A dark, damp cave. The sounds of water dripping down to the cave floor long eroded from years of the same action for many years. The moss covered rocks that littered the floor and made it hard to walk around. Even the musty smell seemed to bring back memories Yuki wished she could forget. 

She had long thought that the time when she had been captured was past her, but it seemed images of that day were now springing back into her mind. Her face paled slightly as she did her best to keep the others from realizing something was wrong. 

But how can Yuki, who was always at the attention of those around her, not notice the sudden change in her mentality? “Yuki, are you okay?”

    “Mmm… I need to get through this.” Yuki knew she could not let the past keep her down. She had to face the things that instilled fear in her, even if she had to suffer in the process. 

“Yuki….” Nana bit her lip. She hated seeing Yuki like this. She wanted to reach out and hold her fox girl’s hand, but now was not the time. They were now in enemy territory. Every second counted in a fight. 

“Yuki, what are you hiding from me?” Delia asked, her eyes burrowing into Yuki as if she was trying to read her soul.

“I am not hiding anything. I just never got to tell you. When I left my village, I was attacked by a black snake. I somehow survived, although it was that survival that caused me a great deal of suffering. I woke up tied to a table with some old crazy bastard cutting my stomach open and digging at my organs. Because of that, I do not like caves or old men too much.” Yuki explained lightly she did not feel like going into any details. But she did open her robes and showed Delia her stomach. “As you can see, this is the scar that is left.”

Crack….

The cave floor under Delia’s feet burst out in all directions, sending rock and debris everywhere. “Someone dared to do such a thing to you!? Maybe I should just destroy the mortal rea….”

    “Delia, stop.” Yuki adjusted her robes and looked at the cat girl, who was going crazy. “Don’t do anything like that. This place has many good people.”

“Fine…” Delia sighed. Her Yuki was too kind.

“Such a terrible thing….” Selene wrinkled her brow. To undergo so much torture, she wondered how Yuki was able to keep herself going.

“It sucked, yeah, but at some point, you become numb. Luckily, I did not die. Or else I would not have met Nana, Silvia, Delia, and you, Selene and it did not turn out all too badly. I was able to get stronger quicker because of it.” Yuki replied.

“It still does not change the fact that it had an ever-lasting effect on you, Yuki.” Delia shook her head. Yes, it might have been a blessing in disguise, but that still did not change the suffering she went through. There was a difference between risking your own life to achieve something than there was to being tortured against your will.

“I hate to interrupt you two, but we got company. Three incoming.” Selene cut in. She knew Delia could care less if someone came since she could snap her fingers and get rid of them, but Selene was always on guard. This was a force of habit.

“Should I go kill them?” Silvia asked. This cave was the perfect place for fighting for her.

“No. Wait until we find out who they are and what they are here for.” Yuki, who was normally the one to resort to killing first and asking questions in the afterlife, had actually said such a thing as wait and see. This surprised everyone since they all knew Yuki well. But Yuki’s decision was also the right one. If, for some reason, it was their own sect members, they could, by right, go and kill them unless they had done nothing wrong. Many of the sect members also had links to their masters or to the sect leader himself.

“Who are you!?” three men arrived in the large room the girls were in.  They had been traveling downward in the cave for almost twenty minutes, which showed just how deep this cave was.

“We are from the Heavenly Cloud Sect.” Yuki stepped forward and replied. “Who are you?”

“Who we are doesn’t matter. You only need to know that you have entered a place you should not have.” One of the men answered. He was not looking at the girls in a lust-filled way but more looking at them as if they were a fresh piece of meat, as if these girls came here to be lambs to the slaughter.

“This place is not owned by anyone. If anything, it belongs to the kingdom in which it resides. Saying we trespassed means you are doing something shady here, right?” Yuki did not like the way these men were looking at her. 

“Little Bitch, you talk way tooo… Huh?”