{Bitter-Sweet Revenge}: Sorana And Yukino

After the surprising and quite frankly disappointing end to this whole band of ruthless killers, Micah ordered with great discomfort to have them all rounded up outside the cave. Since their agreement with the council forced them to stay and watch over the group until the council officials arrived, they used the time to gather all the loot inside the cave. Sorana and Richard hadn't realized how tough it would be to convince Micah to accept taking and using the loot for themselves.

Money that previously belonged to the many families of various villages in the area, former villages more accurately. He hated the idea of using this blood money to advance himself and his group in the world, it took a tremendous amount of time to convince him that if he didn't take it it would be completely wasted on pointless politics that would only lead to more conflict. In the end, it was Sorana's young sister that had been the true decider for him. She was young and defenceless and would need a stable home to grow up in. The very idea of that little girl growing up similar to how he did finally made him decide to take the money that the bandits possessed. And, to say that it was a lot was an understatement. Richard was beside himself with joy at the sight, but neither he nor Sorana was hugely impressed by the sheer amount. They had seen more, it was only Micah that was gobsmacked.

And speaking of Yukino, she and the rest of the kids had been successfully rescued by Richard, and they were waiting outside the cave with them. They sat huddled in a group hugging each other to protect themselves from the chilly morning air. The stars of the raid sat around a decently sized boulder. Sorana sat leaning against it with Yukino firmly in her embrace. The young girl had fallen asleep almost the moment she was freed. She, along with the other kids was exhausted so Micah hadn't officially met her yet, but he was staring at her now, at shock at how similar they looked. Yukino looked just like Sorana.

They didn't have much to talk about so they mostly sat and indulged in the silence, with only a handful of words exchanged every other minute or so. Micah was replaying his fight with the mages, something he discovered he could do extremely easily. If he wanted to he could walk through the event at slow-motion and essentially pause the memory entirely and observe minute details that his brain had picked up but had been placed in the memory bank during the fight. So, much to his surprise, Blue hadn't lied in the slightest. With this ability, he really would have access to every memory and every tiny detail he had ever seen or experienced.

Micah was studying the fight together with Blue, she coaching on how he could improve his efficiency in the future. This was when voices were heard just beyond the trees and in only a few moments very familiar Knights walked out from the treeline. You could see how uncomfortable they were with this terrain, one of them even stumbled on a root but quickly managed to recover, he looked around in hope that no one had paid attention to him. Micah had, of course, seen it. His brain was almost at the level where he could have two parts of his brain to manage two different tasks independently. He was really inefficient with how he optimized his processing ability, but since he had never had even close to this level of processing power, he, unfortunately, had to also get used to using this brain. It didn't come naturally to him, as one might think.

Sorana looked up at them in clear scorn. "How wonderful that you hurried here, it was getting kind of chilly." Micah knew she must be incredibly angry for her to be the side to start the conversation. The sarcasm practically rolled off her, and it served very well in annoying the leading official.

"Do not take that tone with me, Mage." The man looked over the bandits and then at the kids. "This is it then? What about their possessions?" He looked up at the group, expecting Sorana to have changed her tone, but how wrong he was. The scorn in her eyes only increased as she shook her head slowly. "Nothing, I'm afraid. They might have hidden some treasure in the cave, what do we know. We are just simple mages, right?" The loot that the council-man was asking for was safe and sound and the council would never get their hands on it.

"Nothing, you expect me to believe that? You have obviously taken it. You were to be paid by the council for the completion of this mission, any material possession confiscated during the raid rightfully belongs to us. As per agreement." The pride and arrogance in his tone were evident.

Micah looked uncomfortable. He wanted to speak out, but if he did he would have to lie, and he hated doing that. So, he opted to let the other two handle this man.

"Listen, first of all. Not per agreement. We heard nothing about your right to take possession of any loot. Secondly, even if there was loot here, which there isn't, I'm not sure you people should have it. You contributed nothing. These people slaughtered not one but multiple villages, and your council barely lifted a finger." Richard said with a hint of scorn and mockery in his tone. He was essentially saying that there was loot, but that it was there's and it would stay that way. The council-man couldn't do anything to them since they hadn't told him, not directly that they were withholding loot legally belonging to the council.

