The first one looked like a suicide.

The woman that that the dead man had nearly landed on had thought it was a jumper, by the way that he had come down from the scaffolding. Edge himself wanted to believe that; during the occupation there had been several suicides. Some people were meant to fight, and some were meant to despair, but that was over. The envoy from Baron was there to reassure people of peace, and so far they had handled themselves well.

But by the third death, it was obvious that they were murders. Edge didn't need special skills in observation to see that they had been sliced up.

"My liege, if there is a murderer on the loose-"

"Then we can't let word get out and start a panic."

Edge was supposed to have had a few more years as just a ninja, a simple fighter in the service of Eblan before he was to take the throne. And it seemed like his job mostly consisted of keeping mass panic from happening; he seemed to be constantly assuring the noble families that the Baron envoy was not attempting to take over Eblan for their own purposes and murder their children in a bid for world domination.

And yet, here they were, and someone was killing people.

"But you cannot do nothing, Edward."

This adviser had been with his family since his parents were young. He was old and sometimes Edge had to speak loudly to get past his bad hearing. But no matter how old he was or how long he'd been with the family, it always grated him that the man refused to call him by the name he preferred. It was just another reminder that he'd taken-been forced to take-this throne too soon.

"I don't intend on doing nothing, I intend on investigating this. I see no reason to let an already paranoid public find out that there is a murderer running around while we're having peace talks with Baron."

Even if he still didn't feel particularly ready to lead it, there was no way he was going to let some killer disturb his Eblan. Not on his watch.

You have to take what you want. You can't stand there and let someone else get there before you. Take it!

"The palace really looks lovely. I can't believe how quickly you were able to fix it."

Queen Rosa spoke graciously, and had been for the entire meal, avoiding any taboo topics. The fact that she spoke about the rebuilding at all could almost be considered bold by the old biddies around the court. King Cecil had been equally gracious, sticking to bland topics.

It was obvious that they were all antsy to leave the table, Edge probably most of all.

"The works projects were very well-received."

They didn't really talk like this, when they were alone. Even if Edge had apparently missed all the angst and darkness of the earlier part of Cecil's Epic Journey, he'd been around them long enough to be genuinely friendly. But rulers weren't supposed to joke around with each other at formal dinners. The Queen of Baron wasn't supposed to flick the King of Eblan on the ear for staring too long at her cleavage.

Not that she even had any visible cleavage anymore. Her new wardrobe was sadly modest.

"We sent some craftsmen over to Mist, to help out with their rebuilding." Cecil would never master the art of double talk-the fact that he was honest and could be so without too much regret in most situations was a strength-but he was getting quite good at subtlety.

And to mention Mist was really mentioning Rydia.

"But they sent them back. Matter of pride." Rosa added, giving him a sidelong glance. So Rydia was still a little angry with him.

Well, he had more pressing matters to think about anyway. One of his ninjas, a man named Gekkou, had entered the hall, off to the side where no one else would notice. His adviser had pointed him out as a man to trust, and they had sent him to look at the sites of the previous murders to see if there was anything that stuck out to him.

He could follow protocol and stay until the end of dinner... or he could fake a headache.

"I'm sorry to cut out like this, but I really have the worst pain in my head..."

Cecil looked like he wished he had the same excuse. Rosa wiped her mouth with a napkin to hide her expression. His adviser further down the table sighed. Edge looked over at Gekkou, who nodded ever so slightly. Hopefully he had a lot to report.

Even if he didn't, it was worth getting the hell out of dinner.

Do you really think you're relevant anymore? Your kind are long gone, there is no room for you during peace. You must take up the blade to be noticed at all.

"Puncture wounds."

"You're saying that's what killed them all? Not falling or anything else that happened."

Gekkou shook his head. "Easy to confuse. The killer was very strong."

Edge paced. "But what about the... being sliced up with the last one?"

As exciting as the whole saving the world venture had been, the last thing that Edge liked seeing was gruesome corpses cut into pieces. In fact, it made him a little sick to his stomach. Not that he would let anyone know that of course. Especially not trained ninjas of few words or former heroes.

