-Nicholas Sparks

"John, what happened in there?"

Moira had been upon John almost as soon as he left the room, marching down the hallway in a storm. However, for once she did not seem angry at John so much as concerned. John could tell she was vainly searching for injuries, though after a half-second or so she seemed to remember John's unique physiology and proceeded to cast healing spells on him despite his best protestations.

"Well, everything started off decently. Kim's really fucking strong - like you're great at protecting people, and she's really great at-"

"At Slaying, yes," Moira said dryly.

"Uh, well, yeah- I mean- anyway." John sputtered indignantly, narrowing his eyes as he realized that Moira was smirking at having caught him off-guard with such an obvious point. "I was really excited after we beat the first dungeon so easily… but she kept making me raise the level. Honestly, I was going to take advantage of the diminishing returns on dungeons and try to get her to think that the training was slowing down, but she didn't give me a chance. One time I tried doing the same level of dungeon twice and she immediately caught on."

"I'm not surprised," Moira admitted as they continued through the halls. "As much as I made fun of you for being astonished a Slayer could kill so easily, there is more than that to becoming one of such a prestigious title. Slayers are adept at direct combat and slaughtering any enemy before them, but that involves much more than prowess. Slayers are incredibly skilled at evaluating weak points and the power level of any foe they come across. It's how they are able to efficiently deal with foes both human and Abyssal."

"I did see a status effect come up last time we trained together, back when we first met," John remembered. "Something about… Slayer Critical? No, it was… Slayer's Precision?"

"Well, whatever your powers interpreted it as, I've only known two Slayers - but both were innately adept at pinpointing vitals and other weak spots in an enemy's defenses. Combine that with Kim's aura reading abilities and she has a very strong penchant for knowing exactly how to beat the foes before her."

"So do you think I should have kept going?"

The thought had already occurred to John when Kim seemed so unrelentingly confident, but he had dismissed it as sheer lunacy. Hearing Moira voice her belief in Kim's combat knowledge, though, John wondered if he hadn't already given up on his enchanted blade when he could have trusted Kim to carry through to the end.

"…That is not my decision to make," Moira said after a moment's thought, worry crossing her face for just a moment. "However, I would not place total faith in Kim merely because she believes in herself. She has the ability to read her foes quite well… but I am not yet certain of Kim's ability to read herself. Kim certainly possesses the drive of a fierce warrior, but her drive is perhaps stronger than her body. Still… I heard the vow that she made in front of her own men. You know the Albidians are still out there, hunting you. A sword from the Moon Clan would have been a great aid in your quest to grow stronger."

Moira fell silent at that, but John felt the unspoken continuation of that line of thought. Kim Moon was an ally, but she was still a variable. She wouldn't always be there, she couldn't always be there. Even if she could, there was no guarantee that she would always be willing to help John. For a moment he felt as if he was viewing people the same way Moira did - like tools, only less reliable. In comparison to a fickle Slayer, a reliable blade was…

"Not worth it," John murmured, a strangely warm chill running down his spine at the thought of the Slayer's **** bringing him such a powerful weapon.

"Perhaps, although she did suggest the trade…" Moira's words caused John to grit his teeth, bile rising in his throat.

Status Effect Gained: Shard of Bishamonten: Activated [25%]

"There is no such thing as a necessary sacrifice," John hissed, the words flowing like ice water across his lips. "No matter how powerful the tool, I will not trade a human life for it. To do so would be to embrace the Abyss." Moira went silent for a long moment.

"What will you do when you see the cost of your path?" Moira eventually asked. She didn't seem to lecture John then, meeting his eyes as an equal. It was one of the first times John had ever stared back at her gaze without feeling looked down upon.

"I could ask you the same thing."

Neither of them spoke again for a long while. John's status effects eventually fell off as his thoughts over the past few hours played by in his mind, over and over again, until he calmed himself down enough for them to vanish. After they had disappeared John finally realized just how long they had been walking.

"Where exactly are you taking me? We didn't walk this far on the way in, did we?"

