New chapter~ Finally~ You might have gotten a notice about this chapter a few months ago. It's because I loaded it up, and then a friend pointed out a major error. So I took it down. And edited it. So hopefully, that doesn't happen again~ -crosses fingers. In any case, thank you for reading my story, and I hope you enjoy the chapter~

Disclaimer: I own Nothing! NOTHING!

Chapter 4

Into the woods

And down the dell,

The path is straight,

I know it well.

Into the woods,

And who can tell

What's waiting on the journey?

~"Prologue" from Into the Woods

The Fon Master was a sickly looking green haired boy. Misao had never met a boy who naturally had green hair, but she supposed there was always a first time. Carrying a staff, the two could easily identify him, both from the description Jane had given them, to the general air the kid had about him.

He just seemed… so innocent. The boy hadn't even sensed the two approach him, until Misao asked him where he was going, and he whirled around in surprise. He calmed down quickly though.

"Nowhere," he had told them, lightly gripping a staff in his hands. It didn't look like a staff used for fighting; more like an ornamental one, with what looked like a tuning fork on top. Another tuning fork was hung on a chain around his neck; Misao supposed that that was the symbol that Jane had mentioned.

"Really." The Fon Master shrunk under Shinjiro's single word. Contained within that one word was a whole slew of undertones, the most prominent being one that proclaimed to the world: 'You are full of bull. Don't lie to us.'

"Well…" The fon master looked away. "I'm out for a walk. Really, it's nothing."

"Nothing, huh? What about the monsters out there? That staff doesn't look like the kind that'll fight them off." Shinjiro was doing an excellent job of looming over the Fon Master.

"Shinjiro, be nice." Misao turned back to the Fon Master. He seemed to be taking Shinji's words calmly, which was rather unusual for people on the receiving end of Shinjiro's attention. "I'm sorry, but Shinjiro's right. That staff looks more like a prop. Going on a walk is dangerous what with the monsters and stuff outside. Why don't you at least let us come with you? Safety in numbers!" Misao had sidled up to Ion, linking her arm through his, and grinning up at the Fon Master. "Besides, we're not really doing anything. So it's not like it's a problem."

"Um, well…"

"We can't let you go out there alone. There are monsters and worse outside, and if anything should happen to you, what would the rest of the Order do without you?" Even with the possible threats apparent, the Fon Master seemed too calm. Was he just always this way? Misao wasn't sure.

"Okay, if you'd like to come with me that's fine. I'm just going out to the Cheagle Woods…"

"I've never been there, but there's a first time for everything~" Misao grinned, and began to walk forward, practically dragging Ion along. "Um, you'll have to direct us. It would be horrible if we got lost."

"The Cheagle Woods are to the North…" Ion glanced over his shoulder, and caught sight of Shinjiro walking a few steps behind. The Fon Master smiled. Shinjiro did not.

"Excellent! To the North we go! Oh! My name is Misao, and this is Shinjiro," Misao cheerily disclosed at the trio walked out of town, walking by the Fon Master's side while Shinjiro trailed a few steps behind.

The boy smiled at her. "My name is Ion… thank you for coming with me." A slightly guilty look crossed his face.

"It's no problem!" Misao reassured happily. "We're happy to help. One shouldn't need a reason to to help others."

"That's a nice reason," Ion agreed, nodding slightly. "I don't think I've ever heard someone say that before…"

"Really?" Misao replied, scratching the back of her head. "Maybe it's rude to say it aloud. Do you think it's weird to say that?"

"You're going to get taken advantage of," the Shinjiro predicted, slipping his hands into his pockets. It was weird to not be wearing his coat, and weirder to have a pack on his back. He hadn't worn a backpack in the last few years, since his school attendance had started to dwindle. Absently he shifted the pack on his back, only to find that Misao had started to walk backwards to face him, a sweet expression on her face.

"Shinjiro, you're so negative~ You've got to be positive!" She began to wave her free arm expressively when she saw his doubtful expression.

"You look like you're trying to fly," he commented after Misao had been waving her arm for a few minutes, rattling on and on about how people weren't all bad. Misao began to pout, and mumbled something to herself, something that sounded suspiciously close to "Silly goomba". Shinjiro hmphed at her, and continued to follow as the morning continued to pass. Ion began to laugh.

It felt so normal. If it wasn't for Ion and the fact that they were walking through a field, Misao could easily believe that she was just on her way to school, with Junpei and Yukari, and there was nothing wrong, besides Tartarus. Easy to think that she and Shinjiro were at home, and not wherever they were now.

"Is everything all right?" Ion's voice pierced her thoughts, and Misao quickly shook her head to clear it. Her thoughts must have clouded her face.

"Yeah~" she sang out. "I was just thinking it's a nice day out you know?"

And with that, she diverted the conversation, and her attention. elsewhere.

