Dantega:Volume 2 Chapter 6

(PART 3)

"W-What is it that you want to talk about, Rain?" Dice asks nervously.

Rain puts her hand on her hip and leans on her leg. "Nothing in particular... I guess I just want to hear your voice."

Dice blushes and asks, "Is that a good thing?"

"I don't know yet... that's what I'm here to find out."

Dice scratches his head and wonders if what the snake did actually worked, this kind of thing has never happened before so he figures that it has finally proven some results.

Rain walks within a few feet of him and looks him in the eyes. "Why did you do that?"

Dice feels very uncomfortable with her question, he doesn't exactly know how to reply because it was not him who said and did those things.

"Because...because---"

"Because you love me right?" Rain interrupts.

"T-That's right." he replies as his eyes shift away from her and toward the ground.

"Hmph." Rain puffs with a slight smile, she turns around and starts walking away. After a few feet she stops, and with her back to him she says, "I think I know now."

She disappears in the darkness of the woods, leaving a confused Dice behind.

"What does she mean by that?"

---

"We're here..." Rain says to the blond young man who's second in command as they both crouch in a natural forest burrow.

They have left the area where her father's division was posted, and after traveling for more than three hours they have spotted a light that shines from within the dense woods.

"If my map is correct this should be the 105th Specialist Division." she mentions, her eyes are stuck on a map that indicates their position.

It states that they are within a few hundred yards of where they need to be, and because she can hear the men talking around their campfires she knows that the map was accurate.

"So how should we go about this?" the man asks.

Rain ponders for a moment and responds, "Full on frontal assault."

"That's odd of you, don't you think it would be better if we surround them? We do have them outnumbered after all."

"That would be an insufficient waste of our efforts, I don't want to throw away my precious time strategically battling them if we can just wipe them out in one fell swoop."

The man ruffles his blond hair while scratching his head. "Well it makes sense... our side will definitely take on more casualties though."

"Who cares."

The man takes a deep breath in discontent as she continues.

"Time is far more important than expendable men. I want to get this done quickly and save the use of my technical intricacies for Tronoble."

He sighs loudly as if vehemently disagreeing with her, but having no choice but to oblige he says, "Yes ma'am."

He stands up and walks back to the thousands of troops that are all lying in prone positions. Looking at this massive gathering of men he says, "At least we know there’s no chance of us losing."

The entire battalion is awaiting a simple hand gesture from her to signify the beginning of the attack, she has a big smile on her face as she thinks about how great things are working out. Dice is more than a mile behind her because he volunteered to take command of her father's division, so she knows he can't get in the way until the battle is over. This means that she can actually fight to her heart's content and the anticipation in doing so is making her body as light as a feather.

She lifts her arm and is ready to point it forward when she happens to see a man in blue armor taking a leak behind a tree while drinking a full bottle of rum.

She drops her hands and ducks, watching him intently.

(Is he a lookout?) she thinks to herself.

She pulls out a foot long dagger from her boot and ponders an ambush.

All the man needs to do is look to the right and he will see the massive force gathered on a hill, if he does, he would easily be able to outrun the Eiyalazonian military back to the core of his group and warn them of the dangers.

This would certainly damper Rain's plans, with the Trojan's informed, they have more of a chance to arm themselves and prepare for a defensive battle; this would add more casualties to her men and even worse, cost them more time.

After waiting for him to finish, Rain looks closely to see if he will catch a glimpse of the battalion and to her disappointment, he does. His face drops in shock and he jolts back to his group.

Rain clicks her tongue and starts running after him as fast as she can through the dark forest.

(He'd better not shout!) she thinks, knowing full well that if he does he might be close enough to his comrades to give away their position.

The two weave through the trees and Rain is steadily gaining on him, the man isn't used to running through trees like this so he is weary of each turn in order to not get stymied.

Rain notices this and realizes that she holds a distinct home field advantage.

This kind of activity is something that every Eiyalazonian is used to, they can judge the distances and gaps between the dense trees in an instant so they won't get entrapped or lost.

Rain is within a few feet from the man when she readies her dagger.

The man senses this and becomes extremely nervous, he speeds up and then he feels that her presence has completely vanished. He looks behind him and finds that there is nobody, in fact, he can't even hear any footsteps and wonders if this whole incident is just his drunken imagination playing tricks on him.

