"Why aren't you running?!" Yuna screamed at me while holding her head in pain.
"What a stupid question, are you an idiot!? Do you really think I would leave you alone!?"
"You don't even know me!"
"Then let's use this as a chance for me to get to know you, what's your favourite food?" Her eyes shone a bright silver at that question.
"Are you really doing this here and now?!" I smirked at her response.
"Ofcourse, no better time than the present to get to know a beautiful woman like yourself." Her tail flicked, firing another crescent moon, dodging it again. I leapt up into the air and brought my spear down on her. She reacted instantly, drawing her Katana to deflect. I maintained my position, using the full weight of my spear to keep me close. My aura started to seep out of me into her.
"Or would you rather we get to know each other like this?" My smirk grew into a full blown smile.
"I don't mind either way in all honesty, I just wish it didn't have to be like this." A tear fell down her eyes.
"Don't worry, trust me on this one. Just try to keep a sane mind and hold back as much as possible and leave it to me." Yuna's body swiped her sword at me, flinging me away, it's clear she didn't have control of her own body. Landing on my feet, I slid back from the force and used the butt of the spear and stabbed it into the ground to stop me.
'How was that contact? Did it work for you, Amaterasu?'
'It did for the short time your blades were connected. If you're able to get closer to her though, I may be able to force my Mother from her body even quicker than before.'
'You mean like if I hugged her?'
'Yes, that's it. Try to disarm her and grab ahold of her.'
'Understood.' I leapt in the air at Yuna, Swiped my spear slowly but with a lot of power to connect with her sword. Izanami had other ideas though, she forced Yuna's body to turn around so that I would connect with her back, hesitating to bring my spear down. Izanami then used one of her tails and smacked me across the chest. Sending me flying away from the building.
Landing on my back, coughing from having the air knocked out of me. Yuna flew over to me and hovered. She lifted her sword and spun it around to stab me in the chest. As she brought the sword down. I rolled away to my left, predicting she would swipe at me, I lifted my spear to guard. Thanking my lucky stars I was able to guard her Katana.
"Izanami doesn't know how to use a sword, does she?"
"She's a complete amateur, I'm stronger than she is, but she won't loosen up her grip."
"Right, I probably would have already been dead by now if I were fighting you for real."
"No, but I would at least give you a proper sparring match rather than using some unknown power and going for basic strikes."
"I'm going to go all out then so we can have a proper spar." Yuna nodded her head. With that confirmation, I spun around my spear at higher speeds than Yuna's possessed body could handle. The only thing that was keeping the sword there was Yuna's strong grip. Knocking the sword in the air, I brought my Spear down as hard as I could to jam the sword into the dirt but a tail tried flicking me away. I read the attack with the malice emanating from Yuna and leapt into the air, throwing the spear at the sword. It felt like slow motion but the spear finally connected, knocking the sword out of Yuna's hand finally.
"This is going to hurt us both Yuna, brace yourself." I landed Behind her, focused my aura into my arms and embraced her from behind. She didn't even get a chance to brace herself before she started screaming. Her tails were hitting me in the back, so I tried standing on as many of them at once to lessen the damage.
"Go Amaterasu, do it now!" My Golden aura and Yuna's Black aura both exploded at the same time and started their own exchange in combat. I had to maintain my consciousness and keep a hold of Yuna. Fading from the agony, I was just glad that her tails had stopped attacking me.
'It's finally done my dear Descendant, you've done your job now leave it to me.'
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While Yuna and I both laid there out cold, another fight had started in the air above us. Izanami and Amaterasu had now manifested completely. After a few blows were exchanged with their divine abilities, the night sky was lit up with what looked like fireworks in the night.
Amaterasu and Izanami were flashing around in the air at near enough light speed. The onlookers of Sarah, Clarice and Amaterasu's followers, cowered inside. They watched as explosions were seen outside in the courtyard. They all felt the shock waves and didn't dare move from their positions lest they were caught in the crossfire.
Amaterasu laid into Izanami with all of her might, breaking down Izanami one punch at a time. Near enough tearing her limbs apart and ripping into her muscles that were already falling apart.
Izanami wouldn't allow herself to be bullied into a corner and had decided to break away. Backing off a few metres, Izanami had conjured up several spirit orbs that had a blue hue around the edge with the insides of them being black. Amaterasu conjured the same amount and they both fired them at each other at a rapid pace. Explosions going off here, there and everywhere.
