Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka Gaiden – Sword Oratoria - Volume 6 - Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4 SISTER & SISTER, DUSK & DAWN, SHADOW & LIGHT
 

Tiona remembered it all too well.
The look in her sister’s eyes. The moment she began to lose her way.
The day Tione reached Level 2, Tiona had leveled up, as well. It was by the same method—killing one of the girls in their shared chambers.
However, Tiona’s mind hadn’t been nearly as developed as her older sister’s, and even when she realized she’d killed one of her beloved roommates, she’d barely felt a thing.
Oh, poo. I killed someone again.
She liked to fight. Kali and the other Amazons had always congratulated her when she’d won. And yet, every time she was forced to kill one of her sisters, she got a funny feeling in her heart. Tiona had been too young to know how to put it into words, and so it had just built and built and built.
So long as she focused only on the excitement stirring in her blood, things would be fine. She could still be like the other Amazons. That’s what she’d believed. That’s what she’d understood innately. But the funny feeling in her heart brought all of that to a halt. As a young girl who acted on instinct rather than reason, the more her blood churned in excitement, the more she was troubled deep within her heart. The line between the two emotions was paper-thin at best.
When she returned to her stone room on the day of her fifth birthday, Tione had already been there. Alone in the corner, her weapon and mask tossed to the floor and her face buried in her knees.
“Who did you fight?”
“…Seldas.”
Tione didn’t even look up upon her approach, voice no more than a whisper.
Seldas.
Tiona, too, had thought warmly of her. Besides her sister, Seldas had been easily the most generous and kind of anyone she’d ever known. But the rites didn’t end until someone was dead. And both Tione and Seldas had had no choice but to fight to the death.
The funny feeling in Tiona’s heart grew even stronger.
“…Good.”
She replied. And the word had been genuine.
Tiona might not have been able to truly feel the connection in their blood, but that didn’t keep her from understanding that Tione was someone special to her. She was relieved that Seldas had died and Tione had lived.
I’m glad you’re alive. I’m glad you weren’t killed. That had been what Tiona had meant with her word.
But all she’d been met with was a fist.
It was heavy with unadulterated ferocity.
While the two sisters may have argued often, none of their fights had ever been this extreme; Tione was aiming to kill as she shattered Tiona’s jaw.
Pain flared across Tiona’s face. She saw red and, with an enraged howl, prepared to leap upon her sister…
…only to come to a stop at the sight in front of her.
Tione was crying.
Her body was shaking, her features contorted in a strange mix of rage and despair as giant tears rushed from her eyes.
Tiona’s fist loosened, her arm falling limply to her side.
And then she’d simply stood there, in silence, watching her sister weep.
Tione grew even wilder after that.
She’d never been the most eloquent of girls, but now her words had begun to border on the obscene. She became aggressive toward everyone and everything. Even her sister wasn’t an exception to her abuse. With every day that passed, her eyes grew more stagnant, more clouded, indicative of the turmoil in her heart.
Tione wasn’t the only one, either. Everyone in their room had felt it now that their numbers had dropped by more than half. Now that they fully understood the truth behind the rites, not a one of them spoke. Some feared forming any more of an emotional connection with their peers, while others worried about being killed themselves. There were also those who reached a sort of understanding, surrendering to their own instinct and awakening as the “warriors” their country so craved.
Their days of fighting sped by.
Those who survived the rites rose up in rank and were eventually selected, one by one, by their more senior Amazons. It was an acknowledgment of their own strength and abilities, and a binding relationship as teacher and student.
Tiona was chosen by Bache. And Tione was chosen by Argana.
The two sandy-haired sisters were ten years older than the five-year-old girls. As they were also twins, it could only be assumed they’d thought pairing up the two sets of siblings would lead to some sort of benefit. Argana was the older of the two, and both had already made quite the name for themselves. At the time, they were ranked high among the few candidates in the running for the familia’s next captains.
The training was grueling. Not a day went by where the young girls didn’t see blood in their vomit, and there were even times they left with broken bones. Merely surviving from one day to the next meant desperately stealing every move, every technique they could from the two Amazons deemed their instructors.
“…On your feet.”
As Bache looked down at her, icy and unfeeling, on the cold stone ground, Tiona felt fear for the first time in her life. It wasn’t until later, once they’d both escaped, that she’d learned Tione’s training under Argana had been even more arduous.
Between the rites and their training, the time they spent in their room inevitably grew less and less. As did their roommates. In fact, by the time they realized it, they were the only two left in their little stone room.
But they weren’t allowed time to despair. The constant training wore down their bodies and minds, their emotions all but dulled, and their only happiness came from their victories in battle. Tiona found herself lost, drifting aimlessly through her day-to-day routine—the same routine Telskyura had used already to mold most of its warriors, stripped of everything but their will to fight.
It was an entire year before she reached her turning point.
She’d been crawling about the empty arena like a cat, having stolen a moment’s peace before her training was to begin, when she’d found a balled-up scrap of paper that had been carelessly tossed away down one of the empty aisles—a piece of a story.
The epic.
?
“…”
Tiona opened her eyes.
The faint lapping of the lake’s waters and the cries of nearby seagulls pulled her out of her dream as reality came into focus.
Sentimental scenes of her past still hazy in her mind, she sat up in bed, glancing over at the mattress next to her.
It was empty.
“…She already left?” she moaned, her other half nowhere to be seen. Reaching her arms upward, she let out a long “Hnnggaaaaah…” as she stretched the sleep from her body.
?
“We’re tight’nin’ our search,” Loki proclaimed first thing once the group had gathered around the breakfast table that morning. “I wanna concentrate our efforts on three things: Njör?r Familia, the Guild, and the old Murdock estate. Now, we don’t want any of these folks to know we suspect anything, so we’re just gonna act like it’s a continuation of yesterday. Make it seem like we’ve still got nothin’ and secretly sniff around for anything suspicious.”
Hearing this, the residents of the hotel’s first-floor dining hall quickly descended into chaos.
Loki, however, simply continued.
“Having said that, ol’ Njör?r’ll know somethin’s up the moment we start pokin’ around, so I’ll handle that one myself. But y’all have to take care of the other two.”
“And what of Kali Familia?” Riveria inquired.
“Ignore ’em for now. But if they do try and stick their noses in where they aren’t wanted again, stay together. No heroics, ya hear?” Loki instructed, throwing a glance in Tiona and Tione’s direction. “Tiona, Tione, you’ll stick with Aiz and Riveria. Those two sisters of theirs are somethin’ fierce, but so long as you’re in pairs, you should be fine…even if they do pick a fight. By the way, I’m officially vetoing any right to object at this point,” she added before Tione could open her mouth to protest. “And unless y’all wanna get shipped back to Orario, I’d suggest you behave like good little girls, yeah?”
Tione scowled, sitting back in her chair with a huff.
Aiz and Riveria simply nodded, accepting their duty to watch over the twin Amazonian sisters with their deep connection to Kali Familia.
“All right, then! Any questions? No? Then y’all are dismissed!”
“I wonder if Tione’ll be all right…” Tiona murmured as she let her eyes turn skyward, taking in the ever-blue swath of sky spread out above the port.
She and Aiz were currently walking along a small alleyway away from the hustle and bustle of the main street, while the residents carted baskets of laundry and shopping bags nearby and children ran back and forth around them.
“I wouldn’t worry. Riveria is with her…” Aiz pointed out as she walked along beside her.
“I would if I could! But…eh, I do understand what Loki was thinking. The two of us together would be a perfect target,” Tiona mused slowly.
Try as she might to act normal, in her heart, she wished she was with Tione right now. Her mind was already coming up with all sorts of unlikely scenarios that could be playing out at that very moment. Still, she couldn’t help but notice that Aiz’s mind, too, seemed to be fixated on something.
“You’re worried about Old Man Murdock, aren’t you?” she asked, changing the topic of conversation.
“A little, yes…” Aiz nodded.
The two of them were on their way to the manor of the man in question, the Murdock estate, with plans to infiltrate the grounds. They needed to think of a way the two of them could get inside unnoticed in order to continue the investigation Lefiya and the others had started the previous day. Maybe, just maybe, they could find some clue.
Still ruminating on the matter, they found their walk brought to a sudden halt by a young animal girl stumbling across their path.
“Ah—!”
“Whoa there! You all right?”
The book she’d been carrying tumbled to the ground together with a handful of gold coins. Perhaps she was on her way home from shopping?
Aiz was quick to help the young girl to her feet. Tiona lent a hand, too, by gathering up her scattered possessions—that is, she was about to, until she saw the book’s title and immediately stopped in her tracks.
…Argonaut.
Her eyes were glued to the book’s cover—an image of a hero battling a mighty bull. It was a volume of the epic she was familiar with.
“U-um…Miss, could you…?”
“Oh! Sorry, sorry!” Tiona replied sheepishly as she handed the book and coins over to the teary-eyed girl.
The girl responded by hugging the book protectively to her chest.
“You just buy that?” Tiona inquired, bending down so she was at the girl’s level.
“Yeah, the—the man at the store, he…told me they got lots of new books from the ship…”
“…You like that old legend?”
“—Yeah!” The girl’s face lit up like a sunflower.
With a quick thank-you, she waved her hand before running off down the alley.
“Tiona…?” Aiz asked as Tiona continued to stare silently in the direction the girl had gone.
She stood there another moment, a soft smile playing on her lips.
“I liked them, too…back in Telskyura…” she murmured. The sight of that girl running away so happily, a great big grin on her face, joined the images from her dream that very morning—of the little girl who’d smiled the same exact way.
Bache had been training her that day, same as always, in the arena’s training room.
Her face covered in blood, Tiona rummaged for the paper she’d hidden in a corner of the room and held it out to the older Amazon with both hands. “Will you…read it to me?”
It was the same scrap she’d found in one of the arena’s aisles shortly before practice.
Though presumably dropped by one of her peers, it wasn’t of Telskyuran origin—she had never seen these Koine letters. Considering she didn’t even know how to read and write in the Amazonian language, the words on the paper were positively indecipherable, no matter how much interest she had in them.
Tiona would never forget the look Bache gave her.
The ever-taciturn Amazon was clearly taken by surprise.
Rather than respond with her typical emotionless apathy, she seemed deeply flustered, and after standing there for a good couple of moments, body swaying, she took the scrap of paper and left the room with nothing more than a “…G-give me some…time.”
