Author's Note: Sorry for being a little late in the day fellas, it was the first time in a little while that my dad and sister have been home so we had a late christmas party. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 92: What it means to snap
Approximately one month had passed since Maple had returned from the other world. The number of people recruited to the rapidly growing armies numbered in the thousands, most of them being Demi-humans, though there wasn't a shortage of the other worlders present either, it was just that for Raphtalia's purposes Demi-humans were the most suitable. To achieve peak physical conditioning one must start young, in other words children, but to go from children to adults in the time frame they needed, the accelerated growth of Levelling Demi-humans was vital. Raphtalia knew from Naofumi the exercises and diet to maximise skeletal muscular development and food stat bonuses for the various demi-human children, but that wasn't all either. From Raccoon Raphtalia knew the peak methods of learning combat, mastering physical body control so that movements could be copied exactly, honing battle instincts so that you can pick out and perfect physical movements from the enemy before you.
In this case, the enemy was the fighters from the other world, opposite of Demi-humans who possess a convenient 'age as you level' biology the Elves and Dwarfs age at a extremely slow rate, to the point that their average life span is in the quadruple digits, meaning that the newbies could benefit from leaning from people who have been fighting for literal centuries. In terms of places to raise an army of Demi-humans Q'Ten Lo with its bonus field was the most suitable. Each legendary and vassal weapon possesses, on average, seven equip bonuses that can increase a individuals stat growth, nine if the person in question is a hybrid, thanks to eleven to twelve reinforcement methods and a mountain of materials the average bonus from a single weapon was roughly 50%, stacking additively. 12 weapons X 7 bonuses x 50% Bonus = 420% Growth bonus. For reference sake, pre-first class up the bonus +3% per level, post class up this raises to +10% per level, and according to the water dragon after the second class up this goes up to +30% per level. A single level 2 was now stronger than one of Takt's Harem girls.
Hengen Musou style, aside from the most basic Ki manipulation techniques, was all but lost, so instead the participants were instructed to develop their own original techniques, the ones that were deemed suitable were recorded and trained to the masses. In the other category there was the dragon pulse style of magic that massively diversifies and increases the number of magics that a single person can cast, and there was no better teacher of the Dragon Pulse in all of Q'Ten Lo if not the entire world than the Water Dragon, while they were at it they were also learning mathematics and various languages.
"That seems to be the jist of the situation as it's been summarised." The official that was making the report finished the summation of the army of several thousand that they had finished putting together.
"Yes. We have a good baseline prepared." Raphtalia explained sitting on the edge of the balcony while looking down at the army who was on average level 20 as they trained with each other.
"'A good base line?'" The official watched as each shock wave produced by each punch of the training army shook the palace, a palace that Raphtalia had built by taking spirit tortoise material and reinforcing it several times over. "Pardon me for asking my empress but... how do you intend to do more than this?"
"This world is too reliant on Stats and levels to raise up heroes." Raphtalia stated as she produced a folder. "The heroes worlds have no such things. This is how they produced elite soldiers."
The official opened and read the folder given to him by Raphtalia, who was in turn given the folder from Tanya, and went dead silent in muted horror. The proposed 'Training regiment' began with 72 hours spent inside of a hole, dug out by the soldiers to be trained, getting continuously shot at by magical bombardment, followed up by a two week trek across hostile terrain hunting and foraging for food, given how high their stats were it was likely they would be making several trips. During that time they would be trying to evade heroes coming after them with the goal to seriously wound them with the goals of survival, evasion, resistance and escape, followed up by another week of literal torture and how to not go insane or give up the information the enemy is after from it eventually capped off by rigorous psychological testing to ensure that no one has gone insane and training with long distance weapons such as bows and fire arms.
"Your majesty, pardon me for asking, but are the Heroes sick?" It took the official time to recover from what he had just read through. "I sincerely doubt that the army can even survive this let alone..."
"By The Bow Heroes estimates 99% of the participants will have to drop out." Raphtalia stated prompting the official to gulp. "The remaining one percent will be pooled together into elite units for the most high risk situations. The dropouts will be reassigned to other units such as the air force, the Tranzdorkis crews, magic battalion, foot soldiers and cavalry crews depending on how well they do in each individual area."
The official gulped again. Violence, his empress has raised up a sheer, brutal, unrelenting tide of violence with the capacity to wash away anything in the entire world.
