Chapter 84: O' Brave Heroes
(Alduin)
It was a little unorthodox, but I chose to position myself atop the headquarters' layered roof, my eyes free to wander over the scenery of an empty Kyoto replica. Besides the Yōkai living in the headquarters, no one else resides, or is allowed to reside in Urakyoto for that matter. It's a rather sad sight to see if I'm being honest, I don't believe Yōkai share the same procreational deficiencies as us devils, but I can't sense more than a hundred Yōkai here.
Assuming the East is doing the same numbers wise, that's still not much of a population for an entire species.
I can see why the Shinto Pantheon's so adamant on keeping things stable between them.
Patiently, I waited with my hands folded behind my back. Yasaka's already broken the illusion spell, but the transportation one's still open. She's just pretending to hack at it to give the caster the impression that it would be broken soon, and that there was a time limit on their decision to either show themselves, or stick to the shadows.
And so I continued to wait.
…
And wait.
…
And wait.
…
And wait.
…
Huh. Color me surprised, I was expecting a little more gusto from someone bold enough to intrude on a faction protected by the Shinto Pantheon.
It seems I've overestimated them, how disappointing—
Hold on a second.
My brain pinged, the link I had formed between myself and the immensely dense, Ki-rich atmosphere that existed within Urakyoto notifying me of a disturbance. Like a blip on a radar.
Pleased, I put on a faint smile. Holding my open palm over my forehead as I peered into the distance, noticing an abnormality roughly a kilometer away from the headquarters' perimeter. The area where Yasaka had subtly relocated the backdoor transportation spell's entry point to, a feat which I managed was about as taxing as breathing to her thanks to how deeply-connected she is to this subspace.
It wouldn't be a stretch to call her its 'core', in a sense.
With a mix of caution and intrigue, I watched as a thick blanket of dark-purple fog rolled towards the headquarters from the distance. A strange phenomenon followed with it where it drained all color from whatever it made contact with: the ground, the sky, the meandering river. Like a black and white noir film from the 40s.
What's more, I lost all ability to resonate with the Ki in the area it covered. Or perhaps the Ki itself was being swallowed, I had no way of knowing. Whatever the case, the fog was bound to envelop the headquarters in a matter of seconds, and I needed to come to a hasty decision of how I was going to handle it.
"Sallos-dono," Yasaka's voice reverberated through the Ki around me, the sound waves funneling straight into my ear canals. "That fog, I believe it's the product of a Sacred Gear. A fairly well known and revered one, if my estimation's accurate."
I smoldered. "Well don't leave me in suspense. Spill."
"Dimension Lost. One of the original thirteen Longinus. It specializes in barrier-creation capable of defense and transportation, which sound simple on paper, I know, but the deployment of it we're witnessing right now is anything but, it's much too strong to match most of the records."
"Most?"
"With my strength, I should be more than capable of keeping that fog at bay, or even dispelling it outright, but as ashamed as I am to admit it, there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to hold it off. It's created a sub-dimension within a sub-dimension, completely cutting me off from the Ki here. Once it reaches the headquarters, we'll be transported inside it. Myself, you, and my Yōkai will only have our internal Ki to rely on. We won't be able to draw any externally."
"Great," I rolled my eyes.
Where's an Azazel when you need one?
Sigh. Alright then, let's look at this pragmatically. Without external Ki, my reserves will be extremely limited and I'll lose my perception advantage. Not the best case scenario, that's for sure, but manageable. I still have my demonic power, Partial Hypnosis, and of course, Fafnir.
Yasaka will be weakened too, but Serafall's there. I should be more worried about myself than her.
"If it's this strong, I don't suppose it'd be a stretch to dub it a Balance Break?" The scale and potency of it was simply too great not to be.
"No, I suppose it would not… Do you have a plan?" It was fleeting, but I could've sworn I picked up on an undernote of fear in her voice. Who could blame her? It wasn't just her safety that was at risk, it was that of her daughter's, and the people she was a sworn protector to.
