Kitsune of the Blue Sun

Chapter 118- Falheim Makes Keeno Mad…Again

[Keeno POV]

Walking forward, I saw the moving shadows squirm and the horde start to indent. It was kind of like I had a large barrier around me that made all the undead want to avoid me.  The shadows, however, started to grow denser. Walking up next to me, Emma spoke.

“My Lady, what do you want us to do?” (Emma)

“Well, seeing as the undead probably won’t come near the three of us, we can focus on those shadows.  I feel like if we deal with them now, the undead will be less of a problem.  I want the two of you to watch my back in case things get dicey and they try something.” (Keeno)

“Understood, though I do feel it’s my place to say that you don’t need to take on the brunt of this. We ARE here to help, after all.” (Emma)

I was about to respond when one of the shadows shot a tendril of inky shade at us. I blocked it with one of my swords. The second they collided; I heard something talking in my head.

“Let us go.”

The feeling was highly unpleasant, and I used some fire to try and get the shade away from me. It skulked back with what sounded like a hiss.

“…Emma, change of plans, get on Fafnir’s back and try to burn as much of the shadows you can.” (Keeno)

“But what about you?” (Emma)

“Challenge them on two fronts.  By air and by land.” (Keeno)

“…We’ll do our best to reduce them as much as possible for you. Don’t get hurt.” (Emma)

“Don’t plan on it.” (Keeno)

Emma ran back to Fafnir and told her the plan before climbing onto her back.

{Keeno…you are acting tough.}

“Course I am.  If I don’t, then how will the others react?  These shadows are nasty, and I just barely touched one.  I don’t want to know what happens if it touches or consumes all these people. If I’m one of the few that can actually Kill them, then I can’t not act like this.” (Keeno)

{…I-}

“Rasu, let her have this. It’s one of those mortal moments.” (Fia)

{Fine…I’ll let this slide once, Keeno.}

“Hahaha!  Then feel free to do whatever you want with me next time as compensation for this.” (Keeno)

{…}

“Keeno, do your best. And remember, whatever you see, it’s all just an illusion.” (Fia)

The ground shook as Fafnir took to the sky again.

“Let’s get this done.” (Keeno)

I stepped forward again, pushing my flames forward towards the shadows. They hissed more before trying to send tendrils over or around my fire, only to be met with more blue flames.  More shadows started to converge on my location, making the ones near me condense even more.  They were becoming even darker until they started to smother the flames.  I started to put more mana into them but a few of the more viscous of the shade tendrils shot at me like a whip.  I dodged it by stepping to the left and cutting at it with a sword. Contacting it sent a chill all over my body as more voices spoke in my head.

“Join us.”

“Retribution is ours.”

“Get out of my head.” (Keeno)

A tongue of flame lapped at the tendril I cut, and it evaporated into nothingness while the part still in contact with the others slunk back again.  Above me, a roar echoed out over the field. Shortly after that a wave of golden flame washed over both the shadows and the undead.  The shadows shrieked at the flames as they washed over them like water.  I took this chance to also burn as much as I could, though it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. The shadows continued to slip through spaces where the flames from either me or Fafnir didn’t reach like some sort of eel.

“Dragon fire is always impressive to see.” (Fia)

{Mine and Keeno’s is better.}

“The commentary is nice and all, but really isn’t doing my concentration any favors.” (Keeno)

Yet again, I cut another tendril that shot at me, and yet again more voices rang in my head.

“You are our salvation.”

“You are our destruction.”

“Become one with us.”

“Let our hate flow through you.”

I was starting to get irritated at these annoying voices.  Every time they spoke, it felt like they were trying to pick at something.  Not like I would listen to them anyway.  I continued to burn away at the shadows, slashing them whenever they tried to use a chance to attack me.

“Destroy Falheim.”

“Destroy the world.”

“Kill all the living.”

After those last words, I saw a flash of an image in my mind, but it was gone before I could really process it.  I didn’t like this, though, so I started to intensify my flames even more.  Whatever these shadows were trying to show me, and the entire getting into my head thing in general were starting to make me mad.  This back and forth continued on for a while as Fafnir and Emma continued to swoop over and over shooting flames all over the place.  It felt like this was a never-ending tug of war where every little cut and slash from both sides added to my own mental stress.

“Do not resist us!”

“We will show you what will happen if you don’t!”

At that, several images flashed across my mind. Images of Pram, Freya, Emma, Fia…Ama, cut up, hung, flayed, broken, and all sorts of other horrible scenes that were too much for me to describe. It made me snap.  I stopped moving and started to condense mana in my chest as I felt my rage start to hit a boiling point.  There was a slight itch at the corner of my eyes as well, but it wasn’t something I was able to pay attention to at the moment. These shadows had shown me something that I would never allow to happen and never forgive for being shown.

