Raining On The Sky
Angelica Diablo
Disclaimer: Don't own Ronins. Naked owns the song. Do own Pirro, Tanaka family,
the Crack-Cult, and any other original characters I pull out of the air. Thank you all my
fun and faithful reviewing peoples. You know who you are.
A/N: I know the inclination is to ignore the song lyrics and just read the story, but in
this chapter if in none of the others, I suggest paying attention to the lyrics.
"When the night falls on metropolis
Neon dissonance, warm lipstick
When the moon shines on the playground
I will find you in the tinsel town…"
Pirro still couldn't believe what had happened. They had been forced to tie her down to
a bed in the psyche ward at the hospital after she watched Naoki die. None of them
understood what she meant when she said she'd betrayed him. She'd been watching
Cye, not Naoki, when Naoki took his final breath. She couldn't forgive herself for
looking away, not when he'd needed her most.
She had to admit now that she loved Naoki. She'd loved him so much that every time
she thought of him she felt the urge to end her life so that she could join him. There was
no room in her mind for any thought of Cye now. None what so ever. She had even
forgotten the cult, because she simply didn't care any more.
She went walking through the city aimlessly as if she were courting death himself to go
ahead and end her existence. Everyone she had known had died or left or just forgot to
stay. That was her life. That was what she knew. She refused to talk to anyone now, for
fear that her doing so would curse them too, and they in turn would find an untimely
end trying to prolong her useless life.
Pirro startled in the middle of the sidewalk. There, again, she thought she'd spotted
Naoki's face in the crowd, and again she'd blinked and found that it was just some guy
with a hair color similar to Naoki's, or with a similar facial expression. Of course it was
never Naoki. It would never be Naoki again, and all because Naoki had thought that
her life was more precious than his own.
He was such a fool.
In the darkness, Pirro turned down an alleyway and tried to hide her face that was now
streaked with fresh tears and probably looked even more hideous then usual. Up ahead
she spotted a shadow moving along the wall. She knew that shape! She knew that
form! She picked up her pace, expecting to see Naoki standing just around the corner,
laughing at her for believing that he really died.
No, it was just some street urchin that gave her an odd look but left her alone,
thankfully. Pirro hurried back to the main streets and made her way back towards the
hotel she was staying at. She couldn't bring herself to spend one more night in the
Tanaka family house, where Naoki's parents kept watching her with eyes that said,
"You killed our only son. Because of you, he is dead."
"Moving shadows in the shape of what you want to see
Painted fingers and the aromatic Jean Nate
And when they're spinning you can see them
Do the strangest things
Building bridges from the slivers of another's dream…"
Cye and the others had been up all night trying to figure out what the cult's next move
would be. Cye had tried to get a hold of Pirro to warn her that it still wasn't safe for her
to be out and about, but she refused to even acknowledge his existence.
Cye had left messages for her at least ten times that day, but she hadn't responded to
one of them. He finally had given up for the moment, and gone back to helping the
others.
Rowen – the look in his eyes making it obvious that he was surviving solely on coffee
beans – kept returning to the 'gifts' that had been left for each of them, trying to decide
the true meaning behind each of them.
Kento had been intent on simply figuring out where they were so that he could go in
and open a can of whoop-ass on them.
Sage was working silently, trying to decide where, when, and how they would strike
next so that he could strategically plan a counter attack.
Ryo remained silent and contemplative, and for once not revealing what he was
thinking. The others were too busy involved in their own thoughts to realize that this
was probably a sign that Ryo was on to something.
Mia had fallen asleep with her face pressed against a newspaper article that told of
Naoki's murder.
Only Cye was still concentrating solely on Pirro, and not directly on the Cult. He was
trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between them again so that he could keep her
safe. He didn't even let his mind stray to the thought of returning to Pirro's arms. He
didn't dare, for it was asking too much.
"Whatever you want
I'll give it to you, I will
Whatever the cost
I'll get it for you, I will…"
"Yulie!" Ryo suddenly shouted, startling everyone as he slammed his hand down on
the table to emphasize his revelation. "While we're all here, worried about a second
strike, we've forgotten about Yulie!" He elaborated after receiving some blank stares.
