Kiran.

Kiran was the summoner that had brought him into this world and while Anna was officially the commander for the Order of Heroes, Kiran was their de-facto tactician.

Kiran was… an enigma.

Azama honestly didn’t know if Kiran was a human, artificial or otherwise.

Every time he saw them, it seemed like they were a different person. Their large robes hid the change in their build decently enough, but it was hard to disguise the change in their voice. Some days they were a young boy who spoke in quiet whispers, others a relatively nondescript woman with a voice that sounded like she wished to be anywhere else, and on others a man with a body that rivaled Oliver’s in rotundness accompanied by a deep baritone that made you feel a vague sense of trust. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to which ‘Kiran’ appeared on a given day, and the only constant between them was their personality.

Some days Azama wished that too would change, but he could get to that later.

Looking at Kiran, despite what sometimes should have been an obviously different body, it didn’t always register that Kiran looked any different. It was as if he on some level knew Kiran’s different appearances were all the same ‘person’ even if they may not be the same ‘entity’ but he was unable to recall any separate ‘entity’ beyond the one that was present at that moment.

Perhaps something similar to whatever prevented him from seeing his own duplicates was involved? Maybe the reason why he was able to perceive that there was a difference between the various Kirans was because there was a need to interact with him on a daily basis, and the magic that created blind spots was unable to be as selective as it would need to be to block out those memories?

When it came down to it, Azama couldn’t remember offhand anything specific about any of Kiran’s appearance beyond the robe that covered all but their mouth. The only reason why he seemed to be able to recall that the ‘soft-spoken boy’ Kiran or the ‘jolly, portly’ Kiran had existed was because he remembered that someone else had mentioned those aspects of Kiran on the days those Kirans were the ones that had taken form, and if someone else had noticed it then surely that Kiran had walked the halls of the Order of Heroes at some point.

This was… hard to wrap his head around, and if he hadn’t been able to clear his head of all other thoughts and devote all his effort towards trying to understand it Azama wasn’t confident that he would have been able to work around whatever mechanism it was that seemed to exist to prevent him from remembering anything about it.

He took yet another deep breath before diving back in.

It didn’t seem like different people perceived any given day’s Kiran differently, which lead Azama to believe that Kiran’s body itself changed on a day-to-day basis rather than it being the product of some sort of illusion. He had long ruled out the idea of there physically being multiple Kirans like there were apparently multiple Legions in his world of origin; the consistency in personality across all the different Kirans made it unlikely that they were different people who took turns masquerading as the same person, and speaking in terms of pure practically, there wasn’t enough space in the castle to house enough people to actually pull it off.

Actually…

Kiran had apparently been summoned from a world unlike any anyone else here had ever heard of. At this point Azama was treading further into the realm of speculation than he usually did, but if he functioned under the assumption that his best guess as to the nature of summoned Heroes was true, that would also mean Kiran was an artificial human too.

If Kiran was artificial, it’s possible that something went wrong with the summoning and their physical body was unstable, that could explain why they had no single definite form. After all, Anna had summoned Kiran, but was unable to summon anyone else; perhaps she had somehow botched the summoning ritual and Breidablik rejected her.

On the other hand, it’s possible Kiran was summoned by Breidablik specifically because they had no definite form, or some other unique quality they possessed. Nobody else seemed capable of summoning that utilized Breidablik, so if it was designed to summon -or create, if that was how it worked- someone capable of wielding it would act as a small failsafe towards preventing it from falling into the wrong hands. By preventing anyone who sought its power from wielding it directly there would always be someone capable of preventing Breidablik from being used for nefarious purposes, and if was indeed the intent of its creators they possessed a commendable degree of foresight. Amongst the various regalia of all the worlds Azama was aware of, Breidablik’s capabilities were unparalleled, and had it fallen into the hands of the likes of Veronica or Garon their victories would have been all but ensured.

Breidablik’s might wasn’t something Azama was particularly concerned with, so he turned his train of thought back towards Kiran.

