The Stupid Cannon Fodder is Stunning Today

Chapter 25: I Do Bite My Thumb

This chapter is brought to you by LACHATA  by VANNER.

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Part V

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Nine was awoken by the mid-afternoon sun shining through the window. 

He winced and held his head, the throbbing headache from a night of drinking had come to bite him back. 

Where was he?

He looked around the room and saw the sheer curtains around the bed he was lying in. 

There was the scent of floral incense heavy in the air. 

Flashbacks of last night flooded his brain, and he closed his eyes once more. 

There was a solo mission, and he was injured. Venus had wanted him to visit a healer, but he was so tired and he didn't want the kittens to see him like this. He had booked a room at the Peony Garden to nurse his wounds and drink himself sick. 

Despite how much he pretended he was infallible and indestructible, Nine was very much human. While he rarely got hurt, there were some targets over the years who were much smarter than others. 

Solo missions were easy since Nine only needed to trust himself. Group missions with Belwyn and the others meant he needed to keep his senses wide to ensure they were all safe. 

He and his unit rarely took on missions together, anymore. 

Belwyn was finally pushed to lead his own unit, and the same went for Otto. 

Nine still worked with Mercury occasionally, though even those missions were scarce now that Mercury had risen in the ranks.

Everyone was growing up, including his kittens, and while he had been happy that they could all fend for themselves, now, the creeping dread that had grown in his chest. 

It started with getting knocked in the head and being captured by the target. 

Nine had gotten out successfully and completed the assassination, but he remembered something important that he hadn't thought about in the last few years. 

He was in the body of Toby Calypto. 

He was the stupid cannon fodder of a story called Poison-Lace Dagger. 

He was meant to be an unlikable man who obstructed his cousin's path. 

He was a man who would die at the end of the story. 

Nine hadn't thought about the story in a long time. 

But it was spring, and Jovette was about to turn eighteen. A year from now, the main storyline would start, and his little cousin could die. 

The realization had Nine requesting any liquor the Peony Garden served. They gave him a wineskin, and he indulged in it.

He hadn't drunk himself sick since his roommates and the rest of his unit died off during the war. 

Had the story changed enough to the point that Jovette and Rowan wouldn't do anything stupid? 

Gods, he hoped not. 

The relationship between their houses remained intolerant, but Jovette and Rowan were semi-playmates during their bouts to the city square. 

Childhood friends or acquaintances tended to see each other as siblings, didn't they?