330Guest Reviews-
'Guest'- got inspired, so I answered your question about Smith and coffee in story.
godzillafan1- there'll be some relationship developments happening in the epilogue, but the last 'current' major development will involve a party member. And yeah, this is the third last chapter if all goes to plan.
Guest8492- RE4 cultists are a reasonable comparison; vicious fanaticism eroding anything resembling rationality or individuality. The Cultists are canon to Grimgar, I just gave them a bit of a creepier, more insectoid spin. As for Smith, she's spent years in a scenario where being a freeloader is a death sentence, so you won't see much of that. She's a native to the Grimgar continuity through and through, though.
Just as Smith had said, the 'borderline for their turf' was easily recognizable.
"Yeah, I wouldn't wanna come this way if I was a Cultist either," Tio nodded as she took it all in.
Haruhiro couldn't help but agree- it wasn't like Team Kuroko ('we called it Team Smith at first but we kept getting confused people requesting blacksmithing') had set up a wall or anything to keep their enemies out.
They'd just jammed wooden posts into the gaps between cobblestones, from which bundles of Cultist masks hung like one-eyed skulls.
"Creepy right!?" Zombina laughed in a way that made it sound more like praise than anything else.
"T-there is a proper reason for it though!" Manako quietly protested, then blushed as Haruhiro and his party all looked her way."T-the Cultists refuse to touch the masks of the dead, they won't go anywhere near them!"
"Don't they retrieve the amulets though?" Rachnera pointed out.
"Only the amulets," Cathyl clarified. "Those take priority, otherwise they avoid their own dead like the plague."
"Yeah, and they shun any of their own who touch corpses for any reason otherwise, like, totally pretend they don't exist!" Doppel chimed in with a too-wide smile.
"So basically," Smith summarized, "the whole perimeter looks like this, and none of those creepy little bastards will come within spitting distance. Those masks may as well be castle walls."
"We still patrol of course," Manako chimed in, "but this is as safe as it gets."
There wasn't anyone who needed the value of that explained to them.
The base of Team Kuroko reminded Haruhiro a lot of Brittany's pub, just much bigger.
Big enough that Tio didn't have to mind her horn going through the front door, or anywhere else in the pub area proper, it looked like, and even Iormu could probably slither around without having to be too careful of her coils.
Didn't seem like there was anyone else around, so Kuroko led them straight up to the bar, with Doppel circling around, then disappearing behind said bar given she was barely five feet tall.
She 'rose' into sight in a casual approximation of Smith's appearance, keeping her usual coloration of silver hair and dusky brown skin, and dressed in a tight black vest paired with a white-collared shirt and a black bowtie. Practiced hands, of which there were a good deal more than two, began causally fetching drinks and glasses while the smirking Doppelganger crossed her two 'main' arms beneath her bust, working without looking.
… Probably.
Given she was Shu'ni's 'distant cousin' she might have had more eyes than she let on.
"Good job for people-watching," she offered by way of half-hearted explanation. "Drinks?"
Receiving nods from her guests, her grin widened and she said "I take requests, but lemme whip up the first round on my own. Matching drinks to drinkers is the best part of this job."
"Been a while since you could play that game, huh?" Cathyl said with a snort, Doppel playfully sticking out her tongue in return.
Curious, Team Haruhiro matched the others in watching her work, noting the playful expression fall away from Doppel's face as multiple hands worked in rapid, fluid sync, giving the various members brief, lingering glances now and again.
"Coffee's a must so you don't miss out on the experience, but let's keep it subtle and smooth with a nice rum-based Nightcap, huh?" Rachnera received a tall, thin glass, chilled and filled with amber brown.
"A Strawberry Sunrise for the walking sunshine," Tio's drink held the burnt orange glow of dawn, and brightened the pretty girl's features the same way as she took that color in.
"Hm, bit of that sweet taste of home with a hidden bite to really jog that memory? Yep, Ginger & Honey Sake it is for you, Miss Snowflake!" Yukio's drink was served ceramic jug and all, with a portion poured into what looked more like a drinking dish than a drinking cup.
