1 Chapter 1: The Reason (Part 1 of 2)

Rays of sunlight break through the luscious green leaves on the tree as the wind blow them around gently, shinning upon a young male, roughly around twelve or thirteen, laying his back on the ground. His short aqua-blue hair was dancing with the wind, as he opens his eyes gently, squinting them as the light shines into his ocean blue eyes. The young man covers his face with his arm for a few moments before rubbing them and sits up, giving a small yawn before looking around at his surroundings.

"Where am I?" The young boy asks, almost as if hoping someone would reply to him, but the only sound he could hear is the sound of the leaves swaying back and forth.

The young boy slowly stands up and looks down at his clothing, a light blue short-sleeve shirt, and black pants with black and blue boots on. His pants and shirt are stained with mud and torn slightly, but other than that, they are in good shape.

"W-what happened to me?" The young boy asked. Once again, hoping someone would reply, but there is nothing.

The young boy begins thinking back on the events that had happened, and how he got here, but all he can remember is an old man with long gray hair and a young golden-blond haired woman with emerald green eyes. The young man knows these people, but their names are currently slipping his mind. Both of them are close to him, but he can't fathom as to why they are important, or why is it he forgot their names if they are important to him. The young boy begins to think back further, searching his memory to see if something would jog his memory about the two people he could picture almost perfectly, and he begins to remember them little by little. The older man was a friend of his father and the person who taught him how to fight. He remembers that when his father died, the old man took him under his wing and taught him how to fight as well, but that was three years after his father had died. The young golden-blond haired woman with emerald green eyes was someone close to his age, and he loved her with all his heart. He remembers proposing to her, and they agreed to marry each other when they were of age, thirteen, which would have been about right now if…

"UGHHH"

The young boy begins crying out in pain, and he falls on his knees, holding onto his head as the memories begin to pour into his head like a roaring waterfall falling into the river down below. Visions of his past begin to flow, and he begins to remember everything. A man covered in armor from head to toe holding a broadsword in his hand. His armor is crimson, and it looks as though he is covered in blood. Through the cracks of the rubble above him, the young boy could see a black-haired man with his back turned towards him, a claymore in his hand and prepared to fight. The young boy instantly recognizes the black-haired man as his father, as he remembers it was, he who placed him in the pile of rubble to hide him a few years ago when he was only five years old. A few clashes later, a sword pierces through the rock and the tip of the sword had found itself inside the young boy's left breast just in front of his heart, though the blade only pierced his heart by a centimeter. Blood dripping down the blade and onto the boy's skin before passing out. Despite not seeing who the blood belonged too, he knew who was at the other end of the blade and above the rock. The person who had just been stabbed, the person who more than likely is dead or dying, is none other than his father. The reason his father had placed him inside the rubble, was to hide him from the man in crimson armor chasing them, and now his father had been killed since the sword sticking through the rock and had pierced his chest was a broadsword, the weapon of the crimson armored man.

"UGH ARGH"

More images begin to flash inside his head. The young boy meeting a young girl, both who are no more than ten years old. Giggling and smiling without a care in the world, and her eyes tell him that nothing in the world matters, but the person standing in front of her, the young boy himself. The bright moon shining above them before the dark clouds cover it and snow begins to fall, and the two of them sitting on the edge of a cliff holding hands and scooting close to each other. The boy wraps his arm around her shoulder, and the girl lays her head on his chest, both of them sitting there quietly before she looks up and the young boy gives her a small peck on her lips.

Fast forward and the two of them are standing in the middle of the woods practicing how to dance, a wedding ring around the neck of the girl with a thin piece of wire wrapped around it, acting like a necklace and the young man's smile is as bright as the sun shining above them. The young boy remembers he was the one who gave the young woman a ring only a few days before this dance, he proposed to her and she accepted happily since they had been dating for two years.

In a few months, the young man and woman will both be turning thirteen, meaning both of them will legally be able to marry without the consent of their parents, which both of them didn't have because they are either dead or missing. You are legally allowed to marry once you turn ten with the consent of the parents of both bride and groom if both of them are under the age of thirteen, or you can wait until you're thirteen to become an adult and marry without their approval. Since they didn't have parents, they had to wait until they turned thirteen. The memory is enough to bring a smile to his face, but his eyes become blurry as tears begin to well up in his eyes and fall on the ground. It's the next memory which is causing him to cry, because he could remember holding the girl in his arms, rain beating down around them as he holds the girl's lifeless body in his arms, her clothing had been torn completely off, and she is only wearing a boot on one foot and a sock on the other, everything else had been ripped from her body, even her underwear had been torn off. Her eyes are open, and the light had long since left her eyes, but he remembers what had happened to her… He witnessed what happened to her, and it was all his fault because she came to save him. The same person who took his father away from him…

Took this girl from him as well, but it was what he did to her that hurt him the most. It would have been one thing if he just killed her…But…The young man shakes his head and begins slamming it on the ground, trying his best to forget those memories, the face she made, her reaching out in hopes he could somehow save her, but he couldn't. He couldn't do anything to save her, because he had been injured to the point his body couldn't move. It was only after three days had gone by that he was finally able to move. But, she had died three days prior by the time he could move. Once the man had finished what he had done, he drove his sword through her chest and pierced her heart. He watched as the light left her eyes, but he could tell she had died inside long before the sword met her heart. He held her body in his arm for three more days, his voice had died out from the constant screaming, and all he could do was hold her as the rain danced around them until help finally reached him.

The old man, the person who taught him how to fight, had finally found him and the girl after searching for six days. But he hadn't made it in time. The girl had been killed, and the boy wouldn't move an inch no matter what he said. He doesn't remember how, but the next thing he remembers is sitting in his room, wearing a black and white suit. He held a piece of leather in his hand, looking down and seeing a life-like painting of him with the girl who he was holding a few days ago, along with a scarlet-haired girl with green eyes, all of them smiling happily. Rage filled his eyes, and the boy stumbled out of his room and walked through the empty hallway.

