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Mars Base - Retribution
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"I regret to inform you that the assassination was a failure, ma'am,"
Hm... A smirk spread across my face. I had expected that, of course. After personally keeping watch over that child for a year, I wasn't foolish enough to believe that a simple Noble rank could beat him. I only sent those five to confirm my suspicions. If I had to make a guess, that child was around 10 Star - probably closer to 11 Star. If he actually tried, I'm sure that he could even beat the weakest of us Cardinals. All of that at only the age of 6. This kid truly is special.
In fact, he may even be what I've been searching for all this time - the key. The key to beating the Royal. If I truly wanted a life away from this war, I had to get the boy to allow me to join him.
"Hm, that's quite disappointing. Oh, well. He is a high priority mission, after all,"
I stood out of my seat, and began walking towards the door. My subordinate, seemingly intrigued, shouted out, "M- Madam Lust, what do you intend to do?"
"Isn't it obvious? I'll be paying him a visit myself,"
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6 years and 3 months since my rebirth - February 15th 1507
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The night sky stretched out far above my head, as I trained in the alley. This was a process I had grown rather intimately well acquainted with in the year since I had begun my training regime. Something I hadn't expected was that Violet had decided to join me this time. Out of everyone, she was definitely the one who joined me in training the most frequently, but I still wouldn't say it's common. The training is simply too intense for most people to handle - however, I suppose two of Violet's most endearing qualities are her stubbornness and competitiveness, so it made sense that she often refused to stop until I did.
We had been training in complete silence for around an hour now, and I was getting rather bored of it. After all, what was the point of training with a person if you weren't gonna speak? In that case, you can just train separately.
I swung my sword at a mana version of one of the Seven Cardinal Kings of Sin. I had started training with fake versions of the weakest of the Seven Cardinal Kings, due to anything else being way too easy. It wasn't particularly easy, but I could still come out on top if I put my back into everything I did. Plus, what was the point of training if it wasn't a challenge? Violet, however, was having a much different experience. Unable to beat a single one, she spent a lot of the training on defense, which was bad for her, as her main fighting style is very aggressive. One good thing from it, though, was that she was getting much stronger extremely quickly, due to fighting an opponent so far above her level. The more I thought about it, the more I felt bad for her. Since she's a reincarnated Cardinal King, this is pretty much like her getting beat on by a teammate who was always considered weaker than her. That must suck.
A clash sounded as one of the mana dummies intercepted my strike and attempted to disarm me, but failed due to not being able to overpower me physically. I looked over to Violet for a second, before attempting to start conversation. "So... how's life?"
I was usually pretty okay at striking conversation, but for whatever reason, it felt a thousand times more difficult with her.
"It's..." She grunted, "It's definitely something. I've been quite busy with Shattered Veil recently, so I guess I just haven't really thought about it in a while,"
I poured all my strength into breaking the interception, managing to slightly crack the mana dummy's blade, before backing up slightly. "Well, if you want to take a little bit of time off, I don't think tha-"
"No," She looked over to me. "Remember, Shattered Veil is as much my organization as it is yours. You're doing all of this training for it, right?"
"Yeah, I guess,"
"Then, if you're dedicating this much time to it, I have to do something as well,"
That heartfelt comment sort of caught me off-guard. I wasn't used to her being so... open. I guess, she's starting to truly trust me. I didn't know why, but that thought made me a bit happy. "Wow! So, you can say what's on your mind! I didn't know you were capable of it, to be honest,"
"Oh, shut up, flame face!"
"Flame face...?" That nickname. She hadn't used it before... at least not in this life. That nickname was what Iris, the Cardinal King of Envy, called me.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I had suspected that she might be Iris for a while, but I really didn't want to believe it. Not because Iris was my archenemy or something like that - it's actually for nearly the exact opposite reason. Iris wasn't an enemy. She aided the Infinite Party in our quests, and actually preferred humans over demons. But in the end, she died by the hand of a human, and in legend was just another comically evil demon. I hated the fact that her image had been ruined. But I had hoped not to see her again purely because... I had no clue how I'd handle it.