The lights were blinding for several seconds until everything went quiet.
At last they came to a halt, Izanami's breathing was ragged. Amaterasu had her cornered with a spear she had quickly conjured, against her mothers neck, with countless amounts of orbs of fire surrounding Izanami, preventing her escape.
"It's nice to see you here Mother. Without any shrine temples in this domain, I find it hard to believe you're going to be able to stick around for long though." Izanami-No-Mikoto scoffed at her daughter. She had the same markings as her daughter except they were purple and Izanami had Silver hair, like her Son Tsukuyomi, her shrine outfit was torn, her body falling apart. They were trying to hold themselves together at the tendons, threatening to fall off at any moment. Still a tortured soul after all these years.
"Come now daughter, you know what I'm really after, to restore my body to the way it once was before and to hold a place here on Lurra. After your father tried to kill me in Jigoku after giving birth to you. I couldn't stand how he gifted you with such authority over the other deities. I want what you have and I'll have you and your precious family wiped out in the process."
"Even if you did wipe me and my family out, who would want to worship you willingly. You know gods don't gain any power from forcing people into worshipping you, just look at yourself. You're falling apart at the seams, your plan was never going to work even if you succeeded in wiping me out." Izanami looked like she wanted to destroy everything at this point but Amaterasu was not going to let that happen at all.
"Even if you're a progenitor Goddess, you have nowhere near enough power here to beat me in a fight unlike yourself in your prime. Release the girl and as they say in modern Earthen society. Go fuck yourself." Izanami, for lack of a better word, was utterly speechless at her daughter. No further words were said, she destroyed the ground below and created a hole to Jigoku.
"Mark my words daughter, there will come a time when my form will be regained and my power will return to me when that day comes you will all be tortured at my whim before I even grant you the mercy of killing you all off. Every continent will share the same fate as yourself." She flew down into the hole and the floor resealed itself. Not without leaving a permanent reminder of the events that played out though. Amaterasu looked at Yuna, she still had Izanami's Malice flowing through her body. Amaterasu flew down to her and merged with her body, pushing all the black malice out and eradicating everything inside.
Yuna began to relax. No longer in pain, she slowly lifted her eyelids. She felt a warm comfort flowing through her. Relaxing her body she sank into its embrace, it didn't last long, the cool feeling re-entered and she felt like she could move her body again. She looked up and there with a bright smile on her face, Amaterasu stood tall.
"Don't get up, you must be feeling exhausted, just like my dear Descendant who's holding on to you closely." Yuna looked down and saw two big arms holding onto her, she didn't hate the feeling though.
"Thank you for helping me. Is there any way I can repay your kindness?"
"You could carry on helping Gaël on his mission to restore my shrines, could you also let him know that the other continents are in danger but until he has control of at least half of my power, he's not to move from this continent. I still have 8 more shrines on this continent that I need to take back in order to gain full control. With 2 shrines under our control and enough training, Gaël can now use up to 20% of my power. Make sure he stays on top of his training because I'm going to be sleeping within Gaël's soul. Please look after him for me."
"You have my word and my sword. I'll help him out to the best of my ability." With that, Amaterasu flew into my body and Yuna got up and carried me inside.
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Next morning, I woke up in bed. I could feel pressure on my chest. I blinked my eyes for a few seconds and then looked down to see I was still clothed but the most surprising sight I took in was a fox ear and black hair which smelled amazing. Hold up, let's back up a few steps. I tried calling out to Amaterasu mentally but I got no response. Panic started to set in and the feeling of dread had occurred. I snuck out of the bed gently and sat up. Yuna had felt this and she woke up herself. She sat up and saw that I had gotten up out of the bed and saw the panic on my face.
"If you're wondering if anything happened between us, nothing happened." She tried her best to calm me down but that was not what I was worried about.
"It's not that, I knew I was asleep and wouldn't be able to do anything. Though looking down I'm glad I'm still in one piece from the fight that had happened earlier." Yuna now had a look of confusion on her face wondering what was going through my head. "I can't get in touch with Amaterasu, she's not answering my calls when I try to reach out to her." With full understanding, Yuna relaxed.
"She told me that she's resting inside of your soul, something must have happened to put a massive strain on her body to exhaust her power like that." Fully understanding what she meant by that my tense body loosened and I fell back onto the bed.
