Chapter 107 – Reactions and the Family Secret.

Chapter 107 – Reactions and the Family Secret.

Rewinding time a bit to earlier that day. The annihilations of Libra was broadcast to a huge number of people, with the recording quickly going viral. Reactions to Akagi's actions varied with many being grateful, while others were horrified at her excessive display of violence. In the United States, President Rosewood was feeling a mix of both.

Sitting in a briefing room, President Rosewood sat in complete silence until the rest of her cabinet and other important government officials arrived.Ne/w novel chapters are published at novelhall.com

"So the good news is, Libra has been defeated." She sighed as she recalled the video footage of Akagi defeating them. "The bad news is, now we have a much greater problem." She placed her head in her hands. "Why can't things be easy?"

{She wasn't kidding when she declared herself to be a monster, was she?} (Rosewood)

Secretary Nowak commented. "That blast given off by Herlex... our calculations project it had enough energy to severely damage the planet if he'd pointed it in a different direction. I... I apologize Mam, but I'm a little dumbfounded by this whole series of events." Even an experienced member of the defense community had a hard time comprehending what just happened. "If that Akagi woman took that hit and survived, then I'd be inclined to agree with her assertion that nuclear weapons would not affect her."

{Yeah, I think nukes are the least of her worries if she can survive a blast which could've blown up a planet.} (Rosewood)

"To be entirely honest, I thought she was exaggerating her power in an attempt to intimidate us. But after that display..." President Rosewood groaned. "I'm not so sure anymore. I guess that means when she told me she could destroy us all, she wasn't joking."

{If we could feel her aura from the other side of the planet, just how powerful is she?} President Rosewood had been in a meeting when suddenly the entire room started shaking. At first they believed it to be an earthquake, but soon reports flooded in about similar events across the globe. It seemed that when Akagi let out her power, the entire planet began to shake.

"Madam President, I say this with all due respect. What fuck do we do against that?" Secretary Nowak dropped all formality for a moment. "If she can withstand a blast which our analysis suggests could destroy the planet, we have no hope of beating her. I'm at a total loss for how to proceed against such a threat."

"Perhaps she has some kind of weakness?" One of the military brass spoke up. "She's got to be vulnerable somewhere, perhaps she simply requires a specific type of attack. There must be a way to defeat her, she's not a god.”

"No, but she is a Demon Lord. Our little spy has informed me a bit about what that status means before you all arrived." President Rosewood glanced at the military commander. "It's not just a title, General. It's a designation, and we'd be fools to ignore it." She didn't know everything, but Hikari told her enough to make her wary.

"With all due respect Madam President." The military man continued. "That girl is likely feeding you tall tales on orders of her master. She is a spy after all, so I wouldn't advise taking her words at face value." His comment was reasonable, but wrong. “I believe we should double our efforts to recruit some of these powered individuals into our ranks as a deterrent for future threats. Perhaps we can even deepen our intel gathering from those who knew about this Akagi woman. They may be able to shed light on her abilities and may even give us a method of dealing with her.”

{If it were that simple, I suspect the Japanese Government would have already dealt with her General.} (Rosewood)

"Be that as it may. I believe the best path forward is to avoid antagonizing her and seek peaceful coexistence with her and her people. She seems to be more interested in her own life and those of her group than fighting us or humanity as a whole, so I see no reason to go testing theories about defeating her." President Rosewood looked at the others in the meeting room. "Need I remind you that if we're wrong, it won't just be this country that's destroyed but the entire world."

The room grew silent as she said those words, because they knew she was right. "Japan will be granting her territory as part of its deal to handle Libra. That will mean she steps onto the international stage as a new power, and I think it's in not just the United States, but humanity's best interest to start our relationship with her on the right foot." She took a deep breath.

"Abigail, please work on getting Congress on board with a formal invitation to Demon Lord Akagi to the White House. I would like to speak with her in person so we may discuss our relationship going forward. Please explain to Congressional leadership the need for a dialogue with her and my desire to have our two peoples exist together peacefully. Inviting her here formally as a representative of her soon-to-be nation will be a good first step in establishing a positive relationship with her." She said to her Chief of Staff.

Technically she could just invite Akagi without approval, since the President was America's chief diplomat, but inviting the literal Demon Lord to the White House would cause issues and thus she figured it would be beneficial to seek approval from at least Congressional leadership before extending an invitation.

"That might prove difficult, and I suspect we'll get pushback from some of the more hawkish members of Congress, but I'll make it happen." Abigail nodded.

"Secretary Hubbard." She turned to her Secretary of State. "Please stress to the Japanese government that they should under no circumstances take actions against Akagi or otherwise provoke her wrath. I'm not saying they can't defend themselves, but they should not be the ones to initiate hostilities." President Rosewood didn't need further crisis in Japan now that things had stabilized.

"I will speak to the Japanese Ambassador after we finish here." He nodded.

"Also, get me in touch with Ambassador Wakemore. The U.N. was also intended to deal with non-human existences, and I suspect it will want to be involved in any and all negotiations involving the Demon Lord.” She gave a dry laugh. ”Though technically, the Secretary for Outer Space Affairs was created assuming we'd be negotiating with Aliens from another planet, not a something born on our own world." She sighed.

{At this point, nothing could surprise me...} (Rosewood)

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Meanwhile, in Japan, the RRT was still in a state of shock over the sudden and total destruction of most of Libra. They'd figured Akagi would handle Libra, but this was far beyond their expectations. Not long after things finished up, Superbia returned with the restrained Elna, who, didn't put up any resistance. After being healed and thrown into a specially-made cell, she stayed completely quiet muttering something incomprehensible about Akagi and eternal darkness.

