A/N: Welp. 17,000 phantasm gems and Olivier didn't come home. Probably because I had Cid choke her the fuck out. Although from the preview 1-on-1 interactions I think I can say I got her interactions with Cid pretty correct. The best way I can describe the vibe is she's sort of like Morgan le Fay from F/GO in that she's always the one in charge and is very frank with her desire for Cid. What's interesting is that she doesn't seem to be one of the people that knows Cid is Shadow.
Leon Fou [now Rapha] Barfort: Renowned adventurer and current crown prince. / previously: Hiro (pre:isekai)—Lea of Bart's Fort (The true founder of Holfort and lover to the Saintess Ann and Mary)—JOU_MOU_ (someone who used to work in Luxion's facility.)
Angelica Rapha Redgrave: Daughter of Duke Redgrave and ex-fiancé to Julius/ Previously: Ann of Bart's Fort (aka Saintess Ann and lover of Lea of Bart's fort). / Also goes by Angie to close friends and loved ones. Currently Pregnant.
Olivia: Commoner from the Kagenou Barony. / previously: Mary, lover and companion to Ann and Lea. When they had returned from their adventures in ancient Midgar, all three had been attacked by the founding heirs as they all wanted Ann. To save Lea and Ann from such a fate, she teleported them away, and swapped bodies with Ann. / Is also known as Livia by her close friends and loved ones. Currently Pregnant.
Cid Kagenou: fiancé to several famous elves but just a regular mob you'd find anywhere / previously: Minoru Kagenou boy from Earth that would be transported to the ancient times of the current before dying at the hands of his friends due to becoming demonically possessed out of grief. / Also dons the secret identity of "Lord Shadow." Leader and founder of The Shadow Garden. / Mundane Mann, a pathetic looking sword wielder that disappeared many years ago and has returned for the Bushin festival. / Kageno of Mitsugoshi, after an argument with his parents, Cid decides to go by Kageno for a while. / Herlock Sholmes. During the trial of Leon v Holfort, Cid disguised himself as the famous detective. Most importantly, all the Shades call him some variant of "darling."
Alice [Kagenou: Cid's personal elf servant, lover, and childhood friend / previously: Beatrice (this is non canon, but all of Shadow Garden had identities before joining so I made a name up for her.) / Dons the secret identity of "Alpha" or "Lady Shade." Co-leader and second founder of The Shadow Garden, first of the Seven Shades. The name "Alpha" is only used by those in Shadow Garden. Currently Pregnant.
Other Shadow Garden Members: All of the seven shades have secret identities. They see their Shadow Garden names as their true names and will use that in their own thoughts. But to everyone not in Shadow Garden that sees them as their secret identities will use those names.
Beta: Natsume Kafka, renowned writer.
Gamma: Luna of Mitsugoshi, owner of said store and many others, richest Woman in the world. Xianyun, Sword master of the far eastern kingdoms. Currently Pregnant.
Delta: Sara, certified good girl.
Epsilon: Shiron, amazing musician known internationally.
Zeta: Zetan. Previously known as Lilim, named after the therianthrope hero, Lili.
Eta: Goes by Eta Lloyd Wright, renowned Architect.
Charlie: Known previously as Carla Fou Wayne.
Aurora: Called Violet by Cid and now camps out in his soul/brain. Known as the Witch of Calamity, and the Demon Diabolos.
Other People:
Claire Kagenou: Cid's older sister and one of Leon's fiancés. Going by Nonna during her time in Alzer.
Deidre Fou Roseblade: The stereotypical haughty Ojou-Sama. One of Leon's fiancés. Going by Rogue during her time in Alzer.
Rose Oriana: Princess of Oriana. Probably the only person besides Aurora that knows Cid thinks everything is part of a game. Going by Luci in Alzer. Number 666 in The Shadow Garden.
Noelle Beltre: Beltre is a fake last name given to her after the destruction of her house. In truth, her name is Noelle Zel Lespinasse / ?
Louise Sara Rault: Currently the one and only daughter of House Rault. Also the only living child by blood following the death of her brother Leon Sara Rault. A vampire "princess" to boot. / In her previous life she was Hiro(pre-isekai Leon)'s girlfriend, Yuna. He was ready to propose but when the rumor of him being gay spread she dumped him.
Disclaimer: I don't own Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs nor The Eminence in Shadow. The only Beta reader here is the elf.
-Noelle-
I walked around the school grounds as Liv and Angie told me to. I'm not entirely sold on this whole "9th girl of a harem" thing honestly, so they said that if I didn't want to see Leon—because I'm liable to start crying if I were to—then I should go and talk to the other members of our—their, their little family.
I've already met Claire and Deirdre, so logically the next person I should meet would be the girl called Clarice. From what I recall, her full name is Clarice Fia Atlee. She graduated from the school last semester, given her and Claire had been in their last year, but she's still here if only due to the fact that she wants to be near her sister-wives. Also in case Leon were to come back.
Although it's not like she's been waiting around like some lovelorn maiden according to the two. Rather, Clarice had taken it upon herself to help train the students in piloting air bikes and helping to shape up the men, or at least the ones that would follow her.
It was kind of hard to figure out where she was though. Not like I couldn't find the air bike track, no, that was pretty easy. The hard part had been to find her in this giant place.
Sure, there were tons of students that talked about how great she was, and there was a seemingly endless parade of couples that seemed to have gotten together because of her. Finally, I had the bright idea of going to the actual field where the air bikes were. There I saw all the people I saw earlier waiting in two rows.
Suddenly, a hand was on my shoulder. I looked over to see an orange haired woman with sunglasses and a leather-looking suit. It looked more like Leon's biking gear, but with the pants being a bit tighter and boots being a bit longer. Stylish if nothing else. She flicked her sunglasses up and exposed her pretty green eyes.
"You ever ride a bike?" asked the woman that had to be Clarice.
I shook my head a bit before remembering something, "Well, not by myself. Leon let me ride on the back of his when we were running out of Alzer."
I immediately began feeling a bunch of cold stares leveled my way.
"Did you now?" Clarice takes the sunglasses off, hands them to one of the women on the right, and the accepts two helmets from a man on the left. One of them has a tiara design with an orange gem and some vine patterns and kinda looks like it was built by Leon's lost item. Lux-kun or whatever his name was. She then walks back over to me and shoves the normal looking helmet in my hands, "I've never gotten the chance to do that."
Oh no.
She then walks towards her bike with each of the men and women bowing as she passes. As she sits down she motions for me to follow so I quickly scramble my way to her. When I get close, I see what looks like an air bike that's somewhere in the middle of a regular air bike, Leon's Schwert, and a dragon.
It's horribly, horribly, intimidating. Even more so when she sits on it, showing a view probably meant for Leon before she adjusts herself properly, and then tells me to get on the back by patting it.
Knowing I probably couldn't get far if I were to run, if mainly because of all the people that were still waiting and staring at us, I follow her directions.
"D-do I hold onto your waist…? Or…?" I asked a bit scared.
"Do what you want." Said Clarice dismissively before she started to rev the engine. I'll admit that if I didn't know she didn't like me I would've thought it was pretty cool how it came to life and seemed to growl like a dragon with each rev. (A/N: if you need help visualizing what I had in mind, try looking at Mavuika's motorcycle from Genshin Impact.)
Scared and figuring she wouldn't endanger herself, I held onto Clarice's waist as we went from zero to what I imagined to be 100 kmph given how everything turned into a blur. Leon went faster than this when we were running from the Alzerian knights, but I can't help but feel more scared with how Clarice is moving.
"Okay," said Clarice through our helmets. Probably something to do Leon's lost item tech. "I'm going to ask you some questions. If I don't like what I hear and depending on my mood I'll either speed up or slow down. Don't you try and lie to me either, got it?"
"O-okay!" I shouted out of a mixture of fear and uncertainty as to whether or not she could hear me.
Clarice winces and speeds up, "Gah! Hikaru, can you filter the times she gets too loud or something?"
A childlike voice that reminds me of the one from Leon's ship rings out. (Okay Mistress Clarice.)
"Girl, no need to yell." Clarice informed me. "I can hear you just fine. And believe me, I haven't done anything to make you scream yet."
"Okay, got it. What's your first question then?" I asked as I tried to keep my voice level.
"What are your intentions for Leon?" asked Clarice as she began to make the bike rise about 10 feet off the ground.
"I don't know?" I said honestly. I was still figuring out my feelings after all.
This was the wrong answer apparently, as Clarice clicked her tongue and then started to go faster. From what I could see on the speedometer over her shoulder we were going 60 kmph first, but now we were for sure going 100kmph.