"Couldn't resist- this here Boulevardier matches your eyes and your vibe!" So saying, she served Iormu what looked like a red wine, with a hue so deep and dark it seemed to steal away a bit of the surrounding ambience for itself, garnished with a bit of orange peel.
"And c'mon now, how am I supposed to pass up the chance to let a Centaur Knight taste tradition with a bit of kick to it? Old Fashioned it is!" If Tio's drink was liquid sunrise, Centorea's was pale torchlight, bravely illuminating the night.
"You'll have fun with this one, Cousin, seeping up from the depths we go with a Squid Ink Martini!" Shu'ni's drink was not 'dark' in coloration, it was black in a way that seemed to repel light rather than absorb it.
"And you…" Doppel regarded Haruhiro for a bit longer than the rest, and her grin… softened, for just a moment. "A little memory that no one tastes quite the same way- simple, but I think it'll go over well. One Gin & Tonic, coming right up."
Not a single one of them was unimpressed by Doppel's offering, but for Haruhiro… it was a taste he'd never experienced himself yet remembered in a dozen ways.
Mhm, another little clue fell into place with Doppel's ever reliable icebreaker- kid recognized a few of the words thrown around. Grimgar did have rum, and wine, but… less so on the G , and he definitely shouldn't know what a martini was.
It was different with most Otherworlders- even Barbara couldn't hide that 'jolt' of recognition when Kuroko mentioned something her mind didn't want her to remember. With Haruhiro, the recognition was smooth, too smooth- less deja vu and more 'haven't heard that in a while'.
Time to ease up though, shame to spoil good booze by being nosy.
Though credit where credit was due, none of them were as green as some of them looked. They were well aware that they were being sounded out, they just didn't mind because ultimately, there were no ill intentions there.
They hadn't been working an angle when they swooped to the rescue of their juniors, and Kuroko was forced to admit that maybe she was a teensy bit less jaded than she thought, because of that.
Helping them out had been the first good thing they'd managed to do in what felt like far too long. And sure, she really wanted to know if Haru really was like her, but not so badly she was willing to risk burning any bridges.
They were a vibrant splash of color lighting up their two-toned prison.
She and her team were of one mind in just how far they were willing to go in defense of that.
Doppel was glad she was incapable of sweating.
And less proud of being able to look at people without her eyes, or for having less than normal senses in the first place that let her pull off her little 'icebreaker' to start with.
Because by everything Old and Ancient… no, scratch that, shit that kid startled her!
Was she the only one seeing it!? No wait, her 'cousin' totally should be able to, but part of her was smiling at him like… all the time! She was totally smitten!
They all were!
'He' was the center of their world, in a fashion a good deal more literal than simple love could express.
And the only one who had 'told' her what sort of drink he wanted.
Or rather, the 'scars' that held his body together had all started mumbling drink names, and the 'scraps' had all nodded along once one of them mumbled out 'gin and tonic'.
Something that had looked Human at first glance was actually contesting herself and a Shoggoth for the title of most foreign entity in the room!
And…
Their 'eyes' meeting, her cousin surreptitiously placed a finger to her lips and winked.
All of Doppel's eyes widened, and the subtle exchange came and went without anyone noticing as she threw her head back and laughed.
Okay, so the newbie's were a lot of things, and way more complicated than she'd initially noticed, but…
They sure as hell weren't boring.
After having finished their drinks and taken off the edge with a light snack (though only by Centorea and Tio's standards, as Cathyl was the cook and made Minotaur-sized portions), the two parties got right down to business.
Smith spread out a neatly drawn map across the bar counter, first drawing their attention to where their base itself was marked.
"Right, so down here in the south is where we just came from, up that hill is a plateau making up almost a third of the city, which we call the Upper District," she began to explain. "Haven't explored much of it because all we've seen up there is rubble and Hydras."
"As in I've seen rubble and Hydras," Doppel smirked, "because I can fly and Hydras can't. Nothing worth seeing and there are hundreds of them snoozing up there."
"Except during the Darkening!" Zombina's grin showed all her teeth.
