Chapter 10: Eighteenth Birthday (8)

~10.8~

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Before meeting with the family Liliana was tasked with transporting, Kye and the others needed to attend an emergency council meeting. After a few hours of discussion, they managed to get what they wanted. Kye and Alethea were officially married. A ceremony would be held at a later date. With the marriage completed, they could adopt the child together. Much of the meeting was spent arguing about which of the girls would be officially moving to live with the other.

Historically, the heir to a throne was prioritized, but given that both were heirs, it wasn’t that simple. Ultimately, their official citizenship status was changed, rather than have one or the other forfeit their native citizenship. Kye already held dual citizenship with Nippon Sekai and Alcanus due to her parents. Apparently, a similar argument had occurred regarding Layla’s citizenship, so she was granted dual citizenship, which was also granted to her children. With Alethea in the picture, both girls became citizens of Terra, Alcanus, and Nippon Sekai, but it was stressed that their birth planet would be the one included in their official introductions.

The only ones that truly didn’t care about any of that were Kye and Alethea themselves, their guardians, and their retainers.

Not wanting to waste time during an emergency meeting, what to do about standardizing such cases was shelved for the following scheduled meeting. After the marriage and citizenship topic, they moved on to discuss Kaede’s reincarnation.

“Kaede Athas?” Atalante asked, briefly meeting Allison’s eyes before looking back at Alethea. “This Shiro Shikigami is enough of a threat for your weapon to go so far as to reincarnate in a specific way to ensure you could find her immediately… we’ve put off discussing this man long enough, but we can save the details for another meeting. Let’s cover the basics.”

“As Shiori Sakaguchi, I fought the man,” Kye said. “I wielded Jouten and my power was several orders of magnitude greater than it is right now as Kye Akari. I was several decades older by the time I took him down. Shiori likely could have contended with the strongest elder royals, aside from Allison, without compression or any other factors. That’s how powerful I was, and that’s what it took to defeat him. In that life, the man was already a few hundred years old by the time I was born, but it still took me decades to catch up.”

“You grew powerful enough in only a few decades to fight him?” asked Alexandra.

“More importantly, he only lived for a few hundred years, and it took someone on par with the strongest elder royals to kill him,” said James. “If there is an enemy that has as much experience as they do,” he gestured at Kye and Alethea, “then, he may well be powerful enough now to contend with us.”

Kye shook her head. “No. As things are now, he is not as powerful as he was then. I can kill him now. With an awakened Hikarimaru and Aether Drive… and Mana Burst, I could hit him with an attack strong enough to kill him.” Several began to voice opposition to the idea, but Kye held her hand up to them. “Do not worry. I will not resort to that. Rather than that, I will simply grow stronger. Give me a year or so and I’ll have enough power. I will grow much faster than him.”

The others that wanted to oppose her idea were satisfied.

“Anyway, he was a monster, and as far as I can tell, he hasn’t changed. But he does not have the millions of lives of experience we do. He is not a transmigrator or immortal. He spent an untold amount of time in Eden and, by all accounts, should still be there. Why he is not is a mystery to me. I expect Azriel is the culprit. He has always been the troublemaker of the two.”

“Azriel?” Several echoed the name.

“Right, my apologies. Eve has two sons. Azriel and Ezra. Many of my past missions were to clean up their messes. It’s always a terrible experience when Azriel is involved.”

“You speak of Goddess Eve’s children without titles?”

“They are not omnipotent, and they are not nearly as old as me or Alethea. They have the bodies of adults but the maturity of children. You could compare either to an to eight-year-old boy in an eighteen-year-old body that disregards the manners he’s been taught.”

“…is that so?”

“She’s absolutely right,” came a familiar voice. Several members of the council stood up with hands on weapons ready to fight. Alfia appeared behind Liliana and revealed herself. “Put those weapons down, they’ll serve you no purpose with me.”

Kye smiled as she turned to Alfia. “Hello, Fia.”

“Hiya, Eli. Feeling spiffy?”

The blonde giggled. “I assume you heard everything so far?”

“I did. Kaede is here, Shiro is bad, ect. So Az and Ez are being a nuisance. That’s nothing new. Do you want to let them be, or shall I go pay them a visit?”

A chill went up Kye’s spine. “You going to pay anyone a visit is a scary thought, Fia.”

“Oh, you know what I’d do, of course. Some scolding… maybe a little hands-on instruction…”

“Heh…” Kye laughed dryly. “Continuing with the main topic, Shiro has been released, and he has been in this world long enough to amass enough power that I would struggle with him if we fought right now. In terms of power, he’s on the lower end of elder royals. In terms of skill, I’ll win every time. The only person in existence that can compete with me is right here.” She eyed Alfia briefly.

She shrugged. “What about your daughter? Azalea might pout if she heard that.”

Kye smiled apologetically and returned to the topic. “That said, there is always the presence of the unknown. When I killed him as Shiori, he was no slouch by mortal standards, but that’s going off only his skill from that life. I do not know for sure if he has experienced life between then and now or how long he has been out of Eden. He very well could have obtained a significant wealth of skill. Given that the lot of you have a hundred eras of life experience, I very much doubt he could take on the most combat oriented of you, Allison especially.” She turned to her aunt. “With aether, you could obliterate him in an instant.”

“That said, I will still approach him with caution should I ever be given the opportunity to deal with him myself,” she replied.

“What of you?” Ginchiyo asked, eyeing Alethea. “Kye has claimed a variety of things, but you have remained quiet thus far.”

Alethea looked at Kye and said, “Shi-chan has the edge between us. Against anyone aside from her, Lea, and Fia, I would win. Only a handful would give me trouble.” She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking of a certain black-haired individual. “Actually, Luma would probably outdo me. Her primary duty in Athas was to be our guard. In terms of skill, she may even compete with Fia and Eli.”

Alfia shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Anyway,” Kye said. “Long story short, Shiro is a big threat, but given a little time and either Alethea or myself will be capable of defeating him. Give us a year, and we can do it with Hikarimaru and Gaia.”

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Revision: 2023-1-15