142

Chapter 142:

On the outside, Flavius found it unsettling just how quiet things had gotten, since Blair and the woman from the Mibu had begun their meeting. He'd expected to hear raised voices echoing from within the building. However, within seconds, silence was the only thing that remained. It made Flavius uneasy. He should have at least been able to hear the faint sound of them talking from within. But all noise had ceased.

Uneasily, he reached out, pressing his fingers to the door, only to yelp and recoil, his skin peeling slightly, having actually partially frozen to the metal of the door in just that brief second of contact. Stumbling back, Flavius looked up, his eyes rising, and jaw dropping, as frost formed all over the building's walls, becoming more-solid ice, running down in icicles from the edges of the overhanging gutters. The whole building was freezing over.

"It's begun," intoned Kirei, staring up at the sight.

"What is this?" demanded Flavius, whirling towards Kirei.

"Hyoken Seiso," said Kirei. "Mao-sama's cruelest technique. She traps her foe within an impenetrable barrier of ice, then tortures them to death."

Behind Kirei, several depressed groans echoed from the ranks of the Mibu warriors, the vast majority of them clearly unhappy with what was happening in front of them.

"As I said," commented Kirei, looking straight at Flavius, "bloodshed is inevitable."

"Kill them!" shouted a soldier, raising his rifle, aiming straight at Kirei.

A high-pitched humming sound buzzed through the air. The soldier was abruptly thrown backwards, slamming into the side of the building behind him. The rifle fell from his hands, his arms falling to dangle limply to either side of him, while his head drooped forward. Despite clearly being dead, the soldier did not fall, pinned to the wall by the meter-long blade of the short-handled sword that now protruded from his chest, piercing right through his heart.

None of the soldiers had seen Kirei move. Flavius, and a few of the other Huntsmen had, spotting the blur that had been his right arm snapping out to fling his weapon with lethal accuracy. Kirei hadn't even glanced in the direction of the soldier, maintaining constant eye-contact with Flavius.

"HOLD YOUR FIRE!" shouted Flavius, raising his voice desperately to be heard over the sound of countless weapons being drawn and aimed.

The Mibu had unsheathed their weapons as well, but weren't poised to attack. However, that was no indicator of vulnerability, as Kirei's lightning-fast throw before indicated. With the current situation, if they tried to attack, it would be a bloodbath. Huntsmen would be hindered by trying to work around the soldiers, who were clearly nothing more than slabs of meat to enemies of this level, while the Mibu would be free to cut down Huntsman and soldier alike, striking uninhibited. In this situation, the Valeans' superior numbers would only work against them.

Kirei lowered his arm, flicking his hand. Three more swords seemed to sprout from his knuckles in an instant, appearing with the same suddenness as a stage magician performing a feat of sleight of hand. However, his hand remained lowered, the swords pointing down.

"Nobody move!" shouted Flavius desperately.

While he didn't doubt that many of the soldiers were reaffirming their view of him as a coward, Flavius held firm. He could see that the other Huntsmen in their party were working out the same problem that he had.

The Mibu remained where they were, ready and wary, but not making any threatening moves of their own, despite the sheer number of guns and blades turned their way.

The tense standoff ran on for another few minutes. Behind Flavius, ice continued to spread and thicken around the building, seeming to merge with the walls, until they seemed to become a part of the ice itself. Then, with a loud cracking sound, the first fissure in the ice appeared. Followed by another, and another...each of them branching out and spreading in a web across the walls. Then the walls began to crumble away, the entire building appearing to break into pieces, in turn breaking into still smaller pieces, until those pieces crumbled into powder that was scattered upon the winds.

In the center of what had remained of their headquarters stood Mao. She stood tall, her wings at a partial spread. The fingers of her right hand were closed over the top of the skull of Blair, the woman's decapitated head being all that remained of her. The head was covered by patches of ice, and there were red icicles extending down from the severed end of her neck.

"D-Dame Blair...!" stammered a horrified Huntress.

Flavius could understand her horror. Blair was unquestionably one of the strongest members of their expedition. To see her dead, without the slightest mark on her attacker, was a bad sign for sure.

Mao's eyebrows twitched. "And only one of the rest of you is dead so far. You lot must have more restraint and sense than your leader."

She allowed Blair's head to fall to the ground.

