Anna had left the Dark Faction Academy for a while now, with one task on her mind, and that was to find Charlotte. It was the request of Raze, and more importantly, it was something she knew Himmy would have wanted as well.
Although part of Alter, like her, she had abandoned it and was on the run. When Rayna had given the order to get rid of all of those belonging to Alter, Anna had also eliminated said members. Charlotte was in the Dark Faction—that was the most likely probability.
From those she had interrogated so far, some were on her trail, following her from town to town, but she always managed to give them the slip now or then.
Right now, Anna was walking through the streets of a rather small town, the last location someone from Alter had seen her.
'Charlotte did well to avoid them. I guess Himmy had taught her well, and with her magic she could give them the slip rather easily,' Anna thought. 'But things have gotten incredibly hard now. With all of the deaths of Alter members, I doubt there are any left in the Dark Faction.'
'Either they're dead, or have already pulled out of the area, so there's no one I can really interrogate anymore.'
Anna was slightly worried as well. The sad part about all of this was Charlotte was probably still living in fear, afraid that at any point and time someone from the organization would be out to get her, even though it was perfectly safe.
Eventually, Anna looked at one of the buildings and then jumped up from her position, using part of the housing as footing, and landed on the flat roof. She looked out over the town to see what there was close by.
"I have to think of all of this logically. With how much time she's been on the run, she would have run out of money. So she had to survive somehow?" Anna started to calculate, and with help from her system she could figure a lot of these things out.
She observed the mostly red rooftops of the houses, and even saw a small clan.
'If I remember correctly, the clan here is known as the Red Brigade, but would the warriors know anything? They would have gotten the order to take out those from Alter as well, right?'
It was the only lead she had, and so she decided to venture out to the local clan base. Upon arriving, there wasn't much problem with Anna going in through the doors.
The guards had told her to wait a few moments as they ventured and got one of the elders from the inside. After, they had invited Anna inside and were willing to answer any questions she had.
"So you say that you were ordered to come here by the Dark Magus?" the elder asked.
"Not quite. I'm looking into something, but it could be related to the order you received recently," Anna explained. "I'm looking for a woman with orange hair. She's quite short and appears to have passed through this town."
"If you don't know anything, I was hoping that there might be others that do know something—the members of Alter."
The man stroked his beard and shuddered slightly as he heard the name.
"I'm afraid Alter members haven't visited this town for quite a while. I believe it was since that incident, where a man wearing long clothing had entered. Come to think of it, I believe that woman also had bright orange hair that was with him at the time?"
Anna blinked a few times. An orange-haired duo with a large man—that sounded exactly like Himmy and Charlotte, but how was that possible? She had seen Himmy's head.
"But that was months ago, and it seems like you are looking for someone who was here more recently. Since then, no people from Alter have answered our call," the elder explained.
Anna somewhat sulked as she realized that it must have just been a mission that Himmy and Charlotte were on in the past, a mission that had been done without her. With nothing else, all she could do was guess what Charlotte would do, and try to follow her movements.
"Thank you for your time," Anna said, standing up and giving a bow, getting ready to leave.
The old man suggested he escort her out, feeling bad about what happened. As they walked through the open area toward the gate, Anna thought about asking the old man what had happened back then, to have Himmy and Charlotte here, but there was a commotion at the gate.
"Please, I need someone to help me! I just need you guys to listen to me!" a voice pleaded.
"Just relax, young one. The elder is currently in a meeting. We will inform him of your problems, but you just have to wait," the guard replied.
"We can't wait! If we wait any longer, who knows what will happen to her. Please, I can't do anything by myself, I can't, I can't!" the young man continued to plead.
Anna, walking with the elder, waved the man off; she didn't need an escort and informed him that he could deal with the kid's problems. Maybe another person would have stopped to listen to the young one's worries and helped out.
But Anna had her own problems, and she was in the middle of something herself—not that if she wasn't she would have helped; she was just not that type of person. As Anna walked past, she continued past the young man on his knees, and the elder had eventually reached the walls.
"Please, you have to help me!" the young man pleaded. "My friend, she was taken by the church. The one just up the hill. I need warriors, we need warriors to save her. They're strong, and they're using strange powers, like some type of magic. Please, you have to help them."
The elder wished to comfort the young man, as in this state there wasn't much he could do, and the church wasn't even part of the town's jurisdiction in the first place. For clan members to get involved would be a hard task.
The boy looked up, a bandage covering one of his eyes, at the strange woman in front of him.
"This girl, your friend that you're talking about, she didn't happen to have orange-colored hair, did she?" Anna asked.