"Did she tell you how long she would be away?"
"She did not, she did give you your orders before she left though." Yuna happened to fill me in and told me everything Amaterasu said.
"Okay then, how long have I been out for and do you know what the time is now?"
"Only since last night, and it's the afternoon now. I had come to check up on you when I fell asleep next to you not too long ago, Winston Jr's currently with the town's guard, same with his bodyguards and the citizens have been returned to their homes. Everyone in Esta that was under Izanami's control has regained their senses. We are to report to William when you have awoken."
"Right, well since I'm already dressed. Let's get going." Looking at myself, I was wearing a plain cloth shirt and leather pants and shoes.
"You're dressed, but I'm not. You will have to wait for me, could you please wait outside?" I nodded and turned to go. "Thank you for saving my life last night. You're much more honourable than I ever expected you to be." Without turning back to face her I responded:
"Don't worry about it, there was no way I would have abandoned you. Not when it now feels like I have the world on my shoulders. If I couldn't save you, then there would have been no way I would have been able to look at myself in the mirror ever again." Yuna had a grateful expression on her face, her smile growing ever larger and she had a warm feeling in her chest. "I'll close the door and wait for you outside."
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A short while later back at the Guard house.
Yuna and I had just arrived when I was greeted by Ruby and Sophie in a rather enthusiastic fashion, if you could call it that, I had seen two red headed women surrounded by a golden aura speed toward me.
"Gaël!" They both cried out to me.
"Hey, hey, I'm not dead. If anything Yuna here was closer to dying than I was." Yuna looked at me with a solemn look on her face. I just smiled at her gently and told her not to worry about it. "Anyway you two have started getting used to your gift you have been given I see." They both backed away from me, held out their hands and instantly lit a fireball in their palms.
"What do you think Gaël?" My thoughts were joy and pride and also a little jealousy on the side. It took me much longer than a day to gain this much control from one fireball but my pride overshadowed it completely.
"Good, Ruby, you work on your making a second, Sophie. You focus on making it smoother now. Besides your magic, how is your weapons training going?" It was Ruby's turn to look solemn now but Sophie had a bright smile on her face. Yuna wanted in on the group discussion this time round now.
"Are things not going well Ruby?"
"Wraith is a good teacher in the fighting style he does but I cannot seem to grasp the way he's trying to teach me. It's like the moves he shows me are not sitting well with me at all. I seem to keep tripping over myself all the time and it feels like Wraith is growing impatient."
"He's not growing impatient." This voice came from the guardhouse. We all turned to the direction to see Serena there.
"At least not with you anyway." My eyebrow perked up at that.
"What do you mean?" Serena walked forward to us as she spoke again.
"If Ruby is anything like Sophie, it means that her fighting style is locked in a way that we can't teach her. Her sword she spawns with her magic stops her from fighting in any other style than what it's designed for." I remembered she created a Chinese Sword at that moment. Ofcourse, the martial art that her sword was designed for is located on a separate continent entirely.
"Then I guess Ruby needs to learn how to dance with her sword." Serena nodded in understanding what I meant by that. The other girls all looked confused though.
"Ruby has a traditional Chinese sword, used to dance, twirl, and misdirect enemies often accompanied with the hand to hand combat martial art of Wing Chun. A martial art originally designed to help women fight but became so popular as a universal fighting style, men adopted it into their own style." Serena was surprised I knew of it. Little did she know that I had the internet back home and I was a huge lover of martial arts movies.
Serena hearing my explanation had an idea that formed into her head, she then turned to Sophie.
"Sophie, when you used the bow, did it feel natural to you?"
"Yes, it felt like home." A simple answer but it was all she needed.
"What about you Gaël?" There wasn't a doubt in my mind, a spear was all I wanted and it was what I got. You could say I self actualized it into existence. My answer was simple though.
"Yes, it feels most natural."
"That settles it then, Ruby, follow me. I'm going to set you up for a sparring match against my men. This time I want you to move and strike in a way that feels most natural to you." She told her to follow her but what ended up happening was the brute of the woman grabbed her by and Sophie by the wrists and dragged them both off.
"Are you okay with her kidnapping them both?"
