Disclaimer: I don't own Rokka no Yuusha. Some lines in this story were copied directly from NanoDesu LN translation.

9. Love

"Meow! What is going on?!"

"All the crests looked exactly the same..." Adlet muttered.

"One of us...is an imposter..." Nashetania covered her mouth as she glanced at everyone with terrified eyes. "No...no...!"

"Chamo thinks Adlet is the imposter!" Chamo seemed to be only one happy of the situation. "If he is the imposter, then him being a traitor would make sense!"

"Meow, I think so too," Hans smiled widely.

"But Adlet-san couldn't be-"

Chamo didn't gave Nashetania a chance to speak.

"So can Chamo kill him now?"

"W-wait! Please, everyone wait!" Rolonia quickly said before the situation gets out of hands.

"You seemed to be wanting to say something since you arrived," Hans said. "What is it that you want to say this desperately?"

"A-actually..." Rolonia took a shuddering breath. "It's actually me...who opened the temple...not Ad-kun..."

She then proceeded to tell her story.

"B-but! When the door opened, the blade was already in the pedestal!" Rolonia finished her story. "And I promise I didn't do it!"

Many suspicious gazes were directed at her.

Nashetania widened her eyes in disbelief.

"No...it couldn't be..." Nashetania kept her eyes trained on Rolonia, who cowered under her piercing gaze. "It doesn't make sense...!"

No one paid much attention to her.

"I changed my mind." Chamo grinned as she touched her foxtail grass to her lips. "Chamo wants to kill her now."

Mora quickly grabbed her hands.

"Rolonia is not our enemy, Chamo."

"Mora-obachan!"

"Meow... How do you know that?" Hans asked.

"Rolonia Manchetta, Saint of Fresh Blood. I had trained her for two and a half years at the head temple. Rolonia is not someone who can deceive anyone."

There was a pause as everyone let the information sink in.

"Maybe not with a bad intention." Hans suggested, eyeing Rolonia and Adlet as he talked. "Maybe everything she said was a lie in order to save her dear 'Ad-kun' from being suspected, seeing how you two clearly knew each other."

Mora pondered the possibility.

"That's possible. Love can make one do stupid things." Mora seemed to be speaking from experience. After all, she's the oldest of the seven.

"It's not a lie!" Rolonia yelled desperately. "I promise!"

"Then how come you didn't show up until we started to suspect Adlet, meow?" Hans questioned. "Isn't it because you figured out that your dear 'Ad-kun' is the imposter, but due to your love for him, you don't want him to be harmed, so you created a lie in order to steer away his suspicion?"

"L-l-love...!?" Rolonia blushed furiously. Adlet was equally red as he avoided to stare at the girl he considered a friend. "W-w-what are you t-talking ab-out! I-I-I d-don't l-love him! W-wh-at!"

"Just admit it. You obviously have a crush on him," Nashetania chuckled, glancing at Goldof in the corner of her eyes, who appeared nonchalant.

"I-I don't!"

AN: I will be writing this story parts by parts. Not chapter by chapter, because I just couldn't figure out where a chapter should end in a story like this.