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Refugees and Kings
Chapter 3: Experimental Seer
In which there is finally contact between the worlds
THWACK!
"Darn it Val!" Rem pulled away from his sister, tearing off his helmet in order to better address the young man attending them. "You tell her!"
Seated nearby cross-legged at a tiny table that stood just off the ground, Leandros had peacefully been reading the newspaper and sipping at a cup of tea. Or at least as peacefully as he could with two students trying to kill each other on the practice mat across the room.
Myoujin and Leandros tried to make sure that each of their students managed a private lesson with an instructor at the dojo at least once a week. Since they were twins and perfectly matched to each others' height, Leandros usually took Val and Rem together. Only ten minutes into the session and the twins were already at each others' throats. A bad sign. Usually they lasted at least a half an hour before the bickering began.
With a sigh, Leandros straightened off the ground and motioned for Rem to hand over his bokken. "Still hurting from yesterday?" he asked sympathetically, meaning the hit Rem had taken during their bout together.
If it had been true, Rem would have made some kind of response to that jibe. As it was, Rem just waved him away and sank back against the wall post.
Leandros frowned. "I've told you before not to come to practice when you're having those headaches," he said severely.
Rem closed his eyes and continued to ignore him. Val stuck her tongue out her twin. Forcing down another sigh, Leandros positioned himself across from Val and settled easily into fighting stance.
But Val hesitated. "Leon-sempai... You're not wearing any armor. I don't want to hurt you."
Leandros gave her a small smile. If this were a simple sparing match, there would have been no reason for concern. Leandros was so much farther advanced than Val that he could block anything she threw at him. Now, since the kata required him to lower his guard long enough to demonstrate where she should strike, there was a suddenly a very real possibility of Val accidentally injuring him.
"That is why you have to focus, Kanzaki-chan."
By the time Hitomi had gotten back home the previous evening, both of the twins had already gone to bed. She didn't know how exactly she knew her closet had been picked through. It just didn't seem right. Everything looked shifted around.
It would have been dangerous to start throwing around accusations at that point, especially given the mood the Kanzaki family seemed to be in lately. She would just have to wait until she had proof. When she did find the culprit however, that twin would be so grounded Hitomi might as well nail their nose to the ground.
She doubted if it had been both of them involved. The twins knew how to work in tandem on some projects, but only when it consisted of a large amount of mischief. And this hadn't been anything near that level, at least it wouldn't have seemed that way to them.
When she had realized something was wrong, Hitomi had rushed into her closet and started digging. She had nearly fainted with relief when she found the old jewelry box, still locked and buried beneath a pile of old papers. Just to be safe though, she took it with her the next morning to work.
Now that same troubled feeling came back to her as she sat at her desk in her office. She wasn't an extremely important employee in the company, but just that year she had managed to sign a shoe marketing deal for one of their clients, a national baseball hero, that had earned her the office with the window. Once she had put all her file cabinets and her desk into it, the space was still crowded and the view of the street below wasn't much, but Hitomi was grateful for the sunlight streaming in.
The jewelry box that she normally kept hidden at the back of her closet was resting on top of a cabinet. Inside, Hitomi knew, there was what someone might have thought was a normal looking pendant. A normal sparkling pink ruby at the end of a non-descript golden chain. It wouldn't even seem that valuable to sell. There didn't seem much reason to lock it up.
But Hitomi knew better. The pendant could be dangerous in its own way. If a person wasn't wary of their own thoughts, it might whisk them away to another world before they could say...
"Van."
And as Hitomi gazed at the locked jewelry box, that troubled feeling she had thought disappeared upon finding the box started to grow once again.
"One of them touched you, didn't they," she whispered at the box, a sick feeling in her stomach.
Someone knocked at the office door, jolting her from her thoughts. "Kanzaki-san?"
Hitomi hopped up to open the door, "Oh hello Amano-san"
Amano was one of the few friends from high school Hitomi had kept contact with. In that time, he had grown into a fine young man. The only sign of the playful streak still inside of him was the way he kept his hair at shoulder-length, reminding Hitomi all the time of a certain Knight of Caeli.
