The platinum blond, Akizetsumei, stood with her back facing the archway of the northern gate. Despite wearing her preferred form fitting dress, she carried with her a lightweight backpack. Before her stood Hugh and Kyla, two fellows who had come to express their concern for Akizetsumei-- their friend. One of their dearest friends, in fact.

Kyla stood a little closer than Hugh, while Hugh lightly held onto her hand. At first, Akizetsumei had looked at them with some degree of confusion, but after awhile of talking, her expression became much warmer and understanding . . . even though she had no intention of complying.

"Akizets . . . you don't have to do this, not alone . . ." Kyla stated outright.

Hugh agreed wholeheartedly. "Yeah--at least let us come with you."

"No . . . it's okay," Akizets smiled. It wasn't the happiest smile in the world, but she was at least able to smile again. "You two wouldn't be able to keep up with me anyways! Don't worry. I'm only going there to bring him back . . ."

"Are . . . you sure?" Kyla asked with a frown, "Even if we were to slow you down, we'd be there to help you! Just in case something were to happen . . ."

"We just don't want anything to happen to you," Hugh added with a nod.

"Aww . . . guys . . ." Akizets's smile became much less regretful and much, much more genuine.

They might not know how much it meant to her. She hadn't told them. At first, she felt as if she should have, but it just kept slipping her mind--like most things. People and places, names and dates, they all had a habit of just slipping her mind, but feelings didn't. Even if she got too wrapped up in thoughts about him, the warmth in her heart that Hugh and Kyla incited would remain. They were her friends, yes--that's what they meant to her. Akizets cupped her hands over her heart and thought about that for a moment, and reveled in the feeling.

A moment passed, and she let her hands fall back down to her sides.

"It takes you two twelve hours to get there," Akizets then held up one finger, "But it takes me a minute. Don't worry! And-- and how about this? After I find him, I'll stick around for a little while, in that town to the south."

Akizets had paused to think of its name. Hugh passed a glance to Kyla, who looked up to him simultaneously, a nostalgic smile upon her face. helped her out, though. "Galaens?"

"Yes! That's the place. The two of you can meet us there. At the, um . . . the, um . . ."

Hugh assisted her again: "The market?"

"Yes! That's the place," Akizets declared merrily.

She had a sort of ditsy quality to her. Even though she planned to go to a dangerous place, Hugh and Kyla could not feel enmity towards her. To them, she was just being the same old Akizetsumei, much unlike the rueful and melancholic girl she had been over the last few days. Pleading with her could only do so much, really; she was a free spirit at heart. There wasn't much of anything someone could do about that.

Hugh could only shrug his shoulders and cave, "All right, then. We'll meet you in Galaens soon. Just be safe, okay?"

In light of strange dreams, much of Hillcrest had returned to normal.

Over the past few days, the families that was nearly destroyed slowly returned to waking consciousness. What happened, they weren't sure; they possessed little to no memory of the occurrences. It was all a blur--like a mushroom trip, as one of the merchants had described it. Only a little less than a week had been lost. There was confusion, of course. Without a doubt there was confusion, but in the end, it all fell on Emma, who voluntarily took the mantle of explaining the situation to these people who simply lost themselves.

They were all connected somehow, and the deduction was simple: they had all come into direct contact with one another. And what was one father suffering from? It was like a terrible illness, one that had nearly killed him. It put him under for days; he was barely conscious. He, himself, had lost time because of that.

"One merchant passes it on to another merchant, one family buys from that merchant, passes it onto another merchant, and another family buys from him," Emma had explained quite carefully, "What you had was a virus, a virus you passed on to each other and on and on. You got it the worst. A lot of other people felt a little down, but it's all run its course now. There were no casualties from this virus, and I'm already researching it as I can, and working with a good friend of mine to concoct a cure, in case it ever comes around this way again."

This, of course, didn't explain how a lot of household chores were done with great efficiency; few things were left unattended to, it seemed! Animals were well fed and some merchants even made some money in their downtime! But when a person was told he was sick with a new kind of crazy disease, one that had since run its course, a person didn't ask any further questions--they just counted themselves as lucky to be alive . . .

