There were times where Lysithea very much missed having the opportunity to soar through the air whenever she felt like it. There was just something freeing, exhilarating, about the activity. The freedom in the skies to move in any direction in which she wished. That said nothing of course about the sheer convenience of flight as a method of transversal.
The lack of that was probably the worst thing about Fodlan and she was constantly reminded every time she had to march with her class. Even the company of the Blue Lions helped. It was actually rankling considering Marisa wasn't even trying to be subtle and just casually floated alongside them as they marched.
Thankfully Marisa didn't bring up the topic about why Lysithea refused to fly, even though she never explained why. Marisa tended to pick up on things like that.
It was a relief to her aching feet when they finally began to set up camp, though there was still plenty of work to be done before they were set up for the night. Thankfully a bit of controlled manipulation of the elements, sans Water which Marisa was more than enough to make up for, was enough to speed up the process.
"I know the Knights will be doing most of the heavy lifting, but are we really going to help suppress a rebellion?" Annette asked as she began to hammer the stakes into the corners of the tent.
"We all got the same mission, Annette. And besides it'll be a good experience, this will be different from fighting bandits," Lysithea replied as she held the tarp in the air with a controlled ball of wind. She also held another hand out to soften the earth where Annette was working.
"These will be Knights and soldiers of Kingdom territory though," Ashe commented as he hammered on the other side. "People that I knew and trained with."
Oh crap. Lysithea had forgotten about that fact.
"Ashe, you can just stay back," Annette suggested as she brought the hammer down finishing setting up the tent. "You don't need to get involved with this."
"No… I have to. It's because I know them… that I just stand aside."
Lysithea didn't really know what to say, if there was anything that could be said to him. Instead, she left them to their devices and explored the rest of their camp. Most people were still setting up, particularly Lorenz who had apparently got it in his head to try and set up his tent by himself after some goading from Claude. Needless to say, it wasn't going well and Leonie was already to the side lecturing the noble and giving him advice.
Eventually she came upon two fairly familiar and not entirely unwelcome individuals discussing something among each other. It would be good to talk to the two of them though the presence of a certain blade marred that enjoyment a bit.
"Your stories are incredible," Catherine commented to Marisa as the two talked. Apparently the two were trading tales of each other's escapades. "Even if it's hard to believe most of them, still sounds pretty impressive."
"Those are the believable ones," Marisa replied. "You'd be surprised by what I've been through. At the very least Lys can vouch for most of the stories I told you."
"Which ones?" Lysithea asked as she joined them. She made sure to keep at a respectable, but not too isolated distance between them.
"Apparently, she broke into a mansion by some sort of terrible beast called a Vampire?" Catherine asked.
"That was actually before I ever got there," Lysithea admitted. "But they told me how it happened."
"Who did?"
"Um… the vampire. I live with them, they're not actually that bad, just a bit… eccentric."
"I'd have a hard time believing that too," Catherine replied as she looked carefully at Lysithea. "But I don't see any reason for you to lie to me."
"Gensokyo's brand of insanity can be difficult to fathom, much less live with," Lysithea admitted. "It takes a certain level of… adaptability to live there."
"So all those Youkai, Marisa was telling me about?"
"All real. We don't have Demonic Beasts there though."
"So about these Demonic Beasts. I've read about a couple of them in the books, but what are they like in a fight?" Marisa asked.
"Like any rabid animal," Catherine informed her. "Can't reason with them. Just got to put them down, but they don't go easy. Most of them have really tough skin and even magical barriers that regenerate. You hit hard and break through all of them if you're going to do some real damage, and even then it takes a lot to take them down."
"If a Master Spark doesn't down them in one strike then I can adjust it so that it'll burn away their defenses better for a follow up," Marisa muttered to herself. "Going to have to test if we run into one of them."
"Don't look forward to that. We're being sent to suppress rebellion not Monster extermination," Lysithea warned her. "Also if you're not careful you could get us all caught in the crossfire."
"I know how to hold back," Marisa waved her off. "And if it is just people, then I'll give them a couple of warning shots, scare them off before I go to kill the dumb ones."
"If the sight of the Knights and a Heroes Relic isn't enough to convince them, then you don't even have to bother with the warning," Catherine told her.
