The house was quiet.
It should have been a welcome relief from the seemingly endless bustle of its inhabitants, but as he lay awake in the silence, Dais found it unsettling.
It was early morning; he had deduced this from the golden sunlight pouring across the wood floor of the hallway and the din of the woods outside. The grounds had very distinct sounds throughout the day, and the Warlord had quickly familiarized himself with all of them: smaller songbirds in the daylight hours, bellowing cranes in the late afternoon and evening, and owls and crickets at nightfall. But there was usually another morning sound – Iris's voice and the chattering of her company – and today, it was absent.
He was slow to sit up, a soft groan crawling through his teeth. Heaviness in his chest swiftly blossomed into a deep, throbbing pain, and he coiled his arm around his ribs to quell it. Regaining composure, Dais crawled to his feet. His knees felt weak and his head whirled, bringing him to lean against the room's small reading desk for support. He took an apprehensive step, and then another, toddling to the door with his fingers lingering against the bookshelves lining the walls. Leaning out to peer down each end of the hallway, he found it silent and empty.
"You know I don't like this."
Ryo managed a cheesy smirk to meet the woman's grim expression. Iris's stern eyes hardened in response and she lifted her chin indignantly.
"Ryo," she hissed.
"I don't know what you're worried about us for," Rowen piped in, "half the Dynasty is here with you."
"I'm serious."
"So is he," Sage noted.
"Iris." Ryo reached out to set his hands on her arms, giving them a gentle, reassuring squeeze. "We got this, okay? We'll be back before you know it."
"And if you aren't?"
"Then you and Kento can mount a search party." The words brought the caretaker pause.
"You're not all going?" Iris looked now to Kento, then to Cye. An uncomfortable silence answered, and her eyes shot back to Ryo, "now I really don't like this."
"Someone has to stay here with you," Mia said, her voice soft and empathetic.
"We don't know what Dais might do once he regains all of his strength," Sage agreed.
"I assure you, I would not allow him to harm her."
Anubis's voice was calm but firm. He had been observing quietly from a few steps behind Iris, leaned against the side of the great lilac tree. The resulting silence was broken by a long, rolling chuff from White Blaze, who curled around from behind the man's legs to peer at the Ronins.
"Just please be careful," Iris said finally, cutting through the awkward stillness. "Don't do anything stupid."
"You know I won't let them," Mia chimed in. She opened her arms for a hug that the woman gladly reciprocated as the warriors exchanged farewell handshakes and fistbumps.
Iris watched after the four as they turned away and treaded off into the woods. Lingering a few seconds, Kento turned and started his path back to the house.
"Dais isn't the only one we're keeping an eye on," Hardrock said as he walked by Anubis, his voice low and deliberate. White Blaze huffed through his nose, his tail curling in the air tensely. The Warlord made no move to acknowledge him as he passed, but turned his head a bit to glimpse silently over his shoulder at his back. Cye followed behind Kento, offering him a half-hearted smile.
"He really does not like you, does he?" Iris stood in front of Anubis now, watching after the men on their way to the house. Yuli skipped out from his place in the garden to join them and clasped his hands around Kento's arm; the warrior's cold demeanor melted away as he lifted the boy from the ground by way of his bent elbow.
"Can you blame him?" Anubis's voice was soft, and the smallest smirk curled on his lips, but his eyes betrayed something deeper and crestfallen.
"No, I guess not." She frowned, easing her hand out toward him, but hesitated before stopping short. She looked up to meet his gaze briefly and drew her hand back to herself, closing her fingers into a relaxed fist. "I need to see what I can do about that broken tombstone."
"Of course." He followed behind her as she walked up the cemetery trail. Parting from her company and continuing past the fork in the path leading toward the house, he stopped momentarily to watch after her as she meandered into the gravestones, his heart skipping frantically in his chest.
Anubis turned again to the homestead, stopping in his tracks as his eyes settled on the porch. Dais stood there in silence, the front of his shoulder leaned gently against a wooden column. He could not avoid how frail his former comrade currently appeared; silver locks drawn back into a ponytail exposed his thin face, and the open collar of the grey kimono coat he was wearing revealed the vivid purple bruising marring his chest. An ivory hand rested on the porch banister for stability.
"I would not have expected you to be walking already," Anubis remarked.
