[Raiding the Cultist Mansion]

It was now the day of the raid, Haru and the girls were now suited up and headed to where they were going to rendezvous with their strike team. He walked behind Touka, Elleth, and Airi. Noticing that Touka was sneaking quick glances at him, he decided not to ask her since he didn’t want to bother.

As they walked, Haru took in all the fresh cold air and calm atmosphere, knowing this might be his last chance to do so before entering the battlefield.

He gripped his sword’s hilt as it was still sheathed, looking at it intensely as they passed through a forest. The beautiful scenery contrasts his overactive mind.

Leaves falling and flying in the wind, as the girls were talking about something. He wasn’t able to hear it but it’s not like he wanted to eavesdrop on them, just slightly curious is all.

Elleth: We’re here.

They were now at the temporary base camp, it was quite nice several tents and tables around this fairly sizable clearing in the forest.

Dirt covered the ground with little tufts of grass spread around it, some tufts having colorful flowers within them.

And in the camp, several knights and adventurers were doing some work, some stopping after having seen Haru and his group. The some who stopped were likely some of his classmates as the knights just continued working.

One group in particular, where a girl waved towards the group before speaking up.

Female Classmate: Touka! Over here!

Haru: Know her?

Touka: Friend, I’ll go on ahead then.

Haru: Guess it’s just us th-Damn.

Elleth and Airi were already off somewhere else, Haru having blocked out the part where they went off. So he just stands there, confusedly looking around the base.

Though thankfully a male adventurer called out to him by name as well, likely one of their classmates. They were also accompanied by what seemed to be an elf girl.

Male Classmate: How have you been, Haru? You seem to be doing well judging by your whole group, I guess?

Haru: Who were you again?

Male Classmate: Eh? We got partnered up in Gym class and everything, we basically became best friends!

Haru: Oh yeah, I remember now. You didn’t attend school after that cause your body was so sore, right?

Male Classmate: You remember that and not me at all? Anyway, I called you here for a reason.

He then pulls in the elf girl close to him, before taking off his glove and showing off a shiny silver ring on his ring finger. Haru immediately understood what he was trying to say.

Male Classmate: I got ma-

Haru: Married, congrats.
The guy smiles smugly at him, obviously bragging about his beautiful elf wife. As Haru just stares at him blankly, likely done with him but still trying to be nice.

Knight Commander: Alright everyone gather ‘round.

Everyone in the camp stopped and looked at him before heading over. Was it an announcement? Haru thought as he reluctantly followed everyone else.

Knight Commander: We will now be commencing the raid, but first, is anyone up to become the strike leader? Anyone at all, do not be shy!

Male Classmate: We got someone!

He grabs Haru’s arm and raises it up, getting the commander’s attention almost immediately.

Haru: Wait I never sa-

Knight Commander: Since no one else seems to be interested, you young man have won by a landslide. Now then, come over here and introduce yourself!

He gives the guy who put him in this mess a vicious stare, frightening the poor boy as he walks to where the knight commander was. When he got there, the knight patted him on the back for his “initiative”.

Haru: Kanzaki Haru, I’ll be in your care.

He says in a pretty monotone voice, leaving behind an awkward silence between him and the rest of the team. It was like that for a while before he spoke up again, this time in his normal speaking voice.

Haru: We’ll take two healing mages, the rest if any, should stay here. If there are any mages with portal or teleportation spells, you’re with us, your role will be to take any heavily injured people back to this camp to be healed up by everyone else.
No one expected this out of him, it’s as if he was a military general giving out orders. As Haru was thinking that his experience playing real time strategy games wasn’t for nothing at all.

Though they followed his orders regardless, there were around eight mages total who were primarily high-tier healers, and with what he said earlier, this left six to stay back in the camp.

Aside from that, he’d found out that there were plenty of people who could use teleportation spells, the knights, mages, and even his classmates who were now adventurers.

Of course, he would also ask some of the many knights that were available to him to stay behind as well. Wanting the healers to be protected as well since he considered them the most valuable part of the team.

