Chapter 14:

Escaping the Entitled

Blade: Belonging


Waiting outside, it was still fairly dark and no sign of takeo. Our first night patrol is going great. Wonder how we are going to explain this. This woman named Ochi Ai is supposed to be here any minute now and she will take me to her house. I wonder what it's like to be a wealthy person partaking in human trafficking during the nighttime. I never imagined such issues would happen within such a sophisticated society in such a developed city.

I haven’t worn any dressed since I was a little girl in the village. My mother worked as a tailor so she would make a lot of cute clothes for me in her spare time. Wonder how she would feel to see me in a dress again. I hate myself for yelling at my mother that day, forcing her to not make dresses for me. The more I think about it the more it hurts me, let alone how much it would have hurt her.

The carriage arrived. It was a finely made carriage, the finishing on it was extremely detailed. I don’t know who this Ochi Ai maybe, but they are a wealthy family. I wonder if I can find out who they are and figure out a way to track down the whole human trafficking group once I’m free again.

The door opened and Ochi Ai was sitting inside.

“Come, come you shouldn’t be standing outside in the cold while dressed like that.”

I nodded and walked into the carriage. The carriage driver closed the door, and we began moving. I sat on the opposite side from Ochi Ai, I avoided any eye contact possible and just looked out of the carriage windows.

“You have quite the soft-looking body for a boy. How old are you?” She asked me while checking me out.

I ignored the question and kept looking out at the dark empty city outside the window. However, ignoring her doesn’t seem to work as it did for Noda. She leaned over onto me and whispered into my ear.

“Keep playing hard to get, it only gets me more excited.”

She leaned back into her place and smiled at me.

I cleared my throat and replied “I’m 16… Mrs Ochi Ai…”

“Surprising, wouldn’t expect most 16-year-olds to have such a soft-looking face yet along a such a soft body,” she replied while stroking my hand.

“Ha… ha… Yeah… It just happened… I guess…”

I tried pulling my arm away, however, her firm grip was too strong for me to move away without using any force.

Shortly we arrived at the gates to the Ochi Ai mansion. It was too dark outside for me to see where we were within the capital city, not as if I would be able to navigate around the huge place anyway.

The gates to the mansion opened and we rode into the private grounds. The walls around the mansion were fairly tall, would be quite hard to make a jump over it without using any form of magic.

“Come on, let's get going.” She said while pulling my arm.

The butler opened the door and she dragged me into the house. The huge doors opened; a blast of heat hit my face. We rushed inside and Oshi Ai carried on dragging me to another room.

Oshi Ai finally stopped and threw me into a room, she went back and closed the door behind us.

“Now then. Shall we get started?” She said in a serious tone.

“Started? With what?” I replied

“Oh, you will see soon enough.” She replied as she opened a wardrobe. She began searching for something inside. Suddenly she pulled out some rope. “Alright, ready now,” she said eagerly.

I wasn’t going to wait to find out what she was planning to do with that rope. Not sure how many more chances I will get to attempt to get out but it's now or never. The door is locked from the inside so it would take a bit for guards to get in.

“I think I will take my leave for today, thanks for the nice trip though,” I said.

As I was about to jump at the window, Oshi Ai quickly grabbed my leg with a whip.

“I don’t think our session ended yet. You aren’t going anywhere.” She said angrily.

I tried getting rid of the whip, but she began burning the whip, so I had no way to attempt to take it off without causing more harm to myself. She dragged me using the whip and threw me onto the bed.

I quickly grabbed my sword and managed to fire a few ice shards at her. She backed off a bit and began to attack me with her flaming whip. I managed to dodge her attacks, luckily for me, she isn't a trained fighter.

As I rolled off the bed, I stabbed my sword into the ground turning the whole floor into ice. Ochi Ai began to slip around, annoyingly, all the noise we began to make brought the mansion guards' attention.

“Is everything okay Miss?” Asked one of the guards outside the door.

“No, nothing is okay, get everyone in here. NOW!” Oshi Ai yelled at the door.

I got to get out quickly now. I smashed the window with my magic and jumped out. I rolled out of the push that was outside the window and got greeted nicely by a few guards. All of them began firing their magic at me instantly.

Dodging multiple shots from different angles proved to be more difficult than I originally anticipated. I managed to avoid most of them, however, this poor dress wasn’t going to make it out fine. I managed to create a small ice wall to hide behind, finally a moment to catch my breath.

