A/N: ehehehe…heh heh hehe…mmmph… BWAHAHAHAHAAHA! EXAMS ARE OVER! YESYESYESYESYES! HAH!
I probably failed them all. -_-; six months to go and I am out of this dump, I swear. I don't care if I don't graduate anymore! To answer the question; nope, I'm still in high school. Last year, thank God. Once again, apologies for irregular and exceedingly late update.
Chapter 9: The Return of the Thing
Rei was staring out of the window on the bus. L'risia glanced at him. He'd been acting a bit.. strained. They'd had more run-ins that L'risia would have liked with the Sailor Scouts, which meant that either they were badly screwing things up or Ami was honing in on the dark energy she, Val and Rei had. Shiro had said that unless he told the girls straight they were chasing after the wrong people, they'd have to live with it. If he told them flat they would know he knew what/who they were and moreover, they'd want to know how he knew they were chasing after the wrong people. And Shiro didn't really think he could explain "good" evil energy and "bad" evil energy. It just sounded too ridiculous.
To the original point, though, Rei had been hit by Sailor Moon's pink lovehearts and had nearly killed the girl. Ever since then, he was beginning to show outer signs of the inner battle against love and justice that was going on inside L'risia. L'risia had learnt to deal with it; Val didn't even notice it on a spiritual level, although he might if he thought he was supposed to. Rei, on the other hand, hadn't had as much experience and anyway, patience was not a large part of his personality. L'risia was rather afraid something was going to give.
'I am not cheating!'
'Oh really? Then what do you call that card up your sleeve?'
'…the ace of spades…'
Shiro smiled beautifully at the grumbling Val. Roudy fell off the seat laughing, much to the horror or amusement of the bus' other occupants. They were going to Raye's shrine. Rei had, after smashing half the crockery in the apartment, said they were going to put the girl right on a few things.
This meant, he had said, licking the blood of his hand, making a daylight appearance. L'risia sighed. The bus slid to a stop.
'Ladies first, Raye!'
'I'm more of a lady than you are!'
'What was that?!'
L'risia and Rei stared in horror, and simultaneously slid down the seats. Shiro took one look at the expression on Rei's face and started rummaging around in his bag for something.
'Rei!' Usagi beamed, as she and her friends bounced onto the bus. 'L'risia! Val! Rebecca! And the kids and- Shiro? What are you doing here?'
'I thought you knew I was friends with Rei,' Shiro blinked, as Mina helped herself to the other side of Rei's seat and started trying to talk to him about what she had done on the weekend or the test they had in two days… or something. Val and Rebecca brought Raye and Makoto into the card game, with Shiro folding and Usagi watching. Shiro pardoned himself, and then sat next to L'risia, interrupting Mina's one-way conversation with Rei, who was beginning to look homicidal to anyone that knew him. It was the eyes… they looked more gold that usual…
'Sorry,' Shiro smiled, making Mina's temperature shoot up. While she was mumbling, Shiro handed Rei a couple of books. Rei took them and looked at the covers and grinned wickedly. He held them up to Mina.
'Sorry, Mina-chan, I'd like to read these, if you don't mind, Shiro promised he'd lend them to me and I've been waiting ages-'
Minako looked at the covers of the manga books. Her face, already red, turned the colour of tomatoes and her hair stood on end.
'Ppbt-' she managed. Rei and Shiro smiled innocently, which was the exact opposite of what was on the covers. Minako managed a strangled shriek before shooting over to sit next to Usagi, her face flaming red. L'risia, despite her own embarrassment, had to turn her face out of the window in case anyone else saw her laughing.
'Phew,' she heard Rei sigh. 'Thanks, Shiro.'
'Don't mention it. If you don't mind, could you give me one of those that you aren't reading?'
'Sure.' Rei tossed one over the bus seat and settled down to read. Shiro did the same. L'risia edged closer to the window.
'Hey! That looks interesting!' Roudy announced, flinging himself into the chair next to Rei a few minutes later. Rei turned his face to grin, and L'risia saw the familiar mischievous grin and twinkle that had disappeared for the last couple of days.
'It does, doesn't it?' He agreed, passing the little boy the manga he wasn't reading. 'Here you go, you can read this one.'
'REI!'
'Okay…' Raye said, turning around at the top of the shrine stairs. 'What did you want to talk to me about?'
'Well…' Rei said, looking down at the ground and doing an amazing job of looking embarrassed. 'You do… spiritual stuff, right?'
'Um…yes?' Raye said.
'You see,' Rei said, looking nervously at L'risia and Val, who nodded at him, '-we've all been getting these weird… lapses. Like blocks of the night we can't remember. One minute I'm watching TV with Val, L'risia's in the kitchen, and then the next thing we know it's one in the morning and we've all passed out on the damn roof. One time L'risia woke up with this burn on her arm, and I've had singed hair before too. Val got a mark on his wrist like he'd been caught around the wrist with some kind of chain and since he's too much of a –' Rei coughed '-to play that kind of game then-'
'Rei…' Val growled. 'Get to the damn point!'
