Ren's POV

"What's the score? Five to zero, me dominating?" Xavier asks then catches an incoming water bottle that's aimed at his face. Jun glares and Xavier brushes it off, tossing the water bottle into the nearest trashcan.

For the past week, after school, Jun has been switched over to Xavier as sparring partners, I train with Elliot on my King's power, and Yata teaches Haru more advanced self-defense. So far, I've made pretty good progress on my powers even though only a bit of them are released. I can now turn my ability on and off so I can ignore the ghosts and kind of communicate with the ghosts. Before, I couldn't because 'I have too weak of a connection,' quoted by Elliot, which is due to the restriction, but now I have a little of powers released I can somewhat communicate with them.

Right now, Xavier, Jun, and I are heading home after today's training. My stomach growls and I sigh. It's late and I haven't eaten since lunchtime, and it's 8:43 p.m. right now. "Ah, I'm so hungry."

"Same here. Wanna eat here?"

Xavier points at a bar and grill, and Jun and I agree. We sign in at the desk and wait for fifteen minutes before we got our table. A short, pretty waitress walks up to our table, ready to take our order. As she's taking orders, she tries flirting with Xavier, but he ignores her and she drops it. After each of us has ordered, she comes back with our drinks and leaves again.

"Hey, can I ask you some questions?" I ask and Xavier nods. "How much do you know about this King's business stuff?"

"The Second King is my grandfather so I grew up knowing about the Kings, Strains, and the conflict between the clans."

"So, is that why you know about HOMRA's missing king?"

Xavier nods. "My grandfather had told me about the HOMRA's situation and what he knows about Mikoto Suoh then he asked me to meet up with HOMRA so I could pass the information to Yata. I'm pretty much playing as the middleman."

"Is that the real reason why you moved here?" I ask.

"Pretty much."

"Couldn't he just email the information to Yata instead of sending you?"

"He's taking precaution just in case someone tries to hack into our system and get hold of the information." Makes sense. "What else do you want to know?"

"What exactly happened at our high school?" Jun asks.

Xavier takes a sip of his Diet Coke before he leans forward, resting his arms on the table. This must be a long one. "When HOMRA still had their King, Mikoto Suoh, they took over the school because they were searching for a kid, Isana Yashiro, who was responsible for one of their members' death at that time, Totsuka Tatara. Of course, Scepter 4 came and tried to run them out of the school and they had a huge fight. However, it turned out that Isana wasn't same kid that killed their member. Apparently, he was ejected from his original body by the former Seventh King- the one before you- and had since inhabited the body of a teenage boy, where after becoming amnesiac, with a new identity, Isana Yashiro. In the end, the Seventh King was killed along with Yashiro and Mikoto, who sacrificed themselves."

A flash of an image of a boy with white hair and big, amber eyes pop into my mind. In the picture the HOMRA had sent to everyone via students' PDAs, he had a carefree smile and his posture was relaxed. He had the face that screams innocence and naive so it was hard to believe he was a killer.

Xavier continues. "According to Scepter 4, Mikoto and Isana suddenly disappeared literally, their bodies nowhere to be found. This is where I come in. My grandfather has found out some information about the missing kings and said that the Greens have the two bodies, but their spirits have been split up from their bodies. So, I'm guessing that's why they want Ren to get her to locate their spirits."

"So, you knew why the Greens want her," Jun frowns, trying to hide the irritation. "Why didn't you tell us at the beginning?"

Xavier hesitates, but still keeping a poker face. "Remember, what I said about learning the conflict between clans. The history between my grandfather's clan and HOMRA isn't pretty and I grew up with my grandfather's ideologies hammered into me every day so I can't really bring myself to trust the HOMRA, just yet at least."

Jun doesn't seem satisfied, but nods. I then frown, remembering one thing has been bothering me. "Why were the Greens slaughtered? Who are the new Greens?"

Xavier shrugs, taking another sip of his drink. "Don't know. It has been bugging me too."

Finally, our orders come in and we spend the rest of the time eating and making small talks about other things. After we finish, we split the bill and leave three dollars as a tip, heading the entrance.

I stop for a second to check my bag, making sure I have everything. Then, there's a loud boom, shaking the building a little, and loud exclamations. I spin around to see a black truck has rammed into the building, crushing the table that Xavier, Jun, and I were sitting only ten seconds ago underneath its weight. I look around to see several people lying around, hurt from the debris of the wall falling on top of them.

One worker, a man with a pot-belly stomach, walks up to the van and looks into the driver's window. "Holy shit, there's no one in here!"

