The wooden cage was located in a dark, small tunnel, which was faintly illuminated by some torches. The heat was unpleasant, at best, and the bandit in charge of watching the caves were visibly shaking, sometime letting out small sighs as they wiped out sweat. It wasn't cold already in the "main" cave but here, it was hot enough to make a fly drop to the ground as a puddle.

"Well, shit. Look at that."

One of the guards, a large, bearded fellow poked the other watcher and pointed at the dead fly. The other guards merely wiped out sweat, at least, those demonic spiders wouldn't reach them.

"Why the hell are we guarding this, instead of taking part in the ceremony ? I do not enjoy it but at least, we'll be able to mourn without feeling like we're in the Nikubo desert."

"Hum. At least, we cannot hear the wails. I do hope that the poor assholes who will succeed us will be able to hold out. Man, I'd give anything to just come out and bath in some crystal-like river, as skimpily-dressed girls dance around me, promising…"

"You're way too ugly to catch the attention of one girl, and why are they skimpily dressed in the cold, and bathing ?"

"Your logic fucking sucks."

They heard a moaning and turned back to briefly stare at the content of the cage. There was the former princess and the bodyguard who got beaten up by the boss, bitten by a spider and who was plunged in the heat. He was unconscious and lying on the princess's laps but apparently, the pain was so great that not even the dreamworld could make him ignore his wounds.

Noticing the attention, the princess pleaded.

"Do you have a doctor, or someone who could help him ?! Please !"

"Sorry ma'am. This dude is one of the reasons the ceremony is taking place, I doubt anyone with a soul would heal him…"

They stared at his grotesque foot, the fangs of the spider were seemingly bigger than his toe, and the black-somewhat red large hole in the middle of the foot confirmed that he was indeed bitten by a nasty thing. The venom could be stopped with some leaves but what kind of imbecile would help him ?

"Listen, miss, we might let a doctor come in if you just shut him up…"

"But how ?"

"I dunno, huh, put your hand on his mouth ?"

Naïve, Kaguya did that but obviously, it did not stop. In fact, he lets out a long, drawn wail of pain, with the princess's feeble attempts at calming him down with hugging failed. The guards smiled, the whole wail was loud but it was fun to mess with the princess's mind. The others already tried to capture a guard, and there was at least 18 bandits with the task of watching over the cage.

Once again, tears streamed down princess Kaguya's cheeks as she softly stroked his hair, unable to do anything else. There was also a lot of other sad people up there, with a nice temperature, for once. That said, the princess's suffering was still rather unnerving to watch, not because she cried out acid tears or something like that, but mostly because they saw that she was human.

It was hard to describe, but they felt that it wasn't like what Tako, their leader, described. She wasn't a baby eating monstruosity who ate babies by the dozen and laughed as she did so, she seemed as human and vunerable as them, and while she had the task of defending her country, it was already undergoing this sort of crisis for years.

And then, they felt a gloved hand on their shoulder and turned around to see that one guard was there. Unlike the two young guards, this one had a borderline-white mustache, rudimentary glasses and walked with a bit of an hunch, he could probably still guard but it was clear that he wasn't born for the job.

"Go up there, boys, I've seen this kind of ceremony enough."

They made a small gesture and went upward, as the new man looked around, held out a small key and opened the cage. The princess stared at him, confused, and instinctively moved in front of Tenshiro to protect him, even if it was futile since the man merely whipped out some medicine instruments, not enough to actually fix him up but presumably enough to save his life and stop the pain to a degree.

"What are you doing, sir ?"

"I'm just going to use some medical degrees to help him. I do not want to break you out but as a former doctor… well, let's just says that I hardly enjoy the wails of the patient."

"Thank you…"

She made a genuine smile. Kaguya's face was pretty but people said that it was especially beautiful when she smiled, and it showed. She had some bad teeth but otherwise, she truly looked like a princess.

"Ho, and don't worry. I know, that breaking out isn't an option for you."

"Why ?"

"You're too soft for that."

He began treating the wound, the venom of the spider was very slow, it fact, it had yet to truly leave the feet area, it helped the doctor, even if Tenshiro tried to let out one or two screams of anguish but nobody came to check, the former princess was still stroking his head, looking at him with a mix of pity and sadness, she would love to help him but she could only place her hope in the doctor and pray.

It continued, the flesh of the feet was completely torn apart at this point, as he began to try to heal the venom with some leaves, she closed her eyes at this part, afraid of seeing it and frankly disgusted by it all. She knew that it was necessary but she could only hope to hug her bodyguard as hard as she could to distract him.

She hated the way she was useless. For now, the only thing she has done was getting in the way, being captured and hugging her wounded bodyguard wile someone else took care of him. She truly wished she could help them in some way, stop being a load and actually take care of herself.

She couldn't save all the people of her country or Mina. And it was beyond frustrating, her back was still hurting, a reminder of her botched escape of the castle.

