There is a saying that a plan never survives first contact with the enemy. Things will never go to plan. However, that does not stop the fact that planning is valuable.

You can never predict exactly what the enemy is going to do. This is why ninjutsu trains a person to be flexible. You have to be constantly observing the situation and you need to be able to come up with an appropriate response in a fraction of a second. In order to do this, you need to develop a strong intuition.

This is what I had used with that Nier guy, the great fairy who had noticed Mr. Adderson. I had no real plan when I shot him with the wind kata, I only knew that something needed to be done immediately. I had no idea what I was doing when I decided to start freezing his armor and his arm. I have no idea if any of it was the best approach. However, I knew that so long as I looked like I knew what I was doing it would put off an intimidating air.

In truth, I would never have done any of that if I didn’t know Tia could heal it. But, I figured a show of force and showing I was willing to do stuff like that would make them all take me more seriously. Considering my small size and toddler appearance, not to mention Tia and the boys who were the same, we had to demonstrate a lot more force to be taken seriously than we would have to if we were adults.

I still saw visions of that man’s severed arm laying on the ground. It was grotesque and horrific, and I could scarcely believe I was the one to orchestrate all of that. At the time I was on some kind of high, but my mind kept coming back to the vision of the half frozen arm laying on the ground after Tia had casually tossed it aside drained of the blood she had used to heal Mr. Adderson’s hands.

That whole event was still a blur. Looking back, I can scarcely believe it was me who did all of that. It was even a blur afterwards when I went ahead to give Mr. Adderson a few reasonable predictions for what might happen when we executed the next phase of our plan. Like most good plans, it was simple. At least, it was for the ones among us who were presumably in the most danger. It was anything but simple for Mr. Adderson.

The plan was just for him and Nier to act as a distraction while the rest of us made a break for it. Simple as it gets. He, however, was going to have to actually talk to the dragon and the queen’s personal agent. The rendezvous scenario we had set up was a bit more simple. He would just go to a hill we agreed on where by that point we would have written a message in English with instructions. He would run from location to location while we stayed at a spot between the two and see if he was followed. His instructions would always have some wait time built in along with some meaningless tasks and having him stop at two or three fake locations along the way. This allowed us to set up the next location more easily. Sometimes, we would also stack some stones in strange arrangements as though they meant something just to throw the pursuers off.

Apparently they had some other people formerly from Earth in the capital, but I figured the chances of our pursuers knowing how to read English were small to start with and even if they could then we weren’t writing anything that would really create a problem anyway. If anything, I would prefer it if they knew how to read it. It would make things a lot easier if they went off ahead of him.

The part that was a complete blur to me was the instructions I gave him for interacting with the dragon and the queen’s agent who should be with him. I recall making some statements along the lines of ‘if he says this, it means this,’ and other such things, but it was a complete blur that has already faded from my mind. I have some vague recollections of him expressing some anger at the fey court at the prospect of staying there, thus all these rendezvous plans. It seems the score is roughly that he is irritated with me, but he actively hates these fey. I’m forced to wonder if his negative feelings toward me may all be just him blowing off steam and having to feel he is in control of something.

In all honesty, I really had no idea if I was right or wrong about any of the things rolling over in my head. It sounded right, but I knew there were about a hundred ways this could all go wrong. This is why, right now, I was about as nervous as I could possibly be. Somehow, things were going exactly as I had predicted.

“I don’t like it at all.” I said as me and Tia observed Mr. Adderson flying over head from the fourth location to the fifth. So far, we had spotted the five pursuers using invisibility magic. Perhaps spotted is not the correct term, but Tia had picked up five distinct “flavors” of energy on the air, all of them several levels weaker than that Nier guy.

According to what Eirlathion told us and Mr. Adderson had confirmed, fairies have light magic. If anything I have heard of might be able to produce invisibility, it would be light magic. This meant that the chance he was being followed by fairies was high.

Tia said that this somehow matched up exactly with what I had predicted. I vaguely recalled saying this, that they would probably send common fairies hoping they could disappear in the noise from Mr. Adderson’s aura. So, this more or less meant that everything was going exactly as I had predicted. The mere fact it was so close to my predictions was causing the warning bells to scream in my head. The first thing on my mind is that I had been read through by this agent of the queen, and he was showing me what I wanted to see.

The fairies were a distraction. The real guy in charge had to be one of these changelings who directly served the queen. However, we had never caught sight of him. It seemed he was actually good at suppressing his aura.

“Ok, that’s it.” I said. “We are going to have to just meet Mr. Adderson at the sixth location.”

“But we still haven’t found the leader you were looking for.” Tia complained.

