Eld still wasn't entirely sure how she could smell at all, but for now he just accepted that she could. But while Kageko didn't know a lot about humans, she did still know about the natural world from before she was trapped in the scythe. It was possible rain had a smell to her.

Strange how? he asked as he opened his window. He couldn't see more than a few yards away from the house, and the window was so fogged up by this point when it was closed he couldn't even see that far.

Feeling a little foolish, he sniffed the air outside.

Kageko, too, sniffed the air of her world. Her doing so was vastly less futile than Eld, however; her sense of smell bordered on supernatural.

I do not know . . . Kageko replied, I suppose . . it does not smell like the sky at all.

How could the rain smell like the sky?

Well it was simple, actually. When water evaporated, it rose into the sky, where it gestated and collected in the atmosphere. Clouds then formed. Atmospheric moisture circulated in the sky for a period of time before it accumulated so much that it turned to precipitation. Atmospheric moisture stuck to the sky for extended periods of time, and often collected various other particles in the sky, fragments of stones still collected in the atmosphere and the like, which in turn made rain water grainy at times.

As there were hundreds of other smells in the sky, Kageko could pick out most of them. She didn't know what they were called, by they were individual scents she could remember that weren't present in this rain.

Eld didn't know precisely how the rain smelled like the sky, but it made sense in an abstract kind of way. He was even less sure on the significance of the rain not smelling like the sky. To him smelling like the sky was more of a metaphor than anything, like something smelling purple.

Well...what does that mean? he asked.

Sometimes Kageko simply forgot to explain things to him that he didn't know; he did the same occasionally, though.

That was actually kind of a tough question. While the science was accurate, Kageko didn't actually know about the science behind it at all. Sure, Eld had educated her on various things here and there, but they never got to how precipitation works. Kageko simply had to use her imagination.

Perhaps the rain has not been in the sky for long?

That was Kageko's guess. Usually, things had to fester in a place for a little while to take on its scent, and that applied to water especially--and since rainwater usually stayed as atmospheric moisture for a long while, it took on all the scents of the sky. For rain to not smell like the sky, it had to have only been in the sky for a short while, which just didn't happen with atmospheric moisture.

Especially considering the fact that Hillcrest hadn't a humid day in weeks.

So...if it hasn't been in the sky for long, how did it get there? It hadn't been humid in Hillcrest for some time now; any clouds forming would not have formed very fast. And while weather could move in suddenly, he'd never seen anything happen this fast. It'd gone from clear to downpour in less than a half-hour.

It made him uneasy, because there was only one explanation he could think of: someone put the water there. If ice and the ground itself could be controlled by these people, why not rain?

But why do that? It wasn't as though rain was going to hurt him. Still...he was worried.

I think I'll go check on the girls, he decided, gearing up again and heading out into the rain.

When Eld got up close to the Vaerbond ranch house, he'd already hear a slew of voices inside. They were loud and they were all female--and they weren't in trouble. There was a lot of laughing, giggling, and sometimes a few clinks of glasses--and other various materials, for that matter. The drapes were all closed, perhaps to keep out the sight of a grayer world, for Etsu's sake, and perhaps to keep away any prying eyes that might accompany a fellow interested in the happy voices of young girls. It was probably a mixture of both.

And it was probably for the best that Eld avoided going in there. He might not ever come out again. Not with his integrity in tact, at least.

If someone put it there . . . Master, do you think someone has? Would they not need a lot of water for this?

Kageko was a little confused by that, specifically because she couldn't think of any large sort of body of water that was remotely nearby. There was a stream that Eld passed by on his way to Galaens usually, but he'd never taken the scythe, and thus her, to bodies of water much larger than that--and somewhere along the lines, Kageko ceased to peer into Eld's memory in any real depth.

Incidentally, it was about the same time that Eld began to have intimate relations with Etsu Hikane. Kageko never thought about that, though, or what it might suggest about her.

From the noises inside, he could tell the girls were okay. Though that did bring another problem to hid mind: if Etsu was supposed to be protecting them, he hoped they didn't get her drunk again.

But while he suspected the banishment from their presence was null by now, he still wasn't sure he wanted to go in there. If they were drinking again, who knows what they'd do to them. Girls could be scary enough on their own (especially Vaerbond girls); in groups, when they decided to target him, they were downright terrifying.

He tried not to think about the fact that he'd rather potentially confront a person who wanted to kill him too hard.

I'm not sure how their powers work, just that it's not Qi. But...if whoever is doing this needs water, then the only place nearby would be the lake. That was not a cheery thought. Even he knew that if he was dealing with someone with power over water confronting them near a lake would be bad. Not to mention it was a ways into the woods, and he didn't really relish walking there and getting soaked again.

He didn't really want to confront a child of a man he'd killed again either. Ah...what should I do...? It's not like the rain is dangerous or anything...

Eld left Kageko in kind of a strange position just now. She didn't want him to be in trouble or find himself in a serious emotional down, but at the same time, she also feared the possibility that this could lead to trouble. Perhaps it was paranoia. Perhaps Eld's worries were starting to rub off on her.

But either way, she wasn't fond of the idea of doing nothing.

Explaining that, however, was a different kind of difficulty. Kageko was no an authority in Eld's life, and intentionally tried to be a servant in his life instead. How would a servant go about suggesting something to a master?

I . . . I think I would investigate it, and turn back if there really is no threat.

That was the best she could come up with. Kageko would never, ever say anything to Eld that might insinuate that she was strongly suggesting something to him. Mentioning what she, personally, might do could potentially work just fine, though. Potentially. It was all really a matter of how Eld reacted. If he felt she was being even remotely authoritative, she'd probably never do it again.

