Well, one thing about Aya in the game that isn't perfect is that apparently she fights with Gin when she doesn't think he's appreciating nature enough, etc.
Also, someone was awesome enough to look the future chapters over for me beta-wise, so they should be much clearer than my recent stuff usually is.
Naoya was the first to wake.
Gin and Aya were both night owls who did most of their work in the afternoon and evening, while Cain was a farmer. Even though that was lost to him long, long ago, he still loved the clarity of dawn. If anything, he liked the early morning hours even more now that he lived in a city, a place where most people weren't farmers and didn't appreciate that time. Oh, Tokyo was clogged with commuters at every degree of 'o-dark-hundred,' but he loved to go for morning walks along Aoyama's tree-lined streets, surrounded by the presence of humanity. People going about their lives, prosperous and oblivious to the danger that surrounded them. It made him nostalgic, reminded him of his brother's city, even though in Tokyo he was just another face in the crowd.
The first time in this life a fellow craftsman had recognized him in the street, run up to him and asked for a bit of his time and advice Cain felt like he'd been swept back in time and ended up giving the programmer known as 10Bit so much help that he was deluged with requests the next week and had to be very sharp with Atsuro and make quite a few grown PhDs cry with caustic e-mails to reduce the number of idiots bothering him.
The UEM field… Interesting. It couldn't be compared to God's Thunder, of course, but it would be at least a somewhat effective means of wiping a large-scale demonic incursion off the map. It was looking more and more like instead of trying to find somewhere deserted for the war to be fought without useless governments getting in the way or idiots getting involved, the best option would be to hold it in the middle of so many people that the mass of insects would itself prevent interference: they would hesitate to swat at the Shomonkai for fear of what else they would disturb. Or destroy, like their entire economy.
When he'd spent so much time protecting cities, centers of the struggling civilization the angels tried to crush, it was counterintuitive, yet somehow elegant. Let the battle for the human world take place somewhere flooded with humanity, and see how the angels could handle large numbers of demon tamers, honed by fighting each other and demons for survival!
The thought made him smile even though he was looking down at the two others who lay in this bed with him.
It wasn't as though Naoya wasn't used to sharing a bed. For much of human history in many places entire extended families would share a single bed, huddled together for warmth, and there might not even be a word for privacy (the English word literally meant 'theft from the community'). Travelers would often sleep several to a bed with strangers at inns as well, and less prosperous ones would take up space on the floorboards. In times and places where Cain couldn't put down roots, not when he couldn't grow anything with roots, he'd spent entire lifetimes on the road as a traveling craftsman who could do just about anything that needed doing. So many lives: despite all the different cultures and places and people, the ways he'd found to fight to survive, they all blurred together after awhile.
There was a certain sameness to them, after all. His curse. Being so much older than everyone around him, except his brother when he was the King of Bel. And of course, the central realities of his existence were his brother and those damned angels.
He'd had apprentices, had people that regarded themselves as his friends that he'd mustered up some affection for, created everything from swords to street layouts. Then, after the Great Flood first swept everything away, he'd begun to realize that there was nothing that he could keep, aside from his brother and his enemies. He'd learned not to get attached to things, places or people, the same way mothers learned not to get attached to their babies after the invention of disease until they were old enough to speak and they were more likely to live than not.
He was used to relying on himself, his own strength, his own power. It was the only reliable tool he had, and there was so much he needed to do. Yet now there was something that he couldn't help but be attached to, because it was part of him.
Simply as a matter of logic, this Aya was a trap. Only an angel could have gotten at those bones in the first place, so this was obviously an attempt to sabotage the War of Bel. He'd have another chance at getting his brother's soul pieced back together in another thousand years, but not if humanity was stripped of its free will or exterminated after this ordeal.
The absolute best case scenario was that she would distract him and be a random factor that he couldn't afford. That his brother and humanity, his poor, crippled nieces and nephews couldn't afford. Not when he was the only one who remembered the threat, who could counter it, who had even a chance of outwitting God himself. After so long they were practically the same age, and humans had been created in God's image, with God's nature, at the beginning.
What he should do, what his duty was to his brother and all of the dead, to seven million stunted lives afflicted with so many curses?
