Chapter 12
In the name of those who Resist
Two months after the end of the Stormterror Crisis
"This is what happened, General Gorou," Teppei said. "I was surrounded by Shogunate Samurai, and these three came to my rescue. Aether can use the elements without a Vision, and Will here has the ability to use two Visions at once! The Resistance could really use people with that kind of skill. We should bring them in!"
The one he was introducing them to, General Gorou, had canine-like ears and a tail and was wearing light armor on his upper body, arms, and legs. Behind him floated a decorated bow made of reinforced wood, and colored in black and light blue, with bronze-gold colored metal fused to it, joining together to form a canine-shaped head right above the handle.
Gorou cleared his throat before answering. "I presume you've heard that the goal of the resistance is to defeat the Shogun's Army and repeal the Vision Hunt Decree, correct?" he asked. When both Will and Aether nodded, he went on. "This is no easy task. Each who sets foot on the battlefield must be ready to sacrifice their life. So, tell me, why do you wish to join us? The Resistance cannot accept anyone who does not possess a warrior's will, for both our sake and everyone else's. You both and I must be certain of your decision," he said, crossing his arms.
Aether looked over at Will and Paimon, and then he nodded. "Well, let me tell you about the seizure of the one hundredth Vision," Aether said, and a bolt of lightning rumbled in the distance as if to add emphasis to his words. Gorou narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to one side.
"You're referring to the ceremony to mark the one hundredth Vision seized under the decree, right? Yes, we received some news of it here, despite it taking place over in Inazuma City. From what we heard, there was a disturbance, that allowed the vision bearer to escape. Highly unusual, considering that the Raiden Shogun appeared in person…" responded the canine general. "But why do you wish to discuss this all of a sudden? Unless you have some information to share?"
"Yes. There were actually two disturbances at the ceremony, and we each caused one of them," Will answered. Gorou's eyes widened in surprise. Will gestured to Aether with his head. "The first was when Aether went ahead to rescue the Vision bearer whose Vision was being taken. I arrived later, and while Aether and Paimon were fleeing with Thoma, I kept the Shogun busy so she wouldn't go after them, and then fled the scene myself. Unfortunately, my glider got damaged in my escape, leading to my injured leg."
"Yep, and after that, they added the three of us to the army's wanted list. That's why we came here," Paimon added.
Gorou rested his chin on one of his hands in thought. "Now that you mention it, we did just recover a bounty notice from a Shogunate Samurai defeated in battle. It read 'Reward for the capture of a blond-haired traveler, a brown-haired swordsman wielding two swords, and their mysterious flying pet…' Hmm... So, this refers to you three?"
Paimon's face contorted into one of seething rage. "What! Who are they calling a 'mysterious flying pet'!? Oh Paimon is gonna have lots of Paimonial wrath to doll out when she gets back to Narukami Island, they're not gonna know what hit them!" she exclaimed, causing Will, Aether, Teppei, and Gorou to all start laughing.
"My apologies," Gorou said after clearing his throat. "I understand your situation well enough for now. On behalf of the resistance, welcome to our ranks."
Both Will and Aether nodded. "Her Excellency is currently away from the camp. We don't know where she went, but she instructed us to take care of everything in her absence."
"We won't let you down!" Will exclaimed as he jumped excitedly in the air, only to wince as he landed on his foot again. "Ow…" he muttered, and Gorou smiled empathetically.
"I appreciate the enthusiasm, but you should go get that leg checked out before you do anything else," he said, and Will nodded in agreement, slightly embarrassed.
"Unfortunately, I have to leave to lead a patrol now, but Teppei here can show you around the camp first. When you're ready, find me by Nazuchi Beach, and I'll dispatch you straight to the front line. If you are ready, of course," Gorou said, shaking both of their hands, then turning around and going back into the tent behind him.
"Come on, the field hospital is right over there, where some of my friends are recovering. The last time I saw them, I promised that I'd introduce any new recruits. When they're finally back on the battlefield alongside us, we'll all be brothers in arms!" Teppei exclaimed with excitement.
Teppei led Will, Aether, and Paimon over to the first aid tent, and they spent some time getting to know the friends Teppei spoke of.
"I still can't believe you went toe to toe with the Shogun herself though. You've either got enough guts for the entire resistance, or you're just crazy," one of them said to Will, who rubbed the back of his head.
