Violet: After being deleted from (while still being uploaded on Ao3), it is finally back! So sit back, relax and enjoy!
Title: Fire Emblem: Heirs of Scarlet Flowers
Summary: Fate was never supposed to bring those together.
In one timeline, the Mysterious Mercenary was never born, leaving the Ashen Demon to face their choices alone. And in another, the Mysterious Mercenary and the Ashen Demon were destined to fight to the death.
However, in this timeline, Jeralt Eisner, in a remote village in Leicester, finds a purple-haired girl that his daughter, despite her oddities, could not part with, leaving him forced into taking the girl under his wing.
This simple twist will change Fódlan forever, but will this twist of fate bring this timeline to a platinum future, or to an age of ruin?
Rating: T-M
Pairings: Byleth/Edelgard, Shez/Hilda/Petra, and many more!
Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem: Three Houses or Three Hopes. Please support the official release
Fire Emblem: Heirs of Scarlet Flowers
Chapter One
Jeralt Reus Eisner was a man feared throughout the land of Fódlan.
While many would choose to test his mettle in battle, many often joined his mercenary group. Some were the discarded family members of noblemen, mostly those born without crests, while others were looking to escape their pasts or duties in their lives.
But for many that joined his group, they were simply looking for purpose.
Many thrived and died under his command, with each death leaving a brand on his heart, but he always kept his head high and his eyes forward, always searching for another mission. And it was that search that led him to the remote village of Sae.
Sae was a modest-sized village that sat near the Airmid River, under the shadow of the Great Bridge of Myrddin and it was a village that Jeralt had never been to before. He was here to locate and exterminate a group of assassins after Acheron, the newly crowned head of House Phlegethon.
A lesser house in the Leicester Alliance but one somewhat important enough to keep alive. The mission itself had gone well but unfortunately, one of the assassins had rushed into a home and taken a small family hostage.
While he was no longer a Knight of Serios, he was still a just man and attempted to bargain for the family's lives, but in the end, the man refused and slew at least the parents before Jeralt could slay him.
Yes, it was just Jeralt's luck that he met with a man who did not fear the famed Blade Breaker. And it was that same luck that had him looking at a four-year-old little girl with bright purple hair and tearful purple eyes.
Jeralt was unsure of what to do in this situation. There wasn't a church in this village. That had been taken over by the Black Hand, the group of assassins that were after Archeron, with all of their nuns and priest slaughtered.
And yet, he knew that he couldn't just leave them here as an orphan. But that would mean the final option would be to take the child with him and it was already difficult enough to watch after his own daughter, let alone another child.
As Jeralt sat in front of the child in the village's Inn, he noticed that his five-year-old daughter, Byleth, was staring at the purple-haired girl. Despite her neutral expression, he could see a spark of curiosity in her eyes. "Papa," the girl spoke, her tone matching her expression. "What is she doing?"
"She's crying," Jeralt answered. "She lost two very important people to her today."
He watched as the corner of his daughter's mouth turned downward. It was minute, but she was frowning. The little girl crawled out of her bed, accompanied by the small teddy bear Jeralt had gifted her on her fifth birthday, marched up to the crying teen, and stared at her for a moment.
The girl sniffled at seeing the new face.
"Stop that," the girl commanded, which caused Jeralt to bite back a snort.
Oh, it was times like this when he was reminded of his Sitri. So straightforward and terse. He then watched as Byleth gave the girl her teddy bear and murmured, "Here. No more crying."
The girl looked at the teddy bear and slowly took it from Byleth's hands and held it tight. "Thank you," the girl mumbled.
Jeralt's eyes slightly widened as he saw Byleth's lips turn slightly upward. It wasn't a trick of the eye, he knew that. From the moment they met until she passed, Sitri hardly ever smiled unless she was with someone important to her and he had to train himself to be able to see her smiles.
And Byleth never smiled for anything. Not even at the gift she had selflessly given away to this girl. And while it was selfish of him, he wanted to keep something, anything, that would bring that small smile back to his daughter's face.
Even if that meant extra responsibility.
Besides, Sitri would kill him if he had just left without taking the girl with him.
"Tell me," Jeralt spoke to the purple-haired girl. "What is your name?"
"S-Shez," the girl shyly replied only to sniffle seconds later.
"Alright. You'll be coming with me from now on. Understand?" Jeralt asked her.
Shez nodded.
