Later that night in the south corner of the inner city an old swordsman and a lady met inside a mansion.
"I'm pleasantly surprised with your visit High Councilor Greensword. What brings me the honor?"
The lady greets him, getting up from her chair and giving him a slight bow.
Her black and golden eyes looked at him with a genuinely friendly look, though that did nothing to hide the cold sharpness that they naturally exuded.
"No need for formalities Seraphina, though I might not live to see that day I already consider you the next viscount of Unbreon."
Arbo answers her with a nod and a smile before approaching with a book in his old hand.
"Sadly what brings me here today are problems."
He hands her the book with the dozen or so stories about Night Fang, letting her flip through it before continuing.
"My grandson is going to hire that assassin girl of yours as a guide, when he sent someone to look into her they came back with this."
As Seraphina reads the pages in a matter of seconds a small frown forms between her brows.
"Half of these have nothing to do with Night Fang." She states, looking at Arbo for answers.
"Looked like that for me too."
Arbo nods at her and pulls out a stack of documents from his space pouch.
Different from the book, there are not just a dozen or so of them.
"And yet when I searched at the tower for documents her name appears as the responsible for the numerous suspicious arrests. Any ideas of what's happening here?"
Her brows scrunched harder and she sat back on the table.
Her hands moved fast as she went through the more than a hundred of arrest forms.
All of them with the name of Night Fang in it.
"This makes no sense, she isn't even a Unbreon official, nor does my father grant me the authority to make official arrests. There must be someone targeting her…"
She pauses and shakes her head.
"No, it's more like someone using her name to shield themselves from responsibility…"
Seraphina makes another pause as a frustrating answer appears in her mind.
I think I know who it is."
A defeated sigh escapes her lips and her hands reach for a glass of golden liquid at the side of her table.
"Just give me the name and the council will go from there." Arbo says, before letting out a sigh of his own. "If things keep going at this same pace, soon enough a large incident will happen and Unbreon does not need an exodus right before a beast wave."
As Seraphina hears and agrees with the High Councilor's words wholeheartedly.
But at the same time if her guess is correct even the council will struggle to solve this problem.
Downing every drop of the golden liquid into her throat she feels herself calm back down from her frustration and her thoughts speed up slightly.
"Nine out of ten times this is the work of my brother, Kyle." She answers plainly, though a hint of annoyance seeps through in her voice.
Hearing the worst option possible show its head, a headache threatened to attack the old man's mind.
'Why did it have to be the disabled Darkglade.' He massages his temples.
He'd be happier hearing Seraphina was planning a revolution than this, at least then he could choose a side and be over with it in a matter of hours.
If it was the Pot belly Darkglade's fault though?
It would take days, maybe weeks to maybe have a resolution.
The favoritism from Viscount was just that ridiculous.
'Shit, guess I'll contact other councilors on the side before calling a meeting.'
He thought to himself as he said goodbye to Lady Seraphina.
What came next would be an annoying and cumbersome work, one he hated.
But Unbreon must stand stable and tall for his grandson's future, only then could he truly pass on without worries.
***
Zatu's eyes open to a familiar marble ceiling as his head rests on a soft pillow.
His skin felt clean, way cleaner than any simple bath could make doubly so when considering his last memory as him laying on the ground as beast blood seeped his clothes.
Same clothes that he was still wearing but now in pristine condition.
'Cleaning magic.' He concluded feeling his body for a second and finding it reinvigorated.
'I should pay her for the potion later.' He thinks pushing himself to sit on the soft bed as a familiar room enters his eyes.
This was one of the many room's in his friend's inn, Blue Dream.
"How did I get here?" he mumbles.
"Guess." a playful voice answers from the side.
When Zatu looks he sees Illya at the room's table.
Elbows on the table, head down and hand zipping over the page of a notebook.
On her lap a small but majestic black cat sleeps soundly.
"How long was I out for?" Zatu asks, rising from the bed and walking to her side.
With a peep over her shoulder he sees a sketch taking shape.
It seemed like a battle between a man and a few beasts from a bird's eye view.
Not only that but the scene looks incredibly familiar.
As he squints his eyes and looks closer he finally connects this is his fight from earlier in the day.
Stopping behind her he raises his eyebrows, impressed by how real and dramatic the sketch looked.
"You slept for a few hours, had the time to go to a healer and everything." She answers happily, her eyes locked on to the page as her hands speed up.
In silence Zatu watches as more and more details seem to appear into the page, entranced by how fast and precisely her hand moved.
It was as if the picture was already there, only waiting for her hands to pass over and reveal it.
"You're amazing at this." He said as she completed the drawing.
"Thanks." She said in a timid tone that caught Zatu by surprise. "I drew my fight too if you want to see it…"
Zatu nods, watching as she pulls out a whole other book from her space pouch and handing it to him.
In silence and a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of pictures she drew just this afternoon Zatu flips through the pages.
These ones are in first person, a decision that gives him a whole other perspective on her combat from earlier.
In it the scenes vary constantly, though all of them do an incredible job of evoking deep emotions in him.
Some are drawn normally showing her striking the beast's scales with her dagger.
Others have an almost liquid-like filter to it, as if drawing from the perspective of someone watching a beast while inside of a clear river.
Which Zatu imagines must be how she sees the world once she disappears into the shadows.
Feeling the care she put into these sketches and imagining the amount of effort it would take to have such a technique with a combat class a question popped in his mind.
"Illya, these are incredible… they are so good I kinda wonder…. Why did you decide to be an assassin?" He asked carefully, worried he was being too nosy but too curious to not ask.
His eyes catch as her smile weakens hearing the question and a sad look flashes in her eyes.
Gulping down on air Zatu feels regret fill his chest and squeeze his heart.
He had imagined this might not have the happiest answer.
Much like his reason for being a swordsman.
But having estimated her awakening being around five to six years ago based on her power level and the book rumors, he naively thought this wouldn't be too touchy of a topic.
"Sorry, you don't have to answer if you don't want to." He walks the question back instantly.
With a small chuckle Illya shakes her head.
"No, it's fine, really." She mumbled as a whirlwind spun inside her.
From the high of having someone appreciate her hobby, to the low of remembering what type of monster she really was.
It struck something she just couldn't hold back.
'The work is good, but he doesn't deserve to deal with someone like me.'
"I feel ugly when I think about my past…" She gulped "Please listen to the end of what I'm about to share."
Her voice shook and her eyes fell down to her lap as her hand slowly petted Sir Howard.
"My parents didn't want to have a child, they wanted a hunting dog… so they bred and raised one."
She could feel a sour taste fill her mouth as she pushed out her next words, her deepest sin, of the day she truly became the monster they wanted.
"The day I awakened I killed both of them."
Silence took over the room, with only the distant voices from the Inn's restaurant as white noise in the background.
Tears gathered in her eyes as she prepared herself for him to walk out.
'Why did I do this?' she cussed herself, for shooting her foot once more.
Just then Illya felt two defined arms gently envelop her into a hug.
"Its okay, you're not alone in this Illya."