Tadah! The new story has arrived. Another unique and obscure crossover from ya boy Whimsy- this time, it's Fruits of Grisaia and Queen's Blade (they work more than they should together, perhaps). Big AN at the bottom, so I won't keep you long, so for now, enjoy Yuuji not really enjoying a once in a lifetime experience.
Yuuji's eyes opened to the sight of a clear blue sky, stretching high above.
The quiet rush of water suggested that there was a fair-sized creek somewhere close by, or maybe a small river.
The grass was green and lush, and an ever so slight tilt of his head allowed him to take note of shallow hills and huge, leafy trees, further off.
So he was probably in a forest of some kind, or at the edge of one.
Given that he'd closed his eyes beside… beside Asako's deathbed, and was currently no longer in the cabin or even on the mountain itself (the trees, the grass and the air were all wrong), the first thought that came to mind was that he was dead.
Plenty of underworld myths involved a river of some kind.
But a dead man shouldn't need to breathe and should have no need of a heartbeat, he supposed, and, more convincingly was that, if it was the afterlife, Asako should be there as well.
No signs of her coming running to kick his ass for dying in such a pathetic way.
So on second thought, he was probably alive, just… elsewhere.
Which meant Asako wasn't going to show up anytime soon to finish teaching him how to live, either.
With that established, Yuuji went back to what he was doing.
… Laying motionless on his back and staring up at the sky above, for no other reason than it lay in front of his eyes.
A cool spring wind blew across the body of one whose time had stopped, and whispered of change in a voice he had no interest in hearing.
The forest was old.
Trees whose leaves tickled the clouds of the heavens above, roots that drank deep of the waters of the underworld.
There was magic in an old and much-loved forest, a voice in the stillness whispering fondly to those who would listen.
It was these whispers that she followed on her restless vigils.
It was these whispers that she could have sworn had, for the briefest of moments, turned to teasing laughter instead.
Shaking off that strange feeling, Alleyne dropped noiselessly to the ground, and made her way towards 'that'.
The intruder she had glimpsed from afar.
The one that lay stiff and straight-limbed upon the ground, a mere dozen feet from the calmest of the rivers winding through the forest.
Eyes open and sightless, but even from an arrow's flight away Alleyne's sharp eyes could tell that his chest rose and fell, and that his 'color' had… faded, but not entirely dimmed.
So the human was alive, and that made the human an intruder upon the Forest of the Elves.
Thus, as its chief guardian, it was her duty to deal with him in one way or another.
If the human had collapsed, perhaps he was merely lost and bore the forest and its people no ill will.
It was… far less likely than she may have wished.
Her staff at her side, lowered but ever ready, Alleyne approached, and sternly hailed the young (?) stranger.
In response, the stranger…
Yuuji heard a voice, and something about the strict tone echoed within the emptiness of his thoughts.
Turning his head the bare minimum amount, Yuuji found himself looking towards a beautiful woman who was either something other than human, or a professional cosplayer, given her attire.
Her height was a bit above average, by Japanese standards at least, but that was the only thing about her looks that could be considered anywhere close to 'average'.
Her platinum blonde hair was worn long and straight (save for a small braid hanging before one ear), framing her delicate yet stern features, her deep blue eyes large, yet fierce like a bird of prey.
Largely exposed by her attire, her figure was supple yet very much curvaceous, the balance between the two qualities borderline surreal. Her limbs were long and lithe, but, just like her thin waist, an artistic hint of muscle tone kept them from seeming too delicate.
Perhaps less noticeable, at least to someone outside of Yuuji's profession, was how the threat the woman represented didn't lose out to her looks in the slightest. His first impression was of someone who could rival Asako, and those who knew Asako had good reason to believe her to be the most dangerous woman in the world.
Their world, anyways, things obviously weren't as clear cut wherever Yuuji had found himself, but…
In the end, it was not the woman's many unique and noteworthy qualities which had briefly managed to capture Yuuji's attention.
It was not her well-carried weapon, a long hardwood staff tipped with polished stone on either end, like blunt spearheads.
Nor her striking and skimpy outfit that revealed a good deal of fair and flawless skin- a green halter top that bared much of her bust and all of her stomach, matched with an equally tiny slitted skirt. Nor the green leather bracers and thigh-high boots with a modest heel, paired with an elegant red cape and matching beret.
And not even her long, pointed ears, the most blatant hint that she wasn't human.
No, the woman's presence, fascinating though it should have been, only got anything like a reaction out of Yuuji because of her stern and demanding tone of voice.
And the level of reaction that earned was a single blink of Yuuji's dark, flat eyes.
But it was another small change, and small changes have a way of building into larger ones.
Upon closer examination, the human was somewhat young.
Old enough to be considered a man, perhaps, but just as easily referred to as a boy by one who significantly eclipsed him in age.
… Like Alleyne did to every human alive, by the simple virtue of having passed many ageless centuries of life.
The boy was tall, lean, and scarred, dark of eye and hair and dressed in a manner she had never once seen. Perhaps a new fashion among humans, as the last one she had encountered had been almost a decade ago.
Nonetheless, anyone with a trained eye would immediately identify a warrior of no small skill.
A boy whom she imagined had aged two decades at the utmost, yet lay there like a long corpse long dead, faint breathing his only motion.
It seemed her eyes had deceived her, at first glance.
The boy was not alive.
The boy was merely not dead.
To elven eyes that looked further and deeper than most any other race, the boy called to mind a blade. A blade that had been used too soon and too often, to the point one would question whether it had ever once found place within a sheath.
