A/N: Sadly I haven't gotten any feedback yet (not that surprised by this), so I will just assume I'm doing well enough. Also I am now 100% caught up on season 4 and can't wait for season 5. Luckily I don't feel the need to go back and edit anything from the 2 previous chapters. I've rambled enough. ON WITH THE STORY!
"Attack!" – Normal Speech
"That was pleasant." – Thoughts
Chapter 3
Welcome to Kirya
Seven pairs of glowing orange eyes stared at Zelle through the brush and night. A shiver traveled up his spine. This wasn't going to end well. These things appeared to be naturally aggressive if his run in with Ryo was any indication. Quickly turning around, Zelle grabbed the branch he initially reached for and hurled himself halfway up the tree. He crashed through a few branches but somehow felt like he didn't take any damage.
Zelle got himself up not a moment too soon as two of the wolf-like creatures had leaped toward his previous position. Scarring the ground and the tree with deep cuts.
"Shit," Zelle thought. "I'm in an absolutely terrible position. These things create damage that are the equivalent of large bears and on top of that I'm exhausted from traveling all day. I could attempt to cross the river, but judging by their speed a moment ago, I'll sooner end up as diced meat before I could move the twenty feet to get there."
As Zelle's thoughts were running rampant, the other wolf creatures were not idle. They began to stalk around the tree. Every so often attempting to latch onto a lower branch only for it to snap under its weight. Zelle eyed this motion carefully. It seemed he was safe for now. Or so he thought.
Right around that time, the last of the wolf creatures began to move forward. It moved slowly, deliberately. It stared up at Zelle, and Zelle decided he didn't like the look that it was giving him. The gaze appeared to be calculating. Thinking. This one wasn't like the others. Then the worse came to happen.
The last wolf thing began to bark and growl at the others and they backed off the tree. Zelle really did not like what was happening. Then, the wolf creature put its paws on the tree and began to shake. The tree trunk began to swing and Zelle hung on for dear life. He needed an escape. He needed one fast.
The shaking got worse as another of the creatures began to join in. Then a third. Zelle could now only hold on for dear life, as he felt his energy deplete by the second. Finally, a fourth joined in and the tree could no longer hold to the strength of these monstrosities and down came the tree. And along with it, its only passenger.
Zelle attempted to jump out of the tree to safety, but failed miserably. He jumped from the trunk only for gravity to continue moving and an especially thick branch collided with his body to make sure he would continue his fall. With a thunk, the tree landed. Hard.
Zelle blacked out for a moment the impact jarring his body. It hurt. Pain shot up his back and legs as he tried to move. He was pinned to the tree. His vision was fuzzy but he could faintly see the creatures sniffing about the fallen plant, looking for him.
He desperately trying to move he attempted to push the tree off him. Only for his left arm to not move. Glancing over, he noted idly that normally, arms aren't supposed to bend that way. Using his good arm, he moved it to the thick branch holding his chest down. He felt his Semblance activate and the branch give way. Only for pain shoot through his entire body and it deactivate. He faintly noted there was liquid coming out of his nose, and his hearing got worse as some type of liquid was running down his head.
Zelle couldn't move. His body was too weak. His body felt something akin to someone tearing his flesh off. His head felt like someone had cracked it open with a rock, and he tasted blood in his mouth. His movement had alerted the wolf creatures to his location. They began to approach him slowly, like a cat with cornered prey. He attempted to laugh only for blood to be coughed up.
He had only lived two days in this new world he had found himself in. Two days and he was about to die again. So pitiful. So pitiful and sad. He wasn't cut out for this. He wasn't a superhero. He was just the tech guy at his college. What did he know about this world. Why was he supposed to care? He guessed it's because it was new and that was intriguing. With his thoughts on his impending doom, Zelle closed his eyes as blackness began to overtake his body. At least the sweet bliss of unconscious would take him before he became the beasts snack.
Zelle awoke to darkness. Pain racked his body and the mother of all headaches was pounding against his skull. He attempted to curse but his mouth was dry like the Sahara Desert. He attempted to get up but realized his legs were refusing to move.
