CHAPTER 25

PLUGGING THE LEAK

Fang-Fang led the way, doing his best to ignore Princess Kokoa's incessant questioning of who the informant was and how he found out. He had quite a lot of practice with tuning out potential distractions, a skill he had refined on the battlefield, and as such he was instead focusing on figuring out just how much information had been leaked.

Kokoa frowned. She didn't like being ignored, but it seemed there was nothing she could do about it right now: Fang-Fang simply refused to acknowledge her. Instead, Kokoa entertained herself by fantasizing about what she was going to do to the traitor once they found him. She started muttering. "Maybe I can take his arm and put it in his….no wait…I think I can cut that off…"

Fang-Fang shuddered. He was really happy Princess Kokoa never got that angry with him. Fang-Fang stopped, noticing that they had reached their destination. "Princess Kokoa, we are here." Kokoa stopped in her muttering and looked up at the door, confused.

But this is…

Fang-Fang shoved open the door and steeped onto the training grounds for the knights. The air reverberated with attack cries and the sound of weapons hacking practice dummies. Kokoa leaned forward and whispered into Fang-Fang's ear. "Fang-Fang, what are we doing here? There's no way one of our knights could be the traitor...right?" Fang-Fang's troubled face as he scanned the crowd was the only answer Kokoa needed.

This knowledge only served to infuriate the princess even more. How could one of the knights betray the kingdom like this? It didn't make any sense! Fang-Fang, having spotted his prime suspect, started walking, keeping his pace casual so as not to alarm the worm. Kokoa followed closely, using all of her willpower to restrain herself.

Approaching a group of knights whose backs were to them, fang-Fang cleared his throat to get their attention. The armor-clad knights turned, and their jovial attitudes instantly shifted when they saw their visitors. They all dropped to one knee in respect. "Prince Fang-Fang! Princess Kokoa! We didn't know you were observing our training today!" The middle one said, head bowed. Kokoa crossed her arms and glared, while Fang-Fang merely observed, taking in as many details as possible.

"Rise!" Kokoa snapped. The knights complied immediately. Kokoa discreetly leaned towards her accomplice, her eyes still scanning the knights. "Which one is it?" Kokoa whispered. Fang-Fang narrowed his eyes.

"Kiria Yoshii." One of the knights stepped forward, looking relaxed and confident. Kokoa raised an eyebrow. As she recalled, this was one of their best knights, with a winning streak that had impressed even the king. He had never been seen very angry, but was generally unliked by the rest of the knights due to the bloodlust the seemed to overtake him during a fight. Kokoa had never really paid much attention to him, but right now she was quite dubious.

"What do you need?" asked Kiria, ignoring the normal formalities one used when addressing royalty. Kokoa ignored the blatant disrespect and instead closed I for the kill.

"What have you been telling the Stomoculas?" Kokoa demanded. Fang-Fang mentally groaned. He really, really, should have known Princess Kokoa, somebody famous for having absolutely no tact at all, would just blurt out something like that. Situations like this needed to be handle with sensitivity! Now he was just going to deny it and claim that they had made a mistake and-

"So you know huh? Took you long enough." Kiria responded lazily.

Fang-Fang's train of thought was suddenly de-railed. Um, what just happened? Kokoa smiled and brought back her fist.

"Smile!" she cried, throwing a punch. To Kokoa's astonishment, Kiria quickly reacted by grabbing the punch and using her own vampire strength against her, throwing her off-balance and away from the fight.

Fang-Fang and the knights reacted quickly, drawing their weapons and leaping into action. Kiria raised his arm and transformed it into a blade, swinging in a wide arc that the knights just barely dodged. Fang-Fang hung back, focusing his energy to summon one of his more powerful beasts; he didn't know what kind of monster Kiria was yet, and he didn't want to take any chances.

He needn't have bothered. In the middle of a fight with one of the knight, Kiria was suddenly sent flying by a vicious punch in the face. The traitor slammed into the ground, moaning and clearly unconscious. Kokoa cracked her knuckles, sneering at the pathetic former knight. "Some fighter he turned out to be." She muttered. "Gather him up and take him to my quarters!" Kokoa commanded, turing and walking towards Fang-Fang as the knights scrambled to fufill the order. The poor prince just looked on in shock.

"Princess Kokoa!" He exclaimed. "But-I thought- didn't he throw you?" Kokoa snorted in slight amusement.

"Don't insult me. It takes more than that to take out a vampire." The Princess sauntered away, before pausing and turning once more. "I want you to be there for the interrogation, Fang-Fang." She said, her tone indicating that this was not optional. Fang-Fang nodded, watching as Kokoa entered the castle once more.

XXXXX

Corma paused in his planning at the knock on the door. "Enter." He said. Hokuto opened the door to the study, his tall frame nearly hitting the top of the door. Corma waited for his servant to speak up, staring at him, but Hokuto just stood there. They stared at each other until finally Corma could take no more. "Yes?" He prompted. "What is it?"

"Tsukune is awake." Corma smiled.

"Good. It's about time he got what was coming to him." Corma rose from his seat and passed Hokuto, leaving the study. He didn't notice that Hokuto hadn't followed him out of the room.

Hokuto went to Corma's desk and look at his plans. He looked at the list of possibilities that Corma had written out; the layout of the castle; the various fighting styles of Princess Moka and Princess Kokoa. Hokuto looked at everything and absorbed what he could. He smiled; this would be even easier than he thought.