Rescue Mission

As our group approached the village, a young woman darted out of the main gate and dashed towards us as if she desperately needed to tell us something.

"You need to help them!" The woman said, clutching onto Aoi's shirt.

My group was startled by the woman's desperation but Aoi and his team kept their cool. Aoi gave her a reassuring smile, allowing the woman to compose herself and release her grip on Aoi.

"What's going on and where do we need to go?" Aoi asked, keeping that same reassuring smile on his face.

"A younger girl and a dog walked off towards a cave where we said the monsters came from. My younger child went over there and when I told them he hadn't returned they immediately ran off towards where my child would be!"

"Could you point us to where they were heading?" Aoi asked.

The woman nodded her head and pointed towards the forest on the other side of the town.

Steven and I were the first to start moving, leaving Aoi's group, Felix, and Bea behind. I could hear Aoi's group try to call out to us so we could all go in together but Steven ignored it. As for me, I heard it and considered it but I'd rather not have Steven run off on his own. Besides, we both wanted to rescue our friends as fast as possible even if we were acting completely reckless. The idea of Bea and Felix just standing there baffled by me and Steven's sudden sprint brought a smirk to my face. With how fast we were moving, we blitzed through the village like it was nothing and entered the forest where the woman had pointed to.

"Looks like we now know where Emma and Fang are!" I said, jumping over a fallen tree.

"I'm glad we started moving at the same time." Steven said, running right next to me.

I nodded, "of course we did. They're our friends."

Steven let out a quiet laugh as my response before returning his attention to the forest ahead of us.

As we progressed deeper into the forest, the tree's became much more dense and closer to each other, slowing down me and Steven so we wouldn't accidentally run into anything. Despite being so deep into these woods, I couldn't hear the sounds of animals. It was oddly quiet.

Before we knew it, we had already arrived at the cave where supposedly Fang, Emma, and that woman's child had run off into. It's appearance was similar to that of the monster lairs Steven and I had encountered before.

"Running here by ourselves was already extremely reckless so maybe we should make a plan?" I asked, still trying to have some sort of plan. I know it was ironic trying to be careful when we had already made such a reckless action by running here with just the two of us but can you blame a guy for at least trying to be somewhat careful?

"No time." Steven said before running into the cave, leaving me alone.

I let out a sigh, "the things we do for our siblings," I grinned to myself, "I'd definitely do the same thing if I knew Akira was in there."