A/N: This chapter is the closest this story gets to canon events, so I hope it won't be too dull. Also, Raven will show up again in the sixth chapter, and then he'll be here to stay for a long while.

All my love to my beta, xXLiquidSugarXx.

~4~

Yuri opened his eyes to see the slightly cracked ceiling of his room at the inn. He could hear a soft muttering to his left, and in an instant he was on his feet, his sword drawn and ready. A terrified shriek filled the room, followed by a crash.

Karol was lying on the ground, a heavy book strewn over his chest. Quite a few lose papers were settling on the floor from the boy's fall. Yuri sheathed his sword.

"Sorry about that."

"I-it's alright." Karol slowly got up, pulling the book into his lap. His chest was still heaving from his fright.

"Where'd you get that from?" Yuri found himself asking. As far as he knew, Karol only had one bag. He wouldn't have had room to be lugging a book of that size around with him.

"It's mine!" the boy exclaimed, a wide smile spreading across his face and lighting up his eyes with a genuine enthusiasm that Yuri had yet to see. "It's my Monster Book."

"Monster Book?"

"Yeah, I record all sorts of cool info about monsters in it. I was working on it because I'd been in the Hunting Blades for a couple of months and-" Karol cut himself off as a terrible frown marred his face. Tears shone in his eyes, but he gulped and bit them back. "A-anyway, it's not anywhere near done, but I bet I'll find all sorts of crazy monsters on the way back to Dahngrest." He did his best to smile, though Yuri could see fear hiding in the kid's eyes, probably at the thought of meeting 'crazy monsters.'

"I'm going to go get my sword looked at. You need anything?" Yuri asked as he straightened out his clothes and tried to fix his hair.

Karol mouth fell open in surprise. "N-no. I have enough gels and bottles to keep me going for a while."

"I'll meet you at the town's exit by noon, then." Yuri finished brushing his hair and made his way out of the room.

After having his sword sharpened and buying a few more gels and bottles, Yuri headed to the exit of Halure. The small village was endearing in its own way, but he had to admit that he was getting tired of seeing so much pink and constantly being followed by whispers. Word must have gotten around that Yuri was helping out a Union member, and now the people of Halure were giving him a wide berth.

Repede was waiting for him as usual, but Karol was nowhere to be seen. Yuri leaned against a nearby fence and waited. A half hour later the disheveled boy arrived, panting as he skidded to a stop at Yuri's feet.

"S-sorry I'm late," he choked out. "I lost track of time. I thought you might have left without me." He glanced up at Yuri with wide eyes and a frown, as if he could barely believe Yuri had bothered to wait for him.

"I asked you to come with me. If you'd taken too long to get here, I would have gone back into town and made sure no one had murdered you when I wasn't looking," Yuri replied dryly.

Karol was gaping at him again. As amusing as it still was, Yuri knew it was going to get old fast. It was like Karol wasn't used to being treated with any respect at all. He knew there had to be a reason for that, but it was still pretty ridiculous.

Repede walked up to the boy, sniffing at him suspiciously. Yuri knew that his canine companion was none too happy that he'd decided to take Karol along. Repede let out a nasty sounding bark, causing Karol to cry out and fall back screaming, "No! Don't eat me!"

Yuri couldn't help but snort at Karol's antics. Repede walked over to his side and gave a soft bark that was meant to show his complete disapproval of their new companion. Karol had stopped rolling around on the ground and was blinking owlishly up at Yuri.

"Remember that I told you I had a dog?"

Karol blushed furiously before getting up and brushing himself off.

"Karol, this is Repede." Yuri motioned between the two of them. Repede let out another annoyed bark at the boy that had him jumping back in fear.

Yuri resisted rolling his eyes. "We need to get over to Capua Nor as soon as possible," Yuri told Karol as he began to make his way out of the village.

Karol scurried to keep up with Yuri's longer strides. "Wh-why are you going to Capua Nor? There's not much there, unless you're looking to cross over to Tolbyccia."

"I need to give something to a friend of mine. I might do some digging around too."

"Digging around? What are you investigating?"

"Imperial secrets." Yuri gave Karol a mischievous smirk.

"I'll do my best to help you investigate! I'm good at stuff like that!" Karol puffed his chest out again.

"I bet you'll be a great help."

Karol beamed up at him, and Yuri's smirk morphed into a small smile of his own.

