That's Just the Way Things Are

by Nic Jean aka Fate

When one Ronin falls victim to disease, the guys find themselves on a mysterious path through the unknown.

1. Death Dream

(Disclaimer: All new characters in this story are fictitious.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or characters used by other authors is purely coincidental…unless I say otherwise!  The same goes for places, buildings, companies, etc.)

*

            He ran and ran but it gained on him.  It just walked but it gained on him anyway.  His breath was coming in shallow gasps as he flew down the long corridor.  He opened the door at its end only to find another long hall with a door a hundred yards away.  How long had he been running?

            It seemed like hours that he'd been fleeing it down the dim, dull grey halls, cutting his bare feet on the broken tiles that loosely covered the floor, opening the horrid, heavy, blood red doors just to run some more and never finding escape.  He glanced over his shoulder at it and wished he hadn't.

            Its face was no more than decaying skin stretched sickeningly over the bones.  Cruel, demonic, green eyes met his own and he wrenched his gaze away from them fearfully.

            The next door loomed before him and as he reached it a hope he knew to be in vain clutched at his pounding heart that this door might provide liberation from the terror only fifteen yards behind him.  He grabbed the rusty doorknob and turned it.

Nothing happened.  The door didn't open and the skeletal figure got closer.  He jerked the once silver knob viciously in his panic and it came off in his hand.  With enough fear for a thousand nightmares in his eyes, he slowly turned to face the cause of this horror and it was far too real.

Its skin was half gone in most places but where it was left it hardly hid the rotting bones.  It wore dingy, ragged clothes and held a big leather belt with a sharp-edged buckle in one hand and a half-empty beer bottle in the other.  The smile on its face reflected everything it was to him.

It was pain and torture, both mental and physical.

            And it was Death.

            It was his father.

* * * * *

            "Sage, how long has Rowen been going like this?" Cye asked, worry obvious and practically contagious in his British voice.

            "He was already like this when I woke up.  I've tried everything but I can't wake him up," Sage replied, his own voice and expression devoid of any emotion.  That was only a mask he put up for everyone else; inside he was screaming with anger, concern, and utter helplessness.  Ironic that the one he was concerned for was also the only one who saw through his façade and knew the real person inside.  Cruelly ironic.

            "It doesn't help that he won't hold still!" Kento growled as he tried to dodge a fist but got hit in the jaw by the sleeper.  Kento grabbed the arm and pinned it to the bed.  The other fist hit him in the jaw again and he quickly let go of the arm.

            "This isn't working.  Where's Mia with the damn medicine?!" Ryo asked from where he was holding down Rowen's legs as best he could and feeling as if he'd been kicked hard enough, enough times for all his ribs to break.

            "I don't know but she'd better hurry up before Blue-boy kills us all in his sleep," Kento remarked.

            Sage grunted in reply as he managed to get a hold on Rowen's thrashing head and he held it down as gently as he could.

            "Gotcha!" Kento cried and finally grabbed one of the flailing, pale skinned, wiry arms and sat on it.

            "Kento, don't break his arm, you bloody brute!" Cye scolded and Kento relented, getting off Rowen's arm but clinging to it obstinately.  Cye was using as much weight as he dared to restrain the other arm and ended up falling to the floor hanging from Rowen's left elbow crook with both hands.  "Rowen, come on, now.  Wake up!"

            Sage had slipped onto the bed and was holding Rowen's sweat streaked face in his lap.  He looked down at his best friend and noticed how thin Rowen seemed to have gotten in the past few minutes.  The blue hair was damp with sweat and Rowen's whole body was shaking and thrashing wildly under the restraint of his friends.  His breathing was harsh and ragged and his face was contorted in pain.

            When Sage had woken earlier that morning, he'd heard that tormented gasping and found his roommate convulsing of seizure in his sleep.  After trying to rouse Rowen for five minutes and failing, seeing that his best friend's condition was only worsening, Sage had run downstairs to retrieve help.

Usually, he was the only person awake at that hour but he'd found Mia in the kitchen and practically dragged her up the stairs without an explanation.  Cye had heard them and silently followed them to the bedroom door.  Mia had taken one look at Rowen and run to find the medicine they'd all believed he'd never need again.

Sage had recruited Cye to help him try to keep Rowen from hurting himself in his sleep.  After a while, Ryo decided to investigate all the commotion and eventually Kento had come, thinking there might be a fight to see, and quickly added his strength to the effort.  That had all been nearly twenty minutes ago and Sage feared Mia would never find the medicine in time.

"Hold on, Ro," he whispered as his blue-haired friend went into another seizure-spasm.  The seizure was over in less than a minute but Sage noticed Rowen's already weak and troubled breathing was becoming even shallower.

"Dammit!  Mia where's that medicine?!" he shouted as loudly as he could.

* * * * *

Downstairs, Mia was rummaging hastily through drawers, cabinets, and anything that might hold the precious medicine she could hear Sage yelling for.  Even without the emotion, his words were easily translated: Rowen was getting worse.

