Promotions Are Overdue, Part 1

Did my face always look this stressed out?

The modest washroom had a tall wall-mounted mirror. Though it was quite worn with time; a severe crack splintered its way diagonally from the upper-left corner, it was a welcome luxury.

It was the reason I was now sitting here cross-legged, poking at my face.

I squished the skin around my cheeks.

These wrinkles were not here before… Are these even wrinkles?

The 'wrinkles' in question, had not been present a few days ago.

At least I didn't think so.

My younger sister had mentioned them before heading to bed just a few hours ago.

And now I've been staring at my face since then.

If you were to glance at my face quickly, you'd never even notice. But now that I've seen them, its the only thing my attention is drawn to.

A faint undertone along the creases of my skin.

Dark.

A crimson color, like a blood-orange.

Capricorn…

I muttered under my breath, "…that damned Goddess. What did she do to my face?"

"Did you say something, Commander?"

A young woman poked her head in to the washroom. One of the new guards who had been sent over from the Citadel by Luke.

After the disappearance of the void-caster and the threat she presented if she was still somewhere in the city gave plenty of reasons to stay wary. So, Tolin was now in a heightened protection condition, essentially a lock-down.

The two-guard post at our manor tripled, now there were four new guards patrolling around the inside and outside of the grounds.

"Oh, no, sorry! I'm just working through something that's bothering me. Don't pay me any mind."

"My apologies for disturbing you, My Lady."

"It's alright. I was just thinking I would take a walk to try and clear my head. Would you like to accompany me?"

"If that is what your orders are, Commander."

"Well it's not an order exactly, but I'm sure standing guard over me sitting in front of a mirror for the last hour has been awfully boring. A change of scenery can't hurt."

"As you say, My Lady."

Not sure I like this 'my lady' thing we've got going. But it's better than hearing 'Commander this' and 'Commander that'.

I crept my way through the barely lit manor halls towards the main room. In the darkness of night and most of the lights dimmed or extinguished, this place was much spookier than I was prepared for.

No. I didn't invite the guard on my walk because I was afraid to go alone.

Scared?

Nope. Not me.

No way…

A banging noise echoed loudly through the house, coming from somewhere outside.

"—eeeee!"

My guard jumped ahead of me, weapon brandished at the ready.

"Keep back! I'll check out that noise."

She ran ahead of me before I could say anything.

Which was lucky. No way she saw my legs trembling.

Huh?

Am I scared?

Nooooope.

There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for high-pitched wailing and loud banging in the middle of the night.

Not a chance it could be a ghost or angry spirit.

Especially in a city that was terrorized by demons forty years ago, where all its citizens were slaughtered, and then their bodies were used in a terrible macabre fashion to create a throne room for an Archdemon.

Ghosts definitely don't haunt places over little reasons like that.

"My Lady! Please come quickly!"

Ooooh if it's ghosts I'm gonna lose it…

I followed after the guard, finding her just inside the foyer kneeling over a pair of other guards.

Both of them had deep cuts in their chest plates, but appeared fine otherwise. One of them looked to have hit his head on the wall paneling, and was out cold. The other looked like he was in a state of shock.

He couldn't quite form any coherent words, but pointed towards the hall that led to the eastern wing of the manor.

I jumped up to the window that looked out to the entryway.

No guards were visible.

The creak of wooden floorboards drew my attention and I whipped around to find an almost naked Julius stumbling out of his room.

Sword drawn, shield ready. And that was it.

No shirt. No shoes.

Just a mostly nude man rushing out of his room. If it weren't for a loose pair of shorts covering his lower portions, I would have screamed.

"Are you kidding me!?"

I hissed up at the idiot of a man that was my best friend.

"Airis, what's with all the noise? Some of us are trying to sleep—Did you beat up those guards?"

"No I did not beat up the guards! Would you please go find some pants at the very least?"

The poor guardswoman who had been accompanying me had sneaked around behind me, and now was covering her face.

"The rest of the guards are missing, I assume they chased after an intruder down the eastern hall."

Looking over to the guard who had been pointing, he clamored to his feet.

"M-my name is Haldin," the guard stammered quickly, "I'm just an Adept. Kliff and I had just started our shifts when some weird girl walked through the door. She didn't make any sense when we challenged her."

"Kliff is the one knocked down, I'm guessing?"

Julius had descended the stairs.

Put some pants on for the Goddesses sake!

He must have sensed I was glaring at the back of his head, as Julius turned back to me.

"They were taken to be washed. I only had the one uniform."

I sighed in defeat.

"Fine, I'll drop it."

"You two, with us. Stay close and keep quiet."

Julius motioned for us to follow and headed down the dark corridor.