"I'LL KILL YOU, YOU BITCH!" howled a Huntsman, lunging out from the crowd, brushing past Flavius, before he could stop him. The Huntsman leapt into the air, brandishing a massive axe. However, Mao barely even seemed to notice him, leaning slightly to the side to dodge the strike of his axe, while her right wing blurred slightly. A second later, she walked on, while the Huntsman who'd just attacked her fell to the ground, carved into pieces.

"Well, that fool aside, what of the rest of you?" asked Mao callously. "Will you all join your leader in pieces, or will you depart? Those are your only two options."

Flavius' mouth was dry. He knew he should order a retreat. They were clearly out of their depth in this situation. While he'd been able to see Kirei's movements during that lightning-fast throw of his, he'd seen virtually nothing of what Mao had done, when she'd cut the attacking Huntsman pieces. Forget the other warriors, this woman alone was too much for them, all two-hundred soldiers and twenty Huntsmen alike.

On the other hand though, he knew that, despite seeing the same thing he had, others wouldn't be so quick to let go of their outrage over Blair's death, nor the woman's smug and condescending treatment towards them. Indeed, he could see fingers already tightening on triggers, arms raising swords. At least half, maybe more, of the people in the encampment were prepared to attack on the spot. All it would take was one, and then entire place would explode into an orgy of bloodshed.

"Well?" asked Mao, clearly unconcerned with the precarious situation.

That had been enough. With a shout of rage, a soldier leveled his rifle at her, then opened fire. Immediately, several of his comrades in his vicinity did the same. A barrage of bullets flew towards the woman. However, the Dust-rounds glanced off the wing she interposed between them and her body, the feathers acting as an impenetrable barrier.

Before the soldiers could continue their attack, several of them died instantly, seeming to sprout meter-long blades from their heads as Kirei's throwing-swords pierced their skulls with a speed that exceeded their own shots.

"Stop!" shouted Flavius, surging towards Kirei, drawing his sword, while opening up his sheath into its shield form.

Kirei turned towards him, and then whipped an arm up, almost delicately intercepting the swing of Flavius' sword from the side, pressing his knuckles against the flat of the blade to nudge its descent away from his body. At the same time, he stepped forward, stamping down with earth-shattering force right as his fist impacted Flavius' shield. There was a low sound, almost like a balloon bursting, and Flavius found himself sent flying backwards, soaring past Mao, who apparently took no notice of him, landing and digging a trench with his body in the earth behind where their headquarters once stood.

Dazed, Flavius forced himself up, reflecting that he was fortunate to have had his shield up when Kirei struck. Had he taken the hit undefended, his armor alone probably wouldn't have held up. As it was, his left arm felt completely numb, all the way up to the shoulder. Rising from the trench he'd dug, Flavius managed to sit up, and found himself watching a massacre in progress.

As he'd anticipated, the soldiers' sheer numbers were nothing but an impediment to the Huntsmen in their party. They crowed around, largely seeming to forget basic tactics, like establishing overlapping fire-lanes that didn't put them in each other's line of fire. As a result, many was the soldier who was riddled with bullets, dropped to the ground by a spray of a comrade's shots. All the while, the Huntsmen and Huntresses of the expedition were struggling to make their way through the soldiers, where they could take on the Mibu in earnest.

The Mibu, on the other hand, had no such impediments to worry about. Everyone around them was an enemy, so they reacted as such. Unfortunately, against the Mibu warriors, mere soldiers, lacking unlocked Aura, might as well have been no more than chaff. The Mibu went to work with a variety of weapons, which Flavius was surprised to see mainly appeared to consist of various melee types. He saw curved katanas flashing under the sun, the gleam off a pair of dao-swords, dual sickles, and other weapons besides.

He saw Kirei moving amidst the soldiers with cold, ruthless efficiency. With a flick of his hand, meter-long blades extended from between his fingers, before he sent them flying to impale the Valean soldiers. Any soldier who tried to get close found himself faced with a devastating unarmed style, kicks and fists that could punch through the chest, or reduce one's head into a bloody spray. Against him, a person without the protection of an Aura didn't stand a chance.