Oh gods, where is it?!  It has to be here somewhere, Mia thought, searching almost hysterically now.  "Where is that damned bottle?"

The brown glass bottle, the one labeled in bold blue and red so it could be easily recognized, hadn't been needed for more than a year.  She didn't know why Rowen was having a relapse now but she did know that unless she found his medicine fast, he would never again feel the wind he loved so much.

She jerked open a drawer in a desk Rowen liked to use.  Pulling out his papers, notebooks, textbooks, and finally dumping all five of the desk drawers in desperation on the floor, she dropped to her knees in quest of Rowen's medication.  A tense few moments passed before her hand struck a cool, glass surface and she grabbed the bottle.

"I've got it!" she screamed triumphantly as she ran up the stairs and raced along the landing to Sage and Rowen's room.

Three anxious faces glanced at her and returned to concentrating on controlling Rowen.  They must have either sensed or heard the trouble and come to help Sage with Rowen while I was downstairs looking for his medicine, she realized.

If this wasn't such a serious situation she might have laughed at the sight.  Ryo was lying on top of Rowen's legs and gripping tightly to them, Cye was sitting on the floor, hanging from Rowen's left elbow with both hands, and looking for all the world like a child clinging to its mother, and Kento was holding Rowen's right arm as if in a headlock and getting pounded in the stomach, all of them still in pajamas.

But Sage didn't look at her, just stared down at Rowen with his usual expression of indifference, until he suddenly raised his face and for a moment she could have sworn she saw a tear in his one visible icy amethyst eye.  Mia rushed to the bedside.  She carefully filled the hypodermic syringe she'd retrieved from the kitchen with medicine from the bottle to the correct amount.

"Wait.  Is it clean?" Sage asked.

"Of course.  Now hold him still," she said, slightly annoyed at his question.

"That's easier said than done!" Ryo gasped as Rowen kicked him venomously in the ribs, leaving him breathless.

"Holy shit!" Kento yelled as he was suddenly thrown against Rowen's nightstand.  Rowen's left arm had escaped Cye's grasp and Kento now had a bloody nose.  "Jeez!  Rowen's a nuclear version of the Helldevil!  And he's asleep!" he said as he reclaimed his hold on Rowen's right arm.  The Helldevil was a nickname for Kento's mother and a spoon she whacked him and his father with when they tried to steal food from their restaurant kitchen.

"Perhaps you should give him a tranquilizer too, Mia.  He was never this bad last year," Cye commented, shooting out a lightning-quick hand to grab Rowen's left wrist before he could hit Kento again.

Rowen twisted and fought their holds on him and Mia realized she'd never be able to administer the injection.  "I can't do it with him moving so much!"

"Well, what the hell do we do?  We can't just let him die," Ryo said, fighting Rowen's brutal kicks.

Sage stared down at Rowen's face in his lap.  The pain he saw there was intense, agony obvious in the gasping thin-lipped mouth, tight shut eyes, and pale, deathly white complexion of his friend.  Rowen had always been pale-skinned but this was different, almost sickening.  Sage felt as if he were looking at a ghost.

Since they'd met Sage and Rowen had felt like brothers, equals.  They trusted each other with almost everything.  Rowen saw through Sage's cloak of indifference and knew the person inside, knew that Sage did care, and worry, and feel for others.  Sage in turn, understood Rowen's craving for learning, his loneliness even when surrounded by friends, even his longing to join the stars in space.

Rowen often talked about the day he'd awoken after being in suspended animation in space, how beautiful the universe looked from up there.  Once he'd offered to try to go up there again and take Sage with him.  Sage had turned the offer down, of course.  He didn't much like the idea of letting Rowen fly him around with only Rowen's dark blue aura to keep them in the air.  Rowen had laughed at Sage's fear and made a mock pouting face, teasing his friend.

"Aw, poor Sagey.  'Fraid of a little flyin' trip.  Too bad.  I bet tha girls woulda gotten a kick outta seein' their fav'rite flirt flyin' with tha birds.  Come on, Sage.  Jist one little flight.  What could it hurt?"  Rowen's Brooklyn accent made him sound like a mobster.  At least that's what Sage told him as a joke.  That had only made Rowen laugh more.

In the end, Rowen had just grabbed Sage's hand and next thing Sage knew, he was hovering twenty or so feet off the ground.  Good thing Mia's home was so spacious, since they were indoors.  Even better thing that they were the only ones home because for the first time in his life, Sage had screamed in absolute terror.  Really screamed.  This made Rowen laugh even more, to the point he had to land before he lost his concentration and dropped them both.  He'd found it so funny, that eventually Sage couldn't help laughing too and both of them lay on the floor in fits of hysterical laughter.  That had been one of the happiest days of either of their lives.

When Rowen's condition had been diagnosed early in September two years ago, he had secretly confided in Sage that he wasn't afraid of death but of what would happen when he died.  Rowen had said that he often dreamed of a man who was Death itself and would come to take him to hell with an ugly old belt to beat him with and a bottle of beer to drink while he did it.  He said the man changed form a lot; sometimes he would be a person Rowen occasionally saw on the street, or a close friend, or even a family member.