The third day after Gestahl's defeat, Eld would wake up as he had every day since then, with an azure haired Reaper lying next to him, comfortably sleeping. Etsu always slept in--always. Compared to her, Eld was a light sleeper. He went to sleep late and woke up late. Etsu Hikane, on the other hand, could go to sleep early and still wake up late.

Eld woke slowly, groggily blinking the sun out of his eyes and lamenting the fact that the one disadvantage of having Etsu sleep next to/on top of him was that he couldn't simply roll over so his back was to his window. Not that she'd probably wake up anyway.

But that was fine. He was in no hurry today; despite Toushikyo's decidedly uncooperative reply, the villagers had returned to normal, and Eld could only hope he'd discouraged further pursuit of Kageko.

It seemed like peace would return to Hillcrest, though he wasn't sure he was optimistic enough anymore to think it was permanent. Still, he could enjoy any respite he could get, especially if involved feeling the warmth of the girl he loved...

Indeed, a respite had seemingly fell upon the village of Hillcrest. But it was not without a bit of a cost, though. Not only was Gestahl's life sacrificed, but Kageko had been in a troubling state since then. It seemed like some sort of stomach flu, which boggled many minds. Kageko didn't seem to exist in a state where she could actually contract such a thing, but she was bedridden. Eld had experienced that when he expected to see her. She was left to lay in the "bed" in her dark world, drifting in and out between states of consciousness. She was tired a lot of the time, and weak.

Over the last day, she seemed to be getting a little better, but there was still no explanation why. Even Kageko didn't quite understand why--but she did explicitly say that she was experiencing the same thing during the first few days that she was in Eld's possession. Still, this provided very little to deduce. The only conclusion that had been brought forth was that she got sick sometimes, just like human beings. It didn't make sense, but then again, not much about Kageko really did make sense.

It wasn't even a half an hour after Eld awoke that he'd hear his door slowly opening. It didn't creak. The person opening it knew how slowly to open it if she intended to sneak in and . . .

Yes, she.

Emma would be seen in the crack of the door, peering in, checking to see if Eld and Etsu were still sleeping--and low and behold, that very well seemed to be the case . . .

Despite the sun in his face, Eld managed to maintain a blissful state of half-sleep, where he was dimly aware of his surroundings but comfortably numb to them. Sure, he'd have to get up before too long, and start thinking about things--such as what in the world was wrong with Kageko, when the right time to inform Etsu of his decision was, and what to have breakfast (or perhaps more accurately, lunch), but for now he was content to say semi-comatose.

At least he was until his door opened. Lamenting the fact that he was going to have to get up, he imperceptibly lifted one eye, noticing the person who was sneaking in...

Emma? Argh...there's no way that can be good. Sarah was at least gentle when Etsu was on top of him, and Mayako would probably have just stared at them for a bit (the length of time depending on what exactly they were wearing), but Emma was trouble. She kicked him when he was alone, but her favorite tactic when he slept next to Etsu (which was most of the time, now) was to try and get them to wake up in an embarrassing or compromising position.

If Eld were a more perverted person (or, Sarah might argue, simply a more opportunistic pervert), he could let Emma do what she wished and would have the perfect scape goat, but alas he was either too moral or simply too naive to do so.

Instead, he'd wait until she crept up to his bed, before suddenly opening his eyes and mouth wide in the scariest expression he could muster (which probably wasn't very scary, admittedly). He would have made noise, too, but he didn't want to wake Etsu, so he'd have to hope the silent image would do the trick.

Emma had been creeping towards the side of the bed Etsu was on. She didn't know what she had in mind, but she was somewhat crouched as she walked, moving as slow as she possibly could. She got close, close enough that she could practically reach out and touch Etsu. She was in the middle of taking in a breath when Eld opened his eyes and mouth. There was a gasp. It was brief and extremely subtle, but there was one.

And then, Emma stopped breathing.

For awhile, Emma was completely silent. She stared at Eld blankly, her expression completely unchanged. She still looked as if she were thinking, the same expression she had when she was sneaking up to the side of the bed.