"- Which I bet you're all dying to hear about, so let's segue into that," Smith clapped her hands lightly. "More or less, it's the Dusk Realm equivalent of an eclipse, or like a screwed up lunar calendar where the moon is always full except for one night a lunar cycle when everything goes dark."
"Visibility isn't actually that bad outside though," Manako said softly. "In fact, the sky is beautiful then- you can only tell during the Darkening, but I think the Dusk Realm has a lot more stars in its skies compared to Grimgar."
"That would be quite a sight," Centorea smiled, before asking "So then, does this 'Darkening' happen at set intervals?"
"Yep, and one of the only markers of time in this place, other than these," on Smith's cue, Cathyl plopped a strange, hefty-looking hourglass onto the table- seemingly made entirely of black glass or crystal, and filled with sand that glowed like candle light.
Eyebrows rose as Cathyl flipped the hourglass, and the sand within merely began to flow upwards uninterrupted.
"One of these are in every building we've been able to enter," Smith explained. "Takes about twelve hours to empty, and then the colors reverse themselves before the sand starts flowing again."
"This place just keeps getting weirder, and you haven't even explained 'the Darkening' in full yet," Rachnera pointed out.
"Right, right," Smith waved a hand back and forth, "so the twenty four hours of darkness is the whole deal with what that is, where things get tricky is that both the Hydras and the Angels wake up."
"Angels?" Tio asked. "What's an Angel?"
"They're like the 'divine servants' of whatever the Cultists follow," Smith told her, taking casual note that Haruhiro was the only one to react to that word in particular, "they look kinda like less buggy versions of the Cultists, except Angels are tall as buildings, thin as rails, and pasty white like candle wax. They're a bit of a mishmash, but common features are an odd number of limbs and a single big eye, which could be anywhere on the body, and I do mean anywhere."
"And how do these Angels connect to the big white hand drawn in the middle of the Basin?" Rachnera asked. "Is that some kind of statue?"
"We hope it is," Smith blandly answered. "It's covered in the same chitin as the other creepies in the area, but we haven't exactly had a chance to go poke it, and as far as we can tell it hasn't moved in all the time we've been here."
"The amulets the Cultists wear show a deformed person and not a hand, though," Haruhiro pointed out.
Smith gave a helpless shrug, she'd told them everything she knew on that count.
"We know more about the Angels though," Cathyl dragged them back on track, "and honestly, they're only kind of dangerous by themselves," she shrugged, "a Hydra can rip through two, maybe even three Angels at once."
"Problem for us is that there's nevvver just one Angel~" Doppel sing-songed, to which Cathyl rolled her eyes and nodded.
"Those eyes are real sensitive to light, which we're pretty sure is why they all snooze when the lights are on," Smith continued, "but during the Darkening, they scuttle around the city in swarms. Thing is, Hydra don't have eyes, so we think they might be sensitive to heat, lotsa serpent-y things are."
Everyone, whether familiar with her or not, looked to Iormu at that.
"It's a fair assumption," she shrugged. Jormungandr were sensitive to souls rather than mere heat like their mortal cousins, but she didn't feel the need to point out the distinction there. Unbeknownst to even Iormu herself, the colors through which her spiritual eyes perceived the world were on a spectrum near indistinguishable from the infrared spectrum.
"Huh, neat," Smith nodded slowly. "So anyways, you probably noticed that everything you touch is a little warm, right?" Several nods, as no one had missed that every glowing object and surface they'd come across was faintly warm.
"Theory is that warmth pacifies those Hydra, keeps 'em dozing. So when the light goes out… they wake up to go looking for more."
"Like skinny giants crawling around the city?" Rachnera suggested in a tone that didn't really sound like she was asking a question.
"Yup," Smith said, popping the 'p'.
"And there's a lot of those Hydra, right?"
"Yuuup."
"War?" Yukio spoke for the first time in the conversation.
"Got it in one, Snow Fairy!" Smith snapped her fingers. "The Darkening's a once a month war between two different breed of giant monster!"
"And you've been surviving this how?" Rachnera raised her eyebrow.
"Getting cozy in the cellar," Smith responded with a careless shrug. "Notice on the map how the Hydra are marked south, the Cultist Basin is north, and we're well out of the way to the east?"
