Last chapter before unfamiliar territory. You've been warned. :D

Go back and read from 53 if you haven't already.

Enjoy!

"They needed the manpower... monster-power? Whatever. You get the point." –Dark

"Shut up. My style works just fine, thanks." –Asch

And I am once again reminded that yes, Seth is younger than me. –Dark

Chapter 6.2 – Conflicts and Sidequests
Part 55

Dark's POV

"So, you two seem to have recovered," I said, putting my guns away. "Nice outfits."

They weren't bad, really. They definitely suited them.

Jade sighed. "I'd tell you to blame Emperor Peony, but it was as much Kairi's fault as his."

Asch smirked. "Quit complaining." He crossed his arms, glancing over all of us before giving Sync a rather baffled look. "What happened to—"

"Don't even start," Sync cut him off. Jade looked startled. Guess he hadn't expected the 'Ion' among us to be Sync.

"If you're here, where's the real Ion?" he asked. Sync scowled.

"Somewhere between Engeve and Chesedonia. I'm not sure if they're ahead of us or behind right now," he said.

Jade nodded. "I see..."

Black flickered around Sync's hand before it shot out, and I pulled my guns in almost the same instant. Two monsters, a bee and chirpee.

Between a Black Rose dagger and proper ammunition, they really didn't last long.

Jade sat down rather abruptly, and Sync cried out in surprise. "I didn't think—What—Dammit!" he cursed. Jade just chuckled, eyes closing as his breathing leveled out.

It was no wonder Sync was suddenly freaking out. After all, he had managed to nick Jade's cheek when he threw. How, I wasn't even sure, given that I'd have sworn the blade missed him by almost four inches, but... oh well.

Faint light surrounded the cut, and a moment later, it was gone, fading just as quickly as it had appeared. Crimson eyes opened, though Jade didn't bother to get up. I did notice his frown, though.

"What's wrong?" Asch asked.

Jade shook his head. "The poison was structured similarly to the miasma."

Sync frowned and glanced at the dagger in his hand. "That can't be right. It reacts way too fast to be miasma."

"I said it was similar, not that it was," Jade said, gathering his cloak around himself. He looked like the wise old hermit out of one of the fairy tales Rhunön had read for me just after my 'birth', to be honest. Still, his clothing gave him an undeniable aura of power... somehow.

I had the feeling it was an Earth thing, something I wouldn't understand until I'd asked Kairi about it.

"At any rate, it looks like we're all headed for Chesedonia. If we get lucky, we'll have no trouble meeting up with the others. For now though, let's just set up camp and gets some rest. Guy has first watch... Asch, Jade, do you two mind taking second and third? I was slated for second, and Reighn for third, but the two of us have already gone twice so far," I said.

Asch nodded. "That's fine. If I'm right, we'll be reaching Chesedonia around nightfall tomorrow anyway. By the way, where are the ligers?"

"With the others. They won't be able to understand each other, but they needed the manpower... monster-power? Whatever. You get the point."

Sync chuckled, sitting down and messing around with his daggers, something that had become a bit of a habit lately. Then his eyes widened, and the next thing I knew, he was digging around in his wing pack for something.

A large, heavy book that I recognized from Natalia giving to Kairi most of a year previously dropped on the ground, Sync almost frantically digging through its pages.

"Is that the book on strike artes I gave Kairi?" Natalia asked, apparently also recognizing it. Sync nodded.

"Yeah. And I think I just figured out how I hit Jade when that dagger flew well past him. Ah! Here it is..."

Asch raised an eyebrow. "Shadow Daggers? But I thought..." he trailed off. Sync nodded once.

"Yeah. I could never do it before, even right before Zion messed up my fonslots. I just didn't have the affinity for the first fonon that I needed to pull it off. And even having done it just now, I don't think I'd be able to pull it off using my regular knives," Sync said. "Which means the Black Rose set has that strike arte associated with it. Knowing that... The chances that Silver Clematis also has one..."

Jade crossed his arms. "Shadow is the element you have the most difficulty with, isn't it? Look under sword artes for those directly associated with wind. I noticed something odd about Silver Clematis when Kairi and I were breaking out of Daath. If I'm right, one of those artes should work perfectly with Kairi's sword style."