"Haaah…" Clarice did this weird mix of a sigh and growl that made her seem like some kind of delinquent, which fit given the stuff her group did before, "Okay, here's a better question. Would you betray Leon?"
I was honestly a bit offended at this and immediately spat out "No! What kind of question is that?!"
For whatever reason, Clarice was still pissed at this and started to climb the air, the two of us now easily out of the 5 story arena.
Clarice kept revving her air bike, making it sound like an angry dragon roaring as we went higher and higher. I'm pretty sure that at some point I started to scream and held tightly onto her.
"Why'd you do it?" yelled Clarice with more anger than I've heard in someone's voice.
"DO WHAT?" I screamed.
"DON'T ACT LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW!"
"BUT I DON'T KNOW!"
I heard Clarice scoff. "Okay fine, let's do this the hard way."
"What do you mea—aaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" What started as a question turned into a scream of absolute horror as Clarice took the keys out of the air bike, made sure to grab my hands, and then forced the two of us to start free falling from what looked like somewhere higher than the clouds.
As I screamed Clarice turned around so that she held me by my shoulders and started to shake me. "ADMIT IT! ADMIT YOU BROKE MY LEON'S HEART! I DON'T CARE IF IT WAS BACK THEN, I DON'T CARE IF HIS OBLIVIOUSNESS GAVE YOU THE WRONG IMPRESSION, LEAVING HIM LIKE THAT OVER SOME DUMB RUMORS WAS JUST TOO CRUEL!"
"WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT!?" I cried, doing my best to gather my wits—and my mana—as we fell.
"YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT RAULT!"
I blinked, my horror slowly turning into a mix of understanding and incredulousness. "I'M NOELLE!"
"Wait, seriously?"
"YES! Louise has short greenish hair and her boobs are a lot bigger! I have long hair in a side-ponytail that has pink ends! Didn't Leon explain this to you!?"
"I wasn't told that much other than he was bringing back a girl from Alzer!"
(I have recently asked father and mother during out stunt fall, it would appear this is in fact Noelle Zel Lespinasse, not Louise Sara Rault. Apologies, I hadn't informed you earlier as I thought you knew.)
"Of course I didn't! I heard Noelle was a sweetheart! I was going to have a fun day of showing her how to ride an air bike and tell her about what life with the others is like!" said Clarice as she grabbed me with one hand and began to take out her keys with the other.
"Aw, thanks. Now please get us back on the bike, I feel like if we get any closer to the ground I'm either going to throw up or pee myself."
Clarice then cooly got us back on the air bike right as we were about 5 stories up in the air and did a couple of cool spinny tricks before we finally landed.
I did end up throwing up, and everyone felt bad and were super nice about apologizing for the mistake they made. I then spent the rest of the day learning how to ride an air bike properly with Noelle. She even made me a custom helmet with some cute dog ears on the top, probably having heard about Elle.
"You know," I said to Clarice as we left the air bike arena, "That falling trick probably wouldn't work on Louise."
"No?" asked Clarice who had one of her followers take out a notebook and start writing things down.
I shook my head, "Well she's a vampire. They can float pretty easily normally. Louise can straight up fly though, and she's even got this thing called a mist form. I don't understand it too well, but from what I understand she can't take any damage while in it except for holy attacks. Well that and if you use wind magic to make the mist spread so far away that they either don't have a form anymore or they get knocked out of it."
The note taker just nodded and took this all down. Clarice looked pensive. "How strong does the weed need to be?"
I shrugged, "At least a Garudyne from what I heard."
Clarice claps her hands and smiles. "Oh, then there's no issue. I've been able to use 3rd tier spells for a while now, and Livia can use this Saint spell to give other people concentration and Angie can even use the same spell to make people charge up too actually… er anyway, do you have any other advice."
"Well I told Olivia and Angelica most of it already, so you could probably just ask them." I said.
Clarice nodded, and from there we began to talk about other stuff as she escorted me back to my room. I have to admit, she's pretty cool, and I feel like I could get along with her pretty easily. She even promised to go shopping with me tomorrow, something Leila just made me do on my own.
-Nu-
Although the added help from numbers 169, 420, 89, 69 and especially 42 has made my work as a substitute for Lady Shade and Lady Gamma all the much easier, there are some things that I can't help but question now that I know more from my now elevated position.
Namely, there was something that I had to learn from experience: Lord Shadow can leave at any point for reasons beyond our motivation. But, where Lady Shade and Lady Gamma's knowledge on the subject seemed to end, simply sighing and saying that I should leave it at that.
Because of course Lord Shadow knows what he is doing, and all he does is for the betterment of everyone, I… I couldn't help but notice something.
See, last night I had worked rather late and was on my way to bed when I felt myself roughly shoved into the wall. I couldn't see what it was that had moved, but then after I heard the familiar sound of Lady Delta's tail bell ringing as she ran after whatever it was.
At the time, I figured that Lady Zeta and Lady Delta had another spat. But this morning I had learned that Lady Zeta had just sent a report from another country.
I was originally going to report this strange appearance to Lady Shade immediately, but then I heard her and Beatrix's apparent anger over something that had been going on with His Highness Leon, so I decided to just look into it on my own.
Lady Delta had reported to us this morning that she was the last one to see Lord Shadow, a coincidental meeting that happened while she was hunting.
But there was a discrepancy I couldn't helped but notice. Lady Delta reported to us about seeing Lord Shadow by coincidence in the morning. But she did not talk at all about what I had seen last night.
Also…
It's…
I want to believe that I'm wrong…
But… I feel like the person that ran into me, that it was Lord Shadow. Moreover… he had been crying.
The main thing that tells me it was Lord Shadow was the fact that even though I had been roughly shoved to the side, I was somehow without any pain. It was as though my slime activated on its own to catch me, something that I had been training to do but was never able to do.
…which can only mean that the person who shoved me had to have been able to activate my slime. Something that only Lord Shadow can do.
But I wasn't going to just be able to call out Lady Delta as a liar. At least not right away. Maybe if any of the other shades had been present, but Lady Gamma went back to Alexandria for a brief check up with Lady Eta, Lady Beta was still in Alzer, and Lady Epsilon was on her way back from Oriana but wouldn't be back until this evening at the earliest.
Therefore, it had been up to me to investigate this. I had let 42 know that I was going to Lady Delta's room for some cleaning, something I was going to do at some point this week anyway.
When I got there, I saw everything that normally littered Lady Delta's actual room. Some meat, a couple of animals hanging from when she last hunted it, and some paintings she had recently done for fun. I have to admit, my past as a noble makes me want to take one of those paintings and then brag about the meaning I know nothing about to other people over wine.
Now, Lady Delta usually ends up sleeping in Lord Shadow's office, and more recently with Lady Shade and Lady Gamma. This room is more of a storage space, rather than her actual bedroom. In fact, the numbers often joke that if we were all to lose our safe houses we'd just need to ask Lady Delta for guidance and she'd be able to guide us to her own hiding places in the forests, mountains, and cave systems and not have to worry about the lack of space.
But I digress. I get to cleaning, making sure to clean the blood out of the wooden floor from all the carcasses, even tossing out some that were starting to rot. Lady Delta is usually better at keeping track of things like this, but likely got distracted from her 'guard dog' duties.
After cleaning the floor, making sure to leave her meat alone, and then taking care to not disturb her various trinkets, I moved to make the bed. But when I went to move the sheets I found something rather strange.
There was a secret compartment hidden in Lady Delta's bed.
It was small and I would've missed it had I not been looking underneath her mattress on the off chance there was something related to last night. But more importantly, when I opened the compartment, I found a journal. Or rather, I found several journals.
It was unlikely that I'd find anything more surprising or more likely to have information, so I opened up the first I saw.
I found what must've been Lady Delta's handwriting given how messy it was. In fact, it was less writing and more practice on writing. It was rather adorable to see all of the scribbles turn into somewhat legible versions of "Delta" to be perfectly honest. Eventually I would see "Sara" join it, although it was written rather smally at first, as though it was supposed to be hidden.
I moved to the second journal, where "Bossman," "Lord Shadow," and all of the Shades' names were written. Although Lady Zeta's was often joined by a rather adorable scribble of a cat with the writing "pussy cat" or "Miss Neko" also scrawled in. What was strange though, was the word "Eminence" written down over and over, as though it was something more important to know than any of the names. Well, besides Lord Shadow's of course.
Actually, "Eminence" was written alongside Lord Shadow's various names, as well as several scribbles of him. Or at least what I assumed to be Lord Shadow, given the red eyes and black coat looking scribbles.
