high. The enemy soldiers guarding the bridge were tough, but nothing the Black Eagle Strike Force couldn't handle. Then the problems started. It turned out that Ignatz became a sniper in the 5 years that Korrina had been missing and was assigned to be Judith's bodyguard. Ignatz was also a pretty good shot, too. Nearly anyone who approached Judith was shot down before they could lay a hand on her. Thanks to Ignatz's marksmanship, Judith was able to stay in control of the situation long enough for the reinforcements to arrive. The reinforcements in question were led by Leonie and a rather whiny noble called Acheron. Even more worrying was the fact that Leonie came in right where some of the more frail units in the Black Eagle Strike Force were. Korrina was left with no choice but to use Divine Pulse and better prepare the Black Eagle Strike Force for Leonie. The formation was the same, but this time, the squad positioned where Leonie was located stood their ground and deliberately waited for her to show up. Before Leonie had a chance to attack, she was zapped from afar by Dorothea's lightning magic and shot at by Shamir. Silvain dealt the killing blow, and Leonie died cursing the Black Eagles. This display of ruthlessness caused Acheron to show his true colors and run away without any orders to retreat whatsoever. With the reinforcements all gone (no thanks to Acheron's cowardice), the Black Eagle Strike Force had free reign of the upper network. They all wasted no time in cleaning out the remaining soldiers on that network, seizing the ballista and using it to pick off the soldiers on the lower network one by one. Realizing that the tide had turned against her, Judith was left with no choice but to swallow her pride and retreat. Some would consider this a victory, but not Edelgard. For her, Judith needed to be captured or killed in order for any victory to surface. Korrina was slightly more satisfied with what had been accomplished, but she understood that Judith could become a threat if allowed to fight another day and reluctantly continued the fight. The Black Eagle Strike Force was able to ambush and kill Ignatz while he was running away, but the rest of the soldiers brought enough time for Judith to escape. This was the end result for the next several times Korrina used Divine Pulse, and it was beginning to impact her head and heart. Eventually, Korrina decided to throw all caution to the wind and just snipe Judith before all the reinforcements are dealt with. Korrina made a beeline for Judith's location, dodging as many of Ignatz's arrows as she could. She then transferred some of her God Ki into the Sword of the Creator, assumed its whip form, then swung it vertically to release that God Ki in the form of a massive energy wave. Judith stood absolutely no chance of surviving the energy wave and was split down the middle the moment said energy wave hit her. After several Divine Pulses, the battle was finally won.

As Ignatz kneeled over Judith's 2 halves, Korrina approached him and said, "It's over, Ignatz. Put down the bow and surrender, and I promise no further harm will come to you or the remaining soldiers." Ignatz wasn't in the mood to negotiate immediately, though. He got up, pointed his bow right at Korrina's head, and said, "You killed Judith…and so many other good men today…I'll never forgive you!" Instead of fighting, however, Korrina simply closed the distance and took the bow away from Ignatz. She then said, "Is this what you want, Ignatz? The battle is already lost. You continue the fight, and you'll die for nothing. You still have a full life ahead of you, and the potential to become an amazing artist. Don't throw that away for a battle you cannot win." Ignatz still hated Korrina for what she did that day, but he seemed to understand her point of view. He turned his back to her and left without saying another word. As Ignatz left, Korrina said to him, "You don't have to join our side or even forgive me. Just don't raise your bow against me or the Adestrian Empire ever again and you'll never have to worry about us again." Ignatz never responded to that statement, nor did he ever see or hear from Korrina ever again. That coldness and hatred from a former friend, combined with the fact that Leonie couldn't be spared, was something that followed Korrina for centuries. Not even the celebration of her subordinate's victory could cheer her up, and it would only get worse from here.