Chapter 119
(Kodori)
It didn't surprise me that Ren was volunteering to do the heroic solo 'thing'. Of note however, he wasn't doing the solo thing of not telling anyone, and had someone with him to watch his back.
He was also riding a much sleeker animal, and more than once I had to take small detours or make huge jumps to take the straightest line towards the back of the giant snake monster. From down on the ground, it was overall 'taller' and 'longer' than the Tyrant, and while my Status was calling it an Orochi, it lacked the 'head' on the end of its tail, and Tetsu, Gaelion really, had called it a Hydra.
"Should we get its attention yet?" Sadeena asked as I made a sharp left turn so I could get a better look at the small flat spot of ground Motoyasu had spotted. Through the gaps in the bamboo stalks, it didn't look promising, but it wasn't the smallest space I'd ever fought a huge monster in.
I could feel little tremors through my paws as the hydra (I wouldn't insult the one orochi I'd actually met at Kiba's master's home (who was tiny and got along great with the cats) by calling this one an orochi) shifted its body, curled back a couple of its heads, and let out a blast of cold and a cloud of toxic fog.
"Tail from the back!" Usa called out just before I heard the cascading sound of bamboo shattering in a fast approaching line towards me.
Then there was a heavy ringing noise, like a distorted gong made of glass, and a flash of purple/pink light behind me someplace. "Huh, it won't hold for long, but that's what the Sakura Lumina trees are supposed to do!" Sadeena commented, her weight shifting a little before bits of bamboo hit the ground to the left and right of me, "Won't stop debris though."
I tilted my head a little and made a little grumpy noise.
"We're about to turn!" Usa called out, "We're about to cross into the barrier its making with that pink stone too!" He warned me.
His warning came about two seconds before we got to a gap in the bamboo and trees just large enough for to accept my larger size, and with a sharp right pivot on my right paw, a sliding scrabbling digging in of my two left paws, then a heavy kick with my back right, we were in the air and ready to assault the hydra.
(Ren)
Of the many things Ren had done while gaming, 'riding' wasn't one of them. Oh sure, just about every game he'd gotten into had some kind of mount system. But that only ever got you from point A to point B in less time, and only when some other kind of fast travel system wasn't available. He was too much of a city boy to ever have ridden a horse, and too much of a shut in to go to an actual arcade with those motorcycle racing games.
But, he really didn't like losing. It had taken some hard lessons and a near death experience, but that hatred of losing had been softened a little. Kodori, Raphtalia, Eclair, the Queen... Each of them had beaten the bricks out of him at least once. And now, 'losing' was 'not learning'. And each of them made his defeats learning experiences.
Like Melty and her love of filolial. She'd been an insufferable tease at how bad he and Solitaire worked together as a pair. But because of that...
"Going through!" Solitaire called over his shoulder his agile body sliding into position as he aimed towards a grove of bamboo between them and the hydra's back.
That grove however wouldn't fit the three of them, so Ren did his job, "Clearing!" And with a one handed sweep of the Sword, the grove was cut to about knee height ahead of them.
"We're about cross its Sakura Stone barrier!" Rishia said, "Urg, the energy here is all twisted!"
Then Ren got low to Solitaire's back, and the big wolf/panther shouldered through the mess of falling bamboo with ease. "I see it!" Solitaire said, "Don't like the tail!"
Communication, his greatest weakness before, was an absolute necessity now. "One strike, jump." Ren said, "Ready?"
"Yes!"
He felt the energy of the hydra's barrier weaken him, but even as his stats, and those of his companion fell, the pendant around his neck glowed with a slightly different pink light. Just as expected, he lost access to a bunch of different boosts, but all he had to do was follow through.
"Starlight Edge!" He called out as they got along side the tail of the beast. A slash of light left the blade of the Sword, and left a thin slash against the hydra's flank.
