Author's Note: Happy Victoria Day people! Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 112: Light and Dark
A massive hot pot had been prepared featuring the heroes of two worlds. Eight legendaries, three vassals in the form of Sadeena, Filo and Raphtalia, and the Queen of Melromarc. Rice had been prepared, bio-plant roots, meats from some of the monsters from the village and fish in the sea, boiled egg and some honey to act as a dipping sauce.
"""Itadakimasu!""" With that the various people gathered together started to divvy up and eat the food that they had been presented with.
"You didn't do anything weird with the plants and monsters did you?" Tanya asked looking at Maple suspiciously.
"I didn't poison the food if that's what you mean." Maple replied spitefully, even as she offered Tanya a tray of her favourite sushi.
"That's not what I mean." Tanya humbly accepted the trey in question. "We couldn't eat the Bio-plant's roots last time we were here."
"Oh that? They were getting overgrown so I spliced them with some carrot and potato looking things." Maple casually explained while she took a length of sirloin into her plate. "Taking care of the branches is fine and all but the roots can become home to all kinds of pests if they get too big too, so I decided to make them edible too."
"Won't the tree fall over if the roots are too soft?" Katarina's portion was second only to Filo's, and not by a large margin either.
"They're hard when they grow but become soft after you boil them." Maple stated looking quite proud of herself, it took her a while to figure that out.
"Oh that's smart." Kuro stated already having turned her sword into a butcher's cleaver and hacking about the ribs of some animal.
"I'm sorry but..." Gol looked around them, at the massive floating palace that was Filo's weapon transformed. "Am I the only one freaked out by the appearance of a floating Palace? I mean I used to train in one of these so..."
"Yeah that reminds me: where did the wings come from anyway?" Maple asked looking at the wings behind the other world's hero's back. "Yeah turns out she's an angel." Jade stated while thumbing Gol, who looked offended by the statement.
"Who knew?" Myne replied as the weirdness started to die down and the hunger started to rise.
"Is that what you guys think I am!?" Gol snapped glaring at the other two heroes.
"What else would you be?" Sakura asked as she started to slurp on her soup.
"I'm not an angel I'm a Valkyrie!" Gol snapped glaring at the other heroes in question.
"What's the difference?" Sakura asked shrugging her shoulders.
"I'm a warrior and daughter of Odin! Not one of those preachy bastards who stormed into our realm asking for hand outs while their missionaries cut off the branches of Yggdrasil!" Gol snapped losing her patience. In reality even though the branches in question were the size of normal trees in comparison to the full Yggdrasil tree they were tiny little twigs, unfortunately they were tiny little twigs that kept Midgard anchored to the world tree. "Do you have any idea how much work we had to do after those bastards nearly severed the realm from the world tree!?" Gol looked like she had what you call a grudge, and did not take kindly to people mistaking her for the enemy that she hated so much. To be fair it would probably be equivalent to a jew being called a Nazi.
"You'll be happy to know that I got rid of that ass-hole for you." Tanya stated happily while she enjoyed her sushi.
"What do you mean by that?" Gol asked looking at Tanya concerned.
"I had a bad run in with that guy back when I was first reincarnated, so on my way over to your world I made a bow specifically to kill him and fired it at him." Tanya looked mighty proud of herself despite the horrified look on Gol's face. As she was about to Question Tanya about the extremely worrying thing she had done.
"We've gotten off topic." Kuro piped up. "First thing first. Maple your shield is full of blunt instrument type weapons right?" Kuro asked looking at Maple suspiciously.
"I mean yes? My Iron Buckler tells me specifically to hit people with it so I guess that counts. Why are you asking?" To Maple's question Kuro indicated Jade, the Blunt instrument hero. "Oh that's good thinking!" Thus the latest round of weapon exchanges began.
To begin with, Maple turned her shield into the Iron Buckler and handed it over to Jade, unlocking a huge number of Noble Phantasms in the process, who in turn turned her own weapon back into the newly unlocked Buckler and gave it to Maple who took it in hand also unlocked a massive though smaller number of weapons.
"Raphtalia's weapon is a hammer. You two should probably do a exchange too." Jade nodded her head in agreement.
Turning her Blunt instrument into a war hammer she gave it to Raphtalia to copy, and she received flood of new weapon notifications in response. Raphtalia in turn passed over her hammer which Jade copied and got another massive number of new weapons for her efforts.
