Opyrheimr-Oiju sure is strange

"...Are you sure this is your full name?" Commander Kuroko asked as the brown haired woman looked through the entirety of the name written down on the paper, even in Katakana it went off the line for signing names several times over.

"High Prince Tyrlars Golgyrn Stjarnak Zarilin Makvorilath Hreldbane Ukarvor Veldimat Bjorvit vit Opyrheimir-Ainstain-Kurchavok zur Andrainia-Mentean-Volorgra xil Jugrak-Morith-Peldein; Yreadien'Riliennar'Asurya-Lendrima'Xentimyl'Eldrenhax'-Fesvalk'Ordomyr'Heimhyvr the Thirteenth." He said breathlessly with an ease that made it impossible for him to be pulling her leg, the entire room, Akane included, simply blinking before he cleared his throat.

"High Prince-From-Arhuread by the grace of the Yntanaer, Prince from Ghalakyr, Prince from Hradrat, Great Duke from Illmureead, Duke from Aixyarya, Duke from Fhagalath, Du-" He said before being interrupted with a harrumph.

"You can just...write that on a card, please." She said with a nervous smile, though Akane definitely wanted to see the rest of that list of titles.

"So, you're a Prince of a foreign nation?" Commander Kuroko asked as Tyrlars sat in the chair with a serene smile on his face, his hat off to the side while he hummed to himself.

"Mhrm!" He said

"Is there a...shorter family name I can refer to you by?" She asked.

"Opyrheimr is the usual shorthand. So...Opyrheimir-Ouji I think is what your language would use." He said, scratching at his chin while he gave it a thought before nodding.

"How do you know Japanese when our planet wasn't even on yours until..." She said before looking at her watch.

"Seventy two minutes ago." She said.

"Tongues spells, it's really not very hard magic. But I went the extra distance and just implanted that memory in my brain. So I am actually speaking your language." The Half-Elf chuckled while gesturing to himself, playing with the edge of his hat.

Akane fixated periodically on how the colours of his hair shifted, looking through the interrogation window with interest while he spoke casually. She was...fairly sure that she shouldn't be able to hear the conversation through the wall, but every word and inflection came to her ears clear as day. She always had great hearing like that.

"...So why are you in Japan?" She asked. To be honest the explanation Tyrlars gave to Akane was so off-the-wall nuts and vague that she wanted to hear him explain it in actual detail this time while he nodded and scooted his seat back.

"Oooh the Arcanist is going to do some magic tricks is he?" Aratani said, looming next to Akane while she smirked, getting a roll of the eyes from the redhead.

"Opyrheimir-Ouji you aren't supposed to get out of your ch-" She said as he casually snapped the cuff holding his armoured hand to the desk as if it wasn't there and stood up, letting his fingers do a strange dance.

If she remembered her western roleplaying games, this would be the "somatic" component of a spell, the gesticulations meant to bend the ambient magics and channel one's own inner energies. But it wasn't the sort of hyper-complex ballet she expected of the power to bend reality in the methods laid out by a spell, nor was it some cheap anime flick of the wrist.

He made a circle with his index and thumb fingers, then rotated his wrists to reverse it before spreading out, pulling at some sort of power around him, rather than from within him like his prior teleportation spell. Yuriko was babbling some nonsense, as were the personnel around her, but Akane largely ignored them.

She could see the colours of Octarine the Arcanist played with, feel the song of arcane energies blowing through a metaphysical breeze and sense the distinct fruity coolness of that power, smelling the slightest hint of ozone and pixie dust. And for a moment, she could hear the slightest tinge of voices in the distance and within.

A taser was shot at Tyrlars and promptly ignored as the darts incinerated against his auto-shield, his hands letting forth imagery build and compile themselves from stardust and twinkling light into an illusion for his stagecraft.

"Why give you a boring old explanation when I can give you a feast for the eyes eh?" He cheered, seemingly intent on ignoring the fact that the JSDF had once again tried to restrain him. 

"Now, the bardic art is not my forte, but I strive for excellence in all things, so bear with me." He grinned with a mischievous look that made Akane feel a mix of concern and interest.  

"You all are on the planet of Xarazanth. Named by wandering Aranean merchants aboard their great voidsilk striders looking for the newest deals to make." He said, conjuring an image of a huge planet, one that the Sun itself would not be visible next to in a frame of reference picture based on how much he had to zoom in to reveal the Earth.  

"That's a planet?" One of the JSDF officers said with some degree of awe.  

"How many moons is that?" Another said, trying to count the orrery buzzing around Xarazanth or its neighbouring planets or triple suns.  

"I can't see, they're moving too fast." A third grumbled.  

"...They really are focusing on this whole size thing?" Akane sighed, trying to gauge the shape of the many, many continents and archipelagos. Geography was after all, always important to learn when you were in anew place.  

She'd question how such a planet didn't collapse into a black hole from its gravity but then figured...magic.  

"That's to scale right?" Aratani asked. 

"I don't think Tyrlars is the sort of boy to exaggerate for theatrics." She replied. 

"First-name basis with a High Prince Akane-Chan? You're lucky he has a head full of stardust and doesn't care about impropriety." Yuriko huffed teasingly.  