It wasn’t until a few days later that Bache returned, and once their training for the day was over, she read the contents aloud.
She shouldn’t have given a second thought to the whims of an inquisitive child, and yet, somehow her pride wouldn’t let her move on. To think she and a girl ten years her junior would be on the same level, unable to read the same characters! It had been enough of a blow to her dignity that she’d gone to Kali herself, red-faced as she’d asked the goddess to teach her the meaning behind the words.
“I want to know…what it says…”
Though Kali had guffawed quite heartily at the request, she’d diligently translated the Koine words for her.
“Not realizing he was being deceived, the young man said to the king, ‘Understood, my liege. I will, without fail, save the princess being held captive deep within the labyrinth.’”
“What happens next? What happens next?”
Tiona urged Bache on beneath the torchlight, sometimes kneeling, sometimes sitting cross-legged on the cold stone floor and not even bothering to tend to her wounds. Bache herself seemed bewildered, this being her first time in this sort of position, but slowly she worked her way through the entire text, relaying the story bit by bit after each training session.
But like every story, this one eventually came to an end. Especially considering this was only a scrap torn from a larger book, the ending came all too quickly. Though this meant concluding their secret post-training story time, the “damage” had been done, and Tiona no longer saw Bache as the terrifying authoritarian she’d once been.
“Lead your enemy’s attacks. Draw them in until you can feel the wind against your skin, then parry.”
“Parry how?”
“…Just parry.”
The rigorous training sessions became more than mere pain and suffering. In fact they became almost…fun.
At the same time, the young Amazon who’d been taught to know nothing besides combat found herself dreaming of other, bigger things.
—She wanted to know how the story ended.
With every day that passed, her desire became stronger.
Then, one day.
Upon completing another rite, Kali happened to ask her if there was anything she wanted.
Tiona responded immediately.
“I want to know the end to this story.”
Her wish was granted, and a complete, undamaged book was sent for.
Tiona may have been an idiot at times, but she wasn’t stupid. And the pliable mind of a child was a powerful thing. Her interest sparked a flame inside her head, and soon, with Kali’s help, she was reading Koine with ease. She could still remember the looks Bache gave her—dejected, almost. In the cheerless world of the arena, she had discovered another type of excitement, one different from fighting, and Tiona found herself instantly enamored.
From then on, every time Tiona won a fight, she would ask for another book to add to her collection as a reward. It became a sort of bait, but also drew favor from Kali. And so, Tiona devoured more and more and more stories. She carted them back to her stone room, lost in their pages, rolling around in her bed as she pored over them late into the night by candlelight. With every day that passed, her collection grew larger, until Tione finally kicked the giant mountain over in a huff. This, of course, led to one of their habitual fights, and Tiona retaliated with her fists as tears welled up in her eyes.
The pieces of the story—the fragments of the epic—were changing her.
First and foremost, they acted as a catalyst for her idiocy and carefree optimism.
She began to laugh more.
Her laughter was childlike, imbued with bottomless joy.
She couldn’t even imagine how she must have looked in her sister’s eyes. It was probably just one more reason for Tione to be mad at her. After all, while Tione was slowly descending into her own personal hell, Tiona’s eyes were sparkling before the pages of books as she laughed and smiled like the village idiot.
Though raised under the same harsh conditions, the two sisters had diverged into light and dark—and all because of some story written on a little scrap of paper.
It was an abnormal thing for a happy-go-lucky soul to last long in this world of fighting and bloodshed. “Crazed warrior” indeed—before anyone had even realized it, the young girl was already taking full advantage of her title of “Berserker.” So much so that the other Amazons came to wonder if this emotionally stunted girl wasn’t touched in the head, far as that was from the truth.
Anytime anyone spoke to her, she laughed. In fact, she was always laughing.
She’d been saved by the power of the epic.
“…”
Aiz stared at the silent Amazon.
Tiona was completely motionless, watching the young girl disappear down the alley with her copy of the epic. Finally, she opened her mouth.
“You know, Aiz…”
“…Hmm?”
“You don’t think I’m…weird, do you? Laughing all the time?” she asked, bringing her hands up to lightly touch the sides of her cheeks.
Aiz was quiet for a moment.
Then she shook her head.
“It’s thanks to you that…I’m able to have as much fun as I do now.”
The words may have been few.
But they were enough to convey her message.
Tiona turned around with a smile, her cheeks flushed.
“Thanks, Aiz.”
And yet, despite her gratitude, something about her seemed off.
Rather than leap upon Aiz with her arms outstretched, she simply took off, continuing down the alley as though nothing had happened.
“…”
Aiz watched her friend walk away before finally falling into step behind her.
?
Around the same time that Aiz and Tiona were heading toward the Murdock estate, Lefiya and her small team were conducting a diligent investigation of their own.
If the Guild really is involved in this whole affair with the violas…we could be in for a mountain of trouble! Well, the same would be true for Njör?r Familia, I suppose…
The Guild here may have just been a branch, but it was still an administrative authority. If it was colluding with the remnants of the Evils, it’d be more than a problem—it’d be a catastrophe! Lefiya hadn’t been able to shake the feeling of dread in her stomach since Loki had announced them as one of their three targets that morning.
Despite her inner turmoil, she did her best to keep a straight face—Riveria and her beloved Aiz would do their best to get to the root of things—focusing, instead, on her current task of information gathering.
“…Hey, Miss?”
“?”
Lefiya turned around, only to find herself face-to-face with a young girl with light cocoa skin. Her immediate reaction was to brace herself—Kali Familia?!—but almost instantly, she relaxed her guard.
Having received the gods’ blessing herself, she knew not to let herself be lured into a sense of safety no matter how young or how small her enemy was, but the girl in front of her now didn’t have the aura of a familia member. She didn’t carry herself like someone with a Status on her back. There was no way she could have had anything to do with the adventurer or warrior professions.
Also there was the fact that the girl in front of her was decidedly human—not Amazonian. Height-wise, she came up to only about Lefiya’s abdomen, and from the lightweight clothes on her back, one could immediately recognize her as a resident of Meren.
Her shoulder-length black hair gave a tiny tremble as her dark tea-colored eyes gazed up in Lefiya’s direction.
“Are you an adventurer?…From Orario?”
“I am, yes. Is something the matter?”
No doubt, Loki Familia’s presence in the port town the last few days had made them a topic of conversation among the populace. As Lefiya bent over, the girl seemed to gather up her courage before leaning forward to whisper in Lefiya’s ear.
“I—I keep hearing this scary scream. In the place I like to play.”
“Scary scream…?”
“Yeah! It…it sounds just like those looooooong monsters that came outta the lake…”
“!”
Lefiya’s senses snapped into focus. “Long monsters” could only mean—the violas.
“I’m not supposed to tell any grown-ups. But…but I’m scared…”
“Where is it you heard the scary scream?”
“From…from over there…” she responded, finger pointing down the alley behind her.
“Rakuta! Elfie!” Lefiya called out, head snapping upward. The rest of her group, currently scattered about the area conducting their investigations, quickly gathered around her.
“You really think she…heard a monster?”
“It doesn’t seem to me like she’s lying…”
“It’s not like we have anything else to go on. Let’s see what we can find out.”
Lefiya listened to the Level-3 hume bunny and her human mage roommate back in Twilight Manor, then came to a decision. She glanced down the little back alleyway, quite a ways away from the main road, before returning her attention to the young girl.
“Do you think you could show us the way?”
The girl nodded.
“My name is Lefiya. What’s yours?”
“Chandie.”
And thus, the girl named Chandie began leading the group down the alley.
The tangled mix of throughways and byways behind the city proper was quite different from the main road, and Lefiya could imagine it would be all too easy to get lost if one wasn’t familiar with its twists and turns. Nevertheless, their young guide seemed well at home as she led the group along, navigating the narrow streets with ease.
“…?”
As Lefiya followed immediately behind the girl, her long, slender ears suddenly twitched, almost as if they’d picked up on a slight, faint tremor.
Someone’s…watching us?
No one else seemed to have noticed. And, in fact, had Lefiya not participated in various adventures with Aiz and the other first-tiers, Lefiya wouldn’t have, either.
Uncertain as to whether she should say something, Lefiya found that the girl responded first—almost as if picking up on her hesitation.
“Those Amazons are here…aren’t they?” she asked without even turning around.
What?
She asked, or at least she’d been about to ask, when.
From directly overhead, the mysterious presence landed behind her without a sound.
“?”
She didn’t even have a chance to turn around.
With terrifying speed, the figure came at her with a dagger, slicing into the back of her neck with pinpoint accuracy.
“Lefiya?!”
The world around her shook, and a dizzying sense of vertigo overtook her. Knees crumpling, she slumped to the ground.
Rakuta’s and Elfie’s dissonant screams swirled around her as the sudden intense sounds of fighting pounded in her ears. The cobblestones in front of her spun and warped as she fought the urge to vomit, what was happening, what was happening—
Chandie’s voice cut through the confusion above her.
“—There are those among the gods capable of suppressing their divine will.”
Though the voice itself was still childlike, her manner of speaking was dignified, like someone much older.
Lefiya’s azure eyes widened with a surprised start, even as her vision clouded.
“Zeus and Odin and the other great kings of the gods are not the only ones. They disguise themselves as children, blending in among the populace unnoticed…reveling in their own versions of merriment in the lower world.”
With what little strength she had left, Lefiya raised her head, just in time to see the young girl remove her wig. From beneath her black hair cascaded a waterfall of crimson locks. And from within her clothes, she retrieved a demon-like mask adorned with two long fangs.
Lefiya gazed up into the two open holes of the mask, where the goddess’s eyes, the same bloodred color as her hair, stared back down at her.
“You learn something new every day, child of Loki.”
All too quickly, the tables had turned.
The girl had become the goddess, radiating an almighty authority, while Lefiya had become the child, unenlightened and ignorant.
Even as her consciousness began to fail her, she felt shame wash over her, and she cursed her ineptitude.
“I hope you don’t mind if I borrow that body of yours for a while. I won’t do anything…too uncouth with it.”
The sounds of fighting behind her had stopped. A sandy-haired warrior, Bache, stepped forward to stand beside Kali, completely unharmed. That was the last thing Lefiya remembered before she completely blacked out.
?
“Argana…!” Tione screamed.
