Chapter 1: What's Wrong? -Suoh Mikoto

"Mikoto?" Yata Misaki whispered shyly verses her normal approach to everything, loud and energetic. Though most would see her as a "he" and not the shy girl she was behind the tough outside she put up as she lived in the streets for two years, with her old best friend at her back.

This approach worried me more than Fushimi's departure, because even though she opened up more to him and Izumo about everything including her real gender, she still hid a lot under big cheesy smiles and loud laughter with the others down stairs. "What's wrong." I make my voice comes across as my normal bored tone, as I approaches the now timid girl cigarette still between my lips

"I-" Tears well up in her eye, she continues to look at him as if that alone will portray how lost she is, before finally crying all together mumbling out an I don't know between sobs.

"Shh." I mumble sitting down near her pulling her close to me so I could rub her back to help her calm down from whatever's upset her.

After 20 minutes her shoulders are still slightly trembling beside me but she is no longer as worked up. "What can I do to help you with this, Yata?" I mumble beside her having started yet another cigarette with my left hand, the pack next to me almost all out.

Yata remains quiet long after her shoulders finally stopped shaking, "Hey Mikoto?" The hoarse whisper suddenly causes me to abandon all other thoughts instead focusing on the young girl.

"Yeah?" I ask after noticing she wasn't going to continue without some response on my part.

"If you don't mind talking about it, what was it like when you became king." Her glassy, hazel eyes bore holes into me with such an innocent question with stories I never want to tell. Her eyes had a look of pleading which even I couldn't withstand.

"For whatever reason it happened while I was asleep one night. It was normal enough for me to not dream, but when my aura came nightmares began flooding my senses and I had this feeling of dread and fear, that feeling felt as if it never go away. I don't know about the other kings but the nightmares never seem to leave me." I mumble trying to keep from scaring her, no 16 year old needs to hear about how every night they get worse and with every member comes a new nightmare of me losing them.

"But I want them gone." Her voice breaks as she hugs herself shrinking in, away from whatever's hurting her.

Through her tears, again I feel as if I was missing a piece, but her constant rocking and flinching away from my touch was making it hard to focus, so I tried the next thing, I just talked back. "Me too, but-" I start to answer her genuinely thinking she's had another nightmare of Fushimi leaving like she did the first few nights she started staying above the bar.

My voice must have trigger some sort of response as she quickly whips her head towards me pausing her rocking. Her eyes flash bright before returning to normal. And oh- "Yata." I whisper brokenly back to the terrified girl, quickly realizing the nightmares this time where more real, they were nightmares like mine, the nightmares that come with being a king. And Munakata said the red king's nightmares were the only ones that were bad.

Soon after hearing her name the broken girl forgot all walls she put up to keep herself a safe distance from others and clung to my side as if I'd disappear, a very real fear for the young 16 year old who now belonged to another clan.

Sitting there wrapped in my own thoughts I let Yata cry out all of it until there was nothing left, I let her cry herself to sleep, and I knew the nightmares were less when somebody was close by, but I also knew the dangers of that, but still I stayed slumped against the wall beside my door.

Normally in any other case I probably would have just gone to sleep as well, but this wasn't a normal situation, the first time I finally got to sleep I almost burned the place to the ground, Yata, well Yata might do something almost the same, in anycase I would stay awake to keep her grounded, and to wake her if it got to that point.

Near silent footsteps were being traced outside in the hall, the first signs of life, signs that Izumo had awoken for the day. "Hey Mikoto-" Izumo cracks the door open before walking in, glaring at the bed as if it ate me and caused my sudden disappearance.

A light chuckle escaped me."I'm over here." I mumble trying to keep from shifting too much to allow the 16 year old more rest.

Izumo whirls around fast enough were I would think he gave himself whiplash. Opening his mouth ready to speak,maybe even yell, but whatever it was it dies on his tongue as he watches the sleeping vanguard next to me. "Why is Yata in your room? And why are you on the floor?" Izumo whispers slowly approaching the both of us. "Did you even sleep?" Izumo forgets his previous volume opting for his normal tone, I guess it's obvious I haven't.

"No, I had more important things to do." I mumble quietly, wiping at my face. "I didn't want to wake her so I just let her stay in here, and well this is where she fell asleep, so there's that."

Izumo crouches down so his whispering can be quieter in the already quiet room. "Nightmares about Fushimi again?"

I slowly shake my head, "Nightmares, yes. About Fushimi, maybe at one point, but this is a little worse." I remove my eyes off of my sleeping charge, "These are nightmares like mine. At least that's what I picked up from Yata last night, Anna can confirm my theory," I sigh, stiff all over.

"What theory? And it's hard to believe any nightmare is as bad as that." Izumo stands up again, probably already sore from the awkward position he was in.

"All nightmares can be as bad, they are just what that person's level of bad is." I glance at my vanguard once more, "It was enough to make her cry herself back to sleep, Izumo."

"I don't remember anything being that bad." He mumbled more to himself.

"I think it was a mix of the fear from the nightmares and the guilt of the realization what they meant that scared her." Looking into my seconds eyes, my bestfriend for years. "It made her a king. That's my theory."

"How sure... How sure are you?" Izumo questions my idea's looking skeptically, and afraid at the idea I was right.

"I'm praying I'm wrong, and that Anna can tell me I'm wrong." Looking back away from him towards the door that leads into Anna's room. "I have never wanted to be so wrong before, Izumo, not after seeing what it did to her."

"I'll go wake Anna."