Leaf's point of view

It has been a few weeks of training against Trice. She has gotten far stronger since I've met her. Since she's been introduced to the party… I have a feeling her driving reasons for getting stronger are pretty close to mine. She jumps in the air kicking at me as I catch her leg lifting it even higher. Slamming her on her back. She kicks at my feet with hers, tripping me as well…

We both lay on the ground. Covered in sweat, trying to catch our breath. She starts to speak.

“So… What do you see in Kite… Why are you so attracted to him?”

“… I don't really know… I guess it would be how prepared he is for everything. We would have all died against the Lich boss we fought heading to Shienta… He was able to balance so many things at the time. Running between people and healing them, helping people get to safety when they didn't realize they were being targeted by the Lich's ice bolt. Giving us all items to help keep us alive… Even though he was so weak, he was strong at the same time. You could say I wanted to be Kite more than I wanted to fall in love with him in the beginning.”

“What happened to change your mind?”

“… It just got to the point where he kept getting better and better. No matter how many times people made fun of him or belittled him it never slowed him down at all. Everyone who had any potential started to get lazy, he was the exact opposite. Every ounce of power he got he used to gain more power. Never stopping. I guess you could say, the more I watched him. The more I realized I liked him and I didn't want to be like him. I wanted to be strong enough to stand by him.”

“I guess I could see that… I just can't see him like that. He's always been exactly how you've described him. Even when we were young he was always training. His kindness is a new thing. Earlier in his life, it seemed he only seen people as stepping stones to get stronger… It was like he had broken down the value of each person for his own purposes... It feels like recently though he is showing his true kindness... Now that he is strong…”

I could see that someone not in love with Kite would see him that way… It is very accurate, Trice seems to look at everything analytical. She continues to speak.

“… He's starting to act like his father. That kindness he had. Constantly fighting to try and protect his villagers. Even from the heavy taxes the kingdom was levying against the village. Paying out of pocket when other villagers couldn't make the payments… He had taken the blame for everything when something went wrong… Even listening to the greedy actions of his son most of the time. Throwing him a party that his son turned against him. Only not helping him when it would have put Kite in harm, like buying him a set of armor when he was only 6.”

I guess I didn't know much about his parents. I've only heard pieces from when we were captured by the bandits.

“What was his mother like?...”

“She was the exact opposite of his father. Very mean and angry… At least that is what she looked like on the outside. She did love Kite's father… You would think the two wouldn't get along but… The few times I had listened to them while they thought they were alone, you could tell they were both very much in love. She wasn't afraid to act kindly towards Kite in front of everyone… Piss her off and she would go berserk. She even killed Lance's real mother.”

I unintentionally shouted.

“What!?”

“Yea… I guess Lance's mother had dementia. She had these crazy thoughts in her head and held a knife over Kite's bed one night. Kite's mother had known she had dementia when she hired her. She did it from the kindness of her heart. I guess that made her snap, that someone would take her kindness and try to punish it… I told Lance a year ago… We were heading back from our year long trip to get stronger… Lance was angry at first but as time went on he slowly calmed down about it… I think he knew already… He just didn't want to accept it.”

“...That is… I feel spoiled somehow… My life has been somewhat peaceful considering… It is almost as if any hardship I've been through was only because of my proximity to Kite's hardship… The thing about it is… When he approached us the day we entered… He looked different… It scared me thinking that he looked more attractive… That now that he isn't covered in scars more women will try to be with him...”

“… We all have our problems… I'm in love with someone I've known since we've been children. He was practically adopted by my mother. Everything practical says I shouldn't love him… But is still do.”

“… Since you've asked me… Why do you love Lance.”

“… I don't know… It could be through familiarization of him. Just by being in proximity, I could have grown to like him over time… I would say the main reason though is because he is so genuine. I've known him for so long and I've never heard him lie to a single person. He reminds me of the hero in books I've read since I was a child… Almost every action he takes is exactly what one of those heroes would do… The main difference in those stories is… There isn't a sister the hero falls in love with.”

“Come on. You two are together right? What's it matter that you lived together with each other since you've been children. That just means you know everything about each other.”

“Still… I wish… He didn't know everything about me… That way I could surprise him sometimes.”

I don't get what she is worried about. Those two are meant to be together. Everything about them just says so. We stand back up after resting on the ground for a few minutes. Trice speaks again.

“Hey… If I broke the class limit like you did… Which class do you think would help Lance the most?”

Darkclaw's point of view

I'm flying over the ocean. My back itches where master pulled my feathers out at. Greed says.

“You should have made him pay for those feathers. You're a dragon, everything on you is valuable.”

