Confessional, 17
The Internet is for me.
So is Confessional. Only it is now for you as well. Here, have a chapter! Haha, since I ditched you guys at a cliffhanger for like ever >_>a
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Confessional
Chapter 17
Dear Christine,
Dearest diary, you've been with me through most of my life, ever since Tenyo gave you to me. But this might be my last letter to you. If you never hear from me again Christine I hope somebody finds you and lets me live on through the things I've said to you.
Well you know I accidentally told Tenyo how I feel about him, and he ran away from me. I have this awful feeling that he won't come back so I'm going to find him. Kelly, you know the one with the sunglasses, he volunteered to come with me. If I never write again Christine I'm in Glast Heim, dead or undead.
Thank you for everything, Christine.
Love, Sralani
~
Kelly, you know the one with the sunglasses, was a fellow hunter from the guild. He was a tall, lanky man with an olive tan and slicked back dark hair, who wore dark glasses that hid his eyes, even indoors or at night. When Sralani had asked at the guild for help inside of Glast, explaining that she'd had a fight with her brother and absolutely had to find him before he did something stupid in his rage, he had volunteered. He told her that he had a sister whom he'd not spoken to in years because of a previous argument; so he understood her situation and sought to help her remedy it as he could not remedy his own.
He was ex-Army, so he knew Glast Heim very well, which was another reason he'd chosen to go, knowing he'd be most helpful to her. She had gratefully accepted his company, knowing he was one of the best guildsmen there for her task.
So it was that the two hunters went to the city of the dead on a hunt for the living.
~
Nicholai smiled at the silence, cocking his head to the side. "'Sthe matter?" he said, in that perfect cowgirl voice that Clayborne spoke with, on the rare occasion that she spoke. "Cat gotcher tongue?"
They stared in silence, Ulrike and Chan's faces unreadable, and Fuuji's marked with a deep confusion.
"I never understood that saying, really," he continued, looking down at his lute as he played a few idle chords, his thick Schwartzwald accent back in his voice. "We say a different thing in the Schwartzwald, ja? Ruenmidern have such interesting things they say."
"A spy," said Chan from behind his cigarette as he stood to look up at Nicholai. He sounded indifferent, despite the gravity of his accusation.
"Very good, Herr Chan!" said the bard in the bloodied huntress clothes, looking up from his instrument to grin at the crusader. "Ja, I am a spy indeed, sent by the President Herr Roelinghein himself to see what things Rune-Midgard is up to."
"But...what about Clayborne?" Fuuji asked, not quite understanding what was going on.
"He was Clayborne from the start," Chan said, still indifferent as he put out his cigarette and turned away from the situation. "He's a fucking spy, it's what they do."
"Very good again, Herr Crusader! Some fake papers, a change of costume, and a little talent for acting is all it was taking to fool you and your glorious Army." He paused to listen to a certain string, frowned at it for being just slightly off-key, and took a moment to tune it.
"But..." Fuuji did not want to believe he had been tricked, especially not by this flamboyant, foreign man whom he'd never thought very intelligent in the first place. He threw a glance at Chan, but the crusader was still turned away from the scene, staring rather blankly at nothing, like he was deep in thought.
"Please, ask me anything. Now is your time, ja?" He glanced up to smile at Fuuji. "I am certain you are having questions. This is my dramatic moment of a villain, where I am telling you my whole plan to impress you with my genius. So ask, Herr Fuuji, ask me anything. I will tell you before you are dying." He finally seemed satisfied with the lute's tuning and watched Fuuji, leaning back, one hand braced on the ground behind him and the other hanging over the instrument almost protectively, like it were a child instead of a wooden construct.
There was a long silence while Fuuji's thoughts collected themselves. Chan glanced at him this time, wondering what he would ask, whether he would ask the questions he should ask and if those questions would be answered properly. As an experienced soldier, he knew what the things you should know about a conflict were, but since he was to the point where he didn't much care any longer that he was an experienced soldier, he waited for the one who did care to take charge.
"So wait..." Fuuji began finally, still trying to sort out what was happening. "You joined us as Clayborne? Are you...are you a woman?"
Nicholai gave a sigh as Chan rolled his eyes. Not the expected question. "A man," said Nicholai, turning his eyes away from Ulrike as she otherwise unnoticed edged closer to Chan's discarded sword. "Though some will tell you otherwise because I lack the proper things."
"What?"
Another sigh and he looked down pensively at the lute in his lap, moving his hands as if to play, but not doing so. "I was born Nijole Andalphus, raised a woman, and then one day I became Nicholai and I have been a man since. Very complicated really, a story for another time."
Chan turned suddenly, looking up at Nicholai. Ulrike stopped moving and stood still, hands clasped before her, eyes snapping up to the other Schwartzwaldern in the room as she pretended she hadn't been moving for the sword. "What are you spying for?" he asked, taking charge like he knew he should have from the beginning. Tenyo had no idea what to do, he was a chaplain, he hadn't been trained for situations like this.
"Because dear Herr Chan, the Ruenmidern King is planning something and we are wanting to know what. You know, I am certain, that Schwartzwald and Rune-Midgard are having a troubled relationship of late, ja? There are being whispers of war spoken in the halls of the capitols, and with King Tristam sending soldiers to find Ragnarok Relics in Glast Heim, well. We wonder that perhaps the whispers are not true." He paused, giving another smile. A perfect, charming smile that seemed so very practiced, as if he'd done this a thousand times before and he was well accustomed pissing off the people he betrayed by flashing it to them. "Also, perhaps, to secure a few of those relics for our own motherland, ja?"
