Story:Kings of Strife/Part 24

Part Twenty-Four
“L-Lady Nolstuvainia?! Where have you been? What are you doing here?” The door guards, members of the royal guard and close acquaintances of Vainia’s since childhood, stood as if modeled in stone when they saw Vainia’s face approaching them. She was in a nondescript cloak of all blue with the hood up, but it fell in her haste and they noticed her. Despite their bewilderment, the guards moved from in front of the inner palace door and parted to let the young princess pass.

“Father and mother are still away, yes?” Vainia completely ignored the guards’ inquiries and waltzed right past them with surprisingly long strides for one of her stature. Her question was directed to the foyer butler and herald who stood inside the palace right behind the door, exactly where she remembered.

The herald was taken completely off guard by her presence and her question and he, too, froze in place upon hearing it. After an instant he regained his composure and ran to catch up with the speeding woman. The foyer was wide and completely flanked by doors or stairs in every direction. In the middle of the floor, Vainia stopped and looked forward, and the herald stopped running when he was right behind her.

“Ah, Lady Nolstuvainia! Er, yes, they are indeed; the bi-yearly meeting of nations, of course. But, if I may ask, where have you-“

“You may not ask at this moment, Dreeves.” Vainia’s curt reply shut the herald up immediately and he raised his chin slightly in response, diverting his eyes from her without hesitation. He nodded slightly at this. Vainia looked around the large area before glancing at the man behind her. He had gotten fatter since she saw him last, and he had grown a beard that was snow white, like his retreating hair. “Where is Chancellor Liteus? He is here, is he not?”

The butler hesitated for a moment, obviously torn between something. “Er, yes, but… Is it proper to see him in such attire? After disappearing for years? After all, My Lady, you…”

“I don’t believe I asked you to summarize my life story, Dreeves, I asked you where Chancellor Liteus is at the moment.” She cut the herald off once again and he responded by diverting his gaze and straightening up immediately once again. Vainia, previously glancing at the butler with little more than passing impatience, now looked right at him with a withering look covered in irritation. He self-consciously sucked in his gut a little bit and straightened even higher under her gaze. “Has my absence dulled your vigilance? Or do you doubt my identity?”

The herald looked her in the eyes for a second before being completely overwhelmed by the fierceness within them. Almost involuntarily, Dreeves buckled to his knees and looked down at the shiny and gold polished tiles on the ground. “He, he is in Your Grace the King’s study, My Lady,” he stammered. The elderly man could practically feel Vainia’s heavy gaze on his back, and he shrunk into himself as much as he could.

“That’s more like it.” She turned but did not walk away just yet. “Dreeves… How is your grandson doing?”

The butler gulped. He was savvy to Vainia’s apparent mood swings, and knew that her asking a seemingly irrelevant question only meant he was on thin ice to her. “He’s six now, and looks just like his father. Built strong as a bull, My Lady.”

Vainia walked away with a chuckle. “Very good, then. Do not announce my presence, if you will, good sir.” The butler let out a quiet grunt to confirm that he heard her but did not get up from his kneeling position. The cloaked princess, now with a destination to her mission, walked straight forward from the door and briskly stepped up the golden spiral staircase. Her footsteps were light yet rushed; when she arrived at the third floor of the elevation, she stepped off onto the landing and started walking heavily down the hallway of the royal palace.

Now on the beautifully maintained stone tiles of the palace, Vainia’s battered hard sole dress shoes from the Zeta uniform made satisfying clicks as she walked. In response, as she walked past them, some of the gold plated doors in the hallway opened and various house staff members looked out into the hallway in curiosity. When they saw her, they all replied with surprise, followed by adoration and joy.

At the end of the hallway, Vainia found what she was looking for, and entered without hesitation. She walked inside the room and shut the door behind her within moments. The Chancellor wasn’t immediately visible to her, but the study was a large and almost labyrinthine conglomeration of books, desks, and documents, so he was almost certainly somewhere.

“Didn’t I tell you not to come back until I summoned you next, Reah? What kind of maid do you think you are?” The voice of the Chancellor rang in from the very back of the study. Vaina looked towards it and started to walk there; within seconds, she found Liteus. He sat in a large and extravagant plush chair and was furiously scribbling something on a large wooden desk. He had his back to her and was overlooking a tall window that had a direct view of the Mortisian coastline.

“I thought Dreeves doubted me, but to be mistaken as a maid? How insulting.”

