[TTIABAD] Chapter 129: Xilvia is actually a-?!

Honestly, at this point, I mostly just felt like an observer to a show. Except I was right next to it and forced to watch it go on. I was getting that same feeling of annoyance of being way too close to a fire and- Ah, wait, no. That was actually because Riary was sitting a little close on the couch and her flames were starting to get way too hot.

“You’d…. What?” Riary said and I had a brief moment of panic, realizing how far wrong this could go. The genocide of a whole city of people probably especially didn’t sit well with Riary.

“Luckily, however, things did not come to that,” Xilvia said, ignoring her, and let out a small breath. As if all her stress was melting away in that small puff of air.

“Wait, no, you can’t just… you don’t… there’s no way you’d…” Tyler sputtered.

“You would truly kill everyone in this city if Derek died? You care that much about his well being?” Konohora asked, eyebrow raised.

Xilvia snorted.

“His well being? Not so much. He is free to go and die whenever and wherever he wishes. The world is a harsh and dangerous place to be in after all. I do, however, care for my reputation and the expectations of others. I care about my respect in a form. Killing my student while I’m within such a close proximity to him? When he hasn’t even left the city I first met him in yet? That is no different from killing a baby while still in the womb. Unacceptable.”

There was real conviction there but I really didn’t like that analogy, like I was some kinda unborn child not yet let out to play. But at least it kinda, fit in my worldview of Xilvia. I could kinda see where she was coming from. We were teacher and student, master and disciple. And sometimes, people just kinda died. That wasn’t on her, the world could just be that tough. I gave it fifty/fifty chances she sought out the annihilation of whoever killed me or just let it go. Hell, it was within reason she’d take whoever killed me as her new student. I really, honestly got that.

But it was different if you killed me… while she was right there. It’d be like spitting in her face. And she had been here, and the people had known she was, and had maneuvered around her despite that. The guild leader and Rinkaru’s team had the same backer, whoever the hell that was, to try and pin us down and murder us.

They’d failed. Except, we’d never have known the guild leader was involved or that we were being targeted by an extra third party without her help. At least, not at this level. For all we knew, Rinkaru could’ve just hired a second B-rank team to block us and there was no mastermind or conspiracy at all. That could’ve led to all sorts of problems even if we kept our guard up… after all, it wouldn’t have been that surprising if the Guild Leader told an adventurer to deliver us some poisoned wine or food in some way as an apology. Or even just slipped it in without anyone’s notice at a bar or two. Or if we had stayed, she could have ordered for a few more parties to kill us down in the dungeon. I didn’t fancy our chances against twenty average B-ranks.

Actually… was that why the B-Rank team in masks hadn’t attacked us? Because the Guild Leader had called them back… because Xilvia was busy killing her? All sorts of communication methods exist, especially for a leader of people specifically going into a dungeon. Wait, that would mean…

“Xilvia. Thank you for saving our lives.” I quickly said, bowing lightly.

“Wait, what? Our lives?” Tyler asked, confused.

“The reason that team, the team dead in front of us, didn’t kill us… was because they had to rush back to help the guild leader. Right?”

Xilvia blew air out her nose.

“How should I know? I have been waiting weeks for you, only Kasandra’s constant vigilance keeping my wrath at bay. Going down to find you myself would’ve been… difficult, with all the attention on me. Sending someone to find you carried too high a risk of interception or betrayal. After all, you have many enemies right now. Kasandra assured me that I need only wait and now you have found yourselves before me. Her patience was rewarded. Now, as enjoyable as this conversation and your expressions have been so far, you must tell me what happened. How on Ero you survived Rinkaru is something I have been dying to know. As well as why you remained there so long. I had begun to worry you’d never fucking leave.”

There was still some real anger in her voice, but I couldn’t help but let a smile peak out. For all her words, Xilvia cared, in her own way. No idea why she thought we’d leave though, we had been fully prepared to stay in that dungeon for months and months…

…Had Xilvia been ready to wait months and months?

And so our story began, with Konohora primarily taking the lead. After all, she could tell no lies and would give no embellishments. Although, we each had to step in here and there to give our own parts. Especially my own, with Rinkaru, as I’d been the only one there. In fact, this story was new to my teammates as well.

…I hadn’t exactly wanted to talk about these moments again and I tried to quickly summarize as best I could. They… focus. Don’t… focus. Shove it away, shove it down, don’t linger. Say the words and don’t…

“And that’s what happened.” I finally said, feeling like I had been struggling with the weight of the world to stay normal, to stay composed. But it was finally done.

