LeeAnn grew more and more tired of flying. She hated the fact the closer they got the worse it became. Authorities told them some strange activity has been coming from the large forest known as Worth Woodsea. It was large and mostly uninhabited by man. Zalor flew lower to the tree as Tadashi held onto his cousin tightly. Lee founded a clearing to land. Once they were on the ground, they examined the "job request" from before. It was clearly foraged given they both knew what a legit one looked like. Working in the Rune Knights for most of your life does pay off on some occasions.

"Ryu told me you two found a little demi-human,'' said Tadashi. He was trying to lighten the mood of the situation. The past few weeks have been stressful for the whole family. Tadashi said he left with the family in mostly good spirits and trying to day positively. Astrid was on the road to recovery which was one of the lighter of the situation. Miles was with her as well, which was nice. "Yeah, he will be in Hosenka with the girl until I return. We found her alone in the middle of an abandoned camp. A monster had raged through it" she spoke. She wanted to leave out the details of the interactions between her and the creature who knew who they were.

Tadashi’s curiosity was even more peaked. He pressed for more answers. “So…what are you going to do with her,” he spoke. Lee paused for a moment to think. “Probably we will try to find her parents”, she spoke. Tadashi wondered if the girl was an orphan and traveled with random people on the streets. He knew sometimes small children would do odd jobs for others in exchange for food, clothing, and shelter. That’s what she was probably doing. “And if you don’t find her parents?”

Lee froze. She never thought of that in all honesty. “I..don’t know,” she spoke. The thought of it really sank in about the girl’s safety. “I will face it when we cross that bridge. One thing at a time, Tadashi,” she replied. He knew she was right. LeeAnn was one to not really want too much on her plate yet become a hypocrite of her ideals.

Zalor and Lector walked side-by-side with Lee and Tadashi. The forest was filled with noise and sounds which was a good sign nothing was wrong. It was hot and sticky. Too much for them to really enjoy. Even being a fire mage, she still was affected by the humidity just a little bit. "Gosh...I hate this place," complained Lector. Zalor squawked in agreement. Tadashi sliced some of the thick vegetation to find a clearing with ancient ruins. Old, crumbled stones that looked to be pillars standing tall with ancient rune markings on them. Vines and plants overgrown many of the stones and man-made architecture. “What is this place?” Tadashi was astonished that he could not answer Lector’s question. Lee quietly just observed the place.

While they were looking around, she noticed a stench filling her nostrils. The same stench of burnt grass and lavender. Horrible memories came back to the Hikaru puppet and how it had real feelings for her brother but weren’t at the same time. “Lee, calm down! How can you take control of the situation if you cannot control your anxiety.?” Ragtime had to become her voice of reason currently. The whole situation with her family being at stake scared her. He had to put away his chaotic nature for the safety of his vessel.

600/2000

“Tada...shi? Is that….you?” A voice of honey filled their ears. Both, Tadashi and Lee, felt their stomachs knot already feeling the dread. They turned around to see a carbon copy of a slender Joyan female with purple-pink hair. It was Tadashi’s deceased mother aka Lee’s aunt. “Lee...Ann? Babe...I...mi..ssed...you” another oily voice emerged from the darkness of the plants. It made her skin crawl to see Hans, a puppet of the white kitsune. All the horrible memories and pain seeped back into their minds. Tadashi’s eyes shook, seeing how the puppet looked so much like his mother.

“Mom? How can you be alive? You’re dead. You have to be dead” he spoke, shaking.

“Kid, that’s it! I am taking over” spoke Ragtime. Lee’s eyes changed to a slightly off blue from her original eye color. Tadashi was too much in disbelief and horror to pay attention to Lee. “They are just puppets, Tadashi. The other day one of Hikaru attacked me, trying to actively kill me. They may look very similar and act similar, but they are not real. It's meant to play our minds” Ragtime spoke through Lee. It was her body, but his words. He was used to dealing with Lee’s problems head on because she froze sometimes in life or death situations. Tadashi already understood the situation. He attempted to shove the thoughts of his dead mother into the back of him to prepare for battle. Back, to, back they stood read to fight both the two puppets. The Hans puppet smiled sweetly, yet much like a psychopath. “Come...here..my...dear” Hans spoke slowly.

“Get away from me, ya asshole!” Lee leaped back a few feet. She bared her teeth together feeling anger. LeeAnn lunged forward at "speed here" at the Hans puppet. She punched him in the face. Ragtimr was controlling her this whole time. At B-rank damage, the Hans puppet flew backwards and into the Paisley puppet as well. They both got up ragged and jagged motions. Tadashi sent a lightning bolt from his hands throwing them, but his aim was off a few hairs. Lee punched Hans one more time causing B-Rank damage. Hans stumbled a little backwards.

"LEE!" Tadashi screamed as he was being pinned down by the Paislet puppet. Distracted, she attempted to kick the puppet off of her cousin, but missed as she was also punched by the Hans puppet. She put both of her fists together. A magic circle at 2 diameters wide. It was a red color too. "Fire Dragon: Roar!" She cried on the top of her lungs, giving Tadashi enough time to shield himself. He casted a lightning defense spell from her fire blast. A tornado in a horizontal direction towards the two puppets that was 2 meters wide. It would cause A-rank damage. Letting her anger get the best of her, she ran towards Hans puppet and kept punching him in the face over and over and over around 5 different times. The puppets head ripped off after the final punch. Straw and dessert grass filled the puppet as if it were a scarecrow. She stared at the other puppet. With angry eyes, she ran towards it punching her five more times before ripping the puppet apart. Tadashi verily did anything, but watch. He was in awe with how Lee's anger could subside everything. The flaming rage from the demi-human was visible with embers emerging from her body.

