"How much further do we have to go? My feet are starting to hurt!"
Vash turned back and gave Francis a stern look. The man had been complaining about something or the other ever since they left Schattenwald, and Vash was starting to lose his temper. How could Francis know what it was like to lose a sister? He wouldn't be complaining if it were his sister who was missing, not Vash's. Another objection came from the insufferable man, and Vash reached the end of his rope.
"Why did you come if you're going to complain about it so much?" he growled at Francis with a hand slowly curling into a fist.
"I didn't want to be left behind," Francis answered. He flipped his shoulder length hair and smirked. "Besides, I knew I had to come once Arthur volunteered. There has to be somebody to balance his poor taste in clothes."
"What was that, frog?!" A man with wild blonde hair and enormous eyebrows stepped forward and grabbed Francis by the collar. Everyone stopped walking to watch.
Vash heard a sigh come from his neighbor Roderich. "Here they go again," he said with a roll of his violet eyes.
"Um, please don't fight." Vash's friend Kiku Honda was trying to break up the two fighting, but he wasn't having much of an affect.
"You're wasting your time, aru," Kiku's neighbor Yao said. "Just let them fight."
"You want to say that to my face, wine bastard?"
"I already did, tea guzzler!"
Suddenly, someone jumped out of the bushes holding a big stick. Vash recognized the man as none other than Alfred F. Jones, the village's resident 'hero'. "HAHAHA! I'll break up the fight!" He then proceeded to poke Arthur in the eye with his stick.
"Watch where you're swinging that bloody stick!"
"E-everyone please calm down…"
"That's what you get for wrinkling my shirt!"
"Ai-yah! What everyone needs is some of my homemade snacks, aru!"
"Please put those away. The soothing tones of Beethoven are what these hooligans really need."
"I'm the hero!"
"Wanker! Give me that stick before I-"
A loud bang echoed around the forest and sent a flock of birds flapping away in fear. Vash stood with a smoking pistol in his hand pointed at the sky. His green eyes dared them to say another word if they wanted a bullet in their skull. He may not have been the biggest in the group, but that didn't stop him from being the most intimidating. Arthur and Francis released each other, and Alfred lowered his raised stick.
"Every second you idiots waste is a second we could have been using to find my sister." His words cut like a knife, and everyone looked away in shame. "We're going to keep heading south. Stay off the paths, and keep your eyes open."
"Wait, doesn't it make more sense to look on the paths?" Alfred asked. "I mean, I don't know about your little sis, but I wouldn't be wandering around the woods."
"But if she were on the paths, she probably would have made it home already," a soft voice behind the obnoxious man said. Everyone turned in surprise to see Alfred's brother Matthew standing a safe distance away. He wore glasses like his brother, and although their hair and eyes are different, the two were often mistaken for each other.
"Unless something got to her first," Francis muttered. He seemed to immediately regret saying it after receiving a particularly intense stare from Vash.
"Well, the girl's not going to find herself," Arthur said. "We should get started."
"I agree, aru!"
"We'll break up into teams," Vash instructed. "It'll go faster that way. We'll meet at the edge of the forest at sundown."
"I'm with Arthur!" Francis immediately volunteered.
"Why do I have to be with the frog?"
"So I can keep an eye on you."
"That's my line…" Arthur trudged off into the woods with Francis skipping behind him.
"I'll partner with my friend Kiku, aru!" Yao grabbed the timid man's arm.
"Please don't call me that," Kiku sighed.
"Eh? Why not? Don't you want to be my friend?"
"N-not particularly." The two also disappeared into the forest while still arguing.
"All right! Looks like it's you and me, Mattie!" Alfred shouted enthusiastically. He grabbed his brother and ran off without another word.
There was strange silence left behind after everyone's departure. A constant chatter had come from the group ever since they left Schattenwald, and Vash had grown accustom to it. The forest seemed strangely empty now without it.
"Shall we continue?" Roderich asked as he adjusted his glasses.
Vash only nodded before turning. He wasn't particularly fond of Roderich, but he was glad that it was the somewhat prissy man he had ended up with. Everyone else, with the exception of Kiku, gave him a pounding headache. Maybe it was because the two had known each other for so long that they quickly fell into a comfortable silence. Roderich had been neighbors with Vash for as long as he could remember. Francis was his neighbor on the other side, but they hardly ever talked. Usually, Francis was over by Arthur across the street. What he did there, no one really knew, but Vash imagined it was something along the lines of making Arthur miserable.
A sudden movement in the leaves caught Vash's eye. He and Roderich stopped to listen. Nothing happened for the longest time, but then a soft rustling came from Vash's left. He slid his pistol into his jacket pocket and carefully slipped the rifle off his shoulder. Roderich also had a rifle, but he held it warily, as if unsure how to use it. Vash knew his neighbor knew how to use a gun. The real question was whether he actually would use the gun. The bush on Vash's left moved again, so he slowly moved closer to it. He held his rifle up in firing position.
The bush rustled once more before a large red squirrel jumped out of it. One look at Vash, and it immediately ran away. Vash lowered his gun and sighed. He was being too paranoid. Ever since Lili went missing, he felt like he was walking on eggshells.
"We should keep moving," he said to Roderich.
But the other man didn't move. "Weren't you worried that it could have been…them?"
Vash gave his neighbor a strange look. "Them?"
"Yes, them. The, um…werewolves."
"What about them?" Vash didn't like where this conversation was going.
Roderich's eyes darkened. "Lili went missing on the night of the full moon, the one time that they transform into horrible beasts. Hasn't it crossed your mind that they might have-"
"No, it hasn't," Vash said with narrowed eyes. The truth was he had been thinking about it, and Francis' earlier comment had settled like a rock in his stomach.
"They might still be out here," Roderich said in a low voice. "Maybe not as wolves, but that makes them more dangerous. Crazy people eating raw meat in the woods. You won't know until it's too late."
"Enough!" Vash snapped. The hole left in his heart by his missing sister ached with every word. "We're wasting time talking about 'what if's'. There are only a few more hours until the sun-"
The sound of a gun being fired reverberated through the trees. Both Vash and Roderich turned their heads in the direction of the bang. It had come from the direction Arthur and Francis had gone. Without another word, the two began running toward the gunshot.
They were the last to arrive. Everyone else was gathered in a circle around something Vash couldn't see. Francis turned and appeared as if he was going to speak, but he closed his mouth and beckoned the two forward instead. Dread kept Vash rooted to the ground unable to move. It wasn't like the flamboyant man to stay silent. They must have found something truly horrible. Somehow Vash was able to move his legs. He joined the others in the circle and finally saw what had them so transfixed. A delicate purple ribbon was tangled in a low-hanging tree branch. Vash would have recognized that ribbon anywhere. It was usually tied in a cute little bow in his sister's hair.
He reached for it. He didn't know what he was going to do once he had it, but he reached for it anyway. A careful tug released it from the tree branch, and it lay limply in his hand. Something had stained the end of the ribbon. Something dark and red. He looked at the end of the branch, and it too was colored with the burgundy of dried blood. A cold numbness crawled up Vash's spine as he forced himself to look down. The dried leaves covering the forest floor had recently been disturbed, but it was painfully obvious where scarlet drops of blood had fallen.
"You don't think…?" Alfred began to say, but he let his words trail into silence.
Vash sank down to his knees, the ribbon still clutched tightly in his hand. A tear slipped out of the corner of one eye and rolled down his cheek. "This means war," he whispered hoarsely. They had taken everything from him. Now they were going to pay.