37

Chapter 37: A sinking feelingNotes:

Fun fact: I edited this chapter until I got exactly 66666 words.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Chapter 37

"Rem, look at me." Tanya commanded with barely hidden irritation. "Can you tell us any more details?"

At this point she didn´t even care that Crusch´s whole army was listening in. She just wanted to get this over with.

"I am afraid not, Lady Tanya. My sister´s and my Synaesthesia allows only for strong emotions to be shared between us. But this... terror is absolutely uncommon for her!"

Of course.

Even after two weeks the stupid magic of this land managed to boggle her mind. Telepathy, really? But asking how that was biologically possible was a futile endeavour until she could get her hands on a good neurosurgeon. What mattered was the overarching situation at hand.

A strong emotion was technically not enough to warrant immediate concern, but she could be labelled as "heartless" or "irresponsible" for potentially letting her ally be endangered. With Rem gone the only maid left at the mansion was Ram which meant that she was unlikely to leave the building because she had double the duties to attend to. Whatever was happening to her therefore occurred in Emilia´s vicinity and could be dangerous to her wellbeing. If she could help it then she would not risk letting unintentional harm come to one of her greatest assets.

On the other hand Lord Roswaal had directly ordered Tanya to leave his domain. Infringing on his business and disregarding his request despite enjoying his hospitality would be a grave insult to the strongest magician in Lugnica. Their young alliance stood on shaky legs momentarily and would not survive such an incident unscathed.

Well, she had technically left his sphere of influence already, but he hadn´t clarified when she was welcome to return... Yes, it was a flimsy excuse, but noble politics worked that way. If she had stuck to the international wartime law like it had been intended and not like it had been worded then a great many victories wouldn´t have been made for the fatherland.

But did she even want to return the Mathers estate? Reinhard was waiting for her and would undoubtedly worry for her safety. Furthermore she was in a hardly presentable state at the moment which she was ashamed to have completely forgotten about until now. Clothes mattered little to her and Tanya had learned that especially on the battlefield a less strict expectation rested on how you looked. There had been meetings she had attended with still blood-soaked hair or once even with an open wound. Time was precious after all.

Maybe Rem´s sister had a mood swing or fell down the stairs or had been scared by a children´s story. Thousands of relatively innocent possibilities existed that would explain what she was feeling, but there also remained the small chance that it was something actually serious. Roswaal should have left the house a few hours ago so Emilia and Rem were alone and vulnerable. Bandits or assassins could be attacking or the mansion was burning down...

Damn it! Even if it was the slimmest of possibilities; she couldn't abandon her business partner just after they had sealed the deal. Her investment had been too great to throw it away like that. Tanya knew what the "sunk cost fallacy" was from the Chicago School of Economics yet she also knew the value of always staying careful and suspicious from a lifetime of war and poverty.

In the end the screaming instinct at the back of head that was sensing something afoul prevailed. Caution won her internal debate and she turned towards Crusch once more.

"Excuse me Lady Karsten, but I seems that Lady Emilia could potentially be in trouble. I am acting on a hunch and was consequently not prepared for this situation. I would be deeply thankful if you could - upon arrival in the capital of course - send a messenger to the Astrea household and inform my knight Reinhard that I am sadly needed here for a while longer. Telling him about Subaru´s and my exploits in defeating the White Whale would also be greatly appreciated."

Crusch nodded and Tanya slightly bowed her head to show her thankfulness. Not too much though! They were both on equal standing in the royal selection so subservience would damage her reputation. Tanya might not own the title of duchess, but she had the support of the sword saint which could even be seen as superior.

"It is no problem at all. Would you mind if we could discuss some things at a later date? A lot has happened today and it would be wonderful if we could speak about it properly in private."

Oh joy. Another event she would have to worry about now. She had not enough coffee to deal with this shit.

"Yes, surely. I will certainly find a way to arrange an appointment next week."

"Somehow." she thought with a strained smile.

"Well, then... I would say it has been a pleasure, but so far this day has been nothing but stress really. Let our next reunion be under less bloody circumstances."

Her focus shifted from the dead whale to the nearby maid.

"Rem, make the ground dragon ready. I dearly hope your senses are deceiving you and that we are just wasting a few hours of time here, as much as that pains me to say."

