”Lord…” Rainel murmurs as I disperse the surrounding air, revealing the city wall inches away from his face.

He promptly lets go of my hand and begins rubbing his hand against the bricks.

“Will you need help scaling the wall?” I ask as he feels it out.

“Nope.” He unfurls his massive scabbard from his back, moving his hand across every sword attached, letting his blood run across all six edges.

Within a second, all swords shoot out of his scabbard, and like a fishing line cast into the water, shoots up the wall and embed themselves evenly spaced apart.

Rainel quickly jumps off, hopping from hilt to hilt before landing right on top of the wall.

Then Celestia lets go of my hand. “Not bad.” She applauds before squatting down and jumping up there in a single swoop.

I lighten my body and blow myself up the wall promptly.

Rainel returns the swords all back to his hilt before looking around. A couple of soldiers point to us from the towers surrounding us and draw their swords, running down.

“It seems they’ve spotted us. Let’s clear things up quickly.” Rainel says as he raises his hands in surrender.

“We are not from Oliviand.” He says as about a dozen armed men and women surround the three of us, many of the soldiers had deep bags stuck underneath their eyes and were swaying unsteadily. A result from fighting for likely three days in a row at this point.

“Mmm, definitely not enough people to take me down if I had bad intentions.” Celestia whispers.

“I think you’re forgetting two others.” Rainel gives her a death stare.

“Just hypothetically. Don’t be weird.” Celestia shrugs.

“There’s no reason to trust you.” Someone says.

“Look, I’m the only one armed, and you can take my swords if you want. Just take us to the current acting commander, whoever they are, and tell them that Rainel Dineng and other reinforcements are here from the southern capital.” Rainel says.

Hushed murmurs spread through the crowd as he says this.

“Hold on, what do you mean, ‘other reinforcements.’” Aren’t you the weakest here?” Celestia complains.

“Shut up. Don’t make things any more complicated. Come on, who’s the leader here? Decide quickly!” Rainel shouts.

“I’ll take your swords, then.” A man steps up. Rainel unbuckles his belt holding the large scabbard and drops the set of swords into his arms.

“We’ll hold you three at the jailhouse for now.” He says as soon as Rainel gives up his weapons. Rainel sighs as soon as he hears that.

I click my tongue, annoyed. “If none of you are willing to help then we’re leaving to do this on our own. There’s no time for procedure right now. Either bring us to the commander, or—“

I feel a rush of wind on my face as Celestia suddenly disappears from my side, appearing multiple meters away, holding a stray arrow in her hand that almost hit someone else. “Hey, I didn’t want to bring this up and ruin the party, but we should move somewhere else, I feel…” She smiles serenely.

I look around confused as Rainel holds a hand against his forehead, everyone else suddenly lowering their weapons. Wait, I know what this is. I look at Celestia.

A single drop of blood drips from Celestia’s palm where she caught the arrow, splashing against the stone into a dark red dot.

“Okay. I’ll handle these three; everyone else, please return to your posts.

His eyes suddenly snap open as we reach ground level. “What the hell was that?! Who are you three?” He scampers away from us.

“No one you need to worry about.” Rainel reaches into his overcoat and pulls out an emerald green badge with a silver engraving of a bird resting on a branch. The moon reflects off the metallic surface, creating a shiny luster.

“Here, don’t tell anyone else about this for now. Can you keep that promise?”

“I have no idea what that is.” The man crosses his arms. “I still can’t let you three in.”

”Huh?”

Likely he’s just a volunteer and hasn’t been in the army for long. I think to myself.

”It’s the commander badge, don’t tell me you don’t recognize it? I should hold higher authority than anyone else in this city right now.” Rainel explains.

The guy’s eyes suddenly turn uncertain. “O-okay! Just to be safe, though. I have to—“

“Rainel, I know where they are. This guy is kinda a moron, so let’s ditch him.” Celestia interrupts, looking at Rainel.

…

“Sure.”

The heavy scabbard wrenches itself out of the man’s arms and realigns to Rainel’s back. As he swiftly ties it on, Celestia begins running in another direction. I follow her with Rainel closely following behind.