His hand touched her throat, and he found himself momentarily stunned by how soft her skin was, untouched by the pox or signs of age that would already have started to show on a twenty-four-year-old's skin for most of history. He found himself noticing that she was warm, even though her lover's muscled body was radiating much more heat.
He heard her breathe, felt her pulse, thought of how she wasn't waking up, wasn't struggling. It wasn't as though he was gripping her throat, much less strangling her (yet). He'd just laid a hand on her, touched his fingertips to her windpipe.
Humans were so easy to kill, he knew that now. It wouldn't take very long to find their knives. He could kill her just like his brother killed those lambs, slice that throat and let the blood poor down. Would God find that pleasing as well, that Cain killed himself, sacrificed himself to his war against God? Or would it simply bore him? Cain had done it before, after all. When he'd failed to save Abel yet again and the only way to find Abel's reincarnation, to allow Abel's soul to find this world again was to die and be reborn so Abel's soul could follow him into the new life.
He'd sacrificed his own life dozens of times, dying not just by his own hand but in battle, in accidents, his body wrapped around his brother's as the flood whirled them around with the stones of broken buildings. Why was he hesitating now?
Because she was happy.
Something so ephemeral, so… He'd murdered his brother. Everything was so close to destruction. He didn't have a right to blissful ignorance. As for a relationship with another human? When their lives were so brief a span compared to his? He was surrounded by children who would be struck down before they could grow up. Watching his parents, he'd learned that love was something to be shared with an equal, and he didn't have equals. He was older than all but the oldest angels and demons, and they weren't human, didn't have free will, were all beings that existed for some purpose or another and…
Even if she had his soul, she didn't have his knowledge. She was himself as a new soul, not an innocent because what human was, but…
He couldn't afford to indulge himself, to let himself drink from her happiness, view this as some kind of second chance to be happy. He'd have a third chance when his brother was whole, the empire was reestablished and the threat of God was dealt with so it wouldn't just all be destroyed a third time.
So, kill her and kill this Gin because he was the type to seek revenge, then steal time from supercomputers and dip into all the funds he had hidden away to hire detectives to track down his brother's other half, and, well, he couldn't kill her. Wouldn't stain his hands with his brother's blood a second time. But he could turn her to stone or something, give her to his brother as a gift after he became King of Bel. Let himself watch them be happy, and feel that he'd managed to make something right.
That was the right thing, that was the necessary thing. Forget that he was the one who was led to her: she hadn't gone searching for him her entire life the way God and Remiel would surely have wanted. Despite being a piece of him, she'd built her own life, found her own happiness and her own partner, just like Aunt Lilith. She didn't even know what God really was and she'd rebelled against him by utterly ignoring her destiny.
Such an innocent, innocent enough to feel the pull between them, experience the heartbreaking joy tasting her joy gave him and not realize that there had to be a catch. Innocent enough to simply accept that good things could happen, even to people who obviously simply weren't meant to be happy.
Maybe he should turn her to stone, he thought, stroking that throat and watching Gin grumble a bit, twisting a bit now that the warm weight of Naoya's chest against his other side was gone and Naoya hadn't put the blanket back down. His arm was tightening around Aya, and Naoya knew an annoyed 'don't steal the blankets' mumble when he heard one, after all these ages.
Purely so that he didn't wake up, Naoya pulled the blanket around him to cover up Gin's chest again, and found himself smiling when there was a sound that had to be a thanks, and a smile, and…
And he wanted this. Wanted to pretend someone who had been alive for less than a quarter of a century was capable of understanding him, even if she could taste his soul. Their soul.
Maybe he should turn them both to stone, have something beautiful to look at until someone smashed it, like everything else he tried to protect was smashed.
He wanted this. This was a part of him, his soul knew. With him was where it was obviously supposed to be. It felt as though he would be depriving himself of something he was supposed to have instead of freeing himself of an entanglement, from something he hadn't had for thousands of years and yet he'd, well, he'd survived. Sort of.
God intended for Eve to be Adam's companion, for him to obey her, and why wouldn't Adam stay in one place? Why wouldn't Adam go along with his own best judgment? He'd harnessed Adam's own free will and the human virtue of integrity, of being true to themselves, and used it to create a companion who would do what Lilith hadn't, and value Adam above all else because he was herself.
