They were just like Tiona and Tione.
Since the moment she was born, Bache had been plagued by a monster—her sister.
This was the reason for Bache’s reticence, for her paucity of emotion. She didn’t want to die. Even letting the words pass her lips sent tendrils of irrepressible fear squirming throughout her entire body.
Bache knew. Even if she were to escape the confines of Telskyura, her other half, the other being with whom she shared her talents and abilities, would follow her to the ends of the earth. That bothersome bond of blood would always draw them together.
Back when Kali had stepped in to keep her sister from killing her, Bache had learned there was only one truth she could cling to:
“Strength. I needed to be strong. I needed a power that couldn’t be stolen from me.”
Combining her fear of death with her insatiable thirst for life, she’d fostered the fighting spirit inside her. And from the amalgam of survival and fighting instincts, a new warrior, in her purest form, was born.
She coveted strength, craved it as a coldhearted, inhuman warrior.
“I will kill you and your sister…I will kill Argana…and then I will become the most powerful warrior in the whole world,” the Poison Queen hissed, as Kali watched over her with intrigue and love.
“!!”
Tiona willed up every ounce of strength she could muster, even as the poison continued to scald her face. Swinging her leg upward in a mighty kick, she somehow managed to make contact with Bache, who released the confining grip on her head. Around and around she spun, not even caring about the burn the contact had left on her leg, focusing only on putting distance between herself and her attacker.
“Hah…hah…?!”
Her whole face felt like it was on fire; pain and a strange sense of intoxication ravaged her being. The venom was strong. Like a fever, it washed over her body, and beads of sweat developed across her skin. Even the globules of blood she coughed up from her mouth had begun to take on a blackish hue.
Down on all fours, she supported herself with shaking arms, and the excruciating pain was enough that a tear fell from her eye and ran down the length of her cheek. Inside, she could feel a crack working its way through her heart—the callous confession of the woman she’d once regarded as her second sister hit where it hurt the most.
It hurts.
It hurts so bad!
I can’t do this anymore!!
“Tio…ne…”
TioneTione!!
Help me, Tione!!
It hurts too much! I don’t wanna fight anymore!
I don’t wanna fight.
Tiona’s consciousness lost itself somewhere along the line between past and present as poison consumed her body and cracks spread across her heart.
Deep inside the dark reaches of her soul, Little Tiona was crying.
She didn’t wanna fight. She didn’t wanna fight.
“!!”
The Amazons roared, Tiona no longer able to move as her chest heaved up and down.
“On your feet!” they cried. “Kill her!” they cried.
Bache turned her cold, ruthless eyes toward the girl on the ground, and the writhing blob of light around her hand let out an audible crackle as it flashed.
And then she started toward her, slowly, as Kali watched from above.
“Gngh…ah?!”
With a loud thud, Tione flew backward, breaking through a nearby barrel and colliding with the side of the ship.
Her body was already a bloody mess. Blood poured like rivers from her open wounds and mouth, her skin littered with swollen bruises and sores.
The spectating Amazons let out excited whoops and hollers as Argana approached.
“Have you had enough yet, Tione?”
“…!”
Argana ran her arm across her cheek, licking at the mixture of blood—some of it Tione’s, some of it her own. Her body, too, looked decidedly worse for wear, and her garments, dragon-scale belt included, were tattered and ragged.
“Though you’ve lost your edge as a warrior…you’ve lasted longer than I thought you would. I must admit that you’ve grown stronger. You’re not that sad waste of flesh that you were so many years ago.”
Her voice sounded so far away. It buzzed in her ears.
Damn you, Tione cursed the woman in her head. But she’d lost too much blood. It was hard to think. Her mind was hazy and slipping in and out of consciousness.
She let herself slide down the side of the ship, her head starting to droop.
“I’d never given much thought to you so-called adventurers…but now I’ve actually started to look forward to it. That boaz in particular. I’ll be interested to see just how strong he is.”
Argana was saying something.
Prattling on about something.
“Ah, but first things first. You’ll allow me to eat you now, won’t you?”
Yakking, yakking, yakking—.
“I suppose if Bache has been defeated…heh…then I’ll just have to kill Tiona, too.”
—In that moment, something snapped.
There came a resounding crack, the likes of which she’d never heard before, and her vision went red with flames.
Her head rolled upward, the entirety of her being exploded with a fiery heat—and then she was off.
“”
Argana didn’t even have time to react.
Nor to evade the incoming fist.
Tione pushed herself off the side of the ship, spraying splinters of wood as she sent her fist into the side of Argana’s jaw.
“Wha—?!”
The Amazon went flying.
Now it was her turn to sail through the air, breaking through barrels to slam painfully into the opposite wall.
Blood dribbled down from between her lips as she looked up in shock at the crimson snake of fury now staring her down.
“I’ll kill you…!!”
Tione’s fist was clenched in rage, her body stained a brilliant red, her own blood dyeing her skin.
She was furious.