After the moment it took for Ryo's words to sink in, the room burst into motion. Cye
lost himself in the confusion of the quick plan where Ryo and Rowen would return to
Toyama to con Yulie's parents into letting him stay with them for a while for the kid's
own protection.
Granted, Yulie was well past being just a kid and closer to being an adult, he still was a
kid to them. This way, they would be stationed in both Toyama and Osaka in the event
of an emergency on either end.
Ryo and Rowen went upstairs to pack. Mia turned to Cye and suggested that he go and
get some sleep, as tomorrow was going to be a hard day. Tomorrow was Naoki's
funeral.
Cye nodded as he pulled himself up and went to his room upstairs. From there he could
see the lights in the house that he used to watch to see Pirro's form moving across the
windows. Now he could look to see darkness in all the rooms where a grieving couple
mourned the loss of their only child.
"Let's go raining on the sky
Throw a kiss and wave goodbye
Let's go raining on the sky
And one kiss seals the tie…"
Pirro sat in the pew while the corps that was once the animated body of Naoki lay
before her in a casket. She remained silent while friends and family stood up to say a
few words about the dearly departed. She let tears stream down her face unchecked
while a blessing was said over him.
Finally it came time for Pirro to stand and say her final good byes at the service. She
pulled herself up, she stood at the podium, she forced her voice to behave itself and not
crackle and die away.
She read a small passage from one of her earlier books, one where Jena, the loving wife,
spoke at the funeral of Treven, her husband. "I found that these words were
appropriate, as they were written by Naoki's favorite author, and they speak my heart
right now.
"I remember how Naoki and I would squabble over little things, nothing important to
mention here, and we'd always wind up ending the fight when he would quote
something from Julie Shudder, or mention her. So, it is tribute to his love of these books
that I read from them." Pirro didn't mention that it was also because she herself wrote
these words that made them appropriate to read at the funeral, as they did speak her
heart. At the moment, she felt like Jena.
After the service was done, Pirro went to watch them put the body in the ground. She
threw a single red rose, symbolic of her love, into the hole that consumed the flesh of her
beloved. Then those who attended the ceremony approached her one by one to share
their condolences.
Pirro noticed only when the crowd began to thin out, that there was someone who
hadn't said a thing to her, or approached her or the Tanakas, yet he seemed to have
every right to be there.
Cye, with Kento at his side for moral support, paid their respects silently to Naoki before
they turned and walked away. They went unnoticed by everyone except Pirro.
Finally, the crowd dispersed, and Asa and Haru returned to their car and drove away.
Pirro found herself alone beside Naoki's grave and she knelt down, ignoring the fact
that she was getting mud on her dress. She could buy another dress.
She pressed her hands into the mud that now covered Naoki's casket. She let herself go
then, and let herself cry harder then she could remember crying when her parents died.
Finally, night fell, and a local police official told her that she would have to go on home.
The man was kind enough to call her a cab and make sure she got to it okay.
Pirro didn't speak a word to the man in the driver's seat past telling him where she was
headed as she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Perhaps, perhaps if she
appeared dead, then the world would believe she was and she wouldn't have to worry
about talking to people or looking at them ever again.
If she were dead then people wouldn't notice her at all because she would be a ghost.
No, a spirit. And as a spirit, she wouldn't have her scars. Cye himself had said that
when she was just a spirit, when Anubis had taken her back to her body, she hadn't had
her scars.
They were morbid thoughts, but they were the kind of thoughts that were just running
rampant through her head as she kept seeing in her minds eye the fresh grave that
didn't even have a head stone yet, but only a cheep plastic marker that would be
replaced by something of more worth in a few days.
"Riding home she falls asleep inside a Checkered Cab
In a dream she comes across Alice in Wonderland
The Maddest Hatter surely had her in the recent past
Now she hears him saying, 'Honey, you are home at last'…"
Cye watched as the taxi pulled away from the cemetery. Just as he'd suspected, Pirro
wasn't going to take care of herself. She had given up on just about everything that held
her safe. Everything that she had loved was gone except for her stories.