That's probably a good idea, yeah, he replied with an internal sigh. Really, he knew that, he just didn't want to admit it. He couldn't see how rain could be all that threatening or dangerous, but at the same time he didn't want this to be one of those things he'd find himself suddenly wrong about.

And if there was one thing he'd learned in dealing with the supernatural, it was that he was wrong a lot.

So he trekked through the woods, becoming cold and wet and muddy again rather quickly, which was even more upsetting given that he just bathed. It was really the least of his problems, and he knew that, but focusing on minute complaints like that prevented him from focusing on what he was truly worried about, which could cause him to become paralyzingly depressed again.

The walk never stopped being a forty minute venture, just as the rain never stopped pouring down. The forest, generally sheltered by the canopies of trees, was as drenched as Hillcrest village. Eld was trekking through mud that simply kept getting thicker with time.

The rain never stopped pouring. In fact, it only came down harder with time. By the half-way point, a drop hitting Eld's bare skin might sting every so often.

Thirty five minutes into the long trek, Kageko sniffed the air of her world. It was so weird. She could hear the wind of Eld's world so clearly, even when they weren't sharing each other's senses acutely, like when Eld had the first seal of the scythe released--and she could smell it all just as easily, for that matter--and something smelled a little . . . off. She couldn't explain it, but it was extremely familiar.

Master, do you smell that?

Immediately following Kageko's question, however, was a breeze, but not just any sort of breeze. It was a strong breeze--a gale force wind, to be exact, one that might threaten to knock Eld off his balance if he wasn't too careful. It carried with it a flurry of dirt, rocks, and leaves, a scattered bunch common with gale force winds, that could easily damage Eld's face if he wasn't careful, either.

While there had been winds in the forest before, during this particular walk on this particular day, this one was the strongest.

If there were any doubts in Eld's mind that this weather was of supernatural origin, they were quickly erased. Nothing like this had ever hit Hillcrest, to the best of his memory. At least not often, and certainly not this suddenly. He was forced to use one hand to hold onto trees periodically to keep his balance, and the other to cover his face to keep flying dirt and vegetation from hitting him in the head.

Oboreru had mentioned a hurricane, but Eld hadn't thought he meant it literally.

He also wondered if he might be in over his head on this; even the small storms he'd been known to generate when angered didn't compare to this. He couldn't create entire weather patterns, intentionally or otherwise.

But he couldn't ignore it either. If the weather got much more severe it would get truly dangerous, with the potential to destroy buildings, let alone hurt anyone still outside. So he trudged on, though the journey was taking even longer, slowed as he was by the thick mud and the gales battering him.

It was just as Eld let his arm drop from his face, following the slow decay of a powerful gust, that he'd see something he hadn't noticed before--something he was blocking view of, with his arm over his face to protect himself from a slew of debris carried forth by the powerful gust that overtook him and forced him to walk by the trees.

The gust, however, had died down. In fact, it was practically non-existent. Instead, there was a body. A warm body, a living body, a body wrapped in a form fitting red dress.

Akizetsumei.

Perhaps that would not be the first he'd see, though. She was standing with her profile facing Eld and her right arm extended straight towards his neck, unmoving. Immediately before him was not the woman, but what she was holding in her right hand: a steel fan, closed, but tightly held in her fingers. The fan-blades were smashed together in the compact form of it, a long rectangular figure about the same length as a musical baton, not much longer than half the woman's forearm. Alone, perhaps, it might not have said much about her, but the very fact that it was only inches from Eld's throat . . .

Akizetsumei wasn't looking at him. Instead, her brow was furrowed and her eyes were shut. Her face was averted from Eld's direction, and instead downcast; had she opened her eyes, she'd have been looking at her feet.

Eld blinked, too surprised to even feel threatened at first. While he knew all these people who gathered under Gestahl had strange abilities, and he'd more or less figured she must have had some too, it hadn't occurred to him that she'd be the one he found at the lake. If a fight broke out, he expected it to be with Oboreru; even with he knew, like the way she seemed to beat her brother effortlessly, and that he was too injured to challenge him so soon, he wouldn't have guessed.

He knew she might hate him, despise him, even want him dead--but at someone else's hands, not her own.

"Kaze?" Even though he knew it was not her real name, it was still the one she'd given him, so he'd continue to use it.

Akizetsumei opened her eyes. Her cheeks were puffy and her eyes were red. Clearly she'd been crying recently--or perhaps she'd been crying ever since Eld left, and only stopped just recently. Akizetsumei did not look at Eld, however. Instead, she did just as her position anticipated: she stared at the ground. She wasn't shaking anymore, though. Earlier, she must have been. But now, no. No, not anymore. She was soaked to the bone, but this failed to do much to her attention, either.

Eldridge Tsukimono was here--

"You . . . need to leave," Akizetsumei commanded.

--and Akizetsumei did not want him here.

Her voice was . . . strained, as if she had shouted quite recently--possibly even screamed. However, by this point, she probably didn't know why she'd screamed at all anymore. Or why she felt such strong enmity towards Eld.

But her heart had a much more powerful memory than her mind did . . . and it told her to hold this steel fan at Eld's throat, and demand he goes home immediately.

Eld swallowed hard. The hatred in her voice took him aback...even though he knew he deserved it. She had every right to hate him. But he hoped she'd at least understand that he wasn't the cold-blooded killer Oboreru made him out to be--he hadn't done it because he wanted to.

"I...I will," he replied softly. "But...you need to get out of the rain yourself. And...if you're the one causing this weather, you need to stop."

He took a few hesitant steps back, as though to show her that he intended to keep his word if she agreed.