Mirai slid a door closed.  “Wrong room.”  She was looking for the King’s chamber but had no luck finding it because there were many unused rooms, and she had come across at least fifty of them.  For the next couple of doors, she didn’t open them.  She just stood in front of it, put a hand on the sliding door, and acted as if she would open it.  She would then pull away after cracking the door open, not bothering to check inside.

She came across one room that looked slightly different from the rest, and she wondered if she had hit the jackpot.  To confirm her assumption, someone from the corner stopped her.

“What business do you have in His chamber?”  It was Ryosuke.

She slightly glanced over her shoulder.  “Thanks for telling me.  You did a great job leading me.”

He knew who the veiled person was by her voice, and he didn’t like the mockery.  Because of their earlier fight, he made sure to remember every detail about her so he would never forget her.  He rushed to her.  “I didn’t lead you.  I followed you.”

She put a hand on the handle, preparing to open the door.  “I know that.  But if I hadn’t let you follow me and come out when it was His room, I would’ve missed it.”

She knew I was following her and used me to her advantage? He was offended, more offended than when she had landed two blows on him in their earlier spat.  No one, rarely anyone, could touch him in a fight, but she did.  And it irked him.  “If you open that door, your—”

“Someone’s let them out!”  A shout was heard from afar.

Kazuya! Maki! Mirai became worried.  She hoped for a quiet rescue on their end.

Amidst the ruckus, a hand crushed through the door from inside the room and grabbed her hand, not letting go.

Ryosuke realized whose hand it was and smirked.  He turned away in the direction of the shout.  He would leave Mirai to his father to handle.

Seconds later, Mirai touched the door with her free hand and turned it to water.  She then flung the General over her head and down the hall.

Ryosuke looked back twice to confirm his father’s quick defeat.  With no door and no guard to protect the King—who was casually reading a book on his bed while Ueda-san shivered at the bedside—Ryosuke quickly sprinted back to defend the King and Ueda-san from Mirai.  He unsheathed his sword, placed the tip just inches away from , and glared at her.

Heavy and rushed footsteps were heard nearby, and Mirai and Ryosuke quickly looked around in case it was a foe, but it was Umika running to them from an intercepting hallway.

“Umika!”  Ryosuke motioned for her to stand back and not come closer.

Mirai was relieved that it was none other than Umika, who had arrived.  It would’ve been better if it were her friends, but little Captain Umika was no threat to her, so it didn’t matter.  The real problem was the annoying and stingy Captain Ryosuke.  When she tried to attempt eye contact with the King, the grudging guy was quick enough to move in and intercept it.

Soft growls were heard next, and it was clear that it was nearby.

Mirai focused her attention on the direction of the growls.  When she had it figured out, she said to Umika, “It’s coming your way.”

Umika and Ryosuke were surprised at their enemy’s words but didn’t believe her.

That was until Umika was greeted by a non-human creature three times her size, and she had to fight off the creature alone because her colleague was guarding against Mirai.

Mirai observed Umika’s fight with the creature, and it didn’t take long for her to know that the female captain struggled to stand her ground against the demonic creature.  She could also tell that Ryosuke was having a mental dilemma: to watch his colleague get destroyed or to leave the King unattended.

She decided to choose for him.  “Now isn’t the time for this.  Are you going to watch your friend’s disappointing scuffle?”

Ryosuke gulped with a dry throat.  He disliked his enemy having full advantage of the situation.  “She’s fine.  She can—”

She dared to walk forward and allowed the edge of his sword to scratch the side of her neck.  She needed to have him know she was not an enemy and that the real enemy was the creature the little girl wasn’t handling well in front of them.

Her action startled him, so he took small steps back.

It was her turn to not look away from him.  She glared deep into his eyes after maintaining a safe distance between them.  “Know the difference between competence and confidence!”

He saw her beautiful dark brown eyes and was stunned as her eyes were full of honesty and urgency.

