"What happened to your foot!"

  Ow. My ears. I think they might be bleeding. Still, that was.

  Huh. That was a pretty trail of carnage.

  Good. I needed that.

  "I'm pretty sure it's broken, honestly," I avoided giving the limb a good solid shake. Causing myself any more pain was the last thing I wanted. I'd spent my entire life without breaking a single damn bone, the worst skeletal injury I had being the one time I bruised my tailbone. So to say I was a bit angry about having that record broken would be a bit of an understatement. Even more so because it was Brave, of all people, who did it.

  Kinda. I helped far more than I hindered on that front. Yes, I was in fact going to be petty about how I broke my own damn foot, thank you very much.

  Vert. Yeah, it was safe to say that Vert wasn't happy about that. Not one bit. Not that I entirely blamed her, of course. It stung like an ass and that was while I was transformed. When I finally dropped out of HDD, it was going to be so much worse. Especially as I could not fly and keep the weight off the injury once I let the form drop.

  That was going to be a pain. Crutches until I healed up were not on my bingo sheet, nor did I like it. This was going to suck utterly. Luckly, I healed a whole lot quicker than I used to, so I doubt this would keep me out of anything too dangerous for long.

  "That answers nothing!" Vert hissed, almost as if steam was coming out of her mouth.

  "Huh, so this is where you get it from."

  Vert's neck almost cracked like a whip at the remark, and I was starting to get concerned for her health. That was about as close to some owl like shit a human should be able to get. Frankly, it was already too close for comfort. However, it wasn't like I partially enjoyed the implications. My temper had always been like this. It mellowed with age, somewhat. But it tended to be a thing that just built and built until I was ready to explode. From there, it would burn for a while, flares and spikes, before finally settling down. This had nothing to do with me being related to Vert.

  Just like Rom and Ram didn't inherit any of Blanc's temper. Or Nepgear didn't inherit any of Neptune's, well. Drug addiction?

  No, wait, that wasn't genetic.

  Still, the only ones whose personalities were remotely similar were Uni and Noire.

  Point being, my temper did not come from my sister in the slightest, thank you very much. It was all me, no matter how much I tried to rein it in sometimes.

  "I kicked Brave in the chest to give myself some space," I finally said, ready to get this over with, silently praying to something that no cameras were rolling. Vert, promptly and expectedly smashed her way through an entire line of monsters, breaking them apart into floating moots of energy.

  Completely expected and planned for.

  "That doesn't explain where our sisters are," Blanc gave me a brief glare, before her axe carved through a wave of monsters in a single swing.

  "If they aren't on my tail, then they're likely back at Planeptune," I admit, as I noticed a new group rising over the hill, carrying what appeared to be strange, concave shields facing outward. I, honestly couldn't tell if that was simply them trying to make them look less threatening, or if they were trying to counter my explosions.

  If it was the latter, it was an impressive idea. A stupidly impressive one, I should note. Firstly, explosions weren't that simple to stop. You needed more than just channeling the blast away, you needed material that wasn't going to turn into shrapnel when hit. Secondly?

  Did they really think that making things go boom was the only trick in my arsenal? How embarrassing. Sure, I loved a boom, especially a big boom, just about as much as everyone else. Part of why naval history was so fascinating to me. Big hunks of metal throwing massive exploding shells at one another over miles.

  Or just a regular episode of Mythbusters.

  But as much as I loved my explosions, there was no way in hell I was going to let my entire kit just focused on that. Not where there were so many other Fate characters I could pilfer from.

  What? No copyright lawyers to contend with here. And it wasn't like this was the first time I'd ripped off Emiya, either.

  "And if they're in Planeptune, then Histoire should be able to tell them what's going on, and send them on their way," I said, pulling back an arrow, aiming it into the sky. The arrow released with a crack, spinning upwards into the clouds, before a brief flash of green erupted. Moments latter, multiple arrows rained down the from the sky, slamming into the enemy ranks like a thousand sharp pointed needles.

  Yeah, I'd improved myself an upgraded version of multishot that was more or less an air-dropped flèche gun. Though maybe that was more Monster Hunter than Archer's whole deal.

  That particular group of monsters was destroyed in a matter of seconds, scattering to the winds. Still, this was a lot of monsters, even if they were weak as hell.

  Hopefully, they would be able to make their way over quickly. The PR shots would be amazing. All the Goddesses, and their sisters, working together to repeal an invasion? There was no better way to rally unity between the nations than something like that. Though I'd say what was going down was enough to use when it came to that, but sometimes overkill was what was needed. Especially when it came to situations like this.

  Here's to hoping that they get here sooner rather than later.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  "Come on, they have to be around here somewhere," one of the soldiers whispered, sweeping through the upper levels, slow and methodical. "There can't be many places a fairy riding on an open book can hide."

  Objectively speaking, this was correct. There were not many places anyone riding a book could hide, largely because they were riding a book. That was something that tended to stick out, even if one didn't want it too. Histoire's small size did counteract such a disadvantage under more normal circumstances, but this wouldn't be one of them. Though unknown to the soldiers breaching the Planeptune Basilicom, this wasn't a normal situation for them, either.

  For what was the capital building of Planeptune, even when hit at night, even in the levels that were meant for residence of its inhabitants rather than giving space for the government bureaucracy needed to keep a nation running, the quiet was abnormal.

  Calling it too quiet would both be stereotypical, but also completely correct. They may have chosen a time where there should be as few people as possible around to interfere with their plans. But the elite group should have taken the target by surprise. Instead, all they got was silence. Worst of all, they knew the target rarely left the Basilicom outside of when it was necessary for them to do so. And such events were rare.

