The Holy Sword's Gamble

Sword Saint.

You are the Sword Saint. 

Twin arched doors open with a loud creak and the grand hall falls silent. Very few remnants of loud and heated debate had managed to reach Aia's ear before she'd been let in, but the speed in which it ceased the exact second upon her arrival was almost deafening.
The Sword Saint froze, meeting the sudden and overwhelming stares of forty pairs of eyes. That forty stood upright, in front of oak seats surrounding a single long table that stood at the center of the hall, save for the one unoccupied end facing the doors reserved specifically for her. No chair available for her, of course.
Of course, she thought.
Her eyes wander, surveying those present; twenty-five key members of the Alliance, divided between the military to her left, standing with pride, adorned in shining red armor, lined with white accents and coalition of councilmen who represented their respective nobilities to the right, wearing uniforms that matched their patrons' banner colors. At the very end of the table stood fifteen of the Summoned Heroes, arms crossed and wearing a wide variety of grandiose armors, dresses and robes, armed with powerful weapons and catalysts meant for powerful spells.The one thing they all shared in common, however, were the expressions on their faces: frustration, annoyance and above all else, fatigue.
None of this was inspiring any confidence in the Sword Saint.
She hadn't seen a more depressing state of affairs, not even during key moments of the war years ago had left their numerous meetings in such a state. Her stomach churned, a burning desire to retract her head into her breastplate like a turtle surfaces at the back of her mind. Nevertheless, she takes a breath and steps forward.
The clack of her heels echoes across the chamber before stopping right at the end of the long table, without a chair. The men began to whisper around her in low tones, greeting her with a low bow and a reverent 'your grace'. Most people would feel a surge of confidence being addressed with such reverence, but it only really made this particular Sword Saint feel worse.

"Your Grace" General Astalon, tall and clad in blood-red armor, bowed and began without wait, "And to you, my lieges. I will get straight to the point. We are losing spies, each body returning to us more mutilated than the last. I'm going to propose, boldly, that we act with great urgency and make moves towards a siege"

"Dugratta!" A councilman objected in his tongue. "This is a taunt! It is textbook coercion! They know we cannot survive another year in this war if Mesale falls! We must bide our time and wait until we have a clear picture of The Enemy's plan!" Echoes of silent agreement fill the room, but Kira, standing among his peers at the other end of the table, speaks up. The young man, all too familiar to Aia in dazzling blue armor, looked upon the caucus with a cold, piercing glare.

"And so the Queen shall be left to die, is that it?" Silence fell upon the room. "Any move we make will end her life. Is this how we honor our regents? Or should we presume their willingness to sacrifice themselves to make ourselves far less guilty about it? Has our Alliance fallen so low as to commit to such rash decisions?"

Murmurs fill the room, but before silence could fully fall into place, a senator from the caucus, robed in red, offers a rebuttal. "Good hero, we do not even know the nature of the enemy. We do not know if this is an assignment commissioned by the Dark One himself or defectors still loyal to the cause, but they are cunning all the same. All we know is they are deeply embedded into Mesale's governance right under their regent's noses. We cannot know the full intricacy of their plans as we get nothing but cadavers in return for our efforts..."

"Your point, senator?"

"The city of Mesale must not fall, not to the ground, neither to the Enemy's elaborate crescendo. A cost must be weighed"

"I agree. Great hero, I mean no disrespect" a village governor interrupts. "But Her Highness may be lost--"

"Hold your tongue!" Astalon cuts off the governor, clasping the hilt of his blade. "You would speak freely of treason before the council!?"

"Oh be realistic, you dog!" Another voice in the caucus interjects. "You don't believe we have a fighting chance of saving her, do you!?" One by one, the councilmen and governors of the caucus raised their voices in agreement, echoing the interjector's sentiment. "Or would you like to lose more men?"
"Yes, Mesale must not fall!"
"We have no choice!"
"Praise be the Queen, for her noble sacrifice!"

Unable to contain the sudden chaos, Astalon and his fellow generals barked back from their end of the table.
"Treason!"
"The Queen is Mesale itself!"
"Traitors! Opportunists!"