“Rainel, do you have any idea who we’re meeting?” I ask as we run.

“It’s either Lapis or Deret, the principal commander left during the campaign and took many other authority figures with him, so those two should be the highest ranking captains remaining, and if it’s not Deret… Then we are in trouble.” Rainel says.

“Huh? What’s wrong with Lapis?” I ask.

“As a leader, nothing really. However… She has some bad history with me to say the least.”

“You should really try not to allude to these things around me.” Celestia laughs.

“I’m not trying to hide anything, although I’d rather not talk about it right now, since you two, being outsiders, are the few people who don’t know the lengthy context.”

“Bro! Stop being so cryptic and give us the short version. It’s not that hard, surely.” Celestia complain- wait, the hell is a ‘bro?’ I think about it for a second. Ah it’s shorthand for brother.

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Rainel also seemingly takes a second to come to this conclusion.

“We are not siblings, why are you calling me ‘bro?’” He says after a short pause.

“Eh eh eh, I’m not letting you avoid the question. What? You think it’s something so heinous the two of us won’t want to work with you anymore? Try me.” Celestia stares at Rainel as she runs, instead of looking at the path ahead of her.

“... Please pay attention. I’ll tell you everything afterwards if we’re successful here, is that a good incentive?” Rainel tries to gesture towards the front, telling her to look ahead.

“Alright… That's a deal. You’re going to give us the whole story afterwards though.” Celestia looks back forward.

When did I get involved?

I watch a pair of eyes quickly duck into a window as I make eye contact with them.

“This city is still populated it seems.” I comment.

“Well, it’s not like they can afford to evacuate on such short notice.” Celestia then chuckles. “Regardless, I’m not sure many would be willing either. Given that they’ll likely never see their friends and family fighting on the front lines again.”

Fiao’s face flashes through my vision for a brief moment before I force it back down to the recesses of my mind.

…

No, it won’t go down that easily I’m afraid. Our recent memories were too sharp to bring down by force, elsewise it would catch and bleed.

I sigh deeply then stew in silence.

“I was right. This is definitely where they are.” Celestia stops by a massive courtyard with thousands of people running around, carrying supplies, injured soldiers being brought in, some freshly equipped and running into battle. To be honest it wasn’t terribly difficult to deduce where all the noise was coming from even without using Anku to enhance my senses. Although it would be much more difficult to find where the commander was.

“s-cuse us.” The two of them weave expertly through the hectic crowd leaving me struggling behind, getting swept up from multiple people at once. It was like navigating through a swarm of bees, people coming in from every direction at once, leaving my head spinning and my shoulders bruised.

As I get jostled around, I stare at my hand.

Maybe….

A pair of fingers enclose around my wrist while I was staring at my hand. I look up to see Rainel dragging me through the crowd with him.

“Sorry. Thank you.” I say through the mass of sounds surrounding us.

“No worries, it was more an oversight on my part.”

“Hey you guys good back there?!” Celestia shouts over the crowd.

“Yea, just move a bit slower!” Rainel shouts back.

With my steadily following behind, a minute later we arrive at a weary woman shouting orders to an onslaught of soldiers reporting to her. Her voice had a hoarse rasp, cracking every other word with a dry vocal fry underlying her tone due to the fatigue of battle. She was standing in a spot that had a perfect overview of the main gate where most of the battle was happening.

Her hair was slicked back tightly, her her expression was stern, but she had a surprisingly youthful look for a commander, someone even younger than Rainel. Probably could be confused as someone my age even.

Rainel stares at the commander with a blunt expression. “Fuck.”

The woman glances at Rainel from the corner of her expression. She briefly turns away before suddenly jolting back at the three of us, rubbing her eyelids severely. ”Commander? Ma’am?” The captain she was talking to looks at us with confusion.

“Lapis. Snap out of it.” Rainel gestures towards the captain waiting. “No time to rest yet.”

Lapis shakes her head and turns to the captain. “Sorry. Bring some of the injured from the main gate back. Make sure to be clear not to bring anyone severely injured enough that they won’t be able to fight again. DERET! TAKE OVER FOR ME!” She looks around. “Deret? Damn it, where is he!?” She paces around for a couple moments before sighing and directing her attention towards us.

