Incidentally, Kokita's name is actually supposed to be Kokina, but I've been writing it Kokita for 6 chapters now and you know what it's just gonna stick.
Sorry for not updating in over a month. Had a lot on my plate. That said, this is a short chapter, because there was no way I could cram what I have planned into one chapter.
Also (supposed to be) the last downtempo chapter for a while. It's all uphill from here.
We've got a Discord for Raphtalia/Naofumi: use the invite mME9Z7c and scream at degenerate authors such as myself, Vargras, ByteOfBacon and Strax. Alternatively, worship our talented artists, because they deserve it.
chapter seven: catharsis
By a storm of earth and fire, the nightmares before her knew agony.
Standing in the middle of the open valley, Malty relished the fresh air, the chance to exit that dank, dismal cell; she'd been in it for eleven days, and as a former princess, she still couldn't get used to the discomfort of it, nor the reek of mold and stale urine. Her captors had the nerve to demand her compliance while keeping her locked away from the world, and she resented them for it.
"As the Staff Hero and the source of all power, heed my words! Read and decipher the laws of nature to deluge my enemies in molten earth! Ars Drifa Pyroclasm!"
It was all she could do not to fall victim to her frustration, to let the spell run rampant and take the men watching her down with it.
The mountains around her seemed to melt, a layer of soil sliding off the sides and rolling downhill into the valley to engulf the dozens upon dozens of unfamiliar monsters surging towards the village behind her. She barely had time to process their names - Melromarc-XI Greater Kappa, Melromarc-XI Blood Nymph - before they were taken by the Vesuvian wave of molten mud. Dozens of experience notifications flashed in the corner of her vision, but there was no indication that the wave had closed; hell, she couldn't even figure out where the rift between the two worlds had opened to begin with. Part of why she'd come out here in the first place - why she hadn't simply melted the bars of her containment cell and strolled on out - was because she suspected her captors had some knowledge of the waves and would hopefully possess some means of transporting her to the next one, where she might run across other vassal heroes. She'd been correct about the former two things, but if she couldn't find the rift, it was possible that another hero would come through, slay the conduit monster, and head in the opposite direction.
The thought was disappointing, but there would be other waves. Besides, she still had a few tricks up her sleeve.
"Remember this space," she murmured to the staff. The magenta jewel in its head flared, and she knew the ability had worked.
"Is that it? Are you done?" barked a man's voice from the small black box she'd been forced to wear on her hip. "If that's all, come back to - "
The nearest mountaintop exploded like a volcano, and Malty immediately found out where the conduit was.
She'd never actually seen a monster like this, but it wasn't far from the beast described by many a weary traveler fresh from the deserts of Zeltoble, and it became clear why she hadn't detected it until now: it had been under them the entire time.
Melromarc-XI Scourge Worm
Foam dribbled down the thing's mandibles as high-pressure liquid gushed out of two glands on its bus-sized head; its thick body twisted and coiled, thrashing wildly, and like a fire hose, the spittle sprayed high and wide, coating everything around it -
Having never fought anything like this herself, Malty didn't recognize the attack until it was too late. She was lucky enough that only a single droplet of what could only be acid struck her bare shoulder before the pain hit and she threw up a barrier, wincing as her health dropped - but the military, the men whose guns were always trained on her, were less fortunate. Despite the "safe distance" they kept to ensure their own safety while remaining within shooting range of the one person protecting them, they were still well within the worm's attack range, and at level one…
Their screams of agony rose as one, twisting into a transient cacophony that fell silent as, one after another, every soldier who so much as touched a drop of the acid spray convulsed and died on the spot. The few survivors, wrought with abject terror, fled, but if her own treatment was anything to go by, they would be silenced soon enough.
She risked a glance both at and over her shoulder; the skin there had burned badly in the shape of a teardrop, but she would be fine. The levels she'd gained on top of her passive stats and abilities provided enough padding to ensure her survival for the time being. The scene behind her was a different story: the temporary fortifications her captors had erected were now some sort of canvas-and-metal slurry.
Ahead of her, the Scourge Worm let out a grating, ringing screech, then lunged forward off the mountainside, curving through the air towards her, mandibles glittering like glass in the glaring sun.
It's too far away to hit me with a jump, she thought, trying hard to keep herself from thinking about what had just happened. Why is it - ?
