Earl John Garret: The target ships?
Helmsman Davidson: The Saintess and the Five heirs have been confirmed to be on the ship leaving Yamatai's capital. The Royal family couldn't have painted a bigger more obvious target if they tried.
Garret: And our real target?
Helmsman: The smoke signals have already been dropped. We'll have them by morn. What should we do with the brats anyway?
Garret: The Redgrave's traitors? They were disposable anyway. So we dispose of them with the rest. Easy.
Transcript taken from a captured Fanossian ship
Olivia and Angelica were sitting on the deck of the ship that was heading back to Holfortian territory.
"You've been pretty quiet the whole trip." Angelica noted as she leaned on a railing on the side of the ship.
"I've found that keeping my head down and keeping quiet is the best way to handle things when I don't know what to do." Olivia admitted shamefully. "...I like Leon but-"
"But that old man has thrown you through a loop." Angelica stated letting out a sigh.
"...do you really think Leon will be like that one day?" Olivia asked remembering about what Lea was like.
"I don't know. I know that losing someone can change a person." If Lea had killed Ann out of malice then it makes no sense that he would still be mourning her death and trying to avenge her after five hundred years, but to claim that he went as far as to destroy her soul with his own two hands? "I think his situation was born of trauma, trauma that he hasn't been able to move past and hasn't been able or willing to accept the help that he needs to move past it."
"...I think what he's really afraid of is letting us get close." Olivia said as she looked on at the horizon vacantly. "He's afraid because he knows what losing us will do to him if he does." Left unsaid was what 'losing them' will do to them. "'Denied Afterlife and Reincarnation.' What does that mean?"
"Got time for another Lecture?" Leon piped up as he walked in on the two girls conversation, still rubbing his shoulder from the last time that Lea hit him. Olivia of course was quick to attend to him.
Q: What does reincarnation mean?
A: Souls are theoretically a fixed resource, so the same soul that's in your body and that of everyone and thing that you know are in theory the same soul that has been around since the beginning of time.
Q: What does afterlife mean?
A: Afterlife refers to Inferno and Paradiso. The thing you have to realise about the cycle of reincarnation is that souls can end up in almost everything. Humans, Animals, Plants and Objects either all have or can have souls. There are even cases of Souls binding with demonic or angelica powers and being transformed into unique demons or angels through processes that we have already discussed once or twice. You can imagine there being all kinds of problems that happen if you remember being a cow or a vegetable. So the powers that be try to wash that stuff off, their memories, emotions personality and feelings in the River Styx in Inferno and the Rivers of Eden in Paradiso, being broken down and released as Demons and Angels.
Q: Demons 'and' angels? Not or?
A: Demons are physical embodiments of negative emotions, angels embodiments of positive emotions. When either a person dies or these feelings manifest strongly enough in the human world, Midgard, they manifest in Paradiso and Inferno as well. It's possible for these to mix together through 'corruption and purification' but that is not their natural state. The identity of an individual is not preserved through the cleansing process, by design, with the only things left of them being the pieces between inferno and Paradiso.
Q: What about Ann?
A: I have no idea what he did to her or with her. I neither know her nor where Lea put her, everything that I know about her is limited to what we learned in school and if we believe Lea then most of that is wrong.
Q: And Lea?
A: I have no idea what happened to him to make him like this. There are demons and angels that are supposed to watch the rivers to make sure this doesn't happen but I don't know what he's doing that they let him off or how he's sneaking around. Frankly speaking, he's so miserable that I have no interest in whatever trick he used or the price he paid to escape the cycle of reincarnation.
A Question and Answer Session with Leon-kun.
While the trio were conversing Leon felt something, sound carried on the wind, a familiar smell of Monkshood on the air, the distant roar of familiar monsters echoing in the distance and the faint playing of a flute. As Leon was processing this he was suddenly hit with the feeling of why the bloody hell he cares about any of these retarded people!?
"Don't talk about us like we're objects you own!" Olivia suddenly snapped, her notebook crumpled in her grip and her pencil snapped.