'Right, right. We think… well, we're possessed. Or something.'
The definitely-not Sailor Scouts looked at each other, and as one looked at Shiro.
'But you're a really powerful physic, right?' Usagi checked. 'Didn't you ask him, Rei?'
'I thought we should ask someone else.' Shiro said. 'I don't have much experience with his particular sort of thing.'
Ami glanced at him sharply, but saw no trace of malice in the words that could be read two different ways.
Maybe I'm overreacting, Ami thought, and then heard Raye gasp. She looked at the three other visitors, and tensed as she notice their eyes had gone strangely blank. Rei began to laugh, and a wind swept up, blinding the girls and Shiro, who shivered even though it wasn't cold.
After a moment, the wind died away…and no one stood at the entrance to the shine.
'Where did they go?'
'Up here.' Rei sniggered, and held out a hand. The five girls and Shiro slammed into various trees. Val, for some reason, found himself watching Shiro, and noted the boy, teeth grit in pain, smile. A trickle of blood trickled down his chin. Val frowned briefly before looking back at the girls.
'Honestly, you girls just ask for it… you change your outfits and expect no one to recognise you?' Rei held out a hand. 'You make me sick!'
'Rei.' L'risia said sharply, folding her arms. This action happened to enhance certain womanly features in regards to which she was NOT under-endowed. Val looked hurriedly away. Rei glared at her.
'You're running my fun!'
'Restrain yourself,' L'risia said. 'If you kill them, it'll throw things even more out of whack. We're not supposed to be here.'
Rei growled in the back of his throat, but lowered his hand. By this time, the Sailor Scouts had "appeared".
'-in the name of the moon-'
L'risia's hand came around and caught Sailor Moon so hard across the face the girl staggered.
'Shut up.'
There was a silence. Rei and Val gaped at L'risia, who grinned and looked a little surprised.
'You know what? That felt REALLY GOOD!'
'How dare you!'
'How dare I what?' Shut you up?' L'risia grinned nastily, an evil glint in her eyes.
'Okay, ladies.' Shiro soothed, pushing them apart. Rei and Val looked a bit disappointed. 'Now, didn't you have something to tell the Scouts, Rei?'
Rei nodded, and folded his arms. He came a bit closer; Val remained standing on his tree branch. The Scouts tensed, but Rei just sat down on the air.
'Now, you are aware we've been fighting each other for a couple of weeks. I think you should be clear on a few things since you're just too clueless to do it yourselves. The rules say that since you're human, you have to deal with it yourselves. Unfortunately another rules states that one world's problems aren't allowed to go into another's, so we have a problem. So we're going to break or at least push the line a bit.'
'What are you talking about?' Makoto snarled. Rei cast her an amused glance.
'Simple, my dear. I'm going to fill you in a little. There are other worlds as you may have guessed. Not planets, like you seem to deal with, and beyond the Negaverse… whatever that is. Just worlds. We are from one of them. About two months ago in our world some…thing came in and started mucking the whole system up. What happened was that it's existence somehow.. yeah, mucked it up.'
'What is "it" and the "system"?' Ami asked.
'In our world… most, in fact, good must be balance with evil.' L'risia said. 'If the scales tip in either direction, the three dimensions tied to our world can get screwed up. It's probably best if you think of it as Heaven, Earth, and Hell. Heaven being the "good", Earth being the humans, and Hell being what we call "Mazoku". You'd call them demons, the evil. Anyway, the balance is very delicate. A few things have happened in the last twenty or so years that made it really, really precarious… humans started getting more power and the Mazoku got a bit desperate and the Dragons got a bitt too cocky…anyway, some kind of force got set loose, probably as a result. It appears to have no personality whatsoever, just a desire to… torment and kill. It's targets seem to be the higher-ranking creatures… the Dark Lords, me, a few high-ranking Mazoku or Dragons and Val.'
'Why?'
'Why? If we knew we could probably stop the damn thing.' L'risia sighed. 'As it is it appears to be highly intelligent but very sadistic. It used to be random people at a time, dead from tiny cuts. Bled to death. Slowly, painfully. Then it apparently decided it could have more fun here. I think there's less control here than there is at our world.'
'So you're saying…you need our help?' Sailor Moon sniggered. 'You'll have to ask nicely!'
L'risia twitched, and Val appeared behind Sailor Moon, scaring the girl out of her wits.
'Shut it.' He said, without smiling. Sailor Moon swallowed.
'So why are you telling us this?' Ami asked.
'So you know,' Rei said. 'We're working on it.'
'But why did you fight us?!'