While looking back he relaxes and loses his focus, he takes a sigh of relief and then...

WHAAACCKK!!!

He slams head first into a tree and falls to the ground on his back.

"Ooah! Fuck!!" he shouts while holding the side of his head that banged into the tree.

He just lays there and tries to recoup when he looks from side to side and sees that there is no one around.

He starts to laugh loudly and says, "Damn this shitty forest, it has been playing tricks on me since I got here."

He continues to laugh until he happens to look up into the branches of the tree he had just ran into.

In the branches he sees the intense eyes of the girl who was chasing him, and she is pointing a large silver dagger at him that shines dangerously bright under the light of the moon.

The man is blue with fright when she smiles and leaps towards the ground, before he could even move she viciously lands on him and in the same motion impales his chest cavity with the dagger.

An instant kill.

In her mind she understands that this was a flawless victory when she considers what she had just accomplished; she knew the man was running toward a tree by merely looking ahead of him at the formation. She knew at the speed he was going there was no avoiding it, so she abandoned her position behind him and cut to the right, which was a shortcut that had a clear path to where his collision course was. She hopped up the branch of one tree and up the branch of another until she was looking down on her prey.

Albeit, this was as easy of a kill she would have imagined.

Rain stands up off the man and looks down on him, he has a petrified look on his face and the way his eyes stare blankly up at her feels as though she is looking at the freeze frame of death itself. He was wearing this expression when he knew his final moments were up.

She pulls the dagger out of his chest and looks at the blood.

A thin grin forms on her face when she says, "That felt great!"

She runs back to the burrow she was once in and makes it to the sight of the battalion, she signals the attack and thousands of men come running off the hill and into the forest, but they are doing so very quietly to not give the Trojan's any kind of advanced warning.

Rain is running along with them, the blond man tosses her the long and thin sword that belongs to her and she unsheathes it; she smiles when she thinks of how many lives she can take with this blade that she herself designed.

They continue through the woods when the sight of the 105th Specialist Division can be seen, another wide smile surfaces on Rain's face when she sees the meager numbers of the men. It looks like they have less than four hundred men and they are outnumbered more than ten to one, and to top it off they are caught completely off guard.

This is shaping up to be a massacre and Rain knows it, this makes the sweet taste of victory all the more sweeter because she also knows that in this group should be the two people who assassinated her father.

What starts as a silent battle turns into chaos as the mass of men begin to scream and the sounds of their swords clashing is heard in a metallic din.

In the initial collision of the two forces, more than half the Trojan men were killed and only a few dozen Eiyalazonians were taken out. The tidal wave had already broken their rands and there is no turning it around, the Trojans have no hope.

Rain can see that distinct hopeless look in all of their panicked faces as she calmly walks inside the heart of the battlefield. She is scoping as many people as possible in order to find someone who fits the description of one of the two men given to her by Jalet, but she is having no such luck.

She clicks her tongue in frustration and swings her long blade at a Trojan man who is already engaged in battle with one of her own, it strikes his back and fatally wounds him. She continues to walk through the mass of carnage and does the same thing repeatedly, just to sooth her bitter attitude.

She reaches a point where there are more enemy soldiers than allies and stops; what she can see is the scrambling of men desperately trying to stem the tide. She notices that there are two men that are shouting orders to people and she assumes that they are the Captain and perhaps someone even higher up in the ranks.

(I wonder if I can get to them?) she thinks as she analyzes the many different routes she can take through the men.

Seeing that it is pretty much impossible to weave her way to the leaders, she decides to back away and run into the trees to attempt to sneak behind them.

In the trees she slowly moves, inching her way through the darkness of the early morning in order to not be seen; but what worries her is that the Trojans might be trying the same thing, and to her annoyance she finds that there are a group of nine men that are heading in her direction.

"Damn it all, I thought that after Zurvick and Captain Ash took out their Captain we'd be safe until our back up troops arrive next week..." one of the men spits.

