-Vol 6: Dusk of An Era-

-To Tokyo(2)-

“So, we are going on a train?” Kenshin asked bewildered as he stood in a pair of short hoody shirts and long, black pants, and white sneakers. Before him, stood Yuki, in identically same styled clothes.

“Yeah! What did you think?” Yuki asked with amusement visible on her big watery eyes.

“No, I thought… sigh, never mind. Let’s go.” Shaking his head, Kenshin fished out his phone and logged in to his cab booking app and booked a cab to the station, before pocketing the phone.

“Hey, hey, tell me to come on, what had you thought? We are going to take a helicopter? Haha, you are funny.” Yuki mercilessly mocked him as she laughed while holding her guts. Kenshin’s eyes twitched, he gently flicked her forehead, carefully enough to not hurt her.

“Ouch!! What was that for?” rubbing her head, Yuki gave him a cute glare before started to assault back at him by pinching his waist, saying “take that, that that”

“Your attacks are useless on me. Your measly strength can’t bypass this defense, hahaha!!” Kenshin laughed, teasing his girlfriend, who was using all her strength to pinch him.

“You… hmph!” Yuki angrily stomped her foot on the road, before turning her back towards Kenshin, with a hmph.

“Look, what a beautiful couple. Reminds me of our young days.” An old couple just passed by them while they stood beside the road, and gushed at their banter. Yuki blushed while Kenshin gave a smile to the couple, before nudging Yuki on her ribs, “heard what they said? We are like a cute couple.”

Yuki blushed even deeper. Though she had already confirmed her relationship with him, she was still very much shy about it in the presence of others. Kenshin would have liked to flirt with her more, but the car arrived, and they have to board it.

In the car,

“So, who are these two esteemed elders?” Kenshin asked he was very curious about them ever since he had heard about them from the mouth of Suguro. All he knew that it’s a group made of all the level 200 or above hunters, but really, what are these level 200 hunters are like? He was very eager to find out.

“I heard its Elder Mountain and someone else. It was still a mystery who was coming with him, though.” Yuki frowned and answered.

“mountain? Why such a weird name, or is it like some code name?”

“Code name, I guess. Anyway, they are really strong, both physically and politically. No matter which country they go, their treatment wouldn’t be any lesser than the leader of said country. This time though, they were coming secretly to investigate the scale of the damage done by those attacks. Well, that’s all I am aware of with my clearance.” Yuki frowned as she recollected everything noted on the mail she received that morning. It was so abrupt that she became flurried for quite a while, not knowing what to do.

“Heh, really now? Anyway, I am not going to find trouble with them.” Kenshin smiled, but, deep in his heart, he was very curious about these so-called Elders. If he had to be bold with his thoughts, he wanted to cross blades with one of them. If nothing else, only to gauge where he stood against those who stood at the peak of his world. But he was also not a mad person to seek trouble with a lion, while still unsure if he was even a tiger or a bunny.

“Ah yeah, that person, Elder Mountain is the father of Aoi. She has a very complicated relationship with him.” Yuki said in a frown. But Kenshin instead became confused, he wondered why Yuki was saying him these, and he voiced that out.

“Why are you saying me this, what’s your point?”

“Idiot, there is none. I am only saying these cause I want to… I just want to chat.” Yuki frowned and gave Kenshin a hard nudge on his ribs, only to squirm in pain when a jolt of electricity traveled through her arm. She cradled it and moaned, “ouchie… what the hell is that? It felt like I hit a wall… ah…”

“Sorry, sorry. You hit was so sudden that I forget to control my defense. Here, let me see what happened.” Kenshin took her arms in his and started to lightly massage it as he sent a small wave of magic through her body to accelerate her healing.

But something weird happened as soon as magic touched her body, suddenly he felt a suction force from his fingers as a huge amount of his magic was sucked away from it. Just when he thought things couldn’t be any weirder, red runes circles started to appear all over Yuki's hand, and her neck, even a few, appeared on her face. These runes rotated as if they are a fully functioning gear.

“what the fuck?” Kenshin was so shocked that he forgot to contain his voice. He hastily cut off his magic supply and watched keenly as one by one, all the gear-like runes faded back to her skin. As for Yuki, she regained her composure with a frown on her face. She looked at Kenshin’s flabbergasted face and asked lightly, “you saw them, right?”

“Yeah… what are they?” Kenshin took in a deep breath, before frowning and asked. He had been dating her for half-a-month, and they shared many things with each other. But she had never spoken anything about these.

“Kenshin, do you trust me?” Yuki suddenly asked out of blue, looking directly into the eyes of him.

“Yes, I do.” Of course, Kenshin answered without missing a beat. He didn’t think much about why she hid it, as he also had hidden his system’s existence to her.

“Then, please don’t ask me about them. Just don’t ask me, please.” She said with a very low pitched voice, sounding miserable. This tugged on Kenshin’s heartstrings, and Kenshin was really inclined to listen to her.

“I won’t… but Yuki, know this… if you don’t let me know, we might someday face some trouble regarding this matter and totally caught unprepared. It happened a lot in movies and games… I know this will reawaken some unwanted memory of you, but you have to…” Kenshin grabbed her palm and gave her a pat. Then he lifted it and kissed the back, “I may sound persistent and annoying, but you know I mean well, right? Alright, you don’t have to tell me anything about this matter, just tell me who I have to careful… regarding this matter.”

Yuki looked at Kenshin with her red, tear-filled eyes and lowered her head, “The Elder’s Council”. After saying it, she looked at Kenshin’s face from the corner of her eyes, to see his reaction.

Kenshin showed no visible reaction on the outside, but his heart was in chaos and turmoil. Finding that his girlfriend had been a victim of experiments done by the most powerful group in the world made him really frustrate. Not only that, despite being a victim, she still has to obey them… he really didn’t know how to respond to it. Should he go and declare war on them, or should he just silently endure?

“What should I do?” he fell into a dilemma.