Meeting and Growing

Tanya whistled as she left the guild. The six of them had been given a nice, large reward for determining that it was most likely a Demon General, and they'd split it evenly seven ways.

The other three – as Dust was nowhere to be found, with Lynn having to hold onto his money – had thanked them for the chance, and then promptly asked that they never go on another quest with them.

Tanya didn't blame them. For the average adventurer, fighting a Demon General was pure fantasy, left to the 'Hero Candidates' – the general public's name for the people they didn't know were reincarnated from a different world – that were clearly able to handle that sort of thing. Many were lucky if they reached that level and lived through the experience.

Tanya, however, was a Hero Candidate, even if no one knew. And who knew what the future held?

Maybe a Hero Candidate in her own situation would find that their goals aligned with the Demon King's more, and they might decide to void the contract.

Maybe they'd be able to think about actually performing actions that would violate their contract, instead of thinking of doing so in the third person. She sighed.

Tanya would find out the answers to those questions sometime soon, probably. For now, she needed to find that Hero Candidate.

When asked about the location of a new one, Luna had given her an amused look that Tanya couldn't decipher, spouting something off about 'hero-worship' and 'nobles,' and then finishing the statement with a wiry, "No."

Tanya had tried to decipher those odd comments she got from time to time. No matter how hard she tried, she didn't know why people kept saying the word 'noble' around her.

She obviously wasn't a part of this world's nobility; she wore regular clothing, didn't have a lot of money, and didn't have whatever governmental jobs the nobles had here likely held.

It wasn't her looks, either; the only blond-haired people she knew were herself, Darkness, and Dust. They weren't nobles, if Darkness's perversions and Dust's general demeanor were anything to go by.

Tanya clicked her tongue as she remembered that wasn't entirely true. She was technically a noble in the Empire, but earning that title through the War College was hardly anything, as far as nobles went.

Tanya shook her head. It wasn't the time to lament about her past. A Reincarnate was running around, and had been doing so for a few hours. The sun was beginning to set, and the city was darkening. She needed to find them.

She would check with the Blacksmith first; Tanya didn't doubt that some Reincarnate might hit the weapons shop before going to the guild.

Tanya walked, idly surveying the passersby. They seemed to be generally happy, and Tanya couldn't fault them for liking the lack of monsters that made their lives easier.

She would need to put a stop to that, though. Snuffing out the lives of strong monsters – like the Demon King's General – was only expected, and she would complete her job as perfectly as she always did.

Strolling along, she almost missed it. The people of this land had hair colored to be anything but brown or black or blonde – she'd seen people with purple, white, neon pink, and everything else that could be found on a rainbow – or something that was even more outlandish, magically altered to be eye-catching. One head of brown hair was unremarkable, even if it did stand out for how not-odd it was.

But Tanya saw it anyway. A tingle of something familiar in her Observation spells – more than the dreaded feeling of heavenly mana that she had learned to recognize after years of using the Type 95 – drove her to look around.

She smiled in anticipation. It must have been the Observation spells catching a whiff of a relic of some sort.

She had seen many of those, after all.

She followed the trail.

Axel wasn't exactly crowded, even when the Festival had been going on, so it shouldn't have been hard, but no matter how hard she tried, her prey kept escaping around another corner, ducking passed her line of sight at the last moment.

It was vexing, but it also spoke of experience.

Tanya narrowed her eyes and sighed, disgusted with herself for taking so long to think of the obvious solution. She ran into a nearby alley, and repeated the trick she had done with Dust, using the air above the dark alleyways to cut corners and try to find her quarry.

They were fast – they must have had some sort of relic that increased their speed – but Tanya caught up eventually. They stopped, and Tanya spotted them.

They were sitting down on the curb of the road, looking out into the city at various shops, head swiveling around constantly, not looking behind them. Tanya smirked, and took aim with her rifle.

They were more of an amateur than she thought, then.

A faint blip on her Observation spell told her that she wasn't safe, and Tanya threw up her Active Barrier.

A shot rang out, slamming into the back of her shield.

Tanya, only a fraction of a second from spinning around and launching a bullet into the space behind her, froze.

An illusion was in front of her? She had heard a shot?

"Who are you? Why are you following me?" came a panicked voice from behind her.

