Hello everybody. I know it's been a long time, sorry, sorry. I've been working on some other stories, not fanfiction, and my master's degree is a lot more intensive than I was thinking it would be judging from my undergrad (I know, shocking right?). I'm not planning on stopping, but it's not likely that I'll get another chapter for any story in the near future. Not at least until the semester ends, then I'll try to get another chapter out. I hope that you all enjoy this, and I'd love it if y'all wrote a review to let me know how I'm doing. Also, nobody sent any questions, although I did get a few suggestions that I've added to my queue, so you can look forward to those in the future. But that's why chapter 25 isn't happening the way I said it would last time. I'm a little surprised (and maybe a little disappointed) by how popular Ulf is. I know he's a badass, but he wasn't honestly supposed to show up as more than a random rival every dozen chapters to make sure Xera never gave up.

Xera let out a rather impressive belch as she finished her meal. Her last hunt had been nothing but disappointment. She thought at least.

The last thing that she remembered from it was that she'd ended up in a headbutt fight with a barroth. She had awoken again laid up in a aptonoth cart on the way back to town. The felynes with her hadn't been purrticularly helpful in telling her what had happened. But apparently she had been successful in her hunt.

It was a little frightening that she couldn't remember what she had done, but Hime had told her about some... thing. Something about getting hit in the head. Concurrency. Something like that. A head injury might make it difficult to remember things, or make her forget things. She hoped she wasn't concurrent. With some recuperation time, she should recover from her concurrency. Then she might remember what she'd done to the barroth. That was the most frightening thing, simply the fact that she couldn't remember, she didn't like this.

She hadn't tasted any of the food that she'd ordered. It had probably been good, The tavern had always had good food before, it just tasted like sand to her right now.

Maybe Elric had been right, maybe it had been stupid to go off hunting alone, hunting without at least having some form of backup. He had just been slow. She wanted to be out there hunting, all the time, she wanted to be out there hunting so she could grow quickly. She didn't want to stay behind and rest up, it was so boring.

What had happened with that barroth?

She pushed away from the table and headed over to the chef. "Oi? Got something to help me out? I'm really not liking myself right now."

The chef didn't even answer, just slid a tankard down the bar to her. She didn't even think about it, just took him at face value and downed it. The liquid burned her going down with a foul, bitter taste to it. She grabbed the second tankard he put down and downed this one as well. Super sweet, sickeningly sweet actually, it probably would have made her throw up if she hadn't had the other drink first. It was also fizzy, super fizzy, as soon as she finished she let out another loud belch. "Well, that was pretty good." Another burp escaped her.

"Careful when you get up."

She tossed some zenny to him and straightened. Almost immediately, she lost her balance, her head spinning. Well, he was right, she was feeling a lot better. Sure, she still couldn't remember what had happened with the barroth, but now at least it didn't bother her.

She walked out and headed back for Elric's house. It was a really fun walk, considering that only half of her steps went where she wanted them too. She struggled mightily to continue walking properly, and she did manage to continue her walk. Eventually she'd make it back to his house? Or maybe she'd just take a little nap by the side of the road first, finish getting home a little later on.

She woke up with her face in the dirt of the road. It took a second, but then she realized why she'd woken up. Somebody was touching her! She could feel four hands on her, at her wrists and ankles. Somebody trying to hold her down? What were they planning to do to her?

No way was she gonna take an assault like this lying down! She balled her fists up and jerked her hands toward her.

Her head came up, just as the overbalanced man lunged forward, and she banged it against his with a satisfying crack. Satisfying until the full result of the impact hit, and her mind blurred and spun again. But she still wasn't free, if she didn't at least get back to her feet, they could just pin her down again, and she'd be helpless against them. She was an attractive girl, she knew what they'd want to do with her.

She twisted her hands to grab onto his wrists in turn before rotating her entire body. The guy holding her legs didn't have a very tight grip on her, as she expected from the guy on her wrists loose hold. When she twisted, both of her feet came free, and she released the other one's hands. She was freed, and she came up from from her knees, with her small carving knife drawn as she twisted her body defensively. As she twisted, she heard one of them cry out in pain. Good, try to rape me, I'll cut you bastards!