The worm didn't wait for her to finish thinking - it slammed headfirst into the ground half a kilometer away, tearing up fertile valley soil as it burrowed beneath her. Malty knew she didn't have much time: it would be upon her any second, and it was definitely far stronger than she was in her current state, so if it managed to close those jaws on her body…
However, when the Scourge Worm burst from the earth to do just that three seconds later, it found that its would-be prey simply flickered and vanished, and as it twisted to follow her scent trail, a gout of fire erupted from the hole it had just burrowed, orange tongues of flame licking their way up its pale, desiccated hide. The worm, unperturbed, didn't so much as pause to notice that it was on fire, instead choosing to lunge directly for her once again. Malty was forced to leap away with a gust of wind magic, putting much-needed space between herself and the set of five-foot mandibles that glittered like volcanic glass where she'd been just a breath ago.
It only lost two percent of its health… Is this thing fire resistant? Or is it just that tough?
She didn't get to find out. Halfway through its lunge, something streaked across the valley and, in one stroke, separated its head from its body. Hemolymph oozed out across the grass as, with a mighty crash, the worm jerked to the side of the impact and slammed into the ground, sliding a solid fifty meters before skidding to a stop.
Standing amidst the remains, still crouched where she'd landed, was a girl with wings.
Naofumi stared.
There's no way. Absolutely the hell not.
He'd been through enough to trust the heads-up display that now displayed Jun's class icon as something more than "Civilian", but he was still having a hard time believing it. In some part of his mind, he was certain, he had some sort of block against the idea of multiple heroes from the same family, and in another, he didn't want Jun wrapped up in this any more than he already was.
Still, there was no turning back now.
"Jun?" he prodded.
The revolver, gleaming silver with a stained-black leather grip, trembled in Jun's hand. Without looking at Naofumi, he said: "I can't put it down, nii-san."
"What?"
"It won't let me put it down!"
His brother seemed genuinely anguished, and when his grip shifted, Naofumi spotted the jewel embedded in the revolver's grip, a bright yellow that - even as he watched - flickered to red and back until it simply stayed red and a shower of grim sparks flew from it -
Through clenched teeth, Jun let out a cry of anguish, but Naofumi's concern was that he could hear a second voice, shouting in rage, in triumph, and he knew immediately what it was; the revolver's polished silver turned to a dull jet-black and, with a series of loud clicks and a quiet mechanical whirring, the entire gun began to unfold, pieces separating and conjoining as new components sprung out of every crevice until it had turned from a revolver into something else entirely. Naofumi didn't know what it was until reddish, black-streaked fire began to lap eagerly at the end of the barrel and everything fell into place.
"Change Shield! Float Shield!"
Jun screamed as a jet of cursed flame ejected itself from the end of the flamethrower - is this a curse series weapon? - and dissipated against the Shield of Compassion's projected double. The man on the ground, tall and lanky and foreign with a Slavic jaw and bloodshot blue eyes, wasn't someone Naofumi recognized (and who, he was certain, was no friend of Jun's), but no matter what he was doing here, no matter why Jun was pointing a gun at him, he didn't deserve to fall victim to cursed fire.
Probably, some part of Naofumi added.
The air around the Float Shield pulsed a deep, calming blue, absorbing the flames, and with a start, Naofumi realized that fire was creeping steadily up from the nozzle toward Jun's hand. His brother, too petrified with fear and pain to notice, stood as if rooted to the ground, holding white-knuckled onto the flamethrower. Naofumi raised the Shield of Compassion, rushing to Jun's side, but the fire surged forth to envelop Jun's hand, his forearm, his elbow before a soothing sky-blue light beat back the flames, crawling all the way down to the flamethrower.
Jun dropped it, and it lay on the ground, clicking and whirring as it folded back into itself. Naofumi didn't even so much as glance at it, darting forward to catch Jun as he fell; the man darted away, already in full flight toward the opposite end of the alley, but it doesn't matter, Jun's hurt, he's in trouble.
"Jun?" he tried to rouse his brother, to no effect. "Jun!"
Jun's eyes were closed, but he was breathing and his pulse was normal. If Naofumi had to guess, he'd fainted from shock and exhaustion, considering that the only injury on his body was the long burn that wrapped around his forearm. He couldn't yet tell if the curse remained, as he'd used the Shield of Compassion's Blessing to dispel the flames and relinquish the weapon's hold on Jun, but getting his brother home took priority over all else.
Glancing both ways up and down the alley to ensure they were alone, Naofumi held up the shield again, spreading his fingers.
"Portal Shield."
He picked up his brother's unconscious body and stepped into his own living room.
Raphtalia, very much concerned for the two brothers, stood up the moment the portal opened. She'd seen it enough times to know what would come through, but she wasn't prepared for the sight of a burned Jun hoisted over Naofumi's shoulder in a fireman's carry.
