Old World Remnants

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld shook his head. "I don't think that's true."

Etsu was a much more complicated person that he had given her credit for. It wasn't frustration at her situation or at him that caused her to act the way she did...he was beginning to think she was frustrated with herself.

"That's why it's hard, isn't it?" he guessed softly. It would be much easier if she could just blame somebody, hate them, and move on figuring she was better off. But in the end she didn't want to be here with a new family, no matter how well that family might treat him. She wanted to be with her mother and father, even if the former had abandoned her, and the latter wasn't entirely fit to raise a child, especially one not his own.

With some hesitation, he took a few steps forward and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. He wouldn't blame her if she recoiled from him--after all, thus far they'd mostly just had friction--but he was willing to offer what comfort he could.

[Nayt]

At first, when Eld touched Etsu's shoulders, she felt a shudder in her spine. If he'd said nothing before he did this, she'd have pulled away from him and blindly run away from him. She'd have no idea where she was going, no direction or location in mind. She'd have simply run away. But that wasn't how this was going to go. Eld's words shook something up in her and drudged away her will to run.

Oddly, even though they had their little physical spat back there, Etsu wasn't recoiling or slapping Eld like it would have normally felt right to do. Now, it would have felt horribly wrong.

"Why?" Etsu asked, her voice trembling. "Why do you care? I am-- I am no-thing but mean to you . . ."

Because it was true, and that's exactly how she felt right now: confused. Disoriented. Dizzy. She didn't realize she was leaning back into Eld's hand. She didn't realize how dizzy she really felt. It had nothing to do with her body, though. She was emotionally dizzy. Why did Eld even give a damn about her feelings? She'd hit him in the nose and felt like there was nothing at all wrong with that. So why? Why would he even try to console her? It was yet another thing that made no sense to her in a time when all she wanted was for the whole world to start making sense.

[Zach Kaiser]

"...You got a bad first impression of me, and you're going through something tough. I may get fed up with it occasionally, but...I can't really blame you for being moody. I don't think that makes you a bad person."

Etsu seemed a little...shaky. He really didn't want to intrude on her personal space too much, given what she thought of him (or wanted to think), but he was ready to catch her in case she leaned too far back.

"Besides," he concluded, "you're family." And to Eld, that family was there for each other wasn't something that even needed to be said.

[Nayt]

Eld wasn't going to voluntarily intrude on Etsu's personal space, but it was bound to accidentally happen. Mulling over his words, she leaned back into him. Etsu was silent for a very long time; she simply leaned her shoulders back against Eld's chest and stood like that for a long while, quietly thinking with her head hung low. For awhile, she was still slightly shaking, but she didn't cry. If she did, she was silent about.

What she'd done, the simple act of leaning on Eld, would probably act as a quiet message that she simply couldn't bring to words right now. Maybe it was something she'd been thinking about for awhile; maybe it was something she'd even come to conclusions about long ago, but she never said anything. She couldn't. The words simply weren't there. There was only an action-- a simple action, but it was still something.

Finally, after several long moments of silence, Etsu pushed forward and would gently remove herself from Eld's proximity.

"Fine . . ." Etsu said under her breath as she finally turned enough to look back at Eld.

Her eyes were puffy and red like she'd been ready to start crying for the last minute, but now she seemed just fine, what with the way she looked at Eld with mock disapproval.

"You can bathe first . . ."

[Zach Kaiser]

At first, Eld was unsure of what to do when Etsu leaned on him. Should he hold her? Or was just being there enough? Perhaps it was silly to worry over something like that, but he saw this as a sign that Etsu trusted him--even if she still didn't necessarily like him. And he didn't want to do anything to aggravate that trust so quickly.

A bit hesitantly, he wrapped his arms around her. Maybe she'd get angry at him later, but the way he figured it, everyone deserved to be held sometime.

When she finally pulled away and turned to face him, he gave her a reassuring smile. "Okay. I promise not to take long."

There was a good chance that they'd be fighting again before too long...but perhaps that was just how they were going to be.

******

Eld lounged in his room once more after his bath, a fresh set of clean clothing now adorning him. Whatever else was going on, getting clean always made him feel a bit better.

Rather than mope around, he decided to do something constructive. He held a book he'd gotten some time ago, one that talked about some of Hillcrest's history. It wasn't something he'd ever been particularly interested in, and even now the best he could bring himself to do was skim it for any reference to the graveyard he'd found.

Not that he was finding anything.

[Nayt]

Eld might have found it strange that Etsu actually seemed accepting of this. He wrapped his arms around her and she returned this in kind, not by embracing him (she had her back to his chest, after all), but by gently setting her hands upon his forearms and leaning her head back against his shoulder. It was surreal how warm he was. It reminded her of something she used to dream about when she was a little girl-- one of the main reasons she'd always avoided Hillcrest, even.