"Er, what can I do for you?"
"You're remembering the meeting in fifteen minutes?"
"I-"
Something crashed behind her. Hitomi glanced over and found the jewelry box had slipped seemingly on its own to the floor.
"Is something wrong?" Amano asked in concern.
"Something fell, that's all. Everything's fine. Uh, I'll be right out," Hitomi rushed, shutting the door in his face without any more explanation.
Leaning against the doorframe with a sigh, Hitomi eyed the jewelry box like it had transformed into a demon. She couldn't understand why these feelings were coming back now. She hadn't felt this way in over fifteen years. Nothing had happened in over fifteen years. Why was it all flooding back just because someone had gone through her things? No, because she thought someone had gone through her things. Perhaps she was just being paranoid.
Besides, there was work to be done. She couldn't let these silly worries dominate her mind. Hitomi stooped and picked the box up.
A tingle ran over her skin and down her spine. Hitomi fell backwards and gripped the edge of her desk as she noticed that a faint glow was coming out of one of the edges of the jewelry box. In horror she realized it must have cracked during the fall.
I knew I shouldn't have touched it! Hitomi berated herself as light flooded the room.
Confirmation chimed in from Seraf's partners waiting inside the shuttle, their voices crackling with radio static. "All right, Petrovitch. Get over there and start work on those solar cells immediately."
Lieutenant Miroslav sounded bored. Seraf didn't blame him. This was probably the most routine part of their mission. Solar cells were a cinch to reinstall. As the youngest member of the shuttle crew, Seraf had drawn the shortest straw so to speak and was forced to do the menial tasks.
"Roger," Seraf responded, using the phrase the cosmonauts had learned from working with the Americans on the space station.
At least it was a great view. This was something that most people only dreamed of in their lifetimes. As part of the Russian space program, Seraf was able to be one of the lucky few that saw it in person. He could make out a curve of Earth just behind the moon but most of what he saw was stars.
The research satellite drifted not too far away among them. Normally satellites were set in orbit somewhere safely between the Earth and the Moon. The Russians' mission was not only to retrieve and repair the errant technology, it was to figure out what had suddenly drawn the thing out into space in the first place.
Seraf glanced down, or at least where he supposed could serve as 'down' in free-space. Commander Sevastyan gestured to him through one of the shuttle's port windows, giving him a thumbs-up. Seraf waved and pushed off the shuttle roof.
Firing his thruster pack multiple times, he maneuvered into position with the satellite. From there it was easy to find the right panel to open. "Very cute, Petrovitch. Just get to work will you?" the lieutenant grumbled over the radio, apparently watching from a distance the brilliant juggling job Seraf was performing with his tools.
"You're just jealous you can't do this good a job in zero gravity," Seraf shot back. Just as the panel finally gave, the Moon's shadow whispered over him like a cloak.
His suit's computer beeped and said in a computerized androgynous voice, "Heat distribution activated."
Yeah? Seraf thought to himself and he glanced up uneasily into the black Moon now filling the view above him, Then why did I just get a chill?
It was a sensation akin to bumping into something, except instead of stopping she went straight through. Desperately she pulled herself away from what must have been the edge of a wall. "Ky-" she began to cry out then clamped a hand over her mouth.
She was in a vast room, or at least one that felt vast because the darkness hid the contours.
"Please not Gaea," Hitomi whispered.
The weight of the jewelry box still rested in her left hand. Hitomi glanced down. Nothing was there. Experimentally she squeezed her right hand. There it was- the edge of her desk she had gripped just before touching the box. Was she really still in her office? How was this possible?
Wherever she was, Hitomi could see the outlines of machines made from what looked like outrageous mixes of steam power, electronics, and something else that seemed to break the very rules of physics. They lined the edges of the light and moved off into the darkness. The air hummed with their work. What light there was flickered as human figures moved.
"You!"
Hitomi jumped and looked up. A young man in a black lab coat was advancing on her from the circle of light beyond the machines.
"Wait!" Hitomi stammered, "I don't think you..."
He stepped right through her.