Another man grits his teeth and adds, "Who would have thought that killing that Ditreig guy would piss them off so much?? This is ridiculous!" "It's a good thing they aren't here, I don't see how any of us are gonna get out of this one." said the one walking on the furthest to the left. They are not trying to be quiet, they think that there is no sign of enemy troops around them this deep in their lines so they are talking leisurely.

Rain doesn't know this, but these are the men who were platooned with Zurvick and were with him around the campfire; these are the people that would likely know the most about the happenings with her father.

Even though the exact circumstances are still unclear, she hides behind a tree and eavesdrops. She had already heard them drop three names, one being her father and the other two being some people named Zurvick and Ash, so she is puzzling the pieces together as they speak. She hides quietly and listens to their conversation.

"It's a damn shame... I never got to try that friggin' liquor."

"Ooahh I'm still thinking about that too!"

"Come on guys don't be ridiculous, it's not like us regular soldiers would be able to drink something the Queen had made herself."

The men look happy as they talk about it, the mere fact that they were once so close to having a taste of something the most beautiful woman in their country had touched makes them antsy just thinking about it. This idle chit chat is definitely being used as a coping mechanism for their certain forthcoming fate, by doing this, they are keeping their minds off of their likely deaths coming next.

"What a lucky bastard that Zurvick..."

"Haha yeah no kidding."

Before the men can continue their talk they are interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind them, they quickly turn and they see a girl standing there, she is holding two rounded balls in both her hands and has a smile on her face.

"Who are you!?" one man shouts.

This seems completely off to them, seeing a girl dressed in Eiyalazonian attire on the battlefield certainly shouldn't be happening because they know that there are no women in the enemy's military.

"You know what these are right?" Rain asks as she points her hands out, gesturing them to look at what she's holding.

The men all look at her with angst.

Judging by their reactions, she assumes they know.

"That's right, these are the new Eiyalazonian shrapnel bombs. The explosions they cause are quite violent, they can easily kill nine men standing this close."

Explosives are very rare at this point in time, explosive minerals like gunpowder and other nitrates have only recently been discovered, and not in near enough quantity to mass produce combustible weapon. These balls of death are activated upon contact with a certain amount of weight pressure, and after two seconds it explodes and sends hot flames and shrapnel hurling through the air at immense speeds.

The men know that they are not in good shape, because of the trees they are pretty much in a confined area, thus making escape to be very difficult if not utterly unattainable.

Rain's smile grows wider when she says with a demands, "I'd like to hear about this Zurvick person."

---

A man sits on a large throne in a dark room, he laughs as he moves one of his black rooks up another spot on his chessboard.

This time at the foot of his throne is Beelzebub.

He looks at the chessboard and sees that there are two black rooks along with the queen piece positioned upwards, and one white rook on the opposite side going forward.

"You seem awfully excited with that game of yours, if you don't mind my asking, what do those chess pieces signify?" Beelzebub asks.

The man gestures his hand toward the board and replies, "These are souls."

"Oh? All of them?"

"No, just the ones that have been moved up on my side of the table are souls that are under my control."

Beelzebub put his hand on his chin and asked, "What about the white one?"

"That is Lelaine Niveusvenia, the Queen of Troy. She is one of the souls that defied my tempting."

"And the black rooks?"

The man points to them and states, "This one is Sturgess Issac, he is the Commanding General of the Trojan military. This one is Dice Di'Vore, the Prince of Eiyalazo."

He stops his explanation and Beelzebub is obliged to ask, "And the last one?"

The man chuckles, "This person knew who I was yet still accepted my offer, she knew she was handing over control of her soul. This person has the ability to change the world for my gain, and with the powers I shall bestow on this one, I will return to Earth."

Beelzebub has grown quite intrigued by this; though he is not involved with the happenings of Earth he finds the situation that blankets over the human world to be more than enough entertainment to hold his interest.

The man on the throne continues, "This person and the Queen are not as foolish as the others. The other two allowed me to take their souls without even knowing it, they never thought of the price of our contract.”

Beelzebub stares at the bright red eyes that shine in the darkness like scorching pieces of coal and asks once more, "So what is the name of this person?"

"Her name is..."

---

Rain is awaiting the answer of the men that she is holding hostage with the two bombs she holds in her hands.

She urges them to hurry by saying, "Come on now, if you guys stay silent I'll find you to be useless, and if I find you to be useless, I will kill you."

