I wake up to the familiar feeling of lying in a bed, but my mind feels blank. My body feels sluggish and I find myself unable to move. I feel like I’m being constricted by someone wrapping themselves around me. I opened my eyes to see Nazuko cuddling me in bed, slumbering peacefully. Suddenly the events of last night hit me, I remember her getting fatally wounded and from there I lost it. I grab her cheeks to make sure that she is really real.

“Owww, that hurts… Will you’re awake!” she says as she sits up to stare me in the face.

Without thinking I instinctively pull the girl close and give her a hug.

“Nazuko I’m sorry, I couldn’t protect you last night, I was too weak. Please forgive me,” I say solemnly.

“It’s okay Will, I’m practically good as new now. I only have a small scar from where I got stabbed. Here let me show you,” Nazuko says as she starts to lift up her shirt to show me her scar.

“No Stop! I don’t want to see anything there!” I expressed as I pulled her hand down preventing her from flashing me.

“Come on just a peek.”

“No!”

Overhearing the commotion, the rest of my party comes into the room to witness our bickering. Lilith and Remi have a few bandages on their arms from where they were slashed and Ryder has his arm in a sling.

“Will, you’re finally awake, it's been so long,” Azura tells me.

“How long have I been asleep?” I question.

“Well after the knights pulled you out the remains of the destroyed building, you fell into a coma, for about 7 days. We weren’t sure when or if you were going to wake up soon,” she answers.

“Heheh, see Azura I told you if you let me cuddle with him he would have woken up,” Nazuko smirks.

“No that’s not how comas work, that’s just a coincidence,” Azura argues.

I take a deep breath thinking how to apologize to my party for my recent behavior.

“Guys I’m sorry about what happened during the fight with the thief. After I saw Nazuko get hurt, I kinda lost it,” I tell them.

“Heh, since you got so mad when I got hurt then that means you really do love me, don’t you? You can’t deny it now, it’s all over your face. Plus the first thing you did when you woke up was give me a hug,” Nazuko brags.

Despite the fact that I don’t want to admit it, I do care about Nazuko.

“Fine, I do care. Nazuko… I….”

“You...”

“Love you………………. PLATONICALLY!”

“YES… Wait?” Nazuko says confused.

“That means he only loves you as a friend, not as a lover,” Remi clarifies.

“W-well I’m still the first girl Will ever said ‘I love you’ to, so hah” Nazuko brags.

“Well while I’m at I guess I’ll say that I love everyone here. If anything bad ever happened to any of you I’d be really sad. I just wanted to praise Nazuko since she saved me during our last fight. If it weren’t for her I probably wouldn’t have made it,” I announced.

“I love you too Will, platonically or not, it doesn’t matter to me,” Nazuko says joyfully as she hugs me.

“Aww that’s kind of cute,” Azura remarks as she also hugs Nazuko.

“Huh, I guess we’re doing a group hug now,” Ryder declares as he also joins in.

“Hooray group hug!” Lilith says as she joins in.

We all just look at Remi who is trying very hard not to be involved right now.

“Come on Remi, join the hug,” I command.

“Yeah Remi, join the hug,” Ryder adds.

We all start to chant to get Remi to lower her defense.

“Join the hug! Join the hug! Join the hug! Join the hug!” we all chant.

Hearing this, Remi’s face contorts as if she’s in a form of discomfort.

“Ugh, fine I guess I’ll give Nazuko praise for once. But only this once,” Remi declares as she finally joins in.

“Yay Remi you're finally not being a hoe for once,” Nazuko praises.

“Grr, I’ll ignore that comment for Will’s sake, but once we leave this infirmary you're gonna get it,” Remi threatens.

After our somewhat wholesome meeting Azura made everyone leave in order to finish healing my remaining injuries. Apparently the two fingers I lost in the thief fight were recovered along with Nazuko before they left the burning building. I stare at the two fingers still wrapped in bandaging. I’m able to move them just as perfectly as before and I don’t even feel that much pain.

