Chapter 124

It wasn't long before we got within sight of the town Ren had failed to bring to our side. I didn't blame him, and he had managed to bring home the former leader of the town, his family, and what was left of his house guard. That would make things easier when it came to replacing the corrupt noble who had ousted him.

I stepped out from behind a tree, adjusting my nice combat kimono-converted house robe. "Let's see what we have." I started, joining Usa and Clive as they looked over the town from the low cliff we were on.

Clive made a few hand signs, pointing to a nice little walled mansion. It was similar to Raluva's manor and easy to pick out. "That does look like the best place." Usa agreed with Clive. "But... How will we do this?"

"Clive and I will head into town..."

(Clive, voiced by Morgan Freeman.)

The plan was elegant, violent, and took advantage of every weakness our enemy had presented to us. Exactly what I had come to expect from Kodori.

While she did ask me if I was willing to get my hands dirty, I assured her that I was proud to do so for Raphtalia's cause. And like Kodori, I used what I had taken for the next encounter, and moved as unseen as the assassins who had been attempting to kill our beloved big sister.

My first mission, was to find and 'deal with' the noble in charge of the town. The sun was still hours away, so I entered the second highest point of the manor. Above me, Kodori would no doubt be placing the first of many lightning rods needed for this to work, as she put it, just so.

The room I had entered was not the correct one. Sleeping on the bed, a simple four post affair with a fluffy mattress and a raccoon pillow, was a young girl. Not ideal, but as with most of Kodori's plans, expected. With absolute silence, I placed four of my iron shafted arrows at each corner of her bed, and left one of the pink sashes Miss S'yne had made for our growing revolution over the girl's body. Then, a little sleep magic, just to make sure she didn't wake up.

Across the hall, after waiting for a guard to pass, was my target. The room was well appointed, yet not as organized as you would expect for someone who had lived there for any length of time. This also had another complication. There was a woman in bed with the man.

I had no fondness for nobility. It wasn't out of malice, or my past. Just a simple dislike for those who considered their birth to be their best trait. However... my instructions for how to 'deal with' the current lord were kept intentionally vague. Kodori trusted me to deal with it, yet left the details to me.

So, quieter than a child's breath, I placed four of my iron arrows around their bed, and put them into a deeper sleep with a little magic. Then, another of Raphtalia's sashes, before I left the room to make sure there were no other children.

Everyone else... well, that wasn't my job.

(Kodori)

Lightning magic was a lot of fun. My former head of (devil) HR was an absolute master of it, and she was eager to help me learn the ins and outs of it, both before and after 'science' took over. And that was before I slept with her.

The nice manor I was standing on was four floors. A nice little 'pagoda' styled thing with clay shingles, nice wood beams, and all the little things you'd expect from a place that quite thoroughly ripped off the Asian style of China or Japan. This made my job both easier, and harder. The roof was easy to move around on, but had little in the way to hide what I was doing. And that, was placing lightning rods for Usa to hit.

Someplace inside the manor, I hoped Clive was having an easy time finding his targets and avoiding detection, since silence was the biggest part of stage one of the plan.

But, after placing the lightning rods, I moved on to my next target, the barrack house on the ground floor that rested in the corner of the mansion. It was nice that whomever copied the style, also kept some of the customs. Like not letting the 'commoners' sleep in the same building as the nobles.

(Usa)

He had gone over the magic circle drawn in silver and iron dust about ten times looking for some kind of flaw before he saw the signal. He knew he had issues with confidence. All kinds of them! But admitting there was a problem was the first step to solving it.

So, he let himself worry, and made absolutely sure it was perfect.

"Usa?" It was Kodori, speaking through the sound stone at his throat. "You've got this."

It also helped that Kodori was never impatient with him. He didn't reply though, since his voice may alert someone around her. So, he took a mana potion from his belt, downed it, and started chanting.

(Raphtalia)

She woke suddenly to the sound of thunder REALLY close by. Combat instincts got her up and out of bed, while more mundane instincts made sure she at least put on pants and a shirt.

"Sadeena?!" She called out, seeing that her friend's bed was empty. "Oh where did you go?"

The reply was another peal of thunder, the lightning responsible lighting up her room with bright white stripes through the closed shutters of the window. As her hearing cleared from the sudden blast of noise, she picked up on what sounded like combat on the street just outside!

One last check for decency (Kodori called it 'keeping your centre of balance from flopping around'), and she skipped the stairs and used the window. People were in a bit of a panic, several of the squad leaders were shouting orders already, but not a single person was getting between the two who were fighting.

