Zaraki and Hirai looked up at the clear night sky, which was no longer obscured by the Kami No Me.
Neither of them knew what it was nor where it came from for sure, but they were happy that the nightmare was finally over.
The city for which they readily laid down their lives was now safe.
"I still find it hard to believe that the powerful spy, Drey Matsumoto, was easily destroyed as you described," said Hirai sceptically.
"Believe it or not, Hirai, that is what happened," answered Zaraki.
"Wait for a second," said Hirai. "Are you sure there was not a time when you slipped out of consciousness as well?" he asked, purposely messing with him.
"Where are you going with this?" he asked back. "You woke up and found me and a stranger standing with..." he paused, thinking.
Hirai arched a brow, curious about his sudden pause,
"With what?" he asked.
".... Drey!" Zaraki replied suddenly.
"Was he not destroyed?" asked Hirai.
"I thought he was," he answered.
"What?" exclaimed Hirai. "Are you messing with me?" Then what happened to him? "What did that strange guy do to him?"
"Where is his body?" asked Zaraki, looking around in panic as he paid no heed to Hirai's overwhelming questions.
"I don't know; I was unconscious at the time, remember?" answered Hirai.
"Damn It! "How could I be so careless?"
"Calm down, Zaraki." You are not the one who engaged the enemy at the end. "It was the other guy—what was his name again?"
"Tang Fei," he answered.
"Right," Hirai said, "so all I'm saying is that you do not have to take responsibility for this." "I mean, technically, it was not your fight!"
Hirai said this - not because he was fully convinced about it, but rather because he did not want Zaraki to worry about that right now, as he knew Zaraki to be the type who would strive to make restitution for it, although it wasn't his fault that Zaraki's body had not been found nor confirmed dead in the first place. He knew this from their years of experience together.
Zaraki looked at him in disbelief.
"Are you listening to yourself, Hirai?" Weren't you with me in the fight? "Or did you hit your head too hard?"
"Yes, I fought with you," replied Hirai, while expectedly ignoring his last question by admitting, "But the truth is, the fight got over with us because we lost."
"Forget that!" said Zaraki, refusing to admit it.
"I know it's hard to admit, but that is the fact: We lost," said Hirai, "and I am not happy with it either."
Zaraki took a deep breath, trying to forget it. It was hard to admit to himself that there were inexperienced people several leagues stronger than him.
He had gone through hell growing up to get to where he was as a strong elite operative, but there were more powerful people out there who got better than him without going through the sufferings he underwent.
This fact was a tough pill for him to swallow, as it made all the trials of his life as an assassin feel pointless and irrelevant.
For this reason, he tried to put it all in the back of his mind and instead chose to focus on the matter at hand.
"So what happened to Drey's body?" he asked.
Hirai looked around.
"Well, from what you said earlier... his body was thrown at an incoming meteor and got destroyed with it by a strike of lightning from Tang Fei."
Zaraki nodded in agreement.
"Well, that means he must have indeed been destroyed by Tang Fei, as no trace of him could be found anywhere after the blast," he said, "I think..."
Zaraki looked at Hirai, surprised to find that he was also sceptical about it, so he responded by saying,
"In my twelve years of serving as an operative, I've always learned the hard truth that "not all that glitters is gold"—especially in cases like this, so let us not get too comfortable simply because his body is missing."
Zaraki nodded in agreement.
"You are right, Hirai. We should not get complacent because of this "lucky victory" for the kingdom. My gut tells me that this invasion attempt is just the beginning of the worst things to come.
Hirai looked back at Zaraki and began walking off.
"Come on, friend, let us check for survivors."
"Aye," replied Zaraki. "That reminds me, it feels like we were the only elite operatives on duty throughout the invasion. "Why is that?" He asked as they walked.
Hirai laughed after briefly thinking about it.
"What?" asked Zaraki.
"We got attacked by the Invaders "coincidentally" at a time when the kingdom's official military had grown complacent when several professional and elite operatives were dispatched for various missions outside the city. "It seems to me that this attack on the city was not scheduled to take place today by chance but seems to have been carefully scheduled to take place at a time when they knew the kingdom was the most vulnerable in defense," Hirai explained.
"Thank God we survived then," said Zaraki with a sigh.
"Luckily, most likely because the invaders did not know about the Arutimetsu as well," answered Hirai.
"Oh!" reacted Zaraki.
"They were as clueless as we were," he said.
"Well, that makes sense," remarked Zaraki.
"So I cannot help but wonder: What if they were aware of the Arutimetsu before we were and therefore rightly prepared for it?" he said.
Zaraki widened his eyes as he thought about it.
"Terrifying, isn't it?" asked Hirai with a sarcastic grin.
Zaraki stood back, thinking about it more.
"Try not to overthink it, alright?" "Let us just be grateful that we will live to tell the tale of the whole incident," said Zaraki.
"It is no wonder you are the best elite operative in the League right now....
"What? Me? The best? "Trust me, Zaraki, there are several operatives far better than I am; it's just that they are hardly dispatched for operations within the city," he said. "I only get fame and recognition probably because I am likely the most successful elite operative dispatched for the toughest operations within the kingdom." "Those better than I am get dispatched on missions outside the city that are far too difficult to undertake, even for me."
"Wow, I have barely bothered to even look at that." "Guess I still have a long way to go," said Zaraki.
Hirai arched a brow,
"You have been aiming for "the best" all this time." He said, surprised, "I knew you were ambitious, but not at this level!"
"I guess there is still a lot you don't know about me," he replied.
"Indeed," responded Hirai.