Fuuji had never given thought to the fact that the things they were sent to retrieve from Glast Heim were, in fact, things left over from the long past Ragnarok, items left behind from the battle between the gods and demons. It was a strange thing to realize.
"So what were you looking for the day you joined us at the cathedral?" Chan asked. He saw out of the corner of his eye as Ulrike took a step over, leaning down to pick up his sword from the ground, but ignored it. She stood there with it, holding it against the ground like a cane, and glanced over her shoulder to him with a glance that said she would throw it to him should he need it.
"I told you then, Herr Chan. A book of hymns. But not for my guild, for my own personal use. You see, the king Baphomet is very much enjoying music."
A sudden thought struck Chan, and he looked at Ulrike, standing there with his sword in her hands. It occured to him suddenly that Nicholai hadn't shot her yet, or threatened her for having the weapon, which meant one of two things: either he felt they were so far from him that she was no threat, or he knew what she intended to do with the sword. Since his luck in Glast Heim always went from bad to worse, he assumed the latter and moved suddenly to overtake her.
Ulrike was very fast, especially for somebody trained as a priestess. Before Chan got to her, the sword was to his throat and she had backed him up against the wall. "Please do not," she said.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath. "Just my fucking luck."
Fuuji stared wide-eyed at the scene, until Nicholai spoke once more, snapping his attention back to the balcony. The bard was standing, shouldering his lute, preparing to leave the room. "Please to direct all further questions to my dear friend Ulrike," he said, smiling once more at Fuuji.
"You...wait, you're a spy too?" he said to Ulrike, disbelief thick in his voice and face.
"Yes," she said, focusing on Chan out of the corner of her eye. "I am so sorry to be tricking you so, Brother Tenyo, but it is what I must do."
"Surely you were not expecting me to work alone, Herr Fuuji!" Nicholai exclaimed, sounding deeply offended in the mocking way of a person who is acting. "That would be very unprofessional."
He wanted very much to say something about cross-dressing bards not being very professional in the first place, but refrained. And as he refrained, another thought occured to him. Ulrike had been the one to advise Lian's death. If Nicholai and Ulrike had been working together then... The change of emotion in his thoughts was highly visible in his face as he glared up suddenly at the priestess. She'd known Lian was the best fighter among them, she'd seen the opportunity to get rid of her and had taken advantage of it. And he'd believed her! How could he have been so stupid?
"You murderer," he accused. "You killed McAllister!"
She averted her eyes from him, and nearly lowered the weapon, but quickly remembered herself and reaffirmed her position, keeping Chan pinned to the wall. Nicholai frowned, looking down at the balcony at his feet. "Ja," he said. "The pretty doll. So tragic." He sounded sincere this time, but Fuuji couldn't trust that.
"Is it? Is it really tragic that you two killed her so she couldn't find out and kill you?"
Nicholai's head snapped up and he looked offended, truly offended this time. "What? Nein! No, no that is not being the truth! I would very much have loved her to live! The Frauline McAllister was so lovely, such a clever girl, ja? A little strange, but I was liking her."
"Liar!" he accused, pointing up at him to emphasize the statement.
"No," Ulrike interjected, her expression dark. "We did not conspire to kill the girl. I have seen that unholy ailment once before, and I did not wish to see it happen again."
"Gisele," Nicholai said, softly, sadly.
Ulrike nodded in agreement. "I am sorry she was having to die, Brother Tenyo," she continued. "Please believe me, if it did not have to happen, it would not."
The look Chan gave Fuuji now, and had been since the start of this line of discussion, was a suspicious and faintly confused one. "What the fuck, Fuuji," he said. "You told us it was a Raydric."
Fuuji stared back at Chan, eyes narrowed, and was silent.
"When it was Gisele," said Nicholai, covering the silence; he set his lute against the ground, leaning on it like a crutch, "it was the ghoul she resurrected from her dead lover. The child..." He shook his head sadly. "Well, she was dying. And then we were having to kill her. Not a pleasant thing. Be glad you did not let the Frauline suffer it."
Chan seemed to suddenly catch the meaning of the explanation and a look of disgust crossed his face. "That's sick," he said.
"Ja," agreed Nicholai, solemnly. "So, Herr Fuuji, know that we are villains of integrity. The Frauline was not killed wantonly.”
The answer did not seem to satisfy Fuuji; he remained angry, perhaps more so now that he had been told that he’d not been tricked and that there really had been no chance for her. He still didn’t believe them entirely, of course, but he had been made to doubt his own theory with their explanation.
Then, from behind them, came the raspy growl of a voice through which words were barely intelligible. “Bard,” it said, simply, but that one word caught everyone’s attention and they all snapped around to face the entranceway that the three soldiers had come through.
The king of demons stood in the doorway, looking up at Nicholai with his glowing red eyes. The bard sat very suddenly at the edge of the balcony as he had been when they’d first seen him there, pulling his lute into his lap and placing his hands in the proper places on the instrument. “Ja, my king?” he said, calmly, though his deep fear was just barely hidden by his cool exterior.
“Play,” said that slow growl, drawn out menacingly as Baphomet narrowed his eyes up at the figure on the balcony.
