Sarah practically nuzzled into Eld's chest, overjoyed to see that he was alive, safe, and sound-- and not to mention Etsu, the whole reason Eld had gone out to fight. Sarah let go of Eld in an instant, stood back up-- and then it was Etsu's turn.

"And Ets!" Sarah declared as she wrapped her arms around Etsu; her declaration had been the only warning, before she threw her arms around the stoic Reaper and lifted her up into the air, squeezing her about as tight as she could-- not out of meanness, but out of a brief uncontrollable happiness to see the girl alive.

At first, it was fine. Yes, it surprised the ever living hell out of Etsu, but so had many things in Hillcrest. But then, Etsu felt a crack. Sometimes, a crack was a good thing; in fact, as far as Etsu was concerned, all sorts of cracks were good things. Except this one. No. No, this wasn't a good kind of crack at all. Etsu tensed up with a pained expression upon her face, before Sarah let her go, completely ignorant to this fact.

"I-- itai~ . . ." Etsu whimpered as she leaned forward with her shoulders and rubbed the middle of her back painfully.

Sarah didn't notice at all. She stepped back, wiped a bit of sweat off of her brow, and pushed her glasses up.

"Aw man, you guys have no idea how worried I was," Sarah declared with a relieved sigh.

"A-Actually, I think I have some idea," Eld responded, dusting himself off as he got up. Although he was probably stronger than her now even without any special powers, it wasn't by much; Sarah's shows of affection were always a little painful, it seemed.

"But yes...as you can see we're fine. Mostly." He was still cut up and bruised a lot--Gestahl's last barrage for Eld ascended high into the sky had worked him over a bit. Thanks to the preparation though, he was much better off than he tended to be after a fight.

Remembering that Etsu had been unconscious at the time (and perhaps hoping to endear Sarah to her a bit more, given that the Cizokian girl wasn't terribly fond of close contact like that except with a select few people), he added, "Sarah saved from Gestahl during the first fight--if it weren't for her riding up just then, I wouldn't have even had the chance to save you."

Etsu looked back to Eld and then to Sarah. That was a little surprising for some reason. Why, she didn't know. Sarah never seemed to be helpful in that category before, though. It wasn't that Etsu doubted her or anything, but it just never happened before. Gratitude was well deserved in Sarah's case, then-- just as it was for Eld, and the whole way back, she had been holding onto him from behind as tightly as she could. She didn't need to hold on that tight, nor press herself up against him like she had, but she did. It was a subtle way of expressing her utmost gratitude to someone she had, at one point, been romantically active with. That would not have happened with anyone else-- ever.

"Arigatou gozaimasu . . ." Etsu stated as she bowed low-- at the hip. Her back might have hurt right about now, but that didn't stop her from displaying formality when the time called for it, and just now it was called for more than anything else!

"Ahhhhhh, don't get all formal on me, Ets," Sarah replied with a smile. She couldn't even grin right now; she was all smiles.

As Etsu went to stand back up straight, she was taken off guard by Sarah, once again, as she planted her hand upon her head and ruffled her hair. Etsu furrowed her brow and looked up a bit. The first indication that something was wrong was that she could see out of her left eye again. With a look of displeasure at this, she straightened her hair back out, specifically to put her bangs over the left side of her face again. Etsu may have been gracious for Sarah saving Eld, who in turn saved her, but that was no excuse to muss her hair up like that!

Despite all the happened, Eld couldn't help but smile warmly. To see Sarah like this, genuinely happy and not in a grinning, antagonistic kind of way, always made his day. Perhaps there were no more romantic feelings between them (or at least, not many), but she was still one of his best friends, and seeing her happy made him happy automatically.

"It was pretty amazing--I mean, I know Sarah's a great rider, but I never thought she'd be able to just ride by and scoop me up like that. And Gestahl started raising a wall to trap us, and she just leaped over it--like it was just a fence or something."

Something occurred to Eld that hadn't quite clicked before, and he looked at Sarah with a bit more respect in his eyes. "You know...for someone who doesn't like dealing with all this supernatural stuff, you sure kept your cool really well."

Sarah coughed a little. She hadn't been around it all that much, but that didn't mean she wasn't getting used to it or anything like that. She was around Eld, and he was around supernatural kind of stuff-- so, she might have been getting used to it by proxy. But admitting it was a whole different story. Just because she might be getting used to this kind of stuff didn't mean she liked it any more or less. If anything, she was a bit more put off by it because of Gestahl. She wasn't fond of things that could hurt her friends.

"Well, uh, er-- ya know what Emma would say," Sarah replied. She was trying to be humble, really, but it was hard for Sarah to do that, "Necessity is the mother of, uh, somethin'."

What, exactly, she didn't remember too well. Emma sometimes said things like that. Not a lot of the time, but still. Incidentally, just as Sarah mentioned Emma . . .

