Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (LN) - Volume 17 - Chapter 9

Chapter Nine: Outsider Theory 

Hidden by the cover of darkness, we started to follow the plan I had laid out. 
First, those skilled at concealment or light on their feet—that being Raphtalia in the first instance, Rishia in the second, and then Raph-chan, Chris, Glass, and Sadeena—would go ahead in concealed status to enter the underground facility where Kizuna was likely being held. As the backup unit in case anything went wrong, Itsuki, Shildina, Filo, Ethnobalt, and I would wait outside. At the same time, L’Arc, Therese, and S’yne had gone to launch the diversion and capture the dragon hourglass. 
“It’s time,” Raphtalia said. 
“Go ahead,” I told her. Of course, I had cast Liberation Aura X on everyone before they left. L’Arc and his party had definitely set off for the dragon hourglass with a spring in their step. I’d just told them to get the job done. 
Raphtalia and her party looked at me. I nodded. 
“Hey, what’s going on here?! Uwha—!” Raphtalia quickly suppressed a guard that looked up at the light as she opened the door by knocking him out, binding him, and rolling him into the shadows. Then she proceeded inside the building. She made it look easy, to be honest. I recalled other times when she used her infiltration abilities to save people. All sorts of problems had occurred during those incidents, but we always made it through. 
 
About five minutes into the operation, searchlight-style beams came from the castle. At the same time, the Raph-chan icon appeared in my field of vision. Was Raph-chan asking to be called back? 
“C’mon, Raph,” I said. 
“Raph!” Raph-chan said, popping out in front of my eyes. “Raph! Raph, raph!” 
“Something happened?” I asked. 
“Raph!” she confirmed, nodding. Just then, some huge firework-like lights went up in the direction of the dragon hourglass. S’yne was using her ability to watch both Raphtalia and me from a distance, and she was relaying the information to L’Arc. The firework-like magic was the signal they were starting the attack on the dragon hourglass. 
I glanced behind me to check on everyone else, then dashed to the entrance to the underground maze and went inside. Itsuki and the others followed behind. 
The underground facility was a well-maintained—no, especially “fantasy”-like—concrete building. It looked like it was just corridors. 
“Any observation devices . . . have already been destroyed by Raphtalia and the others,” I noted. The remains of magical devices of some sort could be seen scattered about. This was a time for emergency measures, so it didn’t matter if we triggered any such devices anymore. I deployed Shooting Star Wall and we plowed onward, simply ignoring any traps. 
We’d only waited for about five minutes, so it hadn’t been that long yet. 
I was sure we’d catch up with them pretty soon. 
 
Even as I had that thought . . . “Raph!” Raph-chan said, calling us to a stop in a place, presenting us with the choice of going down another level. There was a door in front of us. It was silent. 
“Raph, raph!” Raph-chan said. She was telling me not to touch the door, clearly. 
“Is there something on the other side?” I asked. 
“Raph! Raph!” she said emphatically. Then she pointed at the ground and repeatedly jumped up and down. “Raph! Raph!” This time her intonation was different. Like she was saying . . . “portal shield”? 
“A teleportation trap, perhaps?” Itsuki muttered, almost exactly at the same time I thought of the answer myself. 
“That’s right. Upon entering this room, they were immediately sent somewhere else,” Ethnobalt said. If you understand what she’s saying, maybe speak up sooner! 
“That’s right!” said Filo, adding insult to injury. 
“Okay then. I’d thought we could muscle our way through whatever traps came up, but a teleportation trap is a different matter,” I pondered. If this had been a pit trap or something like that, it wouldn’t have given Raphtalia and her party any trouble. We didn’t even know if her instincts had worked here, or if they had failed her. 
Still, with the sirens ringing out like this, Raphtalia and the others must have been stripped of their concealment and the trap teleported them away. 
“Here goes nothing,” I said and reached to open the door. 

“Raph?!” Was Raph-chan surprised by something? That meant . . . the trap was responding to us. It was likely designed to activate across a wide area and catch up everything within its range. 