The woman in question simply smiled, her lips curled upward in snakelike amusement.
They’d been on their way to the Guild Branch Office when the Amazonian warrior had appeared in front of them, and she clearly had no intention of letting them pass.
“Didn’t you have enough already…?!” Tione growled, fists clenched and liable to jump forward at a moment’s notice.
“Tione, fall back! Calm yourself!”
Riveria shouted the warning, stopping the enraged Amazon in her tracks. Her weapon was being worked on like Aiz’s and Tiona’s, so the magic user’s only equipment for offense was a substitute staff. Still, she stepped forward, unafraid to face the Amazon in the road, even as the rest of her group shrank back in fear.
“If there is something you want, then speak. Otherwise, you will step aside.”
“…”
Argana simply stared at the unflappable high elf.
Eyes narrowing, she tore her gaze somewhat reluctantly from the dauntless high elf to lock eyes with the Amazon behind her, still staring daggers in her direction.
“Rhada fa arhlo. Nahaak jhi deena, noy phæ garaahdo sol die Hyrute.”
“?”
The words brought time to a screeching halt.
Riveria’s brows furrowed as the rest of the group looked around in confusion, none of them able to understand the words, but Tione snapped.
“And just what is that supposed to mean, huh?! Tell me!!” she shouted, unable to keep herself under control any longer.
Argana just kept smiling.
At any second, it seemed Tione would lose her cool completely, when suddenly…
“Lady Riveria!”
The shout came from the opposite direction.
Everyone turned around to see an out-of-breath elf running toward them.
“What is it?” Riveria inquired, a sense of foreboding washing over her.
“R-Rakuta and the others…Lefiya…They’re…!” the elf tried to explain, looking very much as though she’d just seen a ghost.
The color drained from their faces. Startled, Tione whirled back around, only to find that in that tenth of an instant, the sandy-haired Amazon in front of them had disappeared.
“…!!”
Tione’s eyes dropped immediately to the ground, where a certain something had been left in Argana’s place.
Snatching it up, she hurried after Riveria and the others, her body still shaking.
“…Whoa, what?”
Loki deadpanned at the sight in front of her—her followers, covered in cuts and bruises with blood staining their clothes.
“Sorry, Loki…They were too much for us.” Rakuta apologized, her voice hoarse.
Loki had practically sprinted from Njör?r Familia’s home the second she’d heard the news, arriving at the port’s entrance only to find her followers looking very much worse for wear.
None of them had escaped serious injuries. And the wounds were clearly from combat—almost as if fists hard as steel had bludgeoned them a hundred times over. They’d used bits of cloth to staunch the bleeding, but those were already stained a dark red.
Rakuta was the only one who was still conscious.
“Rod! Could you lend me a hand? Quickly!”
“Roger that! C’mon, you good-for-nothings! Get your asses in gear!”
Njör?r called his captain, who was quick to respond. Rod shouted to his men, spurring the temporarily stunned fishermen of Njör?r Familia into a flurry of action.
“Who did this?” Loki asked, her voice low.
“…Kali Familia…They just…suddenly attacked…”
No doubt they’d thought this group would be easy prey given its lack of first- and even second-tier adventurers. And from Rakuta’s tearful account of the events, it seemed Bache alone had been responsible for taking them down.
“They…they took Lefiya…!”
It was humiliating.
They had made a completely unexpected attack in broad daylight, rubbing dirt in their faces and making a complete fool of the normally peerless Loki Familia.
But it was the damage they’d done to her precious followers that really made Loki’s blood boil.
“That damn midget…Pickin’ a fight with me, is she?!”
Loki’s normal indifference had all but disappeared, and a fiery hot flush of unadulterated rage had taken its place. As the rest of the familia began gathering around the scene after hearing the news, even those who’d been with Loki the longest—Aki and Alicia, to name a few—found themselves fearfully hesitant in the face of this new side to their goddess.
“Hey, hey, let’s not start a war right in the middle of the city, shall we…?” Njör?r grimaced wearily. He knew all too well how dangerous Loki could be when she got this look on her face.
But his words fell on deaf ears. Despite the fury boiling within her, her eyes were as cold as ice. As she watched her followers being attended to, something caught her gaze, and her scarlet eyes narrowed.
The familia emblem had been torn off one of her followers’ clothes.
Tearing off the emblem…Is she declaring war here? But no, when they ran off with Lefiya, they would have…Ah. So that’s what’s goin’ on.
Loki scowled upon realizing just what it was her opponent was thinking—the atrocious, detestable plan Kali was currently concocting.
She raised her gaze toward her followers gathered around her.
“Get Tiona and Tione back here. We can’t let them out of our sight,” she ordered, though in the back of her mind, she feared she might already be too late.
“Is somethin’ happening?”
Around the time Loki was giving her order to find Tiona and Tione…
Tiona and Aiz were already on their way back from their infiltration mission at the Murdock estate. As soon as they heard that members of Loki Familia had been attacked, they took off, practically running full tilt the rest of the way to the pier.
“!!”
First Aiz, then Tiona shot past the trade pier, about to continue on to the fishing quarter, when…
“—Tiona. Over here.”
“Huh? Tione?!”
Tione appeared from out of nowhere, grabbing Tiona’s wrist and yanking her away.
She didn’t stop until the two of them were separated from Aiz and in a dark alleyway a short distance away, where Tiona finally shook off her sister’s grip.
“What the hell are you doin’, Tione?! Didn’t you hear? Somethin’ happened! We need to be out there seein’ if we can—!”
But Tione didn’t let her finish.
“Rhada fa arhlo. Nahaak jhi deena, noy phæ garaahdo sol die Hyrute.”
We’ve taken a hostage. If you want her back, you and your sister will come to the shipyard tonight—alone.
“!”
“That’s what Argana said to me earlier. Rakuta and the others were attacked and…Lefiya was taken hostage,” she explained.
Tiona’s eyes widened.
“Those…those bastards! Using the rest of our familia to lure us in…!” Tione hissed. She was having trouble holding back the tumult of emotions, both a relentless rage to rival her goddess’s and a sense of responsibility for involving her companions.
Tiona, however, kept her cool.
“…What are you gonna do?”
“You even have to ask?!”
Tione’s sharpened gaze met her sister’s honest one.
From far off, practically in a distant world, they could hear the commotion taking place on the pier.
“We’re going to settle this. Once and for all.”
To take responsibility for what they’d done and ensure this never happened again.
As Tione’s words swelled with unwavering conviction, Tiona remained silent. Finally, she looked away.
“Tione…”
“What is it?”
“Can’t we…ask for help? From Aiz and the others?”
“You—?! Just how thick can you possibly be?! It’s our fault that Lefiya and the others—”
“But we’re a familia, aren’t we?” Tiona raised her gaze, interrupting Tione’s tirade. “We’re different from how we used to be…aren’t we?”
Now it was Tione’s turn to squirm.
Brows furrowed, she bit down on her lip, masking her lack of response by chucking the item Argana had left behind at her sister.
“What’s this…?”
Tiona glanced down at the strip of cloth in her hand—the Loki Familia emblem.
The smiling face of their mascot, the Trickster, had four large gashes across it.
“It’s a warning. We’re to come alone. If we go to Aiz and the others…those guys will never leave us…and them…alone.”
“…”
One of the gashes was vertical while the rest were horizontal, laid out across it. It was a symbol of the rites they’d suffered day in and day out back in Telskyura, used to represent the monsters they’d faced over and over in battle during those competitions in the arena.
If they were to go to Aiz and the others for help and use their combined power to save Lefiya, Kali Familia would continue their attacks in that same way. They wouldn’t stop until they were once again able to reenact those rites—and have their showdown with Tione and her sister.
Tione understood all too well the warning they’d received.
“If we don’t go there and reenact the rite, they’re gonna keep on doing things like this. As many times as it takes. They won’t let anything get in the way of their little game.”
“…”
“We’re the only ones who can finish this. We can’t go to Aiz and the others…or the captain.”
Silence settled over the two sisters.
Tione knew she was being stubborn. Her aversion to involving the rest of the familia could very well be taken as a lack of faith in them.
But she wasn’t going to fold on this one.
This was something they had to do themselves, to sever their ties with Telskyura once and for all.
“…Okay.”
Had she gotten through to her?
Another moment, and then, ever so slowly, Tiona nodded.
“I don’t like hiding things from everyone, but…it really seems like we don’t have any other choice,” she agreed.
Tione turned her eyes downward at the sadness visible on Tiona’s face.
At length, the two of them began to walk, backs to the main street, away from the sounds of civilization.
Saying nothing to Loki, to Aiz and their companions, they simply vanished into the dark alley.
“It feels like before somehow…” Tiona murmured, staring upward at the shape of the sky formed between the rooftops above their heads. “Just the two of us.”
The words felt like a punch in her back.
Tione said nothing.
?
The sun had begun its descent toward the western horizon, disappearing from the sky overhead.
“Aiz, were you able to find them?”
“No…I looked everywhere…” Aiz replied, having just arrived back at the inn after a furtive search throughout the city. It was already growing late. She walked over toward Loki and Riveria and past the rest of her flustered companions restlessly pacing the first floor of the establishment. “I’m sorry. It’s all my fault…I was with Tiona…”
“Nonsense. If that was the case, I would be most at fault. I got so caught up in wanting to help Rakuta and the others that I forgot to keep my eyes on Tione…and, no doubt, she is the one who absconded with your Tiona, as well.” Riveria shook her head, eyes closed. She’d already accepted the blame for the entire situation, shame evident in the crooked arc of her brows. “However, pointing fingers will get us nowhere.”
Aiz agreed, imitating the high elf’s shift in focus and swallowing the rest of her apology.
“What about Rakuta and the others?”
“Leene and the other healers are looking after them. Certainly they won’t be up and moving again for a while, but it shouldn’t be long before their strength has returned.”
Aiz let out a sigh of relief before continuing. “And what about Kali Familia? Have there been any signs of them?”
Just as Tiona and Tione had disappeared right out from under them, the rest of Kali Familia, too, seemed to have vanished into thin air. Apparently not a single soul had caught sight of them after the attack on Lefiya, not even the residents of Meren.
“Aki and the other gals split up to go look for ’em…Speakin’ of, they should be comin’ back right about now.” Loki spoke up from her cross-legged spot atop the table, and, indeed, no sooner had the words left her mouth than the door opened to reveal Aki and Alicia back from their search.
