Eagle lay prone, contemplating the darkness that represented his closed eyelids, and wondered what new adventure he was getting into. And also wondering if he had only dreamed his encounter with Tenshi Kohaku, the whole business of being miraculously healed, and then the subsequent bright golden flashes of light and the small figure holding aloft a glass sword.

He was wary of trying to open his eyes, because failure to do so would no doubt mean that everything had been a dream and he would be so *terribly* disappointed. On the other hand, just lying--lying--wherever-he-was without even trying to open his eyes was stupid. Cephiro is a land of will--

But wait, it was New Cephiro now--

Wait...he didn't even know that he was still *in* New Cephiro any longer. Maybe his will wouldn't matter here, or maybe he was still dreaming. Or maybe--

Eagle opened his eyes before he forgot what he was arguing with himself about, and saw perfect blackness.

Disappointment beyond words, a kind of deep-seated paler imitation of grief, filled him. It had been a dream. He was still asleep and would be a long time in wakening. He--

There was a brilliant flare of golden-orange light, shining with all the brilliance of the sun--shining directly into his eyes.

His open eyes.

Eagle yelped at the sudden brightness, his eyes reflexively squeezing closed, and concluded that, perhaps, he was not still sleeping after all. Flashing purple spots danced across his closed eyelids, backlit by a glow he could see even with his eyes closed, as the pain in them gradually resided.

"Ara, gomen," said a young girl's voice, different from Kohaku's. The light obligingly dimmed, and Eagle cautiously opened on eye, watering slightly. His vision swam and bobbed like a cork in the sea until he blinked back the tears and finally focused on--

A young girl with bright golden eyes and black hair swept back in a ponytail to reveal her pointed ears, glassy sword in one hand and a sphere of shining fire in the other. Standing behind her and quite a bit taller was Kohaku, her transparent wings gone and now dressed in far more practical clothing consisting of a long tunic, pants, and a cloak that wasn't all that dissimilar from the gray one Eagle himself used to wear.

"Eagle-san, daijoubu?" Kohaku inquired worriedly, stepping closer and helping him to sit up. "You've been unconscious for only a few minutes."

"I'm...fine," he managed, rubbing his eyes and noticing that he was lying...

...on the ground. Only, really, it wasn't *quite* the ground; rather, it was more like a big flat black floor of nothing, with walls of black nothing that at once seemed both far too encroaching and so distant as to be nearly invisible. It was like seeing with his eyes closed, and only the sphere shedding its fiery luminance all around saved his sight from total darkness. And even then, it only illuminated the girl, Kohaku, and Eagle himself.

"I *knew* they were up to something," the new girl was muttering resentfully, the fireball's ruddy light waxing and waning in cadence to her words. "And now what? Run around with an angel and a human?"

"I'm not sure who she is," Kohaku whispered to him, casting the girl a thoughtful glance. "I don't sense any...danger...exactly, from her."

Eagle frowned and finally sat up, putting a hand to his head as the nothing around him spun dizzily, the angel hastily assisting him. "I...think I know what you mean," he murmured back; he got the oddest feeling when looking at the young girl, her golden eyes flashing as she continued to talk to herself. It wasn't necessarily a *bad* feeling, so much as a sort of...of foreboding omen, as though some sordid fate awaited her.

Of course, maybe that *was* a bad feeling, but--

"Ashura-chan, this is Eagle Vision of Autozam," Kohaku called out, helping Eagle to his feet. He closed his eyes, disoriented by the blackness, then opened them again when the blackness of closed eyes proved little better. The other girl--Ashura--swung around, glassy sword swinging with her as though she meant to ward him or Kohaku off.

"Hai, yoroshiku," Ashura said brusquely, waving her sword vaguely around. "Koko wa doko desu?"

"I really don't know where we are, musume-san," Eagle told her apologetically, rubbing his eyes and forcing the few remaining bright-spots from them. "The last thing I remember was--"

"Musume wa janai," Ashura corrected him, then cut him off even as he opened his mouth to apologize, "and I'm not a boy, either." Sh...h...*it* looked away, expression unreadable. "Although, I have been called such." She looked back with an impish grin on her face, changing it into something quite childlike in mischief.

Eagle sighed and massaged his temples with his long fingers; everything was getting more and more complicated. For some strange reason, he had ended up in the company of two genderless golden-eyed girl-like beings. On the one hand, he was cured of his disease all at once; and on the other, he was...certainly not in New Cephiro and likely already embarked on another adventure that no doubt contained deathly dangers and terror and saving people and the world.

"Ko-ha-ku-chaaaaaan, onakasuita!" Ashura suddenly piped, closing her fist and extinguishing the fireball, turned even more childlike in her plaint of hunger. Strangely, although the flickering light was gone, some other, sourceless light appeared to be illuminating his companions; at any rate, he could still see them as perfectly as if it were day, although the nothing around them sucked at his eyeballs until it felt like they were going to be vacuumed from his sockets.

With a flutter of her hands and flapping of her tunic, Kohaku blinked at Ashura and then wilted, her face going dim and apologetic.

"Gomen nasai, Ashura-chan, I don't have any...food...on me," she murmured, hesitating over "food" and saying it with a lingering feeling of incredulity, as though she found the very thought of food beyond decency.

Hopefully, the child turned to Eagle, the crystal blade sinking into her palm and vanishing as though absorbed.

"Gomen," he said, equally apologetically, "I don't have any food either."

"But I'm *hungry*!" Ashura huffed, folding her arms and plopping dejectedly down, evidently not disturbed in the least by the fact that she was sitting on nothing, although Eagle found the sight of her so carelessly sitting somewhat discomfiting.

As Kohaku concernedly leaned over Ashura to give what comfort and suggestions she might, Eagle looked uneasily about and wondered at the company he was keeping. An angel, an Ashura, and an Eagle. What next?