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Chapter 59: Unbalanced Nobles
🕑 Added 2025-06-05 01:43:09 +0000 UTCSomewhere in the sweltering southwestern wastes of Hellnia, two devil nobles lay face-down in the dirt, surrounded by broken carts, wine-soaked silks, and the faint scent of burnt flesh.
Showeuff, the taller and much louder of the pair, groaned and rolled over, a gold-plated fang glinting in the sunlight.
His tan skin shimmered with dried blood and glitter, half from battle, half from a party that had apparently ended in fire and screaming.
“Ugh... what day is it?” he muttered, stretching his arms like a lazy tiger waking from a six-month nap.
Dozeuff, his paler, droopier counterpart, blinked open one eye and yawned so hard a bird perched on his horn fell off in surprise.
“I think,” Dozeuff said, voice heavy and dreamlike, “we missed something.”
The battlefield around them was a mess, villagers dead in the distance, smoke billowing from scorched hills. A few dismembered animals smoldered nearby.
Showeuff scratched his head and stood, cracking his neck. “Did we... were we supposed to be somewhere?”
Dozeuff rolled onto his side. “We had a meeting. With... samurai? Mist people? Swords?”
“Oh shit!” Showeuff’s eyes widened. “Hazy Mountain! The dream knights!”
“That was six months ago.” Dozeuff said, slowly drifting back to sleep.
Showeuff paused. “That was six months ago?”
Dozeuff nodded slowly, still half-asleep. “Time flies when you’re assaulting and looting and drinking from the skulls of your enemies.”
“We really gotta get better at scheduling.”
The party hadn’t been part of the plan. The original idea had been simple: visit Hazy Mountain, show face, receive whatever ceremonial nonsense the Dream Knights were offering, give them their shit, and return with new battle intelligence or at least a cool souvenir. Easy.
But then they passed through the Pleasure Palace on their way there.
And then the devil blood started boiling.
And then there was wine. And then there were dances. And then there were challenges to duels, plundering feasts, and at least one week-long incident involving putting a dullahan in a dress.
The brothers never made it to the mountain.
Instead, they spent half a year roaming Hellnia’s minor villages, claiming taxes in blood and setting things on fire for fun.
“It’s their fault for looking like background characters,” Showeuff had once said while tossing a baker into a well.
And Dozeuff, sipping something that was definitely not juice, had murmured, “We’re bringing culture. Through violence.”
Their nap in the ashes might have lasted another day, if not for the heel that dug firmly into Dozeuff’s back.
“Wake up, idiots.”
The voice was sweet like honey poured over a knife.
Showeuff blinked. Dozeuff muttered, “Ow,” and curled into a fetal position.
Standing over them was a young deviless, poised in a crimson battle-dress that clung to her curves like it had signed a contract. Her horns were shaped like crescent moons, and her eyes, gold and catlike, narrowed as she looked down at the two nobles in disgust.
“You two are in so much trouble.”
Showeuff blinked. “Lady... Suziana?”
“Wow. He remembers a name.” She clapped slowly. “Dozeuff, how about you? Know where we are?”
Dozeuff coughed, sat up, and then laid back down immediately. “The... ground?”
Suziana sighed and crossed her arms. “You're both disgraceful. The Pleasure Faction sent me to collect your corpses if necessary.”
“But we’re alive,” Showeuff said, flexing. “And handsome as always, babe.”
She ignored him and pointed behind them. “Why did you guys murder a circus?”
“It was a threat,” Showeuff said solemnly.
“Clowns are a threat?” The deviless asked, incredulous.
“They were armed!” Showeuff shouted righteously.
Suziana pinched the bridge of her nose. “Enough! You were ordered to meet the Dream Knights six months ago. You have no clue how fucked you guys are. Do you even know what’s happened since then?”
The brothers looked at each other. Silence.
“Of course you don’t,” she snapped. “Because none of our mountain spies have reported back since then. Not one. Not a whisper. Not even a death flare.”
Dozeuff blinked. “Maybe they’re just on break?” He said lazily.
“Spies don’t take breaks, Dozy.”
“...Maybe a long lunch?” Showeuff said thoughtfully.
Suziana reached for her hairpin. A blade unfolded from it with an audible shink.
“Okay, okay!” Showeuff raised his hands. “We’ll go! We’ll fix it! We’ll... do something diplomatic! Just chill out!”
“You'll do what I say,” Suziana said. “The situation’s changed. Something is wrong up there. The mist is heavier than ever. Even the villages have gone quiet near the mountains, and that never happens.”
She leaned closer, eyes glowing faintly. “Something has changed on that mountain. And we don’t know why.”
The brothers sat up, suddenly a bit more sober.
“This is bad, huh?” Showeuff muttered.
Dozeuff sighed. “We’re gonna have to walk, aren’t we?” looking around for the caravan they once traveled with.
Suziana smiled sweetly. “Run.”
~~~
The courtyard behind the Hazy Mountain tea house smelled faintly of rice powder, sakura incense, and whatever perfume Noh had decided best symbolized "stern affection and mild disappointment" that day.
