Chapter Three
Dais knew he was dreaming and yet the dream felt different. For one thing, he was in his apartment, with everything as normal looking as possible. He stood to his feet and looked around the apartment, blinking at the seemingly tranquil place. Cale, Kayura, and Sekhmet were asleep nearby. What was this? What was going on?
He stiffened suddenly as he felt a foreign presence. It was inside the apartment in his dream, moving towards him. Looking around, he couldn't see anything and for a moment, if he hadn't been in his dream, he might have actually summoned his subarmor. Why he felt so threatened, he wasn't sure.
"Kuroda Jirougorou."
He blinked as he was addressed by his formal name – his real name. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been called that. Who would even know it that was actually alive? "What? Who is it?"
A blurry form appeared in front of him and though he strained his eyes, he couldn't make out who it was. What he could decipher, however, was a woman's form. She had huge black wings and what he thought to be horns sprouting from her shoulders. Her hair was jet black and hung straight down to her hips, her hands at her sides, holding sais.
"Kuroda Jirougorou, stay away from the girls," she warned him ominously.
He frowned. "Why?" he challenged. "Who are you to tell me what to do?"
She held up one dangerously sharp sai and said, "Because if you don't, this will find a home right between your eyes." The figure vanished and Dais was left in stunned silence.
Dais jolted awake, eyes darting around the apartment where all was normal. However shocked he may have been, he was by no means abandoning his interest in them. The fact that he had been warned off so pointedly merely showed that his instincts had been correct. Relaxing on his back, he put his hands behind his head and considered this.
Evidently his direct approaches to their minds had caught someone's attention and they hadn't been too grateful for his prying. He wondered who they were. For that matter, what did she have to do with these other young women and did she have anything to do with the problems that had brought them all to this mortal realm? If this presence was so rude to him, he paused to consider the fact that Adastreia openly disliked him.
'I wonder if she senses what I am,' he mused. 'Perhaps… we're some kind of threat.' With that last thought, he rolled over and made himself comfortable. He was still tired and could tell that he was in for a long day. However, he felt that he'd broken a record. He'd only arrived in the mortal plane yesterday and he was already getting death threats.
When daylight came, he was awoken very rudely by Sekhmet who had ripped open all of the curtains to allow light to stream into the room. Of all the ways to wake up, to Dais this was the most annoying. It meant he had to get up to go shut the curtains back again and he didn't want to move. He had come to find that standing on one's feet for a seven hour shift was quite exhaustive and it only served to perpetuate his nature – which was to lounge in bed as long as possible. Yanking the covers back over his head, he opted to just try and block out the sun. Oh I hate mornings, he thought to himself grumpily.
"Oi!" came Kayura's annoyed voice from overhead. "Get up you two, we have things to be doing. You can't spend all day in bed!"
"Kay," Cale grumbled from under his pillow, "I work better at night. How about we take shifts?"
She reached down and swiped his pillow. "How about no?"
"Why not?" Cale asked now, having thought it an excellent compromise.
Sekhmet gave a grin at this opportunity. "Come on Cale, we all know you won't be scouting, you'll just be using your time to sneak off to brothels."
"Which I'm not paying for," Dais contributed now, sitting up and glowering at the other occupants of his apartment. This was a rather alarming sight, since Dais' version of bed hair was akin to having birds actively nesting in it. Even Kayura stared in shock. "What?!" he asked in annoyance.
"Uh, dude," Sekhmet started sniggering. "Go find a mirror. You look like you do cat's cradle with your own hair."
Dais gave an impatient snort and threw a pillow at Sekhmet, which didn't faze the other warlord at all. "This is my place, if you're not forgetting," he said irritably. "So if you piss me off too much you'll be sleeping on the streets."
"Or in a brothel," Kayura snorted, looking over at Cale in disgust.
"Aw, look, she's jealous!" Sekhmet cooed, bursting into maniacal laughter as Kayura shot him an evil look.
"Aw fuck no!" Cale made a face and then glared at Kayura as if that had been all her fault. "She's worse than a bitchy little sister."
"What was that?" she asked ominously, preparing to clonk him upside the head.
"It means he likes taking orders from you," Sekhmet said, grinning maniacally as Cale got up and now prepared to murder him. "He's shy! How cute!" he laughed as he smoothly evaded the other man's blows.
