Earthbound Angels

Kairi

The next day, I heard from Masaki of young girls disappearing! I told myself I had to be extra careful.

Then tonight, I heard something strange, saw a unicorn…and…I don't remember what happened after that.

Daisuke

I cot a call from Miss Harada, and she was telling me that her sister was gone!

Grandpa told us about a unicorn. I decided to try this on my own. Grandpa did warn me that at the first sign of trouble, I should turn into Dark, but I doubted I'd need to.

I rode my bike all the way to the mansion. Then I slipped in through a secret passageway that took me tunderwater.

Climbing out, I suddenly saw a unicorn fly in with Miss Harada on its back! I ran after, yelling after her, and she woke up and called my name!

I dashed through a door and found a painting with Miss Harada stuck inside! "It's not fair!" I cried. "I came all the way here…I came here all by myself…why? Why can't I do it?"

Finally, I called Dark out.

Dark

"Aw, you can be such a crybaby sometimes."

Then the old man who painted the picture came in, explaining about his painting. How he'd painted it while his daughter was still alive, and how she'd died, making the painting his last work. He asked me to take it and to take good care of it.

"Fine. We'll do it your way, then." I pulled out the feather Grandpa gave me and entered the painting.

Kairi

Suddenly, I snapped out of whatever trance I'd been in, and I couldn't tell where anything was, or find any familiar landmarks, or anything! I could only make out bright blobs of color!

Dark

Almost the first thing I saw was a small girl's party, with Daisuke's classmates around the table. The only one of them who was moving was a girl with waist-length green hair, and she looked like she was in a panic. What was her name again...

The only other girl with free will sicced her unicorn on me, and I had to spend most of my time dodging it, along with getting hit. I just hoped that Risa had woken up by now and was trying to talk sense into that little girl – she was the only one who'd revived seconds before going into the painting, so she had the best chance of waking up while still inside the painting.

Finally, the unicorn stopped! I called Wiff, got my wings, and captured the unicorn.

Then I landed near the girls, and lifting my feather into the air, sent all the girls still in a trance back out of the painting. Looking at the still-panicking girl, I asked, "Risa, what's her name?"

"Hm? Oh, that's Kairi Chiyoko. I don't know what's wrong with her, though."

Chiyoko! "I think I do. I'll explain it when we're outside, but first…" I walked over to her, caught her shoulders and gave her a shake. "Kairi! Calm down!"

She stopped and stared at me…with clouded-over eyes.

Thought so. "Don't worry, I'll get you out of here." I grabbed her hand, and then took Risa's hand and flew us out.

After Riku woke up, I took Risa out on our date. I would have kissed her, but Daisuke made a fuss, so I told her that it would mean more if we waited.

As I flew her home, she asked, "So…what was wrong with Kairi?"

"Well…it's like this:

"A long time ago, I had to steal something from the Chiyoko family. It just had too much magical power. When I got there, their daughter was still awake and she came over to me. But she had her eyes closed, so that she could truthfully tell anyone who asked that she'd never seen me."

"That's romantic. Was that Kairi's grandmother?"

"Great-great-grandmother, I think. She'd been bad at lying, but she wanted to meet me; hence her little trick. Anyway – and this is what I learned from a later visit – some mage came by asking about me. She told him that line, and he found one of my feathers, catching her in her half-truth. He cursed her, telling her that she would never again see an earthbound angel."

"Earthbound angel?"

"That's the way that the Chiyokos referred to me, for I was an angel flying around on earth instead of in heaven. So now, whenever I'm around, the most recent Chiyoko will either get bad eyesight or even go blind temporarily."

"Oh! So what happened to Kairi is…"

"I came, and her sight responded by going dim. That snapped her out of that trance she was in, but she was in a strange location she couldn't see very well, and she couldn't make out if anyone she knew was nearby."

"And she panicked."

"Yep."

"I hope she'll be okay."

"She will be, once I leave."

I dropped her off at her house and flew home.

Dark? Daisuke spoke up. Why didn't you tell me you were tied to some family other than mine?

"Aside from the fact that I had no idea they were still in town? You didn't ask."

Risa

Poor Kairi. She'd never get to see Mister Dark. Then I remembered what she'd said to me the night before!

"I'm not sure how much help I'll be in spotting Dark…" "I don't see too well at night…" But she'd gone out with me late one night before and had no trouble seeing, in fact she could see better than I could… "What the? …Nothing. It's nothing…" "All right, now I'm confused…" Her sight must have been flickering on and off! No wonder she was confused!

Kairi

I sat down in the car driving me home, thinking about what my grandmother had told me.

"I've always had two guesses connecting to this curse. One, the phantom thief is actually an angel using another's body to be earthbound, hence the reason my sight could turn on and off as opposed to staying off; and two, there's more than one earthbound angel!"

"What?"

"When the phantom thief appears, my sight only went dim. But sometimes, my sight would go dim and then vanish altogether! That could only happen if there were more than one angel. I have no proof, but there you go."

I touched my shoulder thoughtfully. I wasn't sure Dark had needed to shake me that hard to get my attention, but he was probably in a bit of a hurry to get us out of the painting – yes, I know it was a painting, Risa told me – before some time limit.

It had been interesting in a funny kind of way, though: of all the bright colors around me in that painting, I always knew exactly when I was looking at Dark.

He had been the blackest spot in all that brightness.