Overlooking a large Yakawa’s mansion from a nearby roof, Victor rubbed his hands together to keep himself warm. A downward curved roof, massive in size of width rather than height, a large number of rooms, and an open field yard around the mansion. Guarded by a minimal number of Imperial Police. However, the mansion is adjacent to the castle that was stacked each floor to look like a pyramid; connected by a long thin extravagant bridge that ascends to the second floor of the castle.

Yemen whistled after he took a sip from his metal flask, “Ever wonder how much fortune they spent to build that?”

“Probably a lot.” shrugged Victor.

“Oh I wish, I could be that filthy rich,” sighed Yemen as he passed the metal flask to Victor.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Victor as he took a sip from the metal flask.

“I see an opening, we need to move quick,” said Kenn as he brushed his palm against the hilt of his sword to make sure it was there.

“I don’t know, mate. Something ain’t right, there are too little guards on duty,” Yemen stored the metal flask inside his coat and took out two pieces of wooden plank then proceeded to strapped in against his forearms.

“I agree with Yemen. It could be a trap. Besides, that Captain of yours tried to kill us before.”

“He would have done it back in jail, but something he said to me that I had to believe.”

“How could you be so sure?”

“There was something in his eyes when he told me to trust him. Enough dilly dally, come on, let’s go.”

Kenn led them inside easily without any of the guards alerted by their presence. It was pretty easy to sneak in until Yemen stopped Kenn from taking another step. A glint just above the floor; a steel thin wire, too hard to notice at first, but nothing passed Yemen’s line of sight. He traced the wire to a hidden compartment inside the wall; a crude-looking explosive, simple but effective in tight spaces. Yemen disarmed the trap and stored it in his pocket for safekeeping. They kept moving deeper into the mansion while making sure every room was checked.

Yet the oddest thing about the mansion wasn’t the booby trap, it was that it had no sign of people living here due to the dust that had piled up in quite a few rooms. No sign of life, no sign of servants maintaining the estate, and no sign of any conflict. However, there was a clue, something that both Kenn and Victor hadn’t noticed but Yemen did. The Pirate stopped abruptly in the hallway and grazed the tips of his fingers against the beautiful wooden floor.

“Bloody hell. A scratch. It was an accident, unlucky for them, but lucky for us. Something heavy was dropped. A wooden crate. Someone was trying to haul something down that way.”

“Should we follow it?” Victor glanced around, checking whether the coast was clear.

“Your decision, mate.” Yemen glanced behind him at Kenn.

“Lead us.”

Yemen nodded then proceeded to track the scratch down the long winding hallway until they stopped in front of a sliding door. The concern in Yemen’s eyes was something to be alarming for both Kenn and Victor, they gestured to him to tell them what seemed to be the problem. He pointed at the room in front of him with furrowed eyebrows. Victor took out the Police’s katana while Kenn readied his own short sword. With a sigh, Yemen took off his heavy bow and rested a quiver against it.

They opened the door then rushed in silently, but there was nothing alarming inside; only a regular tea room.

“Yemen?”

“I noticed a trickle of blood in front of the door. It was also damp. Someone had cleaned it up but missed a few spots. I thought there were bodies in here.”

“It could have been anything. For all we know, someone could have dropped a cup of tea there,” argued Victor.

“Listen to me, mate. I am never wrong about this. Something is off about this bloody room.”

“Yemen was right...” Kenn walked to a scroll hanging on the wall.

“How can you be so sure?” Victor raised an eyebrow at the Rookie.

Kenn removed the scroll and revealed a small switch. He pressed it, and well, a trap door open. The new path led down a spiral staircase into a dark and dreary basement. Horrific to gaze at; the steps were flooded with dried blood as if someone was tossed down the stairs like a ragdoll.

Arrived at the final steps, both of them stopped with wide eyes except for Yemen as he rushed forward. A naked man was hung on the wall by chains, a mountain of blood was dripping off the cuts all over his body. Yemen grabbed a piece of rock on the floor and slammed it against the chains, breaking it. The man dropped to the floor, grunting in pain; his arms and legs had been broken beyond any recognition.