It was light, lighter than one might expect for someone handling a firearm in a dark alley.

But… Tanya knew that voice.

She knew how it rose in pitch whenever its owner encountered a situation they didn't expect, like right now.

She knew how it sounded as it gave commands and received them over a radio.

She knew how, half asleep, it groggily but diligently asked what was troubling her enough that she would wake from her sleep, shouting obscenities or crying.

She knew how, when Tanya's own voice had trembled when she had first told the voice she was terrified of the Bloody Valkyrie, it had bolstered her with unwavering conviction.

She knew that voice.

The urge to do something stupid, like fall back on the regulations of the Empire and demand her rank, flew out of her mind as fast they had entered. The possibility of Being X masquerading as this person was too high.

Tanya turned around slowly, lowering her hood and trembling. She didn't even try to hide the look of shock that she was sure was plastered on her face.

"Viktoriya?"

A gun clattered to the ground in front of her, and the form her faithful adjunct stared at her. Tanya's own rifle clattered to the ground, and Tanya reached out a hand, running towards the frozen woman.

They embraced.

The vestigial thought that it could be anyone other than Viktoriya left as she was held. No one else held her like this.

Tanya sniffed.

She had used her anger and sadness at her situation to her advantage, reminiscing on the thoughts of her dead comrades on her first night in her third life, to extract information about Axel from Lynn, Taylor, and Keith.

She had used those same feelings to stimulate her tears in the past three weeks, to dupe whichever adventurers looked like saps.

Tanya was sure she might have even cried when she was impaled.

This was different. It wasn't faked masquerade or a response to pain.

It was relief at having something familiar back. It was joy at seeing her and holding her again.

It was a mirror of what had happened in Moskva.

She didn't stop it or clamp down on her emotions. This was Viktoriya; she could trust her sister-in-arms with anything.

So, she cried. Long and hard, letting out everything and holding nothing back.

Just sobbing.

They sat there for a while. Not speaking. Ignoring the falling sun and the rising night.

Just standing, waiting.

Viktoriya spoke first. "Not that I dislike this, Colonel, but…" she trailed off. Tanya smiled softly to herself, sniffing loudly. She didn't even know where to begin, but snapping at her for calling Tanya by her old rank wasn't the way to go about it.

"It's alright, Serebryakov. I assume you met Aqua…" she trailed off. The woman nodded, and both continued to speak softly to each other.

Another moment passed, and Tanya pulled away slightly. Hesitantly. "It's been so long…" she muttered.

Viktoriya's eyebrows furrowed. "It's only been a few hours at most, right? We were just in Dresdun. I died fighting the Cordiale."

Tanya shook her head. "It's been over two months for me," she said, clutching at Viktoriya again and all the harder at the reminder of how long it had been.

The woman stiffened, and Tanya leaned back and looked up at her expression.

"But…" she trailed off. She pulled away, and Tanya let go, hesitantly.

Tanya, blushing, straightened her clothes. She shook her head, remembering how different she had been at the beginning of that damned war.

Cold, calculating, and utterly obsessed with viewing people as resources.

Trying to be the 'perfect soldier' and cutting off as many emotions as she could was… irrational. People have emotions, and not utilizing the hatred she felt towards Being X on the part of the ones she cared for was as irrational as it was to ignore them, especially with how potent said hatred had grown to become.

Yes, the possibility of her anger overriding her logic, self-interest, and reason was there. However, she was using those emotions to enhance the conclusions of her logic.

She wouldn't be overcome with them.

Besides, she'd been shown the benefit of using emotions by others. The François's insistence on continuing the war had been the beginning, and throughout the war, both of Being X's premier pawns had shown the effectiveness of utilizing their anger and emotions. Tanya was proud to say that she could use her anger too.

And Tanya had an ample amount of that to burn through.

As Viktoriya brought something out of her slightly burnt clothing, Tanya's blood froze.

It was a contract.

It was that contract.

Before she could warn her, ask her not to look, plead with her to not bring it out, she already had. Shock, fear, sorrow, all of it mingling together into one confused mess.

Then, nothing. Her face had adopted that stony poker face Tanya had helped her improve, that had been a part of how she was able to win any card game the others challenged her to.