He didn't need to call out the attack, that was a habit Eclair and the Queen had beaten out of him. But the words were a signal to his partner. Predictably, one of the hydra's heads looked behind it, spotted them, and its tail lashed around, trying to slap them away like pests. "HA!" Solitaire laughed as he jumped over the strike, "HOWLING!" then let out a blast of sonic magic right into the face of the curious head that had spotted them.
Behind them, as the head flinched away from the cone of rock grinding sonic force, its lashing tail rang out against a barrier of light stretched between two of the Sakura Limina trees. Ren glanced back that way, just long enough to see that the hydra's 'casual force' of missing them was enough to make the barrier flex dangerously. "There!" Ren called out, "Looks like its guarded."
"Good! My teeth are itchy now!" and the two landed on its back. "Hold on!" His four clawed feet took a moment to adjust to the angry lashing of the monster's body at the intruder on its back...
But like his master, Solitaire was very familiar with Melty and her teasing. Oh, and ice magic. Big paws dug in to the scales, found their balance, and they continued their run up the hydra's back.
Behind him, Rishia spoke into a sound stone, "I have to help Ren, the Hydra is pulling energy through the dragon veins too!"
(Raphtalia)
"Oh, little Clive fell." Tetsu said, her tone akin to someone saying 'we're out of milk'. "Oh! He's flying too!"
Raphtalia spotted Itsuki falling, but as she was about to tug at Tetsu's reins to turn in that direction, he flipped over, spread his arms and started gliding. "Cover him!" She said over her shoulder, "Tetsu, keep going. They're almost all in position!"
Behind her, she saw, and heard Ren and Solitaire's antics as the hydra's tail failed to hit them but hit the barrier instead. Kodori, Usa and Sadeena were about ten seconds from the little clearing, and Motoyasu was doing his best with Kuro to distract the heads. Then a bead around her neck spoke up, "I have to help Ren, the Hydra is pulling energy through the dragon veins too!"
Slightly panicked, Itsuki's voice spoke, "Okay! Ahh! Okay, I'll get to the hill and whoa!" Raphtalia watched him free fall for a half second, but recover and continue gliding, "Lay down suppressing fire!"
Oh, and a hasty, "Thank you Clive!"
Clive's heavy bow spoke again, and its owner clicked his beak in a 'laugh'. "He says no problem. Motoyasu, dive in three, two, GO!"
(Itsuki)
He slipped off Kuro's back, swearing even as her tail feathers spun out of view. But he could already feel a weird semi-weightlessness as the ring on his finger activated. But, he knew what to do. He brought his right arm in, straightened his right leg, and stuck his left arm and leg out. The air pushed against his outstretched limbs, and he flipped over to face the ground.
Now looking over the battlefield instead of up at the night sky, he picked the proper spot on the horizon, spread his legs in a V and bent them at the knees, then put his arms over his head with the Bow gripped near either end. Then he leaned until his body spun to face the hill he expected to meet Rishia on.
"I have to help Ren, the Hydra is pulling energy through the dragon veins too!" Said the stone around his neck.
The noise seemed to draw attention, and one of the heads coiled back and around to look at him. But then an spear pretending to be an arrow passed through the base of its skull, making it look around the other way. Of course, with seven other heads, another took its place while the first tracked upwards to find the thing that hurt it.
"Okay!" The second head snorted a glob of vile smelling gunk at him, but he was already shifting his body into a 'pencil' shape to evade, "Ahh! Okay," He continued, flattening his body out and using the Bow as a 'wing' to skip through the air like a stone over water, ready to dodge again, "I'll get to the hill and whoa!" He curled into a ball and dropped like a rock as the hydra tried to bite him out of the air. He recovered again, "Lay down suppressing fire!"
He started a sideways roll to avoid what looked to be a blast of fire, but another of those frightening arrows stuck two necks together for a split second. "Thank you Clive!" He said as he finished his now unnecessary roll.