"Good," Jeralt finalized. "Welcome to the Eisner family. I promise to treat you well."
Fifteen Years Later...
Chaos was something that most mercenaries expected and thrived on when it came to battle. Unlike the armies that most noblemen lead, where there were rules of engagement, war rooms, and military tactics, mercenaries didn't have that.
Why should they?
A battle was wild and unpredictable as the wind itself and in the middle of it, all of those rules and tactics went out of the window as the will to survive another day superseded all of that mindless drivel.
Jeralt's Mercenaries were different.
Jeralt often entered engagements with precise planning after studying their target or targets for weeks on end. He never let anything go to chance and always had several backup plans if the main plan didn't succeed.
It was this nature of planning that added to the fearsome and growing legacy of his mercenary group, The Hungry Wolves of Leicester.
One of Jeralt's favorite tactics was what he called, "Midnight Hounds." Where he and his mercenaries would sneak into the enemy camp or village and strike while everyone was at their weakest. It was a tried and true method that yielded perfect results every time.
However, on this night, he did not plan on being on the receiving end of his own favored tactic. "Tonight is the night the Hungry Wolves become pelts on my floor!" Captain Berling's voice thundered through the chaos of battle.
Jeralt's blade ran through the gut of the invading mercenary, where he then put his feet on their chest and pushed their body back while unsheathing his sword from their body. He turned around and blocked a downward swing from another mercenary and landed a left hook to their face, sending them to the ground, where he swiftly stabbed them through their neck.
Jeralt had to admit, Berling and her mercenaries had chosen a perfect time to strike. He and his Hungry Wolves had just finished an assignment and were still cleaning their wounds from the battle the previous night.
She must have been observing them well.
And from her standpoint, it was also the perfect time to attack as Jeralt's special weapons and a small portion of his group were still in the nearby village, gathering supplies to help heal some of their wounded mercenaries. "Hold them off!" Jeralt commanded as he pulled his silver sword from the neck of the deceased man beneath him and then charged forward.
Blade met flesh as Jeralt slashed and stabbed through several oncoming enemies, blood splattering against his clothes, his face, and even his hair. He had to hold out long enough for the others to arrive. Jeralt saw one of his wounded men fighting valiantly to hold off two of Berling's mercenaries and immediately made his presence felt by grabbing an axe that had been embedded in the torso of one of Berling's men, lifting it, and then tossing it, all while keeping his momentum going.
The axe sailed through the air and collided with the head of the mercenary, sending blood flying into the air upon impact. As the first mercenary fell, the second turned around, only for Jeralt's blade to cleave their head off of their shoulders.
Jeralt didn't even bother to look at the body fall as he turned to the wounded man and asked, "Are you alright? Can you still fight?"
His soldier nodded and said, "I can't feel my left arm, but I can still fight these guys."
Jeralt looked at the man's arm and noticed that the arm was barely attached to the man's body. He wanted to tell his soldier to stand down, he decided that who was he to decide that he knew the man's body better than himself?
"Alright," Jeralt said. "I took out a few of Berling's men already. Just keep an eye out and stay safe. We'll fight these ambushers off, I prom—"
"The Ashen Demon! We have to fa—Ahhh!" A voice cried from the other end of their camp.
Jeralt smirked.
"Well, looks like they've finally returned," he noted with a proud tone.
"Um, Captain, we have a situation."
Captain Clarabella Avaliar Berling turned her intense gaze to her soldier, who she noted looked frightfully pale and shaken. "What is it? Can't you see I'm planning my next move?" Berling questioned, her amber eyes incensed at the interruption.
She was on the cusp of putting down the most renowned mercenaries in Leicester. She did not need any distractions. "The Ashen Demon and the Violet whirlwind have arrived," the man reported.
Berling's eyes widened in horror.
"No, that can't be right. Our spy said that they would be gone for another day," Berling told him.
The man opened his mouth to speak when screams began to filter in from the west.
"The Demon and the Whirlwind! They're here!"
"We have to pull back!"
"No! No!"
Berling gritted her teeth and slipped her helmet back on her head. The Ashen Demon and the Violet Manslayer. The two names, along with the Blade Breaker, made the Hungry Wolves of Leicester both renowned and feared throughout all of Fódlan.
All of that planning to get those two out of the village to deal with the famed Jeralt Reus Eisner was all for naught. But she wouldn't let that deter her.