"Ah."
"'Ah' is right," Smith nodded. "Angels don't like the mask markers we've put up either, but they'll ignore them if something catches their eye, and Hydra don't care, as long as they don't notice any nice big heat sources, so…"
Smith glanced over her sunglasses at each of them in turn.
"Darkening is the only time the Hydra clear away from the Upper District, but you sure it's worth it? To be totally frank, it's risky as all hell if you're lucky. What's in that house of yours that's making you guys even consider it?"
Didn't take a genius to notice that Haru and his girls hadn't given up on it even with all she'd said, and Smith could tell without looking that her girls felt just as antsy about that as she did.
Haruhiro glanced to the others in turn.
Each nodded, though he could tell they were worried just like he was.
When his eyes met Cerea's, she offered that soft but firm smile that he had come to rely on.
Shu'ni was waiting patiently as he turned to her, and nodded once.
"If Master Haru can return to the Manor's halls, it will restore itself to proper working order, separating from this realm once more," the maid explained, before deferring to Haruhiro once again.
Smith sucked in her breath, and she wasn't the only one.
No, no, hell no, she wasn't saying, she couldn't mean-
Haruhiro grinned, and Smith was struck with the sudden, dizzying urge to kiss that grin off his face.
"It means that's our ticket back to Grimgar," he said in no uncertain terms. "And we've got lots of spare rooms if you guys are interested in tagging along."
Huh, so she wasn't totally crazy after all.
The kid showing up here really did change everything.
By unanimous agreement, the two parties would be venturing out during the Darkening in an attempt to reach the Twilight Manor. Or, barring that, get Haruhiro to the Manor so he could hopefully pick them up afterwards.
Haruhiro wasn't a fan of the backup plan, but had grudgingly agreed to it.
And thus, the four days up to the Darkening were taken up by a mixture of training and socializing- mostly socializing. Even Team Haruhiro integrating themselves into patrol duty (a patrol being one member from each party) had worked towards that end.
In Smith's own words, "getting comfortable with each other is the best prep we can make, if we're gonna trust our lives to each other".
Haruhiro and his team could read through the lines to what that meant, even if they never said it out loud. In one way or another, they were all familiar with being in lonely places, and the Dusk Realm was most certainly a lonely place, given how every living thing outside of the inn was an enemy.
Ultimately not much of a problem, as they found themselves quickly growing fond of Team Kuroko.
… Even if some of said team were a little confused by that.
"No really!" Zombina was saying, "I get the bundle of sunshine is probably physically incapable of disliking someone who's nice to her, but you're… something more than a godly servant, aintcha?" None of them had ever heard of a Jormungand, but Iormu's presence was 'big' in a way that had nothing to do with attitude or chest size.
"That is indeed the case, yes," Iormu smiled softly. "But before I answer that, allow me to pose a question of my own."
"Fire away?"
"Why are you so insistent upon calling yourself an Undead?" Iormu asked curiously.
"... huh?" Zombina's mouth fell open as the bizarre question registered in her mind. "Uh… cuz I am? I mean, died, came back to life, what else would I be?"
Zombina's voice trailed away awkwardly as she took in the way the Jormungand was regarding her.
A trace of something close to sympathy that made her dead guts clench a little.
"Does the term 'Risen' mean anything to you, perhaps?" Iormu began carefully.
"Nope, never heard of it."
"Hm, I see," it was possible that the name they used for themselves had changed over the centuries, but something Tio had mentioned had jogged her memory. "If I may, have you ever encountered another Undead as… lucid as yourself?"
"That's another nope," Zombina shrugged. "I have seen other Undead, but I dunno why I'm like this and they're not. Probably for the best, having to worry about rotting would suck haha!" She didn't heal like a living person, but a normal person probably couldn't stitch their head back on either.
"The Risen were rather rare even in my time," Iormu admitted, ignoring the raised eyebrow that came from the 'my time' comment. "But they bear a fundamental difference from Undead, enough of one that you could perhaps equate them to… relatives of one another?"
"So not Undead, but the next closest thing?" Zombina guessed, curious even as that tightening in her guts got harder to ignore.
