The Weight of Legacy

As a matter of fact, it was impossible to tell whether some particular effect had come into play—be it from the auras going about or some Skill—or if the tension in the air was just that palpable by itself. Even the guests who were clearly in the process of looking for the nearest route out of the property hardly moved, inching back as if even the faintest step took massive effort. Some of those who had been shoved and hit the ground remained there, though none seemed visibly injured. It might just have been shock at the absurdity of this that held them in place.

That her grandfather hadn’t gone and attacked the intruder already only served as testament to the weight of it all—this was a wedding, and some guy had waltzed up to it with the intent to fight the groom.

…Admittedly, weddings were probably the only place where grooms would be available as targets for a fight in the first place, but—

“What,” Kristian spoke loudly enough to be heard even before he approached the other two men, “are you doing here, mayor?”

Mayor? There’s a mayor? Malwine searched her memories for anything remotely related to that, only to draw a blank. Of where even would he be the mayor, Beuzaheim? It wasn’t as though there were many likely options nearby, especially if this was someone Kristian could recognize on sight. Those long trips of his aside, her grandfather seemed to prefer avoiding people.

“I am here to settle the score with my old assistant. You no doubt know—”

For once, Kristian wasn’t coming off as the worst person involved in a conversation, as he’d actually walked all the way to the front without pushing anyone to the ground. Still, he swung almost immediately, his slap a blur that the apparently mayor only barely managed to dodge with a duck.

Malwine watched on, curious—sure, this was probably all going to have consequences, but she didn’t think she’d ever actually seen people at Core Integration fight before. Both men were presumably the whole hollow core thing, and unlike Katrina’s fight back at the trial, this was somewhat intelligible for her, despite their speed.

“I should have known you would be a problem,” her grandfather said through gritted teeth—it was a strange sight. He seemed more controlled when he was actually trying to fight someone than when yelling at random staff members, his very posture steely. Grass swayed around him, and it struck Malwine then that there was a qualitative difference between him and even Lambrecht.

No wonder they said the room got wrecked when he and Margreth argued, shit. Kristian’s aura, now also unfolding for all to see, was a grasping thing, as if it sought to take hold of everything around him and somehow repurpose it—it didn’t even carry emotion so much as it carried command, almost impersonal in a sense. Kristian having an aura like this was just bizarre. She’d honestly have expected something closer to the mayor’s seemingly anger-based aura than this.

Even the mayor in question seemed to briefly reconsider his decision to be here, though he recovered quickly enough to try and kick Kristian in the chest. What looked suspiciously like cartoon pirate hooks slid out from her grandfather’s sleeves just as he crossed his arms in front of him, one catching the man by the shoe while the other ripped into his pants, just above the ankle. Kristian proceeded to toss the man over his own head, sending him flying towards the crowd. In the moment, he made it look effortless, only to immediately pause and rub his lower back before turning to watch where the intruder fell.

A few screams could be heard as people scrambled to get out of the way, with their only saving grace being the fact that the mayor landed far enough from most of them that the few straddlers near that spot had just enough time to step aside.

Okay, I take it back, I was almost fooled into thinking Kristian could be considerate towards the guests.

That said, this was seemingly the push most guests needed to get out of the way instead of just standing dangerously close to where a man labeled as ‘mercenary’ and a man named Kristian Rīsan fought.

“Oh, you will regret that,” the mayor straightened, not exactly looking like someone who’d just hit the ground with enough force for some grass to be ripped out. He was swaying slightly anyway. “Really, is he worth defending?”

This man’s beef with Abelard presumably ran deep, though he seemed annoyingly uneager to share details. I’m missing context, aren’t I?

Kristian had the gall to shrug, as if he already knew what this was about yet chose to not care. “Not particularly. But I am not unaware of what you have said of my daughter, so I care not what you want or why you think you have a right to set foot in my home.”

…Definitely missing much context.

“As if!” the mayor scoffed. There was a sliminess to him, in both how he moved and spoke. Maybe that was just her natural bias against politicians, but Malwine disliked this guy on principle, her distaste growing with every word he uttered. Why does a mayor identify as a mercenary? She’d never really taken the time to look into how the designation there was even decided.