"Eld!" another shout-- another one just right before Eld would experience yet another body slamming into his, a girl throwing her arms around his neck and throwing herself into him at the same time . . .

Except unlike Sarah, Emma was unlikely to throw Eld to the ground or anything like that. Sarah was about 140 pounds or so; she wasn't overweight or anything, but still carried enough weight to plow Eld down if she had enough momentum. Emma, on the other hand, was about forty pounds lighter than her sister; even if she caught Eld by surprise, she probably wasn't going to bowl him over.

"Invention," Eld informed Sarah helpfully, just before getting tackled a second time.

Indeed, boisterousness seemed to run in the Vaerbond family as surely as red hair, but fortunately Emma was significantly lighter and weaker than her older sister. Eld stumbled a bit, but managed to catch her without falling over.

"Jeez, it's like you expected me to lose or something," he joked ironically. Of course, no matter how good his chances were they'd be worried, and the precedent he set wasn't exactly a stellar one. He'd always come back, but usually required some time in the hospital to recover.

This may have been the first time in awhile that Eld had come back with only a few scratches and bruises. Nothing was broken; the worst wound he had was a dislocated shoulder. The worst physical wound, at least. Sometimes, emotional wounds were far worse.

Emma released Eld after a moment of a tight squeeze. She stood back, looking up at his face, a wide smile on her face. Just like Sarah, she was ecstatic to see Eld alive-- and Etsu. She'd been just as worried about Etsu as she had been about Eld. Without even skipping a beat, Emma turned to Etsu and threw her arms around her from the side.

Etsu had just been trying to get her back in place again. It felt like it had been knocked out of place or something. Sarah was much stronger than Etsu; in a fist fight or anything like that, she would have absolutely destroyed her. She had glanced at Emma hugging Eld, but just now started to turned towards them-- only to be hugged from the side by Emma. Etsu nearly fell off of her feet, and tensed up all over. Fortunately, though, Emma wasn't nearly as strong as Sarah.

"Ahhhhhhh . . . sorry, sorry," Emma apologized for possibly offending Eld and surprising Etsu like that. She let go of Etsu, but being about the same height as her, she kept her arm around her shoulders affectionately, "I'm just happy to see you guys back home. Barely even a scratch on you, too!"

"Yeah, I could get used to not going to the hospital right away after a fight," he said cheerily, though there was a brief moment where his smile stalled a bit, as he thought, but I'd like to get used to not needing to fight again more.

Part of him distantly wondered...who were the people Gestahl kept waiting? What of the people who mourned that he wouldn't return? It was strange...most people he fought ended up having only the most selfish motives. But his methods aside, he'd been fighting for someone else...

It wasn't a good feeling, to think he killed someone who was ultimately a good person. He had to remind himself that it was Gestahl who forced the fight, and he'd outright stated he'd use the scythe to kill if he had it.

"I have to say, though, your suggestion was more helpful than I first thought. Jumping on rocks practically won me the fight."

"I'm glad!" Emma declared joyously as she unconsciously tugged on Etsu a bit, "All the training paid off, then!"

"A-ah . . . E-Emma-chan," Etsu whispered, unnerved by the pull on her neck and shoulders.

But even still, she couldn't help but smile a little. Joy could be infectious sometimes-- like right now. She even let out the smallest hint of a laugh. It was a little surprising, actually. She hadn't been so happy she wanted to laugh in a long, long time. It had happened maybe once or twice for the time she had been with Eld and the others in Hillcrest-- but it made her feel normal, each and every time.

Etsu looked up to Eld at that point, expecting, in part, that he'd share the same smile she had-- but at least for a moment, he didn't seem to. He was thinking about something else, something Etsu had been thinking about a couple of hours ago. Etsu's smile faded somewhat, replaced instead by an inquisitive stare.

"So, have you guys gone to see Mayako yet?" Sarah asked as she looked in the direction of Mayako's house. It couldn't be seen from here, but Sarah had been best friends with Mayako longer than she had been with anyone else; she could smell that girl's house from a mile away.

"Indeed it did." The melancholy lasted only a moment or two, and then he was back to happy. Surrounded by friends like this, it was hard for him to stay upset for too long. They were all safe and sound, which was most important of all. "Emma, lay off Etsu a bit...she was hanging from her arms for who knows how long, I bet she's more sore than even I am."

He gave Sarah an amused look at her question. "Of course not; we just got back, remember?" It wasn't like they could have sneaked by her even if they tried, not so long as they were riding a horse.

"Ehh? Really?" Emma asked as she let go of Etsu.

Etsu rubbed her neck a little. It didn't hurt that bad, she just hadn't expected Emma to put her in an almost headlock. Oh well. What was done was done.

