Saikou Hakkou

"To think something like you would try to sneak through our spatial spells." the elf king said as his guards ran about attacking the monsters in different directions all around the titanic monster, "An audacious choice. One that you will pay for dearly."

The titan turned around and threw a heavy punch at the king who continued to stand there stoically.

"Ice."

A giant shell of ice suddenly burst out from the ground and blocked the silent king from the giant's attack with ease. The only one who could've casted that spell was the one guard standing even further back than even the king. The one known as Nasturtium who was sitting on the ground, arm resting over her staff on her shoulder. She didn't even seem to be looking at the giant, staring at the ground blankly as she quietly summoned a volley of icicles around her.

"Ice."

Nasturtium tapped her staff on the ground and fired the ice missiles at the conglomerate monster, knocking it back from the king.

"Wait...is she blind?!" Helena cried.

"Over here monster!" Borage called as he swung a broadsword around at the monster's ankles. The creature didn't turn to face him but the maws around his body began to belch out a black sludge. From the sludge rose black oil skeletons and mawed monsters with smoothed tendrils instead of tentacles. This small army rose from the ooze and Borage simply smiled.

"Venatio Lupum. Proximum Festum!"

A ghostly wolf suddenly materialized next to Borage, snarling and barking proudly before they descended upon their enemies, ripping them apart with ease.

"Was...that a swordstyle?!" Momo's eyes widened, "An elf with a swordstyle?!"

"To think something this big could sneak through subspace." Hyacinth frowned as she floated around the giant with wind magic, "If only we had held onto that black armor. With its power we might've been able to crush this monster before entering the village."

"Black...armor?" Corissa gasped.

"Hey, hey!" Scabius sneered at the monster as he slashed at what should've been its ankle tendons with his knife, "Look more lively! I've been meaning to try some of my new poison on you lot! See if you can withstand tetrodotoxin that's several times more lethal than before!"

Roko turned to look at Kaguya.

"What?" Kaguya replied with a confused look.

"All forces, stand down." The king announced as his personal guards all immediately retreated away from the giant.

The giant turned to the king again, looking at him through the glassy flower on its head.

"A foul monster like you shall not be allowed anywhere near the borders of the Tree Cradle." The king announced, his arms still crossed across his chest, "The punishment for the crime of even stepping close to this sanctuary is clear. There will be no mercy and no restraint. No effort or intent shall be spared."

The titanic creature reached out with its arm again, aiming to crush the king as he raised his arms up at his sides,

"The sentence is...death! LIGHT!"

From the sky shot down a pillar of blinding light. The intensity of its energy burning away at the giant monster at an incredible rate. Its skin turn to ash, its black blood boiled away and with one last hateful screech, it's giant figure disintegrated into nothing more than ash, leaving a scorched black mark on the earth.

With the monster thoroughly destroyed, the royal elves gathered together for a quick meeting that made Roko's group sneak closer to eavesdrop.

"Alright." The king sighed, "With the threat gone, what do we do about that big surprise I promised?"

"I can cook something for the kids." Hyacinth offered.

"And how long is that going to take?" Scabius smirked, "We've spent enough time as is."

"I got some animal costumes we can re-enter in." Borage nodded, "Might entertain the kids a bit."

"Are you really asking the king to dress in a bear costume?" Nasturtium shook her head, "Even if only we dressed in your fursuits, they'd probably expect some sort of play and we do not have one prepared."

"We could improv."

"...I'm not good at improv." Nasturtium muttered.

"Well, what do you have Nasturtium?" Scabius sighed.

"...Maybe some candy?"

"It's a BIG surprise, Nasturtium." Borage shook his head, "We need something more grand."

"I don't know! Scabius, what do you have?!"

"I have a radish shaped like a sword!"

…

…

…

"I mean, it sounds neat." Hyacinth shrugged.

"Pretty cool, comrade." Borage gave a thumbs up, "Right, Nasturtium?"

"I can't see."

…

…

…

"Zinnia, please tell us you have an idea." The king sighed.

The quiet, unassuming knight finally spoke up for the first time, "An idea from a human story."

The elf drew his sword and walked over to a random boulder on the road, stabbing his sword into the rock, "The one who draws this sword shall be rewarded."

"I see." The king nodded, "And we enchant the sword to be difficult to remove."

"I think I've heard of this human story as well." Hyacinth smiled.

"A game to buy time eh?" Borage rubbed his chin, "Not bad."

"Still, we need to offer an incentive to warrant interest." Nasturtium added, "What do you propose?"

"We can always be vague about the reward until it's actually pulled." Zinnia replied, "But for the meanwhile, we could offer up all the ideas we've brought together thus far. A dinner from Hyacinth, an animal costume from Borage, candy from Nasturtium and-"

"You want me to give up my radish sword?!" Scabius cried.

"It's up to you." Hyacinth replied, "To be fair, that radish might be the most tempting prize out of all of us to the kids."

