It's been a while for one of these. I have an odd habit of doing one rough a year. Looking at the last one, it's been more than that. But I did two in a month so that's got me covered.

I usually always have a reason for these, rarely are they just some update of life is life. Whether I feel like thinking about heady subjects or just getting lost in words, there's a reason. This feels a little more like its going to be update-ish. A lot of stuff has happened and with nothing to do before FFXV and no time to talk after, it was a good time.

So where I want to begin? I can't say the beginning, since that goes back further than I want. I'll jump back there later down the write up. So strap in for another long and meandering walk through my mind. The immediate subject I want to address is my general absence from all things that you may know me to be on. It started about two months ago, but it's been starting since the summer back in July. About the only thing I try to keep up on here is the news, I own the news like or hate it, so I feel obligated to keep posting it. I kept up for while on it during everything happening, but it became unsustainable after a while. And then I pretty much retreated completely.

The reason(s) for that are the bulk of what this is about. The last five months has been probably one of the most stressful, busy and generally all around packed with things my life has ever been. While I never really hit my high school/middle school ulcer inducing levels of stress. I haven't really been this stressed in a long time for this consistently.

The core reason of it, there are indeed multiple sources, but the core reason was the fact that I got a new job in the company I'm working at as an artist working on the current game. For those that know me, I've been wanting an artist job for a long time, so it was a goal finally realized. But in a matter of weeks, it went from 40 hours to just get the work done. So I shot up to 70-80 hours instantly. There were nights that I was not getting home until midnight. So having any free time for anything was pretty much non-existent.

My former free time was heavily consumed. I love the work, love doing it and wanted to keep doing it. So I easily lost track of time and got very absorbed into things. So everything else ended up suffering for it. The first hit was here for any news posting. You probably noticed after E3 my news posting became fewer and fewer until it completely disappeared. So physical time in the day was gone.

Fun stuff. However, the job is a temp position. My old job is full time, so thankfully I kept all of my benefits and everything. So after it is over I just move back. But stress comes in where I'm trying everything I can to prove myself in the hopes that it becomes a permanent and not temp position. So its stressing about every detail, did I say the right things, am I being too unfamiliar about things I shouldn't be. Is my work poor, am I too slow? Lots of stuff, since I want it to become something more, stress mounts quite easily.

Thankfully so far for all of my worrying, they like my work and are really happy with it. And they want me to stay, though it is more complicated than that since it is about money/staffing/team size, etc. So even if they want me, it may still not be in the cards. So that is a little sad to think about. Out of it though I get my first industry professional work for my portfolio. Meaning even if it doesn't go anywhere, I can start using it to search elsewhere.

And now on to the other time sink I have, I'm making my own game. Game development itself is bad enough with larger teams, trying to make my own game and not a small one is a massive time investment. A large part of the first half of this year and later was spent on that. So any spare free time is dumped onto that. And since I work for a game company, I have to think about it and if it is a competing product. So I had presentations and meetings to work that out and worry over how any of that would go. Thankfully, it went well and we're free and clear to make it.

After a cool down, back to the heavier emotionally taxing stuff. Something that's been happening as a result of my job is that I don't get to spent time in my normal routine. This meant not hanging out with people I normally do. So I ended up getting extremely lonely feeling in the last few months and worrying about this being my new life. Where I'm sacrifice heavy amounts of personal time for extended periods of time for work. And making relationships suffer for it. Finding that work/life balance is important, but it is sometimes not always possible. Sometimes work just has to get done and its not short.

The place it hit the worst was in FFXIV, since it is a community and I have a bunch of people there I know and do things together with. But ever since I've been left out of a lot of things because I've been too busy. And now it is where I don't even get asked, they just assume I'm too busy. So I've been pondering quitting because playing a multiplayer game alone is just not fun. The reason I play would be gone. I haven't yet, still continuously subbed for 3+ years now, but I think about it more and more with each day. I've been talking about it to them, so I'm hoping it improves. It'll be a wait and see approach for now. And playing it by ear day by day.

And to get to the heaviest part now, which I've hesitated mentioning. But its end up coming out one way or another, so saying nothing will probably just make it more awkward later on. But I've started dating someone, first time and long distance and online, so its already off to a great start. The worries, stress, baggage are all very, very real and quite trying.

It's all very complicated and I have a lot of incomplete unresolved feelings. Since I have reservations about doing anything like this so blind as to not even know the other person physically. There is something really romantic about only knowing someone by their personality and the core of who they with the physical getting in the way. But words can lie just like eyes. Hence, it becomes complicated and stressful. Everyday is second guessing myself and reassuring myself. Trying to reconcile everything about it and my reservations. Its me being bold and just jumping in and now panicking because the water is deeper than I thought it was.

They love me for who I am and were very persistent despite all of my reservations about it. So I feel more hopeful than in despair. But that doesn't shake all of those lingering doubts that poke the back of your mind. They continue to reassure me and comfort me through it all. So it feels positive and encouraging. The real test I think will be eventually meeting face to face if we survive that long.

After all of that, comes the worst part that I'm going to keep intentionally and painfully vague. Simply put its not something I'm ready to discuss yet. But put shortly, I wrote a novel last year. One that was a very personal one that made me far more self-reflective than I expected to it. Some people write poems to work out their feelings and problems. I write 200 page novels, to each their own. I'm still the same crazy as well, that'll never change. I don't do things small or simple. For good or ill anyway. But it left me facing something very major in my life and I'm working through how I want to deal with that. And that makes for the big stress of them all.

So all in all, its been a stressful 5 months and year depending on where you look at it. Stress is a weird thing, because for me I think I end up acknowledging and managing it differently. Like I say work was stressful, but in reality I didn't feel it at all. I was having fun and cruising along. But I look and think about it, oh I was stressing about everything. But at the same time I was loving everything and having blast. So it was good stress. In a way anyway. It can be motivating and push along. But it can also be nasty and bad and just churn everything up really badly. Which was what a lot of the other sorts were. It all comes in different degrees. And the worst is the sort that just makes you ill and sick and you can't really function properly. You don't want to do anything. Which is different than what I used to get as a kid, it'd be the pit of your stomach almost ulcer like. While more recently its just sort of like I'm sick rather than ulcer inducing. Neither is preferred for the other.

I always imagined that I would have a very stressful life since I just stressed easily about things. But college hit and I became really chill about things. Everything just came in strides and I had almost no stresses. Sure I'd worry about having time to get things done or whatever, but it was just a speed bump rather than a sink hole. So for a long time even at work I've managed to keep in a pretty low stress environment, which seems crazy to think being in the game industry where everything is high stress. But I just never really let it get to me. Even now, with the work I'm doing its not eating away at me. But I know the stress is there. I just have to be more self aware. And maybe certain types just don't affect me anymore. Its really hard to say. Its a complicated thing. Being relaxed is the best because its better on your body, but having some is still good to keep things moving. And I'm hoping to start easing up on things as I adapt to all of the changes happening.

As for things here. I'm getting back into a rhythm with my work and personal life. And a lot of that is getting back to my personal obligations. While FFXV is going on I won't be doing anything for news. But my goal is to get back to it for Christmas vacation and start getting more present again. My unintended absence will hopeful come to an end soon.

Enjoy Final Fantasy XV everyone, I will be.

~~Andromeda the Kitty~~

This is a little early, huh? I'm largely prompted by some recent work that I'm doing. Said work was prompted by something else. Something akin to the domino affect would be accurate, I guess. I would have put these somewhere else, but well the proper locations no longer exist sadly.

So what is it that I'm talking about? Logos! Yes, logos! Titles! That such thing. In my unending quest to do the wrong creative thing, I made some title logos or what have you for some of my stories. The plan is actually to make one for all of my stories. The reasons will be incoming. For now though, I'll focus on the work and give an explanation further down. Currently, for anyone following Shift should know that I made a title logo for that a while back. But none of my other stories have one and well given my heavy focus and desire to push Shift forward into other mediums, it's not that surprising.

However, changing and evolving times have caused me to actually start doing this for all of my stories. Currently, I'm sitting on a likely finished logo for The Inner Man and a near completed version for AESIR. I'm still trying to decide if there is anymore that I want to do with the AESIR one. There is more, but I haven't had success in getting what I want the way I want it.

I've also been working on Flesh is for Gods, which is rather interesting since I made one for it a long time ago. But I'm actually scrapping that for one that I feel is a little more in tone with what I want. It has been harder to achieve that results that I want with it, but I'm going to keep working on it until I get it.

Below are the results of my work so far.

Both are unique type-faces that I created specifically for this. They probably are similar or have something out there that is like these. But I created them both by hand. So they are not a font that I found on the internet. I just knew what I wanted and created them.

For anyone that has read The Inner Man, it should all make sense what I have going on in the logo. It is a fascinating exercise though. I went through it for months or years on Shift. The effort of trying to distill the whole feeling, theme and concept of the story into the logo. I feel that this is succeeds very well with what I want. It has everything, except for maybe the dark side the story has going on throughout. But that can be a surprise. It is more comedy than dark.

And then there is AESIR. This is my mecha series. For those old enough on the forums to remember, AESIR was a former RP I ran as an original Gundam story. When it became AESIR I naturally had to drop all of the Gundam trappings. However, I don't ignore the inspiration that drove it. So I created a type-face that was inspired and felt a little familiar to that of the Gundam series. I wanted it to have a bit more of a hard and metal like feel for the touch that I went. The part I'm working on is if I want to add shine to it to finish off the metal appearance.

As for the reason I'm doing this. I've sat on this for a while, but recently I was approached to join an online light novel site. It is originally a Japanese site that is branching out into English speakers and recruits authors for their site. Part of their unique offering is that popular stories will be translated into Japanese. So I decided to join to pursue that chance.

Unlike the other locations that I post my stories on, they use the story cover for a lot of the public facing. So realized that I'm probably going to need to create covers for any story I plan to put up there. For now, my plan is to just place the logos up for the cover. I only want to use original or at the very least approved artwork and I don't have the time at the moment to do that with all of my stories. So the best step that should tease and draw interest is making interesting logos that hint to what the story is going to be about.

So let me know what your thoughts are of what I've created.

I don't do these as often as I might wish, though I would really wonder if I really would have much interesting to say if I did it as often as I wanted. However, Christmas vacation ends for me after two weeks and so I sort of felt like putting things down. Like always, I start off with just thinking about events and then I get to a subject of discussion. And I always think I don't have anything to discuss, but I always end up with something. And I figure another one out for this one.

So anyway, status update. In the last two weeks, I made significant progress on my writing. Though due to other circumstances I didn't get everything done I did nearly everything I wanted. And I ponder had I not had the distraction how much I could have gotten done with all that time freed up. It'll be a question without an answer. But I'm fine with it, I'm pleased with my work and that is good enough.

So what did I do? I did the math, I wrote roughly 115 pages at about 70,000 words. This was spread across a lot of different things. A small chunk of that, but still a good chunk was the 6 game reviews that I wrote. They averaged around 4 pages give or take with only the Ar nosurge review being really long and throwing the curve off. So it's like 25 pages just on reviews. What's the rest?

Depending on how much you actually take interest in my writing, you'll note that what I wrote and the numbers here won't add up. I am including naturally the three chapters of Shift I wrote, the episode six of AESIR and chapter 10 from Twin Moon, but only half of it, since I wrote the other half of chapter 10 months ago. Shift chapters average 5, AESIR was 21 and Twin Moon 15, but only counted as 8. Which leaves a heavy chunk unaccounted for.

Well one of my main goals that I had for writing was to finish something that I got started this year. It was an odd pet project. And it is finished, though I did go through quite a lot of different emotions and thoughts while I wrote it. It's a complicated piece that is both direct and not direct. I wrote it with the intent that I wasn't going to spell everything out and that it was going to have some left up to the reader to figure out. It is still fairly straight forward, but the longer I wrote on it the different thoughts that I had while writing it.

Depending on how interested you are in something completely new that I wrote, which I don't know how many readers I actually hold around here, you probably have one big question followed by a lot of other questions. The first question you have is "If you wrote something new why haven't you posted on TFF? You post everything you write here." That's a largely accurate statement, I have withheld a couple of other things, but that's neither here nor there.

To answer the first question, why I haven't posted it. It's not because it is too long and I haven't finished editing it. All the stuff I post here are rough drafts, not the completed works anyway. So it's not that, if I wanted to post it I would have. Probably wouldn't have finished Dragon Age tonight, but I would have posted it. Anyway, the main reason that I haven't posted it is because I'm a little unsure about what I've written. While I find it a compelling if not dark story, it is both very different and similar to other work I've done. Different in that it is a pretty bleak story overall. So tonally it is very, but not really enough to make me not want to post it. Not really sure if I should post it.

I am I haven't decided a title for it. It is still called by my placeholder self-descriptive name. I'm also not sure if I want the last chapter or not. The last chapter is what really can be a massive mood killer in a way. It is the darkest of the chapters as intended when I was planning. Though it is going to be how the reader interprets it if they feel that it is a good or bad ending, I'm more of the bittersweet side myself. However if I dropped off the last chapter things would seem good, but also be even more bleak and surprisingly I feel a worse ending when you think about it. It is actually the bad ending I would saying, in the visual novel terms. It seems like a good ending if you're only looking at the surface. But once you start thinking about the reality, it is actually really grim.

So yeah, it's a very weird and interesting piece that I wrote. It sort of got me pushing to write my other novel. But besides that, it oddly just comes down to me being uncertain if people will actually want to read this story. I don't necessarily think it would scare people away, possibly offend, but it just may not be something of interest to people. So I've been thinking of just keeping it to myself even though I spent a good chunk of my vacation writing. So I figured I'd leave it up to those that read my blog and they can answer if they want to read this. What follows will be a summary of the story.

The working title, in that is not even a title, but self-descriptive is Dark Gender Bender. I did say that it was bleak, right? ^^ Yeah, when I set out to write this story I had a single idea in mind. How much are you willing to suffer for a world exactly the way you want it? And that is at the heart of it. It is a very dark story, though it starts out looking fairly normally. The brief summary, is that a boy that enjoy crossdressing and believes that he was meant to be a girl is granted his deepest wish, a world in which he was born a girl. Given that wish, everything seems perfect, but every wish has a price and he must live with the price he paid.

The interesting thing about the story, is that I set it up to look like every other gender bender story out there. The only major twist is that unlike any of the other stories, where is an unwanted transformation this one is desired. Because it is wanted, it makes you wonder where is there a story if he gets what he wants. And that is the price, the story is about the price and the price gets dark. And that is where things get surprisingly interesting. I wasn't thinking about it at the time, but as I wrote it and was thinking about it while I was sleeping on what I wrote, I realized something. I had written a deconstruction without really intending it.

Because I intended to write it with the idea that it was going to be a normal gender bender and everything seems good and right, then twist it goes dark. I didn't really think too hard about all of the choices I had made. And as I wrote what needed to be written, I realized I was doing a deconstruction. All of the gender benders out there that I read, will usually be a comedy. They make light of both the change and the impact over all on the character. While they'll have their moments of drama or angst, they typically end up accepting that they were really meant to be a girl. Look at the rules of gender benders on tvtropes.

Commonly, the boy now girl, gets an amazing body, usually more popular, well liked and over all loved than their previous boy version. All of this is usually done in comedy or for drama sake for them to see they are better off as they are now. I take all of those expectations and then placed them in more realistic coloring. Popular, good looks, love it's all there, but it is twisted. A piece of the price as it were. Popularity isn't always what it is cracked up to be. And being a girl isn't always the best thing in the world, as any woman as likely back up they go through a mountain of things and I'm not just talking physical, but social, harassment, prejudice, discrimination all of the things that have to be dealt with on a day to day basis. Books make it seem great, but they're sort of forgetting a lot of the reality of things. While all of those topics are more than I have time to explore in 6 chapters. I do explore what I can and try to look at the reality of what it would mean to be a highly popular and basically a supermodel like appearance in a high school setting. Not well as you likely already figured out. Any other story would make that an ecchi comedy, but mine is a dark, exploration of what comes with it.

So it's interesting. I find it a rather compelling thing personally at least. It is something different. I didn't plan on a deconstruction, but that is really what it turned into. It deconstructs the magical gender bender transformation. Yes, it is a Japanese oriented like rest of the things that I write. That hasn't changed. In this case it actually more sense to do it that way.

Let me know if this is something that you're interested in reading and I'll work on getting it edited. Like my short stories, it is actually first person, not third. It is very different, so maybe that'll be the reason people will want to read it.

Anyway, moving on from that brings me to some thing related. The reason I wrote the story was because I had a thought one night. If you wanted a massive wish granted it can't just be done for free. Realistically it probably just not going to work that way. You're going to have to pay something in return for it. Would you take the wish knowing what you'd have to give up something equally as important for it? We all have wishes, impossible things we want and that was where my thought came from. Wishes aren't free.

But depending on how well you know my history, the subject matter of gender bender is actually something rather important to me. A number of the stores I have written actually touch on the subject in one way or another. It's a bit of a case of putting something personal or something of yourself in what you write. It happens with quite a lot of writers. You work from something familiar. The funny thing is that when I first did in my first story, I thought I was being original. You can chalk that up to be gender bender being a largely unexplored subject in the general media of the Western world. Japan however it's an entire sub-genre with more literature than you can count about it. That was rather surprising when I discovered that, but since I found it rather fascinating it was an exciting world to explore. From an entertainment side, I do enjoy it because I find the comedy out if it to be very entertaining even if it is often predictable.

But you can find that The Inner Man and Twin Moon it is pretty much the central plot. At least one of my RPs here had it, which was based loosely off a fantasy novel I'm working on, written as that first time, a short story and now this one. I also have a contemporary story I'm planning on writing that actually is an exploration of gender identity in the age of the internet, something that is very important to me, and then another lighter comedy that is more played straight. I write about it a lot.

Those that known my full history on TFF will be somewhat aware of my stance on things. Back when I first join TFF, I was largely new to the internet community. I wasn't a stranger to the internet, just interacting with the anonymous others on here. So I really wasn't prepared for what I found and discovered. I approached things the way I would in real life. Which is why I'm polite and professional around here, because I'm an Admin so I need to be professional. Though I know how to joke around, but that's because I'm comfort with the place more than anything. But back then there was a lot of confusion about my real self, something that I really didn't understand fully. It was the internet, why were people worried about who I was behind the computer? Initially, I was honest in my answers.

However, a certain incident caused me to change my approach. Said incident is thanks to an innocent mistake that Shadow made. For anyone today, one of the larger ambiguities about me is my gender. You can thank Shadow for that. Before him, I was very honest about it. But he believed someone else and not me when I honesty answered. So for the fun of it, since I couldn't convince him otherwise, I went with it. And so for a couple weeks, maybe longer, it apparently before several member's goal to figure out which gender I actually was. ^^; So then I saw some fun to be had. If they were going to make this into a game, I might as well play it like a game. So I stopped being honest and went coy with my answers.

Eventually, Shadow did realize the mistake, how he found out was pretty entertaining when I think about it now. At the time, well I don't know. But thanks to all of that, I started playing around with my answers. However, everyone had different thoughts and reasons. My avatar, my name, the way I typed/spoke, whatever, it all gave people different notions. Despite the internet being anonymous, it seems that people still need to know if they're talking to a man or woman behind the screen. It is rather interesting. People need a gender to be able to identify someone. But by the time I reached that point, I stopped caring. Some believed me a man and others believed me a woman. And I was asked or had people correcting others a decent amount. So I just stopped and took up the gender neutral stance. It's the internet, my gender identity has no importance on what my words are saying. I'm just another person.

That's the founding start of my interest. Even today, I still keep a neutral stance on things. People identify me how they wish and I just let them. Naturally, plenty of arguments can be made for this being a bad idea and how gender identification is important and necessary. But it's really just another prejudice I think to judge people by. Words are words, if you believe or disbelieve them, it shouldn't come down to what you think of the person behind them. The internet can be a dangerous place, but it can be a very interesting place too where the purest idea of the individual can be seen without any of the very easy prejudices that come from just seeing an individual in person. It's quite a fascinating sort of thing that happens.

Some people do know the truth and when I reveal the truth, it is always interesting how people react. But no I still don't plan to stick behind a gender on the internet. If you want to know me, gender shouldn't be getting in your way.

Though that's not to say it doesn't come with it's problems. The biggest is definitely when people make assumptions on my identity and develop feelings for that assumption regardless of whether it is true or not. It makes MMOs especially complicated, but that is completely different story. And one I've likely told enough times already. Since I do stick to the neutral stance it does make things rather complicated. In romantic involvements, gender is very important and I understand that. And that would be where I would be honest, but I'd have to find someone that I actually returned the feelings that I have for me first. I haven't found that someone yet. But yes, it gets me into more trouble than I expected at the time. Hasn't changed my stance. Sort or works back to that notion of wishes and prices, huh? Yeah, that wasn't intended.

