Canceled Dinner Invitation

"Amaya!"

Without hesitation, Tris ran towards the group, repeatedly calling out to her younger sister while she was on the verge of tears. At first, she questioned why a little girl was going outside with a group of guys. But in a brief glance, she realized that the little girl walking with the group was her sister, and it prompted her to rush towards her.

"Amaya! Why are you going outside? Are you all right?!" Tris said with bated breaths, squeezing her younger sister as she wrapped her in a hug.

"Tris-nee!" Amaya called out, a wide smile appearing on her face. This was so unexpected that at first, she thought she was dreaming. After all, back when the shelter they were in was felled by the infected, she thought that her sister was dead. It had been weeks and there were no signs of her sister. That's why she didn't expect to see her in the same stronghold where she currently was.

When Kazuichi caught up to the group, he noticed that a familiar face was there, Izanagi Sano. He waved at him before stealing a glance at the reunited sisters. "You're going out, at this time of night?"

Izanagi Sano nodded, approaching Kazuichi and extending his hand in greeting. "We're checking out a nest of Aberrants."

"Why now? It would be far safer if you were to check them out tomorrow." Kazuichi returned, worriedly looking at the group who was jumping straight to their deaths for all he knew.

Heaving a sigh, Sano shook his head before he started explaining. "There was a huge spike of nest appearances around the stronghold, and we've been hitting them and getting rid of them in a fixed schedule. But because there were more and more cases of the infected invading the surrounding shelters, we're behind schedule. And to top it all off, our manpower was lacking."

Another sigh left his mouth, but this time, a man approached the two of them, putting a hand on Sano's shoulder before he spoke. "You're an acquaintance of... Sano?" The man asked with one of his eyebrows raised.

Kazuichi's lips curved upward as he offered a hand to the man. He could tell based on the body language that he was the one leading the charge, that he was the man in charge of this team. "The name's Takemi Kazuichi. I suppose you're the leader of this team?"

A couple of murmurs occurred within the group and they all muttered the same name. Kazuichi. After darting their glances from Kazuichi's visage to Sano, they pulled out their guns from their holsters and aimed them at Kazuichi.

"Whoa~!" Sano exclaimed, raising his hand in a futile attempt of stopping their animosity. He was not successful, and the group continued to aim their guns at Kazuichi.

"Relax, everyone. A guard is with them, and that means he's an esteemed guest of our stronghold leader. Whatever it was that we heard from the rumors... let's all disregard that, shall we?" The leader asked as he turned around, only to see that not a single one of his men put their hands down. "What I mean to say is, all of you put your guns down and that's an order. This might be the best time to kill the possible threat in front of us but believe me, the stronghold leader will not like it if we do something to him."

Nodding their heads, everyone put their guns down and muttered a single word of sorry to Kazuichi.

"Sorry about that, we were told to steer clear away from you whenever we did our scouting thingies outside. It was just a reflex, please don't take it to heart." The leader called out. "In any case, the name's Barry, Barry Mcallister. I get that— whoa~!"

Before he could continue what he was saying, Amaya let go of her sister and instead ran towards Kazuichi. She then gave him a tight hug around the leg while glaring down at everyone, excluding Sano and her sister Tris.

"Don't touch big brother!" She threatened as if everyone would be endangered by her.

"Amaya, you look like you're doing a lot better." Kazuichi greeted her, patting her on the head as she returned the greeting with a smile. No one knew how the two of them met, not even Tris.

"Ah yes, you're acquainted with my younger sister, right? How did the two of you exactly meet?" Tris asked since she was aware that the shelter was destroyed and there was no way Kazuichi just stumbled upon her out of nowhere.

"Big brother bought me from the okshoon~," Amaya replied before Kazuichi could say anything.

Everyone gasped as they stared at Kazuichi. It's as if they were looking at a criminal. Tris couldn't help but let out a gasp as well since she didn't peg Kazuichi as that type of person.

"I, uh... that would take a lot of explaining to do but basically, yes," Kazuichi replied, giving a brief summary of what happened. How he was infected, almost sold at an auction, and by the end bought a girl who would've fallen into another person's hands had he not done so.

Somehow, his story made a lot of sense and no one questioned his character. Seeing his cue, the guard who was accompanying both Kazuichi and Tris walked forward, nudging Kazuichi and telling him about the scheduled dinner with the stronghold leader.

"Ah, yes, the dinner... um, about that..." Kazuichi trailed off. He was already keen on rejecting the dinner invitation after knowing that Amaya would be going outside with a group. However, he couldn't find the right words to say since rejecting the stronghold leader's invitation was a bit... too far.

"We're not going." Tris continued. "Can we do this another time? We're coming with them." Tris called out, jerking a thumb at the group.

"Yes yes, can we reschedule our dinner? Tell Ayaka that we'll be accompanying this group tonight. I'm sure she won't mind." Kazuichi forced a smile on his face, bracing himself since there was a good chance the guard might attack him.

"I won't mind," Ayaka spoke out of nowhere, coming out of the shadows with a gentle smile on her face.