“No good. The inn they were supposedly staying at until today was completely deserted. We snuck in but couldn’t find anything.”
“And even though the galleon they sailed in on is still there, it’s completely empty, as well…”
The two second-tier adventurers explained despondently. Loki hummed softly as she scratched at her chin.
“Considerin’ this is their first time here, you wouldn’t think they’d be able to hide themselves so well…They’ve gotta have someone helpin’ ’em.”
The goddess’s words triggered a jolt of fear in her followers.
Alicia clenched her fist. “But what is it they’re after…?”
“Well…I’m about ninety-nine point nine percent certain they’re gonna make Tione and Tiona reenact those rites they used to carry out in Telskyura. That bastard of a midget they call a goddess is nothin’ but a natural-born battle junkie. And I wouldn’t put it past Tione and her sister to be tempted, too,” Loki posed.
“Attacking Rakuta and the others, kidnapping Lefiya—it was all a ploy to spur them into action,” Riveria continued.
“Lefiya…” The name stung Aiz’s heart. As worried as she was about Tiona and Tione, she couldn’t help her concern for the spirited-away mage, too.
“Anyway, we continue our search…and if we find ’em, we blow ’em away. Aiz should be able to handle ’em by herself, but Riveria, feel free to blast ’em as much as ya want, too.”
“In the middle of the city. What a wonderful idea…” Riveria brought a hand to her temple.
“And what about Lefiya…?” Aki retorted, eyes narrowed in disbelief.
But Loki just discarded their concerns with a dismissive wave of her hand.
From what Aiz could tell, Loki’s anger hadn’t subsided even slightly. As much as her usual tomfoolery colored her words, her eyes themselves weren’t laughing at all.
“Look, I’m just gonna come out and say it—Lefiya’s nothin’ more than bait to lure in Tione and her sister. No one’s gonna be threatenin’ her life or anything. Then again, who knows what might happen if worse comes to worst.”
“Then what you’re saying is that our enemy desires nothing but combat in and of itself?” Riveria asked, though she already knew the answer.
Loki smiled. “Thaaaat’s it. A hostage is just a blip on the radar for someone who wants a full-on fight to the death. Most likely she’s just there to dissuade us from interferin’. That way, they can have their death match without worryin’ about us gettin’ in the way.”
Aiz could tell from the goddess’s smile—she knew Kali had no plans to kill Lefiya.
“So, Aizuu. You’re the only one who’s gone up against ’em. Aside from the sisters with the boobs, how tough d’ya think they are?”
“…Of the ones I fought, Level Threes or Level Fours,” Aiz guessed, thinking back to yesterday’s skirmish in the main street.
Their fighting style, however, would prove difficult, much like Tiona and Tione’s. They fought with a complete disregard for their lives, at an insanely close range, and with no hesitation at taking someone else’s life. They would always have the upper hand against someone lacking that same motivation to kill. Or at least that’s what Aiz thought.
Aki and Alicia found themselves grimacing as they listened to the Sword Princess’s prognosis.
“So even their mid-level warriors will prove a handful,” Riveria mused.
“Unfortunately, yes…”
“The fact that Aiz and I are both using temporary weapons doesn’t help matters any, either.”
Loki let out a sigh as she turned her gaze toward the ceiling.
All of a sudden, Aiz raised her head with an “Ah!”
In all the commotion, there’d been something she’d forgotten to add.
“Loki.”
“Hmm? What’s up, Aizuu?”
Aiz undid the small bag from beneath her loin guard, handing it over to the goddess. It was something she and Tiona had found during their earlier search of the Murdock estate.
As Aiz leaned forward to explain its contents, a smile began to form on Loki’s face.
“Good work, Aiz!” she exclaimed before sliding down from off the table. Grabbing a quill pen and parchment from one of the hotel staff, she quickly took to writing.
“Aki! Would ya mind playin’ messenger for me?”
“Well, no, but…you mean now?”
“Faster than now. This is an emergency! Everything you need to know should be written right here,” Loki asserted, handing her a small slip of paper.
Aki glanced down at it with a nod, then grabbed the two pieces of parchment and took off out of the inn at the speed of a cat.
Loki watched her with the rest of the group, then turned her eyes toward the window and the crimson sky painting the horizon.
“Now, then! All that’s left is Tione and her sister…”
?
Why did she have to remember now, of all times?
After she’d killed the person who’d meant the most to her, after a wild light had begun to appear in her eyes, a certain Amazon had arrived to hurl her life into an even deeper level of hell.
Argana Kalif. The top contender for the rank of Telskyura’s next captain.
And the warrior whose mentality was closest to Kali’s. Her training was nothing short of gruesome.
The day they’d met, Argana had broken her. For no specific reason, other than that the combat-obsessed warrior Argana did not distinguish the training in their dark stone room from the battles to the death in the arena.
As Tione was reduced to blood-soaked skin and bones, she came to hold the same fear toward Argana that Tiona held toward Bache—along with an even more powerful anger.
Through the scalding pain and her hazy consciousness, she came to see Argana as a symbol of Telskyura itself. The very custom that had forced her to kill Seldas.
“…You’re good.”
Argana immediately took a liking to the young girl who couldn’t be broken, who refused to relinquish her will to fight or her unbridled rage. She licked her lips hungrily, her long tongue twitching like a snake’s at the sight of all that blood and Tione’s murderous eyes as she lay battered and bruised on the ground below.
Argana’s fighting style and brutality were feared even throughout Telskyura. She would drink her opponents’ blood, digging her razor-sharp teeth into their skin and sucking their very life force from their body even as they wailed and cried in pain and despair. It intoxicated her; it was the highest grade of alcohol there was as she feasted on the flesh of the strong.
—Those who survived the rites were simply known as “True Warriors,” and the inhabitants of Telskyura weren’t given aliases as the adventurers of Orario were, save for Argana. She was referred to as Kalima, a cruel, villainous warrior recognized even by Kali herself.
She was a monster who’d go so far as to drink her own blood. And for Tione, there wasn’t a day where she didn’t loathe Argana with every fiber of her being. There wasn’t a single moment when she wasn’t overcome with rage at that Amazon and her tyrannical laugh. And ironically enough, it was during this very training that her second skill, one grounded in all that untapped fury, manifested itself.
It was when Argana rose to Level 5 that her antipathy toward the Amazon took its complete hold. Argana had been on her way out of the arena after one of her battles when Tione had finally asked the question.
“…You don’t feel anything…do you?”
She murdered her peers—those she’d shared the same room with, eaten out of the same pot with, just as Seldas and Tione had. She had drunk their blood, ignoring their moans as she mercilessly dug into their flesh.
Argana had stood there, her body suffering heavy injuries and dripping blood that could either have been hers or her opponent’s, with the strangest expression on her face.
“I consume them to become strong. That is all. What else am I supposed to feel?”
Telskyura had created that answer in her. The secret to power was so simple it was…disappointing.
In order to create Level-4 warriors, you had to kill Level-3s.
In order to create Level-5s, you had to kill Level-4s.
It was a sacrifice that had to be made.
It was like putting rats in a barrel to kill and cannibalize one another until only the strongest remained. That was just the type of country Telskyura was.
And yet even within that country of monsters, the one before her now was the deadliest, most despicable monster of all. That much, Tione was sure of.
“When are you going to let her go? There’s no point mourning someone who’s nothing more than an offering.”
That had made Tione see red, and she’d launched herself at Argana when the other woman was already wounded from battle.
For too long had she been forced to suffer and seethe in Argana’s training sessions, for too long had she been made to kill her sisters in those detestable rites—her eyes and heart were being worn down at an accelerating speed. Though she had sometimes longed for death, she knew that dying would be nothing more than giving in to those she abhorred the most, which was something her anger-fueled instincts would never allow.
And yet, somehow, almost in direct opposition to Tione, her sister, Tiona, had grown all the more cheerful.
She knew why. It was that epic.
The many volumes of that story had nurtured her idiot sister’s sense of idealism. But even as Tione turned its pages, her empty eyes scanning the hollow words, and even as Tiona tried to teach her their meaning, she just couldn’t understand where the enjoyment came from.
When Tiona looked at her with those eyes, so different from that of her peers, it made Tione’s stomach roil.
She didn’t like it.
Maybe even hated it.
“How can you act like that when I’m living in a never-ending hell—?”
The words had crossed her lips so many times at this point, she’d lost count.
There was no question that Tione and Tiona were two entirely different breeds of Amazon. Though they were born of the same generation and raised in the same kingdom of violence, for better or for worse, Tione had raged while Tiona had laughed.
Tione was antagonistic to a fault, even going so far as to curse her own goddess. Kali herself couldn’t get enough of the girl’s abuse, taking everything her beloved child could deal as her eyes twinkled in amusement.
Tiona, on the other hand, was as innocent as they came. Not only was she full of laughter, but she elicited laughs from her goddess, as well. In fact, it became commonplace for Kali to invite the girl to her chambers.
The two sisters were the only ones able to talk back to Kali, making them objects of jealousy among the other Amazons. And, of course, this led to widespread hope that one day, the two of them would be placed in front of each other in the arena.
It happened two years after they’d leveled up to Level 2. It was the day before their seventh birthday and the perfect opportunity for them to reach Level 3, given how their Statuses had grown by leaps and bounds thanks to Argana’s and Bache’s merciless training. Tione could practically feel it on her skin—all too soon she would have to fight her sister.
And no matter how much Tione fought back, no matter how much she rebelled—a single sentence from her sister was all it took to reduce her efforts to nothing.
“Kali, I don’t wanna fight Tione.”
Kali had invited the victors of the day’s rites to her hall to laud their efforts.
There had been no forewarning; her stupid sister had simply blurted it out.
“We wanna leave.”
Even Bache and Argana hadn’t been able to believe their ears, every eye in the room turning directly toward Tiona. Kali, however, had simply narrowed her eyes beneath her mask.
Tione couldn’t remember what she had thought as she stood among the other Amazons. And yet, the very wish she’d put on hold all this time…was about to come true only a few days later.
Was it a whim of their goddess, perhaps? Either way, Kali released them from that arena of stone, and soon they were sailing far, far away from the vast peninsula.
—Why?
Tiona clearly had Kali’s favor; she had given her those volumes of the epic and spoiled her like a child.

