ACT 14 - Poetry of Revenge

ACT 14 - Poetry of Revenge
Seirei Gensouki 14 - Fukushuu no Jojoushi (精霊幻想記 14 - 復讐の叙情詩) are the fourteenth installment of the series following the story after both Beltrum Princesses got kidnapped away by Rio enemies.

Summary
Someday before the Rio vs Nidor: Lucius has just left the room for saying to his subordinates to keep all their teleportation magic tools at the ready, Reis explains Nidor step by step the plan to assassinate Haruto Amakawa, the black knight, also called Rio, he says to Nidor all the information about Rio that they have already gathered, the scheme to keep him away from Rodania to take Celia as hostage while he's away, how he needs to send him to the Paladia kingdom where Duran will give him false information prepared beforehand, how from now on he will go to try to secure Renji and as much strong fighters as possible to use against Rio, then they talk a little about the sixth yet to appear hero and how that hero seems to be the saint of an organization called the cult of the end.

The day before the Nidor vs Rio: Rio gathered everyone in the living room of the rock house, he then says to the girls to make him any questions they may have for him about his revenge, Sara says to Rio in the name of everyone that they have talkes a lot between themselves about what to say to Rio about that, that they weren’t able of reaching an agreement, but that they will respect his decision, that for someone as kind of Rio to choose such a way then must have suffered more than they’re able of understanding, that they won’t try to stop him because they know that that is something really easier to say for a third party than for the person in question, Rio says to them that he isn’t someone that splendid and tells to them that his reason for the revenge isn’t just his hate for his mother’s murder, that it’s mainly because between Lucius and him there isn’t a way back anymore, that if he doesn’t end this fight at once someday his important people will be stolen again and that he doesn’t wan that, he explains to how at the beginning he intended to cut his ties with everyone due to his revenge, that he doesn’t think like that anymore thanks to Satsuki, Masato and Miharu, Miharu gets embarrassed now remembering how Rio heard her saying that she loved him, the rest of the girl tease her a little and the talk ends, the next morning Rio leaves towards Nidgar.

The day after the Rio vs Nidor, after arriving to the Rubia kingdom from the neighboring country Renji became and adventurer, thanks to his hero powers he gained fame fast as a promising rookie that progressed quickly through the ranks and between the adventurers he began to be called ice emperor, Silvie heard of him and tried to scout him, Renji refused, Silvie and his little sister for some reason found his arrogance and impertinence refreshing and fun and became friends, now they're meeting each other on a inn in Rubia's capital, Renji tells Silvie that it's been some time since their last conversation, Silvie explains that she had to go to the Galarc kingdom to assist to the evening party and that there she met the other heroes too, Renji tries to asks about them but Silvie just says that they were boys and girls around Renji's age, Renji says that lately he hasn't seen Esther either, Silvie says she can't see him because she got ill, in the middle of their conversation Reis arrives and introduces himself with a false name and says to Silvie that if she wants to see Esther now is the moment, Silvie leaves the room with Reis, and this before leaving shows Renji a smile purposefully more suspicious than usual for trying to make hi follow them secretly, Renji looks through the window how Silvie and her bodyguard Elena enter in a carriage with Reis and decides to follow them secretly as Reis wanted.

Reis gets into the carriage after Silvie and Elena, Lucius was already inside, Silvie asks who is him and after he introduces himself Silvie recognizes the name as the leader of the mercenary group, after a little of provocation from Lucius to Silvie and Elena they arrive to a rocky area near Rubia's capital, there Lucius' subordinates are waiting with Esther that has a bag on the head, they allow Silvie to talk for some time with Esther with the condition of letting her demon sword with her escort, after the conversation with Esther ends and Silvie separates from her Renji appears and creates an ice wall between Esther and Lucius' subordinates and begins to say to Silvie that together they're more than enough to beat everyone there, but Silvie doesn't move, she's worried because she thinks that if something happens to Reis here and because of that the Proxia empire decides to invade seriously the Rubia kingdom they would be destroyed in just several months.

