Ashe steeled himself as he finally confronted the Bishop in front of him. The leader of the Western Church, the man who had led his father to his death.
"Apostates, sullying this holy land. Know that the Goddess is on our side this day," the bishop shouted at him as he stepped forward.
Faith in the goddess, that was what all this fighting was about. Faith in a goddess that he didn't know if he believed in at this point. Would a goddess have truly let a man like Lonato be deceived by her supposed believers and be led to his death? If she did exist and let that happen, then maybe she wasn't worth following in the first place.
"Lonato's blood is on your hand," Ashe replied as he raised his bow.
"Were you Lord Lonato's page or something? Indeed, he was a devout believer. All we did was provide Lord Lonato salvation from his misery!"
"Salvation?! You used him and threw him away!"
"We showed him the truth, the same truth that you will die for today!"
Ashe fired first and the arrow flew by the bishop's head as he narrowly evaded it. The bishop retaliated with his own spell and retreated back as his men ran forward to protect him.
That didn't stop Ashe as he took out a spear and charged. One he speared through the gut. The other attempted to slash at him with their axe only to be shot down by another arrow from the side.
"He's all yours," Claude's called out from nearby. "Try to make it quick will you? We got some more of them coming this way."
"I will," Ashe replied before rolling away from the Bishop's next spell. As he tumbled, he tossed aside his spear and quickly drew his bow once more.
The Bishop casted a Nosferatu.
The spell headed directly toward him yet Ashe stayed calm. He aimed his arrow at the spell and fired.
It broke through, destroying the spell, and continuing on to strike Bishop in the arm. The Bishop then tried to retreat only to get another arrow to the leg.
"I fight for the Goddess," the Bishop screamed as he tried to crawl away. "You are nothing."
"I was nothing," Ashe replied as he drew his final arrow. "Until Lonato had saved me. And this is how I repay him." He released the arrow and let it embed itself firmly his head head.
With the man in front of him finally dead, Ashe set his bow aside. It was over, he had avenged his father for what these people did to him. And yet he didn't feel accomplished… just empty.
What else was he supposed to do from here?
"You feel better now?" Claude asked as he rejoined him.
"No… not at all," Ashe admitted as he waved at the bloody corpse on the ground. "I thought… I'd feel better after doing this."
"Yea," Claude began to scratch the side of his head. "Well sometimes things don't go as planned. Don't worry about Rhea at least, I'll tell her you accidently struck him down while we were stuck in the fog. Accidents are bound to happen in battle after all."
"Thank you… but why did you help me?"
Claude was a notorious schemer and despite his best attempts to see the best in people, even Ashe had difficulty believing that he did this out of the goodness of his heart.
"Well I have my suspicions that the Western Church has also worked with people that did some particularly gruesome experiments to a friend of mine. Some information on them would be nice," Claude replied.
"We have some time before the Knight's come to finish their investigation," Ashe replied. "I'm sure they wouldn't mind if we got a head start on that then."
Claude grinned. "I like the way you think."
Lysithea tended to her wounds and watched from a distance as Catherine and the Professor spoke. Though she was too far to listen in on the two, Catherine was clearly engaged in whatever it was they were talking about. The Professor's face was as impassive as ever though Lysithea had begun to notice the subtle cues on his face that were signs of emotion. His eyes were usually the biggest hint of any emotion he showed and if she had to guess, she would say that he was in a relaxed state at the moment.
It didn't last long though once Ashe would suddenly return and join the two of them. The Professor seemed to keep a rather close eye on him, as if he was some cause of concern.
"You look like you had fun out there," a familiar voice said behind her
"Plenty" Lysithea replied sarcastically to Claude. She was too annoyed and strung out from recent events to even turn around. "And what have you been up to? Don't think I haven't noticed your absence."
"As observant as ever. Well I'm sure you'll appreciate what I have for you here."
A stack of papers would suddenly by placed in front of Lysithea's face.
"What is this?" she asked.
"Information," Claude replied coyly. "About the people that you're hunting."
"And here you are prying into my business again," Lysithea replied before promptly taking the papers out of his hands. A brief glance was enough to tell her that they were indeed involved with the Western Church though it would probably take some time to discern any information about them, if there was such information to be found in these documents.
"I told you I was a curious guy. Besides can't exactly ignore the people that caused so much pain to one of my fellow Deer."
"Why the special attention though? I'm hardly the only one in our class who's suffered." Raphael had lost his parents, Sylvain had to kill his own brother, and Lysithea wasn't sure where to begin when it came to Marianne.
"True, but we can actually do something productive about your problems."
"That still doesn't tell me what you get by helping me."
