Author's Note: Not a lot to say today, got anime to catch up on. Read, Review Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 113: Of Those Who Choose to Sacrifice
Maple and the other heroes watched Raccoon and Raphtalia disappear to parts unknown.
"Are they going to be alright?" Maple asked looking at the disappearing duo with concern.
"They'll be fine." Naofumi stated making his opinion known. "Your friend just wants to blow off a little steam."
"You want to do that too?" Maple held over her mirrored shield to Naofumi who simply shrugged his shoulder and took the shield in hand. A massive stream of notifications appeared in his vision leading to Naofumi to visibly cock his brows in concern at some of the weapons he was seeing. "What exactly have you been doing with the shield?" Naofumi asked as he handed Maple back a mirrored shield of his own.
"Feeding things to it." Maple looked like she was avoiding looking directly at the man before her, at her father. "How are you..."
"I'm not your father. Not exactly." Naofumi stated as he let out a sigh. "That guy who brought you here, Behemoth. He realised that he was losing his mind so he yanked out his own sanity, ground it to dust, and spread it on the chaotic void winds. Like a seed taking root those grains of dust became new Naofumi's, lived their entire boring lives, and eventually died and was reabsorbed by that guy making him sane again, for a time." Maple felt a little sad about that, she admitted to no one but herself, that her father hurt and abused himself like this.
"You called him Behemoth? Why?" Maple asked looking at the humanoid anti-psychotic medicine that was in the shape of her father. "Is it because it's awkward to call him by your own name?"
"It's what he is." Naofumi stated bluntly. "God's created humanity, not the species, but rather the aspect of a person and implanted that in a variety of creatures of a certain hardy world and thus they became what we know as 'humans.'"
"So does that mean-"
"Don't even think about it." Naofumi's eyes glowed when he spoke, as if there was something welling up from deep within his core. "What he did to himself, what he became to end up like that..." Naofumi shook his head. "If you ever reach the point where you can so much as see what the name of the person's soul is you need to stop what you're doing and come find me immediately understood?"
Maple nodded her head, then she turned to her shield and started looking through the new transformations she got.
"I don't see anything here that looks like a sacred gear. 'Umbran Watch Shield.'" Kaede turned her shield into the weapon in question. It was a small sized shield, round and thick, filled with all kinds of spinning gears with the face of a crescent moon with a ruby red stone in the eye of the moon. "Admitted mine is something of a cheat as far as Sacred Gears go. Rather than 'containing the power to go against gods' it's power is to 'summon the enemies of the gods.' In layman's terms-"
"Demons." Maple stated making her concern quite apparent.
"Aye." Naofumi explained in no uncertain terms.
"Is this the 'I summon you demon to do my bidding and give you my soul as payment' kind of summoning?" Maple did her best impression of an evil sorcerer as she spoke which in reality just came off as more cute than anything else.
"They tried taking my soul." Naofumi looked like he was thinking about... something. Unpleasant maybe, or humorous, like an awkward situation that you found yourself in a long time ago that you were now laughing about in retrospect.
"What happened?" Maple asked looking concerned.
"The other guy came to pick up his prescription for anti-psychotics." One soul eating eldritch horror or the other, by the sounds of things the one that made her father was the stronger of the two. "So now the demons basically have a choice of dealing with us, or dealing with him. It's not like it's a bad idea for them, the two I left behind in that world I was just on are doing just find picking off whatever poor schmucks think that it's a good idea to invade the monster country now that Demon is in a weakened state."
"So if I use this thing-?"
"They'd eat you." Naofumi stated glaring down at Maple. "Your mother and I would go down there to get you and tear you out of whatever critter your soul is inside of but I can't guarantee you'd be intact by the time we're done, you'd basically be taking a stupid risk for nothing."
"Well not nothing." Maple switched over to her Guardian of the North Shield, her Sacred Gear. "Danger is supposed to increase this thing's power after all."
"Danger within your capacity to handle yes. But what if you can't? On this world you are powerful, but the first time you were brought to another you lost all the power you had gained yes?" Naofumi asked looking at his daughter inquisitively.