He and Kento had waited after the funeral and watched over her from where she
couldn't detect them. It was simple really; they just stood outside the gates of the
cemetery and kept an eye on her.
There had been several times when Kento had to put a hand on Cye's shoulder to keep
him from going in there and comforting Pirro himself. Cye had wanted so badly to go
in there and pull Pirro into his arms and kiss her and tell her that it would all be okay.
He knew he couldn't. He knew that he would have tried to anyway had Kento not
stopped him.
Pirro would have resented him if he had, he well knew. That was the only reason he let
Kento hold him back as they watched Pirro mourn the loss of her fiancé that she had
wanted to hate as an enemy, and grown to love as a friend.
Now that it was over, and Pirro was on her way home, Cye could breath a sigh of relief
and let Kento drive him back to the cottage.
"Come on buddy, let's go home." Kento said as slung an arm around Cye's shoulders in
a brotherly fashion.
"He'll be waiting there and you can start again
Rhinestone darling, know you're taken
You'll have a lot of laughs and Cadillacs and bubble baths
Just say the word and he'll forget about your past…"
Pirro was standing on a small stone patio in the early morning looking out over the sea.
It was so early that the fog had yet to clear, and the world was covered in a mist, giving
the illusion of floating in a fantasy realm.
She heard the click of her shoes as she walked over the smooth stones and moved onto
the sand, walking towards the water. There was a dark form in the mist up ahead, and
she couldn't tell just what it was. She moved closer to it and recognized it instantly.
"Naoki!" She called, and he turned to face her with a broad smile playing across his
lips.
"Pirro…" He said softly as she raced to him and flung her arms around his neck. "Pirro,
it's alright, you don't have to worry about me any more." He told her, but Pirro
wouldn't listen.
"Naoki, I need you back home. I miss you so much. Why did you have to leave me?"
Pirro asked him.
Naoki was silent then, and Pirro looked up and gasped. It wasn't Naoki any more, but
an angry face that she didn't recognize. Not so much a face, but a mask. "Naoki?" She
whispered, though knowing it was useless. Naoki wasn't there any more.
"No child, it is not Naoki that you see before you." Came the deep voice that seemed to
hypnotize Pirro, as well as make all the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up on
end. "It is I, Tulpa, who has come to…"
Before Tulpa got out another word, Pirro woke up. She sat bolt upright in the back seat
of the taxi. She was a little disoriented as she looked around. Then she realized that she
didn't recognize the buildings outside the window.
"Excuse me, driver? This isn't the way back to the hotel I'm staying at…" Pirro said,
leaning foreword.
"Shut up back there." Came a gruff voice. "You're not going to your hotel."
That was when Pirro noticed that the door handles on the insides were missing in the
back seats.
"What ever you want
I'll do it to you, I will
Whatever the thought
I'll do it for you, I will…"
Cye was dreaming, and the strange thing was, he knew he was dreaming. He was
standing at an alter, obviously done up in the fashion for a wedding. He turned his
head and spotted Pirro standing next to him. He smiled; this would be a pleasant
dream. He was slightly surprised as it was a Western style wedding, but he didn't mind
at all.
They went through the ceremony, and finally they came to the part that Cye had been
anticipating throughout the entire dream. The faceless voice that played priest spoke
the words, "You may now kiss the bride."
Cye smiled as he turned to lift the veil from Pirro's face and he closed his eyes and
leaned foreword and kissed her. When he drew back and opened his eyes he was
stunned.
It was no longer Pirro standing before him, but a woman wearing all black. Cye's eyes
narrowed as he recognized her as the gun woman that had murdered Naoki. "How
dare you interrupt my wedding?" Cye asked her in a scathing tone. He noticed that his
voice echoed through out the room they were standing in, as if suddenly the walls had
grown taller and farther away, creating a cavernous hall that was so large that it would
be impossible to even see the ceiling when looking straight up.
