Chapter 314 - Vol. 5 -

As Keiko followed Ichigo out of the tent, she had a little smile on her face. Meeting another likeminded Zayama was always a pleasure, as rare as it was. The main thing that had Keiko curiously trailing after this woman, however, was her outsider status. Like Yumi, she probably spent a long time out of the compound, and as such, this presented an opportunity to learn quite a lot. 

"I learned my Wind magic from my father," Ichigo told her, as the two of them made their way through the camp. "Father had always been a bit of a mercenary when it came to our clan," she stated. "He would take odd jobs here and there from the clan's leaders, but he wouldn't rest a day in the compound. Instead, we would travel from one place to another, living mostly off the land." 

"Was Wind magic all he knew?" 

"Yes. He, like many of us, had an affinity for it. Are you one such case?" 

"No, I'm just interested in magic in general," Keiko shook her head. 

"Ah, I see. Well, as far as he was concerned, Wind magic was all he could learn, therefore, it was all he taught me. He taught me a teleportation spell, a screen spell, and a few others, but I was always busy working on my archery. It took quite a few years to get my proficiency to 9, where it is today, but being able to take the heads off of monsters from a distance has proven to be worth it." 

"I see," Keiko nodded. She wished she had a book with which to take notes, though she wasn't particularly good at writing, of course. 

"Along the way, I kept honing my skills and learning a couple of spells whenever I felt like it. Life was pretty good. However..." Ichigo continued. "Something happened... and Sapphire became our home. And, all my little adventuring ceased, until now." 

"What happened?" 

"..." Ichigo paused. Then, she looked up at Keiko and gave her a sad smile. "I was chosen to be a Savior." 

To say Keiko was stunned to hear that would have been an understatement. However, her eyes didn't allow her to believe what she'd just heard. Mainly because there was a distinct lack of golden armor or transforming cube on her person when Keiko's eyes roamed over her. The confusion on her face must have been obvious, considering how Ichigo laughed. 

"You're joking, right?" 

"No," Ichigo shook her head. "I'm not. It happened several years ago when I was about 17," she explained. "I'm 26 now, so, yeah. At the time," she added, "we had been staying here, in Pearl, actually, when a few priests of Lumina came knocking at our door and telling us that I had been chosen by the gods." 

"But... I'm sorry if this sounds disrespectful, but I haven't heard of any other Zayama Saviors in a long time. What happened?" 

Ichigo's response came quickly, and casually. 

"I ran away," she stated with a light-hearted shrug. 

"What?" 

"Yes, I ran away like a coward."  The way she spoke almost sounded like she was daring Keiko to challenge her decision. "I looked down at myself, decided I wasn't going to risk my own neck to help the armies of the Jewel Empire die against rabid demons, and I ran away, heading up to Sapphire where I could live in relative peace." 

It was hard for Keiko to accept that as a choice someone had made, not because she cared particularly about the honor of the act, but because she and her group had grown used to reluctantly trudging along with the duties of Saviors. Hearing someone be so frank about deserting them was downright shocking. 

"Do you still think me worthy of a conversation?" Ichigo asked, with a smirk that Keiko understood was self-deprecating. 

"I... Of course," she replied. "I'm just surprised, is all." 

"Hm... Well," she looked away, "you shouldn't be. I'm hardly the first case. It's not like everyone wants to be out there, fighting demons tooth and nail, even when they have power thrown on their laps. There have been Saviors like me, who never took the job, to begin with, and Saviors who quit in the middle of the job, retiring in disgrace. I figured I'd skip forward a bit."

"I understand," Keiko replied. "So, why did you come here, then?" 

"... Heh," she chuckled, "It's a bit of a long story."

"I'd love to know," Keiko smiled.

"... Sure, then. Well, it was because, then, as much as I tried to run away from those demons, they were soon brought to me." 

---

Ichigo

The Battle of Sapphire

Trying to put together travel bags had been something Ichigo had grown accustomed to, over the course of her life. However, doing so with hands that shook as much as Ichigo's were right now was not. 

"D-Dad!" She called out, taking her bow and throwing it over her shoulder. "Are you done?" 

"Yes, yes," Akiro replied, walking down the stairs with his own bag thrown over his back. He was wearing a thick sweater, as was Ichigo, as they both needed to due to their plans. 

Will we make it?  Ichigo couldn't help but wonder.  What if we run into them? 

On this day, she'd been level 18 and was sorely out of practice from not having used her bow in months. That was something she regretted more and more with every second that passed as the realization came that she would need to put what little skills she had to use. 

Realistically, however, all she could hope for, even had she trained consistently, was that they wouldn't run into any enemies on their way out. 

It was a desperate plan, but one that needed to work. 

Alkoth, please, please, please,  she thought, as she finally finished preparing.  Bless us with safety on this day. 

"Are you ready?" Akiro asked, and Ichigo nodded. 

"With any luck, we'll at least make it halfway to Jade before we need to stop." 

"Everyone's Luck is the same, Ichigo. Luck's got nothing to do with it," her father replied in a grumble, as he kept his hand over his sword, as though getting reacquainted with it. "If the gods wish for us to make it, we will. If they don't, we will not." 

"Let's hope they're feeling generous today, then," Ichigo mumbled, and soon, the pair were walking out of their home. 

In the streets, there was already nothing but soldiers, and no civilians, which made Ichigo worry that they'd been too late. 

Crap, crap,  she thought, as she walked up to the nearest one and asked: 

"E-Excuse me, is there any transportation out of the city?" 

"Huh? Where have you been these past couple of days?" The guy replied with a smirk. "The road's closed off already. The portal's taken up most of the way. We're stuck until the battle ends." 

