Chapter 12: Knight and Princess
A small pickup truck with a makeshift cloth cover trudged along through the snowy road, filled with people crammed so tightly together the cold air almost didn't impact them. The little truck tottered along, clearly not suited for its precious cargo. But everyone on board had no other choice. They had to flee west, escape the war, escape the destruction, escape the hopelessness.
Even if there was still the chance Westheim wouldn't allow them through… they had to try.
The next stop was Saint-Urbain. A bustling village only hours away from the Westheim border by car. Not an industrial powerhouse, but its vital import to international trade kept it alive even after Estmarch began to carve up the remains of Sudland for itself.
In the back of the truck sat two teenagers, nearly mirrors of each other with their similar faces and blue eyes, blonde hair hanging from their woolen caps, clutching each other's hands tightly as the truck bounced up and down the road. Unlike many in the truck, neither one of them spoke – just the closeness they felt to each other was enough. But the scorches on their brown coats and dried blood on their hands showed they likely shared the same stories everyone in the truck had – they'd just barely escaped a war.
"When does it all end?"
Snatches of conversation began to emerge in the truck.
"The royals are gone, but that bastard General ain't happy yet. Emerald Dawn was supposed to set us free..."
"Didn't you hear!? They rounded people up to take Nordland! Said they're gonna knock another King off his throne for the good of the people!"
"Dammit, they better let us through in Westheim… I don't want to die on a battlefield…"
The truck bumped over a pothole, causing one of the twins to reach out and clutch the other close before they fell to the floor.
A redheaded girl with a ponytail and a distinctly Sudlandian accent cut in. "The Shions brought nothing but fire and devastation. It's only right they died in fire too. The Prince was the lucky one… died at home. Pampered and comforted."
"No! I heard someone passing through in Jagenschatz saying they saw him alive, in the Rhune! He gave himself up so the Dawn wouldn't shoot a bunch of peasants! Prince Kaito was a hero!"
The Sudlander spat. "No aristocrat gives up anything for those less than him. It must have been a fake…"
One of the twins looked particularly disturbed, about to leap up and speak, before the other twin silenced them with a grip on their shoulder. They both settled back, slipping closer to the side of the truck as a cold blast of wind nearly blew the cloth covering off. Then everything was quiet again.
"They won't kick us back will they?"
"They might… if they don't want trouble. Westheim's always looked out for itself first. And the Queen came from there too."
The redhead added "They never lifted a finger for Sudland."
"But they're not royals… they don't have royals."
"They have worse than that – they have politicians."
Dark laughter echoed in the back of the truck.
The twins pressed closer together, not engaging in the conversations… just waiting.
"You don't think Confedere's going to do anything? They might get ansty with all those resources in Nordland and not here…"
"We better hope they don't. Or we're never going to make it to Westheim."
With all three of her new prisoners tied up and seated below deck, Luka finally had a chance to interrogate them once the one Gakupo had knocked out awoke. "If you think we'll tell a Loyalist anything-!" the blonde cursed.
Luka tried to remember the names they'd shouted on the boat while she was being invaded. She thought this one was Yuu.
"I'm not a Loyalist, so I'll only ask once for you to stop insulting me by insinuating I'd ever work with them."
He looked surprised to see Luka speak to him in fluent Sudlandian. "Then who are you!? Confedere?!"
The brunette, who she was certain was named Kyo, spoke up. "If you're with the Confedere, then you can tell the Commander…"
"Both of you be quiet! She hasn't said anything!" scolded the black-haired man, switching back to Sudlandian.
"… I've only accounted for two of you, your name is?"
The black-haired man grunted. "Wil's right, we don't give in that easily!" Yuu shouted.
"So Wil then. Thank you."
The glare from the other two men seemed to silence the rather quick speech of the blonde boy.
Luka could only assume the "Confedere" was the "Confedere de Lys." The same group her parents had once joined, little good it did them. But she knew it was still active since the fall, under a different leadership, always looking for a chance to liberate their kingdom. Frankly she assumed the Emerald Dawn had been recruiting out of their ranks or absorbing them entirely. So if they were asking about them, the was a chance the organization was still active.
"What do you want me to tell the Commander?"
The three boys clammed up and Luka felt her frustration growing. She was good at taking secrets without people knowing her identity – teasing them out with cleverly laid traps. Taking it from someone she'd just beaten up - was she supposed to torture it out of them? 'That's probably not the best tactic...' she thought, 'They'll just say anything to get me to stop, rather than telling me what I need to know.'
But that meant she needed to get to know them… assuming nobody would come looking for a missing scouting patrol. Which they most certainly would.
"Look, all we want is intel on Nordland!" Gumi shouted, "What are their movements?! Where are they building up?! We don't have much time!"
When the silence persisted, Gumi looked as frustrated as Luka felt. "Fine, just leave them here and take their boat. We don't have time to argue. Gakupo, I'll…"
The flatness of the room in front of her reminded her of a certain weakness she still possessed.
"… take care of things here. Gumi, help him out of here and grab enough for us."
Her footsteps felt a little steadier as she kept adjusting to the new vision her remaining eye provided, but she still didn't feel confident risking dropping a person. Gakupo tried to prop himself up in the bed as Gumi came over to grab him. "Sorry it didn't work out!" he apologized, "But I understand… you took your oaths for a reason. Sudland though, right? Whereabouts?"
"We came from… Saint-Urbain… not that you'd care," Kyo said gruffly.
"Eh?! The border city?!"
Gakupo perked up. "How's it holding up? So close to Westheim… ah! They're famous for their macarons too! Oh, it must feel so colorful and…"
"It's been cut up. It's so important to Estmarch they're always stomping through it, making sure nobody in the resistance were to cut off the border access."
Somehow… Gakupo was getting them talking. Just through small talk? Now that the conversation was going again, Gumi gently returned the poor man to the bed so he could be more comfortable. "You said something about the Confedere, did they ever help you out?" he continued.