Her reply, closer in person than he was prepared for, scared the Chancellor and he almost fell out of his seat. Swiftly he turned to her and his face somehow grew more surprised at seeing who she was. “L-Lady Nolstuvainia?! But…!” He sputtered with his words, unable to articulate, and his eyes almost looked like they would pop out of their sockets. The Chancellor usually wore bright clothes and lascivious robes, but apparently he was relaxing or studying now, and was outfitted in a simple blue bodysuit with a few sashes across his waist and crotch. In her absence, he had grown a few more wrinkles across his prodigious forehead, but besides that, not much of his vaguely middle-age appearance had changed.

Vainia crossed her arms and leaned her weight to one leg. “It’s nice to see you too, Liteus, and I’m encouraged to see that you are diligently working in the absence of my parents to rule. You have my thanks.” The stand-in ruler, confused yet happily complimented, rubbed the back of his neck and nervously chuckled. “Unfortunately, I don’t have time to discuss much with you, save for a simple demand I have.”

The Chancellor looked over her for a second before looking at her in alarm. “What could you possibly want? Where have you been?! The King and Queen have been so horribly wounded by your absence, young woman!”

The cloaked girl sighed and resisted rolling her eyes at the Chancellor. “I did not come here to be lectured, Liteus. I need something from you; no, from the nation.” The man did not seem to like hearing this, for he looked at her with even wider eyes. She vaguely wondered just how wide he could open them.

“You disappear for four years and the first thing you do upon returning to your home, unannounced no less, is ask something of me? Of your country?” He seemed genuinely appalled by this. Vainia avoided eye contact and let out an unfitting smile as she bit her lip.

“I’ll be back, of course,” she articulated. Her talking had slowed, while the Chancellor had gradually been speaking faster at her in his frustration. “I really did not want this reunion to drag on for more than was necessary, Chancellor Liteus, especially when I have important business to attend to. Please; cooperate with me. I wouldn’t want to make this more complicated than it has to be.”

Liteus slammed his fist on his wooden desk and stood up. “You’re leaving me with no choice, Lady Nolstuvainia! How do you expect me to react? What should I do in this position?!” He glared at her and she returned the gaze with an equal amount of fire in her heart. It was obvious she wouldn’t be backing down. The Chancellor sighed and rubbed at his temples with closed eyes. “What do you even want? How could we possibly help you with whatever insane task you’re going about now?”

“I need ships. Six of them. The six strongest battleships we have.”

The Chancellor just chuckled. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Do I even want to know what you’re planning on doing with them? Where did you even get the idea that you could just come in and do this?”

“Are you going to accept my request, or not?” Vainia spoke with a quiet and calm voice, but her expression betrayed how impatient she was growing. Liteus noticed this quite clearly. He tilted his head slightly and studied her with more of a bewildered, frazzled expression as he began to walk towards her.

“What’s gotten into you? What happened to the innocent and strong-willed little girl who I used to enjoy seeing play around the courtyards? Are you even the same person anymore?” The Chancellor held out a hand, slowly and wistfully, to stroke Vainia’s cheek. She shooed it away with her hand and turned away slightly.

“She grew up and took full notice of the unjust world around her.” The princess’ words were harsh and didn’t show an iota of weakness or nostalgia. The elder man before her was taken aback at this tone and, eyes widened, he looked down and rubbed at his facial hair. “If you won’t give me what I need voluntarily, I’ll just have to take it with my authority. Send word to the harbor that the six ships are to mobilize in less than an hour, and that I will be accompanying them. Besides that, do not tell anyone about my presence or what I came here to do.” A silent minute passed in which neither of them moved. The cloaked girl responded by tilting her head and looking back at the pseudo ruler. “Or are you going to explicitly defy the orders your future queen is giving you, Chancellor?” By dropping his name and speaking with the quietest and most acidic voice she had, Vainia succeeded in weighing the man with a heavy burden of guilt and duty. He gulped.

“Of… Of course, Your Highness.”

*****

After their encounter with the Lance Knight and the newly dubbed Chosen Knight, Singun and Vikcent followed the two on foot. They couldn’t use their car anymore because the two Knights were on foot, as it would be easier to just walk after them at a safe distance. After leaving the ruins of Phenicks, the two agents of Ouroboros unwittingly lead the mercenary and the soldier across the country rather uneventfully until, little more than a week later, all of them were on the outskirts of Shorekeep, the city on the westernmost shores of Shorica.