"Pardon me for asking your majesty, but what did the heroes do to you to make you like this?" Raphtalia glared at the man.
"What happened is that I watched my parents, including your quote unquote prince, be eaten by a monster of the wave. Afterwards I got to watch my neighbours murdered and my friends kidnapped by a psychopathic paedophile who tortured me for days. What the heroes did do was rescue me, nurse me back to health, equipped me with the tools and training to seek vengeance against those who destroyed my home." Raphtalia rose to her full height, growth bonuses and a specialised diet for physical growth had shaped her into a giant of a woman. "I have seen the monsters of the wave, the reincarnated and what resources they have to bring down upon our heads. I can assure you that this is the bare minimum!" The official bowed and walked away, perhaps to make the arrangements that had been outlined in the file, but mostly to get away from the giant hammer wielding Tanuki that he had irritated, yet as he was walking away another took his place.
"Your Majesty. The Bow hero is calling a meeting of the Heroes."
"Is it important?" Raphtalia asked her arm resting on the Mjornir transformation.
It seemed likely that she intended to go down there and join the sparring that was going on.
"It concerns 'The Mirror hero' that you have mentioned before."
Q'Ten Lo was the most convenient place for the group to gather. Kuro was already there manufacturing Noble Phantasms to give to the army to fight with, Maple was stocking up the country's supply of medicines, when Katarina arrived at the room Kuro had been using for the meeting she looked soaked, and absolutely furious with Tanya.
"Do you mind warning us the next time you decide to set off a tsunami at the bottom of the ocean?" Katarina looked like she had stopped it single handily, which made sense since she was the only other person besides Sadeena who had a trident transformation to stop the water with brute force. Tanya would apologise later, for now...
"Maple, tell us everything you know about the Mirror hero, now." Tanya stated all but growling.
"What does he have to do with anything?" Maple asked sounding mildly defensive.
"Because he is the one who picks out who gets summoned as heroes." That got the room to go quiet in a hurry.
It was something Kuro had guessed already, she already knew what the bloke who brokered her arrival to this world looked like, and thanks to Kaede's costume she had a pretty good idea of what Naofumi looked like too, and sounds like.
"Iwatani's voice is the same as the guy who got me." Kuro stated raising her hand.
But until now that had just been her guess, their deductions based on the evidence they had gathered. They also saw someone who looked a great deal like Naofumi in the temple of evolution, right before he had gotten killed by the heroes of that era. That's the part they didn't know, what the reason was that the heroes of that time period wanted to kill Naofumi, by the looks of things they even hunted him down to do it, but Raphtalia had a pretty good idea, after all she wanted to kill him too.
Raphtalia and Sadeena were sitting together outside of the meeting room, they hadn't joined in quite yet, Sadeena had opted to listen in on the conversation from outside of the room, but what she didn't realise was that while she was listening on the conversation, Raphtalia was spying on her.
"How much about this do you know about?" Raphtalia asked looking at Sadeena suspiciously.
"The Dragon didn't tell me anything, I presume because I didn't absorb and break down it's corpse inside of my weapon." Sadeena stated simply as she sat her chin on her hand.
"I meant about the Mirror Hero." Raphtalia stated and Sadeena looked her in the eye and glared. "I know you went back to the Harpoon country after the rest of us left, that's when you got the Harpoon. But you didn't go there for that no, you went there because something about the two of them gave you a bad feeling, and knowing you you wouldn't have simply just dropped it and started working with them unless they gave you something that would satisfy your suspicion."
Sadeena noted that Raphtalia changed her grip on her hammer, like she was getting ready to slam it into her face and beat her into submission.
"Do you know why I think they told me and not you." Raphtalia saw Sadeena adjust the grip on her harpoon as if getting ready to stab her with it.
"I think it's because they know you can't handle the truth." Suddenly both individuals disappeared, the entire building where the meeting was taking place shaking in the process.
"What was that?" Katarina shouted as she looked outside, seeing the broken porch where two individuals who tonight were not friends or family had been. "Um remind me guys, this building is supposed to be indestructible right?"
The loud ringing of clashing weapons were echoing out, Sadeena was using her trident transformation to block and deflect blows from eight hammers that on top of moving so fast they were releasing sonic booms with each hit, were also invisible. Eventually Sadeena's constant retreating landed her in a hole. Literally. She crashed into a mountain in her therianthrope form so hard that she left behind a crater.