“DON’T LET HIM ESCAPE!” Oshi Ai screamed out.

Well, this will be exciting. From what I can see there are about 10 guards outside and probably a load more inside, they will most likely make their way out soon. Now, do I risk the chance of getting overwhelmed by a large number of guards or take the risk of trying to escape?

The guards kept pushing harder and my wall was beginning to fall apart. I got up and ran away from the wall and created a bunch of ice spikes on the ground towards the guards. Those at the front got direct contact, others further back only got hit with the knocked back guards. This should keep them away for a moment for me to escape. As I jumped up onto the wall something grabbed onto my leg.

Oshi Ai’s whip was wrapped around my leg. She was trying to yank me down with her whole strength. There wasn't much I could do to resist getting dragged down. When she least expected it, I let go of the wall and caused her to fall over. As she was on the ground, I quickly created an ice wall and climbed over the mansion wall.

I was finally free once again. The past few hours have probably been the worst hours of my life yet. Who would have thought that there is human trafficking within the capital city? I ran down the streets to make sure that I lost the guards from the mansion. I will need to find my way back to the training camp, but I have no idea in which part of the city I am in.

The city is home to around a million people, navigating around here is rather hard for me. My village at most had two hundred people and that was scattered over the entire village area. Some lived miles away from the village centre. Here, everything is so compact, hundreds of people live back-to-back. Feels so wrong to live like this, yet much more efficient in a sense. I wandered around the empty streets, my dress was slightly ripped up and the dry cold air was beginning to hit me.

I tried using street signs to navigate around the town, however, it was no use. The more I walked the more lost I felt. I could hear all the guards yelling in the background desperately trying to find me. I kept running forwards without thinking about where I was going that much. I crossed a large bridge; the river below was dashing downstream. I wonder how far the ocean is away from here.

It was starting to slowly brighten up, so finding help shouldn’t be too hard soon. I kept walking and walking and walking, however, there was still no street that I could figure out my way around. I had finally found a shopkeeper who was sweeping up outside his store. I went to ask for directions but as soon as I approached him, he walked into the store, locking the door behind him. I walked further down the road and many more did the same.

The sun was already looking over the horizon and there was still no sign of Takeo. I need to get a change of clothes, there have been some dumb men giving me some creepy looks and women who looked at me in disgust. After hours of wandering around the city, I finally found a district guard who didn’t run away from me.

“Hey, hey!” I called out to the guard as I approached him.

“Good morning little miss.” The guard responded back.

“I’m not a miss. Don’t get it twisted, I may be wearing a dress but there’s an explanation to that, however, now isn’t the time. I’m looking for the direction to the military training camp. Can you help me out?” I asked in a frustrated tone.

“Hahaha! Why do you want to go to the military training camp?” He asked while laughing

“I’m part of the military training group.”

“Oh? What’s your name and when did you join?”

“My name is Kato Mito. I took part in the most recent enrolment event at the royal arena.”

“You’re THE real Kato Mito??” He asked in excitement.

“Yes, I am, I just said that didn’t I, you idiot.”

“I watched the enrolment event; I’ve been a huge fan of you since your first fight. Your skills are so amazing yet you’re so young. Very inspirational to many people.”

“Oh wow, thank you! Didn’t realise I had fans” I replied while blushing.

“I will show you the way to the military training camp, you should probably get a change of clothes, but don’t worry I can get that for you! My outpost isn't far from here, we should have spare uniforms.”

“That would be great, thank you. Is there any way I could repay you?”

“Hmm, I would really love to get some training from you. So, if possible, I would accept some training from you as repayment for my help,” he asked with a huge smile on his face.

“I can’t decline a fan, haha! Whenever I have a free day, we can meet up for training sessions for you.” I replied happily.

He led the way to the district guard outpost and handed me a uniform to change into. It felt nice to be in normal clothes again, wearing a dress was too discomforting for me. The district guard told me the directions to the training camp, and I quickly made my way back to the camp without an issue.

I arrived at the gate and got let into the camp by the camp guards. I need to quickly find the officer who assigned us to this job to inform him of the situation and that Takeo is still missing.

I ran around the entire camp, however, there was no sign of the Officer anywhere. I asked around to see if maybe anyone else had seen him but no luck. Both the Officer and Takeo have vanished.

Oshitami
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