"You would do well to learn how to keep your bearings better. You sound quite unsure of yourself… that being said, no we did not. However, given your creation's unique fighting style, I didn't see the point of giving her the usual training. We studied her movements and style for nearly two hours while you were gone, testing her against different opponents. It was harder than anticipated, but when we felt as if we had a proper grasp on her styles, I sent her to my smiths. With the war over, we are not so tightly pressed for materials to take care of our broken and battered equipment."

"Shouldn't securing those kinds of materials in the Abyss be easy? I've always grinded for my stuff ‘cause I need the EXP anyway, and it's not like I have a better way to spend my time or mana, but I figured you guys would have some connections with the mundane world."

"Most of our armor beyond recruits is enchanted - shouldn't you know that by now? We even gave you a cloak and blade shortly after you joined us - true, the blade wasn't enchanted, but that was more for your sake than ours, at the time. It takes time and effort to weave enchantments properly into metal for most. For a set of mundane armor, it's considerably more easy, nearly trivial. While your creation has expressed a desire to assist us, due to your hesitance as well as her unusual requests, we opted for mundane metals for the initial set of armor, so it was hardly a burden."

"What kind of… unusual requests?" Moira smirked at John's question in a way that John had never seen before from her, a way that John found sincerely frightening. She refused to say more until opening the door back to the training grounds John had left her at.

The moment Moira opened the door, John could hear cries and what sounded like battle. This was different than what he'd heard before, when first leaving Maera in the care of the Order. Rather then the organized exertions of training, however… this sounded something more like chaotic combat, mixed with grunts of pain and one voice, lurking over all, shouting orders with authority, yet desperation.

"Gaia, Wallace, but can you keep a hold of your blade?! Jenkins, you'd best get back in there, or I'll have your hide to reupholster my chair! If I have to get in there myself, I'm going to kick her ass, then I'm going to kick all of yours!"

John's eyes grew wider with each word as he scanned across the courtyard. Where there had been separate training fields before, each with a knight or three practicing various techniques, most of the place had been practically emptied out now. Instead, in the center of the area all of them had gathered together. One Order Knight, a woman looking to be in her early thirties, stood around behind the rest of them and was giving them orders… on how to best attack John's Neko. Much to their own suffering.

Maera herself was a bit of a blur, dashing between walls, corners, and Order Knights. Sometimes she managed to fit her entire body between the legs of a Knight taking a particularly wide stance - how she did so was beyond John. The Neko’s lithe but curvy figure seemed to move in ways that seemed almost impossible. Perhaps it was simply because he didn't feel like anyone was in real danger and so John wasn't pounding with adrenaline yet, but John felt as if Maera was moving even faster and more insanely than during their multiple Barrier sessions.

The Knights seemed to agree. Despite them outnumbering the Neko almost ten to one, as well as wielding weapons - something that definitely did make John rather nervous - the Knights were unable to do more than scratch at John's creation as she made fools of them. Maera seemed like she was playing with the Knights, jumping to and fro, tossing and turning the Order's warriors without ever inflicting any real damage. The first blow never landed against her until she eventually spotted John, who was still awestruck by the sheer carnage she was unleashing.

"Myaster!"

Maera's tackle was just as fast as those she had dealt out to the Order soldiers, only slightly less hostile in intent. John did his best to endure the sudden ****, something between a laugh and a grunt coming out as the white-haired Neko buried herself into him. With Maera now still for the first time since his arrival, John got a better look at his young creation.

Maera herself was not significantly different, but her appearance was changed by the drastic accentuations made by her new garments. Her Hair was held back - save for a few errant bangs - by a metal hairband that wrapped along her temples and held her long ivory locks back. A single piece of cloth held a cluster of metal plates together along her neck and shoulders, tied in an ornate way across her chest. Said chest was surprisingly sparse in its coverage, most of her upper body exposed. Only her breasts, forearms, and abdomen were regularly covered, laces of metal and cloth in equal measure spreading across, eventually fading into a skirt that was mostly cloth, covering what could best be described as a plate bikini. It was like every armor John had seen in his video games for particularly scantily clad female warriors, except he was witnessing it live, on a Neko determined to bury her cheek deep into his sides. The armor looked quite nonfunctional for typical combat, and… highly provocative.