“Don’t worry, we won’t take much of your time.” Rainel says.

She glares at Rainel. “Why are you here?”

”Reinforcements.” He states bluntly.

”Just the three of you?” She chuckles crazily.

“For now, yes. There may or may not be a main force arriving in a week, but we're here in the meantime.” Rainel doesn't massage his words even a little bit.

“Okay then. Do whatever you need.” Lapis turns away and begins instructing the other soldiers, clearly haven given up hope the second she heard the messge.

Rainel turns to us and shrugs.

...

”Wait a second, that’s it?!” Celestia exclaims. “The hell did we come all the way here for?”

“It is what it is, she won’t be willing to coordinate with us… Or more specifically me, so we just have to strike out on our own.” Rainel was also surprisingly quick to give up hope.

“Lady! The hell are you doing?!” Celestia lashes out and tries to directly confront Lapis till Rainel holds her shoulder back.

“Don’t waste any more time. We need to join the battle at the main gate.” He says.

“The hell we are! You know that nothing’s going to get done if we just directly enter the fight. We’re three people against tens of thousands.” Celestia argues.

“With the Tetsudo it may just be possible.” Rainel says stoically. There’s something off about him…

“Huh? I feel like I’m going crazy. Don’t delude yourself. This isn’t the right strategy. Right Cain?” Celestia invokes my opinion once again. Why does she always do this? But I oblige anyways.

“Rainel… You know we still haven't explained who we are yet. Coordination is still very possible.” I say hesitantly, glancing at his arm.

“What? Yea I’m fine I—“ He suddenly stares at his fingers, quickly shutting down a miniscule tremor.

“Sorry.” He admits. “I’m a little bit distracted.”

“Commande—?” A voice comes from behind us. “Sorry, I mean, Rainel?”

The three of us turn behind to see another man call out to us.

Did he just call Rainel commander? I mean, it's obvious Rainel's had experience before, so... does that mean...

“Deret, there you are.” Lapis looks at him. “Take over for about half an hour, I need to take a small rest.”

“I cannot, a large flank force is trying to scale from the east side. I have to coordinate a defense, so I came here to ask for some soldiers.”

“There’s no way I can spare…" Lapis looks at us. "You three, go with him.”

“Hmm…” Celestia rubs her chin. “I have a better idea. I go and deal with the flank by myself, Cain here talks with Deret and any other captains to gather info, and Rainel takes over command temporarily so you can rest.”

I was fully expecting to be outraged by her proposal, but that's actually not a bad idea.

“By yourself? I’m sorry? Who are you two?” Lapis finally addresses us, as if seeing us for the first time.

“He’s the northern capital Tetsudo Cain, and my name is Celestia, people like to call me the strongest in the world.” Celestia says

Lapis shuts and rubs her eyes again as she digests the information. "Tetsudo Cain and... proclaimed strongest Celestia. Were you... I remember, you snuck into the advancement army and wreaked some havok during the first abttle. Reports say he was very strong so..." Lapis murmurs to herself for a couple more seconds.

“Okay, I can agree to parts of that, but Rainel isn't taking over for me.” Lapis responds.

”Rest is important, you’ll make mistakes and forget things when tired.” Celestia says.

“I don't care. Anyone else except for him, I'd accept, but not him."

“I don’t know the history between you two, but Rainel is obviously experienced in this sort of thing, and you look like a walking corpse right now, if you want to do what’s best, let him substitute.” Celestia frowns.

“No.” Lapis scowls deeply.

"You... Your pride will kill many people, you know that?" Celestia voice lowers.

“Okay okay! Rainel and Celestia, please deal with the flank. I’ll take over for Lapis after I lead them to where it is, and the Tetsudo stays with Lapis for the moment. Let's agree with this please, there's not enough time to argue."

“Whatever. Just get this renegade away from me.” Lapis turns back and buries her face in her hands until another captain approaches her.

“Let’s not waste any time then.” Celestia says as the three of them turn to leave, leaving Lapis and me alone.