It was the next day Mervyn received the message. He had been awake since early that morning and had just finished dealing with the transportation for the inter-school competition, which was going to start later that day. 

He had been sitting peacefully at his desk when all of a sudden one of his trusted spies appeared in the room sweaty and out of breath. "What is it?" asked Mervyn curiously "has something happened?" the spy looked down at the ground an expression of reluctance on his face. "I'm sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news, but your niece has just been found dead in the magical beast forest along with all her guards." 

Mervyn stared at the spy shell-shocked. He'd never been particularly fond of his niece, but that didn't change the fact she was family. "What happened? She had a whole squadron of guards with her?!?!" the spy looked more reluctant still. "Well apparently during the travels she saw a magical beast that caught her fancy so had the guards split into three groups to look for it, when it ran off."

Mervyn looked down at the floor feeling distraught, but trying to put his feelings aside to help figure out what happened. "So what killed her then?" he asked his tone slightly more detached now. The spy nodded "well that's the odd thing about it, all the guards as well as...your niece were killed in different ways."

Mervyn looked up at the spy "what do you mean?" "Well," said the spy "a few of the guards were torn apart by what looks like a wolf of some sort, however, there were also stab marks similar to that of a birds beak as well as a majority of the guards being poisoned. In comparison, your niece seems to be the only one who was killed with a knife."

Mervyn looked at the spy in yet more confusion "so the killer was a human, not a magical beast as we first believed?" the spies reluctance increased, just like all other spies he did not like to be the bearer of bad news. "We believe the killer may have a magical beast in human form." "What?!?" echoed Mervyn loudly, magical beasts in human form were a rarity but with the exception of when they first gained their form most were obscenely powerful and very difficult to track. 

"What makes you think that?" "Well sir," said the spy "owing to the variety of different methods with which the guards died, it would take someone of considerable power to control the magical beasts needed for this attack, the only other explanation would be a magician with at least three spirits but we don't have any documented magicians who have a snake a bird and some kind of predator." 

Mervyn sighed this case was getting more complicated by the minute. "Do we have any idea of motive? Surely my niece trying to capture a small magical beast isn't incentive enough to be killed?" the spy started to look uneasy and stayed silent for a minute. "Well?" said Mervyn in a demanding tone. 

"Your name sir." Mervyn stared at the spy in confusion "well sir one of the guards who was poisoned apparently had a weak resistance to it due to training. So when the other guards found them, he managed to hang on long enough to warn them that the person who attacked had only done it after the young mistress said who she was in relation to you. Other than that, the only other information we got was that the thing that poisoned him was definitely a snake." 

It was as Mervyn had feared, over the years he had participated in numerous hunts for magical beasts and cores, and had enjoyed playing around with the more intelligent ones, this however had given numerous chances for one or two of the hunted beasts to escape. However, after seeing their friends and family butchered, it generated a lot of hatred towards Mervyn and a few of the escaped beasts may have been able to pull off getting strong enough to defeat the guards.

Mervyn looked at the guard, his face unreadable "understood you may go, try to find the perpetrator of this case and then bring them to me." The spy nodded then disappeared without a word. The second he did, Mervyn's facade crumbled as he screamed out in rage "ahhhhh how dare they, how dare someone do this to my family they will pay, they will pay, THEY WILL PAY FOR THIS!!!" 

..................................................................................

On the opposite end of the school, Lupos had awoken from a peaceful sleep and had started to organise all his possessions in a small bag to take to the tournament. "Now," he said to his four spirits "during the trip I need all of you except Fenrir out of sight seeing as no one knows about you. If something goes wrong then Munin you can come and help me, the rest of you are to stay out of sight." 

The four nodded "Why only Munin though?" asked Hugin as an afterthought. "Because," said Lupos "he's the only spirit I can pass off as a normal animal if worst comes to worst. But, you and Jormugand would be recognised as spirits immediately." 

Looking at the jade green snake and pure white raven it became quite obvious that the two were spirits, or at the very least magical beasts. "Ok," said Lupos after packing away the last of his possessions "let's head to the front gate. That bastard headmaster as well as Lucio and whoever came third should be waiting for us." 

Jormugand slithered into Lupos' bag, and Hugin and Munin flew out the window to hide in the trees so they could secretly follow them later. Only Fenrir remained in sight. Lupos silently walked towards the door and started towards the front gate grinning. He was looking forward to the tournament it would be a chance to blow off some steam. If any of his spirits had seen his smile they would have remarked that it looked exactly the same as Darius's smile when he thought about training.