[Emma POV]

“Hey Faf, something’s wrong with my Lady. She’s stopped advancing and the shadows are starting to close in on her.” (Emma)

“…” (Fafnir)

“Faf!?” (Emma)

“Emma, brace yourself.” (Fafnir)

I did as she said and clung tighter to the spine in front of me. As soon as I did that, a beam of blue light the color of one of the suns shot out from the dome of shadows covering my Lady. It cut through the battlefield like a hot knife through butter.

“Ah, so young and already showing such promise with breath attacks. I’d expect no less from my daughter.” (Fafnir)

The beam was so intense that the waves of heat coming from it could be felt even where we were in the sky.  My Lady’s two birds flapped up from below before landing next to me on Fafnir’s back. Then the air around us shook violently and I could no longer hear anything.

“Emma, are you alright?” (Fafnir)

“Well, aside from being a bit dizzy and my ears ringing, I think?” (Emma)

“Hmm.  She’s not holding back. I think she’s actually charging another one, though it’s sloppy.  Too slow. I should teach her some proper technique…but that aside, I believe she’s raging right now.” (Fafnir)

{You’d be correct. Even though Fia warned her, she’s still letting the resentment get in her head.  Ugh.  Why did I agree to let this go on again?}

“So that she learns.  You never let her go through training with illusions.” (Fia)

{I didn’t think she’d have to. I mean, I never really expected her to face manifested resentment in such concentrated form.}

“I didn’t either, but now that I’m thinking back on it, we didn’t cover a lot of stuff we should have.” (Fia)

{That’s just your penchant for over preparing things talk for you.}

“Hmm.” (Fia)

Another blast was fired from my Lady’s position followed by more waves of heat and another bout of shaking.

“Oh?  How very interesting. It seems me claiming her as my daughter has had some interesting effects.” (Fafnir)

{Hmm?  Oh!?  It’s not much of a change, but it is very pretty.}

“Um, can we get back to the current situation.  How do we stop her from raging?” (Emma)

“Let her get it out of her system, or fully destroy the thing that made her angry.” (Fia)

“In this case, I think we should step up our own onslaught. She’s either going to dry up her mana or get some of our allies caught up in her attacks.  And I don’t know if the battlefield can handle many more breath attacks. Where they end up hitting is one thing, but the effects I’m seeing from just being fired is not good for the land.” (Fafnir)

“I can’t really tell what you’re seeing. It’s so small from up here.” (Emma)

“You’ll be able to tell after we land later. But nothing is ever going to grow there again.” (Fafnir)

Another blast was fired, shaving another line in the shadows and even cutting through some of Fafnir’s flames. Then, her golden flames started to turn blue.

“That’s…” (Fafnir)

{She’s exercising her Solar Authority’s control over fire.  Actually, now that I think about it, it’s probably getting very hot down there.}

“Yes, it’s time to stop this.” (Fafnir)

Feeling the weightlessness of diving with Fafnir, we fell toward the ground at high speed. As we dove, it did start to get uncomfortably hot. Fafnir started breathing fire more intensely as well, covering all the shadows we could see, even passing over my Lady once or twice, though the times that happened, the flames turned blue and seemed to just be absorbed into her rather than hurting her.  After several more passes, Fafnir stopped breathing fire and spoke to me.

“I’m dropping you off near Pram, then I’m going to pick Keeno up. The shadows should all be gone or starting to burn up. I’ll take her back to the cave and call her down.  Meet us back there in a few days.” (Fafnir)

“Alright.” (Emma)

Fafnir flew away from where my Lady was and tilted sideways. I leaped off her back before rolling to my feet after landing.  She then flew back towards my Lady as I walked over to Pram after finding her in a nearly perfect circle of dead(?) undead.

Chaos Realm:

Order: It’s like this country just exists to make Keeno angry.

I mean, that isn’t wrong, in a sense.  But hey, at least she’s venting and not just bottling it all up.

Order: True.  Though she’s not relying on her friends enough.

Also true.  If I had to guess, I think she’s thinking a bit too much about things.  What I think is happening is that she thinks she’s supposed to handle everything herself since she’s a goddess.

Order: Well, Amaterasu hasn’t really told her much about what gods do yet, so I can see where she gets that misunderstanding.

Yeah.  I mean, just because we can manage everything ourselves, doesn’t mean we want or have to.  Finishing touches on things or extremely specific, delicate stuff, yeah, but the vaguer, more broad stuff can be left up to Spirits and other gods of specific Authorities.  I mean, even I have Chaos Spirits that do some of my work for me.

Order: Come to think of it, I’ve never seen one of those.

Astraea’s little Mofu bud is partially a Chaos Spirit, it’s just infused with the essence of another of my friends who is mischievous and cuddly.

Order: Ah, Mofu, they’re such a nice person, they should come visit more often.

True…I wonder what Crim is doing…Maybe we should have a get together one of these days.

Order: That sounds like a good idea.

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