Hey guys, Striker777 here with the next chapter of Loki's Renard. I decided to split this chapter up into two smaller chapters, so I hope you guys enjoy this whilst I finish up the second half.

NienieskiLis: Oh man, you have absolutely no idea how right you are.

MC-Ramen-Sensei: YOU'RE WELCOME! HERE'S ANOTHER ONE!

But for now, onto the story.

Akihide continued running along the rooftops, his feet hitting the roof tiles as he ran as fast as his little seven year old legs would carry him, running from the praise, the cheer and the demands to send anyone to hell. Akihide was a child, and he didn't have the mental capacity to come to terms with what had happened, and in his mind he knew he was wrong for killing those people. So to have people applaud and cheer for him because of something he did that he believed with all his hear was wrong completely threw him for a loop.

So he ran. It was instinctive. He didn't need to save anyone and he was scared, so he ran with all his heart through the rooftop labyrinth of Orario. Using Mico Grandus, he teleported between rooftops as he ran, as far away as he possibly could from the horrors he was forced to live by the people he saved. Too much was on his mind and his eyes were still filled with a seeping red that washed over him and the rooves of Orario. His psyche wasn't fit to handle the types of stress that came with that, causing his body to flee on it's own.

When Akihide hit the ground again, it was far away from where he was before. Further to the northwest, Akihide was about a 20 minute walk from where he was before, in front of an abandoned church. Quickly figuring it would be empty and allow him some time alone, he rushed inside, slamming the door shut behind him. Allowing his weakness to set in, he sunk down to the floor, grasping his knees and placing his face between them, sobbing at the flurry of thoughts and memories rushing into his head about the attack.

"Didn't expect you to find me like this..." muttered a voice, vaguely familiar to the young boy. He looked up and saw the same woman from the attack just over a week ago sitting on the old stage of the church, wearing the same black and green dress as before. "How did you find this place? No one should know about it, since it was just my sister and I who came here." she asked the boy, who took a step back. This confused the silver haired woman. "Are you afraid of me, despite the fact we fought side by side as comrades?"

Akihide looked down in shame, catching her off guard and throwing her well out of her comfort zone. Children and emotional stuff were more Meteria's thing, not hers. Meteria was the kind and caring soul that could even warm the heart of the ice goddess Hera, and made everyone love her. It was probably due to that fact that the bastard Cranel went and got her pregnant, much to the horror of the Familias of Zeus and Hera. Everyone thought he was crazy, and rightfully so, as Alfia had almost killed him before Meteria forced her to stop. Cranel barely escaped with his pathetic, cowardly life, which would forever remain one of her greatest regrets. It was probably also a contributing factor as to why children were afraid of her, much like the boy in front of her.

Channelling her inner Meteria, she stood up and walked over to the boy, still looking down in shame, and she could notice tears forming in the corner of his eyes. Cursing herself, she leant against the door before sliding down it, sitting next to the young renard who she hoped was the hero she and Zald had been looking for. Alfia turned to the boy, trying to form sentences to figure out what was wrong, only for the words to get caught in her mouth. She had no experience with this, so it was bound to not end well, but Meteria would put her smile on her face and give it her all either way. Smiling at the thought of her dear sister, Aflia opened her mouth again. "So why are you so upset? What happened?" she asked Akihide, automatically bringing a hand to his face and wiping away one of the tears forming in the corner of his eyes.

Akihide sniffled a sob as he looked at her. "I don't get it... I did something bad... but everyone is acting like I did a good thing..." he muttered, his words conveying all Alfia needed to get a small grasp on the situation. "I killed people... not monsters, but people... and everyone in town, and at home is acting like it's no big deal!" he cried out, frustration spilling out of him at everyone. The citizens of Orario who praised him for his horrible sins, the members of his Familia downplaying how horrible he felt he should feel about killing those members of Evilus, and himself for not being able to overcome those feelings on his own.

