Nazuko runs down what appears to be the hundredth hallway she’s run through. Every hallway looks exactly the same and she hasn’t seen a soul since she left Warren behind. She has taken so many turns in such a random order that there’s no way she’s been running in circles yet that exactly appears to be what’s happened. She thinks she’s losing her mind. Nazuko has checked multiple rooms as well but none of them contained what she was looking for. She saw neither slaves, nor statues. Instead all she saw were pristine bedrooms, reminding her of college dorms for she had stolen from colleges a few times. Nazuko wanted to stop in a few bedrooms to loot their stuff but she had to hold herself back, knowing she had a mission to complete. She stops running, frustrated by her lack of progress.

“Ugh. What is this place!? The architect should be ashamed!” Nazuko yells, knowing that no one will hear her.

Just when she was about to go back she passed a large steel door. She immediately backtracks to it. All the other doors were made out of wood so this door stood out. What’s more, on the front of the door is a depiction of a red humanoid figure. It has horns, red skin, and wears black knight armor. Nazuko supposes it’s an insignia of something, but of what Nazuko can’t tell, she’s never seen something like it before.

“And what do we have here?” she questions as she examines the door.

She tries to open it but to no one’s surprise, it was locked. She takes out a lock pick and makes quick work of it. She enters the room and finds herself in a study of some kind. There’s a large chandelier in the ceiling that illuminates the room. Directly beneath it is a rug and two sofas. There are large bookshelves along the walls and directly at the other end of the room is a desk with a large chair.

“Hmmm, something definitely has to be here. My senses are going off” she says to herself.

She explores the room. Examining the book shelves she doesn’t find anything of note. The books are mostly worthless, you can find them at any bookstore. She pulls out a big book and notices that it’s in a strange language she doesn’t recognize. This makes her pause because she remembers that Will had been reading books with this language, she tried to read one herself back in his room but it didn’t go so well. Knowing that reading it would be a fool’s errand she puts it back. Nazuko decides to go examine the large desk. She lockpicks one of the drawyers and finds a notebook. She looks at its contents flipping to a random page and realizes that it’s a diary. There is a date on the top of each page followed by a short entry. Wondering how far back it goes she flips to the front and sees that the date of the first entry is the New Dawn 13th, 2622. The year is currently 2660 so doing mental math she figures out this entry is 38 years old.

“Wow the owner of this must be an old fart”. She remarks

She was about to put it down to continue her search to figure out where the slaves or statue is but her curiosity gets the better of her. She begins to read the first entry.

It reads as follows:

13 New Dawn, 2622

Daddy gave me this diary today. He told me to write in it so when he comes home from work, he’ll know what I did. Today I went to school. I got in trouble again. Frankie was hurting Clementine again so I stopped him. Daddy always told me to help people when they’re in trouble and Frankie was pulling on her hair making her cry. So I punched Frankie in the face. I got yelled at by the teacher. I don’t feel bad. I’m the good guy.

Given the grammar structure Nazuko assumes that this entry was written when the owner was a child. She decides to flip forward about a hundred pages.

21 Morning’s Rise, 2627

I saw the military parade to commemorate Emperor Majorian’s victory over the Barbarians in the south with Clementine today. It was amazing, the soldiers and their weapons were on full display. It was a great privilege to see the heroes of the empire. I wonder if I’ll ever have the privilege to be a part of a military parade. I haven’t told my father yet but I want to attend North Point, to be a soldier. It’s possible people will look at me like I looked at those soldiers today in the future. It’s a fun dream to have.

Nazuko hereafter starts to read more entries at random.

1 Dayspring, 2630

Today I graduated from high school. Knowing today would’ve been the last day I would’ve seen her before going to North Point I confessed to Clementine today. She accepted my feelings. I feel like I’m on top of the world. I know it’ll be hard to date a soldier in training, especially since I’ll only be home during holiday but I don’t care, we’ll make it work.

8 Nightrise 2632

I’m officially serving under General Petreaus. We are to deploy Zefren to hunt down some ghouls. While I was checking to make sure my men had their equipment I met a strange fellow officer named Marcus. He saw my physique and immediately challenged me to a fight. He’s quite bumptious. In other news Clementine is doing well, about 8 months pregnant now. I know it’s not good to have a child so young but being a soldier means one can die at any time. I have no idea what to name the child. I was thinking Buford, Clementine hates the name however, I have no idea why.

“Ha! Buford.” Nazuko couldn’t help but laugh, she thought it was a horrible name.