"I didn't really notice. My default offensive option is just to suck monsters into my shield when they attack me." Naofumi just held his hand to his face for a few seconds. "Are you-"
"I need a minute."
"I hope we're not interrupting anything." Naofumi took his hand away as he looked to the side, Trash and Fohl had just arrived by the looks of things.
"Remember what happened last time?" Naofumi asked looking at Fohl or rather he would be, but a certain old man walked up to him and was looking at him, face to face at near point blank range. Naofumi stood up, taller than the old man by virtue of the later having shrunk in his old age.
"Say 'Smooth Move Trash.'" Trash ordered, glaring directly into Naofumi's eyes.
"Excuse me?" Naofumi asked looking back.
"Say it!" Trash pressed the head of his cane into Naofumi's chest.
"I think we all need to-" Sadly Maple's attempts to keep the peace were both woefully under-appreciated and entirely unwanted.
"Smooth Move Trash!" Fohl's knuckles cracked. He heard those words before, he heard them spoken with that voice, the night his parents were killed. "Yah know you heap of garbage, you killed your sister before I started mucking about with time, and you still managed to kill her after. The only thing I did was speed-run your character development into a decent human being, and considering what you did to me when I was in my daughter's shoes over there as the Shield Hero I'd bloody well say we're even!" Fohl was cracking his knuckles now. "Oh ain't that cute 'I'm an all knowing omnipotent being that is capable of being everywhere and every when possible and thus every tragedy is entirely my fault!' Has the thought occurred to you that the one to blame here is standing right here!?"
Fohl stood next to Trash, held his fist out to the old man who returned it with a fist bump, signifying that they had officially teamed up.
"Now ain't that cute! The Loser nephew and the loser uncle, fine!" Trash was sent a party invite by Naofumi, and he accepted, then all three of them disappeared at once.
Faubrey was still abandoned after the mess with Cian, latest of the back to back shit kickings the country received which managed to finally get the point across that this place was no good to live in, or failing that kill everyone who thought differently. Three people appeared at the courtyard of the former palace, The Heroes of the Staff, the Mirror and the Gauntlets.
"I'll go first." Fohl stated cracking his knuckles.
"No arguments." Trash worked best when he had an idea of what he's dealing with.
"Balance Break!" Fohl Manage his weapons well, the combination of the five elements and the four forms of the Sacred Gear.
For the knight form he would equip the upgraded Excalibur Gauntlets, allowing him to channel the extreme air and water manipulating power of the Excalibur to increase his speed to another level. For the Rook form he channelled the Spirit Tortoise Shield Gauntlets that she got Courtesy of Maple, which suited Fohl's own extreme close quarters combat style. For the Bishop, Fohl wasn't a magician, and on top of that he was a horrible shot. His only real method of offence here was to get into close quarters with the enemy and deliver the attack at point blank range, towards that end the metal Unlimited Lost Works, turned into a Shot Gauntlet like the Ember Celicia that Tanya had given him to copy.
"Kirin Centaur!" A huge amount of power was exuded into the area as Fohl's body changed shape. A white, heavily armoured leg resembling that of a tiger's stepped forward, then another, and another, and another. The entire lower half resembled a heavily armoured tiger with golden and blue stripes in lieu of black. The upper body though was a set of red Draconic armour, but not all of it was red, the right arm had been turned into a dark green armour with a large round shield resembling the shell of a turtle, the right was a black and silver gauntlet two blades below the arm and two twin linked guns on top. In short, he was a heavily armed centaur combining Dragon and Tiger, in other words a Kirin.
"Wow that is impressive." Four of the elements with his weapon, and himself acting as the fifth. "But are you sure you can handle all of that without Earth to balance you out?" Naofumi looked at the seemingly very impressive figure and twisted his pinky in his ear.
"Against you? It's more than enough!" Fohl's voice sounded down right demonic right now.
Fohl charged, his legs carrying him with currents of water and air as he charged ahead and delivered a punch to Naofumi, who already had his mirror up in the air, however rather than land a hit, Fohl instead fired the Unlimited Lost Works Gauntlet, the projectile entered the mirror and before it could leave the projectile detonated, shattering the invisible floating mirror that was Next to Fohl into a mass of blades. Having done that Fohl now followed up with a punch from his other arm landing a direct blow on Naofumi's head.
