Kamii rides the lift up the butte atop which Chandra's fortress stands and looks over the village below. It's empty for the most part, with the majority of its inhabitants pulled out to join the war. There's only a skeleton garrison remaining to defend the young - ajura elderly don't exist, as they stop aging after reaching their prime.
If a large army came this way, the demons wouldn't be able to withstand a siege for long. While they're individually the strongest demons - with the exception of the few Rangatira that may still be in existence - none of them could measure up to Chandra. And even she isn't invincible.
Kamii and her companions have somewhere to be and can't stay here to help in case of a battle. In fact, they have foregone helping out in several other villages and cities, even if they could have made a difference with their strength.
That's all due to the crone telling the little dark elf to go to Zohigal, saying that she would find answers to a lot of her questions there. As the woman covered in black feathers foretold, she met somebody she had been separated from for a long time. But the fact that it wasn't Chaos did annoy her. However, now she understands that she should collect Gram as well, and bring the old group together, so that they may be judged for their actions in Arkaim.
When they reach the top, she's greeted by a sight similar to the one she saw back when they arrived here for the first time. Two multi-armed ajura warriors are wrestling in the courtyard of the semi-circular wooden fortress, surrounded by others of their kind watching and cheering them on. She half-expected to see Gram among them, but he isn't present and must be inside the building.
Batamira silently gestures for the fighters to continue when they motion to stop as they pass them, before leading Kamii around the makeshift arena. He doesn't take the little dark elf's size into consideration when he walks at a brisk pace, but she jogs after him without complaining. They quickly make their way into one of the side entrances of the longhouse. When the deputy commander opens the door, a fragrant smell wafts into their faces. Lunch is being prepared.
Walking through the empty barracks where two dozen warriors normally live in a rather cramped area, they enter the hallway and pass the bathhouse, before finally reaching the kitchen. Batamira stays on the other side of the door and gestures for Kamii to continue herself. Her request was to talk to Gram alone after all.
In the kitchen, the big man is standing before a large bubbling cauldron, wearing an apron and stirring with an oversized ladle. For a second, the little dark elf stops to consider that he's acting like a house husband, waiting for the wife to return from the war. He has always been the best cook in the group - then again, he has always been the only cook. Neither Runa nor Chaos prepared even a single meal, and all Rolan and Sigurd were good for was to heat water and stir the stews.
"Gram." Kamii calls out to him, and he spins his head around in surprise. Nothing changed about him in the past year, and his mustache is still as magnificent as ever.
"Kamii?" He almost drops his ladle when he sees her. A smile appears on his face, but it freezes over when the little dark elf doesn't return it with her own. Her eyes are focused on his face, and her eyebrows curl into a slight frown.
"What were you doing in the demon castle?" The last time they all saw each other was in the infirmary of the demon queen's castle, and they had parted on a sour note.
"We were called upon by the gods to help defeat the demon queen." Gram answers truthfully. Even though he spent some time with demons and learned that they aren't all bad, he still believes that taking down the demon queen was the right thing to do.
Kamii couldn't fault him for that. His father died, and his family went to ruin because of a cursed beast, resulting from the corruption spread by Queen Pelomyx. While that corruption may be a blessing for demons, he's still a human.
But it seems that he lived here, oblivious of the war being fought on this continent. Rolan felt apologetic about his actions because he witnessed their repercussions first-hand; Gram returned to Ajurai right after the battle was over, and most likely never told anybody about what happened.
"Do you think that was a good thing?" The little dark elf's amethyst eyes stare into his with a piercing gaze.
"Yes, I do. Humans no longer have to suffer from curses and corruption." Sensing that something is wrong, the big man feels the need to justify himself.
"Like me?" Lifting her crab pincer, she brings it up in front of Gram's face. She suffered for a long time due to this deformity, but all she can remember is that it was at the hands of humans. None of the demons considered her an outsider when she traveled the continent, and many took her in as one of their own.
Then again, she was treated well by him and the others as well, and they considered her a proper companion.
"No, you... what happened to you, Kamii?" Realizing that she's acting strangely cold, the big man finally looks her up and down to see that she wears an outfit completely different from her usual ones. Chloe bought her a few bright dresses and a thick cloak for winter, but she's now clad in dark, form-fitting leather and sports a tattered scarf around her neck.