Those thoughts weren't coming back, were they? No, they couldn't be coming back. They were long gone, all dashed and thrown away within the first night she stayed here . . .

---

Unlike Eld, Etsu took a long bath. There were a few girlhood thoughts that kept annoying her, and all she wanted to do was soak them away. By the time she was out of the bath, she'd mostly succeeded. At the very least, she'd managed to suppress them, so maybe they wouldn't return so soon.

It was late, so she'd brought with her comfortable sleepwear, a low cut lace tank top and short shorts-- and maybe it was a testament to the frail trust she had in Eld, or maybe she simply didn't care (or perhaps she was intentionally testing this boy), but she had nixed on the whole bra idea. She was just going to take it off before going to sleep, after all. Might as cut one step out of the procedure and nix on that brand of undergarment for the next few waking hours.

Etsu reentered Eld's room with a towel wrapped around her hair. Her left eye was still a sensitive topic, though, even after all that happened earlier, so she made sure her bangs, however wet they were, were down in front of her eye. She saw that Eld was at his desk reading, and couldn't help herself but walk over to investigate. She stood by his side and leaned over a bit to get a good look at what he was reading, and thought very little of how this must have looked to him, or where on her body his head was level to right now. But if he was as trustworthy as he liked to think of himself as, he would absentmindedly not notice too, right?

She only needed to read a couple of sentences to figure out the gist of what was going on.

"What are you sear-ching for?" she asked. She'd have sounded invasive had she not returned to stoic meekness.

[Nayt]

They'd gone out for sandwiches and drinks, and they had a reasonably good time together-- but all good things had to end eventually, and Kageko asked Noah if he could escort her to where she'd tied up her horse. It was on the far side of town. The darker side of town. Most called it Old Hillcrest. Not a lot of folk lived out this way. It wasn't a bad place, it just wasn't too great for crops, what with this being a farming town and all. Unfortunately, it was the least lit area in town. Kageko had tied up her horse at a stable near the tree line and brush.

Noah felt no issue with walking her out that way. Unfortunately, just as they arrived at the old stable, their walk was rudely interrupted.

"Hey there, folks. Mind if I butt in?" a voice called from ahead of them.

A figure took shape from behind the brush and slowly entered their path. The first thing Noah saw was that he was carrying a knife. This sent a flair of urgency throughout his body, The man was fully cloaked and wore a bandanna over his face-- a true highwayman. He raised his knife up gingerly to tell his targets to move again. Noah glanced to Kageko cautiously, who returned his glance with a look of confusion and concern. She actually looked frightened. Without a second thought, Noah took a step forward.

"Whoa, whoa," the highwayman jabbed the knife at Noah, who stumbled back, narrowly avoiding his jabs, "I ain't tellin' yer ass to come. I'm tellin' the girly's."

Noah's lips curled into a sneer. "What's that?"

"I ain't never had an Umbra before," the highwayman snickered.

Noah looked over at Kageko again, who now appeared to be outright frightened. Again, Noah didn't miss a beat. He threw his arm out before Kageko and forcibly inserted himself in the space between his Umbra companion and the highwayman. Kageko gasped, but made no attempt to stop Noah.

"What? Yer gonna be a hero now, huh?" the highwayman spat, "Funny! I ain't never heard of Noah Herst the hero."

This merely brought a grin to Noah's lips. "Yeah?" he asked, "Well, you've been listening to the wrong stories. Kageko, stay back-- I'm about to win your heart."

[Zach Kaiser]

"Oh, I'm just..." Eld trailed off; with Etsu leaning next to him, he'd turned to talk to her, but ended up being a bit distracted. He was tempted to say something to suggest that she maybe situate herself a bit more...modestly, but decided that she would probably only call him a pervert for that.

He turned back to look at the book instead, his momentary pause and the small blush that rose to his face the only reactions indicating he might have noticed anything. "...just checking through Hillcrest's history. I was hoping there might be some reference to the graveyard where Akizetsumei fainted, but no luck."

A small sigh escaped him. "I suppose it wouldn't make sense for there to be anything in here about it, since it's been a secret for so long, but it can't hurt to check."

[Nayt]

"Sou ka," Etsu replied.

If she noticed Eld blushing, she didn't seem to care too much. Etsu stood up straight again and clasped her hands behind her back. This didn't really change her position too much; Eld's head was still at level with her chest, and she still seemed to neither notice nor care.

"Naze desu ka?" she asked. Some of these short phrases were devoted to habit, and she consistently spoke them in her Cizokian tongue.

