Chapter 243
As the warm morning sun had begun to thaw the pre-dawn chill, Draco and Dimitra moved through the northwestern districts of the city.
Their patrol, a necessary routine in these tense times, had taken them steadily north, the familiar streets often deserted save for the occasional wary figure or patrolling adventurers.
They had spent several hours covering ground, the silence punctuated only by their own footsteps and the distant echoes of the city at war.
It was in District 8, a maze of shadowed alleys and war-scarred buildings, that a sound broke the monotony.
Voices, sharp and distinct, carrying clearly down a narrow cross-street just adjacent to their own path.
They paused, listening. The voices were familiar.
“Where the hell did Ryuu go? At this rate, we will have searched the entire damn city!” the frustrated complaint, undeniably Lyra, echoed through the otherwise silent thoroughfare.
“We’ve certainly been at it for hours,” another voice, Kaguya's calm but weary tone, agreed.
“We know she talked to Shakti, but where could she possibly have vanished to after that?” Kaguya added, a note of genuine concern finally creeping into her voice.
‘Right, Ryuu’ Draco thought, a jolt of realization hitting him.
His mind had been so consumed with the events of the previous night, particularly the time spent speaking with Riveria, that the reason he had initially followed Ryuu had completely slipped his mind.
Hearing Lyra and Kaguya’s conversation brought it all flooding back.
From what he gathered, after Ryuu had apparently snuck out of the camp, Lyra and Kaguya had been tasked with finding her, incorporating the search into their own patrol duties.
They sounded exhausted, and their frustration suggested their inquiries with various people hadn't yielded any solid leads.
“Hmm, our shift is almost over anyway,” Draco murmured to Dimitra, casting a glance at her. Their time on duty was nearing its end.
He wasn't sure what her plans were for her free time and didn't want to impose simply to satisfy his own renewed interest in Ryuu’s whereabouts.
"Do you want to join up with Lyra and Kaguya?"
Dimitra, understanding the unspoken question and his underlying concern her stance, nodded without hesitation.
“Well, we’re heading in the same general direction as their search, aren’t we? We might as well lend a hand. I’d be worried too if any of our familia went missing, especially now, in the middle of... all this.” Her gaze swept over the desolate street, the signs of conflict ever-present.
“Alright then. Let’s cut through here,” Draco suggested, pointing towards a large, ragged hole in the side of the building separating their street from the one Lyra and Kaguya were on.
It looked like the result of some past skirmish or perhaps neglect, but it offered a direct shortcut.
Lyra and Kaguya, still oblivious to their proximity, continued their slow advance down the parallel street, their conversation drifting through the gap.
“Hey,” Lyra called out, causing Kaguya to stop.
“What is it?” Kaguya asked, turning her head.
“This is the first time she’s done anything like this, isn’t it?” Lyra paused, a rare moment of seriousness touching her voice.
“How long do you think it would take until… until Ryuu comes back?” she finished, the question hanging heavy in the air.
Kaguya was silent for a long moment, clearly contemplating the question.
A flicker of something unreadable crossed her face before she spoke, her tone returning to its usual bluntness, though perhaps with a touch more somber weight.
“She might never come back,” Kaguya stated simply.
Before Lyra could voice her inevitable "Why?", Kaguya elaborated, her words stark and devoid of ornamentation.
“Ryuu is… delicate. Even for an elf. With things the way they are…” Kaguya trailed off, then finished with brutal honesty, “I wouldn’t be surprised if she went and got herself killed.”
A small, wry smirk played on Lyra’s lips, though her eyes held a complicated depth.
“Man, that’s a cold way to put it, even for you.” She shook her head, acting surprised, but the truth was she knew Kaguya’s often harsh exterior masked a complex interior, honed by experiences Lyra could only guess at.
They had spent enough time together for Lyra to see glimpses of the person beneath the calculated chill.
“You know, you could try being a little more optimistic,” Lyra continued, shifting back into her usual playful prodding.
“Come to think of it… what the hell did they do to you back in the Far East that turned you into such a stone-cold bitch?”
Kaguya’s neutral expression didn’t waver, not by an inch.
“Lyra,” she replied, her voice even and devoid of inflection, “in the spirit of companionship forced upon me by circumstance, I am going to be entirely frank. I have always found your company… trying. You possess an insatiable need to poke your nose into every conceivable matter.”
Unlike Lyra’s performative shock and playful jabs, everything Kaguya said was delivered with absolute sincerity.
