Nameless Chapter 19

Thank goodness the battle on deck didn't last long. Dist was the God-General in the floating chair from Choral Castle and it was his men who boarded the ferry to attack. Not that there were very many of them. Dist himself turned out to be a small threat. A quick Splash arte from Jade was all it took really to disable the machine that Dist used. Even with her newfound ability to use fonons, she watched as Jade, Guy, Luke, and Anise nearly dumped the robot suit back into the ocean. Just like her, Tear hung back, shaking her head at the absurdity of the whole thing.

But that was merely a short diversion and it was back to the hell that was Raine's own thoughts.

It wouldn't surprise Raine if her frustration was palpable across the whole ship. No one bothered her when she returned to her sleeping quarters, not even Guy. She found herself pacing around the room.

In a way, she was glad for Dist's interference. She learned a lot more about Jade. He and Dist knew each other, at one point even calling each other friends, if what Dist said was true. By Jade's reaction, Raine believed it was. Not only that, but Jade gave up the fon disc documents, willingly. Since Sync took the disc back from Guy at Chesedonia, they no longer had information from what was going on with the God-Generals or possibly that machine at Choral Castle.

That damn colonel did it on purpose.

He didn't want them to know what else was in those documents. If he had nothing to do with what was going on or what happened to Luke, Raine wanted to know why so many points added up against his word.

As infuriating as his lies were, they weren't what bothered her the most.

The Tethe'allans had completely forgotten about summon spirits and, likely by extension, the Journey of Regeneration. How was that even possible?!

Perhaps she was just losing her mind.

Then, she thought about what Ion had said. Over time we'd forget they truly did exist.

Perhaps Tethe'alla had, at some point, abandoned the Church of Martel, which had been usurped by the Order of Lorelei. Was it possible the Order was formed to fight back against Desians should they return? Or did they decide the Journey of Regeneration was no longer needed and so was forgotten because Sylvarant had failed the journey so many times and it became unnecessary? Sheena had said Sylvarant had lost the art of summoning, but apparently Tethe'alla had, too. Except for where Sheena was from.

Maybe the Order of Lorelei had so thoroughly squashed the Church of Martel that the only way to preserve Tethe'alla was to keep it secret, form a quiet faction of believers. After all, the Church of Martel didn't have any form of militia and clearly the Order of Lorelei did. Was it possible that Sheena was from that hidden faction somewhere? Her clothes had looked familiar as from people who no one knew where they lived.

Raine vaguely remembered asking her mother about them, but Virginia didn't have an answer about them or where they lived. All Raine knew was that her own home village was hidden, too. If Sheena's fellow kinsmen were the only ones who carried on the tradition, that would explain why Tethe'alla had forgotten about the Summon Spirits and why Sheena didn't. More than that, Sheena would of course be in contact with the king. Then maybe the Imperial Research Academy truly did exist, but only people from the hidden village knew of it. By extension, Sheena would also know who was the Chosen of Tethe'alla, which of course she admitted to having met them before.

Was that person also part of the hidden faction? Or how did Cruxis ensure the Chosen's lineage? Was there perhaps some way Cruxis found to work within the Order of Lorelei to pursue their end goals? After all, that's what the Renegades had done to Cruxis and the Desians. If that was truly the case, who was part of Cruxis? Who was part of the Renegades? Who would be safe to talk to about the Journey of Regeneration and Sylvarant?

She sat down at the table in her bunker but then stood up again, unable to sit still. Perhaps one of the main differences between Ion and Mohs was the difference between Martel and the Order…. Ion didn't want to say much, but he did say Mohs was more traditional. So which faction supported Martel? And which one didn't? Which one knew about Sylvarant's Chosen and the Journey of Regeneration and which one didn't? Or did they both know and one supported the Church of Martel while the other worked to destroy it?

Ion would be a good person to ask, but she knew better. Without knowing which faction Ion worked for, it would be too dangerous to let him know she knew anything about it. As the head of the Order, Ion would definitely know something, but if she let on that she knew about the Church of Martel, Cruxis, the Journey of Regeneration, or even Sylvarant, there was absolutely no guarantee that she wouldn't disappear as a result. And where she would disappear to, she didn't even want to speculate. After all, Guy's reaction to thinking any elves were alive was indicative enough. Wherever the elves went, the people have since been told they were gone. The one elven village that she remembered and was born in, she didn't want to speculate about what happened to it, or to the people who lived there.