And with that they were off, the knight commander taking the helm to guide them to where the mansion was.

Just like Haru before getting to the camp, the strike team took the nice and calm scenery in, basking in the beauty of the forest that they were passing through into a battlefield.

On the way there Haru spoke up, catching many of them off-guard in the process.

Haru: You’ll go into the mansion on my signal. Teleporters if you are met with the injured teleport them right away to the healers, light injuries to the two outside of the mansion while heavy ones are to be sent to the camp, understood?

They nodded their heads as Touka looked at him, kind of proud and a bit terrified at the same time. What was he expecting will happen there? For his personality to go like this then…

The large group continues to walk through the forest. Seeing the large mansion before finally making it. Almost everyone was in awe at the size and look of the mansion.

It was a large ornate and castle-like mansion, with the biggest section of the house being off to its left side, likely where most of the living quarters, along with the dining hall, were located.

The right side was mostly open with a lawn full of lush green grass. It was where the main entrance of the mansion itself was located, with a pair of wide stairs leading up to it.

Its tan walls and gray tiled roof showed the building’s age, its charming beauty showed through them nonetheless.

Somewhere in the window of one of the rooms, Velia stood, a sinister smile was on her face as she looked at her beloved Haru. She couldn’t wait any longer to get her hands on him, and now she can.

And yet, her gaze drifted off, towards Touka in particular. Her eyes showed her intentions to the armor-clad girl, murder.

She was going to kill her so that, in her words, it would break her beloved Haru. So much so that he would fall into her hands as easily as simply activating a skill.

Knight Commander: Sir Kanzaki, are we to commence the raid now?

Haru: I said wait for my signal, I have to do something first anyway.

He walked off towards the mansion before stopping, all eyes were on him as he did so. What was he going to do? Most of them thought as they were all completely in the dark about their leader’s abilities.

Haru himself was a bit unsure of what he was doing, or at least those were his thoughts in the back of his head.

High tier magic spell? Owner of a legendary sword? Summoning a giant magical beast to do his bidding? Anything goes for the crowd, excluding Touka, Airi, and Elleth, as they were all curious about his powers.

Haru breathed in and exhaled, calming himself down before activating {Fleet}’s Battleship form. The people behind him were all confused more than anything.

What is that? It came out of his back? They all thought as he aimed the guns and began bombarding the mansion, every part of it. It was like this for around ten minutes, and when he finally stopped the barrels of his cannons were smoking hot.

And without even a second thought he immediately switched to his Carrier form. He still wasn’t done after bombarding the entire mansion with cannonfire?

Haru: Deploy!

With that single command, dozens of planes flew out of his runway. Each one going on to shoot up the mansion even further with machine gun fire or even straight up blowing parts of the mansion up by dropping bombs.

In the span of him walking towards the mansion and now, the mansion had gone from a nice place to live into something that looks like it’d been through a war.

He turns back to look at his team, seeing most of them frozen in awe, likely due to the show he put on for them.

Haru: Oi, that’s your cue! Get in there while the enemy is likely trying to recover.

The crowd he was facing quickly scrambled inside, with their respective weapons in hand already. With Elleth, Airi, and Touka following suit, leaving only Haru, the Knight Commander, the healing mages, and some remaining adventurers in front of the mansion.

Haru deactivated {Fleet}, falling on his butt in the process. This grabbed the attention of the Knight Commander who rushed over out of concern.

Knight Commander: Sir Kanzaki, are you okay?

Haru: I’m fine, my legs kind of gave out, that’s all. It’d be weird if I didn’t fall to the ground like this, you saw it right? There’s no way firepower like that wouldn’t put any strain on my body.

Knight Commander: Just what is that power? I’ve never seen anything like it.

Haru: The power of an entire warship condensed into a single person, that’s the best way I can explain right now.

Within the mansion however, it was total war. Bodies falling left and right, ally and enemy alike.

Everyone from the strike team was locked in combat with the cult members. With Touka, Elleth, and Airi leading the charge against them.

