**
Scaf was laying down on the grass, his eyes closed, enjoying the feeling of a gentle breeze on his face.
He opened his eyes as he heard a laughter getting closer.
It was the most perfect laughter he ever heard, it was sweet and kind and pure.
It was the laughter of one of the two beings he loved the most.
As he was getting up his daughter jumped on him for a hug.
He fell back.
Everything was perfect, his daughter in his arms, his wife sitting by his side, he couldn't wish for anything else.
"Daddy, you are so strong !", his daughter was very proud of her father's strength.
"Yes sweetheart, and daddy will make sure no one harms you", he said as he was playing with her beautiful blond hair.
"So why didn't you save us daddy ?", Scaf straightened, her voice had totally changed, it wasn't the sweet and pure voice of a child, it was cold and broken.
As he looked down he saw that the head he was patting didn't have hair anymore, instead there was now only flesh.
Burnt flesh.
As she turned her head around to look at him, he couldn't keep himself from screaming.
Her face was totally burned, her beautiful blue eyes were now two abyss, staring at him.
He turned around to look at his wife, looking for comfort, something to hold on to.
He only saw a headless body, burnt as well.
And yet he could hear a voice coming it.
"Yes darling, why didn't you save us ?", his wife voice used to warm his heart.
Now it only got his hair stand on end.
He tried to get up but he couldn't, his feet felt extremely heavy.
"Why won't you look at us honey ?", the corpse of his wife said.
"Why won't you look at us daddy ?", the corpse of his daughter said.
"You did this to us, look at us", both corpses said
"I'm so sorry", he said through tears that seemed like they won't stop, "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, I loved you..."
"Oh really, you loved us", now both corpses were talking, "so why did you change us huh ? you love someone else now, how could you, you said you would love us for eternity"
"No nononoononoonnooono...."
**
And he woke up.
He was sweating, a lot.
So much his sheets were all wet.
Hopefully, it was morning, the maid should be here soon to change them anyway.
But Scaf had his habits, so like every morning, he makes his bed, putting new sheets in place of the wet one, and taking the latter to the laundry room in a basket.
He won't make it that far.
As soon as he got out of his room he heard the sound of wooden sandals hitting on the stone-made floor.
Scaf felt uncomfortable in the presence of this man.
"Good morning, Scaf", he said as they met in the corridor.
"Good morning euh...", Scaf was squinting his eyes as he tried to remember his name, "Garou?" he tried at last.
"Grou, but close enough".
Grou was a good head shorter than Scaf, and yet everyone thought that if they were to fight, no one could tell who the winner would be.
Scaf always said that it was just that people were impressed by the sword he had, even if no one even saw him draw it once.
But this was only to show off, he could feel it, the man was dangerous.
"Anyhow, I don't think you came all this way just to see my pretty face"
"Ye, put this down", he said as he looked at the basket, "we got called by the boss"
"It'll only take me two minutes to put those in the laundry room and I'll come with you".
"Well, the boss said it was urgent, but It's on our way so I guess it's fine"
"Wait, on our way ? isn't the laundry room the other way ?"
"No?...Oh, don't tell me...", Grou had an amused look on his face.
"What ?"
"Do you take your sheets to the little wooden house close to the extern walls ?"
"Yes, like I said, the laundry room"
Grou exploded in laughter, something Scaf never saw him do before, or anyone else for that matter
"Now I understand", he said after a moment, "that's where the dogs sleep"
Scaf cheeks went all red, which was something Grou never saw before.
"Well it makes more sense now why they keep coming with white clothes in their mouth"
"Ye well whatever this place is way too big anyway"
"What kind of dump have you been leaving in until now ?", Grou said with a little laugh," anyway let's get going", his tone and facial expression got serious in an instant.
"Having trouble sleeping ?", Grou said as they were walking, looking down at the basket.
"And how is that any of your business ?", said Scaf, still not over the fact that he has been putting his clean sheets in the wrong room, without adding the distance.
"Well, if we consider that we work together, and that our work is pretty dangerous, I would like to know how much I can rely on you..."
"You can't", cut him off Scaf.
"But, as I was gonna say, I'm mostly asking because I know how it feels, here take this, it helps", he said as he got a little bottle half-full of a green liquid out of his jacket.
Scaf looked at it for a moment before taking it in his free hand.