Then she moved. Her faced didn't move, and it didn't look like she was breathing at all, but she had moved nonetheless-- no, tilted. Yes, she had tilted. Gravity tugged back on her, but still she did not personally move a muscle. She was stiff as a board, completely unmoving. At least until gravity at last tugged her down, and slowly brought her down to her back. It was only then that she moved, and barely, still as stiff-muscled as possible, before laying out on her back as her lungs finally expelled the air previously sucked in.

There was several seconds of stillness even after Eld dropped his expression where the two simply stared at one another. At first, he could only blink in surprise as Emma fell over backwards. That was not the reaction he was expecting; he'd figured she'd just gasp and then get angry at him or something.

It was actually too intense of a reaction for him to really enjoy; there was some amusement, yes, but it was mixed with surprise, a bit of worry, and a hefty dose of confusion.

He gently slid himself away from Etsu before getting out of bed and kneeling down near the girl on the floor. "Ummm...are you okay, Em?" he whispered, lightly shaking her shoulder.

Pain. That's what he'd feel just a second after he shook her a little. A pain in his gut--a horrible, horrible pain in his gut. Well, not quite that much of a pain. It wasn't like he was being punched by Gestahl. That would've taken him out instantly.

No, it was a lot like being punched in the stomach by a reasonably lightweight twelve year old girl. More than likely, it was going to surprise him, and maybe sting a little. The whole Vaerbond family just had this thing. They were always so violent. Even Emma! She had kicked Eld awake several times before!

Of course, it'd probably come as a surprise to Eld--and he did not have Kageko released to help him, either.

". . . nearly scared me to death!" she shouted angrily as she sat up quickly, immediately folding her arms over her chest.

A yell which, unfortunately, caused the girl left alone in bed to stir . . .

Eld coughed loudly as the person who he'd been concerned over suddenly implanted her fist into his gut. It didn't hurt much--Emma wasn't all that strong compared to even normal people, let alone him--but it did knock the wind out of him for a moment.

"Shhhh!" was the first thing out of his mouth when he could speak again; he loved Etsu dearly, but she was ever so grumpy when woken up unnaturally.

"S-Sorry about that," he apologized quietly, before quickly remembering why he'd scared her in the first place. "Wait, and I suppose you were sneaking up on me just to shake me awake, then?"

He did feel kind of guilty about scaring her so bad, but she also kind of brought it on herself.

"Well duh!" Emma replied in a hushed exclamation.

Yeah, yeah, Etsu wasn't usually all that happy when she first woke up in the morning--if it was a rude awakening, that is. Sometimes, necessity just entailed skipping the whole grumpiness thing, but when there was no necessity involved, she was more than willing to toss, turn, and perhaps throw a pillow at someone if absolutely necessary.

In fact, one time, before she had left to return to the Reapers, she had been sleeping until about two in the afternoon. Eld tried to rouse her from her sleep, and she very nonchalantly grabbed the nearest pillow, eyes still closed, and smashed it in his face--before going back to sleep for the next fifteen minutes. Etsu was not nearly as violent of a person as the Vaerbond sisters (and their late brother) were, but sleep was fairly important to her.

"It's really hard to do things when you guys are on this wacked out sleeping schedule, you know? Mayako and Sarah are talking about this outing they want to go on, and sent me over here to collect Etsu," Emma grumbled, "But here she is, sleeping the day away . . ."

Eld still didn't buy that Emma wasn't going to do anything mean to either him or Etsu, but he decided not to press the issue.

It was true about their schedules, but it was entirely Etsu's fault. Sure, he'd always been a bit of a night person, but he used to get up in time to actually see morning in order to do chores and help out at the clinic. Once Etsu started staying with him, though, he started to gravitate towards her schedule--she didn't stay up any later than he did, really, she just slept for far longer.

"Well...if you want to wake her up, go for it," he commented, gesturing towards the bed. If Sarah and Mayako were calling for her, she'd probably get up without fighting back too much. Probably.

