And the World Shall Forget You

[Nayt]

In these past years, would he have never tried that? Well, considering the draw to the sword, it actually wasn't terribly unlikely. However, Toushikyo's willpower was stronger than that.

"Of course," he replied, "But it failed to wake me."

Just one of many potential cures that were never meant to be. He'd come up with so many ideas over the duration, but they'd all effectively left him high and dry.

"I feel the sword is necessary, though. For me." He said, "That it might be the only guide I have to waking. But . . . I'm not sure how. All I've known to do is simply train with it."

Perhaps someday he'd be required to draw his sword on an animal or even another person, and in using what he'd taught himself to solve this conflict, he'd wake from the dream. For the duration of this curse, that's what he firmly believed. Recently, though, he was beginning to falter in his bravado.

"I suppose that is unique to me," he said as an afterthought, "As Akizetsumei has shown no desire for the fans thus far."

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld mulled over this for awhile. Toushikyo felt drawn to the sword, and believed it might hold the key for him to "awaken." But what exactly he had to do with it he wasn't sure. Akizetsumei wasn't drawn to the fans, so this wasn't common to call cases.

If this were some kind of sickness, father would have a field day, he mused briefly. Perhaps that was where he got his investigative side from; Urikuse Tsukimono loved a medical mystery, and took great pleasure in investigating any unusual bugs that went around Hillcrest. Fortunately that didn't happen too often, not just because Eld didn't like the idea of people being sick, but also because his father kind of scared him with how intense he could be during those episodes. It's definitely a good idea to keep this from him.

"Well...maybe for now that's what you're supposed to do. Train, and be ready for when something comes." He frowned. "Though...that would suggest some kind of predestination, and I'm not sure I'd buy that. But then again I wasn't sure I'd believe that someone could be literally haunted until recently..."

The biggest problem with this mystery was that normal logic didn't apply at all. If mystical forces existed--something he was more ready to believe than that Toushikyo and Akizetsumei had some kind of serious psychological disorders (and in the former's case, some kind of glitch in his nervous system that coincided with it)--then it was difficult to rule anything out of the realm of possibility.

On a whim, he pulled out his notepad, and passed it to Toushikyo, pointing to the code he'd written down. "Etsu found this in code in a book I had--maybe it will mean more to you than it does to me."

[Nayt]

Whether or not there was such a thing as predestination, Toushikyo hadn't the slightest clue. If there was, then hopefully he and Akizets were predestined to somehow get through this. If not, then fate was a cruel beast, hellbent on ruining the lives of everyone in this family.

That was another topic that Etsu had little to say about. She didn't really know how to feel about predestination. On one hand, it was nice to know that she had free will. On the other, it was nice to know that there was some sort of established direction for her life.

"Hnn?" Toushikyo accepted the notepad.

He read it over and over again, even flipped through the pages a bit to see if Eld had written anymore. Turned out he hadn't. Toushikyo again flipped back to the first page. There was a lot here that he already knew, but a lot here that made him curious. Eld was the first person that ever brought this topic up to him, but it seemed someone knew about it even before Eld-- perhaps even before Toushikyo. It seemed there was a deeper mystery behind this, especially as he hadn't the slightest clue what a Repeat was.

"I'd like to borrow this book," he declared frankly.

Etsu leaned in to better look at Eld, whereupon she shook her head. She hadn't packed that book; it was back at the house. If Toushikyo wanted it, he'd probably have to wait 'til they were back home.

[Zach Kaiser]

Toushikyo was definitely interested in the notepad; he trusted that if this jogged his memory about something he'd speak up, so he assumed that while he might have known some of what was written down, there was enough new material that he wanted to look at it.

He glanced at Etsu, but it seemed she didn't pack it. That wasn't too bad a problem, though; Toushikyo was a friend of his, and his parents would let him in if he asked. "We don't have it with us, but feel free to grab it from my room. It's called "The History of Hillcrest" and it's written by a Chaz Surman. It should be on my desk."

He paused for a moment before adding, "Fair warning, though; save for the code, the book was exceptionally boring."

[Nayt]

Well, that was good. Eld's house was literally across the road from Toushikyo's. It was even on the way back to his house. He wouldn't have to walk on his bad foot for much more time than necessary, then.

"To be expected," Toushikyo replied with a nod, "It was on your shelf, after all."

There was a long standing argument between Eldridge Tsukimono and Toushikyo of Terra, one based entirely around choices of literature. Toushikyo insisted that Eld had truly poor taste in literature. Honestly, some of the things he enjoyed were just deplorable.

Eld may have been helping Toushikyo here, but that didn't make them any less of intellectual rivals. But it was a friendly rivalry, littered with passive-aggression and sporadic jabs. It was something Toushikyo held onto, something normal for him that, at the very least, helped him continue to believe that he was still human.

