Chapter 106
(Kizuna)
"You know, I'm kinda jealous." She said as Glass, L'arc and Therese entered her newly restored home. They'd all been super busy recently since the thing with Kyo, so this was the first time in a while they had gathered together someplace that wasn't mid-mission or someplace with paperwork invovled. "Hey... Where's Ethnobalt?"
"He said he was going to pick up a few guests." L'arc said, gracelessly flopping onto the nice comfy couch (that had narrowly avoided destruction, making him think it was a lucky couch, and somehow more comfortable). "We've been getting reports of strange humanoid war bands out in our fields, and around the Tree... even I can guess who's going to visit."
Kizuna perked up, "Kodori-sama!" She cheered, "But... Oh, she's cheating." She laughed.
"That is what Queen Mirellia said, yes." Glass said, flicking the Fan open and shading her mouth with it.
Kizuna blinked, "Wait... You got it back? How?"
Glass closed the Vassal Fan and reverently stored it in her obi. "As part of negotiations between our worlds, and a sign of good faith, she offered to try and trade the fans Kodori made for me, in return for the Vassal Fan."
Therese smiled happily, a tiny tipping of her infinite fountain of good cheer, "She used such pretty words, and spoke with incredible eloquence."
"But it boiled down to, 'I was given this since the true user was absent'." L'arc shrugged, "But it's good to see you smile Glass. It's almost cute."
"Brute." Glass harrumphed, making Kizuna laugh. "But what about..."
"Oh, that was the other part of it." L'arc nudged Therese.
"Oh yes! See?" She held up a polished dome of rose quartz set into a silver disk, "These have started to circulate all over Melromarc! They do almost everything a Weapon does! Inventory, item drop, item retrieval, Hourglass teleportation, and Wave teleportation! Though... they haven't had a Wave since returning, so that's untested."
"It seems nearly anyone can attain these now, though production is slow for the moment." Glass said.
They sipped/slurped tea (yes, L'arc was a brute), and sighed. "So, jealous?" L'arc asked.
"Yeah! You guys get to visit the other world when ever you want now. But because I'm a Hero I'm stuck here! And Alto has been running poor Ethnobalt ragged with all the diplomatic stuff and merchant caravans..." She crossed her arms and pouted theatrically, but perked up suddenly, "Oh! I hear the Boat!"
A brief shadow went over the windows of the front yard, and with quiet flutter and subtle hum, they all spotted the red and black of Ethnobalt's (Kodori DLC coloured) airship. As one, they all got up and walked out onto the front porch to greet whomever was coming.
First down the ladder was Clive. His chameleon scales were looking a tiny bit more green than usual, and the instant he got off the ladder he crouched down, apparently very pleased to no longer be flying.
Next was Usa. As soon as both his feet touched down, he went to Clive and gave his back a pat. Then was an adorable young woman with silver hair, colourful hand stitched clothing, and a Vassal Weapon that looked like a giant pair of scissors.
After her was a literal beast of a man, a werewolf. He seemed more beast than anything they'd seen in the other world, as if he were a wolf that decided to walk on its hind legs. He towered over the others when he got his feet on the ground, but then seemed to shrink a little as his reverse kneed legs folded up naturally to leave him in a dangerous looking crouch. That 'dangerous' look was amplified by the leather and metal armour he wore.
Next was Kodori herself, jumping off the side of the airship, her black and green combat kimono fluttering as she came down at what looked like half speed. On one hip was the Vassal Book, and the other the Book Shield. Behind her, was Kotetsu, the Vassal Mirror in her front paws as she 'swam' through the air behind Kodori, landing on her head and gripping her horns.
Then came a pair of tiger tailed, white and black haired teenagers. Their clothing was oddly similar to the local 'Euro-Asian' mix of styles, and while the girl had the glassy-eyed look of someone who was blind, she had no issue navigating the ladder or the lawn to join the march towards the house.
Last was Ethnobalt himself, though, he was accompanied by a doll-like girl with dragonfly wings as well as fox ears and tail. Her hair was black fading upwards to gold, and her dress was every colour of green save that of her eyes.
"Kizuna." Kodori spoke, "L'arc, Glass, Therese. Good to see you all. As you can see, I brought some guests." She motioned to everyone in turn, "Some of you have met Clive and Usa."
"I'm glad we could meet as friends this time." Usa said sincerely, with Clive (looking much better now) nodding beside him.
"Wolven, the leader of the war bands you've been getting reports of."
The crouching wolf-man nodded his head, "We were told you would appreciate fewer monsters on your lawns." The words were clear, though every word had a subtle growl to it. "We did not need to venture here, but the Hearth is boring before long."
