Nahida watched as an injured and very angry-looking Kaiser sat bandaging his arm. “You could have gone a little easy on me,” Kaiser growled. “It’s only been a week and you’re barely holding back.”

“I was tougher on Saran.” She said nonchalantly. She glanced over at his work. The bandages were wrapped in almost perfection. “Didn’t know that you were good with injuries.”

Kaiser barely glanced up, but in the split second that he did, Nahida could see his eyes were stormy. Like a memory, he didn’t want to relive. “I used to be a medic for the army. That was before I became a trainee tactician.”

Nahida nodded. “You must have seen a lot of gore then.”

“You could say that.”

They sat together in awkward silence. Nahida inspected the room, which was just a repurposed basement with a few wooden chairs and punching bags lying around.

It was only ever used by her and Varun. She remembered the first and last time Isen had ever used it. He had been particularly angry with Nahida and, in a fit of rage, had destroyed a bean bag to shreds. She giggled, recalling that now of all times.

“What’s so funny?” Kaiser asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Nothing,” Nahida smiled. “Just remembering a nice memory. Anyway, I’m done for today. Come up and drink.” She said.

“I think I’m going to practice a bit more.”

“Be my guest.” She said, taking her towel and walking up to the bar.

As she entered the main bar, she spotted a familiar figure perched up on a stool. Drinking a quiet jug of beer. Mera. Nahida thought. She had a semi-muscular build and was constantly covered with soot and scrapes.

“This entire week has been slow.” Varun groaned from behind the counter.

“Makes sense,” Mera responded. “With the recent attacks, my shop has been virtually empty.”

Nahida strolled over and plopped herself down beside Mera. “How’s life?”

Mera laughed, “What kind of question is that? But sure, I’m fine.” She said. The door jingled, and Eri and Saran walked in.

“Here for a drink?” Varun asked.

“No,” Eri said. “Where’s Kaiser, by the way?”

Nahida pointed towards the doorway leading to the basement, “Downstairs—” Just as she was about to say something else, Kaiser walked through it. Sweaty and exhausted. He sat down on the floor without noticing them.

“Hi,” Saran said, walking up to him. “Are you sleepwalking?”

Kaiser looked up hazily, “I’ve been too busy getting kicked around by Nahida for an entire week to not be sleepwalking.” He said, wiping the sweat dripping from his forehead.

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Nahida stood up, taking a pair of brass knuckles from Mera’s hand and tossing them to Kaiser. He barely managed to catch them and looked at it puzzled, “What’s this?”

“I made Mera make you a pair of brass knuckles,” she said, pointing her thumb at Mera. “Hopefully with this, you can do some damage. I seriously don’t know how you survived your encounter with Ajax.”

Kaiser looked pale. “You know about that?”

“The entire rebellion knows, speaking of, this is it. Everybody in the Kitsune.” She said, placing her arm on Kaiser’s shoulder. “And now you’re a part of it.”

Everyone was comfortable in their spots. Eri and Saran occupy two of the many stools scattered throughout. Varun standing. Mera sitting on one of the plush sofas and Isen curled up asleep on the other. Kaiser remaining on the floor, Nahida began her talk.

She had installed a pull-down chalkboard of sorts almost a week ago for this meeting.

“This is everyone?” Kaiser asked.

“Yep.” Nahida grimaced. “Everyone who is a part of the Kitsune is here. Why? Expected more people?”

Kaiser scrunched his nose. “I guess I expected more than just seven people against an entire nation.”

“It’s hard to recruit anyone these days,” Varun said, leaning back. “The consequences for disobeying Caprian laws are so severe that less than one percent of the population will ever act on it. Even though we’re all thinking it.”

Eri nodded in agreement. “You’d either have to be truly desperate or stupid to do what we’re doing right now.” She smiled, “Or both.”

Nahida hit her fist on the wall, producing a loud thud. “Whatever we are, stupid or otherwise. I want to go over the plan again. Just to refresh you guys and it to Kaiser.”

“You already have the plan ready?”

“Just the rough outline of what will work the best,” Nahida replied. She looked at Varun. “Why don’t you do the honors?”

Varun simply rolled his eyes and started, “As Nahida said, this is more of a basic outline of what’s happening. We planned to provoke a Hunter who lives here in Sango and goes by the name Anita. We had originally thought that provoking her would make Ajax come here.”

“Clearly that didn’t happen. Because of Kaiser, we successfully made it that Ajax came here without putting us on Anita’s radar too much.” Nahida intervened.

Varun sighed. “If you’re going to stop me, I’ll gladly let you tell the entire thing.”

Nahida waved her hand, “Sorry, sorry. Go on.”

“Once we had provoked Ajax, we would use Saran as bait while everyone ganged up on him. I know. Not the most noble strategies, but getting rid of The Hunting Dog is worth it.”

“That’s it?” Kaiser asked.

“Yeah,” Varun replied, “Like I said, just an outline. If we get Ajax out of the picture, our motions going forward becomes much easier and cleaner.”

Throughout this all, Saran sat quietly on his stool. Part of Nahida felt bad for the poor boy, after what he had been through, and now, having his own sibling want nothing more than to murder him and his own friends seeing that and using him as Varun put it ‘bait’ must take a lot out of him.

Still. There was nothing she could do. If they were going to win freedom for Sango, this would all be worth it. Sango was more home to her than Miko islands and she sure as hell going to protect it.

Saran stood up. “If we have nothing else to discuss. I’m going home.” He deadpanned, before promptly leaving everyone without a single goodbye.

“You going to follow him, Eri?” Mera asked.

“No, he wants time to sulk, so let him. Besides, the real reason I came was to get a few drinks.”

Mera laughed, “Seriously, you? Don’t kid yourself. You are so incredibly lightweight.”

“Really!?” Eri yelled, “Fine then, Let’s have a drinking game. The winner gets fifty biznea!”

“You’re on!” Mera replied. Their echoes of laughter and friendly banter continued as Varun poured both of them shot after shot. Neither of them relented as if the fifty biznea was life or death.

Kaiser got up and stood next to Nahida. “Is it okay to just let him go like that?”

“Saran is as fast as the wind. You’ll never catch up.”

“Nahida,” so softly that it caught her off guard. He almost sounded like Isen. “Would you meet me on the terrace? I need to tell you something.”