Young Again
Chapter 3
By Wildfire
The sound of the door being jerked opened woke Sage with a slight start, he quickly turned his eyes seeking out Ryo; he was still asleep on the tiger. Sage stood up with a slight yawn, Kento and Cye struggled in with many bags. Rowan came down the stairs and went over to help. Sage yawned again before going and grabbing a bag. He opened it to find lots of baby clothing.
"Geeze guys, he's not going to be a baby for this long." He dumped the bag onto the table looking through the clothing.
Kento shrugged. "There are lots of sizes in there. I figure the ones that don't fit him or he doesn't use we can take back." He yawned. "We bought some toys too as we realized once we left that it was far too late to go to ma's house." He ruffled through one of the bags pulling out a disposable camera. "We'll want to remember this time."
Rowan rolled his eyes, and pulled out some blue pajamas. He went over gently picking Ryo up, "Want to hand me one of those diapers?"
"He used the toilet earlier." Sage yawned once more, he checked his watch. "One in the morning?" He tisked slightly, he'd be waking up again here in a few hours. "I'm heading to bed." He headed upstairs without another word.
Kento's eyes narrowed at the blonds retreating back. "No, we don't need help." He said sarcastically before tossing Rowan a pull-up. "The stars go in front." He said to him slightly absently. He began emptying the bags and sorting out what they had.
Rowan carefully maneuvered the little boy into the diaper and than the P.J.'s; the little boy never even stirred. He stood up with a yawn of his own. "We can do this in the morning, it's late and Ryo will probably be up bright and early."
Cye nodded halting his movements. "Did you find anything Rowan?"
Rowan shook his head, "Not yet, but I will." His voice was determined. He wasn't about to loose one of his best friends to this... He paused on the stairs; a spell? Could it be a spell? He had been checking everything under the Dynasty but he didn't pause to think that perhaps it was just a spell. Someone not from the Dynasty, a human?
"Ahh, Ro? You're kind of blocking the path to bed…" Kento said from behind him. Rowan turned to look at him, his mind reeling, he handed Ryo to him; before darting up to the study. Kento stood there for a second, he looked back at Cye. "Any idea's what that was?" He started up the stairs again.
Cye yawned, "He must have come up with something. Best not to disturb him tell he figures it out." He followed Kento up, and headed directly to their room.
Kento went on down the hall into Ryo's room. He paused looking at the bed. He looked down at the small form in his arms. "I'm tiring to remember if you move around in your sleep a lot." He whispered to the sleeping boy. "Perhaps we should have gotten you a bed too?" He moved over to the bed, trying to think if he could arrange the pillows to keep the child in one spot. He had a sinking feeling that that only worked with infants though. "Maybe I'll just tuck you in extra tightly?" He pulled the covers back and set Ryo gently down on the bed, he was tucking them around the boy when the tiger jumped onto the bed and curled protectively around the child. Kento smiled at him, "Make sure he doesn't roll off the bed." He patted the tiger's head before heading out to seek out his own bed.
Rowan typed furiously on the computer, compacting the data he'd gathered, he'd been sealed up in this room for three days now, researching every spell, enchantment or voodoo thing he could find. Nothing perfectly fit Ryo's situation, but there were spells that was very similar. One of them even described the dark cloud they saw.
He jumped when he felt something brush his leg; he looked down to see Ryo staring up at him. His small hands on Rowan's thigh, Rowan looked back to the door, which was now open. Cye must not have shut it all the way when he had brought his lunch. Rowan sighed reaching down and picking the toddler up. "Shouldn't someone be watching you?"
"CH ou!" Ryo smiled and pointed to the computer. "'Ay?"
Rowan brushed Ryo's hair back with a sigh. "Three days you've been like this now. Three days… I'm working to get you back to normal." He tapped Ryo's nose. "Though with all the pictures Cye and Kento keep taking I think you might want to stay a child."
Ryo wrinkled his nose, and reached up to poke Rowan's nose. Rowan made a snorty nose, Ryo jumped. He reached up slowly and poked the nose again, Rowan snorted again. Ryo laughed in delight of his new discovery and did it again. The game went on for a few minutes before Rowan halted Ryo's hand. "I think we'd better find someone to watch you so I can get back to work."
Ryo looked toward the door than back at Rowan. "Ou no ay me? O ep! Me no ep!"
Rowan stood up. "Is that so?"
"Ah! O ep! Ey ood!" Ryo chattered at him as Rowan headed down stairs, with the occasional nod or comment. He wondered if Ryo even knew what he was saying. He got to the bottom of the stairs and spotted Kento fast asleep on the couch-- drooling. Rowan rolled his eyes before heading into the kitchen where he could hear someone moving around. Cye turned as he heard Rowan enter, he was chopping vegetable.
"Rowan? I thought you were still in hiding." Cye wiped his hands off on the dish cloth, moving over to them.
"I was; I got found. Where's Sage?" Rowan handed Ryo over to him. Ryo went easily, his little eyes locking on the veggies.
"It's Tuesday, he's teaching Kendo." Cye reached back grabbing a small broccoli floret and handing it to Ryo, who started gnawing it.
"Right… Tuesday. Kento's asleep in there, can you watch him?" Rowan asked, wanting to get back to work as soon as possible.
Cye nodded, "Sure, he can help me cook. Right Ryo?" Ryo smiled and held up the floret. Cye chuckled and switched Ryo to the other arm. "Go on and get back to work. I hope you're having decent luck?" They didn't normally ask Rowan how he was doing on any project as he hated explaining until he was done. It wasn't worth the fight.