Kiran’s form was a source of doubt for Azama, despite how much they had done to prove their allegiance to Askr. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Kiran was hiding something, despite how much he wanted to trust them. Sure, their tactics were eccentric, but they nonetheless produced results and they-

Azama stopped himself. He wanted to go over that in a bit more detail before he continued.

Kiran clearly liked Celica. It didn’t seem like they were attracted to her per se, but the happiest he had seen them was when she had been summoned, followed behind by when he overheard them overjoyed about her winning something called “Seal 2” and when her ‘fallen’ variant had been summoned, and it was evident by how much combat she saw that they considered her to be a Hero that met their needs the best.

As Faye had so bluntly put it earlier, Azama had been matched with Celica as a ‘support partner’ almost immediately after she had been summoned. There were plenty of other paired units that seemed to be put together more for matchmaking than for combat effectiveness, but Kiran seemed to put him with Celica solely for strategic merit.

Celica’s tome of choice, Ragnarok, increased its destructiveness by a considerable margin if she was at peak condition at the cost of hurting her. This seemed to be how all magic worked in Valentia and while Azama had wondered for some time why Mae and Boey’s tomes didn’t share that functionality, it occurred to him that neither of them used magic that had originated in Valentia. In order to counteract this recoil effect, Kiran had made Celica inherit Renewal from Lissa, but to quell their discontent with the rate at which it healed her they ended up assigning a healer -in this case, Azama himself- to near-constant ‘Heal Celica Duty’ to make up for it.

The other thing that Kiran likely saw in making the two of them a pair was that Azama’s ability to soak up damage covered Celica’s comparatively lacking defenses. Celica also natively had access to ‘Spur Defense’, which when combined with the ‘Defense Tactic’ Seal Kiran decided she would hold made Azama nigh-untouchable to all but the most powerful weapons. He was still vulnerable to mages and dragons, but Celica was able handle them relatively well herself. Celica would rush forward and strike an enemy, Azama would step in front of her to shield her from oncoming attacks and heal her so Ragnarok’s flare-like effect could occur again. Tanking any oncoming hits would increase the damage he would heal with Martyr, and Live to Serve would help bring him as close to maximum health as possible so he’d be ready to act as a glorified meat shield again, so it quickly became clear to both Azama and the rest of the Heroes that Kiran had an innate ability to see the potential that existed within different Heroes. After some prodding from Sharena, even Anna confessed that it wouldn’t have occurred to her that Azama and Celica’s abilities synergized well, though she didn’t react positively to Sharena’s suggestion that Kiran was making Anna obsolete at the Order of Heroes.

This, of course, came to an end when Ragnarok could be refined to remove the requirement for her to have sustained no damage. Though they did their best to hide it from others, Kiran was furious at the fact that all the skills that Celica had inherited were now incompatible with her tome of choice, and her no longer needing to be healed meant that Celica and Azama were rarely deployed together in the few weeks since Ragnarok had received a refine. Their status as supporting Heroes remained, but their days as partners in crime were effectively over.

As for Celica herself, she seemed like a nice enough young lady. Through their time together she had revealed that she had her own fair share of troubles, but compared to the colorful personalities of the royalty of his own world she came off as -for lack of a better way to put it- normal. That wouldn’t exactly be the best way to describe someone who had carried the weight of being the sole survivor of a nation’s royal family on her shoulders for the past decade or so, but the way she bore that burden seemed natural for her, yet in a way that deeply concerned Azama.

Celica, like Azama, was not the kind of person who sought to share their troubles with others. With Azama, this was simply because he accepted that the sources of his troubles were out of his control, but Celica’s silence was the result of sharing her troubles being an action that brought considerable danger upon both herself and her confidant. She had clearly become accustomed to hiding her worries, and Azama couldn’t help but worry she was setting herself up to hastily make an unwise decision because she felt she couldn’t turn to her allies for support.

Saber, the rough-and-tumble mercenary that was part of Celica’s army, had approached Azama shortly after he had been summoned to discuss this with him.

