Road to Ruisea

❆ ❆ XXV. JAE ❆ ❆

Ttong!

Out of all the terrible things that could cross their paths, it had to be the greatest bounty hunter in all four kingdoms.

He almost misses Howl and the Arcadia, honestly.

Jae's only seen Sho once before, and that was in the throne room of Kumari's parents.

It was just.... How could two leaders who were heralded as so good and kind possibly be dealing with a bounty hunter scum like him? A monster in a human's body that roamed the four kingdoms, with a reputation so foul it was only spoken of in whispers. Jae couldn't believe it — sure he doesn't trust royalty to begin with, but it sure was stunning that there was a king and queen, who valued their reputations so much, that to hide a secret they would bury their own magicians... With the same bounty hunter that would tarnish their reputation in its entirety if anybody ever found that the King and Queen of Cevalon were dealing with Sho. It was shameful.

More than that... It was terrifying.

Jae doesn't like to feel scared, but those black eyes following every single one of his movements was unnerving. He wasn't sure if he could swing his jambiya fast enough to avoid him, let alone to land a blow.

"Enough standing around, Sho sighs. "Kumari, will you come?"

Kumari, not knowing if there's much else to say, shakes her head.

"Very well then. Hevva, tell me you managed to bring my crossbow. It wasn't exactly easy to get you through the shield their little magician's set up, so I would dearly prefer if we didn't have to do it a second time.

"Wait... The shield works?" Chiro exclaims in surprise, and Jae has to resist smacking his forehead.

Sho looks at Chiro almost-curiously, "Yes. Was it not supposed to? I thought you were trying to protect the train."

"It is supposed to, duh," Jae rolls his eyes despite his better judgement. "But you got through it."

"Of course I did," Sho states, matter of factly. "Magic like that doesn't work on me. Did cause a bit of trouble for my subordinate, so I had to carry her to the roof. I'm a little tired from that, so let's hurry this up, hm?"

"Why doesn't the magic work on you—" Kumari's interrupted by an arrow whizzing past her shoulder and shredding the sleeve of her gown off, as she stares in shock at the little scratch on her skin, not enough for blood, but certainly visible.

"That hurt," she said, almost like she couldn't believe it.

"It will hurt a lot more," Sho loads another arrow into the crossbow Hevva had handed him. "I will give you one last chance to make it easy on yourself. Come quietly, and the next one won't go through your shoulder. If not... It might go through your head."

"Is your aim that bad?" Jae challenges.

"No. I never miss."

And to prove his point, there's another arrow launched that scrapes against Jae's birthmark.

"That's a funny little thing you have on your arm."

"I've heard that before," Jae spits, and then lunges, dagger drawn.

Sho shoots again and again, and Chiro takes Kumari's hand, as he leads her down the roof of the train, running for dear life, with no real place to go other than the end of the Ocean express. One wrong move though, and they'd end up either right in the line of Sho's fire, or sinking into the depths of the ocean...

Jae only has a second to see them blaze across the roof, before he's ducking from a different blaze, one of arrows.

"You're quite agile," Sho says. "This will entertaining for a while, I suppose. Hevva! Go after miss princess."