"Always…" Kyo said, "Whenever the rationing hit, it was only the Sudlanders that suffered, those Estmarch bastards never had to give up anything. So they'd sneak us food…"
"Heh… one of them always brought treats for the children…" Yuu interrupted.
"-they'd try to get us warmth in the winter… When they started looking for bodies, we…"
"That's enough, they don't care," Wil said icily.
"Like hell I don't care!" Luka began to shout in Sudlandian, "My parents gave their lives for the Confedere! They died for them in Saint-Famille!"
Just shouting the name of her burned down home seemed to change the demeanor of her captives. "We didn't know…" Wil said.
"Well now you do," she explained, "We're not in the Confedere, but we are trying to stop the Dawn from attacking Nordland. So there isn't another Saint-Famille! I know who's really pulling the strings of the Dawn, and she'll burn down everything that stands in her way. Le monde des cendres!"
The young men looked to each other, before each nodding their assent. Kyo was the first to speak. "We… we joined the Dawn because we wanted the abuse to stop. We were promised that they would save Sudland when the Confedere had always failed, that their way would work. We didn't want a bigger war. We didn't want… we didn't want Tonio!"
"Nobody would have wanted that," Gakupo said in an assuring voice, "You were trying to save your loved ones."
"Holy crap…"
Luka almost jumped when she realized Gumi had crept right behind Luka as she whispered into her ear. "He's a genius at 'good cop, bad cop!' Meiko always has to play 'good cop' for me…"
"Look, we were out here patrolling for anyone that would interfere with the Faerie Dust… there's a plane en route now with it. We know where the Nordlanders tend to patrol so…"
Wil coughed. "I mean, if a Nordland spy had gotten ahold of that intel, it wouldn't really be on us, would it?"
"What is Faerie Dust?" Gumi butted in.
"It's… it's some kind of gas," Yuu answered, "It's still too classified for us to know how it works. We haven't seen them use it yet either."
Luka began to approach the bound men. "If I let you go, what do you intend to do?"
From the shocked looks on their faces, none of them seemed to have considered they might be shown mercy. "We… we just told you everything…" Kyo stammered.
"We'll report that we sunk an enemy vessel!" Yuu shouted suddenly, "That way they'll leave you alone. There won't be any more patrols if you keep along the coastline and the Nordlanders won't come in this far–"
Gumi cut him off quickly. "How far do they come in?"
"Are you nuts?!" Kyo shouted, "They'll sink you without a second thought!"
The photographer was having none of it. "How. Far."
Kyo was looking at her like she'd lost her mind, but he relented under the weight of her intimidating gaze. "Fine… it's your funeral. We have a chart in the cabin back on the Zola, they hang around No-Man's Strait. You cross too deep into that, they'll blow you out of that water. We'll let you look at before we take off again."
Already Gumi had her camera out. "Lead the way!" she ordered.
As Gumi followed the freed soldiers out of the basement, Luka checked on Gakupo. "A biochemical weapon," Gakupo murmured, "Wretched business. That technology could have been used to make medicine…"
"If the name wasn't so obvious, the technique is… theirs," Luka said. The innuendo made it clear which group of people she was referring to. "The Grand Godmother always was fond of poison…"
As the discussion turned to toxins, Gakupo leaned back into the bed – clearly he was still having some trouble maintaining enough stamina for long. "Luka… Rin confessed to me years ago that they tested poisons on her…"
She hoped Gakupo hadn't noticed the sudden tremor that crawled up her hands. "Immunity training was common practice," she said.
But even as she uttered the words, they felt wrong – as though she was still making excuses. She was part of it, after all. She'd risen high enough to start training the other Cinderellas. And sometimes that training meant combat… and sometimes...
She'd trained both Rin and Miku. She watched them suffer and curl around as the toxins tore through their fragile bodies. She held Rin's hair back as the poor girl wretched for hours the first time she'd taken a rather virulent toxin. Rin couldn't have been more than 7 years old, but she knew the Grand Godmother would have wanted to get her out and into the field as soon as possible. Nobody would suspect a child of murder. So she endured the poison trials to make her tiny body capable of surviving.
And all the while, Luka thought she'd never felt remorse – after all, she was still a child herself being made to train other children. She tried to at least provide some support to the girls as they suffered. She'd not been granted even the slightest amount of comfort or pity, berated when she couldn't stand, demeaned when her body violently rejected whatever they'd given her next. Until eventually the pain eased as it adapted.
Rin was one of her triumphs. Even when the news had come back that she'd died, there was no real punishment for her trainer – Cinderellas were disposable and Rin's target had been properly assassinated. So Luka had tried to convince herself that the feelings of sorrow that crept into her on knowing the little girl had suffered all the way to end were unnatural.
Not like now.
Rin hadn't even had a second thought about working with her. About letting Gakupo try to reach her. Luka had never taught her such kindness, had she?
"Ah, I didn't mean to upset you," Gakupo added, "I only meant that you might know what the toxin in the gas is."
He was an idiot that was extremely good at reading her. "We had many. I couldn't know on my own without seeing them use it, working backwards from the symptoms. Or even if I were exposed, assuming it was one of the ones tested on myself…"
She stopped when she realized what Gakupo was really getting at. "You're half-dead in that cot and you're already thinking of how to cure poison gas?!"
He managed a weak laugh. "I mean I could certainly give it a look…"
"You're impossible! Just focus on getting better!"
By morning's light, Miku had already managed to get Kaito back onto the mountain trails. The shorter hours of winter wouldn't give them nearly as much time as she'd hoped for, but she was certain she'd make it to the next destination on the map shortly, another small cabin apparently. How long had these people been spying up here?
'Most of the words are Sudlandian… The Dawn wouldn't need a dedicated spying operation, they had Cinderellas embedded with them.'
So that only left the Confedere. And Miku still couldn't decide whether it would be a good thing to run into them or not. As if she needed another group of radicals to worry about trying to end Kaito's life…
She heard Kaito's footsteps drop off behind her again and sighed. She hoped he wasn't being overtaken by melancholy again. "Kaito, is everything all right?"