She was put in this world to become to lead the greatest mercenary group in all of Fódlan, and she refused to allow fear into her heart. She marched over to her horse, climbed on top of it, and grabbed her bow. "Gather all of the men to where those were located. I will not end this night without their heads at my feet!"
"Well, looks like we have quite a party. Be a shame if we crashed it, don't you think?"
Byleth Eisner turned their head to gaze at her younger sister with a hint of a smile.
The two of them had easily cleared out the west side of their camp of the intruders and Byleth could easily see that her sister was raring to go again. Byleth could feel the faint burst of something pleasant whenever she saw her sister excited. "I wonder who'll get the most kills this time," Shez pondered.
"If you are too slow, I am sure that I will be the victor of that," Byleth replied.
"Taunt all you want, but I got this in the bag. Especially now that I got my dual-wielding down," Shez bragged.
"Dual wielding," Byleth started. She had battled a few people that dual-wielded weapons and found them showy. She preferred either her fists or her sword. She needed nothing more than that. However…. "I am looking forward to seeing how your secret training with Father in developing this type of fighting style pays off," Byleth finished.
"It'll pay off tons, Sis, just watch," Shez replied with a smile. "Oh, look, here comes the guests."
Byleth noticed that a large group of men heading their way and that pleasant feeling vanished underneath the thick fog of cold indifference.
"Focus, Shez," Byleth instructed as she moved her right hand to the hilt of her sheathed sword that rested on her left hip.
Shez held onto the hilts of her two iron swords, each one sitting on each side of her hips. "Let's get serious then," Shez replied with a serious expression.
"Yes. Let's," Byleth replied.
Byleth nodded and slowly walked forward as Shez withdrew both of her swords and let the tips of the blades scrape against the ground.
Suddenly, the sisters sprinted ahead, with Byleth's sword still in its sheath, but her grip on the hilt tightening. Finally, as she reached the first mercenary, she removed her iron sword with a slash, instantly cutting the neck of the first mercenary.
Shez jumped over her with an excited shout and swung both of her swords down in a cross-motion, slicing the neck of two mercenaries.
Byleth ran around Shez and proceeded to cut the arm off of the mercenary that swung their blade, and then followed up with twirling her blade to adopt the reverse grip and slice the neck of the mercenary, turning her screams into a dying gurgle.
Keeping her blade in the reverse grip, she blocked the swing aimed at her head by another mercenary, only for Shez's left iron sword to move beneath her extended right arm to stab the man in the neck. "Got your back," Shez announced as she withdrew her blade from the man's neck and then charged forward.
Byleth reoriented her blade and moved on as well, wasting no time in ducking a wide swing from a mercenary to stab them in the chest. Byleth noticed that Shez was battling two mercenaries and was impressed at how quick her swings were in both striking and defending with each blade.
A feeling of something filled Byleth's chest as she observed her sister. Her sister was unlike everything Byleth was. She was as wild and untamed as the wind, and her new dual-wielding style reflected that.
Shez had grown into this whirlwind of chaos and Byleth wouldn't change anything about her.
Byleth was snapped out of her brief thoughts when she noticed a man running from the left in Shez's blind spot as her sister stabbed through one mercenary's face and stabbed the other in the chest.
Byleth pushed the dying man back into a group of oncoming mercenaries while taking his sword out of his hand and throwing it as if it was a dart at the mercenary heading towards Shez, striking them in the middle of the forehead just as her sister noticed.
Shez turned around in surprise and then turned to Byleth as Byleth felt a pleased feeling in her chest. "As I have yours," Byleth replied, following up on Shez's statement from moments before. Shez grinned and Byleth quickly moved forward to continue clearing their camp.
Shez's blades moved in tandem as she swung them both at a downward angle to slice through a mercenary's neck and chest. She then kicked the mercenary back, jumped onto their chest, and used their falling body as a springboard to land beside her sister.
Shez quickly used her right sword to swipe away a mercenary's swing and then stabbed them in the middle of their face with her left sword. She pulled her left sword back while twirling it into a reverse grip and stabbed another opponent in the neck that tried to attack her from behind.
She pulled her left sword out only to use it to block a downward swing that could have very well split her head in two. Shez quickly swung her right sword to cut the neck of her opponent and then kicked them back.
Only to see a large axe barrelling down toward her from a large mercenary. Shez lifted both swords and crossed them, blocking the axehead mere inches above her head.
