AS Marialite busied herself hand-feeding the divine beasts, she was suddenly interrupted by a huge crowd of soldiers running into the facility. They called out, asking for everyone to comply with their orders, while the employees shouted back at them, asking them to be quiet so as to not frighten the beasts. Unfortunately, the clamor of voices did nothing but aggravate the beasts, and they panicked and cried among the shouts. The facility quickly devolved into chaos.
Among the confusion, one soldier noticed Marialite and swiftly ran up to her to explain the situation: under Sirius’ orders, they were to arrest employees involved in the illegal keeping of healthy divine beasts. After updating her, they took her to the room where Sirius and Raven had confronted Leonis.
“…So, you’re telling me Raven started working for Prince Leonis in order to find out where he was illegally keeping divine beasts?” Marialite asked.
“Yes,” Sirius nodded. “I heard there were suspicions that Leonis was wrongfully caging some of the beasts in his care. However, since we couldn’t confirm the location of said beasts, we decided that infiltrating his inner circle would be the best course of action.”
“We came up with some fake confidential information, and I ‘leaked’ it to him,” Raven explained. “If he realized what I was up to, it’d be game over, y’know? That’s why we kept the operation a secret from everyone apart from His Majesty.”
“I’m not too proud of having kept you in the dark, Lady Marialite. I’m so very sorry if I ever made you worry,” Sirius sincerely apologized.
Marialite shook her head. If that was part of the strategy, who was she to complain? She calmly looked at the soldiers as they freed the divine beasts from their cooped-up cages.
“Still, Raven…” Sirius piped up. “I never heard that Lady Marialite would even be here at the facility.”
“I didn’t think he’d go this far, either!” Raven scoffed in disbelief. “He even had a fake permit from you! And anyway, Marialite—you’re so mean!”
“…I am?” she echoed, tilting her head.
“You realized I was only pretending to work for Leonis, didn’t you?” Raven pointed at her, his tone nervous. Marialite nodded in reply.
“I just thought I should keep quiet about it. I was sure you had some sort of reason for not telling me,” she shrugged.
“Sooo… What gave me away?” he hedged.
“I’m honestly not sure. It just felt like you were the same old Raven,” she smiled.
“When you said, ‘I hope your work goes well, Raven!’, I got the impression you’d sussed me out. And there I thought I was putting on a great act, too,” he lamented with a sigh, a smile quickly forming on his face, too.
Sirius scowled at his attendant.
“Don’t ever try to imitate Lady Marialite’s words again. You will never bear the grace that she possesses,” he growled.
“I never thought for a second that I would. Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” Raven snorted.
“Don’t take any notice of him, Raven. I thought it was cute,” Marialite laughed.
“Oh… Well… If Lady Marialite permits it, then I suppose there’s no probl—”
“Shhhh! Shut up for a second, lovebirds!” Raven hushed them in a sudden panic, putting a hand up in front of Marialite’s fond expression and looking around the room.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I just realized that Prince Leonis is nowhere to be seen…” he said, concerned.
“When our soldiers released the first lot of divine beasts, he tried to cast a spell on them. He started ranting and raving at us not to lay a finger on his ‘collection,’ so I had him removed from the building,” Sirius explained, his tone brimming with disappointment. “He never saw the beasts as actual, living beings; they were like objects to him. I should’ve noticed how strange he was acting far sooner…”
“It’s not your fault, Lord Sirius,” Marialite assured him sorrowfully.
“No—illegally keeping divine beasts in captivity wasn’t his only crime. It turns out that he was in league with the poachers themselves; they would hurt the beasts, and he would show up to ‘collect’ them,” Sirius sighed, disgusted with his brother’s actions.
“The whole thing was one big charade, huh?” Raven frowned.
“Either he or one of his servants would attack the divine beasts, then once they weakened it enough, they would bring it here to the facility. Of course, many of the employees were completely unaware of what was happening behind the scenes and simply tried their best to treat the beasts. That’s how things ended up like this.”
“That’s horrible…” Marialite gasped, thinking of the divine beast she’d seen snarling at Leonis earlier. Now, she understood exactly why the creatures were still so terrified even after they’d been brought to safety.
“That guy’s a real nasty piece of work,” Raven spat. “He went around doing all that cruel stuff in the name of ‘conservation’…and even let people praise him for it.”
“But why did he do it?” Marialite wondered.
“That’s what we’re going to find out. Trust me; we’ll get it out of him,” Sirius nodded. “Now then, Lady Marialite. Let’s be on our way.”
Just as Sirius held out his hand, an ear-piercing screech traveled through the air.
“Mrowwww!” a beast’s cry rang out, its high-pitched meow echoing through the dark room.