  Maybe their fellows on the lower levels were having better luck? Though they under orders to keep radio silence until they managed to seize the target. Meaning they did not know of the utter panic and rout that was happening down below.

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

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  "Run for your life!"

  Bonk!

  "Hehe, this is fun!"

  "Red, please focus!"

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  "Spread out. She couldn't have gone far!" The leader ordered, as the group slowly began to drift apart, looking for any clues as to where Histoire had gone. There were only so many places she could hide, after all. But there was one thing that they were not counting on. The fact that they were being watched.

  It was almost sad, given that they were supposed to be the best of the best. To miss such a crucial, important detail. Or to even not notice it in the first place. But many were indeed, watching. Given how radio was forbidden until extraction needed to be called, they were limited to their own words or hand signs. As they spread out, the latter became increasingly unreliable. Even with their night vision goggles.

  See, their plan relied on breaking into a Goddess's home, kidnap, well, booknap someone of extreme importance, then leave before retaliation could come. What they didn't know is that one of those residents who was supposed to be elsewhere was present. Their only real advantage was that said Goddess would rather not ruin their living space to defeating them.

  The end result?

  Hinum would have made some type of reference about them being in the walls, a joke that only she would get and cause everyone else to roll their eyes about her sense of humor.

  But it wasn't like Hinum was entirely wrong if she were to make that joke, either. They kinda were in the walls, by a certain point of view.

  It made it so when the first guard was removed from the board, nobody noticed.

  At first. No matter what, eventually, a group of spec ops members was going to notice that their own were being picked off. A let unconscious man there, one resting against some doorframe or bookshelf to be resting far more deeply than initially assumed. An abnormal noise that just so happened to come from somewhere where they were certain someone had just been. All in all, Hinum was frankly envious that she had missed out on the opportunity to pull Skyrim stealth archer shenanigans IRL.

  Again, not a single person could tell what that actually meant, but everyone could tell that she was pretty upset over the matter. Even though she was the one getting to blow up monsters presently without much care in the world.

  "We have nothing showing up on thermals!" One of the soldiers shouted as panic began to set in. The fact they were getting picked off with ease meant something had gone wrong with the plan. Though them not finding anyone when they should have found Histoire was more than enough sign of that.

  "Stick together! Whatever it is that is picking us off can't do so if we clump up!" The leader decided that breaking the silence, given the situation, was about the only play he had left at this point. If he could seize Histoire, then he might have a chance of making it out with something, but that required for them to succeed first.

  And success, at the minute was looking increasingly unlikely.

  Any chance of order very quickly died as a soldier let out a strangled scream, vanishing completely from sight into the dark, even as the thermal showed that there was nothing there to begin with.

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  "That was, something," Histoire huffed slightly, looking at the pile of tied-up unconscious ASIC goons that were taking up a corner of the room.

  One of the significantly larger corners, at that. She had expected the ASIC was up to something or another with its move on Leanbox, but this wasn't it at all. A feint to distract them from something else? Yes. That something else being, this?

  That was something a bit more out of left field by Histoire's standards. That wasn't to say that attempts on her wellbeing, or the wellbeing of the other oracles hadn't occurred, but this was still abnormal. This couldn't be it, could it be? This had to be a feint for something else.

  Right?

  But the more Histoire's mind turned, the more that, didn't make sense. Nepgear and the others weren't supposed to be here. Making a move at her wouldn't make much sense if the plan included four of the Goddess Candidates to be present. That was something they hadn't seen coming. They must have thought Hinum would have told them before flying off. For her anger to have helped save them was not something Histoire particularly liked. And she knew the young Goddess wouldn't like it, either. She never entirely liked her anger, given how she tended to act.

  "Power's still out," Uni commended, brandishing her gun as she kept on a lookout. "They probably hit the entire building with something pretty nasty. Hopefully, sis has everything else well in hand in Leanbox."

  The answer was most likely. Hinum would have the situation in, some measure of hand, Histoire suspected, even Neptune and the others didn't.

  But the statement was a declaration that they were likely staying put. Histoire couldn't blame them for that. Even though the force was clearly meant to be small and precise, by its very nature, the fact there was a breach at all needed to be addressed. And, if she was a target, then keeping her safe was important, even if she had no idea why they wanted her now.

  Hinum had a tendency to voice concerns about her safety. That as the only one keeping Planeptune running, that the ASIC would try to just take her off the board completely. It wasn't an unfounded fear, at least from Hinum's perspective. Despite her nature, the young Goddess could be surprisingly brutal and cutthroat. And more than expected her foes to be even more so than she was.

  However, Histoire expected that Hinum, for her many strengths and flaws, was somehow more used to playing a different type of game than the ASIC planned to. So this wasn't to simply remove her from the board. It wouldn't be useless. Even in normal circumstances, she did a fair a fair bit of the governing of Planeptune.

  Not as much as one might expect, but a sizable chunk of the workload fell on her shoulders. But with the Goddesses back, things would be easier. No, her most important asset at this moment was her mind and her knowledge. Hinum, while not entirely incorrect, believed that the ASIC would want her gone because she was the only one holding Planeptune together. In truth?

  It was her mind that remained her greatest asset, and what was really worth getting rid of her for.

  But that wasn't it, either. They wanted extraction, with an asset, not after the elimination of one. Really, that left a few things.

  Either the ASIC wanted to pick her brains themselves.

  Or they wanted her as a hostage.

  "Histoire, behind you!" She heard Nepgear shout as something wet hit her back.

  That better not be a tongue.