Haibane Renmei: C O R P O R A T I O N Chapter 10: An Observer's Report, a haibane renmei fanfic

2011 REVISION

HAIBANE-RENMEI: CORPORATION

Chapter 10

An Observer's Report

By R. A. Stott

He stepped into the room from the northern corridor carrying the small bundle in his arms. "Hikari… are you here?" he asked the empty room.

"She hasn't returned from work yet," he said to himself as he stood there a bit befuddled. He grabbed a light blanket from the bed, found the rocker and sat down. "Blast it all." Kinza shifted his load and thought back to earlier that day.

"Security Officer's log… week one of my - sabbatical - here in what they call a Holy Site named Glie… I find it interesting watching the comings and goings of these people who live here in this dilapidated school building. I can understand The Corporation's wishes to restore and rebuild this place, seeing that they seem to be having a population boom. I spent the last few days in the rear quarters of the place looking at the history of those who used the school in the days before the Haibane came. Structurally, the building is collapsing and foundering back there, and no sane Haibane, human or Tomassamassa should be allowed entry. But, no one ever claimed I was completely sane anyway, and it still requires patrolling for landings and seedlings."

Kinza gimped along through the dark crumbling back end of Old Home peeking into the musty rooms. Hikari had started the day with him, but needed to head out for an afternoon of cleaning the back of her bakery she worked at in town. Before she had left, she had told him that sections beyond a set of collapsed rafters was considered out of bounds, and no one would search back there.

"That won't stop me though," he continued with his report. "Some of these areas have not had inspections done in years, if ever. I have already found sections where the repair and rebuilding crews will need to take extra care when entering, seeing that there are many structural problems caused by age and growth within the building."

He shifted a beam to one side and found a hallway behind the wreckage that lead back into the final rear quarter facing southwest. Sunlight could be seen shining down through more junk piled at the end, as well as a few more rooms to either side that would need looking into.

The electronic patch he held in his paw, the lone remaining piece of his uniform that he was recording his report into, beeped at him. "Mr. Kinza, where are you?" it asked.

"Ah, the good doctor," he smiled as he climbed over the pile into the cavernous hole. "I'm reconnoitering through the back side of this building I'm in."

He heard her sigh. "Mr. Kinza, you have a concussion and a possible fracture in your leg. Why are you out of bed?"

"Abby, you should know better than that," he laughed. "I'm already climbing out of my fur. And you did say I should exercise."

"I said that you should do leg lifts while in bed!" she admonished. "Look, we've had another incident."

He stopped for a moment. "Serious?"

"Possibly… Koi attacked Jester."

Kinza sat down on a dusty old bench that was beside the pile of roof parts and rubbed his sore leg. "Great. Any reason why?"

"He doesn't remember. But the demon hunter instinct is obviously coming to the fore."

He leaned back against the wall and sighed. "Do you need me?" he asked.

"Not really, since the town's folks have not seen you yet… More importantly though is that you have the only linkup with S.A.M. that's operational while the shield is ionized."

"Ah," he smirked and tapped the patch. "Did you hear that S.A.M.? Link up with the doctor's communicator and tie into your core systems."

"Understood," the patch replied.

"Anything else doctor?" he asked.

"Get to bed," was her short reply. He snorted as he looked about the darkened corridor he was in. What streamers of sunlight that were coming in were barely enough to discern where the hallway actually came to an end, but he could see that it actually turned off to the left. He shrugged to himself and started down into the southwest wing. He pulled out a flashlight and inched his way to the rubble that made up the end of the corridor. It seemed to be made up of ceiling material. He saw a door just beyond the left turn and a stairwell to the right. He climbed over a few rafter sections and examined the door to the left.

It held shut at first. He put a bit of leverage behind it and it shifted slightly. It then thudded to the floor and started to fall inwards with him still holding onto the handle. But then the knob detached from the door. The remainder of the wooden hulk swung away and began to pivot oddly. It then vanished in a cloud of dust.

Kinza stood there momentarily with the knob in his paw. Finally there was a resounding crash and a gust of musty wind that blew his fur back. He whipped the flashlight into the room and looked about. He found that the reason the door had vanished was because it had fallen down a whole story to the first floor. It laid splayed in pieces across the collapsed wreckage of the former second floor, which was also down there.

"They're trying to rebuild this?" he mumbled to himself as he looked about with the flashlight. "They'd have an easier time just tearing it down and starting from scratch!" He raised his torch up and found that at least the ceiling was still intact.

"Humm… third floor on this end is still up there," he told his patch as he continued his journal. "Hopefully the forth is as well… It looks like something leaked down from up there and ate the floor out here… I really need to get a scanning rod on this."

It was rare that anyone, Haibane or human, had ever ventured towards the forth floors of any of the buildings, since these rooms closest to the roof tended to be hot in the summer, drafty in the winter, and leaked mercilessly in rain and melting snow, so no one had been in them for years. And due to the conditions of the hallways leading to the end units to the south end of Old Home, these wings were considered abandoned.

Kinza snorted. He rubbed his nose and shook his head. He made his way back to the stairs up and gingerly started to climb them.

A large section of outer wall had collapsed, exposing the stairwell to the outside. As he had worried about, the southwest corner had indeed lost a section from the first floor clear to the forth. He noticed how the stones and wood near the base of the collapse were splayed away from the building and not inwards or piled in a heap.

"I see a sign of something bursting the building on this end, as the wreckage is spread outwards in a radius pattern," he reported to his patch. He tested the still-remaining inner guide rail for strength and continued up the stairs.

Each step creaked under his feet, settling them back into their seats as the weight of the Tomassamassa pushed them back down after years of expansions and contractions caused by the changing seasons. He pushed the one double door open at the top and stepped onto the landing. Unlike the floors below, where the rooms were on either side of a central hallway, the third floor seemed to have larger single rooms with the hallway along the outer perimeter. He flicked off his flashlight as windows were allowing in plenty of daylight, if not a bit more than expected as two of them were missing their glass and frames. The stairwell had opened to a corner where the hallway formed an L – in front of him was what would have been a cross-way that attached this wing to the other on the southeast corner, much like the north wings were built. But since the clock tower faced it, the section only acted as a bump-out from the rest of the building. He checked the frame-less window and saw the roof of what someone had told him was a Lecture Hall below him.

A bird chirped from its nest above the center door of three serviced by the false cross-way. He looked back towards the main hallway that lead back towards the center of the complex to his left and found a clutter of old shutters and maintenance supplies rotting away that blocked access to that direction. He chose to check the three rooms in front of him first – less climbing was always good with a gimpy leg, especially now that it was aching from all that climbing he had just done.