"I have a shield card for you." Sakura piped up next pulling a card out of her deck.
"Thanks!" Another exchange of weapons, and another dual wave of mass unlocks.
"This is more decorative than anything else, but if it'll help." It was common practice to enchant the jewels on decorative weapons like the ones that Myne had copied, at least in the world she came from, having a seemingly invaluable treasure spit out a mass of nasty surprises at people who try to take it without permission made for a excellent deterrent.
"Thanks! Here this one is for you!" In exchange Myne got a huge pile of defence bonuses from Maple that she accepted with much gratitude.
"I don't know how much good this'll do you but here." The Camouflage shield was little more than a portable bunker covered in camouflage paint, something that a relatively small person like Gol could hide under while she snipes or spies on nearby monsters. Maple accepted the weapons, and the heroes of the other world accepted hers, and suddenly a new notification appeared in everyone's field of view.
'Conditions met: Reinforcement methods of both worlds are now available for both parties to use.'
"What are the conditions?" Maple asked as she saw the total number of reinforcement techniques she could use doubling.
'Conditions: as a show of good faith and friendship the eight Cardinal Heroes between both worlds have allowed each other to copy each other's weapons.'
Everyone was astounded, Maple looked to Kuro for permission first who only let out a defeated sigh and indicated for Maple to go ahead. With that the Four Heroes of the other world and Maple explained all of the reinforcement techniques. Kuro cringed with every new explanation, watching the Experience points she thought she had no use for being drained away and filling up the Crafting type weapons making their bonuses even stronger and causing the various heroes stats to shoot up, materials disappear inside of her sword to grant her the profession of 'blacksmith'. Kuro's generous mana bar was drained and used to fill up the mana meters for the various weapon transformations enhancing their powers even further. All of her transformations increased in quality, the thousands of swords in the Unlimited Blade World being instantly copied and increasing the quality of all of the weapon transformations that they had been associated with. Despite Kuro's concerns none of her weapons had been locked out this time leading her to breathe a sigh of relief. Katarina and Tanya on the other hand watched as hundreds of their own transformations be locked out by the sudden spike in raw quality. This also meant that her sword would soon start bugging her to go out and pick up the new materials needed to reinforce her weapon via the new reinforcement methods.
"Well now that I'm good and depressed this is the perfect time to bring this up."
Kuro threw out a few weapons from her pocket dimension, having completed work on a few 'Hybrid weapons.' Tanya already copied Maple's turret, the Charge Blade with its blatant sword built in should mean that Kuro would be able to weapon copy it but failing that she made a shield with a hidden blade to ensure that she could trade copies with Maple. Katarina and Kuro both already had a variety of Svardstav's so they would be able to trade weapons easily enough, so the second weapon that she pulled out was an umbrella, it's tip sharp enough to stab like a spear and it's cloth strong enough to stop most weapons like a shield, or at least it should be, with these two things they should have cross compatibility between Maple and Katarina's weapons. Put a bayonet on the end of one of Tanya's rifles and you get a spear, Kuro also had a variety of historical attempts to stick a sword onto a flintlock, not a very good weapon but it served her need for cross compatibility between Tanya's and Kuro's weapons.
Now for the other four, stick jeweled decorations onto something whether it be a fishing rod, jeweled powder used in the making of a card or a club and Myne will be able to take it and cross it with another weapon. Sakura had a variety of cards that have weapons stored inside of them like clubs or 'only useful against monsters' items like fishing rods. Jade had a club used for hunting monsters, a seal killing club equipped with a hook for dragging prey onto land and a blunted head for finishing them off by crushing their heads. Various exchanges occurred, loop holes were thought up and tested in regards to the various loop holes that the girls thought up, not only with their weapons but also the various vassal weapons as well until eventually ten million weapons were in their Weapon's que waiting to be unlocked. Eight milestones, one milestone for every digit of weapons that you unlock, some of them, like Kuro, got additional milestones from certain skills like the 'Shield Wall' and 'Stake field' which was copied across eight weapons and fed back into their weapons that were already working to cut down on redundancies and upgrade the originals.
"One Septilion Swords..." Kuro gulped wide eyed with horror at what she was looking at. A twenty four digit number, could she even use that many blades at once? Did she have enough spirit energy saved up to use something like that? Maybe if she upgraded one of her swords SP regeneration...
"Your dad's cockatiel almost killed us." Tanya stated ignoring the haunted look Kuro was giving off, her sword probably just traumatised her again.
