The Princess With The Jet Black Hair

[Fiore's castle, Ballroom - Night]

"What was that...?" Emily thought as she heard a loud crash sound coming from the outside.

It was so loud that that the entire ballroom heard it. At this moment, the guests started having their own conversations among themselves to hide how anxious they were actually feeling.

"...Is there a fight going on?"

"Are we in danger...?"

"Maybe... it's a bad idea to come here."

Just as they were chattering among themselves, the king cleared his throat, silencing the entire room. Jai and Anna entered from the large wooden door and made their way to the Anderson.

Jai whispered something into his ear, causing him to say something back.

After that small exchange of theirs, Anderson finally spoke, "There's nothing to worry about, it was from the kitchen. Someone accidentally overheat the oven and it malfunctioned."

He then looked over to the Yumemiya family and gave a nod to them. In which the head of the family nodded back as they stood up with their respective musical instruments and made their way towards a stage right at the back of the ballroom.

Once they reached, the king announced, "As of now, we should enjoy a performance by the renowned musically talented family, the Yumemiya family."

"Wow, they all have white hair and... They all looked equally attractive." Emily's mind commented as she scanned through the family.

Looking from left to right, she spotted a familiar white haired girl holding on a violin. Grinning, she folded her arms in amusement, "I didn't know she could play the violin."

Similarly, Yukiko noticed Emily and her stupid grin that was hanging at the side of her lips amongst the sea of people. She furrowed her eyebrows momentarily at her, before shaking her head to regain her composure.

Once she did, the family started playing a beautiful melody that Emily has never hear before. It was rather soothing and calm. As the music travelled throughout the room, people started to calm down and forget about what had happened previously.

This was definitely a spell of some sort... Or maybe they just knew their music well, till at extent that they knew how to control one's emotions through a melody.

Well, whatever it was, Emily still enjoyed that performance of theirs.

As the beautiful tune danced around the ballroom, almost putting everyone in a relaxed and carefree mood, her vigilant eyes managed to catch the sight of Jai bowing to her dad, before leaving the room.

"Something fishy is definitely going on."

*****

Jai walked out of the ballroom and entered the dimly lit hallway. He had already tried making contact with Ethan, but he did not respond.

Ethan is always responsive and alert. When someone asked for him, he will reply immediately, without a single hesitation.

However, today, he did not reply despite Jai's countless attempts to contact him.

He took his last turn to a corner and made his way to the entrance as he suspected that the sound came from there.

Surely enough, he saw five unconscious men and one of which was Ethan.

The four guards' bodies were laying by the entrance, while Ethan's body was found at the hallway after the entrance, which closer to the ballroom.

Grimacing, he squatted down and checked on his unconscious friend.

His clothes were burnt and so was his skin. There was a distinct black and blue bruise around his neck, which told Jai that he was strangled. Shifting his gaze to his face, he saw his eyes which were rolled back and the initial glint in them had already disappeared.

That was a disheartening sight.

Compared to all eight of the members, Ethan was the least gifted. He was born with an extremely frail body, yet his element was something aggressive.

When he was younger, his body could not take the speed that he was going and the energy that he was exerting. In other words, his skin and muscles would tear whenever he used his ability.

However, he trained his body such that he was strong enough to fully utilise his ability. Of course, training was not easy for him. If a regular ability user needed to train a hour a day, he would need to train five hours in order to yield the same results as he or she would receive.

So, seeing him like this was upsetting, especially after all the hard work he had put in.

Pursing his lips tightly, he grabbed his wrist to feel his pulses. There was nothing at first, but slowly, he could feel a pulse... A very faint one.

"He's bȧrėly alive, I need to call him a medic immediately."

He carefully lifted Ethan up and went to the infirmary, so that he will be in a much safer place, "I'll get Mary."

Immediately, he clamped his eyes shut and sent his thoughts to Anna, "Anna, get Mary. Ethan is in really bad shape."

Once that was done, he debated on whether he should tell Emily about this. Part of him argued that Ethan was a member working under Emily, so she deserved the right to know about it. But, the other part, told him that she should not know about this now, since the ceremony was about to start very soon. Indubitably, this would affect her performance.

He thought about it some more and decided not to tell her. After all, her ceremony was more important.

From there, he sent his thoughts to the king, queen and the others, besides Emily.

"Ethan was attacked."

*****

Emily noticed that Anna and Mary left the room hurriedly, and if her eyes was not playing any tricks on her, they actually looked anxious. "Is there something wrong...?"

Anna and Mary rushed to the infirmary once they were out the ballroom.