With me in the rear we walked single-file down the hall. We stopped at two rooms which were on the way.

Julius and the two guards rushed in quietly and cleared them, before moving forward.

At the end of the eastern wing was a large open room. Where the hallway ended, stone pillars started; running the length of the room on both sides.

The back wall had been cleared away already, but before we moved in apparently it was furnished with a large desk and some bookshelves.

Now, it was just an empty space.

Well, empty if not for the bodies of the three remaining guards.

The western facing wall had a double-door that led out to an inner courtyard.

Both doors were wide open, the cold breeze wafted in.

Julius rushed outside, but leapt back inside with a shout.

"Shit that's cold!"

Two bare foot imprints were visible in the ground outside. Settled in freshly fallen snow.

I checked the three downed guards, to find that they were all still alive.

If this intruder was the same black-clad woman who attacked us earlier, her blood-thirsty attitude had changed.

She didn't hesitate to attack both rangers atop the gatehouse. But the guards here were knocked unconscious and weren't wounded.

"My Lady, there's something here."

In the moonlight from an exterior window a blue rose sat upright leaning against a rolled paper note.

The black-stemmed rose had been pruned so that no thorns remained on the vine.

There is no way this is just a coincidence…

Hikita, the Azure Rose.

Hastily written—No, more like it written by a hand that was conflicted about what to write.

A number of, what seemed like, mistakes or misspellings dotted the page. But a closer look revealed entire words changing mid sentence.

I held the note up to get the light from outside angled properly so that I could make it out clearly.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Renault won't stop until yo HERETIC HERETIC HERET

THEOdin was just the first. All vanixIANS MUST DIEDIED I E D I E

forced to attack you no control can't fight back

HE will send more agents to to to

KILL YOU

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Well, that is certainly unsettling."

Julius was standing over my shoulder reading the note.

"You know what else is unsettling?"

"What's that?"

"You. Naked. Standing behind me."

"I'm not naked naked."

-✵-

The remainder of the night passed by without incident.

All of the guards at the manor were debriefed at the Citadel and a small division of soldiers was stationed at the manor overnight.

Morning came and I called for an assembly of the lowercore officers. Hailey and I were waiting in the Citadel's Commander's Quarters.

"They've got to be ready. Right, Airis? I mean, it's been hours."

"Maybe. But Julius would've come to get me if they were. I don't wanna rush this. I need everyone here so we can transition smoothly."

"Pwaaah!" Hailey let out a dramatic sigh.

"You're just antsy because you missed all the excitement last night."

"You should have woken me up!"

"I told you, we didn't know anything was up until it was too late."

"Hmph."

"Plus, Rias probably would've woken up too. And I don't want her to have to worry about our security here."

A much more reserved sigh from across the room indicated I had won this small battle.

"Fiiine. Can we go over this whole thing again? I'm still concerned about how this meeting is gonna work."

"Sure."

I unpacked a mess of papers from a binder I'd stowed away in my backpack.

Behind the mess of scribbling, scratch-outs, and lines connecting blocks of text; was a detailed plan to restructure elements of our military.

"If the note from Hikita was genuine, which, despite that it looks like the insane ramblings of someone whose gone off the deep end, I believe that it is. The Renaultians are going to continue to attack us. For whatever reason…"

"Anyway. We need to have some people in play that can move outside the rigid structure of the standard Divisional Army. If we have all of our soldiers on the lookout for suspicious characters we'll end up turning into a totalitarian government—What? What did I say?"

A soured look from Hailey stopped me short.

"I get all that! The meeting! I'm confused about the meeting."

"Oh, sorry!"

I shuffled my notes forward to a list of bulleted points.

"So, we're going to start it off with a promotions ceremony. The officers involved should be up to speed before we start and have the proper insignia. Their troops will have been told to come here on standby."

"And then after that? That's the part I have troubles with."

"After that, I'm going to go over the formation of a new branch of the Empire."

"Uh huh. I just don't think it makes any sense."

"Whadda' mean it makes no sense?"

She pressed her fingers against her temple.

"I mean, just do the promotions and then make an announcement. Say that there's some new Division and name the people who will be joining. Then we'll retire back here with everyone and be detailed there."

"You're worried if it's safe to explain the purpose of the Order to our officers?"

"We shouldn't expose our cards this early, is all."

I tapped my fingers over the stack of papers.

"Hmmm."

The doors to the chamber opened and Julius entered, followed by two uniformed officers.

"Alright, ladies. They're all ready for you out there."

Hailey gently brushed her hands across my shoulder, "Think it over, Airis. It's your call, but just keep an open mind."

"Thanks, Hails."