Okay, HUGE apologies to everyone. I got completely distracted by... well, everything. Finals. Then I had to help someone move. That was a three-day project that ended in pain after moving furniture on Monday. Yesterday I was too sore to do anything much, but still ended up doing chores. Yeah. I'm still hurting in places I'd forgotten I had muscles...

So... Christmas Eve... You're getting four of the updates I owe you today, and the other five tomorrow. Consider it something of a Christmas present, if you'd like. –is shot-

Thanks again to Coren024 for beta'ing. (And for being one of two people who kicked my ass back into gear.) Thanks also to the guest reviewer for aforementioned reason in parentheses.

Now, without further ado... Part 37! Enjoy!

"Might as well... See if those damn crabs are still there..." –Kairi

"The mayor wanted your help with something related to whatever it was you did down in engineering six and a half months ago." –Asch

Chapter 4.1 – For Want of Separate Roads
Part 37

I took a deep breath, stood and walked downstairs.

My hair was down, and I was wearing the red tank top and black slacks I'd gotten while undercover as Major Mirage. Simple, and comfortable.

Asch, Sync, Dark, Guy, Jade, and Tear were standing around in the kitchen. Natalia and Anise were still asleep in the room they were sharing. Ion had been awake early in the morning (here meaning 'four-thirty'), and had walked out into the garden where Twilight and I were relaxing. I'd ended up singing the two of them to sleep again around five, before leaving to shower again and get dressed.

Sorylle was sitting next to Dark's legs, while Mieu stood on the table. I moved to the side and sat on the steps.

"So?"

Asch turned to me. "We're waiting on Ion, Anise, and Natalia to get down here."

"And Twilight," Dark muttered. I noted absently that he had his eyes closed. Must still be tired.

I sighed. "Ion and Twilight are in the garden. Ion was up really early this morning having trouble sleeping."

"It bothers me that you know that," Tear commented. I shrugged.

"I'm usually up around four or five. Closer to four this morning."

"You keep a ridiculous sleeping schedule," Anise told me as she stepped past, not wearing her tabard, and still rubbing sleep out of her eyes. I just smiled and leaned my back against the wall, relaxing and slipping out of my body to continue poking at the miasma.

"Oh... Are we the last ones down?"

I looked up and noted Natalia, Ion, and Twilight standing on the steps above me. Ion blinked as he looked at me. "Did she fall asleep?"

I slipped back into my body, only slightly irritated by the interruption, and smiled up at him. "Nope. Just meditating." I stood to let them pass, and Asch crossed his arms.

"Now that we're all down here... We didn't get a chance to tell everyone last night, so I'm just going to get it out of the way now. We're leaving tomorrow morning on the Tartarus. Aside from Kairi and Tear, is anyone staying in Yulia City?"

"Excuse me?!"

All eyes turned to me, and Asch scowled. "The barrier around Yulia City is keeping the miasma out. You and I are going to have a long talk as soon as we're done here, but you are not coming with us on the Tartarus. We don't need you getting any worse," he said, a sort of finality in his voice that I'd... honestly never heard. I let that float around in my head for a little bit before I sighed.

Asch was right. I still hadn't found a way to get the miasma out of my system. Until then, I really shouldn't be taking more in. The Yulia Road is it then, I suppose...

"Fine... Next?" I grumbled.

Asch sighed, apparently relieved that I wasn't arguing with him right now. He turned back to the rest of the group. "Anyone else staying?"

Dark glanced down at Sorylle, then at Twilight. "It'll be at least two weeks before you can get to Daath. Sorylle and I will stay here with Kairi until then... That's enough time for Sorylle to heal, and my rib should be good to go by then as well," he said. Twilight growled. "Twilight's staying too."

Jade frowned as he looked around at everyone. No one else looked like they were planning on staying. "That gives us six fighters, plus Ion. And it takes four people to maneuver the Tartarus. It will probably take us closer to three weeks to reach Daath."

"And that's if we don't make any stops elsewhere," Sync added. Jade nodded, and I crossed my arms, glancing at Asch.

"Belkend wouldn't add too much time to that, a week at most. Do you mind making a stop there for me?"

He nodded. "Yeah, we can drop by Belkend. Medicine?" he guessed. I nodded.

"Yes, and something else, if you could. I'll tell you later."

Jade looked back and forth between the two of us before shaking his head, apparently deciding it wasn't worth the trouble to ask us to make sense. "Then it's settled? Kairi, Dark, Tear, and the monsters will stay here for now. We'll leave tomorrow morning, go up to the Outer Lands via Akzeriuth, and stop in Belkend before going to Daath?"

