The Night of Fire

"And that's the plan."

Winter and two groups of four were behind him as they were standing on the roof of a villa in the higher society parts. Houses were far enough away from each other so they could cause a small ruckus in what they were about to do and probably get away with it.

Once inside the big villa, no one would be escaping because of Winter's wind spell holding down the exits. As of now, they were working on the words of the would-be queen, the people here were gathering to have a meeting about their rebellion and so foolishly tried to invite Rose to join them in hopes she would change sides.

Sure, this could be a trap for these Black Cloaks but she would know better than trying to lie to them. With solid evidence and a good person to testify, they could totally arrest everyone as they had the proper authority to do so.

"...Major, thinking about it, is this really such a good idea? A bunch of Nobles going missing in the night?" Ash told her Major and well, that did turn the heads of all of the groups.

"This can really go either two ways. We manage to kill most of them and arrest a few of them, or we try to arrest all of them, and somehow, they all walk free. These guys haven't done anything wrong just yet, according to our laws, you can say whatever you want as long it doesn't translate into actual violence or something of the sort."

But it's not as if you can simply talk shit to anyone and everyone though. If you are seen as a complete aggressor and the victim challenges you to a duel, you're forced to accept, or else you'll be charged with verbal violence when arrested.

But, most people in Ardent would rather solve problems quickly and with their fists in a quick and honorable fight.

Anyway, back to what was at hand. The traitors haven't done any wrong just yet and can say whatever they want, their goals weren't exactly concrete either, this was just a group of people who were upset at the change in power. With as much money as they had and how former nobles are always going to be ambitious, their words of inaction may quickly turn to movements of action.

Ash was thorough but it still came down to doing what they always did. Especially after Erwin was done with his scouting with his drones. It wasn't fully solid but they were passing around the idea of trying to ruin the Summer Festival happening in a month and well, that's Domestic Terrorism.

"Let's go!" Winter told his group as they all ran to the edge of the building and jumped right off, the fall was nothing to them though most people would end up with a pretty injured body from trying to jump from this high.

The fall wasn't going to be a problem for them anyway as they reached their hands to the sky and felt wind tethers grab onto their arms and swing them in an arc. Kicking out their legs, they all burst through the windows leading into the dining hall where everyone in the villa was currently enjoying a party and talking about their plans.

The room was shot into confusion as their party crashers landed on the ground. But, that confusion swapped to horror when they saw what exactly was standing in front of them.

"Black Cloaks!!"

"Now, now, now! You can't just barge in here! On whose authority do you think you can just come into MY home and DESTROY MY WINDOWS?!" The ringleader of this whole operation was coming forward and marching right at Winter who was waiting for them to get close.

Everyone here wouldn't be alive to see tomorrow but the Ringleader was important for information. When he was in range, Winter clocked him in the jaw and grabbed his limp body, he turned around and threw the man out of the window with assistance from his winds and the man hung in the air and was slowly lowered down and out of view.

All of the party was frozen still at the most powerful of them just being hit in the face and tossed out of a window.

But, panic did ensue when all of the Black Cloaks pulled out their weapons. It would be about this point that most people would back out, these people were largely innocent and more than likely could be convinced to simply not go through with their plans but, the Executioners already had a plan in mind.

The idea was their deaths would lead to peace for their country, and peace for their country was the final goal for these women and men. No matter who stood in their way, no matter who had to die, if Ardent's people could sleep at night comfortably, The Black Cloaks would continue their work until their bodies couldn't.

If some nobles had to die in the process, so what? Or that was the idea as the formerly beautiful, bustling, and happy hall was reduced to silence and painted red with the blood of traitors.

Once all of those people were finished off, a tight search of the premises began to see if there were any survivors. There wasn't a single soul who escaped their hunt, besides the one exception who was out cold in the bushes as they enacted the final part of their plan.

They started to burn the place down, of course, powerful fire spells were used from the place that they wanted to burn the most, the main hall.

With the building starting to properly burn, it didn't look like they would have to manipulate the flames at all and so, they collected their prize and vanished into the night. Burning the place down wouldn't be sufficient by itself, this was a plan being enacted by multiple people.

None of them knew the whole view of what exactly was happening. The Fire Brigade wouldn't investigate the scene for a cause, the City Guard would have Ardent sympathizers investigate the scene so the murders would be completely overlooked and covered up, and Mayor Rose would have to stuff this into her soul and never let it come out.

Truly, the only group that really wanted to cooperate was the Fire Brigade. The City Guard was more or less being infiltrated by Executioner's Order, and Mayor Rose was looking at the bigger scope rather than just the loss of a few nobles.

She hated it but she really didn't have a choice either, if she wouldn't do it, General Lumina would find someone who would.

With the first half of tonight's mission complete, the second group was more or less just starting to move in. On the more industrial part of town, at Hayman's Flight, The gun squad, Akari, and another group of four were deciding a plan.

Unlike the other group, Hayman's Flight and the former soldiers in it were doing things that were completely illegal. Bringing in illegal weapons, distributing them throughout the city, and plans of domestic terrorism. It seems this entire business was created for this sole purpose, they had places all across the industrial district so taking them all out was a big pain in the ass from the City Guard, Ardent Military, and Executioners that were here.

They were currently at the last one and well, they saw them coming. The offense was trapped outside because these former soldiers had turned this place into a defensive fortress in an attempt to negotiate and buy time. White Cloaks were spotted at a few of these places and it could be said that there was possibly a deadly amount of them in there for even the force outside which was a mix of Military and City Guard.

