Chapter 8 : Nacchan goes on a trip. And saves a cat. Don't forget the cat.
In a dark, damp cave, somewhere in Occidens...
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
A blonde girl was crying out, still sitting on an unconscious woman, while a black haired teenager was completely confused about his situation. Tentatively, he reached out to the girl and caught her metallic hand. It was warm and strangely pliable, without the obvious joints, be might have thought those were only gloves covering her flesh. There were other minute differences, bigger eyes, freckles, curls, but the similarity to Yuri was too great to ignore, especially since the girl happened to be his ( accidental) savior.
But let's go back in time some more to understand what's going on, shall we ?
A few minutes ago...
Nagito had a bad feeling about this. Well, it was about Ai, so of course, whenever that ...thing, was involved, it was bound to end badly.
Sadly enough for him, he was right.
"Kya ha ha, look at what the cat dragged in? It's itty bitty Nagito-cutie..."
He barely stopped himself from jumping out as he felt two cold appendages circling around his torso from behind, clawing at his shirt while a light, creepy and icy breath was running along the back of his neck. Goosebumps were spreading as he felt liquid that didn't smell like water spreading on his back, not helped by the fact that... Was she trying to lick him ?!
Creeper quota exceeded, the brunette freed himself with a massive gust of wind, sending the undead woman careening into the wall, before she fell to the ground with a dull thud. The body twitched and slowly rose from the ground, bones snapping back into place, an enormous smile on her lips and her empty eyes filled with an insane light. They were glowing, literally.
"Aww, Nagito-cutie, so rough... You should treat girls gently" she purred, a hungry expression on her face, before she went back to giggling insanely, whirling around and hugging herself. Nagito blinked, and they were suddenly nose to nose. "You despise me, don't you?" Her face lost any expression, her voice flat. "You despise me, I disgust you, don't I? Say, say, you hate me, right? You'll never love me, right?"
Violet eyes narrowed in contempt, why did he have to go there again? Ah, yes, she systematically killed the other messengers. He sighed, getting a roll from a pouch strapped at his hip.
"Now that is out of the way, there's a message from the Queen for you, but if you're going to continue your brain dead act..."
The magic words spoken, Ai went back to her 'happy mode', clapped her hands together and squealed in joy.
"My Queen, my Queen, she still thinks of me! She loves me I knew it!" She grabbed the parchment and started reading, bouncing on the ball of her feet before an even higher pitched scream of happiness was emitted. "It's the signal ! The signal ! Finally I can build my army and serve my Queen!"
The manic glee on the undead's face and her words made his stomach drop. Surely, Yuri wasn't that far gone that she'd order something like that, right?
But the Queen definitely would.
Nausea started catching up with him. It was a thing to 'kill' somebody that would end up coming back anyways, but it was clear that whatever the Queen did to that woman went beyond that. He closed his eyes for a moment thinking. His world or not, there were lines Nagito refused to cross, and genocide happened to be one of them. Breathing in deeply, his fingers started tingling and his eyes opened. Ai felt the change of atmosphere, her form stilled, before turning back towards him slowly, her face now showing both hunger and glee. He faintly registered the chain around his arm and the book letting go and falling to the ground.
"You're going to betray us..."
The tingling became more intense, and wind started whipping around the cave, dust and bones sent flying around haphazardly.
"Joining you would be betrayal."
And with a savage scream, her hands wreathed in dark flames, Ai pounced, undeath drastically enhancing her physical abilities, only to crash in another wall while Nagito used his wind to hightail out of there. Wind users were disadvantaged underground, fighting her here would be suicide, he had to make it back towards the surface.
"Come back Nagito-Cuuutiiiie! Come out come out, whe-re-ver you are! Kya ha ha ha!"
The deadly game of cat and mouse continued for the better part of ten minutes, the evil lair getting increasingly devastated by her raw strength and him destroying the support pillars in order to try and bring down the maze on the crazy girl's head. He wasn't going to fool himself, he was getting tired, but the last pillar was in sight. Gritting his teeth as the shrapnel from another destroyed wall hit his arm, he kicked the last pillar, wind pressure causing it to explode. The whole complex shuddered and the room started falling, crunching noises sounding, morbidly enough, like salvation to him.
Then he noticed that the entrance was destroyed.
Then he noticed the debris on the ground was moving, a very pissed off looking Ai slowly extricating herself from the pile.
"Shit."
Then, as her draining spell hit him and he fell to the ground, the air shifted and shimmered, and a familiar girl appeared out of thin air, both feet falling on the deranged undead and crushing her skull, putting her out of commission.
And that was how Nagito first met Fiona.
Back to the present...
