Haibane Renmei: C O R P O R A T I O N

by ArkNorth

Chapter Sixteen - Circumstances Beyond Their Control - How can a child not want to meet their father they never knew? Puruu seeks to find him. Rakka must deal with someone stuck where they can't seem to get out of. Nemu must face her new reality. Kinza must deal with the results of what he committed to.

9. Sinner's Rock

2011 REVISION

HAIBANE-RENMEI: CORPORATION

Chapter Nine

Sinner's Rock

By R. A. Stott

It was oblong shaped, sat roughly three to four feet tall, about four to five feet long, and seemed to have been dropped where it lay from some distance. It was hardly a natural location for this large chunk of marble. It showed signs of once being carved and that the side facing the ground had some sort of decoration on it. The top of a head stuck out of one end, and was firmly planted in the soil. It sat off the path some ways, and was easily missed by anyone walking by it. In fact, the only reason why it had been found was because someone climbed a tree.

"I tried it before," Setsu said as she watched the last of her feathers fall from her back. She held the remains of her halo in the palm of her hands. She brought it up to her face and looked through the hole.

"That one," she told herself. "That one will do fine."

She saw a tall oak towering over her in the nearby woods. It was a solitary tree, in a relative way, or at least she thought it was. When she approached it, she found that it was surrounded by old junk metal things. The shape or function that these things escaped her, but they also gave the tree a good unfettered clearing at its base. An excellent choice to toss one's self from – besides, all that metal would only help with the impact with the ground.

Six years prior, she had attempted the same feat from the wall next to the entrance to Old Home – the only way she thought she could relieve herself of the pain she felt everyone was putting her through for being the first Haibane to accuse her employer of molestation. Even though she had proven her case, she was now seen as a pariah. She could not find any work, and her Old Home sisters and brothers tormented her. So she climbed the old school's wall and attempted to see if she could make those wings on her back work – knowing that they would not.

What she did not know at that time was that a Haibane could not die in such a matter. Their body could have been smashed, but they would still survive and live to regret it. This began Setsu's fall from grace. At one time she was the epitome of a good Haibane – graceful, courteous, without a single sin to her record. She knew her dream and had a nearly flawless time at Old Home.

But then there was the job at the collections house, where the local taxes were brought. She kept excellent records, and was an expert accounting clerk. But then she found that her boss was keeping an eye on her – literally. At the trial, it was revealed that the building that she had been working in for nearly two years was rife with peep holes. Pictures were found of the women in the building in the drawer of the chief accountant, with a section strictly of Setsu dominating them all. This alone had not come forth until the man had started pressing himself upon the Haibane.

She gave her first complaint to those she lived with, her fellow Haibane at Old Home. Her senior Thido recommended that she tell the Town Watch about what this man was doing, but her fellow girls suggested against it, that it could cause trouble with the town and their home. She became confused and bewildered to what to do as the troubles persisted.

One day she finally managed to get enough courage up to bring the issue up with the human officers of the Town Watch. One told her she was imagining things. A second one actually attempted to report her to the Renmei for lying. It became worse when she found that the officer had actually told her employer of her 'story'. The man now made her life at the collections house hell. It was found that he also coerced others in the community to turn a blind eye and ear to the girl by using possible tax liens against them.

The only person who had not turned against her was Thido. He had been at Old Home longer than anyone before him. She trusted him and knew he could be talked to without being spoken down to, as many had been doing to her in the weeks this had been going on. But he was in a quandary seeing that even the Renmei seemed unable to do anything for her. He finally made the decision to make contact with the only other source of help a Haibane could get – The Corporation. The only problem was they did not exactly have a set schedule for appearing in Glie. But he knew one way to get a message to them.

Thido was known for his tinkering. He would repair things everywhere – from the doors in the dorms that would occasionally fall down from age, to an old toaster in a senior citizen's home in Glie. He was known as the Halo Handyman. One of his favorite pastimes was the repair and restoration of the clock in the bell tower at Old Home. It would keep him busy for days then confound him with some strange error as he would eat and sleep in the dusty room at the top of the building. It also gave him a view of the night time work being done out by the Hill of Winds by The Corporation's electric crews. So one night he broke curfew and met with the foreman.

At four in the morning, Setsu was awakened by a knock on the door to her room. When she opened it, she found Thido there with an elderly gentleman in a long trench coat and a beat up fedora. He showed her a badge with a leaf emblazoned on it.

"Good morning my dear," he said to her. "My name it Ptolemy… I'm with The Corporation. I understand that you are having a problem at your work."

True to his word, Mr. Ptolemy had indeed stopped the injustice that had befallen her. But in the process, another crashed in and buried her. No one wanted to deal with a Haibane who would report them to The Corporation. It was bad enough when you had to deal with the Town Watch and the Renmei, but The Corporation meant that you were in extremely serious trouble. It also did not help any that no one knew just where her old boss was sent for his crimes. In the end, she was banished by those who were supposed to watch over her, the town folk of Glie.

So now she found herself at the base of a large oak tree. She tossed the husk of her halo aside and watched it shatter. She obviously was no longer a Haibane, so maybe the rule about not dying when you jump off a tall place was finished as well.

It was a good and strong oak. It was a bit surprising to her that it was in such a fine shape, considering the location it was in within this field of rusty old metal things, some of which were dripping nasty black goo into the soil surrounding it. She found that she was able to climb it clear to the top without it swaying too badly. She peered about and found that she was still unable to see over the walls, as she knew it would be. She also saw that she would have to move to an outer branch if she wanted her fall to be successful. As it was, the tree itself would break her drop if she were to jump too far in towards the trunk. But the view was spectacular from her location, so she stayed for a few moments.

The junk yard was larger than she thought. It went clear to the wall it seemed, though it was not extremely wide. A few trees to the west of her blocked most of the view of the Scar's Village, though the waterfall by the Haibane-Renmei Temple was clearly visible. She could even just make out the bell tower down by Old Home. She sighed and started down to find a suitable lower arm of the tree that would suffice for her.

She shimmied out onto a good strong branch that stuck out the furthest in the upper section of the oak. It creaked a bit, but still, with her thin body, she felt it would hold her weight long enough.

Something caught her eye just as she made it out to the furthest end of the branch that she could get to. It was a white object off towards the road, hidden behind some bushes. The sun was illuminating it brightly, so she could not make it out clearly from her height. But really she did not care much about it only that its brightness was a bit blinding, and she wanted to see if the path to the ground was clear. She cupped her eyes with her right hand while trying to maintain her balance with her left on the branch. That was not a good idea, as she found herself spinning about the narrow shaft. She had quickly snagged it with her right hand, so now she was dangling roughly a hundred feet above whatever it was below her.

"Well, this is undignified," she cursed as she bounced up and down a few times. The white something was still shining in her eyes, and now she felt that dropping out of this tree had been a mistake. A quick look between her legs told her that she was not clear of the branches fully either. A sizable one full of leaves was directly below her. It did seem close to the ground, so it probably would fail to stop her fast enough.

"Maybe if I fling myself," she thought. She started making the branch she was holding bounce further. It sprung wider and deeper and higher until finally at its apex she let go. She found herself spinning and tumbling in midair momentarily – then got a face-full of the oak leaves as the branch returned and spanked her on the rebound. The force of the strike knocked her out.

Much to her surprise she woke up in a dark tube. Looking up it, she could see that a branch of the oak was directly over its round opening above her. Pieces of it were broken and she found some of them in with her. The tube seemed to curve away and was filled with brackish water.

Brackish slimy water… and it was all over her. She scrambled to get out.

She sat on the edge of the pipe. It took a moment for her to realize that she had a pain rolling up her back. She must have smacked it as she fell. She looked up at where she had dropped from and sighed. How the hell… damn!

She remembered the white object that had blinded her. She looked over and could now see it clearly – a large chunk of granite or marble or something… It was white. She gingerly climbed off the tube and limped over to it.

"Stupid rock!" she spat. At that moment a searing pain shot through her and made her wince. She bent over and supported herself with the stone.

"Maia! Maia! Come here my little Maia!"

Setsu stepped back from the rock, the pain still burning through her. Someone had been calling to… her? Who was this Maia?

The pain became nearly unbearable. She fell against the rock once more for support as her knees let out.

"Daddy!" a young girl's voice squeaked through her mind. Setsu saw two large hands reach down and swept her off her feet. She looked down and saw a large rotund man below her who was laughing and shaking her.

"How's my little cherub today?" he said to her as she squealed and giggled.

"I know this man," Setsu said to herself as she spun and sat down against the stone. The pain seemed less now as she did so. "Why should I know this man? What are these visions in my head? What is this rock?"

"It is forbidden knowledge," she heard. She opened her eyes and looked beside herself. A pair of sandaled feet greeted her. She tried to look up, but the pain returned. She then simply slumped over so she could see more clearly who was there.

"C-Communicator?" she asked. "What? What are you doing here?"

He turned and looked behind himself. There were two Toga there. He gestured to them with his sign language. They both nodded and trotted off.

"We knew of your coming to the Scar's Village," he told her as he bent down and held her wrist. "You have injured yourself… why?"

She began to sob. "I want this to end," she said. "I want this all to end!"

The old man shook his head. "It is not for you to decide," he told her as gently but as forcefully as possible. "And now you will be forced to live with the consequences."

"I've broken something, haven't I?" she asked through her tears and a returning pain in her back.

"One of the stubs of your wings seems to have been torn off," the Communicator reported. "And you have serious contusions to your spine."

"What? Now you're a damn doctor?!" she spat. She dropped her head into the grassy dirt as the anger melted again to tears. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm sorry…" she whispered as she felt herself loose any energy to remain conscious.

When she awoke, she found that she was in a small nearly empty white room with a single window, a single bed and a single Toga reading a book beside her. When he noticed that he was being looked at, he nodded to her and stood up. He placed the book on the chair he had been sitting in and left the room.

Setsu looked about. Other than the chair and the window, and a single light bulb in the center of the extremely far away ceiling the room seemed to be absolutely sterile and void of anything worth examining… save the book on the chair. But reaching for it seemed out of the question. Just the simple movement of her head to look at it on the chair had made her back scream at her. But she could still read the beat-up spine and she sighed.

"A Toga reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," she laughed. "Now I've seen everything."

It was a few hours until the Toga returned and removed the only thing remarkable in the room – the book. He left the room and Setsu remained alone again for another few hours. It was a bit more than infuriating to her, but it did give her time to run through some tests she began to do to herself. From the pain she was feeling in her back, she was worried that she may have done some further damage. She first moved her left arm. It swung up and she twiddled her fingers to her face. The movement of her arm above her head, though, made something pinch her. She felt that she had been bandaged, and that the other stub of wing was now missing. Just as well.

A successful launching of her right arm and finger movements was made, though she noticed that sensation was limited in her pinky and forefinger.

"Daddy! I hurt myself!"

"What the…" ran through her head. "Where did that memory come from?" she asked herself as she attempted to raise her left leg. The bed sheet slipped off as she found a cast surrounding the lower part of the extremity. She brought it down with a thud on the mattress which she quickly discerned was a mistake as a painful lightning bolt shot up both her leg and spine.

