Many wise men and women had theorized about how one should spend their leisure, be it for the sake of self-improvement or spiritual growth. Some advised meditation, others hinted to enriching your mind with literature, and yet another would send you on a monster hunt just to raise your level. Political intrigues, education, physical exercises, intellectual relaxation in a theatre, so many options, so much to choose from.
And yet, there was another take on that vital question. Much more feral, primal, suffocating even. In a stuffy cellar, diseased with the sickening miasmas of love unrestricted, debauchery took place.
“Agh… Haa… Haa…” Norn, the younger princess, was sprawled all over the bed. A stream of white and red led to her deflowered hole. There was no way she could keep up with the potent man, so she was left alone.
“Gh… Gha-a…” Who wasn’t spared, though, was Flare. The Hero of Magic had lain down on her knees, her ass in the air, with her arms helplessly shuddering with each thrust. All the while, the healer held her by the chin, just so it wouldn’t rub against the bed sheets too much.
“…” Keyaruga remained silent. He went on and on, supported by the divine armament, grafted onto his very soul… “Ugh…” Until even Georgius couldn’t sustain his focus, and the man slipped right off the bed. He landed on the floor, rolled onto his back. As the man lay on the cold wood, his smeared manhood steadily shrunk, and he grasped at the moment of serenity. An instant, in which his mind refused to process the reality around him. Nothing besides the quiet ringing in his ears existed, and even that was absorbed by the void…
Until the sound of tranquil clapping ripped the lad away from his newfound calmness.
“He-he-heh… Now you’ve done it, now you’ve ruined her.” Norn chuckled, slapping Flare’s butt. The elder sister, being unconscious as she was, couldn’t even moan in the response.
“It’s alright. She’ll… recover soon.” The man admonished, staring at the ceiling. “That’s how we relax.” He added, noticing something new on the edge of his vision. An arm, Norn’s extended hand.
“Get up, my prince. You look worse than a pile of shit.” The girl mused, offering her help in getting back onto the bed. “You’re better than this.”
“I’m fine.” The healer refused. He kicked up himself back to his feet instead. “Wouldn’t want to pull your muscle.” The red-eyed lad spoke, demonstratively shaking dust of his body.
“Show-off.” The princess muttered, moving her body to the edge of the bed. It was wide enough for all three, and yet the girl wanted to give at least some space to her conqueror. Even if she had to do it with her hands, as the legs just didn’t respond after even a semi-rough screwing. “Hey, would you fuck me like her someday?” The fallen warlady inquired, watching the man putting Flare to rest on her back, infatuated by the hero’s sculptured muscles, shining in fading light of the candles.
“Maybe.” The red-eyed lad answered, moving on to gather their clothes. “When you become strong enough to handle it, and willing to take it this way.”
“Haa, you know it’ll never happen, right? I’ll always be stuck as the same powerless ‘commoner’ class. I can’t cast fireballs, can’t run like the wind, can’t even swing a dagger. And… you don’t really need me in achieving your vengeance. I’ll be nothing but a burden to you.” Norn had no choice but to admit.
“That’s where you’re wrong, princess. I’m going to usurp the throne of Jioral.” The man admitted, casting a spell of alteration on Flare’s face. That didn’t change much, seeing the girl was yet to open her eyes. She could still be recognized as the first princess.
“I see… You should’ve at least changed her hair.” Norn admonished, looking at her sister’s face.
“That’d ruin all the charm.” The healer responded, facing his trophy. “So, will you help me with my little coup?”
“Look, if you want to stomp on Margurth’s mug, that’s fine, I get it! But how can you possibly rule that entire empire without… Oh no-o…” The princess uttered, covering her face with a hand. Yes, that smelled like a ton of paperwork for her to do, and the stench was awful.
“I’m not going to force you, Norn. But… I’ve been thinking a lot. People are stuck, you know. No matter how good your intentions are, you can’t do anything grand without leaving a trail of at least a few corpses behind you. And, well, the more you rise, the higher the pile underneath you becomes, whether you pump up your levels, or your political power. A peasant can be robbed and sold into slavery, a hero can get overwhelmed by impossible odds, and even a king can get unseated and executed. Nobody is safe in this pit.” Keyaruga pronounced, looking into the girl’s emerald eyes. Many barred themselves away from that truth, either by fleeing to the outskirts, or outright lying to others and themselves about some higher justice, while being nothing more than a tool of everlasting chaos and destruction.
“Sorry, but within my pile, you can find your parents.” And Norn was just one of them. She pondered on her misdeeds, while the man walked back and forth.
“And within mine, you can count hundreds of parents, children, husbands, and so on, so forth, so… You get the idea. Who would I be, if I blamed you for my mistakes?” The hero replied with a question of his own. He was busy, looking through the cabinets. After all, if Freia had purple underwear to replace the dog lingerie, than Norn had nothing besides her soaked panties.
“A normal human being?” Although the inquiry was rhetorical, the princess did find a way to confuse the hero. Alas, he was ready…
“Oh, but humans die if they’re killed.” He sneered, beating his neck a couple times.
“That sounds stupid.” The princess mused, shaking her head.
“Well, for what it worth, I survived my own decapitation today. That by itself makes me something else entirely…”
“A god? Or a devil?” Norn mockingly quarried, glancing at her sister’s face. She dreamt like a child, peacefully drooling saliva in her sleep.