"Indeed," Iormu nodded. "It was Tionishia's comment that allowed me to recall the details, her exact words being 'I've never met a happy Undead before, it's kinda great'," a smile spread across her lips at the memory, prompting a brief, sharp cackle from the grinning ghoul before her.
"So… what's the difference?" Zombina prompted a moment later.
"Undead are spirits of the dead bound to the earth, taking repossession of their own corpses more often than not."
"And a Risen…?" Weird, she kinda wasn't curious and kinda needed to know.
"A spirit of death, one of the lesser known Elementals, drawn to lingering traces of life upon the freshly deceased," Iormu slowly explained, her eyes never leaving Zombina's mismatched orbs. "Often resulting in a far more peaceful existence, as-
… Huh, that was weird, her ears weren't working very well, did they come unstitched? She could swear the hot serpent was still talking, but she couldn't hear a thing, couldn't think of anything, but-
"-I remember looking down at my own body, you know?"
"... Is that so?" Came a gentle voice from somewhere nearby.
"But it wasn't my body, was it?"
"I am afraid not."
"So I just… stole it, huh?"
"Wrong." It was the simple conviction in Iormu's voice that halted the negative spiral Zombina had all too easily found herself in.
"'Wrong'? Whaddya mean, wrong!?" Zombina's voice was harsher than intended, but she'd been so not ready for the conversation and hadn't even realized it-
"I do not know how your circumstances came to be, but what I do know is that if you had 'stolen' someone's body, you would be Undead and not Risen," Iormu smiled softly. "If you could see your soul as I see it, then you would never have to doubt."
Rigor mortis must have set in again, because her jaw wouldn't move to form the words of the question she desperately wanted to ask.
"The stitches you cannot see," Iormu carefully took Zombina's hands in her own. "What anchors your soul to your body… are the remnants of a human soul, clinging tight."
Oh, nope, her jaw worked just fine, at least fine enough to try dropping off her face.
Iormu tilted her head to one side, a smile too close to a smirk to seem innocent tugging at her lips.
"In a way, perhaps you could say that rather than you possessing a body, the body is possessing you?" Iormu's expression turned grave. "Zombina my dear, I do not mean to alarm you, but I believe you are being haunted."
Once she had stopped laughing, Zombina didn't feel any shame at all at forcing Iormu to sew her jaw back on.
She felt like she wasn't doing a half-bad job at hiding it, but Smith was floundering a bit.
Without anyone to talk to but her girls, her conversation skills had gotten a little rusty, in the sense that she was having a hard time being tactful with someone she didn't have intimate knowledge of.
… Would sleeping with Haru make the conversation easier? She didn't really go for guys most of the time, but the first guy she'd seen in… a while… was pretty easy on the eyes.
Nah, poor guy had enough women in his life, all those Liminals must be pacing themselves something fierce to keep from leaving him wrung out like a dishrag. She had it a little easier in that regard, being a woman, but now she was feeling a strange sense of sympathy for the kid.
The kid she was talking with right that moment, he'd noticed something so hopefully she wasn't looking at him too weird-
"Hm? 'How long have I had my Eyes'?" Haruhiro tilted his head. "A few months, I guess." He hadn't even been in Grimgar for half a year, and looking back that made it feel like he'd been living his life on fast-forward.
"That so, huh? Been about a decade for me, so hopefully I picked up something useful to share in that amount of time," Smith laughed. "You still get wicked headaches when you use 'em too much? I can 'switch on' about half a dozen times a day before my brain rebels."
"... Half… a dozen?" It was clear that the number came as a shock, but she couldn't quite tell what kind of shock it was.
"Why, how often can you use it?" Smith probed. "Ah, don't think I'm trying to force answers out of you or anything, don't answer if you're not-"
"I don't know how often," Haruhiro admitted. He'd reached his 'limit' just once when fighting the Red Apes alongside Tio, but the strain had gotten less and less until it vanished entirely without him noticing. If he had to guess, the obvious difference between himself and Smith was that one of them was a Demon and the other wasn't.