A boy that had ignored her repeatedly now, which was a novel experience despite Alleyne's preference of solitude.
Alas, if words failed, there was only one other option remaining, and that was to strike him down!
Her ferocious surge of bloodlust was met with immediate and explosive savagery, such that if Alleyne had not gone into action with the hope of a reaction, the strange, tired boy might have slain her on the spot.
As if watching from afar, Yuuji noted that the moment the woman had turned abruptly hostile, he had somehow or another ended up on his feet.
Letting instinct carry him in the absence of will, Yuuji dodged the sharp swing of the staff with a paper thin margin, allowing it to pass harmlessly in front of his chin.
There was a sharp 'clack' as Yuuji's arm swung out, smashing his stainless steel watch into the wooden shaft of the weapon to foul up its trajectory and ruin a follow through.
The small distance between them vanished as Yuuji slid in, driving two fingers of his other hand towards the woman's eyes.
The woman's eyes widened ever so slightly, but her evasion was a mere tilt of the head, not thrown off in the least by the unflinching brutality of the retaliation she was met with.
The other end of her staff came arcing down towards his temple, and Yuuji ducked shallowly beneath the diagonal strike- too close to use the stone head, the woman showed no hesitance in attempting to cross-check him across the face with the wooden pole, weapon enough in the right hands.
And she was definitely in possession of the right hands.
The right legs, too- pivoting away from him, she kicked out with one leg straight behind her like a mule, and Yuuji, just a little slow on the sidestep, grunted as a corner of her boot clipped his side.
Then the woman spun rapidly and was airborne, staff discarded.
Her legs framed his head as she leapt up to straddle his shoulders, in what was more or less a reverse piggyback.
Yuuji made note that there were leaves instead of panties, beneath that tiny skirt of hers.
Then the world was flipping end over end over end, as if someone had just rolled the entire globe down a steep hill.
Droplets hit her bare thighs as the massive splash sent river water well over a dozen feet in every direction.
As if that storm of killing intent had been mere mist upon the wind, Alleyne stood calm and relaxed, kicking up her staff and leaning against it. Waiting patiently for her 'playmate' to resurface, Alleyne allowed herself a tiny smile while there was none to bear witness.
Feigning bloodlust convincing enough to fool a trained killer, such as the one she had just enjoyed a bout with, was tricky even for her. But Alleyne could and would spend decades mastering a skill she considered 'tricky even for her'.
It was made easier by the boy's own apathy, but nevertheless, having roused the boy's spirit felt like something to be proud of. Though perhaps herself unaware, even an elf as strict and no-nonsense as Alleyne carried within her a little spark of mischief, lingering embers of fey ancestry.
… Those dark eyes pierced her like arrows, even from beneath the water's surface.
Alleyne noted with no small measure of approval that he had the composure to resist the natural instinct to resurface immediately after a sudden plunge. It was a clear case of when instinct worked against one's best interests- the moment his head broke the water would have left him dreadfully exposed to anyone within position to attack him, such as herself.
Alleyne discarded her plan to flick a pebble at his forehead, and raised his evaluation by ten points.
She added another five when he surfaced slowly, without dropping his guard and with scarcely a ripple.
"Fifty-five points." She settled on. "Immediate action to seize the initiative, counter attacks with no hesitation, and stopping to assess the situation before resurfacing? Impressive. Not attempting to divest me of my weapon while within its reach, nor leveraging superior body mass? Less so."
"You were waiting for the disarm, though." Came the toneless response.
"Sixty-five points it is." Alleyne allowed. "Now, do you intend to stand in that river until you become one with it? I don't intend to wait for you that long, I'll have you know."
Alleyne would never tell a soul, but being the cause of the boy's brief puzzled expression was more than a little amusing.
Alleyne had learned that, having broken through the boy's standoffish demeanor somewhat, she could elicit a proper response to her questioning without trouble, though it was cause for concern that the strict approach served her far more than the gentle one.
Or rather, he'd answer a demanding tone of voice without hesitation, but scarcely seem to notice a gentler tone at all.
That she could seemingly garner total obedience by being at least somewhat forceful carried the unpleasant implication that the boy was far more comfortable with the stick than the carrot.
And the more she learned of Kazami Yuuji, the less she understood.
Oh, they had made progress, that was for certain, but every answer spawned half a dozen questions.
His purpose in the forest did not exist, nor did his allegiances either for or against her people and the forest.
To begin with, his arrival to the forest was allegedly from "dying, maybe?".
He had not walked through the boundary lines, he had "woken up by the river".
And when, on a vague hunch, she had asked if he had ever met an elf, he told her "if you're one".
He presumably was from Hinomoto, given the convention of stating his family name 'Kazami' before his given name 'Yuuji', and his facial features somewhat reminded her of the few humans she had met from the island nation, but asking if he was a native to the island was met with confusion.
Too young to be as dangerous and experienced as he was.
Too young to be as apathetic and indifferent as he was.
He didn't seem to care about anything, yet never lowered his guard. As if hostility, whether responding to or displaying it himself, was simply routine.
Alleyne expected he was an assassin of some sorts, trained in the killing arts at a young age, but at the expense of anything resembling a childhood.
And, if the pervasive sense of aimless clinging to him was any indication, he was most likely discarded by whatever organization he may have belonged to. Odd that he remained unharmed in the process, but her knowledge of such things was scant, as elves had no use for assassins.