The ground flashed, and in an instant everything around us changed. 
Fair enough. Pretty much the only way to deal with this would be to run from the effect of the trap the moment it was activated. But that was hard to do in a narrow passageway. 
“Mr. Naofumi!” I heard someone shout. I looked in the direction of the voice. There was a Japanese-looking guy holding a weapon like a violin, five women, and Raphtalia and Glass standing opposed to them. 
“So you’re the hero with a holy weapon from another world,” the guy with the musical instrument muttered. He was wearing clothing that was mainly black, black hair, and had an uppity-looking attitude. He was likely in his teens. Rather than the youthful coolness of Ren, he had a slightly more mature-type cool about him. 
To put it more nastily, I didn’t like the look of his face at all. 
These guys always liked black. Were they all mentally stuck in middle school? My experience up until now was telling me he was going to be immature. This looked like it might be a bigger pain than expected. 
“And you must be this Miyaji guy, huh? The one selected in this world by the musical instrument vassal weapon?” I said. 
“My, my . . . an honor to meet you. I am Hidemasa Miyaji, the musical instrument hero,” he replied, bowing his head. He just came off as false and slimy. That look on his face, like he saw through everything, really got me riled. Kyo had been similar, with his belief in his own intelligence. But this one looked to be feigning politeness even harder. He started to speak. “I was aware of you since your entry to this underground facility. Fighting a whole bunch of you at once would be most inconvenient, so I decided to split you up,” he said. I looked around. We should have all been teleported together, but there was only Itsuki here from my party. 
 
That meant Shildina, Filo, Raph-chan, and Ethnobalt were missing. That also meant Raphtalia and Glass had been split off from Rishia, Sadeena, and Chris. Damn! This complicated things. 
“Sneaking into my nation based on some selfish sense of your own justice, and infiltrating key areas without authorization—not to mention your attack on the dragon hourglass—even for a vassal weapon hero, I think these are crimes too serious to forgive,” Miyaji said to Glass. “Don’t you think?” 
“How dare you! We already have proof—proof that Kizuna was brought to this nation. Thanks to a search by a shikigami Kizuna created. We also know that she is being held here,” Glass replied. Miyaji gave a high-and-mighty smile at her words, then took a look at the women around him. 
“Even if we say we have no idea what you mean, I suspect you won’t just give up and go home. I am here, trying to prove my innocence in all sincerity, and this is how you respond? As I suspected, Kizuna Kazayama and her allies think that being heroes gives them the right to act however they please.” 
“You took part in the murder of the four heroes, and now you’re playing the victim—” Glass began. 
“Hold on, Glass. I’ll handle this.” I stepped up in front of her. 
 
“You, a hero from a completely unrelated world, have some opinion? Do you believe you have any right to speak here?” Miyaji said. Wow. In a past life, I would have let that go with a smile and just backed away. Don’t mess with me, I wanted to say. I’ve fought plenty of phonies like you already. 
“Kizuna and I are allies in that we were both summoned as heroes from another world and are fighting in order to quell the waves. We’ve built up a relationship of trust that you know nothing about. You can’t write me off as being unrelated to all this,” I replied. What he was really saying was something a lot simpler. He was saying this had nothing to do with me, so I should back off. My response was the first step in the process of dealing with someone like him—to hit him with the reasons why I was very much involved: she was an ally of mine. 
 