"He says 'no problem'. Motoyasu, dive in three, two, GO!" Raphtalia answered as Itsuki finished his glide to the ground, hoping that the bushes just over the hill he was aiming at didn't have any sharp rocks hiding under them.
(Kodori)
I was surprised, impressed, and just a tiny bit proud, when everyone but Itsuki and Rishia ended up exactly where they needed to be the instant Raphtalia finished counting down.
From above, Kuro, Motoyasu, Tetsu and Raphtalia slammed into four of the eight heads. As I ran alongside the serpentine body, Sadeena and Usa jumped off my back to cut and lash into another head, and someplace ahead of me, behind everyone else, a suspicious ruffle of foliage signalled Clive's landing.
My back free of cargo, I took two more long strides, slammed down my front right paw, let my back legs swing around in a wide arc, then dug in my front left paw to perform a nice 180 turn that put me in front of the hydra. Then with a clanking rattle, I returned to my two legged form made ready to throw out defensive skills, and watch the others land behind me.
Four of the eight heads, with a fifth almost sheered off, slammed into the ground around us, turning to dust as the three remaining heads writhed in pain.
"Yeah! Great opening!" Motoyasu cheered, though his arm was back, the Spear ready to throw.
But with an alarming, grotesque pulsing of flesh and scale, the fifth head fell off, then all five of the heads regrew. I'd only ever seen this level of regeneration twice before. Riser Phoenix, and Rory Mercury.
"Wow! They came back super fast!" Tetsu said as we all backed up a couple of steps, "Boss?"
"This is where we check for what kind of regeneration it has, right?" Usa asked.
Above us, six of the eight heads were facing us, while the two on either end were curling around to face behind.
"You seriously have a check for this kind of thing?" Motoyasu asked, "Well... the hydra I read about didn't like fire..."
"That's what we check for." Raphtalia said, the Katana returning to her hip, then glowing faintly as she took the 'Phoenix blade' Romina had made for her from her inventory. "But yes, let's try each element."
"GO!" I called out, pointing to the middle head.
And just like he said he would, Itsuki fired a glowing arrow from someplace behind and to my left, a burst of dark smoke creating a cloud in front of most of the hydra heads.
(Zooming out, the camera facing the hydra's front/party's rear)
The blast of dark smoke made the four middle heads flinch upwards, while the two on either side of them looped around and under the cloud to flank the group. Motoyasu led the charge, the Spear leaving his hand as a literal lightning bolt, lancing the left head through the eye as it started to open its mouth.
Kuro let out a battle cry, her filolial queen form kicking the snake in the forehead, a blast of punishing wind magic drilling through it and into the ground. Behind her, as she kicked up and back, Raphtalia rushed in like a flaming comet, the blade sizzling through the neck as the head bounced up off the ground from the recoil of Kuro's kick.
On the other side, Tetsu stomped forward. With a huge leap that put all four claws and her mouth forward, she landed on the hydra's head and clamped onto it with her usual battle cry of, "Gonna pounce ya!"
Behind her, Sadeena gripped her harpoon by the very end and spun in mid air. Acting more like an executioner's axe than a spear of any sort, the head fell away, but before it could snap back, Usa fed the stump of flesh a heavy lightning bolt, burning it and sending the neck flailing away in a spasm of nerves.
In the middle, Kodori was mumbling spells, while her masked face looked upwards. The lenses of her mask ignored the smoke, letting her see, aim, and slam an Air Strike Shield in front of the first head to dive into the smoke at them. Above the three heads not suddenly suffering from running into a wall, a second spectral shield appeared, the face depicting a pair of snarling dog heads. The heads lashed out to capture a second head, keeping it from helping the remaining two as they descended through the smoke.
"No good!" Raphtalia called out as the head she burned off flexed and pulsed, a new one growing in its place.
"No good!" Usa mirrored the call, the head he'd zapped returning to shape seconds later.
"Ice and acid!" Kodori called as she finished casting a party wide defence buff.