The room was in a frenzy.
Councilmen, generals, senators and governors began yelling accusations and justifications at each other, all sense of coherency dissipating from the room not even a minute after the exchange had begun. As voices clashed all around her, Aia found herself wanting to step away and make a run for it. She managed to stand her ground of course, but it pained her how much consideration she'd given the thought. Far at the end of the room, where her classmates stood in silence, Yuuka, an angel-like figure draped in brilliant black dress, shot a look at Aia, prodding her to maybe do something about the chaos.
With a slight twitch of her left eye, Aia takes a deep breath, and raises her hand. And almost instantaneously, the room falls silent.

The Saint clears her throat, trying to ignore that once again all forty of them had their eyes trained on her. It was a feeling she had never gotten used to. "I think I speak for the other heroes when I say... that we owe plenty to the Queen. Given it was in The Sunreacher Palace we had been... invited to this world and taken well care of by her loving hand as then Princess of Mesale, I think we as an Alliance owe her the privilege of protecting her and her lineage.." 

Nobody objects. Nobody ever objects to the Saint. That's not how this world worked.

"I am in agreement with the Sword Saint" Yuuka concurred, tapping her staff to the ground. "As are we all, yes?" As her eyes dart towards her classmates, they all nod with hummed 'mhm's and 'hear, hear's. Kira, standing beside Yuuka, looks towards the councilmen then at Aia. He nods without a word.

The red robed senator leaned forward. "Your Grace's will is the will of the Alliance" He bows. "But I speak with reverence when I inquire of you a plan. In all your power, Your Grace, your blinding light becomes a beacon for the demons to enact irreparable damage to the city before they are smote by your heavenly blade..."

Aia winces a bit. For all her built up confidence, she didn't have any kind of plan. Her eyes darted around the room, then to her classmates, feeling her built up confidence crumble like a sand castle. But she couldn't either stand the thought of failing Elisia, the one person who guided her the very second she was summoned.
"T-Then I shall infiltrate it myself" she spoke, in feigned bravery. "Have a spy as my guide and I shall purge the demons within"
Hushed questions began echoing among the council, even her classmates began whispering among themselves.

"If I may, Your Grace" General Figaro, standing by Astalon's side, raises his hand. "Our spies are by themselves the best of our assassins. These are trained men and women in the art of shadows, all of whom came home lifeless. If we attempt another infiltration, now with you there to be protected, the risk of failure becomes greater"

"That may have been the problem, Figaro" Aia continues. "These demons may be able to detect the mana of shadow-mages. I'd suspected for a while but we have to assume that's how they've been keeping us out. I can conceal mine but I won't be able to use my powers without detection. I need a spy without mana"

"Without... mana, Your Grace?"
Stunned to silence, Astalon takes over. "Your Grace, I don't think that's possible. The Sundrenched Palace is an impenetrable fortress guarded not only by the best fighters in the continent but by pure mana fields that would cause any one man to go insane. Not with our most skilled can we do this... But..." Astalon goes quiet, before letting out the suggestion: "Well, you would then need a thief"

"A thief?" Aia raised an eyebrow.

"Yes... While we have made improvements, the hunters from the Western Dunes still somehow find ways past palace vaults and the weaker spectrum of our barriers"

Aia's eyes perked up, right as a councilman interrupted. "What, hire a backwater thief to infiltrate the Sundrenched Palace? You would trust some inexperienced blackguard with Alliance secrets!?"
"It was merely a hypothetical, my liege" Astalon raised his hand. "No, of course not. It's too great a risk. They may even sell this information should they get their hands on it and alert the demons within Mesale. We cannot trust them"

In their exchange, Aia had sudden spark in her memory. She captured it, given herself time to ruminate and was now certain this may be the answer. "If I may..." Aia says. "There is actually... one who I- no, we can trust..."

Astalon's eyebrows knit in confusion, and the rest of the table was all ears. "It's um..." The Saint stammered, but took a breath. "It's someone who doesn't have any mana, or skills, but privy to the nature of the Alliance and the heroes... Someone we know personally..."

As Aia's eyes drifted towards her classmates, they still stared at her in confusion. She then drifted towards Yuuka, whose eyes narrowed at the thought then in seconds went from confusion to shocked realization and profound disbelief. "ABSOLUTELY NOT!" She objected.

"Y-Yuuka..." Aia deflated, her confidence running out the window. She was expecting strong objection but not that strong. 
"There is absolutely NO WAY we are doing that, Aiacchi"
Mere seconds later, the rest of the summoned heroes made the same face of shock and joined in loud objection.
"OH HELL NO"
"PLEASE NO"
"AIACCHI..."
"ANYONE BUT HIM"
"NO, NO, NO"
"HE KICKED ME IN THE BALLS!"