"Naofumi-sama? What on earth - what happened to Jun?" She'd forgotten the honorific in her haste, immediately reaching out to help Naofumi carry his brother, but he waved her off.
"I've got him, but we have some talking to do."
His tone was not reassuring.
After depositing Jun in his bed, Naofumi poked at the black rectangle he carried in his pocket, then held it up to his ear; a moment later, he explained aloud that their mother was in the hospital due to an incident the previous night and that Jun would be needed at home to help ensure she was properly taken care of while his father was at work and his brother ran errands for them. Raphtalia was about to ask why he was telling her this (and why he was lying) when she remembered that the thing in his hand was used to talk to other people through other rectangles.
"Were you talking to someone at Jun's school?" she asked him once he'd pocketed the rectangle - the phone - again, and he dipped his head.
"Yeah. He's never missed a day, so he'd be devastated if he were absent without an excuse. Knowing him, it'll be the first thing he asks about when he wakes up. Not the burns on his arm, but whether or not his school knows what's up." Naofumi rolled his eyes, but he couldn't stop the half-smile that crept onto his face.
"So what happened?" Raphtalia pressed, succeeding where he'd failed and wiping the smile off entirely.
"You saw the class icon change, right?" When she nodded, he went on, speaking as bluntly as possible: "He's a vassal hero now, I think. He was holding a gun when I found him, and those are completely illegal here."
Raphtalia thought a moment. "A gun?" she mused, wracking her brain until she remembered the compact projectile weapons she'd seen in Faubrey, firing off high-velocity metal shards at the pull of a trigger. "Aren't those extremely inefficient, though? They take more maintenance and practice than bows and don't produce better results…"
"From what I remember, yeah." Naofumi sighed, gaze trained on Jun's burned hand. "But he's pretty much stuck with the damn thing now. You and I both know there's no way to get rid of these. Hell, this one couldn't even give up the ghost in a world without a power source," he added, rapping his knuckles across the shield before pushing himself to his feet. Silently, he stood next to the burnt arm, touching all ten of his fingertips to the scorched flesh, and declared: "As the source of thy power, I, the Shield Hero, order thee: decipher the laws of nature and heal my target. Zweite Heal!"
"But how did he get burned?" Raphtalia continued, biting her lip. Soft green-blue light, thick and cloying like fog, clung to Jun's injured arm, and as she watched, the burns healed before her very eyes, leaving only a series of faint scars around his wrist.
Naofumi shrugged. "I think he had a curse series already. The thing turned into a cursed flamethrower and ended up backfiring on him. Maybe it was trying to sap his life energy for fuel, since he's not that strong right now and I doubt he could actually sustain firing it for longer than a couple of seconds with the little SP he has."
"Flamethrower...oh!" She remembered, faintly, their conversation from the previous day. It seemed like a very long time ago indeed that they'd been at the marketplace, which Naofumi had referred to as a mall. "But how did he get a curse series so early…?"
"You'd have to ask him when he wakes up." Raphtalia could practically feel the weight in Naofumi's voice, and with a worried glance at Jun (who seemed to be sleeping peacefully now), she stood up from the desk chair, wrapping both arms around Naofumi and burying her face between his shoulder blades.
For a long moment, the only sounds were Jun's soft breathing and the gentle warble of a bird outside.
"Are you okay?" she asked, muffled by his shirt.
"I'm fine. Let's...let's go pick up my mother from the hospital."
"Naofumi-sama."
Her tone made it clear that she wasn't buying his "I'm fine", and he sighed; she felt the tension go out of his shoulders, beneath her upper arms. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, and the bird was joined by another, their voices rising in shrill crescendo until a sharp series of jabbering squawks cut in and the singing stopped.
"Do you think it'd be right for me to try and stop Jun?" Naofumi asked her, bluntly.
"Stop him from what?" she pried, voice gentle.
"Becoming a vassal hero."
"I mean, you wanted to level him up so that he could defend himself, right?" Raphtalia reasoned. "He's getting a substantial boost to his stats just from having a vassal weapon, and it'll help his growth, not to mention having a weapon on hand whenever he needs one…"
"Guns are illegal here, though. How the hell is he gonna get away with that?"
"Don't you have some kind of gun-like object he could copy? Like your Book Shield? Or the Umbrella Katana?" she suggested.
"Maybe a hair dryer or a water pistol, but who the hell carries either of those around?" Naofumi let out an irritated huff, and she felt his shoulders tense again. "And besides...if he's already got a curse series, am I gonna have to chaperone him all the time and make sure he doesn't burn himself alive?"