"Don't take that tone with me!" Angelica snapped back in reply, already her hands were smoking with fire magic.
"Bloody Hell I know that smell!" Leon observed as various Angels were appearing from thin air. Leon ended up pushing Angelica out of the way as he grabbed one shaped like a woman around her neck. "Bloody hell a Joy!? Where did you come from?" The Answer was rhetorical as Leon soon snapped the Angel's neck!
"Don't brush up on me!" Angelica felt like something had been uncorked inside of her, years of abuse and anger suppressed by peer pressure and familial obligations was all spilling out and being shot off with the slightest provocation.
"Oh look at that the bitch is showing her true colours!" A familiar voice echoed out, Antoinette, Angelica's former follower who along with Mildred and Elizabeth got her in shit with Julius.
"Is there something you'd like to say Antoinette?" Angelica had a migraine, there was heat wafting off of her body as she watched Leon crushing the heads of angels with his bare hands with a smile on his face.
Stress, Anger, Sadism-
"Yes! You are the most spoiled bratty person I have ever met! Do you think that any of us would have ever given you the time of day if you weren't the duke's daughter!?" Malice. That seemed to be the theme of the day. "Do you have any idea how much trouble it is to look after you!? How much of our lives have been wasted on you!? Only for you to throw us away for that little commoner who-!"
"SHUT UP!" Olivia puked up all the abuse that she received since she arrived in the academy, the bullying, the harassment, the nights she spent so stressed out of her gourd that she puke. "ALL OF YOU SHUT YOUR FILTHY MOUTHS RIGHT NOW!" Olivia screamed at the top of her lungs, and all the people who had suddenly started arguing with each other and fighting one another suddenly stopped what they were doing and looked at her. "WE'RE UNDER ATTACK AND YOU ALL ARE BICKERING LIKE CHILDREN!"
To Olivia's statement Leon had a look around the sky. They had been surrounded, Insidious, the Warship type Fallen, countless fallen angels and flying demons, and airships. Leon might think that his family had decided to surround this ship, full of worthless idiots blow the assholes out of the sky, but a crest he didn't recognise was painted onto the sides of the Insidious, on the sails of the airships being propelled through the sky with wind magic and floating above the heads of the largest monsters via illusion magic.
"The Principality of Fanoss." Angelica should've known that they were behind the shit hitting the fan.
During the school field trip taking place during the second year The Principality made their move in order to attempt to throw Hoflort into civil war.
Their plan had actually been extremely simple, attack the ship that had the Saintess and her love interest on board, take her hostage, and destroy the ship with all of Holfort's students on board thus leading everyone to believe that she sold out the student body to Fanoss and saved only herself.
There were several things working against them at the time, starting with the Saintess herself and her innate powers of mind control, the second the bull headed stubbornness of the love interests and finally the lost ship Luxion that was more than capable of annihilating both Principality ships and the Black Knight himself with it's main cannon.
With access to Luxion's main weapon the Black Knight and the Principality fleet of ships and monsters should represent little threat, without them on the other hand, the Saint and any love interests she may have with her are dead.
Excerpt from Diary 1
The tension on the deck was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Everyone on the deck was filled with anger, despair, madness and malice, it was like every good feeling, every happy memory, everything and anything that was good about them had been ripped out and the only reason they weren't ripping each other apart was Olivia. Once the students had settled down a Fanossian air-boat flew over and docked onto the luxury liner. A man with a hideously over groomed moustache that Leon wanted to rip off and slam the bastard's face into the deck walked onto the ship.
"Greetings children of Holfort." The literally moustache twirling villain spoke with a voice full of pompousness as he looked down on the gathered students with his eyes. "I am Earl John Garret of the Principality of Fanoss." Taking a moment Garret took in the surroundings. The newly spawned Angels had perched themselves on the rails of the ship looking down at the various students like hovering gargoyles and the Earl's grin widened. "Most of you will be taken prisoner, all the students of baron and above rank will be spared. However students of the knight ranking, as well as any exclusive servants and the crew of the ship will be executed."
