Rokka no Yuusha: Child of the Goddess
Summary: She couldn't have lived a happier life. But today she would be committing suicide. She had no other choice; her duty to protect the secrets that her hidden temple held, and her duty to protect the young child chosen by the Goddess of Fate was more important than her own life. It was a sacrifice she had to make. For the child, and for the world.
Disclaimer: This is a fan-fiction story of the Anime/Manga/Light Japanese Novel; Rokka no Yuusha, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.
Authors Note: *insert obligatory apologies here* - ahem, so I'm sorry for the long delay, life is busy and dramatic, and I hope to post more chapters sooner. It's all been said before and there's nothing to prove that my circumstances will change anytime soon, so I'll just let you get on with reading this.
Let me know what you think, but no flames please. If you have any criticism to make, please do it politely otherwise I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)
Chapter Four:
"Nyah, I still think we should find this temple of yours." Hans said persistently. They'd been arguing the logistics of the next steps they should take for a few hours and hadn't even realised that they were long past due waking someone else up for the night watch. Adlet was positive that, while the temple was an enigma that he was desperately curious about, it had nothing to do with their current mission which was to defeat the Maijin. A personal mission, risking not only the lives of the millions of innocents waiting for them to defeat the demon king but also risking the lives of those who were sworn to do the actual defeating of said demon king, was just asking for trouble.
"I don't see how it will help our current goal." Adlet returned, "It's got nothing to do with our mission, we don't even know where to start looking." He added as he stared at the starlit horizon. The third moon was just now rising from the behind the jagged mountainous range to the north. It was widely known as the morning moon and was so-called because it usually brought the morning with it not long after it rose. The flame-haired leader frowned at the sight, the heralding of the morning moon meant that they'd been awake for almost a third of the night. He didn't mind so much for himself, he'd survived on less sleep before. He suspected Hans was just as tenacious but it wouldn't do to have two of them yawning all day. He was about to suggest that Hans go to sleep for the last few hours but his feline friend spoke first.
"I disagree." The carefree assassin replied easily, their relations had grown stronger since the first telepathic incident but Adlet was reluctant to call it a casual friendship just yet, it seemed too premature to make that assumption. Adlet would probably call it a "friendly acquaintance" now rather than the assumed "unfamiliar team member" status it had first felt like. He was still convinced that Hans could turn on him if the King got his way but as the saying went; that was tomorrow's problem. "As I said before nyah, dreams like these are omens. I think it's a warning and we should definitely try to find the place. It could lead us to a clue on how to defeat the Maijin." Hans added, though Adlet couldn't see how it would help them defeat the Maijin.
"The Temple likely has nothing to do with the Maijin. We don't even know if its this side of the barrier." Adlet replied, stifling a yawn as he did. "Where would you propose we start looking?" He asked, believing the question to not have an answer.
"In your head." Hans returned with a confidence that felt rock solid. Adlet's brow furrowed in confusion.
"In my head?" He queried out of curiosity. It wasn't the response he'd been expecting but Hans had said it with such assuredness that it made Adlet wonder what his reasoning was.
"Where else?" Hans fired back nonchalantly. "You've clearly been there before so you should know where it is, nyah?" And Adlet tried to suppress the sigh that came out anyway despite his efforts.
"In case you just randomly forgot the last few hours of our conversation, I don't recall any of those memories. I can't access them. Its why we're sat here to begin with. I don't even know where in my life they come from. Far as I knew, my parents never left Hasuna. When would I have had time to visit some Hidden Temple?" Adlet replied, his tone showing a faint annoyance now.
Hans gave him a pointed look. "In case you just randomly forgot the telepathic anomaly you did a few hours earlier and the eerie vision of the temple and the sister-in-white, I think you do recall something and evidence suggests there's more where that came from." He returned rapidly with a tone that brokered no argument. "Plus, I don't recall any evidence suggesting it's a hidden Temple, yet that's what you just called it. Tells me you do unconsciously know things about it. Nyah?" And really, Adlet had nothing to respond to that comment with. Hans was right. But it still didn't mean it was related to their primary mission.
"That aside, it still doesn't help us with the Maijin." He reiterated and leant his head back against the rock wall behind him. He closed his eyes against the imperceptible lightening sky and let the noises of the unfamiliar terrain wash over him in-between their conversation. It was always a good idea to acclimatise one's senses with a foreign and potentially hostile area. Any slight changes would be easily detectable and he'd be able to gauge what was normal and what was potentially threatening.
"Would you be willing to test that theory?" Hans asked. Adlet frowned at the thought. How would they test it without looking for the damned Temple? But, his brief experience of the assassin told him that his comments weren't always what they appeared to be at face value.