Once she no longer saw stars in her eyes, she brought her attention to her right leg. She could see bandages wrapping it above the ankle. She wiggled her toes, so that was a good sign. But for some reason, the rest of the leg refused to respond to her attempt to raise it.

"Great…" she grumbled. "What did I do to myself?" She looked at the door, half expecting a curt reply by that old fussbudget Communicator, but silence greeted her. She sighed and stared at the ceiling, which did not seem so far away now that she was fully awake.

A plinking sound caught her attention. It was coming from over by the window. She slowly turned her head so as to not inflict the jolt of pain through herself as she had before when she turned to look at it. A splatter of rain was starting to play off it. Soon the light tapping became a drum roll as the storm let loose with a torrent.

"It makes me feel all wet again," she said to herself.

"What? What did I say?"

Screeching…

"MOMMY!"

A sound of metal being twisted and wrenched – torn from mounted positions against its will – glass bursting into beads of oddly shaped crystal stones – more metal being rendered with a jolt – then silence – a vision of the sky becoming ground becoming stones becoming sky again – then water.

A woman was beside her, the side of her face seemingly pressed into a pillow.

"Honey…" she said as she reached for her.

Impact – water – darkness – cold…

Setsu felt a shiver. She wanted to sit up and draw the blanket over herself, but the pain that was shooting up her back prevented her from doing so. She managed to drag it back over herself and returned to staring at the ceiling.

"What are these visions I am seeing?" she whispered to herself. "Why am I seeing them?"

"Because you touched the stone, my dear," a reply came from the window.

"It's about time," she angrily grumbled then took it back as she looked over to see a tall red-skinned woman leaning against the wall.

"It's just like them to make an injured person wait, isn't it?" the woman smirked. "Well, such is the hierarchy here in the Temple."

"Th - the Temple?" Setsu gasped. "I'm in the Temple of the Haibane-Renmei? Why?"

The woman chuckled. "My dear, you've broken your back in two places! I'm even surprised that you can move your head, let alone move your arms… and almost all your legs. But seriously now, I doubt that they'd just drop you off in the Scar's Village in your condition. And the hospital in Glie wouldn't take a fallen Haibane, now would they?"

Setsu glared at the woman. "Who are you?" she asked flatly. The woman winked at her and held a finger to her mouth to hush her as she looked briefly towards the door.

"Let's just say that I'm an option!" With that she stepped backwards through the wall.

"Now I'm seeing things," Setsu mumbled as she planted her head into her pillow. The door creaked drawing her attention to it.

"I am sorry to have made you wait," the old Communicator said as he sat down in the chair beside her. "How do you feel?"

"Ignored, as usual," she replied. "So, how many pieces?"

The Communicator sat back. "Excuse me?"

"How many pieces is my back in?" she asked again, a great sense of anger in her voice now playing.

The Communicator tapped his cane on the floor. "As I told you before, you did indeed injure yourself in your fall. Presently, we think you have a single broken vertebrae…"

"Try two," she snapped back as she glared at the ceiling. She heard the cane tap again, though this time a bit harder.

There was an awkward moment of silence in the room. "So, you had a visitor," he finally stated more than asked.

"Did I?" she asked. "I'm not sure… since when do people walk through walls around here?"

The old man sighed. "Not often… but at times, they do… at least up here at the Temple."

Setsu's eyes grew wide as she slowly drew her head in his direction. "Are… you telling me that… I wasn't just seeing that?"

He grunted. "A tall red woman with long curly black hair?" he described. He saw the girl slightly nod in agreement. "We have had discussions before," he said. "She will be one of your options of what you may do in the near future."

"Options?" Setsu asked as she draped her right arm over her forehead.

He nodded. "Having fallen, you no longer have the option of flight," he stated. "But you do still have a few other options left to you while you are here at the Temple. And with the appearance of Miss Gabrella, I would say that some extra opportunities may have opened up for you."

"I don't understand," Setsu whimpered. "I thought I was through… A fallen Haibane must be banished… exiled… excommunicated…"

"Nothing so dramatic," he said, "and certainly not excommunication. You may be surprised by just how many in the Village go to the church there."

"Then what options are there for me then?" She was tired of this forced fed life that she had been given.

"You could go with Miss Gabrella for one," the Communicator said. "She would take you out of Glie and to her home."

"Out of Glie?" she asked now with a small amount of spite in her voice. "Do you mean over the wall?"

"No child, through…" he stated flatly. "There are two ways through the wall. The one in the heart of Glie - Through this gate you would be expelled back to the outside world, with no memory of what you were before coming here, and little memory of what it was like being here."

She covered her eyes. "Just enough to know that I was missing something, right? Nothing like being thrown out with the trash, is there?"

The Communicator ignored the spiteful barb and continued. "Once on the outside, you would pass your days until oblivion takes you. There is no destiny for such souls."

"How cheerful," she sniped.

He sighed. "I must tell you the truth, child. To do otherwise would be…"

She glared at him from under her arm. "Don't you DARE use that word right now!"

"Agreed," he told her. "On the opposite wall from the Northern Gate is another door. It is hidden from all except the demon, and only she may take you through it."

Setsu shuddered. "So it is true then?" she asked. "I had heard of rumors… of another door in the wall that would send you… send you to…"

"Oh just say it," Gabrella said as she stuck her head through the wall again. "Hades, Hell, or my favorite, THE BASEMENT… Who thought up that name, really?"

Setsu wanted to shrink under her covers, but her back kept her from doing so as the woman leaned over her in her bed. "The trouble is I'm not sure if we really want her either. Up until, well… you know what…" - She drew her finger through the air showing the trajectory of Setsu's flight off the Old Home's wall – "…she was one of the best you had. She still is too good for us."

The Communicator pounded his staff on the hard floor causing the woman to wince. "That will be all, demon," he barked.

"Don't give me that, you old myopic codger!" she hissed back. "I'm just giving it to you as I see it! She wouldn't last a day down there, and you know how my father is about that!" She quickly turned to the girl and added, "Nothing personal kid… It's just the way it is!"

"I'm… I'm not even good enough for hell?" Setsu whimpered through her blanket.

"No, no," the Communicator said to settle her. "She is saying that you are too good." He sat back and looked down. "It is a quandary, but that does leave you with only one other option other than exile out the main gate… life in the Scar's Village."

"I can stay? Here?" she asked with a touch of fear. "The people… they… the people…"

"The people of Glie would no longer know you, since you would no longer be allowed into town," he reminded her. "Those sent to the village are not allowed to venture past the Gideon Span."

"Which gives me a great idea," Gabrella interjected as she clapped her hands and grinned at the old man. "Aren't you in need of… a sister?"

The Communicator stood up. Setsu was thinking he was about to hit the demon with his cane, but he took a step back instead, his mono-eye almost glaring at the woman. He turned away and stalked about the far end of the room for a moment. He finally stopped and looked back at the girl in the bed.

"She does state a possible truth," he sighed. "There is a third option for you to decide upon. It would be difficult, but you do represent the correct age to start the position… you would require the permission of the Haibane-Renmei… the position of Greeter is currently open. You could become that."

"Greeter?" she asked as a twinge of pain struck her. "What is a greeter?" She found Gabrella straightening her bed coverings and tucking her in a bit.

"Actually the position's name is Communicator/Greeter of the Flightless," she told her in a near whisper. "You can see why they shortened it to just Greeter." She stopped and pulled away from her when she found the head of the Communicator's staff between herself and the bedridden girl.

"Hey! Hey!" they heard from the doorway. "That will be quite enough of that around my patient!" The demon woman and the Communicator stood back. Gabrella started whistling at the ceiling.

"This is your doctor, and the man who will be operating on your back, Dr. Hippocrates," the Communicator introduced. The man at the doorway nodded towards her as he dragged in a rather heavy looking case with a singed corner.

"Did Jester get you as you were coming in?" Gabrella giggled as the scorch mark gave off a slight whiff of smoke. The doctor tapped it again to make sure it was out.

"Is there a specific reason why he has to do that?" he asked as he drew out of the bag some equipment and a stethoscope. "Or is he just fixated on trying to torch something?"

Gabrella shrugged. "He's a pyro, what can I say?"

Setsu looked at the tall man with a lanky face and swept back blond hair. "Are you from the hospital in Glie?" she asked him as he placed the cold end of the stethoscope on her chest.

"Not me kiddo," he replied as he shook a thermometer and stuck it under her tongue. He then wrapped her arm with a sphygmomanometer and started to check her blood pressure. "I'm the chief surgeon from The Corporation. So, have you figured out a new name for yourself yet?"

Setsu looked about confused. "N-name? My name is Setsu," she stated.

"That is your Haibane name," the Communicator noted. "Now that you are no longer one, you must choose another one… a sinner's name."

"Hades, must you always be so blunt?" Gabrella remarked as she leaned against the wall.

"It's the nature of his job," the doctor said noting his patient's readings in a little book. "You must be Gabrella," he added and reached over to shake her hand. "Well, this does save time having you both here. Has any decision been made yet on where she will be?"

"We just completed giving her the options open for her," the old man said. He tapped his cane lightly as he turned towards the door. "We have given her three choices to choose from."

The doctor looked at the two standing around the bed. "Only three? I was under the assumption that there were four options available." He watched Gabrella then bow to him and back through the wall. "I see… Well then, as soon as we have a decision the sooner I will be able to get to work."

"Get to work?" Setsu complained. "Excuse me but please stop talking about me as if I'm not even in this room! What work doctor?"

He looked down on her. "Plain and simple and to the point then," he agreed. "If I don't operate, you will soon loose all feeling and movement in your legs."

She felt a wave of fear flow through her. "You make it sound like there was an option not to."

He gestured towards the departed demon. "Well, if Gabrella had allowed you the option of going with her, then yes, I would have had that option as well. There are two directions where an injury like yours would not have mattered – going up or going down. But since up is out of the question here, and going down has quite literally bowed out, then it is my duty to make you as comfortable as possible while you remain here, or leave through the town's gate." He looked over at the old man by the door. "Was the third option told to her?"

The question was answered by a hard clacking of the cane to the floor. "The demon told her," he grumbled. He looked up just as he found the doctor rapping his notebook off his forehead.

"Unbiased son," he told the Communicator, which shocked Setsu that someone could be so informal with the old man, let alone called him son. "You must remain unbiased. Yes you should direct them towards the pearly gates as much as possible, but if the case arises where it is impossible, then we must agree to see to it that the best care is provided."

He saw the Communicator start to get down on one knee which bothered him. "No, don't do that," the doctor griped as he bent down to pick him up. "I am not the Renmei – not by a long shot." He then looked back at Setsu. "I am going to send in a colleague of mine to explain to you your options." He looked back at the old man and added, "I may have her stop in on you as well – give you an update on your mission and such."

"But I…" he started and then found a hand held up.

"Doctor's orders," he was told bluntly. "Heck, I might have her do a complete diagnostic report on the entire Renmei hierarchy… if there's anyone left up there that is… I think they might need a tune-up." He zipped his bag closed and rubbed the head of the bewildered girl in the bed. "Take care, kiddo."

"Excuse me doctor," Setsu meekly asked, "I thought that being sin-bound meant that you had only one option open to you."

