A/N:

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Ocean 3, nor the characters, locations etc. However I DO own Kyou Hitomi, my OC, so if you wanna use her, I expect credit and for you to ask me first.

Thanks to Blue Persuasion for the review, greatly appreciated feedback on Kyou and how I portrayed Fayt.

Enjoy . . .

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Kyou moaned when Fayt finished telling her about his travels, "Great, just great, it's nothing personal, but I have had to deal with Albel quite a few times before myself, and I'm worried about how foul his mood will be when he finds you. I just hope something attacked him en route, I've noticed killing things seems to calm him down."

"How do you know him?" Fayt asked, confused

"I used to live in Kirsla, worked for a small delivery firm, our main customer was the military, we would ship supplies to various bases, I was one of the guards for the caravans. Which is how I had my first run in with Albel." she explained

"The problems came when soldiers got leave, one group in particular would cause a lot of trouble in Kirsla, but only once they were drunk. They nearly trashed the place the warehouse I lived in, so I did the only thing I could, told them to fuck off. That didn't go down well."

She laughed quietly before continuing, "Albel was not happy to find out ten of his men had tried to kill me, mainly for reputation reasons. But he was furious when he found out what state I'd left them in. I think the only reason I survived was because they were so drunk that they did most of the damage themselves. I became a target of the Black Brigade from then on, anything to make my life harder without being obvious about it. Bumping in to me in the streets or 'accidentally' opening a door into my face for example, and I'd retaliate by pulling pranks on them, nothing serious, until Shelby got involved. He openly supported them, when I'd always said, 'leave me alone and the pranks will stop.' He changed the patrol rota once, so the route we took to the ruins ended up with a lot more bandits. Everyone knew why, but I could not let it rest, mainly because a lot of my friends had been injured as a result. So I planned a prank for him, only it went horribly wrong, horribly, horribly wrong."

"What happened?" Fayt asked

"The idea was simple, I used to do a bit of inventing, and had invented a paint bomb, I planned to put it in a package which would explode when opened. The mechanism broke, and who would be the only person near the package at the time, Albel Nox. I was in hiding for a month before he calmed down enough that I could be in line of sight. Only saving grace was the paint was blood red, gave him an excuse to go on a killing spree. I managed to sort the mechanism, and take two went much better, I also changed the paint colour, and made sure that only Shelby would open it, so I made it look official. Thankfully Albel was at the other side of the room at the time it went off, apparently he found it quite funny, though I'm sure that would have been different if he'd been in the blast radius."

"What colour was the paint?" Fayt asked, suspecting this had something to do with it.

"Pink."

Fayt was speechless, the thought of how Albel would react to being covered in pink paint made fighting the Vox duplicate again sound pleasant. He managed to pull himself together to say

"Pink? What if it had gone wrong?"

"I try not to think about it too much." Kyou replied with a nervous laugh.

"Anyway I've gotta make sure my bedroom door and window are sufficiently secure, I'm not inflicting Albel on the owners if the Inn, so he's having to stay at my house." She explained "So I've bought a large number of runological and mechanical traps that will be set off if anyone tries to get into my room when I'm not there, or when I am and I leave them on. Just in case."

"Ah, I've got to ask, how did you kill . . ."

"From what I've heard about him, even the killer arrows I use should not work, I'm fairly sure it's not him, but I never made any deliveries to the Dragon Brigade, so I never had to deal with him, so I can't say for certain, I'm hoping Albel may have an idea, whether he'll share it or not is another matter though."

"Ok, then I'm as confused as you are." Fayt said, "Ok, I really need to rush, Albel likes to turn up when it's least convenient."

"KYOU!" It was Cassie, she looked terrified,

"What is it?" Kyou sounded nervous

"The stream outside the village, it's turned red."

"Ok, I have a fairly good idea why, I'll go sort it out, you got that."

"Uh huh."

"Good, now you go home, I'm sure your mother is getting very worried about you."

The girl ran off and Kyou groaned,

"Like I said least convenient time."

"Want me to come too?" Fayt asked out of habit

"No insult meant, but no, I want to know what kind of mood Albel is in before I risk it getting any worse."

"Ok, I'll lie low for a bit then."

"Thanks." She said, then Kyou picked up her halberd and dashed towards the stream, if she could find the source of the blood she would probably find Albel, after that she would just have to play by ear.