This garden here was nothing like the training ring higher up the mountain; there were no scorched stones, no mana-scarred trees. Instead, tiny windchimes tinkled from the wind, and a lazy koi snored somewhere under the bridge.
Hannya sat perfectly still on the wooden veranda, legs folded, her pink hair tied up with elegant pins, her eyes half-lidded in a dreamy pout that Noh insisted was "too flirty for a funeral and not sad enough for a seduction."
“You are not a tavern girl,” Noh said for what might’ve been the hundredth time. “You’re a meiko. A tayū-in-training. Dignity, presence. You do not smile unless you intend to destroy someone with it.”
Hannya blinked slowly. “So… like this?”
She smiled at Noh.
Noh twitched. Then frowned.
“No. That’s not your smile. That’s my smile. You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?” Hannya asked with practiced innocence, her skin as thick as tree bark.
Noh narrowed her eyes and snapped her fan open. “Don’t use that mimicry nonsense on me, girl. I can feel it when it happens. It’s like watching myself in a mocking mirror.”
“But it helps me learn faster-”
“I don’t care if it helps you compose operas in your sleep. It’s cheating, and it’s creepy. Save it for enemies or performances. Not me.”
The pink-haired meiko pouted. “It’s called [Method Actor]. But I didn’t name it-”
“I knew it had a name! That makes it worse!” Noh growled, and gently bopped her on the head with the fan. “From now on, no copying me unless I say so. Copying a geija is forbidden.”
“Fine. Then I’ll copy Baku.” She said with a snort.
“Even worse.” The geisha shook her head.
Their afternoons had become a ritual. After Baku’s brutal morning drills with blade and mist, Hannya was expected to cleanse herself and report to Noh’s courtyard for the true work of a deviless: the power of charm, beauty, and political warcraft.
Today’s lesson was mana attunement. Noh had already demonstrated hers, Illusory and Binding, a pair that made her a nightmare in both combat and conversation.
Then came Hannya’s turn.
They had started with a test stone, a clear black crystal that reflected the color and behavior of the user's mana type.
Noh waited patiently. Hannya focused.
The crystal began to tremble.
Then flicker.
Then shiver violently, as if it had been dunked in a bath of fevered obsession.
Color bloomed from it in clinging pinks and frantic reds, soft and cute and suffocating.
Noh’s expression froze.
“Well?” Hannya looked up expectantly.
“…Well,” she said after a pause, “I’ve never seen that before.”
“What does it mean?” Hannya asked, getting a little excited, even more talent? Fitting for a peak lifeform such as herself.
Noh leaned closer. “Your mana is… umm…clingy and obsessive. It’s emotionally charged…I guess? And almost parasitic in nature. That’s a subclass of the Fixation tree. Normally this would take years to develop through countless trauma or failed contracts, but…”
She looked at Hannya. Then looked at the stone again.
"You were born like this?"
"Guess so!" Hannya said, almost proudly. That other shit didn’t matter; it seemed she cut the line in some special concentration, so an advantage indeed.
Noh blinked. "You’re either a genius or an emotional disaster."
“Easy answer. Genius.” She said, completely convinced.
“…Unfortunately, yes. I mean, you're just a newborn, so…”
Despite herself, Noh found she was growing fond of her strange little meiko. They had met under less-than-ideal conditions, a botched introduction involving one insult too many over etiquette, which had ended with a forest chase and at least two tree branches broken over someone's head. But over the months, things had softened.
Noh didn’t say it, but she saw something of her twin brother in Hannya’s recklessness. Kabuki had once been like that, loud, strange, brilliant. Dead now, thanks to a pack of mortal heroes who called him a “demonic deceiver.” She used his memory as her guardian spirit, a ritual binding that let him serve as her shadow and sword.
Training Hannya... it felt like trying to keep a star from falling. Beautiful, doomed, and blinding in all the wrong directions.
She tapped the crystal again, watching as it throbbed with more of Hannya’s peculiar mana.
“Charm magic will be different for you,” Noh finally said. “Your spells won’t just persuade; they’ll attach. Burrow. They’ll haunt.”
“Emotional parasites, huh?”
Noh didn’t even flinch. She had grown accustomed to the way she spoke long ago. She nodded. “Precisely. Weaponize wisely.”
By the end of the lesson, Hannya was sweating, not from exertion, but concentration. She had mastered the tea-pour stance, finally learned to bow without looking like she’d lost something, and managed to hold an enchanting gaze for a full three seconds before laughing.
Progress.
As the late sun spilled across the veranda, she leaned back and stared at the clouds. Noh pretended not to notice the thoughtful expression on her face, the way her fingers flexed against her own robes.
The dream fissure hummed in the distance.
Soon.
A year and a half until the gates opened.
6 months before she rescued her beloved.
And Hannya was already building her stage.
~~~
Baku had always believed you could spot a promising student by how often they pissed you off.
