Author's Note: And done now. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 75: The Guardian of Q'Ten Lo
The old man who acted as the head of Q'Ten Lo's black smith's was acting as a guide for the hero's party not the one that he had grown familiar with in Katarina and her friends, but the Sword Hero Kuro and her own party. And the elder Hakuko brother that looked ready to murder him at any moment. To his surprise the first place that Kuro wanted to visit was his smithy, where she watched him work on the Spirit Turtle material and other weapons for several hours before she was satisfied with what she saw. The next stop though was the dungeon.
"The Bitch's forces guard this place religiously." Course the old man had a living weapon of mass destruction and her gang of enhanced thugs watching his back so he had little fear for Makina's cronies.
"That's the last of them." Fohl tossed the two guard's in question, both of their necks snapped at odd angles, onto the pile of bodies. "We don't need any of them alive?"
"Their equipment tells me everything I need to know." Kuro dismissed as she peered through the information they had on them. "They're terrified of this place. They don't understand what's sealed away here and they can't see or hear it but it has a bad habit of tossing them around like children's toys, or hijacking their bodies to kill each other." Kuro wouldn't want to work here either.
"They should be terrified. Legends say one of the Legendary Heroes trapped a demon here to act as a guardian of Q'Ten Lo, in tandem with each generation of Oracle." The old man appeared to laugh a bit. "That fellow has been watching over these lands since before they were in their prime, he wouldn't think too highly of what the bitch has done with the place."
"What would he think about someone coming by to ruin her day?" As Kuro asked that the winds were blowing harder, pushing down shoots of bamboo and exposing the boarded up shrine in the middle of a poorly kept clearing.
"This is the dungeon?" Welt asked looking around at the area in confusion. "Why isn't anything attacking us?"
"The hero who set this place up was the first oracle." The priest explained as he bowed and paid his respects to the shrine.
"The Hammer Hero?" Kuro asked looking at the old man with a clear hint of curiosity.
"The Spear Hero." The elderly black smith stated indicating the shrine. "The people of his world do battle with one another using the spirits of the dead, people, animals and even plants. In life Bason here was a general who served the Spear's family, the Tao's."
"What was he some kind of invincible warrior?" Kuro asked looking at the shrine and scratching her head.
"In tactics? Aye he was a great general. But in Battle? As I understand it he would have a habit of challenging the other side's champion in one on one battle, honour and all that, which he would usually lose. But every time he lost he would learn the weapon and fighting style of his opponent, a habit he kept up even after dying and becoming a ghost, and later still when he came here. Hence he's known as the master of arms Bason." Kuro didn't recall any heroes in the Throne of Heroes named 'Bason' master of arms or otherwise. More importantly.
"I thought you said he was a demon but he sounds more like a ghost." Kuro asked in confusion.
"You say that like he can't be both." The black smith replied laughing as the in the air swirled again and lightning crackled in the sky.
"Well if he's a ghost." Kuro switched one of her swords over to the Soul Eater sword. True to predictions the form of a man's upper torso dressed in sixteenth century Chinese armour was floating above the shrine looking down at them while glaring. "Well now, ain't that a look you send your enemies." Kuro stated as Bason focused in on her.
"Are you a shaman?" Bason seemed to immediately recognise that Kuro was able to see him, which in his mind left two possible options for what was happening.
"No. I'm not." Wrong Answer. Bason ripped out entire chunks of rock out of the ground and proceeded to hurl them at the sword hero. Kuro countered immediately slashing at the chunks of stone but they seemed to have been a distraction as suddenly the entire group had seemingly been portalled away into the sky. There they saw Bason again, this time having taken the form of a giant mass of storm clouds each and every one of them arcing with lightning as it gave off a golden glow. "What. The. Fu-!" They had no time to curse their situation, as lightning was arcing through the air around them, the wind and hurricanes seemed determined to blow them away, and all the while Kuro was ready to act. "100 Swords!" The familiar jade green transparent blades appeared in the air around them acting as lightning rods. "Driefach Enchant X!" The blades absorbed both the lightning and the wind magic around them, which was really problematic because that was the the only thing keeping them in the air, thousands of miles in the air.