“You’re the guy Celica’s supportin’ with, no?”

“…That’s correct.”

“Has she, uh, discussed stuff with you?”

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking me.”

Saber’s forwardness, yet roundabout way of wording what he was looking for caught Azama off guard.

“Listen,” Saber leaned in close, prompting Azama to back up against the wall behind him, “The lass clearly has had a lot on her mind, ever since I met her, but she’s never talked about her troubles with me or anybody else. I just wanna know if she’s like that with you.”

“Er… yes, she’s talked about a few things with me, but I don’t think she’d appreciate me sharing them with other people.”

Saber stared at Azama for a moment, before breaking out into a grin, “That’s fine, everyone has their secrets. I’m just happy she’s finally opening up to somebody.”

Saber patted Azama on the shoulder, a little harder than he would have liked.

“Lemme know if you ever wanna hook up with someone. I might be able to help y’out,” Saber said and walked off, leaving Azama to wonder if his relationship with Celica was really that out of the ordinary.

Perhaps she felt comfortable sharing her worries with Azama because he was a holy person like she was, or because he was from a land far removed from her own. Maybe Kiran had put the two of them together so Celica could have a person to vent to so she wouldn’t burn herself out.

Azama realized that this was uncharacteristically sympathetic of him, but he wished he could do something more to help her. She was far from helpless, but she seemed a little too eager to bite off more than she could chew, and a lot of her stress could be alleviated if she was willing to rely on her allies a bit more.

Regardless, Kiran had put a lot of thought and effort into making sure he and Celica would work well together, but there were plenty of other Heroes that were either outright neglected -like the seven or so Tiki that had been sitting around in the barracks for who knows how long- or were trained only for Kiran to turn around and give their skills to somebody else.

While Kiran’s tactics undeniably produced results, their decisions nonetheless seemed to be fueled by their own whims. Back in April they had sacrificed five Heroes in the name of making Shigure able to support a team built around Felicia’s ability to weaken anyone close to the unfortunate soul on the receiving end of her plate and Gunnthra’s ability to capitalize off of those modifications, only to replace him without second thought the moment Ninian’s Bridal variant appeared. Shigure ended up being spared the fate of passing his Torrent Dance to Ninian, but Azama had overheard Kiran discuss with Sharena that the main reason why was because Ninian’s innate Chill Attack fit her role on that team better.

If Shigure was that close to being put on the chopping block, what was stopping the same from happening to Azama himself? Sure, his time at the Order of Heroes had been utterly dreadful so far, but he wasn’t in any rush to find out what happened after a Hero is ‘sent home’. After all, who could be enthusiastic about a process that sounded suspiciously like a euphemism for euthanasia?

Kiran didn’t have an unstable personality, yet Azama couldn’t help but be afraid that they would one day call for his demise. He didn’t want to wax poetic about it, but despite everything that had happened in the past 24 hours, he couldn’t help but want to stick around for a little longer, even if it was just for a few weeks. There were questions that he sought the answer to, and if he was sent back to Hoshido anytime soon he knew he would be haunted by the fact that he’d never learn the truth. Sure, his exhaustion has lead him to yearn for being released from the contract that bound him here, but if he retained his memories the questions that remained would gnaw away at him until he drew his last breath.

Was Zelgius actually looking to repent? Was Lukas as double-faced as he seemed? Were Heroes actually homunculi? What’s the deal with Surtr’s pyromania? Was he just mad, or was his burning desire to scorch the world part of some long-forgotten quest for revenge? Would Celica reach the point where she could be open with another ally of hers before it was too late? Would Shigure get over his stage fright?

And Kiran. Everything about them was a mystery, and no matter how much he focused on the other questions he had about this world, Azama’s mind kept going back to Kiran. Were they a type of Hero like everyone else here? Why did their form change? Did they even know? Was their willingness to invest in certain Heroes and then bench them permanently simply because they had no use anymore, or was this stockpiling of Heroes meant to prepare for some threat nobody else knew was coming? Did they-

“Azama! Are you in here?”

