Indeed, that had been...unnerving. To a great degree. Fortunately for Kaze, Eld hadn't seemed to notice anything terribly untoward due to his tumble and following embarrassment. He remained silent, a bit ashamed of himself for agreeing to sleep in the same bed as her even though he knew something like that was most likely going to happen, and worried that she might take his reminder as badly as when he first told her.

That didn't seem to be the case, for which he was very grateful. Breathing a small sigh of relief, he replied, "N-No, it's as much my fault as yours. I-I'm always a bit hazy when I wake up."

"Y-yeah . . ." Kaze replied nervously.

Eld may not have seen that she was taking it hard, but she kind of was, deep down on the inside. It just so happened that she didn't have anywhere to run to today, not until evening, and it was barely even the afternoon right now. She didn't know anyone else to run to, either. For all intents and purposes, Kaze had to suck it up, accept that she had made a mistake, and that Eld had no interest in her like she had interest in him. It had just been so easy to forget earlier . . .

But now that she thought about it, a few particular chains linked together, and she recalled a vague idea from yesterday. Eld had someone he loved. Kaze couldn't remember if he ever said anything about her, but she remembered that he said he was already taken.

"So . . . what's she like?" Kaze asked rather suddenly--but there'd be no doubt in the world about what she was talking about. Or who, exactly.

It took Eld a second to figure out what she was talking about; he didn't quite follow her train of thought, but he figured there was only one "she" she could be talking about, given the circumstance.

"She's...pretty shy and quiet, but...she's really sincere. And cute. I try to be nice, but sometimes I just can't help but tease her, because she's just too cute when she's pouting."

A smile spread across his face as his mood lightened; thinking about Etsu was one way to lift him up almost guaranteed. "She's a really deep sleeper, too, and she sleeps a lot. She's probably not even up yet." And wouldn't be for awhile, given that she was drinking.

She listened intently to what Eld had to say. It was odd. The person Eld was describing seemed completely new to Kaze, yet still sounded familiar. She could have sworn this was the first time Eld had explained this person to her before, yet something in her heart twinged a little when Eld explained her. Jealousy, maybe--but something she should have seen coming earlier.

"Well . . ." Kaze trailed off, ". . . she's a lucky girl."

This was something Kaze meant sincerely. She looked to Eld with a weak smile as she said it. Clearly she liked him. It wasn't a strong appreciation like love, but it was strong enough to want to be closer to him--closer than he wanted her to be. Eld was a good guy, though. Kaze didn't know many good guys. She couldn't help it.

By the time Kaze and Eld had engaged in this discussion about Eld's love life, they had reached the main collection of commercial structures in Hillcrest--center town.

There was something about it, though. The pub, specifically. Kaze didn't see it, but Eld certainly would. Something inside him would twinge indefinitely, and not stop until he looked right at it. It was a small disk hanging by a string on the pub's sign. It was about the size of a fist, and two sided, colored black and white--like an emblem. A metal emblem, but one that was exuding a slight trace of spiritual energy--odd energy, though. Completely unique as far as everything Eld had felt before, yet it was still subtle.

One one side, there was a number in numerals, XII, bold and taking up the entirety of that side--and on the other, there was a white silhouette. It was strange; it may have been a silhouette of a man, but that man was holding something. A scythe . . .

Eld nervously rubbed the back of his head; he wasn't so sure she was the lucky one, really, but he understood how Kaze felt in a way. How long had he spent mooning over someone who seemed steadfastly determined to look everywhere but to him for companionship? He sort of envied Kaze; at least she had the guts to tell him how she felt, and even if he turned her down she could already start to get over it. Given how quickly she fell for him, maybe she'd get over him in short order as well.

He was about to try and change the subject by bringing up the search for her brother--which was why Kaze was in Hillcrest to begin with, even if she seemed to not be terribly concerned with it--when he felt the pull. It had been a fair amount of time since he felt something like it, given Etsu was without her powers and Gestahl and his ilk were strangely invisible to his senses.

It came from the pub, and as wordlessly started walking toward it he realized that it was more specifically from a...something, hanging from the pub's sign. He reached up grasp it, and take a closer look. A talisman of some kind? It had the letters XII on one side (which Eld recognized as a kind of ancient marking for the number twelve), but it was the other side that really concerned him--a white silhouette of a figure holding a scythe. A...reaper? he wondered. But he was fairly certain that if a Reaper had come to the village he would have sensed it.