But then what had those days spent trapped there even meant? What had the suffering been for, if her dolt of a sister just had to laugh to break them free of this prison? Was this even what she truly wanted?
As Tiona had run about excitedly beside her, taking in the unfamiliar sights of the cerulean sea, the steep precipices of the mountains, the clean air, and the mesmerizingly gorgeous world outside, Tione had cried. And even at the tender age of seven, she’d known enough to understand the tears weren’t from the scenery before her eyes.
Sister versus sister, dusk versus dawn, darkness versus light, rage versus innocence.
How had they turned out so different, though the same blood ran through their veins?
Tione couldn’t stop the feelings from welling up inside her. If she didn’t let them out, scream them out, she might very well have wrung her sister’s neck.
And what she found down there, deep down among the amalgam of emotions flooding through her, was jealousy—of what her sister possessed that she did not.
That was the first time Tione realized she wanted to kill herself.
“…”
Tione grit her teeth as the memories of her past faded from her mind.
She bent forward, the side of her face burning under the crimson light of the setting sun.
“Whoa! Who woulda thought all this’d be here, huh?”
Her thoughts were interrupted as the cheerful voice of her sister, much older than the girl of her memories now, reverberated off the walls of the wide room.
They were in an old, abandoned factory a ways away from the city. Piles of rusted iron and steel lay strewn among battered ship parts, and weeds grew up in patches all across the floor. The darkening light of the sky overhead peered in from the tattered shutters and many holes littering the ceiling.
“We wait here till nightfall then, huh, Tione?”
They’d come here in their search for a place devoid of people, away from Aiz and the rest of their familia.
As twilight’s hue colored the world outside, Tione narrowed her eyes, shooting her happy-go-lucky sister a sharp glare.
“Tiona.”
“What?”
“Let’s practice.”
Tiona looked back in confusion, blinking at her sister’s sudden suggestion. “…You don’t mean now, do you?”
“I do.”
Under normal circumstances, the two would use every chance they could get to spar in Twilight Manor’s courtyard, but these were hardly normal circumstances.
Ignoring her sister’s look of skepticism, Tione placed one foot behind her, falling into position.
“I’m serious. We’re going all out here. There’s no point if we don’t.”
Realizing it was no use arguing, Tiona slowly fell into position, as well.
Thus the duel began in the middle of that old, abandoned factory.
“?”
Tione made the first move.
Stepping forward, she hurled her fist toward her sister.
She held nothing back, letting her anger carry her forward.
It caught Tiona off guard. Though the younger Amazon was able to block it, the sheer power behind the strike made her take a step backward.
“Yeeeoowch! That hurts, Tione!” Tiona cried out.
“I said we’re going all out here!” Tione responded just as loudly, in the same tone she’d used so many times back in Telskyura.
The change was enough for even Tiona to discern, and knowing there was no other way, she began fighting, too.
Their strikes echoed off the walls, the scraps of iron and steel, and the perforated ceiling. The punches and kicks they couldn’t dodge or block tore deep gashes in each other’s skin. Blood dribbled from Tiona’s lip where one of her sister’s strikes had grazed her, and a deep purple bruise was already forming on Tione’s arm where she’d blocked one of her sister’s roundhouse kicks. Their original intention in seeking out the factory—to escape from any watchful eyes—had all but left their heads completely.
“Gngh…!”
At some point during their exchange of fists, Tione’s vision went white with rage.
And with that white heat came all the feelings, all the words she’d been keeping locked away in her heart these many years.
For so long, she’d been using her emotions as strength; now, she finally voiced them.
“You know, I used to hate you.”
Tiona laughed. “As if you need to tell me!”
“I still hate you!”
“Oh really?”
Her lips were curled upward in a familiar smile from her memories.
Even in the middle of their deadly fistfight, she still had that same damn smile.
This only fueled Tione’s anger further.
“Laugh, laugh, laugh! That’s all you ever do! You haven’t changed one bit!” she snapped, unable to control herself and directing a high kick toward her sister’s head.
“You have, though!” Tiona shot back instantly.
“?”
Tione’s eyes widened with a start.
“Ever since we met Loki and the others and you started liking Finn…you’ve changed so much!”
The punches and kicks kept coming with no signs of slowing.
But even as Tione’s strikes carried with them all those tumultuous emotions that’d been weighing her down, Tiona countered every one with a smile.
“That made me so happy!”
“Oh it did, did it?!”
Tione felt the fury rising up inside her, her eyes trembling as she put everything she had into her next strike.
“You make me so angry!!”
“What? I can’t heeeeaaaaaaar you!”
“Damn you!!”
“Grah!!” Even as she let out an incensed roar, Tiona seemed unruffled. Laughing innocently, fighting as though she didn’t have a care in the world, returning her strikes in the midst of her happy, childlike dance.
—She would never change. She would always be the same stupid idiot.
—And whenever Tione looked at that infuriating grin, it would always make her think the same stupid thoughts.
As her rage built and built, the exchange of blows gradually slid into a harmonious dance, and somehow, that stupid, stupid smile found its way onto Tione’s face, as well.
Before she even realized it, both of them were laughing.
She couldn’t even remember why they were there, what they were supposed to be doing—she just enjoyed their fight.
Until.
““Guwaaah?!””
Practically in sync, their fists found each other’s cheeks.
For a single instant, they stood there frozen, like statues, then, finally, their legs gave out beneath them and they crumpled to the ground. The tufts of weeds growing out from the warehouse floor cushioned their descent.
“Another draw…” Tiona sighed.
“Yeah…”
“I’m still in the lead, then, hee-hee-hee.”


















?


“As if! You’ve lost way more times than I have. I’m clearly in the lead.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Uh-huh!”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Uh-huh!”
The girls spread their arms and legs on the ground like two twin starfishes, their bickering morphing into laughter. They were like kids, their voices echoing off the walls of that long-forgotten building.
“Why were we even doing that again?”
“Who cares? It doesn’t matter now.”
Tione could tell without even looking that her sister was still chuckling. She could practically see the gentle smile that had no doubt formed on her face.
The sky above them was brilliant. Its blazing crimson shone through the holes in the ceiling, lighting their faces on fire.
As Tione narrowed her eyes at all that beauty past the warehouse walls, her mind traveled back to another time, another place, where they’d had another conversation just like this.
Yes, it had been back in Telskyura, when her anger toward Tiona had risen to a breaking point just as it had now.
Tiona’s favor with Kali had caught the attention of many of the other Amazons. Theirs had been a world where it didn’t pay to stick out from the crowd, and some of their peers had devised a surprise attack out of jealousy, or perhaps anger. And somehow or another, it had come down to Tione to put an end to it.
Tiona and her raucous laughter had been an eyesore to Tione back then, constantly grating on her nerves. There were times even she’d bad-mouthed the other girl and her ability to chat with Kali like it was nothing. How dare she act all buddy-buddy with the good-for-nothing goddess who’d kept them trapped in this horrible place! It was only natural that someone like Tiona would drive Tione mad.
And yet, still, the other girl was family. She was the only bond Tione had in the cold, unfeeling world of the arena. The one person she could always turn to. And so, she’d protected her without even having to think about it.
She’d ambushed the group of Amazons who’d been planning their attack in the hallway late one night, and she took out the whole lot of them. Some of the women were ranked even higher than her, which led to a vitriolic exchange of verbal abuse followed by a life-and-death game of tag.
By the time she’d returned to her stone room, run completely ragged, Tiona was fast asleep, snoring among her piles of books. This had only irritated Tione all the more, and she’d kicked her right in the middle of her sleeping face. The resulting fight had lasted till morning.
“Why were we even fighting…?”
“…I forget.”
They’d muttered to each other, spent of their energy and splayed out like starfish. The morning sun had shone in on them from through the latticework of their small window.
It was at that moment, as Tiona had laughed amid that soft light, that Tione had realized just how irreplaceable the other girl was in her life. Not that she’d ever say it to her face.
A deluge of emotions swept through her mind as the scenes played out in her head.
Though fury and bloodthirst had been her two best friends in the harsh world of the arena, she had had emotion, too.
There was something nostalgic about those memories, and she felt her cares and reserves slowly begin to slip away.
“Hey, Tione.”
The sound of her own name brought her out of her reverie.
Sitting up, she looked over to see Tiona do the same.
“What are we going to do if…if Kali makes us fight each other?” her sister asked as their gazes met.
It was what they’d escaped all those years ago—a fight to the death between sisters and a resurrection of the rites.
“Fight,” Tione responded casually. “And I’d kill you. Or at least I’d try. If not, you’d kill me.” She didn’t even flinch, relaying the words as if they were simply a matter of fact.
Tiona’s face grew solemn. “I don’t think it’ll come to that, though. No way.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Because of Argana and Bache. Argana’s too attached to you, like Bache is to me. If the two of us are gonna be killed, then…I’m positive they’d wanna be the ones to do it.”
And it was true—they’d taken a risk going up against Loki Familia, attacking Lefiya and the others, and even taking a hostage. It sounded just like something the coldhearted, murderous Argana of her memories would do.
After a moment, Tione pulled the high potions she’d already prepared from the pouch around her waist, tossing one toward Tiona. As the other girl caught it handily, she downed one herself.
“You doin’ okay?”
“Huh? Whaddaya mean?” Tiona started, already having guzzled down her high potion and cocking her head to the side curiously. It took a moment, but then she seemed to infer what Tione meant. She glanced down at her hands, tightening and loosening her fists. Finally, she looked back up at Tione with a nod.
“What do we do now?”
“Nothing until nightfall. Rest, I guess, or do whatever.” Tione shrugged as she made to get to her feet but found herself stuck quite firmly in her cross-legged position thanks to Tiona’s grip on her arm.
She immediately glowered at the other girl, who merely responded with her typical laugh.
“It’s been so long—maybe we could take a nap together? Like we used to?”
“…What?!”
“So we can save our energy for tonight!”
You’re one to talk about energy, Tione wanted to respond, but she lost her chance as Tiona kept talking.
“We used to do it all the time!”
“…Yeah, but only while traveling. You don’t have much of a choice when you need to sleep outside, and you’re like a human space heater!”
“But…!” Tiona frowned.