Touka: I’ll go on ahead, will you guys be okay?

Airi: Just go, we’ll be just fine!

Elleth: You can count on us, Touka!

With that Touka rushes off towards a hallway as the battles continue, can this even be considered a raid anymore at this point?

At the same time someone suddenly jumped out one of the windows, wearing a black cloak, presumably one of the cult’s uniforms.

As the figure landed it threw off its cloak, revealing a young man wearing a set of thin-looking metal armor resembling scales.

And in his hands was a sickle-like sword, which he immediately put to use by rushing angrily towards Haru who was still sitting on the ground, he would’ve killed had the Knight Commander not been there to stop him with his broadsword. The man then jumps back after having failed his attack.

Knight Commander: Sir Kanzaki, are you unharmed?

Haru: Yeah, thanks to you.

He gets up and unsheathes his shark-teeth like sword, standing next to the Commander as the two stare down with the man who had just tried to kill him.

Cultist: Tch, you only got lucky!

Haru: That may be so, but still. Just what are you trying to achieve?

Cultist: You, I’ll capture you and bring you to Lady Velia. Then I’ll finally get the respect I deserve!

The man then casts a spell, shooting out a blast of darkness from his palm right at the two. Which they dodge with relative ease, causing the man to get angrier and start blasting wildly.

With the Knight Commander firing back at him using fire magic, as Haru uses {Fleet}’s destroyer form, joining in with the firefight.

Knight Commander: Sir Kanzaki, please cover me!

Haru: Alright, but just what are you going to do?

Knight Commander: I’m going to try and fight him close-range.

The Knight Commander rushed towards the cultist as Haru covered him from behind, he got in and began engaging in a swordfight with him, Their blades coated in fire and darkness respectively.

Cultist: Bastard, why must you get in my way!

Knight Commander: A Knight’s duty is to protect his king, or in this case his strike leader.

Haru took advantage of the situation they were in and swooped in, firing off both his torpedoes and his guns. This severely damaged the man, his body was burnt, save for most of his head, with one of his arms having been completely blown off.

He was still somehow alive. Just in so much pain, or was he? The man’s screams of agony slowly turned into maniacal laughter, as black veins began bulging out and coursing through his burnt body. Most notably on his neck creeping upwards.

Both Haru and the Knight Commander stood there, unable to do anything. They didn’t know what it was, so they just backed away and expected the worst.

And so they did get the worst, his skin started to turn a sickly crimson. The skin on his remaining hand began deteriorating, the bone underneath mutated and evolved into a new clawed set of hands. All as he regrew the arm that was blown off, looking the same as the other.

His teeth became extremely sharp, a pair of demonic horns protruded out of his head, as his body bulked up and grew taller and more muscular. Though the height change wasn’t as significant, only a foot taller than his original height.

He stood up, the remains of his top falling off, and looked at the two, a grin crept up on his face as Haru fired his guns at him to no avail.

The shells only managed to scratch and singe his skin rather than doing any significant damage.

Demonized Cultist: I’ll give it to you, you really did nearly kill me. Fortunately, I just happened to be the guinea pig for a special drug.

Haru: Damn it…

The cultist then raises his arm before bringing it down, sending a powerful gust of wind mixed with darkness right at Haru.

This knocks him all the way into a tree, dropping his sword, as the Knight Commander charges at him, his sword coated in fire magic.

Where he then launches a massive blast of fire from his sword as he hacked and slashed at the demon-human hybrid. And just like Haru before, he was only able to singe him.

And yet, he kept pressing on despite the odds, even managing to finally damage him even slightly as the beast of a man very clearly showed that he was superior in power between the two of them.

Demonized Cultist: I don’t know if you’re stupid or just trying to play hero. No matter, with this power I’ll just swat you away. I’ll still get my hands on him regardless.

Knight Commander: I see, then I’ll just make it harder for you.

Demonized Cultist: Harder? You're funny, old man.

Knight Commander: Blaze Cloak!

