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Thread: [Fiction] Recreation.

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    Complication. Kon's Avatar
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    Default [Fiction] Recreation.

    y halo thur
    I've recently started a project with a little support from RavenBlade and gutterball930, and I'm posting it on FP.net. On RavenBlade's request, here you go.

    Note: This should be obvious, but please consider the time between the chapters bigger than usually. As you might have noticed, those chapters are significantly bigger than what I usually have written.

    Recreation

    Chapter One: Discovering new powers and forces


    It was rare that Kyoto's police investigators visited Kyoto's Kita-ku Hospital, but in these times, police didn't surprise the people. Throughout all of 2010, Kyoto had to face a bunch of terroristic attacks that seemed to aim at killing civilians and high-ranked, politic personalities. It was quite understandable that compared to what a central city of Japan used to be, Kyoto was now a ghost town. There weren't many people who wanted or were forced to stay there, after all, everyone clings to life and nobody wants to lose it. One of those attacks was a hit-and-run accident that left a confused, shocked eye-witness who had instantly been sent to hospital. Being out of any perspective to catch the driver who ran over and thereby killed a married couple, two inspectors decided to try and ask the eye-witness a few questions. However, the nurse was doubtful about letting them enter and called a doctor. After having assured that they would not be direct or harsh and abort immediately if it hurt her patient, the doctor let them enter to find a young woman sitting on the floor next to the bed. She seemed to have bright, purple hair in the dark room and her green eyes stared emptily at the wall.
    One of the investigators wanted to ask a question, but the other turned around and went out of the room, pulling him away. "Don't do it." he sighed. "That girl's way too shocked to even speak to her. You'd just hurt her more."

    --

    For a few people, this day seemed to have no meaning at all, however, for a few other, it seemed to bring big changes into their very lives. After all, it was quite a sunny day, the weather had been very nice throughout all of June and July had just started. It all began with a train arriving from a little town next to the city. There weren't many important people in the train. However, morning had just begun, which lead to many people travelling to work in the big city. The few people who had a place to sit at had probably been in this train for quite a long time, such as a young woman on a window seat. Her green eyes were staring out the window, gazing at the huge mass of buildings rushing by as the train entered Kyoto's main station.

    She had chin-length, black hair that seemed to weakly shine with purple color. Her silhouette was pretty thin and covered by a plain black shirt along with blue jeans. Her black sport sneakers rested on a fully packed traveling bag and she seemed to be mentally absent while her face was turned to the window.

    The brakes of the train screeched as it slowly came to stand in the central station of Kyoto. A huge crowd of people started rushing out the train and she looked at them through the window, hurrying in order not to come late for work. She couldn't be bothered with having these kind of obligations, rushing to work every day, in fear to be fired when coming too late. A life like that was not appealing at all for her, hence she had studied computer science and was working for a bigger company as a security technician from home. Her eyes now moved around the train and she saw that it was almost empty, so she got up and grabbed her bag, put it over her shoulder and left the train. There were no more stations after Kyoto Central that the train would be heading for and therefore the girl felt no hurry as she walked out of the train, raising her head as if she were looking for someone. Soon, her eyes fell on a man on the other end of the station. He seemed pretty young with shoulder-length, brown hair, his hazel eyes hidden behind red shades. A blue shirt and black sports pants covered his body. "Onii-chan." He took his sunglasses off and smiled at her. "Hey, Kasumi." She had always found it weird that he looked so young even though he was four years older than her. "It's been a long time... how have you been?"

    "You know I can't recover that quickly, Daisuke." she replied. He nodded and took her into his arms. "It's okay. We won't talk about it." he replied, trying to comfort her. She slowly let go of him and wiped a tear off her eye. "No, it's fine. We can talk later... but not right now, okay?"
    "Yeah, let's go. I'll make you something to eat when we arrive at my place, you must be hungry." he mumbled, putting on a fake smile to cheer her up. She nodded and sighed as they slowly walked down the street that lead away from Kyoto's central station. The sun had almost reached the middle of the sky when they arrived at a little apartment at the city borders, a place where it wasn't as busy and loud as in the city center. They hadn't spoken a single word during the whole walk of twenty minutes. It almost looked like it was located in a little town instead of a metropolis, especially because of the house's size and the fact that just about four people had enough room in it.
    "Well, Kasumi... here I live." Daisuke smiled. "Must be expensive..." she muttered as Daisuke searched his pocket for a key. "Nah. It gets more expensive the closer you get to the core of Kyoto, but out here it's actually pretty cheap." Finally, he pulled a little double-sided, weird looking key out of his pocket and aimed it at a little keyhole located in the wall next to the door. When he flicked it over, a code pad was unlocked under it and he pulled it out of the wall, typing in 2738 and thereby unlocking the door. "Hiding any bombs in here?" Kasumi smiled.
    "I just like it safe." Daisuke replied and laughed.

    The house itself was pretty sympathetic, small, held in white color and it looked more like an apartment-sharing community for two people. There were two bathrooms, one kitchen, two sleeping rooms and one living room. The living room was pretty big, in one corner there was a television and a table with two armchairs that faced the TV. The rest of the living room was empty and it looked like it wasn't completely arranged. All of the floor was covered in grey carpet. "Did someone else live here with you?" Kasumi asked.
    "Well, in the very beginning I moved in here and the house belonged to someone else, but he moved to Europe, so the spot's free." he answered. After heavily sighing, Daisuke pointed at one of the doors. "Your room's over there. Unpack your bag and I'll make some food."
    She nodded and slowly scuffled towards the door, opening it to see a room of average size with a bed, a closet and a window, spartanically furnished. Still, it was enough for her, and without any word of complaint she opened the empty closet and the full bag, starting to arrange everything in the closet that she now would call hers. Daisuke, standing in the kitchen, had too many questions in his head to even think about food and tried to rearrange his thoughts. His sister, Kasumi, had called a week ago telling him about a horrible accident, but she had been too hysterical to tell him what eaxctly had happened, so instead, he tried to calm her down. Soon, as the older sibling, the police had called him.

    "We're really sorry, Mr. Chiyo, but we're unable to find the hit-and-run driver and with every day the chance of finding him shrinks. We simply cannot find him without more information."

    He slowly nodded. Those were the policeman's words. "Due to the death of both victims and the inability of the witness to give more information, we don't know much more about the person other than the color and type of his car. That's not enough in a big city such as Tokio. I promise that we will continue giving our best." That was what they always said, but he knew that it was just a synonym for "We've given you up." and "We have other cases that are more important than yours.", still, the policeman's call informed him about what exactly had happened. There was a hit-and-run accident somewhere around Tokio and both his parents had died, in front of his sister's eyes. The other call had shown him exactly how inable Kasumi was to give information, even though usually she was a calm, rational woman with a lot of self-control, just like him. Daisuke himself was already able to talk about his parents' death, and if Kasumi couldn't even give any more information to the policeman, there must have been something different about this very incident.
    He sighed. There was no way he could cook something halfway edible that night, so he decided to order something. Slowly grabbing his cellphone and walking out of the kitchen, he saw Kasumi had fallen asleep on the bed. He smiled and slid his phone back into the pocket. He wasn't hungry anyway.

    --

    Like a newborn thrown out of its own world, Kasumi's consciene jumped awake suddenly. She slowly opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling as slowly parts of her memory assembled like a puzzle and she remembered that she'd fallen asleep in the afternoon. She stood up and looked at her watch, it was nine o'clock, and she was quite content about having slept normally again. After the accident, she hadn't been able to rest properly. Things were finally changing back to the old order. She opened her closet and randomly grabbed a few clothes, leaving her bedroom and greeting Daisuke, who was watching TV, and entered the bathroom.
    About twenty minutes later, Kasumi was sitting in the armchair next to Daisuke with a portable computer on her lap. Daisuke watched her. "That's your work?" he asked.
    "Well, technically I should work twenty-four hours a day, it always depends on when something happens. Right now I'm just checking who accessed the servers and when he did it, so it's like I'm checking whether any outsiders tried to get access to what's in the inside. If something like that happens, I try to find out who it is, where he lives, and then I call their provider and inform them along with proof, it's kind of the only legal way to get rid of those kind of people. If I happen to check and see someone accessing at night, I still have to take care of him. But you know me, I'd rather work like this at home than outside."

    The next few weeks, Kasumi started feeling better and better, her short laughs, smiles and giggles became longer and longer again. Daisuke had decided to not talk about the accident when one day, while he was watching the news that reported about another terroristic attack, Kasumi entered the room and Daisuke turned off the TV when she started to speak.
    "We were going to visit the graves of grandmother and grandfather..." she started as Daisuke realized that she didn't even care whether he was listening or not. It was about getting it out of her head. "There was the big street, remember the big street? The one that we always used to cross together to go to school, and where they were always worried about us, but we always watched out... and then while we were still a few steps away from the street, something dazzled me and my vision turned white... when I could see again, I saw mom and dad on the street, looking at me... as a suddenly a red shape runs over them, and I scream, and suddenly I find them in front of the street again. I didn't even know what had happened, but I screamed for them to stop and not cross the road, and they turned around to see me, but... they were already on the road and... then the car came... and I... I..."

    Daisuke frowned as he heard the story, but when she had finished, he saw her knee shaking and immediately got up. It wasn't the first time for him to deal with shocked people and he knew that she would faint if this went on, and just in time, he caught her when she was about to fall down. He tried to loosen his grip around her a bit just to notice that she didn't stand out of her own will anymore. The whole situation overstrained him, and not knowing what to do, he put her on her bed. There had been many suspicions that he had made about the accident trying to find answers, but this one answer just gave him more questions. Daisuke didn't know what to do... he held a secret and he found out that he couldn't keep the secret from Kasumi much longer. He spent the next few hours by thinking about how to explain that he, himself, had seen into the future once as well, and that it was a sign for having a special ability that separated you from most people... Eventually, he sighed and got up. There was no way he could clear his head without getting some fresh air. Slowly, he laid his hand upon the doorknob as he threw a look back on Kasumi. She was still peacefully sleeping. There would be nothing wrong with going out for a while.