I inhaled sharply. "I'll fight, what else is there for me to do? The situation might be grave, but I imagine our attacker isn't strong enough to warrant divine intervention?" If that were the case, the Shinto Pantheon would've done something by now.
"Unfortunately, no." Yasaka's voice was layered with regret. "Good luck, Sallos-dono."
"Thanks."
Here's to hoping I don't end up needing to rely on it.
///
.
(Georg)
As my group's strategist, I decided to make a judgement call. I don't know who managed to pierce through the illusion I had attached to Urakyoto's spatial displacement system, or how they accomplished such a thing, but nonetheless, they pulled it off. Since I don't possess a spell to rewind time and enact a do-over, all I could do was figure out a way to make the best of the current situation.
My call was thus: the immediate acceleration of the plan to capture the head of the West Yōkai Faction—Yasaka. The key element to summon that existence from his timeless roam of the dimensional gap.
Once we have Yasaka, we won't be able to proceed with the summoning since it'll disrupt her specified schedule, but that's fine. So long as the Kyuubi's with us, we'll be able to enact the procedure whenever we need. She is the one with authority over the Leylines, the rest of the Yōkai are worthless.
I couldn't afford to delay the plan for another time. Not when she was already working to destroy the spell entirely, and by estimations and common sense, the Shinto Pantheon was bound to strengthen the defenses around Urakyoto. It wouldn't make it impossible for me to break in, but it'd be more trouble than it was worth.
A deviation in the plan I had carefully laid out.
I hate deviations. They undermine order. Order is the prime prerequisite to efficiency. The acquisition of order is a matter of managing organization, timeliness, and logistics. Some call it OCD, I call it the simple desire to be in control of the situation, like any strategist worth their salt ought to be.
The fact that we're moving to capture the Kyuubi sooner rather than later is the only deviation I'm willing to endure, beyond that, there shall be no further complications.
"Ready?" I turned to face my comrades, the other executives of our Hero Faction: Cao Cao. Jeanne. Heracles. Connla. Siegfried, and Leonardo.
I'm not a dreamer like our leader, Cao Cao, I don't feel much for the notion of 'proving human supremacy'. However, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a sense of camaraderie amongst my peers here.
We all carry the blood of some of the greatest and most notable humans to have walked this planet. In a way, we are connected through the annals of time and legends of history—and of course, our shared possession of the Biblical God's Sacred Gears.
I felt no such sense of connection at the Magician Association. I dare not say it aloud for fear of sounding like the hero of cornballs, but this group is the only place I feel like I can call a 'home'. I know Cao Cao recruited me for his own means and ambitions, but so what? At least he was upfront about it, that's more courtesy than those losers sat on the Magician Council ever paid me.
"Yup. We're all good to go." Cao Cao wore a lopsided smile, the rest of my colleagues behind him all nodding their preparedness.
"Alright then. Remember, keep the formation tight, cramped if need be. The closer you are to me, the easier it'll be to protect you with my Sacred Gear."
I'm confident in our strength, even if the West Yōkai Faction makes a few preparations here and there. It won't be enough to best us. Still, it doesn't hurt to be careful. The world's full of surprises, unpleasant ones mostly, that's a lesson I learned on the missions I took for the Magician Association the hard way.
"Nag nag nag," Jeanne huffed. "All you ever do is nag, Georgy. We've done this plenty of times already, you can trust us to handle ourselves."
The rest seemed to agree.
"Just making sure."
Without further ado, I outstretched both palms, synchronizing with Dimension Lost—my Sacred Gear—to cause a stream of thick, deep-purple mist to pour out the pores of my skin. Building a radius around us as I formed a link between my Sacred Gear's transportation properties and the node installed in Urakyoto's blind spot, well, former blind spot I guess.
We teleported.
