- WARS OF THE ROSES -

Hi and thanks for checking out Wars of the Roses again. My apologies for disappearing off for a short time. It's been a busy month with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and an even busier time at work, plus some upheavals in my personal life that resemble Sei's quirky relationships with the girls that love her... (I'm not Sei, she is... XO). I've got a lot of stories I'm reading to catch up with. Aaaaaanyway! Thank you for any feedback and I hope you enjoy Act V of this Norse/medieval-themed world of Lillian.

The war between the Kingdom of Lillian and the United States of Hanadera is about to be joined. The scales have been rebalanced somewhat in the Kingdom's favour by the entry of the Gigantea clan on the side of its old enemies, Chinensis and Foetida. As the shadow of Goronta, the World Serpent in the form of a massive, magical cat, falls over the armies of Hanadera, Sachiko's struggle with Yumi's mysterious identity deepens. Fear has crept into her heart ever since that distant day Yumi refused to tell her where she came from. And now, with the crushing revelation that the leader of the Hanaderians is Yumi's very brother, the Red Baroness cannot help but feel the Lillian Kingdom is facing something much more dangerous than a technologically superior invasion.

Yuki's onslaught is but prelude. The true epicentre of the terror is within shy, sweet Yumi herself. Saint Chinensis, Saint Foetida, and Saint Gigantea: the terrifying founders of Lillian are here, tied to Yumi's life and death, forever.

- Act V -

- Yumi's Fimbulwinter -

How many weeks had it been? How many months, how many days of Freya lost to the count of time since she had knighted her?

She slowly lowered the glittering sword under the yawning abbey's arches and vaults. Its flat blade rested gently on a genuflecting girl with pigtails.

"In the name of the Virgin, the great spirits of pagan times, and the Rose saints, founders of our Kingdom. Do you swear fealty to me, Fukuzawa Yumi?" asked Sachiko, decked in her full royal Baroness's crimson felt attire.

Enfolded in rich dark green and white fur, Yumi kept her eyes shut. Her left knee felt sore as it pressed against the cool stone floor, but she ignored the stiffness. "On my life."

"Do you swear undying loyalty to the House of Chinensis and her Rose most high, Mizuno Youko?"

"I humbly do."

Sachiko raised a brow. "It's truthfully, not humbly," she whispered between her teeth. "Did you not practice?"

Yumi blushed, and quickly corrected herself as she giggled nervously. Sachiko smiled forgivingly. Well, nothing was ever perfect. Clearly, despite Yumi's meticulous memorization of the knighting ritual's script, her nervousness had undone some of the effort. "I truthfully do."

"Serve me," said Sachiko, concluding the choreographed session. "Love me, and die for me. Serve Lillian. Sacrifice everything!"

"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Yumi to all three, that one word being the closing of the time-honoured custom. "Amen!"

Sachiko's hand moved slightly, tapping Yumi's shoulder gently with the sword. "Amen. Arise, soeur knight. Lady Yumi Fukuzawa of Chinensis, petite soeur of Rosa Chinensis en bouton."

Yumi slowly raised her head, delighted eyes meeting the satisfied pupils of Sachiko.

"And that's that," whispered Sachiko, smiling. She raised her free hand, and within it was her rosary and the glimmering cross. "It's over. Stand."

Yumi obediently lifted her bent knee, closing her eyes again as Sachiko's arms stretched out, rosary slowly descending around the new squire's head and neck...

One crucifix to bind them together, always, until the end of time.

Yumi screamed and cried, her clenched fists beating lightly on Sachiko's shoulders as the Baroness roughly carried her petite soeur into her bedchambers. She resisted, resisted desperately - but Sachiko's hands were pulling her hair, painfully, carelessly, mercilessly, and no matter how she fought back, the bouton's grip only grew more implacable. "Please, onee-sama," she begged, eyes scrunched up at the stinging pain as she felt Sachiko's cruel fingers clutching her tresses. "Where are you taking me?"

"Where it all began, you liar."