"This bitch!" He cried out.

She finally stabilized enough to make sense of what she was looking at. A crowd had gathered around her, and there was a pair of men on the inside of the crowd. One had a pretty deep cut running down the inside of his arm. The other was backing away slowly, arms raised to fend her off.

"What the hell is wrong with you!" The non-bleeding one of them shouted. "We were just moving you out of the way of traffic!"

"Psycho bitch!" Came from the other.

It took a long couple seconds before what they said clicked with her. They hadn't been trying to assault her? She looked around, the crowd was looking nervous, scared. Very very much so. There was indeed an aptonoth cart stopped in the middle of the road, backing up foot traffic for a couple dozen feet.

So, they were only trying to keep her safe from the error of falling asleep on a main road? Well, that was a problem.

She'd drawn a weapon in the middle of the city? Worse, she'd actually cut somebody.

Oh where was Ryuhime when she needed her. She didn't know what the penalty was for doing something like that, but she was certain that it couldn't be good. After all, there weren't many things that were considered to be crimes. Hunters had pretty specific rules of behavior regulating what they were allowed to do, and how they could do it.

She didn't know the exact wording of the regulation, but she was sure that pulling a weapon out and hurting a civilian, or another hunter, well that was a crime in numerous different ways. She was sure somebody was in trouble, and she was pretty sure that that someone was her.

This could prove to be a problem.

Sure there were no actual laws about hunters pulling knives out in the middle of town, or getting into fights in the back alleys of the city. And these things happened sometimes. But there was a 'gentleman's agreement' according to Ryuhime. Apparently it also included the actions of female hunters, even though it was for gentlemen. Still didn't understand that one. But whatever, the jist of it meant that they weren't necessarily controlled by laws like others.

Instead, the hunters had a loose agreement to act according to the determination of the highest hunters, who decided a few different agreements for safety and security. Anyone found guilty of breaking these was at the mercy of their fellow hunters. This had ended many hunting careers. Apparently that was the number one punishment dealt out for not following the unwritten rules.

She didn't want to have her career ended this soon. She'd barely done anything! It wasn't fair! She'd finally found something that she was good at. She wasn't smart like Ryuhime, she wasn't flirty like Nailah, and while she was strong, her muscles weren't built for brute force, she could call on great stores of strength for very brief periods. That wouldn't help her in transport or anything. Hunting was the only career path for her. She couldn't go into another one.

If Ryuhime were there, she might have been able to figure a way out of this. But just Xera alone? There was no such quick fix when it was just her. She just wasn't smart like that.

Slowly, infinitely slowly, she held the carving knife up next to her head. Then came her other hand, held palm out. Still just as slowly, she brought her hand with the weapon around behind her back and slid it back into its sheath. Sure, it didn't undo what she had done, but it certainly couldn't hurt to show that she was no longer a danger to anybody.

Nobody seemed to calm down from her putting the weapon away. Everybody still kept a good distance away from her. The worst part was their eyes though. Distrusting, hate-filled, angry, fear, she didn't even need to remember the lessons her parents had taught. There was no effort needed to pierce these masks, all said the same thing. What a monster.

She ran.

Pushed right through the crowd, who tried to get out of her way anyway. It was probably best to get out of there as quickly as possible, otherwise something else might happen. Something might happen, and she might not even remember it.

That was what the problem was.

She finally managed to make it all the way back to Elric's house. By that point though, her head was roaring in agony. A deep throbbing beat right above her eyes. She sat down on the steps leading up to his door and rested her head in her hands, applying pressure to the achy areas. As soon as she did, the pain moved from the front of her head, right above and behind her eyes, down to her base of her head, where it connected to her neck. She shifted again, this time putting pressure on the back of her neck, and the pain just moved again. If only she could blow out the sun like she could a lantern, then maybe some of the pain would disappear. It certainly seemed like the majority of the pain she was feeling was coming from the light of the sun burning through her eyes and stabbing straight into her brain. Even the hit from the barroth, assuming she ever did get her memory of that hit back, there was no way it could hurt this badly.

A hand landed on her shoulder, startling her from a quick rest she had fallen into.

