34. Corazón

Veritas shrieks, bringing up her shield to defend, but I’m much closer to her than I was to Aurora and I will not let the same thing happen to her. Rage and fear bloom like a wildfire inside of me as I direct it to my limbs, intercepting Nanaya with a sudden burst of speed. No. Not again. NOT AGAIN!

“Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ!” I hiss.“Hᴇᴀᴠᴇɴ’s Cᴏᴀʟᴇsᴄᴇɴᴄᴇ!”

Rumbling lightning engulfs my staff as I swing it, waves of stormy pressure sucking at Nanaya’s body and holding her in place as she tries to dodge. Her eyes widen, she brings up her arms to block, and my staff crashes down like a hammer, shattering the street under my target as well as a few bones.

And then, the lightning strikes. It falls onto my weapon from the sky above, thicker than my entire body. The bolt engulfs the corrupted red mage, ravaging her body from head to toe. I press the attack the instant the lightning lets up, and Nanaya summons her incarnate weapon to block. The force of my strike still breaks her stance, her injured body unable to keep up the way it did before. She leaps backwards to dodge my follow-up, trying to retreat, and Amaterasu immediately attacks her from behind.

But none of this is important right now. I turn and sprint towards my downed teammate.

“Aurora!” I shout again. “Aurora! Isabela!”

I skid to a stop on my knees, grabbing her and checking her for… no. No! She’s not breathing! Does she have a pulse? She… oh no. No, no, no, no, no! Oh god, please no!

She’s not fucking dead yet! I tilt her head back, check her mouth for obstructions, and put my mouth over hers to breathe air into her lungs. Then, both hands over her chest, I start compressions. Physically, her human body should be mostly fine; the extreme damage to her incarnate form probably just fucked up her nervous system a little and shut off her heart. I just have to restart it. She won’t die. She can’t die! Su can handle Nanaya while I—

“Cᴇᴀsᴇʟᴇss Rᴇʙᴇʟʟɪᴏɴ,” the monster growls, and out of the corner of my eye I spot her wounds stitching themselves back together, her burns replacing themselves with new skin as her bones knit together. Are you kidding me? Is this a joke?

I can’t believe I forgot that violent psychopath has true healing!

The advantage I’d managed to give Su is gone in an instant, a swift kick to her gut proving that beyond a doubt. Su brings up her dagger to block Nanaya’s next attack, but the madwoman just lets her hand be impaled, grabs Su’s arm with several of her own, and snaps it over her knee before throwing her into a nearby building and rushing for—

“Veritas!” I shriek, since the girl is staring in horror at Aurora and me instead of defending herself. My shout snaps her out of it, barely giving her enough time to lift her shield to defend against Nanaya’s strike. But again, Nanaya just uses her absurd number of limbs to transition the attack into a grapple. She grips Veritas’ shield, leaps over the girl’s head, and uses her momentum to yank Veritas off the ground, flip her overhand, and slam her head directly into the concrete hard enough to crack it.

Fuck. Fuck! Am I the only one who can handle her? My lightning would stop her from pulling off grabs like that pretty trivially, no matter how skilled she happens to be. Just give myself enough charge and she wouldn’t be able to touch me.

Are you seriously still thinking about fighting her!?

I can’t save my team until she stops killing them!

Then we just have to—hey! What are you doing!?

Veritas hasn’t dropped out of incarnate form, but she’s on the ground, curled into a ball and clutching her head. Not fighting anymore. Nanaya kicks her into a wall anyway, and something in me breaks along with the brickwork. I will not let this happen. I cannot let this happen! Not again! I am going to DESTROY her! I stand up, and—

Stop it! Stop it right now!

Shut the fuck up, you coward! We have to kill her!

Are you crazy!? Give me control RIGHT NOW!

Amaterasu manages to pull herself out of the rubble, rushing at Nanaya with a scream, but Nanaya has already turned her attention to the largest remaining threat: me. But I’m ready for her. I won’t let her kill them! I won’t! No matter how much Minerva screams at me to run!

1. You don’t get to do this. I’m taking control. I inhale, and speak the only words that feel right.

“Oɴᴄᴇ Aɢᴀɪɴ, I Fɪɢʜᴛ. Bʀᴀᴠᴇ Pʀɪɴᴄᴇss Dᴜᴛɪғᴜʟ Mɪɴᴇʀᴠᴀ!”

The burst of light and force pushes Nanaya back, giving me time to collect myself. Incarnate form, check. Gunstaff, check. Plenty of time to aim for a shot? Check.

I throw my weapon away.

“WE SURRENDER!” I shout, raising both of my hands, palm-forward. “We surrender.”

Please work. Please, please, please work! Nanaya’s eyebrows twitch, but though she’s coiled to spring towards me at a moment’s notice she holds her position, examining me carefully.

“The hell we do!” Amaterasu roars, rushing in to try and continue the attack. I grit my teeth with fury. Idiot! She’ll kill us all!

“Amaterasu, stand down right now!” I shout as loudly as I can—and I can control thunder. “This is my city. My team. If you keep being stupid I’m helping the red mage take you down!”

That seems to surprise Nanaya enough to get her to stand up straighter, no longer preparing to rush me. Please, please, please!