Hitomi dry wretched onto the ground, glad that work had forced her to skip lunch that day. She never wanted to feel another human being like that again. Never. It took her a long moment to decide which bones were hers and which were phantom memories of whoever it was that had shared the same point in space with her for seconds. What was the pendant trying to do to her anyways?
"Get out from under there. We're ready to begin."
A little man, greasy from work, crawled out from under one of the machines, frowning at the lab coat, "Yeah, yeah, I'm done here."
The pair headed back to the light, leaving Hitomi in the dark trying to compose herself. "I guess I don't have much choice," she gasped, clawing her way to her feet in order to follow them. She never remembered any of her visions being this long or this linear before. The splitting headache was certainly familiar though.
A group of people dressed similarly to the young man in black milled about the area that was well light. Each seemed to be going about his or her business until slowly, they grouped around a panel holding a single rectangular jewel, alive with its own blood red light. Some held their breath though Hitomi heard others whispering amongst themselves.
"I wonder..."
"Perhaps this time at last..."
"Just wait..."
The jewel's light began to sputter then faded to dull brown. The young man that had gone through Hitomi stepped closer and reached up a finger to tap it experimentally. The color didn't change. He sighed in frustration, "There goes another one. Wherever they're going, they're not living long enough for me to find out."
He went back to his work on the open panel immediately, regretting having made any noise what with both the shuttle and the ground listening to him. "What is it?" Commander Sevastyan demanded.
"Just space trash… I think."
Silently, Seraf checked again. He craned his neck to take in the Moon above him, then the Earth below him. There was nothing, he told himself. Nothing but him, the shuttle, and the stars.
His memory flashed of its own accord, a pale arm from just above the elbow slipping in then out of the corner of his view. He thrust the thought away. Why was he letting this get to him! There was nothing else out there and he knew it.
Laughing at himself, Seraf finished, "You just don't expect anything to reach out and bump into you in a place like this."
Back at the shuttle Sevastyan and Miroslav glanced at each other. "Take cover if needed," Commander Sevastyan shrugged.
Seraf turned from the satellite and looked out into open space, trying to discern if he should. He frowned. The stars didn't look right, as though there were large dark blotches interrupting his view. Seraf reached into his utility pack and removed the industrial sized light. If there was going to be an unexpected meteor shower, he had to know now to get out of the way.
He froze. His breath cut off and suddenly his suit was filled with silence. His spotlight darted out among the blotches.
Back at the shuttle the Lieutenant Miroslav, a young man in glasses, swiveled away from his monitor, calling urgently for the commander. "Sir! His heart rate just shot through the roof!"
Commander Sevastyan drifted into the cockpit and took over the comm. "What's wrong? Petrovitch, respond!"
Seraf clutched at the satellite, his eyes squeezed shut. I mustn't be sick, he chanted inwardly, as though remembering a memorized textbook, I mustn't be sick. If I am, the air in the suit will be contaminated. The vomit will enter my lungs and I'll get pneumonia. Or worse- I'll choke and die...-
The commander's shout interrupted him. "Petrovitch. I said report!"
"Shuttle," he struggled, swallowing hard, "Do you have visual?"
Commander Sevastyan glanced at his lieutenant. The young man shrugged and shook his head. "We need his light."
"Do you copy that Petrovitch?"
The commander waited for an answer. When nothing came, Lieutenant Miroslav switched off the radio. "Should I suit up and get out there after him?" he murmured.
Commander Sevastyan thought about that then flipped the radio on over Miroslav's shoulder. His tone finally softened, "Work with me Seraf."
The commander felt so far away to him as Seraf tried to catch his breath. And part of him knew that Sevastyan and Miroslav really were too far away to help him. Though he felt as though his entire body was shaking uncontrollably and all he wanted to do was curl up into a ball, somewhere Seraf found the will to roll over on his back and point his light out into space.
The two men stared down in horror at their screens, whispering, "My God!"
A beam of light traveled among a floating graveyard, illuminating in individual succession each human figure, contorted and frozen in their own personal death pains.