Along the entire journey, Hyusei had been holding Silverius back and making sure that he didn’t force his way forward and attack the Lance Knight. The task was difficult; the man, infuriated with the position the large warrior held over Maria and how they had “forced their will upon her”. Hyusei found himself awake all the time with barely any sleep at all to accomplish this, for Silverius himself did not sleep and they both knew he would slip away the moment Hyusei made himself vulnerable. Vikcent was continuously astounded by just how strong the mercenary was and how little sleep he needed to function, whereas the first two days he went without a wink of sleep, his entire body felt like it was wading through deep mud with every action.

It was becoming concerning how completely ran thin Hyusei was becoming. It was to the point that he was fearing for his safety and well-being. Still, there was no way he could turn back at this point. After going through the desert for more than a week and then immediately moving forward with Silverius, he had only one sleepless night to lick his wounds, and it was showing. His normally muscular and large body was becoming emancipated and he was beginning to thin out of his clothes. Vikcent still looked better than the perpetually rough-looking Silverius, though.

The more he soothed Silverius’ constant irritation and reiterated the two’s ultimate goal to the man, the more Hyusei found himself in thought of their situation and how the mercenary felt. Hyusei had never been in love before, not seriously, and so he found the man’s obsession with this Maria character to be a bit odd and unwarranted. He had also seen how wound up and excited the man had been to see her, as well as how depressed and hurt he had been before he found her again, so he decided not to ask any questions about it for fear of bringing back his sadness or even drag up some anger in the man. He looked at these feelings that Silverius had and could only describe them as foolish and all too passionate. It didn’t take long for Hyusei to decide that he didn’t want to fall in love if it meant he would act as Silverius did.

Speaking of the mercenary, he spent the next seven or so days eagerly following the trail of the Lance Knight and the knight’s prisoner. Initially he was reluctant to hold back and simply tail them, as Hyusei suggested they do, but eventually he realized that the Knight was likely either leading Maria to comrades or to a Crystal. Both of those were situations in which he would win; either a second Crystal could enter his possession, or he could eradicate all of those who stole Maria in one fell swoop. It only took him half a day to come to this conclusion, but still he kept up the façade of barely holding himself in for the next few days. This kept Hyusei, who was more or less his jailor at this point, awake for every moment that Silverius was. The soldier was obviously not used to such a schedule and was clearly weakening from exhaustion. That would make it easier for him to ditch and even take out when the time came for Silverius to retrieve Maria and the next Crystal.

By the eve of the sixth day of travel, Silverius took a long look at himself and was horrified when he realized what he had planned. Not only was finding Maria still a huge priority in his mind, something that he told himself he was moving on from, but he was also acting completely in the favor of finding more Crystals and hoarding them to the point of killing someone who was, so far, an ally.

The mercenary was slowly but surely finding himself entrenched in a personality he knew nothing of with goals that meant nothing to him. He thought back to his goals of just a few months ago with nostalgic bitterness; how simple life was when he wanted only to get enough money to have a nice house and retire peacefully! Even when discussing the Crystals to himself, the point in which he could justify hoarding them as means to selling had long passed. He was indisputably gathering them for his own selfish gain.

Silverius thought back to what Hyusei said on the beach of Straits City, weeks ago, before he had traveled to the Black Pass and fought with Taoris and his friend. The soldier, back then, was still in shock after losing his Crystal to a member of Ouroboros, and Silverius was bitter after losing both Cidolas Teftah and Maria. He had said, in a lashing out of anger and frustration, that Silverius was acting out of greed and was blinded to his own attachment to the Crystal.

“You don’t want to risk them beating you and taking it away. I felt it too, y'know,” he had confessed that night. “The Crystals do something to you.”

This was the first time Silverius took a long look at Hyusei and really wondered about what went on in the man’s head. By now, on the sixth day of following the Knight across the country, the soldier was viciously tired and visibly sluggish. His eyes, now resembling Crono’s with how they drooped, also had dark bags underneath them. More importantly, they lacked the same luster that they had fiercely shone with when the two met in Straits. This was a changed man; although he still held the same passion and goal-oriented mindset that he had boasted back when the two first met and clashed, he had been hurt along the way, wounded by something that apparently he hadn’t wanted to share.