"Filo?" Maple asked questioningly as Filo turned around to face her. "Not you Filo, my dad-"
"Yes you." Tanya stated prompting Maple to look at her confused. "You named her after your dad's bird didn't you?" Maple nodded slowly.
Raphtalia face palmed herself.
"You named her after herself." The Hammer hero quickly concluded. Of course she had. Naofumi had his own version of her with him, so it made sense that he would have a version of Filo with him too.
"Filo's so confused!" Filo was holding the sides of her head now.
"You aren't the only one." Raphtalia replied letting out a sigh.
"What did she say?" Maple asked looking confused before a thought occurred. "Did she say anything?"
"She said that we weren't working hard enough to grind up our Sacred gears, told us to go and grab you, and she'd take us to where we needed to go." Tanya stated bluntly.
"She told you to go get Maple." Kuro corrected sounding offended. "I on the other hand have been doing just fine with my divine forging." Kuro replied bluntly dipping her meat into honey before eating it.
"Speaking of which." Jade was looking at the top of the palace now, at the man who was sitting on the roof of the divine palace waiting for them. "Looks like we have company."
He was eating a sandwich, the summoner and trainer of heroes, one of the major powers behind the waves, was just sitting in place doing something so utterly mundane that it was like a blow to their common sense. He was joined by the other one, the Other Raphtalia he called Raccoon, eating one of her own, the vassal Katana in the form of a Odachi was hanging in a scabbard at her waist.
"You two have some nerve." Raphtalia already had her Sacred Gear out, the massive hammer landing on the roof of the palace and causing the entire thing to tilt from the weight. "This palace is floating over my home! The place you two let get washed away in the tide of the waves!"
"Right. Well it looks like we're going to have to deal with this if we want to get anything done today." Raccoon stood up and stretched her legs.
"Yoink!" Raccoon looked down at Kuro, who had sneaked up on her and grabbed hold of her Katana, a giant mass of notifications soon appeared in Kuro's vision, the total number of blades in her possession tripling. "Wow that is impressive." Kuro stated looking down at the weapons Raccoon had gathered.
"I have access to several worlds, in terms of sheer quantity I outweigh you significantly." Raccoon stated bluntly, as she quickly snatched up Kuro's sword, in comparison to what she had unlocked for Kuro, Kuro's weapons were more like a drop in the bucket for her. Still weapons forged by someone whose techniques touched the divine realm, Kuro might have fewer drops but there were some pretty big drops among them. "Impressive." Raccoon gave Kuro back her sword before moving on. "And I suppose that you wish to what? Extract a pound of my flesh? Mount my head on a pike? Crucify me?" Raccoon asked looking at her alternate counterpart.
"I thought I would start by hitting you with my hammer." Raphtalia stated already her fur was standing on end from the static electricity that her weapon was generating.
"Cute." Raphtalia received a request to join her party. "Unless of course you would rather we fight here, in your village you care oh so much about." Raphtalia glared at her alternate counter part before accepting the invitation and disappearing from sight.
Cal Mira was in it's off season, maybe permanently now that Q'Ten Lo could basically do what it does only all the time instead of once every 10 years.
""Balance Break!""
Two identical voices shouted out loud. Lightning crashed down from the sky and struck Raphtalia. Raphtalia's clothing disappeared, her body swelled to the size of a bear as her enhanced beast transformation went into effect, her body covered in a chain link armour made out of lightning while thick arms wrapped around the handle of the Mjornir like they were carrying a pole instead of a massive war hammer, gauntlets of lightning and metal forming to help her get a better grip.
"Down fall Thunder God!"
Raccoon's shadow expanded and connected to every shadow on the island. The other Tanuki Hero transformed but her's was a more twisted form, blacker, with symbols of the cursed series crawling up her form, the Dragon of Wrath, Bear of Sloth and Scorpion of lust, rings of white cutting through the darkness and forming a mask on her face and rings on her tail. All over the island blades erupted from the ground, from each one of those blades a raccoon nearly identical to Raph-chan but with a blade sticking out of their foreheads and covered in cursed symbols emerged from the ground.
"Night Parade of a Thousand Demons!"
"Three Cursed series? How did that happen?" Raphtalia asked as she got into position with her war hammer.
"I've lived for far longer than you have little girl." Raccoon stated as she got into position. "I've fallen in love and I've had my heart broken. This much is to be expected."
