Looking for an elf.
The waitresses looked at the photo in profound silence before turning towards Ryuu. Her expression was calm, blank, totally emotionless. However, her fingers gave anxiously-gentle taps at the table as her eyes kept continued stuck on the image. With a slow move, she took that little window towards the path into her hands and appreciated it in depth.
"That's… a huge problem," Anya pointed with concern. "What are we gonna do?"
"I suggest that we should go upstairs and" —Lunoire punched her own palm— "that guy."
"And getting the whole Buda Familia into this place tomorrow morning? I don't think so," replied Mia. "Whatever the solution may be, it can't be a violent one."
"But we can't neither let him do whatever he wants," added Syr with resolve. "I made him stay with us so we can be aware of everything he does."
Chloe raised her eyebrows as she heard that, "Nyou girls think it's a good idea? We're purrting Ryuu directly into his eyes."
"He doesn't suspect," added Anya, "I don't think he even know who's searching for."
"He may be lying. Haven't nyou thought of that?"
"Yeah but… I really don't think he's lying. Mewbe he's just… I don't know, an initiated?"
"You two are just making assumptions," Syr interrupted.
"Well, that's all we can do," continued Lunoire. "We know literally nothing of him, and very little of this Familia of vigilantes."
"And that's the reason why we can't let him alone," Mia declared as she raised from her seat. "We need at least one of us to keep an eye over him. We have Cranel as our outsider, but we need someone here who can—"
"I'll do it."
The voice of the great Mia was cut by the soft mumble of the elf. Ryuu let the picture over the table, and respectfully refer to her boss with the gentleness that characterized her. Her eyes were cold, but filled with determination and bravery.
"I'm the one he's searching for. I don't want any of you to get in danger just for me."
"That's crrrazy!"
"You always the same, you dramatic elf!"
Lunoire and Chloe jumped from her chairs, her expressions indignant as if she would've insulted them. Mia, by her part, stood stoics as Syr looked into her with deep apprehension. The big woman in the room thought about it, and then, refer to her assistant.
"Syr. Do you know anything?"
"I… saw him talking with Ryuu when he got to the tavern. I think… I think Anya is right. Maybe he doesn't know who's searching for."
The rest of them stood in silence as their boss processed what was said. Surely, the idea was risky, but trying to hide Ryuu from Cicada's eyes could also raise suspicions. The board was already set, there was just a matter of making a play, and as much she would've wanted to start with a safe move, there's very little one could do when the game is started by the opponent. But the question was still present. Was that man upstairs their enemy?
"All right…" she sigh and looked at her waitresses. "For now, I'm gonna tell you all what're we gonna do. And as long as that guy is with us, we're gonna keep a low profile. Understood?"
Every single one of then nodded in agreement. Even if the doubt was present, they trusted each other's with their lives. At the end of the day, leaving aside their differences and their problems, they weren't different than the Families led by gods and captains. Said this, it was sure that, if anything happened to the blond elf in the room, all of them would jump to her aid. This, beyond reassuring Ryuu, filled her with worries.
-.-
As the morning began, Ryuu took her time to prepare for the day she had in front. She adjusted her uniform and sat over her bed while looking at the mirror. Her hands joined together, intertwining their fingers while these tabbed each other's with a sense of uncertainty. There wasn't fear on her heart, no with all she had lived already — it was impossible that a situation like this could get to reach her. However, even if wasn't for that, it was true that she was true that the nerves has invaded her. Once again, his past had returned to remind him of the place and the person he used to be. But as we already said, this time was a little different than before.
The elven girl went down the stairway and looked at the tavern. Usual morning — a couple of punched drunken half-sleep over the tables, people eating their breakfast, young adventurers mumbling about their future and how they'll get to the bottom of the dungeon in less than a few hours. She crossed views with Anya over the bar. The cat girl yawned and greeted her with the usual cheerfulness of her humor.
"Morning', Lion. Was the bed rich?"
"I've had better nights," she sigh. "Where's the monk?"
"The monk?" her ears peak for a moment. "Oh, you mean Cicada. He's with Little Rocky at the backyard."
"With Mr. Cranel? W-Wait, why did you let him go to the backyard to begin with?"
"Because Little Rocky said he needed to train with you, and Cicada insisted that he wouldn't go anywhere without him. So, there they are now… very… very quietly, now that I think of it," Anya's face turned into a thoughtful expression. "Maybe you should hurry up and look."
Without more words, Ryuu rushed thought the room and got at the backdoor in less than a second. The placed a hand on the latch, and breathed deeply before pulling from it. The image she found was both strange and soothing. Both Bell and Cicada were standing over stacked wooden boxes, performing a strange and series of motions while keeping their eyes close. The monk movement was smooth and calm, he even seemed relaxed as his body flowed like the water does. The bunny boy, however, was anything but relaxed. He was absolutely concentrated, tense and nervous seeing how the boxes trembled just like he did.