"Captain, is that you?" asked the man, but clearly he could not see passed through that ripped eyes.

"It's me. What did they do to you?"

"How's the crew?" His voice was broken, but he still made the effort to speak.

"The crew managed to escape. Tell me, Zara. What happened to you?”

"Thank the heaven that you survived the trap… I'm sorry, Captain. They got to me…but knowing that you all are fine…gave me a bit of relief," Zara started sobbing, his clear tears mashed with thick red blood as it flowed down his cheeks.

"If you can't tell me what happened then tell me who did this! Who?!" Furious anger exploded from Yemen's core and draped over him like a coat.

"You got no time, Captain. You need to leave and take that family with you. It's too late for me…Captain? My wife's pendant, they took it, if you don’t mind...find it and gave it back to my daughter," Zara coughed out blood as he chuckled before his body slowly lost its warmth and his gaze was void of any sign of life.

"What family?" Victor turned to a single door in that sanguine room. He walked to it and expected a more gruesome sight when he opened it. However, it was nothing but a woman embracing a small child, they both were trembling with fear. Judging by their conditions, they were kept against their will for quite a long time.

"It couldn't be...The State Lord's family?" Kenn quickly rushed to them and broke the chains attached to her heel.

"Don't hurt us, please!" They were terrified at the sight of Kenn.

Victor stepped between the two of them to calm the mother, "Calm down, Ma’am. He's not with them. Can you tell us what happened here?"

“At first, they only wanted to use my home as storage to hide all those crates. My husband said it was only temporary, but I know that something was wrong with him. There was fear in his eyes, of course being scared is not something out of ordinary for my husband. He was a normal man, born to carry a burden that outweighs him.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need you to focus.” Victor placed his hand on the woman’s hand.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what was inside those crates, but there were a lot of them. They said something about Ghadah, I think they traded with them, but I don’t know what they traded with. All I know was that one day my husband snapped at the High Commander while they were having their usual tea, and soon after that, my husband went missing. Suddenly, the Imperial Police came and locked my son and me in the basement. Afterward, we kept hearing screams outside of our room and no matter how many times I asked, they refused to tell me what happened to my husband.”

“I know that you have nothing to do with us, but you need to save him, I fear for his life,” she grabbed hold of Victor’s hand and clenched tightly. Victor glanced behind him, and at the moment, he realized that Kenn knew about this. Kenn quickly turned away to face the door but was stopped when Victor grabbed him by the collar.

“When did you know?”

“I had my suspicions. After all, even he is in my list of suspects. The Captain told me about it when we got captured, but I was too damn stubborn to believe him. Damn it. I trusted him. He took care of me when I lost my parents. I couldn’t believe it,” Kenn clenched his hand tightly into a fist and slammed against the doorway.

Victor let go of Kenn, “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because I don’t want to believe it myself. How could I? He was more than an uncle to me. He was there when I needed a father.”

“And you kept it quiet from us?”

“I didn’t want to, but I had to.”

“Bloody hell, both of you. We got more pressing matters.” Yemen turned his gaze at the woman and her child.

“Yemen, if you don’t mind, please escort them out safely.”

“Zara, forgive me, mate, but your revenge will have to wait. Come on you two. Shut your eyes before leaving this room. There is something unsightly in the other room. Let’s go,” said Yemen as he escorted both of them. The women and child shut their eyes before leaving the room and walked past Zara’s corpse before climbing the spiral staircase.

When the three of them left, Victor stopped Kenn again, “Stop. I know what you’re going to do and you're doing it alone, aren’t you?”

“I appreciated your help even though you have no business with us. You are a kind man, Victor. Despite your inclination to complain all the time, yet, you still came with us, but now, I need to do this alone. There’s no need to waste your life to help me any further.”

“Is that how you felt. I guess this is goodbye then. I never wanted to help you anyway.”