“I was able to fix your hand with the time you’ve been unconscious, but the hardest part was fixing all of the nerves in those fingers. However, I think it’s healed 100 percent now, just don’t go swinging your weapons for a while since there might be a bit of residual pain,” she informs me.

“Yeah I got it, anything else I should know?” I ask her.

“Yes, no more training, or intense fighting for about another week or two if you can help it. Everyone’s going to need more rest to recover back to full health, I’ve heard there’s a medicinal hot springs located somewhere in the city, so that’s the plan once I fix Ryder’s arm. I am going to feed him the most bitter medicine ever, so don’t worry he’ll be as good as new soon enough.”

I end up going to sleep for the rest of the day. I’m just glad that everybody’s going to be alright.

I wake up hearing a strange phrase coming from the hallway.

“Hey did you read the 2nd hero’s speech, I thought it was kind of cool even though I didn’t understand the way he was talking,” a knight says.

“I heard about that, the 2nd hero apparently gave a pretty inspiring speech at his banquet in Ravanna. Something about calling a dude a ‘pasty white ass’ and saying some guy was ‘gonna get clapped’. Also he’s making Westphalia great again,” another knight responds.

“Hmm, his speech is a little confusing, but I guess that the one of blackness as a unique dialect. I suppose that’s black person lingo, it's pretty cool I guess,” the first knight says.

What the heck are they talking about? They mentioned the second hero so I guess it’s something to do with Quincy.

“Ugh, what am I hearing? I don’t think the drugs have worn off yet if I’m hearing stupid stuff like make Westphalia great again,” I grumble still sleepy.

Azura, who is sitting by my bedside reading, puts down a newspaper and turns her attention to me.

“I haven’t even given you drugs within the last 24 hours, so what you heard is real,” Azura mentions.

“Wait what, you can’t be serious,” I argued.

“Yep, here read this newspaper,” Azura says as she hands me the paper she was just reading.

“Hmm, One of Blackness Saves City of Ravenna, Citizens Overjoyed some mumbo jumbo about a guy with a huge scythe. Quincy gave a speech?! Oh so this is what those knights were talking about,” I read.

Dang, I don’t know what I just read, but whatever it was, it was something? I really hope that Quincy insulting the boss of the last remaining Reaper isn’t going to bite us in the butt later, but if it does, that’s his problem.

“So they threw him a party for saving the city, wow Quincy actually did something heroic. I’ll have to praise him for not abandoning them for calling him black. Azura how come no one ever throws us parties?” I ask her.

“Well, perhaps it’s because chaos tends to follow us wherever we go. But the hostages that we saved did drop by while you were in your coma. That last girl we saved dropped by and gave you flowers in that vase over there. I’m sure Colonel Bianca said something about making celebration cookies once everyone gets better,” Azura mentions.

I look over and I see a bouquet of flowers lying in a red vase on the nightstand by my bed.

“Huh, well I guess that’s nice.”

Suddenly Nazuko bursts into the room, with a somewhat concerned look on her face.

“Hey Will, I need help with something, really dumb so I need you both to step outside for a moment,” she says.

I manage to slowly climb out of bed and we all go follow Nazuko outside. I also see Ryder standing outside while holding a strange crystal orb in his left hand.

“Okay so what’s this really dumb problem that you have?” I question.

“I’ll let Ryder explain,” Nazuko responds.

“So first things first, look up,” Ryder commands.

We all look up to see the airship hovering about maybe 5 miles in the air.

“Umm, it’s just the airship,” Azura says bewildered.

“To explain what’s happening Remi and Lilith got into an argument on the airship and it turned into another fight. Said fight managed to make its way into the control room and the ship just started to float into the air and neither of them know how to pilot it,” Ryder explains.

“Oh, huh, well can we communicate with them or something,” I sighed.

“Yeah that’s what that orb Ryder has in his hands is for,” Nazuko says.

“Wait, we have a communication device aboard the ship, how come we didn’t use that when we got shot at in the northern front?” I ask.

“Well the other party must have a corresponding device and it was in the moment so we didn’t have that much time,” Azura answers.

