Rai and Sin walked down the alleyway to get back to the square, when something caught Rai’s attention. Or rather, it was the lack of anything that did it.

*Shuffle*

“What the fuck are you-”

Rai held Sin’s mouth shut as he pulled her flat against him. They were against a wall just before the exit into the square.

Sin blushed heavily, and her eyes widened.

Rai shook his head softly.

“Quiet.” He whispered.

Sin nodded. Rai let go of her mouth.

“There’s no one else here! Don’t be shy now, little rats!” Someone yelled from the square.

Sin didn’t recognise the voice. It was a lot deeper than the voice of the white haired man from earlier. Rai and Sin looked at each other, knowing that they had to buy some time.

Rai pointed further into the alley.

Sin looked down the empty alleyway, and nodded.

The two of them snuck further in.

Since the alleyways circled back into the other side of the square, Rai and Sin had only gone about halfway, which would be considered the point furthest away from either of the entrances to the square.

“Do you feel anything coming?” Rai asked her.

Sin shook her head. “No, not yet. I tried so hard to weaken the Domain’s passive awareness but that just fucked me over. I didn’t realise that all the people were gone, and that there were just those assholes left. Shit!”

“It’s alright! You’ll just have to get used to filtering the information you need from it all the time. Remember, it’s still new to you. For now... what do we do? They’ve definitely got the gate closed, and that’s the only way in or out of the square.”

“Let me think about it for a second at least...”

Sin started pacing between the walls of the alleyway as she thought.

Rai spent a few moments thinking as well.

After a few more seconds of shouting from the square beside the quiet, Sin had an idea.

“What about you using Stormflow to jet us out of here? Even if the gate’s shut, you can just burst right through it!”

“I... I could do that. I thought about it but there are still people outside of the square, and I don’t want to rush through them and accidentally hurt, or even kill one of them!”

“Okay okay we’ll figure something else out.”

“... Did they seem like they recognised us on the way in?”

“... No... they didn’t...”

“Then maybe if we told them that you’re th-”

“Fuck no. That’ll make them try to do something worse, like kidnap us.”

“... Right.”

“...”

“...”

Rai slumped to the ground. He sat against the wall while Sin continued to pace.

“We could just fight them?” Rai said from where he sat.

Sin turned and stared at him. Her face went through a flurry of different emotions, and it eventually landed on a face of worry.

“Wh... What if we k-kill them? I’ve n-never k-killed a p-person before Rai!”

“Neither have I! But I always told myself what my mum told me. Stay alive! If I have to kill someone to keep myself alive, then I will!”

“... C-can we avoid killing them?”

“... We can try. Don’t forget that once we started working on getting stronger, we were bound to have to kill someone eventually... It just might happen a bit earlier than what we might’ve expected.”

“... You’re right... I know that... but-... WAIT!” Sin shouted.

Rai stared at her with widening eyes.

Sin realised her mistake as soon as she made it.

“I heard em! They’re down here!!”

*Pitter patter*

Footsteps.

They were coming.

“Great. Would you like to enlighten me now Sin?”

“Fuck! Okay, fast. You Stormflow us out of the gate. Not into the people, but literally right outside the gate. Then I mask us, okay?”

Bright orange lights lit up against the cobbled walls of the alleyway. The thugs had all primed fireballs and knives, aiming at the both of them.

“You fuckers tried hidin’? Tough luck... Give us all you got, the clothes on your backs, and maybe we’ll let you live, haha!”

The thugs nearby all started laughing.

Sin stared at Rai with a face that screamed ‘go on, do it!’

Rai waited a second. If that was the plan, then he thought about gathering as much information before the worst possible moment. He looked for the white-haired guy, who was nowhere to be found.

But the butch looking guy he was stood next to was part of the group of thugs. In fact, Rai recognised that the voice from earlier came from him, as he was the one to talk just now as well.

*Tch!*

Useless. Nothing worth trying to gain from this lot.

The group of thugs began to circle in on them.

“’Ello little missy, w-”

*BANG*

Thunder struck.

Rai and Sin tore a hole through the closed metal gate, and were just outside of the tailor square.

“Shit...” Rai mumbled.

He looked out over the sea of people that were right in front of them.

The markets had gotten busy. Really busy.

Sin gripped her head tight with her free hand. Her eyes squinted and her face scrunched up. She moaned in pain.

“Hey, we gotta go, c’mon!” Rai said.