“And we are not going to.” I said. “He is too good at hiding. But, he is also trying to actively conceal himself from us right now. Maybe we will have a chance to bluff him out if we meet with Mr. Adderson. Go with the plan we established earlier. I will do the rest. With any luck, he might be over-estimating us right now, and if he’s a fey then he’s used to being able to sense the emotions of others like we can. He can’t sense ours though. There’s a good chance he might be rattled. That’s when mistakes are made, which is where he will tip his hand and we can get information on him.” I gave my sister a reassuring look.

Although I just told her that, I had no confidence in what I just said being true. I had to assume this guy would see through any silly bluff I tried to throw out. However, at this rate, it was not serving us to remain concealed. We had to meet up with Mr. Adderson at some point. In all likelihood, I was over-estimating him just as much as he was probably doing for us. Well, better to over estimate than under estimate I suppose.

And so, we made our way to the next meeting point. It is a good thing we managed to convince Eirlathion to let us go by ourselves while him, mother, and the boys stayed at a safe location. It seemed he looked at me in a whole new light after that business with Nier. Now he looked at me with the same nervousness and fear he had when he looked at Levin while Mr. Adderson was around. The bad part is that straightening him out is not going to relieve the nervousness around me the same way it will for Levin.

At any rate, me and Tia were the best at spiritual concealment of anyone in the group. The boys were able to hide a good percentage of what they could put out, but they still stuck out like a sore thumb to anyone who was looking. About the only thing their technique could do is make them not seem so overpoweringly strong to the locals. It was only because we were moving on our own that we were able to stay hidden for this entire observation period.

“Do you think maybe we should wait until after dark?” Tia suggested, breaking my thoughts in the process. “We could just drop some instructions with the sixth message and wait at the seventh location. Tell him to wait for it to get dark before meeting us or something since we are able to see in the dark. We would have an advantage.”

“No, they would be expecting that.” I told her. “Besides, I do not think we will gain any actual advantage from it large enough to outweigh the detriment of putting Mr. Adderson in a weak spot. We could force the invisible fairies to reveal themselves if we make them use light magic, but we can already sense them anyway. More to the point though, the changeling should be able to turn into something with nocturnal senses. The one we really have to worry about will be just as well off as us. So, the best advantage we can get is springing the meeting at a time they are not expecting it.”

“Hmm…” Tia made a difficult face as we ran through the tall grass of the field with a movement pattern I had taught her earlier. It was a system of irregular short and medium length jumps, and never in a straight line. All the while, we attempt to disturb the grass as little as possible while watching where our feet are landing to avoid stepping on the roots of any particularly thick clumps of grass.

It is meant to mimic the movement patterns of a grazing animal, and we regularly have some extended stops built into the movement pattern as well. It is not the most efficient for progress, but right now stealth is the name of the game.

As we moved, I kept half an eye on Tia. She was clearly discontent with this entire thing. Perhaps I should say something.

“Are you alright with this?” I asked as I started to hear the wind picking back up again.

“Hmm…” She groaned. “Well, it’s just… you remember how you said our emotions couldn’t be sensed? Well, I can sense yours. It’s because of how… well… how our last lives ended.” Tia said.

“Huh. You didn’t mention that before.” I said in a dismissive sounding tone. “So, I guess you are not convinced by false confidence, huh? Well, it’s true I have no idea whether or not this will work. It’s just that we’re not going to get anywhere just continuing like this. We have to make a move, and this is the right time. These are the best conditions I feel we can create.”

“I know, I know.” Tia said. “Also, I get it. You told Levin and Rolwen all about how ninjas like to think backwards. ‘A ninja is the type of person who will quietly leak whispers about how they can easily conceal themselves in darkness and slit a person’s throat from behind, all so that they can be more successful when they approach their target in broad daylight and stab them in the gut in the middle of a crowded street.’” She quoted. “I understand what you are trying to do, all that playing with expectations stuff and all that. But… That’s not what I was actually talking about.”

“Heh. Oh, are you talking about mental stress or something?” I waved her off. “Are you really a former bronze-age goddess?”

“Divine beast.” She corrected.

“Whatever.” I said. “Either way, you’re pretty innocent for someone who has lived back in those days to be worrying about how I’m handling seeing someone’s arm severed.”

“Hmm…” Tia gave an irritated groan that seemed as though she was saying ‘that’s not what I was talking about and you know it.’

“Uhh… anyway, Tia. Once we get somewhere safe, we are definitely going to have to talk about a lot of things. Now is not the time though, so it will have to wait till then.” I said. After throwing that back at her, I kept my eyes ahead and to the ground as I put more of my mental effort into moving through the grass.

“Yes we are.” I heard my sister’s reply with a slight edge to it.

I tried to dismiss that clear accusation as best I could and just kept on focusing on what was in front of me. I also made a mental note to revisit the idea that her usual childish demeanor might just be all an act.