His hand gently guided her off the body, trying not to let her notice what exactly she stepped on, lest her freak-out became even more intense.
"And the, the Queen went all mad and tried to kill me, and then I got captured, and then there was all this undead army, and.. and... waaaurgh *hic*"
And she looked plenty shocked enough, even if less than half of what she said made sense. Well, Yuri wasn't known for making sense in the first place, but there was that. Soon enough, the girl stopped crying, her puffy red eyes instead alternating between looking at him and looking around the ruins as he guided her through the devastation. Knowing the old owner of the place, there were probably other exits, he'd just have to find them. He reassured himself by squeezing the small, warm, metallic hand in his as the two sunk inside the depths of the gallery in front of them.
***
Ai was snoozing on the ground in a puddle of blood, clutching on a ripped sleeve when two other people appeared, landing ungracefully on the ground.
" Here we are, Tasu-kid... Are? She didn't even leave a corpse this time, Ai-chan really does become more violent each time ey?" The yellow eyed male clapped Tasuku's back, who tried his best not to get sick all over the floor. The black haired boy, who was looking faintly green, moaned in pain.
"Whuh? R?"
R slung his arm around the brunette's shoulders, the other showing the comatose undead.
"Don't you remember? It's Ai, the crazy zombie chick back then, in the 'other world'."
"But... Hour zero..."
"Yup, it's a time travel spell."
"Then..."
"Yup, that's the future, ain't it neat?"
R almost pouted when he looked at the expression on Tasuku's face. Some people didn't have any endurance, did they? Hmm, good thing Lily didn't think of using Absolute Frost to destabilize his little ritual. The worst was that pain in the ass eagle. What wouldn't he give for a cute, trusting, easily manipulated assistant... Ah well, he thought, looking slyly at the human next to him, he had unlimited tries if he played his cards well enough. Now all he needed was to wait for the triple Hour Zero to be cast and try his luck again...
His hand suddenly plunged in the human's chest and sick green light bathed his form. His frame became smaller and slender, his face more delicate, and R knew dark brown was replaced by mesmerizing violet, Nagito's appearance replacing Tasuku's.
His ears caught a small sound and he immediately turned into a small rat as the rubble blocking the entrance was pulverized, a young girl with a head full of golden hair and royal poise entered the scene, disdainfully looking around the wreckage before her cold eyes fell on the two unconscious people and the distinct lack of book from the male.
"Humph, so his faith in us crumbled? We need to change that now, can't have Yuri notice anything."
Silence was the only answer she got, but the Queen huffed and laughed in cruel amusement.
"You say so now, Lily, but you forget why exactly she's the current main personality, little girl. Unless you manage to face the consequences of your actions, you will never account to more than this."
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The blonde clapped her hands and skeletons started excavating the ruins while she was examining the fainted young man.
"Hmm, that's a pity, Ai managed to kill his magic? There is no wind anymore... Ah, but there are still those Time hints, I see, I see, so it is as we thought. Necromancer, commence preparations for Hour Zero."
She got up and turned heels towards the exit, a golem dragging the male away behind her as beady eyes looked at the scene in satisfaction.
All according to the plan.
***
Nagito indeed managed to find out an exit, and get some answers from his diminutive companion. A time traveler.
Yuri/Fiona ( she was currently in a bit of an identity crisis at the moment) was a time traveler. An accidental time traveler that accidentally saved his life when apparently, he was supposed to be dead. Of course, leave it to Yuri to mess up he higher ups' plans. He patted the girl's head softly as she was hiding in his chest, refusing to even look at the surrounding greenery.
Apparently, she had somehow contracted a bad case of dendrophobia.
Her muffled voice reached his ears and he looked down at her.
"So, what do we do now? You're 'dead' and logically speaking, I shouldn't exist..."
That was true... Now that he thought about this, there was something they could do. He could almost imagine the Queen's fury when she found out about it... Thinking about it brought a very satisfied and cattish smile to his face.
"Well, Yu-Fiona, how about we go do some exploring? I read in some... maps" Paperwork " About some treasure " Queen's loot caches "That we could potentially use to get out of here..." And put a big thorn on her side.
The blonde looked up at him with her big, blue-green eyes, curiously.
"Out of where? Waaaah!"
Ah, there was another tree. Her reactions were a bit amusing, he thought to himself guiltily.
"Glad you asked ...Fiona. You see, when reading some maps, I realized something quite interesting. Our continent looks quite a lot like Japan..."
"You mean, we're going away, away?"
"If that's what you want, I'm getting pretty sick of this place, to be honest."
The faint smile he could feel on her face was all he got as an answer. Well, that and her snuggling closer to him.
***
Months later... in a forest near the 'demon country'...