Walking up to one of two katanas hanging on the wall in another room and taking one off of the wall, before running outside and back into the woods where he had found the man who killed his father and the girl he loved. Once he reached the area, he found the man again, sitting on a fallen tree and looking at the boy. Even with the helmet on, he could tell the man in crimson armor was grinning at him as if taunting him. Like the fight they had a few days ago, the boy stood no chance as was defeated, and like a few days ago as well, he had to be saved. But this time, it was by the person who taught him how to fight, the old man who took him under his wing.

Regardless of how much more experience the old man had, the outcome was the same as when the girl came to save him, and the old man laid in a pool of his own blood. If he hadn't been there… If the boy had stayed home when these two met, things would have been different. Because the only reason his master had lost, was because once the Crimson Knight knew he was losing, he targeted the already defeated boy, which caused his master to jump in between them to save him. The injury wasn't fatal, but it was enough that the tides had turned in the Crimson Knights favor. A few more blows later, and his master met the other end of the sword. Like his father and the girl, he loved, the sword found it's home in his heart as well.

The boy got back on his feet and began stumbling towards a nearby tree, sitting down and hugging his knees as the blood dripped from his forehead covered one side of his face. To the boy, it seems as though time had stopped, and the wind ceased to blow, giving an eerie silence as not even the animals are making any noise, nor any of the incest's, but the boy doesn't seem to notice or care. He just wants everything to disappear. Then, almost as if on cue, a stream of black flame comes rushing towards him, burning everything in its path, and only leaves the ashes of anything it touches as it rolls by. For whatever reason, the boy jumps and rolled out of the way just before the stream of black flames hits the tree he was sitting under and the tree turns to ash along with everything behind it.

The boy looks up and turns to see where the flame had come from, but the only thing he manages to see is a hand coming towards his face, grabbing his head before he is slammed onto the ground with a thud. Through the gap between the fingers on his face, the boy can see the person holding him down is dressed in crimson armor. The boy's eyes widen the moment he laid eyes on the armor, and he reaches up to grabs the helmet with one of his hands while he holds the man's wrist with the other, trying to pull the hand off him. The man in crimson armor takes a firm grasp of the boy's face and lifts him into the air with the boy kicking and flailing around while punching the man's helmet repeatedly with all his might, breaking the skin on his knuckles and begins to bleed.

The boy continues to punch with all his might, ignoring the pain of the bones in his hand, breaking with every punch. After about a minute or two of continues punches to his helmet without making a scratch, the boy begins to feel something hot on his face, and the feeling increases with each passing second. Through the gap of the man's fingers, the boy could see small black flames entering his field of vision, and what feels like his flesh melting with the flame growing larger. It doesn't take long for the boy to realize the man in crimson armor is burning him alive, but if this is how he is going to meet his end, then so be it, and he continues to punch. At this point, he is only smacking the side of his helmet with his wrist since he broke all the bones in his hands and can't even make a fist. The boy could feel his lower body beginning to heat up before he could feel it melting.

Eventually, he doesn't even feel his legs anymore, and he feels a lot lighter, meaning his legs had probably turned to ash. Using the remainder of his strength, the boy places his good hand around the man's neck, and he somehow manages to move his broken hand to do the same, squeezing with all his might, hoping he can at least choke him out before the flames turn him to ash completely. But it isn't long for the flame covers his face entirely, and the boy can see nothing but darkness now. But he continues to squeeze since he could feel that he is still holding onto the man's neck.

"Agh…Ugh…S-st…p…"

The boy begins to hear what sounds like pleading to his ears. But due to his rage, he fails to realize the voice belonged to a woman rather than a man, and she sounds as though she is still rather young. A faint glow of light appears before him, engulfing him and his vision becomes blurry for a few seconds before adjusting to the sudden light, he sees that he has his hands wrapped around a young woman's neck, and her face is dark blue. The boy removes his hands from the girl's neck and jolts up quickly. Looking around frantically, looking at his surroundings but mainly trying to find the man in crimson armor. Was that… A dream?

Once he realizes he is in a bedroom, he begins to calm down. That is until he hears the woman coughing and he glances back at her, his eyes widening when he sees her. The girl, who had just sat up, has golden-blond hair that reaches down just past her shoulders. Her porcelain white skin looks soft to the touch, and her slim figure makes it appear as though you can snap her in two just forms hugging her. The sunlight that is shining through the ripples of the flapping curtains makes it look as though her body is radiating, giving off an angelic feel to her. Besides the red markings around her neck caused by him, the girl does resemble an angel rather than a human. But… The girl is neither an angel nor a human. The girl is, in fact, a demi-human.

A demi-human being a person with the ability to transform between a human and an animal. The girl has two soft looking pointy ears that match her hair color, with the tip of the ears, have a creamy color to them. And on her back, are three puffy tails sticking out and swaying in all different directions, all three of them also having a cream color towards the tip of them. With these characteristics alone, the boy can sum up what demi-human she is based on what he had studied in his younger days, the girl is a demi-human known as a kitsune, also called a fox person. The three tails behind her back, also tell the boy that she one of the strongest kitsunes and would be considered a princess.

From what he remembers, kitsunes tails range from one, two, and three tails. A one-tailed kitsune is a regular kitsune. Just like a regular human, they are nothing special when it comes to comparing themselves to other kitsunes. A two-tailed kitsune is physically weaker than a one-tailed, but their magical ability is stronger than that of their one-tailed counterparts. Lastly, three-tailed kitsune are the strongest kitsunes out of all of them. They are physically stronger than their one-tailed brothers and sisters, and they also have a stronger magical ability than their two-tailed brothers and sisters. Because of this, three-tailed kitsunes often became the leaders of the villages that kitsunes tend to form, and it isn't uncommon to find a family of three-tailed kitsunes in every village. Three-tailed kitsunes also get the nickname of "Royal Kitsune" since they become the leaders of their people, much like how a king and queen rule over their kingdom.

