Enigma of Sin

Only after about five minutes of Kayn walking around clucking and pretending that he was a chicken did Kinzie allow him to stop. Unfortunately, two adults and one child were currently laughing so hard they were almost crying. Even Lara was laughing at Kayn, though she didn't understand the situation, she just thought what he was doing was funny.

Kayn had to resist his desire to quickly reattach Kinzie's collar and make her do the same, but there were more important things to move on to. For one, Kayn really needed to leave in order to meet up with Charlotte before trying to get to D-rank before the next school semester started.

"Kinzie, would you like me to put yours on now or wait until we are both back at the academy in a little less than a week?"

"I'll wait if that's okay with you, I didn't bring any of my high neck shirts with me so I have nothing to cover it up with. I'm guessing we will have to wear them for a while before we can get a grasp on Grandpa's technique. Do you want me to remove yours until then as well?" Kinzie asked.

"No, I'll be fine with it on. Plus, I can train against it even if you aren't currently commanding me to do things." Kayn responded without a second thought because he was already working on trying to negate its control over him. The Villa gave him a massive hint on how to defeat a slave collar and it had to do with the soul. 

With a mixture of mana and a stronger soul, Kayn was positive he would be able to negate the effects of any and all slave collars in the future, even if they were made specifically to control high profile, powerful targets.

"Anyway, I'm well past my time off allotment, so I should get going. Thanks for everything Gramps. Next time teach me about enchanting and inscription, it seems like a pretty interesting and useful field." Kayn spoke as he started gathering up Lara's belongings that were scattered around, including all of the new toys Rowen had given her.

"Sure brat, hopefully you're better at it than this one." Rowen spoke as he pointed his thumb over to Kinzie. "Be safe and keep that precious little one safe, will you?"

Kayn smiled as he glanced between Lara and Rowen, "Of course, that's not even a worry you need to have." Rowen, seeing Kinzie's downcast face, grabbed Lara and the bag he placed everything in from Kayn and left the room so the two could have some privacy.

Kayn walked over to Kinzie and flicked her forehead gently before pulling her into a hug and kissing her where he just flicked. "Why the sad face?"

"We still have time left for break, what do you have to go do that you'll get in trouble otherwise?" Kinzie asked while pouting. She was enjoying the time she spent with Kayn during the last week and didn't want it to end so soon, especially since there was still break time left before they both had responsibilities to get back to.

"I have some work for Leader Erving to get done before the semester starts. Nothing too difficult, just time consuming is all." Kayn brushed it off and told her a half-truth. He didn't like being dishonest with her, but he couldn't just tell her he needed to go kill people. Kayn assumed she wouldn't be very happy if he told her about it.

She wouldn't be happy not because of him killing people, but because he was putting himself at risk. After her experience with the bandits and slave traders, she would probably support any action to destroy their organizations, but only as long as Kayn himself wasn't involved.

Kinzie noticed that Kayn seemed to be avoiding part of the topic, but she didn't want to abuse her authority over him, so she decided not to command him to tell her everything as he probably wouldn't like that very much. This whole thing was a trust exercise for them both, each had to know the limits of what they could and could not do.

Sighing, Kinzie gave in and planted her lips against Kayn's for several moments before stepping away from him. "I'll see you back at the academy then. I expect dinner together after the first day of classes, okay?"

Kayn chuckled as he answered, "Sure, sure. Whatever you want Kinz."

With everything taken care of, Kayn retrieved Lara from Rowen, said his goodbyes once more as he raced off toward the inner ring.

…

It was only midday when Kayn arrived back at the academy. He had two things he needed to do before resuming his assassin work.

First, he needed to turn in his lesson plans to Director Vix. He finished these while Rowen was making the slave collar currently sitting around his neck.

Lastly, he needed to go speak with Charlotte and update her about everything and his goals for these last few days before the semester started. He also wanted to pick her brain and see if she had any ideas about spatial spells or any books on the subject. Even a book detailing the rune beasts that could use them would be good.

Kayn stopped by his residence where he changed into different clothing, including a shirt with a turtle neck as some people would be able to recognize that the second choker around his neck wasn't just a choker. It was winter currently, so with the chilly air, having a turtle neck on wouldn't be seen as strange at all.

He placed Lara inside the Villa to play and went to drop off his lessons with Director Vix. Fortunately, she wasn't in the office, so he only had to put them in her drop box before leaving the academy to head towards his next stop.

When Kayn arrived at the building for the White Hand Society, he directly went up a few flights of stairs to arrive at Charlotte's private office. Shortly after he knocked on the door, it was opened to reveal the stunning beauty of the old phoenix. She gave Kayn a bright smile as she gestured for him to come inside.

Kayn entered, following Charlotte to the couch before sitting down. However, Charlotte didn't sit down but stared blatantly at his neck.

"Who did this to you? Just wait a moment and I'll remove it." Charlotte spoke as she reached Kayn's neck quicker than he could even keep up with as she was already examining the slave collar.

"Wait, wait, wait! I did this! It's on purpose, don't remove it please, it took a lot of work to make one that would work on me!" Kayn hurriedly blurted out.

"On purpose? Why? Are you insane? Who is your controller, or can anyone give you commands?" Charlotte pressed Kayn for answers as this was a serious situation, she couldn't have him running around as an assassin if any random nobody could give him commands.

"My partner is my controller, and it's specific to whoever has the beacon. No one knows it's her and the beacon to control me is safely stashed with me. She only has it during our practice sessions. We are both using a technique made by her grandfather in order to gain immunity to the influence and control slave collars impose if we were to ever get captured.

"With the missions I'm undertaking and given the nature of the people we are taking down, I felt that this would be of dire importance to me. Please understand." Kayn stated as he covered the collar up with his turtleneck.

Charlotte couldn't help but stare at Kayn incredulously. What an insane idea. She knew of people who were naturally gifted at resisting slave collars, but to be able to train yourself to be immune? With the ever-changing enchantments on the collars, such as thing shouldn't be possible, at least she had never heard of it before. "And how do you know that this technique works?" Charlotte asked.

"I've seen the man have a slave collar on and be unaffected with my own eyes. He even let me place one on him and activate it before he casually took it off himself. Also from our trials, I already have an immunity to the low-grade collars, we had to make an especially powerful one so that I could actually train the technique.

"I'll be honest, it has been less than half a day, and I can already feel my resistance growing passively. Once I practice with my partner, I expect I'll gain full immunity or at least extremely high resistance to any slave collar within a month or two." Kayn spoke confidently in order to try and ease Charlotte's worries.

"If you're that nervous, try giving me a command. I guarantee it won't work." Kayn's face and voice were both filled with confidence.

"Kayn shall attack Charlotte with his strongest spell." Charlotte spoke using names and specific instructions as sometimes that was the override a collar needed to force the wearer to do one's bidding.

However, even after a few minutes Kayn just sat there with a smile on his face. "See, no problems. You don't need to worry. Plus, I have the fail-safe in the case something goes wrong."

"Fine, just be careful Kayn..." Charlotte spoke with resignation. Clearly, she had given up trying to convince Kayn otherwise. "Now, you have a little over half a week before the semester starts, try to get at least three contracts for your rank done in that time. I do have some books you will be interested in as a reward should you succeed."

Hearing about a reward, Kayn knew that the books had to deal with the spatial element. This was exactly what he needed! Aside from teaching, he was planning on spending a significant amount of time in the academy's library combing through all of the books for anything he could find about space and its utilization.

Kayn could only sigh, 'This is going to be a really busy semester.'