"Yea. A Heroes Relic." Marisa looked at Thunderbrand with renewed interest. "Wonder what I could do with one of those."
"Marisa. Don't you dare try to steal a Hero's Relic. You'll be labeled a traitor and criminal to the Church!" Lysithea chastised the Ordinary Magician.
"Please. Like you aren't curious yourself!?" Marisa argued.
"No! I'm not!" Lysithea replied.
The Ordinary Magician's eyes went wide. "Woah really? Usually you and I are jumping on magical or legendary artifacts."
"A Heroes Relic needs to be treated with the proper respect and not purloined by a certain thief." Lysithea couldn't help but shoot Thunderbrand a cautious glance as she said that. Even with her Crests suppressed with her Sensei's ring she could feel a wisp of something. An uncomfortable feeling, a call almost, a sort of uncomfortable resonance that bothered her. It was a similar feeling she had being around Lorenz and even Catherine herself, though she had quickly learned to suppress it.
Catherine looked at Lysithea with a curious gaze and a quick glance to her own Relic before shooting Marisa an amused look. "You were actually planning to run off with a Hero's Relic?" Catherine asked
"Well, yea they seem interesting," Marisa admitted, unashamedly. "Don't get a lot of things like these back where I'm from. Could do a couple of experiments, see if I can make a few new spells with it."
"Unfortunately, a Heroes Relic is a Gift from the Goddess and it can only be truly wielded by those that bear the correct Crest. You wouldn't be able to use Thunderbrand to its full potential. Also." Catherine put a hand to her weapon's hilt. "Hero's Relics are artifacts sacred to the Church. If you tried to steal this, then it's my duty as a Knight to cut you down."
Marisa hardly seemed threatened by the blatant threat. "You definitely seem like a good fight, I'd happily go a round or two with you… but not to the death. Too much trouble, not worth it. It's fine if I watch you use it right?"
Catherine released her grip on the hilt. "Oh. In that case you're perfectly welcome to watch. Thunderstrike Catherine wouldn't say no to a captive audience."
"Ooh that's a good title," Marisa replied. "I should also get one like that for here… Starcalling Marisa?" She shook her head. "Nah."
"Usually titles are something you got to work for and it's not really something you give yourself," Catherine replied.
"Actually people in Gensokyo are very… liberal when it comes to titles," Lysithea explained. "A lot of people there have multiple titles that they made up or were given by someone else."
"Yea. Lys has some pretty good ones too," Marisa informed Catherine.
"Really?" Catherine took on an interested expression as she looked at Lysithea.
"Marisa please don't," Lysithea begged.
"Oh come on. Budding Witch of the Winter Haze isn't bad," Marisa replied with a sinister smile on her face.
"I hate you," Lysithea replied with a blush on her face.
"Budding Witch of the Winter Haze?" Catherine asked.
"Lys's birthday is February and it's a play off her Sensei's title who is also known the Witch of the Spring Haze," Marisa explained.
"So the budding would be because she's young and an apprentice to a Witch," Catherine concluded.
Marisa nodded. "Yep"
"It's a dumb title," Lysithea grumbled. "It's not like anything can grow in Winter without a Youkai involved."
"Actually you'd be surprised. The Kingdom has a few plants, flowers even, that bloom in the Winter," Catherine informed her.
"Speaking of plants," Marisa looked at the foliage that surrounded their campsite. "There wouldn't happen to be a cauldron we can use?"
"No cauldrons, but we do have a spare pot for cooking," Lysithea replied, already starting to get a gist of what Marisa was planning to do. "What exactly are you planning on doing?"
"I'm wondering myself," Catherine agreed.
"Well," Marisa leaned in and whispered something into Lysithea's ear.
Her eyes immediately went wide. "Gotta go," Lysithea quickly said to Catherine before running off alongside Marisa toward the nearest patch of plant life.
Two blue foxtails, thick moss from a nearby tree, two white mushrooms, and some nitric acid.
