A/N: And, another update! This one is a bit more substantial than last week's. Actually, in that vein, I have a question for you all today.

I could double the length of the updates, but then I would have to go to releasing them about every week-and-a-half instead of every week to maintain the quality of the work, since of course I have many other things to worry about as well. Alternatively, I can keep it the way it is now: updates every weekend. Which would you all prefer? If you think it would be better to have longer but more infrequent updates, please let me know (either by mentioning it in a review or by PM). Unless you guys tell me otherwise, though, I will keep to the way it is now.

With that said, I hope you enjoy the chapter! :)

Raine sighed, tilting her head up to gaze at the sky. It was darker now, as the sun was beginning to set; if she had to guess, she'd say it would be completely dark in a few more hours. She'd spent some time talking to Genis, trying to give him advice, but it seemed he'd already come to terms with his traumatic experience. He'd seemed reluctant to much about it, though, and had soon left to go talk to Lloyd. The children were now indoors, but the sounds of their conversation were faintly audible even from where she sat.

Though Genis didn't say so, she suspected it was Rai who had talked him through his feelings, and she was curious about what he could have said. He didn't strike her as being very adept with comforting others, but she had to admit that he and Genis were very close.

For whatever reason, though, Rai had always been wary and closed off around her, and she in turn had always been slightly unsure of how to act around him. Which had come first, she wasn't sure, but it didn't seem like the relationship was reparable. No matter how much she internally accused Rai of misunderstanding her or mistrusting her, she had to admit that she obviously didn't understand him in the least either. Since when had it become like this? It was true that from the time she had taken Rai in, he had always been hard to understand, but their relationship hadn't deteriorated this much until at least three years after that.

Still, she did care about him. She'd raised him from the age of four years old and watched him grow from a perceptive, quiet toddler to an even more guarded teenager. He'd matured quickly, and Raine knew it had to do with his mana signature. Estimating how quickly half-elves would grow physically and mentally wasn't an exact science; it depended on the specific way the genes from their elf and human parents had come together. And Rai was obviously not exactly half and half; his mana signature was more on the elf side than the human side. That meant that it was likely that both of his parents had been at least part elf, though the exact details were impossible to find out.

One thing she was extremely curious about was his background. Even now, she had no idea where Rai had spent the first four years of his life, and if he recalled, he wasn't telling. What kind of a background would result in such a young child being so closed off and adult-like? He certainly hadn't retained much innocence. From the moment she'd met him, he'd been impossible to fully read, and there had been an odd cunning in his every action, as if there was some underlying motive. It was something she'd come to expect to at least some degree in many adults, especially half-elves...but coming from a four-year-old? She'd been disconcerted, to say the least, and that had probably bled into her actions, since from the beginning she couldn't help but be guarded around him. Maybe he'd picked up on the fact and in turn become even more closed off?

She sighed. Rai was definitely much harder to understand than Genis. Both were brilliant for their respective ages, but Genis still retained the childlike innocence that he should have at his age, despite being a half-elf. They'd both received recommendations to attend the Palmacosta Academy - the most prodigious school in Sylvarant - but she'd put the response on hold. Genis hadn't want to leave his friends, and although Rai had seemed to want to go, she could hardly send him so far alone at the age of only eight. So she'd told him he couldn't go, and he'd sulked, refusing to talk to her for almost a month.

Where was he now, anyway? She'd noticed him walking down the path towards Anna's grave earlier when she'd been talking to Genis. Was he still there? What business would Rai have at Anna's grave for this long? She stood and started towards the path. Maybe she could talk to him about why he'd been acting so contrary today, although she doubted he'd open up. There was definitely something between him and Kratos, although she couldn't tell yet what.

As she stepped onto the stone of the path and into the shade of the tall trees that flanked Dirk's house, she looked ahead and saw that both Kratos and Rai were there, standing in front of the grave and looking at each other in a strangely familiar way, although from this distance it was impossible to fully discern their expressions. She hurried forward silently, hoping to catch them unawares and get some hint about the nature of their interaction, but she was only halfway there when Rai turned and began to walk back towards the house.

