Chapter 9: Panic

WARNING: Zeno gets violent in this chapter. This includes some elements that are considered torturous.

Zeno's eyes became wide as he watched Ora Tomoe vanish before him. Turning his head, he saw a guard with his back to him. He needed to tell the guard about Ora's father being the kidnapper, but Ora vanishing, she might become a suspect too. Unless Zeno destroyed this room. It was late afternoon, so nobody would be coming to check on her until it was time for dinner. Walking up to the door, he closed it slightly so that the inside would become dark. Next he took some pillows from a cupboard and placing them on the bed, under the covers, Zeno began the next phase once he was certain nobody knew what he was doing. Zeno then began to dump the contents of the lanterns around the room onto the floor and bedding. Taking a flint he started a small flame in the corner of the room.

Taking a deep breath he gave a sigh as the fire slowly spread across the room. It took fifteen minutes for the flames to begin crossing the room once the flames touched the oil, the room burst into flames. The heat from the fire was a bit more than what he was expecting. Zeno panted as he waited for a moment before giving cry of alarm.

Outside the building the guards walked away, thinking that the siblings would be safe enough. The men were still in shock as to what had happened the night before, the Princess was taken. Taken! Since then, the palace was on full alert. Soldiers from the five tribes had shown up and were searching Kuuto for the kidnapper and the small toddler Princess. Prince Il and his wife were both understandably upset at what had happened to their daughter. Lord Yu-hon had brought half of the sky soldiers and was searching the surrounding countryside for the Princess as the General's themselves had been ordered to search their own tribes. Every stone was to searched under. Every mountain was to be turned upside-down. Nobody was being allowed to rest until the man responsible for kidnapping the Princess was found.

Upon returning to their post the guards found smoke coming out of the building rushing forward, they heard a cry for help and ran inside. Flames were everywhere. The spotted the young man that had been with his sister near the front of the room coughing. The quickly brought the young man out of the room. As they did, suddenly the main support beam gave way and cashed onto the bed and floor beneath it.

"Kiana!" Zeno cried out, playing the part of a distraught sibling as he fought against the guards to get back inside.

"She's gone kid!" One of the guards told him.

Zeno let his knees buckle. "No!" he cried out, fake tears filling his eyes as he covered his soot covered face with his hands and began to cry.

Within minutes more people began showing up. Some with buckets of water, others to watch in horror as the flames covered every inch of the building, engulfing it. General Mundok had showed up late in the search for the young Princess Yona. He saw the smoke from the building that was on fire and saw the distraught boy that was being held back by two guards.

"What happened?" he asked the two men.

"We stepped away for a few minutes to patrol around the garden." One of the two men stated. "When we returned, the building was on fire."

Mundok knew it took more than a few minutes for a fire like this one to spread. So either these guards were missing from their posts for longer than they were say; which was punishable, or somebody had made the flames spread quickly. He touched his chin in deep thought as he looked at the distraught young man who was crying. Stepping in front of the youth he bent down so that their eyes would catch.

"What happened?" he asked the youth.

Zeno looked up at the wind general. He knew the thirty something general was very observant when he wanted to. "Kiana, she was telling me about the man that took the Princess." he said sniffing, wiping his face on the long sleeve of his shirt. "She said she recognized him as Kye-hon. He's a man who has been down on his luck and she'd been helping him out with the money she makes here." he shook his head. "I was only visiting her. I fell asleep in her room, so I was going to leave. I didn't know it was so late. Then she got hurt. I hit the man, but he was faster and he had something; but my sister was hurt and-" Zeno looked away to begin crying at his failure to catch the man, this time the tears were real. Suddenly he froze when he felt a memory surface of finding a red haired toddler many years ago when Hiryuu was still alive. Oh my-

Mundok touched the youth's shoulder to bring him out of whatever he was thinking. "Do you know where this man is?" he inquired gently, trying not to startle to boy. He'd met a several boys like this over the years, who had lost everything or somebody close to them.

Zeno shook his head before lifting his head up sharply. "But I saw him. I'd know if-if I saw him again." Zeno stuttered as he tried to clear his eyes with his hands. "He was dark haired, tanned skin and with dark eyes." Sounds like half of Kouka. Zeno thought with sorrow.

Mundok nodded. "That will be a start." he told him as he pulled the boy close into a hug. "I am sorry you lost your sister."

Zeno's eyes softened as he gripped the general in a hug to return it to him. "Mmhm." Zeno hummed as he gave a nod, not really sure what to do or say.