"Kiddo, there are always options," he replied as he dropped his hat back on his head. "Never doubt that. The trouble is, sometimes one bad option only leads to another. But there's no need to worry… the three that I see for you are survivable. They aren't easy, not by a long shot. Iris will be here in the morning. She will be able to describe them better than I will. She will also inform you when I will be scheduling your operation. I will see you soon kiddo." The door quickly swung shut leaving a perplexed girl in bed behind it.

"Is he gone?" Gabrella asked from the wall. The Communicator whacked it with his cane making her vanish.

Most of that night was stormy outside the room. Setsu could not sleep, or at least she thought she could not. She was shocked awake with the light coming in the window late in the morning by the sudden opening of her door. The fright caused all of her wounds to sting and her back to cramp up. She suddenly found her right leg, which she could not move that previous day, snap and twitch convulsively. It took a moment for her to settle everything down and gather up her senses. She looked at the doorway and stared.

A rather tall woman in a gray pinstriped business suit was standing there looking down on her. Her blond hair was swirled up in a tight bundle on the back of her head, and she wore a chic rectangular pair of glasses. The totally-out-of-place-to-her-surroundings look to her stunned Setsu.

"Ow," the bedridden girl said. It was all she could muster at that point.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry!" the woman suddenly broke. "Did I startle you?" She then proceeded to bang and crash a large black rolling tote into the room with her. With a room that had only the bed, a chair, a window and the door, she seemed quite able to hit them all with this block-on-wheels.

"Iris, you could wake the entire Trojan Army with all that racket you're making!" a familiar voice squawked at her from outside the room. "Hey little lady… how are you doing?" Ptolemy asked from the doorway.

Setsu first smiled at the man who had helped her those years prior before she had become sin-bound. But then she turned away and looked at the window. "Okay," she whispered. "W-what brings you up to the temple?"

She winced when he said "You mostly. I have business with Com-One, and I need to also take a few alignment readings, but otherwise I'm here to see how you are doing. Are you sure you're just 'okay' child?"

She shook a bit as she began to cry, which sent shooting pains up her spine, but she did not care. "No," she finally admitted. "But why should you care?"

She felt a hand touch her head. "Child, I will always care," he told her. "Wings or no wings, I will always care for my little boppet. You know that."

She looked back at the old man and grabbed his arm and sobbed into his hand. "I'm tired... I'm so very tired... I want to just go away!"

"How's my little boppet today?"

She looked up from the computer monitor she had been staring at to the man beside her and smiled. "Oh, hello Uncle Claudius! I didn't hear you come in!"

"So what's got you cooped up in here?" he asked the girl seated at the keyboard. "Your sisters were wondering if you wanted to play with them."

She reached over and tapped the monitor she had been looking at when he came in. "I'm reading an RPG story someone posted on this web site," she said. He bent down and read over her shoulder. "I was thinking of joining in."

Uncle Claudius cocked his head as he read. "Lady Bloodeagle?" he asked.

She giggled. "Yea, she's a reformed vampire! Isn't she neat?"

Setsu gasped as she clutched at the arm she held in her hands, wrenched from her vision by a sharp pain in her back. She looked up at Ptolemy with wide-opened eyes.

"Where... who was..." she asked. "What are these... memories I am seeing Uncle Claudius?"

The scientist sat in the chair beside the bed and looked closely at her. "Memories?" he asked. "Exactly what memories would these be?"

She slung her left arm over her head covering her eyes. "I don't know," she moaned as she attempted to shake her head. "I see this girl... first she was a toddler with this huge man... then I saw her just now as a teenager…"

She felt the old man clutch her hand a bit tighter. "What else?" he asked her. "Do you remember anything else?"

She noticed the oddly concerned expression on Ptolemy. "Only snippets... but, I could have sworn that you were there."

"Yes, I kind of guessed," she heard him mumble. "Anything else?"

Setsu thought. The room changed. A different bed – a large window now filled the far wall with drapes that stood out from the breeze… a salty cool breeze… Dolls festooned a library, and posters covered a wall beside the window. A closet of clothes was next to the pictures - its contents nearly spilling out its partly opened door. Beside it was a floor-to-ceiling mirror. She stepped before it and examined the girl who greeted her.

'Well now, who are you?' Setsu and the image both wondered. "I see a teenage girl," she told those in the room with her. "She is almost my size… she wears oval glasses, and has her dark brown hair is braided. Uncle Claudius, who is she?"

Setsu's vision faded as the pressure on her hand grew a bit. She blinked and looked over at the scientist, and found him looking over at the woman on the opposite side of the bed from himself. She seemed stunned by what she had heard. She looked down on her and asked, "Do you know this girl's name?"

"Maia," Setsu said outright, getting her hand nearly crushed by Ptolemy. "Ow, Uncle, what's the matter?"

Ptolemy released her hand when he finally realized what he was doing. "Oh, I'm sorry dear," he said as he gathered his wits. "It's just…"

Iris cleared her throat cutting the scientist off. "Confirmation first Professor," she whispered. He scowled at her, but nodded. He looked down on Setsu and sighed.

"I need more data," he told her.

"Puget Sound," Setsu reported back nearly causing the man to jump out of the chair. He looked at her, then the end of the bed, then stood up and proceeded to parade about the room. He seemed to be in deep thought within himself.

"This is supposed to be impossible… she isn't supposed… how… why… how is this possible? She looks like… no… no…" he pondered to himself as he paced. He then snapped his fingers loudly. "Keep with the interview," he told Iris as he picked up his jacket and headed for the door. "I'll be back boppet!"

The room became very quiet for a moment. Setsu finally broke it by asking, "Okay, are you going to tell me what that was all about, or am I going to have to guess?"

Iris adjusted her glasses and straightened her seating position. "I am not allowed to say," she told her in as proper and business like as possible. "Now then, why don't we get started?"

"I'm going to have to guess, aren't I?"

Iris cleared her throat again. "Now then," she continued as she produced a series of papers and forms, "you are being given three distinct choices since you are no longer a Haibane…"

Setsu saw she was not going to get a straight answer out of this one. "Miss Iris, just who or what are you?" she asked bluntly. The woman held the papers up and blinked at her.

"Me?" she asked as if it boggled her a moment. "I'm an HHR Specialist!"

Setsu bent her head as much as she dared. "HHR?" she asked.

Iris smiled and became a bit too perky for Setsu to stand. "Uh huh! Human and Haibane Resources! It's my job to help place people in jobs that fit their skill level. It is also my job to assist a select few fallen Haibane with their final determination and placement within our society and community. Now, as I said, you have been given three possible positions that you may take. It is my job here to describe these positions to you, so let us start with this one..." She handed her one of the pages she had pulled out of her case.

"This first position is that of a Defrocked Refugee," she told her as if it were a paying job. "This position can be a choice position - in other words, you could choose this right away if you wish - or it can be handed down as a judgment of the Haibane-Renmei. A Defrocked Refugee is an expelled citizen, be it self or censured, who is stripped of their memory and knowledge of their time within the holy site, in this case, the town of Guri/Glie, and sent beyond the wall to the land of man where they shall live out their life. Truth be told, there have been a few who were sent off this way and became quite successful in the outside world - but as noted, only a few."

"Sounds delightful," Setsu said as she dropped the sheet. "What is the next choice?"

Iris cleared her throat as she handed her the next page, "The second position is that of a Defrocked Villager. Given ex-Haibane would be allowed a two week grace period to settle into a provided shelter within the holy site's Scar's Village, again in this case, Guri/Glie. Upon the completion of this time allotment, the tenant would then be provided the opportunity of employment within the Village as a permanent resident, pro tem..."

Setsu looked over the sheet of paper she held at the woman. "Permanent resident, pro tem?" she asked her. "Isn't that contrary to one another?"

She looked up at her classmates and cleared her throat as she began to read her report. "In the United States Senate, the vice president resides as its president, and is empowered with the duty of tie-breaker for Senate votes. Since this is a rare situation, the vice president does not normally attend the Senate. At these times, the Senate will select within themselves a President Pro-Tempore who shall supervise..."

Setsu shook her head slightly and focused on the document in her hand. Whoever this girl was, her memories were sometimes bothersome.

Iris looked at the copy of the sheet she had and adjusted her glasses. "Well that's the way it's written, and the next section does explain why,"

Setsu snapped her sheet in perplexed anger at the language it was using. "A temporary permanent resident is an impossibility!" she complained.

Iris sighed and scanned her sheet to refresh her thoughts. "Well, here is what it means... The resident shall be supervised and watched over by the Renmei and Toga/Town Watch. Merits and/or demerits shall be tallied for the resident by these officials. Too many demerits or any severe infractions may result in the termination of resident status. If an official censure is brought down upon the resident by the Haibane-Renmei, the resident shall be reclassified a Refugee, and given two days to prepare for expulsion from the holy site, said Guri/Glie."

"Well that sounds harsh," Setsu grumbled. "Why are they so tough on us ex-Haibane?"

"Those in the Scar's Village are not all defrocked Haibane, dear," Iris noted as she tapped her glasses up her nose. "The humans there as well are judged in very much the same way as the Haibane, and can also be listed as a refugee. The only difference is that they do not loose their memory when being cast out."

"That's not fair!" Setsu complained. "Why do they get to keep their memories, and we loose ours?"

Iris removed her glasses. "Are you sure you mean that?" she asked the girl. "An ex-Haibane gets to start their lives over - COMPLETELY. A human has to live with the memory of what and all they left behind. Before you judge, you might want to consider this."

Setsu pouted a moment. "And what happens to a Haibane when they grow old on the outside? What happens when they die?"

Iris sat up and looked down on a pad she was clutching in her lap. "Umm... that's handled by a different department," she said as she started to shuffle some papers.

"Well, if I can't have a Day of Flight, and the... umm... basement has rejected me..." Setsu glared at the ceiling as she dropped her arms with the page down onto her belly and tore it in two. "There's no hope for me, is there?"

Iris seemed to not know whether to comfort the girl or fiddle with her papers. "Well... honestly... I mean, you shouldn't look at it that..."

"THERE IS NO FUTURE FOR ME!" Setsu exploded. "Not for ME, not for my SOUL, not here, there or anywhere! Don't you see that? Don't you see that when I die, I will simply disappear? That there will be no continuation?"

Maia stood before her classmates and swallowed as she opened the old book to its very first line.

"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness... Oh!"

She watched as a couple of small pieces of paper fell out of the old Bible. She looked up at the Sunday School teacher and gave her a worried smile.

"I'm sorry, Miss Katherine," she nervously said as she gathered the stray pieces. "This is an old family Bible, and my late Aunt used to stuff it full of little newspaper clippings."

"Divine providence, then Maia," the teacher said. "Read them aloud to see if they give you guidance and meaning."

She nervously gathered the two yellow-brown scraps of newsprint. The first one was nearly crumbling in her hands.

"Difficulties - What if the road be long, the goal is richer for the struggle you have made." She shuffled to the next slip.

"To Days of Victory - Pass not from me, oh days lived through..."

"...in beauty and in strength, stay where my mind can ever reach your gorgeous golden length."

Iris blinked at her. First she was exploding like a volcano in heat, now she was quoting prose. "That was beautiful," she told Setsu.