The door to the Red Baroness's room boomed open. With a contemptuous toss, Yumi felt herself thrown onto Sachiko's bed like a disappointing rag doll, her noblewoman's garments immediately torn apart and away from her trembling body. "Have mercy, onee-sama," she whimpered, as Sachiko's enraged hand pressed against her mouth, with a free hand still working humiliatingly away at her clothes. Sachiko's beautiful face was twisted in rage, fury as hot as the flames of Muspelheim. Her hands tore away at Yumi's fur and felt, the very clothes of high-ranking nobility she had bestowed on her. And now, she was dismissing them away from Yumi's red, stinging, sore, body. Yumi screamed, terror and lust and passion pounding in her heart, and she tried to fight back, to resist Sachiko's perfect hands. But it was no use. Onee-sama was overpowering her with brutal kisses, gripping her body, lightning coursing through her touch.

She couldn't escape.

They had pitched camp near the fiercely contested Castle Albion, a crucial chokepoint that the three houses had fought over many times in the past. Her tent was sparse compared to her bedchamber in Chinensis Palace. She was supposed to be planning a strategy for the coming battle with Rei and her new Foetida allies, but for now she had one concern. "I have waited long enough for you to tell me who you truly are! I don't know why I have been so lenient thus far. You, the sister of our invaders' leader? Just how much do you know and why?"

Sachiko ran her hand over Yumi's neck, gently clasping her fingers around the younger girl's throat. Yumi's eyes widened as Sachiko's hand began to close around her - no, it didn't hurt - yes, actually, it did somewhat, but she was powerless to fight back regardless, staring up at the Red Baroness helplessly as the latter tore aside her own clothes, pressing down on her squire-slave and having her lordly way with her. Her legs and curled toes stroked Sachiko's in the wild throes of pain and pleasure. "Onee-sama! Please, I will do anything you command," bawled Yumi hysterically, bucking powerlessly as Sachiko pinned her down, their hot skin touching, inflaming and moistening at each other's warmth. "Please... just a little gentler..."

"Tell me who you are! Now," snarled Rosa Chinensis en bouton as she descended, her lips biting angrily on Yumi's neck. "Or I will really lose my temper. No one is immune to the wrath of the Red Baroness. Not even you," she declared, voice suddenly growing softer, as her teeth nipped Yumi's shoulder lightly, if reproachfully. Stilled, Yumi moaned, unable to fight back. "You owe me an explanation, Yumi," demanded Sachiko quietly, her fingers eliciting another warm mew from the hapless girl. Her caresses were perfect, careful, aimed with a deadly, heart-killing precision and dexterity. How could Yumi possibly resist her? "I have, contrary to my rank and authority, kept quiet about your silence for far longer than is healthy. I shut away my questions about you, my petite soeur, because I wanted to see your satisfied smile in this palace. But now is the time you repay me for my kindness." Her eyes shone. "Please, now is the time. When your grande soeur is as desperate as this, surely you will consent?"

Yumi looked at Sachiko, and there it was once again, that beautiful, fearless expression. "I understand, onee-sama," she said quietly, wrapping her limbs around her and pulling her close. She kissed her. "Come closer. I'll tell you everything. All shall be revealed. And I will tell you why my brother has come to where I go."

But Sachiko could never have anticipated the incredible, unbelievable, unthinkable words about to pass from her squire's lips.

"The Rose saints of myth have made me theirs."

"What?" breathed Sachiko. "For the last time, stop speaking in riddles!"

"I'm not." Yumi's eyes told the truth. "I was selected, not by my family, but by the powers above. A human sacrifice to placate the wrathful hunger of bloodthirsty spirits. My brother has come to sweep across Lillian, but only so he can come to me, to kill me, to free me. Because my body is no longer completely my own. Your realm... this grey and green land... it will endure, and survive the wrath of my brother's love. You're not his greatest enemy."

Sachiko shook her head, a crushing, dispiriting sense of foreboding washing over her. "No. No, no, no. What nonsense is this? The prime Roses we all revere? Goddesses fallen from the Hall of Heroines?"

