Author's Note: And another week down! This time I'm giving Midori a little time in the spot light. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy

Chapter 96: The Axe Hero's Misunderstanding

Katarina had been struggling in all honesty, and she wasn't entirely sure about the reasons why. When ever she used the two weapons which made up her Sacred Gear, the Leviathan's Axe and the Trident of Poseidon, she got this weird feeling of dissonance, like pieces of a puzzle that weren't fitting together right. Sadeena and Midori weren't having any issues with their own version of the weapons so naturally Katarina got curious and went looking for an expert on the matter.

"You feel incompatible with your Sacred Gear?" Bason would've preferred if she had brought this matter to his attention sooner, the time with the Phoenix was fast approaching after all. "Explain the weapon in question to me."

"There's two of them. The Leviathan Axe was apparently made by the same guys who made the Mjornir of their world apparently from forty of the dying breaths of frost trolls, the second is Poseidon's trident which was used as the main weapon of Poseidon and lets him control the sea." Katarina explained though she wondered where he was going with this. Perhaps he just needed information before he could figure out what to do. If the way he grunted in the affirmative was any indication he had gotten an idea of what was happening.

"By the sounds of things you got these weapons from the Harpoon Hero of the other world and the Axe hero of this one is this correct?" Katarina nodded in the affirmative. "I know that your current affinity is for fire magic. Were you able to cast any others back in your world?" Bason asked as he looked up to the sky.

"Earth Magic. Supposedly. Never made anything bigger than a bump of dirt in the ground." Katarina sounded bitter about that.

Tanya had flight and mass manipulating magic from her world. Kuro apparently carried thousands of weapons around with her in some kind of imaginary space. Maple was apparently part Demi-human and could turn into any Therianthrope she wanted with the right costume. Katarina's home world advantage was being followed around by a army of spooky ghost people for the rest of her life.

"You have two problems." Bason explained making the peace sign with his fingers. "First is the problem with your weapon. They are copies. To be more accurate they are copies of copies. The original weapons were brought to this world and the one on the other side by the heroes who were summoned from their worlds, the weapons were able to take advantage of that to learn their power, but they are not able to take the full power contained within, they can however build up that power through equip bonuses and reinforcements. You on the other hand attempted to make copies of copies." And a copy will never be stronger than the original, unless your Kuro who is learning how to modify weapons until they approach the realm of the gods that is. "The second problem is that they are not compatible with you."

"Not compatible with me?" Katarina asked looking confused, it was the very subject she had come here to talk with Bason about so it felt weird that he was now telling her this.

"I've lectured all of you on the five elements yes?" Bason asked looking at Katarina brow cocked.

"I could use a refresher." Katarina stated simply.

"The five elements refer to fire, earth, metal, water and wood. Your friend Maple has a natural wood vein in her body that was then further enhanced by the one in her shield just to use an example. Each of the Five elements have a positive and negative relationship to each other: Fire strengthen's Earth, Earth Strengthen's Metal, Metal Strengthen's Water, Water Strengthen's Wood, and Wood Strengthen's Fire. Water Weakens fire, Fire Weakens Metal, Metal Weakens Wood, Wood Weakens Earth, Earth Weakens Water. While your fire magic has high compatibility with your natural Earth element the water element of the Sacred Gear is lacking in compatibility with both your Earth root and Fire magic."

Katarina thought about it. To put it another way this is like Charizard trying to use Hydro-pump right?

"So then what should I do?" Katarina asked as she crossed her arms. "Should I look for another Sacred Gear? Or is there a way to fix this one so that it'll work right?"

Find another Sacred Gear? As if they were as common as berries in a bush? Bason just shook his head.

"The Masters of Taoism in my world could master the flow of all five elements into each other, should you be able to do the same then your power will increase to new heights." Bason explained and Katarina nodded her head, that sounded like something she could do.

"Good. Use Reflect Spear to combine your Sacred Gear with your wood element spear, then absorb that into your weapon's fire root, then switch your water spear out for your earth spear, then your wood spear for metal, then your earth spear back to water again. Cycle your power between these five things until they are flowing on their own and you can absorb it into your earth root." Nodding her head Katarina started with the Trident.

"Reflect Spear: Sera Lumina Wood spear." The Trident transformed from gold into wood however Bason stopped her.

"That Spear is not strong enough to channel divine power, not to mention that you're not even using all of your sacred gear's power." Bason stated shaking his head.

