He had run into someone completely unexpected.
Discreetly withdrawing his gaze from the silver-haired figure standing by the main gate, Cid moved to the side of Christina and Kanade with footsteps that concealed his presence exceptionally well, positioning himself in their blind spot.
Hmm, this should do.
With his attention fully focused, he could clearly sense the silver-haired woman behind him sweeping her gaze over his position. Yet thanks to his superb footwork, she overlooked the three of them entirely. Cid smiled in satisfaction.
As it turned out, as long as he actually concentrated, even someone as insignificant as an ant could be detected by him. Granted, the sheer amount of information flooding his senses at once nearly fried his brain's CPU, but that was fine. A little discomfort in exchange for avoiding trouble was more than worth it.
Feeling rather pleased with himself, Cid turned his attention back to the two people in front of him, especially Christina, who had already surprised him several times. After tactfully choosing not to expose her earlier, he had gained a profound appreciation for her astonishing wisdom. Who in the world would condemn someone on the grounds that, "The [Thirteen Nightblades] do nothing but drain the life from the kingdom, so isn't it only natural for them to slaughter an entire family when negotiations fail? Either way, you can't go wrong killing them." Couldn't people show a little civility in modern society?
"Princess Alexia, good day. I never expected to run into you here. What a coincidence."
"..."
Watching Christina lean out with a delighted expression to greet Alexia, who was lingering near the entrance, Cid fell into a rare silence.
"Ah, Christina. Pochi... Cid, you're here too? Wait, don't tell me you got dragged into this mess after coming back as well. Where's your sister?"
Startled out of her thoughts by the greeting, Alexia looked toward Christina in mild surprise, only to exclaim when she noticed the figure she had overlooked just moments ago.
"Alexia, you know Cid too? Then I won't need to introduce him. Cid-kun, this is my friend, as well as an ally who plans to appeal to the royal family with me and stop the Nightswords from continuing their wrongdoing."
"Forget about that for now. Po... Cid, tell me why you're here. The royal capital isn't somewhere a nobody like you should be right now. Did Claire run off somewhere?"
Alexia's expression looked somewhat grim, and she was clearly in a foul mood. The way she spoke made it seem as though she looked down on Cid, disliked him, and wanted him gone. Even Christina, who had been eagerly planning to introduce the promising person she'd found to her close friend, was left standing there awkwardly.
"Ah... my sister's been chasing after some strange thing lately, so she's probably too busy. That's why my parents didn't tell her about this and asked me to handle it instead. I know I probably don't have what it takes to deal with something like this on my own, but every once in a while, I'd like to try pushing past my limits. So please, trust me."
Cid laughed it off. Even though he already knew full well that this whole affair was a massive trap, they were still his parents. No matter what, he couldn't exactly admit that they'd sold him out.
"Ha? Are you kidding me? Talking like that, do you actually want to die here?"
"Alexia-sama, that's going too far."
Alexia was about to continue laying into Cid when Christina stopped her with a dark expression. Her cold tone made it painfully clear just how badly Alexia's behavior had affected Christina's opinion of her. There was even a trace of disappointment in her voice.
"Guh..."
The torrent of words Alexia had been about to unleash caught in her throat. She looked conflictedly between Christina and Cid, but eventually calmed down. Knowing it was already too late to change anything, she simply gave up and said no more.
Seeing this, Christina also breathed a sigh of relief after stopping Alexia from venting her frustration on her teammate. If possible, she didn't want to fall out with the ally she'd found because of Cid.
"Hey, hey, Cid-kun. I can't believe you actually know someone as important as Princess Alexia. Although... she doesn't seem to think very highly of you."
Hiding behind Cid, Kanade poked him in the back with her slender finger and whispered so quietly that no one else could hear.
"She's just hard-mouthed and soft-hearted. If your life is ever in danger, you can trust Alexia. At the very least, she wouldn't use you as a human shield."
"Mm, got it. So I can use her as a human shield."
Cid gave the cute girl cowering behind him a complicated look and once again couldn't help thinking that appearances really could be deceiving.
"Hey! What are you doing?"
