Raiden took a step back and fell down from the rooftops, falling through the air and landing on his feet once he hit the ground safely.
"I'll assume you're not too good for the stairs gharma?" Joseph huffed lightly, though he assumed everyone would take the quick way down and shut the door, stepping into the shadows next to it before stepping out on the street, brushing his jacket off.
Gharma did the same as his brother, jumping off the roof on to the ground landing perfectly onto his feet.
"I'm too stylish for everything. The stairs is at the bottom of that list."
"Which is why I simply just shadow stepped, not that I couldn't jump off the roof too, but three people doing it would be stale, got to spice the variety up."
"Maybe you just aren't as cool. Using your ability is lame.." Gharma rolled his eyes at Joseph's remark.
"Sounds to me like a complaint." Joseph waved him off, walking ahead of the two. "I took a look at a few posters while passing through my dimension, I saw a few gang leaders and bandits up on the wall…if we can find where these are, perhaps we can get our information faster than what was already planned."
"Yeah but what does a poster do? All we know is a woman with blonde hair that could be wearing a mask or not…"
"Right..there's crime in every city in the world. Bandit posters aren't going to help us get far if not at all."
"Bandit posters help because if we get the right leader of any group, they may just be connected to this woman or her little organization, or along the way of our search, they learn we're looking for them, perhaps this mysterious person will come to us, or have one of their own do it, use your heads."
"Grilling important figures will be our best option if we don't just find her outright, besides…with enough time between, I can just pinpoint these leaders and take us to them through a shadow door, granted you'll have to do the talking/negotiating of fists afterwards until I'm charged back up." Joseph took his beanie off for now, stuffing it into his pocket.
"Everyone has to start somewhere, if we're heading to the outskirts, best to start looking for any trouble…or a very well informed person, if the beggars there are still in their respective association."
"I don't think there's gonna be anyone that has knowledge on a mercenary like that… a lot of mercs lay low because their job includes getting paid for their job so they just have fake names. Any of their fake names might help but it also wouldn't at the same time."
Gharma nodded in agreement with his brothers comment.
"I don't think it's that simple. The woman we just talked to is a high ranking criminal and government official. She's probably the only person on the earth, besides maybe Ashi Zenin who could fill both roles and be looked at by the public as a positive force. If I hadn't inquired with her specifically, we probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere. Going through criminals could lead us somewhere..but the chances are low."
"She was also super hot too, you think we could hang around her more often?"
Raiden smiled cheek to cheek as a teenager would thinking of a soon to be friends hot mom.
"Plus we could also get more information on the world if we hang around her too."
"Shes taken a liking to me..I think we could." He gave a similar smile, since they were brothers it played off the same. It was clear they were less serious about this than Joseph was.
"You'd be surprised with how much one may know…but yes I agree, wasting time with big wigs isn't a good idea…I'll skip straight to the beggars, I know I can get the right information if I ask the right person, regardless of how they appear…If I can get any further inkling of information; it won't be hard to find her, it's just learning anything about her in the first place that's the difficult part…."
He huffed at raiden's notion, scratching his head.
"Playing horndog are we? I didn't expect you to be that type." Joseph chuckled at the comment of her being super hot, seems he was slowly getting back to his old self…the shadow king's grip on his vessel lessening some now.
Raiden brought his arms above his head and looked over at Joseph with a sly expression.
"What type? You gotta admit she was something else!" Raiden continued walking through the street with the other two.
"Pfft, you know exactly what type, I will admit she looked fairly good for a human, though that other girl…like me, who was at the games, I thought she looked pretty good myself."
"We're comparing apples to oranges here of course you don't like humans. She was smoking hot…and why would we find that dog bitch attractive? All she did was glare at us and fuck with us the entire event.."
Raiden poked fun at Gharma with a smug expression.
"Yeah dude I think she wants to have your babies or something." He stuck his tongue out after making the remark.
"Yeah and then they'd end up as deformed blobs of human remains crawling around. Fucking dog ears sticking out of their eye lids and fur all over their back. No thanks, and fuck that girl. If I see her in those exams i'm going to slap the taste out of her mouth."
"I don't know… she looked more draconic then dog. I think it'd be perfect for a Ceri blood like yourself… me and Joseph can help set you two up if you want?"
He turned his head to Joseph.