'I don't recall picking a fight, you know.' L'risia said innocently. 'Ever. It was always, "MOON COSMIC POWER WHATEVER" and lovehearts everywhere.'
The Sailor Scouts looked at each other. Sailor Venus poked her fingers together.
'Er, well, you were at the scene of the crime anyway…'
'And you fought back!' Makoto said. Val gave her a Look.
'Girl, you tried to electrocute me. What do you want me to do, stand still and wait?'
'That would be nice.' Rei commented.
'Shut up, you sadistic freak.'
Shiro sighed, drawing the attention of everyone. L'risia felt a bit annoyed with herself. Trust a bishounen to direct the conversation. A few sakura leaves skittered across her vision, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
'Could we talk about this seriously for just a minute? That's all it will take,' he said. 'At the very least, Rei and the others must get this thing out of this world before it causes more deaths-'
'-oh yeah, did I mention that since something from outside of anything conceived by this plane of existence the dead aren't recognised as being dead?' L'risia put in. They all stared at her. 'The souls are kind of floating around.'
'…' Val managed. 'Can you do something for them?'
'When we get the whatever it is out, yeah.' L'risia said. 'I can. But to the main topic.'
Shiro nodded, obviously not surprised by the information. Rei personally knew the boy had had conversations with some of said souls, calming them down a bit. Shiro had a very… calming effect. It even affected him, of all creatures, which was a just a little scary.
'We may be able to force the creature back to the dimension using that horrible Love and Justice routine of you guys,' Rei said, 'and the power that I, L'risia and Val possess.'
'Are you suggesting we work together?' Raye asked.
'Are you suggesting we give up and leave it with you?' Rei retorted sweetly. The Sailor Scouts went into a huddle. Shiro joined Rei, L'risia and Val.
'I want,' Val sighed, 'to go home. Not that this dimension business isn't fun or anything, but I don't wanna work while doing it, y'know?'
L'risia shrugged.
'I just hope they're smart enough to do this.'
'I think they will,' Shiro smiled, and on cue, Sailor Moon hailed them, striking a pose against the sunshine raining through the leaves of the trees.
'All right,' she said. 'For Justice, we will team up with you! On one condition!'
'Yeah?' Rei asked, lounging on the air and looking bored.
'You will release the people you have possessed, Rebecca and the children!'
Even Shiro's jaw hung open slightly, and L'risia scratched her chin. Oh yes. One time they'd pretended to kidnap the children. Roudy, Rina, Rei and even Rebecca had had great fun being dramatic in front of a light spell, screaming their heads off or laughing evilly. Val and L'risia had opted to stay on the sidelines, laughing their heads off and listening to the shocked cries of the avatars of justice…
'Oh, that.' Val said. 'About that… we lied. L'risia's L'risia, I'm me, Rei's Rei and Rebecca accidentally got dragged along for some reason that I can't actually remember now. Me and L'ri are looking after their kids while their parents are on holiday.'
There was a silence.
'WHAT?!' the Scouts screeched.
'Hey, if you don't believe me, you can ask them.' Val said, pointing. Roudy and Rina waved from where they had been watching the whole saga with Rebecca. L'risia was rather pleased with the girl. She had taken her out for a shopping trip a couple of days ago, and had discovered that, very much like her mother, Rebecca was human after all. She appeared to have inherited more underlying sense, though. It was a bit of a shame it took so long to crack through the ditziness. The end result was Rebecca understood, mostly, the situation, and had stopped bawling about it. The Val thing was a still a bit of a problem, but L'risia wasn't really expecting it not to be.
The Sailor Scouts sweatdropped.
'Er…they were here the whole time?'
'So how come you're so badass?' Mina asked Val bluntly. Ami blushed with embarrassment. Val looked at L'risia.
'I'm badass?'
L'risia sighed, looking at the black outfit, the golden eyes, the lounging position on the tree branch.
'…sometimes, Val.'
'You didn't strike me as the type to go around kicking butt in black leather either, L'risia.' Usagi, aka Sailor Moon, smiled. Rei, in his young adult form, nearly fell out of the air.
'Oh you have no idea, Usagi-chan.' He said, his tone making the sentence full of hidden connotations. Usagi began to blush.
'Rei!' L'risia snapped.
'What did he say?' Val asked, having missed that. L'risia flushed.
'Nothing, nothing important-'
'He said-' Shiro began, and L'risia clamped a hand over his mouth. 'Mmmph mmph mmpgh.'
'Right…' Val said, looking a bit suspicious. Rei laughed, kicking his legs in the air like a child. Even Shiro sweatdropped.
'It wasn't that funny.' L'risia said.
'Not that,' Rei cackled, pointing behind her. L'risia felt her muscles seize up as some sixth sense perceived the huge… thing looming up behind her, Val and Shiro.