Rowan nodded, "Yeah, I think I at least have an idea of what happened now. I'll catch you guys up tonight. Be good Ryo." He headed up the stairs again.
"Bye bye." Ryo said waving after Rowan, he looked back at Cye and grinned. "Ood?"
"Yes, we'll be making food. We're having a veggie casserole. Sound good?"
"Ood ood!" Ryo offered the bit of the floret to Cye.
"No, you get to eat that." He set Ryo down on the counter top he put a head of lettuce by him and a big bowel. "Can you pull the lettuce apart and put it in the bowel?"
Ryo nodded and reached for the lettuce, Cye snagged him before he could reach it. "I think we should wash out hands first, don't you?"
"Me ath!" He waved his hands toward the sink. Cye turned it on and held Ryo up so he could get his hands under the water flow. When he was done he set the boy back on the counter. The child attacked the lettuce with vigor ripping each lettuce leaf into tiny bits. Cye watched him out of the corner of his eyes as he went back to chopping veggies.
Later that night Ryo darted around the room, laughing as Kento pretended to not be able to catch him. Ryo laughed harder when Kento suddenly lunged in front of him and swung him into the air. He spread his arms out like he was flying and Kento twirled him a little bit.
"If he gets sick you're cleaning it up." Rowan said as he came down the stairs with a mountain of papers in his arms. "Can you grab Cye and Sage and meet me in the kitchen?"
Kento stopped the twirling and settled Ryo onto his hip. "Sure." He eyed the papers before heading outside where he knew Cye and Sage were, it was the only place to escape the toddler for a little bit. "Guys?" Cye and Sage both looked up at him. "Rowan's down from the lab he wants us in the kitchen." He headed back inside again, he could hear the other two getting up and following. He went into the kitchen pulling a chair out and sitting down. Ryo immediately slipped off his lap running over to Rowan and raising his arms up to him.
Rowan picked him up putting him on his lap, eyes still going over the paper work in front of him. He waited until Sage and Cye were seated before he started. "Alright so I think I've narrowed it down to three possible spells."
"Spells?" Kento blinked. "Shouldn't we be looking into Dynasty warlords or something?"
Rowan narrowed his eyes at him. "No, please don't interrupt. Now from the three I've seen only one mention the cloud; however the problem with this is there shouldn't be a child here. Hypothetically if one were to do this spell than it should take Ryo's form, his body his power. Everything. It pretty much push's the body's soul out and puts it's own in taking it over. Obviously that didn't happen as Ryo is in some form still here. So that made me think of spell two, which is suppose to just make you a little younger but it's said if preformed incorrectly the spell can take you many years younger. But this spell has to be cast by the person, meaning Ryo himself would have to cast it. This is unlikely. The third one is to create a child from a loved one, meaning you make someone old young again, like Ryo. It was used for elderly to give them a second chance at life. This spell is one of love though, meaning the one who cast it has to love the intended. Ryo's not exactly a talk to everyone kind of guy, besides us there's very few that would love him enough to cast this. And I can see no way that anyone who does love him would believe with their entire heart that this was the best thing for him." Rowan stopped and looked around at the other three men. "So here I am now, three spells and none of them quite work."
Sage leaned forward taking one of the copies of the compacted info. "The first one is really the only possible one, Ryo wouldn't do this to himself and we wouldn't do this to him. The first one is the only one with an outside party, and it has that cloud. I would think that would be mentioned, it seemed a key part."
"Alright," Kento clapped his hands. "Now that we know what it is that means we should be able to fix it, right? How do we fix it?"
"We can't." Rowan sighed, "I figured it'd have to be that one too, but… there's no way to fix that one. It's supposed to kill the soul you can't reverse that." He looked down at Ryo. "But it didn't. He's still here."
"So…" Cye looks up. "The real question is: why is he still here?"
"Well that's not something we should be complaining about." Kento snapped slightly. "Personally I'm really glad he's still here."
Cye narrowed his eyes slightly at him. "That's not why I meant and you know it. But we have to look at why is he here? If he's supposed to be dead, why isn't he? And where is his body and how much of Ryo's power does it have?"
"Well I might be able to shed a little light on that," Rowan said leafing through the papers. "According to the details of the spell the cloud is kind of like a sponge. It just sucks up what ever it's given. It's an extremely unpleasant spell to make. You literally give your self to it piece by piece, until you become the 'cloud'. The said cloud than seeks out your intended victim and devours the soul, power strength, everything. It takes everything. Than when it's fully consumed it puts it all back but with the other soul. Once this happens the cloud is no longer useful and essentially just disappears taking the victim's soul with it."
"But Ryo's soul is still here…" Kento said slowly.
"Yes, but remember before the cloud? He demanded our orbs. The cloud should have sucked their power in too, used them in the same way. But it didn't, my armor is fine. It hasn't changed at all. I think it's our armors that somehow preserved Ryo's soul. But I still don't understand why he's a child. It doesn't make sense." Rowan sighed plopping the papers back onto the table. "Why does everything happen to us?"
Kento chuckled dryly. "We're just that special."
Cye tapped his fingers slightly. "Sounds to me like we need to find who did this to Ryo. Get him to reverse it."
"What…. What if it can't be reversed?" Kento asked slowly. "What if he stays like this… forever?"
"Than we raise him and love him." Sage stood up, "There's nothing else we really can do. But right now there's someone out there who looks like Ryo. And if he can't reverse it than you better believe he's not going to keep it."
Rowan nodded, bouncing his leg to keep Ryo entertained.
Cye and Kento remained silent as Sage went upstairs.
