Interlude Weiss 1, Version 2
Major Matheus Johan Weiss opened his eyes and was immediately confused as he looked around the rundown town he found himself in. He errantly considered how used to seeing towns and villages in such a sorry state he was. Hell, he had seen places far worse than this dump in Russy, but he had never seen a place like this before. The town's architecture kind of reminded him of some paintings he had seen in a museum once, of buildings and forreign landscapes in the Far East. The fantastic structures in those paintings had been astounding, but where those had looked beautiful, these worn-down hovels lacked any kind of beauty or grace.
Carefully, Weiss took a tentative step onto the dusty road, wondering if this was some kind of illusion brought on by his death but no, everything seemed solid around him and the buildings remained stubbornly visible. If anything his surroundings seemed to somehow become more real as he continued down the road. As he walked somewhat aimlessly through the strange streets he saw people popping in and out of the buildings, some wearing oriental clothing, others, the less affluent and frankly more dirty-looking folks, wearing the rags common to places without access to modern clothing industry.
Suddenly the last memories he had before waking up in this strange place came to the forefront of his mind and panicking slightly Weiss took a moment to check himself out, hands searching for the bayonet wounds given to him by some lucky Ildoan infantrymen and finding none. He clearly remembered the sight of infantrymen standing over his broken body on the ground after his Orb had been destroyed during combat over Innsbruck and more vividly the stinging pain of being stabbed several times before the world went black.
It had been a simple task, at face value at least. Weiss had been commanded to repeat what the 203rd had done at Tiegenhoff. Hold the city and prevent the enemy from taking it intact. They just had to hold out until the armistice negotiations had concluded.
Unfortunately for the 203rd however, the Ildoans had decided that they wanted Innsbruck and were unwilling to wait the few weeks it would take for when they would just have the city handed over as part of the post-War peace. And so, wave after wave of enemy soldiers had charged up the rocky slopes attacking the Alpine city and even though the Ildoan mage forces were not as well trained or experienced as the veteran Imperial mages, they were fresh and unspoiled by years of conflict. It didn't matter that for every imperial mage that went down the Ildoans lost six more, they had the numbers to pay the price and keep up the pressure, the 203th did not.
After 2 weeks and losing half of his command staff, his brethren in arms either dead or injured, without any hope of reinforcements to support the defense of Innsbruck, Weiss had finally hit his limit when the local Governor had tried to strong-arm children into his battalion.
Tanya Von Degurchaff had been by no means a typical child and that idiot had somehow gotten it into his thick skull that kids would just learn as quickly as she had and somehow wield magecraft with the power and skill of his deceased former commander. Weiss had been completely unable to contain his anger at the callous stupidity and struck the wretch where he stood, something he was certain would come back to bite him in the ass at the time.
With their ammo, medicine and other supplies running short, Weiss had tried to initiate some sort of communication with the Ildoan commander to possibly surrender the city and his command. They were not the callous and vengeful Russy, so at the time he believed that negotiations with them had at least a chance of success.
Tanya had always spoken whimsically about her desire to negotiate a surrender to a civilized opponent and had even offered her enemies the opportunity to honorably surrender on multiple occasions. Inspired by the memories of his old commander, Weiss decided it would be worth a shot to see if the Ildoan commander was similarly honorable.
Unfortunately, his attempt to initiate a surrender or something in a similar vein, happened to coincide at the exact instant the Ildoans initiated another assault. By sheer bad luck, Rhiner Neumann had just taken to the sky white flag in hand, when he'd been hit by the enemy's opening volley of artillery spells.
Neumann's unlucky fate had begun the last day of their hopeless defense, as the 203rd was systematically hunted in the sky by the largest concentration of enemy mages Weiss had ever had the misfortune to see. He suspected almost all mages in the Italian Kingdom had been mustered for this final assault, and with odds like that, it was no surprise that they ended up losing the fight.
Weiss liked to think that they had given as good as they got and he suspected that at least 1/4th of the population of Ildoan mages had been wiped out but the numbers eventually proved insurmountable and the remnants 203rd slowly dwindled to nothing. It seemed that some of the soldiers under his command tried to surrender on their own volition only for the mages to refuse to listen and murder them.
That had to be expected, mage conflict had always been a zero-sum game. Mages were too dangerous to be kept alive as prisoners so it was not unheard of for mages to simply kill enemy mages ignoring their surrenders. He had a startling epiphany and suspected that the unspoken culture might have been why Tanya had gone out of her way to offer the chance to surrender to all her opponents over the years, as that would most likely have restored the honor of some sort to the main conflict and guaranteed that they could surrender if the situation became such that they would need it.