Renji begins to spout non stop all the arrogant, self-important, selfish, childish, chuunish and stupid things he's capable of while exchanging provocations with Lucius, things like why is she doubting, does she think that he will lose against the people there... bla, bla, bla ... at the beginning it was just about rescuing Esther, a little of provocation and Renji's reason to fight  changed to not being able of forgiving being made light of as an adventurer, after a little more of provocation his only reason to fight was being called shortie by Lucius (Renji is 16 and his height is 160 cm, a little under the japanese average), Silvie tries to stop him because it may be dangerous for her country if she lets him do as he pleases, then Reis proposes a bet, Renji and Lucius will fight, if Renji wins Reis will give back Esther without any conditions and Renji can have Lucius as his slave ( making Lucius his slave was Renji's idea), if Renji loses he will obey Reis' orders once (accepting to participate in the fight against Rio), they agreed to forbid killing in the fight and that the duel will begin after a stone thrown in the air touches the ground.

Reis and the others got away from Lucius and Renji while those two put themselves at a distance while exchanging provocations, Lucius took of  his eye-pacth and put his sword in his left arm, when seeing Lucius' black eye and left arm Renji thinks that he must be very chuuni ( I seriously thought "who do you think you're to talk?" here), Reis threw the stone in the air and it touched the ground, then there was a referee, there were witnesses and there were contendants, but there wasn't a fight, it was just Lucius one sidedly torturing Renji in order to test his new powers before fighting Rio.

First Renji pointed his halberd at Lucius and charged forward, Lucius dodged backstepping the minimum, Renji created a big mass of ice where Lucius was intending to cage him on it and then reducing it to pieces with him inside, after he did that Renji turned his back towards the ice with a satisfied face believing that is all over already and that he already killed Lucius (you accepted a rule about not killing just a minute ago you know?), Lucius calls out to him, Renji turns himself again, Lucius appears behind him after cutting his left arm, grabs him by the neck and lifts him while strangling him, he throws him to the mass of ice, Renji stands again and attacks Lucius, Lucius passes by him and cuts his legs, Renji falls to the floor and tries to stand again several times until Lucius sends him flying with a kick, teleports to where he is flying and kicks him again several times, Lucius kicks vertically this time, teleports over Renji and makes him crush against the ground, he teleports again next to him and begins to stomp his foot against Renji's back a lot of times.

Silvie begins to run towards Lucius while shooting rays of light to him with her sword, Lucius dodges the first shoot moving his head and the rest sends them back to Silvie with the power of his left eye, Silvie receives her own rays of light and stops, she begins to complain about Lucius breaking the rules about not killing while thinking that there isn't anyway to save Renji already, Lucius doesn't care about it and says that Renji tried to kill him too with his first attack, Reis says from silvie's back that Renji won't die with just this while carrying his severed arm and legs, he puts them next to Renji's body and they reattach themselves, he says as expected of a hero, a little more of conversation and Reis, Lucius, his subordinates and Esther teleports to Proxia's castle leaving Silvie alone in that rocky area while holding Renji's tattered, bloodied and unconscius body with her scort looking at her from the side.

Lucius is alone in his room after coming back from defeating Renji, he was reading again and again a dossier with all the information about Rio that Reis had gathered until now, everytime he reads that Rio was able to be happy again along the people that are important for him he can't avoid to be more and more enraged, until now Reis was convinced that if he tells Lucius Rio's location he will just go to fight against him without enough preparations and dying in the fight, so he kept quiet about it, because he was already able of using Lucius to be sure that Renji will participate in his plan for killing Rio, he thinks that it's already safe to tell Lucius the rest of his plan for kidnapping Celia and bring Rio to a trap, the beginning of the end of all his plans, Reis asks Nidor if Rio has already come to the castle,after that he orders Alain, Rucci and Ven to teleport to Rodania and to gather information about the people surrounding Celia.