"Well, doesn't this seem all too familiar. I wonder when the blue box will come tell me I'm an idiot for dying in two days," Zelle thought.
Zelle waited. He waited and waited some more. The pain was becoming unbearable. He tried to call out once more, but to no avail. With that he let the pain induced sleep overcome his being.
Zelle heard distant yells and screams. He's not exactly sure of what but it doesn't seem good. They continue for quite some time before unconsciousness overtakes him once more.
Zelle woke up again. Pain quickly overcomes his body but he stands against it, refusing to let it take him again. He was on something soft. The feeling was much different from the branches he used his first day. It wasn't grass either. Grass had that ticklish feeling as it lightly touched your skin. So that left the question open. Where was he?
Zelle opened his eyes with a great amount of effort. Only to be met with bright searing pain.
"Shit. Fucking sun." Zelle rasped.
That is improvement. He can talk now. This time inching his eyes open, Zelle began to observe his surroundings as his eyes adjusted to the light.
Judging by the amount of light, it might be midafternoon, but the massive headache was making it hard to focus. He was in a building of some sort. As noted that he was on what was most likely a bed, if the desk and wardrobe were anything to go by. Rolling his head right, he was greeted to a door and a stool next to his bed.
Grunting, he attempted to move his arms. The right one moved just fine. The left one not so much. Rolling his head back to his left, with a great amount of pain, he found his left arm in a splint. When did he do that?
Memories began replaying themselves right before he passed out. Oh yeah. He completely dislocated his arm and possibly his shoulder when that tree fell on him. Seriously, fuck gravity.
With his condition confirmed, Zelle did another a look of the room. In front of him was a desk and a wardrobe. A little right of that against the right wall was another door. Possible a closet or bathroom. Continuing to his right was the stool and a very short hallway to another door. To his left was a window around where his stomach lay. He assumed there was a wall directly behind him. Moving that much was beyond his current capabilities.
Pain raked at his body again, Shit, sleep was beginning to edge itself onto him. With one final question on how he was alive, he drifted asleep. He never noticed the mound of dark grey at the foot of the bed.
Zelle awoke to dim light. His body ached a whole lot less thankfully and his motor functions were much better. It probably helped that his headache was not nearly as terrible as when he had awoken the second time. Twisting his head left he was met with a girl sleeping right next to his right arm.
She had short dark brown hair. Maybe it was a pixie cut? He was never very knowledgeable when it came to hair styles. Her build was lithe, thin. Though Zelle could faintly see the undertone of muscle that lay behind that. Her face was soft. It was rounded and she had a surprisingly small nose. Judging by her size and round face, he noted that she may only be a year older than him, whatever his age was. Overall she was quite pretty to look at. His gaze then lingered further right.
There was now a night stand resting next to the girl that hadn't been the when he awoke previously. On it were bottles with writing he could not understand, a bucket and a towel draped over the side. Putting two and two together pretty quickly, Zelle realized that this person was most definetly his caretaker for his extended leave from consciousness. Using his right hand, he poked the girl's cheek.
She stirred but did not wake. Poking her cheek again she shifted, but still refused to wake up. Zelle was never a patient one and with slight annoyance, he flicked her in the forehead. That did the trick. However, he may have forgotten about his semblance. That flick was basically the equivalent of someone open hand smacking you in the forehead. If their hand was made of stone.
The girl's head quickly snapped up and she held her head, hands immediately seeking out the sore spot where she had been flicked. Her eyes watered slightly at the pain she was currently feeling. However, that was quickly all forgotten as the boy she had been caring for was staring at her with mild concern. Before Zelle could say anything, the girl was out the door.
Zelle sat there dumbfounded. What was he supposed to do now? Wait? Considering it hurt to move in any fashion that was probably the best idea. Luckily for him, he didn't have to wait for long.
He heard footsteps approaching the room and in the doorway stood a large burly man. He was tall. Standing about 6' 7". His hair was that dark brown, same as the girl's. He had almond colored eyes and a bushy beard that covered his face. Overall, he made for a very intimidating site.
Zelle didn't quite sure what to make of this man. He knew he wasn't going to be killed. That much he was sure of. But why they had taken him in was beyond him. Hopefully he was going to get some answers here soon. Zelle opened his mouth to say something, and the man walked away.
