This is another interlude with Kratos and Niaki. There are no future interludes planned, so expect this to be the last one. This story was partly written to have more Niaki-and-Kratos interaction (again for no special reason other than my own amusement) and to show in passing a few things about her job.

Instead of Niaki visiting Sylvarant, Kratos briefly goes to earth. Reasons for this are given below.

Disclaimer: None of the characters you have seen before today belong to me.

Enjoy.

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"You're joking!" Niaki yelped at the phone. "Please, tell me you are joking!"

"I'm afraid not, kid. Chelsey messed up—the psychopath's on your land at this very moment."

Niaki ran her fingers through one of her ponytails, her eyes wide and alarmed. "But I'm not ready—I can't deal with this, I've never had a character from another verse in my home-verse before!"

"Hey, Niaki, calm down—he's just there to look at the trees. If he finds what he's looking for, he'll take a few branches and leave. If he doesn't—"

"Mom and dad will kill me if he cuts a tree down! Besides, what if he gets lost and wanders on to a neighbor's land?!"

"Listen to you—you're talking about him like he's five. Kid, he's twenty eight mentally, and thousands of years old physically. If anything, he can take care of himself."

"Not in this world! This is the real world, not Tales of Symphonia—"

"To him, T-o-S is the real world, and the world you're in now is fake. He doesn't care—all he wants is the Sacred Wood, and he'll be on his wa—"

"What makes you even think we have Sacred Wood, that stuff grows in Ozette, a completely different climate than this place's tropical jungle—"

"Niaki, just stop worrying. Chelsey says that she tweaked your land's flora, and that—"

"SHE'S MESSING WITH MY VERSE'S VEGETATION!?" Niaki howled.

"Calm down." The male teenaged voice on the other snapped. When Niaki didn't reply immediately, he went on. "You're a Yaster; you hunt Mary-Sues in your free time with kitchen knives. You can deal with that abominable desert heat that I hate like you do not know. You can handle this, and you will handle this, and you're going to get used to it and have fun."

"But—"

"Maybe you don't understand, kid. This isn't a request I'm making—this is an order. Deal with Kratos Aurion being in your verse, on your land, and you'll get paid in permits to visit the verse of your choice while off duty. Fail this mission, then you'll hand in your gloves, and you'll never travel the multi-verse on our business again."

There was silence on Niaki's end of the phone.

"Do you understand, kid?"

After several long moments, there was a quiet, reluctant sigh.

"… Fine. I'll do it."

"Good girl."

Niaki grimaced at the mock condescending tone he used. "I better get some good permits for this…"

"You will. Go."

Niaki hung up her side of the phone, staring morosely out the window at the jungle outside of her house. She wasn't even sure what it was that she had to do. All she knew was that she didn't want anyone from a foreign verse on her land without supervision—preferably hers. Why her co-worker Chelsey had chosen Niaki's place to send Kratos, Niaki did not know.

She did know, however, that Chelsey would definitely be hearing about this later.

The teenager heaved another sigh, reaching up to tighten her two ponytails. Time to deal with a brooding mercenary.

This was going to be difficult.

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After a brief house-wide search for a missing left shoe, Niaki tumbled out across the clearing her house was located in, and into the thick jungle around it.

Leaves crackled and branches snapped underfoot. The insects droned and capered, and the birds screeched and chirruped. The wandering paths through the undergrowth had vines and branches tumbling in from all sides, and the trees around it stretched protectively overhead.

Kratos heard her coming long before she came into view. She was a teenager, waving one hand ahead of her to ward off transparent spider-webs, keeping the other hand close to her side. Every few steps she would glance up and around, as though looking for something.

Once Kratos had identified her as not being a threat, he had looked away. Ignore her—with luck, she would walk on by.

As it would happen, luck was not on his side. Once she spotted him, she began to make her way towards him, scuffing leaves and twigs noisily as she went.

"Hey there!" She called. An irritatingly cheerful smile flickered into view.

Kratos half-turned to face her. "Greetings."

"Whacha doin?"

"It is nothing of your concern."

She wasn't deterred in the least. Having gotten within fifteen feet of him, she stopped walking and crossed her arms. "Actually, it kind of is." She corrected cheerily. "My parents asked me to keep an eye on you while they're out."