But thanks to my experiences on TFF they have generated three different stories that I wrote. The worst period that I was in was when I wrote and posted my first story on TFF. In the way that some people write poetry to work thing emotions or put their feelings down, which I've actually done as well. That was a really bad case of romantic matters that made those poems. But the stories, I've only wrote two of the three, that contemporary novel is planned to be my third, though it is second in creation. They have all helped me work through matters. The first one the most. It helped me actually identify something that I didn't actually understand about myself until I started writing it. It was a very strange thing. But writing actually let me more objectively look at myself in a way that I never could. It was odd, but really helpful. It's rather sad story as is probably expected to need to be working through something. But it is what you get. It's another one of those depressing sort of stories. Wow, I have a bad habit of making depressing stories when they're coming from myself. ^^;

The funny thing is that I've really gotten off planned topic. It is the reason that I don't write these very often. I end up taking way to long on things. @.@ But, the original planned point of all of this after I got on that distraction was to talk about my writing. The biggest point is that I went to college to be an artist, 3D, but yeah artist. And now I'm writing. Well I've actually always written, since 5th grade. Lately, I've come more to accept that I'm someone that likes creating things in what way I can. I like making stories and worlds. I like populating them with characters, ideas, plots and everything else. And one way to do that is to write. Another is to make 3D models or draw. I do all of it, though not in equal portions.

I spent all of this vacation writing or playing games, pretty good balance of both actually. None of it was spent on my other pursuits. I knew that going into it. I planned to do those once I got back into work. I don't know why, but it feels more natural to do my models after I come back from work. Not a clue on why. But I have been more productive in writing than any of the other sides that I also pursue.

Which makes me wonder at times how much of a mistake it was to go to college to be an artist if I'm writing all the time. I wonder if I should tried to go for creative writing instead. I'm not sure which is better at this point. I want both to succeed. I want be published, but I want a job as an artist. At the end, I'll take either so long as I'm doing one of them. Honestly, I want to do both. So if I got to do one I'd be very happy. Trying to evaluate if I would be happier writing or making models, I don't know. I love both, though I do not have the absolute confidence in my modeling skills. I don't have confidence in my writing skills either, but the window is a little more freeing. I can see the necessary goal as an artist more clearly on what is needed. I believe I have it, but not always sure how I'll get there. It's complicated. I have more confidence when I write. Even if I know I haven't tried to get published yet. Though that should hopefully be changing this year, the trying part.

I prefer not to think of what I've done as a mistake or a regret. It is something that I've used and can use to get a good job. I just need more work and time with it. But with all I write it is certainly hard to question why I'm still doing something else. I'm pretty prolific as a writer with what I produce. While I can't say the same thing for my art.

So this year is going to be a year of some possible changes and new directions. I'm finally getting off my butt on a bunch of stuff. I'm going to be testing to be an artist. I'm going to be submitting work to get published. I'm going to be actually working on my game finally. It's a lot of things. If any of them pan out my life is going to be taking some new courses. I look forward to see how things play out. On any of the directions I will be happy I know that much. So it is matter of what bares fruit. Though it is not going to be an easy thing any of them. It is going to take a lot of time and effort, but that is something that I already know and am familiar with dealing with.

How long has this gone for now? This might be one of the longer blog posts I've made. It's always a bad idea when I decide to do this because it just never ends. Anyway, lots of heavy talk. No real answers, but talk. Good talk.

~~Andromeda the Kitty~~

Hey it's actually a blog post from me. Crazy talk huh? I've been busy with other things and I haven't had a topic I really wanted to ramble about. Well, I found a topic and it is all thanks to a JRPG I just finished. I'm going to be doing some general ranting about the game, but I'll also get into my gaming philosophy which actually extends out to other things. I've also got some other things I'm going to do as well at the end. So scroll down to see the surprise!

Anyway, the game I was playing this week was Time and Eternity, or Toki to Towa. When it first got announced and showed off I was very excited for it. A game that looks like an anime and plays like you're watching an anime? How could I not be interested? It's a JRPG so it is a bit of a given, but hey bonuses are bonuses for a reason. They add, and they stack. Stackable bonuses are the best! ^^

Time and Eternity does a lot of brave things, which I actually enjoyed. But it also does a lot of stupid things which I hate. So there lies the matter. Love/Hate is something that is pretty common in general for anyone. There are those things that you Love and those that you Hate, and don't forget the things that you Love to Hate and Hate to Love. I usually just say polarizing, like FFXIII. But we'll get into that later.

I've played a lot of games and a lot of RPGs, mostly RPGs. I've never found one that has annoyed me or frustrated me or cheapened things as much as this game. It's pretty rare, but I actually thought about just stopping and not completing it if it was going to be so annoying. And this is where things get complicated. On the whole, the game is fine and it works. However, their designers are some sadistic jerks or just really bad designers, not sure which. But there is a percentage of enemies that you are just going to struggle against and not in a good way. Not in a way that teaches you something and you take away. All you take away from it is that it was stupid and that it completely flies in the face of the rest of the game.

I'm being vague, so I'll explain. The game's combat works different from any game I've played for sure. I don't know if it is unique or not, but it was for me. Points for them in trying something different. Anyway, the way combat works is you control a single character, there are no other party members really, there is a dragon, but it is AI control and minor in its influence on combat, most times. The way it works is that you have attacks mapped to faces buttons and then you have a guard button and a dodge button/stick. Combat is all in real time, so you have to guard and dodge in real time and have the timing right. No problem, I've played action RPGs before. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

Part of me thinks that their excuse is that they did not program blending of animations, which is mostly true. Though you can interrupt animations of enemies, so it is not completely. And part of me thinks that they just were not thinking about it. The way it works to dodge is you have to be completely done with your animation of your last action, usually an attack before you can dodge. This often means a full second a times where you're unable to dodge despite your actual damage was done a while ago and it is simply ending your animation. You're doing nothing but finishing an animation, but you can't dodge.

That is where things start to get annoying and hard. The combat is about patterns, you learn the enemy's pattern and exploit their downtime. When they attack you dodge, simply right? Not when you can't dodge when you want. But that can be forgiven, because you adapt and allow for greater than normal windows on your attacks to dodge. The game's combat trains you to fight when the enemy is not and dodge when it is.

Yet, there are monsters with infinite attack cycles. They will keep attacking with no downtime at all. Which completely goes against the entire design of everything else. How does that even make sense?! And that is where I'm annoyed with the game. It is a literal dodge fest with no attacks. So you're forced to take hits, or use your limit supply of time spells that can freeze, loop or accelerate time. But why would you use that one monsters, not even bosses, when you only get them back by leveling, going home or using limited available items. Most times you only have 3 uses total, not each. And when it is likely you'll fight ten battles before leveling and the battles are going to be repeats of the same monsters over again and some times the same infinite attacking monster several times in a single battle. It makes things frustrating.

The frustrating of the throwing controllers across the room kind. Yeah.

And yet, it is not all the time this happens. So there will be brief times that I just want to yell at the game for being dumb and other times I'm cruising and enjoying things a little annoyed I screwed up that dodge, but it was my fault.

Oh and they have a late game bosses that opens with a one shot unless you time freeze and get your defense boost up in time. >.> Not a fan of their design ideas.

So that gets me to more of the core matter. I hated moments in the game enough that I actually wanted to stop playing, though I finished it. However, most time I was enjoying it enough to keep going. It is rare for me to find a game that actually is polarizing to me. I can't completely hate it, but I can't say I always enjoyed it either.

This gets me more to my philosophy on how I consume entertainment. The way I work is that I generally don't have strong opinions positive or negative on whatever it is. If leaves me with an impression where I have to say it was amazing or I love it, then it is a big deal. The way I work is that I can find something good in even the bad. As though as it is not functionally broke, I'll probably enjoy it. Focusing on games for the sake of narrowing down the field. There are admittedly a lot of games this generation in the JRPG that are not necessary stellar or near masterpieces, but I still liked them. It is because if I can find something enjoyable about them I'm happy with the game. Was I entertained is the question I ask myself. If I can say yes, then I'm happy, because guess what. A game is entertainment, it doesn't need to be perfect to actually be enjoyable. It doesn't have to be innovative to let me have fun.

I'll admit it means I'll have lower standards than others, but games are meant to be enjoyed and entertain, same with any other entertainment medium. If they can't be enjoyed on that simple level, then yes they will be bad, but otherwise sometimes it is there simply to be fun or enjoyed rather than to push the art.

This is why I can enjoy games like the Neptunia series, it is a blast to play because the story is funny. It is why I loved playing FFXIII, the combat was a blast and the story was interesting to follow. Sure I know it failed to deliver some elements, but I had fun playing it. I can overlook the places it stumbles, because it was just a trip, not a death fall.

It is way I own too much anime and read too much manga. It makes me laugh, cry or think. So I enjoy it. I tend not to try to pick something apart to figure out where it was making holes in the plot or world. I'm there to be entertained.

This does mean I'm a bad person to go to on if something was good or bad, because I'll just say I have fun. I'll tend to give a more middling opinion. Because my criteria for myself is so different from what people are wanting, it makes it difficult to answer in a way that is going to actually help them. I enjoy nearly everything on some level. If I happen to actually say something is bad, then that actually means something because something disengaged me on a fundamental level. Sure, if I have to I can start looking through and finding where things start good or bad against other things. But I'm not really fan of that.

I'm more of the mind of finding out what you enjoy. Does it fit into what you enjoy? Then try it! Scores, stares, rankings mean nothing. So come prefaced with what you enjoy when asking if something is good, because I'm bad at rating things. I do place nearly everything in a neutral position on "ratings" and only the few that leave an impression on me fall outside of that range. Time and Eternity is one such example.

If you're wondering if any of this came from people asking and me getting annoyed, no it's not. This is simply spurred for me playing Time and Eternity. You're more than welcome to ask my opinion on things, but it's probably good to know my philosophy. I'll say something is good a lot of times, it means pretty much nothing. Good is just a standard answer of, sure if you enjoy that sort of thing try it out you'll probably enjoy it as well.

Surprise! Yeah, this is where the surprise contained. I've debated this for a while whether I actually wanted to do it. Since I've actually started to reconsider actually continuing I figured I'd drop this here and let you know it exists and see what happens. I've been getting annoyed with the interruptions it causes while I'm playing, which is why I've been thinking about stopping. But if there is more interest, I guess I'll continue. Anyway, what am I yammering about?



https://www.youtube.com/user/AndromedaLetsPlay

Why it is this or that, in the case of being after rather than before. Anyway, yes in secret without your knowledge I've started recording my playthroughs of the JRPGs I buy. It is youtube channel exclusively devoted to JRPGs only. So if you're wanting to watch me play games, you can now. Just note that I don't talk. I know that many Let's Play have people talk, but I find that talking ruins the experience. I play JRPGs for the story and what is happening, if I can't hear things then part of it is taken away. Also, I wouldn't have a lot to really say while I play, Time and Eternity would be different and that's would be getting annoyed with it. But pretty much, you'd just here me fangirl'ing over something that happened, which you really don't want to hear either.

So sorry, you can't find out what I sound like. ^^ And no I don't plan to add commentary.

The way things work is that I record everything I play for the playthrough. I tend to 100% runs, I don't record them. This is merely for you to enjoy the story and game. And maybe get you to buy it because you see something you might enjoy. Because these are JRPGs and they are a niche genre that needs your love and money! ^^

The other thing is that I run requests as well. Currently, the game I'm playing as a request is Shin Megami Tensei: Digitial Devil Saga. Once I finish I'll be looking for another request. The only condition is that it has to be from my library of games, which is very large. Once request time actually comes around I'll be making a video that provides the list to pick from. I play the requested game on Fridays and upload over the weekend, provided there is not something else stopping me from playing, usually work or a new JRPG release.

Currently, I'm uploading Atelier Ayesha. I finished it a long time ago, but there like 50 hours of video. So it is going to take a while to get it all up. ^^ I have two more games in the wings after that and with the JRPG season in Fall, I won't be in short supply.

And I did make the video I attached. I was still getting my editing feet back one. I'm happier with the results than the SMT: DDS teaser, but I still have more work I want to do. So I plan to make the next ones better. The one part I enjoy about the process is making the teasers. I love editing, so it is a lot of fun to actually make them.

~~Andromeda the Kitty~~

The very air that surrounded Yuki seemed to be unsympathetic to the problem that was weighing on him. It pressed against his shoulders keeping him from rising from the street. He had no will to stand at the moment. His head just held down brushing the side of his face with his dark blue nearly black hair. The streetlamp above him cast a heavy light that darkened his eyes until it just seemed like there was a void present.

Yuki’s mind was stuck as memories of the past flooded with the present with one being transposed over the other. ‘I hit Saki…’ His eyes widened when he heard the words in his mind. ‘But she…it wasn’t like…’ Even with his eyes closed he could still clearly see the moment replaying in his mind. ‘I didn’t…no…I didn’t…wasn’t me…’ He held his hands against his head trying to snap out of the images that were torturing him. However, there was nothing that he could do to escape the endless looping that worked to break his sanity. His eyes were darting around quickly in his attempts to lose the hold feeling his body start to go numb.

“A pathetic sight…Yuki Hayashi,” said a distant voice that rang clear through the air. A man slowly walked out of the shadows of the night into the pool of light from a streetlamp. He stared across the street at the turned away Yuki. His blue eye held an almost disappointed look while his other remained darkened with a brown eye patch wrapped around his head.

Chapter 51 – Black and Blue

The words did not reach him, but the voice seemed to tap into the corner of his mind that was still listening. He had a sudden uncontrollable fear pass over him that covered him in sweat. ‘What’s going on?’ he thought as he was beginning to be pulled away. Yuki stared at his shaking hands not understanding why he could not stop them. He tried to warm his own body that had run cold as ice. ‘This feeling is so familiar…why?’

“Come…face me, Yuki Hayashi,” said the middle aged man once more from the light.

Everything was violently ripped away from him as Yuki heard the words spoken to him. His mind was completely blank with fear. Now the fear was understood. ‘Another assassin already?! Ayumi just killed one! Are there that many after me?’ Yuki slowly turned his head over his shoulder catching a look of the man that was beckoning him forward. His eyes grew wide when he was able to confirm that it was an assassin. The man worn clothes like all of the others, that Ayumi had called their military uniform. However, there was something different about this man, age notwithstanding. Yuki felt compelled to turn and stand on his feet to face the man as though deserved it.

There was a look in the man’s face that seemed to recount innumerable experiences within each wrinkle, yet the man did not seemed weighed down by age. In fact, the man looked to embrace his life with a tall and proud stance. He towered over Yuki by more than a head, but it was not the height that made him look like he was superior.

‘His shirt thing is blue… I’m not sure if I like that significance,’ he remarked to himself as he continued to try to judge the man before him. ‘Why did he announce himself and just wait for me? He doesn’t even have his field up.’ Yuki flexed his fingers trying to keep himself from getting stiff and break the paralysis that he had over his body. ‘Damn, my Kasou-ryoku won’t respond… This guy doesn’t seem like the rest that have come after me. I won’t survive without it! Come on work!’ The fading hope was falling through his grasp tightening the tension that strung around his neck and limbs.

“I’m glad to finally meet you.”

Yuki raised an eye confused by the formal feeling and somehow casual speech from the man. ‘What’s this man’s angle? Is he not that strong after all or maybe he’s not here to kill me?’ He held his lips shut, partially from fear, uncertain what to say and if saying the wrong thing would make him a target. The uneasy stare between them left Yuki feeling as though he was being told to answer back. Hesitation held his words longer drawing the awkward silence out. “…Who are you?”

“I haven’t introduced myself have I? I am Demosthenes Alexander.” The declaration had a strong air of pride in it. He stepped forward keeping his eye on Yuki.

‘He introduced himself? This is the first assassin to greet me and give me his name. Why?’ Yuki took a half step back seeing the tall foreigner walking slowly towards him. “What do you want?”

Demosthenes came to a stop out of the light, disappearing slightly in the curtain of night. “I’ve come to see what the trouble is able about. Thus far I’m disappointed.” He began to walk again until he entered the light that Yuki was standing under. His head tilted down looking at Yuki, but not making any further advances.

Yuki took another step back feeling the urge to flee, but sensing that it would not make any difference. “Do you always greet the person you’re going to kill?”

“Don’t give in to fear, child. It only weakens you.”

It started to sound as though Yuki was being lectured making his eyebrows twist in confusion. The tone did not approach as an insult, which is what really threw Yuki off. He almost felt like he was been advised. ‘What’s with this old man?’

“Now come! Let’s see if you’ve truly inherited the King’s power. Show me your Meso Presecho!”

Yuki did not like the sudden change that the man had. He jumped back going on the defensive knowing that he could not summon his power as requested. ‘He’s not going to like when he finds out that I’m not able to…’

“What’s the hesitation?” The old man narrowed his eyes as he looked at Yuki reading him. After a moment he leaned back with an expression that had changed to understanding. “I see…I’ll just have to force it out then!” Immediately following his words a blue wave pulsed out from his feet altering the street into grass while leaving the houses alone.

Once the field had been summoned the man was no longer wearing his uniform. In a medium blue, he wore a loose pair of pants and long sleeve shirt tucked in at the waist. The appearance seemed surprisingly modest when compared to some of the assassins that Yuki had seen. However, Demosthenes’ look did not change, keeping with the serious tone it always had. In his hands was a long spear that he held prepared to fight.

Next to Yuki that was a straight long sword stuck in the ground. He looked at it out of the corner of his eye, but knew better than take it. It would serve him no purpose to trying to fight with their weapons as he had learned from the first assassin that attacked him at school. ‘Come on I really need you right now! I’m going to die with you!’ Yuki made his second attempt to bring out his Kasou-ryoku, but as it had been all the times before he was unable to use it consciously. He forced himself to step back to keep distance between them praying that he could hold out long enough on his powers.

The old man straightened out his back standing up fully resting his spear in one hand at his side. “Take the sword. I don’t fight unarmed men.” He did not have to point with his hand as his eye was making it clear to him.

‘What?! Why is he doing this?’ Yuki reached out cautiously with his hand toward the hilt of the sword feeling like it would disappear the moment he attempted to grasp it as a cruel joke at his defenselessness. ‘Is this a game to him?’ He placed his hand on the sword’s hilt finding it to be solid. His fingers wrapped around the sword as his eyes stared up across at the old man trying to understand what he was thinking.

‘You’re weak, Yuki! You can’t control your powers. They control you. It’s no way to fight. So I’m left with no choice but deal with the assassins myself. You’re incapable of protecting yourself.’

‘I’m alone here…’ Yuki recalled her telling him that she had fighting for him. It had been because of him that she had been forced into so many situations. ‘It’s because of me that she had to fight that plant guy and almost dead because of me.’ The images of the fight with the plant assassin came back to him making him deeply remember the events, especially emotions. He just wanted to be able to help, but she had stepped him to protect him. ‘I’ve been useless… She nearly died protecting me from the woman that attacked the school last week too… She’s been taking it all for me…’

He was feeling a shaking through his body that was building his hesitation. Yuki did not know what he should do. There was no chance he had to win against the man without his own power, but fleeing would not work either. His legs weakened under his weight as the sword was becoming a crutch for him. All he could feel was the pounding in his head that threatened to move into his heart as it beat ever slower. ‘…alone…’

‘You don’t stand a chance without me,’ Ayumi’s voice said echoing through his mind from the past.

Hearing what she said made him pull away from the sword clinching his hand into fist. ‘…Ayumi…’ He looked up across at the man who seemed content with waiting. Yuki narrowed his eyes seeing the expression on the old man. He got a weird feeling from him again as though he was gently pushing him towards the sword rather than forcing him. ‘…what’s with him?’

‘All you know how to do is run away. You’ve been running this entire time. You can’t face yourself.’

It felt like she was standing next to him yelling in his ear. His hand was shaking just out of reach of the sword listening to Ayumi’s tirade weakening his strength. ‘…running huh… …yeah maybe… …but…’ Yuki stepped forward pulling his hand forward to take a hold of the hilt. He had quickly removed it from the ground holding it with hold of his hands staring over the blade at Demosthenes still resting. Determination in his eyes had resurfaced with the narrowing in his features. ‘None of that matters right now… I have someone standing before me! I have to take this on!’

“Glad to see you’re ready,” Demosthenes said as he returned his spear back into both of his hands. The expression that appeared on his face was different from before. It was a serious look that he always had before, but now there was a tint in his eye that said that he was focused solely on Yuki with all of his being for no other purpose than to strike him down. And yet the emotion was not hatred or anger coming from him rather almost a warmth of acknowledgement as only two warriors standing before each other could experience. This was the first time Yuki felt a sense that his opponent was not belittling him or thinking less of him, but seeing simply as a warrior. “Now let’s begin!”

Yuki charged forward with his sword in hand meeting the spear with a spark. The longer reach on the spear meant that he would have trouble getting close making him feel like that was done on purpose to put him at a disadvantage. However, he tried to focus his mind as the next swipe from the spear came at him as his jump backwards a step to avoid it. The sword Yuki had was single bladed allowing him to use his off hand to support the back of the sword when he took a strong blow from the spear.

‘He’s got good reflexes,’ thought Demosthenes pressing the attack. The next several strikes were even faster knocking Yuki off balance, but he quickly turned it around rotating to try to bring himself inside reach of the spear to his sword’s range. ‘…and he fast on his feet to think of a way to turn things around…’ The counter from Yuki never made it to the old man as he used the back of the spear to knock away the strike in rotation. He followed up knocking Yuki back with his shoulder. Yuki rolled over the grass to evade the next swings from the spear. While he was on the ground he tried to take a swing with his sword at his legs, but the old man agile body leapt up using the spear thrust into the ground to stop him.

