Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers, Vol. 3

by Ishio Yamagata

  “It’s unusual for you to come all the way to the temple, Princess,” said Willone. “What brings you here?” Nashetania had normally trained in Piena with Goldof and the knights. She rarely left the country.

  “Same as always. Just a whim,” she’d replied, evading the question.

  That day at All Heavens Temple, they were practicing battling fiends. The Saints fought Chamo Rosso’s “pets” on the temple training grounds. Slug-fiends, water-snake-fiends, and more attacked without mercy, and Athlay, the Saint of Ice, Liennril, the Saint of Fire, and other skilled warriors pummeled their opponents with their techniques. The training session was just like real battle. Not all the blood on the ground belonged to the slave-fiends.

  “…Wow,” said Nashetania in awe when she’d seen the spectacle. “So the girl in the middle is Chamo? She’s so cute. I’m sure she’ll be really pretty when she grows up.”

  Willone was taken aback by Nashetania’s happy-go-lucky grin. “…Um, Princess, if you came here without knowing what was going on, maybe you should reconsider. Chamo isn’t a bad kid, but she’s somewhat…atypical.”

  “Oh, really? Well, that’s a little unsettling. But don’t you worry about me.”

  “Please, just try not to get yourself hurt.”

  “If I avoid ever getting hurt, I wouldn’t learn anything, Willone,” said Nashetania, and she tossed aside her dress. Underneath, she wore simple training clothes. “I can’t wait any longer. Nashetania, Saint of Blades, joins the fray!”

  “Ah! H-hey! Hold on!” Willone had attempted to restrain her, but it was in vain. Nashetania leaped into the arena, slicing into slave-fiends with swords growing out of the ground.

  “Huh? A newcomer, huh? Hey, Willone, is that one of the Saints I’m allowed to kill?” Chamo asked, and she vomited up more slave-fiends.

  “No! Absolutely not! And there aren’t any Saints you’re allowed to kill!” Willone dashed into the arena to protect the princess.

  Nashetania was smiling, summoning blades as she began the clash against Chamo. “Wow! This is really amazing! So this is what it’s like to fight fiends!”

  “They’re not fiends,” said Chamo. “They’re my pets.”

  Nashetania kept on fighting for half an hour or more, grinning all the while. By this point in time, the plan to kill the Braves of the Six Flowers within the Phantasmal Barrier was already under way. Nashetania had come to the temple to analyze Chamo’s fighting abilities, since she was bound to end up in combat with the girl eventually. While Nashetania played the tomboy princess who enjoyed the battle, privately, she thought Chamo was a monster.

  “You’re pretty strong, sword lady,” said Chamo. “I dunno you. Who are you?”

  “My name is Nashetania. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Her head and body drenched in blood, Nashetania smiled.

  “This whole thing has been a pain in the butt, but Chamo’s glad to be here. Guess it’ll be more fun than I thought.”

  “Really? I’m enjoying myself, too.” Coming here to reconnoiter was the right choice, thought Nashetania. Forget one-on-one—even if she ganged up on Chamo with Goldof, she wasn’t sure she could win. She would prefer to leave Chamo to the real Braves, but that scheme might not go smoothly. She would have to put that thing inside her after all.

  Before coming, Nashetania had packed her power into a very tiny fragment of diamond. If she silently prayed for the diamond to activate—and certain requirements were fulfilled—then dozens of blades would burst from it. She didn’t have it on her at the time of the temple visit, however.

  “Princess, please be more careful! I can’t take responsibility if you get hurt!” Willone was practically tearing her hair out in one corner of the arena.

  Nashetania ignored her, yelling, “Let’s go, Chamo! Keep it coming, please!”

  “Are you sure, Princess? You might die,” the girl replied.

  Nashetania’s body was marred here and there with acidic burns, hot wounds, and bites. She had fallen and twisted her arm, possibly fracturing something. “Someone who aspires to be a Brave of the Six Flowers cannot retreat from something like this.”

  “Then I won’t hold back,” said Chamo.

  Nashetania glanced toward the arena’s audience seats. Her maids and guards were all white as sheets. Beside them there was a cage containing her pets. Nashetania had three cats, two dogs, and two squirrels, and she took them along with her wherever she went. The creatures were trembling in fear inside their cage.