She turned back to see him leaning on a tree, staring out into the valley below. "Sorry… I just wanted to take in the view," he said.
His eyes traced the entire valley below him, absorbing everything in front of him with wonder. Sometimes it was hard for Miku to keep in mind how little Kaito had truly seen of the world in person. To him such massive height must feel like a miracle. "Out there, through the Alpines… that's Westheim, right?"
He raised one of his gloved hands and pointed outward, towards a series of white tipped peaks. "Right… you can see Saint-Urbain there…"
Miku pointed out towards a small town tucked away in the snow. "We have to go through there, unfortunately. It's our best route to a border checkpoint. I'm hoping when we get to Saint-Urbain that we can find some way to communicate with your Uncle, because I'm not sure how easy it's going to be to sneak through the border with a war on."
"Right, Westheim is a neutral country, but they're hardly a weak one," Kaito recalled, "I read in my histories that their mercenary armies used to be feared throughout the continent until the age of the Westheim Unification began."
Kaito's deep education was coming through as he kept rattling off details of Westheim's history. "They've never weakened their military, only using it to reinforce themselves. I'm certain even if my mother didn't hail from there, they wouldn't have attacked it without careful consideration of the losses."
His sight lingered on the Alpines. "And yet I'm about to head out there and beg them to end their neutrality, just for me."
"Is your uncle… royalty?" Miku asked, feeling nervous at her lack of knowledge.
Yet though Kaito seemed a little amused by the question, his response was hardly patronizing. "The Unification led to the downfall of the noble houses," he explained patiently, "There are no kings in Westheim. My mother and uncle descend from a noble bloodline, but by the time she was born the blood meant nothing more than the property they owned and a name. Though, last I heard, my uncle is serving out a term as a Councillor in the National Assembly…"
He fell silent as he watched the valley for a few more moments. Were the thoughts of his family tearing at him again? 'It makes sense though… when I lost my parents… it felt like I was emptied out. That I had nothing left… that I…'
'I…'
They turned her mother to ash when she passed, scattering them across her beloved garden. When her father came home, he too became ash and they scattered him there so he could return to his beloved. Why couldn't she be ash like them? At least when she was covered in ash she could feel their warmth –
"Miku? Are you okay?! You're turning pale!"
She felt her heart racing so hard she wasn't sure that she could breathe right. All of a sudden a wretched thought had seized her mind, like the memories of someone else's life. She tried to shove it deep into her heart again, lest she not be strong enough to save Kaito when he needed her.
"I'll be fine, I promise," she said trying to reassure him, "It's likely the cold. We should be close to the cabin. It won't be long now."
He didn't look like he entirely believed her, but he accepted it. "All right, then I'll stop slowing our progress. Certainly I'll return to these mountains again some day!"
It felt wrong making Kaito think himself responsible for her sudden shock, but she didn't want him to think of her as weak. Not now, not when he needed her…
Miku had almost lost track of time when she spotted something out of place. She pulled out the map, and confirmed that the cabin she'd spied ahead was their target – but there was smoke coming out of the chimney…
"Miku – there's a car out front, see it?" Kaito said barely above a whisper.
"Whoever is in there isn't terribly concerned about being spotted!" she said.
She placed a hand on her pistol. "Should we chance it?"
"Hmmm… if they're being this obvious, they might not be trying to attack… another survivor maybe?"
"A survivor of a group that tried to kill you," Miku added, "It can't be one of our allies, they all took routes behind us!"
She began to approach softly through the snow, looking for any signs of violence. The car certainly looked like it had seen better days, but it didn't immediately read to Miku as a military vehicle. The chains around the tires indicated it was likely used frequently to get through snow – so that meant there might be usable road. 'We could use a car like that,' Miku thought.
Unfortunately, the windows of the cabin remained shuttered, preventing her from getting a peek inside easily. She glanced back to Kaito. "Let's give it a chance," he said, "I've got my pistol out."
"Right…"
She approached the cabin and stared at the door. Should she throw it open? Kick it down?!
"Er… I meant, try knocking on it."
Miku turned a little red – of course he was trying something more peaceful first. She slipped a glove off her hand and rapped along the wood. She heard footsteps approaching and tried to keep her nerve…
The door opened to reveal a woman maybe a year or so older than Miku, her long blonde hair framed by a prim black headband. She wore a long black jacket with a yellow collar, opened to reveal a white shirt and tight white pants, along with thigh high black boots.
"Hmmm… a girl with green pigtails and a blue haired boy… Kaito and Miku?"
"We - we… we're…" Kaito stammered.
"Yes. We are. Who sent you?" Miku said coldly. It wasn't a good thing that this stranger knew their names already.
The woman looked more at ease. "Come on in and warm up. You're being expected in Saint-Urbain. I'll make sure you arrive."
She snatched the map right out of the stunned Miku's hands. "Oh good, you've been using our spy network… well, I'll drive you the rest of the way."
The whistling of the tea kettle caught the girl's attention. "Ah, right on time! That should warm you lot up before we do the drive back down."
Miku looked into Kaito's face and felt some relief at him being just as confused as she is. "She… she can't be a Cinderella, can she?" he whispered.
"They're not this… obvious…" Miku said.
Kaito tried to get the stranger's attention. "After what we've been through we're… not likely to receive strangers without suspicion."
The blonde quickly poured the cups. "I'm Lily. I work for the Confedere. We picked up a friend of yours when we were investigating the bombing at the Zellen Sea. A Nordlander, Meiko something."
"Meiko?! She made it?!" Miku said.
"But… Meiko wasn't alone the last time I saw her…" Kaito said, "Was there anyone else you arrested?"
She gave a shrug. "Just her. She didn't mention anyone else. Just said she had to get up into the mountains and find her friends."
"Then why not bring her?" Kaito asked pointedly.
"We're still checking out her story. But I agreed to come up here and find you. She was insistent that you two were critical to fighting the Emerald Dawn… and… well…"
Lily laughed darkly. "Even if you were a Loyalist, you're still an enemy of the Dawn."