"Are you fucking serious right now?!" Zelle thought. "Try to say one thing. Just one! But no. Everyone has to walk away from the half dead man." Zelle was not amused. Not in the slightest. So, he decided to holler, and man was that a bad idea.
As Zelle inhaled the air to announce his displeasure, searing pain shot up his arm and chest. His teeth quickly clacked shut as he forced air through his teeth.
"I haven't hurt this bad since I had to pour alcohol on my head when I bashed my head on some rocks during a vacation."
Speaking of, he reminded himself to check his head later to find out if scars transferred over to this new body. He highly doubted it, but just to be certain.
His pain must've attracted the attention of the residents of the household, because a woman with a bright red dress appeared. She had light brown hair and bright blue eyes. Her face was rounded and she had a small nose. The dress was tight fitting, accentuating her… assets. Then there was the round, brown, fuzzy ears coming out of the top of her head. All in all, it suited her.
"Wait, round ears." Doing a double take, he again made note of the ears. They reminded him of a cartoon bear ears that he occasionally saw people have on some anime that he had watched with his friend. While Zelle was internally pondering the ears on this woman, she had made it up to his bedside and was wringing a wet cloth of cold water.
Zelle was snapped back to reality as something cold was pressed up to his head. He looked over and saw the woman in the stool with a wash bin and cloths, the man still at the doorway and the little girl behind the door. He used the word little, as the man stood at least two heads taller than the girl.
"Uh, thanks ma'am." Zelle managed to get out despite the pain speaking currently caused. The woman looked shocked at him before glancing at the man, which Zelle assumed was her husband and the girl, the daughter.
"Your very welcome young man." She replied. "You wouldn't mind me a few questions, would you? I understand your probably in quite a bit of pain. You had completely drained your aura. Along with this you had two broken ribs and had damaged your spinal column. You must excuse me for wanting some answers as to what happened to one so young such as yourself."
Zelle pondered her request. It was fair, really.
"Ask away." He replied.
"Well, in that case, let's move to the grimm in the room. Literally in this case." She nodded her head toward the front of the bed.
Zelle raised an eyebrow at her. Many questions running through his head. First and foremost being, what was a grimm? For now, he obliged her and strained his system as he looked to the foot of the bed. There he sees a dark grey furred dog with bone at the shoulders, paws and it's face. The face had dark green markings and bright blue eyes.
"Ryo? Is that you?" Zelle whispered. Here was Ryo, the son of a bitch who he thought had left him was sitting at the foot of his bed looking no larger than a german shepherd. Ryo moved up a bit till his mask was now next to Zelle's hand. The family was watching intently at the interaction. Then Zelle acted.
Zelle reached out and grabbed his snout with his good arm, hard. "Ryooo," Zelle called in a sing song voice. "Where were you when I was about to get mauled by big bad wolves hmmmm?"
Ryo whimpered. "Ah, that's right you ran off. AFTER I SAVED YOU TOO." Ryo growled at Zelle, but Zelle wasn't having any of that. With a quick activation of his semblance, he ignored the pain and gripped even harder. Ryo whimpered again and stopped as he weakly tried to get move away. Zelle hurt, bad. But this was well worth it.
"Hmph, thought so you mutt. Sorry about that ma'am. Taking care of the mutt and all. Now what was this about a grimm?" His attention turned back to the family only to find the husband and wife with their mouths open wide enough to catch all types of insects.
"Um, hello ma'am?" The girl seemed to be unaffected by whatever was afflicting the rest of her family as she shyly gazed at him from behind her father. The mother slowly came back to herself.
"Young man. Do you know what that is?" Zelle glanced at Ryo and Ryo was looking at the woman. "A dog. I think." At this point the pain was starting to get to Zelle and his brain wasn't processing things at 100% efficiency. It was taking all of his energy just to be able to answer.
"Take a look at it. Just a moment longer and think about your awnser." Now Zelle was offended. Who did she think she was telling him he was wrong even if she didn't outright see it. Ryo was clearly a dog. A dog that could apparently shapeshift but a dog nonetheless.
