Yep! That was definitely the thing they were after! In mere seconds after the alarms started an enormous flying creature had sprung from the grass and was barreling towards their encampment. Luckily Mark and Reinhardt had good reflexes, and were standing next to Lawrence in mere moments.
“What the hell?!”
“That’s the damned beast! Quick, apply the potion to your weapons!”
Mark looked down at his stave with a stoic expression on his face but did it always. Better to be prepared, even if he wouldn’t be likely to be the one to get the potion in the monster's blood. Just as Lawrence finished dribbling the potion on his crossbow bolts the thing crashed into their camp, ripping apart the tents and destroying their fire. The sun had begun to come up however, and they no longer needed the fire’s light to see around them. Plus that bastard was enormous.
“Now what uncle?!”
“Pump it full of that poison!”
Lawrence dashed to the side to avoid it’s tail as the monster struggled about, having had some trouble with getting tangled in their tents. He shot a bolt from his crossbow.
TING
“Damn! Those scales are hard!”
“Lawrence! If you want to put use to that weapon you’ll need to hit this thing from a soft spot! Under the limbs and stomach!”
Quickly, Lawrence saw what Reinhardt was trying to point out. Every time the beast struggled one of its limbs came up, showing slightly discolored spots that had smaller scales, including a large one at the stomach. It must be tender there.... though as he was lining up to take a shot they heard a ripping noise, the beast finally able to free itself from the tangled tents. A loud roar emitted from its gaping mouth and it turned back towards the three.
“Uncle! What now-?!”
“GRAAAAAH!”
Reinhardt ran towards the beast, sword above his head, and yelled out as he approached. The beast swept it’s tail under the big man's feet, but he was able to leap into the air and avoid the attack. Mark gulped, but ran towards it as well. He wasn’t sure exactly what to do, but he smacked as hard as he could down on it’s left shoulder as Reinhardt kept the thing’s attention solely on him. He wanted the boys to take pot shots from behind as he dealt with the real threat, as he was the most trained one there. This way they wouldn’t get hurt. As he thought about how he was such a great uncle, Lawrence was finally able to get a hit upon it. One of his bolts gashed a large wound across the stomach of the beast, a feat which he hadn’t even intended upon.
“I was aiming for one of it’s armpits but that works too!”
“Great shot!”
As they cheered Reinhardt noticed something. The beast wasn’t losing steam, in fact, it was struggling all the more. One of its thick arms crushed the ground where Mark was only seconds before.
“Why isn’t it going down?!”
They continued to spar with it, but the battle seemed to be going nowhere. Reinhardt deflected attack after attack, Mark bashed it as hard as he could, and Lawrence tried to look for an opening. It definitely wasn’t out of the fight yet, and chomped down at Reinhardt. He felt a bit of wind at his back as it’s jaw pounded barely centimeters away from his body. Was it getting faster or were they tiring out?! They needed a plan and they needed it fast. Reinhardt looked at their surroundings. Well… they could try that… Another bite at him and he was getting scared. One of the thing’s teeth had given him a tear in his shirt that time, meaning it was catching up with his movements. If they didn’t finish this up fast…
“Uncle! Let me get its attention!”
“What?!”
“Just do it!”
Grunting, Reinhardt ran toward Mark, passing off the beast's gaze by running past his nephew, who stood there with his stave pointed towards it.
“C’mon nelly!”
Suddenly, Mark ran towards the small rock overlook that they had camped in the previous night. Wait… of course! He was going to force the beast to fall off, which would give them the opening they needed! Yet, he didn’t stop. Mark jumped right off the overlook and down to the ground below.
“Uncle! Get on the overlook!”
It was a simple jump if the beast realized it was there, and since it had seen Mark jump it leapt gracefully to the ground. Lawrence and Reinardt met at the overlook and gazed down at Mark as he ran away continuously. They could barely hear Mark as he detailed his plan from below.
“When I pass…. You need to…. Hop on…. It’s back!”
“Oh!”
Reinhardt gave a thumbs up to Mark as he ran, which the man returned. Taking a larger arc with his next turn around, Mark brought the beast right next to the overlook, which is when the large man made his move.
“Hup!”
He jumped off the overlook, almost dropping his sword in the process. Luckily, the spine of the beast stuck out a ways and allowed the man to get a good grip. As he climbed, sword in his teeth, Lawrence drew the beast's attention towards him, shooting near its eyes. Once again, it’s gaze shifted to another of its prey, and soon it was running towards Lawrence. Mark cried out and waved his arms, but Lawrence knew what he was doing. Reinhardt finally approached the beast's head and raised his sword. For a second, Lawrence thought he was going to cut it’s head off, giving them double the problems. However, Reinhardt put the flat of his blade against the monster’s neck and pulled up with both arms. It began to wag its head and Lawrence shot a bolt over the monster’s head, which it attempted to follow with it’s eyes. The monster reeled back and fell backwards, and Reinhardt rolled away, avoiding the monster as it fell onto it’s back. At the last second, Lawrence reached for another bolt, but, realizing he had used the last of them, yelled out to Mark. Luckily, Mark was already on his way, and pressed the still damp wood to the wound on the beast's stomach that Lawrence had made before. After a few seconds, it finally relaxed and they could hear something like snoring from the mass in front of them. With a jolly face, though slightly limping, Reinhardt approached them.