Releasing the youth, Mundok turned around in time to watch the rest of the building collapse as it continued to burn. There won't be anything left in there. He looked at the blond haired boy. Possibly nothing for him to even bury. Sighing with deep sadness, Mundok walked away to speak with the King and tell him what he had learned from the boy.

Watching the wind general walk away, Zeno sat on the ground and waited for the fire to finish burning. Zeno needs to leave now. He thought as he waited for nobody to be looking at him and snuck away. Going through some hidden tunnels that had been around since Hiryuu's time, Zeno soon found himself in Kuuto, the village below the castle. Running through the unusually quiet streets, Zeno began searching each streets for the strange man that that was Ora's father. Maybe he left. he mused to himself when suddenly, near the eastern gate he saw the man trying to sneak out of the village.

Kye-hon had changed his clothes, stealing a pair of pants and a shirt that had been hanging to dry, he was now blending in with his surroundings. Nobody would be searching for him if they didn't know he existed and with Ora dead and having lost the TDD, he was now stuck in this time. He was leaving the city, placing distance between himself and the incident, when suddenly somebody grasped him and threw him into an alley. Having lost his balance because of his injured leg, he looked up in surprise at seeing the youth from the night below.

Zeno was very angry. Because of this man Missy would never reunite the four dragons and fulfill the prophesy spoken a year before her birth. "You aren't going anywhere." he said darkly. "Ora told me who you are and now you must be punished for your crime."

Kye-hon looked at the boy nervously. "Look kid, you've got the wrong guy." he told him, but the look on his face said he wasn't buying it.

"Ora has returned to fix your mistake." Zeno said causing the man's eyes to widen. "You missed her device." Zeno told him. "It doesn't matter though, you will pay for what happened to Missy." He said as he pulled back his fist and began to beat the living snot out of the man. Zeno looked down at the bleeding man, his fist covered in the man's blood. He then sighed as his anger seemed to simmer down. "You'll be punished by the King, but before that he will ask where you placed the Missy; but you won't be able to tell him the truth, right?"

Kye-hon groaned. "He won't...believe...I took..her." he gasped with a smile.

Zeno smiled at him dangerously. "Zeno will make it believable." he said as he pulled a small dagger out from behind him, hidden under his cloak. He held the dagger out in front of him, his eyes looking pained. "I take no pleasure in what must be done." He said before sitting on top of Kye-hon to stop the thin man from struggling. "This will hurt." he warned the man before he reached for the man's mouth and forced his mouth open before he cut Kye-hon's tongue out of his mouth.

Kye-hon gagged as blood gushed down his throat. Panic began to fill him as he believed he was about to die from this wound. The pain was too much! Tears ran down his cheeks as he spat out blood from his mouth. Turning on his stomach, he crawled away from Zeno, trying to escape his torturer.

Zeno stood up as he looked around for a torch or lit lantern. He found a fire pit in front of a nearby house. Placing his dagger in the pit, he walked back over to Kye-hon who was leaving a trail of blood behind him as he tried to escape. Grasping the man by his dark curly hair, Zeno dragged him over to the pit. Grasping his dagger, he once more forced Kye-hon's mouth open before he began cauterizing the wound with the hot metal tip of his dagger.

Kye-hon screamed in pain. His voice going hoarse as he suddenly urinated on himself from the intense pain. On the brink of unconsciousness, he heard the youth speak.

"You'll live, but you'll never talk again nor be able to taste food ever again." Zeno said as he took off his bloodied shirt and cloak. "I'll be taking you back to the castle and you'll be good or next time Zeno will kill you." he said this as a haunted look crossed the man's face. "When spoken to, you will nod or shake your head no." he told Kye-hon. "Do you understand."

Kye-hon nodded his head before Zeno began to drag him out of the alley. By now night had come, covering the streets in darkness. Zeno wasn't surprised that nobody stopped him when he dragged the man through the empty city streets. Nobody came out to help Kye-hon, nor did any soldier bother stopping him when he was seen with the bloodied man. It took him an hour to cross the city and another to climb the hill to the castle gates, Zeno came to a stop as he released Kye-hon's shirt. The soldiers looked at the youth, not recognizing him from earlier that day, as these guards were different from the ones on an earlier shift.

Zeno smiled at them with a friendly smile. "This is the man who took Princess Yona." Zeno told them. "I found him in an alley with his tongue cut from his mouth." Most knew that if your tongue had been cut from your mouth it was a sign of a liar or a lying thief.

"How do you know-" one of the guards began when a voice from above the gates spoke.

"Because he was a witness to the Princess' kidnapping." Zeno looked up to see Mundok standing next to Lord Yu-hon and General Lee Geun-tae.

