It began with a cat.

Enjoying a nice stroll in-between duties, Raul Nord heard a child call for help. Rushing to the scene, he found a distraught child crying, quivering limbs pointing up a tree. Asking for help getting her cat down, Raul smiled kindly. The Level-4 was atop the tree in an instant. Gently grabbing the scared feline, he paused as it began nuzzling into him. Something..?

Shaking off stray thoughts, High Novice hit the ground and delivered the cat to its person. Delighting in the child's smile, he frowned when the little girl ran happily away. What are adventurers, he thought. Who am I? Something about this small, innocuous experience brought uncomfortable questions to mind.

Deep in thought on the way home, his path took him by excited whispers. Shaken from reverie, he looked about to see Rabbit Foot, Bell Cranell, walking along the same stretch of road. It wasn't too long ago he had hugged the young man in Knossos. Bell was a Level-4 adventurer just like Raul; they were peers. Yet Bell had managed to defeat Nidhogg. Could Raul do things like Bell could? Probably not. But...

"Rabbit Foot! Bell!"

The words were out and his feet steadily on a path before coherent thought actually formed. The white-haired adventurer waved companionably, greeting Raul like a friend. Before the usually timid man could overthink whether or not his foot was about to be in his mouth, he blurted "Why did you decide to be an adventurer?"

It was an honest question. In many ways, Bell reminded him of himself. Timid, kind...just not the sort of personality one would expect in a person whose profession was slaughtering monsters and challenging the unknown.

Scratching the back of his head, Raul was relieved when the other boy laughed. "It's funny," he said with a lopsided grin. "I had a lot of weird ideas starting out. My Grandfather..." White hair shook, red eyes rolling exaggeratedly. "Well, he was kind of a dirty old man. But he was partially right. In the dungeon I found a passion; a reason for fighting hard and getting stronger."

Taking in his blush and the way he averted his gaze, the older male was confident in his assessment that it was about a woman. Funny, he thought. Me, too...images of black fur nuzzling into him caused him to shake his head. He wasn't worthy...

...right?

"Worthy." Bell looked askance at the man who blurted out the last word of his thoughts. "I mean, you seem to do a lot of things that most people your level—or even higher than your level!—can't. I was just thinking that it makes me feel unworthy of my level." Raul bowed his head. "After all, I'm only as strong as I am because of Finn and the others."

"I don't think that's true." The sudden firmness in the young man's voice was a surprise to Raul. His surprise grew as Bell kept speaking. "You don't get to Level-4 on leftovers. Any deity will tell you there's no tricking falna. Everything your goddess wrote onto your back is something you earned." Bell shrugged. "And the other thing, about doing unusual things?" The boy laughed shyly. "Frankly, I don't really try to do crazy things. Just, whenever I'm in a bad situation I do what I think is necessary or right. Just...follow through with your ideals, right?"

Trading small talk for another minute, the two eventually said their goodbyes. Peering over his shoulder, Raul looked again at the cast on the boy's arm. They were peers, and though Bell Cranell was an unusual adventurer, Raul had eight years experience to call upon that Rabbit Foot didn't. Yet here was Raul, strolling along enjoying a break while the young man walking away was only on the surface due to injury. A not-to-distant conversation with Anakitty played in his mind—he promised her to try. To be better than his weak self. He promised her.

Had he slacked off?

Knowing the answer before even thinking the question, he was unaware of the scowl twisting his lips, or how people were backing away from his heavy aura. Ears closed to the mutterings that he finally seemed like a Level-4 adventurer, purposeful footsteps led him to the steps of Babel.

"Just what did you think you were doing?!"

Anakitty was seething, pointy ears stretched forward, tail frazzled and on-end as she relentlessly berated the battered adventurer kneeling before Finn's desk.

The captain looked none too happy either, but both could see the shift Raul's eyes. Calmly taking Aki's abuse and Finn's quiet disappointment, Raul knelt in dented and gouged armor. Blood stained multiple places of his battlecloth, but Aki's rapid inspection revealed most of the blood wasn't his. He had put himself through a helluva fight...but he'd come out on top.

It had been a whole day since he rescued the cat.

"A whole day alone in the dungeon..." Anakitty was not not at all happy, but lost the chance to berate him further as he spoke. Requesting Finn give him a few days to run a mini expedition, her already frazzled tail positively exploded in confusion and rage when Finn granted the request. "Captain! I..!"

A hand brought her to silence. "It'll be okay, Aki. Thank you." Critical eyes inspected his prospective replacement. "You have five days. Take what you need; we'll talk when you get back."

Dismissed, Raul rose, turning out of the room without a glance at the cat-person following angrily behind. Out of earshot of Finn's office, she one-sidedly argued with him all the way to the courtyard.

"I mean, are you drunk or something?" Aki was latching onto anything to explain away Raul's unusual behavior. She touched his arm. "Please" she whispered. "Just...just say something."

Loki-Familia's second-string team was already falling in and loading supplies, Raul's steel voice enough to get them moving.

Nothing forthcoming, she sighed. "I'll get my things..."

A hand grabbed hers before she could go.

"No," Raul said. Squeezing her hand at her protests, he shook his head with finality. "Not this time. This adventure...I need to do this myself. Please understand."