Rowen had awoken many times in the dead of night after having that nightmare, scared, unnerved, and sometimes even screaming or crying and Sage would always console him as best he could.  Rowen made him promise not to tell anyone about the nightmares.  He was proud, almost to a fault, and didn't want the guys to think he was scared of a dream when he'd fought Dynasty, Warlords, Kayura, and even Talpa with such cunning and fearlessness.

Those nightmares were another reason Rowen always slept until around noon.  He had a low blood pressure that meant he slept a lot and made it hard for him to wake up and staying up until two in the morning reading didn't help either.  Waking him up was a chore everyone took turns doing and no one ever looked forward to doing it.  Mondays and Fridays were Sage's, Tuesdays were Ryo's, Wednesdays were Cye's, Thursdays and Sundays were Kento's, and Saturdays were Mia's, though they usually let him sleep in on weekends and during holidays or summer break.

The doctors had said Rowen was cured when the sudden seizures, temporary blindness and deafness, periods of coma, and breathing problems had mysteriously vanished.  They had detected no trace of the equally mysterious, strange, rare disease in Rowen's blood or system and everyone soon forgot about the nine months when Rowen had been stuck in the hospital.  He said he was happier about people no longer treating him like glass than he was about getting better.  And of course, as typical Rowen behavior, he was ecstatic to be returning to school.  Mia, however, had insisted on him keeping some of his medicine close by, though he'd just stuck it someplace.

Sage remembered how Rowen had been making plans to go to the Astronomical Museum and Observatory in Tokyo next week and how he'd been trying to convince Sage to go with him.  Sage had said no.  Just no.  He suddenly regretted it.

"I have an idea," he said, just loud enough for the others to hear and surprising himself by saying it.  "I'm not sure it'll work but I can try."

"Heck, anything's worth a try if it gives him a chance!  Go ahead," Ryo consented.

Sage gently slipped out from under Rowen's jerking head, hurriedly grabbed his armor orb off his nightstand and called his green and white subarmor.  He heard Cye and Ryo yelp and turned to find Rowen had entered another seizure-spasm.  This one was real bad and Ryo and Cye had been thrown off.

Kento clung stubbornly to both of Rowen's slender hands and hissed as angrily as he could, "Don't just stand there.  Do whatever freakin' Halo thing you're gonna do before Blue-boy here can rip my head off!"  He wouldn't let anyone see that he was fighting back tears.  Once again, for all his strength, Kento found he couldn't help someone.  The only thought in his head was, Rowen's gonna die!  And that thought echoed and reiterated itself mercilessly.

Sage managed to regain his former position beneath Rowen's head and gently held it down.  "The moment he calms, give him the injection.  And whatever you do, don't let my hand come off him," he ordered.  His left hand was hovering above Rowen's temple.

The others nodded and watched as Sage closed his eyes and went into a trance.  Then they fought Rowen's writhing body and began to hold him still as best they could again.  Mia looked down at Rowen's tortured face, Sage's left hand gingerly resting on his friend's forehead and his right forcing Rowen's head down into his lap even in his trance.

"Good luck, Sage," she whispered.  She thought the same thought that was in everyone's mind.

Is Rowen going to die?

* * * * *

Sage frowned.  This wasn't what he'd expected—but then he hadn't expected to wake up this morning to find his best friend slowly dying in excruciating pain.  He hadn't expected to be doing any astral activity, just to concentrate the Halo power and try to heal Rowen, but here he was in astral form.

He guessed the place he was had to either be an astral plane or Rowen's subconscious.  Evil practically seeped from everything in waves and the vibes coming from everything made him feel a little sick.  For a moment a bell of recognition rang in the back of his memory but he ignored it and it disappeared.

He found himself walking down a dull grey hall of about a hundred yards length with an immense blood red door at each end.  There were shattered tiles spread over the floor and Sage noted that a trail of them had fresh blood on them in the faint shape of footprints.  The whole place was dimly lit and smelled of decay and beer.  Very unpleasant.

Surrendering to intuition, Sage let his astral form go where it felt and after passing through three halls he heard a sound.  It sounded like a whip, snapping and striking something and there was someone laughing.  The laugh wasn't pleasant; it was maniacal and cruel.  As he walked down the fourth hall, the sounds grew louder and he could not only smell the ever growing stench of decay but the air was tainted with the scent of fresh blood.

He began to jog, sensing Rowen's presence nearby, and finally broke into a flat run.  As he neared another door the stench of rotting flesh became almost unbearable but he grabbed hold of the old doorknob and charged through the door.  He wasn't prepared for the sight that met his eyes.  A corpselike man, drinking beer and laughing as he beat a small form hunched against a wall with an ugly wide leather belt, turned and looked at him without interest then continued to hit the small form.  Rowen.  Sage lost it.

"Stop it!" he yelled and, before the corpse-man could react, hook kicked him in the jaw.