Nicholai muttered a quick, “Ja wohl,” and then turned his attention to the instrument. His first note was discordant, struck with hands shaking from nervousness. He winced, both at it and the annoyed growl that followed after it. He took a deep breath in an effort to calm his nerves, and then tried again. This time the song came out as he intended, and when he saw the approval in the Demon King’s face, he gave a relieved sigh and then started into the lyrics.
As he sang, Chan watched Baphomet from behind the sword that Ulrike still had to his throat. He wondered how exactly the spy had managed to get in with the king of Glast Heim, and knew that there was no way that could mean anything good for them.
The song that Nicholai sang was a hymn from before the Ragnarok, before Glast Heim had been turned into the mockery of a kingdom that it was today. It was a praise to the Valkyries, the warrior angels of the gods, and it spoke of Glast being their chosen city. Baphomet listened intently, his focus shutting out all but the bard and his music. Even so, the other three, knowing they should probably run, did not, fearing that he would suddenly turn that focus to them as they endeavoured to escape.
When Nicholai had finished the song, he did not look up, instead keeping his eyes on the lute and his fingers on the strings. He feared for what Baphomet may do, or perhaps feared his own fear, thinking he may break down if he glanced up.
“Play the Land’s Music,” Baphomet commanded.
He grimaced. “My king, your land is not as it once was. Your music has changed. I do not think you will enjoy it.” The Land’s Music was a thing only the trained could hear, Bards and Dancers among the very select few. It was a melody heard with the heart, the tune made by the spirit of the earth itself. It different from place to place, and Glast Heim’s music was not a pleasant thing to concentrate on and have surge through oneself into one’s instrument. In fact, it was quite painful for bards to hear, much less play the Land’s Music of Glast Heim.
“Play it!” This time the command was growled with what sounded like anger, and Nicholai did not dare refuse again.
He closed his eyes, biting his lip to steel himself against the feeling, and concentrated as he’d been taught by his guild, letting the music of Glast Heim’s ruined earth flow into the lute, playing without really knowing that he played.
The sound was discordant and angry, screaming with the pain of Glast Heim’s tainted grounds. Ulrike felt a sudden need to run and hide herself away, but she remained steadfast with the sword still to Chan’s throat. The crusader felt the need to cover his ears, but dared not in his current placement. Fuuji, oddly, felt nothing, except perhaps hatred for the bard and this hopeless situation he’d led them to.
“That is not my Land’s Music!” Baphomet cried, slamming the shaft of his heavy scythe into the ground.
Nicholai stopped abruptly, glad for the interruption, and he looked up at the king. “It is, my king!” he said. “Your land is not its glory, it is a ruined thing with a painful song!”
Fuuji wanted desperately to interrupt, to do something violent and malicious, something, anything. But he could not, for any move he made would surely have been countered by that scythe, even if it were not against its wielder. He wished that he could have been a hunter like his sister, so that now, just for this moment, he would have a bow and an arrow to fire out of it, so he could kill the smug bastard sitting now on that balcony, talking to the King Baphomet like they knew each other. His fists were clenched so hard that his nails dug into them, drawing blood.
“Insolent.” Baphomet stepped forward into the room, standing between Ulrike with Chan, and the stiff-backed Fuuji. Ulrike again felt that very strong urge to run, but controlled it with a great effort.
“So I may be,” declared Nicholai, standing once more, drawing himself up to his full, unimposing height. “Or perhaps I am just very spirited, my king. Unlike the servants you have had so long.”
There was a pause, and then the King of Glast Heim laughed, a harsh barking noise which echoed eerily through the halls. “Indeed!” he agreed, giving Nicholai what may have been a grin, but which seemed much more like a deadly display of his fangs. “Come bard, seek the sword do you?”
Nicholai gave a nod, and Baphomet moved again, to the doors beneath the balcony, and exited. “Handle them,” Nicholai told Ulrike over his shoulder as he quickly followed Baphomet through the upper-level door behind himself.
Ulrike did not seem very confident once her companion was gone. She looked to Fuuji, pressing the sword closer to Chan’s throat. “Whoa,” he said, “easy there, don’t kill me too soon or I won’t be useful anymore.”
She flashed him a glare and then looked back to Fuuji. “If you do not cooperate,” she threatened, “he will die.”
Fuuji snapped, turning on her. “Kill him!” he shouted, his anger rising. “I don’t care! Life is pointless anyway! What do I care if you kill him? He’s only going to die anyway, just like everybody else!”
She was taken aback by this and caught at a loss. Chan had expected such a feint; he would have done something similar himself. While she was distracted by the seeming unfeeling of his comrade, he moved quicker than she could react, grabbing her wrist and twisting her arm back so she was forced to drop the sword with a clatter; she let out a surprised cry. He easily managed to wrestle her to the ground from there with a combination of superior size and painful pressure on her twisted arm, and once she was on her stomach on the stone ground, he pinned her there. It was the standard pin that soldiers knew for dealing with belligerent detainees; knee between the legs, one hand holding the arm behind the back, other arm across the shoulders to force them into the ground. Shocked by how quickly the tables had turned, she reacted with a stunned silence.
Fuuji moved to stand over her, looking down nonchalantly, hands casually shoved in his trouser pockets beneath his open coat. She stared up at him from her position on the ground, completely frozen by fear. “So,” he said. “Spies from President Roelighein himself.”