Then as he came down he brought his leg across Yuki kicking him in the stomach. He tried to bring up his spear for a second strike, but Yuki was rolling with his sword against him barely taking the blade of the spear dragging it along sparking loudly. Yuki leapt back up to his feet pulling in his sword breathing quickly to recover himself. Demosthenes returned his spear back to his side in an attack stance. ‘…alright…now I know the child’s skill…’

‘I’m barely able to keep up with this old man… What am I going to do?’ Yuki tightened his hands around the hilt of the sword trying to keep his resolve to fight. The shaking in his muscles was not from fear, but reverberating from the strikes that he had taken. While he looked like he was holding his own each attack at left him nearly dazed only held together by determination.

The next moment the air suddenly seemed to change. Demosthenes’ spear traced through in a motion that left it appearing to skip or jump ahead. All of the movements became faster and difficult to follow. Moving faster than Yuki thought a man his age could he was nearly behind Yuki before he realized it left in awe. Yuki could not even manage a turn before the spear was coming at him leaving him barely enough time to dodge a fatal strike.

Blood sprayed into the air as the spear pierced through Yuki’s side scrapping painfully against his ribs. Yuki stumbled backwards lowering one eye in pain as he pressed his off hand to his left side into the lengthy wound. ‘He’s so fast! I couldn’t even follow him! Is this it?’ The next deadly strike came in with the blood coated spear blade shattering the sword he used attempting to block with in hand. It had saved his life though, deflecting the spear away, but digging its hungry metal into his right shoulder. Yuki could feel the blood dripping down his arm and chest soaking into his clothes. His arm was starting to go numb as the remaining part of the sword fell from his hand.

Yuki did not even know it had happened until he felt a ripping jerk in his chest from the spear that pierced his heart and lung dropping him to the ground quickly bleeding out. ‘What’s happening to me?’ His eyes widened shaking from the shock. He could feel almost no pain, but he could not feel his body either lying in the grass. Yuki could not keep his eyes open any longer. ‘I can’t feel anything! I can’t move! This can’t be it! Over so quick… I didn’t stand a chance… Momoko…Jun and Ken… I can’t leave them alone! No!’ His eyes snapped open quickly as he stretched out his hand trying to push himself back up. Blood was dripping out of his mouth as he coughed. He was so numb that he was not certain if he was moving and simply acted on instinct.

Demosthenes turned looking down at Yuki. “I respect your will to live, but will is not enough to make you worthy of his power.” He pulled the spear back up raising it above his head to bring it down for the final blow to end Yuki’s misery. The blade shined brightly as it sailed through the air spraying blood from the deep wound. The last breath of life was exhaled.

To be continued…

The bed creaked from the weight of Yuki’s body to being tossed on it, exhausted. He had just gotten back from Ayumi’s house having received her new intensive training. Being called ‘New Training’ (Ayumi’s words) was an inaccurate term according to Yuki and more important his body. He returned home with clean clothes, since he had to keep up appearances that he was just helping Ayumi study, but underneath his clothes were there a lot of bruises and sore muscles. Ayumi healed all of the wounds that he took, but refused to heal everything to leave it as a reminder. It made him want to heal them, but he had already accidentally summoned his Kasou-ryoku twice on the very short walk to his house.

He stared up at the ceiling trying not to think about his body, since it only made it hurt worse. ‘How long will I be able to keep this up?’ Yuki wrapped his arms around his head and rolled on his side. ‘Then there’s the fact that Ayumi says I only have a month left. She’s expecting me just to leave all of this… How can she expect me to become some leader of a place I’ve never been to?’ The echoes of Ayumi’s voice whispered to him forcing him to remember. It all felt like too much weight and importance was being placed on him. He wanted to remember was normal felt like.

Chapter 50 – Fading Light

“Yuki!” Momoko yelled from the first floor of the house managing to carry her voice through his closed door.

Unmotivated into leaving the comfort of his bed, he turned back lying straight on his bed not answering. A few seconds later after no response from Yuki his sister yelled again with more insistence in her voice. He was growing frustrated and yelled back to her. “What?”

“I need you to go out to the store for me!”

Yuki sighed loudly to himself and quickly regretted it as he felt his chest convulse in pain. “Why can’t you go?!”

“Just get down here!”

‘She’ll probably come up if I don’t…’ He grudgingly began to move his legs over to the floor and slowly pulled himself up to stand. The muscles in his legs groaned the most when he stood up making him wince as he moved. He staggered over to his door before taking a deep breath. Afterwards, the door opened with him walking normally covering up his pain. Yuki took the stairs slowly staring down at his older sister, looking impatient. “Why do I have to go?”

“Because someone has to stay and help our brothers with their homework and unless you want to—“

“What do you need?” He did not want to have to deal with his hyperactive brothers climbing all over him trying to get him to play with them, especially with the pain that he was in. Momoko turned over the list to him cracking a little smile as he walked to the door. He put on his shoes and light jacket before stepping outside. The cool evening air made him drop his hands into the jacket’s pockets. It would be a long walk down to the neighborhood store to get what he needed, but it was a quiet night.

Across the neighborhood Saki was staring at a textbook and paper with a pencil in hand sitting at her desk. Her family’s apartment was fairly quiet with only the neighbors making a muffled shouting noise. However, the homework in front of her was having difficulty being completed due to her mind wandering away. She had a lot of things weighing heavily on her with Yuki being in the forefront at the moment.

During class he had been his usual self, but she could not help but fear that he was covering up for what had happened at the shop they visited. It was hard enough for her to bring up that she ended up dwelling on it more than trying to resolve her problems.

She tilted her head back resting her neck against her chair looking behind her. ‘I can’t concentrate… Yuki is normally like this so why should I be so worried? It’s how he deals… But still to be reminded of his parents…’ Saki raised up her hands planting them in her hair becoming frustrated with herself. A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. “Yes, mom?”

There was a relieved relaxing of uncontrollable fears that had been persisting for Saki’s mother. Ever since she had been involved in the kidnapping she had been frequently checking on her daughter every day as a piece of mind. “The strange man from the other day just called you.”

“Strange man?”

“From that rich family that you stayed at on Saturday.” She had been very uneasy when she had received the call about her daughter on Saturday claiming that she had been invited to stay over at their place. The fears had been too much for her, but they had met with Saki to allow her to talk to her mother to calm her down after they had been introduce to Chiharu’s grandfather.

It all had finally clicked in for Saki when her mother had mentioned that and stood up immediately as her thoughts went to Chiharu. “The Chinens?!” Her mother gave her a slow nod still looking a little shaken. “Was it about Chiharu? Mom?” The slow drawn out words from her mom was only furthering her tensions as she wanted to know how Chiharu was going. “Is she awake? Mom, please tell me!”

The desperation that was appearing on Saki’s face made her mother step back. “The man said that she had regained consciousness.”

“That’s great news! Thank you, Mom!” Saki jumped up and hugged her mom tightly leaving her a little confused by Saki’s reaction.

“…yeah… He said he knew that you’d want to know…”

It had taken some time for Saki to recover, but she backed off from her mother looking a little embarrassed by the display of emotion that she had suddenly. Her mind suddenly felt clearer and focused. “Crap! I need to finish my homework! Thanks, Mom!” Saki darted back to her desk leaving her mother looking even more confused before walking away slowly. A smile crawled on to Saki face as her eyes focused on to the paper.

Yuki walked back from the store having gotten everything that Momoko had on her list. It was only a few things, mostly for breakfast and lunch. The quiet walk had been pleasing for him as he was able to keep his mind focus. Even his soreness was starting to be something that he could manage. A stray thought came to him as he shifted the weight of the bag in his hand. ‘I wonder what Hiroshi wants?’ It pulled his mind back to lunch on top of the school when they were eating together with everyone.

Their lunch group had grown a little with Yuki having hunted down Haruo and insisted that he ate with them and Yumi and her friends decided that they would accept Ayumi’s invitation. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves talking and laughing with each other. Yuki was smiling to himself listening when Hiroshi suddenly leaned next to him.

“Hey Yuki…” Hiroshi said to him lowly so that only Yuki could hear him. There was a surprisingly stern serious expression in his eyes making Yuki have a little trouble swallowing his food that he had just eaten.

“Yeah? What’s wrong?”

There was a long wait in Hiroshi next words as though he was having difficulty saying them. “You got some time to talk after school?”

“Not today, but I can tomorrow. Is that alright?”

“Yeah another day shouldn’t really matter.” Hiroshi sounded a little dismissive of the subject like he wanted to forget about it. However, he had caught the suspicious attention of Saki.

She pointed her chop sticks at Hiroshi staring at him. “What you whispering to Yuki?”

Hiroshi quickly flipped expression to nervous and then to an uneven smile. “Just a joke that I heard, right?”

Yuki looked back and forth between the two of them not really picking up on everything until he was getting a strange look from Hiroshi. “…yeah…” The pained look from Hiroshi at Yuki poor convincing agreement went by oblivious to him. Yuki returned to eating his lunch and Saki quickly gave it up.

The memory faded away still leaving him with a question. There had been an unusual seriousness in Hiroshi that had Yuki a little confused. He wanted to know what the problem was. Delaying it made him wonder if he was making a mistake. ‘It sounded important to him… Maybe I should just have listened to him…’

A sound of something breaking had trailed down the street from somewhere out of sight. It made Yuki’s thoughts stop and bring his focus to the street. There was no one on the street that he could see and in the evening hours there were few people out. However, he heard another noise that hurried his feet to move. ‘Is it a car crash?’ Yuki ran towards the sounds he was hearing that were increasing in frequency. ‘Can’t be an accident…’

The noise came from around a corner sending him away from his house, but curiosity would not let him go. It was becoming stronger and clearer leaving an uneasy sinking feeling to develop in his stomach as it understood sooner than him. ‘The temperature…why is the air so cold…’ He felt the crunching underneath his feet that revealed snow covering the street concrete giving him the answer he was looking for. ‘Ayumi’s fighting!’

His eyes were able to confirm it for him a moment later as Ayumi came sliding through the snow evading several projectiles. She countered immediately charging forward throwing out her chakram attachment grabbing the enemy’s arm in the connecting chain before she pierced him through the chest with her sword. Once the sword was pulled free she removed her field and began cleaning the area with a new field.

A slow staggering Yuki walked forward not expecting to find her fighting. “…Ayumi…was that another assassin?”

“Yes, I was able to intercept him before he reached you.” She had finished her work and turned to walk away from the scene. Yuki was left without any words to say as she came towards him. When she passed by him she said something to him low. “Rest.”

Yuki was still trying to take it in staring down at the empty street almost in a state of shock. ‘She stopped the assassin before he got to me… She’s protecting me… That’s what she said she would do, but…’ He was still facing away, but knew that Ayumi was within range of his voice speaking to the empty street. “Was that the only one?”

Ayumi stopped for a moment to answer him not looking at him either. “No, nor the last.” She began to walk away reaching the street intersection.

“Why?!”

“I’d think that was obvious, Yuki,” Ayumi said with additional emphasis on his name.

Being cryptic was not something new for Yuki, but he wanted a straight answer. He turned around staring down the poorly lit street at Ayumi. “Explain it to me,” he demanded. His eyes were narrowing and face wrinkling in frustration that only Ayumi could cause him. “I don’t want some riddle from you! I want the truth!”

“I’ve already given you the truth. How many times to I have to repeat myself?” She finally turned her head to look back at him.

“I said stop with the riddles. Just get to the point, Ayumi!”

“You’re weak, Yuki! You can’t control your powers. They control you. It’s no way to fight. So I’m left with no choice but deal with the assassins myself. You’re incapable of protecting yourself.”

Yuki jerked back feeling stunned by Ayumi’s words. He had heard them before, but there was something different in the tone and feeling that left him frozen in reaction. ‘She’s been taking on the assassins? Is that why there hasn’t been very many? All this time…’ The atmosphere seemed to be stifling for him feeling the eyes of Ayumi on him.

‘You’re incapable of protecting yourself!’ her words echoed through his mind harder than anything else she had lectured and berated him about before. He had never really thought of himself as being defenseless since his powers awakened. There was the fear of death that he had tasted before, but he had managed to survive because his powers were there when he needed them. Yuki did not know what to think hearing it.

He did not want to hear it. All she could do was look down on him and point out his flaws. Her words repeated endlessly in his ears as mocking spirits that never left him. She was never going to be able to see as anything more than a failure.

‘No…’ Yuki snapped back to himself. He narrowed his eyes once more staring back at Ayumi. Ayumi’s echoing was fading out of mind for Yuki. ‘I have to show her! I’m not a failure! I can protect myself!’ A determined looked formed in his eyes as he clinched his fists. “I don’t need you to protect me!”

Ayumi returned his glare with one that almost seemed amused by his stubbornness. She had only raised her eyes for a moment before it was gone once more. “You don’t stand a chance without me,” she said flatly.

It only seemed to make Yuki even more angry hearing her voice. He was tired of the way that she treated him. “Stop treating me like a child!”

“Grow up and maybe I will.”

“What are you talking about?”

“All you know how to do is run away. You’ve been running this entire time. You can’t face yourself.”

“Shut the hell up!”

“This is why you’re a child still. You’ve been running for more than a year. It’s about time you faced your fear.”

‘Mother!’ That had been the last straw for Yuki. He could not hold himself back anymore having heard what Ayumi said to him. Yuki ran through the street towards Ayumi with rage filling his eyes. All Ayumi did was stare at him with the same uninterested, nearly bored, expression that she had been keeping the entire time. Never once did she raise her voice at him almost like he was not worth the emotions. It only made him angrier as he charged at her. “Damn you, Ayumi!” He raised his fist up connecting with a surprised Ayumi in the cheek sending her to the ground sliding a little. Yuki breathed heavily staring down at her still feeling the steaming heat of emotions boiling through his skin.

Ayumi shook off the surprise and wiped her face with her hand. There was a smirking grin on her lips as she stood up looking back at him. She said nothing more and walked away slowly disappearing into the darkness of the street.

Once she had left him Yuki snapped out of his blindness and lifted up his hand that had punched her. His mind went back suddenly to the time that Saki had taken the hit and he had knocked her out. It made him go wide in shock and panic dropping to his knees. ‘…Saki…Ayumi…What’s wrong with me?!’

To be continued…

“…mother…” Had been all that Yuki said, but it sent shocked and confused expressions through everyone. It was Saki that had still not completely recovered from when she realized that it was Yuki’s parents. All of their friends, apart from Ayumi, did not understand why it such an important moment for them, but it was slowly starting to settle in for them. Words were not needed.

Yuki could hardly manage a word trying to stop his tears. Jun got down from their mother’s arms allowing her to hold Yuki. It had felt like eternity since Yuki had been able to feel her warmth. The soothing tone of her voice and calming eyes were not something he could ever forget. “How…is this possible?” In spite of it, he wanted the moment to last forever.

Chapter 49 – Never Forgotten

Jun walked back with Yuki and their mother to where Ken was with their father. From the view of their friends, they were able to watch and in that moment it felt different from any that they had seen before. They all knew Yuki to be a happy and excitable person, but there was always an intangible feeling of something underneath. It remained buried under layers until it could no longer be seen. However, that was completely different from the feeling that they were seeing. There was a genuine, near innocence, in his expression that was unlike anything they had seen before.

“…Yuki…” Yumi said slowly holding on to her friends hands.

Hiroshi stood next to Saki pulling his eyes away and caught a look that surprised him. ‘She’s crying…’ It was strange for him to see Saki acting emotional. She acted tough and rough so often that he did not know what to think. He turned back allowing her moment alone that she wanted.

“One minute remaining… One minute remaining…” the room’s voice announced to everyone. On the solemn note, the room filled with an uncomfortable sense of urgency. Tension suddenly grew from everyone knowing. Hiroshi pulled back with Kazuhiro and Tatsuya walking down the street a short distance. Katsumi followed soon taking Yumi and Kaede with her. The last to follow was Ayumi leaving Saki behind.

“…Yuki…” said Saki having trouble with her voice. Her heart was pounding fiercely making it difficult for her to keep everything in control. Even for Saki it felt like she had gone back in time. She felt as though she was a child once more looking towards Yuki for strength. The weakness that she had shed and never let her touch again began to weigh her once more.

Yuki was having difficulties finding a good-bye as the clock ticked away on his time. The dream was going to end and all he could think of was keep it going. “Father…mother…” Jun and Ken had given their words and stepped back instinctively knowing how important it was for their big brother. The distant beeping that alerted the remaining time pounded on Yuki’s shoulders as he looked back between them. All he could do was wrap his arms around the both of them as the world slowly faded away. ‘…mother…I’m sorry…’ The last particles to hold on to disappeared leaving Yuki’s arms collapsing in against him.

They were all returned back to the room left with a long silence that no one was willing to break. It was not until the door to the room slid open. Ha stood in the entry glaring at everyone with the look from before. “Time to leave…” she said starting out strong, but fell short as she picked up the atmosphere. “What the hell did you guys do?!”

Jun looked over at Ken with the same look in their eyes and marched over to Ha. “Let’s step outside,” Ken said as he picked up Ha’s left side while Jun carried her right. They walked her out under protest as the rest of their friends followed along with them.

“What do you think you’re doing you, brats?!” yelled Ha carrying her voice through the rooms.

Saki and Ayumi stayed behind with Yuki who still looked out of it. Saki rested her hand on Yuki’s shoulder searching for the words that would help him, but finding none. Tension between the three grew tight as the two girls were uncertain of Yuki. His head was turned down heavily cast in a dark shadow over his face. “…Yuki I…” began Saki cutting herself off disappointed with her words.

Hovering anxiety loomed until suddenly Yuki lifted his head up. “Well that was fun! Where’d everyone go?” The bright cheerful expression that Saki was so used to on Yuki’s face had resurfaced. He looked around the room quickly trying to figure out where all of his friends had disappeared. When he saw the door he darted for it leaving behind Saki and Ayumi.

A flat calculating look made a momentary reveal under Ayumi’s innocent persona as she watched Yuki leave the room. ‘Going back that quickly… He’s definitely more complicated than appearances would lead to believe… But how much does it affect him subconsciously?’ Ayumi stepped forward ignoring Saki.

Saki’s strained eyes turned to helpless pain. She had seen the look from Yuki so often that she was used to seen it. It should have been a happy reunion; a comforting moment that had eased her struggle. Contrary, she only felt worse than before in her heart. “…Yuki…why can’t you just…”

“Saki?! Everyone’s starting to leave!” Yuki said poking his head into the room.

The look and his voice only deepened the sadness tying against her. She reluctantly stepped forward knowing that he was just going to keep staring at her and she could not take it for much longer. “Alright…I’m coming…” When Saki stepped out of the room she caught Ayumi out of the corner of her eye standing next to the wall. The rest were down by the counter waiting.

Ayumi stepped forward looking at the two of them with the façade dropped while she only faced them. “I think one of the sisters is a Meso Presecho user,” she declared to them with all of the seriousness she could muster.

Yuki smiled and nodded patting her shoulder. “Yeah, I figured that it was a Kasou-ryoko a while ago.” Saki nodded silently to Ayumi.

As the only one to get under Ayumi’s skin, her frustration was quickly appearing as she glared at Yuki. “Would you stop insulting our tradition!”

“But I can’t understand your Greek words! It sounds better this way!”

The bickering between the two alerted Saki returning her to herself sharply to interrupt them. “Hey you two! Now’s not the time to fight!” She had her hands on the two of them gripping them tightly to keep them separated. Tensions eased back quickly for Ayumi as she regained her composure. “So which of the sisters do you think it is?”

Yuki did not look like he wanted to let go of it, but Saki was already addressing Ayumi. “The eldest sister. She’s the only one that was not present while we were in the simulations.” Ayumi turned her head just enough to glance back at the counter as the three sisters were entertaining their friends. Her mind was quickly going through tactics until a voice interrupted them.

“It’s actually none of them, Young Miss,” a woman’s voice said from above and front of them. Across from where they stood against one of the rooms was a stairwell with a landing. Drawn out steps on the wood boards signaled the approach of the woman. The woman that appeared on the landing looked to be in her thirties and an ordinary businesswoman wearing formal pants and blouse with an open vest over. It was carried out in a calm scheme of tan brown, white and light blue. She would have passed for Japanese if not for the distinct European features of her face and natural blonde hair.

Ayumi and Saki quickly turned to give her their full attention as well as stepping forward in front of Yuki. “My, such determined expressions. You’re pretty lucky boy,” she said keeping with her relaxed attitude.

“I won’t let you near him!” declared Saki as she moved out in front more keeping her between them. She did not know what to expect from an assassin since they were all so different, but she kept slowly pushing herself forward.

Taking them back some, the woman sat down on the landing with her legs resting on the lower steps. “I think you misunderstood me, dear. I’m not interested in the young man there.” She smiled pleasantly to them still holding her aura of calm.

“Then what do you want?”

“Simply to introduce myself. Welcome you to my shop! I’m Phoibe.” Her hands drew out to her sides as she talked taking ownership of the building. “How did you enjoy my entertainment?”

“Entertainment?” Ayumi cautiously said still waiting for the woman to change her attitude. “What’s the point of this?”

Phoibe frowned upon hearing Ayumi’s suspicious tone. “I thought that was pretty obvious. I need money.”

“Huh?” Saki said confused by the reactions that they were getting from the woman. “But don’t you get support from your people?”

“Exiles have to live on their own,” said the woman flatly becoming serious. She pulled up her blouse exposing her stomach revealing a cross shaped scar on her right side. Ayumi immediately reacted to it as her eyes widened for a moment. “Seems the Young Miss understands.” Phoibe lowered her blouse readjusting it.

Ayumi relaxed her guard as Saki and Yuki looked to her for an answer. “How long?”

“Nearly twenty years…”

“Ayumi?” said Saki starting to pull herself back from the front.