Instead of towering cliffs, salt-smelling waterfalls, and lush greenery as far as the eye could see. Our view was replaced with that of a city built with the idea of commercialized tourism ramped up all the way to the max. Only there weren't any tourists, for this wasn't truly Kyoto, but a subdimension that existed parallel to the Japanese location. The home of the West Yōkai Faction.
We were in Urakyoto.
"Hell yeah!" Heracles smashed his fists together, being the first to step forward. "It's about time we got to see some action, I felt like I was about to literally die of boredom—!"
"Stop," I ordered him. Strengthening Dimension Lost to empower the protective veil around us. My eyes scrutinized our surroundings with considerable doubt.
Something's wrong.
"Huh?! What for?! We're here to—"
"Heracles," a single word from Cao Cao rendered him mute, like a whipped puppy. "If our strategist feels that something's wrong, it's only right that we pay attention to him, wouldn't you agree?"
Any and all rebuttals died in our resident brute's throat. "U-Uhm, right…" Sheepishly, he scratched his nape. "Sorry Georg…"
I ignored him, my attention focused solely on the second deviation of the day, which put an intense, deep scowl on my face.
"We're not supposed to be here," I observed the headquarters, where our target was situated, positioned at least a kilometer away from our current location. "When I created the spell, it was set to have us appear directly in front of the headquarters' entrance. We shouldn't be this far away."
Thoughtful, Cao Cao cupped his chin. "So someone altered your spell in advance to spawn us here?" He looked around from side to side. "Strange, it doesn't seem like they've prepared a trap or anything of the sort, maybe we appeared before they had time to set it up?"
Out of habit, I bit my thumb. Deviations, deviations, deviations. Damned deviations! Why are we here? Think Georg, think. There's no trap. My sensory magic tells me all members of the West Yōkai Faction are still holed up in the headquarters, as they should be. There aren't any hidden traps, at least none that I can sense, but there's a possibility something I can't sense has been set up.
A high-level application of Youjutsu—for example.
"Cao Cao," I called his attention. "I'm going to use it. It'll guarantee we aren't exposed to any unwanted surprises as we proceed."
He nodded, indifferent as ever. "Go ahead. You don't need to ask me for permission, you already know I have complete faith in your judgement."
With a faint, semi-suppressed smirk, I acted. Resonating with Dimension Lost once more, the link ten times more intense as before. I could feel my soul, which was interlinked to the Sacred Gear, start to heat up like an engine that had just been turned on. The revs skyrocketed, and my blood boiled as I prepared to activate a state any member of our faction hoping to become an executive absolutely had to achieve. No exceptions.
Balance Break: Dimension Create!
The volume of mist surrounding us imploded, expanding hundreds of meters in all directions within fractions of seconds. All color drained from whatever it made contact with, as if the very 'autonomy' those objects possessed within Urakyoto were stripped. Replaced with a mandate that belonged to me—and me alone. For I had announced myself as this sub-dimension's new emperor by replacing it with a dimension of my own.
Such was the power of my Sacred Gear's evolution: the right to create a pseudo-space that I could command as if it were my own arms and legs. If I wanted to keep certain people from entering, I could do that. If I wanted to shield the presence of myself and my comrades from the outside world, I could do that too.
If I wanted to eliminate any and all Ki that existed within the barrier? I could do that too. Which will effectively cripple the combat power of the Yōkai inside the headquarters, the Kyuubi included, once the barriers spread out far enough to envelop the entire structure.
Granted, there are still rules that determine its effectiveness. The wider the mist was spread, the weaker the effects became. Conversely, the more compact I kept its radius, the more potent its effects would become. A trade-off that functioned on the basic principle of equivalent exchange.
The West Yōkai Faction's headquarters is large, and imbued with all sorts of Yōkai trickery I'll have to suppress with my barrier. If I'm not careful, I could end up spreading Dimension Lost and tossing us head first into an easily avoidable situation provided my planning's accurate.
