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The Council of Thirteen

Book Four: The Thirteenth Lord

Family

Prologue: Family Destroyed

Beta:

Deep in the little explored, isolated hinterland of Papua New Guinea stood a nondescript compound nestled in the nigh impenetrable rainforest and rolling hills. At the heart of this compound was a training hall decorated in the style of a traditional Japanese dojo and laying on his back, exhausted and covered in small wounds was a young twelve year old, black haired boy of East Asian descent.

"Get up!" A middle aged man said standing a short distance from the panting boy, sneering down at the child. "Get up now, son!"

"Y-yes, f-father," Dominic Tredecim said in between pants as he forced himself back to his feet.

"Get into a fighting stance." The man demanded. "Do you want to prove yourself as unworthy as your sisters? Are you as pathetic as those useless girls!?"

The mere mention of his sisters caused Dominic to shiver involuntarily despite his best efforts to repress the reaction. The memories of how they had died as a result of their father's hellish training. A fate that he prayed to whatever deity might be listening would not be his own.

His distraction cost him though as his father slapped the air, sending an air blast that slammed into Dominic and had him stumbling back. He barely managed to stay on his feet. If he lost it… The consequences did not even bear considering.

"Pay attention!" His father shouted angrily. "If you lose your focus in a fight, you'll die. Now prepare for another round."

That was the last thing Dominic wanted at the moment. He was bleeding from countless small wounds, tired to the bone and struggling to breathe in the way was indicative of at least bruised ribs. However, he knew better than to argue. Doing so would just earn him painful punishment, so despite everything he readied himself for yet another round of sparring.

To be fair to his father, he waited till Dominic had gotten into a fighting stance before he launched into his attack. That though was the only consideration he showed for his son's condition. Despite his pitiful state, the older man's assault was merciless. He attacked with his full fury.

Spells with more than enough power to kill flew at Dominic. Punches, kicks and other physical attacks rained down on his battered body. It was only due to the boy's formidable skills that he was not killed, dancing around the dojo he evaded the majority of the attacks with a grace that belied just how injuried he was. Those he could not evade, he left to the magical barriers he'd surrounded himself with the moment the fighting began. The spells and blows deflecting off masses of pitch black magical energy.

"Staying on the defensive?" The older man sneered. "Attack, boy! Or are you too much like a girl to have the balls to do so!?"

Attack? Dominic thought tiredly. I'm barely keeping up my defense, where would I be able to find the wherewithal to do that?

Nevertheless, he knew what his father would do to him if he didn't even try. So despite everything he did as he was told.

Dominic charged ignoring how this put him in the path of a lance of spiraling wind. He sent shadows ahead of him, shaping it into a shield. The half-hearted barrier shattered in the face of his father's powerful attack but it had sapped it of much of its strength. Thus as it slammed into his body instead of blasting a hole straight through his body and likely killing him instantly, it merely exploded in a burst of cutting winds that littered Dominic's body with a whole host of new cuts.

A look of approval entered his father's eyes but Dominic cared not. He had long since lost interest in gaining such, all he cared for was avoiding punishment. Not that his approval stopped his father from conjuring a wind blade in his hand which he swept in Dominic's direction.

Dominic was not about to make it so easy for his father though and at the last second before the edge of the wind blade would have cut into him, he used the shadows to teleport out of the way and closed the distance in a use of the Shadow Step spell. With his wind blade out of position, his father's guard was open and Dominic gladly took advantage of it. Without hesitation, he stabbed his void enshrouded hands down.

To his surprise instead of being deflected by a wind barrier, Dominic found his void blades digging deep into his father's body. For a second, he worried that he had actually grievously wounded the older man but that lasted for only a second before the body exploded, revealing itself as a conjured doppelgänger.

"Good, good." Dominic heard his father say as he once more lay on the floor of the dojo struggling to breathe. "Exploiting my distraction to slip through my guard was very well done."

That was not the only distraction of yours that I can exploit. Dominic thought as he called on his magic.

"Now get up, it's- Argh!"

His father had no opportunity to finish whatever he was about to say as he jerked forward as a blade of void energy punched through his body from the back.

"You haven't called the round," Dominic told his father with a tired smirk from behind the man as his own clone laying on the floor dissipated. "Looks like I win, father."

"N-Not y-yet, son." The man said as with a burst of strength, he pulled himself off the blade impaling him and swung his arm in Dominic's direction, sending a wave of cutting winds at him.

Dominic had expected it though and ducked under the attack before using Shadow Step to go onto the offensive once more. As he rematerialized in front of his father, the older man tried to fend him off with a vacuum blade but Dominic danced out of the way at the same time as he launched a dozen magic missiles at the wounded man. Contrary to his expectations, the attack actually managed to shatter his father's hastily conjured barriers.

Despite the uncharacteristic weak defense on his father's part raising his concerns for a trap, the opportunity was too good for him to let go and so he pressed the attack. Ducking around a surprisingly slow swing of a freshly conjured wind blade, Dominic surged into his father's guard and slashed at him with his own conjured void blade.

"Gah!" His father cried out in pain as Dominic's blade cut deep into his body.

Normally Dominic would have backed off after scoring such a strike, wary of his father's inevitable counterattack. However, something was off with his father today. In spite of the injuries he'd managed to land on him, his father should have been able to move faster than this.

