"Please." Dylan got down on both his knees. "Allow me to go with you."

I shift my gaze away from him uncomfortably, "Why?" I ask.

"Because you..." he glances over to the waiting room where our grandparents are. "you stood up for me. It's a debt I must repay."

"I don't want repayment." I tell him. Although having him in my debt could be useful in the future, maybe I shouldn't have said that.

"If you do not wish for me to pay you back with only this then I will help you for however long it takes!" he says as if reading my mind.

"Dylan," Frederick quickly walks over, his posture is more like a child dashing through brushes than a noble. "you should not get yourself involved in this." he says lifting his arm. "They will be just fine, you need to stay here. We can't afford to lose another grandchild." his voices breaks, he quickly resumes talking. "A-Aisha will surely come back with them, do not worry."

"I will go to protect them as well." he says.

"Don't be ridiculous." his head twitched as if he were going to look over here. "I'll assign guards to him, don't worry." he waves his hand and two from inside the crowd of armed men rush to my side. One is a familiar face.

"Hello again." the tall knight burly knight with the decorated hilt steps next to me. "I'll be guarding you." he says in a friendly tone. Instead of keeping his hands close to his sword, he offers it to me. "I'm sorry about last time, I didn't introduce myself did I? I'm Sir Gavin, just call me Gavin."

"Nice to meet you." I say while taking his hand.

"B-but I need to assist him." Dylan says.

Juliana, our grandmother, struts over at a pace too fast for a person wearing a dress and gives him a slap across the face.

"We will not send you to die." she says. Realizing the impact of her words, she quickly added in, "What would we say to your mother if you got hurt?" her voice came out more panicky than worried.

I'm a little jealous, I wish they cared for me as much as him. Aisha is my sister but I could just as easily be killed, in the sense that it would only take a knife through the stomach. Dylan, from what I've seen, isn't as skilled as I am, sending him would certainly be more dangerous then sending me. Although he is a knight while I'm a measly commoner, at least that's what others might think.

His determined gaze doesn't even falter at Juliana's words, but he closes his eyes and nods. "I understand, if you wish for me not to go then I will not. Good luck Rainen." he says while standing up. "I'm going to my room." and he leaves through the door. Frederick and Juliana let out an almost inaudible sigh.

"Come back safely now." Frederick says regaining his composure. "You know what needs to be done." he nods and turns around.

"Let's go." I say, eager to leave.

"Rainen." Hector pulls on my arm. "I need to talk to you for a bit, come over here." he pulls me to the side while the others continue on, sensing the atmosphere around Hector, Axel also hangs back.

"What's up?" I ask.

He looks around making sure that no one else is close enough to hear. He leans in, motioning more Axel and I to get closer, "That guy, the ninth. There's something wrong with his story." Hector says. "Do you guys know why his name is a number?"

Axel shakes his head, I copy him even though I do. Hector knows, I can tell by the way he's talking.

"Do you guys know that vigilante back in our city? The one who's dressed in black?" he asks.

"Oh yeah. He's a little famous." Axel says. Hector turns to me, I shake my head.

"I never cared to listen to stories." I say hoping to deflect away any suspicions he might have. How much does he know about the twelve?

"Well, here's the thing. The vigilante in black, is part of a group, the twelve. I have some knowledge about them from my time in the city. Stay in a place for around ten years with a position like mine, you learn a lot of things. So, anyways, the problem is that the twelve, when they're on missions, usually call each other by numbers. That number relates to when they joined the group. The ninth over there is almost certainly apart of the twelve, his story that he's working for the Elwald family also contradicts with the location he gave us too." he finishes.

"I see. If he were apart of the Elwald family or hired by them, he most likely would've sold them off to save his skin. The thing is, he told us to go to a warehouse." I say. I already knew that he was part of the twelve but I didn't think much further than that. If he's not working for the Elwald family then how did those two guys who kidnapped Aisha get their seal? It doesn't make sense to me that they'd kidnap a girl, my sister, anyways. Why would the empire request something like that? I shake my leg impatiently.

"So he's leading us to a trap?" Axel says. "Maybe they've got something waiting for us in there."

Hector holds his chin and nods, "That's the most likely thing. We should proceed with caution when we reach it. If possible, you two should send your spirits inside to check things out. Make sure they go undetected though, we don't want them to be aware of our attack."

Hector starts walking back to join up with the guards accompanying us. All of them, except for my two personal ones and three others, stare at us. Each one holds onto their sword at their sides. Their shoulders are stiff, they stand around in what one could describe as a group.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Let's start moving, there isn't much time." one of the guards say. He holds out his hand to his side, as if saying, "Go first."