“They’re not that different. When you gain that level of strength, it all comes to what part of yourself you’re feeding. I… think, what I’m now has everything to do with my past torments. It breaks some, but I think, it was my trauma that made me seek affection. It’s… what allowed me to forgive Flare. It couldn’t have happened without you, though.” The healer once again shared his deep thoughts. So much to tell, so much to share, he really did miss having his feeble, yet extremely intelligent princess around.
“Heh, you’re not a saint, that’s for sure. Blade would back up my words, if you hadn't killed her..” The fallen warlady scoffed, resting near Freia, taking her warm hand to her chest.
“I never truly killed her. I tricked her, I broke her, but before I could land the final blow, Takemikazuchi took her away, and I did nothing to stop him.” The hero revealed, carrying a few towels to the slumbering heroine. One to wipe her body, one to clean her crotch, and another he presented to Norn.
“Ehm, thanks, I guess.” The younger princess muttered, rubbing the semen and blood of her. In the meantime, though… “So, the Cryleths’ pocket god is real?”
“Yeah, many of them roam our lands. He… took away Josephine’s hero brand, but he couldn’t erase the memory of what she’d gone through. Nobody can. I first thought I made a mistake, succumbed to weakness. Now I think it’s for the best. She’s just a veggie now.” Keyaruga explained, summoning the gauntlet of purple and green, an armament with an eye of his own. “That’s how I got this.”
“Eww, gross. Look, I know… Or I guess, that thing carried you through Organ’s rampage, but couldn’t you make it look like a ring, or something?” Norn growled, looking into the red eye on the metal glove. Worst of all, it returned her gaze.
“Wouldn’t want to lose it after some weirdo cuts my finger off.” Keyaruga elaborated, disembodying the artifact. “Also, I can punch things with that.”
“Then why is it limited to your arm? Why couldn’t you make it scales under your skin, or something?” The princess raged out, slightly punching the mattress. “Never make once-in-a-lifetime decisions without asking me again! Honestly, how did you survive without me?”
“Through sheer perseverance, love and luck.” The lad smirked, presenting the girl with a set of white lingerie, and a blue garb with leather straps in it.
And a bit of divine powers.
“The virtues of a fool.” The girl sneered, not even bothering to cover her nakedness for a moment. “And Bullet? You’re not going to let him and what he did slide, are you?”
“No. He’s a danger, not only to me, but to countless other children as well.” The Hero of Healing admonished, finally wearing the rags he called underwear, as well as the trousers. “I want to eliminate that threat, not simply because I want to, but because it’d be just… And I would also like to break that cycle of murders.” The man spoke, noticing the sheer amount of lies in his own words. He was shaped by violence, branded by cruelty, and had no qualms in enjoying being the tormentor himself. Too much darkness for one human life.
“Ha-ha-hah… And you think I can help you with that? It doesn’t work that way. The higher you climb, the shakier the ground underneath you, with even more overpowered motherfuckers you’ll encounter along the way…” The girl spoke, resorting to twirling her hair, a habitual action, signifying the strategist’s pensiveness.
“That’s why I aim to put Eve on the Obsidian Throne. Panakea, the goddess that made me a hero, murdered her would be husband, just so I could take care of her, and get her trust. I’m afraid she sees Eve as nothing more than a marionette for me to exploit.” The hero spoke, betraying his disdain toward his patron deity. She did so much for him, and yet the sheer ease with which that woman trampled another’s life for the sake of her enigmatic goals was just inhuman. Still, that action had a valid reasoning behind it.
“I guess even gods can’t stay out of politics, huh?” The princess mused, comparing Freia’s clothes to her own new attire. She wondered, whether it was a coincidence, or if her captor really did intend to make the two sisters wear similar blue colors. She would ask, but their talk had drifted too far from casual chat.
“Nobody can, Norn. You either have a will to make an impact, or become cattle for the strong.” Keyaruga admonished, unable to think about the obvious hierarchy as something other than a mechanism of perpetual torment. No one could break it, no matter how much they tried; they only created new hierarchies of their own. “Either way, with Eve reigning over the Confederation, and you ruling Jioral, I can make the war stop.”
“You’re wrong, Keyaru. I’m not even a princess, with no trace of royal blood in my veins; all you had to do is to defeat me once to rob me of my status.” Norn lamented, staring at Freia’s sleeping face. She turned her back to the hero, unsure how would she able to keep up with that monster of a man.
“Who said I want your status? I’m completely fine with having you as my councilor. Say… how would you like to be my little sister?” And then, a rock dropped. A suggestion, that made the girl face the healer in an instant.
“Please, don’t say you’ve somehow read my…” The princess pleaded, seemingly getting embarrassed. Even with all the work she’d done the previous night, Norn still deemed the tale of Ellen as something worth hiding for now.
“No. I haven’t read your mind, at least not yet.” Keyaruga deadpanned, sitting right next to his new companion.
“Hell, you can read thoughts now? I guess, I made the right choice by not letting you heal me.” The fallen warlady mused, grasping her head.
“Maybe, but I still learned a lot from you.” The lad spoke, patting Norn’s messy hair. “So, what do you say? Incest is a noble deed, all that kind of stuff, right?”
“Sorry, Keyaru… I…” The young lady spurned his tenderness; she stopped the hero’s hand and sulked. “I would want to be with you, but I can’t… I can’t forgive… myself for what I did.” The princess muttered nervously. “Could you… let’s say… make me… forget? You said it helped Flare, so would you?..”