"And how do I know it's not poison ?"
Grou looked at him with an are-you-serious-look.
"Look, you put three drops in whatever you want to drink before sleep, at least you'll stop wasting sheets"
Scaf did not look amused by that, Grou a bit more.
After Scaf put his sheets on the right laundry room, they went straight to the office of Mister Butterbury.
Scaf never understood how his boss was always up before him.
As an ex-soldier, he always woke up before the sun was even starting to show.
And yet, his boss was always suited up when he'd enter his office.
"Oh, finally you're here, what took you two so long ?"
"I had to show him the laundry room, boss, I also solved the issue of the dogs"
Francis seemed a bit confused but then he just waved it off, to the relief of Scaf.
"Anyway, I need you two to go investigate a matter for me, and by investigate I mean you are going to go to the hideout of some punks and kick their ass, because you see, those punks stole something from me, everything you need is in this folder, take it and go, you'll read it on the road"
"Why is he asking us to do it tho ?", Scaf asked once they were out of the mansion and on their way to the town, "I mean it's just some punks being stupid, he can send a group of his soldiers and they'll get it done, why sending his personnal guard do the job"
"I don't know, but if I had to say, I think there's something more to this group, look, their boss, there's too few information about him, Franc...Mister butterbury would never send us with this few information about an individual, especially if he's the boss, so either he sent us because he couldn't get any more intel about him, or because he had enough and he's hiding some from us. Both ways, we have a job, and we'll get it done"
They found the hideout in no time, It was the typical hideout people that would be stupid enough to steal from the biggest criminal of the country would have.
As Scaf was going to break the door open, Grou stopped him with a gest of the hand.
Grou then proceeded to take off his jacket, showing a kind of armor Scaf never saw before, assorted with a belt full of different Items Scaf never saw before either.
"The fuck is this ?", asked Scaf
"Part of the battle is preparation, this is my preparation, and I got something for you"
"Like hell am going to put this shit"
Grou seemed offended at the comment on his traditional warrior's armor, but this wasn't the time for that.
He gave Scaf a sword like the one he had at his belt, only this one was shorter, which Scaf didn't like much.
"Why are you giving me this ?", said Scaf, holding the blade in his hand as if it was a kitchen knife.
"Because it's always better to have two blades, I have mine, here's yours, take good care of it"
And without waiting for an answer, he turned the knob of the door and opened it, as if he was going home.
"Hello gentleman, we are here to kick y'all asses"
There were around 20 young boy in there, they all turned at once to look at the strangely dressed man, before lunging on him.
The first to reach him had his blade way up in the air, and as he slashed dwonward toward Grou's skull, he took a fast step forward, and then he draw his sword.
But he didn't cut him.
Instead he simply hit him with the hilt of his sword to the chest.
The boy stopped right in his movement, as air was being knocked out of his lungs.
Grou then simply swept his leg, leaving the boy to hit the floor face first, and kept casually walking.
There were already three boys on the floor when Scaf entered, and Grou still didn't draw his sword.
He joined the melee, hitting and getting hit, and so they disposed of the group of boys fairly easily.
And Grou's sword was still in its sheath.
Grou even kept Scaf from killing them, by blocking his blade while he moved around, or simply by kicking them out of the way, which made Scaf only want to kill HIM.
And he made it clear to Grou after the fifth he saved, but he didn't seem to care much.
"Can you explain to me", he asked when the fighting was over,"why the fuck you stopped me from killing them ? it's litterally our job"
"First of all, our job is to kick their asses, and second", for the first time he took a stance, a very low stance in Scaf's opinion, and said "the fighting is not over"
As he said that, Scaf looked toward where he was looking, and he saw it.
A thin figure appeared before them, walking slowly, one curved blade in her right hand, and another one floating above her shoulder.
"Oh for fuck sake, why does everyone use magic to fight nowadays "
"I guess because it's effective", answered Grou, clearly not understanding what a rhetorical question was.
"Well hello boys", said the figure, which was apparently a woman from her voice, "I'm Clara, and I'm here to kill you both"
"Well, at least she's direct", said Grou.
But Scaf didn't detect any kind of sarcasm or humor in his tone, all he could feel was his fighting spirit.
And then, without further warning, the balde that was floating flew toward Grou's head at incredible speed.
But he didn't flinch.