"Hmm. Then I need to do some black smithing right?" If both the Trident and the Leviathan axe weren't good enough on their own then she just had to combine them together with all of the rest of her water spears. A few moments later... "Maybe this wasn't such a great idea." After combining together the Trident and the Leviathan axe the end result was a double ended battle axe with a spike in the middle. That looked cool so Katarina then combined it with all of her water spears, including the one she got from a giant squid she fought once. The end result of this was a double sided battle axe with a giant squid wrapping itself around the head, the jewel of her spear looking at her like a menacing eye. With a offering of Gold Katarina skipped the day long cool down.

"Next!" Katarina decided to work on a wood spear next. Sera Lumina as the base, some wood from the Yggdrasil tree Maple made, the various spears from feeding plants and chunks of wood to her spears or copied from her allies, finished off with the Spirit Turtle Weapons. "Why do all of these things have eyes?" Katarina complained as her latest spear was looking directly at her.

"I use the Sitera Destiny Spear as the base, combine it with my earth spears..." Katarina recalled Tanya making Kuro make a weapon for her once, a combat shovel. It was quite popular in the American army. The Basic idea was that it was a shovel whose head could be changed to different angles to the point that it could also act as a hoe. Katarina didn't know why this excellent farming tool was called a combat shovel, she did know that the pink weapon she just created looked an awful lot like one though, and was followed up with the Svard Stav of the Beast King giving the shaft a tiger print wrap.

"I'll finish with one of the Spears that I got from Kuro." Bason describes a weapon that is capable of killing a god as a Longinus, therefore what better spear for Katarina to use as a base than the holy spear of Longinus himself? Apparently one that she was actually able to unlock, because this thing was literally a weapon made for killing gods and thanks to Kuro's own weapon it's stats was still way too high for her. Instead she chose a more familiar weapon, Gae Dearg, the original Noble Phantasm Kuro had fed to her spear, and the origin for her own Virtue series weapon. "Combine that together with all of my other metal spears..." Which took Katarina a while, even without using the other Noble Phantasms from Kuro as material. "And Finish." The end result was a heavy spear made from several different metals and radiated with a sharp killing intent. 'The Gae Dearg is not worthy.' "Don't say that about yourself!" With that Katarina breathed deeply and breathed back out.

"Okay. Let's try this again." Starting with the Trident/Axe combo, Katarina reflected that with the 'Sera Lumina XV' Spear. The two weapons combined gave an incredible feeling of power, one that was rapidly shifting from one form to another. Using her magic senses from her Dragon Pulse training Katarina saw it shift from a blue watery energy to a green one like the kind that she sees Maple give off until it was all green. "I, The Hero of the Spear, Have read and understood the Origin of all power. Sever and retie the principle of heaven and Burn this weapon into a great and mighty Inferno!" Katarina could see it, the green burning away into a bright red blaze. "Liberation Fire Spear X!"

The spear ignited, the flames reaching into the sky above them with the force of a rocket thrustor as Katarina tried to hold on. The Trident element was replaced by a shovel-like shape, the howling flames rapidly turned pink as if being absorbed into the stone weapon. In Katarina's eyes the fiery red energy had turned into a golden colour. One more reflection and the pink stone was mixed with different kinds of metals, the golden energy strengthening as it turned into a silvery colour like what Kuro gives off. One last push and the spear turned back into the double sided axe, the Silver colour once again turning blue. Katarina repeated this cycle the power gradually stabilising as it brought each weapon's influence into the mix all while growing stronger. And when she was confident that it wasn't going to hurt her as it turned fiery red one last time.

"I, the Hero of the Spear, have again understood the origin of all power! Sever and retie the Principle of heaven and give everything unto me! Liberation Absorb X!" The massive concentration of power that she had created burst one final time and enter Katarina's body, and then the little girl screamed. Cooking Bonus, Crafting Bonus, Healing bonuses. Katarina had been building these utility skills for weeks now and it was a good thing. Channels were being carved through her body like raging water through a mountain pass as the energy looked for places to go. The enduring pain was enough to unlock a Balance Breaker, albeit an incomplete one. Bason knew that to achieve perfection what the weapon really needed was a fire spear, and he suspected he knew where Katarina would find one. No matter, the little girl would need her wounds tended to for now, various burns had appeared across her body especially her hands.

"How many more times are we going to do this?" Bason asked as a familiar figure stood next to him, the captain of the Jiang-Shi corps.

Time was running out, they may not need twelve Balance Breakers to fight the Phoenix and the Tiger but they would need them for what comes after. He didn't speak, Bason of course didn't want him to, after all his master had chosen to trap himself in this form for the sake of this world, there was no need to compound his humiliation by revealing the slightest detail of his true identity. No he simply picked up the girl and carried her away to get treated, another day closer to when this would end.