The girl stared at the ceiling. "Its something I read once," she said. She looked at the torn paper in her hands and put them aside. "That's not for me... what's this third option?"

Iris held the sheet to her chest as if she did not want it torn in two as well. "Umm, well the third option is this," she told her as she handed her the paper. "Communicator/Greeter of the Flightless... sounds lovely... The GoF is the lowest ranking authority within the Haibane-Renmei sanctioning body, and is stationed within the Scar's Village as the direct contact person for the residents. This requires that the employed must adhere to the rules and laws of the Haibane-Renmei - the employed will be trained on the proper use and operations of the Mono-Eye..."

"Mono-Eye?" Setsu interrupted her. "Do you mean that goofy looking mask the Communicator wears?"

Iris scowled at her. "That goofy mask, as you put it, would be your mark of authority, and is a highly sophisticated piece of equipment required by communicators to be able to 'see' through doubt and lies. It informs the wearer and advises them. Unlike the true Washi though, the GoF is not required to wear the mask at all times."

"That's odd," Setsu said as she scanned over the paper she held looking for any reference to the mask. "I wonder why that is."

"The Mono-Eye the Communicator uses serves two functions," Iris said as she too scanned her paper to find where she left off. "The first is of course as the wearer's information assistant. The second is to hide the face of the communicator. During negotiations, it prevents the other side of the discussion from seeing the emotions of the Washi."

"Heh," Setsu half-laughed. "That doesn't always work out right, does it? What with the way he taps that stick of his..."

Iris nudged on her glasses again and nodded. "He has been advised about that, yes," she sighed under her breath. "But unlike the Communicator, the GoF would not be required to pass judgments or negotiate with outside sources, such as on Market Day or with The Corporation or any higher authorities."

Setsu looked at her with a confused expression. "There are higher authorities than The Corporation?"

"There are always higher authorities to deal with, even over The Corporation," Iris explained. "But normally, The Corporation is the highest group that the Communicator has to deal with other than the Haibane-Renmei council itself."

"Then what about the GoF?" Setsu asked.

Iris straightened out her copy of the paper. "The highest person the GoF needs to deal with is the Communicator. The GoF works as the information gatherer for Washi, and is also responsible for explaining the rulings of the Renmei to the other villagers."

Setsu covered her head with the paper. "That sounds almost like the GoF is the Communicator's enforcer."

"Yes and no," Iris said, cocking her head to one side. "Representative and assistant are still better descriptions. The position is demanding though. The candidate would be required to be able to handle the stress and strain of dealing with those who are traumatized, depressed, even suicidal..." She glanced down at the girl in the bed and coughed. "Sorry..."

"A girl from the other group jumped off the lighthouse tower?" Maia asked her friend as she slurped on her soda during the school trip. "And she survived?"

"That's what they said," the boy beside her replied as they watched the rescue personnel working from a distance. "They say that the updraft blew her against the side of the tower and caused her to slide down it, even through she was going face-first. She's got to be a mess."

"Maia!" she heard. She saw a girl running through the gathered crowd waving at her as she tried to part the people away. "Maia! Maia, come quickly!"

"What is it Sara?" she asked her frantic friend.

"The girl who jumped," she started crying. "It's was your sister Stephanie!"

Her drink and sandwich fell to the ground as the world turned into a blurry and slowed shaky universe. The people between her and the rescue site seemed to become a wall that were keeping her from getting to see if what her friend had said was true. She attempted to move between them, but found only uncaring statues blocking all attempts. Finally, after she was nearly in a panic, a hand grabbed hers and began dragging her towards the incident, parting the unmovable mass. She looked up the arm and saw it was a familiar adult.

"Mr. Montgomery!" she exclaimed to Sara's father and one of the chaperones for the trip. He also happened to be a police officer, so he seemed to know how to part crowds. "What's going on?" As they got up to a yellow tape boundary, he spun and bent down to face her.

"I need you to be brave," he told her as he lifted the tape and shooed her under it. "Where are your parents?"

"They're probably both at work," she said as she pulled out a small cell phone and started zipping through its numbers listings. "There." She handed the device to the officer so that he could use it.

"Well you're a cool one under pressure," he noted as he took the phone from her.

"Well, there's no sense in panicking," she lied to herself as she felt her stomach churn. "Is she alive? Was it Steph...?"

She saw her answer when the stretcher with the young girl was lifted up by the paramedics. She had not taken the header as rumored, but instead had been slammed against the lighthouse with her back where she then hit the base of the tower feet first. The major damage had been done to the girl's lower extremities, so her face made it easy for Maia to verify it was indeed her little sister. Her knees buckled.

"NO!" she screamed. Mr. Montgomery gathered her up and escorted her to a patrol car. They followed the ambulance out of the park as it headed to a nearby airport where a helicopter was waiting. The officer driving relayed her parent's phone numbers to his dispatcher as she and Mr. Montgomery sat in the rear of the car.

"It's probably that Orion boy's fault," she accused aloud while staring at her feet, "the jerk! He's been pestering and chasing after us girls for months."

"I thought your folks had put a restraining order on him," Montgomery said as he looked down at her.

"Three of us go to the same school as he does - it's kind of hard to avoid him!" She grabbed her knees and shivered. "Stephanie always tried to hide, but she always got the worst of that kid."

It began to rain as they turned into the airport's drive.

"You know, I never contemplated suicide until I came here," Setsu said as she examined the paper in her hands. She glanced over at The Corporation HHR beside her and saw a shocked look on her face. She smiled and returned to the sheet.

"I'll take it..." she said. "Get me fixed up."

---

Ptolemy and the Communicator examined the large white chunk of marble granite in the junk yard. "This is a piece of the old Science Ministry facade," the professor said as he probed around it. He turned and looked towards the western wall. "That used to be over that way."

The Communicator stood away from the stone and avoided any contact with it. "We are considering destroying it," he told his friend.

"I wouldn't try it," Ptolemy replied. "I doubt that anyone from here, be they human or Haibane, could get anywhere near this thing without being affected - plus the fact that this is essential to the continued health or this holy site. This is the electromagnetic center of Glie."

The Communicator looked about. "This is hardly the center of Guri," he noted.

Ptolemy looked at a compass he held out in his hand. The arrow always pointed at the stone no matter where he stood around it. "Well, that doesn't matter. The electromagnetic center does not have to be at the center of the world. Just look at the Earth's own. It's near, but not at the North Pole, and it's been known to move. This one, though, can not be removed or it would unbalance this Holy Site."

"Unbalance? In what way?"

Ptolemy whistled and shook his head. "Name it - first thing we would probably notice would be landings going anywhere they pleased. We'd probably find controlling Glie's status within the Jewels a hassle, which would mean the Toga would not be able to come and go through the town gate portage. Eventually even The Corporation links through the Demon's Gates would break, leaving the Guri Plate to escape the confines of the Jewels to be spun off heaven knows where!"

"I see," the Communicator grumbled as he stared at the white block. "Is there a suitable replacement that can be installed in its place?"

Ptolemy gave him a wary look. "Possibly, but I'd be more inclined to say no. It is something we will have to look into. You see, this could be what is responsible for the Haibane to loose their memories of their previous lives as well."

"Do all of the other holy sites have one of these... markers?" Washi asked.

"Every one of them," Ptolemy stated. "But this is only the second time where a Haibane, or a former Haibane, has found it first and touched it - And of all the children to have done so!" He lowered and shook his head.

"Then I take it that the rumor is true," the Communicator said as he tapped him on his shoulder with his staff. "You know who this child was."

He nodded. "You remember about seven years ago now when there was a week you could not contact The Corporation?" he asked him. "It was the week that you complained to me that all hell was breaking loose out here and there seemed to be no support being done?"

The Communicator crossed his arms and leaned against the oak tree. "Yes, I seem to remember that particular week."

Ptolemy wiped his head with a handkerchief he had in his pocket. "That was two weeks that we could have lived without in The Corporation," he said as he sat down beside Washi at the base of the oak. "First, one of Director Plato's daughters tried to commit suicide while on a class trip to Cape Disappointment, Washington when she jumped from the lighthouse there. She somehow survived her attempt, but the nearest hospital was in Astoria, Oregon. And once she arrived there, she was so bad off that she could not be moved."

"What are you two talking about Columbia Memorial for?" they heard. They looked over at the entrance to the junk yard and saw Doc Hipp leaning against some sort of vehicle.

"I was telling my brother here about the events of seven years ago," Ptolemy said as he patted the Communicator on the shoulder.

Hipp squirreled up his face as he lit a cigarette and thought about seven years prior and what tied it to that particular hospital. It then dawned on him and he got an even quirkier look.

"Why?" he asked loudly as he came over and sat on a metal box near the two men.

"I'll get to it," Ptolemy said. "Anyway, which one was it...? Alison? Celia?"

"Stephanie," the doctor said as he pulled an organizer out of his pocket. "That reminds me, I have to schedule her in for a checkup this week. The boss may have disowned her, but she is still family."

"Plato disowned his own daughter?" Washi asked. "The poor child, just when she needed the support..."

"That wasn't when he disowned her," Hipp said between puffs.

Ptolemy stood up and circled the tree. "No, it wasn't," he agreed. "For the next week, Plato's wife, Leda, drove the 160 miles from their home in Gig Harbor down to Astoria daily. On the third trip of the second week though, she never got back. A lumber truck sideswiped her SUV and sent her and her oldest daughter Maia into Puget Sound, where they both drowned."

"Ah," the Communicator said. "This was near mid-week, correct?"

Ptolemy nodded as he pointed at him. "The Shower of Angels you reported then, correct." He saw that Hipp was now fully confused.

"What are you saying?" the doctor asked through a long drag on the burning weed. Ptolemy came over and patted him on the shoulder.

"Hipp old buddy," he said with a smirk, "your patient told me that her name was actually Maia."

The doctor spat his cigarette out. "What?! She doesn't even look like Maia!"

"It is not uncommon for the Haibane to appear different to what they looked like prior to coming here," Ptolemy noted. "Just because Setsu is blonde with blue eyes doesn't mean she could have been Maia with brown eyes and brunette."

"I'm never going to figure these places out," Hipp grumbled as he picked up his lost cigarette. "Yet we have Adam up in Tripoli who looks exactly like my friend's son Toby, who also died in an auto accident. Is there a way to explain that?"

"There isn't," Ptolemy said as he sat back down. "It's simply the nature of this place we created. As for this stone, we can't destroy it, but we can make it safer for the citizens here."

Hipp looked back at the white chunk of building. "Why? What did you find here?"

Ptolemy nodded towards it. "Setsu found it... this holy site's Sinner's Rock."

---

Plato sat at his desk contemplating a photograph of his family that was sitting on the corner. Ptolemy and Iris sat across from him having just finished with their report on the situation.

"You feel that she will continue to regain her memory?" he asked his chief scientist.

"Without a doubt," Ptolemy answered him. "We all saw the example of what happened in Kanto when their Washi touched their stone... she eventually remembered her entire life outside the walls..."

"...And she attempted to commit suicide because it drove her mad," Plato finished.

"I doubt Setsu will do that," Iris interjected. "She seems to have settled with the knowledge of it all. She seems eager to take on her new job in the Scar's Village."