“No!” The answer was fast and measured. The hero thought about it, a lot. He had three days after their first meeting to deny that conclusion, but no matter how much he tried to think differently, there was only one plausible response to give. “Never in my life could I imagine you remembering me! Never did I think… I don’t want to see you killed again. If I tamper with your memories, you’ll be a completely different person. Even if you regain all of your memories eventually.”
“A-a-ah, so that what happened to her? Flare is dead now?” The girl asked, now staring at the sorceress.
“Your sister goes by the name of Freia now.” The man admonished, wearing his shirt. They all could take a bath; but first, they needed to get out of that house.
“And you thought you could become another man by adding an extra syllable to your name?” Norn concluded, unable to miss the sheer naiveté of that kind of action. A naïve act, and so relatable.
“That’s a tactical genius for you.” Keyaruga dared not deny any of it. And yet, he felt like another person in that room craved that luxury. “So, what’s the name you’d like to live your new life as?”
“Hmm… Ellen. I want to be called Ellen.” The girl spoke, rising from the bed, seeing as her legs had already recovered from the numbing fatigue. At least, just enough to stand.
“Alright, Ellen.” The man uttered, rising to support the girl. “From here on now, you’re my little sister I had been long since separated from. We’ve reunited in Buranikka, when I saved her from certain death…”
“She’s a cute girl you can’t get enough of…” The former princess added, touching the man’s lower lip with her thin finger.
“Definitely, she’s kind, smart…” The healer said, as his hand touched the girl’s cheek. The tension rose. “She’s hardworking and doesn’t swear.”
“Fuck you, Keyaru!” The hero’s ‘little sister’ spoke, kissing him with the utmost passion.
“No swearing, that’s my condition. And my name is Keyaruga.” The lad declared, helping the girl to wear her new white lingerie.
“Can I abridge it to Key?” Although Ellen had no choice but to accept the offered terms, her sly nature couldn’t help but seek loopholes in them.
“Nope.” Unfortunately, the hero knew her just too well to let it happen.
“You’re a cruel man, Keyaruga. Leaving a girl burdened by her sins, denying her the freedom of expression… What a bad big brother you are, for stealing your little sister’s precious virginity.” The girl dramatically complained, while the man helped her to put on her white panties and the top. She wasn’t being too serious, though.
“I made no promise to be a good guy.” He smirked, and released Ellen, so she could finally stand on her own. “So, how would you wanna look? I can change you face, make you older, give you big tits…”
“Hmm, nah, I’m fine for now. You could change my face a little bit. But not too much, just enough to look different.” The ‘little sister’ said, feeling her breath getting more and more rapid.
“Alright, I’m gonna heal you a bit…” The hero told, as his glowing hands approached the young lady’s temples. She was anxious, she knew there was nothing to fear, and yet…
“Wait! Stop it!” Ellen wavered.
“Is something bothering you? You know we don’t have to do that.” Keyaruga noted, as the green spark faded from his palms.
“I… Its fine, it’s just… I want you to give me red hair. Like, I want my hair to be scarlet!” She exclaimed, as her hands, clutched into small fists, trembled in a mix of fear and excitement.
“Alright…” The man muttered, putting his hands onto the young lady’s head. It was the first time she had ever allowed his divine magic to touch her that way. That process felt intimate, much more so than sex. The mere instances of alterations felt so long, it was excruciating. The girl wouldn’t dare open her eyes. “Farewell, Norn… my only ally.” Keyaruga whispered, pouring his mana into the fallen warlady’s body. She felt his trembling. The man didn’t cry, every muscle on his face reflected the inner stoicism. And then, it was over… “Open your eyes.”
“I… feel no difference.” Ellen muttered, touching her mouth, nose, ears… Until she grabbed a curl of her hair and stared at it for a few seconds. “Alright, it is red now.” The ‘little sister’ admitted, unsure what to do from now on.
“You’re stunning, Elly!” Until she heard another voice. Familiar, unsympathetic, yet so strangely caring too. Freia woke up, put on her violet underwear and crawled to the girl, excited to greet a new member of Keyaruga’s family.
“W-what?” The fallen warlady got dumbfounded for a moment. A rare occasion, seeing her that way, stunned by the sorceress with puppy-dog eyes.
“Your pet name. Get used to it; Freia gives one to all of my ladies.” The healer spoke, enjoying throwing his new companion into a vortex of many contradicting emotions.
“You make me sound like a baddie here, Keyaruga…” The heroine spotted that obvious mirth, and so she decided to retaliate a bit… “Or should I call you Kerry?”
“Oh no, not again…” The man moaned, covering his face.
“When you turned into a girl…” The elder sister was talkative. A bit too much, for someone who just woke up. Providing, of course, she hadn’t just pretended to be slumbering, just to overhear to the conversation the two lovers had.
“He became a girl? Really? Do tell, Fla… Freia!” Surprisingly enough, when the magician began talking about the red-haired lad (although it was much wheatier in terms of color, than that of Ellen), Ellen dropped all of her suspicions toward the caster just to lend an ear to what she had to say.
I’m gonna regret this so much!
…
Whereas the rain above Buranikka had already passed, the dark clouds above Capital only began their march over the city. Still, even that ominous weather didn’t become an obstacle for the ceremony to come.
“On this glorious day I, Margurth Rikil Jioral, declare you, Kureha Cryleth, our new Champion. Serve our glorious kingdom, as if…” In the inner garden of the royal palace, the king himself delivered a speech. In the presence of hundreds, knights and nobles, officials and servants alike, the old man announced the young woman’s ascension to the narrow circle of the strongest humans in the kingdom.
