THE SMALL MILITIA, NOW HAVING THEIR NUMBERS WHITTLED DOWN TO TWENTY-THREE, STOOD BEFORE LANYA, weapons in tow. Satsujin kept his position at the front, presenting himself with unnatural calmness. He held a broadsword in his right hand and a scimitar in his left. Despite Satsujin’s threatening tranquility, Lanya looked him dead in the eyes. She took notice of something.

“So you decided to side with the Saisei,” she remarked. “Of course, that’s just me guessing that after you charged into Akuni’s palace with an army of men in amethyst robes and Kasegi’s eye now taking the place of your own.”

“How observant,” Satsujin said in a somewhat sarcastic tone. “Only a queen would have the audacity to state the obvious, even during a time of such crisis for her. In truth, however, I am not siding with the Saisei Coalition as much as they are siding with me. When I first joined them I had to fix up their old game plan. It didn’t quite have the scale I desired.”

Lanya was able to see past the verbose bravado of Satsujin and understand what he was insinuating. Realizing that the “scale” was taking over the entirety of Crenon, Lanya rushed toward Satsujin, Fabled Swords in hand, preparing to strike him down before he could let that plan progress too far.

She took the Omega Blade and thrust it toward Satsujin. The massive blade made an impact with him, as he made no effort to dodge. Satsujin seemed unphased by this attack. Lanya did the same with the Alpha Blade to similar results, but no skin was torn either time. In truth, there was not one scar on his skin.

Satsujin returned the favor by taking out his rapier, charged with garnium. The result of this was that Satsujin was able to channel his innate magic more efficiently. He made two swift strikes in the abdomen, both strengthened by the magic siphoned into the blade. Seeing the danger, she tried to flee and save herself. Just as she retreated to the throne room, Musuko emerged with the Nukenai Bow. He shoots an arrow toward Satsujin, but he manages to continue forward with the arrow still resting in his abdomen. Musuko, fumbling with the quiver, takes another arrow out and shakily fires it in Satsujin’s amethyst prosthetic eye. It finds its home and destroys the eye, but Satsujin does not fall. Instead, he staggers slightly before removing both arrows.

“Pity,” he started. “I was growing rather attached to that. Now that it’s destroyed, there’s no way of getting into our meeting spot.” Musuko donned a cocky expression, feeling proud of his shot and how it seemed to foil the maila’s plan.

“Oh well,” Satsujin carried on. “I guess we’ll just have to turn the Palace of Akuni into our new meeting spot once we remove these pests.” Musuko’s guise changed from one of satisfaction and smugness to one of panic and fear as the members of the Saisei Coalition began to swarm the two. Of the twenty-three ambushers from the Saisei Coalition, three were able to catch Lanya with their spear, one of which plunged it into her shoulder rather deep, while another two were able to get Musuko in the side. Neither sibling lost their fight despite this and both continued against the threats before them.

“Stand behind me!” Musuko yelled as he took out Brildingjr. Once Lanya was behind him, Musuko let out a cone of fire from the staff. In the blast, fifteen of the Saisei Coalition members were burned alive, with one being caught point-blank and melting from the heat. Satsujin tripped in the fray and had some of his skin burned. Despite that, he was not too heavily phased by this. He charged at the two, smashing the pommel in the back of Musuko’s head, the strength of which knocked Musuko to the ground, unconscious.

Seeing this, Lanya spent no time waiting to attack Satsujin. She ran both the Alpha Blade and Omega Blade into the burned spot in Satsujin’s arm. An expression grew on Satsujin’s face that neither Lanya nor anybody in the room had seen before; for the first time, his face showed pain. In revenge, he ran his rapier through Lanya’s shoulder and knocked her out with a swift blow to the forehead.

Checking their pulses with his thumb, Satsujin confirmed that the children, those that he had believed were the only ones standing in his way, had been killed in the battle. In that brief moment of clarity, Satsujin felt regret for his actions. The pain on his face quickly shifted to dread.

“What are you so concerned about?” one of the remaining Saisei members responded to this. “The kingdoms of Akuni and Aotoshi are yours! Did you realize that taking over all of Crenon wasn’t what you wanted?”

“No, that’s not it,” Satsujin answered. “It’s more the possibility of Zero finding out about this. We need to get rid of these two before he finds out about their deaths, and I know just how to do it.”

He had the two children rounded up to be removed from the castle. A few select members of the Saisei Coalition brought them onto the docks to be sent off to the Unkempt. A somewhat ragged man saw the members of the Saisei Coalition throw the bags onto the ferry. Suspicious of what this was about, he went over to investigate.

As the man walked over, one of the bags began to move. In truth, because Satsujin had used his thumb to check Lanya and Musuko’s pulses, he could not feel them as his pulse blocked out theirs. Eventually, Lanya was able to find the exit of her sack. Upon peering out of the bag, she realized the dire situation she was in. Thinking fast, she threw her royal badge onto the dock. The man, seeing the badge hurtling through the sky, managed to catch it relatively easily. This man, who was one of the survivors of the Saisei Coalitions raid upon the aristocracy, instantly recognized the badge as Lanya’s royal insignia and left to alert Zero.