He took a moment to ease his sore bones. From the center window in the short hallway, he looked out over the roof of the smaller and shorter separate building below him at the courtyard. He could see the work being done on the north end of Old Home, and the balcony to the guest room he had spent the last few days in. Below it were children with wings and halos playing dodge ball.

Behind him were the three rooms. He rapped on the first door to see how sturdy it was. The first strike pressed in the wood, and a mushy crunch was heard.

"Oh ho… dry rot," he grumbled as he pressed a finger into the surface of the door that had once been solid wood. Years of exposure had removed all the moisture from it, making it extremely brittle. The top section made a crispy sound a bit. He tried the handle. The brass hardware was seized stiff. He held onto the knob while placing his paw on the center of the door and pushed.

The door cracked and split in two. He found he could fold it along the middle like the door on a school bus or a closet.

"I don't think it was designed to do that," he humorously told himself as he opened it wide. He then reached in with the flashlight and prodded the floor. He tapped it with its hard metal end and got a solid sound. He stood up and gently placed a foot on it and added weight and pressure. Since it did not seem to want to fall out from under him, he stepped forward.

"I've entered the room near the caved in second floor," he told his patch recorder. "Unlike the other rooms, it has a smell all its own. The others were musty, while this one almost smells brackish or rusty."

He lit the flashlight again and looked about into the darker areas of the room. He found that the floor seemed to be covered in a reddish-brown crust that crunched slightly as he stepped about. He aimed the light into the back. With a southern face to this end of the building, windows should have been in this room. If there were any, something was blocking them.

"What in Belkar's beard is that," he said as he found what looked like black drapes dangling from the ceiling. He tapped it with the end of the flashlight. It was semi-hard and fractured easily. He leaned over, grunting from some residual pain from his crash landing, to look at the underside of this odd looking sculpture.

"Ah… this was a vessel of some sort," he murmured to himself as he saw that the lower back half was rounded, and that the upper half had originally formed the rest of the sphere, but now draped over it along its burst line.

"Oh damn…"

It dawned on him just what this was. He had been briefed on these prior to starting the satellite seeding, just in case… he saw one first hand.

"A cocoon… But they said they decompose after breaking open…" he murmured to himself as he stood up and looked around it.

"They do, as long as they break normally."

Kinza jumped, and it hurt. His bruises and contusions throbbed as he looked around for the voice that had just told him that. What he found was a man in a cloak with wings on his back and a halo over his head, but he also bore a mask over his face.

"SCRAGG! Who the hell are you?!" the Tomassamassa shouted and cursed in pain as he bore his nails in case this was going to be not pleasant.

"Observer's code one - one - zero - one," the man replied.

Kinza stood up and looked at the man curiously. "An Observer? I kind of thought you looked a bit big for a Haibane."

"Not true," the man said as he stepped towards the old cocoon. "I spent many years here in Observation just as you see me… of course without the mask and all…"

Kinza stood back. "You were stationed here? You FAKED being a Haibane?"

"Code one - one - zero - one."

The Tomassamassa shook his head. "Blasted Observer's code… One - one - zero – one… You're allowed to talk to me, but I'm not allowed to ask too many questions because I may know you."

"Or will know me," the man corrected. "Either way, I was known here as Thido."

"Never heard of you," Kinza grunted. "I take it that you were stationed here?"

"Bing!" his patch rang, warning him that he was asking too much.

"Oh shut up S.A.M.," the masked man said in disgust. "Yes I was. As a matter of fact, you can ask Kana about me."

"She knows you?" Kinza asked as the man leaned over to look over the burst shell.

"In a round about way… she is following my guidebook on that clock project of hers."

Kinza examined the wings and halo. "Well, I must say, size not withstanding, you do seem to have a remarkable set of Haibane accouterments to your disguise."

The man raised his arm and flicked his fingers through the halo, which shimmered and wobbled. "It's a holo-suit, much like you own 'Mr. Ed', he told him. "The wings are solid-matrix, while the halo… well, as you can see… isn't."

Kinza shivered. The mention of the 'Mr. Ed' holo-suit gave him the fidgets. He used this uncomfortable device when he needed to venture somewhere that required him to look like one of the locals, as long as they looked reasonably human at least. The fact that it cloaked his ears always made his itch return. He turned and watched as the man bent down in his examination of the fossilized cocoon.

"Huh," the man mumbled through his mask. "It makes you wonder who this was, doesn't it?"

Kinza shook his head and joined him in examining it. "Who this was? Someone was in here?"

The man looked over at the smaller alien. "You were briefed on how Haibane come to the Holy Sites, weren't you?"

Kinza scratched his ear. "Briefly briefed," he admitted. "Remember, I wasn't supposed to land here."

The man nodded. "Were you now? Are you sure?"

Kinza glared at him. "Damn it, you're from the future… you should know better than to say that."

"S.A.M. didn't complain," the man stated.

"You told him to shut up," Kinza reminded him.

"And has that ever stopped him?" the man asked bluntly. "Ah, here it is…"

"Here is what?" Kinza looked at what the man was picking at on the folded section of the upper half.

"This is the crack that depressurized the cocoon," he told him. "The L.C.L. reverted to water… the Haibane drowned. It's a shame. I wonder where the soul went?"

Kinza jumped back, again in a bit of pain. "Soul? What do you mean?"

The man looked around and found a chair lying sideways. He righted it and sat down. "Cocoons start out as containers where a soul and its vessel arrive in the Holy Sites. Once the vessel is complete, the Haibane can hatch. But if the vessel dies within the cocoon, the soul is left behind and must find a hiding place that is safe or risk dispersal."

The man pulled out a stick and waved it about. Kinza looked at it eagerly.

"A scanning rod! I was just saying to myself that I wished I had one here!"

The man looked at the ball on the end in his palm. "No signal… the soul failed to find a home and dispersed. Such a shame." He spun the rod around and handed it over to Kinza. "There is a reason why you are here, Mr. Kinza."

The Tomassamassa took the device. "Really… This wasn't an accident?"

The man crossed his legs and leaned back. "Oh, it was an accident, but not for you. You were not expected. You were not planned… at least not initially."

"Excuse me?" Kinza asked as he tweaked the rod. The man noticed and shook his head.

"Don't be rude," he said of the quick little scan he had just been given. "I'm assigning you a mission while you are here, Mr. Kinza."