The group around Hitomi parted suddenly, revealing a sharp cut figure. He stood just at the edge of the light, casting much of his face in shadow. Impossibly his navy blue garments drew the darkness about him even more than the black coats the others wore.
Hitomi gazed at him, picking up the apprehension the others had towards him. He had a look of refinement about him and he held himself as though in perfect control of his surroundings. His face looked young, but that was betrayed by his severe expression and the faint lines of gray running through his ebony hair. Moreover, his old world clothes looked completely out of place among the machines and scientific looking apparatus surrounding them.
"All right," Hitomi wondered aloud, her confusion fermenting into frustration. This newcomer made her want to retreat and she had to consciously remind herself not to back into any walls, "Why am I here? Why am I seeing you?"
The man paused. A frown touched his eyebrows and his eyes shifted, focusing directly upon Hitomi. She jerked.
"C- Can you see me?"
One of the lab coats finally found his voice. "My Lord Constantine, I don't understand how this could have happened. The theories..."
"Are obviously incomplete or totally incompetent," Constantine finished for him coolly. His gaze slipped off of Hitomi to rest on the speaker. His frown remained.
"Keep trying."
"Yes my lord," the lab coat ducked away hurriedly, obviously happy to be out of the way of the other man's cold inspection.
Hitomi desperately tried to get her hand to release the jewelry box. But her muscles weren't listening to any commands. Without much other choice, Hitomi followed after the scientist curiously.
There was a barred off pen just to the side of the panels. A half-dozen or so people huddled in the shadows inside. The white of their eyes reflected the light as they gazed out at the machines.
The lab coat stalked past them, escorted by two guards. He gestured into the pen in passing. "Use the girl."
The guards threw open the door and the rest of the people shrank away. A girl with ratted red hair was taken screaming and struggling.
"No! No! I don't wanna! Please no!"
At first Hitomi watched without understanding. Then the lab coat's words came back to her. Wherever they're going, they're not living long enough for us to find out.
"Stop it!" Even though Hitomi had sworn she never wanted to feel that sensation again, she reached out to grab the man's wrist. Her hand passed right through and did little except made her feel as though the appendage had turned into some mutation instead of a real hand.
"Do something!" Then Hitomi saw the prisoners were too far past trying to help her. They only seemed capable of watching the girl being dragged off with the macabre interest of the condemned viewing what was very soon going to happen to them as well.
"Put her in."
The guards threw the girl into a circle created on the floor by polished tiny pyramid stones. She tried to run but a sickly yellow barrier flared to life as she touched the edges of the circle. She pounded her fists helplessly against it. Constantine and the others watched her dispassionately.
The light muted the girl's cry, "Let me go!" Then she blinked, her gaze clearly focused on Hitomi, "Who are you?"
"Never mind that," Hitomi said as she rushed forward. She reached for the girl, not quite sure she could even touch her but certain she had to try. The barrier crackled violently at her touch, sending bolts of tiny lightning up her wrist. She yanked her hand away with a cry and staggered backwards.
Wincing, Hitomi realized that every single eye in the room had focused on the spot she had been seconds before. "What was that?"
"A hand made of light!"
"It was just your imaginations," Constantine snapped.
The lab coats jumped at the warning in his voice. The group began shouting out orders to one another over the roaring machines. Steam whistled into the air, blocking the light further until the room was lit by nothing more than the pallid glow of the circle.
"All right. Now try it in sector four-four-eight..."
"Right. Initializing."
"Make sure that gauge isn't..."
"Where is that..."
A cloaked figure began droning in a language Hitomi couldn't understand.
"Make them stop!" the girl pleaded.
"Just hang on," Hitomi called to the girl as she dashed back for the machines. She picked the first panel that looked promising, a panel of gears and wires that seemed to be doing a lot of work. Hitomi tried to yank out the wires.
She didn't feel anything other than the nauseating feeling of being in the exact same place as something else solid.
"This is Gaea! I'm holding the pendant!" Hitomi shouted, throwing her fists at the machine with no effect. "My thoughts have power, damn it! Now think solid!"
She swung at it once again.
"Ouch!" Hitomi sucked on a bruised knuckle. That time she had met resistance and the gears jerked.