"You… don't know," Smith slowly repeated, looking at him over the top of her glasses as she tried to fill in the blanks. Haruhiro gave a sheepish smile and a shrug by way of confirmation. Seeing that, Smith took off her sunglasses entirely, staring him up and down with her black and blood eyes.
"He completely is and completely isn't human, Boss. And don't bother asking me what that means, cuz I have no idea. He's…"
"... 'Just built different', huh?"
This time, when the Demon shrugged, a little laugh escaped his lips at the same time.
Maybe if they lived through this, Haru would let them in on the secret that was driving Doppel a little crazy. But for now, it didn't really matter.
No one had said it out loud, but they all knew that their little team-up wasn't really optional. She and her team couldn't live like this forever. Haru and his team… well, if they got their way, Haru and his team would never have to live like that at all.
And the details of identity had never once been a factor in their decision.
But…
No, she was being gutless about the whole thing. Convincing herself that there 'wasn't enough time' and that she 'barely knew the guy' were reason enough.
It wasn't conceit to think that it was something only a person foreign to Grimgar could properly understand.
"Hey, Haru, if you don't mind me asking…" Kuroko began slowly, using the lens of her glasses to conceal how intently she was staring, "how much of the old world do you remember?"
He 'remembered' dozens of things. Memories fragmented because little of his 'inheritance' was in an intact state.
The usual scraps and scars.
"... Enough," Haruhiro met her eyes without waver, wearing a smile that was just as firm in its place. "I remember more than enough."
… It had been a pretty awkward conversation.
She was clearly worried about something, clearly fretting over him and trying not to simply dump whatever that meant on him out of nowhere. Did that make him any more inclined to delve into explaining how he was completely human and completely not? No, not really. Just seemed weird to drop that on her out of nowhere.
But it did want to make him ease her fears.
Maybe whatever she was thinking about him was right, and maybe whatever she was thinking about him was wrong.
But it was okay, because he was doing just fine.
He'd already been saved before they'd even had a chance to meet.
"... Is that so?" Ms Smith said softly. "Well okay then."
Belatedly, she realized she was smiling too, as they both silently agreed that they didn't need to say the quiet parts of the conversation out loud.
Sometimes, she could still feel those hands around her neck, see those little black spots popping around at the edge of her vision. He probably remembered every single second of his death too, though she doubted the kid had a drunk ex to thank for that. And maybe she was right, and experiencing death on Earth meant they could see death wherever they looked on Grimgar?
But so what?
He was… she was, nah… they were doing just fine.
… Other than the part where they were surrounded by cultists and monsters on all sides.
… Okay, so maybe they weren't fine, but they were fine, and… yep, she had no idea where she was going with that, so…
Haruhiro blinked and flinched a little as Ms Smith slid off the barstool and closed the distance with needless grace, throwing an arm around his shoulder and pulling him against her side with a suggestive smile.
"Yep, that's enough doom and gloom, now I want to hear your real secrets~"
"My… what?"
"Ha, don't play coy, Kid, spill it!" She playfully poked his cheek with her free hand as she pestered him. "How the hell have those girls not wrung you out yet?"
Haruhiro's struggling train of thought derailed in spectacular fashion as he caught up to the change in topic, and Smith cackled as his cheeks went red.
It was a step forward more important than either knew, because by the end of that second night, the leaders of the two respective parties were truly comfortable in one another's presence.
They tried again, just to be sure, but none of the doors at the inn would open up to Twilight Manor.
Shu'ni's theory was that the issue was themselves and the Manor being in 'the same space', no different from how they couldn't use the key on a bedroom door in the Manor to walk out the front doors. Tio was pretty confident that Shu'ni was just giving an easy to understand example, but she didn't mind. Her thinking about it more wasn't going to help, so instead, she focused on the things she was good at.
… Like making friends.
None of their new friends had nearly as many friends as they deserved, so Tio was happy to add to those numbers a little bit. Honestly they all seemed to mesh pretty well, rescues were pretty good icebreakers, not that anyone in their party didn't already know that.