Kitsunes are also born with magical abilities, unlike humans who have to learn their magical abilities. To keep it simple, everyone has the ability to use elemental magic. The moment you are conceived, you are given a spiritual element, which will be the element you can learn how to use the easiest if you so desire to learn it. But, a lot of people don't tend to learn it because for one, it is harder to unlock the ability to use magic than it seems, and second, you become physically weaker the more spiritual magic you learn. Say your physical strength is measured from one to one-hundred, if you learn how to use your spiritual element, your max physical strength will only go up to ninety-eight percent and won't go any higher. If you learn a second element, which is possible, you will go from ninety-eight to ninety percent. The more elements you learn, the greater the drop in physical strength. There are people who care little for physical strength, and they focus on magic to become mages, while others learn their spiritual element and nothing more since the price isn't high. But, unlike the blue-haired boy who had to learn how to use his spiritual element through rigorous training, this kitsune girl was born with hers the moment she was born, but the mana of a newborn kitsune is so low they are unable to use it until they are around five or six for Royal Kitsunes, seven or eight for two-tailed, and up to ten years for one-tailed.

The boy shakes his head slightly, glancing back at the girl for a few seconds before clicking his tongue. Why the hell do you look like her? The boy thinks to himself. The image of a girl appears next to the kitsune, and it's none other than the golden-blond haired girl from his dream, or nightmare, with emerald green eyes. Comparing the image of the girl he is seeing, and the kitsune who is sitting on the ground, the two of them look strikingly similar, only that one of them is obviously a demi-human, whereas the other is a human, and their eye colors are different. When the kitsune opens her eyes and gives the boy an innocent look, he is taken back slightly by her beauty. Her eyes, which appear to be glowing, are a crystal-blue color, and the longer he looks into them, the more it feels as though he will get lost within them, so he turns away and bites but bottom lip, drawing blood.

It wasn't just the look she was giving him or the beauty of her eyes that caused him to look away. No, the main reason he looked away was that the kitsune was completely naked, and she doesn't appear to notice this since she isn't doing anything to cover up. Now that he thinks about it, he isn't wearing any cloth either. Well, he is wearing his underwear, which is more than he can say for the kitsune. The moment he realizes this, the boy moves his hand over his left shoulder and begins looking at it, giving a small sigh of relief when he notices nothing is wrong with it. Good… Looks like the spell is still active. The kitsune gives the boy an innocent look, but he can also see that there is fear in them, as her body is shaking slightly, and trying her best to back away as slowly as possible. The boy lets off a small sigh and sits on the bed, grabbing the half-fallen blanket and tosses it at the girl before turning his head to look out the window and see the sun rising above the large wooden wall that acts as protection for the village, he is in.

"Who the hell are you?" The boy asks with an annoyed and angry tone to his voice. For whatever reason, he doesn't remember anything at all, but his name, age, which is thirteen, his family, and key events in his life. If he would compare his past to a book, about ten percent of the book is readable, and the rest of the book are blank pages, and even that ten percent isn't all in a few pages, it's scattered around the book. But, one thing he knows for sure, is that he wouldn't have brought this girl, who appears to be the same age as him, home just so he can bed her. Even if he doesn't remember most of his past, he knows he wouldn't do something like that. Not even if he had gotten himself drunk at a tavern, which is legal once you are thirteen since you are then considered an adult.

"…cough…cough…A-Anna…cough." The girl, Anna, says in a timid voice. Anna removes the blanket from her head and looks down with a questioning look. Giving a cute yelp once she realizes she is naked and hurries to put the white blanket around her to cover herself up. Even though she is now completely covered, only leaving her face out as if she was wearing a hoodie, the boy doesn't look at her and continues to talk with his face, facing the window.

"Why are you in my room?"

"Umm, I-I was w-waiting for you t-to recover…Kai…"

Upon hearing his name, Kai turns to look at Anna and gets off of the bed quickly, which causes Anna to flinch slightly.

"How the hell do you know my name?" Kai asks and opens the drawer next to his bed, taking out a rather lengthy dagger and takes it out of the sheath before pointing it at Anna with a sinister look.

"W-wait, wait, wait…Let me explain…Please…"

"You have five seconds."

"Okay…"

Anna begins explaining the situation and how they met and how long they were traveling together. Apparently, Kai had saved her from a life of slavery by killing the bandits who had raided her village. The bandits killed everyone in her village, leaving her as their sole survivor and were about to have their way with her until a bolt of lightning got their attention, and he walked out of the darkness of the charred forest. The bandits laughed the boy off at first since his armor was cracked and dirty, assuming he had stolen it from someone who had died and is trying to play knights. Once they realized the blade strapped to his left hip, they laughed even harder since it was extremely thin. Because of the way they laughed, Anna knew the bandits were no residents of the country since they didn't know what a katana was, or how deadly it can be.

Once the fight began, they found out the hard way on how different their blades were. But, it also didn't help that the bandit's weapons were kept in bad shape, as Kai had cut through the blades like a hot knife to butter. Even cutting their flesh and bones as if they were made of butter. It wasn't until the battle was over when she realized that the boy was not dressed as a samurai, but he was wielding one of their weapons, and it was well made at that. Judging by the armor alone, she assumed he was a knight and not a samurai since his armor resembled one her now-deceased mother told her about.

After saving her, the knight sheathed his weapon and began walking away without saying anything to her. He didn't even react to the sight of seeing her naked since the bandits had torn her blue kimono with pink flowers off of her body. What was left on her body would be considered rags if that, but they didn't cover anything at all, and she didn't care since her lack of clothing was the last thing on her mind. She had just watched her village fall before her eyes, and she was now the last kitsune in her village who was alive. Her mother, father, younger brother, friends, and neighbors, all dead.