Hector calmly strides right past him. Gavin matches me step by step, his slightly larger frame blocking the moonlight. Having a shadow to hide under during the day is nice but having one at night when it's dark and cold isn't very nice. It's like drinking warm water on a warm day, sure it's still okay but not what my master would call, "A good choice for the soul."

As we move forward, without them noticing, I constantly take out my knives from my bracers and put them back. I count them mindlessly like sheep, my fingers tap restlessly on them before I put remember enough to put them back.

"Hey Rainen. You okay man?" Axel asks crawling through the plethora of bodies over to me. "You've been fidgeting a lot."

I didn't think that anyone noticed.

"Y-yeah. Just need some water, you know, the co- warm kind. It's a little cold out here isn't it. I think it matches Miss's Ein's attitude." I say looking ahead.

"I'm sure she's safe."

"Miss Ein? Yeah, she's probably fine." I glance over at Axel. What is he saying? Did Miss Ein have some kind of disease I wasn't aware of? Does it have to do with her eyesight? I did see her wearing glasses after I got back from adventuring.

"No you numskull." he hits me playfully on the shoulder. "Your sister."

"Huh? Oh, yeah." I start kicking pebbles on the ground. "W-we'll definitely get to her in time." because I'm always on time right? Always on time for that perfect moment.

"Don't be so down Rai."

"I'm not." I say.

"Okay~ but if I see that look again I'll send Ember over here to bite you." he holds his hands up. A little birdlike animal springs forth from his hands, the spirit.

"Heh. You know, I was going to name my spirit Ember too." I say.

"Really? Why didn't you?" he asks.

"I don't know. I just think that Alastar's a better name for mine."

"Defender of mankind." Axel whispers under his breath. "I can believe that. Hey, no need for you to take him out, I'll send Ember here in there first."

"Worried about me fainting again?" I ask.

"That's a part of the reason." he says. "I just think that your sister would prefer that she was rescued by her brother."

"I was going to do that anyways." I tell him. I don't really think that Aisha would be too happy to see that I was the one who rescued her instead of one of these muscular guards. She's been avoiding me a lot.

"She'll be glad that you saved her Rai, trust me. I hope you like kisses though, most girls, from the stories I've heard, gave the hero a big kiss when the hero saved them. Sure it'll be from your sister but it'll still be nice, in a sense." he says teasingly.

"Uh huh." It'd actually be nice to get some kind of sign of affection. Right now, from what I've seen, I have to assume that she hates me based on the evidence.

"We're here." Hector holds up his hand motioning for us to stop advancing. He takes another look to confirm if it's the place. He nods and says, "Axel, send out your spirit, through that window there."

"Ember, go." Axel directs Ember with his hand. The spirit follows obediently, able to wiggle itself through the small gap in the window. Axel closes his eyes and covers the top of his head with both hands. "There's about... six inside, I think. They're all gathered around talking."

I didn't know that spirits could be used like this. Axel continues his explanation of what's happening inside.

"They're talking about some kind of deal. It's about time?" Axel takes his hands away from his head. "G-guys! They're coming out right now!"

"What?" Hector immediately turns to the door drawing his sword from its resting place. "Everyone get ready!" he commands. All of the guards pull out their weapons.

"My my, what do we have here?" the plain looking man, Jacob, from before walks out. "Looks like this was why we were told to wait around. Looks like the two failed to kill them."

From behind the door six others step out. This is bad, every single one of them should be more than a match for five guards. I spot the man with green hair and avert my eyes, "Guys." I say loudly enough for my two guards and Hector and Axel to hear but quietly enough for no one else to. "Don't make eye contact with the guy we met before, the one with the weird hair. He can put you to sleep with it."

They nod.

"Surrender!" one guard says. "You're surrounded!"

A chuckle leaks from Jacob's mouth, "I see, you're one of the fodder." Jacob pulls out a sword from his waist and steps ever so closer to us, the people behind him do the same. A bad feeling runs throughout my body, my gut is telling me to run away.

He smiles. "Kill them."

A piece of steel instantly pierces the guard's neck, half of the sword is covered in blood. As soon as it's pulled out, he falls to the floor. I pull out my knives and aim for the two assigned to me.

"Stop!" Gavin yells. "We're on your side!"

Gavin and the other person assigned to me are staring back at the group of guards. Two of the men inside the circle back away before their own throats are opened. It's seven on sixteen.

Six are monsters while ten betrayed us.

My eye twitches, Traitors. It growls.