He had yet to display any ill intent (or any intent for that matter), their first encounter notwithstanding- she could hardly blame him for trying to kill a stranger who attacked unprovoked, after all.
For that matter, it was concerning how her apology had been brushed off; she'd revealed her intentions in no uncertain terms, and he had merely replied with 'I see'.
If she carelessly drove him away he might become hostile in earnest, but something told her that would not be the case.
If his inconsistent knowledge and faulty memory was feigned, it would be revealed soon enough and dealt with accordingly, but…
Alleyne was convinced that if Yuuji was hiding something from her, it was simply a matter of her failing to ask the right questions.
So if there was one thing Alleyne was absolutely certain of, it was that Yuuji simply did not care enough to deceive her, or anyone else.
And more than that, what had galvanized Alleyne into taking charge of a human that she should have driven away was the unshakeable belief that, had she not forced him into motion, he would have laid there by the river until nothing but bones remained.
Alleyne lived in a treehouse.
Not the kind of treehouse that a kid made in their backyard, because apparently the elven-version of a treehouse was a round wooden hut with a thatched pointed roof, built in the junction of two branches, two thirds the way up a tree.
This was possible because a large tree in an elven forest (at least this elven forest) was about as wide as a school bus was long- those two branches were used like roads because they were wide enough to safely drive a car down.
This meant that while Alleyne's hut was a single-room house, it was a respectably-sized single room house.
Getting to Alleyne's home involved a series of rope bridges, connecting to staircases shaped in such a way that Yuuji couldn't really tell how much of their placement was due to growth or design.
Regardless, he somewhat approved of how her home didn't have direct access to anyone who couldn't fly, so it was an easily defensible setup.
And… he actually was less than certain why he'd gone along with Alleyne's instructions, and ended up under her direct supervision.
No, it was probably because she'd given him 'instructions' and 'supervision'- reasons to move and act where before, he didn't have any.
Much as Asako had tried, she hadn't quite finished teaching him how to function without those.
He was more or less a career soldier deprived of his career.
No… even that made it sound too glamorous.
He was an attack dog with no one to hold the leash, just aware enough to figure out that he should bite back if bitten.
If Alleyne hadn't kicked him into gear (literally in a sense), he probably would have just laid there on the riverbank.
At least whatever Alleyne intended… probably wasn't that.
Even if not by his own will, Kazami Yuuji had found himself standing at a starting line.
They both awoke with the dawn.
Without any sort of preamble or context, Alleyne told Yuuji to go for a run while she made breakfast.
The thin line of her lips threatened to twitch upwards ever so slightly when he asked her if he should get out of the tree first.
"For today, I suppose."
"Understood."
Alleyne watched him set off, her suspicions proved somewhat by how he accepted the instruction without complaint.
It seemed Yuuji truly was easier to deal with when he was awake.
Alleyne was awoken in an instant by unfamiliar noises in her home.
Blankets thrown aside, Yuuji tossed and turned in the grip of some terrible nightmare, and, strangely for her, she had hesitated.
Alleyne remembered hearing at one point or another that you shouldn't wake someone carelessly when they were having a nightmare.
But what else could she do?
Alleyne had made her way soundlessly to the spare cot, wracking her brains for any tidbits of knowledge that might be of some relevance.
She had trained many students over the years, but that duty typically ended at sunrise. She had no frame of reference for administering aid to a slumbering boy, none except…
…
…
It occurred to Alleyne that she had been cornered handily by her own principles.
It was simply not in her nature to do nothing when a solution presented itself, even if the solution made her wish to curl up in a ball out of shame.
Quickly fetching a cushion to sit upon, Alleyne settled herself by the bedside, took a deep breath, and began her 'task'.
… She gave herself fifteen points for the performance, in part for remembering so few of the words that she was forced to clumsily hum the lullaby.
She would have graded herself even lower had Yuuji not slept the rest of the night away in peace.
Yuuji spent the next several days under 'observation', as informed.
Which made perfect sense to him, but…
"Put some spirit into it!"
'Observation' seemed to translate into 'boot camp' in Alleyne's mind. Might have been lost in translation, since it didn't make much sense for a Japanese native and an elf from another world to default to speaking English.
Regardless, If Yuuji were ever asked to summarize the imagined character traits of an elf, 'like a drill sergeant' would have never made the list before he'd met Alleyne.
It also explained why she constantly graded things.
She was stern, and unrelenting, and unreasonable about it, too.
Routinely pushing him past the limits of what a human could accomplish, expecting him to make up for it with guts, and giving harsh but never truly unfair evaluations of his performance that contained ample advice to anyone who paid attention.
Even for Yuuji, whose level of conditioning was often described 'ridiculous' or simply with 'what the fuck', it was a struggle to keep up with the endless exercises Alleyne spent most of the day demanding of him.
She hadn't forced him to do any major cleaning with a toothbrush, though she did have him do various chores like fetching water and whatnot while she went off to hunt with bolos and a stick.
In other words, if he were to give her a score, Alleyne as a drill sergeant would get at least eighty points.
Alleyne, watching Yuuji carefully and meticulously counting reps, felt a scowl tug at her lips as a twinge of irritation hit.
"Ah, I lost count," she said flatly, not even trying to sell the act. "Start from the beginning, and try not to take all morning this time."
Yuuji, doing pushups with only his hands touching anything solid, began calling out reps from zero once again, not aware in the least how the corner of his lips were tugging upwards.
Nor how the expression was being mirrored by someone else just as unaware of the change.