The woman shrugged and smiled. Cye noticed that her lips had been painted a bright
red, the color of blood when it first leaves the body. Then her mouth started dripping
with blood as she reached foreword and captured Cye by the back of the neck and drew
him foreword, kissing him and smearing the blood over his face.
Cye woke up sputtering and wiping his mouth off with the back of his hand.
"Let's go raining on the sky
Throw a kiss and wave goodbye
Let's go raining on the sky
And one kiss seals the tie…"
Ryo and Rowen were chasing down a dark alleyway after a small group of punks
dressed in all black. Both warriors were angry and ready to kill as soon as they got the
information they needed out of these members of the cult.
Yulie was missing, apparently kidnapped. When Ryo and Rowen had arrived in town
and contacted Yulie's family, they had been met with the distraught faces of Yulie's
parents. It would seem that no one had seen or heard from Yulie in two days.
Just the thought of what they might be doing to Yulie made Ryo's feet move faster as he
tackled one of the guys to the ground. "Where is he?" Ryo growled as he restrained the
guy.
Ryo closed his eyes as the kid spit in his face. "You'll never find him in time." The teen
said.
Ryo looked up to see Rowen moving to capture one of the other members, but before he
could, the other two members of the cult drew black handled daggers from their pockets
and slit their own throats.
Ryo looked down at his hostage and found only a corps. "How the…?" Ryo asked,
jumping off the body and staring down at it. There was an open gash across this one's
throat as well, as if he too had sliced his throat open, though Ryo had been holding both
the guys arms.
"Let's get outta here!" Rowen's voice jolted Ryo out of his shock. Ryo nodded and the
pair left to return to Rowen's apartment, which had been turned into their temporary
home base. Ryo didn't feel like being arrested for the murder of three people, even if
they were members of a cult. Soon they were walking up the stairs to Rowen's
apartment.
"We're gonna have to find where they're keeping Yulie soon." Ryo said as the two of
them entered Rowen's apartment.
Rowen had been about to answer when he noticed the blinking light on the answering
machine. "Hey, maybe it's the others, maybe they've found somethin." Rowen said
with a hint of hope in his voice as he hit the play button.
What they heard however wasn't the voice of the others. "Congratulations on the
murder of three of my followers." Came a scratchy voice that made Ryo and Rowen
snap to attention. "But at this rate, you'll never find what you're looking for."
In the background came the sound of a struggle and a voice that Ryo and Rowen
recognized instantly as that of Yulie. "Guys, I know you can hear me. These freaks
want to resurrect Tulpa, you've gotta stop them. They took me to this…" There was the
sound of a smack and Yulie fell silent.
"You heard the boy." The first voice said, then there was a soft click as the message
ended.
Ryo and Rowen looked at each other for a moment, letting things sink in as their mutual
anger began to rise and bubble over. "They'll pay for this." Ryo vowed.
"When your heart aches with horizon
Caked eyelash, torn nylon
When the light breaks through and frightens you
You'll hear the cry to come raining on the sky…"
Cye was recounting his dream to Mia and the others as he sat over a hot mug of tea. It
was the middle of the night, and Cye was shivering from not just the cold, but nerves as
well. He had the urge to just scream, then track down the members of the cult and kill
them.
"It would seem that their powers are growing." Sage said. "If they can influence your
dreams like that."
"Which means they're getting closer to being able to bring Tulpa back." Mia said,
sounding like she was going to go into one of her thinking moods where she would
pour over files and files on her computer until her brain hurt.
Cye was not in a good mood at all. "I have to call Pirro in the morning, as soon as she'd
be awake. I have to make sure that she's okay." He said.
Kento looked wary of the prospect, but nodded his head as if he had a say in the matter.
He was playing overprotective big brother again, but Cye was too worn out to really
care that much about it. "Alright. And then we should call Ryo and Rowen, see how
they're fairing." Cye added.
Sage nodded. "Things are going to start heating up around here real soon." He
commented as he looked out the window at the pitch darkness of the night.