Lysithea added the ingredients carefully into the pot with a pair of tongs and thick gloves. On her face was a thick gas mask that she chose to wear even though the risk of exposure was low being in an outside environment. It was just better to take precautions and make a constant habit of it due to the dangerous materials that Magicians worked with. Even then there was bound to be some exposure, little bits that would gradually build up and cause permanent damage to the body. That was why while she was carefully mixing the ingredients together, Marisa was already mixing up cups of water mixed with activated charcoal. The stuff might've needed a lot of sugar to make it bearable to drink but it would help cleanse their bodies of anything that they might have overlooked. At the end of the day neither of them wanted to have a body as fragile as Sensei's.
"What exactly are you doing?" Claude suddenly approached as he observed the proceedings. He wasn't the only one curious, everyone else in the camp was watching as the two young magicians worked their craft.
"Please stay back at an appropriate distance," Lysithea demanded as she briefly set the tongs aside and began to look for the next ingredient. "Now where did we put that-"
"Here," Marisa casually threw the shriveled crow claws backwards over her own shoulder. Somehow it landed in the center of the cauldron where it quickly sunk into the blue liquid within. Said liquid then began to turn a shade of green.
"Thanks," Lysithea replied as she continued to stir the mixture with a large wooden ladle. "And to answer your question Claude, Marisa and I are making a truth serum."
"Truth serum?"
"That's the plan," Marisa replied. "I've been playing around the local flora around in Fodlan and found some that might act as substitutes for what we'd usually need in Gensokyo."
"Gensokyo's fauna, particularly those in the Forest of Magic tend to be very magically dense, so don't expect the results to be volatile or strong at the very least," Lysithea explained. "This potion will probably just bring a minor compulsion in the one who drinks it. At most it could stop them from lying, but it likely won't force the truth out of their mouth alone."
"… It would make interrogation much easier though," Claude was quick to realize. "Might figure out what compelled Lonato and his men to rebel in the first place."
Lysithea nodded. "Exactly. I understand he holds resentment against the Church for what happened to his son, but why rebel now? There has to be something that compelled him to act at this moment." At this moment all she had was just conjecture. And conjecture was useless without some hard facts or evidence to back it up.
"Yo Lys, switch."
"Got it."
The magicians swapped tools and positions with an ease and swiftness that came from years of cooperation.
"Going to raise the heat a little," Marisa said.
"You have some leeway, just don't overdo it," Lysithea replied.
"This won't end up like that experiment of yours back when we first met?" Claude asked cheekily.
"What happened?" Marisa asked.
"It went up in flames and she had to dump it in a bucket of water," Claude informed her before Lysithea could stop him.
"Huh. You're usually pretty careful Lys, at least by yourself," Marisa commented, slightly surprised that Lysithea had made such a blunder.
"They broke down my door and exposed my experiment to direct sunlight," Lysithea was quick to defend herself.
"Damn. Was it what you were working on before you left?"
"Yep."
"Lucky you didn't blow up the building then."
"Wait, you could've blown up the dorms? With all of us in it?" Claude asked, for once wide eyed at the prospect of apparently avoiding a violent and painful death.
"I had precautions in place to prevent that, unlike some people." Lysithea gave Marisa a pointed look. "At the very least the damage would be localized to my room due to the runes I placed around it."
"But we were all in that when it lit up," The Golden Deer leader was quick to clarify.
Now it was Marisa's turn to shoot Lysithea a pointed look.
"No comment," Lysithea muttered before focusing on the task she had been given.
"I was going to ask if you could teach me a few tricks," Claude looked at the pot carefully, "but I think I'll leave that to you two."
"For the best. This is something that only trained Magicians and their apprentices should attempt," Lysithea said. "Also, I shudder to imagine the chaos you could create with some of the potions available to us."
"I mean I can teach you a couple of the less volatile formulas, for a mentoring fee of course." Marisa grabbed a small vial she kept under her skirt, raised her hand, and used the liquid within to conjure a pair of large star shaped bullets. One, she tossed into the cauldron. The other she grabbed and began to snack on.
"Is that safe to eat?" Claude asked, more curious than concerned.
"That's just pure magic and sugar. Works as an ingredient, attack spell, or a quick snack," Lysithea replied as she grabbed her cup of charcoal water and gulped it straight down. Her face was left with a disgusted grimace as she caught the star that Marisa had tossed her, something that she was quick to bite down on. "Thanks."