Nonchalantly, she passed by him, giving him a nod, but to her surprise he didn't respond. On closer inspection (as he walked swiftly past) she realized that he had on the glassy-eyed, blank-faced expression he had sometimes when he was trying to mask his feelings or something significant had happened. That made this even more suspicious. What on earth could he and Kratos have talked about to make him retreat so far into himself that he didn't even notice or reciprocate her greeting?

Deciding to let Rai go for now, she continued walking toward Kratos, who had turned back to the grave. Despite the fact that his back was to her, she had the feeling that he knew she was approaching; his shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly as she walked slightly past him and knelt in front of the grave. She bowed her head slightly and was silent for a time, paying respect to Lloyd's mother, although she had never personally met the woman.

After a few moments she opened her eyes and stood, looking back to Kratos. To her surprise, the man was watching her and not the grave, his red-brown eyes neutral. She waited for a few seconds to see if he would say anything, but he was silent.

"I see you've found Anna's grave," she said finally, still watching his face. It was carefully blank in a way that reminded her of Rai, but there was a slight flash of some sort of emotion. He only nodded.

"You were speaking with my brother for some time," Raine pressed on. "May I ask what you were discussing?"

Kratos averted his gaze, staring into the forest. "Nothing important. I was just asking him some details about this grave." His tone left no doubt that he didn't want to discuss the issue more.

Raine wasn't convinced. It was unlikely they had been talking about that for this long, and additionally, she knew Rai wouldn't have reacted so strongly to such an innocuous conversation. Obviously Kratos wasn't going to tell her anything else, though, so she decided to let it slide temporarily. "I see."

There was a short silence, during which Raine walked back towards him and sat down, a respectful distance from the grave. After a brief hesitation, he sat next to her, resting his arms on his knees. He still wasn't looking at her; instead, his gaze was now fixed upward, a faraway look in his eyes. "It's interesting how different the sky looks from different parts of the world," he mused.

"You must have traveled quite a bit in your line of work," she observed wistfully. She had always wished to travel, to see all the wonders that the world held, but there had been Genis, and then Rai as well...

He finally glanced her way, a hint of amusement in his eyes. "It's not as much fun as it sounds like. But you'll get to see quite a bit of the world on the Journey of Regeneration."

"That's true." Despite all her worries, she felt a smile come to her lips. What with all the other things going on, she'd almost forgotten that part, and how excited she'd been to visit the locations of the Seals with an official purpose. She laughed a little. "I'd actually forgotten."

There was comfortable silence, both of them lost in their own thoughts. Finally, after several minutes pondering the Journey and the Seals, Raine broke the silence once more. "I had something I wanted to discuss with you."

He turned back to her and she met his gaze squarely. "What is it?" he asked, sounding slightly guarded.

"It's about Rai, actually. I know you said your conversation with him earlier was nothing special, but I think I should warn you anyway. He's a little...how should I put this..." She sighed. "Well, he can be a bit obtuse, and very reactive, especially to people he doesn't know well. He's difficult to understand, even for me, and his attitudes often seem odd in context. Often, though, he can seem perfectly normal, and then a normal comment will cause him to shut down..."

"I'm sure he has his reasons," Kratos said. His voice sounded cool again, and Raine wondered what she had said to offend him. "He seems like an intelligent boy."

"I think that's part of the problem," she admitted carefully. "He's very intelligent for his age, but that also causes him to isolate himself, and he refuses to talk about himself to anyone, even to me. I just wanted to warn you to be careful with what you say to him."

Kratos grunted noncommittally. "Concern noted."

"Also, I would appreciate your help to handle the others, considering that we're the only two adults in the group. Lloyd especially might be a problem; he's overly enthusiastic, easily bored..."

Kratos looked both annoyed and resigned. "I see. I suppose there's no way we can keep the boy from coming now?"