And then the two of them disappeared. Lightning and Shadows, light and it's absence moving at top speed around the island in a series of continuous hit and run tactics. Raccoon had a army backing her up, thousands of cursed weapons supplying her with support, raw energy, and huge offensive power in the form of the curses of lust, sloth and wrath respectively. Raphtalia had Mjornir though, with its strong anti-curse power specifically from reinforcing it using the Hot Springs of Q'Ten Lo as material. That said, Raphtalia wasn't here alone either.
"C'mon Raph!"
Another Raccoon, different from the bladed and cursed creatures on the ground and emerging from the shadows, appeared at Raphtalia's side. Raph-chan soon inflated until she met Raphtalia's current size, from both of them several flying hammers emerged which then took the appearance of the Bear like Raphtalia holding the Mjornir. Although each of these Raphtalia's were an illusion, each of them had been imbued with strong anti-curse power and lightning, so none of the Raccoons on the ground could hurt them only get fried in response. Is what Raphtalia initially believed.
"Reverse!"
All as one, the Raccoon's hair stood on end and the weapons on their heads shined brightly, the sparks of lightning that were being cast off of Raphtalia's form was flying into the horns and the amount of cursed power each raccoon gave off began to sky rocket, as if the power of the curses that should've been going to purifying them was instead being siphoned away to increase the severity of the curses. Fine then, two can play that game.
"Reflect Hammer! Lord Camelot III!"
The weapon had received quite a few upgrades, Jade copied Maple's shield, and Raphtalia copied Jade's Blunt Instrument, Though changed the Lord Camelot was still one of the strongest weapons in her arsenal thanks to repeated reinforcements and upgrades. The Weapon's strong Earth Element was spread throughout the area and formed a massive castle around Raphtalia. The Sitera destiny stone weakened and dispelled the various curses going through the environment while the Strong Earth Element absorbed the fire element from the cursed flames rapidly becoming stronger, the strengthened earth element flooded into the Mjornir which had a mixed element of metal and lightning. Holding out her arm Raphtalia manifested a second hammer, this one assuming the form of a tangled mass of sea monsters. Jade's blunt instrument has absorbed forms from Maple's, Kuro's, Katarina's and Tanya's weapons, the moment the cursed flames appeared the hammer knew that it would need a strong water weapon to deal with them so it combined several of them together to form this monstrosity radiating the power of the Water Element. The Divine Water Element hammer rapidly absorbed the strong Metal element that was in the air.
"Sod OFF!" Raphtalia flew into the sky and tossed her hammer at the enemy below her, carrying the strong power of water to quench the flames. "Driefach Laser Circus X!"
Raphtalia wasn't finished yet, commanding and shaping the watery mist in the air she formed hundreds of mirrors and lenses of water through which she commanded light pass through in a massive deadly light show to strike at the Various Raccoon creatures.
"Reverse!"
Raccoon called out the name of that skill again, the light element attack being absorbed into the Raccoon's through the blade mounted on top of their foreheads and being converted into cursed energy. The Cursed energy turned into flames, the flames were weakened and absorbed by the castle, converted into the metal element, then into water, and now being used to generate a massive amount of light energy that was being eaten and turned back into cursed flames. Like that the two Raphtalia's continuously cycled energy between them, at a stalemate.
"All of this just to avenge your family girl!?" Raccoon shouted laughing to herself as she strolled through fog and lasers.
"They were your family too you Bitch!" Raphtalia snapped glaring down at Raccoon with nothing but sheer unbridled hatred in her eyes as she attacked, jumping into a close quarters battle between them. The Shifting elements simultaneously locked out magic and skills while at the same time making it too difficult to jump and move around the battlefield. In short the only thing the two of them could do at this point was fight inside of the close quarters, lightning and light against fire and darkness. "And if you were there they would still be alive!"
Raphtalia's swings were heavy and slow, even being accelerated by light type support magic it was still seen a mile away and easy to dodge and deflect. Raccoon's attacks were fast and nimble, each blow finding a weak point in Raphtalia's formation to stab with, but was blocked by the lightning armour at every turn.