"How did that happened?" Mary asked with her words dripping with urgency and concern.

To the contrary, Anna was bȧrėly showing any sort of emotion as she replied, "I don't know, I've just heard it from Jai. He said that Ethan is not a good shape."

"I hope he's fine." Mary tried to be as positive as she could, but the expression that she was showing suggested otherwise.

Anna, on the other hand, wanted to be as realistic as she could. So, without sugar coating her words, she answered bluntly, "...I doubt he is. Jai seemed to be a little off when he told me that."

That statement just extinguished any speck of hope she had.

Before they knew it, they had reached. Mary swung open the door to see the Jai with a concern look on his face.

Looking at his face, she panicked, "...Where is he?"

"There." Jai pointed at the last bed nearest to the window.

Mary rushed over as Jai and Anna followed. Mary was shocked when she saw the state Ethan was in, he had already bloodied the bed sheets and he was battered as terrible bruises covered his entire body. Blood was trickled down his forehead and lips as he laid there, unconscious.

"How...?" Mary asked. Ethan was not someone weak at combat, instead, he was pretty good at it because of his speed. "So, how the hell was he defeated till he reached this state? Surprise attack? No, that's not it. He is always on guard, there's no way..."

"I don't know, I've found him near the entrance, with four other unconscious guards." Jai explained as he folded his arms.

Mary checked Ethan's condition.

"This is so bad... His arms and legs are fractured. He had a couple of broken ribs, which had already punctured his lungs. His throat is almost completely destroyed. And these burns... How vile." Mary huffed as she immediately scurried to grab the things she needed and started treating her friend at the best she could. Mary asked Jai and Anna to leave her alone for a while, as she needed to concentrate.

Ethan's life was on the line and it was in her hands.

Nodding, the both of them left, leaving the medic alone.

*****

"Where are you going?" Anna asked Jai as he walked away from her once they reached outside.

"I need to find the guy, he is probably in the castle right now." Jai answered with a slight hint of anger in his voice, which was rare.

Anna did not said anything and let Jai go as she stood outside the infirmary, waiting for Mary to be done.

As Jai walked to through the hallway that lead to entrance, he felt a presence. It was faint, but it was there. He stopped and called out, which sounded more like a demand, "You can come out now."

At first there was no response, but suddenly a dagger cut through the air, going for Jai's back.

However, just the attack was about to reach him, it was repelled away, without him moving a single muscle or even looking.

He turned to meet with someone in a beige clock and he was wearing white mask with a smiley face on it.

"Wow, you're strong, aren't you?" The attacker stated as he walked causally towards Jai.

Jai said nothing.

"Not much of a talker, huh. Well, just like the other guy that I met just now."

That just ticked Jai off, "Who is that other guy?"

"Oh, the one with the really dark blue hair. He was pretty fast too, but I was faster." The guy smirked, "I admired his loyalty and perseveration though."

"So, you're the one who did that to Ethan?" Jai questioned sternly as he shot a glare at the guy.

"You're scary, you know that?" He scrunched his eyebrows, not that Jai could see it anyway, "But, yeah. It was hard to put him down."

"I see, that's good to know. I did want to hurt the wrong person." Jai chuckled disturbingly as he dropped his head.

"Hurt me? You're underestimating me, right?" The guy smirked as he launched himself to Jai as he swung his sharp dagger, "I don't like--"

Yet again, before he could touch him, he was repelled away. This time he flew back and hit the wall at the end of the hallway, "--that."

Jai walked slowly to him as the guy stood up, shaking his head a couple times to prevent himself from passing out. Once he was done, he dusted himself and prepared for another attack.

Jai placed one of his hand out, and moved it up. The body of his attacker followed his gesture and he was lifted high above the ground. "Hey, hey, hey, dudeeeee. Calm down."

Jai just shot him a disgusted look, without any response.

Just then, the guy in the beige cloak remembered, "Oh yeah, you must be one of the guys that Jason warned me about. Specimen S11."

Jai's heart dropped to his stomach when he heard that, but his expression remained unchanged, "...How did they know?"

Memories of his past flooded his mind. Followed by a wave of rage that swept over him, making his blood boil. He tried to remain composed, but he felt like no matter what he does, he would still lose himself to his anger.

Agitated, he clenched his fist, causing the guy to be strangled.

Wheezing and gagging, he tried to pull that invisible force away. But of course, it did not work.

His attacker was clearly at the verge of dying, but Jai did not care. Instead, he just tightened his fist further.

Slowly going back to who he once was, he started laughing hysterically at his useless effort to get away from him - The Monster.

And the one who kills... Purely for entertainment.