The Strength to Protect

"YAAAH!"

One of the knights began to charge straight towards me while the others seemed ready to follow.  I reached out my hand and pointed a finger at him before finally firing off a more powerful than usual electric spell.

Several arcs of bright blue light streaked through the air before reaching their targets.  The plate armor and steel swords each of the knights was wearing did an excellent job conducting the electricity as all seven of them fell to the ground unconscious, their bodies still twitching from the electric current.

"Y-you!  W-what was that!?"

Therese stood beside the carriage alongside the Blessed Child.  She hadn't even had the chance to help the Blessed Child into the carriage before her entire personal guard was defeated.

"That was a Rudeus-original.  A spell I developed for incapacitating enemies.  It works exceptionally well against armored foes."

I pointed my hand towards Therese at this point.

"Aunt Therese.  I don't mean any harm to you or the Blessed One.  In fact I came here to help her."

"Lies!  The Blessed One sees through all deception!"

"Evidently not as well as you think.  It's true the Pope indirectly hired me to kill her, but that's not what I came here to do."

"How can you expect me to believe that?  You ambush us and take out all my men and then I'm supposed to just trust your word over the Blessed One?  Nonsense!"

"It's not about trust.  The fact is, it doesn't really matter whether you believe me or not.  I'm going to be taking the Blessed Child with me regardless of what you say.  You're simply not strong enough to stop me."

At that remark, Therese gritted her teeth.  She knew she didn't have the strength to defeat me.  In fact, she was weaker than all the knights she commanded.  That didn't mean she wouldn't die trying though.

Therese let go of the Blessed Child and drew her sword.

"O Blessed One.  Get in the carriage and the driver will take you back to Milishion.  I'll find a way to hold him off so you can escape."

"Yeah, I don't think so."

Immediately, I fired off another electric spell, incapacitating both the carriage driver and the horse.

"Damn you!", Therese yelled out in frustration.  "I don't care how strong you are!  As long as I draw breath, you shall not lay a single finger on the Blessed One!"

"Ugh... I was really hoping for better from you Aunt Therese.  I'll never understand how the minds of religious fanatics work."

Therese charged towards me with her sword by her side and gave a full body horizontal swing.  Even without my eye of foresight, I would have easily been able to read her movements.  After sparring so many times with Eris, Therese who was clad in heavy plate armor looked like she was moving in slow motion.  On top of that, her attack was straightforward and easy to read.

I sidestepped out of the way of her swing.  As her blade whooshed through air missing its target, the weight of her swing pulled her off balance.  Not wasting the opportunity, I kicked the back of her knee and she fell backwards right in front of me.

With her back on the ground, I stepped on her chest and conjured earthen handcuffs to lock both her wrists and ankles to the ground.

"How disappointing.  After all that talk, this is all you could manage?  I'm a completely unarmed child and you let me knock you to the ground without even needing to use magic."

Therese couldn't do anything but grit her teeth and glare at me in anger.

"Declaring a vow to protect someone doesn't mean anything if you don't have the strength to do it.  If you really intended to devote yourself to the Blessed Child then you should have done everything within your power to get stronger.  You should be swinging your sword every day until your hands bleed.  As it stands now, your vow only amounts to empty words."

I could see tears welling up in her eyes.  Her angry glare slowly gave way to a look of shame and anguish.

"Don't worry Aunt Therese.  Like I said before, I truly didn't come here to kill the Blessed One."

For just a moment, a small amount of relief passed through her before her anxiety returned as I pointed a finger towards her.  As she stared at the hand pointed directly at her face, she saw a bright blue light for just a moment before everything went dark.

After knocking out Therese, I walked over to the Blessed Child.  Having witnessed me knock out everyone but her, she recoiled in fear as I reached my hand out towards her.

"I'm sorry for this, I did not intend to scare you or hurt anyone.  Please look into my eyes and see that I mean you no harm."

The Blessed Child had her eyes clenched shut while she was turned away from me.  But slowly, she relaxed and turned to look at me.  She stared directly into my eyes as I could once again see mana being pulled from me towards her.

"W-what?  What is this?  This doesn't make any sense.  You have memories... of me?  But we are older.  Are these from the future?  I don't understand."

I looked away to prevent her from seeing anything further into my past.  She seems to have understood and stopped trying to read my mind.

"It's hard to explain, but yes.  You have helped me once before, and I have come to return the favor."

The Blessed Child looked at me in confusion, but she no longer seemed terrified of me at least.  Also, I could tell that she wasn't looking into my mind.  Using my Magic Power Eye, I'm able to see when her ability is active.

"Yes, what you saw earlier is true.  The Pope did want me to kill you, but I never had any intention of doing so.  I really wish you hadn't jumped to conclusions like that.  I didn't want to have to fight off my Aunt or your other guards."

"I-I'm sorry.  It's all my fault!"

The Blessed Child began crying, thinking all of her guards who were basically her closest friends are hurt because of her.

"No.  It's alright.  You were afraid.  Anyone would have done the same if they had been through all you've been through."

I gave her a hug.  She was very young.  Even looked even younger than my current self.  I wouldn't expect anything else from your average ten or eleven year old.

Not expecting the embrace, at first she tried to pull back, but eventually relented and hugged me back.  I could feel my shoulder getting wet from her tears as she continued to cry.

"It's alright, Blessed One.  I've come here to save you."

"T-to save me?"

"There are bad men here who are out to get you.  I've come to take you someplace safe."

"Bad men?  You mean like the ones from the forest?  Like assassins?"

"Yes, like them.  You don't have to worry though.  I'm much stronger than any of them and I'm taking you under my protection."

"What about my guards?"

"They are all still alive."

"But can they come too?"

I grimaced at that question.  Taking along Therese as well is one thing, but eight knights?  That's a bit much.  Also, I don't know that I can trust them to keep their mouths shut.  It will be a pain if word gets back to Milishion that I've kidnapped the Blessed Child.

"No, they have to stay here."

"Then I don't want to go!  They are my friends!"

"You have to go.  It's not safe for you here."

"They will protect me!  They always have!"

"They will try.  Unfortunately they will fail.  You saw how easily I defeated them, right?  What if I was one of the bad guys?  I could have killed them easily.  Do you really want them to die?"

The Blessed Child looked like she was about to start crying again.

"You have to leave them behind.  They have families here.  You'll make new friends where I'm taking you.  True friends.  Friends your own age."

"Really?  You promise?"

"Yes.  I promise."

"Very well", she said as she stood up straight and wiped away her tears.  "I'll come with you."

Now that I had her consent, I brought her over to where I laid out the teleportation scroll that would return me to my house.  I had several of these made.  Once I had her standing on it, I injected a small amount of mana into the magic circle and she vanished before my eyes.

'I don't want to leave her on her own in my house for too long so I have to hurry.'

Quickly, I laid out another one of my return scrolls and dragged Therese onto it.  Before leaving there was just one last thing I had to do.

'I'm truly sorry about this.  I didn't want to harm any of you.  I had intended to knock you all out from the trees without being seen, but you snuck up on me right as I had given up on waiting for you.'

I raised up my hand and fired a stone cannon into the head of each of the unconscious knights, as well as the carriage driver, killing them instantly.  I then opened up a huge hole in the earth and dropped their bodies and the carriage inside before setting them all ablaze.

'Take solace knowing that your cherished Blessed Child will live a happy life in Sharia.  You have my word.'

After saying my quick prayer for them, I teleported myself and Therese back to my house in Sharia.