Heleion Archives

22nd of August, 75th of the Neo-Dawn Era. Near the Martial City of Horotoro, Hoshigawa Archipelago.

            The muted golem-engine of the magicraft truck sounded like a sweet, deep symphony in the night as it wafted along the straight road. At the end of it lied the bridge connecting the vast, luminous woodland with the imposing walls of Horotoro. In front and behind were two wheeled magicraft vehicles, smaller in size, following the truck. They bore black paint with a large silvery lotus painted on their backs and roofs. Their artifice thrumming joined in with the deep symphony, and their front lights intensified the forest's lights.

“Can’t wait to take a long bath after this trip.” Momonoi Inoshi, a native soratanese, said while sitting in the truck's passenger seat. As a Heishi of the Black Lotus Branch, she wore the issued Kimonaro Type-IV jacket's Heishi version. It only differed at the neck, which followed the Hoshigawan Army's design, a simple folded, round-shaped collar reaching high towards her sharp, almost elvish jawline, while the center leaned gradually inwards. Her long hair was braided in the back, oppressed between the leathery seat and her jacket's back, while the front was center-parted, revealing her fair, smooth forehead.

“Couldn’t agree more, except I may add a bottle of Sake to it.” The driver, a Tsukion Sister of hers going by the name of Hisako, adds. Her gleaming ivory lips coated in ebony lipstick, adding an extra sheen to them, curve into a smile as she imagines the feeling of the warm bath replenishing her body and soul at the same time. Unlike Inoshi's, her collar is zipped down, revealing the vibrant and captivating cherry-red collars of her aetherna satin blouse pressed by the jackets in the gap. Her long, ebony-black gleaming dark hair sharply flows down onto her shoulder, only its perfectly trimmed edges scraping the dark scaled part between her collar and stripe. In the front, her right swept fringe passes above her oni horns' base.

“Just an hour and we’re there!” Inoshi's sentence melded with her yawn while she stretched her arms towards the padded ceiling of the cockpit. Watching the trees relatively quickly pass by casted a heaviness onto her eyelids covered in sparkling dark tint.

“Hey don’t do that. That is infectious.” Hisako said after tensing her neck muscles to suffocate her own yawn, passed onto her by her Sister. She fixed her sitting posture, as she was half slumped down in the comfortable seating, the tip of her black as brimstone horns scratched the ceiling as the tall elven stygian straightened up.

“How’s things in the front?” A graceful, soft voice came through the speakers in the center where the orb starting up the whole truck lies.

“Not bad overall. How’s the back now that we’re reaching the end?” Hisako asked while her eerily white mixed elven and demonic eyes fixated on the road and the smaller vehicle in front.

“Could be better. A seating would be nice and maybe a meido or two to make this less boring if you catch my meaning.” The graceful voice said in a joking tone, unbecoming of it to an extent. At least according to Hisako.

“Well, you can tell that to the research department later.” Inoshi jumped in jokingly while still keeping her attention on the passing trees and bushes, noticing a few wild kitsunes watch them from the colorful shadows, their everchanging colorful eyes glinted in the moon light entering through the leaves, filtered into dozens of other soothing hues.

“Shit.” The two cursed at the same time as Hisako swiftly halted the large truck. Inoshi almost hit her head in the front panel, only stopped thanks to the quick ward she erected that softened the blow somewhat.

“What the shit is happening.” Hisako continued her cursing while Inoshi lifted one of the mirrored panels up, reflecting what the hidden eyes on the sides of the truck saw. At first nothing out of the ordinary happened in the luminously lit surroundings, besides everyone except them crawled out from the vehicles and the back of the truck.

“On the right… behind you!” An orcish Sister of hers walked towards the edge of the road, her Yokoto Type-II RMG pointed at the dark as she walked towards it. Then as Inoshi saw a slight blur of a body walking past behind her, a loud mental message coursed through their shared mind-link.