Tanya just stood there, trying to say something, anything.

Then Tanya lowered her outstretched hand, standing stock still with shoulders hunched. Let her make her own decisions.

Face blank and white as a piece of printer paper, the woman looked up. "Tan- Is thi-" she tried to say. The look of guilt on Tanya's face confirmed her fears.

Indecision bloomed for a moment, and then Viktoriya grasped the contract firmly, crumpling it.

Tanya made up her mind. She wouldn't be silent. She tried for one of her more apologetic voices "Would you have believed me? It sounds so… outrageous, and no sane-"

"Yes."

Tanya stopped, blinking rapidly.

What?

What?

She understood the shock on Tanya's face. "Tanya von Degurechaff. We've been through too much. You've saved me too much, and I've helped you some too. Maybe not nearly as much as you have, but… I've done my best. I would do anything for you."

Taking another look at the disfigured contract, Viktoriya shook her head, smiling ruefully and ignoring the tears stinging the corners of her eyes. "I couldn't hurt you, no matter the fake moniker. Devil of the Rhine, White Silver, Mithril-"

"Don't call me that."

Viktoriya was cut off, and sympathy flashed across her face.

Tanya ignored it, too focused on what she told herself was anger. Tanya couldn't help snapping, though; with flashes of handcuffs made of that material dancing across her mind, she wouldn't let anyone call her that name again.

Not even Viktoriya could cure the… taint.

"…Sorry. But the point still stands. Tanya von Degurechaff, or even… The Atheist. I couldn't hurt you, Tanya, be…"

A brief look of confusion passed over her face, and then-

She dropped to the ground, screaming in pain.

Writhing.

Flailing.

Tanya moved. Terror etched into her face, Tanya tried to figure out what had happened, deploying Observation spells. She wasn't hurt, but-

She stopped, panic frozen. Viktoriya didn't have an item, which meant…

Tanya extended her hands, screaming. "HEAL!"

The screaming seemed to subside into heavy breathing for a moment, but then it started again. Tanya swore pain and death and everything against Being X and Aqua and whoever, flooding mana into both of her relics.

"HEAL! HEAL! HEAL!"

Every time she cast it, Viktoriya only began to scream louder afterwards. Tanya whipped out her Adventurer's Card, looking at the Heal skill and the points she had.

The brief lament that she was giving up so many Skill Points flashed through her mind, and Tanya screamed in anger at the selfish thought, watching as all nine of them disappeared. She felt herself being altered, but she ignored it, turning back to Viktoriya.

"HEAL! HEAL! HEAL!"

The screaming was beginning to subside, but it was still too much. Tears flowing down her face once again, she began to chant.

"Oh Lord, please grant this lowly believer the power to save one more devout than itself!"

She felt the power fill her, and she began to scream angrily as she flooded more mana into the Circlet, ignoring the halo that she didn't care enough about to stop from appearing.

"HEAL!"

A moment passed, and the screaming and pain subsided as the light from her hands intensified.

It all stopped, and Viktoriya began to break down into sobs. Tanya collapsed, noting detachedly that she was crying with her.

Mana flowed back into her body from the Circlet and the Type 95, and Tanya dry-heaved as she gripped the body of Viktoriya.

"Don't leave me again, Visha. Please. Please"

She sat there, for a moment, waiting. The body below her didn't stir, for a moment, and then it took a shuddering breath.

"I told you I couldn't hurt you, Tanya."

Tanya cried out again, gripping the tattered clothing of Viktoriya. Again, they rested, and Tanya didn't let go this time.

-OxOxO-

An hour of lying there was all Tanya could take, and she decided to try and bring the unconscious Viktoriya to shelter. She fished her own rifle and Viktoriya's pistol from the floor of the alley, and began to survey the streets.

The sun was completely down, and the streets were dark. Tanya knew that she could fight off any of the riffraff normally, but she was running on fumes.

She had few options. They had strayed too far from the Blacksmith's shop and the guild, and she didn't even know the way to the Eris Cult's residence.

Troubled for a moment and wondering if she would need to break into someone's house, Tanya gasped in delight as she remembered another person she could call on.

Lifting up Viktoriya, Tanya carried her, bridal style, through the streets of Axel, trying to find the shop where she had bought the key to her weapon.

