“And what am I supposed to do when I’m alone?” Blaze asked with a serious demeanor.

“What do you mean alone? Your Maa will always be with you.” Replied Nila.

“Don’t lie! The head maid told me, parents don’t stay with you forever; they leave. Grandpa isn’t here with you!”

Nila was not ready for such a question, at least not from a child; she was saddened to be reminded of her father’s absence in her life. Blaze noticed the sorrow on her face; a drop of tear rolled down form her eyes and seeing this, his heart missed a bit.

“Maa! I’m sorry Maa! I’ll never say something like this again, I promise! Please don’t cry!” Young Blaze was terrified; he thought now that he has made his mother cry, she will leave him too; just like everyone else has. He started crying from just the thought of being abandoned.

“Please don’t leave me!”

For Nila, all of it was too sudden; while she was reminiscing her father, her son had thought of something terrible. She quickly came back to her senses, and held her son tightly in her arms, as if she was afraid to lose him.

In his mother’s warm embrace, young Blaze calmed down; he felt safe.

“Are you okay now?” Nila asked him gently.

“Mm hmm.”

Then she held him in front of her and said, “Now listen carefully; I am your mother, I never can or will abandon you. But if somehow, there comes a time when I’m not there with you; then don’t be afraid, you have nothing to be scared of. You’re a kind child Blaze, I’m certain you will make companions that will stay with you, always.”

“But what if you have to leave before that?” Blaze asked.

“Then you still don’t need to be scared. I have raised you to be strong enough to defend yourself, fight! Fight the whole godda… Don’t be afraid to fight the whole world if you have to; because you will win if you do!”

Such an advice is not a normal one to give a 11-year-old; but Nila taught her son many lessons like this, as if she knew what would happen 7 years later.

But there Blaze was, fighting off fierce monsters which somewhat resembled hyenas. Well, it wasn’t much fighting, more like hunting. He was killing those monsters that had come to hunt him, with a spine which he pulled out of one of those creatures.

And suddenly all those monsters started backing off; “Are those scared of me?” Blaze thought. No! It’s not him they are terrified of; Blaze felt something lurking behind him. He quickly turned around and what he saw petrified him.

A black hound, at least three times bigger than the Stone-claw Blaze had fought previously; moreover, this giant canine had three heads. It looked at Blaze fiercely with its 6 eyes; the hound smelled Blaze and exhaled which hit Blaze like a gust of wind. Then it muttered,

“Undeserving!”

Blaze was shocked to find out about the beast’s ability to speak; it wasn’t a mindless monster, rather an intelligent life-form. And while Blaze was still dumbfounded, it spoke again, “Why have you come here, boy? Hell has no place for people like ‘you’.”

“I was killed!” Blaze replied.

“NO! The thread remains! Leave! NOW!”

“What thread? How do I leave? Tell me, and I’ll leave immediately!”

“Tug the thread!”

“Tug?” Blaze was utterly confused, he turned left and right, yet couldn’t find any kind of thread, “There is no thread! I can’t see it!”

“The thread is right there; Tug it! My patience is running out, LEAVE! Or I will severe the thread of your life!”

Blaze’s whole body froze; he felt utterly helpless, he couldn’t see the thread no matter how much he tried.” He knew he can’t do anything anymore; so, finally he turned towards the hellhound and looked right into its eyes.

“So, you have chosen, death?!” the hound said with a deep, husky voice.

“I have no other choice; but to fight!” Blaze stood ready to fight this beast of hell.

The hound then breathed out fire and it surrounded Blaze. But to both of their surprise, the fire didn’t burn him, it only circled around him; and then Blaze remembered, “The fire, obeys me.” He muttered to himself.

The giant hound stood in front of him, confused, as to why his fire was obeying this boy.

“You can control the Hellfire?”

“I don’t know.” Blaze said, as the ‘Hellfire’ seemed to connect with him, empowering him; the blood-red fire lifted Blaze into the air, his eyes glowed, “Wanna find out? Doggo?”

Blaze smirked and fired the hellish flames towards the hound. But just before the fire reached the hound, a thread appeared, connected to Blaze’s chest. It seemed as if someone was tugging the thread from the other end; and Blaze was pulled violently, and in a blink of an eye, disappeared from that place.

   *GASP* Blaze suddenly woke up on a bed. “Wher...*cough*” He tried to speak but coughed out some blood.

“Take it easy kid; I healed your throat, but it would take a bit of time to fully recover.”

This voice, Blaze knew this voice; the man that killed him. He quicky turned around and tried to punch Kai; but Kai grabbed him by the wrist and said, “Calm down kid, you’re still hurt.”

