Absolute Strength

Celestia

"You're not supposed to be here." Crux says behind the bars.

"What are they going to do to me? Drag me out?" I sit down on the ground, lowering myself underneath him and place my chin on my palm. I tap the metal bars to his cell, it was one of the deepest parts of the castle dungeon.

"I will yell as loud as I can, if you don't leave."

"So? The guards already know I'm here, and they purposefully chose to turn a blind-eye. What? Do you expect me to not take advantage of that?"

"Just tell me why you're here." Crux sighs and walks away, turning his back to me.

It was strange situation, normally whoever had their head held higher was the one in control. With me sitting, and Crux standing, to anyone watching from the outside it would seem like I was the one being confronted rather than Crux. However, one can not be truly strong if they aren't comfortable with being seen as weak.

"Just wanna talk a little, how are you feeling?" I ask in a semi-serious tone.

"Like shit, and I'm worried."

"That's strange, why are you worried? You won't have to do anything for the rest of this war."

"Don't act dumb, you know exactly why I'm worried."

"Then you know exactly why I exposed you the way I did." I spit on the ground. "Let's switch it up, I'm going to tell you how I'm feeling."

"You thought we were going to lose correct? That's why you made that deal?"

"I guess, if that's how you want to look at it."

"Give me a straight answer or I will kill you right now."

Crux looks at me bitterly. "Go for it. You have nothing to threaten me with any longer."

"Oh yes I do." I say menacingly. "It would be cool if I could make you break with just my presence alone, but I know that isn't realistic."

Crux looks at me in shock for a couple seconds before his eyes turn into hatred. "Yes, I believe we are going to lose, that's why I struck the deal."

"And you still think we're going to lose. Even with me here? And also that fire Tetsudo? I know he really doesn't care, but I will not allow anyone to disrespect his or my strength like this. I gave you plenty of opportunities to admit it over the past few weeks, but you never did, so I took it into my own hands."

"Ah, so that's what's going on." Crux snorts. "You threw a tantrum."

I nod, "That's right, I did throw a tantrum, and because of me, we're going to fight to the bitter end, what are you going to do about it?" I shrug my shoulders. "How are you going to protect Yesenia now that you're in this cell? I took away your only other option."

"Damn you." Crux spits on me, I let it land on my hair without paying too much mind.

"You know, you were lucky to avoid execution, must be nice having someone like that princess trust you so much." I tilt my head up and say to him.

Crux doesn't respond.

"What, aren't you grateful for her pleading? You'll probably get to live for a very… very… very long time."

"Damn it, if you're so confident in winning this war all by yourself why are you here talking to me? I'm just a single, fucking, person!" Crux explodes.

"… To be honest, I just want to have some fun." I admit. "I can already can solve everything with my fists, but there are some things that can only be solved with words, and those things annoy me the most."

"And what do you want to solve?"

"For you to admit that you were wrong, and I want you to devote your everything towards winning this war from now on."

"Heh, good luck then, I won't admit or give anything to you."

Well, that was actually a lie. I as he said, I don't really care about getting him back at all.

"Mhmm, then princess, I think I've done my part, time for you to say a couple of words eh?" I'm just doing someone a favor.

Yesenia

I step out from the shadows, taking off the hood covering my face. Celestia makes way for me as I take her spot on the ground. Crux instantly turns pale upon seeing my face. "Princess I— Um—"

"Hey, there." I say. "This feels familiar doesn't it? You know how the saying goes, 'if I had a Diin for every time… Uh… this happened… I would have 2 Diins.'" I force myself to smile.

…

The two of us sit in awkward silence for almost a full minute.

…

"Idiot."

"I… I don't know what to say." Crux struggles to get his words out.

"As you should. You betrayed me. Not just the kingdom, me." A tiny squeak comes, saying that last 'me', I close my eyes and slap both sides of my face, fortifying my mind. I've already gone through this part, now is the time for action.