Midori and Sadeena were fighting, grinding up their sacred gear as they attempted to grasp some truth of their real power, and yet Midori stopped all of a sudden, staring off.

"What is it?" Sadeena asked looking at the green haired brute. Then she looked in the same direction as him. "Oh."

Katarina had been carried into the infirmary by the Jiang-Shi captain, scars ran down her body, dividing and reconnecting off of invisible obstacles like rivers formed on a mountain. Changes had taken place within her body, Sadeena could tell, like some kind of elemental storm had taken place inside of her body rearranging various things, Maple had brought over the Yggdrasil oils and applied them, strengthening the newly formed channels to withstand the flow of Ki and other elemental energy going through Katarina's body while she slept. All the while Midori just had one thought going through his mind: Who had done this? Was it the Ghost Bason? Katarina had said that she was going to meet with him before she left. Was she ambushed by one of the reincarnated? His body was filled with such burning rage he imagined himself unlocking the wrath series but he cooled his rage less he become a threat to who he wanted to protect.

"Who did this?"

"Wait until she wakes up and ask her." For reasons that she couldn't comprehend, Elena had been given the task of watching over the sleeping Katarina. It got her out of work for a couple of hours so she can't really complain.

Not good enough, so Midori left. The Filolial King had acquired an understanding of what he had to do going forward, and so discarded his previously naive self as he sought out the expert in what he was looking for.

"You wanna copy my charge blade?" Maple was surrounded by a sea of rainbow coloured plants, having returned to where she was training after treating Katarina, clearly she spent a little too much time in 'Bishop' form today.

"It assumes the form of a axe does it not?" Midori asked as he looked at Maple suspiciously.

"Well, yeah." Midori had already copied Katarina's spear after she turned it into a halberd, thus netting him the Axe of Loyalty. Kuro had been feeding him Noble Phantasms as she had the rest of the Heroes too. For now he had several Axe type Noble Phantasms and several lesser versions of spear phantasms from Katarina. From here Maple's Charge blade was the most sound weapon he could get. "Today, I watched my master be put into a hospital bed from an ambush, by whom I do not know but unless I am strong enough to defend her it will happen again." Saying that Midori looked Maple straight in the eye.

Letting out a sigh Maple picked up her shield, swapped it to the Tyrant Dragon Charge blade which she then popped out into its axe form, and handed it to Midori who successfully copied the weapon. A flood of notifications entered Midori's vision, already he could see his weapon breaking down and combining together the various charge blades. Nodding his head Midori left to begin his work. Of the Noble Phantasms Kuro had given to him the closest to the Charge Blade was the God Force. The God Force was the personal weapon of one Lu Bu, one of the most vicious generals China has ever known, be it the axe, the spear, the bow the mad general is said to have mastered all two handed weapons, and this is represented by the God force, a Noble Phantasm that is able to transform between all the weapons Lu Bu knew how to use, now 'shields' will be added to the list of transformations, and of course Maple's shield Turret as well. Ten Charge blades were sacrificed to upgrade the God Force into its next form, and then ten more, and ten more after that, each new weapon unlocking progressively more ludicrously powerful defences. To begin with he brought up a list of weapons, he's been training hard so there should be various axes he had available for himself to use. At this moment the most important thing to do was to strengthen himself as efficiently as possible, and that meant Noble Phantasms.

Labrys of the Abyss was a battle axe wielded by a legendary monster of Kuro's world the half man half bull Asterios the Minotaur, it was originally one weapon but it gained the ability to split in two after being broken, it had lots of abilities from it's original wielder but for now the most important was this ability to split in two. Just because he can spend money for bonuses doesn't mean that he can ignore the benefits of having two weapons out at once. Secondly was the power of Heracles the Nine lives, originally this should be considered a weapon under the Archer class, but the Heracles who became a Berserker instead wields a huge chunky stone axe, but under the full power of the holy Grail system this weapon turns into something worthy of a demi-god, a large golden axe with the power of Nine Lives. Thirdly a massive mechanical contraption originally wielded by a demi god of thunder known by the name of Kintoki who calls the weapon the Thunder Axe, each of the cartridges inside of the weapon contains a bolt of thunder just waiting to be unleashed. Midori hummed to himself as he felt the power from the three axes, one that transformed the environment, one to assume multiple forms to attack with, one to revive him when he dies, one that spits lightning and of course, one worthy for the gods.