“Please help, I feel like if Remi touches anything else the ship will explode,” Lilith’s voice says from the orb.

“Hey I didn’t touch anything, it was you who threw my wolf at the controls,” Remi’s voice argues.

This whole situation just makes me facepalm and Nazuko mimics my action.

“Ok so Ryder or Azura please instruct them on how to get the airship down,” I pleaded.

“Alright I’ll try, so both of you first look for a blue lever near the wheel,” Azura instructs.

“Wait which one? There’s like five different levers here, two of them are blue,” Lilith answers.

“Dangit, Ryder, we should have never installed those extra controls for your remote cannons. It just complicates the whole thing,” Azura grumbles.

“Hey! I’m sure that those cannons will be helpful eventually. They were helpful on the way here,” Ryder bickers.

“Oh I think I found it, is it going down?” Remi asks.

I don’t physically see the airship going down, but I do see the cannon orientation changing.

“That was the wrong lever, whatever you do, don’t press the red button,” Ryder warns.

“What was that, I couldn’t hear you clearly. I think he said push the red button,” Remi says out loud.

“Wait No!” We all say.

We then witness the airship launch a very large bomb towards the outskirts of the city and blow up a large portion of the road. It’s a good thing that no is living on the edge of the city at the moment, but whoever’s coming into the city today is going to have a rough time.

“Ok I think Remi and Lilith are both incapable of piloting the airship, but to be fair it was complicated for even me to fly when I piloted it. We need to think of a different plan.” I decide.

“So what do you have in mind then?” Nazuko asks.

“Ok I have an idea, we are going to launch someone at the airship, someone who knows how to fly the airship. Nazuko, get in Ryder’s cannon,” I command.

“Wait, I don’t know how to fly that thing,”she argues.

“Well the real plan is to shoot Azura at the ship, but you’ll be used as a testing shot,” I respond.

“But what if Ryder misses?” Nazuko asks.

“Don’t worry I’ll catch you, I think.”

Nazuko gets into Ryder’s cannon and we try to aim it at the airship.

“Ok a bit of a warning, I’m not so good at aiming with my left arm so I might miss. Also Azura says not to fire it with my right since my arm can’t take the recoil right now,” Ryder informs.

“It's okay I think I can calculate the trajectory,” I assure him.

We aim the cannon at about a 75 degree angle and it looks like it’ll make it.

“Nazuko are you ready?” Ryder questions.

“Yep, good to go!”

“Well okay then. Three, Two, One, FIRE!”

The next second we see Nazuko blast out the cannon in the direction of the airship.

“WEEEEEEEE” she shouts through the air.

We see her get closer and closer to the airship, it seems the angle is correct so she should make it. However it looks like she’s slowing down and she barely misses the ship.

“Dang Ryder’s cannon doesn’t have enough force. Sorry Azura it seems you won’t be flying Ryder airlines today,” I tell her.

I see her subtly swipe away the sweat from her brow. Yeah I wouldn’t relish the thought of being shot out of Ryder’s cannon in this situation either.

“Hey Will are you forgetting something?” Azura mentions.

“Umm, what? Oh…” I say as I almost forgot about Nazuko.

Oh boy, this could be a slight problem, I open a portal underneath where Nazuko should fall, but there’s not really a lot I can do about her accumulated momentum. Maybe if I angle the 2nd portal upwards it should at least make her not go splat.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh,” Nazuko screams as she flies out of the other portal into the air for about 10 seconds and lands on top of the knights tower.

“Oof, she might need minor healing later,” Azura states.

“Hmm, alright that eliminates Plan B, so now lets progress to Plan C,” I announced.

“Plan C?” Lilith asks from the orb.

“Yes, I am going to fly up to the ship,” I continue.

“Did Vasavir teach you how to fly within the last two months?” Remi questions.

“No but I’m about to figure it out,” I answer.

