It was nighttime. The moons shone faintly through a layer of clouds, and Fenrir i'Syul wandered the streets, unsure what to do.

Yerin and Trevor Aelis had talked with him throughout the day, showing him around the wealthier districts of the city. They'd assumed that Fenrir had had a goal in mind when he came to the capitol, and so did not ask him to stay with them, thinking that he'd probably already arranged a place to stay. However, Fenrir was in the capitol by pure chance, and did not really have a goal in mind. Since he no longer needed to maintain the illusion of needing sleep, Fenrir wandered through the city, the shadows of his hood obscuring his features. The capitol was heavily populated, but the stink that one would expect from such a dense community of people was not present due to magic used for plumbing. However, the elegant and clean streets did not extend into the slums. As it was a bit past midnight, the streets were practically empty, and nothing in particular caught Fenrir’s eyes as he wandered. Suddenly, the boy stopped. About a mile and a half away, there was a commotion as two fully grown men beat a pair of children of about sixteen years of age.

The children were scrawny, seeming to be on the brink of starvation, while the men were huge and covered in layers of muscle, each bearing a tattoo of a jagged dagger on their left bicep. As Fenrir watched, he noticed that though the men had already hit the pair of boys to the point that they each had several broken bones, the boys kept trying to resist, rather than fleeing or just curling up and enduring. Fenrir had teleported to the location and was watching from the roof of a nearby building, and he narrowed his eyes as he noticed a presence, though faint, farther down the alleyway. Upon further inspection, Fenrir discovered a girl who, despite her stunning beauty, seemed to fade into the surrounding shadows, her presence faint to the point that Fenrir had barely noticed her. She was fleeing from the fight, but kept glancing backwards as she ran, tears streaming down her cheeks. Fenrir sighed, put on a mask, and teleported between himself the men and the boys they had been beating, bringing the strange girl with him.

~~~~~~~

Jon panted as he stood on trembling legs, his left hand barely mustering the strength to hold onto the broken cobblestone that he had been using as a weapon. Draf's goons had come after Kijiro, as Jon had feared.

He an Tam had always hidden their little sister from the public, as her beauty would bring the kind of attention that they didn't want. The three siblings had been orphaned soon after the girl was born. In fact, their mother's last action was to name Kijiro before she died. Only Jon, and Tam, who were twins, remembered their father; the man had been the main source of income for their family, but he died in an accident when the boys were five, and Kijiro had only been three. As per tradition, he had been the one who named the sons, while their mother, a foreigner, had named Kijiro. Upon their father's death, the siblings had been unable to afford staying in the middle class district, and were forced into the slums, where the eldest siblings had scrounged, scavenged, begged, and stole for money enough to afford food, clothes, and a small shed in which Kijiro had been confined. The boys weren't idiots; they were aware of their sister's beauty, which was already on par with their mother's, and they knew that it would attract the attention of the crime lords. If she was seen by anyone in the slums, then word would eventually get out and the girl would likely be captured and raped or sold off as a slave. Jon and Tam had stressed this danger to Kijiro, but on this day, her fourteenth birthday, Kijiro's sole wish had been to go outside. After much debating, the boys had eventually decided that it would be fine; their little sister had a mysterious ability to seemingly become one with her surroundings for around an hour at a time, and during this time no one would notice her, no matter what she did. They had covered her face for safety's sake and set out, keeping careful track of the time. However, Kijiro had gotten separated her elder brothers, and due to her ability the two hadn't noticed until an hour passed and she wasn't there. Jon and Tam had frantically searched for her, but by the time they eventually found her she had already been spotted by members of the Razor Edges, one of the three strongest criminal gangs in the entire city. Moreover, the person who noticed her had been the gang's leader, a man named Draf. They had barely managed to temporarily escape, but Draf had ordered his goons to search the entire city for Kijiro. Eventually, the trio had been found by a pair of Draf's goons, and Jon and Tam held the goons back while Kijiro used her ability to hide and run. Draf's followers were unaware of where Kijiro had fled, so they decided to capture Jon and Tam for interrogation. Jon knew that he and Tam would be unable to resist interrogation if they were captured, and even if they could, they would likely die doing so. As such, they mounted a hopeless resistance, which resulted in the current circumstances.

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One of the men swung a fist at Jon, who was unable to dodge due to his haggard condition. He braced himself for impact, when suddenly a figure appeared between him and the approaching punch. A bang rang out, and for a moment Jon thought he was hallucinating. A person had appeared out of nowhere, almost like the how the long-forgotten teleportation spell was described, and had blocked a full-powered punch from a huge, muscle-clad man with his body. Moreover, the resulting impact gave out a sound as if the man had punched an iron wall. In fact, the man reacted as if he had punched an iron wall, collapsing and moaning over his now broken hand.

After a moment of complete stupefaction, Jon turned to the mysterious figure. The boy's build showed that he was around the same age as the twins were, but he wore a silver mask that obscured his features. He was wearing simple traveling clothes, with a cloak over them, the hood lowered to reveal white hair that glowed in the moonlight.