The Leviathan

Chapter Eight

Ten.

The salty sensation lingered in Maeve's mouth, no matter how many times she spat her sweat out. With every step she took forward, even more sweat trickled past her eyes, her nose, into her mouth. It stung like crazy, but at least it gave her something to take her mind of.

Eleven.

Her grip tightened around the bar. It was hard enough balancing that much weight on her back with one arm, but the more strength she exerted, the clearer her thoughts were.

One last rep. Maeve sucked in a deep breath, taking another lunge forward. Her hamstrings burned, crying out for the sweet release that would come, but Maeve relished the feeling, sitting in the position for a few seconds, before fighting her way back up, to an upright position.

She dropped the bar, eighty kilograms of steel slamming against the ground with a resounding boom. She glanced in the mirror, briefly flexing her quads. She wasn't huge by any means, but every single way she turned, the striations in her quads and hamstrings rippled with a dangerous intensity. Her core was ripped to the bone, the top she wore revealing the various lines outlining her abdominal muscles.

Maeve wiped her face down with a towel. Already the hard reality was flooding back into her mind, the rush from working with her maximal strength wearing off. At least the gym was empty, and by extension, the showers. The cold water sensation was second to none, she thought, stepping under the shower.

She let the water run over her body, her thoughts far elsewhere. There was a traitor within the Huntsmen ranks, that much was clear. But to hunt down every single one seemed far too inefficient. There wasn't time for that. Myra's main focus would be on finding the girl - everything else was secondary.

But in Maeve's eyes, she needed to rip out the roots from the tree entirely. Even when Myra eventually found the girl, they'd still have to deal with the possibility that among them, someone that wished to destroy Onaedia from inside out was still a free person.

She closed her eyes, letting the water run over her fingers. She liked watching the droplets fall, sliding off her skin so peacefully. There was a certain calm that came with these quiet moments in the shower. 

---

Maeve repeated her routine for the next few days. Have breakfast, hit the gym, then sit by Sage's beside for the remainder of the day, until the nurse had to come and physically drag her out. 

Even then, Maeve would find herself lingering downstairs, not quite sure what to do with herself.

She wasn't sure where to start. She was no Sage, and certainly no Myra. Her skill came in fighting, not in investigating. In the early days, she and Myra had been a dynamic duo, unstoppable to anyone they came across. Maeve's raw power in combat, and Myra's foresight and intelligence made for an incredibly deadly combination.

She let out an obnoxiously loud sigh, one that would've earned her a glare were Sage to be awake. Maeve glanced at him.

"I don't know what to do." She muttered to herself. "Usually someone marks the target, and I'll go after them, no questions asked. But I don't even know who's the target. All I've got is a 

sneaking suspicion and nothing else to go off of it."

"Even the sneaking suspicion is probably baseless accusations." Maeve remarked to herself. It was probably true. While Alphonse didn't like her, he'd never showed any signs of even wanting to betray the crown. And Vergil was an extremely reasonable person when need be, from the few times she'd heard him speak.