    Daisuke's eyes were fixed on the floor as he watched his feet step over and over again. He didn't exactly know where he wanted to go, so he decided just to go deeper into the city for now. Kyoto had become a dead town in almost a year, which was pretty unbelievable at first, but it could not compare to a japanese metropolis anymore. A lot of terroristic attacks had been aimed at the very center of Kyoto and it seemed like every day a random, innocent person died. Hence, other normal and innocent people wanted to protect their lives and left the city...
    Daisuke headed to his old home in the city center, or rather the remains of it. His old apartment had been the target of a bomb three years ago, which was roughly when the terroristic attacks had begun. There wasn't much done against the bombed remains in the city, and so, after the streets had been cleaned, a halfway broken house was left in the streets. Some homeless children used it as a refuge or to play in it, and no one wanted to build new property on the ground since another bomb attack was possible. The reasons for the bombing were unknown, and people wanted to be safe rather than sorry.

    Daisuke's hair was flowing back with the wind as he reminded himself of his own situation three years ago. He had been at home with a girl invited to his place, and he felt a slight crush on her when suddenly his head started to hurt and his vision turned to grey. Not knowing at all what was going on, he saw himself outside of the house and a black shape ran into it as it burst up in flames, the walls collapsed and anyone inside was doomed to a flaming, painful death. Then, his vision had gone normal again and he had felt an immense headache, grabbing his head in pain.
    The look on the blonde haired girl's brown eyes was burned into Daisuke's brain. "What's wrong? Maybe you should get some fresh air. I'll look for some medicine, you ought to have some here. No discussions!"
    Why... Why no discussions? He could have simply told her what he had seen, but he hadn't done so, and when he left the house, trying to recover from what he had just seen, it became reality in front of his eyes. The remains of the girl had never been found, they were burned down along with his complete apartment. That was when Daisuke himself discovered the power within. His feelings became melancholic when he remembered how much of a shock it had been to him to see such a vision come true. It was obvious that it had been the same for Kasumi, if not worse. However, Daisuke also knew that it probably wasn't easy to explain exactly what would change for her sister now. After all, Daisuke had discovered his powers himself, no one had introduced him to them, so how would he convince her that it's not just crazy imagination?

    As the sun set, the young man's body felt weary and dull when he opened the door to his own apartment to find his sister sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket with a cup of tea in her hand.
    "Where have you been?" Kasumi asked in a disappointed tone.
    "I've had to catch some fresh air." he replied.
    "Need to recover from a freak like me?"

    Daisuke sighed. "It's not what you think it is, Nee-san. You may not believe it, but I've been through the exact same thing as you already."
    "Are we some kind of psychics then, or do you actually have a rational explanation?" Kasumi blaffed in a demanding tone.

    Seeking for the right words to begin his explanation, Daisuke sat down next to his sister. "Let's start with the most rational and believable thing. It seems that this... talent, which we both have seen before, has been inherited from our parents. I can't tell you if they had it too, at least they haven't told me. I don't really know where to start explaining this whole thing, Nee-san.
    At the very beginning of each existence, when a human is born, the one thing happens that puts us people above the animals of this planet. A pregnant mother does not only develop her future child's body inside of her, also, which is a so far unresearched process, a soul is created and combined with the body. It might sound like utter crap to you, but in one moment of the pregnancy, the soul awakens since it has turned to a symbiont with the body, which means that it is now dependant of the body's life functions.

    It has worked this way for all kinds of people around the world up to when a new type of gene found its way into the gene pool. About a hundred years ago, a few souls gained the ability to receive the energy out of the body's vital functions over a distance, there even is a science dedicated to what we can do solely with the power of our thoughts, and it's attempting to explain what I'm telling to you right now. It's called Noetic research.

    Anyhow, those souls, receiving the life functions over a distance with a connection that we can't completely grasp and understand, are able to walk outside the body. It's really... hard to comprehend, but our bodies limit us from living out part of our personality. In some way, the bodies keep us from doing inhuman things, however, our souls know no limits, it all depends on your true personality given to you. I know that it sounds crazy..."

    Kasumi's expression in her eyes told Daisuke that she couldn't believe what he was saying. He sighed. "Alright, now that you've noticed that you carry the ability, I guess you will see released souls."
    Daisuke's eyelids slowly went down and he concentrated as Kasumi sceptically watched him. She still hoped that he would finally admit it was all a joke or an idea to calm her down, but then she saw a blue shape shoot out of her brother's chest. The blue material, which looked like a levitating puddle of bright blue liquid, spread out in five directions, creating the shape of a human body.
    The puddle of liquid slowly took grey and black colors until it looked like a warrior straight out of a cartoon. Daisuke's soul was shaped in grey armor with black lines, his helmet covered all of his face except for a black hole at eye-level where two yellow and bright circles shined straight out, facing Kasumi. The hilt of a weapon sticked out behind his, or its, shoulder.
    Kasumi's jaw dropped down and she slowly got up, looking at Daisuke's released soul. Without a word, she reached out her hand and tried to touch him. Her hand went straight through his arm. There was no doubt now that what Daisuke had said was true.

    "As a released soul, I can only interact with non-organic environment or other souls. That's why you can't touch me with your arm. Still, you couldn't walk through me, because your soul can be released too... I guess I'm confusing you by explaining everything out of order." Kasumi looked at Daisuke's body, the body looked unconscious and the lips weren't moving. Those words came from his soul...
    "Well, near your heart there's a muscle that you can use to release your soul. You can't move that part of your body through me, it'll throw your soul out of your body. That would be kind of painful, so let's try to get your soul out of there by yourself."

    She was confused, but curious, and so, she slowly nodded. Daisuke continued. "At the beginning it'll be kind of hard for you, since you need to get a feeling for that muscle. It's like a valve that lets your soul out. Still, imagine it as if you got a third arm now, you'll still have to learn how to use it correctly. Do you feel anything weird or unusual on the left half, around where your ribs end?"
    She tried to feel anything and ran her hand over the place that Daisuke had described. "I feel something there... it's like a little finger."
    "Try to pull it out of your body. I can't tell you how to do it... you have to get a feeling for it."

    Kasumi closed her eyes and focused on the new feeling on her body. How would she control it? She had some sort of idea and lifted the fingers of her right hand over and over. Was it this kind of movement she had to do? She focused on the feeling in her body again and tried to send the same command to it. The next thing she felt was a wall right next to her face. She had completely slammed her soul into it and Daisuke couldn't help but giggle. "You've got some talent." he smiled as he watched her sister walk into the bathroom to look into the mirror.

    "There you go, there's the differences between each soul. There's freaks like me, people like you and I've even seen a few who looked like they're straight out of video games."
    Kasumi's soul was indeed different than she had expected after seeing Daisuke. She had a normal human body, her normal face, the hair was more purple than her body's and she was clothed in a black overall with sleeves that reached down completely to her feet and hands. She was barefooted. The overall also had a hood at the back which she then put over her head. It covered her hair completely and made her eyes invisible to the outside, so with the hood on, people would only see the lower part of her nose and her mouth. She took the hood off again, taking a look at the overall. At hip-height, there was a yellow belt holding the overall tight to her body. Also, she found a purple gauntlet on her hand that had a golden dragon wrapping itself around her wrist as a decoration. At the front part, there was a single, golden claw for one finger, and her middle finger was in it. The other fingers were covered by a purple glove.

    "That weapon looks interesting..." he muttered.
    "Why weapons? Is every soul armed like me?" Kasumi asked.
    "I can't tell you the reason, but all souls have some kind of arm that they can use to defend themselves." He grabbed the hilt behind his shoulder and pulled out a grey stick with a long, rectangular blade at the front. "The two of us here got these kinds of weapons, others I've seen have been able to cast spells... it's a long story. I can tell you that the gauntlet will be useful sooner or later. It's a long story, but I've blabbered enough for today. One more thing, technically, the soul needs less sleep than the body, so in your soul form you won't feel tired as fast as with your body, but that doesn't mean you need no sleep at all. If you want to, you can try out your new abilities in the city tonight... Try to discover your borders, you know?"

    Kasumi smiled. "Wait, does that mean that this soul form means more than just looking different right now?"
    "Well, you've got a special case, it seemed that your body has accepted most of your soul's sides, hence your forms look so similar, but you'll find out once you try to run or jump. Returning to your body is pretty easy, you simply need to 'enter' it as if it was... I can't find a better explanation. See your body as a coffin, enter your body like that. I'll carry it into bed, if you wonder where it is. Go out, try to explore your new form a bit."

    Kasumi grinned and nodded. "Night, Nii-san!" she smiled as she ran to the door and opened it, closing it behind her. She was excited, after all, what Daisuke said had become true. Outside the house, she knelt down and decided to try and jump as high as possible. Shortly after her feet bounced her off the ground, she saw herself flying at an altitude of around fifty meters. It felt like a rollercoaster ride to her and she laughed and smiled as she landed on the ground. Then she ran off towards the city center, jumping from time to time to enjoy the airtime. It was a wonderful feeling. However, after having crashed against two or three walls, Kasumi also quickly found out that the strength of her arms wasn't comparable to the strength of her feet, so she tested catching her flight against the next wall with her feet and it worked. She liked her new ability and quietly giggled, moving her feet to run back home. The feeling of flight and freedom drove away the permanent melancholy in her head ever since her parents had died and she cheerfully laughed as her momentum carried her back towards Daisuke's house. Maybe now that she felt better, she would finally get some proper sleep... without any nightmares. Her eyes opened wide at the thought of resting without any trouble and she landed at the apartment's front door, entering the code and opening to door to her refuge. She closed the door after entering and headed to her bedroom, looking at her body resting in bed.

    "Like a coffin, eh...?" she whispered, sitting down at the edge of the bed. "What a comparison..." A tingling sensation at Kasumi's back turned into something that pulled her back into her body, but she couldn't completely feel herself returning to her body as she fell asleep.

    --

    Silence.
    Peace.
    Sweet slumber.

    The screeching, loud noise of an alarm clock that imitated a chicken ripped Kasumi off her well-deserved sleep. She got up immediately, ever since she had been little she hated being waked by sounds like these and so she was walking towards the source of the ****-a-doodle-doo before she could even grasp a single clear thought. The alarm clock was in the kitchen, on top of the fridge. Kasumi shivered as she set a foot on the icy cold kitchen floor. She had to ignore the fact that her toes felt like they were about to freeze and ran straight at where she heard the sound from, grabbing the alarm clock and running out. As she ran back, her eyes fell on a yellow post-it note attached to the alarm clock. "Oh you, Daisuke..." she sighed as she took the note off, having taken the decision to deal with the clock first. Aside the fact that she, herself, could probably make a more realistic ****-a-doodle-doo than the sound that pierced her ears, the volume was so loud that she hoped there would be no trouble with neighbors. She twirled the clock around with her hands, trying to find a button to put the clock off, but there wasn't any button in particular that caught her eye, so she pulled the arm back and threw the clock right down at the floor with all the force she had.