The corpse-man fell down cursing inventively and swinging both belt and beer bottle at Sage.  Sage ignored him and gently lifted Rowen from the broken-tiled floor.  Rowen was bruised and bloody and didn't seem to notice he was being carried; he just stared into the air unseeingly.  He seemed so light that Sage nearly panicked.

Sage felt hot tears rolling down his face unchecked as he watched Rowen's midnight blue eyes.  Those eyes were usually so defiant, intelligent, stubborn, daring, proud, so full of life and fighting spirit; now, they were no more than two, glazed, foggy, vacant orbs set in a pale face that was otherwise so handsomely serious and noble.  Those midnight blue eyes and slender face were no longer Rowen's.  They were the features of a soul that had been tortured to the point it couldn't see past the pain anymore.

Sage knew what had done this and he knew what he wanted to do to the thing that had killed the spirit of his best friend.

"Rowen, I've got to put you down.  Can you hear me?  It's me—Sage.  Come on, Ro.  It's gonna be okay.  I promise," Sage vowed as he gently propped Rowen against a wall.

He turned and was about to beat the corpse-man to a pulp when he heard a firm whisper, "No, Sage.  He's my fath'ah."

Sage turned at stared at the top of Rowen's unruly blue mane.  "What?" he asked, incredulous.

He squatted in front of Rowen and held him by the shoulders, staring into his eyes and searching for anything that could be a remnant of the old Rowen.  The Rowen Sage had fought alongside with against Talpa and the Dynasty, the one who'd thought the team's way out of more situations than Sage could remember, the one who'd sacrificed his life in a heartbeat countless times for his friends, the one Sage fought with over the shower, the one who had broken every alarm clock that had ever tried to wake him up and nearly Ryo's nose only last Tuesday.  The Rowen who was Sage's best friend.

Rowen raised his eyes and Sage glimpsed a flicker of determination and the genius light that Rowen's eyes held when he knew something someone else didn't and betrayed his high IQ.

"He's my fath'ah an' I know 'im.  This isn't tha way he is in life.  This is some demon an' it ain't normal.  My dad's neva' raised a hand ta hit anyone in his life unless it was ta defend himself an' this guy ain't him.  My dad's neva' been a drinker eith'ah.  This guy's an impost'ah an' way too violent ta be my fath'ah.  This guy's as bad as they come.  Worse maybe.  I've tried fightin' 'im but, on this level, it doesn't do any good.  I don' want ya ta fight 'im, Sage.  You'll get hurt; I know it.  I won't let ya fight 'im.  Don' ya dare try to," Rowen said and grabbed Sage's wrist in such a tight vise that Sage knew he wasn't kidding.

"Rowen, you're not serious.  This guy was going to kill you and you don't want him hurt?"  Sage was trying to understand what Rowen had said.  What does he mean 'on this level?'  A demon?  Okay, so maybe Rowen is a genius but I don't get a word he's saying.

"This is a dream, Sage.  Rememb'ah?  It's a psychological interpretation o' my inner fears an' physical condition.  Dreams work weird.  If someone were ta break my arm while I was sleepin' an' I was dreamin', that pain would be transformed inta some form o' anguish in my dream.  I'm not too sure 'bout this pa'ticul'ah dream but I do know that it wouldn't do any good ta kill a charact'ah in a dream," Rowen said and rolled his eyes at Sage's ignorance.

Sage smiled in relief when he saw Rowen acting more like himself, using logic in even the most painful situation.  He had forgotten this was a dream.  He glared over his shoulder at Rowen's father.  So this was the thing that gave Rowen nightmares, the shape-shifting man from hell.  How horrible that it was his father this time.

Sage remembered once after Rowen had almost died of a really bad attack during his stay at the hospital, he'd come to visit him and Rowen had described a dream with his mom as the shape-shifter that he'd had during the attack.  Rowen had been upset enough that Sage offered to spend the night in the hospital.

"If this is a dream, I won't get hurt," Sage said.

"In this dream ya will," Rowen sighed and seemed to be about to nod off.

Sage didn't hear him.  He was glaring at the corpse-man and resisting the urge to slam his fist down its half-gone throat.  He was walking towards them, belt and beer in hand, and, judging by the wolfish grin, was intent on beating Rowen some more.

"Why don't you stop dreaming it?  Will it away," Sage suggested.

"I've tried.  It would work except this is a death dream; it has a will o' its own.  A death dream is a mixture of an astral plane an' a dream created by tha thoughts of a sleeper's mind when it's tryin' ta fight off tha physical pain an' injury o' tha body an' tha mental strain o' death.  I think that's how you were able ta come in he'ah, cuz o' the astral activity.  I guess since I'm having it, it means I'm dying."  Rowen sounded as if he were accepting this fate.  Sage couldn't stand any more of seeing him this way.