The director turned towards the window behind himself. "Why did we not know sooner of her pre-integration source?" he asked.

"She was brought in during the Shower of Angels event seven years ago, Aris," Ptolemy carefully explained. "There were so many landings that week that we never could discern right where most of them originated from because of all the crossed paths."

"Then the memory Setsu has may not be hers but simply one obtained from the rock?" Plato asked looking back.

Ptolemy scrunched his face and shook his head no. "I doubt that. In the Kanto Holy Site case, the Communicator there regained her own memories. Even though it is possible for her to acquire those memories from another person, I really don't think that is what happened here. To make sure about it though, I'm having Hipp run a few tests after he's completed with his operation on her to see if we can confirm her statements."

Plato leaned back in his chair. "What sort of tests? Not anything that could get us in trouble, I assume?"

Ptolemy scratched his ear. "Well, there's only one test that would determine whether or not she is truly your daughter, and since both the attic and the basement have waved claims on her, they've pretty much given up all rights to complain if I do a DNA scan on her. DNA is the only remaining factor that remains the same between this world and the Holy Sites."

"And what of Glie's Sinner's Rock?"

Ptolemy opened a folder and flipped a page. "Well, its location helps us a bit, being in the old military junk yard. If all works out, we won't have to open the main gate like we did in the other sites to get our equipment in there. I've scheduled the engineer group four to enter tonight to see if they can salvage a backhoe and a crane. If successful, group two will then enter and move the core unit to a new location and bury it. I'll then have to reenter Glie and get new injector readings to calibrate our trajectories."

---

A wet and dreary day greeted Maia the morning she was going to see Stephanie for the first time since the accident. She looked across the room from her and thought she saw someone seated in her chair by her vanity. She jumped a bit with the thought that someone was in the room with her. She fumbled with her glasses as she sat upright in her bed and looked back at the seat.

A sweater lay draped over its back, but no one was there. She released her breath and settle back in the bed with a thud.

Setsu opened her eyes and looked at her feet. It had been two months since the operation and she had finally been allowed to sleep on her back. It had been the first restful night's sleep she had in a while, yet that last dream she had startled her awake making her spine shout at her. Now there was some large man seated at the foot of her bed staring at her.

"Hello daddy," she said with a slight smile. "What brings you here to the dark side?"

"My little cherub, what else?" the man said with a tear rolling down his cheek. "How are you honey?"

She looked at the ceiling and huffed. "Intact again," she coldly stated. "So, I take it that Uncle Claudius confirmed it? I am the reincarnation of your daughter here in Glie?"

He shook his head. "No."

Setsu looked down at the man at the foot of her bed. "No? But..."

"And yes..." he added with a lopsided smile. He sighed and leaned over to rest on the foot board of the bed. "You look just like her too as a young lady... It's not surprising that Claudius did not recognize you at first… I should have come to Glie sooner."

Setsu glared at him with confusion swelling in her mind.

Spring on a field of golden wheat - She spun and began to run through it as she saw a young boy and another girl giggling ahead of herself dashing away towards a huge red barn. The sun nearly blinded her as it reflected off the shiny chrome side of the newly installed metal silo that stood next to the building. She ran up to it and saw her reflection.

She saw herself. Not the girl she had been seeing - not Maia - but a tall blond, blue-eyed and tan farm girl in her early teens.

"Leda! You're it!" the girl and boy were calling to her as they scampered into the barn to hide from their big sister. She reached her arm out to follow.

Water - She was now in water, and her head was pressed into a rough and dusty pillow that was deflating quickly. She was looking at a terrified face beside her in the seat of a vehicle that she could also see was rapidly filling.

"Honey!" she called out as she reached for the girl beside her. A hand took hers.

Setsu looked at the hand in hers. She followed the arm it was attached to back to the face of the man.

"Honey?" she repeated in a whispered, not really meaning it in the way it had come out. "Oh my god... what happened?"

Plato's lip quivered a bit as he slid his chair behind himself so that he could be beside her as they held hands. "I lost you both that night," he told her.

"What makes you think you got either of them back?" Setsu snapped as she removed her hand from his. She stared at him briefly. "So, I have the appearance of your late wife?"

Plato nodded.

"And the memory of your daughter... what a joke!" She rolled to face the window. "This 'Sinner's Rock' has a warped sense of humor!" She watched the rain pelt the glass.

The water was rushing quickly up her legs and chest as she felt her mother struggle to release her seatbelt. When she looked back over at the woman beside her, she could see her golden hair floating and waving in the water as she struggled with the clasp. She was gesturing for her to try her door.

Maia pulled on its handle. The pressure outside it was still holding it shut, and the window refused to lower. It was getting harder to concentrate. She gave the door a hard tug. It finally opened as the outside pressure had compensated with the interior of the vehicle. But then they struck the bottom, and the door shut again.

The world went black. She gave one last attempt to breathe.

She opened her eyes. She was still in water... or at least something like water. It seemed thick to the touch as she slid her fingertips together in the mire. Whatever the stuff was, she seemed to be able to breathe it. She looked around and found herself within a world of fuzzy pink and blue strands that hung all around her. She seemed to be floating within this strange seaweed.

There was a pounding. Her ears hurt. It was as if someone had taken the world she now found herself in and squeezed it hard. It struck again, and again. Now she heard cracking above her. She tried to swim up to it, but found she could only move side to side. Something inside her was telling her that she had to try and get out of this strange place. She reached the nearest wall she could find and started pounding on it.

Another crack was heard from above. Suddenly the liquid she was in seemed to loosen up. It was now just water! She gagged, unable to breathe this new fluid she was in. She tried to use the strands of fiber around her to climb up towards the breaks she could now clearly see above her, but found they had no strength and merely yanked down and tangled her. She let out with a frothy scream.

Setsu blinked as she rolled back and stared at the ceiling again. "Oh god... the old cabin in the western woods near the wall.

Plato looked at her confused. "You mean the old Haibane cabin we closed down a few years ago?"

She nodded. "If you seek answers, you'll check the back storage area."

---

Two men, looking like astronauts, unlocked The Corporate Seal that had been placed on the door of the cabin. Once used as the third Haibane hosting site in Glie, the building had been abandoned and replaced because of it proximity to the wall was interfering with the landings of the seedlings. The old floors creaked as they traversed the large living room area and headed for the back towards the kitchen and storage.

They slowly opened the larder and held out a scanning probe. "My god, look at that..." the first man said.

The cocoon was black, not the gray-white it would normally be. The second man attempted to reach out and touch it, but the first stopped him and shook his head within his helmet.

"The tensile strength of that thing is only about that of wet papier-máché... it's amazing that it held all that water all these years."

"'Bet it smells nice," the other man stated as he knocked on his helmet. He pressed a button on the back of his gloved right hand. "Search One to base..."

"Base One, go ahead," he heard reply.

"Janice, we have confirmation of a dead cocoon here," he said, "still intact... it shows signs of fracturing along the top. It seems to have healed itself afterwards."

"Interior scans are inconclusive," the other man stated. "There was a body, but it looks like it may have dissolved... We'll need a sample team here prior to cleanup."

"Understood... clear out and lock up," she told them. "We'll get what data we have ready for your download."

Ptolemy sat at his lab desk and read the findings he had just been handed by his boss. He closed the file and handed them back. "I'm so sorry Aris... If we had known..."

Plato shook his head. "It's not your fault, nor is it anyone's... I will calm my suffering, or I will be useless to this Corporation. How is that for philosophical bull?"

"Pretty good," his friend said as he got up and followed him to the door. "You should write that down somewhere."

"I think I did," Plato grumbled. "Let's get some coffee."

---

Setsu looked at the ceremonial robes that had been laid out on her bed. They all seemed to be much too large for her, which was surprising since she was slightly taller than the Old Communicator.

"These belonged to your predecessor, as it belonged to his predecessor," Washi explained. "It is up to the wearer of these clothes to adjust them to their height and needs.

"This guy must have been into basketball before coming here!" Setsu quipped. "It looks like he added this middle part to stretch it. Damn, and I'm terrible with sewing..."

"You'd better save everything you take off it, sweetheart," Gabrella snickered from the far wall. "They'll tear you apart, since this is such a thankless job!"

The Communicator stood between Setsu and the intruder. "What are you doing here, demon?" he ordered as he brought his staff up.

"She is here on our orders," Ptolemy said as he and Iris entered the room, "though she was supposed to come in with us, not run ahead and start a ruckus!"

"Oops," she coyly said as she slid along the wall to the opposite side of the room from the Communicator's staff. She then became less impish and more on guard when another person entered the room - a tall man in a dark business suit.

"Amethyst?" she asked. "What is a Celestial doing here? Are we expecting a visit from the Phoenix Guild?"

Ptolemy shook his head. "No, Amethyst is here because this involves the workings of the Treaty of Set. Since we do not have a direct representative from the Attic attending, he will make sure that these proceedings are as nonpartisan as possible."

"As a matter of fact, it would be best if you were not here at all, Communications Director Gabriella," Amethyst stated in a cold impassionate way, "but the reps from The Corporation insisted." It made the demon shiver slightly.

"It doesn't matter," she snorted. "We both are not allowed here at the same time anyway. I'll just wait outside." With that she slid through the wall.

"Is she allowed to do that?" Iris griped.

"Actually, there's no rule about it..." Amethyst stated. "Shall we proceed?"

Setsu mostly stood and listened as Ptolemy and the Old Communicator explained once again the position of Greeter of the Flightless and Communicator for the Scar's Village, and her responsibilities when it came to giving those who she met their options. She was informed that it would be a life-long commitment that she would be responsible for, and that no one could remove her from her position without consent of the Phoenix Guild. As they did this, her appointments of office were placed upon her or handed to her. She felt like a poorly dressed doll by the time someone asked her "Now, do you have any questions?"

"Yes, how do I see through this thing?" she asked while tapping on the mono-eye that she now bore on her face. The three stripes that had been painted on her cheeks itched as they dried, and her back was beginning to hurt her again. The third time she hit the unit was the charm as the interior was opened like a lens iris and she could now see the world from the unique view of a Communicator.

"Whoa!" she said as the room swayed a bit. She looked at everyone and saw an odd sheen emitting off their bodies, especially Ptolemy and the strange observer Amethyst. His nearly blinded her and she was forced to look away. "Is this the way it's supposed to work?"

"It will become easier as you get used to it," Washi told her. "Remember, it is but a tool to assist you and guide you if you wish it to do so."

"So I still have freedom of choice?" she asked.

"Yes and no," the man in the business suit stated as he stepped towards her. She was not ready to look at him at such a range, so she slid her mask to one side so that she could at least see him through her left eye. "The mask does have a warning system in it - it will tell you of any important decisions of the Renmei or anyone possibly higher in authority."

"Higher authority? It's bad enough I have to deal with some of you guys... what higher authority?" She suddenly found the business suit leaning in on her personal space.

"Me, for one," he grinned. Even though it was not a menacing one, the way he presented it made Setsu jump and she dropped her staff. She snorted and pushed her mono-eye back over her face.

"Well, this is interesting," she remarked from behind the mask. "This does help me see things clearer." She reached down and snatched back her staff and turned to exit the room.