In the next journal, what looked like words were being written down. But… well there was first a set of the words that looked neat. Something that definitely couldn't have been written by Lady Delta. But then I saw Lady Delta's handwriting, doing what seemed to be practice over this new language, although it stopped about halfway through the journal. The rest of it was simply some scribbles and notes over the shades. "Lady Alpha scary and Alpha of pack" for instance.
Now, based on the color and state of the pages, I could say that these others were from when Lady Delta was rather young. There wasn't another journal until what looked to be a couple of years old. As in, the last two years old… actually, maybe not even that. I find a entry that's written in the adventurous language that took place before Lord Shadow had stormed the duel with the mist dragon… oh, and it's why we call His Highness Leon, his highness Leon I suppose.
June 5th
Cid came to me for the next part of his Eminence in Shadow game. Apparently Leon was doing something that seemed like it'd be really "important to the plot" so he wanted to show up near the end and mess with things. I didn't really get what was so important about it honestly, but like most of the time when Cid talks about his game I just let him do what he wants.
Afterall, the weak must listen to the strong. That's just how things work. And Cid's stronger than the mist dragon, so he's obviously the one I have to listen to. But Cid's started to tell me some hush-hush secrets again. Cid hasn't done this since I first met him, and he did that on accident at first.
I know Cid's strong, and I kinda know where that strength might come from—besides him being the awesomest person ever—since he told me by accident when we were little. But he told me to keep the memory thingy a hush-hush secret. I felt like I needed to tell someone, so I stole one of Beta's journals again so I could tell the journal and then forget about it.
But, I feel like Cid's been saying a lot of hush-hush secrets. The other day, Lady Alpha asked me about what an Eminence in Shadow was. I told her as best I could out loud, my words still take a while to form, but she didn't really get it.
Cid did bring up some stuff about "mechas" and some designs that sounded cool. I wish that I could share some of this stuff, Eta would've liked to see them.
Some drawings of mechs the likes of which I'm unsure even His Highness Leon's lost item could construct. It's also way above what I thought Lady Delta could do. I knew she had taken art as a hobby, but she had largely done more Avant guard type things.
The next few entries were about mating with Lord Shadow next. I hadn't realized how animalistic Lord Shadow could get in his couplings… perhaps I can ask him to be a bit rougher next time.
The next notable entry comes from September, seemingly right after we all had learned about Lady Shade's pregnancy.
September 23:
ALPHA'S PREGNANT! BABIES! SO MANY BABIES!
Well, just one.
Auntie said that elves usually just have the one at a time, and unlike humans it was super rare to have more than one. I know that therianthropes could have one to 6 usually. But it was more common to have 1 still, that's why my d—the guy my mom used to make me had so many wives.
There was a scribble here with a cute drawing of Cid killing who I presumed to be Delta's father.
As if he deserved to have hundreds of wives. He wasn't strong, not really. If Cid ever met him he'd "I am atomic" him on the spot and become the pack leader within seconds. No, milliseconds!
Anyway, Cid and I had another hush-hush secret after everyone left him in the room when he fainted from being so happy. Everyone else was congratulating Lady Alpha and helping the rose lady join our games, so I just stayed with Cid.
When he woke up, I could smell the tears on him again. The last time I saw him cry was when we were small, but he never said anything about it. I just gave him some paper to hide it on.
As I recall, there was a journal that had a couple of pages torn out and some wet stains on others… could that have been Lord Shadow's tears?
…No, there's no way…
Right?
Cid said he was worried about being a dad. That he'd be a bad one. That he might disappoint everyone. That he wasn't even sure what he was doing anymore. That he was turning weak.
I licked him and referenced that one thing he talked to me about, saying that he tasted like a liar. He laughed and called me a good girl.
He then pet me and gave me the most important job of my life. "Delta… No, Sara, I want you to protect my children." He said a lot more than that, but that was all I really needed to hear. Oh, but Cid did mention how the best way to get someone to leave if they were causing problems was to toss them out of a window, so I'm going to try that later.
Huh… and here I thought that her guarding of Lady Shade and Lady Gamma had been something self-imposed, but if it's something that Lord Shadow had told her to do then that would explain why she had would be so devoted to the task. Lord Shadow's words are absolute after all. It would also explain why she destroyed all of the hallway windows by tossing Lady Claire out of them when she tried to visit the first time.
I decided to flip through the book some more, finding no more writing. But strangely, I could feel some writing on them…
Wait.
I took out one of the espionage tools as crafted by Lady Eta. It was born from the Shadow Wisdom known as a "black light." When I shined the light upon the pages I felt a slight indent in, I saw more and more text. They were drawings. Drawings of things that I couldn't really understand. From what little I could see, it was some kind of demon taking shape. As I flipped through the pages I saw it take shape.
It was Lady Delta.
But she had a new outfit much like Lady Gamma's upgraded slime suit.
I felt myself holding my breath as the drawings went from some kind of design to seemingly coming alive. Moves carefully practiced or planned, something I never though Lady Delta capable of.
Is Lady Delta smarter than any of us know?
Is she just playing a game?
It's a terrifying thought. Lady Delta is almost uncontested in raw strength, only controlled by the fact she's very animalistic in her logic. If she were as intelligent as the other shades…
Well it's no wonder I've been breathing heavily for the last few minutes.
…
Wait, I'm holding my breath.
Who…
A hand grabs the journal. A clawed hand. I do my best to hold the journal up as my last line of defense, knowing that if I were to look beyond the journal I'd certainly die.
So instead I'm treated to the terrifying sight of Lady Delta standing up straight, wearing the same demonic outfit from her hidden drawings. The whites of her eyes now black in color, her purple eyes now crimson, and the grin that usually dons her face is absent.
I'm going to die.
I close my eyes and feel a tear go down my cheek as Lady Delta slowly pulls the journal away from me and—
Knock-Knock*
"Nu? Delta? Are you in here? It's time for dinner. 42 said that you'd probably be in here." Lady Epsilon, my savior's, voice called out from behind the door.
Lady Delta, who had her claws millimeters from my eyes coated in magic, retracts them. She gets rid of her demonic slime suit and goes back to the happy go lucky appearance as she opens the door.
"Epsilon!" she cheers as she dives in for a hug, as though she hadn't nearly killed me. "Delta's hungry! Is there meat! Delta needs meat!"
Epsilon just chuckled and held Delta in her gifted bosom, treating the would be murderer like a little sister. "Yeah, yeah. I made sure to make some meat. Hurry on before Alpha and Gamma's cravings act up and they eat it all."
"Kay!" cheered Delta.
I got up on shaky legs as I did my best to hurry to safety, rushing past the two with a hurried excuse of having work to do. But as I rounded the corner I saw Lady Delta's face once more. With Lady Epsilon hugging her, only she could see me. She extended a single digit in front of her smiling mouth full of sharp teeth, gazing into my soul with those red eyes.
The message was clear. "Hush."
It was a miracle that I hadn't soiled myself.
Fearful for my life, I asked Lady Gamma if I could sleep with her. She had let me, figuring I had been having nightmares and desiring to cuddle with someone anyway.
Which I did. Or at least I hope the image of Lady Delta standing over the two of us in her demonic outfit that night was a nightmare.
I may have to sleep with Lady Gamma for the foreseeable future. She doesn't seem to mind.
-Noelle-
Since I was basically meeting everyone in order, and Leon was still busy with palace stuff, I was asked if I wanted to go to Midgar next. As there I would be able to meet the next harem member: Princess Iris of Midgar. I'd also be able to meet Cid's wives this way apparently, as a couple of them usually stay in their store there.
Princess Iris agreed to meeting me there apparently—something about sending messages using some of Leon's lost item tech—and asked if she could bring her little sister along as they don't get much time off from their duties. I saw no reason to say no, but did ask if I could maybe have Livia or Angie come with me since I wasn't sure about going to a new country all by myself, even if it was about a couple of hours away from each other by airship.
Neither of them could come, due to being pregnant, but Clarice said she could.
In any case, I now find myself in one of the Mitsugoshi stores I kept hearing about. I have to admit its pretty damn impressive, I can't believe that Cid and Natsume are apart of the group that help run a place like this, and I heard there was at least two or more in a bunch of countries.
Not that either of them aren't impressive, but they're my age. No way I could've been able to run a place like this, even if I knew all the ways to do it. I'd need at least two lifetimes to even know half of all this stuff.
"Hm?" called out a voice from Clarice's side.
I looked over and saw an adorable girl with white hair and red eyes.
"A bunny?" I couldn't help but say. The girl bristles and pouts for a brief second before adopting a more controlled look.
The smile she puts on reminds me of Leila and Louise. "Apologies, but I don't think we've met before. I am princess Alexia of Midgar. You are?"