"Didn't think this part through." Kuro commented as the group entered free fall. ""On it!"" Atla created a platform to stand on as she looked around her at the various other people who were falling. Kuro's electrified swords were on offence, so Atla opted to focus on catching everyone in one go. Swinging around both blades she created a hurricane to catch as many people as possible, which made a opening for Chem to swoop in and round everyone up and lower them safely back to the ground.
"At a peak of curiosity..." The Black smith wasn't sent flying just now, perhaps this Bason who ever the hell it was already knew him. "...what exactly did you just say to him?"
"He asked if I was a shaman." Kuro replied brushing herself off.
"The next time a ghost asks if you're a shaman, the answer is yes!" Welt snapped angrily.
"If she did that then he'd ask why she doesn't have a ghost following her around, find out that she was lying, and then he'd attack her anyway." As the black smith said that a bolt of lightning narrowly missed him. "You might wanna run away now." Alas Kuro came here for information, or failing that assistance in dealing with the oracle and Makina, and she wasn't leaving here without at least one of those things.
"Oi. That shrine important to him?" Kuro asked indicating the boarded up shrine a little bit away from them. Everyone simultaneously gave horrified looks.
"No!"
"Absolutely not!"
"Abort Demolition Immediately!"
Everyone shook their heads and waved their arms in the negative, not at the educated assumption that Kuro had made, but rather at the insane plan that she had hatched to try and provoke the other part into calming down.
"Hey wispy butt!" Kuro shouted as she indicated the shrine with her sword. "Cool your bloody tits or I'll blow your little shrine to kingdom come!"
"You DARE!?" Suddenly the shrine was destroyed, something flying out of the ensuing smoke cloud and into the hand of the storm giant. He released his hold on the the clouds only to enter the object that had come out of the shrine. Storm giant Bason was soon transformed and replaced taking on the form of a giant mechanical soldier riding atop a equally mechanical horse, with a single wave of his arm he had transformed his arm into what could best be summarised as a giant deadly swiss army knife, holding not only blades but also blunt instruments, guns, and shields.
"Ah F-" Kuro's swearing was cut off by the sound of a gun shot blast to her face.
"Just wondering here but..." Fohl asked indicating the thunder spewing contraption that the spirit had been riding on.
"It is called the Bâo-Lèi sword, which together with Bason was the ancient Spear Hero's preferred weapon of choice prior to coming to this world, and the deadliest instrument of murder I have ever had the pleasure of laying my eyes on." Which he ironically enough couldn't use because not only was it not his legendary weapon but also it was incompatible with his spear.
"I thought you said he was the Spear Hero?" Fohl stated looking questioningly at the Black smith. "Why was he carrying a sword around with him?"
"You lack imagination." The Black Smith replied with a harrumph, seeing one of the few deities he worshipped going at it with his guest put a bad taste in his mouth. "The Bâo-Lèi Sword is a weapon designed specifically to manipulate spiritual energy created by the Tao family. By placing his soul into it Bason is able to manifest every single weapon he has ever wielded across his multiple life times of service to the Tao family."
"Yeah but Kuro can see and duplicate any weapon that she's ever seen before." Welt replied as they collectively came to the same realisation. Kuro might have the advantage if she could whip out a Noble Phantasm but beyond that...
"You think you're the only one with power armour you prick!" Kuro traded in twin swords for mech armour, blades mounted on the end of every one of it's six limbs including a pair of ice skate like things attached to the feet. "This could take a while."
Half the time, they didn't even know what happened. The Legendary sword had apparently been going out of it's way to minimise the amount of mana that the tracings would occupy through the repeated reinforcing of specific weapons, while Kuro would often complain about not being able to use them she was still very capable of turning the blades of her hundred, thousand or ten thousand swords into low ranking Noble Phantasms to strike at Bason, that was on top her use of divine magics. But Bason wasn't a push over either, he was the boss of Q'Ten Lo's dungeon and he had his authority respected. Thousands of Ghosts and undead of Q'Ten Lo warriors and monsters showed up to follow their general into battle, and were cut down by holy attributed Noble Phantasms for their trouble, their bodies that is, their souls however soon found new bodies to inhabit in statues, bits of building rubble, trees they even resorted to ripping dirt out of the ground. It wouldn't be so bad if they had the simple basic decency to be done in by her Soul Eater sword but...
'Warning! Foreign entity has compromised the spiritual integrity of the Legendary Sword! Expelling foreign influences!'