31 Black Midnight 2640

We’re officially at war with the elves. They launched an attack on Atrad without warning. The state hasn’t been completely taken over but I hope Clementine and Buford are ok, she’s visiting her mother’s house in Thessaly. Hold on you two, I’m coming to save you.

5 Night’s End 2640

Those monsters. Those pointy eared self centered beasts. When we took back the city I ran straight towards Clementine's mother’s house. I opened the door expecting them to be hiding, instead all I saw were their bodies. I could tell that Clementine and her mother died protecting Buford, there were knives next to them. Buford’s body was in the corner of the living room, completely defenseless, there was nothing he could’ve done, he was only 8. I know why they did this, they tried to break me. It won’t work. All they did was taught me that they don’t want to conduct war honorably. Women and children can be targets. If that is how they want it, so it shall be. After I returned to camp I ordered the execution of all 2,000 elf P.O.W’s. Once we make it into the Elven empire, I’ll show them true horror. I’ll do whatever it takes to win this war.

13 High Noon 2646

The war is officially over and I first heard of it while in this jail cell. The peace treaty was signed, with one of the clauses stating that I would be held responsible for my ‘crimes’. Doing whatever it took to win is now something to be ashamed of. With the sign of a pen, all my soldiers are declared war criminals despite the fact that if it wasn’t for me doing what was necessary, we would have lost the entire empire. They didn’t know it was me specifically who used the Elven civilians as bait to draw out the enemy forces until Creon told the other lords. He’s a traitor, he was the biggest war monger out of all of them, was elated to hear of my victories. He allegedly had a change of heart, in reality he just wanted to save his own skin. I also heard that they’re going to elect Marcus as Emperor. With this and the shameful treaty signed, this country is doomed.

14 High Noon 2646

I just woke up in a cold sweat. I at first thought it was a dream, but it felt too real. I saw a demon with my own eyes. He called himself the “horned one”. He showed me the future of this world. All I saw was hellfire and destruction. The land covered in blood. The rivers on fire. Demons roamed the land, humanity was no more. I saw hell on earth, nothing of my world remained. I was told that was humanity’s fate. I asked him why he showed me such things. He responded that the future isn’t set in stone, that it can change, that I could change it. He said humanity and demons can live together, can live comfortably, as long as humanity surrendered and cooperated with the demons. He told me to conduct a ritual to bring about the demon wave, that doing so will result in mercy and he said I can get my revenge on Creon and everyone else who abandoned my soldiers. I know what I must do, I don’t care how long it’ll take, I have to take over this country to ensure that humanity will be saved. If the demons come and we fight, it’ll be the end of us all. Ayana is in a state of unrest, I’ll capitalize on it, make their situation so bad that the people will rebel and it'll give me my chance to end Creon. It’ll be the starting point of humanity’s salvation.

“Aw it’s Lucy Wucy’s diary” a voice says in Nazuko’s ear.

“AH!” Nazuko screams, dropping the notebook and jumping back, her heart racing.

She looks at the speaker and sees a small girl wearing a unicorn mask. It has a bullet hole in the forehead. Looking at the rest of her body Nazuko sees she’s wearing a robe that looks like a child decorated it as it has a bunch of animal drawings and there is way too much glitter on her person. The young girl’s strange appearance isn’t the only thing that has Nazuko on edge. She got snuck up on. That’s not supposed to happen. She’s a master thief, she sneaks up on other people, not the other way around. Was she too distracted by the diary? She concludes that must’ve been it, to think it was anything else would mean Nazuko wasn’t the best thief who ever lived, which is impossible

“Who are you!? What are you!?” Nazuko shouts pointing at the girl.

“Hmm? My name is Candy! I was told to play with you! What game do you wanna play?” she claims jumping up and down with excitement.

“Huh?” Nazuko blurts out, completely dumbfounded.

“Come on, let's play! We can play patty cake, hopscotch, thumb wrestling, charades-”

“How old are you?”

“I’m…..” she begins to answer but stops in order to count on her fingers.

“12. Are you my age? You’re small”

“Hey! There are plenty of small adults out there! Being small is normal!”

“Hahaha you’re funny. I like you, you’re my friend now. NOW WHAT GAME TO DO YOU WANNA PLAY, FRIEND!?” the unicorn girl asks, getting into Nazuko’s personal space.

Nazuko freaks out and unconsciously activates her ability to dash backwards in a flash of light. Now Nazuko’s on the other side of the room, near the entrance.

“OOOOOOOOH YOU’RE FAST!” the girl wails in awe.

“I know I know, do you wanna play tag?”

