The Forgotten (Arifureta x original character)

Chapter 87: Divine Mountain

As soon as Zane steps onto Tio's back he is tackled by a hug from Ms. Aiko. She says with tears in her eyes, "You are really still alive."

"Yeah, I am," Zane says. He then asks, "Are you alright Ms. Aiko?"

"I am fine. It is just that after everything that happened in Horaud I was terrified that you were going to get killed. The king ordered that all of the soldiers in the kingdom hunt you down and kill you," Aiko states.

Zane says, "I am not surprised by that. As you can see, I am perfectly fine." He then asks Tio, "Is there anything that I can do to help you out here?"

"Like I said. I was planning on taking Ms. Aiko somewhere safe. After that I am going to attack the Divine Mountain. Some people there are using a spell to weaken Hajime in his fight against the apostle," Tio states.

"I should be able to help you out with that," Zane says.

Tio states, "It would be of the most help if you could take care of Ms. Aiko so that I can go and take out the barrier. I should be able to do it on my own. I can just set you down below here. Then you just need to keep her safe."

At this point Aiko declares, "Please let me help!" She then continues by saying, "I might not look it, but my magic power is actually on par with the hero, Amanogawa. I don't have any combat experience, but... I can at least try to give you backup!"

Following saying all of this, Ms. Aiko bites into her finger. She then starts to draw a magic circle on her hand using the blood from her finger. Seeing this confirms to Zane that Ms. Aiko is dead serious about helping them take down the barrier. As such, he has no intention of stopping her.

As Ms. Aiko is drawing the magic circle on her hand, she says, "I'll be honest. I'm afraid of fighting people. But there's no other choice! Just having ideals is not enough. In order to have everyone survive and go back to Japan, I, of all people, can't run away."

Following this whole speech Tio finally says, "If you've already made up your mind, then that's settled. If that's your decision, then Master cannot say no to that. Fine, let's go demolish those fools together."

At this point, Tio turns directions and begins to head back towards the Divine Mountain. As the three of them are heading towards the Divine Mountain, Zane notices that there is a fight going on in the air by the Divine Mountain. From the looks of it, Zane is guessing that is where Hajime is fighting against an apostle. Zane would like to help, but he is pretty sure he would just be in the way.

Meanwhile Hajime is engaged in battle with the apostle Noint. After having given Ms. Aiko off to Tio, Hajime has found that he can move more easily in the fight. However, he is also being slowed down by the debuff that is being cast by the followers that are at the Divine Mountain. As such he is forced to be primarily on the defensive as he fights against Noint.

Noint summons a powerful blast of fire that Hajime manages to just barely evade being hit by. He then sends his cross bits to try and shoot Noint out of the sky. Noint manages to easily evade the cross bits. Then once they are done firing at her, she turns her attention back to them and flies at them. Noint cuts the cross bits apart with her swords.

Seeing this Hajime tries to fire his railgun at Noint. She is able to easily dodge the blast. She then gets behind him. Hajime quickly turns around and blocks a slash of Noint's swords using his railgun. The railgun is cut in two as a result of this. Hajime uses his limit break at this point to get out of the range of Noint for a moment.

He only manages to be out of range for a few seconds though as Noint quickly closes the gap between the two of them. She then begins to attack Hajime once more. He manages to deflect her attacks using his handguns. He then fires several shots at her from the guns. Noint blocks these with her swords.