"That's it!" Hitomi brightened and began kicking away at the machine. The gears began to tremble. "Don't. You. Dare. Hurt. Her!"
That time the gears rattled and groaned to a halt under Hitomi's last kick. But instead of falling apart as Hitomi had expected, they simply slipped into a different confirmation and began turning in a different direction. Oh no...
The sound attracted the attention of one of the scientists and she peered back at the machines. "Hm?" the young woman glanced around the area Hitomi had been trying to destroy then shrugged, "Damn rats.
Hitomi whirled about to look back at the girl. What had she just done? Exhausted from trying to fight her way out, the redhead knelt off to one side in the circle in defeat.
"Something's happening!"
The girl's sobbing cut off. She looked down in shock at her hands as they began to dissolve.
"It's working!"
The smoky light enveloped the girl and she cried out once more to Hitomi.
Gravity. He was under the effect of gravity again. Seraf collapsed to his knees, wishing very much that the suit wasn't blocking him from burying his face in his hands. "I'd like to wake up now," he choked.
If simply being in the light of the pendant was enough to cause what Hitomi had just seen, there was no telling what might happen if she actually touched it.
The rectangular ruby jewel in the panel back in the laboratory was pulsing with the strong red fire of life.
A sickly yellow light flashed behind Val's eyes.
Something was wrong.
But how was that possible? The dojo was comparatively quiet that afternoon, but she could still hear a hand full of other students practicing in the adjoining rooms. Things had been relatively peaceful at Myoujin's place that day and for once the lower level students like Val weren't being drafted into cleaning up the various messes and structural damage the upper level students tended to create.
Everything had been peaceful. But that didn't stop Val from suddenly being completely sure that something was wrong.
In the middle of blocking a thrust for her shoulder, Val halted and let her bokken drop to her side. If she had been sparring with anyone else, she would have gotten beamed across the head. As it was, Leandros stepped back gracefully as though even her most sudden movement was unable to surprise him.
"What's up?" Leandros asked blithely.
Val frowned at a point in the air and cocked her head, listening. Didn't he hear that? Someone was calling... someone was crying as though they had just found themselves in a cage. Val hated cages.
"Leon-kun..." Val murmured, not sure why she was asking, "Where are you from really?"
He blinked at her, hardly recognizing the game they had played as children. "What?"
For one insane moment Val actually had the urge to growl at him. But she fought it down, shaking her head instead. "Never mind."
Another distant call sounded, driving her to lunge at him without warning. Leandros blocked her easily, chuckling, "All right. Let's continue."
Something was wrong. And what was worse, Val had no desire to stop it. It didn't matter to her that she was sparring at a speed she wouldn't have used on her best days at the dojo. She hardly noticed she was taking risks that made Leandros laugh outright in surprise. All she saw was that she had finally forced him to hold his bokken with both hands for the extra strength.
"Kanzaki-chan," Leandros said suddenly though there was no concern in his voice yet, "Ease off a bit."
She ignored him and slashed for his upper thigh at the same speed as before. He blocked once more just as swiftly and stepped forward into her defensive circle, locking blades with her. Nearly face-to-face she saw he was beginning to pant. How long had they been fighting like this?
"That was sloppy," he snapped. "What's gotten into you?"
Val smiled crookedly. Sloppy yes but he had fallen for it. She had seen him hesitate at the last moment. His heart wasn't in it when he was fighting her. This gave her the advantage. He would be dead soon enough.
Her heart began to pound at that thought.
She couldn't really have been trying to kill him. Not Leandros. Not Leandros who had kept her from jumping to her death when Rem had convinced her she could fly. Not Leandros who helped her when she was struggling the worst at the dojo.
Leandros who lied to both her and Rem. Leandros who kept secrets just like their mother. Leandros who refused to tell her who she really was!
What was she saying? Of course she knew who she was. Didn't she?
Part of her answered yes. Yes, she was Kanzaki Valari. But another part of her screamed for blood. Anyone's blood- Leandros' would do.
