38 Chapter 38 - How fast can you run? (1/2)

Kenji ran as fast as Ash's feet could take him.

He sprinted across town, out into the countryside, and bolted right into the woods.

He arrived at the spot he was to meet Tenko, violet and the two yet to be met orphans under the willow tree...to find no one there.

Feeling all alone, Kenji stole a deep breath before pressing onward. Kenji had setup several fallback positions just in case, but if they really had a master assassin giving chase...

Kenji pushed himself even harder. He tried to dodge every bramble and bush but was snared all the same. His silky skin was caught in a rosebush, blood smearing the thorns, and his clothes were ripped by grasping vines.

Even injured, his clothes torn to shreds and his legs begging for a break...Kenji continued onward.

Eventually, he reached the next meeting point of a small forest clearing and found it deserted. With keen elvish eyesight, Kenji found the signs of a fire being hidden. Unfortunately, there was similarly the signs of others having sifted through the same pile of ash.

Spreading elvish fingers deep into the ash, he felt some warmth remaining. They couldn't have left long ago, and yet clearly someone had uncovered the firepit even sooner than that. Peering up, he tried to feel his way through the rattling of leaves, the tweeting of birds and the buzzing of insects to the enemy that stalked this same forest.

And while they knew monsters roamed this land, they had yet to know they too were hunted. Ash would not allow them to so much as touch a single hair of her beloved. Quickly the Sun elf dashed her cheeks with the ash that she was named after before filled her golden hair with leaves.

Pulling free her knives, Ash continued onward into the forest, eagre for even the slightest hint that her dearest Catelyn still lived. If she was hurt...if anyone had DARE hurt her...

Ash began to shake, the anger too powerful to be kept still. Like an engine, she bent the burning star of hatred for the humans in her belly towards powering her limbs forward and keep her senses keen.

After another agonizing sprint, Ash arrived at the third meeting place of a hill with an old watchtower atop it. There she found a band of ruffians, a dark-haired man in the midst of yelling while Ash listened behind a nearby tree. She wanted to attack them at once, to slit the hunters' throats and leave their heads for those that came looking.

Flashes of memory surged through her - the humans had taken her family first and placed it in the same prison they had managed for three hundred years. Then they had put the prisoners in charge and - Ash shook the memories from her head, shoving it again back into the recess of her memory. Focused once more, she listened.

”They can't be far now - you will not ruin me earning Jack's favour by coming up empty handed! I don't care you've lost the trail. Go. And. Find. It!” pulling out a pair of knives, the dark-haired man threatened his men to say otherwise.

Despite many of the brutes being larger far than him, and much more intimidating, all five rushed off with terror in their eyes. What made an impression upon Ash, however, was how silent they were. Like moving whispers, or shadows come to life, each of the five was clearly of the rogue class or some specialisation of it.

What they didn't know - what no one knew - was that every warden of the silent prison was something beyond a mere rogue. Ash didn't want to use this ability before now, it had seemed crude to allow any human - including the human 'Kenji' - to wield her ancestral powers. But now was not the time for that.

For Violet, Ash would swallow her pride.

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