A week of 'observation' and the only thing that had changed was that she had succeeded in leaving Yuuji exhausted enough to decrease the frequency of his nightmares.
By the end of the week, her cracked wrist had healed with Yuuji none the wiser, and she'd learned not to carelessly touch him in his sleep.
Alleyne had concluded that Yuuji was no threat to the forest or her people, unless they went out of their way to threaten him.
Stern instructions or bloodlust (though she hadn't tried again) seemingly remained the most effective method of garnering a response from the strange boy.
So Yuuji was… neither her guest, nor her prisoner, nor her student.
Her… ward perhaps?
Alleyne had decided to keep Yuuji with her for the near future, nonetheless.
It had nothing to do with keeping Yuuji in check in any way, though she acknowledged that it would take someone of her caliber to do so.
It was not that Kazami Yuuji was someone who could not be left alone, it was that Kazami Yuuji was someone who should not be left alone.
She had taken some measure of responsibility over him when she forced his body to remember it was alive.
And so she would see it through.
It was truly that simple, until it wasn't.
Alleyne awoke in the dark as something stirred within her hut, though with instinct born of long practice, her eyes remained shut.
A soft rustle of a blanket and gentle, near silent steps, leading outside. Alleyne waited until the light shifted against her face from the curtain at her entryway falling shut, and then slowly opened her eyes.
This was… different.
Quietly rising from her bed, Alleyne crept to the window on her bare feet and peeked outside.
There Yuuji was, standing on the branch, not wearing anything but the strange, close-fitting trousers she'd found him in.
Twinkling starlight and the pale silver of the moon illuminated a muscular body with far too many scars for one so young. Yuuji stood there, motionless as a statue, whilst staring up into the endless starry sky above.
From the angle she was at, she could only partially see his face, just enough to catch a glimpse of all the lights in the sky that those dark eyes captured, and reflected, back into the night.
For hours upon end, the only movement of his body was a slight but persistent shiver, in spite of how even the gentle night wind was warm.
And for an equal length of time, Alleyne watched him in silence, her own gaze never making it past him and to the sky.
On a starry night that seemed to stretch on forever, two people whose time had stopped for very different reasons felt the hands of the clock begin to turn once more.
Alleyne awoke a second time to the sight of Yuuji sitting on the floor, dicing wild greens with her knife.
"Think it's the first time you've slept in like that, Alleyne." Yuuji said with a faint smirk, though he didn't look her way, busy with the pot he had over the cooking fire. "Have a late night?"
Feeling stiff, Alleyne didn't reply right away, sitting up and stretching her back out with a satisfying pop.
A glance outside of her window confirmed that she… truly had slept in, for the first time in a century or so, injury or illness notwithstanding.
Then her big, sharp eyes blinked.
"I believe that is the first time you have called me by name."
Yuuji shrugged.
"Do you… remember anything more?" She asked carefully, watching his reaction closely.
"If you're wondering how I got here, no idea. Otherwise there aren't weren't any major gaps in my memory to begin with."
Yuuji had more or less accepted that he probably wasn't dead, and that he probably wasn't on Earth.
The Elven Forest was in the center of Gainos, which was both the name of the country and the continent.
Given that Yuuji was pretty knowledgeable about geography, and had never heard of either, it wasn't hard to put a working theory together.
Yuuji mostly hadn't pondered beyond that because he didn't care, and it didn't really matter.
He regretted that he'd had some part in JB losing both himself and Asako at more or less the same time, it was true, but…
He and Asako had always known that JB would be better off without the two of them in her life.
For better or worse, they weren't her burdens anymore, and he could only hope their ghosts didn't cling too long.
… With a contemplative look, Alleyne, who had made her way over, gripped his chin firmly but not roughly, and tilted his face her way, staring deeply into his eyes.
"So you are alive, after all," Alleyne murmured, with something approaching a smile on her lips.
That was not at all where he was expecting the conversation to go, and so Yuuji accidentally responded in a way that was natural for him.
"Is that a no on the 'are you awake'?"
"You are centuries too young to be using lines like that with me, fool." Alleyne said as she released his chin and straightened up.
"But, if you've regained some semblance of liveliness, then I am… glad." Her voice dropped at the end, so Yuuji didn't catch the last word and just raised his eyebrow at her.
"Did you not hear me?" Alleyne looked down on him with hands on her hips and a smirk on her lips. "I said, 'if you've regained some semblance of liveliness, then I can stop treating you gently'."
Yuuji changed her drill sergeant evaluation from eighty to ninety.
"Tell me your weapon of choice and I'll prepare a practice weapon for you. Unless you consider unarmed to be your most proficient style." Weird she didn't seem to hold a grudge about the whole 'tried to poke her eyes out' thing.
Yuuji couldn't help but smirk internally, given that Alleyne's lifestyle was more or less 'medieval, but hygienic', he doubted Alleyne had a M24 SWS sniper rifle under her bed.
But discluding firearms, then-
"A knife."
"Singular, or dual-wielding? Single or double-edged, and if double-edged, curved or straight bladed?" Alleyne rattled off.
"One knife, single-edged, preferably straight-bladed, or close to it." Yuuji answered back with the same surety.
"Very well." Alleyne nodded. "Do a light warmup while I fetch what we need."
Admittedly, it was a bit of a taller task than she might have expected, since Yuuji didn't quite have a handle on what counted as a 'light warmup' anymore.
Over the past week, his condition had gone from 'good' to 'too good'.