People take out their phones to call the police and ambulance, take pictures, or tell their friends about what just has happened. I walk over to the truck to get a closer look. Right as I walk up, small letters appear on the door, small enough for only me to see, and I feel a chill down my spine when I finish reading it.

Second Warning


"The first warning is probably when they first tried to kidnap Ren," Elliot says, taking a sip of his coffee.

Next day, during lunch, I tell Yata and Haru what happened last night. After school, we all, except Haru, who has to do something and will catch up later, head to Haru's mansion and I re-tell the whole story to Elliot which takes us to right now.

"The Greens are getting aggressive with their actions," Yata comments, not really directing to anyone or expecting a reply back. "I thought they would hold back for another few days after kidnapping Ren."

"I guess they got tired of waiting," Elliot mumbles with his arms across his chest, his right fingers drumming on his left arm, his eyebrows draw together. The drumming stops then he looks at me with an idea in mind. "How much did Claude said he would release your power?" (I told him about Claude when we first start working on my power.)

I shrug. "He didn't really specify. He just told me that he could release a little bit of it."

Elliot hums then, moments later, he puts his coffee down. "Follow me." He grabs a couple of pieces of papers and a pen then takes us to the training room, leading me to the center of the room. He squats down, placing one piece of paper in front of him, and begins writing symbols on it in a circular formation.

"What are you doing?" Xavier asks as he leans down to take a closer look.

"I'm going to give her a familiar," Elliot says, finishing up the last symbol. "The Seventh Kings are known for their Spiritual powers. Unlike HOMRA, who has a defined color for their aura, the Seventh clan doesn't, which hence the name Colorless- which got changed from Soulless by the previous king- so their spiritual abilities vary to each person. In her case, she can see ghosts, but her parents had that ability and can also make contracts with stronger ghosts aka Ayakashi to use them as soldiers. So, I'm making a safe bet that you can also do that too."

"What about my restriction?"

"I'm contacting a weak Ayakashi so it shouldn't use up too much of your power. When I mean by weak, I mean by their ability standard, all Ayakashi are great fighters so they should be useful in protecting you. Ok, here. You just need to rip it."

He hands me the paper and I raise an eyebrow. "That's it?"

Elliot nods. I look at the paper, hesitating because I have a bad feeling before I rip the paper. I'm right about my bad feeling. After I rip the paper, the symbols immediately circle around my left wrist. I feel a stinging sensation like a shot as they push themselves into my skin.

"What the hell is this?" I look at the wrist, decorated like a bracelet-like tattoo.

"A contract. There should be a human-looking character. Press it."

I turn my wrist over, finding it, and I press it and the symbols glow again. The symbol peels off from my skin and transforms into a curtain, a few feet away from us. A moment later, a hand reaches from behind and pulls the curtain aside, revealing a familiar young man with slightly tan skin, red hair, and a green eye, the other eye is covered by an eyepatch. He has a bunch of jewelry on him; a piercing on his left ear, three bracelets from the Rothem Collection around his left wrist, and a silver ring on a chain around his neck. He's wearing a black V-neck, a pair of beige pants, and flip-flops.

The young man brings himself out from behind the curtain and it disappears. He looks around, scratching the back of his head, then his gaze lands and he smirks. "Nice to see you again."

My eyes widen. "Claude?" He lets out a small grin and Jun mumbles 'So, this is him?' I do a quick scan and I don't find anything demon-like about him besides that he can change into different clothes. Where do they come from? I mean, there wasn't a closet in my aura. He just looks like a normal human, if you ignore the eyepatch. "So, what can you do?"

He simply shrugs. "I don't know." Great.

After a quick introduction, Elliot and I quickly jump into training on how to use a familiar which turns out not to be hard. When you have summoned a familiar, you can use the other symbols. Each symbol on the wrist gives you different techniques, but there's a limit: once you switch symbols, then you can't use the previous symbols for a period of time. However, because of the restriction, I can only use half of the symbols: strength, speed, and defense. I wonder if we will find someone who can take the restriction out.

After two hours of testing out my new ability, Elliot lets me take a break and Claude goes back to where he came from. Taking gulps from my water bottle, I see Yata watching and pointing out flaws in Xavier and Jun's fight. I frown when I don't see Haru anywhere. Right when I'm about to ask Elliot about Haru when my cell-phones buzz.

I reach into my pocket, pulling it out and typing in the password for the lock screen. It's a text from Haru. I read the text then again and again before I shoot up and sprint out of the door, ignoring the calls of my name.

To: Ren

From: Haru

Help. Sunset Park. The Greens are here.