And as he focused on the feeling more, it somehow felt...different. It was hard to be certain without anything to compare it to, but it didn't quite feel like anything he'd ever felt. Not totally different, but as though it were...a different shade of a color than he was used to seeing. Or at least the Qi equivalent of that.

The circular, double sided emblem was cold to the touch, but it warmed quickly in Eld's hand, quickly taking on the same temperature as his body.

It was strange, though. Holding the emblem would also entail a strange feeling. It wasn't so much that Eld would see an image as he would feel it. Something had happened. What that something was, he wouldn't be able to make certain of. But something had. Perhaps today, perhaps months ago, but not years. That much was for sure. It had been years.

There was man--a red haired man dressed in white, surrounded by a near endless pit of shadows. There was another there, too, but that one wouldn't be felt too well. That one was a sensory blur. The situation felt hopeless. Even the sky above them was dark. The feeling was a very distinct one, something Eldridge Tsukimono had felt before:

Despair.

Yet all of it was subtle. It was much akin to experiencing a daydream, but a fleeting emotion attached to a memory felt with senses beyond his eyes. A memory or a daydream? Emotions sometimes could spark strange thoughts like that, and upon the emblem, there was a man in white, and he was distinctly holding a scythe. Just like that man.

But there was another feeling on top of that. It was fleeting and brief, the same experience of Eld's odd dream that night.

The feeling of being watched.

A feeling to be interrupted when Kaze stood on the tips of her toes to look over Eld's shoulder. "Hey, what's that?" She'd never seen something like it before.

For the briefest moment the emblem felt cold, but it suddenly heated up in his hand. But before he could wonder much about why that happened, he felt something and experienced a...vision? No, more like a waking dream...

He recognized the man with red hair from Kageko's dream, but he couldn't make out the other person; they were surrounded by shades, and an intense feeling of despair overwhelmed him--it was familiar, far too familiar, the despair of being surrounded by darkness and knowing there was no escape, that it would swallow everything...

Stunned, he dropped to his knees, unconsciously pulling the emblem off the sign as he did. What was that...? He wasn't sure he wanted to know...that feeling...it was one he hoped never to experience again.

"I-I don't know..." He was a little shaken, but otherwise unharmed, it seemed. But...something else was wrong, something like...

He quickly rose to his feet again and looked around, scanning the area. It felt like someone was watching him...and not in a good way.

Shortly after she looked around Eld, something happened. What caused it and why, Kaze was unsure of, but Eld fell to his knees. This prompted immediate concern, and Kaze quickly moved to catch him, not even skipping a beat. He didn't fall to the ground, though, just to his knees, so there was no need to hold him up, but Kaze still held onto him by the shoulders.

It had been so unexpected, happening almost immediately after he touched the emblem, but Kaze didn't make that connection.

"H-hey!" she lightly shook his shoulders to get his attention, "A-are you okay . . .?"

Kaze didn't feel anything similar to Eld's experience, though. She didn't encounter any sensation that suggested that they were being watched, but it didn't really matter much in the end, anyways. What mattered most, to her, was that Eld had been practically dragged to his knees. All she felt, now, was concern for Eld's safety. If he was sick or something, then it would just be best if he stayed back at his house, and she'd just try and find her brother alone or something!

No, he wasn't...not really. He wasn't sure what it meant, that upon touching the emblem he saw, dream-like, the same person he'd seen in Kageko's dream, and in a situation far too familiar to boot. That bothered him, but more importantly, that emblem had to have been put there by someone, and he's so hopeful as to believe it wasn't meant specifically for him.

But the question was...why? Did someone intend to specifically show him that, or was he merely meant to be lured by the qi that the emblem emitted? He couldn't be sure, and he couldn't see anyone in the area watching, either...

"I-I'm okay," he replied, getting back on his feet. It wasn't quite a lie; physically he was fine, after all. But even if he told Kaze what happened, she probably wouldn't believe him. After all, she was just a normal (relatively speaking) girl, and had nothing to do with his secondary life...which, the way things were going, was quickly becoming his primary one.

Kaze wasn't very convinced by Eld's suggestion that he was fine. He wasn't fine, how could he be fine? He was standing now, but that didn't discount the fact that he had basically been down on his knees, or maybe one knee, was it? But he was down and out of it for a moment, and that didn't just happen everyday. That happened when someone was sick or something, right? So just because he said he was okay didn't mean that he was telling the truth or anything?

