"Hmm," the armored man said. "I was expecting you to have some immunity to the poisoned smoke I directed into your path, manakete. But you, human? I'm surprised. Most humans would either have passed out or would be fed incomprehensible gibberish by their eyes."
"Except for you," Monica responded.
"But of course," the armored man confirmed. "I spent three years building an immunity to Na'man smoke."
"I assume you're with the Yiga?" Monica said. "If you think you can beat us with dirty tricks and poison, well, ask how well that worked out for the Viper."
The armored man simply laughed. "You insult me. The Viper? The Viper was an imbecile. A nobody who thought he was a somebody. A fool who thought being able to harvest Manhandla venom made him an elite. I'm glad he's dead. No, you aren't facing a pathetic slug like the Viper."
"Who are we facing, then?" Flayn asked. Clearly, this Yiga member was a talker. While Claude had described Sooga II the same way, Sooga II had been a proud warrior. This Yiga was different; he was an egotist who wanted acknowledgement.
"I am the Raven," the man introduced himself. "The Yiga Clan's greatest master of sorcery, and one of Master Kohga's Circle of Six."
"The Raven," Monica didn't seem impressed. "Do all of the Yiga give themselves pretentious titles? Because Sooga didn't seem like he was about that sort of thing, and he's the only Yiga Clan member I've felt remotely threatened by since the path off the Great Plateau."
The Raven smirked. "Very well. It seems I will have to teach you a lesson." With that, he cast a spell, and the air was clouded with mist. Monica and Flayn went to attack him, but he had vanished from where he had been standing.
His voice seemed to come from everywhere when he next spoke. "A lesson in fear."
"You think we're impressed by parlor tricks?" Monica asked. "Mist and voice-throwing. Any remotely competent mage where we're from can do that!"
That wasn't completely true. Mist spells were intermediate-level magic. Few mages could perform them without proper training. But the Raven didn't need to know that.
Suddenly, shadows appeared in the mist. Monica deflected a sword slash from one direction, while Flayn dodged a blow from another. She tried casting a Cutting Gale spell to retaliate, but it hit nothing at all.
The mist grew ever thicker, and soon Flayn couldn't even see Monica. Taking her Zora spear from her back, Flayn tried using a light spell to see through the mist. However, it seemed to have barely any effect at all.
And then Flayn felt a presence behind her. She turned around and quickly stabbed a figure in the mists.
However, instead of the Raven, she saw her father impaled on her spear.
"Flayn, why?" he asked weakly, as the life faded from his face. Flayn quickly withdrew her spear, and her father's body fell to the deck.
"No, this isn't real!" Flayn protested. "You're trying to trick me!"
"But you thought, even for an instant, that it might be," spoke the Raven as Seteth's corpse faded from existence. "And if I can make you see that, what else can I make you see?"
Flayn realized he was right. Her eyes were useless in this battle. Worse than useless, in fact. This time, there had been no one on the end of her spear. But if the Raven could trick her into attacking someone who wasn't there, he could trick her into attacking someone she didn't want to attack.
"And now you understand." The Raven's voice was smug. "Can you even afford to fight back against me? Not knowing if, when you think you are killing me, you might be making a mistake you could never take back?"
"Then why didn't you try it?" Flayn asked. "Why didn't you trick me into killing one of my friends?"
The Raven laughed, amused. "How do you know I didn't?"
Flayn looked back at where the illusion of her father's corpse had been. There was still nothing there. She tried feeling where the body had seemingly fallen with her leg. Nothing.
The Raven's laugh grew louder. "You believed me again! No, I didn't trick you into killing anyone else yet. But at any moment, that could change."
"If you can, why haven't you?" Flayn asked. "You could have already killed everyone on this ship. Why wait?"
"Because I'm not sure if I want to," the Raven answered. "The Yiga Clan was promised great rewards for helping Ganon ascend. But I don't trust Ganon to keep that promise. Why ask for what I can take, after all? Or force someone to give me, at any rate. So, what can you offer me to let you live?"
Flayn thought through what she could offer the Raven. Only one thing came to mind. "If you let us go, I can give you immortality."
"Hmm, tempting," the Raven mused.
"Plus, increased physical strength and proficiency in Faith magic," Flayn added. When the Raven didn't respond, she added, "And I know some of the principles of making a Sacred Weapon! As skilled a sorcerer as you are, I'm sure you'll be able to figure out what I'm missing!" That was a lie. She didn't know a thing about making Sacred Weapons. That had been Uncle Macuil's skill. But by the time the Raven figured that out, the rest of the Rising Sun Company would have defeated Ganon.
There was a good chance he would figure out he could make the perfect magic weapon if he fashioned it from her heart and bones. But she didn't have a choice, did she?
"Very well, you've convinced me," the Raven said. "I have a personal hideaway that the Clan doesn't know about. I'll take you there. If you cooperate, I'll leave your friends be and never bother them again." The Raven cast a Silence spell on Flayn, keeping her from using magic, then stepped out of the mist and grabbed her arm.
However, to both of their surprise, Monica's dagger buried itself in the Raven's neck. The Raven fell over, dead, and the mist began to clear.
Flayn turned to thank Monica, only to see that the woman holding the dagger was not Monica. She was around the same height, had red hair and red eyes, and was wearing the same clothes, but Flayn was reasonably sure Monica didn't have skin the color of ashes.
This woman was an Agarthan.
Flayn's first instinct was that this was another of the Raven's illusions. That the woman really was Monica, and that the Raven had cast an illusion to make her look like an Agarthan to trick Flayn into trying to kill her. But the Raven was dead. His other illusions had vanished when he had died.
"Monica?" Flayn asked.
The woman who might have been Monica took a step back, her face contorting in fear. She jumped off the bow of the ship onto the beach, and ran as if her life depended on it.
"This is bad, this is very, very bad," Kronya thought.
The Raven's illusions had been indistinguishable from reality, but Impa had taught her a technique that could easily dispel illusions. The only problem was that it didn't discriminate between illusions that she did want to dispel and ones that she didn't. She had hoped that she could have reapplied her Monica disguise, then killed the Raven without anyone having been the wiser.
But then he had gotten ahold of Flayn, and if she hadn't acted immediately, he would have gotten away with her, and the Company might never have been able to find them again.
So she had killed the Raven, but Flayn had seen her true face. After that, there was nothing to do left but run.
Where would she go? Certainly she couldn't go back to the Company. Claude might stick up for her, but he was regarded as the most morally-dubious member of the Company, so that would mean nothing. Everyone else certainly wouldn't be so understanding.
She would find someplace to stay for now. Somewhere out of the Rising Sun Company's path. She would figure out what to do.
Empty Night, was she crying?