"Well, to be honest, it wasn't really a fight. It was more of a one sided game of cat and mouse. I did my best, but all I have to show for it is a semi fractured leg that I got when my glider was shot down," Will admitted, humbly.
"You're leg's hurt? Well, why didn't you say so? Let me take a look," said another one of Teppei's friends, a girl with a Hydro Vision named Yorinki. Will slid off his boot and pulled up his pants leg, and the doctor kneeled down. She tapped on the ankle a few times, completely absorbed in her work, and made a few humming noises while she took mental notes. "All right, this shouldn't take me too long to fix up. Wait here. Oh, and Aether? Paimon? If you wouldn't mind, we're running low on Fang hooks and Naku weeds, both of which are useful for medical treatments. The Fang hooks are very similar to Wolfhooks in Mondstadt, and the Naku weeds can be found in areas with lots of electro energy. Do you think you can go try and find some while I get Will's leg fixed up?"
"Sure, we got it! We'll be back in no time!" Paimon replied, flying off to go look around with Aether. Meanwhile, Will, Teppei, and the other wounded fighters talked about their opinions of the current state of Inazuma.
"Honestly, if you ask me, the Vision Hunt Decree doesn't make any sense. From a certain point of view, I can kind of see the logic behind the Sakoku Decree, but stealing Visions? If the Archons are the ones who grant Visions, why can the Shogun just, well, create a bunch of extra Visions? Why does she need ours?" another one of Teppei's friends wondered.
Yorinki walked back out of the supply tent, with a jar of crushed Onikabuto in her hands. "Well, no one knows for certain that the Archons grant Visions," she pointed out. "And given that the Archons are all supposed to be many centuries old, I'd be surprised if the Shogun hadn't thought of an idea like that," she added as she spread the powder on Will's ankle. The boy winced slightly as she used her Hydro Vision to soak it into the skin.
"Ooh, that stings…" he muttered, his face tight.
Yorinki giggled. "Just give it a moment," she said, a silly grin on her face.
As if on cue, the stinging sensation in his leg stopped. "Huh. It's gone, just like that," he mused. "Thanks, Doc, it feels better already."
"Good. I'm glad it works," Yorinki said with a grin. "But as I said, it's not a certain fact that the Archons give out Visions. If you ask me, I think it's Celestia itself that handles that task."
Will nodded in agreement. After all, there was no way the Cryo Archon would even think of giving him his Anemo Vision the night he escaped from Snezhnaya.
The ground suddenly shook, and Will looked around. "Oh, don't worry about that. It's just the storm sending big lightning bolts down. Sometimes they fall with enough force to shake the ground, and sometimes they don't. But either way, we're fine here thanks to Her Excellency's Hydro Barrier," Teppei said with a grin. He gestured up above them to the large, semitransparent dome covering the camp.
But something had unnerved Will, and when the ground shook again, and then a third time, he'd had enough. Standing up, Will ignored Yorinki's protests to sit down and let his leg rest, and then he walked around the path to make sure that everything was okay.
It wasn't. The situation was anything but okay, and as Will rounded the last tent, he caught sight of two Shogunate Assassins slinking back into the shadows, their silver daggers tainted by the fresh blood of the two Resistance Guards at the front gate. Will gasped, before cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting "It's the Shogunate! They're at the gate!"
Immediately, a dozen Resistance Samurai ran over to him with their swords and spears raised. He heard snarls and gasps of horror as the two guards slumped to the ground, their necks oozing thin trails of blood. With their opening seized, a horde of Shogunate infantry surged through the gate and charged at the Resistance. But something still worried Will, and he soon realized what it was.
Out of nowhere, they all saw a massive shape catapult itself into the air to land in front of the Shogunate forces. A massive mask shielded its body from view until it split in half and revealed a large, humanoid-shaped robotic samurai. It drew a black and silver sword from its hip and held it in one hand, the blade easily as long as Will was tall. "No way… it's the Maguu Kenki!" Teppei exclaimed.
The Shogunate Samurai grinned and cackled mockingly at the Resistance until suddenly the Maguu Kenki moved forward with incredible speed and slashed at Will, the closest foe it could detect. Its massive sword cleaved a large mark into the ground as Will leaped to one side to avoid the cut, and the rest of the Shogunate and Resistance Fighters engaged each other in battle, both sides letting out their own battle cries.