The walk to the woods passed quickly, but peacefully, monsters seemingly avoiding the trio. It was odd behavior, but behavior the group appreciated, for it was doubtful that the forest would be as calm as the plain they were traversing. The group chatted as they walked, Ion quietly, Misao animatedly, and Shinjiro rarely.

Ion was a nice kid, Misao decided. A bit on the quiet side, seemingly meek, but she could tell there was iron under that boyish exterior. A meek boy did not try to sneak out on his own to solve a problem that wasn't related to him directly. Only a very brave, selfless boy did that. Already, Misao had decided that he was her friend. She was going to defend him with her life, and while it was hard to tell, the girl hoped Shinjiro felt the same.

The Cheagle Woods was an old forest. The trees rose out of sight, towering over the trio that had entered, with overgrown twisted paths cutting through the undergrowth. Bird calls resonated between the mighty oaks and maples, and animals dashed through the bushes and trees, chittering and playing and running away from the humans who dared to intrude upon the forest's solemnity. Wolves and birds with beaks that looked like axes occasionally deigned to bother the trio, but for the most part, things were calm.

Misao loved it. The peace was addictive, and if it weren't for the occasional monster attacks, she might have considered having a picnic here. Well, they technically did. It took the trio of travelers most of the morning to reach the woods, and Shinjiro insisted that they should eat lunch before they entered the forest proper, so that they would be in better condition for whatever they might find within.

So the left over stew was brought out, and a small fire made to reheat it. Misao wasn't quite sure where Shinjiro had gotten the flint and tinder, but she had found some small logs, and retrieved some water from a small stream that ran out of the forest with a bucket Jane had attached to her pack. Lunch was a brief and almost silent affair, once the food had finished reheating.

"So Ion," Misao began around a bite of stew meat, "What were you doing in Engeve?"

The green haired boy looked up from his food, blinking slightly. The question had come rather out of nowhere, for Misao had been tearing into her meal with wild abandon. The boy noted that Shinjiro didn't bat an eye at how the girl ate, and just ordered her to make sure that she didn't choke this time.

"I'm sorry, but it's an Order secret. I can't tell you…" the boy replied, smiling apologetically at the girl.

"An Order Secret…" An expression of deep thought spread across Misao's face, with only her jaw moving so that she could keep eating. For the rest of the meal, the girl tried to figure out what the secret was, and kept thinking as they cleaned up and resumed their walk.

"A zombie attack! That's the secret!" Misao crowed, turning to face Ion as she walked. "There's a zombie threat in Engeve, and you can't tell anybody about it, because it'll make a panic!"

Both Shinjiro and Ion stopped in their tracks, simply looking at the red eyed girl. There was an expression of extreme confusion on Ion's face. Shinjiro just looked used to it. Misao had taken a few steps, and stopped when she realized that the boys had stopped. "What?" At their silence, her hands drifted to her hips, and she leaned forward and repeated herself. "What?"

"There's no zombie threat in Engeve, Fumetsu," Shinjiro said drily, staring down at the girl. "Where the hell did you get that idea?"

"Well, in all zombie movies, the government suppresses the information for the protection of the public," Misao stated, making little quotation marks around the protection of the public. "And Engeve is just the right place for a zombie apocalypse! It's a small farming town, seems fairly isolated, and the government… well, religious order… is in town keeping a secret! It makes sense, right?"

Shinjiro stood silently for a moment, staring at the girl, before he resumed walking, right past Misao. "Come on Fumetsu. Keep walking." Misao began to protest as she turned to follow Shinjiro, grabbing Ion and dragging him along to make sure he kept up.

"Zombies…" Ion repeated quietly as he was dragged along, a cheery smile on his face. Misao reminded him of Anise… He hoped Anise wasn't mad at him. Ion had left her behind in Engeve after all.

The little fight between Shinjiro and Misao lasted a good while, eventually decaying into a playful dispute. Ion listened to the duo. They were rather amusing, and it was clear who was in charge. The boy hid a grin when Misao, sensing her argument was failing, made puppy-dog eyes at the brunet, who looked away in an attempt to dodge the attack.

Which was probably the only reason he saw the wolf. Shinjiro's ax was brought out and used to deflect the wolf's lunge, sparks flying when the creatures teeth collided with the metal head of the ax. Shinjiro pushed the wolf back with a hard push, as another came in from the side. Kicking the newest attacker away, Shinjiro chopped down on the first wolf, digging into the creature's body as he twisted to avoid the spurt of blood that erupted from a punctured artery. The wolf's own heart betrayed it, pumping out precious blood from the wound the brunet had opened.

Turning to face the other attacking wolf, Shinjiro became aware of the fact that he wasn't the only one being attacked. Misao had gotten Ion to stand between her back and Shinjiro's, and was using the long reach of her naginata to herd the other attacking wolves away from Ion. Shinjiro grimaced. They had relaxed too much, and had argued too loudly, and now they were paying the price.