"Oh hell, not again," Dais muttered. He rolled over and curled up into a ball on his mat, pulling the blanket back over his head. He was determined to block them out at all costs.
"None of that!" Kayura said sharply and the next thing he knew, the blanket was yanked off. "Up, now, we have stuff to do. You two, quit trying to kill each other before I run you both through!" she barked over at Sekhmet and Cale, the former who was now making faces at the latter while evading all punishment.
An hour later by some unforeseen miracle, they managed to get cleaned up and out of the apartment to go on their rounds. Well, as clean as some of them ever got. Cale hadn't bothered to shave and looked quite scruffy as a result. When Kayura got after him about it, he replied that it was her own fault because he didn't want to end up cutting himself because of her antics about them taking too long. Dais did his own part by separating himself from them as soon as it was possible.
He came out just in time to watch curiously as the girl called Adastreia was securing her backpack to the back of her motorcycle and swinging onto it. She cast a careless glance around before she drove off but failed to notice Dais standing in the shadows of the exit. He was still trying to place the voice that he had heard in his dream last night and found himself eyeing her suspiciously. Again, the feeling of anticipation nagged at his senses relentlessly and he wondered what it was, just outside of his perception, that was tormenting him relentlessly concerning these young women.
"Daydreaming again?" Cale asked as he walked up behind him, running a hand through his hair and yawning.
"Hardly," Dais said, though he wasn't paying much mind to his companion. "I had an interesting dream last night," he commented as he stepped out of the building and onto the busy street.
"Oh?" Cale didn't sound very interested as he fell into stride beside him. "I had nice ones too."
"I said interesting," Dais added, "Not pornographic."
"Hey," Cale objected. "Those are the best kind."
Dais opened his mouth and shut it, deciding not to comment about that after all. Cale was a dog, he was entitled to be disgusting. Dais was just as bad, but he generally didn't let it show in an outright way. "Anyway," he said now, "The point is it would appear that we're being warned off from the girls."
Cale looked over in surprise. "Say what now?"
"I'm already getting death threats for sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong," Dais explained as he lit up his cigarette and took a drag gratefully.
Cale glanced over at him. "People really just don't like you."
"I'm serious," he said in a mild voice, feeling better now as the nicotine hit his blood stream. "And it wasn't a person."
"Well then what was it?" the other was beginning to get annoyed with Dais' usual habits of being stingy with information. Knowing the spider, he was enjoying this.
"I really couldn't tell you," he shrugged. "Maybe she was a demon. Either way, I was told to stay away from the girls very bluntly or she'd be ramming her blade between my eyes. She was very sweet. Sounds like your type."
"How considerate," Cale said dryly. "Sounds like you're trying to hook me up with an older Kayura."
"Shit, you caught me."
"Hey Vicky, you doing anything tonight?"
Addy didn't look up from her textbook as she heard the all too familiar voice and felt the shadow over her. As usual, her sister was getting all kinds of attention from the nearby college guys. She was very popular, pretty, sweet and outgoing. It wasn't a surprise to her that she earned all of that extra affection from all nearby men.
"Yeah, I have to work," Vicky said politely. She may have been all those afore mentioned things but that didn't mean she dated randomly. Sure, the guys were all right for the most part but that didn't mean she was interested in any of them. She'd had her fair share of good times with them and had lost interest. "Addy's not busy, though are you dear?" she asked, directing attention to her dark haired friend.
Addy looked up and quirked an eyebrow at her and then at the blonde guy who looked over at her curiously. "Uh, Vicky," she said, unable to believe this, "We both know I work the same hours you do. Yes, I'm busy." Shaking her head at this logic, she went back to her book.
"She's just playing hard to get," Vicky whispered to the guy.
"Vicky," Miniko said in a reproving voice as she came over and sat down beside them, "Stop trying to be a matchmaker. You know Addy's a lesbian."
Addy set down her pen with a thump. "I'm a what?" she stared at them in astonishment.
"Well, you don't have any interest in guys so…" Tsukina trailed off, teasingly.
"You're one to talk," Addy muttered.
"Hey, at least I had a date to the senior prom," Tsukina objected. "You didn't even go."
