"Well, that sure is weird." Said Sei to her friends at the time school ended.

"What is?" asked Mimi.

"The robbery."

"I know!" replied Anna. "That's so unusual…"

The three girls were talking about what they had heard on TV that morning. It was in the news of the city, how the grocery store had been robbed the night before. But the weird thing was, that no money was stolen, only two bottles of hair dye and two towels.

There was still no way of knowing what color the hair dye was because all the bottles had been thrown to the floor, but they had counted them and the amount of money didn't match the amount of hair dye bottles. The robber had also broken a window, however but there were no finger prints anywhere.

"I'm serious, this city keeps getting more and more weird…" said Mimi.

Sei shrugged. "Hey, I gotta go buy some groceries, so, see ya."

"Alright, oh, and see if you can find anything and then tell us tomorrow, yeah?"

"Sure." The three girls hugged and then Sei headed towards the grocery store.

"I wonder who the person with Yazoo was." Thought Sei as she walked back home with both her arms carrying a bag full of groceries.

"Yes… but he might be dead anyway."

That thought made her shudder. How was it to wake up and realize you're all alone in the world she couldn't imagine. But she guessed that it might be terrifying, scary… almost to the point where it could drive anyone insane.

She was too deep in thought to notice two people coming out of a house running at full speed; she was brought back to reality when a boy collided with her, making her drop the grocery bags right before she lost her balance and joined the scattered food on the floor. She fell hard on her side, her hip and elbow crashing first to prevent her any harm. She lay on her side on the floor for a few moments while she realized what just happened. And then slowly and cautiously sat up, brushing her hair out of her face.

She looked up to a guy from where she was; he had very short black hair, he was pale, very muscular, and he was breathing hard while looking at a house. He was wearing a black outfit; what seemed to be a leather jacket and leather pants with black boots. It seemed his outfit was some kind of special armor. He had a weird gun attached to his left leg in a leather pocket. He seemed to be around his mid to late twenties.

"Ouch…" came a hiss to Sei's ears. She turned her head to her right only to see another guy about her age on the floor. He was trying to sit up; it seemed he was the one who knocked over Sei and then fell after her afterwards.

He had short black hair, but it wasn't as short as the other guys, no; this one had his hair down to his shoulders. For a moment Sei thought the guy was wearing really big bell bottoms until she realized that he was wearing a really long duster coat and that his "pants" were really the sides of his coat attached to his legs with belts. He was pale, and unlike the other one, he wasn't that muscular. There was a certain something, besides the green color of their eyes, that told Sei those two were related.

"Sorry." Came a harsh apology. Sei turned back to the one standing up only to be slightly surprised to find that the guy that was standing up was directing that apology towards her. He offered her a hand, she took it and was lifted very easily by him; the image of her being a rag doll pretty much filled her mind by how she swung brusquely until she regained control of her body.

Turning away from her, he walked to the one on the floor and also swung him like a rag doll in the attempt to lift him up; it seemed this guy was too strong for his own good. The one with longer hair gave the other one a cold stare as he hissed for him to be more careful. Amazingly enough, the muscular one seemed to be embarrassed and ashamed; now that was something you really never see every day.

"Did you guys just come out of that house?" asked Sei, pointing to the house she guessed they had emerged from.

The other two looked at her as if barely realizing her presence and then nodded without a word.

"You're new to the city, aren't you?"

"What makes you say that?" asked the one with longer hair.

"Well," began Sei, slightly crossing her arms, "Everyone who lives here never really goes near that house. People who don't listen or that don't know about them have to find out the hard way to stay away. You see, the people that live there are kinda crazy, and they tend to fool people just for their fun. They're kinda creepy, but if you stay away from the very beginning, you have a chance of living a pretty much normal life."

"Why are they like that?" asked the muscular one.

"Nobody knows why. It's not like they want to find out anyway. The people of the city rather stay away than trying to find out why they're so messed up. I tried talking to them once, but…" she shrugged.

The other two looked at her with questioning looks. She decided that talking about the old couple that lived in that house wasn't really a conversation starter.

"What are your names anyway?"

"My name is Loz. He's Kadaj," answered the one with short hair. The one named Kadaj looked surprised for a moment before he nudged Loz on the ribs hissing something and then rolled his eyes when Loz said he was sorry.

"So," she asked ignoring what had just happened between those two, "Do you guys have anywhere to stay?"

"No." again Loz answered and again Loz received another nudge in the ribs.

It seemed to Sei those two were hiding something; apparently Kadaj was getting nervous and angry and desperate by the way Loz was being so careless. Again she pretended not to see that. She bent down and started picking up the scattered food on the ground. She noticed how Loz helped her and how Kadaj stood near Loz, but Kadaj seemed to have too much pride to get on the floor and help.