Her clothes are dusty, and some places are worn down by a lifestyle that clearly involved fighting. Even if her features haven't changed noticeably, both her gaze and speech are much more mature than he remembered them to be.
"The demon queen died, the humans invaded and are now massacring innocent demons in their homes." She replies without changing her expression.
"What?" Gram lets go of the ladle, and it tumbles to the floor. He did witness imperial soldiers kill civilians in Arkaim, when they were waiting for the preparations to invade the castle to finish. "I thought..."
"You thought it would be over with the death of Queen Pelomyx?" Kamii steps forward and uses her cursed arm to pick up the dirtied kitchen tool nimbly. She throws it in the sink and looks up at the big man. "Your actions started a war in which hundreds of thousands are dying."
He stares in shock as the little girl gives him an accusing gaze. The thought had crossed his mind before, and seeing the entire ajura army move out from the fortress behind their leader did make him wonder what was happening. But nobody had told him anything, leading him to believe that even if there was a war, it wasn't as devastating as Kamii just described it.
"Rolan is with me." Turning away, she changes the subject. "We'll stay here until he gets better again."
"Rolan? What happened to him?" After hearing that his former group leader is sick or wounded everything else is forgotten for the moment.
"You can go meet him when he wakes up again." With these words, Kamii walks out of the kitchen.
Rolan's feverish dreams were haunted by the scenes of carnage and unjustified violence he witnessed so many times over the past year. Defenseless civilians that had no will to fight were slaughtered on the spot, others ran away and were hunted like game. Human soldiers laughed as they beheaded kneeling women and children. A girl looking like Urial was being flayed alive as the men reveled in her screams.
He sits up from a lying position and screams at remembering her eyes darting across the plaza in search for help - or release from her torture - and fell on him.
His surroundings are different from what he expected; rather than in a tent, he's inside a wooden room and lying on a proper bed. Natural sunlight falls in through the window that lacks glass panes, and the sound of people shouting can be heard outside. They aren't murderous yells but encouraging ones.
"How are you doing?" A familiar voice comes from the open doorway, and Rolan turns his head to look over.
"Gram..." He mutters when he recognizes the big man. When they separated back then, he would have never thought that their reunion would happen in such a manner. "As you can see, I lost a few things."
The former leader lifts the stump of his left arm, which has grown shorter since the day it was amputated. Because of infection and gangrene, even more of it had to be removed, and it now barely extends below the joint.
"Was everything we did wrong?" Coming into the room and sitting down on the chair next to the bed, Gram asks the question that has been haunting him with a downcast gaze. It has been five days since Kamii informed him of the war. Since everybody avoided him and Rolan was asleep until now, he mulled over the issue on his own and found no answers.
"No." Rolan suddenly replies in a confident tone. "We did what we thought was right at the time."
"But it turned out to cause suffering instead of preventing it." Looking into his leader's eyes, the big man argues. It hasn't gotten to the point where his self-esteem is shattered since, unlike Rolan, he didn't witness the atrocities human soldiers committed against the demon civilians. However, he never thought that the Empire of Terminus would start a war of extermination after the demon queen died. He always thought that they would have peace for a time.
"Yes, that's true." Lying back down, the former leader peers up at the wooden ceiling. "We did the right thing from a certain perspective."
That's something Kamii told him on their journey. She learned this from Chloe, who had thought about the effects of corruption and considered that it was something humans could never reconcile with. Thus, to humans, killing demons was the right thing to do.
"That's why her mother stood at the top of all demons, and even the gods were afraid of her, huh?" Covering his eyes with his right hand, Rolan smiles to himself in self-deprecation. If the daughter had the capacity to think in such ways, her mother must have been an incredible person as well.
A shiver runs down his spine when he remembers what she had looked like. If he didn't have the support from the gods, he wouldn't have been able to stand his ground back then. And now, he has decided to put himself at the mercy of that monster's daughter.
"Will you come with me once again?" Rolan sits up from the bed and gives the big man a determined look.
"Where are you going?" Gram's expression makes it clear that he's going to follow him this time regardless of their destination.
"To find redemption." The former leader smiles as his eyes flicker over to the doorway, in which Kamii has appeared silently.
Whatever form that redemption may take.