Okay so theoretically I should be able to utilize wind in order to propel myself into the air. I take a few steps so I have a bit of space and start to concentrate. I start to imagine creating a powerful funnel of wind at my feet and activate my magic. Gather the wind near my feet and accelerate it. I feel a small breeze gather by my legs so I open my eyes and stare at the ground. I’m still on the ground, but I think the wind is going in the right direction. Ok step 1 is accomplished, now I just need to make it go faster. I start to accelerate the wind near my feet and I feel it moving a little faster. More, I need more speed. I accelerate the wind by a factor of three and I actually feel like I’ve gotten off the ground. It’s only about 4 feet off the ground, but it’s progress right? Ugh, doing all of this is kind of mentally taxing on me with the amount of mental calculations I’m doing right now.

“Whoa, he’s hovering, that’s so cool!” Nazuko shouts from the top of the tower.

“Shush, I need to focus!” I told her as her comment interrupted me and I fell to the ground.

I get up and give it another try. I attempt the same actions as before and get back to hovering. Okay now I just need to change direction and increase the speed of the funnels.

“Okay guys get ready I am about to make the first attempt at flying,” I say as I mentally prepared myself.

“You got this,” Ryder says as he gives me a thumbs up.

Nazuko then jumps off the roof of the knights tower and lands gracefully on the ground.

“Don’t break any bones trying this,” Azura says while she covers one eye expecting the worst.

Great at least I have Ryder’s approval, that’s all I need.

I tilt my body forward and let loose a blast of wind from my feet. The sudden increase in velocity sends me flying forward at an incredible speed, but I think I went a little too fast. I’m now flying around the knights tower with little to no control over the direction nor speed.

“Wow, Will you’re doing it,” Nazuko comments.

“NOOOOO I’M NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!” I yelled.

This loss of control causes me to collide with the side of the knights tower and I plop to the ground.

“Oof,” Ryder and Nazuko say in unison.

“What happened? I suppose Will’s first attempt at flying didn’t go so well,” Lilith surmised.

“He just flew straight into a wall,” Ryder states.

“Oof,” Lilith repeats.

“Would you guys stop saying Oof,” I complain.

“Now you know how I feel,” Remi states.

Azura comes over to me lying on the ground and inspects my body for injuries.

“Hmm, I would have thought you would have at least gotten a bruise from that. I guess you’re more durable than I thought,” Azura mumbles.

“Thank god for aura, it kept me from having to drink those nasty healing potions you prescribe,” I proclaim.

“Medicine is medicine, the effects are what’s important, not the taste.”

“And apparently not your patients well being in the moment,” I say sarcastically.

“Keep up comments like that and I won’t be healing you the next time you get fatally wounded,” she threatens.

“I’m sorry big sis,” I say as I gulp in fear.

“That’s better,” she says menacingly.

Alright make a mental note never make Azura mad, should have learned that after the wheelchair incident, but I guess I was too high on adrenaline. So time to determine what went wrong in that last attempt, clearly I lost control over the wind so instead I’ll try a more consistent release of wind. Also I think that putting the wind at my feet makes me less stable and I would really like to remain upright the entire time. Maybe releasing the wind from my back might be a bit more manageable and make up for the loss of vertical push by using two more wind funnels. This will take a little bit more focus since I’m controlling more wind, but it should at least allow me to maintain some semblance of control.

“Okay attempt number 2 here we go.”

I stand in the center of the yard and begin by letting loose four mini tornadoes of wind from my back. Ugh, it's hard to control both the speed and direction of these tornadoes at once. It’s like trying to lift both legs in the air to walk. The force of the tornadoes are blowing so much air it even made Nazuko fall over since she’s not very heavy.

If you wish, I can assist by controlling the output while you focus on direction.

“Really, that would be a great help, thanks. Okay let’s start off on a low output, just hover speed.”

I angle the tornadoes to point towards the ground and I start to gain a bit of lift. I try a straight horizontal angle and I start to move forward at a speed of one foot per second.

“Yes I’m doing it! I can control this,” I cheer.

With help.

“With help, but I’m still doing it. Okay let’s start going fast I think I can handle this.”

Are you sure? That would be like starting to run before learning to walk.

“Nah, I’m sure otherwise it would take forever to save Remi and Lilith. I’m someone who learns by doing.”