She stopped, however, when she saw the foot all stitched up as the doctor stood, with his hands covered in blood. He looked a bit satisfied with himself and Tenshiro was much calmer now, breathing normally and not screaming in pain like the other times, even if he winced at some random moments, he was still much calmer.

"And he's all fixed up ! He won't be able to run, or fight for a while or do some athletic things but heh, he's alive ! "

"Thank you !"

She smiled, crying yet again, but in joy this time.

"Thank you…"

She repeated, and was ready to yet again compliment him until some blade went trough the head of the doctor, almost instantly killing him. The princess had no choice but to let out a loud scream upon seeing this, horrified by the sudden death of the amicable folk, and got up to protect the still-unconscious bodyguard from the attacker.

"Who there ?! S-Show yourself !"

She saw a random dark-blue shadow pass by but it was all, the princess, feeling that it was dangerous but also confused, stood up and tried to softly wake Tenshiro up, which he did after some seconds, taking a look at his surrounding and briefly shrieking at the sight of the corpse.

"I did nothing, Tenshii ! I did nothing !"

"Hey, calm down princess ! I know you wouldn't harm a fly !"

He looks at it.

"Anyway, what happened ?"

"This mister healed you and then, someone stabbed him and vanished ! I'm scared !"

Tenshiro slowly got up to star at her.

"Don't worry, Kaguya. I'm going to get us out of there, first, where are the others ?"

He looked around as the princess started to fumble, she was clearly trying to remember it but just couldn't ! How convenient ! The young man just sighed, aware that she had usually poor memory, and got up before helping her to get to her feet.

"I'm leading."

"Nono ! You're going to get wounded !"

She came out of the cage, leading the way and holding his hand, hiding her blush and ignoring the own blush that was slowly forming on the dude's face. She did take a weapon from the guard, with the wounded bodyguard taking another, she wanted to use her's for intimidation however.

"I won't let you get wounded ever again, you hear me ?!"

He smiled for a moment as they walked but stopped when he saw that other guards were killed off, which Kaguya recognized as the one from earlier. She nearly screamed but realized that the murderous would spot them, and instead, continued to walk, looking at the other guy with fear on her face.

"Don't die on me, please !"

"No worries."

They both noticed that there was blood coming out of a wall, and, softly pushing Kaguya in case, Tenshiro pressed both hands on it and constated that it opened to reveal that several dead guards were present in a tunnel, having seemingly died recently, as early as two minutes in.

There was light outside and Tenshiro closed the door.

"Princess, listen, there is someone after us. We've got to quickly find Mikazuchi and Tenpo, and exit this place. This may be dangerous since, well, plenty of people died in there but we can't remove the rock and this is our best bet. Do not panic, I beg of you."

"O-Okay, I'm going to sit there and… wait !"

She ran back to the room where the cage was located, with Tenshiro following as much as possible given his recent wound, and proceeded to calmly arrange the dead doctor's body, placing his medical tools on his chest, closing his eyes, putting him in a more dignified pose and laying his weapon next to him, much to the surprise of her bodyguard, who looked around in case of assassin.

She also took a key, even if she did it with "respect."

"He saved you, so I guess that it'll be nice if I sorta pay him back…"

"I understand."

He smiled and they both went, with Kaguya stopping again to arrange the corpses of the other guards on the way (but he stopped her at the tunnel) before they started to walk for a bit, and finally saw the main part of the cave, with the large boulder, needless to say, the place was much more smoke-filled thanks to a fire, and the fact that there was a large amount of corpses being incinerated.

Tenshiro heard the wails and cries of the women or children of the fallen warriors and winced, aware that he caused all that pain, and prepared to walk toward the cage of the two other bodyguards, which could be seen from a distance and not guarded, since both were seemingly knocked-out.

He also noticed that a large amount of armed persons were getting ready to walk toward them to get their revenge, even if they were forced to just sit there, no guards was, well, guarding them, due to the proximity.

"We need to be stealthy. Princess, we're going to sneak up to that cage and maybe use that key, if it does not work, let us use this sword, but this is a last resort option. Okay ?"

She nodded and both went on to use stealth, even if Kaguya's attempts were pretty laughable, with her dramatically popping her head, using ham-handed hand signals, talking in an unusual gruff voice and even, at a point, eating a worm right in front of Tenshiro's face.

"What the hell, Kaguya ?"

"I gotta eat."

She continued to crawl until she briefly froze, the man lifted an eyebrow and froze like her when he saw that the poor princess stumbled upon the large spiders who nearly killed him. Making her slowly, but surely, crawl back.

And then, Kaguya lets out a loud wince when one spider started to crawl at her, but she had to shut up, only being able to watch as the arachnid slowly approached, baring venomous fangs, large, venomous, painful fangs…

And then, the boulder blew up.