"Do we have a map of the place?" Akari asked from the magic channel to Erwin as she was coming up with her own plan that everyone certainly wouldn't like.

"No, these guys completely skipped over floor plans when building these places. Quickly constructed and no real plans. You have two options here: I can do a full scan of the building, but that will take time, or I can send you a building similar to it."

"Hm. No, I have no idea."

From what they could see this place had three floors including the ground floor. What the mixed force on the ground was most afraid of was being shot to death with spells while trying to get into the building thanks to this place being completely connected to another building on all sides except the front. That meant there was only one way in and out, with the front so heavily fortified, it couldn't be so simply breached from the front.

"...Relay this to the ground forces..." Akari gave her idea to them and got her group moving. Her plan was given the go-ahead and after a few minutes and her making sure everyone was in place she pulled out her sword and ignited the blade.

She was standing in the front of the building just above the groups of men fortifying the front. Pulling up her weapon, she slashed down onto the rooftop, completely blowing away the bricks under her feet and a big area around her. She was of course immune to the knockback and flames but her teammates had to jump into the air as they would rather not be hit by her flames.

That meant they would land later than her too. Once Akari touched down, she grabbed a soldier and shoved a sword through their chest, she removed her blade and threw up a flaming shield as a bunch of spells came flying at her from the side. She turned on her heel and slammed her sword into a short sword being swung at her, she stabbed forward putting her weapon through the man, the flames on her sword extended and went through everyone standing behind him.

The screams were silenced quickly as they died, when she removed her sword, the rest of her squad fell down into the hole. Her flaming shield dispersed as a smirk came to her face. Explosions could be heard all around the building.

The soldiers on the floor with them were soon shot with spells ranging from water darts, Akari's flame bolts, and actual bullets. The forty men on the floor were wiped out soon enough and Akari slammed through the floor letting her and her group down into the floor below to find that the enemies were fighting the military and City Guard in a defensive formation. It's too bad for them that Akari and her group landed behind them.

She didn't even have to give the order to fire as she simply folded her arms while flame bolts formed around her.

In just two volleys from both sides, the enemy force on this floor was decimated in record time. The mixed force made their way to the stairs while Akari put her hand to the floor again and blasted through, falling right onto the enemy forces as they were firing on the force behind them and the ones in front of them.

This time, they landed in the middle of both fights and Akari turned to the ones at the window and they had no idea what was about to happen behind them. She put up a single hand and with a spark of her magic, a massive blast of flames spit from her and spread out to fill the entire room in front of her.

Everything in its way was burnt to hell and when it reached the people, they didn't even have time to scream as they were burned and blasted out of the front of the building. Of course, not all of them died instantly as a few were screaming but were put out of their misery by the mixed force. Akari looked behind to get a thumbs up from Chisai.

They were done here it seems. Cleaning up wasn't their job, once they gathered up, they ignored anyone bold enough to call out to them and started moving the hell away from the scene. The faster they vanished from the scene, the better.

They moved quickly and quietly, and before long, they were back at their hotel. Though not in the comfortable part, they were all in the basement with Winter soundproofing it, it was the typical basement with large boxes and things thrown about, it had the space to accommodate all of them and was naturally more silent than any other room there is in the hotel. The kidnapped victim was strapped into a chair with the people who were about to torture him standing in front of him.

Sakura was more than pleased and she was joyfully spinning a knife in her hand while Amiya was standing by with her healing magic. With the signal from Winter, Chisai and Selen reached out and forcibly awoke the man using their magic.

"Who-! What-?! Where am I?!" He stared at the people around him but of course, couldn't make any of it out, he could tell by the cloaks that he was in danger, "Was this all just a setup?!"

No one in the room knew what he meant by that, "What do you mean by that?"

"First! We come to a deal-!"

Before he could even realize it, burning pain shot through his leg as Sakura stabbed her knife into his leg and then punched him in the face before grabbing him by the hair. His nose was bleeding from the hit and she buried the knife so deep, that it actually stabbed into the chair he was strapped to.

She forced him to look her in the eyes, "You're stepped to a chair and everyone thinks you're dead. Tell us what we want to know and I'll make it quick. Trust me, you won't want the slow death. Please, make this hard, I want to see how slowly I can kill you~!"

He was struck speechless until his voice was forced to come out as she twisted the knife in his leg before pulling it out. He could feel his consciousness fading away until all the pain in his body was washed away, he looked up to see Amiya step back.

But, with that, he could tell he was in for an extremely rough time.

"I'll tell you everything! Okay, the Queen set me up for this! ...For the Summer Festival... the people at Hayman's Flight were going to go on a killing spree and all while that was happening, the white cloaks were going to kill the Pope... at least, I think it's the Queen..."

"How does she contact you?" Sakura asked as she lightly cut the captive's face making them flinch pretty hard.

"My cell, she contacts me every few days to check on my progress! Before you brought me here, I was expecting a call from them."

He was surprised they were going along with him so easily. He didn't know if they believed him or not.

Winter pulled out the cell that Erwin already cracked wide open.

"Please, trust me! She calls me around in the AM! You can kill me any way you want if she doesn't call!!"

Even though he couldn't completely discern her face, he could tell that Sakura gained a devious grin on her face, he wish he could take back his words but feels like that would simply be an awful plan.

"...We give you two hours."

At the moment, it was 12 AM, this was the only amount of time they were giving him before Sakura has it her way and really starts getting into what she wanted. He prayed that she wouldn't but ultimately, it was up to his so-called mastermind to call to see how he was going to go out...