"Ma'am, excuse me for being rude but that is clearly a dog." The woman looked bewildered at his reply.
Amber was having a good day. She had treated the patient upstairs, albeit warily with the grimm sitting right next to the bed watching her every move. She was enjoying her tea when she heard her daughter run and grab her husband and whisk him away upstairs toward the room with the patient. Already making assumptions, she wasn't expecting the young man to be able to move, let alone be able to carry a conversation.
Now she was here, trying to make light of the young man in front of her. He had literally grabbed this grimm by its snout and made it whine. That would be highly amusing if it wasn't for the fact that this was in fact a grimm and not a dog. Who exactly was this boy?
"Young man, are you aware of what grimm are?" Amber asked.
Zelle shook his head.
Amber sighed this would be a long day.
"Well, we can save questions and the like for tomorrow. It is quite clear to me that you are still in pain and it is already dark out so get some rest." With that she left the room, taking her husband and daughter with her.
Zelle decided to make good on her advice and with a quick command to Ryo about not messing things up, he let the Nirvana that is sleep take him.
*The Next Morning*
Zelle woke up the next day feeling better. The pain in his back and stomach area were now just dull aches. His arm was a different matter though. He could barely move it without mind numbing pain firing its way through his system. Deciding to move around he used his right arm to prop himself up against the wall.
Looking down, Ryo was lying there staring at him. Did Ryo ever sleep? Zelle pondered this as well as how he got here in the first place. He was pretty sure those creatures were going to eat him.
Zelle spent an amount of time doing some thinking about recent events when his head turned toward the door opened and the woman from last night entered. She approached the bed and sat in the stool. All the while, eying Ryo carefully.
"She isn't going to bite Mrs." He left that hanging in the air.
"Adel." Was her response.
"Well, Mrs. Adel I remember you said you had some questions for me yesterday?"
"Yes, I do. How much do you remember?"
That threw Zelle for a loop. What did she mean remember? Was she aware of his past life? Zelle panicked. He wasn't sure of the consequences of others knowing about that. But how did she find out?
Oblivious to Zelle's inner turmoil Mrs. Adel continued.
"You appear to have a case of amnesia. When you were brought here you had a large knot on the back of your head. You not knowing about grimm appears to have justified my theory."
"Oh," Zelle thought. She wasn't aware of the fact that he was from a different world." I might actually be able to use this to my advantage and glean some info on this new world I'm in."
"I think you might be correct Ma'am. I can only remember back to what I think is a few days ago."
"Well, what is a few days may very well be at least a week, since that is how long you have been here."
That grabbed Zelle's attention. He had been unconscious or at least semi-unconscious for a week now. That was a long ass time. Just goes to show how much damage he really took during that encounter.
"Well in any case, I can't have you wondering around not knowing anything. I'd prefer to have my patients live after they see me."
So thus began the tutoring on the world of Remnant and the creatures known as Grimm.
*One week later*
Zelle had his arm in a sling, bandages across his torso and a smile on his face. He was finally healed enough to be able to move again. Apparently aura sped up healing. Whod've thunk? Though the week in bed let him sort out a lot of things that he talked with Amber about.
He was in a world called Remnant. Here there are bests called grimm. Beings that only brought chaos and destruction wherever they went. You could easily identify a grimm by its markings and mask. If the dark fur wasn't a dead giveaway that is. However, there were defenders against this onslaught of beasts. People called hunters and huntresses.
These people were ones that had their aura unlocked. From what he understood from his interaction with the boxes and Amber, aura was more or less one's soul power. It protected from damage and allowed one superhuman reflexes and strength. Also, these hunters or huntresses got contracts from one of 4 kingdoms. These were Atlas, Mistral, Vacuo, and Vale. Currently he was located in Vale. Specifically a village called Kirya that was near the edge of what was considered "a safe zone."
Each kingdom had an academy. These academies trained hunters and huntresses to fight off grimm. Along with this they all had unique weapons. She didn't really explain but she showed him a picture and got the idea when he saw a guy carrying a broadsword the looked like it had a barrel in the center at the end of the sword while the blade continued up the side a little ways.