Her painful past was a closely guarded secret, known only to their goddess, Astraea, and Kaguya intended to keep it that way.
Besides, Kaguya often found Lyra's underlying tenacity and tendency to mask deeper feelings with humour uncomfortably similar to her own, a mirror she didn't always want to look into.
Unsurprisingly, Kaguya's harsh rebuke seemed to roll right off Lyra.
She simply chuckled.
“Well, I, too, am immensely curious about both your pasts,” said a familiar voice.
“Though I can already surmise some rather intriguing tidbits from your mutually delightful, shall we say, bitchy personalities. Anyway, hello girls! Fancy running into you in such a… well, perhaps not ‘fine’ day, but certainly a clear one!”
Both Lyra and Kaguya froze, their heads snapping around towards the direction the voices had come from – the gaping hole in the collapsed wall of the adjacent building.
Draco and Dimitra stepped through the debris, dusting off their shoulders.
“Draco… Dimitra?” Lyra muttered, her playful facade momentarily dropping in surprise.
Kaguya’s cool gaze fixed on them, her traditional kimono stirring slightly in the faint breeze that snaked through the broken street.
“What are you two doing here?” she asked.
“We were on patrol just on the other side of that wall,” Dimitra explained, a slight frown creasing her brow.
She had heard the tail end of their previous conversation and, was a little taken aback by Kaguya’s seemingly cold comment about Ryuu.
She had expected them to sound more overtly distressed.
"And the discussion of a certain... duo... happened to carry quiet clearly.”
A flicker of annoyance, quickly masked by a sly glint in her eye, crossed Kaguya’s face.
Using the wide sleeve of her kimono, she partially concealed a faint, almost imperceptible smile. “Well, that was rather embarrassing. See what you caused, pallum?” she accused, aiming the comment at Lyra.
Lyra’s smirk widened.
“See what I caused? Aren’t you the one who loves Ryuu so much that you’re willing to put up with my radiant company just to find her?” she retorted, leaning back slightly.
“That’s touching, it really is.”
Kaguya’s almost-smile vanished instantly, replaced by a deep scowl.
The accusation of liking Ryuu seemed to genuinely offend her.
“See?” Draco whispered conspiratorially to Dimitra, though purposefully loud enough for the other two to overhear.
“I told you they were close, just in their own incredibly bizarre and special way. Don’t be fooled by the exterior; most of the girls in the Astraea Familia seem to have rather… twisted personalities.”
Dimitra nodded slowly, observing the two figures glaring at each other.
“Hmm, I think I understand,” she murmured, a faint note of amusement in her voice.
“Oi! What do you mean by that?!” Lyra and Kaguya rounded on Draco in perfect, indignant unison.
“Stop copying me!” they snapped at each other simultaneously, turning back to glare fiercely, their synchronized reaction only reinforcing Draco’s point.
“Hmmph!” they both scoffed, turning away from each other with exaggerated disapproval.
It was, as Draco internally noted, quite comical, especially given the distinct height difference between the tall, willowy Kaguya and the much shorter Lyra.
“Anyway,” Draco interrupted before their strange argument could escalate further, “since we’re heading in roughly the same direction, care if we join you for a while? I’m actually a bit worried about Ryuu too. She did some rather... surprising things last night.”
He dropped the bait, successfully pulling their attention, hoping to shift the focus back to the missing elf.
“Fufufufu,” Kaguya chuckled, the playful, almost predatory glint returning to her eyes.
“What is this? I smell… a potentially interesting blackmail story.” Her interest seemed genuinely piqued.
Lyra too looked avidly curious, her earlier weariness forgotten.
“Oh? Do tell, Draco.”
Draco allowed himself a small, inward smirk.
He had successfully steered the conversation away from their peculiar dynamic and back to the search.
While he was genuinely interested in Lyra and Kaguya’s histories – he did know fragmented pieces of their pasts, enough to understand they weren't simple stories – he also knew such topics were delicate and not meant to be casually discussed in the middle of a street.
With their full attention secured, Draco began recounting the events of the previous night from his perspective, detailing how he had followed Ryuu after she left the camp, her brief interaction with Shakti, and her subsequent movements.
He carefully omitted the parts irrelevant to tracing her path.
“Hmm, I see,” Lyra nodded after he finished, stroking her chin thoughtfully.
Then Kaguya, with characteristic bluntness that startled even Draco, stated flatly, “So, you are a stalker.”
Draco blinked, taken aback.