    Afterwards, it didn't really look broken, but the sound had stopped. A heavy sigh of relief came out of Kasumi's mouth as her focus changed on the post-it note in her left hand.

    Hey, Kasumi. Sorry if I woke you up with the alarm clock, but I wanted to make sure that you actually read this note, and I didn't have any other idea. "You'd better be sorry..." she blaffed, rubbing her forehead. I've gotten an urgent call from work and I'll have to spend the next few weeks or even months in Europe. I'm pretty sure you want some answers about the whole soul thing, so I've asked a friend to stop by here at noon. She'll explain anything that you ask her, don't hesitate asking, she probably knows even more than me. If the alarm clock woke you up, you still got one hour left, sleepyhead!

    "How could you have assumed that I'd wake up before that, Daisuke?" Kasumi blabbered with a smile. She put the notice down on the living room's table and quickly went through her morning routine. Soon, she was dressed up in an azure tank-top and white jeans.
    One last thing that kept her wondering was what kind of friend it was that Daisuke had invited. Would she want to stay here for a while? Maybe even drink tea? So far, she had been a guest in this house, but now that her brother was gone, she'd have to take care of these kinds of things herselves. Just when she was done discovering and conquering the kitchen, memorizing where everything was, the doorbell rang.
    When Kasumi slowly pulled the door open, she saw that Daisuke's friend looked a bit different than what she'd expected, especially since Daisuke's note had mentioned that this very friend probably knew more about souls than him.
    Her guest seemed to be about a year younger than herself, and judging from the looks, it seemed like she'd be the definition of a citylife brat. She had long, puffed red hair with a white highlight going down at the front right side, a white baseball cap hung down sideways from her head and she wasn't very tall, even a bit smaller than Kasumi, who was pretty short herself. Her pair of deep, ice-blue eyes scanned Kasumi as if they were looking for something, and her face looked western. The white shirt and bright-blue jeans seemed like they came straight from an older, bigger brother.

    "Chiyo?" she asked. Her voice was deep and determined. "Come in." Kasumi invited her by opening the door wider and the girl entered the house as Kasumi closed the door behind her. "What's your name?" she asked as her guest looked around the apartment as if she was looking for something.
    "Noticed anything weird tonight or today?" she asked. Kasumi tried to think back, but she couldn't find anything that seemed out of place. "Other than the way my brother disappeared, not really. But... hey, tell me what your name is!"

    The girl turned to Kasumi. "Safety measurements are important." She looked at the laptop on the table. "Any important stuff running on there right now?"
    "Nope... just the normal monitoring programs I use to work." The girl pressed the power switch and waited for it to shut down, then turned it around and removed the power unit. "First lesson, Daisuke's sister. The less people know your real name, the less people can find out who you are, the less people can find out who you live, the safer you are. Don't underestimate that. Especially for you, I got dressed up like a street whore just in case someone already knew me by the looks. Consider yourself happy that I care about your safety so much."
    Kasumi didn't know what to think, but she caught up with the fact that this wasn't what the person in front of her normally looked like. The girl continued. "Me knowing Daisuke's name comes from certain circumstances, and I'm pretty sure he'd be as happy as me if those wouldn't have ocurred. Anyway, we use nicknames for each other. If you want to call my name, say Noodle. That's what people who only know my soul call me. You should get one too."
    "What did they call my brother?" Kasumi grinned.
    "Angel. There's only few people who stick with him long enough to need a name for him, but the few call him Angel. There's some stuff that I'll need to tell you about what it means to carry the ability of the soul form."

    A little gulping sound came from Kasumi's throat. What seemed like a fun afternoon to her in the beginning turned out to become serious business. "Go ahead then."
    Noodle continued. "Usually, the first time that someone takes his soul form, most of his energy is blatantly thrown out in a huge wave. It's as if you took out a megaphone and screamed 'Attention, Kyoto, I can turn into the soul form now'. Daisuke did a pretty good job in covering that up by sending out an even bigger energy wave of his own, and when I think about the amount of energy I've felt him sending out, your soul form must be quite strong. Anyway, Angel's not too... popular. We'll get to that later. Anyhow, that's the reason he had to leave, he didn't want people chasing him down and using you to put pressure on him. That way, you have an opportunity that most people don't have, you could test your soul form and get used to it before other souls swarmed you."

    Kasumi nodded. "But why are other people so interested when someone new takes the soul form?"
    "That's kind of big, so I'll try to take it slow. Around the world, but especially in Kyoto, there are two groups of souls that don't really share the same views on things. One of them is called the Alliance of souls. It has been around way before the other group was founded, in the beginnings, the Alliance was basically just people with soul forms grouping together, trying to find out what exactly is different about them and whether receiving a soul form is a triggerable event or just heritable. Over time, their views about themselves changed, and they saw themselves superior. Ever since then, they've tried to invade governments, taking control over the world slowly by the underground with the final goal of slaying people without soul forms. I don't get their reasoning, there are rumors that they think the soul form is the next step in evolution, but they're rumors and not facts.
    When the Alliance changed their view about the normal people without soul forms, of course there were people against this whole slaying people down goal. They've quickly formed a group calling themselves (the resistance) No capital here??? who believe that people with and without soul forms can and should live in coexistence. The terroristic attacks on Kyoto should make more sense to you now, in each of those attacks either remarkable members of the resistance were aimed at or it was general slaughter of people without soul forms."

    Kasumi's attention was completely focused on Noodle when she heard a possible explanation for the death of her parents. "So... is the whole thing inheritable? Did they find that out?" she asked.
    "A person whose ancestors carried the soul form are more likely to carry one themselves, however, so far we haven't seen a single case where it wasn't triggered by a tragic event that was foreseen and that actually happened. There is a rare exception to this rule. When a strong soul gets combined with a weak body, there are cases where the soul absorbs the body's vital organs and the body disappears. Of course, we can't tell who is gifted this way and who isn't, since people are keeping their true identities a secret for a good reason."

    Kasumi nodded again, sighing quietly. So she still didn't find a reason in her parents' death. What would that change anyway? Her head revolved around what she heard about Alliance and Resistance as another question formed in her head.
    "What about my brother? Which group was he in?"
    "Ah, yeah, I wanted to tell you why he's so popular anyway. He hasn't joined any group, since he believes that the Alliance's rumors about us being the next step in evolution might be true. He doesn't agree with some more complicated views of the Resistance and with the Alliance in general, so Angel basically devotes himself to protecting people wherever he smells an attack. Myself, I'm a Resistance officer. There's some things that I can't tell you even though you're Angel's brother, I don't know what alignment you will choose and what information could hurt me if it got to the Alliance. I just hope we never meet on the battlefield. Let's say, me and Angel both can't agree with a recent decision that the Resistance had made and therefore I've been working with him from time to time independant from any organisation."

    There were a few minutes of silence as Noodle stared at Kasumi while she went through everything she just heard. It sounded complicated, but she grasped the concept beneath it. Still, one thing bugged her.
    "So you're saying that I have to try and be as anonymous as I can, so I'll be safer, but couldn't an enemy just kill my soul?"
    Noodle dramatically laughed. "Oh, if it only were so easy... When a soul dies, the body can live on. Through the connection between body and soul, the body saw everything through the soul's eyes, and both the Alliance and the Resistance have the requirements to recover those memories and know exactly what happened. Sure, if someone dies in a big battle, that wouldn't change much, but the resistance is heavily outpowered and we're acting from the shadows. Every piece of information the Alliance gets about us is another weapon that they can use against us. The only chance we really have when killing a soul is doing it unseen, and that's hard at the pace that souls can fight at. I hope you already explored your abilities?"

    "Yeah. Seems like I've got pretty strong legs, but I haven't really ever fought yet."
    "That comes by itself. You'd be amazed at how well you can fight without ever having had practice when it comes to the soul form."
    "Alright." Kasumi's head steamed when she thought of more things to ask. It was important to stack on information as much as she could. "If I have to protect myself from anything in my body form, where can I get a hold of weapons?"

    Noodle smiled. "Be creative. Of course, you can try to officially get some, but you don't know who has access to the list of people who bought weapons. You can also take an offer by Alliance or Resistance and let them gear you up, well, that means that they get your real name and even adress as well. I'm sorry, but I can't go into details about how I got my weapon. You could easily track me if you actually knew."

    Then, finally, there wasn't any more to ask that Kasumi could think of, except for one last question. "Noodle... how do I join any of the groups?"
    "Heh. That's another reason I can't be arsed with the Resistance's methods anymore. It used to be different... but right now, if you want to join a group, go outside in your soul form. After a while, people will ask you who you are and which alignment you have, trying to recruit you to theirs. If it's not the one you wish to join, you'll probably have to kill the recruiting soul. Whatever you choose, I hope I don't meet you on the battlefield."

    Kasumi nodded as Noodle got up. "I guess there's no more questions?" Noodle quietly spoke. It didn't sound like a question, so Kasumi decided just to agree. Noodle ****ed her head to the left. "I might look different when I see you around, so if anyone asks you whether you like Noodles, just say that you're good friends with them. That is, if you'll have any more questions to ask. See you around, Daisuke's sister."

    When Noodle left the house, Kasumi snickered. "Noodle, eh? Weird friends, Daisuke." A grin came over her face as she put the power unit back into her computer and booted it up. She hoped that Noodle had taken her for the innocent, naive girl that she had acted to be, since Kasumi already had a nickname figured out that seemed to fit her soul pretty well, and she had also already decided for an alignment.

    "Crow." she whispered, imagining herself in the soul form. After all, most of her body was hidden in the black suit, and her eyes weren't visible when she wore the hood which she decided she would do most of the time. Her weapon was a claw, and with her strong feet, she was almost flying around the town when she wanted to. Crow would fit her well.
    After having taken a quick look at the monitoring programs and making sure that no one from outside was trying to access anything private from the company she worked for, Kasumi got up, closed her eyes and concentrated on leaving her body.
    "This time, with a bit more feeling, Kasumi-chan!" she stated, trying to summon good luck. This time, it actually did work pretty well, and Kasumi found herself one step in front of her body. A smile came over her face, which disappeared pretty quickly when she heard a crashing noise right behind her. She turned around and saw her body crashed on the floor. "Ouch... I definitely don't want to feel that... I'm leaving you here, body, okay?" she spoke in a childish tone, turning to the door and moving her head around. Noodle was already too far away to be seen, so she put her hood on while her eyes searched for a high building and they quickly found a local church with a clocktower. She jumped towards it, landing on the clock-face and bouncing up to the very top of the tower about twenty meters above the ground. There wasn't much room on the clocktower and if somebody took a battle against her in that place, she could easily flee and use her movement as an advantage.