  Then one of the dogs began flailing around. The cage broke open, and all the animals scampered away. Watching out of the corner of her eye, Nashetania gave the tiniest snicker.

  And then she thought, I’m counting on you, Dozzu.

  “…Ngh!” The strike from the snake’s tail knocked Nashetania’s sword from her hands. Willone panicked and cut in between her and Chamo. “Hold on. Chamo, Princess, let’s leave it at that. If this keeps up, someone is gonna die.”

  Nashetania picked up her sword and pointed it at Chamo. “We’re not going to stop, Willone.”

  “Come on, Princess—”

  “I want to become stronger. I can’t protect the people, my father, or anyone at all unless I get stronger. I can’t allow myself to be afraid of a little girl.”

  Chamo reacted to Nashetania’s provocation. “…Just a little girl, huh?”

  Nashetania pretended she hadn’t heard that and continued. “I want to fight stronger opponents. This still isn’t enough.”

  “Is that right, Princess?” There was a flash of anger behind Chamo’s smile. “Sorry, Chamo shouldn’t have gone so easy on you. Let’s fight for serious.” She plunged her foxtail down her throat, and every one of her slave-fiends was unleashed into the arena.

  Willone yelled, “Stop, Chamo!” and grappled with Nashetania as her pillars of salt sprang up one after another to block the attacks. Athlay of Ice and Liennril of Fire helped keep the slave-fiends at bay.

  “What are you doing, Willone?!” Nashetania demanded. “This is rude!”

  “Shut up, Princess Numbskull! You’ve exhausted my patience!” Willone fled the scene with the struggling Nashetania in her arms. The slave-fiends circled around them as if to say, We’re not letting you get away, and descended upon the both of them.

  “I can watch this no longer! Stop the princess!”

  Nashetania’s knight guards jumped into the fray then, too. In the midst of the chaos in the arena, the princess secretly smiled to herself.

  Fifteen minutes later, the chaos in the arena had settled. Nashetania had been made to sit on the ground, where her maids were giving her an earful. On the other side of the arena, Chamo and Willone were yelling at each other.

  Nashetania looked at her pets’ cage and said, “Hey, Porta and Powna aren’t in there.” Two of them, one cat and one dog, weren’t in there. The maids paused their lecturing and started a hunt for the two missing animals. They found the cat immediately, trembling at the edge of the audience seating, but the dog was gone.

  “A dog? Okay. I’ll look for it,” Willone reassured the princess after she told her and Chamo about it. They searched the arena.

  “Wait, maybe…” Chamo shoved her foxtail down her throat and hocked up a giant slug. She whacked it on the back a few times, and with a gloopy sound, something came up from the back of its throat.

  “Eek! Eeeeek! Porta! Porta!” Nashetania scooped the dog up in her arms. It was a funny-looking animal with a rotund little face and body, almost like a cross between a dog and a squirrel. Its fur tips had been digested, but it didn’t seem to be in mortal peril.

  “When did you swallow that?” Chamo scolded her slave-fiend. “Hey now, you’re not allowed to eat weird stuff.”

  “Porta! Hold on, Porta!” Nashetania called the dog’s name over and over. Watching, Willone held her head in her hands.

  No one but Nashetania knew that during the chaos, the dog had scampered about the arena in apparent fright, and then, when it was sure that n
o one was looking, it had jumped down the slug-fiend’s throat. The dog had been carrying a very tiny diamond in its mouth. Once it was inside the slug slave-fiend, it had embedded the gem in the creature’s flesh.

  The dog’s name was Porta, but that was just an alias it used to hide itself in the human realm. Its real name was Dozzu, and it was one of the three commanders that ruled over the fiends.

  “…It was a success, Nashetania,” Dozzu told her quietly. None but Nashetania could hear.

  “Thanks. I knew you’d do it, Dozzu,” she replied, smiling.

  The slug’s nerves were dull, so it probably wouldn’t notice the gem stuck inside it. In other words, Chamo would have no way of knowing it was in there. If the proper conditions were met and Nashetania prayed, the gem would unleash its power. Dozens of blades would slice the interior of the slug’s stomach. And what’s more, if Chamo had the slave-fiend inside her at the time, the blades would damage her organs.

