7: Treasure
Well the ride back from Albion was at least interesting. I didn't want to kiss Louise like that, even though that's what happened last time, but I couldn't resist any longer. I hoped that wouldn't cause her to somehow revert back to her original, trigger happy self. If she does, I'm blaming you. 'It's not my fault she's so cute when she's sleeping!'
Anyway, after that little incident, I explained everything that happened to Kirche, Guiche, and Tabitha. When Louise woke up, she had helped me fill in a few details that I wasn't their for, such as the trip to the port where they were attack by a masked man. I explained that the masked man was most likely Wardes using one of his wind spells to create solid duplicates of himself.
After the explanation, Syphid hit a bit of turbulence and shook violently. I think Guiche fell off, but I didn't really care enough to check. Louise almost fell off, but I grabbed her to make sure she didn't.
"You okay there?" I ask her.
"I'm fine," she grumbles. "You didn't have to help." Great, my worst fears are coming true. Her inner anger is starting to surface! My crotch will never be safe from her kicks ever again! This is your fault. 'Really? I didn't hear you trying to stop me." He shuts up, He's starting been getting better at being quiet, something I am eternally grateful for.
"Yes, I'm sure you would have. But I wanted to help anyway. It would really suck for you to die before we got back home wouldn't it?"
Louise grumbles in agreement. I figure her next course of action is to remove my arm from around her, but I'm wrong. Instead, I think I hear her sigh in content, and she scoots closer to me, almost snuggling. I get a little light headed, then I remember what happened last time and get pulled back to reality pretty quickly.
"Oh, when did you two get so close?" Asks Kirche in a voice clearly meant to try and incite Louise. I brace for the impact of a kick to the face, followed by hitting the ground. Instead, Louise once again defies my expectations.
"N-no! We're not close! Not at all!" Said Louise blushing. Instead of pushing me off and being done with it, she does the exact opposite thing we all expected her to do, and ended up getting even closer to me. Well, my inner monologue says, It appears she's gone from being incredibly violent, to incredibly contradictory. Not that that's a bad thing.
Kirche looks disappointed that she didn't see Louise go all red with rage and hit something in the face. I didn't really know how to react to this sudden upheaval of everything I knew. I'd have to make sure to come up with something to shock my brain into reality later.
*Scene Break*
After we got back to Tristain, we reported to the princess. We give her the rundown of everything that happened. When we got to the part about Wales murder, she started to cry. I gave her the earth ruby ring and made up a few last words that sounded like Wales would have said. She nods, mollified.
Weeks passed and the summer term started. Most of the students left, but the few that I knew stayed behind. Of my little circle of "friends," only Kirche, who had gone home to Germania, and Siesta, who had gone back to her hometown to visit her family, had left the academy. Louise permitted me to sleep on the bed, and I started attending some lesson with her, but nothing else really happened.
One day I pulled out my list and took a look at it. The next event listed happened on its own, but this time I might need to give a little shove in order to get it going. I was going to bring it up with Louise when Mr. Colbert opened the door and came in.
"Louise, the headmaster would like to talk to you. Report up to him in ten minutes." Then Colbert closes the door and walks away.
Louise looks at me to ask what she should do. Realizing this is my chance, I take advantage of it.
"Go on. It's important. Also, just to let you know, I think I'll head on down to Tardes."
"And why would that be?" Louise asks.
I shrug. "Well, we haven't seen Siesta in a while so I figured we should drop by and say hello."
Louise nods. "That's nice. Now what's the real reason?"
Crap. I forgot, she's smart. She knows I would never just bring up something like this without an explanation.
"I forgot how smart you can be. Anyway, its nothing you need to worry about. Yet. Let's just say it's a surprise. A big one." I try to avoid discussing the nature of the surprise.
She glares at me, clearly unimpressed at my explanation. "Fine, but I'm going to!"
I smile, "Frankly, I'd be disappointed if you didn't."
*Scene Break*
"So you have to write an edict?" I ask Louise as we walk down the trail to Tardes.
"Yes. It needs to be poetic, rhyme, and give thanks to all the elements."
"Well you have my sincerest apologizes. I can't help you in any way with that."
"Well, I'm not good at this either!" she yells at me, "That's why we're going on this trip. For inspiration!"
"And to see Siesta, right?" I tell her.
"Oh yeah, that too." She replies sheepishly.
"Saito! Miss Vallière! What are you doing her?" Siesta asks, hugging us as soon as she sees us.