A shout from the real world broke the silence that facilitated Azama’s meditation, shocking him out of his trance.

It was as if fate itself were laughing at him, for the voice that pierced the darkness of night undeniably belonged to Kiran.

‘If I pretend I didn’t hear, maybe they’ll go away.’

Sure enough, a few moments later Azama could hear them rush past the hallway he was stowed away in and he listened as their footfalls faded in the distance.

‘It’s odd how their footsteps always sound the same. Is a person’s gait the product of their soul and not of their body? I suppose that’s just another mystery to-’

Azama’s attempt at regaining his train of thought was interrupted as he noticed the footsteps return, getting louder and louder. He did his best to quiet his body again and prayed Kiran would simply walk past this corridor, but an ‘Aha!’ followed by the footsteps getting uncomfortably closer revealed that Azama’s luck was once again lacking.

‘Goddamnit. I’ll just pretend I’m not awake.’

“There you are! I was looking for-” Kiran stopped talking for a moment, before they started poking his face, “Hey, are you dead? Wrys said he patched you up really well, but if-”

Azama patience ran out, and he furrowed his brow, dropping the charade of being asleep.

“Yes, yes, I am indeed alive,” Azama slowly opened his eyes and flexed his resting limbs, sensation slowly returning to his body, “I thought I finally had found a good place to meditate but I guess this wasn’t out of the way enough.”

The Kiran standing over Azama today was a young man, probably in his early twenties. The shadows of their robes concealed everything above their mouth, but it showed enough that anyone could have seen that they were breathing heavily from half a kilometer away, as if they had been running around for the past few hours.

“Oh? You must have far too much free time on your hands if you’re spending it looking for me in the middle of the night. Why, who am I to deserve it? I’m just a holy man, not worth even the time of day.”

“Hinoka told me about what happened with the bear and I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“Oh, yes. That. That’s very… touching of you, but do you doubt Wrys’ medicine skills that much?”

“No, not at all. I was concerned that you might have been shaken up by the ordeal. When I was a student, I had once attended school in the middle of the woods so I know how traumatic bear attacks can be,” Kiran extended their hand, “Here, let’s get you off the floor.”

Azama grabbed their hand and pulled himself up, bending back down to pick up the candle that was now nearly burnt out, “Really, I’m alright. The trees did more damage than the bear did.”

“If you say so. Were you meditating here all night? It’s getting close to sunrise.”

“Ah, yes. I checked the library-”

“You should take better care of yourself!” Kiran interjected, “Wrys said he told you to get some rest, and you should have listened to him, especially after what happened yesterday! Let’s head back to your room.”

Without waiting for a response, Kiran grabbed Azama’s hand and started walking back towards the main castle.

“I… don’t really ask for much, Kiran,” Azama sighed, exasperated by the fact that he was being scolded for finally satisfying the one desire he had in this world, “I really only need to meditate, but I haven’t had the chance to since I was summoned.”

Almost as suddenly as they had started walking, Kiran came to an abrupt stop. Despite being unable to see nearly all their face, it was almost painfully obvious that their expression was one of immense disbelief.

“You’ve been here for over a year, Azama.”

“I am aware.”

“And it never occurred to you to ask someone about this?”

“I had asked Anna about expanding the castle a few weeks ago, but it seems she interpreted my request for someplace quiet as a request for another residential wing.”

“That’s still…” Kiran grabbed Azama’s hand again, “Let’s walk as we talk. I could arrange for this to be a residential wing with a strict noise limit, if you think that would help. I don’t think you’re the only Hero who prefers things to be quiet.”

“That-” Azama was struggling to keep up with Kiran’s brisk pace, his body still a touch unresponsive from sitting still for so long.

“But! Before we do anything about that you need to get rest. I’m putting you on medical leave, effective immediately, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

“Can you even-”

“Of course I can! I decide who gets deployed on missions, after all!”