The story seems a bit too farfetched to believe, mainly because the place she is describing, is in another country than his own, but who is she to say he didn't travel there in the memories he can't recall? So it was possible. Upon seeing Kai questioning her story in his head, she continues with her story from where she left off, and with greater detail to cast away any shadow of a doubt. Like she had planned, the doubts of her story begin to fade, as she begins describing in details, abilities that Kai can use. His spirit element, his weapon, the way he moves, and a description of his armor in detail. The night her village was raided by bandits, the raging fire caused by the bandits had been extinguished by heavy rainfall, and in the fight with the bandits, he places a dome made of water around them to prevent them from running away. Even when one of the bandits held her up as a hostage, he sent a blade made of water and pierced the bandits head, killing him instantly without harming Anna. But, the story doesn't end there…

After he saved her, he threatened to kill her when she tried to follow him, but for whatever reason, he stopped and begun walking away as fast as possible. Anna continued to follow but at a distance, using her nose to sniff him so she wouldn't lose him. She chose to follow him since he saved her life, and she didn't have any place left to go now that her home was destroyed. Five straight days of no food or rest was her limit, and she collapses on the muddy ground before crawling under a hollowed-out tree to get out of the constant rain that hadn't stopped since she began following Kai. Anna ended up eating the mud on the ground once she got under the tree because the hunger was killing her. She just wanted something to put in there to stop it from growling, drinking the muddy water to wash down the mud and throwing up every so often from her body rejecting everything she ate, and eventually, she passed out.

Anna doesn't know how long she was out because when she rose, the dark clouds above prevented any sunlight from shining through even for a minute in the past five days she followed Kai. Something caught her scent, and she turned around to find a stack of fresh fruit laying behind her, and without even wondering how it got there or who they belonged to, she scooted over and began eating it so fast she threw up again, but she kept forcing it down her throat as though she was in an eating contest. It wasn't until the stack of fruit was half gone when the boy who saved her, Kai, had come back with more fruit. It was then that she heard him speak, and she was stunned by how rude he was by calling her a "fucking moron" right off the bat for following him. Even more so for not grabbing any of the fruit hidden behind bushes or high up in the trees. She was so focused on following him that she didn't even notice the smell of fruit.

Kai then told her that he would take her to a demi-human friendly village nearby and drop her off since he didn't want anything to do with her, but she refused and told him that she wanted to follow him. Anywhere he went, she will go. She didn't understand why, but she had to go with him, it was a woman's sixth sense telling her so.

Kai disagreed and stood up to walk away, but when Anna struggled to stand up, she fell back down instantly, thinking she was still too tired from the five days of constant walking, but she wondered why Kai wasn't affected as she was. Kai, though she didn't know his name yet, quickly placed his tattered black cape around her and picked her up the moment she fell on the ground and begun carrying her for nine days straight. Only stopping to eat or to use the bathroom, to which she needed help with since she couldn't use her legs at all during that time, and to be frank, it was extremely embarrassing for her.

Kai, on the other hand, barely ate and gave most of the food he found to her, only eating as little as three to five fruits a day while she ate as "little" as twenty to thirty, with the most being around sixty fruits a day. She offered him some, but he refused and practically forced her to eat the food. Not only that, but Kai hadn't slept at all for those nine days, and carried Anna all the time in the cold rain, even falling to his knees and dragging himself from how tired he was. But she still couldn't use her legs for whatever reason, so she couldn't do anything. After the ninth days, they reached a village, but Anna had passed out by then. She only knew they reached a village when she woke up, still weak, but she could now use her legs, though she was wobbling like a newborn fawn. An innkeeper who was checking up on her told her what had happened.

When Kai reached the village, he begged for them to take her to the best doctor in the village, he will pay whatever, so long as he could save her life. When Anna had eaten the mud, she ate a parasite that begins eating someone from the inside out. Most people wouldn't notice it because they don't feel anything wrong, but the person becomes in critical condition the moment they lose the ability to walk, which happens three days after they consume the parasite. Once the legs stop working, they will lose control of their whole body in three more days, and die within two after that. The only way to slow down the process, it for the host to eat as much food as possible to give the parasite something to eat besides their insides. Because of how rare this parasite is since you can only get it from mud entering your body one way or another, not many doctors know how to cure it, and the ones that do charge a small fortune for it since they are the only experts on it for miles. Kai had not only paid the doctor two times the amount, he even paid more to make him drop everything and make her his top priority, which he did.

It had only been a week since her treatment, and now she was awake. When she asked about the knight, the innkeeper told her that he left after conforming she was better, which was five days ago. The innkeeper also gives Anna a sack of coins which is meant for Anna to start a new life. Enough to buy a house and live up to three years before she will ever need money. She took the bag, but not because she wanted to start a new life, but because she wanted to go back to the knight, and give him the money back, since she knows it belonged to him, and to tell him that she will follow him no matter what. This was the second, no, third time he saved her, and she knew she wanted to be by his side. Anna gathered a pair of clothing the Innkeeper set for her, since all she had before was a cape, and puts them on before heading out, seeing the sun for the first time in days.

She had no idea where Kai had gone, but something told her if she followed the dark clouds in the distance, she will find him, but it will take weeks to reach the dark clouds on human feet, so she transformed into her fox form and took off running, the bag of money hanging from her mouth. It had taken Anna only six days before she finally reached Kai, who was inside his dome made of water fighting roughly forty bandits. The bandits didn't seem all that strong if compared to the bandits who destroyed her village, but there was a lot more of them, and that gave him no time to rest and just kept fighting, taking damage since he can only block so many attacks.

The way Kai fought with his katana mesmerized Anna. One of his arms was useless since it had been broken, and is only flapping around when he moves, but it didn't seem to affect Kai since he is holding the katana in one hand with ease. Not only that, but he was holding it in a reverse grip and resting the back of the blade along his forearm to block the incoming attacks before flipping it around and slashing them. It seemed as though he was used to fighting with only one hand. In the end, Kai was the last man standing as he transformed the dome into about one-hundred blades of water, sending them flying into the remaining bandits, killing them all instantly. Though he was barely standing at that point. Anna ran in and helped him up, and even though he was grateful, he was upset that she came back to him. In the end, he gave up and allowed her to do as she pleased. Kai and Anna traveled for one month together before boarding a boat and going back to Kai's country, walking to visit a few graves before they finally reached a cabin. As of this moment, they had been traveling for a little over two months now. Once she finishes her story, Kai stands up and walks over to the window, sliding the curtain open and opens the window all the way to let the cool breeze in, and he stands there for a few minutes before opening his mouth.

