Book V: Uzuki

Chapter XXXVIII

We decided to hide our vessel and stay at the Alba Cavanich Inn, it wasn't anywhere we wanted to be, but we knew staying in that was a death trap, we'd leave the next day.

Poppi and Rafi has gotten much closer, just as Mythra had predicted. I wondered if it was her foresight or it really was just a hunch. To be fair, it was hard to comprehend even simply what she could do. She reportedly has the power to sink continents, but that's not anything I'd seen up to this point.

These thoughts plagued me as I tried to sleep. Eventually, I did drift, and before I knew it, I passed out.

...

Acacia had taken all her clothes off down to her underwear, she was too tired to go drink, so she decided against it. It was probably for the best anyways.

She took a good look at herself in the mirror. Her skin was very tan, and had only gotten darker with the sun's light. Her skin didn't burn in the sun, after all, she was Ardanian, and Ardanians didn't burn.

She had already taken a shower, one thing Mor Ardain was known for was its amazing hot springs, and even clean, she wasn't quite satisfied with how she looked. However, she had never really cared about how she looked. She only cared that she lived to fight another day. Speaking of fighting...

She had cleaned her gun earlier, but she needed to check her sword. After all, a sword did nothing if it was broken. She carefully inspected the long, slightly-curved blade she used as her main sword. This katana was a gift from Adonis, despite how deceitful he was, he had been like a father to her. She wondered why she'd betrayed him, but she knew why. She was lied to before in her life, and it only led to her pain. She didn't care what the reason was, Adonis was a liar, and she couldn't trust him, no matter how much she wanted to.

She carefully gripped the blade as she inspected it. No cracks, chips, warping, or damage. Perfect. Adonis may be a liar, but at least the weapons he ordered were top notch.

Acacia then wrapped her fingers around the handle, feeling the monster skin the handle, or tsuka, as was the official name of it, was wrapped in on her hands. She had designed the handle herself, and it had meant a lot to her.

In truth, she hadn't used it for a long while. Even when she had first fought Silas, she used her short sword. However Acacia thought it was time for her to begin using this blade, as fighting seemed to be escalating the longer she stayed with these people.

Acacia immediately grabbed her katana, and slashed behind her, and, just as she thought, it clashed against something else.

"Long time no see sis," the other blade wielded said.

"Hello, Lieutenant Uzuki," Acacia greeted in a monotone voice.

"Aww, didn't you miss your sister? Also call me by my first name, you're no longer affiliated with the BCC and this whole military jargon thing bores me," she teased.

We both fell silent as we heard steps fast approaching the room.

https/youtu.be/kdmEV3v8z1Y

"Right on cue!" Violet giggled. "Oh, T-Elos! I got you a present!"

"What are you—?" Acacia started before KOS-MOS kicked in the door, transformed her arm into her R-Blade and rushed Violet.

However, before she could get close, another girl slammed through the ceiling and forced KOS-MOS to the ground.

KOS-MOS kicked the woman off of her and locked onto her, immediately recognizing her.

"T-Elos?" KOS-MOS questioned.

"Hello KOS-MOS," T-Elos responded.

Acacia took a good look. T-Elos looked exactly like KOS-MOS, they even sounded similar. KOS-MOS has pale skin, blue hair, and her mechanical parts were all white. T-Elos had white hair, dark tanned skin, and her mechanical parts were black and purple.

"What's this Violet?!" Acacia asked.

"My new weapon," Violet introduced, "Her name is T-Elos."

Immediately KOS-MOS rushed T-Elos with her R-Blade, but T-Elos had her own blade, a dark purple one, and they began fighting.

"Call her off! She's not a weapon! She's a—" Acacia started, only to be cut off.

"She's a blade, yes, I'm aware," Violet interjected. "You may have loved getting blindsided by obvious lies, but I'm much less gullible than you sweetie."

