No one noticed him yet. And nobody paid serious attention since he was with Rose.
Everybody watched from a distance as Rose hammed her melody with a smile on her face and her eyes shut a bit, making her look different from her earlier self.
Mathew stepped away from her, unable to tolerate her delusions.
He leaned against a massive tree whose leaves were thick and fluffy, spreading like clouds across the sky. Its branches were jagged like thorns, and its bark was rough and ridged, reminiscent of a snapping alligator's back. Yet despite its fearsome appearance, the tree posed no danger to anyone standing near it or touching it.
Of course.
Mathew had touched the tree with his unarmored hands. In his eyes, the tree was just another huge tree that needed to be trimmed down to size.
From a distance, not far from where the tree was, Xuo was sneaking around some carriages the knights brought to carry the villagers they had captured.
He was looking for Hajime and hoping he might find him in one of these carriages.
Most of them were filled with wood, and these carriages appeared a bit old, as they had just been sitting around in the rain for years without anyone mending them.
These carriages were at the end of the other carriages, which looked like they were used to transport wild animals.
Yet, when Xuo checked a couple of them, he didn't find Hajime or any of the villagers. Still, this wasn't enough to make him stop searching.
He jumped onto a nearby tree and continued onto the rooftop of one of the carriages with a faint thud.
"What the hell?"
The noise caught the attention of one of the nearby knights.
He pivoted, his guard up, and looked around to see if the thing that made the noise was still around.
Atop the carriage, Xuo glanced down at the knight and kept quiet by restricting his body motion. The knight looked left, right, and ahead with a focused expression.
Slowly, he approached the carriage Xuo was on, but suddenly something fell from a carriage behind.
The knight's attention switched from the carriage ahead to the carriage behind it. The sound also surprised Xuo, so he turned swiftly to see what could have made the noise.
He almost jumped, thinking the knight had found him out, but shifted his attention to where the knight was headed.
...What was that? He wondered.
The knight slowly approached from behind the carriage, his weapon at the ready, wary of any sudden attack. Xuo, atop the carriage watched in silence.
In the blink of an eye, two squalls tumbled out of the carriage, still fighting over a pomelo.
The instant they hit the ground, the knight froze in surprise. He stumbled backward and fell, still gripping his weapon.
Xuo flinched, surprised that his body started radiating some dark blue mist, but in a small amount.
He glared at the two squalls, his stare sharp enough to catch their attention. They froze for a moment, then glanced up at the carriage where Xuo was. Without another thought, they bolted into the nearby bushes, abandoning the pomelo they had been fighting over.
The knight simply stared after them.
"What was that about?" he muttered as he got back to his feet, still watching the bushes they had vanished into.
A second later, he added, "Did they run away because of me?"
A grin crept onto his face as he turned away from the carriages, completely unaware of the aura radiating from Xuo above him.
Another knight appeared with a serious expression on his face as he approached the first knight, who still had a grin on his face.
"What's going on here?" the newcomer asked, studying him from head to toe, curious about what had happened before he arrived.
"...Nothing."
"...It was just some squalls fighting," he replied as his grin faded, continuing to walk toward the other knight.
On top of the carriage Xuo was on. His dark mist started to fade, and he was good to go. He looked to his sides as he jumped off the carriage, while the two knights left the carriages unchecked.
Xuo slowly moved towards one of the carriages that looked like they were for wild animal transport.
He glanced over his shoulder, checking to see if anyone was watching, then faced forward. Reaching his right hand behind the carriage, he didn't hesitate—he vaulted inside.
Still, he didn't find Hajime. Instead, all he saw were villagers beaten to a pulp and unable to move. Some of them were bound like animals, chained together, their restraints linking them back to back.
...What a mess... he thought as he looked over the captured villagers.
One of them slowly lifted her head and looked at him. She appeared to have been beaten badly by the knights.
Her eyes were filled with tears, mixed with blood that had run down from a wound on her face. While cuts covered her pale skin, injuries that needed immediate attention, or she wouldn't survive long.
Her clothes were soaked with fresh blood.
"...Help me!" He murmured under her breath.
Xuo stopped as he was about to leave the carriage and looked at her with a grave expression while holding a fist in his hand.
The mist that was being emitted from him started to disperse like flames being blown by the wind and completely vanished, leaving no traces of it around his body.
"...Hel..." She murmured again as her voice faded.
Yet, he only stared at her one last time before turning away. Her eyes slowly closed, and the tears that had been spilling from them finally stopped.
Even so, Xuo walked away without a second thought. His expression remained grave as he left the carriage, knowing there was nothing he could do about the mess around him.
Meanwhile.
Hajime was well aware of what was happening around him, but the only thing that bothered him the most was all the knights walking around carrying rifles.
They were ignoring him again as Rose kept hamming her melody with a smile on her facial expression, her eyes still closed.