Naoya, Cain: he lived for his brother. It would be, it would be nice to have someone that would live for him and him alone. Even though he didn't want to see part of himself made into a slave, even his own slave. Didn't want her to be stripped of her happiness, her own decisions overruled by God's plan. It would be easy for Cain to make her forget about Gin, he was certain: he was the person he knew best, after all. He knew what drove him. He could have an adoring companion, and it was such a temptation.
To make another human into what God wanted all of humanity to be: if he did that, it would go against all the principles he'd somehow managed to cling to. By betraying her, he'd betray himself. If he broke her, he'd break himself, and eventually the angels would win and he'd kneel before God.
By sacrificing her, he would sacrifice himself, and his own happiness.
Somehow, it was harder to do that when 'he' was in another body, had another personality. Hadn't done anything to deserve this. Couldn't he let just this part of him be selfish? Be free, have the free will that he'd spent so long fighting for humanity to have?
Without him even being aware of it, his hand had moved to her hair, started combing through it, petting it, scratching gently at her scalp the way he'd touched his little brother in so many bodies.
Making that same implicit promise: there's no need to fear my touch, I won't hurt you. I will guide and protect you: it is safe to rest when I am here, it is safe to close your eyes and just breathe, just enjoy the world that was created for us.
How long had it been since he'd been held? His stepparents in this life were the most tactile parents he'd had in centuries, even though Japan's culture was a reserved one when it came to signs of affection. No matter how much practice he had at blending in, people he was around every day would sense that he wasn't letting himself connect to them in the way a normal child would, that he didn't want them to put their hands on him when he wasn't theirs to claim, didn't want them to promise to protect him, to shelter him in strong arms when that wasn't a promise they could keep. He couldn't ask them to protect him from God's own curse, after all. It wouldn't be fair to them. He was the elder, after all. He had a responsibility.
He wanted to, to give this other half of him what it simply wasn't possible for him to have. He wanted to indulge her in the ways he wouldn't indulge himself. He wanted it to be true that she would stay by his side always, as Eve had Adam, so that he would have someone else besides his little brother. Even if she couldn't help him. She just didn't know enough, wasn't old enough… but she could understand him, when she could feel what he felt. And he wanted that.
Temptation, temptation incarnate, just like Lilith herself. Even if this one was made by God in such a way that she would want to be with him, would fight to be with them, and someone fighting for that? Someone fighting to make him happy, besides his brother, the brother he already owed so much that he couldn't repay?
He wanted, and it made him feel so weak. He wanted, and he knew that God and the universe didn't care about what he wanted, except to use it against him, but he still did.
Was there some way to make her soul merge with his again? He knew it wouldn't be easy to undo what God had wrought.
No, he admitted, shaking his head. Even if it was possible, it would take a great deal of work and research, and he didn't have the time in this lifetime, not with the War of Bel less than a year away. Probably more like six months at the absolute latest, and it would actually be to his advantage to set it off sooner than that, at a time and in a manner of his choosing. Kuzuryu was a noble soul, knew so much more of the truth than anyone but Cain, had pieced it together out of multiple sources, driven by concern for humanity's sake. He would be easy to use, he would want to be used, for the sake of this world.
Even if he managed to scrape through the ordeal, even if he won humanity another chance, this was still the best chance he had to awaken his brother and end this. He was certain of it.
He needed to be able to focus, to not be distracted: that was the most important thing. How to accomplish that?
His parents hadn't ever reacted to each other the way he had reacted to Aya last night. Well, he wasn't sure what had gone on before he was born. What about when they first met? Could familiarity blunt this need? Make his, their, soul feel as though it was whole, all in one place and piece, settled? Would this become an addiction, something that would consume him with need more and more the more he fed it, or would it ease into something comfortable, a pleasant luxury like heated water or the sound of wind in the trees as he worked?
He could spare… Half a month to find out. No more.
She felt not just like him but like family. Humans had married with demons ranging from gods to angels to nekomata for so many generations that the only purely human soul he'd sensed in millennia was his brother's.
Could he really kill her?
Could he afford not to?
