My Light Novel Isekai Story is Stressful As Expected (Eiyuu Senki Friend Insert ft. NekoNekoBoy)

[EmpirePlayer]

...it lives...!?

IT LIVES!

...to be perfectly honest I kinda still remember this fic... a bit. Then it came back when I wemt through it again.

But yeah good to see it back.

 

[Winged One]

Alex: Kudos to those who get the final joke. I know I didn't.

Chen: Hey! Hi! It's been a year! Oh my god!

Alex: Fics are declared dead after at least two years, we're safe.

Chen: Until next chapter. That'll come out in 2022.

Alex: That's also a joke.

Chen: We hope.

Click to shrink...

Fics are dead after a week, you're just great necromancers.

 

[EvaUnit01]

We keep saying it's alive again, but how long do we expect that to last?

Still pleased to see it return, though.

 

[Alexander]

Chapter 49: Brain Storm

====

Breaking news!

The Zipang army has just arrived near the still-unpronounceable Baghadhahah! We now report to the anchor live at the scene in order to give us an update and report on the situation! How's it going Chen?

"It's so fucking hot..." I complained, a variety of Seimei's temperature cooling charms hanging off my body. Maybe I should've just invested in lighter armor instead but I think my greatest investment was more the charm that I had attached to my forehead, though it made seeing through it a bit of a pain. I tapped it with a smile. "Good thing Seimei made me this otherwise I would've been in an even worse hell."

"I'm just thankful, and I cannot believe I just said it, that old fox is actually capable of something beyond blowing stuff up." Nobu grumbled. She was walking close to me, her armor giving off a sizzling sound every time a drop of sweat falling from her face hit it.

Suddenly she turned around and angrily pointed a finger. "Talking about it, how come you two are perfectly fine?!"

"Mind over matter, Nobunaga." Yoshi declared with a serene smile, looking as fresh as a rose. "Mind over matter."

"Compared to the heat of the forge I find the current temperature quite refreshing." Maragi replied.

I leaned over to the pink commander before whispering. "Fat keeps things warm, so a lack of fat totally means they get warmer less easily. Obviously."

Nobu smiled ominously, the air around her bleeding blood. "...You calling me fat, brat?"

"What? No, it was an insult to Yoshitsune, not you." I replied, shocked and offended. "Because you know."

I hit my chest once.

Dark waves of barely restrained violence now joined the blood aura. "I must be mistaken, because I could swear I just heard something insulting directed towards my august person." Yoshi's voice sounded like a heavenly chorus. You know, the type you can expect to hear during funerals?

"Do you really find this hot?" Ashoka wondered. Of course, she was wearing a little as usual. "How strange..."

"Mh... I see, I see." Joan nodded. "God hath spoken! Joan is thirsty!"

"Alright let's just move on from the heat." I declared, completely calm. Externally. Internally I'm pretty sure 75% of my sweat at that moment wasn't from the heat. Regardless of the personal safety of my life, I pointed forward. "Look! It's Baghadadad!"

It was round, it was made of stone, and it was very mathematical looking. I'm pretty sure this was Baghad, otherwise I probably would've gotten so embarrassed the heat from the sun wouldn't match the heat from my face.

"...Putting aside the current matter. For now." Yoshi's smile widened. Then she turned to a nearby soldier, the guy looking at me with pity. Oi, I'm your commander. "What is the status of our troops?"

"Ma'am!" He stood on attention. "Having predicted the current situation Lady Tzu made sure to choose men from India and other similar hot places. And thanks to the river we have plenty of water. However, the general opinion is that a prolonged battle is unfeasible since stamina is drained faster than normal."

"Mmh... Make sense." She mused while stroking her chin. "And where is Lady Tzu? I haven't seen her in a while."

"Ma'am! Lady Tzu, together with Lady Himiko, Lady Seimei and Lady Tadataka are resting within a carriage because, I quote, it's too hot outside, end quote!"

"Oh those jerks!" I cursed before pausing, "Wait, whose Tadataka? Is that Tama?"

"If you give people nicknames, at least try to also remember their real names." Nobu huffed. "Beside those present and the three lazybones we have Lancelot, Kamehameha, Kublai, Polo, Sanzou, Lu Bu, Sasaki and Benkei. Everyone else either was nowhere to be found or collapsed only a day after we entered this fucking desert and had to be sent back with a heatstroke. I would say we still have more than enough people to take over Baghdad, but considering our track record I'm expecting something absolutely absurd and ridiculous to happen sooner or later."

"So it's merely a matter of weather we want it to happen sooner or later." I paused, "Mmh, well I don't really have any ideas on how we could make a surprise opening strike so uh, send a messenger and tell them 'fight me bro' sound like a good plan?"

"We may as well. It's not like a surprise attack is even possible."

So we sent a messenger to deliver the message, together with the obligatory white banner. People don't shoot the messenger as long as they know it's a messenger.

It didn't take long for the guy to return with a reply. "Let's see..." Yoshi opened the scroll and began to read. "They are alright with our proposal, but humbly request for it to involve only a token amount of troops. Apparently they have a few financial problems and had to sell most of their equipment to make ends meet."

"Well, that's just an ouch." I winced, "How many troops are we allowed?"

"One thousand, three hundreds and fifty-one. Heroes included." The ponytailed beauty immediately replied.

"...Eh. That works." I shrugged before shouting. "LET'S GOOOOO- Gah! My throat is so goddamn dry!"

====

We reached the appointed place first, though it didn't take long for troops to come out of one of Baghdad's gates and march towards us. Most of them were armed with spears and big shields, with the rest being either archers or what I guessed were the local mage equivalents.

However, most of my attention was focused on the two figures at the head of the small army. The first one was a redhead holding a staff, and some fucking how she was almost on par with Ashoka for "Indecent dressing". No, I'm serious, she was in a goddamn bathrobe and hopefully a bit more underneath. The second was, slightly more understandably, dressed in rags. Her coat was patchwork and her long blue hair was long and unkempt but as she pushed a barrel over towards us I spotted something on top of her ginormous hat. Something that made this entire trip worth it.

I pointed at the person who I assumed was Diogenyis. "That is a cute dog! ...By the way could you guys like, not afford pants?"

"Hey, random kid off the street. Stop ogling me like a piece of meat." The dog spoke with a feminine, mature voice despite only moving its hanging-out tongue up and down. "You're too young to be a creep, go back playing with dolls."

"...You don't interact with young people much do you." I blinked.

"Cynic, don't be mean." The redhead reprimanded the dog with a lazy tone. "Hello, I'm Archimedes. Nice to meet you. I can't afford pants, you see? I'm poor. Being a scholar doesn't really pay."

"What she said. Plus, somehow we keep losing money even when trying to save up." The girl with the hat pushed the barrel upright and pulled the dog in her arms. "And I'm Diogenes. Nice to meet you. Cynic is just a normal dog."

I opened my mouth to protest that but then closed it. "You know, I think I should protest that on the grounds that she can, you know, talk. But then I remember we too have our own talking snake so you know, I don't even question this shit anymore."

Both the talking animals and the outfit. I glanced at Ashoka for a quick bit before shivering and turning back to them. Yeah I'm not making a fool out of myself a second time, mmkay?

"That's a good joke, but everyone knows snakes can't talk." Diogenes sounded completely serious.

"Who is this 'everyone' you speak of?" The red snake in question popped up from behind a small dune. And was that a jug of booze his tail was holding on? "I'd like two words with them."

"AAAAHH!! A TALKING SNAKE!" The two almost-nudists screamed in fright before jumping inside the barrel, struggling to be the first to enter. The top was closed, then the whole barrel started trembling.

...As quietly as I could I whispered to the rest of the group. "Does anyone have rope on them? Also can any of you tie a knot?"

"You really want to try whatever you're planning to do with a rope right here and now?" Nobu whispered back while eyeing the rest of the Macedonian troops. "I mean, if I understand things right those guys would probably be all too happy to get Exhibitionist #2 and #3 out of their hair, but I assume they have at least a shred of loyalty left."

"Well, look. Judging by the last encounter, I think I know of a way to handle this." I paused before turning back to the troops. "Hey! You guys tie up these two and give them to us and we'll let you guys fight a giant boar!"

They tensed up, a strange light glittering in their eyes, then bundled together to confabulate. It went on for a few minutes before one of them looked up at me. "How big are we talking about?"

"I don't know if we have an actual measurement, or if we even use the same unit of measurement but uh..." I pointed to the city wall, "About as big as that, maybe a bit bigger. It's decked out in gold armor and can shoot fire from it's nostrils. And if you really want the bonus points, this was a creature made by someone who created a weapon for a god. So if any of you have the hubris to challenge a beast on par with a god, if any of you want to hold that honor, well, you've heard my terms."

He nodded in understanding before going back to confabulate, this time for barely a minute. "Does the beast fight back?" After those words he turned a bit embarrassed. "My apologies, it's just that all of us fought only against Babylon recently, and those guys fight only on the defensive. We would like an actual challenge instead of just hitting a wall."

I turned to a certain devil and stared.

"What?" Said devil asked in mock confusion while drinking some of the booze. "Just joking. Gullinbursti loves a good scrap every now and then, he's Norse. I'll ask, just expect him to sulk for a bit if the fight doesn't satisfy him. A sulking Gullinbursti starts racing without paying attention to his surroundings, and well..."

"Eh, we'll point him at Babylon or something." I shrugged before turning back to the soldiers. "So, think you can satisfy him?"

That was apparently the right thing to say, because those guys' Brave started showing to the naked eye. Considering until now I saw only Heroes doing that, it was a very clear sign of how fired up they were.

====

"See?" I said to Yoshitsune as we all sat back and watched the spectacle unfold before us. "I am good at diplomacy!"

This statement was of course punctuated by a Macedonian soldier being tossed up to the sky by Guilin. Instead of screaming however, his cries specifically sounded a lot like "Wheeeeeeee!"

"That is not diplomacy. Nothing you say or do can persuade me otherwise." The samurai replied with a serene smile as she sipped from a small jar full of water. Next to her Benkei was pouring the content of a jar bigger than herself into her mouth.

"Water is important to keep yourself hydrated, but to cool down your body here's what I suggest." Lancelot put down a large crate full of food and began to eat from it. "Watermelon, cucumber, curd, coconut milk, mint, onion salad and melon!"

"I'm honestly pissed my expectations were right on the mark, but it's too hot now to complain. Will do it later." Nobu stated before taking a bite from a watermelon.

"Speaking of Diplomacy." I began, walking over to a certain barrel that was shut tight both inside and outside before knocking on the cover. "Hey, Cynic, can you help me out here?"

"I'm not talking with a kidnapper. The only thing you'll get out of this barrel are our cold bodies."

"Don't listen to Cynic, please. She says scary things." Archimedes pleaded. "We are open to negotiations, we really are."

"As long as you don't damage the barrel: that's mine and Cynic's home." Diogenes added. "Buuut, if you offer a sparkling new barrel that's never been used I'll accept it."

"Yeah you two can stay in the barrel for now while I work things out, I just need Cynic's help." I nodded before realizing they couldn't see me. "Just like, help me convince her."

"Cynic, pleaseee...?" Archimedes begged.

"Tch! Fine, but if I get tortured or worse, molested, I'm dragging you to hell with me." There was a thump on the top. "Open up. And remember: hands where I can see them or the deal is off!"

I rolled my eyes before opening the barrel lid. Idly, I waved a high to the two hobos that were squished together before the dog in question jumped out of the barrel. Idly I closed the barrel lid and sealed it up again before turning to Cynic. "Okay just follow me."

The dog twitched and growled at me a bit, but in the end obliged as I walked over to where Yoshitsune sat. "Cynic, this is Yoshitsune. Yoshitsune, this is Cynic. Please get to know each other. Consider this my apology for earlier, okay?"

"You the babysitter?" The dog asked.

"Once, I would have said no. Sadly, now I fear that's what I have become." Yoshi smiled bitterly. "Nice to meet you, Cynic."

"Go figure. Oh well, at least there's someone relatively sane to talk with." The dog waved her tongue back and forth. "So, what you Zipang people do to socialize? Eat raw fish?"

"That's called Sushi, and no. Green tea is-"

"Oh, by every not-existent god! I was just joking! You people truly eat raw fish? How are you not dead yet?" Cynic took a close look at Yoshitsune and me.

"Ah, yeah, no, I don't eat sushi." I waved. "Also how do you know that the gods have vanished?"

"What never existed in the first place cannot vanish." The dog replied. "If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil. And yet, evil exists. If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn't have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn't know when evil exists, or doesn't have the desire to eliminate all evil. Therefore, God doesn't exist."

"Hold up I need to contact my talking snake." I glanced around for anywhere he could be hiding behind before sighing. "Okay, come on, you knew God personally, you can't not chime in on this."

"I knew one God personally." Satan remarked as he emerged from behind Lancelot's crate of food, a suspiciously large bulge in his body. "But alright. You there, canine. Why are you assuming God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect? What even counts as morally perfect?"

"Oh? I'm questioned? Very well." Cynic sat down. "Morally perfect is understood as practical excellence, an excellence concerned with desire, character traits, and action. A perfectly good being has the best desires that a being can have, and exhibits the best traits of character, and acts in an unsurpassably excellent way."

"If we consider all beings to be fundamentally the same. Which they aren't." The snake waved his tail.

"Uh, hey," I interrupted before coughing. "I'm going to go head over to the barrel. You guys can figure this out in the meanwhile."

"Sure thing." Satan waved me off. "For example, let's consider cannibalism. Is it wrong? For human, yes. But there are animals that do it, and nobody tries to stop them! So-"

I gave Yoshi an apologetic look before dashing the fuck out of there and back to the barrel. Rapidly knocking on the cover, "So, good news, Cynic isn't trying to kill anyone. Bad news, she is now getting into a philosophy debate about god with our talking snake. Don't try and start anything on that because I know, factually, for absolute certainty, that gods are real and they just vanished one day from humanity. Look long story short you guys are philosophers right? I need an opinion on something and you guys are like the only ones qualified to sorta answer it."

"Uhm, I'm more of an inventor than a philosopher." Archimedes replied with hesitation. "And Diogenes curled up into a ball and startled mumbling, she always do that when separated from Cynic so I don't think she can help. But, uh, I'll try my best?"

"Okay great because I need to rant about this to someone." I sighed before shaking my head. "Now, and hear me out here, I'm pretty sure reality is broken. And I know this because as unbelievable as it sounds, I'm from an alternate timeline. Think of that like a different reality where the events of things happened differently. At least, I think I'm from an alternate reality. See when I got to my home island of Hawaii I encountered Satan the talking snake who also remembers the time I'm from, but he's from this timeline or something and apparently things just kind of happened one day and he found himself in Hawaii."

I took a deep breath and sighed. "Then things got even more complicated when we ran into Jeanne. Basically one of my commanders who Satan knew hundreds of years ago and more importantly, she died. But the version of Jeanne here still recognized Satan despite the aforementioned reasons. Now according to Galileo time is more, looping. Repeating itself. Things have been altered, the liner flow has all been smashed together, and everything is happening again. The reason why Jeanne still has her memories is because those memories were so important to her that she didn't forget them in the repeat. Or something."

One final pause. "And also everything may or may not have been caused by a conspiracy that wants to keep the world in a state of eternal war for some reason but they aren't important right now. God I have wanted to get this off my chest for a long time. Any thoughts?"*

"...That, if true, is indeed worrying." Archimedes replied, her tone soft but serious. "If we compare reality to a book, then the current situation would be similar to someone replacing the pages with altered copies of previous chapters. Circumstances make only sense in the present, while the past is full of contradictions. And if the gods existed but vanished, then one reason I can think of is that they not only realized something is wrong, but were able to do something about that. So their existence was a threat. Or maybe the current situation wasn't possible as long as they were present. Either possibility is quite... foreboding about its implications."

"I don't know about the giant boar thrashing through your troops over there because he can't talk but the creations of the gods are still around, yet the only thing they can recall about what happened is, well, quite frankly nothing. There's a giant gap in their memories between the natural state and the current situation." I sighed before shaking my head, "Speaking of contradictions, mind helping me with an experiment? I want you to close your eyes and think over every single bit of your life. All the important moments... then I want you to try and see if they fit. If one of them isn't just quite right, an altered page or chapter like you said. Can you do that for me?"

"You're pretty sharp, Light Boy." A voice I didn't recognize whispered into my ear from behind. Just hearing it made me sick. Each word filled me with profound revulsion. The lightly joking tone enraged me beyond belief.

It was, as if...

Everything about the owner of that voice was my complete and utter antithesis.

"But giving a girl an existential crisis? How cruel of you." The voice (male/female/something else?) giggled, making me want to just rip out its tongue and shove it through its brain. It took every single bit of my willpower not to explode right then and there. My heart was a mess, a mixture of anxiety, anger, and general confusion all stirred together to make a nice boiling soup of 'what the fuck'.

This was not what I expected, this was not what I expected at all.

I fucked up I fucked up I fucked up I fucked up-

No!

No, no. Keep calm. Just gotta, gotta think for a moment. Gotta say something.

"So..." I practically growled out, my brain working at 500 miles a second. Bad guy, Illuminati, last encounter- Ah! That's right! "I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you're Mu?"

"Uh, no? My name is Archimedes, I thought I introduced myself already?" The redhead still sealed in the barrel replied with a confused tone.

"MY KING!" Joan shouted with urgency as she rushed towards me at full speed. "God hath spoken! The true enemy revealed itself! Are you alright?"

"Did- Did they just bail on me?!" I glanced around wildly. "Oh come the fuck on!"

There was a fax-like sound coming from Joan. "Uhm... I see, I see. God hath spoken again! He bade me to repeat those exact words: "Boy, for a split moment a hole in my awareness appeared behind you. I can only describe it as complete, utter Darkness. What happened?"

"I mean you said it yourself." I groaned, pressing a hand to my forehead as my heart throbbed in my ears. "I was talking to Archimedes and then I think I asked too many questions as they were all 'You're pretty good' but not in like the cool way then they laughed at me before apparently just fucking off else where."

I took a deep breath before sighing and knocking on the jar. "Speaking of, you doing alright there Archie? Any existential crisis or anything? You didn't block out the last few minutes from your memory right?"

"No, no. I'm alright, thank you for asking." She answered. "But, between 'Can you do that for me' and now only twenty-four seconds passed. I know because I always count my breaths. Just to let you know..."

"I- I mean," I gave an awkward look to Jeanne before turning back to the jar. "That's uh, nice to know? I don't see why that's important but uh, thanks? Anyways did anything odd come to mind?"

"Sorry, I will need more than twenty-four seconds to go through every moment of my life. You see, I have eidetic memory: it is literally impossible for me to forget something." She told me with an embarrassed tone. "Ah, but my first year of life doesn't contain anything strange? Except my parents being too loud in the next room and my nanny blushing so hard she was literally steaming, but I got used to it."

Uh.

Huh.

"I did not need to know that. I really did not need to know that." I muttered. Still, what the hell were the odds that the person I asked had- "Oh that's right! Hah! It's eidetic memory because you guys don't have photography yet! Hahaha... It's not that funny."