There was a lengthened pause with Ayumi before she looked at the two of them. “Depending on the crime and person it happens that we’ll exile someone rather than kill or imprison them. When someone is exiled they are marked with a brand so that they are forever marked. It’s rare, but it has happened with Meso Presecho users. Though they are normally executed…” Ayumi looked over at the woman with a demanding look in her eyes.

“Why would they allow someone with such powers to leave?” asked Saki expecting Ayumi to give her an answer even though it was clear she would not know.

The woman stood up and began down the rest of the stairs. “Well I can explain that. In my youth I was considered a…deviant. I had one too many run ins with the royal guard and so they had enough of me. However, they weren’t strong enough to hold me for long and so I left.”

“You just left?” Saki said incredulously. The explanation felt too simple to be truthful.

“Always having to hide and look around your back gets exhausting. So it was easier to just leave. I let them brand me to save face and departed.”

“That’s rather generous of you.”

“I kind of regret it now. Makes wearing a bikini impossible.”

The flat delivery in a vain serious tone made them all fall over off balance. The time that it took them all to recover Phoibe was walking into the hall towards their friends. Yuki stepped out in the front of them, but stayed behind Phoibe to keep his distance from his friends ahead. “So you aren’t after me?”

Phoibe turned around looking across at him with grin that was bordering on a smirk. “My dear boy, I prefer men that are more experienced.” She looked him up and down quickly leaving Saki and Ayumi a little unsettled as she looked back at them. Afterwards, Phoibe turned letting her shoulder length blonde hair wisp around lightly in the air as she stepped out to greet the rest of their friends.

Saki caught up with Yuki as Ayumi brought up the other side. She looked over at Yuki and Ayumi continuing on in her gaze. “She’s a little strange, but you think we can trust what she says?”

“Don’t trust anyone, but for the moment she doesn’t seem aggressive. I’d suggest leaving.” Ayumi stepped forward returning back to her usual personality as she rejoined everyone in the lobby. Phoibe did not miss a beat with her leaving Saki and Yuki behind.

‘I don’t know, but I’d like to think that there’s not just assassins out there. There have to be good people too.’ The whole conversation left him with an off balanced feeling that seemed very intentional, but it was simply a feeling. He wanted to trust her seeing that she had such a power and only using it to run a business, even if it was a business that was impossible without the power. There was little that he could do at the moment. So he went with the flow of the time. “Let’s go, Saki!” he said smiling back to her.

Yuki grabbed her hand dragging her along with him taking them back to their friends. She was not in on their conversation and stood at the side waiting.

It was currently Kazuhiro speaking to shop owner. He had been mentioning what they had heard about the hostess’s ‘purpose’. “Given that, what type is the eldest sister?” Katsumi could not believe how straightforward he was speaking and grabbed him to keep him silence to not further insult them.

Phoibe waved her hand dismissing Katsumi’s response. She was smiling hardly offended by his question, possibly even pleased. “You’re quite correct in what you’ve been told. Though I’ll have to get after Ha for spoiling the trade secret. But to answer your question the more refined palette desires someone more mature both in age and intellect. That is Hanabira. I do serve many different types of clientele.”

“You’ve thought this out a lot I see.”

“I am a businesswoman. I have to keep my customers happy.” The woman raised her hand up to her mouth starting to laugh amusing herself.

While the laugh was not deafening it did make them retreat and ready to leave. Several of them were already going for the door as Hiroshi was politely trying to excuse himself. “Well it’s getting late and it’s a long walk through the alley.” The others were nodding to him stepping back with him.

Hana stepped forward still with her hands quietly held in front. “If you turn left around our shop you’ll be returned to the main street. It’s much faster!” She smiled warmly to them.

Everyone looked over at Hiroshi suddenly becoming angry at him. He tried to back out of the building even faster as he was trapped. Kaede was the first to speak up for everyone’s anger. “You mean all that walking through the alley we did and we could have just gotten here from the street!” She pressed in taking Hiroshi outside as the others followed leaving the owner and her hostesses behind still smiling.

Hana closed the door and turned politely towards Phoibe. “They were very pleasant customers, Miss Phoibe.”

“Yes…yes, they were Hana. However, I’m feeling a little tired. So we’re closing early.”

“Yes, Miss Phoibe,” the three sister said softly.

Phoibe stepped forward locking up the door before turning around. All three of the sister were gone leaving her alone. She ran her fingers through her hair fluffing it up a little as she walked back. “To think there’d be another one. I wonder…”

Their friends had left at the station leaving Yuki to walk home with his brothers and Ayumi and Saki. Saki left at her street and his brothers had run up ahead to their house. Yuki continued his even pace with Ayumi. However, before he could finish his walk Ayumi stepped out in front of him staring at him with serious eyes. “I hope that you enjoyed today, Yuki.”

“Huh? Ayumi? Why you look so serious when you say that?” Yuki started to pull away getting an unsettled aura coming off of her.

“I’m telling that because I’m going to be working you harder in your training.”

“What’s with this all of sudden? I still can’t even control my power!”

“Exactly. You need to be able to control,” Ayumi said with urgency in her voice that made Yuki recoil further.

“You make it sound like I need to do now!”

“You only have one month left, Yuki.”

Yuki was even more confused now than when she started. “Month? For what? What happens in a month?”

“The time for the heir to appear and claim the throne. After that it is turned over to the public for anyone to take.” Ayumi stared at him closely starting to slow in her words. There even appeared some tears in her eyes as she seemed to be pleading to him. “You’re the only one that can save them from the tyranny that they will bring down upon our people!”

To be continued…

Everyone was drawn in easily by the illusion and the surprisingly real sensations that it gave them. The thought of whether it was possible or not was left ignored by most of them. It was now and that was all that mattered. Time eased on by at a quick pace making it easy to forget what they were doing. A few hesitant moments from Yuki washed away for even him as he was taken in by landscape. Not until Ha entered into the fields did anyone question anything further.

She approached in from behind Yuki, Saki, Yumi and Katsumi, who were sitting back in the grass. Ha crossed her arms turning narrow in face before she spoke to them, still unannounced or aware of her presence. “Wow for teenagers you’ve got a pretty lame imagination…thought at least the nerd would find something interesting.” The four students quickly turned towards to the voice not quite insulted by her attitude, but rather off balanced and agape.

Chapter 48 – Running Wild

Hiroshi came up from behind Ha dropping his hand on her head, not so much grabbing her nor resting his hand. “We’re just testing it out first…kid…” He gave her a wide grin that was hiding his annoyed expression from being mouthed off by a little girl.

The little girl pushed away his hand while getting out from under him and quickly placing distance from him. “Watch yourself! Kid!” After her gladly opening hostilities with Hiroshi the two leaned in at each other exchanging electric glares that set everyone back. However, Kaede came up from behind the little girl grabbing her up and hugging her tightly, in her attempt to calm the anger and she found the kimono that she wore quite adorable on her despite the attitude. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing, girl!”

“Aww, you shouldn’t be getting so upset. Hiroshi isn’t worth the energy.” She was holding on to Ha through the tantrum she was throwing to get free, but it proved to be a fruitless effort for Ha. “Just go back to the sweet little girl!”

“Stupid girls should be quiet!”

Kaede was not stopping and Hiroshi seemed to be enjoying the shift turning him back to his usual self. The noise had started to bring the rest back in as Ha fought Kaede. They continued with their struggle as Yumi tried to separate her friend from the girl with Katsumi half heartedly helping. It was not until Hana stepped in behind everyone with surprisingly unintentional stealth. “Oh hey Ha! Having fun with the customers? Can I join?”

Using everyone’s momentary stunned reactions to her advantage, Ha slipped out of Kaede’s grasp. “Did it look like I was enjoying myself? You stupid airhead!” Ha leapt up with tremendous height to whack Hana in the back of the head.

“But you were gone for so long, sis. I thought you were checking to see if they wanted something to eat?”

“I was until that stupid cow and her boyfriend started grabbing me!”

“Cow?! Boyfriend?!” Kaede shouted making her way over to Ha very quickly while point her hand back at Hiroshi.

“We are not!” Hiroshi and Kaede said together making some of the others laugh shortly behind amused smiles.

Kazuhiko joined the group stepping with a very blunt question. “What’s with the rough attitude towards paying customers?”

“I’ll show you rough!” Ha said before Hana grabbed her keeping her from doing anything, but running in place swinging her arms.

Hana was lightly laughing in embarrassment trying to keep Ha’s tempter under control. Then in a swift motion she lifted up Ha by her obi holding her off the ground. Her free hand raised up by her mouth as a distant, not quite vacant, look appeared as she was trying to think (very hard). “As big sister Hanabira explained it there is one type of little girl. The…what was it…stereotype! Yeah, the stereotype of a little girl is sweet and innocent. But she also said…” It was clear on Hana’s face that she was struggling to remember something incredibly complex for her. The twisted and confused look in her eyes was quickly shifting as she moved through her words. “…that cultural…trends had shown that a new stereotype was becoming popular…the blunt rough mature sounding little girl that is supposed to play…in contrast to the typical running stereotype. However…its uh a stereotype too…so uh…its falls into uh…”

Everyone listening to Hana’s explanation could not help but sweat as she tried to describe it to them only becoming confused by herself. It also left them with further shock listening to an analytical reasoning of child stereotypes in pop culture. No one knew what to make of what they were talking about.

Ha had had enough of Hana and broke free from her hold dropping back down to the ground. “Stupid girl, you aren’t supposed to explain the plan to them!”

“Plan?” Saki said questioningly stepping out from the rest.

The little girl curtly crossed her arms staring at them. “Simply put you get two clichés, a sweet innocent little girl and the brat that contradicts the other cliché.”

“What?! You can’t be serious!”

“Hey, this is a business of fulfilling fantasies and we get a lot of those weird anime otaku types.”

It took until now, as the shiny fantasy began to peel away, that Tatsuya poked Hiroshi to get him confirm what he was noticing. It made the two of them nearly break into tears collapsing to the grass. Hiroshi looked up over to Hana and Ha with a regretful question. “You don’t have a fourth sister do you?”

The question confused everyone, apart from Ha, making them all look over at them trying to understand what was wrong with them. Yuki ran over to their side trying to get them to speak to him, but it seemed that they were gone to the point of stuttering sounds. However, Ha spoke up for them knowing exactly what they had finally realized. “The two drooling morons are talking about this!” She held up her hands holding something that Yuki did not recognized, but the girls quickly picked up on.

Ayumi and Saki looked down and back up at Hana following by a double take that took in everyone. “Pads?!” Katsumi said before anyone else was able to say it. “Why she wearing those?!”

“Because saying that Hana’s got an ‘A cup’ would be generous and you can’t have a flat-chested airhead cliché without a rack that’ll make guys drool.” The bluntness that was delivered made everyone sweat and nearly fall over. Everything was falling apart it seemed leaving everyone unease about staying.

“I’m not so sure we should stay…” Tatsuya cautiously said.

Katsumi nodded in agreement with him. “It’s a little too weird…”

“Yeah, I want this to end!” said Hiroshi sorrowfully still partially out of it. While the voice was low it seemed to trigger an effect in the room. An electronic beep sounded out followed by an explosion of light that drained away from sight. Revealed behind it was the room that they had been in before with everyone returned to the places that they had been. Ken and Jun were returned as well, though obviously confused by the sudden change in environment.

“Hey! Where’d the grass go? We were playing!” Ken said with Jun asserting a firm nod of his head towards the others to back up his brother. They both went over to Yuki to plead to him. Ken took his left and Jun his right holding on the ends of his school uniform trying to beg with soft eyes. “We want to play more!”

Yuki was made equally uneasy by everything with his thoughts starting to make him question once more if the machine could possibly exist. He tried to look away from them towards his friends, but that only seemed to make them even noisier.

Hana took to their complaints and started walking over to the door. The suspicious emotions in the air were going by obliviously being ignored by her. It was simply her task to serve and keep the customers happy. She approached the computer panel in the wall starting to type before everyone realized what she was doing. “I know something fun for everyone! It’s highly requested!”

“No!”

“Wait!”

“Stop!”

Tatsuya, Kaede and Saki rushed over to Hana trying to reach her before she did something. The entire room fell into darkness again as Hana’s speed typing finished the request before they were able to even get close to her. “There!” Seconds passed by as everything was beginning to be processed before revealing a sandy beach next to a water park.

“Oh this looks awesome!” Ken said running out into the water as the waves broke against the shore. Jun followed along with his brother splashing water everywhere he went. The rest of the students all took in the moment before Ayumi was taken in by the moment heading to the water. It was then they realized she was wearing a bright pink and white bathing suit. They all looked around at each other noticing that everyone was wearing swimwear making Hiroshi and Tatsuya grin and the girls embarrassed. Yumi was most especially embarrassed knowing that she was wearing bikini in front of Yuki. She balled up to the ground trying to cover herself up.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?!” Saki shouted over to Hana, still in her kimono smiling like everything was good and right in the world. Ha was standing next to her older sister with a wicked grin on her face also enjoying the scene, but for completely different reasons.

Yuki was not really thinking and went over to Yumi who looked like she was lonely, according to Yuki. “Come on Yumi! Let’s go!” He offered her a hand up in addition to a warm smile.

“Yuki?! Don’t encourage them!”

“…but I’m in…ah…a…b-b-b-b…” Yumi’s red face and embarrassed feeling of being exposed ran a total collapse on her ability to speak. She could almost feel how close Yuki was to her. It was making her heart pound in her chest and body sweat. His warm body and bare chest was making her face turn five shades of red.

The clues were not enough for Yuki to get the correct message and taking it in a different direction he let out a short laugh. “It’s alright, Yumi! You need a swimsuit if you’re going to go swimming. So let’s go!” He reached out taking her hand leading her a little to get her up to her feet. It was surprisingly easily to coax her legs to move before she was running with Yuki to join his brothers and Ayumi. Kaede and Katsumi were not about to let Yuki have his way with Yumi and sprinted after them. Hiroshi looked between Kazuhiro and Tatsuya nodding in agreement charging into the water as well leaving Saki the odd one out.

Saki looked around the empty beach agape that she was left behind and that no one else was feeling invaded like she was. She glared over as the hostess siblings and then walked off seeing that she was alone. As she stormed into the water she caught a mouth and faceful of salt water that was intended for Yumi behind her from Yuki. Everyone froze as the water slowly dripped down her shocked face. The frustrated expression behind the wide eyes transitioned into smirk that delivered a heavy retaliatory attack back at Yuki that covered him in enough water to blur out his features.

Once again time was forgotten in the playful expression of everyone. All of the stress that they had all been holding was finally allowed to be let free washed away. They could act like children without a care or worry in the world. It was a moment in time that they could smile freely dropping their guards to enjoy the moment.

Kaede and Katsumi were taking a break away from everyone resting on the beach. In the background Ken and Jun were enjoying the water slide that spun and spiraled before entering the ocean water. Kaede looked over at Katsumi, who was keeping an eye on Yumi. “Looks like she’s finally herself, Katsumi.”

“Yeah…it’s been a while since I’ve seen that smile when it’s not about her brother.”

“Maybe…you think?”

“…Perhaps…”

“He’s not so bad…”

“…maybe…” Katsumi smiled looking on at Yuki and Yumi. Once she had gotten into the water she had not been shy or distant from anyone. She was even keeping her face from getting red as well being around Yuki. Katsumi caught a look of Yuki as he was coming up from the water with water trailing off of him providing an unusually attractive view of him. “Hey, Kaede…”

“What?”

“Yuki…was he always that muscular?”

“You noticed too? I thought he was just a nerd, but he actually looks like he works out.”

Katsumi leaned forward resting her head on her hand staring out. “Maybe there’s more to him than what we see in class…”

The time that they had was coming to end soon as there was an announcement by the machine’s voice once more informing them of their time left. “Ten minutes remaining… Ten minutes remaining… If you wish to purchase more time please visit the front desk. Thank you!” Everyone looked around at each other feeling a little disappointed that they had already used up all of their time.

Jun looked up at Yuki grabbing his attention. “What, Jun? You want to try it out? There’s only ten minutes though, Jun.” Jun reached out his hand grabbing Yuki’s swim trunks giving him a serious expression through his eyes. “Alright. If you want this to end.” It was at that moment that the entire world melted away returning everyone back to the room with their clothes and completely dry hair and bodies. Yuki walked over to the computer with Jun looking down at him. “Just tell me what you want and I’ll put it in for you.” Jun tightened his hand on his school uniform making it clear enough to Yuki. “Alright…”

Yuki knelt down picking up his brother allowing him the height to reach the keyboard. Jun insisted on not letting Yuki see it or anyone else. It only seemed to take a minute and Jun was done with the computer accepting the input. Yuki stared down at his little brother trying to figure out what it was that he wanted to keep a secret from him. The entire room went dark once more for a few seconds.

Suddenly, the light exploded from the top as the sun beamed down on them revealing a seemingly generic looking neighborhood in Japan. It was not just any neighborhood though as Saki and Yuki quickly realized. “Jun why did you want to make our neighborhood?” said Yuki looking down at his brother once more.

Out from the distance there was a woman’s voice that seemed to clearly carrying through the air. Jun was quick to turn and dart off towards the voice, but Yuki froze in his body. ‘That voice…it sounds so familiar…’

Saki looked over at Yuki seeing the reaction on his face not knowing what was wrong with him. “Yuki?”

Another voice this time a man’s voice broke through the street they were standing in. This time the words were heard by Yuki. “Hey, Jun! How’s my big man doing?”

Yuki’s body knew the voice, but his mind had not put it together yet. It was making his heart pound and sweat crawl over his skin. ‘Is it?’ The thumping grew to echo in his ears as he was unable to control his own body as it reacted.

“Yuki?” Yumi and Ayumi said confused by his reaction from seeing the two adults with Jun. They did not know what was going on along with the rest of his friends.

Saki was finally pulled away from Yuki recognizing the voices and looked up at the house seeing the man and woman as they greeted Ken running up the sidewalk to them. Her eyes widened sharply as she immediately knew who they were. She stepped back having difficulty believing what she was seeing. “It can’t be!”

The woman looked out from Jun and Ken quickly catching her eye on someone in the crowd. She stepped down from the house with Jun holding at her side. She stepped towards them standing before Yuki, still paralyzed, looking down at him with such a gentle and warm smile. “There you are, Yuki!”

Yuki’s eyes widen in shock knowing who it was as he slowly turning still not believing it. Even when he stared up at her face he had to reach out his hand to touch her just to know it was real. Before any words could come out of his mouth tears fell down his cheeks. “…mother…”

To be continued…

(Author’s Notes: I had meant to put this in the last chapter, but forgot. Well I’ve gotten to the end of the introductions for the main cast. So I wanted to find out which character is your favorite. If you have time let me know! And I’ll be asking the question again at the end of the major arc for reasons that’ll explain themselves soon enough.)

“We specialize in making your fantasies come true!” the woman said with a soft greeting tone. The woman motioned with her arms towards the door inviting them into the shop. Her straightforward respond to Saki’s question was almost jarring as though there was no hidden meaning intended with her words.

Hidden meanings however were not something that Hiroshi could stay away from. A vacant glow in his eyes appeared like he was checked out while still managing to look like he was getting excited about something. The same looked was quick to appear across Tatsuya and Kazuhiro, even Yuki. However, it was only a quick moment after Saki recovered from her stunned state that she turned and whacked the four of them in the head.

“What was that for, Saki?!” Hiroshi said bravely in the brief moment that he forgot who he was staring at. Tatsuya and Kazuhiro were still recovering themselves from Saki (Hiroshi had a little resistance built up from repeatedly being hit by Saki).

She stepped into a lean against Hiroshi as he leaned backwards. “Because I know what thoughts were going through your head!” Hiroshi tried to deny it, but Saki was not being fooled by a faux innocent face.

Yuki rubbed his head walking over near Saki, oblivious to what she was doing. “Why’d you hit me, Saki?”

“Because I know what you’re thinking!” she said turning her head over to snap back at him.

“But I bet Hiroshi was thinking something dirty! Why didn’t you hit him too?!”

Everyone around could not help but sweat in disbelief. Saki wanted to hit him again, but all she could do was raise up her arm before realizing the futility of it. She dropped it back down to her side sighing heavily.

Chapter 47 – The Fantasy You Want

Hiroshi tilted his head down relieved that he was saved by Yuki’s distraction. ‘Hard to believe he was someone to be feared with how clueless he is…’ He turned to check on his friends after Saki’s assault. It was not their first time, but they were still not used to it. “You guys doing alright?”

“…Yeah…”

“…I’d hate to be on her bad side…”

“Yeah, well it’s something you get used to…” Old sores and bruises suddenly spiked dull pains of memories through his body from the more recent run-ins with Saki. He coughed feeling the choking in his throat from his thoughts. “Well…you ready to go inside?” Tatsuya and Kazuhiro both nodded eagerly to Hiroshi dragging over Saki’s attentions once more.

“We aren’t going in there! I can’t believe you thought this was a smart idea.” Saki grabbed up Hiroshi by the collar of his uniform’s jacket glaring at him. “You’ve taken this joke too far! What did you tell Yuki to get him to go along with this?”

“S-Saki!” Panic stricken was an all too familiar feeling for Hiroshi as he was on the balls of his feet with Saki’s demon eyes glaring down at him. Sweat poured down his face as he trying to get words out to calm down Saki. The choking in his throat made it difficult for him to speak clearly. “Y-You…got the…wro-ng i-i-idea!”