Reis enters Lucius' room, he says to him that because Rio can fly in the sky very fast he doesn't know exactly where he's right now, because he wasn't able to stay behind Rio's back all the time since the battle in the border between Galarc and Bertram right now he doesn't know his location, Lucius is angered, Why have I been working for you these days then?, calm down and listen to the plan, even if I don't know where he's I can make him come to where we're, explain it already, we are going to use a hostage, your favourite tactic, well if we use a hostage is possible, who is the target?, Celia Claire, why her?, Convenience, to use it as a hostage isn't it better if we use a weak woman? The only problem is that that human spirit is probably scorting her, but in a place without interference, while having to protect Celia Claire, with you and me fighting together it may be possible to kidnap the two of them, you're a greedy bastard, so what about the plan? I already sent Alain, Rucci, and Ven to gather information about the target for kidnapping her in two days, normally I would gather information for more time before moving but this time specially for you we will do things quickly, help me two days later to secure the hostage and you will have your fight with Rio without anyone interfering, Lucius pretends to agree with Reis, Reis tells Lucius that Rio right now is on his way to visit the prince Duran and leaves the room.

After Reis leaves Lucius thinks there alone, you don't understand a thing, don't get carried away, me using others for my plans is one thing, but letting others using me in their schemes is different, I will do things my way from the beginning to the end, Arain, Lucci and Ven appear from another door inside Lucius' room, instead of teleporting to Rodania as Reis told them they teleported to Lucius' room, when the four are met Lucius decides to take as hostage someone different from Reis' target, at first he thinks in kidnapping Satsuki, he thinks if he does i himself he's able of doing it, then remembers that the ones actually making the kidnapping will be his subordinates and discard it thinking that they won't able of capturing her, so he changes to kidnapping Cristina and Flora after remembering how Rio protected Flora from him in Amande, he's convinced that the relationship between Rio and the princesses is deeper than what the report about Rio says, he orders Ven to teleport to Rodania and gather information about Cristina and Flora in order to prepare the kidnapping, he orders Arein to teleport to Paladia's capital and to ask Duran instead of him to keep Rio inside Paladia's capital until they secure Cristina and Flora, Rucci is in charge of buying provisions and let them in a hut in Paladia's forest for Cristina's and Flora's use after they teleport them there.

The day before Cristina's and Flora's teleportation: Rio arrives to Paladia's capital and at night he sneaks inside the castle looking for Duran, when he arrives in front of his room's door he hears the guards talking about Duran organizing tomorrow one more time a contest where he will listen to one petition from someone able of receiving one of his attacks while using his demon sword, Rio decides to go back to his inn tonight and participate in the contest tomorrow.

Cristina's and Flora's teleportation day: Rio goes to the castle's training grounds and passes Duran's test, he asks him for Lucius' location, Duran calls Rio as the Black night Haruto Amakawa and says to him that right now he doesn't know Lucius' location, but he will know it tomorrow, he just need to stay in the city until he sends him a messenger with Lucius' location, Rio goes back to his inn again, more or less at the same time Cristina and Flora are teleported to Paladia's forest.

Cristina and Flora are very surprised and confused for the change in their surroundings, they see near them a hut that Lucius and his subordinates use as a hideout from time to time, they check if there's anyone inside the hut, when seeing that there isn't anyone there they enter, there they find food, tools for cooking and blankets with a note that says that the food isn't poisoned and that if they stay inside the hut they will be safe from attacks from animals of monsters, they take with them the food, the cooking tools and the blankets and leave the hut after having lunch there.

When they arrive to the forest again Cristina says to Flora that they have to climb a tree for deciding the travel direction because during the travel she saw Rio doing it from time to time, Cristina wants to climb the tree herself but Flora says that it must be her who is able of strengthening the body with magic, in the end Flora climbs the tree while Cristina looks at her worried to the death, Flora looked to be having a little of fun while climbing the tree though, after seeing smoke in the distance, they walk in the forest until near the sunset, while preparing the dinner Cristina remembers her travel with Rio, she thinks about how incredible the him who planned the travel so they would never have to sleep outside was, he remembers too when they got lost in the royal academy time and thinks that if he had been the leader that day probably nothing bad would have happened, after she recriminates herself for thinking about Rio in such a situations she and Flora have dinner and go to sleep while leaning on the other's shoulder.

