"Good morning!" Toshi greeted Sierra at a table in the inn's commons room with a friendly tone, "Beautiful morning, isn't it?"

"Get out the items," Sierra said in a cold and unfriendly tone. Toshi looked at her in confusion.

"Wha-?" he asked, "Why so cold?"

Sierra put a stern expression on her face. "Our conversation last night never happened. We are enemies who are negotiating a deal instead of fighting."

Toshi sighed. He began pulling out the items he had named prices for.

"Huh?" Toshi's face showed confusion. He had laid the flail and the orihalcon statue on the table, but he couldn't find the chunk of platinum anywhere in the bag.

"What's wrong?" Sierra asked.

"Where is it?" Toshi wasn't really directing the question to anyone.

"Where is what?" Sierra asked, "Don't tell me you lost the last one!"

"Let me guess," Toshi said in a weary tone, "the last one was the one you wanted?"

"Don't tell me you lost it!" Sierra yelled the sentence again.

"You know. . ." Toshi began in an attempted to calm Sierra down, "You're really cute when you're angry. . ."

"Shut the hell up!" Sierra yelled, drawing the attention of some other people in the commons room. Fury was painted all across her face.

Sierra lowered her voice to avoid any more attention, but her voice was still dripping with anger. "You had better find that last item or I am going to make you wish you were never born. . ."

"Calm down, calm down!" Toshi pleaded, "We'll find it! But why is a chunk of platinum so important anyway?"

"A chunk of platinum?" Sierra said the words as though they were some kind of abomination, "Don't you have any idea what that 'chunk of platinum' is?"

"Nope," Toshi simply stated.

"It's a piece of the staff that supports this world! A piece of the staff which was born from the Sea of Chaos!"

"Oh, great. More legends? It's just a chunk of platinum. Expensive, true, but not worth enough to get this excited over,"

Sierra drew a dagger from her robes a positioned it a millimeter away from Toshi's throat. "Shut the hell up! I don't care what you and your atheistic philosophies have to say! I need that piece of the staff back, and if you can't find it, then I will kill you."

Toshi began to sweat slightly. Was this cold-hearted woman really the same person he had talked to last night?

"We are going to look for where you might have dropped it," Sierra whispered in a very dangerous tone, "and if we cannot find it, then you may consider your life forfeit."

Toshi gulped. Cold sweat ran down his temples. "Okay, okay. . .let's start looking."

"What's wrong with me? Sierra thought to herself. There's something about him that makes him seem like someone I know, but at the same time, I can't ignore the fact that he's an enemy who has lost the piece of the staff. Maybe I was too rough with him this morning. . .no! There is no such thing as being too rough in this situation! The piece must be found at all costs! But still. . ."

"Hey! What're you doing?" Toshi asked Sierra, he was rather annoyed, "You promised that you would help look! Stop spacing out!"

"S-Sorry. . ."

Toshi and Sierra had looked everywhere that they had been in the city but found nothing. The only possible remaining place to look was in the forest were they had fought. Toshi sighed; he couldn't seem to locate anything along the traveling path. He began to search the tall grass and bushes by the path in hopes of finding the piece of the staff. After a careful search over a stretch of the tall grass about fifty meters long, Toshi stopped and looked over to where Sierra was searching.

"This isn't good. Do I really have to do it?" Toshi thought to himself as he put a hand on the hilt of his katana, "She'll kill me if I don't find it. I have absolutely no idea where it could be. This area is far too large to thoroughly search, there's no way I'll ever find it. If I kill her now when she isn't prepared. . ."

Toshi edged close to Sierra with his hand on his still sheathed katana. Sierra was on her hands and knees searching along the traveling path. Her back was turned to Toshi. This would be an easy kill. All he would have to do would be to quickly position his katana against the soft flesh of her throat and slice. But. . .could he really do something like that? Toshi had killed countless criminals, but that was different. This person, this woman. . .Sierra. . .she wasn't really a bad person. Toshi had seen this first hand with their conversation that she wanted to forget about. And she was also so beautiful; Toshi didn't like the idea of killing someone so attractive.