Kenn’s shoulder drooped as Victor walked passed by him, but he said something that caused Kenn to take a second glance. “However, I do have a business to attend to with the Commander himself. I want to file a complaint against him about the way he treated his subordinate and the damage he caused to my employer’s property. So please don't get in my way.”

Kenn held his chuckle, “You truly are a kind man, Victor.”

“Huh? I didn’t hear what you said. Also, if you don’t want to get left behind, you better hurry up.“ Victor walked up the stairs with a half-smirk on his face.

Both Kenn and Victor took a different route than Yemen and sneaked toward the bridge that led into the castle. As Yemen escorted the woman and her child, his instinct flared up and caused him to immediately raise his arm. A dagger dug into the wooden armor around his forearm, but not enough to bury into his skin. He turned his gaze at the dark end of the hallway and quickly raised his other arm to block three daggers that flung toward him. He gestured to the woman and his child to run before taking out his heavy bow.

“Who are you?”

A familiar masked woman showed herself from the darkness. Three daggers readied between her fingers, but before Yemen could reply with a snarky comment, something caused him to boil with anger. A trinket in her left hand, a pendant to be more precise, a pendant that belonged to his late comrade.

“You did that to him, didn’t you?”

The masked woman didn’t reply but swung the pendant like a toy.

“I don’t know if you are deaf, mute, or just plain stupid, mate. But that pendant belonged to a friend of mine, and if I had to walk over your corpse to get it, I would gladly do it. No, please let me do it.” Yemen quickly launched an arrow without warning before leaping through the paper wall beside him and avoided another dagger that was aimed at his head.

***

Back in the castle.

Victor chokehold one of the police in darkness, and hid his unconscious body behind a rectangular crate. Kenn was more focused on the crate itself than the unconscious man. Victor walked to the crate and noticed foreign writing on it; these crates were brought here from Ghadah. Kenn rested his chin on his hand as he tried to read the language.

“It would be nice to have Yemen right about now. He could translate this.”

“I think it said: weapons.”

“Only one way to find out.” Victor broke the lock and revealed its content.

The man was dumbstruck by its content; a weapon unlike he had ever seen. There’s no sharp end or pointed tip to stab or cut people with. Only a steel pipe with a wooden grip. Quite the strange design for a weapon, but Kenn was horrified; he had seen this thing before, he was taught to use this thing before, and he knows how dangerous this thing is.

“What kind of weapon is this?” Victor grabbed one but stopped midway.

“By the name of her empress, I order you to stop and put down that weapon!” shouted Captain Hajime as fifty men stepped out of the darkness with Katana standby in their hands and the strange weapons on a few of them.

“A trap?” Victor let go of the weapon and about to reach his sword when Kenn shook his head slightly. In the corner of his eyes, a muscular man with a shield that haunted him at the plaza stood towering over the rest of his allies.

“Raise yourself and face us with both hands up.” Victor took a glance at Kenn, and he nodded his head again. Despite his unwillingness to cooperate, Victor had to comply, he trusted the Rookie better judgment on this.

With their hands up, Captain Hajime relaxed his shoulders and gestured to his men to lower their weapons, “Men. Escort them to the throne room. The High Commander wants to meet both of them.”

After both of their weapons were stripped off, they were escorted to Captain Hajime. A Police officer took the chance to punch Kenn in his cheek, “Traitor!”

“I swear to you that you’re going to lose that hand if you touch him again!”

Kenn was hit again, this time the Rookie dropped to one knee. Victor struggled against the two police officers that held him but he stopped his struggles when he saw Kenn’s raised hand.

“It’s okay. I’m fine.”

“Stop. We don’t have time to waste,” ordered Captain Hajime as he stood on the stairs; overlooking all of them.

The over-eager and violent police officer calmed himself as his comrades escorted Kenn and Victor up the stairs. The muscular man with a large shield followed them from behind. Their only hope was that Yemen got out alright, but unknown to their knowledge, Yemen was fighting his own battle right now as daggers and arrows flew at each other in that mansion.