While he waited for them to wake, he reached out far enough to grab a corner of his haori and drag it over to the futon so he could get at his cell phone and send a text to his usual agency requesting a background check on the owner of the bar Eiji, known as 'Gin,' his… apparently live-in girlfriend, known as 'Aya' and the other members of the band D-Va, as well as Gin's staff. Bonus for results in under a week, preliminary results in a day on the first two.
He loved the information age: the closer and closer the Ordeal came, the more invaluable information would become.
Coffee.
Gin had brought two top-of-the-line coffee/espresso/whathaveyou machines, one for the bar and one for his apartment because while it wasn't as though he'd put up with being weak-willed about anything, sometimes he just didn't want to have to put clothes on before getting his first cup of strong black coffee of the day. If Aya didn't put on clothes before beginning to fill the sink with mugs that used to contain mocha, that was an even better way to begin the day.
When he smelled coffee, he mumbled, "Aya?" hopefully, but it subsided when he felt her soft, warm weight shift a little. She must have already finished her first cup and come back to bed.
When the side of a mug nudged his nose, he managed to get an arm free of the sheets to take it, drinking it like a shot and feeling it burn his throat on the way down. There wasn't any sugar in it, which combined with the fact that Aya was still breathing slowly, sound asleep, told him that they must have had someone over last night.
"Thanks," he said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes a little, putting the mug down on the tea tray by the head of the bed that had never actually held any tea… Except he knew tea when he smelled it, and when the mug clinked against a smaller cup that was quickly removed before Gin accidently knocked it over.
"I should thank you for last night. You kept us from doing something all of us would have regretted," a calm voice with a tone that made it clear the speaker considered himself superior even though he owed Gin a favor replied.
Gin looked up to see the guy from last night. Instead of turning on the lights, he'd opened the blinds and the trees outside gave the room a slightly greenish and very morning tint that immediately made Gin want another cup of coffee. "So, you're in your right mind now?" Gin asked. Those red eyes seemed sharp (and dangerous) enough.
The man smirked, and it was a sharper, more taunting version of Aya's, 'You just asked a very stupid question, but I'm going to resist the temptation to give you a stupid answer because really, that would just be too easy' look.
"Let's say your normal mind, then," Gin amended himself, smiling because it was better to be laughing with than laughed at. He could have let himself be provoked or demand answers, but the guy was acting way too in-control and confident for someone waking up somewhere they'd never been before after being drugged, or whatever exactly had happened, not to have a reason to be calm.
Possibly Gin shouldn't have drunk anything the guy gave him. He was certain the guy was the victim last night, or at least a victim, but people generally didn't like to lose face. As long as Gin kept it friendly, they were all a lot safer.
"Not quite," Cain told him. "I'm left with no alternative but to hope that you were right last night, and more exposure will calm this hunger instead of making it worse. And, before you ask, I do remember what I told you last night and yes, it was the truth." Pity, that smile said. If he'd been in thinking last night he could have told Gin and Aya some lie with a better than zero percent chance of being believed. "It's possible that this is temporary, that we'll," Gin saw him look for the right way to put this, "calm down once we're sure a part of ourselves isn't going anywhere. I'm certain I know why I reacted so much more strongly than she did. The question is how long it will take. There's a war coming. The last time they invaded earth, I had my brother and a nation's resources to draw on. This time, the planet is completely unprepared. I can't afford to be distracted right now, but Aya was also right: if I force myself to stay away, that will also be a constant distraction."
Naoya drank from his teacup elegantly, and Gin noticed that he was sitting seiza, looked very old-fashioned and proper despite the untrimmed silver hair. The air of calm, control and civilization was almost enough to make someone ignore the red eyes. "So. It is rude of me to ask you to invite me into your home, but physical proximity and being in the space that is marked as hers should help." Cain smiled now, the bitterness mostly directed at himself. "The sooner this is taken care of, hopefully the sooner I'll be out of your hair."
"You want to move in?"
"You didn't seem bothered by having me in your bed last night. I keep irregular hours when I'm working on projects like this, but I don't worry: I won't wake you up when I leave."
"So just that? And the, the breathing." Gin glanced at the coffee machine: it said something about the two of them that they kept it in the bedroom.