 
“However you try to twist it, you aren’t responsible for this world, are you? Whatever an outsider like you says, I don’t think you can influence a hero of this world,” he replied. Just as I suspected, then. He wanted to push the claim that I was just an outsider, unrelated to the situation, and stop me from getting into the middle of things. I was only speaking sense, and yet he had no intention of listening to me. 
From this, I could determine he was the same type as Ren, Itsuki, and Motoyasu. That meant I needed to proceed to step two. 
“Unfortunately for you, I am related to all this. The katana vassal weapon hero who you see here is originally from the world I’m responsible for, you see. If this world gets wiped out, it’s going to cause trouble for me too. That’s because she’s a resident of the world I’m responsible for and one of my dearest companions.” I pointed at Raphtalia, making my point that I was very much invested in this world. Under his logic, that should change me from someone unrelated to all this to someone who was here to protect someone. “If you want to talk about being unrelated, you might start fulfilling your duties as a vassal weapon hero and stop all this selfish messing about. If you don’t, some very related parties are likely to have a problem with you.” I turned this talk of being related right back at him, playing things right by the book. I knew this type of person wasn’t going to respond to talk, anyway. I’d just have to go on the attack before he replied. I continued. “You could talk with Kizuna and the others and work with them. Or you could try to handle your hero duties in your own way. Why are you choosing to stand against them? If you have a reason, speak. If it’s a good one, we might even help you.” If he was going to talk about heroes being involved in this world, after all, that presupposed him to actually do the job of one. And yet this Miyaji had resisted making contact with Kizuna and her allies and just run around doing his own thing. I’d wanted to run away from the responsibilities of a hero myself, to start with, so I could even understand where he was coming from. If I’d been able to kill Motoyasu when he attacked me in order to achieve that, I probably would have done so. 
 
“You can certainly talk the talk, can’t you?” Miyaji said. 
“I could say the same about you. Why are you doing this? Why are you being so hostile?” I asked. Circumstances demanded that we work together, and yet he made no contact with anyone else, holed up in his own nation, seemingly planning something—it was to be expected that we found him hostile. If there was some reason behind all this, like some kind of trauma in his past, we could discuss things. 
“I got dragged here against my will, and now you think I should just play nice at being a hero? You have to be joking,” he snapped. 
“Trust me, I feel exactly the same as you about that,” I told him. I’d come a long way perhaps, but there was definitely still a part of me that felt that way. In Miyaji’s case, he had been caught up in someone else’s summoning, so it was probably even worse for him. 
“Naofumi!” Glass was glaring in my direction. I knew what I was doing. This was all just wordplay. I gave a small signal in Raphtalia’s direction, and she realized what was going on and calmed Glass down. 
 
I’d decided to fight, and Raphtalia, Atla, and the others helped me. I wasn’t going to complain about my lack of choice in being summoned anymore. 
“You just want to live it up in another world, do you? I understand that feeling too, but there’s no world in which everything will simply go your way. If you have people you care about, you need to work as hard as you can to stop these suspicious waves that are attacking us. And in order to do that, working together with the other heroes makes things a lot easier on everyone. Especially if you were selected by your weapon,” I told him. I didn’t care especially about him underestimating the waves. That was one point of view. But when the damage the waves did was considered, that surely created all kinds of reasons to fight. Earthquakes, tsunamis, famines, and more; there was no shortage of disasters created by the waves. Certainly, it was no reason to just go off and do whatever you pleased. 
He had to think about what people expected from us and why we had to fight. I presumed the people around him were residents of this world. When that same world was in danger of being destroyed by the waves, this was no time for games. 
Speaking of games though, maybe that was the problem. The other three heroes had mistakenly thought the waves were just “updates.” 
“If you sit watching things burn on the opposite shore, wouldn’t you think those sparks may eventually reach you—may eventually burn your own stuff down?” I asked. 
“I’m not looking to join your merry little band,” Miyaji retorted. 
 
“And that’s not what I’m asking you to do. You just have to do the bare minimum. But if you start to actually interfere with what everyone else is doing, well, that’s when Kizuna, Glass, and the others from this world are going to have to get involved—and you can’t complain,” I replied. Glass gave a nod at my assertion. She had a stern look on her face. Just because you belonged to the same organization didn’t mean you had to be best buddies. Indeed, having lots of people who all thought differently was probably more convenient. But anyone causing trouble for that organization was going to find themselves wiped out. 
“Look at you, talking down to me. You have no manners. I’ll say that for you.” Faced with my impeccable logic, Miyaji just went and shifted the goalposts. 
“You expect to be treated with respect? When everything you have said has been rude and ignorant?” I responded. I really wanted him to stop it with the affected airs when he talked, for a start. His own vapid nature was clearly showing through. At least Ren, Itsuki, and Motoyasu had some personality and their own ideas. They had been easier to talk to than this. I continued. “The holy weapons rank higher than the vassal weapons. That’s just a fact. Glass and the others are on the same level as you, and you didn’t even treat them with respect. This is hardly the best approach for you to take,” I warned him. Once we finally met back up with Kizuna, it was definitely worth stripping this guy of his right to his weapon. If a vassal weapon holder was causing too much trouble, their vassal weapon should choose to abandon them. “You’re the one who thinks you can just do whatever you like,” I quipped. Being a hero wasn’t a free pass, and there were consequences for denouncing the deeds of others. 
 