His whole body gets engulfed in roaring flames, the ground he’s standing on turning to ash as he holds his sword in front of him. A hearty smile appeared on his face as the cultist began his attack on him.

He used his fire to propel himself behind the behemoth, before charging his sword up and delivering a heavy diagonal slash upon the cultist, burning the slash into him, knocking him forward slightly.

The pair continued to fight, while Haru awoke from having been knocked out earlier, he struggled to stand up as he activated {Fleet}’s Battleship form once more.

He then cuts off the beast’s arms in a swift motion, showing off his impeccable and unrivaled swordsmanship, honed after years of being a Knight for the kingdom.

But just as he landed on his knee, the cultist opened his mouth and started charging up a ball of darkness, getting ready to blast him into oblivion. The ball is about to reach its final stage when explosions hit his face.

The Knight Commander looked surprised to see Haru, but at the same time he was very much relieved seeing as he just saved him from what would’ve been a fatal blow, repaying the man for doing the same to him.

The Knight Commander stood up, using his sword to prop himself up as Haru began to speak.

Haru: Could you do me a favor?

Knight Commander: Yes. But what exactly do you ask of me, Sir Kanzaki?

Haru: I want you to keep that thing occupied. A minute or two should be fine enough.

Knight Commander: Alright then.

The knight turns back to see the cultist with his arms fully reformed, as he unleashes the full power of his blaze cloak, the orange flames suddenly turning into raging blue ones.

Knight Commander: I haven’t used this since my academy days, wonder if I’ve gotten rusty.

He goes to fight the cultist once more, this time he was much faster and more agile than he was earlier.

At the same time Haru brought up his “Status”, specifically for his skill {Fleet}. Revealing that he had now unlocked the fifth and final form for it, just what could it be?

He smiles to himself as he closes the holographic panel and stabs his sword into the ground before breathing in and audibly exhaling.

Haru then stretches out his left arm, his palm facing forwards. Immediately, projections of strange-looking magic circles appear on the ground he’s currently standing on and on in front of his palm.

Meanwhile, within the mansion, Touka was fighting through a hallway filled with cultists all on her own. Their blood having coated her armor and parts of her face.

When she finally got through the end of the hallway, she decided to take a little break to catch her breath.

Touka: I don’t know how much longer I can keep up. I might have to cut this short and regroup now that I think about it.

She gets up and continues on regardless, powering through her tiredness. Thankfully most of the hallways and rooms she passed through this time were all empty, but she couldn’t help but find it very unsettling.

Eventually she found herself inside what looked to be an open area in the mansion, with a pair of ornate staircases to her right.

The room reminded her of what a typical foyer would look like, something she’s only seen in movies and such.

Her eyes darted around the room, there’s got to be something waiting? Right? She thought, having brought out one of her swords once more just in case.

At the same time a figure walked through the hallway opposite of where Touka went in from, this figure was dragging what looked to be a zweihander, the sword gouging the floor as she walked through.

The figure was giggling the entire way, so much so that Touka was able to hear it perfectly fine despite being quite far from her. When the figure finally came out of the hallway into the foyer-looking room, Touka immediately brought out her other sword.

Velia: My, aren’t you a bit aggressive?

Her militaristic long-sleeved black dress, short skirt, garter belts, and combat boots contrasted with that of Touka’s more combat ready silver and purple armor.

Touka: Why wouldn’t I be? You’re wielding a large sword aren’t you?

Velia: This? Don’t worry, this is just a prop!

She attempts to slash at Touka with the large sword. Only to be blocked by Touka’s own swords, their blades crossed to catch it. She struggled to hold it up, the sheer weight of the zweihander’s blade making it hard for her.

The skin on Velia’s free arm turned a dark blue, before glowing blue cracks appeared. She then cocked her arm back and thrusted it forward, releasing a shockwave.

This threw Touka, similarly to Haru, into the wall. Although instead of being knocked out like him, she instead just coughed up a bit of blood and was able to get up slightly easier.

Velia: Was that a bit unfair for you? My bad.