~4~

Yuri, Karol, and Repede had managed to make it all the way to Ehmed Hill without too much incident. The few monsters they'd run into had been easy enough for Yuri and Repede to take care of. Karol had mostly hung back in battle, and Yuri imagined he was very lucky Karol hadn't run off. Karol had used the excuse of collecting information for his Monster Book to stay back, using magic lenses to better analyze the relatively weak creatures.

Yuri could understand why Karol seemed so used to other people's disdain. Cowards were never given honor. In his opinion, it wasn't that big of a deal. Repede and he were perfectly able to handle most anything that got thrown at them, and Karol was still just a kid. Yuri had a pretty good feeling that he'd grow out of it.

When the two of them entered the pass, a raging cry rang out. Yuri's heart almost stopped, as the sound reminded him of the roar of the dragon he'd seen outside of Deidon Hold. A much smaller dragon than the beast Yuri had seen swooped down from the sky. Yuri saw a flash of white at the monster's back before a spear flew through the air. It hurled towards the barrier blastia before an explosion rocked the area.

The world was reduced to a high pitched ringing and a spinning blur. Yuri slowly got up from the ground as his senses came back to him. Karol had been thrown farther back than him and was knocked out while Repede whimpered nearby.

The barrier blastia was shattered into pieces. It lay across the road, the massive structure blocking further progress. Yuri didn't understand. Why would anyone destroy a barrier blastia? It made even less sense that the vandal had been riding on a dragon, but Yuri had a feeling this might have something to do with the glowing creature he'd seen wandering the woods.

Karol started to groan, effectively knocking Yuri out of his daze. After seeing that Repede was alright, Yuri went over to help Karol up.

"Wh-what happened?" Karol appeared to be unhurt.

"Someone just destroyed the barrier blastia."

"Wh-what?" Karol's eyes widened as he saw the wreck. "How are we going to get past?"

"We'll have to go the long way around." Yuri motioned to the surrounding forest.

"B-but there's monsters in there. Really, really big ones."

Yuri shrugged. "You can head back to Halure and wait for this to be cleared away if you'd like."

"N-no! I'll go!"

"After you." Yuri motioned to the woods, and Karol glanced between Yuri and the trail nervously before charging into the tree cover.

"Why would someone destroy the barrier?" Karol spoke up after a long stretch of silence that had been blessedly free of monster attacks. Repede had gone deeper into the woods, probably looking for dinner.

"It might have been a member of an anti-Imperial group." Yuri had heard about them when he was traveling with Clay. Most of them depended on terror tactics to undermine the government, with little regard for who was hit by the collateral. A group like that might have been involved, but Yuri was mostly putting out the theory because he still wasn't sure how much of what he's seen outside of Deidon Hold was real.

"I saw a group rallying about that in Dahngrest, there was this Krityan guy leading it. Th-they were all so angry." Karol shivered at the memory. "Before they could start anything, a group of Altosk agents came and arrested a bunch of them."

"A Krityan?" Yuri had seen a few members of the strange race in Zaphias. They had been mages and scholars and curious tourists. They had all appeared to be as harmless as a rabbit.

"Yeah, he started talking about blastia right before Altosk showed up. He said they were evil."

"The guy was probably just a nut job."

Before Karol could reply, Repede came charging out from some of the heavier tree cover. He growled viciously and turned around, his dagger held in his mouth. A swarm of large bugs came flying after him, swooping down and trying to hurt the dog.

Karol let out a terrified cry at the sight of the bugs and looked about ready to run. Yuri drew his sword, and he and Repede made quick work of the swarm, a small pile of gruesome bug carcasses lying around them.

A ferocious growl rang out as a black wolf type monster burst from the underbrush, jumping for Yuri's neck. Before him or Repede could do anything, a large, red, and broken sword came down upon the monster, killing it instantly. Karol was holding the massive half-sword, panting slightly. His eyes were wide, his face was pale, and his legs were shaking uncontrollably.

"Nice going!" Yuri's praise was completely genuine this time. "I would have been dead."

Karol composed himself, awkwardly cleaning the broken sword before putting it back into the bag he carried with him.

"I-I…" Karol was floundering again, though he did look much less pale. "I've n-never done that b-before," he muttered to himself, staring at the ground with slightly furrowed eyebrows.

"We should keep moving." Yuri didn't want the kid to have a breakdown in the middle of monster infested territory. He also really didn't want to think about the implications of Karol saving his life.

