"So I take it she's still not answering your calls then?" a tall curvaceous blonde asked the man across from her, also with rather fair hair. They were sitting in a nice Parisian restaurant, holding their conversation in English, so that they were less likely to have their subject given away.

The man, he went by Alan Gado, usually just Gado, looked at the woman over his glass of wine, with a raised bushy eyebrow. "Are you really going to make me answer that, Jenny?" he asked with that one little motion. His date sighed and put down her fork very delicately after wiping it off. Not like she'd been eating that much of her salad in any case.

"Well, what did Yugo and Long say?" she questioned. "Is she all right? What's she been doing for the last three months in Manhattan?"

"Yugo says she rented a small condo between his and Kenji's apartment complex and Long's dojo," Gado told her. He too pushed his barely used fork to the side of the rich lacquered dining table. "He won't tell me any more, she forbid him too."

"Did you ask him if he always has to listen to her?" Jenny asked, her eyes alight with a fire he almost dreaded to see, as she twisted the napkin in her hands.

"No because I really don't want to put the kid in the middle of it," he said, calmly. "He's my godson and one of the very few friends she has. I'm not going to ask him to spy for me when she's asking him to help hide her, it's not fair to Yugo. And no, before you ask, I'm not going to try Mitsuko, Alice, or Long either." He met Jenny's wrathful eyes without flinching. They remained that way for several moments before Jenny finally looked away, sadness ringing in her impeccable green eyes. Gado frowned and reached across the distance between himself and the former model to take her hand.

"We can't force her to accept anything form us, Jen," he whispered gently, blue eyes only bearing the truth for her. "The more we goad Shina, the less chance we have of her ever communicating with us again. Trust me, I know, I raised her for the last sixteen years."

Jenny sighed, drawing her hand away. "I know you're right, Gado," she said looking down and away, staring thoughtfully into the folds of her blood red evening gown. "I–I just never expected her to react like this."

"Well if you expected her to act happy, then I have to tell you that you were delusional, Cherie," he said, the truth biting her despite the fact Gado was being kind. "You can't have news like this thrown on you so fast and come to terms with it in a day–or even two months." He added the last few words on quickly as Jenny looked up at him, ready to make a retort. "Not Shina, she's not like that. My little girl is five things for certain, she's strong; she never ceases to make me wonder; she's more clever than any young lady her age ought to be; she's temperamental to the core; and she is a complete internalizer of all her emotional problems. Shina doesn't talk things over to anyone besides herself, she just muses over a problem, then she acts with her guts. And her gut obviously said that she needed to get away for a time, she want's to be alone and we..." Gado's eyes were sad, almost forlorn, "we have to accept that. She's a grown woman."

Again the bat zoanthrope looked away from her date's piercing eyes, and to her dress. Gado wished more than anything in the world, that he could hear what she was thinking. Finally Jenny stood.

"Thank you for the evening, Alan," she said, sweeping back her skirts as she faced him, preparing to walk out. "Really, talking about her...it helped...quite a bit. You'll call me at once if any more information is relayed to you?"

"You know I will, Cherie," he said, wishing that the dinner didn't have to end on such a melancholy note. He took Jenny's hand and planted a kiss on the palm. "She'll be okay, Jenny," he tried to reassure her one final time before she left. "Shina just needs to cool off, maybe for a bit, but she'll come home eventually, then the three of us can discuss all of this like adults. You'll see, I know my daughter."

Jenny looked down at him, the sadness still pulsing within her emerald irises. "I wanted to," she whispered softly before rushing, very gracefully, out of the restaurant. Gado watched her go, the heaviness in his heart something he hadn't dealt with in an incredibly long time. He snapped his fingers for the waiter, instructing the man to bring him his bill, before reaching in his jacket pocket to take out his wallet.

I take it back, he thought as he opened up the worn hunk of black leather and his eyes found the only photo he had of his daughter as a real child. Before she'd hardened up, before the spiky hair, before the tough talk, and before she'd started work, his little girl. I'd give anything to know what you were thinking right now, ma fifille.

