Noel

"Your Majesty." The little girl whimpered. "Help me, please!" 

"Majesty?" Ryo raised a brow. "Last I checked, I was no king of anywhere. If you want to wrestle some sympathy cash out of me, you're going to have to try better than that." He tossed his cloak in her face as he promptly turned away from the little girl whose eyes began to water. "Move away brat...or you'll regret it."

"No, wait!" She cried aloud as she ran around in front of him again and waved her arms. "It's not what you think! You were looking for me, remember?!"

"Remember nothing." Ryo's eye ticked. "I've never seen you before this day, let alone sought you out. And even so, what could you probably offer me that I'd look for you anyway?"

"You were feeling for me!" The little girl clenched her fists. "I felt it, two weeks ago! You were looking all over the city for people like us! I've been looking for you ever since!" Her lips trembled. "Don't you remember?"

"People like us?" Ryo narrowed one eye as he concentrated more on the girl. More particularly at the very subtle aura surrounding her, which was odd as mortals did not emit this kind of thing. And further than that...this aura of hers was familiar for some reason. His eyes widened again a little as he finally recognised what was standing in front of him. "You're...you're a spirit..."

"And you are a Spirit King!" She said as she looked down at his boots. "I'm not sure what kind of Spirit King you are...my own powers aren't all that impressive. I can't even protect myself." She looked up at him again with the same sadness, but this time, there was a fire of determination in his eyes. "But you can protect me! I can tell you're really really strong! If you protect me...I will become your subject, and I will carry out your will however you see fit. So please..." Even in her rags, the little girl dropped to her hands and knees, and bowed her head very low. "Take me under your wing."

Ryo stared at the little girl in front of him. She was quite small. At full height, she could not possibly stand taller than his thigh...but more than that was the ridiculousness of her statement of her powers not being impressive. Whether she didn't know it and she tried to hide it, Ryo's senses did not lie. And what his senses told him that there was nothing more than a high-class spirit prostrating in front of him and begging for his protection.

And from what his eyes were telling him, this girl possessed a strong affinity for ice magic...and healing as well.

'Uraume will have a suitable comrade with her.' He chuckled to himself, making the girl look up at him.

"Well, if you're a spirit, it changes everything." Ryo placed a hand on his hip. "Do you promise to serve me devotedly, ready at my beck and call, to carry out my will as I see you fit and useful for? That you shall stay at your hand at the slightest inclination, coercion or temptation to harm and betray me?"

"Yes, I do." The little girl nodded.

"And in return, you shall have my protection." Ryo said as both he and the girl heard the sound of heavy chains, and felt the ever so slight touch of metaphorical shackles wrapping around them. "The Binding Vow is sealed. Now then, rise." He commanded.

Slowly, the girl stood up, the tears no longer running down her face, and seeming much happier. Ryo was not much different either. After all, he had already managed to gain a particularly powerful spirit as a subordinate without even having to subjugate her first...as was the usual way for creatures of power like spirits to do so. More than that, she was a different kind of spirit than he was so he could rub that in the face of any ice spirits who would try to mouth off to him in the future.

After all, the emergence of a powerful spirits always prompted more to come out of the woodworks. The girl in front of him being the perfect example for him.

"What is your name?" He asked her.

"Noel, your majesty." She said as she pressed her bare toes into the paving while she wrung her fingers. "May I ask yours?"

"You don't need to refer to me with that particular honorific." He said. "And for the record, the name is Ryo."

"Can I call you Master Ryo then?" She asked.

"You may." He answered. "Now what exactly were you running from? It was like the devil was on your heels or something."

Noel made to answer when a rush of footsteps came rumbling from the alley she'd burst out of and her eyes filled with fear again as she ran to his legs. This time, he did not deny her and allowed her to take refuged inside his cloak, while she wrapped her arms around his leg and peered out from behind him. With him in front of her, and the cloak to her back, she felt very secure all of a sudden. Especially as she came to settle in his very aura itself, which she could tell was very much supressed by him but spoke of indomitable power.

