"What a pain..."<br/><br/>Auroch voiced a complaint to himself as he finally reached the destinati great sky temple and his birthplace. He had walked for a few weeks from a small village to the east and his legs had only now begun to complain. He had taken quite a bit of time finally deciding to come here...he did not like home. Home reminded him of too many things, such as the past he no could no longer enjoy. Hood over his head he approached the front gates to the city, but there were no guards there to greet him. In his past travels he had remembered guards always being present at the gates. The gates were also open, which definitely was not normal. Steeling himself, Auroch proceeded into the city of Belazir.<br/><br/>There were guards everywhere, escorting and telling citizens to return to their homes and stay inside. All the guards had their weapons ready. Something was definitely wrong. He extended his magic senses to try to find the source of the commotion and his feelings sensed something foul at the Great Sky Temple. Moving with purpose he pushed his way through the shifting crowd, finding the Sky Temple would not be that hard, it was literally a straight shot from the front gate. You could see it from anywhere in the city also. He marveled at the architecture as he did every single time he approached it, an innumerable amount of steps and stone cut into a shape that befitted the things it stood for. This time however, there was a group of guards blocking the way up to the temple. They had pikes in hand and their eyes fell on him the moment he began to approach the steps. They steeled themselves and the one in the center of his vision held his hand out when he had walked within a sword's distance of him.<br/><br/>"Halt...so sorry sir but something has happened in the temple and we cannot allow anyone in." the guard said, his voice ringing with authority, but shaking nonetheless.<br/><br/>"What has happened?" Auroch asked, not caring what reason he would give, he was going to get into that temple and find out what was going on.<br/><br/>"Someone has murdered almost all the guards stationed at the temple, they were some of Belazir's best, shinobi are already on the scene and tending to wounded.<br/><br/>"You are saying you do not know who did this?" Auroch said, surprised that someone could get into the Belazir temple and kill all of those guards without being seen.<br/><br/>"The shinobi have tracking teams on the job, they will find the culprit soon enough."<br/><br/>"Let me in, I believe I can help." Auroch asked, though it was more like he was demanding entrance and not asking for it.<br/><br/>"We have everything under control sir." the guard responded.<br/><br/>"Really? Then how come you are shaking in your boots? I understand why you would be afraid all the people in that temple were your betters and now they are dead as you say. For all you know the killer is actually in the city right now and escaping. Did you know that the gate is wide open and there is no guards posted there?" Auroch said cooly, stating each fact as it was. He could see the guard considering what he said and he could see he saw the flaw in their actions thus far. He could understand why this was even guards would panic if most of the higher ups and superiors were killed in a single day. He could see this guard's rank, out of all of them he was the highest rank and it did not comfort him that he was not a commander or captain for that matter.<br/><br/>"I am a Paladin...I can not only help with protecting the wounded but I can help heal them as well. What have you got to lose by letting me through?"<br/><br/>The guard looked at him and nodded, gulping and pointing at three guards. "You three, to the gate posthaste I want it closed and under close watch make sure no one so much as looks at it the wrong way." his subordinates nodded and ran off towards the gate. He then looked back at Auroch, "Go on, you can proceed, just be careful for all we know the killer is still up there waiting to make his move."<br/><br/>Auroch stepped past the guard and walked up the steps, hearing more commotion upstairs, orders were being barked and he heard a few names he was familiar with, Daido, he was a master ninja. If he was on the scene it was definitely serious. He cleared the final step and looked upon a lot of blood and a lot of bodies. A Moogle (a rather large one), a Viera and a couple ninjas caught his eye though they seemed to be in the middle of a conversation. Otherwise he could see ninjas moving too and fro along the top of the temple and around the perimeter searching for wounded and signs of a killer. He could sense something in the Moogle and Viera, but could also feel something else around, something sinister. There was a lot of magic in the air...a lot of power. He could feel Anima getting excited inside of his seal bracelet,<br/>he loved it when there was a lot of power in the air. He decided not to attract any attention and avoided the group inside, walking around the outer perimeter and searching for the dark aura he sensed.