The Prince's Letters

The side of the house exploded in a violent shower of brick and chalk, scattering tiles from the ceiling onto the street. The startled shriek from the passerby was lost on the silhouette that materialized in the gaping hole, waving a hand in front of his face and coughing.

A handful of people paused their life to watch events unfold. Though a hole had just appeared where there had not been one before, their morbid curiosity and the human need to meddle made them stay where they were. A mother and her son watched with wide eyes, candy forgotten in the boy's sticky hand. Two gentlemen had also paused their conversation about the teenage girl who was rather dangerously dressed considering she was in public. To be honest, she seemed the most interested and the least afraid, pushing up the lip of her hat to see more clearly.

As the dust settled, shapes could be more clearly distinguished. The first to appear was a young man. He was handsome, with blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Slender and well-dressed, he must have been in his early twenties.

"Oh drat, my clothes," he muttered to himself, his complaints audible even over the clang of swords.

Swords?

The gentlemen onlookers exchanged glances and strode away quickly towards town, while for the mother, who was not as experienced in terms of combat and sounds so associated with fighting, it hadn't dawned yet.

Atsushi soon made amends for that. "Ah, you should probably get out of here. Maybe call a medic or something. Kazu, how many dead?" He turned to look behind him, then turned back, waving down the woman with his fingers raised. "At least eighteen so far – nineteen - hey wait, come…back." His arms dropped to his side as the woman hustled her son away. Atsushi hopped down to the ground and frowned after her.

"You shouldn't hang around. The police will come soon." The girl peered at Atsushi, tucking her long red hair behind her ear. Her white dress was short, just barely reaching her knees and was opaque – see through if it didn't have a dark crimson underskirt with it. She wore a pair of boots laced up to her calf and had a matching sunhat that shaded her face. Atsushi guessed at an age. Seventeen? Eighteen?

"Pardon?"

She kicked a stone that had escaped the iron fence, back into the bushes surrounding the house. "There were a couple men, they headed towards town. I'm guessing they're going to get the police. And if they didn't, that mother must've. Why would you say how many guys you've killed?"

Atsushi snorted, "I didn't. I just said how many dead there are."

She ignored that, pressing her face to the fence to look deeper at the hole. Almost immediately, she snapped back, as a body was hurled out and crashed into the fence. Atsushi's petty annoyance was satisfied at her shock. 'That'll teach you to ignore me,' he thought to himself smugly.

Her surprise was swallowed quicker than he would have liked as she looked through the bars at the body, lying in a crumpled mess in the bushes. The man's arm was at a strange angle, and judging by the way he lay face down in the prickly brambles…

"Twenty," she announced, looking up at the blonde. The blonde man looked as if he wanted to ask something, but before he could, another figure emerged from the hole. "Oh, you're much more intimidating. You must be Kazu." He was. Intimidating, that is - his sword covered in a red sheath that could only be blood. His dark clothes were relatively plain and surprisingly clean, though a few spatters of crimson had landed on his collar.

Kazu shot Atsushi a look as if to say, "Who the heck is this?" The other man gave him a blank look and Kazu moved on, rubbing his cheek with a sleeve. "Make that twenty-two, the rest gave up."

For how little work he had done, Atsushi seemed strangely self-satisfied. His gun had long since been put away, though it was missing three bullets that had all found their mark. "Slow learners, huh?"

"Stupid, more like." He made a face as he dusted his clothes, grimacing when his fingers came away red. When he gave up trying to rub away the blood on his clothes, he bent down to slide his sword around, cleaning off the blood before it dried.

Both men had forgotten the girl's presence, but she reminded them by whacking a piece of rubble against the iron fence a few times. The sound made Kazu jump and Atsushi glare. "Hey, I wasn't lying about the police, you know. We better get out of here before they come."

Her reminder got them both in motion - Kazu sweeping his sword over his head and into its sheath – but as her words dawned, they rolled to a stop. "'We'?"

She ignored them, flicking her hair back over her shoulder and gesturing. "C'mon, hop the fence. Hurry up!" They exchanged a glance and complied without another word. Vaulting over the fence was easy enough, but before they had even touched ground, the girl was off running, heading straight towards the town.

Kazu has his misgivings, but Atsu wasn't complaining and judging from experience, that was enough to keep the man silent. Running into town – towards the police headquarters – seemed dangerous, but if they were quick, they could get away from the scene before the force arrived. And at that point, it would be easier to blend into the town without any problems.

The girl was quick, dodging down one street after another; Kazu found himself just looking for her hat, bopping up and down in front of him. Every so often, she would stop short, look in all directions like a wary quarry, and then she was off again.

"Like a rabbit," Kazu muttered, as she stopped for the umpteenth time and then waved at them both to hurry. Atsu snickered, and swallowed his amusement as they neared.

They had stopped in the middle of a network of houses and tiny businesses. The main road was a few streets over, and as far as Kazu could tell, it sounded peaceful enough. The girl grinned and opened her mouth to speak.

"Good work."

For a breath, they were quiet, exchanging glances and silently confirming one thing: none of them had spoken. Kazu spun, sword drawn.

The man approaching had his hands clasped together as if he had paused mid-clap. In the afternoon sunlight, the buttons and gold lining on his clothes glittered, though that paled in comparison to the shine of his cordial smile. His black hair was neatly kept, drifting in front of his eyes from under his glossy black cap that sported an emblem of a gold chrysanthemum.

'I didn't even feel his presence!' Kazu thought to himself, confused. Forget about standard police, what was an officer of the Imperial Force doing here?

The sound of synchronized footfalls made him tear his eyes away to confirm the worst: the officer's squad. A cluster of ten men blocked off the other escape. Any randomly-chosen trained soldier was completely different from a mercenary picked up from the dock. Plus, he had that rabbit-girl to worry about now. Kazu's grip tightened on the hilt of his sword, but he never dropped the nonchalant pose he had. "What brings the IF here? So pathetic they have you picking up random folks now?" He had never heard of the IF being called in for two people. Even if these guys had come to take them in for the ruckus caused at Froggie's place, they should be getting medals for their exterminating work.

The officer took another step closer, drawing both Kazu's sword and Atsu's gun in his direction. That same harmonious smile was plastered on his face, painfully unfitting for the situation. "Aww, don't do that. How about you two just come with me peacefully?" His smile faltered for a second, revealing a look that made Kazu instinctively drop into a guarded stance. Then it was back in full force, "Don't make me take out my weapon, please. I like to avoid violence."