— Daytime. Beautiful morning. It would be a shame to spill any blood on a day when the birds were so happy.

There were plenty of things to do for both the Theater and the Order — plenty of things they didn’t tell each other they’d be doing.

As far as the priestess was concerned, the Theater would be satisfied with just infiltrating the castle and assassinating the two lords; there would be a collateral body count, of course, but that was par for the course.

With that assumption, she also plotted to capture Damian Quill. He was being helpful towards the Theater, of course, but to the Order, he was a royal pain in the ass. The man eluded capture at every turn, but now, they had a chance. He would be sure to be near the battlefield, observing it and looking for opportunities to advance his interests in the guise of helping the Theater.

She convinced her commanders that Damian Quill undoubtedly knew about their plans; if the man could evade capture so well, then that only meant that he had an extensive intelligence network. That same network should be able to pick up on the telltale signs of an impending assault, so obviously, she’d told them, he will be close by.

Hence, the Order prepared several scout rifle detachments, each able to move fast and negotiate the narrow confines of the city’s backalleys, to look for and chase down Damian Quill once the two lords were confirmed to be slain.

They wanted to be certain the two lords were dead, after all. They were far more dangerous; Quill was just going to be after-catch in their net.

Meanwhile, the Theater plotted to move under the Order’s noses. Lord Humble, after all, was the true big fish here. He was under heavy guard by the Order, but they couldn’t tell where. Damian’s network, as impressive as it was, only kept on providing intel that seemed to instantly become obsolete, so what they really needed was intel from the very top: his protection detail’s numbers, composition, and when and where they would be.

They weren’t moving to take him out immediately. Rather, intel was juiciest around the head of the entire operation, and he was worth keeping alive in the short to medium term because of that.

— That was, unless Ravena gave the kill order.

The task of finding out about Lord Humble’s movements fell on Amani and her assassins: Jiraya and Mira. The latter was still due to recover for another week, while Jiraya could move around decently, though nowhere near his peak. If the job was just to track down someone’s movements, it shouldn’t be any harder than watching suspicious sites from high places — a rather unfocused and casual approach, but it suited them in their current state.

The Theater’s breakfast plotting had concluded some time ago, and everyone was just getting ready. Jon knocked on Amani’s door, only for the door to swing open. He saw Amani speaking to Jiraya, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor and bowing his head down.

Amani looked to the doorway. “Jon? Sorry, one moment.” She looked back to Jiraya. “You have your orders.”

“Right away,” Jiraya replied. He stood up, giving Jon a light bow before departing through the window — turning into sparkling motes of light, as if dissolving into glitter as he stepped into the sun.

“Stealth?” Jon asked.

“It has limited scope and use. It wouldn’t have helped in a nighttime assault.”

“How?”

“Well,” she chuckled, “it doesn’t work at night.”

That was … certainly a unique stealth Skill. “You wanted to see me?” he continued.

“Oh! I nearly forgot. Give me a moment.” Amani went to the desk by the window, then she went up to Jon with something in her hand.

Jon saw it was a card with intricate details and texture in ink, each and every stroke drawn like what a drop of ink looked like when it made a plume as it dripped into water.

He looked back up to Amani, whose eyes seemed like they carried some ink under them, too. “What’s this?”

“It will keep you alive for some extra minutes. Please don’t rely on it.”

“A death card?” He remembered those zombie mercenaries, but before he could protest, Amani clarified herself, having already anticipated his reaction.

“Those weren’t true death cards you saw the other night” — her voice carried a stain of contempt — “but this will preserve your real soul and ego” — and then of smugness. She had a slight smile in saying that … but the smile disappeared. “Again, please, don’t rely on it at all.”

“You’re not confident.”

“Rather than confidence, this card will incur a great cost for me if you do use it. Although a few years of my life is nothing compared to what you have promised me, I would prefer to see gray hairs fluttering from my head.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Jon received the card in his hand, and as he stared at it … he didn’t feel grateful. Rather, this card represented a burden to him.

— Amani had effectively told him, “My life in exchange for yours.”

Someone else’s life was literally in his hands, and in a much different way than it usually went. Instead of being one flick away from severing someone’s arteries or any of their nervous system’s pathways, this was like being voluntarily handed a dead man’s switch linked to someone else’s soul.

He looked up to Amani … and presented the card back to her. “Don’t kill yourself,” he told her.

She was taken aback. Ordinarily, being given a death card was taken as a sign of goodwill and deep trust from the priestess who offered it. Besides, giving someone else a piece of her own life sounded really like it ought to be a sign of deep trust that anyone would understand — so why?

“Do you plan on dying, Mr. Fuze?” she asked.

“I didn’t last time,” he replied, hitting her with the full force of an ugly reality — but that reality was exactly why she offered him a death card.

She shoved it back into his hands. “If you don’t come back alive, don’t you think I’ll end up dead much sooner than if you’d needed to use this?”

Jon could do math just fine, which was why he found it perplexing that he started to take her side — and he was suddenly outnumbered two-against-one. He was his own enemy, after all.

