Disclaim: I don't own Elsword nor its characters, except my OCs.

Elsword - Rune Master (Age: 22)

Eve - Code: Sariel (With part of Code: Ultimate's weapon)

Kazuki Yuuki – Soul Reaper (Hidden as Assassin) (Age: 21)

Lily – Unknown Spirit (?)

Chapter 2: Assassin

- 10 minutes prior –

Eve let out another sigh in boring as Mio reported the military as well as the economy of Altera. She had been listening to this for days and things had never changed, all being raised. She even almost fell asleep many times. A moment of being 'tortured' later, she heard a short 'beep' from the secretary's table, meaning that Mio had a call. The pink hair Nasod checked the notice and confirmed that it came from the harbor. A light gasp from Mio alerted Eve.

"What's wrong?"

Mio turned her head at the Queen with a surprise expression and said "My Queen, It-It's Elsword Sieghart. He's waiting at the entrance number 3."

Upon hearing the name of her favorite knight, all sense of tiredness and sleep disappeared in a flash. She jolted up and ordered her men "Guard! Send an escort to entrance number 3 and pick Elsword Sieghart at once!"

"Roger!"

A smile of joy grew on her lips. She had been waiting to see Elsword, the first human who accepted her as her friend. At first, she was sad to know that he left El Search Party to go on his journey alone without saying goodbye to her. Of course she missed the chance to tell him to take her with him, but Add told her to stay. After all, reviving her race is her priority mission. Never let the emotion taking over her. She understood that and had no choice but to let him go, though her mind noted to herself that she will wait for him, and that's today.

"Mio." Eve called, which Mio responded.

"Yes?"

"Clear the schedule today and tomorrow for me. I want to see him without any interruption."

"It shall be done."

Elsword will have a lot of questions to answer to her. But first, she needs to change her clothes. She excused her to return to her room and make a quick change, which her drones noticed. She didn't know which dress she should wear to present him. She wished she could understand him.

- Present time -

"Heh~"

The Rune Master stood before the large gate which led to the castle. The gate is so high that Elsword had to raise his head a little.

"Elsword Sieghart!"

He turned to his left where he heard his name called. There, he was a little bit surprised when he saw a woman who looks almost resemble to Eve. He was about to call, but he paused at the moment he noticed the woman raised her hand to stop him.

"Before you say anything, I'm not Eve." She spoke "I have the appearance of the Queen but I'm not her. My name is Q_Proto. You may call me Proto."

Elsword looked at the woman before him again. It's true. Proto looks like Eve, almost exact like her copy. She had a white dress with short skirt, exposing her thigh which got Elsword's face flush. She wore dark boots with high sockets, adding to his fantasy. On the contrary, Proto simply didn't have any thought about the red hair hero, especially his style. She wanted to know why the Queen was interested in him. Elsword was snapped out of his thought as Proto called him.

"The Queen is waiting for you."

"A-Aright…"

Proto said something through her radio and then the gate opened. She led Elsword pass the garden, which got Elsword's interest, and stepped on the stairs. He found himself before the twin-gates and stepped through it. They stepped on the red carpet leading to the throne which was empty for a moment.

"Stay here, the Queen will be here shortly." Proto told, her eyes on his bare chest, which annoyed her "Can you please cover your body? I don't think the queen will like it." Elsword looked at himself. She was right. The last time he was with Eve with his chest exposed, she slapped him with her 'mighty slap' for being indecent near her. It's a bad experience to him. Elsword quickly zipped his coat to his chest to avoid the same thing happen in the hall of audience.

"Elsword!"

The man didn't react to someone's call as his eyes were caught by the golden ones. He assumed the girl was Nasod as well due to her ears belong to the said race. She had pink short hair with a small red bow, cute face with golden eyes. However, his sight then was dragged by a pair of big breasts that pressed on his chest, forcing Elsword to blush.

"A-Ah, can you please stop that? Your chest is pressing on me." Elsword reminded her, blushing.