So Meiko hadn't told her who Kaito really was... "Hurry up and close the door! You're letting the chill in! Now let's drink this tea and get going! I don't have all day!"
With the civil war reaching a boiling point, more and more were crowding into Saint-Urbain as they tried to get out of Estmarch. Even with the Loyalists officially eliminated, pockets of resistance to the Dawn still remained. And all over the city were signs of that miserable diaspora – families broken up, people with terrible wounds, a sea of languages that didn't quite mesh.
A girl with blonde hair and a woolen cap hobbled along on a pair of crutches, blending in perfectly with the parade of wounded. Nobody gave her a second glance – just another forgotten child with nothing to offer, wearing ill-fitting and ragged clothes.
She reached the rose garden near the old market place and stopped, leaning against a vandalized statue of the former royal family of Estmarch. The statue appeared to have large gashes and bullet impacts on it, breaking up their features. Graffiti covered parts of its surface, mostly obscenities in Sudlanian. A radio resting in a market stall blared what sounded like a news report, but the radio announcer spoke in Sudlanian. She watched as a pair of children played a game she thought she recognized… the girl wearing flowers in her hair like a crown, the boy wielding a stick like it were a sword…
'Knight and Princess…'
Suddenly the station cut out to a broadcast of a speech in Estmarchian.
"The Emerald Dawn, which is the most powerful army in the world, has destroyed the last wretches of the terrible Shion Royals! Terrible people! But now we're going to bring fire and fury like they've never seen to those who continue to oppose us! Let not one man or woman in Uralia ever forget what the new Emerald Dawn means for the world!"
The cheering on the broadcast was drowned out by the sound of air raid sirens. The girl glanced into the sky before she spotted the planes. She grabbed her crutches and prepared to run before she saw the person she was waiting for. The boy, her mirror image, her Knight.
"Rin! Come on, let's get some cover before it's too late!"
As a child, Kaito had dreamed of climbing a mountain and staring down on creation below him. The exact opposite of feeling trapped and contained as he'd been growing up. Having achieved that dream, though, he was still rather glad to be done with the dangerous mountain hiking as he left the cabin with Miku and their new companion. "I hadn't even heard of sticking chains a tire before," Kaito said in awe as he inspected the vehicle further.
"The weather's much milder in Vedunia, you'd never have to worry about it," Lily said, "Frankly, this is the furthest I could have driven safely. There's a wide enough pass on the way down though, it'll get you to Saint-Urbain a lot quicker than walking."
Their tea conversation had been quite simple – Kaito and Miku claimed to be escaping the persecution of the Loyalists, and Lily claimed to need to process them before releasing them. Aside from that, the woman hadn't been angry or unpleasant. Her guarded nature seemed understandable really given the tensions at play. Most importantly, she didn't seem to know his true identity even though she knew his name. 'For once I'm glad my parents gave me a rather common name,' he thought to himself.
As they settled into the car, Kaito froze up as the sound of distant planes broke the calm. He heard the explosions and he started to run madly to the edge of the cliff. "What?! What's going on!? That's Saint-Urbain, isn't it?!"
All at once the distant horizon began to blaze with fire…
"No… they're blowing it up… because they… I…"
He didn't need it spelled out to him. The Dawn somehow knew he was alive, and they were willing to chance bombing an entire city of full of people just to ensure his demise…
His legs felt weak under him, but his heart began to rage. He was tired of running and hiding. He was tired of having so many foes chasing him within an inch of his life and happily disposing of everything and everyone around him to deprive him of life.
He felt someone grab his hand and almost pulled it back until he realized it was Miku. He didn't understand why until he saw his distance from the edge of the cliffside. "No Miku. I'm not… I'm not trying to escape," he said calmly.
She started to loosen her grip and he charged for the car. "We have to get to Saint-Urbain at once! There's people in danger there!"
"We shouldn't…" Lily said, "This may sound cold, but three of us can't do anything for them."
"Surely there's something we can do to evacuate the civilians?!" he protested, "Is there safe haven for them outside the bombing zone?"
Lily looked at him oddly before a smirk crossed her face. "In the confusion over the coup, the Confedere managed to wrestle Fort Maisonneuve away from the crown. It's a decent sized compound the Sudlanders used during invasions from Westheim three hundred years ago. We have some guns mounted on the towers that could give us protection from aerial bombings-"
"Then let's get down there and start evacuating them to the compound!"
Rin abandoned the useless crutches as she and Len ran for dear life, their packs the only possessions they had as they tried to weave through the panicked and confused populace. That was before the first bombs fell…
The city exploded in fire and smoke… Len grabbed her and pressed her against a wall as another building burst into fragments, trying to shield her. "S-stop it!" she shouted, "I'm not a Princess, I don't need to be protected!"
"I'm not losing you, dammit!" he shouted, "There's a place we can go, the hospital on Avenue de Pins has a bunker-"
That was when a faint, sharp smell impacted the air. Like mint, drifting through the city on chilled winds…
"There's something off… the air, it's wrong… kind of heavy…" Rin said.
"Who cares?!" Len shouted as he grabbed her and started to run…
That's when she was aware of the screams. People beginning to choke, collapsing as they tried to gasp for air…
Her brother's grip loosened at once as he put his hands to his face. "My eyes! They're… they're on fire!"
"No! LEN!"
He bent over as if rubbing them with his mittens would somehow stop the pain. "No, stop it, don't touch them, your hands are going to be coated in the gas! That will make it worse"
His breathe was growing labored. "R-R-in… gas mask…"
She dropped her pack and pulled it out. They only had one left after the explosion in the car incinerated so many of their things...
"*hack* not sick… *hack* just… *cough* put it on and save yourself."
Without a second thought, she slipped the mask over her brother's face, tightening the straps. He tried to protest, but the coughing was sapping his strength.
"Avenue de Pins, right? Keep this on to limit your exposure," she said, smiling sadly at him.
"-no! Why?! Why would you?!"
The bombs continued to fall, the gas permeating the air, the fire shooting around her… and she only had one thought. The Princess would give her life to save her Knight.
