As Dante continued his assault towards the end of the enormous demon tree, let's just say the others were... suffering a bit.
"Nagasawa..." Velryna murmured, both already completely exhausted from all this trouble. Velryna was sitting on the ground with her hands behind her, her entire body melting from heat, sweat, and sheer fatigue.
Nagasawa, beside her, was no different. She was exhausted, her whole body soaked, her chest rising and falling in heavy pants; she had overexerted herself too much.
"Does this never end?" She questioned as more demons began to emerge, and the kingdom's knights were well-positioned to contain them around the tree. Fortunately, only the tree was releasing demons from its trunk. If it were like the one Dante was facing... they would be lost.
A containment circle was formed, and all the knights, mercenaries, and guilds in the Empire were helping to control the area. But the main warriors were still them. Although they could endure a lot, enduring and fighting back are different things. Once again, they were just containing the situation.
"What is Darling doing?" she said in a heavy whisper, too tired to waste energy fighting now. She needed some time to recover fully. "What could have happened to Lyrianna?" she wondered, worried about her friend.
Although she hadn't gone with Dante, Nagasawa was quite close to the Empress. They had become great friends over the years when she became part of this, part of the Empire. Yet Nagasawa didn't go with Dante... Why? She didn't even know herself. In truth, she was a bit apprehensive...
She compared herself a little to Sara. She wanted Dante to pay a bit more attention to Sara at this moment; it would be much better for her peace of mind. She felt guilty for taking Dante away from Sara during that incident... After meeting Sara and watching her grow for ten years, she knew she loved Dante deeply, and Nagasawa wanted to give her that space now...
But it seems it was a completely wrong decision; she should have gone with him. If Dante hasn't returned by now, it means something is wrong, very wrong.
It was a confusing feeling, but she was there for that. She considered Sara her younger sister, so she would do this for her even if she didn't want to... and knowing Sara, she would clearly scold Nagasawa.
Fortunately, while Nagasawa was pondering all this, a sound came from behind them, and a woman appeared with an old man and a young woman on his back. The young woman Nagasawa quickly recognized as she turned around, and she quickly stood up and ran as fast as she could.
"What happened!" Nagasawa shouted, catching Velryna's attention, who hadn't yet noticed their presence from the portal. There were Aaralyn, Simon, and Akiko.
"Damn," Velryna murmured, feeling that something had happened with Dante for him not to have returned. Nagasawa felt the same, but he was more worried about Akiko, who didn't seem to be in good shape. "W-what happened!" Nagasawa demanded, and Akiko smiled at her still on the old man's back.
"They invaded the palace... captured Lyrianna and then Sara," Aaralyn replied. Akiko was healed, but it had drained her body tremendously; Dante's healing did that. "What?" Nagasawa stammered. "I'm going there now! Send me there, Simon!" She shouted at Simon, who almost fell backward...
It seems Nagasawa forgot to control her vocal strength.
"My eardrums," he murmured. "You're not going." Aaralyn said, this time not the usual gentle Aaralyn, but the assassin Aaralyn, a member of Hellsing on a mission. Nagasawa arched her eyebrows and crossed her arms, waiting for guidance or answers. She saw that Aaralyn wasn't in the mood for jokes. Something was happening.
Aaralyn walked a bit further forward, taking a good look. The tree was around 40 meters high, much smaller than the tree Dante was dealing with, but still a problem, a big one that she wasn't sure she could help stop.
"This one's small..." She murmured, and when the other two heard... "What do you mean this one's small? Are there bigger ones?!" Velryna asked, incredulous... Aaralyn then turned to them, "Dante is dealing with one almost twice as big as this."
Aaralyn's words made the two women feel a chill in their stomachs, a sense of fear. They had been fighting this for hours, and Dante was dealing with one twice as big? How? Why? What was happening to the world!
"What happened?" Nagasawa asked; she wanted information, she needed information. "An invasion," Aaralyn said while turning back to the tree. "If there's one of these here... there must be more on the other continents... this is problematic," she commented.
"D-Dante, he..." Velryna murmured, "Our husband is fine... not at his best because Sara was kidnapped, but he's fine... At least he was when I left there." She admitted, Aaralyn still wasn't happy to have left there... She felt weak, very weak. She really wanted to fight alongside Dante, to feel capable of following someone like him, someone so strong...
She had been feeling this way for a while now, ever since Nagasawa and Sara got involved in the problem with Ethan, she had felt this way, but after all the women started gathering, she was starting to feel useless... And having to leave the battlefield like this... It was just sad for her. Seeing that even a child like Eldrax was allowed to stay and she wasn't, what could she do?
She couldn't just receive a gift from Dante and grow stronger like Vex... she could only sit and accept it.
But would she? Of course not. She wasn't a woman who would accept feeling lesser; this sadness was being nurtured and transformed into sheer determination, pure fury for not being as she wanted to be.
"Do you mind if I take care of this? I'm quite enraged, you know..." Aaralyn said to the women. "I need to let off some steam." She admitted... Nagasawa glanced at Velryna for a moment...
"We understand you, feel free, sister," the two spoke in unison as if sharing the feelings with Velryna, who nodded with a fierce look. Aaralyn nodded, her eyes shining neon red, and she turned towards the encirclement where several soldiers were holding back the demons.
She calmly walked, slightly opening both arms, and two daggers sprang from the shadows of her sleeves into her hands.
The soldiers and knights forming the containment circle continued to fight with all their might, but as they felt Aaralyn approaching, they sensed something was about to happen.
Velryna, with the posture of a true princess, stood up and shouted with the powerful voice her position demanded. "Stand back! Everyone, stand back now! Let her handle this!"
The soldiers, upon hearing the order, looked confusedly at Velryna and then at Aaralyn. But the command was clear, and they quickly began to disperse, clearing a path for the woman to approach.
Aaralyn didn't stop, didn't hesitate. Even as she saw that crowd of demons trying to advance. Her hands clenched into fists, and a dark shadow began to form around her, spreading across the ground like a rising wave of liquid darkness.
The soldiers who hadn't yet retreated stepped away, seeing that something serious was happening. So the demons stepped on the black energy...
The shadow surrounding her violently expanded into several spikes upwards, piercing all the demons, like a sea of darkness piercing everything in its path.
The demons emerging from the tree trunk were caught off guard by the growing darkness that brutally pierced their bodies.
Their grotesque, monstrous forms were enveloped by the shadow before they could react, turning them into impaled spikes with solid pillars of shadows splitting their stomachs in half, their screams muffled by Aaralyn's overwhelming force upon them.
"How dare you attack my home, threaten this place?" Aaralyn shouted, her voice reverberating through the darkness. "You'll pay dearly for this audacity to defile my husband's realm!" Her cry was followed by an explosion of power. The shadows around her grew denser, sharper, and began to project into blades of pure darkness.
Each blade cut through the demons with deadly precision, reducing them to ashes before their bodies could touch the ground.
The soldiers and knights, now withdrawn, watched in shock as that mad woman did. Aaralyn seemed like a force of nature, a hurricane of shadows and fury that devastated everything in her path.
She was very... very... Angry.
"Nagasawa..." Velryna murmured as she watched how crazy Aaralyn was, something far from the image she had thought of Aaralyn... "Yes?" Nagasawa questioned... "Why is she so angry like this? I thought she was..." "More controlled?" "Yes, she was so reserved... now she seems..." Nagasawa heard and it seemed like deja vu, after all, all women got like that because of one person...
"That's the Dante Effect," Nagasawa said, looking at the woman venting beyond her limit. "Dante Effect?" Velryna asked. "Yes, the effect that makes any sane woman go crazy... You're an example."