She said nothing. He knelt by her, leaning down to take her chin in his hand and tilt her head up just slightly, so that it was uncomfortable but not exactly painful. “I bet President Roelighein wouldn’t care if you didn’t come back.”
Silent, she stared back at him, her crimson bangs falling in her cloudy blue eyes as they framed her pale face.
“Would he?” Fuuji prompted.
“Nicholai will kill you,” she said.
“Really. Deeper than professional, huh? Lovers, maybe?”
She said nothing.
“Lovers,” he repeated. “You know, in the end that means nothing, just like everything else. I could kill you now, and do you know what would happen down the road? What would come of it?” She just continued to glare, saying nothing. He released her, as he said, very plainly, “Nothing.”
Chan was beginning to suspect that Fuuji was not quite all there anymore, but made no comment against him. Crazies were, not surprisingly, some of the best soldiers. Or perhaps, soldiers were some of the best crazies.
“Trying to start a war?” he asked, not really caring what her answer may be.
“Averting one,” she replied.
“Really. I’d say based on this right here, Schwartzwald is the aggressor.”
“Your King Tristam seeks to begin a second Ragnarok. Only last month he was sending spies of his own to break Juno’s magic and throw it out of the sky.”
“He what?” Chan this time, taken aback by that news.
“Yes! They were almost succeeding, and then where would we be? At war, with Schwartzwald’s capitol gone. Easy prey. That is what your king is seeking. I will not be surprised if he is attacking GonRyun next, or Amatsu, in the hopes of expanding his rule. It is just Schwartzwald’s misfortune to be such a close and easy target, and one with a hope of defending itself.”
“That can’t be true,” said Chan.
“A dancer girl and a wizardess. I believe the only name we were able to get was Jolee…Ahred, I think. The dancer girl. The wizardess resisted interrogation.”
Chan’s brow furrowed. He knew Jolee Ahred, he had been in training with her when he’d first hit the rank of Sergeant and had to go through troop-leading classes like all newly-appointed Non-commissioned Officers. He looked up at Fuuji, who was still watching Ulrike. Even though the priestess had every reason to lie, that story rung deeply of believable truth.
Fuuji stood suddenly, saying, “Kill her.”
Chan’s eyes went wide as he stared dumbfounded at his commanding officer. Ulrike’s expression turned horrified, and she could not have moved even if she were able. “What?” Chan asked, after a long silence.
“I lost my stuttering problem a long time ago. You heard me.”
Chan just stared, for once at a complete loss for words. Tenyo bent down to take the sword from the ground where Ulrike had dropped it; the red and gold hemmed edges of his long black coat, left open, trailed on the dusty stone floor as he did so. He held the sword out to Chan, with the hilt toward the crusader.
Ulrike shut her eyes tight, turning her head away, praying silently that she would somehow live. Chan stared in a sort of dumbfounded shock at the proffered weapon, not moving to take it. The look on his face was the same look a rookie has after his first kill; that wide-eyed disbelief, like he’d never seen the cross-shaped steel contraption before in his life.
“It was a Raydric,” said Fuuji, staring down at him. The same lie he’d told about Lian’s death. “That’s all.”
Chan took the sword, still keeping Ulrike pinned by her arm, and watched Fuuji blankly as he took a step back once relieved of the weapon. Ulrike waited, knowing he’d gone for the sword once the weight had lifted off her shoulders; waited in terror with bated breath.
But the crusader shoved the sword into the scabbard at his hip, and moved to stand, hauling Ulrike to her feet with him, still keeping his hold on her arm. “You’re out of your fucking mind,” he told Fuuji.
The priest’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I gave you an order, PFC.”
“Fuck you!” he shouted, with such force that Ulrike winced. “The day I follow an unlawful order like that is the day I become a fucking murderer.”
“I am your Commanding Officer-”
“You’re a fucking nutcase!” he interrupted. He quickly added a derogatory sounding, “Sir.”
“Who’s really going to care, Dick?” The use of his first name had no noticeable effect on him. “People die, that’s life. And the people around them, they go on, almost like those people never were in the first place. What’s the difference if you help somebody along?”
“I have some motherfucking integrity, that’s what.”
“Just one slash. As simple as that. One slash, she’s gone, forgotten, life goes on like she was never there at all. Just like Matthews.”
Chan’s glare was solid, frigid. If looks could kill, Fuuji’s body would have been unidentifiable. “I hope,” he said, in a dangerously low voice, “that you make it back alive, because the commander is going to have a field day with you.”
Without even thinking about it, he stormed to the doors beneath the balcony, dragging Ulrike with him by her arm. She offered no resistance, glad to get away from the strange, murderous priest.
Once the doors had closed behind them, Fuuji found himself suddenly very alone. He looked around himself at the vast emptiness of Castle Glast Heim, realizing that he was a very small speck in a very large cosmos. Which was, of course, why people didn’t matter after they’d died. Because it was all so insignificant, so pointless.
Life was too short to waste on foolishness like emotions or honour or chivalry. He realized that now. He realized the grand epiphany that there was nothing in the world worth truly caring for; you lived and you made the most of it by doing what meant something to you.
Lian had always lived to fight. She had no emotions to get in her way, and it made her perfect. The perfect fighter, the perfect soldier, the perfect person. And now she was dead, and forgotten, and Tenyo had been the one to inherit that perfection of hers.
This new, perfect Tenyo Fuuji turned and left, walking out back the way they had come.