“He must not have found his Crystal, or the boy who stole it,” Crono reasoned. Now, he began to wonder why the two had met again, for the first time. What was Hyusei doing all the way in the middle of the Inusian desert, and why had he been so raggedly dressed? The mercenary thought back to the past two week’s events with a mind that was still sharp. While the past six days had been an uneventful hike through dark, humid forests marked only by their rest watches and the food rations they shared, the week before that had been plenty excitement. Back in Phenicks, oddly, Hyusei had known who the Lance Knight was. If encountering them in battle was something Silverius “didn’t want to do,” as was exclaimed, then obviously Hyusei had experience to speak of this in such a manner. The mercenary connected two and two together; Hyusei must have found the Lance Knight somewhere in the desert, and lost in a fight against them. Although he had clearly been wounded and left for dead, he had chased after the enemy, and was still doing so. “That must mean he has some sort of plan for actually winning this time.”

But why was he chasing them so fervently and so determinedly? The mercenary, granted plenty of time to ponder these things while hiking, still struggled with this inquisition. He didn’t want to directly ask, for he didn’t want the soldier to realize that he was coming up with anything other than a plan to rescue Maria. The more ignorance that Vikcent could have when Silverius turned on him, the better. Regardless, the only answer that the black-haired sellsword had to his question was that the Lance Knight must have a Crystal, perhaps even the one that was stolen from Vik.

If the Crystals, powerful objects that they apparently were known as, were so addictive and so powerful, it only made sense that Hyusei wanted – needed – to recover his. For them to have permeated Silverius’ thinking so completely, and increase his physical abilities so exponentially (he had never gone this long without sleep before, and the Crystal was the only explanation for this superhuman phenomenon), the man couldn’t imagine what sort of effects his body would have if it was suddenly separated from him. This, now that he thought about it, explained a lot of the lethargy and bitterness that Hyusei had been exhibiting. In fact, the mercenary found it somewhat amazing that the man was still mostly sane and functional after losing his Crystal, although his meltdown in Inusia City had probably been the exception to the rule.

Cidolas! That was what he had forgotten – his mysterious companion who had been lost to whatever happened that night on Straits beach. She was brought to mind when he remembered that night and how fervently she was devoted to protecting the Crystals to Ouroboros. She was an odd one; he never figured out just what her connection to the identical man he had killed in the northern country of Norzaven. Her personality never seemed to amount to anything except for those last few nights before she had been killed. As if she had opened up to him, she began actually showing emotion and giving hints on what her true goals are.

At this, Silverius felt a lingering and painful smidgen of shame. So obsessed was he with Maria back then that he took Cidolas for granted and never even paid attention to her obviously burgeoning respect for him. He didn’t even bother to mourn for her death until now; between Maria and Taoris, he had been completely obsessed. This wasn’t like him at all; as antisocial he might have been, Singun Crono Silverius had never been one to brush off the death of a familiar. They had always affected him in the past, so what was different now?

He didn’t even want to answer that question, but he knew the answer. The only thing that had changed was that he had obtained the Crystals, and he had met Maria. Deep inside, he knew that these were both becoming harmful to him and every element of his life, but he knew that he would never be able to let either of them go. He needed the Crystal too much, and he loved Maria too much. She was all he thought about, even when Hyusei fell asleep at night and Silverius found himself comforting his body, alone. This was what his life amounted to now, and it would be easier to just follow what his instincts bid him to do rather than to resist and cut them out of his life. He didn’t even want to cut them out, completely. That was truer the more he pondered it until he was completely sure of its truthfulness; Silverius wanted Maria, and he wanted the Crystals.

Shortly after coming to this conclusion, in the middle of the sixth night of travel, Silverius realized where they were traveling to. He turned to his side and shook the shoulders of Hyusei, who was walking beside him. The soldier looked at him with a delayed and detached expression.

“What is it?” Vikcent’s voice was monotone and strained.

“I know where we’re going – this is the trail to Shorekeep. I… I didn’t think anyone else knew it, but I recognize these tree formations. I’ve traveled it a hundred times before.” The mercenary silently sniffed; he recognized the sweet and melancholy taste of the sea, as well. Shorica, his home country, has a sort of majestic nature that his body would never forget. Mentally, he kicked himself for not noticing these things earlier.

Hyusei was barely affected by this information at all. “…Okay? That’s great. Let’s go, we don’t want to lose them.” He coldly disregarded the nostalgia and continued to follow the footprints on the muddy ground they traversed on.

