So this is Chapter 2 to Putting the Pieces Together! Sorry for not updating in awhile, like I said in the first chapter I'm also working on another story and i'm not going to be updating as frequently as I would like, but please still review, fav. and follow! Hope you guys like this!
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Many years passed since that tragic day for the Imai kingdom. The small little baby that was left behind became a graceful and intelligent, young princess. She had become known throughout the regions as the Ice Princess, for constant stoic face and cold remarks. But she was also known as a very clever and capable person and was the most logical out of the other kingdom princesses, who were pricy airheads. So all in all, she had a good standing in society, off of being a princess and everything.
Hotaru was a jack-of-all-trades you could say. Wherever Princess Hotaru appeared somewhere, she always amazed people of that area with her skills. For example, when she was invited to the archery match to watch the famous archers go against each other, she couldn't sit in her seat and watch. She got up from her seat and forcefully joined the competition, and surprisingly, to the crowd, she had won the tournament and never missed the target, weather if it was moving or not.
Her parents, King Subaru and Queen Chihiro Imai, were as all parents would be if they had a child like Hotaru, proud. They were proud not only because Hotaru was this kind of person but also because they themselves raised her, not the palace maids or butlers.
You may not think this was important since we are ourselves are raised by our parents or relatives, but usually as a princess your parents, the king and queen, don't raise you but your hand servant or professor. Like all the other princesses in the kingdom, you wouldn't meet your parents until dinnertime or when they requested for you to see them. Since the moment you wake up and the moment to shut your eyes to go sleep there is always a servant by your side, caring to your every need. This can cause a person to become arrogant and a rotten brat since there is no discipline set.
But for the Imai kingdom it was different. The incident with losing the two princess of the kingdom at such a tender age, took its toll on the King and Queen. They never ever wanted to lose something that was precious to them again, so they kept want they cherished as close as they possibly could so no one would be able to steal what was theirs. Causing them to act towards Hotaru as they did.
Hotaru was constantly surrounded her parents, they were her role models and teachers. Instead of having to sit down and hear a palace professor give a whole speech on a lesson, she had her father or mother give it to her but it wasn't really a speech anymore but more of a conversation. Her parents would relate the subject; they were talking about, to things Hotaru herself was interested in. They would be constantly exchanging words and at the same time she would be learning more than the average princess would.
Through her father she learned about the economy of the country and how the market system would work. And through her mother she learned how to have the right manners and she also was taught the history of the kingdom itself.
But she didn't solely have her mother and father as her mentors but also the palace professors, though they weren't as major as her parents, they taught her things her parents couldn't. They taught her about science, the world of magic and Alice. There with them she found out what her Alice was, invention.
At a young age Hotaru began to create inventions, no one would have ever thought of. It was so wholly of her entire imagination. She was able to find scraps of metal and make them into things no one would have thought it could become. She was envied by many to have such a good alice and having the ability to use it to it's full potential like that.
But throughout her early young life, Hotaru was never told the fact that she had sisters. She thought of herself as an only child, a lonely child. She could have the attention of her parents and of the entire household of the Imai kingdom but they were all adults and to a small child it would be very lonesome not having a person who could understand you. This loneliness slowly got to her and she herself began to build an emotionless façade towards everyone around her, excluding her parents at times. But things began to change, when she met a certain person, she gradually began to crack her emotionless mask towards the world once again.
No one knows what really happened that night the tiny princesses were stolen; well expect the thieves who had taken them.
"Let us lie in wait to shed blood; Let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause" This exactly describes these two thieves. Evil enough to kill the innocent for their own gain and so corrupted in this evilness to ask others to join them in their act.
The two kidnappers wanted to make quick money in the blank market or any kind they could. And around that time they caught hear of the Queen of the Imai Kingdom, being pregnant and was about to give birth soon. This rumor attracted the thieves. The price of slaves were raising and kidnapping a child of royal blood only made the prince rise even higher. So the kidnappers had the vilest idea, to kidnap the child of the monarchy and sell it to the black market for as much gold they were able to get.
From then on the thieves started to make plans for their scheme. They watched the security of the Imai kingdom and found the perfect times and blind spots to intrude on.
The night the Queen gave birth, the two were in the castle, waiting. Waiting for the right time to snatch the baby from the parents' clutches and flee to the blank market to sell the golden baby.
The night was noisy and active, just the perfect atmosphere a thieve would want, everyone being so busy and not realize what they were doing.
They disguised themselves as guards of the area as they waited. They were the guards outside in the courtyard, it was a perfect position for them, they could easily go to the blind spots and the window of the monarchy was give a couple of stories above them. At any time they wanted to, they could go to the king and queen's room and steal their beloved baby.
They waited and waited for the specific set time to do this scheme. They waited for three signals to tell them they could go in and steal, one; the cry of the newborn baby, two; the palace gossip about the baby to reach them and lastly, three; the lights of the king and queen's room to be turned off. The cry signaling the baby was born. Palace gossip spreads fast and once it'll get to them it'll probably be about a half an hour to an hour, just enough time for everything to settle down and also around that time they recorded the guards to be more at ease then any other time in the time. And the lights inside of the bedroom returning off, indicating the monarchy were asleep, so when they enter the bedroom without being noticed.
As the moon rose higher in the sky, they were getting more and more anxious about their positions. Anyone being caught in they're situation would be instantly hanged on the next sunrise as punishment. The fact of being caught in the situation they were in, got to them.
Their nervousness almost dissipated when they heard the first signal, the cry. But their wasn't just one … but three, and they all sounded different. This struck the thieves odd, why would they're be three voices instead of one? After a couple of minutes of thinking, they just brushed it off as if it was nothing and waited for the next cue, gossip.