"Wait, she requested something like this?" John mumbled, absently stroking at the Neko's hair. "I mean, I know she kind of dislikes wearing clothes, but… can you even make armor this revealing and have it be worth forging?"

"As it is now, no," Moira admitted, her gaze changing again to a slightly admonishing one. "With the proper enchantments, yes. I was actually quite opposed to her requests originally. She more or less requested us to cover as little area as possible, and I chalked that request up to your perverse nature and the fact that she assumed you'd be upset to no longer see your Nekos fully nude."

"Y'know, as I recall, the first time you journeyed to my private world, the one who benefited most from the Nekos' sexual nature was-"

"BUT!" Moira called out, loudly interrupting John mid-sentence before coughing conspicuously and resuming her train of thought, "I asked her to show us how she fights, and from what I've seen so far, it looks like she'll benefit a lot more from enchanted armor that is light on protection and heavy on mobility, not dissimilar to Kim, though her fighting style is… unique, to say the least."

"So… you probably can't train her, then?"

John must have sounded a bit too hopeful; Moira responded with a scoff and physically waved, as if brushing away a bothersome child. "Our Order is not restrictive in how our soldiers fight; we are quite used to unusual mages. The choices of heavy armor and swords for the majority of our soldiers is born out of a mixture of misplaced senses of tradition in the soldiers, lack of creativity, and lack of particularly unique magical talents, with some exceptions. No, John, we will be more than happy to have your Neko with us for as long as she lends her assistance."

"I was afraid she'd say that."

"Alright, come on, Maera, we need to go home for the day," John insisted, half-changing the topic while continuing to brush at Maera's head.

"But Myaster, it's so fun playing with these Order people!" Maera sounded so excited that John reconsidered the others for a moment. Maera's very vocal pleas were met with silent horror from the Order Knights she had been "playing" with. Driven by the words of their commander, they had been subjected to a foe they had no chance of beating without lethal ****. After weeks spent playing in the grass with Lunaya and Mithra, Maera was a budding master of unarmed and non-lethal combat, it seemed.

"I don't think they see it the same way you do."

"Only ‘cause they're a bunch of rotten pansies!"

That was the last thing the commanding Knight barked at her subordinates, all of them wincing at the words. Then the woman turned toward John, her eyes lighting up with an immediate glee. The Knight was quite beautiful, now that John was taking a proper look at her. Blonde, nearly white hair fell past her chest in a braid, dangling dangerously between the bits of her breastplate and the decorative shirt underneath. Gold trimmings adorned her shoulders and elbows, most likely a sign of some rank John wasn't familiar with or a personal touch. Her blade had similar trim, as well as the carved head of a lion at the pommel of the sword.

"Pleasure to meet you in a more formal capacity, Mr. Newman. I'm Glenna Simons, Drill Sergeant, Commander, and Quartermaster for three divisions of the Order's Knights. We've met on the battlefield, but I think the most we've exchanged were a few words of warning."

"Ah, well, pleasure to meet you there… Miss? Simons?" John said, a bit awkwardly as he realized he was meeting someone far more familiar with himself than the reverse. Her sudden shift in tone from instructing her men to dealing with him also threw him off. "I apologize if I don't recognize you; everyone tends to look the same through a visor."

"Hah, that's the truth there," Glenna agreed, shaking her head. The long blonde braid thrown casually over her shoulder jostled, somehow never catching or hanging between the plates of her armor. "I was actually at the final battle against the Cabal and not far behind you - shame I missed the commotion in the prison cells. It's Miss, but for the love of Gaia call me Glenna. You've got one hell of a warrior here, you know that? My soldiers are well drilled on fighting against knives, swords, axes, guns, spells… nothing like a creature that’s not quite human to throw them for a loop, eh? She's got a lot of potential. Not many men around here I'd have beside me in battle over her."

"Oh, uh… thanks. I actually didn't expect such a warm welcome for her, so thank you. All the information that's come out about me since the Cabal broke up seems to be going over better than I expected."

"No surprise around here. You stayed in the Manor for all of about a week, and everyone was talkin' about you. If I had the kinda powers you do, I'd probably have kept them under wraps myself… no telling what kind of attention you'll get, especially with critters like her running around all the time."

