"Nishikawa Hinata."
Hinata’s hands froze mid-stab at the sound of his na, fingers trembling slightly on the hilt of his black dagger.
It wasn’t as though he was under any spell or compulsion. He just found himself montarily stunned, thrown off by the strange woman who sohow knew his na.
As far as he knew, he had never once said his na aloud. So how did she...?
Suddenly, the mory of what she had said the previous night—just before he blacked out echoed through his mind.
"What did you do to my head?"
The woman attempted a shrug, though Hinata’s grip on her neck kept her firmly in place. "Does it really matter now?" she giggled softly, her hands rising to touch his face. "Though I would have never imagined that the handso stranger I brought ho last night would turn out to be a lost hero. And here I was thinking aunty had finally let go of that obsession of hers."
Hinata’s eyes narrowed. The fingers that were trembling a mont ago went still.
The woman noticed the shift imdiately, and her face drained of color. The weight of what she had just revealed struck her all at once. "I shouldn’t have said that, should I?" she muttered through clenched teeth.
"Yes," Hinata said flatly, driving his dagger toward her neck. The woman squeezed her eyes shut — only for a long mont to pass with nothing touching her.
When she opened her eyes, she found Hinata completely frozen, thick smoke coiled around him like shackles.
Hinata fought to draw breath, but no matter how hard he strained, he couldn’t breathe or move any part of his body except for his neck.
Slowly, he turned his head toward the door and the woman did the sa.
Leaning casually against the door fra was a striking woman with unusual features.
She wore a red kimono that hung loosely open. Bandages were wrapped firmly around her chest, while black, flower-shaped symbols traced the length of her right hand and crept down her right thigh.
What was even more unsettling were her pointed ears, her deep red eyeshadow, and the crimson eyes that held slit pupils.
The woman, who appeared to be in her thirties, brought a tobacco pipe to her lips and took a slow drag. When she pulled it away, the smoke drifted lazily toward Hinata, curling into the haze already wrapping his body.
The blue-haired woman’s eyes flew wide. "Aunt Tamara! When did you get back?!"
Tamara exhaled another drag, her gaze roaming unhurriedly over Hinata’s body. With a small, careless gesture, he was lifted off the ground.
"We can talk about that later, little one. First, let deal with this nuisance."
Tamara stepped forward, her eyes briefly dropping to the blue-haired woman sprawled across the floor, her neck flushed a deep red.
"You’ve got so nerve, don’t you?" she goaded, lips curving upward. "Waltzing in here and trying to kill my precious Lilith." In an instant, mana flooded the room, pressing down on Hinata who was already struggling to breathe.
He scanned the room through the haze, and noticed that the blue-haired girl showed no sign of choking at all.
In that mont, he knew he was in serious trouble.
Soone with that level of control over mana was not soone to provoke lightly.
Even so... he had no intention of begging for his life. Not when he wasn’t the one at fault.
His gaze settled into sothing tranquil, and his struggling body went still. Tamara noticed the change in his deanor and paused.
The boy floating before her didn’t carry the look of soone who would attack another person over an unpaid night’s stay. He didn’t even look like the type who would set foot in a brothel to begin with.
The calm almost indifference in his eyes — sent a certain chill she couldn’t quite na through her.
With a slight flick of her wrist, part of the smoke dissolved, allowing him to breathe again.
Tamara sighed. "I’m not an unjust woman. I don’t know why..." she said, casting a glance at her niece, who looked visibly shaken that the young man was still alive. "...but sothing doesn’t sit right with ."
Hinata drew a deep breath, coughing through the first few pulls of air. Tamara waited until his breathing steadied before speaking again. "So. Why did you attack my Lilith?"
Hinata scoffed. "Why don’t you ask your little niece what she did to first?"
Tamara shifted her gaze toward the young woman on the floor, who was now on all fours. She didn’t need it spelled out — the fault had co from her niece. The cold sweat was plain enough, as were the hands shaking against the floorboards.
"Lilith," she said, her voice dropping low with authority. "Putting you in charge of the brothel does not give you the right to ruin my reputation."
Lilith flinched. "But Aunt, he ntioned seeing a Paladin near Falmouth... I only wanted answers. But then I saw his face and I..."
Tamara hadn’t even taken a full step forward before her mana pressed Lilith flat against the ground. "So you, a fox spirit, was chard by a human’s face?"
She turned back to Hinata. "As for you, you still owe an explanation for why you ca here. No Paladin has passed through this area. Which ans you had another purpose in coming here."
Hinata let out a slow, disinterested sigh, as though her words and her aura were equally beneath his concern. "I don’t see a reason why I should answer you."
Tamara’s expression darkened. She snapped her fingers, and two javelins of hardened smoke materialized at her sides.
The two weapons spun with a violent, electric hum and with a lazy twitch of her finger, the javelins shot straight for Hinata.
Hinata’s grin split wide as the mana he had been building in his core surged outward, shattering the smoke binding his body. He twisted in midair, narrowly weaving between the two javelins before touching down on the ground with the theatrical ease of a comic hero.
The faintest smirk spread across Tamara’s lips. She said nothing, already shaping several new javelins in the air above her head.
"I’m curious. Just how long do you think you can keep that up, young human?"
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