"Oh! Uh... I just... Your hair's red, and you use fire spells a lot," She tried to explain. The excuse of my hair being red was smart, but the true reason she called me that was because of the second reason. I did use fire spells a lot, both in my past life and this one. "I'll just... just ignore it. I won't ca-"
"It's okay," I said, facing down slightly.
"What?"
"I... I actually quite like it. You can... You can call me that," I finished, now facing her with a small smile, and a rapidly reddening face.
"Oh... Okay,"
A silence grew between us - an awful, awkward silence, only occasionally broken by the sound of swords clashing against each other. This time, I was perfectly fine with letting the silence continue, completely embarrassed from the conversation. Hey, at least I had pretty much foolproof evidence about which Cardinal King of Sin Violet was, right? And Iris was actually probably the best option.
'Woosh'
Huh? That sound... it was the sound of an object moving in the wind. What was happening? Suddenly, all of the mana dummies shattered. Someone had managed to take them all out within a single second. And that person was standing before us.
A woman with long pinkish red hair, harsh pink eyes that emitted a calm aura of power, and a rather curvaceous figure stood in front of Violet and I.
I knew her, but why was she here? The Cardinal King of Lust - Velika.
"Hello, I am-"
"I know who you are," I interrupted. "You're the Cardinal King of Lust, Velika,"
At first, her face seemed intrigued. However, the second I mentioned 'Cardinal King', she seemed more shocked and confused. Oh, yeah. I forgot that most people only think there was one Demon King.
"H- How do you know of my old title?!"
What I was more confused about was how she was alive. We killed her, after she betrayed us for her own gain. Originally, she agreed to join us in our journey against the other Cardinal Kings of Sin, but after she joined, she began to question whether or not we were truly strong enough, and eventually betrayed us. To put it simply, she's a coward who only cares for herself. If she sees anyone who she believes could be stronger, she will betray her old teammates without a second thought to save her own skin.
But she should definitely be dead. Was the Royal truly strong enough to revive people?
"No, what's more important is why you're here!" Shouted Violet, slightly enraged. We had recruited Iris after the whole Velika fiasco, and we had told her all about it. So, I imagine that she wasn't too thrilled to see someone who had betrayed both sides of the war. Yes, Iris did side with us, but she never actually betrayed anyone, as she was never on the demons' side. She was always on humanity's side. In fact, she actually came looking for us herself to ask to join our party.
Velika regained her composure, a sly smirk on her face. "I am here to join Shattered Veil,"
"WHAT?!" Screamed Violet. I didn't blame her at all for being outraged. After all, not only was Velika a known traitor, but also a Cardinal in Retribution's arsenal.
"Believe it or not, it's true,"
I sighed. This was so complicated. Neither of us are strong enough to beat her yet, which means if we refuse her, she might just kill us. And she could also provide some pretty useful information about Retribution to Shattered Veil. But at the same time, we couldn't trust her. How could we ever trust someone who has such a dirty history?
"Alright..." I began. "You can join. But we expect you to tell us everything you know, and on top of that, you can't expect us to tell you anything, either. We don't trust you,"
She looked me up and down, before her smirk grew. "You truly are extraordinary, even more so for a child. Of course, I don't expect you to trust me. If you did, I think I'd actually be more disappointed than anything,"
I looked over at Violet, and she looked over to me. It was clear that she didn't agree, but I didn't have much choice. And luckily, it seems that she also acknowledged that.
"If you're truly serious about joining, then meet here on the 20th,"
I began walking away, Violet by my side. It was about time for training to stop anyway.
"Hm, well aren't you a hypocrite. What's stopping me from just bringing the rest of the Cardinals with me to this location and massacring you all?"
"Simple. That's not your goal,"
Velika hates wasting time. If she truly wanted to kill us, she wouldn't pretend to be interested in joining our organization. She must've seen my potential, and decided to abandon Retribution as she believes that siding with Shattered Veil will lead to the best outcome for her in the future. Even if we couldn't trust her, we could trust that she isn't loyal to Retribution.
"That kid... Truly extraordinary,"