"Not everything I do has to have some sort of underlying motivation. I am doing this sincerely out of the goodness of my heart."
"Really?" Lysithea asked while raising an eye. She had a very hard time believing that.
"It's the truth. I do value you as a friend, though your power certainly isn't something to laugh at. I admit you are useful and I plan to take advantage of that in the future, but I've also come to enjoy your company. It would be a shame to lose someone like you and those people that experimented on you are probably our best bet at finding a cure for your condition."
"Hmm…"
"I swear on all of Fodlan that this is the truth. I like to have my fun, but I wouldn't joke about something like that."
"Fair enough. I'll believe that you are being sincere for once… just see to it that you treat me with the respect of an equal."
"Great. Now before I inevitably drift back into teasing you again, I should probably tell you to also thank Ashe for this information. He has a real gift for finding things that people like to keep hidden. And also breaking into locks, never thought I'd ever find someone else who also carried around a pair of lockpicks with them"
"The fact that you carry them around is cause for concern." Lysithea knew that Claude was a schemer and that he snuck around a lot, but lockpicks would give him options that she hadn't considered before. Just the thought of him breaking into the forbidden sections of the Monastery, or worse her room, was enough to make her shudder. The lock on her door and windows probably wasn't going to be enough, she'd have to booby trap her entire room with magic if she was going to feel safe again.
"And Lindhart too."
That… wasn't surprising. Lindhart tended to get very devoted over the things that interested him, including her.
"Anyway," Claude waved Ashe over who had apparently just finished his talk with his Professor. "You should take this chance to thank him yourself."
"Fine," Lysithea sighed before forcing herself to stand up. She walked over to Ashe and the Professor just as they seemed to finish their discussion next to the lake. "Hi Ashe."
Ashe stayed silent and kept his back to her.
"Um Ashe?"
His slowly turned around with a strained expression on his face. She assumed it was probably because of the stress of the battle. "Claude told me that you helped to get us the information on the people working with the Western Church. I wanted to thank you for that."
"Do these people have something to do with you?" he asked curtly.
"They do," Lysithea admitted. "And any information you have on them would be greatly appreciated."
"Those papers you in your hands will have everything I know." Ashe turned to the Professor. "I'll be taking my leave now. You can leave the report to Catherine and I, Professor you and your class can return to the Monastery," Ashe replied quickly before promptly walking away.
"What's his problem?" Lysithea grumbled as she watched Ashe walk away and Sylvain running up to catch up with him.
If she didn't know any better, she would say that he was avoiding her. She had cut down his adoptive father after all. If he did hold a grudge over that then she'd either have to avoid him or confront him about it. She preferred the latter option, in the future though, right now she just wanted to head back to the Monastery.
"Professor are you ready to- Oh gods no!" She threw a quick Miasma into air and thankfully had been quick enough for the spell to explode in front of Byleth just as he was about to cast the line of his fishing rod.
"No! You still aren't allowed to fish here!" Lysithea shouted at her teacher as she stomped over to him. She had been the one to check their supplies, where in the Goddess's name had he hiding that thing!?
Byleth looked glumly at his broken before turning toward her. "But I'm not banned here," he argued.
"I don't care," Lysithea shouted loudly, drawing the attention of the rest of the class nearby.
"Lysithea is something the matter?" Lorenz asked before noticing the fishing rod in the Professor's hand. "Ah. Never mind I understand now"
"I don't see the issue," Flayn suddenly walked over with very eager eyes. "The Monastery rules do not apply here and- ooh Professor I think I saw one swimming by over there."
Lysithea shot a quick spell into the water in order to chase the fish away. "That doesn't matter and stop encouraging him Flayn! We still have to escort the Archbishop back to Monastery and I refuse to have a repeat of the last incident!"
"It wasn't that bad," Byleth replied.
"Uh Teach," Claude interjected. "It kind of was."
"I have to agree with him Professor," Ignatz commented.
"See even Ignatz agrees. Now put down that rod!" Lysithea demanded.
The Professor actually pouted as he stowed his rod away. Receiving his ire though was worth avoiding the potential disaster that could've happened. She still shuddered at the fallout of the first and only incident that she would let him create.
"Teach, also the cage you have in your cape," Claude demanded.
Somehow the Professor looked even more crestfallen than before as he reached into his cape and pulled out a large fishing cage that he dropped onto the ground.
"Anything else we should know about?" Claude asked once more.
Byleth reached into his pocket and pulled out a long strand of string with a large worm attached to the end of it. He dropped it and let the poor thing wriggle its way back to its hole.
"Professor… you have a problem," Lysithea commented bluntly.
"You're not the first person to tell me that," Byleth replied.