"A mission?" he asked. "What…"

"One - one - zero - one," the man pointed out with a wave of his finger. "Assume also that the person you are talking with could be anything, from a lowly yeoman…" The man then rolled up his holographic right sleeve exposing the shirt underneath that had bands and braids wrapping its cuffs.

"…To an admiral," Kinza finished for him as he saw the piping and the symbol that it represented. "Admiral Thido?"

The man laughed. "Damn, that sounds weird," he said as he planted the chair back on the ground. "Your mission is pretty much what it was all along – observation. But I want you to take more than your average outside look at things."

Kinza's ears twisted slightly. "What do you mean?"

The man sat back again. "As a non-human here, you have a unique opportunity, Mr. Kinza. There are multiple forces at play here in Glie… humans, Haibane, the Attic, the Basement, The Corporation, even the Phoenix Guild and the Denivan. All want control of these places… all want power over the other… and what happens in here affects out there."

Kinza cocked his head. "Even the Haibane?"

The man shifted a bit in his seat. "They want control of their destinies, don't they? They are completely at the mercy of the attic and the basement when it comes to their outcome here. As for the humans, well they want more than just protecting the Haibane. They would like more freedom, even when they don't say it out loud. Resent events even show some cases of another ugly human trait – bigotry and resentment towards the Haibane. As the generations pass, and the reasons on why the humans are here in the first place wanes in their memories, much like their holidays of Christmas and Easter, they start to forget what their true meanings or purpose are. What the attic and the basement want is pretty clear, but whether they are getting a proper signal on what is actually happening here is a question that needs to be answered. The basement has grievances that need to be addressed – LEGITIMATE ones at that. And the Phoenix Guild and the Denivan are technically on the same side, but don't trust one another. And most of The Corporation just wants to return things to the way they were before they created this mess in the first place."

Kinza scratched his head. "Umm, aren't I part of one of those groups?" he asked.

"Yes and no," the Admiral responded. "You are the best independent choice, since you technically are an outsider to all sides present here. Your mission will be to recommend just what direction the holy sites should head in. Remember, what happens here does affect out there beyond the walls, and further as well."

Kinza snorted and started to walk in a tight circle while shaking his head. "You want me to make recommendations that keep these sides from bashing each other over the halos? Are you nuts? And what about you? With that rank mark, you're obviously with the Denivan as well."

The man crossed his arms. "Not exactly… affiliated, yes, but not a full-fledged member. And my affiliation here is moot. In this situation, I'm an Observer first, Denivan second. Besides, you were recommended by both sides in the future."

"Both sides? Didn't you just tell me that there were more than just two sides?"

The man nodded and held his hands up. "Then let us say that the two more important sides suggested your involvement."

A snapping sound caught Kinza's ears. It sounded like it was coming from the room next door.

"And the reason why you will be the best judge for this just called to you," the Admiral told him as he gestured behind himself at the wall between the rooms.

Kinza glared at him. He slowly walked out of the room and looked down the hallway at the next door. He glanced back into the room only to find that the Admiral was now gone.

"How did he do that with the shield ionized like this?" he grumbled. He scanned the room and snorted. "What was that sound?"

He jiggled the handle of the center door and found it already ajar. The door creaked open and let the daylight flow in. He found a musty room with few items scattered about, and what looked like an old ball sitting on a chair off to one side.

The ball shook.

Kinza waved the rod over the orb as it vibrated.

"Scragg… it's a baby… how the hell does a baby Haibane hatch out of one of these?"

"In most cases, they don't," replied the voice of the Admiral from his patch. "And landings this small are usually missed by The Corporation's scanners."

Kinza sat down with a thud as he stared at the ball. "You've gotta be kidding…" he grumbled. "What should I do with this thing?"

The patch remained silent.

He looked around the room. He noticed round marks on the floor about the right size as the ball on the chair. He scanned them and watched the readout.

"Residue of calcium… carbon… amino acids… damn it, look at them all." He snorted as the ball rocked again. He touched a paw on the top of it to steady it.

He pulled it back quickly as he felt moisture. His fur showed droplets in the available sunlight. He brought the scanning rod over it again and took another reading.

"The internal pressure is down in just the last few minutes… oh, tell me that this isn't the way they fail to hatch, with a weeping from their cocoon…"

The life sign inside the sphere was ebbing slightly.

He tapped the patch. "Admiral, L.C.L. to fluid ratio is now eighty percent and dropping. What should I do?"

The communications tool remained quiet as he watched the rocking start to subside from the sphere. He sat up on his haunches and examined it for a moment.

"Scragg," he swore and extended his claws on his right paw. He then plunged them down into the soft surface of the ball and twisted. He removed a chunk as if slicing the rind of a pumpkin and dropped it to one side as he tipped the hole over to dump the fluid out. He watched carefully as a pair of feet slid out of the opening.

He quickly gathered the infant before it could drop to the floor. But it suddenly acted as if jammed in the hole. He looked in and found something wrapped around its neck.

"What the…" he mumbled as he began to slice larger chunks out of the ball. It finally released dropping the child into his left paw. "What is this? A shawl? Haibane come out clothed?"

He did not have much time to wonder about the wardrobe as the baby was blue from a lack of oxygen. He laid it in his lap and started CPR.

"Ah, you're a girl, aren't you?" he noted as he caught his breath. He gently put his mouth over her nose and sucked the fluids out of her sinuses. He spat them aside and returned to blowing air into her lungs while pressing his thumb against her chest. In a few moments, the girl coughed and gave a short cry. He sat back and looked down at her lying in his lap and sighed. He tapped the patch and coughed.

"Personal log: I have just been given a mission… and a bundle of trouble. I am now the guardian of an infant Haibane. I am told they are rare. Great… just what I need."

The infant squirmed a bit as it shivered slightly. The wet cloth it was in was not helping any, so Kinza removed it and his shirt he had borrowed from one of the boys. He popped the girl's head out of one of the wing slits in the back and wrapped the rest around her. He then gathered her into his furry chest and stepped out of the room.

The courtyard below was now empty. It was mid-afternoon, and any of the Small Feathers he had seen before were probably inside taking naps. He thought of contacting Dr. McManus, but then he remembered her saying that she already had her hands full of problems.

"Gotta report," he mumbled. He tapped the patch. "Kinza to Dr. McManus."

"What were you thinking?" Nemu barked at Koi as he sat and stared at the floor. "It is forbidden for Haibane to fight one another! The Renmei will send the Toga!"

Each point she drilled into him only made Koi flinch further and further into a haunch. "I don't know… I really don't know…" he kept saying. Rakka sat beside him rubbing his back and trying to deflect each verbal blow her enraged elder was spouting his direction.

