The hustle and bustle of people in Prontera, Rune-Midgard's capital city, was nothing more than a mild nuisance for Cresnoble, something he only had to put up with once or twice a day when he came to restock his supply of awakening potions and healing items. He was willing to bet that Michiko, who had probably not been outside the ancient village for a very long time, was overwhelmed by the press of people.

He glanced back over his shoulder at the black-haired spirit he had saved from certain death. She certainly didn't look overwhelmed, if she was at all. She simply floated quietly along behind him, her hands hidden within the sleeves of her kimono, as she looked around at the city and its sights every now and again.

Turning his attention back to what was ahead of him, he stopped in front of a merchant stand and quickly scanned over its wares. After a moment, he spotted what he was looking for. Awakening potions, all stacked together neatly in one corner of the cart, what looked like a hundred of them. Good.

As he turned his dark eyes up toward the merchant, he mentally sighed and prepared himself for the onslaught of attempts to sell him things he neither wanted nor needed.

"Ah, Master Assassin, good to see you again. I have a special on white potions today. Buy ten, get five free!"

"No." This merchant was sharp. He remembered that Cresnoble tended to buy things in groups of ten, and had adjusted his sales pitch accordingly.

"Very well, then," the merchant said, not at all bothered by the negative response. He always had more things to sell. "How about this mocking muffler? Perfect for an assassin such as yourself!"

"No."

"But it's plus-six! Only a steal at­–"

"Do you do this every day?" Michiko asked quietly, holding the sleeves of her kimono in front of her face. One crimson eye was peeking out over the fabric of the sleeve.

Cresnoble glanced back at her over his shoulder. "Yes."

"Yes?" the merchant asked, not having heard the sohee's question. "Excellent! That will be­–"

"No!" Cresnoble almost shouted, spinning around and pointing a finger dangerously at the merchant. "I do not want the mocking muffler. I already have a mocking muffler, and it happens to be plus-six. Now give me my regular order."

Blinking in surprise, Michiko drifted back slightly from the irritated assassin, her eyes wide. The few times she had seen him in the village, and since he had saved her from the skeletons, she had never seen him anything but cool and calm. His current mood startled her, to say the least.

Remarkably, the merchant's outward expression did not change as he reached over to his selection of awakening potions and withdrew ten of them, placing them into a pouch which he then laid on the counter. "Twelve thousand zeny, Master Assassin."

Behind the sleeves of her kimono, Michiko's mouth dropped at the price the merchant was charging for ten bottles of some liquid. In her opinion, it was highway robbery!

But Cresnoble merely reached into his money pouch and withdrew three coins, laying them on the countertop as he grasped the pouch with his other hand.

The merchant picked up the coins, looked them over, and then nodded. The coins soon disappeared into one of the merchant's pockets.

Without another word, Cresnoble placed the pouch into an item space on his belt, then turned away from the merchant cart. He glanced over at Michiko and twitched his head to the left, a come-along gesture.

Nodding, she drifted forward again, feeling a tug on her kimono as she did so. It wasn't until she heard the loud crash of a cart toppling over that she realized the edge of her skirts had gotten caught on a merchant's cart.

"Me shop!" cried out an Irish-sounding voice, presumably belonging to the owner of the cart she had toppled. "Ye bloody wench, ye've ruined me shop!"

She quickly dropped to the ground and began gathering up the items that had been spilled out of the cart, trying to help the merchant get back his things even as she said, "I'm so sorry! Please forgive me."

"Whatever," the merchant said, also quickly grabbing his fallen items. "Just help me gather up me stuff before–"

No sooner had he said that then about half a dozen passersby descended upon the fallen cart, grabbing items at random and then taking off. One of the items that disappeared was a very expensive-looking one handed sword that seemed to glow with a holy light.

Behind her, as she continued to mutter apologies and pick up the merchant's wares, Michiko heard an impact, a surprised outcry, and another impact. She looked back in time to see Cresnoble drawing back his arm, one of the thieves laying prone on the ground.

As she watched, the assassin turned toward another group of escaping thieves and suddenly vanished in a burst of cobblestone. At first she was confused, until she saw a series of rock spires rise up from the ground, cagelike, around three of the escapees. Another row of spikes shot up at the back of the thief who had stolen the sword, but the man was too far away to be trapped. The spikes slashed through his clothes and cut open his back, but did nothing more.

Then Cresnoble reappeared in the exact spot he'd vanished from, and crouched down to pick up the wares that the thief at his feet had stolen. With those in one arm, he walked over to the group of trapped thieves, extending the jamadhar on his right arm. He stopped at the perimeter of the spires and stared in at them.