"...I'm afraid not."

"Very well." The amusement was back in his eyes now. "I'll be sure to help you control them."

She smiled a little. "Thank you. ...By the way, I'm curious, but what exactly brought a mercenary like you here?"

To her irritation, his expression immediately closed up again. "I had heard the Chosen would be leaving soon, and saw a job opportunity," he said stiffly, no longer meeting her gaze.

"I see," she said neutrally. "So what brought you to this line of work?" Her tone was casual, betraying none of her intense interest.

"...I'm sorry, I'd rather not discuss my personal life."

She decided not to press him further. "I can respect that." Standing and dusting off her clothes, she said, "Well, I need to get back to the village soon; I have things to organize for the Journey. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

He didn't reply, only turning his face back toward the grave. As she walked away, she sighed, massaging her temples. This conversation had done nothing but leave her more suspicious than when she entered it.

Rai finally reached Lloyd's room, breathing slightly elevated. It was thankfully empty, since Lloyd, Colette and Genis were all downstairs talking with Dirk and Raine was outside with Kratos. He couldn't even bring himself to care much about what Raine wanted with him, or about whether she might be suspicious. She was already suspicious enough about him as it was.

He'd completely shut down his thoughts and pushed all worries to the back of his mind until he could be alone and let them out; he couldn't risk losing control of his expression or his actions while other people were around. Now, finally, he relaxed. He staggered over to the wall and slumped against it, sinking down into a half-sitting position with his head in his hands.

Slowly, he let life return to his mind. Thoughts buzzed around uncontrollably, fighting to be considered first. Akira was in there somewhere, but he wasn't actively trying to speak; perhaps he realized that Rai would have ignored him. All the other threads that comprised his thoughts were making different observations and speculations, but he did his best to filter them out and focus on one thing at a time.

For some reason, the question at the forefront of his mind was whether he had been right to take advantage of Kratos the way he had. There was a moral aspect to it, of course, but that part was hard to quantify, and there was no way for him to reason out whether it was right or wrong, so he ignored it. But more importantly, this might come back to bite him later; Kratos thought he remembered something he didn't, and that could cause all kinds of problems. What if Kratos eventually found out that Rai had deceived him? He supposed that as long as he had already cashed in his favor, it would technically be okay; Kratos wouldn't be able to take it back, after all. Still, it was something to be avoided. But the only true solution he could see was to just remember whatever it was, so that there was no disconnect between what Kratos thought he knew and what he really knew.

Something occurred to him. Akira? You've been in my mind since I was born, so you must remember what experience Kratos is referring to.

Akira's silence was all he needed.

You do know, don't you? he thought accusingly. Just tell me. I can handle it.

Rai...Akira sounded odd, half sad, half pleading. Trust me. It's really better if you don't know, at least not right now.

At least tell me why!

...I'm sorry.

Rai gritted his teeth, trying to control his breathing against the onslaught of fury. Keep calm - emotions make you weak, emotions make you weak...Okay, he'd put that to the side, he'd think about the other things first.

Something else had been niggling at him - Kratos's conditions. The first one made sense; Kratos didn't want his status as an angel of Cruxis to be divulged, for obvious reasons. But why did Kratos care about anything other than that? Why would he want to add conditions depending on the request? Regardless of what Rai asked, wasn't keeping Kratos's identity a secret the most important thing? Perhaps he was overthinking this. It was entirely possible Kratos just wanted to be safe and close all loose ends. Rai himself would have added the same qualifier, after all.

He continued in his thought process, filing away the unresolved questions away for later. He briefly considered the idea of the memories he'd supposedly lost, but concluded that with the current information, there was no way for him to deduce their contents. As he wrapped up his thoughts, he heard light footsteps on the stairs and stiffened, turning his gaze toward the door and carefully wiping his expression. He didn't want to tip anyone off that anything out of the ordinary had happened.