"Whoa, whoa." She heard Ratatosk's voice just before another hand landed on her other wrist, pinning it up against her back. "Don't you think you've gotten yourself into enough trouble like that?"

She blinked against the bright light, still painfully penetrating her head. At least now it wasn't pain like swords being painfully inserted into her head. It had receded to the level of daggers being jabbed into her. Not a big change, but still nice. It was a long time until she realized just why he had pinned her other arm against her back. Even just waking up, and with the roaring pain in her head, when he touched her she had immediately, instinctively reached around behind her, grabbing onto her carving knife once again.

"Remind me never to go out drinking with you." He said derisively. She may not have known him for a very long time, but one thing she had learned so far about him was that he was short-tempered, aggressive, insulting, and pretty laid-back, but he was also one of the people who lived in the moment, and more, was never more alive than when he was doing something. "Might pick up a cool new scar though."

"What do you want?" She struggled to free herself from him.

He pointedly jerked her carving knife out a few inches, then stuffed it back in its sheath, proving his absolute confidence that no matter what she did, he would be able to combat her, and beat her in any way, shape, or form that she tried. Then he let her go completely.

He really hadn't needed the display or force. She knew already that she wouldn't be able to fight against him. He was an elite hunter, highly skilled, strong, fast, and deadly. She didn't have a chance against him. She knew that. That's why she had been so eager to go out hunting, even if she needed to go hunting alone.

It was one of those things that was obvious, even to someone as thick-skulled as her. She may not be all that willing to admit that he was her better, but it was still the truth.

Now that he had let her go, she rubbed both areas where he had held her. Both areas were already turning dark with bruising. "You've sure got one hell of a grip."

He laughed. "Used a hammer a lot in my day. You got a shit grip, you ain't hanging onto it."

"I screwed up." She sighed heavily.

"I know." He dropped down to sit next to her. If it was Elric, she'd expect a joke of some kind. Or for him to tell her that there wasn't going to be a problem from it. He'd try to relieve her fears make her think that everything would be okay, or try to make her laugh, make her feel better. If it was Ryuhime, she'd say something about all of the times when a crime like this hadn't resulted in a hunter being kicked out of the guilds. Reassure her that everything would be okay with facts from previous situations that were the same as hers now. Ashlyn would probably take her out to eat something, or take her off to hunt or something like that. Something to just ignore the situation. Tethys would be the same as Ryuhime, except probably with a lot more examples. Akuma would likely scold her for making such a ridiculously stupid mistake. Any of those would have been better than what she ended up with.

Ratatosk just sat there, next to her. He didn't say a word, but neither did she feel like he was judging her in his silence. It was just that, absolute silence. He wasn't angry with her, he wasn't disappointed in her, wasn't judging, wasn't even willing to make her feel better. He wasn't even very interested in her. It was actually, despite how it felt, pretty reassuring to just be able to sit there with somebody like him.

"So what's going to happen to me?"

"I dunno." He shrugged it off.

"You don't know. Really?" He was one of the White Knights, they were the ones who created the punishments for committing a crime.

"Been a long time since it happened to me." He leaned back against the stairs, arms folded up behind his head.

It took some time before Xera connected the dots. She just sat there for a little while almost enjoying the tense silence with Ratatosk. "Wait a minute." She jerked up and looked at him. "You did something like this too?"

"Lot more than you have." He laughed. Then he didn't continue.

"Oh come on! You have to give me more information than that!" Xera smacked him on the chest plate. "You can't just drop a bomb like that and not tell any of the details!"

"Ugh... This is why people complain about women. You can't just leave anything be. Let's see... I've done a crime and gotten in trouble five times, twice after joining the White Knights."

"Whoa whoa, five times? I thought you lost your guild commission after one crime."

"All depends on the individual. See, I used to have a temper. A lot of it. A whole lot of it. My nickname used to be the devil king. Because I would beat down anything that got in my sights. I liked to hurt people. But, they didn't want to ban me from being a hunter, because I was good at it." He leaned forward next to her and clenched his fist. "Most of the time, the ones who don't get to continue hunting are the ones without abilities, without innate talent, to make it simple. They suck. See, the punishment's more of a game. See, the public doesn't want a fair trial, or justice. They want the best hunters out there, protecting them from the monsters. And they want to believe that these hunters have to behave. I could take you right now, into the middle of Loc Lac, and stab you in the middle of the street, in front of a crowd. They don't want me punished enough to stop hunting, because I'm good. But they do want to see some of punishment in order to justify my repentance."

