CHAPTER SEVEN: THE 4D CHESS PLAY BEGINS
Francesca Agosti was a curious existence in the Sorakarago universe, as were the Gods of Grimm in general.
Their existence in the games only came about during the fourth mainline game, as well as the prequel novel starring Tatsiana as a pre-order bonus, which was exclusive to Japan. The fourth game was a debated topic amongst the Sorakarago community, since it was technically an alternate universe and not part of the main continuity like the rest of the mainline games.
The only thing that really connected it to the other mainline games was the main cast, who were bio-android recreations of the original Sorakarago heroines, which was a plot twist cause they all thought they were the real deal, and the weapon Longinus, which was Sakuya's ultimate weapon in the original game.
And considering that the spear was actually Gungnir and that Sakuya was the modern day reincarnation of Brynhildr, that checks out.
Hell, to further add to the Alternate Universe nature of the fourth game, the 'prequel novel' took place before the first Sorakarago games with Tatsiana investigating the recent string of missing low ranked adventurers. This would lead to her exposing the Butcher Brothers, killing them in the ensuing conflict, and then being approached by Francesca to help further her own investigation into her family's killers, to which the Butcher Brothers had connections. And this would lead Tatsiana down an insane rabbit hole (pun intended) of discovering corruption, back dealings and backstabbing all around her before discovering the Guillotine Casino, as well as the targets of Francesca's vengeance. The book's epilogue took place just before the start of the fourth game, five-billion years into the future, showing that version of Tatsiana had made a deal with the Gods of Grimm and become a planeswalker-like entity…and also heavily implied that she and Francesca were lovers now.
There's some kind of sex joke about wolves hunting rabbits in there somewhere…
Side note: The Sorakarago series became increasingly more yuri bait as the years went by, and the community ate that shit up.
Bottom line is, the fourth game was fucking weird and on some Drakenguard meets Blame! type shit. The Gods of Grimm were even implied to not even be gods in the first place. This was confirmed in the small booklets that came with the fourth game's official model kits for the heroines' mechas.
Yes they had mechas…and really hot plug suits…
The Gods of Grimm were implied to not be gods at all, but a massive, multi-dimensional, sapient magitek supercomputer called the Queen of Hearts which had split itself into multiple personas. It was basically the Moon Cell from Fate/EXTRA if it did a line of cocaine and took a fuck-ton of oxycodone.
Regardless, having Francesca here was a very lucky break for me, and made my plans so much easier.
"So, we got a deal or are you going to keep staring longingly into my eyes?" I asked cheekily, feeling a bit woozy now with the scissor blades digging into the sides of my neck. "This is a limited time offer, after all. Limited by the time I pass out from blood loss."
There was a flash of something dangerous in her eyes, as if she was silently cursing 'this cheeky little shit,' in her head. She covered up her obvious animosity with the all too sweet smile she greeted me with.
"We'll need a contract first~" Faster than I could perceive, Francesca had removed her giant weaponized scissors from my neck and the wall.
The stinging pain of having the sides of my neck opened up hit me with full force. I grit my teeth to bear with the pain, and quickly shoved an elixir pill into my mouth. My wounds healed in an instant, and I took a deep breath.
She gave the mug of Elixir in my hand a curious look.
While I was a little upset at the rough treatment, I understood why it happened. I'm a complete unknown, sketchy as fuck. Not to mention I rather callously dug up a lot of bad memories for her. The death of her family, and her own death…the White Rabbit did like recruiting those with nothing to lose, and nothing to hold them back. She wasn't a bad person though, just petty and vindictive at times, especially those she believed had slighted her. That didn't mean she wasn't above working with or using others as long as it furthered her own goals, but she had morals and limits to how far she was willing to go.
Despite her currently looking at me with a smile that promised pain, and holding her giant scissors behind her back like a mischievous child, my blood still stained on it, she was a decent human(-ish) being and would help me…given that she believed me in the first place.
"Make a one-sided compulsory truth clause on my end, and I'll sign the contract." I requested.
Francesca blinked, and looked at me owlishly. "You want me to bind you to a conceptual geass to only tell me the truth?"
"I'd rather not be called a liar when you hear the truth and it's not something you like…"
She narrowed her eyes. "Hmmm, alright then…"
The bunny girl held out her hand, and dark energy gathered in her palm then began to form a black sheet of paper with white writing on it. On the top right corner was the symbol of the Pocket Watch Society, the writing on the page detailed the contents of the contract, self-defense clauses, and reasonable action clauses, I even made sure to go over the fine print and double check for the truth clause just to be sure. With my index finger, I swept my still bloodied neck, then stained the dotted line in my blood. The pulsed with a dark energy, then red chains shot out of the paper and into my chest. I didn't feel anything physical, but I felt something shift within my very being.