"Let's move."
I followed a step behind Cao Cao, my posture vigilant as could be. There was no use in rushing head-first into the headquarters, we had power, but they had experience. The Kyuubi has lived for nine centuries—at minimum, and has the blessings of the Shinto Pantheon. I'd be a fool to take her for granted, with or without my Sacred Gear limiting her combat prowess.
The hell?
Exactly fourteen steps later, I stopped. Cao Cao, and the rest of my comrades doing the same upon noticing my sudden state of frozen stupor.
"Georg?" Cao Cao asked, concerned.
"Someone just tried to snipe us," sometimes, showing was better than telling. So I swiped my hand across the air, causing a chunk of dimensional mist in front of us to split apart, revealing a strange, imposing weapon embedded into the concrete in front of us.
A javelin. Bright gold in color. Brilliant in nature. Shimmering with a tightly-packed, terrifying energy that none besides myself, Cao Cao, and Leonardo could ever hope to produce. On par with an Eight Circle Magician at least, or Satan-Class Devil, by Mephisto's standards. Three quarters of its overall length was jabbed into the ground, or at least, the crater that remained in its wake. Filled with all sorts of uneven fissures that would do only god-knows-what to a flesh and blood body.
I shuddered, taking a step back as I recognized the exact nature of the javelin. One that had no business rearing its head in a Yōkai-owned place such as this.
Draconic energy.
Another. Fucking. DEVIATION.
Damnit Georg, calm yourself. You can't afford to lose your cool on a high-priority mission such as this, she might not be all that authoritarian, but that's not a constant trait of hers when it comes to matters regarding that existence. The usurper king of the gap.
"Don't worry, it was a blind throw. They don't know where we are, they just took a shot at the mist and hoped they'd get lucky." A foolish endeavor. There's no way to get a 'lucky shot' through Dimension Lost, even if you hit correctly, I can just relocate the projectile elsewhere before it connects.
"Where are they?" Cao Cao queried, his facial expression starting to twist and turn with a certain emotion I really couldn't afford to let him express right now.
Uh oh.
"They're in the barrier, but they don't have the means to counter its disorienting properties. We're free to continue our advance while they remain a headless chicken." Quickly, I tried to keep his attention fixated on the task at hand, capturing the Kyuubi.
"They're a dragon, right?" He continued, stopped still. "There's a dragon here, isn't there? A real dragon?" We locked eyes, the excitement and mania he usually kept repressed starting to flare to life.
Not good. Seriously not good.
"Cao Cao…" Nervously, I pressed my lips together into a thin line. "We're here to capture the Kyuubi, remember? Shouldn't we focus on that first—"
"I want to see them, Georg." His tone lost all lightness and humor. "Show me the dragon, that's an order. The mission's still on, but this is too rich an opportunity to pass up. Surely you understand that, don't you?" He licked his lips, the thirst for battle of a man who wanted nothing more than to provide the strength of his humanity to the monsters that lurked amongst our seven-billion-large populace.
And there was no monster like a dragon.
Shit. I should've known he'd react this way, why did I even let him see the javelin at all? I could've kept it hidden… for shame Georg, for shame.
"Very well."
Despite my reluctance, he was the leader at the end of the day. If this is what he truly wanted, then it was my duty to see that it came to be. The risk was horrifying, but I'd always put the Hero Faction's priorities above that creature's chaotic mess of a 'Khaos Brigade'. No pun intended.
Carefully, I reorientated the spatial mapping of the mist, finding the entity that was hopelessly trying to decipher its mechanics, as if such a thing were possible, in such a crude manner much less.
"Oh, hey there."
A simple, laid-back greeting reached us. Stemming from the figure stood in the distance, a few feet apart from the javelin that stood between us.
///
And so the action resumes! Which I managed to keep it at bay for a grand total of… drum roll… six chapters! Woo-hoo!
(I have a problem).
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