  There were two conditions for its activation: Nashetania had to be near her target, and Chamo had to attack Nashetania first. But the gem wasn’t that powerful. Once the two were more than a kilometer apart, it would lose effect. This was because Nashetania had yet to mature as a Saint.

  But there were only two ways to cancel the blade gem. Namely, Nashetania could annul it herself, or it would happen naturally if she died. While she had been running around inside the Phantasmal Barrier, she had deliberately chosen not to activate it. There wouldn’t have been any point. It was better to reserve her trump card.

  Nashetania estimated that once the blade gem was triggered, it would take about three hours for Chamo to die.

  “…Guh…guh…gwaaaagh…”

  Chamo’s moans of pain were the only sounds in the corpse-strewn lava zone. She was desperately trying to vomit up the blade gem. All that came from her mouth was saliva and blood. No blade gem and no fiends.

  “Chamo…Please, keep trying,” Rolonia urged her.

  Mora and Rolonia’s fervent attempts at treatment had been ineffective. Chamo’s stomach was so unique, normal treatment didn’t work. All Mora could do was to pour energy into her body to shore up her vitality.

  “So…we have no choice but to kill Nashetania, after all,” Adlet murmured.

  Mora had used her powers to give them a general understanding of the nature of the gem. It would take about three hours for it to kill Chamo, and if Nashetania moved far enough away, it would lose effect. The radius of the gem’s effect was around one kilometer and there were only two ways to nullify it: Either Nashetania had to cancel it, or they had to kill her to save Chamo.

  Mora was still chanting in the divine tongue, to further analyze the gem stuck in Chamo’s stomach. Hans and Fremy were chasing after the culprit. If they lost sight of her, saving Chamo would become infinitely harder. Adlet anxiously awaited their return.

  “Auntie…Chamo’s not gonna die, right?” the girl asked weakly.

  Mora grasped her small hand and encouraged her. “How can you say that, Chamo? We’re all with you, aren’t we? Do you think we would let you die so easily?”

  “…Ah-ha-ha…You’re right…yeah.”

  Nashetania got us good, thought Adlet. Judging from her behavior, she hadn’t planted the gem during the Phantasmal Barrier incident. She’d done it long before the Evil God’s awakening. Adlet should have foreseen this; he’d known she’d been preparing for this fight over the course of many years.

  That was when Hans returned from his pursuit of Nashetania.

  “What’s the word, Hans?” asked Adlet.

  “Meow. I lost sight of her once, but we found her.” He seemed somewhat rattled. He was fully aware just how important Chamo was. “She’s about a kilomewter away from here, just hangin’ around. The damn woman gathered about thirty fiends, and now she’s just sittin’ in the middle of ’em and smilin’. I didn’t see no other fiends, though.”

  “And where’s Fremy?”

  “She’s watchin’ the princess from a little ways away. Fremy ain’t dumb enough to fight her alone.”

  “I’m worried,” said Adlet. “And about Fremy, too.”

  “There was neowthin’ else to worry about. I didn’t catch sight of Tgurneu, neither…or Goldof,” said Hans.

  Adlet scowled. But now it was clear—Mora’s analysis was right, and Nashetania couldn’t get too far from Chamo. Mora’s estimate of one kilometer for the area of effect also seemed accurate. “First, we get Chamo away from here and cancel the gem’s effects. Mora, can you move her?” Adlet asked.

  But Mora shook her head sadly. “She’s just barely clinging to life. I don’t know what would happen should we move her.”

  “There’s no other way. Nashetania needs to die, after all.” Adlet hurried to replenish his weapons from his iron box. “Me, Rolonia, and Fremy will go kill Nashetania. Hans and Mora, you stay here and protect Chamo.” Adlet chose to leave Hans, whose combat skills he trusted most, right by Chamo. This was because he was still worried about Tgurneu, who had yet to show up.

  “All right,” said Hans. “I’ll leave the princess to mew guys.”

  “And, Mora,” Adlet continued, “call Goldof one more time with your mountain echo.”

  Mora nodded. She took a deep breath and amplified her voice. “GOLDOF! WHERE ARE YOU?! I’VE CALLED YOU MANY TIMES! NASHETANIA HAS NEARLY KILLED CHAMO! RETURN TO US AND HELP SAVE HER!”

