Previously:

"… Well," Sinbad said, getting back to business despite being more curious than ever, "because of who and what I am, I'll think about all sides before arriving at a conclusion I feel is correct. Think about it before deciding for yourself. I hope you can give it the needed consideration, so you can differentiate between what is right and wrong… and that you can believe in whatever answer you have attained for yourself." He said, standing up. "This is how I've paved my way… How about you?" he asked Aladdin and the girls.

"I'll think about it." Aladdin said seriously after a moment.

"Yeah, us too." The twins agreed.

"… Me too." Said Morgiana.

"All right." Sinbad said with a smile.

Chapter 38: Answer

"So, while we're with y'all, Aladdin and Morgiana will guard the other area with Ja'far-san?" Hope asked later that evening as their group stood in front of the mansion that she and Faith were supposed to be guarding with Sinbad and Masrur.

"Yes. I'm glad you all decided to come." Sinbad replied with a smile.

"But wouldn't it be better if you guys had Aladdin instead, since there's already supposed to be some military guys over there?" Faith asked.

"But didn't you say your sister has a Metal Vessel?" Sinbad pointed out.

"Yeah, but I also said I didn't know how to use it." Hope reminded him. "I got the impression it could be used for fighting somehow, but…"

"How long have you had it?" he asked.

"Hmm… almost half a year, now." she answered.

"Eh? And you've never managed to activate it all that time!?" he asked, surprised. "Surely you must have been in some kind of situation where you needed a little extra help, and…"

"Nope, never." The twins answered together with matching straight faces.

"There hasn't been a single problem that we couldn't solve with a little extra hard work." Hope said, crossing her arms.

"Yeah, we're invincible when we're together!" Faith said with a grin.

"I see… Twins are amazing." Sinbad said with a mollified smile, sweat-dropping. "Achoo!" he sneezed, shivering, as the chill, foggy air seeped through his clothes and skin. "So cold… Southeastern countries are so cold on foggy nights…" He should have put on some long sleeves and a scarf like the girls before they left.

"That's true." Masrur said calmly as he moved away from his master, completely unfazed.

"Idiot, stop moving a round!" Sinbad whisper-yelled, crouching behind him.

"Please don't use me as shield against the wind." Masrur whisper-yelled back as he fought to get away while Sinbad fought to keep him close so he could use him for cove from the cold.

'And these are the 'adults'...' Hope thought with an amused smile, sweat dropping at their shenanigans.

"!" the two men said, surprised when Faith suddenly squeezed in between them and looped one of her arms through each of theirs with a very smug and happy grin on her face.

"Fufu~ It's a 'hottie sandwich'!" Faith said, looking very pleased with herself. The two men sweat-dropped.

"Wow, way to take advantage, Faith…" Hope said with a wry smile as some shutters slammed open behind her on the second story.

"Hey, you down there!" the fat nobleman inside shouted angrily with a vein throbbing on his forehead, a chicken leg in his hand, and girl on each arm. "Guard the area properly! For goodness' sake… just because the army doesn't have enough manpower, they only sent two guards over, making me so worried that I lost my appetite!"

'There's four of us here, you know…!' the twins thought, chagrined. Veins throbbed on their foreheads as Hope sweat-dropped, while Faith flipped the rude fat-ass off, when he turned away from the window while gnawing on the chicken leg.

"He's still eating nonstop, though." Said Masrur.

"Eating food in a warm room… such a privileged man." Sinbad remarked dryly, rubbing his arms in an attempt to warm them.

'Says the king…' Hope thought wryly as she sweat-dropped again.

"Bastard." Faith muttered grudgingly, eyeing the food and women with envy.

"Hm?" Sinbad said, looking over his shoulder when he felt something approaching. Masrur and the twins also turned to look when they heard the dim echo of approaching footsteps, and saw that a shadowy figure was drawing towards them through the fog. They could see it was a woman carrying a small bundle in her arms as she came closer, swaying unsteadily on her feet. She looked as if she might collapse at any moment. "Hey, are you all right?" Sinbad asked as he reached out to steady her when she stumbled, concerned.

"…" The woman kept her head down, remaining silent.

"You don't look so good," Hope said kindly, "maybe you should—!" she and Sinbad quickly dodged when the woman suddenly took a swipe at them with a knife. Hope swiftly disarmed their assailant as she lunged past them, taking away her knife.

"What?" Sinbad said as he furrowed his brow.

"The hell!! What's…" Faith shouted incredulously at the woman as the sound of more footsteps was heard scurrying their way. They couldn't see these new arrivals on the scene too clearly through the fog, but they could make out enough shadowy figures to know that they had been surrounded.

"So Fog Troupe… finally revealed itself?" Sinbad said coolly as the four of them stood back to back, quickly taking up a defensive position. The twins furrowed their brows. "Masrur, the fog blocking our vision is making it hard to understand the situation!"

"Understood." Masrur answered calmly, grabbing a nearby tree.

"!" The twins gasped in astonishment when the Fanalis wrapped his arms around its trunk and uprooted the tree from the ground almost as easily as if he were plucking simply plucking a weeding. They made sure to stick close to Sinbad and stay out of Masrur's way as he swung the tree through the air to cut a hole through the dense fog.

SWISH.

"!!" the people surrounding them gasped in alarm as they flinched and shielded their eyes from the sudden and sharp gust of wind.