"Nemu, please!" she finally shot back at her.

She looked at Rakka and took a step back, taking in a deep breath in the process. "You're right," she calmed. "I just want to know why, that's all."

"I'm sure we all would," Katherine said as she stepped into the room. "Are you all right, Koi?"

He nodded slightly while continuing to glare at his feet. "What did you do to me?" he asked her.

All eyes turned towards the visiting goddess. One hand came up in front of all of them halting all questions.

"STOP!" Dr. McManus commanded and sternly looked at all around her. "This will be conducted in an orderly manner. As head of this hospital, I will ask the questions."

There was a quiet "Yes mum," from those in the room. The doctor then turned towards Katherine.

"Okay, please explain his comments," she asked her.

Katherine cleared her throat and pulled on her garments. "When we rescued Koi from the wall, I attempted to erase any memory of his encounters he may have had while inside it without proper protection."

"Encounters?" Kana blurted, which received a sharp and loud snap of a pair of fingers. She then found the doctor's hand pointing at her nose. It rose back to the doctor's face as she hushed her.

"You were protected," Katherine stated to the silenced Haibane. "Koi was not against those who dwell within the catacombs."

"That end of the wall is also the least protected," Rakka added, which drew a look from the doctor, but not the scolding Kana had received.

"Correct," the goddess agreed. "I felt that the torment that he had been put through should be best let forgotten, but I was superseded by my superiors."

Again the doctor's hand was held out to the questioning faces in the room to quell any out-of-place queries. "Why?" she asked sternly.

"Why?" Katherine asked a bit puzzled, which also drew questioning looks from the others.

"Why were you overridden?" the doctor re-asked. "Your original course of action seems reasonable seeing where he landed."

Katherine stepped to one side and sat down in a chair. She sighed and shook her head. She looked up and asked, "Where is the demon?"

McManus gestured towards the door at the far end of the room. "Sol and Jester are in my office."

Katherine nodded. "I am bound by my position to uphold the Treaty of Set, as you know," she told the doctor, "even when it would seem we have an unfair advantage."

McManus shrugged. "I sometimes wonder just how balanced that treaty is anyway," she commented. "So Koi is an advantage?"

Katherine sat back and drew in another breath. "I was ordered to return his memories because he is a sensitive… a demon hunter."

McManus stepped towards Katherine. "Yes, we know," she stated, drawing an odd look from those in the room. "But how is he a demon hunter? He is a Haibane. Demon hunter is not a class of the Haibane, it is a human class."

Katherine stared at the young man seated across the room from her. "Indeed. When I was told that, I questioned the fact as well. But my superiors were adamant. The vessel delivered to this holy site is that of a demon hunter. The memories I had removed had some of this information removed as well."

"What memories? I don't remember being a demon hunter," Koi moaned. "I don't remember anything from… before I arrived here."

"Not all memories are forthcoming," the doctor explained. "Many are dormant, like programming… like PROGRAMMING!"

Those in the room watched the doctor as she started to walk back and forth. "PROGRAMMING! When he came to this world, the demon hunter program came with him! Isn't that sort of thing supposed to be deleted when transference occurs?"

"DING!" a com unit announced. Before Katherine could answer the doctor raised her hand to stop her. "Information prohibited!" S.A.M. added.

"No it isn't!" Rakka called out. "We already know about it!"

McManus and Katherine look at her oddly. "Explain," the com asked.

"That's right!" Kana agreed. "You were attacked while we were down there fishing him out of the drink!"

"Attacked?" the doctor asked as she pulled one of those strange sticks out that Rakka had seen being used on their visitor back at Old Home. The doctor waved it over her and looked at the ball it ended with. "There's no signs of internal damage… how were you attacked?"

"It was when we were trying to get Koi on board the raft…" Rakka remembered. "Something tried to get into my head. I'm not sure what it was, but we were at the bottom end of the cavern where the protection is the least."

"Yea, then we hear 'LEAVE HER ALONE!' or something like that shouted by him," Kana added.

"And then the pain stopped," Rakka finished with a meek voice. She looked up and saw the doctor looking back at Katherine.

"Do you follow all of the Treaty's rules?" she asked her.

Katherine scowled. "Of course," she said with a bit of anger in her tone for having been asked such a question. She noticed this and excused herself with a quiet "pardon me."

"Then you are not allowed to lie, are you?"

The doctor watched her reaction. She saw the goddess squirm a bit.

"That is correct. It would be a sin to lie."

McManus sighed and loosened up a bit. "Then tell me, knowing what you know, and knowing that you probably didn't know any of this beforehand, do you think they knew of his ranking before all this?"

Katherine blinked. "P-possibly… but why would you think that I wouldn't know that?"

McManus smirked. "You wouldn't have removed his memory if you had known. And it could mean that the attic is planning for something bad. Why else would they deliberately keep the memory of a Demon Hunter in the body of a Haibane? Does that answer your question S.A.M.?"

"You have a call waiting," was the computer's response.

"Hello! I'm back!" Hikari called as she entered the lower entry of Old Home. "Mr. Kinza? Are you here?"

She entered the Visitor's Room and found him snoozing wrapped up in a blanket in the rocker. She smiled at the furry sleeping tiger… bear… whatever thing seated there. She turned to enter the kitchenette.

"Hey," she heard. She turned to look back and saw that his blanket had slipped down.

"We've got a little problem here," he whispered. He then lifted the empty sleeve of the shirt he had draped over the infant's head off.

Hikari nearly leaped out of her shoes. "Where… where did you get that baby?!" she squeaked.

"Baby?" she heard. She nervously looked over her shoulder and saw that the housemother was peeking out of her apartment at her. "I thought I heard something before, but I thought it was just that strange furry thing in there."

Kinza snorted as he cradled the child. "She's a Haibane. I found her cocoon up on the far end's third floor."

Hikari looked closer at the baby. "She's a Haibane? I never saw a Haibane baby before."

"I was told that they are rare," he said as he allowed her closer. He then saw the housemother stagger over between them and the bed. She looked at the baby and crossed herself as she sat down with a thud on the mattress.

"Oh, the poor child… Oh the poor poor child!" she moaned as a tear streamed down her cheek.

Kinza looked at Hikari in confusion, but she seemed to not know either why the housemother was distraught so. "Why? What's the matter?" he asked her.

"Well don't you see?" she wailed. "So young… how will it know its dream? How will it know its dream?!"

"Most of the Small Feathers barely knew their dreams," Hikari noted as her eyes grew wide.

