Chapter 5: Chapter 5

Rika was getting desperate.

Jufu was efficient, certainly, and much like before he wasted no time running all across the mansion while regularly shutting off Rika's ability to feel anything - supposedly so she would not get killed from whatever skills he was using. He found rooms with people in them - a bedroom here, a study there - killed all enemies and excessively rudely got everyone to leave. Roughly two dozen people, all commoners in service of her family, had been saved... but without any healing magic, most of them might not survive due to all the smoke they had already inhaled.

The oddest thing was that all the fake Maxwell troops seemed fine, if... base. As if something was making their lowest desires for violence and abuse - particularly of female staff - their sole concern and forced them to ignore the fact that the building was on fire and in many places already a ruined mess. Jufu, however, went as he could in her body; evading the flames and falling ceilings while carving a path through any troops he found on his path and mercilessly slaying any foe in sight.

[Jufu... please... please answer me!]

As much as she could cry herself hoarse while only a disembodied voice inside her own head, Rika kept on pleading that Jufu would please give a sign, something, anything that he could actually hear her. That she was not doomed to be an observer of herself now and forever.

"Man, you really are incessant, girly!"

[Jufu!]

"Yes, I've been hearing you complain loudly for a while now. But I don't have time to chat. WE don't have time! This is the last room and it belongs to your parents, so be ready. I bet this won't be pretty."

[I... I know that, but...]

"*Sigh* Calm it, chica. I'll save your parents if possible and even if not, we'll get to the bottom of this. I'll help you avenge everyone who died in despair today!"

[...Jufu...]

Without a single further word, her body opened the door and in barely perceptible moments she was already inside. The room was a mess. Oddly enough it was not burning - not that this would have prevented any smoke flooding it - but the tapestry, paintings, the grand bed... everything was destroyed; ripped apart, sliced apart, and generally impossible to salvage. Whoever had done this had let their hatred flow freely.

But the worst part was lying in the middle. In a puddle of blood, two beheaded corpses were left to rot.

[FATHER! MOTHER!]

"Fuck. Whichever bastard's done this can't be far away."

"That's an... interesting choice of words from my fiancée."

Rika's body looked up, seeing the last thing neither Jufu nor Rika had expected; the former saying out loud what the latter could only convey in thoughts.

"Albert!?"

[...Albert?]

It really was her fiancé, in the flesh. And he had a lot of it, which made him even more recognisable.

"The very same. How strange that after two months of absence, you suddenly show up again right when we are having our, heh, little bonfire party. Oh certainly, your parents disagreed, but let's not split any hairs or the like over this."

The awful word play was clearly deliberate to gauge her reactions. Not that it needed to, considering her dead and cruelly-beheaded parents were on the floor right in front of her.

"You are not Albert."

"Huh?"

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Both the man in front of them, and Rika, were equally confused at Jufu's statement.

"I know Al- I know you. You're not nearly as sophisticated in your word choices as this."

"Heh, heheheh. Neither were you ever so crude as to swear, Rika. So what happened? How did the Imperial Princess mysteriously disappear for two months, miss a civil war, only to reappear right when things are getting resolved? By right of might, House Maxwell will take over and you, dear Rika, won't be able to stop what has been set in motion."

"Fuck you, you smelly tub of lard! I'll kill you and every single last of your goons still left in this place!"

"Pffft! Hahah, bwahahah! Oh how I have waited for you to show your true colours, you frigid bitch. How about this: you shut up and I'll leave you alive as my little toy for later. Or I'll just rip your tongue out now and spare myself the trouble of hearing your screech you call a voice ever again?"

[Jufu? Do you think Albert has somehow gotten an entity of his own?]

Her head nodded ever so slightly in agreement. Rika thought about how this would be the strangest of coincidences, but it would explain so many things at once.

"He's coming.", Jufu whispered.

Oddly enough, for someone so corpulent, Albert was blindingly quick, his sword drawing arcs through the air while Jufu was for the first time unable to fully cope with the situation. It did not take long for her body to get cuts and gashes all over. Left strike, right faint, a powerful block of his magic against hers; Albert proved to be an incredibly powerful foe and Jufu had underestimated just how tired out Rika's body had become from the events so far.

Running out on even the last reserves, the entity had to admit that Albert plain had the upper hand in this fight, and so...

"Rika, I can't win this! We need to escape!"

[What!? No, what about the survivors!?]

"They were doomed anyway, but if we fall here, everything will be lost!"

Rika was shocked. Jufu, the voice who had fought so valorously, so mercilessly and efficiently, was being beaten by Albert - or whatever might have been left of him - to the point of suggesting to tail it.

[B-But we can't! We need to strike him down now!]

"And I cannot DO that, girly! Call a teleport, now!"

She wanted to despair, she wanted to flee, she wanted to stay and fight, to be victorious or dead but for the light of having tried. Her confused mind was clouded in fog, but then she saw her parents once more from the corner of her own eyes. Her father, a mighty warrior, slain in cold blood. Her mother, a gentle, practical woman who always tried to do things right with her own hands if so needed. But then she noticed something strange: they both were smiling. Even after being killed, they had died with smiles on their faces.

Did they know? Did they know their daughter would return to avenge them? No, that was foolish... but even so...

"By the grace of the Gods, Imperial Princess Fredericka requests safe passage away from this place of carnage!"

She had done it. The moment she decided to say it, Jufu had given back control and so she shouted the words that activated the emergency teleport to some place far, far away. A blindingly-bright white light enveloped her and all her senses overwhelmed her, so she fell unconscious even as the warm light took her.

"No, I won't allow her to escape! Do something, Haashu-"

She did not hear the rest.

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