Earlier that day, Lucius and Reis are waiting together in the room where Celia and Aisia discover Reis, in the exact moment Celia is going open door Lucius teleports to the same hut Cristina and Flora found after being teleported, after not finding them there he begins to follow their trace and when he finds them he just has fun watching them giving their best to survive from some distance, at the same time Aisia is chasing Reis while carrying Celia in her arms, in the middle of the chase he lets Celia in Ouphia's care and chases Reis now alone, then they have the same fight than in the arc 6 of the WN, Reis envelops himself in darkness and from that darkness a lot of monsters like minotaurs and flying lizards come out, Aisia kills them, Reiss takes out now a group of skeletons that Aisia crushes now, their remnants transforms into a great skeleton with wings a great sword and a shield, while kills it Reis hides his presence and runs away,

Next morning, Flora wakes up when being bitten by a spider, her scared and pained scream wakes up Cristina too, after making sure that they don't have any other insect on their bodies they begin to walk again after making Flora use detoxification magic and healing on her wound, unfortunately the detoxification was ineffective, some hours later when they stop for having lunch Flora is already in the verge of collapsing due to the high fever, Cristina carries in her back the unconscius Flora until they get out of the forest and are finally able of seeing a village at a distance of some hundred of meters after going through a hilly area, Cristina decides to go there now for asking if there is anyone capable of curing Flora there, after seeing Cristina and Flora going to the village Lucius teleports to Paladia's capital.

Rio has been almost the whole day in his inn room waiting for Duran's messenger, Duran knocks to his door and says to him that Lucius is in a village 30 km west from the capital with someone related to him, Rio leaves the room while having a bad feeling, after Rio is gone Duran knocks the door of the room next to Rio's, Lucius comes out and Duran says to him that he already did as he wanted, he says too that Rio must be quite the thing for making him suffer until this point,he says that Reis already came to his castle before asking where he was and that he needs to hurry, in exchange for his help until now Duran wants to be allowed to see his fight against Rio, then they teleport together to the village where Cristina and Flora are.

Cristina is walking towards the village entrance with Flora on her back, Flora finally awoke again, she asks a villager if there is any doctor in the village, the villager says that the village chief is the doctor and guides them to his house, the village chief agrees to examine Flora but he wants the two of them to leave the village after the treatment is over because he thinks that they will cause some trouble while staying there, after seeing Flora's neck the village chief says that he can't cure Flora, and that after the poisoning gets worse and worse she may be able to infect others so it's better to stay away from her, when Cristina is getting depressed thinking that Flora is going to die Lucius and Duran enter the room where they are now, Lucius mocks Cristina saying to her that if they had stayed in the hut this wouldn't have happened, Cristina bites her lips while thinking that she can't deny it but Flora defends her decision, Duran says to Cristina that he can take take Flora to his castle and cure her, but in exchange he wants for example her first time, Cristina gets embarrassed and after seeing her like that Duran says that he would never sleep with a woman as dirty and smelly as her to embarrass her more, Rio enters the house too at that moment while being surprised for seeing Cristina and Flora with Lucius and Duran, Cristina is surprised of seeing him too.

Lucius puts his sword in Flora's neck and tells Rio to get out of the village because they can't fight there, they begin to walk towards the hilly area that Cristina crossed for arriving to the village, Rio is leading the group with Duran behind him, then Cristina supporting Flora and lastly Lucius, Lucius wanted Duran to carry Flora at the beginning but he refused again saying that he didn't intend to touch a woman, dirty, sweaty and smelly like them for making them more embarrassed, the villagers try to follow them but Duran tells them to go back to their houses and all of them shut them in relieved about whatever is happening not having anything to do with them.