Fifteen minutes passed, and Tanya was panting laboriously. She was almost out of mana, but she'd make it, regardless of how many spells she had to reinforce herself with and the long term damage they might do.

She owed Viktoriya that much.

They arrived at the darkened store, and Tanya cursed. The place was closed.

Muttering an apology to Wiz under her breath, she kicked the door next to the handle, sweeping into the shop, and placing Viktoriya in a seat at the small, white table present in the store. She fished her Circlet of Greatness out of her shirt, and she funneled a bit of mana into it, lighting the room and holding it high.

No one. She must have been at the cemetery, then. Tanya cast another look towards Viktoriya, who seemed to be resting more easily. Tanya sat down next to her, trying to rest herself. She was tired.

For a moment, her eyes drifted shut. She was really tired, actually…

After just resting her eyes for a moment, Tanya was jolted to life by a high-pitched shout. She shot up, fumbling with the gun that was resting in her lap. Tanya calmed down in a moment, looking at Wiz.

Right. Unlike the way she had probably left it, the door was broken in – and Tanya probably wouldn't have been able to do it if it weren't for how little crime there was in Axel and how that lack of crime led to a lack of paranoid security – and two people were still there, taking a nap and ignoring the door they had broken down.

Tanya didn't exactly have a way to defend herself, so she chose a much simpler interaction to give herself time to think.

"Hi."

The broken look on Wiz's face as she looked at the door, hanging off of its hinges and illuminated in the early light of the day, tugged at Tanya's heart. She winced, berating herself; she'd left herself and Viktoriya undefended.

"Sorry?" she provided.

Wiz looked rather dejected. "Now I'll have to borrow even more money to break even…" she trailed off.

Tanya winced again, and she brought out a large bag of money. She had been planning to give it to whichever Reincarnate came through, after she took their weapon, but since it was Viktoriya, she didn't need to give her anything.

"Here some money for the door, and I'd like to buy more of those explosive potions, please," she said, offering it. Wiz's face lit up, relief flooding it. She took the money gladly, walked into her shop, turned on the magical lamp above their heads with a flick of her wrist, and began to make herself busy behind the counter.

Then, looking down at Viktoriya, she added, "And anything that'll restore mana. My friend needs it."

As the sounds of Wiz moving about reached Tanya's ears, she heard them fade slowly. Her gaze wavered from Viktoriya, looking at Wiz curiously. She was looking rather conflicted about something.

Tanya almost groaned out loud; she really didn't want even more problems to deal with.

"Well, I suppose it's fine if I tell you… You have bought lots of stuff, and you even came back…" Wiz muttered. Lit by the bright light of the lamp and the rising sun, Tanya looked at the odd Archmage.

She had bought stuff from the woman exactly twice, and she had only bought five things last time. Was that really considered a lot of time and money to spend on the shop?

Apparently it was. Wiz walked forward, clasping her hands in front of her still-ridiculous chest, and took a deep breath.

"I'm actually a Lich." She said this earnestly, eyes shining with a hint of resignation or apprehension.

Tanya was sure this was some sort of deep, dark, secret, but she had no idea what that meant. What's a Lich?

Wait. Something from earlier that day – no, yesterday, the sun that was rising in the window told her – tickled her mind. Something Lynn or one of the others had said…

Finally she remembered. "That's a type of undead, right?"

Wiz blinked, and she gave a halfhearted laugh of nervousness. "She says 'a type of undead?' like we aren't the strongest ones around, heh…"

Wiz trailed off as the skeptical look on Tanya's face didn't fade in the slightest. Wiz's cheeks puffed up indignantly. "Hey, we are! We have tons of special skills, we're invulnerable to physical attack, and we have tons of mana!"

Tanya just blinked. She opened her mouth slowly. "You don't exactly give off the feeling of 'life-hating' monster to me. You'll have to excuse me if I'm not terrified of a pale shop owner who can't seem to sell very much, if I'm considered some sort of valued and trusted customer."

The woman's pale cheeks lit up as much as they probably could, but the deep embarrassment on her downturned head didn't match how little blood was flowing into her cheeks.

Tanya shook her head. "Whatever. Can you help her?" Tanya asked again. Wiz still seemed confused.