“Hm! If you had not turned out to be such a disappointment, it would be you out there, Arian.” The wizened woman spoke, standing on one of the high lodges. Her name was Tamarina Cryleth, and she referred to her son, the only member of that astounding clan, wearing a full set of plate armor, while all the other, both men and women, carried their mythril like fashionable attires, often neglecting the defense whatsoever.
“I would suggest you take this chance to be proud of Kureha, mother, and not berate me just because I don’t fit into your miserable criteria of a perfect Cryleth.” The man’s voice was thin and feminine, yet there was power. He spoke with enough authority to just silence his noisome parent, while being surrounded by other relatives. His uncle, whose respect the fencer had to had earned in battle, two of his cousins, who had studied the blade from him, his second cousin, a fair lady, who he saved from unwanted marriage, and so on, and so forth.
“Pff, nasty brat, and your entire clique…” With that said, the hag stood from the chair and left the lodge, all while maintaining the grimace of disdain on her wrinkled face. She was that way ever since Arthur, her husband, perished on a battlefield, fighting demons. And as years went by, her bitterness only grew ever larger.
“Ghhh…” John Du’Ikr growled, watching the whole scene from the opposite side. It was his lover that had to bear the humiliation from his mother, after all.
The black man stood on the balcony which belonged to Norn, and yet while the warlady was absent, it was his duty to represent the second princess. Not many liked him, even less deemed the leverage he commanded deserved, and yet only fools would openly challenge the dark-skinned noble.
After all, he had an entire warband of demons, something of a semi-secret in the Jioral’s court, obeying him, which made the man quite a power to be reckoned with. A cloaked figure had been waiting for him to hand over a report. A shady man approached John and carefully handed him a crumpled sheet of paper and a small pale orb.
“Good work. Now dispatch your scouts to the healers. My sources say, people are not the same after visiting them. I have a bad feeling about this rumor.”
“Arhef, John-mothat (affirmative, commander John).” The spy responded frugally before retreating into the shadows.
“Wait. Come to our office, Mun.” But before he did so, Norn’s attendant shared another order, scratching his right temple. That was a signal to Arian, after the event was over; three of them had to gather in the warlady’s chambers.
John had not a single desire to remain there, too many lodges were occupied by his and his lady’s political rivals, enemies, traitors, conspirators – these were obvious threats, but there were more. Bullet, surrounded by eight boys at the age of ten-eleven, was nothing but bad news. And that grin, with which the fellow black man looked at Kureha made Norn’s attendant’s skin crawl. Could there be someone worse than the priest of Eldoran? Certainly!
Archbishop Keziaz was also present. Surrounded by his robed apostles, he looked inhumanly calm and collected. With the death of his hound Bloodbringer, Faran church’s position must have long since crumbled, but there was no hint of that power’s decline.
Still, nobody could leave, while the king spoke his tedious, labored, speech full of nonsense.
…
It was over. Kureha Cryleth, the Swordmaster became one of the Three Champions of Jioral (which, even excluding the death of Hawkeye, news of that was still to make it across the border, counted only two), the King retreated to his throne room, and the court dispersed.
John Du’Ikr stood in the center of Norn’s personal office. There was a table, but no chairs. Three men stood on one side. The black attendant himself, being the host, the uncloaked rat demon, responsible for all the underground activities, handled by the second princess, and the future head of all the Cryleth family. Despite his mother being the current matriarch, less and less people within the clan believed in her rationality.
“What are we looking at, Jo?” Arian wondered, glancing at the magical projection. He had arrived last, so he was unsure what it was about the diorama of Buranikka which drew so much attention of the two others.
“Look here.” The black man replied, pointing to the left corner of the circular three-dimensional image. Then, he poured mana into the glowing orb, amplifying the picture.
“Ghh… I’m sorry… That’s… so disgusting!..” The armored fencer grabbed his mouth, unable to watch even a second longer. An entire procession was dedicated to showing off Norn’s dead body. She had no legs, they were cut off clean, her arms were tied to the long pike… which came through the anus and went off the mouth.
“Norn-maran (lady Norn)… dead.” The rat man spoke grievously; it pained him to see his people’s savior in that sorry state. Still, he held up pretty well, as his lady left a whole bunch of instructions to him in case something like that happened.
“Why… are you so… So calm?” Arian addressed John, holding off his nausea. From the three of them, it was the dark-skinned noble, who was supposed to feel the most pressure, seeing his young patron skewered. And Mun joined the question by menacingly staring at the man.
“Because…” In that moment, John moved the picture to show another scene. It demonstrated two groups, each having three people in it. The first one was comprised of locals. A balding old man with horns, selling vegetables, a human merchant, and an orc. These were of little interest. Another party, though… “This man in a green cape is undoubtedly Keyaru, the Hero of Healing.” Right after he said so, the other two got extremely agitated. After all, it was his companions that interested them. “The pink-haired woman to the left must be Princess Flare. And this red-haired girl to the right…”
“Norn-maran…”
“The likelihood is high, but until we are sure, Her Highness should be considered perished.” John declared, extinguishing the orb. In the next moment, he crushed it with the flat of his sword. The shards were to be thrown away in the sewers. “Until then, gentlemen, we are to fulfill Princess Norn’s wish. The Jioral dynasty nears its end.”
And yet, in all the commotion, nobody wondered what happened to Organ Trist, and who stole his body.