"It tells me quite well when you're full of bull," she added as she departed for the outer hallway.

She quickly moved to a nearby room and settled as she waited for the enraged Celestial to storm by. 'Who the hell does he think he is?' she thought to herself as she pulled the mask off and stared at it in her hands.

The blank eyeless holes - that's what made this Halloween mask creepy to Maia. Disney Princess indeed - she had wanted to be a Sorceress, like her favorite anime character Lina Inverse. But when her mother had found out that she had been sneaking over to her friend's house to watch the 'teens and up' rated videos with her friend Sara, the seven year old girl had been admonished for it. Her punishment was for her mother to choose her holiday costume... and Snow White was now leering back at her. She slipped the vac-formed plastic mask on and attempted to do a 'Dragon Slave!' incantation in front of her mirror. The effect was less than satisfactory.

"We sure came a long way from this disgusting mess, didn't we?" her reflection asked. She saw a strange one-eyed blond girl staring back at her.

"Have we?" Maia asked from behind her own mask. "I seem to remember this being my worst Halloween ever, mommy. Why did you do this to me? Why this?"

"You are mistaken, dear. I am you, not your mother." The image removed her mask and smiled at the young girl.

"You look like my mommy... you act like her too."

The mirror image snickered. "I wouldn't have pushed Snow White on you! Though I did kind of liked the goddess the year before... she never knew it was because of 'Ah! My Goddess'..."

Maia giggled. "So, you are me?"

Setsu tapped her head. "Up here at least you are. I still don't quite know why, but you are."

"Why do you look like mommy?"

Setsu shook her head. "I don't know..."

"Maybe it was the accident?" an older teenage Maia asked from over at the computer table.

"Possibly, I don't know," Setsu said. "Maybe it has something to do with my own... accident."

"That was no accident!" Setsu looked up, surprised to see an adult Maia glaring down on her - at least she thought is was her, since the girl she had known as Maia had never made it to full adulthood. "Why did you jump Mother? Why did you jump?"

Setsu stood up. "I AM NOT YOUR MOTHER!" she yelled at the vision.

"Yes you are," a small voice called from behind the adult Maia. When she stood aside, a child was sitting on her bed. But this was not the bed's owner, not by a long shot. She was Asian in appearance with an almost doll-like quality to her. "But your soul continued on. Your daughter's did not..."

Setsu looked up. She was being shaken by a red hand.

"Hey kid, wake up before that Celestial gets in here!" Gabrella was telling her. "Beelzebub's horns, you really zonk out when you do that, don't you?"

"Who was that? Who was that girl?" Setsu asked not seeming to care that it was a Demon-Goddess shaking her.

Gabrella smiled a wicked grin. "Answers you want, and answers you will get!" she chortled. "All sides considered, all things being equal, okay?"

Setsu nodded. Gabrella's grin got deeper. She held out the pinky finger on her right hand and gestured for Setsu to do the same. She locked hers around the smaller, and they both vanished from the room.

Setsu looked around herself. They were back in the junkyard.

"If the answers you seek are within Sinner's Rock, then maybe you should find it again!" the demon stated as she too looked around. "Now where the heaven did they bury that thing?"

Setsu saw a big wet bare spot where the white marble block had sat before. Odd tracks around it seemed to lead out of the yard and down the path away from the Scar's Village. She started down it with the demon close behind.

"Ah, it looks like Ptolemy's boys have been busy fixing some of their toys," Gabrella said as they found a small clearing in the woods beside the path where two large machines sat near a patch of freshly dug and moved dirt. Setsu put on her mask and examined the area. She saw no one, though something in the ground was shining a green aura through the dirt. She looked over her shoulder to tell the demon to follow, but was shocked at the crimson image the mono-eye gave her.

"Damn it lady, don't stand so close when I'm wearing this thing!" she griped as they entered the clearing. She held her hand out over the ground as the mask guided her towards the aura.

"How far down is it?" the demon asked. Before Setsu could answer, Gabrella had slid into the soil as if it were merely air. A moment later after Setsu had seen a red spot move near the green one did Gabrella pop back up.

"It's only about six feet down," she reported. "I wonder why they just didn't destroy it?"

"Are the humans keeping secrets from you demons now?" she heard behind them. When she looked back there was no one there. She looked down at Setsu and saw her looking up in the trees.

"That's one weird looking bird," she said. Then she saw the odd look on the demon's face and her red glow dim. "What is it?"

"Describe it!" she whispered in a hiss.

Setsu stood perplexed. "What?"

"Describe it... PLEASE!"

"Ooh, she said 'please'! That must be burning her tongue!" it cackled from the high branches.

Setsu gave Gabrella a bothered look. "How many birds do you know who can talk?"

"Quite a few!" she snarled. "DESCRIBE IT!"

Setsu lifted her mask, as the image she was getting was too bright to be seen clearly by the mono-eye. "Umm... it is white with a long neck... a small round-ish dark head and a long colorful tail..."

The demon looked pale when she looked back at her. "Phoenix!" Gabrella hissed with little air. "I dare not look upon it! Why are you here? Am I to be punished?"

The bird laughed and cooed. "Of course not, Miss Gabrella… As a matter of fact, you're doing me a great favor by bringing Miss Setsu here."

Her eyes darted across the ground as she tried to comprehend what the bird had said. "Pardon me?" she asked a bit incredulously, but only slightly. "I did your bidding? In what way?"

"By bringing Miss Setsu here as I said!" it exclaimed with a flourish of its wings. Now Gabrella could see in its shadow on the ground where it was and she flinched. "At what time has this poor child not been wronged while being here? She is ostracized by her own home mates, town's peoples… even heaven and hell decree they do not want her. She deserves her own victory, Miss Gabrella. She does indeed!" The bird ruffled its feathers and settled down on the branch it was on.

"Fine," she sneered without turning. "Is there anything else I may do for you?"

The bird preened itself as it thought. "Yes, indeed!" it exclaimed, making Gabrella wish she had not asked it that. "She will never get enough of a signal with that much soil between her and the stone. Take that steel tube from over there and insert it into the ground until it strikes the top of the stone. Then replace the soil to hide its presence."

Gabrella sighed as she saw what the shadow figure was gesturing towards with its wing. There next to the edge of the clearing was the edge of the junkyard. Resting on the ground was a long heavy looking cylinder that made the demon nearly laugh at the bird's choice of tubing. "The barrel of a tank?" she bemused. She shrugged and flipped her fingers at it.

The tube rose above them and spun about. Its muzzle pointed at Gabrella where she examined its flash-suppressor. She drew her fingernail across it and severed a chunk off.

"What is that for?" the bird asked as she brought the barrel overtop the fresh soil.

"We need a clean surface when it makes contact with the stone, so I took the paint off," she said as she made it start to spin. She then sent it down into the center of the fresh dirt, which heaved large plumes up around itself and through the hollow barrel. Finally the tube made a clang and stopped spinning. She trimmed off the remaining excess and tossed the leftovers back into the junkyard.

She glanced over at the young former Haibane only to find a soiled glaring stare looking back at her.

"Ever considered taking up gardening?" Setsu grumbled at she knocked off the built up dirt from her robes. "So what am I supposed to do with all this?" she asked the bird.

Gabrella gestured at the soil as most of it returned to the top of the mount it had come from, obscuring her handiwork. "Well, you're sensitive to it now, so all you should have to do to make contact with the stone is sit over the barrel."

"Barrel?" Setsu asked. "You mean that pole you just stuck in the ground?"

"That would be the barrel, yes..." Gabrella said as she wiped her hands. "Shooting all that memory and mind... stuff... up your..."

"AHEM!" the Phoenix said, reminding her that it was still there. The demon picked up a board that had been where the barrel had drilled down and placed it back where it had come from. She then bid Setsu to sit on it.

"Mediation cleans the soul, but in this case, get ready to have your soul rocked!" she told her as the girl sat down on the plank.

Setsu crossed her legs and adjusted the mono-eye. "I guess it's too late to ask if this was safe or not..." she quipped.

"I would say that you are probably correct," the little oriental girl said from the top of a bed that was now in the clearing with them. But then the trees vanished, leaving the bed, the girl and Setsu alone in the universe.

"What, no Maia here?" she asked her host. The little girl shook her head.

"There is no longer a need, since she is now wholly within you. My name is Miho." She bowed slightly to her. Setsu felt the urge to bow back.

"Where are we?" she asked the small girl.

"We are in memories," Miho told her as the bed faded and a grassy field replaced it. "This is my favorite. This is my home."

Setsu watched as a vision of a small Japanese village surrounded in rice fields materialized around her. She could see children running along the paths that sectioned off the patties from one another.

"There I am, with my brothers and sister," Miho said as they walked down the slope of the hill towards the nearest home. "I loved them so... and I miss them."

"What happened to them?" Setsu asked as she raised her mask and sat it on the top of her head.

"Nothing but age... But I died and came here," Miho said, "as did you and your mother. I see her plan worked."

Setsu stopped walking. "Plan? What plan?" When she turned to look at Miho though, she found an older woman of around twenty.

"Your mother was not delayed in her journey to the afterlife like you were," the older Miho said, "so she would have been able to jettison her temporal vessel."

"What are you talking about? OUCH!" She jumped as an old pair of fingers pinched her. Miho now looked as if she were the grandmother to the whole world.

"Your shell that you call your Haibane is nothing more than a temporal vessel, much like the stage in a rocket," the elderly Miho told her. "First is your Human self, your first stage if you will, then your second stage, what would become your Haibane self if it were to fall into places like Guri..."

"Glie..."

Miho smacked her on the head. "This is important - listen! Your mother realized that your cocoon was flawed, so she returned briefly and gave her discarded shell to you, at the sacrifice of her own freedom!"

Setsu needed to lean against the wall for a moment, but found herself falling through it. The small hand of the child Miho helped her back up.

"So that is why I look like my mother... but what about her freedom? What do you mean?"

Miho sat down on steps that lead into her house. She then saw the reaction Setsu had as she looked at where she had passed through the building. "It's my memory, so I set the rules." She gestured for Setsu to sit down beside her. As she tentatively did, she found a solid surface to hold her.

"I'm sorry, but it has been so long since anyone was able to stay here with me," the young girl whimpered. "When your mother came back, we though that because she had given up the use of her temporal vessel for you, that she would be here with me forever. As it was, her original objective came searching for her when she had not arrived. While they were pleased that she was willing to sacrifice herself for the soul of her child, they could not forgive her for the sin of abandoning her temporal vessel in such a way. They took her away for judgment."

Setsu gritted her teeth. "Sin?!" she spat. "What sin was there in trying to save me?"

Miho placed her teenage hand on hers. "It was not a sin to try and save you," she explained. "It was a sin because of her giving away what was not hers to give away - her temporal vessel. She was not licensed to do so."

"LICENSED?!" Setsu stood up and began to parade back and forth. "What are we, cars?! Do I have a license plate stuck on my ass or something?! What kind of heaven or hell came up with THAT idea?!"

"Actually, it is part of the Treaty of Set that we in the Phoenix Guild monitor that dictate the use of licensing all aspects of life and their powers."

Setsu saw Miho, now as the woman again, bent over deeply bowing towards someone behind her. She turned around to see a bald man in a white, gold and red kimono standing behind her.

