What It Means To Be King

Chapter 73: The Breaking Of Clouds After Storms

"So once upon a time there was a prince....." Leo hummed as his gaze swept over the plane of birch behind the mansion. Evan's house was just a few minutes walk deeper behind the Academy grounds, into the forest and higher up the slope of the hill. A few hundred steps higher and they would've been able to spot the pier down below, and the boats filling. At night, the pier was lit by the streetlamp meant for night strolls by the sea. The boats would have been visible, but otherwise there were none of the business easily found during the daytime. The shore was asleep the moment the sun lays over the horizon. 

"And then he grew to into a king." From there, the sound of waves crashing could slightly be heard. Leo itched to get to higher ground to be able to see from which wave exactly caused the sound. What he saw instead, was an endless field of yellowish orange. It would have been beautiful if it promised a way out to those who were lost inside it. 

"A king without a throne to return to, for the home he sought to rule was anywhere but." 

Leo hated forests he could get lost in. He hated not being able to see his way out. He relied on certainties, on facts, on evidences and those he could grasp in his hands without fear of it slipping away. He liked knowing things and having the power over what to do with it. 

He hated the Jester. 

He hated that he didn't know anything about him. 

"There's something off about the pattern he gave." Anubis had sighed when he had asked him before, about why the hell couldn't he, Anubis, find out about one single person when he had been known to achieve stupidly dangerous things in his life. How hard could it be for Anubis to find a person when he could track Leo's and Shao Long's location by the minute? How hard could it possibly be for Anubis to see who hacked the cams. How hard to find some amateur psychopath currently living in the same area as them? 

"Off?" He had asked, face blank and a steady stream of anger growing in his veins. It was muffled, yes, barely there, but it wasn't unnoticeable. It was the twitch in the corner of his eyes. It was the incessant tapping against his thumb. It was the pressure on the balls of his feet when he sat. 

"I thought he would be an amateur."

"He's not?" 

Anubis had looked at him exasperated, hair mussed up and the circles under his eyes darker than the usual. "I don't know what he is."

And for Anubis to not know such a thing was a threat enough they seriously had to reconsider. 

"Any news about that kid, Sallows?" 

"None. Unless you want me to watch every single step he took throughout his stay." Anubis raised a brow, before letting out a humorless scoff. They both knew that if that was really what he wanted, then he'd even track a person throughout the whole year, just to be petty and more monster-like than human. Part of it was only him wanting to flaunt what he could do to his enemies more than actually being psychotic enough to actually want to do that. The other part, however, was willing to do so much more than that, given the right motivation. And him not knowing shit about his enemy after a few weeks like this was steadily becoming that motivation.