"Their spirits have fallen from the afterlife of Valhalla, choosing my flesh to dwell within," whispered Yumi, her lips caressing her mistress's ear. "They're eating my organs as I speak, killing me from within. I can feel these deified women of war, gnawing away at my vessels and marrow. My very thoughts. But I will gladly sacrifice my soul for their incarnation if it means protecting you. Yes! They have promised me... they won't devour you like they have me. I don't know if they will keep their promise. But they were going to come. I swear it." Yumi sighed, a single tear trickling down her cheek. "But I loved you before I met you. I told you that already, when you first brought me to your room as a whore and a slave. I love you in this world, in all worlds. Why else would I beg the goddesses to at least allow me the pleasure of seeing you first, even if you never cared to meet or know me?"

"You lie! You're toying with me. I will punish you for mocking my heart like this!" shrieked Sachiko, raising a hysterical palm to slap Yumi -

Azure and turquoise light, the luminance of the northern sky, ignited in Yumi's irises. Sachiko gasped, as her petite soeur - the girl who swore to adore her forever - grabbed her arm with a superhuman strength. Her wrist began to crack under the iron grip of her own squire, bones audibly bruising and creaking. Stunned, the writhing Sachiko reeled back. She screamed in blank pain as Yumi slowly rose from the bed, defying what was supposed to be Sachiko's greater strength, and spoke, her rasping throat growling an old, guttural tongue long forgotten. The banshee-like, primitive dialect chilled the shivering, squirming Red bouton to the bone.

"Stay your hand, little girl."

That voice - no, those voices of three long-dead women - did not belong to Yumi!

The cold glow of snow and water in Yumi's eyes suddenly dissipated, and she roughly shoved Sachiko away, releasing her. The Baroness flew back, scrambling off the bed and staggering away, terrified and distraught. "No!" screamed Yumi suddenly, clutching her head. "Why... why are you looking at me like that?" she whimpered, glancing up at the panting Rosa Chinensis en bouton, who was cowering amidst the echo of the shrieking voices. "What have I done to you, onee-sama?" whispered Yumi. "Don't they give me more time? Have they already... begun to eat my brain?"

"It has begun," realized Sachiko in horror. She raised her arm, forced in the face of the manifesting goddesses, to take in Yumi's slow, agonizing death. "Yumi. If you're really telling the truth... If you're really to be believed..." She stared at the shaking petite soeur. "The prime Roses seem to be gnawing away at you. Your body. Your mind. Your soul."

Yumi smiled sadly, and her silence meant that Sachiko had deduced everything too correctly. "Yes, but if that means I may spend my final weeks with you, it will be a mercy and a blessing," she finally said, after several hesitant moments.

Sachiko couldn't cry. She couldn't weep. All she felt was anger, hatred, an intense revulsion for the very women that had founded the glorious Kingdom of Lillian. Suddenly, she regretted everything she had said to Yumi. Shy, timid Yumi. Helpless, struggling Yumi. No. None of that. Yumi was holding a trinity of vengeful spirits inside her. What could be braver than that? "No. No, this cannot be. I won't let you die!"

"It's too late," whispered Yumi. She drew close again and took Sachiko's trembling, bruised hand. It was slightly swollen and purple. She cradled Sachiko's taller body in her embrace. "I'm sorry. Sorry for hurting you, and sorry for inflicting this grief on you. Just when you thought your heart could have found rest and repose in me..."

Sachiko thought her fractured wrist would hurt more, but she could barely feel it.

The throbbing pain was coming from somewhere else, somewhere deep, deep within.

Grey skies reigned with the occasional shaft of sunlight from the heavens. It was midday, and the Hanaderian troops hadn't arrived yet on the green slopes and hills surrounding the stone fort of Castle Albion. But three grand armies of the House of Chinensis already awaited the inevitable coming of the republic's regiments. Thousands of noblewomen, peeresses of the realm, clad in glimmering silver and metal, clutching lances that seemed to stab the blue sky. No faction could hope to seize the Lillian heartland without holding this fort of stone. Standing with the Chinensis knights was an unusual guest - the commander of the Foetida House's army, the exiled Rosa Foetida en bouton, who had more or less recovered from the devastating rout she had suffered at Yuki's hands. "Where will they come from?" she muttered, encased in her gloriously refitted suit of armour. With her old set punctured and rendered useless by the muskets and arquebuses that had been unleashed on her that fateful day when Yoshino rebelled against Eriko, Sachiko had commissioned blacksmiths to create a sleeker, nimbler, thinner alternative. "I might have been caught off-guard last time, and I paid a dear price for it by being run out of my own castle. But now my blood courses with desire for vengeance."