"I was going to say, that's fine." Scabius laughed, "The radish sword isn't going to last much longer before it rots. I can always teach the caretakers some of the interesting farming methods I learned from the humans for them to grow things like this on their own."

"Oh?" Kaguya raised an eyebrow.

"Of course that'd be the thing to catch your attention." Roko muttered.

"Wait, I don't get it." Roland frowned.

"We'll put a preservation enchantment on it then." The king nodded, "As for the sword, we just have to enchant it to make it irremovable, correct?"

"But that's not fair, my king!" Hyacinth protested, "At least give them a chance to remove it!"

"The exact details of its conditions are up to you, my lord." Zinnia nodded, "I'm sure you can think of some sort of test of character for this game."

The king thought about it for a moment before he walked over and held a hand over the sword. Magic spiraled around the weapon and rock, wrapping the two together in a magical design before fading out of view.

"It is done." The king nodded, "For the time being. Borage, do pick it up for us."

"Alright!" Borage flex his muscular arms before walking up to the sword in the rock and grabbing the handle. But no matter how much he pulled and strained and twisted, the sword remained unmovable.

"As expected of the king!" Borage wiped a bit sweat from his brow, "Even someone as strong as me can't remove it! A top tier enchantment!"

"He meant pick up the damn rock, you moron." Nasturtium snapped, "We have to bring it into the Cradle!"

"OH! Right, sorry."

Borage bent down and dug his fingers into the earth, heaving the rock up onto his shoulder, sword still attached.

"Then back in we go." Hyacinth grinned with an excited anticipation to see the kids again, "I'm sure this will keep the children entertained for days."

"We should probably move the cradle's access space as well." Zinnia added as the king opened the aurora curtain again, "Shift it's physical location now that the enemies are aware of where it is."

"I can do that for you, my liege." Nasturtium said as they began to walk back in."

"Much appreciated, Nasturtium."

"Of course." The blind elf bowed.

Roko's party quickly followed the memories of the elves back into the cradle as they presented the sword in the rock to the group of excited young elves. The kids were all excited by the concept and all eagerly took turns pulling on the enchanted sword. As the kids busied themselves with trying to find out a way to remove the sword, the king spoke with their caretakers as the rest of his party finished unloading the rest of their supplies from subspace. And it was here that Enlil paused the memory,

"Alright. So that's the introductions over." Enlil stated, "Now, I'll just fast forward to the big event in ques-"

"WAIT!" The princesses all shouted upwards to stop the dark elf, "We want to talk to the king's guards!"

"Seriously?" Enlil's voice replied, more drained than surprised or frustrated, "You want me to bring in more spirits just so you can talk to them?"

"Can you do it?" Helena asked.

"I mean..." Enlil sighed, "I could summon more spirits but how would you even talk to them? If you all went through me, it'd take forever."

"Oh..." Corissa looked sad, "Is it impossible?"

"Well..." Enlil's voice turned up as she thought about it some more, "If I tie the spirits to their representations in the memory...the memory would become inaccurate but they'd be able to somewhat speak to you."

"Really?!"

"I mean, I've never done this before." Enlil warned despite sounding more interested and positive the more she thought about it, "But I might be able to work something out. The next few days are relatively uneventful from the memory holder's experience but if I use the other guards' memories to flesh out the environment and events that the original spirit wasn't here for...you could explore the cradle in the few uneventful days leading up to the big event. I don't know if I can get you to speak to them but I can try a few things...but just so you know, this will just make it more difficult to tell who was the one carrying the journal since we'll have more perspectives from unrelated parties. I can give it a try if you're okay with that."

"Please do." Kaguya nodded, "If you can, at least. If it's not possible we can just move on."

"I'll give it a shot at least. Hold on for a moment."

Enlil's voice disappeared as she seemed to leave to do something.

"Is this really necessary?" Roland asked.

"I just want to learn a bit more from them." Helena said, "Like, how is a blind elf firing spells so accurately?"

"I want to know more about that swordstyle the big elf had." Momo added.

"I-I want to know more about that black armor, the nice one talked about!" Corissa cried.

"I just want to know more about those farming techniques." Kaguya smirked.

"Why is THAT the thing you're interested in?" Roland frowned.

"Hey, give her a break. Kaguya's just more peaceful than the rest of us." Helena said as she leaned on Kaguya shoulder.

"I mean, there's not a lot of ways for me or Mikado to become stronger." Kaguya smiled, "Even Roko couldn't come up with much for us."

"Not for lack of trying at the very least." Roko sighed.

"Very appreciated, Roko." Kaguya laughed, "I'm just happy you all let me tag along."

"Hey, someone has to do all the business stuff." Helena said, "Roko doesn't want to do it and I get bored easy and that's why we have you."

"I'm amazed you admitted that so easily." Roland rolled his eyes.

"What's that, Roland? You got a problem with me?"

"N-No." Roland hastily put his hat on, "Not at all."

"Hey guys." Enlil's voice returned from the sky, "I think I might've figured it out."

"You made it work?" Helena asked.