They all look at each other with wary eyes and one of the men steps forward.

"We would never sell out one of our own."

Rain scowls at him and asks, "Are you all willing to sacrifice your lives for this one man?"

"Of course we are!" a man shouts.

Rain smiles evilly, "Oh really now? I don't mean to tread on your integrity but I find it very odd that all nine of you would die for a regular soldier... I would find it strange that you'd forfeit yourselves even for the sake of your Captain."

A man puffs air out of his nose and responds, "Hmph! Well you don't know those two!"

They all smile in agreement as they ready themselves for the worst.

"I actually think I do, gentlemen... your Captain's name is Ash Alworth right? If I'm not mistaken, that is a woman's name." The men all stay silent as Rain continues. "And did I hear something about the Queen? Oh yeah that's right, it was something about the liquor she personally made for the soldier who assassinated Captain Ditreig. That in and of itself is odd, unless... hmmm, the soldier's name was Zurvick wasn't it? Zurvick Niveusvenia, the King of Troy who fights alongside his men in battle, that man would certainly be someone you all would choose death for."

She knows all of this because of the countless studying she has done on the opposing armies of Troy and La’Juune, especially on this division in particular; of course she knew who Ash Alworth was beforehand.

The part about the King is purely speculation however, she had heard that King Zurvick fights with his men through the Trojan newspapers but had no clue where he fought and what division he fought in. That information was kept classified for obvious reasons.

The men are still shocked at her deduction; she is spot on accurate on the info they wanted to hide just from hearing a few words of their conversation.

They look at each other and in silence come to the conclusion that they absolutely can't let this girl leave with this knowledge at all costs, and with that they charge at Rain. In their mind, if she wants to use the hand-bombs, it would result in her blowing herself up as well.

Rain smiles and calmly tosses the bombs at her feet, this catches them off guard, they are less than fifteen feet away from her and they know that they are all in the range of the blast, including her.

"Hahaha, your reactions tell me all I needed to know. My use for you is over.”

BBOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!

The bombs blow and it rips through the men and the trees.

Because there are two of them, the explosion is so large that it would easily kill anyone within a 20 yard radius, the men were within ten feet of Rain so they are instantly obliterated.

Once the smoke clears the carnage can be seen, all nine of the men are now bloodied and mangled corpses.

However, there is one person standing with her hand on her hip and leaning on her left leg.

The last person standing is none other than Rain.

She has somehow survived the blast and is completely unscathed, she walks over their mangled bodies and says to the dead men, "There is no way I would be killed by something as simple as a bomb."

She looks out toward the heart of the battle and sees that this blitzkrieg is almost a full on victory, she guesses that it will be over in less than five minutes. She decides to relax and watch on until the fray calms, once it's done she'll give further orders to make sure they leave a couple survivors from the higher ranks.

"Now the real fun begins."

---

Dice is riding a horse at full speed toward the site of the battle in which Rain is involved in; behind him is Ditreig's former division and of course, the majority are on foot so Dice is far ahead of them.

"I hope she's okay." he says worriedly to himself.

They were an hour behind but they had already decided to increase their speed in order to catch up long before that, so now they are only a few minutes from reaching the battlefield.

Once there, they find that it is over.

The 105th Specialist Division has been entirely demolished, the Trojan's fought hard though, a good amount of Eiyalazonian soldiers have been killed as well. 70 Eiyalazonion soldiers died in the fighting, with a few dozen more wounded.

Dice gets off his horse and walking through the piles of dead soldiers looking for Rain, he spots the higher up with two different colored eyes and asks him, "Do you know where Rain is?"

He looks at him and replies, "She's on the other side of this camp interrogating a soldier."

"Thank you." Dice says as he starts to run to the other side of the battlegrounds.

After running for a few minutes he finds Rain, along with a few men standing over a bloodied Trojan soldier who is tied to a tree.

Rain lifts the bloodied man's drooping head with the dull end of her thin longsword and says, "So King Zurvick and Captain Ash left this division as soon as they got back from the assassination mission. Is that all you're going to tell me? I'd like to know where they are going."

The man glares at her with bloodshot eyes and spits blood onto her shirt. "I'm not going to tell you shit."