Alexia shouted, glaring darkly at the girl huddled close to Cid.
"A-Ahhh... Alexia-sama, I'm terribly sorry! I'm just a nobody, and I must be bothering you. I'll leave right away!"
Feeling the terrifying pressure radiating from Alexia, Kanade acted as though she'd been frightened out of her wits. With a startled cry, she immediately tried to flee.
Her panicked, terrified reaction was so convincing that even Alexia herself was taken aback.
Was she... really that frightening?
Stare...
Before Alexia could think about it any further, the gazes coming from Christina and Cid brought her back to her senses. She hurried forward and grabbed the fleeing Kanade, but the "timid" Kanade seemed utterly petrified and continued apologizing over and over.
"Enough fooling around, all of you. Alexia, for you to appear here at a time like this, does that mean...?"
Watching the two of them continue struggling with each other, Christina exchanged a glance with Cid. Having already figured out roughly what was going on, she sighed. The disappointment she'd felt after initially thinking Alexia had fallen in with the wrong crowd disappeared, replaced by a hint of anticipation as she looked at her.
"As you command, Christina-sama."
As Christina's loyal lackey, Kanade immediately stopped clowning around the moment the biggest backer she was currently clinging to spoke. She straightened up and obediently followed behind Alexia with an exceedingly respectful expression.
"Your personality really does remind me of someone..."
Alexia couldn't help commenting as she looked at Kanade following behind her. The sense of déjà vu was almost overwhelming.
"Huh?"
"Just a Pochi I used to keep. Don't worry about it."
Alexia waved a hand as she answered the girl's confusion, completely unconcerned that her words might hurt Kanade's feelings. If anything, she rather hoped Kanade would get upset. Maybe then this uncanny sense of familiarity would fade a little.
Unfortunately...
"Really? Then Alexia-sama must have been very close to that Pochi. You're still thinking about him even now."
Unfortunately for Alexia, she was talking to Kanade. The shameless girl took the remark as a compliment and cheerfully began flattering her.
"Very close... huh? I suppose you could say we got along fairly well. After all, it was the relationship between a master and her Pochi. Hehe..."
The déjà vu was getting even stronger!
Alexia glanced at Kanade and complained inwardly, though outwardly she remained perfectly composed. As she spoke, her gaze seemed to casually drift toward a certain man currently chatting with Christina.
"Seriously, there's a limit to how much you three can ignore me..."
After leading everyone back to the café and taking their seats, Christina grumbled about how happily the other three had chatted on the way there before turning an expectant gaze toward Alexia.
"So, what does His Majesty the King think about the [Thirteen Nightblades], the organization that's formed among the kingdom's upper ranks? If we're going to take a side, I should be able to persuade my father and some of the Houses whose interests have been harmed to join us..."
"Uh... Christina, I'm really sorry..."
Under Christina's hopeful gaze, Alexia listened to her list all the outside support she had considered gathering against the [Thirteen Nightblades]. Unable to endure it any longer, Alexia finally interrupted her.
"Huh?"
"I already spoke to Father about this, but for some reason, he doesn't seem willing to get involved. The only reason I came here today was to investigate the death of one of the Nightswords' leaders."
Alexia spoke with extreme guilt, but still forced herself to tell the truth. She knew perfectly well what her ally had hoped to hear.
Christina wanted to hear that the appeal submitted by the organization formed through their alliance had succeeded, that they would stop the [Thirteen Nightblades] from continuing to plunder the people of the various territories, and then strike back against the [Thirteen Nightblades], an organization that did nothing but cling to the kingdom and suck it dry. Ideally, they would crush the [Thirteen Nightblades] once and for all.
In fact, before returning to the Kingdom of Midgar, Alexia had shared that exact hope after learning about the situation. After all, weakening the [Thirteen Nightblades] could only benefit the kingdom. Surely the King would support them.
With that thought in mind, Alexia went to her father.
All she received was a perfunctory, "Mm, I understand."
Caught off guard, she tried pressing him for answers, but no matter what she asked afterward, the King refused to respond.
After wasting an entire day, Alexia only managed to pull herself together the following morning when she heard that one of the thirteen leaders of the Nightswords had been killed.
