Chapter 358

Brain brought the sword down on the iron post, it split down the middle, and the two halves fell with heavy thuds into the sand. A round of cheers went up from spectators, and he said, "Bring me something harder!"

"I got somethin harder!" Someone shouted from within the crowd.

Brain put his hand beside his mouth and called out, "You don't qualify, I also need something larger! And something that can last more than a minute before it goes down!"

"Ooooooohhhhh." The crowd took in the verbal burn, and the applause redoubled.

"You're not half bad." A dark haired woman said as she approached out of the crowd, "You should make the finals with ease."

"I plan to." Brain said and pointed toward Layali, "She expects nothing less than my best."

Layali beamed from where she stood a few feet away, leaning against an unused post.

"A half elf daughter? No, you're human, right, so she's older than you even if she's still mentally… mostly childlike, right? Adopted?" The dark-haired woman asked, her white and red robes were of a curious and unfamiliar cut to Brain, and though she had a girlish voice and appearance, the fine hairs on his body stood on end as she came near.

"Plucked her from the river, she's been with me ever since." Brain said, though he smiled broadly and went to pat her irresistibly adorable head, the young woman only barely moved out of his way in time to keep from him bumping into her. It wasn't lost on him that she swept her leg away to move, a combat gesture rather than a common avoidance.

Layali's smile was enormous when the hard hand of the blue haired human ran through her strands of golden hair.

But he could feel the crackling of tension.

"You're risking a great deal, there's no requirement to spare your opponents in this tournament. You could very well die, then what happens to her?" The young woman replied.

"My… lover, she'll look after her if I die. Besides, it's not like this is certain death." Brain said, but he felt the way Layali tensed, "Everything will be fine." Brain replied, the crowd, seeing that the replacement equipment was slow in coming, began to disperse, but the young dark haired woman didn't leave with them.

The little girl crouched down, picked up a bowl with a wet rag in it, and held it up. "Clean your face, papa." She said with a child's insistence, and Brain obliged, picking up the rag, he began to wipe the sand from his face.

"So… who are you anyway, and why do you care?" Brain asked without looking behind him.

"Aureole Omega, you could say I'm an… interested party, I'm always curious about who deserves to live or die, and who actually does either one. I don't get out much… the truth is, this is the first time I've seen the outside of my home in… ever. I've spent my whole life protecting something." She answered, her radiant smile was almost cherry-like thanks to her red lipstick, her small angled face with its high cheekbones was the picture of loveliness, a young girl on the precipice of the final step toward womanhood.

"Hmf, sounds like my companion, but you can't be from the Slane Theocracy, if you're as strong as you hint at, she'd know you." Brain half accused her.

Aureole Omega noted the hardness with which he said the nation's name. "You don't care for the place, do you?"

"They hurt my Layali, they hurt my lover, of course I'm not fond of them." Brain retorted and looked over his shoulder.

"So… you're strong?" Layali asked, picking up on Brain's deduction.

"Strong enough to give strength or take it, and protect everything that is my lord's." Aureole Omega replied with a whimsical little smile, "You have a clever mind, Brain Unglaus, I hope you can handle opponents tougher than iron posts, and ones who can hit back. I'd like to see you there at the end."

"That's… polite of you. Where did you say you were from?" Brain asked as he dropped the wet rag back into the bowl.

"I didn't, but I'm from the Kingdom of Nazarick." Aureole Omega remarked, and then after giving a polite little half bow, she walked away.

"Papa… could you… my master… master Cerebrate… was he really strong?" Layali asked.

Brain felt the impulse to lie, every fiber of his being said to do the same thing, but instead he crouched down and put his hands on Layali's shoulders. "Yes, he was. I beat him before, but he was strong… and yes, he may be stronger now than I was then. But I'm stronger too. I'll beat him again, and kill him in front of your eyes, and then he'll never hurt you again, I promise." Brain said and with great gentleness he squeezed her muscles.

Raymond's throat felt a lot harder than Zesshi remembered as she made her jump. "You bastard! You lied to me! You spent all our time together lying to me!" She screamed her frustration without looking, the roar of the wind was as loud as any storm as her leap carried her far beyond the crowd, far above and beyond the buildings, and towards a garden she hadn't known was there.

Even had she not been filled with wrath, the noise compelled yelling, and Zesshi raged at Raymond from the moment she grabbed his throat to the moment they landed on the soft green grass. She flung her arm down, and a heavy, agonized thud followed.

Zesshi looked down, ready to give him a good kick. Only to find…

Not Raymond. 'The slave?!' She exclaimed in her head and looked down at her own hand as if it had betrayed her.

"I was sure I-" Zesshi looked down where the elf woman spasmed as she coughed.

"You- can't- kill him." The woman lying at her feet was still spasming and coughing, but she was rolling over onto her belly, the blades of grass bent beneath her, the dew of the morning gleamed like diamonds that she buried under her body as she tried to move herself so that she could rise.