While she tried to figure out what was likelier—a mayor having a mercenary side gig or a mercenary somehow ending up as a mayor—the man continued speaking.

“You should know my grievance is valid—that fool of a man came to this country being worthless, and I gave him the opportunity to make something out of himself. Not many would have been that generous! And how does he repay me? By going after the woman I said I’d have, that’s how! Then again, women these days do seem to prefer to be and do the same things they criticize us for, so the little traitor might as well have found his match.”

Excuse me, did you just imply what I think you just implied?

“…I find myself suddenly caring about what you want, if only to correct you, in that what you need—not want—is for someone to teach you a fucking lesson.”

With that surprisingly coherent comment, Kristian seemed to give up on keeping his fury on the downlow—understandably so. It was then that everything warped. The air surrounding her grandfather shifted visibly, illogically, as if it had just become charged in some way. The whole area around him continued to change, the effect presumably tied to his aura as he rushed the mayor.

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What has the world come to, that I’m on Kristian’s side on something?! Granted, if she had been able to, Malwine too would have gone and kicked this guy’s ass for that comment alone. But she couldn’t, so she’d have to settle with cheering for the grandfather she very much did not like, just because he was right on this particular instance.

That said, they both had… questionable aim. Malwine probably wasn’t one to speak, as it wasn’t as though she’d even tried to actually fight someone in either of her lives—fairly, anyway—but it became clear pretty quickly that most of this would consist exclusively of dodging. It didn’t help that they were both so damn fast. Punches flew and met nothing but air, while Kristian seemed to dance around swinging hooks that seemed to have a mind of their own, leaving lingering trails of silvery light where they swung for a split second each. Maybe that was just what all fights went like when people were fully capable of getting out of the way?

Malwine honestly hoped that wasn’t the case—she was already pretty decent at just running away from things, so the whole point of hypothetically learning from her grandfather someday would have been to learn how to not just get away.

Still, out of the two, Kristian seemed to have an edge in more ways than one. He took two hits with only a scowl, while his opponent reacted far more overtly to the cuts on his arms—his shirt would likely not be of use for much longer, either. Presumably realizing this might not necessarily end well for him, the man trying to fight magic hooks with his fists rushed towards the now-empty seating area, lifting a chair with one swift motion before throwing it at Kristian.

Her grandfather lifted his hands anyway, as if willing his odd weapons to just get that chair out of the way—the wood was cut through, alright, but his hooks continued spinning around what remained, now tangled as they hung from the cords that attached them to something hidden by his sleeves. “Fuck.”

Understatement. With his weapons of choice temporarily impaired, Kristian had to once again resort to just physically blocking the mayor’s attempts at hitting him, and there was no denying the fact that this man clearly had strength going for him, while Kristian seemed to lack practice in matching people at his level unarmed.

His priority didn’t seem to be to outright take the man down, though—he was visibly putting himself between the mayor and the brick structure. Chairs flew in a wave as Kristian’s aura flared, maybe as a distraction, maybe to keep the mayor from pulling the same trick twice.

Thekla and Abelard are going to be so confused if this is over by when they come out.

And it did seem like that would be the case.

Lambrecht lingered by the archway still, glancing behind himself every couple seconds. Whatever had been discussed had gone unnoticed by Malwine, but she did catch him shouting: “Oh, it’s fine, just guests getting rowdy since we couldn’t arrange for more music! Oh?! Yes! No worries, none whatsoever—take all the time you need. I have a feeling we’re going to need to extra time to go through all this food anyway!”

Were Thekla and Abelard actually unaware of just what was going on out here? Then again, Lambrecht had been quite conspicuous about standing between this belligerent mayor and the newlyweds, so maybe he actually had a way to keep them from being interrupted while in there.

Malwine watched as the last remaining guests all but fled the area, while Kristian started using the broken pieces of wood—still tied to the wires meant for his hooks—to beat the mayor over the head. Flaws or not, the man could adapt quickly. She sighed, glancing at Adelheid. “I feel like someone should have come to pick us up by now. Anyone.”

