The Hydra Sin

Captain?!

Obviously, the Princess is not good with directions. She should have gotten to where she was going in a day, but she got horribly lost within the first three hours, so I've been following her around for two days now... Yeah, I probably should have helped her, but I just kept hoping that she would figure it out on her own, oh well.

Finally, she started going in the right direction, and as she approached the hill east of the town, I noticed that there was a pub on top of the hill that I would swear hadn't been there a week ago. I could see the Princess struggling again, but she staggered into the pub before I needed to help out. I hovered near the window and what I saw made me gasp.

"Captain!" There he was; Meliodas, the dragon's sin of wrath and captain of the Eight Deadly Sins. I watched with bated breath as he approached the Princess and asked her what she was doing. Memories flooded my head of our time together, and how we had parted, "What you have done is unforgivable, Janis!" The princess fell over, and the Captain rushed over to her to help now that her helmet had fallen off and revealed her identity.

I glided over to the trees by the pub and reformed; I sat in the branches and closed my eyes, still absorbed in the past. What I would give to go back and change what had been done, how I wished that I could have the chance to explain myself to the Captain. As I continued pondering I drifted off, tired out by my days spent in my mist form.

***

When I woke up, I heard soldiers gossiping as they banged on the door to the pub, I leaned forward to catch what they were saying. I looked close and recognized one of the soldiers, it was Alioni, Gareth's older brother; he was telling the older soldiers about his time seeing the "handiwork" of the Seven Deadly Sins. I sighed quietly, I really needed to stop expecting people to know about me, the eighth sin. The door opened and Meliodas stepped out putting on his famous innocent act, if I hadn't wanted to avoid detection, I would have snorted. If Captain was innocent, I would eat my sword.

I did however choke when a pig walked out wearing parts of Elizabeth's armor and yelling at the soldiers. 'Where the heck did you find him, Meliodas?' I was so entranced by the Captain of the order of Scraps Disposal, that I nearly missed Elizabeth running out the back door.

"Hey, it's a girl! I bet that's the knight, after her! I knew that Meliodas would take care of it, so I didn't worry too much, but I followed behind cautiously, just in case. I pulled out Durendal once again, and whispered, "Mist body" I saw Captain look my way briefly, but I just kept on going, knowing that I disappeared before he would have been able to see me.

I watched, impressed as the pig (whose name I quickly learned was Hawk) took out the entire squad of soldiers. We continued racing through the forest until we reached the edge of a cliff, where Meliodas pulled Elizabeth out of the way, but Alioni wasn't as fortunate and got pushed off the edge by Hawk. If I could have, I would've screamed as I raced on as fast as I could in my mist and flew over the edge of the cliff, catching Alioni and gently lowered him to the ground.

This caused my mist body to dissipate, and I collapsed, having used a lot of energy over the past couple of days, "Who are you?" Alioni looks at me franticly, obviously starting to feel the effects of shock, "Where did you come from, and how did you just appear like that? For that matter, how am I not dead, and-"

"Alioni, calm down. Gareth would have been sad if you would have died right before you came home for a week on leave." He looks at me in shock, his eyes spark with fear and surprise.

"Ho-how do you know Gareth?" He asks weakly and I laugh.

"Don't worry about it Alioni, Gareth and I are good friends! When you see him, tell him that Miss Jane says goodbye, and that I'll miss him." I smile up at him sadly and then stand up; when I look up "Crap" The captain is heading towards us.

"Wait, Miss Jane, is that a dragon on that boy's arm? Miss Jane?" He looked around in confusion because as soon as I saw Meliodas, I evaporated, literally. I sat in the trees and watched as Meliodas grabbed Alioni, Elizabeth and Hawk and jumped back to the top of the cliff. I took deep breaths as I prepared to go back into my mist body and then jumped out of the tree, transforming as I fell.

I got to the top of the cliff just in time to see an overweight knight trying to kill the group, Elizabeth is protected by Meliodas, so I push the other target, Hawk, down as I deflect a portion of the blow with Durendal.

Elizabeth pushes Meliodas off and gets up, "If I go with him, then he will have no reason to hurt you anymore. I can't let anyone else get hurt because of me." She starts to walk towards the old man, who prepares to swing at her again.

"ELIZABETH!" Meliodas pushes her out of the way just in time and stands up, dusting himself off. "You came all this way though Elizabeth, and it's not like you're a failure, after all, you found me!" He smiles at her brightly, "It's nice to meet you Elizabeth, the names Meliodas!" Recognition dawns on her face and he walks up to the old knight.

"Impossible, you look just the same as you did ten years ago!" He takes a swing at Meliodas, who simply counters it, "But that tattoo and this undeniable power! Conclusion!" He yells this out just in time to be blown apart by his own power; I sigh and shake my head at his idiocy.

Meliodas glares at the other soldiers and they run off screaming. "Well Elizabeth, what do you think? Should we go find the other six sins?" He looked happy and she blinked at him in confusion.

"But Sir Meliodas, aren't there seven other sins?" She looked at him innocently, and he glared at the ground.

"We don't talk about the Eighth sin, she committed an unforgivable sin."

"Wait, what did she do? What is her name?"

"Her name was Janis, the Hydra's sin of deception, and she lived up to her sin, she snuck behind all of our backs and killed The Great Holy Knight, Zaratras."

Elizabeth's face paled, "Did you say Janis?" She whispered, Meliodas looked at her and frowned.

"Yeah, why, did you know her?"

"I think I met her while traveling, she even gave me a message to give to you if I ever found you!"

Meliodas looked at her in shock, "What was the message, Elizabeth?"

"That she is truly sorry, and that what happened ten years ago wasn't what it looked like. She seemed very nice to me, and even helped me out."

"What? I don't know how anyone could mistake what we saw." Meliodas spat, "I just wish we could talk, because she would be a useful ally in freeing your family and defeating the holy knights, but I don't know if we can trust her."

"Why Sir Meliodas?" Elizabeth was just confused at this point, but her eyes shined with curiosity.

"She was the kingdom's main assassin for a long time, she had an interesting skill set that allowed her to excel at what she did, and the King is the one who asked me to put her on my team. I respected her, but you could always tell that she was hiding something. We never really warmed up to each other in our time serving together, though I never thought she would murder someone she was so close to."

"She was close to the Great Holy Knight?"

"That's just wrong. Why would she do something like that?" This came from Hawk, who had been surprisingly quiet up until now.

"Yeah, he treated her like his daughter, and she loved him like a father; from what I understood, she was also extremely close to his son, Gilthunder as well. I know that something doesn't add up with his death, but either way, now is not the time to be thinking about that. We have to get moving to the next place to see if we can get info on where some of the other sins are!"

Elizabeth nodded and the two of them began walking back, with Hawk following along making comments on everything he had heard. I walked out of my hiding place and sat down. 'So, he does still hate me.' I thought sadly, 'I wish there was some way to explain to him what happened. I'm not sure if he'd listen right now.'

I stood back up and followed behind them, my new goal was going to be to protect the people I cared about, even if they wouldn't accept my help. I would be there for them, and all I could do was hope that when they did find out where I was, that they would be able to understand everything from the past; I nodded to myself and held my head high, this was to be my new mission!