"The wares or your lives. Choose quickly."

Needless to say, the thieves quickly handed over the items that they had stolen. Moments later, the spires disintegrated, and the thieves beat a hasty retreat.

Returning back to the merchant with his arms full of stolen goods, Cresnoble righted the man's stand with his foot, then laid what he had recovered inside it. The merchant and Michiko also put their recovered goods inside.

"I thank ye for helpin' get back me goods, but could ye have at least thought more economically? That one blighter made off with my Excalibur! That's a half a million zeny gone right there!"

The assassin narrowed his eyes dangerously. "Be grateful that I helped you at all, merchant. I could have simply let them walk away with your livelihood. But because I am weary of remaining in this city…" Cresnoble reached into his money pouch and withdrew five coins, which he held out to the merchant. "Five hundred thousand zeny. The price of your sword."

The merchant took the coins, counted them, and then something hit him. "Hey! The sword was worth six hundred thousand, not a meager five!"

Closing his eyes, Cresnoble took a deep breath. Michiko, recognizing that he was getting irritated again, lowered to the ground and hid her face behind the sleeves of her kimono. The assassin stared coldly at the merchant. "You said half a million zeny. Five hundred thousand is half a million, not six. If you mean six, you should have said six. You have received five hundred thousand, and you will not get a penny more."

With that, the assassin turned his eyes forward and walked away.

Michiko peeked out from behind her sleeves, then lifted herself into the air and quickly floated after the assassin. She followed him in silence until he stopped in front of the teleport agent standing near the fountain, then covered her face again. "P-please, forgive me…" she whispered.

He turned and looked back at her, seeing that she had once again hidden her face. From her voice, it sounded to him as though she was on the verge of crying. Reaching out with his left hand, he firmly took hold of her wrist and pulled it away from her face. She looked up at him meekly from behind the remaining sleeve, her face burning red, and tears flowing from her eyes.

"Why do you cry?"

Her one visible eye widened, then swirled around in confusion, as though the answer was somewhere in the air nearby and that she could see it. "Be-because you e-expect more from me."

"I do?"

"Yes. I…no–I don't know!"

He did not respond.

"I…I know what you think of me. You think I'm a useless, clumsy, stupid little monster. I don't know why you let me come with you, but I'm trying to prove that I'm more than what you think I am. I just…" She trailed off slowly, her eyes once more overflowing with tears.

"Stop," the assassin said softly, though there was no mistaking the authoritative tone in his voice.

Wiping her eyes with her sleeves, Michiko turned her red-rimmed eyes toward him, then automatically lowered her gaze to the ground between his feet.

"I do not expect anything from you, nor do I know why I have allowed you to accompany me. If you were to ask me again at some distant point in the future, I may or may not have an answer for you. Perhaps it was destined. Perhaps not. I, for one, do not believe in destiny."

He paused and looked aside, as though wondering what, if anything, the things he had said had to do with her accidentally knocking over a merchant's cart. Then he shrugged and turned his head back toward her.

"The decision then, is yours. To continue to accompany me or go on your own. Decide quickly, for the places to which I travel are not known to be hospitable."

She did not hesitate for a moment. She turned a determined face up toward the assassin. "I told you before. I wish to prove myself to you. And I cannot do that if I leave now. I will not leave, Sir Cresnoble."

He nodded, his face showing no outward sign of emotion. "As you wish." With nothing more said, he turned and stepped up to the Kafra teleporting agent, who turned to him at his pointed stare. "A teleport to Lutie, for myself and the little one."

As he said this, he reached back and grabbed Michiko by the arm, pulling her up beside him. She reddened noticeably as he did so; she did not like to have attention on her.

The teleport agent nodded and closed her eyes, and mere moments later the city of Prontera vanished around them.

A/N: Wow, an update. So there is more to this than it seemed. Nothing special to say about this one, except that you should expect long delays between updates. There's no WoE setup on Valhalla yet (truthfully, I'm not looking forward to it), so there isn't a whole lot to be done on our server other than level and fight MVPs. I'm one of the few players that actually attempts to genuinely RP once and a while.

So anyway, now for my ONE shout-out. /swt

fm-angel: A fellow vRO'er eh? Well, now you know one of my main character names. /ok But I'm not on Cresnoble as much anymore, because I mostly just treasure-hunt in Lutie, and I use my hunter for that. Michiko recently became friendly with me:D Her new performance is so cute.

And you know, at first I cringed at the so overused notion of "PC save monster, monster follows PC, monster eventually falls in love with PC" for a main plot device. But I actually came up with a way to do that and be pretty cool while I was finishing up this chapter. ;D I hope it goes according to plan. /ok