"To hell with that!  You're gonna live, you stupid freak.  I made a promise and I'm gonna keep it," Sage yelled and jumped up, lavender-grey eyes filled with angry determination.  He felt an odd tugging at the back of his mind and a wild idea struck him.  He willed the other Ronins to send their strengths to Rowen.  Glancing back over his shoulder at Rowen slumped against the wall, too weak to move or say anything more, Sage hoped for all he could and prayed to every god he could think of at that moment that his idea would work.

It had to.

* * * * *

"Did you guys feel that?" Cye asked, startled.

"Feel what?"  Kento continued to fight Rowen's right arm.

"Oh, you must mean that breeze.  Rowen left the balcony door open again.  Sage says that sometimes Rowen keeps it open a crack cuz he loves to feel the night air," Mia said and walked over to the glass balcony door.  She closed it and hurried back to the bedside.

"No, no.  It wasn't a breeze.  It felt like—" Cye started but Kento interrupted.

"Man, is it just me or am I the only one getting beat up here?" he asked as he received another blow from Rowen.

"Guys, I felt something…I think I felt Sage," Cye said over the noise made by Kento being beaten against Rowen's nightstand.  Everyone stared at him.

"Whadda ya me-" Ryo suddenly looked surprised.

"Did you feel him?" Cye asked eagerly.

"Uh…yeah.  I think so.  I got this funny feeling like I should send my strength to Rowen.  Like we should.  I don't know why I got that idea," Ryo said between Rowen's kicks.

"How do we do that?" Kento asked.

"Use our armor.  Mia, can you get our orbs?  And hurry!" Cye cried as Rowen's left arm escaped him and got Kento in the gut, again.

Mia ran out of the room and headed for Cye and Kento's bedroom.  It was easy to find Cye's orb since he kept his side of the room almost as clean and organized as Sage kept his side of his and Rowen's.  It was perched like a pearl in a branch of white coral on his nightstand.  But finding Kento's was another story.  His side of the room was as bad as Rowen's half of his room, cluttered with clothes on the floor and everything else, junk covering nearly everything, and typical of a teenage boy.  She picked up a sneaker, tipped it, and Kento's orb fell into her hand.

Next she ran for Ryo's room only to discover he'd locked his door by accident again.  Oh, great!  Why does he always have to do this?  It's absolutely ridiculous!  Ryo's habitual locking of his door had caused Mia to finally have several spare keys and a skeleton key made for all the rooms in the house because he often did it to other rooms, too.  He never meant to; it was just a little habit that he couldn't break.  He simply automatically locked doors without realizing it when he closed them.  Unfortunately, she was still in only a t-shirt, a pair of sweat pants, and a bathrobe so she didn't have any keys with her.

As she tried to bust down the door, she heard a sound on the other side and, remembering she hadn't seen White Blaze all morning, she realized Ryo must have unintentionally locked his pet tiger in his room.

"Blaze, I have to get in Ryo's room!  We need his armor orb.  It's okay if you break the door down this time but I need the orb and I need it fast!" she yelled, hoping White Blaze would sense just how urgent the situation was.

He growled in answer and she had less than a second to move before the door broke into splinters and the large white tiger hurtled past her with Ryo's armor orb in his mouth.  He headed straight for Sage and Rowen's room and she followed after a glance back at the ruined door.

Oh, well.  I'll just make Ryo pay for this one.  At least this time Blaze waited for permission to break it.  And at least this time he didn't take half the wall down with it.

"Here, catch!" she cried and tossed Cye and Kento's orbs to them.  A few seconds later the light blue, orange, and red pajamas were replaced by Cye, Kento, and Ryo's subarmor respectively.

"Now what?" Kento asked.

Suddenly, their kanjis began to glow and colored light flew off of their armor and into Rowen's kanji, also glowing.  Sage's kanji was lit up on his brow too but his light came from his hand and pulsed nonstop into Rowen's temple.

"Oookkaaaay.  Um…this may sound like an old question but…now what?" Kento asked again.

"We wait…and hope," Ryo said.

* * * * *

Sage concentrated on sending power to his friend and keeping the corpse-man away from Rowen at the same time, standing between him and the demon.  His astral form had donned the full Halo armor and he was slicing away at the corpse-man with his no-datchi.  Right away he'd learned just how futile this action was in a dream.  Sage's long-sword went right through the demon and never even drew blood.

The way this death dream worked was really getting on Sage's nerves.  Some things hurt and some things didn't, some things worked and some things didn't, but he could never tell which one it would be and it always seemed to work in his enemy's favor.

Growing exasperated with the sword of Halo in this situation, Sage quickly sheathed it and went at the demon the old-fashioned way.  Pummeling his fists into the corpse-man and kicking him hard in the jaw or gut, Sage found this manner of combat a little more productive.

I hate to admit but, for once, Kento's right.  Fighting does get the adrenaline running.  I guess it depends on how you use it, Sage thought.

The corpse-man backed off for a second or two then charged Sage, belt and bottle swinging.  He was mad.  In more ways than one.  He was angry and then he was just plain crazy.  Sage sidestepped him and hook kicked him between the shoulder blades.  The demon stumbled and growled but a smile cracked on his rotting face as he saw his chance.