But in the end that did not happen, and no surrenders were accepted on that final day of conflict. He had even tried to surrender himself as the Ildoan infantryman surrounded him but then infantrymen had to deal with the ever present fear of mages killing them all the time, so it was not a surprise when they just started stabbing him.
At the end of the day he doubted that any of the 203rd had survived the conflict, though that still did not explain why he was now in the middle of some strange oriental town, he should have been sent to either heaven or hell, this certainly didn't seem to fit neither description, perhaps purgatory was being surrounded by strange people who you couldn't understand he pondered.
Purgatory was a subject he was rather iffy on, not that he'd been particularly well versed in religious theology in the first place but even if it was purgatory he somehow doubted the place where souls worked off their sins would take the form of some ragged far eastern village.
Getting his legs moving again he started to walk down what seemed to be the main street, taking in the sights as he continued to examine where he was.
After a while though, he alerted to the sounds of a scuffle and a high pitched scream. A bit surprised but leaning on years of ingrained behavior he moved quickly to the source and found himself in front of a dingy alleyway. Inside he saw three rather hooligan-looking bastards in the process of dragging a woman further back into the alleyway.
"Hey what's going on here?" he growled out, glaring at the trio of miscreants.
The three men turned to him and the shortest of the bunch said something in a language he didn't recognize before laughing and waving at him to walk away.
Some actions and words broke language barriers, seeing the clear distress the young woman showed he quickly came to a decision , he simply just started to walk towards them, the closest of the evildoers drew a knife and started to walk towards him like the weapon somehow gave him power over Weiss. As they closed the distance the thug took a stab at Matheus only to swiftly be disarmed in a quick motion mercilessly breaking the arm that had been holding the knife before grabbing the knife out of midair before it hit the ground and smashing the blade into the man's leg.
The brutal takedown was effective as an intimidation tactic too as the other two let go of the woman who immediately ran past Matheus heading for the light of the open street, which was good, he didn;t have to worry about her anymore. Drawing the blade out of the man's leg he took a step back and waved the two to deal with their friend.
Apparently, they were not very smart as they instead just ran off leaving their friend behind to bleed out from a leg injury.
Shaking his head and annoyance he cut off a part of the thug's rags and created a very crute tourniquet before walking back out of the alley and making his way towards what looked like the nicer part of town from the looks of it. Once he might have left the man to die, but he liked to think of himself as a quick learner and he had certainly learned his lessons on mercy the hard way. Perhaps he could find someone who spoke Germanian over there, he thought as he approached a large swath of open ground that seemed to divide the hobbles of the poor and the opulent housing of the rich.
He took one step into the area and to his great surprise walls literally fell into place , they were massive and blocked his path. For a moment he considered his options, he still had his magic so theoretically he could try and fly over it, but obviously the people inside weren't welcome to outsiders if they somehow had built walls that literally fell from the sky the moment someone from the slums approached them.
Holding his chin he pondered his other options, perhaps there was a gateway somewhere along the wall he was officially supposed to use. His contemplation however was disturbed when he heard a rather loud thump shaking of the ground followed by another, looking to his left he saw a giant of a man walking his way, though when he started to visually measure what he was seeing, he realized it was not a giant of a man but a full blown giant standing at a full two to three story building, the tall man walking towards him helfing a massive axe in one hand.
Well that was something he had not expected to see, in fact that was something he had never thought he would see in his entire life and considering old stories about what giants used to do to people he was not in a hurry to find out if any were true. Thankfully it was moving slowly, almost non-threateningly for as much as such a thing was possible, perhaps giving him a chance to escape? If it was, the giant was better mannered than the Ildoans at least.
He ran back into the poorer side of the city, oh sure this was hardly the bravest action Weiss had ever taken but his time under Degurechaff had taught him that discretion was often the better part of valor and he didn't want to fight a giant, he knew he had access to his magic but he didn't think he had the spells to deal with the situation that had been slowly moving his way.
Once he was deep inside the less fancy and seemingly antiquated side of Town he took a moment to catch his breath, recovering from the jog. He was out of his depth, this was something he'd never dealt with in his life before and he doubted that things would improve soon considering he couldn't speak the local language.
But that was the key there wasn't it, taking a few good deep breaths he centered himself and began to think about this the way Tanya would.
