The gates to a church slammed open. A single tall figure stood in the light, casting a shadow inside the building.

No, it was actually two people, one of them was just short and small enough that they fit perfectly into the the silhouette of the larger figure.

Yuri walked through the gate, leaving the bright gate and entering the dimly lit church.

Her gaze travelled across the scene and the surprised nuns and priests who stood while staring at her.

At the centre of the furthest wall was an altar, that altar had several nuns surrounding it, praying under their breaths.

Hikaru slowly walked in behind Yuri while giving the nuns an apologetic smile.

“We should have opened the door with more care..this a holy place, we need to show respect.”

“Well I myself am not a believer. Although gods do exist in this word...” She pondered “Not like it matters. We have done much worse than be disrespectful in a temple or a church. I'm sure the gods can't get any angrier than they already are”

Shrugging slightly, she walked up to the nearest nun while Hikaru sighed slightly.

“I heard there was a robbery here?”

Asking casually, she pretended to be walking by.

“Ah..that..yes. There was indeed..the bells that rest on the altar and that are rung every day have gone missing..but worry not young believer, they will be found shortly, and the thief will face severe punishment”

The nun reassured her with a strict look.

“Oh I'm sure they will..”

Yuri slowly walked over to the altar and looked closely at it. The surrounding nuns looked at her as if they expected something.

(Why are you looking, what do you want from me. Oh right. Altar. Prayer thing. Right.)

Kneeling down in front of the altar, Yuri held her hands in front of her face in a universal praying stance.

Glancing slightly at the nuns, they seemed to be looking at her approvingly, making her sigh in relief.

While kneeling down, she took the chance to closely observe the altar.

There it was, written in small golden words, in the corner of the altar. 'Yuri'.

She wasn't sure how she would find the last clue with all the nuns surrounding. They would probably freak out if she started dusting the altar for fingerprints.

But she had to find the clue.

She suddenly looked to the side as if noticing something, and made a surprised expression.

The nuns frowned and glanced over in the direction she was looking.

Taking this brief moment, she took out the small box of powder from her pocket and flicked it up without anyone noticing.

Glancing at the nuns, she shrugged, as if she was wrong about seeing something and pretended to go back to praying.

A few seconds later, something hit the ground. It was the box she had flung up, and it exploded into a mess of powder that covered the entire area around the altar and made the nuns have a coughing fit.

She saw it, the word covered in dust.

'Up'

(Up? What Up? Up where? Meet bell up? What kind of cryptic message is that!.....meet up bell..? up bell meet..?)

Thinking to herself, she walked out of the cloud of powder and towards where Hikaru was watching while conversing to a nun about something or another.

“Hikaru, what do you think 'meet up bell' means?”

All she received from him was a tilted head. She could almost see the question mark floating above his head.

“Are you perhaps talking about the great bell?”

The nun Hikaru was talking to chimed in.

“Hm? What great bell?”

“The great bell of the church, the one at the very top of this temple. Sitting higher than anything else in the city. The bell is rung when the city-”

She was interrupted by Yuri.

“Oh! That must be it! Hikaru let's go!”

Grabbing Hikaru, she headed for the closest stairs and climbed up.

They soon reached the tower part of the building, which was completely hollow. The only thing inside the tall stone pipe was a flimsy wooden ladder.

“We're going up! To meet at the bell, here we come pigeon bastard..!”

They began to climb up the ladder which creaked and shifted with every movement, which would normally discourage anyone climbing it. Yet Yuri didn't mind, the only thing on her mind was how she was going to beat the crap out of this poser.

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The hot sandy wind blew strongly at the high altitude, making the large bell at the top of the tower hum in a low tone.

Standing at the top of this tower was truly unpleasant. The wind was extremely strong and it carried small particles of sand, threatening to erode anything in their way that wouldn't make way for them.

The humming continued, it was almost relaxing, if it wasn't for the murderous aura in the air. Each piece of sand in the wind seemed to quiver slightly at being exposed to such an aura.

Yuri stood along with Hikaru at one side of the tower top, the bell hanging on their left.

Opposite them stood a man, his face and most of his head was obscured with a large mask, depicting a pigeon. The pigeon mask's eyes seemed to look everywhere and nowhere, shining slightly with their bright yellow colour.

He wore a red long sleeved shirt which covered his neck. It looked almost like it was stained with blood and wine, it had that strange red colour to it.

His head tilted, the pigeon mask shifting slightly.

“You left those clues. So here I am. And here you are.”

Yuri glared at the pigeon man, her eyes conveying just how truly displeased she was.

“Now you better start answering some questions, or I will make sure this guy here stabs your body enough times that you wont be able to tell it apart from old cheese.”

Hikaru tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword.

