Infiltration 7
ShiKon gripped her daggers tightly as the sound of shuffling came closer and closer towards the office door. KiNa wasn’t responding to her anymore, hopefully resting. But she could only fear the worst.
She wasn’t sure what she would do if they were discovered hiding there – if she needed to fight or fast talk or mind mage her way through it. Her instincts rarely turned her the wrong way, though.
And my instincts told me this was a rash and dangerous mission. Now we pay the price for failure.
She could only hope that price didn’t include KiNa’s life and time in prison for her.
Or worse. If the Manor is keeping that sort of creature thing… if it’s really ruling over the city… what does that mean?
She tried to keep her breath silent as the shuffling stopped outside the doorway. The knob turned with a click and she cursed herself for not thinking to lock it. Then the door swung open.
Every muscle in her body tensed as she crouched in the shadow behind the door. Her eyes narrowed, vision dimmed by the darkness of the room. She waited until the shadow closed the door before launching. One knife went to the throat, the other arm wrapped tightly around the left arm, pinning it tightly.
“Don’t move,” she hissed between clenched teeth.
“ShiKon! It’s just me!” came the hoarse whisper.
She lowered her dagger instantly, “Master SoYa?”
He responded in stunned silence, but she could sense the familiar feeling of her teacher. Letting out a long, relieved breath, she swung around and clutched him in a long hug. It seemed child-like, but at that moment, she didn’t care. She was just glad he was there.
“ShiKon,” he murmured, “Please don’t hug me with daggers in your hands.”
“Oh… oh right. Sorry,” the girl apologized and put them away. Then she looked sheepishly at her feet. “We’re busted aren’t we?”
“That depends,” Master SoYa answered. Then he got a look at the sleeping boy in his chair. “KiNa? Is he alright?”
“I don’t know. There was a… fight,” she evaded the full answer as she pulled him over by one arm. “I tried to patch him up the best I could, but I’m no healer.”
Her teacher pulled a light crystal over and turned it on, obviously more worried about KiNa than he was about them being discovered. There was a reason why he rarely participated in their sneaky missions.
Master SoYa is many things, but a spy, he is not.
ShiKon didn’t say a word as she watched him run his hands over the bandages and inspect the damage. Finally, he nodded back towards her.
“You did good job. He’d be much worse off without the dressings.”
“Will he live?” she asked with a jittery voice.
“He should make it. We just have to stave off infection and give him a safe place to heal up,” the mind mage nodded. He was already working his hands over the wounded areas, applying pulses of tired healing light.
He looks exhausted. I bet he ran all the way here when he realized no one was at the base.
ShiKon came to crouch next to her teacher, wishing she could do something more to help. Part of her was sheepish to talk to him, knowing how many rules they had just shattered that night. Part of her was relieved, wanting to cling to his safe presence. And part of her wanted nothing more than to get them all out of the tainted school.
“I’m sorry,” she offered.
“What happened?” he asked quietly. He didn’t say anything else, but she knew he expected the truth.
“KiNa… he wanted to…”
“Wanted to what?” Master SoYa coaxed with a soft, un-angry voice.
How do I tell him something like this? It’s not every day your student decides to turn assassin.
“I don’t know what got into him,” she admitted. “He just got very upset about Fu. He thought that if we took down the leader of the Manor, we could stop all of this.”
“So, he broke in, took down the power grid, and attempted an assassination?” he summarized better than she could.
“Yes,” ShiKon looked down. “We were almost successful. Except…”
He adjusted the bandages, not looking over at her.
“Except… the leader of the Manor is some sort of… thing,” she breathed the last word through her mouth.
Will he believe me? After we locked him up and betrayed his trust?
“Thing?” Master SoYa peered at her with interest.
“It was… was…” she made clawing motions, indicating something large and terrifying. “Some kind of monster with gray skin and black eyes… it bled black blood and… and… it screeched and claws and fangs and…”
Just remembering it started breaking down the calm mental wall she fought to rebuild that night.
Why am I still so afraid of this thing?
“Marked,” Master SoYa said. The word was foreign to her ears, as if speaking in a different language.
“What?”
