Astern turned out to be less than a half days walk from Wei Wen, but the group wouldn’t arrive until late in the day.

Ren and Sakura hadn’t snuck into the room until sunrise, finding Zero and Ivy already long asleep.

“Only a couple of hours,” Sakura insisted with a yawn, laying down on the opposite bed. “We have to go soon.”

“Yeah. Whatever,” Ren muttered, flopping down next to the demon, out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Zero was the first to wake, confused as to why the room was basking in the light of the late morning. They were supposed to leave. This wasn’t right.

He gently nudged Ivy. “We have to go,” he urged quietly.

“No.” She pouted, still deep in dreams, pulling at his shirt, before snuggling down with a content sigh.

The boy stared down at the peaceful girl, her features soft and serene in slumber.

He would leave her for now.

Zero pried his shirt out of Ivy’s clutches and walked to the other bed. He shook Ren’s shoulder only to receive a hard smack to the arm from the angel.

“Fuck off,” the dark haired man growled, pulling himself against the fox demon tighter, practically smothering the woman under his larger form.

Zero didn’t like dealing with a tired Ren. He’d be grumpy and annoying and an all around menace until he went back to sleep. It really was best just to leave him be. The devil considered waking Sakura and letting her deal with the man, but when he looked back at Ivy the answer was obvious. Without a moment’s hesitation, he slipped into bed with the lovely girl and fell back to sleep.

The devil realized as he woke up the second time in a sudden panic that he probably should have woken the demon.

“Fuck!” she yelled, rolling over Ren and springing to the opposite end of the room the second her feet hit the ground. “Get up! We gotta go!”

“Relax.” Ren rolled onto his back, covering his eyes from the sun with his arm. “We’ll get there when we get there.”

“We need to go now!” the fox snapped as she tore through her bag.

Zero sat up and blinked hard, trying to process the frenzied situation taking place. It was already looking to be one of those days. One of which he would regret waking up to.

Sakura found her clothes and looked down at the ruined silk dress she had fallen asleep in. Even though it was tattered and no longer presentable, it still clung to her like a second skin and would require due care to remove. There were just so many clasps and not enough patience. “I fucking hate dresses!” she snarled, snatching at the collar and tearing at it, the clasps and silk ripping across her chest and down her side.

“No, that’s good.” Sarcasm dripped from Ren’s lips as he stared at the demon. “That’s exactly how you do that. Do you know how many silkworms had to die for that dress?”

The devil watched the fox struggle against the tight fabric, the feel of Ivy’s hand starting to crawl up his arm.

“If you cared so much then maybe you shouldn’t have contributed to their massacre!” The vixen was over fighting with the dress as she tugged it forcefully past her waist.

Zero beheld the woman’s exposed back, now positive that it was one of those days and that irreversible mistakes had been made on his part just as a pillow smashed against the side of his face.

“Avert your eyes young one,” Ren lightly warned the boy while he watched the woman intently, following the wiggle of her hips as her struggle continued. “Don’t let her lack of morals tarnish your innocence.”

“It’s okay,” Ivy whimpered, pulling at Zero’s shoulder, beckoning his return. “It’s too early. Come sleep.”

The boy followed the promise of comfort back to bed, pulling the blanket over their heads in a weak attempt to shield them the mayhem taking place outside the safety of their fabric confines.

Sakura flung the man’s bag at him, hitting the distracted angel in the face, before pulling on her shirt. “Stop staring! It’s not like it’s nothing you’ve never seen before! Get up and let’s go!”

He discarded the bag onto the floor and cracked his neck. “I haven’t seen the final product yet,” the angel grumbled as he laid back down, closing his eyes and biding his time.

The woman proceeded to tear the rest of dress from her body and pulled on her shorts, looking around the room in a frenzy. “Where are my daggers?”

Ren rolled over, dropping his arm over the side of the bed. “You probably kicked them under here. If you weren’t always so crazy…”

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

She flew to the bed, ready to claim her holsters, as the angel snatched her around the waist and rolled her over him and back into bed.

“Damn it, Ren! We have to go!” She fought against the man but he had her trapped.

He yawned, his eyes still closed. “No one cares. Now be quiet or I’ll make you be quiet.”

The fox stopped struggling, glaring at the angel. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s a promise.” Ren cracked one eye open, deep blue challenging the woman. “Don’t worry. You’ll love it.” And the eye closed.

Sakura huffed as she raised her head to look at Ivy and Zero, the two hidden from sight but their gentle snores reached her ears. There wasn’t much else to do than close her own eyes.

The woman knew when she was defeated.

By the time the group had finally made it out of Wei Wen, the sun was already well into its downward progression.

Sakura’s mood was sour, unable to handle that she had been beaten. She sulked most of the way, kicking rocks along the dirt road, but her attitude instantly improved as the town came into view through the ginkgo trees that lined the path.