"Let it in, little brother," Cicada whispered with a smile. "Be one with everything, be everything… Todo va y todo viene, todo llega y todo pasa."
"What… are you two doing?" Ryuu said while walking closer.
"R-Ryuu?"
As he heard her friends voice, Bell's concentration faltered and accidentally opened his eyes. Only that was needed for the pile to lose balance, and he fell down at least two matters before being caught by the elven girl. Ryuu looked over him with confusion, but and the poor boy could only cover his face and look away to hide how blush he was.
"Oh, but if it isn't my elf friend," Cicada said before jumping down and gently falling on the soles of his shoes. "I was just showing my boy over here the training I use to do. It's great for strengthening the mind."
"You showed Bell Tai-Chi?" she asked while letting him standing on her legs.
"Oh, so you know it."
"Yeah I" —cough— "used to practice it some time ago…"
"I'm not a fan of it," Bell added.
Cicada giggled and patted her back, "It's just a matter of practice, little brother. But I guess our little practice has come to an end. After all, your teacher is already here."
That choice of words set off Ryuu's alarm bells. Her gaze shot over the monk like a couple of knives pointing straight at her face. The distrust on her posture was as evident as a grape on a pillow. But even if so, Cicada kept smiling at her with the sympathy of a stray dog offered a bone.
"Ah… Ryuu?" Bell interrupted. "I think we should start the training."
"Yeah…" the girl whispered. "I think we should…"
"Great! You go on that," the man jumped back at the pile of boxes. "I'll stay here until for you two to finish."
Ryuu observed as the monk continued with his performance. She saw all clarity his movements — the way he stretched, the places he stepped, the manners he kept to avoid even the slightest movement on the boxes. She had seen many people practicing Tai-Chi, but only one who could move the way Cicada did that morning. It was a sure thing for her now. He was an actual son of Buda.
Their training lasted as usual, but it didn't felt the same. Bell could notice Ryuu's loss of attention. She was strong, fast and as hard to hit as always, but the bright on her eyes was a little duller than usual. And being the kind of guy that he is, couldn't help to burden about her.
"Is everything all right, Ryuu?" he asked as their weapons were sheathed.
She sigh and looked at him with a little smile, "Off course, Mr. Cranel. Nothing to worry about."
"Are you sure? If you want, we can talk about…" his eyes moved on the sly over the still concentrated monk.
"No. It's more of a… personal thing."
"Oh… I… I think I see," he nodded not entirely convinced. "Still, maybe you would like to come with—"
"I would gladly," the girl replied before he could even finish.
Bell's eyes widen for the abrupt of her answer, as if it were something she wanted to ask from the very beginning. He wanted to reply, but she gave him the same gaze that previously shot towards the monk. However, in this case it worked perfectly.
"Mr. Cicada! Ryuu will join us on our trip!"
"Hm?" he opened one eye and looked down. "Oh, really? Great! I appreciate all the help we could have. But first, there's something I need to ask if you don't mind. Have you seen a closed envelope. I've lost one yesterday and I've asked the other girls if they've found it."
Ryuu kept a solemn expression as she pretended to think, "I'm afraid I haven't found any envelope, Mr. Cicada. You should ask Syr about it. If someone could know about any lost letter, that must be her."
Cicada sigh, and for mere instants they could see a gesture of defeat on his face. However, it was quickly replaced by a determinate smile. And so, he placed his arms on his back and began to walk left to right in front of both Ryuu and Bell.
"Doesn't matter, I'll have to manage without it. First the first now!" he stopped to look at them. "I would need to recollect some information, and for that I need access to the registers of previous events in Orario. If my timetable doesn't fail, we would be talking about 3 or 4 years in the past."
"One question," Bell interrupted. "This person you're searching for, do you know which was his family?"
"Excellent question, my estimated Little Rocky. And the answer is yes, I do," he revealed proudly. "Sadly, his family has passed away about two years ago. I was thinking about using some kind of obituary."
"Adventurers can only access to very limited information about families outside their own" Ryuu added. "There isn't much you would be able to get besides some names and dates. I don't think it's a good—"
"Names…" Cicada's expression lighted up with an idea. "That's… a great idea! Even if isn't much, getting his name would will be of great help!"
With both innocence and happiness, Bell smiled and looked at his friend, "You're a genius Ryuu!"
The elf's heart skipped a beat as she realized her error. She forced a grin on her face, but it was so obvious that she wasn't happy at all for that. However, both Bell and Cicada weren't enough attentive to notice that. Instead, the monk placed a foot on a crate, and pointing at the sky yelled with a serious tone:
"To the book depository!"
"This… is a closed backyard," Bell corrected.
The foreign turned around and repeated the pose, "To the book depository!"