"After death. Not the source of death."

So the killer was starting to get more into it. The first one was so easy to mistake as an accident or a suicide, but the last one was so obviously murder. Almost like it had been an accident for the killer the first time, but they gradually learned to accept it.

Hopefully the cold shiver he felt wasn't noticeable.

"You've done well, Gekkou. This information has been very useful. You're dismissed."

The ninja bowed and left the room. Despite all the things that Edge disliked about being a ruler, he really didn't mind how people took his orders to heart and carried them out. If only he could keep that part and get rid of the annoying parts.

With Gekkou gone, Edge had only his own mind to sort things out. And his mind worked best when he was moving. He'd intentionally left even more hidden passages in the new palace because the old one hadn't had enough of them. A ninja needed secret places, shadow places to do their best work. He remembered as a child finding the grooves in the stone that indicated when a path would veer off, or when a dead end was up ahead. He'd learned that even before he could read.

He'd learned how to anticipate the moves of a warrior, but killers... they were something else. Edge couldn't put his mind in the position of madness. But was it madness? Edge couldn't say he'd never wanted to fight for less than honorable reasons: pride, anger, pure and unbridled rage had factored before. But cold precision, and an increased taste for it? Even the fiends didn't have that. Only Golbez had ever seemed that way, but even then, who was Golbez really?

The light of the moons was temporarily blinding as he stepped back out into a proper part of the castle. All the murders had taken place at night, maybe if he put himself into the environment, the time...

Lunacy comes from the moon. That moon, the kind that holds monsters and secrets, sleeping gods that don't even care. Knowing is what makes it worse.

The hand on his shoulder made him jump higher than he would have liked.

"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that!"

Edge figured it was his adviser, but was surprised to find it was Rosa, having delightfully shed her sack-like robes in favor of something more... boobs.

"My face is up here, Edge."

"I just haven't seen th-you in quite some time. Baron really needs to speed up the whole nice and friendly thing, so we can change that."

She crossed her arms, and he made an effort to keep looking at her face. Rosa could hit pretty hard when she wanted to, after all. He'd tried to string her bow once, and his arms were sore for days. "We're working on that. What I want to know is what exactly is going on here in Eblan."

If he didn't know better, he could swear that White Mages could scan people as well as enemies. It was an unfair advantage.

"You think something's going on?"

"There's always something going on. But in this case particularly, I think that there is something you're not telling Cecil or me."

Lying was not something that Edge was ever good at. Bragging, fast-talking, and even some good offensive zings; those he could do. But lying was one of those political things he hadn't exactly mastered yet.

"Look, I'd love help on this, but it's not something Baron should get involved in. And while you or Cecil yourselves would be a help you're... well you're Baron now."

Rosa seemed to want to protest, but this had been the status quo since they had all gotten back to their countries, picked up the pieces of their lives. Cecil, Rosa, and Edge were friends, but Eblan was wary of Baron, no matter how hard Baron seemed to try. It had been that way with more than just Eblan and Baron; Mist was merely a spectre, and Damcyan still a ghost rising from the ashes.

At such a delicate time, Edge would punish the killer himself for the unease that they brought with them.

"You let me know if there is anything that Baron can do. When it's appropriate."

Edge nodded, wishing he didn't feel so damned tired and old already.

Now, now they will be forced to look at you. See what they made you become with their ignorance.

The killer used a lance.

Edge stood with Gekkou next to the almost victim, having already shooed away the group that had come upon her. She looked up at them with terrified eyes, the flesh wound in her side starting to bleed through the bandages. The palest light of morning made it look almost black.

"Could you describe who attacked you again? I want to make sure that no details are left out."

A lance. It left a cold feeling in his stomach. The possibility hadn't even occurred to him... could Zemus still have a hold? Didn't they destroy that evil space alien? Or it could just be a coincidence. A lance wasn't exactly an exclusive weapon to Dragoons, though they were the most well known. It could have been a rogue fisherman.