"It feels strange," said Sachiko dully, her bruised wrist and hand. Her petite soeur was not by her side. Her voice sounded blunted from the incident the night before. She hadn't slept, not even after she had cradled Yumi to slumber and lain beside her as their passion cooled. "You must have felt like me when Yoshino betrayed you."

"This is not the time to talk about such things," urged Rei, although her troubled face betrayed her agreement with Sachiko's sentiments. "After everything she's told us, you must have many questions about Yumi-chan now. Foetida Palace has already fallen into Hanaderian hands. They were cunning enough strike directly at our heartland, using Yoshino as a catapult into the imperialist ambitions. Usually, we have led great armies against each other to take each other's hill forts and villages, but Hanadera has allowed Yoshino to take over our house's banners."

Sachiko clenched her fist. "Low-handed fools."

"Low-handed they may be, but the truth is that the Hanaderians have swept over our fiefdoms," said Rei darkly. "Without us to lead a counterattack, our meagre, overstretched knights will simply fold before their onslaught, especially with these weapons of theirs. I wouldn't be surprised if they have taken our brave women captive and..." She shuddered. "Vermin."

Sachiko hissed in disbelief. "They will not stoop to such despicable depravity. Even if they are our enemies! Not against our eminent nobles!"

"You forget, Sachiko - these men do not believe in nobility. But perhaps you're right. Are they here to pillage and rape our lands and people? Or do they have a hidden agenda as they sweep across this continent? We simply don't know." Rei's eyes narrowed. "Can you hear that rumble?"

"That distant but nearing thunder?" muttered Sachiko. "Yes."

They were here. The Hanaderians had arrived, line upon line of grey-uniformed soldiers taking up position at the hill across to them. Across the sprawling green they arrived - almost suddenly, abruptly, like the tense rainstorms that always visited the grey continent. But they had come with great yawning barrels of ebony, rolled along the crushed grass by burly, moustached soldiers. "What in the nine worlds are those monstrosities?" whispered Sachiko, sensing the unease of the knights behind her.

Rei grimaced. "A spy told me they were called 'cannons'. I've already taken the liberty to share my concerns with your troops."

"Good. I entrust them to you, since you have yet to recover your troops from Yoshino-chan." Sachiko steered her armoured horse around, its hooves clomping impatiently on the grass. "Prepare to sacrifice yourselves this day, for the enemy is protected by formidable firearms. We must trade ten lives for one of theirs, a hundred arrows for one of their cannons. Hold this fort and these grassy plains! If they take Castle Albion, the heartland of Lillian Palace itself and Her Majesty will be in danger." Sachiko steered her horse back to face the amassing ocean of grey and black. "I will lead the charge with Rei!"

The knights shouted out a brave warcry, thrusting up their lances and spears. Sachiko glanced at Rei nervously, who smiled in return.

"Remember," whispered the Yellow Duchess, "Courage isn't the absence of fear, but its defeat."

For some reason, as Sachiko pressed her legs against her horse, spurring it on, she felt comforted by those words. Perhaps Rei was right, and they really stood no chance against Fukuzawa Yuki's regiments. But for the first time in her violent life, Sachiko no longer felt worried about her own life.

Her heart was preoccupied with Yumi's predicament, and how she could be saved.

First blood was drawn by a row of powerful cannons - a challenge to the age-old supremacy of Lillian's three ancient houses. As several dozen noblewomen felt their armour and guts exploding in a confused haze of blood, shattered organs and sundered metal, the mighty boom of the Hanaderian cannons signalled the end of that age. "Charge! Ride bravely, fear not the firestorm!" roared Rei, undaunted by the cannonballs that were splattered with her women's brains and gore. She pointed her sword at the enemy. "Ride with me!" She and Rosa Chinensis en bouton led the charge, and the thunder behind them replaced the bodies of their comrades. It was a cacophony of bloodlust-charged screams in tandem with the thousands of hooves pummelling the ground. Lances were now raised and pointed at the crowd of Hanaderians, their shapes and colours. A dozen flags of vermillion billowed loudly above the Chinensis sea of silver and steeds' manes, but soon the marching regiments of grey coats and trousers and tar-black boots had run in front of the cannons, lining in perfect formation.