Kinza leaned back confused by the banter between the two ladies. "Umm… what?" he asked.

"We senior Haibane use our cocoon dreams as a way to determine how we are named," Hikari explained. "They say it also is used as a way to determine our day of flight, when we learn the true meaning of our names."

"Ah, yes… I read about that in my information packet," he grumbled as he adjusted the baby. It grunted and whined slightly. "She seems a bit fidgety all of a sudden."

The housemother covered her mouth with her hands as she gasped. "Oh mercy… she'll never survive! She'll never survive!"

"Well you're overly optimistic!" Kinza snapped at her. "Why won't she survive?"

His patch beeped. Just as he tapped it, the baby let out a cry.

In the doctor's office, everyone looked at one another as the wail filled the room.

"Umm… Kinza?" McManus asked.

"Ah," the com unit replied as the bleating continued. "Hey Doc, I know you've got your hands full, but I really need your help here."

McManus adjusted the ear-piercing shriek out of the communication. "Kinza, is that a baby I hear?"

"It's a Haibane baby, yes," was the reply. "I found her while I was surveying the southern wing."

"Oh god, no!"

Everyone looked at Nemu, who seemed white as a sheet. "Mr. Kinza, when did you find it?" she asked.

Kinza looked around for the clock on the dresser. "Umm… a couple of hours ago… it looks like three or four hours ago."

Nemu shuddered. "The wings… Wings will kill the baby!"

Kinza's attention was suddenly drawn to the feathery protrusions on Hikari's back.

"Oh scragg," he said as he quickly undressed the child and looked at her shoulder blades. Two throbbing lumps were there, dark at their peeks and rolling about at times.

"I take it, they tend to come out rather explosively?" he asked as he saw the stress they seemed to be exerting on the infant. Hikari nodded, not able to say anything. "Great… Doc?"

McManus was gathering supplies. "I'm an hour away, Kinza. Time to put some of your training to work I'm afraid."

"Understood," he said as he whipped off the blanket that was around them. He spread it across the bed after rousting the housemother and placing her in the rocker. "Hikari, boil some water in a small pot, please?"

"Water?" she asked as she stutter-stepped towards the kitchenette.

"Yea, I know… it sounds like just something to keep an expectant father busy, but I really need it," he said as he examined the child and scanned her again. "Hurry!"

He began to massage the lumps with the palms of his paws. "There's my little Koni… There's my little Koni… shhh… Old Uncle Kinza is here… shhh…" The child seemed to settle a bit and the movement slowed.

Hikari returned with a pan of water. Kinza looked at it and continued to sooth the infant's back. "Is that boiling, or just hot?"

"Err… ahh…" was her response. Obviously it was just hot.

"Boiling, please," he requested. "It has to be as hot as possible."

She gave a nervous nod and scampered back into the kitchenette. "What did the doctor mean by your training?" she called back as she turned the flame up high on the stove.

"Heh… as a security chief, I may be the first to arrive at a situation that requires medical assistance, so I'm also a trained medic. By the way, do you have a first aid kit?"

Hikari looked at the small carrier on the shelf above her. What with all that had been going on recently, it was pretty picked over.

"A small one," she called to him.

"Is there any rubbing alcohol in it?" he asked.

She brought it down and rummaged through it a bit. "There is something… iso… isopro…"

"Isopropyl alcohol, yes… please bring that and some clean towels."

Kinza looked back and saw the housemother staring at what he was doing. She was no longer crying, but creepily watching.

"Hey, are you able to help?" he asked her. She blinked and looked up at him. "I'll need you to take over here for a moment as I prepare."

"Prepare? Prepare for what?" she asked.

"Never you mind right now, just come over here and take over rubbing her shoulders," he said with a gesture towards the child.

"Here are the medical kit and the alcohol," Hikari said as she entered the room. "The water still isn't boiling yet."

Kinza shrugged and took the kit. "Watched pots and all that," he said as he took a quick inventory of the supplies as the housemother took over for him on the baby. "Ah, good… cotton swabs too. How about those towels?"

Hikari dashed back into the kitchen and returned with a handful. She found Kinza with his right paw up at his face, and he was examining his forefinger.

"Come on… what's keeping you?" he said with a touch of strain in his voice. "Come on… pop it!" He looked about a bit sheepishly.

"What are you doing?" she asked him. She then saw a gray claw-nail protruding from his paw.

"Well, this is damn embarrassing," he grunted as he grabbed it with his left paw and clutched it close to his belly and pushed down on it. There was a discernible crack heard. "OW! DAMN, that's a pain doing it that way!"

He raised his paw and pulled the old gray nail sheath off revealing a white and extremely sharp-looking claw under it.

"Yes, Tomassamassas come with built-in scalpels," he grinned and he looked through the kit again. He soaked a cotton ball in alcohol and began to wipe down the newly exposed nail. "How's that water coming?"

Hikari found the pot now in a rolling boil. She grabbed it and brought it in.

"Ah, that's better!" Kinza said as he took it and placed it on the table behind them. He then stuck the claw in it and grunted.

"WHAT are you DOING?!" Hikari nearly screamed as she watched him par-boil his finger.

"You need the nail hot for this," he said with a sneer. "Logic would say that it is the pressure of the wings trying to come out that causes a baby Haibane to die at this stage, right? It was probably bad enough for you older ones, correct?"

"Oh, please don't remind me," Hikari shuddered at the memory. "So you plan on cutting them out?"

"Just two little incisions to relieve the pressure," he said with obvious pain in his paw. "Which reminds me, turn around for a moment."

"Huh?" she asked, but complied. She then felt his paw on her back between her own wings.

"Okay… straight up and down along the shoulder blades, a few centimeters away from the spine… Okay, ready to go. Get me another cotton ball with alcohol on it, would you please?" He snatched a towel and shoved the hot, wet paw into it and knelt down beside the bed moving the housemother to the side.

"Right… swab," he asked. Hikari gave him the alcohol drenched cotton ball in his left paw. He wiped the baby's back. It shivered from the cold.

"Okay, I'm going to make this quick – be ready with the other towels," he warned. Before either woman could react though, he had taken his hot white claw and neatly sliced two small slits into the infant's shoulders. Two small sets of feathers sprouted out in an oily goo of wing grease and blood. He reached back for a towel and saw the ladies just staring at him.

"Hey! Hey!" he barked. Hikari finally reacted and handed one to him.

"I'll need another swab," he asked as he mopped up the mess and pulled slightly on each wing to get them to deploy fully.