Kizuna nodded, "I can agree with that!"
"Atla and Fohl, descended from the noble bloodline of the Guardian Tiger and the Melromarc royal family... kinda. But they're both my students, and the students of the only human in Melromarc to reach level 95 without any influence from a Weapon. Incidentally, she's also that old."
"Please treat us kindly." The siblings bowed politely, fist in palm.
"You all know Kotetsu."
"Hello!" Pause, "Where happy bird?" She asked, looking for Chris.
"This is S'yne, holder of the Vassal Sewing Kit." Kodori introduced the colourful girl, one of her tails giving her a pat on the back.
"I'm sorry in advance if my..." She sighed, "Voice cuts out a little."
"I need to do a couple things before the Hearth adopts her and her Weapon." Kodori said, "Speaking of..."
The doll-like fairy spoke up with a voice that was too perfect to be real, "Hi! I'm SITA-One. And while I'm really young, one day I'll be known as the Legendary Toolbox!" She waved with enthusiasm, and hugged Ethnobalt's (human) arm, "Also, after seeing him as a rabbit? I might have to change my name to just SIT-One."
"Please don't tease me?"
Kizuna's party was speechless for a moment. But then Kizuna pointed at Kodori, "You did it!"
"I did." She nodded, "I brought food. Mind if we come in? You fixed your kitchen I hope?"
Most of the 'before dinner' time was spent chatting, giving little tours, telling Kizuna she didn't have time to fish, dragging Kizuna away from the pond, and just... warming up to each other. Fohl and Atla were sparkled at by Kizuna, but she was a fan of fuzzy ears. Ethnobalt and Usa were sitting in amiable silence, rabbit-man and man-rabbit. Clive gave Glass an apology as best he could, as well as the arrow he'd shot her with to hang her on the wall (because how many people did you know survived an arrow through the heart?). Kotetsu and Chris chased each other around a while. Wolven and L'arc gravitated towards each other like true battle maniacs...
And Therese and SITA were being absolute gossips about everyone they knew, filling their corner of the living room with little giggles about embarrassing things others did.
It wasn't long before the scent of cooking food filled the house, and only slightly longer than that when S'yne called everyone to the table.
"So." Kodori said, touring the big (brand new) dining table and setting down big bowls and platters of food for people to fill their plates with. "Since taking ownership of the place formerly known as the Labyrinth, we have catalogued every edible plant, figured out exactly what animals taste best, and generally had a really good go at making the best food we could with what we had."
"Everything?" Kizuna asked, "Wow... Now to be fair, I didn't bother writing things down... But everything?"
Wolven growled quietly with every word, "Everything we could find that had something edible to carve off. Some things were made of just bones, others were ghostly things that bled steam and became nothing but a bad smell when killed."
"Right, there were those skeleton things..." Kizuna mumbled, "And I wasn't able to kill ghosts..."
"That would still be quite a task, would it not?" Glass asked.
"I had lots of help." Kodori sat down with Wolven on her right and S'yne on her left. "After we met the initial goals I set, I had a bunch of people with free time and hobbies." She gave Wolven's arm a pat.
"I enjoy tea." He said with a quiet snort (delicate for his size at least).
Conversation paused as people started to eat, the first few mouthfuls capturing everyone's attention.
Then Therese asked, "SITA? You're not eating?"
SITA shook her head. She was sitting at the table, sure, but only so Kotetsu had a place to sit that wasn't on the table itself while she nibbled at things. "I..." She put on a thoughtful frown, "I'm not exactly alive as you know it. I'm more like an easy to get along with abacus."
"What do you mean?" L'arc asked.
SITA opened her mouth, but Kizuna said, "Wait, you're..." She looked to Kodori.
"Almost exactly what you are thinking." She said, "That said, well... she's got all the usual functions of a Weapon, but an actual intelligence behind her."
Everyone but Kodori and SITA looked to Kizuna with a raised eyebrow, but Kizuna didn't speak further on the topic. Instead, she attempted a topic change, "So what can you do? I mean, if you're a Weapon?"
"Well, like you, and Kodori, I'm very specialized." SITA said brightly, suddenly holding a knife and fork, "Lemme make that a little smaller." She said to Kotetsu as she eyed a small slab of meat that was larger than the little dragon's head. "Where I'm from, I learned just about everything there is to know about building stuff. Big and small!" The cut of meat dissected, the cutlery in her hands vanished as if never there in the first place.
"But, to build things, you need two things overall. The know-how, and the tools." Kodori explained. "So, using all the gemstone magic I learned here from Therese's people, metal that can turn magic energy and willpower into substance like the Shield of Marius and Clive's bow..."
