Ciel didn't even blink. "I am going to fulfill my promise," the man said, looking at the moon suspended from the night. "The heavenly throne stood bare. And I'll ensure none shall ever sit there."

The two women had no idea the depth behind that promise, but they agreed this guy might possibly be crazy.

"Team up?" Nuan threw out the offer.

"For now," Xia agreed, breaking out into a sprint and Nuan followed suit.

Reaching their target first, Nuan delivered an overhead kick aiming to knock the interloper out. What caught her by surprise was a spray being hosed into her face. One hiss of synthetic mixture later, Nuan sampled the wrath of an entire ant nest in her kimono. She hit the ground spasming as inflammatory itching crawled all over her skin. For all her career, this ranked as the finest agony she ever tasted.

As for Xia, a gel suddenly splattered across her face. It quickly spread over her body, encasing her in a mucus-like substance. To her horror, her beloved pristine armor began to brown with rust as the acidic mixture in the gel started melting it.

Out of nowhere, the man pulled out another weapon: a launching device. He aimed and fired its ammunition over the ravine.

"Don't worry, those countermeasures are non-lethal," Ciel explained as his body glowed with the matter transference tech Xia believed to be theoretical. "I know you will follow, but for your sake, don't."

With those parting words, he blinked away in blue light.

Witnessing that mysterious entity leaving her to erode with her armor poured hot lead into Xia's heart. Heavy with defeat and hot with rage, she made up her mind to have her revenge on the overly handsome demon.

Like Xia, Nuan also wanted vengeance for this humiliation. One violent omnidirectional burst of Aura later, and all the irritant covering her skin flew off. She got back to her feet, her jade-like skin red with scratch marks and pain.

"That bastard," Nuan adjusted her tangled kimono and took a step to avenge their lost innocence. "I am going to tear him—"

Click!

Xia and Nuan heard an ominous noise and gazed down with dread at a motion-triggered explosive, which watched them like a square-shaped turtle. As if winking, the green light of safety switched to red.

The following explosion rocked the Valley of Regret, but not as much as the outrageous screaming of the two victims.

---

Above the ravine, Ciel shuddered at the thunder of the gift he left behind.

There he went back on the old habit built by the years: talking to himself.

"That should slow both of them down," Ciel started but immediately dismissed the thought. "Or not." He tried to collect himself. "Okay, stop the assumption and stick with what I know."

The enigmatic being began listing what he gleaned from the conversation, while making his way through the lush forest flanking the Valley of Regret.

"First, I am stuck in the middle of a fight," Ciel glared at the night sky above him. "No thanks to you."

The emptiness in the sky didn't answer for what had to be a millionth time.

Back to contemplation, Ciel raised another point. "Second, they teamed up almost immediately, this means this fight is not personal; thus the conflict must be factional." Ciel sighed. "No matter where I go there will always be a faction, huh. Just great."

Focused on his thoughts, Ciel ignored the buzzing of insects inhabiting this forest. As the whistles and shadows shifted, Ciel hit the third milestone.

"Third, according to that armored girl, her nation is a center of magical research. Maybe Aria and Anastasia set up shop there," Ciel's expression sunk into a quiet defeat. "In the worst case, it is Etaceh."

Ciel continued to the final point, ignorant of the assailant slinking through the shadow. "Fourth, that kimono girl called herself Dragon Scion and her father is one of those idiots." Ciel pinched his nose, trying to isolate himself from the earthly scent and migraine surrounding him. "But who? Amibus wouldn't operate on land and Grimaldi wouldn't found a nation." 

Ciel bit his nail at the sheer mass of what he did not know, "Dammit I never thought it would be this bad when I exit—"

Before Ciel completed his complaint, Dragon Scion shot from the cover above. In a blur, faster than any man could react, she sped toward the unsuspecting thinker with a knee-strike to open his head like a steaming stove.

In Nuan's imagination, Ciel's brain matter would already be splashing upon the ground. Instead, she dashed into some kind of repulsive shield that knocked her into another tree.

The Dragon Scion jumped back to her feet, mad. "What is that?"

"A pre-construct protection aria constructed from Ether," Ciel tapped off his neck, and subtly tossed another back-up plan in a sleight of hand. "One of my friends invented this and I made an improved version of it."

Nuan blinked. "Ether," she craned her neck in confusion. "Isn't that lost technology?"

Ciel's expression sank. Judging from Nuan's tone, the Ether Transcription technique had surfaced at some point and been lost to the wind. This could only mean one thing: Aria had died. But that shouldn't be possible. Of all the people he knew, that perpetually nagging witch was the last person who should kick the bucket.