“Let’s get out.” Hisako said as she grabbed her Kohaku Type-III wand pistol, a magicraft weapon still sporting a stacked wooden frame starting from the handle. The two quickly jumped down from the high doorways while mana flowed into their eyes, shaped into spells to see beyond the natural world.

Inoshi started heading towards the orcish Sister of hers laying in the dirt unconscious as her chest puffs out as she laid on her back. Before she could reach her though, loud bangs, mana bullets ricocheting off the walls of the truck prompted her to throw herself on the ground while searching for the unseen enemy.

Her lunar elven Sister, rushed too towards the orc Heishi. She got hit three times in her chest and once in her abdomen. Thanks to both the nonlethal configured bullets and her thick dragonid faux leather uniform, she only drifted into a deep sleep on her sides facing the vehicle she was driving moments ago.

As her sword hit the ground, it kicked up dust that the wind seemingly on its own accord blew into her face. “All hells damnit!” She cursed while scratching her eyes as they burn with intense pain.  Before she stood up, her detection picked up on a small, condensed arcane residue headed towards her, precisely her head. She quickly jumped back up, almost falling onto her back. Water condensed in her free left hand and splashed it onto her face, and as if possessing a mind of its own, cleared it off, soothing the pain into nothingness as it glowed, pulsed for a few seconds.

“Finally.” Just as her vision regained finally, she let out a yelp as something metallic, and thick hit the back of her head with great force, almost splitting it open.

“That was a close one you know that.” The masked figure said, her feminine eloquent voice coming through clean the red oni mask she wore.

“I know, I corrected the inscription in time though.” The one in the blue oni mask said while, her voice interconnected with the click sound of the mana tie around Inoshi’s wrist, bent behind her back. Then she pulled out a roll of deep green sealing tape and ripped it open, looping it around thrice her mouth, and thrice her eyes before she grabbed her by the armpits and dragged her to the back of the truck. There she placed her at the end of the row of Black Lotuses secured in the same fashion, their heads lumped down while soft whimpers escape their sealed lips.

“Let’s just hope she didn’t taint her uniform.” The one in the red oni mask said after letting out a sigh, towering over the captives.

“If she did, well we just improvise.” The on the far right, wearing a golden oni mask started strongly, then her tone gradually weakened as she started caressing her own left arm.

“Ladies, we have time to check that later. For now just choose which one to take, and remember where they were before the attack.” The one in a pristine white oni mask said in her commandeering voice while taking a dark elven Heishi in the middle, one that was seated in the front vehicle leading the convoy.

“And decide quickly.” With that she disappeared in the forest as she carried the dark elven Heishi like a princess, their slender forms swallowed by the colorful shadows.

“Come on.” The one in the red mask said as she grabbed Hisako. “They won’t move themselves sadly.”

The one in the blue mask then grabbed Inoshi and the two with the rest chosen theirs, disappeared too in the forest. Silence settled on the convoy as the four remaining guards that were in the back lay with their backs to the back compartment. Their heads lumped onto each other’s shoulders while dreaming sweetly, waiting for their captors to return.

Numerous shots reverberated through the forest, one after the other before the silence returned. Then first the a dark elven Heishi and a soratanese with intense rouge pink long hair knotted into twin buns and a thick fringe appeared, followed by the others. The ones wearing Inoshi’s and Hisako’s faces and uniforms came last, heading straight to the front, cockpit of the truck.

The rest packed the secured, still unconscious guards in the quite spacious back compartment, filled with four flat topped pyramids in the center, leaving still some space on the sides to walk by. They placed the four bound guards close to the inner stack of cash. They procured syringes filled with a greenish black liquid inside, and injected it into their necks with swift movements. The captives let out muffled whimpers as the dreaming poisons were administered into their bodies, drifting them into an even deeper, almost coma like state.

“Can I drive?” The one disguised as the pink haired soratanese asked the leader of their group as they closed the back compartments’ door.

“Sure.” She said as they started walking towards the vehicle in the back. As they slowly started up the engine, the convoy that was frozen in place started moving towards its direction once more, The Lotus Bank that belonged to Princess Kaguyaerith herself.