"Secure the town!" Someone shouted, "Get everyone back!" Called another.

The reason why was simple. Sadeena was fighting. But not only that, she was fighting another of her race, and losing. The intruder looked a lot like her friend, with the same eyes, hair and even nose as her guardian. But their style of dress were polar opposites of each other, the woman wearing a baggy almost billowing robe of orange and blue.

Lightning wreathed the woman's spear, a common weapon from one of the nearby soldiers no doubt, and she drove Sadeena back with a heavy thrust that forced her friend to back off. Evasion done, Sadeena swept her harpoon against the shaft of her opponent's spear, and tried to smash the blunt end against the intruder's chin.

She ducked the blow, and with a quick three word chant poked Sadeena between the breasts with an electrified hand.

Then she said, "It's ALL YOUR FAULT!"

Reeling, Sadeena barely managed a stumbling roll away from another thrust, but literally fell victim to the blunt end of the soldier's spear smacking against her supporting leg as the intruder swept it around.

"I didn't know!" Sadeena shouted back as she rolled, got into a crouch, and sprang backwards as her opponent dropped another massive lightning bolt from the sky. The crash of noise drown out her words, but as the spots faded from Raphtalia's eyes, Sadeena was standing up, repeating herself, "I didn't know! I was just doing my duty!"

They clashed in the middle again, nearly under where Raphtalia stood on the little sloped roof under her window. She understood then what this was, but not how to solve it. Sadeena wasn't losing, she was holding back.

This had to be her sister.

"Because of you abandoning your duty, I had to suffer!" The two exchanged a quick flurry of thrusts and redirection, "I was never good enough!" Shildina shouted, pushing the twin prong of Sadeena's harpoon aside with the point of her own weapon, stepping in, and smashing her forehead against her sibling's nose. "Abuse, beatings, solitude, endless comparison to you."

Shildina didn't press her advantage as Sadeena stumbled backwards, holding a hand to her bloody nose.

"Ever since I could talk, it has been constant training, belittlement, beatings, and mistrust because my older sister ran away from her duty! If you had stayed, it would never have been so bad!"

Raphtalia almost fell when something zipped up her pant leg, but when she looked she saw Kotetsu looking back up at her with the most intense worry. "It's my fault! I brought new friend home!"

"Why isn't anyone else helping?" Raphtalia asked as the two sisters started fighting again.

Between jabs and sweeps of her spear, Shidina continued her rant, "Even when I received the Blessing of the water dragon, it wasn't enough. When they learned I had the gift of an oracle, it wasn't enough! They JUST WANTED MORE FROM ME!"

"Sadeena said no help!" Kotetsu finished her climb up Raphtalia's body and clung around her back so she could watch the fight from over her shoulder.

"Even when I had surpassed you in every way, the only person who ever had a word of praise for me was the Emperor!" Shildina danced around a kick, and in mid step transformed into a killer whale. The billowing robes she wore filled out with her new size, keeping her just as covered up as before but with a style more akin to an 'old man' bathing suit. Transformation done, she spun on her foot and kicked Sadeena through the nearest house.

The killer whale therianthrope yelled over the noise of collapsing wood and clay, "WHY DID YOU EVEN COME BACK!?" And with a quick series of hand gestures and a few words, another huge lightning bolt fell from the nearly clear sky onto the ruined house.

It took all the restraint Raphtalia had to stop herself from jumping down to the street and confronting Shildina. It was only when she saw the same looks on the faces of Tetsu at one end of the street as well as Atla and Fohl at the other end, that she held her ground. The other heroes were all looking on with the same tension she was, but they were putting their abilities towards keeping people out of the line of (lightning) fire.

The ruined house exploded outwards as Sadeena stood tall in her own beast form. Shedding scraps of wood and clay, her 'Miko swimming suit' smouldering in a few places, she stepped out of the rubble and replied, "Because the person making a puppet Emperor out of your friend tried to kill the person I threw it all away for!"

This time, it was Sadeena who started the exchange. Unfortunately, her friend's charge slammed into Shildina, and the two of them went through the house Raphtalia was standing on. Only with a little luck did Raphtalia manage to jump away safely. "Sometimes." Raphtalia said as her feet touched down on the street, the two siblings having what sounded like a wrestling match inside a house of dry twigs, "You have to ignore your friend's wishes."

From above, or the sidelines, it looked almost comical. Raphtalia in a plain pair of pants and t-shirt, the Vassal Katana sheathed in her hand, watching a two floor house collapse in on itself as two massive whale demi-humans slugged it out inside.