I shook my head before waving at the closed jar. "Anyways, I'm going to check to make sure Cynic and Satan haven't killed each other. Tell me if you recall something. Jeanne, you watch over the jar, got it?"

"I hear and obey! My king, I shall defend this jar with my very life!" She slammed a fist over her chest, producing a very loud clunk. "No one but you shall be allowed to come close to it!"

"Please give me at least twenty minutes, it should be enough." Archimedes added. "Uh, such a frilly dress. So many ribbons..."

Twenty minutes huh...

Are you kidding I'm not just going to stand here doing nothing for twenty minutes. Who do you think I am, someone not from the twenty first century? Hah! My troops can't even stand five minutes without some dumbass challenging the mongols to an arm wrestling contest!

...In short this was going to be a boring ass wait. With a sigh I plopped myself on to the hot ground before staring off into the sky, hoping that daydreaming would make the time go by faster.

I should've brought a booooooook.

====

Twenty looong minutes later, I saw no indication the talking dog and snake started killing each other. On the other hand, somehow they set up two big white sheets to act as blackboards and start scribbling on it with something black-colored: for the most part it was too far away to see what they wrote, but I could swore there was a penis or two. The fuck.

Meanwhile, the local Macedonians were still fighting the giant boar, the latter also sounding quite happy now. Oh, and the giant goat set up shop nearby, with female servants milking her teats of alcohol and giving it to soldiers: some were already singing drunken songs.

Everyone was having a party while I was still waiting here, thinking...

"Hey Jeanne." I called out with boredom while I lied down in the dirt. "You think Lancelot knows she's french?"

"Is she?" The blonde tilted her head. "I haven't conversed with a fellow countrywoman in a while. My king, do you think she would be amenable to discuss passages of the Bible while praising your virtues?"

"Okay first off, don't praise my virtues." I raised a finger, "Second off, like I said, does she even know? Legend has it that Lancelot was raised by the lady of the lake, then when she went off on her own for the first time she saved a city, looked in the coffin and it was all like 'Surprise! You're the long lost heir to a french throne! Lancelot Du Lac or something. Thirdly, another myth had her be outright rejected by the holy grail but I'm sure you can figure something out."

"I had no idea French royal inheritance could be found within coffins. My king, your wisdom is truly boundless." Joan nodded. "I shall inquire about Lancelot's exact circumstances and then report my findings to you, my king."

"I have finished." Archimedes announced. Her voice sounded a little shaky. "The results are... I am 100% sure my memories have been altered without me noticing. Or, if time is indeed looping and the past is altered, then the discrepancies are a result of multiple 'me' from different timelines being forced to exist within the singular existence that is the current 'me'. It is very, very sinister and random and I don't like it at all."

"Okay, okay, just calm down. You're still you, okay?" Alright how to handle this... "Did you say 'multiple' versions of you? As in, your weird memories don't line up with the other weird memories?"

"It's a matter of details. For example, there are some parts of my life when events would make more sense if I was male instead of female, even if I can clearly remember myself as a female. It's the same with some of the people I knew, even Teacher. Then there are events that don't make sense if fitted into a precise chronological order and information that shouldn't have changed between now and then, but did." She explained. "At a first glance it makes sense. At a second glance you dismiss doubts as your memory being hazy. But on the third and following ones..."

"Okay wait hold up." I held up my hand to my chin. "At a second glance you dismiss it as a badly recalled memory. But you know you don't have a bad memory. In fact it's perfect, so was it some sort of mental compulsion inserted into you so that you won't question it or was that your own thoughts?"

"Good question. I think that was my own thoughts, because until now I had no reason to contemplate my past life from beginning to end. However, there is another explanation." She made a short pause, as if gathering her courage. "That the 'reset point' of the time loop happened only recently. Recently enough that only now, with your prompting, I realized the discrepancies that take even me a second glance to become visible."

"Only recently..." I scratched my chin before pausing as a thought occurred to me. "I might have a way for you to figure out more... but with your current state I'm going to leave it up to you if you want to do it. It's not going to be sweet at all, in fact it's going to be sour as all hell. But if you want we can give it a shot."

"The situation is dire enough that my discomfort shouldn't be a factor, but thank you for the consideration. May I have a day or two to rest and prepare? Also, I believe you have too many matters at the moment to handle to have the time to perform such an experiment. Just saying."

"Too many matters at-" I glanced back at the full on party behind me. "Oh. Oh."

I paused to stare at the chaos unfurling before my eyes. "Yeah I should probably get this situation under control huh? Joan, orders are the same as always, I'm going to go... hopefully not end up in the hospital wing for the next week."

This is gonna suck...

====

Luckily for me, I did not end up in the hospital wing for the next week.

That honor went to the Macedonian soldiers that fought the giant boar, although both them and the suine spotted very satisfied expressions: battle maniacs all of them...

Regarding Cynic and Satan, the two didn't come to physical blows but somehow their discussion went from the subject of God's existence to the rights of gay people to hold parades while almost naked. Because apparently those two things were related somehow.

Anyway. The doggo went back to her owner, who finally snapped out of her funk and started talking animatedly with Archimedes, the injured were taken care of and Yoshi was discussing with Baghdad's leadership about setting up shop in the city. Leaving me free to... experiment.

"Christ I sound like a mad scientist when I put it like that." I muttered to myself. I was neither mad nor a scientist. Wait but the mad scientist is a term that implies either a lack of regards for morality in science or an absence of logic in science- Okay time to stop thinking about this! "So, Archie. How you feeling? You ready for this?"

"I'm feeling better, thank you." She replied with a small nod and smile. "Things just turned more complicated than I expected."

"That's an understatement, my friend." Diogenes fixed her glasses, doggo cradled within her arms. "In that regard, could we have an explanation about what this 'way' you mentioned entail?"

"And no, we aren't blind-tasting anything." Cynic remarked.

Diogenes bopped her dog's nose. "Hush you, let me speak for now."

"You aren't blind-tasting anything!" I paused before turning back to Archie. "She is."

"Told you!"

"Hush you! We're here as witnesses, I'm sure things will be perfectly fine."

"Uh, so this method involves eating something?" Archie tilted her head. "Is that why you mentioned sourness?"

"Oh yeah. Wasn't being metaphorical there at all." I reached over to a desk where I had stashed the fruit of the hour. "This is the Fruit of Knowledge. Eh, it's got a bit of a reputation but if you haven't read the bible then you'll probably be fine. Anyways apparently it's super sour but I haven't tried it myself because I don't like food. It's said that this'll make you smarter once you eat it but like, again, haven't tried it myself. Probably would be the worst taste you'll ever experience-"

I paused. Bad tasting. Fruit. Devil.

SON OF A BITCH WAS THIS A ONE PIECE REFERENCE?!

"Bad thoughts! Bad thoughts!" I cried, shaking my head before turning back to Archimedes. "Okay so like, there's a bunch of ink and paper stashed in this room for if you go into some maniac fugue state. Also you're getting the closest thing I can find to therapy for the next month at the very least. Some medical doctors are on call and this room has been baby proofed... Oh, yeah, you see that bed over there? Go lie down on it, don't want you fainting and falling down on your head or something."

"You thought of everything, my compliments." Diogenes said. "Well Archimedes, what do you say we give it a try? And if it works, sourness or not, let me have a try at it too. By the way, does adding sugar to this fruit nullify its effects?"

"I dunno hang on." I knocked on a nearby desk. "Hey Satan, does God have anything against sugar?"

"Nah, not all all." Said red snake's head popped out from within a drawer. He exchanged a nasty glare with Cynic before continuing. "I just didn't have sugar at all while I was living alone. I tried making a salad once, but the sourness overwhelmed the other flavors."

"Okay okay..." I held a hand to my chin. "Well, I could have Lancelot taste test or something but... Nobody needs Lancelot with a taste for knowledge. Literally. I already have to bat her away from eating these things as it is. You guys just, like, mind eating it raw?"

"Oh no, I don't. Even if it's a strong sourness, I can endure it for one time." The redhead looked closer at the fruit, took a sniff and then picked it up. "Here we go?"

"We'll collect some flowers from the closest field." Cynic said.

"Cynic, don't be mean."

And then she took a bite.

For a moment no one moved. Even Satan was staring at the inventor with a raised eyebrow. "...Sour." Archimedes finally commented as she chewed slowly. She swallowed, then took another bite. "So sour, so sour..."

She continued like that until she finished the fruit, going as far as to lick her fingers. "So sour..." She commented one last time, then went very still. Like, I didn't think she was breathing?

"Okay everyone." I began slowly, "I want everyone to take a step far away back and also DOCTORS FOR THE LOVE OF FRUIT GET READY!"

"EUREKA!!!" Archimedes shouted at the top of her lungs, jumping up in the air and swinging her claw with such force it carved out a piece of ceiling. "EUREKA!!! EUREKA!!!" Landing back she grabbed a quill and started writing furiously. She filled a whole sheet of paper, both sides of it, in a few seconds and then switched to a new quill and page.

"Experiment successful?" Diogenes mused before picking up a page and reading it. "This formula... refraction of light and multiplication values in concentration with multiple sources? Interesting, though I don't see how it can be applied in real life."

"I swear to god if she starts inventing fucking lazers-" I shook my head, "Okay okay there are a whole fucking lot of ways that could be applied to real life. Like, trust me, as someone from a timeline where that was already a thing sorta, we achieved a hell of a lot. Don't ask me what though because, again, I'm not a scientist."

"Really? Good for future scientists then. Me, I'm a philosopher." She put the page back on the desk, where a large pile was already forming. "I'll keep watching over Archimedes to make sure she takes care of herself. Oh, and when the effects end I'll like to try a Fruit of Knowledge too."

"State your price now or no deal." Cynic added.

"Hush you."

"Yeah, uh. Yeah..." I nodded dumbly before turning to the snake in the room. "Make sure she doesn't figure out something that'll get the Illuminati after us even more. I'm... going to go back to trying to take over the world..."

"Hey, if it's a weapon we can use against those fuckers all the better. But I get it, I'll keep an eye on Reddie her and stamp CLASSIFIED on anything compromising." His tail emerged from another drawer, holding a stamp. "I'm used to handling the fallout of those fruits being eaten anyway. I told the Old Man to remove the tree or at least send a few Cherubs to collect the mature fruits, but did he listen? Noooo, he was busy sweeping the last remains of the Dinosaurs under the carpet, him."

"Okay. That's it. I'm out." I waved, walking my way out of the room. "Never using those fruits again!"

====

Notes:

Alex: How it was meeting Archimedes and Diogenes?

Chen: The strongest nudist hobos I have ever met.

Alex: You didn't even fight them.

Chen: The Strongest.

 

[EvaUnit01]

I think I like this version of Archimedes.

And I'm pleased to see a new update.

 

[Iron Roby]

"Speaking of Diplomacy." I began, walking over to a certain barrel that was shut tight both inside and outside before knocking on the cover. "Hey, Cynic, can you help me out here?"

"I'm not talking with a kidnapper. The only thing you'll get out of this barrel are our cold bodies."

Click to shrink...

Don't be such a bitch, Cynic. Your own soldiers kidnapped you. Chen is just holding you as a prisoner of war. Or, at least, as a prisoner of arranged brawl with a giant pig. That's much more dignified than just being a kidnap victim.

 

[endlessdreams]

FriendInsert? Any relation to BakaSmurf? His stories always bore me with how they follow canon closely and his pointless bickering with this "friends" just doesn't endear me to him.

 

[NekoNekoBoy]

FriendInsert? Any relation to BakaSmurf? His stories always bore me with how they follow canon closely and his pointless bickering with this "friends" just doesn't endear me to him.

Click to shrink...

Hey, how am I supposed to respond to that?

Um, no. We're not connected to that guy in anyway. We're just doing our own thing here.

 

[endlessdreams]

Hey, how am I supposed to respond to that?

Um, no. We're not connected to that guy in anyway. We're just doing our own thing here.

Click to shrink...

You don't really. I am just saying stuff because I am still holding a bit of contempt for him. Due to reasons

 

[Alexander]

FriendInsert? Any relation to BakaSmurf? His stories always bore me with how they follow canon closely and his pointless bickering with this "friends" just doesn't endear me to him.

Click to shrink...

Hey, how am I supposed to respond to that?

Um, no. We're not connected to that guy in anyway. We're just doing our own thing here.

Click to shrink...

What NNB said. We're just using the concept of FI him and Luckychaos started (or it's older then them? Can't remember).

If it helps, I find their outright hate for spoilers annoying. I mean, they treat them like some kind of cardinal sin.

 

[Alexander]

Chapter 50: Standing in the Sun

====

"After occupying a new territory, it's only natural to take a tour of the restaurants~" Lancelot cheerfully declared.

"So you're the one eating and I'm the one paying right?" I asked, making sure I had enough money stashed away. After the last time, I had prepared for this occasion and dedicated a specific amount of the budget to Lancelot's stomach.

"Don't worry Chen, I always make sure to keep my checks and even order them by date." She informed me. "I've checked them all out~. Strange cucumber soup, tartar, eggplant, beef stew, meat moussaka, and pie. And then everyone's favorite... kebabs! And for Seimei, I'll buy some famous grape liquor called Raki."

"Literally none of that sounded appetizing in the slightest but okay." I snapped my fingers before pausing. Slowly I glanced around before letting out a breath. "Okay that liquor isn't part of my ever increasing debt to Seimei thank god."

"She asked me to buy it." Lancelot replied. "For some reason, she said that going on a restaurant tour with me would give her a stomachache."

"Well it's probably because some people actually have a limit to the amount of food they can eat." I shrugged. "Speaking of people who are going to get diab- I mean, have bottomless energy, let me go grab some people."

It took me around twenty minutes to get the invitations sent out but eventually the other occupants of this party arrived. Er, now that I think about, if I just went with Lancelot, wouldn't that be a date?

...Pfft, nah. With the shake of my head I turned our new party members.

"Aloha!" Kame half-shouted, half-sung. Her voice was just that good.

"What's going on here? What's going on here?" Mazero looked both confused and excited. Truth be told, I didn't exactly invite her to be honest. Rather, one of the servants found her in a barrel full of water and dragged her out before she drowned. Mysteriously, the only thing I ever learned about the situation was a note from Cook that only read 'I gave. Now it's your turn'.

No, seriously, what the fuck were they doing.

"Boooh." Himiko pouted. "I wanted to spend some time alone with Onii-san. My role as the adorable little sister is in-I mean! What did you have in mind. Onii-san?"

"We're going to party and lose all our money!" I shouted, jingling a bag of coins in the air. I paused before turning to Himiko with a tilt of my head. "Also, you sure you want to spend time alone with me 'imoto'?"

My eyes stared back at her like an empty, nomming abyss. They gazed into her soul~

Or at least that's what I was going for.

She blushed slightly before averting her gaze, pouting intensifying. "Is it wrong that I want to spend some time alone with my big brother? Like in the old days..." The last part was said in a lower tone.

"Great now I feel bad." I muttered. Well, that was the reason why I invited her in the first place. A sigh escaped my lips before I ran up to her and threw my arms over her shoulder. "Well if you're a little sister of mine then that makes you the (misunderstood to be) cousin of Alexander as well! So, ready to try the taste of your (false) ancestors' cuisine!?"

I paused, "Because I'm not. Nope. No way. Ya know me. I just don't like food."

There was a strangled cry coming from Lancelot's direction, as if some great blasphemy was witnessed by a pious person.

"I don't want to be related to that-that walking horror fashion show!" Himiko snorted, but leaned slightly against my side. "Fine. If we're going to rule those people then I guess it's only right we learn about their culture. And food, as long as it's tasty, it's always good."

"Oooh, we're going to eat?! Great!" Mazero's eyes blazed.

"Party! Party! I love parties!" Kame's hair were bobbing up and down.

My eyes blinked as I stared at Himiko before a snort left my lips. "Oi oi, you're feeling way more mature than before! Ah whatever, Quest start!"

====

First, lead by the Great Food Expert LancelotTM​, we started with the appetizers.

"Meze!" The Knight of the Round introduced a large platter full of small dishes containing several types of food. "White cheese, ripe melon, hot pepper paste with walnuts, thick strained yogurt with herbs, cold eggplant salad, brain salad, fried mussels, artichokes, yogurt with cucumber and garlic, rice-stuffed vine leaves and raw meatballs with bulgur, a cereal food made from the cracked parboiled groats of several different wheat species."

"I feel like you could've stopped halfway through that but continued on just in a vain attempt to try and convince me." I declared, looking Lancelot dead in the eyes.

"Did, did you just say brain salad?" Himiko's face was green.

"Yeeep. Specifically, lamb's brains soaked in salted water, then placed in a saucepan with vinegar and 500 ml of water. You bring them to a simmer and poach gently for 15 minutes, until the brains are just cooked — they will be soft when you poke them with a sharp knife-"

"Alright STOP!" Oh god I feel like I'm going to gag just thinking about it, "Nope! Nope! Nope! I hereby dub this 'Mystery Food X'! What is it? No one knows! Anyone one who spoils the mystery is banned from the table! All in favor?!"

Kame and Mazero raised their hand. Himiko ran out of the room midway Lancelot's explanation, but I guess the retching sounds counted as a yes. Even if the waiter was giving us a dirty look. Fuck that guy. I may be half-taiken but even I don't go that extreme with my food! Wait, did I say half-taiken instead of half-chinese? God I've been here too long.

"Fine, fine. More for me then." Lancelot pouted slightly. "Now, the drinks. Since we're all underage here I left out the alcoholic beverages, but we have: bitter coffee, a molasses-like syrup obtained after condensing juices of fruit must, black tea, a cold savory yogurt-based beverage mixed with salt and Hardaliye, a fermented beverage produced from grapes, crushed mustard seeds and sour cherry leaves. Amazing, isn't it?"

I stared at her. I really stared at her. The message was clear. I think she was suppressing a tear. I'm really sorry for making you cry!

"Ugh..." Himiko walked back into the room, rubbing what looked like mint on her teeth. "Trying to make me eat such disgusting... the indignity... Is it safe now?"

"Should be. Probably. Maybe. I'm not the best one to judge food." I turned to the other two occupants of the table. "What do you guys think?"

"Very strong flavors. Best to not eat alone." Kame said. "Full of energy for day of hard work."

"The smell is exotic!" Mazero took a deep sniff. "Oh, what about bread?"

"I'm happy you asked!" Lancelot beamed. "Now, Macedonian cuisine has several types of bread, some of them can even be found in a single city. First is Bazlama, a single-layered, flat, circular and leavened bread with a creamy yellow color. Then we have Gözleme, a traditional savory flatbread and pastry dish filled with various toppings. Kattama, fried layered bread. And finally Boortsog, a fried dough food made with flour, yeast, milk, eggs, margarine, salt, sugar, and fat. They go well with soups, tea and sweet things for dessert."

I glanced at the table, eyes glazing over the food. Sure the pastries, and uh, mysterious food x would catch someone else's attention and I probably sounded like a colossal asshole right about now but none of it looked too appetizing. And there's so much stuff as well! Drinks, food, suspiciously placed bowl of fruit of good and evil, brea-

"Fuck!" I shouted, snatching the bowl of devil fruit off the table. I've had enough of these to last me five lifetimes thank you very much! "Who the hell put this here?!"