They raised their arquebuses and muskets.

A Hanaderian man with a tall black helm raised his sabre - a curved sword unknown to these isles.

Sachiko was prepared. Rei had told her all about their tactics. She gave a shout, and the elite women behind her suddenly veered to her right and left flanks, giving her space to manoeuvre. As the order to fire was bellowed out, and several dozen Chinensis warriors and their horses toppled to the ground, Sachiko and her immediate subordinates braced their horses and urged them onward. Time became as quick as their thumping hearts as their lances and horses smashed into the bayonets and bodies of the men, colliding with flesh and metal. The muskets fired again, and several more choking women fell, their armour inadequate protection against the projectiles stabbing into them. Their corpses hampered the knightly charge, and the Chinensis formation was growing increasingly chaotic and demoralized. Steeds whinnied for their lost mistresses, and other downed women could not get up in time to survive the enemy's blades. Many of the Hanaderians had already drawn their own curved swords, and their lighter uniforms let them move quicker, too. "We can't get close to them without sacrificing our sisters," cried one of the knights, as they finally closed the distance and began to tussle with the Hanaderian bayonets. Many had already lost their lives so that they could get close to the men.

"This was what I warned you about. Distract them! Stop holding back and fire the arrows!" barked Sachiko, now in the midst of the regiments of Hanaderians. "Return their pressure!" At her shout, a hail of the projectiles were released from the tight bows of Chinensis archers, and they rained down around her, the falling victims of the poisoned arrowtips buying her some precious time. A steel pellet pierced into her horse's side, and with a mighty fling, her lithe body was hurled off. Rei's steed galloped past the struggling Baroness, and the Yellow Duchess threw herself at the throng of marksmen, determined that they not get the same chance to surprise her as they did in Foetida Castle. Her descending form crushed a struggling boy underneath her armour. Scrambling up, she severed a Hanaderian's torso from his waist and swung her greatsword in a great arc that split open the bodies of two more. But the republic's musketeers advanced unflinchingly, closing ranks, encircling the commanders, determined to finish them. Rei whipped around, parrying a stab from a bayonet and decapitating its owner. She was one of the few in her entourage still standing. Only her superb skill, endurance, and newly-fitted armour prevented her from falling as quickly as her subordinates. Sachiko also glanced around, desperate but powerless as more of her warriors fell before the unrelenting, merciless firepower of the muskets pointed at them. The noblewomen's backs pressed against each other. "Die with me, Rei," demanded Red Baroness, blood flowing down her face.

"You're wounded," blurted Rei, ever the caring one.

But the heiresses were not to die together yet.

A hail of flaming arrows descended upon the shocked musketeers, piercing into their wriggling, screaming bodies. Rei and Sachiko glanced back behind them, beyond their comrades' corpses, to catch sight of their saviours on the slope. Up high were raised two billowing banners, on which were sown beautiful red and yellow flowers. At the head were Rosa Chinensis and Rosa Foetida, decked in their full armour and regalia, shimmering jarl's attire that put the finest silk and fur to shame.

"I don't think I've ever fought by your side before," smirked Eriko. "Nor have our grande soeurs before us, or the soeurs before them."

"Then may we do so many more times, to make up for all that we've lost," said Youko, as the knights behind her bellowed in bloodlust. Her horse reared its hind legs, whinnying, and Youko shouted out a single command to charge. It was lost in the collective roar of Youko's knights. The thundering cavalry aimed their lances at the confused formations of men, and down the gentle hill the cavalry reinforcements thundered, a bristling, galloping porcupine of spears, pikes, and halberds pointed directly at the disoriented, panicking Hanaderians. The bristling wall of deadly metal pierced into dozens and dozens of grey cloth and flesh, impaling the young men and boys on their tips, running them through, bloodied horses crashing into coughing, wheezing Hanaderians and trampling over them, twisting and deforming their bodies, breaking their bones, crushing their skulls.

