Chapter 35: The Rescue Plan

[Fiore's castle, Midnight]

"Did you heard? The Princess was captured by the Phantoms." The guard who was on duty said to his partner.

Yawning, his partner replied, "...No wonder security right now is extremely tight."

"Yeah, this is just brutal for us." The guard stretched as he waited for a response from his partner. However, there was just silence. Not a single response.

He opened his eyes to find his partner on the ground, unconscious.

Suddenly, a shadow zoomed past him.

To protect himself, he raised his spear and warned, "Who are you?! Come out now! Otherwise--" Before he could finish, he felt a blunt blow on the side of his neck, knocking him out.

"Hmm, I guess I need to train these guys more often." Yukiko sighed as she gently rested the guard on the ground. She looked around at her to make sure that there is no one was present. Just then, a voice was heard behind her, "...I knew you're going to be here."

Based solely on instincts, she got out her sword and swung it in the direction of the voice.

"Heyyyyy, calm down." Ben smirked as Yukiko had her sword pointing directly at his throat.

The gleaming moonlight was reflected off the shiny surface of her blade and hit him right in the face, blinding him a little.

Breaking into a cold sweat, he voluntarily raised his arms to surrender, "I'm not going to do anything."

In denial, she threw him a disgusted look, "If you're here to stop me then your efforts would be worthless."

"First of all, stop looking at me like that. Secondly, put you sword away, I have no intention of stopping you."

Her eyes widened upon hearing those last few words, but she did not believe him, after all he WAS Ben. Her facial expression softened a little, but she still kept her sword at its original position.

"You're not going to put that down?" He questioned as he eyed down at the sword and back up at Yukiko.

She shook her head twice, before narrowing her eyes towards him, as if she could see through him, "No. Why should I believe you? You might have some sort of secret agenda."

He let out a tired sigh and spoke, "I really don't. Look, I'll even follow you to get my brother and Emily back. I promise."

That somehow seemed to be somewhat truthful.

"Fine." Yukiko huffed as she reluctantly puts her sword away, "What's your plan?"

Ben rubbed his chin for a couple times before he gave a Yukiko a serious look.

"What?" She asked as she jerked her chin in his direction, "What do you have?"

He took a deep breath and admitted, "To be honest..."

Before finishing his sentence, he paused for a few seconds, raising the suspense.

He was silent. Probably the most silent he had ever been. Yukiko looked at him with he icy blue eyes, which was cold and blank. However, her heart was pounding with anticipation, wondering what sort of marvellous plan he had came up with.

Well, she was bold to think that Ben would... come of a strategy of his own.

Grinning from ear to ear, he shrugged nonchalantly, "I think we should just wonder around the main town first, have a drink or something. Because as of now, I have no idea how to get them."

"Just go and die." She rolled her eyes before stomping towards the entrance.

However, she was stopped by the appearance of another voice.

"Wow... You two just sneaked off like that to have some fun without me... That's just plain cruel. I'm pretty bored right now, you know."

Yukiko turned to see Lavi snickering away.

"Wow, stealing the spotlight for yourself, huh." Ethan spat out with a hit of irk as he emerged from darkness along with the remaining gang, who just showed up.

Feeling slightly guilty, Jai shook his head in disappointment, "His majesty would not be pleased, if he sees this."

"True, but we don't have a choice. Emily is somewhat our leader, you know? We need to get her back." Mary rebutted. She then folded her arms and squinted her eyes, "Jai, are you think of giving out our rescue plan away?

"No." he answered, "But, he is going find out himself sooner or later. You guys know that you are going to get yourself in deep trouble, right?"

"Of course, I can't wait for that." Lavi smiled happily.

"You're such a masochist." Ethan looked at him in disgust but his expression slowly softened and his lips curved up to form a slight smile a few seconds after, "But, I guess I can see what you mean."

Lavi swung his arm over Ethan's shoulder and smirked, "Told you. See, Ethan gets it."

A long and exhausted sigh escaped Jai's lips, before he broke into a chuckle, "I kind of expected this from you guys. Well then, Anna, Ethan and I will be here to cover for the rest of you. However, if things get rough, all of you must promise to retreat. I don't want anyone of you to lose your life."

Ethan passed a map to Mary that had a couple of annotations on it, "We have pinpointed a couple of areas that Beck and the Princess might be at."

Anna unrolled the map that Mary was holding and pointed one area that was marked out by them, "I'm not sure if this is their exact location, but you should start looking from here."

Lavi, Mary, Ben and Yukiko crowd around her to look at which area she was referring to. She then continued to give a rather detailed yet short brief, before letting the four of them out to that area.

[Fiore castle, Elena and Anderson's bedroom]

"You aren't going to stop them, Anderson?" Elena asked as she stared down at the group of young ability users from her bedroom's balcony, "They are about to go, you know?"

Her husband showed no signs of reaction, he just continued to look through the report made by Jai as he laid on the bed in silence.

She turned to Anderson and asked once more, "You're not going to stop them?"

This time, he sighed and growled, "It's none of my business. I told them once to not do that, since they didn't want to listen, I have no choice. Once they come back, they'll just need to face the consequences."

"You wanted them to do that, right?" She said as she grinned charmingly at him, "You just don't want to admit it."

Normally those type of grins will turn on countless of males, but it did not work on him at all. Instead, he replied in his typical monotonous voice, "I did not want them to do that, it will just cause more troublesome matters."

She let out a laugh and walked towards that serious looking man. She then leaned in to peck a kiss on his cheek, before whispering seductively in his ear, "You should start smiling more often, otherwise you'll get wrinkles and I don't think you would like that."

Even with that, he did not react. Instead, he just continued flipping those reports.