(Camera zips over and around to focus on the back)
"One on either side!" Ren called out as he and Solitaire rushed towards the pink glow emanating from the hydra's back, more or less where the eight heads met in the middle.
"Hurts to look at..." Solitaire, now in human form, matched pace with Ren and lashed out with a hand. "Wind fang!"
Misnamed, the attack send four razor sharp 'claws' of wind at the snoot of a flanking head. The glowing blue lump crawling up its throat was sent skywards instead of at them.
One the other side, Ren let out a slash of energy. The power was reduced, but it left a burning X over the head's nose, and blinded it in one eye.
Rishia, seeing her 'place' in the formation, slipped between the two of them as they fended off the two heads, and drew her sword. "We have to cut off its connection to the dragon veins!"
Then, on the other side, two of the heads fell to a flash of fire and a blast of lightning. But unknown to the party fighting at the front of the beast, the Sakura stone glowed brighter for a moment, the limp necks suddenly moving again as the heads regrew.
"We can't fail!" Rishia added, spotting one of those 'things' Motoyasu reported from the air, a complex octagonal magic design drawn... no, carved, into the serpent's back around the glowing stone. "Going to need time!"
"You'll get it!" Ren called out, him and Solitaire jumping up as the two heads lanced out, mouths wide. "YA!" one of those heads kept going as the neck fell limp, while Solitaire's clawed gloves left ten impossibly long gashes from nose to someplace near the neck's middle as he did a neat flipping roll over the darting head.
As the heads regrew and recovered, the point of Rishia's sword slammed into a flat barrier wall, vile purple and pink energy cracking around the dragon steel sword point.
(Another dynamic drone flyby to the front!)
Usa captured one of the heads just behind the jaw with his chain whip, while Tetsu used her immense strength to keep the brave rabbit from being pulled off his feet like a toy by holding the chain as well. "Got it!" He called out.
Rolling away from a hydra head as it ate a trench of dirt from where she'd be standing, Kodori popped up to her feet and turned the Vassal Book towards the captured head. A blast of sleeting ice covered, coated, then encased the head in a block of ice.
"Clive!" Sadeena called out, the head suddenly shattering as an arrow with a sphere on the end instead of a point, slammed into the block of ice, Usa's whip falling to the ground as it came free of the headless stump.
On the other side of Kodori, Raphtalia, Motuyasu and Kuro slashed and stabbed as two heads thrashed at them. Kuro jumped away from a blast of fire. Motoyasu threw his spear to divert a head away from biting Raphtalia, and with a rising jump into the air, Raphtalia's flaming blade went through the neck that tried to bite her. "Itsuki!" She called out, curling into a defensive ball, her blade braced against her body towards the nearest head in case it got any ideas.
From the nearby hill, a glowing arrow darted out and seemed to explode in mid air. With a hiss of steam and a chemical stench, the head Raphtalia had just cut off was covered in green mist.
But still, the two severed heads writhed and returned to life, glaring down at the party.
"Crap." Kodori said, one of her tails swatting the back of her head as she readied the Shield of Marius.
"It regenerates faster than the Tortoise." Motoyasu said as they began to scatter, getting out of the way of striking heads or ducking behind Kodori's defence skills, or Kodori herself.
"It has a cursed dragon core!" Tetsu called out, turning into a girl to get out of the way of a biting head, then turning back to rip a scaly chunk of flesh from the side of its neck. "And it is really old too! Powerful!"
"Plan B?" Raphtalia suggested, rolling under a blast of ice, then coming to her feet with a wide overhead swing to decapitate that head. "Or do we give Rishia more time?" She added after diving away from a snapping snake head that only missed because of a shower of glowing arrows from Itsuki.
"Little Atla should be fine! You worry too much!" Sadeena called out, dancing away from a biting head, then finishing a spin and cramming her harpoon sideways through its skull, in one eye, out the other. "Usa dear?"