One of the Huntsmen in the party finally managed to shove his way past a pair of panicking soldiers, only for each of the two men to go flying back as one of Kirei's throwing blades pierced each one's chest. Another such blade rushed for the Huntsman, but he quickly deflected it with a deft move of the sword in his hand, before the handle of said sword extended, the weapon becoming a full swordstaff, which the man thrust at Kirei.

Kirei deflected the thrust with the same kind of block he'd used against Flavius, pressing his fist against the flat of the incoming blade to knock it aside. From there, Kirei closed in, aiming to strike the Huntsman in much the same way he had Flavius.

However, the Huntsman wasn't about to let that happen. Using the shaft of his sword-staff, he deflected Kirei's punch in much the same way Kirei had his thrust, by meeting the attack from a perpendicular angle. From there, the Huntsman collapsed his weapon back into its sword form, before the two men abruptly engaged in a rapid exchange of blows, each deflecting and attacking in turn.

It came to an end when the Huntsman found himself bracing against a full-on punch from Kirei, which sent him skidding back, his feet plowing furrows through the earth. However, the Huntsman was prepared to continue fighting, preparing to extend his weapon again. But that changed in a flash. Kirei's dark-skinned companion appeared in a blur behind the Huntsman, the two swords in his hands biting into the Huntsman's back, making him lurch forward. Before the Huntsman could recover, Kirei closed in, slamming his fist right into the unfortunate man's sternum, the sound of his cracking bones audible over the general melee, at the same time knocking him back, where the other man's swords impaled him from behind.

Kirei's companion wasted no time in pulling his blades free, turning and already searching for the next target. He found one quickly as a Huntress broke through the throng of soldiers to confront him. She soon found herself suffering the same fate, the two men coordinating flawlessly to bring her down.

Looking around, Flavius could see the same affair playing out throughout the entire melee. The Mibu had split off into small groups of two or three, bearing down on a single Huntsman or Huntress, then using meticulously coordinated attacks to take them down with minimal time and effort. For all that the Huntsmen of Vale had almost double the number of the Mibu, having to force their way through the press of alternately raging or panicking soldiers was keeping them from banding together, allowing the Mibu to easily isolate and eliminate them one by one, as the Mibu had no need to worry about the wellbeing of the soldiers they cut their way through to reach their targets.

However, the true source of terror on this battlefield was clearly Mao. The woman had not remained isolated. The fight had begun, and she'd strode casually forward, straight into the mass of soldiers. Though there was no other movement from her body, her wings flared out, and all the men in a ring around her were suddenly cut in two, their torsos flying upwards into the air.

All at once, five Huntsmen managed to break out of the press, attempting to launch a coordinated attack on Mao. However, she seemed to pay them no mind, her wings becoming a blur, steel ringing as her feathers deflected the incoming attacks, before her attackers themselves fell to pieces, the counterattack coming so quickly their senses hadn't even been able to perceive it.

Grunting, Flavius forced himself to his feet. This battle was barely a couple minutes old, yet he could already see its conclusion approaching. Unless he did something, there wasn't a single person in this encampment who would make it back home.

Sucking in a deep breath, Flavius made the only choice he could. "RETREAT!" he roared as loud as he could. "FALL BACK TO THE SHIPS!

Despite many of them calling him a coward, only minutes earlier, a great many of the surviving soldiers were quick to follow his orders, charging past him in a panicked rush to get to the ships that had first brought them to this continent.

"What are you doing?" asked Sara, who'd managed to skirt the Mibu to come and stand next to him.

Flavius looked to her. "Get on the ship with the others, make sure we get everyone out that we can."

"What about you?" asked Sara, her face paling in expectation of what she was about to hear.

Flavius squared his shoulders, turning to face in the direction of the Mibu. "I'll hold them back."

"By yourself?" demanded Sara, both frightened and skeptical.

Flavius nodded. "If I push myself, I can hold the line. It's what I'm best at."

"Flavius..." Sara's eyes watered slightly.

"Just let my family know," Flavius told her firmly.

Swallowing, Sara turned and fled with the soldiers, making her way to one of the two airships that had brought them to the continent. Their hulls were comprised mainly of wood, looking more like seagoing galleons than aircraft, albeit devoid of masts of any kind...for now.