    She sat down and looked at the roofs around her. There weren't much people outside and no one of them really did anything noticeable, so she continued by admiring the golden dragon on her bracelet, trying to think of how to fight against anyone with her weapon. Did souls use any ranged weapons? Damn, that was something she could have asked Noodle. She didn't know anything about combat. Daisuke didn't have a ranged weapon. Against any kind of physical damage, she could probably use the bracelet... A little black shape got her attention. It was a black cat that somehow had found its way up on one of the roofs. It sat there and stared at her, and she remembered a few happy moments with her cat when she was a child. A sound distrupted her thoughts as she looked at a human body with an alligator's head standing right next to her. Its hip was covered with a belt that had a swordshaft attached to it.
    "Who are you?" a male voice asked.
    "Who would you want me to be?"
    "I'd want you to be someone with a truthful heart who I can recruit for the Resistance. It's wishful thinking, isn't it?"
    "Yeah. You'll have to look for someone else."

    A metallic sound got Kasumi's attention as she saw his Katana's blade pointed at her. "Sorry, but I can't allow the Alliance to recruit even more people."
    Kasumi decided to go with a bluff since she saw that the blade in his hands were shaking. The man probably wasn't experienced and she felt excited. "Recruit? Haven't you ever heard of me? Pointing that blade at me is an insult. If you put it down now, I'll consider not ripping your entire arm off after chopping every finger in half."

    The blade stopped shaking. "What a nice strategy, Crow. You'd be some nice material for the Alliance. Excuse my little test on you, but you have to understand that the Resistance is trying to get people in."
    Kasumi's heart jumped. Success? She got up and looked at the alligator-man. Without giving her time to say anything, he started his sentence by what sounded like a pleased grunt. "Hmmph. This place, this time, seven days from now. I'll send you a mentor here. Welcome to the brotherhood."

    Kasumi parodied a soldier-salute and bounced off the building with all her force, trying to move too fast for his eyes to follow. After waiting for thirty minutes in a corner around Tokyo's central, she walked back home like a normal person. With the way her soul looked, no other soul would assume that it wasn't a body entering the little house in Kyoto's outskirts.
    The plan worked quite well, no one had started to follow her and she entered her house, finding her body still crashed on the floor. The sucking sensation from entering her body went away quickly when she found out that even though the sound of the fall had been pretty harsh, she didn't even have a headache. What a success. Even though Daisuke wasn't there to congratulate her, Kasumi was pretty proud of herself.

    After all, she had invaded the Alliance.

    Ever since Noodle had mentioned both groups and what they worked for, Kasumi had known that both groups had nothing that would interest her. The history and motives of the Resistance had been interesting, but if her brother wasn't with them, something couldn't be right about them. However, the terroristic attacks from the Alliance had lead to panics, and panic was a possible reason for why her parents had been run over in an accident. Kasumi would get her revenge. The Alliance would get slaughtered from the inside.
    Kasumi couldn't help but imagine her brother patting her head, approving of her decision. She hoped that neither he nor Noodle would find out too quickly about her having joined the Alliance, after all, she didn't want to give her plans away so easily. "Time to celebrate my success with some tea!" she grinned.

    --

    The following seven days didn't contain anything exciting for Kasumi. She spent most of the time at home, working and fortifying the defense of her employer's server. She wouldn't have as much time to check for intruders in the future after all. There hadn't been any sign of life by Daisuke and so she went to do the groceries. From time to time, she practiced leaving her body, but she never stayed in the soul form for too long. On the seventh day, she stayed at the cathedral, waiting for her new "mentor" to arrive. Part of her plans had been to set up a proper strategy for how to weaken the Alliance from the inside, but she quickly found out that she had no idea what the Alliance's infrastructure was. The only thing she knew was that she was going to take the people's bodies out. Attacking a soul was still way too dangerous for her.
    When her eyes scanned the area around the clocktower again, she noticed the black cat from last week laying on the same roof again. It was licking its tail. It gave Kasumi a quick look, but continued cleaning itself after it saw nothing interesting happening.

    "What a beautiful place." A female voice spoke behind Kasumi. She didn't sound like she would make any trouble, and so Kasumi looked back to see a hazel-eyed, brown, long-haired girl looking about her own age with a rainbow-colored robe that reminded her of magicians in video games. She smiled.

    "Are you Crow?" she asked. Her voice sounded gentle. "Yes, that's me."
    She bit her finger slightly as if she was thinking about what to do. "Well, Crow, would you mind demonstrating me the way you fight? I want to know what type of person you are."
    Kasumi got up and looked at her, then she nodded. The girl's small lips slowly turned into a smile as she jumped off the clocktower backwards, waving her hand. A small, red pearl appeared near her palm, and it seemed to grow until it was the size of an average basketball.
    No more time to gaze. Kasumi pushed herself off the clocktower's edge, jumping off to another building with direct angle to bounce off into the skies. As she flew above the city, she noticed the girl seemed to be hovering, and Kasumi cursed. So there were ranged fighters after all. Kasumi's feet landed on a third roof, where she used the momentum from the fall to fly at her opponent directly. She prepared her claw and pulled her fingers away from the sharp, middle sting.
    It seemed that her tactic of making the enemy lose her trace worked - she came from right behind the girl and would catch her by surprise. The wind blew her hair back as she got closer and closer to the enemy's back. Suddenly the hovering girl seemed to fly up just a few inches. Kasumi's surprise attack wasn't as surprising as planned. The girl's leg moved up and a heavy kick shot Kasumi down towards the ground before she even had the chance to change her claw's direction.

    As she flew towards the ground, she heard a familiar sound from above. She turned around in mid-air, seeing another red orb flying at her. Time to test the gauntlet... As the glowing energy ball came closer and closer, she moved her armed hand to the left, slashing the orb away from her body just before she crashed into the ground. Dust flew up from the hole she'd rammed into the ground and she could see nothing. What a humiliating defeat. When the dust was swept away from the wind, she saw the girl reaching out a hand to her - something that wouldn't happen the next time she got into a fight.
    The girl smiled at Kasumi. "Don't be harsh to yourself. You're a lot above average for your early stage, some of your senses are just a bit clumsy." Kasumi took her hand and the girl helped her up. "Eyes and ears are most important to know where your enemy is." she continued. "Most people think at first that it's eyes only, and I admit I would have lost track of you if your second and third bounce wouldn't have been so loud. We can work on that."

    Kasumi smiled. She was lucky to have such a good mentor. The fight had been an amazing experience for her and after all she would need to develop her skills and gain some trust within the Alliance before she could start what she actually joined for.

    "Gosh, the official matters now... Well, I'm Mina, second highest ranked General of the Alliance's army. As a mentor, I approve of you becoming my pupil to join the Alliance of Souls."
    Kasumi nodded. Second highest ranked General? Whoa.
    "We'll need a place to meet every evening at eight o'clock. I like the clocktower. Let's do it here. Anyway, a few hints from me, Crow... don't listen to anybody from the Alliance except to me. There's many newcomers who've just rarely been promoted from the pupil rank and they're stupid enough to try and show off or manipulate people beneath them. If you pull stuff off like in that fight between us, they shouldn't be able to force you to anything, so don't worry about that. You're pretty strong."

    "Hey, Mina... what was that red orb?"
    "Oh. It was a pretty weak fireball. They look weird when they're not charged up at all, but I didn't want to hurt you... well, not too much." she grinned. "Apparently you've known who the Resistance and who the Alliance are, so I guess someone introduced you to the whole matter. You don't have to tell me who it is, you're as anonymous as you want to be. Some soldiers decide to not only devote their soul power, but also use their bodies to support the Alliance, maybe you heard about that. It's purely optional, I don't do it myself, so don't let yourself get talked into it."

    A step from the left gave away the fact that someone had been listening all the time. From the shadows, the crocodile-face came out. "You guys done talking, so I can test Crow's strength?"
    Mina grinned manically. "Speak of the devil, Crow. This guy here, Droth, is one of the newcomers I've mentioned. He's always craving for recognition by recruiting people, since he's not strong enough to get promoted another way."
    "Quit the trashtalking!" Droth complained. "I just want to see what she's made of."
    Mina patted Kasumi's shoulder. "Don't worry, he's slow. It would be a miracle if he actually managed to land a single blow on you. Use your brain a bit more this fight."

    Kasumi nodded as Droth came a bit closer and Mina took a step back. A plan was quickly made and Kasumi decided to wait for Droth's first move. She just smiled at him, trying to provoke him.
    "What are you laughing at, freak?!" he yelled. Wow, that had worked pretty well. Kasumi decided to go on with just standing there, smiling at him. Droth started to scream, pointing his Katana up in the air as he ran up to his prey. Kasumi's eyes scanned the area, and just as he swung his blade towards her, she jumped off straight at the cathedral's wall to the left, flung herself back towards him with her elbow out and sent him flying across the street. She quickly charged right after him, catching up quickly and sliding below him, kicking him up in the air. He didn't even have time to react. She followed him straight up into the air and grabbed his long jaws with her claw hand, flying back into the clocktower's courtyard and throwing him straight at the ground with her claw pointed at his throat.

    Mina slowly clapped her hands. "Droth, you still need to work on your reactions. It's not like the enemy will wait for you to be done crying about how someone outsmarted you, you need to shift from situation to situation. Crow could have already given you the finishing blow easily. You won't be getting anywhere if you don't improve."
    An annoyed growl came from Droth's jaws as Kasumi let go of him. And this guy was already out of the pupil rank? Was he so weak, or was she so strong? Judging from Mina's applause, the latter part seemed to be the case. Kasumi smiled towards Mina, happy about her victory, when she suddenly heard another metallic sound behind her and whirled her gauntlet back, parrying Droth's Katana just in time.

    "...That's not normal! How can a mere recruitee be so strong?" he yelped as he slashed his Katana over and over at Kasumi, forcing her to walk backwards as she blocked shot by shot coming from the enraged alligator. Personally, she had lost all sense of mercy for him. When the training battle had been over, he still charged her from behind. Even she could tell that it was against any kind of honor or rules - he just wanted to show her who's boss. Still, right now, after taking shot by shot from Droth, her concentration had to stay on blocking his attacks. She couldn't even look at Mina's reaction to all of that - the only thing she sensed was that the clapping was gone. Meanwhile, Droth seemed to be happy about the way the battle was going.

