When she reopened her eyes, her white fluffy fox husband was there, having put his hand on her forehead. Once he saw her awoken, he took his hand off and gave her a kind smile, but realising what had just happened in his memories she had recently seen, tears filled Lucy's eyes:
"Hong-hong..."
She softly placed her hand on the fox man's cheek. Yuehong bitterly smiled and hugged her tightly, embracing her with all of his five white tails. Lucy cuddled with him and shed tears:
"I wondered where the rest of your four tails had gone... Yuehong, I'm so sorry!"
Yuehong furrowed his brow:
"Now what's with that attitude? You don't have to be sorry for anything! I did what I wanted to, and what any normal husband must do!"
Lucy giggled at such words of his:
"You're my big fluffy husband..."
When the wave of love and embraces finally passed, the friends sat together and began discussing plans of how to save Sam and Sandy and defeat the Kaninchen Clan.
"I have already tracked them down," Hoshiro puckered. "I can sense Feuer von Kaninchen's filthy fire. I can lead you to their hideout".
"Nice," Lucy clenched her fist, for she was more than ever determined to save her friends and take revenge on the Kaninchen Clan for all the evil they had done to her and her family. "But wouldn't it be good to call Alex Nutts too? Since it's his wife who's been kidnapped..." she remembered Sandy's black squirrel husband she had recently seen in her revived memories.
Yuehong sighed, dropping his ears:
"Dear, Alex has long passed away..."
Lucy put a hand to her mouth in horror:
"What?"
Oh, goodness! So Sandy had lost not only her two kids as she said before, but even her husband?!
"The panda princess Xiongmao Meili killed him in a fight..."
At the name 'Xiongmao Meili', Lucy gasped and clenched fists in anger:
"You don't mean... that filthy boy's spirit from my class?!"
"Yes, exactly her," Yuehong nodded. "I saw her in Shadow Masters High School in your class. She is indeed your classmate's guardian".
However, Hoshiro widened eyes over other words:
"You said, Shadow Masters High School?"
"Yes... What is it?"
"It is just that... Feuer and his Kaninchen rabbits have a large hideout I was talking about exactly under that building..."
Everyone gasped and widened eyes in a stupor - the Kaninchen had set up a hideout under Shadow Masters High School?!
"B... But how's that possible?" Mei was astounded, "How could they build a hideout near humans?"
"The answer is quite simple," Zefiro frowned, having his arms crossed. His tone was calm and strict as usual. "The Kaninchen Clan's hidden skill is Camouflage, just like De Lapin's skill was Teleportation. It permits them to hide their bunny features and appear as normal humans in the human realm. Thus, they can freely live there as normal humans, not get exposed, and save themselves from predator spirits who lurk in the Spirit Forest and other spirit areas. Due to that skill, the Kaninchen Clan managed to survive in harsh environments next to humans when the De Lapin Clan quickly went extinct".
"Y... You're not saying..." Lucy put her hands to her mouth, "It is actually the Kaninchen Clan in their human forms who rule Shadow Masters High School?!"
Everyone was wonderstruck - they could never imagine those vile bunnies would go that far!
"That's right," Hoshiro cut in. He apparently wanted to sound as smart and wise as his older brother. "Just think of it - when you studied in that school, didn't you notice at least something that was fishy?"
Lucy fell into her thoughts, and then brightened as the remembrance had struck her:
"You're right! There was this green-haired, covered-eyed guy who had Princess Gretchen as a guardian, and now that I remember that guy's appearance - his green hair and vile blue eyes... Don't tell me, it was Hans?!"
It was all clear to her now - the one who 'owned' Gretchen as a guardian, was none other than the Kaninchen Prince she could often see in her bitter De Lapin memories - Gretchen's husband, Hans von Kaninchen!
"Yes," Hoshiro attested to her assumption, discarding her final doubts. "But there's more to it, Lady Lutecia..."
"Huh?"
"The headmaster of the school - it is Feuer von Kaninchen".