Rin spent a long time looking at herself in the mirror. Xhez looked up at her from her water bag, right next to the spot on the handwash where Rin's fingers nearly cracked the surface from how hard she was squeezing it.
The girl in the mirror, looking back at Rin, had amber eyes the likes of which Rin hadn't really seen in anyone else.
Anyone who wasn't part of her own family, anyway.
And, apparently, she'd be seeing these eyes again for the first time in a while. But, it wouldn't be her mother's eyes she'd be looking at.
[...] Rin bit her own cheeks, glaring at the image in the mirror. [This isn't going to be pretty, is it?]
"Xhez," Rin said, as quietly as she could. "Be ready for a fight."
"Are we not going to see your brother?" Xhez asked. "Will things truly turn the way you believe?"
"There's a high chance he's working with the people who killed June," Rin explained. "If he is, then... Working with those psychos isn't something I can forgive."
Judging by the way Xhez's face, tiny in her shrunken form, instantly darkened it seemed she couldn't forgive that either.
[... Whatever. Go ahead, Tristan. Let's see what you have to say.]
Rin walked out of that bathroom dressed fully in her leather armor. Ava looked her up and down and her jaw tightened, her narrow gaze staring back at Rin with an obvious sense of caution, the look of someone locking eyes with an enemy.
"I'm ready." Rin kept a hand over Xhez's bag, which Ava noticed.
"Alright... Stand still, then."
Just like that, Ava began to draw a spellsign Rin had seen before.
The adventurer inhaled slowly, while Eve and Sara watched with great worry.
"... Be careful," Sara said quietly.
"I will be. But, come on. Nothing will happen... Right?" Rin asked Ava with a pointed look. The woman did not say anything in response.
Instead, she finished the spell and Rin closed her eyes.
When she opened them next, she found that she and Xhez were not exactly in the kind of place Rin believed they were going to arrive at.
From that comfy hotel room, Rin and Xhez were teleported to an Old World ruin of some sort. The fortress was dark, with glowing blue torches illuminating freshly cleaned stone. Pillars stretched to the ceiling, forming a natural pathway to an altar.
All around Rin were hooded figures. She could just barely glean some of their half-obscured features. Many of them were beastborn, but a few seemed human as well.
And, standing at the center of the group, before the bloodstained altar, was a boy with wild, black hair, who turned toward Rin to reveal a pair of dark, amber eyes.
Rin balled her hands up into fists at her sides as Ava moved away from her, almost like the Divine himself was about to smite her on the spot. She walked up to the man, standing beside him.
"Rin," the boy said, pulling his hood down so Rin knew exactly who was speaking. "You came."
He did not sound entirely happy about that, but at the same time, his voice had not lost even a fraction of the familiarity with which Rin remembered him speaking.
"Tristan..." Rin murmured, looking around as she took a couple of steps forward. She wanted to make sure there weren't any archers or mages nearby, waiting to fire at her. "It's been a while."
"It has. Wow," he laughed with disbelief, smiling warmly. "You... You've grown some muscles! I... I've missed you."
Rin inhaled sharply.
"So have I... So has mom," Rin replied before laying her eyes on the others in the room. "For the longest time, we were worried sick about you. But, it doesn't look like you've been doing too badly for yourself."
Tristan walked down the steps leading to that altar.
He noticed the bag at Rin's hip and the adventurer looked down at it as well, just to make sure Xhez wasn't visible.
Whatever element of surprise Xhez could have had, however, went out the window when Ava walked up and whispered into Tristan's ear, pointing at the bag.
"You, ehm, didn't come alone?"
Hearing that, Rin gently tapped the side of the bag to let Xhez know she may as well jump out, which she quickly did.
"Is that a problem?"
"No, not at all," Tristan responded. "In fact, we were hoping you would bring her."
[Okay, so... Any doubt as to who these people are is pretty much out the window, huh?]
With that being the case, some of the resentful glares aimed at her made more sense, given that she'd wiped out so many of them just a month or so ago. And, against the wolves.
"Oh yeah? Why's that?"
Tristan shared glances with his allies. Rin wondered just how far they were from the inevitable happening.
"I understand that there have been some... unfortunate incidents that have happened between you and my friends, but I was hoping that, maybe, I could help you understand where they were coming from-"
"-When they kidnapped a bunch of people and murdered them for no reason? When they kill random travelers in the middle of the woods? Or, what about the murders happening right now, as we speak? You want to justify them all?"
"... Maybe I can," Tristan replied. "You may as well listen and see for yourself. Your friend will also definitely want to hear this, as our plan directly benefits her."
Upon being addressed, Xhez gave the man a look with so much barely-contained fury within it that Rin knew the only reason she wasn't trying to kill everyone here was because Rin hadn't given her the go-ahead to do so.
And, indeed, it was looking like it was only a matter of time before Rin did. But, right now, with Tristan in front of her, Rin couldn't deny that she was at least curious.
Before the proverbial shit hit the fan, she wanted to at least hear where Tristan had been these last 3 years.
So, knowing it probably didn't matter, she asked:
"Where the hell were you?"
Tristan took a deep breath.
"Let me explain."