Hey everyone! Told you I'd give you a chapter on Christmas day! I know it's kind of pushing it, but to be fair, I did start writing it on Christmas too. Took a lot of expert maneuvering to find time to write away from the family. Expect the next chapter on New Year's Eve. Anyway, enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 85:

Louise's eyes slowly cracked open for the first time in several hours. By then the sun had come up and gone down twice, with the world around her shrouded in darkness. She couldn't remember where and when she had fallen asleep, only what had happened the week before she finally did. She had already cried her eyes out before. By the time she had fallen asleep, there was no more crying to be done. She could only wallow in her despair and drink to ease the pain. It was what she'd occupy herself with when she woke up, though she felt her surroundings were somehow a little more comfortable.

She noticed that her head was resting on something quite soft and warm, which she soon identified as somebody's lap. Before she could turn and see who it was, she felt a droplet of water land on her cheek. Thinking it was rain, she looked up, only to find it was not dark gray clouds producing the water, but the person who's lap she rested on, her "big sister" Sasha. The elf's eyes were closed and she appeared she was asleep, but yet tears flowed from her face.

Louise was going to reach to wipe Sasha's tears, but instantly felt a bolt of pain shoot through her body, enough to cause a brief scream. She moved her head enough to observe her more obvious flesh wounds, many of which seemed infected by that point. It was horrifying to look at. And more importantly, the sound she had made was enough to wake Sasha. She rubbed her eyes and looked down at Louise. Almost instantly her face wore an expression of guilt and regret, but she said nothing to address that.

"I'll take you inside. I'm sorry I fell asleep." Sasha said quietly. "If I'm awake now, my sister will be too. She can treat you."

Louise didn't say anything, so Sasha stood up with some difficulty and lifted Louise into her arms. It was remarkably painful for both of them, but they did their best to seem strong while Sasha slowly made her way back to the room that contained her older sister. Mariel had indeed woken up and given her nature, healed more quickly than those around her. She stood by a window looking out at the night sky with a very serious expression.

"I heard everything from Alexandre…" She said. "I am sorry."

Louise again remained silent as she was set down on a bed. She was clearly distraught, looking down into her lap. Though the pain was apparent in her mind, the pain she felt in her heart overshadowed it entirely. It had long since set in that of the new family she had built around herself, she was the only one left. Her in-laws were gone. Her children. Her "pets". And now her husband.

"It's...not your fault." She finally said. "I'm the one who failed to protect my family. I'm a failure of a daughter, a mother, and a wife."

"No. You didn'-"

"I did!" Louise said, shouting and interrupting Sasha. "I already know that. You don't have to hide it from me…"

Exerting herself caused her some pain and made her short of breath. Mariel finally walked to Louise, who was panting and trying to catch her breath. She had Louise lay down before she began to treat her wounds, first dealing with the infections and parasites before beginning to close them. The whole process took a few hours, during which everyone was completely silent.

"I don't have much energy, so I've only been able to close them." Mariel said when she was done. "You still need to rest."

"No, there's something we need to do first." Louise said, struggling to sit up. "I need to know...that that monster is dead…"

The monster she referred to was obviously Brimir. The explosion spell she had used was the strongest she had ever created. But even though he had been injured, she needed to know that he was nothing but dust now.

"I see…" Mariel said. "Once you get a little better, I'll escort you. We don't know if the enemy is still there."

"I want to go now…" Louise insisted.

Both elves didn't really know what to tell her. Mariel eventually decided for herself that someone checking on the situation was a good idea at least, but she did not want Louise to be the one to do it. She didn't believe Louise was in a healthy state of mind or body, through no fault of her own of course. More importantly, she knew that Louise likely wanted to see if there was a chance her husband had survived. Both Mariel and Sasha knew though that that would not be the case, so they didn't want his wife to have to see it with her own eyes.

"I will take my son and daughter in law with me." Mariel said. "We'll check on the area, so just trust in us okay?"

Louise was silent for several moments, but eventually just nodded and laid back down.

"I will open a portal for you. Just be quick." She said.

Mariel nodded and kissed both her little sister's foreheads before walking out of the room. She made her way down the halls to the room her son and daughter in law shared. After knocking briefly, she stepped inside to see them sitting with each other, reading a book. Over the past week and two days, they had discovered a newfound appreciation for the time they had together, so only spent their time helping each other recover.