"Thank you." She said, after all the food had been gathered. Loz nodded and Kadaj just sighed. "Hey, how about you guys stay over at my house?" she asked.

This statement took Kadaj completely by surprise. "No," he replied quickly, "we're… looking for someone." He jumped slightly when it was he the one who received a nudge in the ribs this time.

"Do you guys have money?"

"No."

"You need money to stay at a hotel."

"We don't need money, we don't need hotels, we don't need tea and cookies, and we don't need anything. We're just here looking for someone," said Kadaj, crossing his arms stubbornly and looking away.

"Well, you're not gonna find that someone today. It's already getting dark," said Sei. Loz and Kadaj looked up at the sky; indeed, the sun was beginning to set. Kadaj sighed again.

"Why do you want to help us?" he asked, walking towards her. She cocked her head to the side like a dog who didn't understand what its master was telling it. And yet she was smiling, meaning that unlike the dog, she did know what was going on.

"I don't know." She said, keeping her feet firm on the ground, refusing to leave, even as she noticed Kadaj approaching her dangerously. There was also a smile playing on his face.

Kadaj continued to advance in silence until he stood right in front of Sei. She looked up at him; he had several inches on her, but having him that close had a strange effect on her. She had this urge to touch his skin— Unexpectedly, he leaned towards her making her take a few steps back in surprise; his smile gave a little dangerous air to his person. She caught a gasp in her throat before it came out her lips as she looked at his eyes.

They were green like Loz's, but his pupil… it began to stretch vertically, like a cat's eye. Her own eyes widened slightly before she looked away from his. There was something about those eyes… something she couldn't quite place… Her sight crashed upon the sword he was carrying at his side.

"Warrior?" She asked out loud, looking back into his catlike eyes. His head jerked back with the question; obviously, he didn't know what she was talking about, and with this new distraction, his pupils began to normalize.

"Your sword," she said, motioning to it.

"Oh! N-no… that's… um…" he swallowed.

"C'mon." She said. "You can stay at my house tonight. I'll even help you look for that person tomorrow."

"Do you live alone?" asked Loz. For a moment Sei had forgotten he was there as well.

"No, I live with my brother," she said, smiling and nodding.

Kadaj took a long look at Sei. To her, it was obvious he was debating whether or not to go with her. And his eyes were calculating, like if he was looking at her for weaknesses that he might need to know of just in case things got out of hand later. As in, very big holy-shit the-world-is-ending kind of out of hand.

And it was the truth; he had willed his pupils to stretch because he wanted to intimidate her into leaving them to their own business. Instead, she'd backed away, but not enough to consider it an off the hook situation. Which meant that either she was completely nuts like the couple in that house they ran out of, or she knew more than she was leading onto. If it was the latter, there was so much trouble they could get into if they followed her; the possibilities were endless…

His train of thought was interrupted; he could feel Loz's pleading look on his back and the girl wasn't helping much either; if he had meant to intimidate her with his eyes, she was doing a better job at freaking him out with those huge, genuine, brown eyes of hers. He sighed again. "Where do you live?" he asked, a certain drag in the tone of his voice.

She smiled and began to walk away, motioning for them to follow her; Loz ran to her and began to walk beside her talking happily to her about all the stuff she was carrying in the bags. Kadaj on the other hand, settled himself beside Loz, and kept his mouth shut, listening to Loz talk on and on.

He doesn't even get the fact that this might be a mistake, thought Kadaj, frowning. Maybe his name had meant something to her, and now she was taking them to where Big Brother was… What other reason could there be? He didn't believe that this girl wanted to be friendly or nice with him, or Loz, and he knew for sure she wouldn't help. What bothered him the most was that Loz was limping a little, and he himself had a numbing sensation on his left arm, an effect brought upon him by the holy rain of the life-stream that fell after Kadaj had been defeated. With that in mind, it was hard to tell if Loz's strength and speed was still good enough to use in case danger came their way or if it had gone completely useless due to the imbalance of his body; none of the remnants had ever gone through a debilitating situation like the one suffered due to the life-stream rain. At this point in time, he sooo hoped Sei was a total, delusional out-of-her-head human…

Meanwhile, as Loz babbled on and on, Sei spaced out to her own set of troubles.

She didn't know who these people were, in all honesty, but something told her she did. Otherwise she didn't think she would've helped them to begin with. But her main focus wasn't on Kadaj, or Loz or even herself; it was the fact that Jake was very particular with who got to stay over at their house, and he would definitely be pissed and disapproving on the idea of those two staying over, even for one night…