Sin nodded. She didn’t verbally respond, but she locked her arm tight with Rai’s.

Then Rai’s world turned greyscale, just like before when they passed through the middle of the square. Only, this time was far stronger. The air around him shimmered like a mist, and the noises he’d once heard loud all became muffled under the filter.

They were invisible.

Rai couldn’t see Sin, but he could feel her.

His mouth moved to speak. He wanted to say ‘I guess the spell doesn’t remove your sense of touch’ but couldn’t.

When Rai tried, his voice never came.

After a moment, Rai felt a pull going further into the markets.

As he looked around, Rai realised why Sin was going this way. The flow of people was moving in this direction, which meant that they had to move in this direction to avoid getting flattened by the stampede.

Sin kept Rai close to her, which made him slightly worried. He didn’t know how well Sin could follow the flow.

But then she surprised him. Her movements were smooth, soft, and gentle. It was just like the results that Rai felt after his first few lessons learning the Sword Dance. Of course, that was such a long time ago, and those lessons were barely anything compared to the level he’d reached in the later lessons, but her movements were close enough to meeting the conceptual ‘flow’ that Jin taught him very early on.

Rai constantly saw better openings in the flow through the crowd, but Sin’s path choices weren’t half bad either.

After a while of flowing through the people, Sin seemed to find a completely different opening as they’d abruptly left the flow. Somehow, after stumbling through smaller crowds that led away from the massive stampede, Rai and Sin ended up somewhere within the Dwarves’ Quarter. There were still a lot of people here, but at least they could stand and breathe for a moment.

The filter lifted.

Rai’s senses returned back to their original clarity, and he could hear himself properly again. He looked at Sin.

Who was a lot better now than before. She was sweating, but it didn’t seem to Rai like she was in a lot of pain from the sensory overload she’d gotten from the sheer amount of people around them before.

Sin took a deep breath, and let out a long exhale.

“Alright. We’re out!” She turned to look at Rai, who was smiling at her. “What?” Sin asked.

“Oh... uh, nothing. You did great!”

“Oh, thanks!” Sin looked behind her, back at the massive cluster of people. “I hope they didn’t try to find us...”

“Well, if they did, then they’ll be in for a shock when they find out we’re nowhere near the end of that flow of people.”

“Yeah... hopefully they’ll just give up.”

They started walking through the winding roads of the Dwarves’ Quarter, following signs back to the red light district.

“Where do you think those people are all going?” Sin asked Rai.

“I don’t think there’s a single place, to be honest. It seems like there’s just a lot of people today, so it feels really packed.”

“Hmm... maybe you’re right.”

“Alright, let’s get back to the Secret and prep for the ports! I don’t think those guys will be able to find us so... it should be fine. I hope.”

*Pfft*

“Eh? What’s so funny?” Rai asked.

Sin almost couldn’t hold herself.

“... It’s really never a dull day with you!” Sin finally managed to say with a big goofy grin on her face.

Rai returned her goofy grin with one of his own, and pulled her in for a big hug.

After their embrace, Rai and Sin made their way back to Devil’s Secret.

Naam asked them how it went on their way in, so Sin explained what happened. Naam wanted to go on a murder spree upon hearing her younger sister relay their adventure. It took both Rai and Sin doing their best to calm her down and mellow out her worries.

The soreness that they’d felt from the previous day was almost completely gone now. Fortunately, neither of them had suffered any serious wounds on the day, so they’d both recovered well. Kallad’s spell helped Rai and Sin a lot, which they were grateful for.

Something that both of them avoided talking about was the problem between them and their friends. Rai was previously really angry at how Tullian treated Sin. He then learned that their reasons weren’t inherently wrong, but Rai still thought that there was always a more respectful way to go about it. He didn’t blame Tullian for anything, but Rai still felt a part of that same frustration.

For Sin, there wasn’t much of an internal conflict. She was convinced that she couldn’t risk the lives of her friends just so that they could have some kind of peace of mind. Her weakness in controlling the Queen’s Domain when she got angry was something that she already knew she had to work on, but it didn’t change that her loss of control in the moment led to that mess.

Today, however, both Rai and Sin made an unspoken agreement. Neither of them mentioned the issue, since today was for them to spend together.

When they met back in the penthouse lounge after changing into their new outfits, both of them were speechless.

Their hearts pounded, and their faces heated up.

Rai and Sin’s date night was only just beginning.