After all, it was strange that Eld would be so interested in that graveyard. His parents ruled what happened as heat exhaustion. The graveyard had nothing to do with that . . .

[Zach Kaiser]

That question was much tougher to answer. At least, without making him seem very strange. He maintained silence for several moments, but decided he couldn't hold his tongue. Earlier, Etsu had shown that she was willing to trust him, at least a little. It wouldn't exactly be fair if he didn't show her the same.

"Akizetsumei fainted shortly after she touched something there. Something she was warned not to touch. And when I told Toushikyo what happened he stopped being worried, like he knew she wasn't hurt. And..."

He hesitated; the details before were all stuff he'd either mentioned at some point or was at least willing to tell anyone who asked. But the final piece of the puzzle that was now in his possession wasn't something he really wanted people to know, or even think about himself. But he had to, because doing nothing was driving him crazy.

"...when she woke up, she was terrified of me. She'd seen something while she was out, something that convinced her I was...some kind of monster..."

More specifically, she seemed to think he'd killed her and her entire family. Which was ridiculous, but while Akizetsumei could be a little spacey he doubted she'd have such a reaction to a mere dream, no matter how intense or terrifying that dream was.

"Any one or even two of these could be overlooked. But put all together...I can't help but think something strange is going on." And ultimately that was his suspicion. What, he couldn't even guess at, but there was something beyond the bounds of what he called "normal" occurring, and it involved people he cared about. Which meant it ultimately involved him too.

[Nayt]

So it was something more than heat exhaustion, then? Etsu put her hands on her hips.

"Atamagaokashii," she replied frankly.

But that was fine, she supposed. In a weird way, Eld was there for her earlier. She didn't have much to say so there wasn't much need for him to listen, but she was vulnerable and he supported her and didn't at all try to take advantage of her, like she might have thought he would under any other circumstances (which may have changed all other circumstances from this point on, but the future was something Etsu was loath to think about right about now; it drudged up all those girlhood thoughts again and turned looking at Eld's face into a new brand of uncomfortable experience).

So that meant she had to be there for him, too, even if it was just to hear him babble on about something completely psychotic. Maybe it'd prove to be interesting, at least.

"You have . . . theory?" She almost forgot the word for that, even had to take a second to think about it-- really made her sound as Cizokian as she actually was. It was so easy to forget-- even for Etsu --that Common wasn't her first language. They spoke it back where she came from, but not nearly enough to have a super strong vocabular.

[Nayt]

The highwayman took a single step forward before Noah took offensive action. He lunged, shoved his right foot down in front of the highwayman, and-- oddly enough --pulled back with his shoulders and head. As strange as it must have seemed, it had a distinct purpose: he thrust his foot forward and down to throw the highwayman into aggressive, and pulled back with the bulk of his weight to avoid the incoming slash, something Noah predicted perfectly. That didn't culminate the entirety of his plan, however. Rather, it was just the start of it.

As the knife narrowly breezed by his chest, Noah lifted his hands, grabbed the highwayman's wrist with his right, squeezed tightly, twisted at it, and pulled the highwayman sharply to the right. The highwayman stumbled and attempted to regain his composure quick, but he was too late: Noah had punched him in the back of the hand, forcing him to release the knife, and still dragging him to the right, thrust his knee into the highwayman's solar plexus.

The highwayman coughed and Noah dropped his hand to let him lower to the ground. He took a step back and dropped his arms to his side. Noah glanced back to Kageko to see how she was doing, and the vague look of fear she had earlier had been replaced by one of the most intense looks of curiosity and interest that Noah had ever seen. No matter, though. He still had something to take care of.

Slowly but surely, the highwayman was getting up. Except rather than pained, aggravated, or upset . . .

He was laughing.

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld turned and gave her a wry smile. "I know it sounds crazy, but...if you were there..." He reconstructed the event in his head for the millionth time, but this time rather than to mope about it he hoped to give a clear picture to Etsu.

"It was like this: Akizetsumei bent down at one of the graves, which was marked by a pair of fans--that's another thing, none of the graves had headstones or anything, they were marked by strange stuff. Weapons, or random items or something. Anyway, she bent down, and Remmy--that's another story in itself--shouted for her to stop. She touched them, and then a few seconds later she fainted."

He paused to let that sink in. "So...maybe he just thought it was disrespectful. But, what are the chances that Akizetsumei would faint from exhaustion right then, when she wasn't moving or exerting herself at all? And I...well, I don't like to disagree with my parents, but she was fine until then. She wasn't flagging at all."