"I agree with Celestia. Everything she said to you is what I told her to convey to you. So all those words you gave to her were actually given to me."

Crux lowers his head in shame.

I chuckle. "Don't get me wrong, I still hate her, but right now, I trust her more than you." I immediately turn to Celestia, expecting a snarky comment back.

"…What are you looking to me for? It'll be more surprising, if you said you actually liked me. Carry on, young missus."

I frown, then turn back to Crux. "Well? You heard her. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"…I'm sorry. I stand by what I said." Crux looks down to the ground and says. "The arrival of three people, no matter how strong they may be, cannot erase a decade of mistakes and losses."

"Yet, it only took two of those people to single handily win a pivotal battle for our side."

"Twenty-thousand soldiers still standing. More than a hundred-thousand in army drafts, most of them dead or crippled now. Ten years ago, before the attack, we had two-hundred thousand strong. Oliviand's current estimates sit around three-hundred thousand in soldiers."

"I know the numbers."

"Then why do you persist?"

"Because the numbers aren't important, the quality is." I say with a naivety that I knew would piss him off.

Crux visibly scoffs. "The quality of twenty-thousand men and women, never fought a day in their lives, morale lower than a hog pen covered in shit. All of us are dead, all I've did was give us a way out."

I take a step back. "Wow, I never knew you were hiding all these thoughts in that head of yours, if you expressed this to the rest of the council you would undoubtably be executed." I cup my hand underneath my chin in thought.

"What was the deal?" I then ask.

"Information, how many resources we have left, unguarded paths throughout the land that would allow the enemy to sneak deep into our territory. In exchange for lives of you and Hanafin, then once the war is over, all Lysterians will be given citizenship to Oliviand, or be free to go wherever they want."

"How can you ensure that they will keep their promise?"

"…This may be hard to believe."

"If I could believe in Cain, then I can believe whatever you're about to say."

"It was a masked man."

Celestia makes a very visible reaction as soon as he says this.

"I don't know his name; however, he was there when I was making the conditions."

"And? What's so special about him?"

"On his conditions, I have the power to nullify the agreement if I stop sending information or die; however, if I sent false or wrong information our city would burn. However, if I follow through, and they don't follow through on their end of the bargain, their capital would be destroyed."

"And you believe him?" I say puzzled.

"No, I saw it with my very own eyes. One future where this entire city had been turned into ashes, and another where Oliviand had been reduced to rubble."

"…What? I… I'm sorry, are you sure you didn't have a weird dream?"

"It's not a dream. His name is Dundee, and he's most likely not from this world." Celestia suddenly speaks up. "I'm going to assume you two know of the denouement?" I turn my attention as expression on her face had drastically shifted to something much more serious.

"You two know the story. The Ankudos and Tetsudos once shared the same world a thousand years ago, but for mysterious reasons a war known as the denouement erupted between the two races, the two fought almost to the brink of extinction before the rogue created the rift and divided the world in half? Thus stopping the war?" Celestia says, having taken control of the conversation.

"Well, yea, who doesn't know it, it's reenacted all the time at the theatre." I respond.

"It's pretty weird that such a famous person is always depicted as faceless in the history books isn't it? Almost like he or she was wearing a mask."

"Wait, are you saying that that Dundee… Is like the rogue?"

"Can't say, I always thought of it as a pretty far-fetched theory. Well… That is until I met this kid at The Eye couple of months ago. By the way, a guy named Rudeus was there too, I think you might know him. Anyways…"

"WHAT?!" Both Crux and I yell at the exact same time.

"Do you know where he is right now?! Did he tell you why he disappeared?!" I yell at her.

"Calm down, let me talk. I'm going to use him to make my story more believable, cause he knows who Dundee is as well. In fact, if you want to know why he even left in the first place, it was to recruit that kid I was talking about. As for where he is right now, maybe he's returning back here with that boy with a mask. I'm not too sure." Celestia says.