“Amazing! Bahaha, you men know exactly what you’re doing, it feels like I was the bright eyed young pup this time!”
“Oh please uncle it was just spur of the moment.”
“Does spur of the moment net you the power to get anything you want from the elders? Because you’ve got that now I’ll tell ya!”
Lawrence looked back at their camp and his smile wavered a bit.
“What about all that?”
“Oh that? Don’t worry, I’m having a crew come to clean up the mess. Wouldn’t want someone finding all this, would we?”
“So that’s it uncle?”
“That’s it! You get the prize!”
With that, the large man pulled a small item out of his pocket and opened a portal.
“Let’s head back and demand Oku, eh?”
Lawrence looked through with determination.
“Sounds like a plan.”
Once they exited back at the exorcist’s clan hall they were met by an old man and woman who looked at them with one of the most stoic expressions Lawrence had ever seen.
“Elder Yen, elder Ghan, the deed has been done.”
At his words their faces softened and they put their hands out in unison, which created a small light. The light traveled to the job board and the poster with the details on the job was burned to a crisp.
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“Come come, we must discuss your reward.”
The old woman led them into an old room in one of the wings and sat down next to a short table, sipping tea. Ghan closed the door after them and soon they began to ask for what they wanted.
“So, you seek for us to demand the book stealing fox back? Strange, Reinhardt told us about her as well. It appears that her charge was falsified.”
Lawrence looked determined. He hadn’t touched his drink since he had gotten in the room.
“It was, and if we can put our three situations together we can free her from the king.”
Elder Yen closed her eyes.
“Now now, we will likely do what you asked.”
“Thank yo-”
“However, it is a quite dangerous thing that you ask of us, do you understand?”
“Of course. Should this go wrong, the king could see all of this as a conspiracy against him.”
Elder Ghan chuckled.
“And it is! But should that idiot king realize it the exorcists may be in for a war, a war we do not want to fight.”
“But-”
“War isn’t something to rush into my boy. Could you bear the lives lost in a war between exorcists and humans? Would it be worth it just to get one fox back?”
“...”
Lawrence wasn’t sure what to say. He had barely thought of an outcome like that, but it was one that he had to look at. He never wanted to endanger anyone at all, in fact, the entire reason they were doing all these stupid things is because they needed a way to break Oku out of jail legally. As he thought this through he glanced over at Mark who had been sitting in silence, eyes closed, the entire time. Suddenly, he spoke.
“I know you exorcists hate being told what to do and that you hate being looked down upon, but I can assure you that there will be no war over this. Do you really think that the king would allow his slipping power to crumble by starting a war none of the Youkai want? Not only that, Youkai aplenty live outside the capital just to escape his idiotic rule. He may not be a cruel king to his people, but the Youkai know what an idiot he is. He will not go starting any wars, that is for sure.”
Mark folded his arms and the elders began to whisper to one another. Elder Yen was smiling as she looked over at them across the table to deliver her verdict.
“As the customs say we will honor your request. However, we will withdraw it should the king do anything stupid. I’ll be sure to let Reinhardt know as well. Maybe you’ll want to become an exorcist some day Mr. Liberman.”
“Sorry elder, I don’t have any plans on it.”
Elder Ghan looked over the table with squinting eyes.
“Neither did we m’boy. Now go! Get your plans together.”
The doors opened and they left, Reinhardt in tow.
“Man, you boys really convinced them!”
“Oh I didn’t do that much… it was all Mark!”
“I just told them the truth…”
“Aye, either way, I’ll give you a portal back to the inn. Seems that Koichi has one I can hook up to. Let me know when everything is sorted out and the exorcists will be on standby!”
Reinhardt gave a mock salute as a portal behind them. Lawrence waved to the large man, Mark offering a curt goodbye, and suddenly they were in one of the inn’s hallways, standing next to Elaine.
“Oooh! You damned brats! Getting home so late!”
“What? We didn’t mean it Elaine!”
“It was uncle’s idea!”
She had the broom raised but lowered it when they mentioned Reinhardt. She sighed and pointed over to the stairs which led into the living room.
“They’re all downstairs, looks like you were last.”
Lawrence nodded and they walked downstairs. Seph was the first they saw, sleeping in an armchair, followed by Inari and Hato watching the television from the floor. Koichi stood in the kitchen. Hato was the first to notice them arrive.
“Master! Did you do it?”
“Sure did! Showed the exorcists a thing or two! How about you guys?”
Inari looked over from the show boredly.
“We’ve been here for hours, everyone succeeded.”
“Great… Seph? No… Koichi? How did it go?”
“Everything's a go general Lawrence. Just got a call that we’re having another hearing tomorrow morning. Looks like they don’t get many court cases in the capital, wonder why.”