"Now tell me. Was that really necessary?" Sadeena asked as she looked at Raphtalia with blatant suspicion.
"It's not enough." Raphtalia's voice came no where and everywhere. Sadeena had heard rumours of some kind of communication device in Faubrey that turns sound into light and light into sound, has Raphtalia figured out how to do the same with her magic? Or did she just put a communication jewel in her weapon. "I am doing everything that I can, everyone is doing everything we can!" Raphtalia's voice was full of bitter anger. "And it's not enough!"
Raphtalia was beginning to notice a pattern with the summoned heroes of the past. Hajime Nagumo, Issei Hyoudou, Ernesti Echeveilier Heroes chosen not for strength of character but what they were leaving behind. The Mirror hero, the man she knew as Naofumi, if he really had been doing what the Dragon Emperor Tanya killed claimed he had been doing, has been stacking the deck in their favour since the dawn of civilisation on this world, and he was still doing it. Sadeena's eyes tracked as she caught sight of the hammers flying through the air and used her trident to redirect them away from her.
"Not just him." Sadeena could feel Raphtalia burning a hole through her skull from somewhere. "He's caught in a time loop, but others are caught up with him. The Dragon Emperor that Tanya killed for example."
"By the sounds of things they were enemies." Raphtalia stated as she honed in on the choice of words that were being used by Sadeena. "Who else are you talking about?"
"Naofumi wasn't alone when I went to confront him." Sadeena waved the trident and a cascade of water shattered the nearby stone. "Funny choice of name isn't it? 'Raccoon.'" Somewhere, she wasn't sure where, Sadeena imagined Raphtalia looking upwards at wiggling ears and then downwards at a poofy tail. "Funny how quickly he took to you isn't it? And you took to him. It's almost like you've known him for your entire life." They didn't know it, but before his soul self destructed the Dragon Emperor had said exactly the same thing about their allies on the other world.
"So you're saying what? That Raccoon was some alternate version of me that went skipping around in time with him?"
"It's much worse than that." Sadeena stated as hammers slammed down and smashed the stones that were around her. "Are you sure this is something you want to know?"
Raphtalia had appeared next to Sadeena, the exhausted look on her face was no illusion, even if she was.
"I am tired." Raphtalia let her opinion be known. "I feel like I am carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders." Raphtalia knew that she had the other heroes to rely on and support her just as much as they relied on her and supported them.
She knew how much help they had been given, the strongest weapons, the strongest skills, the strongest magic. She also knew the weight of their failures in the form of Naofumi Iwatani, 'This is how long I've been trying to fix this mess, This is how many times I've tried, These are the kinds of resources I have been given to work with, and this is how many times I've failed to make a damned bit of difference.' And now she's just learned that she's been at his side every step of the way.
"Salvation doesn't come from surrender Raphtalia." Sadeena stated in a sad tone of voice. Raphtalia's ears perked at that statement, as if she had heard some grand piece of wisdom.
"Victory doesn't come from doing the same thing over and over again." Raphtalia looked at the hammer, at the Mjornir, as she pondered in thought the implications before her.
"What are you doing?" Sadeena asked looking at Raphtalia with blatant concern.
'Activation of the 'Balance Breaker' requires change.' One notification appeared before Raphtalia as she looked at the skill list before her, and indeed she suspect that if it's now she could activate the Sacred Gear 'Naturally.' But right now she didn't need the power of a mortal wielding a weapon of god. 'Sacrifice a piece of your body to obtain power.' If you aren't ready for the power of a Sacred Gear you could enter an incomplete Balance Breaker by sacrificing part of yourself, but if you are ready, then you can make the sacrifice anyway and not only obtain the power of the sacred gear, but also the power of a partially transformed body as well. "At least if this fails I'll just come back again next time." As Raphtalia was about to make a change that she couldn't take back...
"She's your daughter!" Raphtalia stood, frozen in shock.
"Excuse me!?"
"I saw the look on Raccoon's and Naofumi's faces when they saw Maple, 'What is this person doing here.' I saw how they look and interact with each other, as lovers do. And I saw how they reacted when they realised she was here and they thought no one was looking." Raphtalia's jaw was bobbing in shock. "Maple is their daughter, and if you are Raccoon like we think you are, then that makes her your daughter too." So much of this didn't make any sense.
