Kirito, Central Cathedral, Centoria, Human Empire
"Now, Swordsman Delegate, I'm going to let you hear it for good this time!" Here comes the lecture.
On the fiftieth floor of the Central Cathedral is the chamber known as the Great Hall of Ghostly Light. It serves as the meeting room for the new government of the Human Empire, the Human Unification Council. Twenty chairs surround a platinum oak table, and Kirito sits in one of them, preparing to be scolded like a child for the failed test of Dragoncraft Prototype Unit One. But it is not the failure of the test (which Ronie and Sadore correctly guessed, the heat elements melted the adamantium chambers without proper cooling and the craft exploded safely in the air) that is the cause of the verbal recourse.
Kirito sighs. "...Yes, sir."
"'I will not be destroying anything this time'--you swore upon your swords! I presume you haven't forgotten saying that!"
"...No, sir."
Doing the scolding to the (second) most powerful swordsman in the realm is the most powerful archer, Deusolbert Synthesis Seven. And like his Conflagration Bow, his words burn. "If Lady Asuna had not made use of her godly power, the ninety-fifth floor of the cathedral would be completely burned out at this moment! I don't care if it is uninhabited now, think of how the people of the city would lament if the historic, symbolic white tower became known as the Charred Tower! I don't think we can suffer a second tragic modification to the cathedral at your expense! It seems to me that you are utterly unaware of the status you possess! Leave the finer issues of developing arts and tools to the arts masters and blacksmiths who make it their calling!"
"That's enough for now, Deusolbert. Look at the swordsman delegate, he's as wilted as a slug-bug in the sun."
"But Commander..."
"It wouldn't do to scold the delegate so much that he runs away from home again. We've got the meeting with the Dark Territory next month, after all." Kirito silently gives thanks to the woman seated to his right at the table, the second Knight Commander of the Order of Integrity Knights, Fanatio Synthesis Two. However, you wouldn't believe she's the strongest in the order with how she cradles the baby in her arms, the son of her and the former commander of the order, Bercouli Synthesis One. She looks at Kirito, smiling. "So you'll have to behave yourself for a little while, boy."
"...It's much scarier when you call me 'boy' rather than 'delegate.'"
"Haha. Wouldn't you say that your fear is an admission of guilt coming from within?" Fanatio's eyes trail from Kirito to Asuna and Ronie who stand behind him at varying distances. Kirito feels a familiar air from Asuna, one that he's experienced time and time again in the near two years (or, if you include Underworld time, three years) they've been a couple, and beyond that ever since they met on Aincrad. It's not his fault per se that other girls toy with him around Asuna, but each time leads to the chill down his spine. That fake smile of Asuna is more powerful than any blade he's wielded, and he's not the only victim to it.
"The most important thing is that there was no real damage once again, so I suppose we can leave your scolding at that. Instead, I will merely insist that you spend the rest of the day until dinnertime tending to your office work.
"...All right." After sitting him up straight, Fanatio hands little baby Berche to Ronie as the other members of the Unification Council (save for two absences) enter the chamber and take their seats. Kirito mentally sighs for what's going to be a long, drawn out meeting, but this is his role here, and if anything, Asuna can speak in his place. She is the former vice-leader of the Knights of the Blood Oath and played a prominent role on the front lines of Sword Art Online. If Jaymes was here, he could do the same as a former prominent solo player on SAO's frontier and current captain of GGO's strongest squad, Crimson Squad. Kirito is used to those long, meticulous strategy meetings of SAO, he was there for many, but...he is a man of action, not talking.
"Have we heard any news from Subdelegate Orthinanos?"
"Not yet. She and her party left early this morning, and should be meeting with the Dark Territory Emperor soon..."
Minelda Rocks, Wesdarath, Medina
Medina taps the hilt of her sheathed sword, pacing back and forth impatiently in the throne room of the fort ruins that once served as her base of operations. While she doesn't mind waiting for the Dark Territory's top dog, she wonders what keeps him. He's not one to be late. Too bad she won't be able to see Kirito fail at the demonstration, but if she had to choose, she'd rather spend time with the annoying swordsman delegate in red than the one in black.
After the War of Underworld and the subsequent Rebellion of the Four Empires, Medina's accomplishments earned her enough recognition to become an Integrity Knight, her original goal years ago when she left home to reclaim her family's lost honor. However, with the goal accomplished with her involvement in the Clamp Crisis, she didn't see it fit to join the order, despite how prestigious the ranks of the knights still are. Her reasons are personal and joining the order interferes with them. She did accept the offer of becoming Jaymes' subdelegate, giving her a seat at the Unification Council in his stead. He hasn't appeared at the meetings full-time since he departed to the Dark Territory six months ago. He trusts Medina with his position and she believes she's done well, but her heart is with the sword, not politics.