Their silence was interrupted when Umika was flung to the wall.  They turned their gaze to her and saw that the creature had overwhelmingly wounded the young lady.

“Umika!”  shouted Ryosuke, but he didn’t dare to leave his spot.

Umika flinched in response to her name.  She still had her sword in her hand and had a bit of fight left in her.

But fear was still the biggest part of her.

Mirai said to him, “You can save her if you help her now.”

He had already decided.  He wouldn’t leave and go to Umika.  Humans would be in turmoil if they lost their King, and it wouldn’t make sense to save someone other than the King.

The creature screeched at the top of its lungs, declaring its victory.

It was Mirai’s turn to hesitate.  Since she wasn’t an enemy, she could help defeat the creature and save Umika.  But how could she do that when Ryosuke wouldn’t let her go anywhere at all? If she were to move just an inch, she knew he’d attempt to stop her from doing anything grand.  He would just misunderstand her even more.

As Mirai had a mental fight about what to do, the creature flew up and aimed its fangs and claws at Umika.

Meanwhile, Ryosuke forced himself to watch everything.  Witnessing a comrade’s unavoidable death and not turning away was customary for their line of work, for it was a sign of respect to watch their last moments.

Umika accepted her fate.  She closed her eyes.  She would die honorably in the name of dying for the King.

Mirai heard something faint, like a chant, and she could almost recognize the voice but wasn’t sure if it was what she was thinking.

A yellow beam of light exploded from behind the creature, and a piece of paper flew and stuck itself to the back of the creature, causing the creature to wail and frolic in pain as it got burned.

“So, we meet again,” said someone, whose presence was blocked by the corner of the intercepting hallway.

But Mirai knew who it was.  “Maki!”

“Oh? Mi-chan?”  Maki only saw the creature and a fallen and exhausted Umika in front of her, so she followed the direction of her friend’s voice and turned at the corner.  “What luck is this? I find you and the demon.”

Umika opened her eyes and witnessed the scene in front of her, so she backed away with haste when the creature attempted to grab her feet.  As she fought back, she looked up and saw an unfamiliar face speaking with the lady standing beside Ryosuke, who tried not to show his confusion over the two girls who dressed in similar black clothes and whose black veils covered all but their eyes.  The two differences he could distinguish between Maki and Mirai were their height and hairdo, and he knew his target was shorter with a ponytail.

“Why are you—” Mirai would have walked over to Maki, but she was reminded of Ryosuke’s sword at her neck.  “Why are you here?”  she questioned her friend.

Maki walked away from the demon and from Umika, not bothering to help the female captain, and casually answered her friend as if they had met up on the streets, “You have them, so I had to come and get them.”  She got to where Ryosuke and Mirai were and demanded to the Captain, “Boy, let her go.”

“It’s okay,” Mirai said, referring to her situation.  She untied the black plastic bag around her waist and handed it to Maki, but he slashed the bag, spilling its contents to stop the transaction between the two friends.  To his surprise, squirming leeches fell to the ground.  Mirai shut her eyes in slight frustration.  Was he ever going to make things easy for her?

Maki, on the other hand, exploded with anger.  She grabbed him by the collar.  “Hey! Do you know how long it took us to get that many? I used three and a half hours of my food time to—”

While Maki expressed her anger at Ryosuke, Mirai moved her attention to the King, but in her peripheral vision, an indistinct figure walked over to the monster lying on the floor.  She thought she had seen wrong but stopped to give it a better look.  Before she knew it, the General she had flung earlier had stabbed the monster on its head with his heavy and broad sword.

The monster was slain.

“Why did you kill her?”  Maki shouted at the General as she threw her hands in the air.  “She was important to us! She was why we—”

“I knew it.  You guys were together,” said Ryosuke.