"Wow you really put some work into that one." Naofumi's mirror turned into the form of a mirrored Pocket watch. "My turn!"
A portal appeared beneath Naofumi's feet, from which the front half of a large Unicorn-like creature with a giant cleaver in place of a horn emerged to take a swing at the duo. And then the horse was grabbed around his neck by a massive shackle of stone and kept from swinging its head around.
"I take it that this means you're getting in on the action?" Fohl asked looking at Naofumi bluntly.
"I have a theory." Naofumi snapped his fingers and the horse disappeared, in it's place though a giant four winged bat creature was summoned which Naofumi then grabbed by the tail so that it could take both of them into the sky. "You'll need to land some attacks on that creature to confirm though." Trash explained.
"Understood." Even though Fohl already had four elements across his weapons, the base element of his Sacred Gear, the Boosted Gear, was fire while Fohl's elemental root was Earth. "Boost X!" Passing through each of his weapons and the elements that they represent. "Boost X!" The Earth Energy managed a reversal instead empowering the Fire of the Sacred Gear. "Boost X!" Until finally the multiplying power was ready to fire. "Fire!" A massive light of red hot energy was shot from Fohl's chest directly at Naofumi and the bat. Of course it wasn't like they had been idle all this time either, the bat released lightning from his body and attacked the numerous surrounding buildings, gathering up metal objects in a magnetic pull into the sky. Naofumi was dropped first, intercepting the attack with his mirror as he continued to fall from the sky the attack was dispersed through the air in different directions until he got up close to Fohl, and then the fire elemental greedily lapped up all of the fire element energy in the air, grew to a massive size, and pushed Naofumi away from them.
"When I summon I use my summons as a shield to keep myself safe while attacking from a distance." Trash intoned tapping the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown on his shoulder. "You on the other hand do the opposite: you have your summons attack from a distance while you act as a meat shield for them."
"Meaning?" Fohl asked bluntly.
"He's much like dear Maple, or at least what she's supposed to be like, little to none attack power, but insanely high defensive power." Trash explained bluntly.
"Meaning that I can wail on him all I want but without his monsters he can't do anything to stop me from attacking him." Fohl stated as he swapped out the Guardian of the north for the Yew Wood Gauntlet, with Maple's various extras built in.
"Leave handling them to me." Trash stated as he already decided on his next attack.
Naofumi snapped his fingers again and the four winged bat in the sky disappeared, dropping the massive number of items that he had accumulated onto Fohl and Trash. Then all around them the nearby buildings and earth turned into pillars of stone locking with the falling metal stopping it from going any further in the process. Fohl charged forward, his armour letting out the familiar 'Boost X!' as he rapidly approached Naofumi and landed a blow at him, filling the area with the purple mists of Maple's anti armour acid. Then another projectile was fired hitting Naofumi's face as it bounced off, a small number of razor sized blades erupting from his cheek in the process before falling away.
"So much for poison resistance." Naofumi lamented looking down at his cheek in the process.
"Resistance my ass you should be a puddle of goo right now!" Fohl snapped pointing at Naofumi with a finger.
"Well we both know that's not true." Naofumi laughed at Fohl's foolishness. They've been conducting this battle as if he only had two options Naofumi that being to either attack or defend, however they didn't take into account the simple strategy of choosing a third way out. "Gouran, send over the Dead End Express." Suddenly a minature locomotive engine roughly the size of a motorcycle appeared behind Naofumi who proceeded to sit down on it and cheekily waved goodbye to Fohl and Trash as he was whisked away.
"Get back here coward!" Fohl shouted as he soon gave chase to the Hero and his model train engine.
Of course it was too much to ask for that they run away like a normal person, no the Dead End Express lived up to it's name as it proceeded to smash through the wall of a nearby pillar, dragging Naofumi along with it. So naturally Fohl had to smash through that building too. Watching the trail of destruction form in the wake of those two Trash summoned the Water Elemental.