"Hai," Etsu nodded, "For many hour I was up by chain." She lifted her arms accordingly, to show how she had been hanging. "But rock-war-rr a r-rot r-rike r-redge; I cour-rd ar-rmost sit."

Or, at the very least, lean back enough to relax some of the tension on her wrists. Whether or not it was planned that way, who knows, but for the hours that she had been hanging by her hands, she had minimal chaffing and the like on her wrists. She wasn't even cut up, in fact. The only problem was that her naginata had been jabbed into the rock wall at such an angle that she could not pull herself off of it-- not without alerting Gestahl or Toushikyo, that is.

"Jeez. That's pretty harsh," Emma thought aloud.

"Yeah," Sarah folded her arms over her diaphragm, before looking a little towards the south, towards Galaens. "So, what ended up happenin', anyways?"

Eld hesitated; he couldn't help it. He didn't like taking life, and he doubted he ever would. It was hard enough to do it when the person had done everything to deserve it, let alone a man whose only sins that he knew of were by proxy or threats.

"...I couldn't convince him to end things peacefully. So we fought...and I won."

He didn't say any more, and likely he wouldn't need to. The way he avoided their gazes, how uncomfortable he was about it, all giveaways. He wouldn't have any problems talking about it if he'd simply beaten the man into surrendering, or even knocked him out long enough to rescue Etsu.

He wondered what he'd do if tomorrow the villagers still weren't back to normal by tomorrow; he supposed his only choice was to find them, find Illorex, and force him to turn them back. It wasn't something he particularly wanted to do, but...how fair was it to leave them like that, just because he got the person closest to him back? Especially when it was fault those people were here to begin with...

"I see . . ." Sarah trailed off.

She didn't say anything for a moment, nor did Emma, and Etsu was far too preoccupied with studying Eld's face. It was impossible to miss the fact that this was bothering him, and impossible to miss exactly what was bothering him in particular.

"Ya did what ya had to, Eld," Sarah finally declared with a nod, "Just like you did that time-- and with the bandits . . ."

It was the first time she had ever really suggested that Eld had done something that was more or less necessary, in regards to that time-- a time a little distant from now, at least by a month, or a month and a week or so-- and the entire time, if it ever came up, she always said something that might have implied that she thought Eld was wholly responsible for what had happened, and the one she had fallen in love with was only partially responsible, responsible only as far as the lives of horrible people he had taken.

Sarah put her hand on Eld's shoulder and smiled reassuringly. She'd never taken a life before, but she remembered how Eld was after the bandits, and how he was able to cope. And she knew just as well that he didn't forget the lives he ended.

Eld looked up at her suddenly, surprised; as fond as he was of her, he had to admit she was not always the most sympathetic person in the world. But here, she was expressing understanding not just for now, but for that time...and even for when he fought the bandits.

It was actually the first time any of the girls had mentioned it to him; whether it was matter of purposely avoiding talking to him about it or not, he wasn't sure, but his role against the bandits had never been discussed with them.

"I-I...thank you." He was a bit taken aback, but in a good way. He felt himself get a bit flushed--he didn't know quite how to respond to such a heartfelt sentiment.

Forcing himself to lighten the mood, he said, "Anyway, why don't we go find Mayako? I bet she's worried too."

They knew that Eld had taken lives. Sarah did, at least. And Emma, too. They both knew for a fact that Eld had taken the lives of numerous bandits, even if it hadn't been explicitly discussed between they and Eld, and Sarah knew just as well how Eld had holed up in his room for almost a week following the conclusion of their miniature war with the bandits.

Etsu watched the scene, however brief it was, with interest. Under any other circumstance, she might have felt a little jealous. In fact, there was part of her that wanted to. But in the end, she knew that Sarah was Eld's childhood friend. He had been friends with her longer than he had anyone else. It wasn't until he started spending more time with her that he became acquaintances, and eventually friends with, Emma and Mayako.

"Yeah," Emma nodded, trying to kick up some enthusiasm again, just as much as Eld was, "Let's go. Mayako would love to see you two alive and well again."

"Yeah. Hell, she might even make Etsu a welcome home dinner," Sarah added.

Etsu was not a person to be bought easily, but she had eaten Mayako's cooking before. It was so genuine. They weren't in Cizok, but Mayako cooked like someone who'd lived there her whole life. In fact, if she wasn't mistaken, Mayako even cooked better than Etsu's mother. Granted, due to financial issues, Etsu's family never really had the money to afford good ingredients, and they pretty much had to live off of fish, but still.

"R-rear-rry . . .?" Etsu asked as she looked between Sarah and Emma.

"Yeah, definitely," replied Emma.

Etsu was sold on the idea. She wanted to see Mayako anyways, but now she wanted to see her at least ten times more.

"Okay," she said, and even started walking before everyone else did, "R-ret us go."