As Yamato found Phoebe still busy playing with Natsumi, he returned to the Sphere where he continued working on various projects. He continued to do so without interruptions until Yuki, still completely covered in blood appeared in front of his deek. Worried for a moment, he jumped off his seat and hurried up to her, though he quickly noticed it was not her blood.
"Are you alright, boo!? What happened?"
But before his hand landed on her shoulder, she removed the blood from her clothes, skin and hair, only letting him touch her perfectly clean and soft skin, which she was very proud of. She instantly nuzzled her head in his chest and hugged him tightly.
"Hey, talk to me…"
"I'm gonna take a shower now… You come with…"
"I… Aren't you already clean?"
"You come with…"
"If I say yes will you tell me what happened?"
"Mhm…"
Forced to agree by the cuteness of her use of shortened and barely functional responses, they resumed their talk in the shower, where Yuki did not explain anything, and instead communicated through other means. Only after lying in bed, did she feel like talking again, now for some reason in pajamas despite it being around 2 p.m.
"Boo, the Naru Empire sucks… They have some dumbass heroes too now, going clothes and names they are probably from your old world… And one of them insulted me! Like, really badly! So now you gotta avenge me!"
"Aww, no, not my boo, how dare they…"
"Right!? Do it for me!"
"Wanna tell me what exactly happened?"
"I was holding myself back from lashing out at their already disrespectful behavior, and then that stupid bitch went ahead and said I should get on the ground and beg for forgiveness!"
"That's what happened? Exactly like that?"
"Yes! Can you believe it!?"
"I struggle to, honestly… But I'm gonna take your word for it, of course…"
"As you should!"
As she was held and caressed, she was already much less furious. But at the same time, him taking her side made all sorts of emotions feel intense again.
"Poor you… No one disrespects my precious you… But if you were holding back so much, what was up with all the blood?"
"Mhm~… Some dumbass dragon or whatever…"
She said nuzzling further into him, obsessively loving every thing he just said to her. However just as she climbed on top of Yamato, to act on all the love she felt, despite having already done so in the shower earlier, she felt something was off.
"Boo… I just prevented like 300.000 soldiers from teleporting right in front of our city gate…"
"That… Sure is a mood killer…"
"So now you don't wanna anymore…?"
"You do?"
"Mhm!"
"What about that thing where we are basically being invaded right now…?"
"I'm just gonna reroute them into the ocean. That way, they might survive if they are good enough swimmers!"
"I'd like to know what prompted this, and who they are though…"
"I can go fly our later and check! Some will definitely survive and we can question them!"
"That… Would work… But please just reroute them to an open field near by. And we should get ready as well…"
She looked down at him with her cheeks puffed. It seemed she really wanted to just keep going. But this was not as small a deal as she made it out to be.
"Sorry, boo… Doesn't this feel like a personal attack though? Because how dare they think they could just come here unannounced? Unacceptable…! Right?"
"…You… Are right! How dare they!? This scum! We should send Marneras and Amael right away! And maybe Natsumi, while we are at it, to make sure!"
"…Or maybe, this is even more serious than expected and we have to go take a look ourselves?"
"Hm… Maybe… Wait, "ourselves"? You wanna come too?"
"I had something like that in mind, yes… Why?"
"And I'm supposed to allow that?"
"You'd prohibit me from going?"
"Uhh, duh?"
"It's important though. And don't you want to lead a battle together? That seems like something on your… bucket list?"
She gasped in awe and pride, since she knew her so well, which could only mean their love had once again set a record.
"Ah, I get exactly what you are doing and hoping to achieve, boo… And that is on my list of things I wanna do with you! Let's not waste time then!"
Changing back into her white robes, she teleported Yamato and herself out to the field where she was about to reroute the incoming troops. But before that, she gave him a kiss on the cheek, to go run off and get Petrisha, a huge wooden table, and a map as well as the crystal with which she could make announcements within Yukimato, and most recently also the reat of the cities part of the Absolute Empire. After setting up her camp, dressing up Yamato in a black and gold robe, with a humble crown that reminded of a halo, she began her announcement.
Though Petrisha did hardly understand what was going on, and even Yamato was surprised by the speed at which she was setting everything up, she seemed to take her time with the announcement.
"Ahem… Dear faithful citizen of the glorious Absolute Empire, here speaks your Head of Church, Yuki, representing our great God and Absolute Emperor Yamato! I must inform you that we are currently being attacked by an unknown nation, which is why all military personnel must immediately make their way to the nearest church issued teleportation circle, where they will shortly be transported to the battlefield! But fear not, faithful soldiers, for not only will I personally attend to aid you in battle, but our great God himself, will be present in person, to lead us to victory against this cowardly attack! To all civilians, please remain within the borders of your city, or move there as soon as possible, thank you!"
"Aren't we well prepared…"
"Love me!"
"I do."
Petrisha had instinctively assumed her natural position with her hands folded over her lap and standing near motionless right as she arrived, or rather was brought her by Yuki. She was able to roughly understand what was going on, but was uncertain what she was doing here. Unless Yuki wanted her to participate in the battle, her presence seemed to serve no direct purpose.
"Uhm… Mistress Yuki, would it be possible to elaborate on my role in all this?"
