Okay, so there WILL be elements of a certain popular Slime anime, but she won't meet Rimuru or the others just yet. However she will become as OP as Rimuru, the difference is that she's more focused on AVOIDING her original kingdom rather than building one.
Also, if you're wondering about the title of the chapter, it's: Reincarnated as a Fledgeling Time Goddess
Today was the day. The day everything would change. She was turning fifteen, and to be honest it had been a painful wait.
She adjusted her special gloves. Like hell was she going to be a stereotypical 'damsel in distress'. She had trained her ass off to insure she would survive this.
Beside her, a pair who could be mistaken for twins at first glance were dressed in such a way to indicate they were high ranking servants of some type. They were the sole reason she hadn't gone insane by this point.
"My lady, it is time. The spell is ready for you to activate. The guards have been bespelled to notice nothing," said the female of the two.
"Thank you Chrome. Mukuro?" she inquired.
The male of the two had a devious, and slightly terrifying smirk on his face.
"The curse has been set. Once the blood offering is made, the second that fool or anyone else in his line steps foot in this place they'll regret it in short order," he replied.
"Good, it wouldn't do for that man to mistake me as forgiving for the stunt he pulled," she said.
She walked the window. Putting one foot on the window sill, she calmly stepped to the edge. Chrome had everything she planned to keep on her...it wouldn't do to be distracted by items falling from her bag, or for it to get caught. Mukuro had a bag as well, with a potion inside for once she reached the bottom.
This was one princess who wasn't about to wait for some prince to show up. She had better things to do with her time than that.
She grabbed hold of her makeshift rope, and calmly began the trip down. It wasn't nearly long enough to reach the bottom...but it made scaling the tower much easier.
It barely reached a third of the way down. The small loop at the bottom gave her a chance to find a good hand hold to grab onto, before she began the hard part. Rock climbing was difficult without the proper safety equipment, but not impossible. She had trained her body up specifically to handle this before she even attempted it, using the inner walls as a baseline because they were smoother and thus harder to scale.
If she could scale her way up and down those walls with no issue, despite being professionally smoothed over to make it more visually appealing, then the outside was considerably easier since appearance didn't matter nearly as much.
It took her six long, rather painful hours to scale down the tower. Chrome had insured the guards below wouldn't see her leave or climb down.
Touching the grass in the first time for over ten years was almost overwhelming. But she could enjoy the sensation later...right now she had to leave to set the spell for maximum impact. The moon was rather full and she'd rather not waste this opportunity.
She calmly made her way across the courtyard, to the side entrance where food was delivered, and waited. The door opened silently, as it had been greased this morning by Mukuro. The guards were oblivious...they didn't even sense when she set the concealment spell on the tower or the curse being applied since they didn't have the right requirements to set it off.
By morning she was long gone, and the guards switched over with no one the wiser of what had transpired.
Dawn's light revealed the figure who had escaped.
Her hair was roughly cut, and uneven in several places...not that she cared. Her eyes were an amber color and her skin was very pale from lack of proper sunlight. However her body was lithe and toned, because she took extra care to insure it wouldn't be weakened from captivity.
"It feels so good to have the fresh air around me again! And the sun! It's so bright!" said the young woman.
"My lady, are the clothes I acquired to your tastes?" asked Chrome.
She cheerfully went up to the girl and patted her on the head, making Chrome blink before a calm smile appeared on her face.
"They were very well made, my little Chrome. And they were perfect for scaling that awful tower," she replied.
"What name shall we call you by, my lady?" asked Mukuro politely.
"Hmm...since it wouldn't do to jog that man's memory too early, how about Rena. After all, the extra children of nobility going into adventuring is positively common enough that no one would bother asking too many questions."
The two made a polite bow... before disappearing into her shadow. Rena looked at the sky and felt only freedom...it was past time for her to see the world and enjoy her new lease on life.
It would be quite some time before anyone registered her disappearance.
If there was one thing Xanxus hated, it was unknowns. And this particular unknown had been bothering him for five years now.
The only thing he knew was that this person was using long range casting, and was very powerful. Powerful enough that there should be no way in hell he didn't already know of them. They clearly favored the Varia Elite... barriers would spring up out of nowhere against dangerous opponents before they could deliver nasty injuries that would put them out of commission for weeks, mysterious healing spells would appear above their healing wing during times when there were too many injured and not enough beds to go around, and how could he possibly forget the incident with the arch demon. One minute the bastard was playing with them, the next he was screaming as holy magic hit him like a mountain to the face and his own powers were weakened to the point it was child's play to kill him.
So yes, he was very curious as to who the mysterious caster was.
So, unfortunately, was that dick Iemitsu. The man was scum, and if it wasn't for the fact that the king favored him Xanxus would have dealt with the prick years ago.
Xanxus knew there was a mole in his organization. Three time he had found the investigative pricks watching their actions a little too closely for their presence to be a coincidence. And there had been rumors of one of the higher ups in the kingdom potentially being a traitor.
The problem was quite a bit of the rumors were implying the Varia were being lead by a traitor.
Xanxus was being called in by the king. At one time he mistook the man for his father, but recent events had lead him to realize that was not the case. He had simply seen potential and used that delusion to insure his loyalty to the royal family.
He knew very quickly that the king suspected him of being the traitor. All the work of the mystery caster was being used against him...seeing Ottabio's smug face insured that if he managed to talk his way out of this, that prick was a dead man.