Sage realized his mistake too late and tried to grab the demon but the beer bottle struck him in the face.  The death dream favored against him and he actually felt the glass strike him.  Even as he fell he could see the corpse-man lunge at Rowen.

"Nooo!" Sage screamed, knowing he'd let the demon get to his best friend.  He knew what the demon would do and knew that the death dream would allow it.

He was going to kill Rowen.

* * * * *

Rowen's body was past restraint as he fell into constant seizure but they did their best to keep him still anyway, despite how wildly he was thrashing about.  Mia was holding Sage's hand in place on Rowen's temple and they'd had to take all the sheets, blankets, and pillows off Rowen's bed because he got so tangled in them that they nearly strangled him.  The kanji of Life was glowing dark blue on Rowen's forehead and Sage's hand was still pulsing the green light of his Wisdom kanji.

"I don't think it's working," Mia whispered.

Abruptly, Rowen's right arm wrenched free of Kento yet again and shot out, grabbing his armor orb off his nightstand.  No one had noticed the little crystal ball suddenly appear there.  Rowen always kept it hidden somewhere in the chaos of his room and everyone was slightly surprised to see it in his hand.  For a moment Rowen's dark blue and white subarmor blinked into existence on him but just as quickly it vanished and Rowen's hand went limp, letting his orb fall with a clunk to the floor.

His back arched painfully, his mouth opened wide and gasped desperately, and then he fell calm.  Mia stood in shock for a stunned moment but quickly snapped back to reality and slipped the hypodermic needle into the vein in Rowen's left arm.  When she pulled it out again everyone waited.

Rowen remained still and Ryo asked quietly, his voice edged with doubt, "Is it over?  Did it work?"

"I think so," Sage said.  Surprised, everyone looked up to find his eyes open but he didn't look at them.  He kept his gaze on Rowen and his hand kept pulsing light over him.

"What happened?"

"What did you do?"

"Is Rowen okay?"

"How come Cye and Ryo felt you and I didn't?"

The barrage of questions went unanswered, especially the last one.  Sage slowly raised his face and used his right hand to attempt to brush the gold blond hair away from his face but it continued to fall in a sweeping curtain, forever blocking that one eye from view.

"Quiet," was all he said.

They shut up.  He looked back down at Rowen, grateful beyond words that his friend wasn't thrashing about but sleeping quietly.  Thoughts ran at a thousand miles a minute in jumbled disorder.  I thought he would die.  Thank the gods that crazy idea worked.  He looks so peaceful.  I think I'd better go to that Astronomical place with him after all…

After a few minutes the silence had to be broken.  "Yoo-hoo?  Sage?  So, what's the deal?" Ryo demanded.

"Rowen's gonna need a lot of rest and healing.  Those attacks really wreaked havoc on his system.  All that astral activity really wore me out but I've got to keep this going," Sage said, motioning to his glowing hand.  "So someone needs to make sure my hand doesn't move if I fall asleep.  Try to keep quiet cuz even though Rowen sleeps like the dead, anything could cause spiritual disturbance and trauma for him right now."

"Whoa.  Back the freak train up a bit here.  What does all that spiritual junk have to do with Rowen's disease?" Kento asked.

"All this wasn't caused by Rowen's disease.  The last thing Ro told me before the medication kicked in was that he woke up in the middle of the night and saw a husk soldier slipping out the balcony window.  He tried to move or shout but he was practically paralyzed.  He did manage to find this though, before he blacked out."  Sage gently turned Rowen's head to the side.  A small purplish blue bump was on his neck, left by a quickly inserted and withdrawn needle.

"A husk soldier did this to Rowen?  But why?  I thought the Dynasty was being reformed.  And why didn't he just kill all of us in our sleep when he had the chance?" Cye asked, clearly puzzled.

"That's a good question.  And another thing, why didn't Blaze do something?" Ryo asked.

"Yeah, but more importantly, why did the Dynasty give Rowen a death dream and how?" Sage asked no one in particular.  And no one knew the answer.

* * * * *

Everyone took turns keeping watch.  There was always someone at the bedside making sure Sage's hand didn't leave Rowen's forehead, for he was tired.  Sage fell asleep only ten minutes after he came out of the trance and he slept until around 8:30 that evening.

When they weren't keeping watch everyone tried to keep busy.  Mia worked away at her computer, claiming she had to make lesson plans for her classes on Monday.

Cye cooked up a storm, losing himself in recipes and ingredients.  Kento stayed in the kitchen, too, and ate everything Cye put before him, for once not noticing how things tasted or even caring if it was edible, just steadily popping things into his mouth without seeing them.

Ryo was outside with White Blaze and Yuli, who had arrived twenty minutes after Rowen finally calmed and had no idea why everyone was acting like a bunch of zombies or why no one would let him go in Sage and Rowen's room to see if they were in there.  Everyone told him Sage and Rowen had gone to some party last night and didn't come home till real late so they were exhausted.  Yuli knew they were lying but he went along with it anyway.  The past two and a half years he'd known Mia and the guys had taught him not to question some things.