"We just though we'd drop by and see how you're doing." Louise responds. They strike up one of those girl conversations about various things that don't interest people like me. I'm surprised at how buddy-buddy the two of them are, last time they were at each other's throats just for breathing the same air for a few minutes. Well there was that one time with the potion and the cream... I have enough time to think 'You bastard' before my brain recalls everything I saw during that event. My nose explodes in a sea of red, and I pass out.
When I wake up, I'm lying down in a bed, and both Louise and Siesta were hovering over me worried looks on their faces. They definitely seem relieved when I wake up.
"Um... What happened?" I ask the two girls.
"After Siesta and I finished out talk, we looked over to call you down so we could tour the village, but you we collapsed on the ground, with blood coming from your nose." Louise states, her voice shaking from what happened.
"You lost a lot of blood Saito. The fact that you're alive is one of medicine's greatest mysteries." Siesta adds.
"What? Really?"
"Well, that's what one of the medics who we had look at you said."
"What happened Saito?" Louise asks me.
I can't tell them the that I was reminded about the time with the potion. Sorry. "I guess a rock hit me or something." I say trying my best to not sound like this was a story I pulled out of thin air.
Siesta accepts it, but Louise isn't as certain. She glares at me a bit before deciding that it would be better if she didn't ask. Instead, she puts on a smile and asks, "Well, since you're feeling better, how about we go tour the town?"
*Scene Break*
The tour was... Uneventful to say the least. I forgot that Tardes is a really small town. We had just one more stop before the tour was over, and it had only been maybe ten minutes.
"This is out final stop." Said Siesta, trying her best To be a tour guide. "This is the treasure of the town. This is where we keep my family's prized heirloom, the Dragon's Raiment."
My attention is suddenly focused on Siesta as she says that. I run past her, open the door she was gesturing at, and see it. The zero fighter is still as magnificent as it was the first time.
"Um... Saito? What are you doing?" come the, clearly confused, voices of Siesta and Louise.
"Siesta," I begin calmly, trying to hide my excitement at seeing the zero fighter again. "You said this was a family heirloom, correct?"
"Y-yes. It was my great-grandfathers. It doesn't fly though," she replies. She sound nervous. I wonder why.
"Can you take me to his grave? I need to check something."
"S-sure. Follow me" she turns around and starts walking away. I take a step to follow her before Louise grabs me by the sleeve.
"Saito, this is something from your world isn't it?" Louise asks.
"Yes, it is."
"This is why you wanted to come to Tardes isn't it?"
"My, you are smart, aren't you? Only partially, but yes. I really did want to see how Siesta was doing. I haven't spoken to her much. Anyway, come on, let's go check out that grave." I follow Siesta, Louise trailing not to far behind me.
It's not and long walk before I see the tombstone. I go up to it and inspect it.
"Sorry if you can't read it. He insisted on that writing. He said that if anyone can read it, they can have the dragon's raiment." Siesta tells us.
I grin back at her, "Well then it's a good thing I can read it, isn't it?"
Siesta looks shocked and covers her mouth with her hands. Louise just nods like it doesn't surprise her in the least. I point at the description and translate for them.
"It says, 'Navy ensign Sasaki Takeo, rests in another world.'"
Siesta is struck speechless at the fact that I can read it with ease. "I-i'll go let papa know that you can read it, then the dragon's raiment will be yours! Stay here, I'll be right back." Siesta says before running off.
Louise looks at me. "That's your world's writing?" she asks me.
"Well, in the country I come from yes. Other countries have different languages and writings."
Louise nods. "Just like we also have the ancient runes and elven languages."
A thought crosses my mind. "Hey Louise, want to learn my world's language? I could teach it to you."
Louise looks at me, surprised. "W-what?"
"Think about it. If I taught you, we would be the only two people in this world who could understand it. If I needed to tell you something that we couldn't let someone else know, I could do it in my language, and only you would know what it means." Ah, smart. This way you can write all sorts of dirty things that you want her to read, and only she would be able to read them! 'Have I told you how much I hate you sometimes?' Constantly.
She ponders for a bit, then nods her head. "That sounds like a good idea. We'll start as soon as we get back to the academy."
Then Siesta comes back. "The dragon's raiment is now yours Saito! Papa already arranged for some dragon knights to come by and bring it back to the academy, only you have to pay them."
"I'm sure we can convince Colbert or someone to pay for it or something," says Louise.
"Yeah, that sounds good. Anyway, it's been nice seeing you Siesta, but we have to get to the academy."
She smiles and bows. "Thank you for visiting! Feel free to come back anytime!"
