"Well, it was certainly nice to see you, Kagura. Be sure to come back soon, I know we'd all love to see you." Shigure said it with a twinkle in his eye, carefully not looking at Kyo's livid expression.

"Oh, I will! Bye! Bye, Kyo!" Kagura waved happily, completely oblivious, and skipped off.

Shigure returned Kyo's glare with an innocent look. "What? Did I do something wrong?"

Kyo retreated bad-temperedly into the house. "One of these days, I swear…" he muttered. Tohru grinned slightly and followed him.

Everything was back to normal among the Sohmas… or so it seemed. But only Hatori knew about the dreams that still haunted Shigure nightly; vivid dreams of a world that could not be real, and yet a world that even Shigure knew he could not have imagined.

Suddenly, Shigure jumped as a young woman burst unexpectedly out of the woods. Panting as if she had been running very fast, she looked around, and then saw Shigure and straightened slowly, her eyes opening wide. Shigure stiffened as well. It was the girl from his dream.

Tharaide was in shock. She and Misaya had been investigating the area around the cave where Shigure had been found. To meet Shigure so suddenly was truly unexpected. She counted herself lucky that she had thought to hide her wings.

"Hello," said Shigure, uncertain, trying to smile and act naturally. "Are… you looking for something?"

"No," said Tharaide, thinking quickly to come up with a story on the spot. "I'm an… uh, ella… elephant? Electa… eletricia…"

"Electrician?" suggested Shigure kindly. Perhaps she's foreign, Shigure thought to himself, noting her unusual accent and trying to force his mind onto mundane subjects.

"Yes! Yes, that's it!" Tharaide said, seizing on the word with evident relief. "Yes, I'm an electrician, and I'm doing an invest… I mean, a… a survey… of your property. It has come to our attention that you may have… er, something potentially dangerous here. My assistant and I will be doing work around here for a few days."

At that moment, Tohru emerged. "Shigure, dinner's…" She trailed off. "Oh, who's this?"

"My name is Tharaide," said the phoenix, and immediately wished she had given a fake name. Oh, Misaya is going to kill me for this, she thought unhappily. "I'm an… electrician… doing research here. We found out that there could be something dangerous underground here." She looked at the two humans thoughtfully. "Is there anywhere nearby that we could stay while we do our work?"

"Oh! You can stay here if you want!" said Tohru. "There isn't much room, but…"

"Thank you for the kind offer," said a new voice. Misaya approached them from behind Tharaide. "But we couldn't impose. Would you mind if we camped on the property?"

"Not at all," said Shigure. He looked hard at Misaya. I can't remember ever seeing him before… and yet… I feel like I have…

"Then that's settled," said Tohru. "It's too kind of you, coming here to help us like this. I'm sure we never would have realized… how much do we owe you?"

"Nothing," said Tharaide, with a slight smile. "We're from… a private group. We just wanted to make sure that any threat was eliminated."

"Well then, I suppose we'll be seeing you tomorrow," said Shigure, forcing a smile. "Good luck." He turned away.

The girl had acted so strangely. Shigure reflected on her as he went inside, unusually silent as he ate. She seemed so intelligent, but her odd pauses and accent spoke of someone new to his language. And yet in most ways, her speech was the equal of any native Japanese speaker. So very strange…

"Tharaide," said Misaya, as the pair pitched their small tents in the woods near Shigure's house. "What were you thinking? This is no time to be distracted."

"I found him by chance," snapped Tharaide.

"And so… this decision to camp by his house was made by choice as well?"

"Look! It's just as well he knows we're here. He won't be startled by the sight of us if he does. It's probably just a rogue or something, we'll take care of the problem and be off by this time next week." Tharaide crawled into her tent. "Goodnight."

Misaya sighed. If her behavior after Seita's death was any indicator, this was extremely hard on her. He curled up inside his own tent. "Goodnight, Tharaide."