A pure, unadulterated enmity churned through her veins, stronger than any she’d ever felt before, stronger than when she’d been pelted with blows, stronger than when she’d had her own blood sucked from her body and the shame had been seared into her memory.
And as all that ire flowed through her like flames licking at her skin, she roared.
“If you kill her, I’ll kill you!!”
“…!!”
The sheer force of all that furor was enough to steal the breath of every Amazon on board.
Not even Tione herself knew what had caused it.
It was a livid inferno the likes of which she’d never felt before.
But she didn’t have to understand it to let her mouth run away from her.
“Lay one finger on her. I dare you!! You’ll rue the day you were born!!!!”
As Tione screamed, she began to realize just where her shouts were coming from.
Oh, how she hated that stupid smile.
But oh, how she needed it.
She always had. And she’d always do whatever it took. She had a duty to fulfill.
Because that stupid idiot was her other half—her one and only little sister.
“I’ll never let you touch her!!”
She would protect her. She would protect her Tiona.
She had to keep her safe. Because they only had each other.
She protected her when the other Amazons targeted her in the arena. When she fell asleep first next to her.
She’d always quietly protected her—the dazzling sun that shone its light on her life.
And she wasn’t about to stop now.
“You two are…really a different breed of Amazon,” Argana mused. The fact that the sisters had been able to retain their bond even in the cutthroat world of Telskyura was a miracle, indeed. She smiled. “You love each other, don’t you?”
“What?!”
“Since you seem to be
in the dark, I guess I’ll go ahead and tell you. It’s been so long, after all.” Argana rose to her feet, that same amused smile still playing on her lips. “Tiona has always been protecting you.”
—Tione, Tione.
Again and again, Little Tiona called out her sister’s name through the darkness.
She could see her back quivering as she cried and cried, only a few steps ahead.
Little Tione would never be a warrior.
She’d strayed from the warrior’s path.
Tiona knew why. As thick as she could be at times, she still understood why.
It was simple. Because she was simply Tione.
On the day she saw her sister crying, reduced to tears after having killed Seldas, a feeling took root inside Tiona.
—She needed to protect her.
It wasn’t because she empathized with her. But simply because it seemed natural to do so. She was her other half, after all. Just like she didn’t need a reason to protect herself, she didn’t need a reason to protect her sister.
And so, from that day, Tiona began killing the other girls in their room. Or, perhaps more concisely, she volunteered to fight them in the rites. Whenever Tione was scheduled to fight against one of their own roommates, Tiona would go to Kali and request that she be switched in for her sister. It was her way of protecting her sister’s heart, haggard and broken as it was from Argana’s training.
But there was still the anxiety Tione always felt as the days for her rites grew near. Tiona didn’t like that, either. And so she went to Kali again. And agreed to do whatever Kali asked so long as her wish was fulfilled. She killed all of them. In a single long night of rite after rite after rite, she piled their bodies high. Tione never even noticed.
It was that one bond she had with her sister that let her simply be Tiona Hyrute rather than a warrior of Telskyura.
Perhaps if she’d never seen Tione crying in her room that one night, she, too, would have turned out just like Argana and Bache—an Amazon who filled the hole in her heart with nothing but ceaseless fighting. She would have become a true berserker, mercilessly slaughtering her opponents, awash in their blood yet radiating a pure and innocent smile all the while.
Tiona knew all this. She understood the paper-thin line she’d tread. And that her sister’s presence had been the one thing someone as stupid as her could hold onto.
Tione was the moon.
She lit the way forward through the darkness when neither of them knew where to go. She was always there next to her in her moonlike tranquility when it came time to sleep. Tiona had always liked Tione the best at night. It was the one time the restless, angry girl of the day could settle down. She held her so, so close, a cradle of the moon, rocking her to sleep.
Tiona couldn’t sleep unless she was next to Tione.
—Tione, Tione.
Little Tiona was crying. I can’t get up, she said.
She liked to fight, but she didn’t like to kill. She’d wept salty wet tears beneath her mask upon killing their final roommate. It hurt so badly. So badly her whole body and heart ached.
—Tione, save me.
Where was she to hit her on the head, call her stupid, and tug her hand?
She rubbed at her chest, looking down into the darkness, into the deep, deep pool of her heart to where Little Tiona continued to cry.
Closing her eyes, she reopened them to see her—Tione, standing above her.
—Don’t lose, Tiona.
That’s what she’d told her just a short while ago when the two had separated.
She saw her sister’s back, framed in the light of the moon above.
Standing behind her younger self, she bent down to pick up the book lying at her feet.
Then handed it to the weeping girl in front of her.
—Try to hold out just a bit longer, okay?
—Tione’s doing her best, too.
She laughed, her smile as bright and gleaming as the sun.
Little Tiona placed her hand on the book’s cover, blinking curiously. She flipped through its pages, and after several hundred of the paper sheets had gone by, she came to a stop on the hero of the legend—and instantly brightened.
The two Tionas, the young girl and the warrior, looked at each other and smiled, then took each other’s hands.