As he stood up, Kaze kept her arm around his shoulders and looked to his face with much concern. "Do you want to sit down?"

Maybe he was just winded, then? Kaze didn't know. Health and all that stuff was sort of out of her league--sort of. She knew a bit, but not too much, and she forgot most of anything else she'd learned about it, anyways.

"U-um, maybe rest for a second? Maybe?"

Eld shook his head. "No, I'm okay, really." He was apprehensive, though whether or not Kaze would differentiate that from being weak or ill-sounding was another matter.

He considered sending Kaze on her way, or making some excuse to have her go looking for her brother on her own. If he was being watched--if someone had set that emblem as part of some kind of trap--it might be safer for her to be away from him.

But on the other hand, most of those who came after him had no qualms involving people close to him, and while he'd only just met Kaze yesterday he doubted an observer would know that, with how familiar she acted. It was really probably safer for her to be near him, as at least he could protect her if anything happened.

Not for the first time, he wondered if he was being paranoid, but he figured if anyone was justified in acting that way, it was him.

"C'mon, we should keep looking for your brother."

"Well . . . if you're sure . . ." Kaze trailed off.

Kaze didn't quite believe him, and understandably so. Eld must've been sick or something, but she wasn't going to be so rude to turn down his help if he was really this insistent about it.

So, she thought for a moment. While she may have kept her arm around Eld's shoulders, it wasn't a romantic thing in the slightest. The reminders about Eld's love life were still fairly fresh in her heart, even if she couldn't remember who he was talking about all that well--if he'd given the girl a name or anything like that. It was a girl, right? Eld wasn't gay, was he? That'd explain why he didn't really want to be with her or something like that. Not that Kaze had an inflated opinion of her self image or anything! It was just that, well, she knew she didn't look bad, and the way she had pretty much thrown herself at Eld earlier . . . well, most men wouldn't have just turned a girl like her down, right? That maybe meant that he was batting for the other team?

Oh man I should totally stop thinking about that.

"So--so--so where didn't we check yesterday, again?" she asked outright, clearly having forgotten where they even went yesterday.

It was a very good thing Eld was oblivious to Kaze's thought process, because if she'd spoken her suggestions aloud she may have hit a nerve. As it was, he was merely grateful that she didn't insist he seek medical attention. He wouldn't have been so lucky if it were, say, Mayako--but then again, he could have explained what happened if it was her.

"Well...we checked all around the main part of town here. So if he's here, he's either staying on one of the farms or living in the woods."

This was sort of a prompt for her to pick one or the other as the focus of their search; forgetful though she was, he hoped she had an idea what her brother was more likely to do, find somebody with a spare room or loft, or camp out.

Well . . . if she wasn't mistaken, they had asked a lot of people that lived here in this village, and not any of them had seen the man as she remembered him. Had anyone seen him, they would have already stalked that lead down and found him! So, that couldn't be it. If he was staying with a farmer or something, someone would have seen him, which meant that he hadn't actually entered the village or anything like that. So, that in mind, Kaze came to the obvious conclusion:

"How about . . . the woods?"

She let go of Eld shortly thereafter, only to fold her arms over her diaphragm and look to him with her head tilted to the side. She didn't know if this was a good idea or not. Had they come to this conclusions yesterday? Or a different one?

Kaze wasn't sure, but she was used to being unsure.

Eld nodded in agreement. It wasn't impossible that he was staying with a farmer that didn't come into town much, but it wasn't very likely either. The woods were the better bet, but he was starting to wonder why her brother was here to begin with. It didn't sound like he was here for any reason other than to hide, and it almost made him want to ask Kaze if she was sure it wasn't better just to give him some time to himself.

But he refrained; she obviously was worried about him. Even if they decided to leave him alone, she'd want to know he was safe. "Well, I can think of a few places in the woods that would be good to stay at--we'll check there first."

Out by the river there was a small shack used by the locals when they went fishing or swimming, to either change or take shelter in if there was a sudden change of weather. There was also Remmy's training grounds--it was unlikely anyone would find it if they didn't know where it was, but it did have pretty much everything needed to survive, so it was as good a place as any.

Unfortunately, if he wasn't in either of those places, he wasn't sure if they'd find him; wandering randomly through the woods looking for him didn't sound terribly productive...