"What do you mean?" Adlet asked, eyes still closed, ears still listening to the eerie ambience outside the conversation.
"I know a few hypnotic techniques that might dislodge some memories. Perhaps we could find something more inside your head without risking the mission?" Hans suggested. Adlet couldn't stop his eyes from opening if he tried. Instantly he was staring at the assassin with a bewildered expression bordering disbelief.
"You know hypnotic spells?" He asked, unable to process the thought of two male magicians. His own abilities were already too much to handle, but Hans too?
"Not spells." Hans replied prudishly, "Its not Magic nyah… Just hypnotic suggestion. Like a deep guided meditation with a few added ingredients to really enhance the experience." He tried to explain. And Adlet's expression turned deadpan.
"You mean to drug me with an opioid and turn me into a clucking chicken." He replied with a tone that suggested he was not interested in the idea. "No thank you." He added, just to be clear on the matter.
"No, nothing as heavy as that. You need to be mostly cognizant for it to work properly. It'd just be a light dose, you'd feel sleepy and a little carefree but that's it." Hans was quick to elaborate but it didn't ease Adlet's concerns at all.
"And if we're attacked? How much use would I be then?" He asked, returning his head back to the wall and closing his eyes once more. "It's too dangerous." He added for extra measure. He heard Hans' sigh, quiet as it was. Good. That meant his ears were adjusting to the area's ambience.
"We'll do it here. In the cave. Nothing knows we're here right now. There's nothing here for miles. Not a single presence. The guys will be more than capable of holding off a few stragglers." Hans said earnestly. Adlet frowned again, he was doing that a lot in this conversation.
"You're asking me to put my life in your hands." He said slowly. "I don't even know you." He added for emphasis. "Can you honestly tell me, you'd do the same if you were in my position?" He asked, confident that the answer would be 'No.'
"Yes." Adlet blinked, eyes opening again and he stared at the assassin with a veiled annoyance. He was clearly just saying it to get Adlet to agree to do it. He said as much but Hans vehemently shook his head. "Nyah-uh. I would do it. Remember what I said to you in our fight in the forest before we crossed the barrier?" He asked, his eyes watching the flame-haired leader with an intense stare.
Adlet thought back a few days ago – which seemed like a lifetime away now – and tried to recall what they'd talked about in those harrowing moments of life and death. Tensions had been high;, his stress factor had reached critical even then, but he remembered with vivid clarity what Hans had told him in their fight in the forest. "Ah." Adlet confirmed with a self-reprimanding smile. "You said you may kill, but you don't lie." And Adlet believed it to be true. This put things into a new perspective for Adlet. Hans would honestly do the hypnotic dream thing, even in such a dire situation as they had found themselves in. If Adlet refused, it might lose him stead as a respected leader in Hans' eyes, and thus the others too. If he did it, he'd have to place his life in the hands of people he barely knew, let alone trusted. And what if they were attacked? He had a bad feeling about that point; it felt like a set of eyes had locked in on him and was slowly making its way closer. He was sure he was just paranoid, but stranger things had happened.
"I know you have doubts, you don't trust us." Hans spoke up after allowing Adlet his moment of contemplation. "It's not an easy thing to just hand your life to a stranger and be confident they'll take care of it." He added respectfully. Hans knew how hard a decision it was to make, especially considering the variables that could go awry. "I'd think less of you if you weren't afraid to do it. I'm an assassin, I'm the last person you would want to trust with your life." A wry smile made its way to Adlet's lips as he listened to his feline companion. He had to admit, it was quite the twist of fate. "I can't shake the feeling though, that your memories have a greater impact on our mission here in the demon territories than you think." Hans continued. "I know I'm asking a lot from you on very little evidence. But please, seriously consider it." He asked solemnly.
Adlet felt himself leaning toward agreeing to do it but he mentally shook himself free of the thought. What good could it possibly do? Despite Hans' feelings of omens and fate, there was no reason to believe that a fleeting, barely-there memory of an insignificant warrior – Brave or not – would have any impact on a Demon King. He felt compelled to make Hans feel vindicated in his justifications, but the risks were too high for something with so little evidence backing it up.
"I'm sorry Hans. I can't risk it." Adlet replied. "There's too many things that could go wrong, and-" He started to say but a sudden white-hot, sharp pain inside his head cut off the rest of his sentence. He hissed at the intruding agony as tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. He felt his hands fly up to hold his head but couldn't feel it when he touched his own temples. He felt a presence beside him, warm and sturdy but silent and ignorant to the anguish that was invading his mind.