Suddenly a loud stomp echoed out as a familiar figure emerged from the crowd.
"I am Angelica Rapha Redgrave." Angelica's eyes were glowing, her deep and unfathomable rage clear in her eyes. They had been baited and tricked, the years of abuse that she had suffered had been allowed to fester despite the attempts to directly extract that anger and pain in the form of the sloth demon but she hadn't been given time to heal yet, what's worse is that she had been uncorked, every unpleasant feeling she had corked and bottled up inside of her had been shaken and spewed forth like ammunition from a gun. "If it's a hostage you want I suspect I would be more than sufficient." Angelica radiated pure blood-lust, even now she was looking at his sheathed sword and holstered gun and thinking through the methods to tear them out of his person and off him with them.
"Oh oh oh!" Garrett twirled his moustache as his features lit up with malicious glee. "I didn't think the duke's daughter would come out and reveal her identity all on her own. Or that she would be travelling out of the country without body guards no less. I can't imagine what the Kingdom was thinking!" Garret laughed as he turned to leave. "Come along then! The Princess has been so looking forward to seeing her old friend again!"
Leon was already moving, forcing his way to the front of the crowd when some bastard smashed a freaking chair over his head!
"What the hell he's actually hurt!?" Leon had received the dual curses of 'enhance damage taken' and 'stall healing effects' so his durability had taken a hit as a consequence, but not his endurance.
"GGGRRR!" A loud growl echoed out as Leon stood up and turned around to face the crowd, blood dripping down his face and into his eyes and mouth. "Oi did you know that unless you do it just right, a blow to the back of the head can kill a guy right!?" Angie added fear to the list of emotions that were going through the crowd. Isaiah, the young man who Angelica knew use to be one of her followers was still holding the legs of the chair he smashed over Leon's head, his hands gripping on the legs even tighter than what he was before when he realised on some primal level that he had just pissed off a apex predator, even if his brain hadn't caught up yet. "That means that you just tried to kill me right!?" Spite is defined as taking deliberate action to hurt, annoy, or offend someone but that isn't it is it? You don't call someone spiteful for just being mean to people, it's toxic behaviour to the point of lacking reason.
"Leave him-" Olivia got a blow to her face and was thrown across the ground.
"DON'T TELL US WHAT TO DO YOU COMMONER WHORE!" Antoinette led the various female students to attack Olivia, and with that the Camel's back snapped.
"RRRAAAWWWRRR!" Leon released a inhuman scream as he ripped into the crowd of students, reason lost on him.
"Should I assume this irrational pit of anger is your doing!?" Angelica asked eyes resting firmly on the back of Garrett's head as he watched the various students attack each other.
"So what if it is?" Garret was still twisting that stash, it was a good thing he kept it oiled so well, it would help burn his face off easier later. "What do you think you can do about it?" Garret asked smirking evilly down at Angelica, as if asking what she'll do about it.
"Just one more thing to ponder." Fanoss has the capability to make people display the worst of themselves, likely connected to the sudden appearance of the angels on the ship. Garret's sarcasm pretty much confirms it, now to find out how.
During the Principalities separation fifty years ago, the enemy fleet was accompanied by a hoard of demonic and angelic monsters, and in the game they continued to be accompanied by various monsters as well.
The answer to this is the Flute of Summoning Monsters, an ancient magical artefact of unknown origin, the flute possesses the power to siphon the magical power out of those who hear its music and convert that gathered energy into demonic and or angelic monsters.
At the cost of the user's life the flute can even be used to summon the so-called gods of Fanoss for use as weapons of mass destruction on the field of battle, which nearly sunk the continent of Holfort during their final attack on their parent country, necessitating the use of the Royal Airship and Olivia's power to put an end to the threat permanently.
Excerpt from Diary 1
Olivia woke up roughly, already using healing magic to realign and heal her broken bones. Pushing herself off of the cold stone floor Olivia looked ahead of her, and gasped in horror.
"Finally awake eh?" Leon had seen hell, there was not a single inch of his skin that wasn't bruised, covered in blood, or cut open and one of his eyes had been gouged out. "Before you say anything, they look worse."
