After several attempts to pull away from a blubbering Shrike, his teammates finally escaped his grasp.

“So what the heck happened, man?” Felix asked.

Shrike wiped his tears. “I turned around when the competition began, but you all had left, so I thought…”

“We moved around to the other side,” Maitri said. “The sun was in our eyes. We went looking for you after but you booked it.”

“Only because I thought you abandoned me! Oh you guys!”

They were all once again captured in one of his hugs. Natsuko, Shuixing, and Sofiane looked on in dismay at the collapse of their plan while Pechorin nodded appreciatively at the sublime, final catharsis to this unfortunate tragedy. A small drop of sweetness entered his bitter, tormented heart.

Sofiane folded his arms. “We gonna finish this game or what?”

Shrike looked over from the group hug. “Nah. I only picked up Elements: The Coalescing to fill the void that intimate companionship had left in my heart. Now that I know I’m still loved and wanted, I can go do something productive and fulfilling.”

He turned around, scooped up his cards, and with a wide grin said, “Mr. Judge, Mr. Other Judge, I forfeit the game!”

Shuixing covered her heart and gave a long sigh of relief while Sofiane punched the air and screamed, “hell yeah!” Natsuko put her sunglasses back on and walked away as though she had done most of the hard work and went to go get another drink. Pechorin just sat down next to Sofiane and watched Shrike and his team leave.

“They’re talking about us,” Sofiane said, pointing out the other tables looking their way. “That’s good.”

Shuixing knew that meant things were going according to plan, but she still found herself blushing under the spotlight. Especially since it was negative attention. She liked to think of herself as a mostly good person; aside from designing a murder weapon and cheating at cards and trying to ruin another Hero’s self-esteem by taunting him with the teammates she thought hated him.

“That was the final game of the day. What do we do now?” Pechorin asked.

“Good question,” Sofiane said, looking around at the games still in progress. “Late lunch?”

As the four of them left to go get lunch, something grabbed Natsuko’s eye. Between the crowds of table, she caught sight of a floating cloud hovering between the tables near where Daisy was seated. Zhidao, however, wasn’t on it. No one was.

She frowned at it but left with the others. It was mid-afternoon before they had a table at the Sapphire Pavilion on a hill overlooking the seafront. The place was so booked up that only Daisy’s name got them a seat.

“Meatball sha guo,” Shuixing said to the waiter.

“Give me samples of every soup on the menu,” Sofiane said.

“Crab legs,” Natsuko said. “As many as ya got. And a bottle of soju.”

“Which flavor, ma’am?”

Natsuko gawked. “They come in flavors!? What do you have?”

Another five minutes of flavor-picking passed before Pechorin was able to order.

“Rice and beef,” he finally said.

The waiter bowed deeply and left with their orders. Sofiane sipped on his glass of plum wine and gazed out to the sea, sinking into his seat with a great exhalation.

“I hate these damn cards,” he said.

“Perhaps we’ll get lucky and Yuna will want to money match us soon,” Shuixing said.

“Gods I hope so,” he said.

“I still wanna know what that damn fox is doing here. He only shows up when shifty shit is happening,” Natsuko said.

“I believe we are the shifty shit,” Pechorin said.

Natsuko slugged down a gulp of her soju, slammed it to the table, and side-eyed him. “You callin’ me shifty?”

“W-Well, we are sort of cheating and causing a nuisance…” Shuixing said.

“Sure, but that’s not why that skeevy little fox is here. I’ve just got this feeling, man. Like… I don’t know, man, I just got this feeling,” she said.

“Can you try to have it in a less annoying way?” Sofiane asked.

“Can you try to exist in a less annoying way?” Natsuko replied.

Shuixing was already looking forward to going home to Vermögenburgh. She was trying not to get her hopes up since they didn’t have the papers retrieved yet, and perhaps the hardest part was yet to come, but so far they were on track to confront Yuna about the theft. However, as a scientist, she tried to never feel too attached to any one hypothesis, lest it blind her. There was always the chance that Yuna wasn’t the thief. Her doubt was in a constant battle against her desire to rid herself of anxiety. For the moment, the latter was winning.

After an hour or two of drinking, dining, and unwinding, the sun was setting over the Bay of Sapphires turning it a dazzling topaz. Sofiane slapped his hands on the table.

“So! Shall we go skulk around the card parlor fishing for a money match?”

He punctuated this question by standing up and starting to leave.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Can I get a to-go box?” Natsuko asked, flagging down a waiter.

The waiter brought a small bamboo box into which Natsuko poured the rest of her soju and stuck a straw through the top to drink out of on the way back.

Shuixing was reminded of the impassioned vow of sobriety Natsuko had taken the night before they left. That had lasted about 48 hours which, admittedly, was a record for Natsu. Once they resolved the matter of these papers, Shui made her own private vow to focus more seriously on getting Natsu to cut down on the drinking.

By the time they returned to the Heavenly Card Parlor, dusk had settled, paper lanterns flickered on, and the after-hours party vibes of the parlor had been turned up. The crowds thinned out and most of the Heroes, and even some of the Non-Heroes, had costume-changed into evening outfits. Amidst the drinking and laughing and partying there were even some people playing cards.

“If we do catch Yuna’s attention, we’ll need to get serious again,” Shuixing said, adjusting her glasses. “Everyone is back on duty. No screwing around.”