An especially powerful gust of wind made a torrent of sand fly past them, making both Yuri and Hikaru to blink away the dirt from their eyes.

Something flew next to them, riding the wind.

Yuri instantly grabbed it without looking.

It was a letter.

The pigeon masked man gestured for her to read it.

Yuri glanced at Hikaru to make sure he would keep watch while she read, he merely nodded solemnly and kept his eyes on the mask man, not even blinking away the dirt that made his eyes throb with pain.

Unfolding the letter, she began to read it.

Dearest acquirer of illegitimate items

I would wish to invite you for a challenge of sorts to prove your superiority to me.

If you succeed I will make sure to grant any of your requests, no matter how unreasonable. If by chance you yourself do manage to lose, I will simply take my leave and continue my business elsewhere.

I do hope you will accept my proposal, If you do accept, then these are the terms of the challenge:

You must within the time it takes for this city to commence its trading, capture me and unmask me.

That is all that is required to succeed. If you accept, ring the bell and that will signal the start of this challenge.

Oh and call me pi, it's short for pigeon and I do think it sounds very nice.

She folded the letter back up and looked at the masked man still standing there, his head unmoving as the cold dead eyes of the mask kept looking at them.

“You realise I could just have you killed here and now, what makes you think I will just let you go?”

She patted Hikaru's arm while saying so.

The pigeon headed man that wanted to be called Pi, stayed there. He shrugged and kept looking at her.

“I'm not a petty murderer though. I'm a thief, the greatest thief you will ever meet. If you think the mere act of stealing some wannabe bird mask will prove difficult to me, then you aren't as great a thief as you try to make yourself out to be”

She threw the folded paper at Pi, where it landed between the mask's beak.

“You better run. You better hide. Because I will capture you, I will rip that ugly mask off your face and I will make sure to carve that name you seem to like to write so much, on your face so that it will never disappear.”

Yuri walked up to Pi who simply stood still while staring.

She reached out her hand towards his mask, like she wanted to take it off him. He continued to stand absolutely still, despite that.

Just before she touched his mask. Her hand moved to the side and hit against the bell, making it clang loudly, emanating throughout the whole city.

The instant the bell made a noise, Pi jumped back away from Yuri and into the empty sky.

He fell down while holding his mask on his head to make sure it didn't fly off. Just before he completely passed by Yuri on his way down...

Their eyes met. Even though she could only see the dead rubber eyes of his mask. Her eyes were filled with the fire of a duel, and she was sure his were too, beneath that horrible mask. She could feel it.

“Fly away, ugly pigeon. But I will make sure to catch you again, and make dinner out of you..”

Yuri's face changed into a half smile. It was a while since she had a good duel like this ahead of her.

“Yuri, are you sure it was wise to just let him go? I could have easily caught him for you ?”

Hikaru slowly walked up next to her.

“This is a duel among thieves Hikaru. I'm sure knights have something similar no? This is like that, except more...hmm..here the rules are more wishy washy. Well all I have to do is essentially steal his mask.”

“I see. That sounds fairly straight forward, if it is just that, we can take our time and we will catch him sooner or later anyway.”

He rubbed his eyes which were throbbing because of the sand.

“Well, he said the time limit was until the trading season begins, but that's another few weeks away, so we have plenty of time to do this”

“Yuri.....”

“What is it? You think that's too long? I mean we can always go catch him early too if you want?”

“No..The trading season in this city is not..”

Just as Hikaru began to say this, a loud tremor went through the entire city, making every building shake and let off dust.

The city shook and twisted slightly, making Yuri almost fall down the tower if it hadn't been for Hikaru holding her.

“What's going on!?”

“Damn! It's the bell! Because it was rung! Look!”

Yuri looked at where he pointed. Something very large had appeared just outside the city limits.

It looked like a giant rock with smaller spiky rocks on it. The only strange thing was that it was moving slightly.

It was the size of several large buildings.

That huge rock turned suddenly. Revealing an equally giant eye in its side, which had a square pupil like a goat and a golden iris.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAAAT HIKARU!?”

The city began to shake with a certain rhythm. The gigantic stone head that had looked upon the city, slowly turned back towards the desert.

If Yuri could see the city from the outside, she would have understood what was going on.

The city had sprouted thick short powerful rocky legs. And its head had appeared from where it was resting beneath the earth to avoid the heat.

The rhythmic earthquakes that seemed to happen almost every other minute was due to the huge steps the creature was taking.

It wasn't as much that it was carrying the city upon its back, as the city had been literally made out of the rock that was its back.

The entire city was the creature and the creature was the city.

Yuri was holding onto Hikaru with spiral spinning eyes while the city began its early journey, its steps shaking the very core of the earth itself, and not to mention the buildings of the city.