[Chapter Size: 2100 Words.]
Third Person POV
Northern kingdoms.
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...
Madara looked at the prince of Angren, paralyzed in front of him, his eyes shining with fear at this stranger appearing in the middle of his camp. "An assassin" was the first thought that came to his mind as he stared into the non-human eyes studying him for a while.
"You have two choices, prince of Angren..." Madara began. "I will allow you to speak, and you can talk to me calmly and I will do you no harm, but if you choose to scream for help to your men outside, I will simply disappear with you, to a place in the middle of nowhere, and you will answer my questions in a less friendly manner... Although I doubt your father will miss you much..." Madara mocked at the end, clearly stating his terms, as the prince seemed to nod.
'What is this child... how can he threaten me like this...?' He couldn't help but murmur, but with a feeling of fear covering him as he agreed with Madara.
Madara released him from his complete genjutsu, at least he could speak this time, while preventing him from moving, the man there who seemed to be in his twenties sighed for the first time. "Who are you?! No, what are you?! How did you get in here!?" He demanded immediately.
"It's not you who asks the questions." Madara spoke with a tone of dissatisfaction.
"No, you shouldn't be here! You're not human, are you?!" He said, and Madara sighed, regretting not having chosen the second option; he simply slapped the prince's head, causing him to fall unconscious.
The prince regained consciousness a moment later, feeling that he was in a colder place than in his tent. He quickly became frightened seeing that he was on the ground looking at the starry night sky.
"What?!" He shouted.
"You finally woke up...?" The voice of that child was heard once again, as the prince quickly got up seeing that being on top of a rock.
"How did we end up here?!" He murmured, looking quite scared at Madara.
"I brought you here, you are lighter than I thought." Madara said calmly.
"What do you want with me, are you going to kill me?" The prince said with a bit of fear of the unknown called life post-death, wondering if he would finally meet that person there.
"If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it in the tent, after all as you can see... it's very easy to enter and leave your camp." Madara spoke.
"So what do you want..." He murmured weakly.
"You know what I want, we wouldn't be here if you had done what I asked, now you have two choices, answer my questions and I will take you back to the camp and you will wake up in your tent, calmly as if nothing had happened, or I can leave you here..." Madara spoke, after all he could try to read people's minds with the sharingan, but it didn't work on this prince... so he had to resort to a threat.
"..." The prince didn't respond immediately but nodded at the end.
"That's good, because I doubt a prince like you can get back or even survive in the middle of this forest, there are many monsters..." He commented. "Now let's start, tell me, do you have any training for the mind?" Madara first wanted to know why his eyes didn't work.
"I..." The prince didn't expect such a question, but still responded. "I received training since I was a child with our mage..." He spoke and Madara nodded understanding, Cirilla also had this type of training with Mousesack to increase mind power, although she was naturally powerful.
"I see... And this mage is dead, right?" Madara asked, wanting to confirm the rumors.
"Yes... he died after an attack through a portal in the capital of Cintra." He spoke, looking into the bushes searching for any danger.
"Yes... so it was really true... Was your father also injured?"
"He had half of his face destroyed by the flames that came out of that portal." The prince answered.
"Well, you wanted a weapon for Cintra... so you got something." Madara mocked.
"You think I want this war...? All of this started with my father's damned decisions!" The prince, already frustrated with the entire situation here and before, burst out, even though he would be exposing his father.
"I've heard that, I also know your father plans to kill you and your younger brother would take the throne..." Madara commented.
"He really wants that?!" The prince could not believe what he was hearing, despite having heard it before from Madara, he seemed in disbelief.
"Yes, it seems he wants you not to disappoint him, he is very eager to end this war..." Madara said.
"The situation is not very good, my father is spending a lot of money on this war, he is raising taxes and this is bringing dissatisfaction among the nobility." Prince Thorne did not mind speaking out after what he had heard.
Madara nodded, storing that information, and before wanting to know more about the political state of the kingdom, he wanted to know about a few other things. "I heard you had a fiancée..." He said.
The prince trembled at that moment, with bad feelings passing through his mind, as he did not answer the boy with red eyes.
"You loved her, didn't you?" Madara asked, curious about the reaction.
"Yes..." He admitted.
"It wasn't a casual death, was it?" Madara asked.
"No, I don't believe that, she was killed, it's no coincidence that my father tried to put me in an engagement with a child to take over a kingdom..." He admitted, not caring and sharing valuable information with a stranger, but it was good to vent things that he could not normally discuss in the palace with anyone, even in private rooms, he had to be careful not to encounter a spy.