Lyra and Dimitra, standing beside Kaguya, echoed her sentiment with expressions ranging from cold disapproval to intrigued accusation.
‘Eh?’ Draco thought, his face momentarily etched with confusion.
‘What part of that story led them to that conclusion?’
He found himself momentarily speechless, unable to formulate a retort, and honestly, part of him didn’t even want to try.
‘Who knows how they’ll twist my words next’ he thought resignedly.
“Anyway,” he said, quickly recovering and attempting to pivot, “shouldn’t we get back to patrolling? We can’t exactly spend all day standing here talking. We are in the middle of a war, remember?” He looked pointedly at Lyra and Kaguya.
“Right?” Dimitra quickly agreed, nodding in support.
Kaguya and Lyra, however, seemed momentarily preoccupied, their initial playful accusations fading as they processed the information Draco had given them.
They were clearly trying to piece together his account with the details they had gathered from others, attempting to form a clearer picture, a general outline, of Ryuu’s potential location.
“Sigh,” Lyra grumbled after a moment, ruffling her short, pink hair in frustration.
“I can’t seem to connect the dots.”
“Same,” Kaguya replied, her gaze distant for a second.
“Let’s just continue patrolling. We’ll eventually figure something out by checking locations that match the combined information.”
With that decided, the four of them – Draco, Dimitra, Lyra, and Kaguya – fell into step, continuing their patrol route, now heading deeper north together through the ravaged district.
They walked in relative silence for a while, their footsteps echoing on the cobblestones.
Soon, they reached an area where Draco’s senses registered the presence of a large crowd.
The place felt… familiar, stirring a faint, unpleasant memory.
“Why did you stop?” Lyra asked, noticing Draco halt abruptly.
Dimitra and Kaguya also paused, looking at him curiously.
“Don’t you… remember this place?” Draco asked, his gaze sweeping over the area.
The ground was littered with debris, yes, but also an unusual number of loose stones and pebbles.
Recognition dawned on Lyra’s face, quickly followed by a wince.
“Ah, snap! Is this… isn’t this where we got… well, stoned by those civilians a while back? No wonder there are so many rocks everywhere.” The memory was evidently not a pleasant one.
“Hmm, now that you mention it, I do hear the sound of a lot of people,” Dimitra added, listening intently.
“Are we near the northern camp? I thought it was still further away.”
“Let’s take a look,” Kaguya suggested, her curiosity piqued.
They moved cautiously towards the source of the noise, approaching from the side of a broken building.
As they peered around the corner, the scene unfolded before them.
A large gathering of people, predominantly demi-humans, was clustered in what seemed like a makeshift open area, surrounded by damaged structures.
“Yep, this is the place, alright. I recognize some faces from before,” Lyra confirmed, her earlier discomfort giving way to observation.
“Then I suppose we shouldn’t overstay our welcome,” Kaguya remarked, her expression hardening slightly as she assessed the crowd and the location.
"We'll just quickly try to find out if Ryuu came this way and then leave."
“It’s odd,” Draco murmured, his gaze scanning the crowd and the surrounding area.
“What’s odd?” Lyra asked.
“There shouldn’t be any established camp around here,” Draco explained, his voice tight with unease.
“All these people… they’re mostly demi-humans, aren’t they? And look around – there aren’t any adventurers visible, no guards, no defensive perimeter. This place is completely unguarded.”
“Come to think of it, you’re right,” Lyra muttered, her earlier casualness replaced by a similar apprehension.
It was a large, vulnerable cluster of people, exposed and unprotected in a war zone.
“They all seem to be gathered around that girl who’s handing out food,” Dimitra pointed out, indicating a figure distributing rations from a cart.
“Seriously, these people…” Draco’s voice was low but edged with undeniable frustration and a hint of rising anger.
“They want to die? This is basically a prime target for the Evilus. Just because nothing happened last night doesn’t mean something won’t happen today. We’re in the middle of a war, for heavens sake!”
He understood the desperation that would lead civilians to gather for aid, and providing food was a commendable act of charity.
But the sheer lack of security, the open display of vulnerability in such a dangerous environment, struck him as reckless beyond belief.
It should have been organized within the protected walls of an established shelter or camp.
Yet, thinking about the hostility many adventurers had faced from some civilians, particularly after incidents like the stoning they'd experienced around here, he also grasped the grim reality: few adventurers, if any, would be willing to risk their lives to protect people who viewed them with suspicion or outright hatred.
It was a tragic, and watching it unfold made his blood boil.
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