Just after 30 minutes, they saw a palace maid approach near by palace guard. It was obvious that she was one of the maids that helped with the labor because of her blood stained hands and clothes. They could barely hear her voice but they both knew she was talking about the newborn since she did various hand motions indicating a baby and that sort of thing.
'Two down, one more to go.' One of the thieves thought as they both observed the guard and maid talk. They talked for about ten to fifteen minutes before she hurried back into the castle.
After awhile the two thieves started to look around trying to look normal as possible, they were just simply turning their heads like all the other guards did when they watched them before. But known to the other guards around that area, they were secretly stealing glances at the royal bedroom, checking either if the lights were off or on.
They could see the outlines of the royalties through the certain, as they moved inside they're room. It was only a little bit after till the lights there were turned off and their silhouettes' were lying down on the bed.
Now with all three signals were down with the three thieves were able to take action. They swiftly changed their outfits to normal clothes (for them), clad in tight black from the head to toes. These special clothes had capabilities of being able to stick to things and literally defy gravity; perfect for the jobs they took up.
Before leaving for the bedroom they made sure to toss of the disguises so no evidence of them would be left behind. From then on they headed for their destination.
The thieves used their Teleportation Alice to travel to the bedroom ceiling, where they held themselves up with their own physical power, the clothes. The kidnappers looked down at the scene before them, the king, the queen and they beloved child sleeping on the bed, but they were something else there too. It seemed like pillows from their point of view, so they simply brushed it off.
The two looked at each other with devilish smirks on their faces, it was as if they read each other's mind. They both reached for each other's arms and one of their clothes abilities stopped sticking to the walls as they controlled it too. With one sticking on the ceiling, defying gravity, and trying to keep up the other from falling, they looked by professional acrobats.
The lower kidnapper began to swing his body, back and forth, to reaching the other's dangling legs. With one big swing both kidnappers slammed feet together and the clothes' abilities were back in action. At that moment when they were curtain their clothes were working, both of them untangled their arms and the other fell down with gravity, though he never touched the ground. He couldn't, because their feet were struck together, so his feet were basically hanging him.
Now the thieve had a better view of the bed and could see everything much better than he could see it from the ceiling. His fingers could fully grasp the blankets and pillows, the perfect position for him. His eyes scanned the bed and he targeted the baby, which was in the middle and the red haired out of the group.
He smirked and went to grab the babe, but as he picked her up, he heard an ear-piercing scream to his right. He whipped his head to the sound and surprisingly saw another baby and this baby had brown hair. He had to think fast or else their heads would be gone by the morning. He quickly grabbed both babies without thinking and began to swing back and forth like a rocking chair. And the little brunette became a little bit more quiet but still loud enough to wake the royalties.
He began to get real anxious and swung up to his partner, who was still stuck to the wall. His partner caught him with his both of his free hands, which also had gloves that had the same capabilities of their clothes, and gave him a glare before taking the crying baby out of his hands. With that they both used they're teleportation alice and transported to the outskirts of the city.
"What were you thinking?! We almost got caught!" Said the thieve that held Mikan.
"Well you didn't do you anything, and besides now we have two of them" the other kidnapper protested, "and that means double the money!" he cheered.
His partner face palmed, "No! Not double the money! The room said that Queen Chihiro was going to give birth to a child, not TWO!" He was furious. "If we tell everyone that the black market that she had given birth to twins, then know one will believe us and this whole thing will be a waste!"
This was true, in those times only a few people were known to have twins, and if you were pregnant everyone would automatically think it was one child. So telling the auctioneers that the beloved Queen Imai gave birth to twins was very risky. They had to dispose of one of the babies or else they wouldn't be able to get the money they wanted and they're whole time planning and succeeding it, will worthless.
But at the time they couldn't think of anything, they were both tired and exhausted from using they're alice to get this far out of the kingdom. They badly needed rest but they couldn't stay in the Imai kingdom. It would be taking too much of a risk to do so, since they both knew that king and queen would have guards at sun rise searching for the two missing children. They had to get out of the Imai kingdom and go to another one.
The closest kingdom was the Hyuuga Kingdom, and the same place the black market action was going to take place. The two thieves decided to walk the farthest they could and try to teleport them, the rest of the way.
Fortunately they had the stamina to walk three fourths of the way there and teleport themselves to the outskirts of the country, where there were limited houses and one small inn.
Problem one; solved. Problem two; still here. They had to get rid of one of the girls, but which one? They thought long and hard about this decision, if they were toss the brown-haired baby, Mikan, they weren't sure if the auctioneers would believe them that the red-haired baby was of royalty, Sakuno, since the Queen had brown hair and the King had black hair. But red-haired slaves were rare and they themselves cost a lot too. Sakuno or Mikan, that was the question.
They chose the sell Sakuno and give up Mikan, since that was the safest choice because the just might reject Mikan but you could actually see Sakuno's red hair so they knew the auctioneers couldn't deny her.
But what to with Mikan, this was just another problem to kill. They scanned the area and dropped the small child at the doorstep of the closest house they could get too. From there they went to the small inn and paid for it with the little money they had left, not forgetting to change their outfits to normal commoner's clothes they found in the near by disposal unit. Though the clothes had holes and were basically rags there were able to pass without being too suspicious.
And the next morning, the two left quietly and left no evidence that they were there and headed towards the black market auction, with baby Sakuno in hand.
But something happened at that black market auction, that even the thieves couldn't comprehend. And the source of the coincident was named Sumire Ryuuzaki, number one assassin of that era.
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