If they really are the ones who choose the hero candidates then why were they surprised to see Maple? If they were so angry about Maple being a hero then why did they make her one in the first place? In a single solitary moment, absolutely none of those foolish little things mattered. 'Balance Breaker Initiated!' Because in that moment the sky chose to come crashing down.
"Do we know which way they went?" Maple asked the others, loaded into the back of Filo's carriage as they followed the vague instructions of various witnesses who saw two figures clashing in the sky. Normally Tanya would insist on continuing the conversation concerning the potentially apocalyptic entity Maple and Raphtalia befriended on the other world, though considering the fact that Maple's knowledge about the man was lacking in comparison to Raphtalia's she agreed to help track her down.
"According to Elena Raphtalia's been super stressed out lately." It said something about how serious the situation was that Elena hadn't shot at Katarina even once when she paid her a visit in the office she had been given. "She's only been eating the bare minimum and when she does sleep it's either passed out in her office or after making the soldiers fight her Ten to one and she's left in the infirmary beaten and bruised." It sounded like Raphtalia was working harder than anyone to try and make the army work.
"Has Eclair been making sure that she's been eating?" Maple sounded genuinely concerned.
"According to Elena she's been running herself as hard as Raphtalia has." And without a vassal weapon to support her either.
"So what she decided to pick a fight with Sadeena just to relieve stress?" As Kuro said that a Massive pillar of lightning came crashing down from the sky and shattered a mountain.
The girls felt a change at that moment, like the massive scales in which the world was so precariously balanced on had just been tipped in one direction. The last time they felt that feeling, Maple had turned the Spirit Tortoise shields into a Sacred gear and killed herself several times unlocking it's full power.
"Well whatever she's doing it's working for her."
Aside from the Mjornir it was said that Thor had two other magical items that allowed him to wield it, the first being the belt Megingjord which doubled his strength because the thing was too damned heavy just for the one of him, and the other was the Gauntlet Jarngreipr which protected him from the backlash of unleashing the thing's full power. Raphtalia's body was scarred, patterns of scar tissue like the winding roots of exceptionally large trees had spread over most of her body, most of her clothing was flat out burned off, few among the articles of clothing left on her was a piece of rope, tied around her waist and made out of black thunder clouds cackling with energy and a gauntlet of leather and bone, larger than most of Raphtalia's body but it felt like it fit her like a glove, and it made for a better fit for the hammer that she's been swinging around like a desk tied to a rope for the past month. Raphtalia was panting heavily like she had just got into a life or death battle, and lost. Time for everything but her stopped, a pitch black blade was stabbed through space like it was being cut before being pulled open as if a wave was starting right there. Raphtalia struggled to stand and ready the god slaying hammer and paused, and dropped her jaw in shock.
"This is a new one." Dozens of pitch black Raph's with small tanto blades sticking out of their foreheads were swarming out of the wave portal and saluted as they divided in two forming a path leading directly to Raphtalia. From the portal the owner of the pitch black Odachi made her presence known, a pitch black bear-like creature wearing the armour of a samurai.
"Oh stow the scowl will you?" The bear swung the blade and the darkness, and the bear, disappeared, along with all but one of the blade horned Raphs who climbed up the baggy clothing of the all too familiar woman with the all too familiar voice. "If I wanted to kill you you would not even be able to comprehend what had ended you." Raccoon stated having put her blade away. Her clothing had changed since last they left, crimson red loose fitting pants with rope and wooden sandals, emphasising mobility. Plates of hardened silks folded on top of each other like samurai armour were stitched into her maroon coat and wrapped around her waist and one shoulder, the coat was only half worn at the moment, the left arm left bare exposing tattoo's of interlocking Yin symbols and silk bandages tightly holding back a rather notable bust, perhaps for the sake of modesty once the sword, the Vassal Katana, was away in it's bounded tiger leather sheath Raccoon properly wore her coat and sat down in front of Raphtalia. Most notable of all her features was the bushy Raccoon Tail and fuzzy animals ears. "I didn't come here to fight Yang."
As if feeling the weight of what she had been through Raphtalia collapsed to the ground next to her war hammer.
"That's not my name." Raphtalia growled in a warning.