His war chest set, Midori's next objective would be tracking down the ones responsible for this. To begin with he looked at the scene of the incident in question, outside of Bason's shrine where Katarina said that she was going to ask the ghost for advice, in hopes of acquiring information about what had happened here. Dragon Pulse had many benefits. Chief among those benefits was to cast magic that you have no affinity for, but the process of doing so had other benefits as well. To get an idea of what kind of magic he can cast in this area Midori has to read the energy around here for what kinds of energy are in the area. To put it another way, Midori can sense what kinds of magic have been cast in a given area using the dragon pulse method. To begin with, there was a strong presence of water.

"Hmm. That must have been Master's Sacred Gear." However it almost looked like the water power had been consumed by a familiar green energy turning it into a turquoise colour. "Healing magic? No this is more like one of the Bio-plants." Midori wondered how someone other than one of the heroes could gain control over the Bio-plants but a thought occurred: Maple plants the things everywhere she goes, even though their fertility has been reduced most of the plants still have seeds. Kyo had the capability to modify the Spirit Tortoise, so it makes sense that one of the other Reincarnated would be able to modify the comparatively flexible Bio-plants instead, someone had made a purpose built weapon to take down Katarina using them. "Master's fire magic!?" Clearly, Katarina hadn't taken kindly to having one of the bio-plants used against her and so retaliated with the use of her fire magic, most likely to burn down the plants. But that didn't work. "Earth energy, from Master's skills?" Earth manipulating skills were Katarina's favourite, if the reincarnated found a way of making their 'Anti-Katarina' weapon fireproof then logically she would've done the next best thing: ripping it out by the root. "This one... Midori can't place it, like Earth magic but different." The Reincarnated had all sorts of unusual skills and abilities, it only makes sense that their 'goddess' would give them some kind of unusual ability to act as a counter to Katarina. He'd have to go around Q'Ten Lo, expand his horizons and seek out the perpetrator.

Unknown to Midori his Axes were humming in approval to his displayed maturity and growth, after all change happens in many forms, sometimes it was sudden, and some times it happened over time. Everything was mixed together like they hit her with a ritual class magic, outside of the heroes and the ones they trained there weren't many people that could pull off something like that by themselves. so they must have had help.

Katarina had awakened in her room, stuffing her face while Sadeena was awkwardly sitting to the side watching her with a growing look of disgust.

"I've heard of grinding but this is ridiculous." As long as Sadeena was present and in the party to activate the effect any of the food that Katarina eats will have the effect of increasing her stats. In fact that's something that they've been doing with the entire army, because man can these people eat. Even if you do have high stats and the ability to absorb Ki from the environment all of that energy has to come from somewhere, between Raphtalia's Beast King Hammer and the accelerated growth of Q'Ten Lo's monsters this country was probably the number one producer of food at the moment. And yet even by the standards set by the army Katarina was a glutton without comparison. "Should we stop her?" Sadeena asked looking at one of the nurses with a look of concern.

"She will need the extra food to help treat her injuries, and after she's done here she claims that she's going to be working it off by casting magic." The nurse countered shrugging her shoulders. "The Shield should be by any moment now to administer another of the round of treatment." On cue door of Katarina's hospital room slammed open.

"Katarina are you okay!" Maple shouted as she ran over to Katarina whom she was now realising was in far better condition than what she was led to believe. "Midori told me someone attacked you?"

Katarina responded with a loud burp.

"I got hit by a tribulation earlier, I don't think I got hurt besides that though." Katarina replied looking very confused.

"No. But if Midori saw you while you were hurt and no one told him what happened he could come to the worst conclusion very easily." Sadeena stated letting out a sigh of realisation. "Katarina, you've had enough gluttony for one night, finish getting fixed up and come find me, hopefully I can find Midori before he starts a fight with someone." Saying that Sadeena left the two Heroes alone with each other.

Metal! That's what the mystery power Midori saw back at the shrine was! Standing in front of the black smithing temple Midori was looking at various metal weapons and the unique power they were giving off. Nodding his head in confirmation Midori walked into the temple intent on making someone's head roll.

"Oh you're one of missus Katarina's party members right?" The Blacksmithing priest asked looking at Midori with indifference. Atla learned a trick for spotting Reincarnated and taught it to the others, concentrating Ki into your eyes to make them extra sensitive to the distorted flows of spirit energy that the Reincarnated gives off. The Priest was the first one he checked, a petty that he passed, he wasn't reincarnated then, only scum. "Midori is conducting a security sweep of the temple. With the influx of immigrants the likely-hood that a reincarnated as sneaked in among their numbers is quite high." The poison type Filolial King explained not exactly lying. He was here to sweep this place for signs of the enemy, he just wasn't doing it under any body's orders.