Flavius turned his attention back to the Mibu, who were making short work of the Huntsmen and soldiers who who hadn't heard, or outright ignored, his call for retreat. Flavius only noticed a couple of other Huntsmen making a break for it, the others perishing at the hands of the Mibu, Mao especially. As the bulk of the surviving soldiers had broke and run, the Mibu had ignored them in favor of dealing with those who remained hostile. However, Flavius was fairly sure that it was only a matter of time before they turned their attention to those who had fled as well...and he would be the key in deciding whether or not they got away.

Behind him, he could hear a faint whining sound, the noise of a dormant engine coming to life, activating the gravity-Dust that lifted the vessels' off the ground, and the wind-Dust that propelled them. It would be another couple of minutes before they were ready for liftoff. Flavius steeled himself to work to buy them every second that he could.

The last of the fleeing soldiers rushed past him, while the last dregs of resistance against the Mibu crumbled away. Amongst their number, Flavius could see a few who sported cuts and bruises. One woman was clutching a limp arm, blood dripping from dangling fingers. They were also down to eight. In some ways, it was a relief to see that, despite their overwhelming victory, they hadn't gotten things completely their own way. The Mibu were powerful and skilled, but not invincible.

Mao, of course, was completely unscathed, and didn't even seem winded.

Glancing behind him, Flavius saw the last of the soldiers stumble up the boarding ramp to the airship. It had taken two of the vessels to carry everyone over. But the survivors only needed one to get away. Flavius hadn't exactly been able to get a headcount, but he'd be impressed if as many as a quarter of their original group had managed to evacuate.

The sound of footsteps turned his attention to the Mibu. Seeing Mao approaching at the head of the group, Flavius took a deep breath, closing his eyes. Fortunately, the woman seemed to be willing to allow him to take his time with this. Of course, to someone as fast as her, she probably had all the time in the world to do as she wished.

Snapping his eyes open, Flavius took his stance, extending his shield ahead of him. However, instead of holding his sword up and ready for a counterattack, he plunged the blade straight into the sheath. As the guard slammed home, the face of the shield lit up, brighter than the sun. Mao was untroubled. But many of the Mibu behind her reeled back, most of them doing something to shield their eyes. Kirei's reaction was the mildest, simply holding a black-sleeved arm between his eyes and the luminous shield. Crocea Mors' light increased in intensity, then expanded into a powerful curved barrier, spreading out from the shield's edges, growing wider and wider, until a massive, curved wall of light was between the Mibu and the main approach to the airship. There was no Dust in this, only pure Aura and will, enhanced by the power of Crocea Mors itself, something that Flavius had only ever had a rather basic idea of.

They could probably skirt his barrier, going around the edges to get to the vessel. It would cost them precious time, even as hellishly fast as they were. It would take an impressive jump to clear it as well. Still, with that time, Flavius hoped that he could at least give his surviving comrades enough time to get the ship up, and get away.

A painful jolt ran through his chest. Flavius' heart strained under the burden. He'd never created a barrier this broad...or powerful. This was beyond anything he'd ever done before, beyond the limits of what he could sustain...and survive. But he knew that he wouldn't be walking away from this anyway. There was no reason to hold anything back.

Mao held out a hand from beneath the mantle of her wings, forestalling her subordinates from taking action. A second later, she flashed forward. Flavius didn't even see her fully materialize before his eyes, before his shield, at the barrier's center, took a hit that made agony scream through him. He could feel his muscles tear, his bones crack, beneath the force of that blow. The impact raced through his entire body, while his barrier flickered and buzzed angrily. He coughed, bloody spittle flecking his lips. His legs quivered...but still held him up.

"Well..." said Mao, her smile widening. "I was right about you. Very well..."

She crouched, wings spreading out wide. Beneath that, Flavius saw her arms coming up. At first, he found himself wondering if Mao was going to attack with her hands this time. But then he realized what she was doing.

Wings were, in essence, another pair of arms. On actual birds, they were arms. Scientists still speculated on why some faunus with bird or bat traits grew wings as separate appendages, while some had arms that were wings. However, the fact that, even when they were separate from their human arms, faunus wings were still arms in their own right meant that, as appendages joined to the body, they were subject to the very same rules and limitations as regular human limbs. There was a limit to how much power Mao could put into her swings if she simply wielded them on their own. Now she was shifting, putting the strength of her entire body into action, and channeling it through the swing of those feathered appendages, channeling Aura through them to make them harder and sharper than any blade of mere metal.