"Bring those two to me this instant." Trash instructed and so his will was done. The Water elemental flew over the ruins of the city and formed a wall of reflective surface in the middle of their path which then sucked the two rampaging heroes inside and spat them back out in front of Trash. Naofumi jumped off of the motor bike train car in time for it to have a head on collision with Trash, who didn't even bother moving as he just let the earth spirit flip it over his head clean to the other side. "I was under the impression that heroes can't use weapons other than their assigned vassal weapon."
"Not Fighting running. Phantom!" Suddenly a giant spider that looked like it had molten magma in it's veins appeared on a nearby building and webbed Naofumi up and away.
"Get back here you bastard!" Fohl screamed as Naofumi was tossed through the air, Fohl jumped after him, pouncing on the Spider along the way and snapping it's neck with the tiger body, causing it's to transform into the shape of a large shield like contraption with eight thin spider like blades sticking out the side.
"So that's how he was doing it." Trash had been wondering how Naofumi was wielding the additional weapons, and where they were coming from, but as it turns out they were also demons. "It seems that whoever is responsible for creating things like you included a number of bonus features." As Naofumi was sailing through the air he summoned, of all things, a mic stand that he then rammed the sharp points of the bottom into a building and climbed on top of it, looking up into the air at Fohl who was chasing after him through the air.
"Baal. Plug into the mirror." Naofumi's Mirror was reflected into the form of the 'Voice Gengar Mirrored Shield', suddenly a massive sound like the actual literal fat lady singing echoed out from the mirror with enough force to shatter buildings.
"What in Shield's name is that racket!?" Fohl had both of his hands over his ears. As if offended by the statement the voice coming from the stand suddenly became louder. Naofumi was already making trails away, running on foot after the mic stand turned spear lost its footing into the wall and he crashed into the ground. Despite the stone being shattered it soon felt compelled to reassemble itself into a giant thanks to Trash's earth elemental.
"C'mon!" Naofumi complained throwing his hands up to the side. The Giant stomped it's foot down on Naofumi who in turn raised up his weapon to defend himself, and ended up sucking up a large chunk of the rubble giant's body into the weapon. "Huh. Waddya know, that actually worked. Alraune!" Another demonic portal soon appeared, this time out walked a woman with a distinctive rose like motiff with bows of vines and a dress made out of petals, her form dripped venom and her steps whispered madness, and then Naofumi splashed her with a potion and she shook off whatever was bothering her. "We need to get across the city yet, think you can deal with that thing." The woman scoffed and spoke in a language that not even the weapons seemed able to comprehend as she snapped her fingers. Vines suddenly erupted from the ground, sowing themselves all the way up through the rubble of the stone giant until the entire thing was bound up, and then the two of them ran off.
"Vines." Trash muttered before he had a look, behind him where a casual hip check from the Earth Elemental sent the Dead End Express flying. "Metal." To a nearby ruined building where a giant spinner of some kind was located after the Lava Spider was killed. "Fire." And finally to the pile of rubble where the microphone stand was finally made to shut up after a thrashing from Fohl. "If that's a Earth or Water element." Trash came to a horrified revelation. "No matter what, I have to keep him from summoning the fifth." Trash slammed the butt of his cane down and summoned another elemental, the Star elemental, a holy type entity, rarely used but still one of the most powerful and most suited to dealing with this situation. "A few demons/demonic artefacts are loose in this city. Destroy them!"
"By thy will master!" With that the Star elemental rose up into the air and in no time was soon living up to her name, shining like a star and bathing the city in holy light.
Holy and demonic were natural enemies of each other, they are locked in a eternal cycle of consuming one another, purifying and corrupting, unable to co-exist with one another, being both the most nutritious food and the one they were most violently allergic to. Between opponents of equal power the angels and the demons are in a stalemate, however right now Naofumi's demons were at a disadvantage, their weapon forms known as 'Devil Arms' is a emergency transformation taken when they are on the brink of death. As a Devil arm they are virtually invulnerable to harm with only a overwhelming amount of force or directly consuming their demonic power being able to destroy them, and as a weapon they can participate in fighting other entities for power to help them recover. Unleashing her power the star elemental went to the nearest Devil Arm and attempted to consume it. However expectations and reality had met and conflicted with each other.