A fortnight after they arrived at Ajurai, Rolan was well enough to walk on his own again. His arm stump had been properly disinfected and looked to be on the way to healing. At Kamii's request, the ajura gave them plenty of medical supplies for the journey ahead of them, so that he wouldn't suffer an infection again.
Despite protesting at first, Zancrax was persuaded to pull a cart, on which a large number of rations were brought along. He had always been the one to carry the baggage in a giant backpack, but now he was being used as a draft animal. At least nobody rode on the cart, and even the still wounded Rolan walked on his own two feet.
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Their journey took them further south, where the dry steppe changed into a savanna a few days after their departure from Chandra's fortress. No roads lead where they were going, and only under the guidance of Sazi could they find their way.
Wild animals both large and small lived in these parts. The biggest of them were thick-skinned quadrupeds that towered above the trees and fed on entire branches in single bites. The untouched nature was soothing to the mind, and the former group leader found himself lulled by the peacefulness.
But he wasn't far enough gone to leave the world behind to become a hermit. There were things he had to do before he could allow himself to retreat from everything. If he was still alive after finishing them.
One moon after their departure from Ajurai, they finally found their way into a jungle. Navigating the terrain became increasingly difficult due to the undergrowth, and eventually, Ireyo had to use the Divider to clear a path. She did so while grumbling, complaining that her noble weapon wasn't a gardening tool.
The climate became hot and humid, and the humans were sweating profusely even when the physical activities weren't especially strenuous. Terog wasn't any better off, and Zancrax was panting as a means to adjust his body temperature. Sazi was fine for obvious reasons, and Ireyo didn't seem to mind either.
Kamii looked completely unaffected as well, and no hint of sweat could be seen on her skin. Her step was light and seemed unburdened by the muggy climate.
The first night, Terog was made to realize that the humidity meant making a fire was a fool's errand. Insects were buzzing around their ears, and wild animals called for their mates, so none of them could fall asleep. Once again, only Kamii seemed to be fine, as she closed her eyes and quickly dozed off.
They attributed it to the fact that she was a dark elf and didn't think about it any further.
"We're surrounded." Terog suddenly calls out to Ireyo while sniffing the air. It's the second day in the jungle, as the group cuts their way through the jungle in an almost straight path.
"What is it?" Kamii asks as she strains her sense of smell without achieving any result. The boar-faced man has the best nose among everybody present, and what he picks up may not be readily noticeable to others.
"A whole bunch of 'em. Smell like blood." He replies while glancing at Sazi.
"Blood Apes." The masked woman explains. "They have a primitive culture of their own, hunt in large packs, and are extremely territorial."
"You say it like it isn't our problem." Zancrax secures the cart and brings down his visor. "Good thing I didn't take off my armor even in this heat."
"What do we do?" Rolan, whom Kamii allowed to carry his sword, stands beside Gram. The latter has raised his shield while glancing around cautiously. Ireyo glares at the two of them with clear disgust and lifts the Divider with a single thin arm of hers.
"We fight our way through." She comments and grabs the chain attached to the hilt of her massive broken sword. With strength that should be impossible at her size, she throws the weapon to the side, before yanking the chain around.
As if hewing crops, she cuts a wide half-circle through the jungle in front of her, before yanking the sword back on the chain. Howls and high-pitched shrieks emerge from all around them, signaling that this attack must have hit something.
"Circle." Kamii only says, and everybody comes around to cover Sazi at their center. Maybe she isn't a fighter and takes on more of a support role. Being a zombie, she most likely doesn't possess much physical strength.
From all around them, chimpanzee-sized apes with blood-red fur and white paint covering their naked bodies break out of the undergrowth. They wield crude spears and clubs, showing off their sharp canines as they scream at the demons in their midst. Their sizes differ greatly, with a few towering at nearly the height of Gram and looking more like gorillas.
Several of them drop down from the trees and climb on top of Zancrax, using thick vines in an attempt to capture him. They must have seen bulls before and thought that he's only a draft animal, but minotaurs are proud demons that hate the thought of being used by others.
"Get off me!" With a roar, he grabs the vine and pulls the apes off him with a quick movement. Stomping the head of one that fell under his hoof, he slams his fists on the ground to intimidate the apes around them.
