Dark was right in the middle of an especially complicated spell with which he was hoping to blast a certain blonde into oblivion when he heard it.
A tugging at the roots of his consciousness, like a voice calling from so far away he couldn't make out the words. But he recognized that voice.
Daisuke was calling him; Daisuke needed him very badly.
Instantly Dark melted out of the air to return to Daisuke's mind.
And Krad was left there in an intensely foul mood. What kind of Curse runs from a fight? Something must have happened to the Niwa boy.
Krad reached out for his own Tamer's mind. Instead of being asleep, as he had hoped, he found Satoshi's state of mind to be awake, open, wondering as he puzzled over something. He must have found something extraordinary, but there was defintely no cause for worry. His Satoshi could always take care of himself, at least when it came to knowledge.
Krad flew all the way back, landing and entering silently.
Satoshi sat on the floor, illuminated by the one bright shaft of moonlight in the otherwise dark room. The silver light played over his features, accentuating his the fine bones of his face and shoulders and collarbone-the last two deliciously evident since Satoshi had apparently gone to bed without a shirt on.
As Satoshi sat there, completely absorbed in the book he was reading, he resembled a stature made of ice or alabaster-A frost-covered angel, Krad thought.
He shifted a little-the book must be heavy-exposing the fine, taut lines of his neck to the ethereal light.
At that second Krad wanted absolutely nothing more than to mar that perfect white surface with a bite mark.
He walked around Satoshi, staying in the shadows. He knelt down behind the boy and slid a hand possessively around a slim hip, turning his attention to that neck.
Krad was extremely pleased with the sharp little intake of breath that resulted.
But Satoshi was so absorbed with interest over the book he'd found that he couldn't be turned to anything else just yet. He managed to speak evenly, slipping into the researcher's persona he always assumed when he was explaining something
"I found in a dream and then it appeared in my lap when I woke up, except I'm not sure how that happened-maybe its something metaphysical-and I can even make out some of the words, because they're in an ancient runic language I studied once, but not everything makes sense because there's stuff about my family I thought no one else knew, and-"
You found it in a dream? Krad asked, doing things to Satoshi's neck that made it very difficult for Satoshi to think.
"Well, yes. I suppose that was the strange part. Look, do you recognize it?"
Krad rested his head on Satoshi's shoulder-for once he wasn't being pushed away-and looked down at the book as the boy closed it. The blue-green designs glittering on the cover reminded him of his Satoshi-sama, for some reason he couldn't identify.
Satoshi thought he meant the book when Krad looked at him and said, Beautiful.
Dark appeared back into Daisuke's mind.
What is it, Daisuke?
Daisuke tremblingly held up the chalice. The rubies glowed like coals, reflecting Daisuke's hair and eyes. He was thoroughly freaked out.
Where did you get that
"In a dream…I don't understand this! I found it, a stone angel gave it to me, and then I woke up but it was here-"
Dark faintly recognized the chalice from something ancient, something he had known was important a long time ago but had faded with years of stealing from Hikaris.
This was big, this was…unbelievable. He'd never thought that old prophecy was going to actually come to pass.
He materialized into his physical form to look at it more closely than through Daisuke's eyes. The pattern of rubies spelled out the first part of a prophecy, written in the astral language that only looked like vaguely familiar swirls to humans.
But Dark recognized it for what it was. And he also realized a more inconvenient truth.
This meant he was going to have toget along with Krad.