    "Use your brain a bit more this fight." Mina's voice repeated in Kasumi's head. She tried to follow the advice, and soon, she found herself questioning why she kept blocking Droth's attacks. Droth's arms were probably the strongest body parts, she reckoned that blow by blow. Each of those parries took away a slight bit of power away from her until she would eventually fail to block and get injured or get pushed to a wall. Defending herself against attacks certainly wasn't her strongest part, and she was pretty sure she'd be thankful to Droth for teaching her that lesson.
    From the newly obtained knowledge, Kasumi switched from her defensive style to an agressive counterattack one. Droth wasn't even paying enough attention to notice that his vertical, two-handed slice at Kasumi wasn't going to be blocked as she quickly side-stepped, raising her leg and kicking his sword down to the ground. By the power of her leg and Droth's arm combined, the sword shattered at the asphalted ground. Another time, Droth found himself cornered by Kasumi with her claw at his throat, but this time, he quickly reacted and opened his mouth - something that she didn't count with.
    Her eyes filled with fear as she saw his razor-sharp teeth. A foul smell of rotten flesh came from the alligator's mouth... as it came closer and closer to her, a split-second appeared to her like an eternity.

    A sudden light distrupted her vision, and when it faded, Droth was gone. Mina was furiously walking past where he had stood just before, doing two hurling impressions as icicles built up in her palm, flying towards the left. Kasumi's eyes went there and she saw Droth pinned on the wall. Mina had blown him away with a lightning bolt, then pinned him to the wall by ramming two icicles through each hand.

    "You!" she yelled furiously. "What exactly does yourself think will happen when you chomp a humanoid's head off? Doesn't Leo teach you these things? Are your training battles life and death?"
    Her head slowly turned to face Kasumi, still a bit shocked by facing right into Droth's jaws. She sighed. "I'm sorry, Crow, but I need to take this guy to his supervisor... after a long, nice talk. Tomorrow, here, eight o'clock."

    They spent a moment staring at each other's eyes, but then Kasumi slowly nodded and jumped away from the scene. Droth looked at Mina with a hateful expression in his eyes. "General, I'm sure you haven't missed that Crow possesses powers that she shouldn't have."
    "That's why it's me who's her mentor, and I'm pretty sure that decapitating her isn't the best thing to do in the situation. Shut up before I shove another icicle through your vocal chords."

    --

    Even though the shock of facing Droth's death instrument was still deep inside her, Kasumi quickly settled down when she was at home. She looked at her body which she had left on the couch in the living room in a sleeping position, and it forced a smile off her. Like a coffin... but her coffin was way safer from the inside... her thoughts about the metaphor were taken to the telephone quickly. It was flashing, so someone had called while she wasn't there. Maybe it was Daisuke? Happiness changed the forced smile to a real one and she instantly entered her body, checking out the number that called.

    What a letdown. The number was anonymous - she couldn't even call back and ask. She put the phone back down when one moment a shape in the kitchen that she wasn't used to called all her attention. A brown-haired girl with a black pair of glasses was standing in the kitchen. She had hazel eyes and looked pretty humble and naive, her body was covered by a baseball sweatshirt of grey color that was entirely too big for her and blue jeans. Sports shoes covered her feet.
    Kasumi slowly looked at her, the girl seemed to not have noticed that she wasn't alone in the house and so Kasumi quietly wandered to her room.
    A voice from the kitchen, coming from the girl, stopped her sneaky path. "Aye, do you like noodles?" she asked.
    Kasumi walked back and looked at her. "I'm good friends with them, Noodle... first of all, how the hell did you get in?!"

    She drank a bit from a teacup right next to her and grinned. "Second of July, Third of August? I don't know where 2738 comes from, but Angel kind of used it everywhere. And the door itself... I've got talents. It's not broken. I just thought that I'd stop by and help you a bit."
    "Help?"
    "You see, at first I thought you're just some annoying brat striving for recognition, and I saw you joining the Resistance and become a heroine - at least in your head. That's what most new souls think like when they actually get properly introduced by the whole thing. But you really are his sister... I could easily read it off you that you don't mean it serious with the Alliance. You're also pretty lucky with the supervisor, Mina is known, dangerous and most of all - a defense General. You won't be attacking the Resistance or normal people, they won't see your face except for some goats that you kill, but I'll try to make up some excuse so we don't send any important or memorable people to attack the Resistance the next few months."

    Kasumi's eyes opened wide - in horror. How... how did she know all of this? Noodle broke out in laugh. "I can read it off your eyes. You wonder how I found out, eh?"
    "... Tell me."
    "I'll give you a hint. Meow~"

    Kasumi slammed her palm against her face. Oh god. The cat. It was Noodle.

    "I always LOVE the expression people make when they hear about it. Your brother's jaw was so big..." Noodle broke out in laughter and almost spilled all the tea that she was holding in the cup when she saw that Kasumi's jaw was dropped as well - hidden well behind the facepalm.
    It took about five minutes until Noodle felt ready to talk again without breaking up in laughter.
    "Listen, Crow, or whatever you want me to call you now... I really like the way you look at things. I'm way too far inside the Resistance now to do the things I want to do, but you did them right in my place. So I decided to support you a bit more. Angel won't be coming back for a while and I've put some stuff in his room that might be useful for you - I mean, useful in what you want to do in the future. You might want to find some place to hide them in your house just in case there will be some people sniffing around. Also, he tried to call you earlier today, he's apparently cooperating with an ex-resistant squad mixed from Europe. He'll tell you more when he actually gets to you, but he will be gone for a while and the house is yours, including the bills. If you ask me, this is a bit big for you alone, so you should look for someone to live here and pay with you."

    Kasumi sighed. Bad news. She did earn enough to live off her job, but the house was indeed too much... she nodded.
    "Oh, and don't look at me, I'm way too paranoid to live with a... dangerous person like you!" Noodle grinned, teasing Kasumi. "I'm sure you'll get some use for the stuff I've gotten for you. You wouldn't believe where that hidden knife is from... It's from a video game fanstore, just modified a bit. Still, it's damn useful."
    "Well, if you're already here, why don't you show me all those things and explain?"

    Noodle looked at her with a curious face expression. "Mmh, most of these things are really self-explanatory. Except for the knife maybe..." she spoke to herself, then pulled her right sleeve back to reveal a long leather bracelet that reached halfway from her wrist to her elbow. Then, she showed her palm to Kasumi, pointing at a little button that was connected to the bracelet. She pressed it, and a hidden blade shot out of the bracelet. It was just long enough to reach her fingers, and when she left go of the button, it slid back into the bracelet. "It's fancy, eh? There was some video game where the hero used this kind of stuff, and they sell the bracelets for the kids. You just switch the blades and voilá, you've got a hidden weapon. Never a bad idea to carry it around with you in case you get recognized and attacked by anyone, since you can take them out silently with the knife and slide it back, making your way off the scene."

    Kasumi had to grin. She had played the video game and knew exactly what Noodle was talking about. Crazy idea... but it could be effective. "The rest is seriously self-explanatory... some guns, some tools. The biggest package is defense only. I mean only, and only, defense, Kasumi, and I don't want to see you running around with that thing, ever, except for when you get attacked here. Oh, and about the Resistance, I won't tell them anything about you, so don't see them as your friends. The less people know, the better."
    "Thank you. It's kind of... weird. I thought I'd have to pull it off alone, that you and Daisuke wouldn't understand."
    "Heh. I'm not sure how he will pick it up, it's your decision to tell him or not. But your way's good. You're weakening the Alliance, but not supporting the Resistance in its new ways. Who knows, maybe things will change sometime, but I can't slip out of my role... As you've already beautifully noticed, I'm one of the best informants in the Resistance. I'm practically unseen for most people out there."

    "Well, I was going to ask Daisuke whether animals can see you in your soul form..."
    "He'd just tell you he doesn't know to cover me. If you'd asked that mentor of yours, that could have been a problem. Oh, by the way, nice fight against that crocodile, I'm terrible with his name, but I've seen him in my human form already. He likes to run around normal bodies, throwing stones on them and so on. Luckily, a loaf of bread would outsmart him... he didn't even notice that I-"

    Her story was aborted by the loud ringing of Kasumi's telephone. Noodle nodded. "Alright, now's your time, so I'm not gonna disturb you. See you around."
    Kasumi eyed her as she opened her arms. Kasumi smiled and hugged her, then Noodle left the house through the kitchen window and Kasumi answered the phone.
    When she heard that it was really Daisuke on the phone, a heap of relief came from Kasumi. "How are you doing, Nee-san?" he asked through the phone.
    "I'm fine... Noodle just kind of surprised me. Bringing a message from you. What are you doing there in Europe, Onii-chan?"
    "First off, I just came here for the reasons that Noodle already told you. I had to get away from some people who don't like me in general. Then, here in Europe, I've found support by a few guys who used to work for the Resistance. The Alliance looks a bit different here than in Japan, Kyoto is one of their main concerns for whatever reason, but those guys here take out one Alliance base after the other, and I'm with them right now. We're working our way through Germany. What about you?"
    "Oh..." Noodle's reaction about Kasumi's way reassured her in telling him the truth. "I'm... working against the Alliance."
    "Noodle made you join her?"
    "That's not exactly what I mean... I've joined the Alliance, I'm going to get deeper, gain some trust, then I'll slowly start weakening them. You get what I mean?"
    "That's dangerous, Nee-san. You've always been my little sister. How did you decide that?"
    "Well, Noodle said that you don't like the Resistance, and she doesn't really do it either anymore, or so it seems. There must be reasons."
    "Kasumi... promise me you won't take any risk."
    "Hey, Onii-chan, I can handle myself. You've left me alone on the house, don't your remember?"
    "Oh gosh, did Noodle make it sound like I'm ditching you?"
    "I don't take her tones serious."

    The chitchat with her brother made her relax. After a while, Daisuke said he'd have to leave, but he'd call again soon, and so the day ended quickly for her. There were many things to take care of, and she went straight into Daisuke's room. She hadn't been in there yet... the furniture looked like, in fact, he had planned to stay away for longer. Everything was nice and clean except for the three packages on the floor. They were closed shut and she had to get a knife from the kitchen in order to open them. The first one contained a black USP .45 calibre pistol with a silencer... she looked at the gun and was in doubt. What Noodle said had been true, that could come in use sometime, but she never had held a firearm in her own hands. There were a huge load of black bars filled with bullets that she successfully identified as the magazines. She put the gun back in the package and decided it was going to be the best idea to put that package under her bed or in her shelf later.