But something about them made the sword spit them back out. Whatever it was managed to freak the sword out so badly that it refused to turn back into the Soul Eater again. Luckly Kuro had the chance to copy Bason's spirit swords and so was still able to maintain visual contact so that she didn't get into a fight with a invisible monster. Unfortunately he was still easily capable of using multiple divine magics in a way that made Kuro scream at the top of her lungs 'Hax!' to no avail.
"You have no right to say that." Welt Chided currently sitting down to a meal as he watched Bason and Kuro chuck weapons at each other from five miles away.
"She's gonna be okay right?" Atla asked indicating the person shooting off sword shaped bolts of plasma at Bason, she would be over there herself if it wasn't for Kuro telling her to stay away herself.
"He'll want to take her alive so that he can interrogate her." The Black Smith stated reassuringly.
"But he's a ghost." Welt pointed out noting that the usual rules did not apply to this situation.
"That doesn't mean that Kuro would become one if she dies." The Black Smith countered bluntly. "Usually the souls of this world gets absorbed directly into the dragon vein, even if that isn't true for a reincarnated those are attacks directly against the soul which would destroy it if Bason uses too many of them. Since he wants to interrogate Kuro he'll be avoiding that." Another thunder clap indicated more of Bason's spirit weapons had been thrown at Kuro. "In theory."
Oh all the reincarnated Bason has had the displeasure of disposing of in his life this bratty little girl was by far the most difficult. Bason has electrified the air, summoned the ghost legion, gone through nearly half of his arsenal of weapons, and this little brat still hadn't had the common decency to be incapacitated. Little did he realise that Kuro had the same feelings to him.
"You damn ghost! Just cross over already!"
Well he realised it a little. The battle between the two of the raged for 1 day and two nights, the surrounding forest had been burned down, the landscape was littered with craters. Kuro's mech armour had all of it's limbs hacked off with the head of Bason's spear stabbed directly into the torso of the mech, it's head coming dangerously close to splitting Kuro in two right down the middle.
"Yield or die. Your choice reincarnated." Bason stated his spirit armour immaculate, having either dodged Kuro's attacks or simply weathered them without enough damage having been done to cause any sort of lasting influence.
"I'm not a bloody reincarnated you shitty ghost!" Kuro snapped though the spear head was dug deeper in response, if she didn't have the armour to block that thing right now. "Only Shaman's and the dead are able to see a ghost's spirit body child."
Bason's spear tip was now being pressed into Kuro's belly.
"I'm a hero you stupid bed-sheet!" Kuro snapped again as she dismissed the death trap of a armour set in favour of swapping out several of her weapon forms for him to see. "See?"
"Many reincarnated have the ability to steal the Weapons of heroes. What it does not do is explain why you're able to see my spiritual body." Bason did not move his weapon away from Kuro once. "Now I will ask you again. Are you working with Makina?"
"No you dumb f-!"
"Perhaps before this situation deteriorates any further than what it has." The Black Smith approached the two as he gestured around him, at the destruction that was the casualties of their fight with one another. "With all the commotion you two have kicked up that whore or her minions are quite likely to be on their way here. Even if you do settle things here there are things that still need to be addressed as soon as possible. Unlike us you are not in a position where you can defend that now are you?"
"The Black Smith Priest who has been making those low quality weapons for the regime." Bason seemed to instantly recognise the group's perverted associate. "Either you are the most atrocious head priest this country has ever had or you are the only one around here still in position of his senses."
"It's just that I can't work up the motivation to work when it's that bitch telling me to do so." The fool seemed to grin as he gestured nonchalantly.
"You brought this here, I presume to have me kill it." Bason stated gesturing to Kuro with his spear.
"Who are you calling 'it!?'" Kuro snapped angrily by way of reply.
"If she is a reincarnated, then the other three heroes have been bumped off too, cause they came here with her. Not to mention that they brought with them the legitimate heir to the throne when they came." The Black smith stated as he held his hand out expectantly. "You are wasting time, are you really willing to let that fall into the hands of someone you know to be a reincarnated out of fear of someone who may be reincarnated?" Bason looked at the black smith straight in the eye, before suddenly disappearing, a ball of light floated over to the Black Smith's waiting palm and popped dropping what was inside, which looked suspiciously like a collapsible dagger.
"Is that it?" Welt asked looking at the weapon in question.