"There's so few feathers," Hikari stated with a blank stare.

"They need to be cleaned, or they'll be stained," the housemother said. "I'll get the wing-bath."

"Wing-bath?" Kinza asked, a bit amused by the name. "Well, this must have worked… the skin sealed up around the wings already, didn't it little Koni? Humm? You were a good girl!"

"It's amazing, it didn't even seem to hurt her," Hikari said a bit stupefied.

"Umm, that was why I had to have the nail hot," Kinza told her as he found her shall had dried, but now with her wings deployed, there was no place to put them. He unfurled a towel and wrapped her in that instead. "It wasn't as hot as if I wanted to cauterize it, but the added heat did help with the incision. There's my little Koni!" He lifted her up and rubbed his big nose against hers.

"Koni?" Hikari was now being amused by the strange way the alien officer was treating the infant.

"Ahem, err, yes… Koni," he said as he handed her to Hikari and started to put his shirt back on. "In my language, it means Angel… it also happens to be my sister-in-law's name." He found his patch and tapped it.

"Kinza to Doc McManus…"

"Here, Elb. What is your situation?" it replied.

He started rummaging through the medical kit when he noticed his sharpened claw was grabbing things, like the patch. He found a small cork and stuck it into it. "Her wings are deployed. She is safe."

"What about the fever?" he heard someone else ask. He looked at Hikari, who had placed the back of her hand against the baby's forehead.

"I don't feel one, Nemu," she replied. "Maybe the way he did it lessened the strain."

"Lessened the strain?" McManus returned. "Kinza, what did you cut with?"

"I'll explain when you get here," he huffed, not wanting to say just then. "What's your ETA?"

"We have Old Home in sight. Approximately fifteen minutes."

"Understood," he replied as he tapped the patch closed and scanned the child again. "What's she mean by a fever?"

Now Hikari was getting into the 'play with the baby' mode, as she was now gently bouncing her in her arms. "Normally there's a fever when the wings come out," she said.

"Geeze, that's nasty," he commented as he started to gather up the scattered bits of the operation. "Remind me not to become a Haibane."

"The bath's ready," the housemother called from the kitchenette.

"We're going to clean your wings, aren't we Koni?" Hikari bubbled over the baby as she headed through the drapes in the doorway. But when she looked up to see where the bath was set up, she found a dark green void instead.

"Give us the baby!" something cackled. "Give us it's SOUL!"

An evil looking harpy-like thing trudged up a path that seemed to enter this void towards her. Its eyes swirled as it reached out to snag the infant from her grasp. She screamed.

She felt herself being yanked back. She looked up to see the guest room again in front of her. She looked behind herself at the kitchenette's entry and saw Kinza in it.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" he was bellowing. "WHY IS THERE A DEMON'S GATE IN THIS BUILDING?! YOU ARE IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF THE TREATY OF SET, AND I WILL FINE YOU IF YOU DO NOT DEPART THIS INSTANT! DO – I – MAKE – MY – SELF – CLEAR?!"

"But… but the infant… we must have the infant…" something wined in front of him.

"The infant is under MY CARE," Kinza barked. "Under orders One - One - Zero - One!"

"FAAH! One - one - zero - one!" the demon spat.

"Do you want me to invoke it further?" Kinza threatened.

"No… no…" was a very meek reply. With that the green vanished and the kitchenette returned with a very confused old woman looking at the Tomassamassa.

"What was all that shouting about? You'll scare the baby!" she scolded him.

Kinza then found Hikari clutching his shoulder and shaking like a leaf. "What was that? What was THAT?!"

"That's a good question," he said as he felt her shivering. "Shhh, shhh… don't worry, they weren't after you, only the baby, for some reason. What the hell does hell want with Koni?"

The doctor and her procession of Haibane were turning up the path towards the small bridge outside the walls of Old Home when the Tomassamassa's yelling was heard rattling down through the entryway.

"Now what?" she muttered as she quickened her pace.

"Koi? KOI WAIT!" she heard Rakka shriek. As she looked back, a blur passed her by to her left. When she looked back at the gateway, she could see the boy entering the courtyard.

"He should try out for track!" she said astonished by his speed.

Bloodeagle looked out from behind her mask to her right.

"What is going on down at the Home?" she grumbled as she continued to meditate on top of Sinner's Rock. The mono-eye gleamed in the sunlight as she aimed it in that direction.

She saw the boy darting around the ground as if hunting something. When she adjusted her view, she saw the second soul within him.

"Miho, what are you doing?"

She dove her mind into the core of Sinner's Rock searching for the small house she knew was there. She arrived outside it in a heavy downpour. Standing on the porch was the bald man who she had seen before.

"Phoenix, what are you doing here?" she asked the man. He acted as if he were shaking off the rain.

"Like you," he said. "Looking for Miho."

Bloodeagle slipped her mask off and gave the man a wary eye. "Really," she asked. "She knows what happens when she attempts to enter Koi. Why would she try again?"

"If you were stuck in here, wouldn't you look for any way out?" he asked to answer her.

"Is that all?" she asked him. "Or is there something else you're not telling me?"

"If there were anything else, you would know," he told her while tapping his forehead. "Your mask sees all."

"Does it? Even when dealing with someone who can overpower it with their aura? I doubt it."

"My dear Bloodeagle, you are a pessimist, aren't you?" he laughed.

She turned and folded her arms. "I'm a realist. Reality has slapped me around enough that I take everything around me with a grain of salt, so don't bother sounding as if you have nothing to do with what's going on right now. I know better than that, and I don't need my mask to tell me that." When she looked back, he was gone and Miho was back.

"I can't leave you two alone for a minute!" she scolded the spirit. "I go up to search the world above, and you're back in that boy's body causing mischief!"

Miho looked confused. "Where was I?" she asked. "I was here watching my brother and sisters… wasn't I?"

Bloodeagle glared at her. She then turned her look towards the rain-filled sky.

"Phoenix? What were you doing here?"

Koi looked around himself. "What… what am I doing here in the courtyard of Old Home?" he asked himself. He looked back and found Rakka running towards him.

"Koi! Koi what are you doing?" she called out.

He shivered. "Rakka… Rakka, lock me up! Find somewhere where I can be held. I must not loose myself like that again!"

"Koi, what do you mean?" she asked as he draped himself over her shoulder. He nearly collapsed as all his strength seemed to leave his legs.

"Something is pulling my strings… I feel like a puppet!" he moaned. "I will not allow this. I must be able to control this!"

