[center][h2]Damian Gerard|Secluded park in Crocus[/h2][/center]

If anyone went to Damian's room to get him that morning, he wouldn't be there, nor would it look like he'd been in there at all that previous night. Instead, he'd taken the night to head out to a park he'd found on Day Two of the games with the two cutlasses he'd arrived to Phoenix Wing with months ago. He'd taken a sleeping bag, his armor, and some spare clothes. He needed some time alone, to think on his magic and on some letters he'd been getting from one of the surviving members of his dad's old unit. As the sun rose, Damian was already awake, cutlasses in hand and running through some old drills he hadn't done since he'd figured out Blade Change. Their weight felt solid in his hands, familiar in a way that he was using as a comfort.

Master Jamie and Jarvis had looked both shaken and more exhausted than he'd ever seen them before. And, despite his own outward appearance of confidence and calm, for the most part, he was beginning to worry just what kinds of trouble the actions of his guild had been taking in the last few months. The attack by that dark guild the previous day had only just made it sink in deeper that things were getting bad in the country again, and he couldn't shake the feeling that war, of some kind, was on the horizon. He just couldn't say when.