"That wasn't what I was asking, and you know that."

"I beat down a group of hunters in a back alley. Nearly killed them all. Why? Don't even remember. Probably pissed me off somehow. Mostly I just wanted to see if I could break them all."

"Wow, you're uh... scarier than I thought. Especially since when I met you, you were dancing with a barioth." She scooted a few inches away from him.

"Terrible dance partners really."

"So, I'm still gonna be able to hunt?"

"Actually. Your punishment is that you will be going hunting." He pulled a sheet of paper out of his armor.

"Wait what?"

"There's a couple of options. I actually kinda don't absolutely hate you. Which is a miracle in and of itself. I usually hate everybody. Hate Akuma, hate Elric, hate Tethys, so on so forth. It's more just varying amounts of hatred and rage."

"How could you hate everybody? You're so happy go lucky."

"Varying levels of rage. I don't hate enough to want to kill. You ever hear the expression, 'keep your friends close, your enemies closer'?" When she nodded, he continued. "Well I'm kind of like that. I hate everybody, the ones I hate the most are the ones with real skill and talent. Since they're so good, they can keep up with me. So I keep them close to me, because I hate them so much, and since they can play at my level, I can have fun with them."

"You know that doesn't make sense right?"

"I'm a complex individual." He slipped the sheet of paper back into his armor. "I'll let Elric explain what you're going to do. He's basically your dad anyway. Little sister complex a mile wide."

"What?"

Ratatosk declined to answer, instead choosing to lie down along the stairs.

She wanted to ask him how he could relax like that. But for some reason, she felt like he had already done all of his seriousness for the day. He was already on empty for good word count. That thought made her giggle. One of her favorite things about Ratatosk though, was that she didn't have to explain herself to him. He just didn't give a damn.

She sat with him for a long time, just relaxed as the hours passed. She knew that all of the other White Knights were out on a hunt. Each off doing their own thing no less. Each came back with bulging sacks at their waist, filled with the mysterious bounty of monsters far beyond her rank. Same with Elric. Even Ryuhime came home with a sack filled with more than just potions.

Of far more importance to Xera however, were the myriad scrapes, cuts, and bruises on Ryuhime's body. "Are you okay?" She blurted out as she shot to her feet and rushed the smaller hunter.

"Am I okay? You're the talk of the town because of what you've done!"

Xera flinched under the tiny girl's scolding. "I kn-"

"And you're asking me if I'm okay? Are you okay? You must be in a panic!"

"N-not r-"

"Why did you do it? What happened? I know you better than to think you just wanted to hurt them. Were they threatening you? Did they hurt you?"

"Well, it was mo-"

"I mean what were you thinking when you did that?"

"If yo-"

"I mean, this blunder could be disastrous! You know that we aren't supposed to use a weapon of any kind outside of the hunts!"

Elric laughed. "Well, now you're a little more familiar with how Ryuhime feels aren't you?"

"What do yo-"

This time Ryuhime didn't even talk over Xera, she cut her off by throwing her arms around her in a hug. See, with a normal hug, it would be one thing. It probably wouldn't even have cut her off to have a nomal hug. But Ryuhime couldn't do normal hugs. She was a switchaxe user, and she was smaller than even regular female hunters. So her minute body was packed full of tight, hard muscle. So when she hugged Xera, it was a bear hug (well a little cub hug), but Ryu used all of her might, and forcefully evicted Xera's lungs of all of her air.

"R-Ryu." She struggled to both get the name out, and to escape from the tight hold. Unfortunately, Ryuhime had managed to get both of her arms trapped in the hug, which made escaping the hug nearly impossible.

Eventually, after a few long, breathless seconds had passed for Xera, Elric came to her rescue. "Oi, don't wanna break her do you midget?"

"S-sorry." She blushed as she pulled away from Ryuhime.

"And what's with cutting me off every time I tried to say something?"

