"THE EMPEROR IS GONE!"

Complete silence, then chaos flooded the Arena. People were screaming, panicking, running around; Imperial City Guards had to step in to stop them from trampling each other. Sakura was watching the whole scene, completely puzzled.

The Emperor was gone? What would that mean?

One last punch to the locked spider head in the crook of her elbow, and Karasu looked up to her fellow gladiators; the only ones that survived.

Tara, Taril, and Cyrus.

"What the hell is going on? Does that mean that killing each other is postponed for now?"

"Beats me." Tara shrugged, sheathing her battleaxe. "Well, this is a Cyrodiilic matter, so they can deal with it."

"Goldilocks has a good point." Taril said, dodging the swift swing axe at the mention of that nickname. "Anybody coming to the Waterfront with me? I'm thirsty."

He casually asked, as if hell has not just rained down on the Arena.

Before any of them could respond-

"Stop! Right... There..." The Slave Driver was running, huffing, panting, catching up to them. "You're not going anywhere! You're heading right back until-"

With a swift movement, the burlap head of the Slave Driver rolled around on the ground. The body slumped next to their feet with a loud thud, as the blood dripped and seeped into the dirty ground. Cyrus sheathed his sword.

"Bastard's been pissing me off. Lead the way, Taril. Coming, Karasu?" The Redguard looked over his shoulder, expecting her to follow.

"Oh, yeah. Sure. I just have to check some stuff with some friends; go ahead, don't wait up for me." She waved them away. The trio of surviving gladiators shrugged, and didn't need to be told twice to head out, skillfully evading the crowd, or the guards locking down the Arena.

With a swift movement and a swirl of pink petals, she flickered right beside Shisui and Alessio.

"What the hell is going on, big brother??"

No expression could be read from Grey Fox's face, but his body language definitely felt calm and collected. Almost pensive, really.

"The Emperor's gone."

"No shit, Shi- Gray Fox. But what does that mean for the tournament?"

"It means it's suspended. Which means..." He slipped his hood off, and tossed it in her direction. Sakura caught it effortlessly, albeit surprised and a little shook. "I guess this is a good opportunity to give you this. Seal it and give it to Nocturnal, I don't need a Daedric artifact to show these people there's no superior Thief than a ninja."

He grinned, fixing his hair.

Alessio simply blinked. "But you're the Grey Fox-"

"I am Uchiha Shisui, Guild master of the Thieves Guild. I restored the Guild with my own two hands and my own chakra, despite the bad luck Nocturnal gave us, this past decade. She can go wash her hair with it, our fortune comes from our pure skill and hard work, not from her favor or not-so-divine intervention. Are you all with me, or against me?"

Shisui declared, watching his guildmates stare at each other, as Sakura sealed the hood with a few swift moments.

"We could never ask for a better guild master, Shisui. Because of you, we swim in gold, so you have our backs." Alessio was the first to step by his side.

"And our slippery hands." Another thief walked closer.

"And my poison."

"And my bow."

"And my blade."

"And my axe." They stared at the burly Orc woman, clad in thief apparel, who didn't seem to blend with anything, or have the capacity to sneak too much.

"You're one of the most valuable additions to the team, Gorza." Shisui gave her a thumbs up. "Now since that's all settled, we have to move. The Emperor's life is in danger, and we are risking an international incident over here."

"Remind me again why do we care about the life of the Emperor?" Another thief spoke the question everybody had, without the courage to voice it, however.

Shisui sighed. "Let's just say it's a very important job, with a lot of gold involved, and political immunity. Any other questions?" Someone raised a hand. "No? Good. Now let's move it, people! And remember, red and black leather means kill on sight. Sakura, you go with Alessio, there's somebody I need to speak with."

Sakura, who has been silent until now, nodded. "Alright. Take care, big brother. See you when all of this is over. Come on, kid." She waved, put her hand on Alessio's shoulder, and flickered away.

As Sakura disappeared, Shisui started barking orders. "Move, move, move!"

They didn't need to be told twice, as they started scouring every inch of the Imperial Arena underworks. Shisui however, had other plans, as his ancient eyes stalked towards the darkness of the tunnels, and it did not take too many steps and navigations to reach the desired destination. A wooden door in the secret hideout of the Emperor's bodyguards.