"…Humanity back then was very different from humanity now. We didn't age once we were mature. There was no such thing as disease, and the soul and the flesh were not two. I'm fairly certain that the division between body and soul originally showed up in nephilim and other half-demons, since demons are beings of spirit even if they can physically manifest… I'll spare you the technicalities, but there are several mystic traditions where breath is how the soul and divine power enter and leave the body because it used to be literally true, and not just in special cases the way it is now."
Gin tilted his head to the side. "But you were able to yank me out of my body."
"Yes. There hasn't been a purely human soul created in thousands of years. Right now there are probably only four on Earth, and before I found Aya I would have said two, myself and my brother." Cain took another drink of the tea. "Of course, since Aya is… a different self but still part of my soul, that's four people but only two souls. More coffee?"
"Sure, and pass the sugar." Ah, Gin got it. Cain was acting like the host in Gin's own home. He might not have caught that power play if being a bartender hadn't given him a lot of experience with all the ways people reacted to food and drink, bread and salt. "How'd you figure out how I liked it brewed?" There were a couple tricks to how Gin liked his coffee.
"The wear on the buttons." Which were pressed how much, by fingers of what size.
"That's impressive. Say, do you…"
"I work as a freelance programmer. I make several million a year, and that's only what shows up on my tax returns." So no, he didn't need a job as a barista. "I won't offer you money: that would be an insult, and if you took it, well." This time, when Cain smiled his lips actually parted, but while the smile was genuine, so was the threat.
"Taking money to let you sleep with Aya, even if we were only talking sleep-sleep? Yeah," Gin agreed, returning Cain's smile even though Gin's own 'I'm happy with you now, but you'd better make sure I stay that way' smile seemed more pleasant on the surface, less naked threat. "I'd kill me too."
"She seems to think highly of you: she was practically showing you off to me." Cain looked down at his cup. "If she wasn't a summoner, I would tell you to get out of this country, because war is coming. Unfortunately, an angel must have caused her birth in the first place, so they will know that she exists. There is nowhere the two of you can run where she would be safe, no ward I can create that will protect her. A war of demons is about to come to Earth, and the angels will use that as an excuse to conquer or exterminate us, if they can. They will seek to kill everyone who knows how to summon, just like last time, so that humanity will be unable to defend itself when the next ordeal comes. When she's also a part of me? I've stopped them before, or at least kept their victory from being complete. They won't allow me to gain more power, or an ally. That's why this has to be a trap: they wouldn't have let her be born unless they had some reason to believe she would handicap me instead of fighting by my side. If I win despite her, then she will have failed in that purpose even if she didn't help me, if she's already started reaching for the power that would let her fight them?" Cain shook his head. "They will not let her live. The curse gives me some protection, but she isn't marked, so I don't know if it extends to her."
"The curse?"
"If you had any unwanted houseplants, I could give you a demonstration of part of it. Or…" Naoya looked at the window. "Does that open?"
"Yeah." Aya had insisted, so she could feel the wind when the mood struck her.
Naoya stood and walked over to it. "Watch this," he said, lifting up his teacup, then paused. "No, I'll get water right from the tap."
"So I can see that you didn't do anything to it?" Gin asked, standing up and walking over to look out the window.
"Exactly," Cain agreed, walking silently over to the kitchen and returning with a glass full of water. "See the grass below? I'll make sure to avoid the trees." He grimaced, but tilted the glass and flung the water out in an arc.
Every blade of grass the water touched instantly withered, the blighted area spreading as the water soaked into the soil, into the roots of the grass. "Every plant I try to grow, or pick fruit from, or tend: they die. That's one part of the curse."
"So you watering the grass killed it?"
"No, they were killed because I watered them. Everything is." Cain's eyes were dark with sorrow, memories of pain and anger in those ruby depths. "And I wouldn't kill you if you whored her out. No, you would take a very, very long time to die."
Gin looked at him with shock and alarm. That didn't sound like righteous indignation. That sounded like experience talking.
"If you hadn't been there last night, my own other half would have… I would thank you for protecting my virtue if I was a blushing maiden or I had any in the first place. Your lover was throwing herself at another man and you still were concerned for me. That's rare."