The mercenary gritted and tried to force the axe down on Shez but Shez lifted her food and kicked in between the mercenary's legs, causing him to lurch forward from the blow where she quickly kneed him in the face.
The mercenary staggered back, with the blow of Shez's knee sending the upper half of his body whirling into the air. Shez seized her chance and closed the distance to stab the man in the chest with both swords.
The hulking man gurgled his last breath and Shez pushed the tall man over, where his body fell with a slam. Shez panted and looked ahead at her sister and despite the situation, she couldn't help but admire her sister.
Most would mistake Byleth as a common mercenary, but she was anything but. She acted without hesitation and without mercy, bringing death to many that have earned it and maybe some that didn't. Shez knew that sometimes when she stared into her sister's eyes, she could see something akin to guilt or remorse, but most of the time, she would see nothing.
Because as Shez watched her sister systematically decimate their enemy's forces, she is reminded that killing is an art form and that Byleth was its master.
And it only made Shez want to try harder to keep up with her sister's pace. Shez withdrew her swords from the dead man's chest and quickly made her way further into their camp, not wasting a single movement as she hacked and slashed any opponent that came her way.
She had to keep up.
She had to.
After dispatching five more mercenaries, Byleth picked up a discarded sword on the ground with her right arm, held it in the reverse grip, and delivered an upward slash at her next opponent's chest.
Without missing a beat, she angled the sword down and stabbed it into his chest while grabbing his sword-falling sword with her left hand to slice the necks of two mercenaries that came to her left.
Byleth let go of the sword as she spun around, grabbed the hilt with her right-hand mid-spin, and launched it forward once she was oriented, where it pierced the chest of a mercenary charging at her.
Byleth ran forward to a mercenary, sidestepped the lunge of his sword, and landed two jabs to his face, only to grab the sides of his head to bring it down to her right knee.
As the mercenary crumbled, she tucked her right finger beneath his helm and pulled it off of his head to throw it at the next incoming mercenary, distracting them long enough for Byleth to charge forward while grabbing a hand axe that was stuck in a tree stump with her left hand, and cleaving a large gash in his neck.
Byleth stepped forward and raised the axe at the mercenaries, who staggered back with fear. "If you value your lives, this is the only chance to prove it," Byleth warned. "Otherwise, there will be no guarantee for your safety past the next two minutes."
The men hung on her every word as Byleth continued her slow approach. "You want to live? Drop your weapons and leave. Let's not continue this hopeless battle."
"This bitch is trying to psych us out!" One of the mercenaries exclaimed.
"On the contrary," The woman corrected. "I am doing the kindest thing imaginable right now, and this is giving all of you a chance to end this amicably. All you must do is drop your weapons and walk away."
"And if we refuse?!" One of the men barked.
"Then….What shall I tell your families?" The woman asked.
She heard her sister skid to a stop beside her but she didn't make a move.
Not yet.
Byleth then heard something whistling through the air before an arrow fell at her feet.
"What do you all think you're doing?!" A voice bellowed out. The group of mercenaries parted and a bow knight road forward. Byleth immediately knew that this person was their leader and without hesitation, Byleth lifted her axe and launched it at the knight, causing the axe to wedge itself in the knight's face.
The knight's body slumped and then fell off the horse, which caused the mercenaries to gasp in horror.
Shez whistled, clearly impressed, and said, "Wow, that was a quick one."
"Well?" Byleth questioned, her voice filling up the air around them. "What is your decision?"
"Father, when I say they all ran, they all ran," Shez finished recounting to Jeralt with an excited tone in her voice.
The sun was now rising on Fódlan and Jeralt and his daughters were now together after a long night of cleaning and burying the bodies of both their enemies and their allies from the night's chaos.
"You both did a wonderful job," Jeralt said with a proud smile. "It's because of your timely arrival that we only lost a handful of men. A small dent but a recoverable one."
Shez gave a bright smile while Byleth nodded with a faint smile. "What shall happen next?" Byleth asked.
"Well, we were called for a mission in the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus," Jeralt answered with a hint of displeasure. "We'll be stopping to rest in Remire Village. Which is the halfway point. So after we rest, that'll be our next location…."
"You sound displeased, Father," Byleth noted.
"It's a long story," Jeralt sighed. "For now, let's just get some rest. You two have certainly earned it."
Violet: Until the next chapter!