Not when the blade passed so close to his cheek a fine ribbon of blood appeared.
Not when she took a step toward him.
Not when Scaf raised his sword to hit her, but then stopped.
Not when she raised her sword and plunged on him.
He was too focused.
Focused on one thing.
Finding an oppening.
And as soon as he did,he stroked like lightning, fast and clean.
And then Scaf understood why no one ever saw him draw his sword.
Because it was too fast to be seen.
Clara made a strange expression, half schocked half relieved.
And then she fell to the ground.
Grou cleaned his sword from the blood using his sleeve, and sheathed back his sword.
Scaf approached the body of Clara,and as he was one step away from her he stopped.
And then he looked at Grou, with a look not full of admiration or respect, but full of deception.
"You missed the artery, she's not dead"
"Oh I know, I didn't kill her on purpose"
This time Scaf had a look of surprise, which was emphasized by him putting his hands up, palms pointing toward the roof.
"What the fuck ? why not, she clearly stated she wanted to kill us"
"Yes, but that was only bluff, I didn't need to parry her first blade, she missed on purpose, and she didn't have the fighting spirit of someone willing to kill."
"So I was that easy to read huh", She had managed to turn around and put a hand on her wounded stomach.
It was cut right at the liver, but it wasn't that bad, just deep enough so that she couldn't keep fighting, but not life threatening.
What had knocked her out wasn't even the wound, it was the pressure created by the swordsman spirit.
"So I wasn't worth killing huh ?"
"It's not about that, you didn't come to me with the intent of killing, it would've been unfair from me to come at you with another spirit than the one you gave."
"And what spirit did I give exactly ?", she was trying to sit herself down, and even through the pain it caused her, she was smiling.
"The spirit of someone trying to protect what mattered to them"
Clara exploded in a laughter that was cut by surging of pain.
"Ah dammit, why did I attack you first, I should've attacked the big guy, am sure he don't give two fucks about all this bullshit"
"And you're goddamn right", said Scaf with a wink and a little tilt of his head.
"If it can help you in any way, my blade did taste your blood, and it's a great blade deserving to taste only great warrior's blood"
"Oh so that's why you didn't kill any of those boys, or even made them bleed with your blade"
"And that's why I kept you from doing so with your blade as well", he said with a wink.
"You're too soft, do you even know how it feels to kill someone ? I mean I killed dozens of people so I don't know how it feels anymore but..."
"That's no thing to be proud of", his tone was cold and his gaze was glacial," and if you want to know, yes I killed before, once, he was an exceptionnel warrior, and I now wear his armor with pride"
"Fine fine, so what we doing now ?", Scaf judged it better to not continue on this conversation anymore.
He understood why, if they were to fight, no one could say who would win.
Even Scaf was starting to have doubts.
"You can leave, am gonna look around for information about who ordered them to steal from Mister Butterbury"
"What makes you think someone did that ?", Clara said, trying to hide her concern as well as she could.
"With all due respect, your group is certainly not able of such a great feat as to plan AND execute such a high class robbery"
She smiled again, "Damn you".
"But no worries, you'll be under the protection of mister Butterbury from now on, we could use skills like yours for our future plans"
"You sure you'll be fine ?"
Grou looked at the wounded Clara and then at the boys that were slowly regaining consciousness and said with a little grin "I think I'll be fine, yes"
"Alright", and Scaf went out, he didn't really have the luxury to take more time, he was already late for his meeting with Mike.
As soon as he got to the meeting point, he heard noise behind him, and he turned to see, there he was.
The black figure that was called Mike.
He never talked, never even made a noise, except the ones he wanted them to hear, they weren't even sure if it was a boy or a girl.
But this time he had something in his hand.
It was a message, and when he opened it and read what it was, his eyes opened.
"So the time have come huh ?"
Mike nodded.
"Finally", Scaf said with a wide smile on his face.
Somewhere, in a dark room in the castle, two man were talking.
One was the future holder of the empire, and one was it's actual ruler.
"So when will I be king, mister Prime minister", said the prince, before putting a cup of wine to his lips.
"Everything will come in time, my prince", said the prime minister, as he took the cigar he was smoking off his mouth, "your place is of great importance in my just as great plan, after all I didn't take you out of that stupid orphenage for nothing"
And they both smiled, two beautiful, and yet totally fake, smiles.