"At last," smiled Rei, breathing heavily. There was not much time to exult, however. The punctured ranks of the Hanaderians were quickly being refilled by knights of the Foetida House, and among them was a dark-haired girl with long braids, whose yellow, furred coat shone in the afternoon light.

Her eyes met Rei's surprised irises.

"Hello," said Rei quietly, and her love and affection and tenderness was palpable through that one simple word.

The Foetida knights had amassed around Yoshino's diminutive form, faces hidden behind their visors, watching their two leaders' reunion closely. The Foetida banner's bright colours clashed with the blood-red standard of the Chinensis flag and that of their enemy's, the mournful grey stripes of the Hanadera Republic. "Yoshino," pleaded the Yellow Duchess. "Are you really going to kill me here? Look at us. We've reunited. This was what you wanted, wasn't it? And it was all thanks to you."

Yoshino's eyes glimmered. "And you've forgiven me. A superhuman act of pardon."

"No, Yoshino. Forgiving you is the easiest thing I could possibly do. Now the time has come. Do what your heart yearns to do most."

Yoshino slowly raised her ornate, long pistol and pointed it at her cousin.

And then she swung her arm to her left, burying a bullet in her Hanaderian ally's skull. The man's head exploded in a haze of black smoke and red life, and his body tottered, folding to the grass. Yoshino smiled as the men behind her bellowed in outrage. "Yoshino!" breathed the Yellow Duchess, adrenaline, joy, and bloodlust rushing through her at once. Her hand itched to swing her greatsword. Her arms burned with the desire to butcher those Hanaderians in Yoshino's name. "You understood me. You understood everything."

"Knights, to me!" shrieked Yoshino, and the Foetida women around her nodded. Before her apparent allies could react, the knights' drawn swords were cleaving into the musketeers, high-pitched shrieks tearing into disbelieving, enraged groans and screams. Yoshino's pistol felled two more Hanaderians, and she swung her drawn mace, its devastating head bashing into and splintering the skull of a infantryman. "I don't know what to say to Rosa Foetida," she said softly, gore splattering her face. She licked her lips. "And I won't be able to find the courage to apologize to her."

"She understands," murmured Rei, savouring the tide of battle shift in her favour. Suddenly, she was back in command once more, with the army she knew and loved. No longer could these Hanaderians assume to exploit Yoshino and her manpower. Eriko was surely going to be pleased to have her army rightfully returned to her. "Say no more. You're here. I care about nothing else." Rei shoved her gauntlet in the face of a shocked Hanaderian, pulling out the mushed cartilage and blood with a single yank. Her knights continued to hack at the wall of soldiers, grimly pinning them down and preventing them from retreating to their cannons.

"And look at that, Yoshino. The White Princess has arrived, true to her grande soeur's word," whispered Rei.

Sachiko's eyes widened at the gargantuan shadow descending over the hill across from where Youko and Eriko had encamped.

"It couldn't be...?"

Standing amongst her elite knights, Youko grinned, heart hammering faster than ever before.

"She's here. She's really come. She, with the World Serpent!"

A great figure, a feline giant of sinister ebony, emerged from behind one of the hills. Its tail swung lightly from side to side. Its shadow seemed to swallow the sun itself. Overlooking the raging battle on the greenery, the armoured White Rose smiled, her sword by her side. "Shimako. Goronta. I think you two will be enough to handle them?"

Standing beside Sei, the Princess nodded silently. Goronta yawned. Shimako's brown boots shifted as the wind blew, scattering her tresses. She then broke into a sprint down the hill, drawing two small axes encrusted with sapphires, dashing directly for the formations of Hanaderians.

Suddenly, the republic's army was being assaulted from two directions.

"Aim!" shouted a concerned lieutenant. "Fire!"