"I see…Sorry, but that couldn't have been me…I can't save anyone." Anna can't help but notice there is a hint of sadness in Kai's voice when he made that comment, and she is confused as to why he even made such a claim when she knows for a fact it was Kai who had saved her. Before she could think of anything to say, Kai turns and walks past her, not even giving her a slight glance as he did so, and she turns to look at him when he opens his closet and gets a set of clothes out from it.

"Look, it's best if you just leave, and never come back. I don't want to see…I don't want to see your face ever again. I don't care where you go, just get away from me." Kai slips on a pair of black pants and a short-sleeved navy blue shirt on before grabbing a pair of black socks and he walks out of the room and downstairs where he sits on the second to last step to put his socks on, putting his shoes on before grabbing a katana leaning against the door frame and leaving the house without so much as glancing back at Anna, who was looking at him from the top of the stairs.

Kai places his arm just above his eyes and looks up at the bright blue sky. The roosters had finished their crowing, and the majority of the villagers had woken up and began their day, along with adventures and merchants of the like. Some of the villagers Kai knows, begin to greet him, telling him that it's been far too long, and he greets them back but tells them he can't stay to chat as he needs things to do. Honestly, he just rather avoid any conversations at the moment.

Even though its morning, Kai could see a lot of adventures are already drunk and are stumbling around and causing a scene, which the guards of the villagers come and clean up after them, before tossing them out of the village. Because this village is the halfway mark of two kingdoms, it is a lot bigger than any normal village and has roughly one-hundred and fifty people living in it, himself included, with adventures and merchants traveling through here constantly. A few moments later, Kai notices a few eyes are beginning to fall on him, but they are not looking at him per se. Rather, they are looking at the beautiful young woman walking behind him, wearing a blanket over her body and made it look like a robe, with her leg sticking out every time she takes a step. It also appears that she had cut a hole in the blanket to stick her tails through since if she didn't, her butt would be completely exposed.

However, the hole she made is a bit too big for her tails, and you can still see part of her tail end through the hole, but not so much. Anna's eyes wander through the village, buildings and the people of like, both awestruck and being cautious at the same time. She would be lying to herself if she didn't say she was a bit frightened at all the eyes falling upon her. When she notices some of the drunken men beginning to make their way towards her, she speeds up her pace until she is directly behind Kai, grabbing his sleeve with two fingers and matches his pace. Once Anna had grabbed onto Kai's sleeve, most of the men who were walking towards her stop abruptly, except for a man who stops just in front of Kai.

"H-he…hic…Hey. W-what are you…hic…Doing with a p-pretty little thing li…hic…Like her? I-I want some too" The man says, clearly having had too much to drink.

Anna quickly gets behind Kai, pressing her body against his and trying to hide. The man begins to walk towards Kai slowly, and he raises his hand to reach behind him to grab Anna, but Kai grabs his wrist and pushes it back down.

"Get the fuck out of my way," Kai says and places his hand on the man's shoulder, pushing him to the side so he can walkthrough. The man knocks Kai's hand away and gets back in front of him again, stopping him from walking any further.

"You wanna…hic…w-wanna fight? B-bri…hic…bring it on!" The man says and gets into a fighting stance. Kai places one hand on the hilt of his katana. But before they can continue any further, three guards come up and grab the drunken man, pulling him away from Kai and Anna.

"Sir, you're gonna need to come with us."

"H-huh?!? Wh…hic…what do ya w-want with…hic…With me? I-I'm the…hic…victim here!" The man says. But the guards don't buy his story one bit and forcefully take him away. The main reason why Kai was let off without even a slap on his shoulder, was because every residence of the village knew Kai, villagers and guards alike, and if they didn't know him personally, they knew of him. Kai isn't the type of person to get into fights unless provoked, which they all knew full well. It also doesn't help that Kai can give the guards a run for their money, he was trained by the strongest person in the village before he died. So that also played a factor in this, since they didn't want to see how much stronger he had become in the time he had been gone. By this point, Anna had wrapped her arms around Kai, shaking in fear that a fight was about to break out because of her. Despite her slim figure, she was quite strong. So much so that she left bruises around both sides of his stomach, and nearly broke a few ribs, she was a royal kitsune after all.

Before she could break anything, Kai had broken free from her grip and began walking away from her as fast as possible, walking out of the southern gate of the village and walks down the path with Anna following closely behind him. Damn…I guess Master wasn't exaggerating when he said demi-humans have an insane amount of physical strength compared to humans Anna is a weakling compared to the other Royal Kitsune's, but she is still a lot stronger than a one-tailed kitsune. This is enough to send cold sweat down Kai's back, thinking how terrifying she will be if she was average strength. After walking some distance, Kai and Anna are now the only people left on the road, giving Kai the chance to finally talk to her in privet.

"Anna…Would you quit following me? I've told you, I don't want to see you ever again. I don't want you anywhere near me, so leave me alone."

"Why do you always want me to go? What did I do to you?"

"I just don't want you here! I don't want to see your ugly face! Just leave me the fuck alone! I don't want to get violent with you, but I will if I have to!"

"What are you-" But before Anna can continue any further, the crying of a woman can be heard off in the distance, and it's getting louder and louder.

"S-someone, please! Help Me!" The woman shouts and runs up to the two of them. When she reaches the both of them, the woman places her hands on her knees and begins panting heavily.

"W-what's wrong?" Anna asks, placing one hand on the woman's shoulder.

"P-please, help me! The-they have my daughter! Please! I need help!"

The woman begins pleading for them to help her, and when pressed on what had happened, she begins to explain. The woman informs them that she is a villager from a village about three days away. She was apparently traveling to Kai's village to buy some medicine for her village elder who had gotten sick and was accompanied by her daughter when they were ambushed by about five bandits. They tried to flee, but the bandits had caught up and taken her daughter hostage. They told her that if she doesn't come back with a large sum of money, they will end up making her daughter into a mother, which horrifies her as her daughter is only eleven. The woman begins weeping and cries on Anna's shoulder. Kai turns and looks away, thinking about the situation. Something doesn't seem right… Kai says to himself and glances back at the woman. The woman, who appears to be in her thirties, had had her eye on Anna throughout her explanation, but it might have been her first time seeing a kitsune, and it had probably left her awestruck. But, something still doesn't seem right. The woman turns and looks at Kai's weapon, which is attached to his hip, and she presses her body against him and hugs him tightly before looking in his eyes, tears streaming down her face.