  When Chamo had first fallen, Mora had called Goldof over and over with her powers, explaining the situation to him. But yet again, her voice echoed throughout the lava zone in vain.

  “He still won’t return,” the oldest Saint said.

  “…Addy, what will we do about Goldof?” Rolonia asked.

  Adlet had no answers. First of all, he didn’t know if Goldof was even a real Brave or not. Was he the seventh, and had he lured Chamo here to kill her? If so, Adlet was forced to assume that the next time they encountered him would be in a skirmish. But there was still the possibility that Nashetania was deceiving and using him. Perhaps the fact that he had yet to return meant he was in trouble.

  “We’ll deal with him later,” said Adlet. It was too much to think about. He’d make the simple decisions first. “Sorry. Goldof is going to have to get through this on his own. Right now, let’s just focus on saving Chamo. Let’s go.” He took Rolonia and dashed off northward.

  The rocky hills of the volcanic region made running difficult. Adlet and Rolonia jumped over ditches and dodged geysers of hot steam as they pushed northward. After about five minutes of running, they heard gunshots. Fremy was battling fiends.

  They arrived at the rendezvous point Hans had indicated. Fremy had taken up a position at the summit of a rock mound, shooting down at the fiends attacking her from below. “Nashetania ran west! Follow her!” she yelled.

  Adlet didn’t hesitate. He turned away from her and headed west. Scanning around from the top of the highest peak in the area, he could see something moving in the shadow of a mound about three hundred meters away. “You’re not getting away!” he said, breaking into a sprint to give chase. He found Nashetania among the twenty fiends speeding across the rock hills. She was riding the back of a wolf-type, glancing behind her as she fled.

  When Adlet descended the rock hill, two fiends rushed up from below to attack him. A spider-fiend spewed thread at him, while a big snake-fiend spat fire. Adlet sprang backward, but the rock beneath him crumbled where he landed, sending him tumbling down the slope.

  “What are you doing, idiot?!” Fremy swiftly sniped the spider.

  “Sorry.” Adlet gave her a quick apology as he scrambled to his feet, dodging an attack from the snake-fiend before slicing its head off. The uneven footing of the volcanic terrain made this bout particularly challenging. It restricted the agility characteristic of his fighting style.

  “Addy! Incoming!” Rolonia cried. Another fiend approached him from the west.

  “You take it, Rolonia!” Adlet said, and he darted past the enemy to pursue Nash
etania. She was probably sending her forces out a little at a time just to slow them down while she and her fiends focused on escaping.

  Rolonia pulled out her whip. When a fiend’s claws were almost to her neck, her shriek ripped through the lava zone. “Don’tmoveyourottendirtyvileverminI’llstopyourbreathI’llstopyourheart!” In an instant, her whip had slashed bloody, gushing ribbons into the fiend.

  The three of them kept on sprinting after the swarm, closing the distance bit by bit.

  Adlet ran side by side with Fremy and apologized. “I’m sorry, Fremy.”

  “?”

  “If I’d listened to you and been more cautious, things wouldn’t have ended up like this.”

  “Don’t be stupid. What’s the point of apologizing to me?” she replied, sounding uncomfortable. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not angry, and I don’t care.”

  Adlet nodded and kept his pace.

  He realized that Nashetania was running in an arc. She was drawing a half-moon with a one-kilometer radius, the pit where Chamo lay at its center. Adlet had originally been heading north, but now he was already turned in the opposite direction. Just as Mora had sensed, Nashetania couldn’t move more than a kilometer away.

  They were now within a hundred meters of their target. Fremy manifested a bomb in her palm and plugged it into the barrel of her gun. She fired, and the explosive fell ten meters off from Nashetania’s side. Adlet made a simple sling with some rope to launch another bomb at the fleeing traitor.

  “Is her plan just to keep running like this until Chamo dies?” Fremy asked as the chase continued.

  “Maybe. But at this rate, we’ll catch up!” Rolonia replied.

  She was right—if they kept bombarding Nashetania to slow her down while they pursued her, they would eventually catch her. Against just Nashetania and twenty-odd fiends, the three of them were sure to win.