“…I might have hidden us?” Adelheid gave her a nervous smile a moment later. “Sorry, I thought—”

“No, it’s fine.” Malwine certainly wouldn’t complain if she got to stick around longer, for all she still hadn’t decided if Adelheid’s growing habit of just hiding other people and things without asking was something to be worried about. Her only concern was the risk of getting hit, though if it truly came to that, Adelheid would probably just teleport them away. She inched closer to her little sister then, just to be safe.

The mayor made a run for it, presumably reconsidering his strategy again as he hadn’t been as effective at countering her grandfather’s hits for that long, even after ruining his weapons. He probably hadn’t been prepared for Kristian to turn out to not be as incompetent as his reputation implied—volatile or not, he’d ended up in an otherworlder’s party for a reason.

It struck her then that she could fully see this ending with the man that sought to harass her aunt and new uncle actually turning up dead, mayor or not. It was… a bit of a sobering thought. This guy was a prick, sure, but was that deserving of death?

Then she caught sight of him all but trying to throw himself like a wrecking ball against the wall of the home Thekla and Abelard were remodeling—her concerns just about disappeared then. She sure wouldn’t complain if Kristian used more force than necessary there. As the man rushed for the area just around the window, Lambrecht finally moved, interposing himself between him and his target.

Yet before anything actually happened, a stream of light, glowing peach and lilac, started barreling on the way to the man. Kristian’s pursuit halted immediately, and he leapt backwards instead, not looking at the beam yet dodging it all the same. The man himself seemed to sense it somehow, if only seconds before disaster.

He threw himself to the ground, falling limp, just in time for the stream to go on and slam directly into a wide-eyed Lambrecht.

It wasn’t lost to Malwine that while the men had certainly reacted, none of them seemed to have actually seen it, if their failure to notice it had come from elsewhere was any clue.

Silence reigned as the Tree Veins individual unceremoniously dropped, with both Kristian and the mayor seeming to forget all about their fight just to stare at Lambrecht’s crumpled body.

A crumpled body that immediately started dissolving into motes of light.

The mayor turned to glance at Kristian, then jumped, high enough to reach the structure’s roof. Rather than attack it, he instead glanced at his opponent, his lips curling into a sneer. He had clearly recovered far more swiftly than Kristian had, and Malwine felt a pit grow in her stomach. “How dare you lay a hand upon a man of the cloth!”

Her grandfather was understandably befuddled, looking around as if to try and figure out just what the hell had happened. “What foolishness are you on about?”

Malwine’s thought process was more of a series of leaps than anything else, no true plan yet formed beyond the fact that she had to throw a wrench into his. She reached for Adelheid, grabbing her wrist. “Adelheid, there is going to be a tiny box there. I need you to grab it.”

Her sister disappeared.

The mayor dropped something just then, letting that cauldron-like thing land where Lambrecht’s body had been, greenish water splashing outwards. It was immediate confirmation that he’d most definitely meant Abelard harm, if he thought something would come from dropping it on the obit of someone undoubtedly stronger than him. “In all my time in this position, never had I witnessed such a vile act!”

He really thought no one else had witnessed this, didn’t he?

Kristian looked just about ready to make the man just join Lambrecht on the other side, rather than actually try and figure out what the mayor was up to, when he froze. “Oh, you piece of shit.”

“Now you get it—whose word carries more weight? Hm.”

With that comment, the mayor once again started running, this time towards the mangal—quite the bold choice, considering that area supposedly was within reach of the sea, at least in the direction he chose. Then again, the man seemed to have just casually had a fucking bucket of seawater casually laying around in his inventory, so he probably had at least the workings of a plan to go by.

Her grandfather looked torn between pursuing and trying to do something for Lambrecht—if that was even possible. By some miracle, it seemed his concern won out over the anger, and he kicked the cauldron away before ripping the boot he’d used off and throwing it as far away as he could muster. Keeping his distance still, he examined the area where the obit should have dropped.

Malwine’s heart skipped a beat.

Hopefully, it was missing because Adelheid had indeed caught it in time.

Otherwise, things would end up being quite awkward to explain.