Chapter 7

"Ambassador from the Kingdom of Nula found dead on the West bridge. Cause of death most likely to be mugged."

The raven haired girl sighed. This was the current news that woke her and was still circulating the entire kingdom. If anyone should know, she was NEVER to be woken up unless it was an emergency. To make matters worst, she was up late inventing a machine that could harvest the wheat in her country even faster. Her grey eyes pierced the very soul of everyone whom her gaze happen to land on, for she was utterly annoyed that she had to attend a morning court session.

"Someone, shut that messenger up before I wring his neck with my hands. We GET IT, the ambassador is DEAD." The servants knew better than to disobey her orders, despite it being giving in a calm tone. Hotaru-hime was never one to be patient. Her short hair swished from side to side as she took long strides to get to the courtroom. Her belief was that if you start early, you get to end early, and sleep. For many years, she has consistently invented machines to improve the lives of her people and this served as a steady source of income as well. However, after that incident happened 6 years ago, she could not bring herself to invent as fast as she once could. Every time she tried to invent a machine, she would remember the flames that engulfed the palace, the screams that were heard, the glass roof above the ballroom collapsing. The scene replayed in her head over and over again. The court physicians told her parents that she was suffering from severe truma but would subside after 2 years of the incident, however, it has not. And she did not want to tell her parents that it still haunted her. After all these years, she could only trust her blonde friend.

A visiting prince, blonde hair and a head taller than Hotaru-hime struggled to keep up with her strides as he too was woken up by the messenger's annoying announcement.

"Nogi, move that blonde head of yours back here, did you hear anything that I just said?" Ruka was obviously Hotaru's blonde friend.

"I did Imai, can you be a little nicer to the messenger? It's his job to scream out these announcements, or else, how would news pass from one end of your kingdom to the other end?" retorted the blonde haired boy.

Hotaru merely rolled her eyes and walked into the courtroom as the double oak doors opened. Everyone who saw her enter immediately bowed down and kept silent. She couldn't care less that all eyes were on her and walked to her seat, which was at the end of the large rosewood table. Her footsteps echoed in the courtroom and though Ruka was walking beside her, their footsteps were complete in sync. Taking her seat, followed by Ruka who sat beside her, the ministers sat down and stared at the young princess. Since her parents were on a diplomatic visit, she was in charge.

"Governor, the report on the ambassador's death please." Instructed Hotaru.

"The autopsy showed that he was stabbed cleanly in the heart with deadly precision and with a sharp instrument. The wound was no deeper than 20 centimeters. Since there was no sign of a struggle, we assumed that he was taken by surprise by robbers. Witnesses said that he was drinking in a local pub and left around 1130pm, very drunk. Hence he was an easy target. His money was stolen, and the estimated time of death is between 12 and 4am." Bowing as he finished his report.

"Thank you Governor. Inspector, was there anything else peculiar about the body? Even the minute details will lead us to a clue, things that you felt were out of place, or perhaps of no importance."

"Well your highness, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary. All that we found was a small stalk of lavender which he was holding in his hand." The inspector shrugged his shoulders at the rest of the courtroom as they burst out with speculations.

"Perhaps the lavender killed him as it was poisoned… maybe he bought it from a street vendor… maybe he picked it up…"

Ruka immediately looked at Hotaru and saw that she motioned him to remain silent and keep a poker face.

"Thank you Inspector. Can we not jump to conclusions first. We need to prepare his body to be returned back to the kingdom of Nula. Minister of foreign affairs, can I trust that your department is able to take care of this? Make sure that his body is properly cleaned and attired. Minister of War, are you able to supply a small number of troops to accompany the body back to Nula? Minister of accounts, are we able to give some kind of gifts to represent our condolences and deepest apologies? Minster of literacy, do come to my laboratory at noon, with a letter expressing our deepest condolences to the royal family of Nula?"

"Yes your majesty" The respective ministers responded in union.

"Good, court dismissed then. Oh, breakfast will be brought to the courtroom. I'll take my leave." Standing up, she addressed the entire courtroom, glad that this session went smoothly and was relatively short. The entire courtroom stood up, bowed and thank the princess for her generosity. Ruka who was silent the whole while, followed Hotaru out of the courtroom and drowned her in questions.

"She's done it again! Do these ministers not see that it's done by Shadowfox? Can't they see that the stalk of lavender is his, or is it her, signature? The phantom has moved on to your kingdom after mine. Why is he, or her, targeting random people? In my country, he, or she, I shall call Shadowfox a he, killed innocent people, no one of high ranks. In your country, he kills officials, ambassadors. What made him so daring? Why…"

"Ruka, Shadowfox is a she."

Ruka stopped dead in his tracks and stared at her with his mouth open. "How are you so certain that the phantom is a her?"

Hotaru looked at Ruka, seeing his dumbfounded face, she explained, "I don't think male assassin's leave stalks of flowers with the person they've killed. In fact, each kill has been clean with no signs of struggle. It as if, she's afraid to see a person die in her hands. I think a male assassin wouldn't be able to keep his cool after killing so many, but yet the deaths of each person is evenly spaced out, almost as if a hit has been placed on their heads."

"It's true, but why these people Hotaru? It doesn't make sense."

Hotaru quickled walked to her room, looked around to see if anyone was around and pulled Ruka in. She locked the door and activated her spy camera and hearing device to alert her if there was anyone who was eavesdropping on the conversation or was about to enter the room. "Listen, the ambassador has been acting strangely since his visit 2 weeks ago. He would act courteous around my parents and the ministers, but when he is alone, a whole new personality comes up. I once saw him bribe a servant, promising him some kind of reward if he could find willing 'followers'. I placed tabs on the letters which he sent out of the palace and it seemed that he was conversing about not attaining enough subjects for an experiment. All his incoming letters were signed by Luna-hime, and most of them were addressed to her. He never liked the people of this kingdom, always wearing a face of disgust when he had to walk on the streets. You could say he deserved the death as he scorned the people while they themselves hated him."

"So you're saying that his death was no coincidence and this phantom Shadowfox is targeting these people who have a connection to Luna?"

"Yes, for whatever reason, I think she knows Luna's up to something, and she's planning to stop it. The ambassador had a strange obsession with Natsume's bride selection event and I have this sinking feeling that something will happen. How long do we have till all the princess' meet?"

"1 month."

All right, tell Natsume that we'll be dropping by for a long stay and helping him select his future bride."

"Aren't you suppose to go for the selection too?"

"Idiot, if I go, who's going to be engaged to you?"

Ruka merely stared at Hotaru and started gaping like a fish. Hotaru always gave him mixed signals, one moment implying that she liked him, the next hitting him with the baka gun and blackmailing him with pictures she took.

"It's not that we have a choice, we have to keep Natsume safe. Stop gaping Ruka!"

BAKA BAKA BAKA

Ruka finally closed his mouth and nodded. Hotaru let out a long sigh and went to look out of the window which overlooked the entire kingdom. The sun slowly rose, painting the sky blood red, then pink and finally blue. Her fingers slowly touched the glass window and begun to quiver as the thought of Natsume getting injured surfaced to her mind, as far as she could, she never wanted her friends to go the same way Mikan did. It was too cruel and too unfair.

As Hotaru looked out of the window, she was overwhelmed by warmess, as if Mikan was hugging her, like she did, 6 years ago.


I'll update soon! Hopefully with more humor in the next few chapters to lighten up the sadden mood! :) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE READ AND REVIEW!