“I’ll tell you who’s got the wrong idea!”

Saki started to make a move, but Ayumi suddenly spoke up in a clear yet soft voice that interrupted Saki. Yumi had been trying to get her attention for a while, but her quiet voice was barely enough to leave her lips with Saki having turned violent. “Saki! Yuki’s gone into the building along with Jun and Ken.”

“What?!” she exclaimed dropping Hiroshi. Her eyes scanned the area trying to find him, but the place he had been standing was vacant. When she thought of how Yuki would react and that it was Hiroshi’s fault all she could do was raise her fist tightly as a vein popped from the back of her hand pulsing with frustration. ‘I can’t believe Hiroshi! How could he take a joke so far!?’ She looked around at the rest of the group. “Everyone wait here! I’ll go grab Yuki and his brothers!”

As Saki ran into the shop, everyone looked around at each other pausing for a moment. They all looked over at the woman still with the same warm greeting face inviting them all in. Her fine long black hair was pulled in the breeze that passed through the back alley as silence held everyone.

Inside the Mi Hana Shop, Saki was looking around the front desk reception area for Yuki. While Saki was not taking note, the interior of the building looked far more normal and easy on the eyes than its exterior. There was a large wood counter with a stack of brochures advertising their product protecting a middle aged woman dressed in a more subtle kimono of dark green. She pleasantly smiled allowing Saki her moment to franticly search around the room.

Once Saki, exhausted, came to a stop and walked over to the counter giving into the failure. The woman looked over at her speaking in an even tone that held an old fashion and refined accent that threw Saki off. “Greetings young child. You appear to be seeking something.”

Saki pulled back trying to work with the old Japanese and stiffly nodding. ‘I can’t believe anyone still talks like that…’ The woman waited patiently for Saki’s answer, but silence grew in pressure until it was a weight on Saki demanding her to act. “W-Wel-Um…” There drew out another long pause as Saki stumbled over words needed to speak. “…Have you seen high school boy come through with two younger boys?”

“Yes, he said he had brought friends. I had my younger sister show him the rooms available. How many are in your party?” The woman looked down at the counter pulling something out from under the surface. “Is this the rest of your party?”

Saki tried to wave her hand to decline the woman, who had the wrong idea. “No, we aren’t—“ She turned around quickly picking up on what the woman had said. The rest of their group stood inside the room with the young woman sliding the door closed. “What’re you doing here? I thought I said to wait outside!”

Yumi stepped forward with her hands held together in front of her looking nervous. She kept her head hung down toward the ground as Saki stared at her expecting her to say something despite nothing ever being said. Ayumi leaned to the side around Yumi getting into view. “Hiroshi explained it to us, Saki.”

“Huh? What’s there to explain?” Saki turned her head towards Hiroshi wanting an answer from him to explain, but he disappeared behind the girls. Tatsuya and Kazuhiro made themselves invisible as well only frustrating Saki even more.

Ayumi walked around Yumi approaching Saki. “The way he explained it, this place is more like a karaoke shop. Except that instead of songs they have some sort of virtual reality machine that creates whatever you want. Sounded like a game…”

Katsumi popped up around Yumi interjecting her vote. “But if its real sounds like a lot of fun!”

Saki eyes fell low and narrow as she looked around to all of the faces. She felt so stupid for misinterpreting what the woman had said. ‘I want to go die in a corner right now…’ Her entire body felt numb and limp as she slid down into a puddle on the floor not wanting to be seen. She could not help but feel as though they were all laughing at her for acting so embarrassing.

“Hey…where’s Saki?” Yuki said walking back with his brothers and a little girl wearing a bright light green kimono. Everyone pointed down at the dark pool of liquid on the floor that Ken immediately leapt into. They all reacted with the same petrified state of electric shock only imagining how she had to be feeling at the moment.

After Ken had finished playing and Saki recovered enough to be solid, she looked with dark depressed set eyes around until catching sight of someone she had not seen before, the little girl. Whether it looked it or not her mind was still sharp and recalled quickly what the middle aged woman had said. She looked over to the woman behind the counter and said in a weak low voice, “I thought you said your younger sister was with Yuki.”

The woman nodded pleased to see that she remembered so well. “Yes, you are correct.”

“Ugh! This girl’s creepy lookin’ and weird! I don’t like her eyes!” The little girl that had been sweet and charming looking standing quietly next to Yuki completely changed into a wicked, foul and cold little girl. She turned her head up towards the woman at the counter addressing her.

“Quiet! They haven’t paid yet,” the woman said carefully under her voice meant only for the little girl.

“What?!” the girl yelped before choking on it as she looked around towards the potential (keyword) customers. She just as quickly turned back into the kind looking girl with a sweet voice. “You have a very pretty face, Miss!” The stunned silence by everyone was sharply followed up by everyone falling over in surprise.

Everyone was slowly pulling themselves back up recovering from the shock as the young woman politely looked over towards the ground of students. “So will you be staying?” Saki, Hiroshi and Yumi could not help but sweat in reaction.

Yuki jumped to his feet and raised his arms into the air. “Yes!” Everyone could not help but fall over again, in spite of the fact that it was not surprising. Yuki looked around at everyone confused by their reactions. “So how much?”

Saki groaned out loud as she pulled herself up. The others recovered soon and gathered around the counter with things returning to normal. The little girl stood with the young woman in the hallway politely waiting as the middle aged woman handled them. It was the price that almost drove them away making it difficult for them to pay on their allowance. Huddling together and pooling their money they managed to get enough time for two hours.

“Thank you! My name is Hanabira,” the middle aged woman said finally introducing herself upon receiving the payment.

At that moment the young woman and little girl were bowing politely thanking them as well. The little girl stood back up first. “This is my younger older sister, Hana!” she said point cheerfully to the young woman. She then returned the finger to point at herself. “I’m Ha! I’m only eight years old!” The cute adorable expression of pride glowed across her face as she started to turn around to guide them to their room.

Saki could not let things go and stopped them wanting an answer. “Are you saying you’re all sisters? That’s impossible! There’s at least a thirty year gap in your ages!” She pointed over to Hanabira accusingly.

Ha turned her body half way getting her head around most of the way changing once more. “Thirty-four actually… Got a problem with that?” The look in her eyes changed so quickly it left Saki stunned in surprise for a second. “Come this way please,” said a sweet voice from her lips jerking back into the previous personality.

Confused and stunned was all Saki managed at the moment as the little child seemed to be taking enjoyment in manipulating her. The rest of them were not sure how to act seeing Saki being toyed with so easily. They moved through the hall directed by the child and the young woman towards a booth near the end. Hana ushered them into the room and slid the door closed once everyone was in.

Inside the room there was enough space for everyone to fit surprisingly comfortably. There were several couches placed around the walls and a couple tables as well. Behind them at the entrance was a computer panel built into the wall with a full keyboard and touch screen as Katsumi found out from her curiosity. Upon her finger contacting the screen it turned on presenting a greeting in Japanese and English. Above them a voice of a woman that was not one of the three they had met evenly greeted them. “Welcome guests to the Mi Hana Shop! The screen you have just touched is the computer where you can input any dream you wish to have fulfilled. Note: The Mi Hana Shop is a family friendly environment and as such there are restrictions. Please keep that in mind when you are making a request. Enjoy your stay!”

Saki looked around at Hiroshi, Tatsuya and Kazuhiro making it clear to them, she was finally recovering. Jun and Ken jumped off the couch running over to Katsumi standing by the screen looking eager to have some fun. They both tugged on her uniform to draw down her attention. Katsumi bent her legs to reach their level becoming quickly enamored by them once more. “You want to give it a try?” Jun nodded eagerly with Ken jumping up and down unable to keep his excitement under control.

Yuki stepped in around his friends to reach his brothers. He had a surprisingly serious face on contrary to his display earlier. “We should test it out first. We don’t even know if it works or what to expect. So let’s do something normal as a test and then go from there.”

Rational thinking from Yuki made everyone come to a halt. Hiroshi exchanged stared with Tatsuya and Saki getting very similar feelings. “I’ve seen everything now. Yuki being serious and reasonable.” Everyone nodded in agreement, including his brothers.

“Hey! I can be serious when I want!”

Ayumi smiled a little shaking her head slightly. “No, but that’s what make you fun!”

“Ayumi!” Yuki dropped his jaw open freezing in position shocked to hear such bluntness from her. His friends all laughed knowing how true a statement it was, especially with the way he was reacting.

Saki lowered her hand from her face after she had finished laughing. “But in all seriousness, Yuki does have a point. We should probably test it with something safe. We don’t know what it is anyway.”

“But it’s virtual reality!” Ken said trying to get them to skip safety. However, when he saw that Saki was gaining the support of everyone else he lowered his head in disappointment. Jun patted his shoulder to try to console him a little.

“What should it be then?” Hiroshi said scanning the others for answer.

“…I don’t know…” said Saki.

There was a long silence as everyone thought of something safe and normal to test. “…A meadow…” Yumi said softly thinking that her voice went ignored, but in the silence it carried well. Everyone pulled their faces up looking over at her making her embarrassed like she had said something wrong.

“That’s perfect, Yumi!” Yuki said quickly bringing relief to Yumi. He looked over to at Katsumi letting her input the request.

It ended up taking more than just the two words to get what they wanted out of it. Katsumi had to answer several questions about time, appearance and weather, but after a few minutes of stumbling through the form it accepted their request. When the computer beeped the entire room went into pitch blackness as though the power had failed. Everyone started to chime up with questions and confusion trying to understand what was going wrong. Katsumi tried to go for the door, but found that it was no longer where it had been. Slowly building over the panicked voices was a hum that encompassed them bringing everyone to a waiting pause of anticipation.

Like a drawn out breath the hum ceased followed by a new light appearing above everyone. They were not able to look at it in time before suddenly the black void was wiped away to reveal a lightly clouded blue sky with a large meadow of ankle tall grass overlooking the expansive fields of rolling hills as far as the eye could see.

The vista left everyone in awe unable to speak for a minute. Ken was the first to run out from where they were willing to give into the illusion. Yuki tried to stop him thinking that he would run into the wall of the room. When he failed, but saw that Ken was much further away than possible he started to believe.

“It’s unbelievable,” Kaede said as she began walking out away from the group.

A gentle breeze swept by everyone dragging along their hair. “Even the wind feels real…” said Yumi pulling her hair out of her face.

“It goes on forever it seems,” Kazuhiro said watching Ken get further way with Jun chasing after him.

“Yeah, I could easily relax and do nothing here for two hours…” Tatsuya said sitting down in the grass.

Saki knelt down towards the grass grabbing it by her hand pulling it free. “It’s pretty realistic for a virtual reality.”

“I didn’t think this was possible with the technology we have…” said Yuki staring up at the clouds. He looked over to Ayumi who still seemed to be enjoying the sights. A glance that lasted only a moment between them showed a change in her eyes that seemed to given him the same unsettled feeling. ‘…could this be the power of Kasou-ryoku?’

To be continued…

Monday came to a mostly uneventful ending for everyone. Apart from Yuki, he could be found sleeping and accidently summoning his Kasou-ryoku powers to alter the classroom in a split second that required Ayumi and Saki to quickly cover up in a very poor awkward manner that everyone noticed, but are conveniently forgetting. So life was normal for Yuki.

Momoko was surprisingly forgiving for Yuki returning home in the manner that he did, as well as being late. He had found the whole situation a little unsettling, but his own mood had been left sullen with the state that they had left Chiharu. The trip in the car he had tried to cheer up Saki, knowing how much it was hurting her, but it did not seem to improve. By class, she seemed to be mostly back to normal, though still a little distant at times. The others did not know what was going on, but Yuki was determined to cheer up Saki today.

Yuki tightened his fists together psyching himself up, pushing away stray thoughts, and approached Saki with a pleasant smile. “Hey Saki! You don’t have practice after class, right?”

It took a moment for Yuki’s voice to reach Saki completely and turn to see that he was talking to her. “Uh? Yuki?”

“Right?”

The look on his face was warm and determined making it difficult for Saki to ignore him. Unfortunately, Saki could only look clueless at him, having not heard what he said. “What are you talking about?”

Ignored and dejected a little Yuki slumped over. “You didn’t hear anything I said?” Her shaking head only made Yuki cry to know that all of his energy had been wasted. However, he was not going to give up and straightened himself back up reinvigorating his determination. “You don’t have practice, right?”

“…yeah…” she said slowly still feeling like she was missing something.

“Good! Then let’s go out!” Yuki exclaimed nearly jumping with excitement over the idea.

Yumi nearby could hear Yuki shouting (everyone in the class heard) making her face turn red quickly and grow short on breath. Her heart went shallow for a moment as though she had just lost something precious and irreplaceable. “…Yuki…Y-Yuki…”

“Yuki and Saki are going out? Since when?” said Katsumi narrowly becoming a little put off by Yuki’s boisterous attitude, even after school was over.

Kaede popped in around Yumi looking at Katsumi with some shock. “Can’t believe it! Though she does hang around him all the time and cover up for his mistakes in class. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” Kaede and Katsumi nodded to themselves in agreement, but when Yumi fell over to the floor they were quickly turned away. “Yumi! What’s wrong?” Together they tried to lift her up as she was not out, but feeling a little lightheaded.

“…Yuki…Saki…”

“Hang in there, Yumi!”

“Don’t follow that jerk into the light!”

Chapter 46 – Strange Meetings

Yuki was quick to rush over to Yumi hearing her friends shouting trying to keep her awake, Saki being pulled along. “Yumi? Are you alright?” Unfortunately, the proximity of Yuki did not improve Yumi’s condition only making her stutter and turn red.

Not even a whole word could make it out of her mouth as her friends pulled her away from Yuki trying to get her to recover. They had been through this enough time that they had become used to responding and dealing with her. “Hey Yumi! President Yori is here!” Kaede announced holding Yumi in her arm while block Yuki out of sight.

“Yori? Brother!” yelped Yumi as she immediately snapped out of her lost state. She quickly started looking around the classroom for him trying to find her brother not wanting to let him see her in such a position.

Katsumi leaned in placing a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. “He must have left. I know I saw him.” The relieving news eased Yumi back down allowing them to talk to her again. “You think you can stand?”

“…yeah…” She slowly pulled herself back up to her feet with Kaede’s help. On her feet again, she saw Yuki next to Saki talking between themselves. There was another jump in her heart as she tried to keep herself calm. “Yuki?”

“Yumi?” he said turning around quickly, with that wide smile on his face still and the excitement of a child. He dropped his hand into the palm of his other hand as an idea came to him. “Hey Yumi! You want to go out?”

‘Yuki…ask me?’ Yumi’s heart jumped again as her face ran red in an instant before she passed out for real this time. Her friends caught her quickly, but Yuki was left confused.

Saki stepped in behind Yuki whacking him in the back of the head. “Yuki! Watch how you talk to Yumi!”

“Hey?! Saki!” Saki stared at Yuki that only seemed to go around Yuki with his confused look. He rubbed his head trying to understand why she had hit him until Saki sighed giving up.

“Give it up Saki. You know he’s not going to get it,” Hiroshi said stepping in from the side of the class along with Tatsuya and Kazuhiro. “I think it’ll be easier solved by just explaining what’s going on. Right, Yuki?”

The weight shifted to Yuki with Saki and Hiroshi looking at him to fix what he started. Yuki still did not understand what they were getting at, but leaving out the details probably was not the best thing. ‘I guess I should let her know what I want to do…’

Everyone gathered around as Kaede and Katsumi worked on getting Yumi alive once more. Once Hiroshi and Saki had settled down Yumi enough so that Yuki could explain he stepped forward. “Let’s all go to this new awesome place in town!” Yuki’s eyes were glowing like a child’s innocent and full of joy as it could be clear that he was imagining things in his mind.

Saki slapped him in the head again noticing that he was losing control of his powers and Hiroshi did as well for another reason. “You’re skipping the details, Yuki…”

“Hey quit hitting me!” Yuki dried up his tears from the pain and returned back to his previous state completely lost in the illusions he was created requiring more reality checks. “Details, alright…I wanted it to be a surprised…” He began to look down at his foot aimlessly fidgeting becoming dejected.

Yumi had been waiting with curiosity to know what Yuki wanted to do, once their misunderstanding had been solved (a little disappointed). The sad expression that Yuki had immediately drew Yumi in to cheer him up not thinking about what she was doing so close to him. “It’s alright, Yuki. I don’t mind a surprise. I might be fun!”

“Something fun?!” Ayumi said cheerfully interjecting herself into the group. She looked clueless and excited at the same time. “What’s going on?”

Yuki perked up quickly with the encouragement from Yumi and Ayumi. Saki sighed to herself looking around at how large of a group that was developing for them. Looking around persistently to everyone, Ayumi tried to get some clue to where everyone was going. “Yuki wants to go to some place he’s heard about from Hiroshi. Hasn’t been able to stop talking about it since he was told about it.” The excitement was starting to be a drain on Saki as she began to regret agreeing with him. ‘Just watching those two is exhausting…how does she do it?’

“Let’s go everyone!” Yuki shouted throwing up an arm in excitement that dragged in Ayumi quickly. Yumi tried to smile and nod while her friends questioned their own involvement, but could not let Yumi go alone with Yuki. Following in behind was Hiroshi with his friends looking a little mischievous. Walking only made it so far as the school entrance before they were interrupted by two short shadowed figures that came running in towards them.

The short figures were faster than anyone could see being only a blur as they rushed for Yuki. Distracted in his excitement, Yuki was caught off guard by what happened until it was too late. The two blurs had attached themselves to Yuki shedding their blackened cover with light illuminating their faces. Ken had climbed up on Yuki’s back hanging off his neck and down his back with a wide grin while Jun silently held on to the edge of his uniform’s coat staring up at him. Once Yuki finally realized what was going on he jumped back as the group divided for him trying to shake them. “What’re you two doing?! Get off me!”

In the struggle Yuki collapsed to the ground with his siblings holding on to him. Jun, intentionally or not, sat down on Yuki’s stomach still just staring at him. The arrival of his brothers made everyone apart from Saki and Ayumi curious and confused. Yumi and her friends moved in taking quick looks at the young children before looking back at each other. Katsumi and Kaede seemed more intense than Yumi with the look in their eye. Yumi knelt down, leaving the two girls, looking over at Jun. “What are you doing here?” she said sweetly.

Ken let go of Yuki for a moment seeing that she was trying to talk to Jun. He walked over to Yumi looking very confident. “We came to see Yuki! I’m Ken and this is Jun! Who are you?”

“Oh I’m Yumi! Came to see Yuki? How come?”

“He’s our big brother! Our big sister let us go play!”

“Brother?” Hiroshi, Tatsuya and Kazuhiro exclaimed together in surprise, never having heard anything about brothers from Yuki.

“So you came to play with Yuki?” Jun nodded in agreement with Yumi’s words. Yumi was taking to the information better anyone else almost as though she knew already.

Kaede and Katsumi behind Yumi held hands smiling to each other. “He’s so cute!” Kaeda said.

Katsumi nodded in agreement glowing with her. “And he looks so cool! Like he’s trying to be like Yuki!”

Ken looked over at Jun giving him a smile with a mischievous sparkle along with a victory sign. Jun pleasantly nodded in agreement with his brother. “Operation Cool and Cute was a success!” Ken declared to his brother, words that went mostly ignored by the others.

Yuki finally pulled himself together with the opening that his brothers left him. He stood up letting Jun down off him and glared back at the two of them. “Momoko’s going to be angry with you two for leaving the house! You know how she is!”

“But I already said she let us play!” Ken said getting a little cocky with Yuki and pointing to his previous words to re-enforce his defense. He then crossed his arms looking up at his brother with a look that said he knew he was going to get away with what he was planning.

Frustration was building up in Yuki as his dreams of having fun with his friends was quickly fading away. “But I’ve already got plans with my friends! You need to go back home!” Jun closed in towards Yuki giving him long sad eyes that worked on melting Yuki. “…Jun…you haven’t seen me lately? But I’m—“

Kaede and Katsumi jumped into the conversation dragging Yumi along as well. “We don’t mind if your brothers come along. Right, Katsumi?”

“Yup, Kaede!”

“…Yuki…it’s fine with me…” Yumi said meekly balancing her emotions precariously.

Jun’s melting stare was working on Yuki in tandem with the girls. Hiroshi and the others did not seem to mind either leaving Yuki looking like the bad guy. “Alright…Let’s all go together!” he half shouted trying to get back in the mood, which seemed to work well on Jun.

The large group of students, plus two elementary students, winded their way through the town. After school hours made the sidewalks their usually busy selves with students. It did not help that Hiroshi’s directions forced them to travel through the busiest and most difficult areas to walk through to reach their unknown destination. Yumi’s friends were the first to complain about the walking and soon by Saki. Both of them seemed to doubt that Hiroshi knew what he was doing until everyone besides Yuki and Jun wanted to leave becoming hungry from the trip.

“This should be the last turn…” said Hiroshi as he checked a paper he had been referencing frequently. He turned his head side to side looking at the alley that they were in left with two directions to take.

“This guy’s been sayin’ that for the last twenty minutes!” Ken said kicking a bottle on the ground into the adjacent wall.

Ayumi sighed heavily developing a pouting lip on her face from being so tired. “I’m so hungry…”

“We’re almost there, guys…” Hiroshi said looking at the paper for a second time. ‘I think…’

“Come on! Hiroshi said we’re almost there!” Yuki said with his never ending excitement.