Nuan's next action then proceeded to worsen Ciel's confusion. The warrior growled at her opponent like an awakened tigress, and flicked her hand. From her five fingers, a translucent blade of Aura bit into the nearby tree, toppling it to the dirt.

Seeing the invisible blade for the first time in his life, Ciel reacted with no word aside from a croak of a dying cricket.

"What. Is. That?" Ciel said.

"It is called AURA BLADE," Nuan boasted, flashing her sword at Ciel. "This will cut you down just right."

"Hold up," Ciel called for a time out. "What exactly is Aura?"

Nuan watched the liar and realized this particular confession was genuine. "Okay," she said, feeling an immense headache coming. "You know how to use lost technology, but don't know what Aura is? How?"

Ciel shrugged. "Let's say I have been locked in a cave for too long."

"Fine," Nuan sensed another half-truth. "I will get the full story after making you into a quadruple amputee!"

Alas, Nuan didn't notice a tiny spider hugging her leg until a voltage went through her. She hit the clod; her body cramped like stone.

"What is it this time?" she squeezed through numbed lips.

"Sensory paralytic golem," Ciel answered, keeping a good distance away from Nuan. "Look," he explained, "our start is a rocky one, but as you can see I am pretty new here. What about we play a game? We ask each other a question like civilized humans, then we go our separate ways once we get what we want."

"Oh," Nuan smirked, mentally plotting to make the best out of this opportunity before getting rid of that spider on her leg. "That is pretty good."

"Excellent," Ciel smiled sweetly. His ever-ticking mind understood this wild animal in the guise of a beautiful woman would attack him the moment the opportunity arose. Thankfully, that golem was rigged to explode the moment the paralytic feedback loop stopped abruptly.

Ignorant of the explosive taped to her leg, Nuan planned to buy as much time as possible for the crusader stumbling through the forest using the tree she had marked.

"So what is your question," Nuan tried to drag this conversation. "Is it what Aura is? Or--"

"Is your father Mandrake?" Ciel saw through Nuan's game and immediately cut to the chase.

Nuan's mouth hung open. Every common citizen could recite the name of the Yulong God-Emperor, but even Nuan had never heard it being spoken so casually.

"Damn," Ciel took Nuan's goldfish face for a confirmation. "Mandrake really does get busy."

"What are you to the God-Emperor?" Nuan asked without thinking. This man's familiarity with the most overwhelming shadow in her life didn't look fake.

"An old friend," Ciel answered honestly. "We go way back. In any case, you probably will have to call me uncle."

"You must be joking!" Nuan's mind cracked in its failed attempt to wrap around that reality.

"Take it or leave it," Ciel declared, taking firm control of the situation. "Is Mandrake a good father?"

The sudden turn of Nuan's expression told Ciel everything he needed to know, all of it bad.

"Crap," Ciel muttered. "That guy is an idiot, but he shouldn't fuck up that badly… Unless… Uh oh." A horrible possibility emerged in Ciel's mind. "Holy shit, that bastard hasn't been murdered yet? What the hell are Romulus and Yume doing?"

Nuan heard every comprehensible speculation (all true) leaking out of Ciel's mouth and asked one singular question: "Are you going to kill him?"

Ciel looked down at the energetic ball of energy who had deflated the moment her father got pulled into the picture. His heart panged out in sympathy. Calculative and cold-blooded as he could be, even he felt obligated to reassure this girl for the sake of a certain idiot he knew.

"No, I change my mind," Ciel's tone softened into an almost familial one. "Look, I know your old man. He is not perfect, far from it. But that guy meant well, he just sucked really hard at expressing it." Ciel droned on. "Knowing him, you probably grew up alone surrounded by jealous siblings."

Nuan snorted at the understatement of the century.

Not knowing how this fight had turned into a therapy session, Ciel went on. “There's no doubt Mandrake deserves a kick in the balls. Hell, he'd probably let me do it myself.” He paused, considering. “How about this: you tell me where the capital is, and I'll go give him that kick--”

Suddenly, a beam of light slammed into Ciel's automatic defense, blasting him into the dark gaps in the wood.

"Leave him to me," Xiahana La Louve smashed down like thunder, leaving Nuan to squawk at the ruined moment on the ground. "I will toast him."

Trying to stop Xia, Nuan exploded her Aura, breaking the spider golem attached to her leg and eliciting a "click!"

Another explosion rang through the night.