Barring the lack of mild chronic pain, his physical abilities seemed to have flatout increased well beyond what he could write off as the change in environment agreeing with him.
Yuuji knew his own body well, and while he was aware that he was an exceptional athlete, he wasn't a 'eclipse world records without really trying' kind of athlete.
It wasn't like he could do strict testing, but the gap between 'exceptional' and 'inhuman' turned out to be easy to notice.
Given that Alleyne displayed strength that should have been physically impossible for her build and mass, Yuuji had written it off as having wound up in a world that was 'fantasy over physics'.
It was a common enough trope.
As his light jog rounded the tree and brought him back to the clearing, Alleyne launched a thin object at his head. Or at least, it might have looked that way if he panicked, but Yuuji had accurately noted that it wouldn't have hit him even if he hadn't noticed.
Catching the object as it passed, Yuuji found himself holding a simply carved but sturdy wooden dagger. Though the blade was more or less straight, it resembled something like a bokken with a small cruciform hilt, total length roughly knuckle to forearm for him.
"I'll have a properly-sized one carved for the morning," Alleyne said, also taking note that the handle was just a bit small for Yuuji's hand. Yuuji was lean for a human, but tall and sturdy enough to nudge past the usual upper range of the elven male physique.
As she watched Yuuji go through a few practice cuts and twirls with the dagger, Alleyne noted with approval of how the weapon came alive in his hands.
A good warrior knows that even a stick could kill.
That 'lethality' hinges heavily upon judgment and ability.
Alleyne twirled her own weapon, a mere six foot wooden pole to the untrained eye, and resisted the sudden urge to lick her lips as Yuuji's fighting spirit bore its fangs in response to her own.
He had given her a good fight once.
It would truly be a pleasure to see how many more he had to give.
Fighting Alleyne was like fighting a storm wind.
If the storm wind graded your performance, and gave pointers, all while trying to beat you over the head with a stick.
Yuuji could admit he wasn't very good at metaphors.
Yuuji also wasn't the type to think pointless things like 'it would be different if I had a gun'.
He had his suspicions that it wouldn't be that simple anyways, Alleyne was that skilled and that fast.
So it was with no small surprise that he found himself keeping up to an extent.
Oh, he was aware she was holding back, but he was confident that the Yuuji of a few weeks ago wouldn't be able to see a few of those strikes.
A staff was a versatile weapon in the hands of a master, and calling Alleyne a master might have been underselling things. A minute into the fight, and he was fairly confident that she had quite literally attacked him with every inch of her weapon.
A short overhead chop that would have clonked him on the head smoothly withdrew from his parry, and straight into a thrust at his solar plexus.
Knocking it aside with his knife, Yuuji grabbed the staff with his free hand to control the distance and stepped in largely, thrusting at Alleyne's breast.
With the hint of a smirk, Alleyne leaned back under the thrust, and followed the motion by bringing one long leg up in a kick that probably would have cracked his teeth, had it connected. With the same motion she threw her whole weight back, tearing the staff from his hand and swinging her body into a low flip.
"Oh right, she's an elf." Yuuji muttered at the maneuver that strained disbelief.
"Is that fact so easily forgotten?" Alleyne asked, stance reset and ready to continue, but pausing nonetheless.
"No, you're pretty memorable." Yuuji shrugged.
"... Flattery won't help you win." Alleyne smiled, sweeping back in to attack as she did.
"It might if I try enough of it," Yuuji retorted as he dodged.
… It wasn't flattery, and it didn't help him win.
Alleyne's butt was soft though, so he didn't really mind her sitting on his chest for the most part. Could do without the staff pressing down on his collarbone, though.
"You're heavier than you look."
"... I've changed my mind," Alleyne said a moment later, with a not quite huff. "Ten points for being foolish enough to attack a woman's pride when she has you at her mercy."
Asako probably would have whacked him to help make the point.
But Alleyne wasn't Asako.
He still felt a little guilty about how their similarities had been the main, or rather the only reason he'd been responsive to Alleyne at first.
It was probably kind of pathetic of him to have been saved by those similarities, that being ordered around by an attractive and dangerous older woman had helped ground him.
… It wasn't as if he'd truly moved on, and Asako's death didn't feel any more real to him, even if he couldn't deny the truth of it.
It wasn't as if he'd truly moved on, but it was solely thanks to Alleyne that he had begun to move at all, so…
"Hey, Alleyne?" Yuuji said to the woman who still had him pinned. "Thanks."
He wasn't sure what kind of expression he was making, but for some reason, it caused both the elf's cheeks and the tip of her long pointed ears to redden almost instantly, her big eyes growing larger still.
Her lips twitched a few times as if they couldn't make up their mind on what expression to show in return, before settling on a frown.
With her blush still vivid, it was… adorable. Adorable seemed the right word.
He must have given his thoughts away to some degree, because both her scowl and her blush deepened. Alleyne shifted her weight back, artfully pressing her butt down against his ribs in a way that prevented his lungs from filling themselves properly.
Still with that cute angry expression, Alleyne ground down with her hips once more before swiftly rising off of him.
But, he could have sworn he heard the words 'thirty' and 'fool' murmured as she turned away.
An entire morning of repeated matches with little in the way of rest was ample time for an instructor as skilled as Alleyne to accurately assess a single student.
It also left her thoroughly impressed with Yuuji's stamina, among other things.
Privately at least, Alleyne was willing to admit that a good part of why she pushed Yuuji so hard was that he could be pushed much, much harder than an elf of equivalent age, and without even a fraction of the complaints.
