AGG: Phantom: Issei Interlude.

AGG: Phantom: Issei Interlude.

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Commissioned by Chaosbrain

Wordcount: 1000

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Being a slider has its ups and downs. Not being able to see friends and family, or enjoying being inside an Arcology, tends to be most of the downs when you’re sliding around with Song though. If I were going at this sort of thing alone, I’d probably go a little crazy and spend too much time in one of the rest-stops where the whole world is just forest and game. It would really be a little too much, if I had to go about everything alone with everyone, I end up meeting just being passing acquaintances who I’ll never meet again, but with a really good friend beside me? Yeah, finding a way home through the multiverse was a pretty okay deal.

Li’s got survival and exploration down. He can hunt down, skin, and make rations from just about anything. I suppose having been raised in the Wasteland made all his survival skills necessary. While I’d enjoyed a comfy, cool lifestyle as a kid, he was out there learning how to start fires that’ll keep him warm, keep him fed, and keep him from being found by scavengers or worse. Really, all I did was follow his instructions to the letter and do as he asks when we need to forage and gather materials, and I’ve never gone hungry once, despite all the worlds, temperate, and climates we’ve been to.

Hooray for our world being the shittiest and most survival-focused, I guess.

After a bit of time, I thought that was going to be it. Me and Li were going to do our business wherever we found ourselves. We’d gather resources, maybe spend some time recuperating and enjoying modern life if possible, and defeat a few baddies before heading into a pillar of light that sent us to our next destination. Nothing difficult, just the two of us coasting through life, beating up demon lords, and making our way back home.

I was fine with just hanging on and just providing emotional support.

It wasn’t until Li got righteously, completely pissed off at an entire world that I realized that I was literally the only thing keeping him from taking whole worlds and turning them upside down.

Even if they did deserve it for being jerks. 

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It was a typical setting. The fantasy world was filled with various peoples who didn’t like each other, since they had different ideologies, until they had to join together to fight against a Super Demon Lord. Li and I joined up with the Hero’s party, which was made up of representatives of the other nations, and they were cool dudes who were the best at killing monsters. They really didn’t even need our help in beating the big bad. Once they got some steam going, got some equipment stolen by the Demon, and some real battles under their belts, they practically bulldozed the Demon Lord.

That should’ve been it.

Me and Li were just supposed to stay for the celebration, maybe fix up a problem or two, and give a few gifts to help life be a little easier for everyone in the world.

Then, the hero who lost his village, who didn’t have noble blood, and who sacrificed everything to defeat the Demon Lord was exiled and excommunicated by his kingdom. 

It made sense.

His kingdom wasn’t exactly the strongest, his popularity was very high, and the people who ruled weren’t exactly saints. When you have a super-powered war-hero come back, you get paranoid and afraid, especially when he doesn’t have any plans to marry your daughter.  Human beings are just humans, especially when they haven’t been raised and educated by CORE. There’s no shortage of people who would be unhappy with superpowered people existing in the Arcologies, if not for CORE’s efforts.

Here in this medieval world where might makes right?

I didn’t condone what they did, but I understood. 

But Li never could.

Now, even though he’s the nicest person you could ever meet, Li is scary when he’s angry. The rare times he’s ever been angry has seen his worst side come up. The merciless, no-holds-barred warrior who’ll do whatever it takes to win without caring for his opponent. His compassion, empathy, and kindness all gets sealed shut, behind walls that started getting built the moment he was chosen to be a warrior, and all he sees are opponents that must be removed from existence.

Right after the king said those words, the whole city fell asleep. The barriers that protected it from the Demon Lord were snuffed out in an instant. Some managed to resist, because there were some strong people here and there, but they eventually just fell asleep too. In the end, everyone in the entire royal capital fell asleep, except for the King, the Hero, me, and Li.

And, Li stood before the king, all his wings in display, and wielding Shard like the most dangerous weapon in all of existence… and in his hands she was. 

The only reason Li didn’t speak or strike down the king wasn’t because of me. 

My part came in later.

It was the Hero.

He called out to Li and told him to stop.

I took that opportunity to punch Li in the face. 

It wasn’t a half-assed punch either. It was with Ddraig calling me an idiot, with every ounce of strength I had, and more that I was definitely hurting my soul to use. Maybe, if I’d spent more time with Shirone and Bael, I’d have been able to do more damage… but that didn’t matter. What did matter was that punch made sure that Song saw me diving into the Pillar of Light that would send us on our way to the next destination, while neither of knew if we’d be sent to different places if we didn’t enter together. 

It was a cheap, dirty move that I probably pulled straight out of Miyakuro’s own mind, and Song didn’t speak to me for an entire hour after we found ourselves in a new world, but it was worth it.

In the end, I stopped him from hurting himself and others by letting his anger choose for him.

If that’s all I did this entire trip back home, I’d say that I came out of this little adventure better than when we started. 

Unfortunately, that was only the first time I had to save Li from his own good intentions.

There were so many more worse than that one.