“Whoa, what’s with that cat?! It’s got wings!”
“I’ve never seen a divine beast like that before…”
“L-Let’s try to calm it down! It seems even more skittish than the rest of them.”
A group of soldiers were all huddled around a single cage. Curious, Marialite stood on tiptoe, trying to get a look at the creature. Raven unabashedly strode over to examine it and soon beckoned Marialite over.
“Hey, Marialite, Lord Sirius! You wanna see it, too?”
“Raven,” Sirius said disapprovingly. “Don’t take advantage of the poor thing.”
“I’m only looking! I mean, you don’t get to see a Phobos cat every day, do you?”
Sirius’ eyes immediately shot wide open.
“Th-They really exist?” he blinked.
“Are they rare or something?” Marialite guessed.
“Very rare indeed,” Sirius nodded. “They are scarce even among other divine beasts, and tales of their existence have been recorded since ancient times. They are somewhat of a mythical creature, I suppose. To think Leonis went as far as to capture one…” He gritted his teeth, a surge of anger welling up inside him.
“Rrrrrrr…” the pitch-black kitten growled as Marialite peered inside the cage, its fur standing on end as it snarled at the soldiers. They attempted to console it by poking pieces of fruit through the gaps in the iron cage, but that didn’t seem to have any effect.
At first glance, it looked like a normal black cat. However, on closer inspection, there were bat-like wings sprouting from its spine.
“It looks really scared…” Marialite noted, the corners of her eyebrows upturned.
“Seeing as it’s still trapped in this cage, it appears as though it hasn’t yet awakened to its special powers,” Sirius hummed.
“It has special powers?” she asked curiously.
“If we are to believe the legends, Phobos cats have a power that makes them particularly difficult to deal with. We need to soothe the creature before that happens,” he said with a frown. Raven and the soldiers nodded vehemently in agreement.
The clamor of voices speaking over one another interrupted their discussion, shouts growing louder as the source of the confusion came closer.
“Step away from the door! I am under strict orders from Prince Sirius not to let you enter!” a soldier shouted.
“Silence! You can’t tell me what to do!” another voice raged. A moment later, the owner of that voice threw the door open and rushed into the room.
“All the divine beasts in here belong to me! I won’t let you pilfer my collection!” Leonis screamed, struggling against the rope that kept both of his hands bound. Saliva went flying into the air as he raged.
Sirius stared down his nose at Leonis’ pitiful display. “Take him away,” he ordered calmly.
However, Leonis wasn’t prepared to go down quite that easily; he thrashed against the soldiers that tried to restrain him and threw himself at the Phobos cat’s cage.
“Please, if nothing else, just let me keep this cat!” he sobbed. “It’s a Phobos cat, for crying out loud! And I found it! It’s my pet!”
“…Brother. Please, stop this.”
“Shut up! Shut up, shut up! I won’t be ordered around by my little brother, of all people!” he barked.
“Yes, you will,” Sirius said, his eyes cold and unblinking. “I don’t want to see someone I once admired in such a disgraceful state any longer than I have to.”
“…Tch.” Leonis kissed his teeth, falling silent at Sirius’ words. He finally went limp as the soldiers dragged him away.
Sirius cast him a downcast look as he went, then pulled his eyes away to look back at the Phobos cat as it came out of its cage. It didn’t seem to have any visible injuries, but it looked extremely malnourished.
Marialite felt so sorry for the poor thing that she clasped a hand over her mouth, disturbed by its miserable appearance.
“It was him. He hurt me.”
Out of nowhere, she heard the voice of a young child.
“What?” she reacted aloud, looking around in confusion.
“Marialite? What’s wrong?” Raven asked.
“I thought I just heard a voice,” she explained. “It said, ‘He hurt me’…”
She couldn’t see anyone even resembling a child in the room. Was she imagining things? Just as she was about to brush it off, she heard it again.
“He shot fireballs at me. I tried to run away, but he broke my leg. I told him it hurt, but he didn’t stop…” the voice said, filled with pain and hatred.
“Now, it’s saying that someone shot fireballs at it, and that they broke its leg…” Marialite continued.
“Lady Marialite…” Sirius hedged. “Where is the voice coming from?”
“Um… Over here, I think,” she said, gesturing in the general direction of the soldiers and the Phobos cat.
“They took me away from my mother. I’ll make him pay… I’m going to make him pay!” the voice growled. At the same time, the cat’s eyes turned blood red.
“Now, it’s saying it’ll make him pay,” Marialite relayed.
The Phobos cat spread its wings, then let out a fearsome roar, bearing its carnivorous teeth. Not a second later, Marialite’s field of vision was dyed bright red.