"Ugh!" Naofumi moaned and covered his mouth like he was going to be sick. Dedicated Affection, Maple's skill that allowed her take the hits of those who are in her party, Naofumi also had this skill, instead of applying it to his party members though he was applying to demons he had summoned, so rather than trying to consume the power of the Devil Arms, the Star Elemental was trying to consume his power.
"Are you okay?" Alraune was genuinely concerned for her contractor, albeit for purely selfish reasons. In life she had committed suicide by consuming a powerful hallucinogenic poison known as Mandrake, which poisoned even her very soul with powerful hallucinogens condemning her to a eternity of madness, until Naofumi came along with a seemingly limitless supply of antidotes and dragged her kicking and screaming towards sanity.
"I'll manage." Looking up in the air Naofumi saw a storm of meteor like projectiles raining down on their heads.
"However we need to deal with that first and foremost." Using her vines to stick to the side of a building Alraune grabbed Naofumi and swung away spider man style as the projectiles hit the ground and erupted into bushes of blades. Using another vine Alraune tossed Naofumi away another second of buildings allowing him to stick the landing on the other side, even as she herself was skewered by the blade erupting projectiles and gave a agonising death wail as she was turned into the form of a thorny whip. "Too Little." Naofumi watched as Fohl sailed over the buildings, his armour cracking and disappearing into light particles having reached the time limit that had been set for it. "Too late." Trash was carried over to the buildings by the wind elemental, and saw as Naofumi pulled out yet another Devil Arm, this one a shield depicting a woman's face and a nest of snakes.
''GET DOWN RIGHT NOW!'' Both Fohl's and Trash's weapons immediately recognised what Naofumi had pulled out of the demonic portal and forced both of their heroes to duck for safety inside of a nearby building.
From the Shield a massive amount of stone erupted, no, it was more like everything in the line of sight of that shield turned into stone. The Shield was known as Aegis. Medusa, or Hydra as she became known once she was in hell, was originally the high Priestess of Athena, up until she caught the eye of fellow god Poseidon who chased her down and raped her right in the middle of Athena's temple. Athena could only complain about the higher ranked god's behaviour, Medusa asked for the method to take revenge on Poseidon and so Athena gave it to her, and so Medusa had been warped into a monster that would turn all who gazed upon her to stone. Medusa became such a terror on Poseidon's forces that Athena was ordered to recall her monster, and when she couldn't, she instead empowered a hero to go out and collect her head, which was brought back to Athena who placed it into her shield, Aegis, both to remind her of the events that transpired and as a power up. The stone cut through the ruins of Faubrey and hit the Dead End Express, the miniature train slashing through the city again with metal hitting the Ribbit Libido, the Mike stand, which then erupted with water and struck where Alraune fell, which then carved through the city for a fourth time with vines, before finally striking the location where Phantom left his Devil Arm and returned fire back to Naofumi and the Aegis had been waiting for it, the crisscrossing energy creating a massive pentagram.
"Demonic Formation: Gates of Hell!" Suddenly, the entirety of Faubrey was immersed in a blood red light, black hands emerged from the ground and gripped everything, the stones, the rubble, the street lamps, as if the entire realm was on the verge of being sucked into hell.
"Balance Breaker!" Naofumi and his associates killed the Phoenix's and murdered Atla because they wanted them to reach the full potential of their power? "Giant of the Elements!" He'd give it them!
Five elemental Spirits were summoned, A primordial Fire Elemental, Primordial Earth Elemental, Primordial Water Elemental, Primordial Wood Elemental and Primordial Metal Elemental acquired thanks to Kuro turning the power of the Unlimited Blade Works into a Staff. The Five Primordials converged together, formed a circle of rapidly cycling light like a while, conjoining together into a single entity rising higher and higher into the air. The Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown was the weapon that gave Trash the power to summon various elementals, yes this is true, but it also has another more important ability, the authority to command the beings of the Great Tomb of Nazarick. The staff remembered all of them, and so chose the form of the largest and strongest for this occasion, a giant golem, and that is what it summoned by combining together five Primordial elementals. But Trash wasn't done yet, Five staffs of five different elements were spat out around him each of them lodged above a devil arm. Fire to Fire, Earth To Earth, the list went on, and soon a new power appeared riding on the coat tails of the demon formation, a heavenly formation taking the shape of a pentagon, for the staffs had another power mixed in.