Tadashi got up and pulled Lee away from the dead puppet bodies. He had to let her cool down before letting her go. "Lee, please calm down" he spoke. He was such a gentle natured guy, he didn't like intervening into other people's problems. "I AM CALM!" Ragtime was slowly slipping his control over Lee. He could feel her rage overpowering his control. Stronger, he made his control tighter. "Stop forcing me to loose control! How can I help you if you won't let me?" Lee had forgotten. About the contract they made together for the pact. He could take over her body anytime he wanted to, regardless of what she thought. This was one of this many times she hated this aspect of the contract. This time, she caved in. Ragtime forced her to calm down and regained focus. Tadashi let her go, as they recollected what had happened.

“That should be all of them,” spoke Tadashi. They both stared at the decapitated bodies with their heads rolled into the floor. They were made of straw and dead grass giving the smell of burning foliage. “These looked just like the one I fought in the alley way the other day, only...that one had memory. This time, there wasn’t much effort put into them as the first one. Seemed like a rushed job...as if...he knew we were coming” spoke Ragtime through Lee. Instantly, they both heard a slow clap.

Through the gust and dirt clouds, they saw a tall man with long red hair with a wide grin on his face. Behind him, a tall, horror-like creature that resembled a rotting corpse of a deer with the same exact hollowed skull like the one from the campsite where they found the girl. “No..” whispered Lee.

“Congratulations on your victory, you two. That was impressive, Lee. You really know how to channel that anger. So much like your father” spoke the man. She, Ragtime, and Tadashi knew the only person who could be. “Solomon” they said in unison. He could only grin from ear-to-ear with confidence. “Guilty as charged, pleasure to finally meet you in person. What a touching reunion this is” he spoke. They saw a fake half-elf puppet girl that resembled some traits of the Nakamura family, but knew instantly it was a puppet seeing as tehre was that same smell as from the previous puppets. “You know...it was quite hard making this puppets. It’s not easy making them and collecting souls to use them. It’s quite a difficult ritual, but I am assuming that would be too long to explain to you,” he smiled.

“Why are you doing this?” LeeAnn asked while Tadashi stood frozen.

“It’s a long story, LeeAnn. To summarize it, I simply think you have corrupted the family name with your...non-human existence. The Nakamura family has always been a human family solely. Why would we go as low as to keep someone of your stature? Let alone keep the name,” he spoke. LeeAnn felt a bit stung, but was more confused.

“I am adopted. You know I am not an actual Nakamura...right?”

Solomon shook his head and waved his finger. Snapping his fingers, a document was pulled out of a pocket demension with a ring he had on his finger. “See for yourself. You are actually related to the Nakamura family. Look at the documents of your birth” he spoke. She looked at it seeing it was from the Foirian government. It said her blood parents names and there written in thick black in was her father “Nicolas Nakamura” under blood father and her blood mother’s name. “You see...your father didn’t know you existed. Your mother was a whore and sold you and your silbings off to who ever was the highest bidder. She didn’t care…” he spoke. Tadashi huffed.

“Are you lying to her?” Lee raised her hand at Tadashi, she knew this as one piece of information he wasn’t lying about. Seeing as she could tell when someone was lying by their eyebrows, how they talked, and so on, so forth. “He is… this one time” she spoke. The truth in his face compared to him lying was very clear by a few twitches he had done. “Now you see my point? I called you here to claim my rightful place as head of the Nakamura family. I want to be rid of all non-humans off the face of this country. You get the pleasure of being the first volunteer, how nice is that?”

The rage from Lee was so high, Ragtime became visible as the pillars and ancient runes glowed red. Tadashi and the others looked around as magic poured from LeeAnn. Ragtime became visible to everyone, this time not as a ghost. “Oh? That’s a spirit? I...spirit I have never seen before” wondered Solomon. Tadashi and Lector had their jaw dropped to the floor. This was the spirit she was talking about. Lector was always so confused when she talked about RAgtime to her or tried to explain him. He was a large red wolf with body parts sewn with. A black dragon horn on his right side of his head and a off colored dog’s ears on his left. HE had one button eye that was black and a regular orange eye color. The maw was sewn shut, usually he had a huge grin to match this, but a scowl was apparent on his face.

“Ragtime…” whispered Lector.

“You are a monster, Solomon. I will not let you hurt her or my family. If you want to get to her, you’d have to go through me” spoke Lee and Ragtime in sync. WIthout a word, Solomon activated a spell with a mgic circle appearing under LeeAnn and Ragtime. The runes on the pillars turned purple. A evil glow came into his eyes as magical restraints wrapped around Lee and Tadashi. Ragtime’s physical form dissipated, becoming no more. “I guess I already have...Lee” he spoke with a cold glare.

2150/2350:

2,167/2000

-exit-