Luka tensed up as the boat finally came to a stop in the open water. Once their companions had departed, Gumi had dashed on board to turn the engines on and start jetting out to the open sea. Even so, there was no guarantee her plans would work – she was only somewhat certain her message would get out.
That's why she was staying on deck. To at least have some lead time if they were boarded or worse, shot at…
The No Man's Strait was an absolute. Any boat caught crossing it without authorization could be shot by any of the various Uralian powers that maintained it.
And right now, Gumi was counting on a radio signal making it through. Though the girl seemed to be trying to keep up her calm persona, Luka was starting to see cracks of her frustration sneaking through as the green-haired spy fiddled with the dials on the musty equipment, the high-pitched squeals of the changing frequencies through the speakers the only indication that it worked at all. Out of frustration the girl suddenly heaved her fist back and gave it a good punch, surprising Luka as she took a few steps backward.
"Okay… let's try it…"
She slipped the microphone off the unit and turned it on. "The lioness has returned from the hunt. I repeat, the lioness has returned from the hunt, over!"
'That's supposed to be a code?!' Luka thought to herself, 'Surely only over a truly secure channel then…'
After all, using an image of the Nordlander's famed crest in communications would get a spy's cover blown quite fast!
Gumi waited another moment before she started up again. "The lioness has returned from the hunt. I repeat, the lioness has returned from the hunt, over!"
Another few moments of silence. "Meiko said that was the code… oh, I know I memorized it but what if it's changed or… or…"
These moments of insecurity seemed to be growing more frequent. Here was a trained spy that killed without thought breaking down over the separation of her partner? 'Does Nordland just recruit anyone that looks good? A performance artist and a photographer?'
She started to wonder what truly made a spy different from a Cendrillon now…
"Lioness, this is Leon. State your purpose, over."
And just like that, the girl's fear faded at once. "Leon, this is Wildfire. I was on assignment with Piano… she split off from me. We have intel on the movements of the Emerald Dawn. They've abandoned the Strait to defend the coastline. I have important intelligence on board. Permission to cross?"
The radio stayed silent for another moment. "Permission granted, Wildfire. I'll bring the Lola to escort you to Nordland so you can deliver it personally…'
'Across the channel?!'
She hadn't even considered that Gumi might be trying to leave. But the girl seemed to be hesitating. "No. Piano's mission is too critical for me to abandon her in Estmarch. The most important part is this – the Estmarch Civil War is starting to end. The King and Queen are dead along with their supporters. The Dawn is about to strike Nordland from the air, and they have a chemical weapon to deploy."
"I see… we'll take your written intelligence, but I'll have the radiographer transmit your warning to the mainland. What do you intend to do, Wildfire?"
Gumi clutched the microphone just a little bit tighter. "Prince Kaito of Estmarch still lives. He's going to try and cross the border into Westheim. I'll make further contact when he's safely across. He… He may be the key to peace on the continent. If he proves reliable, I'll ensure he contacts the Nordland embassy in the capital. Regardless, there will be more intel. But… Piano believes in him, so I will too."
Luka saw the floodlights of the Lola approaching and began to head down the deck. Best she not be spotted above deck.
The moment the vehicle had pulled into the fort, Lily was greeted by higher ups as she tried to work out the situation in the city. It was obvious to Miku from the way they deferred decision making to her that she was herself someone of rather high rank in the Confedere – so why had she come up herself instead of sending an underling? Were they short-staffed?
Within moments, there was an assignment for three of them – to get out into the woods and help seek out civilians who needed help.
And naturally… Kaito hadn't hesitated for a second to volunteer himself.
Sometimes Miku hated Kaito's sense of justice. He was so eager to try and protect everything around him that he didn't think to protect himself…
Despite the brave front he was putting up, Miku knew that he was letting his guilt drive him. That people all around were dying because the people chasing them both wanted him dead so badly.
Miku knew what that guilt felt like.
"We're to meet with the 7th Squadron! They've got injured and elderly with them!" Lily barked out.
"Do we have room in the car for them?" Kaito answered, "Any reports on what kind of weapons they used?"
"We can figure it out when we find 7th!" Lily responded.
As the car passed further up the road, the 7th was hard to miss, with the small crowd of people surrounding them. Lily stopped the car and waved the others out, Kaito and Miku easily slipping out. "We can only fit a few!" she said, "Who's the worst off, we'll send them up first! I'll radio ahead for more cars!"
Kaito kept staring out at the city, then back at the injured. Some of them had clearly been injured by shells, but others were coughing awfully hard…
"Okay, we'll start loading them up," Lily said, "Kaito, Miku, can you look a little further out to make sure there aren't any stragglers?"
"Right!" Kaito said quickly.
"Try not to go too far, who knows who's still out there… and try to stay out of the city, okay?"
Miku kept a careful eye on Kaito's clothing for any telltale signs of blood as they tromped through the snow, but he still looked safe for now. "Wait, did you hear that?!" he said suddenly.
He was glancing out towards a burning clock tower on the city limits. "Kaito… there's a child up there! Look!"
Miku could just barely make out the shape of a girl clad in a sailor's dress and purple hat with two purple pigtails, standing on an outdoor balcony and crying for help as the flames climbed the tower.
"I don't think Lily meant for us to go that far…" Miku started to say.
"But we can't just leave an innocent like that!" he protested.
Of course, Kaito was right. Of course, he was about to run headlong into danger. And of course… Miku was going to join him. "Okay, be ready for anything!"
Miku tried to push open the door to the clock tower, feeling the heat from behind it. She waved Kaito back before jumping back and giving it a good harsh kick, watching it collapse. While flames licked the corridors, she could still make out a path. "Right behind me!" she shouted.
Kaito darted inside with her as the pair dashed up the stairs, burning beams collapsing around them. "I can hear her!" Kaito shouted, "Just one more… oh no…"
The door to the outside was already open and most of the floor had collapsed, trapping the girl on the other side. "So that's why she's stuck… no! We can't leave her like that!" Kaito pleaded.
