Hearing Lin mumble something, Acesto, Shizuka and Osa turned to hear her out. She explained that she had no recollection of the past few minutes, not even how they had arrived here. "Nothing... At all?" Osa asked, stepping towards her. "You haven't suffered a concussion, have you?" She asked, placing a gentle hand on top of Lin's head. "No way, I didn't see her get hit at all. You aren't dizzy or anything are you, Lin?" Shizuka chimed in, adding to the worry party. Ace cupped his chin with his hand and looked at Lin. She did not appear sick, nor was she hurt. Maybe Ryoko or the mercenary had cast a spell of some kind on her? "We were fighting with the Empire, Ryoko and an armored man, Gavin teleported us here, leaving himself behind." Ace said, lowing his hand. He wasn't sure what was wrong with her, but he didn't want her fighting if she was having blackouts. "You basically saved me back there as well, does any of that ring a bell?" [center]_____[/center] Ryoko decided to drag Gavin back to the palace with her, whatever Salforge was up to she didn't really care, so long as he remembered what his job was. She 'enlisted' a local guard to carry the boy, while she frowned at the ends of her hair. Split ends, how could this have happened? If she needed to cut her hair again she was going to do it with bloody scissors. A ringing in her ear turned her frown into a full on grimace. "What?" She answered, pressing a finger to her ear to activate a cellular device. "Eh? Claverkick? What do you want?" She said, not entirely paying attention. She stopped walking for a moment, and looked up into the sky. "I know better than most that we cannot let this factory fall. Though... if it comes to it, that ship up there should be used to make sure they don't run off with anything again." [center]_____[/center] "Part... who?" Asahina had never heard the name Masaki, so she could only smile awkwardly and take the complement. "I was trained in the academy to handle many situations, however, stealth is something that was hardly taught." She whispered. Swordsmanship and sorcery were the key tenets of the curriculum, she doubted the Keyblade Instructors there could even properly teach the art of subterfuge. It wasn't exactly very righteous in their eyes. She followed after Alem and the Masaki, listening to their conversation. Asahina strained to imagine what it was like to be able to hear heartbeats from so far away. If her ears were that sensitive, wouldn't loud noises be a pain? Could she control her hearing somehow? Did her ear canal close up or something? Asahina shivered at the thought, and instead of trying to figure out the woman's physiology she focused on the fact that they had just come across a cell full of prisoners. One of them was the Sultan. She had only heard of the Sultan before, as the prior ruler of this city she had assumed he was dead. She was glad to be wrong. She noticed a stern expression on Alem's face, she figured seeing his people locked up like this was frustrating, she could sympathize. Her home had been torn apart by the Empire after all. The keys she found were used to open the cell, and they were bombarded with questions right away, no one asked who they were, rude. Alem laid out the plan to them, simple enough, all according to plan and what not. One problem, the Sultan wanted to go with them. It was understandable that he wanted to assure the safety of his daughter, but she wasn't sure they'd be able to protect him if things got out of hand. She stayed quiet on the matter, she wasn't going to force him to leave. The Sultan explained all that he knew, which turned out to not be much. Screams coming from down below, large equipment being moved. Well, at least she knew the entrance was made of stone. She waited for Alem or Masaki to make the next move, however, the blond looked to her for the next step. "Huh, me?" Asahina pointed to herself, looking around as if she had been mistaken. Surely these two would have better luck with this sort of thing, infiltration was not her forte. She let out a sigh and began to scan the walls. She got into the mind of whoever may have built this place, if she were going to make a secret staircase leading to a horrific nightmare machine, where would it be?... "Here?" She summoned her keyblade and tapped it against the ground at what appeared to be a dead end corner. "I don't see any reason why someone would build an empty hall like this..." She tapped the ground harder, and got a resounding hollow noise back. "Bingo." She said, right away regretting her dorky choice of words. Coughing into her empty hand she straightened her back and pointed her keyblade at the ground. Light formed at the tip of her blade like a gathering of glowing fairies before being shot in a thin beam. The keyblade did what it's namesake implied, and opened the secret path below. The stone floor slid down about a foot, and then slid backwards revealing a staircase. She recalled her keyblade and looked down into the path, it was pitch black and not very wide. It reminded her once again of the pod she had been kept in. The last thing Asahina wanted to do was confront the same thing that had tortured her for so long, but she had to, there was little other choice. She took a step down, and was surprised to see dim violet lights light up on the sides of the stairs. Those certainly did not belong here. There were empty sconces on the sides of the walls, indicating that the empire had phased them out in favor of artificial light. Asahina looked back to Alem and the Masaki, before heading further down.