Ryuu watched as both of them ran back into the tavern. She breathed deeply, and rubbed her face with her palm before running behind them. Turns out, this was about to be a busier day than expected. Said this, the whole team crossed Orario in less than a couple of minutes, not stopping until finally getting to the guild's door.
The first look at the environment was the same as the one had at the previous day. This, however, changed as Cicada reunited with Eina. The poor girl had horrible black bags under her eyes, her posture was curved and her movement slower and clumsy than the usual. At the look of that, Bell startled and ran to meet her.
"E-Eina?! What happened?"
The girl slowly turned her head towards bell, "Work… tons… of work…"
A drop of sweat rolled down Ryuu's cheek, "I've never seen someone so tired in my life."
"I-It's fine," Eina smiled weakly. "I haven't sleep in… 48 hours or so… but I can still help you guys."
With a very slow phase, the half-elf walked behind the glass and adopted the kindest posture she could muster. In that instant, a fly landed on her left eye, and she lasted at least five seconds in realizing it was there.
"So? How can I serve you guys?"
Bell looked at her friend with a stunned expression; the poor guy could barely recognize her. Eina looked like a walking living-death, but it was adorable to see her trying to keep a façade to hide that. However, before anyone could even think about it, Cicada stepped ahead of the rabbit boy and faced the bureaucrat. He raised a hand, offering a Sutra while doing so to channel magic through its channels. The elven looked with a worried expression as the palm posed over her palm, but in a matter of seconds, all the fatigue she had on her body disappeared. In fact, she was so relaxed that she fainted in front of them, hitting her face against the table with a strong sound.
The monk's eyes wide, "Ah… ups…"
"EINA!" Bell cried as he rushed to the other side of the office.
"What did you do?!" Ryuu asked.
"I just… thought I could help her a little bit, so I used my healing hand to relax her body. But I think she was… too exhausted. My bad."
Bell leaned his ear over Eina's chest. Even if he felt a little nervous about being too close of it, he managed to hear the slow beating of her heart. He snorted calmly after that. Luckily, nobody else noticed the scene, and they could move the half-elf over one of the chairs of the back. Her snores were soft, but rather strange coming from the nobility of an elf; it was as if her human side was exposed once the worries were banished.
"What are we gonna do now?" Bell inquired, worried for the girl's wellbeing.
"Well, we need to access the data-base. Can't we just ask to another manager?"
"A group of three people, one that isn't an adventurer, one foreign and one that's barely lvl2? I don't think it looks right," Ryuu added with skepticism on her tone, "I suggest we should return tomorrow… or maybe in a couple of days when things had calm."
"Wait, I know a little trick."
Cicada approached Bell and spoke to his ear. At first, the reaction of the adventurer was of frowning in confusion, but as he continued explaining, the red flush covered his entire face. When it was over, the monk looked at him with a proud smile while he returned the gaze with hesitation.
"A-Are you sure?"
"Don't worry, my boy. I'm 100% sure it will."
"All right…" he nodded with a sigh.
Ryuu watched the scene with strangeness. She was Bell getting aside of the sleeping elf. With a gentle touch, he grabbed one of her ears with his thumb and index finger, and lift it while giving it small caresses. Eina's face blushed while a big smile started to crave on it. And then, Bell swallowed saliva before speaking.
"E-Eina? We need to use the data-center," he said with the softest tone he could made, "Can you give us permission?"
The half-elf's hand shook. She was drooling profusely, but it was evident that, even unconsciously, she was enjoying the moment. With a slow movement, the girl raised her finger towards the third door on the back, and nodded in approval.
"There we go!" Cicada smiled.
Ryuu was red as a pepper for what she just witnessed. Her face kept the angriest yet embarrassed expression she had ever had in her entire life. Her hands shook and she felt the urge of punching the monk right in the nose; but luckily, she could keep herself from that.
"H-How do you know this?!" she demanded to know.
"The Pilgrim himself taught me, isn't great? He said something about… an erogenous zone or so, I don't really know what that is."
The blonde girl swallowed hard, "Let's just… get right to it, ok?"
"B-But what are we gonna do with Eina? We can't let her like this!" Bell interrupted.
With a deep breath, Ryuu walked towards the set of desk nearby. From there she took a couple of glasses, a magic marker and a pen. Following that, he brought Eina to one of them with everything and a chair, placed her in a writing position, drew two eyes in the glasses and put the pen in her hand.
"There. Anya used to do this when Mia made her do taxes."
Both Cicada and Bell couldn't help to chuckle at the affirmation.
"That sounds like Anya, yeah."
"Good to see our people share some customs!"
