The Princess With The Jet Black Hair

[Fiore's Castle, one of the training rooms]

Yukiko and Emily were sparring; they have been going at each other for quite sometime now and the two were in drastically different state. Emily was covered in bruises, exhausted and overall hanging on dear life. On the contrary, Yukiko looked as pretty as always and honestly, she bȧrėly broke a sweat.

Taking a sharp breath of air, Emily abruptly threw a punch towards Yukiko. But, she dodged it swiftly and in turn, she grabbed Emily's arm and tucked it behind her back, before pushing her onto the ground.

Despite being the princess, Yukiko did not bother to go easy on her.

In pain, Emily could not help but to give the ground a couple of frantic taps to save her arm from breaking. That prompted Yukiko released her grasp, leaving Emily, who was perspiring and tired, on the floor. She took a couple of gasps of oxygen as she flipped herself around, laying on her back.

"That's my fiftieth win." Yukiko announced as she wiped the few drops of sweat at the bottom of her chin with the back of her hand. "But, I see some improvements... I guess."

Immediately, she jolted up, "Really?"

Her friend shrugged as she tossed a dry towel to her.

She caught the towel and used it to wipe her face. After a couple of wipes, she threw the towel aside and shot up to her feet, "Okay, one more round!"

Hearing her, Yukiko instinctively grimaced at the sight of her enthusiasm, "What...? No. You're covered in bruises. I don't want to be beheaded for bruising you too much."

"What are you talking about? I'm not covered in bru--" She paused as she stared down at her body, which was indeed covered with a couple bruises here and there, "Well... I can bȧrėly feel them."

Yukiko raised one of her eyebrows with a hint of disbelief, "Really?" She then went over to her and poked in one of her bruises.

A stinging pain went through as she flinched momentarily.

"It doesn't hurt that bad anymore, I recover fast." Just then, she switched the topic, "So, one more round?"

"Fine." Yukiko replied as she got into her stance, "Just this last time."

"Yeah!" She said as she quickly did the same.

As soon as the were back in their spanning state, the two started to walk slowly in circles as they maintained eye contact with one another. After half a minute or so, Yukiko made the first move, she went for a kick aimed for the side of Emily's face. Fortunately, she blocked it with her forearm and grabbed her partner's leg to restrict her movements. Even though she had one of her legs in Emily's hands, Yukiko could still balance perfectly.

Emily then yanked her leg, hoping that Yukiko will lose her balance. However, she did not. Instead, she jumped and used her other leg to give another kick to the other side of her face.

Unable to react to the sudden attack, Emily just stood there, seeing that flying coming closer to her face while her mind echoed one and one word only.

"Shit."

Looks like it was 'get a free bloody nose' day.

Emily fell to the ground, while grabbing onto her nose. With her head hung down, she was in that posture for a good few seconds.

However, Emily did not respond.

This left Yukiko no choice, but to check on her. She walked towards the fallen Emily, and called out to her once more, "Answer me, don't scare me like--"

Suddenly, Emily crouched and dragged one of her legs across the floor, hitting one of Yukiko's ankles, which was closest to her foot. Yukiko instantly fell onto the hard ground upon impact, "--That."

Emily pushed herself up and cheered as she let out her hand to Yukiko, "I can't believe that worked!"

Yukiko grabbed her hand and pulled herself up, "...I did not expect that."

"Me too." She smiled, "Is that my win?"

"Well, technically, you went down first..." She said, "However, I'll give you that, since you caught me by surprise."

Emily's eyes lit up almost instantly, completely ignoring the blood that was running down her nose, "Really?"

"Yeah." She confirmed with an emotionless face as she headed for the door, "Let's go to the infirmary, your nose is still bleeding and we should do something about those bruises."

The two girls then headed to the infirmary as Emily was constantly pinching her nose, hoping that the bleeding will miraculously stop.

*****

[Fiore's Castle, Infirmary]

"Someone is coming in." Lavi told everyone in the infirmary as his sharp ears picked up the voices of two girls.

"Yeah." Ben agreed, "...I think it's Emily and Yukiko."

"Hide you two." Lavi instructed as he looked over to Damian and Beck.

In the nick of time, Mary immediately pulled the curtains to cover two individual beds that Damian and Beck were resting on. Just then, the door clicked and it swung open. Luckily, the two injured guys were hidden at the last second.

"Yukiko and Emily! Why are you here?" Mary asked nervously.

"Oh, hey." Emily's voice was slightly nasally than usual because she was pinching her nose, "I didn't know you guys are here. Why are you guys? Are you injured?" She asked, even though she was clearly injured, she was being oblivious to her injures.

"Oh yeah, can you help me stop the bleeding?" Emily asked as she released his fingers, "It's not stopping."

Upon release, blood began to gush out. Seriously. It was like a leaking tap... Except it was blood that was making it way out instead of water.

"Yeah, of course." Mary replied.

She then sat Emily down on one of the beds and asked her to pinch the bridge of her nose, instead of her whole nose, while she hurried to get a bottle of ointment for her bruises.

