"Mamoru! Please!" Zima yelled banging on the door.
"No!" Mamoru yelled back inside.
"Please Mamoru we don't have anyone else to turn too." Zima begged.
It was midnight, and Zima thought the best person to run too was Mamoru.
Mamoru opened the door looking at the gang in disgust. "Give me one good reason I should help you low-life's."
"You hate Haunt just as much as we do!" Kaito said stepping forward. "Haunt is emperor now because of Aki's arrest and the only people that can stop him is us. We only need a place to stay for a week quit being a punk."
"Plus if Haunt fully becomes emperor he plans on deporting lots of immigrants that means me and you sailing together back home to South America." Shea told him with her eyebrow up.
Mamoru rolled his eyes and looked at Zima, "He toke over the palace already?"
Zima nodded.
"Mystery ninjas are following his order?"
Zima nodded.
Mamoru sighed running his hand through his hair and move away from the door. "Come in but don't make a mess!"
Hino looked around the small rented home, "You live in this dump?"
Mamoru glared at him, "Sorry some of us weren't born with rich, royal parents. You guys only have a week here got it."
Zima went over to him and hugged him, at first Mamoru was shocked by the sudden kindness.
"Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. We're going to fix this mess soon, and get out of your way." If it wasn't for him they would have been homeless for a week.
Mamoru and nodded his head. "Its fine, I just have a question." Zima stepped back breaking the hug.
"Did he really do it?"
"That's none of your business-" Shea started but Zima cut her off.
"Yes but its a long story." Everyone except Mamoru gasped at Zima's response.
"Mamoru is doing a lot for us allowing us to stay in his place. The least he could know is what is going on." Zima told the group. "Now we should really get some sleep."
"There some couches in the living room and an extra bed upstairs." Said Mamoru.
Hino and Kaito took the bedroom upstairs, while Zima, Shea, and Ren slept on the couches.
"You two better not even think about fucking on my bed," Mamoru yelled at them.
Kaito laughed, while Hino turned red and cursed back at Mamoru.
Back downstairs Ren, Shea, and Zima were fixing the couches so they could sleep on them.
"Your okay right?" Zima asked Ren concerned, she was referencing what Haunt tried to do to her.
Ren nodded, "Shea came just in time and saved me before he did anything worst, he ripped the bottom part of my dress and hit me when I screamed."
"I'm so sorry." Zima told her hugging her and creasing her hair. "I promise we are going to get rid of him."
"You should have just let me cut his penis off." Shea said flopping on her bed.
Ren and Zima smiled. "I would have loved that but then you get sent to prison, and we need your strength." Zima told her.
The girls laughed the night, and stayed positive.
. . .
Aki woke up the next morning to see his lawyer standing behind his cell door.
"What the hell have you gotten yourself into?" Aika said. Her long brown hair ran down her waist. She had her hands on her hips, and sparking grey eyes. A south Asian women born from immigrant Indian parents.
"About damn time you showed up." Aki said slowly getting up and rubbing his eyes.
She grinned. "Its been a while since I've seen you, I heard your married now. An beautiful African women. I also heard you and your siblings are getting along now that's a even bigger shocker. By the way hows Shea?"
"Listen we need to fix this first before we catch up with what going on with our lives. Have you started working on anything?"
Aika rolled her eyes, "Only business when it comes to you, but yes I did a little research. Turns out I was able to find out that Haunt has been tracking your every move by having his own mystery ninjas spy on you."
Aki blinked in shock, how was that possible?
"Your careful but not careful enough." Aika told him. "I think I have a way to get you as non-guilty but the only advice I can give you now is don't answer any questions the courts of Justice might ask. Only during the trail you answer questions, other than that you have the right to be silent."
Aika went over through the cell bar, and reached for his hand. "I won't allow the only person that had hope for me in the past to rot in here. I'll get you out playing dirty." She let go and started to leave. "Oh and tell Shea I said hi." She winked and left.
Aki sighed and slid down against the wall. Hopefully Zima arrived soon so he can take his bath.
Shin came 20 minutes later.
He bowed and stood near Aki's cell door. "Zima and the rest will be coming soon. I've been informed that Haunt kicked them out the palace, and tried to sexually harm Ren."
Aki looked at him in shock, then changed to anger.
"Where did they stay last night?" He asked.
"With Mamoru they will be staying with Mamoru." Shin told him. "I've gotten kicked out living in the council grounds for refusing to work for Haunt."
