Chapter 22

"If you ever would like to meet with our queen… You will have to be outstanding. As you are now, you are just another decadent immortal, trapped in your own desires. You will need to clean up your act and learn how to lead." She told him with disdain. She hated creatures like him, they were so selfish.

Sho snorted in derision. "You underestimate me, Erika." He leaned in closer and whispered into her ear. "I always get what I want, little kitten." He told the Bakeneko.

Erika's ears went flat and her tail swished in anger as the fur on her neck ruffled in anger. "We shall see, Bloodsucker." She hissed at him. "Well, if you truly mean what you say, you will need to go through training. The level will be displayed on your body once your reach it. All I can say is… Try not to die too many times." She smirked as she walked out of the training room and shut the door with a decidedly loud click as the door locked for the safety of others.

Sho sighed loudly. If this is what he needed to do to get back to Kyoko and redeem himself, he would. He felt terrible now that he thought about how he'd treated her and many other women he'd used in the past.

"Salvo one… disable them without killing them." A familiar female voice instructed through the intercom in a saccharine tone.

Sho tensed and began his concentration. He needed to figure out how to disable these mindless creatures without killing them, from what he understood and had been told. Is this bitch trying to kill me? He chuckled as he disabled the first wave with a strong thought wave. He suspected that the second wouldn't be so easily dissipated. Yes, he had heard that he could suffer from fatal injuries and recover, but did he really want to test that theory? He hadn't died yet and he wasn't certain that he wanted to put it to the test. Theory was one thing, but actually putting into practice was an entirely different matter. What if it weren't actually true and he did die?

"She's beautiful, I can understand why you've been traveling between here and New York for the past months." Kotetsu commented to his grandson. "She reminds me of your grandmother." The elder smirked and reveled in his grandson's discomfort.

Hiou Uesugi groaned at the ribbing his grandfather was exposing him to. Wasn't it bad enough to get it from his mother and father about Kanae? Even 200 years ago this would have never happened, but times change and the shadow clan no longer restricted their relationships to their own kind anymore, just like the others. The different races did mix now and what resulted were some very powerful combinations of genetics. Although, there were some that none of them would ever mix with, for example: one would never find an elf and a vampire together, and a vampire would never lower themselves to mate with a werefolk of any type, and don't even think of pairing a Bakeneko with a human. They liked them well enough, but to mate with one would be like mating with one's food. For many of the clans, humans were at the bottom of the food-chain, witches and those with mixed human heritage aside.

"Grandpa… Please…" He begged pathetically.

Kotetsu Uesugi chuckled, and patted him on the back. "Alright, alright… I'll leave you be." He motioned for Hiou to sit on the comfortable chair across from him and poured him a cup of tea. "Tell me, how are they doing in New York?" He asked, knowing that his grandson would tell him all that the others had left out in the reports. Reino was a very secretive being, with good reason.

If one were to look at the world the way it was now and how it would be in the future, one would never know of the drastic and horrifying things that it took to get there. There were dreams and nightmares that the "Celestials" shared. Images of rivers stained red with blood, bodies and landscape burned from the fires of the intense heat of nuclear explosions, diseases caused by biological weapons meant to cull the impurities of humanity only to bring about the destruction of the "pure" humans that had designed them. In the end, all that would remain would be the crypto-humans and the humans that had barely survived. The pure humans that remained would be so affected by their own doings that a scant few had the ability to reproduce and the offspring resembled something closer to apes than the humans they'd come from.

Kuon awakened in a sweat with a start, rubbing the sleep and the nightmare from his eyes and mind. He groaned quietly and sighed. He'd been having these "End of the World" dreams for awhile now. His were a bit more detailed and gory than Kyoko's, but he had yet to even truly know about her. His were more in the thick of it and hers more of a behind the front-lines, commanding everything type. Reino's were more like Kuon's dreams, but it was something he'd dealt with for many years. He had more ferocious demons haunting him than those of the two young ones. However, he was fully aware of how these things could drive a young or new soul to madness. Knowing this, he advised Kotetsu via the communications stones and kept close watch on his young female charge.

"I see you're now able to hold your image through the night." Kotetsu commented as he entered Kuon's room and tossed him a gi that had slits concealed in the back. "Put this on and eat breakfast. I'm putting you in training room C today." He announced.

Kuon looked up at him a little surprised. "Are you sure I'm ready for that?"

Kotetsu's brow cocked. "Do you doubt my judgment?"

"N-No, Sensei. Sorry." He answered sheepishly. "I-I just…"

"No excuses. Get ready. You'll be training until noon, then studying battlefield tactics." Kotetsu announced. They needed this boy versed in both modern and ancient techniques. He wanted him prepared for any situation that would be coming at them. From what Reino had told him, this would not be a fluffy little modern skirmish won with computers and technology, this was going to be a bloody slaughter involving warm bodies that only left a few of the clans in the end. Even fewer pure humans.

Kyoko groaned as she flopped into her bed. They had been stepping up her physical training and cramming her brain so full of ancient and modern warfare knowledge, that she felt like her head would explode, and that was saying a lot considering the fact that she had the ability to read something only once and she would know and remember it.

She closed her eyes and opened them again to stare at the canopy above her, wondering if she would dream of the beautiful, blond male like her again tonight. He made the prophetic dreams so much more bearable. She'd stopped wracking her mind weeks ago on ways to prevent the coming events, due to the fact that Reino had told her that it was all set in stone. He had told her that unless she could control the hearts of humans, there would be no way to avoid the coming events. It would be such a senseless waste of human lives… Why can't we all just peacefully live together?

She closed her eyes once again, concentrating hard, wondering if she could try and reach him. Somehow communicate with him, learn more about him. She had to admit, he did look a bit like Lt. Tsuruga, but he wasn't like him at all. He was kind, gentle, and sweet to her… when she wasn't dreaming about the horrors to come and dreaming more of the here and now. She wondered if that little brook actually existed or if all of this, including him, were just stress induced illusions her mind had made up to deal with what Reino had told her was to come.