Casso's body jerked to a halt when he felt four presences appear behind him without him noticing. Ceru and Regle glanced up from their food and abruptly stopped eating when they saw Wu Xi.
Wu Xi smiled, and lightly said, "Are you enjoying yourselves? We have come to an... agreement... with Ignis. Once you're done, we will go register our n-" She caught herself in the middle of the sentence. "identities." With that, she sat down on a chair and rested her hands on the smooth wooden table.
Ignis, Fumi, and Ave trailed after her. They each picked a seat and sat down before calling the manager.
"Get us some chopsticks." Ave commanded.
A fawning smile appeared on the manager's face, and as he hurried away, he replied, "Of course, Senior. It is our delight that you have graced our pavilion with your honorable presence. We have wronged you by not preparing your chopsticks beforehand."
*Clink*
An hour later, they set their chopsticks down in unison. All of the bowls were empty; not even a drop of soup could be found. With a clatter, Wu Xi pushed her chair back and stood up.
"It's time to go. Hurry, Mousse's City Hall's identity registration closes at 6:00 PM. It's already 4:00, and we can't fly in Mousse."
They murmured in agreement and rose from their seats.
~~~~~~~~~~
An hour later
~~~~~~~~~~
"Why the hell is the City Hall so far from Yun Pavilion =.=" Regle grumbled.
"Be patient." Ave cast an annoyed look at Regle.
"Look! It's right there!" Ceru bounced forwards as she pointed towards a tall grey building that gave off the impression that it was a fortress.
"Finally!"
They walked into the building, and in front of them, a large sign with bright red letters pointed towards the left and said "IDENTITY REGISTRATION".
Following the sign, they turned left and walked down a long, narrow hallway dotted with doors. At the end, two large sliding glass doors stood before a spacious lobby.
When they approached, the doors opened, and they could see five counters, 3 of which had people occupying them. The remaining two counters had a bored blond haired woman lazily leaning on the counter and a black haired man staring intently at a communication crystal respectively.
Ignis's eyes lit up when they landed on the man. "There's my friend... Actually, he's just an acquaintance that owes my clan a favor."
"Clan?"
"Yes, my clan has a large influence, and many people owe my clan favors, which I can use."
"I see..."
The six companions followed Ignis as he hurried towards the counter with the black haired man. He leaned on the counter and smiled. "Hey, Dong, help me out. Some of my friends have been lost out at sea for a while, and now they want to register their identities. I know it's difficult to register your identity at Mousse, since it's so close to the bandit regions, but with you as the recommender, I'm sure they will let my friends register an identity."
"..." Dong expressionlessly stared at Ignis. "Will this count as repaying my debt to your *clan*?"
"Yes"
"Ok, I will help your friends register." For the first time, Dong looked at Wu Xi and her five friends. An expression of shock appeared on his face. "Wu Xi? Weren't you in Dr-"
Wu Xi glared at him and Dong shut his mouth. "Dong... My name is Li Xue now. Please refer to me as such."
Dong nodded. "Ok, wait here. I will go get you an identity token." He left through a door that appeared behind him. Wu Xi stared at the blank wall and tapped on the wooden counter.
"Oh~" She lightly exclaimed under her breath. She finally remembered who Dong was. He had visited the Sect Master of the Heaven Sect branch before, and she was in the study reading a book when the Sect Master kicked her out to talk to him.
Dong came back holding six jade tablets. "Here." He opened his palm and offered them to Wu Xi, Ave, Casso, Regle, Fumi, and Ceru. "Just carve your names on the tablet, and then you can leave. This jade tablet cannot be forged because it is an artificial jade that the God of Elements made."
They nodded their heads and each of them took a jade tablet. After carving their new names on the tablets, the six people put the identity tokens inside of their storage bags/rings.
They thanked Dong and left the building with Dong's gaze trained on Wu Xi's back. As they walked out of the front door, Ave lifted his head and spoke.
"Farewell my friends. You were nice companions, but now I must leave you to pursue my own dreams..."
"What! Ha- Ave! How can you leave us like this?" Casso looked like he had seen a ghost when he heard Ave's announcement. Wu Xi sighed. Casso had always been closest to Ave.
"I need... to search for my family... and my star."
"Star?"
"The love of my life; my star, my rose, my sun, my universe."
His eyes hardened with determination. "Ave, to me, you are like my real brother. My parents were killed when I was captured and sent to Draco, so I have no other family left. Please, let me accompany you on your search. Otherwise, I will follow you to the ends of the earth until I die."
Ave was silent for a moment. He turned his head away, but Wu Xi could sense that his eyes were misting. "... Okay..." Looking at Wu Xi, Regle, Fumi, and Ceru, Ave sighed. "I'm sorry if I have failed to live up to your expectations. You all have helped me escape from that hell, but now I'm leaving you all the moment I receive everything I need to look for my family. I will never be able to repay this debt, so if I can ever be of any assistance to you, all you have to do is tell me and I shall help you in any way I can." He bowed, and turned away. Casso followed him, and their silhouettes faded away into the darkening night sky.
"Wait!" A look of panic appeared on Ceru's face. "I want to come with you, Casso!"
Wu Xi furrowed her eyebrows. Why did Ceru also want to leave?
However, without a backwards glance or a word of explanation, Ceru dashed away, leaving Wu Xi, Fumi, Regle, and Ignis alone.
Ignis raised an eyebrow. "You don't have a very cohesive team, do you?"
(1) I had to get rid of some of the cast~ There's too many people for enough character development, at least for me there's too many people. Especially since I need to add the characters that appeared in earlier chapters too.