*Scene Break*
When we got back to the academy, we were successfully able to convince Colbert to pay for the transportation fair. He spent at least an hour simply looking at the zero fighter and asking me questions about it. I did my best to answer them. I explained that it couldn't fly because it need gasoline, I got him some samples from what was dripping out of the fuel tank and gave them to him so that he could work on creating more.
I left Louise in her room to work on the edict, an ultimately useless endeavor when you consider the upcoming war, while I worked on getting the zero fighter working as well as it possibly could before its big debut. Other than that life went on. Since the summer term became fall, many students came back and went to the usual classes. I spent the better part of those weeks working on the zero fighter.
"So this thing can really fly partner?" Asked Derflinger.
"That's correct. While you don't see this model, the concept of the flying machine is seen everywhere in my world."
"Your world is strange Partner. I wouldn't mind seeing it one day."
I let loose a sigh of nostalgia. "Me too Derf. Me too."
*Scene Break*
As the weeks went on, Louise got more... Clingy. She insisted on accompanying me when I went to work on the zero fighter. You have been working on this a lot. You probably should spend some more time with Louise. Sometimes I hate it when my inner monologue suggests a good idea. It just seems out of character.
While I'm on the topic of Louise, I thought of how her Japanese is coming along. She struggled at first, as to be expected from learning a whole new language, but she caught on quickly. In a few weeks she could read simple sentences, and was capable of writing a little bit. I could definitely see us using this tactic if we need to spread secret intel or something similar.
One night, Louise asked for my help with the edict.
"Louise, I thought I said I couldn't help you with that." I complain.
"I know. But I need help anyway. This is harder to write than it sounds." She says sighing.
She reads the four lines she has written so far, and I see why she asked for help. He writing skills are beyond my help.
"Well," I begin, "I would tell you to put the edict at the back of your mind."
"Eh? Why?" she asks, alarmed at my willingness to ignore such an important task.
I shrug, "I just don't see a point in writing it. It won't matter in a week anyway." Realizing what I said, I clamp a hand over my mouth. You idiot.
"What do you mean?" Louise asks, clearly confused.
"I-I've said more than I should have." I tell her.
She pouts, then pounds her fist in her palm, as if she just go an idea. She grabs my arm and pulls dangerously close to me. She looks at me with her eyes enlarged to MOE levels, and says in the cutest voice she can muster, "But Saito, don't you trust me? Don't you trust your master Louise?"
She has figured out my weakness. I curse the founder for this. I reach into my pocket and pull out my list of events. I read it to myself, then tear off all the events that happen after the one I'm showing her.
She looks at me confused as to why I ripped the list. "All you need to know at this point is on this piece of paper. Well, everything up to what you wanted to know. Consider this a final test of sorts. Let's see how well you can read. The one you're looking for is the last item listed."
Louise concentrates on the paper I have just handed her like it holds to the meaning of life. Her eyes scan the page and she starts reading the last line.
"A-albion... De-declares... War," she forms her words slowly. I don't know if it's because she's having trouble reading them, or because she already has and doesn't want to believe it.
"You see why I didn't want to tell you? This war, it messes everything up. That edict you're trying to write? Useless. Keep the book however, you're going to need it later."
Louise just looks at me with her eyes blank. Hearing that you're country is going to war in a week does that to people. She crawls onto her side of the bed and lies down. I crawl in as well. Louise turns to me.
"This war... How bad is it?" she asks in a timid voice.
I think about how to answer. "I remember it being over pretty quickly, but it was brutal. No, I will not give you anymore details than that."
"D-do I do anything important?"
"Yes, though I wish you didn't. Those generals used you like a tool, to be disposed of as necessary." I reply bitterly.
"Are we put in any danger?"
"Every day Louise. Every day."
I hear the covers shuffling and as I'm about to look, Louise puts her head on my chest and wraps her arms around me. I start feeling lightheaded, and try to will myself back to functioning capacity. You lucky bastard, you're about to explode with happiness right now, aren't you? 'Shut up.'
"I don't want their to be a war. I don't want to put you, or any of our friends in danger. Do we really have to fight?" Louise is crying by this point. I pat her on the head.
"I'm sorry, but we do. By fighting, we help stop the war. It won't be pretty, but its what must be done."
Louise nods her head, then falls asleep. I probably told her too much. I shouldn't have told her about the war. It's something she'll have to face eventually, and I'll have to face it with her, but it still might have been too much. I think back to charging the army of 70,000. I died in that battle, but it helped end the war. I use Louise's calm, even breaths as a lullaby to calm myself, and I slowly drift to sleep.