Chapter 22

(Sorry for taking so long to update this. I've been having some personal issues lately and haven't had as much free time as I used to. Hopefully, I'll be able to update consistently but I can't promise anything until things get resolved on my end. Everything should go back to how they were shortly. At least I hope. Anyway, enjoy)

Itsuki

Standing beneath Flugel's tree, Itsuki kept thinking about the woman's voice he heard in his dream. Whoever it was, Itsuki wasn't entirely sure what to make of it.

Looking up at the massvie tree in front of him, he walked up to it and noticed a few names carved into the trunk. Smiling at the time he and his girlfriend did the same, his smile quickly faded as that single memory brought along countless painful ones. Letting out a sigh, Itsuki was about to turn around and walk away when an idea quickly popped into his head.

Glancing back at Rem, Itsuki saw her helping the others prepare for the White Whale's arrival.

Reaching behind him, Itsuki drew the small dagger miss Crusch lent him. Placing the tip of the blade against the bark, Itsuki began to carve.

It didn't take him long to finish, and once he had, Itsuki put the small blade back into its sheath and hopped down from the tree.

Rem, having finished helping everyone else, walked over to Itsuki to see how he was.

"Are you prepared?" Rem asked.

"As well as I could be." Itsuki replied.

Rem watched him walk by in silence before before she glanced back at Itsuki as he mounted the ground dragon that was given to him. Subaru was beside him sitting atop his own ground dragon.

After a moment of waiting, Itsuki saw Rem hop on in front of Subaru. Glancing at Rem, she gave a brief smile before looking ahead, preparing herself for the battle to come.

After a minute passed, Subaru's phone began playing music, causing everyone to immediately tense up. He had timed the music to play with when the White Whale would appear.

"Everyone, stay alert!" Crusch shouted.

Subaru grit his teeth as he scanned the area.

"Where t'hell is it?"

Itsuki was doing the same, looking for any sign of the mabeast, when a low hum echoed through his ears.

"Huh?"

Still not spotting the White Whale, Itsuki looked up to see it flying high above their heads.

At a loss for words, Rem noticed Itsuki's gaze glued to the sky and followed his stare.

"It's-!"

"Let 'em have IT!" Subaru shouted as he and Rem rushed ahead on their own.

Rem shot a bunch of ice crystals into the underside of the Whale, damaging it a bit, before the others were even able to react. Smirking, Crusch extended her hand.

"Men, follow those two fools into battle!"

Within seconds, everyone threw everything they had at the Whale, including Itsuki.

"Goa!"

Moving forward with everyone else, Itsuki would throw everything he had at the creature until he collapsed from exhaustion. He knew he couldn't do much, but it was worth a shot to try.

Staring up at the massive beast, multiple shots suddenly hit it from the cannons Crusch's men set up, creating countless explosions that damaged the beast.

As the explosions rang out, Itsuki quickly shielded his eyes as the light from the attack suddenly spread out across the sky. Once the initial flash ended, Itsuki looked up once more to see the entire sky had lit up as though the sun was still out.

"Amazing..." Itsuki said in awe.

His awe was quickly replaced with disbelief as he saw the White Whale was still high in the sky.

"Damn..."

As he watched the creature, it suddenly began to nose dive straight for Rem and Subaru. Extending his hand out to the creature once more, Itsuki conjured up more mana for another attack.

"Ul Goa!" Itsuki shouted, remembering the attack Roswaal used on the mabeasts back in the forrest.

Sending a half dozen bolts of fire towards the Whale, part of its underbelly was engulfed in flames, causing it to shriek before another attack from the cannons hit it again. Falling out of the sky from the attack, Crusch ordered everyone to take evasive maneuvers to avoid the impact. However, as everyone else ran, Wilhelm van Astrea stood his ground.

Once the Whale got close, Wilhelm jumped atop it, slashing his blades through its flesh as the Whale reeled back into the sky, doing its best to try and shake the old man off.