"Are you insane?!" Zesshi snapped. "What did you do?!" Zesshi shouted down at the elf, "The only reason you're alive is because I wasn't trying to kill him! Kick the shit out of him… sure. What were you thinking?!" Zesshi stomped the ground and the trees around them shook, casting leaves loose to drift down around them.

"Body-guard. I'm… his body… bodyguard…" Nua spat a glob of saliva down to water the grass as she tried to push herself up to all fours. "I won't… let you… hurt him." She lifted her head and turned to look sideways up at the half elf.

Zesshi's eyes went very narrow. "A slave trying to protect her master… are you insane?"

"N-No. He… he wants to help… free us…" Nua retched and after one loud 'gulp' noise, vomit shot past her lips and splashed over the grass.

"Lies! He was like a father to me, and he spent the last twenty-some years lying to me about everything I thought I knew!" Zesshi crouched down, ignoring the smell, she grabbed the short, blonde hair and yanked Nua's head up, her heterochromatic eyes burned with wrath as she looked into the shimmering blue of her unintended victim.

"You're wrong!" Nua's shout of defiance was followed by a shake of her head that tugged against her skull, it stung, but she ignored it. "Look at my ears! They're whole! I lived in the Theocracy most of my life! We're normally 'clipped' quickly. But I'm whole! Would he leave me that way if he were lying?!"

Zesshi paused, her eyes darted to the intact ears, that much was true. "If he were dedicated to lying, yes." She answered almost immediately. "He's a Black Scripture, anything goes."

"Then search me! If they didn't fall out, they're still inside my pouch!" The elf shouted, and winced as Zesshi released the elf's hair and her hand darted for the pouch which was still secured to her belt.

She felt the familiar texture of paper, her fingers clamped down like steel and yanked it out. "What is this?!" Zesshi asked, shaking the papers she crinkled in her hands.

"L-Letters." Nua said and wiped her mouth. "Letters of outrage from the Cardinals themselves!"

Zesshi frowned and took a look. The hands of their authors were obvious enough. From Berenice's flowing script where she never broke her stream of thought, to the angry dots of Dominic's frequently broken quills whenever his temper got the better of him. It wasn't hard to accept them as genuine at least.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Zesshi snapped and clenched the letters in her fist, she shook them above the elf woman's face, her eyes full of disbelief at the words she'd read.

"A change." Raymond said from her back. "Don't hurt her, Zesshi, she was just trying to protect me." He said, his arms open, his hands open, his palms empty.

Zesshi whirled on the source of the voice, no sooner than she did so than she felt arms wrap around her legs. It didn't qualify as a tackle… but the elf hung onto her for dear life. "I'm not letting go!" The elf shouted as Zesshi looked from her to Raymond.

Zesshi's lips pursed thin as he took slow, easy steps closer and the elf tightened her grip. Breaking it would have been easy, but it wasn't lost on the extra seat of the Black Scripture that doing so might well injure her. So she stood.

"You want answers… you deserve them, just please… don't hurt Nua. She was trained as a bodyguard before that fell out of fashion." Raymond explained, and Zesshi's eyes narrowed.

"You expect me to believe that they used to train elves to fight?" Zesshi demanded.

"No. To die. She was taught how to interfere, get in the way, to sacrifice herself for her master or the one her master set her to guard. She used her martial art before coming with me… that's how she was able to push me out of the way. She knew you were a threat before I did. Just promise you won't hurt her." Raymond pled as he came almost within arms reach.

"A martial art… bodyguards… so an elven meat shield… and these?" Zesshi glared and shook the letters again, in front of Raymond this time. They flapped in the air, and to her surprise, he lowered his eyes away from here.

"The fruits of penance. I've been writing letters home, the things I've seen, the people I've met… her story." He pointed down at Nua who still clung tenaciously to Zesshi's legs, digging her fingers in and unwilling to let go. "To every public venue, every temple I know, every school of law or theology I can name, and… to all my comrades, including to the entirety of the Black Scripture. It did not go well. But it did go as I expected." Raymond said, and then he descended to his knees.

"Raymond-" Zesshi cut off her own words when he pressed his palms to the grass and slammed his forehead down to the ground.

"I'm sorry. I truly did think of you as a daughter… and I was trying, really, to protect you as much as the rest of humanity. I tried to balance it all, and left you-"

"Ignorant! Useless! An incompetent stupid fool who got her own brother killed, along with a bunch of others! And now you have the gall to say you're sorry?!" Zesshi raged at him, "All you ever taught me was to fight! I nearly got my little girl killed because you all never taught me anything!" She raged at the humbled human Cardinal and when she raised her leg to stomp her foot, the force sent the elf bouncing away.

The crack of a bone barely reached Zesshi's notice in the midst of her fury, "I trusted you! You more than anyone!" Zesshi raged at him, her teeth bared like a wolf, "You can't make this right! No matter what you do, the harm is done!" She stalked over to him, her hand raised up, he didn't move.

