Aphmau and Laurence conversed among themselves as I finally took the time to check the contents of the treasure chest. Of course, as soon as I opened it, there lay a letter neatly folded on top of all the other junk inside. It read:

I heard of your predicament. Enjoy the care package! See it as a welcome back gift.

Love, Vylad

I smiled as I place the small note in my satchel, soon digging inside and removing the material inside. Diamonds, emeralds, healing potions, etc. filled the chest, a polished and seemingly high quality bow buried underneath it all. I held back a slightly overdramatic anime gasp once the realization dawned on me that it was the old bow my mother gave me on my 12th birthday. My surprised Pikachu meme face slowly turned into that of a gentle smile and tears pricking at the corner of my eyes.

Footsteps sound as they make way up the stairs of the guard tower, prompting me to quickly wipe any sign of tears from my eyes. Can't let anyone know I ugly cry very badly, like really, really badly. Instant regret once it turned out to just be Malachi. Agh, I've failed as an aunt that gives crazy, but also somehow sagely, advice.

"I-I'm sorry to bother you all, but could you meet us at Levin's house once you're all done here?" He sounded nervous when asking, stuttering a little more than usual. The three of us all replied with some form of a yes, mine slightly more questioning than the others, and he soon left after. I equipped my quiver and placed half of the currency/building material in my personal pocket space, cause y'know, fuck inventory. I ensured to reload my quiver quickly, following close behind Aphmau chasing a rushing Laurence.

"Laurence! Laurence! This isn't a race!" She called behind him. He didn't get too far away, him stopping at the end of the walkway to the guard tower. Aphmau passes him with almost no concern, asking why he'd stopped in the first place only for her to interrupt herself.

All of the town were in the middle of the literal fucking town, everything decorated in either balloons or streamers. A nervously happy Levin bounced towards us, awkwardly smiling as he exclaimed "SURPRISE!" We all stared at him for a moment, giving looks of confusion, bewilderment, or a combination of the two.

"Levin, what is this all about?" Aphmau finally asks for us all. Levin takes a moment to gather the right words for his response, his once nervous smile becoming a more gentle and kind one.

"We wanted to do something special for you and everyone else who came back, so we decided to throw a small party here in town!" He happily begins, hands fluidly moving in time with his speech, "I asked Kawaii~Chan to cater the party while Malachi and I set up everything..." He mumbled a bit about Kawaii~Chan's old cakes she'd bake from way back when, or about a month or so ago for me, before continuing "We wanted to make you feel welcomed, since we could tell you were having a hard time setting in" He bashfully finishes, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.

Aphmau seems to tear up as she tries finding the right response, whatever that was being completely deaf to my ears as I think about how convenient Vylad's care package was. Then again, knowing Vylad fucking coincidentally conceived idea Ro'Meave, it could purely be a coincidence and nothing more. The thought of all of this happening to ensure our comfort gave me a case of the feels, heart clench edition.

"H-Hey! Come on! Smile!" Levin tries to calm us down, Aphmau quite literally streaming tears and me holding my hand to my chest and clenching my tunic fabric in that general area, "W=We want you to have fun! Haha... So come on... Go and enjoy!" The tense questioning was almost hidden by the excited tone laced over it, almost though. He honestly had no idea about how to go about two women that were a big part of his toddlerhood seeming to be in literal tears . He should take notes from Laurence, who was nonchalantly watching this happen and even checking some mock watch on his wrist ever now and again, and just let it happen.

"I-I will" Aphmau finally responds after our cry moment. I sigh, smiling as I step away from whatever that really was and immerse myself in this welcoming party.

"I call this move The Wave" Kenmur found a way to combine sleeping and dancing, and I'm not complaining. I'd try it myself if it didn't result in awkwardly lying in the middle of the dance floor.

"I don't think that's dancing" Emmalyn comments, sweat dropping at his display.

"Is Kenmur okay? I'm pretty sure I heard something break..." Malachi adds.