"And now that you're back!" Shildina slapped Sadeena with what was left of a table, "The Water Dragon has forsaken me!"

"That," A pause as Sadeena responded by grabbing the back of her sister's shoulder and slamming her face through a counter top, "Wasn't me! Who do you think let us in through the barrier?!"

Outside, Kotetsu held up the Vassal Mirror to Raphtalia's face, the underside looking suspiciously like the 'Gengar Megaphone' Shield.

"Who knows!?" Shildina replied by reaching up and ripping one of the remaining support beams from the ceiling and snapping it over Sadeena's head with a hollow 'thunk'. "Once again, my sister takes something else from me!"

Raphtalia took a deep breath, smiling as Kotetsu hid her head at the base of her neck under her hair.

"The water dragon wants to help FIX THIS PLACE!" Sadeena took a thundering step forward, wrapping her arms around her sister's middle and heaving her upwards and making ready to smash her through the poor house's foundation.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!"

The blast of sound from the mirror-megaphone flashed forward like a blast of thunder all its own. Loose debris, broken timber, most of the backyard, what was left of the second floor (including the few belongings Raphtalia didn't have stored in her inventory) were thrown out to sea by the shimmering wave of noise.

This left the two sisters in the middle of a few scraps of wood (the foundation Sadeena was about to break with her sister), and little else. While the echo faded out and people stopped covering their ears the two fighters just... tipped over sideways.

(Kodori)

"It's a sign from the heavens!" One of my little messenger foxes said from under a bench as the onlookers tried to figure out exactly what happened.

I didn't blame them. It seemed impossible! The Lord's Manor looked like some blade had fallen from the sky and cut the building in half. It started with lightning, of course. Usa's expertise with lightning, his power from all those levels, some items, and magic circles we'd all learned and perfected over our journey, all contributed to the apocalyptic seeming blast of judgment from the sky.

Careful placement of lightning rods, some iron dust, and a bit of physics did the rest. And now, the building was in two halves, with the Lord, his Wife and his daughter the only survivors. The city at large didn't know that just yet. But in a few moments, the rescue team would find them, each holding the Pink Sash of the True Empress.

Oh... I might also have placed a few of those lightning rods on the soldier's barracks, turning it, and most of the people inside to exotic vapour while the servant's quarters in the building next to it was untouched.

My cry of 'divine intervention' from someplace in the crowd took root, and someplace else, from the shadows of someone's flower pots a second overly dramatic and distressed proclamation, "The True Empress is punishing the corrupt lord!"

This got more of the onlookers hooked on the idea, even as they looked at each other to see who dared say those most dangerous words.

But with a great many of the guards trying to go through the wreckage, keep crowd control, or vaporized into exotic particles, there wasn't anyone to punish the blasphemer.

I repeated this little cry of 'judgment' and 'punishment' all around the blast zone, just out of hearing of the few guards who were trying to cover up the disaster.

It was maybe a half hour later, when the corrupt lord and his family were dragged out of the wrecked manor, dazed, confused, and holding the pink sashes, that I stopped my efforts to rile the crowd. The 'proof' was in front of them. The True Empress had spared their lives while enacting punishment.

So, from my place just outside of town, I put my spyglass away and took out my sound stone, "Think we can do another?"

Clive click-click'ed his agreement, while Usa replied with a quiet, "Let Clive do the next one. I'm a little tired."

(Raphtalia)

"What do you have to say for yourselves?" Raphtalia, still in her pajamas, yelled down at the two kneeling siblings.

Now in their humanoid forms and looking like they'd both rolled down a hill of gravel and been sandblasted at the bottom, they were kneeling in front of her. Heads bowed, wincing like they had hangovers (or burst eardrums that had been healed but not cleaned yet), they both said, "I'm sorry."

Raphtalia didn't even wait until they'd moved away from the poor house that was mostly just a few flat floorboards on a stone foundation.

"You! You're Shildina?" Raphtalia asked/demanded.

The younger sibling flinched as if slapped. "Yes..."

But then Kotetsu (still mostly curled up over Raphtalia's neck and under her hair, floated off of her and poked Raphtalia in her most regal nose. "No yell. Water dragon told me to bring her!"

Of course, now that the excitement was over, everyone who wasn't treating wounded, gathering things from under rubble, or making sure more things didn't finish tipping over (and become rubble) from the recent fight, gasped in shock as the tiny dragon booped their Empress.

As most questions against royalty happened, there was a quiet, "Isn't the Zodia from our enemy's camp?"