Rakka looked back at those with her. "Come on, let's get you inside," she said as she saw the doctor gesture towards the doorway. "We'll let Abigail look you over and determine the correct course, okay?"

He weakly nodded. Kana came over and helped Rakka haul the nearly limp boy into the men's dorms and laid him out onto his bed. The others had rushed up towards the guest room to discover why Kinza had been yelling so.

"A Demon's Gate? Here?"

Kinza nodded to the doctor as he gestured towards the doorway to the kitchenette behind them. "Right there, right between here and the outer room."

"If Mr. Kinza had not pulled me out…" Hikari whimpered. She was still clinging to his shoulder.

"Probably nothing would have happened," he finished for her. "As scary as they may seem, they actually frighten off rather easily. You just have to stand up to them."

"But what is a Demon's Gate?" she asked.

"It is how I come into the Holy Sites," the voice of Ptolemy said from behind the curtain that was the covering to the doorway. It slid aside to allow the old man in. "And it troubles me that someone other than The Corporation was able to use it."

"What? Are you upset that someone else used your monopoly?" the housemother chortled as she washed the baby's wings. "Competition is bad for you?"

"Competition my eye!" Ptolemy burst. "WE are the only ones ALLOWED to use the Demon's Gate – it says so in the Treaty of Set! When that rouge one appeared, it set off every alarm back at headquarters!"

"That must have been noisy," Kinza commented.

"Ah, you must be Captain Strom's security officer I was told was here," Ptolemy said as he held out his hand to him. He was surprised by the paw-and-cork that was handed back to him. "I hear that you were snooping around this place today."

"Just being a good security officer, sir!" Kinza replied. "Pardon the cork…"

"Mr. Kinza, you didn't," Dr. McManus said as she was scanning the cheerful little girl as she splashed in her bath. She looked at the cork and then at the small wings that the housemother was attempting to clean.

"He was very quick," she said almost giddily. "I've never seen a Haibane child recover from wing-birth so quickly!"

"I hope it was clean?" the doctor asked. Kinza pulled the cork off and exposed the white claw under it.

"Fresh break, alcohol and boiled… unless you wanted me to use a table knife…"

Everyone in the room flinched at the description then added a rousing "no, no, that's okay…"

"I don't get it," Kana said a bit out of the loop. Hikari whispered it into her ear on just what the Tomassamassa had done.

"COOL!" she shrieked. This was followed by a brief moment of silence, followed by little Koni's wail.

Early that evening, Kinza sat in the courtyard watching the sky of the late summer roll over the walls of Old Home. He pondered the third floor of the southern wing, and saw the sunlight lighting up the room he had found Koni in. He looked over his shoulder at the patio above him outside the guest quarters. He could hear the girls and some Young Feathers playing with her. He sipped his iced tea and scrutinized his patch again.

"So, you got a one – one – zero - one order?" he heard as Ptolemy sat down beside him. "What are you going to do about that?"

He shrugged. "I have to follow its orders," he replied. "I must observe just what is happening around here, and my central focus was delivered to me in a sphere the size of a basketball."

"Makes you wonder who's baby that had been," the old man said as he too started in on his iced tea.

"Makes you wonder why an infant like that came here in the first place," Kinza retorted. "I mean, isn't there usually a reason for someone to become a Haibane?"

"At first we thought there was," Ptolemy said as he sat back and put his feet up, "but resent events now says otherwise. The Haibane are special to us, no matter how or why they came here, or what force sent them to us."

"So why were there so many dead cocoons up there?" the Tomassamassa asked. He looked over at the scientist and found him staring at him in astonishment.

"How many did you find up there?" he asked.

Kinza noticed the inflection in his voice. "I didn't count outright, but there had to be at least a dozen circles on the floor in the room where I found her, not to mention the full sized fossilized one in the room next to hers. And I never did get up to the forth floor."

Ptolemy put his glass down, but his hand shook so that he still spilled some of his drink. "And that was only two rooms?" he asked.

"There's only a few rooms up there on that end," Kinza noted, "and I didn't get the chance to check on the last one in that section."

"I would like to see for myself," Ptolemy said.

"Are you sure you're up to it?" Doctor McManus asked as she joined them. "You seem older than before."

"Well, you're a bundle of good news," he grumbled. "How is the young Master Koi doing?"

"Recovering," she sighed. "His bio-readings are all over the board. It's like he's had someone else inside him all day."

"He probably has, seeing that he's a sensitive," Ptolemy stated as he laid his head against the back of the seat and watched some birds fly over the courtyard's walls. "And I think I may know from where."

McManus sipped her coffee. "Oh, you mean that soul-collecting rock northwest of here?" she asked.

Ptolemy shook his head. "I won't ask where you learned that information from, but yes."

Kinza snorted. "Observer's scanners are rather invasive at times, aren't they?" He pulled out the scanning rod he had been given and pointed it up at the rooms. It squawked at him.

"And rather limited with the shield ionized the way it is," McManus added. "Have you any idea on how long this is going to last?"

Ptolemy shook his head as he stared at the sky. "Seeing all that electromagnetic and kinetic energy that your satellites and that power unit of yours put out, Mr. Kinza, I'm surprised the shield is still up there at all.

The Tomassamassa glared up at the sky. "I didn't put up that much," he stated. "Even if my power unit had been fully destabilized, the core was fueled with pseudo-matter, not anti-matter."

Ptolemy sat up. "Pseudo-matter? Fake anti-matter?"

Kinza nodded. "Basically a transmat takes a chunk of iron, copies it and inverts its atoms – put the two near each other and you siphon off the resulting energy that they generate. The trick is, without the transmat, the negative piece quickly vanishes. It's a much safer system than matter/anti-matter… just not as powerful."

Ptolemy sat a bit befuddled. "Why is it that when I tinkered with anti-matter, I got a face full of angry angels, yet your people use it without any issues, and have even surpassed it with a substitute that's supposedly safer?"

Kinza waved his finger in the air. "Uh uh... there was and is some major differences in how they handled their energy uses and the way you did, kiddo. First would be at what technological level were you at when you attempted your first reaction?"

Ptolemy sat back with a depressed look. "Obviously not far enough, since the core went unstable right after initial reaction was started."

Kinza winked. "Thermal transition buffer rods - ya gotta love 'em! They're essential in containing the reaction, and your system had what compared to only two of them, when a unit the size you made required about ten. And you wonder why Bahdom sent down his warriors to stop you."

The old scientist pondered things. "But pseudo-matter... I understand the principal of the idea, but it kind of falls into the category of a perpetual-motion machine, which is impossible."