A rhombus with two circles was carved right in the side of the solid oak doors with metal embeddings.

"What's the world's greatest poison?"

A gruff voice echoed from the other side.

"It's hatred, my good man. Let me in."

The door unlocked, allowing Shisui to enter.

"Took your sweet time to get here." Commander Maro crossed his arms, impatiently.

Shisui glossed over the fact that the Commander picked up the key phrase idea from the Dark Brotherhood hideouts they raided the last few years.

"Had to debrief my guys for a hot minute. We weren't really expecting them to strike now, you know. And if you have not forgotten, they're thieves, not mercenaries."

"You vermin should not be here in the first place, plaguing the city. Citizens are terrified that they might either get robbed, or killed, or both. You're not any better than the Dark Brotherhood." Maro sneered.

Shisui let his comments slide with a good natured smile, that infuriated the Penitus Occulatus commander. "You're not a law enforcer, Commander Maro. You're the Emperor's chief bodyguard, so my free time activities don't concern you. However, you have hired us because to save the Emperor, you need to know how a criminal's mind works. And we are here to graciously lend our help. I advise you not to strain this already feeble relationship we have, with such comments."

Maro's hands shook in anger. "It's not like the Emperor is not paying you in mountains of gold-"

"Do you not need to put bread on the table to support your family, Commander?"

Maro clenched his jaw shut.

"His life slips farther away from our fingers, the further we bicker about abstract concepts of morality, Commander." Shisui walked closer to the spread map of the Imperial City underworks.

"Some of my best agents are scouring each corner of the sewer as we speak. There's a pattern we have noticed about their attacks, however."

Stepping away from the map, his hands reached for a particular book in the Commander's personal collection. "The Dark Brotherhood has never been the sentimental kind, from what I have studied about them. I'm a stranger from way beyond Tamriel, you see."

Commander Maro watched him, curiously, but sharply, like a hawk. True, those bloody red irises didn't seem to belong to any human race he was aware of. It was also the first time the Grey Fox has made himself known to him unmasked too. Could he have Dunmer ancestry, to inherit those carmine eyes, without the rest of the elven traits or ashy skin?

"Nor are they corny. And all they seem to try is to get to the Emperor at all costs. If across the past decade their attempts have been more calculated - if ineffective; now they seem to be pretty desperate." Shisui mused.

He flipped open a book. Life of Uriel Septim VII, the biography of. "The life of this particular monarch of your people has always intrigued me. It's also one of the first books I read when I learned how to speak Cyrodiilic. But his encounter with the man who soon became the Hero of Kvatch and your Champion, has given me an idea. And now, I will need your absolute trust, Commander. Because we have a chance to completely evade the Dark Brotherhood and extirpate them out of Cyrodiil for good."

The Imperial looked over the notes on the map, in particular and foreign text, and then he sat down at his desk, flipping the pages of the open history book. The biography of the last Septim Emperor. He nodded gravely. "By the Right, Gray Fox... For your own, and for our own good, you'd better be right."

He stared at the outstretched hand that was held in front of him, accompanied by a wide grin. It was as if they were not in the middle of a covert war against a faction of assassins, ready to commit regicide right under their noses, the Emperor's bodyguards. The man they have sworn to protect.

Still, Maro shook his hand hard, and while he would never admit it out loud, he could feel his fading confidence grow, little by little.

"So, do you know where we are going?" Sakura whispered, as they stalked the sewage tunnels in the darkness.

"Right now?" Alessio asked, dagger in hand, advancing in front of her. They had a mutual understanding. He'd scout ahead, she would watch his back. "Nope. Not entirely. We just watch out for the Dark Brotherhood."

"Dark Brotherhood? Why is that so familiar to me?" The masked woman raised an eyebrow, humming to herself. "Oh, right. Brynjolf, my mentor said something about the Dark Brotherhood. The matriarch of the Black-Briar family often calls on them to take care of competition. She has some sort of meadery empire or whatever."

Alessio snorted. "So y'all have been reduced to doing thug things for an old woman? And the Dark Brotherhood is in it too? Man, you guys have fallen off hard."