"!?" Sinbad and the twins said, taken aback. With the fog no longer obscuring their vision, they could now see that everyone surrounding them looked extremely worn and ragged. They were all terribly emaciated and appeared to be having trouble just standing from how labored their breathing sounded and the way their legs were trembling beneath them. But there was no mistaking the dark and desperate look in their eyes, they all were prepared to kill. They had armed themselves with whatever weapons they could find. Hope frowned. Something wasn't right.

'… The Fog Troupe? No… Women, children… they're just ordinary civilians. Why have they come here, giving such murderous looks?' Sinbad wondered with a frown as he assessed the situation.

"Y-You are… Are you with this mansion?" The woman who had just tried to attack them asked shakily. "If you try to stop us… we'll kill you! We are just here to steal food! My daughter will die of hunger if she doesn't eat today! This child is the third. I don't want to lose any more children because of the high taxes of this country!" she cried determinedly as the eyes of Sinbad and the twins widened in horror when they realized they could see a dangerously thin and limp little arm hanging from the bundle that she was clutching protectively to her chest. Hope quietly reached out and placed her hand over one of Faith's clenched fists when she felt her sister grit her teeth and begin to tremble beside her. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Sinbad's face as he stared at the woman in shock, and he recalled Ahbmad's words to him from before.

When a country encounters a problem, just raise the taxes.

"Hmph… Aren't these residents of the slums!?" the nobleman said with contempt as he watched from the safety of his warm home. "Shoo! You all stink! I'll give you this, so just go somewhere else!" he barked with disdain, throwing his half-eaten chicken leg down on the ground.

"!" The residents immediately whipped their heads around when he did so, and the woman with the baby dropped to her knees, scrambling desperately to pick it up before someone else tried to claim it. She flinched when someone grabbed her wrist to stop her, and she looked up at Sinbad, who was now kneeling beside her, in surprise.

"There is no need for this." He told her calmly. "Go into that mansion and take as much as you like. Just promise to spare the lives of the people there." He finished seriously. For a moment, the woman and her comrades stared at him, stunned. But they quickly nodded their heads in agreement and turned to leave before he changed his mind.

"Wait!" Hope said firmly, making them pause. "Be careful. If you eat too much too fast, you'll only make yourselves sick. Be sure to chew slowly. Trust me, soft foods like watery soup, tea, fruit juice, and noodles and bread dipped in water and mashed up are probably your safest bet if you want to be able to keep it down." She advised them as she returned the woman's knife, though she hoped that she wouldn't have a need to use it. Once again, the residents of the slums stared at the strange guards in astonishment before nodding in understanding as they rushed off to feed themselves.

"Hey! Stop iiit!" The nobleman cried, paling in shock and breaking out in a nervous sweat as the residents ran straight past the guards and began raiding his home for food. "Damn it—that guard—!! Guard properlyyyy!"

"Is that all right?" Masrur asked his king.

"We only promised to capture the Fog Troupe." Sinbad replied calmly with a frown, rubbing his arms as he shivered again, looking up at the moon. "… This country… may already be a lost cause…"

"It's all right, Faith." Hope said, causing them to look back at the twins. "It's all right." Hope repeatedly gently to her sister, rubbing soothing circles on Faith's back to calm her as she rested her head in the crook of her sister neck. "We're all right. This isn't Katrina. Those people weren't the looters from ten years ago… You did a good job holding back."

"…" Masrur said as he and Sinbad watched them, wondering what was going on.

"… Is she all right?" Sinbad asked, referring to Faith.

"… She'll be fine in couple more minutes." Hope replied solemnly. "It's just her PTSD acting up." It didn't happen often, but given the circumstances, she wasn't surprised.

"PTSD?" he asked, furrowing his brow slightly.

"'Post-traumatic stress disorder'. It's a mental health condition that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal—either by experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event. Ours was brought on when a really bad storm hit our hometown. It decimated the city, and during the panic and desperation that followed… While were trapped in our because of the flood waters, our home was raided by looters." Hope explained, closing her eyes, as Faith tightened her grip on her. They both had it, but their triggers were different.

"They almost killed Hope…" Faith muttered darkly, holding tightly to her sister as if she was afraid she might disappear. When one of the looters made the mistake of striking Hope, Faith had snapped upon seeing her sister's blood and had nearly brought the house down on them with all the poltergeists caused by her psychic powers. Fortunately, the looters had been so spooked by the slamming doors, breaking glass, and their leader being thrown back by an invisible force, that they had dropped everything and ran off with their tails between their legs.

"It wasn't that bad… The wound just looked worse than it actually was, remember? I'm still here, aren't I?" Hope said soothingly. Because blood was thinner in the face and head, it ran faster as a result, so it only looked like she had lost a lot. "You said it yourself, we're invincible when we're together now!"

"Yeah…" Faith said, taking a deep breath as she inhaled her sister's scent, finally calming down. It had really scared her when she saw Hope try to stop another looter with a knife, just like she had all those years ago… but they weren't just a couple of helpless children anymore. They knew how to fight back now.

"…" Sinbad frowned slightly as he watched them. The two girls had obviously been through a lot, and for that they had his sympathy, but… there was something strange about them. He couldn't shake the feeling that they were both hiding something very big.