Regardless, technically he should be considered a huntsman in training. Seeing as he had his aura and semblance unlocked. That more or less qualified him for huntsman in training status. Though he would have to apply to one of the academies if he ever wanted to become a certified huntsman at some point.
Then there were these people called faunus. Essentially they were people who shared traits with those of animals. For example Amber was apparently a bear faunus. As attributed by her ears. Faunus were typically identified with a specific animal and often had said some traits related to said animal. In Penelope's case it was her ears and abnormal strength for a human without their aura unlocked.
When he questioned about Coco, she had immediately gotten awkward. Confused by this Zelle pressed on, only to ask if he had learned about the birds and the bees. Confused by this Zelle was about to respond to this by, of course, only to realize at the last second that he was in a body that looked to be no older than 15 years old. Zelle said he was aware, so she explained that when a faunus and a human mate. It's about a 50/50 chance that the offspring gets the faunus trait.
Next he learned about this world's currency. It was called Lien. It was close enough to the American dollar system that it didn't take long to figure it out. Though the reason 1000 Lien cards existed was beyond him. Especially when they had bank cards which were essentially credit cards.
Finally and most importantly, at least to him, was the knowledge of dust. Dust apparently fueled everything around here. It powered cars, ran factories, and even was used for ammunition for huntsman. Fire and fuel engines were still a thing, but dust was a much more abundant natural resource to use.
It was the life blood of Remnant. Without dust, humanity may very well be still in a dark age.
Then there was the cracked and destroyed moon. He had asked how it got that way. What he got was a retelling of some old fairy tales that did nothing to sate his curiosity. Technically physics shouldn't allow those pieces to just float there like that. But Zelle wasn't sure if he should be applying his world's physics to this world. After all, things like aura existed.
While he stayed here, Zelle also got to learn about the Adel family. Amber was the village doctor, and her husband Brun was a retired hunter. Their daughter, Coco, was 16 and a huntress in training. She was currently off for summer break, so she was back home. Otherwise she stayed in an apartment with a couple of other girls from this village during school time.
They were all very kind. Brun was a very good cook, much to Zelle's surprise. Coco was quite shy, but he was working on getting her to talk to him. He also learned that literally everyone had names relating to colors. So far he had met Coco, Malt, and Oliver. He didn't bother to question it. His world had too many Smiths, why question names at this point?
Zelle had only another week estimate before he was fully recovered. That was another beneficial thing about having an aura. You recovered much faster than a normal human.
Zelle glanced over at Ryo before scratching him behind the ear. Ryo seemed to be enjoying it. Now that brought Zelle to a completely different issue. Ryo was a grimm. A soulless beast of apparent destruction and death. But here he was sitting with said creature casually scratching it on its head as he watched the sunset.
When he was brought here, apparently Ryo had somehow thrown him on his back and dragged his sorry ass all the way here. He didn't understand how Ryo got him away from those other grimm or the fact he was now dog sized, but Zelle owed Ryo his life so he wasn't going to get rid of him if Ryo chose to hang around. He would deal with the consequences to this as they came around.
"Zelle."
Zelle leaned his head back until the upside down visage of Coco slightly behind the door of the porch he was sitting on came into view. Yes this hurt, but he was relaxing and didn't feel like turning all the way around.
"Mom told me to come get you for dinner."
Sighing, Zelle got up with Ryo following suit. He entered the door and ruffled Coco's hair despite her being a few inches taller than him. She gave him an adorable glare. Glancing back once more at the setting sun, Zelle thought "maybe this life won't be so bad after all."
*One Month Later*
Zelle lied to himself. This life sucked. He was currently in a little hut on the outskirts of the village. He owed 2,000 Lien to the Adel family for the treatment they gave him. This was also at discount apparently, with it being half off. Obviously he couldn't pay and had nothing to his name except this shack and a bow and arrow he managed to convince the village elder to give him for free.
He scrapped by though. He fed himself by hunting. Last week he had finally gotten good enough at skinning the animal to actually sell the skins at full price. But every Lien he earned either went to paying his debt off or buying more arrows. He actually had to kill at least the equivalent of a small deer each day or else Ryo would get a bit antsy. An antsy Ryo is not a friendly Ryo.