Ah, so she's not a bunny therianthrope. Shame, I've always wanted to see one. There aren't that many therianthropes in Alzer and if there are they're usually dog or cat ones.
But since Leon told me about her beforehand, explaining that she was a "soon d'rey" or something like that. Basically, she's a huge pushover if don't let her dominate the conversation.
"Heya Lexi!" I said with an enthusiastic smile as I shook her hand roughly. "I'm Noelle Zel Lespinasse. I'm from Alzer, Leon brought me here to meet everyone."
"L-Lexi?" she questioned.
"Cuz it's cute like you!" I smiled, enjoying as she reddened a bit before taking a haughty attitude.
"W-well I guess that's fine. If you're friends with Leon-nii then I suppose I can entertain your attitude. Naturally." She said as she coughed into her hand and did her best to look dignified. "Not all princesses are this nice you know, you should be honored."
I see, so this is what a "soon d'rey" is. I think I get it now.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Clarice mouth 'what the fuck' but she soon got up and clasped her hands happily, "Well, good to see that you two are getting along. Actually, Noelle is here to meet with Iris."
"Oh? How come?" asked Alexia.
"W-well I had a…" I sigh and decide to be honest about my situation, ridiculous as it is. She is a princess, and so far way more friendly than the royalty I'm familiar with. "I had a huge crush on Leon. But when we came back to Alzer I learned he actually had a huge harem of women and I kinda didn't know how to deal with that. So his two main wives, Angie and Livia, recommended I meet all of the other harem members and decide if I still want this after."
For whatever reason, Lexi put a hand on my shoulder, shot me an understanding look, and then said "We're friends now. Let's go shopping while we wait for Iris-nee-sama."
"O-okay?" I said.
-Epsilon-
I realized something important while I was gathering information in Oriana. I think that I'm the last one of the seven that has yet to talk to Princess Alexia about her possibly joining Lord Darling's harem.
I know that Beta said no, but if all of us agree on something like this, or if Alpha or Lord Dalring say otherwise, that might not matter. In other words, my decision from here matters the most.
Meaning I'm the most important member here! Me!
I was in between bookings in Oriana anyway, so I thought it'd be fun to take the opportunity to come back and meet with her. I have to it sooner or later according to Alpha anyway. I was hoping to run into Lord Darling first but apparently, he had some important mission that needed him to leave without telling anyone.
I think Nu saw him leave too since she reacted when I brought it up during dinner, but she didn't elaborate on it, so chances are she only saw him leave.
Anyway, I had to come up with a plan to test Alexia. Everyone else just wanted to verify how Alexia felt, figuring that Lord Darling could deal with the rest… and Zeta wanted to piss off Alpha again because she's jealous Alpha gets to be first everything. I am too sometimes, but other times I can admit that Alpha deserves it.
Lord Darling may be our love and savior, but Alpha was the one who took the brunt of the effort in keeping us all together and in line. Besides, I like seeing her happy.
As for Alexia, I had to decide on something to test her. Delta said that Alexia was okay, if a bit easy to surprise. Meaning Alexia isn't at the level of a fighter that all of us are. Therefore testing her as "Epsilon" may not be a good idea…
Wait.
I just realized, the last time Alexia interacted with The Shadow Garden was during the Goddess Trials.
Testing Alexia as "Epsilon" is a great idea!
I just need to figure out what to do first… Let's see, Zeta said she let Alexia in on some more information related to the cult since Alexia was doing her best to come out of her 'spectator' role. Eta confirmed that Alexia did indeed have feelings, legitimate feelings for Lord Darling. Beta said she had a bad attitude.
So maybe…
Maybe I should be the one to try and see her strength. Unlike the others I know how to hold back and not go the lethal route. I just need to get Alpha's permission and find a good time to do so. As well as a good reason.
Hm…
Lord Darling often tests his highness, right? And Zeta did let Alexia get closer to the truth. So maybe I can say I was sent to test her? Oh! And I can even pretend that I'm being kidnapped!
Oh yeah, it's all coming together.
-P2W-
Back in Alzer, the chronicles of Carla and her pursual of Jean had continued. Except this time, not only was Hertrauda involved, but Natsume and Rose—who had heard by accident—got involved as well.
"And then?" asked Rose as she kicked her feet underneath the table.
"His hands were still trembling, but I knew he could do it if he really tried, so I told him 'if you don't pick it up, I'm going to feed you with air ship noises'" Carla then giggled mischievously, "You should have seen the look on his face. He was so pouty about it."
Natsume, who was thoroughly invested, noticed something. "Oh? It doesn't end there though, right? After all, your lipstick is a bit smudged."
Carla, who was faced by one of her many bosses teasing her, blushed madly. "Um…"
Hertrauda and Rose gasped as they saw Carla do her best to hide her lips.
"Details!" demanded Hertrauda.
"Please!" pleaded Rose.
Carla did her best to compose herself, "*Ahem* well. I may have also said something along the lines of 'But if you can do it I'll kiss you…'" Carla then immediately turned red hot, steam practically pouring off the top of her head. "And, uh, it was really cute how much effort he put in after I said that. So even though it was actually my first kiss… um…" Carla didn't say anything more, the events that transpired after were clear.
"Oooooooo~" chanted the rest of the girls gathered.
Unfortunately, these gaggle of girls weren't in a private area. They were at a popular café in Alzer, their little tea party reserved by Louise who wanted to gain more allies among the girls that knew Leon seeing as how his actual fiancés were none to pleased with her. To be clear, Natsume wasn't particularly fond of Louise either, having thought highly of Leon as her love's best friends.
In any case, the girls found themselves shouted at by a nearby voice.
"Hey! Some of us are trying to enjoy the atmosphere! Keep it down!" called out the voice.
The girls all turned to apologize, realizing they had gotten a bit excited, but then realized who they were talking to before they could.
"Leila?" questioned Natsume.
"Uh, yeah?" said the pink haired woman. "Who are you?"
Knowing that Lord Shadow had his own plans for the troubling relationship between the Lespinasse sisters (he didn't), Beta decided to make herself a known entity so that she could insert herself into the plan that was forming (there wasn't one) and help out Lord Shadow if he needed any (seriously, he didn't have any plans here).
"Pardon me, but you may have heard of my work. I am Natsume Kafka." Said Beta.
Leila immediately crushed the drink she had been holding in her hands. "W-wait… Natsume Kafka. The author. That Natsume Kafka?"
"Yes? Are you a fan?" asked Beta.
『 No. No I'm not you blatant plagiarizer. 』answered Leila in an attempt to gauge whether or not Natsume was a reincarnate.
While Beta wasn't, she did recognize the language as something shared between Leon and Cid. Something that only 'Scholars of the Shadows' would know.
Beta inwardly began to narrow her eyes. Nothing on her outward expression betrayed her current mood, but on a subconscious level, Leila began to feel as though she was in danger.
"I'm sorry, but what was that you just said?" asked Beta, her tone not having changed.
"I said that I'm not that much of a reader, but my boyfriend is." Said Leila with fake cheer, "He's actually going to meet me here in a bit if you wouldn't mind meeting him."
Seeing the chance to learn more Beta calls out with fake cheer, "Oh, I'm always happy to meet a fan. Should I prepare a book to give him an autograph?"
The other girls, feeling left out but not wanting to leave Natsume on her own, invited the two to sit down.
"Hello miss Leila?" called out Hertrauda, "I know you have your own table, but I think it'd be better to join us as you wait for you boyfriend."
"Er, sure I guess." Said Leila as she joined them all for a bit. "So, you all probably heard about me from the news of the fallen house being restored, right?"
"Right. Since our friend Crown Prince Leon had played a hand in creating that reality, we all were somewhat familiar with you and your sister. But I digress. Let me introduce myself, I am Duchess Hertrauda Sera Fanoss." Hertrauda stood and politely curtsied before pointing to Carla, "this is my guard Carla of Mitsugoshi."
"A pleasure." Said Carla with a bow of her head.
"You may call me Luci." Said Rose, still under her disguise. "I'm a friend of Sir Kagenou and Lady Kafka."
"Nice to meet… wait you said Leon and Kagenou, as in Leon Rapha Barfort and Cid Kagenou?" asked Leila incredulous. "As in 'The Bloody Crown Prince of Holfort' and 'The Master of Mitsugoshi'?"
The girls all nodded.
"Mhm."
"Is that what people call them here?"
"Better than Scoundrel Knight or whatever it was."
"I wonder where The Master came from though…"
"Probably because most of the employees are demi-humans."
"Oh… that makes sense. I guess it's not entire wrong either."