"Looks like Dottore finished his project after all… There's no way a Non-Vision Wielder could take on this thing. Guess like it's up to me!" Will realized after glancing back at the massive slash mark on the ground, as big as any of the Resistance fighters. Racing up to the Kenki, Will parried another downward slash with his katana and slid between its legs, before jumping off the ground to slash at the mechanical titan with his odachi in an Anemo empowered slash.
Freezing its head in mid air with his Cryo Delusion, Will kicked off of its shoulders as it flailed around and tried to cut him in two. As Will landed on the ground in front of the automaton, it gripped the ice on its head and crushed it in one hand. Will scowled, and he charged at the Maguu Kenki again, this time throwing his katana like a large throwing knife. Moments before it would've sliced the Kenki's head off, the enormous oni mask flashed with golden light, and it intercepted the sword, which embedded itself in the left side of the mask.
With a snarl, Will then vaulted over the destroyed remains of a wooden fence and blasted himself up into the air with a cyclone of Anemo. Grabbing onto a nearby ledge, Will kicked off of the rocks just in time to avoid the Kenki's Anemo infused slash. "No way… did it just- did it mimic my Anemo skill?!" Will mentally exclaimed in shock as he landed on the Kenki's shoulder and slashed into its head, retrieving his katana and backflipping away.
As if in response, the Kenki's massive two piece oni mask then vanished and reappeared around Will. With a thrust of both mechanical hands, the two halves of the mask shot towards Will and exploded with a blast of Cryo energy that Will only barely avoided by leaping into a shoulder roll to get away. As he stood up, he saw the oni mask reform on either side of the Maguu Kenki.
As for the rest of the Resistance fighters, they were being pushed back into the camp. Gorou was still nowhere to be seen, clearly being out on patrol still, and Aether hadn't gotten back from searching for medicinal herbs for Yorinki.
"We're outnumbered and outmatched… I need to help the others, but if I do, then this thing is going to wipe out the camp!" Will thought to himself as he cross blocked a downward strike that sent him skidding back slightly. "What do I do… What can I do?"
His foe slashed again, catching Will by the gut, and he gasped. Mixed in with it were droplets of blood.
The Kenki began charging up to unleash another powerful attack, and Will readied himself to block it as the icy cold air crystallized raindrops around. But then, a voice called out from behind the Kenki, a voice that Will was all too happy to hear at that time.
"Lightning slash!"
Three purple circles ripped through the air and slammed into the Maguu Kenki's back, and it slumped over as Aether slammed his sword right through its back, unknowingly in the same way that Lumine had saved Will from the Ochimusha a month prior with her crescent hilt shaped sword. "Aether!" Will exclaimed in relief as the blonde-haired traveler thrust his hands upward from the ground and sent the Kenki flying into the air with a pillar of rocks from his Geo power.
Seizing the opportunity, Will channeled more Anemo power into his hands than he'd ever used before, and his armor briefly morphed into his Foul Legacy Transformation. With a shout of rage, he pushed out and released a massive blast of wind from his hands, and he sent the mechanical samurai flying off into the distant, storm cloud-covered sky.
Falling to the ground, Will pressed a hand to his wound and froze it shut, mentally cursing the Fatui Harbinger who had built such a machine. "Urgh…" he groaned, looking up at Aether. "Thanks for the save. Looks like that's another one I owe you for."
The blonde shook his head. "You can pay me back later. And don't worry, I'm keeping a list. How's that wound?" he asked, and Will nodded with a small grunt.
"Stings, but I don't think he hit anything major…" he said, before turning his head back to look at the camp, which had now been lit ablaze. "Come on, we've got to stop them!" he said, manifesting both swords into his hands and charging back into the fray, his friend right behind him.
Letting out a shout, Aether front flipped over a Shogunate infantryman, a Doushin based on his appearance, and skewered him on the end of an electro-infused sword. A glance over showed that Teppei's sword was locked against the katana of a Yoriki samurai, dead set on reaching the wounded resistance members the Teppei was guarding. Without a second of hesitation, Will sprinted over and swept the Shogunate samurai's feet out from under him with an Anemo empowered kick, and then he pierced the samurai's chestplate with both swords.
At the same time, Yorinki had used her Hydro vision to blast an Infantry captain away from her patients, sending him tumbling off of the cliffside. Spinning on the ball of her foot, she was about to start healing minor wounds, trusting the torrential downpour overhead to douse the flames engulfing the camp.