Shimako dived to the ground, just before the cracking boom of the muskets and arquebuses reached her. She scrambled up as she heard the cries to reload. She was closing the distance, nearing them, about to ensnare her prey. Many of the men abandoned their formations and pointed their deadly bayonets at her. Muscles tensed in preparation, she met the charging men with a flurry of perfectly timed and armed cuts that severed the sinews and limbs of her attackers. As arms and hands fell from their screaming owners, she began the onslaught Sei had sent her to wreak. The White Princess gutted the neck of a choking musketeer, spinning and parrying the jab of a bayonet before disembowelling its owner. She ignored the intestines tumbling out of the open stomach and scrambled behind the dying man, gripping his back tightly and allowing his corpse to eat another flurry of metal balls. Shoving the body aside, she sprinted at the frantically rearming boys, leaping high and smashing into their chaotic formation. The wolf's head butt of her handaxe smashed into the nose of a Hanaderian man, crushing his face inwards even as she pulled her weapon out of the gurgling soldier and parried the thrust of a bayonet aimed at her chest. Rosa Gigantea en bouton countered with an arcing sweep that cleaved a giant vertical gash in the man's torso. She grimaced, glancing at the hesitating warriors behind the falling soldier, and continued her sprint, mercilessly hemming them in like a wolf pursues sheep. All this time, her eyes remained cold and careful, calculating, calm and quiet.

Rei and Sachiko snapped out of their entranced wonder at Shimako's dance of death. "What are we waiting for?" cried Sachiko, swinging her longsword and beheading a stunned musketeer. "Press our advantage!"

"It looks like our enemies' morale has been broken, thanks to my little White Princess. Their strategy to overwhelm us with better technology will have to wait another day, if they survive this one," said Sei. She looked to her side, glancing up at Goronta. "Be a darling, won't you? This battlefield of thousands of men will be your supper."

Goronta purred, taking the hint, and began to strut towards the battlefield.

Yoshino's eyes widened as she watched Goronta move in the distance. "No."

"Yes," laughed Youko, wiping off the blood from her face. "Oh, Sei. She's really going to do it."

The oversized cat slinked towards the panicking Hanaderians, shrugging off the barrage of firepower that would have otherwise blown a mortal being to pieces. "Cannons! Fire the cannons!" screamed a division commander. Goronta hissed in pain for the first time, mildly irritated by the new firestorm of cannonballs that pelted and lodged into her grey and black fur. But even they were not enough to stop her advance. She raised a single limb above the scattering boys, her massive paw smashing away a line of fleeing soldiers and idle cannons. There was no time to re-equip them. Flying heads and black powder were dashed against the grass from the crushing might of Goronta's force, separated from their bodies. More rounds of steel pellets only served to annoy the World Serpent further, and she thumped her flicking tail, hurling another squadron of helpless Hanaderians into the air. Goronta gave a loud purr, a boisterous meow. The army with superior arms began to scatter, but Goronta was merciless. She pounced gleefully, and the earth shook as her paws landed a midst of human pulp and crushed arquebuses. Meanwhile, Shimako flicked her head up, throwing her handaxe at a charging Hanaderian. His head split through, he tumbled to the ground, and the bouton rolled forward, scooping up her weapon as she completed her solitary charge, twin axeheads slicing off the arms of another horrified man. His torso deprived of its limbs, Shimako delivered a humiliating kick to the howling soldier's abdomen, her boot punching through his guts and sending his ruined body falling to join the mass grave of his comrades.

She and Goronta continued their complete decimation of the Hanaderian ranks, holding Castle Albion for the new-found union between the three houses.

And as if that was not enough, Sei had drawn her pearl-white sword, her boots slowly gliding across the ground, before breaking into a gentle, pattering run. The White Rose's eyes glinted as she could sense Youko and Eriko's grateful eyes on her. "I've fantasized about this day for so long," she whispered.

The three houses were fighting together. After so many centuries of strife and hatred, they were outflanking and outfighting a common foe. War had torn them apart, but now the Hanadera Republic had ironically brought them together again. The crimson-orange sun was setting. Goronta hissed as she raised her head from a heap of silent bodies and drying, dying Hanaderians, baring her bloodsoaked fangs, yellow eyes hungry for more human flesh.

The snowflakes of Fimbulwinter were weightless, but they had begun to fall on Fukuzawa Yuki's republic.