"You watched over everyone in Lurolona, though - " she started, but -
"But none of them had weapons that were actively attempting to murder them!" He was shouting now, and Jun stirred, letting out a sound that fell somewhere between a groan and a sob; after a brief pause, in which Jun slipped back into sleep, Naofumi slumped forward, running one hand through his hair. "I'm worried, Raphtalia."
"I know," she murmured, her breath tickling the back of his neck. "It's okay to be worried, Naofumi-sama, but please don't try to hide it from me."
Silence fell again, but when Naofumi broke it, his voice was slow, heavy. "Since when was it so tiring to care about someone?"
Raphtalia didn't even have to think about her response. She'd lived it a dozen times already. "You're worried. I was worried about...about Rifana," she admitted. "When you love someone...no matter how strong they are, there's always going to be something that makes you worry for them."
Naofumi glanced back at her, over his shoulder. "How long did you worry about Rifana?"
"Until we actually...found her." She bit her lip, looked down at her feet through the corridor between her chest and his back. "I worried about Keel, too, but I spent the most time with Rifana, and she was so sickly...I think, somewhere, I knew she was already dead, and that kept the worry from really coming through."
For a moment, he looked as if he'd been struck, hurt flashing across his face and in his eyes before he closed them, reaching up to grasp Raphtalia's hands where they clutched his shirt. "I'm - "
"No apologizing," Raphtalia interjected, tightening her grip.
"I didn't consider - "
"Naofumi-sama, I understand."
The bird outside returned to its song. It sounded agitated now, like his father after a call with a particularly difficult client.
"Do you think we could have saved her if we'd gotten there earlier?" he mused, at length.
"Do you remember what happened when we broke in to save Melty? We only barely got through that because of Filo. Trying to break in and save the other slaves would have probably just gotten both of us killed."
"That's true," Naofumi admitted. "The only thing that saved us from that dragon was Fitoria, and she wouldn't have showed up if we didn't have Filo with us. We wouldn't have even made it to the lake in the first place if we didn't have Filo to ride."
"I hate to say it, but I really don't believe we could have done anything," she said. "But I like to think that, in another world, she didn't get sick and pulled through just like me. Maybe us three are even together - she was always hoping the Shield Hero would turn up for us one day."
The smile on Raphtalia's face was small and very much final; that thought had helped her cope with Rifana's death, with the impossible, insurmountable fear that Rifana's one life had simply stopped before it even began. The idea that there were other Rifanas who were happy...it comforted her, even if some of those Rifanas were happy because she, Raphtalia, had been the one to fall ill instead…
"Maybe," Naofumi agreed, running his thumb over the back of her hand.
"And maybe," Raphtalia said, "you'll never stop worrying about Jun, but that's okay. You know how to teach someone how to take care of themselves, and it sounds like he's smart enough to learn."
He swallowed hard, Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he studied the silver revolver laying heavy upon Jun's nightstand. It hadn't been there a minute prior.
Raphtalia held him until he set out for the hospital to pick up his mother.
The rest of the day was uneventful. Nothing happened on the return trip, and Naofumi escorted his mother through the front door two hours later, insisting that he cook them all brunch. (Raphtalia watched him from the stairwell, amused.)
Jun woke up shortly after Kokita's return, looking dazed; he determined that he felt well enough to eat with them, so Raphtalia helped him downstairs, where Naofumi explained to his mother (in just the right amount of detail) that Jun had spent the greater part of the morning vomiting into the toilet and that he, Naofumi, had made Jun stay home. As a result, Kokita insisted that her younger son return to bed after their meal and absolutely would not take no for an answer.
Jun was slightly disgruntled - he insisted he was fine, that he at least go to school for the remainder of the day - but once they were safely out of earshot (and Jun had stubbed his toe on a doorframe), Naofumi whirled on him, fists at his hips and a scowl on his face. "You know you can't just go into school with that thing, right?" he asked, the shield back in its usual place at his waist.
"Why?" Jun appeared genuinely confused, and Naofumi was afraid he'd have to explain that it was incredibly illegal before his brother corrected himself. "Look, I don't know what it is or where it came from, okay? But can't I just leave it at home? I don't see why you had to bring it here in the first place...you should have handed it over to the police," the blonde scolded.
"It's not that simple, and you know it. That's not just a gun, it's a vassal weapon."
"Vassal weapon?" Jun chewed his lower lip, struggling to remember as his gaze drifted to the doorway - then it snapped back to Naofumi, and with wide eyes, he said: "Isn't that what Raphtalia-san has?"