Miku judged the distance – this wouldn't be simple, but it was within her skills. "I'm not going to… listen, I can make that jump. But I'll need you to help out…"
Though he looked nervous for her, he tried to stay calm. "Okay Miku. I trust you."
The former Cinderella performed an acrobatic jump across the pit. She could see the child starting to collapse into a coughing fit, clutching at her eyes. "I'm coming for you! Stay still!"
"Ma-ma?!" the girl coughed out.
'It must be from the smoke!' Miku thought to herself. She carefully gathered up the child in her arms. "Kaito, be ready!"
He hovered near the pit, watching the flames creeping up the supports. They had little time. Miku took in a deep breathe, and for a moment she thought she could smell mint…
The fire and heat burst out behind her as the floor began to collapse as she leapt. She just barely made it to the sturdier ground as Kaito reached out to catch the both of them. "Aren't you… aren't you injured?!" Miku coughed out through the smoke.
"Not… *cough* not so bad!" he shouted, taking the coughing child from her arms, "What's your name, young lady?"
"U-una!" the girl said as tears poured from her eyes.
"*cough* I assure you, you'll feel much better when we have you out of this smoke!"
He gave the girl a comforting hug before he and Miku made one last sprint down the stairs. Miku was grateful that at least this part of the structure was built on more solid brick, but as they escaped the burning structure and the cold air surrounded them, Miku felt the adrenaline calming down. "We… we did it…" Kaito said, his voice hoarse as he ran a gloved hand along his eyes, "Let's *cough* let's get her back to the 7th!"
"How much smoke did you inhale?" Miku asked curiously as the two made their way back up the hill. Kaito seemed strangely short of breath. It didn't seem so strange for the girl he was holding to be having trouble with breathing after being up in smoke and flames so long, but Kaito had only been there a few minutes…
"I… I promise you, I tried to keep my head low-"
He was interrupted by a sudden coughing fit, slowing his pace through the snow. Her worry only grew as he seemed to have trouble walking. "Let me take the girl… you shouldn't try to pretend you're healthier than you are!" Miku insisted, taking the coughing Una from his hands.
"R-r-right…" Kaito said, unusually obedient given the situation. As soon as Una was out of his hands, he went back to rubbing his eyes, trying to clear some kind of irritant.
"Kaito?" Miku said with worry.
"Miku! Kaito! Where were you?!" Lily called out, "Who's that girl?"
Miku clutched the ill child close to her. "Kaito saw her inside a burning clocktower… we went inside to save her, she has smoke inhalation injuries and-"
"You went into the city?! Merde! Okay, the three of you will be taking the next car up!"
"What?!" Miku protested, "What happened?!"
Suddenly Kaito's knees buckled under him and Miku realized why she'd smelled mint and what it meant as he collapsed in the snow, clutching at his chest while his coughing grew more pronounced, matching Una's symptoms perfectly. "Poison gas… no, Kaito!"
Len thought he was awake… he felt himself moving his eyelids… but everything in front of him still had a black, muddy appearance.
"Rin?" he shouted, before his burning lungs filled him with coughs.
"I'm right here, Len. You're in the basement of the hospital, we had to move the patients downstairs to stop more of the gas from getting inside."
Gas… poison gas… he remembered the sensation of illness in his chest, like fire burning away inside of him, of the sensation of his eyes being pricked by thousands of needles, of being dragged away… and… and…
"The gas mask…"
"You're going to be better off Len," Rin explained, "You only inhaled a small amount before I put the mask on you."
"Forget me, what about you?! You were running around in that without anything on! Why are… are…"
Another coughing fit interrupted his train of questions.
"It's okay, Len."
He could just barely make out the shadowy form of his sister before he gave up and closed his eyes as the stinging became too much. "Well… I… the Godmothers must have tested this on some of us Cinderellas because… I don't feel a thing. None of the symptoms at all. So… this must be the Faerie Dust they spoke of."
Faerie Dust… a toxin they could drop on a major population center and leave their own agents unharmed. And they'd… they'd tested it?! On his sister?!
"When I get my hands on them I'm gonna…!"
He felt her gentle touch on his wrist. "Just stay here and recuperate, okay? I have a plan. I know what's causing this. I recognized the poison from the symptoms and I know there's patches of the toxic plant they used just outside the city, inside Saint Catherine's Forest. I know a little bit of making antidotes… it's not great, but Gakupo taught me a lot. So… well, I am a nurse, right? I can't leave patients to suffer."
She was leaving?!
"Rin… you didn't put that mask on when it made sense to. You had no way of knowing you were immune. It wasn't just to save me, was it?!"
He risked opening his eyes again. In the shadowy blurs of his impaired vision, he couldn't make out Rin's reaction. Len tried to push himself out of bed before the weakness in his limbs forced him back down. He felt his sister's arms around him as she settled him back into the cot. "Please Len… let your Princess save her Knight."
'No! That's not how the story goes, Rin! That's… not…'
She was already out of his sight, leaving Len to the stinging darkness. He had to do something, even if his body wasn't going to help him out!
'Come on Len, think… you were gathering intel, what did you hear earlier?! There has to be someone else that can do this besides her…!'
He remembered a phone number… if he could just get the attention of one of the other nurses in the ward, he could still protect Rin… the way he was supposed to have done all those years ago…
So much blood…
She'd messed up, her knife had cut too shallow… that's why he had time to shoot her before he died…
Her vision blurred as the pain began to eat at her. She still felt pain? Luka had taught her to ignore it… but this pain was different… she'd never been shot, she'd never bled like this, she'd never…
Her small thin legs trembled and she collapsed in the street. Her vision began to run dark and she started to think back to the days she had been forced to forget… the memories she'd been told were lies… where the boy that matched her face would pledge his loyalty to his princess and protect her from harm…
'I'm… I'm not a Princess…' she thought as tears came to her eyes, 'I don't… I don't deserve to be… I deserve to…'
She thought she heard a voice around her when someone scooped her out of the street. "Miss! Miss, who did this to you?! Is the criminal still around?!"