Once again, Silverius roughly gripped at Hyusei’s shoulder, and once again he was met by a dull stare. “Don’t you see? I know this area, and if they stop in Shorekeep, I’ll have a home field advantage! I don’t really know who that Lance Knight was, but there is no way they have lived in Shorekeep as long as I have. With my knowledge of those slums, we can come up with some sort of plan. We can take these people down!”

Vikcent’s reaction was expectedly delayed. He stopped walking and looked down at the ground with darting, thoughtful eyes. “I… I guess I can come up with a plan of action, sure, but… Can we really do this?” For once, he showed hesitation, as if his ultimate goal was in front of him and he wasn’t worthy to grasp it just yet. His eyes seemed to sparkle with childish glee at the thought of finally defeating his enemy.

Silverius, who was beginning to feel a form of twisted guilt when he thought of his own ultimate goal towards Vik, gave off a polite smile. “Yes, of course! We can do this, you and I. You were right about them leading us towards their goal.” The next natural part of his sentence would have led to a congratulation for the soldier, but Silverius felt such a thing was awkward and out of character for him, so he simply patted the larger man on the back and continued to walk.

Both men, at this point, were grinning from ear to ear. The moon, like a spotlight of divine intentions, highlighted Vikcent Hyusei and his giddy gaze, showing off his well-intentioned mind to the world, exposing it. On the other hand, the blackness of the night and the light’s void in the surrounding forest vicinity covered Singun Crono Silverius as if attempting to shroud and drown him in complete darkness. He was smiling without realizing it, beaming despite his reluctance with his forthcoming betrayal. Both of them saw their ambitions blooming beautifully before them, each unaware that the other needed to destroy the opposite flower in order to grasp their own.

*****

Gin Taoris found himself awaking to the sunrise. The warrior, stretching out all of the tension from his muscles as he yawned and squinting at the brightness of his surrounding area, thought back to what happened before he fell asleep and was instantly filled with revulsion and hatred. Whoever that boy was that he clashed with, Taoris knew he was a threat that needed to be taken care of as soon as he had the opportunity. Unfortunately, as fervently as he felt about the Zeta-bound student, he simply had no choice of failing Nolstuvainia and not following her plan to the letter.

The plan she had given him was already a bit off schedule. Taoris stood and looked around him with brightly blazing blue eyes. The ruins of the small wooden shack still existed untouched, and the sun had obviously risen, which meant that more than a day couldn’t have passed. The tall man glared at the nearby forest with the eyes of a lifelong outdoorsman; analyzing the amount of leaves that had fallen, and their color, as well as the lack of any foliage around the wooden ruins, he confirmed this thought. He glanced back up to the sky and was glad that it was still early enough for the moon to be visible in the quickly blooming atmosphere. It was in a waning crescent, which was only one cycle advanced than the moon he had observed the night before the shack ambush. All of these factors added up to the conclusion that he had only been asleep for one night.

Gin massaged the back of his neck and started to jog past the shack and into the dense forest, where he had initially been headed. The most important objective to him at this point was forcing the memory of the uniformed boy – even the slightest thought of him induced tight clenching of the warrior’s fists – out of his consciousness and focusing solely on Vainia’s plans. He was only a day late but still several days ahead of both the mob and her, so he wasn’t in the hole just yet.

Her plans were ingenious, he admitted, but still had the rough edges of a tactical novice. She might have had intelligence, but her lack of experience was relatively visible in how many liberties she left in her objectives. Taoris pondered these as he hiked through the Shorican lands, trees and coastlines becoming a mere blur in his vision. That was why she had him on her side, he supposed, among other reasons; he was to be the experienced combat veteran to her passionate yet naïve revolutions.

Plans and blueprints went through the runner’s head as he blindly traversed the Shorican countryside. Part of his specialty with military tactics stemmed from the years he had spent as a lawless vagrant. He visualized forts he had once broken into, strongholds he had brought down, weaknesses he had exploited. By eliminating all weaknesses, the only thing left possible for him to create was complete strength, an impenetrable fortress that would protect Vainia during her siege from the inside and the resulting chaos from the rest of the nation. Even taking into account the fact that mostly untrained civilian rebels would be creating his idea over an extremely short amount of time, the warrior still smirked with confidence at his contemplation.

He was going to make sure that Vainia succeeded.

