"I have never heard of you. Are you supposed o be famous." Taku replied with innocence.

Maka was shocked again. How could he not know about Musen. Almost every kid has heard about him. Maka could not help bust cast a questioning gaze towards Taku. "Sometimes i wonder whether you were born in the Gutu empire or not."

Taku had a wry smile on his face when he heard this. He really was not a person from this place so the statement made him feel really awkward.

Maka just sighed. "Anyway, my offer still stands. Tell us how to get out of here or you'll suffer before you die."

Musen smiled. "Little girl i am not afraid of a little bit of pain. What you say does not scare me at all. At the end of the day i will die anyway."

"Oh really?"

Maka smiled and reached into her clothing. She took out a bottle of green medicine. Maka walked up to Musen and began pouring it on the spirit. "This is a medicine that specializes in healing souls. I will have you recover a bit of your power. After that i will give you to Taku and he'll refine you for a few days, and this cycle will continue until you tell me what i want to know."

Musen's face contorted. "You dare?"

Maka smiled. "I am taking it as if i am doing my duty as a citizen of the Gutu empire. G.o.d knows just how many people you've killed. Wouldn't you say that i am actually being kind, it is just torture for several days. I'm sure the great Musen would not be scared of such naive methods, right?"

Musen was almost afraid enough to talk, but he still grit his teeth and shut his mouth. No how bad the torture was he would still not tell them anything. The end product of any situation now was death. There were no benifits that he could reap so why bother helping them.

"There is going to come a time when you run out of that sh*t! I will endure till then."

As he finished his resent filled words, Taku commanded the smoke to drag Musen back into his consciousness. Musen did not say a word as he entered, but his face was filled with anger. Maka sighed in relief when Musen disappeared. Even though he was now just a powerless spirit in front of her, he was still a very feared man.

She knew that these type of old geezers had plenty of tricks up their sleeves. Regardless of how powerless they might seem, they could still cause a lot of damage.

Taku just casually threw Musen inside his consciousness and left him there after observing for minute. It had not taken long for the ent.i.ties inside him to attack Musen. He then opened his eyes to see Maka staring right at him.

"What?"

"Nothing." Maka replied. "The Martial Arts that you know are a bit low grade. I think i should teach you some now."

Taku's eyes lit up when he heard this. At the moment he only knew how to use one soul technique and that was it. He eagerly sat up and waited for Maka's instructions.

**

On the other side of the Gutu empire Ranga was sitting in his room with a solemn expression. At the moment he was really praying for Taku to come back as soon as possible. Most of his days were just spent in this very room staring at the door.

What ate him was that he had not even felt like leaving this now rundown team. It was not that he held any special feeling towards the group of people as a whole, but he knew that if he wanted to leave then he would have to leave Tadi too.

He had not even bothered to ask her whether she wanted to leave or not because he already knew the answer to it. He had been so depressed lately he could not even cultivate, well neither could the rest of the team.

They spent most of their days praying and hoping. Chiwenga had already left several weeks before in an attempt to search for Taku. Shumba could still barely sense Taku's whereabouts and this left everyone including the lion, a bit depressed. Without a leader the team was useless.

If Taku was actually dead then the four of them were free to do whatever they want. The rules of the Ivory Guard were strict though. Unless they had permission from the captain, no one could leave.

Ranga got out of bed and proceeded to go downstairs for some lunch. He reached the dining area and saw everyone else there.Tadi, Tino and Nyasha were all sitting in silence. Shumba was laying right beside the door with its eyes closed.

"You guys should talk a bit more." Ranga spoke as soon as he entered. "Look at all this negative energy. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d is not even dead yet, and yet here you all are sulking like he is."

The trio couldn't help but smile as soon as he walked in. Before they could even retort Ranga stared at Tadi. "And you! How dare you think of another man in my presence. That is just downright disrespectful. How am i supposed to face the world now. My woman is being stolen by a 14 year old missing boy. Tell me my dear wife, will a 14 year old do what i did to you last...-"

Before Ranga could even finish his sentence he was already half way across the room.

Bam!