“Shut up. Enough. I don’t need to hear anything more from you,” Miyaji replied. It didn’t look like he was going to respond well to discussion after all. I hadn’t even really gotten started yet . . . He was just a kid pretending to play the bigshot. 
“You said something about acting in all sincerity, right? That’s certainly not what your attitude looks like to me,” I told him. I hoped he saw what I was getting at. I wanted to make clear what was different about him and those he was having trouble with. 
The vassal weapon heroes had killed the four holy heroes, so I had been told. 
If it had just been one of them, Glass and the others would have identified and pinned them down. The holders of the mirror and book vassal weapons were unknown. But this musical instrument hero, Miyaji, was clearly also under suspicion for having killed the three holy heroes. What Glass had just said made that clear to me. 
“What you need to do is share some information with us. If you don’t know what’s going on, then you need to explain why we might suspect you. Tell us what the shikigami has sensed. Explain the reasons for this. Understand? And if you did kill the three holy heroes, and have a reason for that, then you need to share that too,” I told him. A reason like when Ren, Itsuki, and Motoyasu had been cursed. What if the dead heroes had declared war on the world and demanded he join them? Fighting back under those circumstances would be quite understandable. 
 
“They were trash, so I killed them!” he replied. That didn’t sound good. 
“But why were they trash? Were they trying to take over the world or something?” I tried anyway. 
“They were getting all full of themselves, thinking they were so strong. So I had to put them right.” He wasn’t making a convincing case. 
“I’m still not seeing your point here. How were they any different from you? There was no need to kill them, right?” I reasoned. Killing people simply due to concepts of strong and weak . . . I hardly knew what to say. 
“The weaker they are, the more they yap. If you have a problem with me, you can share it after you’ve defeated me,” he said. He was drunk on his own perceived power, thinking he could do whatever he liked. If he was one of the four holy heroes, I would try to make him see sense and to face the waves with the seriousness they required. But by killing those heroes, he was going in the exact opposite direction of what a hero should do. 
“It is a mistake to think being strong allows you to do whatever you like,” Itsuki muttered, choosing that moment to join the conversation. I glanced over at him to see him looking at Miyaji with disgust in his eyes. “Power without justice is merely violence. Tell us why you persist in believing that strength is everything?” 
“Excuse me, dumbass! What are you rambling about? I’ve had enough of this, so now I’m just going to shut you all up! Strength is justice! That’s all there is to say!” Miyaji replied. 

“I see. Then allow us to abide by your rules and deploy our own strength in order to respond to your violence. We can discuss this further after you have been defeated. Do you agree, Naofumi?” Itsuki asked.
 
“That was the plan all along,” I replied. “It looks like it’s what he wants, after all.” With a nod, Itsuki started incanting some magic. Raphtalia, Glass, and I all readied ourselves too. The effect of Liberation Aura X was still going. 
“I, Bow Hero, command the heavens and earth! Transect the way of the universe and rejoin it again to expel the pus from within! Power of the Dragon Vein! Obey now orders from the hero, the source of your power, combining my magic with the power of the hero. Read again the way of all things and lend strength to them all!” 
We paused for a moment and stayed alert for any initial attacks from Miyaji and his crew while we waited for Itsuki to start the battle with his magic. In that moment, however, Miyaji gave a chuckle. He took out an ofuda and gripped it in his fist. In that same moment, something passed by us from behind. 
If I had to put a name on the sensation, it would have been the curse skills that Motoyasu had unleashed, Ressentiment and Temptation! In the next moment, with a mighty crash, my hand with the shield on it was dragged violently forward. 
I gave a grunt of surprise. Itsuki was experiencing the same thing with his bow, which was currently still a gun. I barely had time to wonder what was going on, and faster than I could think, I felt something being . . . removed from me. I looked at the shield. 
 