"Possibly. The memory fusion wasn't that hard. The sources weren't that hard to affix together since they don't seem to contradict all that much. The problem was getting you to be able to talk to the spirits yourself and I think I've come up with something."

"Really? What is it?"

"Go up to one of the guards and we'll see."

"Oh, I didn't even notice the memory was active again." Helena said as everyone looked around at the moving memory around them, "Alright then. Who wants to give it a shot first?"

"All of the royal guards are just kind of hanging around here." Momo said, "So we could go with whichever."

"Alright then." Helena gulped, "Then, I'll go first."

Everyone followed Helena as she walked up to Nasturtium who was sitting under the shade of a tree on her lonesome.

"Hello..." Helena said nervously.

Nasturtium didn't seem to respond. Helena leaned forward waved her hand in front of the elf's face.

"Helena, she's blind." Kaguya said.

"I-I knew that!" Helena cried, "I was...just...gonna...there!" Helena quickly tried to touch Nasturtium's arm only for her hand to pass through the memory, "See, now we know we still can't interact with them."

"I could've told you that." Enlil sighed.

"Well, what do you want me to do then?!"

"Try asking her a question."

"Uhh...hello...what's your name?"

"Miss!" A bunch of elven children suddenly ran up to the blind elf, "You're one of the king's guards right?! What's your name?"

"Nasturtium Majus." she responded without ever looking up or opening her eyes, "Fourth Royal Guard of the Hyssop Circle."

"Oh. Well that's convenient." Helena said, "The kids asked for me."

"No, that's what I've been working on." Enlil sighed, "Ask her another question."

"Huh? Oh uh...are you actually blind?"

"Miss, are you actually blind?" One of the kids asked.

"Indeed I am, little one." Nasturtium smiled a bittersweet smile, "I was born this way unlike the rest of you."

"Huh..." Helena slowly began to catch on, "...How skilled of a mage are you?"

"How many spells do you know, miss?!" One of the kids asked.

"I'm a registered Trismegistus, though that only covers my elemental mastery. My best spells are a bit more...complex."

"Huh. Enlil?"

"Yeah?"

"Is this what you came up with?"

"Yep. You still can't interact with each other directly but I did get the guard's respective spirits to sort of...haunt their memory representations. They can't do a whole lot that goes against their memories like move on their own and they can't actually hear your questions though they probably could read your intentions. Basically, your questions get interpreted by a party inside the memory, conveyed to the representations of the guards in the memory and they can influence their memory selves to give a direct response."

"Wow."

"There are some limitations. The question can't be too out of context with the memory's scenario. For example, you can't ask her how she dies because that hasn't happened yet even if the spirit knows. Asking them things that are anachronistic will also not work obviously. They don't really have a good understanding of the modern world. But for most things, you should be able to get an answer out of them."

"So...these kids didn't actually ask her these questions in actual history right?" Kaguya asked.

"I dunno, they might have. But probably not at this moment and not in this context. The next few days are a sort of free space for you to follow them around and ask them things. This totally beats the point of re-experiencing a memory but hey, you can talk to them now."

"Nice! Good job, Enlil!"

"Heh, you can keep those praises coming!"

"Maybe later. Hey Nas-huh? Where'd she go?"

"She said she was tired and walked off that way." Momo pointed towards the inner parts of the Tree Cradle's village.

"Oh no! I won't be able to ask her anything if she's asleep will I?!"

"You sure won't." Enlil replied, "Even if the spirit isn't tired and doesn't want to go to sleep, if the memory dictates she goes to sleep, neither of you will be able to do anything."

"Oh, I better catch up with her. You guys have your own persons of interest right?"

"Yeah, I'm going to have to find Borage and ask about that swordstyle." Momo nodded.

"I have to find out what Hyacinth knows about that black armor." Corissa said.

"And I want to know what Scabius knows on agricultural techniques."

"I still can't believe you're putting in this much effort for farm work." Roland muttered.

"What are the rest of you guys doing?" Helena turned to the remaining members that were not princesses or princess guards.

"I dunno." Brook shrugged, "I've got nothing to ask."

"Then do you want to come with me?" Helena asked, "I might need someone who knows about magic on a more in-depth level."

"I'm not sure how much I know to that degree but alright."

"What about you, Roko?" Corissa asked, "What are you going to do?"

"I dunno. Walk around a bit maybe?" Roko replied before yawning.

"Oh yeah, you still haven't gotten any sleep yet right?" Momo said, "Why don't you take a nap if you don't have anything to ask?"

"No, I'm good. Really."

"Absolutely not." Corissa made an X with her arms, "Not getting any sleep is just not right! Go get some sleep right now!"

"But-"

"Reaumur, make sure he gets a good eight hours of sleep!"

"Roger that." Reaumur grinned, "I'll knock him out myself if I have to."

"Okay but it doesn't have to be a full eight hours does i-"

"FULL. EIGHT. HOURS." Corissa stressed, "Or I put you in time out."

"What does that mean?!"