“...What complete and total fucking bullshit.” Xilvia immediately said.

I blinked.

“What?”

She waved me away.

“Not your story of course, merely the fact that you survived at all. Rinkaru has been known to hit far beyond her means, her innate mastery of fairy spatial magic and extremely lethal brand of Ki making her a threat to people even far stronger than her. You were merely the water to her fire, a perfect counter with your ability, speed, and innate pain immunity. Even then, I do not doubt even a moment’s hesitation would have you seen you dead. It is a miracle you survived.”

She looked over the rest of my team.

“Your accomplishments are far less impressive.”

“Hey…” Tyler said quietly.

“A fresh and weak Gorvit priest, a decent lightning mage, and a brute. All B-Rank, so impressive for C-Rank of course, but you three would’ve instantly died to the first attack from that damned fairy. It is a secondary miracle that her innate hatred for demons overrode her tactical desire to kill the healer first.”

I felt like a cold wind had blown past me at those words. There was no god damn way Konohora would’ve survived that first blast. Oh god.

“Well, part of life is about luck after all.”

So saying, Xilvia waved her hand, and the severed heads thankfully disappeared. No doubt teleported somewhere else in the house. No idea what she was going to do with those.

“I’m sure you’re all tired and I’d like to talk to my student alone now. I strongly recommend not leaving my house but feel free to die or get arrested at your own leisure.”

“Arrested?” Tyler asked, eyes wide.

Xilvia merely rolled her eyes.

“Yes, yes, I am a wanted criminal now and you would be under suspicion and your kingdom has very little pull even in human territory, let alone elven. You’d be most likely held till I was killed or left the city, and then be killed yourself for being aids or underlings to me, at least that would be how it would all come out near the end. Traditional, really. Now go on and leave. We have entertained each other enough for now and I will talk to you all more later about your future plots and plans. Oh, and it was the Kingdom of Tenik that sponsored your assassination.”

That seemed to mean surprisingly little to anyone, judging by their facial expressions and everyone looking at each other. Well, mostly me and Tyler looking at Konohora and Riary. After all, I’d heard there were hundreds of human kingdoms. Knowing them all was just… not on anyone’s radar. Riary shrugged and Konohora simply shook her head. But now we at least knew the who.

Tyler looked back at Xilvia.

“Thank you for all your help. I… I’m sorry to have caused you trouble. We owe you are lives and-”

Xilvia waved him off.

“Yes yes, leave.”

Tyler took that in stride, while Riary glared as they got up, heading towards where Xilvia had pointed. They gave me one last glance back… and then left, the door closing on their way out.

Finally leaving me and Xilvia alone.

She tapped the table once and our cups disappeared… as well as the table itself. How the hell was she going to get it back? Was there a spatial enchantment underneath the carpet? I mean her house had a shit ton of magic poured into it but-

“What’s wrong with you?”

I blinked again.

“Excuse me?”

“Hmph. I trained you for a month straight, I’d like to think I know your body pretty well. And your focus is… trash right now. Your eyes are hardly focusing on anything and when they are they’re darting around on nothing for no more than a moment.”

So saying, Xilvia got up, walked over and-

She was grabbing my face, staring directly into my eyes. She was inches away from me.

She moved so fast!

She was so close, right up next to me. And she simply… stared.

And stared.

The moment began to stretch and surprise gave way to awkwardness. She was just, staring at me. Her gaze so intense. Her eyes were… when were her eyes that color? They were black… I know they were black… but now they were…

Blue.

No. No no no no. No… I’ve… I’m not… This isn’t real. This isn’t real. My mind, wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. I’m wrong. My eyes were taken from me. My body, my body is wrong. My mind is wrong. I’m not me. Not me not me not me not me-

I blinked. Something felt… weird.

“Derek, are you there now?”

“Huh?”

Xilvia wasn’t holding my face… and her foot was in my crotch again.

“Such a pain that you don’t have pain sometimes. I was worried I’d have to break them before I got your attention.”

I glared but Xilvia just met it with a frown. And then hit me with a non-sequitur.

“Do you remember my promise?”

Huh?

“Promise?”

I tried to wrack my mind to think of anything. Trying to remember what Xilvia said should have been easy, we’d barely had any conversations. Most of our burgeoning close connection was from her giving me the tools to survive and her taking this whole master and student thing deadly seriously. We didn’t actually know each other very well but… well… you don’t fight someone for a month straight without getting to know them. I almost felt like I knew what Xilvia was going to say or do before she said it sometimes and I didn’t know if that was my Analyze starting to poke its head away from purely ‘Power Gauge’ Mode or if I had just subconsciously learned how she moved and acted that well. That all is to say… out of the less than a few hundred words shared privately between us, I should’ve been able to remember a promise.

