The Bonded: Lost And Gained

~ Chapter 8 ~

"You're a Knight? That means you can fight really well!" Aoi cooed. "Hey, fight Big Brother! I wanna see who's better!"

She blinked while Arata had a look of fear on his face. Knowing how skilled she was, he would be thrashed in no more than a second. Noticing the look on his face, she quickly changed the subject.

"Do you want to go see the Tamer Beasts?" she asks, smoothly diverting their attention from their original plans. "I'm sure Rumon doesn't mind if we go visit."

"Rumon?"

She nodded, pointing to the white-haired man behind her. 

"Rumon of the Medical Unit, he takes care of the Tamer Beasts."

Red declared, "I want to see the Tamer Beasts! I heard the Commander's beasts are the best of the best!"

"Me too! I wanna see too!" Aoi agreed.

Smooth, very smooth, Mika thought to herself.

She glanced over to Arata, seeing him sigh in relief. It was clear to anyone that he didn't want to fight anyone, especially someone of Noriko's caliber. Noriko glanced over to him, not at all missing his breath of happiness.

"It would be a good chance for Prince Arata to see the Commander's Tamer Beast too."

So in the end, all of them ended up going to the barn.

---

"Wow, they are awesome!" the twins exclaimed.

Their eyes landed on the six Tamer Beasts in front of them, not at all disturbed by their ridiculous huge sizes or the intimidation that seemed to radiated off of them. 

Two of them belonged to Noriko, being Winter; the white griffin, and Drake; the red dragon. Another two belonged to Takehiko, a pair of three-headed creatures - HoJiRo a black cerberus and LoPaKa, a earth hydra. A white yeti, whose name was Jin he was Mika's. Lastly, Bleu, a blue leviathan that belongs to Rumon.

The twins spent the day running around the Tamer Beasts, riding on their backs and potentially annoying them. Arata and the four commanders just watched them for emergency, in case the Tamer Beasts try to do anything that might hurt them.

The prince asks, "So, what were you guys doing in the Castle?"

"The King asked for us to meet him," Noriko replied, her eyes glued to the twins. "He wanted to talk to us about something. Afterwards, we decided to give you a visit and learned from your father that you were babysitting. We were curious if he was telling the truth, so we had to go and check it out."

"You still would've visited even if he didn't say that, right?"

She shrugged, deciding not to give him a straight answer. She believed that it wouldn't have mattered if she did or didn't come to the prince.

"Probably."

Mika shook her head, clearly seeing through the facade.

"Liar. You would've gone anyway. Look here, Prince, but don't believe everything you hear coming from this liar's mouth, kay?"

Arata blinked, not understanding the situation.

"O... K?"

Rumon added, "Listen to Mika, prince. Noriko may seem honest, but sometimes she lies - or at least, bends the truth."

"I do not."

"You do too," Rumon said, grinning. "You made up so many excuses to 'check' up on the Prince. I didn't realise you two had gotten so close."