"There, all signed and sealed." She rolled up the contract and tossed it into a wormhole that appeared behind her. "Now you can't lie to me-"
"It was Damien Beaumont and everyone's favorite asshole, Verner Von Bluecher. Damien was one of Verner's little puppets, but since your father's campaign was getting too much traction, he had him assassinated by making it look like you all just got caught in the middle of a sudden gang war. Damien is now governor and one of the main people that pull the wool over Lancelot's eyes."
Francesca's face cycled through several emotions, practically going through the stages of grief five times before she openly scowled.
"Mother. Fucker." She cursed.
Oh boy she was pissed. Made sense considering that Damien was her uncle and her father's best friend. Shit like that doesn't really go over well.
Welp, time to rip off another band-aid!
"Listen," I began, a hint of desperation in my voice, especially with how shit my encounter with Tatsiana and Huang ended. "My name is Dante Alighieri. I come from an alternate version of Earth where this reality is portrayed as a videogame series, I was unknowingly given a copy of the game that had me puppeting actual people by an eldritch cosmic deity posing as one of my online friends. Now we have seven different timelines, counting this one, and the last timeline I was tricked into leading this world into its absolute worst outcome. Please…help me!"
She looked at me with an unreadable expression for a few seconds.
"Tell me everything."
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Francesca would admit that she read Dante completely wrong, but her defense… he did not help things with his whole 'Scheming Villain' act he was putting on at first. After he had explained everything to her, she brought him into her Burrow, an interdimensional private living quarters in Wonderland given to all those who worked under the Gods of Grimm. It was more or less a rather fancy luxury apartment, employed under deities beyond conventional reality had its perks, after all.
She gave a long sigh as she pondered over what he had revealed to her as she lounged lazily on her sofa. Dante was in the shower washing off the blood he was covered in when they met.
Still, she was shocked the White Rabbit actually answered his summons in the first place. It wasn't the first time she'd stumbled upon a doomsday world scenario, she doubted it would be the last, but it wasn't like the White Rabbit to answer without getting anything in return, so he must've held information the deity was very keen on obtaining. Hell, it wasn't even the first time she'd come across other realities being fiction in others before, her world being a multimedia series in Dante's wasn't too far fetched.
Though she couldn't at all deny Dante's words as much as she would've liked to. The Geass of Truth Clause forced the one subjected to it to reveal the truth completely, regardless of any curses placed on them, divine or otherwise, then ran the information through to the Red Queen and her knowledge base to fact check. Not only could she not deny the truth of his words, it was completely impossible for her, in good conscience, to deny it.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Francesca eyed the big mug filled with what looked like Elixir Pills on her coffee table. From what she could tell, the pills were legitimate, which was crazy considering how ridiculously hard it was to make elixir, but even more insane, the mug itself was an Aura Construct made from using blood as a catalyst, which by all accounts should be completely impossible!
"Good Lord, I needed that!" She heard Dante's voice as he walked into the living room, he wore a plain white t-shirt and a pair of black sweatpants that she provided, his hair was still a little damp from the shower, and she could still make out some lingering steam that still clung on to him.
He could also use something to eat considering how malnourished he looked. Though… as explained to her beforehand, it wasn't his own body, but the body of some poor kid that got caught up in this whole mess.
She held up an Elixir Pill. "Explain this for me."
"Alchemy is a mini-game crafting system in the Sorakarago series, and Elixir is usually a post-game unlockable recipe. I've been able to do the mini-game with ease since I was eleven - twenty-eight now, by the way." He explained in a matter of fact tone, as if saying he could make an actual miracle drug wasn't a big deal.
Immediately, she wanted to call him a liar… then remember he couldn't physically or mentally lie to her through a reality warping contract.
"You… are utterly ridiculous, you know that?" She let out an empty laugh.
"Honestly, I'm only just starting to understand just how crazy I am to you people." Dante shook his head. "And I thought the whole liquid soul and blood Aura Construct crap would be the thing most nuts about me in this reality."
"A liquid soul?" Francesca's gaze went back to the red mug holding the pills. "I had no idea liquid souls could be used in such a way."
Dante gave her an, admittedly, adorably confused look. "There are more people with liquid souls out there?"