"Please, I beseech you! Save my daughter!"

"Don't worry Ma'am, we will save her, show us the way!"

"Anna wait!"

Kai calls out to her, but by then it was too late, the woman had taken Anna's hand and begun to run in the direction she had come from. Kai clicks his tongue and begins following them, running down the path for about thirty minutes before cutting into the nearby forest. Throughout the thirty minutes it took for them to get here, Kai had been thinking as to why this whole situation seems off to him, and why does he have a bad feeling about it. Why would the bandits attack them and let the mother go with the condition of bringing them money in exchange for her daughter? They should have been able to consider the possibility of the mother getting help…Wait… Kai stops abruptly and looks around for a few moments, taking in his surroundings and the noises inside the forest. Besides the twigs breaking under their footsteps and the sound of leaves being crushed, the forest is a bit too quiet.

"Shit! It's an ambush!" Kai says in a low voice. And on cue, the voice of the woman and Anna can be heard screaming throughout the forest. Kai sprints towards the directions of the voices and comes into a clearing where he sees the woman and Anna in a headlock and a knife to both of their throats with eight bandits in total surrounding the women. Kai clicks his tongue and places his hand on the hilt of his blade, but stops when one of the bandits presses his knife harder onto Anna's neck until blood is drawn, so Kai releases his grip on the hilt and holds both hands up to surrender.

"Smart move you little brat…Now, how about you give us everything you have? And leave your weapon as well, and we might even let one of these girls go for you." One of the bandits says while looking back at his men who are all chuckling.

"Let the kitsune go, and I'll comply."

"You have no say in the matter, or would ya rather have them both killed?" The man snaps his fingers and the bandits holding both of them press their blades deeper into their necks until Kai shouts at them.

"ALRIGHT! Stop! I'll comply."

Kai moves his hands slowly towards his katana and undoes the strap to it, pulling the scabbard out of his custom belt loop made to hold his katana perfectly, and tosses his blade halfway between him and the bandits. The man orders one of his men to walk up and pick the blade from the ground, bringing it back towards the group and they unsheathe it and begin mocking the thinness of the blade. Calling it useless and begin saying that Kai might be compensating for something down below if he is carrying a thin, but long blade.

As promised, the bandit orders the man holding the woman who had come asking for help go, and she begins to run towards Kai for safety. Kai takes a few steps forward and holds one hand out towards the woman, and he reaches behind him with his other hand at the same time, making sure the woman's body blocks the view of his hand moving behind him. Kai notices the smirks on all of the bandits faces, and that pretty much confirms what he had been suspecting when he had entered the forest. When the woman was close enough, she stuck her hand out further to grab Kai's hand, but Kai gently slaps her hand away and takes a giant step forward, grabbing the woman's other hand which she had slightly behind her, grabbing her wrist and both of them press their bodies against each other, almost as if they are embracing each other.

A few seconds go by, and both Kai and the woman fall to their knees though Kai's knees never hit the ground, and the woman falls backward. The eyes of the bandits, along with Anna's, widen once the woman had fallen back, because there is a rather lengthy dagger sticking out from the woman's solar plexus, and blood flows out of the corner of her mouth. Kai had slipped the dagger he used to threaten Anna into his back pocket when he left the bedroom. Kai removes his hand from the woman's wrist, slides his fingers up the woman's baggy-long sleeve shirt, and pulls out a dagger with purple liquid dripping from it. In the same motion, Kai flicks the dagger at the bandits and hits the shoulder of the man holding Anna. Almost immediately, the bandit's body begins spazzing, and he releases his hold on Anna, which she uses to run towards Kai and gets on her knees in front of the woman, moving her hands to pull the dagger out.

"Don't help that woman! No matter what she says, don't you dare help her!"

Kai demands and Anna flinches slightly, looking up at him with a confused and worried expression. Her face just tells Kai that she is asking why can't she help her, but Kai pays her no heed and focuses on the bandits. Out of the corner of his eye, Kai can see a bandit coming out of the forest and is charging at him at full speed. This bandit, who appears to be about one-hundred and eighty-seven centimeters, rushes towards Kai with his hands out, and he appears to be big boned as well, meaning if Kai is caught in his grip, he will more than likely die. This man is clearly the muscle of their group, and the grins on some of the bandits confirm this, so Kai has to take him out first, and charges right at the man without any weapons in his hands. When Kai rushes towards their comrade, the bandits all assume the fight is over and done with, since it's a common saying that a knight is nothing without his weapon since they spend most of their time learning how to use the said weapon. However, Kai is as deadly without his weapons, as he is with his weapons.

At the last possible second, Kai kneels down as far down as he could go before kicking off of the ground and launches himself in the air, hitting the bandits forehead with one knee while hitting his chest with the other and hovering in the air for a few seconds before falling two feet behind the bandit who had fallen on his back. The bandit sits up and puts both hands on his forehead, and feels a large gash with blood running down his face. Enraged, the man turns around and gets back up to get payback, but Kai had turned around and flipped twice in the air, kicking the man across his face before landing on one knee and gets back up before taking his fighting stance. The bandit tumbled a few feet back and shook his head, letting out a roar like scream before charging at Kai who simply dodges by taking three large steps forward and going a split on the ground so the bandit misses his tackle and runs past Kai who slipped under him.

The bandit had stopped within striking distance and turned as quickly as he could to kick Kai, but Kai ducked and launched himself forward, putting one knee on his foot while pushing his leg with his body and knocks him back on the ground. Cold sweat begins falling down the backs of all the bandits as they watch their ace in the hole being played around with as though he was a newborn kitten, while the blue-haired boy is like a lion. But, the most shocking of all is the fighting moves this boy knows. None of them have seen that type of fighting style. Though, even if they did know which fighting styles Kai knew, it wouldn't have mattered since he has trained in a variety of fighting styles. Including Karate, Judo, Boxing, Kickboxing, and has nearly mastered Taekwondo, Jujutsu, and Muay Thai, among many others. Muay Thai being Kai's favorite fighting style which was also his Master's favorite out of everything he had learned. Though he had been under his master's wing for four years, he had learned a great deal from him and is on par with mid-class knights, despite being only thirteen.