He looked the fading picture, of a then seven year old Shina, over, that face with the crystalline blue eyes full of laughter, the light blonde hair long enough for her to wear in pigtails, and the coveralls. Gado had not been the best fatherly influence he could have been, in fact, when he thought about the line of work he'd gotten her into, the danger he's put her in at certain points in her life, and his more recent faux pas, he shuddered. He really would've found it more than a little plausible for him to get the "worst father on the planet" award. But despite all of his short comings, Gado loved his daughter more than life itself, he would do anything for her, go anywhere in the world for her, he would die just so that Shina could take one more gasp of air. But what could he do when his little girl didn't even want to be near him? Gado swallowed hard before grabbing the appropriate amount of cash and handing it over to the waiter, stuffing his wallet away in his jacket once more. He walked out as quickly as he could.

Interlude

Shina made it to Long's dojo around six, she had no doubts wether he'd be awake so early, she knew for a fact that the guy rose at four o'clock in the morning to meditate before the morning meal. Just in case she interrupted anything though, Shina had stopped and picked up a little gift. Long was a total sucker for this green chai mix that you could only buy from Starbucks at certain times of the year, and being that he was still somewhat of a recluse (Yugo and she had to practically drag him out sometimes) he was unsure when those times were.

His dojo looked like it did every time since Shina had started visiting it three months ago. The outside was out of style for suburban New York but not so outlandish that you could call it one of a kind. A Chinese style sloping roof painted black over a defiantly mandarin inspired house (minus the rice-paper), it was certainly odd in Manhattan, but hey, Shina had seen much stranger in her life. Besides, the kind of money Long was making to teach the rich brats of doctors and lawyers basic self defense, he could afford to be odd. She walked into the house without knocking, a man like Long didn't exactly need to lock up if he was in residence, confident in the fact her friend was up and about.

"Long!" she called closing up the front door. "Hey, Long, it's Shina! Where are you? I brought you a present!" There was no answer, and considering sound carried very well through the sparsely furnished dojo (the inner walls actually were rice paper) she had one other guess as to where he might be. She grinned to herself as she went through the kitchen, setting the bag with the chai in it on Long's immaculately clean counter, heading for the one entrance to Long's garden.

Long's garden was styled in the traditional Chinese way, a lot of weeping cherry trees, feng-shui arranged bushes, and a whole bunch of big rocks set in patterns only Long truly appreciated. And right in the middle sat the Tiger himself, full lotus, eyes shut. Shina took one look at him and shook her head, he was in it deep.

"Long," she called walking closer toward him. "Long, hey snap out of it!"

He remained still as stone, not even a hair on him moved.

Shina let out a tired sigh before making her way through Long's little stone patterns to stand before him.

"Hey, Kempo-canoe, open your damn eyes!" she barked.

On command the tiger zoanthrope's eyes popped open, and at the same time his fist flew forward, aiming to catch Shina in her chin. Shina however, was very well prepared for this, she'd had experience with waking long up from meditation before, and jumped back to catch his fist in her open palm. Long blinked, clearing his mind as he refocused in reality, and met Shina's eyes with a slight frown.

"Damn, is this about that shirt I never returned?" she asked her friend, the grin returning to her face. "Because, seriously, man, I can return it...though you should be warned I kinda tore it up the other night in a bar fight."

"I thought we discussed you waking me like this?" the older male zoanthrope asked curtly as she released his hand. "You need to hit the gong." He glanced pointedly to the golden circle along with its mallet that sat on yet another big rock Long kept around for show in his garden. How he found rocks to be stylish and becoming to ones garden Shina would never know.

"Hey, be nice, or you don't get the present I picked p just for you on the way over, Tigre," she warned her friend, one hand worming down into her pocket while the other played with her jean chain.

Long raised his eyebrows as he slide his glasses back into place. "Should I be worried?"

Shina shrugged her lithe, tan shoulders. "If you don't like Starbucks Green Chai Delight, then yes, yes you should be," she answered, eyes sparkling with a light all her friends had come to adore. "If you like it then..." She only grinned.

Long jumped to his feet immediately, and embraced Shina with one arm.