Cathyl frowned a lot but she was really sweet and caring, though she showed it by actions not words. Also, it was nice not to be the tallest person around, because while Io was taller sitting down (Io did it on purpose 'cuz she was nice like that), Cathyl was taller whether sitting or standing.
And strong, really strong- maybe she'd looked a little jealous when she'd noticed that everyone in Cathyl's party ended up sitting on the Minotaurs shoulder at one point, but out of nowhere, Cathyl had casually picked her up and put her on her shoulder while they were hanging out in the front courtyard.
… Tio was really glad her butt had gotten tighter instead of bigger, because she barely fit on Cathyl's shoulder. For the first time since her first teenage growth spurt made her pass the six foot mark, Tio had felt small, and it was kind of amazing.
… Embarrassing, but amazing. Amazingly embarrassing, or maybe embarrassingly amazing?
Anyways, she liked Cathyl even more after that, and she'd already like Cathyl from the start.
Speaking of Cathyl though, Rachnée had known her for about four hours before she'd started tailoring Cathyl's coveralls (unrelated, but Rachnée was gonna make her coveralls too because they both agreed Haru would like how she looked in them).
Manako used to be a little shy, so the story went, but now she was mostly just introverted and quiet, having gained self-confidence with experience and good friends. Also sweet, and also adorable, she'd been the first one to check on them individually to make sure they were doing okay. Her single eye was really pretty, and Tio had carefully learned that while her depth perception wasn't very good, in terms of distance Manako could see so far that Tio was honestly having trouble imagining it.
Zombina was friendly in a less confused way than before after Io had blown her mind a little. The loudest of the bunch but not unpleasantly so, it hadn't escaped notice that she tended to drop the volume around Cerea and Rachnée, whose hearing was more sensitive.
Io had redone all her stitches as an apology/peace offering of sorts, which is how Tio had learned that Io was just as good with needle and thread as Rachnée was, but only when stitching people.
Tio still wasn't sure how she felt about that one.
Doppel was really funny and liked to play pranks, but she wasn't mean about it, just enthusiastic about using her shape-shifting in all kinds of neat ways. If Tio had a copper for every time it turned out that seeing someone wrapped up in a blanket by themselves was actually a cuddle session with a shape-shifter, she'd have two coppers. Which wasn't a lot, but she'd seen it twice in as many days.
Shu'ni had blushed with nearly her whole body when Tio suggested she try that with Haru. Blushed, and tried that with Haru the first chance she got.
So cute.
As for their bold and fearless leader, well…
Ms. Smith was like Haru in a way, in that she was constantly proving without meaning to why her party adored her so much. It was really encouraging to see a relationship dynamic so similar to theirs that had been working for longer than theirs.
Not that Tio was worried about their own relationship failing at all ever, but extra reassurance never hurt, right?
Ms. Smith was a lot more outspoken than Haru, and maybe a little shameless, but she seemed to worry about him a lot while trying not to seem like she was worrying about him, and it was the biggest reason to trust her that she possibly could have given Tio or the other girls.
Io wasn't sure exactly why Ms. Smith seemed to feel that way about Haru- maybe it was because they were both leaders, or maybe because they were both (sort of) from Earth, or maybe because they had the same Eyes. Maybe a mixture of all of those things.
Or maybe it had something to do with the Manor's 'functionally unlimited' (in Shu'ni's words) supply of coffee. It was a little bitter for Tio's taste even with lots of cream and sugar, but apparently it was the 'lifeblood' of something called a 'salary worker'?
Tio didn't quite understand it if she was being honest, but when Ms. Smith found out about it, she'd taken off her sunglasses to look the Master of the Mansion dead in the eye and say "marry me".
It was probably the most serious she'd ever seen Ms. Smith.
To some, it might have seemed odd for a party with two Warriors to include very little in the way of armor, but it did make sense in context of who the Warriors were. Well, in Cathyl's case it was because Warriors of her culture had a different set of Skills, with Zombina…
"Armor is for protecting the squishy bits, but I don't need to protect my squishy bits so it just slows me down," Zombina was saying. "And no one's ever ready to get cut up by the chick they just ran through!"
"And Minotaur Warriors get a bonus for going topless," Doppel chimed in with a suspiciously serious expression.