Blaze opened his fist and casted a wave of fire to strike Kai, but Kai once again dodged the attack by quicky ducking and jumping away. Now he was a bit away from Blaze.

Blaze was fully ready to attack again but before he could do anything else, the door of the room opened; and in came a boy, not much older than Blaze. He had a tray with three ceramic bowls of soup.

“What the hell is happening here?!” Said the boy, and then noticed Blaze ready to attack.

“Daichi! He’s gone mad, he wants to kill me for nothing!” Kai shouted.

“Nothing?!” Blaze said in a strained voice, “You killed me!”

And then Blaze proceeded to cast a fire ball. Daichi noticed it, he threw the tray upwards, then did some hand movements; and in a moment, the tray and the three bowls turned into sand grains, then suddenly that sand solidified into a shield, which Daichi used to deflect the fire ball.

It all happened too fast for Blaze, but he quickly collected himself and started casting fire balls rapidly towards Kai and Daichi.

Daichi stopped only defending and started charging at Blaze; the shield again turned into sand, then flew to Daichi and formed earthen gauntlets around his hands.

Every fire ball Blaze threw at him, Daichi deflected with the gauntlet, and slowly got close enough to Blaze to grab his hands. Daichi grabbed Blaze’s hands with the gauntlets and sealed their hands together, leaving Blaze unable to cast anymore fire. And then smacked their heads together.

“Stop going frantic! You’re making a hot mess of this room!” Daichi said.

“Frantic? He killed me!”

“Oh really?! If he did, then how are in front of me, burning our hideout?!”

Blaze suddenly realized that this boy did have a point, he really was alive again. But how?

“Have you calmed down now?” Kai asked hesitantly, “Will you listen to me?”. Blaze looked at him, with a bit of distrust in his eyes; but he knew he had no other choice, so he nodded.

“Good.” Daichi took his hands out of the gauntlets but merged them to make an earthen bind for Blaze’s hands. Blaze urged him to unbind him, but Daichi disagreed, “Not until I’m fully sure you won’t burn down this place.” He said, “Now listen what he has to say.”

“Let’s start with introductions; I’m Kai Yamada, professional bounty hunter, Division 6; and this is Daichi Ishido, he’s uhm…. My student, I guess?”

“I prefer ‘apprentice’.”

“That’s not important right now, student!” Kai replied mockingly, “So I was on a bounty mission in the Torukiyan Nation, and I came across something rather, concerning.”

“What?” Blaze asked.

“At first glance, everything seemed normal, but the longer I stayed, the more bizarre everything felt. And one day, something happened, then everything was clear to me; clear as the cloudless sky.”

“What happened?” Blaze was eager to know.

“At the Royal Palace, they served me milk, in a bowl!” and then even more dramatically, “In a Frigging ‘Soup bowl’!!”

“Uh, WHAT?!”

“Yes! Milk in soup bowl!!”

“NO no no! That’s not what I asked! And why would that even be relevant?”

“Why?! The milk is an esteemed beverage, it at least deserved to be served in a glass of some sort!”

“What the hell are you talking about! You’re supposed to tell me about the invasion in Torukiyo!”

“I am doing that.”

“No! You’re not; you’re spewing nonsense about something as irrelevant as milk!”

“Milk and irrelevant?! Boy! Do you have any idea how marvelous the discovery of milk is?”

Blaze was totally dumbfounded by this man’s enthusiasm in talking about milk; Blaze looked at Daichi, but he just shrugged, like this was just a common occurrence. Kai continued,

“Man’s discovery of milk was such a great gamble! Think about it, the milk came out from a cow’s body, just like poison came from snake’s; there was a good chance that milk was just as fatal as poison, or even more! But did that stop us from taking that gamble? Did it?!”

Blaze instinctively answered, “No, it didn’t!”

“Of course it didn’t! And thank God for that, we found the ‘Milk’; it has an abundance of all the good things our body needs and doesn’t even have any side-effects like alcohol does. The milk is not too watery, it's not too thick, just the right viscosity for a beverage. You can drink it hot; you can drink it cold; you can have it something, you can even just drink it straight without anything; if that’s not the perfect beverage, I don’t know what is!” Kai was still going to continue but was stopped by Daichi.

“Actually, what he’s trying to say is that Torukiyo is a nation filled with plain grass fields; the dairy products are the main source of their national revenue. So naturally, they of all people should know how to properly serve milk to guests.”