"Knock yourself out." Not that Midori needed permission, concentrating Ki into his eyes he looked around the area scanning the environment for any signs of the reincarnated. But a new problem was starting to appear. "You saw it too didn't you?" The Priest replied smugly. The Ghosts and Spirits, as beings of pure spirit energy the two respective races cause all kinds of distortions similar to a reincarnated, not to mention the priests that were extensively trained to manipulate Ki and spirit energy that were actively putting that training to use at this very moment. "What're you going to do now?"

"Hmm?" Midori thought about it for a moment and decided to simply make use of the usual method to expose reincarnated then. "Head Priest I would like you to have a look at my weapon when you have a moment." Midori made a show of shifting his axes between several forms, his booming voice loud enough to reach across the entire temple. "Should we go somewhere private for a while."

"Hammer's sake you don't have to shout." The Priest gave a sour look a he used his pinky to clean his ear. "Let's go into my office then and have a look."

"Yes! We'll use the Sitera Destiny field to suppress my weapon and stats so that I don't break anything by mistake." Midori shouted and the other smith's winced in response to him. Filolials have quite a set of lungs on them, Filo uses it to sing and Midori uses it for bad acting.

"Oi you aren't even pretending to be talking to me anymore are you?" The priest replied shaking his head in the negative.

"Indeed. This will take several hours, we'll probably still be here by the time the sun rises tomorrow too." Midori shouted as the priest opened the door to let Midori into his work station.

"Oi I got other things to do too you bastard!"

Once Katarina was cleaned up and dressed she and Maple went into the town proper to try and figure out what Midori was up to.

"Bason's shrine and then the Black Smithing Temple?" Katarina asked looking at one of the town guards.

"Well it makes sense, you were taken from Bason's shrine to the hospital right?" Maple asked looking at Katarina concerned.

"Well yeah but what's at the temple that Midori thinks has had something to do with me getting hurt?" Katarina asked scratching her head. Then a hole was blown into the roof of the temple.

"Whatever it is he found it." Maple stated letting out a sigh.

Damn heroes every last one of them. After getting reincarnated in this world he was dropped into a desert nation of all things. He worked hard to get into a prestigious blacksmiths guild and even got to own his own sex slave as well, a cute little Wanui Loli. And then the country tore itself apart, he didn't know for sure but he was certain the heroes were responsible for it, it happened the day after they all showed up and emptied out the coffers with a outrageous bet. Then he gets gang-pressed along with a mercenary contingent into Faubrey's army, and just when he's getting use to the joys of modern civilisation again, the heroes come along and destroy another country! Now he's just barely managed to get into a third country and the Heroes are here, again! Right now he needs to be proactive, breaking one of the heroes and preventing a third country lost to him.

One of the Vassal Heroes was just beyond this door. If he can just get his hands on that axe then he will be actually, literally, set for life! To his immense luck, the door leading into the head priest's office was open, and he could confirm the effects of some kind of field ability were in effect as he walked inside. The Priest was grinding an unfinished weapon on a wheel while the Axe hero was sitting on a chair in front of him, his axe resting on his shoulder. Quietly the Reincarnated sneaked up on the Hero and grabbed hold of the axe. And nothing happened.

"Take it outside. Your master depends on this place and it's supposed to be sacred." The Head Priest stated simply while he looked at the slowly manifesting edge of his weapon and brushed it off. A clawed hand grabbed the reincarnated by his head and threw him out of the temple. Through a wall. "That is not what I meant!"

Midori slowly walked out of the temple while the reincarnated already healed his body. Slowly stepping forward Midori walked, his feathers already caked with frost while his pores excuded a green acrid mist.

"What the hell are you?" The Reincarnated shouted realising that he was out of his depths.

"Balance Breaker." Midori said simply, and then the entire area was consumed.

Review Section:

reinDank: Yep.

RonaldM40196867: True. Probably.

Nesthor5000: No I haven't. And I'm too busy to.

Nightshadegirl: True. Probably not, she can barely handle her weapon after all.

Dakota Bruder: Chinese cultivation Manhua. Which one you may wonder? Pick one, I swear half of these people could speed run their ascent to godhood by pulling a Ben Franklin.

Galeon82: If she started grabbing random junk and calling them projectiles her weapon would probably get mad at her.