A/N I'm giving you two chapters early since it's Christmas. ThenI will go back to updating once a week. Thank you for all the support.

9. Dilandau

After hearing of the vision and the plan. Kyria thought that it was a good plan.

"When do you think this is going to happen," Kyria asked.

"Tomorrow morning," Hitomi answered.

"Well why do we have to go at all then? Why not just not go," Kyria asked.

"We want to confront Dilandau, and hopefully get information from him, like who's behind all this," Van explained.

"Well we better get some sleep then. We have a busy morning tomorrow," Kyria sighed.

The other two agreed and said goodnight. After they left, Kyria sat on her bed and started petting Jake. Jake, who seemed to know that something was wrong, got up and laid down in Kyria's lap purring. Kyria then started talking to him as if he understood.

"It's a good idea, but something is telling me that the plan is going to go horribly wrong. That something is going happen. But how do I tell them that?"

She sighed, and decided to tell them in the morning. She blew out her candle and went to bed.

. . . . Elsewhere at the same time . . . .

"Is something wrong," Van asked Hitomi.

"I think Kyria is hiding something and it involves the plan," Hitomi said sighing.

"How do you know?"

"I'm not sure, but I seem to be able to sense it. Maybe it has something to with my new powers. Maybe one of them is being able to tell when someone is hiding something."

"Well if your right, how are we going to get her to tell us?"

"I don't know. Maybe she'll tell us in the morning."

"I hope your right. We need to know who's behind this.."

With that said they went to bed. Little did they know that the night wasn't over yet. Soon after they fell asleep, Hitomi's pendant began to glow.

Vision

Hitomi was floating above a cliff. She recognized it as the one she had been to that morning. Now she saw herself and Kyria standing watching a fight. On closer inspection she saw that it was Van and Dilandau. But something was wrong. Van was

injured and he was losing. Kyria was trying to pull a horrified

Hitomi toward the cliff, but she wasn't moving. Then something really horrible happened. Dilandau's sword went straight through Van's stomach. He fell to the ground dead.

Vision End

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!"

The cry echoed throughout the room as Hitomi bolted up, Tears streaming down her face. Hitomi's scream had awakened Van. As he sat up he saw her crying and instantly knew she had had a vision, and a rather distressing one by the looks of it. He moved over to sit next to her and held her while she cried. She grabbed hold of him as if she was afraid he would disappear if she let go. She was still sobbing rather hard. Van held her while he waited for her crying to stop. After several minutes Hitomi finally stopped crying. She was still trembling badly though. After she had calmed down enough, she told him what she had seen. Van saw everything in her mind as she relived. By the time she was done, she was trembling again. Van was shocked and speechless. Finally he decided something.

"If that's what's going to happen," he began slowly. "Then we just won't go. Will that make you happy?"

Hitomi nodded. She was still in Van's arm. They stayed like this for quite a while. When Van looked down at Hitomi, he discovered that she was asleep. He gently laid her back down and covered her up. Then he fell back to sleep himself. They would tell Kyria in the morning that the plan was off. They would not go.

The next morning they told Kyria that the plan was off, and the reason why. They weren't surprised that she seemed to have known that something would go wrong. Everyone agreed not to got to the cliff. That afternoon after lunch, Hitomi was walking toward EscaFlowne's shrine. She wanted to be alone to think.

Just before she reached the shrine she sensed that she was being watched. She suddenly remembered what Kyria had said about the plot to kidnap her. As she turned around to head back to the palace, Dilandau stepped out of the trees smirking. Hitomi backed away getting ready to run since she still couldn't fly. As Dilandau walked toward her, Hitomi decided to call Van with the mind link.

'Van! I need help! Dilandau is here'

Meanwhile Van was in a meeting with his advisers when he suddenly felt terrified. He knew that it was Hitomi because the fear wasn't related to what he was doing. He was just about to call her through the link when her voice sounded in his head. After hearing that Dilandau was hear, he understood Hitomi's terror. He quickly left the meeting saying that he would explain later. He ran to the nearest balcony and jumped out, wings erupting from his back and tearing his shirt. Van dowsed in his mind and followed the Pendant's direction. He flew in that direction until he saw them. Hitomi kept taking steps back, while Dilandau kept advancing and seemed to be taunting her.

Dilandau was enjoying scaring her. He was just about to start up again when he heard something behind him. Turning around he saw Van heading straight for him with his sword drawn. Dilandau just had time to draw his own sword to block Van's attack. Dilandau started smirking again.

"I was only supposed to get the Mystic Moon witch, but I knew that if I stayed here long enough you would show up. As an added bonus I get to kill you," Dilandau goaded gleefully.

As the two of them continued to attack, Hitomi was standing a little behind Van watching. Right now both were blocking

attacks and neither succeeding in harming the other. Suddenly

Dilandau saw an opening and attacked hitting Van's exposed arm. Van bit his lip to keep from crying out. Despite his wound he kept fighting, though quickly losing.

Seeing the blood caused something to snap inside Hitomi. She felt a power and a heat grow in her hand. Looking down she saw that she had unconsciously created a fire ball. She moved to stand behind Dilandau. She quickly focused on Dilandau's back and threw the fireball. It hit squarely causing Dilandau to cry out, more from surprise than pain. However the second of distraction was all Van needed. He quickly attacked causing severe damage to Dilandau's chest. Dilandau cried out again this time from pain. This allowed Van time to retreat back to Hitomi, who had moved back behind Van and was now staring at her hand astonished. She couldn't believe she had just done that. Kyria hadn't said anything about her powers being dangerous. She didn't have time to dwell on this though, because Van had just grabbed her and flown away leaving a wounded Dilandau behind.

A few minutes later Van landed on their balcony and set Hitomi down. She remained quiet still contemplating what she had done. Van hadn't seen what she did. He just knew that she had done something to distract Dilandau. He asked her what had happened.

"What did you do?"

"I'm not sure. After you got hurt, something changed inside me. I think one of my powers revealed itself. It created a small flame in my hand. I seemed to instinctively know what to do. Anyway I just focused on Dilandau and threw the flame. It didn't hurt him, it was too small. But still, it worked. You won."

Hitomi held up her hand to look at it. She was till confused and even a little scared. Sensing this, Van went up to her and held her. She leaned against him for comfort.

"Kyria didn't say anything about my powers being dangerous."

"Maybe she didn't know or didn't want to scare you," Van replied gently.

"I'm going to ask her."