Confused and hurt, Anakitty stared at the gates of Twilight Manor long after Raul bid goodbye, saying he'd see her again soon.

Five days passed. The Manor seemed empty without second-string's personalities filling the halls and courtyard. More than that, there was tension in the air as the lower leveled members and even the elites worried that a good portion of their familia strength was lost to the dungeon. In private, even Finn could be found worriedly tapping fingers against his desk. It was a great relief to all when, just as the sun slid towards the horizon, the gate guards sent up a cry.

Raul's party had returned. Standing tall at the fore, Raul spoke to his small expeditionary force before dismissing them for final duties and then a good rest. He himself reported straight to Finn, picking up a second, black-haired shadow along the stairs to the prum's office.

Reporting two completed quests in Rivira, Raul said they traded the quest rewards for supplies in the dungeon town so they could loiter longer in his target destination—the forty-first floor. They had spent three days there, total. No casualties.

It's more than that, Anakitty thought. She had spent a minute quickly talking with her friends—all of them lauded Raul's leadership. Words like 'Cool!' and 'Awesome!' permeated their stories, along with the fact that apparently he competently raised morale and actually led the team with strong, effective tactics...not to mention defeating a great number of monsters by himself.

Quietly slipping out of Finn's office, Aki waited until nightfall before confronting her oldest, closest friend. Raul's room was more sparse than hers, but there was enough personality on the walls to mark it as his. Aki liked coming here to talk; Raul was always looked down on by others...it seemed nobody really gave him a second look. It was mostly because he let people walk all over him, but being in this room, she felt reassured in him. Clean, organized, and bearing mementos of their adventures, Aki knew every bauble around the room would cause perfect recall of the situation and the people in it. Raul cared. Deeply. He was smart and dependable. Even when he was terrified he kept his eyes open, always looking for the next thing to do; the next person to help. Aki recognized Finn saw these qualities, too. It was why they believed in him. But this recent reckless behaviour...

"I haven't been reckless or foolhardy." Sitting on his bed wiping down his sword, Protaganista, Raul heard the cat-person's quiet footfall.

Black fur bristled—Anakitty was usually very mild-mannered with others, but something in Raul made her express concern with anger. "What exactly got into that fool head of yours?" She demanded. His smile made her even more angry. "You go out risking your own life, for what? And then you take our friends and...and..." turning her head away with a sharp snap, she quickly dried her tears. "...you left me behind."

Carefully sheathing his sword, Raul set it on the desk, pointing an idle finger at the blade. "Remember that, Aki? The day you forced it on me?" When she didn't turn, he continued. "Protagonista. I was too timid to say anything at the time, but I know. I know what the name means."

Black cat ears perked up.

Narrowed eyes glared at fiddling hands; forcing himself to stop, Raul pushed himself off the bed to stand before the still-turned away Anakitty. As with Bell before, he spoke his mind without thinking.

"I made a promise to you. To be better. Last week I realized I'd fallen into the same old trap of being myself. I became content and complacent when I should have become hungry. But...something happened."

The cat-person's shoulders turned a fraction of an inch towards the earnest young man before she remembered she was still mad at him—her tail, however, swished with expectation.

"I realized there was something that gave me the drive to be my better self. Anakitty."

Jaw slack as her head whipped around, Aki wasn't entirely sure what just happened before soft purring noises came unsolicited from her throat—Raul had pulled her close. Staring into brown eyes that had never been this close before...

"I wasn't reckless or foolhardy," he repeated, voice steady. "I led the team in an area where we would be suitably challenged. I would never be reckless. Not when Anakitty's life is in my hands in the dungeon, or when Anakitty is waiting for me on the surface."

...why aren't his brown eyes getting closer to mine? Aki's thoughts were a mess as her purring grew louder.

Raul slipped a hand in his pocket. "I wanted you down there with me, Aki. But I also didn't want you to see this." Looking to his open palm, she was greeted by a sparkling metal band with a fiery stone set upon it.

"W-what..?"

The young man laughed. "I did have an ulterior motive for choosing the forty-first floor. It's a great place to mine precious metals. I took it by some Hephaestus smiths earlier—that's pure adamantite. The stone..." Raul grinned shyly. "We ran into an irregular situation. A rock monster from the forty fourth floor came up to us. When I killed it, this was its drop item. A ruby from the lava floor." Idly playing with the ring, he said "I've always valued you, your friendship and advice and companionship. It's just, I never thought I was worthy of anything beyond that. I guess..."

Soft lips cut off his verbal stream, the wide-eyed Raul quickly matching Anakitty's passion as they settled into a long, long overdue kiss.

"Don't change too much," Anakitty pulled back to sternly warn the man she was currently melting into. Kissing him again, she quickly lowered her head to nuzzle into his chest. "Or you won't be my Raul anymore. And I love my Raul. Now..." she wiggled her left hand in front of his face. "Put that ring on me already!"

Grinning, face tickled by her furry black ears, Raul placed the ring on Aki's finger. Nobody could tell what time held for them or the familia, but whatever came, Raul would meet it with confidence. He had to, he thought, holding Aki tight. He had a reason all his own to fight.