Blood was leaking from her every pore now, coloring every inch of her copper skin.
Tiona, you—
Tiona was on fire. Burning brightly, ablaze with life.
Despite the pain and despite the heartache, she’d stood tall, utilizing the most relentless method she could to bring Bache down. Her eyes were hazy, evidence of the struggle her own body was enduring to keep her alive.
And yet through all of it—her smile never once faltered.
Instead, she was creeping toward her, looking more and more like the snake Bache had come to fear—her sister, the embodiment of death.
“Gngh…gnnnnrrrraaaAAAAAGHH!!” Bache screamed, the first time she’d even raised her voice during the duel, trying to dismiss that horrible building fear of death shaking her to the core. Her mask of insouciance gone, her eyes glinting, she gathered together all the power deep down inside her and wrung out every last drop of the murderously toxic venom exuding from her pores.
Who would fall first? Tiona or Bache?
Faster and faster their fists flew, and the great abyss of death transformed into their final arena.
“RRRRUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHH!!”
They were boiling now.
Battering punches. Flying kicks. The fire burning within them both set their fight ablaze.
Even their voices met in a battle of roars, shaking the very walls of the cavern.
“HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! This is it! This is truly a rite of the arena, a life-and-death duel! This is the fight I’ve been waiting for!!” Kali laughed gleefully, her eyes wide and glimmering as the rest of the Amazons found themselves taken aback at the sheer power behind the echoing voices.
“Tiona!!”
Bache’s voice screamed as her fist came in contact with Tiona’s abdomen.
The air rushed out of the other girl with an audible guhhh.
“Are you smiling now?!”
The poison ripped through her, all along her skin, burning her nerves, and the pain and shock practically sent her to her knees.
But even through all of it, even though the hellish torture ravaging her entire body, Tiona still smiled.
“—You bet I am!!”
And then she punched back.
Her fist sank into Bache’s abdomen with the same force the other Amazon had just inflicted on her. Bache’s body curved into an unnatural C shape at the force, blood shooting from her mouth.
“Hurt me all you want! Bleed me all you want! I’ll never stop laughing!!”
A spinning kick.
Bache dodged this one, both of them jumping back to put distance between them.
“I’ll smile…for those who can’t!!”
The treasure she’d received in that story of legend, that unwavering promise, two sisters smiling and laughing together.
She’d smile for tomorrow. She’d smile because she believed in the happiness that awaited.
The gazes of the two Amazons met. Then they drew their arms back, preparing themselves for the final strike.
Tiona clenched her fist.
Bache focused the light of her Velgas.
Then they charged, smile meeting bloodlust in a mad dash toward the center.
“Gnnnngh!!”
They collided.
Red-hot air hit purplish black light particles at point-blank range.
It happened in an instant, Bache one step ahead, her fist flying and, with it, her Velgas.
“TIONAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”
She hurtled straight at her face, straight at that smile—but Tiona ignored it.
Instead, she was focused on Bache’s arm, on a spot of skin where the light of her Velgas seemed to have disappeared, and reaching her own arm around it, she pushed down.
The strike barreling toward her face suddenly wasn’t anymore.
“”
Bache’s eyes dilated in surprise.
“Bache—”
Her attack was gone. All that was left was that smile—and then Tiona roared.
“Here I…GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”
The explosion was instantaneous.
“Gungh?!”
Tiona’s right fist came straight into Bache’s chest.
So much power. Bache’s body was launched away, crashing into the far rock wall with a horrific crunch.
Urga. The Amazon word for “great destruction.”
Letting herself get within a hairbreadth of death, she’d built up the effects of her skill to its very limits, releasing a truly “final” finishing blow.
It was the strongest attack she had in her arsenal.
“—Gn—gh…”
Peeling away, Bache took first one step, then two steps, then, wobbling, she fell to her knees. She collapsed to the ground, right then and there, robbed of her voice aside from the stuttered grunt making its way past her lips.
Tiona had won.
“—Se wehga! Se wehga! Se wehga!”
Thou art the true warrior! Thou art the true warrior! Thou art the true warrior!
All around her, her fellow Amazons raised their voices in thunderous praise, extolling her, the victor. It was enough to shake the walls of stone and rock surrounding them—Tiona with her breath ragged and Bache facedown on the ground.
“Well done! Well done!”
Two tiny hands came together in excited applause. Kali smiled beneath her mask, more than satisfied, as she lauded Tiona from above.
“That was just wonderful! Guess that settles it, then. Letting you go truly was my one big mistake, Tiona. I was too soft. Too soft!”
“…”
“You’ve proven victorious in the rite…However, your opponent lives,” Kali continued, her eyes flitting from Tiona, exhausted and covered in wounds, to Bache, still lying on the ground.
Indeed, the chest of the sandy-haired Amazon continued to rise and fall. The blessing Kali had bestowed unto her long, long ago yet endured.
“Go ahead and kill her.” The smile was audible in her command. “Only then can the rite be complete.”
Tiona’s response, however, was all too direct.
“Don’t wanna.”