Glenna reached down and scratched under Maera's chin, in a way so familiar John felt a bit perturbed at first, but Maera showed no hesitation to the touch and in fact melted quite quickly into Glenna's touch. As the Neko sighed and leaned against the fervor of attention she was receiving, Glenna continued toward John with a smile.

"Anyway," the Knight said, lowering her voice to a whisper, "pay no mind to me. I'm not here to talk you into raising us an army like the Warden is - I appreciate just havin' the two of you around."

"Well… thanks," John mumbled, caught almost completely off-guard. This woman was not only taking a friendlier tone with him than any of her own men, but she had gotten over any problems she had with otherworldly creatures in less than a day, and she was showing less hostility than Moira ever had. He was sort of used to it from the Order Knights, but…

"I mean… aren't you mad? Even a little? The Cabal basically admitted I'm the entire reason they went to war…" Glenna frowned, her hand slowing across Maera's jaw as she went silent for a moment.

"It's true that they were fighting us to get to you, but… the Cabal were always going to come after us. Too much shared turf for two people with such different views on the Abyss and the world around it. I'll never forget the lives we lost. Just from my own squadron, I've got nearly a dozen names to etch into my memory. Still, every one of them knew the risks. We all have our own reasons for being here, but at the end of the day, all of us would give our lives for the Order."

John wanted to ask why. To ask what drove all of the soldiers there to such loyalty. But he couldn't - Etriyya was the only Order Knight he'd ever gotten to properly know, and he had thoroughly burned that bridge when he finally learned why she was there. He was terrified to relive that. Then there was the note of slightly lesser importance, but far more immediate…

"Thank you, Glenna, truly. It makes me happy to hear that, and I really want to thank you for welcoming Maera in. But we need to get back; I'm worried things might have gotten out of hand at home."

"Fair enough. I'll work on drilling these sorry sacks while you're gone, and see if we can put up a proper fight for the little darling next time. I think adding Maera in to our training and our ranks could really help both sides out for dealing with the unexpected."

John made some final agreements and ushered Maera away quickly after, though she tried vainly to fight against him and receive more scratchings from her new favorite instructor.

"But Myaster, Order lady so nice! Why do we have to leave?!"

"Why are you in such a hurry, John?" Moira echoed, shaking her head. "You're not unscathed yourself, you know. If you'd stop running about, we could tend to your wounds."

"I had to take some risky measures to make sure Kim didn't get more seriously hurt during that Barrier run," John admitted, shaking his head. "I Purified the last boss."

"So?" Moira shrugged, seemingly unfazed. "Doesn't that just make them like your other creatures?"

"Yeah," John noted, "and when I made Lunaya, she tried to really hurt me. So whatever that boss just got Purified into is back at home right now. It's only my fifth Purified creature, since I didn't actually make Sophia, so I'm still not really sure what to expect…"

"The fifth, you say?" John noticed a slight grimace on Moira's face. "Perhaps it's best you make a speedy return then."

"Wh-what?" John asked, astonished at the sudden change in attitude. "Why the sudden shift?"

"Just… superstition," Moira mumbled, shaking her head a bit. "Five has a lot of significance as a magical number. It's one of the few things to slip through to the mortal realm as a result of not always being directly tied to obvious evidence of magic - things like pentagrams, rituals often requiring five of specific ingredients, spells often being tiered in five stages to learn. Great and terrible things happen with a variety of magical numbers; three, five, seven, thirteen… o-of course it's all superstition! A Warden would never believe such silly things, but it never hurts to be cautious."

"Yeah, sure…" John mumbled.

“I believe you will be able to handle whatever it is back there waiting for you. You’ve grown in leaps and bounds since I first met you, John Newman - and not only in terms of power. You’ve helped me to grow too. I…”

Moira cut herself off, her arm twitching upward as if she were about to reach out to John with it. After a moment, she thought better, coughed, and changed the subject.

"So you have no idea what's waiting for you back there?"

"Not really. I'm sure Mithra and Lunaya can handle it, though. Lunaya has been training so much on her own she's probably a match for it even if it went full hostile…

"…right?"