She also gained a new friend in the meantime. While she declined the right to become an Integrity Knight, she does have the abilities of a full-fledged knight, meaning she would have skipped the apprenticeship for the most part had she accepted. Because of this, Fanatio asked her to take on one of the more promising apprentices as her own. She thought she'd get Ronie or Tiese, but instead she got a girl she hadn't seen since her academy days for the short time she was an Elite Disciple, Fifth Seat, right behind Kirito, their friend Eugeo, and two very annoying noble boys.
A low-ranked noble native to Norlangarth like all students of the northern academy, but with sword and art skills that surprised Medina when she saw her for Primary Trainee selection that she had to select her. During the Clamp Crisis, Medina left the academy to join the Anti-Cedar Task Force and didn't return afterwards, instead preparing for the eventual War of Underworld. It wasn't until the apprentices were officially inducted that Medina rejoined with her former page, Ilia Ordona.
Ilia, from the moment she was chosen as Medina's page, had treated her superior with utmost respect. Normally, of course Ilia would, Medina is a second-ranked noble by birth. But given how the Orthinanos family has been treated by its peers for generations, she expected some disdain. However, Ilia didn't care that she was chosen by a defect. As far as she cared, her fellow Primary Trainees and classmates, mostly high nobles, viewed her and the lower ranking nobles as trash anyway. She had seen Medina's swordplay during her examination, and was enthralled that someone viewed with such disgust could handle a blade so well. That's what Medina was told the first day they met, and it hasn't changed since.
Medina is taken from her thoughts of her page by sharp footsteps entering the throne room. Taking a deep breath, she turns away from the throne to the young man walking up to her. Dark hair rises from his brown head like he's been shocked by lightning, his auburn eyes flickering like floating lights in the barely adequate lighting of the room. He still wears that ridiculous red tunic, though he has done away with the associated cape. Hanging off his waist is his prized sword Falchion, on his back his golden shield made from a piece of Central Cathedral, Vindica. It's been six months since they've seen each other, and almost two years since they stood in the very same position on opposing sides of the Clamp Crisis in this very fort. She betrayed him, they almost killed each other, and the mastermind behind it all almost took them both out. It was also here not long after that they started their relationship anew, a friendship that goes beyond familial ties and fighting together.
Unfortunately, she'll only be second in his heart, maybe even less after hearing his friends from his world showed up during the War of Underworld, including Lady Asuna. But as far as she's concerned, there's only one above her, and she's not here in Wesdarath.
"Been a while, Medina. You look good."
"Same to you, but I bet you don't have the stress of a council leading you to grow gray hairs."
Jaymes chuckles as Medina steps down to his level. "That, I don't. I'm not brave enough for politics."
"Neither am I, yet you threw me to the wolves." Before he gets another word out, she wraps her arms around his neck. He's surprised at first, then holds her around her waist and back. She says nothing for a moment, just letting the moment linger. Selfish as it is, a right she willingly forfeited, she wills her heart to beat in tandem with his. For now, she has the knight to herself, a small dose of happiness before the one he holds dearer sees him. Then again, the other girl has eternity, Medina does not. "I missed you."
"Same here. Sorry I haven't visited."
"If you were going to do all that, you should have let me stay dead back then."
"Well I didn't plan on staying here long after sending Alice to my world. But I'll remember that next time you die."
"I hope so." Medina separates from Jaymes before it becomes too hard to tear herself away and recomposes herself. Medina Orthinanos the young woman is replaced by the Swordswoman Subdelegate Medina Orthinanos. "All right. We can catch up later, but for now, I want to privately brief you on the situation at hand."
He nods. "Very well. But why just me? Should Mia be brought into this too?"
"It's not that I don't want her to know the details, but there's some things I want you and only you to see. I'll give her the rundown en route." Seeing his understanding, Medina reaches for her waist, handing the swordsman a rolled parchment and begins to brief him. "Last week, we received a report of a mysterious presence in the woods east of our current location. In response, General Serlut sent a scouting party, which confirmed that there's...something in the woods down here."
"Something?"
"More or less, it's supposed to be a legend of the nearby village, but you and I have seen tales of villagers come to life both here in the west with the guardian dragon and the empress in the north. So while the scouts did their investigation, Ilia and I did our own in the Great Library. Cardinal did not spare a moment of history, and that's how we found that."
Jaymes unrolls the paper and holds it up to read. "'Long ago, a deathly divine beast resided in the lands of Wesdarath. It watched over a vast frest around the shrine in which it dwelled. All who encountered it met their end at the hand of death's infernal sickle. Time and time again, humans encroached upon the woods in search of resources. Many died. It was as though the divine beast was passing down judgement, mercilessly taking the lives of those who entered the forest. Thus it was decided that the people would offer maidens each year as tribute to appease the beast. The maidens were never seen again. Nevertheless, it refused to show mercy to its trespassers, and the hostility between human and divine beast raged on. The standoff continued for year upon year, unti the people hatched a plan to bring their grief to an end. A beautiful maiden called the legendary Demonic Archer was tasked with the deed. The people sent her disguised as a bride to assassinate the beast. They awaited her return, but she was never seen again.