"Where did you stay last night." Aki asked him.
"I slept on the street under a bridge, I don't want to overcrowd Mamoru's home." Shin replied.
All of them, all of them choose the harder path, the loyal path, then betraying him and working for Haunt. They would rather suffer then work for Haunt. Aki could not lose this battle because not only will he lose everything but they will too.
"Shin I promise once I get the throne back you won't ever have a homeless night again," Aki told him.
"I would rather forever have homeless nights then be wealthy while working for Haunt. I will never see him as my emperor," Shin bowed and left the room to allow Zima to come in.
"Hanging in there?" She asked. Shea, Ren, Hino and Kaito came from behind her.
Aki nodded, and stood up.
"Whats the plan?" Hino asked.
"Aika was here this morning." Aki started. Suddenly Shea face got red and she froze up. "She told me she has everything under-control, the only thing to do is wait for the trail and don't answer anything a judge of the court might ask before the trial."
"So were suppose to just wait till the trial date and trust her." Hino asked.
"Yes." Aki nodded.
"How do you know she can fix this?" Hino asked.
"Trust me she one of the smartest people I know, the only thing we can do is put faith in her. She's the only shot we got." Aki responded and turned to Shea. "She also wanted to tell you hi."
Shea rolled her eyes. "Whatever." Shea said and walked out the room.
"Whats up with her?" Hino asked whispering in Zima's ear.
Zima shrugged.
A guard suddenly entered saying Aki needs to take his bath, and the rest of visitors must leave.
Zima nodded, and told everyone else she would see them at Mamoru's home when she was done. After saying goodbye she followed Aki to the bathing room, and did the same routine as last time. Aki had to remind her not to do anything naughty and she giggled.
As Aki was washing himself and Zima was just sitting and waiting for him to finish he spoke, this was the only place out the whole prison where he could have complete privacy without any spy or someone watching the,.
"Zima, Aika helped me with my parents death. She's the only one that can mess up the evidence and not make it look like I did it. The poison that was used comes from India, the country her parents are from. She was one of the smartest students in academy at the time, a genius, and she use to tutor me in mathematics and sciences. Stuck-up a lot of times. I despised her at one point, out of jealousy of her intelligence."
Zima listened carefully, and nodded for Aki to continue.
"She only worked as tutor for studies, my father had past laws not allowing immigrants and children of immigrants to go further in education. And one day she saw. She saw what my father did to Ren once but my father didn't now that she knew. The first person she told was me. She yelled at me about how could I allow my sibling to be treated like that, and how could I allow him to abuse people like that. I told her I suffered too, she understood and told me about an Indian poisoning that was a silent killer, and told me about how I could change the village for better and be emperor. I gave in."
Zima gulped. "You trust her to fix this right?" She said reaching for his hand.
"I know she can, I've never seen her fail anything. She's always one step ahead." Aki said.
Zima kissed his cheek and smiled at him, "She sounds strong, I feel less anxious."
Suddenly a guard banged on the door giving them a five minute warning.
Aki and Zima got out, and Zima left the prison promising she will visit again tomorrow.
When Zima got to Mamoru's home she noticed everyone but Ren was there.
"Where's Ren?" Zima asked Shea.
"She said she needed some air and left." Shea replied, putting her feet up on the table.
"OFF!" Mamoru yelled at her his eyes glaring at her dirty shoes on his table.
Shea rolled her eyes, and put her feet down.
Zima and Shea spent the afternoon practicing combat, and waiting outside for Ren. When Hino and Kaito came home they said they haven't seen her either. This was starting to worry Zima.
"If she doesn't come back tomorrow morning we have to do an missing person look on her." Shea said getting back in the house.
Zima nodded anxiously.
. . .
It was midnight, and Aika had successfully sneaked into the palace, without having any ninja noticing, and Haunt noticing.
She was in the basement of the palace, and was looking for something. The evidence.
She had already tampered enough with the evidence for the court, the only thing left to do was mess with the evidence home. She pulled out in her pocket an DNA remover, and pulled a sample of Haunt's finger tip prints. She pulled out a broken bottle of Aki's DNA and dug a whole for it in the ground. When Aika reached for the poison bottle she noticed something.
Someone had already messed with the bottle and evidence, and it seemed they were on Aki's side.
Someone was here before Aika.
Aika smirked and took the tempered bottle and dug a whole for it.
Hopefully this plan would work.
. . .