Well okay then, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

A second later and I’m blasting through the air at breakneck speeds. I fly around the knights tower for a bit to get a feel for this speed.

“Heh, let’s try doing a bit of precise maneuvers.”

I change direction and start flying close to the ground, deciding to make my way around Artry for a bit of fun. I blast my way through the town square going so fast I barely notice I knocked over the stand of the apple guy again. Oops, well I’m sure if I get confronted about that I’ll say Quincy did it again. Judging by Quincy’s most recent speech he’ll probably threaten him saying stuff like he’ll clap his *ss or something like that. I make a quick 90 degree turn past a church building, but I fail to see the clothesline hanging from a nearby house so I end up flying into a shirt. I can’t really see with the shirt on my face so I quickly remove it and see that I’m about to fly straight into a building. I don’t have enough time to stop or change direction so I open a portal in front of me so I end up coming out the other side.

“Hahah I did it, I’m a genius.” I cheer as I come out the other portal looking back at the building I was about to crash into.

Unfortunately I was a tad bit overconfident at the moment as I didn’t see another building right in front of me as I crashed into that one making a hole in the wall.

“Did someone just fly into that building?” a familiar voice asks.

“Yeah, actually I think that was Will,” another familiar voice answers.

I remove the bricks that were lying on my head and I look out the Will sized hole I just made. I see Warren’s party riding in their car through the street. I see that they’ve finally made their return back from fighting the Lancer guy. Also for some reason there’s a girl with long black hair standing on the roof of the car with her arms crossed. She has this really deadpan look on her face and her heels are like 9 inches long, but yet I can sense an aura of coolness around her. She’s carrying a long sword, about maybe one and a half times longer than my blade. I think I saw her before, she rode past me on a horse after I came back from fighting Sirius. I don’t know why, but she just emanates that aura of coolness around her similar to the stoic anime character in shounens.

“Oh hi guys who’s the cool girl,” I greeted.

“Who?” Quincy says looking bewildered as to what I meant.

“You know, the person standing on top of the car. I feel her aura from up here,” I clarified.

“Oh that, the not-cool person is our new party member,” Quincy tells me.

“Yeah, she’s the newest member of the bad bitches,” Nerva proclaims.

“Yes, my name is Akane, I am the bad bitch blood samurai, and for the record I am cool,” she announces.

“Wow, that’s so cool,” I say unironically.

“For short her title is just Triple B-S,” Quincy adds.

Dang her title puts Restorer of the World to shame, that was one of my greatest titles. Hmm, maybe I can one up this girl.

“Nice to meet you Akane, I am Will, Professional Thot Slayer and Mafia Boss,” I declared.

“Ah I see, quite the powerful titles, I will seek to add more to my repertoire as I go on more adventures,” she says in a deadpan tone.

“So umm, where’s Adam, did he die in the fight against Lancer?” I ask, not detecting his presence.

“I’m here” a muffled voice cries out.

“Umm, am I hearing things cause I thought I just heard a voice somewhere.”

“No that’s just Adam, we put him in the trunk since there was no room in the car,” Warren answers.

“Oh, huh, neat,” I respond.

“So Will correct me if I’m wrong, but did I just see you fly into a building?” Quincy asks.

“Oh right that just happened. Well still on training wheels, but does this answer your question?” I say as I sprout the tornadoes from my back and start floating in the air in front of them.

“Whoa, It’s like something straight out of Dragon Sphere X. The main character in that series created wings of wind in order to fight with dragons,” Akane says bewildered, but still looking deadpan somehow.

Huh, now that I think of it, they really could be seen as wings from someone else’s perspective.

“I would wish to learn such a technique. Is it possible for one to learn this power?” Akane asks me.

She’s staring at me so intently, so part of me doesn’t want to disappoint her. But as I am now I haven’t even mastered flying, let alone have enough prowess to teach another person how. I think I’ll just say a really cool line and pass it off as her not being ready.

“Hmm, perhaps if you train hard enough, I shall consider it. Later I shall require thee to show me your resolve,” I tell her.