"Get ready. Now comes the hard part. Gonna need you to keep an eye in case something goes wrong," Marisa replied as she held her hands above the cauldron and a faint blue light spilled from them.
Lysithea simply nodded as Marisa started reciting the first few bits of Latin.
Skilled and flexible magicians tended to be multilingual as magic was most potent when incanted from its origin. For Marisa's mixed medley of Western systems of Magic that language was Latin whereas for Lysithea an intimate understanding of Japanese and Chinese had been necessary to draw on the Wu Xing more effectively.
"What is she muttering?" Claude asked, clearly trying to listen in on the words. Not that he would likely understand it. "And why?"
"It's an incantation. Fodlan's system of magic doesn't rely on them because they are dangerous and have a tendency to backfire if you mess up a word, but if done right magic becomes much more potent," Lysithea explained as Marisa continued to go through her chant. "It's essentially a form of self-hypnosis. It helps to focus the body, mind, and spirit, and is a conduit for helping us to shape the world. This makes it useful when we need to cast a particularly powerful or complicated spell. However, that can also come at the cost of losing awareness around us. The deeper the trance is the more power we can bring to bear… but also the more vulnerable we become."
"So, if you or Marisa start chanting on the battlefield, then we should be covering you?" Claude asked.
"Well, me mostly," Lysithea wasn't ashamed to admit. "Marisa is all about high speed, high power, and high tempo in battle. She sacrifices efficiency to save up time, everything she does comes out quick and hits hard but as a consequence she uses up a lot more mana especially with how much power she throws around. Granted she makes up for it by having a ton of mana, but her endurance isn't as good as you'd expect."
"Then you'd win in an extended battle?"
"Assuming she'd even allow it to be an extended battle." Lysithea sighed. "In terms of the repertoire of spells we have and the efficiency in which we cast them I would be superior, but her speed, mobility, and sheer power overwhelms anything that I could set up. I've never won a duel against her, at least not when she's not demeaning me by going easy on me"
"If there's anything I learned from Alice, it's that holding back is great for the person you're training," Marisa interjected as she finished with her chanting. The potion had now changed color into a lime green. "It's like running a marathon, I constantly push you at your limit and then go a bit above that to force your body and mind to adapt to the strain. Also, that's the potion done."
Marisa tilted the cauldron over and haphazardly spilled the contents into several empty vials.
Lysithea began to clean up their tools and any mess Marisa made with her spilling. "We'll have to make sure to record the results once we find a Guinea pi- I mean person to use as a test su- I mean interrogate."
Once everything was packed up the three of them went to the campfire where the Golden Deer and Blue Lions had gathered.
"What you guys doing?" Marisa asked.
Lysithea was also quite curious. Ashe and Annette looked noticeably pale.
"Why I'm glad you asked," Mercedes replied. Her voice was pleasant as always… but for some reason Lysithea couldn't help but be a bit bothered by her presence the moment. "I was telling everyone here a story I heard in the Monastery."
"Mercie please no!" Annette begged.
Now Lysithea was even more worried. Mercedes and Annette were practically attached at the hip, for one to be so frightened of the other brought some very disturbing implications.
"A story?" Claude asked, just as curious.
"A ghost story," Felix deadpanned. "Just a foolish tale to scare those who don't know any better."
"You don't know any better!" Annette shouted as she and Ashe held each other. "L-like ghosts could be real. Crazy stuff like that happens all the time and and-"
Felix rolled his eyes. "The only ghosts that exist are the ones in your head."
There was no missing Dimitri's slight flinch, mostly because the man seemed as composed and solid as a rock most of the time.
"Oh no they're real," Marisa replied.
"Yep," Lysithea agreed.
Felix, along with most of the other people at the campfire, looked at them in shock. "Wait really?"
"Definitely. Haven't seen any here but they're all over Gensokyo," Marisa replied.
"Thank the gods for that," Lysithea replied in relief. "They can be an absolute pest, especially during Incidents."
"And full moons," Marisa continued.
"And Halloween," Lysithea finished. Honestly Halloween was just a bad time to be around any Western based Youkai. Flandre was somehow even more scary than usual during that day and even Remilia had to be avoided by anyone vaguely human. Your best bet, and plan for the inhabitants of the SDM for years, was to just lock the two vampire sisters in the basement and let them take out their aggression on each other.