Many wise men and women had theorized about how one should spend their leisure, be it for the sake of self-improvement or spiritual growth. Some advised meditation, others hinted to enriching your mind with literature, and yet another would send you on a monster hunt just to raise your level. Political intrigues, education, physical exercises, intellectual relaxation in a theatre, so many options, so much to choose from.
And yet, there was another take on that vital question. Much more feral, primal, suffocating even. In a stuffy cellar, diseased with the sickening miasmas of love unrestricted, debauchery took place.
“Agh… Haa… Haa…” Norn, the younger princess, was sprawled all over the bed. A stream of white and red led to her deflowered hole. There was no way she could keep up with the potent man, so she was left alone.
“Gh… Gha-a…” Who wasn’t spared, though, was Flare. The Hero of Magic had lain down on her knees, her ass in the air, with her arms helplessly shuddering with each thrust. All the while, the healer held her by the chin, just so it wouldn’t rub against the bed sheets too much.
“…” Keyaruga remained silent. He went on and on, supported by the divine armament, grafted onto his very soul… “Ugh…” Until even Georgius couldn’t sustain his focus, and the man slipped right off the bed. He landed on the floor, rolled onto his back. As the man lay on the cold wood, his smeared manhood steadily shrunk, and he grasped at the moment of serenity. An instant, in which his mind refused to process the reality around him. Nothing besides the quiet ringing in his ears existed, and even that was absorbed by the void…
Until the sound of tranquil clapping ripped the lad away from his newfound calmness.
“He-he-heh… Now you’ve done it, now you’ve ruined her.” Norn chuckled, slapping Flare’s butt. The elder sister, being unconscious as she was, couldn’t even moan in the response.
“It’s alright. She’ll… recover soon.” The man admonished, staring at the ceiling. “That’s how we relax.” He added, noticing something new on the edge of his vision. An arm, Norn’s extended hand.
“Get up, my prince. You look worse than a pile of shit.” The girl mused, offering her help in getting back onto the bed. “You’re better than this.”
“I’m fine.” The healer refused. He kicked up himself back to his feet instead. “Wouldn’t want to pull your muscle.” The red-eyed lad spoke, demonstratively shaking dust of his body.
“Show-off.” The princess muttered, moving her body to the edge of the bed. It was wide enough for all three, and yet the girl wanted to give at least some space to her conqueror. Even if she had to do it with her hands, as the legs just didn’t respond after even a semi-rough screwing. “Hey, would you fuck me like her someday?” The fallen warlady inquired, watching the man putting Flare to rest on her back, infatuated by the hero’s sculptured muscles, shining in fading light of the candles.
“Maybe.” The red-eyed lad answered, moving on to gather their clothes. “When you become strong enough to handle it, and willing to take it this way.”
“Haa, you know it’ll never happen, right? I’ll always be stuck as the same powerless ‘commoner’ class. I can’t cast fireballs, can’t run like the wind, can’t even swing a dagger. And… you don’t really need me in achieving your vengeance. I’ll be nothing but a burden to you.” Norn had no choice but to admit.
“That’s where you’re wrong, princess. I’m going to usurp the throne of Jioral.” The man admitted, casting a spell of alteration on Flare’s face. That didn’t change much, seeing the girl was yet to open her eyes. She could still be recognized as the first princess.
“I see… You should’ve at least changed her hair.” Norn admonished, looking at her sister’s face.
“That’d ruin all the charm.” The healer responded, facing his trophy. “So, will you help me with my little coup?”
“Look, if you want to stomp on Margurth’s mug, that’s fine, I get it! But how can you possibly rule that entire empire without… Oh no-o…” The princess uttered, covering her face with a hand. Yes, that smelled like a ton of paperwork for her to do, and the stench was awful.
“I’m not going to force you, Norn. But… I’ve been thinking a lot. People are stuck, you know. No matter how good your intentions are, you can’t do anything grand without leaving a trail of at least a few corpses behind you. And, well, the more you rise, the higher the pile underneath you becomes, whether you pump up your levels, or your political power. A peasant can be robbed and sold into slavery, a hero can get overwhelmed by impossible odds, and even a king can get unseated and executed. Nobody is safe in this pit.” Keyaruga pronounced, looking into the girl’s emerald eyes. Many barred themselves away from that truth, either by fleeing to the outskirts, or outright lying to others and themselves about some higher justice, while being nothing more than a tool of everlasting chaos and destruction.
“Sorry, but within my pile, you can find your parents.” And Norn was just one of them. She pondered on her misdeeds, while the man walked back and forth.
“And within mine, you can count hundreds of parents, children, husbands, and so on, so forth, so… You get the idea. Who would I be, if I blamed you for my mistakes?” The hero replied with a question of his own. He was busy, looking through the cabinets. After all, if Freia had purple underwear to replace the dog lingerie, than Norn had nothing besides her soaked panties.
“A normal human being?” Although the inquiry was rhetorical, the princess did find a way to confuse the hero. Alas, he was ready…
“Oh, but humans die if they’re killed.” He sneered, beating his neck a couple times.
“That sounds stupid.” The princess mused, shaking her head.
“Well, for what it worth, I survived my own decapitation today. That by itself makes me something else entirely…”
“A god? Or a devil?” Norn mockingly quarried, glancing at her sister’s face. She dreamt like a child, peacefully drooling saliva in her sleep.
