Camilla…
Upon meeting him once again, she was put off by how soft spoken he was and paused as she took a moment to process what he had said.
“Oh, uh...should we sit on the ground, or…?” she asked, but then Marcus waved his hand and four chairs of black stone appeared around them.
They then quietly sat down and waited for him to speak first, but as the silence dragged on, the mood became too awkward to leave alone.
Though Marcus was clearly thinking of ways to approach the conversation, any further silence might make them too nervous to speak at all, so Camilla spoke first.
“Uh…, hello. I know I already met you once before when I...helped bring you back to life but…,” she tried to say which caught his attention as he fixated his gaze on her and she wondered if she did something wrong.
“Ah...right. I still haven’t said thank you for that. I appreciate that you showed up to help me, thank you very much,” he said with such genuine gratitude in his voice that Camilla was suddenly beside herself with joy at being praised.
He then looked over at Frosk and said, “Hey, how ya doing?”
Hearing Frosk being addressed so casually puzzled her as she wondered how they were already close enough to speak to each other in such a manner. Frosk as well seemed to be a bit squeamish because of it, but returned his greeting with a simple nod.
Nashandra, having grown somewhat impatient with the current mood that was plaguing the conversation, asked, “If I may, could you please explain why you brought us here?”
“Yes. Of course. I’m...curious about your perspectives about me.”
“Our...perspectives? Can you elaborate?” Frosk asked.
“Well, I’ve only just recently learned that not only am I a god, but I’m the very same god that you have seemingly pledged your fealty to. Personally, I’m incredibly stressed out about it and want to learn as much about the current state of things as I can,” Marcus stated honestly, which made the three of them silent as they did not know how to respond.
“Y-You only just recently learned about this?” Camilla asked, to make sure she heard correctly.
“Yes. I found out while I was dead, and then later had that confirmed by Ruvick and Azazel,” Marcus said, nodding.
Frosk let out a heavy breath while Camilla and Nashandra looked at each other for answers, but finding none from either.
“I guess I’ll just start with some first basic questions…, I’m aware that Forrosa has been aware of the God of Wrath ever since the kingdom was first founded by Isaiah Riddick ten thousand years ago. In fact, I would argue that it was one of the main reasons for its existence, but how did you first interact with the God of Wrath?” Marcus asked.
Camilla then raised her hand to ask a question and Marcus smiled as he said, “Yes Camilla?”
“You’re asking us this question as if you yourself aren’t the God of Wrath, but rather a separate person. Isn’t that a bit too confusing?”
Marcus nodded and said, “It is, but its a lot better if we assume that the God of Wrath is currently a separate entity from myself. Besides, it would only get worse if you learned about Ender,” he explained.
“Who’s Ender?” Frosk asked.
As if in response to that, Marcus’s left eye glowed red and it seemed like he was holding himself back from speaking before the glow subsided and he replied, “Best not to worry about that. Now, as for what I asked...”
Nashandra then said, “Are you asking us to explain how we first pledged our fealty to you? Shouldn’t you already be aware of this?”
“I can understand if you assume so, but I’m not. Frosk, why don’t you go first since I believe you were chosen long before I even appeared in this world. How did it happen for you?”
A sudden look of shame crossed his face as he started to recount his experience.
“Well...it was during the war as you probably already heard about, but it was while I was in a coma after having been beaten by Alan Mercer and…Lorra Lazuli in battle. I had a dream of...of the God of Wrath. He told me to go beyond the front gates of Alken in preparation for Mordran’s dying breath. At this point, I had lost Forrosa’s own unholy armament, the Heaven Breaker spear. It had been shattered during the second siege and seized. At this point, I didn’t think I would win against the two of them without a weapon like it or stronger, but...my lord assured me that all I would need is two swords to defeat them. He promised me that so long as I refused to accept defeat, I would be granted victory. I think it was a trial given to me to show that I was worthy of the power that would later be given to me. And so, I took two of the finest Black Iron blades that our blacksmiths could craft and fought them alone. Yet even after those weapons shattered and I was at their mercy, I refused to yield to either of them, and sure enough, I was struck by the scarlet bolt. Sure enough, with that power, I took their swords for myself and killed them both,” Frosk explained in great detail, seeming depressed about the whole thing.
Marcus nodded and said, “This was far before I had ever arrived in this world, and I also didn’t have any knowledge of this happening.”
He then turned to Nashandra and asked, “I’ve read about you in some of the old relics in the temple, as well as Raime. I’m...rather shocked that you had been chosen considering your loyalty to King Dagon being written as unshakable. What could have led to you choosing to pledge loyalty to the God of Wrath?”