"So ghosts exist… you're not scared of them at all?" Hilda asked.
"Like I said, the vast majority of them are simply a nuisance," Lysithea replied calmly. "Some are just fragments of memories or emotions left behind, more akin to a natural weather effect really. Others are just souls just waiting to get dragged down to the afterlife. Only a few will ever be sentient or cognizant and even fewer will be a credible threat on their own."
"Eh, I wouldn't write them off completely," Marisa argued. "They can still overwhelm ya with numbers and the vengeful ones can be really powerful and dangerous."
"Fair enough. Always have to be careful around those. They'll either have the power to overwhelm you if you're not careful or just sneak up and possess you without you noticing," Lysithea mused. There might have been a time in her childhood when she might've been frightened of them but after watching Yuyuko eat herself into a food coma and Youmu run screaming away from a fairy in a poorly disguised blanket… well there really wasn't much about them that phased her.
"Oh you too?" Marisa asked.
"Twice actually. Sakuya and I are usually the ones that have to deal with them in the mansion since it isn't as bad for humans to get possessed."
"Getting your body hijacked is never any fun. Can't imagine how much worse it is for Youkai."
"You guys are pretty casual about getting your bodies… or spirits possessed and controlled by a ghost, assuming they actually do exist," Ingrid replied with some skepticism.
"Well humans for all our physical weaknesses are actually pretty sturdy mentally and spiritually. At least by comparison," Marisa replied.
"Physically weak?" Hilda asked. They all turned to the absolute brick walls of muscle that were Dedue and Rapheal.
"Well obviously humans can be strong too, but you know we get stabbed in the heart or head. That's kinda it for us. If you did that to most Youkai, yes it's still going to hurt like a bitch and weaken them, but it's not going to be an instant death."
"Some more than others. I've seen Remy lose her head like five times," Lysithea commented.
"Metaphorically… right?" Ignatz asked.
Lysithea drew her finger around her neck and once straight down her skull. "Nope quite literally had her head blown off. Just regenerates it completely. Vampires got insane regeneration."
"That's why you gotta use a silver or wooden stake to the heart," Marisa told her.
"First of all Spell Card Rules and Remy would rip me in half with her bare hands if Sakuya didn't string me up in the meat locker first."
"Eh, the meat locker isn't that bad. They keep it surprisingly clean. Good hiding spot too."
"So anyway," Hilda decided to change the subject. Mostly because everyone else was either disturbed, skeptical, or close to fainting on the spot in Ashe's and Annette's cases. "You two get along very well. You're practically sisters."
Marisa and Lysithea's expressions immediately darkened.
"I'm an only child," Marisa replied plainly.
"Marisa… your brother is still a baby. He's innocent," Lysithea replied.
"Half-brother. And he won't be by the time that man gets his way with him."
"Your fath-"
Marisa glared.
"Genetic donor," Lysithea corrected. "Had you in his house for at least seven years and you still ended up like this. At least give the child a chance."
Marisa glare became a brief contemplative look before she finally growled and ultimately conceded. "Fine. I'll see what he grows up to be like."
"Not spending time with him?"
"Not like they'll ever let me around him."
"Humans disappear from the village all the time," Lysithea stated casually.
Now it was Marisa's turn to look appalled. "Are you seriously suggesting kidnapping my baby brother?"
Well, at least she was admitting to having a brother.
"Temporarily!" Lysithea clarified. "It's not an issue if we bring him back quickly enough, at least if we keep him in Gensokyo."
"… You really do belong in that mansion."
"Look, connecting with what family you have is important," Lysithea stated firmly. She would know how important it was to treasure your siblings while you still had them…
"She's right you know," Ashe finally commented. "Family… is important."
And considering whose father they were possibly going to have to kill, that just made things at the campsite a whole lot more awkward.
A/N
Hey guys. Sorry about the long absence for this chapter. Work, returning to college, writing my other fics and original works, and a lot of other things has taken up most of my time. I can only hope that you enjoy this chapter and can be a bit more patient with me for future updates.
Also attached below is my newly made Kofi account. Any tip is appreciated though I will still do my best to keep writing nevertheless.
/soul249134