"It's not all your fault, Miss Umi," Fuu encouraged.

"Yes it is and now I've ruined things with Kakeru too." She put her head in her hands and wept, shoulders heaving.

"You haven't ruined anything with Kakeru." Hikaru said as she sat down next to her, leaning against the wall in the deserted study.

"And how do you know it's all your fault?" Fuu queried. "Did he tell you in a dream?"

"Not in any words but, the questions he asked were all about how much I loved him, why I had stopped loving him. It had to be that that pushed him over the edge, what else could it have been?"

"There are many reasons for someone to revert to evil, not just a seemingly spurned love," Fuu explained.

"And even if it was for that reason it's not in any way your fault!" Hikaru declared.

"That's an odd statement coming from you," Umi snorted.

"Look," Hikaru said defensively, "I know I didn't understand before, but now I do. And for the exact reasons that you told me back in Tokyo, it is not your fault!"

Umi considered this, "Maybe you're right. I'll think about it. But now, I think I want to go to sleep."

Fuu smiled, "Do that, I'm sure you'll feel better in the morning."

"Good night," Umi said as she exited the room.

"Good night," they both replied.

Umi woke up with Kakeru's arms around her. She was startled. She didn't know where she had expected him to sleep, but she hadn't thought she'd wake up next to him. And she hadn't thought he would still want to have his arms around her. She tried to ease out of the bed but he woke up anyway. "Morning, love," he greeted her with a smile.

She turned to look at him from where she sat on the edge of the bed, "You sure you still want to call me that?"

He snorted, "Why?"

"You aren't mad at me? For what I said last night?"

"What did you say that was so horrible?" She reviewed the conversation they had had the night before, mortified when she realized that they had argued in front of everyone, but she couldn't remember saying any thing detrimental to their relationship. She thought for sure that she had. "Umi," he continued, "You were upset last night, and understandably so. If I blame any one for our argument, I blame Clef." He moved over to her and took her face in his hands, "Not you, understand?"

She nodded, "I don't know how I deserve to have anyone like you." Yet again she was crying.

He laughed and wiped away her tears with his thumb. They settled back down into the bed to do some very satisfying making up.

Fuu sat in the large kitchen sipping the tea she had tried, and practically failed, to prepare for herself. No one was up yet, it had been a hard day yesterday. She had always been an early riser though, and she enjoyed the solitude and time to think that her biological clock often gave her. She had been there quietly thinking for about five minutes when Ren peaked around the corner, then strolled in through the doorway, "Thank God I found it. This place is huge," he drawled as he got himself a cup of Fuu's tea. He sat down across from her, took a bid gulp of the tea (before she could warn him) and made a face. "Do you usually make tea from scratch?"

"Not with herbs from Cephiro," Fuu smiled.

He gave her a faint grin. As she once had, Ren never seemed to smile. Fuu wanted to know why that was so she decided now was as good as any other time to start probing for answers. She had a feeling that they weren't going to be that easy to get. "So, where are you from?"

"Tokyo," he answered curtly.

"Any family there?" she continued, searching.

"Some."

"What. . ."

He cut her off abruptly, "Look, Fuu, I really don't need the question and answer session. So if you. . ."

It was her turn, "Look, Ren, you asked for an explanation and we gave you one. So maybe you should oblige me."

"That sounds like a threat," he stated, almost sounding amused.

"It's not, but if you think about it you're the outsider here. Hikaru, Umi, and I have all been here before, and both of the other guys have ties to us. If you choose to not cooperate, Ren, you are alone." She felt like she had to say that; that somehow he didn't understand.

Ren had the most emotion she had ever seen on his face just then. It was shock. "Now that really sounds like a threat!" he exclaimed.

"It's not, its facts, Ren. I don't know why you're here, but I have a feeling that it had to do with you holding a knife to my throat."

His eyes narrowed at that, "I. . . I'm sor. . . "

"Aaaaaaaoooooooohhhn!" Caldina appeared in the doorway, yawning loudly, "Oh! Am I interruptin' something?" she said when they both looked up, startled.

Fuu was sure that Ren had been about to say 'sorry' which was certainly interesting, but she said that Caldina wasn't, anyway. "Umm, I made some tea, but I'm afraid it's not very good," she continued with a laugh. Ren did his little half grin and nodded.

"Well, I'll just have to make some more then. Oop!" she stopped as she felt a kick then continued to do whatever she was doing, so Fuu was distracted as Ren abruptly stood up and left. He was trying to hide his good will; she knew it. He wasn't a common thug or drug addict. There was something different about him and she was determined to find out what.

He seemed to be exploring and she followed him into a small outdoor alcove which looked to be being used as an herb garden. There was a bench and a small fountain in the center. "Sit down, Ren."

"Fuu, I don't want to answer any questions," he protested.

"You don't have to, just listen." She sat down stiffly on the bench as he lounged with his head tilted back, his dark hair almost touching the still water of the fountain. "Comfortable?" she asked, sort of annoyed.