---

Though Moira lectured John most of the way to the Brighton Manor's main entrance, John himself actually realized his greatest mistake when he was only a third of the way back to his new home. Seras had volunteered to provide Barrier service for herself and Sophia, allowing them the chance to train on their own - albeit without the Gamer leveling bonuses and experience gain. What she had never mentioned was any way of communicating outside the Barrier she formed.

Fortunately, one catastrophe in his life managed to avert itself without any intervention from John. Rather than training, the two women were casually lounging on the beds in the barracks. Upon the return of John and Maera, the two of them quickly stood to attention, smiles breaking out on their faces.

"Master! Did it go over alrigh'? Maera looks like she's missin' a few armor pieces."

"This is the full set, there's still some work to be done, but I'm just glad for her to have something to… call her… own," John's words slowly fell apart as Maera pressed a few latches on the armor and it unbuckled itself, clattering loudly to the ground. The once-more nude Neko stretched herself out against one of the beds, promptly mewling with relief.

"Fiiiinally! Maera was sooooo cramped in there," Maera moaned, bringing her hands up to massage her chest. John stared for a few moments as Maera gently groped herself, relaxing her compressed chest and taking perhaps a little too much pleasure in the action. But although John's recent weeks had taught him the value of lewdness, there was something more pressing than Neko titties.

John fought a chuckle at the idea that old John might have slapped him for even thinking that.

"Look, that's not important. Long story short, Kim messed up the training, and I had to Purify a new creature."

"Oh, cool. New roomie? Where's she at?"

"Our family grows. Soon we will be an unstoppable ****," Sophia grunted, nodding with excitement.

"Yeah, but I didn't want to deal with it and Kim at the same time, and I was worried about what they might do to each other, so I kind of… sent the critter off to our private world before it finished forming."

"Wha- you don' even know what we're goin' up against here?" Seras reached out and grabbed her rifle, resting against the frame of the bed she'd been relaxing on. It was firmly held against her shoulder and pointed at the ground as fast as John could blink, and then she was narrowing her eyes. "We gotta get movin'!"

"Well, see, about that… I kind of forgot that the abilities to shift between worlds are on the same cooldown whether I'm part of it or not."

"…How long?" Seras asked nervously.

"Well, by the time I finished dealing with Kim, dealt with Moira, grabbed Maera, and got here to have this conversation… maybe three hours?"

Seras groaned, collapsing onto the bed, throwing the rifle down on the pillow beside her. "Ya serious?! We can't get there for three more hours?!"

"Don't worry, I stopped by Tricia's lab. She still has that drone there for communication, remember? Nobody answered when she called, so she told the drone to go find out where Lunaya and Mithra went to. We found Mithra napping in the mountains, and when we left a few minutes ago, Tricia said she can connect us the second that she gets a hold of them. Last she said was the drone was headed toward the house. So… I guess we wait?"

The waiting took longer than John thought. Tricia's drones were fast, but John's world had grown immensely since he created the mountain range for Maera and Mithra to play in. John's phone remained painfully silent for minutes - he began to wonder if Tricia had set the drone to a meandering path in a search attempt for the new creature as well, instead of heading directly to his home, but he was growing more and more concerned about leaving Mithra unsupervised in the mountains asleep with an unknown entity around. John was growing so nervous as the clock ticked by that, when his phone finally did go off, John nearly jumped off the bed.

"Tricia? What's going on, did you find Lunaya? Or whatever I made?"

"Yes, John. I did, but… you're going to want to see this."

"Want to see-"

John's phone dinged with a request to turn the call into a video call. He wasn't quite sure how Tricia managed it, but when he hit accept he was getting what must have been a direct feed from the drone - he recognized the interior of his recreated household, right down to the empty window frames in the background.

What he didn't recognize were the red eyes staring directly at him, or the friendly yet intimidating smile focused toward the camera. A handsome man of pale skin and tall stature stood in what resembled the disguises of the Brighton family when they were not in battle gear - a full suit, complete with shirt and tie underneath. The suit was night black, as was the tie, while the undershirt was a pinstriped white piece that only made the man's skin seem slightly less deathly white. He wore the collar upright, revealing the full loop of the tie around his neck. Six silver buttons fell into a pattern across the front of his tailcoat, and at the lower edge of that piece, the bottom bits of a dark crimson vest were just visible, sticking out over the waist of his pitch black suit pants. White gloves adorned the hands at the edge of the screen, apparently holding quite firmly onto the drone itself.