Her next blow was too fast to follow, and Flavius spewed blood from his mouth. His left arm was on fire. His legs felt like they were going to outright break off. The barrier flickered and buzzed, fading slightly, but then strengthening and holding once more. On the other side, Mao was sent skidding back, the edges of the leading primary of her right wing actually looked a little ragged now, almost like a chipped blade.

Flavius saw the woman grit her teeth, before flickering forward again. This time, she struck his shield and barrier several times over, her wings leaving white streaks in his vision, visible through the semi-transparent barrier of his Aura. Each blow resonated through his Aura, and Flavius felt his bones crumbling, his inner organs failing, tendons and ligaments snapping, muscles tearing. Speaking purely physically, there was no way he should even be standing now. In fact, it was likely that the damage he'd taken was already fatal, and he'd expire just a few minutes after collapsing.

But still Flavius Arc held firm.

Yet his continued determination only seemed to make Mao smile wider. Behind her, the Mibu looked on, impassive in appearance, but not unmoved within. Behind Flavius, they could see the airship bearing his fleeing comrades lifting off. From the deck, the keel, and the angled sections of the ventral hull, a quartet of masts unfolded from where they'd been lying flush. Even as the masts unfolded, crossbeams unfolded from them, spreading triangular sections of cloth between them. Once they'd fully spread, the sails shimmered green, before billowing, as though a powerful breeze was pressing against them. The ship began to move, slowly turning towards the open sea, gaining altitude and speed with each passing second.

Mao unleashed an even more furious barrage of blows against Flavius' shield. The armor covering his body cracked, then began to crumble away. Blood leaked from every orifice. It looked less as though he was standing up, and holding his shield in place than it did that he was now collapsed, and hanging onto the shield with all his strength to keep from falling, the shield itself seeming to have become fixed in space.

Mao attacked again...and again... The barrier flickered, then began to crack around the edges. She struck harder and faster...and the outer edges began to break away. She attacked yet again, and the cracks began to reach in towards the surface of the shield itself. Behind Flavius, the airship was rapidly gaining distance, picking up more speed, now that it had finished its turn.

Mao paused, canting her head, considering Flavius with what seemed to be idle curiosity. "Warrior...if you still possess the faculty of speech...what is your name?"

"Flavius...Arc..." He barely had the wherewithal to croak out those two words. Flavius' vision had already gone dark. At best, he could see faint moving shapes in front of him. But nothing more.

Mao spread her wings wide, lifting her arms beneath them, turning her wings so that the feathers splayed up and out. "I salute your valor, Arc-dono. And so...rather than allow you to fade, I shall give you a death that is worthy of your determination." The air seemed to hum as the primaries of her wing began to glow white, the light they emitted piercing even through the darkness that had fallen over Flavius' eyes. From them emitted a bone-chilling cold that he could feel, even through his barrier.

"Muhyo Getten!"

Mao's wings bit through the barrier, the construct of Aura freezing over on contact, despite not being actual matter. Mao appeared on the other side of Flavius, her wings crossed in front of her, curling upwards, with her hands and arms mirroring the posture. Behind her, ice washed up over Flavius' body, completely encasing him in a matter of seconds, his entire body frozen in the reeling position of one who'd just been struck by a blow of unfathomable power.

Relaxing her wings, Mao stood upright, turning to face her fallen foe. Flavius remained where he was for a few seconds longer. Then the ice encasing him began to crack...and Flavius' body along with it. The ice quickly crumbled away, taking away the remains of the Huntsman trapped inside, glittering fragments breaking off and disintegrating...until nothing remained of Flavius Arc.

Well...almost nothing. As the ice broke apart, there was a clang. Crocea Mors, still in shield-mode, with the sword set firmly within, clattered to the ground, before laying still. Remarkably, the sword and shield barely seemed to have a scratch on them.

Kirei stepped forward, standing over the shield, bowing his head, closing his eyes, offering a silent prayer to the departed Huntsman.

"Truly remarkable," said Mao, stooping to pick up the shield.

"I do not understand how he withstood your blows, Mao-sama," said Kirei. "Were you holding back?"

"Not after the first strike," she said. "Granted, there are ways that I could have used to attack more efficiently, especially with my ice. But I chose to test his strength to the fullest. That he held up so long is a testament to his grit and determination."