After she had herded her two useless guards away from the carriage (Seriously, one of them was shaking from the sight of the White Whale alone! She would need to have a word with Reinhard about how he trained his servants.) she hastily redressed inside with clothes from her luggage.

When she stuck out her head from the cabin again Subaru was making small talk with the old man who had thanked her and Rem had finished whatever she had been doing. Smart of him to socialize with an influential person who believed to owe him a debt on top. Nonetheless this was not the time for making political connections.

"Come on! We have no more time to lose. Rem do you still feel the same emotions from Ram?"

"Yes. Sister is still afraid."

If the girl was not lying to her then that was worrisome. Roswaal´s maid could have made the whole synaesthesia-ability up without anyone being able to disprove it. It was a very convenient timing to receive the "vision" in front of as large of an audience as possible so that Tanya couldn't ignore it. Alas, she had already made a decision and she would run through with it.

Routinely checking her mana reserves revealed that she had expended more than one half of her energy. That wasn´t good. Whatever spells she had casted while under the influence of the accursed Type 95 computation jewel had been more costly than necessary. Her natural regeneration would most likely be enough to bring her back to sixty or so percent, but it still angered her that she had lost so much control. Oh, how she hated that bastard who had robbed her of her freedom time and time again.

Where was he anyway? She had asked herself that question many times already and her nervousness continued to grow. There was no use in asking questions without answers so she disregarded her worry until the moron showed himself to her.

In a stroke of ingenuity she let one of her guards and Rem switch position. This way he would have at least contributed something meaningful to her journey. Also Rem was freed from steering the carriage which allowed her to heal some of Tanya´s deeper wounds. She didn´t even really bleed anymore as far as she could tell, but she needed to look not like corpse if possible.

Hours went by as Tanya tried to fall into what she called "half-sleep" to recover even the tiniest amount of energy. Rem had reverted to a tense silence and Subaru was uneasy himself which served Tanya just fine.

Suddenly her peace was abruptly ripped apart by the sound of the ground dragon screeching and the coach coming to a startling halt. In a flash she blew the door of its hinges and catapulted herself outside. Artificial drugs slowed her perception temporarily to a crawl and she registered the remains of the driver to her left. His head was clean blown off which would explain how he hadn't been able to make a sound of warning.

Even worse, the ground dragon appeared to be injured with a large icicle sticking out of its hind leg. Immediately her cerulean glowing eyes scanned the environment for hostiles. At first glance they appeared to be nine strange hooded figures on this side of the carriage. Probably more of them were waiting on the other side of the road as well so she would need to be quick.

For a moment she considered nonlethal takedowns, but decided against it when they had clearly shown to possess murderous intent and did not even attempt peaceful negotiations. They had lost their right for human decency the moment they had made an attempt on her life and a rather poor one at that.

Her combat knife slid into her hand and began to shine with green energy as the mage blade formula refined the already sharp edge to near monomolecular levels. One jerk of her arm and the nearest combatant´s head left his shoulders. A twist to the side saved her from impalement from two impossibly fast thrown daggers and she was already near her next victim. His speed surpassed the reaction time of a normal human, but his steel knife was no match for her blade which cleaved through the attempted block like butter and found its destiantion in his heart.

It was a small wonder that these people could even see her coming with their impractical cloth masks. Their uniform was not familiar to her in the slightest which made sense considering they were likely part of a criminal organization. But she still wanted to know who they were and what they wanted.

Her question was answered by the comically slowed down voice of Rem who shouted: "DIE WITCH CULTISTS!" with impressive hatred from behind her.

Oh no.

That wasn´t fair.

How did her luck manage to get even worse? The most feared terrorist organization in the world was coming for her now. First the White Whale and now the damned cult! She really should have brought Reinhard with her on this trip.

Notes:

Shorter chapter, because I procrastinated yesterday and had to write everything today. I could wait for tomorrow, but that would destroy my schedule and rob me of motivation. *shrug*

Also I can die happy now. The great "SugarcaneSoldier" gave me kudos on my work! I was acknowledged by one of my idols!

Also also it has been a while and I wanted to ask you all if you had any wishes or ideas for scenes that you want to see in the future?