Author's Note: Happy late Halloween everyone, remember to have your poppies on till the eleventh.
Chapter 84: The Dragon of the Sword
Katarina and Kuro had both found each other on a porch in Q'Ten Lo eating sweets and drinking tea together as they discussed their own respective affairs going forward. With less than stellar news to be shared in the process.
"Nothing?" Katarina asked looking desperate.
"It's not that I can't give you a holy weapon to dispel what ever curse you seem to think has been following you around, it's that you can't use it. Observe." Kuro casually flicked out the Rhongomyniad, the strongest lance in her arsenal, the tower of light that anchor's the world in place, the ultimate holy weapon, the most magic consuming paper weight Kuro has ever crafted. "Catch." Katarina took the weapon in hand.
'Weapon Copy Activated. Rhongomyniad Level Locked 1000'
"One-one-one..." Katarina stuttered but Kuro didn't need her to tell her what she was seeing. The Crafting Bonuses and Crafting Mini-game had elevated her mage craft to unimaginable heights while simultaneously reducing her mana cost down to a equally ludicrous level, even then it took most of her power to make this thing but fortunately her Sword has come up with a mana factory.
"That's just how it is." Kuro shrugged her shoulders as she continued to drink her tea. "All the Noble Phantasms have been upgraded, among them the holy types hold a special place in the food chain, considering the whole 'crafted by gods' thing they usually have going on." Defeated, Katarina just had to suck it up and go do something else with her time instead. "Good girl. Now you need to focus on gathering the materials for your own weapon." If they couldn't get any of their high level skills or unlocks to fight the Phoenixes, then they would just settle for dumping as much violence on top of their heads as possible instead.
"Huu. I know." And so that was how Katarina left, defeated and without a way of dealing with the army of shadowy stalkers that she was actively concerned were going to eat her soul. Which was good for Kuro, as she had her own plans to unlock a Sacred Gear.
'What is The Legendary Hero planning?'
"I need to go see Maple." Kuro smiled maliciously as she made her statement.
You could see a dark cloud floating over Raphtalia as she looked down at Kuro. She left strict instructions that no one was going to disturb her hero, less they face her hammer, Kuro was already on Raphtalia's list for stuffing her Shikigami full of hammers as well, that didn't even mention the part where when this girl schemes it's never good.
"I at least had the common decency to bring a bribe." Kuro was currently kneeling on the ground, three bumps stacked on one another on her head from where Raphtalia had hit her earlier.
"Only you would call that 'common decency.'" Raphtalia countered as she tapped her fingers against her hammer. "Another weapon? She already has enough voices talking inside of her head, this had better be good." It was probably not a good idea to bring up the Nine Lives II, it'll only make her more angry.
"Excuse me for a moment." Kuro stepped away as she went about her work. Excalibur was one of the stronger swords she had at her disposal, and it paired well with the Avalon which rendered its wielder effectively immortal with its high regenerative ability. Taking the two together she had a rare opportunity: a Charge Blade Noble Phantasm. Simply turn the Avalon into a shield, tweak the Excalibur a little... "Presenting the Avalon/Excalibur combi!" Kuro looked quite proud of herself as she held out the fusion of ancient fairy magic and sophisticated engineering. Maple was looking a lot better since awakening the power of her Sacred Gear, and not just because her health improved. "Maple." Kuro was looking at a beautiful young woman who easily rivalled Ost in the looks department, and her physical appearance was likely designed to be as attractive to humanoids as possible. "Did you Awaken your 'Level up/age up' demi-human genes or something?"
"I don't think so." Raphtalia opted not to mention the brief Turtle eye. "Bason said that the Sacred Gears will strengthen our bodies as we use them, maybe this is what he meant."
"You don't exactly look like a warrior." Super model was the first word that came to mind, only not the kind that look like they've starved themselves for months on end, Kuro was actively resisting the urge to tear off her hospital gown and ravish her.