Running over the main tent to grab any intelligence he could find, Teppei narrowly dodged a spear as it shot out of nowhere right in front of him. With a shout, he brought his sword up through the Ashigaru, who fell backward, now clutching a grizzly wound in his side as his spear flew into the air where Teppei caught it. Spinning around at the last second, Teppei thrust the spear out just in time to intercept a Yoriki's katana.
"I didn't know I could do that!" he exclaimed with a grin, before running inside the tent and stuffing parchments and scrolls inside his uniform as fast as he could.
Outside the tent, Aether had dealt with the Yoriki that Teppei had kept at bay, and as Teppei left the tent and he turned around, he gasped in shock. Despite the unending thunderstorm that raged above them, most of the camp had burned to the ground. A loud crash echoed through what remained of Fort Fujitou as the large watchtower fell to the ground, crushing two Resistance samurai that were too slow to get away. Yorinki stretched out her hand towards the splintered wood, as Shogunate samurai grinned at her menacingly. One of them held up their spear to stab her through the neck, but as the blade came down, Will parried it with his katana and sent the Ashigaru flying backward, pinning him to the ground with a trio of icicles.
"Aether! Paimon! Teppei! Get out of here and find Gorou!" he shouted, kicking another Doushin away from the wounded soldiers. "The camp has fallen! We'll get the wounded out of here, but someone needs to tell the rest of the Resistance so they don't walk into a trap!"
"Got it!" Aether called back, running off with Teppei towards Nazuchi beach, propelling them through the air once they reached the cliffside with a blast of Anemo, Paimon flying close behind them.
Yorinki looked up at Will. "Now what?" she asked. She and the other wounded soldiers had their backs to the papery wall behind them, and Will was the only fighter left. Everyone else was either dead, dying, or wounded such that they couldn't fight anymore. Numerous samurai closed in on them, forming a semicircle around them as Will held up both of his swords in silent defiance.
As the samurai moved closer, Will spared a glance back and saw the four helpless samurai behind him, with only Yorinki as their defender after him. "Looks like it's all on me now," he thought to himself. In a single movement, he threw his katana off to the side and stabbed the odachi into the ground, before thrusting out both hands in front of him. Instantly, a massive cyclone of wind picked up, and the samurai were pulled towards it. With his foes off balance, Will pulled the odachi out of the ground and leaped forward into the middle of the samurai.
Spinning on the ball of his foot, he slashed down low to the ground in a circle that knocked the samurai off their feet, and then swiftly stabbed the sword back into the ground. A massive blast of air sent the samurai flying into the sky, only to then fall back down to their deaths.
Without wasting a second, he then turned back around and picked up two of the wounded samurai. "Come on, we've got to get them out of here," he told Yorinki, who nodded and helped the other two wounded samurai up, before leading them all out of the smoldering remains of the resistance camp.
A/N: FINALLY! I HAVE RETURNED! AND WHOO BOY, I NEEDED THAT BREAK.
Seriously, I haven't even thought about writing for the past few weeks, just because I needed some time off. Before I finished Twenty Fifth Knight, about... eh, I'd say 80 to 90% of my free time was devoted solely to writing so I could finish up Twenty Fifth Knight and The Forgotten Heroes, both of which are still getting sequels by the way. However, Twenty Fifth Knight's is going to be a while because I want to get The Untold Legends, the overarching saga for which The Forgotten Heroes is the first part of, up to the beginning of Alicization. I'm writing out Fairy Dance, GGO, I might do my own take on the Mothers Rosario arc, I'm definitely doing Ordinal Scale, and who knows, maybe more. My goal right now is to continue fleshing out SAO, particularly my four original characters that I added for The Forgotten Heroes. Mateo and Katherine from Twenty Fifth Knight are already fleshed out as much as I can make them, and I've got many ideas for both stories, so stay tuned. But of course, because I'm just "that guy", I've got to leave all of that on a cliffhanger for now as I finish up Through the Storm. Right now, that's the only uploaded fanfic that isn't currently finished, so before I let myself get too caught up with any other fanfics, I'm finishing this one.
Well, that's enough out of me. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and get ready, because (at least if everything goes according to plan), the next installment will be coming out sometime within the next week or two!