The two of them continued in silence for a while, only running into a couple more battles, none of which included any more bugs. Repede stayed by Yuri's side regardless, not wanting to risk getting overtaken again.

The three arrived in a large clearing that was suspiciously empty. Repede let out a growl as they entered it. Before they could make it to the other end, a wolf type monster with red paws appeared on the ledge next to the clearing, snarling imposingly. It was massive and stood almost as tall the surrounding trees. The monster jumped down, effectively blocking their exit.

Yuri and Repede pulled out their weapons and got into battle stances, Karol only hesitating slightly before following suit.

The monster charged, its fangs shining in the afternoon light as it lunged for Yuri. He dodged and made a shallow cut along the monster's side. This only made it angrier, and it swept a massive paw at Repede. The dog didn't jump away in time and was knocked back with a pained yelp. Yuri weaved his way past deadly claws and fangs to try and help Repede.

Karol was doing his best to distract it, though from his badly shaking knees Yuri highly doubted he'd last much longer. Yuri reached Repede as the dog managed to drag himself back onto his paws. Yuri slipped the dog the gel he'd gotten out and then immediately jumped back into the fray.

A bloody gash decorated the monster's face after it suffered a hit from Karol. It was even angrier than before and roared ferociously at him. Karol dropped his sword and bolted.

Yuri succeeded in making a deep slash across the monster's left hind leg, effectively drawing its attention away from the retreating boy. Repede had jumped back into the battle, and now the two of them did their best to finish the creature off.

Repede slashed it near its neck but was trampled on for his success. Yuri was too busy dodging the monster's wild tail to help the dog out. He hoped that Repede would be alright.

Yuri dodged long enough for the huge wolf to begin to slow down because of its wounds. He fired off three Azure Edges at the monster, hoping to push it to its last legs. The blue masses of energy broke through the monster's defenses, two of them hitting their mark.

When the break in the monster's defense showed itself, Yuri charged forward and thrust his sword into the monster's heart. The creature gave out one final snarling breath before falling over.

Repede walked over and barked roughly. He was visibly panting, and Yuri handed him a gel before taking a few himself. He felt the exhaustion of battle recede immediately.

Yuri went over to the monster and pulled his sword out of its body, doing his best to not get too much blood on himself. After cleaning and sheathing his sword, he walked over to where Karol's discarded weapon lay. Yuri found that he couldn't pick the broken sword up with one hand, and it was still incredibly hard with two. He was honestly surprised at how physically strong Karol had to be in order to lug around something so heavy.

Repede let out another rough bark, motioning with his head to a path that led up the hill. Yuri abandoned the sword where it lay to follow Repede's instructions, and soon found himself faced with a gorgeous view.

The ocean stretched on before him, glistening in the late afternoon light. The hill broke off into a steep cliff face, giving anyone who stood upon it a great viewing point. The beauty of it was somewhat ruined by the soft sniffling he could hear off to his left.

Karol was sitting near the edge of the cliff, his knees drawn to his face. He was shaking and crying quietly. When Yuri got close to him, the boy visibly stiffened, almost as if he expected to be hit. When no blows came upon him, Karol turned around to face Yuri.

"You alright?" Yuri asked awkwardly. He really hated it when people started crying on him.

Karol's glossy brown eyes widened at Yuri's question. "Y-you're a-asking if I-I'm alright? Y-you're the one that n-nearly died because I'm useless!" Karol's voice was cracking.

Yuri honestly hadn't understood why the boy was crying until then. "You think I'm mad that you bailed out? I'm more surprised that you didn't do it earlier. Besides, don't you think doing one heroic deed a day is enough?"

"H-heroic!" Karol's eyebrows drew together. "You could have died! And I would have just been sitting here! Why aren't you angry at me?!" Karol flew up from where he sat, both of his hands clenched into fists.

"You saved my life once today. I just returned the favor. Anyway, I'm fine, and so is Repede. We can handle things on our own." Yuri waved his hand dismissively.

Karol didn't protest anymore as he stared down at his feet.

"You might want to go get your sword. It's too heavy for me to lug over here," Yuri commented after a moment of silence.

Karol jumped out of his reverie and gave Yuri another look like he could barely believe that Yuri was real, before he rushed back down the hill.

"What are we going to do with him?" Yuri asked Repede in exasperation.

Repede let out an annoyed growl in reply, letting Yuri know that Karol was solely his problem.

"Thanks buddy," Yuri drawled sarcastically.