"Tee-hee~ Sorry sorry. I was a bit carried out." She playfully giggled and stepped back, giving Elsword a good sight of her figure in the white dress, short skirt "My name is Mio, her secretary. I heard Eve told me a lot about you."

"Pleasure to meet you, Miss Mio." Elsword greeted.

"Just call me Mio, Elsword." Mio said. Elsword felt a little bit weird when he was being examined by the pink hair secretary. "You look better than I thought."

"Eh… Thanks." Elsword shrugged off that feeling and replied.

While Elsword was answering Mio's question, Proto noticed that the Queen hasn't come out yet, despite 20 minutes passed. Proto never saw the queen this late for 4 years and thought that something was wrong. She could tell Mio noticed this too. After that, she heard Elsword asked.

"Where's Eve? I haven't seen her yet."

"She's still in her room. Strange, she should have come out right now."

Elsword swore he saw a flash of her smirk appeared on her face. For some reasons, he felt uneasy by the mysterious girl before him.

"Well then, why don't you go and find her?"

"Can i?"

"Go, go! Her room is at the end of the hall on the right." Elsword didn't have the chance to say as Mio pushed her to the door on the right of the throne, ignoring Proto who protested.

"What do you think you are doing?!"

Mio waved her hand at Elsword and replied "I only help him meet the Queen soon."

"Mio! Don't you remember the last time one of our guards banged in her room? She got him executed for that!" Proto reminded.

"Oh don't worry about him."

During their argument, they suddenly heard a loud feminine scream along with a sound 'Flop!' echoing the castle, which made both Mio and Proto flinch. They never heard Eve scream so girly like that. Mio regretted for making that decision while Proto silently prayed for his life.

Rewind to 5 minutes prior, Elsword was sure that Mio was up to something, but he couldn't figure out. He walked through the hallway following Mio's instruction, though he was a little nervous to see Eve again after years. He stood before the door with a label 'Eve' on the door. He took a deep breath to calm himself before knocking.

"Eve-chan? It's me, Elsword."

Silence filled the air. He didn't hear any reply from the Queen of Nasod. He double checked the door and Mio's guide, exactly the room she pointed. He knocked again, this time louder. He startled when he heard a loud moan as reply. He thought that something happened to Eve, and banged into her room, only to see a sight that stuck in his mind forever.

Eve was wearing her white panty, her bra almost fallen off of her chest. She was fallen on the floor with clothes scattering. Elsword stopped his move as he saw Eve looking at him with an unhealthy blush spreading on her face that looked like she was about to cry. Her hair is messy.

"KYAAAAA!"

"Wait Eve, this isn't what you think-"

*Flop!*

- Somewhere near Altera –

"KYAAAAA!"

*Flop!*

"What was that?" The Assassin looked around to search for the abnormal sound coming from nowhere "Did you hear it?"

"Hear what?" the spirit asked in confusion.

- Back to Altera, another 30 minutes later –

We found Elsword on his knees near the queen with a red handprint on his left cheek and the queen with fully dress (thinking of Code: Esencia's dress) on her throne, frowning with her still blushing face. Proto, who stood beside Eve, stared at Elsword with unbelievable eyes. She knew that Eve had a strong slap that could make any person out cold or Nasod temporary shutdown, but he still awaked! How come he can bear with her slap so good? Mio, on the other hand, was worried for Elsword. She was afraid something bad will happen to him when it came to invading The Queen's personal room.

"Elsword, you never change at all, still the same idiot."

"I'm sorry! I didn't know you were still changing! I thought something bad happened to you!" Elsword protested, though his red face betrayed him.

"No excuse!"

Mio saw how the poor red hair man being scolded badly by Eve. She stood up and said "My Queen, I think you shouldn't scold him too much. It was my fault that I made him."

Eve turned her eyes on Mio, who was filled with regret. She sighed, knowing her attitude well.

"Very well, I will let him off the hook for once." Eve announced, much to Proto's shock and Mio's relief, but also surprise "Stand up, Elsword."