"Let's go raining on the sky
Throw a kiss and say goodbye
Let's go raining on the sky
And one kiss seals the tie
Let's go raining on the sky
Let's go raining on the sky vacuum"
Angelica Diablo
Disclaimer: Don't own Ronins. Naked owns the song. Do own Pirro, Tanaka family,
the Crack-Cult, and any other original characters I pull out of the air. Thank you all my
fun and faithful reviewing peoples. You know who you are.
A/N: I know the inclination is to ignore the song lyrics and just read the story, but in
this chapter if in none of the others, I suggest paying attention to the lyrics.
"When the night falls on metropolis
Neon dissonance, warm lipstick
When the moon shines on the playground
I will find you in the tinsel town…"
Pirro still couldn't believe what had happened. They had been forced to tie her down to
a bed in the psyche ward at the hospital after she watched Naoki die. None of them
understood what she meant when she said she'd betrayed him. She'd been watching
Cye, not Naoki, when Naoki took his final breath. She couldn't forgive herself for
looking away, not when he'd needed her most.
She had to admit now that she loved Naoki. She'd loved him so much that every time
she thought of him she felt the urge to end her life so that she could join him. There was
no room in her mind for any thought of Cye now. None what so ever. She had even
forgotten the cult, because she simply didn't care any more.
She went walking through the city aimlessly as if she were courting death himself to go
ahead and end her existence. Everyone she had known had died or left or just forgot to
stay. That was her life. That was what she knew. She refused to talk to anyone now, for
fear that her doing so would curse them too, and they in turn would find an untimely
end trying to prolong her useless life.
Pirro startled in the middle of the sidewalk. There, again, she thought she'd spotted
Naoki's face in the crowd, and again she'd blinked and found that it was just some guy
with a hair color similar to Naoki's, or with a similar facial expression. Of course it was
never Naoki. It would never be Naoki again, and all because Naoki had thought that
her life was more precious than his own.
He was such a fool.
In the darkness, Pirro turned down an alleyway and tried to hide her face that was now
streaked with fresh tears and probably looked even more hideous then usual. Up ahead
she spotted a shadow moving along the wall. She knew that shape! She knew that
form! She picked up her pace, expecting to see Naoki standing just around the corner,
laughing at her for believing that he really died.
No, it was just some street urchin that gave her an odd look but left her alone,
thankfully. Pirro hurried back to the main streets and made her way back towards the
hotel she was staying at. She couldn't bring herself to spend one more night in the
Tanaka family house, where Naoki's parents kept watching her with eyes that said,
"You killed our only son. Because of you, he is dead."
"Moving shadows in the shape of what you want to see
Painted fingers and the aromatic Jean Nate
And when they're spinning you can see them
Do the strangest things
Building bridges from the slivers of another's dream…"
Cye and the others had been up all night trying to figure out what the cult's next move
would be. Cye had tried to get a hold of Pirro to warn her that it still wasn't safe for her
to be out and about, but she refused to even acknowledge his existence.
Cye had left messages for her at least ten times that day, but she hadn't responded to
one of them. He finally had given up for the moment, and gone back to helping the
others.
Rowen – the look in his eyes making it obvious that he was surviving solely on coffee
beans – kept returning to the 'gifts' that had been left for each of them, trying to decide
the true meaning behind each of them.
Kento had been intent on simply figuring out where they were so that he could go in
and open a can of whoop-ass on them.
Sage was working silently, trying to decide where, when, and how they would strike
next so that he could strategically plan a counter attack.
Ryo remained silent and contemplative, and for once not revealing what he was
thinking. The others were too busy involved in their own thoughts to realize that this
was probably a sign that Ryo was on to something.
Mia had fallen asleep with her face pressed against a newspaper article that told of
Naoki's murder.
Only Cye was still concentrating solely on Pirro, and not directly on the Cult. He was
trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between them again so that he could keep her
safe. He didn't even let his mind stray to the thought of returning to Pirro's arms. He
didn't dare, for it was asking too much.
"Whatever you want
I'll give it to you, I will
Whatever the cost
I'll get it for you, I will…"
"Yulie!" Ryo suddenly shouted, startling everyone as he slammed his hand down on
the table to emphasize his revelation. "While we're all here, worried about a second
strike, we've forgotten about Yulie!" He elaborated after receiving some blank stares.