Itsuki wasn't able to see much other than the massive amount of blood that spurt from the wounds Wilhelm created. However, during his onslaught, Wilhelm was flung off when he reached its tail. Nearing the ground, his ground dragon came to his rescue, carrying him away from the mabeast as another round from the canons fired at the Whale.

Once the explosions stopped, a dozen soldiers used magic and their swords to deal even more damage, followed up by a combined spell from each of the magic users that were brought along.

Even with all of that, the Whale was still high in the sky.

"Damn..." Itsuki grit his teeth. "Thing is a fucken tank..."

As Itsuki stared at the beast, unable to do much other than watch, more soldiers took the chance to jump onto the Whale's fin, rushing up it and attack the side of the Whale as Wilhelm made his way back atop the mabeast as well.

Slashing and cutting, Wilhelm rushed to its head, dragging his blade around the eye, causing it to fall out of the socket and plummet to the ground below. Letting himself fall after it, Wilhelm plunged his blade into it before raising it above his head, triumphant.

"Whoa..." Itsuki said in awe.

That awe was quickly replaced with fear as the Whale let out a shriek followed by a heavy mist falling upon everyone, obscuring their sight.

Itsuki narrowed his eyes to try and peer through the fog, but that was useless.

Looking around, the ground began to rumble as screams filled the air.

"Soldiers, retreat!"

Trying to place the source of Crusch's voice, Itsuki saw something rushing towards him from the side. Quickly, the ground dragon leapt out of the way of the rush of fog, evading it entirely.

"What the hell..?"

Suddenly, a strong gust of wind blew away the fog, allowing Itsuki to see Crusch and most of the remaining soldiers. Pushing away more of the fog, Itsuki saw Subaru and Rem, still safe on the back of their ground dragon.

Letting out a breath of relief, Itsuki went over to the duo.

"Itsuki!" Rem said with a sigh of relief. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Itsuki answered. "How about you two?"

"We're okay." Subaru replied. "But... I think we're down a few people."

"Now that it's in the fog, we won't know which direction it will attack us from." Crusch informed everyone. "Staying close together like this is the worst thing we can do. Disperse immed-"

A loud, ear piercing screech filled the air, causing everyone to cover their ears.

As the screech got more intense, Itsuki fell off his ground dragon. Covering his ears, the screech seemed to be inside his head making it feel like it was about to explode as the screech got more and more unbearable.

"Itsuki!"

Itsuki tried to push himself onto his knees as he let out a groan of pain.

Subaru quickly rushed to his side as Rem stayed on the ground dragon, experiencing a lesser pain than Itsuki currently was.

"What the hell's going on?"

As Itsuki writhed in pain, Subaru hopped back onto his ground dragon with Rem.

"I need you to take me to the most dangerous place here." Subaru said.

"But-"

"We don't exactly have time, Rem!" Itsuki told her.

"Right..."

As Rem and Subaru rode off into the fog, Itsuki tried to fight the pain from the screech that continued to grow louder and louder. Groaning in pain, Itsuki couldn't hear anything other than the ringing in his ears.

After what felt like an eternity, the noise finally began to die dowm. Moving back to sit on his knees, Itsuki rubbed his ears, looking at his hands to see blood was smeared across his fingers. As he stared at the crimson liquid currently coating his digits, Itsuki could feel the warm substance slowly dribble down his neck.

His ears still rang as miss Crusch, having hopped off her ground dragon, walked over to check on him. Moving into Itsuki's line of sight, the teen looked up at Crusch as she knelt down and began talking to him. But, Itsuki couldn't hear what she was saying. He knew she was talking, her lips were moving, but the ringing in his ears continued to impair his sense of sound.

Staring at her in confusion, Crusch reached out and placed her hands on his shoulders.

"-ear me?"

"Huh?"

"Can you hear me?" Crusch asked, her voice slowly breaking through the ringing.

"Y-yes." Itsuki nodded.

Crusch took her hands away from Itsuki as she smiled.

"I'm glad to see your hearing isn't permanently damaged."

Right after she had said that, the Whale let out a groan. Looking up at the beast, Itsuki's eyes widened as he saw two more Whales pass by underneath it.

"W-why are there three?!"

End of chapter 22