Nobody noticed him. And nobody was paying any attention to him since he was with Rose. Everybody watched from a distance as Rose hammed her melody with a smile on her face and her eyes shut a bit.
Mathew moved away from her because he couldn't stand her delusions that Hajime was her little brother. He stood by a giant tree with leaves like clouds that cover the heavens. Its branches are like thorns, and its bark is like the back of a snapping alligator. But with the appearance of the tree, it wasn't a threat to anyone standing near it or touching it.
Of course. Mathew was touching the tree with his bare hands. In his eyes, the tree was just another huge tree that needed to be trimmed down for wood.
From a distance, not far from where the tree was, Xou was sneaking around some carriages which the imperial soldiers or knights brought with them to carry the people they've captured in.
He was looking for Hajime to see if he might be in one of them.
Most of the carriages were filled with wood, and these carriages looked old, like they had just been sitting around in the rain for years without anyone mending them. These carriages were at the end of the other carriages, which looked like they were used to transport animals.
Even though Xou hadn't found anyone in the back carriages. He continued to move forward, still searching.
He climbed a tree while his focus was still on the carriages and jumped on top of one of them. The moment he made contact with the roof of the carriage, his landing produced a loud, crushing sound.
"Huh?"
The sound grabbed the attention of one of the knights who was nearby this carriage.
He turned to check on what had produced the sound with his guard up and looking around to see if maybe the thing that produced the sound was moving around.
Show on top of the carriage, glanced down at the guard, and kept quiet by restricting his body motion. The guard looked left, right, and in front of him with total focus in his eyes while his facial expression was serious and with no doubt that there was something trying to get into the carriages.
Suddenly, as he was approaching the carriage slowly, something fell from a carriage that was behind the carriage Xou was hiding.
The knight's attention switched from the carriage in front of him to the carriage behind it. The sound also surprised Xou, so he turned swiftly to see what could've made the sound.
His heart started racing for a moment, and the sweat almost started running down his face.
"What was that?" He wondered while his attention was still focused on what produced the sound.
The knight approached the back of the carriage, which Xou was on top of slowly, his weapon ready for any surprise attacks.
In the blink of an eye, two squalls fell out of the carriage while fighting over an acorn the size of a pomelo.
The moment the squalls touched the ground, they surprised the knight, and he took a step back and fell while still holding onto his weapon.
Xou flinched, surprised that his body started producing some dark blue smoke, but in a small amount.
'This smoke was just his aura in a visible form.'
He gazed at the two squalls fighting with a death look in his stare that was enough to grab their attention. The two squalls froze for a moment as they looked up onto the carriage that Xou was on and without thinking of it. They ran away into some bushes, leaving the acorn they were fighting for.
The night just stared at them as they took off.
"What just happened?"
The knight wondered as he stood up properly while looking at the bushes the squalls ran into.
A second later, he added, still wondering, "Did they run away because of me?" Then, a moment later, he looked up with a grin on his face as he walked away from the carriages without even noticing the aura coming from Xou on top of them.
Another knight appeared with a serious look on his face as he approached the first knight, who still had a grin on his face.
"What's going on here?" The knight who appeared asked, as he analyzed the first night from top to bottom, Curious about what was happening before he arrived.
"...Nothing."
"...It was just some squalls fighting."
He replied as his grin faded away as he continued to walk towards the other knight.
On top of the carriage Xou was on. His dark aura started to fade away, and he was good to go. He looked right, then left as he jumped off the carriage while the two knights left the scene unchecked.
He slowly moved towards one of the carriages that looked like they were for animal transport.
He looked behind him, checking if someone was watching him.
He turned to face forward as he reached his right hand behind the carriage, and without hesitation, he just jumped into it.
But he still did not find Hajime; the only thing he had found was some villagers beaten to a pulp and unable to move, while some of them were strapped like animals and tied to each other's backs with chains.
"...What a mess..." He thought while looking at the people.
One of them started looking at him. She looked like he had been beaten hard by the knights.
Her eyes were filled with tears while her skin was covered with cuts that needed immediate attention.
Her clothes were covered with fresh blood stains.
"...Help me!" He murmured under her breath.
Xou stopped as he was about to leave the carriage and looked at her with a blank expression on his face while holding a fist in his right hand.
The aura that was coming out from him started to disperse like flames being blown by the wind and completely vanished, leaving no traces of it around his body.
"...Hel..." She murmured again as her voice started to fade away.
But he just looked at her one more time and turned away from her as she closed her eyes slowly while the tears in them just completely stopped falling.
Even so. Xou just walked away from her without a second thought. His facial expression was still blank as he left the scene.
Meanwhile, Hajime, with a confused look on his facial expression, was looking around, trying to figure out what was happening.