The others nodded, and Asch turned to me. "Meet me just outside as soon as you've got shoes."

I nodded and headed back upstairs, grabbing my boots and pulling them on before heading back down. The kitchen was now mostly empty. I took a moment to pause and think. It would be early Ifrit-Decan by the time the others picked me up in Daath, so... I definitely had time to train. And figure out the miasma.

I stepped outside Tear's house and looked around the residential section of Yulia City. I smiled a bit, remembering running around the... er... not-so-residential parts of the city once.

"The mayor wanted your help with something related to whatever it was you did down in engineering six and a half months ago."

I chuckled a bit at that. "Aw... are they having tech problems...?"

Asch groaned. "Come on. We need to talk in private anyway," he grumbled, grabbing my arm and pulling me along behind him. I just kept laughing.

See, I'd expressed an interest in seeing Yulia City about a month after Asch, Sync and I finished up with the sephiroth locks. So the three of us—with some reluctance—had come to Yulia City in mid-Sylph-Redecan. Sync had gotten separated and then lost at one point, and Asch and I had split up to find him. Asch figured that because I could keep track of him telepathically, I'd be okay on my own.

He was intelligent enough to not do that again in the future. As I'm sure you've figured out, I'd gotten rather a bit lost, and ended up in the underbelly of Yulia City. Where I found lots and lots of interesting machinery... Machinery that, after turning on more than a few computers and then switching everything over to the fonic language, rather than Ancient Ispanian, I'd gone and started activating.

"Kairi..."

I grinned. "Yes?" Asch had been trying to get my attention for a few minutes now.

Asch sighed. "Your lung is getting worse."

I blinked a few times, then realized what he was talking about. "That's what you didn't want the others to know?"

Asch stuck his hands in his pockets (when had he changed out of the uniform?) and looked anywhere but me. "Your liver and kidney haven't progressed much. I'm assuming it's due to the sudden seventh fonon influx that those keep getting damaged. That heart murmur is going to start causing problems if you're not careful. The more stress you put on it, the worse it gets. Your fonslots seem to be opened properly now... Though you still need to tell me how that's possible. Um..." he trailed off, looking up at the 'sky' and sighing.

I crossed my arms. "What?"

Asch closed his eyes a moment. "Sync told me you'd been planning on changing the locks on the sephiroth." I nodded, since he was now looking at me again. He swallowed. "Don't... please? The miasma's already destroying your body bit by bit... Unless you can find a way to fix it, don't take any more in than you need to."

I sighed and nodded. "Alright. Now then... Teodoro?"

Asch rolled his eyes. "Yes... What did you do, anyway?"

I just smirked and kept quiet. He'd find out soon enough anyway.

We arrived at the central building of Yulia City, and Asch led me up to the conference room, where you can usually find Teodoro. And, as predicted, the old man was there waiting for us. Teodoro blinked a few times when he saw me.

"She's the one who was down in the mechanics district? Here I was thinking it was that other boy," he said in surprise. Asch chuckled.

"Nope. Sync's the one that got lost... Well, technically, she did too, but..."

I shrugged. "Not really. I just worried he might have gone down there and then got distracted."

Teodoro chuckled. "'Distracted' indeed. Do you have any idea what you did for us?" he asked. I crossed my arms.

"If I'm right, those three generators should have lit up most of the residential district. With all of the fonic lanterns around, though, I couldn't really tell. Still, I figured there was no harm leaving them on. If nothing else, the excess power generated would have been stored away in an emergency reservoir."

Asch stared at me like I'd grown a second head, while Teodoro smiled.

"We actually didn't notice it until a few weeks after you all left. When Tear told me you three were part of the group from the Tartarus, I asked her to send Asch to me. He was actually my first guess as to the perpetrator, but to find it was you... Could you show us what you did? Perhaps we may learn more about the city, enough to light up all of it with the generators you found," he said. I shrugged.

"Why not? I'm going to be down here for a few weeks yet, and while I had initially intended to spend that time training, it's not like it's a long way to Aramis Spring. The Yulia Road comes up there. Might as well... See if those damn crabs are still there..." I said, completely changing topic as I remembered the oddest thing that had happened to me before meeting Asch.

The redhead blinked a few times before cracking the smallest of smiles, and the two of us shared a look before laughing at the memory of the idiotic crabs.

Meanwhile, Tear's grandfather was giving us the oddest look. We finally started to get our laughter under control when Guy walked in, eyes wide.