"Thank you, Eve." Elsword happily said, finally having Eve forgiving him. He stood up, but then almost fell on the floor. He didn't get used to sitting on seiza for a long time, which resulted in losing the feeling on his legs. Luckily, he was caught by Eve who had foreseen this and helped him up.

"Next time, if you do that again, you will be in for a long 'torture', got it?"

He had a shiver through down his spine "Haii!"

"Good. Then, why don't you tell me where you have been for 4 years? Start with the beginning of your first solo adventure." Eve said, the attitude of a queen gone and replaced with a friendly smile.

"Sure thing!"

The Nasod female then heard his long story from the day he decided to go on solo. He had travelled to other continent that outside the Elrios, called Japan. From there, he became the mercenary and had done the bounty hunters. Plus, he got the chance to learn more secret runes and enhanced his ability. Aside from that, he took his time to learn the language in that continent called Japan. It took him 6 months to fully learn its language as well as the seal. Elsword showed her runes he learned. Eve listened to him every second, interested in his journey.

"Elsword, I remember you called me Eve-chan. What does it mean?"

"*chuckle* It's the Japanese Honorifics. The suffix '-chan' is used at the end of the female's name to show someone very close to me." Elsword grinned.

"Oh… Then what's the suffix for male?" Mio asked.

"It's 'kun', but why you ask?"

"I want to try on your name, Elsword-kun~ Or should I call you Els-kun?" Mio teased.

"Eheheh… You're funny, Mio." Elsword chuckled "But be careful when you use the suffix on their name, because sometimes, adding honorifics on people you don't know would mean offense."

"Oh, I see…" Mio hesitated, which Elsword noticed this and said "It's ok, I don't mind."

They didn't know how long they have been talking until the clock on Mio's table went off. The female Nasod realized that the clock turned to 11:30, lunch time. Elsword was escorted by Proto as she didn't want the same indecent thing happen to the Queen again. Elsword sweat-dropped by her excuses.

The lunch went without accident (Much to Eve's relief). She assigned a room next to her as Elsword's room when he was still around. A wave of blush and embarrassment crossed her face, thinking about the accident the red hair knight made upon his return. She didn't know if she should stay mad at him or not, as it had been like that since their journey together, insolent kid, banging into others' room without permission. But she was relief that Elsword was still the same man she knew.

For years, she had been trying to get Elsword's attention. But sometimes, she ended up slapping him due to his dummy (Which explained how he can withstand her slap). She felt guilty for doing that, but her Queen attitude made her shrugged it off and ignored it.

"I need to get to it."

She discarded her dress into the basket and put casual clothes on before resuming her work on the strange code. So far she decoded the first and second security layers and sought the unidentified files. Eve solved the

Most of the pictures were weapons which she didn't recognize, from close to range. Upon at the end of the list, she found another code that needs to be decrypted. However, it was also under the protection of the tight security code.

"It's gonna be a long time."

With the help from her computer, she can shorten the estimated time. But she wanted to do this in case there was an error during the decryption.

While our queen is doing her own job, Elsword was being escorted around the kingdom for a tour by Proto. Eve didn't trust Mio to do this job (which the pink hair Nasod disappointed) and told her to return to her job. Elsword was in awed. The village had been changed so much that he barely recognized the places. He went to visit the Ponggo village to see the old faces. The ponggo villagers were mixed with Human and Nasod as the result of the peace treaty that made Elsword relieve.

They both stopped by a small coffee shop and rest there. During the quick tour, he felt Proto's eyes on him.

"Something wrong?" Elsword said.

"I have been meaning to ask. What's your relationship with the Queen? I have never seen her being so close to you." Proto asked.

The Red Magician put the cup down and replied "I'm her leader and a comrade of El Search Party, though you can say that I'm her friend."

But that wasn't the suitable answer to her. As far as she knew, the way Eve talked with him wasn't the way they were considered as friend. She sensed something more than friend.

"Oh so… Normally, you would have been executed for banging into the Queen's personal room, seeing her body no least. And yet, she only gave you a slap and a long scolding." Proto said "Speaking of her, it's my first time seeing her smile. I never saw her showing emotion until you are here."