It was already off my arm, spinning in the air. Then it turned into light and returned to my hand, becoming a small accessory. 
What the hell is going on?! 
“Oh my!” Miyaji was laughing his head off. “What a stupid look you have on your face, dumbass! I simply can’t hold my laughter in!” He laughed even harder, pushing back his hair with one hand. 
“Mr. Naofumi!” Now it was Raphtalia shouting for me. Her face was pale. 
“What?!” I replied. 
“The support magic you applied to us has run out!” she responded. 
“What?!” I exclaimed. I checked my status. It was true. The effect of Liberation Aura X had been completely cleaned away. Nullified, perhaps. We had experienced support magic being removed when fighting S’yne’s enemies. This could very well have been the same thing. 
“Naofumi,” Itsuki said, his brow furrowed as he looked at his own hand. 
“My incantation of Liberation Down got cut short. I’m trying to start it again, but I can’t,” he said. 
“What?!” I said a third time. Thinking this was some kind of joke, I gave Liberation Aura X a try myself. But there was no sign of the incanting even starting, let alone the magic activating. 
“He’s sealed off our magic?” I asked. 
“No, that’s not quite it,” Itsuki replied. “When magic is sealed, you simply can’t concentrate when you try to cast it. This is something else . . . It isn’t incantation interference either . . .” There was no weapon in Itsuki’s hands. 
 
“My, my, even I didn’t expect such a stunning result! I really wasn’t sure it would work until I saw it for myself,” Miyaji said. I hated to have to ask him, but it seemed like the only choice. I wasn’t even sure he would reply. 
“What have you done to us?!” Glass questioned. Thankfully, she beat me to it. 
“I heard some arrogant vassal weapon holders had called in aid from another world. That demanded I take steps myself,” Miyaji revealed, pointing his musical instrument weapon at us. In that moment, I noticed something— an accessory on his weapon. Takt’s weapon had been fitted with the same one. That definitely suggested a link between them. That said, I didn’t have the time to think about that now. 
I checked my status. Just as when my shield had been taken before, it had dramatically changed. I had become super weak! Again! 
I tried to get my head around the situation. 
The strange feeling from a few moments ago had come from the direction of the dragon hourglass. Based on the information received from L’Arc, Sadeena, and the others, this was likely the effect of whatever experiments they were performing with the dragon hourglass. 
Was this also why my shield arm had been feeling kind of numb since we arrived here?! 
“Well, it would be a shame for you to perish without understanding why. I was able to take your weapons because the holy weapons of this world finally listened to and finally understood what I was telling them. Holy weapons from different worlds are not allowed to interfere with each other. Yet here you are, breaking that rule and rambling on about who should be doing what. You don’t have that right! This is the reason why we are in the right, and you have nothing to do with this situation.” It was like Miyaji’s mouth had suddenly become a machine gun. Takt had been like this. Exactly like this—wanting to explain just how strong he was. 
 
Miyaji had claimed to have gotten the holy weapons to listen to him. Somehow, he had managed to secure the weapons from the dead heroes and now had them doing his bidding. 
This was looking like a bit of a crisis. I had no idea of the range on this effect, but I was definitely starting to worry about the party members who weren’t here. 
“Mr. Naofumi! Are you okay?!” Raphtalia shouted. 
“Not really!” I replied. It wasn’t like our levels had been reset or anything like that, so we could still fight—or at least I wanted to believe we could. 
We couldn’t use magic, that much was for sure. I could probably get some life force going and use Muso Activation, but I didn’t have a weapon to use. It looked like getting Raphtalia or Glass to pass me some items and support from the rear was maybe all I could do. 
“Eat this!” Miyaji placed his bow against the strings of his violin-like musical instrument and started to play. A sound like an explosion immediately rang out with what looked like musical notes being fired toward us at high speed. 
 