If only they hadn't decided to practice with bokken today. If they had been using shinai instead, there would have been no threat of actually hurting him. He would have to start taking her seriously very soon or she would start breaking bones- or whatever else she could manage.
"Kanzaki-chan!" Leandros' terse command sounded far away, as though he was speaking to someone else.
Kanzaki. Step. Step. Uppercut. Turn. That wasn't her name. Duck. Step. Feint. Block. Was it? She couldn't remember. Who was this bastard and why wasn't he dead yet?
"Ah!"
A sharp pain in her upper arm brought her back. Leandros had given up and finally taken one of the foolish openings she had been presenting him, taking her down with a solid hit. It hurt like hell but it was a sweet reminder of what the real world tasted like.
"Ow," Val whispered as she sank to her knees, clutching her left arm.
"I'm sorry." From the shocked and pale look on Leandros' face it seemed for a moment that he would join her on the floor. Then he turned, "I'll get the first aid kit."
He ran into Kaoru moving through the hallway. "What's wrong?" she demanded, seeing his face but he shot past her without answering. Kaoru ducked into the room then halted with a gasp. Only then did Val notice. Rem lay passed out in the corner nearby.
Kaoru and Val had just laid him out on a comfortable futon when he began to stir. His bleary eyes met Val's as they opened. "Did-" he coughed and licked his dry lips. "Did you see that too?"
Val opened her mouth to reply then paused when she saw the look on her twin's face. His eyes were pleading with her. Just this one, they asked, I need you to tell me the truth. "Yeah," she admitted, "This time I think I did. Was that a vision?"
Then Rem came out of his haze fully and shot upright. "Shit! What time is it?"
"It's time for you to stay put," Kaoru said harshly nearby and tried to push him back down with Val's help. "Do you realize you just passed out in the middle of-"
"I can't be late for work!" Rem shook them off impatiently, snatching up his gi before ducking out of the room in a blur.
"Rem, if I so much as see one of your hairs at practice tomorrow I'm going to have your hide for sword leather," they heard Myoujin shouting after him in the courtyard. "Get some rest! You hear me?"
Val looked pleading at her friend. "I'll look after him," Kaoru rolled her eyes, getting to her feet to follow him.
With Rem having abandoned her, Val sat outside on the dojo steps nursing a fresh bruise blooming like a sickly violet along her upper arm. Her bokken lay at her right, discarded and forlorn. "You were really after blood today," came a warm voice from behind her.
It was a drastic understatement. All the same if Leandros hadn't been under total control, even with a bokken, he would have broken her arm. Val nodded lamely as Leandros sat next to her.
Val didn't look at him, trying to force away the twinge of she felt at what she had tried to do that day. Perplexed by her silence, Leandros shook his head and murmured, "Let me take a look at that arm."
With numb fingers, Val tentatively rolled up her left sleeve. Leandros grimaced at the sight of the tiny gash where sure brute force had broken the skin surrounded by purple and blue. "Didn't you put your armor on right?" he demanded.
Val shrugged, unable to remember. "It was my fault anyway," she said quietly.
Leandros sighed and began to rummage through the first-aid kit. "You shouldn't sulk like that, it doesn't suit you," he teased good-naturedly.
"I'm not sulk- Ow!" Leandros rubbed anti-bacterial cream into the cut before she could protest. "I'm not sulking!" she repeated angrily.
"Then what?" Leandros inquired mildly as he neatly wrapped a bandage over her arm. Val just shot him a stubborn glare and refused to answer.
"Is this because you're trying to convince Hitomi-san to let you stop taking lessons?" he said suddenly as he put an ice pack in her good hand to hold against the swelling.
Stung, Val flinched and turned to stare at him. She wondered wildly how Leandros had managed to find out. Rem probably told him. She would leave a fish in his bed for this.
For the first time Val caught something in his bright hazel eyes other than their normal liveliness. He was just determined to have it out wasn't he? But what could she say? That this was because she had just tried to kill him?
"Leon-kun, I- I've never had much talent for this kind of thing in the first place..."