Fortune was finally smiling upon Zelle though. He was finally debt free, having just paid off the last bits and was able to make his way into this new world. During this time he got to know Coco even better.
She was a design connoisseur. She loved everything fashion. From hats, all the way down to shoes. If it covers the body, then she has an opinion. This was the one subject that Zelle found that got her to break out of her shy shell. She was appalled by his clothing. There wasn't much he could do about it though.
Thus, he was forced to promise her that the first chance he got money, they would go clothes shopping. He shuddered, he dreaded the day that would ever come. He was sure that his pockets would be empty by the time she was done with him.
What made this entire month really stink though was the thought of Coco leaving. She had become a great friend over the past month. She had turned 16 during his stay here and was leaving to go back to school.
But enough about this sad stuff. He had some work to do now that he actually had free time. He had a week's worth of dried meats saved up and he was intending to abuse that.
*2 Weeks later*
Zelle was back at the Adel's residence. Again. Coco had already taken off to Beacon, so that just left him with Brun and Amber. They had received a letter just a few days ago of her acceptance into the academy. Now the question is, why was Zelle back here? Well you see…
*Flashback*
Zelle was in a clearing in the forested area a couple miles out from Kirya. Today, he was testing out his semblance. Its limitations, its potential abilities. Everything.
Zelle decided to start out small. He approached a tree limb and gave it a few swings. He felt his muscles move and contract. It appeared that he may have to activate his semblance or give it a command. So he tried to reach within himself and feel his aura. Kind of like in the movies. He sat there for about five minutes, eyes closed and head bent. Just when he was starting to feel stupid, he felt it.
An energy surge flowed through his body and suddenly the stick had no weight. He moved his arm around. If he wasn't holding onto said stick, he probably would've never realized it was there. Curling his fingers he crushed the stick. His aura protected him from getting any damage. Zelle smiled. Test one was a success. He moved on to his next item.
This was a large rock easily the size of his torso. He grabbed it with one hand and began to lift. He was able to pick it up. He felt his energy drop drastically though the longer he held onto it he could also feel his arms begin to wear down. Dropping the rock his system eventually began to recuperate from the stress he had put it through.
It appeared that his semblance was both passive and an active. He decided to try a few more things out to confirm his hypothesis. Approaching the nearest tree, Zelle pulled himself up. He kept doing it until his arms had just begun feeling weak, when it got easier again. He kept doing it until sweat was pouring down his body. He must've had gotten near the one hundred mark before he decided that was enough. Hopping off the branch he noted that while his arms felt weak, they should feel much weaker after doing that many pull ups with his skinny arms.
This time he was going try and manually pull out his semblance. It only took Zelle a couple minutes this time to feel his aura and push it into his arms. He started to do pull ups again and despite doing near a hundred earlier. It felt like he was pulling nothing, though he felt a noticeable strain on him.
It was hard to describe. He was sweating and short of breath despite feeling like he was pulling no weight and felt no stress in his arms. It was like he had run a 10k without actually exerting anything. Without feeling the muscle stress was the best way to try and put it. He went at it for 10 minutes before he felt like he was about to drop.
Hopping down off the branch, he had one final test before he was done. With a massive grin on his face, Zelle walked over to a big boulder at the edge of the clearing. Ryo, taking this as his cue to move, did so. Moving to the other side of the clearing. Zelle drew the energy again, pouring it into his arm. He drew his fist back and punched the boulder. The boulder cracked and exploded into large pieces. Going across the clearing and destroying some of the smaller trees. Zelle was surprised and proud of himself that had worked. Then the pain kicked in.
Aura is the embodiment of one's soul. There is a limit to every person's aura. Some in fact have more aura than others and there are ways of increasing one's aura reserves. However, an hour of testing his semblance had dropped his aura to red levels. He was only a novice huntsman in training who had absolutely no practice in the use of aura and semblances. It was only the icing on the cake that his aura didn't hold when he punched the boulder.
"FUCKING SON OF A MOTHER WHORE, PIECE OF SHIT-." Zelle swore like a sailor.
