A 7th Dragon story. Enjoy.
My name is Minaduki no Karen, though my friends just call me Minaduki. I am the 33nd Successor of the Minaduki Clan, the last living.
I hate to say it, but I'm the de facto leader of our guild, officially known as the Sisters of Battle, but simply known to others as "The Sisters." We consider ourselves a sisterhood of sorts... We're all pretty close, I'd like to reckon, though sometimes it doesn't really show. What do we do? Well... If it were three years ago, it would be something a little like this...
***
"Hey, Ki!"
Ki was a pretty straightforward lady... But very reliable. I was also pretty envious of how she could pull off the twintail look in heavy plate mail. She didn't really like thinking about problems and solutions too hard, and just sought to following orders (except almost all the orders came from me). She's pretty much my definition of a knight in shining armor, anyways. I can't really recall the number of times she's saved us from our mistakes by distracting dangerous monsters and allowing us to recover. Though... sometimes I wish she wasn't without tact... She can be pretty harsh sometimes.
Ceres, our token doctor and healer, was calling Ki for some assistance for God knows what, I wasn't really sure at the time, I was too busy writing down some notes for myself to really pay attention. She was extremely kind, perhaps too kind, and I had to keep her in line on occasion, especially when people ask us to do jobs for them. Sometimes she gets us accepting requests which we can't handle. Over the past few days, though, I've been finding myself getting closer and closer to her. She helps me take care of our Lost One, who I christened Aria, because of her singing voice. Aria is a poor, orphaned child who was somehow draped in incredibly regal clothing...
I tried to ask this Aria where she came from, but at the time, she was much too terrified and couldn't say a word. When she was feeling better, I found out this Aria claimed to be a princess from a distant continent... Well, that'd explain the clothing, but it didn't explain what she was doing orphaned in a forest, where I had found her! She didn't want to talk about it though, and was awfully evasive of the topic. Either way, I had to do my best to take care of her, as even though she was only a few years younger than I was, she had barely any social skills.
The four of us consist of the founding members of the Sisters of Battle. We would help those in need; if they needed things to be delivered, if they needed monsters to be hunted down, if they needed things to be collected, we would do them. We were stationed in the Kazan Republic, which was purportedly close to the central sea. A bridge connected this island to the rest of the continent we were on, which housed the Federation of Miros and the Kingdom of Aizhen. We continually did requests from both Miros and Kazan, until eventually, during one of our tasks, wherein we defeated a rampant, wild bear in the nearby caves, we gained proper recognition from Kazan's ruler; Doris Agoort.
After looking up from my note-taking, I realize that Ceres was talking to Ki about our next assignment. In the Loracca Forest near Miros, which appears to be overrun by some strange red flowers, lives a flying dragon! Ceres appears to be quite concerned about this assignment, expressing sentiments along the lines of "It's too dangerous for poor Aria!" Ki repeatedly assures Ceres that it'll be alright, and I resume my note-taking. We were to be departing on our task the next day.
Entering the Loracca Forest during the break of dawn was quite... strange. The last time we came here, we were not allowed to enter; it was much too dangerous for us, so the Miros Guard there said. However, I felt that our capabilities were more than enough to handle the task. Upon entry to the forest proper, the first thing I notice is the strange occurrence of these strange flowers! Whenever I step on one, I feel my head go dizzy, and it seems to bring a migraine! Everyone feels the same way, too. I don't like the feeling of this, but we trudge on nevertheless, Ceres keeping everyone cool and recovered after periodic breaks. Eventually, we reach a large bed of these red flowers, where indeed, a dragon slept! It looked quite big, serpentine, and a bright shade of turquoise. It was curled up, much like a snake, and as soon as we stepped on a patch of flowers, it suddenly woke up and roared loudly!
We had to ready ourselves for a dangerous battle... Or so we thought. The combined might of Ki and myself continually raining down blows on this beast, supported by Aria's energizing singing and the healing arts of Ceres were more than enough to fell this dragon, who roared with its last remaining breath. It sounded pitiful, pathetic, like it was crying for help. After its body appeared to dissipate into ashes, the red flowers suddenly disappeared! We were escorted out and we reported our findings to Agoort, who had given us this assignment. The reward was given and we talked to Elanne, who was a very close friend of mine, and the person who allowed me to properly found the Sisters of Battle with Ceres, Ki and Aria. We were being checked up on by one of Ceres' colleagues, but as soon as we moved out, disaster struck!
I looked up into the sky after a violent tremor, and saw that there were literally hundreds of dragons in the sky! I have no idea where they came from, but they seemed to land everywhere! Kazan was attacked by some, causing major panic, and many of the red flowers to grow! As the civilians were running away, Agoort and his advisor Menas went outside of their cathedral-like building to survey the situation. Agoort told Menas to take us to safety and take refuge in Miros... But that was all I was able to hear... Flowers...
Hurt...
Head... Migraine...
...
***
We woke up three years after that. Agoort apparently gave his life to protect everyone else from the threat of the dragons. As the Sisters, it was our new responsibility to exterminate all the dragons who populated this world.
How many are they?
We count six hundred and sixty six.
We are killing them all.
This is my story.
This is our story.