She wasn't sure how she felt about the newly awakened snark, though it was somewhat refreshing to have an obedient and hardworking student talk back to her without fear.
As was to be expected, Yuuji hadn't won a single round against her, as of yet, even if earlier he had managed to… unsettle (fluster) her somewhat.
None of that stopped Alleyne from viewing the young man's potential as vast, almost to the point of being unnerving.
If she had not secretly worked to soothe his nightmares over the course of several nights, Alleyne would have been forced to seriously question whether anything at all could rattle the boy.
The superior reach of her staff was almost pointless against him, not since her inconclusive duel with the snake woman had disparity in weapon length seemed so minor an advantage.
Yuuji was as fearless as he was fierce, and his dynamic vision was so well-trained that it surpassed or at the very least rivaled any elf Alleyne knew of, herself included. All that complemented by a spatial awareness, so superb that it was almost as if he viewed his surroundings from multiple perspectives at once.
His skills also had little to criticize, whether with blade or with unarmed combat, and he seamlessly intertwined both (his choice to leave a hand free was sound, to say the least).
Sound of judgment and monstrous in terms of reflexes, if there was any noteworthy flaw, it was how little of his own power Yuuji utilized.
It was as if his body had only just discovered its internal energy, its mana, and was keeping it tightly contained for fear of its escape.
It was an immensely strange, and not to mention dangerous, imbalance for a body as well-trained as his to have, no different from a swordmaster's body having never adapted to wielding a sword.
It was one for the growing tower of mysteries that Yuuji represented, but that mystery, at least, was one that Alleyne actually knew how to solve.
Synchronizing body and spirit was one of the earliest steps to becoming a proper warrior, a process she had taught hundreds of times over the years.
The difference in those who could and could not consciously utilize their mana was akin to the difference between a lion and a fox.
And that was another part of what made Yuuji so exceptional, and so endlessly interesting to her- why Alleyne had taken the earliest presented excuse (she was aware it was shoddy, and grateful it remained unquestioned) to begin instructing him.
For in that comparison, while Yuuji may have been the fox and she the lioness, that lioness had found herself faced with a fox who could easily take her by the throat, should she carelessly show an opening.
Somehow, without any need to mention it aloud, Alleyne leading him through grueling physical exercise, and instructing him in the fighting arts through primarily full-contact sparring, had become the norm.
Near the end of the second week since he'd found himself in the forest, that changed.
That morning, Alleyne had started him off with a light (by no standards but their own) workout, and an equally light (three round) spar.
Then she'd lead him a good deal upriver from her home, farther away than Yuuji had ever been.
"Would look good on a postcard." Yuuji said with a hint of irreverence.
"I haven't the slightest idea as to what you speak of, yet still find myself vaguely irritated by your words, what an odd feeling." Alleyne replied, giving him a flat look.
The section of the forest Alleyne had led him to was a mess of hills and cliffs, less densely wooded than what he'd seen so far.
At the base of a fair-sized but oddly quiet waterfall was a wide, somewhat shallow pool, rippling gently near the falls but otherwise clear as polished glass.
Several large and flat rocks rose up out of the pool, and it was to one of those Alleyne directed him to take a seat.
"Did you drag me all the way here to meditate under a waterfall?"
"Near, not under," Alleyne corrected. "I only intend for you to stand in it if your focus is lacking."
She was well aware of how unreasonable that sounded, just as Yuuji was aware that pointing it out would lead to him standing in a waterfall.
Yuuji quickly hopped his way over to one of the larger rocks, while Alleyne remained on the shore.
Once he was seated, Alleyne began to speak, raising her voice just enough to be heard.
"Close your eyes, rely on your other senses to take everything in. The warm sun against your skin, the damp breeze through your hair, the scent of growing green earth. Breathe deep, and open yourself to the world around you."
Alleyne seated herself and did much of the same, her sight alone reserved for Yuuji as she let the rest of herself drift free.
As expected, Yuuji was an apt student, but even her strict standards were soon surpassed
Yuuji sat in the center of the pool as if he truly belonged there.
… Alleyne was confident that Yuuji hadn't the faintest idea that he had sat there for almost two hours.
Stillness suited him well.
"Now," she began, her voice slow and measured. "Those same senses that grasp the world around you… turn them inwards and try to grasp yourself."
Everyone understood the meaning of such words at their own pace, and as easily as Yuuji had found stillness, this was only the first day, thus-
Alleyne's gaze sharpened as Yuuji 'shifted' for the first time, the first motion beyond breathing that had been made since his eyes closed.
The motion was a single, violent twitch.
Beyond taking hours to accomplish what she expected would take weeks, it seemed her predictions had held.
The stillness was but the calm before the storm, and things were about to get rather dangerous for the both of them.
But it was a necessary risk. Rather, it was the only solution she knew.
Peering past the outer 'layer' that was the physical form was a talent only those touched by spirits, or descended from them, possessed, but unlike a true spirit, Alleyne could only glimpse such things when the inner self was properly roused into action.
And so she bore witness to Yuuji's off-white, faded spirit that should not have belonged to one so young, the lean form criss-crossed with lines of thin, angry red.
With mournful eyes, Alleyne gazed in silence upon a soul colored only by its scars.
When things truly started to go wrong, it was blatantly obvious, and likely would have been so even had Alleyne's 'sight' been less keen.
First there was another, violent twitch, followed by several in rapid succession.