If the bandits had known how deadly Kai was, they wouldn't have attempted to rob him or try to take the kitsune from him to sell her on the black market for a heavy payday. But, they learned all of that a little too late. Kai delivers a few elbows blow to the man's chest along with a few knee hits on his stomach, but the bandit continues to get back up each time he falls. Because Kai is still quite young, his attacks don't pack enough power to deal a great deal of damage to someone as big boned as the bandit he is facing. A regular-sized adult, sure, but not this man in front of him. Though Kai knows this as well, and he had been careful to land each attack on places he had already attacked before to increase the damage on that part of his body that had already suffered. The bandit tries to keep Kai at bay by kicking at him, but his large frame slows him down and Kai side steps before delivering his own kicks to the bandits leg several times before taking a large step forward and grabs his leg mid-air, turning around and drags the man with him, causing him to hit his head when he falls back on his back. But, Kai knows full well he can't hope that alone was enough to finish the man off if his other attacks didn't do anything. Kai falls and plants his knee firmly on the man's pelvis to cause his upper half to lift up slightly before he kicks off the ground with his other foot and knees the man on his forehead once more, in the same spot he had done the first time he attacked him.

Even with all this, the man gets back up, but his body wobbles slightly as if he is reaching his limit, so Kai goes in to finish it. Kai runs forward and places one foot on the man's gut, lifting himself in the air and connects his knee to the man's forehead yet again and the man stumbles back a few feet, and Kai goes in again and places his foot on the man's gut once more to lift himself up. But instead of hitting him on his forehead again, Kai gets enough height where he can wrap his other leg around the back of the bandit's neck and begins delivering several elbows blows on the top of the bandits bald head — continuing to do so even though he can feel something squishy underneath his elbow. After a few more hits, he jumps off of the bandit, taking a battle stance as if expecting the man to have survived all of that. However, once Kai realizes his skull had collapsed in on itself with the flurry of blows to his head, and the fact that he had started hitting his brain through his scalp halfway through, Kai gets out of his fighting stance and lets out a small sigh of relief as the man falls to his knees and onto the ground. Blood flowing out from his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth, along with something pink and squishy looking coming out of his ears and nose. The sight was enough to cause everyone watching to feel something coming up their throats and half of the bandits puke as a result of it. Kai had not only just killed their heavy hitter, but this is actually the second bandit Kai had actually killed, with the first one being the one who had been holding Anna when the poison dagger had found its new home in his shoulder.

The sound of twigs breaking bring the bandits back to reality to realize the threat had not vanished as they had wished for, and they see Kai walking over towards them with malice in his eyes. The bandits all drew their weapons and began to charge at him, swinging their weapons widely in hopes that one of them can land a blow on Kai. Kai dodged all of the attacks with ease as though he can see the blades coming at him in slow motion. Kai only makes his counterattack the moment he steps in front of the bandit who is holding Kai's katana, and Kai grabs the hilt of his blade before jerking the handle towards him to hit the bandits head with the blunt side of the katana causing him to release his hold of the blade and is now in its rightful owners hand. In the blink of an eye, Kai moves the blade so quickly that all one can see is a white streak of light pass in front of them and Kai now holds the katana in a reverse grip.

No more than a second goes by and both of the arms of the bandit who had stolen his blade fall on the ground with the man not even noticing his arms had been cut until he tries reaching for the sword attached to his hip. The man looks down and begins letting out a blood-curdling scream, waving what's left of his arms around with blood spewing in all directions. Though his katana might be thin and long, it is also extremely sharp, and it had not only cut through the man's arm's perfectly, but his bone as well as though it was a hot knife cutting butter. If one closes their eyes, they might have heard sizzling when Kai's blade past through both his arms. Kai had not only cut the bandits arms off, but he had actually also cut another bandit head off by accident. He hadn't intended to do so, but the bandit had actually tripped when he tried to stop when he saw Kai's blade vanish before his eyes, followed by a white streak of light, and he fells forward, though he never felt his body hit the ground, because he had been decapitated before his body did hit the ground, and the head rolled on the ground until it stopped right in front of Kai's feet with his eyes wide open as if glaring at his killer.

Kai glances down at the head and gives a slight scoff, finding the head looking at him more annoying than creepy, and he kicks it towards one of the bandits who had thrown caution to the wind and went in to attack him, giving it everything he's got. The head becoming skewered on the man's sword as he continues to run, possibly unaware that a head is literally on his sword. Kai's blade vanished for a split second before it reappears once more, and the bandit had run past Kai before he finally stopped, having been killed already. It isn't until Kai swings his katana once towards the ground to get as much blood off of his katana as possible when the bandit's body splits perfectly in two from between his legs going all the way up the top of his head. It's at this moment that the fight or flight instincts kicked in for the bandits that they either went in and died, or tried to flee, but had also met their end since they were no match for Kai's speed to get away. The furthest one bandit got was when his hand flew a few feet inside the forest from the clearing they were in, through the owner of the hand hadn't even touched the tree line.

Nine bandits in total having been killed with the tenth joining them once Kai finishes getting the information he needs before killing them. Kai slowly turns around and walks over towards Anna who had her hand covering her mouth, just in case something did come up, but she was fine otherwise, and the blanket was still covering her body somehow. However, Kai didn't walk over towards her to check on her like she thought he was going to do. Rather, Kai lifts his leg in the air and steps on the dagger, pushing it further in until the blade guard rest in between her breast and her stomach, and the woman let out an agonizing scream as Kai moves the blade around with his foot.

"Who are you? Where is your boss? Where are the rest of them hiding?" Kai begins interrogating the woman as he moves the blade around, but all the woman can do is scream.

"AUGHHH!"

"TALK! WHERE AR- !?!"

"K-Kai! Stop!" Anna yells and tackles Kai off of the woman and onto the ground. Kai manages to get Anna off him, and he quickly gets back up, but Anna places her arms around him to stop him from hurting the woman any further.