“You are serious?” she asks. Oh gosh, okay.

“On one condition,” I insist. “Aurora’s in cardiac arrest. Heal her. Please.”

Nanaya frowns, her eyes glancing between me, Amaterasu (who has thankfully stopped), and the rubble containing Veritas. Every second is agonizing, every moment Aurora lies on the ground behind me without breathing feels like condemning her to death. But then, Nanaya nods.

“Acceptable,” she agrees, walking towards me. “Betray me, and I will kill you all.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that,” I answer, barely stopping myself from collapsing in relief. “Hurry. She doesn’t have much time.”

Partly because Fulgora stopped giving her CPR, but it’s not like I had the time to restart it. Thankfully, it hasn’t even been a minute yet. I wish I hadn’t wasted as much time as I already have, but Fulgora was right about one thing: we have to stop Nanaya if we want to live. She was just wrong about the best way to do that.

Nanaya told us she didn’t want to fight. She tried to talk us down. Surely she’d accept a surrender in that case, right? Of course, I stand by the decision to engage her anyway—we had no way to know it would go this badly—but she strikes me as the kind of person who just wants to get things over with as quickly as possible.

This was a quite literally insane risk.

Oh, shut up, Fulgora. Like continuing to fight her wouldn’t have been? I step away to give Nanaya access to Aurora’s body, and the horrific woman channels red magic through my teammate’s body. I can’t help but panic a little as I watch her do it, knowing she could be doing almost anything to Aurora and I wouldn’t be able to stop her. But moments later, Aurora gasps for breath and starts coughing, heaving for air as she tries to sit up in a panic, only to be pushed down by one of Nanaya’s arms.

“Do not move,” the woman warns, and I’m not entirely sure if it’s medical advice or a threat.

“Do what she says, Aurora,” I order. “Fight’s over.”

“I… okay,” Aurora says softly. “Sorry.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” I insist. “Nothing.”

“Mmm,” Nanaya grunts, standing up. “I must admit, I was not expecting you to be so reasonable.”

Fulgora’s anger mixes with my own, and I somehow lose enough self-control to respond.

“Well, I didn’t expect you to try to murder a child,” I snap. “So I guess we’re all learning about each other today.”

I regret it the moment I say it, panic returning as I expect retaliation. But to my surprise, Nanaya… chuckles. It’s a short snort of a laugh, but her amusement is clear.

Fucking psycho.

“You would get along well with someone I know,” she tells me, and turns towards the rubble of the destroyed wall which—I realize to a burst of power—still contains Veritas and hasn’t moved. Nanaya’s long strides take her there quickly, however, and her six arms dig Veritas’ human body up and lift her onto more stable ground.

“One moment,” she frowns. “Do not move her.”

I look carefully at Veritas, seeing that, thankfully, she’s breathing. Having no further reason to object, I wait as Nanaya wanders over to where she tossed her cloak and starts rummaging around in it, pulling out a splint. She returns to Veritas, locking one of her arms in place.

“Bones broken,” she explains. “I’ve set them. A cast would likely be better.”

“You… you have true healing, right?” I ask. “You’re like Thalia.”

Nanaya pauses, turning to give me a firm stare.

“I am nothing like Thalia was,” she says flatly. “But yes, I am capable of similar feats. I will not do so, however, because you have attacked me. I think I would prefer that you spend time having to lick your wounds and remember the source of your aches. If you attempt to accost me again, I will not hold back a second time.”

I can’t help but take a step back, the fury radiating off of her punctuating the threat with lethal certainty. She’s not even kidding, is she? That isn’t a bluff. This entire fight, she didn’t even use a single higher-class spell.

“Why?” I breathe. “Why are you doing this? Why do you fight to kill? Why are you opening portals to the Dark World?”

Nanaya regards me with the impassive calculation of someone who can’t quite decide if a barking dog is cute or annoying.

“Technically, we are not opening new portals,” she answers. “We are developing a process to seal up already-present portals and keep them on standby so we may reopen them at will. As for why… it is because we live in one. I do not anticipate that it will increase the number of monsters you need to deal with. If anything, it will lessen them, as you will be getting fewer fresh portals as a result.”

“Oh,” I say. That’s… a lot less evil than I expected.

There’s no reason to assume she’s telling the truth, though.

“As for why I kill,” she continues, “it is simply how I was taught to fight. Are you not the same? It is your job to slaughter monsters by the hundreds.”

“B-but those aren’t people!” I insist. “You’re supposed to hold back on people!”

“Oh? Were you holding back?” Nanaya asks. “You swung a weapon at my head and dropped a lightning bolt on me. You had no way to know if I would survive such a thing. The only difference between us is that I have the experience to do it on purpose.”

“Do not twist this however you like,” Amaterasu snaps. “You are that war criminal, aren’t you? The biggest traitor to the Earth Guardians in history. I remember you from the news.”

Nanaya glowers at her.

“You are old for an Earth Guardian,” she says, “but still so very young. I do not blame you for being angry with me. I hurt children on this battleground. But it would be wise, I think, to spare at least some of your rage for those who put those children here in the first place, and gave them guns. What did you think would happen, you ignorant fool?”