Sync started flipping through pages again, back to one of the colored bookmarks that had been placed. There were three, it looked like—one green, one red, one purple. Sync had jumped to the green before checking pages for the Shadow Daggers arte, which meant...

"The purple bookmark is for archery-based strike artes, yes?" I guessed. Sync looked up at me and nodded before going back to flipping through pages just after the red one. He paused after a quite a while.

"Here. The section on third-fonon strike artes is small, but it's here."

Asch, Jade, and I gathered around, while Natalia and Guy helped Reighn finish our dinner. Asch knocked a number of them off the list almost immediately, before Jade pointed one out. Asch and Sync frowned, the former making a motion with his hand before shaking his head. "No, the damage isn't worth the extra expenditure of energy it would take for her to pull that off, not with her usual style."

I was the next one to point one out. "Now, I know I'm definitely no expert on sword styles, and especially not Kairi's, but doesn't that sound like something she'd do to knock a group away from her?" I asked. The other three looked over it, before Asch frowned, took a second look, and stood up to do a small demonstration.

While it ended with him landing on his ass, much to the amusement of the three of us who knew what he'd been doing, it proved a point.

"That's definitely Kairi's style... Although she's at least graceful enough to pull it off," Sync said. Asch scowled.

"Shut up. My style works just fine, thanks."

Jade just smirked and adjusted his glasses, in time for Reighn to call us over for dinner.

"What was with that spinning thing you were doing? Were you working on a new arte?" Natalia asked. Asch shook his head.

"No, not really. I was having trouble trying to picture what it was supposed to look like, so I tried it out. Unfortunately, it's a completely different sword style, so for someone who's used to the hack-and-slash of the Albert style, a sudden attempt at the fluidity of the style Kairi uses resulted in a not-so-graceful landing," he admitted. "It'll look a lot better when she does it."

I nodded. "Hell, Guy would have an easier time. His Sigmund style may have been based on the Albert style originally, but it's one hell of a lot closer to Kairi's than your Albert style," I said.

Guy blinked. "What is it?"

"Rising Wind."

Reighn frowned. "I thought Kairi and third fonons didn't get along?"

Jade nodded. "Yes, but if we're right, it won't matter, so long as she's using Silver Clematis. Of course, if we're wrong, it just means one less arte at her disposal."

I sighed, finishing my dinner and handing the bowl over to Natalia. She and Sync were on cooking and clean-up duty tonight, since the rest of us were supposed to be on guard duty. Of course, that plan had been pretty much scrapped with Asch and Jade joining in. Still, she took it without arguing, and I wandered off to my bag, happy to be able to hit the sack knowing I wouldn't be woken up for a shift.

Waking up that morning was interesting. Asch was the one awake as our guard, surprisingly, but he didn't make a single comment as I started pulling a small breakfast together.

"Bag and wing pack."

I blinked up at Jade as I finished with the food, noting that he had his hand held out. I passed the two items over, figuring that he and Asch had probably done a bit of stocking up while in Grand Chokmah. A few minutes later, and everyone else awake and eating, Asch and Jade started handing back bags and wing packs.

Sure enough, I was back to my usual ten apple gels, five lemon gels, fifteen orange gels, ten pineapple gels, three panacea bottles, and five life bottles. I glanced in my wing pack. Enough to replace those in my bag twice over. Well... for the gels, at least.

"Everyone's got their usual numbers. Jade and I have all of the extra gels in our wing packs. Reighn and Dark now have all of the extra bottles," Asch announced. Everyone just kinda nodded, while I glanced at the numbers of bottles again. I mean, I know we're going to have to distribute extras to the other group, but...

"The four of us are also carrying enough extras to refill everyone's bags thrice over, in addition to extras you're all carrying," Jade added. "Better safe than sorry, especially given how close we came with this last round. Prices are lower in Grand Chokmah than anywhere else right now due to our habit of stockpiling during times of peace and then barricading ourselves in the moment war breaks out. With the war starting, they're going to skyrocket everywhere else, even Chesedonia. We may not get another chance to restock for a while."

Reighn nodded, while I sighed. Now there's an angle I hadn't looked at yet. Well, points to those two for being extra prepared. Still...

"Where did all of the money come from, though? This kind of a restock must have cost thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of gald!" Guy said. Asch and Jade exchanged a look.