She pressed her palm against the shield's face. A second later, there was a white flicker across its surface, an indicator of the weapon's Aura. "Fascinating."

"What is it?" asked Kirei's friend, standing next to him.

"This shield...its Aura is nascent, the product of being passed down through numerous hands, rather than something born completely from its crafting," said Mao. "Between that, and the Aura of Arc-dono himself, it should not have held up so well to my blows."

"What happened then?" asked Kirei.

"Arc-dono was a Shaman, I believe," said Mao. "His ability must have amplified what was both within his Aura, and within this weapon's Aura. On top of that, he staked the entirety of his life upon the defense, giving it everything, sparing nothing. Because of that, the shield manifested was not merely technique, but something higher...one might call it a 'wish', a genuine miracle born of his sacrifice. In that moment, though it cost him everything he had, he stood upon the same stage as us Taishiro."

She chuckled dourly. "Well then...there is no denying it. Though he was the one who fell...this man has made me admit defeat. It would sicken me to see such brilliance wasted."

"So you won't...?" pressed Kirei, his eyes widening.

"I won't," agreed Mao, nodding. Taking the straps of the shield in her hand, she located the switch that prompted it to collapse down into the size of a regular sheath, despite having never handled such a weapon before. Then she turned her unseeing eyes in the direction of the ship, the vessel now well away from the shore. "However, that does not mean that I am finished with them, just yet."

Spreading her wings, Mao raised them up, then swept them down in a mighty stroke. She rocketed up into the air, soaring through the skies in an arc that rapidly carried her towards the fleeing vessel, her liftoff having sent an enormous cloud of dust and grit swirling through the air, the backdraft forcing the other warriors to stumble away.

Sara had been on the stern of the fleeing airship. Producing a pair of binoculars, the most-advanced ones to come out of Atlas, she had been watching as Mao had pounded away on Flavius' shield, wincing with each strike, watching as her friend had become more battered with each barrage of hits he'd weathered. Her heart shuddered, and she realized that Flavius had already given up his life to ensure that they escaped.

She'd watched Flavius freeze, then shatter...watched as the Mibu bantered over the last remaining piece of him remaining, his weapon, the ancestral Arc heirloom. She'd felt a surge of rage as she watched Mao fiddle with his shield for a second, before collapsing it. That anger was replaced by horror, when Mao spread her wings and took to the air.

Binoculars falling from limp fingers, Sara traced the arc the woman drew through the air, growing from a black speck, becoming clearer in a descent that was bringing her directly down towards their fleeing vessel. She can go so far, but...

It was a common misconception that winged faunus were capable of flight. Besides wings, there were a number of myriad factors behind the mechanics of a bird taking to the air, along with the fact that a faunus' otherwise human body was not the most aerodynamic thing in the world. At the end of the day, winged faunus were capable of short glides at most, if even that. Yet, this woman seemed to defy that.

In truth, Mao was gliding. However, by using the Aura-arts of the Mibu Clan, she could use her wings to produce incredible power, allowing her to propel herself higher and farther than any ordinary faunus. It made her capable of leaps that could carry her for miles at a stretch, and resulted in the fleeing airship to be well within her reach.

"She's coming!" shouted Sara, sprinting around the bridge to reach the main deck, where Mao's descending arc was bringing her down.

Mao landed amidst the soldiers, who'd been milling about the deck with confusion. They scattered like roaches before her landing. Mao struck with force that rocked the entire ship in the air, making its flight dip, before it managed to recover. The wooden planks cracked and splintered beneath her feet, only just barely managing to hold up to keep her from breaking through into the space below. Mao had landed with wings at full spread. Now, as the soldiers and the tiny number of Huntsmen stared at her with growing despair, she retracted her wings, folding them around her body once more.

"Be at ease," said Mao cooly. "You shall live this day. Arc-dono's sacrifice has successfully abated my wrath. Now then...who leads what remains of your rabble?"

Swallowing, and remembering what Flavius had told her, Sara stood forward. "I do."

Mao turned to regard her, then walked closer. Sara's limbs trembled, the cold sweat of terror mingling with the sweat of her previous exertions. Mao came closer...then closer, well within reach of those deadly wings. Then, just within arms' reach, Mao pulled her wings back, extending her right hand, and what was held in it, to Sara.