Setting the book down for a moment, he got up and began to pace back and forth nearby. "But I think it's much more likely that he knew something would happen if she touched those fans. And like I said, when I told all this Toushikyo, he seemed relieved, as though he knew Akizetsumei would be alright. So...I think he knew what happened, too. Once is coincidence, but twice?" He shook his head. If he had a tobacco pipe he'd look just like a detective from a mystery novel.

"And then there's the way Akizetsumei reacted to me when she woke up. Even if you have a nightmare, and it involved someone you knew doing something horrible, it wouldn't normally affect you that much, right? You might be a little startled if they were nearby when you woke up, but we all can tell the difference between dream and reality. But she..."

He trailed off. This wasn't the kind of thing he wanted to think about, but if Etsu was to understand why he thought something strange was going on he needed to say it. "She was afraid of me. Terrified. She recoiled from me, was convinced I'd done something terrible. So...I don't think she was dreaming."

"I think...I think touching those fans made her...see something. I don't know what, or why, but I don't think it was a dream. Maybe it wasn't real, but it wasn't just a dream, either. But of the two people who I think know what happened, I can't find one of them and the other...well...you saw how much Toushikyo communicates. I don't think I could get a straight answer from him if I tried." This was just an excuse, really. The real reason he hadn't talked to Toushikyo was that he didn't want to risk seeing Akizetsumei...risk her still treating him like some kind of monster. That hurt more than he ever thought it could.

Finally he stopped pacing and turned back to Etsu. "Does any of this make sense, or do I just sound completely crazy?" he asked with a self-conscious smile. If nothing else, he clearly knew how it must sound, so his grip on reality hadn't broken entirely yet.

[Nayt]

Etsu watched Eld pace for awhile, but ultimately got tired of it half-way through his monologue. She decided to sit down at his desk, where he just recently stood from, and occupied his chair for the duration of his speech. She marked Eld's current page in this history book and leafed through the pages idly. She was listening, honest-- it was just kind of a crazy story. She needed to be sitting down and doing something to take it all in. Yeah. That was it. But no, really. Even if Eld sounded kind of insane, it was at least interesting.

"Nakaba," she replied with a nod of her head.

Half-crazy. That described Eld well. After all, some of what he said made sense, the other half didn't. What made sense sounded logical and rational beyond a shadow of a doubt. What was insane sounded like it could land Eld in an institution if he preached it in the middle of the street.

She flipped through the pages of this book again. She was a bit hard pressed to find something meaningful to add to that. Something other than noting the points that made Eld sound like a raving lunatic. Funny enough, though, she couldn't help but imagine him in a suit and overcoat-- hair slicked back and a cigarette between his lips, at that. That was kind of an endearing thought.

But just then, Etsu stopped flipping through the pages. She noticed something. Maybe it was just an illusion. Maybe her mind was playing tricks on her. She held one page, glanced to the next, then to the next, and so on, always looking at the top of the pages and nothing more.

Is crazy contagious? she asked herself. Yet even still, she was curious.

When she spoke, Etsu sounded sincerely interested. "Who wrote this?"

[Nayt]

"Ah . . . whew . . ." the highwayman sighed in relief as he came down from his fit of laughter.

"You going to make it?" Noah asked with mock concern.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll be fine," said the highwayman.

"Okay. Just making sure. Wouldn't want you laughing yourself to death before I can bring you in, you know?" Noah adopted a grin again.

"Oh. Yeah. I understand entirely."

"What was so funny, anyways?"

"Oh," the highwayman rolled his shoulders, "I was just thinkin': I really hate knives, anyways."

Noah was about to say something else, but the highwayman made his next move. He thrust himself in Noah's direction fist first. Surprised by the pace of it, Noah threw his arms over his face to halt the blow, but he didn't expect the pain that followed. It was unorthodox. After all, it suddenly felt like the highwayman damn near snapped his forearm in two. Noah brought his arms down and grasped his right forearm in momentary pain. This guy was much tougher than he looked.

The highwayman drew his right hand back from the first strike and followed up quickly with a subsequent jab with his left hand. This one Noah was intuitive enough to dodge. He'd made a mental note to avoid blocking all blows from this man henceforth.

Unfortunately, that significantly reduced his possible countermeasures. The highwayman was fast. Too fast. His flurry of jabs left Noah room only to dodge, and always to move his head out of the way and take a step back. Noah was a quick thinker, but the highwayman was keeping him on the defensive with relentless, ultra-fast aggression. Taking any one of these shots simply wasn't an option, either. Judging from the damage to his arm, this highwayman could probably break Noah's neck with a single right hook.

But maybe the highwayman's rush could be used against him . . .

Noah took a quick glance behind him during one dodge, only to discern where he was going. He was pleased to find that, slowly but surely, he was backing across the street and ever closer to one of the many abandoned farm houses of Old Hillcrest.