"I'll signal!" He called out, his chain whip lashing out, wrapping around the throat of the head Sadeena had lanced, then constricting with a magic inevitability and pinching the head off its neck. "PLAN B!"
"Thank you luv." Sadeena laughed as Clive sent a white signal arrow straight into the sky.
(Drone rotates again, the camera fizzing slightly then focusing on Rishia)
Dark black and pink lightning played over Rishia's body and blade as she slowly wedged its point through the glass smooth barrier in front of her. There was just so much energy here, she was having trouble redirecting it away from barrier, her body, and the hydra itself. But it was like standing in front of a crashing wave and trying to keep dry. The effort was slowly burning her, but she was making progress, even as the resin and leather soles of her boots melted to the back of the hydra, and the palms of her gloves flaked away.
(Thrown away by an errant crackle of energy, our poor camera stops just outside the battlefield as Fohl, Atla and Kotetsu get in sight of the hydra.)
"I know we were told to follow at a safe distance... but why?" Fohl asked, the run not even winding him. "And that's our signal too." He pointed at Clive's arrow as it burned white hot into the air.
Kodori voice, a little breathless, spoke from around Atla's neck, "You... You need to limit its power." They watched as two heads let out a fire/ice combo, heard it through the sound stone, then again as the sound covered the distance a moment later. "It might kill me if I do it from here, and Rishia needs help." Kodori explained, "Work with Kotetsu."
The stone went silent in the middle of another double report of hydra breath weapons, "Hmm, that one will do." Atla said, her dim eyes 'looking' directly at one of the glowing Sakura Lumina trees that had a trench of broken bamboo stalks on the other side of it. "I'm afraid I can't be gentle though..."
"I help!" Kotetsu said, uncoiling from Fohl's arm (and his superior headpat technique) and landing on Atla's shoulder. "Push down, not pull."
Fohl had no idea what the little dragon meant, but Atla smiled and put her hands on the glowing barrier tree, "What a clever girl... I was just going to try and turn it all off... But that might just kill everything from here to the shoreline..."
(Kodori)
This was kind of irritating. Not only did this thing have a comparable regeneration to Riser, it had a specific 'kill' condition we just couldn't meet with what we had on hand. If Ren was up front with us, maybe, but he was protecting Rishia, who was trying to power down the Sakura stone on the thing's back.
And while I might have been able to get into a mental duel with the cursed dragon core, and suppress some of that power, I'd have had to do it through the dragon veins... And they were so loaded with cursed and twisted energy, the attempt might have defaulted to 'explodes' before it worked, or didn't.
Then I felt all of that cursed energy... drop away. Like I'd suddenly jumped fifty metres into the air. Everyone could feel it too, including the hydra, who started to just... go insane.
"Turtle!" I called out, backing up as a head slammed into the ground next to me, I then had to jump over a flailing neck.
Tetsu got bodily in the way of another thrashing head, Sadeena managed to cut off another head but was then tossed off her feet into the bamboo by the still moving stump. Usa jumped and tackled Raphtalia out from under another, while Motoyasu ducked under Kuro as she threw a small tornado upwards to redirect another.
All my Air Strike Shields went up and held out just long enough for us all to get to the edge of the clearing.
Then, like the sound of a magic stone shattering under a careless strike, a flash of purple and pink flared behind the middle heads, then winked out.
Tetsu spoke suddenly with a voice not her own, "Now! Strike off all its heads! Motoyasu, aim for the heart!"
"Tetsu!" Raphtalia ran towards Tetsu, who saw the play before needing to be told, "Throw me!"
Clever girl that she was, Tetsu braced, caught Raphtalia's two feet in one big claw, put her other clawed paw against her rear, and pushed her forward at alarming velocity.
In mid air, Raphtalia drew the Vassal Katana again, "Double sword: brave blade: Moon Katana: Crescent!"
Ignoring that she just stacked four skill attacks in one smooth motion while moving at near super sonic speeds from the throw of an overpowered (clever) dragon girl, Motoyasu took up a long stance, and not to be outdone (though he totally was) he called out his own attack.