"You should read the fine print. Any loot acquired during this night's raid rightfully belongs to the council. Remember, if it comes to light that you broke the mission-contract, you will be heavily reprimanded. Well, now since it appears that there is nothing more for me to do here, we shall take our leave. We will make sure that the kids are fitted with proper clothing and taken care of. On the behalf of the council, I thank you three and by extension Fairy Tail for the help, you provided here tonight." He said it, but he didn't sound happy saying it. Micah was absolutely sure that he would most likely have wanted to arrest them instead. Richard had basically told him to his face that they had confiscated the loot themselves, but not being able to act against them must have really ground on the man's gears. He had learned quickly that his guild wasn't particularly liked by the council, so maybe arresting a Fairy Tail mage would be highly satisfying if you are a council official.

"I would thank you as well, but since you did absolutely nothing to stop this group, I will withhold my thanks until you do something that deserves it." Sorana hugged her sister tighter when she said it. Her sister had suffered immensely, together with almost a hundred kids and council did nothing to stop it. Even if there were bigger threats, she was biased towards family so, of course, she would hold a lasting grudge.

"Let's hope we won't meet again." The man of whose name they didn't know said and started yelling out orders to his men. They would have to transport a lot of exhausting kids back to the council, not an easy task and Micah felt a little sympathy towards the knights as they tried to calm the frantic kids.

"That would be just my shitty luck if we do!" Sorana answered with great ferocity. She didn't get a reply which Micah assumed to be for the best, he wasn't in the mood to have some long-lasting tiring argument with an egotistic politician.

"Sorana," Micah began and waited for him to receive most of her attention. "I know this might not be my business at all. But, as your friend, I am worried about you, and most of all, Yukino. Would you mind telling me of your history?" He didn't have high hopes of hearing their life history, he was just interested in how they had separated. And, if she knew how in the world Yukino would have ended up here.

"Nothing much to say." She made sure to talk in a hushed tone as the knights were still lingering in the area. With a glance down at her sister and a sorrow-filled smile adorning her pretty face, she continued saying. "I was taken as a kid, as I've told you. My sister suffered the same fate as me, I tried to protect her, to make them only take me, but they took us both in the end. They took us to that cursed island, that damned tower. And, not long after, Brain arrived and he picked up a few of us and created Oracion Seis." The kidnapping was something Micah had heard small whispers about. But, Sorana had never mentioned that she had a sister, in fact during her storytime a few days back, she had not mentioned anything about her family. She had simply said that she was kidnapped as a child, and taken to an island where she met her former guildmates, including Brain. Richard's story was similar, and from what he had said, most kids on that island had suffered the same fate as them. Taken from their homes and families.

"I'm sorry. I can't imagine." Micah let the words escape him, but he wished to have stopped them for he realised how stupid they sounded. If anything, he could completely imagine what that was like. Losing a family member in a horrible violent manner, that was exactly how he had lost Rufus. "I'm sorry... Again... I... I-I just hope the Yukino will be fine. What she must have been through here. I promise Sorana, I will make sure that this never happens to her again, or any child for that matter."

Richard, who saw that Micah was speaking out of sheer embarrassment and awkwardness put a hand on his shoulder and hushed his boss. "Boss, do not make such promises lightly. Protecting young Yukino is one thing, and you have us for that too. But, promising to stop suffering on such a global scale are promises one shouldn't make lightly."

"I know, Richard, I misspoke. I am not that good at comforting people. This concept is protecting me for emotional overload but it is also enhancing my emotions, I feel others pain so vividly, it's hard for me to know what to say. I just want the suffering to stop, feeling what other people are feeling on top of your own emotions is not easy." Blue had warned him about this, about how he would feel other people's intent and emotional state very vividly the more intuned he became with himself and his {Faith}. Learning to set aside emotions, and knowing the right way to apply his words of comfort was something one learned with time and experience.

"I know I can't possibly know what you're going through, so instead of trying to understand that power of yours, I will settle this time by giving you some simple advice. Sometimes, you just need to offer someone a shoulder. Words aren't always essential to right the wrongs done by others." For someone who had basically just become what the world defined as semi-good, Richard picked up on human interactions quickly, and Micah was envious of how he seemed to understand what to do all the time. In his defence though, Richard was a lot older and had travelled all over Ishgar to observe all manner of cultures. A life like that would obviously come with benefits.