It was no different from that day, so long ago, when Tiona had looked her goddess in the eye and insisted that she didn’t want to fight her sister.
“I’m not a warrior anymore.”
“…”
“…and Tione isn’t, either. We’re adventurers now.”
Kali found herself at a loss for words.
“I’m not gonna kill anyone else…not anymore, Kali!”
Now even the ovation of her sisters quieted.
Tiona glanced up, meeting that of her goddess’s gaze in the middle of that silent stone arena.
“…You really have changed.”
Kali finally muttered slowly, almost mournfully.
But it didn’t last, her earlier smile returning to her face.
“…But one thing certainly hasn’t changed, and that’s your connection with your sister.”
The goddess raised her arm, and all of a sudden, the other Amazons who’d been watching over the match charged into the arena, descending upon Tiona.
They surrounded her in an instant.
“Tione is with Argana right now…far, far out at sea. There’s no one to save you.”
“…”
“You’re coming with us…back to Telskyura!”
Even Tiona knew it would be pointless to put up a fight at this point. Even now, she walked the line between life and death—it was the only way she’d been able to release her inner Urga, after all—and standing there was taking everything she had. She couldn’t even think of raising a finger, let alone a fist. And then there was the poison from Bache’s Velgas to contend with, still coursing through her. It would be so easy for them to simply carry her back to their ship.
“Which of them will come, I
wonder. Argana? Tione?…Whichever one lives will be your next opponent. An offering to the strongest warrior!”
The goddess of war and bloodshed couldn’t be swayed. As Tiona looked up at her through blurred eyes, she couldn’t think of a single way out of this mess, and around her, the circle of Amazons grew smaller and smaller.
When all of a sudden—ever so lightly.
A breeze brushed past her cheek, playing with the strands of her hair.
Wind. Faint yet very definitely there, reaching out all the way to her deep within that cave.
“…You’re wrong, Kali,” Tiona said with a smile, her eyes closing. It was a different kind of smile this time, quiet and peaceful.
Kali raised an eyebrow dubiously.
Then Tiona opened her eyes. “Because Tione and I aren’t alone anymore.”
It was then that it happened.
The trickle of air turned into a rushing blast into the cave.
“We have friends now!”
One brilliant, gleaming slash, then another, hundreds of them, raced around the group as Kali and her followers’ eyes opened in shock. Before her lightning-fast onslaught, the circle of Amazons around her was blown away.
“The Sword Princess…?”
The golden-haired, golden-eyed swordswoman appeared before them, barring their path to Tiona and flourishing her silver sword with an audible slice as it cut through the air.
“—Are you all right, Tiona?”
Even as bedraggled as she was, Tiona burst into a smile, at her companion who had raced to save her, faster than anyone else.
At her beloved friend.
“I am now!”
Almost as if on cue, the rest of Loki Familia came barreling into the cave with a mighty war cry. They flung themselves on the remaining Amazons with weapons flying.
Kali shot to her feet, her seemingly impenetrable calm demeanor gone in an instant.
“That damn Ishtar…Were they defeated already?!”
The battle below her was practically over before it started, Aiz and the rest of her peers quickly suppressing Kali’s warriors. At Ishtar Familia’s retreat, the curse restricting Aiz’s Airiel had been undone, and she released it now in waves across the battlefield. The other adventurers, too, not wanting to be outdone, raised their voices in murderous, frenzied cries as they set themselves on the Amazonian warriors. Their power was overwhelming, a result of their knowledge that a companion, one of their own, was in danger.
Kali’s gaze narrowed as she grit her teeth in scarcely contained rage.
“—Looks like you picked the wrong people to mess with, you damned little gremlin.”
The voice came from out of nowhere.
From above even her as she stood over the battlefield.
She looked skyward with a jolt, only to find a certain ginger-haired goddess seated on a rock ledge jutting out not far from the ceiling.
It was Loki.
“How ya feelin’ right about now, huh? All your glorious plans crashing down around you with your precious children lyin’ facedown in the dirt?”
She’d just appeared from the hole behind her that led into the rest of the cave. The smaller goddess’s unsightly development was all too amusing.
“Don’t patronize me!” Kali snarled, pointed canines snapping.
Loki’s vermilion eyes opened ever so slightly as her smile widened. “I’m just sayin’, is all, you pint-size ignoramus. You really…really picked the wrong people to mess with.” The smile accompanying her sentiment this time could easily have rivaled that of the most nefariously wicked god, all her anger at the smaller goddess coming back a thousandfold. It was the ultimate depraved sneer, enough to make even the faces of Njörðr and Rod, who’d accompanied her into the cave, twitch in fear.
Kali’s face burned with shame and humiliation beneath her mask, the screams of her warriors echoing around her.
“…And yet, Tione has never strayed from my will. She’s gone already. She’s far away where you miserable scum can’t reach her, continuing her own fight,” she hissed between her clenched teeth with a vengeful smile.
“Oh pish. You think I’m worried about her?”
“…What do you mean?”
Loki flapped her hand dismissively before looking up and behind her toward the hole from whence she’d come. The two figures that appeared from the darkness were none other than Gareth and the very much no longer captured Lefiya.