But then she stopped pacing, right where she was. Raine wouldn't get answers out of Ion about the Church of Martel, but she could get some more information from Guy….

This time, Raine didn't bother to knock and just entered. Luke rested his head on the table, completely bored until she walked in. Guy lay in the bunk with an arm draped across his eyes, except he didn't move. Raine approached him and pulled back the drape to see him better.

"Can I ask you about Sheena?"

"AH!" Guy hit his head on the upper bunk as he scrambled to get away. Since there was nowhere to really go, he ended up tangled in his bedding and scrunched into the bunk.

"Oh, sorry. I forgot." Raine stepped back and stood next to Luke.

"What's up with that all of a sudden?" Luke asked as Guy spilled from his bunk to the floor. He stood up, clutching his chest with the blanket slipping off of his shoulder. He panted heavily, gradually calming.

"I thought you'd just left," Guy told Luke when he had the breath to speak. "I didn't think anyone had come in."

"I'm sorry," Raine said. "But I really want to know."

"Know?" He picked up the blanket, balled it up, and threw it back into the bunk.

"About Sheena."

Guy faced her again. "Sure, but… I know nothing about her. I mean, other than what you've told me."

"The king knows her," Raine said. "I don't expect a servant to." Not anymore, anyway.

"Maybe not, but if His Majesty knows her, Princess Natalia would know her, too. She's never said anything about her around me. Have you heard of her, Luke?"

Luke shook his head. "If I had, I don't remember."

Was that maybe an explanation? Raine wondered. Or was the princess sworn to the same secrecy as everyone else? "I've never met the princess. Would she be opposed to assassinations even for the benefit of her country?"

"As-assassination?" Luke stood up, too. "Of course she'd be opposed to that!" Guy nodded in agreement.

A sense of calm finally took over her. "Then that's why." There was an explanation. If the king wasn't willing to tell his own daughter about this plan, he likely wouldn't tell her about the Church of Martel either. If he did, he wasn't telling her everything, which meant there was a strong possibility Raine was right. Hence, the Order really could have subverted the Church of Martel. Sheena must not have had much experience with the Order, which was possible if she grew up in a hidden village away from that madness. Could that also be why no one thinks elves were alive?

"Who would Sheena want to assassinate, though?" Luke asked.

Guy went quiet, staring at her with fresh eyes. He wanted to question it, but he clearly wasn't sure what to say. He finally lowered his eyes. "You're... you're not an assassin, are you?"

"Of course not."

"So you're just friends with one." But something about the way he held his eyes, avoiding her as Luke said that, something was a bit off.

She shrugged. "It wasn't an easy friendship to forge." He raised an eyebrow but she refused to elaborate. "I would assume, though, that with the state of things, the princess has likely heard of her now. Perhaps you'll get to meet her someday."

"No thanks. Women are scary enough as they are."

"Why would anyone want to meet a known assassin?" Luke asked, but Guy cut in with an observation.

"You never did answer who she's after."

Raine sighed. "No one you've ever heard of, I'm sure." He still waited. She might as well answer, she decided. "She tried to kill the ch—one of my students."

"Your student…?"

"It doesn't matter. We shouldn't kill people just because." Luke truly was a special-hearted human. What would his reaction be if she told him the truth? She supposed she would never know. His anger dissipated when he saw the tears forming in her eyes. "H-hey…" He blushed.

"I agree with you," Raine said softly. "Defending yourself against a threat is one thing, but taking innocent lives just because you can is another."

"I'm getting a clearer picture of how you grew up," Guy said, "but definitely not where. Wasn't there anywhere you could go where you felt safe?"

"How can I? I've been persecuted from both sides."

"Both sides...?" Then something seemed to occur to him and he glanced at Luke before he met her eyes again. "So, is your student safe from Sheena now?"

Raine sensed the fishing. "I trust Sheena with her life." But that was enough of that. Guy was asking too many questions again. "Excuse me." She left both of them standing in sheer confusion.

With enough boredom, Luke wandered off, leaving Guy alone in his bunk. After their conversation with Jade about the disc, Guy was absolutely sure Luke was replaced with a replica. Luke was kidnapped and returned as basically a brand-new human being. His personality changed, he had no memories, and he could never recall anything from before his kidnapping, why, he even changed from being right-handed to left! The reason Luke behaved like an infant when he came home was because he actually was an infant.

Absolutely everything about him made sense now.