    The second package contained a purple version of Noodle's hidden knife. Kasumi tried it on and it fit perfectly, the knife was sharp and lethal. Still, carrying it all the time was a taboo - Kasumi knew how clumsy she was sometimes, and she could accidently hurt someone, or herself, with that.

    The third package was the biggest one, the one that was entirely for defense, and Kasumi's shock upon opening it was about three times as big as the shock from the first package. Inside it were two AK-74u submachine guns and a lot of ammo magazines. Noodle was definitely right. Defense only. One of those was going under her bed... come to think of it, she had to unpack those things completely. Where would she hide those magazines and weapons?
    After about four hours of work deep into the night, Kasumi was finally done. One shelf of hers was stuffed with .45 magazines, the pistol itself was hidden in the wardrobe - in Kasumi's winter jacket. One of the submachine guns ended up on a little hook behind Kasumi's bed, in case she was surprised in her sleep and still had time to react. The other one was hidden behind the bathroom's mirror and she was proud of that one - it had taken a lot of work to find a spot where Daisuke had been hiding his guns, and that place had apparently been one of them, judging from the huge, square-shaped, gaping hole behind it. The magazines to the submachine guns were hidden among the whole house, and she just hoped that in case she ever shared the house with someone, that person wouldn't ask any questions or even call the police when they'd eventually find some of them. Yet, the work had exhausted her, and after she got rid of the packages, putting the gauntlet on a table in her room, she decided to call it a day.

    --

    The last day's hard work had taken its toll on Kasumi's body and she felt weary and heavy as she got up out of bed to continue with today's obligations. She had spent a few thoughts about how to find someone to live with her, and in the end, she guessed it would be the best way to offer it on the internet, and after having eaten breakfast, she took some pictures of the house and the rooms. After a brief description of the loose conditions and payments on an online-portal that seemed to fit the purpose, she uploaded the pictures and wondered when she would get her first call. She knew that these matters took some time.
    Her thoughts revolved around what kind of person would soon move into the place. She knew that the case was unlikely, but she wished it would be someone friendly - or at least someone she got along with.

    The rest of the day was a mixture of waiting for calls and working. However, that day, no one had called to ask for more information about the house - there had been one prank call though. When the evening approached, Kasumi prepared herself for another evening with her mentor. She didn't really have an idea of what was going to happen or what was planned out, but she knew to take better care of her body now before leaving it. She got into bed, as if she was going to sleep, and left her body right there as she left for the church courtyard to meet her mentor again.

    As she left her house and jumped up on the roofs in the neighbourhood, she noticed the black cat sitting on top of one of the houses. Noodle. Her eyes faced Kasumi's, but then Noodle gave in and decided to jump off the roof as Kasumi made her way towards the cathedral's clocktower. She was a bit early, so she sat down on the edge of the clocktower's roof when she noticed someone on the courtyard who didn't seem to be a normal human - at least the body emitted an aura that gave an impression of courage and compassion. It was worth to have a look at, so Kasumi hopped off her clocktower and landed right in front of a young Alliance warrior. He had white hair that was covered with a red headband on the left side, he was pretty tall and carried white plated armour. A black sword with red ornaments rested on his belt.
    His small lips turned into an expression of surprise when he saw her landing right in front of her.
    "Are you Crow?" he kindly asked.
    "It's not polite to ask for other people's names before introducing yourself..." she grinned.
    "Oh. I'm Cricket, General Leo's student. I'm supposed to go around, have a look at new souls, recruit them, the things that Droth used to do."
    "Used to?"
    "Well, the word spread fast about how much he screwed up and that he's ended up with work that nobody wants to do. Last thing I've seen him do was clean the whole headquarters alone. There aren't many people who like Droth anyway, so you've gotten yourself about three enemies, but ten friends. Don't worry, he's just a bully, you got those everywhere. Anyway, I've asked Droth about where and when you are gonna meet with Mina so I could apologize to both of you for his stupid behavior. I guess I can start with you."

    He reached out his right hand to her and she grabbed it, careful not to hurt him with the claw. The handshake as a symbolic act of apology at least showed to her that not every guy in the Alliance would prove to be a nuisance like Droth. Gaining some trust wouldn't be that hard if Cricket was willing to shake her weapon hand...
    "By the way..." he continued after letting loose off her hand, "Droth keeps telling that you took him by surprise and that he'd have outfought you easily if the fight would have been fair. I guess it's just him talking, but can you tell me what really happened?"
    "I've gotten him two times, and actually he was the one who attacked me without a warning. When I had him the second time, he kind of snapped and tried to chomp my head off, but Mina got in and kind of pinned him to the wall, telling me to leave."
    "That sounds... scary. I mean, having to face the rotten and dead smells out of Droth's throat must have been agony to your nose."

    Kasumi grinned. "You'd laugh, but I actually do think that he's using it as kind of a poison to keep his enemy petrificated while he attacks them. I had no chance to do anything after all, and Droth is slow. When you think of it, his open mouth is one of the spots he doesn't want attacked."
    "General Mina is teaching you to analyze yourself, eh? I've heard she always puts huge expectations in her pupils. Many supposedly haven't been able to withstand the pressure she gives."
    "She's fine. It's just the fact that when you see yourself more or less chanceless against someone like Droth, you look for reasons."
    "I think your abilities are just more of a reason for Mina to choose you as her pupil. There won't be many other mentors where you can learn as good as from her."
    Before Kasumi could even reply, a third voice rised from behind them. It was Mina, she greeted both of them and seemed to know Cricket already.

    "Alright, I guess I'll have to leave you two alone then and go on with recruiting." Cricket huffed. He waved his hand as he loosely jogged away on the street. "Was he in favor of Droth or against him?" Mina instantly asked, and as Kasumi explained the situation, Mina heavily sighed in relief. "I'd have ripped Droth's guts out if he sent his friends to question you. I wasn't sure about Cricket, though. Anyway, usually the first week passes with battle practices, but you've had enough of practice in my opinion. If you don't mind, I'll set up another practice battle with a new type of enemy for you, and if it works out fine, I'll introduce you to the headquarters where you can begin to serve the Alliance and make your own contacts."

    Kasumi nodded - knowing that she was getting closer and closer to her goal of infiltrating the Alliance and gaining trust inside of it. "Hey, Mina... I know that maybe it's something you don't want to talk about, but why did you choose to join the Alliance?"
    "Most of the people who discover their soul forms have weak bodies, but unique personalities. The way society goes since many years, unique people are pushed away and the grey, anonymous masses see themselves as something special as they destroy the existance of someone who is superior to them. You've got those masses of people everywhere, it begins with the so called 'popular' guys and girls in school and goes on and on everywhere you look. No matter where you try to hide, there is always the grey mass and the mainstream that destroys the independant being that is given a talent. That's why I joined. I want to protect special people before the grey masses destroy them."

    Another nod came from Kasumi, a knowing one this time. The question had done its purpose. Even if Mina had tried to answer the question as anonymously as possible, for Kasumi it was pretty clear that Mina's body was around the age of twenty or thirty. Kasumi herself had gone through a phase where she had been revolving within the same thoughts as Mina, but the difference between their opinions was clear for herself. She decided to start a notebook at home, writing down every bit of information she'd collect outside her body so she wouldn't forget vital things like this. With a smile, she stared into the sky.
    "Our thoughts are... similar, Mina. Very similar."
    "That makes me happy."

    --

    When Kasumi returned home, she took a look at her mailbox to see whether anyone was interested in moving in with her. Sadly, there wasn't a single message, and so she opened her laptop's calendar and marked friday - that was the next day for training with Mina. She wouldn't want to miss it... After having taken another look at the inbox, she opened a text file and started writing down everything she knew about the souls she'd met so far, starting with Droth and even writing down the tiny bit she knew about General Leo. The notes would definitely come in handy sometime.

    Apparently nobody needed a new place to stay in Kyoto, at least that's what Kasumi figured when two days passed without anyone contacting her. After all, that made sense, with the number of terroristic attacks Kyoto had been experiencing, nobody could be blamed for staying away from there. The image of an abandoned town that Kyoto seemed to receive more and more drastically grew for Kasumi when she went to do the groceries in town the next day. What used to be an overfilled town that people leftbecause they couldn't be bothered with moving among the huge crowds that were practically everywhere back at the times had explicitly turned into the opposite. The streets were dead compared to how full they had used to be, and it could barely compare to a small city in other industrialized countries. As Kasumi wandered through the silent street, her eyes waved around the windows in stores. Most of them were hidden behind black bars of solid metal, the way you'd see them at stores that are closed due to internal problems. Only here and there Kasumi could actually catch an eye on the things she wanted to buy - the groceries and maybe some sports clothing. After a while, she was done with the groceries, and still wandered around the mostly closed stores with a bag of food in her right hand. After a while, she got tired of looking at black bars of closed store windows and turned straight around to go home. It wasn't until a few seconds later that Kasumi realized there had been someone walking behind her, since she straightforward crashed into a man in a police uniform. She couldn't see any of his details as she bumped him to the floor, following him straight down as her groceries slipped out of the bag and spread out all around the floor.

    The whole situation was extremely disturbing and awkward for Kasumi - she quickly got up and stuffed her groceries into the bag, trying to get away in case the officer was angry at her. She just managed to take a step to the front as his young voice called. "Hold on!" he demanded, and Kasumi felt like she was trapped. She turned around and looked at him. He was moderately tall, yet, he looked like he was around her age. His blue eyes emitted an aura of calmness, something that probably came in handy as a policeman, but he didn't look like a highly ranked man. He had black windy, shagged hair.
    "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bump into you!" she quickly muttered with her eyes pointed to the floor. The whole situation was uncomfortable for her, but the policeman just shook it off with a smile. "Nah, I'm not mad at you. You just reminded me of someone... with that purple glow around your hair."
    "I've dyed it black, but I can't get the purple out completely."

    When she said that, the policeman seemed to have realized that his assumption had been right. "Oh god, Kasumi, why'd you dye that hair!? It's always what made you special."
    She had trouble recognizing him and feared that it wasn't a good idea to tell him she had no clue who he actually was, so she tried to shake it off. "Special wasn't good. I've always been a freak at school because of my hair color, I've hardly had any friends, I was always in the middle being laughed at. It was a burden I didn't want to carry with me."