"What's the point?" she asked somewhat bitterly, rolling her eyes. She didn't like being reminded of that night. The others didn't know it, but she had been planning to go – if it hadn't been for her father, she would have. Then she sighed, "Whatever, I'm not gay, I just don't have the time for guys."
The young man behind them watched this conversation with amusement. "It'd be a pity if you were," he told her now. "I think you'd break a lot of guy's hearts."
If it hadn't been a pen she was holding, she might have snapped it in half upon hearing this. Tsukina gave a nervous laugh, seeing the glint in her friend's eyes. "Addy, don't kill him. We really don't need the police after us."
Her eye twitched. "Can I at least amputate several limbs?" she asked then.
Before Tsukina could answer, their ethics professor walked into the room and called the class to order. The rest of the hour was spent listening to him lecture, after which the girls had to part ways to attend their various classes. Miniko had creative writing, Tsukina was in Graphic Design, Victoria in dance and Adastreia had music classes. They would meet back up in Performing Arts that afternoon though, which was their collective major.
Through the rest of the day, both the girls and the warlords went about their respective business. Though to Addy, the weird bartender was never far from her thoughts and to Dais, the strange girls and the ominous warning dwelled in his mind constantly. As they walked out of their last class for the day, she was still thinking about him. She wasn't sure why exactly she disliked him so strongly and it almost bothered her. She just knew that she didn't want him anywhere near her and yet she couldn't seem to prevent it.
"Addy?" Vicky said, waving a hand in front of her sister as they walked. "Earth to Addy?"
She jolted back to the present. "What is it?"
"What is on your mind?" Miniko looked mildly concerned. "You haven't said much all day. Not that this isn't unusual, it's just…"
"Your expression is worrisome," Tsukina noted.
She shrugged them off, "I'm just tired is all."
"You mean you're still not sleeping?" Miniko immediately looked concerned.
"Don't worry about me," Addy insisted, a bit overwhelmed by them. "I'm fine."
They looked like they were going to protest but Vicky subtly warned them off. She could tell it wasn't just exhaustion bothering her sister and her protective instincts made her want to demand who was bothering her so she could go make them pay. But she wasn't so badly behaved and knew Addy well enough that if it was worth fighting over, she'd have already done it.
However, none of the girls were aware of the fact that they were being watched as they left the school campus. Cold lavender eyes observed their exit carefully before turning and leaving in the opposite direction, having noted them and their apparent destination. Sage wasn't sure what caught his eyes about those girls but he couldn't seem to ignore them like he did the others. Maybe it was because they didn't fawn over him like the other girls, but he got the feeling that wasn't it.
"Oi, wait up!"
Sage paused as the familiar voice caused him to turn his head and glance back. "Hey Cye," he nodded to his teammate as the brown haired man jogged over to catch up with him.
"You march like a military officer," Cye teased as he approached now, backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder. "Where are you going in such a hurry? Surely your grandfather can wait a few extra moments."
"I'm sorry," Sage said, "I was just thinking."
"Oh? What's on your mind?" he asked as he settled into a leisurely walk beside him.
Sage glanced over at the other young man and shrugged his shoulders easily. "This and that," he said. "How was class?"
"Boring," Cye said cheerfully. "But tomorrow the professor might finally get to what we're supposed to be learning and quit telling anecdotes about the 'good old days.'"
The blond man snorted back a laugh at this. He envied Cye in many ways, one was how carefree and happy he was. So little to worry him, just places to be and things to do. The Torrent Ronin had graduated highschool ahead of any of them and begun college early, entering medicine and surprising them all. At the moment he was an actively operating general care physician and in classes to get his certificate to be a surgeon at long last.
On the other hand, other members of their team weren't doing so well. Ryo was a prime example of this. Ever since the fighting had stopped seemingly for good, the Wildfire Ronin couldn't seem to settle down to any one thing. His teammates jokingly associated it with his ADHD but it went deeper than that. Fighting really was all that Ryo felt he was good at and now with no practical use for this talent he was straggling behind the others in terms of financial success. At the moment he was jobless and unable to afford his own place, much less college, had dropped out and was currently bunking in Sage's apartment.