Alfia sighed, desperately wishing she had Meteria here right now. She was a much more suitable person to be dealing with the child going through stress like this, being the kind and caring person that she was. However, her sins had lead to the demise of her sister, so Alfia was on her own when comforting the boy. However, she knew that what she needed to do was not try to justify what he did, the Loki Familia seemed to have tried but failed to get through to him, nor to praise him for his actions. So, she decided to do the one thing that neither the Loki Familia nor anyone else had thought of.

Treat Akihide like an adult.

"There's a lot to be said about the morality of killing to protect something." she said, getting the attention of the young renard. "There's no mistaking that you saved lives that day, I saw it with my own two eye after all, but at the cost of the lives of those looking to end them. Does that make you a bad person?" she asked sarcastically, Akihide expecting her to go on a long winded rant about how he was a good person and did the right thing.

"Who knows?" rhetorically asked Alfia instead, causing the young renard to gasp. "Some people will view you as a hero for what you did, there's no doubting that, but at the same time, you killed people. And so, like me, you will have to live with the sins you have committed for the rest of your life." she said. She knew all about what it meant to live in sin. She had sinned before she was even born, taking the potential of her sister for herself and leaving her to die as the power of her Falna couldn't keep up with Gif Blessing, unlike her, who could keep growing stronger with the power of the Falna and keep herself alive. She shook those thoughts out of her head before continuing, "But it is what we choose to do, the sacrifice we make, so that others have the chance to live their lives to the fullest. We choose this path of sin, and we can never stray from it, but for the sake of the people we love and care for, we will continue to live in our world of sin."

"Let me ask you this then." continued Alfia, looking down at the boy with her eyes still closed. "Do you regret saving all those lives during that time? Do you wish you could have kept your hands clean of blood by allowing those people to die?" she asked, getting an almost immediate shake of the young boy's head. Alfia smiled at that, "Well then, that just means that you're a good person who just wants to save others. You may not want to kill other people, but you can't have everything, and you prioritise the lives of others over your desires. It's not the fact that you saved the lives of all those people that makes you a hero, but rather that you were willing to put your moral compass aside and kill to save lives that makes you both a hero and a sinner."

Akihide looked up at the woman with awe and warmth. It was what he needed to hear, that he may have done something bad, but good had come out of it. He had sinned, but he was able to save the lives of others through his sin, and that made it all worth it. Akihide smiled, seemingly at peace for the first time since the event, and gripped onto the woman with a hug. The young woman was far from prepared for this, and her mind flashed back to a point where she was younger, only 15, when a certain perverted god and his weakest familia member had spied on her and her sister when the two of them were bathing, before the god jumped down and enveloped her naked body in a lewd hug. Instinct took over her mind and she recreated that scene by slamming her fist down on the head of the boy in a "Gospel Punch".

"Graahhhh!" yelled out the injured Akihide, collapsing onto the ground next to the woman, knocked out cold and would probably be dead if Alfia hadn't slowed down at the last second. Said woman looked between her fist and Akihide before she began freaking out. What had she just done? She had just hit a small child with enough force that forced a God to go to the Dian Cecht Familia before. She began trying to sort out how to help the boy, but due to a lack of actually trying to heal people, she had absolutely no idea what to do.

She first grabbed one of the cushions from the church chairs and laid his head down on them, before grabbing a bucket of cold water and splashing it onto his head. She decided after that failed to wake him up that she would just wait him out, laying him on one of the chairs of the church and sitting down next to him to apologise once he woke up. That was her last thought before she began to droop off to sleep alongside him.

"Akihide!" called out Ardee, running down the street with Ryuu and Airmid. Airmid had a hard time keeping up since she was so far behind them in terms of her endurance and agility stats, but the two slowed down for her to keep together. They originally planned on splitting up, but decided against it, thinking it'd be best to console him together as a group, and it'd probably be easier to go after him and his stupid teleporting if there were three of them at any one place at a time. And so, the three young girls continued running down the streets, shouting out for Akihide the whole way around Orario.

By the third hour of looking, they were, understandably, freaking out since they couldn't find him, but were equally as terrified of Shakti, Riveria or Kaguya finding out that on a day that they were hanging out in Orario, they had lost him. There would be no surviving the hellish punishments that awaited them for that grave offence from either of the parties involved. And gods knew that they didn't want to test their luck against all three at once. So, officially out of ideas of where to look and what to do, they decided to go to the one person they knew would help them out in this situation unconditionally.