"You two. We're going on a short expedition, so prepare." Mariel said.

"Expedition?" Alex said. "We're not healthy. What do you plan to be doing?"

"Louise has requested that we go and inspect the battlefield." She replied. "Seeing as we three are the least injured, we will be checking it out."

"And what about the other two?" Shion asked, beginning to change her clothes.

"Louise's injuries are too harsh. Physical, mental, and emotional." Mariel responded. "Sasha is in a similar boat, so we're going in on our own. Louise will open a door for us. We'll be gone for an hour at most."

"I guess if it's only an hour…" Alex conceded.

They spent the next few minutes preparing for their trip, only carrying a few items since they didn't plan to be gone for long. Once everyone was ready, they met up in Louise's room. No one said anything about their fight. Louise looked like a mess from the expression on her face. They felt like the slightest mention of what had happened could cause her to burst into tears.

"We're ready." Shion said. "Open the door."

Louise just nodded and pointed her finger at a wall. After a moment, a bright ovular portal opened. Everyone who was going took a deep breath before stepping through one by one, each with a weapon in hand. Alexandre was the last to step through, with the door closing behind him after he emerged on the other side. It took his eyes some time to adjust, after which he was a little bit surprised by the landscape.

Everything had been flattened as far as he could see. Not a tree remained standing, nor did any large stones or hills exist any longer. There was a layer of fine sand and random shards of glass beneath their feet that did not exist before made up of stone and dirt that had been vaporized before settling onto the ground.

But most importantly, there was no sign of Brimir. In fact there was no sign of any life in the area, as no foot steps or disturbance of any kind was visible on the surface. The party walked around for several minutes before Shion's eyes noticed a glimmer of something that was not glass. Upon reaching it, she found it to be the very much warped hilt of a sword.

She promptly pulled it from the ground, recognizing at as the sword belonging to Saito. Its once beautiful blade was no cracked and warped while its hilt no longer contained the gem it once did. It was, for all intents and purposes, useless. However, at the very least it would likely hold some sentimental value for Louise, so she kept it.

"Do you think that spirit that was in the sword is still there?" Alex asked. "Maybe it could tell us some good news."

"Derflinger? No, not in that sword." Mariel said, shaking her head. "Once a sword is broken and may no longer be use as a weapon, his spirit transfers back into the Gandalfr rune on the left hand of the user. Which means…"

"So he died with Saito then…" Shion said, rather bluntly.

"Even if the sword was destroyed after Saito, Derf would simply be destroyed with no rune to return to." Mariel said. "In short, there is no chance…"

"I...I see…" Alex said. "At least he took Brimir with him. Do you two sense anything odd?"

Mariel closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The wind blew over her hair as she tried to sense any sources of magic nearby. After a few moments, her eyes opened, looking calm like before.

"Let's head back…" She said.

Alex and Shion nodded and followed her back over the sand to where they had arrived. On the way, both of them made sure to keep their senses honed in case they felt anyone else's presence aside from their own. Both of them half expected to see a random enemy appear in the sky before them, but all that was in the skies was the occasional eagle circling above.

"At the very least, a major obstacle is out of the way." Shion said, sitting on the sand as they waited for an hour to pass.

"So it seems." Alex replied. "Only the person behind this is left. I don't even know what to expect."

"From the story we were told, this was a man capable of trapping the gods." Shion said. "It's safe to assume it will be the fight of our lives."

"It is safe to assume he has been capturing people to add to his own power." Mariel said. "We cannot take him lightly."

"But if he already had someone like Brimir, why would he even want more power than that?" Alex asked.

Mariel was silent for a few moments as she thought about the multiple possibilities.

"I don't know for sure, but if I had to guess I would say it likely has something to do with Brimir having been dead already." She said. "Perhaps those who are brought back from the dead cannot have their power stolen for some reason. Whenever necromancy was used in the past, the death or discombobulation of the caster usually meant that the one brought from the dead would return to the afterlife. However, in those cases…"

She fell silent again as she thought about the people so far she had seen brought back.