Amani’s hands left his, and he found himself lightly pinching the death card between his fingers. He eyed it for a while, looking up at Amani, then back down at the card. In the end, he put it in his breast pocket, under his coat, where it would be protected against blades, bullets, and flame.

When he next looked at Amani, she had a pleased smile. A tightness in his chest, one he didn’t even know was there, disappeared.

“See you tomorrow morning,” Jon said.

Jon left her room and went for the stairs. As he descended, he came into sight of Alyssa waiting for him with a coy smile. “I didn’t think you had it in you,” she remarked.

Jon reached the bottom of the stairs, his eyes fixed on the exit. “What do you mean?” he said, passing by her.

She walked after him. “Me and the girl do talk, you know?” she explained. She left it at that, letting Jon figure out what it was she possibly knew.

Of course, all he’d done was test Amani’s ability to assemble a pistol and interview her a little bit.

From Alyssa’s perspective, however, and based on what Amani had told her, Jon had been strikingly effective in delivering his most important pain points. It was something she’d always admired about him; he might’ve been someone of few words, but he could really talk if he wanted to, you know? A dashing and coldly efficient conversational machine — if only he’d actually talk to her, too.

She sighed aloud. Jon turned around. “What is it?” he asked.

“Oh my, you’re finally showing concern for me?” Alyssa replied.

Jon turned around the moment she was up to her antics again. Alyssa frowned … but not so much. She knew his head was still on a swivel. One day — she hoped — she’d get to see his smile again.

There was still plenty of daylight left. They first stopped by Alyssa’s room in the theater to gear up. For thirty minutes, Jon helped Alyssa reload a hundred different firearms.

“I will stay here until dark. I can’t just be walking around with an arsenal behind me in normal circumstances, after all,” Alyssa said.

Jon nodded at this … though, he found a small part of him to be jealous about her logistical ability to be a pack mule for guns. Meanwhile, for him, it was him and his one dozen holsters against the world. It felt like wearing bricks all the time, and his skin under the leather straps almost always itched.

Alyssa was blushing like crazy at this point. “If you stare at me like that for a little longer… Well, I wouldn’t leave it unappreciated.”

“Where’d you get Guntalker?” Jon asked, baffling Alyssa.

Clearly, the gentleman must have been appreciating her and not her abilities? Oh, but that sounds good, too… When she looked at him again, he was staring at her with all the expectation and disappointment of a student who had asked a reasonable question, but was only getting unreasonable answers in return. It somehow stung a bit.

Alyssa shook her head. “M-my, why do you ask?”

“Guns are heavy,” he said, begrudgingly holstering yet another pistol.

Oh my, a chance to be useful — and score points! Alyssa thought seriously for a moment … and realized that Jon really shouldn’t be troubled by this. “Wait, Jon, you killed Kinesia, didn’t you? If I recall, she must have had some kind of inventory Skill.”

Jon paused whatever it was he was doing. Right. He had Aerial Lockbox pending unlock at Level 15.

For a moment, he believed himself to be the most unintelligent man alive. What a coincidence — he had also been the most unintelligent man alive last night. As an assassin, this was a glaring failure on his part.

On the other hand, he found himself lucky to have such quick-witted allies. He had always worked alone, and whenever he worked with others, they mostly moved independently of each other. This was really the first time he’d worked so closely with anyone, and for such a long time.

Indeed, “just around a week” was a considerably long time for him. In most of his missions, half the team would be dead by now, and the rest, scattered in different locations, and yet they would all be working towards the same goal. Compared to that, he and Alyssa had been acting with plenty of breathing room.

Jon holstered the last pistol, and Alyssa was all good to go. “Well! I’ll just kick back and relax here for the rest of the day. Come pick me up when it’s time,” she said.

Jon nodded. He went for the door, but before he opened it, he looked back at her. She noticed this, becoming irrationally expectant.

“Gaelish bread,” he said.

She absolutely didn’t expect those words to come out of his mouth. “G-gaelish bread?”

Jon nodded. It was, essentially, just French toast. Was this some sort of code? What was she supposed to say —

Then it hit her. Jon loved her French toast back then. He damn near wouldn’t leave the house without having a taste of it.

Wait, did this mean he’d already figured out who she actually was?

[He has not.]

O-oh, alright. Actually, right, he couldn’t possibly have figured it out, or else he’d be imploding in mind, body, and spirit by now. In that case, why was he — wait, was he going through a nostalgia trip every time he tasted Gaelish bread? H-h-he still l-l-loved her?!

“Oh, you want some?” she said. Unlike most times, she was a warrior right now, fighting off her emotions from the peak of a mountain with wind, rain, and thunder as her backdrop. Her self-control had peaked so much, she was even able to control her blood pressure and keep herself from blushing.

Jon nodded. “Light meal before we head out.”

“Of course, I don’t mind,” Alyssa said with a wave of the hand.

Jon finally left the theater to case the areas surrounding the castle … leaving Alyssa a sad, melted puddle.

She later made enough Gaelish bread to feed a family for three days.

Just two more Kills, and Jon would reach Level 10, unlocking Hastened Sight and Force. He would’ve preferred Aerial Lockbox, but well, being able to casually break the fabric of spacetime didn’t sound like something anyone should be able to do at Level 10.