Yu-hon must have returned while Zeno was in the city. He thought grimly as watched the two men leave the wall. A moment later the gates opened to reveal the two general's.

Yu-hon raised a lantern to look at Kye-hon. "How did you find him?" he asked Zeno suspiciously.

Zeno looked saddened suddenly before looking away. "After...Kiana..." he stuttered with emotion. "I had to do something. I'm good at finding things." he looked at the battered man. "He wasn't as hard to find as I thought he would be. Just searched the alleyways." he said with a shrug. "Somebody cut his tongue out. I had to use my shirt to stop the bleeding before I found some metal to heat in order to stop him from bleeding out."

Geun-tae gave a dark chuckle. "That had to hurt." he said looking like he wanted to hurt the man himself.

"The king will want to speak to him." Mundok told Zeno before Yu-hon walked up to the man, his hands in fists as he struck Kye-yon in the face.

"Where is she!?" he snarled at the man as he grasped his dark hair.

Kye-hon gave a groan as he saw stars behind his closed eyes. He fell forward onto the cobblestone ground. His eyes closed in pain as he felt drool fall out of his mouth onto the stone.

Yu-hon growled at the two guards angrily. "Bring him!" he ordered them, both taking the man by his arms.

Zeno looked at Mundok. "Have they begun looking for my sister's body?" he asked with a pained voice.

"They'll begin in the morning." he told Zeno sadly. "For now, you'll stay in the wind tribe apartments." the older man told him as he went to walk away. Zeno sighed as he followed slowly. Feeling that the for awhile the days following were going to be filled with chaos.

Zeno didn't know how right he was. The next morning he was brought before King Joo-nam to tell how he found Kye-hon and why he went looking in the first place. Zeno explained how he had been the one to let Kye-hon escape the first night when his sister had been hurt. He had checked up when he said he hadn't known the made had taken the Princess, but thought he had just been a thief. He then told the King what Kiana supposedly had told him, the same lie he had told General Mundok the day before.

After a week of interviews and questions by both the King and Lord Yu-hon, who actually scared Zeno a little with his intense personality, Zeno was allowed to leave. A week afterwards Kye-hon was publicly executed in front of the entire city and all five generals, who had approved of this punishment. It was thought that Kye-hon had sold the Princess to Kai slave feelers that were known to visit Kouka from time to time, but that the slavers had double crossed him when finding out who the Princess was. Over the next several months the search for Princess Yona came to an abrupt end, leaving her parents distraught and the country angry.

Six months after Princess Yona's kidnapping the slave rebellions began in the Northern Kai region. The slaves began overthrowing their masters, killing them and right. The Kai citizens in the south began to worry about the rebellions reaching their territory. Soon the whole region became unsettled. Three months after the rebellions began a skirmish on the Kai/Kouka boarder occured in the earth tribe. General Lee Geun-tae fought in the battles that commenced from the skirmishes. Lord Yu-hon raced into battle with next to the earth General, the two men putting the battles to rest and became named hero's of their tribes.

Meanwhile Zeno traveled to the dragon tribes once again, taking the young generation of dragon's away from the corresponding tribes and brought the three young children to a valley gorge between the fire and wind tribes where a hermit of a priest lived. The priest welcomed the four warriors with open arms. Ryokuryuu was hard to keep under control, as the boy liked to explore and wanted nothing to do with the red haired master that was to come take his freedom away.

One day Zeno sat the green haired youth down and told him the tale of what happened to their young mistress, not master. As he told him of the strangers from the future that had taken Yona away, he saw anger in the boys eyes.

"Why didn't you kill them!?" he had yelled at Zeno, surprising Zeno a bit with his protective angry tone. Tears were in the boy's eyes.

"Zeno caught one that got left behind." he explained. He left out that Ora hadn't gone back to fix things. He just told him that two strange men from the future took Yona. "He was later executed. The country believes she was taken by slavers." The youth's eyes widened at this. "But Zeno thinks Brother Ryokuryuu should know the truth." Somewhat. he thought as he looked at the two younger children. "And one day we will explain it to them."

"What happens now?" the boy asked as his green hair fell over his eyes. His reason for fear was now gone, but suddenly a feeling of pure sadness filled him as the Ryokuryuu inside of him cried at the loss of its mistress.

"We raise them, then when the next generation comes, we tell them the truth about their origins so that they won't fear what they are." Zeno told him as he looked at the boy. "Deal?" the boy smiled at him before giving him a nod.

Unknown to them, those in the future were about to come crashing into their lives, once more, in a few short years.

M-Angel: Okay, So now we know what is occurring while Ora is searching for Yona and Zeno is waiting to get to that time.