[Zach Kaiser]

"Hey, it's non-fiction, it doesn't count," he protested. "My mysteries are more interesting than your fantasy junk any day." Though perhaps his situation explained why Kyo was drawn to that genre; it might have made him feel better to think he wasn't the only one going through something so bizarre.

Conveniently, Eld neglected to mention some of the romance novels on his shelf--which were, of course, simply overflow from his mother's collection and it wasn't as though he read or enjoyed them, especially the more bawdy ones, himself.

[Nayt]

"Non-fiction and mysteries," Toushikyo said, "You're taste in literature is almost as bad as Vaerbond's."

And by that, he meant Emily. Sarah didn't exactly read that much. She read "flavor of the month" books-- things Maya was eating up that she wanted to chat about. Emily, on the other hand, read technical manuals more often than not. When she did read fiction, her tastes were similar to Eld's; she preferred something that presented a problem for her to try to solve.

This was a topic Etsu could jump in on, and quite harshly to boot. Eld had a lot of books, and she had done her fair share of reading them. Well, not all of them. Only a couple, really. But it was enough of a literary sample that she knew what to expect from the rest of it.

"Tsukimono-san r-rikes . . . many bad book," Etsu confirmed, "I have read many from his book-case. They are ar-rr very bad ro-man-ces."

Toushikyo folded his arms over his chest and nodded his head affirmatively, as if to silently say I rest my case. His fantasy junk was years better than Eld's romance junk.

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld's reaction was immediate: his face flushed as he whipped his head around to her. "T-Those aren't mine! They're my mother's, she just ran out of room for them! I-I mean, I may have read a few of them," he muttered a bit quieter, "b-but that was just out of boredom!"

In an attempt to deflect the focus from him, he glared at Etsu. "I've got a bunch of mysteries and other stuff, and you chose those first. So I think it's you that's into trashy romance novels," he accused. While his motives may have been selfish, it was still a fair judgment; it wasn't as though in the Tsukimono household there was any shortage of reading material, even fiction.

[Nayt]

"N-nani desu ka?!" Etsu exclaimed-- though her voice only seemed to go so high. Even an exclamation for her was half the pitch as anyone else.

Were Toushikyo the type to grin, he'd have done so just now. A few jabs at Eld, and now he was at it with Etsu. If allowed to go on without interference, they might even break into a physical dispute. Fortunately, Toushikyo was sitting between them, otherwise Etsu might have been tempted. There was another variable, too . . . Toushikyo saw something out of his peripheral, and when he looked past Etsu, he confirmed his suspicions.

"Hikane," he said as he motioned behind her.

This prompted Etsu to drop her attention away from Eld. It was clear who Toushikyo was talking to, but what the heck he meant was another story.

"Hikane?" she asked with the utmost uncertainty.

"That is your surname, is it not?"

"No," Etsu shook her head, "My house is Kotaino."

"Oh," Toushikyo paused a moment, devoting time to deep thought. But then he remembered the whole purpose of getting her attention. "You have a bite."

Etsu hummed in confusion, only to turn her head to her left to see that she did, in fact, have a bite. She had both poles set up so there were anchored to the ground and elevated with Y-shaped sticks, also stuck into the earth. The tip of the leftmost pole was twitching rapidly, enough that it even drew the middle of the pole down, too. Without a word, Etsu jolted up from the soft earth and raced over, plopped back down, and took command of the fishing pole. Suddenly this was the only thing in the world that mattered to her.

And unfortunately for her, that also discounted modesty, as she sat with her knees up a bit, and inadvertently exposed a pair of surprisingly pink under-cloth. This resulted in Toushikyo staring for a couple of seconds, before finally clearing his throat and averting his eyes, his face a bit redder than before.

[Zach Kaiser]

Hikane? At first Eld wasn't sure what he was referring to, but it seemed he thought it was Etsu's family name. As he was fairly certain that her last name never came up during the fishing trip, he wondered on what basis Toushikyo was guessing.

Regardless, the small misunderstanding was forgotten as Etsu raced for her lines--specifically at the sight she accidentally granted them with her new posture. Eld's reaction more or less mirrored Kyo's, though he was perhaps a little worse at hiding it.

Fortunately, Etsu was way too distracted to notice. "Umm...do you need in any help, Etsu?" he asked, trying his best not to stare. In spite of himself, however, he couldn't help but steal the occasional glance.

[Nayt]

"Yes, if . . . you require assistance . . ." Just ask?

Which was a weird thing to say for Toushikyo. He didn't really know Etsu that well, and he wasn't even prone to offering his assistance to even his own friends. Yes, if they asked, he'd most likely drop whatever he was doing to help them out, but he rarely ever offered. Then again, addressing Etsu was an excuse to look back at her again, during which he might just so happened to steal a glance, too . . .

Hormones were weird like that.

Etsu was a little weirded out that Eld and Toushikyo were so willing to climb over each other to help, but that was the least of her problems right now.

"I am fine," she replied under her breath.