"Leon!" Olivia gasped in horror, and then she remembered the events that led up to her being beaten half to death. "Oh god, I said so many...! And people were...! They took Angie!"
"Yeah glad you're up to speed." Leon said as he got up, audibly groaning as he did so.
"What happened!?" Olivia tried to use healing magic but it wasn't working, instead she collapsed as her body started to dry heave.
"Yeah I figured that." Leon stated as he grabbed hold of one of the bars of his cell. "Remember that spell we used on Angie to yank the demon out of her?" Leon kicked the bar and broke it before ripping it off.
"Mm..." Olivia grunted in the affirmative. Everything was hurting, her head, her body, her bones. How many times did they kick her? "Someone did the same thing to everyone on the ship, only they went for the 'angel' instead." Hence where the ones that Leon was fighting came from. "Someone with a very dangerous artefact in their possession." Leon squeezed the bar between his finger and thumb, a loud screeching noise echoed out as he used brute force to turn the bar into a blade.
"...do you know what's doing this?" Olivia felt faint, she couldn't be conscious for much longer let alone in any shape to use healing magic, which is a shame because Leon's going to need a lot of healing magic here in a second.
"Yes..." Leon knew that his parents were going around collecting the artefacts of the clans since before he was born, he wouldn't be able to look them in the eye when they get back if he can't get it back. "I do." As Leon watched Olivia fall unconscious he took his belt off and secured it around his arm so tightly he felt the circulation being cut off. And now that he knew he wasn't going to bleed to death, Leon slashed down with his makeshift blade cutting his hand off at the wrist, along with the bracelet of mana sucking beads that he was wearing.
The ship rocked, everyone felt the burst of uncontrolled mana yes, but they felt something else with it. Wrath, Spite, Apathy, Malice. Leon had dropped his weapon and grabbed his severed appendage before it hit the ground, his magic was already flowing, turning his hair into thread and the thread into suture to reattach the hand to the stump of his arm, now free of the limiter. Leon's arm cracked as he formed a fist, already his leaking demonic blood was coagulating in various places forming hard scabs while the surrounding flesh took on new properties. Leon already felt his body changing, demonic power doesn't heal so much as it mutates, the various injuries across his body was being put through changes one after another another like a cut scabbing over and healing.
His hair was weaving through his body pulling broken bones back into alignment and suturing internal injuries in a futile attempt to minimise the damage being done every second. Leon's body would be scarred from this day forward, scars that may never heal less he resorts to breaking his body down and rebuilding it from the ground up. Given the situation, it would be a price that would be cheap at twice the cost. Leon's clothes had been torn, the fight and the released of demonic energy that followed, he finished what he had started, and soon his body was wrapped in his true uniform, that of a Umbran warlock. Hair that was as strong as steel to begin with was weaved into threads that could stretch like rubber, their toughness was further enhanced by being woven together into a thick material resembling jeans.
Gloves covered Leons hands, one of which with newly formed stitching around his wrist and was starting to change colours. Patterns had been sown into the fabric to produce barriers passively and with his shadow magic most magic based attacks would be nerfed when they struck him. This hair based material clung to Leon's body in one layer like jeans and hung off of his body in a loose leather like material taking on slacks and a biker's jacket, secured around his wrists and ankles so that it wouldn't impact his mobility. Strength Leon hadn't felt in months returned to him as he felt his face twitching, his left eye that had been gouged out had grown back into a lizard like slit, for now he formed a eye patch around it less he cause problems for himself. Then Leon ripped the cell off the wall, and he picked up Olivia in a Piggy back and carried her off.
The Devil Bringer is an interesting case study of demonic mutations. Normally when a Cambione, a human demon hybrid, is injured their body simply heals but there are exceptions to this. In the case of our friend Nero he received a severe injury before he had fully awakened to his demonic power, and so his body caused a mutation to rebuild his arm from the ground up fuelled by his demonic power. This mutated arm is less a mass of flesh and more like a compressed space shaped like an arm that has been contained by a demonic scab of Red Orbs that is also doubling as a crude armour. This space can expand outwards, thus the 'Buster' techniques which is little more than using this expanded space to grapple with and toss enemies about.
