"I am not a protector and I never had any training Shin!" Ken questined Shin with a rejecting look.
"It's not about your skills Ken. It is about your character, you will know soon. It is true that you don't have any training and I will make sure that you are well trained in the future." Shin smiled mysteriously as he looked at Ryu.
'Oh boy, he is done for.' These were the words that kept on ringing in Ryu's head. Ryu and the others in Areon never saw Shin smile. They were kind of relieved seeing that he could smile like that but the grin he gave sent shivers up Ryu's spine.
"What about me then? why did you pick me then?" Izumi put a foot forward as she asked Shin.
"I have some reasons to join you in the squad. If I spill the beans, my plan will fail. So for now, just stay put." Shin looked at Izumi as he answered.
"Master Ryu, I am sorry. I know it's already hard for you to manage even with both of our help, but I need Ken to accompany me." Shin asked very politely as he stood in front of Ryu.
"As you wish Master Shadow, you don't need to ask me anything, your words are my commands. I know how you train the top 5 shades who are always in the 4 great cities and the capital. So, I was thinking if you can go easy on him, please." Ryu laughed awkwardly as he said those words.
"I promise he is going to be okay in the end and that's all I can say Master Ryu, don't worry about him." Shin replied with a soft gaze on Ken.
"He's screwed for sure." Leo and Ryu said out loud in a low voice at once but Ken was unable to hear them.
"Miss Izumi, you are hereby relieved of your duties. You are to accompany Master Shadow and make sure you do whatever he asks you to do, perfectly." Leo was the Commander of the protectors, so his words were like the orders of a god to Izumi.
"Roger that Commander. I am at your service Master Shadow." Izumi turned to Shin after looking at Leo and saluted him.
Ken and Shin looked at each other and gave Izumi a weird look. "Your first order is to drop all the honorifics and be free, we are a team after all, got it?" Shin said as he looked at Izumi with a weird expression.
"Roger that Sir." Izumi slid back into a resting position. Shin and Ken looked at each other as they sighed seeing Izumi was still stiff and hard to approach.
"Don't worry, she will loosen up as soon as we finish off our first target." The same fishy smile that Shin gave Ken earlier, reappeared on Shin's face.
"Master Ryu, I need to talk with you for a minute in private." Shin signalled Ryu to follow him into a distance to which Ryu nodded and followed him.
"Now listen carefully you both." Erina who was standing beside Leo approached Ken and Izumi.
"The Shadow training you is undeniably an awesome thing, he is a great teacher but...stay strong okay." Erina had a worried look on her face.
"Don't panic guys. Just stay calm when he trains you okay." This time Kenji was the one to speak and give them a pity look.
"Don't scare them both, you guys." Leo looked at Erina and Izumi and stopped them from talking and diverted his gaze to Ken and Izumi as he said "Don't worry and don't think too much about what they said. You will live through it, okay." Leo said as he lifted his arm giving them a thumbs up.
What Erina and Kenji scared Ken and Izumi a bit but Leo's last statement, struck an uneasy feeling in their hearts. Ken gulped as he turned slowly to look at Izumi who was a bit disturbed by what Leo said as well.
"What were you talking about?" Shin's voice made its way towards them from a distance. The others looked at an approaching Shin and Ryu.
"Nothing much Shadow. Just giving them some pointers how to live." Kenji answered as he turned to look at Shin.
"I will be there with them, they will live through the wild easily." Shin gave a careless look at Kenji who replied with "I wasn't talking about living through the wild, I was talking about living through your training." Kenji's right lip curved up a bit as he answered.
Ryu had a very serious face as he faced the ground deep in thought.
"Dad...Dad..." Ryu woke up from his trance after Ken called him.
"What happened? What did you guys talk about?" Ken asked Ryu in a soft tone as he approached him.
"Nothing, just some business." Ryu's face swapped into a smiling one as he faced his son. The sun went down entirely and darkness covered the city once again.
"Leo, I know you always crave for information. So I am guessing you already have information about the dark Phoenix organization you talked about and all the little to big time dark dealers and turf leaders who took control of the cities in my absence for the past two months, right?" Shin lifted his right hand and opened his hand as if he was asking Leo to give him something.
"I do have information on many, but little on the organization. A few places have gone dark, none of our men are responding and I was too busy preparing to come here all this time, so I have no information on them." Leo answered as he lifted his hand to join with Shin's, but it wasn't for a hand shake.
A blue energy band appeared on Leo's and Shin's wrist which floated a centimeter above their wrist as they circled around. The energy band on Leo's wrist started to send a blue string of energy that combined with Shin's energy band.
"Let's see then. Chartis!" Shin said out loud as they seperated and stepped back a bit.
The blue energy band on Shin's wrist opened at one end and turned into energy and then into the shape of an overview of the whole world. The map was white in colour and was only a meter in length and breadth. It could be zoomed in to see the blueprint of almost any city.
"The dark spots are the ones that I lost contact with. The red spots are the ones that went into the control of the turf leaders. The grey spots are the ones that are not yet under anyone's control but there is an undergoing battle for control." Leo went on explaining things and they both ignored the others around them.
"How do they both have access to a map of the entire world? I have never seen one." Izumi's eyes sparkled as she stared at the map.
"The Commander has to take care of the entire world, so he naturally has one and Shadow already roamed all the world to take care of the darkness, restore order and to check the status of the Shades in each city and each shade would pass him the present blueprint of the city. Just like the other cities, your city has a shade too." Erina answered Izumi's doubts and looked towards Ryu.
After listening to their conversation, Ken looked towards Ryu in disbelief as he questioned "So you are a Shade...Dad?"
"Yes, I am a Shade." Ryu nodded as he answered with a sigh.