    "Yeah, you're right there... but I've always been on your side, haven't I?"

    When he said that, it suddenly struck Kasumi. She saw a picture in front of her eyes, in elementary school. Someone students had thrown stones at her, one had gashed her right above the eye and she was bleeding, and she remembered that back in these days she'd had only one friend - Kou, a boy from her class, who could have been popular and accepted all around school, but he'd preferred to help Kasumi everytime he could.
    This was Kou? A policeman... she smiled.
    "Man, things like that always tick me off. People changing just because others force them to. Hey, would you like to grab a coffee with me?" he asked. Kasumi smiled and nodded, even though she usually didn't drink any coffee, she would gladly do so for the opportunity to talk to a childhood friend. It was a weird feeling to see someone from her past, especially since after elementary school her whole family had moved away from a little village in southern Japan to Kyoto. "What brings you to Kyoto, Kou? I didn't expect to see you here..."
    "Ah, I didn't think I'd see you again either after all of you's moved away. But I've just recently started working as a police officer, and I'm travelling all around Japan whereever they need me. I'm staying at a motel here, I think I'll stay here for quite a while, you know, with all the terroristic attacks aimed at the city, they could use reinforcements."
    "That's such a difference between you and me. You're searching for obligations, I'm deliberately dodging them."

    They spent about two hours together in a coffee shop, talking to each other about the times after elementary school and how they'd spent them. It felt nice for Kasumi to have someone to talk to about herself, and to have someone who listens. She relaxed from the stress that the last few days and discoveries had put on her and for some time she even felt like the world was still normal, like the accident with her parents had never happened, like she was a normal girl living down the street. The sympathy she received from Kou carried her like a wave through the sea and the next days passed quickly for her, as they were filled up with work. Actually, two interested people had signed up to visit the house, but the location seemed to shake them off again. One of them was convinced that the next terroristic attack would hit the area around her home, since that place had been spared so far.

    On the other hand, with more intensive training of her soul at hand, Kasumi focused on improving her employer's security measurements. There would definitely be less time to deal with hackers the next few days, so she'd better be safe than sorry. The days quickly passed and on Friday, Kasumi found herself on the clocktower again, waiting for Mina to arrive. The black cat was sitting on one of the roofs again - Noodle was observing her. Seeing the cat made Kasumi wonder about Daisuke and the things he was doing at the moment, but the thought quickly got killed as a white car, probably a BMW, arrived near the clocktower. What would anybody want there in the evenings? She hopped down and looked into the car - three people were sitting in it, among them were Mina, Cricket and a man with shagged, black hair, shades and a black suit.
    "Why are we using a car?" Kasumi asked.
    "You and Mina may have pretty quick movement, but a car's faster than me and my student." the black haired stranger said. With that statement, she knew that the man was General Leo.
    "Get in already." Mina smiled. "We're going to send you and Cricket on your first mission. That's going to give you two some progress." Leo added, and Kasumi opened the back door. She was sitting next to Cricket, Mina was driving. As houses and lanterns quickly rushed by the car, Leo started explaining the mission.

    "In the woods outside the town, some strange energy emissions have been reported. We don't know whether it's nature going crazy or the Resistance preparing to attack - either way, it's up to you two to take down the source of the energy."
    "Also, I want you two to stick together and work together. If you learn it early on, you'll become strong as a squad." Mina added as she throttled and speeded through the main roads of Kyoto, bound out of the city. "That means you two prepare to work together right now. Talk about your fighting type and abilities and make up at least a rough strategy for fights."

    Kasumi nodded and looked at Cricket. "So what do you fight like?" she asked.
    Leo took the word off him. "Cricket defends himself against enemy blows until the enemy opens a hole which he then counterattacks at. He's going to have trouble with fast enemies, since the defense flaws need to be there for a while until he can use them. He's not the fastest guy."
    Cricket frowned. "Nothing to add", he commented.

    "Alright. I have trouble defending myself against direct attacks, and my strength is mostly reliant on my movement and speed. I can try to take on the faster enemies while you deal with slower ones, so you can help me afterwards."
    "Don't underestimate yourself!" Mina determinedly spoke, interrupting her. "I only take the strongest and most promising pupils into my training. You can handle anything that Cricket could handle."

    Kasumi's eyes wandered down on her claw. Her weapon. That was one thing Cricket was probably able to handle. Kasumi had never even properly fought yet, anything she did so far was only training fights without actually meaning to hurt the enemy. She was afraid and felt like she wasn't ready, but the car was mercilessly speeding and had already left Kyoto. Kasumi's eyes wandered around the plains the car was rushing through and she wondered whether the last weeks of her life had been reality or a hallucination. Maybe, when she saw her parents die, she went crazy? Maybe soon, she would wake up in a cell made up of yellow rubber. Her eyes wandered up into the night sky. If it all wasn't true, then there were two questions - when would she wake up, and was it a dream or a nightmare? On the one hand, all the fascinating abilities she discovered about herself really pulled her out of the hole she'd lived in, on the other hand, she had a heavy burden to carry. All the people in this car would sooner or later be killed, and many more were to follow.

    She sensed that the car was slowing down and tried to get a hold of some determination. This was her first real mission, and she wouldn't screw it up.

  2. #2

    Default

    I am cursing at the sheer length of how far you've developed it and henceforth I have decided not to print it today.
    *Mock salute.*
    Holiday goals : Reach level 70 on my Dual Blader l Work on Compression and Destiny Defied l Find what i've always been looking for. l Open a new door and start anew. l Break HIM. l
    Complete - Green.
    Working on it - Purple.
    Hiatus - Red.


    Hatred of you is what drives me, and i'll take solace in breaking your mind. I swear i will to whatever gods there may be, even if it's the last thing i do.

    A Crusader's Guide.
    Story : Destiny Defied.
    Idea Compilation : Compression.

  3. #3

    Default

    Printed.
    *Rubs eyes.*
    Laterz.
    Holiday goals : Reach level 70 on my Dual Blader l Work on Compression and Destiny Defied l Find what i've always been looking for. l Open a new door and start anew. l Break HIM. l
    Complete - Green.
    Working on it - Purple.
    Hiatus - Red.


    Hatred of you is what drives me, and i'll take solace in breaking your mind. I swear i will to whatever gods there may be, even if it's the last thing i do.

    A Crusader's Guide.
    Story : Destiny Defied.
    Idea Compilation : Compression.

  4. #4
    Complication. Kon's Avatar
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    Jul 2007
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    At hell, near beelzeboss
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    Chapter Two: An illusion

    It was a warm, humid, sunny evening, the skies were colored orange and the air in front of the forest felt fresh. Such a beautiful day for going on a walk in the forest, it was perfect, and all of this perfection was what made Kasumi worry about the whole mission. How could such a mission coincidentally fall on the day that Kasumi was supposed to train with Mina, why did they send the two alone to accomplish the mission, and why didn't it seem like anything was going to attack them? She played with the thought of confronting Mina with these points, but had to give in to the instinct of staying quiet. The less they thought she knew, the better. If it was true.

    Either way, Kasumi was aware of the fact that she didn't know many different types of souls yet. Perhaps there was a chance that they were being sent in some kind of illusion or already were affected by it - that seemed improbable, but who knew? She'd have to keep her eyes open and stay in caution of her surroundings.
    As her fingers moved away from the middle claw, getting ready for battle, Kasumi entered the peaceful looking woods. Cricket was walking right behind her. Yet, the deeper they walked into the forest, the more peaceful it looked - the only thing that was out of place was this feeling of anticipation and even a bit of fear inside her heart as her eyes scanned the area over and over.
    After having taken a walk in the forest for about ten minutes, something unusual struck Kasumi's eye. One of the trees seemed to be cut - who would cut a single tree in the middle of the forest?
    "Cricket, hold on. There's something weird about this stump." she stated, walking closer to it with her claw ready. Cricket drew his sword and was ready to cut in if anything out of order happened. When Kasumi was just one step away from the stump, she heard some leafs rustling behind her and jumped up on the stamp, closely dodging a quick shape that landed just where she had been standing. Before she could even try to get a closer look, she took a few steps back to open up a distance between her and the attacker.
    Whatever had attacked her seemed to be a mixture of a wolf and a woman. It stood on two legs. The private body parts were covered with fur, the rest was naked with a tanned skin. The black knife in her right hand didn't seem to dangerous, but Kasumi thought it was safe to assume that her enemy was probably able to use claws as well. Clashing metal sounds told Kasumi that Cricket had found himself an enemy as well, but she couldn't be bothered. She was analyzing her enemy, and she quickly realized the wolf-woman in front of her was waiting for her move.

    After around a minute or two, Kasumi started to doubt the whole situation. What kind of enemy would wait so long for a move? Thinking back, if she had the ability of using its paws to attack Kasumi, there was no doubt that in the moment she had been on the stump another attack would have been incoming. Both were waiting for the enemy to set the fight's pace, and Kasumi started to see a pattern in the mission. She decided to, indeed, set the fight's pace, but keep it very slow. She ran up to the enemy without putting any force to her feet, running just as slow as she would have with her body, and attacked it with her claw. The black knife quickly blocked the attack, and another one of Kasumi's assumptions came true; her enemy just recovered as she struck it again, not any slower, but also not any faster. She even had time to look at Cricket's enemy, but she couldn't really see him - that one was actually moving fast, attacking Cricket over and over from all sides. He had trouble blocking them, but he could still keep up - as if the battle perfectly fit on him.
    Something higher than these two was determining how this fight went - and Kasumi decided to spit in that soup. She tried to find the right timing, and just as the shade attacked Cricket again, she faked an attack and bounced off to cut off the shade's way. She caught a quick glimpse of two glowing, yellow eyes as the shade hopped up, and thereby signed the death contract. In mid-air, it couldn't move away.

    While keeping her eyes on the other enemy, she was careful just to use around half her power and flew she into the air and stung the black shade right where she thought the head would be, and it seemed to have the desired effect, as a flash combined with the black shade giving away something that resembled a scream made it disappear in thin air. She landed straight on the ground next to Cricket, facing the wolf-woman. She didn't have any problem to watch her comrade dying - not a single detail on her face expression had changed as her fingers tapped around on the black knife. "Thanks, Crow." Cricket slowly muttered, but Kasumi didn't pay any attention - she was thinking about the situation while keeping her enemy in sight. Why was she so unconcerned with him dying? Why hadn't she even attempted to attack her in the most vulnerable state - in mid-air? And most importantly, why wasn't she escaping? If Mina's briefing was right, she would immediately gain a huge advantage by luring them to said Resistance base, gaining enough backup to more than crush solely two warriors, and the perfectly set up ambush was a sign for something not being right here.

