With measured haste, Ciel began his investigation into the case of one missing Nuan Yulong.
First, he reached the common conclusion: Nuan didn't go out without a fight.
From the nickless edges of the severed trees, he could imagine how it happened. Nuan rushed in with an invisible blade that missed her assailant by mere inches. From that spot, he imagined the permutation of movement; a mysterious assailant rolling away and launching a counter.
"Not even a piece of cloth was left behind," he pondered, tracing the line of the theoretical counter with his finger. His eyes spotted the first evidence.
Ciel crept over to a nearby log. He took out a rubber glove and tweezers; with a careful squeeze, he dislodged a needle.
"Probably poisoned," he smelled the disposable weapon, scentless as expected. "Need to run a test on this. But how did he, or she, take that girl down?"
Ciel went over the scars of combat scattered on the ground to pursue that answer. Many of them had a common cause: Nuan's AURA BLADE. However, one mark stood out—a circular patch of clear earth patterned in a spiral.
"This should be Mandrake's kid's attack," he noted how it was the only one that existed. "Or maybe this is a defensive technique. Under that assumption, she must have thrown at least a dozen attacks—" He momentarily stopped at a realization "—but only one defense," he finished.
Finally, the investigation came to a conclusion: Nuan Yulong had the upper hand, but her mysterious kidnapper used an unnatural method outside of his needle to defeat her. This particular method managed to get past Nuan's defense and knock her out.
To Ciel's surprise, his answer arrived with a wing beat of a giant bird.
Turning to the sound, he witnessed the avian steed flying past his head. A figure shielded by a cloak rode upon the bird, with a girl in black kimono tied over his shoulder. But what drew Ciel's gaze was the symbol on his back: two feathers of darkness formed a ring around the orb; an eye he remembered well.
"Balor?" Ciel muttered. He pulled out a large rifle created of metal and advanced inscription. Dialing the weapon to maximum power, he took aim through the magnified sight.
Their gazes met. Ciel watched the masked kidnapper realizing he had a sniper aiming at his back. Mouthing something, the title which elicited its worst fear, the masked figure immediately shielded himself with the unconscious girl.
"Coward," he said, disgruntledly lowering his rifle. "A servant sure doesn't fall far from the master."
Safe from Ciel's wrath, the bird and its damned master left with the hostage for a place far from his intervention. Meanwhile, the inventor tossed his rifle back into its storage. With grudging acceptance, he swallowed the reality; his lead had been absconded to the wind.
Only one option remained for him: find his alternative guide.
"But she is going to be pissed at me," he allowed himself to whine to the moon for just once.
---
The downpour in the morning swallowed the turbulent night. In the haphazardly ransacked camp, resembling a pile of broken boxes of supplies and sticks, a girl with platinum blonde hair sat. Raindrops pelted her from above like a volley of arrows.
Beside her, the tide crashed in an octave, drowning Xia's sniffing.
Xia wiped her tears, or should it be rain, with the palm of her hand. Contrary to all logic, the young woman felt grateful for the storm. Each descending condensation worked magnificently to hide her tears, while the howling wind and waves masked her bawling cries. She shakily smiled at the cloud. Part of her wished the benevolent skies would be kind enough to smite her, ending her misery right on this rock.
She had heard there was a time in life when a person collided with rock bottom. Now, the Crown Princess understood such notion to her soaking bones. Her men had absconded to who-knows-where, taking everything in the camp with them. Her favorite masterwork armor had been reduced to rusting scrap. These losses had all happened in a single day, topped off with her mission being called impossible by a demon who had spawned out of nowhere.
"Fine!" Xia screamed at the heavens. "Smite me, O'almighty smiter. You have already kicked me all this way down, so save me a final dignity and finish the job!" Streams of water endlessly splattered her puffy cheek. "Why do you leave me alive? What more are you saving for me?"
Her answer came when the overwhelming rain was blocked. Eyes wetted and skin soaked, Xia heard the rain hit the ceramic above, where it collected into threads of fate.
She turned back. A familiar lab coat and steely pair of eyes met her gaze. Ciel hunched over. The weight of the storm pressed upon him, but he still held the umbrella for her.