"She did?" Elsword raised his eye-brows "The last time I saw her, she was under the Code: Battle Seraph, which erased her emotion to be able to use the code fully."

"Not anymore." Proto shook her head "The Queen had found the way to remove the Emotion Extermination Circuit and regained her emotion. She was not the Battle Seraph anymore, but Sariel."

"Code: Sariel…" Elsword murmured "Aside from that, she has gained more abilities to control the energy, right?"

"That's what the code supports her, yet…" Proto paused for a moment "The Queen insists on practicing the close combat training in case the opponent approaches her."

A bright smile crossed his face. Hearing Eve practicing a close combat training made him excited and thinking he could ask her for a spar with their weapon clashing each other. He put that thought aside and waited for the chance to ask her.

"Sounds like she pushed herself to the limit."

"Indeed she was, and still is."

Elsword finished his cup before he looked at Proto and said "I didn't know that you are her sibling, Proto." "Me?"

Proto looked at him with confused eyes.

"You know… You look a lot like her. I would mistake you with Eve if you didn't remind me first." Elsword chuckled sheeply.

Elsword could hear her giggle just a second then disappeared before he could see.

"You can say that in your human term, sister I think?" Proto said in monotone, hiding her smile "Let's go, we still have the tour to finish."

"Alright, let's go-"

*Bang Bang Bang*

"?!"

The unknown loud sounds echoed over the kingdom, alerting Elsword and Proto. They both tried to find the source of the noise, which came from the castle. Once they had their eyes on it, an explosion appeared along with multiple noises appeared.

"It's gunfire! Something happened in the castle!" Elsword recognized "It's from the castle!"

- 10 Minutes Before –

Kazuki (with his hood on) walked through the small alley, avoiding the gaze of the security which was just passing by. He waited till they're out of his sight before he stepped out and walked through the crown.

"Almost there."

He found the gate leading to the castle and hid behind the wall of the house. According to the HQ, the guards will change shift every 3 hours, which is the time that they will change. While Kazuki was doing the infiltration, he had Lily finding where the traces of Valkyria are since she was in the form of the ghost spirit, an opportunity to find the target without being seen. He waited for her return before he began sneaking in.

"What took her so long…?" He murmured. The Assassin looked on the watches and saw that he had least than 3 minutes until he began "Hope nothing bad happens to her."

He took out a barrier to equip the Suppression on his handgun, reducing the gunfire sound. Time's off. Kazuki quickly ran through the gate while the guards are changing shift and hid in the bushes. He was a little frustration that he was not allowed to kill. But wait, it didn't apply to Nasod. They are robots and they can be repaired if he avoids the fatal points on its body. Lily wouldn't mind if he made a few shots on them, in case.

"Good, they didn't see me."

He proceeded near the building and walked with his back on the wall, lowering his body. He found another entrance leading to the basement, which was guarded by a Nasod Blade.

"Alright… stay cool…"

He withdrew his dagger and approached the Nasod from its back. The floating drone was unable to detect his presence until it found the shadow revealing him, but too late…

"Goodnight…"

He stabbed into the drone and *click* electric started running through it, temporary shutdown. He gently laid it on the floor behind the crater, hiding the drone from sight. Kazuki then began inspecting the basement which was listed by HQ. They believed the source of Valkyria was buried under the castle. High chance is that the code was discovered during the Nasod Recovery. Kazuki rolled his left sleeve up a bit and turned on the scanner.

"Scanning the Ancient Code, keyword: 'Valkyria'."

"No match."

"Search last traces of Valkyria."

"No match."

This confirmed that the Valkyria code had been retrieved. Even the traces had been taken care of, meaning they had been aware of this. He would have to stay sharp and prepare for a full combat.

"Kazuki!"

The spirit appeared before Kazuki, startling him a bit. He raised his head and saw a smiling Lily while saying "I found Valkyria. It was in the Queen of Nasod's room and being inspected. We don't have much time."