"It stood tall, it's skin was spiked all over the place. It came at me from above like a flying monster, gouged my side, and then just... took off. It was shaped like a man it just didn't act like one."

"So it jumped high."

"Yes, unnaturally so."

Edge wanted to curse under his breath. Of course this had to be the case. Surely Golbez would show up next, tap dancing in the middle of court in Rosa's old battle outfit. The possibility of fighting a big evil again would be exciting if he didn't know what the fallout from it was like; he hated to think of what he would have left to pick up this time.

"Gekkou, make sure she is well taken care of in my palace by the best White Mages we have."

The man nodded, only raising his eyebrow a little bit when Edge didn't follow. And Edge himself wondered if it was wise to stay here; armed but alone in a ramshackle part of Eblan.

He thought about the last time he'd seen Kain. He was getting off of the Lunar Whale, trying to decide if he wanted to ask Rydia to come with him. He was just a part of the furniture, the way that he hardly moved, lost in his own thoughts. It had been an afterthought, really.

Hey, perk up, we won!"

"...We. Hrmph."

If it was him, or whatever he was as Zemus's instrument, then he had left a location. He'd left a calling card, indicating this was where he wanted them to come. But not now, it was already too bright out. Creatures of darkness only came out at night.

Only Edge was going to come alone.

Rosa... could you not see that it wasn't that you chose him? But that both of you chose to leave me.

It had been hardest not to mention it to Rosa.

Hiding things from her was an exercise in futility. Edge had tried to empty his mind the whole evening, instead of going over the theories and the reasonings, trying to talk himself out of the certainty that the murderer was Kain. Trying not to rehearse the speeches he'd have to make to tell his people that the threat wasn't gone, and was still messing with people's lives.

But she had kept her word as Baron, and hadn't approached him. That just made it worse.

His favorite game when he was a kid was to switch clothes with one of the kitchen boys and play hide and seek in the alleyways of the commoners' houses. Edge liked it when he was caught later, and his father gave him the stern look and his mother petted his head and told him but what if you got hurt? He could be invisible whenever he wanted, and when he was visible, he mattered.

He didn't even bother to be invisible here. There wasn't a point.

"Where are they?"

His voice rasped like he hadn't had water in days, and Edge had to squint to make him out in the moonlight. Predictably, he stayed in the shadow of the building.

"The last thing they need is to see you like this. Again."

Kain moved exactly as Edge had remembered from battle. Precise, hard, but not nearly as quick as Edge was. He was a man that could handle a lot of beatings, and there were plenty of times that Edge's luck had run out and he was laid out on the ground, hoping that Rosa's spells would just hurry it up already.

"Where. ARE THEY?"

Edge wasn't frightened, but he wasn't expecting this. He'd fought fiends and Golbez and all manner of monsters. He'd never fought a man so consumed by rage that he could practically see it radiating off his armor. Edge had come with the intent to disarm, yell at Zemus, do anything but keep a promise that he'd made because he never thought he'd have to keep it.

"You're not... you're not controlled at all, are you?"

It was a simple thing to steal from an enemy. It was a maneuver he had done countless times, and Kain had seen him do it. But what he hadn't seen was the new dagger that he kept in his boot, or how he'd practiced jamming it into the kinks of a dummy's armor.

How little force it took to fatally kill a man, if they didn't properly guard their heart.

The lance fell to the ground as he lost his ability to grip and only a few short moments later he was down. Edge had expected it to be more dramatic, noisier, anything but this quiet little fall in a quiet part of his kingdom.

"...Why?" Kain was barely intelligible, he must have gotten a lung too.

"I promised to kill you if you ever betrayed us again."

It could have been a chuckle, or a cough. Edge couldn't tell. "Good."

He didn't want to know what had brought Kain to this. Edge had stared at the abyss himself, and all it had done was make him want to back away from it. No one really needed to know. It was much better that he died a hero.

At least that's what he was going to tell Baron.

Notes: This was inspired by Kain's Lunar Trial, Sev liking Edge, Edge being an awesome jerkass when Kain re-enters the party, and me liking murdertimes. Enjoy!