"Hey! Oh, hi Asch, Kairi," he said quickly. He looked up at Teodoro. "I heard an engineer saying something about strange technology in the underbelly of the city, but when I went to check it out, I got told to stay out. Um... Do you mind if I look, please?!"

Asch and I cracked up laughing again, although at least this time Teodoro was in on the joke. Guy looked around at the three of us. "What's so funny?"

I stood up and put my hands to my cheeks, as they were starting to hurt from laughing too hard. "I guess I should get started now, then. Guy won't be here tomorrow," I said. Guy tilted his head to the side.

"Huh?"

Asch chuckled. "Kairi's the reason you can't get down there now," he explained. He smiled and looked at me. "I'm going to trust Guy to make sure you don't over-exert yourself, while I go talk to Twilight and Dark." Dark, only because he needed a translator. Asch left then, and Teodoro smiled.

"Well then, let's be off."

However, about four minutes into our walk, I had him stop. "Hang on, I just want to ask one question first. Did your guys find the western access terminal?" Teodoro stared at me like I was speaking gibberish. "A raised platform with a two-meter diameter hole in the middle."

He blinked a few times before shaking his head, and I sighed. "Alright. This way."

I turned and headed down a side street, taking a right turn the next chance I had, then a left turn after two 'blocks'.

"This isn't anywhere near the underbelly entrance," Teodoro stated. I shook my head.

"Not the main entrance, no. There should be three other maintenance warps."

"Warps?!"

I nodded and knelt, pulling up a panel out of the street and attaching a few cables to their ports. A warp pad lit up nearby. My best guess, given fonic technology? There was probably a 'bare-minimum' teleportation fonic glyph involved.

Once it was lit up and the panel was back in place, the three of us stepped onto it, and I took a moment to be very grateful that I'd spent hours just reading the information on the computers I'd found.

We appeared in a very dark space, and Guy chuckled nervously. "Ah... we can't see a thing, other than the warp pad. And why is it so..."

I rolled my eyes. "Faint? It's because it's in a standby mode, for now." I slipped halfway onto the second plane, stepped over to the wall, and flipped the switch there.

Blindingly bright light lit up around us, and Guy and Teodoro finally moved off of the warp pad, allowing it to light up again. "Well, that... actually makes sense. Kinda like how fonic glyphs won't activate again for at least thirty seconds," Guy noted.

I rolled my eyes and started walking, the lights along the edge of the catwalk lighting up as well. Guy and Teodoro followed behind me, Guy asking questions all the way.

"So, why are these lights just now turning on?"

"They're activated as we walk, for the most part. Our weight triggers switches in the path, and those switches activate and deactivate the appropriate lights. In fact, look behind us," I said, stopping to point. Sure enough, aside from the warp pad, the platform and part of the path was now dark.

I turned and started walking again.

"When were you down here, again?"

"Mid-Sylph-Redecan, not long after meeting you, actually."

"How long were you down here?"

"Um... Hours? I know Sync disappeared on us just before noon, and it was dark when I finally made it back to the inn, but..." I trailed off with a shrug. "I spent maybe a half hour looking for Sync before finding the warp pad."

"Wow... Is that the platform you were talking about?" Guy asked, pointing ahead of us to where the path branched out around a central area. I smiled and nodded, and once we'd reached it, I couldn't help but smirk. Guy was bent over the 'platform' and was looking down the 'hole'. "Whoa.. it's completely dark."

I shrugged, put a hand on one part, and swung my legs over, Guy crying out as I did so, probably thinking I was throwing myself down an infinite hole.

Imagine his surprise (and my amusement) when I landed maybe a foot below them. I grinned, reached down, and pressed a couple of buttons. Suddenly, the 'deep dark hole' wasn't so deep or dark.

Lights lit up the bottom edge of the terminal, both inside and out, while holograms jumped up and surrounded me. I crossed my arms and grinned as I looked around at all of the—admittedly confusing—data. Guy's eyes widened, while Teodoro looked on with awe and a bit of pride.

"Wow..."

I grinned and started poking things. "'Wow' indeed, Guy. 'Wow' indeed. So, Teodoro... Why don't you and Guy go find those engineers of yours?"

Fun Fact: I'd originally intended for Sync to be the tech-savvy one in the group. Kairi and Asch shot that down immediately. (Apparently Sync and computers don't work well together.) Then Selenia jumped up and stole that title. Then Kairi reminded her just why that was a bad idea. (You'll find out in Book 3.) And no one else volunteered, so Kairi ended up being the relative 'expert'. Well, kinda fitting, given Earth's technology levels, but still...