Decked in green and white robes, her arms, torso and legs protected by steel armour, Yumi had separated herself from Sachiko long ago, hacking and slashing her way past the bayonets jabbing at her. Indeed, they had not spoken since they fell asleep in each other's arms the night before. A line of musketeers in grey uniforms released a volley of metal balls, and she quickly dashed behind an unsuspecting Hanaderian, grabbing him tightly and having his body shield her from the barrage. Tossing aside the human shield-turned piece of meat, she charged at his friends, swinging her emerald-hilt longsword angrily and eviscerating one of them with a single slash.

Sachiko had trained her well, to be sure, but even without the Red Baroness's tutelage in swordplay, she had a feeling she could never die from physical wounds. After all, she could sense she was suffering something much more painful within.

She glanced around as a new formation pulled up from behind the fallen men. She had somehow allowed herself to be surrounded. A man's voice rang out from the bristling wall of bayonets, the muskets' barrels pointed at her chest and head. "You will come with us, Fukuzawa Yumi. Your brother - President Yuki - he's expecting you."

Grimacing, Yumi dropped her sword, and it fell to the grass. She slowly raised her hands in apparent surrender. "Good," snapped one of the men. "With your cooperation, we might get this over and done with sooner than expected. We're here only because you are. Come with us, and your friends may be spared."

"It is true that the spears and arrows of Lillian are no match for your guns and cannons. Truly, Yuki spared no expense to come to me. The ages truly pass like a blink of stardust. I wonder, then, what rare weapon may be able to overcome such earthshaking power?" wondered Yumi aloud, her tone one of defiance and scorn.

"Enough nonsense!" cried a soldier. "Come quietly with us!"

"Little men." The girl's sudden smile was not a benign one. And her voice... it had suddenly changed. It was shriller. Darker. Less. pleasant. It was as eerie and chilling as the dark countenance of the moon. "Can you survive the aurora borealis? Can you escape the blinding fire of the Nordic lights?"

"What... what are you talking about!" cried one of the men, a terrific chill running down his spine.

"Did you gormless knaves think that goddesses tread lightly in a mortal coil?" spat Yumi suddenly, her brown irises disappearing into a sea of shimmering turquoise. The boys' eyes widened. Something was wrong. Dreadfully wrong. This voice was most certainly not Yumi's voice. These words were not her words. And suddenly, her voice changed again, to that of another woman's. "It's over," snarled the second presence through Yumi's haunted mouth. Her pitch tightened, heightened to a third fugue of a voice, and she shrieked in dread triumph. "We've come amongst our bleak and green isles once more, for the glory of battle, for the orgy of conquest, and no army can expel us!"

"Who... who are you?" screamed the men. "Come on, you idiots! Shoot her! Attack!"

But it was too late. One of the musketeer's heads exploded, his bones and cartilage bending and snapping at an insidious will. A white hot blaze had consumed his skull, burning and blinding. There was something about the night in Yumi. Starfire smouldered in her eyes. Around her hand danced the swirling, giddy eddy of sea-blue and green celestial flames. She slowly lowered her arms as the men around her began to scream in agony. Three voices rang from Yumi's twisted mouth, her eyes alight in sadistic, exultant bloodlust. "Let Yumi's brother send his armies in desperation to save this body. But he will sacrifice his nation in vain for this wagon of meat. She's dying, but we fell from Valhalla back home!" Fire erupted from her hands, snaking towards the petrified Hanaderians. Clothes, wood, and metal were incinerated instantly along with the flesh and organs, devoured in a shower of divine lights. Her entwined arms sensually raised high, Yumi's lips twisted in a wicked smile, the turquoise light in her eyes burning brilliantly. "Did you all think we would walk lightly when we came upon the earth?"

Not even the dust of these men's remains were left. How these pathetic dogs died would remain a secret for now, because now was not the right time for the girl's grande soeur - or anyone else - to see this. Surrounded by Hanaderian corpses, the Rose saints' dying vessel raised her hand, the fire of the stars in heaven flickering in her omnipotent palm.

"Onee-sama," she whispered, her hoarse voice struggling to push back the forces of the reincarnating goddesses.

"Would that I could have stayed with you longer...

"I love you and goodbye."

NEXT ACT: VALHALLA TREMBLES.

BROTHER CONFRONTS SISTER.

A BARONESS'S DESPAIR.