As usual, Kratos' blank expression didn't so much as flicker. By contrast, Niaki's grin did. She was lying—it hadn't been her parents on the phone. It had been her coworkers from a job said parents didn't know about.

"May I speak with your parents?" He asked carefully.

"Can't. They're out."

"Then how did they communicate to you to watch me?"

"Magic." She said brightly.

"…"

"So what are you doing?"

"Nothing that concerns you."

"You said that already."

"You had asked the same question." He said pointedly.

"I need to know what you're looking for to see if I can help."

"I never said I was looking for anything."

"You can't be waiting for someone."

"Why is that?"

Niaki sighed and shuffled her feet, examining the ground underneath them. "… Look, Kratos. I know about the deal you made to come here."

"…"

The teenager looked up to find him studying her with a frown, his hand on his longsword's hilt. At the sight of that, Niaki quickly hurried on.

"Um, you made a deal with someone called Chelsey, right?"

"…"

"I'm guessing you weren't able to find Sacred Wood in Ozette. Chelsey must have gotten orders to ensure you got whatever resources you needed, and she offered to send you to somewhere where you could get them. Only she's gone now, isn't she?"

Again, the mercenary didn't respond. Niaki smothered the growing irritation she was feeling—so far, Kratos was the only person she knew who could vocalize 'dot-dot-dot' this easily.

"The people higher up found out about that, and sent me to help you find it and send you back home."

"I do not require your assistance."

"I don't care, I'm here anyway."

"You claim you know what it is that I seek. If you wish to assist me, then why don't you assist me in searching?" His blank expression never wavered, but his voice was beginning to sound irritated.

"I would, but I haven't the faintest idea what Sacred Wood trees look like."

"…"

"I mean, what texture is its bark? What do its leaves look like? Do its roots rise above ground to meet the trunk, or are they underground? All I know is that it's big, brown, and really heavy when dragged."

Kratos caressed his sword's hilt almost longingly, watching her with an air of extreme annoyance. "The leaves are in the shapes of spearheads. The bark is smooth. The roots are underground. The trees grow to be thick, but not necessarily tall. It must be young, for if it is too thick or tall it will be impossible to collect wood from. Go search for a tree of that description."

Niaki's pigtails bobbed as she gave him an energetic salute, grinning widely. "Yessir! Right away, Sir!" Her tone didn't seem sarcastic, but the final effect was.

She turned away and started down an overgrown path Kratos hadn't noticed at first. Soon she faded from sight among the trees, but Kratos' acute hearing could hear her nonetheless.

Muttering to himself in Angelic, Kratos strode down a different path, more than ready to finish his present task as quickly as possible.

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"Kraaaa-tooooos, I fouuuuunndd—"

"Be silent." Kratos snapped. "There could be enemies about."

Niaki rolled her eyes, making it a point to noisily kick up dry leaves as she walked towards him. "We don't have monsters here, Kratos."

"How did you and that girl Chelsey know my name?"

"Magic."

He gave her a look saying 'And you really expect me to believe that?'.

Niaki grinned when she saw it. "No, really—it's magic! Isn't it cool?"

"Indeed." His eyes narrowed, but he left his questions to ask them later. "Where is the tree you found?"

Her grin faded, and she turned, beckoning over one shoulder. "Down this path—follow me."

Hand on his hilt, the mercenary ghosted after her. Niaki glanced back when she didn't hear him. Yes, he was following her, but he was some how managing to place his feet carefully enough that his footsteps hardly made a sound.

Looking forward again, she went out of her way to step on fallen twigs and branches. For a while they traveled in relative silence, neither of them speaking.

When they finally talked again, it was Kratos who spoke first. A brooding frown was on his face, and his posture was tense. "Are you attempting to alert someone of our presence, or are you merely deaf enough not to hear the din you are causing?"

"No-one should be on this property except my family, my coworkers, and our guests. Since my parents are out in town today, and it's summer vacation, and I'm off duty, that rules everyone else but you and I off."