Astern was a small town, just barely breaking from the cusp of being a village. The buildings were similar to those in Wei Wen, though smaller and not maintained as well, their wood and tile work fading in color. A few of the buildings were close together, but most were spread out away from one another with irregular and scattered greenery along pathways created only by heavy foot traffic. It looked like there had once been more to the town, as if certain places had been plucked from the land and never returned.

In her overwhelming excitement, the fox ran ahead of the group, asking the first person she met for directions and bounded towards the location. She came to a sudden halt and stood in front of the puny structure that seemed more suited to be a room in a building rather than its own stand alone entity as the three others caught up to join her. “This is the town center? It’s so small.” She observed, her voice faltering. The woman hadn’t known what to expect, but she did expect something… more.

Ivy took the demon’s hand and beamed up encouragingly at her. “That’s okay. It doesn’t need to be big as long as it has information that we can use. Right?”

Sakura nodded and smiled back at the girl. “You’re right. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Somehow, the inside seemed even smaller than the outside, and in the center of all that lack of space sat a lone, thin, and frail old man at a rickety desk. Slowly, he looked up at the group as they entered, a slight and tired smile creeping across his deeply creased face that was further highlighted by his bright, white hair that was pulled into a barely there ponytail at the nape of his neck. “Can I help you?”

“We heard you have information about devils here.” Sakura looked around, not seeing much beyond a curtain painted with a crane and sun behind the man.

The man opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of round glasses, carefully slipping them onto his nose and over his ears. “You’re looking for information on devils? Whatever for?”

“Research,” the fox answered.

He nodded and took his time in pushing himself to his feet, grabbing the cane against the desk. “We don’t get a lot of people looking for that information. It’s back here.” With one sluggish foot in front of the other, his body hunched and gnarled, he made his way to the curtain and pulled it to the side, allowing the group into the room that was even smaller than the main area and only had enough room for a small table against the wall with two chairs side by side and a tall, narrow bookcase. “It’s on the top shelf. The black one.”

Zero stepped forward, pulling the book down, and returned to the man, holding it in front of him. “Is it this one?” the soft spoken boy asked.

The man looked up into Zero’s crimson eyes and adjusted his glasses. “Come closer.”

Zero obliged, leaning closer as the man grabbed the boy’s chin, moving his face side to side and observing it.

“You’re a devil,” he stated calmly.

“Yes, sir.”

“You don’t act like one.”

Zero nodded. “I’ve been told that.”

“You have red eyes but white hair. I’ve never heard of a devil with white hair.” He released Zero’s face and turned away. “I guess it’s fine. If you were going to kill us, you already would have. I’ll have to close soon, but you’re welcome to stay until then and to come back in the morning.”

“Thank you.”

The old man glanced at the devil once more before walking from the room, the curtain falling back into place.

“Well.” Sakura took the book from Zero and began flipping through the pages. “At least it’s something.” It certainly wasn’t the largest book she had ever gone through but it wasn’t the smallest either. “It shouldn’t take long to get through it.”

Ren looked at the crammed room and pulled a few coins from his bag. “How about you two go get a room and we’ll get through what we can before we have to leave.”

“Okay!” Ivy held out her hand, taking the coin. “We’ll be back.” She took Zero’s hand and they made their way out of the room in search of lodging.

Sakura laid the book on the table as she took a seat and opened it, beginning to read. The angel walked over and examined the bookcase, finding nothing of interest before sitting down next to the demon. She moved the book between them and pointed to the page nearest Ren.

“If you read those pages then I’ll read these.” Her eyes not leaving the words. “We can get though it quicker that way.”

“Alright,” he agreed. But instead of reading he watched the demon, observing her intent gaze and the way her teeth lightly gnawed at her bottom lip, completely absorbed in the material before her.

Ren wanted to go home, to start again where they had left off. Of course, it wouldn’t be the same. Raz was gone. They were no longer children, and they both had changed through the years, their different experiences shaping and forming them in ways that the other could only try to understand. They had lost seven years of being together, but there were still so many behind them and so many more ahead.

They would take Ivy and Zero, the girl already expressing the desire to return and the boy ready to follow. The two of them wouldn’t have to worry about where they would sleep, or what they would eat, or if they were on the right trail to a place they had never been. Their lives would have a calming predictability that neither had ever experienced. They could have a normal life, despite they themselves being anything but.

Ren wanted what he wanted, and he wanted it now. But viewing the woman next to him, so steady and true in her intentions, he knew he would have to wait. Raz had told them that we make sacrifices for the ones we love, and they both had already sacrificed so much. But Sakura had yet to stop, and so neither could he.

The angel tugged at the fox’s ear, wanting more but accepting less for the time being.

Sakura side-eyed the man but he was already concentrating on the task assigned. Her lips upturned slightly as she knocked her foot against his before returning to reading.