The Hidden World

The council was dismissed and the members left to begin formulating their individual plans. Kilik stayed behind with Yuki. She had signaled to him that she wanted to have a small chat.

“What is it that you want to discuss?” Kilik asked.

“Time,” Yuki replied with a sigh. “I know that the council can take quite a while before taking action. Sophie seemed quite annoyed about that during the Demon War.”

“It is a shortcoming of this council, yes,” he nodded. “There’s not much we can do about it though. Dragons are quite independent. They take time to be pushed to action. Then it takes even more time to agree upon a single idea. When multiple minds are put together, each with differing opinions, it is going to take a bit of time.”

“Time isn’t with us,” Yuki said. “The sooner the Shikaku are gone, the sooner we can begin the clean up. Attacking the head of the group will only kill the leadership for a moment. There will be someone stepping in to fill the void.”

“I understand,” Kilik said. “I really do. I do not want more demons to die either. I want to save the ones who are still trapped. I want to rid this land of those oath breakers. But I do not want to put those that I swore to protect in danger. We may be powerful, but Vernon severely underestimates the capabilities of the three races. Even if it is not the dragons who take the brunt of retaliation, other demons will pay. We need to do this right, Yuki. And that will take some time.”

“I know that, Kilik. But there needs to be a balance struck here. We must be swift, but not hasty. Careful, but not sluggish. I worried that we are leaning toward the latter of that. Was it true that it took months for the council to finally decide on a course of action during the Demon War?”

Kilik nodded slowly and sighed. 

“Not exactly months, but almost two. Seven weeks and three days,” he said. “It was a much larger discussion. Instead of just eight people, we had guests and the public weighing as well. The debates went on for ages. Even the vote to get involved took around a week. I look upon that time with shame.”

He pressed his lips together and thought to himself.

“I do not believe that this will take nearly as long as that did.”

“Still, Kilik. Almost two months. One week to decide whether demons being attacked in Libra was a violation. That’s a problem. It might seem right to dragons, but it undermines the trust other demons have in us. If we swear to be their protectors, then we must be swift when they need help.”

“Yuki, this is already much faster than that time,” Kilik said. “Our people are quite independent beings. Logical, yes, but independent nonetheless. Stubborn as well. That includes the council members. They will come up with their own plans and see things from their own angles that make sense to them. Convincing them otherwise takes a bit of time.”

“I don’t like it,” Yuki frowned. “It just seems too slow for me.”

“I know how you feel. You have been the leader in your guild and are used to making the decisions. However, here that changes. Your voice isn’t any louder than the rest of the council members. I understand why you want the proceedings to go quicker, but that isn’t you call.”

“Surely you want to act right now, don’t you?”

“I do. Of course I do,” Kilik sighed. “These transgressions anger me. Greatly. But I’ve long learned to hold that anger for later times when it is needed. For instance, against my enemies. The council is not my enemy. We want the same things, but have different ideas as to how to achieve them. You’ll need to learn this, Yuki, if you intend to continue to work in this council. 

“Now,” he said, “that does not mean that I am telling you that you should give up on trying to convince the others to hurry up. In fact, if you can do it, I will support that every step of the way. However, it will be difficult. Outside of an extreme circumstance where our cities are being threatened directly and an attack is inevitable, I’m afraid you might need to become used to things slowly stepping along.”

“I see. Then I guess I need to prepare for the next meeting,” Yuki said. “Can you at least try to convince them? Or push them a little bit?”

“Maybe. It would need to depend on the situation.”

“Alright. I’ll see what I can come up with to convince the others. I’ll see you in three days.”

“I wish you good luck.”

Yuki twirled a stylus between her fingers as she stared at holographic screens that floated in front of her. She didn’t absorb anything they said. She didn’t need to. Every piece of information in them was ingrained in her mind from the hours upon hours she spent going over them again and again.

She had asked Kilik right before leaving for access to the information the dragons had on the Shikaku. When she received a drive, she fed it to Uriel upon returning home to Fenrir. 

From the kitchen, she heard pots and pans clanging about and the sound of a knife hitting a cutting board as it chopped something. Erica with the help of Akira and Yuna was trying to cook dinner for the day. Normally, Yuki would be the one to handle it, but with the deadline for the meeting coming in little over a day, Yuki was focused on trying to come up with a feasible strategy in convincing the other council members to act quicker.

‘There’s nothing here that could push them though,’ she thought with a frown. ‘Plenty to worry about, but nothing urgent enough. I need more.’

The last day or so was spent reviewing all the information she needed to be caught up on from her time in the Coliseum and in the Demon Lands. Everything in the reports had already been summarized by Akira during that small meeting they had after breaking free of the Coliseum. The Shikaku were moving rapidly and spreading their roots faster than it ever had before.

What worried Yuki about the reports was that there didn’t seem to be a set objective in play for the Shikaku. The other times she had confronted them or halted them, she knew their specific aims and was able to act accordingly whether it was stopping them from gathering elemental stones to blowing up their cannon to disrupting their attempts to take over the academy.

‘But now I’m stuck. I know their general aim which is to gather enough power to do a takeover of Libra and purge demons from the world. The problem is, their reach is too far in too broad of an area for me to feasibly destroy them.’

Time was not on Yuki’s side. In order to combat the influence the Shikaku had over various aspects of LIbra, she would need to infiltrate them as well and locate the Shikaku members. Then she would need to remove them either through exposing, framing, or creating little accidents. 

‘That would take much more time than I have to do it perfectly and not draw any suspicion to us. They’ve had a head start in this game. The time they had unopposed let them root themselves like a weed.’

The answer to this would be the dragons. With their support, she could launch a coordinated effort to cut off the head of the Shikaku then go down and poison the roots. 

‘But it would need to be a delicate operation. I cannot let it be exposed that dragons or demons in general were involved, otherwise the anti-demon sentiment that has been growing might reach a tipping point and my efforts were for naught. It needs to be soon though. The longer the wait, the stronger they become and more they expand.’

Yuki needed more than smoke to display to the council if she wanted to push them. She needed the entire gun with the name of the owner engraved into it. 

‘When is the intel update for the day.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘In a few minutes. Let’s see if there is anything new.’

She sat there, watching the seconds tick by until the clock read 19:00. Uriel appeared before her and pulsed gently as she spoke in her normal cheerful tone.

“Intel update,” she said. “Here’s the file. Do you want me to give you the highlights or would rather go over it yourself?”

“You can give me the highlights,” Yuki replied. “If that’s not a bother.”

“Of course not. I don’t eat dinner,” Uriel laughed. “Anyway. Here’s the main topic of today’s intel update. We’ve received a draft of a speech the king is set to give in about one week’s time. One of our informants in the king’s council gave it to us.”

“Is it of substance?” Yuki asked, leaning back in her seat, repeatedly clicking on her pen.

“Oh, you bet. It’s like a full course meal filled with substance,” Uriel said. “The speech is on national security. Can you guess the main target of it?”

“Hit me.”

“Demons,” she said. “The speech is on demons. The current king is a political puppet for the council, so I think you know what the speech’s tone is going to be.”

“Probably bad?”

“Probably bad. I would hazard to say really bad. If you’re a demon. Which you are.”

“Why is it bad?” Yuki asked as she sat up in her chair. 

“I think you need to read it first,” Uriel replied. “You understand those nuances in speech better than I do anyway. But it’s bad. Or good depending on how you see it. You said you needed something saucy, right?”

“I do remember saying that.”

“Well this is a five gallon barrel of hot sauce.”