Yuki gave her a cold glare, unmistakably the one of a bully at which Petrisha instinctively shrunk back a bit.
"Huh? Isn't it obvious? Go get me a glass of water and a chair. And a parasol while you're at it. Chop chop."
"Y-yes, of course, Mistress… Uh, just… Where am I supposed to get these items from…?"
"Take these and put them together."
Out of her pocket dimension, all the mentioned objects, water in form of a basic water dispenser, fell out of the sky right onto Petrisha, who was buried under the parts which she had to put together herself of course.
"I-I will get to work right away, Mistress…"
As Petrisha began building a chair out of the parts she was buried with, which included searching for the right screws in the grass, Yuki drew a sketch of the area on the map which she had placed on the table.
"Can you like… Hold them indefinitely? Won't they stop trying to teleport after a while?"
Yamato said as he accustomed himself to the
"Hm… Well, they keep trying so far… But you're right, they will probably give up soon, won't they… I guess it's time to put them in their position."
Drawing a red circle on the map, the enemy appeared in that space on the actual field, which is when it became apparent that it were in fact the elves. But more surprisingly, the three heroes Yuki met earlier hovered above the well organized lines of armored elves. Petrisha had just finished her first chair, which made her feel really accomplished.
"Trishy what are you doing, you should be done with everything by now! Hurry up before you get a penalty."
"Y-yes, Mistress!"
They seemed to have been spotted by the heroes Yuki had came into contact with earlier that day, as the three figures levitating above came towards them. Seeing as diplomacy had not yet failed, Yamato wanted to at least try. The forces Yuki had planned to bring also just finished organizing, so she could activate the teleportation mechanism and bring them here at her convenience. Though she refrained from doing so just yet in case they were not needed.
Just as Petrisha had fished all her constructions, Yuki did not even acknowledge it as she watched the three heroes from landing right in front of them. Tokio, in his golden armor spoke in a somewhat heroic and prideful manner, which felt weird as heroes don't usually invade places unannounced, but Yuki figured it was fitting for a lesser hero, which they were at best.
"We meet again, beautiful pretender elf."
"Excuse me? Do I know you?"
"No need to play dumb. Shizuka may look frail, but she saw right through your disguise. She's not a hero just in name, after all. It should come as no surprise that a person such as yourself visiting another nation unauthorized would be treated as an act of aggression. Hence, our arrival here. Though I thought we would be send closer to the city, I suppose teleportation can malfunction from time to time. I myself prefer using flight, so I never paid much attention to the explanations they gave us."
"So you want to frame this simply visit as a reason to start a war? Is that coming from you or higher up?", Yamato asked.
"I don't think that is any of your business… Oh, wait… You must be Yamato! That's a fun coincidence seeing you here! God told us we'd run into you soon enough!"
"Ah, I think I'm beginning to get the picture now… You are like Natsumi at first. Your only purpose is to slow me down. You guys are the definition of pawns."
"Uhm, sorry, but I don't appreciate your tone very much, mister "I came to another world just like us but I talk as if I were different". We are in the same boat here, and I for one think there's a very simple solution here.", Rara said.
"Really? And what would that solution look like?"
"It's so simple you guys. All God wants are his angels or whatever, he said. So we send her back, and get to stay in this world with cool and fun powers."
"…Why would I do that? I will stay here regardless. And if she were to leave, I'd go with her."
"Aww, boo~!"
"Haha, I think you don't understand… We are gods in this world! We can fly, lift the heaviest rocks and are unbothered by what would have ended our lives in the past world! If we don't come up with something, he will take all of this away, even that life of yours as emperor which you built."
"Huh… Can he do that, Yuki?"
"Well, not without risking seriously damaging this world… It might even cause problems for him if he tried, so I think that's unlikely. Also seems like something he would have done already, if it were in his powers. You can take my word for it!"
"There you have it. Sounds to me like you three have been lied to. You cannot just be removed from this world again. It doesn't work like that."
"Are you telling me I will be like I am right now no matter what?"
"That's literally what I just said."
"…Then… We don't have to convince you to give the angel back…"
"Congratulations on discovering free will…"
"And instead we can just kill you both..."
"What?"
"This makes everything much easier! Otherwise we would have had to create some massive scheme to trick you or even confront you head on, just to please God… But now there's no need to do or care about anything he said! This world is basically free for our taking!"
"And for me to become the greatest star in the world… The only one!", Rara added excitedly.
"A-and for me to study all kinds of things! Even forbidden and disgusting things!", Shizuka added somewhat disturbingly.
It was then that a thought crossed Yamato's mind. Seeing as these people were obviously not normal, God could have never expected them to stay loyal to him with the weak lie he gave them as motivation, knowing he and Yuki would convince them of the opposite quite easily. Hence, maybe their loyalty to the cause of "freeing Yuki" was never the goal to begin with. The real goal seemed to be bringing a trio of sociopaths close to them, giving them some sort of superpowers, and have them eventually set loose as soon as their fear of God disappeared. The thought annoyed Yamato especially since it would mean God would have deliberately used him as detonator for the timed bomb that was the heroes. While he thought about that, Yuki was not liking the direction the situation was going, and made herself ready to act.