"Ah, that's just his pride"

~~~~~~~~~

"Um, excuse me?" I somehow managed to get around the wild and adorably awkward terrible dancing that Donna and Logan were doing and away from Kenmur getting his dance together. Laurence had also dragged Aphmau away to dance at some point, leaving me to my own devices. In my freedom, I began filling a plate with as many cakes as possible, ensuring to get at least two slices of each and taste testing them all along the table journey. The meek voice behind me just so happened to walk over mid vanilla pound cake.

"Hm?" I turn to them, a somewhat smaller girl nervously messing with her blue hair stood behind me. I quickly swallowed the remainder of the cake and placed my plate down beside me on the table, quickly wiping any crumbs off of my face and straightening up, "H-Hi, kid! You sneak up to people around this place often?"

She stares at me questioningly before her cheeks flush a tone of red, a great contrast to her pale skin, and she begins stammering and dancing around her words for the proper ones. She finally stops and takes a deep breathe, starting over soon after, "I-I'm Christina! I-I've heard so much about you and your adventures with Lady Aphmau"

"No no no no no" She begins to bow until I quickly grab her shoulders and pull her back up. She stares confused, ready to pipe back at my sudden refusal of the honor bows that I do not fucking deserve at all "Let's not do that"

"B-But-"

"I'm not of high enough ranking for such things. I am but a humble guard" I explain to her in the most not me way possible. I have to give these upcoming youngins the sagely advice Dante could never provide and maybe I just like doing mock proper voices from time to time. You don't know me, shut up-

"Dante! Dante!" My head snaps in the direction of Aphmau's shouting, my immediate instinct kicking in and leading me to follow behind her. Dante was further ahead of us, running as if someone's life depended on it.  She continued calling out to him until I piped up.

"Aphmau, what's going on?!"

"Someone took Nekoette~Tan! Dante, you shouldn't just go alone!" This dumbass! It's almost like he didn't pay attention to Garroth's 'Never Go Alone' lessons, "We should go back and get the others!"

He kept going, taking various quick turns until he lead us to the decaying bridge at the entrance of Phoenix Drop. Aphmau and I took out our weapons, her diamond sword and my newly developed bow. Within the blink of an eye, Dante charges in and takes out one of the guys, gaining all the other bandits attention. The rage in his eyes only seemed to intensify at the sight of his daughter tied up. I'd make a bondage joke, but she's a minor and that's fucking disgusting.

Unfortunately, just as we'd approached, an arrow took him out from behind, straight to the chest. He fell backwards, leaving an opening for the other guy to lunge at him. I attempted to jump in to protect him, but the masked stranger jumped in and deflected the bandit's attack from hitting Dante. He finished off the bandit while Aphmau snuck up behind the guy that shot Dante and took him out. I start to go for the others, but they fled, so I stuck to untying Nekoette~Tan from her binds. With the way they'd tied her up, it was obvious they planned to either ransom her or sell her off, the sick bastards.

"I should ransom you off. I'm sure anyone would pay big bucks for someone of your ranking in society to be their property" The look in his  cerulean eyes seemed to haunt me that night as the constant question of how anyone could sell their own wife as a slave plagued my mind. He was so serious about it, so excited at the idea of taking everything from me without needing to keep me around, "Maybe I should do that while my little brother is still around, let both of you hurt just a bit more"

"You bastard-"

"I'm your husband and I could do whatever I wanted to you with no one batting an eye"

Only a sick bastard could possibly do such a thing.

"Dante? Dante?!"

~~~~~~~~~~

Donna announced that healing him may be a little harder with where they wound had taking damage, many of his vital organs in position where they could get severely damaged. Kawaii~Chan was in a slight uproar until Dante calmed her down. I could only curse myself for not realizing earlier that there was a problem, but I did all I could've possibly done with the way the event turned out. Way worse could've happened if that masked stranger guy, Aphmau, and me hadn't showed up in the first place or if we hadn't been there all together. I shouldn't be upset with myself. Everyone began throwing blame at themselves almost simultaneously, but the situation wasn't that simple.

"It's my fault... I should've gotten help... Dante manages out, turning a bit to get a look at Aphmau, who had been just as torn up as everyone else in the room over Date's dilemma. She inched closer towards him, reaching out to him, "A-Aphmau..."

"Dante, I'm here. Everything's going to be okay" Then it happened. Aphmau somehow managed t unintentionally tap into her Irene powers, causing her to heal Dante completely in a flash of bright light. The astonished silence of everyone filled the room for a moment until Dante sat up on his own.

"I... I-I-I'm healed... Completely... I don't feel any pain whatsoever... What just-"

"IT'S A MIRACLE!" Kawaii~Chan shouts, happily throwing her hands in the air with her daughter following suite. I find myself smirking smugly at everyone's displays of surprise and happiness, because, y'know, IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME!

"Aphmau... What did you do?" Laurence asks, turning towards her. She fucking healed him with her fucking Irene powers, that's what!

"I-I don't-" Aphmau falls backwards, my reflexes catching her in my blocky hands before she can hit the ground.

"Ah, fuck! Shit!" I quickly check her pulse, sighing of relief to realize she only fainted from exhaustion "She's still alive!" 

And she opened a series of events no ne could have possibly predicted.

A/n: Here she is! An update featuring one of the shortest episodes in the whole season! Yeah, imagine how hard is was to get this to a thousand words without extra details and thought points. Anyway, I'm feeling on a roll with these chapters right now and you can probably expect more! I really want to get caught back up to where I was in the story by the end of this year and summer is the best time to get the writing in and then we'll be back to our regularly scheduled program. I've still been debating if I want to continue on with the sequel/prequels I planned to write with this, seeing as I've been trying to ensure that the story aligns properly with all of the rewritten backstory. Anyway, next chapters will be a couple of flashbacks probably. No clue quite yet. Anyway, MCI Out, Peace ;P