Chapter 300

Chapter 300: Chapter 300

Walking into Folkvangr beside Freya attracted exactly as much attention as Rayleigh had expected.

The headquarters of the Freya Familia was never truly quiet.

Adventurers crossed the training grounds at almost every hour, weapons rang from the practice areas, and people moved between the main building and the surrounding facilities with the disciplined pace of a Familia accustomed to being one of the strongest forces in Orario.

That activity slowed noticeably when Freya entered with Rayleigh on one side and Ottar on the other.

Nobody openly blocked their path, but Rayleigh could feel the attention following him all the way across the courtyard.

Some of the younger members clearly recognized Yōtōsai, while the veterans were more interested in the fact that their goddess had personally brought an outsider into Folkvangr.

Freya noticed the looks and seemed entirely unconcerned.

Rayleigh leaned slightly toward her as they approached the main building.

"You could have mentioned that dinner here involved walking through several hundred people wondering whether I’m about to join your Familia."

"You would have come anyway."

"I might have worn better clothes."

That drew an amused smile from her, but before she could answer, a familiar voice came from the steps ahead.

"So it really is you."

Allen Fromel stood near the entrance with his spear resting against one shoulder, his expression making it very clear that Rayleigh’s arrival had not improved his evening.

He had changed over the years since their first serious encounter, but the sharp eyes and permanently irritated air remained exactly as Rayleigh remembered them.

Rayleigh stopped in front of him. "It’s been a while, Allen."

Allen’s ears twitched at the casual greeting, and his gaze dropped immediately to the two swords at Rayleigh’s waist.

"Last time you pointed one of those ridiculous blades at me, I spent half the fight attacking places you weren’t standing! Now Lady Freya walks back into Folkvangr with you after disappearing outside the city for most of the day. You’ll forgive me if I’m not enthusiastic."

There was no need for Rayleigh to provoke him.

Allen’s suspicion was understandable, especially when his entire life revolved around protecting Freya.

"I was helping Ottar train Tenken. Freya invited me to dinner afterward, so I accepted. I’m not joining your Familia, I’m not here to ask your goddess for anything, and I don’t intend to start another fight with you in the entrance hall."

Allen studied him for a moment, apparently looking for some hidden intention behind the answer.

Finding none did not make him friendly, but it removed some of the tension from his shoulders.

Freya stepped past both of them and addressed Allen before the conversation could become a contest.

"Rayleigh is my guest. Treat him the same way you would expect another Familia to treat me if I entered their home under invitation. I am not asking you to like him, and I certainly don’t expect the two of you to become friends over dinner."

Allen’s expression tightened slightly at the reprimand, though he accepted it without argument.

His irritation was directed at Rayleigh rather than his goddess, and after another glance at the swords he moved aside.

"Fine. Just keep that backward sword sheathed."

Rayleigh remembered Allen charging repeatedly through Sakanade’s reversed senses and almost smiled.

"That seems fair."

He left it there.

Freya glanced back at him as they entered the building, evidently pleased that neither man had turned the reunion into something more troublesome.

...

The dining room reserved for Freya’s senior members was much smaller than Rayleigh expected.

He had imagined something extravagant when the Goddess of Beauty invited him to dinner at the headquarters of Orario’s strongest Familia, but the room was comfortable rather than ostentatious.

A long table occupied most of the space, the food was already being served, and the atmosphere felt closer to a private Familia meal than a formal banquet.

The four Gulliver brothers were already there.

They noticed Rayleigh almost simultaneously, and the resemblance between their reactions was impressive enough that he briefly understood why people occasionally treated the four Pallums as a single unit.

The eldest looked at Freya first, received a small nod, then turned his attention back toward Rayleigh.

"We heard Lady Freya brought a guest. We did not expect Yōtōsai."

One of his brothers leaned slightly forward, studying Shinsō with open curiosity, while another glanced toward Ottar and immediately noticed the traces of dust still clinging to his clothes from the quarry.

Rayleigh took the empty seat Freya indicated. "If it helps, I didn’t expect to be here until about half an hour ago."

"That sounds like Lady Freya."

The comment earned the brother who made it a warning look from the others, although Freya merely laughed and sat at the head of the table.

Allen entered behind them and chose a seat far enough from Rayleigh to make his preference obvious without becoming childish about it.

Ottar sat on Freya’s other side, placed Tenken within easy reach, and immediately attracted the attention of everyone who knew the weapon well enough to notice that something about him seemed different after the day’s training.

Dinner began without ceremony.

Rayleigh appreciated that.

He had eaten with gods, captains, adventurers, smiths, and enough dangerous people that formal dining no longer impressed him.

The food mattered considerably more, and Folkvangr’s cooks were clearly accustomed to feeding adventurers who burned through absurd amounts of energy every day.

Freya let him eat for several minutes before bringing up the reason she had spent the afternoon outside the city.

"Rayleigh examined Tenken this morning. The blade is approaching another stage of development, but Ottar’s problem was not a lack of strength."

That caught everyone’s attention much faster than Rayleigh’s presence had.

The Gulliver brothers looked toward Tenken, while even Allen’s irritation disappeared beneath genuine interest.

Ottar explained the matter himself rather than leaving it to Freya.

"I have treated Tenken as an extension of my strength and my duty. Rayleigh believes that is limiting the bond because I have spent too much of my life defining everything I want through Lady Freya rather than understanding which desires are mine."

There was no embarrassment in his voice.

Ottar treated the conclusion the same way he would any weakness discovered during combat: something to understand and correct.

Allen looked toward Rayleigh with considerably more skepticism.

"You’re telling the strongest man in the city that his problem is that he doesn’t think about himself enough?"

Rayleigh finished what he was eating before answering. "I’m telling a Zanpakutō wielder that Bankai isn’t earned by having larger muscles or more Magic. Tenken came from Ottar’s soul. If he wants the sword to reveal everything it can become, then he needs to understand that soul as something more than a weapon belonging to Freya."

Allen’s expression suggested that he still found the idea strange, but he had seen enough Zanpakutō over the years to know Rayleigh was not inventing mystical rules for entertainment.

Rayleigh continued, giving the whole table the explanation rather than turning it into an argument between the two of them.

"Ottar’s loyalty isn’t a weakness, and Tenken clearly shares it. The problem is that there’s a difference between choosing to devote yourself to someone and forgetting that you existed before the devotion.

During his fight with Zald, Ottar wasn’t pushing himself because Freya ordered him to win. He wanted to surpass a man who represented everything he still lacked. That desire belonged to him, and Tenken responded strongly enough that even Zald recognized the difference."

Ottar’s hand rested against Tenken’s sheath.

The others knew that battle.

They knew what Zald had represented to their captain and what it had taken for Ottar to finally defeat him.

Freya watched her children rather than Rayleigh while he spoke, and there was quiet satisfaction in her expression.

She had said something similar outside the city, but hearing the principle explained to the rest of her Familia made one thing clear: Rayleigh was not trying to weaken Ottar’s devotion to her.

He was trying to make Ottar stronger without destroying the part of him that made the devotion meaningful.

Allen eventually leaned back in his chair. "I still think it sounds unnecessarily complicated."

"Most things involving souls are."

"That sword of yours made me spend several minutes running in the wrong direction. I’m aware."

Rayleigh almost laughed but kept the reply simple.

"Sakanade enjoyed meeting you."

Allen’s ears flattened.

Freya covered her smile with her cup, while the Gulliver brothers suddenly became very interested in their food.

Even Ottar’s expression shifted by the smallest amount.

Rayleigh decided one joke was enough.