LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 66: Greater Love
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"Why did you never run away?"
"The consequences of my own actions." Tanya shifts, looking at the ceiling. "But mainly... resources. Civilization. Does peace really count if you don't get to enjoy the fruits of your labor? I couldn't hole up somewhere and become a hermit. Not an option."
"But it is now, isn't it?" Shuna straddles her waist and leans down, her face hovering just above Tanya's own.
"Hm?"
"You have the option, right? Those resources... power... civilization..." Shuna cups Tanya's face. "There's no need to fight anymore. We can put that behind us. We could run away, you know."
Tanya reaches up, pressing her comparatively rougher palm against her lover's cheek. "...do you want to run away so badly?"
Shuna leans into the touch, eyes closing.
"Not alone."
-=-
"Here."
Warmth traces along the tops of Shuna's arms. Slightly larger, slightly rougher hands overlay her own, brushing along, tugging quietly. Tanya is close, her warm breath tracing Shuna's skin.
"Kyūdō is more my area of expertise, admittedly. I was captain of my- well, that's not important."
It is important. To me.
Shuna thinks this, but tucks it away for now, remaining quiet, attentive.
"But then, the art isn't exclusive. It's simply a matter of translating the mentality onto another form." Her hands shift Shuna's into a better position. "Now, here. Brace. Feel that? Now, pull. Not too quickly. Breathe."
Tanya adjusts where necessary, then backs away, her warmth disappearing as well. Shuna smothers the spark of disappointment at that, smoothly holding onto the drawstring.
"Be in line with your target. Feel the weight of the bow, the heft of the arrow. Adjust for distance, focus small, and… sha. Or rather, shoot."
Shuna releases.
A burst of wind circles her shot, her arrow. Even as a princess and generally nonfighter, her physical strength is nothing to scoff at. And magic helps.
That being said…
Her arrows thunks into the target. Closer to the edge than the center, by a long shot.
"Good shot."
Shuna sighs, bemused. "It was a terrible shot."
"You hit the target this time, but you missed last time. That means you improved." Tanya nods. She steps closer, closer than expected actually, and tilts Shuna's face up with a finger under her chin. "I'll take advantage of that fact." She leans down, her lips lightly brushing Shuna's. They linger, for a heart stopping moment, then pull away. "If you'd prefer, I will appropriately reward subsequent… improvements, as well."
Shuna became one of the best archers in the Jura Tempest Federation within weeks.
-=-
"I've always looked after myself. That's how it's always been. It's not bravery to protect yourself, it's just common sense."
"Do you call this…" Shuna leans forward, her finger just barely tilting her lover's chin for a kiss. They fit together perfectly; she doesn't want to pull away. "…looking after yourself?"
"… no, I…" Uncharacteristically, Tanya is caught off guard. "I don't think…"
"Then don't think." Shuna kisses her, then kisses her again. Again and again, until they're breathless. "I never met this selfish person. I only know you."
-=-
"So? Is that a no?"
"Your bedroom talk needs work." Tanya sighs, rolling on her back, putting her hands behind her head, and staring at the ceiling.
Shuna rolls as well, to her side.
"...I don't know." Tanya admits, as if confessing. "Rarely did any of us actually die. That idiot. That sort of sentimentality has no place on the battlefield."
"Did you dislike him?"
"Not at all. But, I'd like to think he was smart enough to do anything better than some self-sacrificial nonsense." Tanya scoffs, though there is no heat behind it. "Throwing your life away, and for what? There were better options. There had to be."
"I don't imagine he was thinking." Shuna trails her fingertips lightly across Tanya's arm, tracing the space between bicep and tricep. "Had no reason at all..."
Tanya is quiet. Then, almost as if Shuna imagined it, she murmurs, "…He must have been terrified."
"Hm?" Shuna glances up at her face.
"Hm." Tanya allows her to touch for a moment longer, before rolling over, until she was atop Shuna once more. "Enough."
"Oh?" Shuna smiles, and she feels Tanya shift at her tone. "And how will you stop me?"
-=-
"I don't want to lead. I'm done with that. Any desire to tell others what to do has… I don't want to control anything. Except my life. This life."
Tanya closes her eyes, her voice slowly growing more and more faint.
"All I wanted for the longest time was… this… peaceful life."
-=-
"Well, if you were ever so insistent on putting yourself in harm's way… I'd just have to save you, wouldn't I?"
-=-
"Shuna..." Tanya leans over, one hand supporting her on the futon, boxing in her lover below. "You're..."