Hearing that, Nashandra’s eyes widened and she looked like she was on the verge of panic but she eventually bowed her head as she said, “I was approached in the same manner Frosk was, in a dream. I was told that I would be reunited with a lost love and that I would be given an opportunity to serve my old lord in some manner once more in the future, but...I don’t really understand how, yet I agreed. Then, in my battle against Moyako, she brought Jonas back to life for me to see once again. In a manner of speaking, his promise to me was fulfilled.”
She then smiled as if it was a pleasing memory to her, but in contrast to that, Marcus frowned in anger.
He tilted his head down to look at her and said, “I don’t believe that.”
Hearing that, Nashandra’s head perked up in shock as she asked, “D-Do you think I’m lying? I would never-”
“That’s not what I mean. Relax. I’m saying that I don’t believe that the promise made to you for pledging loyalty to the God of Wrath was truly fulfilled. From what I can gather, its not exactly a pleasant memory to have been forced to fight an enemy using your lover as a human shield. Not only that, Jonas was brought back to life while being used against you in a fight before you pledged loyalty to the God of Wrath and was chosen. I definitely would not consider that a fulfillment of a promise I would make to you had I asked for your loyalty. I wouldn’t consider my end of the bargain fulfilled unless this man Jonas was brought back to life in his entirety and returned to you wholeheartedly. Wouldn’t you agree?” Marcus asked her.
Nashandra couldn’t seem to bring herself to respond and only managed to shakily raise her right hand to cover her mouth to keep herself from crying.
“I see…,” Marcus said to himself quietly before fixating his eyes on Camilla as if expecting her to answer the same question.
“I...well, my first interaction was...actually seeing you Marcus,” she said, to which he blinked in surprise.
“What are you talking about?”
“Before my fight against Frosk, I was approached by you, but you looked different and both of your eyes were red instead of blue. You pressed your finger against my forehead and forced a mass of information into my mind. That was my first interaction with you, and I think...I think that since you seem unaware of this happening, that that was the God of Wrath rather than you acting consciously.”
“I see…,” Marcus said as his voice trailed off nervously.
“Ya know...as a matter of fact, I think I remember the same thing happening to me before my fight against Dorrin. I remember this version of Marcus showing up to warn me not to avoid using my armor against Camilla and that I should use it to crush my opponents rather than allow them the chance to get the upper hand against me. He had the same red eyes that Camilla just mention,” Frosk said.
“Yeah, and a whole lot of good that armor ended up doing for you against her in the end,” Marcus joked with a smile.
Hearing that, Camilla laughed heartily at the slight jab thrown at her previous opponent.
Frosk looked away from them both in embarrassment before returning his eyes at him and said, “Yeah well...you’re the one who designed the armor.”
Marcus nodded and said, “Yes, I did. But I had no idea you were going to fight someone with such an outrageous level of strength like her. I designed that armor to be standard issue for all Forrosan soldiers to wear as a means of gaining King Razel Aldia’s support. You just happen to be the only person I made it for at the time. The fact that a standard issue armor design managed to hold up against Camilla for as long as it did should be a testament of its craftsmanship.”
Hearing that, Camilla’s mouth hung open in shock as the realization that Frosk’s armor was meant to be a standard issue design for all of Forrosa’s army was too wild of a statement to process.
“B-But even just one man wearing that armor, though it was Frosk underneath it, was impossible for me to get through without pulling apart every piece of it individually to expose his body. To think that all Forrosans would have such powerful armor...that’s a little frightening,” she admitted.
“We’re getting off topic here. Why don’t you tell me the interaction that led to you pledging your loyalty,” Marcus said, prodding her to finish her part.
“Well, it was the same as the other two. I had a dream in which I met the God of Wrath in person, and he showed me a view of Brunhildt if Queen Hylla continued to have her way and I did nothing to stop it. He told me that he would put me on the path to reclaiming Brunhildt but that I would have to earn the right to serve him in battle by bringing Artemis to her knees,” she explained.
Hearing that, Marcus raised his eyebrows and smiled faintly as he said, “You did far more than just that. You pinned her back against the ground and nearly forced her to yield to you. It was a pretty impressive display of power.”
She was barely keeping her composure as she was beaming from joy on the inside, but settled with saying, “T-Thank you. Your words mean a lot.”
Marcus then tilted his head as if he had caught on to something as he said, “You don’t have to hide your emotions around me. I’m not going to get mad at you for expressing yourself.”