So is Confessional. Only it is now for you as well. Here, have a chapter! Haha, since I ditched you guys at a cliffhanger for like ever >_>a
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Confessional
Chapter 17
Dear Christine,
Dearest diary, you've been with me through most of my life, ever since Tenyo gave you to me. But this might be my last letter to you. If you never hear from me again Christine I hope somebody finds you and lets me live on through the things I've said to you.
Well you know I accidentally told Tenyo how I feel about him, and he ran away from me. I have this awful feeling that he won't come back so I'm going to find him. Kelly, you know the one with the sunglasses, he volunteered to come with me. If I never write again Christine I'm in Glast Heim, dead or undead.
Thank you for everything, Christine.
Love, Sralani
~
Kelly, you know the one with the sunglasses, was a fellow hunter from the guild. He was a tall, lanky man with an olive tan and slicked back dark hair, who wore dark glasses that hid his eyes, even indoors or at night. When Sralani had asked at the guild for help inside of Glast, explaining that she'd had a fight with her brother and absolutely had to find him before he did something stupid in his rage, he had volunteered. He told her that he had a sister whom he'd not spoken to in years because of a previous argument; so he understood her situation and sought to help her remedy it as he could not remedy his own.
He was ex-Army, so he knew Glast Heim very well, which was another reason he'd chosen to go, knowing he'd be most helpful to her. She had gratefully accepted his company, knowing he was one of the best guildsmen there for her task.
So it was that the two hunters went to the city of the dead on a hunt for the living.
~
Nicholai smiled at the silence, cocking his head to the side. "'Sthe matter?" he said, in that perfect cowgirl voice that Clayborne spoke with, on the rare occasion that she spoke. "Cat gotcher tongue?"
They stared in silence, Ulrike and Chan's faces unreadable, and Fuuji's marked with a deep confusion.
"I never understood that saying, really," he continued, looking down at his lute as he played a few idle chords, his thick Schwartzwald accent back in his voice. "We say a different thing in the Schwartzwald, ja? Ruenmidern have such interesting things they say."
"A spy," said Chan from behind his cigarette as he stood to look up at Nicholai. He sounded indifferent, despite the gravity of his accusation.
"Very good, Herr Chan!" said the bard in the bloodied huntress clothes, looking up from his instrument to grin at the crusader. "Ja, I am a spy indeed, sent by the President Herr Roelinghein himself to see what things Rune-Midgard is up to."
"But...what about Clayborne?" Fuuji asked, not quite understanding what was going on.
"He was Clayborne from the start," Chan said, still indifferent as he put out his cigarette and turned away from the situation. "He's a fucking spy, it's what they do."
"Very good again, Herr Crusader! Some fake papers, a change of costume, and a little talent for acting is all it was taking to fool you and your glorious Army." He paused to listen to a certain string, frowned at it for being just slightly off-key, and took a moment to tune it.
"But..." Fuuji did not want to believe he had been tricked, especially not by this flamboyant, foreign man whom he'd never thought very intelligent in the first place. He threw a glance at Chan, but the crusader was still turned away from the scene, staring rather blankly at nothing, like he was deep in thought.
"Please, ask me anything. Now is your time, ja?" He glanced up to smile at Fuuji. "I am certain you are having questions. This is my dramatic moment of a villain, where I am telling you my whole plan to impress you with my genius. So ask, Herr Fuuji, ask me anything. I will tell you before you are dying." He finally seemed satisfied with the lute's tuning and watched Fuuji, leaning back, one hand braced on the ground behind him and the other hanging over the instrument almost protectively, like it were a child instead of a wooden construct.
There was a long silence while Fuuji's thoughts collected themselves. Chan glanced at him this time, wondering what he would ask, whether he would ask the questions he should ask and if those questions would be answered properly. As an experienced soldier, he knew what the things you should know about a conflict were, but since he was to the point where he didn't much care any longer that he was an experienced soldier, he waited for the one who did care to take charge.
"So wait..." Fuuji began finally, still trying to sort out what was happening. "You joined us as Clayborne? Are you...are you a woman?"
Nicholai gave a sigh as Chan rolled his eyes. Not the expected question. "A man," said Nicholai, turning his eyes away from Ulrike as she otherwise unnoticed edged closer to Chan's discarded sword. "Though some will tell you otherwise because I lack the proper things."
"What?"
Another sigh and he looked down pensively at the lute in his lap, moving his hands as if to play, but not doing so. "I was born Nijole Andalphus, raised a woman, and then one day I became Nicholai and I have been a man since. Very complicated really, a story for another time."
Chan turned suddenly, looking up at Nicholai. Ulrike stopped moving and stood still, hands clasped before her, eyes snapping up to the other Schwartzwaldern in the room as she pretended she hadn't been moving for the sword. "What are you spying for?" he asked, taking charge like he knew he should have from the beginning. Tenyo had no idea what to do, he was a chaplain, he hadn't been trained for situations like this.
"Because dear Herr Chan, the Ruenmidern King is planning something and we are wanting to know what. You know, I am certain, that Schwartzwald and Rune-Midgard are having a troubled relationship of late, ja? There are being whispers of war spoken in the halls of the capitols, and with King Tristam sending soldiers to find Ragnarok Relics in Glast Heim, well. We wonder that perhaps the whispers are not true." He paused, giving another smile. A perfect, charming smile that seemed so very practiced, as if he'd done this a thousand times before and he was well accustomed pissing off the people he betrayed by flashing it to them. "Also, perhaps, to secure a few of those relics for our own motherland, ja?"