Gin gave him a look that said, 'And you're flattering me… why?' He was greatful for the change of subject, but obviously Cain wanted something from him.
"I need to teach Aya enough about demon summoning to be able to defend herself. I'll let her be the one to convince you that the supernatural exists," Cain had been bored with that conversation before the Enlightenment was a century old. "But you do want the power to protect her, don't you?"
"You tossed out killing her as an option last night, and now you want to teach me?" To fight people who threatened her, including Cain himself if he stopped playing nice?
"War is coming. In wars, people die. If you don't want Aya to be one of them, then study hard. Still, I'll make you this bargain: if I can stay here for half a month, and do whatever is necessary that doesn't involve harming your lover, then she will not be harmed by me or mine." His demons, his allies. "And during that time, I will teach you both whatever you are willing to learn." He frowned. "But I can't spend too much time… Time grows short, and to spend so much here..." He started to pace. "I hate explanations, but under the circumstances lying would be foolish." As would holding back information the angels could later shock them with. "She needs to understand what she's been born into, what we're up against."
"Wait, hold on a minute. You want her to fight for you?"
Ha. "She will. She won't let me leave her out of this: I know that because she is me. Just younger. She'll think that she can make a difference to what happens, she won't let this world fall into their hands."
Gin had to admit he was right about that. Aya loved this world, this city, but, "Shared souls, saying that she is you…"
"Can't you see it?" Naoya asked him. "Or am I too twisted and bitter?" Like his smile.
"Aya doesn't exactly act like a traditional housewife," Gin drawled. "And if you don't know that, then you don't know anything about her." Which did kind of imply that Naoya was making that up, and if that was a lie what else was?
"Of course not. I just got you coffee because I wanted you awake enough to have this conversation before she woke up." Naoya smirked. "You've been surprisingly calm about all of this." The demonstrations of magic and the curse.
"You… aren't normal." That much was obvious. "I saw you and Aya doing… that. If she believes in summoning or whatever, then I'll take her word for it."
A grin now. "Ah. Her loyal knight."
"So whose are you?" Cain was too comfortable with the appearance of submission, with thinking about someone else's condition and needs instead of just expecting Gin to go along with what he wanted because he was powerful. Cain had too much pride to bow down to just anyone, but those were court manners.
"Perceptive." Maniacal delight now. "I should have had more trust in her good taste." Young or not, she was him, after all. "That was a rhetorical question, I trust?"
"Judging from the way you broke that bastard's nose and who you were worried about even when you were scared stiff, your brother, am I right?"
"Correct. But I'm not a knight," Cain said. "I am his advisor, his strategist. My brother has always fought his own battles."
"And you do the dirty work?"
"Why not? My hands were the first to be stained with a fellow human's blood."
No, Gin thought, the world wasn't really any less crazy the next morning, either.
Still, either this was one hell of a con or Aya was in a lot of trouble. Actually, either way she was in a hell of a lot of trouble, because why else set up something this elaborate?
"MmmGin!"
"Hey, Aya."
"Come to bed." Her eyes opened a crack as she rolled over and got herself wrapped up more in the sheets. "What time is it, and… You, get down here too."
"Let me set an alarm first," Cain told her, kneeling by the side of the bed. "And call me Naoya for now." Two hours: if he lost track of time the sound would wake him up. He wasn't sure of how long they'd breathed together for last night before he fell asleep: that wasn't like him. Time sense was important in the ages before clocks.
Gin went to get himself another cup of coffee before sitting on the edge of the futon. It lookedlike he'd been appointed chaperone. This time, Aya'd wrapped her arms around him, and then it looked like Naoya had done the same. Of course, Aya's legs were still free for her to nudge him with an ankle: she meant in bed properly. Naoya opened a red eye to tell him that, "You should be here for this. I don't want her to get wrapped up in me and forget you."
That wasn't good. "Can that happen?"
"It was supposed to happen to me," Naoya told him, before returning to tasting the air just above her lips.
"You can just kiss already," Gin told him as he stroked a hand down Aya's back.
"Is there a reason we're not?" Aya wondered almost dreamily. "Flesh as well as spirit…" It was her mouth that captured his, and shouldn't a guy who was supposedly thousands of years old be more comfortable with kissing, with having a beautiful woman roll over on top of him?