"I feel stronger though." Maple made a Cobra flex with her arms which visibly swelled with muscle. "What do you got there?" Maple took the weapon in hand and promptly read the notification that ensued. "'Excalibur/Avalon II. Equip Bonus...' Wow that's a lot of zeroes. 'Main Bonus: Immortality.'" A few moments of messing with Maple's Interface as Kuro digested what Maple had been talking about. "'Immortality: So Long as the Hero can supply the Ki they will be able to live with 1 point of HP.' Oh that's handy." And then Maple's face turned sour. "The Prydwyn? What's the deal with you two?" Well, that's only to be expected given the history of those two but Kuro had bigger priorities at the moment. What Maple was saying was not nearly as significant as the fact that she was saying it at all.
"You can actually unlock that thing?" Kuro asked stupefied.
"Ten minutes of life threatening danger reduces the levels needed to unlock all weapons by one point." Raphtalia stated letting out a sigh. "Maple took on the danger of three hundred people, for twelve hours." That's Five months! This ingenious little shielder was throwing around the power of a god that was five months ahead of them already!
"Well." Kuro thought about suppressing the great swell of jealousy she was feeling right now, but if she did unlock Envy again then Byakuya would just dismantle it again so it was okay. "That's good for you."
'The Legendary Sword believes the Hero has her Priorities wrong.'
"In any case it was good seeing you again." Good seeing her fancy new sacred gear shield, thanks for the recipe on how to make one. "Take care." Once Kuro was out of range of Raphtalia's hammer she immediately began scheming. "We need to make a Sacred Gear too."
'The Infinite Sword Sea has a plethora of swords suitable as weapons of the gods.'
"One that hasn't been put through the ringer of our enhancements already. We can Trace it after we don't have to worry about levels anymore." 'Agreed. What is the Hero's Scheme?' "There are four Directional Beasts after all." Kuro commented simply.
'Ill advise. Without the Directional Beasts saving this world will become more difficult.'
"Yes but there is an alternative. A certain dragon lying around in bits and pieces inside of a thousand other dragons. One that as I recall correctly: 'no matter how many times it dies it can be revived once again.'"
'The Hero wants to make a god out of spare parts? And then turn them into a Sacred Gear?'
"Why not?" Kuro was smiling deviously. "We already got the first part." Kuro brought up a list of weapon transformations and one in particular warranted special attention, surrounded by a sea of connections to other swords. 'The Sword of Chastity. The Hero has shown great restraint in the pursuit of their desires-' Kuro burst out laughing, then she got zapped and brought back her focus. '-and as such has been given the power to instil a great restraint on those whom she chooses.' "Huh a Debuff Skill. I was wondering about that." Kuro received another zap from her sword. "Moving on. What we need right now is to start collecting Dragon cores, and then find a dragon that no one will mind if we butcher and use as materials for the sacred gear. Luckily I know where we can get a whole bunch of them."
Several Priests had been chanting religiously as Blacksmiths hammered away at the weapons that were before them. Several of the weapons had already had their curses suppressed to the point that they can be used safely, once that is. The shell of materials that was coating the weapons and keeping their respective curses from acting up was quite delicate, yes the old pervert was the one who could work the most efficiency but he also had a hundred people working for him. Thus after wiping the sweat off of his brow he let out a sigh of satisfaction, and cued the appearance of the only person in the world who made more weapons than he has.
"Ah the sword Hero." The black smith smiled warmly at the appearance of the familiar face.
"The weapons ready?" Kuro though did not miss out on the look of blatant lust that the man old enough to be her grand father was giving her, demi-humans have different standards so he could even he could even be old enough to be her great grandfather. Well it was all moot anyway, Kuro didn't have any moral high ground to work off of here.
"I'm not sure ready is the right word, they won't spit out a cursed monster when you use them but I can only guarantee that the first time." The Black smith explained letting Kuro assess his work.
"If that's the case then we'll save them for when we go to confront the Directional Beasts." Kuro stated as she put the weapons away into her storage.
"Glad to know our had work hasn't gone to waste." The Black Smith opted to report to the nearest bar to celebrate his victory.
Ten minutes later Kuro was skilfully removing the dragon cores from each of the weapons that she had pilfered. His work wouldn't go to waste, Kuro had already recorded each of the fully blessed weapons into her Infinite Sword Sea and would be making copies of them to hand out to the villagers before they fought the Phoenix in order to multiply the amount of violence they can dump on it's head, so it was okay for her to do whatever she wants with the originals right?