Leandros snorted, "Seemed like you were doing just fine a minute ago. A little carried away maybe, but-"
"I'm tired of getting beat down every practice. I just don't want to do it anymore. Is that too much to ask?"
It was Leandros' turn to stare. His voice seemed to have abandoned him for a moment then he licked his lips. "No," he said quietly, standing, "No, I guess not. We just want you to be able to protect yourself Kanzaki-chan."
Val watched him stride off with mixed feelings. Leandros was completely dedicated to his art and she could hardly imagine him without his long blade at his side. He was the top student at the dojo and probably the only one that didn't look down on Val because of her inadequacies, including her own brother. Leandros had been the one to teach her how to treat the various minor injuries she received during bouts. She owed him a great deal and had only managed to disappoint him in return.
"Come on," Leandros said flatly a few minutes later after emerging from the dojo dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Val stared. She hadn't even been aware he owned any of that. "I'll walk you home.
They had walked to the apartment in silence, either of them unsure how to discuss anything that had just passed between them. But knowing each other since childhood paid off in this situation. The moment she was back home and in a more comfortable environment, Val began to gloss over the tension with random conversation.
"Hey Leon-kun, do you want to stay for dinner tonight?" she called as she tried to free a newly discovered ice pack wedged beneath a carton of ice cream.
"Thank you but I should be getting back to the dojo," Leandros answered as he leaned his bokken against the sofa, carefully wrapped in its carrying case so it would draw minimal attention on the street. "I'll just wait till Kanzaki-san gets back to keep an eye on you."
"Oh come on. It's been so long since you last stayed over." Val ducked out of the kitchen and cocked an eyebrow at him. "This is about my cooking isn't it."
Leandros smiled helplessly, "Uh..."
Thankfully the door opening behind him saved him from having to answer.
Hitomi, dressed in her tan work suit, came through the threshold and kicked her shoes off absently. There was a distracted look on her face but she pushed it away when she saw that Val and Leandros were watching her.
"Leon-kun! It's been a long time." Her gaze moved towards the living room, where his bokken was leaning against the couch. "Why are you bringing weapons into my house?"
Leandros jumped, "Kanzaki-san, I- That is..."
Val sighed inwardly. Leandros never seemed able to get in a word in edgewise when it came to Hitomi. When she was younger, Val had wondered if it meant Leandros had a crush on her mother. Even now she wasn't sure.
"He carries it with him everywhere, Mom."
Then Hitomi noticed the bandages on Val's arm, revealed by her rolled up sleeve. "Val! Are you all right? What happened?"
"I-" Leandros began. Hearing a tone of confession in his voice, Val hastily interrupted.
"Just an accident at the dojo. I'm fine." Val shot Leandros a look that said, And if you set off my mother's over-protective instincts, this time I will succeed in killing you.
Hitomi cocked an eyebrow at her daughter. "You forgot to put your armor on right again didn't you."
"I- er."
"It's my fault, Kanzaki-san," Leandros said before Val could stop him. "Practice got a little out of hand today."
"To get this bad? What, did you attack her from behind or did she just flat out forget to block?"
Both Leandros and Val flushed at Hitomi's angry retort. It seemed they could try to be as vague as they liked, but Hitomi wanted a real explanation. "I, uh, used more force than should have been necessary to disarm Val-chan," Leandros admitted. "I'm very sorry."
"Disarm?" Hitomi could hardly believe what she was hearing. As far as she knew, Leandros could toy with Val in a match for as long as he liked. He would never actually be forced to go so far as disarm her. "You must be getting better."
Her mother's expression looked so relieved that Val couldn't bring herself to correct her.
But Megaera and her siblings prided themselves on not exactly being human. Anyone who wasn't paying attention to the shadows darting across the thin mats on the floor might think the whispering forms were simply one young man and two young women who were particularly lithe. But a closer look would reveal startling characteristics.
Megaera and her siblings were creatures of a more feline nature. Supple tails began from the base of each figures' spine at the pelvis and extended down around their ankles. Smooth short fur cloaked their bodies and soft pointed cat ears topped their heads. Their sharpened fingernails held the threat of retracted claws beneath and whenever they tossed challenging grins at one another, long canines flashed.