"Unless you want me and Gharma to set you two up instead?"
"How about we set you up with Shizu huh? What did you two do in that room anyways? You sure dad doesn't have some grandkids on the way?"
Raiden furrowed his brow at Gharmas statement.
I don't think there's any grandkids on the way… plus that's nobodies business anyways and I don't care set me up with her, it's not like I would mind anyways." Raiden shrugged with a smug expression knowing that it didn't affect him too much.
"Wow invite me to the wedding then kid. Remember who came an hour before you."
He rolled his eyes at Raiden being smug.
"Yeah let's find our cousin and then maybe we can worry about your little date."
Raiden laughed at Gharma's remarks not taking them too seriously.
"I dunno. I don't think we should be worrying about any date for me anyways…"
"Hm…I don't know, if I could get a date with her, maybe I could put a bit of work in with her…Sure, I wouldn't mind." Joseph snickered a little himself, walking on with the two.
"But he is right, mission first, who knows what she's going through at the moment…"
"Of course, that's always the priority, so hopefully we can get some more information here soon… gonna have to beat someone to a pulp for taking her too."
"The question is if we can…I don't know how strong she is…"
"I wouldn't advise it, I say we find the location, try to sneak her out and save fighting for another time."
"Well then where are we going exactly? I just want to get this over with so we can get Cynil back."
Joseph checked his phone and went off to the side for a minute. He looked back at the two.
"I gotta go. I'll catch back up in a few."
Joseph disappeared into the shadows quickly, not saying another word.
Raiden continued walking a little, confused on where Joseph went but he kept going.
"So… bandits then?"
"Truth be told they probably won't attack me. I'm a known face unfortunately."
"Then maybe we'll be fine, shit they might even just let us find the woman?"
"I don't know. The operation she's running could be completely different. An entire other animal to be honest."
Raiden lowered his hands.
"That's fine too though, we could possibly rally more bandits against her if you think we could? Make you the king..in a way."
"Huh…I never thought about something like that…Do you think they'd be able to be useful though?"
"Yeah of course? Bandits might live that life but I don't think they're stupid or anything. All they need is someone to lead them and group them together to produce something of use. Just think, it's a bunch of people willing to do what you want them too for money."
"So…we get our own army and hunt her down huh? Reminds me of our times as small kids. Playground War. Remember that?"
"Yeah of course I do! That's why I'm saying it's right up our alley and who knows it might be useful in the future you know?"
"Alright. I'll bite. Let's do it."
He smiled and looked around the area they were in, scratching the side of his head.
"You think dad was going to kill us over a party wait until he hears this plan we have."
"Man, dad's probably going to kill us anyways, we have to get out there at some point… or maybe we could be useful to him with a band of our own mercenaries too."
"Hm…What should we call our band of mercenaries then? What should we name our army?"
"I dunno… we shouldn't use our last name or anything related to ourselves, we could choose an animal or something?"
"Well what about a tiger?"
"A tiger would be cool… The Crimson Tiger? Does that sound good, or do you think anything else could work?"
"Fuck yeah. You can be my lieutenant. Dad will get off our ass if we form our own thing for sure."
"Lieutenant??!! I came up with the damn name I should be up there with you!!"
"Fine fine. Whatever dude. You can be up there with me."
Gharma pouted and rolled his eyes.
"Good, I'm not your damn minion anyways… we're gonna be leaders. Besides that would be too much. I just want to get this over with and find Cynil, I'm gonna go see someone later…"
"Gonna see your girlfriend? Okay Mister Cool Guy."
"No dude I had another thing planned but maybe I will now…"
Raiden rolled his eyes and moved through the crowd with everyone else getting closer and closer to the gates of the sanctum.
"Well as long as she doesn't act like a dick to me I won't have a problem…"
Gharma looked up at the gates that lead to the outlands.
"We're about to enter the lower class area of Ashina, a lot of beggars and people that rarely get the chance to see the king live down there so they'll be thrilled to see us…"
Raiden much like Yuki led a secret life, but instead of it being violent he merely would visit the outlands to help the people with farming and miscellaneous tasks.
"So. The Crimson Tiger..looks like we're building this then? Will Joseph be a member?"
"Probably not. He's not built for that life. He's just a dumb ass dog."
Raiden and Gharma passed through the outlands gate to enter the roadway, the time to find new members starts now!