"I may be their legal guardian but you don't get stronger by being pampered like babies, the fact they are still alive, well and happy right now is enough reason to trust Serena. Come on, we have to speak to William." Yuna didn't say anything, she just followed me to William's office, the guards recognized us at William's door, they knocked on the door to let him know we were here.
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When we walked into the office, William was sat there with his head buried with mountains of work.
"Is this a good time William? I heard you wanted us to make our report when I woke up?" The old soldier poked his head above the mountain of work he was buried under and immediately walked around his desk to greet us.
"The order you gave me yesterday has made me quite busy. I wanted to get a head start on it to ease you into your role better."
'So this is going to be my job soon.' I started to get nervous but I put my best foot forward.
"Is there anything I can help you with?"
"I'm glad you asked, I'm going to need you two to write out your reports on what happened in your own words, once that's done, since you were so kind to offer your assistance we're going to go over this paper work. The two of us will be able to get through this a lot quicker if we work together. As you are the acting lord of this town now, this place is going to need to be fixed up before you travel to the capital to officially become the lord." Yuna and I took the forms and then we sat down and got to work.
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Many, many hours later.
William and I had our heads on the table, the life in our eyes had left us completely.
"This town is beyond fucked."
"Even if you gave everyone their money back they had taken, the fact that we're not getting any trade for a month at minimum is going to make things far too difficult to try and sustain everyone properly." An idea popped into my head at that moment.
"We could go to the Forest of Saisei to hunt the monsters there but how many of your men are trained to fight those beings?"
"By my count? Not including myself, 2 and that's Wraith and Serena."
"We could use your lesser trained men to pack up the meat onto carriages and while I go and fight them. It would give them a moral boost to know that their new Lord is not afraid to get their hands dirty." William had lifted his head in surprise at this suggestion.
"Would you really go and do that for us?"
"Why wouldn't I? I wouldn't be able to bring Ruby and Sophie along with me though, the monsters there are vicious, there's no way I would ever allow them to tag along, so I would be leaving them in your hands again. In the meantime you can follow through on my earlier request and send the traders out to all the nearby towns including the capital. The homeless need homes as well. You could even use the mansion as temporary housing for them to get them all off the streets. Finally while they are all recovering we'll rebuild the streets and build some more homes to move them all in."
"You're willing to do all that with the money you have left over after giving all of it back?"
"I'll make it back with the cash I make from taking adventuring jobs, the lord's wages in my opinion belong to the citizens and the town anyway." There's no way I'll ever let the town of Esta be ruled under another Winston Jr.
"How soon can you prepare to go hunting?" William was eager to hear my response this time.
"I can go tomorrow morning at the earliest." The door crashed open, we both faced the door and we saw Yuna, Ruby, Sophie, Clarice and Sarah there. What's up? Is everything okay?" Genuine concern emanated from my voice. Ruby spoke up this time round.
"Tomorrow is too soon, we want to come with you as well. We promise that we won't get in the way."
Sophie nodded vehemently at this, waiting for her turn to talk. "We want you to spend more time with us."
"We still need to spar and get to know each other." Yuna weighed in her argument, her face blushed red.
"I'd like to show you around the mansion properly and assign everyone their rooms accordingly." Sarah bowed respectfully while making her point.
"I want to get to know what my fate will be." Clarice looked dejected on the floor, nerves filling her body and her stomach tightened in knots. I suppose I'm going to have to deal with her first. William had told me earlier that Winston Jr. was going to serve time in the military and was sent off to the capital to serve.
"Clarice, do you truly feel bad for everything you have done and do you want to make up for it?" Clarice's eyes lifted from the floor, she nodded slowly and gently.
"Then your punishment is going to be serving the town and helping the homeless off the streets. Find them work wherever you can and you will be working with William as part of a council while I'm out of town. If I'm not working with him, then I'll be working with you to make sure this town prospers and right now, as you can see the state of this office." I gestured to the mountains of paper that still needed to be dealt with. "There's a lot of work to do, do you understand your role?" She sniffed and accepted with a smile on her face. Just glad that she wasn't going to get the death penalty.
"As for you Sarah, We'll all be coming to our new home tonight so you won't be left out on your duties there."
"If I may, my Lord. I'd like to make a few other requests of my own." My interest got the better of me so I listened to her request.
"I'd like you to start looking for new Maids to replace me. I'd like to take up residence at the Temple Shrine again and carry on what my family has taught me." I turned back to William.