"Mm. So you know that you can't get more than fifty meters away before it comes looking for you, even if you intend to come back for it later. If you intend to throw it away, you'll find that literally can't put it down or take off whatever accessories come with it. You also can't hand it off to anyone - it'll reject them."
"I could always store it in a dumpster or something," Jun suggested, already thinking ahead. It was Naofumi's turn to chew his lip - on the one hand, it wasn't a bad plan, but on the other, there was the obvious catch of Jun happening to move more than fifty meters from the gun. He knew from personal experience that the weapons had zero concern for either the law or common decency, and a gun materializing from thin air at Jun's hip (in school, no less) would not go over well for a variety of reasons, ranging from the obvious issue of oh god, he's got a gun to the paranormal question of where the hell did that thing come from oh god it teleported we're all going to die.
"We'll figure something out," he said, avoiding the issue for the moment. Biting his lip, he opened the status screen, navigating to the party window to inspect Jun's stats.
《Iwatani Jun - Gun Hero, Lv3 》
HP 《66/67》
MP 《0》
SP 《30/30》
ATK 《56》 | MAG《47》
DEF《6 (+2)》 | RES《10》
DEX《75》
At a glance, Jun's stat growth made it very clear what sort of weapon the gun was - a pure attack type. Vassal weapons were approximately half as powerful as legendary weapons, so the increases lined up with what Naofumi had been expecting. The DEX stat still glowed gold.
"How come I have fifty-six in the magic stat, but no mana?" Jun, reading the display over his shoulder, asked, and Naofumi cracked a half-smile.
"You can see this for yourself, you know," he suggested.
"How?"
Briefly, Naofumi explained how the status magic worked, and after a few moments during which Jun's eyes sought the activation icon, he figured out how to open the status screen. "This...this is freaking me out, nii-san."
"What was your question again?" Naofumi asked, ignoring the mixed fear and wonder in Jun's voice.
"Ah - I have no mana." Jun pointed to the "0" next to "MP", and Naofumi frowned at the menu, suddenly uneasy. "But I clearly have a magic stat…"
A few seconds went by before Naofumi realized what was bothering him.
"There's no cap on your mana?" he said aloud, poking at the "MP" icon, but the tooltip that came up was no different than he remembered -
Wait a moment.
"'Resource used to harness magical abilities," Naofumi read. "Replenished on weapon attacks. Amount restored is proportional to your MAG.'" Dumbfounded, he could only read the tooltip over again before tapping the icon next to MAG. "'Magical aptitude,'" he announced. "'Determines the power of magical abilities and the mana restored upon hitting a target.' What the hell is this…?"
Two more of Jun's stat tooltips were equally strange. His DEF and RES were standard, but the ATK stat now simply read "Determines the damage dealt when striking critical points", while the DEX stat read "Determines action speed as well as the force and damage of projectile attacks".
So Jun's dexterity functions as his main attack stat? Naofumi mused. His attack is now basically a crit multiplier… while his magic stat gained an extra function. Isn't this a little broken? Or, he reasoned, surveying Jun's low health and defensive stats, is he supposed to be a glass cannon? Raphtalia was always a little more of an all-rounder…
Jun, to his left, pinched the bridge of his nose. "This is a lot to take in," he admitted, and there was weight in his voice. "I thought you said Raphtalia-san found the katana?"
"She did. But most vassal weapons are a little more proactive than that when it comes to searching for a wielder."
His brother studied the revolver. It lay still and innocent upon his nightstand, its polished silver reflecting the light of the lamp above it.
"What happened, anyway?" Naofumi asked, following his brother's gaze.
"I was just walking to school. Shiratori-kun said he wasn't coming because he had to take care of his cat - I think it was one of the cats from last night."
"Dead or alive?"
"He didn't say," Jun admitted, biting his lip. "I hope it was the surviving one."
"Alright, so you walking to school alone triggered the appearance of a vassal weapon?" pressed Naofumi, quirking one eyebrow.
"Of course not, and you know it," came the reply, in the form of a sigh. "Didn't you see the man I was aiming at? He grabbed me."
"Yeah, I saw." In retrospect, Naofumi realized that he should have pulled up his HUD and inspected Jun's assailant, but he'd been far too concerned about his brother being burned alive to bother. "So it was a life-or-death situation that brought it out?"
Jun thought about it.
"It was a life-or-death situation, I think," he said, slowly, "but I don't really remember feeling like I was in danger. I was mostly just...angry."