Airmid was extremely happy for once that Dian Cecht had taken such a liking to her as a daughter that he was putty in her hands with the faintest of puppy eyes.

And so, with the help of the Dian Cecht Familia, they began searching the surrounding areas of Orario, headed from Tuatha Medicus towards the Twilight Manor in a hope that he simply returned home and he was fine. However, fears would continue to escalate when they arrived at the manor only to discover that Akihide was not there, and no one had heard him or saw him since he left earlier that day. More than a few members of the Familia began freaking out and feared dealing with a pissed off Riveria again, so about 30 members of the Loki Familia all joined the search.

And yet they had nothing to show for it. The sun had gone down, fires and lamps illuminating the streets of Orario, and Akihide Okami was nowhere to be found. Everyone was freaking out, and no one wanted to return to the Loki Familia to tell Riveria that her pseudo-son had been lost on his outing. Let alone Ryuu and Ardee having to go back home to Kaguya and Shakti, who would be no less impressed than Riveria, and consequences were sure to follow. So, even when the night continued, so too did their search, even when the rest of the search party decided to call it a day, the members of the Loki Familia deciding not to tell their goddess or Vice-Captain about what happened. In the end, Ardee, Ryuu and Airmid continued to search for their friend.

The three girls came to a stop outside a small set of abandoned houses and decided to quickly catch their breaths. They looked around, trying to once more think of a place Akihide would go that they hadn't looked yet. They crossed out his house, the cafe, and they knew he wasn't in the Dungeon since the employees at the Guild knew better than to let him in there when he wasn't supposed to be, much less on his own, or face the wrath of Nine Hell herself. So since they knew he wasn't at any of those locations, and they hadn't heard hide nor hair of him anywhere else, they figured he must've gone somewhere new that none of them knew about.

"ARGH!" yelled Ardee, slamming her fist into the wall behind her. "Where the hell is he?! Sister Shakti is going to have my ass if we don't find him soon!"

"Not to mention Riveria..." muttered Airmid, trembling at the thought. "How horrifying is dealing with her going to be when we tell her we don't know where Akihide is?"

"Please don't bring that up..." begged Ryuu to the youngest girl amongst them. "Kaguya is going to give me enough shit for this, I don't need to think of Riveria and Shakti on top of that..."

Then, as if the gods themselves had decided to piss on them more than they already had, thunder began to boom and rain began to fall on the city of Orario. "Nonononono!" complained Ardee as she lifted her hands up to shield her face. "Not now! Why now?!"

Ryuu was the fastest thinker of the group, and pushed open a door that was right behind them. "In here! We'll wait the storm out and continue searching after it passes!" she called out, as Airmid and Ardee ran through the doors, followed closely by Ryuu who shut the doors behind them. "We're stuck here for the moment, so we should plan our next move to find Akihide while we wait." she said, turning around.

Ardee didn't bother looking back at her before retorting. "Yeah... I don't think that's gonna be an issue anymore..."

True to her words, Ryuu's eyes landed on a sight that she didn't expect to see. The previous day, during the fight, she had been slipping in and out of consciousness, only remembering a few things after getting hit by Xaxa. One was Akihide's speech on becoming a hero for the sake of saving lives instead of justice, but the other was the woman in front of her. Dressed in the same black and green dress from that day, Ryuu's mind remembered everything about her entering the battlefield and saving her life. When Ryuu looked at Xaxa, she saw a mountain without a peak that stretched beyond the clouds, a height she was not able to attain right now.

But when this woman entered the battlefield, the mountain became overshadowed as if it were but a pebble.

There was no questioning that the woman had saved her life that day, and her overwhelming power was something to both fear and be in awe of. They had received the report from the Guild that the woman was Aflia the Silence, a level 7 executive of the Hera Familia, who was presumed deceased after the battle with the One Eyed Black Dragon. Ryuu was in shock that someone like Alfia would come to her aid when facing off against a level 4, but she felt a deep sense of awe, and gratitude. Without her there to help, Ryuu was sure that she, Akihide and Kaguya would all be dead. She imagined meeting Alfia again, what she would say to the great woman who saved her life.