“Exactly! And the Royal family was weirdly absent as well, so it piqued my curiosity and I dug deeper; then I found out, that the royal family was no more. Each and every member had been killed; the throne was usurped by the Brethren of Salvation, without the outer world having any idea about it.”

“Why should believe that?” Blaze asked.

“Pardon?”

“Why should I believe you? There’s no way for me to confirm that what you said was true; I don’t even know if you told me your real name; and on top of all that, you tried to kill me!”

“I never tried to kill you! That dagger connected with your soul through a thread, you couldn’t’ve died.”

“Really? Then how do explain why that three-headed mut tried to burn the thread?!”

“Cerberus tried to burn the thread?”

“Cerberus? It has a name?”

“But why would he want to erase you? He only stops necromancers from entering hell. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I have no idea, and frankly, I don’t care anymore. Just let me go, and we can just get out of each other’s way.” Blaze heated his hands and broke free from the earthen binding.

“We can’t do that.” Daichi blocked Blaze’s path.

“Get out of my way; I won’t fall for your earth-bending bullshit again.’

“Daichi! Let him go.” Suddenly Kai spoke.

“What?”

“Yeah, you heard me right. Let him go, keeping him here against his will will not benefit us anyway.”

“Fine!” Daichi stepped back, and Blaze left.

Then Daichi spoke again, “He’s going to be in danger. Why did you let him go?”

“He doesn’t trust us, or rather should I say, he can’t. One of his own tried to kill him, trusting strangers like us is the last thing he’d do. And you can save someone who thinks he doesn’t need to be saved.”

“So shouldn’t we try to stop him?”

“Its no use, at least for now. Eventually he’ll realize, let's just hope it isn’t too late by then.”

“It’s the third time this week! Every time we find one of their hideouts, the bastards always slip away before the raid!” Varun shouted in frustration; he was sitting on a bench in front of the pond which was in the Royal guest house.

“Calm down detective; many nation’s governments have failed to catch them. I think we are quite fortunate to even be able to locate them.”

“But that’s not enough, is it? That Thorn! He is just too cunning!”

Upon hearing this, Calix said with a hint of disgust, “Well, it seems he is not as ‘intelligent’ as I thought he’d be; judging that you tracked his trail successfully, and that too not once or twice, but three times.”

“Still!” Varun yelled again, he seemed disgusted by himself; he spoke in a sorry tone,

“I don’t see myself, when I look at the mirror anymore.”

Calix wasn’t expecting such conversation.

“You know what I see?” Varun asked.

“What?”

“A failure, a goddamn failure!”

Calix realized that Varun had lost his self-confidence completely, “I know how you feel right now.”

Calix’s sudden words surprised Varun, “What” he said.

“I know how you’re feeling; I was once at that exact place where you are now, I know that feeling all too well. The feeling of your own heart hating you; not being able to keep the only promise you made to yourself; I know how that feels.’

Varun looked at Calix with moist eyes; eyes that were about to burst into tears.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to try consoling you, nor will I share the pains of my past. Because I know; neither consolation nor relating to your agony will lessen the pain you feel now, even a bit. But I also know that pain either shapes you, or breaks you; So, which will it be for you, Varun?”

An uneasy expression emerged on Varun’s face, as he could not answer Calix’s Question.

“We need to hurry. The Brethren aren’t going to wait anymore, now that they have us on their tail. We need to locate them as soon as possible; the Emperor has already started to think that I’m only wasting time.”

Calix noticed that Varun wanted to change the subject, so he didn’t bring up anything else, “Fine! We will continue our investigation tomorrow; today we should take some rest, you of all people need to rest.”

Varun nodded and both of them went back to their quarters.

When Calix entered his room, it was eerily dark inside; but since he was going to sleep, he decided not to light a candle. His eyes were still not used to the dark, then he started to undress; took off his shirt and was about to take his belt off when he felt another presence in the room.

Calix quickly took out his revolver from the holster and aimed it at the robed person who stood behind him, “Take one step closer and I’ll blast your brains out.” Calix said calmly.

“Killing someone on Castle grounds when you weren’t even attacked; I don’t think you’re allowed to do that, well not legally at least.”

“Well, judging by the fact that you thought breaking into my room was a good idea, I’d say it won’t be that lethal. Since you must have more than enough ‘free space’ in your skull to survive a bullet to the head.”

“Now now! Don’t be so hostile, I thought we’re allies.”

“Allies? What the hell are you talking about? Who the hell are yo….”

Calix’s eyes finally adapted to the darkness, and he couldn’t believe what he was seeing; with his eyes wide open in confusion he shouted, “Prince Blaze?!”