Did I injure him worse than I intended when I first stabbed him? Dominic thought. He had tried to limit the injury to something non-critical but he was tired. So very tired. Tired enough that he could've made a mistake. Did I?

It was a worry for later though. After he won this spar and they reviewed things. For now, he was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He had to win this.

To do that, he could afford no distractions so Dominic pushed them aside and cleared his mind. This gave him a clarity that allowed him to cross blades with his father, his void against his father's wind, in a deadly dance. They thrust, slashed, parried, sidestepped and spun in a display of swordsmanship that was a sight to behold. A display made even more impressive by the occasional spell they fired at each other.

Not that either participant had the ability to appreciate the beauty of their clash. They were far too concerned about the fight itself.

"Y-You are t-truly my s-son." Dominic's father said with a smile, as he moved too slowly and failed to parry or evade a thrust allowing a void blade to bury itself into his chest.

"Father!" Dominic cried out in alarm as his blade impaled his father, delivering a mortal wound. "Why didn't you eva-"

"Y-You t-think I di-didn't try?"

"But-"

His father smiled, the first genuine smile that Dominic had ever seen his father grace him with, and patted him on the arm.

"Y-You w-will be a g-good Thirteenth," the older man said as his body seemed to lose the last of his strength and began to sag.

This finally shook Dominic out of his shock and he finally dispelled the conjured void blade that kept his father standing and he crumpled to the floor. Dominic immediately fell to his own knees and began to cast what little healing magic he knew on the dying man.

"Heal! Cure!" Dominic cast desperately.

It was futile though. His healing magic was pathetic and was little better than first aid, far too insufficient for such a serious injury as what he'd dealt his father.

"L-live up to o-our family l-legacy," his father said, breathing his last even as Dominic kept casting, kept trying to heal the man. "F-Farewell."

Those were the last words that the Thirteenth Lord of the Council of Thirteen, the man that Dominic only knew as Father, said as he breathed his last.

"F-Father! Don't di- ArghHHHHH!"

Dominic's lament for his father's passing was cut short when suddenly a bolt of magical energy shot out of the dead man's body and slammed into his own. Magic of an intensity that he could not even began to comprehend flooded into his body, into his being. As it coursed through his veins, it burned. It felt like what he imagined being dumped into a vat of acid was like. It was stripping him down to his bare bones. So he screamed.

Partly in grief but mostly in agony.

Such was born the latest Thirteenth Lord of the Council of Thirteen.

"Sakura, are you sure that this is the place?" Tomoyo asked as she and her wife walked into the isolated Tredecim compound, flanked on either side by Sakura's Guardians.

"Yes. It's the coordinates that the Twelfth gave us." Sakura said as they stopped in the courtyard just inside the walled compound and looked around the compound with a frown. "Kero-chan can you sense where the new Thirteenth is?"

"Over there," the winged leonine Guardian Beast said as he nodded his head towards a detached building at the center of the yard.

Sakura nodded and led all four of them towards the aforementioned building.

"This place is so isolated though," Tomoyo said, bringing the conversation back to the previous topic. "The new Thirteenth is a child, right? Why would anyone raise a child in the middle of nowhere like this?"

"Someone who cares not about socializing the child," Yue-san said unexpectedly as he summoned his bow of moonlight and leveled it cautiously at the doors to the building the person they were here to find was supposed to be in.

"And what would you know about that?" Kero-chan asked, sounding surprised even as he walked ahead of them all and raised his front right paw in preparation to slam the sliding doors open.

"Yukito took a class in child development." Yue-san said before turning to Sakura. "Mistress?"

"Tomoyo?" Sakura said, looking at the Seventh Lord questioningly.

"Ready," Tomoyo said with a nod, her magic primed.

Despite her rank and abundance of newly unlocked magical power, she still wasn't much of a magician but under her wife's tutelage and months of hard work she was getting there. So she was confident that she wouldn't be a liability here. At least not much of one.

Sakura offered her a smile and turned to nod at her Guardians.

"Open it," she ordered.

Kero-chan obeyed, slamming the door to what appeared to be a dojo open in a forceful shove.

They had been expecting all manner of things but what they did find still surprised them.

The body of the previous Thirteenth Lord was expected. The girl with insanely long and messy hair clutching to the dead body and sobbing over it was not. Nor the fact that just by the sheer magic that the girl radiated it was clear that she was the new Thirteenth Lord.

"I guess that the Twelfth was right," Kero-chan said with a sigh. "The new Thirteenth is a girl."

"It would appear so," Yue-san said with a wary nod.

Tomoyo shot Sakura a confused look.

Poor girl. Sakura sent Tomoyo telepathically, clearly not wanting to startle the girl, as she began cautiously walking towards the child. Her whole world just fell apart. In more ways than one.

Tomoyo nodded as she followed after her wife. Yes, I can see why the Twelfth sent us. She'll need support to get through this.

Yes, we'll do our best. I just hope it's enough.

It will be.

Done!

Hmm… I'm honestly pretty uncertain about this chapter. I think it's acceptable but yet I am not really satisfied by it. Please do let me know your opinions.

Beyond that, I do not think that I have anything else to add so till next time lukim yu behain!