Tione’s eyebrows rose as she remembered her frustration. “You’re the worst sleeping partner, you know that? I can’t even begin to count the number of times you’ve smacked me in the face.”
“You’ve hit me, too, you know!”
“Yeah, in retaliation!!”
But even as the bickering began anew, it wasn’t long before Tione decided to appease her sister and rest beside her until night fell. Wearily, she watched as Tiona found a dust-covered piece of cloth off in a corner of the warehouse and happily wrapped the two of them up inside it.
“Nighty-night.”
“You better wake up later…”
Tione could barely hold in her sigh, her back against one of the piles of old scrap metal as she wondered how in the world things had come to this. The sigh of grief changed to a sigh of acceptance, though, as Tiona snuggled in beside her, resting her head on the older girl’s shoulder. Soon, she was snoring softly—another source of irritation, but Tione simply put up with it.
It felt just like before, after they’d left Telskyura and had traveled around from country to country, city to city.
They’d had no choice but to sleep out under the cold sky, no roof over their heads save the occasional rocky outcropping or forest overhang. And even back then, Tiona had always fallen asleep first.
Tione let her eyelids fall.
?Somehow, she knew the two of them would be dreaming the same dream.
?
Nothing but the magnificent expanse of nature awaited the two sisters after their departure from Telskyura.
Oceans, mountains, forests, valleys, hills, endless fields of flowers and grasses—they’d never laid eyes upon any of it in that stone prison of the arena. It was a brand-new world to them.
It took their breath away, and they trembled with the rush of emotion.
They could never have imagined that the world would be so vast.
They had never dreamed the sky could be so beautiful.
Back then, it had only been as wide the arena, and they had loathed its very existence.
For Tione, who was still at a loss as to how she was supposed to feel being separated from Telskyura, it did much to restore the life and color to her raging heart and strained eyes, almost like water poured onto a desiccated wildflower. Together with her ever-enthusiastic sister, she found herself finally, ever so slightly, able to smile.
And every time Tiona saw this, she’d break out in a wide grin.
Beyond simply allowing the two of them to leave the country, Kali had also taken pity on them. Not only had she released them from their contract, she’d also left their Statuses untouched. This meant they were able to forge new contracts with any other god, combining their old Status with the new. This was also the only reason the two young girls were able to get by for so long on their travels, as they still had the enhanced power of their Statuses to rely upon. Kali had explained this by way of a “parting gift for her two adorable daughters,” but to Tione it was too little, too late compared to how she’d treated them these many years.
Though the two girls had learned how to overcome just about everything through that miserable hell of an arena, their knowledge was limited to pure combat, and there was still much they didn’t know. Money was difficult, of course, but even something as simple as human interaction was an ordeal. Tione had lost track of the amount of times Tiona had gotten swindled by some passing peddler. Not that they didn’t always retaliate and get the money back, but still. From a survival perspective, the two excelled, to the point where “feral children” could have been an adequate phrase to describe them. As it happened, Tiona did teach her sister some Koine, at least enough that she could get by, shameful as it was.
The first time they came across another “tribe” similar to their own was in a small fishing village along the sea—much like Meren, actually. Accepting requests to hunt down monsters was about the only way they could make enough money to get by, and so, despite continuous objection from Tione, the two decided to temporarily join the local familia. This was what allowed them to update their Statuses and what had helped them level up to Level 3 during their stay in the village.
Be that as it may, Tione was never quite able to open up to the more erratic, pleasure-loving gods and goddesses, nor the members who made up their familias. And so, they made each other a promise that after a year of various bodyguard and labor duties (for there was a one-year rule when it came to converting to a new familia), they would revoke their contracts and leave the familia.
This was a tradition they continued, no matter what countries or what cities they visited. Though the gods and familia members might beg to keep Tione’s and her sister’s strength for themselves, Tione never listened. In fact, her impertinence often had her butting heads with her other familia members, and more than once they ended up leaving their familias on not-so-great terms.
The only person Tione would permit to stay at her side was Tiona.
She wouldn’t acknowledge those who weren’t strong, and even those who somehow earned her acceptance weren’t allowed close, aside from her sister. Perhaps it was her residual trauma from Telskyura—this refusal to form connections with anyone save the sister who’d survived with her. She was scared.
As the two of them earned glimpses into these many new worlds, they made all kinds of discoveries. And yet, never did they have anyone besides each other.
It was no different from their time in Telskyura. They refused to open up their hearts to anyone besides their other halves. No matter how far they traveled across the vastness of the lower realm, their world never expanded beyond that of their dual existence.
Tione wasn’t sure what her warmhearted sister felt on this matter, but whatever she may have thought, Tiona stuck by her side. It was almost as if she understood innately that Tione was the only one she could turn to.
Tiona would never let go of her sister’s hand, no matter what happened.
“We’ll be leaving again soon, right, Tione?”
“We will, yeah. Why? You don’t want to?”
“Well, no, but…it’s just that the god here is so nice, and…and so is everybody else, so…”
And then she’d laughed. The same laugh always followed her.
“But being with you is all I need, so…it’s fine!”
The relief Tione had felt then, along with the feeling of being pushed out of her world, couldn’t have been just her imagination.
Tiona was the sun.
There was nothing more dazzlingly radiant, nor more frustratingly ingratiating than her. Though the idiotic grin she always wore grated on Tione’s nerves, the longer she looked at her, the looser her tightly clenched fist became.
Just accept it already. She saved you.
Sure, they’d fight over the stupidest, most trivial things, then eat their meals together as though nothing had happened, but as Tione sat next to that brilliant shining smile, sometimes she’d even find a smile forming on her face. This was fine. So long as she had her idiot of a sister, she’d be fine. As someone who’d known nothing of forming connections with others, Tione was able to adjust to this two-person world thanks to the sister at her side.
And so their aimless journey continued.
It was a paradox—two girls who cared not about being alone traveled in search of a place to call home. They joined one familia after another, training and developing the two vessels that were their bodies, leaving behind those they met along the way, all the while being careful not to let themselves get too comfortable in one place. This went on for quite some time as they continued their strange, aimless quest for something they themselves didn’t even seek.
It was five years into this journey.
That the two sisters decided to stow away on a ship and travel to the “Center of the World”—the Labyrinth City, Orario.
?
“C’moooooon…it’s just a way to kill time, is all!”
“…”
The cherub goddess’s face twisted into a frown at Lefiya’s refusal to open her mouth.
She’d only just awoken a short time ago after Kali and Bache whisked her away, and she was currently in some sort of cave-like recess no larger than a typical pub. As Lefiya looked around at the black stone, she had no clue as to where she could be.
It’s humid…Near the lake, then? No, the ocean, perhaps?
She licked her lips, trying to sort out her surroundings without being noticed. Though she couldn’t be sure of the time, from the stiffness in her muscles, she could hazard a guess that she’d been out at least five hours. In fact, it felt very similar to taking rest in the rooms of the Dungeon. Night was surely drawing near.
There were five others in the room besides herself—Kali, who was sitting cross-legged in front of her, and four guards. From what she could tell, everyone was at least her level or higher, and chains had been carelessly wound around her wrists.
They’re not strong, either…They’re normal chains, not mythril or some other type of ingot. I could probably break them if I wanted…
Her movements weren’t even restricted. If it were just these restraints holding her back, then she’d surely be able to escape.
“Don’t even think about it, missy. I’m sure you’ve noticed already, but one move outta you, and these girls’ll be all over ya.”
“…”
“I don’t recommend tryin’ to whisper out a spell or whatever else you may be plannin’, either,” the goddess warned with a smile, almost as though reading her mind.
Lefiya didn’t respond.
“They’re some of the best warriors in Telskyura, too, you know. They could pick up on a mouse tiptoeing a kirlo away, and they’re highly skilled in crushing chants. You wouldn’t wanna have that pretty throat of yours pulverized, would you? I doubt you wanna see what it’s like to be barely able to breathe as you drown in your own blood, yeah?”
“…Guh?!”
A chill ran up Lefiya’s spine.
The battle-hardened Amazons had spent enough days in the arena to understand how to stifle a mage’s spell. Mercilessly, without hesitation.
Lefiya’s face paled at the thought. Kali continued with a sage nod.
“But if you just sit tight like a good little girl, you’ll come out right as rain, yeah? As soon as this is all over, you’ll be free to go.”
“I’m…bait, aren’t I? For Miss Aiz and the others…Misses Tiona and Tione?”
“Maybe you are…maybe you aren’t,” Kali teased, slippery as an eel.
This was what she got for thinking she was ready to level up to Level 4—kidnapped by her enemies and completely powerless to do anything. Her heart dropping in despair, she said a silent word of apology to her familia companions, all the while glaring at the goddess in front of her.
“But so long as you’re askin’ about Tiona and Tione, maybe you can tell me a bit about ’em.”
“…Like I would tell you anything!”
“Hey, I’m not huntin’ for weak points or anything like that! I just wanna learn a bit about ’em, you know? After they left Telskyura and all,” Kali explained, giving Lefiya’s cheek a few smacks with her tiny hand.
Lefiya winced, pulling away with a whimper as Kali continued to smile.
“What’re they like now that they’ve settled down, huh? A mother wants to know!”
Lefiya found herself at a loss, not knowing how to proceed before the childlike goddess’s affection-filled eyes.
Finally, after much thought, she opened her mouth, unable to take Kali’s penetrating gaze any longer.
“I’m afraid I…can’t talk about more than trivial matters, but…”
“S’fine! It’s the trivial stuff I wanna hear about!” the goddess urged, keeping Lefiya talking.
And talk she did…It was a rambling, somewhat incoherent string of stories, everything from her jealousy at Tiona and Aiz’s bond to Tione’s incessant courting of their captain, Finn.
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!! You…you can’t be serious! Tione? In love?! What a crock! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”
“It…it’s not quite that funny…” Lefiya remarked as she watched the tiny goddess, her hands on the ground and clapping her feet together in a simulation of applause, her undergarments bared to the world. Considering the lovelorn version of Tione was the only Tione she’d ever known, Lefiya found the tears of mirth in Kali’s eyes to be a bit much.
Once the spasms of laughter finally subsided, Kali removed her hands from her belly and righted herself.
“So that little runaway of mine has fallen in love…Huh! She really has changed. Here I thought she’d be a barren witch the rest of her life. Ha! I guess she’s a different breed than us after all.”