"Don't you get it? I'm a Lich."

Twitch.

Tanya pinched the bridge of her nose. "Look, I couldn't care less; if you were the Demon King himself, I wouldn't care," she said, angrily staring at the woman.

"If you can help her, you will."

Tanya tightened the grip on her gun. The woman knew how to help Viktoriya, if she was revealing a secret with the expectation that Tanya would mystically realize how Wiz could help. She was helping Viktoriya, one way or another.

Even if the amount of mana the shop owner was suddenly giving off was very intimidating.

Then, the mana seemed to evaporate, and Wiz was just staring at her, puzzled.

Still seemingly confused as to her ambivalence to her true nature, Wiz pulled down the collar of Viktoriya's clothing. Tanya grit her teeth as she watched her lay a hand on the defenseless Viktoriya's shoulder, but she stayed silent.

"Drain Touch."

Suddenly, shining specks of light burst into life, seemingly inside of the lich. Before she could ask, the light steadily traveled through the woman's outstretched arm, into the girl seated in the chair.

Slowly, the woman's eyes ground open. They seemed confused, for a moment, and then widened. "Tanya-" was all she could get out, and then Tanya muffled her sentence by pouncing on her.

"Viktoriya!" she cried. She was okay. She had mana. She wasn't some sort of catatonic mental patient, and she hadn't been killed.

Tanya's Heal had managed to save the last person with a skill instead of a weapon, but it had taken an hour. Tanya had ambushed them when they were returning to the guild, and she was thankful that she hadn't had to listen to Viktoriya scream for that long.

Tanya didn't know if she could take something like that.

Stiffly, Viktoriya held her, laughing with Tanya at the absurdity of the situation and the joy they felt. It seemed that they were alone in the world.

Of course, they weren't. Wiz looked very curious as to who could be this close to someone the town was calling a 'Detonation Devil' and 'Evil.'

How the kind Tanya had gotten that last nickname, Wiz had no idea, but she ignored it.

Wiz finished using Drain Touch, and quietly backed off from the clearly emotional pair. They didn't seem to be willing to part, so she rose from the crouching position she had taken and made her way to the shelves of the store, looking for those potions that Tanya was clearly fond of.

Meanwhile, Tanya tried to suppress the growing embarrassment she was feeling about gripping onto Viktoriya for so long, and decided that they had been doing that long enough. She pulled away, and she straightened her cap.

Now that she had a moment and wasn't feeling as tired as before, Viktoriya took a moment to survey Tanya. Instead of the uniform she had worn for as long as Viktoriya could remember, she was instead wearing something much more casual, at least to her eyes.

A green mantle with a hood and bordered with a yellow lining adorned the girl's shoulders, and she wore a plain, thin white shirt with a belt of some kind across her front, travelling from her waist to her shoulder. A glimmer of bright yellow from one of the pockets told Viktoriya that they probably had extra clips in them.

Plain, unremarkable black pants held up by a simple brown belt and what looked to be her standard issue boots clothed her bottom half, while gray evening gloves clothed her hands.

Overall, it was quite different from the uniformed superior she had always known. But Viktoriya didn't really mind; it was nice to see Tanya let her hair down a bit, figuratively speaking.

Tanya cleared her throat, and Viktoriya blushed a bit, realizing she had been caught staring. Tanya chuckled. "It's no problem, Viktoriya. I'm aware this isn't exactly standard issue, but we don't exactly have denim jeans in this fantasy-land."

Viktoriya nodded, and licked her lips indecisively. Tanya winced; she knew they needed to have a discussion about where they were.

And other things, like how she wasn't exactly just sixteen years old.

She opened her mouth for a moment, before a sly grin overcame her face, and words spoken in the Empire marched from her mouth. "I know you probably have a number of questions, but we should probably wait."

Tanya motioned her head towards the oblivious shopkeeper, who was gathering her potions. Viktoriya nodded. She hadn't been told this stuff for years; she could wait a few moments more.

Tanya walked over to Wiz and tapped her on the back. "How many potions will I be getting for so much money?"

The shopkeeper turned around, touching her fingers together nervously. "Well…considering the number you're buying in bulk, you should be able to get five."