"Indeed." The Black Smith hid the weapon in his robes as he turned to face the oncoming storm. "Now for you lot to earn your keep around here."
The fight against Bason drained not only Kuro's magical energy from repeatedly tracing weapons but also all the energy in the area as she used the dragon's pulse repeatedly to make up the difference. Consequentially there was now a hoard of Makina's thugs rapidly approaching the site where they were and they had no hero in fit shape to fight back.
"Brother." Atla stated simply as she whipped out her swords.
"Aye." Fohl simply transformed his gauntlets in response.
The older of the two half tigers acted first, slamming both of his fists into the ground and propelling himself through the air and over the enemy forces. Kuro had the common decency to rig up a few weapons for Fohl to copy, she had little in the way of gauntlet type Noble Phantasms, but a gauntlet was only a shield with a few fingers. That though paled in comparison to the 'Mega-ton' Gauntlets he was currently wearing which used gravity magic to strike with additional force depending on how much magic he was willing to sink into them. As it stood he came down with the force of a meteor.
"So you've managed to acquire the Gauntlets as well?" Notice how he spoke about the gauntlets as the important one instead of the Gauntlet Hero.
"I take it you're not impressed?" The Black Smith stated giving out a cheshire smile.
"Hmph. The Gauntlet Hero of 2 millennium ago was vastly stronger." Bason confirmed the Black Smith's suspicions. "This new generation has much left to do to make their legacy."
The Black smith snorted, even as he dodged flying bodies.
"You sound like a old man talking about his glory days." The old Smith burst out in laughter.
"I am hundreds of times older then what most men will ever imagine." Bason grinned as he boasted. "And if you speak of glory, I am not short on that."
Either too stupid to realise he was insulted or clever enough to work around it.
Both were quite possibly true. Atla had joined in on the assault after the enemy whipped out pink weapons to try and weaken Fohl, Atla responded with both of her Excalibur's. They weren't quite stupid enough to use the 'transfer stats of multiple individuals into one person' gimmick, but they haven't had the time or expertise to come up with a new one yet, so instead that just left the two without the dramatically increased stats from heroic reinforcements, and also a pair of discount divine swords, extensive training in the Hengen Musou Style, some training in the use of dragon pulse magic, and physical reinforcements via Kuro. Naturally the opposition didn't stand a chance. Eventually the group returned to the old man's smithy where Kuro had been given the anti-reincarnator test.
"If I knew that I could've kept you from attacking me just by cutting myself I would've done that hours ago." Kuro did have a accelerated healing ability, but it stemmed from neither being reincarnated or one of her weapon's skills: one of the two people to whom Kuro's body had been based on lived with the real Avalon inside of his body for years.
It was eventually removed of course, but it left a lasting influence, granting a healing power to his original Magic the Unlimited Blade Works which was inherited in it's 'descendant' the Infinite Sword Sea, but at a price, for what the UBW's and ISS both do is not technically heal so much as stitch and staple, manifesting blades to sew flesh back together.
"It's hard to compare this to the Reincarnated's healing power." Bason stated looking down at wound that made more injuries as it healed itself.
"It's torture. The more injuries I get the more blades by body grows to try and fix it. One of these days I'm probably going to explode with swords going everywhere." Saying that Kuro looked Bason straight in the eye. "Specially when people go around beating the stuffing out of me for no good reason." All eyes were on Bason who in turn twitched in anger.
"You. Threatened. To. Destroy. My. Shrine!"
"You attacked us first!" Kuro snapped by way of reply.
"I'm the bloody boss! That's what I'm suppose to do!" Bason countered with flawless logic.
"Oh then you don't mind if I turn you into a weapon for my sword?" Kuro stood up and got out the Soul Eater again. Or at least tried to.
'Do not feed the Boss to the Legendary Sword.'
"Why not?" Kuro asked looking at the sword while her eye twitched angrily.
'The Boss, and all of it's minions, has undergone several levels of spiritual refinement and modification. They are capable of hacking into the Legendary Sword and overriding it's functions.' Kuro blinked a couple of times.
"How he do that?" 'Unknown.'
"Who is she talking to?" Bason asked aware that aside from Kuro and the priest no one else could see and hear him clearly.