While walking Rio says to Lucius that Cristina and Flora are unrelated to their fight, lucius says that they're related to him and to stop playing dumb while calling him by the name Rio, then he begins to talk to Cristina and Flora, he tells them again that Haruto Amakawa is the same Rio that went to the academy with them, the same Rio their country accused of a false crime, he begins to talk about Rio's past to them, how he met Zen and Ayame, how he kept gaining Zen's trust little by little, how Zen told him that Ayame used to be a princess and Zen her exclusive bodyguard until they had to run away from Yagumo for some reason, how they were the picture of the perfect happy family and he was a part of that too, how he couldn't stand anymore seeing their happyness so he decided to kill Zen when Rio was still a baby and Ayame when Rio was five, how Zen's face when discovering his treason was as desperate as Rio's when seeing his mother's death, trying to provoke Rio, and trying to make Cristina and Flora begging Rio for their lives just for having fun seeing them begging to the person their country made so many bad things to.

Cristina and Flora don't say a think, the idea of begging him for her life doesn't enter her head in the slightest, Cristina begins to try to make Rio angered at her on purpose saying things like her being raised to keep the country at the cost of the individuals, so she didn't feel any guilt towards him, that just Flora felt that what happened to him was bad or unfair, with this Cristina was expecting Rio to fight without caring about her and trying to make him to not mind to sacrifice her but still trying to save Flora if possible, but both Lucius and Rio saw through her, Rio doesn't say anything but Lucius mocks her, when they're far enough from the village Rio says that that place must be fine already, Duran complains too asking just until where did they intend to go, Lucius is annoyed at Rio that is yet to show anger or preparing his sword and says to him that after half-killing him he intends to have a lot of fun with Miharu and Celia in front of him and finally kill them, Rio at last shows his anger letting out a lot of magic power and unsheathing the sword and the fight begins.

Lucius teleports with Cristina and Flora to several tens of meter high and lets them fall, when Rio is embracing them for stopping their fall Lucius teleports next to him and tries to cut him, Rio barely defends it, Rio is moving away from the places where Lucius teleports accelerating with wind spirit arts while embracing Cristina and Flora but he isn't able of gaining distance yet, Rio makes a circular earth wall with a diameter of 2 meters around him, while inside he makes Cristina to hug his body while keeping Flora between them, that way he will have at least a free arm, Rio makes a earth tower several tens of meter high under his feet, Lucius cuts the tower's bottom and sends a slash of darkness in Rio's direction, before dodging Rio puts magic power on his foot touching the earth tower and divides it in smaller pieces floating around him before beginning to fly in the sky, after that he throws the earth pieces towards Lucius, Cristina is surprised seeing Rio floating in the air and begins to try to make sense of all the common sense breaking things she has just seem.

She wonders how was Rio able of manipulating the earth until now without magic formations or spells, she wonders if he's doing it with the sword, but his sword is supposed to manipulate the wind, Lucius teleports behind Cristina and tries to cut her back, Rio stops the attack with a barrier, the barrier breaks partially but still stops Lucius' attack, Rio says that now he will attack too and shoots Lucius a light ball the size of a truck tyre, Lucius scapes teleporting himself away, but Rio is perfectly able of feeling where Lucius will appear next time and he begins to shoot light balls like the previous one one hundred at a time towards Lucius, while Lucius is dodging the light balls running and teleporting the mess in Cristina's mind became even bigger, what is this?, really what is this, Rio was supposed to being unable of using magic and now he's causing events comparable to the superlative magic and he was still rising the scale of his attacks.

Lucius stops running for a moment while looking at Rio and his light bullets, he teleports the one hundred light balls back at Rio putting them all around him and he himself ten meters above Rio, Rio breaks out of the light bullets' encirclement surrounding himself with wind and scapind to the side, Lucius teleports to his scaping way and shoots another great slash of darkness to Rio, Rio counters it shooting a storm with his sword and the shockwave blows away the rest of the light bullets, Rio and Lucius land on the ground again, Rio is making a list on his head of Lucius abilities, the black left eye gave him the skill of teleporting he himself and the enemy's attacks to where he looked, the sword seems to be able of manipulating the space and he's yet to use in this fight the ability of piercing through the space with the sword, then from some tens of meter away from Rio, Lucius tells him that he's too strange, the spirit arts aside where did you learn that martial arts and swordcraft, he supposedly learnt how to fight at the royal academy but he doesn't use Bertram's style and his style is something too practiced for being something he learnt after the academy time.