'The Hero already has a Dragon Emperor Core Sword.'
"Oh don't worry." Kuro smiled maliciously as she looked at the sword, and at the materials she stashed inside. "They're not for you." The next stop on Kuro's material farming expedition was back to Melromarc, and to its resident intelligence capsule.
"A Dragon Emperor?" Trash asked looking at Kuro suspiciously.
"I need material from its body for another black smith chain." Kuro lied flawlessly, is what she would like to think.
"Oh? But aren't dragon materials of an extremely high quality? And most of it is useful for increasing magic related skills so I would have thought you would use your unique magic to trace it long ago. Given these two things together I would assume that it would be one of the countless weapons that are currently locked out of your use." A painful silence filled the air.
"What are your demands?" Kuro stated simply.
"To begin with..." which meant Kuro was in for a long day. "...let's start with all the information you have on this 'Heroic spirit' system that you can give me."
"The Holy Grail system was the brain child of three families including my own. One family owned land riddled with leylines containing huge amounts of magic, one family had the tracing expertise needed to make it manifest, and my own family were specialised in the creation of humonculi that would serve as a vessel for the grail itself. The issue here is that after they summoned the damned thing they couldn't agree on what to do with it, which led to the Holy Grail Wars." The King nodded his head to show his understanding. "Seven Heroic spirits needed to be sacrificed to summon the grail and so the families agreed to the use of a death match using them to decide who would get the wish, course since they couldn't decide what to do about the remaining four sacrifices they invited outside families to compete as well." Kuro looked pretty bitter about the whole thing, Trash noted some inconsistencies that didn't line up but it wasn't part of the information he was going for.
"A fair Compromise." Trash stated shrugging his shoulders. "So let's talk about the Heroic Spirits and their Noble Phantasms."
"A person has to have a few pre-requisits to become a Heroic Spirit. The first is a story." Kuro Explained prompting the King to cock a brow suspiciously.
"A story?" The former King asked questioningly.
"For one thing, a Heroic Spirit's physical form is drawn from the collective consciousness of humanity."
"So in theory a fictional character, if well known and popular, could be summoned as a Heroic Spirit?" Trash asked and Kuro shook her head.
"Again no. Heroic Spirits, bastardised parodies granted super natural power they may be, are alive and to become a living thing you need a soul. If no soul exists for the person in question then you'd have to find something else to use instead." Kuro explained but the former King interpreted her explanation as 'Yes, but you'd need to seriously fudge the system for it to work that way' and so nodded his head indicating for Kuro to continue. "The second thing they need is 'uniqueness.'"
"'Uniqueness?'" Trash asked cocking a suspicious brow.
"Being a Heroic Spirit is not just something that anyone can do, each of them have to have the natural talent and training to become the best at whatever it is they do. For this same reason it's almost impossible to summon a 'modern hero' of my world because of the mass production of weaponry and training." Kuro explained simply.
"The Guns Takt was so fond of?" The King asked and Kuro snapped her fingers in affirmation.
Soldiers don't qualify as Heroic Spirits because as opposed to a 'unique existence that stands out from the rest' you instead have 'the easiest to train and most effective existence mass produced.'
"A heroic spirit are broadly divided into five categories and can be summoned into one of seven forms. From most common to least common we have: Human, an ordinary person who was able to become extraordinary. Earth, who are known as heroes of the land recorded in myth and legend, things like fairies and monsters are also included in the list. Heaven, those who have the blood of divine beings in their veins. Star, the other category, also known as the hope of humanity. Finally there's Beast, the physical embodiment of the evils of mankind." Kuro explained raising the fingers on her hand one by one.
"Evils of man?" Trash was legitimately surprised. "The term heroic spirit implies something a little more... positive."
"They are the rarest category, but you're not wrong." Kuro materialised a familiar set of butcher's knives, the ones that she made erupt from a certain impostor claw hero. "These belonged to a notorious serial killer known as Jack the Ripper. She ripped open the corpses of seven prostitutes but was never found. Her actions pushed forensics forward massively so it was decided that she had made a net positive to human history." Kuro let the knives dissolved as Trash processed the new information. "Well Jack isn't part of the Beast class either, nor was she evil, just insane. But you understand my point right?"