Nazuko hesitates to answer. She still doesn’t fully comprehend what’s going on but realizes she can use this young masked girl to her advantage. This gives her an idea.

“How about a scavenger hunt?” Nazuko offers instead.

“YAY! I always wanted to play scavenger hunt”

“Good, good you freaking weirdo. I know just what to look for. Let’s find a Vienna statue.”

“The pretty god lady?”

“I wouldn’t go that far but yeah”

“Ok!”

The unicorn masked girl turns around and starts to go through a few of the desk’s drawers. She opens one and takes out a glowing Vienna statue, it has a faint purple aura.

“Found it, I won!” the girl exclaims holding it up in the air

“What the fu-”

“Ok what do you wanna play now?”

“Ughh wait can I have that?”

The unicorn girl looks at the statue in her hands.

“You want this?”

“Y-yes very much so. Since we’re friends, can you hand it over?”

“Hmmm oh I know! You gotta catch me first. Let’s play hide and seek! If you find me, I’ll give it to you!”

“Can we not?”

“Ok you count to ten and I’ll-”

Nazuko, fed up dealing with this child activiates her ability. In a flash of light she dashes across the room in order to take the statue from her. She looks at her hand expecting to be holding the statue but her hand only grabs air. She looks to her left to see the unicorn girl standing there. Did she move faster than Nazuko? That’s impossible, that would imply her reflexives were quick enough to dodge someone who moved near the speed of light. Must’ve been a fluke.

“Hey, you were supposed to count first. Did you want to play tag instead?”

Nazuko glows once again and tries to snatch the statue away but the girl dodges again.

“Oh so we are playing tag! Ok, come catch me!” the unicorn girl yells as she runs out the door.

Nazuko bolts into the hallway. There was no way the girl would get out of her sight. Yet that’s exactly what happened. Nazuko frantically looks left and right and realizes that she’s lost her.

“How!?” Nazuko proclaims in disbelief.

“Come on, don’t give up yet! Let’s play wheeee!” Nazuko hears to her right, it came from around the corner of the hall.

“I hate this” Nazuko grumbles to herself.

Deciding it’s time to get serious, Nazuko takes the set position as if she’s about to start running a relay, takes a deep breath, and, glowing like a lightbulb, zooms down the hallway.

“Ha got you!” Nazuko celebrates thinking she was finally fast enough to catch the unicorn girl.

“That was cool! You were like ‘zooooooom’ and you were so bright!” the unicorn girl exclaims now at the end of the new hallway Nazuko finds herself in.

“...What!? Come on! How’d you get down there so fast?!” Nazuko howls angrily.

“I ran with my feet.”

“I hate this girl. I hate her so much. Give me that statue!” Nazuko orders rushing after her.

Thus began perhaps the fastest game of tag in Ayana’s history. Nazuko rushed down the hall, looking like a beam of light, only to be taunted at the end of the hallway by the unicorn girl. Again and again Nazuko ran, thinking she was about to catch her but every time she came out of her run her arms would be empty. Being taunted after every failed dash, Nazuko’s anger was building up. Nazuko has also lost track of where she is, well she was lost already before but now more so. After about 2 minutes of constantly zipping down hallways, a foot sticks out from around the corner which trips Nazuko, making her roll into a wall.

“Owwwww!” Nazuko wails.

“Hehehehe, I’ve never had this much fun playing tag before. You’re fast for someone who doesn’t have demon blood. Let’s play all day, come on!” the unicorn girl laughs running off

Nazuko jumps to her feet, cracks her back and shouts “Get back here!....Wait demon what?”

Nazuko was about to launch herself again but stopped to take a deep breath. Her current plan clearly isn’t working.

“Come on, Nazuko, think. There has to be a way to catch her. Think, Think!” Nazuko tells herself.

She’s now squatting on the ground trying to think up a plan. Every time she enters a new hallway, the girl would already be at the end of it ready to turn the corner. Nazuko also noticed that she alternated whether she would turn left or right. She would lead Nazuko left in one hallway only to lead her right in the next. Nazuko still doesn’t know how the girl is staying ahead of her but she realizes one thing, she’s predictable. Nazuko can use that to her advantage, the question is how. All of a sudden a memory pops up in her mind when she was back in the tower before everyone set off for the castle.

***

“Rule one of assasination: corner your target” Akane expounds.

“What’s rule two?” Nazuko eagerly asks, sitting next to a just as interested Nerva in the tower’s common area.

“Rule two of assasination: kill your target” Akane elaborates.

“Aaaaahhhhh” Nazuko and Nerva say in awe.