“You’re the only one still excited…” a long voice said from Katsumi.

Kaede’s eyes were half closed with her eyebrows pulled down in stress. “Where does all of his energy come from…”

No longer able to wait with his excitement, Yuki took a turn and charged down the alley. Saki reached out for him, but had no strength or will to make a real effort as her arm fell limp. The group turned to look around at each other, but mostly at Hiroshi with an implying glare. Sweat dripped down his head as he tried to back away from the frightening looks he was getting. However, they were all interrupted by Yuki returning scream with excitement. “I found it!”

No one seemed to be looking at Yuki as they held their gaze on Hiroshi. “See he found it! I knew we were close, right?” Yuki waved at them before getting a dumbfounded expression on his face confused to the reason for their still sad emotions.

Jun was quick to take Yuki’s side and ran over to him followed by Ken. Kaede and Katsumi’s eyes were turned towards the two boys and they took to Yuki as well. The rest were quick to fall in place as Yuki eagerly directed them to the place that he had found. Yet when they reached the building that they had been looking for everyone just stood still in disbelief. No one could say a word for what they were looking at scattered their preconceptions of what was thought to be possible.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Yuki said oblivious to reason for their reactions.

“…right…” Saki finally said as though she was struggling to pull it out from her mouth.

“…I didn’t think it was possible…” replied Tatsuya as he tried to pull himself away from the sight.

Kazuhiro nodded slowly still wide eyed by the building. “…unique…”

“…is that a skeleton?” Kaede managed still trying to take everything in.

Being called a nightmare of design would still be understating the appearance. The building if all of the decoration was pulled away turned out to be a simple two floor structure large enough for several rooms to fit inside on each floor. Drawing the eye though was the single marble column near the door next to the fake skeletal remains of a bizarre winged lizard like animal. Following opposite of the column and door was a clay surface with Arab designs and a metal wire mesh. All coated in the worst possible color combinations of purple, pink, red and orange. The door seemed almost embarrassed to be present among the rest as it was a simple Japanese wood sliding panel door.

Yuki pulled back by the building lifting his arm up in a presenting manner still ignorant of his friend’s reactions. “Ready to go inside?” All of them stepped back uneasy, including Hiroshi.

“I wouldn’t be caught dead inside that place!” Katsumi said as she hid behind Yumi with Kaede behind her.

“Must be the wrong place, Yuki!” Hiroshi quickly said pulling up his sheet of paper to look at it again. The others were nodding in agreement with him or whispering similar words.

Amongst the discordant voices and distracted eyes the door to the shop opened and a woman in a beautiful green kimono stepped out. She went ignored by everyone other than Yuki, who was politely bowing to her. The students continued to leave her unnoticed until she finally spoke up in a soft traveling voice that managed to be heard clearly to everyone that it shut them up. “Welcome to the Mi Hana Shop!”

She was quick to gain everyone’s attention, especially Hiroshi and his friends. “Woah-um…I mean it would be rude to leave now that we’re here,” Hiroshi said quickly trying to turn the decision, but only becoming suspicious from the girls. The young woman that was greeting was filling out her kimono very well making it difficult for them to ignore or turn down.

Saki was still trying to get over the storefront and looked over at the storekeeper. Yuki had left them in the dark about what the place was they were visiting. “So what sort of shop is the Mi Hana?”

“We specialize in making your fantasies come true!” the woman said with a soft greeting tone.

To be continued…

Silence held in the forest as Saki held on to Chiharu. No words were needed between them for that moment. A flood of emotions from Chiharu had been released that had been trained into her to keep held in. Time drained away slowly letting things run their course until Chiharu was ready.

Saki kept her eyes on Chiharu watching her as she stayed with her. ‘…she never gave herself the chance to grieve…’ It was clear to her that vengeance was almost instinctual for Chiharu. The mindset that she had to be given at a young age bothered Saki. ‘…she couldn’t allow herself that moment… just like with her parents…’

Saki rocked slowly back and forth with Chiharu just letting her be. While her thoughts spun question after question in her mind trying to understand the family. ‘…what did they do to her to make her like this? She needs time to be a girl, not a killer for hire…’

Chapter 45 – Girl No More

Chiharu pulled her head up still running with tears, but looking a little stronger than before. She pulled away from Saki with no resistance. There was a small distance put between them as she looked straight at Saki with a long face. ‘…how could…I…I felt…safe…’ Her eyes lowered a bit as her hands moved to try to wipe away the tears with her suddenly becoming embarrassed. Freely running emotions were still pouring through her even as she tried to close the door. “Grandfather…he’s dead…”

Saki reached out her hands to place on Chiharu’s hands for comfort. The tension and uncertainty could be felt the instant she touched her. “It’s alright, Chiharu… You’re allowed to cry…”

“But I couldn’t…” There was choking in her words as she paused. It was a thought that was part of her instinct that she could not turn away from. “…avenge him…”

“…Chiharu…”

It became clear that she was having trouble speaking, but it was something that felt was necessary. Every time that she stopped she was pushing herself to keep going. There was something that would not let her stop. “They were right…in front of me…”

“You don’t have to Chiharu.” Saki tried to lean over, but Chiharu was becoming more adamant about what she was saying. She threw away Saki’s hands and stood up turning away.

Chiharu stared down the thick trunk of a tree feeling uncontrollable frustration channeling through her. She had failed, but it was not even so much about that while it still was. “…in front of me!” Her fist ran into the bark of the tree making a low dull thud as it did not give. “They were there! I could have…”

Saki could tell that she had diverted her feelings focusing back on her failure. She ran over to Chiharu hoping to calm her down again. “Chiharu please… Don’t…” Comfort was not going to solve Chiharu issue this time for her. She snapped back at Saki turning and throwing her leg out to kick her, missing widely.

“NO! You don’t know!” Chiharu turned back away throwing her fist once more against the tree. She wrenched her eyes closed trying not to think of her grandfather in her mind. It was a haunting image in her mind that she could not shake. “They were right there! They killed my…”

“…Chiharu it’s fine…”

“But they killed him! …killed…” The words continued to pound in her head repeatedly. She collapsed to the ground, her hand sliding down the tree as she fell. “Dead… He’s dead…”

Saki was starting to feel at a loss for what she could do. All she could remember was what had happened with Yuki when his parents had passed away. But the way that Yuki handled it was completely different. He isolated himself after his mother and barely seemed to acknowledge when he father did. It only seemed to make angrier. She had been unable to help him any time that she brought it up with him just brushing her away, like Chiharu. ‘…I’m helpless…’

“I…failed him…I couldn’t…do it…”

“…I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted you to do this…” She tried approaching again, but her words hit the wrong nerve in Chiharu making her lash out.

Chiharu pushed back Saki wanting to knock her down while not have the focus or strength for an attack. She had assaulted something that she knew and was pretending to know their life when she had no idea at all what was supposed to happen. “Don’t pretend like you know! You don’t!”

“…Chi-“

“What do you know!? Nothing! You don’t know me!” Chiharu was not going to give her a chance to respond back. This was an insult to her and she could not stand for anyone to attack her in such a manner. She took a wide and wild swing at Saki with her fist lacking any coordination. It was easily caught, but she was forced to look at Saki seeing her eyes that stared back at her unwilling to give up. “You don’t-“

“No…” Saki made her determination clear to Chiharu. The past had happened already and she could not do anything about it anymore. What was in front of her now still could be helped. Saki was not going to let it go so easily. “I don’t know you! But I know that look! I could see it in your eyes! You didn’t want to kill! You couldn’t kill!”

Chiharu’s eyes had widened in surprise not expecting to hear something so piercing with such confidence and certainty. It made her want to back away, but with her hand being held by Saki it was impossible. She was being pressed back and seen through, naked.

“You let it control you, but in the end you were stronger than your desire to kill!”

‘…control me? No… I wanted it! Me! I wasn’t being controlled!’ She shook her head to deny what she was being told. Frightened like a child she pulled at her hand trying desperately to break free so that she did not have to be afraid any longer. However, her mind suddenly flashed back to the hallway in the estate when Yuki confronted her about the same thing with similar words. It made her freeze up hearing it again, so close to the truth as though he had been through it.

He stretched out his arm futilely trying to stop Chiharu. “Chiharu! You shouldn’t kill someone!” Chiharu was getting further away from them, but Yuki was not going to give up on Saki’s fight. He had been down this road and knew how it felt. “I know how you’re feeling! Chiharu stop!” It seemed to hit a nerve with Chiharu as she paused in foot step when Yuki spoke. “The rage and anger inside you is too much to contain. It speaks to you telling you this is right. That you must do it. There’s no other way. If you don’t it won’t be at peace.”

Chiharu turned part way looking back at Yuki. Her were fists tightened at her side and shaking. “Is that all you can do, talk?”

“It’s feels uncontrollable doesn’t it?”

She did not want to hear anymore echoing through her head. ‘…uncontrollable? NO! No! Me! Just me!’ Chiharu snapped her wrist free from Saki though it felt like it was given up rather than won. She started to run away to leave everything behind.

“You did it because you’re the head of the family.” Saki words had a cold tone in them as they stopped Chiharu in her tracks. The comforting tone that she had before had vanished while the determination still remained. “An obligation. Because you want to be an assassin.”

“Yes! I’m head of the family! But it’s not because I’m the head!” Chiharu was forced to turn around again to face Saki as though she was being played like a puppet. “I don’t care about that! I don’t care about being an assassin! They killed my grandfather!”

“That’s quite the contradiction. Which is it? You want to be the head and want to be an assassin, but you don’t want to be. You want to kill for personal reasons, but don’t want to kill. Which is it?”

“I don’t care about any of it! It’s revenge!”

“But you didn’t get revenge you ran away!”

“They’re still dead!”

“But you didn’t get your revenge!”

“Grandfather’s killers are dead! It’s done!”

“No, it’s not. It’s not settled, but you didn’t do it!”

“I don’t care!”

“Yes you do! But you still couldn’t kill them!”

“Because I was afraid!” Chiharu came to a sudden halt when she heard the words. It made her eyes widen in shock not realizing that she had just admitted to her fear. She wanted to take it back, but there was no way anymore. However, now that she had said it her legs lost their strength as though they had been carrying a heavy weight the entire time that had just been lifted leaving nothing left to keep going. Chiharu collapsed to the ground no longer certain what she was feeling or supposed to be feeling.

Saki walked over to her kneeling down at her side with a painful expression. ‘I’m sorry I had to do that to you… but it was the only way…’ She placed her hand on her shoulder trying to comfort her once more, but got no response or action out of her. It seemed like she was a statue completely gone from the reality around her. ‘…I had to force you to confront what you were running away from more than anything…you put up such walls to protect yourself from it…that you wouldn’t allow yourself to accept it…’ Saki let her lay down before she picked her up and began to carry her back to the house. ‘…let’s go back…’

When Saki arrived in, the very early hours of the morning, the clearing from the forest that became the backyard of the house she was greeted by several guards. She assured them that Chiharu was safe, but just tired. Chiharu was carried back by Saki to her room where she quietly tended to her as the remaining men of the estate hovered outside. Tamotsu was the only one that remained inside with his usual loyal determination to protect and serve the family as he only knew how. After she was finished Saki walked over to Tamotsu staring up at him with a look back that said he had the same understanding.

“She wasn’t able to admit the fear to herself, but now that she’s heard it…” Saki turned her head down feeling guilty for the actions that she took that had left Chiharu in a lifeless state. It was her fault even though it seemed that no one was blaming her. Every time she looked around as she was passing through the halls it made it feel like they were silently thinking how wrong she was to have done it.

Tamotsu raised up his hands placing them on Saki’s shoulders giving her a smile that she could not see. “She just needs time to think in peace. It’s been a long night for her and you. She’ll come out of it when she’s ready.”

“…I hope…”

“I know she will,” he said finally meeting eye contact with Saki as she looked up. The certainty in his words and the deep caring understanding look on his face made Saki feel a little better. “Knowing her. When she does she’ll want to challenge you again.”

Saki choked a little at the joke as she could not laugh, but gave him a slight grin. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” She stepped away to return back to her room.

“Thank you…”

The innumerable meanings that were held in the words did not escape Saki. She blinked trying to keep from crying as she walked out of the room. Halfway to her room she started to run for a reason that she could not find, but she would not stop until she reached the destination.

Out of breath and sore, Saki stood bent over in front of the door waiting. She hovered outside unable to move as she panted even heavier than she would have running. Nothing could stop it as it engulfed her trying to numb her body. There was nothing else she could do. She had no choice. The door slid quietly open as she stepped into the darkened room. She walked over to where the blankets were for sleeping. Her head hung down staring at them paused once more.

Tears slowly began to fill up in her eyes as she looked down at the blankets. She collapsed to her knees looking over the blankets seeing Yuki sleeping peacefully unaware of her presence. When she looked at him she could not stop crying. ‘…I’m so sorry…’

Morning came quickly for everyone, ready or not. The aura of the estate had changed from when they arrived. Chiharu still remained unchanged and Tamotsu stuck to her side. Her men took turns standing guard. It left them with an uncaring feeling as though everything was their fault and was leaving without fixing anything. Yet they all knew it was beyond their care now.

Yuki and Haruo were loaded into the car as Saki was dragging behind them. She tried to say something to the men, but nothing came to her. One of the men reached out holding her hands looking down at her with an eased expression. “Thank you for protecting Lady Chiharu…”

Saki tried to respond, but was left unable only feeling worse. The man walked around to the car getting into the drive seat as Saki stood outside the open passenger door. She looked back at the estate once more before stepping into car. It pulled away from the estate disappearing into the city.

Tamotsu stood up from his knelt position next to Lady Chiharu’s side. He stepped out of her room into the back porch that wrapped around the house. No guards went with him as he stepped out into the back courtyard going away from the house. He disappeared into the forest masking his presence. After ten minutes of walked as a slow pace he came to a stop.

“The plan was a success, sir,” said a shadowed figure in the tree out of sight as Tamotsu looked forward not acknowledging the presence.

“Yes… With him out of the way and someone as inexperienced as her in charge. The next stage will proceed much smoothly.”

“I will make preparations, sir.”

“Patience. I’ve waiting a long time. I’m in no rush. I have to steer in the correct course. I will signal you again when the next stage is ready.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tamotsu closed his eyes keeping a stern empty expression. ‘…the time for Lady Chiharu to die is not yet…’

To be continued…

The forest seemed to grow very still as Chiharu collapsed to the ground from the trap making the noise of the man bursting out from brush accented. Enough time was given for her to turn her head in the moments that slowly passed to see the moonlit stained blade in the man’s hand held up to strike her down. Surprised, all she could do was look on in shock at the trick she had fallen for. “The Chinen Clan dies tonight!”

Chapter 44 – The Beast in the Forest

Chiharu could only see the black form of the man engulf her as he drew closer to her. Everything that surrounded her faded from sight and she could not even feel or see what happened next. Blackness came over her eyes as the sound of blood sprayed through the air and the dull sound of a blade penetrating flesh. ‘…Grandfather…’ Paralysis held for the moment as Chiharu simply lay where she was unable to move still out of her body not aware of her surroundings.

A branch snapped and plants shifted from someone walking. The noise alerted Chiharu immediately restarting her body and snapping her back up to her feet. Realization did not set in for another second when she saw that there was one of her family’s dogs standing over a bloody man that had attempted to attack her. Her mind replayed the events coming to the conclusion that the dog had jumped in preventing the attack and killed the man. They were trained to hunt and track with them in her line of work. ‘But we didn’t send out the dogs… they were not to be found… where were they?’ Another footstep rustled the plants nearby spinning Chiharu around with her short blade held up ready to strike.

“Your pets seemed restless…” said a voice from out of sight that had a familiar sound to it. The noise came even closer to Chiharu until appearing in front of her. Out of the shadows of the forest night was Haruo wearing the kimono that he had been given after the bath.

Chiharu narrowed her eyes with concern, but relaxed her muscles. “I thought you were still sleeping…”

“…I was…” Alongside Haruo came another one of Chiharu’s dogs keeping at his side as though it seemed natural for the animal.

The scene left her off center getting a strange feeling from him. She had tried to fight him earlier seeing how strong he must have been, but it was different from before. ‘He couldn’t have left when we did. He’d have to been gone before or during the attack. What’s going on?’ Chiharu tightened her hand on the hilt of her blade becoming suspicious of the boy.

However, both of their attentions were drawn away by a scream. Haruo ran past Chiharu with the dogs taking up sides keeping pace with him. Chiharu stood frozen unable to move for a moment. It could not be explained, but nothing answered her calls. ‘…I…Grandfather…’

‘…Chiharu!’

‘Grandfather?!’ Her eyes blinked and she could feel her body moving again bursting through the forest following the noise that was picking up in front of her. It became clear to her that there was someone running followed by a second possibly third person. She tracked the sounds into a small clearing in the forest. When she came in sight of the fight her dogs were already leaping towards two of the assassins.

Saki had been keeping ahead of the two men that were chasing her after Chiharu had run off. However, she had become cornered by them in the clearing when she was rescued by Haruo and the dogs. Yuki arrived slowly behind them holding his arm with a shallow cut. “Chiharu!” said the two of them upon seeing her arriving still alive.

The two men beat off the dogs sending them yelping to the ground. They pulled themselves together into a defensive stance seeing that they were now out numbered. In a better light it became clear to them that they were dressed in similar attire as Chiharu making it clear that they were ninja as well. They both had medium length katana drawn keeping their movements careful.

Chiharu saw the two men and could not wait a moment longer as she charged towards them without a care to the others. “Die assassin!” She brought her short blade to bear on first man, who parried her strike. Force from the charge was sent through the clash rattling the blades as they sparked. Chiharu jumped back and dodged around them as the second man came in for support. Her eyes were pulled down with her brow in wrinkled rage as she yelled with each strike she made.

The fight between the granddaughter and her murderers began to play as Saki and Yuki watched hesitant to make a move. In a fast paced exchange of blades that they were witnessing they were both out of their element. Saki had speed and reflexes, but weapons were not her thing and Yuki had experience in street brawls, albeit in the past. They wanted to help her, but they would have been in the way. Yuki rested his hand, from holding his wound, on Saki’s shoulder to give her some reassurance.

‘Saki wants to help… but knows there’s little she could do,’ Yuki thought to himself as he watched on the edge of his toes at the fight. He had seen Chiharu briefly fighting with Saki to know how skilled she was, however what he was seeing now went beyond it. It felt as though her rage and anger were driving her to be faster even though she was being blinded at the same time. ‘She can’t see, but her instincts are sharp enough to make up for it. It’s the only thing keeping her alive.’

Clashing blades echoed through the forest were brought to a pale dullness when compared to the screams followed up by Chiharu as she struggled to keep her ground. The fight was drawing her back to give up ground as the two ninja worked together to strike in quick succession. The man playing back up for the moment came around striking awkwardly at Chiharu that forced her to parry unevenly. Off balance from the strike, she was turned away from the coming strike from the main. She was unable to get away from the strike quickly holding up her metal guard on her forearm to catch the blade. The katana’s blade sparked off the metal cutting into it a little as it passed by in the thrust to cut into the upper arm of Chiharu. Wounded with a shallow cut and bleeding Chiharu nearly tripped over her feet to back up into a defensive position.

Pain had heightened her awareness starting to cut through the fog in her head, but it was working to dull her instincts as well. She flipped backwards out of the way the next strike while leaving herself open for the second attack from the back up. The blade ran shallow along her back missing for being out of range.

‘She’s going to die at this rate!’ Saki could not take the sidelines any longer and pulled free from Yuki. She sprinted forward to quickly closing the distance as Chiharu was left completely open from the last series of attacks. “Chiharu!”

The two ninja swarmed her to take advantage of her position ready for the final blow. Saki was still out of reach and Chiharu could not defend herself quickly enough. The two swords came down upon her. Two streaks flew by the two ninja knocking their swords from their hands saving Chiharu’s life once more. Surprised, but not finished the two ninja went for their secondary weapon, but several more streaks flew from the shadows this time digging into the men. They were kunai that were thrown at vital spots to disable their arms.

Saki came to a stop seeing the change. Caution moved her out of the way as she saw someone silently come out of the shadows of the forest behind Chiharu. Covered in black with only his eyes being seen he looked down at Chiharu. He made no move to help or hurt her, but simply staring at her in silence with the stance that he was communicating with her.

Chiharu blinked slowly before she returned to her feet. She stared down at her blade in her hand and back towards to the two ninja disabled. This was not how her first kill was supposed to be. It was not how it was planned. She pulled up her blade and reached out with her free hand to grab the man by his garb. Her hand held the blade trying to keep from shaking as she pulled back. ‘…they killed Grandfather! They killed him! I can’t show…’

“…Chiharu…” Masahiko knelt down to help up a six year old Chiharu who had fallen on the ground. The rigors of training were exhausting her and all she had was frustration and anger. It slipped her up. “You can’t let your emotions control you, Chiharu.”

“I know, Grandfather!” Chiharu said narrowing her eyes looking ready to continue.

He shook his head as he looked down at his granddaughter. “You recite that, but you don’t understand. You can’t show emotions to your enemy. You can’t feel emotions when you fighting. They cloud your eyes and weaken your strikes. Emotions are weakness.”

“Weakness!”

Masahiko stood straight up in front of Chiharu. “A ninja can’t have weakness. A ninja kills the weakness inside. You are nothing but a weapon! A weapon breaks if there is weakness! A broken weapon is useless!” He threw out a punch at Chiharu knocking her to the wood floor. “No anger! Stand up!”