“Ngh!!”
Tiona’s eyes shot open with a powerful snap.
Her consciousness was suddenly as sharp as a tack, and she sprang instantly to her feet.
“!”
Bache gave a start, then leaped backward. As she eyed the rejuvenated girl suspiciously, the Amazonian spectators above let out resounding cries of adulation.
“Hoh-hoh. So you’re back on your feet,” Kali mused, smiling beneath her mask. “What’s your plan, then, hmm? Doesn’t look to me like you’re doing so hot. You sure you can still fight?”
Indeed, smoke continued to rise from Tiona’s body where Bache’s Velgas had seared the skin.
Tiona brought an arm up to wipe at her poison-smeared face—perhaps Kali’s words had reached her?—then she formed both her hands into fists before gearing up for a mighty yell.
“It doesn’t hurt. Not one bit!!”
Bache’s eyes grew round in surprise.
“And your words don’t hurt me, either. Not one bit!!”
Now it was Kali’s turn to open her mouth with surprise.
“I can still fight. I can keep doin’ this forever!!”
Not a single Amazon moved, all of them as still as statues.
“You think I’d lose to the likes of you?!”
And then Tiona’s smile deepened.
She squeezed her fists tighter, readying herself for combat as if her skin wasn’t currently covered in poison and giving off smoke.
She’d just figured out the one tactic she could use against Bache’s Velgas.
She just had to ignore it—to tough it out.
It was the plan of a girl whose head didn’t quite function the way others’ did and a culmination of all her thickheaded stupidity.
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!”
With a start, the tiny, cherubic goddess watching over them let out a great, gulping guffaw, breaking the silence like water bursting through a dam. Holding both hands to her stomach, she flapped her feet in the air, practically tumbling straight off her perch.
Down below, Bache’s expression never faltered. Even as her goddess’s laughter echoed throughout the cavern, she only narrowed her eyes.
“…My Velgas isn’t something you can just ignore.”
“’Course! It actually hurts like hell!”
“Well, then—”
But Tiona interrupted before she could finish.
“But it’s not gonna keep me from smilin’!”
Bache’s eyes widened for a second time.
“It doesn’t matter how much it hurts, how much my heart aches, how much I wanna cry—I’ll just keep on smilin’!”
True to her words, a giant smile was currently plastered across her face.
It was a smile from cheek to cheek and which was completely out of place considering her current state.
—What was it that had separated Tiona and Tione into light and dark back in Telskyura? Yes, it had been that book, the epic.
She could still remember losing herself among the pages of that story as Bache read it aloud to her. She could still remember the very first time she’d laughed so hard she couldn’t stop at the ridiculous dialogue of the story’s hero.
And she could still remember the burst of courage those words had given her.
“I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed…so yeah! Maybe this is the only thing I can do!”
Maybe that beautiful story had been the one place she could run when the days tried to drive her into the ground. Maybe it was only through that legendary epic that she’d been able to console herself after what she’d done.
Of all the things that story may have given her, t
he one that Tiona was most sure of—was her smile.
“But you can bet I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna keep on smiling!”
If she just kept on smiling, then maybe, maybe Tione would smile, too.
If someone like Tiona wasn’t even able to smile, then there was no way that faded world of blood and ash they lived in was ever going to change.
So she smiled.
Because of that epic, even when it was just the two of them in that cold world, Tiona could light up the sky with her expression of joy.
And finally, she’d been able to make Tione smile, too.
“So long as I’m smiling, I don’t care about all that bad stuff!”
Tiona had a favorite story among all those poems.
It was the story of Argonaut.
An ordinary boy who dreamed of becoming a hero.
A farcical story that had left her drowning in tears of mirth.
Oh, I will smile.
No matter how much I may be made the fool, no matter how many times the derisive laughter of others may scorn me, I shall curve these lips upward.
If not, how should the spirit smile? How should the goddess of fortune grin?
—Smile.
Just like the fairy-tale hero who had so encouraged her.
Just like the characters in that beautiful story.
No matter how much it hurt, no matter how much she might suffer, no matter how much she had to fake it.
She would simply smile.
Smile for that bright tomorrow she knew awaited.
She wasn’t trying to play hero. She was merely doing everything she could do—and for someone like her, someone who wasn’t as smart, wasn’t as clever, that was fine enough!!
“I have to smile…for all those who can’t!!” she declared, sporting her biggest grin yet. “And if I have to smile forever before you’ll smile back, then that’s what I’ll do!”
“That’s bullshit…!” Tione hissed with a clench of her fists, doing her best to mask the tumult of emotions in her heart. Tiona had killed even more of their sisters back in Telskyura?
But it all made sense.
When Tione’s eyes and heart had grown worn and tattered, Tiona had been the one to smile for her.
—“That girl, Aiz. She reminds me a lot of you way back when.”
And then Aiz had come along. And Tiona began to smile for her, just like she’d always done for Tione.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 6 Page 22