Hans.
He could feel himself screaming out against the pain, could tell that his throat was vibrating with the effort to produce a loud response to the blinding agony that was picking its way through his brain, but he could hear nothing. The ambience of the area had gone, the sure-toned voice of his new friend was silent, and his own voice was gone too.
He opened his eyes in shock, and found a blank darkness instead of a grey dawning sky littered with fading stars that should be there. The pain was becoming bearable but only because all of his senses were slowly shutting down; some quicker than others.
A desperate fatigue swept through him at the same time he felt his throat stop vibrating. The eerie sensation of knowing your body had relaxed suddenly but not being able to feel it the way one would usually do was disconcerting beyond anything he'd ever experienced.
He tried to fight the force that was weighing down on him, tried to claw back control of his body and mind, but something had taken him completely. There was nothing he could do.
The overwhelming force exhausted his fleeting reserves and Adlet felt for the first time, a fear so cold that nothing compared.
Hans hadn't had time to catch the flame-haired youth before the teen was screaming as though he was being murdered. The shock had the assassin's heart pumping adrenaline like there was no tomorrow. He was by Adlet's side in seconds and that was all it took for Goldov, Fremy and Mora to come running out of the cave, sword, gun, and gauntlets flashing in the early dawn light.
All three looked to him for answers when they saw Adlet screaming hysterically, half in Hans' embrace and half writhing on the stone floor.
"What is going on?" Was all the Temple mistress could ask in her state of shock as Fremy knelt beside the ailing man. Hans struggled to hold the twisting body from doing more harm than had already been done while he replied.
"I dunno, he just started screaming!" His struggles were noted by Goldov who sheathed his sword and knelt to help still the flailing leader with Fremy. "Help me get him inside before he alerts anything nearby." Hans said, twisting his hold to lift Adlet from under his shoulders but the teen suddenly went limp and still in his embrace and Hans almost dropped him at the suddenness of it. With a speed to be envious of, Mora's hand shot out with a precision never before seen, and her fingers felt for a pulse on the young man's neck. A brief tense moment stilled the air and their hearts as they all waited for the verdict.
"He's alive but his heart is too fast." She announced after a few stiff seconds. It was all the confirmation the two men needed to restart their efforts in getting the ailing man inside the cave and on to his bedroll. "What happened before this? What lead up to this?" She asked in rapid fire succession as they laid him out on the bedding he'd set himself the evening before.
"You're not going to believe me when I tell you." Hans replied, as Rolonia, and Chamo joined them by their leader's bedside. He told them everything, from the first nightmare to the strange telepathy and the recently discovered temple and the sister-in-white. In his fear and the uncertainty of what had just happened, he spared no detail. His story was met with disbelief and confusion, as was to be expected but it told Mora all she needed to know to understand what was happening.
"It's a telepathic attack." She said. "If what you said is true, and I believe it to be so, then Adlet has no experience with guarding his mind from others. The outburst of the telepathic connection he had with you also acted like a beacon to others sensitive to telepathy here. That someone has traced the energy back to him and has attacked his mind." She explained as she shuffled back from the bed a little and began drawing a set of runes on the floor around the unconscious man's bed using a charcoal stick from her own pack. The others scooted back as she made her way around the bed.
"These runes will help?" Rolonia asked, worry coating her voice thickly. Rune-work wasn't her speciality, but she knew some of them well enough to guess the intended results.
"They will hide his presence for a time and aid in healing his mind. But whoever attacked will likely know where we are now." More replied, "We should prepare for some form of an attack. Pack your things up quickly then set up a perimeter." She said as she finished the rune-work and moved back to her pack. She pulled out an ink pot and a brush.
"What are you doing?" Fremy asked as she set about putting Adlet's pack away first. Her was always ready to go at a moments notice. Mora looked up at the half-demon before returning her attention to the inked brush and Adlet's closest arm to her.
"The runes on the floor will only hide him while he stays in the circle. If we're to move on and avoid the demons finding us, we need to move undetected. I'm painting the runes on him so we can escape if we need to. It won't last for long, but hopefully it will give us time to find somewhere safe to think about our next steps." She explained as she set to work. But a shadow in the opening of the cave froze her hand. A cold feeling of dread permeated throughout the small cavern and as one, all heads turned to the entrance.
"Ku Ku Ku Kuuuu…" An imposing and intimidating silhouette outlined the fiery dawning of a new day. "What do we have here…?"
A/N: Dun, dun, duuuuuuuun! Who has found them? What are their intentions? Will the Braves escape and survive? Well it'd be a pretty boring story if they didn't but who said they'd get out in one piece? ;P