Chapter 8:Blank

Who in their lifetime is good on Earth
and will become an angel after death
you look to the sky and ask
why can't you see them?~

Chase's layer was full of random rooms which were empty. One located at the very top of the mansion was small with a rock platform swimming in a bed of lava how this even occurred at the top of the building was unknown. It was this room in which Rhea took root for her meditation, sitting on her knees with her Komori sword laid in front of her and Yuki sat just as still beside her. The lava murmured with hot bubbles popping occasionally. The warmth of the room suited Rhea, it was like a sauna but she sat quite contently in a long dark emerald Chinese collared brocade ankle length coat. The clouded leopard's ears twitched as they picked up a new sound.

"There you are."

Rhea stayed focused her eyes still closed anyone would believe she was just sat sleeping upright. "I didn't expect you here so early in the morning Siren."

The tanned woman stayed by the door borderline between hot and cold. "Yes well, Rayne sent me with a message since you apparently can't get signal here."

"Well we are in the middle of no-where." Rhea reminded.

"Well anyway, Rayne wants to see you."

"Did she say what for?"

Siren snapped at Rhea "I'm not your goddamn secretary! Just go see her!" and with that she stormed off.

It seemed like forever since Rhea experienced the dangerous war zone that was the Shibuya department store. Women off all ages were pushing and shoving for the latest fashion or crazy bargain. After braving the lower levels Rhea finally reached the third floor. Her old school friend Rayne was waiting for her in a cake shop, already armed with bags.

"Been shopping?" Rayne waved a hand as she sipped her hot tea. Sitting at the round table a waitress came to take her order.

"Actually I have something for you." Reaching into one of the bigger bags Rayne pulled out a long thick white scroll with two golden handles attached and handed it to Rhea.

She looked at the scroll then back to Rayne bewildered "How did you get this?"

"Huh? Is it important?"

Rhea thanked the waitress who brought her coffee and cake. "That's not quite the question."

Rayne sighed "I pulled it out of my dream."

Wide eyed Rhea sniggered "That is so Nightmare on Elm Street." Rayne simply glared at her. "You're serious? Well anyway this is a magic scroll that belongs to a temple I used to train at and I'm pretty sure the monks are probably panicking a lot once they notice it's missing."

"What exactly are you going to do with that?" Rayne asked eyeing the scroll with suspicion as Rhea handed it back to her.

"I'll hold on to it for a while." Rhea carried on eating her cake happily.

"Hey this thing moves." Laying the scroll on the table Rhea quickly moved her drink and plate out the before Rayne could knock them off the table. In the centre of the scroll was blue circle with white figures moving around.

"Heh it's like charades."

The figure placed a mask over its face and faded out, the outline f the figure was still visible though.

"The Mask of Rio by the look of it, it can make the wearer invisible or something like that." Rhea pulled out her phone and pressed the speed dial button then held it to her ear. "Hey Jack, where are you?"

"What do you mean at home? Go find Wuya! One of those Shen Gong wu things has revealed itself it's the mask of Rio."

Rayne watched with amusement as Rhea lost her temper with Jack.

"I don't care if your mom grounded you or are you going to prove Chase wrong that you're not a whiny little cry-baby?" Rhea hung up on Jack and sipped the remaining coffee.

"That was like a mother lecturing her child."

"Shove it."

The rest of the day passed quite quickly. Rhea spent most of it in Shibuya with Rayne shopping since she couldn't return home for her other clothes buying new ones was the next best thing. It was rather late when she returned to Chase's layer.

"Meow." The clouded leopard trotted down the steep staircase as it noticed her arrival.

"Hey Yuki." She smiled and fussed the oddly non-threatening jungle cat.

"It's about time you came back!" The purple ghost snapped floating into view.

"Sorry for enjoying myself." Rhea huffed striding past the ancient witch.

"So how did you know about the Shen Gong Wu?" she pestered suspiciously.

"The same way you seem to; Magic."

-Beep beep beep beep clack-

"Mm. Five more minutes." The pink haired woman snuggled back into the pleasantly warm covers and shoved the alarm clock onto the floor. Yuki who had been sleeping at the foot of Rhea's bed stretched and decided to awake her too. Pouncing onto the sleeping woman who jerked suddenly as Yuki roared into her ear. "Okay okay am up." Rhea sat upright and stared at the proud looking cat that jumped off the bed. "O yeah training." She cursed as she swung her legs out of bed "Would it kill him to get under floor heating? These floors are freezing." Grabbing a new kung fu suit from her wardrobe she dressed quickly and headed towards the training room. Taking a sneaky peak in she found the room was empty.

"I see you managed to be on time this morning."

'This guy has to stop doing that' Rhea smiled masking her brief annoyance "I'm always on time."

Chase looked at her with a bemused expression "For the past four days you've been late." He stepped around Rhea and entered the room. "We will carry on from yesterday's training."

"Hai." Rhea did her warm-up stretches then bowed to her teacher to show she was ready. The older man threw her a bo-staff. Rhea was struggling to get the hang of this generally because she use to wielding a Naginata which is theoretically a bo-staff with a large knife attached to one end and small blade on the opposite end to help balance the weapon out. The bo-staff was the overall same length as a Naginata but much lighter, which was Rhea found difficult since she kept using the same force to swing the staff around. In a sparring match with Chase during their previous session, she had performed a downward blow with such force that her staff had snapped in two.

"You need to be calmer during battle. In Tai-Chi you don't need so much power." Chase lectured coolly sweeping Rhea off her feet with the staff.

'This isn't as easy as I thought.'