"Who are you?" she asked him.

"Phoenix," he replied with a strange smile.

Setsu cocked her head. "I thought I was just with the Phoenix."

"You are," he smiled.

Setsu crossed her arms mimicking the man. "You don't look like a bird," she stated the obvious.

Setsu momentarily dropped her mono-eye over her face and indeed saw the same glow off his body that she had seen with the bird. She then planted it back on the top of her head again. "Why then did you sound like a female out there as a bird, but now show yourself as a man?"

The man tapped his chin and looked skywards. "That is a very good question... I will have to ask my children when I get back." He chuckled a bit and returned to his smiling self again. This gave Setsu an unnerved feeling towards this man.

"He is the Phoenix, believe him!" Miho exclaimed as she continued to bow towards him.

"Fine then," Setsu said still less than impressed by this cue-ball before her. "What happened to my mother, and what's all this license crap all about?"

"Miho has given you the basics of what transpired," he said. "The Heraldic Council removed her from this time and space to await her judgment for her actions that day. No one has ever freely given their temporal vessel away in such a manner. The situation is unique indeed!"

"It was made only more complex when you were given a vessel that was to be examined and judged upon arrival there," old lady Miho added. "Her trial will determine that outcome."

"Where is this trial? I want to be there! I want to testify!"

She saw the old man shake his head. "You don't understand... this is the trial. Your life and upkeep of that vessel in the holy site of Guri was and is the trial. The judgment is about whether she made the right choice by giving you her flawed temporal vessel."

Setsu sat back down as her head spun. Had she condemned her own mother's soul by her actions - Her twice attempts at ending her life? - By not having her Day of Flight? - By being rejected by... hell?

"So tell me," he asked as he sat down beside Setsu, "where did they get your name from? Tell me about your dream..."

Setsu looked up at him. "My dream? What does that have..."

"Please, if you would appease my curiosity," he smiled.

She sighed then chuckled. "It's strange... now that I can remember both my former life and my Haibane dream... I was named Setsu because it means ardent... in my dream I was perusing after my favorite adversary in an online game that had become real in my mind... I believe I said 'grim determination' to those with me when I described it... we had a scholarly member at that time who finally gave me my title. He said that I had been 'ardently in pursuit'."

The man nodded. "Interesting... and did you ever discover your name's true meaning?"

She gathered up her legs and clutched her knees up to her chin. "I did... during the trial of my boss from the collections house I worked at. Setsu also means acute... in my case, reaching a crisis rapidly." She began to cry. Child Miho tried to comfort her.

"Acute also means 'keenly perceptive' and 'sensitive'..." the old man said as he donned a pair of reading glasses and read from a dictionary he produced from out of his sleeves. "I believe the latter is what you are displaying now."

Setsu drew in a deep breath and composed herself. "What does this have to do with my mother?"

"It tells me that your fellow Haibane chose your name wisely," he stated as he put the book away. "You see they chose a name that fit your flawed vessel more than for its contents. Because you are inside it, you suffer from its sins as well as your own."

Setsu sat back and stared at the man. "Sins? My mother had a sin?"

The man reached over and touched her on the forehead.

"Jeb! JEB! Oh dear god Jeb, wake up!"

What was this? The view was blurry and streaked with wet tears. The image rocked from looking above at an open ceiling, to a crying girl, to a boy on the ground at her knees. He was blankly looking up, and red crimson was everywhere.

"What is going on in here?!" a burly man yelled from the doorway.

"Daddy! Daddy, Jeb fell out of the hayloft! Daddy, he fell out..."

"How many times have I told you kids that this isn't a playground?" the man thundered as he came over to the prone child. "Oh god," he trailed off as he bent down and placed his fingers against the boy's throat. "Leda, get your mother," he grumbled.

"We were playing hide-and-go-seek/tag..." she was crying. "He was trying to avoid my hand... I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

"LEDA!" the man bellowed. She looked over at the mountain she knew as her father and saw the tears rolling down his face. "Get your MOTHER... PLEASE!"

She got up and ran out of the barn past Setsu and the old man.

"Where is she going?" Setsu asked. "The house is that way..."

"Perhaps you should follow her," the old man suggested.

"Leda, no! LEDA, NO!"

Setsu ran around the grain silo and found Miho holding her face. Near her was the body of Leda prone on the ground like her brother's. They heard a scream and a woman came running out of the house from the opposite end of the work-yard.

"I found her climbing the ladder on the side of this thing and then she jumped when she was nearly at the top," Miho said with a quiver in her voice.

"Why didn't you try and stop her?!" Setsu yelled at the teenage Miho.

Adult Miho composed herself then bowed to Setsu. "I am sorry, but remember, we are in a memory. I can not change a memory."

"But now you see why your vessel is flawed," the man said as the woman reached the body on the ground. A pair of farmhands followed her. "It also possibly explains your own troubles with this sort of thing?"

"Leda! LEDA!" the woman called out.

"M-mother?" she moaned.

Setsu shook her head. "I don't get it... that's twice the distance of the hayloft... how could she live through that when her brother... my uncle... Oh god, Uncle Jeb! I remember her telling me about the uncle I never knew..."

"The answer to your question is simple," the old man stated. "This silo is new, and the soil around it is still soft, while the floor of the barn is hard and compacted. But even so, the fact of the matter is, in your interview with Miss Iris, you said that you had never considered suicide until you had come to Glie, when the truth was that part of you had."

The shock of seeing her future mother lying on the ground nearly dead sent Setsu's head spinning. She had to stand back as Leda's father stormed around the silo with one of the farmhands. "What are you trying to do?!" he shouted at the fallen girl in the dirt. "Add insult to injury?!"

"Way to go, Mr. Sensitive," Setsu grumbled. "I never really liked Grandpa... let's get out of here."

The old man leaned over to Miho and touched her forehead. The world became her village again. Setsu pulled the mono-eye mask off her head and sat down with a thud on the step of the house.

"So what now?" she asked to the old man. "Is there anything we can do for my mother? She tried to save my life - twice!"

"Actually only once," the old man said as he paraded back and forth in front of the girls. "The second time she was trying to save your soul... I will have to see... she has three major strikes against her as it is. She does have a good chief council standing for her defense... your Uncle Jeb, who went through the same Haibane training that you did, but your mother missed. You see, that was another thing that bothered the Heraldic Council - why was this rather obvious flawed licensed vessel going to heaven in the first place, when it too should have landed in a holy site for the training?" He scratched his ear and began storming back and forth.

Setsu stomped her feet. "Mother, why did you do this to me?!" she yelled. When she opened her eyes she found that the old man was gone. She looked over at Miho. She was standing beside her home looking beyond it. Setsu cursed herself and stood up. She moved beside the little girl to see what she was looking at.

The sky was dark and ominous. The ground was showing signs of large wet spots appearing all around them, though nothing seemed to touch them.

"This is my day," Miho said. "This is how I died."

"You know how you died?" Setsu gasped. "You have to relive it in here?"

"No, I do not - not anymore at least. I just thought you would like to know..."

Setsu bent down to the girl's side. She seemed content to remain a pre-teen at the moment. "Miho, how long have you been here?"

She watched as the ground around them became drenched in the sudden downpour. "I believe that The Corporation listed me as Girl 194. There have seen thousands since..."

Setsu stood dumbfounded. "Incredible... wait... how do you know about The Corporation?"

Miho waved her hand across the dark wet view. A window almost like a computer screen opened over top the dreary scene.

"In here, you can see anywhere," she said as they looked out at the world. The view circled around the still form of Setsu seated above Sinner's Rock. It pulled away to show an aerial view of the area in and around Glie. It then moved far enough away that the walls started to appear. But just as the outside areas were about to be shown, Glie vanished, and the view became another place, cluttered with farms and roads, then cities as the view pulled further and further away. Clouds flashed by and the features of the ground merged into one as they zoomed over the planet.

Miho closed the view. "You see, I am not without... vision and knowledge. I am just very alone here. I get the occasional visitor, but only once in a while, when a soul or vessel passes near enough to me. Your soul was here for a while, between the time your cocoon failed and your mother's sacrifice, but you probably do not remember that."

Setsu shook her head. "No... no I do not."

"Tell me," Miho asked as she took her hand and guided her towards an overhang out of the rain, "if I had hatched properly, what would my name have been?"

Setsu huffed then smiled. "Do you remember your cocoon dream?" she asked her.

Miho nodded as she looked at the rising waters of the river. "I was swept away by this storm, and in my dream, I relived it. I died by a flood."

Setsu leaned back and thought. "There are many names that mean flood... Demizu... Satto... Hanran..."

Miho smiled. "Umm, yes. Hanran... that would have been my name. It has the most appropriate true meaning."

"Meaning? What does Hanran true meaning mean?" Setsu noticed a sinister look cross the girl's face which caused her to step away.

"Hanran means many things," they heard coming from the inside of the house. "Flood is one thing..."

Gabrella stepped out of the doorway. "It also means Insurgent... Insurrection... Mutiny... Rebel... and Uprising!" She then took a step back and looked a bit squeamish. "Plaa! What is with all the water?" she complained.

"Demon, what are you doing here?" Miho challenged her, much to Setsu's surprise.

"I saw the Phoenix vacate your body," she noted gesturing towards Setsu, "so I decided to drop in and see what's going on in here. Besides, I've never been inside one of these before, let alone one that's inhabited..."

Young adult Miho took a defensive stance. "You are not allowed nor permitted to be here. You must vacate immediately!"

"Why? Why must she leave?" Setsu asked confused by the reaction Miho was giving the demon.

Gabrella waved her hand about in a nonchalant way, dismissing the spirit's threat. "It's a part of that Treaty thing... neither side is supposed to be here because of it being a neutral zone of sorts."

"Then what about the Heraldic Council?" Setsu angrily blurted.

Gabrella dropped the aloof attitude. "The Heraldic Council? They were here?"

Setsu looked at her with a shocked expression. "You didn't know? They took my mother!"

Miho stepped between the two of them, now fully crouched down in an attack position. Setsu saw that the demon was now showing signs of extreme anger as she resonated in a red energy and her eyes were blazing flames. Her hands had become claws and she spread her wings wide. She then roared in a rage.

It then all seemed to go away. She still seemed genuinely miffed, but her outer hostility seemed finished.

"How dare they break the treaty..." she mumbled as she swept her wings around herself. "Does the Phoenix know this?"

Setsu snorted. "It would seem so... after all, he was here while we were discussing it all."

"What is she up to?" Gabrella pondered. "That bird is a real pain... I suggest that we leave this place - as long as you have found everything you wanted to know."

Setsu looked at Miho. "What about her?" she asked the crouching girl.

Gabrella looked down at her. "Well?" she asked.

Miho stood up and bowed towards her. "I have no temporal vessel," she replied.

Gabrella looked back at Setsu. "Nope... I can't do anything for her. Let's go."

Setsu glared at her. "I will leave when I want to!" she snarled.

Gabrella glared back at her. "Fine, but don't be long. I can't guarantee just how long it will be until the workers arrive to finish their work here." She then vanished.

Miho touched her arm. "It will not matter... they know that you were here," she told her.

"How?" Setsu asked. Miho tapped her face beside her eyes.