Rio doesn't answer while seeing Lucius changing his sword from the right arm to the left arm and making practice swings, Rio thinks that he will finally use the skill of that arm when Lucius' sword pierces the space behind him, Rio stops the attack, then another attack to Cristina and another to Flora, the power of that arm was to increase the speed and the accuracy of the skill that pierces through the space, Rio begins to run around Cristina and Flora stopping Lucius' attacks for some time, he tries to attack Lucius getting closer to him, midway he realizes that Cristina and Flora are defenceless now and goes back to them, but he doesn't make it in time and Lucius wounds his arm, Lucius begins to combine his attacks piercing through the space with his own attacks teleporting he himself near Cristina and Flora, Cristina can't see Rio's or Lucius' attacks but she still understands that they're still alive just because Rio is protecting them, after seeing Rio's blood fall over her face after receiving another wound because of her she begins to beg to Rio while crying to stop protecting them, she screams again and again that it's fine already that he doesn't need to protect them but Rio doesn’t say anything because he's busy preparing the counterattack.

While stopping Lucius' attacks Rio is thinking about moving more and more efficiently, taking the shortest route to the next spot, grasping Lucius' attack pattern as much as possible and thinking in a way of stopping the teleportation attacks, Rio thinks that for making Lucius unable of teleporting next to him, Cristina and Flora he needs to control himself so strongly all the mana around them that Lucius won't be able to combine his magic power with it for teleporting him or his sword near them, but for defeating Lucius' ability of controlling the space he will need to use a spirit art stupidly big, he finally has an idea and begins to gather the magic power necessary for making it happen. Lucius stops his attacks a minute later while annoyed because Rio didn't fall yet and because he properly protected Cristina and Flora, Rio says to Lucius while breathing heavily due to the blood loss that he will end this now.

Rio creates a mass of water around thing with a radius of several hundreds of meters, the hilly area, the village, the forest, all is covered with water except by a dome of 5 meters around Rio keeping him, Cristina and Flora safe, he says to Cristina that inside the dome Lucius won't be able of attacking them anymore and to wait there while he ends the fight, Cristina answers, aaah, aaah, yes with an idiotic face completely dumbfounded, then I'm going, Rio begins to fly over the mass of water and them he changes its form into the eight-headed and eight-tailed dragon yamata no Orochi, Rio while looking down at Lucius from over the dragon heads says to him that he won't do as he pleases anymore, Lucius tries to teleport him and his sword near Rio, Cristina and Flora but he can't, you can't teleport right?, cold sweat is beginning to go down Lucius' spine, Rio begins to swing the dragon heads towards Lucius, Lucius that still can use the teleportation if he doesn't try to get close to Rio, Cristina and Flora with it uses it to dodge, but Rio can predict perfectly where he will appear next and there is already a dragon head ready to hit him when he reappears.

Lucius keeps escaping from Rio's attack with his all for a while until one finally connects and he crushes against the ground, he stands again with trembling legs and runs towards Cristina and Flora thinking that he needs to take them as hostages again no matter what fi he wants to reverse it again, he dodges teleporting the first attacks from the tails that were there for protecting them, but suddenly he can't teleport anymore and then Rio that charged at him from the sky with the sword in front of him pierced his heart and impaled him against the ground without separating from him, when Lucius finally dies Rio reduces his body to ashes, he undones the yamata no orochi into very tiny water drops making a rainbow appear, then goes back to Cristina and Flora.

Six days later, Hiroaki is in Hugenot’s office with him and Roana, Hugenot explains to Hiroaki how the nobles’ morale skydived since Cristina and Flora disappeared, that for changing things he needs him to accept princess Rosalie, Charlotte’s little sister, as his first wife and Roana as his second, then Hiroaki says to Hugenot that he wants Lizelotte as his third wife as a condition and that Hugenot is in charge of the negotiations.