Hearing all of that, Ed assumed Yashiro must be done with his revenge quest.
That could not have been further from the truth. Yashiro was still determined to get to the bottom of the matter and find out who had been behind the assassination of Ishino. He was also, now, extremely interested in figuring out what was happening with Aki, given that she had regenerated an eye.
While he was at it, he asked Ed whether his master had actually been married or not.
Ed tried to change the subject. Yashiro insisted, and then revealed why he was asking: that particular regeneration was something only E4 consumers were capable of, and Aki herself had been surprised by it.
Hearing that, Ed refused to answer, which made Yashiro more persistent still, and got him nothing at all except a lost game, much to the amusement of the recently arrived Joe.
While Ed went to fetch the food and drinks Joe had ordered, Joe was in an excellent mood about having been productive lately, especially after beating a few small dark lords, and he was in such a good mood that he still refused to accompany Yashiro on the trip he was planning to Hokkaido — mostly because Joe was well aware that they would be meeting a priest there whom he hated with everything he had.
Yashiro assumed Joe had been eavesdropping on him about his master, even though he had been loudly discussing the man with Ed in the middle of the room. He was aware that he did not have Joe's good terms with the bureaucrats, and that he ought not to be digging into his master's past at all, and he still called his friend a gorilla for suggesting that he take Malta with him instead.
Ed mentioned that Malta had gone off on a well-paying gig and would not be available for the foreseeable future.
Unable to get anything out of Joe, Yashiro asked Ed for anything at all about his master, and Ed would only say that the man had been the strongest brave of all, and had died with no regrets over some nonsense.
That sent Yashiro back through his own memory. His master had often spoken about weird things when he got drunk, to the point of sounding delusional. He did remember that Kiyohito had said, more than once, that he would appreciate honourable braves — which got him mocked by Yashiro, Joe and Ishino alike, before all three of them were punished for it.
Those memories were what made Yashiro admit, deep down, that he had never had the guts to say out loud that he wanted to become an idealist like Aki.
Later, drinking a cola in a random restaurant, he could not stop thinking about the connection between Aki's regeneration and Ido's, and the Half-Dragon, and E4 — and then he looked up and saw Yukina walking in. She made it clear that she had barely managed to get off campus at all, with how strict the security had become around it.
Both of them were well aware that things had been getting hectic in town lately, especially with Storm gone missing, which had every minor dark lord taking the opportunity to expand their turf. Yukina considered that this might be a good money-making opportunity. Yashiro made it clear that the hardworking braves are the ones who get eliminated very early on.
Still, he was thankful to her for bringing him some much-needed intelligence. So he decided to let her treat herself to whatever she wanted.
His wallet did not survive the decision. He watched in something close to awe as she put away massive portions in single bites, including an entire slice of cake. At least she enjoyed the food. She had better have done.
More importantly for Yashiro, he began getting the answers he needed. Yukina confirmed that she used to be a soldier, which explained the way she fought with daggers, and the way she talked. From that, Yashiro also worked out that she came from the shadow region in Hokkaido, where a great many dark lords had established their own city-states.
The situation there had got so bad that mercenaries began making a living out of keeping an eye on the dark lords and their minions. In addition to the mercenaries, a military organisation had come in to lead them in their defence.
Yukina could not remember the name of her unit. She could remember that they were all brothers and sisters to her, and that the unit itself was her home — the place where they ate and trained together. It went without saying that they also fought and patrolled together.
Hearing this, Yashiro was surprised to learn that the rumours about orphans being recruited into the mercenary ranks in Hokkaido were true, even if kids like that tended to be lifers. As he was wondering why the academy would recruit them, he mentioned that Yukina had called the monsters from that night Nephilim.
Back in Hokkaido, she said, the Nephilim were treated much like bears — creatures that never bothered human settlements. Usually, if push came to shove, it was the adults' duty to fight them off.
Until their camp was attacked by a whole horde of them.
None of the soldiers survived the horde that came in that night, which left a much weaker Yukina to watch their demise, and that of her friends, whom she had desperately tried to protect with her own life.
Seeing that he was opening up an old wound, Yashiro asked her to stop talking, and not to cry — even if she believed that her weakness and cowardice back then were the reason her closest friend had not survived. Seeing that she could not hold her tears in, he thought about what he could say to invigorate her spirit, and then decided not to say any of it, because Yukina had proved determined enough already, and it showed in the way she had fought alongside him.
So he agreed to make her stronger. And their first destination on that quest would be Hokkaido, since he had things to do there anyway, much to Yukina's delight — which made her even more excited to train, now that she had thrown a tantrum about it and won.
Shockingly enough, Aki and Sarah then arrived to see their friend sitting with Yashiro, which indicated that she had been followed by both of them the entire time.