"Nevertheless, it is foolish to call attention to yoursel—"

"WHOA!" Niaki leapt back towards him suddenly, shying away from something unseen. The next instant, Kratos had his sword drawn, and was moving towards the area she had retreated from. He was just in time to watch as a brightly colored snake's tail vanished from sight beneath a bush.

"Damn, that was huge!" Niaki stared in the direction it had gone.

Kratos sheathed his sword, his lip curling. "I have seen larger. Please continue onward."

"But…"

"The snake is gone, Miss…?"

"Niaki. I'm Niaki Nirelace."

"Miss Niaki, that snake was no threat. Please continue to lead me towards the tree."

Niaki stuffed her hands into her teal pant's pockets, beginning to stride down the pathway more quickly than they had entered it. "We're almost there." She mumbled.

"Good."

They turned a corner, and the undergrowth around them began to change. The wall of plants on either side of them became thicker, and the mount of trees stretching above them dwindled.

"… How did you know my name?" Kratos asked.

Niaki glanced back at him. "I'm not allowed to say."

"I must know."

"Do you know what this place is?"

"This is an alternate universe."

"Did Chelsey tell you that?" Niaki asked curiously.

"…I can sense no mana here. No other explanation as to how we can still exist in spite of it's absense it would make sense."

"Ah—Right. Mana… I was wondering if we had any…"

"Please continue."

"Oh, right. Well, this being an alternate universe and all… In this verse, you don't exist, and in your verse, I'm pretty sure I don't exist. Your verse and mine are radically different, but both our verses have quirks and bits where elements from one verse or the other shines through."

"…"

"What I mean is… Well, sometimes an artist in your world will do something nobody had ever thought of, while in this verse we might already have an entire franchise dedicated to it. Like… There's an ice sculpture in Flanoir of something called 'Pacman', yet in this verse, Pacman is a widely recognized videogame character."

"Ah. I assume that videogame is a form of entertainment here involving magi-technology?"

"There's no mana here, so no magitechnology. We do have plain technology, though. In our verse, a group of people got together and made a videogame called Tales of Symphonia—Argh! Gackth, ptooie!" Niaki stopped walking, waving and moving her hands as though fighting an unseen enemy. "Bleagh--Spider web! Hate those, you never see them coming…"

"Hm."

"Alright then, moving along—Hey, that's the tree over there!" Niaki pointed towards a tree just off the path, with a few ferns in the way.

"Which one—Nevermind. I see it." The auburn haired mercenary began to make his way towards it. "Continue, please." He said, not turning to look at her.

"I'm going to get in trouble for telling you all of this… then again, Chelsey's the one that started it, and knowing a verse where there's a Kratos that already knows what's going on could be useful."

"Hm." His tone was unreadable as he began to walk around the tree.

"Ah, right—Tales of Symphonia is what the videogame's called. You might say it focuses on Colette's Journey of World Regeneration as a chosen, but the story focuses more on Lloyd. Since you're with Colette for the… journey, you're in the story, too."

Kratos looked around the tree at her. "… So you are not the only one who knows of us."

"No." Niaki agreed. "I'm not. I am, however, most likely the only person you're going to have to deal with. Not including Chelsey, of course."

"Hm." Without warning, the mercenary crouched, springing upwards in an impossibly powerful jump. Without a small sound of rustling branches, he disappeared into the tree's branches.

"Whooooaaaa!" Niaki grinned widely, hurrying forward to look up from below him. "That's awesome!"

"Hm." Came from above.

"Man, I wish I had those enhanced abilities that expheres give you—That would be so cool!"

"You know of expheres." It wasn't a question. Niaki answered as though it was one anyway.

"Yep—I also know where they come from, though. I'm not sure I actually want one of my own, but it sure would be cool to jump like that…"

"… Hm."

There was the sound of rustling branches. Niaki squinted as leaves began to fall. "Hey, what are you doing up there? Can I help?"

"Move." There was the sound of something sawing at wood.

"Huh?"

"Move."

"Why—HEYWHOA!" Niaki scrambled out of the way, tripping over an upraised tree root.

Behind her, a huge, frighteningly heavy branch fell heavily to the ground she had previously been standing on. She and the ground beneath her shuddered and rebounded from the impact, as though a small, compact pickup-truck that had fallen instead of a mere branch. Birds took flight screeching their discontent, and small critters that had been previously unnoticed fled from the loud noise.