"Kamehameha!" The green-haired, sun-tanned girl enthusiastically raised a hand like a child eager to please the teacher.

"Whhhhhhhhhhy!" I groaned, "I'm not the only ones who saw what these things did to Archimedes and Diogenes right?"

"Is that problem?" She cutely tilt her head. "I always have one ready for meal. Common courtesy."

"Every meal? Wait, just how many of these have you eaten?!" I glanced at her in abject horror, "What do you know?"

"Uh? Kamehameha knows many things." She assumed a thinking pose. "Like, I know plants need light to grow nice and strong. And water, air, nutrients, the right temperature, space and time. So you need to choose the right place and the right season-"


Much, much later


"-And that's why, despite humans and plants using the same nucleotides and the same double helix's DNA structure, we so different!" The green-haired girl beamed before swallowing the last piece of food in her plate.

"That sounds about right?" I glanced to the rest of the table. Lancelot was consuming the food, while the other two occupants of the table. Both of them had long since stopped paying attention and looked more like the aftermath of one of a certain monk's lectures. "Not really what I meant when I asked what you know but hey, cool, glad to know I'm not literally the only human left on this earth that knows what DNA is. It's weird but cool."

"Nature great teacher! You only need to learn how to listen."

That was when a Zipang soldier, who in an effort to stave off the heat was only wearing a white shirt and short pants, walked inside the restaurant. He briefly looked around before making a beeline for our table. "Lord Miyafuji, lady Himiko. I bring news."

I blinked, "Okay on a scale of one to ten how bad is it because I'm pretty sure half of the heroes at this table here are dizzy from knowledge."

"One, my Lord. A delegation arrived from the nearby city-state of Babylonia, they said they want to meet their new neighbors."

"Right, time to king shit then I guess." With a sigh I stood up from the table, still having not eaten anything, before plucking my adopted(?) sister up. "You guys enjoy the meal. Oh! And don't just leave Mazero lying there."

"Got it!" Lancelot cheerfully replied before turning to the waiter. "Excuse me, can I have seconds?"

"Ma'am, you and your friends - but mostly you - ate everything we had stored." Faced with Lancelot's sad expression the man faltered. "...I'll ask the chef."

====

"Heyo!" I shouted, bursting open the door to the meeting room, Himiko by my side."Was thinking of shouting 'Somebody once told me' but I think that would be too on the nose. Anyways someone reminded me I was a king so here I am!"

Nobu and Yoshi facepalmed at the same time. Even their groans were synchronized. Kublai, Marco and Sun were also there, though they seemed content to watch for now.

"Oh, it seems there is some truth in the rumors." Woah woah woah holy shit. How am I supposed to describe this chick? She was, uh, very green. Like, super green. Green clothing, green hat, green hair. The things that weren't green were the chains? That she had on? Is it supposed to be a fashion statement or a religious thing? I dunno man. I also could barely see her face through the dumb visor she had on. Like okay listen, they look exactly like a pair of sunglasses, but dumber. I was half expecting her to start finger blasting us at any moment. "Greetings, King of Zipang. It is a pleasure to meet you for the first time. I am Hammurabi, the governor of Babylonia."

"Uh yeah, hi." My head whipped towards Sun, glanced at Marco, before turning back to her. "Okay is that particular hair color common or did a green haired genghis khan happen and I didn't know about it?"

"I wouldn't say it's common, but neither is it rare. More like uncommon." The Taika strategist answered. "Of course, the exact percentage varies depending on the region. Right, Marco?"

"Hmph, why are you asking me? But I suppose you're correct, since only us Polo had green hair back in Venice." The ex-explorer, now spy, commented.

"Is the color of my hair an object of interest to you, King of Zipang?" Hammurabi asked with sincere curiosity.

"Well back where I'm from the only hair colors anyone could have without dying their hair was black, brown, blonde, red, and sometimes white. I don't exactly know how hair colors work around here ya know? Oh but don't ask where I'm from. It's complicated… and no longer in this world." Memories of a familiar but changed Hawaiian island popped up into my head. Where the streets and city that I grew up in had been taken over by nature, not a single trace of the world I once lived in existing. I shook my head of the thoughts before sighing. "Great, most of my nicknames for Marco focused on her green hair. Now I need to think of something more specific."

Said girl sneered at me before going back to quietly worship Kublai. Meanwhile, the taller and greener woman slightly lowered her head. "I apologize, it was not my intention to drag up painful memories."

"Why are you here, then?" Yoshi demanded. "From what I heard Babylonia is a country that doesn't concern itself with the outside world."

"Like I said, I merely wished to meet our new neighbors. The king of Macedonia tried to conquer us several times, I would like to know if this will continue or if I can finally give my soldiers their deserved vacations." The governor smoothly replied.

"You give your soldiers a vacation?" Nobu asked.

"Wait, we don't?!" I asked, whipping my head in her direction. "Isn't that like, really bad for morale?"

"We give leaves, not vacations. There's a difference." Yoshi explained. "Most soldiers are farmers and other kinds of basic workers during peace times. A leave allows them to continue working on their livelihoods even during war times."

"That is true for many countries, yes. Not for Babylonia." Hammurabi replied. "Among us being a soldier is a full-time occupation that began with training and last until resignation or retirement."

"How do you handle the logistics?!"

"Through careful planning."

"Mmh. Fair enough." I shrugged, "Anyways, right, conquering. Um, it's uh, it's kind of a complicated subject. I'm kinda like, contractually obligated to? And not with like a human I mean like a higher power akin to a god designated me to do it. Well to be more specific the goal was that I 'unify humanity' and honestly that's so vague that if we can find an alternative solution that doesn't involve a war I could like, run it by him and see if that checks out?"*

"...Interesting. While I will require further proof to be fully persuaded, I shall not context your claims for now. I am still your guest, after all." Hammurabi nodded. "It is a tragic reality that, in this world, strength is necessary to enact change. But there is a great difference between strength and violence, one that may take an entire life to realize. King of Zipang, let me ask you a question: what does being a ruler mean to you?"

"Ooh you're asking all the complicated questions aren't you?" I tapped my chin while shaking my head, thinking. "Well the textbook answer would be that a ruler is simply the person who is in charge of something, but it's always a bit more complicated than that isn't it? From a personal definition, everyone has their own idea of what a Ruler is, and that usually shows with how they rule. Some rule through strength, some rule through fear, some through popularity, and some through just being born lucky, but I suppose you're looking for how I see ruling right?"

Hm, how to answer this…

"From my point of view, in regards to the circumstances that have led me to becoming the King of Zipang, a Ruler is one of trust. It is the one singular person who all the citizens place their trust in with hopes that they guide them to a better future. From a young age, I never dreamed about becoming a king, but eventually I found myself unsheathing the sword Kusanagi no Tsurugi and suddenly everyone was electing me to be king. They put their trust and faith in me, so I have to step up you know?" I tilted my head. "People who think that the strongest is the most naturally fit to rule are kind of fools. Sure the strongest may cause change and chaos, but somebody who can't control the ripples in the pond will just cause the whole thing to turn into a distorted mess. Kings only have their power because of the faith their subjects place in them. There is no natural law of this world that just because a king is in power means they have to stay in power. Nothing prevents people from rising up and rebelling. But they don't, because they believe that having the ruler continue to rule would be best."

Ah crap I'm getting a bit long winded, needed to sum this up. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that a ruler is someone who serves the people. While from the surface it may seem like the other way around, nobody will willingly give a king power who doesn't have their best interest at heart."

"Oh my... Your words were honest and beautiful." The green-haired, green-clothed woman smiled. "You're right, I wanted to understand how you see ruling. And I like what I heard."

She gracefully stood up, her chains clinking slightly. "I have accomplished everything I planned for today. With your permission, I shall now take my leave."

"Already? You come here out of the blue, ask some questions and then just leave?" Nobu asked with an annoyed face.

"I apologize if my actions are confusing, but I assure you I have my reasons." She turned to me and bowed. "Young king of Zipang: when the time is right we shall meet again. Until then I will pray you never lose your way. Farewell."

"'Aight. Try not to get destabilized or destroyed by the conspiracy aiming for world chaos!" I waved.

"...That went... alright?" Himiko muttered once Hammurabi was out of sight. "Seriously, what did she want?"

"Sounds to me she was testing the waters." Nobu commented. "Babylonia is famous because it has maintained a strictly defensive policy of non-aggression since before recorded history. As a result, they have never been conquered by another country."

"But even with such a policy in play they need to be ready for possible aggression." Yoshi nodded. "I don't think she has hostile intentions, but she's definitely planning something."

"Jeez guys, a bit overthinking this much aren't you?" I groaned, "Sure, you're looking at this from a military and diplomatic perspective, but you aren't really taking into account the kind of person she is. Her main goal in coming here was obviously to test me and see what type of ruler I am. It's not like that question came out of nowhere."

I tapped my finger on the table as I tried to sum up what I learned in that brief encounter, "For one thing, she's obviously someone who values peace a great deal. It may seem odd to give soldiers a vacation, but it was clearly something that genuinely mattered to her. In fact, to her, we probably seem like the weird ones. Secondly, she carries herself in a sort of vibe similar to Ashoka, Jeanne, and Sanzou but like, actually kinda legit. Her words obviously were meant to carry a lot of weight, so she strikes me as the type to be a sort of profound thinker."

I paused, "Er, to sum it up, I don't think we need to worry that much. Like she said, when the time is right, we'll meet again. I've offered a more peaceful solution then just outright conquering them so all we need to do is prove our cause is legit and I don't think we have to worry about anything from them."

"...That would be an ideal scenario. But considering our past experiences it doesn't raise my hopes much." Yoshi sighed softly. "I will consider it a small grace that we are not going to fight a two-fronts war. The logistics to and from Macedonian lands continue to be hard."

"I have a solution for that." Sun took out her customary stick and tapped the table. "We need to restore the Silk Road."

"Isn't it the road we took to come here?" Kublai spoke for the first time.

"The general direction, yes. But the true Silk Road was a network of trade routes that connected the East and West. Sadly, according to my information the various structures that facilitated those trade routes have fallen in disarray following India's corruption problems and Macedonia's conquering streak. If we restore and put it under our control the gains will be amazing!"

"More money?!" Himiko stood up and slammed her hands on the table, eyes shining.

"More money!" Nobu declared as she imitated Himiko.

"Shame I don't know how to react here." I shook my head, "Something something that's very cash money of you I dunno."

Real shame material wealth doesn't entice me that much. Real shame.

There was a knock on the door. Before anyone could answer it opened, and Lucy slithered inside. "Reddie fell asleep after pretty much writing an entire book and half the walls. The doctor doesn't expect her to wake up until next week, Dog Girl is watching over her."

"Well did she give the book a cool title?" I asked, partially because that was the first question to pop into my head.

"Katoptron Katho Phlegon." The red snake answered. Then paused, as if carefully considering his words. "Boy, are you familiar with the expression [Imma firing mah' lazer]?"

"Excuse me we came from the same time period right?" I asked, "Because I need to know if you're like two decades behind on memes. Also… Oh god she didn't."

"I'm several thousands of years old, my memory isn't perfect. And yes, she did." He shrugged. "Well, for now it's merely a siege weapon that only works during summer. Also, it needs four Brave-using individuals to operate. But if those conditions are set? I doubt there is anything in the world capable of not turning to ash."

"Uh… fuck." I turned over to the rest of the table before rubbing the back of my head. "Whoopsie, I just destroyed the balance of war forever. I swear I only did this for conspiracy theories."

Nobu had a hungry expression on her face, slowly licking her lips. "Tell me more."

"Down you." Yoshi bobbed the pink-haired woman on the head with her sheathed sword. "The same is true for the rest of you. Let's handle this like responsible adults."

"Muahahaha!!" Himiko laughed. "Burn! Buuurn!"

"How to restore the balance of war when someone does something both revolutionary and moronic." Sun muttered as she wrote. "Now to shorten it..."

"Can you ride it?" Kublai asked, looking totally serious. Marco was swooning, as usual.

"Okay so um, to put this into perspective, you know what items that are 'blessed with the sun' or something are? Usually they have like a neat little magical fire or just stronger thing going?" I rubbed my head. Oh what the hell have I done? "This is not that. This is, to put it bluntly, actually throwing the sun at people. Now I'm pretty sure this goes against several rules of war so uh, fuck I don't want to use the super murder death ray thank you very much."

Think think think...

I turned over to the snake. "Listen when Archimedes wakes up, if she remembers anything, tell her to make it less killy but more compact and portable as a trade off. Hide the documents some place where no one, and I mean absolutely no one, would ever look. I don't care if this means on the tip of Mount Everest or up your ass, never bring those documents out until the absolute worst case scenario. Got it?"

"Got it. I may be associated with sin but, by my bloody hell, I take responsibility for my actions." Lucy answered seriously. "I'll take the Vimana and see if some places I remember still exist."

His tail slid inside and pointed at Nobu. "Don't give me that look Pinkie. Stick with muskets, you'll enjoy them a lot more."

"BUUURN!!!"

"And someone please snap Shortie over here out of her delusions!"

====

Notes:

Alex: This reminds me of Indian mythology, where various demigods tossed magical nukes at each other.

Chen: This fucker made me write an impromptu speech about kings with absolutely no warning!

Alex: And you did great with only a short amount of time. Did you ever consider a political career?

Chen: I'm already king. Hell no.

 

[Frankfawn43]

All Hail the great king and his great sun laser!

 

[Anon_Anon_Anon]

Almost forgot that this was a thing, anyways enjoyed the fic and eagerly waiting for more.

 

[EvaUnit01]

Chen nicknamed many other characters by just going with the first two syllables, such as Yoshi and Nobu.

Designating the newest character "Hammu" sounds perfectly in character.

 

[Winged One]

Or "Hammy," if he doesn't want to sound like a weeb.

 

[Alexander]

Chapter 51: Make A Man Out Of You

====

After Satan left to find a, hopefully, completely secure and foolproof hiding place for the super murder death ray's projects, we left for Damascus to finally meet Alexander face to face. Again.

Diogenes asked me to offer her regards to her teacher, Aristotle, and humbly request that she forgive her and Archimedes for losing without even lifting a finger. Which, I mean, yeah fair, but also I'm pretty sure the giant boar made that understandable. Also they totally got a better deal out of that then we did.

Regardless, we finally made it to the city of Damascus, which I'm pretty sure a certain Rick Roll fucked me over into thinking was a form of currency. It was... I mean it was a city I guess. It had walls, buildings, and mountains but I grew up in Hawaii so you know, I'm not really impressed.

"I'd ask Lancelot if they had some sort of impressive food to compensate but-" I cut myself off with a shiver. "Yeah. No. Macedonian food is a very local dish."

"I don't know about the local food, as Lancelot-dono is a greater expert than I could ever be, but if you want, my Lord, I can tell you about the Damascus Steel that first became famous in this city." Maragi told me.

I snapped my fingers. "Oh! That's why it sounds familiar! Wait what was that famous for? Was it the mirror laser thing- No that was us crap. Is it a coin? I think they use it to make coins."

"They also use it to make coins, as Damascus Steel is more valuable than gold and silver, but it is weaponsmithing where it truly shines. While in Baghdad I came into possession of a small Damascus blade."

She took out a small knife blade without a hilt and presented it to me.

I blinked, "Holy shit that looks cursed."

Have you ever seen that cliche hypnosis black and white rings? The entire knife was like that. I wondered if I could actually call it craftsmanship because it looked so natural, as if the knife just existed like that. The wavy pattern on the metal reminded me of a tree ring, but it was so chaotic and fiddly that my eyes started to spin.

"It's like someone turned the 70s into a weapon you could stab someone with." I stated as I tried to avert my eyes. "It's psychedelic incarnate what the fuck."

"I assure you, my Lord, it is not cursed." Maragi stated simply. "You can tell it's Damascus Steel by the distinctive patterns of banding and mottling reminiscent of flowing water, or in a 'ladder' or 'teardrop' pattern. Blades such as this one are extremely tough, resistant to shattering and capable of being honed to a sharp, resilient edge. Damascus Steel is made from Wootz Steel, which is imported from India, but the technique to work it is a closely-guarded secret. I am afraid my esteemed local colleagues will sooner kill themselves and their own families before revealing it to someone not initiated into their society. Even if that someone is the ruler of the country."

"Alrighty then…" I mumbled, slowly taking the blade out of my personal blacksmith's hands before an idea struck me. With a slight grin on my face, I took Kusanagi out of its sheath and pressed the two blades together. "Eat it. It will make you stronger."

Naturally, all I got in response was a blast of heat from my sword that caused me to yelp.

"I do not believe feeding knives to a sword is a good method to strengthen it. A diet rich with iron is healthy, yes, but humans and swords are not the same thing." Maragi said with a completely serious tone. "There are some eccentrics that disagree, but I cannot speak in their place."

"Are you done dilly-dallying?" Nobu drawled. "Because we have a battle to fight."

"Silly Nobu, the fight is the dilly-dallying!" I exclaimed, wagging my finger before pausing. "Also I think we're just waiting on them now."

"Uhm..." Sun shielded her face from the sun with one hand and squinted her eyes. After a few moments she raised the other and made a series of quick gestures. "Either they want to parley or ask us to go drinking together. Could be either, the accent is horrible."

Apparently it was the former, because we soon saw a familiar crime against fashion running towards us... while carrying someone?

"Wahahahaha!!"

"Put me down! You put me down right now young lady or I swear I-Eeek!"

"Great!" Nobu slapped a hand over her face. "More comedy."

Alexander came to a sudden stop, large jets of sand spraying on both sides, and put down her passenger, who stumbled a bit from the unexpected change in speed. Well the person in question was a brunette with a ponytail and fairly obviously an adult woman. She had a similar kind of mascara around her eyes that Seimei does and her outfit was quite similar to Sun Zu, being a long blue dress that, for some fucking reason, was puffed up like a big baloon.

"So close to not being a fashion disaster, if only her skirt didn't defy gravity." I shook my head before patting Sun. "I think you pull off the teacher look better."

I dunno what it was, probably her cherry red lips, but something about her face made me want to punch it. The smug aura mocked me. Well, not so smug with how Alexander was treating her.

"Thank you. I mean, please don't pat my head as if I'm a child but thank you." Sun replied with a half-annoyed tone.

"Alexander! I'm perfectly capable of walking by myself!" The tall brunette chastised the walking fashion-disaster. "You don't need to carry me like a sack of potatoes."

"But Teacher, you can't run with those heels. Not to mention that poofy dress you like so much even though it makes you steamy all day." Alexander laughed. "You should walk around in only your underwear just like me! Collecting a harem of fine men would be child's play!"

"I'm not doing such a thing!" The other woman shrieked. "And what do you mean with 'harem'?! Where did you learn those things?"

"From Pops! He said harems are a great thing, because if one has a headache you can just go for another." Alexander then scratched her head. "Though I never understood what headaches have to do with harems."