Natsuko laughed. “When would I—”

“Natsuko.”

She threw her hands up. “Alright! Alright! I’ll stop after the rest of my takeaway soju.”

It was already plenty, Natsuko was now realizing. Again, that damn drink was sneaking up on her. It was sneaky like that, soju. She was well into tipsy-territory and she was not exactly a lightweight despite her light weight.

“We can still live a little in the meantime, non? We’re not at the goal-line just yet. Hell, who’s to say she’ll take the bait?” Sofiane said.

Shuixing frowned but said nothing. She could tell Sofiane was almost as drunk as Natsuko who was wearing one of the hotel napkins around her head like a bandana. Realizing she couldn’t babysit both at the same time, she leaned over to Pechorin as they went to find a table on the card floor.

“Keep an eye on Natsu for me, please,” she said.

“Like a hawk. Or perhaps a vulture is more fitting,” Pechorin said.

Even more concerning was that Daisy had gone off somewhere and wasn’t at her usual table of elites. Shuixing was not having a good time.

~~~

“So, why are you here?” Daisy asked.

Her legs dangled off the edge of the roof of the Heavenly Card Parlor. Below was a grid of bright lights from the omnipresent lanterns. Up at the top of the blue pagoda, it was all just a fuzzy blur for her.

“Hmm? What do you mean?” Zhidao replied, his paws pitter-pattering on the glazed roof tiles as he danced around Daisy.

“Come on now, sweetie,” Daisy said.

The fox hopped into her lap and rolled over on his back to look up at her. “Hehe, nothing gets past you, does it? Why do you think I’m here?”

“Because the Yishang sent ya, and I’d sure as heck like to know why.”

“Observation duty, duh! What is it always?”

Daisy raised an eyebrow. “Just observation duty?”

“Yup! Just observation duty. C’mon, you know the Yishang wouldn’t spring anything on you without letting you know first,” Zhidao said, batting his little fox eyelids.

She poked him in his peaches-and-cream stomach and pressed down like she was squishing a bug. “Oh yeah? What’re ya observing then?”

“Yowch! Stop! My little belly is tender!” Zhidao said, worming around in her lap.

“Guess ya better tell me sooner rather than later then.”

“It’s nothing all that strange! Really!”

Daisy pulled her finger away. Zhidao swiveled himself upright.

“Heroes in general have been acting strange lately and the Yishang is looking into it, that’s all. Don’t poke the messenger!”

“Strange how?” she asked, keeping her tone light and conversational.

“Well, just about everyone noticed a certain number going down,” Zhidao said.

A cold sea wind ripped over the top of the pagoda roof and Daisy shivered. The crowd murmur below her suddenly sounded distant and tinny.

“Oh yeah, what was the deal with that?” Daisy asked.

“Of course, everyone knows by now it was Frederick Hohenheim, but nobody knows why or how. I was hoping you’d know!”

Daisy put a pink lacquered fingertip to her chin and thought. “Can’t say I do.”

“Fair enough,” Zhidao said, coiling and leaping from her lap back onto the roof. With a wave of his paws, the nimbus cloud he usually rode appeared on the roof and he crawled up on it. “I just thought you might know since you were hanging out with some of the forgotten Heroes all of a sudden.”

Daisy bit her lip.

“I think it’s cool though! Y’know, the new kids on the block teaming up with the old-timers, both of you guys learning from each other. It’s super sweet!”

Daisy shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a gal who loves to mix things up!”

Zhidao giggled. “That you are! Anyhow, tell Shui I said hi. She and I still need to talk about dimension-jumping after all! I did promise her.”

“Seeya around, Zhidao,” she said.

“Seeya later alligator!”

As soon as Zhidao left, Daisy pulled herself up off the edge of the roof and clicked the golden pocket watch dangling from her wrist to summon Peng. While she waited for the stone bird to pull itself out of the glazed clay roof, she thought of ways to hint to the other four that they needed to start making a whole lot less noise.

~~~

“Get fucked!” Natsuko screamed from atop the table. “You suck ass at cards!”

Sofiane smirked at the Hero (some who-the-hell-cares in the triple digits Use-Rankings) he’d just wiped the floor with in cards before washing down the rest of his mostly-full martini. “Better luck next time son!”

Their table drew dirty looks like a painter sketching mud and Sofiane was effortlessly beating every challenger that stepped up to try and humble him. Unfortunately for them, there would be no humbling today. Sofiane was allergic to humility.

“Cheating douchebag,” the Hero said, picking up his cards.

“No cheating here, mon ami! Just some friendly bantering with my acquaintance here between turns,” Sofiane said, roughly slapping Shuixing on the back.

Shui was beyond embarrassed, being now firmly in “mortified” territory. She couldn’t come back to Tianzhou after this. Between Natsuko dancing on tables and Sofiane trying to make enemies out of everyone in the parlor, her reputation was in shambles by association. All she could do was put her bright red face in her hands. Jeering and taunting came from every angle.

Then things went quiet. Even a very drunk Natsuko stopped and turned. The last to notice was Sofiane, who only knew something was amiss when a very large, black shadow crossed the table in front of him.

Turning, he was greeted with the belted waist of Yuna’s armored skirt. Looking up, Sofiane beheld folded arms covered in bandages and dark, angry eyes glaring down at him below a headband with the characters for “monster” on it.

“Money match,” Yuna said.