Ananke retraced every path Smiley usually took. Checking each Alley and street with his own eyes.
He noticed something, 'There are multiple people gathered up in that alley. What are they doing?'
Ananke turned and yelled, 'HEY! What are you—'
Only to find drunkheads passed cold out. One of them woke up from the yelling and looked around before falling back to sleep.
'I can't sense him but someone has taken my note. Did I overthink it?'
A man in black signaled with his Vocal Phone, 'I have secured the note. It will buy us more time.'
The other man signaled back, 'This is all thanks to the boy announcing wherever he goes. Same for mentioning his sister. Good work on spying on them.'
The things that were meant to keep him safe had now caused him harm.
The man holding his spear against Smiley's chest heard a mysterious voice, 'Hey… What are you doing with my ked?'
He turned around to find it was smiley but not that Smiley. It was the skin below the mask, the Young Man who claimed to be Ked's protector and his split personality.
The Young Man grabbed onto the spear, 'Unhand him you fiend!'
Suddenly rough spikes materialized from the spear shaft and shot outwards, piercing through the arms of the spear guy.
He screamed in agony as the Young Man freed himself only to find multiple other black cloaked strangers had appeared.
The Young Man was freed as he thought, 'Ked's right arm is fractured from smashing the shaft while my left arm is still recovering…'
He looked up at the enemies, too many of them for his liking.
His eyes turned black, 'but it's nothing compared to Ignis I fought.'
The Young Man said to the researcher, 'I will give you that. You did well figuring out his powers faster than anyone else.'
'Oh thank you—'
He rudely interrupted, 'But that does not mean—'
The researcher patiently waited to listen to what he had to say but Young man just kept his mouth closed before confessing:
'Actually I had nothing planned to say afterwards. I just hated that you went on your high horse from the praise.'
While talking, the Young Man's eyes did not stop scouring the floor while stalling for time. He was trying to find something on the ground
'The ring. Where is that ring? I need its healing ability.'
He looked around while squinting but it was of no use, 'Dam it. Why was Ked born with such terrible eyesight? I can not see anything.'
He looked up seeing the people were all blurry and so was the rest of the world. He could not even tell them apart, not even their faces. He could only make out their hair colors and body type.
The reason why Smiley always narrowed his eyes to see far away was simply because he could not see them. One of the reasons why he stopped growing exponentially even when he had a perfect copying ability was simply because his sight had been slowly failing him. Stripping him of the very senses which once made him unrivaled.
'What a crude joke of tomfoolery is this. This world does not even have the concept of bad vision, let alone glasses. What am I, A tragic hero of some cheap writing? Who even wrote this sh*t.'
Young Man senselessly complained— but in truth he was right…
He could not even see them, even while narrowing his eyes
'I was only able to defeat Ignis thanks to Mental Sight, allowing me to see outlines of people. Ked's new Mental Sight could work but it's not activating as Ked has fallen asleep.'
The young man's eyes turned pure black as it absorbed every particle of light that fell upon it, 'What use is of perfect mimic abilities when you can not even see properly. 'Overpowered my dumba*. It is literally useless'
{*^ dumba = Fat tailed sheep. Commonly called Dumba in South Asian Regions. It's basically a sheep with a fat butt. Using it as censor word for a*s for the fun of it.}
The man came forward with a fist to knock the Young man in a single hit but as he lunched at him, the Young Man leaned back and latched onto the hand before attempting to kick him in the face.
The man laughed, 'He can not reach me~'
Young Man grew taller in size and kicked him on the chin sideways, knocking him out cold.
The man was knocked out in a matter of seconds while the Young Man smiled like a crazy maniac, 'Next…'
He just thought acting crazy would get him out of the fight while asserting his dominance, 'Just act crazy. It always scares away those thugs.'
But he was foolishly mistaken. He was not up against mere thugs but trained assassins from dark pathways.
The Young Man laughed, 'Ha~ Please. One at a time. I really can not use my arms.'
Every single one of the men jumped at him at once.
——————————————————————————
Ananke was still searching as he noticed a crowd gathered together in some alley way.
Curious, he slid amongst the crowd and was shocked by the ungodly sight that followed.
Blood. It was like an all out brawl had broken out where many people were left half dead.