“Yea but it was for master. He'll use it to get stronger and eventually that will lead to me getting stronger.”

“I guess… It would be easy to get stronger if you would just eat his gold.”

“No… Master has been kind to me, I can't force myself to steal his gold... I'm okay with eating other peoples gold though.”

“Yea that's why we're flying back the way we came. I know where a sunken ship is.”

“Isn't it kind of dangerous to travel by ourselves? I can't swim very well, I'm also a dragon so almost all my attacks wont work underwater.”

“That's right you are also a dragon! Do you realize how lucky that is!? You can boss around anything you want and it'll run away just because you're a dragon.”

… I don't feel great about this idea… Water is definitely not good for me. It also takes me a few minutes of drying my wings out until I can fly again. If there isn't land close by I'll be in trouble…

“Don't worry there was land near it. Just fly a little to the left, it's that way… I'm with you now, so I don't want to drowned any more than you do.”

A few hours of flying… I haven't needed to fly this long before, my wings are starting to get a little tired…

“Just stick it out another few minutes and it will come into sight.”

Just like he said, there it is. It is like he was able to pinpoint it's location. I land on the island to catch my breath and take a quick break before I go diving into the water.

Dragons can hold their breath for 10 minutes. Bigger dragons can hold their breath longer as they get stronger. I take in a deep breath then dive in. Using just my arms and legs for propulsion, my wings catch too much water, they can't be used to help my speed. I start to sink to the ship… I looks very old.

“I've actually known about this ship before I died. This ship was sunk too far off the coast for my swimmers to be able to come back up… That didn't mean I didn't lose a few men testing that theory.”

“That's cold. You're so much worse a leader than Kite is.”

“Hahaha… Yea… I'm still surprised every time he does something. I thought I was gone forever but he unintentionally brought me back.”

“He didn't do it for you… I'm still pissed you convinced me to antagonize him during our fight. He beat me just like I said he would.”

“Yea, I just needed to see how much stronger he had gotten… It could affect his future if he remained as weak as he was. I would have had you take over leadership… For him to come that far so quickly… He is a literal monster.”

The entire time we've been talking I've also been swimming to the ship, just making it after almost a minute of swimming. I ask greed something.

“What kind of ship was this?”

“It was a transport ship… Their could be anything in the cargo hold, they tried to run and were in a faster ship. I could only sink them in the hopes they would head closer to the island… They didn't...”

I swim into the stomach of the ship. Inside is… What is all this shit!? I look around and all I see is boxes of old, water logged food. Some rusted equipment and a box full of blue crystals. Greed speaks up.

“Grab that box, Kite is going to want to see this. Also, you should check the captains quarters before we pull that out of here.”

I abandon it for now. Swimming back through the open thingy on the deck. Greed speaks up.

“It is a deck hatch… We swam into the hold of the ship… Not the stomach.”

Well whatever, I swim up to the captains room.

“The captains cabin... I just said it's name like 3 seconds ago.”

“Can you stop that! I don't care what everything is called.”

“It is just very ignorant sounding when you call it stuff like that. It would be me calling your teeth, mouth daggers… Just try to learn what the parts of a ship are because it is distracting when you call everything by the wrong name.”

“Alright… I'll just think less then so I don't bother you.”

The captains CABIN is locked. I slam my tail against it and the door falls off. I'm still too big to fit. Greed speaks up.

“Go human form, you should be able to fit.”

“Oh yea, I keep forgetting about that.”

I enter… At least 100 gold is here! I run over and start eating it… Before I realize I'm underwater and just use up a good portion of my oxygen supply! Shit! Greed speaks up.

“YOU FUCKING IDIOT! Go look under the cock boat for air. It will be stale but it will give you enough air to get to the surface.”

“The cockwha?”

“The little boat out side this room. Probably on the port... Left of the door.”

I exit the room and there is a tiny boat right where he said there would be. How did he know about it? Did he see it coming in.

“Most of these boats follow the same design. I spent a good portion of my life learning and living on ships like this one. So every time you say something stupid like tummy of the ship or whatever it pisses me off.”

I catch my breath… The air does taste wrong but it is enough for me to resurface and catch my breath.

“Go into human form. Grab that box of mana crystals. Then load as much gold as you can into the box.”

“That's a good idea.”

“I bet your glad to have me.”

“Only when your useful. Otherwise you're just an annoying asshole.”

“Love you too buddy. Eat that gold as payment for the mana crystals you're about to bring Kite.”

“...I guess I can do that.”

I spend a few minutes eating all the gold as I prepare to fly back to the ninjas island.

Increased mana pool and dragons breath power by 12%