Fuuji had never given thought to the fact that the things they were sent to retrieve from Glast Heim were, in fact, things left over from the long past Ragnarok, items left behind from the battle between the gods and demons. It was a strange thing to realize.
"So what were you looking for the day you joined us at the cathedral?" Chan asked. He saw out of the corner of his eye as Ulrike took a step over, leaning down to pick up his sword from the ground, but ignored it. She stood there with it, holding it against the ground like a cane, and glanced over her shoulder to him with a glance that said she would throw it to him should he need it.
"I told you then, Herr Chan. A book of hymns. But not for my guild, for my own personal use. You see, the king Baphomet is very much enjoying music."
A sudden thought struck Chan, and he looked at Ulrike, standing there with his sword in her hands. It occured to him suddenly that Nicholai hadn't shot her yet, or threatened her for having the weapon, which meant one of two things: either he felt they were so far from him that she was no threat, or he knew what she intended to do with the sword. Since his luck in Glast Heim always went from bad to worse, he assumed the latter and moved suddenly to overtake her.
Ulrike was very fast, especially for somebody trained as a priestess. Before Chan got to her, the sword was to his throat and she had backed him up against the wall. "Please do not," she said.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath. "Just my fucking luck."
Fuuji stared wide-eyed at the scene, until Nicholai spoke once more, snapping his attention back to the balcony. The bard was standing, shouldering his lute, preparing to leave the room. "Please to direct all further questions to my dear friend Ulrike," he said, smiling once more at Fuuji.
"You...wait, you're a spy too?" he said to Ulrike, disbelief thick in his voice and face.
"Yes," she said, focusing on Chan out of the corner of her eye. "I am so sorry to be tricking you so, Brother Tenyo, but it is what I must do."
"Surely you were not expecting me to work alone, Herr Fuuji!" Nicholai exclaimed, sounding deeply offended in the mocking way of a person who is acting. "That would be very unprofessional."
He wanted very much to say something about cross-dressing bards not being very professional in the first place, but refrained. And as he refrained, another thought occured to him. Ulrike had been the one to advise Lian's death. If Nicholai and Ulrike had been working together then... The change of emotion in his thoughts was highly visible in his face as he glared up suddenly at the priestess. She'd known Lian was the best fighter among them, she'd seen the opportunity to get rid of her and had taken advantage of it. And he'd believed her! How could he have been so stupid?
"You murderer," he accused. "You killed McAllister!"
She averted her eyes from him, and nearly lowered the weapon, but quickly remembered herself and reaffirmed her position, keeping Chan pinned to the wall. Nicholai frowned, looking down at the balcony at his feet. "Ja," he said. "The pretty doll. So tragic." He sounded sincere this time, but Fuuji couldn't trust that.
"Is it? Is it really tragic that you two killed her so she couldn't find out and kill you?"
Nicholai's head snapped up and he looked offended, truly offended this time. "What? Nein! No, no that is not being the truth! I would very much have loved her to live! The Frauline McAllister was so lovely, such a clever girl, ja? A little strange, but I was liking her."
"Liar!" he accused, pointing up at him to emphasize the statement.
"No," Ulrike interjected, her expression dark. "We did not conspire to kill the girl. I have seen that unholy ailment once before, and I did not wish to see it happen again."
"Gisele," Nicholai said, softly, sadly.
Ulrike nodded in agreement. "I am sorry she was having to die, Brother Tenyo," she continued. "Please believe me, if it did not have to happen, it would not."
The look Chan gave Fuuji now, and had been since the start of this line of discussion, was a suspicious and faintly confused one. "What the fuck, Fuuji," he said. "You told us it was a Raydric."
Fuuji stared back at Chan, eyes narrowed, and was silent.
"When it was Gisele," said Nicholai, covering the silence; he set his lute against the ground, leaning on it like a crutch, "it was the ghoul she resurrected from her dead lover. The child..." He shook his head sadly. "Well, she was dying. And then we were having to kill her. Not a pleasant thing. Be glad you did not let the Frauline suffer it."
Chan seemed to suddenly catch the meaning of the explanation and a look of disgust crossed his face. "That's sick," he said.
"Ja," agreed Nicholai, solemnly. "So, Herr Fuuji, know that we are villains of integrity. The Frauline was not killed wantonly.”
The answer did not seem to satisfy Fuuji; he remained angry, perhaps more so now that he had been told that he’d not been tricked and that there really had been no chance for her. He still didn’t believe them entirely, of course, but he had been made to doubt his own theory with their explanation.
Then, from behind them, came the raspy growl of a voice through which words were barely intelligible. “Bard,” it said, simply, but that one word caught everyone’s attention and they all snapped around to face the entranceway that the three soldiers had come through.
The king of demons stood in the doorway, looking up at Nicholai with his glowing red eyes. The bard sat very suddenly at the edge of the balcony as he had been when they’d first seen him there, pulling his lute into his lap and placing his hands in the proper places on the instrument. “Ja, my king?” he said, calmly, though his deep fear was just barely hidden by his cool exterior.
“Play,” said that slow growl, drawn out menacingly as Baphomet narrowed his eyes up at the figure on the balcony.