"Ah, and I remember why I am so very fond of your company," Long chuckled. Shina nudged him in the ribs as the two of them made their way back into his home. "Come, sit and have breakfast with me. Yugo'll be dropping by within a few moments with Uriko for her training day. No doubt they'll want to join us before the two of you head on to W.O.C. headquarters."

"See the rapture in my eyes," Shina drawled holding the door open for her companion. The leopardess busied herself with brewing some water for the tea while Long put together a quick breakfast of his home grown (Long didn't trust supermarkets) fruits and rice cakes. They had just finished their given tasks when the front door to the dojo was thrown open and Uriko, followed by Yugo, ran inside.

"Master!" the seventeen year old cried going straight to Long and throwing her arms about his waist. He blushed, still very awkward when it came to the girl's affection, while Yugo and Shina hid their smiles behind their arms.

"Good morning, Uriko," he said in his constantly peaceful tones. "I hope you've com prepared to work today."

"Sure have!" Uriko said, her impish smile lighting up the room. She let him go to pull at her durable jogging clothes. "I even remembered to dress for the occasion."

Long smiled. "Good, now sit down and have some tea an fruit, you can't very well begin to train without a wholesome meal on your stomach."

Uriko looked over the meal, a look in her eyes reminiscent of what almost all teenagers wore when they were getting ready to make up an excuse.

"That's all right master," she said when her eyes finally flicked back to Long. "I already had breakfast today...Before I left the house." And she flashed her grin for the second time.

Long, not a fool even for Uriko's sweet face, smiled back.

"That's good, then," he said setting his glasses down on the kitchen counter. "We can fit in even more meditation time now, can't we?" Long's good natured smile became slightly wicked while Yugo and Shina watched with hard concealed humor as Uriko blanched. "Why don't you go and start?"

"Never mind," Uriko squeaked before taking her stool beside Shina. She munched hurriedly on her fruit and rice cakes, looking up to make sure Long was pleased every few seconds.

"And how's it hangin with you today?" Yugo addressed Shina for the first time that morning. He reached out to take her hand so that they could do their secret handshake.

"Loose and slightly to the left, as always," Shina joked before taking a big chunk out of the slice of melon Long had put on her plate.

Yugo and Uriko laughed while Long made face before taking a sip of his chai. The face melted in the vapors of his drink, making his friends and student chuckle in his direction. Yugo slide onto the kitchen stool next to Long and across from Shina and digging into his own plate.

"So Alice and I looked for you at the club last night," Yugo said, looking at Shina with a single raised eyebrow, after a few moments of comfortable silence. "Couldn't find you anywhere. Did this have anything to do with that charming PR guy who just started work for us?"

"No, it but it did have something to do with this guy who was about as tipsy as I was and who said he'd just love to show me his...er...armoire," Shina replied, a slow smile spreading across her face.

A rather dirty grin spread across Yugo's face. "So he took you back to his place and you discussed his...armoire?"

"Yep," Shina chuckled, she finished off her fruit and began to gnaw on her rice cake. "It was a very big one too, he even let me touch it." Yugo, now laughing quite hard, shook as he ducked his head down towards his plate, he spat out the mouthful of strawberries he'd been munching on, doing his best to keep from asphyxiating. Uriko, meanwhile, had put a sleeve over her mouth as she giggled, cheeks a bit scarlet. Long frowned giving both Shina and Yugo reproving looks, pointedly over Uriko's presence.

"I really don't care about your night-time practices, Shina, but there are little ears in here who don't need to catch any of this conversation," Long said in a low, rebuking voice. "And I'm very sure that her mother and sister would agree."

Yugo, Shina, and Uriko, all looked at one another for a few poignant moments, seconds later the three of them had lost their voices in a fit of laughter.

"Little ears!" Shina chuckled, beating her fist lightly on the counter top. She looked at Yugo, possibly the only friend she had who understood any French, and breathlessly said, "Il y a des oreilles vierges dans ici?"

Yugo began to laugh all that much harder and feigned to wipe his eyes. "Il y a des oreilles vierges dans ici? Ah, that's a good one, Shina!"

Uriko, though unable to understand what her the younger adults were talking about, continued to giggle, face now a very, very bright red.

"What does that mean?" Long asked his student and friends sharply, brown eyes narrow on their faces.