"Yes. The Seven forms?" Trash asked while he cocked a brow suspiciously, it was best not to imagine what kinds of horrors are part of the beast class if such a vicious and notorious serial killer doesn't even qualify.
"They would be, Sabre, Lancer, Archer, Rider, Assassin, Berserker and Caster." Kuro explained as she traced the symbols for each class above her fingers. "To be clear, these aren't the only categories they can be summoned as, they're just the most common. Nor can a Heroic spirit be summoned in every category, only the ones suitable to them. Though if you tweak their story a bit then it would be possible."
"Does the caster class mean what I think it does?" Trash asked as he reached the point he was going for.
"Sometimes yes. A few use magical books as their Noble Phantasms, at least one uses a knife." Kuro saw this coming from a mile away. "Now that we've reached what you really want: the Dragon Emperor?"
"We're still looking for Takt's dragon, she was the only one in his circle of associates we have yet to find and put down, but I will put some people on it." Trash snapped his fingers and a nearby Shadow appeared and nodded his head in affirmation before disappearing again. "In the mean time, you will begin producing magical staffs for me to utilise." Kuro wasted no time.
Luckily she knew exactly who to start with. Gilgamesh was the first of the Heroic Spirits, the King of Mankind's first civilisation Babylon, his Gate of Babylon could spit out 'every treasure in the world' Noble Phantasms included. The caster version of him was much more mellow but also a lot weaker, instead of spitting out any kind of weapons Caster Gilgamesh spat out magical items such as magic wands to attack with. These were what was dropping into Trash's hands one after another while they waited for the Shadow to get back. Then after spending the entire day and well into the night dropping wands into Trash's hands...
"Hmm. It seems that we've reached the point where they're too strong for my current level to unlock." Trash commented as if he was disappointed. Disappointment, was that the feeling you're supposed to have after receiving hundreds of new transformations for your weapon? "No matter. We'll simply move onto the modified ones now."
"'The Modified ones'?" How much was this old geezer going to make her work?
"Yes. I'm aware that you've been altering Noble Phantasms into different forms so that the other Heroes could use them. I believe the description was that while they were technically weaker than the originals in compensation they're also easier to unlock." And so Kuro was put through the ringer once more until morning. Finally, exhausted, half dead and buried under her own creations the person that Kuro has been waiting to appear all this time made his presence known.
"So it's still in Faubrey is it?" Trash asked as he already began plotting to demolish the Faubrian palace once more.
"Within its borders yes, but not with the permission of its government. She is making an appalling attempt to avenge her fallen master you understand and has gone on a rampage." The Shadow explained flawlessly cutting off the former King's next attack on Faubrey before it even began.
"A pity." Trash looked disappointed as he stood up and Kuro exploded from the pile of staves.
"Finally!" Kuro shouted as she prepared to zip off.
"I am coming with you." Trash stated as he switched not to one of his new staffs, but rather a large golden staff topped by a brazier of seven bejeweled serpents. "This thing will need quite a bit of work before I can unlock all of it's power."
Don't tell her... "Another Sacred Gear?" Kuro was grinding her teeth now.
"The original might've not been like that, but after the introduction of the Sacred Gear system the weapons seemed to have adapted any divine form that it picked up into a Sacred Gear." Kuro was still grinding her teeth, if she was paying attention she might pick up crunching noises from her mouth. "It's quite likely that all of the Seven Stars have acquired their own Noble Phantasm by now."
'The Hero must cease these thoughts immediately. The Sword of Envy is attempting to reassert itself.'
The Legendary Sword was actively cutting up the Sword of Envy as it appeared. After another day a familiar airship had appeared, one made out of Bio-plants with four Interdimensional Kraken's as its engines.
"Ahoy." Rat was waving at Trash and Kuro as they stepped on board the airship. Kuro looked up at Rat unamused and with the eyes of a dead fish.
"Rat. Do you have any weapon with the 'Seal Breaker' skill?" Kuro asked suspiciously. Rat looked through her list of weapons and found the one that Kuro was talking about.