There was an emotion behind her words, similar to the affection Lefiya had felt from her earlier. Perhaps there was some way to persuade her against all this, appeal to the goddess’s emotions, and keep this senseless fight from coming to pass. She did truly seem to care for her followers.
“Erm…” she began, these thoughts running through her head. “Do you…really need to do this? I highly doubt Misses Tiona and Tione want to fight. If you could possibly show them some mercy…”
Kali’s face was calm beneath her demonic mask, and the slightest of smiles played across her face.
“No can do,” she replied curtly, eliciting a jolt of surprise from Lefiya. “I descended to this world seeking war and bloodshed. Don’t get me wrong—I love my children. But even they can’t come between me and my life’s one true pleasure. So I’m gonna hafta decline.”
“…!”
The terribly honest words sparked a flame in Lefiya’s belly. They made her forget where she was, and a shout built up inside her throat before bursting past her lips.
“Then you’re the reason why Telskyura is nothing but a land of death! That’s why so many people have died!”
“Whoa, whoa, simmer down, would ya? Telskyura was like that even before I came along. We gods highly condemn distortin’ a country’s history and culture for our selfish whims…That’d be a crime against the mortal world! Not to mention your kids would resent you for it, yeah?” the goddess explained.
Lefiya felt her anger start to subside. “Oh…”
“The only thing I did when I got there was bequeath ’em my blessing.”
No longer able to look Kali in the eye, she turned her gaze to the Amazons around her, who offered not a word of opposition. Their silence acted as a show of approval—the loyalty they’d pledged to the goddess before her.
“Child of Loki, do you know why I let Tiona and her sister go?”
“…?”
“Because they were the first ones. No one had ever requested to leave Telskyura.”
“!”
“Reject none who come, chase none who leave…If you wanna skedaddle, I have no business keepin’ you. Of course, you’d have to give up all the benefits from my blessing as collateral, but that’s how things go, you know?”
No one else had ever requested to leave, neither before them nor after. Every other Amazon had remained in Telskyura, where their days of ceaseless combat had continued. After all, what was the point in putting time and effort into a bunch of spineless wimps who’d give up before they’d even started?
Everything was the will of her children. As much as possible, Kali had tried to make Telskyura the holy land of Amazons they wanted it to be, or at least that’s how she put it.
“Did you confuse me for an affectionate goddess, Child of Loki?”
“…”
“I’m no different from every other god and goddess out there, not even some everlasting child-saving goddess of the hearth or what have you. All of us came down to this world seeking the excitement of our own. We’re nothing but hedonists.”
An impish smile formed on Kali’s face as she rose to her feet. Then, entrusting Lefiya to the watchful gaze of her Amazonian guards, she made to leave.
“W-wait! What is…what is it you’re trying to do?” Lefiya called out reflexively, realizing that her attempt to persuade the goddess had failed.
“Trying to do…? Hmm, a lot of things, I suppose, but if I had to name one…” Kali came to a stop, red hair swishing as she turned around. “Create a future of war. I want to see it with my eyes…The perfect warrior born from the very limits of ceaseless bloodshed.”
As Lefiya’s eyes widened in horror, Kali’s face broke into a smile.
?
The sky was tinged with bluish shadow.
Night had settled over the port town of Meren. Passing clouds hid the twinkle of stars and the outline of the moon as they drifted ceaselessly along. Every so often, a gap would appear, and the moon’s golden light would drift through the haze to illuminate the city below.
“It’s time…We should get ready.”
“Right.”
Their nap finished, Tione and Tiona gazed out across the city and darkened night sky from the vantage point of their abandoned factory.
The meeting time Argana had given them was fast approaching, and they began to prepare themselves for their confrontation with Kali—their chance to sever the ties to their past once and for all.
“Hey, Tione.”
“What is it?”
“What were you and Loki talkin’ about yesterday?”
The question came as such a surprise that Tione found herself unable to move for a moment.
“…You’re asking me now?”
“Well, I got curious!”
Curious, indeed, Tione thought as she let out a sigh. She was no better than a cat! She fended off her sister’s question with a flippant wave of her hand.
“It’s nothing, seriously. Don’t even ask.”
“Oh really?”
“Yep. I’m gonna go check out the road into town.” She changed the subject before unconcernedly making her way out of the factory.
However, rather than checking out the road like she’d said, she came to a stop in a small alley, leaning back against the wall and turning her gaze toward the sky.
—“Have a drink with me, won’tcha, Tione?”
It had been last night, after her crushing defeat in the fight against Argana.
Tione had been out on the balcony by herself, unable to be by Aiz and Tiona any longer, when Loki had approached her on her way back from the pub.
“…Sorry. Afraid I’m not much in the mood.”
“’Zat so. You know, Tione, if there’s somethin’ on your mind, you can always—”
“Come to you? Don’t bother. You don’t act like a patron deity any other time, so stop trying now.” Her words were harsh, even more so than usual, a reflection of the damage her earlier defeat against Argana had done to her heart. She simply couldn’t bear it.
Loki didn’t seem bothered. “It’s all the same to me. But maybe you’d be better off thinkin’ of Finn.”
Tione felt a chill run down her spine at the mention of the captain’s name.
“The way you’re actin’…reminds me of when I first met you. You’re even more on edge than you were then.”
“…”
“So try to think about when you first met Finn,” Loki continued with a little laugh at the way Tione struggled to keep a straight face. “I like ya much better all mellowed out and cute-like, y’know?”
—I’m glad I can entertain you so much!
Tione started to snap back, but she couldn’t seem to get the words out of her mouth. Instead, she simply walked away, dragging her feet along behind her.
“…Captain…” Remembering the scene, Tione murmured softly.
An intense feeling of dread had settled over her, as though the ground beneath her was shaking. No, she couldn’t look back now. She’d come too far already, or at least that’s what she desperately told herself.
“…”
But her despondent sigh didn’t go unheeded.
Her sister had crept away unnoticed and returned to the abandoned factory, mimicking Tione by turning her eyes skyward.
It felt so long ago—the day the two of them first arrived in Orario. The day their two-person world came to an end.
She could still remember how that soaring white tower and those lofty city walls had loomed over her head.
It had taken them more than a few days to finally make it inside the city; Tione had gotten so irritated they’d almost given up entirely. It seemed they were really cracking down on those with blessings from outside the city in an attempt to weed out potential spies, and not even travelers like them, with no affiliation to any familia, were free from scrutiny. And certainly the sudden arrival of twin Level 3s—second-tier adventurers—with no patron deity or familia to their name, was a little hard to swallow.
The Guild had only allowed them entrance to the city on one condition: that they join one of the city’s familias. The condition was born from an ulterior motive—a dog collar, so to speak, to ensure the two Level 3s didn’t slip away.
Getting in will be easy but getting out will be a nightmare. That was how it had been explained to Tiona, which meant her first impression of Orario was nothing more than a bothersome cage. No doubt, it had been the same for Tione, and yet, Orario turned out to be anything but boring.
Barely a day had passed after they set foot in the city, and already they’d been swarmed. News about their arrival had spread like wildfire, with every god and goddess of a Dungeon-type familia flocking to snatch up the two beautiful Level-3 Amazons for themselves.
It was the Dungeon, after all, that had drawn Tiona and her sister to Orario in the first place. Though they’d left Telskyura, Amazonian blood still flowed through their veins, and they were anxious to test their skills against its many floors. In order for them to enter the Dungeon, however—or perhaps more accurately, in order to register as adventurers and obtain the full support and money-exchanging privileges of the Guild—they’d need to join a familia.
They’d never been entirely particular as to the familias they’d temporarily joined in the past. All changed, however, thanks to the sheer number of familias that came to scout them now. Crowds would form outside their cheap hotel. It grew so intense at times that fights began to break out, as no one was willing to give up their chance at claiming the two Amazons.
As Tione grew more and more incensed at the riotous clamoring of the scouts, Tiona stepped out in front of the crowd of adventurers, shouting as loud as she could—
“You want us? You gotta beat us!”
—and promptly instigating a free-for-all, with everyone giving it their all to best and bag the twins.
Of course, everyone there ended up losing miserably, even those who’d attempted to cheat the system and wait until the two Amazons had grown tired from previous battles. They were just too good, too used to the lifestyle of combat back in Telskyura, and not even the first-tier adventurers of Orario stood a chance.
This continued for some time, with adventurers knocking on their door for days to come, though mostly it was their defeated opponents coming back for more. To this day five years later, their deeds were still spoken of, mostly with the pure fear they had created in the citizens’ hearts—“Oh, shit! An Amazon!!”
It seemed that no familia would be strong enough to best the two Amazonian twins.
In fact, it was just when Tiona and Tione were beginning to lament the ineptitude of the supposedly great “adventurers of Orario” that Loki Familia showed up.
Tione had hated them immediately.
From their goddess, already panting in lustful excitement at their revealing clothes, to the feeble-looking prum with that stupid smirk on his face, to the stunningly beautiful elf staring at them with one eye closed, to the dwarf observing them in amusement as he stroked his beard—she couldn’t stand the way they looked at her and her sister, visibly sizing them up.
“Heard there was a pair of lively Amazons over here.”
“We’ve killed so many of our brethren, and you still want us to join you?”
That’s what she’d asked them as a test, trying to scare them.
“A mistake that came to pass only because we weren’t there to watch over you. Though you don’t seem all too concerned about it,” the prum captain—Finn—answered, almost sympathetically.
—This bastard!
Everything about him had rubbed her the wrong way. In fact, it probably wouldn’t have been possible to make a worse first impression.
The prum called to his dwarf friend, confirming the conditions of battle and that they’d have to defeat the two to induct them into the familia. To this, Tione was quick to reply.
“You’re the boss, aren’t you? Then stop letting others do your dirty work for you! Fight me! Or are you too scared, you cowardly prum?!”
Finn looked taken aback for a moment before that same smile from earlier returned.
“Saucy little lass, ain’t she? And here I thought Bete was bad! Are all the young folk this hotheaded nowadays?”
“I can’t say you were much different when we first met, Gareth.”
As the dwarf and elf murmured behind him, Finn took center, consenting to a one-on-one battle with Tione. Next to her and as spirited as ever, Tiona awaited her own fight with Gareth.