Moments later, a considerably lighter mercenary dropped onto the branch. In his hand he had a long, saw-edged knife. It was coated in tree sap and saw-dust.

"YOU CUT DOWN A TREE!" Niaki wailed.

"I cut down a branch." Kratos corrected.

She rolled over, glaring at him. "That tree's going to die from such a large branch being cut off, you—"

"The tree will survive. It is in its nature."

"You retard, you almost killed me!" Niaki pointed at him accusingly.

"I gave you fair warning." Kratos replied. He turned to examine the branch he had felled.

"You idiot, you gave me two seconds, I almost /died/, that's such a big branch, and—"

"Miss Nirelace." Kratos said without turning. His tone was quiet, but there was obvious menace in it. "Would you kindly keep a civil tongue in your head, and lead me to where I might return to my 'verse', as you call it?"

"I can open a portal here." Niaki muttered sullenly, crossing her arms. "But what if someone heard that tree-branch fall? What if someone comes to see what happened?"

"You told me yourself that no one would be on this land, and thus no one would be near enough to have heard it." Kratos pointed out.

"Oh come on, that branch was loud enough to wake the dead bodies I'm sure are buried somewhere around here from past land owners!"

"… I'm sure. Miss Nirelace, if you are this against allowing me to be seen here, would you kindly open this 'portal' to return me to my world?"

Niaki noticed that though his words were polite, there was a distinctly forced quality. The tight grip the man had on his sword's hilt might have had something to do with it. The cold glare he was fixing her with might have had something, too.

"Aaargh—Right. Fine." The teenager uncrossed her arms, turning away. She held out one gloved hand ahead of herself.

There was a metal rectangle across the back of her hand. When she twisted her fingers into a complex array of gestures, the rectangle began to glow. As Niaki finished another gesture, the light traveled down her hand to her fingertips, where the glow left her altogether. It hovered in the air like a day-time firefly, or like a small light-bulb.

"Username, Niaki. Password…" Niaki's voice disappeared altogether, and she mouthed a following word.

The small sphere grew suddenly, becoming a large, circular, glowing door. It was teal in color, and appeared to be made of some sort of metal.

Niaki didn't lower her hand. "It'll open if it's approached—be careful to duck as you go through."

"Thank you." Kratos replied curtly, taking hold of a convenient branch coming out from the main branch.

"You're welcome." Niaki still didn't move. Chances were that if she did, the portal would disappear.

Without another word, Kratos dragged the branch towards and through the portal, which hissed open in a sci-fi-esque sound effect. The world on the other side was sunny, and seemed to consist fields, with mountains on the horizon.

Once he was through, Niaki waved at him. "Bye!"

He lifted a hand in acknowledgement of her gesture, and turned away.

Niaki lowered her hands, and the door vanished. She turned towards the path, starting on her way home.

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"I finished the mission. He's got his Sacred Wood, and he's back in his verse. Where're my permits?"

"You can come collect them next time you come in to headquarters. They'll be on your desk, right after you finish your paperwork."

"… You troll, that's cheating!"

The voice on the other phone's end laughed. "Then you should have made sure we wouldn't do it before you completed your mission!"

"My paperwork's three times as thick as this phone book!" She lowered the phone for him to hear the sound of her thumping a book in question. "There's no way I could do that any time soon!"

"Then these permits will be extra motivation for you to finish, no?"

"But—But you'll have forgotten by the time I finally do!"

"Not my problem."

"You troll!"

"Heheh—Ah, sorry, there's my beeper, Jason's got another assignment for me…"

Niaki replied to the sound of the phone being hung up with extremely rude explicatives about her coworker's mother. Unfortunately, she was too late—he was gone.

She stood there, staring at the kitchen's phone for several long moments. After that, she shook her head, hung up, and left the room.

It was time to play videogames. After all, it wouldn't do to let knowledge of other verses become rusty. The fact that she had several aggressive fighting games in mind didn't hurt in the least.

Combat sound effects and exciting background music filled the house for the rest of the day.