“You’re really dead-set on this?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Kiran looked back to Azama, a warm smile on their face.

Kiran’s smile made Azama feel conflicted about the discomfort he had felt moments ago over Kiran’s ability to rid themself of him. If he hadn’t witnessed it himself it would have been hard to believe that Kiran was both able to send units ‘elsewhere’ and fully willing to without issue, but the fact remained that Kiran either knew something he didn’t or had no qualms over viewing other sapient beings as-

“So, where’s your room?”

Before Azama realized, they had reached the soon-to-be-old residential wing.

“It’s on the south-east end of the second floor. Between the original Hector and Shigure.”

“You’ve been next to Hector? You really,” Kiran put heavy emphasis on that last word, “should have asked to be moved.”

Azama shrugged.

“I wouldn’t have wished that upon anybody else.”

“That’s… I guess you were summoned with Martyr for a reason, huh?

“Could be.”

“Also, ‘original Hector’?”

“There are two of them, right? I’m next to the first one that was summoned, not the one that was summoned during Valentine’s.”

“Most Heroes don’t really make any distinction between the two.”

“They can’t be merged, so they’re not the same individual.”

A loud crash echoed through the corridor as they passed Shigure’s room, prompting Kiran to look back at Azama.

“Speaking of Hector, that was probably him. I’m the next door on the left.”

“You’ve put some thought into this. Is this what you meditate over?” Kiran opened the door to Azama’s room and lead him in.

“Something like that.”

“Is you room usually like-” Kiran’s words came to an abrupt halt.

It took a moment for Azama and Kiran to realize what they had just walked into. Azama’s bed was torn up, the pieces of fabric and stuffing thrown chaotically over what could only be assumed to be the fragmented remains of his desk and chair. The culprit sat in the middle of this mess, gnawing on one of the legs to Azama’s desk.

“Do you have a pet?” Kiran said, referring to the bear that had attacked Azama earlier that had apparently taken it upon itself to trash Azama’s room.

“No.”

The bear turned to look at them and deciding that he didn’t particularly care to see if it was in the mood for a friendly chat, Azama grabbed Kiran and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

They stood outside for a moment, their thoughts as scattered as the remains of Azama’s furniture.

“Why is there a bear in your room?!”

“I really, really don’t know!”

“How does a bear even get onto the second floor? That’s-”

The fact that the urgency of the situation needed the two of them to stop asking questions that could wait until later became painfully apparent as the bear slammed into the door behind them, a small crack forming at the top as if to remind them that they’re under a strict time limit.

“What should we do!?” Kiran’s tone became more and more frantic.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a tactician?!”

“Tactic’s don’t matter when you’re fighting a wild animal! Come up with some-!”

The bear slammed into the door again, and while Azama thanked whoever designed this building for making it open inwards, it wouldn’t hold forever and if putting his body in between the bear and the rest of the world would give them the extra moment they needed to keep it from unleashing its fury, it was a sacrifice Azama was willing to make.

Azama pressed himself against the door, praying it wouldn’t shatter immediately, “Go get Hector, he probably has Armads in his room! We can figure things out from there!”

“Okay!” Kiran ran down to Hector’s door and started pounding on it once they discovered it was locked, “Hector! HECTOR! OPEN UP! HECTOR PLEASE IT’S URGENT HECTOR-”

“What’s with the all the noise?” Azama turned to see Dorcas coming out of his room from across the hall, having clearly been rudely awoken by the commotion.

“THERE’S A BEAR IN MY ROOM!”

“Oh,” Dorcas scratched his head, still half asleep, “Is this a recurring thing for you?”

“DO YOU HAVE YOUR AXE?”

“My axe? No, it’s-”

The bear slammed into the door behind Azama again, causing Dorcas and Azama to jump.

“CAN YOU BREAK DOWN HECTOR’S DOOR?”-

“I’m-”

“THERE’S A BEAR IN MY ROOM, DORCAS! PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE!”