"S-sorry." Ryu apologized again.

"Stop apologizing dink."

"Sorry."

"I know, I screwed up. Mistake. I was panicked. But after talking with Ratatosk for a while, well he managed to calm down my worries. I misunderstood the other people, and made a mistake, and now I'm going to be punished."

Everybody looked stunned when she finished speaking. All together, the other five hunters all looked at Ratatosk. His conversation with her had eased her mind.

In response to their questioning looks, he answered with a grunt. Of course, now that he'd managed to convince Xera that she wasn't really in danger, he went back to being taciturn and short while he wasn't on a hunt or talking about hunting.

"This Ratatosk?" Ashlyn asked in shock, slamming a hand down on the stoic man's shoulder. "This guy right here? The guy who won't talk? Even to me? And I've shared his bed before! Let me tell you, his pillow talk sucks!" A beat passed. "Wait, that didn't come out as intended. What I meant to say wa-"

"Moving on." Akuma cut her off. Judging from the glare Ashlyn directed his way, Akuma might want to make sure to watch his back later. "Xera, you committed a crime, and endangered an individual. As I'm sure you're aware, this isn't good. Matter of fact, it's really, really bad. Ipso facto, for this crime, you will be punished with a trial by fire."

"You used that wrong." Ryuhime added.

"Does that mean like walking across hot coals or something? Because that's seriously scary."

"Scary? You didn't even hesitate when Ulf dared you to do that." Again Ryuhime spoke up.

Xera reached over and grabbed both of the small tails at Ryuhime's temples, yanking them downward. "I know I didn't, that was the point. I wanted to make them think I hadn't so I might get an easier challenge. Dink."

"Like it'd be that easy." Came from Akuma.

"Girl can dream."

"No, instead, you get to chance things with a quest that the guild won't accept. Because they think it's fake or something. You get to go there and figure it out. Pro-bono." He glanced at Ryuhime to make sure he used the word right. When she nodded, he pulled a sheet of paper out of his armor. "If you refuse, you get canceled. If you fail, canceled. If you try to run, canceled. If you succeed though, all is forgiven. This is as much as we are able to do for you. You can bring up to four people with you."

"Well, I'll be one of them." Elric volunteered himself.

"No." Xera refused him. "I don't want a handicap like that. I don't want you, and I don't want the White Knights. I do want Ryuhime though, if you're willing?"

"Of course I am baka." Ryuhime shook her head adorably. "Who are you thinking for the others?"

"Thar's where my problem is." She sighed heavily.

Xera let out a heavy sigh.

"You're an idiot." Ulf said with a laugh.

"Shut up."

"I mean, come on. I'm the one with violent tendencies. Anybody or anything who even looks funny at my Nailah is gonna regret it for the rest of their very short life. And yet, here we are." He didn't even pretend to try and hide his smile at her misfortune. "So, idiot Xera made another idiotic move, got herself shit-faced, and went and cut somebody up. Did they talk bad about Ryuhime or something? At least that way I could understand your mammoth-sized blunder."

"I already explained everything."

"Wonder if there'll be a second time for drinking with you."

"Shut up."

"Turns out there's something else I'm better than you at, other than hunting, pleasing a woman, looking amazing, arm wrestling, gambling, now we can add drinking to the list."

"Don't forget wetting the bed. You did that for at least a year more than me."

"Shut up. We were both one!"

"But I was the faster one."

"Lost my virginity first too."

"Thank god that wasn't one of the ones we did together. There's been enough disappointment in my life."

"Oh f*ck you."

"Okay!" Nailah perked right up at mention of that.

Xera just shook her head at her. "Are you gonna help me? Or should I start looking somewhere else?"

"You said there was a resort nearby?"

"Right on the beach. Apparently Elric and the White Knights are going to be spending their time there, while we're off doing our thing. Then once we finish, me and Hime are going to spend a week there."

"Nailah, prepare all of your bikinis."

"What?"

"What?" Was Ryuhime's first statement during the conversation.

"It's still called armor. Or at least underarmor." Nailah said sagely.

"ALL OF THEM!"

Xera stood up and waved to the owner of the tavern, letting him know that Ulf was paying for all four of them.