Xilvia said nothing and actually just waited. It took me a long, long moment to remember but anything to distract myself from what just happened five minutes ago. Finally though…

“Sorry, but… I really don’t remember you giving me any promises? Except maybe that you’d train me and allow me to survive. And you most certainly did that, I’d be dead multiple times over without you. Thank you master.”

Xilvia gagged.

“Gah Gross. And annoying. I see my promise meant nothing to you as a form of motivation. And here I’d hoped it would burn the curiosity within you to know. How… frustrating. I told you, that when you came back, I’d help stabilize you and reveal to you a secret.”

Suddenly, her past words slammed into my brain, like they’d been glued there.

“Yes. After all, I doubt you will survive unless you become B-Rank. We’ll worry about afterwards if you come back at all. And if you do… I shall reveal a ‘secret’ to you. The one that is blocking your Analyze from truly seeing my capabilities. Use that as your motivation if nothing else.”

“The reason I can’t see you!”

“Ah, so now you finally want to know. Does it burn? Not knowing the reason, being right at the edge of your senses? So close but-”

“Actually, I really don’t care that much.”

Xilvia stared at me, eyes squinting with restrained malevolence. Oh, she really wanted to hit me, but I’d seen her expression start to turn bloodthirsty and her eyes start to light up, as her smile began to widen. There was no way I was giving this sadist that level of satisfaction. Who knows what she might’ve done to make me ‘earn’ that secret. I was better off not knowing at that point.

“I think part of me hates you. My other students would’ve begged to know.”

“Really?”

“After being subjected to my teachings for a month, not knowing why the one power they could always rely on doesn’t work, and then having that knowledge dangled over them? Yes. But very well. If we must do this without seeing your look of anguish, so be it.”

And then everything went wrong. All at once. My analyze Ability was always feeding me information and for the first time since I was torn to shreds, it fully focused on someone and something else besides me. Because it was like there were… waves, coming off Xilvia. Waves that were… very familiar.

Fae. Fairy. They were the same type of ‘One plus one equals three’ that Rinkaru had just by nature of being but this was… more. Even more impossible, somehow. Like rolling a six sided die and getting seven… and then a rubber duck. Like clapping and causing miracles, like trying to run an actual dnd game regularly with everyone always showing up. Impossibility after impossibility began to waft off her, like soundwaves. My analyze saw all this, and was beyond baffled. Even Happy never gave off this kind of… unknowing. He was unfathomable, like a black abyss so deep you could never see the bottom.

But Fae magic just… it just didn’t make any sense and Xilvia was covered in it.

And now it was all coming off, all at once. And strangely, while my Analyze was having a multi level aneurysm, being baffled beyond measure, it was nothing compared to what my eyes were taking in.

Xilvia was naked, I’d missed that moment somehow, but a quick check on my memory showed I’d straight up seen her use the nails on two of her fingers to slice the strings holding her dress together, where it fell to the ground.

Xilvia was beautiful.

She had alabaster skin, with slightly asian like features, yet stood at probably around five and a half feet. Her irises were nearly pitch black, she had short black hair, and her body was lithe. A gorgeous woman, and definitely a woman, that kinda reminded me of that one woman from resident evil four, whatever her name was.

And all of that was changing right before my very eyes.

The first change was her skin. It began to grow dark and then darker still. Black, midnight, pitch dark, abyss levels of black. With a slightly strange purple hue to it, almost otherworldly in nature.

Then were her eyes, the whites of them following along, so that for a moment it was as if they were just a void, before her iris itself turned a dark purple.

Her facial features changed, just enough that if I’d seen her and her past self walking together, I’d say they were different people. Maybe sisters.

Horns grew out the top of her, not small like mine, but large with curves and waves in them, heading slightly back. They looked almost metallic with red glowing glyphs on them.

She grew taller, matching me in height. She grew slightly broader, looking as if she just put on twenty or thirty pounds of muscle while still staying succubus levels of lithe, except with abs. A tail began to sway from side to side, but utterly unlike mine, looking like a classic demon tail with a point at the tip of the latex looking substance.

And then eight fucking tentacles seemed to burst out her back, all ending in points, looking as if they were made of the same material as, well, the rest of her.

And as if to fully shatter my sanity, her breasts grew a single size… and then she grew a dick.

Xilvia…

“You’re… a demon?!”