"He's… he's… dead…" she whispered.
"Gunshot to the abdomen… please, stay with me, we're close to my hospital. I'll see to it that you get the proper care!"
"N-n-no… I don't… I should be… dead… I deserve to die…"
She tried to make out the face of this stubborn man. Purple hair and blue eyes. Young, a college student? "No one deserves to die like this. Your life has worth. I promise you."
He was awfully strong for a student, the way he cradled her while he ran through the street. "Don't worry about a thing! You've found the best surgeon in the kingdom, so you're basically already saved!"
"N-no… you can't… if you save me… they'll never stop chasing me… you're… you're… in danger!"
"Tut tut, such lovely eyes should never be clouded by worry! We're almost there!"
Was this man a real Knight?
Rin's evening drive into the Saint Catherine Forest through the burning streets of Saint-Urbain had gone surprisingly smoothly in the hours since the bombings ended. Whatever they intended to gain from bombing Saint-Urbain to the ground, they'd apparently decided it was worth it. Naturally she'd been able to steal an abandoned car in the now-empty streets and quickly make her way out of town. But she couldn't well drive a car through a forest…
She was grateful that the snow cover was so light out here – it gave her an easier time searching for the landmarks from the map she'd hastily scribbled. She knew she couldn't be far from the natural habitat of the plant she needed, but she still found herself searching for any stragglers, just in case.
She'd been able to work backwards from the combination of symptoms and the odd scent of the gas which toxin it was that was in the gas. Rin didn't recall having an aerosolized form of the poison used against her, which only meant that the coughing fits and blindness weren't normal chemical burns and gas irritants. The exposure symptoms were coming from a normal reaction to the toxin itself.
And of course, she could remember which poison she'd endured that made her go blind.
'Agathea merinosa… it's a parasitic vine with purple leaves, it'll stand out in all this white! And they don't die off in the winter…'
She stopped her slow walk through the woods when she heard voices up ahead. A light bouncing around in the darkness. 'Is someone out here?!' she thought with worry.
She crept through the trees like a cat, her footsteps barely touching the snow.
"Hurry up! We need to get the next batch ready or we won't have anything for Nordland!"
As Rin slipped close to the edge of the trees, she saw a small truck loaded with several wooden crates – and soldiers for the Dawn crawling around everywhere as they gathered up the vines she needed for her antidote…
'They must have some kind of facility to process those into gas…' Rin thought to herself, 'On the other hand… even one of those crates would probably be more than enough for me to devise an antidote out of...'
She snuck through the trees, trying to make her way towards the truck with the crates. If she could just get in there and start it up, she could drive off with all of them… saving her brother's life and depriving the Dawn of more of their weapon…
She finally made it to the door of the truck, trying to sneak inside, when she heard a gun behind her head. "Not. Another. Step."
Rin didn't even wait for the next sentence before she somersaulted through the air, kicking her attacker. The gun went off, firing into the trees… but now there was too much attention! She tried to get away from the precious crates full of vines, lest they too be ruined by the bullets. 'I can do this! I used to do this!' she thought as she grabbed the pistol from the woman who'd tried to shoot at her.
But with so many people, prepared for her, she wasn't sure how she could take all of them out on her own… her thigh throbbed from her recent injury…
'No! I can't give up! Len and the other patients in the hospital need this!'
She swallowed, preparing to stand and open fire…
"Confedere! Surrender or face our bullets, you murderers!"
'C…Confedere!?' Rin thought to herself.
She dared to peek out of her cover behind the truck and crates to see the familiar blue and white banners on several ragtag soldiers. She debated joining in on the fight, but held out when she saw how fast the Confedere soldiers were subduing the Dawn.
"Kagamine! Kagamine, are you here?!" called their red-headed leader as the last enemy soldier went down.
Rin swallowed and stood up. "It's me!" she said.
The red-haired girl saluted. "Captain Cul, from the 4th squadron. Your brother said you might be up here securing this area?"
'Len! How did he…'
But of course. Len may be blind, but he wasn't stupid. He'd hit the ground earlier to try and find out people like this to contact. 'He's… he's stubborn!' she thought, 'He must have found a working phone somehow and…'
"We need to get these crates to the university hospital!" she barked out, "The gas victims in the basement need it!"
"Are you sure this will work?" the woman asked pointedly.
"I… I know a great deal about poisons!" Rin said, trying to conceal the reason why, "I'm a nurse, I studied with… with the best doctor in all of Uralia!"
Cul looked Rin over with a smile. "Well I've never heard of you, but if you say this will work… we need it. We've got evacuated civilians suffering from the same symptoms. Anything you can do to ease their pain, let alone cure the poison…"
Now this was all on her… she felt nervous as she realized the most dangerous part of the mission was past, but not the hardest…
'No… Gakupo taught me so much about compounding medicines. I'm sure this is in my capabilities now too.'
Kaito tried his best to maintain a calm façade as he laid in the cot in the fort's infirmary, but it was difficult when his lungs burned like fire, his chest aching from being wracked by another coughing fit. He couldn't bring himself to open his eyes again because of how much it hurt when the air brushed across them. It didn't matter much anyway – whenever he did try to open them up, he only saw shadows. But he didn't want to keep scaring Miku, who he knew was still sitting by his side in the crowded infirmary.
He just hoped this would pass over so he could fulfill the promise he'd made…
Both of them had been given a fresh change of clothes while their old ones were washed to try and remove lingering remnants of whatever gas had been used. He wasn't wearing much more than a hospital gown, given the lack of resources.
He could barely make out the signs of a commotion in the infirmary as a loud voice broke in. "Hey, c'mon, I'm not family but… I'm basically a celebrity, so that has to count for something!"
The sound of clomping boots on the floor approaching his bed made him tense, but only for a moment when he got a better grip on the voice.
"Kaito. You're a sight for sore eyes."
"Meiko!" he said, trying to smile for her. He managed to crack open his eyelids and was just barely able to make out the shape of the brunette in the red coat before he was forced to close them up again.