If it were anything else, she might have taken them up on the offer. But Etsu actually enjoyed fishing, so she devoted her concentration to that and that alone. She reeled it in a bit, released tension for a second, and reeled again, frequently pulling on the fishing rod before reeling. The closer her catch got, the heavier the tension, but it wasn't too terrible. It wasn't the worst she'd felt before. But Etsu could still tell this one wasn't a small fry. If all went well, this was going to be dinner for at least two.

---

As the sun went down that evening, Eld sparked up a fire. It was a joint effort between he and Toushikyo, as Etsu had bagged the catch (two catches, to be exact) over the course of the day, and they hadn't caught a damn thing. Toushikyo gathered the most dry wood he could find and Eld put his poor outdoorsmanship qualities to use, and over the course of twenty minutes of bickering and multiple attempts on Toushikyo and Eld's parts, Eld finally got a fire started for them. Etsu already had her catches prepared by then.

She managed to bag two wide mouthed bass, though the second was half the size of the first. She skinned, gutted, and cleaned the fish herself, and wound up separating the first in two. She found the straightest sticks that she could, washed them with water, and skewered the fish accordingly.

Dinner for three.

Eld and Etsu split the larger of the bass, whilst Toushikyo had the half-sized one-- but all in all, they wound up having the same amount of meat. With the fish skewered, it was up to each person to cook them as much as they want, simply by sitting around the fire and holding their soon-to-be dinner over the flames until cooked to preference.

That evening, it seemed everything was nice. The air was cool, but the fire was warm (enough that Etsu still did not find herself requiring pants); the food wasn't restaurant quality, but it wasn't bad, and the experience itself was the most genuine Toushikyo, at the very least, had sat through. The night sky was clear and littered with a thousand stars. No matter how hard she tried, Etsu found it difficult to quit looking up . . .

[Zach Kaiser]

It was lucky that Etsu was a good fisher, as apparently both Eld and Toushikyo were terrible. He was actually surprised that she not only caught the fish but was skilled at cleaning them as well--a skill Eld had learned once but had not practiced all that much.

Which could also be said for his ability to build a fire from scratch. As neither he nor Etsu had particularly felt like trekking back to their tent to grab supplies, it was on him to make a fire. It...took some doing, and Kyo's attempts to tell him how to do it weren't helpful.

But eventually the fire was, if not roaring, then at least simmering enough to cook their fish. Eld was waiting a bit longer for his, as he liked his meat a bit more well done.

"Camping's not so bad when you don't have to take cover, huh Kyo?" he asked idly.

[Nayt]

"Yes," Toushikyo said with a nod, "I prefer not hiding from the rain."

That was . . . well, that was an experience, all right. One he preferred to pretend never happened. This would have been a good memory to replace it with, but Toushikyo wasn't going to be camping out with them. They didn't have the room, and he didn't have a tent of his own.

"It is . . . very nice night," Etsu whispered.

It was a bit unprecedented that she'd say that, actually; Etsu rarely said many good things about anything, but tonight was a special. All of today, in fact. It'd been a great day, one spent entirely outside, and with company that she didn't quite mind, actually. One might even say that Etsu had her own particular affections for the both of them, in fact. She withdrew her fish from the fire. It was warm enough for her, but she didn't pay it much attention yet. Rather, she looked up, smelled the evening air, and smiled.

Easily the first full, genuine smile Eld (and Toushikyo, by extension) had ever seen from the girl.

[Zach Kaiser]

"Actually, I was talking about taking cover from Sarah's arrows. The rain was comparatively easy to deal with," Eld replied with a wry smile. He'd been about to ask Toushikyo if he planned on staying here (momentarily forgetting about how impossible that would be with the space they had) when Etsu spoke.

He'd never seen her smile like that; in the time she'd been here, her smiles were barely visible and rare. He wondered if she was always so reserved, or if it was just because lately she hadn't had much to smile about.

After a few moments he caught himself staring and blushed; Etsu was surprisingly cute when she smiled. For the first time he felt that staying with his family really was doing her some good. He only hoped that she would start smiling like that more often...

[Nayt]

Even Toushikyo found himself staring. In his experiences with the girl, Etsu was stoic-- much like himself, in fact. She rarely showed emotion, be it with her facial expressions or voice. When she smiled, it was like looking at an entirely new human being. An astoundingly pretty human being.

Toushikyo, too, averted his eyes and found himself blushing some.

---

"Are you sure . . .?" Etsu asked.

She was actually starting to enjoy Toushikyo's company. He didn't talk much, but when he did, he was very blunt and to the point. He and Etsu even agreed on many things-- especially things dealing with Eld's various little inadequacies.

Toushikyo nodded his head. It was getting much later and their fire was all but smoldering embers. They'd eaten their full, laid out under the stars side-by-side, and watched the sky for what must have been a solid hour. This was a good day, one that Toushikyo would be sure to remember.

"I'm certain," he replied, "I've neither a tent nor the space to join you."