[from
here]Once he was on the roof, Kratos exhaled slowly. They were safe for the moment on the roof, although he couldn't afford to relax: they had no control whatsoever over what happened inside the restaurant, and judging by the bright flames issuing from a store in the distance, that meant another possible mad dash for safety in the near future
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He was silent for a while (probably not long enough in Kratos' opinion) before he said, "It's weird that he hasn't just shown up--on our first journey together he always did, because he could track us through these tiaras we had. But I guess he'll find us eventually, up here." If they could stay long enough, and if he could get around well enough to search for them.
Dammit, Leon--! You better be okay.
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Well, one had to start somewhere.
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He couldn't help but look sheepish at the question. "When we got sent off with Leon--it was by order of the king--he wasn't willing to trust us since he'd heard of Rutee and we'd all just been arrested, so we had shock tiaras forced on us; that way he could always find us, and he could just press a button to give any of us a bad shock. We... didn't get off to a great start."
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"So he was sent to observe you only - and probably told not to get attached," Kratos observed. It was a similar situation to his own during the journey of regeneration, minus the shock tiaras. "And how did this managed to get reversed?"
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"Anyway, he eventually stopped being so bossy--started letting us go off on our own and stuff like that. The first time he told Rutee, the one he trusted the least, to go off if she wanted without adding any threats I had to check if he had a fever." He figured he didn't need to add it HADN'T been appreciated!
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His commentary finished, Kratos continued in his quest for information. "I digress. So about Leon - why was he observing you in the first place? To keep your little group out of trouble or for, say, some mission?" Officials using criminals to do their dirty work: he'd heard of that one before.
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He fell silent for a moment, looking out over the hordes of zombies in the streets. "Damn, I hope he's okay," he murmured.
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"And to reiterate, I'm sure Leon is fine. He can hold his own." Plus the boy was not so stupid as to throw himself into deliberate danger.
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Admittedly, he wasn't sure he wanted to go tearing off into the night, himself (as Dymlos would have pointed out, getting themselves killed didn't do Leon any good), but if this place wasn't going to be safe to escape from soon, they should run while they could, right?
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"It didn't last long, but I don't think that matters, much." He wasn't about to add that they'd taken Leon down; that part still hurt too much to talk about.
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This did change things somewhat, although it wasn't enough for Kratos to demand a plunge into action: it was more disturbing than motivational. "You might have had a point earlier," he said quietly, "but then again, perhaps not. Leon might have been taken from a time before his" - Kratos coughed - "transformation, in which case he wouldn't know about it."
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When he thought back to it all, he'd honestly all but forgotten the betrayal; Leon had been forced into what he did. What came to mind now was how little they'd been able to do for Leon, in the end. They'd saved Marian, at least, and he knew his friend was glad for that much. But he still wished they'd been able to save at least one more life.
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"But at least you saved him from having to maintain that sort of forced existence," the older man said, looking off into the distance. Stahn hadn't finished his sentence, but Kratos was good enough at reading between the lines to understand what he had stopped himself from saying.
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