Maki rolled her eyes and turned to him.  “Can you ever get your facts straight? We weren’t together, but she was—”

“She? It was a monster.  This could be considered treason if you were to side with—”

“We’re done,” interrupted Mirai, still at her spot as her eyes didn’t leave the creature’s decomposing body.

Maki and Ryosuke looked at her.

He wondered if this meant that they were surrendering, but he wouldn’t hope for that.

Once the creature’s flesh was a pile of dust, Mirai looked at Maki, and milliseconds later, the girls ran off in different directions.

Ryosuke was a second too late in stopping them.  Angry, he ran off after Mirai.

“Ryosuke!”  Umika tried to get up and follow him despite her injuries.

“Rest, Princess,” said General Yamada, coming to her.  “He will get them.”

*

Ryosuke had made four turns and hadn’t come across anyone.  Getting more and more impatient, he hastened his movements but slowed his actions when he heard a commotion nearby.  From the side, he saw a group of women gathered around something and recognized one lady, Lady Hana, an elderly lady who micromanaged the palace maids.  She was like a mother to him.

When she saw him, she called him over in a rush.

“What happened?”

“We were running away from a monster, and Ayano fell behind.  We thought it had struck her, but someone came to the rescue and got wounded instead.  Can you help her, son?”

He asked the ladies to make way for him to see the injured person.

“She’s bleeding from the neck.”

“Her?”  he asked in disbelief after seeing who the injured person was—the person he was looking for.

A lady using her lap as a cushion for Mirai’s head said, “Yes, Captain.  She saved us.  Is there something you can do for her?”

He bent down to have a closer look at the unconscious enemy he had wanted to apprehend moments ago.  “Are you sure she saved you and didn’t attack you?”

“The monster was a man—umm, he looked like a man.  I didn’t see his face because she had pushed me away when she jumped in to save me.”

He had no choice but to trust her words.  What wrong could it be anyway? Even if his enemy did protect the ladies, he would have completed his mission of capturing one of the suspects.  It wasn’t something he needed to think twice.

“It’s not Miss Umika, is it, son?”  asked Lady Hana, worried, since the unconscious lady still had her veil covering her nose and mouth, and the ladies were afraid of removing it in case they had unknowingly committed something.

He analyzed the unconscious lady.  Her hair wasn’t in a ponytail.

There was only one way to confirm his suspicions.

Taking off the veil.

He pulled the black-clothed girl to him, supporting her upper body with his chest, turned her face to him, and looked down at her.  He moved pieces of her hair strands away from her face.  It’s soft…her hair.  After he unknowingly caressed the side of her face, he lingered his fingers at her veil.  He finally untied the veil and pulled it carefully away.

“Who is she?’ asked Lady Hana, stepping forward to give the girl a look too.

His eyes couldn’t tear themselves away from the snow-white beauty resting on his chest.  “Mirai.”

*

“Maki! Maki!”  Kazuya tugged and shook Maki to wake her up.  “She’s not here!”

Maki sleepily sat up from her spot and looked around.

The sun had been out for a while, and no one was in sight.

“She’s not?”  she uttered.

“It’s weird,” he said.  “We always meet up here.”

“Maybe she missed us, so she went home.”

He frowned.  “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

“Can’t help it.  I fought with the enemy yesterday.  Twice.”  Her stomach growled, so she rubbed her stomach.  “Please?”

He sighed.  “Fine.”

*

The door to the discussion room opened, and a palace maid allowed Ryosuke to enter the room.  She closed it once he had stepped inside.

“I apologize for being late,” he said, bowing to the King.

“I had been informed that you had watched over someone and didn’t rest ‘til late in the morning,” said the King, motioning for the Captain to take a seat.

“Yes, Your Majesty.  The person was—”

“Miss Mirai.”

“Mirai?”  Yuto stuttered the name.  “The youngest examinee? The prodigy?”  The last nickname was just him calling her.  No one had agreed on that compliment for their enemy.