One of the things that let's Nero control this power is his strong 'humanity' which kept the mutation from spreading despite the numerous injuries he received during Fortuna's Fall up until he came into his full power, this same humanity allowed him to regain his original human like arm after over a month from losing the Devil Bringer in Redgrave city, mind you a arm with the unusual ability to turn itself into energy and through that attach itself to the so-called 'Devil Breaker' prosthetic. In theory a similar mutation may occur should the subject suffer any severe injuries while having their natural ability to heal suppressed but their reserves of demonic power remain intact.
A research document on Subject Gamma
Angelica had been brought to the 'captain's quarters' though she suspected its occupant did little in the way of commanding the ship. It was basically a floating island that was being towed around by the Insidious.
"I haven't seen you since we were children." 'Since before your parents were killed' is what Angelica was really saying. Garret was right about one thing, the two of them had been friends once, or so Angelica liked to think. Their parents had been working to try and mend the wounds between nations, before Hertrude and Hertraude had suddenly been made into orphans one day during a play-date they had together.
"Do not speak to me as if we were friends." Hertrude had grown up to be a beautiful young woman, her pale skin was a white as snow and her glossy hair was like onto the night sky, the pair of blood red eyes was more than enough proof to know from whose family the Fanoss royal line descended. She was also rail thin, her ribs showing through the sides of her backless dress and the area around her collar bone while her cheeks were sunken in. "While you kept me and my sister distracted the rest of your country's nobility were killing our parents." Hertrude leaned back into her chair as she glared ahead with dead empty eyes. She's only seen a look like that from Leon, usually when he was dealing with the five fools.
"Then as you wish, I will not treat you as a friend." Angelica looked out the window to the retreating Fanossian fleet that had stopped moving and the cruise ship in the distance that was still surrounded by monsters. "So then you have no intention of calling off your pets?" Angelica asked as she watched a maid open and hold out a case for Hertrude.
"Nothing of the sort." Hertrude snorted in derision as she picked up the item inside of the box, a flute fanned on either size by a familiar symbol of the Principality of Fanoss. "As you yourself said, you are more than adequate as a hostage." A familiar magic circle appeared around Hertrude's mouth. "People of Holfort! For the Crimes you have committed against the people of Fanoss you all will die! You! Your Worthless Families! The miserable Wretches under you! Together all of you are going to die by the hand of the Fanoss and Redgrave families!"
Ah. So that's why they took her captive, she was their 'ally' that they had 'saved' from being mauled by their monsters. Well played, though their movements were simple they were well executed, they weren't without flaws of course, built on the premise that at least some of the students would survive the massacre, or that they would fend off the monsters long enough to escape or be rescued. Were they tracking the movements of a nearby Holfort fleet too? Even though their route was deliberately obscured from the general public they should be relatively near the Holfortian border too so the possibility was high. Angelica observed as Hertrude started to play the flute, soon the various monsters both in the fleet and with the cruise ship started to move in order to go on the offensive. Which also meant that Angelica had the last piece of information that she needed.
"Well played Hertrude your allies have concocted a cunning plan. Should it succeed I suspect that the ensuing civil war will rip the Country of Holfort to pieces on top of whatever you plan on unleashing." Angelica clapped her hands in congratulations. "Well done you've not only devised and executed a largely fool proof plan to burn the kingdom to the ground but you've done so in a way that not even my family can completely salvage. I will however point out two critical flaws in your plan that can cause your goals to fall apart."
Angelica held up two of her fingers in a peace sign.
"Enlighten me." Angelica was always talented. Even when she was a child she could easily see through problems that she and Hertraude were struggling with, she was also so energetic and adventurous, she climbed up a tree calling it a adventure and broke her leg when she fell. Her insights would be helpful.
"You've brought me into the heart of your base, and you've let me see you use that flute to control your pets." And then Angelica started her rampage.