Raphtalia resisted the urge to glare over her shoulder at the voice. "Tetsu!"

Tetsu (in dragon form), called out from the side of a house she was holding up while people got supports replaced inside, "Yeah?!"

Raphtalia took a deep breath to calm herself, "When you're done, come over here."

The Empress was waiting for something? The murmuring made Raphtalia's eyebrow twitch, so she contented herself to look past the concerned dragon-noodle at the kneeling siblings. Moments later, Tetsu stomped to the edge of the crowd, waited until they moved aside, and stood beside Raphtalia. "All done." Pause, "I hope... I like the food in there..."

"Is it true? Does the water dragon want her with us?" Raphtalia asked.

Tetsu shrank down to her child form and scratched between her breasts, "I feel kinda weird. Like those stones the Boss showed us. The ones that stuck together even when you broke them."

Kotetsu nodded her head up and down in agreement, but it was Sadeena who spoke. "I don't care what the water dragon wants. I have a sister." And she reached over to grab Shildina in a huge awkward hug.

The crowd was divided on the breach of etiquette. The Heavenly Empress was presiding over a punishment, and the two offenders were supposed to remain silent, eyes averted. But Sadeena wasn't just anyone, nor was Shildina. The former Water Dragon Miko and Current one, were essentially only beholden to the Empress/Emperor, near divine in their own status.

But it was also a reunion of long lost siblings. Anyone who's heart wasn't made of stone could appreciate that.

Raphtalia was part of the second crowd, "Fine." She was still angry, sure, but not at Sadeena's choice.

And especially not at Shildina, who realizing she was being hugged (and not about to be thrown through a wall) started crying like a child, realizing she had family who cared.

Raphtalia turned to give the siblings their moment and looked over the crowd, "Kotetsu? Where's Kodori?"

The three other heroes, Tetsu, Kotetsu, the tiger siblings, Rishia, S'yne and even Erhard all looked around, realized Kodori wasn't there, and wondered why they hadn't noticed before. "Ah, Clive and Usa aren't here either..." Tetsu said.

From there, all eyes went to S'yne, who shrugged helplessly (dislodging bits of sakura coloured thread from her white hair), then SITA, who was across the street handing out hammers and nails to people and oblivious to the scrutiny.

Raphtalia sighed, resisted a most royal foot stomp of frustration, and looked past the crying siblings out onto the water behind the house (where most of the actual house was floating away). "Your punishment!" She pointed at the two siblings, who sniffled exactly the same way, wiped at their eyes with the same motion (though opposite arms), and looked up at her. "Is to recover my sound stones from the water."

"I'll help!" Tetsu said, running towards the ocean with little feet, then huge clawed stomps as she changed forms in mid stride.

Again, the people were a little shocked. The punishment was for the offenders! But... it was hard to argue with a dragon, especially when they were going to be helpful and were big enough to fit most of a person in their mouth.

(Kodori)

The two of them once again on my back, we found several more little settlements. Some had been abandoned. Their lack of walls and the edict to not fight back against monsters making it impossible to survive without some kind of defensive wall.

This means those little towns that had a wall were overflowing with refugees. This strained the local garrison, and made the corruption even worse. It had taken about ten seconds of looking over the refugee camp outside the town to figure out the local lord wasn't just ignoring the problem but exploiting the people there. Even in the dead of night, there were a pair of guards kicking civilians around for fun.

"Hey now! You might attract monsters with all that crying!" One laughed, his trident stabbing the top of a simple three pole tent and pushing it over and off the family huddled inside.

I was surprised the sound of my teeth clenching together didn't give our hiding place away.

"Please... we have nothing! We've given everything just for this spot here!" The husband of the little family replied, shielding his wife and child with his back to the guard.

"And you should be thankful the Lord thought it was worth taking!" The guard laughed, his partner grabbing the back of the man's tattered shirt and throwing him aside while the other reached for the wife.

I was about to stand up, when Clive simply appeared behind the one reaching for the woman, and killed him. A perfectly placed thrust under the man's armpit and into his heart. I hadn't even noticed him move from beside me!

"Wha-" The other guard had only just managed to get his sword half way out of its sheath before Usa had thrown a knife taken from the sleeve of his bracer.

The sudden death of two of the Lord's guard... well the people who had been awakened by the noise were starting to panic. But, this gave me an idea. I put on one of the pink sashes, "Hop on." I said to Usa, my body expanding back into the huge fox form.

"What?" He was surprised, but got onto my back without hesitation.