Hannya had been a headache from the start, misty tantrums, obsessive prayer rituals at night, and a refusal to follow traditional forms unless she could dramatically reinvent them. But lately?
Lately she was dangerous.
In the quiet clearing where he tested his sword forms each morning, Baku now found himself pushing harder to hold back his strength.
His blade slashed low; Hannya mirrored it perfectly. He spun into a rising crescent arc; her feet moved with the exact rhythm, no delay, no hesitation.
Even the weight of her mana pressure had shifted, no longer wild and syrup-thick. It now crept like fog across a still lake, barely there, nearly invisible.
He parried her lunge with his blade, mist sliding past his cheek.
The mist dissolved into petals, and she stepped back, grinning as she held her practice sword low to the ground. A small scratch could be felt on his chin, no broken skin, but for a moment, Baku didn’t see a trainee.
He saw a general waiting for a battlefield.
“You’re learning too fast,” he said finally, rubbing his jaw. “My sword forms take years. You're picking them up like recipes.”
She shrugged. “I’m a visual learner.”
Baku narrowed his eyes. “Visual learners don’t master invisible fog ambushes between breaks.”
“…Okay, so maybe I’m also a rare talent.” She said, deactivating her [Method Actor].
“You don’t say.” He shook his head; her copying skill was truly cheating. What made it even more formidable was the fact it seemed to train her body’s muscles properly. Over time the skill would disappear and the memory would stay.
Still, he didn’t complain. In fact, he was impressed, though he would rather die than say it aloud. Devils didn’t compliment their students. It made them insufferable.
And then, of course, just as he was considering ending the day’s training with an unsaid “not bad,” the worst sound imaginable echoed across the courtyard:
Boots. Marching. With rhythm.
“Lord Baku!” A breathless voice called from beyond the garden gate. “Urgent message!”
Baku turned with a snarl half-formed, sword still in hand.
The Dream Knight guard stumbled to a stop, bowing.
“Nobles have arrived,” the guard said, sweat beading on his brow. “From the capital. At the front steps. Their carriage bears the Capital insignia.”
There was a long, terrible pause.
Then Baku threw his head back and laughed.
“Kahuhuhuhu!”
He laughed so hard he bent at the waist, sword arm hanging loose, his horns shaking with every breathless wheeze.
“The capital insignia?” he howled. “They actually sent those preening idiots in the end? What, did the capital run out of brothels and bar tabs?!”
Hannya blinked. “Are they important?”
“Oh, supremely. In the same way spoiled cheese is important to a rat cult.” He wiped a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye. After all this time, they had the audacity to try their luck?
After months of silence from their spies?
Bold.
Baku cracked his neck. “Let’s see what pompous nonsense they want. But sharpen something. Just in case.”
“Kikiki! Always do.”
He gave her a sideways look. A straightforward answer, and she smiled too sweetly.
That worried him more than the nobles.
~~~
The gates of the Hazy Mountain Fortress groaned open with all the warmth of a glacier.
Through them stepped three devils who dripped luxury and arrogance in equal measure.
Dozeuff, tall, pale, and always half-asleep, slouched like gravity had personal beef with him. His horns were gilded at the tips, and his yawns smelled faintly of perfume and expensive wine.
Showeuff, bronze-skinned and tall as a streetlamp, his red eyes full of swagger and predation. He wore a fur cloak made from some extinct beast he probably killed with his thick skull alone.
And lastly, Suziana, a young mistress of the Pleasure Faction, swaying as she walked, parasol in hand, her pink-tinged lips curled in permanent condescension. Her entourage of pale attendants had been left behind, replaced by something worse: her smug silence.
The three of them strutted down the main road into the fortress grounds like they were arriving at a wine-soaked gala.
But the city was silent.
Empty.
And the only gazes that met theirs came from armored Dream Knights, stationed on balconies and walkways, expressionless and still. Statues, if statues could glare and subtly sneer.
“Where is everyone?” Suziana asked, her voice silken and sharp. “Don’t they know who we are?”
No one answered.
One of the Dream Knights escorting them gave a casual snort. Not even a real response. Just… amusement.
Showeuff bristled. “You laughin’ at something, armor-boy?”
The knight didn’t slow his stride. “Nope,” he said with a drawl. “I’d need to be interested to laugh.”
Dozeuff blinked slowly. “...Was that supposed to be an insult?” he mumbled.
The knight shrugged. “You tell me.” Completely unbothered and unfettered.
Suziana’s heel clicked louder than before. “Charming,” she said flatly. “The discipline of this place has clearly... melted.”
Another knight, younger, gave a low chuckle from behind his visor. “Discipline’s just pointed the other way now, lady.” The visor clearly hiding a shit-eating grin.
The words weren’t openly hostile.
But they didn’t need to be.
By the time the trio reached the obsidian castle gates, the mood had curdled. They weren’t just being disrespected; they were being tolerated, disregarded even.
As if the fortress had moved on without them.
As if they weren’t needed.
And indeed they were not; large changes had occurred during the six months of ‘waiting for supplies’.