"Good afternoon! The young Miss Gorbachev has you up on the screen; am I to understand that you are the John Newman she has spoken of?"

"Yes, that would be me. You seem to have me at an advantage, if she's been so bold as to already introduce me. Who might you be?"

"I'm afraid I do not currently possess a name with which to introduce myself. So sorry! If you wish to refer to me, I will happily respond to "the Butler" until such time as I acquire another name."

"Well, we can talk about that later. For now… is there anyone else in the house with you currently? We were about to return home, but we wanted to contact one of the other residents first, are they all out training?"

The man's smile put John ill at ease. He was trying to be vague, uncertain of this Purified man's intentions and attempting to conceal exactly how many people were in that world, and how soon John would return home.

"Of course there is. After all, I wouldn't be found far from my Mistress, would I?"

"Your Mistress?" John fought a losing battle against a shocked look on his face, narrowing his eyes at the screen. "Are you telling me that you've already made Lunaya your… Mistress? What exactly does that mean?"

"Lunaya? Is that the young Mistress' name, then? I must thank you dearly, of course - while I cannot fault my Mistress for her inability to speak, I must say that it makes it rather difficult to serve her at times. Knowing her name will surely aid in my quest to please her."

John didn't particularly like the wording of that. Fighting back a grimace, John allowed a bit of his anger to seep through as he continued to address this crimson-eyed fiend. He was being deliberately vague in his words and details, clearly not friendly to John, even if he wasn't necessarily hostile.

"Well, I believe I've assisted you quite enough for now. Release this drone so that we can check in on Lunaya."

"Oh my, were you hoping to see the Mistress? I'm afraid I can't allow that."

Status Effect Gained: Shard of Bishamonten [10%]

"I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice."

"Under different circumstances I would be quite happy to properly announce your visit to the Mistress, but you see, she's quite indisposed at the moment. If you wish, I will take a message down and gladly deliver it to you at her convenience. Otherwise I'm afraid I cannot allow this drone any further access to the dwelling."

Status Effect Gained: Shard of Bishamonten [25%]

"You will release this drone. Now."

"Well, as you are already on your way, I am sure that both the Mistress and I will be seeing you quite shortly. Until then, however, I cannot allow you to disturb her. So sorry!"

With that, the man's hand moved like a blur and collided with the drone. Once, twice, and the camera failed. Two more strikes and the audio went out, the connection severed entirely then. The screen switched over to a proper view of Tricia's face again, impassive as ever.

"M-Master? How long until we- ah… is it… is it gettin' 'ot in 'ere?"

Status Effect Gained: Shard of Bishamonten [50%]!
Passive Skill Gained: Overflowing Aura!
Overflowing Aura: The user's aura radiates with the energy of a known spell. This spell inflicts 1% of its normal, minimum effect every [100 / User’s Agility] seconds to all targets within 100 meters. Can only use spells with an instant effect, not a delayed or sustained effect such as heal/damage over time, illusion spells, or drain spells. This consumes no mana, but cannot be changed once the ability is activated. May only be activated once per day, lasts for eight hours or until deactivated. Current Spell: Fire Orb {Currently dealing: .219 damage/second to all targets}*
Overflowing Aura **** Level 0 Perk Activated: Targets cannot be selected, randomly selected offensive spells only.
Overflowing Aura **** Level 0 Perk Activated: Spell cannot be manually deactivated. Spell will deactivate at the end of its time limit or when 50% Activation is lost.
-1 HP

John's increasingly durable form felt only a slight pain as a few shards of metal sliced open his palm. His grip had tightened so harshly that the cell phone in his hand cracked and splintered, falling to the floor as Tricia spoke words that never reached John's ears.

"Two hours… twenty-seven minutes," John breathed, his eyes unmoving even as flames wafted off his body at the peripheral of his vision.

"Then I skin him alive."