"They have nothing to do with each other!"

"What's this, a comedy skit? A boke and tsukkomi?" Himiko muttered in disbelief, and I hated that I understood what that meant. "Am I supposed to laugh?"

"Oh god why did they have to talk about this in public..." I groaned, putting a hand on my face as I felt blood rush to my cheeks. That was, before an idea struck me. Putting on my most suspicious face, I cocked a raised eyebrow to a certain pink haired commander and her 'european' style. "So, a harem of fine men huh?"

"I don't like what you're implying, brat." Nobu growled.

"That's right!" Surprisingly Himiko came to Nobu's re- "In Nobunaga's case it would be a harem of sex slaves!"

Never mind.

"WHAT?!"

"With ropes. And candles. And long, big smooth objects that can't possibly fit but will do anyway because she pours slimy stuff all over it and-"

The pink-haired commander calmly gave her musket to a nearby soldier before leaping at Himiko.

"I... I have no words." Yoshitsune rubbed her forehead as the two childhood friends rolled shrieking, one in anger and the other with panic. "I really have no words."

"This is simultaneously the most embarrassing conversation I've had in my life, and also the most hilarious." I couldn't meet anyone's eyes, both because my face was currently bright red and because I was hunched over laughing. The next sentence I spoke was extra loud though. "I have to wonder. If we asked Goemon to search through Himiko's stuff, would we find some secret, special, grown-up stuff?"

"NO!" Himiko shouted.

"YES!" Nobu howled.

"Probable." Yoshitsune muttered. "No need to trouble Goemon, I'll check it myself."

"Everything I'm hearing is so worth recording." Sun chuckled. "Hey Magoroku, do you know some appropriate sword jokes?"

"Several, but I was told I'm not good at comedy." Maragi nodded. "Something about my face and voice always being out of place."

"Quick! Tell them to me! Nobody takes me seriously anyways!" I gestured for the woman to whisper in my ear.

"As you command, my Lord. The first one is an old classic told from old teachers to young and enthusiastic students." She whispered in my ear. "Teacher, said the student, I am about to invent a circular sword. But my student, replied the teacher, what's the point?"

I turned to face Maragi, expression blank. "No. Nope. No. That is neither situationally appropriate or- Okay so it's kinda clever but, no. Really, jokes are like the blades of comedy. And that joke has no point."

"Impressive swordplay, my Lord." Maragi actually smiled. "Then maybe you'll appreciate this one more. The blacksmith says: 'I'm almost done with this sword, I just need to work out the kinks.' In response the sword says: 'Hit me more!'."

"I, uh, wait how do you know-" I shook my head. "No. No. I'm not thinking of how Tumblr transcends time and space, lord knows Jeff Bezzo having done that with Amazon is enough already. Uh, hey Alexander!"

"Yes cousin?" She replied, still laughing as the brunette teacher waved her hands with an indignant expression. "Oh, Teacher said I need more proof before declaring someone's family. I'm sure she's worrying about nothing, but maybe you can reassure her?"

"My worries are legit!" Said teacher protested.

"Uh, just for the record, that was something Alexander decided on. Not me trying to trick her or something." I shrugged. "It happened because I know about the whole story of the maze, the Minotaur, think his name was Arsterios or something? Anyways the one with the golden thread. If knowing that's all it takes then we're siblings of knowledge at the very least."

"See, Teacher?! He even knows the name of great-great..." Alexander stopped and started counting off her fingers. After a short while she gave up. "Great-something grandfather! Nobody else in Macedonia knows it."

"The legend of Theseus and the Minotaur is widely popular in Greece!" The brunette protested.

"Really?! You mean I have lots of relatives in Greece?!"

"Alexander, I know you're brighter than this so please stop hearing only what you want!"

"I get the feeling you guys aren't really listening to me so I'll just start spouting off nonsense." I coughed. "You see, when you look at a relative, you know it's a Relative. I'm a relative, Alexander's a relative, Himiko's a relative, you're probably a relative if we look hard enough. Therefore, there must be some perfect relative, in a perfect world, that everyone uses to recognize what's a relative. Etc. Etc. Thank you for coming to my TED talk."

Meanwhile, two soldiers talked with one another. "Aren't we supposed to, you know, fight now?"

"Yeah, but this is entertaining so let's keep watching."

====

"That never happened."

"What never happened, Teacher?"

"Nothing happened. We just got here. That's a teacher's order." The brown-haired woman, who turned out to be Aristotle herself, declared with a firm tone and eyes that promised a fierce spanking as she glared at Alexander.

"I don't get it, but alright!" Said horned girl cheerfully replied before looking at me. "Hey cousin! How are you? Ready for some hot, steamy and absolutely exhausting action?!"

"Uh, actually I got magic stuff in my armor that regulates my temperature." I admitted with a shrug. "I may be an island boy but fucking hell is it hot in Macedonia."

"Neat! I don't need it because I was born here and this is just comfortably warm for me. Does it also work with cold? Because I always wanted to visit the north but Teacher said it's so cold your blood freezes if you're not a native, so I couldn't. You can't fight the cold, I tried!"

"Oh yeah you can't fight the cold. If you could, I'd have had Jack Frost's head a long time ago." I blinked. What were we here for again? Oh right. "Anyways, fight time! I know you said you wanted to fight all the strongest warriors of Zipang but do you mind if we hold back a bit? I feel like using a God-Made-Boar last time was kinda cheating and also I fed Archimedes a magic apple and she broke war so hard we had to ban it from the meta."

"I only understood a little of what you said, but that's alright! See, I thought about it." Why did everyone on my side look skeptical? "See, my dream is to see the far-off places of the world and tour ruins with Teacher. And I heard Zipang's goal is to conquer the whole world. So if I win you guys join me and we go out conquering the rest of the world! And if by any chance I lose I join your guys and still get to conquer the world! It's a WIN-WIN! Wahahaha! After all I'm the Champion of Conquest! You can't conquer the world without me! It's LOGIC!"

Wow. She said logic so forcefully that I was almost convinced it actually was. Though I feel if we compare our track records, I would actually be more eligible for the Champion of Conquest.

"Eh, sure. That's a loose approximation of logic." I shrugged. "So how do you want to do this? Every hero all at once? Every hero all at once plus the godly treasures we pulled from treasure hunts? 1v1 final destination, no items, fox only? You got a lot of options here cus."

"The first! Definitely the first! Oooh, I'm so excited my spear is shaking!" She raised her weapon, showing that, yes, her spear was shaking. Her hands too. "My stick has never been so hard!"

"One day, I'll find out who is teaching you this stuff..." Aristotle darkly muttered under her breath. "One last question if you will, King of Zipang. How are my students, Archimedes and Diogenes, doing?"

"Well Archimedes kinda had an existential crisis after I asked her to go through all her memories. Perfect memory backfires when you've existed more than once ya see? Then she decided to take a bite of the forbidden fruit, went into an inventing fugue state, and probably understands light better then any human on the planet right now." I paused. "Oh and I think Diogenes is fine. She was going to eat the magic apple as well but after Archimedes did uh, that I don't know if she took the plunge into how the universe works. I mean I know you philosophers think it's your job to see into the perfect world of ideas buuuuuuuut there's a reason knowledge can be considered a curse. Also, they still haven't been able to keep their pants, for reasons I cannot comprehend."

"Their chronic lack of skills related to money is one cause, I'm still working out the rest." Aristotle sighed. "Still, it sounds par for the course when those two are involved. I'll check on the later and see if they need remedial lessons."

"Want a hand? I am quite good at making remedial lessons." Sun interjected. "Name's Sun Tzu, nice to meet you."

"Ah, the famous strategist from the Taika Empire. It's an honor." The brunette offered a polite bow. "It'll be a pleasure to put my strategies against yours. Now Alexander, if you would be so kind."

"Sure thing, Teacher!" She raised her spear high in the air. "Now, to the distant ends of the Earth!"

Brave exploded out of her, blowing backward in the form of golden particles like grains of sand. They swept over the assembled troops, infusing them and igniting their own Brave.

"As long as our chests beat with ambition for the far horizon, the campaign shall never end. Raise your cries of war! AAAALaLaLaLaLaie!!"

"AAAALALALALALAIE!!!" The thousands of now-empowered troops repeated the war-cry, their voice so loud they buffeted us like strong wind.

"Uh… Fuck." I declared before gripping the sword on my hip twice. "Alright guess I'm going to have to use that. Hold on what was the chant again-"

Kusanagi vibrated menacingly at my side. "Jeez! I'm kidding! Ahem! Feel the Brave in me and… Henceforth, I am the God-Slaying Blade."

Looking back, this chant was kind of embarrassing. Still, I cribbed it from the woman who taught me everything I knew- Okay not everything- It was mostly just her beating me up but- still. I couldn't not say the chant. I rarely use it often, but the fires that formed greeted me like an old friend as a warrior of divine fury formed in the sky above. "Take form! Tsumugari no Tachi!"

"Hetairoi! Now advance! To victory!" Alexander yelled one final time before making a beeline towards me, the rest of the troops following in her wake. Meanwhile Aristotle has retreated to stand before several units of archers, issuing several orders while waving her riding crop.

"Ah! It's Lu's favorite tactic!" Sun exclaimed. Her face turned deadly pale before becoming cheerful again. "I've built a resistance to headaches! Chen, keep Miss Fashion Disaster busy for the moment, I'll direct the rest of our troops!"

"I have the ANTI-ARMY technique going and you want me to fight the-" I cut myself off with a curse. "Nope, fuck. I get it. Hey Alexander! Giant Sword Crash!"

I wasn't sure why I felt the need to name the, uh, giant sword of fire that slashed into the ground but you know what it's fine.

Alexander dodged it. I already knew she was fast, but the way she effortlessly weaved between gouts of flames and superheated sand - was that glass? - like a technicolor blur drove home that last time was nowhere near her best. Her troops were not as lucky, but a surprisingly large number of them resisted being swept again by blocking with their shields, followed by throwing their spears at the giant of fire, the light coating weapons making them look like bolts of energy.

That was when, in a moment of keen clarity, I realized why Sun asked me to fight Alexander even if TnT is an anti-army technique.

Because, right now, Alexander and her troops were so completely synchronized they were basically operating as a single entity!

"...What the fuck?" I muttered to myself as I witnessed the sight before me. In truth, that question probably applied to a good many things right now. How did Sun know about this? How the fuck did this even happen? Oh right, Brave bullshit. "All right keep calm Chen, just gotta figure this out and thiiiiiiink. You can do this, you gotta big brain uh uh-"

Hey question, how do you devise a tactic for a humanoid cluster of single celled organisms? All right first things first… RAMPAGE! With a loud bang I smashed my giant sword into their numbers, aiming to cause as much chaos as possible.

The spears-turned-bolts-of-light pelted the giant of fire: individually they were not enough to inflict more than a scratch, but their sheer numbers put up a pressure I distinctly felt though my connection with the giant. As the giant sword descended once again the troops reacted slightly better than before, dodging in advance or interlocking their shields to spread the force of the impact as much as possible.

"Not bad! Not bad at all! Wahahahah!" Alexander laughed as she ran even closer. One soldier raised his shield, allowing her to jump over it and leap into the air. "You can get harder than this, right?! Because I am so hard right now I could EXPLODE!!!"

With those completely inappropriate words she twirled the spear in her hand. Grasping it in reverse she pulled her arm back before tossing the weapon straight at TnT's face. If her soldiers' spears were like bolts of light, Alexander resembled nothing less than a lightning bolt of pure, cracking Brave.

"Bwahahaha." I responded as my jaw felt the phantom shocks of actual lightning. Okay! So! New plan! TnT is uh, wonderfully ineffective at fighting the Wonderful 101 here. What would Sun do in this situation- No, what would Lu Bu do?

… Probably not what I'm thinking but Alexander rides her men like horses. They stop and go at her orders, and if you've ever seen a movie ever, you know a hive mind like that has one weakness. As the Macedonian Warrior began to land, I called upon the technique literally shoved into my skull and burned in my brain. "GO-SHINTAI!"

I still fucking hate this technique, but the giant soldier armored my body like an old friend. A friend that was very fucking bright because wearing an armor made of fire is bad for your eyes. "Hey! Alexander! Come here! Ole!"

"Oooh! You can do that?! Neat!" With a flash of lighting Alexander's spear returned to her arms. "Alright boys, make a circle for us and keep everyone's out! This is now a duel!"

"DUEL! DUEL!" The Macedonian soldiers chanted as they quickly set around me and Alexander, shields locking together like a turtle to create a giant ring of metal that separated us from the rest of the battlefield.

Above the air was full of arrows and spells shooting everywhere, the light green of what I was mostly sure was Sun's Brave clashing with the azure one of someone else. Probably Aristotle.

"Now! Winner or loser! This decides everything!" Alexander shouted lines you could find in a fighting videogame. Holding her spear with both hands she shot towards me. "DUEL ON!"

"It's time to get your game on!" Ugh, way to get my lame on. Why did I have to quote that now, stupid impulse mouth. "Now I'm just going to say I have one and only one strategy and if that doesn't work then I'm just going to be doing random shit for the rest of the fight!"

"What a coincidence, so do I! We really are cousins! Wahahaha!" She thrusted her spear at me, the sharp blade-like head aimed at my chest. With a quick footwork, I shifted my body to do a smooth rotation around the thrust before… sheathing my blade.

Now, here's a fun fact. Annoyingly, I had to look up at Alexander. Why? Because she was taller than me. Then again, a lot of heroes were taller than me. Lu Bu, Kublai… Ignoring my slight complex about that, it actually gave me an advantage here as I proceeded to be a little shit and dash into her personal space, avoiding the spear thrusts as I used Brave to boost my speed. Fire followed my trail as I got up close and personal with Alexander before I proceeded to reach up, grab the girl's horns, and slam my forehead into hers.

That's right. Go-Shintai was used for no other purpose than padding as I proceeded to use her horns as handle bars to smash her skull into mine.

"Ooouch! Close quarters, my only weakness!" Alexander cried out from the, rather devastating, headbutt. Her large forehead was both burned and bleeding, and so close I could now see she had a red card club's symbol painted (tattooed?) over it. "Toooootally random idea!"

She dropped her spear and wrapped her arms around me, yellow Brave covering them in a protective sheen.

Then she started squeezing. That was the first problem. To illustrate this issue, allow me to put some numbers to the facts. I'm 5'6 inches. Alexander is 5'9 inches, so when she decided to hug me tightly my head uh…

"Mmmh!" I shouted in suffocation.

"Mmmh?" Alexander repeated with a puzzled tone. Luckily for me she was not as physically strong as she was fast, but it still took some effort to fight back her grasp. "I don't get it."

With a Brave-fueled by human survival instincts, desperation, and a shit ton of embarrassment, strength and power coursed through my arms and I quickly shoved the Macedonian leader away. My body, squeezed of it's natural strength, quickly dropped to the floor with a thud but my mind was still in a flustered panic as I pulled myself to my feet and shouted at the top of my lungs. "'Mmmh' translates to DON'T PUSH ME INTO YOUR GODDAMN BREASTS!"

Go-Shintai had already burned away it, and my face was still red hot. My hand covered it in embarrassment but I swore anime land had made smoke come out of my ears.

"My breasts? What's wrong with my breasts?" She poked at her chest in confusion, only for her face to light up in understanding a moment later. "It's because they're soft, isn't it? While you prefer hard and firm! I get it, I get it: after all, I feel the same! Wahahaha!"

Having once again completely missed the point Alexander reached out with a hand, lightning-like brave flickering over her skin-

And then abruptly fizzling out. The horned woman's body swayed a little before falling down on one knee. "Oeeeh? Oh man, I'm out of Brave! Usually Teacher gives me some more before it happens… Ah, it's because she's too busy now that I am not focusing all the enemy's attention to myself. What a blunder!"

Still laughing Alexander forced herself back to her feet. "That was short but intense. Hey cousin, I don't think I can use any more techniques. Want to resolve this with our fists and celebrate with a drink afterward?"

Don't get mad don't get mad don't get mad...

"Firstly, I don't drink. Secondly, allow me to introduce you to Hawaiian Boxing. You see first you get ready..." I forced a smile on my face before I quickly dashed towards Alexander and through a right hook right to her face. "And then you take turns hitting each other until one gives up!"

Incidentally this was a real Hawaiian tradition, Kamehameha was quite good at it. Some may consider it brutal, but please remember that these are the people who take paths of sharp rocks formed from lava and use it as a sledding trail for sports.

"Oooh, sounds fun! Let me try!" Alexander tanked my hook before answering with a straight punch to my face. "Wahahaha!!!"

In the end she was knocked out first, marking it as my victory. I quickly joined her in the arms of Morpheus, my face feeling like it had been battered by a rain of tennis balls.

Alexander the Great is one helluva fast woman.

====

Notes:

Alex: When they say that true men speak with their fists…

Chen: Uppercut! Uppercut! Dodge Dodge! Left right left right hook straight hook! I practiced boxing, remember?

Alex: Yeah. I just thought boxing involved some form of, you know, dodging?

Chen: It's Hawaiian boxing, well It's a tradition throughout Polynesia. It's a sport not a fighting style, so the name is a bit misleading. But yeah it's hardcore as shit.

 

[Frankfawn43]

It is a great day to get some more eiyuu senki.

 

[EvaUnit01]

Alexander the Great is one helluva fast woman.

Click to shrink...

This line coming on the heels of marshmallow hell is hilarious.

 

[Iron Roby]

This is still the single best and single Eiyuu Senki fanfic.

 

[NekoNekoBoy]

This is still the single best and single Eiyuu Senki fanfic.

Click to shrink...

Thanks, we work hard. Or well, Alex does. I flounder around and he has to deal with it.

 

[Alexander]

Chapter 52: Gold Experience

====

"Yo boy." Emiya greeted me, his tone betraying just the bare minimum of interest. There was nothing around us, just an endless whiteness... and a few comfortable-looking chairs. "I know the answer already, but how are you doing?"

"Feeling like I just injected pure Shonen Jumpian into my veins." I groaned. "You couldn't just fax Jeanne your message? I literally just rammed my head against the human incarnation of a bull."

"I could have, yes. It would have cost less energy too. But I prefer only you and you alone hear what I'm about to say." He looked thoughtful. "First, good job so far. The quality of life has increased in all the nations Zipang conquered, and the cultural influence is small enough the average Joe doesn't care. In short the majority is happy, and that is what matters to me."

"Tch, I should have made manga go world wide. That's the ultimate culture infection until we discover anime." I muttered, clicking my tongue.

"Possible. It doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things so go ahead if you want to." He shrugged. "Next, you may have noticed your rapid growth has slowed down by a noticeable margin: that's because you're strong enough to have a good chance against your recent opponents, so the metaphorical pressure for improvement lessened. If you want to increase it again you'll need to fight against someone able and willing to disembowel you. Those are the rules of evolution, I'm afraid."

"So you're saying... I need to start throwing myself against animals?" I lifted a few fingers, "The God Animals, the Sea Monsters, the gigantic sand whales in the desert..."