It was nauseating to look at- Yuuji's body and soul seemingly convulsing in opposite directions, as if his inner and outer selves were attempting to shrug free of one another.
Twitching and jerking, Yuuji swayed slowly to his feet, eyes vacant yet dreadfully dark.
His body slouched forward heavily as his legs straightened to their full height, the result a bestial and unsettling posture.
The long and sturdy knife she'd given him for self-defense slid free of its sheath, while his empty hand flexed like a claw.
A soul functioned as a vessel of sorts, containing both the true character of an individual as well as their mana.
The intermingling of the two was what led to the mana of every living thing being at least somewhat unique.
And it meant that when the mana was 'freed' and became able to be utilized in conscious fashion, repressed aspects of a person's psyche would be dragged to the surface with it.
That was why the more one lived (whether through age or by how 'busy' their life had been), the more there was to drag out, and the more dangerous 'freeing their mana' became.
… But it also allowed a 'cleansing' of sorts to occur, which was precisely what Alleyne aimed to achieve.
If Yuuji didn't free his mana, it would inevitably either tear free or tear him apart.
She was merely forcing the matter in a scenario where no one would hopefully have to die.
She was aware it was cruel. She was aware that it was meddling that bordered on invasiveness.
But what of it?
If Yuuji came out of this with the capacity to despise her for what she'd done to him, that would be a Yuuji more alive than she had ever witnessed.
For one who had personally instructed hundreds of youth over the years, burning her bridges to light a path for the young didn't seem such a bad deal.
… In total silence, Yuuji fell upon her with the force of a meteor.
It was a quiet sort of madness that gripped Yuuji.
Like the sleepwalking of a savage animal, Yuuji pursued her with relentless, noiseless brutality.
- Hammering down her raised staff with a heavy strike of his blade that notched her staff deeply, Yuuji thrust his free hand over her weapon as if his fingers were spears.
Alleyne jerked her head to the side, a hiss escaping her as she felt the sting against her neck.
Shoving him back, Alleyne spun quickly and swept out low, forcing Yuuji to leap back and away to avoid having his legs torn out from under him.
Her neck was bleeding lightly, but nothing important was torn, she quickly assessed. Her staff, which wasn't dead wood like a human's would be, was already repairing itself in her hands.
Before, Alleyne had fought with purely physical skills against Yuuji, in their spars.
She had avoided utilizing her mana, the same with her Arts. Typically, she only did that against a student without mana when it was necessary to teach a lesson.
Usually a lesson in humility.
But now, holding back too much might end with one or both of them killed.
Alleyne needed to overwhelm Yuuji as swiftly and as painlessly as possible.
Taking a low stance and drawing the tip of her staff back, Alleyne met Yuuji's sudden rush with a thrust of her staff that struck far beyond the reach of her weapon.
A targeted gale that did little in the way of direct damage, but could easily send the unwary flying.
The scars of a soul seethed with angry light, and a soundless howl shattered the wind to pieces.
Even a warrior as peerless as Alleyne could not be prepared for absolutely everything her opponent might have done.
A single moment of shock saw her silent student well within her reach, and then her senses skipped a beat as her slender body folded itself over a fist buried so deeply in her abdomen, it was a wonder it hadn't pierced right through her.
… Awareness returned, accompanied by pain, as Alleyne felt her body skip once off the ground, before landing to tear through the grass and leave her curled up in the cratered loam.
With a convulsive cough, Alleyne spat blood into the dirt, her abdominals spasming as if they'd been caved in by Yuuji's fist.
'Damn brute near snapped me in half with a single blow!' She was aware that Yuuji was strong, but using her body to gain a clearer picture of how strong had not been part of the lesson plan.
… Bleary eyes caught sight of her weapon just as it was kicked aside.
Uneven though his stride may have been, the long legs of the vacant-eyed Yuuji easily closed the gap.
He went to swing down his knife, only to lose it as he was kicked in the forearm. His other hand caught Alleyne's dainty ankle, but her other heel smashed into his chest.
Yuuji crashed to the ground, and Alleyne rolled away and hauled herself onto hands and knees, exhaling sharply through clenched teeth as her aching stomach hitched in an attempt to stay folded.
She had almost made it to her feet, when she was lifted clean off of them by two calloused hands that easily encircled, and then began to crush her slim neck.
Alleyne gagged as her vision shook, and swung once; the last strike she had it in her to make.
… The pommel of Yuuji's borrowed knife slammed into his temple, and he crumpled to the ground with a barely audible groan.
The pained cry that followed was not his- he'd simply pulled Alleyne down on top of himself, aggravating her wounds.
Bruised neck throbbing as she rose on trembling limbs and lifted her heavy head, Alleyne's swaying vision tried its best to center on his still face.
If she'd had the presence of mind, she would have scowled at how peaceful he looked when he'd reduced her to one single mass of pain.
Alleyne's voice was a faint rasp as she forced the words from her lips.
"Wake up… when your head is on straight... my fool of a student."
With that said, Alleyne went limp, falling prone atop the body of her student in such a way that it appeared as if she was doing her very best to shield his larger body with her own.
It was the first time Alleyne had acknowledged Yuuji as her student out loud, and neither were yet aware of how that would pave the way for the greatest change yet.
In both his life, and hers.
It was a strange dream that didn't really suit Yuuji at all.
Across a seemingly endless white expanse, he watched from afar as a great pale hound chased the soaring shadow of a hawk with fierce blue eyes.
Yuuji forgot the hound and the hawk by the time he had awoken, but the blue eyes lingered.