"Kai, please! St-"

Anna falls silent as she feels something burning on her cheek and her eyes open wide. Anna rubs her red check slightly, trying to comprehend what had just happened. She hadn't imagined it, she clearly felt it. Kai had broken out of her hold and turned around and had just slapped her across the face. Though he had held back quite a bit, it was still enough to hurt her. Anna looks up at Kai, shaking slightly and in disbelieve that he had struck her. Kai looks down at Anna, clearly annoying with her, and Anna takes a few steps back, opening her mouth, but all she can do is mumble, so Kai decides to speak first.

"Anna, I'm getting tired of your shit already."

"H-huh?"

"I'll just be honest, I don't like you, the very sight of you irritates me! You where sheltered and you're oblivious to the real world. Have you ever even taken a step outside your village?"

"O-of course I did…A f-few times…Like…twice…"

"This is what I mean! You're so oblivious to the fact that this woman was working with them. Did you even notice?"

"B-but her daught-"

"It was a lie, Anna! She said what would grab your attention in hopes she can trick you into following her to the middle of nowhere and spring a trap!"

"B-but how could you know that? What if she really was in danger?"

"That's the thing with you, Anna! If you keep playing the game of "what if" you will end up dying! The fact of the matter is, she was one of them!"

"But…She's a girl…She's a woman!"

"What does that have to do with anything? Women lie, men lie, anybody can lie. This world is different from the sheltered life you lived in! People will do what is necessary to survive, and they will use any means necessary to do it. Men, women, or children, they will use them all!"

"But how could you know if she was lying or not? She came running to us and begging for help… How could you have even tell if she was lying?"

Kai begins explaining to Anna how he finds out the woman was a bandit. When the woman arrived at them, she was eyeing Anna more than Kai, but he had considered the possibility that she was just awestruck by her beauty, so it wasn't something he could reply on at the moment. The second was the moment when she arrived, she was out of breath. Yet, she continued to run for another thirty minutes when she was leading Anna, and she never missed a step or slowed down for those thirty minutes, which is wired if she was out of breath before. The next was when they entered the forest, the terrain was rough and uneven.

For someone like Anna who lived in the forest, this was nothing new to her, and he could understand how she ran through the forest perfectly. Kai had trained a lot in the forest, so he was also used to terrains like these, but the woman was from a village. There shouldn't have been any reason for her to run through the uneven forest as though it was a paved road unless she runs through the forest for a living. Next, after the bandits caught the two of them, they released the woman once Kai gave in to their demands, which wouldn't have made sense from a logical standpoint since they could have easily used them as hostages to escape, but they didn't.

Despite all of this, Kai was still optimistic about the fact that maybe he was overreacting, but he wasn't going to rely on optimistic alone and give her the benefit of the doubt, considering all evidence pointed towards her being an undercover. That was when Kai noticed that the arm the woman was keeping behind her wasn't moving at all, almost as if she was hiding something in her sleeve, so Kai reached out for the arm she was keeping from him, and when he felt the dagger, the optimistic he had vanished into thin air, and he stabbed her.

"…"

"Anna, you were their target…Do you even know what they will do to you if you become one of their captives in human trafficking?" Though Kai wasn't sure if they were human trafficker bandits, she would have eventually found her way there if they did capture her. After all, a royal kitsune is worth a lot in the human trafficking business.

Anna is a bit taken back by the following question. Kai had been angry at her, but when he asked her this question, his tone of voice had shifted from anger to one of concern, but she couldn't bring it up to him, and just answered him.

"…I-I will be used as a p-plaything… I'll be… raped…"

"You are half right…Anna, they will use you until you're beyond broken, until you're beyond saving. By the time they are finished with you, you're nothing more than a bag of meat. You wouldn't even know how many men have come and gone, but… even though you are broke, even though you are all used up, you still are of use to them, for one final thing." Anna could tell the tone in Kai's voice shifting once more, going from concern to a grim one, and she is already too scared to find out what that purpose is.

"Once you are of no use to them, they will forcefully transform you and begin skinning you, dead or alive."

Anna gets a cold chill down her spine, and her body shakes for a few seconds before she stops and hugs herself, thinking of the pain from being skinned alive. Her Mother and Father had told her about human trafficking, but they didn't mention that part. Either they avoided it because she was still young, or because they themselves didn't even know about it, but the thought was enough to send fear down every bone in her body. Kai turns to look at the woman, seeing her body laying on the ground, and her chest isn't rising or falling. Her eyes are wide open, but there is no sign of life in her eyes. She had bled out and died. Kai clicks his tongue, missing his opportunity to interrogate the woman and he turns back around to see Anna crouched down and shaking slightly, so he walks past her to heads in the same direction he had come from.

"K-Kai?" Anna calls out to him in a low voice, turning around slowly to face him.

"…"

"Why…does the sight of me…irritate you?"

"…Just forget about it. Leave my sight, and go live your own life. This is where we part ways."

"No, I refuse."

"Why are you so god damn annoying?"

"Why do I irritate you?"

"Because you're annoying! You're immature! You're spoiled! And worst of all, you rem-… No, just forget it! Just leave! I don't want to see you again!"

"…Kai?"

"…"

"Who is Flora?"

The moment Anna had mentioned her name, she quickly tried to close her mouth to prevent her from saying her name, but it was already too late, and Kai had heard what she said. Kai closed the gap between then in the blink of an eye, and Anna could feel something cold press up against the side of her neck, along with something hot running down it. Anna doesn't need to see what it is pressed against her neck, nor what the hot liquid running down her neck is. She knows full well what both of them are. Kai had placed his blade against her neck, and the sharpness of the blade had cut into her skin just enough to cause it to bleed. The blood running down the blade and her neck. Anna looks into Kai's eye's, seeing nothing but rage and hatred in them, and this causes her to freeze in fear. Cold sweat drips from her brow and more running down her back. Her body shaking more when Kai presses the blade deeper in her neck, but not so deep for it to leave any permanent mark… yet.

"Who told you about her?" Kai asks, the anger in his voice as clear as the morning sun.