"Good question." The priest replied concerned. Kuro said she wasn't a shaman, and even if she was he would be able to see her guardian ghost, especially since she seems to be talking to it. "Who is she talking to?"
Welt let out a sigh, implying that this was going to be a long night. "Her sword." He wasn't wrong.
One long night later the Black Smithing priest was pacing about holding his chin in wonder while Bason was just lounging off to the side, unseen by almost everyone, holding his head.
"History, incarnated into physical embodiment's, and made to do battle to the death with one another, bludgeoning each other with their stories, while they fight for control of a magical wish granting relic of god?" The priest gave the bluff notes of the story told to them by Kuro the night before. "You're forgetting about the part about it being cursed and the members of my family being heavily modified humonculi to act as the vessel of it's incarnation after sacrificing seven of those historical figures." Kuro stated bluntly feeling like the important parts were left out.
"The family I served stitched parts of animals and machines onto the corpses of martial artists for weapons and even we aren't this messed up." Bason gave his two cents on the matter.
"Yes but the implications are fascinating." The Black smith didn't seem fazed by the Tao Concept of a super soldier. "You are a pseudo heroic Spirit you called it?" To be more precise, Kuro is the result of the wish granting power of the Holy Grail contained inside of it's vessel interacting with what was, for lack of better terms, a blueprint of one of the heroic spirits resulting in a half humunculus half heroic spirit body that she doesn't know how to classify after being dumped into this world. "And your main form of magic are these tracings correct?" Kuro can create copies of things that she's seen. Normally it's used to create disposable catalysts for magical experiments so that you don't accidentally waste the real thing on a mistake or a experiment because you're not sure about how it'll turn out. Only Emiya was foolish enough to weaponize that magic, and by copying and modifying Noble Phantasms no less, and in mastering that style of magic he became a terror on the world that few beings are capable of comprehending. Now all the stories from all the swords he traced copies of are inside of Kuro's sword. "It's a shame that you weren't summoned in our country, but that sleaze-ball Takt made off with our hammer years ago."
Well they killed Takt, but they don't know what happened to the hammer after Kuro stabbed him with Rule Breaker anyway.
"I agree that Takt was a sleeze ball, but compared to swords there're barely any hammer type Phantasms. What good does it do anyone to summon me as the Hero of the Hammer?"
"The Hammer's Reinforcement method has high compatibility with your magic. You see-" Kuro leapt across the room and grabbed hold of the black smith by the collar of his shirt sword drawn and ready to be rammed through the black smith's skull.
"If you breathe a word of that thing's reinforcement method, I swear I will bloody murder you right now! Am. I. Understood!?" The look on Kuro's face was someone who was mad enough to make good on that promise.
"I understand but why?"
"Every single time I learn a new reinforcement method this thing finds a way of using to upgrade my tracings making them more powerful and increasing the level that I need to be at to unlock them." Kuro's eye was twitching in annoyance.
'Action is Ill Advised. The Hero's power increases in direct proportion to the Legendary Sword. The Legendary Sword's power increases in direct proportion to the number of reinforcement methods The Legendary Sword has access to.'
"You shut up!" Kuro yelled at her sword in anger. "You're the cause of all of this!" Kuro moaned pleasantly from the sword zapping her. "Go ahead and Zap me all you want! Thanks to you I'm too kinky to torture any way!" Like that, another argument between hero and weapon broke out.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: Captain Obvious. Kinda yeah. Too often.
Captain Imaginat: Sadeena does not have a slave seal, she is the hero of the harpoon they can't get one, and last I checked Shildina doesn't have one either. It wasn't so much Maple being a pervert as it was her just making them suffer for giving her a hard time.
Dakota Bruder: Tatsuya would methodically analyse and dissect the Divine magics until he can use every magic in the world. Ikki would apply them to his sword to enhance combat effectiveness. Setsuna would use them like a hammer to bludgeon enemies into submission. Naofumi would try to use them offensively, fail, and just apply them to his shield instead. Right Now I have the review page open as I write my replies to each of you and when I'm finished I will refresh the page to make sure I didn't miss anything, so no it doesn't.
Galeon82: As soon as Kuro finds out there will be posters of a half naked Raphtalia posted all around Q'Ten Lo.
Moon of Hell: Not quite no, I've already given a glimpse of what this is leading to with Ost now's just to show it.
Nightshadegirl: Well now they know better for next time.