"I'm Yin and you're Yang." Raphtalia's twin pulled out a sake bottle from somewhere and a dish to match. "We were originally one person before I split myself apart to deal with both worlds at once. The light in the darkness." The other Tanuki gestured to her self and then to the first. "And the Darkness in the light."
"'Darkness in the light?'" Raphtalia asked looking at the other her with blatant suspicion.
"It's who you've been lately." The other woman downed the alcohol in one swoop with the air of a seasoned professional. "Naofumi threw me into work from day one, used my slave seal to drag me in front of the wave monsters and told me to stab them until they stopped moving, he defended and I attacked." She smiled fondly even as the light flush of drunkeness appeared on her features. "I guess watching one of the few still living people who gave a damn about me getting mauled by monsters speed ran my recovery from trauma. You on the other hand tried to go smoothly and steadily like a healthy person and let it all sink in." Raphtalia gave an indignant glare as she grabbed the sake bottle and downed the rest of the contents.
"If you are bad mouthing Maple...!"
"Hahahaha!" The drunkard with a sword let out a dry high pitch laugh as she slammed her hand into her leg repeatedly like she just heard the funniest joke in the world. "I am proud beyond my wildest dreams for her!" Raccoon declared the biggest grin you can imagine on her face. "Look at the person she's become! Of what she has done and how! Who wouldn't be happy to have a daughter like her?" The other Tanuki pulled out another sake bottle from somewhere and poured herself another saucer.
"So you are admitting that she's our child?" Raphtalia was way too sober to process this new information.
"Admitting it? Why are you making it sound like I'm confessing to some crime?" At some point in time the drunkard had finished the second bottle as made evident by her turning it over and a mere drop coming out. "I'm sitting here crowing about it toasting in celebration!"
"So that means you also admit that you, or at least some warped version of us, summoned her here to deal with Melromarc, the waves, bloody Malty of all people...!" Raphtalia was the type to get angry when she was drunk.
"I never said that we're going to win parent of the year." Raccoon stated as she seemed to calm down from her fit.
"People are going to die!"
"Everyone is going to die." Raccoon stated as she shrugged her shoulders as if it was the most obvious statement in the world. "You me, those kids you've been training, the heroes you've been following around. Against the phoenixes, the Tiger, the monsters in the wild, on a bed surrounded by loved ones, today, tomorrow, the day after, next year, next decade. Every moment, of every day, of everywhere, every when, someone is going to die, which means that everyone is going to die at some point. Your inability to accept this fact was one of the things holding you back." 'Was' being the key word. Past tense. "We may tell ourselves how we die matters but it doesn't, because until the very moment that our consciousness ceases to exist we are alive, so the only thing that matters is how we live." The drunk woman sat, her blade leaning against her side while one of the shadowy Raph's fetched another bottle for her. "Now how do you choose to live?"
"You tell me." Raphtalia glared at her counter part, not her future self, that ship sailed long ago, rather this capricious and at times serious person that she could have been. "You've lived my life before so you seem to have all the answers."
"I have done no such thing." Raccoon stated leaning backwards. "The universe is a cage holding civilisations captive until it breaks down and wipes all of them out. That part is our fault for breaking it in the first place. So we had to play merry lock smith and fix it." She gestured to herself. "We made the lock..." Then she gestured to Raphtalia. "Now you're making the Key." Raccoon got up to leave again but Raphtalia stopped her.
"So in other words..."
"Don't worry about things too much. It'll back fire on you if you're too high strung when you go to fight the directional beasts." The woman took out her blade again and slashed another wave hole open. "Us stacking the deck is because we have time, and we can." Raccoon turned back into the form of a great black bear as she and her entourage left back to the world that was under her protection.
Time resumed, Sadeena went to Raphtalia's side and it wasn't long until the heroes were there with Filo's carriage, Raphtalia collapsed into Sadeena's arms as she lost consciousness.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: True, True, The Heartwarming moments sort of come by themselves.
reinDank: *Shrugs*
coolkid0806: Possible yes, course I can't write about things that I didn't know about. Sorry about that, I some times forget about what I've written, it's been almost a hundred chapters after all.
Nightshadegirl: Sort of, except there are numerous chunks of redundant shikon jewel pieces lying around, and it's only useful if you can get a complete set.
Pokemonever1994: Not for the first time either. More accurately their mortal incarnations so really it's just half human and half demi-human.