The way he'd talked about prostitution, though, of not wanting that to happen to her… Curses were supposed to be nasty, weren't they. Wasn't much of a curse if he had an easy time of it, now was it? Gin wasn't going to ask, because it was none of his business, but Naoya'd sounded surprised by the fact Gin had stopped Aya from doing stuff to him, told Aya to knock it off instead of blaming Naoya. There was something about him that was attractive, Gin guessed, that was like Aya, only without her enthusiasm for life. More like Haru, with the pain she had because of how her family'd treated her.
Damn. Naoya's upper back was tensed up: Gin knew that one, it happened when people braced themselves to receive a blow. So either Naoya was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, or it could be just stress.
Not being a fool, Gin knew that Naoya'd been out to lay the groundwork to seduce Gin (to his side) too this morning. It as Aya's idea, really, and it would make jealousy less of an issue. Right, "Hold on a second. How far are you willing to go here."
Both of them blinked. "Condoms."
"Sorry, but you need to get checked," Aya said to Naoya. He was going in for tests as soon as they got out of bed. She'd just met him last night, and she wasn't going to risk her and her lover catching anything. No way.
"I'm not having children," he said to her. "Absolutely not. I assume you're on the pill?"
"Of course, and I've got a five-year implant." Between Haru and the rest of the band, Aya was already raising several children, and she took her responsibilities seriously.
"I'll also need a DNA sample. After DNA was discovered, I froze a sample from my last body and then had it compared to this one: there was only enough difference to make me look Japanese instead of Austrian. I need to see how similar our genes are. According to my genome, I would have black hair if it weren't for the mark. They couldn't tell what my eye color would be, and I don't remember what it originally was because we didn't have mirrors. It's very possible that we're practically identical twins, aside from the obvious and tampering to produce a resemblance to your birth family."
"You're worried about inbreeding?" Aya asked him.
"Insanity runs in my family already." Of course he was worried! "Do you want to go to a hospital to have the samples drawn or have them come to us?"
Gin raised an eyebrow. "You can do that?"
"I can have it done. I wouldn't have let a doctor run tests comparing my current DNA to a previous incarnation if I didn't have more than one hold over her." Of course, just giving her the fascinating samples was really what had won him the woman's loyalty. Naoya had already rolled out from under Aya and grabbed his cell phone. "Full check-up and tests on both of you: I'll have my lawyer find a trustworthy service…"
"You have a lawyer?"
Naoya nodded, already typing. "A firm of them, actually. English, I paid for the founder's training and the firm's creation around three hundred years ago? I had them open a Japanese branch when I incarnated over here. They specialize in patents and a few other things relevant to my interests." They'd also put him in contact with the Narumi Detective Agency, which had contacts with the Kuzunoha clan which let it investigate supernatural matters he didn't have the time to look at personally as well. "I used to do all of this personally, but there are just too many people in the world now." Too many things to keep track of. "The main bank I use is much older, of course. They don't know I'm the same person, but they don't ask questions. Do either of you have plans for today?"
"After last night?" Gin had figured he'd be spending most of today trying to clear that up.
Aya tapped Naoya on the shoulder, annoyed. "The cell phone stays off when we're in bed."
He turned to stare at her. "What?" Are you insane?
"It's too impersonal. People need to spend more time with each other face to face, and…"
"Oh, don't tell me you're a Luddite. I'll give you all the face to face time we need to get this out of our systems, but I need my phone, woman! I'm expecting background check reports, and what if they find something urgent in the medical tests, or one of the alarm programs I have monitoring what various intelligence agencies are monitoring goes off, or Atsuro gets double dog dared to crack something high profile again, or my brother nearly gets suspended for wearing his headphones when he's not allowed to? My Laplace artificial demon is clearly on the fritz: it should have realized that something momentous was going to happen, at least, so I need to keep a close eye on its reports and I'll probably have to alter my entire timetable…"
"Timetable?"
Very familiar with the opening stages of the kind of argument that happened when Aya's artistic sensibilities were offended by someone's lifestyle or lack of appreciation for nature, Gin headed to get more coffee.