"The people that have been brought back this time around seem more like...shells of who they once were." She began. "Whenever people were brought back in the past, it was actually them. Personalities, memories, everything. Regardless of whether they actually wanted to fight, they could not disobey the person who resurrected them. The only exception to the rule was if one who was resurrected managed to do a spell that would seal themselves in the world of the living. Something that resulted in a sort of...pseudo immortality. As long as a part of that person remained sealed somewhere in the world of the living, then their spirit would never move on. If they were prepared enough, they could even jump from body to body countless times. It's such unethical things that are part of why that practice is banned. But these reanimations seem far more like lifeless puppets."

"Why do you think that is?" Alex asked.

"I do not know. Perhaps this person's method of resurrection is completely different." She said. "It could even be intentional. We can never know until we find the one responsible. I already asked Maxi if he can remember anything, but he remembers nothing after his death."

After a few moments of silent thought, a world door opened behind them, so they got up and stepped through it, arriving back in Louise's room. Louise was laying her head on Sasha's lap, having been resting together with her for the hour their friends were gone.

"How was it?" She asked, the world door closing behind them.

"There's nothing left. Everything is flattened for kilometers." Mariel said. "I sensed no other magical reserves so...I believe you killed Brimir."

Though this was good news, Louise did not seem happy. She knew very well that if Brimir was killed by the blast, there was zero chance Saito would have survived. Shion noticed this, so stepped forward with Saito's destroyed sword in hand, setting it down in front of Louise. Louise looked down at it for several moments before picking it up.

She wanted to cry, but wiped her tears away as they rolled down her cheeks, trying to be strong. She took several breaths before setting it down, still feeling awful, but better than when she had woken up earlier.

"I'm sure he wouldn't want me to cry…" She said, grasping the sword tightly. "Thank you for bringing this back to me…"

Shion nodded and gave Louise a hug before stepping back.

"We should leave Louise to rest a bit." Sasha said.

The rest of them agreed, funneling their way out of the room. Sasha too left Louise to be alone for a little while since she knew she'd want to think of her husband just a little. Everyone met up in one of the living areas of the palace, sitting around a fire place in silence.

"What did you find?" Sasha asked.

"Like I said before, nothing left but that sword." Mariel said. "That girl...she leveled everything."

"Well we knew she had the raw power." Sasha replied. "She had been gathering it for a while so I'm not so surprised."

"Still it is quite frightening." Mariel said. "It's unfortunate that the gap in skill is so large between her and those from our time."

"She's only a young girl." Alex said.

"That is true." Sasha said. "She's much stronger at this age than any of us were."

"She sort of had a head start by meeting us two." Mariel replied. "We had no one like that in our lives."

"And yet still she wasn't spared such incredible tragedy…" Sasha said. "Perhaps the void mages who have Gandalfr as their familiars, and the familiars themselves, are simply cursed."

She was thinking clearly about her own relationship with Brimir. How they were happy for so long before they had been torn away from each other, though in her case it was through Brimir's own doing. As she thought, she suddenly felt the presence of some other person outside. She immediately stood up despite her grave injuries, as did her companions, and rush towards the door with their respective weapons in hand.

They stopped in front of the door, waiting for something to happen. After a moment of silence, the door cracked open, with someone falling through the door and onto the ground. They observed for a few moments before the person rolled over, revealing himself to be Max. He was covered in a strange yellow dust and was covered in cuts and bruises.

"Stay away!" He exclaimed.

He slowly got up and walked to the kitchen, making sure the maids in it left without getting near him. Immediately, he filled a bucket with water and poured it over himself. He repeated this process multiple times before filling it with water again and drinking it. He drank a fairly unreasonable amount, even throwing up into the sink multiple times before calming down, coughing whatever water remained and taking a deep breath.

He then returned to the fire place, sitting down with his face in his hands. After a few moments, he looked up at the group and stood up, bowing towards everyone.

"I'm...I'm sorry about that." He said. "Just trying to keep everyone safe…"

"What do you mean? What happened?" Mariel asked as she begun trying to heal him a little.

"Yes, and where are my sons?" Sasha asked.

Max just sat down and looked at his lap, letting Mariel heal him as he gathered his thoughts.

"Lune…" He said.

"What?" Everyone said at once.

"Lune. The fairy." He said. "We fought and….I couldn't save your sons…"

Author's Notes:

I'm getting pretty used to these cliff hanger type endings huh? Whether they're good or bad, I dunno. Though to be honest I am enjoying writing this again. Sure, finding time for it is hard, but knowing I can alleviate other people's boredom with a bit of story telling makes it a bit easier. See you next time guys. And Merry Christmas!