"That's an option. Not many works of the gods were left after they kicked the bucket, and most of the so-called Monsters live far away from human civilization: like normal animals they have no real reason to leave their territory as long as it can provide them with food and shelter. I predict few cases in which force will be required, but they're manageable. Now, creatures like Gullinbursti and Heidrún are god-made so I can learn about them only through observation, but they don't have a long track record of causing troubles. Again, manageable and not very relevant in the grand scheme of things."

He pauses briefly, face frowning in something resembling distaste. "Now, what Babylonia is protecting is a completely different matter. In fact, I don't exaggerate when I call it a natural disaster with a too-easy-to-pull trigger."

"Uh..." If there was a step to take back, then I at least attempted to do so. "So is that, um, something I'm not supposed to go telling everyone the moment I wake up? Because I'm pretty sure at this point that it's common knowledge I tell people everything."

"Like I said, I prefer you're the only one to hear what I have to say from beginning to end. So I can explain everything without people jumping to conclusions midway." The tanned man sighed. "Since ancient times Babylonia is protecting the home of two of the last true god-blooded left in the world: Great Heroes of Antiquity, Gilgamesh and Enkidu."

"Yes I've seen Fate Stay Night that's how your current frame of existence is being made." I blinked. "Wait, Enkidu is made of clay."

"Then you understand why, having assumed this form, I cannot help but feel animosity towards the golden bastard's local version." Emiya shook his head. "And yes, clay. Not normal clay of course, but clay. Just like water is made of oxygen and hydrogen, yet it's a liquid and not a gas."

"I mean I guess if that's true then- Wait doesn't Enkidu calm down after getting laid?" I put a finger to my chin. "Something about being created to beat Gil up and then... I don't remember this at all. Was there a point to this?"

"It's a warning to let the sleeping lion lie. Hammurabi has good judgment, she'll decide when it's the right time to step aside and let you meet the two headaches." The white-haired man rubbed his forehead. "Finally, though my ability to collect relevant knowledge from the collective unconscious of mankind has become... muddled in certain area, I can say for certainty BEAST has started making waves in the American continent. By the way, those pirates you met? William Kidd and Blackbeard Teach? Their base is where Mexico would one day be. If you're interested, that's it."

"...You uh, you were there when those guys literally declared themselves to be the Illuminati right?" I coughed. "Like come on man, how out of date are you in that regard?"

"Oh, I know. I'm just using the term you coined to spite them."

"Fair enough." Maybe I should keep giving them ridiculously edgy anime names to spite them as well. "So is that all or is there anything more before I wake up to whatever bones I've cracked this time?"

"That's all. I may be cynical and always waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I can still recognize it when things are progressing in a favorable manner and thus some form of optimism is warranted." He looks at his wrist, but there's no watch. "And I would worry more about your face. I hope you don't mind liquid food and a straw for a week or two."

And with those absolutely reassuring last words I felt myself slide out of the imaginary space and back into the real world.

====

"-So I cut the whole knot! Am I smart or what? Wahahaha!" That was the first thing I heard after feeling myself waking up, my whole head wrapped in bandages and hurting as if someone repeatedly punched me in the face... Oh.

"Aim uff!" I crie- coughed as my throat burned. Slowly I pushed my upper body off the bed. "ai scant beriver tha- wowo gawh mah fasce."

"Cousin! You're finally awake!" Alexander greeted me, the horned woman also covered in bandages but with less of them around the mouth. We were in what looked like an infirmary, the few other beds occupied by soldiers. Doctors and nurses were walking back and forth, doing their jobs.

And both Seimei, Satan and Aristotle were seated around our beds, while Joan was standing rigid as a statue next to mine. I blinked, stared, gave everyone an once over again, before quietly beginning to make a gesture of a pen and paper.

"Here my king." Joan handed me a notebook and a paper. "God revealed to me you would need those objects following your awakening. Praise His holy name!"

I nodded slowly before pausing, straining my face by furling my eyebrows, before quickly jotting something down and showing it to the rest of the room. 'Alright how many of you can actually read this?'

There were two reasons for this. One, as Seimei probably knew, my handwriting was atrocious. The second... was because I both couldn't, and wouldn't, write in anything other then English at the moment. Which is a problem when everyone around you is Japanese, Macedonian, French, and of course, Heaviean. Hellian? Satan ain't a Hellspawn that's for sure.

"I can... barely." Sei answered after peering at the paper with squinted eyes, followed by a raised tail by Satan and a hand by Aristotle. Alexander just kept grinning. "Don't worry Chen-kun, you should be able to speak normally by tomorrow. You heal fast, after all."

"Faight." I finger gun- Ow my hand!

"How did things end up in a fist fight... Sadly, I know the answer." Aristotle sighed. "But that's a good thing you woke up now, King of Zipang. I would like to discuss our re-employment: Alexander, Archimedes, Diogene and, of course, myself."

'Sadly we don't give out apples of enlightenment anymore.' I scribbled out. 'Archimedes broke war forever, so I'm banning those henceforth.'

"I would have declined the offer anyway. I am strongly against the idea of increasing my intelligence through artificial means." The bespectacled woman frowned. "I thought I taught my students the importance of avoiding shortcuts. Clearly they need remedial lessons."

Aw shit now I feel bad.

"See, now that is an intelligent answer." Satan grinned. "Or one full of common sense anyway. Sadly the Old Man didn't use much of both in the Garden's creation, he was too busy making sure each leaf was symmetrical."

'Please don't blame Archimedes too much, it was mostly my fault anyways.' I hastily scribbled down. 'The goal of it wasn't to gain external intelligence but more... Internal awareness? Archimedes' perfect memory has been the biggest hint I had gotten in a long time and I thought that if I fed her the apple I might be able to get something more. I didn't realize that the apple just shoves knowledge of whatever you're thinking of the moment it kicks in into your brain. It... yeah suffice to say it didn't exactly work as intended.'

"Mh, if you intercede for her then I'll give my student a lesser punishment." Aristotles' frowning features relaxed. "Returning to the previous topic, I examined the working environment and found it both functional and easily accessible. You rule effectively by entrusting that rule to the original Heroes of the country. The gears working together in motion makes for smooth governing indeed."

"What Teacher said! Cousin, you can leave everything to her while we go visiting the distant corners of the world!" Alexander nodded quickly. "And challenge to a duel every Hero we find, even our own allies! Don't think I have forgotten our wager! Wahahaha!!"

"Alexander... At least rest and heal first. Do you know how much trouble you cause every time you just rush ahead without thinking?"

"Wahahaha! Sorry Teacher, but that's exactly because I trusted you so much that I can just rush ahead without a single worry!"

"That's sweet of you, if still troublesome..."

"Just like a single mother with a teenage daughter." Satan whispered to me with a shit-eating grin.

'Satan likes mommy MILFs noted.' I jotted down.

"I am a snake of wealth and taste. Well, not much wealth nowadays beside a few trinkets, but I can't complain."

"Mmh... Teacher. What's that book in your purse?" The bandaged fashion disaster asked with a mischievous gleam in her eyes.

"Ah, ahhh! This, this is just-" A suddenly panicking Aristotle tried to close her purse, but ended up spilling it out on the floor. "Aaaahhh!!"

"Let me help." Sei bent down to pick up the spilled content. Picking up the book she read the title and raised an eyebrow. "[100 Ways to Make Male Friends]...?"

'Hello. I am dude.' I tried to write on the paper as robotically as possible before a laugh came out of my throat. 'Well at least it isn't anything like Himiko's BDSM porn.'

"Ah, that's it!" Alexander exclaimed, unaware or just ignoring the bespectacled woman's nuclear blush. "Before you get married, first you have to make some guy friends! That's really important!"

"AAAAAHHH!" Aristotles ran out of the infirmary, screaming like a damned soul.

A few seconds later Diogenes walked in, Cynic hugged against her chest. She also had two new dogs, a black one and a white one with black spots. "Behold! I have created dog! Say hello to Physis and Nomos!"

'...Are you saying that like you somehow figured out how to make dogs or did Cynic just have kids while we weren't looking?' I blinked.

"I don't have the foggiest idea!" Cynic cried. "It's like a hangover, but worse!"

Physis and Nomos began barking like crazy, which predictably ended up with them and Diogenes kicked out of the infirmary.

====

Following a quick convalescence, aided by my own cheating abilities and the general Macedonian toughness born from shounen shenanigans, Alexander dragged us to the capital, aptly named Alexandria because she had all the naming sense of an Alexander, for a celebration party.

The city itself was... Well it was quite nice actually. Tropical, by the ocean, I was reminded a lot of Hawaii though without the towering mountains that defined the island I called home. The weather was perfect for an island boy like me, tough I admit it's sparseness when it came to trees left something to be desired. What really caught my attention though was the shining, pure, white light house that towered high up into the sky. A skyscraper for this ancient age. It had several dozen floors in length and I had to strain my neck just to see the beacon at the very top.

I stared, unable to describe what I was feeling. Wait, no, that was easy enough. "Nice."

"That's Pharos, the second Glory of Alexandria. The first, of course, is the Great Library." Aristotles answered with a proud smile. "During the day they use a mirror to signal ships. At night, they use a bonfire: the large spiral staircase inside allows donkeys to transport the necessary wood."

"A real Wonder of the World." Yoshi commented, impressed. "Ah, I see you're building an addition?"

"The plan was to build a large fort." The bespectacled woman nodded in the general direction of the dig site. "But with Zipang in control now that has become unnecessary. I'm thinking of making a museum instead. We could dedicate it to the history of your conquest and the various artifacts recovered during it."

"Okay so I know that sounds like a really intellectual idea but uh." I coughed. "Most of the things we've found so far would turn that into a military fort anyways. A spear that cracks the earth, a really good bow, a jet... Yeah um, yeah that'd be a lot of firepower to put in one building. It'd honestly be safer if we just stored the golden fleece in the building. I think that's still buried in Zipang somewhere..."

"Is that so?" She frowned slightly. "Isn't there anything with a historical value? That is not a weapon of some kind, I mean."

"Uh... I don't think so, sorry." Yoshi replied after thinking about it for a short while. "I mean, there are those ancient, perfectly cut jewels but they're our emergency funds. Sometimes we sorely need after a certain someone added two giant animals to the list of mouths we have to feed."

"I regret nothing." Lucy's head popped up from behind a wall. He was wearing a high top hat with 'Chairman' written on it. "Beside, I have been very helpful so far and I deserve a reward. Isn't that right, boy? Has this old and wise snake's knowledge not been helpful?"

"Where did you even get that hat..." I muttered in reply.

"Why, I bought it. Special order, perfectly fitted." He adjusted it with the tip of his tail.

"Alright then." I nodded. "So where are we even heading anyways?"

"To the main palace, the banquet should be ready by the time we arrive." Aristotles replied, then noticed a messenger making a hasty way towards our group. "Yes, what is it?"

"Lady Aristotles." The man saluted. "A Britannia ship has been spotted approaching the city."

"Only one?"

"Correct: they fly a white banner of peace, but ignored our signals to slow down. The only reply we received is that they're following strict orders."

"Curious." The bespectacled woman rubbed her chin. "Aside for turning down their offer we had no other interactions with Britannia so far. What could be the reason...?"

Yoshi and I shared a glance before releasing a sigh blended with a groan to create a tired smoothie. Slowly, I raised my hand awkwardly. "That... That would likely be us."

"Is that so? Would you care to enlighten me about the details?"

"Nominally, we're allies. Sort of." The ponytailed girl answered. "In practice, the Queen of Britannia has a... fixation with Chen."

"She's a nice and charming girl really and I don't find her presence annoying but uh..." I scratched the back of my head. "She is who she is?"

"A songstress in love with quote, unquote-" Satan took a deep breath. "LOOOOVE~!"

"...Never do that again." Yoshi commanded with a stoic expression, her tone dripping with disgust.

The snake disappeared while laughing his ass off.

====

"Sir Miyafuji~!" Arthur's sweet, cavity-inducing voice called out as she literally danced towards us. "Now I only need to cross the Mediterranean to see you! How wonderful~!"

"Yeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhh..." I trailed off. "Long time no see Arthur. How're you been?"

"Uuugh, not long enough..." Himiko groaned.

"Yo Arthy!" Alexander boisterously greeted her. "Did you change your mind? Wanna fight?"

"Aaah, I counted each day I spent not being in your presence, Sir Miyafuji. But Galahad, Gawain and the rest of my knights kept me company." She smiled sweetly before bowing slightly to Alexander. "I am so very sorry Lady Alexander, but I must once again refuse. However, we can share tea together like friends."

"Honey and lemon?"

"Of course."

"Good enough for me! Wahahaha!"

"You, you came all the way here to have tea?" Himiko asked.

"To share good food and good drinks together, is that not what good friends do? It is in this manner that the light of world peace shall spread gently all over the world."

"So basically you want to just throw a party." I shrugged. "Fun."

"We were just going to have a party! Wanna join?" The horned woman asked. "You bring the tea, we bring everything else!"

"It sounds wonderful!"

Yoshi looked between Arthur and her ship, where people were still unloading stuff. "Aren't Sir Galahad and Sir Gawain with you?"

"We must hurry with the party before they catch up." Arthur hugged both mine and Alexander's arms, then started dragging us away.

"Ahhhhhgh." I let out as she pulled on my arm. "Wait are you running away from your knights?"

"Spending such a long time cuddling close together and understanding each other's hearts brings us together as one..." The blonde muttered dreamly instead of answering. "It's necessary for us now... And when thinking of the future..."

She squeezed my arm harder, pressing most of her body against me. "I believe I can walk together with you..."

"Meh! I understand others when fighting them just fine! But you're a nice gal Arthy!" Alexander picked up and hugged both of us. "Hug group!"

"Agh!" I let out. Too close too close! Too much body heat! Ah! Ah! With my heart pounding in my chest I looked past the two women to stare at Himiko in the distance. With as much mobility as I could, I reached out to her. Save your brother, sister! Save me!

"Onii-san! Don't worry, your little sister will save you!" The shrine maiden ran up to us and began pulling at my dangling feet. "Let me big brother go, you big-tittied cow! I, too, want to get in on this!"

I have made a terrible mistake.

Yoshi was resting her face in one hand and slowly shaking her head, while Alexander was blinking owlishly.

"Everyone! What is taking so long..." Aristotles approached, only to trail off as she stared at the group hug with morbid curiosity. "What are you young people doing?"

"Group hug!" Alexander enthusiastically answered.

"Why?"

"Because Arthy is a nice gal!"

"Aah, such bliss~! I can feel the love flowing through all of us." Arthus was on cloud nine. "Sir Miyafuji, if you would accept the passionate feelings that lay within my bosom..."

She squeezed my arm so hard, it was starting to become numb. "I, Arthur, will devote even a piece of my soul to you..."

"Nononono! You can't do that!" Himiko screamed. My legs felt like they were going to pop off! "You'll take him all for yourself once I let my guard down!"

I feel like, supposedly, this is the part where I'm supposed to talk about this being 'every man's dream' or something. Being surrounded by the three girls all wanting a piece of you was supposedly appealing, if one wasn't for the fact that I'm like 90% sure Alexander and Himeko are being strictly platonic or something and Arthur was just phrasing things weirdly... I hope.

Also the fact that- "Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow, stop that. Stop that. It fucking hurts."

Himiko blinked owlishly before releasing my legs. "Ah! S-Sorry..."

"Oops, sorry sorry." The horned woman put down both me and Arthur. "I forgot I shouldn't hug people at full strength unless they're big and muscular like Dad."

"Forgive me..." Arthur stopped hugging my arm, but she remained very close. "My passionate feelings for you got the better of me..."

"Okay well to answer all of you- Woah!" I cried as blood rushed back into all of my limbs and I turned into a spaghetti noodle flopping to the ground. "Anyways, breathing is fun and also I'm like 90% sure Himiko has some sort of switch inside of her."

"I don't! ...Probably. I mean, feeling worry at the sight of a bizarre girl being too close to your older brother is a perfectly normal reaction, right?" Her tone of voice was perfectly reasonable and serious, but her expression was that of someone pulling stuff out of their ass.

"Your Majesty. If I may be so bold, I have a couple of questions for you." Yoshi interrupted with a polite cough. "I sent you a few missives about the Illuminati and the fact one of your Knights, Sir Balin, was seen within their numbers. Were you able to find anything?"

Arthur suddenly fell silent, all joy absent from her face. "...Sir Balin. To tell you the truth, both her and Merlin have disappeared for a while now. They were part of an expedition Merlin organized to study some phenomenon in the Dark Continent: she was very... reticent about even the smallest detail so nobody knows what she was searching for. The last contact was when they stopped at a Britannian outpost to resupply, since then it's like their ship simply vanished."

"Oh fuck the Illuminati might have Merlin." I sighed as I picked myself off the ground. "Okay um, we don't know that for a fact so there's a nonzero chance Merlin might have just been turned into a tree for a fling gone wrong. On the other hand, if I'm assuming the Dark Continent is some very cheesy name for America, the New World, then... Boats vanishing only to show up in an Illuminati plot sounds very very familiar."

"Actually, the Dark Continent is what you would call Africa." Yoshi told me. "Only the northern regions - the ones bordering the Mediterranean Sea - have been mapped, everything from the Sahara Desert and below is a complete mystery."

"Sahara Des- Aw god." I groaned. "Okay so if I'm remembering this right, Marco might be the person to ask in regards to Africa. Probably not. If I'm wrong then at least that means I don't have to talk to Marco."

"Regarding the Illuminati, the true name of BEAST, I looked over some intelligence gathered from the knights' report, but... it was nothing we didn't know before. Forgive me for my failure..."

"It's fine, Arthur." I sighed. "It's the Illuminati, frankly I'm shocked at how much we managed to uncover ourselves but that's only because they seem dead set on punching me in the face, specifically. They're elusive, slippery bastards and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't know what to look for if I didn't know that they were the Illuminati. In fact, I still don't! Seriously the goal of the Illuminati is supposed to be 'one world order' and these clowns are running around causing endless war."

I looked around and sighed. "They're probably listening in right now. They can do that. I don't know how."

"Thank you for your kind words, Sir Miyafuji." Arthur smiled again. "Please do not worry: I am still receiving reports from the knights, so I shall report to you immediately if I find some relevant information."

"By 'immediately', you mean doing like today and personally reach him, no matter the distance involved?" Himiko asked.

The blonde's smile became radiant. "Of course!"

"Oof, I feel sorry for Galahad and Gawain..."

====

Notes:

Chen: I like having limbs.

Alex: Don't worry, I'm pretty sure someone, somewhere, can give you a prosthetic if the need arises.

Chen: I think I'm more worried about the Himiko switch. Who knows what monster is lurking underneath that face?

Alex: That's the Arthur Factor for you. Always bringing out the unexpected out of people.

 

[EvaUnit01]

Feels like a transition chapter, for the most part.

 

[Alexander]

Chapter 53: Cool For Cats

====

How to describe the party organized by Alexander and Aristotles? Well, for one thing there was a lot of food and drinks. And I mean a lot.

Seriously, Lancelot looked like she didn't just enter Heaven but was also given the keys to the pantry. The food went in, and a thorough description of the recipe and its history came out. She was a literal machine.