Chiharu coughed weakly taken back by the attack. She crawled, in spite, to her feet standing up to look back up at her grandfather. The look was still in her eyes and he swung at her again sending her back to the floor. When she stood back up with tears in her eyes she was beat down again.

Training was all that she knew in her life to become an assassin. She was molded to be a weapon that would not have feelings or fears. It was a lesson that was repeatedly beat into her through tests and physical means. She could hear the echoes the lessons stripping her of her feelings, but all she could hang on to was anger. It was all she knew and the only comfort she could find.

‘…I-I’m a weapon… Weapons can’t have weakness… I’m a weapon…’ Chiharu repeated the words to herself as she hear them being spoken to her from her memories. She pulled the blade in her hand further back still feeling the shaking in her arm. An empty stare in her eyes began to form that steadied her hand. “…I’m a weapon…” Her arm released finally pulling down the blade for the killing strike.

“Chiharu!” Saki said, but was over powered by Yuki shouting out to her. It had been enough to halt her hand just before piercing the neck of the man. Saki was relieved to see her back away dropping the blade. The man that had rescued Chiharu turned away and quickly executed the two men. Chiharu disappeared into the forest with Saki chasing after her.

Yuki stared at the man left standing still unknown with his face held behind a mask. A narrowed glare from Yuki connected with the man. “You’re strange, old man. Giving her the kill after saving her, but killing them anyway. You knew she couldn’t do it and yet you tried anyway.”

Masked behind the cloth there was almost certainly a smirk or grin on Tamotsu’s face as he looked back at Yuki. “No more strange than a teenager that doesn’t flinch at the sight of death while acting innocent. You could’ve saved her as well, but didn’t.”

“Perhaps…” Yuki did not like the knowing feeling that he was getting from the old man. They barely knew each other and he had already seen so much into Yuki. Words games were not going to solve the matter at hand. “Not going after her?”

“Age has taught me when I’m needed…”

“…I see…”

Chiharu ran through the forest still hearing the echoes through her mind. They were like ghosts haunting her shouting out words of disgust and disappointment. She could not escape them however fast she ran. ‘…Grandfather… …I’ve dishonored you… …I couldn’t…’ All of her training had proved useless for her when she needed it. Now she was abandoning it and her grandfather. She could not face looking at him anymore.

The forest seemed to grow darker around her blackening out everything from her. An empty void caught her plunging the remains of the world in utter darkness. There was no ground making her fall endlessly as she heard the shouting of the voices out at her. She screamed to drown them out, but they reached her ears perfectly to be heard. Her hands clasped against her ears to prevent the voices from entering, but it was as though she was doing nothing. Slow paralysis worked over her as she continued to fall helpless.

“You’re a failure!”

“Worthless!”

“A broken weapon!”

“You couldn’t even avenge his death!”

“Shut up! Leave me! I didn’t… I-I… I’m not!”

“You can’t even convince yourself!”

“You’re weak!”

“…You’re human…” a new voice said breaking through all of the others around her and bringing silence to the chaos. Chiharu looked up with shrunken eyes seeing someone pierce through the void.

The silence was welcoming, but Chiharu shook her head at the new voice. “No! I’m not weak!”

“Yes, you are weak! All you have is weakness!” said the taunting voices once more.

The figure entering the void remained without color yet held a calming tone. “…It’s alright to feel weak…”

“I don’t need them!”

“Yes, the only way not to be weak is to throw them away!”

“…They’re closer to you than you realize. It’s with you…”

“Don’t listen! You don’t need them!”

Chiharu’s body was starting to accept the soothing feeling that was being emitted through the space. It was making the voices feel more distance bringing her peace for once. The void began to fade away as the voices tried to fight to be heard, but continued to be shut out. A blanket of warmth wrapped around her easing her heart that had been racing and tense. She could not remember the last time she felt so relax it almost made her want to smile.

Saki held Chiharu against her with her arms wrapped around her slowly rocking. She had found her collapsed from all of the running and mental exhaustion. “It’s alright to be scared. You lost the most important person to you tonight.”

Chiharu was half awake listening to the calming voice of Saki. When she heard her mention her grandfather her eyes opened quickly. She could see images of him in her mind from her past. All of the training that he had put her through played for her. He had always been there since she could remember. She had never known anyone else other than him. “…he’s gone,” she said softly almost not believing it.

“…yes… …You don’t have to be afraid anymore…” Saki put her hand up against Chiharu’s head as she felt her body starting to tremble. “You don’t need to hold back, Chiharu. It’s just us here.”

The forest was empty for them. No one was around, but the two of them. “Alone?” This realization was starting sink into her. Her eyes started to water up almost out of nowhere.

“Yes, just me here. You haven’t cried in a long time have you?”

Chiharu did not completely take in what Saki had said, but it was having a reaction on her that she could not control. All she could think about was her Grandfather. Her mind could not stop thinking about him. “Grandfather…he’s…” She could not hold back the tears at the point. Chiharu wept.

To be continued…

“Grandfather!” Chiharu shouted as she hung over his dead body unable to do anything but hold his head in her lap. Saki and Yuki kept their distance at the entrance of the room. After a minute Tamotsu came over to her side pulling her away wrapping his arm around her back for comfort. He walked out of the room with her whispering something to her leaving Saki and Yuki unattended and left to stare at each in confusion and worry.

Saki had only met the man earlier, but she still felt some sadness for his passing. However, it concerned her the face that she saw on Chiharu. ‘There were no tears… She just lost the most important person in her life and she didn’t cry…’ She looked over at Yuki and then ran off down the hallway.

‘…what’s she thinking?’ Yuki did not know what was going on anymore or why someone would want to kill the kind old man, but the look on Saki’s face was familiar to him. He had seen that determination before and he was not about to let her out of his sight. “Wait for me, Saki!”

Chapter 43 – Shadows that Scream

Yuki traced Saki’s shadow through the halls into even more unknown and darker areas of the mansion. The further that they went the stranger things became making Yuki even start to question what sort of family this truly was. His answers would come soon enough as he found Saki stopped at the entrance for a room in some of the deepest parts of the house. “Saki?”

Saki had arrived shortly after Chiharu and watched the two debate on a matter than she could not hear. The uneasy feeling that she had been getting from the home the entire evening suddenly felt like it had gathered together in concentration. It made her stomach churn and her eyes narrow. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this…’ She did not even notice Yuki getting close to her or speaking to her (completely zoned out).

“Saki?” Yuki tapped his hand on her shoulder trying to get her attention seeing that she had been ignoring him up to that point. However, the reaction was not as he had hoped as Saki was taken completely off guard by it and nearly screaming before she cut herself off, but not before they knew she was outside.

“Who’s there? Show yourself!” Tamotsu shouted from the room pulling out a pistol aimed at the door.

Saki covered up her mouth and tried to cover up Yuki’s when he spoke again, but they got entangled. Upon hearing Tamotsu’s voice shouting at them, they panicked as vibrations of surprise went up their body. They lost their balance and fell over with Saki hitting the ground and Yuki landing on top of her. Their heads and part of their shoulders exposed to the doorway. “This is all your fault, Yuki!”

“Mine? You didn’t answer me! What was I supposed to do?” They began to ignore the danger that they were in fighting between each other.

Tamotsu’s eyes twitched a little in annoyance at the children, but seeing that they were not a threat he return his pistol back to his side. “What are you two doing here?” He started to walk towards them seeing that they were ignoring him still in their arguments only making him more frustrated with them. “Shut up!”

Yuki and Saki were quickly silenced petrified by the loud voice and Tamotsu staring down at them. It was enough to turn their faces blue.

“What’s wrong Tamotsu?” Chiharu said stepping out from the place she had been not concerned by her lack of clothing.

Yuki turned his head away quickly when she saw the bare legs of her and Saki nearly punched him if she was not flustered by what was going on. “What’s going on here? And where are your clothes?!”

“I was changing… Tamotsu, what are they doing here?”

“I was trying to find out, Lady Chiharu.” He glared down at them making them crawl away out of sight of the door to give Chiharu her privacy. Tamotsu followed them out into the hall as they stumbled over the other to stand up. “You two… I’ll have my men escort you back to your rooms. You’ll remain there until the morning when we’ll return you home. Understand?”

Yuki nodding quickly in agreement willing to leave on his own if Saki did not grab him by the collar of his robes. Saki stepped forward regaining her composure and stared back at Tamotsu. “There’s been a murder in the house and you just expect us to ignore it?!”

“You will.” The tone in his voice was commanding and solid not wanting any talking back. It was a voice that was used to ordering around others and expected those that he commanded to follow without question. Saki was not one of his men though and she stared back at him unimpressed by his demeanor.

“I’m not leaving here without some answers.” She could tell that she was starting to get to Tamotsu. “There’s something strange about this family! What’s going on here?” Saki was not going to let this family intimidate her any longer. This was not a time to be keeping secrets with someone being in the house possibly killing people, especially Chiharu’s family.

There was a long pause between Tamotsu and Saki as they glared at each other. Yuki kept himself behind Saki knowing that she was not going to let him get away now. However, it was Chiharu that broke the staring contest between the two as she stepped out into the hall covered in all black clothing. “It’s alright, Tamotsu. I’ll tell her.”

“But Lady Chiharu!” Chiharu glared back at Tamotsu making him back off from his protest.

Chiharu stepped forward meeting stares with Saki looking ready to speak, but Yuki pushed down over Saki’s shoulder getting his head in between them. “You’re a ninja! Aren’t you?” The glow and excitement on Yuki’s face made everyone sweat and Chiharu look like she was pouting a little with her secret revealed before she could even speak. Saki was quick to punch Yuki and get him off her back. She was interrupted from her beating of Yuki by Chiharu speaking up.

“The weakling’s correct…” Saki paused her movements looking over at Chiharu. “My family, my clan has been assassins for hire for many generations and in the past our heritage traced to the ninja. We still keep that pride today.” Chiharu hung her head down for a moment paused as though she was thinking or holding back on her words. She quickly turned her head up and looked forward. “And I’ll restore my family’s honor by getting revenge on those that killed my Grandfather!”

Saki and Yuki were held in shock at hearing those words from someone so young. Chiharu pushed the two of them aside to be followed up by Tamotsu. It took time to process and accept it, but Saki moved quickly to catch up to Chiharu grabbing her by the arm. “What do you mean revenge? You can’t kill someone!”

Chiharu snapped her arm free and in the process slapped Saki back too with a venomous look that was through listening to anything. “I’m the last of my clan! I have to avenge my clan!”

The slap that she received stung more inside her than her face when she heard Chiharu speak. She grabbed back at Chiharu refusing to give into the child. “No! You can’t do this! You’re just a child!”

“Get the hell away from me! I thought of all the people you’d understand, but it seems that I was mistaken.” Chiharu spun around on her feet launching the back of leg through the air to send Saki back away from her. Yuki caught Saki being thrown to the floor from the impact.

He stretched out his arm futilely trying to stop Chiharu. “Chiharu! You shouldn’t kill someone!” Chiharu was getting further away from them, but Yuki was not going to give up on Saki’s fight. He had been down this road and knew how it felt. “I know how you’re feeling! Chiharu stop!” It seemed to hit a nerve with Chiharu as she paused in foot step when Yuki spoke. “The rage and anger inside you is too much to contain. It speaks to you telling you this is right. That you must do it. There’s no other way. If you don’t it won’t be at peace.”

Chiharu turned part way looking back at Yuki. Her were fists tightened at her side and shaking. “Is that all you can do, talk?”

“It’s feels uncontrollable doesn’t it?”

“It’s no use, Yuki…” said Saki pushing herself up from Yuki walking towards Chiharu.

Yuki jumped up to his feet trying to catch up to Saki confused to her change. “Saki?! What’s wrong?”

“I’m going with you!” Everyone was paused a little shocked by Saki’s declaration. Yuki closed the distance between them and grabbed her shoulder pulling her back. Saki ripped her shoulder free and finished walking the distance to Chiharu. “I’m not letting you go out there alone!”

“Lady Chiharu won’t be alone I can assure you that,” said Tamotsu stepping around Chiharu to intercept Saki. However, Chiharu waved back Tamotsu to step towards Saki with a change in her an eye. “Lady Chiharu?”

“Let her come…” A grin started to appear on Chiharu face as though she was enjoying the moment. “Tamotsu give her some new cloths too. I’ll be waiting for you.” Chiharu marched off with an over-confident stride as she left the three behind.

Tamotsu turned to look back at Saki with a disapproving look. However, he said nothing and walked passed her back to the room they had been in before. He expected Saki to follow him as she did with Yuki trailing behind. Saki was directed to a locker that held cloths that would fit her while Yuki just stood back waiting from a safe distance.

‘Why’s she doing this? This isn’t our fight.’ Yuki had not known Saki to act like this before. She was willing to protect and defend someone, but to help in someone’s revenge. It did not feel right to him. He feared that the fights that they had been in could be changing her, but was more afraid of the look in her eyes that he had seen. It was in her nature to defend someone, but she could not be defending everyone and not look out for herself. ‘…fine…’ Yuki walked over to Tamotsu looking at him, he had stepped out while Saki changed in privacy. “You got something I can wear?”

Tamotsu looked into his eyes seeing the look of determination that he seen before. ‘He’s a strange one. A fool one minute and fearless the next…’ He walked over to the opposite side of the room pointing to Yuki a locker. “This should fit.”

A few minutes later Saki stepped out from her place only to find Yuki staring back at her in the same ninja garb that Chiharu ran off in. “What do you think you’re doing, Yuki?”

“I’m not letting you go out there alone, either! Besides my abilities might have some use out there.”

She exchanged looks for a moment with Yuki, but could see that he was going to go with her regardless of what she said. “And can you use them when you need?”

“Well…no…but just in case!”

“Whatever…Mr. Tamotsu show us the way.” Tamotsu nodded silently and walked out. The quiet walk left them plenty of time to think about what they were getting into. Saki was certain about what she was doing, but still felt unsettled by everything. They had gotten an answer to the secret behind the family, but it still did not explain why they were attacked. She had her theories, but there was little time to ponder it.

Chiharu was waiting for them in what looked like a hanger below the mansion, but with the cars parked it would have been more accurate to call it a garage. There was a door open on one of the cars that she stood by. Once she saw that they had arrived she entered the car waiting for Saki and Yuki to catch up.

Yuki waited until they were taking off from the underground garage along with several other cars before he looked over to Chiharu with a question. “If you’re a clan of ninjas…why are you using cars?”

Saki sighed out loud looking away while Chiharu looked narrowly at him. “Because the enemy is on foot still within our grounds. But we won’t be able to catch up to them without an advantage.”

He took the answer though was not too pleased by it. “Seems like cheating,” he said whispering.

“We can only run so fast!”

“Sorry!” Yuki said jumping a little. ‘Sharp ears…’ He decided to wisely keep quiet the rest of the time in the car until it came to a rough and sharp stop.

The panel between the driver’s seat and the back of the car opened up. The driver kept his eyes forward, but spoke back to them. “Lady Chiharu! Reports from the house say that they finally got the sensors to pick up the intruders. We are ahead of them now.”

“Very good!” Chiharu exited the car running out into the forest that surrounded the back of the estate. The road that they followed ran through the forest and around it. It placed them within intercept distance of the intruders. All Yuki and Saki could do was follow as they caught glimpses of other black silhouettes coming out of the neighboring cars. Chiharu knew where she was going leading everyone from the sounds that she could pick up from the enemy. ‘They’re making far more noise than I would have expected. But they’re very close.’ Once she was in range of them keeping in advance she ordered her men to spread out to flank them as they closed. Yuki and Saki stayed behind Chiharu waiting for the moment.

Chiharu waited grinding her hand against the hilt of her short blade strapped to her back. She was fighting the urge to charge in knowing that her enemy and vengeance was in front of her. In the end it was Saki holding her back that kept her from moving any further. However, in the distance the noises came to an end. ‘They’ve stop! Why? Did they discover us?’ The answer for Chiharu came soon as she heard sounds of screaming. It was of men being killed, but she did not know whose it was. ‘Is it them or my men? Did they kill my men, just like Grandfather?’ Her eyes narrowed and power applied to her muscles as Saki could not stop her any longer. Chiharu leapt from their hiding and charged straight for the noise.

“Damn girl! Come on, Yuki!” Saki rushed to her feet following after the rage blinded Chiharu. They arrived quickly behind her as she had already stopped finding a dead body. It was one of Chiharu’s men from the house. They found another next to him. Chiharu ran off into the dark of the forest leaving them behind. “Chiharu! Don’t go alone!”

Chiharu eyes could not see anything, but revenge. They had killed her Grandfather and now her men as well. She would have them die for what they had done. She kept running to where she believed the enemy to be. However, her foot tripped on a wire trap sending her to the ground completely open.

A masked shadow leapt out of the nearby brush with a blade held high to make the strike. “The Chinen Clan dies tonight!”

To be continued…

Yuki and Saki did not know how they should react beyond their state of shock at hearing that Chiharu was the granddaughter of this elderly man and part of the entire estate. “Granddaughter?!” said the two of them as being all they could respond with at the moment.

Chiharu was visibly becoming bothered by the attention as well as the reactions that she was receiving. “Grandfather! This is none of their business!” She turned to him trying to get him to stop embarrassing her in front of a bunch of strangers.

“Don’t be rude, Chiharu! They’re our guests.”

The stunned reaction for Yuki was quickly passed by his own realization of a fact that he found too amazing to ignore. “So this house is yours, Chiharu? That’s so cool!” Saki was quick to snap out of her paralysis when she heard Yuki acting like his usual self. She stepped in and elbowed him again to get him to be quiet. “Saki!?”

The elderly man smiled and laughed finding the scene to be enjoyable. “My you have some lively friends, Chiharu.”

“They aren’t my friends! I would never associate with that weakling!” While she did not point out to who she was directing her insult towards, it was pretty clear to them. Yuki turned pale again getting hit with a heavy weight that broke his back.

Chiharu’s grandfather continued to smile and turned to look down at the young students. “Well let’s begin this proper. I’m Masahiko Chinen.”

Chapter 42 – Stranger Still

Yuki snapped back to reality seeing that there was a need for introductions. He stood up next to Saki looking straight forward to the old man. “I’m Yuki Hayashi, sir!”

“Saki Furukawa…”

They looked over at the still silent boy putting all of the attention on him hoping that the pressure would make him speak. However, the efforts did not seem to be necessary as he willing gave his name, finally. “Haruo Yoneda…”

‘Haruo, huh?’ Yuki thought as he was glad to finally have name to his face.

Saki turned her head back towards the front taking it in. ‘Haruo Yoneda… He’s got our school uniform, but I don’t recognize the name. I guess we do have a large school though…’ She had hoped hearing a name would have sparked something in her mind to know who the boy was, but he remained a mystery to her even now.

Masahiko nodded as he heard the names and smiled back. He gave them a warm voice keeping with the kind grandfather appearance that he projected. “All fine names. Well then. As I’ve said you’re our guests for the evening. I would like apologize for manner that had to be brought here, but our family is well known and wealthy making us the target of many enemies. Considering how you met my granddaughter, we had to be cautious, but any suspicions have been dropped. So as recompense for your troubles I welcome you to my home and have a fine dinner prepared for you.”

“Dinner?!” Yuki said with his eyes growing wide and immediately being drawn in by the idea of having a banquet feast in a fancy manor as he believed.

Saki let go a sigh knowing that it would be his reaction to the idea of food. He had already forgotten or forgiven everything that happened. “That’s such a gracious offer, but—“

“You don’t have to worry, Miss. We already contacted all of your families letting them know of what has happened. I spoke to them personally to assure them of your safety and that you’ll be our guests for the night.”

It had seemed that the old man had planned out everything in advance. Saki stepped back feeling her footing being taken out from underneath her. The way that it was being presented to them it did not seem like he was going to take no for an answer.

“What’s wrong, Saki? He said he already talk to our families. So there’s nothing wrong with relaxing. It’s Saturday so we don’t have to worry about school either!” He was almost too excited to contain himself, but he could see that Saki was still having a difficult time with everything. Yuki did not understand why she could not just accept what was happening and go along with it. This was a much more exciting time than they could be having somewhere else. “Come on, Saki!”

She did not want to have to listen to the whining of Yuki for much longer. The whole heavy handed manner did not sit with her very well even with the nice grandfather look that he had. Saki could not get rid of the unsettling feeling that she had about the house and the Chinen Clan. “Fine…” Yuki jumped over and hugged Saki forcing her to respond by grabbing him by the neck to get him off her.

They were escorted out of the chambers by Chiharu who lead them back to their room where they would wait. Only Masahiko was left in the room, but out of the shadows of the wall behind Masahiko entered the aged man that had spoken to Yuki in the park. Masahiko did not turn, but seemed to already know that he was present behind him. “So Tamotsu, what are your impressions of our guests?” The kind gentle expression that had been in his face faded away as more wrinkles seemed to develop in a stern look.

“They’re quite…energetic…”

“And the Hayashi boy?”

“He seems normal, but…”

“Yes, I couldn’t tell anything from looking at him. Either he’s a good actor or he’s a simple high school student.” While Yuki and the others had been in the car ride and waiting in the room for an audience with Masahiko, Masahiko had a background check run on all of them. As he had spoken to the children, he had his suspicions and if they were a threat to his family he would have had to deal with the problem. However, they all came up without any problems. “However, it concerns me when a record is too clean. He has almost nothing on record, even for someone his age.”