He only said…

"I know."

Out of the corner of Zesshi's eye, she caught the motion, not directed at her, it would have been a near blur, but the half elf could see it clear as the sky above or grass below, or the unmoving man who was prostrated at her feet between earth and sky.

The elf was over top of him, her arms at his shoulders, the left forearm clearly broken, white bone piercing through her flesh and red blood staining the grass. "You… can't…" Nua gasped, her teeth clenched against the pain. "I don't… know everything. He did tell me about you… a lot. Please… don't do this… you'll regret it… and we will regret it…" Nua bobbed her ears up and down to make her point, and Zesshi recalled what Brain mentioned about the fate of servants whose master died by murder at the hands of an elf…

She forced her temper down. Her jaw relaxed, the elf at her feet was breathing hard, despite Zesshi's words, the one called Nua clearly did not believe her.

"Why are you even here?! Why did you even come to see me?!" Zesshi demanded, and as she snapped out those words, it seemed to calm the elf, and her body visibly relaxed, as did that of Raymond.

"I didn't know it was you I was coming to see." Raymond said, "I promise. I mean, I suspected when I heard the ridiculous name you chose for yourself, and the hair color. But the 'husband and daughter' thing threw me off." The cardinal said as he rose slowly to his knees.

"I came to warn… you, that your father is here." Raymond said, and when he felt Nua's body wince, he glanced to see her broken arm, he immediately reached for his traveling pouch. "Nua, your arm." He gave the order and, albeit reluctantly, she extended it and allowed him to push the bone down back into her flesh. "We'll get a healing potion on the way back, but this will dull the pain." He said and began wrapping a green, herb streaked bandage around the injury. "You shouldn't have done that for me…" He muttered, "She's not wrong."

"I don't care!" Nua glared up at the half elf, "She'd have ruined everything for a moment of childish revenge! Don't you think before you act?! Are you stupid?!" Nua berated the half elf, who took a step back by sheer reflex under the first verbal assault on her person since the village, and one far more personal than that.

"He lied to me! He and his whole country! They used me!" Zesshi shouted back, balling up her fists, but her rage devolved into confusion when the elf whose arm was being wrapped, burst out into bitter laughter.

"Oh, I know enough about you to know how you were used. I'd trade places with you in a heartbeat!" Nua snapped the fingers of her other hand, "Spoiled brat, you're the lucky one, and you should know that by now! And know enough to think before you act!" Nua barked and then hissed as Raymond began to tighten the bandage. "I'm sure you've got reason to be angry, but not to screw up everything for the rest of us! You kill him, who speaks to the Cardinals?! Who tries to reform that hellhole?! Who tries to reform the faith of the Six?! We'd be lucky if your petty tantrum didn't result in a mass purge of us in retaliation!"

Zesshi's mouth opened briefly to deny it, but then… she thought of all she'd seen… what she knew… she could not. 'It's all too easy to see someone like Dominic trying to get someone even more radical put into place… shit. She's right.' The realization killed the rest of her will to anger.

Then it hit her, "Wait, my father is here?!" Zesshi's wrath returned with a whole new target.

"Yes, the winner among the women champions will enter the bracket after the first eliminations of the men, the elf King will be their first opponent assuming nothing eliminates him." Raymond explained and slowly got to his feet, fending off Nua's attempts to help him rise by gently pushing her hands away.

"I see…" Zesshi crossed her arms and faced the pair. "I'll thank you for… what you seem to be trying to do, Raymond. But… I don't think I want to see you again. I can't really look at you… maybe someday, but you had a hand in letting everything happen, and hiding it from me. I plan on winning the throne, and I will not be a friendly ally to your country the way your comrades hoped."

"I… I understand." Raymond lowered his eyes, "But let me ask something of you, something not for my sake."

"You can ask." Zesshi answered, though her body notably tensed at the coming request, her feet shifting ever so slightly before she squared herself again in front of him.

"Take in Nua, when you win. I… admit I'm curious about this man and… child, you seem to have taken up with. But if they're more than just a cover for you… she can help. She's held every job you can imagine and has been a great help with me. If I take her back to the Slane Theocracy, I have a good idea what Dominic will do to her, and there's no way she'll be safe in my house even if I can keep her. I have my doubts that she'd even be safe for the rest of this trip. Please?" He asked.

"Raymond, no!" Nua snapped at him, her head yanking over to him, but he had eyes only for Zesshi.

"They're more than a cover… you probably guessed it was the swordsman we met… and you're right… the girl, someone he found, she's a half-elf like me but… with a life closer to hers." Zesshi indicated Nua with a nod, and Raymond seemed to shrink at the implied horrors and the rebuke they carried.

"If she's not willing to stay with me, I don't think I can force her, and I'm nobody's 'mistress'. Convince her and when I win, I'll take her on. A parting gift for the man I used to think of like a father. Now… get out of my sight, we're done." Zesshi said, then straightened, spun on her heel, and walked away from them both.