Everything that could go wrong stemmed from his lack of information and the local language, thus his best route to survival was to find someone who could teach him the local language. That would be hard but it should not be impossible. Secondly, he would need to find a job which could hopefully help with the first problem whilst hopefully giving him a place to stay and live.
Finalizing his admittedly basic plan Weiss stood up to his full height and prepared to go looking for an employment opportunity. Surely there would be someone who was willing to take on some manual labor despite the language barrier?
He'd barely walked to the end of the street only to see the two gangsters from earlier turn the corner with a mob of six or eight other troublemakers.
They immediately pointed at him and started shouting before charging him, strange forreign war cries on their lips. Shaking his head he drew his recently acquired knife, formed a mage blade around it and prepared to defend himself.
One man came in high, punching at Weiss with chains wrapped around his fist. Weiss blocked that with a mage shield and then stabbed up into the man's arm before kicking him in the side sending him into a cabbage stand nearby. The next combatant had the distinct advantage of reach, skillfully stabbing at Weiss with his spear and had even managed to nick his shoulder even before he brought up an active shield.
The focus on defense gave the remainder of the gang of hooligans time to surround him, carefully threatening him with weapons whilst looking for any opening in his defenses. Weiss considered possibly abandoning his position and flying out of there when he heard the distinctive noise of hooves compressing the dirt, it seemed the cavalry had arrived, literally.
Or at least it was definitely a hooved creature, looking past the bandits he saw three or four riders on massive hogs coming around a corner in the street and then start yelling at the gang who yelled back in more of their nonsensical moon speech. What the groups were specifically yelling at each other he did not know but he could recognise insults easily enough, soon the leader of the hog riders drew a long dagger and charged his adversaries turning the beatdown into a chaotic melee.
He saw several of the gang members get trampled by the hogs, another one stabbed by the leader of the hog riders and he personally put down another two of the of the more determined fighters as they attempted to slash him with what looked like crudely made scimitars, his shield and knife combo easily dealing with them.
As the morale of the gang broke and they began to flee, he watched them run with a smile not knowing exactly what he'd got himself into but happy to have survived it without having to resort to more drastic measures.
He was shaken out of his commiseration when he felt in hand clapping his shoulder, looking over he saw the leader of the hog cavalry, a man he could now see wearing a distinct bandana offering him his hand whilst saying something in the local language.
Taking the offered hand he thanked the man in germanian with a smile hoping the general tone would be enough to convey the message.
The hog rider smiled and yelled to one of his underlings, a moment later a spare hog was brought out. Bandana man motioned for him to mount up and Weiss realized they were offering him a chance to get out of this part of the city, where he apparently was already being hunted.
He nodded, took the offer and carefully pulled himself up upon the oversized and surprisingly docile pig, allowing them to guide him out of the city considering his lack of familiarity with horse riding let alone whatever parody of equestrianism this was meant to be. Where he was going he was not sure but he figured he could handle things if they turned south and at least these ruffians seemed were actually willing to talk.
His attempted conversations with the hog riders were unsuccessful but Weiss quickly noted that the teenagers seemed to be in good spirits and happy to have won that fight.
One of them even offered him a drink which he graciously accepted even if he was a little surprised by how kind these folk were with a stranger who didn't speak their tongue. They even began to try and help him learn some of the words, teaching him that the particular drink was called sake, gesturing at certain things whilst sounding out the words and that their Leader's name was Ganju Shiba.
With the offering of drinks and sharing of their language he was decently sure they did not have any ill intent towards him, he doubted that they would have bothered to help him learn the local lingo if they were planning something nefarious.
Though apparently wherever they were going was further out then he expected as it took several hours on hogback for them to reach a hill well and truly out of sight of the city. Once they had climbed the hill he saw a small house with a banner held up by two statues and a massive chimney in the back. Looking at the sturdiness of the chimney he surmised that the owner must be a blacksmith of some sort and this was possibly an out-of-town blast furnace.
Whatever it was it seemed to be their destination as the riders guided their hogs down the hill before dismounting in front of the residence.
They were still in great cheer until they heard a voice yell at them from inside the house, all of a sudden the distinctly recognisable fear of a terrifying superior officer seemed to overcome the hog cavalry as they formed up almost hiding behind their leader.
A Moment later a one-armed woman burst through the door to the house revealing a surprisingly wide staircase heading downwards implying that the actual size of the house was far greater than he had initially suspected.