"That's all we need. Let's go."

Kazuki banged through the door, alerting the other Nasod Guards. He raised the handgun and put all leads on their head, effectively shut them down. He spotted cameras watching him from above and shot at them. He walked through the hall way and leaned on the wall as he heard the footstep coming to him. Once the guard was on his sight, who was human, he kicked on his knees and knocked him out cold. Thanks to Lily, he was forbidden to kill human, but not Nasod.

He stepped to the entrance to the hall of audience where many soldiers were heavily guarded, assuming that's where the Queen will be. Kazuki was about to sneak behind the throne when Lily interrupted him.

"Wait, she's not there. The Queen is in her own room for the Valkyria research. Let's go!"

The Assassin then followed the spirit to the hallway deep inside the castle. He was frustrated a bit when another Nasod Guard caught him (and was shot). What alerted him was that the fallen Nasod had transmitted the signal to the security and warned the others.

"Damn! We're compromised!" Kazuki cursed.

"Grraaaa!"

He raised his handgun to block the incoming strike from a knight and head-butted him. However, the sword managed to destroy his Silencer. Kazuki realized this but he had no choice as a Nasod Knight came and was about to strike.

*Bang Bang Bang*

"We gotta move, now!"

Kazuki ran as fast as he could to the final destination. He slid on the floor at the same time the guards blocked his way. He made a few cuts on their legs, temporary remove their ability to run. Now all castle is on full alert, guards are running after the intruder.

Once Kazuki and Lily found the personal room, he forcefully banged into the room and met the Queen who was doing research on the Valkyria. The Queen was surprised by this and called her drones to assist her.

"Who are you? How dare you entering my room?" The Queen coldly asked the intruder.

"You may call me Assassin." Kazuki made a quick introduction as he raised his run at the Queen "I don't have much time so will cut the chase. Give me all the data of Valkyria you have now."

"Valkyria… So you knew about this code." The Queen spoke as she summoned her spear "Kindly tell me why you want this code?"

"Why I want is none of your concern." He said "Now, I give you three seconds to give me that or," Kazuki then reached for the grenade on his waist and put his thumb on the trigger "I will remove it myself."

"Sorry, but I will say no." The Queen declined before she charged forward.

"Tsk!" Kazuki clicked his tongue and pulled the trigger, throwing the grenade at the computer. He expected that she would go and reflected the grenade back, but that's not happened.

"Haaa!" The Queen charged at her and slammed whole spear onto him, pushing outside the room before the explosion went off. She threw him outside the room and shot out multiple laser needles at him, which Kazuki blocked with his dagger.

"Not bad… for a commoner…" She murmured, still keeping the cold voice.

"I'm not the commoner you think of." A grin crossed his face as he continued "Plus, your data is destroyed now." His voice cut short as the Queen interrupted "I have expected something like this before you came and made a copy of it in me. I lost nothing."

"Tsk!" Kazuki clicked his tongue "I see that things won't work as I expected. However, you have made a grave mistake when you put it in your system."

"… What do you mean?"

"You will find out soon… Former Valkyria…" He spoke the last time before he jumped out of the window, disappeared from her sight.

"…"

"Eve!"

The Queen heard the familiar voice called her. She turned her head and found the Red hair Magician and her guardian approaching her.

"You alright? What happened here?" The man asked in concern.

"Nothing you worry about, Elsword. Some Assassin came and destroyed part of my work." She replied "Check this area and heal the wounded."

The Queen of Nasod looked outside the window which the Assassin used to escape. She found no sight of him as he blended himself in the crowd. She recalled his words. Former Valkyria, what does that mean? And why did he call her that name? There's something missing about the code she couldn't find.

Yuu: Ah… Data lost when I fixed my PC and I had to rewrite everything. Sorry, everyone. Maybe I should save them on a safe place in case. In case you ask, i put Japanese Honorifics in the story as Elsword has been traveling to Japan (consider as a continent in my story) so he learned a thing or two about it.

Anyway… Read and Review, please OwO/