After the moment it took for Ryo's words to sink in, the room burst into motion. Cye
lost himself in the confusion of the quick plan where Ryo and Rowen would return to
Toyama to con Yulie's parents into letting him stay with them for a while for the kid's
own protection.
Granted, Yulie was well past being just a kid and closer to being an adult, he still was a
kid to them. This way, they would be stationed in both Toyama and Osaka in the event
of an emergency on either end.
Ryo and Rowen went upstairs to pack. Mia turned to Cye and suggested that he go and
get some sleep, as tomorrow was going to be a hard day. Tomorrow was Naoki's
funeral.
Cye nodded as he pulled himself up and went to his room upstairs. From there he could
see the lights in the house that he used to watch to see Pirro's form moving across the
windows. Now he could look to see darkness in all the rooms where a grieving couple
mourned the loss of their only child.
"Let's go raining on the sky
Throw a kiss and wave goodbye
Let's go raining on the sky
And one kiss seals the tie…"
Pirro sat in the pew while the corps that was once the animated body of Naoki lay
before her in a casket. She remained silent while friends and family stood up to say a
few words about the dearly departed. She let tears stream down her face unchecked
while a blessing was said over him.
Finally it came time for Pirro to stand and say her final good byes at the service. She
pulled herself up, she stood at the podium, she forced her voice to behave itself and not
crackle and die away.
She read a small passage from one of her earlier books, one where Jena, the loving wife,
spoke at the funeral of Treven, her husband. "I found that these words were
appropriate, as they were written by Naoki's favorite author, and they speak my heart
right now.
"I remember how Naoki and I would squabble over little things, nothing important to
mention here, and we'd always wind up ending the fight when he would quote
something from Julie Shudder, or mention her. So, it is tribute to his love of these books
that I read from them." Pirro didn't mention that it was also because she herself wrote
these words that made them appropriate to read at the funeral, as they did speak her
heart. At the moment, she felt like Jena.
After the service was done, Pirro went to watch them put the body in the ground. She
threw a single red rose, symbolic of her love, into the hole that consumed the flesh of her
beloved. Then those who attended the ceremony approached her one by one to share
their condolences.
Pirro noticed only when the crowd began to thin out, that there was someone who
hadn't said a thing to her, or approached her or the Tanakas, yet he seemed to have
every right to be there.
Cye, with Kento at his side for moral support, paid their respects silently to Naoki before
they turned and walked away. They went unnoticed by everyone except Pirro.
Finally, the crowd dispersed, and Asa and Haru returned to their car and drove away.
Pirro found herself alone beside Naoki's grave and she knelt down, ignoring the fact
that she was getting mud on her dress. She could buy another dress.
She pressed her hands into the mud that now covered Naoki's casket. She let herself go
then, and let herself cry harder then she could remember crying when her parents died.
Finally, night fell, and a local police official told her that she would have to go on home.
The man was kind enough to call her a cab and make sure she got to it okay.
Pirro didn't speak a word to the man in the driver's seat past telling him where she was
headed as she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Perhaps, perhaps if she
appeared dead, then the world would believe she was and she wouldn't have to worry
about talking to people or looking at them ever again.
If she were dead then people wouldn't notice her at all because she would be a ghost.
No, a spirit. And as a spirit, she wouldn't have her scars. Cye himself had said that
when she was just a spirit, when Anubis had taken her back to her body, she hadn't had
her scars.
They were morbid thoughts, but they were the kind of thoughts that were just running
rampant through her head as she kept seeing in her minds eye the fresh grave that
didn't even have a head stone yet, but only a cheep plastic marker that would be
replaced by something of more worth in a few days.
"Riding home she falls asleep inside a Checkered Cab
In a dream she comes across Alice in Wonderland
The Maddest Hatter surely had her in the recent past
Now she hears him saying, 'Honey, you are home at last'…"
Cye watched as the taxi pulled away from the cemetery. Just as he'd suspected, Pirro
wasn't going to take care of herself. She had given up on just about everything that held
her safe. Everything that she had loved was gone except for her stories.