'Oh shhhiii-' Val got halfway through shouting, before he broke off, black lightning crackling across his body. L'risia heard Shiro's yell of pain, and felt blood trickle out of her mouth. The sound of the lightning bounced around the inside of her skull, rocking her with pain.
'Rei-' she choked out, as Val pulled her close and covered her back with his arms, taking half the energy aimed at her. 'Stop!'
'Shut up, you're more…useful…that me…' Val said, through grit teeth.
L'risia felt warm blood spatter her arms as something smooth and so sharp she didn't even feel it slit her skin.
'Small wounds can kill…if you make… enough of them..' Val said weakly, whispering. L'risia knew he was casting some kind of protection spell, but the lightning had numbed her senses and she barely heard him…
Something happened. Well, it didn't so much happen as a lot of what was happening ceasing to do so. L'risia suddenly became aware that Val was a lot heavier than he should have been I he could stand up under his own power.
'Val?' she hissed, sinking to ground and using what remained of her energy to push him back. 'Hey!'
'Oh…good…' Val mumbled, his golden eyes fluttering closed. 'It…worked…'
L'risia caught him as he fell forward and looked at Rei, who tapped the glowing aqua shield around them.
'Good grief.' He whistled.
'If you've have your fun,' L'risia snarled. 'For the love of the gods in heaven, Rei, I know you're a freaking Dark Lord but when it comes to a situation like that, HELP! What the hell happened?!'
Rei left his examination of the shield and walked over to her.
'It seems Val used an energy he didn't know he had. Ancient Dragon magic, of course, but you knew that… the creature appears to be trapped outside.' They both looked at the black, angry lightning crackling around the shield, searching for a way in. The bloodied bodies of the Sailor Scouts lay around the shielded grass.
'I think you missed two very important things, though.' Rei said, as L'risia's vision swam.
'What?' the priestess asked, holding her head. Rei watched her carefully, and sighed.
'We will go to Shiro's family shrine and heal. And then I will tell you. You and I will work with the Scouts to send the damn thing back to our world and then, L'risia, we will let Valgarv regain consciousness.'
'Valgarv?' L'risia whispered, looking at the boy in her arms. 'But he's not…'
Small wounds can kill if you make enough of them…Who had said that?
'Xelloss.' She breathed. 'In the cave…oh crap…'
Xelloss choked on his wine and caught the edge of the pool, his fingernails digging into his chest. Zelgadis lowered his own glass.
'What's wrong?'
'Nothing…' Xelloss said, and met the disbelieving gazes of his two counterparts.
'Come on, Xelloss, we've known you a long time,' Gourry said. 'Old age catching up with ya or something?'
Despite the pain in his chest, Xelloss chuckled.
'No, Gourry…all of a sudden…I felt…pain.'
'What kind of pain?' Zelgadis asked. Xelloss looked at him in surprise, not really having expected a comment like that from the one who had spent most of his life in denial of human emotion. Xelloss wasn't ready to admit, though, that this pain was not… physical. It felt like he'd just…done something horrible. A tearing guilt that pulled at his heart.
But he made the mistake of being silent, and Zelgadis and Gourry swapped looks.
Filia? Gourry mouthed.
No, Zelgadis mouthed back, a man whose room was next to theirs and had found out that the walls of the inn were not as thick as they looked, thankyou so very much.
It wasn't that… but what else could it be?
L'risia leant tiredly against the wall after finally waking up. She'd helped Rei, the only uninjured one, heal the Scouts, Val and Shiro… where was Rei? L'risia managed, after a few false starts, to get to her feet. She stumbled outside, and found Rei sitting quietly in the middle of a magic circle, his eyes closed. His blue hair moved gently in a non-existent breeze, the golden light casting strange shadows on his face. She slid down to the shrine steps and waited until he finally opened his eyes.
'L'risia.' He said, as the glow in them faded.
'Rei.' She said, leaning her head on the pole next to her.
'I have been talking with Beastmaster.' Rei said, not moving. 'About Xelloss.'
'Xelloss?'
'Yes,' Rei said. 'The matter needs a little more research, but I believe I know now, basically, what our opponent is.'
'Yeah?' L'risia asked. 'What?
Rei sighed.
'You're not going to like this…'
'Tell me anyway.' L'risia prompted.
'Hey! How come I'm all right?!' the girly squeal caused both of them to wince. 'Raye! Mina! Everyone! They're all- asleep?'
'Were,' Raye's voice growled, and Rei and L'risia sweatdropped as the chaos ensued. Rei got to his feet and walked to L'risia, cupping her chin in his hand and brushing her nose with his.
'You rest here, neechan.' He whispered. 'I'll get the children and Rebecca.'
L'risia nodded, and Rei released her chin gently, stepping back. He disappeared.
'I wish he'd get that close to me.' Shiro said wistfully, from behind L'risia. She sweatdropped as she turned around.
'You probably wouldn't have to get halfway through the request.'