"Stop whining," he said, iron-like hair covering the contour of failure. "If you'll wail at misfortune in rain, then find shade to contemplate pain."
Xia heard that cold statement, her soul unwilling. She scampered back to her two feet, swaying. Right arm arched back for a hook, she swung.
Ciel evaded the blow with nominal shift, his neck moving a lone digit. He watched the girl slip and fall on that rock. His hand reached out, catching her burning body. He felt Xia's stochastic exhale, each particle of air laced with heaves of fever.
"You idiot," Ciel spoke to the feverish woman, who had collapsed into his embrace. "Don't tell me you spent all night crying in the rain."
The only response he received was angry and sick respiration, packing the desire to avenge her lost armor.
Resigned, Ciel lobbed the girl over his shoulder; wherein the Crown Princess grunted mightily to complain. Alas, she couldn't do much, depleted of both power and health. He glanced at the skeleton of the previous occupation and left it all behind. The inventor carried the groaning girl to the more even road, refusing to debate his similarity to the kidnapper from last night.
Barely conscious and raided by heated ailment, Xia attempted to flail her way free but muscle refused to comply. To her dread, she actually felt comfortable hanging from this bastard's back like a potato. Red faced from fever, and maybe something more, she chewed her lips out of the man's sight.
But Xia's shocking discovery had only begun.
Ciel flicked his lab coat like a conjurer who brought the shadow. Darkness splashed from his cloth, tainting the ground in inky texture. From that patch of black, a sleek four-wheel vehicle emerged and opened its door. Its interior lit up with blue light and supported with a comfy cushion where he laid the delirious girl down.
"Residence, Ciel-input,” the inventor ordered his automatically driving car. "Find the nearest settlement and park a hundred meters from it. Go for the infiltration setting."
"Order received," replied the automatic speaker and all-terrain wheels rotated.
As a royalty for a nation rich in magical research, Xia often read many papers of the foremost professor in artifacts, but what was presented before her had blown away even those marvelous conceptions. In a single day, she went from considering a magical sword and golem-based carriage as a peak of technology to witnessing a self-driving car.
"Who are you?" she whispered, but her answers were returned in the form of a jab from the syringe.
"That is going to make you better tomorrow," Ciel answered.
Xia's mouth twitched, numbed by the fast-acting drug. Her eyelids closed as she drifted into the dreamland.
Scenery turned into a blur. The car drove itself for a few minutes, avoiding all the passersby using the nightly dirt road until they found themselves parked in a derelict town. It was a mismanaged collection of wooden huts, and guards easily susceptible to bribes. Not wanting to raise an issue, he collected his ride, and pretended to be carrying the fainted little sister who experienced a bad hangover in the rain. Once he reached a motel, a charismatic payment with a piece of shiny stone got him the room for the night.
Ciel investigated the mite-infested room they received and sighed. Part of him was sorely disappointed with how Mandrake ran his civilizations. No one bothered calling him for questioning. Apathy reflected in this very motel's rotted hospitality, while ignorance plagued the unpaved road.
Despite his frustration, he settled the girl on his back to the nearby wall, contemplating how to approach this.
Stripped of her damaged armor, the girl was left with only greaves and a black coverall. Her rain-soaked clothes clung to her, unable to diminish her regal beauty. The rising sun framed her hair in solid gold, giving every contrast a new dimension.
Ciel produced a clean mattress and a blanket from his almighty coat. "Should I cut off her clothes?" he muttered. "I mean she needed to get changed--" he stopped in the middle of taking out a cutter "--or not. I already wrecked her armor, so seeing her in the underwear will be even worse. But she couldn't get any madder at me…"
Ciel removed her greaves and produced a cloth dryer and heater. "Who am I kidding?" he muttered, tucking Xia into the makeshift bed. He turned to the light seeping through broken windows. "Just because I'm stuck with that Authority doesn't mean I need it," he said, knowing his target could hear him.
Yet, as Ciel settled down to guard the girl, he couldn't help but wonder about how inevitable his path seemed.