The girl then notices something at that moment. The carefree laughter of Bell and his good willing attempts to help the monk, made her realize that he didn't knew the full picture. So, at the moment when both of them turned towards the door, she reached for his arms and pulled him closer to her. The immediate answer of the boy was to look into her, getting to receive at the instant a cold gaze that demanded for his most absolute silence. She slowed the pace, causing Cicada to unconsciously get ahead of them, and just when he managed to get into the data-center, she spoke.
"Mr. Cranel, please, stop helping him," whispered at her ear.
"W-What? But why? Aren't we—"
"Just listen!" the girl interrupted, trying to avoid yelling. "He told you he's on a mission, that he's searching for someone, but you don't know who is she."
Bell frowned at the sound of that, "She? But… I heard he's searching for a man."
"He's not…" the elf sigh. "I still don't know the details. He may be lying or… or may not even know what he's doing."
Little Rocky nodded, "Are you sure of this? Who do you—"
"Hey guys!"
The chat was suddenly interrupted by the monk's call. They separated, trying to fake a natural expression as he looked at them from the door's frame.
"Is everything all right? You got behind and we're literally here," the man smiled kindly.
"Ah… yeah, we were just…"
"We were just talking about all this empress of yours," Ryuu added swiftly.
Cicada's eyebrows risen, "Oh, yeah? And what about that? Is there something you would like to know? I'm willing to tell you, as long as it is within the acceptable parameters, off course."
"Cranel told me you still haven't said what we're searching for."
"That is correct, and I don't have the permission to do that, am afraid," said keeping his gaze on the elf.
Ryuu took one step forward, standing right ahead of Bell. She didn't wanted to look menacing, but her alerts were high for the weird attitude of that monk. It was a long time since she have seen someone so calm, so stoic, so… apparently innocent.
"That's what bothers me… You came from very far away, with very little and with very vague motives. And yet, you seem to know more than you would like to appear."
"I see distrust in your tone, my elven friend. I understand that," he offered a gentle bow, "I know it may not mean anything to you, but I can assure you, my motivations aren't but the b—"
"Then prove it," she went ahead of his words. "Show us that you're worthy of trust. Tell us what you're searching for."
Cicada sigh, "I can't. I made my honor votes. The person I'm searching for must remain in complete mystery."
Her gaze sharpened as she tightened her fists, "And why is that? Why is she so important? Is she a criminal? You came here just to catch her? To hunt her like some kind of animal? Or—"
"Ryuu!" Bell yelled at her.
With each word she spoke, the girl's tone raised more and more. At the moment that the boy stopped her, she was almost screaming at the top of her lungs. The other managers, and even the adventurers that were at the guild in that moment, were looking at her with strangeness and a little bother. She took a moment to regain her composure. She pressed her fingers between her eyebrows, and looked at her friend with a hint of embarrassment.
"I'm sorry…" she mumbled.
"No, it's ok," the little man replied before gazing towards the monk. "We have an agreement. I said I was gonna help you with this mission of yours. But… now I'm realizing that, maybe I was too quick to accept that deal."
The calmness abandoned Cicada's face as he heard that. Bell's expression was now one of concern. The gentle friendly boy from moments ago had been changed for a decided adventurer, one who was willing to took his place besides his friend. Ryuu smiled at the sight of that.
"Don't get me wrong, I want to help you… and I'll take one step forward, I want to be your friend. But you need to tell me what's going on here. If not everything, tell me enough so I can know we can trust you. Do you understand?"
The foreigner was frozen in place. Such declaration had let him speechless, and he could only look at the serious expression of the boy. Air escaped from his mouth, as he tried to whisper any kind of word. His heart beat faster and faster with each second, but it wasn't because of the nerves —he was absolutely euphoric. The biggest smile he have done in his entire life creep on his face, and his eyes brightened with thrill.
"You are… willing to go back on your words? FOR YOUR PEOPLE? You're willing to dirt on your name for that—"
"Yes," Bell reassure without doubts. "I may not be the smartest, and I may trust too easily on people… But my friends, the people I really care for, are more valuable than any words or recognition."
Cicada covered his mouth, now unable to hold the tear of pure emotion, "That's just… wonderful. That's what a true man would've done, Little— NO!" he interrupted himself, "Mr. Cranel. You've earned a part of my respect with only that declaration, Mr. Cranel. Fari well then!"
The monk dry his face and stood straight before both of them. His eyes, still bright and proudful, looked into his allies with a new sense of confidence. He wasn't gonna betray his votes, but his heart was now willing to tell them as much as he could to reassure their alliance. Very well he knew the true face of goodness, and knew he was witnessing it in that right instant. With a kind bow, he showed his respect towards the elf and the adventurer before speaking again.
"You want to know who am I searching for? Well, I can't say that… but I can give you the name of the family who persons is from."
The lips of Cicada moves once again. Bell's expression changed completely as he understood everything. With a slow motion, he looked over the elf's face, recognizing the presence of nervousness and discomfort. Everything was clear for him now.
"Astrea."