"Hey!" Cye's abrupt shout drew Sage from his thoughts. His vision reconnected to see Rowen perched cross legged on top of the school brick enclosure, book in lap. "Get down from there," Cye said as they walked up, reaching in vain to whack Rowen's knee.
Rowen looked up from the book in his lap and smirked as he saw the shorter man's attempts at whacking him. "They have growth hormones for that Cye," he said, grinning in triumph as Cye's eye began to twitch.
"Get down before the school security goes after you again," he said.
"Yes, yes," Rowen turned back to his book fully intent on ignoring him. "Go on home, mother's boy."
"That's IT!" Cye dropped his backpack and grabbing the edge of the wall, yanked himself up, now ready to kick Rowen off the wall by force since he'd made him mad.
Sage didn't have to hang around and watch to see where this was going to go. "Why don't you two just get a room already?" he asked in a bored tone as he walked on past them. He had things to do and watching them behave like Neanderthals was not on the list.
When he walked in the door at the dojo, he set his backpack aside and took off his shoes, moving from there to the back where he paid his respects to his grandfather and changed clothes for practice.
"You needn't do that today," came his grandfather's voice at this time. "There is someone I need to introduce you to."
"Yes, jii-sama," Sage said obediently. "May I ask who?"
"You know that you have been betrothed to the daughter of the Soga clan since you were five. It is high time you met her."
His shuttered eyes showed no change in emotion at this news. "Yes grandfather," he said, as obediently as ever.
"Addy, are you coming?" Tsukina looked back at the girl, eyebrow raised at her. Addy didn't seem to hear them. She was standing at the corner where they turned off the main street to walk to the bar and her eyes were fastened on the distance. "Addy?" she asked again, now becoming somewhat worried. The girl's behavior had been off all day and how she was acting now only served to concern her further. Walking over, she put her hand on her shoulder. "Adastreia, what's wrong?"
Her head snapped to the side and she jumped, completely startled. "What?" she asked, blinking at Tsukina now.
The blond sighed. "Addy, what's on your mind?"
Addy shook her head. "Nothing, I must have just spaced off for a minute. Come on, we're going to be late." Without waiting, she grabbed Tsukina's arm and led her off down the sidewalk and after the other girls.
"Are you sure you're alright?" she asked. "How much sleep have you been getting?"
"Enough," she replied evasively. "Don't make a big deal about this to Vicky, it isn't worth worrying over."
Tsukina eyed her in a way that said she thought otherwise but wasn't going to argue with it. She wasn't the type to push someone to do something they didn't want to, preferring just to live and let live as it were. If Addy didn't want sympathy or to talk about her problems, then that was her decision and she wouldn't press. That didn't mean that she didn't glance worriedly at Addy now as they caught up with the others.
"What were you guys doing?" Vicky asked, glancing back at them.
"Admiring the sunset," Adastreia answered as they walked up the steps to the back entrance of the bar.
Cale watched with some amount of interest as this went on. Leaning against a building in the steadily growing shadows, he observed the girls as they went by and though it could have been said that he was more curious about them for typical male reasons, that wasn't the case. His curiosity was now piqued, as Adastreia had stood and stared at the exact location that Dais had noticed the alteration in the magic. It could have been a coincidence for certain, but with what he had been told about them he didn't think so. When they rounded the corner and disappeared from sight, he considered following after them. However, he didn't feel inclined to meet with Kayura's staff for abandoning his watch so he just turned his eyes back to the seemingly invisible leak to wait for something to happen.
"Anything?" Kayura asked as she walked towards him.
He was quiet for a moment. "Maybe," he said at last. "It was… interesting anyway."
She looked a bit skeptical now. "Interesting in what way?" she asked him.
"Not the way you think," he snorted. "Those girls Dais was talking about came by here."
Kayura grimaced. "No, don't tell me. I don't want to know what you're thinking about them."
Now Cale looked impatient with her. "Would you listen to me?" he asked irritably. "I'm trying to tell you that the one, Addy, stopped and stared at the exact spot I'm standing here keeping an eye on. She was there for almost five minutes, didn't seem to hear anything that her friend said to her and nearly launched herself into orbit when the other girl put her hand on her shoulder."