“Ah…I’ll keep that in mind from now on…,” she said.
Another long stretch of silence stretched on until Marcus said, “Taking all of this into account, it seems that the God of Wrath’s influence really does extend beyond my conscious will in a way of positioning events into place. But with this in mind, I have another question for you, and this might throw you off, but I feel it necessary to ask.”
All three of them looked at him, intent to listen attentively.
With an overly serious expression, he asked, “How old do you think I am?”
None of them could seem to answer as such a question felt...meaningless, or rather pointless to answer.
Nashandra spoke first as she asked, “Sir...such a question is...a bit odd as age in this world is hardly an easily definitive number. You could be ten thousand years old, or maybe even a billion years old, and we would have no way of knowing.”
“Hmm…,” he nodded.
“I am a little curious to know though. How old are you really?” Camilla asked.
“I’m twenty two years old,” Marcus answered honestly, which resulted in all three of them failing to believe it.
“S-Surely you’re...joking. Right?” Frosk wondered, but Marcus simply smiled as he found their reactions amusing but did not bother to refute his statement.
“At twenty two...I was still practically a child! How can you be...how can you seem so much older beyond your years?” Camilla wondered.
Marcus smiled even wider as he said, “Knowing that the three of you are so much older than I am should probably change your perspective of me as a person. I may be a god, but I wasn’t raised as one. I was born and raised among humans and for the most part, lived a life like a human. I didn’t learn I was a god, much less the god of wrath until very recently.”
“Its certainly a shock to take in,” Nashandra admitted.
“The reason I brought this up is because I don’t want you three to worry about tiptoeing over your words. You’ve already shown your loyalty, and your willingness to treat me as an ally, but I don’t want you to treat me as your superior when even I don’t view myself as such until I can get a better understanding of my place as a god. I want to us to be equals. If you speak to me, do so the same way you would any close friend of yours. When you are around me, I don’t want you to be stiff, I want you to be relaxed, genuine,” he said as he lounged back in his chair as if to lead by example.
He then looked at Frosk and said, “It should be a little easier for you since you and I have already worked together in regards to the armor.”
“Yeah...I guess, but you’re still a dignitary of Forrosa. I’d have to treat you with at least that much respect equal to your position,” Frosk said, though the ease in tension in his shoulders showed that he was grateful that he wouldn’t need to worry about ceremony around him.
Marcus then pointed at him and said, “Right...that. I’m sure that Azazel already filled you in on the fact that I want to keep the knowledge of me being the God of Wrath being hidden from the masses for the time being.”
“We are, yes,” Frosk confirmed.
“Do you agree with that?” Marcus asked.
Frosk hesitated to answer him, but eventually forced himself to speak as he said, “Personally, I didn’t like it when I first heard it, and after meeting you, I dislike it even more so because I feel like its selfish to keep this hidden from the people of Forrosa. Your people, who have been waiting for your arrival for ten thousand years…but I understand why you want to.”
A look of appreciation fell across Marcus’s face as he said, “I’m grateful you can see it that way. In my eyes, I don’t think it would be fair to the people of Forrosa if I announced that I was their god, yet didn’t have all the answers to their problems right out of the gate. I’ve been given this responsibility so suddenly and my concern is that I would fail them when I’m not even fully aware of what it means to be the God of Wrath. Until I can fully realize that, they cannot know that...that their god walks among them. For lack of a better way of explaining that.”
Frosk blinked as he seemed to gain a better, more sympathetic reasoning for Marcus’s actions, and said, “I understand sir.”
Marcus then leaned forward and asked, “Camilla, putting all of this god business aside, I want to know something. You know Moyako...what kind of person is she to you?”
“W-Well...Moyako is my Godmother. She has been around ever since I was born. In fact, I would say that I’ve seen her as more of a mother to me than my own birth parents as I’ve spent more time with her than I have with them. She’s family to me,” she explained.
“I see…,” Marcus muttered as his voice trailed off for a moment.
When he seemed to have regathered his thoughts, he then asked, “Did Moyako tell you of her deal with me? About how if she wins against me, that I would help her try to find a way back to our world, and that she would bring me with her?”
Hearing this, Nashandra and Frosk both stared at Camilla as neither of them seemed to want that to happen.
It was clear to her that if Marcus abandoned this world, then that would mean abandoning his people in Forrosa as well.
“She...alluded to it, yes,” she admitted with a guilty tone for having not brought it up earlier.
Frosk then looked at Marcus and said, “You didn’t seriously agree to that did you?!”