"Miss Natsume?"
"What, he's engaged to seven of us. Dating a few more."
"Miss Natsume!"
"I don't think Darling's the type to have flings, but there has been a few offers."
"Miss Natsume!"
"Imagine."
"I'd rather not." Replied Leila. "Hey, since we're bringing them up. Is there a chance I'd get to talk to them? Since they're so involved in my sister's future I figured I should meet them at least once."
"Unfortunately they're both out of the country, but I could make sure to bring it up to them." Explained Beta. "Is there anything specific you want to bring up?"
"There's a lot I'd like to say." Said Leila under her breath. At the realization everyone was trying to make out what she was saying she sat up and said, "Er, I wanted to see why they wanted to help Noelle. They've only known her for a couple of months at best, there's no way they'd be willing to go to such lengths for no reason… right?"
Beta, being the only one at the table to possess the knowledge of the game world phenomenon, decided to steer the conversation, "His highness and my Darling are very charitable individuals."
The other girls all nodded.
"His Highness could've left us to the execution table for what our nobility did, but he made sure we'd be a ducal household after everything" said Hertrauda, frightening Leila.
Carla nodded. "I was going to die to pirate attacks on my territory if it weren't for a chance encounter with Mitsugoshi's private security company being en route. Despite my family leaving me to die, they took me in and gave me a home. I hear that much of Mitsugoshi's employees are similar. After all, there wasn't many different places a demi-human woman could work before."
Leila drummed her fingers on the table. She had her own opinions about the two men, based on stuff she had to deal with previously, but even she could admit that the two men at least had good intentions for the women. Although she did think forming harems was incredibly trashy, but that's just what guys are like she supposed.
"You know," said Hertrauda, "I think that Noelle is actually pretty interested in His Highness."
"Mhm. You should've seen the way she was looking at him." Agreed Carla.
Rose cupped her cheek in a daydream. "And the way they exited the country, why if she hadn't fallen for him yet, she definitely did then."
"I know right?" agreed Hertrauda, "A prince asking you to run away on the back of his tricked out air bike? Miss Natsume I can't believe such a scenario hadn't shown up in one of your books yet."
Beta giggled, "I'll have to ask to use it as reference later for sure." Beta then looked over to Leila who looked like she was eating something sour. "Hm, as her sister what do you have to say?"
"Sorry?" asked Leila.
"Well, what do you think about Noelle's love life?" asked Beta. "Has she ever dated anyone else or anything?"
Leila scoffed, "No… well she apparently went out with Loic for a bit, but blew it off for no good reason. It's why the guy's still not over her. Personally, I think they could still make it work. He's just a little clingy is all. If anything that's better than joining the… what, 7 girl harem of his highness."
The girls all frowned at the tone of Leila's voice. They understood where she was coming from, of course, it's not like they grew up wanting to be in harems themselves. But having known Leon and Cid's respective families, and how happy they all are, the girls couldn't help but feel like they wanted to speak on their friends' behalf.
Beta, meanwhile, found herself a new lead. "Loic… as in heir to the house Barielle?"
Leila nodded, "That's the one. If Noelle just stuck it out a bit more, she'd have a single guy totally devoted to her and her alone. Not to mention his status and riches to boot."
"Um…" spoke up Hertrauda hesitantly, "But she wouldn't have restored her house if she did that right?"
Leila rolled her eyes. "What's restoring a house going to do? Sure, some servants still exist and all, but most of the territory belongs to the three towers now, not to mention all the logistics that go behind running a place like that. On top of that there's the whole Sacred Priestess thing."
"But that's Noelle's decision isn't it?" asked Rose. "It's not as though she's some pawn in a game for you to control."
Beta couldn't help but stare at Rose with that statement for all the same reasons that Leila stared at her in horror and anger.
Leila got up.
"You know what. I think I just remembered something I had to do." Said Leila as she began to rush out. Emile had finally walked in only to find himself dragged off.
Beta, meanwhile, had gotten up as well. "Speaking of, I think it's about time I go as well. I wanted to look into a few things before my darling comes back."
With that all the girls began to disperse. Hertrauda and Carla went back to Louise's home, while Rose went to her secret lodging.
Beta, however, had donned her slime to disguise herself and headed for the Barielle territory.
-Noelle-
After trying on some dresses and other accessories with Lexi, the woman we'd been waiting for had finally shown up.
"Noelle Zel Lespinasse?" asked a woman with fiery red hair and similarly colored eyes. "I'm Iris of Midgar, sister to current crown princess Alexia. I see you two are getting along."
Taking off the doggy ears hair band that Clarice put on me as a joke, one I'm admittedly starting to feel grow stale, I do my best to look dignified in front of the more intimidating princess. I mean she even walked in with a giant sword over her shoulder! (A/N: Master of Garden casual outfit)
"Heya! Nice to meet you." I said as I stuck out a hand for her to shake. Iris instead takes my hand and kisses it, flustering me a bit. I mean, I heard she's one of the biggest dark knights there are but… damn. "S-s-so! You said you wanted to show me around Midgar or something?"
Iris nodded, "Although it's likely that I'll have to stay in the palace in Holfort following a formal marriage to Leon, my home shall always be first and foremost Midgar. I'd be honored if you'd allow me to show you around." Iris then took a look at all the bags Clarice and Alexia's followers had been forced to carry. "I see that you've already done quite a bit of normal shopping. Perhaps you'd care to join me to shop for some other important items?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
Iris had smiled and then directed us to leave the Mitsugoshi center… and then head towards a shop a couple of buildings over that was also owned by Mitsugoshi. More specifically it was called Mitsugoshi Armory.
"Weapons?" I questioned.
Iris nodded, "If you are to marry Leon like all of us intend to, then you know your life will be filled with strife. It's no exaggeration to say that you may need to be ready to protect yourself at any point. As I recall, you had gone on an adventure to acquire the sapling, yes?"
It was my turn to nod at this. "Yeah, he had me practice with a pistol and a sword. Although he said it might be better for me to pick up a spear and rifle if I just wanted to learn some quick self defense."
"That's correct. If all you want is quick results, then learning the same things as a rank and file soldier would be the best way. As they say, it takes years to master the sword, months to wield a blade, and weeks to learn the spear. But in my opinion the best weapon you could wield is the sword." Said Iris. "although as a dark knight I suppose I may be biased."
"I mean it makes sense…" I said. After all a sword is probably also more practical to wield indoors than a spear, and easier to hide usually. If I'm not going to be a soldier, then I should train like one.
Iris then guided me to the wall of previously made blades. "Tell me, is there any here that seem appealing to you?"
Shamefully, my eyes immediately gravitated towards the bastard sword.
Iris and the girls giggled. "I believe that Leon's favorite weapon may not suit you based on your body type. "
I rubbed the back of my head as I looked around. There were tons of weapons here actually, not just swords. Out of the corner of my eye I swore I could even see a giant scythe straight out of one of Natsume's stories. Eventually, though, I'd decide on picking what looked like a rapier with a bit of a thicker blade than usual. Like if a bastard sword and a rapier had a baby basically.
"A fine choice, and good for your arms given how thin they are." Pointed out Iris.
"Thin?" I questioned, I then rolled up my sleeve and flexed it a bit. "I have some muscle here."
Iris smiled, rolled up her sleeve, and then treated me to a front row seat in the gun show. Despite being a woman, I couldn't help but feel emasculated.
"Okay, so I'm a little thin." I admitted.
"*ahem*" Lexi called for attention and rolled up her own sleeve. Looking in her direction I saw both her and Clarice flexing as well. Alexia wasn't anywhere as close to her sister, but I could see her arms have defined muscle in them. Clarice as well, who looked extremely tone underneath that long-sleeved white dress.
"Okay so I'm a twig." I shamefully admitted. All of us laughed at this good naturedly before we rung up the weapons and then began to walk to a ship to go to a nearby park floating island… which was funded by Mitsugoshi.
Do these guys just print money or something?
In any case, we went to the park and found a wide-open area so that we could train. Iris and Lexi were nice enough to give me some pointers on wielding a blade like mine properly. There were a couple of sword styles for me to choose from, but most people started with the 'ordinary' sword style that Lexi specialized in.
Eventually, the sword began to set and I chugged a strawberry flavored stamina potion as I toweled myself down.
"Thanks again girls, I feel like I learned a lot today." I said.
Iris smiled, "You pick up things rather quickly, at this point I feel you just lack experience."
I open my mouth to say something, but someone else speaks first.
"Perhaps I can help with that then?"
I turn and see a woman in a cloak. Her outfit is darker than anything I've seen before, made of a fabric I'm unfamiliar with. What little color I can see is Gold that lines her pants, and some teal-colored hair.