T-Elos pulled out a large, scythe-looking weapon and slashed at KOS-MOS, who jumped back and let out a shot from her ether cannon, an attack that T-Elos knocked out of the air with her bare hand.

"What are you talking about?! You knew he was lying?!" Acacia interrogated.

Violet giggled. "He said you were too fragile to know the truth," she tossed her hair back casually and giggled again. "And he was right."

Acacia had had enough, she clutched her katana and slashed at Violet, who parried it with her own katana.

"You've gotten sloppy, sis. Must be what happens when you abandon everyone who depended on you," Violet said, half laughing, but entirely serious.

Acacia rolled her eyes. "The BCC didn't need me that much."

Violet's blade became engulfed in a purple flame. "I WAS REFERRING TO ME YOU HEARTLESS BITCH!" she yelled as she slammed her blade into Acacia's with enough force to throw Acacia back a considerable distance.

"What are you talking about?!" Acacia questioned.

Violet laughed hysterically. "Oh you're such an idiot..."

She pulled off her shirt, so that she was left in nothing but a bra and her pants, revealing horrid, bloody scars all over her body, some of them infected and leaking puss.

Acacia gasped, and almost felt nauseous at the very sight.

Violet smiled. "Pretty gross, huh? This is what happened to me, after you abandoned me!" she explained as her emotions constantly flipped from laughing to angered. "Every scar I got after you left... every pain I felt... I pulled off it's scab every two days, so that one day... I could show you exactly what I went through while you were off forgetting I even existed."

Acacia was speechless, what had happened? But she refused to stay silent.

"You need to get to a hospital now! Those are serious infections!" she yelled.

"You should be worrying about yourself, KOS-MOS isn't doing too hot and in five minutes the BCC is running down this entire shit hole of a town," Violet responded.

Acacia turned to see KOS-MOS pinned down, T-Elos seemed to be trying to rip off her arm. Acacia felt horrible, she had been to selfish once again to even notice her blade struggling. Why was she such a terrible driver?

She set her blade towards T-Elos and charged at her, T-Elos jumping back and parrying it with her scythe.

"Enough T-Elos, we have a city to burn," Violet commanded. "We'll come back when she's more of a challenge."

T-Elos sighed. "Very well, goodbye KOS-MOS, til next time. But do me a favor and actually show me your power next time, this was pathetic."

And they were both gone as swiftly as they had arrived.

Acacia ran to KOS-MOS. "KOS-MOS are you alright?!"

KOS-MOS got off the ground and simply stood there. "All systems functioning normally."

"I thought all blades forgot everything in between resonation, how do you know that other blade?! And why did she look just like you?!"

KOS-MOS stood emotionless as normal. "T-Elos is part of me, however it would seem that the BCC is going to issue and attack on Alba Cavanich. Our best course of action would be to retreat immediately."

"I guess so...," Acacia sighed before KOS-MOS and her went to wake up the rest of their group.

After some groggy responses a quick briefing, everyone got together and they all ran out of the inn towards the place they had hidden the titanless vessel.

However, before they made it they were stopped in their tracks.

They looked around to see an army of about fifty people with guns trained on them, they were completely surrounded.

"What do we do, Silas?" Acacia asked me.

"Surrender," a female voice, Violet, said to them as she walked out into the middle of everything. Behind her was T-Elos and... Pyra, who followed her silently.

"I hope you know we're not going to do that," Malos laughed, he seemed almost amused by everything going on around him.

Violet smiled. "Oh I was hoping you'd say that!" she responded before turning her attention to her soldiers. "Listen here fuckwads, first person to take a shot is getting their head chopped off. I want my turn and Pyra wants hers, if I become unable to battle then shoot them all down, except for the target."

Violet then turned back to us, specifically Acacia, as T-Elos handed her the scythe she had used to fight KOS-MOS earlier.

"So, are you coming up one at a time?" Violet asked. "Or do you all want to die together?"

Readability Level: 11-12th Grade

Time Taken: 4 Hours