Headed by a Snake

Kagehisa Yumiko drew back her warbow and released another arrow. With it, another enemy scout dropped to the ground.

Korr watched with envy. When she was younger, she was respectable with a bow, being able to pull the heaviest of draws with relative ease. The elven archer in her old team told her that her back looked like the raw, rippling muscles of a sexy, murdering tigress.

When she lost her eye, her depth perception was crippled as well. She could only accept her fate and rely on weapons that served her in melee. Seeing her new mother's skill, though, lit the fires of pride in her heart.

Korr's instincts told her that she could trust Yumiko. And the archer told her to stay hidden. Korr thought that it would be very nice if Yumiko and the Ivory Judge sect could rout the enemy without more reinforcements.

Korr had saved Barza Keith in the past with her fists. If Guild Staghorn dared to hurt new-Mom Yumiko, she would use those same two hands to murder every Staghorn she could.

...

"Hold still, woman!" Knight Leserre smashed his iron flail into the ground, rocks and golden leaves spilling into the air.

Kagehisa Yumiko nimbly leapt away, firing an arrow that failed to pierce the man's heavy armor.

"Why do you seek Guild Invictus?" Yumiko spoke sharply, firing another three arrows at the crowd of Staghorn warriors.

Clemont raised a mana shield around himself and those around him, but an arrow still took a casualty, two yalms away. "Sir Knight, would you please stop toying with the enemy?"

Leserre swiped his flail repeatedly in an 8-pattern, "Seven hells, Wizard, can't you see I'm TRYING?!"

Fed up with his inaccuracy, Leserre threw his flail at the jumping woman. He ran forward, a clamoring mess unsheathing a longsword. Attacking with a downward swipe, Yumiko was finally unable to dodge. She threw a fist forward to block the sword, but the weapon bit an ilm deep into her knucklebones.

"'Tis none of yer business why we're tryin' ta take out Invictus. Buuuut let's just say there's a lot of money involved!"

"You fiend!" Yumiko growled. Sweat dripped down her brow from the pain, and she adjusted her breathing to alleviate it.

'I must unseal it... the Kagehisa Forbidden Technique. I've already passed it down to my daughter. I can die without regrets...'

Yumiko thought of her husband, Kimura Daigo. He was the one that forbid her to use the technique, 'Please forgive me, dear husband. Your dear wife can't heed your words on this sun.'

With the force and fury of a thousand falling suns, she kicked Knight Leserre in the groin.

It was a beautifully executed kick, utilizing a natural rotation of her body. Her bones and skin had undergone hardening and training. As an archer, she was not as accomplished as a swordsman or boxer, but her shin bone was harder than her fists or feet.

A crack reverberated throughout the forest, a codpiece broken. Golden leaves fell from their trees. Baby birds wept for their mother to return. A pack wolf howled, lamenting the loss of one of their own.

A single tear fell hot, down Clemont's eye, "Sir Knight... Your sacrifice will not be in vain."

Raising his hand up, he began to extract a cold, purplish mana from his surroundings, "Chill Strike."

"C-clemont!" Leserre yelled, the pitch noticeably higher than his usual baritone.

Feeling a hint of danger, Clemont immediately canceled the spell, the purple mana dissipating in a flash. A thrown weapon bounced harmlessly off his mana shield-- the yellow-robed woman managed to throw it while his concentration lapsed. A line of blood spilled from his mouth from the mana recoil, but it was better than a knife in his throat, "What a terrifying woman."

...

A woman in a white long-sleeved shirt walked out from behind a tree. She wore walking clothes and only carried a sword and a handaxe.

"Another woman who looks like she doesn't belong on the battlefield," Clemont lamented. He glanced to his left and right, noticing none of the others in Guild Staghorn were moving to attack her. The woman in yellow likely elevated their caution.

What was worrisome was that the dark-haired woman didn't say anything. With her clothing, she wasn't part of the sect-- she just looked like a normal merchant girl of the Kingdom. But when her hair swished to the side, she revealed a scar and a glass eye.

Clemont narrowed his eyes in deep suspicion and his heart palpitated in nervousness, 'Dark hair. One eye. But no armor...? No. Two out of three signs. She couldn't be who I'm worried about...'

The girl lifted the handaxe and sent a rapid spinning circle straight at Knight Leserre. With barely enough time to recover from his injury, Leserre lifted his sword arm. The axe head sundered his thick metal arm guard and sank deep into the bone of his forearm, "G-g--g-grAHHHHHHH!!!"

As Leserre wailed in pain, Yumiko dashed to Korr, embracing her with one arm. The coldness of the slayer of men had abruptly transformed into a proud mother's praise, "Daughter, you came to save me!"

Korr nodded, pouting.

Yumiko pinched Korr's cheek, "Very well, Mama Yumiko will watch you fight, then."

Korr puffed her cheeks as she looked at Yumiko's bloodied fist, "Your hand..."

Yumiko sighed with a gentle smile, "Oh, I'll be fine, daughter. But you should make the big, bad metal man pay, alright?"

Korr nodded, "I'll tear out his spine and beat him to death with his skull~"

Yumiko pat Korr on the head, planted several kisses on her cheeks and forehead, and dashed off into the trees.

...

Two Staghorns had grasped Knight Leserre by the arms and had dragged him back to relative safety.

"Seven bleeding hells, Clemont-- the woman nearly cleaved my arm in two!" Leserre's helmet had fallen off, revealing a delirious expression and the man's dark, curled, sweat-matted hair.

Clemont unstoppered a potion and poured it down Leserre's throat, "These things are expensive. Don't throw it up."

Leserre nodded before pulling out the handaxe on his own. Tears of pain were running down his cheeks, but no one dared to mention it. The blood flow stopped but a single healing potion was not enough, "My arm's finished, I can feel how weak the bone is."

"Contact!" A Staghorn swordsman stepped out, swinging his blade to defend Leserre and Clemont. For his troubles, the dark-haired woman had stabbed her sword down to the hilt through the Staghorn's chest and lifted him up into the air above her head. With a brutal rend, she pulled her blade through the man's side-- slashing through both his ribs and his leather armor, before dropping the lifeless corpse to the ground.

In the shower of blood, Leserre clearly viewed the glass eye of the cold-blooded murder in front of him.

He allowed a single word to grace his lips, "Unbreakable."