"Right!" Micah felt that urge still, to talk with Sorana, to continued bombarding her with words of comfort, if he even knew how to do that correctly. Apparently he wasn't very good at it, why else would Richard had stopped him. But, despite something in him wanting to dig into her feelings and thoughts, he restrained himself. He instead upped to ask Richard about his family, if he had any. Richard hadn't mentioned it, only that he was stuck on that island the same as Sorana and Yukino. But, Sorana suddenly felt movement from the girl in her embrace. And with some signs of hesitation Yukino's hands started feeling around on the one holding her, and she managed to make Sorana give out an amused chuckle when she lightly and accidentally groped the breasts of her elder sister.

"S...Sister?" Yukino was terrified to open her eyes, in case her sister was gone and she was in the embrace of some unknown woman. What if she opened her eyes and all the scary bandits were all around her looking at her with those hungry eyes she so vividly remembered. But, all those doubts inside her washed away the instant she heard her beloved elder sister's voice enter her ears. So, with a brave effort she opened her eyes, and what she was met with was a very close-sitting face of a young man with blonde hair.

"So, you're Yukino. Welcome to the world of the woken." He smiled and tried to move his face closer to inspect her complexion, but Sorana pushed him away with an annoyed expression. "I am just trying to see if she needs some medical care. I can heal people if you remember."

"Oh, I know. But, keep your inspection at a distance. It's my job to keep the boys away from this beauty." The awakening of her sister reverted Sorana back to the talkative and almost playful personality she brought forth when she was around trusted people. Meanwhile, Yukino was lying down in her lap and listening in on their bickering. They had gone array and was now arguing about Micah's intentions. He argued that his intentions were pure while Sorana stood by that no man was pure of heart, an obvious attempt to rile her boss up. She knew he was pure of heart and would not host corrupt intent. Especially towards a young girl and Sorana's own sister.

"Ehm, sister, where are we? Who are they, and how did you find me?" Yukino hit them suddenly with the most important questions on her mind. She wouldn't normally talk a lot, as she was very similar to Sorana in that regard, but their bickering had started to annoy her. She just wanted to rid the area of Richard and Micah so she could talk to her sister alone.

Without bothering even closing off the argument proper, she abandoned Micah mid-sentence and stared down at the girl. She stroked Yukino's cheek out of instinct and said softly. "We are just outside the cave that you were held in. This is Richard, a friend of mine." She pointed at the money-obsessed giant who smiled kindly and waved back. Richard's smiles were always awkward because his face clearly wasn't meant to smile. It looked silly and unnatural. But, for some reason, it helped with calming Yukino's nervousness. "And, that is Micah, my boss. He is the leader of this little group. And, we were tasked with taking care of the bandits and mages living here. We didn't know you were here or that they had so many kids captured. But, it seems someone is looking after us sisters. I found you when I least expected to."

"Y-You're different. What happened to you, sister?" Yukino saw the smile adorned on her sisters face. She remembered how Sorana had changed on the island, and how the air about her was dark then, and not this calming serenity she felt around all three here.

"This is not the place to discuss that. First, we must make it back to Magnolia, then we shall talk at length. And, I want to know what happened to you, where you've been, but safety first."

"Right, I agree. So, how about Richard and I go and fetch the loot and then when we get back we'll travel back to the guild. I wanna hurry and check how the guild is doing on their end. And, I miss Levy." He said the last part out loud accidentally. Yukino's ears perched up and she looked up at her sister and raised an eyebrow. "Girlfriend?" She asked quietly.

"He wishes." Was her response.

"It will happen. I just have too much on my plate right now. Including you two! I can't leave you alone or you would find yourself in a prison dungeon in no time." Micah gave Sorana a spite filled stare as he got up after Richard.

"I say again, he wishes." She had become an expert at triggering Micah. Every day she would find at least one more button she could push to make him annoyed or angry. It was her favourite pastime in the world.

Yukino grabbed Sorana's hand in her own, the difference wasn't big despite their ages being so far apart. "You are better like this, sister." She didn't want to give her sister time to refute so she closed her eyes and went to "sleep".

'So I've heard." She tried to say out loud but instead said to herself. For someone with such immense guilt building inside, it wasn't easy to admit that she was good, or deserved to be. Put on a fake smile and present fake happiness about her feelings, that made her feel better, strangely enough. 'Micah and Richard are making strides in the kilometres, I make them in the centimetres. You should look up to them, not me.' With the seed of doubt rooted deeply in her soul, she followed suit and closed her eyes to rest her weary head.

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End