Nero and Ouran walked into the Mold Shop and a gong sounded.
"Hello."
"Hello?" Nero heard a voice close to them but couldn't find the speaker.
"Nero look." Ouran ran over to the shelves of weapon molds.
Nero walks over to the counter and looked over it. A large man with gaunt eyes looked up at him. "Hello, what are you doing down there?"
"I'm organizing some ideas for molds I was working on." The man paused and looked at Nero for a second too long, making Nero feel weird. "I draw up the molds first, then I carve them out of the appropriate woods."
"Ouch." Ouran yelped. "Nero, these wooden swords are sharp."
"Of course they are. If your going to use the mold it has to represent everything you want it to be. Bats are blunt, arrows are lite, and swords are sharp."
"That makes sense to me. How do you get it so sharp?" Nero asked.
"A lot of time. I plunge the wood into water and subject it to immense amounts of heat then I hammer it down."
"You mean shave?" Ouran pointed out.
"Sorry I was misremembering. Yeah, I shave it down, then I bring it to the back to be filed." The man seemed to be scattered. Even as he looked at Nero he seemed to not be present. Like he was looking at a friend and a stranger at the same time.
The gong sounded again and a small elderly man dressed in a shimmering silver tunic and light grey pants walked into the shop with a teenage girl.
"Commissioner? You guys are back again?"
"Gramps said he would buy me another mold." The girl said.
"Angerona, you've been asking me to buy you molds all year. Do you not want a mold?"
"But we've come here like six times over the last two weeks. I've seen everything in here."
"Well, you're in luck. That boy over there is looking through the new molds." He pointed over to Ouran. "I just added some new ones."
She rushed over, bumping Ouran to the side. She picks up a sickle. "This one is weird."
"Hey!" Ouran bumped her back. "I was here first."
Angerona bumped him back. "There is enough room for both of us to look."
"Then why'd you run into me." Ouran snatched the sickle from her. "I was looking at this one first."
She tried to snatch it back but Ouran slipped backwards. Angerona slipped behind him and snatched it back. "Because you're so small."
Nero looked at the old man. "I know who you are."
The little man smirked not looking at Nero. "I didn't know it was a secret."
"I don't like the Peace Corps, and more specifically, you."
The Commissioner chuckled, bemused. "There aren't many people who would say that and even less who would say it to my face."
"It's the truth. Its how I feel and as the worlds leader you shouldn't intimidate people away from the truth." Nero leaned down so that he was next to Seneca's ear.
The shop owner looked cautiously between the two. "Sorry Commissioner, he is a country boy. He doesn't know how we in the capital cherish manners."
Nero continued. "I'm very well read and aware of the manipulative culture you have adopted here."
"Manipulation is a part of leadership." The Commissioner stated.
"Persuasion is a part of leadership." Nero corrected.
"Interesting, How are they not the same?"
"Don't patronize me. The Peace Corps is self interested. Only interested in it's own success."
"Is that a crime. The normal person only looks out for those they are close to. The people who favor the Peace Corps are in the majority. If not there would be out cries." The Commissioner walked away drawing his attention to some molds on the shelf next to the counter, crossing in front of Nero unperturbed by his threatening tone and body language.
Nero followed behind him. Intent on continuing the conversation. "If you truly think that way, then its time to step down. A leader is someone who views a stranger he is responsible for, as a friend, no even family. They don't just get the support of six people and say who cares about the other four. The creation of the majority is just a cheap justification. Who cares if a hundred people love you, if fifty people hate you. Fifty people that didn't do anything wrong. Fifty people that aren't getting the security that they have a right to, just as much as the favored one hundred. Laws aren't the majority, their a testament to cooperation."
The Commissioner looked at Nero so seriously Nero gulped. Had he poked and prodded too brazenly. He could see in this mans eyes an intense sorrow. "Your view point is that of someone who hasn't failed enough. I have failed, more than you, as you can tell. I am no old fool, so I've learned more than you. I can tell. You have a good idea but it isn't finished yet. You haven't lost anyone, or been betrayed. You haven't been loved so purely and hated in an equal measure. Fallen from the mountain peak leaving something behind that you need so feverishly to retrieve. Deciding against trusted council, to climb anyway. You haven't had people look to you for answers when you yourself were just wishing there was someone you could turn to. One day you will be caught off guard by the loneliness of leading and the envy you feel towards a stranger simple woes. When you wonder how hard can they have it. They may be hungry but that feeling can't be worse than the pressure you feel. The many, many anxieties that keep you up at night. The paranoia that someone somehow wants to kill you somewhere. It can be some one far away or the person who makes your meals. It's not so easy as helping the stranger. You have to also keep your enemies weak. If you can stay strong and keep your enemies helpless then your ideals can never die." Nero stood quietly and thought deeply for there were so much of what the Commissioner had said that he truly didn't understand. "Angerona? Are you ready?"
"Uh?" She pulled the sickle out of Ouran's reach. "I've never seen anything like this, guess I'll try it out."
"I don't have to fail to learn those things. I can learn them from others failures. Like you." Nero naively concluded.
"What is he talking about, Gramps?" Angerona asked cheekily.
"Nothing we're just strangers, no friends, oh wait I mean family. Sometimes families say mean things to each other when their hurt." The Commissioner jeered.
"Is he family." She questioned.
"Not exactly, just very familiar." Angerona and the Commissioner walked out of the Mold Shop leaving Nero looking rather defeated.
The Mold Shop owner felt it right to ask after a moment. "What are you thinking?"
"Nothing really. Thought it'd feel really good to tell him off one day and he just walked in, so." Nero shrugged.
"You are Nero, right?" The shop owner asked meaningfully.
"Yes how did you know?" Nero's languid face shifting to a more quizzical expression.
"Your father is famous. Anyone who see's you will instantly see the resemblance. I thought he would kill you but he didn't. I don't know why but you need to get out of here." The man reached down and picked up a bag.
"I don't want any of your drawings." Nero pushed the bag back towards the shop keeper.
"They're not drawings. I wasn't sure who you were at first, but only his son would talk that way to the Commissioner of the Peace Corps."
"Thanks."
The shop keepers eyes were pained and focused now. He was fully in the present. Though his next questions stemmed from two places one sly, the other unblinkingly wolffish. "Cause you're both idiots. How many people are with you?"
"Do Domaku count?" Nero responded wary of the secretive nature of his friends implications.
"No, I said people!" He repeated.
"Okay then. There are um…" This must be some kind of test he thought. It could have negative consequences if he denied to say anything so a number should do. He counted his fingers. "…four right now but hoping to have around nine or twelve, maybe. You can't win everyone over."
The man pushed 14 blank wooden masks with weird markings on them into the bag. "Okay there is a map to your safe house and your rune instructions inside here."
Nero looked down at Ouran and grinned biliously. Making Ouran real in his skin. "They're going to be so excited."
To Be Continued...
Thanks for reading!