"Oh? I think I can persuade you to do otherwise."

The man laughs loudly and spits at her again.

Rain takes her sword and sticks it into his eye, with a little maneuvering she easily extracts it and it falls to the ground, she ignores the man's screams and makes him watch her stomp on his severed eye.

"Gurraaaaahhh!! You bitch!"

"You must understand that this is what will continue to happen unless you tell me where they are. Can you imagine what it will be like with no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, and no fingers and toes?"

The man finally expresses some nervousness, and Rain can see it clearly.

"It won't be enough to kill you though; you will continue to live like that for the rest of your life. We will keep you alive, you have my word that the rest your miserable days will be in absolute agony as a deaf, blind, and disfigured mute."

"I-I can't tell you." he says with horror in his voice.

Rain points her sword to his other eye and says, "Very well then, let's see if you still have the same composure when a few more of your extremities are gone."

He feels the blade touch his remaining eyeball and shouts, "Okay I'll tell you!!!!"

"That was easier than I thought it'd be, now spill it."

She removes her sword and listens to him explain.

"They are heading back to the Capital of Troy..."

"By land or by sea?" she asks.

"By land."

It's fortunate that they didn't decide to go back to the Capital by boat, if that happened there is no way Rain would be able to catch up with them. Not only would they have been much further along traveling by sea, the Trojan Navy is far superior than Eiyalazo's, it would have been a suicide mission trying to pursue them.

Because they are on foot, there’s only one route north to reach the Capital, and that is through the southern Trojan city of Tronoble.

Doing the math in her head, she realizes that they can catch up to them if they leave a little after the sun rises; because the two aren't in any kind of rush they'd probably stay in Tronoble for a couple day's rest. This will allow them to attack the city while the two are still there; she smiles and wonders if there are any other questions she needs to ask and comes to the conclusion that she has all the information she could ever want.

"Wasn't that easy enough? We're finished here."

She walks away and the man asks her, "So what are you going to do to me?"

Rain turns and responds, "Me? I'm not going to do anything to you."

He sighs in relief until she says,

"But my men are a different story."

"W-What!?"

The surrounding men all pull out their swords and impale him to the tree, killing him on the spot. Dice, after witnessing all this is utterly mortified at Rain's actions.

He thinks to himself, (How can she do these things!? This isn't the Rain that I know, it's like she's a completely different person!) He falls to his knees and all of the sudden the familiar voice of the snake surfaces in his head.

"This personality of hers has always been there my fair Prince. You must appease to what she truly is, otherwise you will never have her."

"But... this isn't the girl I fell in love with."

"How so? Is that not her standing in front of you? She is the same as ever, but you have been too blind to see it, and that is why she doesn't love you in return."

Dice puts his hands on his head and squeezes his hair. "T-That's why she treats me so coldly?"

The snake's voice becomes louder, "Yes my fair Prince, she treats you coldly because she is waiting for you to see who she really is. Why else would she not return your feelings? She wants to love you but she needs to see that you can be someone who can accept and coexist with her true self. There is no one else in the world who can do that except you. Can't you see that she is asking you if you can do that? If you are willing to continue on this path alongside her, I can give you the means to obtain her affection! What is your answer Dice Di'Vore!?"

The snake's voice seems to hypnotize the young Prince, sending him into some kind of trance.

Dice smiles cynically and answers, "I ACCEPT!!!"

Rain is alone in the darkness of the deep forest and she is laughing somewhat hysterically to herself. The hate for Ash and Zurvick is growing and is beginning to weigh heavier and heavier in her chest.

"Hahahaha the King of Troy killed my father! The two of them used to be close friends, what kind of shitty man assassinates his friend!? Hahahaha this is great!"

She can barely see a few feet in front of her but is reveling with the darkened silhouettes of the trees as her only audience.

"Things are going so much more smoothly than I'd ever imagined!"

With a deep calming breath, she lifts her right sleeve that normally hangs to her fingertips; she points her arm upwards and smiles while looking at the back of her hand.

With a wide grin she says, "I must say snake... you are indeed working miracles for me."

On the back of her hand, a tattoo of a pentagram.

Rain on the Battlefield: (END)

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