"Any idea what they're doing?" He'd noticed that she specifically said she was getting Etsu, not him; which was kind of unusual, as most of the time they did things as a large group. It sounded like Emma herself was being left out too.

"Well . . ." Emma trailed off.

It seemed like she might not have wanted to say it, or at least say it so bluntly--to Eld, at least. He wasn't going to have to wait too long, though.

Wasting little time, Emma stood up and approached the bed. She wasn't too frank or rude about it, though. She simply nudged Etsu by the shoulder gently, and waited for a moment. Etsu murmured somewhat and turned in bed. Emma sighed and nudged her again.

"Nhhh . . ." Etsu whimpered. She didn't want to be woken up!

"Hey--Etsu, wake up, I got to ask you something," Emma stated softly as she gently nudged the girl again.

Etsu turned in the bed again, but this time to face Emma. Etsu was still laying down, but she at least had her eyes (half) open, and her attention directed to the girl looking for her. She didn't say anything; she simply expected Emma to explain why she wanted her awake so badly.

"Sarah, Mayako, and I are going out to Galaens today," Emma explained, "And we wanted to know if you're like to come along, too."

"Nani desu ka?" Etsu whispered groggily.

"Well, er . . . because it's a girl's day out sort of thing. It'd be a crime if we left you out."

Etsu continued to blankly stare up at Emma. She didn't know what to think of this, especially since she had just woken up. She was tempted to say no, but that was only because she wanted to go back to sleep . . .

A girl's day out, huh? On one hand, he certainly didn't begrudge them a day away from him, even it meant he'd probably be bored all day--even as close a friend as he was, there were still probably some things they didn't want to talk about around him, just as sure as there were some things he didn't talk to anybody but Davis about.

"C'mon, Etsu--I know you hate getting up, but if you go back to sleep you'll probably regret it later," he pointed out. She'd gotten to be good friends with the other girls; she wouldn't want to miss a chance to spend some time with them, something especially hard to do since Sarah and Emma were often busy with their work.

He just wasn't looking forward to what happened when they returned. Sometimes it was fine, but sometimes...well, some very strange things got into the heads of the girls when they went out like this.

Etsu was again tempted to say no, again for the same reason as before: she wanted to sleep some more. But Eld had a good point, and she could not deny this. Even when she was groggy, he still made sense to her. Well, most of the time.

"O-kay," Etsu replied before yawning.

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and stretched (simultaneously), before finally relaxing again. Eld's bed was just too damn comfortable. It was all his fault that she slept in like this all the time. If he had a less than adequate bed to sleep on, she wouldn't want to sleep for twelve hours every night.

"What time?" she asked as she sat up at last.

Emma looked outside. She didn't have a watch on her, though she was still tinkering with clock-making, but she could still see where the shadows were pointed outside--and indeed, it seemed like it was around noon.

Emma shrugged. "In about an hour."

"O-kay," Etsu spoke groggily, sitting at the edge of the bed, head and shoulders sulked tiredly.

"We'll be outside Mayako's around then, okay? Meet us there?"

"O-kay."

"All right. Well--see you in an hour! And Eld!" Emma turned to Eld, and instantly became aggressive again. Menacingly aggressive, that is. "Don't you dare follow! You wouldn't like the consequences we've cooked up . . ."

"I won't follow you," Eld replied with a roll of his eyes. Part of him did want to be in Galaens, just in case something happened, but even if he went there he'd just go find Davis or something and talk. "I suppose I'll see if Mother and Father need help with anything today." They'd been pretty understanding about him never helping out at the clinic anymore (unless they especially needed it), but he still liked to lend a hand when he could.

Even if he had been interesting in following them, he certainly didn't want to give Emma and Sarah an excuse to do something to him. They were enough trouble individually; together, they were downright scary.

"Etsu, remember to leave your halberd here--they're probably still looking for the criminal in Galaens." Toushikyo had most certainly not been caught; it was only the fact that he was so injured that made Eld comfortable leaving the girls alone for a day. Even if he attacked, Sarah and Etsu could probably still take him out in that condition, even without the latter's weapon. Not to mention Emma was tricky and even Mayako could be surprisingly resourceful at times.