"Who are you?" I asked cautiously as I held my sword in front of me.
The woman didn't say anything, but reached into her cloak, pulled out a small item that quickly grew into a large scythe with strings on it. As she looks like she's adjusting it, she turns to the princesses.
"As I recall, we warned you both." Said the woman as she began to strum the glowing strings. I may not have the most experience here but I can tell that with every note played a different effect is applied to her, yet I can't bring myself to try and stop her. "Your role was that of a spectator, yet here you are trying to rush the stage."
Both princesses bristle at this.
"If you wish to be an actor on this grand stage, then you ought to audition, no?" said the woman in a tone of voice that clearly offered no choice despite the question. Her voice then went lower than the melodic version it had been at, and despite the mask and cloak hiding her face, I could tell that her eyes were looking straight through me. "I am Epsilon of the Seven Shades. Please, do entertain me."
I looked at Clarice and saw her gulp nervously, she had reached behind her for her own weapon and what looked like her air bike keys.
Suddenly I felt a chill go up my spine and immediately dodged by using a Garu spell to propel me away from where I had been. A spear comes down where I had been standing, and I see Clarice have to erect a barrier behind her so she can deflect an axe.
"Hey now," called the woman with the axe as she took Clarice's keys, "I hope you aren't expecting to just run away."
"Oh no," said Clarice as she backed off and took out a second pair of keys. "I just like fighting on top of the bike more."
With the roar of an engine I see her air bike tear through the air and nearly run over the woman with the axe. She tries to dodge and cut through it but Clarice takes out her own pistol and fires at the woman, forcing her to focus on deflecting the bullets.
I look to my side where the woman with the spear is approaching and try to use a Garula to kick up dirt and blind her. She easily sticks her spear in the ground and uses it to vault over the attack before almost kicking me in the face. She only misses because Clarice had gotten me by the scruff of my neck and pulled me onto her bike.
"You good girl?" asked Clarice.
"Yeah!" I shouted back. "Who are these people!?"
"They must be part of The Shadow Garden." Explained Clarice. "They're usually friendly, or at least on the same side as us, but they're a group of a really dangerous people. As much as I'd like to run, they can usually keep up with the speed of an air bike with ease. I already sent out a bunch of distress signals, so we should get help soon. Right now let's do our best to make sure all of us are okay."
"Got it. Any chance you got a spare pistol or something?" I asked, wanting to try and snipe the attackers from afar. Clarice just gave me hers as she began to evade a bunch of spells and arrows that started to fly our way.
"Hikaru!" shouted Clarice as we began to bob and weave, "Is there anything you know about facing these guys that we could do?"
(Their suits seem to rely heavily on magic. If you turn on the mana eating aspects of your air bike you should be able to kill them quickly.)
"I don't have any mana eating aspects on this bike."
(Master had them installed in case of emergency. It's the button on the front near your cup holder.)
"Oh so that's what that was." Said Clarice with a clear smile in her voice, "That worry wort… But hey, I'm not sure that pissing off Lord Shadow by killing his men—er—women would be a good idea though."
(Hm. Maybe drive a little slower when you run them over then.)
"I mean… I guess?" I said. To be perfectly honest I don't think that we could actually take them on. Or at least I couldn't.
Clarice just shrugged, "I don't have any better ideas. We'll go when I get halfway through my mana and you run out of bullets."
-P2W-
As the two girls did their best to exchange ammo with the Kai and Omega, Epsilon was faced with both princesses of Midgar. Or perhaps it should be said in reverse. Iris and Alexia were faced with the fifth member of The Shadow Garden, Epsilon the Faithful.
Epsilon had to admit, Iris and Alexia had been a bit stronger than she expected.
As Epsilon had twirled her scythe around her body, parrying each of the strikes the sisters would make. Iris' fighting style much resembled her old style but with a few more flourishes reminiscent of either Beatrix's fighting style, or Leon's. Where her usual thrusts would end with a burst of energy and leave her open, they now are often followed by a spell with her hand in the shape of a gun, often a Zio or Ziogna meant to buy her time with an explosion or weaken Epsilon's defenses.
Iris' mana surged around her body, crimson as her hair as she created a small arena of fire around them. The flames constantly nicked at Epsilon's scarf and twin tails but her slime suit easily negated the small burns that would normally occur. Meanwhile, Alexia's mana surged green in color.
Epsilon was briefly reminded of the 'Christmas' stories that Cid would regale everyone with a bitter smile on his face, citing the combination of red and green to be the sign of evil. Something that currently makes Epsilon fight just a little harder.
Epsilon throws her scythe away from her body, its center surging with magic and making it look as though she threw a planet with a halo at Alexia. Iris quickly jumps up and attempts to cut Epsilon in two with a large overhead swing only for Epsilon to do a standing split and kick Iris in the face, forcing her to miss the swing.
Before Iris can recover fully in the air, Epsilon recovers her scythe from trying to saw through Alexia's sword, uses the tip to graby Iris by her shirt, and then throw her in Alexia's direction.
Alexia dodges her sister as she charges forward. "Sorry Nee-sama!"
"It's okay!" Calls out Iris as she flies through a couple of trees.
Alexia then does her best to get in close to Epsilon, figuring that the scythe she wields wouldn't be the best at a close range. However, she didn't expect for Epsilon to melt her scythe and then turn it into a sword.
"Hm… looks like all that effort wasn't for nothing. You should thank his Highness for training you all that time ago…" Epsilon did her best to begin to taunt Alexia. But in the middle of fending off all of Alexia's attacks, Epsilon began to notice something. "Wait… that sword play…"
Alexia smirked, "Recognize it do you?"
Epsilon did, in fact. She recognized it all too well. It's the swordplay that she so idolized. It's the swordplay that saved her life. It's her fiance's swordplay. "You….!"
"Oh no."
Epsilon caught Alexia's sword with her slime one, then used the slime's properties to have it melt around Alexia's sword, and then manipulated the slime so that it would effectively form chains to the ground.
"Could you do that the entire time?" asked Alexia.
However, Epsilon wasn't in the mood to talk and immediately attempted to punch Alexia in the face. Having trained with Leon, Alexia wisely was able to dodge and weave, punching Epsilon in her side and face. Unfortunately, the slime had taken all of the force from said strikes so Epsilon had simply scoffed, grabbed Alexia by her shirt and then kneed her in the face so hard that she went flying in the air.
Disorientated, Alexia had then been unable to stop herself from being kicked in her back and then sent flying. However, before Alexia could find herself going to far she was caught by her sister.
"Getting in close wasn't a bad idea, but you clearly shouldn't have done so alone." Iris scolded, to which Alexia just chuckled as she did her best to heal her own jaw.
"Yeah, yeah…" Alexia got back up, using her sword as leverage. "How are you holding up? Or the other girls?"
"Oh well they—"
Before Iris can finish her sentence a loud *BOOM!* echoes across the battlefield, with a strong wind that puts out the flames Iris had set up before. Shortly after both Noelle and Clarice were unceremoniously tossed next to the two princesses. As they're helped up, the girls look at the trio before them.
"Hmph. A valiant effort if nothing else." Said Kai.
Omega shook her head, "But effort only gets you so far. In the end, what you need is a result. And if all you do is wait for someone stronger to save you, then you are just borrowing strength."
"And we all know what Lord Shadow says about borrowed strength." Chuckled Epsilon.
"You came after us after training!" shouted Noelle, "You claim you're strong but all you did was go after a bunch of tired people not ready for a fight!"
Although no one could see it, Epsilon quirked a brow. "Are you saying that you'd be able to fight us otherwise?"
"M-maybe! You don't know!" shouted Noelle. "A-and anyway! Why are you even doing this!?"
"I wanted to see your potential." Explained Epsilon before shrugging. "But I suppose any and all potential is just that, potential. Lot's of promise to be had here, but none that was delivered."
"It's a good thing we're not done yet." Said Iris as she slammed her sword in the ground, immediately casting Marakukaja, Masukukaja, and Matarukaja on all of the girls on her side with a single motion.
Epsilon giggled before summoning her scythe once more. "No, you're done."
She then strummed her scythe's strings once more, once again boosting the abilities of her and her subordinates, as well as healing the three of them.
The statement was clear: this fight hadn't been anything to them.
"Let's bring this scene to an end, shall we?" asked Epsilon. She then rose into the sky, and with the now rising moon to her back, she twirled in the air before swinging her scythe down, causing a large slash of energy to go descend onto the girls.
In fear, Noelle had tightly grasped her crest. Leon, please… protect me!
"THAT'S ENOUGH!"