"The mask!" Setsu ran around to the other side of the house to pick up her mono-eye and slipped it on. She looked up and saw Gabrella being held against a tree by the staff of the Old Communicator.

"LET HER GO!" the girl on the wood board ordered. She picked up her own staff and knocked the other away.

"Setsu!" Ptolemy yelled.

"BLOODEAGLE!" she shouted back. "You all can call me Bloodeagle! And we were here at the request of the Phoenix, so you can bring it up with him... her... IT!"

All eyes turned towards Amethyst. He was looking towards the sky.

"She's telling the truth," he said. "Let the demon go."

"Oh, that must have burned your tongue," Gabrella growled in a mimic of the words the Phoenix had used on her. She glared at the others, especially at the old Washi and spat. "Be careful around these people child," she warned the new Greeter of the Flightless. "They are hiding things from you, and now you know why."

"What do we know?" Ptolemy barked. "What should we know?"

Bloodeagle slid her mask off her face and wiped the three stripes off her cheeks. "My mother for one thing," she angrily told them. "And the Heraldic Council taking her away for saving me."

Ptolemy slumped back. "Did Miho tell you this?" He found a staff pointing at him.

"Uncle Claudius, YOU KNEW?!" she shouted at him. "You knew about my mother?! You know who is inside that thing?!"

"Child, of course I know about Miho," he sighed. "Of course I know about Girl 194 being in there... That is one of the reasons why we don't dare destroy a Sinner's Rock, wherever they may be. They maintain the balance of the holy site while guiding those who come here, and protecting them when something happens like what did happen between her and yourself."

She took a step closer to the scientist. "And what about my mother?"

He shook his head. "Honestly, I did not know about her until you mentioned just now about her. It does explain many things... like why you look like her... why you have her DNA…"

She spun her staff around and rapped on the ground hard enough to snap a wing off the ornamental top piece. "Iris, would you please accompany me to my dwelling in the Scar's Village? I will need a guide on what I need to do."

Bloodeagle found a staff blocking her way. She glared at the hand that held it out.

"I can not allow you to continue," the Communicator said. "In the short time you have had this position, you have violated so many rules..."

She knocked his staff aside. "Tough, or did I not hear someone saying that this was a position 'for life'? - That I could not be removed save for an order from the Phoenix Guild? Well I was just with the Phoenix, so there! And from what I can see, this place could use an independent eye!" She flipped her staff up causing the Communicator to have to juggle his. She snapped her finger towards Iris as she stormed out of the clearing and started back up the road.

---

Lady Bloodeagle looked up from her perch atop the stone that sat now where Sinner's Rock was buried. A vision had run through her of fading halos all across the Glie area.

"Is something troubling you, my dear?" a bird in the trees asked her.

She shook her head as she raised her mono-eye. "What does it mean?" she asked the Phoenix. "Why are so many halos showing signs of flight?"

The bird preened its wing. "What makes you think this is wrong?"

Bloodeagle contemplated her mask for a moment. "Are you saying that this is natural?"

The Phoenix ruffled her feathers. "Hardly, but still not unexpected… A storm is brewing, and I believe that there may be an exodus soon."

"Exodus? From Glie?"

"Guri..."

Bloodeagle tossed a stick at the bird. "WHATEVER!" she shouted. "Explain to me what is happening?!"

"A change..." it said as it examined the piece of tree she had thrown that was now dangling above its head. "A time is coming that will judge whether the Treaty of Set is a viable document, and shall cement my control over the two factions at its heart. You simply need to report what you see to those sides it affects. The Guild shall do the rest." It then flew off and vanished in a puff of flame.

Bloodeagle snorted. "What is that bird up to?" she grumbled to herself. She dropped her mask down and concentrated.

The small house in the rice fields appeared again to her. She looked around and again failed to see its occupant. The children were playing off near one of the patties as usual, but she knew she could not talk to them directly - after all, they were only Miho's memories.

She heard a sound coming from the inside of the dwelling. "Miho?" she called out as she looked inside. The mono-eye picked up a faint image of someone being there.

"Please, not now," she heard. Something was not right. Miho sounded like she was weeping.

Bloodeagle slid a door aside. Miho was crouched over covering her face. Her always perfect mop of black hair was a bit mussed up. Her kimono seemed a bit loose.

"Miho, are you okay?" Bloodeagle asked as she reached down and lifted her up. A dark swollen eye greeted her and a bruised cheek. "Miho!" she exclaimed.

The girl rolled into a ball not wanting to be seen. "Please Miss Maia, I asked you not..."

She found herself being wrapped within the robes of the Greeter as Bloodeagle held her close to herself. "Shhh," she said as she rocked her back and forth. Miho broke and began to cry.

"Who did this to you?" the older woman asked the girl. Miho wiped her face and rested her forehead on her shoulder.

"I... did this to myself," she whispered.

Bloodeagle sat back and looked at her, raising her head with a lift of her chin. "Miho, why?"

"There is a sensitive in the Haibane," she said. "A demon hunter..."

Bloodeagle rolled her eyes. "Ha! You're telling me," she said. "That Koi kid is the talk of the town, what with him being born within the wall and everything. What about him?"

"He is a sensitive! I can be out of here when he is around." She lowered her head. "At least, I can when he lets me..."

Bloodeagle sat back on her haunches. "Are you telling me he did this to you?"

Miho flayed her hands about. "No, no, no! That is not what happened... I tried to visit him... twice... but both times something happened. At first he is gentle, and we merge. But then he begins to react badly. It is like he is a different person. This last time he jumped another person and began fighting him... but each time he would get hit, I would feel the blows with him... it was as if I were being used as a shield."

"Why didn't you just ask me, silly? I would have let you out with me."

Miho sighed. "You are not that type of sensitive... besides, you already have a guest within that vessel, remember?"

Bloodeagle rocked Miho. "Don't remind me," she grumbled. "So Koi attacked someone? Who was it? A human? Another Haibane?"

"A demon," Miho said as she touched her eye making the bruise disappear. "Miss Gabrella's brother is in Glie right now."

"Koi attacked a demon and I didn't get to see it?!" Bloodeagle yelped as she yanked on her mask and adjusted it. She looked about to see what she could see.

She looked about the town from her unique vantage point. Her view flew through walls and people. It cleared through the hearth of the mid-town bakery and out into the town square. She sensed where the incident had happened - beside the library, near the newspaper building, close to the hospital... she then spun time into reverse to see those gathered for the fight.

"Whoa! He jumped out a window?!" Bloodeagle shouted in surprise as she saw Koi start his attack on the Haibane-looking Jester. "I guess I could see this coming, what with him taking up with that visitor from another Holy Site. I still can't believe they held that news from us as well... maybe I should open up a tabloid of my own... Ooow! That hurt!"

Jester had been laid back with a right-cross to the chin. As he started to recover, Koi had leaped for him. By sheer luck, Koi's eye slammed into Jester's open palm as he fell on top of him. Bloodeagle adjusted her view to see if she could sense Miho in the action.

"Ah, there you are," she said as she saw the now familiar light glow of the spirit within the boy, but she could also see something else - a clash between his own power and hers.

"What kind of weird energy is that?" Bloodeagle wondered to herself. "It's as if it runs opposite of normal flow... YAAA!"

She had not expected the cold shower from the bucket of water Rakka had doused the two boys with, nor had it touched her. But the reaction that had come from Koi pulled her away from him.

"Wow... look how mad he got," she whispered, almost in awe of what hatred was spewing forth out of him. She felt shocked when he tossed Rakka's hand aside. That was until she saw the haymaker she applied to him for the gesture.

"It won't go away," she heard Miho whimper. She peeked out from under her mask to see that the young girl could not remove the glowing red mark to her face where the Haibane had slapped Koi with such force that she had decked him. She returned to the mask's view and rewound it slightly to the strike.

"Jeeze, she ejected you!" she remarked as she could now see the inner energy being sent out the side of Koi and into the ground. "That is one powerful Haibane."

"She is one without sin," the voice of the Old Communicator said in her mind.

"Umm... you would know that, wouldn't you, 'brother'?" she grumbled. "Have you been monitoring what I've been seeing?"

"I have," she heard him reply. "Allow the Observer to handle this situation."

Bloodeagle looked about the view at those present. A woman had just come up behind Rakka and told them to follow her. "Oh, it's her again," she said as she cocked her head from side to side. "What is it with that doctor...? I can't get a reading on her."

"Most of the Observers wear a device that prevents us from seeing inside them," Washi explained. "It might prevent us from seeing into their thoughts, but it also makes them stand out a bit."

"That's for sure... Have you noticed the odd occurrences with the halos of the Haibane?"

There was a slight grumble - the Communicator was not used to the rather non-volatile discussion he was having for once with his subordinate. "We are... aware of the situation. We believe it is an anomaly caused by the lights in the sky last night."

"Along with that strange ship that crashed as well?" Bloodeagle shook her head as she sat back. "Too many things are happening around here. The Phoenix was saying something about an exodus."

Washi stared at the readings his mono-eye was giving him. "Has he..."

"...she. It was in bird form..."

The old Communicator sat down. "So, Phoenix was able to enter the shield even though it is ionized... or more likely it was here before the ionization." He looked across his desk at Ptolemy. He in turn looked at the starship Captain seated beside him.

"Exodus?" Captain Strom asked.

"It sounds like the bird is up to something," Ptolemy agreed.

"I think I need to contact Gather Damon," Strom said. "We've got to get things back under control."

oOo

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Note: The two little pieces of newsprint that Maia read are actual pieces that fell out of my Great Aunt's Bible, and where she got them is a mystery, so who owns the copyrights are unknown.

Setsu (from the FFN FanFic "Darkness") ©2007-2011, 18 TeaRoses – Used with Permission

Character Name 'Bloodeagle' and "Lady Bloodeagle' ©2007-2011, 18 S. E. Nordwall – Used with Permission

The Phoenix Guild, Phoenix ©2007-2011, 18 C. Ruester/Brightblade Productions – Used with Permission

Captain Roy Strom, Doctor Abigail McManus, The Observers, Gather Damon ©2007-2011, 18 Denivan Media Services – Used With Permission

Gabrella ©2007-2011, 18 The Lugia Project/DMS – Used with Permission

Sara Montgomery, Mike Montgomery ©2007-2011, 18 The Moon Child Project/DMS – Used with Permission

Phoenix design, Adam (Atom/Astro), Toby (Tobyo) ©2007-2011, 18 Osamu Tezuka/Mishi/Tezuka Productions

Disney Princesses ©2007-2011, 18 Disney Enterprises

Lina Inverse, Dragon Slave (Slayers) ©2007-2011, 18 Hajme Kanzaka/Rui Arizumi/Kadokawa Publishing/TV Tokyo

Ah! My Goddess ©2007-2011, 18 Kosuke Fujishima/Kodansha

Characters from Haibane-Renmei ©2007-2011, 18 Yoshitoshi ABe

Haibane-Renmei: CORPORATION ©2007-2011, 18 The Golden Halo Project/DMS

This story written entirely on an HP Jornada 680 using Windows CE, PocketWord and a 16MB CompactFLASH card.

Edit & Remastered 1106.24

Edited 1805.02

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