Misao neatly stabbed a wolf in the neck, twisting the weapon to carry the body along with the swing, and launched the body at the fellow wolves. She could hear Shinjiro fighting just a little way from her, and was comforted by his presence. Fighting alone was never a good thing. A grunt of pain distracted her. "Shinji, are you all right?" she asked, beating back another attacker with the flat part of her naginata's blade.

"Fine, Fumetsu, keep fighting," the brunet called back. One of the wolves had managed to get close enough to bite his arm, but he had quickly shaken the thing off. This was annoying. If he could use Castor, thing would have been easier.

"Keep them busy!" Ion called out.

"Right!" Misao called out, trusting the boy. As much as she hated to admit it, she and Shinjiro needed all the help that they could get. There were simply too many wolves for just herself and Shinjiro to deal with. They should have planned this better. But, as Misao reminded herself, hindsight was twenty twenty. They had to deal with this now. So Misao and Shinjiro kept the wolves away from the boy, even as they heard him chant, even as they saw runes start to glow beneath their feet.

What they didn't expect was to be engulfed in a pillar of light.

It felt warm. Warm, calming, like the embrace of a mother when you were a kid, after falling and scrapping your knee. Both Misao and Shinjiro savored the feeling, before it rapidly faded.

When the light was gone, there were no more monsters attacking, bodies lying where they had fallen after being buffeted by the pillar of life. The spell that had comforted Misao let out a grateful breath, turning around to face her friends. Only to find Ion on his hands and knees panting.

"Ion!"

In a flash, Misao was kneeling next to the green haired boy, trying to figure out what was wrong. The poor boy was panting, and he looked even paler than normal.

"I'm fine," the boy said, a forced grin on his face.

The red eyed girl tutted. "No, you're not!" Fussing over the boy, she helped get him into a sitting position, checking his pulse, and forcing him to eat some food, in addition to actually resting. "You shouldn't put yourself at risk!" she began, launching into a mini-tirade. He had truly worried her, when she had turned around and saw him. Ion had looked close to death, if not past.

While the girl was berating Ion, Shinjiro was examining the corpses of the wolf pack. On the ones that Ion's spell alone had touched, there was no physical marks on the bodies. He checked multiple bodies. It was easy to tell which ones he and Misao had slaughtered, slash marks and bloodstains covering the corpses. "What was that?" he murmured to himself.

"It was a Daathic Fonic Arte." Ion had evidently overheard the brunet's question. At the blank looks he continued. "They're fonic artes unique to the fon master, utilizing the seventh fonon."

"The same one as the one that makes up the Score?" Misao unsurely put forth, trying to remember what she had weaned out of Jane last night. Fonons were particles or something of sound, that made up the world, and there were seven of them. Which one was which, she couldn't remember. And evidently, a fonic arte was using them to attack… she thought. She wasn't sure, and she didn't want to ask. She didn't want to have a newbie stamp placed on her head.

"Yes," Ion smiled up at the girl. "Only Fon Masters can use it."

"Does it kill all of you Fon Masters to do that?" Shinjiro mumbled grumpily as he stalked over, one hand shoved deep into a pants pocket, while the other held his ax so it rested on his shoulder.

"Shinjiro," Misao warned as she glanced down at Ion. She could see the beginnings of a guilty expression on the boy's face. "Ion. Look at me." The girl didn't continue until Ion was looking right at her face, into her eyes. "We are really, truly grateful that you stepped in to help us. If you hadn't, one of us would have gotten hurt badly. It's just that you worried us. You collapsed and almost fell unconscious… So please, Ion, don't do that again. We don't want you to get hurt."

Ion was silent for a moment, a solemn expression on his face. "I'm sorry to make you worry," he replied honestly.

Misao grinned, ruffling Ion's bangs. "I know. You were trying to help." Rising to her feet, she proffered a hand to the sitting boy. "Ready to go? We have to go find those Cheagles, you know."

Taking her hand, Ion pulled himself to his feet, exhibiting a semi-incredulous expression. "You'll still let me go?"

"If we didn't, you'd go on your own, wouldn't you?" Shinjiro took the boy's silence as a yes. "Can't let you go on your own, idiot. Probably get yourself killed." And with that Shinjiro began to walk away, deeper into the woods.

There was a pause. "Is he always that scary, with the glare?"

It was an innocent question that Ion asked, one that was obviously entirely serious. Misao tried to smother her laughter, as she slipped an arm through Ion's and began to lead him on. "No…"

"Really?" Ion was looking up at her, his face smeared with a look of disbelief.

The girl couldn't contain it anymore, her peals of laughter echoing through the woods. "Don't be so loud! You'll attract more wolves!" Shinjiro snapped, causing Misao to laugh harder.

Eventually, her laughter died down, and she looked at the green haired boy she was walking with. "Really. He just likes being grumpy so he isn't bothered. Go on, give him a hug."

The laughter started up again, as she watched Shinjiro try to wriggle out of Ion's hug. "Don't hug me, idiot."

This was going to be interesting.

Thank you for reading~ Reviews are appreciated, but I just hope that you enjoyed reading my story~ Have a nice day~