But not once did she imagine a napping Alfia with an equally asleep Akihide using her lap as a pillow.

That was when the anger kicked in. This is where Akihide had been all day, sleeping in their saviours lap?! Whilst she was out in Orario worrying her socks off and freaking out alongside Ardee and Airmid, he had been having the time of his life in an older woman's lap?!

Ryuu was beyond pissed, and it didn't take much to see that Ardee and Airmid felt the same way.

The woman shocked them all when she opened one of her eyes, a green eye staring at the three. "It's rude to barge into another person's home." she monotoned at the three young girls, a combination of half-asleep and slightly annoyed that her home had been broken into. Then she laid eyes on the elf, and she began speaking once more. "You were from that day, with that Evilus prick."

"Alfia the Silence..." muttered Ryuu, shocking Ardee and Airmid, neither having seen the woman yet. "What is Akihide doing here? We've been looking for him everywhere."

"Barged in like you did a few hours ago, I guess." shrugged the level 7, looking down at the boy. "He was exhausted and fell asleep here."

For some reason, all three girls could tell she was lying, but also knew better than to question a woman who was level 7 and only a little over 20 years old. They were dead if she wanted them to be. So it would be wise not to piss her off and question her about her lie.

"Well at least he's okay!" cheered Ardee, walking up to the two and checking on Akihide, deciding it would be safer for her to ignore the giant bump on his head. Thunder crackled overhead as the two other girls stepped to the side to avoid a small leak in the ceiling.

Alfia sighed. "You three might as well wait out the storm here. Just don't make too much noise or touch anything downstairs." she ordered the three young girls as she made her way to the stairs, and began descending before turning back to them. "Let the boy rest, he needs it." said the level 7, before making her way downstairs.

Ardee was the first to move, grabbing a pillow and laying down on the long church chair across from Akihide. "Might as well sleep a bit." she said to the two before laying down next to Akihide. "We're stuck here either way, so we might as well get some sleep while we can. Gods know we'll need it when my sister and the others find out about this."

The two girls looked at each other before nodding, walking over to the other two and laying down for heat. It was raining and cold. The group of four laid next to each other, as the three girls drifted off to the sweet release of sleep.

Little did they know, their little outing was far from over.

Hey guys, hope you enjoyed. Be sure to follow, favourite and tell me in the reviews what you think of the story and how it'll progress. But anyway, I'll finish off the omake from last chapter, enjoy.

Tales of the Nine Tailed King: Prologue Part 2

When Tamamo arrived in the new land, he wasn't sure what to expect. Having survived off sheer dumb luck and tiny fish for the past month had been hard, but he had been able to make it to a new land where there was no one around that thought of him as some evil spirit that poisoned their ruler.

Tamamo was furious that his country had put his mother and their village to death because of a false accusation. He swore at that point that if he ever got the chance, that country would come to regret the day it crossed him. But for now, he needed to focus on survival. So, he ventured out of the boat, with nothing but the clothes on his back and a single small knife, and continued onwards.

Tamamo, the small child of 10, was not prepared to fight against a monster. So, when he eventually encountered one, a minotaur to be exact. His first instinct was to run away and not look back. He screamed and cried as the monster gave chase, pleading to the gods not to let his story end like this.

Answering his prayers, a single giant sword came slamming down on the beast, killing it in an instant. Akihide turned from running and looked to see a giant man towering over him, a huge black sword in his hand and a glare at the child. The man had boar ears and brown hair, matching his eyes, before he turned around. "There's a village not far from here, half a day west of here, that should be able to take you in." he said, walking away.

"W-who are you?" asked Akihide to his saviour, who only turned around and grinned.

"I am a hero." was all he said as he walked away.

And that was when Akihide finally had the idea, to become a hero and show his country what he was made of.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed, but for now, this is Striker777, over and out.