"Staff formation, Gates of Heaven!" Hands emerged from the sky glowing with golden radiance and reached down and grabbed the demonic hands, entering a tug of war, the mixed demonic, heavenly and elemental power started to go crazy, getting sucked up and down as they greedily lapped one another up.
"Well this is a fine mess you've gotten yourself in Iwatani." Naofumi stated as he looked Trash and Fohl's way. "Tell me something you two, is it easy having someone to blame all of your problems on?"
"You could've saved them!" Fohl snapped glaring at Naofumi angrily. "And when exactly was I supposed to do this? Was I supposed to do this back in Faubrey before your father took her away to relative safety so that she could get killed in Faubrey instead of Siltvelt?" The Pig King's plan was always 'Frame Siltvelt for his Sister's death and have his younger brother removed from the line of succession' the fact that he didn't have to actually kill her to do so served his purposes just fine.
"You could've told me she was still alive!" Trash snapped glaring at Naofumi.
"Could I now? Tell me something if I did as you suggested would you have listened to me blinded by wrath as you were? For that matter are you certain that I didn't?" Naofumi asked his brow lifted into the air. "Hell if I had brought you your sister before you alive and well would you have believed it?" Naofumi paced back and forth.
"You bloody manipulator! Do you think we'll believe anything you tell us!?" Fohl snapped getting ready to go on the offensive again.
"Huu." Naofumi grabbed both men by their skulls and dumped information into both of them.
She was weak, she was always weak physically, she was born with the same crippling illness born out of centuries of Faubrey's dedication towards 'pure blood' that Atla had been affected by, she shouldn't have given birth once, let alone twice. Her life for her daughter, that was the contents of the bargain that she struck, and struck knowing what the cost would ultimately be, as for her husband? He died on the front lines, fighting for the nation he believed in, against a opponent who would never back down against him no matter what they attempted to do, and by doing so was finally able to achieve peace, even if his death only served as a wake up call for someone else.
There was one who offered his aid, a man with the Evil eyes who laid out the terms of the bargain, that she would live if she didn't give birth, she refused. He could ressurrect her after she died, but she would live for only so long with the illness and the damage it had already done, even with Yggdrasil, and worse yet the odds of her daughter being cured of that illness would be reduced so she refused again.
The two Heroes fell away from Naofumi, the chaotic rampaging energies serving as a back drop as he looked down at them with anger in his eyes.
"The person you care about ever so much is dead, she was dead before I got here and she was still dead after I got here. You tell me that I could've saved her? What makes you think I didn't try?" Naofumi began pacing around them. "God like you may seem to think I am, that's fine. Tell me how many of those fables of gods that Kuro stuffed into those weapons did they choose to act through another? Why they simply don't snap their fingers and make creation as they so desire?" Naofumi crouched down as he loomed over him. "I cannot do anything to save a person who doesn't want to live!"
"Of course she wanted to live! She had us!" Fohl snapped back by way of reply.
"And if she didn't?" Naofumi snapped back. "Her life, for yours and your sister's. That is the decision she made!" The only bargain the woman struck was with herself. The Heavenly and Demonic formations both disappeared, the entities behind both of them cutting their losses and returning to their homes. "Sit here and wallow in how sad and miserable your lives are. I have to go make sure the angels you summoned didn't try to eat my allies." With that Naofumi walked away, leaving behind the two dejected heroes to wallow in their own misery.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: Such is life. I think Raphtalia is a emotionally broken child in a grown woman's body suffering a variant of stockholm syndrome that Naofumi accidentally wife groomed, this makes her steadfast and loyal but her mental state is in tatters and probably will for the rest of her life.
coolkid0806: I will interpret this a compliment.
xerad: The Shield Hero? Aye the majority of them chose a slave either out of desperation or out of moral liberation. Raphtalia specifically? No. And in the versions of events where she didn't join the party things got much worse.
Nightshadegirl: Mostly there for what Filo said she'd do.
Adneel: Sorry. Not a Mahoka fan.