"G-Guuuys..." Aia slumped.
The silent lords of the council tried to keep their composure but couldn't help but let their eyes drift between the two ends of the table. Private matters between heroes were, after all, a rarity to see out in the open.
"Aia, can you please be for real here?" Kira raised his voice, his shoulders loosening to a young man's composure, rather than that of a knight's.
"I-I am!"
"He's a thief  and a bounty hunter on top of that. With a record as long as The Tale of Genji!"
"Y-You're overexaggerating!"
"Am I? Have you had to deal with him anytime these last 8 years? Have you even seen him since he left?" You mean kicked out?  "Look, we know you-- Guys" Kira turns towards the rest of his classmates. "Class 2-A, can we, like, lift the veil now? We know, we all knew. Since, like, the first 2 weeks of the school year. You didn't do a good job hiding it at all"
"Yeah..."
"Mhm..."
"Sorry..."
"Aiacchi..."
Her classmates all echoed a unified resignation. Yuuka turned away, trying to feign ignorance but every bit of her face said 'yeah, I also knew'.

"W-Wha..." Aia flinched, her cheeks flushing as she dared not look any of them in the eye. She really didn't want to but couldn't help but pout a little "You're all so mean..."

"Look, my point is, Aia" Kira trying to resist the pull of the Saint's pout "He's not the same guy anymore... And even if he is, somehow, how do you know we can trust him?" Aia looked Kira in the eye. A mix of worry and hints of frustration over encounters with him long past showed, but she just looked down and took a deep breath.
"Do you want to save Elisia or not?" Just one question and the end of the room paused their arguing. "He might not be the same person anymore... What then? He knows the Palace, he knows the Alliance and he knows Elisia. He knows what we fight against. He was summoned here too, with us. I'd say it's more than worth a try... You can laugh at me if it doesn't work out"
"Aiacchi" Yuuka speaks. "We can't laugh, because if this doesn't work and they find you both... We can at least take some time to look through other avenues--"
"There's no more time... For all we know, the demons have already cemented their place as Lords, under the regents' noses. We have no idea what their plan is until it's too late"
"I hear you but... If you infiltrate it yourself and you fail... that'll be it. The throne falls and we'll have no choice but to commit to a full retaliation that will likely destroy the city. This plan becomes everything. We'll have no choice but to leave it all to you and him. Are you sure you want that?" 
"No.. I don't. But maybe then I can take responsibility for once" Aia replies with all her chest, a piece of vulnerability surfacing and she wished nothing more than to take it back.

Yuuka and Aia have an exchange of looks. Deep worry surfaces on Yuuka's face, and is met with the Saint's pleading eyes. They've had this exchange many times, and always, Yuuka would relent. But to relent to this would be staking it all on her plan, her gamble that could result in disaster. Despite that, Aia knew in her heart that she could believe that Yuuka would trust her. Trust was, after all, the most important between best friends.

As her classmates sat in deep thought. Yuuka let out a deep sigh, with a pained look in her eyes as she saw through the Saint's bravado. "I don't like it. But... if that's the will of the Sword Saint, and for the Queen's well-being, I'd say it's worth trying. Yes?" Whispers gather around the end of the table until finally, her classmates hum in reluctant resignation. Kira, though, only crosses his arms without comment. 

Astalon breaks the silence of the governance with a loud clearing of his throat. "Then the matter is settled. Once more, we'll make an attempt to infiltrate the city with the Saint herself and this supposed thief. If the heroes are in agreement, we the Alliance shall follow the Sword Saint's will in turn. We can scour the records for this particular bounty hunter and report back his whereabouts"

"Thank you, Astalon, and to the council" Aia bowed in gratitude, and the rest of the governance did so in return. "Would you need my aid in identifying him? His name is Yokoyama Rui"

"Actually" Kira chimes in. "You would know him already by a different name, Astalon..."

"D-Different name?" Aia tilts her head, confused. "He has a different name?"

Kira sighs deeply and hangs his head down. "Yeah.. he calls himself, uh... 'The Wizard'"

Astalon then makes the realization himself. "My liege, you don't mean--"

"Yep... Him"