Tanya blinked, stopping short of gaping at what her math told her. "You're making me pay thirty thousand for each? It was only ten thousand during the festival!" she exclaimed.

She was all for the free market, of course, and Wiz raising the prices in response to Tanya's demand wasn't exactly criminal, especially in a fantasy land that hadn't heard of the term 'laissez-faire'. Still, that seemed like a very generous markup.

Wiz whimpered and said, "The festival means that we need to take down the prices, since it's supposed to be a time of goodwill…"

Tanya could hear Viktoriya mutter, "Potions?" from behind her, but Tanya would explain that soon enough.

"Fine, fine," she muttered, taking the potions on the counter and walking back over to Viktoriya. Tanya needed to get her introduced to the guild.

Tanya walked out of the door, and a shout of the woman's name brought Viktoriya out of the building, walking just behind her. Wiz looked on, wondering if another customer would visit that knew something about Tanya's friend.

After walking through the dimly lit streets of Axel for five minutes in complete silence, Tanya turned around. "Alright, stop. I'm not your commanding officer anymore; you can walk next to me," she said, Viktoriya bowed her head, and Tanya bit back the urge to reprimand her for being so apologetic.

She wasn't apologetic to anyone but her; it was a habit she must have picked up after so many years of being her adjutant.

"We're going to be dropping this stuff off at the Blacksmith's and then I'm going to get you registered with the guild," she said, motioning towards the potions gripped tightly in her hands.

Viktoriya, amused, half-asked "Potions?"

Tanya sighed. "Alright. It might come as a bit of a shock, but this world is much more like a…" Tanya trailed off.

She wasn't well versed in fiction by any stretch of the imagination, and she had no idea what might fit that genre in the perspective of a girl from the 1920s. She shrugged. She'd try her best.

"It's much more like the superstitions about magic; there are potions, most people who can use magic need to chant to use a spell, absolutely none of it has anything to do with mathematical formulas like in our world, and there is much more… diversity," she explained. Viktoriya looked confused, so Tanya sighed and continued.

"Right. I'm not exactly an expert, but there's magic that can shoot fire, water, create ice, explosions, wind… there are ways for people to reanimate corpses, the Demon King's fortress is sealed behind a giant magical barrier, things like that."

Viktoriya blinked. "Did you just say reanimate the dead?" she asked, mingling fear and skepticism bleeding through her voice. Tanya nodded silently, stepping into the Blacksmith's shop that Tanya had brought them to.

"Yeah. It might be a bit weird, but I think it's pretty interesting." Tanya walked in, giving a passing wave to the Blacksmith, who seemed to be staring at the potions in her hands for some reason, and stashing her potions underneath the tarp. As she came back out from the back, the Blacksmith's questioning gaze reminded her of something.

He didn't really know that she was using his back room as a storage room, did he?

She smiled weakly. "Uhh…"

An eyebrow raised, he began. "Well, while I might be concerned with why you have so many explosive potions – and don't deny it, that box has the word explosives on it – I'll waive it, since you're a smart girl and you're going to be paying me to house them here," he said, pity and clarity mingling in his eyes.

"What I am more interested in is who this woman here is," he said turning towards Viktoriya. The woman blushed and waved cutely, but other than that didn't respond.

Tanya saw the man's eyes flicker downwards, toward Viktoriya's chest, and Tanya attracted his attention with a very pointed cough.

"That is… my best friend. While she might be too modest to say anything, I have no such quarrels," she said, staring coldly into his eyes. He tried to look away, or back at Viktoriya, but Tanya gripped the man's chin forcefully.

Tanya, staring into the eyes of the Blacksmith, missed the blush on Viktoriya's face, as well as the saddened look she sent at the floor that soon followed it.

"Stare at her like that again and I'll make sure the police will regret investigating the crime. Understand?" Tanya threatened, making sure to keep her tone level and quiet.

Shouting at people was much less effective than making sure to let them know that you're within full control of your facilities and still making a serious threat.

He nodded slowly, and Tanya brightened up. "Good. Come on Viktoriya, we need to get you registered."

With that, they left his store, leaving the Blacksmith to seriously reconsider if he should let the girl use his shop.

His mind flashed back to her expression of total contempt, and he decided that he was sure he'd regret throwing her out as well.

-OxOxO-