Glancing down, Sara gasped, seeing Crocea Mors now being held out to her.

"I will entrust this to you," said Mao firmly. "See to it that it is delivered to his next of kin, if he has any."

Her hands quivering, Sara reached out and took her friends weapon from the Mibu woman's outstretched hand, then looked up at her questioningly.

"Aside from that, deliver this message to your leaders," said Mao, stepping back.

Suddenly, her wings snapped open again, unleashing a gust that blew over the people in her immediate vicinity. "We are the Mibu Clan!" she proclaimed loudly. "We have claimed this land since antiquity! In the course of your Kingdoms' history, we have not interfered with you, so do not interfere with us. Those who trespass within our domain shall be eradicated without mercy. This is your final warning."

A second later, the ship bucked wildly as Mao launched herself again. It took a minute of wrestling with the controls for the pilot to fully correct their flight. In the meantime, Sara, still gripping Crocea Mors tightly, rushed to the stern, watching the rapidly dwindling speck that was Mao, descending towards the now-distant coastline. A shiver shot through her body, strength deserting her at the realization of the horror she and the other few survivors had just escaped. Despite Flavius' sacrifice, they only lived because Mao had been convinced to let them go.

They're monsters, she thought, looking down at the weapon gripped in her hand.

Despite her fear, rage also surged through her, anger at all the lives lost, the time and resources wasted. This was supposed to have been a new beginning for so many people, but had become their end instead. What was worse, the promise of this unspoiled land had been a falsehood. Now they bore the task of returning home to report their utter failure. She dreaded what the newly-formed Council would make of what had happened. Still, she resolved herself to two things.

First, she would see that Flavius' family received the last remnant of him that had been granted to her.

Second, she would do everything in her power to ensure that nobody tried something as foolhardy as sending a second expedition. However much she hated the Mibu, for the bloodshed they had wrought, Sara feared them even more. She didn't care if she was branded a coward. If that was what it took to keep another massacre like this from happening again, she would stoop however low she needed to.

And so...the first and only attempt by the Kingdoms to colonize the continent in Leng ended in abysmal failure.

Upon her return to Vale, Sara had not been surprised to find a rather chilly reception for herself and the other survivors. They had been quick to give their stories to the Council. It was clear that the men who made it up were more than a little skeptical of their claims, not believing that a group of ten warriors and one leader could have so badly thrashed a group of two-hundred bold soldiers and twenty Huntsmen.

Sara and the rest were interrogated thoroughly, and it was clear that the investigators were looking to do whatever they could to undermine their testimony. It was bitter and painful, particularly because Sara knew that she was likely to be charged with cowardice, possibly even desertion, and wind up disgraced, possibly even imprisoned for the failure.

And then the questions abruptly ceased. Sara was released with not even a reprimand marring her record. In fact, she instead received a commendation, and a sizable payment for her work; not just her, but the other survivors as well. The only caveat was that she and the others were sworn to secrecy. They were not to breathe a word of what they had encountered on Leng. Instead, the failure of the expedition was vaguely worded to place blame on the Grimm.

The about-face was so abrupt as to be startling. Later, Sara heard rumors that the retired King of Vale himself had intervened, convincing the Council to drop the investigation and reward the survivors, instead of punishing them. She cared little in the end. All that mattered was that she was free to do her duty.

So she traveled to where Flavius' family lived, delivering the final memento of the man into the hands of his son, just as she had been charged. Despite the order of secrecy, she wound up telling Fulvio of what had truly befallen his father. To say that the boy had been incensed was an understatement. He'd vowed to bring punishment upon the Mibu on the spot. Fulvio had always been a passionate and somewhat reckless soul, his words making Sara wish that Flavius were still around to temper his son's tendencies.

It became moot anyway as, soon after, travel to the continent of Leng was banned by Vale, with the other Kingdoms soon following suit. Despite being sworn to secrecy herself, Sara suspected that someone on the Council, or the former-King, had shared the truth with the leadership of the other Kingdoms, in order to avoid provoking the dangerous force that lurked within the continent.

In the end, the continent of Leng soon became known as the Forbidden Continent. Despite the best efforts of the leadership of the Kingdom, rumors of the Mibu's existence did spread, though not far. Those who knew of them began to eventually call them the Silent Kingdom.