Xanxus knew he was screwed...the king had never liked the necessity of their group, and he had always favored Iemitsu's assholes if he had to chose between the two.
King Timoteo was about to use the magic of the royal family on the 'traitor'...Xanxus was too well liked and too powerful to kill him directly. So he would freeze him, trapped in time until he became necessary once more...and as a way to keep his men in line until they could be discreetly 'replaced'.
Xanxus prepared for what was to come...however seconds before the magic hit him, something happened.
A circle appeared from under Xanxus...one with a very familiar feeling of magic. It was the same magic the king was employing to punish the 'traitor'. It canceled out the king's spell with ridiculous ease.
Timoteo stood up from his throne in shock.
Only those of royal blood could use the time-based magic...and it would take someone of considerable power to be able to cancel out the king's magic, particularly since it was bolstered by the royal artifact.
None of his sons or those of the Primo's bloodline were strong enough to do this...at least those he knew of.
Xanxus felt a teleportation spell being activated above him and tensed.
Two people appeared on either side of him...they were the mismatched 'twins' that he had come to associate with the mystery caster. Occasionally they would make 'deliveries' that would benefit his group in some way.
"Come Lord Xanxus. Our Lady is eagerly waiting for you,"said the male twin.
"She is rather eager to meet you properly," agreed the female.
He felt a barrier around him, shielding him from the nasty side effects of the teleportation.
He disappeared from the throne room, leaving only chaos and confusion behind.
In another land...
Xanxus woke up to the feeling of grass and the scent of the sea.
"Good job, Mukuro, Chrome," said a young female voice.
"Of course, my lady," said Mukuro. Xanxus lifted his head in time to see him do a polite bow to a girl in a white robe. She had a staff by her side, and it was clear this was the mystery caster.
She was young... she must have only reached adulthood within the past year or two. Which meant if she was his mysterious savior, then it was all the more extraordinary.
She had long caramel colored hair, and under her clothing was well worn, but well loved adventuring gear. And not the overly pretentious stuff either...this was all stuff someone who took adventuring seriously would buy and wear.
"Who... are you?" asked Xanxus now that he had his bearings.
"Call me Rena, I'm a C ranked...well, soon to be B once that stupid paperwork goes through...adventurer. You've already met Mukuro and Chrome, my familiars."
"Kufufufu..." said Mukuro, his laughter sounding downright sinister.
If that 'kid' wasn't at least an archdemon, Xanxus would eat his weapons. It hadn't taken him long to figure out what the two were...the only question had been how strong they actually were.
"Why did you help me?" asked Xanxus.
"Have you ever heard the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend'?" asked Rena calmly.
"Yes," said Xanxus...it was a phrase that had taken off thanks to some Otherworlders.
"Let's just say we share a mutual hatred for a certain jackass, and that anything I can do to inconvenience him in ways to drive him to fury is worth doing," said Rena dryly.
"Our lady does not like the Vongola investigative branch," clarified Chrome. "Any mention of that creature's name is liable to send her into a cold fury."
Translation: the girl had a major, and knowing that bastard, well justified grudge against Iemitsu.
He could live with this.
It was painfully obvious in the first few hours he spent with Rena that she was lonely. Almost soul-crushingly so.
The only 'friends' she could genuinely claim were her familiars, as she found it hard to really connect with people. Whatever Iemitsu had done to her had damaged her in some way that people could sense.
On the outside she was perfectly pleasant, but inside there was something 'off' about her.
Perhaps it was just the fact that people could sense the overwhelming power hiding inside her. Xanxus had a special skill that let him rank people according to their actual strength... something he naturally didn't advertise except to those who had gone above and beyond to prove their loyatly.
And this girl... if properly provoked and trained, was on par with a Catastrophe-class monster. She wasn't even 17 yet!
It felt rather nice...being called "big brother" by someone could could easily devastate entire countries if pissed off. It got even better when she casually called him "Vel"...as a homage to the infamous Storm Dragon, Veldora.
Traveling around the countryside with Rena was downright relaxing. He didn't have to reign in any crazies, he was able to take on normal requests that didn't require too much work, and more importantly he didn't have to deal with the snide comments of the royal court.
He even found out how she knew when they needed the extra help...she had a unique skill called "Eyes of Delphi" which gave her the ability to scry into far off lands while using a mirror. It was surreal being able to see real time how his men were doing.
By this point she had long distance casting to an art. Seeing Squalo's face when he read the note written in Xanxus' own hand (and the personal code only he would use) was hilarious.
Rena looked at him expectantly. If he wanted, he could return right away to his men. The problem was that the royal family (Timoteo's side anyway) were still convinced he was a traitor.
Daniela was already investigating who the mystery caster was... all children of royal blood should have been found and listed in the family tree, so the fact there was someone this strong that they didn't know about bothered her greatly.
Xanxus debated his options, then looked at Rena who looked resigned to being alone.
"Screw it, I'm on vacation," he said flatly. "If and when someone clears my name, then I'll consider going back. I'll just be frozen if I return right now."
"You mean it?" said Rena. Her expression of hope was almost painful to look at.
"Like I'm going to let my little sister wander around on quests half-trained. I'm going to make you quality and get some overdue time off," said Xanxus. Her fighting style was clearly self taught, and she could be so much better with actual training.
Rena beamed at him, and he could see the surprised approval of her demonic familiars.
He just never expected the chaos that came from being around Rena. Not that he cared anyway.