Tione had thought nothing of the weak, feeble prum she saw back then. There was no way, after all, she could lose to someone so tiny. And besides, while she might have fought plenty of opponents tougher than her out on the road, none of them came close to the monsters Argana and Bache had been. This had not only made her careless but had greatly narrowed her point of view, as well.
The renown of the so-called top-tier adventurers of Orario meant nothing to her.
And she didn’t know this prum’s name, either.
“?”
The battle was over in an instant. Grabbing her arm, the tiny prum sent her flying through the air.
Even as she ran at him again for a second attempt, fury coursing through her, the results were the same. She was completely, thoroughly trounced. And Tiona didn’t fare much better against that Gareth character, either, having been promptly flung to the ground.
As Tione sat there on the stone cobbles, entirely dumbfounded, the prum warrior approached.
“That’s it, then. You’re to join our familia.”
She looked up to see those calm, composed eyes gazing down at her, and for the first time in her life, she felt something grow inside her. Something she’d never felt before as her heart thudded loudly in her chest.
Tione began to change after that.
Meeting Finn had birthed a change inside her.
By beating her so thoroughly, that detestable prum had punched a hole into her heart. And in that hole, love formed.
It wasn’t an uncommon thing for Amazons to get their hearts stolen by powerful men who could best even them. They all talked of one day hoping to give birth to such a man, and Tione had been no different.
If Tione had had to come up with one thing about Finn she didn’t like, it was that he was too intellectual, not wild or rugged enough—but even those thoughts would betray her, as with just one spell, Finn could turn himself instantly into a crazed warrior. Hidden deep inside him was the most ruthless soldier of all.
Shit, he’s the one—!!
As he fulfilled more and more of her requirements, she came to realize that he was truly her ideal man, a heroic warrior.
And the more she learned about him, the longer she stood by his side, the more of her heart he stole. He was so kind, so brilliant, so strong. It had to be fate! It simply had to be!
Thus, the young Amazonian girl who’d never known anything but fighting fell in love for the first time.
And with that, she revealed the blushing young maiden she’d long kept hidden within her.
“Captain!…What…what kind of girl do you like?”
“Hmm…I suppose someone who’s upfront and honest would be enough for me. Though if I had to say more, perhaps someone graceful?”
Her new life as part of Loki Familia changed her. It wasn’t just consciously, either, but subconsciously, too—the same way her sister influenced her. And though it may have made others laugh at her, she did everything in her power to be exactly what Finn wanted. Even going so far as to clean up her dirty mouth and unrefined mannerisms. She even let her hair grow long, all the way down to her waist, in hopes it would make her appear more scholarly, much like the high elf constantly by Finn’s side, Riveria.
An all-new Amazon, with love burning even brighter than that of the greatest of lovers, burst onto the scene. But this newfound love wasn’t the only thing about her that changed. She started to look forward to the opportunities each new day brought with it. She began to smile and laugh enough to annoy even her own sister.
As far as battles went, the Dungeon was enough to get her blood boiling. The very first expedition they participated in was enough of an adventure to propel both Tione and her sister to Level 4. It was within that underground labyrinth that she learned the value of teamwork—a world where not even she and her sister, let alone her by herself, could have survived—and her first bonds with other people began to form.
And then there was the mysterious girl.
Aiz Wallenstein. The “Sword Princess.” A beautiful girl with golden hair and golden eyes, whose features rivaled even those of the gods. Tione hadn’t been able to believe her ears when she was told this girl held the fastest record for leveling up. Aiz had reached Level 2 even before Tione and Tiona, which was saying something considering the two of them had been killing things since the day they were born. In a single year, the young blond swordswoman had reached Level 2, something Tione and her sister had taken five years to achieve. Finn and the others were already proof enough of the strangeness of Orarian adventurers—this Aiz girl was practically a heretic.
Even so, Aiz rarely interacted with the rest of the familia. If they did see her, it was usually out in the manor’s courtyard, training with her sword, or disappearing into the Dungeon unnoticed despite there being no expedition to join. The only ones who’d said more than a few words to her were Loki, Riveria, and the other elites.
In the beginning, Tione didn’t have any particular desire to approach the young, otherworldly girl. Tiona, however, was quite different.
“That girl Aiz. She reminds me a lot of you way back when.”
“What?!”
But Tiona had only laughed, like always, at the skepticism on Tione’s face.
“No way I can let that slide! I’m gonna be friends with her!”
Which was how, little by little, the three of them had formed a small group. Though Aiz had been hesitant to accept Tiona’s (aggressive) advances at first, it didn’t take long for the smiles to start. And soon, they’d even taken on another member—Lefiya and her undying affection for Aiz.
Tione had found someone to love.
She’d found companions.
She’d found a place to call home.
The despair, the strife, and the annoyances of her past had all been leading to this day.
It was by telling herself this that she’d been able to make a clean break from her past, or so she thought. It had seemed, for the most part, like she had.
Until now—
“It seems like before somehow…just the two of us.”
The words Tiona had muttered earlier that day echoed in the back of her mind.
“…”
Tione turned her head forward, breaking free of her memories of Orario.
Not allowing herself to get lost any further in her thoughts, she made her way back to the abandoned factory.
“Let’s go, Tiona.”
“Got it.”
Thus, the two sisters set forth, to cut their ties with fate and to free themselves from their past.
“Miss Aiz! One of the fishermen saw some Amazons down by the pier!”
Back in Meren proper, Aiz was out searching for any traces of Tione, Tiona, or Kali Familia when Narfi came bounding toward her.
“…Keep a lookout, then, by the pier. If you see anything, shoot something into the sky—a light bullet or magic or something.”
“Roger that!”
“You’re not to engage them yourself. If you see anything, wait for Riveria or me before taking any action,” she instructed, somehow giving a rare complete set of commands.
Narfi and the other girls nodded in confirmation before quickly running off to relay the news to Riveria and the rest of the familia.
“I hope they’re…okay…”
Aiz turned her gaze skyward for a moment, thinking of her friends, before dashing off herself down the bustling street.
“According to the guards stationed along the city walls, there’s been no sign of anyone resembling Tione or her sister…nor any members of Kali Familia,” Riveria reported.
“Which means they’re still hidin’ in the city…or maybe…the lake?” Loki mumbled. The two of them were in their hotel “base camp,” out on the balcony with its panoramic view of the entire city.
“Additionally, it seems Aiz and the others have gotten wind of a possible lead down near the pier.”
“That does it, then! I’ll head to the fishing pier myself.” Loki nodded as she turned away from the balcony’s railing.
Riveria took a few steps toward her, backlit by the light of the hotel room.
“We’d best abandon our original mission. We’ve far too many matters to attend to even without our search for the violas.”
“Huh? Oh yeah. Thanks to Aizuu, that’s all covered. The strings’re all comin’ together,” Loki remarked flippantly.
Riveria sharply turned her head. “What?”
But all she got from Loki was a wave of her hand and a nonchalant “Tell ya later!” as the goddess went back to staring out across the city. “Though we still don’t know just who’s pulling those strings…” Loki muttered, eyes narrowing against the dark expanse.
“It’s quite nice watching the ants scurry about from on high, hmm?” Ishtar mused from atop her decadent chair on the highest floor of the city’s most extravagant hotel. “Taking out even one of Loki’s top men would bring with it significant advantages. As much as it might incur their resentment, she has no choice but to turn her attention toward those hillbilly hicks…And if that lot becomes useless, so be it—I’ll simply find someone else, even if it does delay my plans.”
The goddess curled her lips deliciously around the end of her kiseru pipe, gazing down upon the players of her game. Outside the window and past the haze of purple smoke rising up from between her teeth, the lake and port town lay dormant in the moonlight.
“Lady Ishtar…”
“Back already, Aisha? Is there a problem?”
“I was on my way to do as you’d instructed, but…this? What is this?”
A long-legged Amazon appeared by her side. Back from her report, she gave a tense, dubious look.
“Ah, this is your first time seeing one of these, is it?…Truthfully, I don’t know much about them, either. Only that they have some kind of connection to those constantly sneaking around.”
“…”
“You have something to say, Aisha?” Ishtar’s amethyst eyes narrowed with a bewitching edge, and Aisha sucked in her breath. Quite suddenly, her right hand gave a twitch, almost as if she was remembering something, then she yanked her gaze away.
“…I shall return to my duties.”
“See that you do.”
Ishtar watched the Amazon leave the room, a hint of a smile playing on her lips as she placed the kiseru back on her tongue.
“Lenaaaaa! Did you bring my armorrrr?”
—The voice came from a large room a short ways away from Ishtar’s top-floor suite.
The enormous Phryne was meeting with another Amazon who’d just returned from Orario.
“Your…your axes, too…”
“It took you so longggggg. Are you really ssssso incompetent? You evennnn left yesterday! You should have had plenty of timmmmme.”
“It…it took time to get out of the city! I had to use that…that company who’s getting us in and out…I’m sorry!” her younger colleague responded fearfully.
Phryne grabbed the bag of equipment out of the girl’s grip with one hand. The heavy vermilion armor glinted in the light as she eased open the bag’s tie.
“Hee-hee-hee…Thissssss time…this time I will crush you, Sword Princessssss,” she hissed. The smile on her face was a mixture of exhilaration and unbridled rage. She threw a glance toward the side of the room. “Prepare yourselfffff, Haruhime!”
“…Yes, ma’am.”
The girl responded faintly from beneath her white veil.
Arms across her chest and eyes glued to the floor, she followed solemnly behind the giant woman.
“Come on out, my little Tione…”
Argana’s voice cut through the darkness. Her eyes glittered with a kind of reptilian ferocity, bound hair swaying to and fro.
Behind her, the rest of her fellow Amazons stood biding their time in the lake’s breeze.
“Meditating, Bache? That’s rare for you,” Kali called out from her place on the floor.
“…”
Away from where Argana stood impatiently, Kali and Bache were in a large stone cavern, larger than the cave in which Lefiya was currently being held captive.
“You can’t wait to fight her, can you?”
“…”
“Heh, I can see it on your face.”
Bache opened her eyes wordlessly, her mouth still hidden by her ever-present neckerchief. In those eyes burned a desire for battle, the same as the one in her sister’s.
“I look forward to it, too…Let the feast begin.” Kali’s lips parted in demented laughter. Her voice echoed off the cave walls before melting into the shadows.
Unknowing of the matters at hand, the lake waters trembled silently, cresting against the cliff face.
The long night was about to begin.