"I am quite familiar with that bow." Glass said, "Pass the salt if you please Clive?"
"gr." Followed by a little salt shaker making its way towards Glass.
And a very thin sheet made from an alloy of Hourglass metal and some other stuff besides..." Kodori paused, glancing at SITA.
"Two hundred and sixty seven hours."
"Etching lines and runes into it." Kodori continued, "SITA was born from HIDA. She can make almost any hand held tool, use it, or lend it to someone for a short time."
"But... Doesn't that kind of break the norm? I mean, you need an owner, right?" L'arc motioned to Kizuna and Kodori, "And a world to attach to...oh..."
"It's a one hero world?" Ethnobalt said quietly, "But... oh... Then..." he looked to S'yne.
"I've been very busy." Kodori said, looking at a big bowl of mashed... something... then putting more on her plate, "The guy who made the labyrinth was something else. And unlike Kizuna, took a lot of notes."
"Hey! I didn't have paper and didn't want to carve things into the walls!"
"I've read a lot of stories, theories, and other stuff. And I think I need one more thing to make it a true 'one hero world'. Except, I'm not going to do that yet, maybe ever. One Legendary Weapon, two Vassal Weapons, and probably two Hourglasses."
"Wait, a world? An entire world? How..." L'arc scratched his head.
"Don't worry about it." Kodori laughed quietly, "S'yne?"
"You tell... them." She said haltingly.
"Well, S'yne is from a world that lost the Waves. The Heroes of her world were killed, and by some weird luck she was able to escape. Except, from what we can tell, her Weapon was damaged. It was probably because the world the Weapon was made could no longer support it." Kodori explained.
"How does one even fix a Weapon? We saw what Kyo had done with the fake Weapons, those were poor copies." Glass mused.
S'yne, Kodori and SITA shared a look, "Very carefully." SITA said finally.
"Speaking of Kyo..." L'arc started, "What did you do with all his stuff?"
Kizuna's party gave Kodori a mild but focused accusing look.
"Well, I'm making some more brothers and sisters for Kototsu."
"I want to meet them! Play tag! Steal cookies!" Kototsu said, peeking over the edge of a teacup while SITA held it for her.
"A great deal of it was melted down for materials." Kodori added, "I know how he did... everything. That said, some of it I can't actually do without tools, but..."
"I was told to never help with that." SITA said cheerfully, "Oh! Dessert time?"
"Atla, Fohl? Gimme a hand in the kitchen.
"Oh... oh my goodness... I thought I would never taste this ever again..." Kizuna said, holding her bowl of iced cream with one hand and spoon in the other. "How... how are you this good?"
"Mom magic." Kodori said with a smile.
After dinner, they retired to the living room and its comfy couches.
"So, what are you doing from here? What about the little miss?" L'arc asked.
Atla, Fohl, Clive and Usa did a bit of a nervous head scratch, while Kodori replied with, "I've got my own plans. I honestly just want to go home, but to do that, I need to figure out how." She sighed, "I can't do that if I'm doing everything for everyone else."
"Then... Why are you guys here? Won't she need them?" Kizuna asked, motioning to Kodori's former party.
"That is why she bought us." Wolven said, holding up Kotetsu with one hand and using the Mirror to make sure his fur was free from bits of food and ice cream. "She bought every former gladiator slave she could, and put us to work. When the Waves happen, we will be ready." He gave Kotetsu a headpat, then lifted her up so she could perch on his head.
"You have your own army?" L'arc blinked, "I mean... I do too, but I'm the king here!"
"When you can be bothered to sit on your throne." Glass mumbled.
"Kodori is very serious about her job." Atla smiled, "even if she doesn't want to do it."
"She still skips too much sleep though." Fohl said, "But yeah, the others are pretty neat! I know I'm not the best judge of character, but I have fought some of them. Thankfully, I wasn't actually responsible for any of them getting sold to pay off debts..."
"So that's what you're doing, wandering about in both worlds for the bonus!" L'arc grinned, "Nice!"
"More or less. They're also helping a few of my contacts back in Melromarc. The next Wave won't know what hit it when it gets there." Kodori grinned, "And if you need help, you can ask. Though, unless I actually make the Hearth its own world, we can just use the teleport function to get to the Wave boss here."
Conversation more or less dried up of the next hour or so. Be it because of an epic food coma, or being unable to speak properly. Finally though, as the guests were getting up to leave, Kodori asked, "Hey, before we go. Can I set down a tree here?"
"Eh?" Kizuna blinked, "But those are huge! The one you leve over Kyo's old lab was insanely big!"