Yugo and Shina both shrugged as they continued to shake with laughter. "Je ne sais pas," Shina said, nearly choking on her rice cake.

"Uriko, why don't you go and eat outside, huh?" Yugo suggested to the girl as Long's face got a little pink at the temples. The girl, still pink and very gigglie, nodded and ran out into the garden with her chai and fruit plate.

"What did you just say, Shina?" Long demanded once Uriko was outside. "Tell me or I call your father and have him translate!"

Shina narrowed her eyes up at her friend, and Long gave her a look that said he wouldn't really but she'd still better tell him what she said or he'd give her no damn peace.

"She asked 'There are virgin ears in here?', Long," Yugo explained, discomforted by the looks both his friends wore on their faces.

Long looked away from Shina right then, and turned to Yugo, features totally confused.

"Why would she say that?" he asked which brought on yet another torrent of laughter from his two friends. "What?" Long demanded throwing up his hands. "What is with you two? Why is that so damn funny?"

"Oh, Long, you are so precious at times," Shina chuckled, reaching across the island-table to pat her friend on the cheek.

"Just let it go, Long," Yugo advised his friend, taking a drink of chai to clear his throat and calm himself down. "The moment's passed."

Long continued to frown but did not say anything more over the subject, though he did make a mental note to question Uriko about this later. Shina, grateful for the laughter, decided now was a good a time as any to bring up what had originally dragged her onto Long's doorstep so early.

"Long, um...what do you know about dreams?" the leopardess questioned, trying to look more interested in the pale green laquer on her teacup than her words.

Long raised his elegant mahogany brows, eyeing her over his spectacles. "What do you mean, Shina?" he asked quizzically.

"It's nothing, really," Shina said, her face a mask of insouciant curiosity. "I just had a really weird nightmare, last night...I'm not sure why I'm asking..." she frowned betraying that she had been nervous earlier. "It-it was just eerily delineative...like I was watching it happen for real." The younger woman met Long's brown eyes, her own clouded with slight uneasiness. "What do you think that could mean?"

"I'll tell you what it means, it means that you'd better stop tappin every nice piece of ass you can," Yugo interjected. "You're sexually wearing yourself out, Shina."

"Jealous that I'm seeing more action in a week than you do in a month, Mr. Committed?" Shina drawled, the sarcasm in her eyes enough to take one's head off. Yugo stuck out his tongue and flipped her off.

"Je suis désolé, mais no nique gars laid," Shina said switching with ease from accent-less English to sleek French. In English her words would have been translated to "I'm sorry, but I don't screw ugly boys". Shina was very proud of the fact that she could be foul mouthed in two languages. Yugo, meanwhile only understood the "ugly boys" part and had started to give her a lashing retort, fortunately, however, Long stepped in before he could do more then part his lips

"What was the dream about, Shina?" the eldest of the three friends asked her, concern lightly brimming in his irises.

She stared at down at her languid fingers, surrounding the delicate china teacup. "I watched people die," she said finally. "Two people. Their names were Paul and Dana. They were archaeologists working on an island somewhere in the south pacific. They were studying the doors of a temple when the ground started to shake, they were fine with the quaking but then the temple doors came open and there was this–this–thing inside. I–I didn't really see the thing but at first it was like a light then it turned into a woman–At least I'm guessing the thing was a woman, it wasn't clothed and I'm fairly sure there were a couple assets that confirm gender. And...and then..." she screwed up her face, staring down into the chai, trying hard to remember exactly what had happened right before her eyes had shot open.

"She–It–smiled...Paul died first then the Dana girl. And then there was just this awful laughing...I swore I woke up in a pool of my own sweat right then." The young leopardess looked up at her friends, biting down on her full lower lip. "Do I sound weird?" she asked. "I mean does this dream–I–what do you think it's about? The clarity of it?"

There was a long poignant silence that spanned several minutes, with the only sound coming from Yugo tapping on the counter-top as he thought. Finally, it was the wolf who broke the sullen hush.

"I dunno, Shina," Yugo said with a roll of his muscular shoulders. "It sounds really...odd."

"Yeah, no kidding," Shina said, the two of them looked to Long.