As the person came into view he realized it was Colette, her face tight and drawn. She'd been acting completely out of character the past few days, but she wasn't the only one; Rai didn't think anyone was really themselves right now.

"Are you busy?" Her lips barely moved, and her slender fingers played with the hem of her white shirt.

"No, please come in." He watched her carefully, trying to figure out why she'd come up here alone and left her two friends. There was obviously something bothering her.

She was seated next to him on the floor now, looking ridiculously downcast. Finally Rai couldn't bear the silence any longer. "Do you need anything from me?" he asked, trying not to sound impatient.

She wouldn't meet his gaze. "I - I wanted to talk to you," she admitted haltingly, hesitantly. "How much do you know about...the role of the Chosen in the Regeneration?"

It dawned on him what this was probably about. "Although Raine hasn't told me much, I have my suspicions that it requires a much greater sacrifice from the Chosen than most people seem to think. Remiel's words at the Oracle only confirmed those thoughts."

She choked out, "So you know about..." Her voice was thin and quavering. Rai could hardly recognize it as belonging to her; it was vastly different from the innocent, cheerful tone she normally adopted. He was intrigued despite himself.

"Yes," he said simply.

She barely held back a sob, still not looking at him. Eventually she turned toward him slightly and faltered, "I - I know this is my duty, but I - I - I - "

After she had stammered for a few moments, Rai decided to finish for her and save them both the trouble. "You're afraid?"

At this the sob escaped and she nodded tearfully, staring down into her lap.

Tired of this ridiculous self blame, he sighed and tilted her chin up with a single finger. "Look, Colette. If you're thinking something about your not being a good Chosen because you're afraid, that's absolutely ridiculous. I would be more worried if you weren't afraid."

She only stared at him, still looking uncertain, so he continued, "If I were you, I would have run away already. I'd have told them to find someone else to save the world, that I wasn't going to give up my life for it. I think the fact that you're trying so hard to be a perfect Chosen is already more than anyone should expect."

She blinked in surprise, her blue eyes round. In that moment, she looked like a child. "R-really? You would...run away?"

Rai met her gaze, trying to convey sincerity, which was made difficult by the inner voice chanting go away, go away, I want to be alone. "It's nothing to be proud of, but yes. And I think most people would. I care more about my own life than those of random others. And even if I were to try, I would still be trying to change the system so that we could find a way to regenerate the world without sacrificing my life. And if we couldn't find one...yeah, I would definitely run."

He paused, then asked carefully, "Colette - have you told Lloyd you're feeling this way?" He had an inkling of why she might have approached him instead of talking to Lloyd, who was obviously much closer to her. Still, it would be much easier if Lloyd could deal with this instead...

Ugh, she was crying again now, and he wasn't sure what to do, what expression to put on. "N-no - Lloyd is so bright, he's so happy - he doesn't know anything about what will happen - I don't want him to be sad just because of me, I don't want to be a burden - "

He was starting to get more than a little angry now, but he forced it down. This girl was really ridiculous. Why did she think about others so much? And not only that - did she not care that she was burdening Rai right now? Did she think he enjoyed listening to her blubber? What, did he just not count as a person? Was it because he wasn't all "bright and happy" like Lloyd?

"Colette, you're just making it harder on yourself because of that," he said, perhaps a tad too sharply. "I know it must be hard for you to act happy and carefree when you're actually scared, and it's even harder when Lloyd doesn't understand anything's wrong. But I think he deserves to know. He cares about you - don't you think it'll hurt him when he eventually does find out?"

She was shaking, holding a fistful of his shirt now. It was getting wrinkled and the pressure around his neck was slightly uncomfortable, but he didn't have the heart to push her away. "I...I want to put it off as long as possible...I don't want to hurt him.."

He sighed. It didn't seem like she'd be convinced. "I still think you should tell him, but if you really feel like you can't I suppose I'll listen to you instead," he said reluctantly, turning his face away. He remembered what had just happened with Genis, how his brother had been happier after crying it out and talking about it. Might as well get it over with, then. "If you want to...talk about it, or just cry...it's okay to let your feelings out, you know. And if you have any questions I'll do my best to answer."