People whispered among themself, 'Did drunkheads brawled it out again?'
One of the citizens seemed to have passed out while the guards were puzzled saying there was no lead or evidence.
Ananke asked the guards who told him no one seemed to have any idea of what happened. All expect the one man who was here before everyone else. No wounds on him, he had just passed out.
Ananke had no interest in this. That was until his sight caught the attention of a silver ring.
The same ring Smiley wore around his neck.
Ananke tried to push past but the guards had blocked his way.
But it was not enough to keep him behind. Ananke just disappeared and jumped over the guards who were holding back the crowd.
Ananke picked up the ring, hoving it in air with wind to not mess with evidence, whispering to himself while panicking, 'Please don't be his. Please don't be his. Please don't be his~'
It was the same design. A rose with sharp petals edges in the center with two vines that circled around the ring with sharp edges leafs on the vines.
The guard noticed Ananke had slipped past and tried to pull Ananke back but froze as Ananke's red eyes glowed, 'Hey you said there was no evidence so what is this?'
The guard noticed the ring, 'I checked this part thoroughly. There is no way I missed it'
'It doesn't seem like he is lying.'
Ananke thought looking at him panicking and closed his eyes, 'Apologizes, They keep on going out of control recently.'
The other guard walked up and noticed Ananke, 'Hey where did you get that plain silver ring from.'
Ananke paused, 'Plain?'
The guard said, 'Yeah, it could be evidence so please do not get your finger print on it.'
Suddenly it clicked, Ananke rotated the ring pattern design towards the man in the crowd, 'Hey. What is this design?'
'What design?'
And puzzle started to arrange themself in his mind. The ring which had a clear pattern on it seemed like an ordinary silver ring to others. That is only possible if it was running an Illusionary Magic within itself to trick people's eye. Even the alchemist workshop told Smiley off since they only saw a plain silver ring and nothing more as the ring hid itself.
Ananke shook the unconscious man and woke him up forcefully, 'Hey tell me whatever happened here.'
The man was half sleep, 'H-huh?'
And he suddenly saw Ananke in front of him who repeated, 'Please tell me.'
The man was shocked at first but he saw Ananke, the most fearsome and charismatic man trembling like a child as his hands were visibly shaken.
The man told him everything, 'I heard a thud sound against the wall so I went out to check it. But the moment I peeked in there. I saw some black haired young man who was fighting a bunch of black cloaked men with his foot. That is what I saw before something knocked me out.'
Ananke stood up, 'I see, thank you' and walked off without wasting time.
The man was brought water while he recalled how Ananke, the mad man, seemed nothing more than a trembling child like he was scared of thunder.
'Ha~ no one will believe me even if I tell them. I guess this is our little secret.'
The guard coughed, 'What are you smirking about. Tell us the whole report—'
The guard behind suddenly shouted, 'ANANKE TOOK THE RING WITH HIM. DAM IT. OUR ONLY LEAD! EVEN IF HE IS A MONARCHY CLASS. I WILL BEAT—'
'Oh please. You will only be flung away like a bug.'
The other guard called them out, 'Hey we still got this necklace. Maybe we can run a scan on it and it seems pretty expensive.'
Ananke had left behind the broken necklace in a rush which was a gift given by Rhina.
Now, the Rhina's farewell gift had snapped from the gusting wind and the last gift of his master, a ring which he was never supposed to let go, were now both no longer in his possession.
And among the chaos. There sat the broken Smiley's stash box, resting near the blood while beside it laid a tiny, pink knitted bunny head, now stained in red. It was the gift Reina made in apology to Smiley, resembling the story he told about Ananke's "Cute little Bunny", but far outclassed it.
Reina was also taken… Yet none were aware of the fact nor how it happened.
The guard noticed it and pointed towards it, 'What about that?'
The supervisor who inspected that area, ignored it, 'Probably someone's trash.'
——————————————————————————
Knock knock knock.
Ayla excitedly opened the door, 'What took you so long? I thought you wanted me teach you how to bake—'
She saw Ananke standing at the door and her mood dampered as she complained, 'Oh… I thought it was Smiley. Can you believe it? He was the one who said he wanted to learn how to bake a cake—'
'Smiley has been kidnapped.'
'… what?'