Author's Notes

*quietly tiptoes in*

So I finally got around to starting Ayashi no Ceres. So I can finally write this chapter. Oh, and my MSTs have taken a small break too.

Sorry for taking so long everyone. Hopefully I'll build a backlog once summer comes (lol, first week of Spring and I'm thinking about summer). As for the length…good place to end.

*tiptoes back out before angry readers react and shoves muse to front*

Enjoy, and tell me what you think.

AutoCycle

It's set on automatic. It's set on random. They can't get it off, and it sends them to places they know little or nothing about. 20 cycles, then they're home free...if they're still alive.

Digimon& Anime x-overs

Chapter 37

Mikage

Kushiro didn't turn out to be much more than a place. It certainly didn't appear to be anyone's first choice of a holiday spot…much less a bunch of teenagers. Having attempted to find the twins again as rain decided to shower them once more, they'd weaved through the crowds in search.

They'd been stopped numerous times by the odd, and sometimes leering, looks. The only female in particular looked torn between shrinking behind JP's larger frame and beating the stuffing out of the next man to stare at her.

'Oh, I get it,' the ex-warrior of thunder mumbled finally, a faint blush coating his cheeks. 'Guys? I think we should get out of this road.'

'Why?' Tommy blinked up at him; he was having trouble seeing past the heads, essentially drowning in a sea of people.

'Because this street is…umm…' He said the next bit too fast to make out.

'Slower?' Takuya asked, apparently not seeing what Zoe now spotted.

'Sheesh,' the girl muttered. 'It's-' She went a little red herself. 'Love hotels, and…stuff.'

'Oh.' They decided simultaneously that switching streets would be a very good idea. Somehow, they didn't think the twins would stick around long in a place like that; Koichi for one would probably faint from embarrassment.

If he was he wasn't. But that was beside the point.

'We probably went in the wrong direction,' Takuya groaned, leaning his head against a cool railing. 'That would be just our luck.'

'At least Koji kept up,' JP pointed out reasonably. 'It would be worse if someone was alone, but those two will be fine on their own.' He neglected to point out he was carrying an extra pack, and Takuya was bringing along the other. The twins didn't have a lot between them: whatever they had in their pockets really. But both of them had "super-powers
- as Takuya at one stage had so gracefully put it. And Koichi had scared those weird guys off without much trouble.

Physical trouble that was.

'True.' Zoe's blonde hair dangled through the rails as she dropped her head. The shower had apparently been rather brief, its single intent to knock them out of the park. 'But we're not getting anywhere just-' She paused, before sneezing.

'Bless you,' the boys said in one voice, before hooking pinkies.

Zoe stifled her laughter, hoping she wasn't coming down with a cold.

An hour or so later, they gave up their search. Wherever the twins were, they weren't going to run into them in a hurry. Of course, it didn't help that there had been a second shower not long after the first, and now Zoe wasn't the only one of their quartet sneezing dismally.

'This is ridiculous.' JP was, surprisingly, the only one not sneezing. 'Can't Koichi just find us with whatever he was doing in South America?'

The others blinked at each other.

'I'm assuming he still can,' the ex-warrior of thunder pressed on. 'After all, he knew when those weird guys were out of earshot and we couldn't see them at all, and-'

'Okay JP,' Takuya groaned. 'We get the point.' He collapsed on the bench, before squinting through the bushes before them. 'Hey. Is it just the shadows in front of my eyes or are there black figures rushing about on the other side of those bushes?'

The others looked. Turned out they weren't shadows behind the eyes but rather before them.

Luckily, they didn't appear to be seen. Or maybe because Zoe had drawn her hood over her hair.

But why they were looking for Zoe, or any blonde, they still didn't quite understand. Zoe, on the Moon, had been the scout of Ceres, not the reincarnation of the planet itself. Or the deity that represented it.

It was only a minute later when someone else came, this time on the side of the bushes they were on. A middle-aged man to whom the years had not been kind; already he limped along with the help of a cane and it was doubtful he had grandchildren to speak of. Slow as he was, it was inevitable that he would spot the group of adolescents and they him.

So, of course he stopped, looking over the three boys and girl, gaze lingering on Zoe until she started feeling rather uncomfortable.

'This isn't the best place for a young girl to be wandering about,' he said finally, throat somewhat scratchy. 'And this weather is no place for anyone.'

'We're a little lost,' JP explained. Takuya had tried to, but a sneeze interrupted him.

'Well…' The gaze lingered a little longer. I'm heading back to my house. Come with me and warm up.'

The quartet exchanged glances, then shrugged. It really wasn't like they were getting anywhere, and with three of the four apparently coming down with colds, getting warm sounded like an excellent idea.

No-one even thought to feel uneasy about the idea.

The fire was warm. So were the rugs, and the cups of tea they clutched were like the icing on the cake. The man hadn't been kind exactly – there was something stiff in his movements that could not be accounted for by his poor health, but he still provided them with warmth and sustenance and that was kind enough.

Making conversation to fill the awkward silence proved a little harder, but Takuya had quite a knack for working past that barrier and somehow brought the subject around to C-Genomers (who were people with "super-powers" so Koichi might have in fact been wrong – not that anyone said so out loud) and then to the Mikage family history.

'It's quite a messy story, really,' the man, a member of the Mikage family himself, explained. 'One of our ancestors stole theHagoromofrom the celestial maiden Ceres, forcing her to remain on earth. It is said that Ceres eventually married this ancestor for she was cursed to bear his children, and for a time they lived happily. However one day her husband was badly wounded and she saved him by infusing within his body a bit of her own power. Intoxicated by it, he longed for more but when she refused, he beats her.'

Zoe and Tommy both stifled a gasp at that.

'Eventually, she attempts to leave with her children, however her husband finds and fatally wounds her. Fearful for her children's lives, she kills him and is thus forced to reincarnate until her robes are returned to her. And until they are, she lives in anger and hate, seeking to destroy all the descendants to this ancestor for his crime.'

Tommy shuddered at that. 'Sounds like a really scary horror story.'

They'd seen less believable things though, however the man misunderstood and abruptly got up. 'I have proof,' he said gruffly, vanishing through a door before returning with a wooden box.

They all leaned forward slightly to stare at the ancient relic.

'In here is a piece of our ancestor, Mikage.'

JP and Tommy looked up. The other two did not.

'Ceres is reincarnated every sixteen years as a female in our clan,' the man continued. 'But there are no girls of the right age in our immediate family so it is nothing more than a relic for now.'

He offered the box to Zoe, who let her rug slip over her shoulder as a hand wormed out.

'However, the extended family has spread quite far.'

The statement however was said too softly for any other to hear, and thus it came as a great surprise as, just as Zoe was about to touch the box, a shout interrupted her – or them.

'Don't touch that!'

Startled, her hand automatically snapped back and her eyes shot to the outer door.

Correction: the broken outer door.