"Spiralling Spear: Sakura twister!" Looked awesome, but sounded like a fountain drink.
Raphtalia's two blades lashed out as if she had fast drawn them from either hip, and let out a shimmering plane of pale cutting light. Under her, Motoyasu was propelled forward by his own tunnel of sakura petals, as they formed a drill shape that started at the point of his outstretched spear. Together, they hit the beast at the same time, eight heads flying off in random directions, while the body was cored through by a bloodless mist of sakura petals.
The beast froze, headless stumps locking in place mid-thrash, long tail paused in mid rattle... And it all started to flake away. Slowly, much like a sakura tree in full bloom, little petals of black ash filled the air. On its back, Ren picked up Rishia and jumped off towards us, Solitaire close behind. Motoyasu jogged out of the tunnel he'd made in the beast's chest, shading his eyes from the black ash with a forearm.
"Something is wrong." Tetsu said with the other voice of Gaelion. "The dragon core I felt is..."
Poor Rishia looked terrible. Bits of her armour, her boots and some of her clothes looked to have been dried out and burned off her, as if she had stood in an oven. Her hands were the worst, but she still held the sword I gave her in one, and a dimly glowing Sakura stone in the other. "Rishia!"
The voice of concern was loudest from Itsuki, and Ren handed her to him while Usa pulled first aid supplies from a pouch. "We have to go." Rishia said, "Right now... Something... it isn't real."
I suddenly got this... feeling. The same one I got when I faced down the Balor.
"Run!" Atla, usually calm and collected, who only raised her voice to call her brother, yelled over the sound stone. "I can't hold it back! It's going to explode!"
And I felt that cursed energy, the malignant tide under my feet, start bubbling up towards me again. So, I made the call, "RUN!" And picked up both Itsuki and Rishia, heaved them over Tetsu's back, then transformed into my fox form.
(Our poor camera looks down over the little valley/bowl of the former burial mound)
They made a mad dash out of the burial pit. Kodori, with Raphtalia and Sadeena on her back. Tetsu with Itsuki and Rishia on hers. Kuro carried Motoyasu and Clive. And Solitaire Ren and Usa.
Behind them, the ground started to change.
The hydra had flaked away to nothing before they had started running. But now, from a crack in the ground, that the monster had been sitting on, yet could never have actually fit through, thick purple gas started to seep from below. The fighting had flattened most of the area's plant life, but now, as the viscous fog billowed upwards, things began to wither and die.
Up on the hill, Fohl glanced at the roiling fog, then back to his sister who had her hands wrist deep in the trunk of one of the Sakura Lumina trees. Wrapped around one forearm, little forehead pressed into the bark, was Kotetsu, the two of them working together to suppress the inevitable tide of fog. At their feet, the barrier that had stopped the stray tail swipe of the hydra, started to spark gently, while the shattered bamboo inside the barrier began to wither and brown.
Then, as the combatants left the enclosed space of the burial site, the fog stripping off of them as they exited, a collection of hydra heads started to rise out of the fog like some bizarre tree.
(Kodori)
We got out of the barrier space more or less at the same time. As my passengers jumped off and I changed back into my two legged self, Tetsu finished her gliding thump of a landing, hopping a couple times to bleed off the last of her momentum, then laying flat on her belly to let Itsuki and Rishia off her back. "Sorry if it was too rough! But running is important too!"
"It's fine..." Rishia said, getting up under her own power, "I'm just a little... exhausted."
She looked like I felt after growing a tree. "Here. It's not the sleep you need, or the taste you want, but I don't think we're done." Yes, it was an instant coffee pill. "Atla?"
"Now..." She sighed, her shoulders relaxing, but her hands staying firmly stuck inside the Lumina tree, "I felt it as soon as Kotetsu and I pushed the energy deeper underground. There's a kind of... energy siphon... It's connected to the barrier over the island, and supposed to drain away the power of the monster without killing it."