Hato walked right up and gave him a hug.
“So why are you back so late?”
“We got caught up with the elders. Took a very long time…”
Just then, Seph sputtered awake.
“What the hell are you idiots doing here? It’s midnight too!”
Mark walked up behind the sofa and kicked the back.
“We succeeded. The better question is did you almost mess everything up for Koichi.”
Koichi’s voice could be heard from the other room as he confirmed Mark’s inquiry.
“Just about.”
“Hey I helped!”
Everyone laughed, starting to go up to bed. Looks like they really had waited just for Mark and Lawrence to return. He started up the steps, but was caught by Seph.
“Yo Lawrence. Actually… soon I’ll be heading back home for a while. I let Mitch know, but I thought it would be good to let you in on the deal too. I learned a few things about my sword and… well that’s about it.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Just for a while. If I don’t figure all this shit out now I never will.”
“Well, alright. Be careful.”
“You know I will, heh.”
“But you’ll be here for Oku, right?”
“I’ll probably just leave after it’s over if that’s fine. Anyways, g’night.”
Something was bugging Seph and he bounded up the stairs, passing Lawrence on the way. He stared up after the silver haired man and thought about it for a second. Perhaps Seph had learned something out about his sword and needed to go home. It made sense, so he left it. Strangely however, this was not the last person he ran into on the stairs. Inari called out to him as he climbed, and caught him as he was about to set foot on the top floor.
“Lawrence?
Hearing his name, he turned back for a second time.
“Yeah, what’s up Inari?
“I was just wondering what your little trial entailed. And… there’s something I need to tell you about. Could you come to my room quick?”
“Oh, yeah sure.”
Inari was even then deciding what she was going to do. Would she tell him about Oku and Kuun? There was no good answer, but she did want to talk to him. Once they entered the room she wheeled her desk chair over for him to sit on and she plopped down on her bed.
“So, you want to know what we did? We took down some wyvern thing.”
“You did what?!”
“We fought an enormous lizard thing! With Reinhardt it wasn’t so bad, but damn that thing almost killed all of us…”
“What?! You did something that dangerous?”
“Well yeah. Oku’s risked her life for me too you know.”
“Oh… well, about Oku.”
“Yeah, what about her?”
“Me and Hato were able to go into Kuun’s memories, and of course she was in them. We even saw how he died, but we got him to agree to come speak as me and prove her innocence. The thing is… well it might be nothing, but one of the commander’s in the memory said that they l-!”
Suddenly her face stopped moving and Inari sat unmoving on the bed. Lawrence was about to get up and see what was wrong when she started moving again.
“The commander said that Oku would never have killed Kuun, since they were such good friends!”
“Inari, are you alright?”
“I’m fine Lawrence.”
She stood up from the bed and took the orb in her hands, which had been sitting on her desk. Setting it back down, she looked im in the eyes. Somehow, it didn’t seem like her gaze…
“Lawrence, do you like me?”
“W-what? What do you mean?”
“Have you ever loved anyone before.”
“That seems like a really big jump in conversatio-”
“Well?”
“I-I’m not sure. I love all of you guys, but do you mean something else?”
Inari, hands clasped behind her back, walked up to Lawrence and sat down on his lap, facing him.
“I should think that you two deserve a bit of a push, don’t you think?”
She smiled a wild smile, something that he had never seen on her face before, and kissed him. She had her arms around his neck and wasn’t letting go, but after a few seconds she froze. Pulling away slowly, she began to shiver.
“W-w-w-what the hell?!”
Somewhere in another room Koichi sneezed. “Hm? Eh…” He shrugged and laid down in bed.
Back in Inari’s room, she’d frozen. Lawrence waved his hand in front of her face and after a few seconds her eyes followed. Her reaction time was slowed… so she was either really drunk or really shocked. He would believe the second out of those two.
“Inari? Are you alright? Why did you…”
“I didn’t! Something got inside my head and made me… made me do that.”
“Wait, what did that?”
“I don’t have any- wait… Kuun?”
She looked back at the orb and asked it a question, like it could think and feel. Dumbfounded, Lawrence looked past her at the object and surprisingly it responded, laughing.
“Hahaha! You should have seen your face! Oh c’mon I was just rushing your relationship a bit. Hey over there! Don’t believe a word she says she wanted it!”
“What?! I did not you stupid…”
“Wait… you called him Kuun. KUUN?!”
“The one and only! Man it felt good to be in a living body for a few minutes!”
“Y-you’re insane… Lawrence, I’m going to have a word with this idiot. Sorry, but you might not want to hear this.”
Lawrence could tell when he wasn’t wanted, and awkwardly got up, leaving. Without another word he rocketed into his bed and tried to fall asleep best he could. Not only would Oku’s trial keep him up, but was Kuun lying when he said she wanted it? No… that’s ridiculous… Plus, he could faintly hear the banging and yelling coming from Inari’s room as she shouted Kuun down inside in the orb.