Chapter 322

Arriving at the next town on horseback that evening, Zesshi and Layali nevertheless took the precaution of raising their hoods so that they would not be observed by those who passed them by as anything else but mother and child on horseback and riding with husband and father. And with Brain's hood down and his obvious humanity, nobody thought to question the other two.

However, he didn't take them straight to the nearest inn, instead they went past it. "Just wait here." Brain said as he dismounted after their horses came to a stop.

"Zesshi… what's he doing…?" Layali asked with a furrowing of her little golden brow.

"I… I don't know." Zesshi asked.

Brain, for his part, after dismounting his horse, ventured into a nearby alley, the buildings were of relatively inexpensive wood, but treated to be weather resistant, and with thick straw bales bound together and secured to sloped rooftops to ward off the rain and hold in the heat.

A low rumble ran over the sky above, suggesting that was more necessary than Zesshi initially believed. She heard the clinking noise of Brain's pouch containing his stolen goods, and she was reminded again of those whose lives she may have ended. A tiny sliver of hope clung stubbornly to her heart. 'Please be okay… I never had a brother… I hope I didn't get one, just to get him killed right away…'

She thought about whom they'd have sent after him, if she were still around, Clementine was an easy guess, but rumor had it that she was dead. 'Cenna, maybe… he's weaker than I am, but still the strongest of the others. Wait, he vacations around Ikari, hunting there… and this would be that time of year…'

Her heart crashed. 'There aren't many who could defeat him…' She cursed her naivete and clung tighter to the reins while she listened to Brain's hushed voice from just out of sight.

"This is all I've got, Toombs, and I can't get more. It's worth twice what I'm asking. You can move this easy and make a hefty profit." Brain said to the vicious runt of a man in filthy cloth.

"Yer goin soft… Brain…" The hunchbacked little man said between toothless lips. "Too soft, you got more, I seen em. Thems is girls, thas always got value…"

Brain dumped the clatter of stolen plates, forks, and knives as the first drops of rain began to fall and land on their heads. "Don't say that." Brain said it as an order. It was not a request. He stuck out his hand. "You've fenced a lot, and you know I bring you good stuff, what I gave you last time had to be more than the rest of what your Re-Estize Rejects brought in for the whole month. Just shut up, take the stuff, and give me the coin so I can beat the rain."

"Awww, c'mon. You sound like you need the money, since things tightened up in the north, ain't much traffic here but the occasional runaway slave. How about I give you what you're askin, just… give up the small one up there, had a guy come through here not that long ago, lookin for one bout that size, bet if I sen'm word, he'll come back for a pickup…" The hunchback rubbed his hands together.

"What was his name?" Brain asked, his eyes went very narrow, and he kicked aside the stolen goods, which clattered against the wall, the weasel's tongue licked his own lips several times.

"Ah, Cera-somethin, bate. Cerabate, he ah… friend of yours… friend of… hers?" The weasel winked and leaned to the right to peak around the corner where Layali sat.

'Cerebrate?' Brain asked himself and answered instantly, 'Yes. He just suggested selling my Layali to Cerebrate?!' He saw only white in his own eyes, like the flash of sun piercing the dark and striking his pupils, his fist lashed out and hit the hunchback in the gut.

The fence went sailing back into the corner of the wall, cracking through the wood and tumbling head over heels until he was stopped by crashing into several stacked barrels which toppled over and shattered.

Brain however, was on him before the hunchback could ask or even understand what was happening. A snarl of animal fury on Brain's face, his fist rose and fell, and bone after bone crunched and cracked, the rain began to fall harder, and within seconds, the hunchback ceased to move.

"Shit." Brain said, and spat down at the filth at his feet. A few scattered stolen goods were carried along, and now the pieces littered the path of the hunchback's beating. The glob of spit landed on the hunchback's face just below his eye, running slowly down into the muck of the alley, its passing accelerated by the slowly increasing pace of the rain that was now soaking Brain's hair and threatening to get worse.

"I need to get her out of the rain…" He muttered, and then crouching down, he lifted the brown cloak and snatched the coinpurse away from the hunchback's belt. "You should have just taken the stuff, Tooms." He mumbled and rose to his feet above the corpse. "A deal's a deal though, the trash I brought is yours, maybe your corpse can use it. But I'm through."

Brain turned around and walked back the way he'd come, a roll of thunder ran louder overhead just as he emerged from the alley again and found two expectant faces turned toward him.

"Brain? Are you-" Layali asked before he interjected.

"I'm fine, I was just ending an old partnership on… bad terms, I suppose they'd be… or good, depending on the way you think about it." He said and tossed the coinpurse into the air, and snatched it out again so that they could hear the jingle just before the thunder rumbled again.

"Come on, we'll stay at the inn tonight, and head out in the morning." Brain said, taking his horse at the reins, and leading it toward the small building not far away.

"Okay… yes, that would be nice… I don't like the rain…" Layali said, and when lightning cracked across the sky, she flinched visibly, "or lightning… I hate it… please… let's hurry." She said with a constant darting stare at the darkening sky.

Zesshi put her hands over the girl's ears and said, "You won't hear a thing, I promise." Then she pressed down, and Layali relaxed, not hearing another sound as Brain took Zesshi's horse by the reins as well, and guided them both back toward the inn.