“So, she led the attack?”  asked Yuri.  He had been on the front lines, attacking and putting down the possessed guards that had broken out of their captivity, so he had only heard of the confrontation among Captain Umika, Captain Ryosuke, Mirai, and Maki this morning during breakfast.

Umika looked at Yuri.  “But why would her friend attack the monster then?”  Despite her heavy injuries and being asked to lie in bed, she had insisted on attending the discussion.  She too wanted to know in-depth about what had happened.

“Exactly.”  The King agreed, and everyone waited for him to explain.  “I don’t think they had planned to attack anyone or start anything.”  He saw the confusion in the room and was satisfied.  “Captain Ryosuke.”

Ryosuke stiffened.

“What fell out when you cut open their bag?”

All eyes moved to stare at the young man.

Ryosuke thought back to it and remembered.  “Leeches, Your Majesty.”

“Captain Ryosuke,” continued the King, “what did one of them say when you did that?”

Ryosuke didn’t understand why the King was throwing questions at him, but he answered, nevertheless.  “She said something about taking her time.”

“Three hours and a half, to be exact,” said the proud king.  “That is, trying to find the leeches.”  He took a sip of his tea.

“Your Majesty, may I ask for the understanding of your questions?”

The King put his cup down.  “To prove that she and whoever was with her meant no harm last night.”

“Then why did they attack us?”  Yuto asked, not catching on.

The King became surprised.  “Did I say they attacked us?”

“But they attacked our fellow knights.”

“Our possessed knights, may I remind us, that were set free.”

Ryosuke didn’t like where the conversation had headed, so he added, “She was searching for your room, Your Majesty.”

“And I’m alive.”  His smile immediately turned into a cold frown, and his chirpy tone of voice became straightforward.  “You do know that she let you corner her, correct?”

General Yamada broke the tension.  “Your Majesty, what do you mean?”

Jin-sama turned his gaze to the General.  “I’m not saying that your son went easy on her.  His swordsmanship is second to none, but with her ability that we had witnessed, she could’ve easily escaped just as she did to you.”

Eyes moved from the King to the General’s sprained arm.

Ryosuke recalled the scene of Mirai and his father’s physical confrontation at the front of the King’s door.  She’s the first to free herself from Father’s grip, and she was calm when I had my blade at her neck.  She also let herself get cut by it.  But why would she—

“But if she could have escaped,” intercepted Yuri, “why would she let Ryosuke corner her?”

The King let out a long and silent sigh.  “I don’t know.”

*

Kazuya and Maki entered their home with quiet footsteps to make sure Grandma Meisa couldn’t detect them or else they’d be questioned about the whereabouts of their missing friend.  Kazuya spied Seishiro handing out drinks to the morning customers, so he called the young boy over and pulled him to a corner for questioning.

“Where’s grandma?”  Maki asked the innocent boy.

“She went to a meeting,” answered Seishiro.  “Why?”

She sighed.  “Oh, yeah.  Today’s that day.”

“Don’t be too excited yet,” said Kazuya.  “Mirai—umm—she’s not here.”

Seishiro’s eyes beamed.  “Oh, where is she?”

Maki laughed off his question and turned the little boy around.  “Go help.”

“Hey, let’s search for her after breakfast,” suggested Kazuya, and she nodded.

*

The dispossessed guards bowed to their King and expressed their apologies for the recent actions they had no control over when they were possessed.  Only a few couldn’t become humans again and were inevitably killed to cease their suffering.

“Please, stand,” said Jin-sama, sitting on his royal throne.  “No offense was taken.”

The guards thanked him and then left for their watch-posts.

“So, they’re okay now?”  whispered Yuto to Umika as he stood between her and Ryosuke.

She nodded with a blank look.

Ryosuke ignored his friend’s comment.  What was on his mind was something he saw after he had unveiled Mirai’s veil.  Tears had streamed down her cheeks, and he wondered why.

“Your Majesty,” said Yuri, stepping