46

Chapter 46: Pressured actionsNotes:

EDIT: 19.000 Hits!

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

Chapter Text

Chapter 46

Tanya felt refreshed. Well, she was still fatigued, but she felt leagues better than when she had pushed her magic to the limit a couple minutes ago. Now after her fresh restart her energy reserves were not as empty and as a result she was thinking more clearly. The difference was stark compared to the exhaustion which had become very noticeable in the last moments before her demise.

Her demise...

What a weird thought. Being X had promised her that no further reincarnations would be happening after her second death in the empire. Of course he was a manipulative egomaniac who couldn´t be trusted, but he had also never directly lied to her about his intentions. It would be highly unusual for him to openly adapt to change and alter his "infallible" plans this desperately. So it was logical to assume that she either hadn´t in fact died or everything she saw and felt was not actual reality. (Both of which had pretty disturbing implications.)

Of course he had only talked about reincarnation and not resurrection which meant that the cheeky bastard might have pulled an underhanded manoeuvre based on a wording error. If he simply reversed time and threw her back into the fray until she believed in his nonexistent divinity then that would not qualify as a new life. This way he wouldn´t have to openly admit his fault and accept criticism. Typical!

All in all, there were too many improvable possibilities for what her supernatural tormentor could have done with her that it was best to ignore them all for now. Tanya had no intentions of purposefully dying to test her theories, because she would never throw away her most valuable possession so easily for potentially little gain. Her life might suck, but it was all she had. (Not to mention that it was unknown at the moment if she could even repeat this phenomenon.)

Back to the here and now...

The wind was whipping through her hair as she propelled herself forwards with maximum force. Last time she had been too late to save the villagers by an estimated three hours. If she pushed herself to her highest speed and kept low to the ground then she would be perhaps just in time to defend some of them. But did she even want that?

They were secondary targets at best. She would gain nothing from their survival. Distracting and/or eliminating the cultists long enough for them to evacuate the village and find shelter in the mansion would waste precious time and was nigh impossible for her to accomplish alone. Their lives were not her responsibility and it would take considerable effort on her part to intervene, so she could theoretically just let them die and focus on the real VIP of this mission.

Except that she had made a contract with Emilia that established a pact of mutual military support in times of crisis. Undoubtedly Roswaal the sly fox would use her supposed inaction to demand compensation for this breach of conduct should it be revealed that she had been able to save the villagers. At least a token effort was required.

Damn it! The treaty was supposed to protect her and indebt the strongest magician of the country to her! Not the other way around. It had only been one day since she had signed that stupid piece of paper and Tanya was regretting it already. Half a life time of war had dulled her sense of office politics it seemed.

At least (unlike before) she now had Crusch´s army as backup, even though they would only show up in a few hours. It was like her first deployment in Norden all over again. She was outnumbered and outgunned by enemies that should logically be more powerful than her with backup that would arrive far too late. Being X would certainly prattle on about some shit involving "poetic irony" or "fate" right now.

She could make it work.

She needed to make it work.

She was the Argent! The imperial Symbol of Victory as some fools called her. (Without the logistics division even her battalion wouldn´t have been able to beat back the communist menace. Those brave officers who procured her coffee and bullets were the real heroes! And if she had supposedly been so important then why had the general staff tried to kill her on every occasion? What a poor publicity sham.)

Her brain was pumped up on artificial combat drugs and her muscles were taut with tension. Somehow she began to relish the challenge as the "battle high" catapulted all her senses into overdrive.

It was good to be alive.

So good.

Those that threatened her wellbeing would be shown no mercy and be allowed no shelter. They were already dead without them knowing. Petelgeuse was a lunatic and a sadist on top... She would enjoy his suffering.

Deception had worked well on him in their past – or should she say future – engagements. Now she was informed about his secret abilities and could counter them.

If anybody in the village had looked up and been able to discern the face of the small blur in the sky then they would have immediately lost control over their bladder. The cheek-splitting grin that cut into Tanya´s adorable face was like the maw of death itself.

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Crusch was internally cursing and screaming. She had assembled an army to take care of the White Whale only to find it already defeated. Then Tanya had apparently identified the thread to the Mathers estate as witch cultists and openly pressured her into assisting her. How her diminutive, blond rival had known this information was strange, but Crusch´s Divine Protection registered her words as the absolute truth.

Had she declined her plea then she would have lost much respect from her men on top of returning home empty handed. Refusing assistance was well within her rights, for they both were of equal standing in the royal selection, but it would make her look cowardly and petty. There was simply no other choice but to agree with Tanya, despite the possible political provocation that invading another´s domain with military force could entail.

On the other hand she also felt a little bit thankful for the opportunity to bring glory to her camp. Eliminating the witch´s cult was something she had planned for in the future anyways, so doing it now only served to speed things up. Considering that her greatest opponent had slain the White Whale nearly on her own she needed every image boost she could get.

Who knew? Maybe she would even show the citizens of Lugnica with her actions that she was well capable of defending them where the Margrave and the Emilia camp had failed. Another few votes could make ultimately the difference between winning the throne and barely missing it.

Furthermore Tanya would hopefully feel indebted to her which she could use to form a temporary alliance between their two camps. "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." was something she had learned at an early age after all. (Secretly Crusch also considered that good relations would do her well in case that Tanya took the throne. She was a far better candidate than either the half-elf or Priscilla.)

A problem that arose quickly on their journey was that the wagons with the heavy equipment were too slow if they wanted to arrive at Margrave Roswaal´s mansion before dawn. They had been prepared to hunt a single, massive target, not a group of dangerous criminals. As a consequence they were ill-prepared and had to leave a couple of men behind.

But her warriors were nothing if not adaptable. The old veterans who had volunteered to take revenge on the evil that had plagued their country for as long as they could remember still had the skills to fight cultists drilled into their bones. In a way nothing had really changed for them.

Crusch could see that especially her butler Wilhelm was eager for battle. Despite the fact that he had been unable to deliver justice upon the killer of his wife he was all the more excited to show his gratefulness to Lady Degurechaff. She would need to carefully observe his behaviour in the future, for while she would never assume that he would betray her for one of her enemies, he might accidentally let his judgement of Tanya´s character be clouded.

Her intuition estimated that the trip would only take two more hours until they reached the village that the blue-haired maid had described. Idely she wondered what Tanya was doing right now.

Regardless, with her actions today she would bring honour to her name! For Lugnica!

Notes:

Who would be your favourite character (from Re:Zero) to marry and who would be your least favourite?

Beatrice? Reinhard? Otto? Ram?