Replicas were definitely not common and fomicry experiments on living things were banned many years ago, and if it wasn't for Anise reminding him of it, he wondered if he ever would've remembered. Banning a practice, though, didn't mean someone wouldn't try on their own.

And it wasn't just Luke….

Sync had Ion's face and Raine was mysterious as all hell. Were they both replicas, too? Which would mean Ion had been kidnapped at some point, though he never heard of news like that. A missing Fon Master would've raised a lot of turmoil politically... unless it was covered up. He didn't have any other clues about Sync to know for sure, though.

Guy shook his head at his list of Raine's facts, held up against the backdrop of the bunk above him. Looking at this list through the eyes of a human made no sense, but when he thought about her as a replica, just like with Luke, a lot of things suddenly connected. She knew where she was born and wouldn't say where, in fact lying that she didn't remember, simply a village in the middle of a forest. Such a place didn't exist that he knew of, but it could be true if they were conducting illegal fomicry experiments there. She had to keep running because she knew someone was looking for her, hence her paranoia at Kaitzur. As soon as someone found out they were replicas, Raine and Genis were abused and mistreated. At the time, she thought Van had realized they were replicas and when she found out otherwise, her attitude towards Van changed completely. She also thought Guy knew she was a replica and expected him to treat her the same way. When he didn't, it confused her.

Did she know about Luke, too? He wasn't sure.

For some reason, someone taught her and Genis to defend themselves. When the two of them ran away, they would find a new home and stay there until someone recognized them as replicas. That's why she lied about having come from Radessia. It was a safe bet. Raine learned how to teach and they eventually came to Sheridan where they stole the Rheairds from Class M and it wasn't much of a leap to claim that she lived in the desert plateaus for a while. Along the way, somewhere, she found a horn and decided it came from a unicorn.

What he couldn't figure out, though, was why Sheena told her there was an Imperial Research Academy. Raine claimed that's what the woman said before she clammed up and decided not to argue. Then there were also the Eckspheres. He had no clue what those were, but Raine didn't bat an eye at saying Class I knew all about them.

He didn't want to admit it, but with these developments bringing fomicry to light, Guy wondered, was Class I actually involved in fomicry? Or did they have other experiments going on that no one knew about? What exactly did Eckspheres do?

Then he thought about the new information Raine gave him. He didn't think she realized it, but she slipped up, saying Sheena was after a female student's life. Of course, it could've been another lie, but he didn't think so. Raine almost called her student something else before referring to her as a student, and she reaffirmed it later that the student was female. There was only the one female student he knew about. Was it perhaps Colette's life Sheena was after? Even if Guy didn't fully understand what was going on, a new picture emerged. Raine traveled with her students and met an assassin who eventually joined up with them. This much told him that she left wherever knowing that Colette's life was in danger. Why else would Raine bring Colette and Lloyd, both students, along with her? Someone likely had the wrong idea about the threat Colette posed to them, though. Either that or Sheena was just a terrible assassin.

Or she was really soft-hearted.

With the way Raine talked about her, he found it hard to believe that the assassin's heart was really in it. So who hired her? And why?

A/N: I know ya'll were really excited about seeing Raine's reaction to Dist, but there are a lot of reasons I handled it this way. When I read through the script of the main plot, I'm looking for "what would Raine add to this scene?" or "What can Raine do to take advantage of this scene?" The fight with Dist didn't really have much beyond showing off Raine's photon. I actually have a plan for when/where that happens, so it won't happen here. Cheap excuse for the battle summary, but meh. There are more important things to what's going on, ne?

Also, I look for things that I can show after-the-fact like her reaction to Jade's giving up the documents. She would have a reaction when it happens, but in this case, it's more economical and interesting to have her reflecting on it rather than showing an entire scene where ya'll already know what everyone's going to say, just to show her in the moment.

However, there are other things I'm going to show that I thought would get cut out because I couldn't justify showing it until I realized I could. So... you can expect some fun stuff when Raine meets Natalia for the first time. :) Although I do have one more chapter to go before they arrive in Baticul, hence why Luke's diary still isn't showing up. I haven't dropped his diary; I just use them to signify where I am in the plot. Until they meet certain points in the plot, I don't include the next steps of the diary.

Oh! And some of you are asking about Jade's perspective on things. That's coming up very soon. You'll get a chance to see what's going on in his head. I think I have another scene with Genis coming up, too. Within the new 2-3 chapters, I think. So rest assured, I hear you! :D

Having said that, the next update isn't far. =^-^= Thank you all so much for your support!

~~Kat =^-^=