"Angry?" echoed Naofumi; Jun definitely had a temper in him, but he'd mellowed considerably ever since Naofumi had converted him to the otaku lifestyle. "About being attacked?"
Jun thought again.
"Can I be honest with you, nii-san?" he asked, at length.
"Have you not been?" Naofumi shot back dryly. His brother rolled his eyes. "Go on," he added.
"I know we talked about...that empty feeling, a while ago," Jun began, his brow furrowed, "but ever since Raphtalia-san arrived...I've been getting this...feeling."
His interest piqued, Naofumi leaned forward a little, arms crossed and lips pursed. "A feeling?" he prompted, when Jun looked to him for a reaction.
"There's something different about you two," Jun elaborated. "I didn't know what it was at first, but after last night, I realized - you two are strong."
Naofumi blinked. "Strong how?" He knew he didn't sound particularly engaged, but if Jun was heading down the path Naofumi thought he was -
"...In a way nobody else is, I suppose?" his brother tried, shrugging one shoulder. "That spider never stood a chance, did it?"
"Against Raphtalia? Of course not. Though now it probably wouldn't have much of one against you, either."
"Well, I wouldn't stand a chance against either of you myself," Jun reminded him. "I think that's what bothered me. I'm not saying I'm jealous!" he added, waving both hands as Naofumi opened his mouth; when the Shield Hero closed it again, Jun went on: "It's just...am I a burden to you guys? Am I going to be one?"
In spite of himself, Naofumi laughed out loud, but when Jun seemed to deflate before his eyes, he reached out a hand to clap the fledgling vassal hero on the shoulder. "I can't say no," he said, deciding then and there to be completely honest, "but if you work at it, I'm sure you'll eventually be more than capable of holding your own. As it stands, your stats are pretty damn high for a level three - if we run into another one of those spiders, you'd probably be able to take it out on your own now."
"Was that supposed to be reassuring?" asked Jun, torn between hurt and amusement.
"Did it give you a better idea of what's coming next?" Naofumi returned. "Even if I decided you were totally useless, you'd at least know where you stood instead of doing that thing you do - you know, worrying about something for weeks instead of just coming out and asking about it."
It was Jun's turn to laugh now, and though he clearly wasn't totally secure, Naofumi could tell that his brother felt a little better.
For now, at least.
That evening, Raphtalia approached him with her status screen open and confirmed that he, too, could see a dragon hourglass. Next to it was printed 09:21:18:06 in a shade of red so intense that it made Naofumi's eyes burn.
"I think," she said, without any sort of pretext, "we should try to get Jun-kun's level up and find out a way to unlock some new weapon forms."
"That's not a bad idea, but do you have a plan for how to actually make that happen?" Naofumi asked, crunching loudly on a baked crisp. Raphtalia cringed, and he realized belatedly that kettle-cooked snacks were perhaps a little too noisy for her taste. Abandoning the crisps for now, he issued an apologetic pat to the top of her head, and she leaned in, discomfort evaporating in a heartbeat.
It wasn't until Naofumi cleared his throat that her eyes snapped open and she gave a nervous swallow, trying hard to act as if her tail wasn't flicking with excitement. "Um. No, I don't. I'm sorry," she confessed. "It is your world, after all...I was hoping you would have something in mind."
"Nothing - at least, nothing we can do in the next nine days. We have to wait for more monsters to start turning up, anyway, and as dangerous as that's going to be for everyone else, it's our only hope for now."
She was right, however; Jun might have now been considerably more powerful than the average person on the street, but the waves were even stronger, and he'd be in near-constant danger until they were able to slay the conduit. From the levels of the monsters in the first wave, Naofumi estimated that the second would pit them up against monsters around level forty, with a conduit monster of at least sixty - and odds were high that the wave wouldn't be from their Melromarc, making things exponentially more difficult. They'd be relying entirely upon their (admittedly extremely high) passive stats and any levels gained during the wave.
That's assuming we gain levels here from wave monsters...we did in Melromarc, but I didn't get anything from the first wave here, and I'm hoping that's just because this world's ley line was still coming back to life.
Proportionally, Jun would benefit from leveling up far more than Naofumi and Raphtalia. If they powered up the gun properly, he might even be able to fight in the third wave.
The older Iwatanis were in their room; a shaken Katai had resolved to spend more time with his wife after her abduction, and Naofumi couldn't blame him one bit. They still didn't know the details of said abduction, but if things kept going the way they were going, his parents would inevitably find out what exactly had happened to Kokita. Jun, deeply saddened by his first school absence in several years, hammered away at his keyboard, hard at work on an essay that wasn't due for another week.
