“And what is this little errand?” Adlet asked.
“That’s a secret.” Nashetania put her finger mischievously to her lips, acting just like she had back when Adlet had first met her in his jail cell.
Adlet glanced at the back of his hand. All six of the flower petals were there. If Goldof was a real Brave, then at the very least, he wasn’t dead. If he was the seventh, that was another story, though. “Did you use him to lure us out here?”
“Heavens, no. I just wanted him to help me out with something. I didn’t imagine that all of you would come running after him,” Nashetania said.
She was clearly lying, and Adlet was certain this was a trap. Obviously, Nashetania was about to pull something. Adlet eyed their surroundings in an attempt to figure out her ploy. “How did you ask him to come help you?” he probed.
“Our hearts are connected. I don’t have to tell him anything. All I have to do is wish for it, and he’ll come to me from anywhere.”
“What’re you talking about? You betrayed him.” Chamo’s accusation didn’t seem to bother Nashetania.
“Is Goldof the seventh?” Adlet asked.
“How cruel of you to say that, Adlet,” Nashetania said. “To suspect my dear Goldof! He’s a genuine Brave of the Six Flowers. And this guarantee is coming from me, so there’s no question about it.”
Did she show up here just to tease us? Her nonchalant attitude was getting under his skin. “By the way, we’re going to kill you now.”
“Oh dear, I’m so scared.”
“When is your precious Goldof going to come running?”
Nashetania giggled. “Save me, Goldof! I’m over heeere! They’re going to kill meee!”
Adlet scowled at her weak attempt at a joke. He shot a look to Fremy and Hans beside him. The two of them nodded, and he gave the order.
“Kill her.”
Fire burst from Fremy’s gun, and Hans darted straight toward Nashetania while Adlet turned around. It was just as he’d expected. Thirty fiends were now on the slope with red-hot boulders at the ready, about to throw.
“I’ll get behind her!” Adlet yelled as he pulled a flash bomb from his pouch and hurled it. The powerful light overwhelmed the fiends, but they still launched the scorching rocks. His attack had ruined their aim, though, and the Braves dodged easily.
But then one of the fiend corpses moved. A tentacle reached out from the ground toward Adlet’s neck.
“Watch out!” Rolonia cried, and her whip sliced through it just barely in time. Strange-smelling blood spurted from the tentacle, and the fiend wailed. One after another, the apparent corpses began rising to attack.
“Rolonia! Mora! You help me slow down these guys!” Adlet yelled. A blade stabbed up at him from the ground, but Rolonia’s whip broke it off.
“Hrmeow-meow! You leave the princess to me!” Hans called as he rocketed through the air for a swipe at Nashetania. In response, she summoned another wave of steel from the rock below.
“I’ve got your back, Hans!” said Fremy, and she threw a bomb and fired a shot at Nashetania. The former impostor rolled away from both attacks. Hans and Fremy were stronger than her. Two-on-one, there was no reason they could lose.
“Be careful of her stealth meowers, Fremy!” said Hans.
“You don’t have to tell me that.”
Nashetania ran from them both. With the hilt of her slim sword, she blocked Fremy’s shots while keeping Hans at bay with her conjured blades.
“You need Chamo’s help?” the youngest Brave asked, having already vomited up her slave-fiends.
But Adlet shook his head. “Nashetania must be planning something. You keep an eye on the situation and be ready for the next attack, Chamo.”
“Gotcha.”
The melee continued for a few minutes after that. Fremy and Hans fought Nashetania, while Adlet, Mora, and Rolonia held back the fiends flooding in to support her. Chamo cautiously observed the area under the watch of her slave-fiends. The situation was clearly to the Braves’ advantage, as there was no indication of incoming enemy reinforcements.
Adlet slammed his sword down on the crown of a charging fiend. When it recoiled, Rolonia whipped it to shreds, until blood spurted from it like a fountain and it was dead.
There were about thirty fiends. It was more than a few, but with these numbers, the Braves could certainly keep them at bay. If fighting continued like this, they would beat Nashetania.
“…No way…Is this it?” Adlet muttered as they fought. He couldn’t imagine that this was the full extent of what Nashetania had planned. Her scheme back in the Phantasmal Barrier had been so meticulous, he found it hard to believe she would challenge them to a battle like this without something more.
“Meow-ha!” Hans’s sword swept toward Nashetania. Frantically, she blocked it with her signature Saint technique. One of the fiends slipped past Adlet’s team to guard Nashetania, and somehow she managed to slip away after nearly being cornered.
“I’m not letting you get away,” Fremy said as her bullet pierced Nashetania’s leg.
The princess grimaced. “I’m sorry! Come save me quick, guys, okay? Eek!” She no longer looked so composed. But that didn’t make Adlet relax at all. Nashetania clearly had something lying in wait. Was there another ambush? Or would she use Goldof as a hostage? Or maybe Tgurneu was going to appear and come after them?
“Hey, Adlet.” Chamo, still spectating, spoke up. “Can I just kill Nashetania now?”
“…All right. Do it!” Adlet made the decision. This was probably some kind of trap. But beating the enemy in front of them was more important than worrying about that.
That was when it happened. A fiend slipped past Rolonia’s whip and Mora’s fists to rush over to Nashetania: a giant lizard-type fiend with rocky skin. Nashetania dodged a slice from Hans and leaped astride the stone lizard-fiend, which never broke its pace. Was it going to carry Nashetania and escape?
“Where ya goin’, meow?!”
The stone lizard-fiend was not moving terribly fast. Hans chased after