"That solves one of our problems we have so we can scratch that off the list of things to do." William nodded and put those documents to the side that we designated as completed. "Clarice, that will be your first job to do. Find me enough more employees to maintain the mansion and have them trained, Sarah, are you okay with training new staff before you leave?"
Sarah bowed again with a smile on her face.
"It would be my pleasure, my Lord." She almost looked like she wanted to jump up in excitement, so I was pretty happy for her.
"William, we'll go hunting the day after tomorrow, have whatever men who are brave enough to march into those wilderness." Yuna's ears twitched at hearing this, not only that Sophie and Ruby sped forward with their abilities and hugged into me.
I sighed as I felt them hug me, William had a grin on his face as he saw this.
"You three want to come with me don't you? Do you know how dangerous it is going to be?" My second question was pointed at the two sisters. At which, they both nodded fervently at my question.
"You follow my orders, no questions or complaints, got it?" They both nodded again. "Alright then, let's get you three home. Clarice you have a home to go to don't you?"
"I do my lord." I nodded and left her behind, marching on with the rest of the girls. If Clarice knew of my resolve, then she knew it would be serious if she tried to double cross me.
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"Welcome Home my Lord. Dinner will be served soon, could you and the Ladies move to the dining room, I will be serving dinner soon."
"Alone? Do you want some help with that? You're going to be serving for the five of us right?"
"No, I possibly couldn't be sitting with you, it wouldn't be right." Sarah's refusal was down right pitiful.
"Really? Who taught you that? Don't tell me Winston taught you that." My pointed question shot a metaphorical arrow into Sarah's heart. Sarah just looked away at that moment and I sighed. "Tell me, do you think I'm anything like him?"
"I can't say, I haven't known you for that long. From the little time I have known you, you seem to be more of an admirable man than he is. If you don't mind, I'd like to observe you more for myself." After a moment of consideration I decided to ask for a second opinion.
"What do the rest of you all think?" Yuna was the first to speak this time when I asked that.
"I think her decision should be respected, she has never crossed blades with you or actually sat down to get to know you properly." I took what she said into careful consideration and turned to the sisters.
"We don't know in all honesty, even thinking that this place is going to be our new home for us is still a foreign concept. Our family lived closer to the walls far away from this mansion." That's right, I don't think any of us have lived the high life before.
"My opinion is the same as the sisters in all honesty, I've never lived in this fashion before. Where I came from you could consider me the same as common folk who live here in these lands." Sarah didn't know what to do with this information, she had her set role and believed in it.
We all stood in the hallway for a moment when I came to a decision, and when I looked up from the ground it seemed the others were waiting for me as well.
"We will do as Sarah says tonight. But I don't want any of you getting used to it. We will be pulling our own weight in this house, as much as I like the idea of sitting around and doing nothing we can't get complacent, so we will at least help Sarah serve the table when the time is right. Any objections to that?" I looked around and everyone nodded in acceptance. With that, Sarah guided us to the dining room but it was different to the one that we came through for the secret passage, we made our way through the courtyard to the main house. Already feeling nostalgic from the clash that me and Yuna went through, I wondered when my Goddess would return. I tried sending my feelings of comfort to her but there was still no response.
While stuck in my own head, Sarah in front of me leading the way, was being bombarded with questions by the ever energetic Sophie.
"So, what's being a Maid like? What's life like in this mansion? Are there any other Maids?"
Behind me, Yuna and Ruby were walking quietly while exchanging silent looks at each other. I didn't know what they wanted to talk to each other about but they wouldn't say anything with me within ear shot.
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We reached the dining room at the main house and the 4 of us just stood in awe.
"Wow." That was all I could say, far higher class than I would have expected, the dinner ware laid out was pristine. The glasses on the table looked like they were made out of crystal. There was a chandelier on the roof that lit up with small runes that were glowing.
The plates were made out of porcelain unlike the inn where the plates and tableware were made out of wood. That wasn't something that I wasn't used to but the girls practically had sparkling eyes. It was an incredibly beautiful sight for them to behold.
"Looks like our lives have changed for the better now girls." The only thing I got out of all three girls was a nod. Sarah stood there with a grin on her face, the fact that the new Lord for her was a humble person was a breath of fresh air for her.
"Dinner will be served soon, please be seated."
We all just nodded silently which sparked a laugh from her.