"Is her family powerful?" Madara asked, already interested in how the family was reacting to everything, since all the suspicions he had for over a year were confirmed.
"Yes, but not powerful enough to do anything against my father, they certainly seek revenge and are confronting the king and his actions in the kingdom." The prince said.
'The kingdom will be in shambles after this war, it will be good for Nilfgaard to find one of the first northern kingdoms in a political crisis and with its army devastated, not that the army of Angren will come out of this war whole, but they have some years to prepare for Nilfgaard...' Madara thought of the best possibilities, he could leave a good front for Angren, but for that, he needed to help the prince on his front.
"Tell me, Prince of Angren... What do you want?" Madara asked.
"What I want...?" He looked at the child in surprise.
"Do you wish to end this war, to stop these ambitious dreams of your father, do you wish to avenge your former fiancée?" Madara asked directly to hear his response.
"I..." He seemed unsure how to answer that, but calmed down a bit before starting to speak. "War is not something I want... It is just sinking my kingdom... this madness of my father will still kill our entire family. I just want to assume the throne from my father and take care of the kingdom... but I still love Lara Scutt, my former fiancée..." He murmured at the end. "If I could take revenge, of course, I would choose that." He admitted at the end.
"That's good, because I can help you if you agree to some things." Madara spoke.
"What do you mean?" He asked, looking bewildered at the boy.
"The flames from the portal that killed the mage and burned your father... I was the one who did that, even not knowing what would happen. But that's not the point now, Cintra and Angren could be destroyed in the next two years." Madara began.
"You did what?!" He exclaimed in astonishment, before hearing Madara's last words. "What do you mean by that?"
"The threat of Nilfgaard is real, they invaded the north and managed to do this within 2 years. And the first kingdoms they attacked, which are Cintra and Angren, will be decimated by the black knights." Madara said.
"Is that... are you sure about this?" He asked.
"Yes... and this war is screwing both kingdoms for the future, I can't even tell Queen Calanthe because I know she won't listen to me... The two kingdoms can't unite as your father wants, after all, it would lead to the discontent of many nobles and that would weaken the politics and the military... the only action is to try to face them as independent kingdoms." Madara spoke.
He didn't want the Nilfgaard invasion, but there wasn't much he could do about it. If he had about 40% of his system, maybe he could stop an entire army of armored men, but what could he do? He could kill anyone up to a witcher, but fighting tens of thousands is a completely different thing; he would end up exhausted and out of chakra before he even reached his thousandth kill. So he had to do just what was in his control... perhaps helping Angren could be an indirect solution, but he had to wait for this prince to accept what he was saying.
"Do you really have sure of this, what do you plan to do?" the prince asked.
"First, I intend to end this war; the army of Angren will be destroyed soon," Madara began, after all, his plan was to destroy the army once and for all by catching them from behind.
"Wait?! You want to destroy our army?!" the prince exclaimed, clearly not pleased with what he heard.
"There's nothing to be done about it, it was your father who started this war, now Angren will suffer for it, tell me, if this campaign tragically loses... What will happen in your kingdom?" Madara asked.
"If that happens... it's very likely that they will usurp my father... and they'll probably kill us to take control of the kingdom, it will be chaos," he said.
"That sounds like a very bad situation... There's nothing to be done for your army, but I can still help you to assume your throne and overthrow your father, I don't want any power from Angren, just that you raise the kingdom to fight against the Nilfgaardians."
"..." The prince looked at Madara as if he were insane. "You can't be serious..." He scoffed.
"Well... think what you want. I will wait for your answer until I visit you again, I would like you not to talk about what you heard today, otherwise, my help is cancelled, I'm not giving you a chance to get out of this war well, Prince of Angren, but a way for you to manage to save your skin and even try to save your kingdom by raising it again against the enemy forces from the south, you choose," Madara spoke.
"..." Prince Thorne didn't believe in this boy with red eyes and did not respond, Madara expected something like this and simply appeared behind the prince without him noticing and hit his head, making the heir of Angren fall unconscious once more.
"Let's take him and start to act, first I need to delay his group, after all, it would be a good excuse to usurp a prince who just arrived at the battlefield they just lost the war, the people of this world take superstitions very seriously, so they would say that this prince does not bring good luck," Madara murmured and began to carry the man again to his royal tent passing all the sentinels.
Prince Thorne woke up the next day startled, while looking at the roof of his tent, wondering if all that he heard and saw was real... "I think I drank too much..." he murmured, but soon got a shock with a piece of paper in front of him.
'I will be waiting for your answer...' It was written, although Thorne didn't see anyone's signature, he really knew to whom it belonged.