“They’re not that different. When you gain that level of strength, it all comes to what part of yourself you’re feeding. I… think, what I’m now has everything to do with my past torments. It breaks some, but I think, it was my trauma that made me seek affection. It’s… what allowed me to forgive Flare. It couldn’t have happened without you, though.” The healer once again shared his deep thoughts. So much to tell, so much to share, he really did miss having his feeble, yet extremely intelligent princess around.
“Heh, you’re not a saint, that’s for sure. Blade would back up my words, if you hadn't killed her..” The fallen warlady scoffed, resting near Freia, taking her warm hand to her chest.
“I never truly killed her. I tricked her, I broke her, but before I could land the final blow, Takemikazuchi took her away, and I did nothing to stop him.” The hero revealed, carrying a few towels to the slumbering heroine. One to wipe her body, one to clean her crotch, and another he presented to Norn.
“Ehm, thanks, I guess.” The younger princess muttered, rubbing the semen and blood of her. In the meantime, though… “So, the Cryleths’ pocket god is real?”
“Yeah, many of them roam our lands. He… took away Josephine’s hero brand, but he couldn’t erase the memory of what she’d gone through. Nobody can. I first thought I made a mistake, succumbed to weakness. Now I think it’s for the best. She’s just a veggie now.” Keyaruga explained, summoning the gauntlet of purple and green, an armament with an eye of his own. “That’s how I got this.”
“Eww, gross. Look, I know… Or I guess, that thing carried you through Organ’s rampage, but couldn’t you make it look like a ring, or something?” Norn growled, looking into the red eye on the metal glove. Worst of all, it returned her gaze.
“Wouldn’t want to lose it after some weirdo cuts my finger off.” Keyaruga elaborated, disembodying the artifact. “Also, I can punch things with that.”
“Then why is it limited to your arm? Why couldn’t you make it scales under your skin, or something?” The princess raged out, slightly punching the mattress. “Never make once-in-a-lifetime decisions without asking me again! Honestly, how did you survive without me?”
“Through sheer perseverance, love and luck.” The lad smirked, presenting the girl with a set of white lingerie, and a blue garb with leather straps in it.
And a bit of divine powers.
“The virtues of a fool.” The girl sneered, not even bothering to cover her nakedness for a moment. “And Bullet? You’re not going to let him and what he did slide, are you?”
“No. He’s a danger, not only to me, but to countless other children as well.” The Hero of Healing admonished, finally wearing the rags he called underwear, as well as the trousers. “I want to eliminate that threat, not simply because I want to, but because it’d be just… And I would also like to break that cycle of murders.” The man spoke, noticing the sheer amount of lies in his own words. He was shaped by violence, branded by cruelty, and had no qualms in enjoying being the tormentor himself. Too much darkness for one human life.
“Ha-ha-hah… And you think I can help you with that? It doesn’t work that way. The higher you climb, the shakier the ground underneath you, with even more overpowered motherfuckers you’ll encounter along the way…” The girl spoke, resorting to twirling her hair, a habitual action, signifying the strategist’s pensiveness.
“That’s why I aim to put Eve on the Obsidian Throne. Panakea, the goddess that made me a hero, murdered her would be husband, just so I could take care of her, and get her trust. I’m afraid she sees Eve as nothing more than a marionette for me to exploit.” The hero spoke, betraying his disdain toward his patron deity. She did so much for him, and yet the sheer ease with which that woman trampled another’s life for the sake of her enigmatic goals was just inhuman. Still, that action had a valid reasoning behind it.
“I guess even gods can’t stay out of politics, huh?” The princess mused, comparing Freia’s clothes to her own new attire. She wondered, whether it was a coincidence, or if her captor really did intend to make the two sisters wear similar blue colors. She would ask, but their talk had drifted too far from casual chat.
“Nobody can, Norn. You either have a will to make an impact, or become cattle for the strong.” Keyaruga admonished, unable to think about the obvious hierarchy as something other than a mechanism of perpetual torment. No one could break it, no matter how much they tried; they only created new hierarchies of their own. “Either way, with Eve reigning over the Confederation, and you ruling Jioral, I can make the war stop.”
“You’re wrong, Keyaru. I’m not even a princess, with no trace of royal blood in my veins; all you had to do is to defeat me once to rob me of my status.” Norn lamented, staring at Freia’s sleeping face. She turned her back to the hero, unsure how would she able to keep up with that monster of a man.
“Who said I want your status? I’m completely fine with having you as my councilor. Say… how would you like to be my little sister?” And then, a rock dropped. A suggestion, that made the girl face the healer in an instant.
“Please, don’t say you’ve somehow read my…” The princess pleaded, seemingly getting embarrassed. Even with all the work she’d done the previous night, Norn still deemed the tale of Ellen as something worth hiding for now.
“No. I haven’t read your mind, at least not yet.” Keyaruga deadpanned, sitting right next to his new companion.
“Hell, you can read thoughts now? I guess, I made the right choice by not letting you heal me.” The fallen warlady mused, grasping her head.
“Maybe, but I still learned a lot from you.” The lad spoke, patting Norn’s messy hair. “So, what do you say? Incest is a noble deed, all that kind of stuff, right?”
“Sorry, Keyaru… I…” The young lady spurned his tenderness; she stopped the hero’s hand and sulked. “I would want to be with you, but I can’t… I can’t forgive… myself for what I did.” The princess muttered nervously. “Could you… let’s say… make me… forget? You said it helped Flare, so would you?..”