Ryo played a sort-of-catch game with him and White Blaze and as usual Yuli and Blaze ganged up on Ryo after only a few minutes.  Ryo could throw the old, worn out baseball as far and as hard as he could but Blaze was fast and if Yuli, sitting on Blaze's back, didn't catch the ball the tiger caught it in his mouth.  With their combined forces they wore Ryo out until his knees gave out and he fell hard on the ground and laughed.

White Blaze and Yuli came over and sat down beside him, laughing as well, or at least Yuli was laughing and Blaze was doing a cocky dance around Ryo.  They sat like that for a while, dirty and weary and laughing, and for a while Ryo forgot about being angry and worried over the earlier events of the day.

"Come on, Yule.  Let's go inside and see if there's anything left of the food or if Kento's already eaten it all," Ryo gasped through his laughter and let Yuli climb up on his shoulders.  Yuli held onto Ryo's wild black hair and Ryo was yelling the whole time he was carrying him inside to stop pulling his hair out, which encouraged even more laughter from both parties.

In the kitchen they found Cye and Kento quietly cooking and eating, since it was Mia's turn to keep an eye on Sage and Rowen, but the cheerful disposition of Ryo and Yuli quickly turned the solemn atmosphere into one of laughter and happy chaos.  Eventually it got down to Kento, Yuli, and Ryo having a contest to see who could eat the most of Cye's famous Quadruple Layered Fudge and Spice cake—nicknamed Cliffs cake by those who were too lazy to say the full name—fastest.

Ryo fell out of the race after his fourth piece and watched the pros at work.  Yuli and Kento kept at it until there was just one piece left and Kento suddenly lost his appetite.  Ryo and Cye stared after him in shock as he ran for the bathroom.

But Yuli just giggled.  "Oh well.  More for me!" He grabbed the last piece of cake and wolfed it down with fudge all over his face and hands.  It reminded Ryo of the innocent eight year old he'd met more than two years ago, before all hell broke loose.

Ryo laughed loudly at Yuli's stickiness and Cye just giggled until a shout came from the bathroom.

"It's not funny!  Stop laughing or I'll—arrrrrrrgh," Kento groaned.

Cye stared in the direction of the bathroom with a sympathetically guilty expression on his face.  "Oh dear.  I knew it wasn't a good idea to try that new recipe with Kento around," he said softly, then louder, "I told you not to eat that soup but you had to stuff your face, didn't you?  Hold on, I'll get some Pepto Bismol or something."  And he grabbed a bottle of stomach medicine and ran towards the bathroom.

Ryo watched the British boy with a smirk.  Mummy Cye to the rescue.

"I'm coming Kento!  I found that medicine."

"Hurry the hell up!  This isn't any—," Kento's final statement was cut off by several sick sounds I'm not going to repeat and Cye slamming the bathroom door shut.

Ryo turned to find Yuli being licked to death by White Blaze.  The tiger had recently discovered the joys of Cye's cooking, especially the sticky, sweet, brown stuff the humans called chocolate.  White Blaze had the laughing boy pinned to the floor and was enthusiastically running his rough cat tongue over Yuli's skin, purring loudly.  Ryo, also laughing, found it extremely difficult to pull his pet off Yuli.  As he helped Yuli off the floor, the boy gave him a mischievous smile and suddenly wiped fudge all over him. 

Ryo looked up and saw White Blaze walking towards him, licking his chops.  "Oh crap!"

Ryo ran for the stairs, hoping to make it to his room before his chocolate-licking tiger caught up, but he made the mistake of glancing back to see how far behind White Blaze was and tripped over a jacket someone—namely Kento—had left on the floor.  Groaning, he pulled himself to his feet and turned just in time to see a large white and black bundle of fur hurtling towards him.

He held out his hands and waved them before his face.  "No, Blaze!  Down boy!  Nice tiger!  Sit!  Stay!  Hell, just don't!  No, no, no, no, no, noooo!  WHITE BLAZE!!!"

Thump.

* * * * *

Mia yawned, stretched, and told Sage she was going downstairs to have one of the guys take over watch for her.  He'd woken about fifteen minutes ago but there was always a chance he'd fall asleep again.  Mia had hardly left the room before Sage heard a soft moan.  Startled, he looked down at Rowen and found him to be slowly coming into consciousness.  Rowen moaned again and began to gradually open his eyes.  Sage waited.

Rowen stared up at him confusedly for a few moments then groaned and half growled, "Why da ya always hafta wake me up?  I wanna sleep."  And he promptly rolled over, pushing Sage roughly off the bed with one hand and pulling a pillow over his head with the other.

Hearing the thump of Sage landing on the floor, everyone came running upstairs, leaving Yuli to wonder at their strange behavior but White Blaze kept him from following them.  When they charged through the door, they halted abruptly.  Sage was on the floor laughing almost hysterically—Sage never showed any emotion, let alone laugh like this.  Rowen was lying face down on the bed with both hands holding a pillow over his head.