“Ah I see, that line was also used by Master Zen in Archetype, the Last WindWaker. Perhaps I am not ready for such a power,” she acknowledges.

“Bitch, that ain’t so cool I can do that too,” Nerva comments as she gets out of Warren’s car.

Nerva puts her hands to her sides and sends out a stream of fire out her hands to propel herself in the air, but because she’s so light all the wind coming from my tornadoes accelerate Nerva’s airspeed sending her flying into the sky. Everyone just stares up into the sky as we see a small fireball accelerate towards the clouds.

“HEEEEELLLL YEAHHHH BIIIIIITCHES”

“So does she have a plan for landing on the ground or-”

Apparently not, as Nerva attempts to slow her descent by shooting fire at the ground, but comes down way too quickly and makes a Nerva sized imprint in the ground.

“Oof,” is all I say.

Anastasia then opens the car-door, plucks her unconscious sister from the ground, and tosses her in the back of the car. Dang Nerva just pulled a Nazuko, I guess I can see why they’re friends now.

“Hmm, I should probably go try saving Remi and Lilith now so we’ll have to catch up later, bye guys. Be sure to get some cookies from Colonel Bianca when you get back to the tower, I heard she’s made some pretty good almond cookies,” I tell them.

“But I’m allergic to almonds,” Adam whines.

Before I go, I say a line that I’ve always wanted to say out loud.

“Warren’s party I must go, my planet needs me,” I say as I blast off into the air toward the airship.

This feeling, all this wind brushing by my face as I learn to conquer the skies, it's actually exhilarating. This new mobility, it’s like learning how to ride a bike or drive, but increased tenfold. I manage to clear the required 5 mile distance and make my way onto the ship. I walk into the control to see Remi and Lilith still quarreling over something.

“Ok guys, I'm here to save the day, it took a bit of trial and error but I managed to make it here mostly unscathed,” I say slightly out of breath.

I’m not sure I’ll use that flying technique in the future, it’s a bit draining on my stamina and I can’t even do it without Mythril so it’s not even a valid combat technique to add to my arsenal. I should do a bit more training to increase my efficiency, but for now I am a grounded combatant.

“Will you’re finally here, I thought if Remi touched another thing on the dashboard we would have crashed,” Lilith sighs.

“Hey, I’m not much of a technology person, my fortitude lies more with nature and magic,” Remi argues.

I walk over to the controls and I can definitely see how one would get confused there is like 3 blue levers. I pull the one closest to the wheel and the ship's altitude starts to go down.

“Okay Lilith I’m going to try to teach you how to fly the airship, just in case something like this happens again, I think at least 2/3rds of our party should know how to fly it,” I declare.

I spend the next 15 minutes teaching Lilith the ins and outs of this complex machine and after accidentally firing the cannon twice I think she’s got it.

“Wow, that was fast. So anyways what were you two fighting about?” I casually ask.

“Right, well since you're here I want you to clear things up with me. On the night of your date with Remi, what exactly happened? Remi here is claiming that you willingly agreed and slept with her that night, but I refuse to believe that. You wouldn’t dare cheat on your fiance now would you,” Lilith interrogates.

“Oh god, well let’s think back I was drunk and don’t really remember a damn thing from that night. And besides uhhh Nazuko slips into my bed all the time and you don’t care about that, s-s-so why is this important?” I ask, refusing to answer her question.

“That’s besides the point, we all know that Nazuko has no chance,” Lilith brutally states.

“That’s right Will, now tell her straight that you willingly slept with me that night. If you dare lie about that, I may have to punish you,” Remi says as she cracks her knuckles.

Oh god, I thought no one knew about that, but if I say what really happened Lilith will kill me. On the other hand if I deny it Remi will kill me.

“Mythril what do I do?”

Hmm, both options will lead to a sure and fatal end. I suggest making a quick, fleeting escape.

“That’s a plan I can get behind.”

I open a window in the control room and turn to the two girls.

“Alright the answer is… ONIONS HAVE LAYERS!” I scream as I jump out the window to make my escape.