“What’s rule three?” Nazuko begs.

“There is no rule three. If you can’t carry out rule two you fail, you need to go home and be ashamed.”

“Amazing. Akane you’re so cool”

“I know”

***

Nazuko thinks to herself that was a nice memory but wonders why she thought of it. Then it hits her.

“Ohhh” she says to herself.

She looks to her left and realizes that the hall she’s in is a dead end. Perfect. All Nazuko needs to do is lead the girl into a dead end hallway and she won’t be able to escape. Since the girl moves in a predictable fashion it shouldn’t be hard. Then she realizes that the only way she can do that is by running at her until IT happens. Worst still, she needs to make a mental map of all the hallways so that she knows she’s leading the girl in the right direction. She sighs, this is going to be mentally and physically taxing. Nazuko begins to stretch her limbs, her plan is to run through every single hallway, leaving a trail of light behind in order to prevent running through the same hallway twice. Once she runs out of new hallways to run through, she’ll have finished her mental map. Only once she does that can she begin chasing the girl again.

Nazuko breaks out into a full spring once again, this time zipping and zapping all over the place, a trail of light being left behind her. She doesn’t know how many hallways there are, but she needs to mentally memorize all of them, if she misses even one her plan will fail. She finally completed her task, breathing heavily. While it only took five minutes, to Nazuko it felt like an hour. All Nazuko could think about was the top down map she made for herself. She underestimated how many hallways there were, the place was like a labyrinth.

“Oooh pretty lights” the unicorn girl compliments from behind.

“AH!” Nazuko screams.

She was snuck up on again. This time she blames her fatigue for why the unicorn girl was able to do what she did.

“Did you get lost? I was behind you the whole time you know, I wouldn’t abandon my friend” the unicorn girl affirms.

“Hah...Hah don’t worry about me Hah. I’m about to catch you. Hah oh wow that really took a number on me. You guys…..have way too many hallways'' Nazuko replies, catching her breath.

“A lot of my friends are housed here so that’s probably why. But I like it, it makes playing with you so fun. Are you ready to keep going?!.” the unicorn girl asks.

“Yeah...sure,” Nazuko says, sounding so tired of it all.

With that the unicorn girl is off again, with Nazuko following behind, once more a ball of light. The pattern which followed was the same as when the game first started, but this time it all goes according to Nazuko’s plan. The girl appears right where Nazuko expected her to. From an outsider’s perspective it looked like the unicorn girl was leading Nazuko. In reality, it was the other way around. Next thing the unicorn girl knew, she was at a dead end.

“Hey where did this wall come from?” the masked girl asks, tilting her head at the wall.

“I GOT YOU NOW!” Nazuko yells behind her.

The girl turns around and is met with a glowing fist to the face. Nazuko had been running at terminal velocity so the punch slammed the unicorn girl’s head into the wall. The blow was so great that the collision caused cracks to run all over the wall’s surface.

“Hah got you!...Ow my hand! Hah...Hah” Nazuko curses, shaking her right hand. She had never thrown a punch that hard before and is now completely out of breath.

She squeezes her hand to check if it’s broken and luckily it isn’t. Nazuko looks at the girl she dealt so much damage to see that the girl is slouching against the wall, still wearing her mask. Nazuko would take it off but she knows what's underneath is not a pretty sight. Next to the girl is the Vienna statue. Nazuko picks it up, examines it, and jubilantly throws it at the ground causing it to shatter. Relieved that it’s finally over, Nazuko turns around to make her way out and get back to Will. As she walks she stops, realizing that the girl might be dead.

“Oh no. I hope she’s not dead. I don’t feel like adding murderer to my list of titles.” Nazuko admits.

She turns around but to her utter shock the body is gone. She walks forward and sees a note’s been left behind.

Dear friend,

Sorry I can’t play anymore. I was told to come back to base, but I had a lot of fun playing with you. You’re good at tag! I’ll play with you again some day. :)

Love,

Candy

Reading the note makes Nazuko cringe and very alarmed. No normal person should have gotten away that quickly. She also realizes that she was in a dead end hallway so how did she escape? How did she leave the note? A lot of questions are running through her mind but Nazuko ultimately decides that she wants to forget this day ever happened. She needs to get back to Will like she was told. But first, she’s going back to retrieve that notebook. She remembered being told to gather evidence of what the peasant rebellion is really about. She hopes doing so will result in Will praising her. As she heads back she also worries about Warren, but concludes that he’ll be fine. Warren is tough and determined, nothing can stop him now.