"Yukiko, what happened to Emily?" Mary asked as she cringed at the sight of Emily's wounds.

"We were training and I gave her the bruises and that bloody nose."

Mary looked at her with judgmental eyes as Yukiko spoke, which caused her to cross her arms over her ċhėst as she continued, "...By accident."

"Hmm." Mary let out, "Sureee."

"It's the truth." Yukiko answered back as she narrowed her eyes at her.

"Umm..." Mary panicked as she looked over to Lavi and Ben, winking towards them, hoping that it would prompt them to say something. Lavi rubbed to the back of his neck before he spoke, "...Just checking out the curtains, you know? See how it's like when it's in action."

"...Oookay, then. You do you." Emily replied, despite feeling suspicious. Mary started treating Emily's wounds, as she continued, "Oh yeah, I haven't seen Beck around. Is he... alright?"

The room went silent for a moment.

She noticed the silence and questioned, "Is there something wrong? I mean, he's fine isn't he?"

"Y-Yeah." Mary blurted out, "Of course!"

"That's good, is he on a mission?" She asked once more.

"Yes, he is." Ben suddenly jumped in. "Why you missed him already?" He teased with a grin.

Emily's face flushed with embarrassment as she averted her eyes. It took her a quite a while to compose herself before she could reply, "I don't know, I just felt kind of... You know, weird? Like something bad is happening or going to happen?"

Again, the silence.

Slowly, Ben walked up to her and patted her head, "You have really good intuition."

"Wait, so I'm right? Did something happen?" She immediately shot back, "Is everyone alright?"

"Who knows? Don't worry about it though." Ben answered with a smile.

"How can I not worry about anything? If something happens to you guys, it wouldn't be good."

"Just... Don't worry about it." Ben repeated. Even though it was just those few words, it was oddly convincing.

"...Fine. But if things get REALLY bad, you need to tell me."

"Of course." He answered.

*****

After a few wrapping of bandages here and there, Mary was done. "Okay Emily, it's all done. Don't overwork yourself, alright?"

"Well, you guys overwork yourselves way too much, how can I not do the same?" Emily mumbled quietly as she looked down at her bandages.

No one responded to her, because what she said about them overworking was actually true.

Although she said that, she quickly changed her response to break the awkward silence, "Just... kidding." She forced out, "I'll try my best to not do that."

With that, she proceeded to make her way to the door, "I'll see you guys later at dinner then! In the meantime, I'll go look for Zack and Kate."

Yukiko looked over to her with a raised brow, "For?"

"Um... nothing much, I'm just visiting them for fun." She replied with a slight smile, before heading out.

*****

Just when Emily was not around, Mary drew back the curtains to reveal the two injured guys, "That was really close."

Yukiko noticed them and sighed, "So, you guys were trying to hide them. No wonder things were a little sketchy."

"Why did you bring Emily here? She almost found out about all this, you know that?" Mary questioned with a hint of anger.

"I didn't know that you guys will be here. I left early." She explained, "...Because of someone." When she said that, she shifted her gaze towards Ben.

Noting her look, Ben walked towards her, "Hey, I've already said it. I'm sorry about the 'assassin' thing. Don't be mad, alright?"

After hearing his apology, she just whipped her head away from him, without acknowledging anything. Lavi came up behind him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, "I'm sorry to say this but, I think she's still mad..." He followed up with an exaggerated sigh.

Ben then dramatically shook his hand in despair and breathed out, "Why doesn't my charming ability work on the girls here...?"

Damian let out a soft laugh, "...Pfft-- You guys are more lively than I thought, I can understand why Emily likes you guys so much."

Everyone in the room turned and looked at him as if he was crazy.

"What?" He asked as he felt a little weird having their eyes on him.

"She... likes us?" Mary asked him as her eyes shimmered, urging him to give her an immediate response.

"Yeah, she do, a lot. I think that's the reason why she is working so hard. She wants to become stronger to protect you all - her friends. I thought Emily has changed, especially seeing how she isn't smiling as often as she used to, but deep inside, she's still the same. A girl that wants to protect her friends and her loved ones at all cost." Damian stated truthfully, "She actually the type who won't make a lot of friends, but once she do, she'll treasure them for life. She will even go as far as to sacrifice her life for them, which is something cool and all, but I also don't like her for that."

There was a moment of silence, before Beck broke it, "...You sure know a lot about her."

"I mean, I did live with her for quite some time. Around seven years, maybe?" He stated nonchalantly as if it was not something significant. "We basically did everything together. Studying, playing, eating, bathi--"

He paused when he realised how inappropriate to say 'bathing' when Beck was around. He cleared his throat and justified, "That's when we were really young... So, don't pay too much attention to it."

Noticing that he was the one Damian was indirectly speaking to him, Beck looked away and nodded, feeling slightly embarrassed.

Damian then let out a sigh as memories began to swept over him. "Besides, she is the one that saved me, not physically but, mentally. But... that's a story for another day."