"Eh, they don't have to be that big. Just a little one. It'll be super pretty and take up a corner of your yard or something." Kodori replied.
"Well..." Kizuna rubbed her chin, "I guess? What do you need?"
Kodori thought a moment, rubbing her chin, scratching an ear, and combing her fingers through a random tail. "One hair from each of you." She pointed to Kizuna'a party. "And your permission, since this is your home."
A bit later...
"Huh. It really IS a pretty tree." Kizuna smiled, looking up at the reasonably large tree. It was only a little taller than the house, but had so many colours and flowers that it couldn't be anything but magical.
"I am curious why she wanted to do so." Glass tapped her chin, then hid it behind the Fan. "I should have asked.
"I wonder what she said to poor Ethnobalt." L'arc said, reaching up and plucking a super bright yellow pear shaped fruit from the tree. "These are safe to eat, right?"
The others shrugged, "Well, I doubt she'd leave a poisonous tree here." Therese said as L'arc bit into the fruit, then started coughing. "Oh no! It was!"
Coughing and sputtering, L'arc waved off Therese, managing to get a since word out, "SOUR!" Before coughing some more.
(Ethnobalt, a little after the tree, but before everyone left)
"Hey." Kodori mumbled to Ethnobalt, though, it was quiet enough that only the rabbit eared people and maybe Wolven might have heard her. "I'm still using the Book, but..."
Ethnobalt didn't stop looking up at the tree, but put his hand on the Book at Kodori's hip. "I hope to be worthy one day, but I know you will not abuse it." The book felt almost electric under his fingertips, a subtle sound purring through him.
"You are worthy, but it understands my need, and is allowing me to use it." Kodori said, "When the time is right, I will give it to you. And even if you are not worthy to use it, you are more than worthy to replace me as custodian."
"Thank you, Kodori."
(S'yne)
To be perfectly honest, Kodori scared her. It wasn't something visceral, like the time Wolven seemed to appear from nowhere. With a body almost as wide as she was tall, and twice as tall as her when standing straight, the fact he could hide at all was surprising. Of note, Wolven said sorry.
It wasn't a fear of the unknown, like Clive seemed to radiate. He could speak even less than she could when her Weapon was broken. But he used that silence as a tool, not a crutch. The only people who could find him when he didn't want to be found were Usa and Kodori. She knew, if Kodori were to ask him, he would be able to kill just about anyone, or anything, and there would be nothing but a single arrow left behind.
Usa was another one, though the fear he invoked was more... subtle. It was clear by his shy manner and timid interactions that he had led a hard life. But when combat started, she would never have believed he was the same person. The fact he could switch so completely was somewhat worrying. Like a cornered animal that was always on the edge of 'fight or flee'. Though, in his favour, he was always super polite, and was never shy about warning people about stuff he could hear but they could not. Like Clive sneaking around.
Atla... She represented the unknown. Her blindness only ever showed when she asked something simple like 'what colour is this'. She had been able to tell that the Vassal Sewing Kit was broken before S'yne had greeted her. She also had some really incredible combat abilities that seemed to rival a Vassal Weapon in power, yet she only ever used her hands and the occasional simple weapon.
Fohl? Nah, he was straightforward, polite but plain speaking, and was incredibly earnest. He and his sister were kind of rivals, but he accepted his losses to her without rancour or shame. Atla admitted privately it was a little less fun to beat him, but she was glad it was no longer eating him inside. Oh, he was also very smart, not only learning a half dozen different languages, but showing the ability to teach them to Atla without her being able to read.
But then there was Kodori.
She'd only known her for about a week in person, past the initial encounter of her pretending to be a magic user to hide her ability to fight bare handed. But since coming to the Hearth, she'd seen so many things that were supposed to be impossible.
An Hourglass that wasn't made by the Creators. The start of a race of dragons. Giant bees that cared for her trees. The actual trees. The creation of a fully functional Divine Weapon. A workshop that produced magical items that could be more dangerous than the actual Waves... The list was long, and had she not seen it in person, she wouldn't have believed it.
But that was only half of it.
S'yne knew that Kodori wanted to go home. Win the Waves, and leave. The legends spoke of this, and not every surviving hero stayed. That was fine.
But Kodori knew that killing Kizuna would have 'won' the waves. She's only heard of it before she'd told her, and knew for certain afterwards. But even though S'yne was certain Kodori could have killed Kizuna without issue before, and even easier now that she had the huge workshop, two Vassal Weapons (though the Mirror seemed to belong to Kotetsu?) and the Legendary Shield.
She didn't.