“No!” The answer was fast and measured. The hero thought about it, a lot. He had three days after their first meeting to deny that conclusion, but no matter how much he tried to think differently, there was only one plausible response to give. “Never in my life could I imagine you remembering me! Never did I think… I don’t want to see you killed again. If I tamper with your memories, you’ll be a completely different person. Even if you regain all of your memories eventually.”
“A-a-ah, so that what happened to her? Flare is dead now?” The girl asked, now staring at the sorceress.
“Your sister goes by the name of Freia now.” The man admonished, wearing his shirt. They all could take a bath; but first, they needed to get out of that house.
“And you thought you could become another man by adding an extra syllable to your name?” Norn concluded, unable to miss the sheer naiveté of that kind of action. A naïve act, and so relatable.
“That’s a tactical genius for you.” Keyaruga dared not deny any of it. And yet, he felt like another person in that room craved that luxury. “So, what’s the name you’d like to live your new life as?”
“Hmm… Ellen. I want to be called Ellen.” The girl spoke, rising from the bed, seeing as her legs had already recovered from the numbing fatigue. At least, just enough to stand.
“Alright, Ellen.” The man uttered, rising to support the girl. “From here on now, you’re my little sister I had been long since separated from. We’ve reunited in Buranikka, when I saved her from certain death…”
“She’s a cute girl you can’t get enough of…” The former princess added, touching the man’s lower lip with her thin finger.
“Definitely, she’s kind, smart…” The healer said, as his hand touched the girl’s cheek. The tension rose. “She’s hardworking and doesn’t swear.”
“Fuck you, Keyaru!” The hero’s ‘little sister’ spoke, kissing him with the utmost passion.
“No swearing, that’s my condition. And my name is Keyaruga.” The lad declared, helping the girl to wear her new white lingerie.
“Can I abridge it to Key?” Although Ellen had no choice but to accept the offered terms, her sly nature couldn’t help but seek loopholes in them.
“Nope.” Unfortunately, the hero knew her just too well to let it happen.
“You’re a cruel man, Keyaruga. Leaving a girl burdened by her sins, denying her the freedom of expression… What a bad big brother you are, for stealing your little sister’s precious virginity.” The girl dramatically complained, while the man helped her to put on her white panties and the top. She wasn’t being too serious, though.
“I made no promise to be a good guy.” He smirked, and released Ellen, so she could finally stand on her own. “So, how would you wanna look? I can change you face, make you older, give you big tits…”
“Hmm, nah, I’m fine for now. You could change my face a little bit. But not too much, just enough to look different.” The ‘little sister’ said, feeling her breath getting more and more rapid.
“Alright, I’m gonna heal you a bit…” The hero told, as his glowing hands approached the young lady’s temples. She was anxious, she knew there was nothing to fear, and yet…
“Wait! Stop it!” Ellen wavered.
“Is something bothering you? You know we don’t have to do that.” Keyaruga noted, as the green spark faded from his palms.
“I… Its fine, it’s just… I want you to give me red hair. Like, I want my hair to be scarlet!” She exclaimed, as her hands, clutched into small fists, trembled in a mix of fear and excitement.
“Alright…” The man muttered, putting his hands onto the young lady’s head. It was the first time she had ever allowed his divine magic to touch her that way. That process felt intimate, much more so than sex. The mere instances of alterations felt so long, it was excruciating. The girl wouldn’t dare open her eyes. “Farewell, Norn… my only ally.” Keyaruga whispered, pouring his mana into the fallen warlady’s body. She felt his trembling. The man didn’t cry, every muscle on his face reflected the inner stoicism. And then, it was over… “Open your eyes.”
“I… feel no difference.” Ellen muttered, touching her mouth, nose, ears… Until she grabbed a curl of her hair and stared at it for a few seconds. “Alright, it is red now.” The ‘little sister’ admitted, unsure what to do from now on.
“You’re stunning, Elly!” Until she heard another voice. Familiar, unsympathetic, yet so strangely caring too. Freia woke up, put on her violet underwear and crawled to the girl, excited to greet a new member of Keyaruga’s family.
“W-what?” The fallen warlady got dumbfounded for a moment. A rare occasion, seeing her that way, stunned by the sorceress with puppy-dog eyes.
“Your pet name. Get used to it; Freia gives one to all of my ladies.” The healer spoke, enjoying throwing his new companion into a vortex of many contradicting emotions.
“You make me sound like a baddie here, Keyaruga…” The heroine spotted that obvious mirth, and so she decided to retaliate a bit… “Or should I call you Kerry?”
“Oh no, not again…” The man moaned, covering his face.
“When you turned into a girl…” The elder sister was talkative. A bit too much, for someone who just woke up. Providing, of course, she hadn’t just pretended to be slumbering, just to overhear to the conversation the two lovers had.
“He became a girl? Really? Do tell, Fla… Freia!” Surprisingly enough, when the magician began talking about the red-haired lad (although it was much wheatier in terms of color, than that of Ellen), Ellen dropped all of her suspicions toward the caster just to lend an ear to what she had to say.
I’m gonna regret this so much!
…
Whereas the rain above Buranikka had already passed, the dark clouds above Capital only began their march over the city. Still, even that ominous weather didn’t become an obstacle for the ceremony to come.
“On this glorious day I, Margurth Rikil Jioral, declare you, Kureha Cryleth, our new Champion. Serve our glorious kingdom, as if…” In the inner garden of the royal palace, the king himself delivered a speech. In the presence of hundreds, knights and nobles, officials and servants alike, the old man announced the young woman’s ascension to the narrow circle of the strongest humans in the kingdom.