The Twin Flutes of Inferno and Paradiso are one of the products of the Umbran Witches and Lumen Sages collaborations in research into the fae.
In times of emergency the flutes can be used to create an army of other worldly monsters under the command of the one playing the flutes, the Angel flute will extract all of the positive emotions along with a suitable amount of mana for the manifestation of it's angels from those who listen it, likewise the Demon Flute will extract all the negative emotions along with a suitable amount of magical power to manifest it's demons.
Used individually the two flutes are capable of wreaking devastation on the battlefield with it's listeners judgement and emotions thrown into chaos, their mana drained and a army of monsters dumped on their heads, used together the two flutes are devastating tools of mass slaughter, ripping the souls of those who hear them played together alongside all of their mana, fusing them together into a monster of devastating power, one of the main reasons that the two flutes were kept separate among both clans.
Excerpt from The Umbran/Lumen Clan's Technology and Magical Artefacts
Leon limped through the halls of the Luxury liner, carrying Olivia all the way along, the longer he walked the better his posture got, and the less human he felt his shifting demonic flesh underneath his skin and clothes spreading like a rash. Luckily everyone seemed to have been gathered somewhere, no doubt listening to the Bitch's shoddy attempt to frame Angie as a traitor and bad mouthing the person who had sacrificed herself to keep them out of the hands of the enemy. He'd snap her neck later, right now getting Olivia to safety was his main priority, and luckily Leon had set up a emergency escape plan before he left for Yamatai.
Lea was stronger than him, more experienced, and had stronger weapons so yes Leon took precautions. What did it say about Rodin that even the entrance to his bar was full of spectacle? A magical record that when flipped and played can transport the people in the area directly to Rodin's Bar the Gates of Hell, and when flipped back in Rodin's bar spits the people back to where they had come from in the first place.
The room shook as Leon was sent off to a different place, Olivia still being carried on his back. The fancy but cramped room was soon replaced by the smell of alcohol and sulphur. Bar tables and chairs were neatly organised and the walls had been lined with hundreds of different devil arms.
"You look like Lea ran you over with a truck." Rodin was at the bar watching as Leon unloaded Livia at the bar proper.
"Yeah. Would've been nice if I didn't go into the fight crippled." Leon angrily slapped the limiter bracelet on the table. Shortly thereafter Leon began grabbing fistfuls of Leaf, Moon, Rose and Butterfly shaped suckers.
"That's a lot of sugar there Leon."
"Yeah I noticed." Leon looked around at the walls, Malphas and Mick were some of the only demons that could fly through the air but were lacking the offensive power to put down the air ships, they also wouldn't help him fly either without putting out a butt ton of magic. He also wouldn't be able to fly Umbra in one of the air ships back to the battle with the luxury liner in time to save Angie. "I should be able to make it if I snatch one of Nick's Arwings and bring it back with the Gramophone." Leon suddenly got a hit to the back of his body and was sent flying across the bar.
"I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you aren't planning to launch an airstrike on Lea." Rodin walked over and loomed over Leon, glowing red eyes shining through the black glasses. "What hell have you gotten yourself involved in this time?"
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: Science is nothing more than the study of phenomena and how it works, if magic can be studied and understood well enough to duplicate the phenomena that it creates then it is by definition science.
KadoyaOkami: Welcome to love life for a immortal. Nothing worth having isn't worth working for.
RedRat8: There's also the possibility that there are details he has left out or is lying about.
Chronus0305: My Head canon thus far? Yeah they and Lea were friends, but then they got hit with Ann's magic at point blank range, and by the time anyone understood what happened it was already too late: Lea had already been killed. Proof that there's no benefit to having mind control magic, at least none if you're a decent human being. Well, Lea hasn't exactly become Shuten Doji so much as partnered with him, still the hatred is strong. Yeah that was my failure, in my defence I had a hard time picking out bosses that matched both their affinities and job classes to the point that it would be obvious.
Guest: They're getting fed hints. Lots of them.
m6102032: Told y'all I have plans.