*****

By the eighth day, Singun Crono Silverius and Vikcent Hyusei had followed the Lance Knight and Maria Zorphan to Shorekeep, the sprawling Shorican metropolis that was situated the farthest west of all its cities. The two were both tense as they recognized the tall buildings of the city coming up on the horizon and smelled the salt of the sea coming closer. By this point, a mere mile or two away from the city limits, the forest had thinned out, and the rolling hills left behind allowed no ways for the two to hide from their prey. They had left stealth behind at this late stage in the game.

What the forest had given the land in landscaping, however, the two found was compensated for in pure chaos.

Almost every square inch of the hills around Shorekeep was filled with people. The crowd was enormous, spread out, and riotous. As soon as Silverius and Hyusei had arrived on top of a hill and had seen the crowd, they immediately lost track of where the Lance Knight and Maria had went to. The two stood in awe for a moment at the aimless chaos they saw in front of them for a moment.

Finally, Singun looked to his companion, who once again looked forward with almost dead eyes. Singun shook him at both shoulders and forced the soldier to look at him. “Hey. Come on, focus. We’re here. We’ve just got to get into the city and find those two, then we’ll take everything by the plan we discussed. We’ve got this. Alright?” The soldier dumbly nodded. “Right. If anything, just rely on me.” Without another word, he turned and started running right towards the crowd, followed after a moment by Vikcent.

When they reached the wall of people, entering was easy and they continued to run by jostling and pushing others out of the way. Something about the people was strange, very much so, Singun thought as he led his comrade through their obstacle. The two pushed people out of the way with no regard for politeness or safety at all, but not a single person ever cried out or glared at them. If anything, the crowd was simply a wall of corpses, all shuffling forward with vague aggression.

The people seemed to radiate this form of vague hatred, which was the cause of Singun’s initial aggression. While none of it was stated, it was obvious that this crowd was a mob, intent on causing some form of destruction or revolt. All of the people were dressed in rags or damaged clothing, and a steady wall of slow-droning groans floated off from the mass of people relentlessly. From their clothes and the sheer scale of the people, it was obvious that they had not come from the city. Where could they have come from? What could they be doing?

Silverius couldn’t figure any of it out, but he decided to ignore the problem and simply make his way into the city. With him and Hyusei running, they would be there in minutes, and at that speed, there was no way they wouldn’t be able to find the Knight. The mercenary was completely self-assured.

That is, until the screaming began.

The noise initially began behind the two, and once it permeated the funeral drone of the crowd, every single person stopped moving and turned around quickly. With the great populace stuck in place currently, not many people could see what caused the scream, but it was soon repeated with another scream, then another, before the moaning wall became replaced by a solid wall of screams. People immediately turned and started to run towards the city with newfound energy.

Singun was pulled away from Hyusei in an instant. “Shit!” An obstacle like this could be the ruin of his plans; was this something that the Lance Knight had done on purpose? The mercenary screamed, struggling to keep his voice above the yelling around him, hoping that his statement would find its way to Vik’s ears. “Keep running! Just get to the city! Meet where we planned!”

Silverius was pushed to the ground at that point and instantly held his arms over his head to protect himself. Feet trampled over him and he rolled around, getting constantly kicked and pushed around. The wind was knocked out of him and he felt his body collide with the floor several times. In the nape of his pain, he thought he heard a “Roger!” from a voice that sounded like Hyusei’s. That was a comfort, at least.

As fast as it started, his trampling stopped, and Singun lay on the ground in the fetal position. His body was aching and he was bleeding from his head, but no major injuries hindered him. At first he began to pick himself up off the ground slowly, but then he remembered the reason behind the stampede, and looked behind him in alarm. He was met by a grim visual of an oncoming wall of soldiers, all dressed in riot armor, wielding batons, and running right towards him.

Without another moment of hesitation, Silverius turned and began to run again. Every molecule in his body was now fine-tuned for self-preservation. Now that he wasn’t held back by having a huge crowd around him, he ran forward at his fastest speed, completely passing the various stragglers from the mob who were also trying to escape the police force.

He absentmindedly entered the city limits and navigated towards the meeting place. The cobblestone beneath his feet didn’t slow him down any more than the grass did, and he turned down wide streets and alleyways confidently. Now that he was back in Shorekeep, he knew he would be able to find Hyusei, if the former had indeed made it to their rendezvous point as expected.

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