Feeling a chilly draft on his neck, a shiver went down Ace's spine. He turned around to see Gavin entering the room. Either Osa had somehow turned one of the rooms into a freezer, or Gavin had turned it into an ice box. It was a good thing Gavin had decided now to talk to him, because he was a minute away from interrogating the boy himself. "Brutally honest, huh? Alright then..."

After hearing Gavin out, Ace leaned forward and poured a cup of tea. There was a lot of weight on Gavin's shoulders, responsibility that shouldn't be his. If his life was on the line then there wouldn't be any problems with his motivation, but there was one thing that bothered him. "You're on a mission of retribution, and not by your choice? What do you plan to do once you kill this person?" Ace said, handing him the tea. "Will you stay with us, or will you return to... whatever life it is that you've been living?"

At this time a foreign young man entered the room from the bar above. Osa stood from her seat and walked to him. "You don't have to bow, none of us here are kings or queens." She said with a welcoming smile. She reached out her hand for him to shake. "I am Osa, Okal told me you would be arriving, come in." She motioned for him to join the table, though Shizuka had already stood up to greet him.

"Yu, I'm Shizuka." She said, grinning ear to ear. She then took the liberty of telling him the names of everyone else at the table. "There's Lin too, but she's asleep right now. Come on, sit down and have some tea." She patted him on the back towards the table, and poured him a cup of the warm beverage. 

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Finding herself sitting in the palace library once more, Ryoko was far less enthused than she had planned to be at the current circumstances. She was irritated that Salforge had let the Princess of Heart go, she was irritated that finding them would prove twice as difficult now, and above all else she was irritated that the connection on her transceiver was cutting out. She slapped the device like an unruly child, and quite like an unruly child it shaped up. On the device's screen a blond woman came into focus. "Catherine, did you give the Emperor my report?" She asked. 

"Yes." The maid's voice came through the speakers with a cavalry of static behind it. "He said that in light of what has happened, you are to kill the Princess of Heart on sight, and that the factory of that world must not be compromised." 

"That's easy to say..." Ryoko mumbled. 

"Master?"

"Nothing, that will be all Catherine... Comb your hair, it's a mess."

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"Such confidence..." Asahina whispered to herself as Alem left the room. She couldn't understand how he was so sure of himself, not after seeing what she had done. She looked to the window by the bed, she could easily run away now and get out of this man's life before she complicated it any further. But she didn't. She wanted to believe in Alem, because without him she would be alone again.

Alem came back into the room with water and fruit, he handed her the water and placed the pears down on her lap. She quickly drank the water, and began to eat the pears. As she was chewing, he spoke to her, telling her he was calling a friend for help, and asked her to tell him who she was. She felt anxious about showing herself to someone else, to her Alem was an exception to how the average person would react to seeing something like her. He moved down to her face, forcing her to look at him. Her yellow eyes looked away from his, a poor reflex of hers. She slowly looked back at him as he spoke again. 

"I'm... Sorry." She had not told him the full truth because it wasn't something she fully understood. "They said I am... A Princess." Her face tightened at the regal word. "Someone Pure. No Darkness inside." Her eyes turned downcast. "Must be a mistake. Me. A Princess?"