This left Naofumi and Raphtalia alone in his room once more, and Naofumi could already tell that she was planning to share his bed again.
"Where do you think it'll show up?" she murmured, voice low. "The wave."
Naofumi stiffened; he hadn't considered this before. It had been a complete fluke that the last wave had shown up right here in his hometown, hadn't it…? "Shit. I wasn't even thinking about that. I guess we're just gonna have to track it down through the news and the weather and show up late." By the time we get there, it'll have probably wrecked entire cities. Fuck.
"Won't we just teleport there?" Raphtalia frowned, confused, and he shook his head.
"No, the first wave showing up in my city was a coincidence," he explained. "I didn't teleport."
"Well, we do have nine days. I'm sure we'll figure something out." She tried to sound casual, but she couldn't keep the worry from her voice, and Naofumi managed a half-smile.
"I appreciate you trying to help me feel better," he offered, and she smiled a small, watery smile back - then, getting an idea, he sat up straight, expression suddenly intense. "Raphtalia. How far can your Detection spell reach?"
"I'm not sure. Probably not that far, because I couldn't find you or Rishia in...that world. Not until you were within range of the status magic's party detection…"
"That's still better than nothing. Can you detect mana flows with it?" His tone was urgent now, and she met his eyes, frown now thoughtful rather than worried.
"I'm sure I could try. But if we're close enough for Detection to work, won't we be close enough to see it, too?" Raphtalia countered, but Naofumi shook his head, a plan already unfolding itself before him.
"If the waves occur when a rift forms between two worlds, can't we detect the mana flow of those rifts in advance?" he pressed on, excited. "We'd have to travel to find it - " ironically, Filo would be useful right about now " - but we've got nine days."
There was a pause, during which Raphtalia bit her lip. Then: "Naofumi-sama...are you suggesting we go searching for the wave before it's even hit?"
"It's better than waiting around, then trying to get to it when public transportation is down."
"I suppose that's true...I really don't want to ride a 'bus' ever again, but if it's to help save the world, I suppose I can handle it." Her expression told him that she'd in no way forgotten about the busful of otakus from two days prior, and Naofumi found himself feeling a very unusual combination of amused and protective.
"It's not usually that bad," he tried, by way of a peace offering. "We just...happened to be around at a bad time."
"I didn't say I wasn't going to do it!" she snapped back, but her tone was playful rather than angry, and after a moment, a wan smile spread over her face. "It's strange, isn't it, Naofumi-sama?"
Perplexed by her shift in mood, it was Naofumi's turn to frown. "...What is?"
"Even though your world is on the verge of falling apart...I'm just happy we get to spend time together again. I was really bitter - " and here her voice became strangely high " - when you left, Naofumi-sama. Even though you couldn't help it...you promised you weren't going to go anywhere, and then…"
She fell silent, throat working, and Naofumi placed his hand over hers on the bed, twining their fingers together - and then she was in his arms, the pressure of her hold on him strong enough to crack a normal man's ribs, and he really couldn't keep track of how she was feeling anymore.
"I hate feeling this way," she whispered. "I hate that no matter what happens, I can't not be happy to get even a minute together. I don't even know what I am to you - you said we weren't together - and I hate that this is what I'm thinking about when your world - when the world of the person I can't help but care about more than anything else - is about to collapse."
Naofumi was speechless, and after a few seconds, she let go, sitting a few inches further away than she had been. "I'm sorry," she mumbled. "Please forget about that, Naofumi-sama. I'll...try to control myself from now on."
"No," he heard himself say, and the resolve in his tone startled him. "I...this isn't the kind of thing most people can forget about or pretend they aren't feeling." When she didn't respond, he changed tack. "Raphtalia...I don't know what our time apart was like for you, but it was nothing short of agony for me. Do you see this?" He held up the tattered raccoon plush, and she glared at it.
"I really don't want to see that right now."
"It's not Raph-chan, you know." He offered it to her; for a moment, she remained silent, then reached out and took the toy, studying it carefully - every worn patch, every tear streak, every bulge where the stuffing had shifted from being squeezed too many times. "I was thinking of you when I picked it up," Naofumi continued, deciding that, for now, he'd let himself be just a little vulnerable. His heart pounded, ached in his chest, and when she turned back to him, eyes glittering with unshed tears, impulse took over and he hugged her.