Ryo kept his eyes focused on the alley as three men came bursting out, the foremost one holding a knife. The very hand that held the knife had a visible bite mark on it that was bleeding profusely. As Ryo concentrated more on them, he saw that all of their trouser legs were soaking wet, and there was still a sheen of frost on them with a couple of pieces of ice stuck in the folds of their pants here and there. No questions as to who was responsible for that.

"There's the little bitch!" The first man who'd been bitten by Noel pointed right at the girl hiding behind Ryo. The man then looked up into Ryo's eyes, while the spirit himself just gazed back unamused. "And it looks like she's found herself a little hero."

"You can take him, Gunt." One of the other men said. "Look at him. He's as thin as a twig. We can just snap in half and then take our time breaking her."

"You know what's good for you pretty boy, you'll walk away. Or you can join her." The third man said.

Ryo looked at himself, trying to verify what the second man said. He was by no means as skinny as they were implying...but he was quite lean. His cloak didn't do much to reveal his real shape. But then compared to the first man who was apparently called Gunt, he might as well be skinny. Because that man's chest alone was wider than a doorway.

"I take it the little lady right here bit you then." Ryo said as he put a hand on Noel's head, while looking pointedly at the men. He then looked down at Noel herself and repeated the question. "Did you?"

"You bet your ass she did!" Gunt said as he walked towards the two of them, a rather wide grin plastered on his face which would usually be quite disturbing to any normal onlooker. "The night is no place for little girls like her you know. Something happens to her, then it's all her own fault."

"I see. I believe I now know what type of man you are." Ryo said as he looked at Noel. "You know she can't be more than six or seven from the way she looks right?"

"So she's not ripe yet. So what?" Gunt shrugged as his sharp eyes locked onto Noel who only shrunk back, further and further into Ryo's cape while clutching him as if trying to assimilate into him. "All that matters is that she looks good."

"And yet somehow she ran from you." Ryo titled his head. "Mind explaining how such a helpless weak little thing like her managed to run from a big strong man like you?"

Gunt stopped for a moment as he saw that there was not even so much as a nervous twitch in the boy's posture. Instead, Ryo was looking at him with the most bored and uninterested expression, as if they were not just discussing something that would be quite alarming and uncomfortable to any other person.

"Watch it boy." Gunt said with a dangerous edge to his tone. "Or I'll have the boys bend you over too. Raz over there likes pale little blighters like you." He pointed to the third man who had dirty greasy hair and a few missing teeth. "Leave now and hand her over. Or you'll regret it."

"I don't think I have much to fear." Ryo said with a mocking smile as his eyes passed over the three men scrutinisingly. "If it took the three of you to hold pin down a little girl like her and yet she still managed to escape somehow, then you can bet the price of Ishtar's pink meat fort that you can go nowhere with me."

The three men stopped short of their advance, a little bit surprised at his particular choice of words while Noel just looked up at him a little confused, even in her fear and confusion of him not doing anything yet.

"Pink meat fort?" She asked.

"We'll discuss that when you're older." He said to her as he patted her head as he looked at the three idiots who finally allowed their confusion to pass over and the indignation to settle in. "And besides, I doubt Ishtar really charges anything for it any way, the dirty bitch. So to put it simply, you don't even need to bet anything on a confrontation between us because it would be pointless...I'd win any day."

"...You had your chance." Gunt said as he flipped the knife into a reverse grip and began charging forward, making Noel cry in fear as she gripped Ryo even tighter, contemplating whether or not she should bolt for it. "After I'm done breaking her in, I'll have you for dessert."

"You yourself would not even count as an appetizer." Ryo muttered as he held up a hand sign. "My Piercing Ox can chew you for his cud."

The shadows next to him bubbled and broiled as they took on liquid form and climbed up the wall of a house. Out of the black gateway came charging a great black bull the size of a small elephant, with bulging muscular limbs and a thundering gait, blowing plumes of steam from its nostril as it lowered its head, adorning two large horns as it barrelled right into the unsuspecting Gunt and swept the man off his feet with little more effort than it took to brush off a fly.