No. Instead, she was raising an army of incredibly skilled people. Creating weapons and armour that could be almost as legendary as the Weapons themselves. Engineering creatures that were both amazing and deadly yet not invasive to the worlds they were in. She had figured out more about the Status Magic and System than anyone she'd ever met and was abusing it with every chance she got. She'd become rich enough in Zeltobe to buy her way into the Oligarchy.
All this and more, in less than half a year, because she didn't want to take the easy way to victory.
That's what scared her. She wasn't playing to win. She was playing to take over. To bet against the house, for the keys to the casino. To learn the rules and break them until they were HER rules. It spoke of an anger so deep and cold that S'yne could hardly believe Kodori was capable of any emotion at all.
And then...
"SITA? HIDA? What do you think?" Kodori asked the two as her, S'yne and the mother/daughter machines stood around the little fox themed hourglass.
Sitting on top of the hourglass was the Vassal Sewing Kit. Currently taking the form of a pin-pillow, it was emitting a erratic glow from the eye-like gem resting in the little forest of pins.
"Well..." HIDA said slowly from the little black cellphone, "I have some ideas. And it raises more questions.
"I like ideas." Kodori said, "And maybe the questions will have answers?"
"Well... from what SITA's little scanner is telling me, the Weapon itself is fine. The Gem has no flaws and the form is perfect. But..."
S'ynes opinion of HIDA and SITA were also a little fearful, but only so much as someone seeing magic for the first time and wondering 'how it worked' while hiding behind something solid. Past the incredible curiosity they invoked, they were easy to get along with.
"It's like the OS is so far out of date that it's own code is corrupting itself?" HIDA said slowly, as if trying to find the smallest words she could to explain without sounding mean.
"That's kind of weird, but from what we've seen, it makes sense. The Status Screen between here and Melromarc seems to be made by two different methods to get to the same result." Kodori started to pace. "And you have to remember, I'm technically old enough to have used Windows 3. I've seen a LOT of conflicting drivers rip apart an OS..."
"It's not quite like that." HIDA said, "Think of it more like... oh! When Windows spoke over the net, it keeps a near constant 'handshake'. Like saying 'hello' with every other word. Well, it's kind of like that, except with every 'hello' and no reply, it loses a little more of itself."
"It started when your world was destroyed?" Kodori asked S'yne, who nodded, "And even interfacing with the Zeltobe Hourglass and this one here hasn't fixed it. Yet, they DO interact..." Kodori stopped pacing, "No way... It really is like having the same OS written by different people."
"That would mean all the code should be there, so to speak." HIDA said, "SITA? Can you do a couple different lasers? Try the standard blue, go from there."
"Sure." SITA replied, a little pencil-shaped thing appearing in her hand. "And handshake? Heehee." Her other hand shook HIDA gently up and down.
"Interface complete. And stop that, grr." The little Pixie-fox in the phone held her head while bouncing around on screen a couple times.
SITA passed a thin blue beam of light over the gem of the Vassal Weapon. "Good?"
"Yeah. Hey Boss? The Book?" HIDA asked.
Kodori took the Vassal Book from her hip, and SITA poked at it with the blue laser. "Good?"
"Oh yeah. Um. This is getting way past evolution and diving into 'intelligent design' Boss." HIDA said cagily.
"Later." Kodori frowned. "Can we help her?"
"It will take time." HIDA said after a moment, "I'm gonna need the ice box, and S'yne might want to have a nap and a good book to read."
S'yne looked to Kodori, "Only... if you... sleep too."
"A good idea... I'll go get the ice box and a couple pillows."
(A nap, a lot of disco lasers pointed at the poor Vassal Sewing Kit, a bunch of quiet binary speech while the organic life forms napped, and part of a good book later...)
"Well S'yne?" SITA asked, handing her Vassal Weapon back. "We kinda got the Boss's hourglass to adopt your Weapon properly, and it shouldn't be leaking any functions now. Dunno how to explain it better."
The three of them waited while S'yne's eyes looked into the middle distance, gliding over her Status Screen, poking at the various tabs, mentally pressing buttons, and comparing it to what it was like, to what it was now. Yes. Things were a little different. Her Life, Magic and Special bars were now HP, MP and SP. Her inventory had a 'sort' option. Some of the items she had in storage were now accessible again after her Weapon malfunctioning made them irretrievable. Her portal function was working again.
"I think." She paused, smiled, then continued, "I think it's working perfectly." No hitching. No pausing. And no damned static!
And then there was the last 'scary thing' about Kodori.
"Congratulations." She said, giving S'yne a headpat and smile.
She could make you forget she was scary at all.
"So, now that your Weapon is fixed, tell me about how your world was destroyed."
And remind you she was scary again in the space of breath.
NOTES!
(Evil smile intensifies).
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