"Here it is, the Nebula Chains." Rat explained prompting Kuro to go find a place to sulk. "What's with her?"
Rat was joined aboard the ship by a group of four, they all looked like they could've been Maple's elder sisters, were it not for the antlers topping their heads. Aototsu, the ones born from the interdimensional version of Maple they killed. Their names were Kaida, Eragon, Bertha and Payne since they all looked similar differences were instead manufactured through their clothing wearing blue, red, orange and purple respectively. Ivy like tattoo patterns ran down each of their arms and the length of their bodies but of course, these weren't ordinary tattoos either. No these were much more special. Each of the girls were looking directly at Kuro with hungry eyes while Kuro's party came aboard.
"Where's Fohl?" Welt asked looking around the ship.
"Still getting beaten up by big sis Raphtalia." Atla replied cleaning her swords.
"What's with them?" Berkia asked indicating the dragon girls Rat was looking after.
"Remember that Dragon who lost his reason after he caught Kuro? They must be the same way." Farrie replied simply.
"If they attempt to jump Kuro I will rip them to pieces." Atla stated sounding just as jealous as her lover.
Well it wasn't like Kuro couldn't use some cheering up any way, given the mood that she's been in. No matter. Between the time it took all of them to get there and the direction they were going it wasn't long until night was upon them again.
"You're planning on making a sacred gear out of a Dragon emperor?" Atla asked after a round of passionate and in both her and Kuro's opinions long over do love making.
"I already have a idea about how the dragon type functions from your brother. Now I just need raw materials." Kuro replied looking at one of the stones she had pilfered already, combined with the last of Maple's stash of Tyrant Dragon core and the ones that the Kingdom was keeping in its treasury with Takt's final girlfriend and they should have enough to awaken a true dragon emperor, not some pet girl of a entitled lunatic. And if they didn't, Kuro would just start massacring dragons until they did have enough but that was besides the point.
"Speaking of dragons, what are we going to do about them." Four sets of eyes were looking in on Kuro and Atla in both curiosity and excitement. "Shall I cut them?"
"No. No I don't think that will be really necessary." Kuro stated watching Chem's tail pull them away.
Trash was sitting atop of the airship as he admired the latest staff he had acquired courtesy of Kuro, not one of the hundreds of Noble Phantasms she had spent a day in a half tracing for him, but rather the result of their sum.
'Staff of Wisdom. Main Bonus: Eye of Knowledge'
When Trash closed his eyes he saw, simply put, everything. Everywhere he had ever been had been mapped out for him, when he looked at something or someone information appeared in his view about who they were, what they were, what powers they possessed. Knowledge to match his wisdom appeared one after another, even if Kuro was going to wake up another directional beast this much was still worth the relatively meagre price he would pay.
"Fetch the Sword Hero." Planes were circling the nearby mountain like vultures circling a corpse, being shot at with jets of flame from below. "We have her Dragon Emperor in Sight." The time had come, now it was time for the hard part.
Kuro placed all of the Dragon cores into a bag, hopefully if what they understood about Dragon Emperor's was correct they shouldn't have a hard time getting the bitch to swallow it, hopefully they have enough to trigger the emergence of the Directional Beast and over write the little bitch's personality, Kuro was not fond of the idea of being stuck with one of Takt's sex toys for the rest of her life.
"Mikey right?" Kuro asked looking at the round little furry one eyed creature that lives in the cocoon like pipes of the airship. It was a parasitic symbiotic organism of some kind, one nearly killed by Takt when he tried to chase Rat out of the Kingdom, after nursing it back to health and modifying it several times Rat had grown fond of making bodies that It could control, the living ship just being one of many. "Can you shoot these at the Dragon to get her to eat them?" Kuro asked as she held up the bag filled with dragon emperor cores she had prepared. Mikey gestured with a tentacle to follow him leading to a hatch for the ship's guns in which Kuro deposited the bag.
The main gun of the ship took aim at the dragon that the air-planes had been fighting, Trash used Wisdom to get the dragon's information, chiefly it's name Leludia.
"Prepare to fire on my mark." The main gun fired, it's bounty slamming directly into the Dragon's body, without Trash's permission. "Who shot that?" Trash asked clearly displeased.