"I'm afraid you're going to leave again," she murmured into his ear, and he felt the tears now rolling down her cheek drip hot and wet against his own. "I'm scared you already have. We were - so close to something more - that when you left, I...I broke, Naofumi-sama. For the first time since I met you, I felt so alone, and when we finally came together again, it was like starting over - well, not from scratch, but you didn't seem to feel like there was anything between us anymore. I know you probably didn't think anything of it when you told that woman at the - at the clothing shop - that we weren't together, but that hurt, Naofumi-sama. It hurt, and I can't stop thinking about how stupid I am for worrying about that of all things when we've got something much more important to take care of - "
"Three years ago," he interrupted, pressing a finger to her lips; she stopped talking immediately, eyes wide and red, and he took this as an invitation to continue. "Three years ago - or two and three-quarters, or whatever the hell it's been - I would have probably thought of this as just another problem to solve so that you could go on fighting without anything to distract you." Naofumi paused, and when she didn't speak, he kept going. "I can't say that's how I feel anymore. I meant everything I said to you, back in Melromarc. I'm sorry, too, Raphtalia." A little late, he realized something else: "You comforted me about being here for good, but this whole time, you were afraid I was going to leave. I'm sorry for not noticing sooner."
"No, I - I should have told you," she hiccuped. "It's - "
"It's not okay!" he cut in. "Even if you don't think it's something you should be worried about in the face of - whatever the hell is going on - in the face of a dozen worlds colliding, it's clearly still bothering you, so if you're not concerned about how you feel, at least be concerned about how it's affecting your ability to fight the waves. Okay?"
"...Okay." She pulled back a little, but didn't let go, and for a couple of minutes, they sat there in a sort of sideways embrace.
This also gave Naofumi time to gather his thoughts, and when they were in order, he spoke one more time.
"When I said we weren't together, I was afraid," he said. "I was afraid you didn't feel that way anymore, so I just went for the least dangerous option." It was a weak explanation, but it was true, and to his relief, Raphtalia chuckled.
"For a hero, you aren't too brave sometimes, Naofumi-sama."
Before he even had a chance to reply, she kissed him.
It was warm, warmer than anything he could remember - warmer than sunlight, warmer than whiskey, warmer than the rush of home on a winter day - and strangely wet, though that might have been from the tears running down her face; her lips were both soft and firm exactly when and where they needed to be, and he fumbled clumsily for a moment, his brain completely unable to catch up with what was happening, but it didn't seem to bother her; there was a pained sort of hunger to her, and he returned what he could, dimly aware of the way he now held her, his hands running up and down her back; something hot prickled at the corners of his eyes, and then he, Naofumi, was crying too, and -
They broke apart, breathing heavily.
"Do you know how I feel now?" she asked, her lips still an inch away and her eyes still trained on his.
"I know," he whispered back, and her soft sigh kissed him again before she did; this one was slower, calmer, cathartic, and when it was over, Naofumi felt - for just a moment - as if the world could wait.
"I'm happy we talked," she said simply.
Silence, not uncomfortable, fell between them. Just when Naofumi was considering what to say next, however, Raphtalia tugged him further onto his bed, coaxing him to lay down beside her, and curled up against his chest the moment he complied.
"Naofumi-sama?"
"Yeah?"
"Tell me a story."
He blinked. "You haven't asked me that since we met."
"Is that a no?" She attempted to pout, but couldn't keep the smirk off of her face.
"Of course not," he yawned. "I'm just surprised. Here, let's see what the shield has to offer."
Picking up the Book Shield from his bedside table, Naofumi flipped through it, most of the pages were blank, but he spotted writing on one as it flashed by, and when he'd located the page, he read aloud: "'Act two, scene one: They're called MAN-darins for a reason.'" Shit, it's that grapefruit play again! - and without hesitation, he tore the page out. Raphtalia stared, and after a brief (if lame) explanation from Naofumi, she burst into a fit of giggles. He joined her shortly after, and for a couple of minutes after, they lay there, wheezing like a pair of asthmatics.
"Goodnight, Naofumi-sama," Raphtalia sighed when they finally caught their breath, sounding more content than he'd heard her in some time. "I'm sorry again for dropping all of that on you...but I can't pretend I'm not glad I did, in a way."
"Me too. Let's figure out how we're going to track down the next wave tomorrow, alright? Maybe I'll figure out a way to get Jun out of school so he can come with us - if we run across any monsters, he could use the experience."
"Yes! I'm looking forward to it, Naofumi-sama."
A room away, a silver revolver flickered with the reflected red light of its own ornamental grip.
jesus fucking christ this chapter was somehow more draining than any of the rest and literally nothing happened
i swear most of this is plot relevant and there will be more violence next chapter