A large red slash appeared from nowhere, cutting into Epsilon's blue one and exploding in the middle of the air. The girls all looked to Iris, but they saw someone standing in front of her.
"…Leon…?" asked Iris.
Leon, whose hand was glowing with the crest of the guardian, smiled. "Looks like this thing had some benefits. Your tiaras and Hikaru let me know that you were in danger, so I was on my way already, but Sappy was acting up. I reached out for it with my hand, and then I found myself warped here with some information given to me to boot."
Leon then turned to the three members of The Shadow Garden.
Kai and Omega each took a step back. Epsilon swallowed the words in her mouth.
"Iris, Alexia, you'll focus on the two with the spear and axe. Clarice, switch to using your support skills. Hikaru, keep the signal strong. The Einhorn and Arroganz should be inbound. Noelle, you're with me. I don't want to risk being teleported back or something if I get too far from you." Leon, although only here for a few moments, had already taken charge of the situation.
He then reached in front of him and summoned a sword. A bastard sword. Noelle couldn't help but giggle.
Epsilon winced but got ready for a fight. As everyone charged towards each other, Leon immediately called out "Dekaja!" immediately getting rid of The Shadow Garden's buffs, Epsilon had no time to apply more before Leon was already upon her, meeting each of her strikes and forcing her to go on the back foot thanks to her momentum needing her to keep moving less her scythe overpower her as well.
Iris and Alexia were each fighting Kai and Omega. Although Alexia had to resort to a back up knife, she was no less capable as she closed in and didn't allow Omega to make any large swings. Iris, meanwhile, had been deliberately trying to get Kai to make such swings so that she could find an opening.
Claire had made sure to fire her gun whenever Kai or Omega would try and aim for an opening in Iris or Alexia's strikes. Noelle had been backing up Leon, mainly making sure to stick behind him and wait for him to signal or her to strike.
His highness shows up and suddenly all of them get a second wind where they're even stronger than before?! This is such bullshit! It's…! It's…! This is…! Epsilon was cursing in her mind as she did her best to find a way to take the lead again. But then she realized something. Damn, this must be what it's like from the other side.
Indeed, often it was the case when growing up that if The Shades ever found themselves on the back foot and close to a loss, Lord Shadow would show up to help save the day. With Lord Shadow's presence alone, they would always feel like they hadn't truly began to fight until he made an appearance, often gaining a second wind to help him.
"Sorry, this is over." Said Leon. His blade glowing with a strange lattice pattern. A mana eating pattern. With a loud shout of "RAH!" and an upward swing of his sword, Leon had cut straight through Epsilon's scythe.
He also had cut through something else.
See, the mana eating properties of Luxion's technology can in fact eat most mana. But it can only do so to a degree. It's in the name, 'mana eating.' Therefore, even if a blade were coated in the technology, there was only so much that it could cut through. In this case, Leon couldn't cut through Epsilon's armor. The hit still bruised, but it didn't cut her.
But for a brief second that only he and Epsilon could see, he had cut off her 99% slime made boobs.
So, even though Epsilon hadn't actually gotten more than a punch to her ribs in terms of force, she screamed as though she had been gutted.
"N-NOOOOOOO!" Epsilon quickly had the slime reattach to her chest, so quickly that Leon wasn't sure he saw what he did. "We're leaving! We're leaving okay!"
As the three retreated, Leon couldn't help but stand among the girls dumb founded.
"Uh… I guess we won?" said Leon.
Before he could say more, he felt a hand tug on his. Looking down he saw his hand, glowing with the crest of the guardian, and then saw Noelle's glowing with the crest of the priestess. Looking a bit further up, he saw Noelle's generous chest heaving in exhaustion. Quickly tearing his eyes from the beautiful sight, he was greeted by Noelle's blushing face.
"Perv." She scolded half heartedly. She then smiled. "But I guess now you're my perv."
Noelle then started to lean in for a kiss. But Leon stopped her with a stammer, "W-wait. Look, I think you're caught up in the moment. Besides I—"
"I've been trying to figure out my feelings for you for the past few days. After today, after that fight, after seeing you really becoming my guardian, I can't lie to myself. I can't stop myself. Please don't stop me this time."
Leon looked at Iris and Clarice.
"Just kiss her already!" shouted Clarice. Iris said nothing but blushed and gave a thumbs up with one hand and used the other to cover Alexia's eyes.
"I know what kissing is Nee-sama." Said Alexia with a flat voice.
"Shush, I'm trying to protect what innocence you have left."
Leon gulped, and then leaned in, intending to kiss Noelle gently. Noelle had other plans.
Alexia was glad her eyes were covered.
-Shadow-
It took me a bit of time to work up the courage to go to sleep near the helmet again. But I felt like I needed to finish things. As things were, I was worried that I could be in front of any of the girls and act correctly. I'm not sure I could really act like any of my roles properly after what happened last time.
I was just glad that Sara was the one to find me. She already kinda knows about some of the stuff I've been keeping secret, since she has the same empathetic powers of a therapy dog. She's also nice enough to keep things a secret and not pry any further.
If any of the other shades had been clued in on me… I don't know how I'd handle it. I don't think I could.
In any case, after having the altercation with Olly, the door behind her opened. Once I walked through it, I was greeted by the sight of an empty field reminiscent of the one that I saw with Violet back in the trials, which Alpha told me is where Olivier had originally sealed away the arm of Diablos.
Before me is Lea, with a bunch of familiar looking blades lying around him.
"Minoru." Greeted Lea. "So you've finally made it."
"Wasn't there supposed to be a bunch of platforms that would traumatize me with my memories?" I asked.
Lea shook his head. "All that's left is your memories of how everyone in your little group died following Violet being captured once more. I see no reason to have you suffer through that again."
"…Well thanks, I guess." I said.
"That said. I still have to ask you something." Said Lea as he closed his eyes. "Was it worth it?"
"What?"
"You must know by now, your actions, and I do mean yours, are what caused all those you love to lose their lives."
"What about you? I was travelling with you at that point wasn't I?"
Lea shook his head, his face now sad. "Unfortunately, I had been separated from you all for roughly a year. We drew too much attention to ourselves so we needed to do something to draw the attention away from all of us. The people Olivier and them had been working for, well, you know who they were, right?"
"…"
"Heh, still won't admit it. No matter, I'll say it. It was the cult of diabolos. The same group we had been raiding and destroying left and right. So obviously this was one of their many ploys."
"Is our separation…?"
"It's how they got Violet. Olivier protected you, of course, but there was no helping it when it came to protecting Violet as well."
"But…!"
"You didn't have magic back then. They could have killed you. Or do you think without magic you'd be able to face an entire army of demonic armors on your own? Because let me tell you, you can't forcibly eject a person from a demonic armor. Either they disengage or you kill them."
"Grhgh…"
"I think that's around the time you fell in love with Freyja. While you were recovering from losing Violet, she comforted you or something. I didn't hear about it much. But when I came back with Ann and Mary, you came up with a plan. A plan that only someone like you could come up with."
"…I wanted to play them like a game."
"Right, you wanted to make it look like we had been fighting each other so that we could each do our best under each of the knights of the round, each group was meant to gain loyalty one way or another."
Lea then looked into the distance.
I saw what he was looking at.
I saw Aurora, the witch of calamity. I saw the demon diabolos.
"We were too late." I finished.
"We were." Lea nodded and closed his eyes again. "I heard she asked for us to save her. You heard that we were in the next stage of the game."
"…"
"You were so sure that we could save her. That this was all just something that could be solved with no issue… but it wasn't. If it was a game, then it was rigged from the start."
"The story of the three heroes…"
"Wasn't born from the others being hidden. It was because they were the ones left when we finally beat Diabolos."
"No!"
"It's the truth Minoru."
"You're lying!"
"We fought Violet multiple times. Several times as the witch of calamity, in which she cried as she murdered her friends who all forgave her. Several times as the demon diabolos where your little games that everyone had faith in made you underestimate the gravity of the situation."
"Shut up!"
"Then finally, we sealed her away. But in doing so, you and the others died. I believe Leon already talked about the memory of killing the demonic version of you, you remember that, right?"
I did.
"I remember having to do that multiple times. See, I hadn't been able to recover your bodies. The cult did. So they were able to clone you. You and the others. That's the issue with being renown far and wide as powerful, people will want to replicate it."
"Are you done?" I said.
"Don't want to talk about it anymore eh?" Lea opened his eyes and stared at me. "Then let me ask this- Is that truly where you want to stand? Or would you rather keep playing your game of make-believe?"