"'Believing her to be dead as her predecessors, the villagers decided to perform her rites. The villagers had collected what small sum they could as a reward, but the archer did not come to claim it. Selling what few possessions they had left and adding it to the pool, they placed their hopes in one final plan. This time, the beast would be slain. But what the trespassers discovered shocked them. The maiden and the beast had come to live together in harmony. The villagers reacted with outrage, believing the archer to be on the side of the beast. The couple's love, unbound by race. enraged the humans, who slaughtered them. The divine beast spoke its bitter final words and vanished, while the archer was decapitated and her head buried apart from her body. The forest was free at last, but the death of the divine beast brought with it a great change, transforming it into a deadly maze of trees that would swallow up all who entered.'
"Well, that is quite the story." Jaymes rolls up the paper and hands it back to Medina. "So we're not dealing with something lingering from the Clamps, but something that suddenly sprouted up?"
"That's what the scouts determined, but it goes beyond that. These divine beasts are not just powerful monsters, but beings originating from the time of Stacia, before creation. Legends passed down say they actually existed."
Jaymes crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. "Existed before the creation of the Underworld?"
"Yes."
"...You know I find that hard to believe."
"No one is asking for an otherworlder's logic. The facts here are that the Pontifex eliminated all threats to humanity within the empire, or at least to her...but the divine beasts weren't among them. They...avoided conflict with her, it seems, or she avoided them. But regardless, they're reappearing now, after centuries of silence."
"Fine. What are we dealing with? Any dead?"
"Not yet. A dozen injured. The forest is sealed off, anyways, but we found that only females have been injured, all archers. And only the female scouts, when carrying a bow, passed the seal. We'll be the only ones going in."
"Hmm..." Jaymes says nothing more as he begins to pace. Something about this is worrying the most powerful man in the world (in her opinion), and this is the same guy who barely visibly expressed worry over the Pontifex or the War of Underworld. If he's this concerned... He stops, but doesn't face Medina. "If they're truly...divine, we're facing something stronger than Quinella and Vecta, something beyond me, Kirito, and Asuna. But now reading this, I understand why you specifically requested Mia. You must have a plan."
Medina nods. "It's quite simple, actually. Me, you, Ilia, and Mia will enter the Forest of the Dead," she pauses there to take some delight to his sweatdrop reaction to the forest's name, "find the beast and slay it using Mia's beauty and bowmanship to draw out the beast."
Jaymes raises his hand to his head and brushes his hair back. "Nothing is ever named appropriately."
"Says the boy who named the Clamps to avoid a wordy title." Jaymes shrugs as if he isn't the one responsible for the name of the resource-sucking plants used by the Pontifex to revive herself. Smiling, she walks up to him and pats his shoulder. "We shouldn't waste anymore time. The quicker we arrive at the forest and slay the Reaper of the Woods, the quicker we can put this behind us."
"Yeah... Hey, Medina, one more question... How is Eydis?"
The question she was waiting for and dreaded. Eydis Synthesis Ten, the Knight of the Abyss, a member of the Order of the Integrity Knights and their friend. To Medina, she's probably her best girl friend; yet at the same time, Eydis is the victorious rival for the warrior's heart. Or, at least, that's how Medina interpreted his words from the aftermath of the War of Underworld. He did say he chooses Eydis, but she never forgot what he said afterwards, that if he had to forget his time here when he returned to his world, he would rather forget being with someone who'll be alive to remind him rather than someone who'll be long dead, with descendants he won't recall spawning.
Since then, Eydis has been somewhat distant to her. At first, it was understandable, the knight and warrior were rarely seen separately during the rebellion and the rise of the Unification Council, but the same could be said of Medina with them. It was once Jaymes left for the Dark Territory permanently and dealt with bringing the clans under his heel that the distance widened. She didn't understand why it happened, and any attempt to figure it out has been foiled by the knight's absences. The last time she saw Eydis was a month ago during a meeting for the Integrity Knights, but didn't get a chance to speak with her.
She could tell Jaymes a fat lie, but that's never been their relationship, not even at their worst. She could mince her words, but here in the place where they both stated they'd kill the other should the other get in their way, that wouldn't do either. She sighs and looks away, her shoulders falling. "I don't know what to tell you. She's busy, I guess, but... I haven't seen her in a month."
"...Very well... Let's put that aside for now and head to the woods. I'm sure Ilia is praying for us to come save her from Mia."
Medina's mood rises at the mention of their pages. She hasn't met Mia, but Jaymes has described her once in a letter as very energetic. She might be too much for the quiet, task-minded Ilia. "You're right. Let's get to it."