"I was getting tired of that small room," Dais confessed.
"Fair enough," he conceded. Watching the man, he saw his steel blue eye trail across the cemetery grounds, and following it he found his sight had settled on Iris. He looked quickly back to the Warlord, his gaze now serious and unwavering.
"You know the woman well." Dais's voice was low, but unquestioning.
"I am not sure I can say that now, after all this time." Anubis approached the statement with caution. "But I did once, yes. Why?"
"I am still trying to determine her intentions in keeping me alive." His eye had not budged from the woman, who was hunched over in the graves and only barely visible through the stone monuments around her. When his company chuckled, however, his gaze shifted to him and his brows furrowed.
"I understand." Anubis stepped up the stairs to join the Warlord on the porch. "We are accustomed to the Dynasty, where no deed is without ulterior motives." His eyes met Dais's gaze, intense but empathetic. "But I think you will find she has no further intentions than those she has already revealed to you."
"Ah, you're up!" The voice startled both men, drawing their attention away from each other. Iris had emerged from the graves and was now standing at the foot of the porch stairs. She wiped a sprinkling of sweat from her brow and a flash of gold glinted in her eyes in the morning sun. "Good. You can help me fix the grave you broke."
Dais shot Anubis an uncertain glance, finding only a shrug in return. With that, he continued into the house quietly, hiding his amused smirk until he was certain he was out of sight.
"How are you feeling?" Iris put one foot on the bottom stair.
"I am fine," Dais replied.
"You are a liar," she quipped, though her voice remained cheerful. She offered her hand up to him, "come on. Walk with me."
He looked down at her hand with that same cold, unreadable expression. Glancing up, he found no further information in her face; she simply gazed back at him, neither smiling nor frowning, her hand untiring. Finally, he relented, lifting his arm to bring his palm to rest in hers. Stepping down from the stairs, he lurched and clamped his free arm around his ribs, stifling the painful groan that threatened to escape him.
Just as suddenly as the pain stabbed through him, a warm sensation enveloped his torso. Peeling his eye open, he realized Iris's free arm had curled around him and she had drawn his body into her side for support.
"That massive ego is only hurting you," Iris said, "I'm here either way."
As he struggled to catch his breath, Dais met her gaze; this time, he found the slightest tinge of empathy there. His stance relaxed, slacking a bit into her grasp. Withdrawing her arm from his body, Iris turned to face forward into the cemetery with him, his hand gently clasped in her own. She took a slow, careful pace forward, waiting for him to follow suit, and led him through the cemetery one step at a time.
Anubis watched the twosome through the open doors of the great room, smiling a bit to himself. Hearing footsteps approaching, he turned his head over his shoulder to see Kento had joined him. The warrior lingered a few feet away, his eyes now focused out into the graveyard as well.
"Just when I thought I had her figured out, she goes on a stroll through the graveyard with my mortal enemy," Kento huffed, frowning. Anubis chuckled at the revelation, turning his attention back outside.
"If there is anyone capable of reaching Dais, it is Iris," he said. "He realizes she is his intellectual equal. And she is providing the information he needs to question what he believes."
Kento watched the man in silent contemplation. He recognized the tone in his voice as he spoke, the tenderness with which he said her name.
"What's your place in all of this?" His fist clenched a bit at his side, his hardened stare and furrowed brows focused on the Warlord. Glancing again over his shoulder, Anubis noted the tension in his presence and turned to face him fully.
"I understand your hesitance in trusting me, Hardrock," he said carefully. "But you must know I have changed. I see now the error in Talpa's ways, and my own foolishness in believing him. My place is among you, against the Dynasty."
"And Iris?"
The question brought him pause. He considered it quietly, his heart struck with a pang of guilt.
"By far the most abhorrent thing I have done," Anubis confessed. "For that, I cannot ask your understanding, as I cannot even offer it to myself."
Kento was still and silent for a long moment. Finally, he stepped closer, his hand outstretched to the man. Anubis glanced at it, his brows furrowing, before looking back up to him.
"The Ancient One said we've gotta trust each other," Kento said resolutely. "It's the only way we're gonna beat Talpa."
Anubis took a long, resolving breath and nodded. Reaching forward, he clasped Hardrock's hand firmly in his own.