“There’s-” as if a switch were flipped, Dorcas face shifted from tired to exhausted, no doubt displeased with whatever twist of fate lead to him being in this situation, “Hector has Armads, right? I’ll see what I can do.”

He walked over to Hector’s room, picked up Kiran from in front of the door and put them down a few steps away. He took a step back, before charging at Hector’s door and breaking it down with a single blow with his shoulder.

“Brigands!” Hector shouted, probably thinking he was under siege back in Elibe in his half-asleep fugue, “You’ll never take me alive! I’ll never go down without-”

“Hector, it’s me,” Dorcas sighed from within Hectors room, “We need you to kill a bear.”

“It’s a little early in the morning to go hunting, no?”

“It’s in the castle.”

“Oho! That’s quite the problem!” Moving faster that Azama thought possible, Hector slid out of his room with Armads in hand, knocking Kiran down in the process, “Where’s the action?”

“Azama’s room,” Kiran said from their newfound position on the floor.

“I see!” Hector’s smile betrayed that he was having a lot more fun than Azama was.

“HECTOR!” Azama yelled, his exclamation punctuated by another slam against the door, “I CAN’T HOLD THIS DOOR FOREVER!”

“Alrighty!” Hector took his stance across the hall from Azama’s room, “Move aside! When that beast breaks down the door I’ll hit ‘em out of the park!”

Azama dove away from the door and scampered to his feet, wondering what the hell Hector meant by that. Dorcas and Kiran now stood outside of Hector’s room and Azama started backing closer and closer to Shigure’s as Hector stared down his door. This moment of silence extended into two moments, and then into three. The serenity of the scene almost lulled Azama into a false sense of security, but before it could set in, his door exploded off its hinges, the bear flying through the air towards Hector.

He stared the wild animal down, time seeming to slow as it grew closer and closer to striking him, but he stepped aside at the final moment, swinging his axe directly into the animal’s gaping maw with such force that it cleanly cleaved through the back of its head and embedded itself deep into the beast’s spine.

The animal let out a ghastly sputter, blood spraying from its mouth before it fell to the ground, the horrid creature finally slain.

“How’s that for a ‘home run’, Kiran?” Hector boomed with a hearty laugh as he pulled Armads out of the corpse, satisfied with what he felt was a job well done.

“Ah, er… they’re usually less messy, but that was quite the grand slam!”

Dorcas looked at Azama and raised an eyebrow. Azama could only shrug in response. It must have been something from the world Kiran came from.

“Your room’s really wrecked though, Azama,” Hector turned to Azama, “where are you going to sleep tonight?”

“Before we deal with that, Hector you…” Kiran looked up and down his blood-spattered body, “probably want to clean up a bit.”

“Sounds good to me!” Hector nodded and ran off towards the baths.

“Dorcas can you go find whoever was on watch tonight and let them know that this’ll need to be cleaned up? We might be able to use the meat, but our highest priority is getting this hallway useable again. I’ll deal with filing the report on this and finding a place for Azama to stay.”

“Might as well if I’m awake,” Dorcas sighed and headed off in search of the nearest authority figure.

Kiran walked over to Azama, carefully stepping around the remains of the bear.

“At least it can’t terrorize you anymore.”

Kiran was right, but Azama was too tired to express joy at the thought.

“You okay?”

“Today’s been a long day and I’m just… exhausted.”

“That’s right,” Kiran brought their hand to their chin, thinking, “there aren’t a lot of places you’d be able to stay in with such short notice, but would you be fine with staying in my room for now? You need to rest more than I do, and I can commandeer a room to take a nap in for a few hours without much problem if I really need to.”

Azama wanted to protest, but after three close encounters with death in quick succession he didn’t have the energy to object.

“Yeah, that’s fine, lead the way.”

 

---

 

Chapter End Notes

How did the bear get into Azama’s room? Bears are tenacious and crafty, and that’s usually all that a wild animal needs to ruin your day.

Again, I’ll discuss this chapter in more depth alongside the previous as the final chapter.