Once Upon An Assassination Attempt || Kamisato Ayato

Chapter 20 | Retribution

UNEDITED

I was lying down on the grass underneath a tree, letting the wind and the rustling of the leaves providing shade calm me. Ayato had gone to buy something we could use to cook, after I had said we could live off herbs and boar meat.

With realisation of my feelings came following his every move and emotion, more than I had done before. We awoke and immideatly set off to Mondstad to catch up to the annoying man, whose name I had kind of forgotten. I didn't think Ayato realised that though, since I'd always refer to him with one curse word or the other.

And rightfully so. Who the heck does he think he is to force an unwanted marriage on our Shirasagi Princess? Aya-chan deserves someone who would treasure her and respect her choices.

An ideal person would be someone who was similar to Ayato, personality wise. Of course, Ayato had a knack of being absolutely infuriating with his desire to watch people's face contort, but I couldn't deny that it was fun..

Wait, why am I thinking about him again?

Begone, thoughts. Thots. I'm hilarious. I smiled at my own joke.

"That's an interesting expression on your face, Sora," a voice from above said, and there was no doubt who it belonged to. Afterall, the unmatched humour and sarcasm with a hint of concern all at once could only be managed by him.

I scowled at the elegant face glowing along with the morning sun. Both of them might as well compete over who could blind people first. How he managed to be so flawless in these circumstances was beyond me. We used the same lake water to wash our face, and while he was shimmering, I still had bags under my eyes from last year.

He stretched out a hand to pull me up, and in a fit of totally justifiable frustration, I pulled him down and both of our heads knocked together.

"Sora.."

"My head hurts."

"Sometimes I wonder how your thought process goes," he confessed, rubbing his head.

"It's perfectly normal, thank you." I scowled, touching the spot where Ayato's head knocked into mine.

"So I got us a carriage ride so we don't have to walk all the way or hitchhike or catch eagles as you said."

"It's not catching them, it's borrowing them to fly."

"Poor birds."

"I was gonna pay them."

"Yes, yes. But let's stick to humans and something less likely to drop us from the sky."

"Wait, didn't you go to get ingredients to cook?"

Ayato nodded. "They're in the carriage, so we can cook tonight when we stop to rest."

"How did you get a carriage? Did you-" I made a neck slicing gesture-"Kamisato ryuu them?"

He had a deadpan expression on his face like he was really done with my jokes.

"I gave them mora."

"Eh. No fun."

We set off on the carriage that Ayato had convinced the operater to let us ride. The middle aged man was Infront, using his anemo vision to draw the carriage; I couldn't trust the look in his eyes.

We were supposed to be heading to Mondstad, but the path became more and more secluded until we were in a forest. I heard footsteps from above.

"Ayato."

"Let's wait."

After some time, the carriage came to a stop. Several treasure hoarders who had grins plastered on their faces surrounded the carriage, and I sighed.

"You guys never learn, do you?"

"Hand us all your mora, lady. You wouldn't want us to be rough on a lady like you."

Ayato had his back to me, and I could see his shoulders shake.

"Shut up, Ayato."

"As you wish, my lady."

I balled my hands into a fist and scowled.  Looking around, I saw that the carriage driver was nowhere to be found. As expected, this was a play they did to get easy mora from unsuspecting travellers.

They drew their weapons, and so did we, our backs to each other and our feet off the carriage.

It was going pretty well, before Ayato used one of his fancy Kamisato arts which had all of us drenched. I pushed away my bangs which were clinging to my eyes and looked at him.

"What?"

I might as well make use of this.

I used my vision, making all the treasure hoarders freeze.

"Living statues," Ayato noted.

It didn't last that long, and all of them were shivering by the time the ice shattered.

One of the treasure hoarders made a run for it, and Ayato went after him.

"Pace yourself before you erase yourself," he said, swinging the sword at the guy. He looked pretty proud of the line too.

Don't laugh, don't laugh.

"Hmph. My plan is watertight. Don't mind getting washed out."

I couldn't help but laugh.

"Sora?" Ayato turned to me, bewildered.

I fell onto my knees, holding the sides of my stomach with my hands. After a while I had managed to calm down, and cleared my throat.

"Let's go."

"You laughed at me."

"I don't know what you're talking about, commissioner."

"You did."

My retort was cut short with screams echoing throughout the forest. Anguish and terror was clear in the voice, as whoever it was continued to scream.

"We should.."

"Totally check it out," I finished the sentence, running towards the sound.

"TIME FOR RETRIBUTION" was heard along with a cry.

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Early update brought to you by caffeine induced adrenaline. This is for you guys hoping it'll make your day better.

The timeline they're going into mondstad will not be same as the current festival, so they won't be in the festival and there will not be any spoilers for anyone that hasn't done it yet.