His body slammed against the wall as cracks began to appear. He fell from the wall and immediately landed in the scorpion position. His legs twitched for second before he tried to pull himself up. Tino and Nyasha were pretty much grinning from ear to ear at the moment.

Ranga always came up with new and convenient ways to cheer them up, the only problem was that it resulted in a lot of beatings from Tadi. Not only did the two boys have deep respect for Ranga, but they also felt a tinge of fear when it came to women. Especially Tadi.

After spending a couple of months without missions and a.n.a.lyzing the relations.h.i.+p, they grew to realize that Ranga would at least have one black eye a day. If this was the price that one had to pay to be in love then they would rather not fall for anyone.

Their phobia for women got even worse when they began thinking about how Taku was also in love with a girl who could potentially give him a beating. Every time they thought of Maka's strength, the two could not help but say a little silent prayer for taku.

The atmosphere had slightly turned for the better, and it was at this moment that Shumba abruptly sat up. There was joy evident in it's eyes as it stared at the people that sat on the table.

Roar!

It let out a loud roar and then just broke down the door and sped off. The quartet were stunned for a second, but they immediately gathered their thoughts and sped off in Shumba's direction. They did not have time to ask each other any questions as they ran off. All they were thinking about was catching up to Shumba.

They reached the city gates and saw that shumba was just waiting there. It looked left, right and then forward. A slight frown appeared on its face as it looked around. Just as the quartet were about to lose hope again, Shumba moved and ran forward.

They followed it again and Ranga could not help but ask. "Do you think that he has gone crazy? This should not be normal behavior right?"

Tino shook his head. "If it had gone crazy then that would mean that Taku was dead, and believe me it would not think twice about attacking us when that happens."

Hearing this everyone's expression turned solemn, but their eyes also lit up. They knew that Shumba's current state signified hope. Hope that Taku was still alive. Shumba who was up ahead was concentration hard on trying to sense Taku.

The feeling was not as faint as before, the only problem was that he could tell that Taku was still far. The only thing that he thought about at the moment was to run towards Taku's direction.

Tino's expression turned stiff. "What if this takes several days. We are not exactly prepared for something like that."

"We'll just have to wing it then." Ranga replied. "We probably won't be traveling at night so we need to find some suitable beasts to hunt and cook later on. We are in a forest so firewood is not exactly an issue."

"We have a couple of hours until the sun sets." Tadi started. "Since Nyasha is the fastest out of all of us, then he should go hunt some beasts and then catch up with us later."

Just as everyone was about to nod their heads in agreement, they heard a furious roar coming from the front. When they looked towards Shumba they realized that he had run into a herd of demonic buffaloes. Shumba was at a slight disadvantage as he was facing over a thirty tier 2 beasts by himself.

The quartet did not idle around either and they all attacked with their various forms of Martial Arts. All of them had thrown fairly simple punches that could at least instantly kill these beasts. The first attack was rather fruitful as each attack killed at least two buffaloes each.

To their surprise, the next wave of buffaloes was actually made up of Rank 3 buffaloes. Tino immediately took out his spear and attacked. This time there was a faint red hue coming from his spear, this red hue ended up enveloping his body as he charged towards the oncoming herd.

He launched himself forward and just as his feet left the ground, his body began rotating at an incredible speed. The beasts seemed to not care what type of danger Tino posed, instead they just continued with their charge.

Bam!

Tino collided with the first buffalo and immediately tore a hole through it, when his body came out the other side of the buffalo, he had slowed down a bit, but there was still enough power in his strike to know the next beast down.

He was also knocked back a couple of steps and without attacking again he immediately retreated. Just as he retreated an extreme cold swept over the place as all the the bulls in front were frozen in place. Tadi was standing at the center of the ice and was effortlessly releasing more by the second.

Bam!

Since the buffaloes in front were frozen in place, the ones that were following closely behind collided with them as they got knocked back. Shumba and the rest saw this opportunity and leapt over the frozen buffaloes to attack those behind.

"Hahahahahahaha.…"

Ranga looked like a maniac as he swung his sword. With a each slash a life was taken. There was blood all over his body but he did not mind. Oh G.o.d! I missed this sh*t!