At the same time, two of them rush at Kamii with spears. Gram runs forward to defend her, but she preempts him by meeting the two assailants head-on. With a swing of her cursed arm, she slaps the first one's spear aside, before clasping the second one's neck in her pincer. Not even hesitating for a second, she quickly jerks her arm around and slams the ape into its companion. Then she lets go and brings down the hammer on top of the first one's head.
She repeats the process until one hit bashes in the skull of the first and turns it into a bloody mess. Then she continues with the second one buried underneath the twitching corpse. More apes charge at her, but on her seventh consecutive hit, enemies begin to be sent flying. On her tenth, the head of an unlucky ape bursts like an overripe melon, as the skin and bones are no longer able to withstand the force of her attacks.
Rolan and Gram have witnessed her strange ability before when sparring against Chandra. Back then, Kamii had been the only one with the potential to deal serious damage to her, although the conditions for her ability were a great limiter. In a sense, she's the perfect fighter when it comes to facing many enemies consecutively.
But the former leader won't be overtaken when it comes to defeating a group efficiently. Even with only one arm, he can still use Roshanee. Staring at the opponents charging at him intently, he takes in the distance to them, the weapons they wield and the speed at which they approach.
Then he pulls the Sword of Light from its hilt and charges forward as if moving in time lapse. He moves past each enemy and slashes or stabs a vital spot at blinding speed, performing a quick dance in a circle that brings him back to his starting point next to Gram.
Unlike usually, he can't immediately return his sword to the scabbard due to lacking his left hand to hold the latter in place. He has to make do with swinging the sword at the ground in a practiced motion of getting the blood off of it - even when it never clings to Roshanee in the first place.
The apes stumble, several dying on the spot while others are surprised to find blood spurting from open wounds on their bodies where none had been before. Their companions, who witnessed it from the outside, stop in shock and look around confused.
Terog and Ireyo each killed several enemies on their ends as well. The boar demon doesn't possess any overwhelming strength as the rabbit woman does, nor does he have a magical sword like Rolan, and he doesn't have powerful curse as Kamii does. He fights with pure skill, honed over a long career as a warrior, with consistency beyond that of the human's even when he's empowered by Roshanee.
The big apes join the fray as well, each aiming to take on one member of the group. Kamii easily dispatches the one coming at her with a single strike that transforms its body into an explosion of flesh and blood. Ireyo cuts hers down with a ground-shaking slash of the Divider. Zancrax gores his opponent's shoulder but becomes locked in a battle of physical strength, as the latter doesn't let go of the horn. Rolan slashes up the giant gorilla attacking him with a bone club, but the cuts aren't deep enough to bring it down.
Terog and Gram find more trouble with their opponents, as neither of them possesses a decisive power as the others do. Seeing their leaders charge in, the smaller apes experience a second wind in morale. Even if they can't win in quality, quantity will eventually overwhelm these demons foreign to this nation. The humidity and heat drain their stamina, and eventually, none of the intruders will be able to continue fighting.
"We need to break through." Sazi calls out to Kamii with this suggestion. "There must be hundreds of them waiting in the surroundings."
"Zan." The little dark elf calls out to the minotaur, who reacts to the shortened name with a snort.
"Yes, leader? I'm kind of busy here." While he doesn't like the nickname, he still asks politely for her order while wrestling with his opponent.
"You take the point. Sazi and Rolan, get on the cart. Gram and Terog will pull it." She quickly hands out the roles to everybody while fending off the smaller apes, even though her companions are still embroiled in their own fights.
"What about you?" Rolan dodges the bone club from his opponent while protesting. Kamii runs past him and swings her crab arm, snapping the giant ape in half at the waist and sending it flying sideways into a group of smaller ones.
On the other side, Ireyo's giant blade has cleaved through Zancrax' enemy in a single swing, allowing him to switch his position to the one given to him by their leader. Even though the rabbit demon's sword would serve them better in clearing a path, the minotaur is only good at charging ahead single-mindedly and ill-suited for defending a retreating group.
"Ireyo and I will guard the rear." The little dark elf replies, directed at the rabbit woman rather than Rolan.
"I'll join you. I can still fight." He has used Roshanee many times over the past year and practiced with it to the point where he doesn't even feel the strain from wielding it anymore. Even now, he's keeping the weapon in the open - an act that should drain his strength, but he doesn't feel any fatigue.
"No. You'll slow us down." Pointing her normal hand at his face without even looking at him, she states in a matter of fact tone.