Horns, cheeks, hair... they're all so beautiful. She is so beautiful now, in this moment. And in the next, and the next. This is real. This is-
"...beautiful." Her thumb caresses Shuna's cheek, drawing a line of fire along the flushed skin. The pink Kijin meets her warm gaze, arms stretched above her head. "Your eyes are very pretty. More than jewels or stars. I..."
She wants to say it. She can't say it.
Shuna, body and soul bared fully, looks up at her beloved and smiles. A wanting, heady smile. Flush covers her cheeks, and ears, and her collarbone is splotched with desire.
"Do you want..." Shuna huffs a quiet, breathless laugh. She tilts her head, and oh, Tanya wants to say it so badly. She wants her to know. She wants her more than anything. "...your future child to have them, too?"
.
.
.
.
.
Tell me… were those memories precious to you, too?
-=-=-=-
The truth of the matter is this: Octavius had been a juggernaut. Capable of regeneration not just magically, but physically through his own blood manipulation, his power drew both on his Demon Lord Seed's strength and his inability to die easily. Such a battle could only last a long time.
But in relatively ordinary circumstances, battles did not occur over glorious lengths of time.
Contrary to popular belief, a battle between two knights, or peasants, or soldiers, often ends within one of two strikes. A fist fight, only a few seconds.
Yet, at the highest possible level and outside what would be described as "human", this is rarely the case. Regeneration, supernatural reflexes, literal resurrection, high level magical barriers, magical enhancements and reinforcements against all but the most devastating blows.
It goes without saying that these are far from "relatively ordinary" circumstances. If there are any.
From the outside, there is little to be seen.
The sounds of cutting wind, snapping, and cracking pavement, crunching. To blurs move in sync, against each other. A rolling maelstrom, great swells of power rising, falling, crashing crushing crashing-
Flashing spots of fiery light, of clustered steel and golden steel smashing across one another, ripping atomic pieces free and sizzling in the air.
Tanya and Drake appear, for a moment, then they blur, and clash again and again. Spinning, twisting, stabbing. It is tug of war. Push and pull.
Drake advances, thrusting, spearing. Tanya retreats, slashing, deflecting. He stabs forward with two hands; if she stays near the point, he will carve her open. If she steps too far away, he gains.
But, if he overextends, he dies. Drake does not overextend. He does not move into her space. He maintains his distance, and she maintains hers.
Tanya advances, and he calmly retreats. Reversal. The cycle continues.
Naturally, this is all happening much faster than mere words on a page can describe.
If Octavius was a juggernaut, then Drake is an assassin. He is swift where Octavius was brutish, a smooth stream against roaring rapids, David's stone to Sodom's meteor.
In this sense, he is a far better match for her. He flows, and his moves are not telegraphed so much as they move from one to the other, a constant rhythm without obvious tells like movement hitches or twitching muscles.
Drake slashes low, forcing her to dance out of range or be bisected by his follow up vertical cut. He advances in the open space, left hand placed firmly several hand widths below the spear point, making use of the handle to protect his torso from any of her counterattacks.
Tanya meets him halfway, darting low and cutting at his knees. Drake pulls back, deflecting, and she steps, half a dash, her blade following him, wrenched from the pavement into a diagonal arc upward.
CLASH!
Sparks fly. Drake steps back, readjusts, then stabs forward. Tanya retreats back a step, swiping up defensively and scorching the air with yet more metallic cinders.
Drake pulls back as well.
He is not telegraphed, like Octavius, but he has patterns.
Tanya is not flowing but rather in alternating flux. Shifting, observing, attacking, retreating. She is not naturally gifted, as a prodigy, but rather recognizes the world on a fundamental level and applies herself in ways that may in fact seem prodigious. It is not genetic talent or lucky brain wiring that rose her to new heights, but rather cumulative experience, consistent hard work, a capacity to learn and a willingness to apply that learning everywhere.
Remember this: Tanya von Degurechaff earned her Silver Wings Assault Medal before acquiring the Type 95. A world before that, she had been next in line for the Head of Human Resources at a very large, very successful modern company, despite being several decades younger than the other departmental Heads.
Tanya had once lamented the inherent unfairness of the world, and then she immediately worked to undermine that fairness for her own advancement. Sneer at the guidelines despite being bound by them. Who cares if your classmate wins a mathlete competition? Who cares if they have higher test scores?
Make your own advantages. Let others settle for greatness.
Move forward, ever forward. Strive to be superior in your own way.