"Very," he answered, "I have a feeling this is going to take a while."

"Maybe, maybe not," she replied, and then she steeled herself for she had spoken of this to no one besides Hikaru and Umi. "My father died four years ago, of Corollary vernisans."

Ren started at that. No, it couldn't be. But she had said. It's a strange coincidence surely. But he felt his eyes growing wider and wider, his astonishment greater and greater as she went on. "My mother was heart broken, we all were of course, but she didn't know what to do with herself afterward. She fell into depression about a month later. She attempted suicide right after my sister's wedding about a year ago. It's hard; Kuu moved to Kyoto, Subaru got a job there. So, it's only me looking after Mother. I go to school in the mornings and help out at a medical research lab during the afternoons. My aunt takes care of her when I can't. But really the only time I'm free of that burden, when I'm not constantly thinking of her is when I'm at the lab. I think of Dad a lot when I'm there, because we're working, no we were working on medicine for people with CV. We've actually put out a new drug that can stop the symptoms even the disease in its tracks! " she laughed here, "You know before he died my main ambition in life was to be a computer engineer, it was only because of him that I got into medicine." But he noticed that she stopped smiling when he stood up abruptly and left the little herbal nook. He couldn't deal. Their lives were so similar, no; her life is what his could have been like if it weren't for Her.

"Ren!" Fuu called after him but she knew he wasn't coming back. "I don't understand." She said to herself. Someone appeared in the doorway. She looked up, and was surprised to see that it was Lafarga.

"Ferio?" he asked sympathetically.

She sighed, wishing it was so simple. "No, Ren." When he looked surprised she felt that the truth had to be told in order for every one to understand what was happening between the six of them, "Ren's not friends with the rest of us, we aren't even acquaintances. We met him yesterday, right before we came here, when he . . . when he tried to rob us. He held a knife to my throat." She sighed.

"What don't you understand then? Why did you look so disappointed when he left?"

"Lafarga, for this to work, we all have to ban together, we have to be a team, there can be no distrust if we are going to save Clef, get rid of this evil, and go home. I tried to open up to him. I practically told him my life story," she exclaimed disbelieving, "but he just got up and left without a word."

Lafarga looked troubled as he sat down next to her, "I wish I could say something to help you, but I've never been good at reading people or understanding them. I'm sorry."

Fuu grinned, "Don't worry, Lafarga. I'm glad you came along anyway, I've been alone a lot lately." She leaned against his shoulder and closed her eyes. "I have missed being here, missed seeing you all so much."

"We're all glad you're back," he chuckled then, "and that you brought help, however unwilling it may be."

"Cephiro seems so strange to me now," Hiakaru mused as she and Lantis strolled through the forest of silence, supposedly on patrol, watching for more of Clef's creatures.

"How so?" he asked, seeming genuinely interested.

"It's the same but it's different. It has the same feel, but I don't remember this path being here, or that stream."

"Well, that's easily explained. You see, Hikaru, after the defeat of Debonair, Cephiro was recreated from the memories in the hearts of all of its people. But memory is a strange thing, rarely is it that any two people remember places or events in the same exact way. And so there was no possible way for Cephiro to be reborn as a precise copy. Everything's here, Hikaru, it's just shifted. Everyone remembered Cephiro in there own way so what we have is a compromise, a meshing of all the memories of all of our people."

Hikaru laughed, "Maybe not so easily explained. But I think it's beautiful, more so even than what I remember."

They walked on in silence, tenderly clasping each other's hand, simply for the warm contact it provided, that which they had craved for so long.

Suddenly, Lantis stopped, mid-stride. Hikaru saw a figure crouched in the distance. He seemed to be leaning over the earth, mumbling something. She looked over at Lantis and his expression changed from surprise and hope to a grim anger when the figure looked up. Hikaru now saw that he was a boy, no older than fourteen, crouching over some scattered stones with runes on them. "Lantis!" the boy exclaimed with shock, his pale blue eyes filled with fear.

Lantis looked hard and spoke hard, "This is a disgrace Delorian, and I have a feeling Clef didn't make you do this."

Hikaru noticed that the boy looked pained for a moment before he grinned menacingly and replied, "Do what, raise the dead?" And with that he scooped the stones into his hand and heaved them back into the same place they were. There was a great rumble beneath them and where the stones fell a mound of earth rose up. From the mound there came a large insect type monster. It hovered in the air to the right of the boy, awaiting his command. Hikaru cried out as she recognized the monster. It was the insect that had killed Presea!

The boy gestured fiercely toward them and the insect advanced. Hikaru was still registering the monster's identity when Lantis grabbed her by the arm and started running. That shook her, "Lantis, why are we running?"

"Talon's monsters are abnormally strong after they've been raised. We can't do this alone."

"I thought you called him Delorian."

"I did. And I'll explain to all of you later." She let it rest at that and concentrated on keeping up with him. His legs were entirely too long.