Amaterasu growls like a dog, but Nanaya just ignores her, turning away and shrugging her cloak onto her body as she departs. I reach out and put a hand on Su-san before she can start chasing the woman down.

“Let’s go,” I tell her. “The girls need to see a real doctor, too.”

“You are a coward,” Amaterasu spits.

A disgusting coward, Fulgora agrees.

“Shut the heck up!” I snap at both of them. “I saved everyone’s lives! If I hadn’t done that, you would have lost, I would have lost, and Aurora would be dead. Don’t you dare get mad at me about it. You almost got everyone killed and you know it! If you wanna do something about it, then get strong enough to win.”

Amaterasu growls at me, but I stare her down and after a few moments she looks away, saying something that I assume is a swear in Japanese.

“… You’re right,” she admits. “But we still failed. We can’t fail. We are the first and last line of defense!”

“I think you and Fulgora both need to remember what our job actually is,” I tell her. “We fight monsters. We kill them before they make it to Earth and eat people. If any Antipathy artifacts end up getting out of the Dark World, we capture those too. And we did that today. Successfully. That lady was not an artifact or a monster. She’s just some evil weirdo. A criminal, maybe, but that’s not our priority here.”

“‘You and Fulgora?'” Su-San asks, scrunching her eyebrows at me.

“Two incarnate forms, two people, yes it’s weird but it’s not important right now. Focus. Stop growling and groaning and beating yourself up over this and help me get the girls to a hospital!”

Amaterasu deflates a little.

“Right, yes,” she sighs. “I will get Veritas, you get Aurora?”

“Sure,” I nod, walking back over to where Aurora is still dutifully lying on the ground as per Nanaya’s orders.

“Hey, how’re you feeling?”

“I dunno. Like I almost died, I guess,” she answers, staring at me with wide eyes. God, she’s so small. “I’m sorry, I… I wasn’t ready. I didn’t expect for her to just go for me like that… I really messed up.”

“None of this is your fault, Aurora,” I insist, checking around her head and neck for any bruises or signs of injury before I carefully lift her up into my arms. “None of us are used to fighting opponents capable of strategy. We faced her assuming she’d go for whoever’s closest, and she took advantage of that.”

“My head hurts,” Aurora groans, and I stop moving immediately.

“Where?” I ask.

“Where… where she hit me,” she whimpers. “And where she grabbed me.”

I’m going to fucking kill her.

Well… at least none of that pain is likely to be from her human body.

“Your incarnate form was catastrophically damaged,” I tell Aurora. “It’s going to hurt a lot for a while now. You need to avoid transforming until it’s repaired or you could die. The good news is that painkillers work on soul damage.”

“Will it really get better?” Aurora whimpers softly. “My skull, it… I felt her break…”

“It will heal,” I promise her gently, refusing to let the rage inside me show. I need to reassure her. Revenge can come later. “It might scar, but it will heal. Incarnate forms are a lot sturdier than physical bodies.”

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“Okay,” she allows, and I lift up into the sky as softly as I can. I’m going to have to tell her mother about this, aren’t I? Well, it’s fine. She’s alive. Nothing is more important than the fact that she’s alive.

I suppose you have a point there. I still can’t believe that actually worked.

It’s not really gambling if you only have one choice. Either Nanaya accepted the surrender and helped, or we were screwed. Even if we could beat her, it probably would have taken too long to save Aurora.

I… I kind of thought she was already dead.

Well then, it’s a good thing you have me, isn’t it?

Yeah, I… yeah. Thank you. I was about to do something really stupid. We’re still going to have to be able to beat that bitch someday, though. The Corrupted are an even more urgent threat than we thought.

Were you not listening? They don’t even want to fight us. That Amalthea girl didn’t either.

I don’t need to listen, I know what you’re thinking before you even speak. So I know that you know that the portal device Nanaya had is the most terrifying artifact we have ever encountered, war robot included. Imagine what could happen if a human military got their hands on that.

I grit my teeth. She’s got a point. Even if Nanaya is telling the truth about how that thing works, we now have proof that the Corrupted are learning ways to manipulate Dark World portals. If they can tag specific portals, and manipulate where those portals appear… they straight up have a weapon of mass destruction. The ability to drop a kaiju anywhere they want is probably the single most dangerous thing I can imagine in the hands of a woman who literally has a history of terrorism.

Exactly. I know you’re relieved that she healed Aurora, but don’t forget she’s the one that nearly killed her in the first place! We have no idea what sort of horrific things she’s capable of.

Is she really gonna use it for that, though? I’m not really sure what the Corrupted want, but siccing monsters on people clearly isn’t it, despite what we once thought. I don’t know why the monsters don’t attack them, but the monsters don’t listen to them either. And it kind of makes sense? I mean, even Anath never actually hurt our brother, she just used him to get to you.

You can’t seriously be considering trying to negotiate with the people who caved in Aurora’s skull.

But Fulgora, I literally just did that, and it worked!

But what happens when it doesn’t work? What happens the next time we catch her with a dangerous artifact and she says ‘well, I already warned you, time to murder everyone you care about!’