He had good reason to swear too. Looking at his hand, it was bleeding with the skin ripped to shreds revealing bone. The bone itself had lots of small cracks along it. Blood was oozing down his arm staining the ground red.
Ryo looked up from his spot and Zelle noticed that Ryo's eyes in the very center had gone orange and was expanding as he gazed at the blood oozing from Zelle's fist.
"Ryo."
Ryo looked Zelle in the face.
"I fucking dare you, you mutt. Try it and I will punch you to oblivion and back you hear me?"
That was apparently enough to calm the strange beowolf down as Ryo's eyes returned to their normal blue color. Then Zelle got to see firsthand, the ability his pet grimm had. Ryo began to get larger with sickening cracks and plops, bone armor began to cover him and his body expanded as did the mask. Now he was staring at a fully grown beowolf. The one he recognized that he had rescued early on in his adventure.
Ryo was on all fours and did a head motion. Zelle was either in too much pain or shock to notice however and with a growl Ryo approached Zelle. That drew Zelle's attention pretty quickly. He was ready to defend himself from what he believed was his now feral pet only for him to get thrown in the air by his shirt, tearing it, onto Ryo's back.
To say the landing was uncomfortable was incorrect. The bone plating on Ryo hurt. A lot. But he didn't get much time to wallow in the immense pain of his bleeding fist and jarring landing. As Ryo took off at speeds that most humans would be hard pressed to match. Within minutes they were back in Kirya with people running in all directions shouting, "grimm attack!"
As soon as they arrived, Ryo took off towards to the Adel household. Let's just say that they were less than pleased to learn that Ryo had taken on his full form and even less than happy that they could see his bones on his knuckles.
*Flashback End*
And that is how he is here. Sitting on the porch with little Ryo and his bandaged hand as he explained to the retired huntsman of Kirya that Ryo was not a threat. After another two hours of questioning they finally relented that it was fine, but if he was going to stay, he had to get rid of Ryo. With their ultimatum laid out they left Zelle to his thoughts.
Amber decided now would be a good time to come out and talk with Zelle.
"So, we never did get to talk about how you ended up breaking your hand."
"I'd really rather not talk about it."
There was a long pause.
"You did something stupid didn't you?"
"Maybe."
"So that is a yes."
Another long pause.
"Does punching a boulder count as stupid."
That did the trick, Amber burst out into laughter.
"You, you, you punched a boulder?!" She hiccupped as tears trailed down her face.
"Why would you ever do something like that."
She was having a field day of this. Eventually she managed to calm herself though. She looked over at Zelle and realized that there was something very wrong and he really wasn't in the mood to laugh.
"This is about Ryo isn't it?"
Zelle glanced over at her and back at Ryo before scratching Ryo's head. Seeming to sense his bad mood Ryo moved closer to Zelle until his body was flushed against his side.
"Yeah. He saved me you know. Sure I saved him first after he was injured and wasn't aware of what he was, but still. We have a bond. A connection now. No offense to the rest of the villagers but aside from you and your family, I don't really know anyone here. Now they're saying that he has to go."
Zelle looked out at the horizon above the tree line, just staring into all that land with mountains in the distance.
Amber looked at him for a few moments before leaning back and putting her hands back behind her to support her weight.
"Well, whatever you end up deciding, I will support your decision no matter what. Just remember that." She smiled at him.
Zelle stared at her for just a second before a smile managed to work itself onto his face.
"Thanks that means a lot to me. More than you know."
She gave a light chuckle in response. They sat there for what felt like hours to Zelle just watching the landscape and people. Finally, Amber sat up and stretched. Her back making a satisfying pop.
"Well if you need me, you know where to find me."
Zelle watched her go inside before turning to Ryo. Ryo stared back up at him. Turning back to the horizon he noticed that he had only an hour till sunset.
"Come on Ryo, I know what to do now."
A/N: That is the chapter! Holy crap 6000+ words! Sorry if this chapter seemed slow. I felt the need to add an information chapter to set some grounds for our protagonist. In the next couple of chapters Zelle will be receiving his weapons. I have a few ideas on what I want him to have but would like to hear what you all have to say. Without further ado, TILL NEXT TIME!