Nicholai muttered a quick, “Ja wohl,” and then turned his attention to the instrument. His first note was discordant, struck with hands shaking from nervousness. He winced, both at it and the annoyed growl that followed after it. He took a deep breath in an effort to calm his nerves, and then tried again. This time the song came out as he intended, and when he saw the approval in the Demon King’s face, he gave a relieved sigh and then started into the lyrics.
As he sang, Chan watched Baphomet from behind the sword that Ulrike still had to his throat. He wondered how exactly the spy had managed to get in with the king of Glast Heim, and knew that there was no way that could mean anything good for them.
The song that Nicholai sang was a hymn from before the Ragnarok, before Glast Heim had been turned into the mockery of a kingdom that it was today. It was a praise to the Valkyries, the warrior angels of the gods, and it spoke of Glast being their chosen city. Baphomet listened intently, his focus shutting out all but the bard and his music. Even so, the other three, knowing they should probably run, did not, fearing that he would suddenly turn that focus to them as they endeavoured to escape.
When Nicholai had finished the song, he did not look up, instead keeping his eyes on the lute and his fingers on the strings. He feared for what Baphomet may do, or perhaps feared his own fear, thinking he may break down if he glanced up.
“Play the Land’s Music,” Baphomet commanded.
He grimaced. “My king, your land is not as it once was. Your music has changed. I do not think you will enjoy it.” The Land’s Music was a thing only the trained could hear, Bards and Dancers among the very select few. It was a melody heard with the heart, the tune made by the spirit of the earth itself. It different from place to place, and Glast Heim’s music was not a pleasant thing to concentrate on and have surge through oneself into one’s instrument. In fact, it was quite painful for bards to hear, much less play the Land’s Music of Glast Heim.
“Play it!” This time the command was growled with what sounded like anger, and Nicholai did not dare refuse again.
He closed his eyes, biting his lip to steel himself against the feeling, and concentrated as he’d been taught by his guild, letting the music of Glast Heim’s ruined earth flow into the lute, playing without really knowing that he played.
The sound was discordant and angry, screaming with the pain of Glast Heim’s tainted grounds. Ulrike felt a sudden need to run and hide herself away, but she remained steadfast with the sword still to Chan’s throat. The crusader felt the need to cover his ears, but dared not in his current placement. Fuuji, oddly, felt nothing, except perhaps hatred for the bard and this hopeless situation he’d led them to.
“That is not my Land’s Music!” Baphomet cried, slamming the shaft of his heavy scythe into the ground.
Nicholai stopped abruptly, glad for the interruption, and he looked up at the king. “It is, my king!” he said. “Your land is not its glory, it is a ruined thing with a painful song!”
Fuuji wanted desperately to interrupt, to do something violent and malicious, something, anything. But he could not, for any move he made would surely have been countered by that scythe, even if it were not against its wielder. He wished that he could have been a hunter like his sister, so that now, just for this moment, he would have a bow and an arrow to fire out of it, so he could kill the smug bastard sitting now on that balcony, talking to the King Baphomet like they knew each other. His fists were clenched so hard that his nails dug into them, drawing blood.
“Insolent.” Baphomet stepped forward into the room, standing between Ulrike with Chan, and the stiff-backed Fuuji. Ulrike again felt that very strong urge to run, but controlled it with a great effort.
“So I may be,” declared Nicholai, standing once more, drawing himself up to his full, unimposing height. “Or perhaps I am just very spirited, my king. Unlike the servants you have had so long.”
There was a pause, and then the King of Glast Heim laughed, a harsh barking noise which echoed eerily through the halls. “Indeed!” he agreed, giving Nicholai what may have been a grin, but which seemed much more like a deadly display of his fangs. “Come bard, seek the sword do you?”
Nicholai gave a nod, and Baphomet moved again, to the doors beneath the balcony, and exited. “Handle them,” Nicholai told Ulrike over his shoulder as he quickly followed Baphomet through the upper-level door behind himself.
Ulrike did not seem very confident once her companion was gone. She looked to Fuuji, pressing the sword closer to Chan’s throat. “Whoa,” he said, “easy there, don’t kill me too soon or I won’t be useful anymore.”
She flashed him a glare and then looked back to Fuuji. “If you do not cooperate,” she threatened, “he will die.”
Fuuji snapped, turning on her. “Kill him!” he shouted, his anger rising. “I don’t care! Life is pointless anyway! What do I care if you kill him? He’s only going to die anyway, just like everybody else!”
She was taken aback by this and caught at a loss. Chan had expected such a feint; he would have done something similar himself. While she was distracted by the seeming unfeeling of his comrade, he moved quicker than she could react, grabbing her wrist and twisting her arm back so she was forced to drop the sword with a clatter; she let out a surprised cry. He easily managed to wrestle her to the ground from there with a combination of superior size and painful pressure on her twisted arm, and once she was on her stomach on the stone ground, he pinned her there. It was the standard pin that soldiers knew for dealing with belligerent detainees; knee between the legs, one hand holding the arm behind the back, other arm across the shoulders to force them into the ground. Shocked by how quickly the tables had turned, she reacted with a stunned silence.
Fuuji moved to stand over her, looking down nonchalantly, hands casually shoved in his trouser pockets beneath his open coat. She stared up at him from her position on the ground, completely frozen by fear. “So,” he said. “Spies from President Roelighein himself.”