Luckily(?) I was a bit too busy escaping Arthur's ungodly thirsting clutches to properly appreciate the skills of the black hole disguised as a little schoolgirl-slash-knight. The blonde filled her ship with so much tea I was wondering what the heck her and the crew ate during their journey.

Alexander and the rest of the Macedonian soldiers organizing an arm wrestling tournament and trying to make everyone else partecipate was a welcome distraction, even if at one point I somehow ended up facing a drunk Nobu loudly listing, by date and time of the day, every single moment she felt insulted by something I said. It was a long list.

That may explain why I woke up feeling like someone used my head like a drum all night. Despite me not touching a single drop of alcohol, I must add.

"Ugh." I mumbled, blankly staring at the ceiling. "Should I go back to bed...?" I wasn't sure where I was, only that it wasn't the large hall with all the long tables full of food and drinks. It was a smaller room, full of furniture stacked one atop the other and covered by long drapes with garish colors.

...Was that Archimedes' red hair coming out from a large vase? I wasn't sure, but the loud snoring confirmed there was a person inside. Or a large boar, but I was pretty sure he didn't sleep in a pot.

"Oh, here you are boy!" Satan slithered into view, once again wearing a garish hat with 'Chairman' written on it. "Partying hard all night, uh? You're the right age, after all! It warms this old snake's heart to see humanity hasn't lost the ability to make stupid decisions without any kind of prompting."

"I didn't drink, I didn't do drugs, and I didn't have sex." I retorted. "So with god as my witness, fuck off if I decide to sing Rules of Nature at the top of my lungs."

"Good games, though I prefer when my giant robots fight giant monsters. Even if the 'Nanomachines, Son!' jokes were funny." The red snake wrapped his long body in a bundle and rested his head on top, the tail mysteriously out of view. "...Damn me, I miss electricity. And the Internet. Those days I was basically retired, Christianity and Judaism didn't need my help to royally screw themselves, but at least there was plenty of entertainment available. Did you know? During my stay in Japan, people mistook me for an Youkai and called me 'Tsuchinoko'."

"...Considering what a Tsuchinoko is I'm obligated to ask if you had a weight problem. Though that reminds me." I groggily pushed myself out of bed and, much like a duck, waddled over to where Achemidies slept and quietly knocked on the jar. "Hey, Archie, sorry to wake you up but does the word 'internet' appear in your timeline defying memory?"

"I wouldn't call it a weight problem... Alright yes, I was fat. But it was temporary!" Satan protested. "I tried to grow larger to compensate for the extra mass, but then they started accusing me to eat virgin girls and drink all the alcohol!"

"Mblugh?" Was Archimedes' eloquent answer. "In-tu-net? What's that? Oooh, my head hurts... Is, is it urgent?"

"Nah it's fine, go back to sleep." Anyways... I glanced around at the room in front of me. "Archie is homeless and those garish colors on the wall… I can't tell if this is Alexander's guest room or her actual room."

"My personal bet is a storeroom." Lucy quipped. Then, playfulness left his face and was replaced by concern. "Still, that time-looping theory of yours, boy. If it is true, and there is enough circumstantial evidence, then I don't need to tell you how bad things are. Do you know how rare, and forbidden, the power to affect time was in the days when Gods walked the Earth?"

"Well no I just sort of assumed that time travel wasn't really a thing in stories until, you know, the guy who did the laws of robotics did stories about it." I muttered. "I didn't do that much research into mythologies okay?"

"Time travel shouldn't be possible. At all. Time being linear is a cornerstone of the universe." He explained. "You can predict the future, like the Norn Sisters and other prophets did, but change the past? Reset time like a movie? No no no, not possible at all. The past was set in stone. The closest thing to time travel was the ability to peer into the past, but you could only observe it."

Lucy grimaced. "So I have two personal theories: either the culprit is something completely new, or someone broke something important and now we're riding the mother of all glitches. Do you want the truth boy? I am fucking scared."

"Look just think of it like this," I tried to placate the devil himself. "Whoever managed to pull this off actually decided to genuinely call themselves the Illuminati so they're probably a total fucking clown."

"That should be somewhat reassuring, but then I started imagining said clown having the personality of the Joker running around while carrying a nuke." He shook his head. "Still, thank you boy: you manage to keep a level head, and that's reassuring. Changing topics, if you're willing to gamble I know of one being, and one being only who may know something about the time-loops. Problem is, he's mad as a hatter and I have no idea where he is at the moment."

"Or she, knowing our luck." I sighed. "But you aren't giving me a lot to go off of. Hit me with a name."

"Angolmois. The King of Terror. The dross left after the world's creation. The source of all madness." Satan declared. "Less famous titles include, but are not limited to, Boys Love Fanatic and Fanzines Maniac. The Old Man called him 'that troublesome piece of rock'."

I glanced at the nudist mathematician sleeping in a pot. "Are you sure they won't be a girl now- Wait Fanzines?! Those haven't been around since like the seventies! Get on fanfic.net or AO3 like normal people!"

"Look, the last time the cuckoo managed to escape confinement was in the '70. Nobody was too keen on keeping him up to date afterwards." He scratched his head with the tip of his tail. "And no, I am not sure he isn't a girl now. But as far as I know he always appeared in the form of a big piece of stone with an old man's face carved on the surface. Strictly speaking, he is an it."

"Okay but- And this line of thinking may actually send you to hell again so sorry in advance but, is it a writer?"

"Hell can run itself without me. Good and Evil may be debatable, but I am without a doubt Lawful. And no, Angolmois is not a writer: just a reader. But being in his presence drives people mad, and those that don't end up as drooling vegetables are compelled to write down their thoughts on paper or create questionable pieces of art. Like that Lovecraft guy and his screwball friends."

"Hm, I think that's a good trail to go off of." I scratched my chin. "We need to find large fandoms, or niche ones, particularly with a yaoi appeal. Every fandom has it's chunin day exams. I'm sure if we ask around a bit we'll find the worst of the worst fanfics the fandoms have to offer. Since there's no more internet, then fandoms must have had to meet up somewhere right? Trace the maddening fanfics until they form a pattern, compare that to the places where fandoms meet up, and we might have a trail leading to Angol- Angol- Lady England."

"I like the way you think, boy. Ah, it's been a while since I met someone savvy: how nostalgic." Lucy nodded a few times, a big grin on his face. "Alright, I'll take care of it: I'm used to damning sights, and I'm not letting someone else use my ancient Indian hypersonic jet anyway. So, wanna have breakfast? I'm famished."

"Yeah sure." I sighed, rolling my shoulders. "The situation outside can't be that bad right?"

====

It really wasn't. Nobu had a migraine and bloodshot eyes, Himiko was basically sleepwalking and Arthur was, well, Arthur.

"Wahahaha! That was a great party, we should have another one!"

No, the real problem was the boundless well of energy and loudness that went by the name of Alexander.

"Okay yeah, maybe, but definitely some other time. Don't want to have too many parties, then they'll just lose their value." I replied as I stared up at the horned woman. "You don't want to crash the party economy do you?"

"Is there a party economy?! You learn new things every day!"

"Alexander, that was a metaphor. Don't take it literally, even if that seems to be your only mode." Aristotles sighed. She was drinking a cup of tea that smelled like flowers, and before her was a plate with perfectly cut slices of bread with butter and jam spread over them. "If I may ask, Sir Miyafuji, what are your plans for the immediate future?"

"We aren't sure." Yoshi answered in my place. "Truth be told our forces are starting to stretch too far, we need to consolidate our new holdings and give the economy time to stabilize."

"Of course. That's perfectly logical."

"And while Macedonia is in the perfect position for a possible confrontation with the EU, we can't afford to engage them yet. We are also still lacking critical info about the Illuminati, committing the majority of our forces to a single campaign would spell our doom." The ponytailed beauty seemed to consider her next words. "Still, I suppose gathering intelligence wouldn't hurt. Lady Aristotles, what can you tell us about the other countries in West Asia?"

"Nothing significant, I'm afraid. I heard you received a visit by Hammurabi: as you were probably able to ascertain, Babylon is a country fully focused on defense. Their walls have never been breached, and their troops never break even in the face of insurmountable odds. Even I was unable to find a flaw to exploit: admirable, even if a little vexing."

"Oh oh! Coming from you that is high praise!" Sun's eyes light up. "Mh, now I'm curious. I can't wait for the chance to personally experience an unbreakable wall."

"Um, you do remember we kind of have a deal with them to like, not do that right?" I blinked. "Or at least something along those lines. Don't want to go back on our word to the kingdom ruled by the only god-blooded people left in the world, you know?"

"Mouh, let a girl dream Chen." She pouted. "But fine: the earlier we go back the more time you can spend with Shi without her needing to stress her body with an unreasonable long journey. This place is too hot for my dear little Shi!"

"Ah shit that's right she's still recovering- Wait a minute." I feel like I was forgetting to do something- "OH SHIT YEAH! SWORDS! MUSASHI! FUCK!"

There was a moment of deep silence before the main doors were slammed open. "Musashi?! Where is she?" Sasaki asked, her appearance pristine despite the early hour and the questionable colors of her clothes.

"Didn't that old guy say that she was heading for Macedonia?!" I shouted, grabbing the swordswoman's shoulders. "Something about cheese?! That was ages ago!"

"Oh, that..." She looked disappointed. "After reaching Macedonia I used my free time to ask around for her. Unfortunately Musashi left a few weeks before our army reached Persepolis, but I thought she came back... No one was sure what her next destination was, though one person remembered her displaying an interest in Egypt's cousine."

"Ah, Egypt. Egypt..." I glanced over at Sun before moving over to Yoshi. "What are our options for our next campaign after we finish settling down?"

"I suppose... that's acceptable." Yoshi slowly nodded. "Lady Aristotles, Egypt is located close to Macedonia. What can you tell us about it?"

"Thanks to the bounty from the Nile river they're a self-sufficient country, and despite being deep in the Dark Continent barbarian attacks have never been a big problem." The bespectacled, cool beauty calmly explained. "The ruler of Egypt is Queen Tutankhamun: she rarely shows herself, but she is wildly beloved by the people of her country."

"Did you try to conquer it? Considering Alexander's record..." Sun tossed a quick glance at the horned woman.

"I wanted to. I mean, Egypt culture is super-cool!" The crime against fashion showed a brilliant grin. "Sadly, Camby told me they were on a vacation. You can't attack people when they're on a vacation, that's rude."

"Camby...? You mean Cambyses II, the diplomatic representative?" Aristotles received a nod in response. "They were on a vacation... who are 'they'?"

"The people of Egypt, of course!"

"Damn, everyone gets a vacation? Nice." I whist- Er. My lips sputtered in an attempt to whistle. "Dammit I'll get this someday."

Aristotles stared at Alexander. She stared at the horned woman not with shock, disappointment or rage, but the tired resignation of an office worker being given a stack of documents half an hour before her turn ends and being told to finish it before going home. "She told you the people of Egypt are on a vacation. All the men, women and children in the entire land."

"Yep."

"They're still on vacation even today?"

"Should be."

"And you believe her?!"

Alexander tilted her head sideway like a bird. "Why shouldn't I? We even played together all day with her fluffy white cat. There's no way someone who likes cute animals is a liar!"

My head perked up. Cat? Cat?! CAT!

...I nodded sagely. "Valid."

Aristotles put her face in her hands and bent forward until they almost touched the table. Yoshi stood up and gently patted the older woman's back with a sympathetic look.

"MY QUEEN!" Galahad chose that moment to jump into the room like a woman possessed, Gawain calmly walking after her.

They ended up dragging Arthur back to Britannia, so I guess the day ended with a net positive. Wasn't even aware Arthur was in the room to be honest. Which now that I think about it, was probably suspicious in it's own right...

Eh, probably nothing.

====

"Uuh... Onii-san, remember the declaration of war you sent to Egypt? We received a reply, but..." Himiko looked troubled. More than that, she looked confused as heck.

"What, are they on vacation again? Did they declare war first?" I leaned back in my chair. "What's the stitch, Himiko?"

"It's..." She struggled to find something to say, then seemingly gave up. She left the room and returned almost immediately with a wooden cart filled with paper. Enough paper to fill three dictionaries.

"Huh." I blinked, grabbing one of the pieces of paper. "What did they even write?"

"Egypt declares war on Zipang, a country which has done terrible things to Lady Tutankhamun. From the head grocer of Thebes." Said the first paper.

"A declaration of war from a student in Cairo who says he won't forgive Zipang." Was the second.

I stopped reading at that moment.

"Holy hot fucking damn did they send me a declaration of war from every goddamn citizen in Egypt?" I stared at the pile. "That is a level of spite and petty that I can only aspire to."

"I, I think they really did it. Every single citizen of Egypt declared war on Zipang." Himiko looked gobsmacked. "Onii-san, what did you write in your letter to Tutankhamun? Those people seem to think you did something horrible to her."

"Oh you know, uh, the um, the usual?" What did I write again? It was kind of late so... I vaguely recall writing something along the lines of 'Yo I'm tired dealing with all this bureaucracy shit so we're going to war because that's an epic gamer move peace out yo poggers'.

"Oh god what the fuck did I write?!" I cried out in a panic. "I didn't actually write that right?!"

"Onii-san! No wonder they're mad!" Himijo shouted, her face red. "We, we should apologize. Kowtowing and sounding contrite enough should suffice right? Egypt doesn't have something similar to seppuku. Right?"

"Look in my defense I don't think anyone even knows what half of those words mean!" I shouted back. "It'll be fine! Probably! Maybe! I'll write an actual declaration of war again!"

One (Proper) Declaration of War later and we now had six dictionaries worth of declarations of war.

"...They're doing this on purpose aren't they." My eyes squinted at the humongous stack. "Where did they even find the time to coordinate this?"

"Chen." Yoshi said with perfect pose and elegance, resembling nothing less than a volcano about to erupt. "Alexandria's sentinels reported the entire population of Cairo gathered near the border between the two countries. Every single one of them is armed, wears a handband with 'Death to Zipang' written on it and there are several groups burning Zipang's flag. I wonder, how did this happen?"

"Okay, let me just say that, who the fuck expects a sane country to act like this?" It was a strong rebuttal, I feel. "Like come on, every single citizen of Cairo? Are you kidding me? Not even Kublai had a 100% approval rating in her country and she's fucking Kublai! That's scary! These people are scary! They're like a giant cult the size of a country!"

"...Alright, I'll admit this is unsettling." Yoshi's anger evaporated. "Nobunaga, what do you think?"

"Hmm, it's a first for me too." The no-pants woman replied. "It's true that Kublai and Qin Shi Huang have a high approval rating, but they had the good sense to keep civilians out of military affairs."

"But of course! It was already hard persuading Shi to send our troops against Zipang." Sun declared. "Naturally there were plenty of people offering to act as volunteer militia, but we turned down their help. Even if Shi wasn't such a terrifying cute sweetheart we can't let civilians, the blood of a nation, be endangered. This Tutankhamun obviously has no morals at all!"

"You know, I can't help but think there is something we are missing. Something big." Himiko said. "Maybe we should... investigate first?"

We all looked at her. "What?"

"Did you just have, for the first time in forever, a good idea?"

"Aaaah! Onii-san, Nobunaga is bullying me!"

"To be honest I was going to suggest the same thing." I shrugged, ignoring my technically-adopted sister's plight as I sat on my chair cross legged. I ran a hand through my hair in thought. "I have about three plans going through my head right now, technically four if we operate all of them at once. Problem is that they all require some serious investigation before we could successfully enact any of them and also they'll make diplomatic clean-up a serious bitch."

A sigh escaped my lips. "The real issue is, let's be honest, we can't actually conduct a campaign in the current state. Occupying a city would send citizens into throwing themselves at our armies regardless of their safety. Whether it's magic mind control or sheer damn charisma, these people are willing to die for their leaders. But that also can be used to our advantage, in a way."

"Oh?" Yoshi, Nobu and Sun raised a single eyebrow at the same time. "A bold declaration. Go on."

"Generally speaking, and I know we're the worst example to say this, the citizens of Egypt seem to share one common trait: being hot-headed." I explained as I tapped my chin. "Basically, all three of my plans share one commonality, to exploit their quick temper. Considering they're at our gates with just the declaration of war, they're probably a very rash group in action. I highly doubt that they're organized enough to actually hold military actions unless the military has noticeable differences from what the civilians are like."

I held up three fingers before pinching the first two. "My first two plans are entirely based around this idea. Plan A, to put it simply, was just something I thought up to be petty at first but it seems it might work in our favor here. Basically it's simple, spreading fear through the egyptian population though not of me. Just in general. The tactic I was going to use was something called a 'chain-mail', scattering pieces of paper with horror stories that end with 'You'll have this fate if you don't share this story with five other people!'. It probably won't do much but it'll have some noticeable effect I think. The issues come with the fact that they have to be spread anonymously and without our involvement being known. Which means we have to do a bunch of research into making it look like it's legit enough to be found in egypt. Kind of a waste of effort, but if they do figure out, move on to Plan B."

I put my first finger down and continued talking. "This one's simple, keep them angry. But we're not going to do anything. Continue to spam the Egyptian diplomats with declarations of war, show my face, just keep them mad enough that they can't cool down and organize but at the same time not so mad that they actually start to invade our territory. Make me out to be a petty villain, someone who they can put down and trample on. Problem would be that it'll be a bitch to remove that stigma once the campaign's done but moving on to the third and final plan."

A sigh escaped my lips as I sighed and leaned back in my chair. "The plan I've put the least thought into, really. We sneak into the capital and speak with their leaders directly. Try to diplomatically unite our nations, no hostages. The citizens' devotion to their leaders is immense and the only way we can get rid of the raging mob at our door is to have their leader call the citizens off herself. And if there is shady magic going on, we can probably beat her in her capital and then free the citizens. Probably not though, honestly I highly doubt it. They probably just love their king because of all the free holidays and stuff she gives them."

I shrugged. "And that's about it. Thoughts?"

The three strategists in the room hummed in thought, looked at each other for a dozen seconds and then finally focused back on me. The first to speak was Nobunaga. "Leaving aside the fact that even I am astonished at the idea of using what is literally bullying in a military campaign-"

Himiko coughed. Loudly. Several times in a row.

"But let's just call it 'riling them up' for now. Plan A's good point is that general panic would hinder Egypt more than anger focused towards us would. The problem, of course, is that we will need to restore order after we invade and I'm not sure how grateful those fanatics would really be."

"Plan B, while theoretically feasible, suffers from a fatal flaw: we don't know where the line between inaction and action is." Yoshi continued. "Simply put, without a deep understanding of Egyptian mentality it would be difficult to keep the population just mad enough for our purposes. For all I know just showing up in person would provoke the citizens of Cairo into chasing us all the way back to Alexandria."

"That's why! I recommend we go with Plan C!" Sun grinned, waving her stick like an excited puppy. "With a single, decisive action we will put an end to the war through the power of diplomacy. Shi would be so proud!"