Ichigo's eyes widened, and she felt her body go cold when she heard that. 

"N-N-No, there has to be something we can..." 

"I think you should probably go ahead and get yourself to the plaza where the rest of the civilians are," he told her. "Staying out here is only gonna lead you to-" 

Then, monstrous screeching sounded off above them, and Ichigo's body trembled. 

The sky had turned into a mix of dark grey and violet. Past the tall-reaching buildings, Ichigo could already see some winged, feminine demons circling in the air. 

We... We're done for,  Ichigo thought.  We... 

Then, spells and arrows began to fly out to meet them, as the soldiers Ichigo had been speaking to quickly left the conversation and hustled up the streets, to meet the incoming enemies. As for Ichigo, she took this as a very simple indication that she needed to make herself scarce. So, she turned around with the intent to run to where the soldier had said the other civilians were, but she stopped. 

Her father wasn't coming along with her. 

"D-Dad," she said, squeezing her voice through a tight throat. "We need to go, t-the demons..." 

But, when her father turned to look at her, Ichigo knew what he had in mind. 

"No." She tried to speak with authority. "Dad, don't be an idiot, we need to-" 

"I've spent a long time living off the kindness of the world," her father said, with finality. "It's high time I give back to it." And so, he turned his back on his daughter, pulling out the curved sword that was one of the few remnants of their clan that he carried, along with his silver eyes. "Run along, Ichigo. I'll see you later." 

With the heroic aura of a man making his last stand surrounding him, her father began walking forward, towards the sounds of battle. 

Of course, Ichigo resumed her job, trying to ignore the sudden tears rolling down her cheeks, but then, her feet stopped. 

She looked back at her father and clenched her hands into fists. 

I... I can't just let him go like this. 

With trembling hands, she pulled her bow off of her back and ran in the same direction as him. 

Thus began the single worst experience of her life. The amount of death and chaos that she witnessed on that day had left scars on her mind that would likely never heal, but throughout it, she did her best to keep her father safe. He probably didn't even know she was there, but as the battle began to rage properly, she stood just a few paces behind him, shooting arrows on occasion at enemies who looked like they were going to target him. 

These creatures came in all sorts of disgusting, terrifying shapes and sizes. Some were almost gelatinous blobs swallowing soldiers whole, others resembled feral men and women who had lost all sense and had been devolved into an animalistic state. In the middle of it all, however, Ichigo kept her eyes on her father. 

That was until, at one point, she was tackled by one such demon. As she had been trying to shoot the demons closest to her father, one picked her up and rammed her into a wall, and Ichigo swore she felt her back break. 

She closed her eyes from the pain, and when she opened them, a monstrous face of fangs and hateful violet eyes looked back at her, and Ichigo thought she was already dead. However, someone prevented that. 

A woman with long black hair, silver eyes, and a curved sword, just like the one her father used, ran past them and slashed the demon's head off, so quickly and easily that the demon itself looked surprised as its head fell off its body. 

"...!" Ichigo's mouth was open, her face expressing pure shock, as she saw the demon slump over, dead. 

... What? 

She looked toward the woman, and what she found was more of a whirlwind of blades than a person. Someone was cutting through one enemy after another with the kind of determination and skill that Ichigo had rarely ever seen, assisting soldiers from one side of the street to another, as she cut a path through the demon forces. 

She... A Zayama?  Ichigo thought, but then, she saw her father stumble back after being slashed across the abdomen by a demon's hand. 

Quickly, she picked her bow back up and shot an arrow between the demon's eyes, and then she ran over and helped her father up. 

"Ichigo?" He looked at her, stunned.

"D-Dad, come on. I'll heal you in a bit, but we need to go, we've helped enough." 

"... Hehehe," he laughed. "I suppose so. These old bones can still dance, though. The rest is up to them." 

With that said, she put her father's arm over her back and began escorting him away, but not before giving one last look over her shoulder to the woman who'd saved her. 

She could never forget that image if she tried. A warrior with her sword by her side, wearing the typical Zayama training outfit that even Ichigo's father still owned, standing in the middle of a street full of cut-down demons, looking like something out of a legend. 

And, Ichigo knew that on that day, Alkoth had sent her a message. 

---

Keiko

"I've lost count of how many times I've told that story!" Ichigo chuckled. "Heh, but, yes. That woman saved me and my father, at Sapphire, and after that, I turned my life around. I quickly became a soldier, trying my hardest to help out wherever I could. My Quick Learner trait, and my skills, of course, allowed me to climb the ranks very quickly, but I never forgot about her." 

"..." Keiko had no response to give. Her words wouldn't come out. 

"A while later, though, I heard about the battle of Onyx, and another black-haired woman with silver eyes who was cutting through demons like butter," Ichigo smiled, looking away. "I figured it had to be the same one, and the name Yumi came up a few times. A little later," she continued, "and Sapphire was looking for volunteers to come here for this mission. I was already going to agree to it, but my decision was truly cemented when I heard that this Yumi would be here, with the half-demon Savior, on this same mission. I had to see her for myself, again," Ichigo said. "And... well, now I'm here. Hopefully," she gave a little smile, "I'll be able to thank her myself. Later, anyway," she laughed. "Once I stop feeling so nervous around her."

"..." Again, Keiko was at a loss for words. 

"Well, I should get back to work," Ichigo told her. "The soldiers who came with me are probably feeling nervous. I should probably talk some sense into them before the fighting starts. Thanks for this, by the way," she said. "You seem like a nice person, cousin. I'd love to speak with you again." 

Just like that, Ichigo walked away, and Keiko was left with her jaw touching the dirt as she watched.