11. Wanted Criminal

Miyano had been pacing around for the past ten minutes and the anxiety in his body kept growing and growing. They had wrapped up their training half an hour ago and to his horror, Minato was nowhere to be found. He had tried asking Bato dono about it but the old man waved off his concerns saying they were other important matters that needed his attention.

After a while he gathered the heroes at the training grounds for a supposed important announcement.

Ten minutes had passed and they were still waiting. The fact that Minato wasn't anywhere in sight made him even more worried.

"I apologize to have kept you all waiting for so long. I had to discuss briefly with the council to decide on what to do.

Miyano Sama, you asked me earlier about that Unwanted an why he wasn't at the training with you. Well the truth is, the previous Unwanted have been said to sabotage the heroes during training, doing everything to make them fail. So for you safety, I made the decision to keep him here.

Now what I never expected was that he would commit such an atrocious crime."

"Crime?" It sounded like a foreign word to Miyano, especially being compared to a guy like Minato.

"Misa, come forward."

A slender lady walked up to Bato dono. She had bruises on her arms and face like she had been beaten, dark circles under her eyes and the redness indicated that she had been crying.

"Would you care to explain what happened to the heroes?"

She nodded but she didn't say anything, instead she fell to her knees and started to shed tears. After a few seconds, she managed to say something. "Minato San asked me to get him some snacks, but when I went to his room, h-he….he …he forced himself on me!" And with that she started to sob uncontrollably again.

"What?" Miyano wasn't sure he heard her right, there was no way Minato would ever do something like that to an innocent girl. After all he knew him like the back of his hand, and he had never even touched a woman before. So what would warrant him to do such a violent thing?

"I know you might not believe her because she is an ordinary servant in the palace, but there is a witness. One of the royal knights tasked with watching over you heroes.

He heard the screams of the poor girl and rushed to her aid but it wasn't before that worthless boy had fulfilled his wish."

When he said that, the girl hugged her body tightly and started crying.

"So where's this knight?"

Miyano was somewhat surprised when he heard Kaito speak up.

"The knight tried to restrain him but he was attacked brutally and left for dead.

In the history of terrible Unwanted, this has to be the worst of them all.

As of now, the boy called Fujimura Minato is a wanted criminal and once he has been apprehended, he will receive a harsh penalty for his crimes."

"I knew it!" Aimi said. "I knew there was something off about that guy. Not only was he a weakling, he added criminal to his list of traits. How dare he hurt a helpless girl? If I see him, I'm going to strangle him with my bare hands."

"I didn't know he was that kind of a person. And here I was, actually considering being friends with him." Aiko added. "Thank goodness I found out something like this on time, who knows, maybe I would have been his victim."

"Yeah somehow I don't see Minato chan touching someone like you." Miyano had intended to say that in his mind but he subconsciously said it out loud and a few gazes were directed at him.

"You're always defending that loser, could it be that you're in this together?" One of the heroes said.

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, now that I think about it, they are always together."

One by one they started to agree with each other, saying that Miyano must be a criminal like Minato and that he wasn't worthy enough to be called a hero for protecting someone that would take advantage of a helpless girl.

"That's enough!" Bato dono said in a loud voice, cutting them off. "I understand your concern but I want to assure you that Miyano Sama is innocent in all this. He simply felt protective of the Unwanted because he didn't want him to turn over to the dark side, what he didn't know was that darkness had been in his heart from the start.

Miyano Sama is the strongest among the seven of you, and I believe he is also the kindest, and I will not tolerate any insult towards him."

The heroes ceased their mean commentary when he said that but they still threw hateful glances his way. Kaito was the one with the coldest look, probably because he was called the strongest.

"That will be all." Bato dono continued. "Like I said before you started, we will only train you for three days, after that, you will learn while fighting real battles on your quest.

For today, rest, we shall have a feast at dinner. Tomorrow is a new day, and your journey begins. Your rewards and party members will be given before you leave and your missions will be decided by the council."

Miyano couldn't get a wink of sleep all through the night. Something felt off, he just didn't know how to get it to make sense. The Minato he knew would never lay his hands on a woman without her consent, much less cause her so many bruises. Also how was he able to subdue a royal knight without help? Minato's strength had barely increased since their training.

Well thinking about it wasn't going to do him any good, and since they would be leaving the castle the next day, Miyano decided that he would look for Minato and hopefully get more sensible answers from him.

★★★

"Where am I?" Minato sat up and looked around, trying to fugure out where he was.

It was a large and empty room. The lighting was so had that he could barely see more than two feet away from his body. He tried to gather his memories but everything felt fuzzy. He started to walk around the unfamiliar surrounding, searching for a door or at least a window.

Just from the corner of his eyes, he noticed the figure of a human run past him.

"Who's there?" He immediately turned but he didn't see anyone.

As he started to walk away, he heard a deep voice coming from the shadows.

"Enjoy while you can boy, this life is mine and I will take it back from you!"

Despite the fear he felt, Minato forced himself to ask, "W-Who are you?"

There was no reply, but he could still feel the presence of after person in the room. He slowly backed away, straining his eyes so he could see through the darkness. He suddenly froze when he felt something behind him. Slowly turning, Minato came face to face with a ten feet humanoid figure looking down at him. It didn't have a face but for some reason it felt like it was glaring at him.

Minato felt his toes curl up with fear as the figure grabbed his neck and began to choke him.