"Plan C isn't exactly feasible right away. It runs into the problem we keep having: a lack of information. Just where exactly is the Pharaoh? What kind of security does she have? We don't know anything and blindly running in is, okay don't look at me like that, a terrible idea." I nodded before giving the group a thumbs up. "That's why we have multiple heroes in the army you know? More specifically for the problems with Plan C, we put Tama in charge of gathering information beforehand. It'd also help with Plan B but there's someone else I want to put in charge for Plan B."

I paused before turning to the Zipang trio and speaking very slowly. "So we need someone who's good at annoying people but not to the point where they go overboard right? Someone who can keep that balance right? Just, hear me out... We put Sei in charge of it."

"Chen, Chen, Chen. I was thinking something similar. Did you really think I, the great and wise and beautiful Sun Tzu, wouldn't gather information first before acting? That's Lu's job." The green-haired girl, who if she was as wise as she claimed, would know how to use an oxford comma, waved her stick some more. "I agree with your selection, but let me expand it."

Walking up to a blackboard she took a piece of chalk and began to write. "The team for Plan C is: Inou Tadataka, Marco Polo and Goemon Ishikawa. The team for Plan B is: Abe no Seimei, Kamehameha and-"

She started to write something that suspiciously looked like 'Sanzou' before quickly scratching it out. "Ashoka. A master of conversation, a little ball of sunshine and a speaker capable of keeping them listening for hours. Objections so far?"

"Nope. Nope. Nope." I said clearly as I stared at the scratched out name. "Absolutely none. Keep going."

"Finally, the team for Plan A: Lancelot, Vlad Tepes and Magellan." Sun continued.

"Now you really need to stop and explain why those three." Nobu interrupted.

"Simple: Lancelot will write reviews about foods that no sane mind would consider tasting, being scary is Vlad Tepes' entire stick-" The greenette grins. "And Magellan will be in charge of delivering the papers by throwing them from outside the city's sight."

"Um..." I tried to form the mental image of that in my head. "Like, a meteor that scatters papers?"

"Correct! Papers collected into a pile, tied together and then tossed!" Sun's smile dimmed. "No, wait. We need something to wrap around them or they'll scatter before reaching their destination... but then what if it doesn't open on impact? Wait, wait!"

She took out a second blackboard and began to furiously fill it with equations. When all available space ended she threw her hands in the air. "I need a mathematician! Where's Aristotles? Wait for me!" Sun yelled before dashing out of the room.

...Slowly, I turned back to everyone else in the room as they all stared at the door. "So, I think we have a plan?"

"Delivery system aside, it has some merit." Yoshitsune nodded. "Team A and B can distract Egypt's people while Team C infiltrates it and investigates. There are good odds of this working in our favor. I vote yes."

"Yes." Nobu agreed.

"I'll follow whatever Onii-san decides to do." Himiko added.

"Alrighty then, I guess we have a plan. Now then!" I raised my hand into the air. "Let's split up and look for clues, gang!"

====

"Chen. Please sit down, drink this herbal tea and relax." Yoshitsune presented me with a cup of said tea. "I need you to completely clear your mind of negative thoughts."

"Yeah about thaaaaaaaat..." I stretched off as I took a sniff of the drink. "You um, remember I don't like tea right?"

"Then what do you drink when you want to relax?"

"Milk?"

She skillfully switched the tea with a glass full of milk. "Honey?"

"Nope!" I cheerily said before grabbing the glass and downing it all in one go. "Wew! That's good!"

"Good. Now, allow me to properly list the results of Plans A, B and C." Yoshi pulled out the first report and started reading. "During the preparation phase there were a few hiccups. Namely, Lancelot writing reviews about perfectly acceptable food and Vlad wasting both time and paper writing what I..."

She stopped and looked at me. "Charitably, consider a fictional story of her returning to her homeland, killing all her enemies in gruesome ways, gathering a large amount of slaves to use as domestics and then spending several days sitting on her throne while having a monologue. A monologue, I must add, that comprises 85% of said fictional story."

"Wow who would've thought the woman who inspired Dracula can't even do gothic horror right." Bram Stroker would be rolling in his fucking grave. "So basically we only have perfectly normal food recipes and a cringy poorly written edgy story that serves as so much of a power fantasy even Himiko would be embarrassed?"

"Luckily for us, I noticed in time and corrected the issue." The ponytailed samurai informed me. "The next hiccup consisted in Magellan either overshooting her target, or knocking down a building. If they ask, I suggest saying we have no idea why the Great Sphinx of Thebes is lacking a nose. We resolved that too, and finally delivered the chaos-inducing rumors to all three Egyptian Cities."

"Okay, I think I see where this is going." I nodded slowly. "Does it get worse?"

"Plan B started better. The people of Cairo, despite their anger, were put off balance by Kamehameha arriving in her usual boisterous way and then offering them flowers." Yoshi said. Ah yes, good old Aloha spirit. "Seimei did an admirable job following after that, using a mix of logical arguments and praises to keep things non-violent."

Yoshi paused, taking another report and looking at it. She shook her head and met my gaze again. "Then in the middle of Ashoka speaking someone called her, I quote, 'an old hag that doesn't hold a candle to Lord Khamun'. What followed was Ashoka knocking out all the gathered citizens with her fists and causing the rest to run away in terror."

"Oh. Oh boy." I groaned as I put my hands to my head. "Ow, ow this hurts. Is there any good news?"

"Plan C delivered, ah, interesting findings." Yoshi took another report. "The group successfully infiltrated Abul Simbel by navigating the Nile under the disguise of merchants. Yes, there were many reported cases of valuable stuff being missed in the ports where they stopped, but no evidence was left behind. Anyway, once at Abul Simbel Marco set up a merchant stoll and Tadataka stealthy compiled a map of the city."

"So are the 'interesting' findings good or bad or just... weird?" I hazarded. "You're kinda holding me in suspense here Yoshi."*

"It turned out almost no one in Egypt has ever really seen Queen Tutankhamun. At least, not in the flesh." Yoshi revealed. "She almost never leaves her palace, leaving Cambyses II to handle most issues, and only occasionally appearing before the people. Even then she's constantly hiding inside a..."

She squinted her eyes at the report. "A sarcophagus is like a coffin, right? Anyway, the most of her actual body the people of Egypt ever saw was her hand. By all accounts Tutankhamun suffers from crippling shyness."

"That, that is the sketchiest thing I have ever heard." Like, seriously? "And no one is suspicious about that?"

"...Considering her last public appearance was two weeks ago, all they were able to see was a single hand and they still talk about it like the greatest event of the century?" Yoshi was deep in thought. "Either Queen Tutankhamun possesses godly charisma, or the Egyptians have... peculiar tastes."

"At the very least we know that she exists. Probably." The fact that there was someone in the sarcophagus meant that this wasn't a big brother situation. "The only problem is that just raises more questions about why they worship her so much."

The Samurai shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"...Fuck. Alright then." I cursed. "Do you have any suggestions other than breaking into their capital and seeing what's going on for ourselves? Because that seems like it's going to be the only way we can get an answer unless a miracle occurs."

"Nobunaga suggested, and I agree with her, that our best bet for a quick and peaceful resolution is contacting Cambyses II, the Queen's aide. Marco's report said she had taken a laid-back approach to the whole issue, and is unlikely to move until one of their cities is threatened."

She moved to another page.

"Apparently she spends most of her time taking care of a legion of cats. There is a whole temple complex dedicated exclusively to the felines, and they number close to one thousand."

My ears perked up as I gave Yoshi a look. "We're going there."

She gave me a flat stare before sighing. "Who exactly?"

"Me. I'm going there." I have to go there. It's not even a question. "Nyaah."

"Just promise me to be careful and to prepare an escape route. We can't afford to lose you."

====

So Team C smuggled me into Egypt. I had to wear a lot of concealing clothes and travel on a boat that stunk of fish, and upon arrival I realized that... I was most definitely in Egypt alright. The building in front of me was absolutely covered with hieroglyphs in the way that only someone who didn't want to waste a single square inch would accomplish. Four large statues of men, presumably gods or something, stared down upon me. In comparison, the door to the building itself was quite small, but it was still double my height. And to top it all off, the entire place was built into the rocky hills. Almost as if it was part of the earth itself.

"That is Abu Simbel's main temple." Marco informed me. "Look all you want but don't go inside, many past Pharaohs were buried there and the priests are fiercely protective."

"I can confirm." Goemon winced and rubbed her side. "You think a sling is less dangerous than a bow. Not in the hand of madmen who can somehow make clay harder than steel and are strong enough to carry dozens of projectiles on their backs."

"...I'm surprised it's only slings." I muttered as I stared at the women in fishnet. "How the hell did you not get cursed?"

"Fancy that." Goemon lit up her pipe as Tama ushered us inside a safehouse. Wonder of wonders, it was cooler inside than outside. "See, you get cursed only if you enter the innermost sanctums without being allowed. Those are sealed, but there are workshops where the priests keep ready all the necessary materials for burial rites. That includes gold and other valuable stuff."

"That sounds like a recipe for disaster but you're still alive so I'll trust your judgement." Even if I utterly hate the smell of her pipe ugh. "So how are we getting into the Cat Land?"

"We can't pretend to be priests of Bastet, the local Goddess of Cats, since we don't look Egyptians and the standard uniform shows a lot of skin." Tama answered. "That leaves either the servants that feed the cats and clean after them or the doctors that make sure they're healthy."

"I know nothing about taking care of animals." Marco immediately added. "Only pests."

"Don't look at me like that." I sniped at the brockley head. "And while I know how to feed the cats, cleaning up after them is a bit different. I'm not a doctor though so that's definitely out."

"Servants it is. Luckily for us I managed to acquire adequate clothes."

Said clothes were similar to a medical protective suit, complete with mask and hood. The only thing missing were goggles to protect the eyes. Marco stealthy drugged a few of the usual servants so they would sleep for a while, and we took their places.

And thus we entered to find- Cats.

So many cats. Too many to even count. I had been to a cat cafe before but this wasn't even close to that scale. It was an entire temple dedicated to cats and that was made abundantly clear. All of different sizes, shapes, and colors that in unison turned towards us with the gaze of apathy that only a feline could make.

Was this heaven?

"Dio Santissimo." Marco whispered in barely disguised fright. "Those eyes. They're staring into my soul."

"Now don't be like that." I scolded.

"At least they're cute." Goemon shrugged. "Kinda like bear cubs, except they don't grow up to become one hundred kilos of furry murder."

"Hey, you four!" Another servant with some fancy decorations on his uniform, so likely higher on the chain of command, called out to us. "Lady Cambyses requested fresh fish for her favorites. Bring it to her immediately."

He pointed at four very large crates full of fishes. Each of them looked heavy enough to require three people to carry.

Luckily for us there was some kind of cart available, but we had to push it by ourselves. With much effort we moved deeper inside the temple complex and entered what I could only describe as a small pyramide.

"Mrowr." The giant white cat picked up one of the crates with his mouth and strolled away without a care. A soft, high-pitched sound came out of Marco's mouth.

"Food! Finally nyaaan!" Next to appear was a cat-shaped throne on wheels, pushed by small cat-people. And on it was... Okay I can see why Tama said the outfit was revealing Jesus Christ. I know we're in the middle of a desert so there's an excuse and everything, but for certain reasons I won't exactly be going into her outfit in detail. Nevertheless, on the cat shaped throne was a young, purple haired girl who had that beast ear hair stylization that Seimei still refused to teach me how to do. What was really eye catching about her though, was the cat statue that she held on her head like a crown. Somehow kept in perfect balance.

Seriously isn't that heavy to keep up or was it actually hollow on the inside. "What took you so long?!"

"...It's heavy?" Tama replied.

"Nyanyanya! Heavy just means more food! You're pardoned this time." Cambyses lounged even more on the throne while the little cat-people picked up the remaining crates and moved them inside. "Mrowr? Haven't seen you guys before. You new?"

"Yes. The regular servants partied too hard last night and woke up with a fierce headache." Goemon smoothly answered. "So we got hired in a hurry."

"I see, I see! In that case, time for a welcoming ceremony!" The purple-haired girl laughed. "You get to play with the kittens until they're used to your smell!"

Marco looked like her soul just escaped through her mouth.

====

Notes:

Alex: Within Egypt, there are cats.

Chen: Purrfect.

Alex: I'll need to come up with some puns. Can't do it on the fly even with my life on the line. What about you?

Chen: Well as meow can see, it isn't nyat hard.

 

[EvaUnit01]

It's kitty good to see this back, even after so long.

 

[Anon_Anon_Anon]

Greatly enjoyed the update, left me wondering if they are going to create a magic-powered Internet.

 

[Bunbunswar]

Mmmmyes. Read all this in like, 10 hours. Yes.

 

[Alexander]

Chapter 54: Knock 'em Dead Kid

====

"Help..." Marco begged piteously, a single hand emerging from the pile of kittens and fruitlessly grasping at the air. "So soft... I'm being corrupted... Lady Kublai, I am so sorry..."

"Can you at least shut up?" Tama demanded with a harsher tone than normal. Goemon and her were completely covered in sleeping cats save for the face, like an avant-garde statue or something equally confusing.

"It's getting hot, eh?" The thief grinned, sweat dripping down her face. "Maybe we should get all naked."

"You shut up too."

"Why are you all complaining." I muttered as I sunk into the balls of fluff. Man, who even needed to conquer the world when you had this? "Just let it happen. Meow."

"With all due respect my Lo- I mean Chen- I mean, fellow coworker recently hired!" For a second it looked like Tama was about to swallow her own tongue. "Even if this welcoming ceremony, which suspiciously looks like hazing, is traditional we are here to work. Not frolicking around!"

"If I become a cat, will Lady Kublai still accept me?"

"Or becoming delirious."

"This is work." I commented before a sound left my throat. It was not a "meow" or a "nya", instead it was the ultimate technique that anyone who grew up with cats knows. A technique involving holding your tongue back into your throat to near perfectly imitate the sound of a cat. What came out of my mouth, did not even sound human.

"Nyanyanya! Newbies are always hilarious!" Cambyses rolled into view. She had a lot of kittens on her lap, and looked very comfortable. The same sound I made came out of her mouth as she rubbed the back of a big, fluffy white cat. "And one of you even knows the Ancient Cat Tongue Technique! Wonderpurrr! There is hope yet for the younger generations."

The giant white cat mewled loudly.

"Amenemopet, how dare you! I'm still young myself, a beautiful maiden just blossoming in her womanhood!"

Goemon's shoulders were shaking. She was totally holding back from laughing, yes? Either that or she was dying of a heat stroke.

"I was chosen because I grew up with about four cats." I commented with another cat sound. "Out of the five who lived with me, only I was adored by all four. They called me the cat whisperer."

Honestly I need to remember all the dumb nicknames I've been given throughout my life. Might come in handy making people think I'm more competent than I actually am.

"Excellent background, new guy." The purple-haired girl's smile turned mischievous. "Now that we saw the kittens like you, thus you're not a threat, why don't you expand on it and tell me who you guys really are?"

"Honestly anything and everything was just an excuse to be here like, right now." I spoke frankly. "I heard there were cats so I came over. Oh yeah and also I'm the King of Zipang I guess."

"My Lord!" Tama wriggled, but the cats held strong. "...We come in peace?"

"Relaaax, girlie. No violence is allowed on grounds dedicated to Bastet, and like I said the kittens like you." Cambyses explained. "But I must say, I didn't expect the big boss himself to personally come here. I heard they also call you the Messenger of the Heavens or somesauce? Honestly, the rumors are quite wild!"

"Oh yeah they did!" I spoke, turning towards my companion. "Yeah they don't call me that anymore. In fact I'm pretty sure Tama is the only one here who was around when they did."

"To be fair, you give off a very down-to-earth vibe." Goemon said. "It's hard to put you on a pedestal. I say this in a positive way."

"Mrowrowrow! Khamun could learn a thing or two from you. Sooo, are you here for anything else beside basking in the glory of my kittens?" The cat-theme girl rested her chin on a fist. "I decided for a wait-and-see approach unless things turned ugly, but so far all I heard is that some idiots got beaten because they called a girl old."

"Oh yeah that's Ashoka. She's usually kinda peaceful, pretty strict on following laws and all that, guess she just was kinda having an off day?" Her age was probably a touchy subject, not that anyone looked old to me. "And we're here to talk about... Um... Yeah hold on give me a moment... I think it was... Guys help me out here I'm too distracted."

"Uuuh... Lady Cambyses, we would like to fix what is obviously a huge misunderstanding." Tama spoke slowly. "The people of Egypt, they made it sound like we did something unspeakable to Queen Tutankhamun."

"Oh, that? See, Khamun panicked when she received your letter and tried to write a reply before even reading it, but she bumped into her sarcophagus and fainted!" Cambyses guffawed. "The servant who found her thought she fainted because of your letter, and the rest is history!"

"Huh." So she hadn't read my absolute trainwreck of a letter. "Yeah but we sent like, two."

"Yes, and the rumors grew even more wild when it arrived. Khamun tried to explain, she really tried, but that girl is hopelessly shy! Even when it was just the two of us it took an hour or two for Khamun to tell me everything." Cambyses rolled her eyes. "I wanted to see if some pressure fixed that, but so far it's not working. Well, life is good here in Egypt and I really don't want a war messing it up. So, what kind of deal are you offering?"

I nodded my head. "...I didn't think this faaaaaaar. Uh, you like food?"

"Fish, obviously! Mmmr, getting access to different types of fish from all over the world doesn't sound bad." The cat-themed girl's eyes gleamed. "Let's see, let's see. How about this: Khamun remains in charge, we get access to goods from all over your territories at a reduced price and in exchange you get tithes of money and supplies?"

"That... isn't much different than what we usually offer." Tama admitted.

"Yeah it's usually just a change in branding to be honest." I nodded. "We might ask your heroes for help in campaigns every once in a while but other than that... Oh yeah secret evil conspiracy protection. We do that as well."

"Nyanyanya! I would like it if that girl gained enough courage to toss her weight around. The magic of the Pharaoh line is strong in that child, even without formal training, and the less we say about her charisma the better." Cambyses sat straighter. "But, secret evil conspiracy you said? Interesting. Tell me more."

====

So I told her everything I knew about the Illuminati. Everything I usually gave others upon first meeting, at least: some things were just private, you know?

"Nyaaa! Mind-control, agents all over the world... I don't like it! Not at all!" Cambyses was fuming. "Egypt is a peaceful country, I will not have it embroiled in some shady conspiracy! Nyaaa!"

"It's meow then that." I continued. "They've been trying to sucker punch us, well me specifically, in the face but for other countries they've tried the slow and insidious approach of messing with things from the inside. They could already be here and mew wouldn't even know it."

"Mrooo! Are you implying me and Khamun are lazy enough to let it happen under our noses?" Cambyses paused. "Well, not lazy lazy but we do have a hands-off approach... Hiss! Time for a thorough in-door cleaning! Kittens, play-time's over! MEOW!"

Grumbling all the cats got off me and the others before scampering off. Tama and Goemon looked relatively well, but Marco was very much in la-la-land.

"Alright, ditch those suits and follow me. Is greeny over there necessary or just dead weight?"