Mixu, Excelsior, and Aoi stood in the comms room as the other members logged in to speak over video call.

"So... Demon Lord." Mixu sighed. "Anyone have any ideas about that?" She had no clue what that meant or any of the details, and neither did anyone else.

"I guess we have our answer as to why Hishya was so freaked out." Minazawa clutched her head over the video call. "So Akagi wasn't human, and in fact, she was a world-ending Demon hell-bent on the extermination of mankind. Great, just what we needed in our lives."

"Not to mention she eats souls." Hoshino shuddered as she recalled what Akagi did to Libra's members. "I'm just glad she's not after me, that looked horrible."

"All hail the Demon Lord!" Imp burst out laughing. "May her reign be long-eternal! All shall quake-cower in fear-terror at her darkness!" Her comment annoyed or exasperated everyone else.

"Imp...” Mixu glared at her. “Forget it, I don't even have the energy to smack you. Go worship your God Empress or whatever..." Mixu was going to say more but gave up. "I don't care what you do anymore."

“Heh-heh.” Imp continued laughing.

"Well, at least Libra's dealt with!" Aoi tried to be positive. "So, hopefully, things will start getting back to normal soon, and at least this means the attacks should stop! So lets look at the bright side!" The other members were less enthusiastic about this turn of events.

Eris was snapped out of her thoughts by one of her friends. “Hey! Eris! It's time for lunch! Come on down, everyone's waiting.” A girl in a brown tunic called out to her.

Eris put our her fires and turned to the girl. “Sounds good Ema! I'll be down in a bit!” She smiled. After a few minutes of cool-down, Eris walked down to the small clearing where Ema had set up a table for lunch.

“There you are Ayame.” Eris called out to the blue haired girl sitting at the table. This was Ayame, her best friend and second in command. The two had been friends even before FWO and both had taken to continuing their training even after escaping the game.

“Yo!” Ayame made a peace sign. “So check this out.” She pulled up a video feed and sent it to Eris. “Looks like our favorite assassin went and finished the job for us.”

Eris watched as Akagi consumed Zappy. “Damn, she really went for them, huh?” She wasn't particularly disturbed by the footage, but it was still a sight to behold. “I guess that means the government really did hire her.”

“Yeah, apparently Armalthy went and fucked up big time by attacking that priestess of hers. Akagi said at the end of the stream that if anyone else touches her, we're all dead.” Ayame took a sip of her tea.

“Hey those ass hats had it coming. If we were stronger, I'd like to have done it myself.” Eris clicked her tongue. She wanted to defeat Libra herself and finally show up Hishya.

“Tell me about it. Those bastards hit Sendai a few times, and I'd love to tear them apart for that.” Ayame was also from the city and had come to loath Libra for all their destruction. “I just wish more of our members would actually take training seriously. Most of them skip out and some don't even show at all.” She sighed. “The bastards think peace is free.”

Most of the Shining Blade members, at least those who retained their abilities, had chosen to stay out of the Libra-RRT war and remained neutral. Each had their own reasons, but Eris and Ayame were angry that more people wouldn't get involved. They'd originally thought of joining the RRT, but decided to stay near Sendai for the time being to protect their home.

“At least it wasn't Hishya that finished things off. All she got to do was stand on the sidelines and watch, serves her right.” Eris laughed.

{Reformed or not, I don't give a damn Hishya. I'm going to get you on your knees and humiliate you one of these days like you did to me and so many other players!} Eris didn't hate Hishya, and accepted that she was a better person now than she was before, but that didn't mean her lingering anger had disbursed.

“Alrighty! The soup is done!” Ema came back with a big pot and a small basket which had bread.

“Let me take that.” Eris took the hot soup pot from Ema and placed it on the table. “Oh that smells good.” Ema had taken to cooking quite well over the years, something the two girls were grateful for.

“Yeah! I'm starving! Lets eat!” Ayame's stomach growled. “Thank god for Ema! Otherwise we'd never get good food out here!”

Ema got slightly embarrassed. “My cooking isn't really anything special, you two are the special ones with all those powers you have.”

“Yeah, but our power involves getting angry and hitting things really hard. It's not that impressive” Eris gave a wry smile, both her and Ayame were barbarians and were trying to handle their rage ability with its changes in the real world. It was also one of the reasons the two hadn't engaged Libra outside of attacks on Sendai since they didn't trust their powers at the moment. “Don't go discounting yourself like that. You've always been a massive help!”

The three sat down and ate lunch, discussing their progress, future training and what would happen now that Libra was dealt with.

“Well...” Ayame said while chewing. “If all the Libra members give up, that's the end of that. But I don't think we should stop training. Who knows what might happen next.”

“I agree, we need to whip the rest of the members into shape, lest we fall behind. We have no idea what threats might emerge, and I have no interest in being turned into a pawn for the government or any other group.” Eris said while taking a bite of bread. “Wouldn't shock me of more things from FWO start cropping up too. This whole situation still doesn't sit well with me. We've seen that NPCs can cross from the game into our world, so perhaps other things could too? Maybe monsters?” That was a possibility Akagi had broached to her once on a phone call.

“No clue, but we just need to be ready for whatever the future brings. I can imagine the government is going to try even harder to bring us under its thumb from here, and we need to be powerful enough to resist.” Ayame nodded.

{I also need to be strong enough to protect the people I care about.} She glanced at Ema and Ayame. {Hishya's only gotten stronger, so now I need to work double time to get more powerful than her. Perhaps Akagi has some ideas? She did offer to train us if we were interested. Perhaps we should take her up on that offer, if its still on the table.}

Spoiler

Kenji Tomogawa!

Juichiro Tomogawa!

Miyabi Tomogawa!

Eris!

Ema!

Ayame!

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