"Anyways, I hope you believe me when I say that kid was not of this world, just like Dundee was. That kid wore a mask that gave him powers, just like Dundee wore, and… he's very immature but kid could easily surpass me in combat given a year or so of training." Celestia sounded unnaturally tense when saying this.

"And so, I now say this with a 100% certainty, Crux is telling the truth." Celestia finishes her words.

I stare blankly in confusion, unable to process everything that was being thrown at me, I then shake my head, trying to gather all the important bits. "So… Rudeus is returning? Along with one of those masked people like that Dundee person you described?"

"Yes, my instincts are telling me right now that a lot of things are about to happen soon, and I want to join in on the fun—" She then glances at Crux. "—On the winning side, if you've seen Dundee you know how powerful one of those masks are, I want to meet those two again."

Crux deliberates for a couple of seconds. "Wait, no, no, no, something is very wrong. How many months has it been since you've left The Eye?"

"I left 83 days ago, so about three months."

"Oh no." I immediately realize the event that day matched up with.

"You probably don't know this, but The Eye was reportedly invaded and destroyed only a couple days after you left." Crux says. "One of the Tetsudo did it."

"Wow, then he must have had a hell of a fight. He needs to recover, so that's why he's taking so much time to return." Celestia doesn't even bat an eye.

"Wait… If he had to go up against Tetsudo then…" I faintly say.

"Nope. If he was fated to die, then he would have died to me, but he didn't, and you know what fucking happened instead?" Celestia clenches her fist and smashes through the bars of Crux's cell in an unexpected bout of violence. "I lost. Yea, someone as perfect as me. I lost." She steps into the cell.

"Wait, what are you doing!" I frantically say.

"I know the plan was for me to rile him up, then you to talk some sense into this shit, but I'm going to take things into my own hands once again. Sorry." Celestia says before grabbing Crux by the collar.

"I don't know how anyone could see all this stuff happening and still think to themselves that this war is doomed. A lot of very powerful chess pieces have just been put on the board, a lot of bold moves have been made, the position you're in right now is wildly different from the position you were a couple months ago. I saw the opportunity and decided to join in. Yet you, with all that you know, still want to ruin it for everyone."

"Stop it!" I run up and try to push Celestia off of Crux, but she doesn't even twitch from my efforts

"I didn't care that much a couple minutes ago, but it's personal to me now." Celestia continues. "You are not important, you will not change the outcome of the war no matter if you decide to support us or not, you are weak, so this will be the one and only chance given to you." Celestia clenches her other hand into a fist.

"NO! NO!" I tug even harder, my breath beginning to come out in gasps.

"What are you going to do?" Crux groans under her hold.

"It's simple. I'm going to punch you once, and you decide if you're going to die from it or not, that'll be your decision."

Crux closes his eyes. "Okay, sure, give me your best shot." He says calmly before looking over to me.

He mouths a single word.

'Sorry.'

Celestia slams her fist straight into Crux's ribcage, launching him a couple feet into the air as he slams into the wall. I immediately run up by his side. His eyes were closed and he was slumped over.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no." I mumble underneath my breath. I begin applying Sananku to the damaged area, before I slowly stop.

He's… He's…

Not even hurt?

"Are you even that strong?" Crux opens his mouth, not a single hint of strain in his voice. "I've been hit harder by children."

Celestia smirks wordlessly and turns away, walking away from the cell.

Crux sits up and pats his chest. "Huh, I thought I was going to have more than a couple broken ribs."

"Does that mean…" As I slowly realize what Celestia actually did I begin to smile.

"Yea, would have survived that either way." Crux stretches and smirks as well. "I guess she didn't leave me a choice in the end."

And that was just who the girl named Celestia was, she wasn't just someone who was unbeatable in combat. She was someone who does whatever she wants and gets whatever she wants. The meaning of absolute strength in it's purest form.