“I’ll monitor him, sir.”

“From a distance. For now it’s only a groundless gut feeling, no sense over reacting yet…”

“…very well…” Tamotsu disappeared into the shadows of the chamber leaving Masahiko alone once more with a now pensive face. He raised his thin fingers to his face trying to understand his dilemma better. In the end, he hoped that it would be nothing, but the cautious nature of an old man.

When the dinner was ready for them they were called out with escort by Chiharu, still very much bothered by the whole affair, to the main dining room in the main house. It was very traditional with them all sitting on the floor along a long dark oak table covered in a wide assortment of traditional Japanese food. It became very clear to them how old fashion the family was and focused on old values while others were keeping with modern times. The dinner went as to be expected with Yuki at the table. It was shared with Masahiko and Chiharu, but the others that they had seen were not present.

Yuki returned from the dinner dropping on the mats with his stomach filled and very pleased. He leaned his head back to look over across the floor at Haruo. “So you’re Haruo, huh? What class you in?” It had not taken Yuki very long to recognize the uniform, but the boy had been very unapproachable the entire time that starting a conversation proved to be difficult. The difficulty continued with Haruo remaining quiet in the corner. “Hmm…”

“Let him be, Yuki,” Saki said sitting down at the table with very little to do. However, that was quick to change as the door to the room slid open with the aged man, Tamotsu, at the entrance looking in at them. Saki was the first to stand and approach him, needing to do something. “Yes?”

“Mr. Chinen would like to inform you that the baths have been prepared for you. You will find clothes present in the rooms for after you’re done. Please leave your uniforms to be cleaned.”

The door began to close as Tamotsu was leaving when Yuki jumped up no longer looked fatigued from the meal. “Who’s going first?!” He looked around the room checking the reactions on the others faces to try to get an idea, but he seemed to be the only very enthusiastic about a bath.

Tamotsu returned back to the entrance briefly hearing Yuki. “I should let you know it is divided by gender and large enough for all of you.” He departed the room’s threshold disappearing into the halls leaving them to look around at each other.

“Well come on! Let’s go then. It’s no surprise that a place like this would have a huge bath.” Yuki grabbed up Haruo and dragged along Saki both protesting (one more loudly than the other). Their escort at the door showed them the way to the bath.

As they had been told it was divided with a clearly marked sign on both doors. Yuki waved to Saki as she entered leaving the two of them to go on by themselves. Saki could not help the weird feeling that she was getting as she undressed. There was a modest yakata left on the counter that she noticed remembering what she had been told. ‘What’s going on? This seems to be a little much for an apology. Though Yuki would probably say that he is just a really nice old man that wants to be generous. Yuki’s so naïve…’

She grabbed a towel holding it close to herself feeling like she was at a public bath. However, when she stepped out into what she thought was going to be bath she found that she was outside instead. She checked around suddenly feeling a little exposed, but saw the tall bamboo fence that gave the entire area privacy. In front of her was what looked like something she would find in a hot spring rather than a bath. Saki stepped forward feeling cautious and nervous knowing that this was someone else’s house.

“Who’s there?!” a young voice said disturbing the water as they turned upon hearing Saki approach.

Saki jumped back almost dropping her towel. She felt put on the spot being expected to give an answer to her intrusion to the girl that she could not see. “Umm…I was told that the baths were prepared for us and…”

“Oh it’s you,” Chiharu said coming out of the shadows realizing that it was Saki. She entered into the middle of the pool of water staring at Saki.

“Chiharu, I-I…” Saki froze on the spot feeling the glaring look from Chiharu. She normally would not have had a problem with Chiharu staring at her, but she felt more vulnerable at the moment. It did not help that the glare felt like she was checking her out.

“You going to come in? You’ll catch a cold standing out in the night air…”

“Oh! Right!” Saki nodded and entered the water feeling the heat coming off of the surface as her legs got the immediate taste. She eased herself in still feeling like she was an uninvited guest with the way that Chiharu was looking at her. “Umm…this is an impressive bath.” Saki tried to smile and change the mood that left a thick tension in the air.

Chiharu settled down into the water resting at the edge of the bath. “Grandfather had it put in wanting to imitate an open air hot spring that he visited.”

“Oh I see!” Saki could not help but feel some of the impressive awe that Yuki had been showing by how wealthy her family had to be. “Your family must to be very wealthy. What do they do?”

It was as though a taboo had been spoken. Chiharu’s look narrowed and tightened up turning away from Saki. She tightened up her lips not saying a single word. After that it did not take a hint to get the point across to Saki that she had touched on a sensitive area. She choked on her words trying to find something that would be safe to talk about. “Umm…You’re pretty strong, Chiharu…”

“So? What’s your point?”

Saki tried to smile becoming uncomfortable and embarrassed by the way the conversation was going so poorly. She could not remember how long it had been since she had this much trouble talking to someone. ‘If it was Yuki I could just talk and he’d pretend to be listening…’ She looked up crossing her eyes a little regretting her fortune and then focused back down. “Who trained you?”

“Grandfather,” said Chiharu shortly still not giving into idle chatter.

“Your grandfather? He must be really strong!”

“Yeah…but I’ll beat him one day. I promise you!”

Saki could see a slight glow in Chiharu’s eyes as she talked. She had found something that was easy to talk about. “What’ll you do when you beat him?”

“I’ll look for someone stronger!”

‘Sounds like a typical response.’ Saki could not help be sweat a little at hearing the simplistic answer from Chiharu. It seemed that fighting and getting stronger was the only things that she focused on. They also seemed to be the only things that got her excited and loosened up her words to speak. Saki was not going to try to rock the boat as much as she disagreed with the view.

Chiharu shifted in the water and threw her hand up dismissively. “Well I guess I’ll take over as head of the clan, too.”

“Head of the clan? That sounds like a lot to place on you…”

“I’m the only heir to the clan. It’s my chosen duty…” The manner in that Chiharu was speaking made it clear that she was not pleased by the responsibility.

Saki felt a little confused and sorry for Chiharu. She did not realize that she had such a weight that was placed on her at such a young age. However, there was something that bothered her still. “But what about your family? Your father and mother? Can’t they lead the clan?”

“They’re both dead.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“I don’t care. It happened a long time ago.” Chiharu’s voice was so cold and empty when she spoke about her parents. It almost seemed unnatural leaving a jarring aura through the bath. There was no caring in her voice, but Saki held her words for a minute as she stared.

Saki was not certain what she should say at the moment. The flat reaction that she got from Chiharu made her feel like it was a sensitive subject, yet the tone in her voice seemed to be contrary to that. She wanted to think that Chiharu did care, but was just hiding it to be brave. “You’re very strong, Chiharu. I don’t know if I could ever be the same…” Saki’s voice trailed after she her mind suddenly flashed to Yuki making her choke up. She closed her eyes regretting where her thoughts traveled.

“I’ve been trained to not have emotions. So it’s not a big deal. Besides I hardly remember them.”

It sounded like some cliché from an action movie when Saki heard Chiharu say it. She could not really believe that it was true. The fact that Chiharu had some difficulties with people was clear, but not to allowed emotions. ‘What sort of training is that?’ She could not let it go ignored or dismissed so casually. “You can’t just get rid of them like they’re a possession! Emotions are necessary!”

“I don’t need them! They just make you weak!”

“They make you human!”

Chiharu narrowed her eyes at Saki staring at her intently for a moment. Uncertainty rose up through the tension as they held in contact by the eyes. She then broke it off and stood up from the water. “I’ve had enough of the bath for tonight…” The door of the bath slid open and closed quickly leaving Saki alone in the water to her thoughts.

The night passed on in solitude as Saki returned back to their room. Yuki and Haruo were already back waiting on her. They had been given sleeping arrangements to provide Saki with another room next to them for privacy. Yuki read his manga and Haruo remained his usual quiet self. Saki was left quiet weighing her conversation with Chiharu on her mind. It made it difficult for her to sleep into the late hours as she stared at the ceiling.

‘There’s a lot that I’m missing about this family. That feeling still hasn’t gone away…’ Saki was finally getting sleepy and ready to close her eyes when there was a disturbance that brought her to her feet. She heard several people running by the room bringing her curiosity to open the door of her room. ‘The guards are gone…’ She looked over to see that the noise had gotten Yuki up as well as he opened the door staring at her.

Suddenly Chiharu came running through the hall with an unmistakable look of shock on her face. Saki and Yuki agreed to themselves and followed behind her. They did not recognize most of the place, but eventually they came to a room that was stained with blood on the doors. Yuki and Saki had become more than accustomed to the sight that it barely fazed them until they looked in the room.

“Grandfather!!” Chiharu shouted as she ran to Masahiko’s bed side where blood was pooling out from his lifeless body.

To be continued…

Yuki stared for a moment at the three punks that were looking for a fight with him. He looked over at Saki catching the look in her eye as she stood with Chiharu watching the boys. ‘I thought I was through with those days…’

Chiharu did not leave her stance not willing to let Saki calm her down. “You know these boys?”

“Not so much,” Saki said with some reluctance in her voice. She had hoped to get out of the situation that they were in without anymore incidences, but it seemed that fate had other plans. ‘This is something I need to take care of…’ She walked around in front of Chiharu putting herself between the boys and her. “I’ll deal with them.”

Chiharu was not one to let someone take away a fight from her and grabbed Saki’s wrist pulling her out of her way. “Are they strong?” The look in her eye was the same that had been there before when she stared down Saki. It was the eyes of someone eager for a fight and new challenges.

“Probably not.”

“Weaklings huh?” Chiharu look suddenly faded away in an instant like she had just lost her favorite toy. The deflated expression in her eyes made her sink back turning almost to a pout. “Well if that’s the case I don’t care. I only want strong opponents.” She turned away throwing her hand back at the boys dismissing them and giving them to Saki to deal with.

Chapter 41 – Trouble in Different Packages

The punks were not taken to Chiharu’s attitude towards them and moved up several steps glaring at the back of her head. The boy on the right was the first to pipe up in disgust for her tone. “What cha’ say, girlie?”

Saki narrowed her eyes not liking the direction that things were going. She tried to move a little to get in the way of Chiharu, but that was not enough to stop her. Still standing away, she mouthed off to them uncaring of their hurt egos. “You deaf as well as weak? Said you aren’t worth my time!”

Those words were the last straw for the boys as they charged past Saki knocking her away and standing over the middle school Chiharu glaring down at her. She turned around and leaned in glaring back at them returning the attitude. The four of them growled and exchanged more insults between each other.

Saki pulled herself up off the ground a little embarrassed by the scene that was developing. ‘So much for keeping her out of it… Doesn’t have tact…’ She began to walk over to the four planning to take care of the problem herself, but found that it was getting heated very quickly.

“Say that again shorty!”

“I’m not short! You ugly sack of bricks!”

“Ugly?! I’m gonna!” The boy on the left went to grab Chiharu by the hair trying to get her under control, having lost any patience he might have had before. However, Chiharu did not let the kid have a chance as she slapped his hand way. The boy turned defensive and threw a punch at her, but Chiharu was too fast for them. She ducked out of the way and leapt into the air after he was finish to spin around digging her foot and shin into the neck and faces of the three boys in sequence. They dropped to the ground just after she landed and turned to walk away.

Saki raised up her hand to her face seeing how little Chiharu held back against them. Even Saki knew how to restrain her strength against someone, but she just let them have the full taste. It knocked them out almost immediately and left them a little bloodied in the grass. ‘Great… Well hopefully they won’t be looking for Yuki any time soon…’

As everything was calming down finally and Chiharu looked a little more than pleased with herself after the laying out of three boys, Saki turned back to look at Yuki to make sure that everything was fine. However, they were interrupted by a storm of men in black suits and sunglasses covering the entrance and exit. They seemed to come out of everywhere taking Saki, Yuki and the strange boy by their arms to keep them restrained. The looks in their features, the clothes and the organization that they had made it clear that they were serious.

Yuki did not try to fight the two men holding him very much pulling at his arms trying to find Chiharu, who was missing. “Saki, can you see Chiharu anywhere?”

“No! I can’t find her!”

“What did you do with Chiharu?” Yuki shouted starting to strain at his kidnappers. He tried to get his arm freed from their grasps, but they had leverage against him as well as strength that he did not have. These were trained adults and not amateurs like the school punks he was used to seeing (though there are the assassins too). “What did you do with her?”

A lone man from the exit of the park entered with a path being made for him. He walked towards Yuki with the same look as all of the other men. The only difference was that he was aged with wrinkles across his face and his hair was half graying and tied back in a ponytail. “Come quietly and we won’t have to get rough with you,” the aged man said in a clear voice that cut down Yuki’s struggling.

Yuki turned to look over at the man getting the feeling that he was in charge by the way the others acted. “Just tell me what you did with her!” He had stared down death too many times in the last two weeks that an old man with a rough voice was not going to scare him at this point.

The man cracked a smirk from his tired lips finding the glare from Yuki to be interesting to him. “You’ve got a look in your eye. I like that look, however the girl…is another matter. Everything will be explained in time.”

“You won’t hurt her?”

“No.”

Yuki could not see his eyes, but the tone of the words and the impression that he was getting from the man told him that he could believe him. He pulled back letting his captors be eased up from his struggling. “Fine, but one thing.”

“What?”

“Could you grab my manga?”

“Yuki?!” Saki shouted at him in surprised and shock. She could not believe that he would say that in front of these people. They did not even know who they were or what they were planning on doing to them. “How can you care more about those books than your life?!”

“I haven’t read them yet! Well most of them anyway…” The old man jerked his head silently to signal for the three students to be taken away. Yuki had his head turned trying to look at his manga that sat there lying on the grass still. However, the men were quite insistent on him moving taking the three of them out to the side street next to the park. On the street were several parked black luxury cars looking like something the government or someone a lot more important a bunch of students would need. The two men at the doors of the car opened both car doors allowing them to be tossed (man handled in the case of the large student) into the car.

Saki landed on Yuki, who was left on the floor of the car. The car had enough room to move around in hunched over and gave them plenty of places to sit. It looked like there were places for glasses and bottles, but it was empty. As Saki got up from Yuki, she looked about the car feeling like they had gotten themselves into something terrible. She could not even see the driver through the solid panel that blocked him from their view. “What’s going on now? What have we gotten ourselves into?”

Yuki gave Saki a momentary shrug of his shoulders as they took a seat feeling the car moving. He sat pensive with his hand to face thinking to himself. “They must be yakuza!” he said coming to conclusion that he announced to the others.

Saki gave him an uncertain and questioning glace as the car took off from the park. “How did you come to that answer? And why do you look happy when you say that?”

“What?! I’m not happy about this…” Saki stared at him further not believing what he was saying. He pulled away from Saki a little feeling a little insulted by her lack of faith. However, he coughed into his hand and tried to turn the subject. “Well they’re probably yakuza. The black suits and organization, the cars and secrecy. Who else do you think it could be?”

Saki’s narrow eyes stared at Yuki still not buying into what he was saying, but she did not have any better ideas. ‘He’s just enjoying this because he thinks yakuza are cool from his manga…’ She crossed her arms together still needing some convincing. “I don’t know, maybe some private company or military research firm.”

“And they’re working on robots sanctioned by the government and we were caught up in some testing grounds!”

A sigh escaped Saki’s mouth listening to Yuki going on. ‘I’m not sure if he is mocking me or getting excited…’ She decided that it would be best to keep her mouth shut for the rest of the trip and not give him any more reason to fuel his imagination. They were already in enough trouble that they did not understand. She did not need Yuki making matters even worse for them.

The car ride remained mostly calm for the passengers. Yuki was the only vocal one as he infrequently moaned about his missing manga and hoping that they were not stolen. When the car came to its final stop the locks on the doors popped and the doors were opened allowing them to exit the vehicle. The men looked into the car staring at them giving them the sort of looks that made one not want to mess with them.

Yuki exited first, followed by Saki and last by the still unknown male student. They all took a moment to take in the view from outside the car, which had tinted glass making it impossible to see clearly. Yuki, naturally, was the first to make a response. “Woah, its huge. This must really be a yakuza’s base. It’s all traditional looking!”

“Yuki!” Saki said placing her elbow into his side to shut him up quickly before he made a mistake that got them into worse trouble. She gave a weak embarrassed smile trying to cover up Yuki’s loose lips, feeling the tension in the air from the mute men in suits.

“What you do that for?” said Yuki looking back at Saki. The look was only a split second, but it was enough to turn Yuki blue in the face and make him turn away quickly. Saki’s face was not a pleasant one.

In spite of Yuki’s comments though, he was correct in the appearance. It was a traditional looking estate that had a very old fashion Japanese presence. There was a tall wall that surrounded the grounds along with several houses neighboring the large main house and a very large open grounds with thick trees in the back and a well kept lawn and garden in the front. All of the technology and men in suits made them stand out in a place that suggested the common clothing attire to be a kimono.

The men escorted the three of them into the main house with Saki keeping Yuki’s comments to a minimum. They were left in an empty lightly furnished room with a guard posted at the door. There was only a short table to sit at with a window looking out into the grounds.

“Pretty cool place huh?” Yuki said like he had been holding it in the entire time and could not be held back any longer.

Saki did not hold the same opinion as Yuki getting an unsettled sense of dread. She did not know what was going on or why they were taken to some place out at the edge of the town. “Cool or not, it still doesn’t explain why we’re here.”

The door opened to the room bringing Saki and Yuki to answer the visitor. However, all they found was another man in a suit that was carrying all of Yuki’s manga. Yuki eagerly took it from the man before he could do anything to it and disappeared to the table. Saki tried to start a conversation, but just as her mouth was opening the door slid close again. She looked back to Yuki feeling like he was not taking the matter seriously.

“See! They can’t be so bad. They brought my manga and didn’t even damage it!” Yuki was already poring through a book starting to lose track of what was around him.

The fact that Yuki was more interested in his manga or that he was acting so casual as not to care, Saki could not decide which made her more upset. She marched over to the table bending over to stare down at Yuki casting her shadow over his pages. “How can you read at a time like this?”

“I need something to do.”

“But you don’t know why we’re here!”

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

Saki shoulders fell turning into a semi-circle becoming exhausted by Yuki nonchalant attitude. “But…”

“Here just sit down and read something. I’ve got shojo!”

A vein popped up on Saki’s forehead as she became insulted by Yuki’s attempt to give her something. “I don’t want any of your crap!” She lunged after him knocking him to the ground getting her hands around his neck. “What sort of girl you think I am?!”

Unknown to the two of them the door slid open to the room and someone entered the room. The boy in the corner of the room could only sweat at the sight knowing that there someone in the room watching the spectacle. After being ignored for long enough a voice piped up from behind them. “Why are you wasting time on that weakling boy?”

Saki paused in her pounding of Yuki realizing that there was someone in the room. Yuki’s frazzled appearance was quick to change as he looked up around Saki straddling him to see Chiharu standing in the room. “Hey! Chiharu! You’re safe!”

“Of course I am.”

Yuki jumped up from Saki’s hold standing in front of Chiharu showing his relief and excitement to see her. Chiharu’s distain for the attention and feeling of being trying like a child made a vein pop up on her forehead. She disappeared from Yuki’s sight appearing behind him twisting his arm making him fall to the tatami mat in pain. “H-Hey?! What I’d do?!”

“Don’t treat me as though you’re familiar with me.”

“What?!” She twisted his arm further to exercise her point to him making yelp in pain. “Alright!”

“And don’t treat me like a child.”

“B-But—Alright! You’re not a child!”

Saki stood up from the mat having recovered from the surprise of seeing Chiharu. She still had a number of questions and she hoped that Chiharu had few answers. “What are you doing here? What’s going on with us?”

Chiharu let Yuki go kicking him to the mat and turned to Saki. She looked up at the older girl feeling a little anger in her stomach, but also grudging respect. “I’ve been ordered to bring you before the head of the house.”

“What?!” Saki and Yuki said in surprise. Saki looked over at the door seeing it open with the men in suits for escort. Chiharu had her continued serious expression making everything that was happening even stranger.

Yuki pulled himself up from the mat holding his wrist trying to get the lingering pain to go away. ‘Head of the house? The head of a Yakuza group. Sounds like fun!’ He walked toward the door along with the male student waiting for Saki to catch up with Chiharu.

Chiharu waited on Saki as she took a moment longer to let everything settle into her. ‘Why are we seeing the head of the house? And why is Chiharu doing this? What’s going on?’ Saki could feel the insisting of Chiharu’s look piercing her and telling her to move as Chiharu waited with great impatience. She reluctantly agreed in silence and joined the others at the door with Chiharu taking up the rear.

The walk through the inner halls of the house made Yuki glow with excitement. Saki managed to keep him quiet, but they were soon brought into a large central room with much of the room partitioned off by bamboo blinds that were rolled down. It presented the room as a more narrow passage. The light held dim in the room from the candles and lanterns about the space. At the end of the room seated on a raised section of the floor in a dark brown casual kimono was an elderly man. His eyes looked closed, but seemed to be aware of everything in the room. “Welcome guests to the Chinen Estate. I want to thank you for taking care of my granddaughter as well as to apologize for her behavior.” The old man moved his hand to show that he was referring to Chiharu, who was standing next to him looking embarrassed and annoyed.

Saki and Yuki’s face both widened in shock at hearing that Chiharu was a part of the family that owned this place. Neither of them knew what to say not what to do. They simple stood in shock letting the moment pass through.

To be continued…