"Kairi, Sync, and I had a habit of rarely using the gald we got off of monsters... Kairi and I were joking about it on our way to Grand Chokmah the second time, but... I went ahead and opened a bank account while we were there. Between what the two of us have been sending to Nephry to have deposited and interest, we had almost a million gald saved up, not counting the fifty or so thousand we've been carrying between the three of us these days. And that million gald is nothing compared to what Jade has access to as the last surviving member of the Curtiss family. Rather than just letting it sit around, we decided to make good use of it."

Jade adjusted his glasses. "Regardless, we shouldn't do that too often. We'd have wiped out nearly a third of the savings in Asch's account if he'd been the only one paying. Still, better safe than sorry. We don't know exactly what we're getting into. Now, if you're all done eating, it may be a good idea to head for Chesedonia."

The rest of us nodded and stood up. I double-checked my guns before slipping them back into their holsters. Once everyone was standing, I started walking. Asch and Jade fell in behind Natalia and Reighn, since they (correctly) assumed we already had a set formation. No need to change a good thing, right?

The final day of travel was as boring as those that had preceded it. We made it to Chesedonia just before sunset. I stopped and turned to the others. "The Malkuth-side inn is closer. Let's check there and see if the others made it already or not. Logically, that's where they'll be checking in as well."

The others nodded, while Natalia smiled. "Dark, thank you. Your careful choice of routes got us here without any fighting."

I shrugged. "Maybe, but General Cecille really should learn not to sneak up on us."

Those of us who had been there laughed a bit before we all turned around and headed for the inn.

We weren't there for thirty minutes when the other group came running in, Sorylle immediately pouncing on me. I grinned when I recognized her.

"Hey, gal. You been good?"

Sorylle nodded and licked my face before letting me up, while Seth crossed his arms, ignoring Jade for the time being.

"I thought you were in Kaitzur," he said. I cringed.

"General Almandine's here in Chesedonia. We're planning on dealing with him in the morning."

"I see..." Seth trailed off a bit as his eyes drifted off toward Jade. "Nice clothes."

Jade crossed his arms. "They're yours as soon as I've got my uniform back."

Seth blinked a few times before smiling. "Cool."

And I am once again reminded that yes, this kid is younger than me.

"We already booked enough rooms for everyone. Two to a room," I announced. "And no co-ed," I added, seeing Anise glance at Ion.

"I'll share with Sync," Ion said quickly. Jade adjusted his glasses.

"Seth and I will take one room as well, since we need to switch clothes."

Natalia glanced around. "Tear? Do you mind sharing with me?"

Tear smiled and shook her head, and Selenia looked over at Anise with a grin. "Guess that leaves you and me, huh? Hey, where's Sorylle gonna stay?"

"With Natalia and Tear," I said quickly. "Asch, Guy, Reighn? Who's staying where?"

"I want to talk to Asch about something," Guy said. "You three don't mind, do you?"

Reighn shook his head. "Not at all. But where's Twilight going to stay?"

Everyone looked over at the silver-furred liger as he thought it over.

"Asch. I'll stay with Asch for the night."

I nodded once. "Looks like Asch and Guy get to share." I glanced around. "It's getting late. We've got a lot to do in the morning. Don't stay up too late talking to whoever you're sharing with, okay?"

I headed up to one of the rooms we'd paid for and slipped inside. Something felt wrong, and it was making me uneasy.

I sat down on the bed and started pulling my guns apart, before stopping and leaving one alone for the time being. Reighn walked in a few minutes later and started undressing.

"Something wrong?" he asked as I was putting the first gun back together after cleaning it. I frowned, locking the mechanism in place and letting it whir back to life.

"I don't know. Something feels wrong, but I don't know what could be causing it."

"Could just be nerves. We covered a lot of ground in a small amount of time."

I hummed. "Maybe."

I set about cleaning the second gun without another word, while Reighn slipped under the covers. I glanced over at him, then thought about the twelve people currently split into groups of two in the inn.

Why did I have the suspicion that the group wouldn't be whole for much longer?

I forced it aside and put my guns away before pulling the covers up falling asleep.

Fun Fact: Not-so-subtle foreshadowing there... Anyway... I was so excited when I finished this chapter that I completely forgot what I'd meant to do next... So I wrote 'Dark's POV' at the top of the next chapter, stared at it for ten minutes, and THEN realized that the next chapter was from Kairi's POV again... Anyone starting to miss Kairi yet?