"You survived! I thought I'd sent you to your death…"
"Heh… maybe the Lord above wasn't ready to have my voice join the choir invisible."
He tried to suppress another wave of coughing as his chest lit up. "Meiko… what happened to Dex?!"
When she didn't speak, just letting Kaito get a few tortured hacks out, he knew the answer. "… did you know him well?" she asked sadly.
Kaito thought back to that innocent target practice so long ago. "No… but now I wish I had. Maybe his fate would have been better if I had."
"You didn't kill him. Every one of us took that mission knowing we could die, and I don't think he'd have turned his guns on his own Loyalist comrades without being aware of it. The important thing is you and Miku survived."
Kaito tried to take some comfort in that success, but right now he could only feel the weight of another death on him. He felt gentle fingers along his hand and knew without even having to look that it was Miku trying to comfort him.
"Miku, you look pretty good for someone who joined Kaito for a romp through poisonous gas."
He felt a slight tremble in her fingers before Miku answered. "I think the Godmothers were involved in this…" Miku said quietly, "If they were, they probably tested this poison on Cinderellas. So… I'm… immune because I've been exposed to it in some form besides gas."
Kaito wrapped his head around what this meant – for Miku to build immunity, she would have needed repeated exposure. He tried to imagine Miku as a child, trying to stop her chest from burning while condemned to a painful blinding… and his temper began to flare at the Godmothers once more.
"Hmph… these are some sick people," Meiko muttered, "If you have some way of working out which one, I think the people here could use it. Right now our only hope is waiting to see if they can recover on their own."
"That won't be necessary."
"Commander!?" Kaito said in shock as he tried to open his eyes again and see who was coming. He could make out a long wave of blond hair.
"Lily?"
"I apologize that I wasn't honest with you from the start," she said, "Commander Lily LaFleur, leader of the Confedere de Lys."
"LaFleur…" Miku whispered knowingly.
LaFleur? The last monarchy of Sudland!?
"I thought… the LaFleurs were all executed…"
Lily snuck over closer to his bedside, whispering into his ear. "I think the last scion of House Shion should know that cheating death isn't that difficult."
So she knew all along – maybe he should have been able to guess from the fact she already knew his name when they met in the mountains. She leaned back from the bed and pulled up a chair. "I don't want to overtax you while you're recovering from this poison, so I'll be brief. But we did receive word from the university hospital that someone down there figured out how to concoct an antidote to the toxin. 4th squadron supported her late last night. The people on the ground that took the highest doses didn't survive but at least those like you that only took a mild exposure have some hope. We're hoping to get it up here by afternoon."
His eyes were stinging again but he needed answers. "Why did you come for me after what my family did to you?"
He could still see Luka's venomous eyes in the prison again, recalling the pain she'd suffered that drove her to years of madness. But right now he couldn't entirely make out Lily's face, let alone her eyes. He could only go on her surprisingly calm tone.
"Your image was forced onto everyone in Sudland. Your face, your name, your importance… there were statues built just to make us worship you. But we never saw you, the person. You were almost a myth to us – a fairy tale they concocted to replace that which they stole away. Your sudden murder was… a shock. To many it was a victory after years of oppression. So… when we picked up Meiko and she tried to convince us to help you escape to Westheim…"
"I wouldn't normally give that information out so freely, Kaito," Meiko interjected, "But there's frankly no way we're getting through Westheim on our own. The Dawn holed up at the border. I was willing to take a chance on the Confedere after getting to know Lily, but I knew she couldn't take a risk on just anyone."
"I wanted to know if you really lived up to all those platitudes she was telling me about you. And now I see you sick in bed after saving a Sudland child from a fire. I think that speaks more than well enough to your character diverging from your parents."
Finally, Kaito couldn't deny the pain in his eyes any longer and he allowed the lids to fall closed. "Right, rest up. If you want to get involved with the Confedere… we can talk after you're healed."
As he heard Lily leave, Kaito tried to draw some comfort from the knowledge that it wasn't for nothing... that he might finally be reaching a point that he could finally fight back against the monsters murdering his people.
Miku never let go of his hand.
He tried to curl his fingers up around hers in reassurance. He wanted to feel her touch.
He heard Meiko cough before he realized that she hadn't truly seen him since before the attack. Before he and Miku had declared their feelings for each other.
"Ah! I should ask around and see if anyone found any sign of Gumi! Bye!"
Even Kaito wasn't naïve enough to not notice when Meiko was giving him some time alone with the person he loved.
A/N:
Welcome back from the hiatus folks, enjoy another mega-chapter. It was much needed. I got everything I needed done so we can march steadily to the finish line for this series. I hope you aren't disappointed.
So something that's come up in the past is I get asked where some of my naming conventions come from for the geography. In this story, well, it depends on the country. Since Estmarch is a combo of Austria and Germany, I use plays on real town names in that part of the world, but they often aren't meant to translate into real words – i.e. make it SOUND German without BEING German. Sometimes I had a little fun – like back in Chapter 7 with Mauskirchen and Katzhagen ;) Crossing into Sudland, I've started naming towns after streets in downtown Montreal, where I currently live. I'm not as good at coming with fake French.
Now that we're seeing more of them, the Confedere de Lys is named for the common stylized lily used to represent the French state and identity ( ) among other things. I deliberately had Kaito say the name in English to make the connection more obvious in an earlier chapter, and naturally, when I decided to use that symbol to represent a Sudlandian resistance, it really only made sense to have Lily be the Vocaloid that represents them ;) But I swear I had the name of the resistance group first before I got pun happy.
This chapter was another one that worried me about posting because of the chemical weapon attack being too close to home. But it's hard to depict warfare from that era without invoking one of its greatest menaces. I honestly chose to go light on what these things actually do to people, figuring since it's a made-up chemical weapon, it can do whatever I want.
If y'all were suddenly gasping that I pulled out Leon again for a cameo, well, I kinda had to. He and Lola were both British Vocaloids, so they're going to be the only characters to appear in the story to actually represent the nation their software originates from ;)