Dodging guards while running through the labyrinth, Naofumi looked around a corner and saw three men standing there, their backs against the wall.

  “We’ve been waiting for ya, Shield bro.”

  Naofumi thought to himself. He looked down and saw the baby chick in his pocket. Its eyes were darting back and forth between the three guys who stood in front of them, and a little chirp was the only sound that it could make, much to Naofumi’s chagrin. The three men standing guard continued their confrontation.

  “We heard what you did to the princess. That’s real low, ya know? We don’t take kindly to your kind ‘round these parts.”

  Naofumi, who had a shield to defend himself with, was still exhausted, and there was still the torture room around the corner. He saw the criminals draw their weapons, a shank, and a couple of what looked to be crowbars from behind them. This caused the Shield to brace for impact.

  The wall started to tremble. The criminals looked up, only to be met in the face with a bunch of heavy, falling debris.

  “Huh?”

  The Shield Hero looked straight ahead, and there was his party. He then looked at the rubble and saw his assailants were no longer in this world.

  “What happened? Where are the bad guys!?” Sora ecstatically questioned. Naofumi didn’t know how to answer him.

  Beside Sora were Donald and Goofy; they were quite the trinity to behold. They were all grabbing onto Goofy’s shield, for some reason. Behind them was Raphtalia, who was so happy that she ran up and hugged Naofumi, but the Shield Hero really wasn’t in the mood. He looked down at the rubble and let out a small,

  “Tch.”

  “I don’t understand. How did you get out of your cell? And almost out of the whole dungeon by yourself?”

  Naofumi looked at the group standing before him. They were all ears, intent on listening to every one of his words.

  “I had some help.”

  Sora nodded his head, a smile plastered on his face.

  “So?” He went on, “Where are the bad guys?”

  Almost as if on cue, three hearts lifted up to the sky. Right in front of the Keyblade wielder’s face, a notification appeared.

  Gained 300xp

  Level up!

  Sora’s eyes widened as a little fanfare played for him and his party. He looked toward Naofumi, asking if he had just become the bad guy.

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  Naofumi could only nod his head ‘yes,’ trying not to let a smirk show. This caused Sora to let out a pout of shame, much to the Shield Hero’s annoyance.

  “They attacked me first. Let’s just say that this was self-defense.” He said, his shield now in a relaxed position. He looked back at his friends and continued, “We can also call it Social Darwinism, minus the crap that it usually entails.”

  “You have a really strange sense of humour, Naofumi,” Sora retorted, crossing his arms as if to hold the world off from laughing at him.

  “What’s that?” Raphtalia was the first to notice an unfamiliar noise.

  “It’s a filolial. It hatched from the egg that I got from that creepy egg-guy. Its name is Filo.” He then pulled the baby chick out of his pocket, much to Raphtalia’s surprise.

  “Aww. She’s so cute!”

  “She!?” Naofumi said aloud, “How do you know that?” He asked Raphtalia, his disbelief apparent on his face.

  “You can call it a maiden’s intuition,” Raphtalia responded. She was very proud of her learned astuteness.

  The three other members of the party looked at the baby chick. Donald ran up to her. He figured that since he was a bird, he would understand her the most. After Donald, Sora ran up and put his head on top of the duck’s. Finally, it was Goofy’s turn. He ran up and put his head over Sora’s.

  “You guys look like a totem pole, without the artistic interpretation.” Naofumi chuckled. He also held Filo back a bit as he didn’t want her to become frightened.

  It didn’t work…

  Filo hid in Naofumi’s pocket. Nothing of her was left outside. The Shield Hero unscrunched his eyebrows as a sign of sincerity, hoping that she would trust him that these were their friends, but she stayed inside his pocket.

  “We have to get out of here.” He said to the party. The four other members nodded their heads in unison.

  —------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Back on the streets of Melromarc, and now on the run from the law, Naofumi and Sora kept their head cloaked by their hoods.

  “This bandit armor that Erhard made for me really comes in handy.” He whispered to Sora, who was standing next to him.

  Raphtalia caught up with the Shield Hero, with a huge smile on her face. She looked up at him from under a makeshift hood and said,

  “I got an idea! What if we got a dress for Filo?”

  “Why would I get a dress for a bird?” Naofumi whispered a response. His eyes were shifting between the crowds. He pondered for a long while, when something snapped him back to reality.

  “They say that the Shield Hero scum escaped from the dungeon.” An elderly woman told the bakery owner that Naofumi remembered for the scent of the stale bread that he had to steal after it was thrown out.

  “If I ever see him around here, I’ll bash his head in!” The baker replied to the elderly woman.

  Naofumi thought, shaking his head in frustration. He looked over at Raphtalia, the second person in the world to believe him, and decided she was right. They would get Filo a dress to try on.

  Walking through the alleys, avoiding the crowds, they came across a tailor shop. The woman running the shop was sitting out in front of the entrance when she caught the gaze of the Shield Hero and his allies. She nodded to him as if for him to come closer. Naofumi was suspicious of the whole thing, but something in her eyes said that she wasn’t going to hurt him. As the party drew closer, they realized she was older than she had appeared from a distance. She had wrinkles and spotted skin, and hair that gleamed platinum in the sun. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed and signaled for them to go inside.

  When they got inside, she closed the door, took one last look through the window, and shut the curtains. It was pitch black. Donald could feel his heart racing, his hands trembling. He wanted to scream, to let it all out, but he knew he couldn’t. Goofy just stood there, contrasted against Donald in that he was in a very calm, almost oblivious trance. Raphtalia’s tail slumped, her ears folded, and Sora had his hand at the ready to summon the Keyblade at a moment’s notice.

  The woman lit a candle, looked at the five of them, and gave a genuine and sincere smile. Naofumi saw it as one of appreciation, rather than malice, so he let his guard down.

  “I wanted to thank you.” She said, her eyes glaring down at the floor. “You spared my son. So, even if the world may despise you, you will always have my gratitude.” She finished.

  “Listen, lady. I appreciate your kind words, I do, but how can I trust you? I don’t even know who your son is.”

  The woman looked at Naofumi and informed him of the events. Her son was the lead soldier who tried to shoot him in the back with a volley of arrows.

  The revelation caused Naofumi to groan in irritation. But at least, now people were starting to realize that he didn’t cause any harm. Perhaps he could even use that to his advantage.

  “Listen, lady. Do you think you could make a dress for this little bird here? A member of my party keeps insisting that I get one for her. She says it would ‘look so cute.’”

  Naofumi then pulled the baby filolial out of his pocket and showed her to the tailor. Filo, the filolial, was panic-stricken, as it was still fairly dark, and she didn’t know what to make of this newcomer.

  The tailor looked at the bird, and then at Naofumi, and nodded her head in agreement to the inquiry imposed upon her by the Shield Hero.

  “I can definitely do that, yes. But you should know that filolials grow incredibly fast, so she’ll need an enlargement enchantment put on the dress by the enchantress. Unfortunately, she is on the other end of town. Also, I will need a few days to make the dress. You’re more than welcome to stay here for the time being, just please do not make yourself known. It could put my son or me in danger.”

  Naofumi looked at the party. They thought it over and concluded that it was safer here than on the streets. Especially if they had to travel to the enchantress on the other side of town. The legendary hero didn’t like the idea that he was staying in an old enemy’s house, but if that’s what needed to be done, then so be it.

  They were each given a bedroll, but they had to sleep on the floor.

  “Mister Naofumi?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you for listening.”