Hajime noticed that he was tied up, and Rose was holding onto the rope.
He kept quiet, observing the knights as they moved about. From a short distance away, he noticed Mathew drinking some kind of glowing liquid. Yet despite the liquid's glow and the bottle's transparency, no light reflected off Mathew's hand. It was as if the glow produced no light at all, more an illusion than an actual source of illumination.
The night wore on, and it was becoming harder to see the details around for some people who had been moving long in the light.
Hajime remained silent, trying to figure out a way to get untied and move on without any of the knights realizing it.
Yet as he did, Rose finally stopped humming and slowly shifted her gaze toward him, a smile still on her face.
"Oh?" Rose uttered, her voice almost surprised. "I didn't realize you were awake." She continued, taking a step closer to him.
Hajime, seeing this, almost panicked, backing away until his back hit a tree—a dead end of sorts.
"What do you think you're doing, brother?" Rose asked as she reached him with a smile still on her face.
Brother? I think this girl got the wrong person, cause I clearly remember Nanako only having me.
Hajime closed his eyes.
Slowly, Rose reached out and touched his shoulder, the smile still on her face. Hajime's shoulders tensed, and his right hand grasped at the leaves nearby.
"Are you still afraid?" Her smile slowly began to fade.
Hajime slowly opened his eyes, his right hand still gripping the leaves. If he was going to get out of this unharmed, his only chance was to play along until an opportunity presented itself.
"Sta… stay away!" He stammered, tears beginning to well in his eyes.
In that split second, Rose let go of his shoulders as tears began to stream down his face.
She flinched, her lips parting in surprise, her eyes widening slightly, but her gaze remained fixed on him.
"Did you forget who I am already?" She whispered.
Tears continued streaming down Hajime's face as she stared at him, saying nothing more.
Look at yourself, lady… I'm not your brother. Still, I'll keep going like this until you let go of me, Hajime thought, his eye twitching in annoyance.
***
From a distance, Xuo drew closer to the carriage near the massive tree where Mathew was, continuing his search for Hajime.
Mathew had fallen asleep as the other knights went about their work, while the rest were busy gambling with the spoils they had taken from the village.
"Scumbags," Xuo muttered with a disgusted expression, watching the knights gamble, oblivious to Mathew sleeping under the tree.
He continued to move forward, heading towards the carriage near Mathew, blending into the shadows cast by the trees.
When he drew close to the carriage, he stopped and checked his blind spots, making sure no one had noticed him. The knights were still engrossed in their gambling, and Mathew remained asleep.
As Xuo turned back to face the carriage, he spotted Rose—and someone with white hair, about the same age and size as Hajime.
"Uh?" he muttered, turning back to look at Rose.
"Could that be him?" he guessed, reaching for the short sword at his hip.
Suddenly, he lunged forward, drawing his sword with full force and cutting through some branches just behind him.
"Uw!" someone cried out in pain as the branches snapped.
"There you are!" Xuo said under his breath.
The branch he had cut fell along with the person who had cried out, but their fall was cushioned by the leaves on the lower branches.
Xuo looked at him with a blunt expression, the short sword still in his hand, stained with blood.
"He's one of them, huh?" he muttered to himself, watching the man's neck ooze blood.
The man wore the same armor as the knights who had been gambling, but for some reason, he carried nothing else on his person.
Xuo turned back to look for Rose, but she was gone, vanished from the spot where he had seen her just seconds before he had cut down the man.
"Where did they go?" Confused, he wondered while looking around for her. The forest had suddenly gone silent; the only sound came from the knights gambling in the distance.
He turned, considering checking the giant tree where Mathew had been sleeping, while the man he had cut down continued to bleed without stopping.
He took a step back and stepped on something that cracked beneath his weight. He turned swiftly to see what it was, but it was only a pile of dried branches.
"So, what's your mother like?" a woman called from a short distance, not far from where he was hiding.
He turned again to see who was speaking. It was Rose, walking toward the carriage with Hajime, a smile on her face. She was talking to Hajime, but he didn't answer her question; he just returned a faint smile.
"Hey. I said I'm not going to hurt you," Rose said again, turning to face him.
"What the?" Xuo let out a breath.
He clenched his short sword as dark mist began to radiate from him again, but suddenly loosened his grip, noticing something off before turning.
"…Not now?" he muttered, turning to look back at Rose and Hajime.
But Rose suddenly stopped. Her expression turned serious as she glanced toward the spot where Xuo was hiding, while Hajime continued walking toward the carriage, unaware that she had halted.
Rose had sensed Xuo's mana, revealing his location, and Xuo wasn't going to wait around for more knights to notice him.
A brief moment later, Xuo leapt from his hiding place, passing by Rose and heading straight for Hajime, ignoring her entirely. She simply watched him go, the mist rising from his body thickening with each step.