"Are - are you sure you don't mind?" He turned back to see her staring at him with those tearful blue eyes again. God, she's so pitiful. I would have to be an absolute monster to turn her away at this point.

"It's okay," he sighed. It wasn't like he had much of a choice.

At this, she burst out crying all over again, though she was obviously trying to muffle her sobs so that nobody could hear from downstairs. There was a brief moment of hesitation, during which he just awkwardly stared at her crying into her hands. Then he leaned forward and pulled her closer as he had done with Genis, and she relaxed into the embrace, sobbing with her face buried in his shoulder. God, this is awkward. What am I supposed to do with my hands? He noticed that she smelled good, kind of like flower petals, and then berated himself for thinking such a stupid, out-of-context thought. Akira was snickering again, seemingly having recovered from his odd mood earlier.

She started talking, and Rai listened, letting her ramble. Although the point of crying was still mostly incomprehensible to him, he could understand the benefits of speaking your thoughts out loud to somebody else. Keeping them all in your mind could get overwhelming.

"I'm supposed to be the Chosen, I'm s-supposed to protect everyone, but all I can do is get saved," she sobbed. "L-Lloyd always saves me, and the Professor has to take care of me, and even when I try to help people I always end up t-tripping or breaking things or just m-messing up - "

"That's not true," he lied, stroking her hair awkwardly and hoping he sounded soothing. He fished for something to say and settled on a truth. "You make your friends happy. You make Lloyd happy. I know he doesn't think you're a burden."

She continued, and he wondered irritably if she'd even heard him. "All those people in the human ranch, it's m-my fault, because I haven't saved them yet...every night they pray for the Chosen to come save them, but I c-can't even do anything..."

She was shaking and hiccuping so much now that he was afraid she was going to malfunction. He tightened his grip marginally, trying to calm her down, and brought his mouth closer to her ear, trying to get through to her. "Colette, listen to me. You're more than just the Chosen - you're a person. A sweet, kind girl that everyone loves."

Except I usually just find her annoying, but it's probably best not to mention that.

...Ya think?

"And there's no way you can save the people from the ranch yet. Just because you've had this title foisted on you, doesn't mean you're suddenly superhuman. You're not an angel yet, you haven't even started your journey yet - you're just a normal girl." He paused, then insisted, "It's the fault of the Desians - half-elves like me - it has nothing to do with you."

She was quieter now, and to his relief the shaking had lessened as well. She was hugging him tighter to the point where it was slightly painful, but hopefully he'd gotten through to her at least a little bit. "I - I'm really sorry...this must be really annoying for you..."

You've got that right...

"No need to apologize."

"T-thank you..."

Colette's hiccups were slowing down, and she seemed to be calming a bit. He relaxed his grip as well, one hand returning to her back as he used the other to subtly adjust his position. His muscles were aching from holding her awkwardly on the floor. She must have been keeping all of this to herself for a long time, he realized. Especially if she was desperate enough to come to me about it, of all people.

There was a sudden intake of breath which Rai barely detected, even with the enhanced hearing from his long ears. He glanced up over Colette's quaking shoulder and saw Lloyd standing there, an expression of shock on his face. Damn...of all the times for him to show up. It's probably better if he doesn't interact with Colette right now, since she's been trying to hide all this from him...

Before Lloyd could say anything, Rai discreetly pressed a finger to his lips, looking at Lloyd meaningfully. Thankfully, since Colette was still hugging him, her back was to the door and she hadn't noticed Lloyd.

Lloyd just stared for about ten seconds - and then fled.

Inwardly, Rai sighed. Great. More misunderstandings to clear up. That was definitely jealousy he had just seen - Lloyd was probably hurt that Colette had come to Rai instead of him. Maybe he even thought there was something between them.

...Since when have I become such an expert on people's feelings?