On his way towards the front, Zancrax delivers a devastating lariat against Terog's opponent. The latter takes the opportunity to sink his axe into the giant ape's abdomen and rip it open before the former crushes its chest with a powerful stomp. At the same time, Kamii shatters the knee of Gram's opponent, allowing him to bring the edge of his shield down to break its neck.
Suddenly, as if the death of the last gorilla-sized one was a signal, a massive ape towering even over Gram emerges from among the trees. A crown of feathers sits atop its head, and it wears a necklace on which all kinds of demon and animal skulls are strung up. That must be the chieftain.
It lets out a roar as it beats its chest, and all the apes fall back. Kamii's swing at one of the retreating apes misses, and she clicks her tongue. There are still several dozen enemies all around them, and the trees are shaking from the reinforcements arriving from deeper inside the jungle.
Ireyo throws her weapon without hesitation, but the chieftain dodges it nimbly before stepping on the hilt of the sword to keep it in place. Even with her strength, she's unable to pull it back with the chain.
"Let go of the Divider, you filthy beast!" The rabbit woman screams in anger and runs forward, abandoning her position as the rear guard, but Kamii stops her by lifting her hand.
Without a word, the little dark elf charges at the ape chieftain. She hasn't hit any targets for a while now, so the effect of her arm has run out. The power that seems to double after every consecutive hit has to be built up again, but she still attacks fearlessly.
The giant opponent swings its arm to catch her, but she bends her upper body backward and slides across the wet ground on her knees while hitting the ape's elbow with her pincer. It's nothing more than a light tap for the beast, but it's enough for her to reach the second stage.
She nimbly gets back on her feet and touches the ape's midsection with her cursed arm, before evading its other arm trying to take hold of her. When she was training with Chandra, she learned to avoid six arms coming from an opponent towering over her just like this one. Two arms are much easier to dodge.
And she reaches her third stage just like this.
Rolan and the others watch in awe as it looks more and more like Kamii is only toying with her opponent. Her graceful dance as she lightly taps the ape repeatedly to mask the strength of her attacks makes it look like she's confident in her skills. She must have been practicing even more over the past year to get to this level.
Suddenly, the little dark elf goes all out, as she smashes the chieftain's kneecap with a full-strength swing. Howling in surprise, the beast falls forward and catches itself with its arms. She purposefully attacked a point of mobility so that there would be no escape from her follow-up hits.
Without pausing, she smashes away one of the supporting arms, breaking the wrist in the process and causing the bone to stick out from the torn skin. The force alone is enough to cause the chieftain to flip over onto its back.
Then Kamii jumps up and swings at the giant ape's chest. It attempts to block the attack with its good arm, but the impact leaves an audible wet cracking sound, and the arm is shattered as well. Without stopping, Kamii repeatedly brings down her crab arm, each time destroying more of the massive opponent's bones until a final hit splatters the beast's brain across the forest floor.
The smaller blood apes, after witnessing their leader getting defeated so one-sidedly, immediately scatter into the surroundings while screaming in fear. A few bigger ones remain, unsure what to do, while the biggest ones that came out of the jungle alongside the chieftain see an opportunity to take the reins. Even after the head has been taken out, the danger isn't over for the demons.
"Go!" Kamii identifies that fact and immediately signals for the group to move. Ireyo has retrieved the Divider and takes the rear, as Gram and Terog pull the cart while following Zancrax, who charges ahead under the directions of Sazi.
Rolan, seeing nothing else for him to do, throws Roshanee onto the cart before climbing onto it himself - he can't sheathe it with only one hand, so he chose to go the quick route. Looking behind himself, he sees the little dark elf and the rabbit woman following after them as they make their way through the swath of broken branches and trampled undergrowth that the minotaur at the vanguard leaves in his wake.
Under the leadership of several giant apes, the smaller ones return to their senses after their initial panicked flight. They begin giving chase, throwing spears and rocks as they slowly catch up. At this rate, the group will be hounded until either side is completely exhausted.
"Zohigal is not far from here. Just hold out until then." Sazi announces without even looking at her surroundings. Rolan considers that she may have a talent that's similar to Sigurd's, as he can tell directions and time accurately even when underground.
Harried by the blood apes, the strange companionship makes its way through the jungle at a breakneck pace.