The eldest, Alecto, was the fiercest of the group just because he was just that, the eldest. He was old enough to remember everything he lost during the fall of Zaibach and he never let his younger sisters forget. His was the darkest shadow in that room, since he had the same coloring of a black panther except for the few streaks where his flesh had met blade and the fur grew back a pale shade of gold. He had allowed the hair on his head to grow just past his shoulders, intermixed with braids, beads, and feathers.
He sparred with Megaera, the youngest of the three, and she met him blow for blow. She was put at a disadvantage with him only because of his pure strength, but on the level of skill they were equal. She was the easiest to see in the room, her red hair cut short about her chin to keep it out of her eyes.
Tisiphone, her coat a Russian blue, watched from the sidelines, moving only occasionally to duck out of the way when one of her siblings was tossed in her direction. She rested on one side, propped up on her elbow, her tail lolling lazily over her hip. A book lay open in front of her, which Constantine had bought back for her on the black market, one of the few books that had escaped from Zaibach and was in fact forbidden.
There was only one rule in the practice room - the blows could be as real as you liked but when you threw a punch, it was with an open hand, claws firmly retracted. Those kinds of maneuvers were restricted to battlefield situations.
Claws or not, Alecto was winning. He was just about to call the match off when the door opened, flooding the bare room with light from the torches in the corridor beyond.
"How are my kittens?" a warm voice asked.
"Lord Constantine!" Tisiphone was the first one off her feet to greet him at the doorway.
"Good evening Tisiphone." Constantine gave her a smile then surveyed Alecto and Megaera, the brother twisting his sister's arm behind her back and pressing her face into the tiles. "I see Megaera isn't doing so well."
"She did try, my lord," Alecto's canines flashed before he hid his smile for his little sister's benefit, "What do you say, Meg? Do you yield?"
But Megaera could only manage a defiant grunt into the tiles at that moment and a furious thrash of her tail. Tisiphone rolled her eyes, "All right, that's enough of that. Let her up."
Alecto ignored her and looked instead to Constantine. His lord gave a curt nod and Alecto obeyed immediately, releasing his sister. Megaera popped up without so much as a sputter. "Evening Lord Constantine," she said eagerly, "Have you come to play with us?"
"Megaera!" Tisiphone hissed.
"What? You want him to play too!" Megaera glared back at her sister then turned back pleadingly to Constantine, "Please my lord? It's been so long since you've joined us in the practice room."
"Not this time Meg. I have something more important."
The cat siblings cocked their heads in unison. Only then did they see the soft sheen of triumph in Constantine's eyes. The gray murky shade they had seen building about them as experiment after experiment continued to fail was suddenly gone. "What is it?" Alecto breathed.
"They've found it," said Constantine.
Tisiphone was the first to understand and she gasped, "A way to the Mystic Moon?"
"Yes," Constantine nodded. "Alexandra is performing the last adjustments right now. We'll be ready to send another traveler in a few hours."
"And my orders, my lord?" Alecto inquired, standing at attention.
His sisters rounded on him. "Who says you're the one who's going?" Megaera shouted, her hair bristling.
"Yes, do tell!" Tisiphone seconded.
Alecto produced his fierce, sharp grin and fell into a crouch, fists raised. "You want to fight me for it?"
"I can take you!" Megaera yelled, lunging for him. Tisiphone rolled her eyes once again and had to restrain her little sister by the shoulders. All the same, Alecto was surprised to see that even Tisiphone was having a hard time keeping her claws from coming out.
"No one's taking anyone anywhere," said Constantine, halting them. "I've already chosen Alecto for the assignment."
Megaera fell to her haunches in a pout. Tisiphone let her hands fall to her sides and glanced away, the only sign of her frustration. Alecto pushed his hair away from his eyes, suddenly unsure in the face of his sisters' disappointment.
Constantine's smile never wavered from place, oblivious to the sister's feeling, "Your orders, Alecto, are to destroy any children of the royal line of Fanelia."
AN: Thanks so much for reading and don't forget to review! It really means a lot to me to get feedback on this :)