Kayura frowned a bit at this. "There's no way this is just a coincidence," she murmured. "But what connection could a mortal girl have with this kind of thing?" She looked off in the direction of the leak, a pondering expression on her face. "Unless…." Her eyebrows knit together as her brain struggled to put two and two together, something just escaping her grasp. Something about the nature of the leak and this girl's aura. "Keep an eye on this, I'm going for a walk," Kayura informed Cale as she turned to leave in the direction she had come.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said dryly. "As evidently it's too much trouble to tell me what you're thinking."
It would have appeared that Kayura didn't hear him or else just ignored him, head down and now deep in thought. Something about all of this weighed heavily on her and she was beginning to think that it was time to go practice her meditation skills. Leaving the city, she went back to Dais' apartment to sit inside where it was quiet. The Ancient had been gone for a long time but it was time to see if she could get the monk to provide a little bit of guidance. Even if it only was in the form of some hopelessly confusing riddle.
The evening progressed normally for the most part. The girls waited tables and Dais worked at the bar, diligently as ever. Though the warlord kept a discreet eye on them he didn't bother them or attempt to interact with them. The most conversation he had with any of them was when Victoria dropped a glass and it shattered behind the bar.
"Don't worry about it," he said calmly as he moved to sweep it up.
"Here, let me take care of it," she protested. "I made the mess."
However, he waved her off with a congenial smile. "You have customers waiting and besides that, you're only wearing sandals. You don't need to be playing in broken glass." She looked ready to argue that but a glance back at the tables where the drinks were due made her curse and quickly moved to do as he'd suggested. He shook his head slightly at this, amused by her. Of all the girls, Vicky had made the best impression on him. She was outgoing and easy to talk to, making him at ease in this unfamiliar environment. He got the feeling that it was that way with everyone she met. It certainly didn't hurt anything that she was also cute, in a bright, almost childlike way.
He put the broom up and disposed of the glass before returning to his place behind the bar. Busying himself with polishing glasses as he waited for customers he only glanced up belatedly as he heard someone sit down.
"Hello," he said to Kayura as he set the glass down and turned to her.
She gave him a slightly tired smile. "I've got news," she said to him, beckoning him over.
"Oh?" he asked with interest as he moved closer, leaning across the bar. "What's up?"
Vicky came out from the back carrying a tray of drinks a few moments later and blinked as she saw the two at the bar, faces close in a quiet conversation. Immediately taking it the wrong way, she went off with the drinks which she handed off to the respective customers and then, tray still in hand, skipped to the other side of the bar to her sister. "Hey," she chirped as she came over. "Guess what!"
Addy looked up from where she was cleaning off a table. "What is it?" she asked.
"You're supposed to guess, not just ask," Vicky pointed out, disappointed that Addy wasn't playing along.
The dark haired girl gave a snort at this. "Alright, um… Dais quit?" she tried hopefully.
Vicky rolled her eyes. "No. Try again."
"Dais got fired?"
"No. He's on your mind a lot, isn't he?" Vicky asked with a wide grin. Addy blinked at this and then Vicky's grin got even wider. "Addy has a crush, Addy has a crush!" she chanted gleefully, glomping her sister. "I knew you had hormones somewhere in that body!"
"I – wah?!" Addy asked in disbelief, trying to wiggle out of her sister's grip. "I do not have a crush on that weirdo. What was your news?"
Her sister's grin failed to diminish. "Your crush already has a girlfriend. You should have moved faster."
There was silence to this before Addy slowly put her hands on her sister's shoulders. "Vicky," she said slowly. "You're very dear to me… but sometimes I want to throttle you. This is one of those times."
"Hey, don't shoot the messenger," she defended herself. "I can't help it if you're not the only one who liked him."
"Vicky," Addy said tersely. "That's not it."
The brunette blinked and tilted her head. "Then what is it?"
"I. Do. Not. Like. Him. Understand now?" Addy grit out.
Vicky just chuckled and patted her sister's head. "Those who deny it the loudest are the ones who are guilty. Well, I have to get back to work. Ja ne."
Addy ground her teeth together as her sister walked off merrily. "I'm going to murder him," she mumbled under her breath, turning back to the table which she began to polish as if this were all its fault. "Slowly and painfully, medieval torture style."