Early on in her blood-soaked second career, she'd observed that the best option in combat was to end it before it could begin. If she blitzed her opponents, set the pace of the fight so ungodly high that only she could react, then there was no danger at all. Then, when her opponents grew smarter, and warier, and more powerful, Tanya became trickier. Illusions, unavoidable attacks, forced collateral, physics and physical strain from altitude.
No matter what, I am better than the person in front of me. And if not, I will be.
…is the idea, at least.
Because that's what it takes. Because that's what she needs to be.
Drake lunges, his spear piercing. Tanya steps back, another stab tracking her like a bloodhound. Tanya ducks into his guard, only to sidestep and dance back as he spun his spear, butt-end carving a gash where she'd previously been.
Another lunge, she slashes up, deflects, steps back, stab, a downward cut, swipe, duck, stab, sparks and scorching steel. Again and again.
They are the waves in the storm. Rather, they are the storm.
Tanya retreats, and Drake follows.
Tanya advances, and Drake fills the space, forcing her to retreat again.
The problem is range and skill. His spear keeps her at a distance, and her lack of skill with a katana prevents her from creating and attacking the angles and openings she is used to.
Her options, then, are to sacrifice the extra range offered by Hakurou's blade and swap to her combat knives, thereby closing the skill gap, or to continue using the katana and wait for an opening that doesn't seem to be coming.
Still, she can't help but feel... no, not feel, but logically, he should have more. There's no way he came here for a simple brawl. Too much is at stake here, and he's certainly put in too much effort for such simplicity. The next logical assumption, then, is he doesn't want to use whatever is up his sleeve. Whether from pride or fear, it doesn't really matter.
She just has to find an opening before he gets frustrated enough to play his true hand. In this case, her choice is obvious, really.
Play to her own strengths.
Tanya fills her lungs, holds her breath, and waits.
Drake spins his spear, bringing it around in an upward slash. It rips apart the air, the wind ruffling her bangs.
As before, he spaces his attack so only the tip is near her, leaving himself just enough room to react aggressively or defensively.
If she moves to the left, his right, he slashes down, or bashes with the shaft. If she goes forward, into his guard, he brings the handle down and shoves. If she goes to his left, he spins to face her, cutting down and retreating.
Tanya quicksteps to his left, then steps back.
Drake cuts, moving back.
As soon as his foot leaves the ground, Tanya strikes. Like a javelin, she snaps Hakurou's katana in his direction, dashing as soon as it leaves her hand.
Eyes widening, Drake yanks his head to the side, the blade missing his cheek but the wind of it cutting him all the same. Behind him, Hakurou's katana buries itself halfway to the hilt in the wooden support beam of a burning storefront's awning.
"You fucking-!" Drake grunts, then cuts himself off, flipping his spear horizontally and bashing it into Tanya's chest, her knife close enough to make him go cross-eyed. Instead of flinching, Tanya takes the hit, one arm wrapping around his spear.
Unable to reach him, and lacking the leverage to force him back before he could escape, she kicks out straight, knocking the air from his lungs and the spear from his hands as he jerks backward, crashing through that same support beam into the inferno of storefront itself.
Tanya stumbles, golden spear glinting poisonously in the firelight. Without hesitating, she whips her arm up, tossing it above her.
A blink later, Drake slams into the ground, right where she'd previously been standing.
Shock paints his face, able to react only enough to recognize what had happened.
Tanya knew about his teleportation. She's-
Right behind me.
He spins, desperately slicing at the air, but he only catches the tip of her ponytail on his blade. She darts in, and he forces his arms down, trying to smash her into the pavement.
"Argh!"
In between the barest gap, the bare minimum space he'd allowed her, she strikes. She dodges inside, underneath, slipping past him and slicing his side in the same motion. The tan, sleeveless tunic hugging him rips open, splotches of crimson and a sizzling purple staining his side.
Her knife sizzles with the same colors.
One step, two steps, she's behind him again, knife raised underhanded, ready to stab backwards, sever his spine.
Tanya flexes her abdominals, rotating and stabbing down-
"CAWWW!!!"
Her knife sinks into something firm, but bouncy. Like ballistic gelatin.
The bird!
It crows at her fiercely, the massive bird-like creature forming from the shadows along Drake's underarms. Her knife glints along slimy, slithering shadows, buried to the hilt in its glinting, feathered chest.
In the space her knife stopping and the lack of death from either the creature or Drake himself, Tanya attempts to force her knife through the rest of the creature, into Drake's spine.
But by then it's too late. The lapse has cost her.
Drake falls forward and spins on a heel, whirling with his spear.
Tanya yanks her knife free and drops back, the razor-sharp tip just a hair's width away from the bridge of her nose.