Kinza sipped his tea. "Yes and no," he explained. "Logic would say that trying to create energy by expending energy would eventually fail as the energy put into the effort would soon supersede the energy put out, right?"

"That would seem logical," Ptolemy said while watching Dr. McManus look completely dazed by the techno-babble being sent between the two of them. "So how does one compensate for this problem?"

Kinza looked at his patch and tapped it. "Is it okay to tell him S.A.M.?" he asked it.

"Corporation data base is partly-connected to the S.A.M. System," it replied. "If this knowledge was accessed, it would be offered freely with no amendment to those with Level One clearance."

Ptolemy twiddled his fingers in the air. "That would be me," he said. "And the answer is?"

"Hyper-capacitors," Kinza answered him. "My little Scat-Back had four of them, while my mother ship, since it has two major power centers, has banks of 50 house-sized units. And the trick is how they get started and recharged. In the case of my busted-up bird out there, it does have a limited life because it uses absolutely zero anti-matter to start the transmats on board. So initially it requires a ground link to the ship."

"Wouldn't that kill it right there?" the Doctor asked. "I mean, if you were to shut off your power while not on the ship, wouldn't that strand you where you landed?"

"That's why he uses capacitors rather than batteries," Ptolemy stated. "Worked correctly, anti-matter reactions produce energies greater than what would be required to operate a transmat. Since a capacitor is designed to let its built-up energy go in a burst, rather than drawn out like batteries do, a capacitor that is capable of retaining enough power to flash-run a transmat would be all that would be needed to create a suitable piece of pseudo-matter long enough for it to start generating exponentially."

"And as soon as the pseudo-matter is powering the systems," Kinza continued, "it takes over for the capacitors, plus recharges them for the next discharge required, be it for the transmat, engine ignition, or firing the weapons. Now, that's fine and dandy in a Scat-Back. But as for Forrestal... there is a tiny anti-matter generator in both power centers to keep everything operational."

Ptolemy picked up his iced tea. "With a blast radius of...?" he asked as he took a slurp.

Kinza scowled at him. "Yes, it is still anti-matter. If either would detonate, they would pretty much vaporize the ship... well, maybe one of Forrestal's sister ships... the trick is, they minimized the use of pure anti-matter. I mean, coming from a fleet that used a five-hundred kilo block of the stuff per ship, which easily could take out a planet or two, and in some cases DID, what they did to make their system safer is some piece of engineering!"

"But at a substantial power loss," Ptolemy added. "I can imagine that pseudo-matter doesn't have the kick that anti-matter has."

Kinza nodded his head. "Maybe so, but it's still plenty for my shuttles and Scat-Backs. And there is a slight size difference between what Forrestal uses in its power transfer unit and what's inside my tiny fighter's PTU."

"So, when you ejected your power core, the reaction should have diminished as soon as the transmat system was turned off," the old professor surmised. He saw Kinza rub the back of his neck.

"Mmm… yes, that's the way it's supposed to work," he mused. "As a matter of fact, when the power is cut to the transmat, the pseudo-matter should vanish instantly. But in my case, there seems to have been enough energy going through my ship's PTU to power the transmat's buffer for a few extra seconds. That should be impossible. And even if it were, if they were to detonate, it shouldn't have been enough to ionize the shields to this length and time."

Ptolemy put his glass down and reached for his cell phone. "So, are you asking me to see if something or someone is inhibiting our shield?" Ptolemy questioned.

"It wouldn't hurt to check," Kinza said as he looked at his scanning rod and made it squawk again. "After all, it prevents everyone from possibly seeing the truth here, doesn't it?"

"Speaking of truths," Doctor McManus noted from behind her coffee cup, "let me tell you what Katherine told me…"

Rakka looked up the connecting hallway to the refurbished section of the north wings. It was not complete yet, but looking through the plastic drapes the construction workers had put up still made it seem as if she were peering into another world. Even with the lights off, the area looked and smelled fresh and clean. She was not used to such things in Old Home.

She had come to check on Koi, whose room sat beside the work area. She tapped on the door and found it ajar. She peeked in and saw his bed. It was empty. She swung the door further into the room and saw that it was devoid of anyone.

"Where did he go?" she pondered. She looked into the rebuilt section then towards the housemother's apartment.

There was a clank from above. The stairwell to the upper level was next to the apartment. She headed up and peeked about the second floor landing. Another thud told her to keep looking further into the area south of her.

"Hello?" she called. "Koi? Is that you? Are you there? It's not safe down there!"

A plank dropped far down the hallway. She looked hard, but the darkness was impossible to see through. She continued through what she knew was still usable rooms, passing by Reki's old art workshop. She stopped momentarily and looked back. The door was open.

She peeked in. All seemed intact. The old pots of paint and tubes of oils sat unused now for over a year and a half. She looked at the closed door to the sanctum that her friend had created to house her dream in. She slowly opened the door.

Koi was standing in the center of the room. He was entranced by the lone white spot on the far wall – the point that had been Reki's tormentor, and now seemed to mesmerize him.

"Koi?" she asked him. "Are you okay? What are you doing in this room?"

"I am lost," he finally said towards it. "I am under siege. I am missing something, and yet, I feel filled beyond overflowing. I am… confused."

"Why is that?" Rakka asked. The question must have sparked something in him as he flinched and looked at her. He had expected her to suggest leaving this place, not to ask that. Rather, what he saw was her now staring at the white spot on the maelstrom wall like he had been doing. He returned to the vision as well.

"This artist… such a vision of darkness… did you know him?"

"Her," she corrected him. "Remember, you and BW are the first guys here that I knew of. And yes, I knew her… this is Reki's dream."

He stepped up to the wall and drew his finger down the dark gray that edged the path. He followed it along the floor to the far wall. He then noticed the slight shading of stones along the ground.

"A train…" he whispered. He looked over his shoulder at the spot of white again. "Her dream…"

Rakka stood in shock as she watched him sit down in the center of the path facing the white orb.

"Pain… the pain in this… the pain in this artwork… in this room…" He looked up at her. "How did she stand it?"

Rakka squatted down beside him. "She nearly didn't," she said.

"Until Rakka saved me."

Rakka froze. She saw a light play over Koi's face. He seemed fascinated in what he was seeing, but not overly excited. She saw a shadow cross him, which caused her to look over her shoulder.

The white spot was glaring brilliant now, but it was mostly blocked by a vision.

"What the hell am I doing back down here?" Reki asked. "I've got work to do."

oOo

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Edit & Revision 1106.29

Edited 1805.03

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