I didn't say anything but I readied myself. I felt the various artifacts I gathered react and then melt down. I'm surrounded by my slime outfit. Was that supposed to happen?
"Heh, making up for last time aren't you Aurora?" Lea chuckled.
Not liking the smug look on his face I charged in, only to immediately have my eyes open wide in surprise. Because even though I dashed in with a fast thrust, I found the tip of my sword caught with two fingers.
Lea smiled and the picked up a random blade from the battlefield. I dashed super seriously and appeared behind him swinging at where he was. Only for him to disappear.
When he reappeared, he was behind me, stating "That was merely my after image" and then punched me in the back.
I used the motion to spin and attempt to hit him this time, only for him to side step it with practiced ease.
Wait.
Practiced ease?
I charge in, expecting a 'conversation.' But as I swing my sword, find it deflected with Lea's hands and any weapon he can pick up, I realize I'm not conversing at all. I'm having my words repeated back to me.
"My memories…" I realized. "You've been watching them this entire time."
Lea smiled, and with a hum of magic I see something that I've only done before. Thousands of lines of magic, in a strange color that I somehow know only belongs to Lea, cover the arena.
"Not only that." Said Lea. "Don't you recall? I was the one to kill a powered up demonic version of you. Don't you wonder how?"
Lea got closer, and I coated myself in my own magic tapestry of strings in response, somewhat excited but also a bit apprehensive to the rest of this conversation, both verbal and combative. Lea's gaze bore into me.
"Because you thought it'd be cool for someone to have the ability to kill you should the need would arise." Lea and I began to meet strike for strike, not even bothering with a sword just yet, instead doing our best to hit each other with our fists. For each time one of us swings, the other weaves, only for the next hit to be parried and another to be dodged. "Little reminder, Minoru, I didn't rely on mechs and lost items like Leon did. I couldn't afford it. Everything I could do? That was all something I worked for."
Lea attempts to shoulder check me but I dodge but as I take out my slime blade to capitalize on his opening, I find the arm with the blade coated in a chain. I looked to the origin of the chain and saw Mary. With a smirk she pointed behind me and I saw another blonde form my past life. Said blonde specialized in holy fire and sent a giant ball of it in my direction.
I grab the chain on my hand and swing Mary into the direction of the holy fire, only for her to feel nothing from it. Lea then appears behind me and begins his assault once more.
I see.
This isn't a conversation.
I'm being yelled at.
.
.
.
A/N: Okay, I think that's a bitch of a cliffhanger to leave on. Suffer.
So, I feel like I should clarify about Delta/Sara. Sara isn't a total mastermind like Nu believes, but is smarter than anyone but Shadow knows. She also wasn't going to try and kill Nu. She was pulling off a technique from the WN that Cid did apparently. Where he could make magic claws and mess with someone's brain. Sara was just going to delete Nu's memory of the journals.
Anyway, the main purpose of this chapter was to have everyone else shine more. You'll see what Beta was up to next time, and it will involve the last few stuff of Volume 5 in a funny way before we get to the volume 6/blood moon arc.
It should also be the last bit of Cid/Minoru's trials.
Oh and before I answer the comments, someone brought up an interesting idea: let Olivier/Olly be a permanent character. I kinda like the idea honestly, and have a good way to do it given the arcs coming up. So I'll put a poll up on QQ for people to decide.
Now let's answer the comments:
SB
MWKillKenny84: I like to imagine if this harem roster was a paper, then Yumeria (who I also plan on including) would be tacked on with a sticky note.
Azure the Dragon Lord: Somewhat. The joke of this fic is that Delta isn't just dumb, she has ADHD that Cid secretly helped treat. So she's smarter than in canon, albeit nowhere close to the rest.
But she did still do it for Cid, so best girl is still best girl.
Dawnwatch: I think it was more a look into Cid's psychology breaking, but it works either way.
Hope that Noelle's thoughts were more fleshed out here, albeit more indirectly.
Hope you liked Nu's brief romp as a horror protagonist. Can you tell I was watching some horror Au video essays? Lol.
Hope I delivered on Carla as well.
Rendfire: That's a really good interpretation of Lea/Minoru's relationship. But yeah, Lea knew about Minoru's dream and all of his ideas for fighting. Generally, the two would be dumb boys and try things out together since Olivier sometimes said "no, that sounds dumb" to Minoru. Lea would shotgun a beer and then say "fuck it, why not."
As for the canon/carp shooting connection, that was on accident. To Leon, Cid's always acted his age. Only Alpha would've noticed otherwise.
So all the expies were Xilonen and Chasca from Genshin Impact, Kali Belladonna from RWBY, Tiffania from Familiar of Zero, and Zelestia of Fire Emblem Engage.
The button spamming was just pure fun.
Yeah, the demonic armors needed to be brought up at some point. I figured having them brought up in the past more would make more sense.
It's more that they're both guys. I feel like at one point Olivier would've asked Lea for his blessings to marry Minoru though. Lea was stronger than Olivier, but not at that point.
Lmao yeah, guy talk about her brother that was also in a harem must be so damn awkward. Noelle's characterization in comparison to Leila's implies that she was the type to grow up too quickly, so having a prince on a white horse (or edgy air bike in this case) would be the perfect match.
Lmao, I didn't realize I did that. Yeah they all can call Cid cringe and mean it, causing more damage than one could with a blade.
Louise deserves it to a degree.
Yeah, at this point in the story you can't just challenge Cid's beliefs. You'd need to demolish them. As for how long he knew… uh, well that will be important later so no spoilers for now.
BlackThief12: True that.
Someone ani: I mean, I get what you mean, but it kinda began a while ago. Also yeah, I'd get merc'd by these characters. Cid especially. Or maybe only Cid? But Alpha might try to stop him given that I made her happier… for now. The John Smith Arc approaches after all.
Violet wasn't a kid so much as she was the same age as them and malnourished at first like Marie.
Maybe I should queue the chapters to release on Saturday from now on? I feel like it'd give everyone a decent amount of time to read.
Bladist: Yeah, Epsilon's ancestor—Pente—basically has the body Epsilon wanted, as Someone Ani pointed out. It's why Epsilon gets so angry at seeing her, because she realized she had the genetics for it.
Glad to see you're a man of culture as always. I'm more partial to a half up half down style myself, but twin tails are pretty good.
Everyone's forming a line and Noelle's helping arm them.
I suppose this chapter is when she made the purchase? Lol.
Noelle calling Marie, "Rie," is canon. I swear she calls Livia "Liv" at some point too.
Fun fact though, there's a manga extra where Livia is said to be talented in giving others nicknames too. This is in reference—I believe anyway—to when she calls the five idiots names when Leon's trying to deny her feelings for him.
In the manga extra, Angelica asks for a nickname. In response, Olivia calls her "My beautiful goddess." After they both recover from that, Angelica asks for her to make one for Leon. Olivia says "Prince on a white horse."
It's said that on that day, the entirety of Holfort laughed heartily in response.
Anyway, Carla/Jean was something I came up with out of nowhere but it's fun to write. I feel bad for Emile so I'm helping him out.
The Brad and Brad thing made me laugh lol.
Cid had to kill Olivier to move on, and the idea of actually doing it broke his mind, causing him to flicker in remembrance of all the others.
Well, I mean, Jenna and Miauler are working for Mitsugoshi in Midgar. I think I brought that up? In any case, they would've heard about it at some point too most likely. I could see Beatrix fetching for them in that continuity.
Ao3
JackTheMemer: I feel like "inner Subaru" is such a funny phrase considering the cross over in game and the apocrypha events.
Wolfpaladin: More like Livia was speedrunning lol. Noelle's revenge is less malicious and more petty.
I should have Cid revisit them later. I never did get on them being part of his harem too.
Yup, Louise could have it worse.
I know how to use Olivier, and yet she won't come home in game. *sigh*
I just don't know much about Freyja honestly. She's a more bossy Alexia for now, but I feel like there's more there we just don't know yet.
I feel like Epsilon would trust the rest of the shades first, but thanks for the idea for Alexia's test. The results of which will be next chapter.
Totntotbt: that's a good way to level up Louise now that I think about it.
I feel like they had this talk already, but Leon's too dense for it to matter lol.
That's a good idea for Olly. But I don't know enough about the other shades to confidently agree on that.
BOY4_GOW:
Yup. It's ridiculous how much stuff is underneath the playtime co factory.
It's that she understands the idea of liking a cute but edgy guy at all.
Yeah… poor hertauda.
WINGMAN HERTRAUDA!
You'll find out later.
Cid's been broken, he was just forced to step on the glass shards so to speak.
Lea is still running the trials. So he wouldn't be that mean to include all of those memories… or would he?