The matron of the house aggressively walked towards the leader of the gang who was stuttering out a name that sounded like Kūkaku, before he was swiftly knocked unconscious as the woman cold clocked him with her left fist sending him hurtling into his three companions knocking them over in comic fashion.
Frankly, this was the most impressive display of ferocity he'd seen in a while and when the woman turned to give him an appraising eye that likely qualified somewhere half between interest and half glare he wondered if he had perhaps found Tanya's long lost older sister. Turning back to the unfortunate men who were picking themselves off of the ground she barked something at the hog rider underlings and they responded in with a curt reply that resulted in her making a thoughtful noise.
The brief moment of pause allowed Weiss to take in exactly what he was looking at. The woman in front of him was wearing something that he was quite sure would be considered scandalous in the empire, hell it was probably scandalous here with the sheer amount of skin on the display. Now he could feel some blood rush into his face, Weiss maintained proper decorum giving a salute and introducing himself. "Major Matheus Johan Weiss."
Hand on her hip, the woman finished her blatant scrutinizing, having come to some conclusion before introducing herself as well, ending with the name "Kūkaku Shiba.." Solving the question of who she was as well considering the shared last name with his rescuer he could assume that they were family of some sort, perhaps wife and husband but somehow he doubted that, so most likely sister and brother, he could see some familial resemblance now that he looked for it. They shared the same dark hair, sharp features and such.
Finally, the woman shrugged and smiled at him before saying something to the others. Content with whatever she said she walked back into the house. The hog riders let out a relieved sigh and then with a cheer helped their leader up before carrying them inside one of them waving at him to follow them in.
It would appear he passed some sort of inspection, how exactly he did not know but he wasn't going to gainsay them, especially when he could smell food cooking from inside the house, it had been a while since he eaten and he was feeling a little bit more hungrier than he would expect considering his close calls in the last few hours.
shrugging Weiss walked into the house with them, life had a way of getting you where you needed to go, and he'd much rather die on a full stomach than an empty one.
Kūkaku Shiba watched the boys put Ganju into his room. She may have hit him a little too hard but he needed to stop getting involved in trouble in the city.
Sure he'd done a good thing and helped the newly met Weiss out of a spot of trouble, apparently, the strange man was a good samaritan and had helped some girl who was being robbed by one of the local gangs. They had of course taken his intervening personally and the woman had asked one of Ganju's minions for help.
All in all, it was a very good thing for both of them to do but it also put them both at risk of getting injured or hurt and that was something she could not abide.
For both of them because, since her numbskull of a brother had decided to save the man in the uniform, which she would admit gave the man a good figure, she would have to look out for both of them, which meant she would have to have Koganehiko and Shiroganehiko teach him Japanese since there was no way she could let a ward out into the world without them being able to fend for themselves.
Hopefully, he would not be another lay about like the rest of the boys Ganju had brought into their service and would be useful for the fireworks business. At least considering the man seemed to have had some sort of military affiliation by the uniform he most likely would at least have some experience with explosives and considering the boys had mentioned that he used some strange kido spells during the fight with the Uptown Free-market gangsters he more than likely would be quick to learn the skills necessary to deal with their type of fireworks.
In all honesty this could turn out to be a good opportunity for the Shiba clan…
Hey, this is not dead have interlude (you might be getting manly interludes till things settle down here) as you might have guessed emberwing is still stuck in France… I'll leave to jokes to you but I have heard that Kobo was going to use french for the theme of hell so take that as you will. Besides this was part of a massive blitz as I also posted a chapter for the other two fic I'm making with in the last 30 minutes. So their total of 12,000 words added to 3 Tanya stories tonight have fun.
Edited by…Lord Feunoyr, emberwing
Jctherebel; thank you
Scarlet Anne : hopefully the wait will be come less of a thing but Mando Tanya and Runt Tanya have been coming out pretty consstaintly if you need somthing to read!
Kisame Hoshigaki; huh... my have to do inteludes about that i'll add to my list witch currently empty
Rairi Valelira; yee
EricFreak; what nooo visha would never get jealuses and then do something rash... see you in chapter 25...
whirlpoolartist: here an update hopflu that hold you ver till the real chapter get here
Agfox; yee me to...
Mistersnx: yeah prideful of the opening on this story, I been working on way to remove being x for nearly a year at the time. one of the other version would had him having final talk as she died from an assaintion attempt by the french while she was recoing away from the front but i dieced to go a mor eheroic rout with it.
e10620ac; i can do yah an intleude.
animusand; ahh i don't jog more of a walker.