"Oh please, you in the audience behind the window. This is absolutely to scale." Tyrlars waved dismissively before harrumphing and showing the Earth falling through cracks in the void of space and being transposed in flattened form along an empty stretch of ocean. The world rolled out like on a map, continents kept in their general shape by...definitely more magic.  

"Hrm, Japan is no longer on the other side of the ocean from America." Akane said, pointing out her home islands east of China as expected, but to get to America one would have to round India and South Africa and cross up the Atlantic, or take the long trip across the Russian northern coast and arctic ocean before descending down to the eastern seaboard.

She thought about it a bit more...To get to California and Hawaii; either a long-trip all around Latin America or going across Panama...or she supposed northwards around Canada could work.  Definitely would ruin more than a few travel plans.

"In aaaanycase before the commentariat feels the need to interrupt me any further. Xarazanth is on the edge of the Charted Tapestry, known space. Far away from the squabbles and antics of the Octumvirate of the Core realms. The ah; big power blocs. They're not important now though so I'll skip them." He said, brushing aside the fact that these people were familiar with interstellar travel like it was nothing.  

"Octumvirate species settled on Xarazanth long, long ago, conflicts with indigenous sophonts and eidolons, blah blah blah; Age of Strife and the Great Dark Age yak yak yak, and now the Renaissance of Flame." Casually dismissing what one would expect a wizard to go into painstaking detail about in these sorts of stories only for him to just...ignore any of it that he deemed unimportant. Annoying, really annoying. She'd have to research herself then.  

"Get to the point." The Commander sighed.

"But that's not what we're here for...I need Akane to come with me to here." He said, pointing to a large landmass that Japan was now to the west of, enclosed by markings indicating many countries; different colours and banners, pieces indicating territory that belonged to nothing people would consider a nation.  But this zone...

"Why is such a large territory marked as uncontrolled?" The Commander said as she examined an expanse of territory that could be compared to the expanses of the Mongol, Russian, Qing, French (first and second!), Abbasid, Ummayyud, Yuan, Xiongnu, Spanish, and British Empires combined. Not their total territory no, their total land area. More surface area than the entirety of the planet Earth stretched across a few great landmasses, archipelagos, clustered around a peninsula the size of the entire former Sino-Soviet bloc put together. 

There were colours and expanses of territory that would rise in this expanse, only to crumble into the ash heap of history in an eyeblink as the year counter wound down. None that got larger than Kyushu lasted more than a few decades. A frightful cycle of rise, fall, ascend, decline, foundation, and collapse. 

"Okay Opyrheimr-Oiju, what's the great destiny you have in mind for me?" Akane murmured. There had to be a reason, a good reason. Hrm...usually boys had this sort of life in the manga she read...not too much Shoujo isekai that wasn't based on Otome games in her experience. 

Hrm...the life of a hero wouldn't be that bad...adventure, fame..she looked at Tyrlars again as he blabbed about nothing in particular...hrm...if more looked like him...  

"These lands have never been unified, despite sharing many aspects of culture and identity. Always vulnerable to attack from within and without, plagued by inequality, repression, and uncertainty." He explained, making a dramatic gesture of sorrow.  

"It yearns for those who are willing to take on its plight as their own, it longs for those who come to it for more than just adventure, but those who dream of a better world and have the means to make it real!" He said, shooting stars following his hand as he swept it to the left with a cheeky grin, turning his eyes towards Akane and locking gazes with her through the one-way window. 

She felt a bit of a blush creep onto her cheeks at the undivided attention he gave her in this moment. Whatever he was about to say, he was going to say it about her...and well...he was an odd boy, but maybe odd was something she wanted in life? Bah she was getting sentimental and sappy like princesses in a western big budget animated film. She shook her head and decided to meet his challenge head on. 

Huffing and puffing out her chest while her friends looked, she fixed her gaze dead ahead and looked right back at him, offering a wave that screamed of bold confidence and assertiveness. Ahah, he had a bit of rose to his cheeks now too, success.  She briefly checked her mirror, trying to see if the crimson tint of his cheeks was brighter than her own and nodding as she briefly checked if her hair was tied into its triple tails to the proper length...why though? Why should she care about his opinion regarding his appearance?  Bleh.

"There is a legend of otherworlders who can help bring unity to the long sundered lands and make whole what has always been divided without repressing them into one gray mass...and I have reason to believe that Akane might be able to fit that role!" He said, forming a nimbus around her through the wall to essentially highlight her for all to see in a cloud of sparkling stars.  

"In essence, I think she ought to be the ah...what's the word..." He paused, making a circular motion with his hand while he thought of the term, snapping his fingers all at once while Akane felt a sudden chill of anticipation.  

"SHOGUN!" He said with an exuberant "eureka" sort of energy where one could just about imagine the light bulb forming above his head while Akane let out a stuttering gasp of surprise. If she had a drink she'd have spat it out, certainly Aratani was in the middle of squirting her soda out of her nose from a poorly timed sinus reflex, while Yuriko managed to choke on her spit. 

Wait what, did she hear that right? Shogun? As in ruler? Her? What the...how the...why the even? 

"I think she can be Shogun of the Sundered Lands! The one to fulfill the role of the uniter of legend, and I'll be her court Arcanist and Mage! And of course, charming and handsome advisor." He said while Akane gulped and motioned to one of the officers for a cup of water.  

She thanked them profusely for the offer, nodded and took a swig, let it swish in her mouth. Then she spat it out all over the window.