She smelled a conspiracy.
So after visiting the Earl Shoddi's mansion and gathering what clues she could, Alexia came here. This was the site of the second murder in the royal capital committed by the culprit the guards claimed had "killed Earl Shoddi."
She hadn't expected to run into her ally Christina so quickly.
"How could that be...?"
After understanding what Alexia meant, Christina's eyes widened. Whatever thought had occurred to her made her slowly clench her fists.
"Could the Thirteen Nightblades really hold that much power? Is even His Majesty the King powerless to stop them?"
"The problem here may involve more than just the Thirteen Nightblades..."
Alexia spoke in a low voice. Her father hadn't said anything directly, but his attitude alone had been enough to make her sense the enormous pit lurking beneath the surface.
"More than just the Thirteen Nightblades..."
Understanding Alexia's meaning, Christina covered her mouth in surprise.
She wanted to continue discussing the matter with Alexia in greater depth, but when she saw Alexia hesitate and then glance toward Cid and Kanade, who were standing nearby with utterly clueless expressions, Christina understood what she was worried about and fell silent as well.
"Sorry, Cid-kun, Kanade. I need to speak privately with Princess Alexia for a moment. Please excuse us."
With that, Christina pulled Alexia away toward the other side of the café. Only after putting what she believed was enough distance between themselves and Cid and Kanade that the two couldn't overhear them did she resume the conversation.
"Hey, Cid-kun. Christina-sama and Alexia-sama seem to be hiding some secret they don't want us to hear. Do you know what they're talking about?"
The moment Kanade saw the two women move away, her harmless, innocent expression gave way to intense curiosity as she leaned toward Cid and whispered.
"No idea. Probably something really important. Why don't you go ask them? If they tell you, come back and tell me!"
Cid raised an eyebrow at Kanade, trying to trick her into gathering intelligence for him.
He didn't think it could be anything particularly serious. He was going to kill them all anyway. Still, if there happened to be some fool willing to save him the trouble by scouting things out for him, he certainly wouldn't complain.
"Are you trying to get me killed, Cid-kun?!"
Unfortunately, there weren't that many fools in the world.
No, more accurately, there weren't that many fools who were still alive.
Realizing that Cid was trying to use her as cannon fodder, Kanade looked annoyed. At some point, both her hands had closed around Cid's neck, and she began shaking him violently.
"Wah-wah-wah..."
Cid played along perfectly, sticking out his tongue and rolling his eyes back as though he really were about to be strangled to death.
"Anyway, this is probably some scheme between big shots like Christina-sama. It has nothing to do with small fry like us. So just let them risk their lives while we slack off on the sidelines. If we accidentally get dragged into it and die, we're finished."
Once she'd had enough and vented her annoyance, Kanade stopped fooling around and spoke to Cid with the solemn air of someone passing down hard-earned wisdom about life.
"Mm, you make a good point. But do you know anything about the Nightswords?"
"Huh? Did you not understand a word I just said? Getting involved will get you killed."
"Have you considered the possibility that they don't even qualify as challengers?"
"Are you insane? Why do you keep saying things that make absolutely no sense?"
Kanade gave him a contemptuous look. Cid shook his head in feigned disappointment, a faint smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
Opportunities to make remarks like that were far too rare. He could never relax around anyone else.
"So, do you know anything about them?"
"No. How could a nobody like me possibly know anything about people that important?"
"Mm. That's what I figured."
Seeing Cid nod as though that were the most obvious thing in the world, Kanade nearly lost her temper and drew her sword on him.
"My sincerest apologies, Your Greatness, for a nobody like me not knowing any useful information. Besides, even if you did know something, what would you do with it?"
"Nothing. I was just asking. Maybe I could come up with a few cooler lines to say when I kill them."
"Hah. Even your fantasies are shallow, Cid-kun..."
"All right, watch yourself. They're coming back."
Just as Kanade was about to make a move, Cid's warning made her turn her head.
Only then did she notice the two women walking back toward them.
Hmm. Looks like those two have already finished plotting whatever scheme big shots like them get up to.
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