"Mikey!" Rat shouted at the grotesque creature that had floated up to the deck in a tube. The Dragon was doing surprisingly well, it's wounds had already healed and it was now mutating, it's scales becoming rougher and thicker it's muscles bulging while its claws sunk into the ground. Trash had another look, the information appeared to glitch as the dragon transitioned into a new form.
"Ratotile. Do you know what the name of the Dragon that the Aototsu worships is?"
"Ouryou." Rat replied simply as she got Mikey to turn the ship around.
'Ouryou, the Dragon Emperor.'
"RRROOOAAARRR!" The Directional Beast roared as she started sucking XP directly out of the ground, her already impressive level that before was approaching 300 was now changing so fast that Trash couldn't even keep track of it.
"Wow that is impressive!" Kuro laughed seeing the Directional Beast in action. She was tempted to let it keep going, but unfortunately she was on what you call a time table, so she had to get to work. "10 000 Swords!" Kuro shouted the name of the skill as she got to work. If her first attempt fails then she'll have to try a more extreme method to get what she wants. "I, The Hero of The Sword, Have Read and Understood the origin of power! Blood is my Water and Bone is my Steel! I have Quenched ten thousand blades!" The blades were filled with power as Kuro prepared to transform them into the weapon that she would use to slay the monster before her. Was she able to, she would be stacking together a few of her Noble Phantasms to maximise the amount of murder that she is about to commit but alas, that remains out of her grasp. "I summon the unbreakable Killer of Dragons. Reverse Ascalon X!" The blades transformed into giant cleavers as the Dragon took notice of the danger and prepared her own counter attack, but Kuro was not interested. "I, The Hero of the Sword, have read and understood the Origin of power! Take my enemies power and give it onto my blades! Driefach Enchant X!" Several of the nearest blades had been given the magic, more than enough, they were fired first going directly down the dragon's through and stabbing through the fire breathing organ as it neutralised the monster's bad morning breath. Then the rest of the blades followed, each of them stripping flesh as they tore the poor bitch apart, Kuro received a massive flood of XP and corresponding level ups. "If you reinforce anything, anything at all, I will be breaking apart our partnership. Am I clear?" Kuro asked the sword with a murderous glint in her eyes.
'Clear.' The Sword had no doubt that she would be getting the opportunity to start manufacturing new crafting blades soon anyway, as long as Kuro came up with a method to speed run the development of their sacred gear like what Maple had that is. Kuro went down and started absorbing pieces of the Dragon Emperor flesh into her blade, true to her predictions she unlocked 'Dragon Emperor Swords' as opposed to 'Dragon Swords' however the most important piece of the creature that she was after nearly eluded her. Thus using Soul Magic she pulled the creature's soul that was about to disseminate into the ground into her blade.
"Now to reinforce Chastity." As it turns out Leludia actually played to their advantage here as she wasn't interested in anyone other than Takt. "And now the next step." The various Dragon Emperor Swords were ground into the sword of Chastity by Kuro until Finally. 'Conditions Met. Forger of the East Unlocked. Main Abilities: Seal Breaker, Forging, Wrath of Metal.' Kuro grinned sinisterly.
"Hey, those other two need to work on their own gears right?" Kuro asked smirking maliciously.
Author's Note:
RonaldM40196867: True. Happy late Halloween. I have a few up my sleeve. I try not to remember ideas I'm not going to use.
Galeon82: She does have a impressive family, but their brand of god hood has less to do with genetics and more to do with training. If she can get away with it, Raphtalia won't let Maple out of her sight, but I don't think she can.
Dakota Bruder: Bayonetta 3.
Captain Imaginat: They do care a lot about each other. Maple never met Malty, the only things she does know about her is that she played some vague role in her getting hurt at the castle town, a genuinely horrible person yes but not one worth the effort it takes to remember. I have a idea for past Heroes appearing but not in the way that you're thinking.
Nightshadegirl: The Heroes inside her shield lent her mental and emotional support and took the majority of the insanity for her. Good to know, I still have no idea what that is.
Pokemonever1994: Welcome to the club.