"I think...that..." he began slowly, drumming his fingers methodically against black stone of the counter. "I think that maybe, Shina, this is one of those subconscious messages."

"Subconscious messages?" both she and Yugo questioned with raised brows. "Over what, Dr. Freud?"

"Don't yell at me but over your dad and–" Long began but was cut off by his rather agitated looking friend.

"Long, I seriously doubt it," Shina interjected coldly, her eyes shifting from the color of the sky to the color of ice.

"But it makes a lot of sense–just hear me out, dammit, you came to me for advice, remember?" Long said motioning for the now rigid limbed woman sitting across from him to calm down. "The man and woman, Dana and Paul, that's how you picture Gado and yourself. The monster, that's how you view Jenny. Now her killing the two of you, that's how you feel about her being around, like she's tearing you and your dad's relationship down...murdering it with a smile. I think that this dream is telling you need to just step back and stop hating them for what they're telling you Shina."

Long's eyes went soft, sympathetic even, and he reached over to pat her wrist quickly, he knew how she felt about being touched over emotional issues, and he offered her a light smile. "Shina, we know how you feel..."

"No, no you don't know," Shina snapped harshly, eyes ablaze as she jerked her hand back off the table, clenching her fists in her lap. "None of you knows how I feel in the slightest! Not you two, Not Al, not Mitsuko, and certainly not fucking Alan Gado or fucking Jenny Burtory knows how I fucking feel! Sacré!" She cursed before jumping off her chair stool.

Her friends watched her go, wincing as she stomped towards the door, throwing it open. Long and Yugo kept their eyes locked down on their plates, waiting for the door to slam. It never slammed however, and tiger and wolf looked up to see Shina had paused in the doorway.

"I'm–I'm sorry," she said softly, her voice and face far off and distant in a way neither Long or Yugo had witnessed. "I'm not angry with you guys. Not at all." She offered them an apologetic smile. "Sorry. I'll see you at work, Yugo. Long, I hope you enjoy the chai. Talk to you both later." And Shina disappeared through the entryway, leaving her ver worried best friends behind her. The two of them waited a good five minutes before either of them had the will to speak.

"Do you think we should call Gado?" Long asked the younger man without taking his eyes off his chai. "I know she doesn't want us to but..."

"No," Yugo answered quickly, but not too quickly as for Long to question his thoughts. "No, you know Shina...she...she's her own woman. She's got her problems and she'll fix 'em herself–or ignore them until they blow her head off like a bottle rocket. Interfering'll only piss her off at us and Gado and Jenny even more."

Long didn't say anything for a few moments then, "Dammit, they truly fouled her up, didn't they?"

Yugo swilled down the remains in his teacup. "Yep."

Interlude

Black eyes searched the red horizon, the round face of their owner was too young to carry so much weight. People had told Mana that most of her life but until then, she didn't think that any of it might be true.

"Mistress Mana...has it happened?" a mountain of a man by the name of Ryoho, asked from his place next to her.

The girl frowned, biting down hard onto her lower lip, enough so that she felt a salty tang within her mouth.

"Yes," Mana said, hands clenched tightly together. "Yes, they have convinced the Mother to let the EATEN ONE out of ITS cage."

"How long do we have, Priestess?" another voice asked, behind them stood a young woman with straight chestnut hair, one of her eyes as scarlet as the other was brown. Both eyes burned like fire itself as she stood, hands on her hips, ready to do whatever Mana suggested to stop the BEAST.

"We can't do it alone," the little priestess informed her. "We will need the aid of many, SHE has an immaculate guard."

"Xion included, no doubt," Nagi spat his name from her lips like it was venom.

"There will be more," Mana whispered, looking fearful for the first time in many years. "Many, many, more. SHE will call them from places far and wide, and they won't even have a say in it. SHE will take their very souls."

"Does anyone besides us sense it, Mistress?" Ryoho asked. "Or are we all there is now?"

"There's one more..." Mana said, familiar blue eyes and blonde hair passed through her mind's eye. "But she...she has much already on her mind."

"Shina," Nagi said, sensing her friend's name from Mana's aura. "It's Shina, isn't it?"

"We might have to get her attention," Mana said under her breath.