Of course, the people started screaming. But while they all started to run away in random directions, I ran towards Clive, bit down on the first guard (who wasn't quite dead yet) and flung him away with a flick of my head. Clive hopped onto my back, handing Usa his dagger back while sheathing his own, and I gave the second guard the same treatment.

The wife, husband and child were paralyzed by my presence, but I looked down at them, ignoring the alarm bell inside the walls of the little town, and gave the wife a boop with my nose. Then, I shook my head, dislodging the pink sash, and ran towards the closed gate at top speed.

Usa caught on, which was good since he was the only one who could talk, "The True Heavenly Empress sends her blessings! Before he clamped his mouth shut so he wouldn't bite his tongue.

One two three four long strides, and I was airborne. The wall might have kept out the local monsters, but it was hardly an obstacle for me. Clive's bow thrummed almost as soon as I hit the street on the other side of the wall, and Usa cast a blast of wind in front of me to throw a pair of guards off their feet. I lacked attack power, sure, but I was far stronger as a giant fox, and with a bite, shake and flick of my neck, I sent one of the downed guards over the wall behind us, while my front paw stomped on the other a few times just to push him into the hard packed dirt of the street.

And then we were moving again.

Another shot from Clive, then a warning 'click' from his beaked mouth. "Archers Fire!"

Usa surprised me, even as I put up an Air Strike Shield between the archers and us, "The True Heavenly Empress knows of the edict! And instead brings monsters to help her liberate the people!"

I screamed a foxy howl at the archers, making them clamp their hands over their ears while Clive pinned them in place with his bow.

And we were moving again.

The civilians were panicking, running into buildings, closing windows, and in general getting the hell out of the way, even as the three of us ran towards the fanciest house in the little town.

"Stop them! Kill the beast! I don't care about the edict! Save me!" Called out a fat, overly dressed man with a white painted face and excess chins, before running back into the fancy home.

The four guards braced their spears to meet my charge, simply ran through them. The Shield was stuck to my chest, and with a few simple skills, their spears glanced off of either the Shield itself or my fur. Clive and Usa jumped off my back as I dashed past the four guards, and I caught up to the fat cloth wrapped noble.

By the time I'd finished shaking him to death, bits of cloth, body parts and white face paint the only recognizable things left, Clive and Usa had finished dealing with the guards, and my brave Rabbit was rallying the crowd of people to fight against the small garrison that had managed to arrive just a little too late to save the Lord.

The few guards were no match for the three of us and a hundred downtrodden civilians with sharpened farmer's tools. But now it was up to Usa to get the crowd on our side.

"Raphtalia, the True Heavenly Empress will be here soon. She marches to end the corruption of the puppet Emperor and the evil woman controlling him!" He took off his sash, holding it up for all to see, "We bring her banner! Dyed with the sap of the sacred Lumina trees!"

He offered it to the nearest civilian, his simple farmer's sickle covered in blood, but the man hesitated.

So Usa pulled his hand away, "We do not expect you to fight. Just know that we of her army are here to end the corruption and restore balance to Q'ten Lo!"

However, this left us with a little problem, and the nervous citizens were quick to point it out. "What will we do if She doesn't arrive in time?! We've..." It started to sink in that they'd just committed treason.

So, I leaned down over Usa's shoulder, glaring at the worried civilian to silence him...

And all those weapons we'd gathered from the assassins started to fall out of the Shield's inventory. Usa took over again, "The True Heavenly Empress would never let her people fight with empty hands!" He glanced up at me, and no sooner had I emptied the Shield of all the salvaged weapons, clay pots and wooden barrels started to fall to the ground gently. "Or fight with empty stomachs!"

Clive started handing out stuff as he caught it, the people cheering as all their problems were essentially solved. Usa looked up to me, "We're going to have to stay..." He sighed, "Miss Raphtalia is going to be so mad..."

My reply, since I was a giant fox, was to give him THE COLD NOSE of encouragement across his cheek, nod, give one to Clive, then look towards the giant Sakura Tree in the distance.

"Are you sure? You'll be alone."

I nodded, and jumped away, the people pausing their collection of food and weapons for a gasp of surprise, before Usa calmed them down and they put me out of their mind.

NOTES!

Yup. Kodori has set aside the side quest, and is heading towards her goals.

Thank you for reading! And if you want to see any full colour art, join the discord!

aKAQg4bnYu for the discord! As well as ways to support me!

And my actual book, Were Too? is on Inkitt.

And! I'm looking into getting some story themed merchandise made. Join the Discord to find out more!