Toshi shook his head. This was pre-emptive self-defense. If he didn't kill her now, they would fight later. Even though Toshi was a skilled sorcerer, it had been awhile since he had fought any challenging opponent and he was afraid that his rusty magic skills might not stand up to this deadly woman.

Toshi couldn't decide. He weighed the moral dilemmas against each other but could seem to come to a conclusion. He stood a minute longer trying to decide. . .but then it was too late and the decision was made for him.

Sierra stood up suddenly and turned around. She looked at Toshi with a curious expression and noticed his hand positioned on his katana.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Toshi attempted to reply but choked on his words. This was it. Now that she had seen that he had hostile intent, he was going to have to kill her. He was about to draw the sword, but then. . .

"Well, never mind all that. I think I've found a lead," Sierra said. The coldness of her voice when she last spoke was replaced with excitement.

"H-Huh?" was all that Toshi managed to choke out. What was going on? Did she not notice that he was maliciously advancing at her position even though she looked straight at his hand on the katana?

"I see that you noticed the lead also. . ." Sierra said nodding her head towards Toshi's hand on his katana. A clinking noise came from the bushes behind Sierra.

"W-What?" Toshi said, genuinely confused.

Sierra turned around quickly and drew a throwing knife from her belt. She threw it into the bushes where the clink sound had come from. There was a grunt from the bushes, then the sound of a body falling to the ground.

Toshi stood perplexed as Sierra ran into the bushes and came back out dragging a man dressed in green, an attempted to camouflage himself. The man was alive, but the throwing knife was embedded up to its handle in his right shoulder and he was cringing with pain.

Sierra drew her boot dagger and positioned its point between the man's eyes. "Move and you die," she warned.

"Whoa, hey! What's all this?" Toshi asked, he took his hand away from his katana.

Sierra held up something that she had wrenched from the man's hand. A crossbow!

"An assassin?" Toshi asked.

"Looks that way," Sierra responded, then addressed the assassin, "What's the meaning of this?"

"I-I was hired to get rid of you," the assassin explained.

"To kill us?" Sierra said.

"No. Just you," the assassin said indicating Toshi, "I was ordered to not touch the woman."

"Someone wants you dead?" Sierra asked Toshi.

"I have no idea who that would be," Toshi honestly answered, "The bandits are all too much of cowards to send anyone at me, much less come at me themselves, and I can't think of anyone else who I've offended. . .except maybe for you, Sierra."

"Are you accusing me of hiring this guy to kill you?"

"Of course not! That wouldn't make any sense. If you really did hire this assassin then why would you do what you just did?"

"Who's your employer?" Sierra forcefully asked the assassin.

"I won't say a damned thing. . ." the assassin responded but then changed his mind as Sierra used her dagger to draw a thin red line of blood between his eyes, "Okay, okay! I'll talk!"

"Start spilling the beans," Toshi commanded.

The assassin growled and paused. Sierra shoved the assassin into a lying down position and yanked his head up by his hair. She then propped dagger point up below the assassin's chin so that if the assassin's head came down into a relaxing position the dagger would impale his head.

"I don't think we need to be this forceful, Sierra," Toshi said.

"How can you say that? He was about to take your life!" Sierra turned to assassin, "TALK!"

"D-Don't know her name, she just wants him dead,"

"Surely you know more than that?" Sierra asked with an evil grin.

"Okay, okay!" the assassin gasped, "She was wearing black plate mail and had long black hair in a ponytail! She said that now that she had taken something from that man she doesn't want him around anymore!"

"So that's where it went! This person took it!" Toshi paused and pondered for a second, "But when did she have the opportunity to steal it?"

"Maybe when we were fighting? You left your bag of goodies on the road during the fight," Sierra offered.

"That seems a reasonable explanation," Toshi responded, "Where can we find this woman?"

"She hired me in a city not too far to the east,"

"Do you realize what will happen to you if you let anyone know about what has happened here?" Sierra asked.

The assassin gulped loudly. Apparently he did understand.

"We'll reduce the temptation for you," Toshi offered.

"Huh? How do you do something like that?" the assassin questioned.

A few minutes later when the assassin was securely tied to the trunk of a tree and a gag had been placed in his mouth, Toshi and Sierra set off to the east, in search of this woman in black plate mail.