Marcus put his hand up to try and placate him as he said, “This was before I learned about being the God of Wrath. Had I known about that before hand, I likely would have refused her outright.”
“‘Likely’ you say? What reason would you have to entertain the thought of going back at all?” Frosk demanded, very clearly angered by this revelation.
Before Marcus could come up with a way to explain himself, Camilla blurted out, “Because Moyako and Marcus are family…”
Marcus’s eyes widened slowly and turned towards her as he stared at her, swallowing nervously as he asked, “Just how much...do you know about that?”
“I don’t know how the two of you are related, but Moyako seems desperate to bring you back for some reason. Do you know…?”
He shook his head as he said, “I don’t know exactly what her connection is to me aside from her being part of the Kaneko clan, of which I was the family head, but…I’ve officially surrendered full ownership of that sword to her. She had stolen that blade from my home in our world shortly after I had left it and arrived in this one, but when I showed up, it was as if she had owned it all this time. As things stand right now, if she manages to kill me during our fight, then she will have truly claimed it for good.”
“But if you lose-,” Frosk tried to say, but Marcus cut him off.
“Dying during our fight and losing the fight are two different things. Moyako herself is proof of that, is she not?” he asked, to which Frosk went silent as he he got the point.
“But you are not immortal like her, are you?” Nashandra asked.
“I don’t believe so, no. However, I think there are ways around that. Camilla herself has proved that in her fight against Artemis. Even after having part of her head seemingly erased from existence, she managed to rewind the flow of time through her body while using the authority of Wrath to keep fighting. I had managed to apply that a similar idea during my fight against Ares when he hit me with those nukes.”
“What’s a nuke?” All three of them asked.
“Not important. The point is, even if I die like I did against Ares, I can apply the same method that Camilla did to rewind her body and keep fighting. No matter how many times Moyako might kill me, I’ll keep getting up until one of us is too exhausted to keep going, and I’ll be damned if its me,” he said.
Frosk seemed excited and supportive when he heard this, but Nashandra seemed doubtful.
“If that is how you intend to approach your battle against her, then it would be a rather pointless battle. Two nigh-unkillable warriors fighting forever, with souls so mighty in scale that they dwarf everyone around them...a fight like that could take forever to see a plausible end,” she said.
“Right...well, therein lies the other reason I brought you three here. Mainly you and Camilla actually.”
“How can we help?” Camilla and Nashandra said in unison.
Marcus’s eyes darted between the two of them as he seemed unsure of how to respond when seeing how willing they were to help him
“W-Well, to start, I want Camilla’s help with the Shura style of swordsmanship,” he said, which made her gasp from hearing that name said aloud.
“H-How do you know its name?” she asked him, to which Marcus smiled.
“I’m the one who invented it. Moyako found the notes I had wrote down in my house when I created that sword style and taught herself how to use it. It seems that she also taught it to you and the other assassins in that group,” he explained.
“My head hurts…,” Camilla said as she rested her chin on her hands.
“Yeah, it confused the hell out of me when I first heard about it from Ares too,” he said.
Then confusion set in as she couldn’t get why he would need her help.
“Why would you need my help with the Shura style if you’re the one who created it?” she asked him.
“I may have created it, but I never said I was the best at it. From what I’ve read, Moyako is considered the best swordswoman on the planet. Not only that, but from what I’ve seen, she’s taken what I made and refined it beyond what I had originally thought of. She’s even added moves of her own that I frankly don’t understand. To add to that, I have no experience facing off against an opponent who knows how to use that same style against me. For that reason, I want to spar with you so I can improve my own ability enough to face off against her, and maybe even come up with counter measures against her,” he explained.
“I...I see. I don’t know how I feel about training with my own god and teaching you. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” she asked.
Hearing that, Marcus laughed and said, “Don’t you think I’m having the same kind of existential dilemma? I know it doesn’t sound right, but its what I need from you right now.”
She nodded and said, “I’ll do what I can to help you, but I must warn you. You picked the wrong woman to spar with. My strength comes my magic, not my skill with the sword. Out of all of the Nøkkran Assassins to learn the Shura style, I’m the least skilled with it out of all of them.”
Hearing that didn’t seem to dissuade him as he smacked his knees as if to get himself in the mood and stood up.
“Right. Well, we’ll just have to find out for ourselves. Come on,” he said as he made two katanas out of the same black stone and tossed one of them to her.
As she caught it in her hands, she thought that her expectations of what it would be like to serve her lord were far an away from what she had in mind.
In spite of that, she didn’t hate it.
If this was what service to the God of Wrath meant for her, then perhaps it wasn’t so bad.