“Hm! If you had not turned out to be such a disappointment, it would be you out there, Arian.” The wizened woman spoke, standing on one of the high lodges. Her name was Tamarina Cryleth, and she referred to her son, the only member of that astounding clan, wearing a full set of plate armor, while all the other, both men and women, carried their mythril like fashionable attires, often neglecting the defense whatsoever.
“I would suggest you take this chance to be proud of Kureha, mother, and not berate me just because I don’t fit into your miserable criteria of a perfect Cryleth.” The man’s voice was thin and feminine, yet there was power. He spoke with enough authority to just silence his noisome parent, while being surrounded by other relatives. His uncle, whose respect the fencer had to had earned in battle, two of his cousins, who had studied the blade from him, his second cousin, a fair lady, who he saved from unwanted marriage, and so on, and so forth.
“Pff, nasty brat, and your entire clique…” With that said, the hag stood from the chair and left the lodge, all while maintaining the grimace of disdain on her wrinkled face. She was that way ever since Arthur, her husband, perished on a battlefield, fighting demons. And as years went by, her bitterness only grew ever larger.
“Ghhh…” John Du’Ikr growled, watching the whole scene from the opposite side. It was his lover that had to bear the humiliation from his mother, after all.
The black man stood on the balcony which belonged to Norn, and yet while the warlady was absent, it was his duty to represent the second princess. Not many liked him, even less deemed the leverage he commanded deserved, and yet only fools would openly challenge the dark-skinned noble.
After all, he had an entire warband of demons, something of a semi-secret in the Jioral’s court, obeying him, which made the man quite a power to be reckoned with. A cloaked figure had been waiting for him to hand over a report. A shady man approached John and carefully handed him a crumpled sheet of paper and a small pale orb.
“Good work. Now dispatch your scouts to the healers. My sources say, people are not the same after visiting them. I have a bad feeling about this rumor.”
“Arhef, John-mothat (affirmative, commander John).” The spy responded frugally before retreating into the shadows.
“Wait. Come to our office, Mun.” But before he did so, Norn’s attendant shared another order, scratching his right temple. That was a signal to Arian, after the event was over; three of them had to gather in the warlady’s chambers.
John had not a single desire to remain there, too many lodges were occupied by his and his lady’s political rivals, enemies, traitors, conspirators – these were obvious threats, but there were more. Bullet, surrounded by eight boys at the age of ten-eleven, was nothing but bad news. And that grin, with which the fellow black man looked at Kureha made Norn’s attendant’s skin crawl. Could there be someone worse than the priest of Eldoran? Certainly!
Archbishop Keziaz was also present. Surrounded by his robed apostles, he looked inhumanly calm and collected. With the death of his hound Bloodbringer, Faran church’s position must have long since crumbled, but there was no hint of that power’s decline.
Still, nobody could leave, while the king spoke his tedious, labored, speech full of nonsense.
…
It was over. Kureha Cryleth, the Swordmaster became one of the Three Champions of Jioral (which, even excluding the death of Hawkeye, news of that was still to make it across the border, counted only two), the King retreated to his throne room, and the court dispersed.
John Du’Ikr stood in the center of Norn’s personal office. There was a table, but no chairs. Three men stood on one side. The black attendant himself, being the host, the uncloaked rat demon, responsible for all the underground activities, handled by the second princess, and the future head of all the Cryleth family. Despite his mother being the current matriarch, less and less people within the clan believed in her rationality.
“What are we looking at, Jo?” Arian wondered, glancing at the magical projection. He had arrived last, so he was unsure what it was about the diorama of Buranikka which drew so much attention of the two others.
“Look here.” The black man replied, pointing to the left corner of the circular three-dimensional image. Then, he poured mana into the glowing orb, amplifying the picture.
“Ghh… I’m sorry… That’s… so disgusting!..” The armored fencer grabbed his mouth, unable to watch even a second longer. An entire procession was dedicated to showing off Norn’s dead body. She had no legs, they were cut off clean, her arms were tied to the long pike… which came through the anus and went off the mouth.
“Norn-maran (lady Norn)… dead.” The rat man spoke grievously; it pained him to see his people’s savior in that sorry state. Still, he held up pretty well, as his lady left a whole bunch of instructions to him in case something like that happened.
“Why… are you so… So calm?” Arian addressed John, holding off his nausea. From the three of them, it was the dark-skinned noble, who was supposed to feel the most pressure, seeing his young patron skewered. And Mun joined the question by menacingly staring at the man.
“Because…” In that moment, John moved the picture to show another scene. It demonstrated two groups, each having three people in it. The first one was comprised of locals. A balding old man with horns, selling vegetables, a human merchant, and an orc. These were of little interest. Another party, though… “This man in a green cape is undoubtedly Keyaru, the Hero of Healing.” Right after he said so, the other two got extremely agitated. After all, it was his companions that interested them. “The pink-haired woman to the left must be Princess Flare. And this red-haired girl to the right…”
“Norn-maran…”
“The likelihood is high, but until we are sure, Her Highness should be considered perished.” John declared, extinguishing the orb. In the next moment, he crushed it with the flat of his sword. The shards were to be thrown away in the sewers. “Until then, gentlemen, we are to fulfill Princess Norn’s wish. The Jioral dynasty nears its end.”
And yet, in all the commotion, nobody wondered what happened to Organ Trist, and who stole his body.