"Eh, hold on I got this." I shrugged as I moved over to the assassin and leaned into her ear. "Hey, if you snap back to reality when we get back to Zipang, I'll try to convince Kublai to wear cat ears."

"LADY KUBLAI!" Marco jumped up shouting at the top of her lungs, which was impressive because she went from spread eagle to in the air with nothing in-between. She landed back on her feet and coughed to clear her throat. "I-"

She paused and coughed a few more times, cat's fur coming out of her mouth. "I'll hold you on that."

"Alrighty." I had more than a few tricks up my sleeve in regards for how to accomplish that. And by that I mean Seimei. I had Seimei. "So, what nyaw?"

"Like I said, ditch those suits and follow: you're with me, so no punk will dare raise a fuss." Cambyses reassured us.

That was true: while hitching a ride on the cat-girl's chariot we attracted more than a few odd looks, but it was more out of curiosity than any real distrust.

Those small cat-people? They were much stronger than they looked. The ride itself was hot but pretty smooth until we finally reached the banks of the Egyptian temple. And I mean the banks. Located along the river's edge was a large building, large stone walls built on top of one another stacking high into the air as carvings were ingrained along its edges. It was also, shockingly, not a pyramid. Okay maybe that shouldn't be so much of a shock since I know intellectually that pyramids were tombs but pop culture has ingrained "egypt = triangles" so hard into me my shock might as well have been burned into my skin.

After passing through the gates we dismounted and followed Cambyses inside. There were several doors and entrances covered with canvas we had to cross, giving the impression of something guarded jealously. It didn't help that we met less and less people the deeper into the palace we went, until it was only us.

"KHAMUN!" The cat-girl shouted without regard. "I brought guests! Are you presentable?"

"Eeek!" A girly voice shrieked in response, followed by the sound of something heavy opening and closing. "C-C-Cambyses? What do you mean, guests! It's too sudden! Oooh... it's so embarrassing!"

"Well it's an emergency so deal with it!" The cat-girl's tone wasn't very sympathetic, though she took the time to peer through the final door before gesturing for us to follow. And inside was... That's a sarcophagus. Made of what looked to be gold and engraved with that classic egyptian burial stuff. I slowly nodded before subtly-unsubtly nudging Goemon and giving her a look.

She returned the look, as if saying 'Ye of little faith', but grumbled and made sure to keep her hands visible at all times.

"Those people from Zipang are here to discuss a possible threat to our beloved country." Cambyses explained with patience.

"Z-Zipang? Is, is that because of the letter? I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I don't know how I was rude to you but I'm very sorry!" The girl hidden inside cried. "Please forgive me!"

"It's nyat about that-" I coughed. "Wait can you even read inside that coffin or do you just come out whenever you're alone?"

"Ah, it's too embarrassing to show my face to other people so I usually hide inside the sarcophagus unless I'm alone. Ah, Cambyses is an exception." She mumbled bashfully. "Oh, ah, oh! Sorry, I didn't even introduce myself. My name is Tutankhamun, ruler of Egypt. Nice to meet you..."

"Name's Chen, nice to meet you Tunta... Tuntankal... Tuntie." I nodded. Not the best but it'd have to do!

"Oh, you can call me Khamun, or Tut like my parents. I know my name is long, sorry..."

"Nice. Nice. But enough with the pleasantries!" Cambyses clapped her hands. "I'm serious here Khamun. Some shady guys may be running around Egypt mind-controlling people and planning to make a mess of the whole country. I need you to put that charisma of you to work."

"Eh? Eeeh? Are, are things that serious? Oooh, then... Be strong, be courageous..." I heard her whisper, then suddenly the sarcophagus opened and Khamun walked outside. "Yahhh!"

Adorned in a white dress that contrasted against her tan skin and the orange ribbon that wrapped around her body was a young girl. Although she was draped in gold with markings on her face, the thing that caught my attention the most about her was her crystal blue eyes that sparkled more than I had ever seen before. Her short brown hair bobbed as she gripped onto her cane for dear life.

"Atta girl!" Cambyses-you know what, I'll just call her Camby, clapped her hands.

"Ah, oh, uhm..." Tut was both blushing and trembling hard. "How embarrassing...!"

"I'm beginning to understand why everyone's crazy about the lass." Goemon chuckled, moving closer to the window to light up her pipe.

"I have the distinct feeling we aren't being hit with charisma power at full blast." I replied before coughing. "Dunno if that's a good thing or a bad thing though."

She startled trembling even more at our words. "Sorry! Sorry!" Tut tried to run back inside the sarcophagus, but Camby barred the path with her seat.

"None of that! It's not even a crowd, pull yourself together girl!" The cat-themed girl grabbed the dark-skinned one by the shoulders and forced her to face us. "Just listen to them, alright? Those funny guys came with good intentions, isn't that right?"

She was looking straight at me while saying that, and I got the distinct feeling Camby wanted me to say the right thing. EMIYA, is that you? Alright maybe channeling something familiar would help here...

"Purrese help. Wait no, nyat that." I coughed. "We've come to help! Meowbe! There's a bunch of evil guys screwing everynyaing up! It's awful! That's why, we nyatta band together to stop them!"

Tama and Marco slapped their faces so hard I was sure it would leave a mark. However, it seemed to do the trick with Tut: she relaxed a little and looked at me with curiosity. "Sir Chen, you talk like Cambyses when she's drunk."

"I do not get drunk, I get tipsy! Mraahh!"

"Sorry! Oh, uhm..." She fidgeted with her cane. "I, I am very catful? Who are those nyasty guys?"

Goemon was shaking so hard she was unable to use her pipe.

"They call themselves the Illuminati and they've done everything from kidnapping, mind control, and heresies so destructive it'd make the most chaotic of gods cry foul." I said, immediately dropping the cat talk voice. "Some of us still like to call them BEAST though, since they're little more then rabid animals lashing out at the world in the end."

"Horus! That's awful!" Tut cried. "Kidnapping? Mind control? Heresies?! Uwaaah!"

"Exactly, nyaah! They make a very good case." Camby nodded. "Sometimes they just help nasty people get power, but in others they give out cursed pendants and use them to mind control the innocents into being disposable soldiers! Obviously this cannot stand, nor can we risk it!"

"W-What should we do then?"

"First we put an end to this ridiculous stand-off: just tell everyone it was a typo or something, if it's you anything's fine." The cat-themed girl laughed. "Then we look around for those pendants. Chen, you said they always have the same form and symbols on them?"

"Yeeeep." I nodded, popping the 'p'. "It's basically always the same color too if I recall correctly. For a group that wants to be hidden they sure do go all out on the branding."

"Must be a magic thing. See Khamun, it's easy: you just need to say 'make peace, not war' and 'look out for those pendants, they're bad'."

"Peace, not war... look for those pendants..." Tut repeated under her breath. "If, if it's just that I think I can do it? Oh... maybe give a papyrus to the criers to read from? To, uhm, make sure I don't screw up?"

"See?! That's the queen I know nya can be!" Camby slapped Tut's shoulder, startling the girl so badly she fell down and curled up into a ball.

Marco rubbed her forehead. "This is going to take awhile, isn't it?"

"Eh, don't rush the miracle worker and all that." I shrugged before turning to Tama. "By the way did you bring something to read in the meanwhile or...?"

"Now that you mention it, my Lord, with Lady Polo's help I recently acquired a scroll of Egyptian cartography." Her eyes were sparkling. "It is quite fascinating what can be done with papyrus. Do you want to give it a look my Lord?"

"Ehhh...."

====

So Camby set up a huge public gathering in front of Tut's palace, and the Queen of Egypt said what we planned from within her sarcophagus. She stammered from beginning to end even with the cat-girl next to her agreeing with or finishing for Tut as the situation demanded, and when she managed to expose a single hand out of her golden coffin the crowd went absolutely wild.

"I saw the Queen's hand!"

"Aaaah, I'll have to write this in my journal!"

"Perhaps her foot next! Even just a toe!"

I nodded as an epiphany occurred to me. "Oh I get what's going on here... They're all simps."

"Is that what your world calls that?" Marco narrowed her eyes. "Uh, somehow it fits."

After that every single citizen of Egypt started a manhunt for the Illuminati, and I was honestly worried it would end with a lynching.

The reality turned out to be far more bizarre.

"What did nya say?" Camby kept listening to a cat mewling, at the end then turned to us with a scandalized look. "There are pirates in Cairo trying to plunder the pyramids, nya!"

"Pirates?" I blinked before something occurred to me. "Oh gods it's Blackbeard's crew isn't it."

"The city was still in chaos after that chick of yours went berserk, when suddenly a pirate fleet came from the Suez Canal. Mrowh! We're used to river pirates, not sea ones!"

"W-What should we do?" Tut was trembling, though with just us she managed to stay outside the sarcophagus. Barely. "If, if my ancestors' sleep is disturbed they'll surely curse us all!"

"Easy: we come to the rescue and set us as the good guys!" Camby punched her palm. "On the Cat-Boat!"

It was a boat with a cat-shaped prow, manned by more of Camby's cat-soldiers. They were fast, yes, but the guy at the drum sounded more like a rock-star.

====

I was right, it was Blackbeard's crew. The common grunts were fighting the local guards, while their leaders went inside one of the biggest pyramids. So we decided to chase after them.

Inside the pyramid... well, it was cramped, and a labyrinth. We also came across several triggered traps, like spears from the walls and a pitfall.

"Nya nya! Those pirates are quite clumsy, they activated basically all the traps on the path to the main chamber." Camby exclaimed while reading the map given to her by the local priests.

"I am so glad I brought this." I muttered as I pulled out old reliable, and by that I mean the half broken cat mask I stole from a pirate ages ago. "Knew we were heading to a cat temple but I didn't think it would be this relevant."

"Uh-Uhm, is it safe? To head inside the pyramid, is it really safe? Father said to only send footsoldiers if necessary, because the ancestors may be indiscriminate..." Tut asked. She was still inside the sarcophagus, and keeping up with us by making it hop.

"No worries, no worries! We catch up with the pirates before they get too far, trash them up like the vandals they are and then leave in a hurry!" Camby promised. "The final chamber is sealed, I doubt they can open it anyway.

There was a loud explosion in the distance, the building trembling from the shockwave.

"I smell gunpowder." Goemon remarked.

"NYAAAA!! I WILL BURY THEM ALIVE!!!" Almost foaming at the mouth an absolutely mad Camby jumped off her chariot and raced ahead, cat-servitors hot on her heels.

"...Well then." I stared at the woman running at the speed of cat before turning back to Tut. "By the way, how fast can you go without leaving that?"

"H-How fast? Uhm, I think I can use healing magic to push myself harder, but I can't keep it up for too long. Oh, and the pain will probably be high... Sorry, I'm sorry. Just leave me behind, I'll try to catch up later..."

"The hell are you saying?" Brave shot through my arms as I picked up the surprisingly heavy coffin and lifted it over my head. "You're the ruler of Egypt! If people are trying to rob your ancestors, you gotta be one of the first ones to stop them! It's fine if you don't want to leave the coffin though, I'll carry you all the way there myself!"

"Eeep!" She let out an embarrassed shriek. "T-T-Thank you very muuuch! Please don't overexert yourself on my behaaalf!!"

"Do not worry Lady Tutankhamun! My Lord has an impressive track in accomplishing tasks that should be too hard or stupid to work." Tama reassured the panicking queen of Egypt.

When we finally arrived at the chamber the entrance was blasted open by explosives, allowing easy access unless you stumble on the rubble left. The room inside was very big, with a raised sarcophagus in the center surrounded by urns, statues and various precious trinkets. Camby was there too, and she was facing three people. The first was a small brown-haired girl in a sailor uniform (that was actually worn by a sailor!) dual wielding cutlasses. The second was-

My eyes widened before I screamed at the top of my lungs. "KIDDDDDDD!!!"

"Iiiiihhh!!!" The blonde shrieked. "I haven't done anything yet!"

"Moron, it's the enemy." The brown-haired girl scolded Kidd. She gave a good look at us and scowled. "What's this? I was not aware we recruited from Zipang, so why do you have one of our crew's masks?"

"Nyahaha, isn't it clear? That is spoils of war, nya can tell from the damage." Spoke the- Holy shit!

"A talking cat!" I exclaimed, pointing at the literal cat with purple fur dressed up in a full pirate costume. And also oh shit that was a lot of guns. Like, way too many for someone without opposable thumbs. "I didn't even know you could do that!"

"Nyahaha! Captain Edward Teach of the Vinland Pirate Corps, here to plunder. Nice to meet nyou." She smiled. "They also call me Blackbeard the Pirate, but since I was cursed into this form I prefer... Catbeard!"

Kidd chuckled, the girl with cutlasses didn't.

"Cursed? Served you right you damn graverobber!" Camby and her servitors were pointing spears at the three pirates. She was livid. "Bastet forgive me, I will not hesitate to skin you!"

"Oh you're just a furry." Well, that was disappointing. What I wouldn't give for a talking cat... "By the way Camby! I brought Tut! Where should I put her?"

"Just put her down!"

"You got it!" I replied, carefully putting the coffin on the floor before patting it on the back. "Ready to come out now or no?"

"Have, have we arrived? How many people are there?!" Tut asked, sounding like she was on the verge of crying.

"Eeek! It talked, the coffin talked!" Kidd exclaimed. "Drake, the body inside the coffin talked!"

"Don't be absurd: things like zombies and g-g-ghosts do not exist!" The eyes of the brown-haired girl, apparently named Drake, were wide as a plate and her legs were shaking. "There is just no way!"

A loud moan filled the chamber, sounding like the death rattle of a corpse in some kind of b-movie.

I turned to Goemon, just to make sure she wasn't screwing with us. She shook her head.

Teach looked around in confusion. "What was that?"

The raised sarcophagus in the center of the room began to shake, white mist coming out through the lid. "WHO DARES DISTURB MY SLEEP?" A literal voice from beyond the grave boomed. "WHO DARES DISTURB THE SLEEP OF I, AHMOSE THE FIRST?"

...Nope.

I had seen a lot since I got yeeted into this bizarre timeline. I've seen every historical figure be a girl, I've seen armies of terracotta soldiers, I've seen cities in absolute squalor, and my home island practically unrecognizable to my eyes. I've met the fucking Illuminati for gods sake, with Satan thrown in their too!

But this?

Hahahaha.

"No...." I let out slowly, backing a step away from that. "Oh god this day went from great to the fucking worst... But damn if that isn't a mood though."

Tut was babbling something from within her sarcophagus, and Camby wisely retreated to stand next to us. Goemon, Tama and Marco were obviously very disturbed by the current development.

Meanwhile Kidd and Drake looked like they died on the spot while standing, and Teach's purple fur lost several shades. "Eh eh eh... Nya may have made a mistake..."

BANG!

Someone punched the sarcophagus from within. Hard.

Screaming like possessed women Kidd and Drake grabbed Teach and, their Brave erupting like a volcano, burst through one of the walls like a cannonball. Their voices were so high-pitched we kept hearing them for a long while.

"TRESPASSERS. DESPOILERS. THIEVES." The ghostly voice boomed again. "I, AHMOSE THE FIRST, WILL NOT FORGI-"

"P-Please wait!" Tut came out of her coffin, looking very pale despite her brown skin. "M-M-My name is Tutankhamun, Queen of Egypt and daughter of Pharaoh Akhenaten of the Thutmosid Dynasty! H-Honored ancestor, I implore you to stay your hand."

"OH?" The sarcophagus stopped doing spooky stuff. Expect for the voice of course. "LET ME CHECK... YES YES, YOU ARE OF MY BLOODLINE. EXPLAIN YOURSELF THEN."

"We-We received word that pirates attacked the city and violated the pyramid, so we rushed here to stop them!"

"I SEE, I SEE. WELL YOU LOT ARE OBVIOUSLY LATE, BUT NOT BY MUCH. ACTUALLY..."

The white mist began to blow through the statues and other trinkets around the coffin.

"CANOPIC JARS ALL ACCOUNTED FOR, GOOD. FOR THE REST... A FEW MINOR ITEMS ARE MISSING, NOTHING TRULY IMPORTANT BUT IT IS THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THING. DESCENDANT OF MINE, I TASK YOU TO RETRIEVE WHAT WAS STOLEN FROM ME AND PUNISH THE CULPRITS. ALSO, PLEASE HAVE MY CHAMBER REPAIRED POST-HASTE: I CAN'T REST PEACEFULLY IN THOSE CONDITIONS."

The white mist formed a feeler and pointed at me.

"ESPECIALLY YOU. YES, YOU: TONE DOWN THE LIGHT, IT'S TOO BRIGHT FOR ME TO SLEEP."

"Light?" I blinked before letting out a sigh. "Oh... I think I know what you mean. That's probably a divine sponsor thing, or the equivalent at any rate. Out of my control, sorry. What's the underworld like anyways?"

"A NICE PLACE: IT'S SIMILAR TO THE LIVING WORLD BUT THERE IS ALSO STUFF LIKE LAKES OF FIRE AND TREES OF TURQUOISE. THINGS TURNED CHAOTIC AFTER OSIRIS AND THE OTHER GODS DISAPPEARED BUT WE MANAGED. WHERE I WAS? OH YES: IF YOU CAN'T TONE IT DOWN PLEASE LEAVE. IN FACT, ALL OF YOU NEED TO LEAVE: TALKING FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE IS TIRING, AND IT WILL BE EVEN WORSE ONCE THE REPAIRS BEGIN. NICE TO MEET YOU AND GOODBYE."

The white mist receded inside the coffin, leaving the room silent as the grave.

"...What did he mean, 'after Osiris and the other gods disappeared'?" Camby asked with a small voice, while Tut was hyperventilating.

"Oh yeah all the gods either died or fucked off ages ago." I waved casually, as if it were common sense. "I'll tell you about it on the way out. Really wanna listen to the pharaoh and skedaddle right now."

He scares me!

====

Notes:

Alex: Pirates like treasures. Pyramids are full of treasures. And apparently the unquiet dead too.

Chen: "Like" is a strong word, but I'm sure they'll treasure the memories made today.

Alex: The pharaoh was also generous, he sent after them a cute shy girl instead of, I don't know, curse their asses into becoming that shiny yellow metal they seem to like so much?

Chen: Listen they were already cursed. What was he going to do, double curse them?

 

[Winged One]

"I saw the Queen's hand!"

"Aaaah, I'll have to write this in my journal!"

"Perhaps her foot next! Even just a toe!"

I nodded as an epiphany occurred to me. "Oh I get what's going on here... They're all simps."

"Is that what your world calls that?" Marco narrowed her eyes. "Uh, somehow it fits."

Click to shrink...

...didn't you start writing this before we started calling them that?

Chen: Listen they were already cursed. What was he going to do, double curse them?

Click to shrink...

...yes?

 

[OverMaster]

A pity this saga's not better known, I'd kill for a crossover with Fate Grand Order.

Does anyone have any info on the new characters like Darwin? Why are there two of her?

Samuel Bellamy, Thorfinn, Piano Carpini, Prester John, Eumenes... is it me, or are they actually digging deeper and better than Fate? Fate of late has too many variants of already seen characters if you ask me.