"Enough!" Drake snarls, a golden disaster gouging the air. The metallic blur in his hands hums, and Tanya can taste what's coming.
It is thunder and lightning, how he crashes down on her. The ground cracks, wind shunts away like bats out of hell.
He crashes again, and again, and again. In the spaces between these, that crow or raven – or whatever bird-like creature it could claim to be called – swooped in, clawing and beating desperate wings.
He puts her on the defensive and keeps her there.
She is faster, and stronger. It is because she is faster and stronger that she is still alive, despite his onslaught. Fighting against a Demon Lord Seed level individual and his modified Lesser Spirit with nothing more than a combat knife, while forced to fight off the effects of two barriers… yet here we are.
Tanya's chest burns. Her expression twists in silent irritation, reopening the cut on her cheek, and she forces herself to move faster. Her knife is a blur, chipping away and playing championship level defense. It should win an award.
She has other knives, of course, but now isn't exactly the time to-
"SCRAAAW!"
That goddamn fucking-
The bird – a hawk? – dives yet again, clawing at her face. She ducks, then bends awkwardly on her heels, narrowly avoiding being skewered through her eye socket. Her hand latches onto the handle, just underneath the spear point. Drake yanks on his spear, dragging her up.
He lashes out with a boot, and Tanya lets go, taking the attack straight on and letting it launch her back, pushing off at the same time. She needs space, and in his fury, he is all too happy to create it.
To his own detriment. Because in the space between one attack and the next…
"CRAWWW!"
The damn thing is perfectly content to attack in spurts, in between waves of nonstop motion.
It's likely it can't keep up with the two of them, so it waits. Or it's been ordered to fill in space. The capability or lack thereof for autonomous thought in the creature is not a primary concern.
Tanya lands on her feet and slides back, just in time for the damn thing to catch up to her, Drake trailing several meters behind.
Finally.
Before Drake can reach them, Tanya blurs. Swapping her knife to an overhanded grip, she slashes diagonal, a metallic arc carving through the bird's claws. Then, her other hand shoots up, snatching it out of midair by the neck.
Tetra Breaker: Extension.
Across the Spirit's body, a grid pattern of glowing teal alights. Tanya tightens her grip further and further, until, with one last startled crow, it disintegrates into energy, shifting multicolored particles absorbing into her palm.
I can use this.
Across from her, Drake stops.
In fact, they both pause here, each catching their breath. Each, taking a moment. To think, to observe. They are remarkably similar, aren't they?
What a pain! They think at the same time, with mutual looks of disgust and irritation. Tanya's with the situation, and Drake's with himself.
Drake grips his side, roughly squeezing until bleeding stops.
She's too quick with those knives. Skill… equal? She outmatches me in strength, speed, reflexes. Her acceleration, I've never seen anything like it. She surpasses Octavius by a great margin. Can she go higher? How much is she holding back? Or rather, what else is up her sleeve? More knives, for certain. She's smart, resourceful, avoids unnecessary movement. Her attacks are always aimed to kill, and her superior speed forces me to dedicate my attention to all of them. But that's only in a fair fight. I've only warped once. Astel is still hidden. She's clearly affected by the barriers.
He calms down, breathing evening out.
As long as I keep her in my range and out of her own, nothing she does matters.
"If only you'd joined Scylla back then. Even under these circumstances, you're still alive." Drake settles into a low stance, golden spear along his arms, hands under its head and near its end respectively. He's tense, but in the way of a coiled spring, brimming with potential energy. "But what's done is done. I will kill you. Then, I will raze everything you've worked for to the ground, until nothing beside remains."
On the wind, the smell of smoke carries to them. Flames crackle, though quietly, as if a captive audience.
…No. Tanya's expression darkens, her eyes flashing uncharacteristically.
"…I hate to admit this, but you've pissed me off." She hates it. She hates this. It's too unfamiliar. It's too important. Her heart is pounding, beating, burning. "Let me engrain this into your fucking skull."
The smart decision would be to run. To step away from a disadvantaged situation, to prioritize herself as she always had. That's what the salaryman believed. That's what Tanya von Degurechaff would do. Be selfish. Look after yourself.
"You have every right to kill me. Come and kill me, Drake of Scylla! But as long as you're a threat to my home-"
Survive. More than anything, survive.
As long as it takes.
Her eyes spark, magnetic, electric teal. Something cracks out of frame, not physical but spacial. At the base of her neck, near between her shoulder blades, a thrum of power trickles warmth into her chest.
"I'm not going to die!"
-=-=-=-