Perhaps because that was the first thing to greet him when his own eyes opened.
Alleyne was more exhausted than he had ever seen her, but she visibly seemed to relax as their eyes met.
"Y-you certainly took your time, my student," Alleyne whispered gently. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I lost twice as many fights as usual." Yuuji admitted, while deciding to pretend he hadn't heard the quiver in her voice.
It probably didn't show on his face very well, but Yuuji was more than a little shocked when the quip made Alleyne giggle softly.
And though it was a pure and musical sound, he couldn't help but have his eyes drawn to the other interesting things that accompanied Alleyne's laughter.
Some measure of awareness returned, and Yuuji averted his gaze to be polite. How effective the gesture was remained dubious in nature, though- Yuuji was a sniper and snipers were trained to spot details quickly.
So he had spotted the details, quickly.
… In regards to the only part of her body that could be considered 'plump', it seemed that Alleyne belonged to the 'looked smaller when clothed' camp.
They were round and full, beautifully shaped, really. A distracting amount of bounce but not a hint of sag.
The concussion may have been coloring his perception and he accepted that, but Yuuji was honestly feeling a bit moved by the chance to see them with nothing in the way.
'Them' being Alleyne's bare breasts, because apparently her top had been ripped wide open during the fight he barely remembered.
He wasn't sure if 'perfect' was really a thing when it came to breasts, but somewhere in the range of eighty to ninety points seemed fair.
At the edge of his peripherals, Yuuji was just barely able to glimpse Alleyne wilting, her shoulders slumping and the tips of her pointed ears dipping low.
"... Ah, yes. Of course." She murmured, seemingly having expected… something. "It is no wonder you would not wish to look me in the eye, after what I've done to you. Don't… don't trouble yourself any further. I understand completely."
Yuuji turned his head back in order to meet her eyes with an eyebrow raised.
"What are you even talking about?" He asked bluntly.
"W-what do you mean!?" Alleyne not quite exclaimed, too tired and dry in the throat to properly raise her voice (or get off him, apparently). "Perhaps you are unaware, but freeing your mana could have gotten us both killed!"
"And you did it because you thought that was what was best for me, even if it could have gotten you killed, right?"
"W-well, yes, that was the case, I suppose, but-"
"Not a clue what strange assumptions you're making right now, but…" Yuuji admitted, "Speaking of strange, don't you think that's a weird place to be defenseless, Master?"
Alleyne stiffened, missing the implications in favor of the rush of elation that accompanied a student she'd wronged, instead addressing her by a title that every student of hers seemed to inevitably address her as, though she'd never once requested it.
"Defenseless, me? Your concern is touching… no, immensely relieving, with all that has happened-"
"Master." Even as another mysterious little rush of warmth sparked, Alleyne went rigid as Yuuji spoke the title a little more firmly, before quite pointedly averting his gaze again. "You might have won the fight, but your clothing didn't."
Blinking slowly, Alleyne gradually let her gaze lower, and was greeted with the sight of the pale pink tips of her bosom, having stiffened from exposure to the cool breeze.
Woodenly, Alleyne lifted her gaze once more to catch the side profile of Yuuji's apologetic smile.
A moment of silence passed between them, and Yuuji opted to belatedly close his eyes in sympathy.
Alleyne's decision took the form of a cute and high-pitched scream, the first scream she'd made in decades.
It wouldn't be Queen's Blade without some cloth-ripping fanservice, after all. It's essential, I would argue.
Anyways, there's the first chapter of the story, which kind of just exploded onto the page.
Yuuji has somehow ended up in another world (there's a proper reason but he doesn't care yet), and it's full of barely dressed bombshells who are always down to brawl.
… I find it genuinely hilarious how well Yuuji can fit in with the all-female cast of Queen's Blade.
Timewise from the Grisaia end of things, this takes place during the second part of the trilogy (Labyrinth of Grisaia, though it's covered in Eden of Grisaia in the anime). So this is before Yuuji joins Mihama Academy and meets the girls of the main cast. He's basically just lost his entire world and then been physically evicted from it, so it's no wonder he needs a bit of adjusting.
Now, some of you (like those who read my other story Pawn), might wonder what happens to JB. We'll get there, don't worry.
For another question we all know that we'd all want to know, yes, this is a harem story. An explicit one at that. Well, it's 'sort of' a harem, more like a big ol' web of polyamory that has Yuuji in the center.
Basically what I usually write, tbh.
Now, with that out of the way, onto the chapter itself (I'll try not to make every AN this big).
Alleyne draws a parallel to Asako in that she's more or less willing to bully Yuuji into living, so she's going to be one of the most important characters in the story.
Be a few chapters before we meet any of the other QB cast members, at least from Yuuji's perspective.
Leina will not be a main character, largely because I don't like her all that much, but she won't get written out.
Some characters will appear in their Unlimited versions as opposed to their OG appearances, much of it is cosmetic and influenced almost entirely by which I like more.
More of the hows and why's of the world, and why Yuuji is there, will be revealed as the story goes on, and as for that all-female tournament at the center of everything, well… hehe.
As for the whole mana/soul thing, that's actually going to be background for the most part- Alleyne (and a few others) can just see much, much more of the inner workings, and that scene is an important setup for later on.
The bit with the pale hound, though… well, that you might see more of.
Anyways, stoked to see what you guys think, and I'll see you in the next update (story update order will be posted on my profile, but this one is taking the fourth slot as Flight is bumped up to third)