On the other side of the tree, the fog was gathering against the barrier like very dirty aquarium water, but it wasn't leaking through. "Sister? Can you..."
"This much... I can hold for a little while. Especially with her helping." Atla said, Kotetsu's feathery tail swishing happily at the praise, despite the lack of headpats for her hard work. "That trip to the Hearth taught me so much. But..."
While we'd been talking, everyone had started and mostly finished the 'am I hurt' check, but those who were done all held their breath when Atla paused.
"The mechanism that was pulling energy from it is... off. I'm not sure if it was me, or the stone Rishia took, or if it was damaged when it was released after taking over the port town... But if we wait too long, it will emerge fully, and no matter what I do here, it will break free." Atla explained, "And... That there is another copy. The real body is under it."
Tetsu spoke, though it was with Gaelion's voice, "It is still a dragon, after a fashion, if I could get close enough, we could weaken it. Then it would be as usual for an elder of our kind."
"Remove the core." Ren, Motoyasu and I said at the same time.
"Though..." I gave Rishia a little mint candy and some water from my inventory, "Damn." This time, my tails didn't punish me, "We're going to have to split the party." I looked to Raphtalia.
"Atla? How long do we have?" She asked.
The eight new heads that had risen out of the fog were shifting lazily, as if waking up from a deep sleep, the wide viper heads listing about, looking through the fog around it.
"I'm not sure? But as soon as you get its attention..." She tilted her head a little, as if listening to something, "But I can tell you where the entrance is, to get to where the real body is. Kotetsu? Help them, I'm okay."
"Sure?"
"Yes."
Slowly, Kotetsu lifted her forehead from the bark of the tree, let go with her claws, and uncoiled just enough from Atla's arm to rub her face over the tiger girl's cheek. Then, the little dragon jumped/flew over to Tetsu (the highest point among us, and thus asserting her dominance in the cutest way possible) and held the Mirror in her two front paws. "Like... this maybe? Yes!"
Like before, a little glowing map appeared. This was projected onto the ground, and showed a general view of the battlefield we'd just left. However, directly under the hydra, was a fissure, this led down into what might have been an underground cavern similar to the water dragon's home.
"Okay..." Raphtalia did a slow pace around the map, "One way or another, we have to move it. It seems set on attacking me, or moving to attack the town, so it's best I stay up here. I'll need another forward or two with me... and..." She looked to our two archers, then to Rishia, "You three."
"It took all of us to put it down the first time... You sure?" Motoyasu asked.
"We're just delaying it." She replied, "The second team is going to actually kill it."
"Well, I'll be your second then." Motoyasu grinned, "Kuro?"
"Of course I stay with my stupid master."
"Ok... This means we have Kodori, Usa, Tetsu, Ren, Solitaire and Sadeena for the second team..."
Fohl looked to his sister, then to me, then back to Atla. "Hey, hey! Smart lady! Gimme that?" Kotetsu jumped off Tetsu's head and landed on Rishia's shoulder. "Yeah!"
I raised a finger to maybe caution the danger-noodle about eating strange bits of amber. But when Rishia held up the pink stone, open palm up, Kotetsu slapped the mirror over it like she was swatting a fly. With a little 'bap' of noise, the Mirror glowed, and took on a new form. Like any of our weapons, it reflected the material, and the metal frame around the octagonal mirror became sakura pink, and the back grew a nice yin/yang with the two eyes splitting the 'core' gem in two.
"Heehee. Pretty treasure!" Kotetsu hugged the mirror, gave Rishia a friendly headbutt against her cheek, then zipped back to Atla. "Go help." Then she looked at me, "Pasta night?"
"Next chance we get. Raphtalia?"
"Fohl and Atla, go with Kodori." She laughed, "Be careful everyone, but let's hurry. We have a rebellion to finish."
NOTES!
Since Chime isn't here, Kotetsu has to be the main character.
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