The dwarf nodded at his patron deity’s glance.
“I’ve got my strongest knight on the job.”
Back on the Amazonian ship still far out in the ocean southwest of Meren.
The rite currently taking place was reaching its finish.
The spectators knew this, all of them Telskyuran warriors who’d seen more than their fair share of battles. The end wasn’t far off. And facing the two combatants now, Tione and Argana, still at each other’s throats in violent repartee, they clamored for victory, for glory, and, most importantly, for death.
Tione and Argana were giving everything they had to take down their blood-covered opponents. They no longer saw anyone else; Argana reflected in Tione’s eyes the same way Tione was reflected in Argana’s.
—I’ll kill her. I’LL KILL HER!!
Tione’s vision had gone red. Argana, however, only smiled deeper the more Tione’s true warrior’s nature shone through. Each one of them was looking for an opening, a shot at landing the finishing blow and bringing down their opponent once and for all.
Nothing but pure, concentrated rage controlled Tione now. Her every move was dictated by a need to kill. No one could stop her. Not her goddess. Not even her friends.
But if there was someone.
If there was someone who could stop her…it would have been her other half. Her younger sister—
“That’s far enough.”
—But the voice was not that of her sister. It was someone who’d bested her, who’d stolen her heart.
“?!”
No sooner had Tione and Argana been about to lay into each other for the last time than a spear thrust its way between them, lodging itself in the wooden floor. It was long and boasting a tip of pure golden alloy. The two Amazons found themselves frozen where they stood, and all of a sudden, a tiny figure came flying down—a single prum landing on the deck of the ship and reclaiming the spear for himself.
Brilliant green eyes, like the all-knowing surface of a vast lake, stared out beneath his sweeping bangs of gold.
Finn Deimne had inserted himself right smack in the middle of the rite.
“Cap…tain…?”
All it took was one look at that pint-size frame and heroic profile for the anger to dissipate from Tione’s eyes. In fact, all too quickly, her rage was replaced with the thump, thump, thumping of her giddy heart.
As Tione found herself at a loss, Argana, too, could do nothing but stare in shock.
“A prum…?!”
Murmurs of bewilderment passed through the audience of Amazons beside them. They were on a ship out in the middle of the ocean. An arena on the open sea, where not a soul should have been able to reach them. Nothing but the fading light of the far-off lighthouse was even visible off Meren’s coastline.
“You…you…How did you even get here…?!” Argana could only mutter in awe.
Her eyes went first to the surrounding waters.
But there was nothing, no other ships, nothing that would have delivered this prum to where they stood. And swimming was out of the question—a thought that she quickly eliminated, considering the prum’s clothes didn’t have a drop of water on them.
“How—?”
Her confusion seemed just about to get the better of her—when her eyes narrowed in on a sight that truly took her breath away.
“A…bridge of ice…?!”
“I do apologize. I’ll return it momentarily.”
Flowing locks of shimmering jade-colored hair fluttered in the salty breeze.
Below her, wav
es lapped against the coast, while above, the soaring outline of the lighthouse stood tall.
Silvery staff in hand, Riveria responded calmly to the dumbfounded gazes of the lighthouse attendants currently looking down at her from the building’s windows. In front of her, traveling for kirlos and kirlos out into the sea, ran a winding bridge of ice along the water’s surface. Boasting a breadth of five meders or so, it cut a direct line from the coast to the ship just visible in the lighthouse’s line of sight.
It was a bridge of magic, formed of her glacial spell, Wynn Fimbulvetr.
Using the high-output spell, she’d frozen the very sea itself. By focusing an immense amount of Mind, she’d been able to narrow the scope of her magic’s effects while also lengthening its path to an unimaginable degree. To put it mildly, it was a feat none other than the strongest mage in all of Orario would be able to pull off.
What followed her stunt was, no doubt, obvious. Running across this new bridge, Finn made his way to the ship, took a flying leap, then landed artfully atop the ship’s deck, spear in hand.
“Bring Tione back soon, Finn…”
The high elf mage murmured from back on land, no traces of doubt in her voice as it made its way across the waves.
“Honestly, I’ve no idea if my words will get through to you, but I figure there’s no harm in trying. I was hoping we could reach some sort of agreement, warriors of Telskyura,” Finn began calmly, his back to Tione and shielding her from any further blows.
The reaction to the Koine-spouting, spear-wielding prum was immediate.
“—KILL HIIIIIIIIM!!”
Finn had interrupted their sacred rite, and the Amazonian warriors were incensed.
They leaped at him from all sides, weapons flying as they prepared to make this new intruder pay for the heinous crime of defying their goddess’s divine will.
“That could have gone better,” Finn muttered. “Then you leave me no choice.”
All at once, the prum captain began to move. Like a spinning top, he twisted, never once leaving his spot as his Fortia Spear sliced through the air in every direction, golden tip gleaming. His speed was incredible, repelling the female warriors, weapons and all, as they launched themselves at him; he sent them flying over the side of the ship as they screamed in shock and disappointment.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 6 Page 27