Francesca felt a shift in her mind as the information was poured in. "We're aware of around four thousand individuals that possess a liquid soul spread out around multiple worlds. It's usually seen as a sort of defect. Interestingly enough, none of them are able to use Aura Arts, and the magic manipulation is usually D-Rank."
"They're not able to use Aura Arts?"
"The composition of one's soul is through how someone is defined by reality. Aura Arts is the manipulation of the energy one exudes, but a liquid soul is too defined. As such, the energy can't escape the body."
She could practically see the lightbulb go off in his head, it was cute. "So, it's like a double negative, almost. It's practically tailor-made for the hemomancy nonsense I've been pulling! Nice, I have some new stuff to add to my lore notes!"
The bunny girl raised a curious eyebrow. "Lore notes?"
He scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. "I was a big fan of the games growing up. Kind of ended up scrounging for any extra official material I could back in my teenage years, was kind of a lore master. I still edit the wiki every now and then." He crossed his arms. "It's almost alarming just how much I learned translates beat for beat into the world proper."
Now things were starting to make sense as to why the White Rabbit answered his call. If those games were as in-depth as she thought they were, then he knew a great many secrets about their reality. Then, instead of thinking of them as games, it could be said that Dante received the greatest education about magic, its nature, and the universe.
"What else?"
"Huh?"
"What other achievements pertaining to the games do you have under your belt?"
His eyes floated around for a bit as he tried to think. "Uhhh, I'm the third best speedrunner of the dungeon, being able to clear it in two and a half hours, and I hold the eighth place speedrunning record for beating the game in seven hours and forty-five minutes."
There was a sort of feeling building up in her chest, a mix of anxiousness, excitement, and genuine fear. Before her was probably one of the greatest mages to grace the world, Dante was probably someone on par with Merlin and Solomon, and he didn't even understand it yet.
Throwing her poker face up, Francesca felt a chill go down her spine. 'He could kill me any time wants to…'
"I have one serious, very important question for you." Dante leaned in, his expression steely.
Francesca leaned away a bit. "Yeeees?"
"Can I…" The next words out of his mouth were the last thing she was expecting.
His expression shifted from utter seriousness to almost child-like excitement on a dime. "Can I pet your bunny ears? They're adorable!"
She felt a bead of sweat fall down the side of her face. "S-Sure…?"
"Yes!"
'Well, at least I don't have to worry about him trying to kill me or something. Just like a little puppy almost…'
Francesca would then find out he was very good with his hands.
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"Dammit! Just where is he?" Tatsiana muttered under her breath as she stalked the cold streets of Paris.
It was the day after she had kicked out Dante, and only now had she realized how foolish of a decision that was. Not only had she lost her only lead on Astrid and the rumored Guillotine Casino, she let an immature nutjob with the attention span of a goldfish, who apparently knew the 'secrets of the universe' and had every intention to abuse them, walk away unsupervised.
She shook her head. "God knows what that idiot is getting up to now…"
At the very least, her mother had calmed down now, and they had an abundance of Elixir they could use if the worst came to be. Not to mention that Dante had brought Befreiung back to her. Idiot he may have been, but he brought back the other half of her family heirloom and asked for nothing, and in return, she treated him harshly and ran him out. She couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty despite how the events of the previous night distressed her mother so much.
She ducked into a rather dark looking alleyway to gather her thoughts. She had spent her entire day scouring the city looking for Dante, and couldn't find a trace of him. No one she had asked knew him, even by description.
Tatsiana could only sigh as she saw the sun begin to set.
Then a pitch black hole opened up in the brick wall in front of her…
Her eyes widened. "W-What the hell?!"
And out walked a familiar, but much cleaner, face.
Dante…
Dressed in a black, two-piece suit with a bow tie and a coat, that ever-present conniving smirk on his face, though the cut on the corner of his lip had scared. That smirk that seemed to turn into a genuine, joyous smile when his eyes met hers.
image [https://i.imgur.com/uVGYZUb.png]
He raised his arm in greeting. "Tatsiana! Good to see you."
The werewolf girl wanted to yell about what was going on in front of her was impossible, but at this point, she was mostly numb to Dante's insane shenanigans at this point.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. "What the hell is this?"
He rubbed the back of his head almost sheepishly. "Oh, you know, just doing stuff."
Before she could respond, another figure popped out of the hole. A tall beautiful woman with near stark-white skin, pale pink hair, and bunny ears wearing a black and white leotard. She had a sultry and flirtatious look expression along with a teasing smirk.
"Hi, I'm stuff~"
Tatsiana let out a long sigh, she was going to have to deal with this all night.
Chapter End