The direction of the bull's charge happened to coincide with the direction of the other two ingrates who could only do nothing but watch as the creature came charging towards them with Gunt hanging off of its face. They began screaming and turned to run back in the alley. When Piercing Ox had caught up with them, they'd already managed to reach the alley again, and it was the biggest mistake they could have made considering what came next. Ryo covered Noel's eyes with a hand as he could already smell the blood that was about to be shed.

Gunt slipped off of the bull's face as he could not find a grip to hang onto. So his body fell right beneath the hooves of the super bull, and before the idiot even knew it, his head was split open like a melon with one stamp. Leaving his body behind, the bull charged right at the other two who had made the mistake of slipping into a tight space with a creature who could only charge forwards and became more powerful the longer it ran.

The one called Raz found himself smashed into the wall, the tip of the bull's horn buried deep in his gut as he let out a pained gasp in both agony and disbelief. The ox chomped down on the arm of the other man and began dragging him along as his own screams rattled the neighbourhood. Raz's body was rag dolled and thrown to the ground as he curled in pain. But to his horror, he saw a massive hole in his abdomen, and ropes upon ropes of his intestines slowly being unravelled from his inside. His small intestine had been caught on the bulls' horn when he'd been impaled.

So now, Raz could only watch as his own guts were being uncoiled from inside him. He raised his head to look at Ryo who just watched the whole thing with fascination, enjoying the show a lot more than the victim in this situation. Raz looked just about ready to sob in terror and hopelessness as he looked into the cold eyes of a ruthless killer...before the intestines were pulled taught as there were no more yards left to unravel and his body was yanked back as it too was dragged along down the dark alley into the dark, leaving behind a bloody trail mixed with gut fluids.

"A fitting end for child predators...they get broken from the inside out like gutted prey." Ryo said before he pulled Noel along, giving her no opportunity to look at the carnage left behind in the wake of the bull's mad charge. Upon hearing people begin to open their doors to see what was going on out in their street, Ryo simply clutched the shaken girl a little tighter and phased them both out of sight.

---

As per his expectations, Martha was there to meet him at the door when he pulled in Noel behind him into the Gate Inn. The girl opened her mouth to greet him as enthusiastically as ever when she saw the dirty little girl behind him. Her forehead creased confusedly as she saw the girl follow Ryo inside. She lifted a finger to point at the little spirit when Ryo pushed it down.

"Some men tried to attack her near the guild." He lied. "I stopped them."

"R-right." Martha said as she leaned to the side to study her more. "So...she bunking with you?"

"No." He said as he pushed some coins into her hand. "Get her another room for this night and tomorrow's. But before that...help her get cleaned up please. I'm not too sure the other guests will be much too pleased with someone who looks like a gutter rat walking amongst them."

Noel looked up a little shocked by his description of her, and then looked down again feeling a little bit heart. Martha saw this and frowned.

"You know, you could try and not be so mean all the time." She said as she reached out a hand to Noel. "I like the whole bad boy thing you've got going on but she's going to be quite sensitive...what's your name sweetie?"

"Noel." The spirit replied. "My name is Noel."

"Noel. What a cute name!" Martha smiled as best as she could, her dimples sinking further into her face as her smile stretched even wider and the redness of her cheeks filled Noel's being with warmth. "Now come with me to the back and I'll get you cleaned up."

Noel tentatively reached out to the outstretched hand and hesitantly grabbed Martha's fingers. Immediately she was being pulled along as Martha did not delay getting her cleaned up. On the way in, Noel looked back at her new master whom she'd sworn herself to and he eyed her in return.

"We'll speak later." He said.

The little girl simply nodded and turned away from him as she committed herself to following the older girl for now. Ryo brushed back his hair and sighed to himself.

All in all, it had been a very fruitful day. 

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