She said sarcastically, laughing at her as the armor-clad girl stood up. Touka charged towards her, going for an overhead slash with one of her swords only to be blocked by Velia’s zweihander.

Velia: You know, you’re quite underpowered compared to the rest of your party.

Touka: What are you getting at?

Velia: Nothing, I’m just stating the obvious. I mean really, your sister is a demon with an affinity for blood magic, the other is the literal Virus Dragon, and my beloved Haru? Can’t you see how powerless you are compared to them?

Touka: I know that already! And “Beloved Haru”, what’s that supposed to mean!

Velia: Looks like I struck a nerve, correct?

Touka: Crap, I might have fallen into her trap

She thought as something materialized behind her, it was a broadsword mysteriously floating in the air aimed specifically at her. Blood splattered as it pierced through…Her shoulder, the blade coming out of her armor before immediately being kicked away by Velia.

Velia: Good, good, I thought you would’ve already died by now. But thankfully I can play with you a little longer.

Touka: Damn…I ca-

Velia: ”I can’t defeat her.” Is probably what you’re thinking, right? I’m glad you think that, but I just think of you as nothing but a toy, something to entertain me.

Touka: That’s right, I have that skill. I don’t know if it’ll work, plus the drawback, if I keep it active for longer it’ll get worse.

She thought as she activated {Boost}, she could feel the power it granted her flowing through her body as she began breathing quite heavily due to it. Placing one foot forward, then lunging towards Velia, delivering a flying slash right at her.

That would’ve been the end of that, but Velia decided to repay her for her trouble. And delivered a punch enhanced with the shockwave ability she used before.

She used this to her advantage, using the force of the shockwave to help bounce herself up into the air, as Velia looked on with intrigue, curious to see what her “toy” was about to do.

Touka fired her blades, anchoring them to the side behind Velia, one on the left and the other to the right. Then, she reeled herself in, her feet together as she accelerated towards Velia.

She impacted Velia with such force that it dragged her, the floor breaking as she did, along with causing her to cough up some blood. The red liquid dripping from her mouth as Touka jumped back and returned her sword’s blades back to their hilts.

Velia retaliated by charging her zweihander with her shockwave ability, and using it to launch a slash at her.

This caused her to be knocked back slightly, along with causing dust and bits of the flooring to build up into a cloud of smoke.

The light purple-haired woman walks forward a bit, wondering if her opponent’s finally keeled over for her.

But suddenly, she found herself with a sword stabbed through her stomach. She smiles as she’s found where Touka has gone.

Touka: Well what do you know, it actually worked. You had the right idea after all, Haru.

She thought as she brought up her other sword, intending to hack her head in two vertically. Only for Velia to grab it by the blade with her bare hands. And use it to, once again, throw her across the room.

Though this time she wasn’t going easy on her any longer, she walked over to her. Her armor was very broken and beaten, cracks had formed on many of the parts of it.

And on top of that her swords were on the other side of the room, she must’ve let go of them when she was thrown. Just how strong was she to cause this much damage to her armor?

She charges up her zweihander with her shockwave ability, this time letting it build up even more. All as Touka is on all fours in immense pain, trying to coerce herself into getting up before she does anything to her.

Velia finally reaches her, she places her foot on the poor girl’s back, rubbing her combat boot-cladded foot back and forth on her armor. Then, she stomps on her as hard as she could, slamming Touka into the floor.

Velia: I’m sure you’ve noticed already, but I’ll just spell it out for you.

She says in a dark voice, befitting of her position as an elite member of a demon-worshiping cult. Looking at Touka as if she was an insect at her mercy.

Velia: This wasn’t a fight to begin with, you were outmatched the moment I started walking down that hallway.

Touka: Figures, you didn’t look like you were breaking a sweat at all.

Velia: I’m only using you to get my beloved Haru to come here, I want to see the look on his face when he finds you and the other two dead. I want to see the broken look in his eyes and watch him fall into my arms.

And with that, she raises up her charged-up zweihander behind her head, going for a nice and swift decapitation.