“I’ve read about it in my translations,” his voice was low. “That’s how the Marked were described.”
“From your Nefol book?” ShiKon looked surprised.
She had taken a genuine interest in all of the old books that Master SoYa worked so hard to translate and understand. He didn’t tell her a whole lot about his findings, other than it was tied to their past and origins. To something that no one seemed able to remember anymore.
While he didn’t restrict her from accessing his library, she knew that the information he shared with her was selective. He claimed it was because he wasn’t sure of the accuracy. ShiKon suspected something more.
“Yes,” Master SoYa nodded. “They were once people of Nefol, but were turned into dark creatures by the Chaos of the Dark Arweinydd.”
“Zeromus,” she added.
He peered at her, seeming surprised that she knew the name.
“I uh… I saw some of your translations. You write about Zeromus a lot,” she spread her hands.
He didn’t respond. She couldn’t tell if he was still surprised, angry, or just disappointed.
Great. Betray his trust again tonight. Maybe he’ll kick us out and make us fend for ourselves.
“ShiKon,” he said slowly. But his conversation didn’t go the direction she expected, “I have to leave the Manor now.”
“Right, we can sneak KiNa out and get him back to the base. I’m sure there’s still enough distraction going on that we can…”
“No,” the teacher shook his head. “That’s not what I mean.”
She blinked at him curiously, waiting for him to explain.
“I have to leave the Manor, for good,” Master SoYa’s brows furrowed in what seemed pain. “Something’s happened… I think I’ve been exposed. It’s not safe for me to work here anymore.”
She gasped, mouth open. Something in her chest tightened, “Is it our fault? Because of what we did tonight? Did we mess it all up?”
“No… no…” he took her hands in his, trying to comfort her. “It’s not something you did. I made a mistake… I…”
He seemed to want to tell her more, but stopped.
ShiKon swallowed the lump in her throat, “Are you in trouble, Master SoYa?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I can’t stay here to find out.”
“What are you going to do?”
The teacher looked down at the light crystal in his hand for a long time before attempting to answer. She could see exhaustion and sorrow in the lines of his face.
“I need to get back to AsaHi before something happens. We need to get to the base and make sure the area is well protected,” Master SoYa’s worry spread, “I don’t know what to do about Fu yet. If they start making connections, he could be questioned and in danger. Especially with the information he brought us.”
“Yeah, that’s tricky,” ShiKon nodded, trying to figure out something better to say. “We can watch over him, Master SoYa. We’ll find a way to get him out of here before things blow up.”
His eyes flickered over her expectant face. She couldn’t tell if he believed in her or not.
“Please, Master,” she took his arm. “I know we messed up. I know we were rash and we caused a huge mess tonight. I swear we didn’t mean for it to turn out like this… KiNa would never do something he thought would hurt you and your family.”
“ShiKon,” he said softly.
“Give us a chance to work through this with you. We can protect Fu…”
“ShiKon,” he repeated.
“Just say the word. We’ll do anything you need, Master!”
“ShiKon,” he finally put his hand over her hand. “I’m not angry.”
“You’re not?” she sucked in her breath.
“No,” Master SoYa sighed. “This would have happened sooner or later, no matter if we took risks or not.”
The girl couldn’t help the apologetic look.
“I do want you to promise me that you won’t do something like this again. Not without the proper planning and not without my knowledge,” he gently took her face, cupped between both hands. His green eyes reflected worry. “Even if that means you have to tackle down KiNa, tie him up, and throw him in the closet.”
She gave a hoarse laugh, “Easier said than done.”
“Hmm?” he responded with surprise. “I didn’t think I’d hear that from you. Has KiNa become a challenge?”
“Only in my heart,” the girl admitted.
A soft smile crossed her teacher’s face. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought that he was actually happy to hear that.
“Okay,” he finally said, gathering his thoughts. “This is what we’re going to do. Take this one step at a time. We’re going to start with getting KiNa back to the base. Then, I’m going to work on getting AsaHi somewhere safe.”
He paused for a long time.
“We can do this, right?” he looked to her for reassurance.
“We will do this,” ShiKon nodded, giving him her best confident nod.
He merely nodded in return.