He and Kento had waited after the funeral and watched over her from where she
couldn't detect them. It was simple really; they just stood outside the gates of the
cemetery and kept an eye on her.
There had been several times when Kento had to put a hand on Cye's shoulder to keep
him from going in there and comforting Pirro himself. Cye had wanted so badly to go
in there and pull Pirro into his arms and kiss her and tell her that it would all be okay.
He knew he couldn't. He knew that he would have tried to anyway had Kento not
stopped him.
Pirro would have resented him if he had, he well knew. That was the only reason he let
Kento hold him back as they watched Pirro mourn the loss of her fiancé that she had
wanted to hate as an enemy, and grown to love as a friend.
Now that it was over, and Pirro was on her way home, Cye could breath a sigh of relief
and let Kento drive him back to the cottage.
"Come on buddy, let's go home." Kento said as slung an arm around Cye's shoulders in
a brotherly fashion.
"He'll be waiting there and you can start again
Rhinestone darling, know you're taken
You'll have a lot of laughs and Cadillacs and bubble baths
Just say the word and he'll forget about your past…"
Pirro was standing on a small stone patio in the early morning looking out over the sea.
It was so early that the fog had yet to clear, and the world was covered in a mist, giving
the illusion of floating in a fantasy realm.
She heard the click of her shoes as she walked over the smooth stones and moved onto
the sand, walking towards the water. There was a dark form in the mist up ahead, and
she couldn't tell just what it was. She moved closer to it and recognized it instantly.
"Naoki!" She called, and he turned to face her with a broad smile playing across his
lips.
"Pirro…" He said softly as she raced to him and flung her arms around his neck. "Pirro,
it's alright, you don't have to worry about me any more." He told her, but Pirro
wouldn't listen.
"Naoki, I need you back home. I miss you so much. Why did you have to leave me?"
Pirro asked him.
Naoki was silent then, and Pirro looked up and gasped. It wasn't Naoki any more, but
an angry face that she didn't recognize. Not so much a face, but a mask. "Naoki?" She
whispered, though knowing it was useless. Naoki wasn't there any more.
"No child, it is not Naoki that you see before you." Came the deep voice that seemed to
hypnotize Pirro, as well as make all the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up on
end. "It is I, Tulpa, who has come to…"
Before Tulpa got out another word, Pirro woke up. She sat bolt upright in the back seat
of the taxi. She was a little disoriented as she looked around. Then she realized that she
didn't recognize the buildings outside the window.
"Excuse me, driver? This isn't the way back to the hotel I'm staying at…" Pirro said,
leaning foreword.
"Shut up back there." Came a gruff voice. "You're not going to your hotel."
That was when Pirro noticed that the door handles on the insides were missing in the
back seats.
"What ever you want
I'll do it to you, I will
Whatever the thought
I'll do it for you, I will…"
Cye was dreaming, and the strange thing was, he knew he was dreaming. He was
standing at an alter, obviously done up in the fashion for a wedding. He turned his
head and spotted Pirro standing next to him. He smiled; this would be a pleasant
dream. He was slightly surprised as it was a Western style wedding, but he didn't mind
at all.
They went through the ceremony, and finally they came to the part that Cye had been
anticipating throughout the entire dream. The faceless voice that played priest spoke
the words, "You may now kiss the bride."
Cye smiled as he turned to lift the veil from Pirro's face and he closed his eyes and
leaned foreword and kissed her. When he drew back and opened his eyes he was
stunned.
It was no longer Pirro standing before him, but a woman wearing all black. Cye's eyes
narrowed as he recognized her as the gun woman that had murdered Naoki. "How
dare you interrupt my wedding?" Cye asked her in a scathing tone. He noticed that his
voice echoed through out the room they were standing in, as if suddenly the walls had
grown taller and farther away, creating a cavernous hall that was so large that it would
be impossible to even see the ceiling when looking straight up.