"Only the menfolk go topless," Cathyl huffed. "Our [Champion's Resolve] actually strengthens us when we forgo armor in battle. The overalls are because they let the girls breathe without me having to worry about bouncing out of my top midfight." No one needed to know about her wilder years among the tribe, when, just like the rest of her battle-sisters, her 'top' of choice was warpaint.
Just warpaint.
"Too often that is," Doppel was 'explaining', playfully sticking her tongue out as she earned a scowl from the bigger woman.
"Are shields allowed because they protect allies too?" Tio asked.
"Got it in one, Sunshine," Cathyl flashed a brief smile.
Manako had learned the Hunter's craft at Altana, while Smith was a Thief just like Haruhiro, a much more experienced one who had taught him a thing or two.
Doppel was Doppel, which really was explanation enough, but the sheer versatility of her shape-shifting more than made up for the lack of a spellcaster- a good example of this was the roll of bandages everyone now carried with them. The bandages were made of a combination of 'ignorance is bliss' and 'better not to ask', and binding a wound with them conveyed a small portion of Doppel's 'busted regen' in an emergency. Not as versatile or as powerful as what healers like Tio or Iormu could accomplish, but it had saved lives on more than one occasion.
The four days passed them by in a simple enough rhythm and routine- though it involved a lot of 'hanging out' to help familiarize themselves with one another, it wasn't to say they'd slacked off.
They trained as hard as they dared, earning as much understanding and appreciation of everyone's respective talents as was possible in four days.
A less than ideal timeframe to be certain, but they couldn't afford to wait.
For better or for worse, the almost endless equilibrium that Team Kuroko relied on to keep themselves safe had ended the moment Haruhiro and his companions had entered the Dusk Realm and brought an entire mansion with them.
And though whether it was connected or not was impossible to say, other, more ominous changes had begun to occur.
Because from the battle where the two parties met, to the moment when the whole world went dark, not a single Cultist was anywhere to be found.
And when the Dusk Realm went dark, everything from buildings to bones was shaken by a long, singular sound, echoing from the north.
"... S-Smith… how big did you say those Angels were again?" A wide-eyed Tio broke the stunned silence.
Smith's own eyes narrowed slowly, her expression grave as she responded without looking at anyone. They'd never seen that giant white hand at the center of the Cultist Basin move. But if they were to travel that way now, then she suspected things would be different.
"... I think their god is waking up, and waking up angry."
"Then we need to get moving, fast," Haruhiro said decisively. "Before that god goes from waking to walking."
Despite his words though, Haruhiro couldn't help but remember something a little odd. A feeling he wasn't sure suited him, yet felt comfortable nonetheless.
When that 'god' had roared and shook the world, for just the briefest of seconds he…
Had heard it as a challenge and not a threat.
It was hunger. It was thirst. Maddening thirst and delirious hunger.
Feed, feed, it needed to feed, the faithful must feed and grow strong.
Spread their wings and soar high, to drag down and devour the lights in the sky.
Bring the true darkness, the sightless paradise.
It needed to feed, and there was but one thing that could quench its thirst.
It needed to drink, and there was but one thing that could slate its hunger.
The river.
The river of scale and brine and foreign light.
It would consume the river down to the very last drop, then return to slumber until the day the gnawing could cease and the darkness could rise.
So very, very hungry.
Pardon for this being a little short, but I think our last big burst of action in the story will flow better as one big chapter.
So let's go out with a mildly apocalyptic bang, yeah? One chapter for the climax, one chapter for a nice big epilogue, and that'll do Donkey, that'll do.
PS: hard work building some manner of rapport with two different groups in one chapter, but Team Kuroko saved Team Haruhiro and Team Haruhiro might be Team Kuroko's only ticket home, so I thought that would serve as a reasonable motivation.
PSPS: the big difference between Haru's Eyes and Smith's is that hers are a trump card that she can only use sparingly, just like the 'glimmering green eye' of Grimgar canon only shows up once in a while. Haru doesn't have those limitations anymore, because Haru's acclimated to keeping all three of his real Eyes open.
Perks of being a Demon.