Agito's voice sounded clear in the glade, and R could only shiver in anticipation. Soon, during the travel, he could merge with his past self and do something about his past host. He was quite curious about the possibility of sacrificing Himeko to take Yuri's place, now, the results that could yield...
"Not quite. I first got one of your version's approval before the plan was set up, and it should fire... Now."
A giant circle of light surrounded all of the people there, before being invaded by dark, purple tinted light.
"Hehehe, what a coincidence, my death goddess told me exactly the same thing! Now, using all those lives as sacrifices, let's see whose spell is fastest!" Adeline laughed, her body covered in glowing symbols, whirling around and looking up, her arms spread out.
A red light joined the dance. The demon general looked the other way, embarrassed.
"... I had that idea too."
R nodded his squirrel head and entered the circle, it was time.
No more light, a big explosion, and then nothing.
Or it should have been that way, anyways...
The three circles dissolved and all of the magic disappeared somewhere else, leaving all the people congregated there in various states of bewilderment and or anger.
The Queen and R seethed, because they knew exactly what that meant.
The only reason for that spell to become unavailable would be that someone got the primordial Time affinity and completed it, for if somebody gets it, it becomes unavailable for everybody else.
In other words..
Somebody stepped in as the future God of Time and now, until that person dies, they were stuck there.
Now, now, that certainly wouldn't do...
***
At the same time, somewhere in the previously named sea of Japan, near the coast of what used to be South Korea...
"Weeeeeeeeeee!"
Flying! We're flying! Wind magic is great!
Well, it's a small plane, but we're still flying!
And there's no tree, definitely a bonus! Only the sky and sea!
I still hate trees, Nagito tries to help me with my trauma, but him practicing fire magic gets me to think that I might have infected him with my tree hate instead. Oh well, it's only a forest or two, nobody will miss them.
Weeeeee, fishies everywhere!
Oh, what we're doing? Well, after thinking a lot, we decided to go on a vacation around the world to see what changed, since, you know, they are all going to the past anyways and the species change is still valid, and high Brythons have four times the average human's lifepan. I think I deserve a break, so we geared up, looted the (really familiar) dungeons, set undead on fire, stuffed everything in bags of holding, burned down a few trees and went our merry way, away from Japan.
I think there was also a bit of arson involved? I didn't really pay attention.
Yay, first day away from Japan !
Air magic and company are so convenient, I've got to badger Nagito so that he'll teach them to me!
*Thmp-thmp*
*Tick-Tock*
*Clack*
As we touch the ground, my right arm makes a strange noise and shifts, a golden, ornate watch forming on my wrist, three orbs shining for 00, 03 and 06 hours. Well, that's weird.
Ah, we also kind of gave up trying to understand my appendages, neither of us was very technology oriented to begin with, tee-hee.
Nagito looked at my watch, then at me. I looked back at him, and answer, still bewildered.
"I have no idea..."
Oh, well, it's a beautiful day, no Japan, no trees, and no madmen after us, I'll worry about that later-.
***
Back to Japan, the three way war was taking place while each side accused each other, until something attracted a certain person's attention. Well...
You see, Agito, or V as he had taken to be called, noticed the absence of a certain way of transportation of his after a week or two.
So of course, everyone drew the same conclusion.
In the sky, an eagle was flying west at full speed, tracking an anomaly beyond the sea. Its power pulsated for a brief moment, before becoming dormant again. This was a curiosity, and that eagle was curious indeed, especially since what he dubbed, the 'ripple incident'. Despite what his idiotic partner thought, something happened, and he would get his answers.
Meanwhile in the reunified Korea, or Bada Chimdae, as the inhabitants called it, vassal country to the Azure Empire ( China) in the little port city of Palansaeng Jogae, Fiona was dragging her companion far, far away from a blue-black haired young man who just professed to wanting to join the capital's cultivation academy, Seojjog Deulaegon, to take revenge on his family for abandoning his mother and him when he was younger and who happened to invite Nagito into his group of bros. All along she was scolding the highly amused teen about flags, protagonist, and how she couldn't leave him on his own and that he should be grateful she was looking after him like that.
Some things just never change heh?
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Bada Chimdae : sea cradle
palansaeg jogae : blue clam
seojjog deulaegon west dragon
Merci google translate °w°
Muhahahaha things go full circle now ! *dies*
I kinda hope it answers some questions?
Na na na Nacchan, can't go around without screwing people's plots just by existing...
I think the loose ends have all been tied up now, this arc was 2x longer than it should have been in the wordcount. O_o
Kinda weird. And feels really epilogue-ey.
Ahn well, I'll cook up something...
For now, I'm hungry ! °^°