The woman shrugged and smiled. Cye noticed that her lips had been painted a bright
red, the color of blood when it first leaves the body. Then her mouth started dripping
with blood as she reached foreword and captured Cye by the back of the neck and drew
him foreword, kissing him and smearing the blood over his face.
Cye woke up sputtering and wiping his mouth off with the back of his hand.
"Let's go raining on the sky
Throw a kiss and wave goodbye
Let's go raining on the sky
And one kiss seals the tie…"
Ryo and Rowen were chasing down a dark alleyway after a small group of punks
dressed in all black. Both warriors were angry and ready to kill as soon as they got the
information they needed out of these members of the cult.
Yulie was missing, apparently kidnapped. When Ryo and Rowen had arrived in town
and contacted Yulie's family, they had been met with the distraught faces of Yulie's
parents. It would seem that no one had seen or heard from Yulie in two days.
Just the thought of what they might be doing to Yulie made Ryo's feet move faster as he
tackled one of the guys to the ground. "Where is he?" Ryo growled as he restrained the
guy.
Ryo closed his eyes as the kid spit in his face. "You'll never find him in time." The teen
said.
Ryo looked up to see Rowen moving to capture one of the other members, but before he
could, the other two members of the cult drew black handled daggers from their pockets
and slit their own throats.
Ryo looked down at his hostage and found only a corps. "How the…?" Ryo asked,
jumping off the body and staring down at it. There was an open gash across this one's
throat as well, as if he too had sliced his throat open, though Ryo had been holding both
the guys arms.
"Let's get outta here!" Rowen's voice jolted Ryo out of his shock. Ryo nodded and the
pair left to return to Rowen's apartment, which had been turned into their temporary
home base. Ryo didn't feel like being arrested for the murder of three people, even if
they were members of a cult. Soon they were walking up the stairs to Rowen's
apartment.
"We're gonna have to find where they're keeping Yulie soon." Ryo said as the two of
them entered Rowen's apartment.
Rowen had been about to answer when he noticed the blinking light on the answering
machine. "Hey, maybe it's the others, maybe they've found somethin." Rowen said
with a hint of hope in his voice as he hit the play button.
What they heard however wasn't the voice of the others. "Congratulations on the
murder of three of my followers." Came a scratchy voice that made Ryo and Rowen
snap to attention. "But at this rate, you'll never find what you're looking for."
In the background came the sound of a struggle and a voice that Ryo and Rowen
recognized instantly as that of Yulie. "Guys, I know you can hear me. These freaks
want to resurrect Tulpa, you've gotta stop them. They took me to this…" There was the
sound of a smack and Yulie fell silent.
"You heard the boy." The first voice said, then there was a soft click as the message
ended.
Ryo and Rowen looked at each other for a moment, letting things sink in as their mutual
anger began to rise and bubble over. "They'll pay for this." Ryo vowed.
"When your heart aches with horizon
Caked eyelash, torn nylon
When the light breaks through and frightens you
You'll hear the cry to come raining on the sky…"
Cye was recounting his dream to Mia and the others as he sat over a hot mug of tea. It
was the middle of the night, and Cye was shivering from not just the cold, but nerves as
well. He had the urge to just scream, then track down the members of the cult and kill
them.
"It would seem that their powers are growing." Sage said. "If they can influence your
dreams like that."
"Which means they're getting closer to being able to bring Tulpa back." Mia said,
sounding like she was going to go into one of her thinking moods where she would
pour over files and files on her computer until her brain hurt.
Cye was not in a good mood at all. "I have to call Pirro in the morning, as soon as she'd
be awake. I have to make sure that she's okay." He said.
Kento looked wary of the prospect, but nodded his head as if he had a say in the matter.
He was playing overprotective big brother again, but Cye was too worn out to really
care that much about it. "Alright. And then we should call Ryo and Rowen, see how
they're fairing." Cye added.
Sage nodded. "Things are going to start heating up around here real soon." He
commented as he looked out the window at the pitch darkness of the night.
"Let's go raining on the sky
Throw a kiss and say goodbye
Let's go raining on the sky
And one kiss seals the tie
Let's go raining on the sky
Let's go raining on the sky vacuum"