All the knights were ignoring him again as Rose kept on hamming her melody with a smile on her facial expression while her eyes were still closed.
He kept on looking at them and trying to figure out what to do since he was tied up to Rose.
He kept quiet as more and more knights passed by while Mathew was still on the giant tree, but this time he was sitting down, and he looked like he was bored as he kept on drinking from his favorite bottle.
The night kept on growing darker and darker, so that it started to get hard to see for some people while the others kept on moving like there was enough light to walk around in.
Finally, Rose had stopped hamming and slowly turned, looking at Hajime with a smile still on her face, while Hajime was busy trying to cut the rope off himself by biting through it bit by bit.
"Oh?" Rose uttered with a surprised tone as Hajime stopped biting through the rope, turning his attention to Rose.
"You're awake!" Rose said as she got closer to him, but Hajime, terrified and surprised by Rose, started backing away from her, but she kept on pursuing him until he bumped into a dead end, which was a normal-sized tree.
"Why are you trying to get away?" Rose uttered as she reached him with a smile still on her face.
Hajime closed his eyes, afraid of Rose.
Slowly, Rose touched his shoulder with a smile still on her face. Hajime's shoulders tensed up, and his right hand grabbed onto some leaves that were near him.
"Are you afraid?" Rose asked, as her smile started to fade away.
Hajime slowly started opening his eyes, his right hand still gripping onto the leaves.
"Sta, stay away!" He stammered as a cloud of tears started forming in his eyes.
In that split second, Rose let go of his shoulders as tears began to stream down his face.
She flinched as her jaw slightly dropped, as her eyes enlarged a little while still gazing at Hajime.
"It's really you, brother." She whispered.
Tears continued streaming down Hajime's face as he kept on staring at him with no more words to speak.
From a distance, Xou had gotten closer to the carriage that was close to where Mathew was, while continuing with his search for Hajime.
Mathew had fallen asleep as the other knights continued to work while the others were busy gambling with what they had taken in the village.
"Scumbags," Xou uttered with a serious and disgusted look on his face, while looking at the knights who were gambling, and not noticing Mathew sleeping under the tree.
He continued to move forward, heading towards the carriage near Mathew, while still blending in with his surroundings by walking in the cast shadows of the trees.
The second he got closer to the carriage, he stopped and checked both his blind spots, checking if someone was observing him. But the knights were still gambling, and Mathew was still asleep.
The moment he was turning back to face the carriage, he saw Rose with a slime on her face, and someone with white hair and about the same size as Hajime.
"Uh?" He uttered as he turned back to look at Rose.
"Could that be him?" He wondered while reaching his right hand for a short sword on his hip.
Suddenly, he turned with full force at the same time drawing out his short sword, cutting some tree branches that were behind him.
"Uw!" Someone uttered in pain the moment the sword had cut the branches.
"There!" Xou said under his breath.
The branch he had cut fell together with the person who uttered in pain. But his fall was cushioned by the leaves on the savored branches.
Xou looked at him with a blunt expression on his face, while the short sword was still in his hand and with some blood on it.
"He's one of them." He said to himself while still looking at the man as the man's neck oozed with blood.
The man was wearing the same armor as the knights who were gambling, but for some reason, he wasn't carrying anything on him.
Xou turned back to look at Rose, but Rose was no longer in the area where he had seen her a few minutes ago before he had cut down the man.
"Where did they go?" Confused, he wondered while looking around for her, but the area suddenly, silence fell on the area, the only thing that could be heard was the gambling knights from a distance.
He turned to maybe check on the giant tree where Mathew was sleeping earlier, while the man cut down earlier continued to bleed nonstop.
He took a step back and stepped on something that produced a cracking sound. He turned swiftly to see what it was, but it turned out to be just some dried-up branches of a tree, piled up together.
"So, what's your mother like?" A woman said from a distance, not far from where he was hiding.
He turned again to check who it was that was talking. It was Rose, and she was walking towards the carriage with Hajime while still with a smile on her face. She was talking to Hajime, but he didn't answer the question Rose asked. His hands were slightly trembling.
"Hey. I said I'm going to hurt you." Rose said again as she turned, looking at Hajime.
"What the?" Xou whispered, a tone of surprise in his voice.
He squeezed his short sword as dark smoke started to come out of his body.
"Huh...?" He noticed something off as he turned to look at himself.
"...Not now?" He uttered as he turned to look back at Rose and Hajime. But Rose suddenly stopped. Her face serious as she turned to glance at the location where Xou was hiding, as Hajime kept on walking towards the carriage, not noticing that Rose had stopped.
A brief moment later, without thinking about it, Xou jumped out of the place he was hiding and passed by Rose and going straight for Hajime, ignoring her. But she just watched him pass her by as the smoke coming from his body increased.