"I was there!" Raccoon shouted and Raphtalia was sent mentally realling. In that moment something was sent through Raphtalia's mind. Idol Rabier, the sadist who watched Seatto burn with a smile on his face and a glass of wine in hand before his blatantly corrupt soldiers stormed her village and kidnapped and enslaved the survivors to his command as dolls for him to torture and break. Makina, who saw the Wave as little more than a convenient method to dispose of her family who had already been exiled from Q'Ten Lo and had no interest in claiming anything as foolish as a birthright. And now Raccoon, and her partner who treated the waves as if they were wholly irrelevant to the future of either world.
"HHHIIIYYYAAAHHH!" Lightning swelled through Raphtalia's fur, her opponent was stronger than her, this fact was known to her, but there are ways of obtaining power. A sudden shift in mentality, the willingness to sacrifice it all to obtain the power to land a single spiteful hit, this change in mentality was being reflected in the Balance Breaker as it's power was now undergoing a change, but that was not the limit was what she was willing to give. "TAKE! IT! A-!" A single blow to the back of Raphtalia's head ended her attack.
"That's enough." A stern and familiar voice rung out as Raphtalia fell into unconsciousness. When Raphtalia awoke she immediately went into high alert, her hand firmly gripping her hammer as she looked around at what was around her.
"Another illusion?" Raphtalia asked as she saw many familiar faces. The old lady that use to give her Keel and Rifana candy, the boat builder who worked down at the docks, the wood carver who would make fishing rods for everyone, most important of all, a Tanuki man and woman. People that she knew to be long dead had been gathered around her concern clear on their faces.
"Not a illusion." Raccoon was lying on her side lounging about, her face and posture that of someone who had no intention of doing anything that day. "Transformation." The various villagers exploded into various smoke clouds, and were replaced by Raccoon's 'night parade' of Tanuki. Immediately Raphtalia spun on her counterpart hammer ready to crush, and was blocked by Raph-chan running over to block her. "Easy there Mom." Raccoon patted Raph-Chan on her head as she turned to face Raphtalia. "I'll explain everything going on."
"And what exactly is 'Going on' here?" Raphtalia looked exhausted, she was already on the verge of falling over the combination of the battle and the emotional stress she had been rung through taking its toll.
"This is what I was doing in the village during the wave." Raccoon stated gesturing around to the familiars that she had summoned during her battle with Raphtalia. "I gathered up the souls from those that the wave monsters and Rabier's men killed and I put them into new bodies."
Raphtalia looked around confused.
"Why?" As far as explanations went this was still far from satisfactory. "Why not just stop the wave and save everyone?"
"Because then you wouldn't have met Kaede, you guys wouldn't have the Hammer let alone the hammer hero, nor would you have the resources and weapons of Q'Ten Lo to help you."
"A single calculated sacrifice?" Raphtalia raised her hammer up to strike again. "I'm going to beat you up now." Raphtalia swung the hammer behind her, preparing to give a massive bone crushing hit to the woman who wore her face.
"Do you want to make your parents watch their daughter kill herself?" The wind pressure swept away the debris of the fight, the hammer hovering inch's above Raccoon's head. Raphtalia seemed to consider her options for a moment before turning around, planting the desk sized hammer down behind her and sitting down.
"What are we doing now?" Raccoon sat up and looked at her counterpart. "There's a reason why they haven't been sent back yet."
"It's going to take a while." Raccoon admitted simply. "It's part of the reason why we grabbed them when they were so young, that and Kuro's whole awkward 'dying' thing and Tanya getting brainwashed when she got older."
"Someone did what to Tanya?" Raphtalia asked looking concerned.
"The third rate Psychopomp that reincarnated her kept forcing her into situations where she has to invoke it's power to stay alive. His power floods her body, goes to her brain, every time she loses a little bit of herself and a little more of him comes in." Raccoon stated and Raphtalia shuddered, was that how Medea does it to her various followers? "Killing gods ain't easy, Medea will go down a lot harder than any of her followers did. Especially considering how long she's been building her power up, your little forger and shielder aren't going to be enough to deal with her, we'll need the others too, including Gol." Raccoon stood up, her various familiars ducked into her shadow. "Come on, we need to get back to the village, Naofumi should be done by now."
"Done with what?" Raphtalia asked looking confused.
"You aren't the only one with a grudge." Raccoon stated bluntly.
Author's Note:
RonaldM40196867: Haven't thought about it much.
Dakota Bruder: Filo hasn't had time yet to unlock all the life saving weapons that Kaede abused in order to make full progress, not to mention that it was happening by accident.
Nightshadegirl: There were two Filo's, one of them is still at Kaede's house, and the other one is with the girls.