"You're telling me? She doesn't take the guild seriously because she knows we're desperate for work." She paused. "Well, we were." Then, the pinkette grinned. "I got a letter from Niruin the other day. They went on one of the heists that were shelved before Gallus was killed. Mercer stole them from the vault along with the rest of the gold, they found a secret stash of these somewhere in his house. I guess I was too busy focusing on bringing him to justice, to scour his house that well."

They could feel a gust of wind behind their backs, ever so slightly. With a swift movement, Sakura knocked the figure down, and didn't take more than two swift stabs from Gallus' sword to incapacitate, and forever reduce to silence their enemy.

"You were saying?" As if nothing happened, Alessio waited for Sakura to climb off the body of the unknown assailant.

"Right. The heist." Sakura grinned behind her porcelain mask. "Do you have any idea how much gold they got? And Maven wanted to contact my guys, saying like 'Hey, the Snow-Shod man needs to be taught a lesson, because he doesn't want to forfeit his rights to the business, yada-yada'. And did you know what Brynjolf said?"

"No?"

"Exactly! No!" Sakura laughed, alerting two Brotherhood assassins; immediately bringing attention to their current location.

Alessio intercepted the curved, short blade of the dagger that pushed dangerously close to his face. He could both see the purple poison coating the ebony metal, and to be fair, he could also smell the hint of Nightshade, ever so slightly.

The three pronged dagger pushed forward, knocking the assassin a few feet back, as Alessio pounced, much like how a khajit would, arching his back forward, and not leaving himself open for easy stab wounds.

"You little brat..."

The spotted tail of a khajiti thief swished in the dark, left and right. Left and right. Left and right.

Left and right.

Left.

Right.

Left-

The assassin was slammed against the stoneworks of the wall. "Let's see if you like this particular flavor of..."

The man groaned in pain, not able to fight against the glass bottle that dripped something viscous down his throat. There was a hint of canis root bitter taste that lingered in his nostrils, before he passed out. Praise the Moons, they know had a live target!

"What was that for, Padfoot?" Marcurio stepped closer, watching the unconscious assassin slump against the wall.

"Victus has given khajit much trouble, but now he sleeps like a kitten. It's imperative for you to follow my clear instructions, Motierre, because khajit and the boss have put in a lot of work to make this plan work. If we screw this up, we are like dead." Padfoot said, gravely, as he grabbed the assassin and dragged him over his shoulder.

"You will be Padfoot's body guard now. You know of those Akaviri hand signs, do you?"

Marcurio furrowed his eyebrows. "Oh, you mean..." He held his hands in a Tiger seal. "Like these?"

"Yes, yes, Akaviri. Khajit will need help with those later. Right now, we have to meet up with little Motierre and the others."

"Wait, Alessio is involved in this?"

"Of course. Little Motierre is one of the best infiltrators we have. Now stop being slow, we have an Emperor to save." Padfoot chastised Marcurio, as they ventured deep inside the tunnels, but the last statement has made him fall into deep thoughts.

Save... The Emperor?

A/N: Man, it's been a while. A long while even. I did say I'd never discontinue the series, didn't I? To be fair, a lot happened, a lot changed, and my mood for writing never really improved, but never really faded away.

Truth is I started a Skyrim playthrough with a friend via the multiplayer mod, and it ignited my passion for Skyrim lore once again. So as bastardised as this fic is, with all the Naruto elements and bits of One Piece - because it's my brain vomit anyway, I started digging again.

Not saying I haven't started shaping up my old original character, though. Vienne LaRouche, former Breton noble, current thief. Pink hair to bring a homage to everything I've put Sakura through.

Now we are a few more chapters closer to the actual start of the series. Feels nostalgic, it's been years since I published the first chapter. I also saw I got a few reviews I don't remember getting, so... Thank you. Really, I was super surprised about it. I'm also glad you enjoy the lore bits, I pretty much like staying as close to the source material as I can, and only create new stuff if they match well the pre-established settings and rules of the known universe.

So, how have you guys been? For real now, we've been here for years, sorta interacting and exchanging ideas, I bet much stuff has changed.

As always, I'm taking suggestions, criticism, and maybe I'll see you later. Next week, next month, next two years... Who knows!