“Watch out!” Glass spread her fan large and stepped in front, protecting us by taking the attack. With a shout, Raphtalia also stepped forward, chopping down the notes with her katana. That was all they did, and they both already had pained expressions on their faces and grunts of pain on their lips. 
“There’s plenty more where that came from! You girls, go!” Miyaji ordered. 
“As you command, Master Hidemasa!” one of his women said, and the five of them rushed forward. All of a sudden— 
“What?!” another of them exclaimed in surprise. 
“Looks like there’s panic everywhere.” S’yne and her familiar teleported in and engaged the women. Perhaps the technically superior fighter, she clashed with one and then pushed her back. She dashed in on Miyaji, but he immediately fired off more notes, driving her back. 
“Where did you pop up from?” Miyaji asked, still at ease. “Are you sure springing such an ambush was a wise move?” 
“Yes, I think so. I’ve had enough of chatting with you,” I replied. I meant it too. Really meant it. I had expected him to unleash some kind of trap, but not to stop the shield functioning completely. I just hated the precision behind such an attack! Now we had to fight against the odds again. 
“S’yne, what about L’Arc?” I asked her. 
“He’s fin—” she started. 
“He is safe,” her familiar said. “Your support magic was removed, but he can still fight, and Therese is giving a good account of herself. I think they will be able to secure an escape route if necessary, just as planned.” That was good to hear. 
 
“You still think you can win? How? Without your weapons? Without your strength? This is why morons who try to solve everything by force are such a hassle! I’m disgusted by your inability to imagine a future in which pure strategy defeats you,” Miyaji said. I wasn’t sure what he was so pleased with himself about. This fight wasn’t over yet! 
“My, my. You have impressed me again, my dear Hidemasa!” The statement came from a voice of someone who had just come into the room from a door behind Miyaji. I gave an instinctive, wordless shout upon hearing it, unable to believe my ears and feeling rage fill me. 
Raphtalia was the same. 
This was the woman who had stood behind Motoyasu and laughed at the sheer despair on my face. The woman who could have just stayed quiet and still manipulated an entire nation into believing terrible crimes had been committed but got personally involved nonetheless and made further claims of rape against me. 
As Riyute was rebuilding, she had used her authority as governor to take over, levy a heavy tax on the people, and have her way again, but that plan had failed. She had then tried to manipulate events by pitting Motoyasu against Filo. At every turn, she seemed to be there, trying to turn things to her own ends, and always with a focus of messing with me. 

She had even taken advantage of a chaotic situation to try and take the life of her own sister in order to further secure her own position. 

“Oh my, what are you looking so shocked for?” she said. She had shown no remorse when punished for these crimes, betrayed Motoyasu—who had trusted her from the bottom of his heart—tricked Ren, corrupted Itsuki, and finally sided with Takt, making her a coconspirator in the death of her own mother! The criminal who was wanted all across our world! “Darling, you won’t get to have things your way this time. Not while we are here. It would be a mistake for you to think a single thing will go your way,” she purred. 
What the hell was she doing here?! 
The scene almost seemed removed from reality, as though I was having a bad dream. 
“How? Why?” Raphtalia wasn’t taking it well either. 
“Since you vanished again, I knew you might pop up anywhere. But I admit—I never expected to see you here,” I told her. Things had definitely taken a turn beyond even my wildest imagination. I’d thought she was still just over there, planning evil stuff in our world! 
This witch of a former princess, and witch of a woman! 
“What do you say, Hidemasa? Have we impressed you by predicting the cowardly strategy adopted by this Shield Fool and showing you the appropriate steps to take?” she said. I was still stunned. After slipping away at the end of the Takt debacle, here she was, looking at us with an unsettling smile on her face. Witch!