Sage noticed them standing uncertainly and said between laughs, "Rowen woke up and…and the first thing he…he said was: 'why do you always have to wake me up.  I wanna sleep!'  And…and he…he…he pushed me…off the bed!"

Now everyone was laughing, mostly from the same relief that had spurred Sage into his own abnormal laughter.  Ryo and Kento joined Sage on the floor, holding their sides in fits of laughter, and Cye and Mia stood giggling with hands over their mouths.  Suddenly a pillow flew and barely missed Cye's head.

"I said lemme sleep!!" Rowen yelled, sitting up in bed.  He glared at them all, grabbed the pile of blue blankets, sheets, and pillows from where they'd been dumped earlier on the floor, and was soon buried in the jumble of their warmth, the whole time growling and grumbling about the injustice of it all.

"That's Rowen for you.  He'd forget the world for his sleep," Cye commented as they all evacuated the room.  Thoughtfully, he added, "Or a book, I suppose."

No one wanted to take the chance that Rowen would throw something else other than a pillow.  The pillow had only been a warning and even when he couldn't see his target or his eyes were misty with sleep, his aim was usually true to its mark.

"Yeah and he actually threw Pretty-boy here off the bed," Kento joked, jerking a thumb at Sage.

Due to his immense relief over Rowen's waking, Sage's mask of indifference had fallen and he hadn't felt the need to raise it up again yet.  Indignantly, he cried, "He did not throw me off!  I just let him push me off."

He scowled and then grinned with the same evil smirk that Rowen wore when planning something devious, mischievous, or playful revenge on one of his friends.  "Would you like to know what it feels like to get thrown off something, Kento?" he asked and suddenly Kento was tumbling down the stairs and Sage was standing at the top and laughing down at him.

Then Sage was tumbling down and Ryo was the one laughing at the top.  And of course, Ryo was soon tumbling down too and Cye giggled down at him.  But Cye knew better than to repeat the mistake of his friends; he knew what to expect.

He waited until Mia was right on top of him and ducked.  Mia tripped over him and flew down the stairs, landing on the pile of laundry which turned out to be a pile of Kento, Sage, and Ryo.  Cye laughed loudly at all of them and they glared up at him.  Without warning, however, Cye was suddenly falling himself and they all moved very quickly out of the way but Kento couldn't pick himself up in time and Cye landed on Kento with a thump.

Spitting out Cye's mahogany hair—which had somehow managed to get in his mouth—Kento shoved his best friend off and asked angrily, "What the freakin' heck did ya do that for?"

Then he noticed they were all looking up the stairs.  Rowen was standing at the top, blue hair disheveled, pajamas twisted, wrinkled, and a little torn, and midnight blue eyes glaring at them with a look that could shoot more than just daggers,

"I SAID TA LEMME SLEEP!!!  But nooo.  Ya had ta make so much racket I couldn't possibly get a wink in," Rowen said as he slowly, deliberately descended the stairs.  "An' accordin' ta the fact that the sun isn't even up yet, you guys have eith'ah all lost your minds ta be gettin' up before dawn or you're deliberately tryin' ta provoke me inta snappin' your crazy heads off.  Whadda ya think you're doin' at such ungodly hours of the mornin', runnin' around the house like a buncha banshees?

"An' another thing," he almost roared as he turned on Sage.  "Jist what in tha name o' everything sane in this universe did ya think ya were doin' on my bed?!"  He had Sage backed up to a wall and everyone saw for the first time just what Sage went through every Monday morning waking Rowen up—Rowen was especially hard on Mondays because he stretched his bedtime to around 5:00 in the morning on weekends.

 Rowen was usually very solemn, serious, and composed but the fury he unleashed on whatever or whoever woke him up was like that of a tornado.  There were two ways to give Rowen a reason to hit you so hard you wouldn't know what your name was: 1) tear him away from a book when he's reading it or 2) wake him up.

Sage tried to sidle away but Rowen slammed a fist into the wall in front of his face so Sage began to try to form the words to answer the question.  Kento decided to save him.

He tapped Rowen on the shoulder, flinched when the soul-piercing gaze turned on him with vengeance but said anyway, "Uh, two things, Ro.  One, what's a banshee and two, it's nighttime, not morning."

Rowen blinked at him.  "Oh," he said softly.  The wrath disappeared and he turned back to Sage, who by now had recomposed himself and raised his mask of uncaring coldness once again.  "Umm…sorry, Sage.  But I would like ta know what ya were doin' on my bed."

Sage was about to explain but Kento tapped Rowen's shoulder again.  "Hey, you didn't tell me what a banshee is.  You called me one so I think I've got a right to know what it is.  So what is it?"

And Rowen went into a long, confusing, detailed history of Irish mythology that whizzed through Kento's ears, buzzed in his head, and gave him an awful headache.  No doubt could be left now—Rowen was back to his old braniac, unpredictable self.

But what about tomorrow?