She said nothing. He knelt by her, leaning down to take her chin in his hand and tilt her head up just slightly, so that it was uncomfortable but not exactly painful. “I bet President Roelighein wouldn’t care if you didn’t come back.”
Silent, she stared back at him, her crimson bangs falling in her cloudy blue eyes as they framed her pale face.
“Would he?” Fuuji prompted.
“Nicholai will kill you,” she said.
“Really. Deeper than professional, huh? Lovers, maybe?”
She said nothing.
“Lovers,” he repeated. “You know, in the end that means nothing, just like everything else. I could kill you now, and do you know what would happen down the road? What would come of it?” She just continued to glare, saying nothing. He released her, as he said, very plainly, “Nothing.”
Chan was beginning to suspect that Fuuji was not quite all there anymore, but made no comment against him. Crazies were, not surprisingly, some of the best soldiers. Or perhaps, soldiers were some of the best crazies.
“Trying to start a war?” he asked, not really caring what her answer may be.
“Averting one,” she replied.
“Really. I’d say based on this right here, Schwartzwald is the aggressor.”
“Your King Tristam seeks to begin a second Ragnarok. Only last month he was sending spies of his own to break Juno’s magic and throw it out of the sky.”
“He what?” Chan this time, taken aback by that news.
“Yes! They were almost succeeding, and then where would we be? At war, with Schwartzwald’s capitol gone. Easy prey. That is what your king is seeking. I will not be surprised if he is attacking GonRyun next, or Amatsu, in the hopes of expanding his rule. It is just Schwartzwald’s misfortune to be such a close and easy target, and one with a hope of defending itself.”
“That can’t be true,” said Chan.
“A dancer girl and a wizardess. I believe the only name we were able to get was Jolee…Ahred, I think. The dancer girl. The wizardess resisted interrogation.”
Chan’s brow furrowed. He knew Jolee Ahred, he had been in training with her when he’d first hit the rank of Sergeant and had to go through troop-leading classes like all newly-appointed Non-commissioned Officers. He looked up at Fuuji, who was still watching Ulrike. Even though the priestess had every reason to lie, that story rung deeply of believable truth.
Fuuji stood suddenly, saying, “Kill her.”
Chan’s eyes went wide as he stared dumbfounded at his commanding officer. Ulrike’s expression turned horrified, and she could not have moved even if she were able. “What?” Chan asked, after a long silence.
“I lost my stuttering problem a long time ago. You heard me.”
Chan just stared, for once at a complete loss for words. Tenyo bent down to take the sword from the ground where Ulrike had dropped it; the red and gold hemmed edges of his long black coat, left open, trailed on the dusty stone floor as he did so. He held the sword out to Chan, with the hilt toward the crusader.
Ulrike shut her eyes tight, turning her head away, praying silently that she would somehow live. Chan stared in a sort of dumbfounded shock at the proffered weapon, not moving to take it. The look on his face was the same look a rookie has after his first kill; that wide-eyed disbelief, like he’d never seen the cross-shaped steel contraption before in his life.
“It was a Raydric,” said Fuuji, staring down at him. The same lie he’d told about Lian’s death. “That’s all.”
Chan took the sword, still keeping Ulrike pinned by her arm, and watched Fuuji blankly as he took a step back once relieved of the weapon. Ulrike waited, knowing he’d gone for the sword once the weight had lifted off her shoulders; waited in terror with bated breath.
But the crusader shoved the sword into the scabbard at his hip, and moved to stand, hauling Ulrike to her feet with him, still keeping his hold on her arm. “You’re out of your fucking mind,” he told Fuuji.
The priest’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I gave you an order, PFC.”
“Fuck you!” he shouted, with such force that Ulrike winced. “The day I follow an unlawful order like that is the day I become a fucking murderer.”
“I am your Commanding Officer-”
“You’re a fucking nutcase!” he interrupted. He quickly added a derogatory sounding, “Sir.”
“Who’s really going to care, Dick?” The use of his first name had no noticeable effect on him. “People die, that’s life. And the people around them, they go on, almost like those people never were in the first place. What’s the difference if you help somebody along?”
“I have some motherfucking integrity, that’s what.”
“Just one slash. As simple as that. One slash, she’s gone, forgotten, life goes on like she was never there at all. Just like Matthews.”
Chan’s glare was solid, frigid. If looks could kill, Fuuji’s body would have been unidentifiable. “I hope,” he said, in a dangerously low voice, “that you make it back alive, because the commander is going to have a field day with you.”
Without even thinking about it, he stormed to the doors beneath the balcony, dragging Ulrike with him by her arm. She offered no resistance, glad to get away from the strange, murderous priest.
Once the doors had closed behind them, Fuuji found himself suddenly very alone. He looked around himself at the vast emptiness of Castle Glast Heim, realizing that he was a very small speck in a very large cosmos. Which was, of course, why people didn’t matter after they’d died. Because it was all so insignificant, so pointless.
Life was too short to waste on foolishness like emotions or honour or chivalry. He realized that now. He realized the grand epiphany that there was nothing in the world worth truly caring for; you lived and you made the most of it by doing what meant something to you.
Lian had always lived to fight. She had no emotions to get in her way, and it made her perfect. The perfect fighter, the perfect soldier, the perfect person. And now she was dead, and forgotten, and Tenyo had been the one to inherit that perfection of hers.
This new, perfect Tenyo Fuuji turned and left, walking out back the way they had come.