    Then Kasumi got sick of thinking. "Cricket, don't interfere unless she attacks you or I ask you to help me."
    "Signed."

    She charged at the wolf-woman with the pace that she had set earlier in battle and quickly noticed it wasn't enough anymore - a thing she had expected by now. The moment she rushed at Cricket's challenger, she had been closely watching what her former enemy had been up to, and there had not been a single sign of fear or surprise, and right now, her actions matched the speed that Kasumi herself had shown while rushing up to defeat the other soul. Time to go for some acting.
    "****!" she yelled while exchanging blows, trying to gradually slow down her actions, and immediately she noticed that the same happened to her enemy - no matter what happened, they were always on one level, which confirmed Kasumi's earlier thought - someone wanted this battle to happen and controlled her enemy. She got sick of it and after dodging a few more attacks, she took a step back.
    "You're easy to fool." she flouted, stopping to act as if she had to catch her breath. The battle had cost none of her stamina so far, which was not what she saw from the wolf-woman. "Besides, a black shade, a mixture like you - souls represent the personality of the people, and neither a wolf nor something as dark as a shadow works in teams with anything. I want you to come out, and stop fooling us."

    Cricket's eyes widely opened as he suddenly understood why Crow had wished for no interference. Yet, soon, he saw Kasumi turning around as she told him she would leave the forest now, and in his place, she would do it as well as Leo and Mina had probably set both of them up to something.

    However, that is not what Kasumi would have done - her vision started to get blurry the instant she had spoken out these words, the green of the grass under her feet changed to a dusty grey, the trees disappeared around her, the smell of forest was done, the birds weren't singing anymore - she found herself in a different place altogether. In front of her, a person appeared in the dusty region - green rattlesnakes noosed where her hair was supposed to be, the eyes shone in a disgusting red color, her whole body was covered by a green robe and she had nasty long fingernails that almost looked like claws and probably was what she used in battle, as Kasumi couldn't see any other weapon around her or clipped on her body.
    She heard a step behind her and immediately thought that even if all of what she had seen before had been an illusion, Cricket had been victim to the very same. What was his reaction? She looked back for a brief moment to see him turn around and simply walk away - the desert seemed endless. She was confused. Where was he going?

    Her eyes went back to the person in front of her, most probably a woman, but she didn't want to make any assumptions.
    "Do you have any idea who I am, Crow?" she asked.
    "That question sounds like you exactly know I don't." she replied.
    "I am an Alliance General, Medusa. I have already lived for thousands of years, and I am one of the only souls that can influence people inside their bodies. My main power is to take control of vital senses - eyesight, smell and hearing - to create illusions and confuse my enemy. I was asked to, this time, confuse you in order to prepare you for training as a favor for my fellow Generals, however, you have arrogantly uncovered my illusion.
    I revealed myself to you to announce two things: I am amazed by the fact that you have been able to unveil my illusion without knowing about magic and illusionary powers of souls and hereby, as the first announcement, I express my sincere respect to you.
    However, my actions follow the way of my pride, and you have deeply insulted my pride. Therefore, the next announcement is that I will kill you here tonight, and no one will come to protect you as I have complete control over anyone who could, and right as we speak, they are under the impression of driving you back to where you came from."

    "You're quite confident that you are stronger than me. How so?"
    "There's multiple reasons for that, Crow, among them are the fact that you are a simple pupil and that I have just seen your power merely minutes ago."
    "As you are focused mainly on confusion and illusion, I feel free to assume that you are physically weaker than other Generals, and I'm also quite sure that you haven't seen me use all of my power."

    Kasumi's eyes were focused on Medusa while she clenched her fists. She was in a screwed up state, but there was no way out, and she had no idea of Medusa's level of strength. The only chance she had was surprising Medusa with the power she yet had to find out about. She waited for Medusa to make the first move, and after only a few seconds, he saw her running towards her at moderate speed - nothing too dangerous for her, and she blocked the claw with her bracelet, then tried to move her claw right up to Medusa's face, but when she saw Medusa lifting her arms, she played out her advantage and bounced off to the front, landing right behind Medusa in just a split second - a technique she decided to call Flash. She sent her claw right at her throat, but Medusa managed to take the momentum from her first attack to dodge - thus, she quickly threw her fangs at Kasumi, but she managed to dodge them with her bracelet and flashed out of Medusa's sight just to appear behind her again and strike her through the throat - the blood spilled out of the wound as Medusa fell to the ground, mortally wounded.

    It was a weird feeling for Kasumi, and she started to realize that this was the first enemy she had taken down. But suddenly, a painful sensation on both her left shoulder and the left part of her forehead threw her out of the thoughts she had revolved in as she tried to get away from whatever happened - she didn't know where, or when, but suddenly blood had appeared in her eye and she had realized that the painful sensation was an attack.

    "Have you forgotten this quickly? I'm disappointed. I still control your eyesight, smell and hearing."
    Kasumi tried to look around and find Medusa, but it seemed as if the voice came from ten directions at once - at the time time, she cursed. How could she have thought it would be this easy?
    She panicked as the blood from her forehead covered her left eye again and grabbed the wound on her left arm, trying to stop the bleeding, meanwhile, she tried to rationally think her way out of it. How would she defeat an enemy who could influence what she saw, heard, smelled and felt?

    Wait, felt? Did she mention anything like it? It would have been smarter to give Kasumi the feeling of having no wound at all, so she would relentlessly continue attacking without putting any thought into it. That was the only sense she could think of that Medusa didn't control. Just as the thought left her mind, she felt a slight sensation of air being pushed towards her leg and realized in a split second Medusa was about to slash at it, so she hopped up, turning in mid air and hoping to cut her while she was below, but it was as if nothing had been there. The wounds started to make her feel dizzy and she closed her eyes - as of now, they were useless anyway. She tried to concentrate, to predict where the next attack would come from, and another itching sensation, this time on her left temples, made her flash away - it was too dangerous to try and counter when her head was the aim of Medusa's attack, but she didn't have time to even think about it as she correctly predicted Medusa coming from the right and clashed her claw against a pair of fangs. Not knowing what would happen next, the only decision she could make now was to increase the distance between her and Medusa.

    The pain from her wounds started to cut into her mental stability, taking over rational thoughts, and it felt as if the pain exploded, but at the same time, the exploding pain gave Kasumi a decisive idea. She waited for the next attack, and felt it coming at her stomach. She didn't know whether it was a decision made from confidence or resolve, but she let Medusa strike her fangs through Kasumi's stomach.

    "I don't know which of my senses exactly you can fool. But I know this is real." she muttered, grabbing Medusa's arm with her left hand all of a sudden - it was something Medusa had not expected, and with a loud cry, Kasumi's claw followed the arm up to crash right below Medusa's chin. Then Kasumi lifted her leg and kicked Medusa away from her, removing the claw from her stomach - great, a third source of pain... but judging from the fact that there were neither more attacks nor arrogant speech, Medusa was dead. Kasumi opened her eyes again, and noticed that her vision had gone even blurrier than before. On the one hand, it probably had to do with her injuries as she never had to bear any like the ones she did now. Even though it was painful, it didn't feel as if she was going to die. On the other hand, the blurriness was also a result of her senses losing the influence Medusa had on her, and she could see Medusa's dead body on the floor as the environment around her changed to a construction site in the middle of Tokyo. She knew where she was... she could get home... but still, there was the pain, and it kept her from moving fast. She approximately turned to her home's direction and leaped forward, landing on a skyscraper's roof and hopping onward. Meanwhile, her face grimaced with pain, but she didn't feel like humpling home for two hours. She flew above Kyoto's skyline and eventually landed in front of the home she'd moved into... she hobbled towards it and opened the door to find her body on the couch, and it almost felt like it was sucking her in.
    The feeling of the pain being gone comforted her, yet, a new feeling appeared at the spot where she released her soul. It felt chillingly cold around her chest, but it was a lot better than bearing the pain of multiple wounds. After laying there for about twenty minutes, without even realizing it, she slowly drifted off into sleep, resting from the extremely exhausting and shocking fight.

    --------

    Later that night, all of a sudden, the doorbell rang. It woke Kasumi up, and she was undecided whether just to continue sleeping or to actually open the door. The guest didn't leave much time to decide as after only about twenty seconds the doorbell rang again, and Kasumi tried to pull herself out of the bed. She noticed that the strange, cold sensation had changed to a strong sensation of pain and she gritted her teeth as she walked past the door, opening the wardrobe and taking the USP handgun out of her winter jacket. Then, holding it behind her back, she opened the door.

    The second she saw Kou standing in front of her door, the pain in her chest exploded and she dropped her gun to the floor, grabbing her chest in pain, almost screaming. The happy expression on Kou's face instantly changed to a worried one. "What's wrong, Kasumi?"
    She leaned on the wall in order not to fall down and clenched her fist above her chest while looking at him. "Household accident. What do you want at this time of day?"

    "I got into major trouble. There were some kinds of weirdoes on the middle of the street fighting with ancient weapons, and when I threatened them to stop, they acted as if they couldn't even hear me. So I shot... and none of the people on the street remembered those people I shot at. Apparently it looked to the people as if I went crazy and blindly ravaged on the street, so they took my gun away and while they were at it, they also took my job. I have nowhere to go, I can't pay the motel... Kasumi, can I stay at your place? At least for a few weeks until I can stand on my own feet again?"

    As the unexplainable pain inside her chest swelled again, she sunk down and sat on the floor.
    "Half the rent, no questions if you find anything strange, and you can stay as long as you want to."

    Kou walked up to her and knelt down right in front of her. "Are you sure I shouldn't call an ambulance, Kasumi?"
    On the one hand, him caring about her made her somewhat happy, but in the same second, her vision blurred right in front of her eyes as the pain became so intense that her senses faded and she couldn't move anymore. She fell unconscious in the very second.

    -------

    When Kasumi regained consciousness and opened her eyes, she was glad she saw the inside of her bedroom. Her chest definitely felt better already... she turned on her bed and put her feet on the floor, slowly getting up and thinking of Kou. If what he'd said was true, he had gained the ability to see released souls, and probably would sooner or later discover that he could release his own soul too. Troublesome.

    She left her room and found Kou laying on the floor. What time was it? She took a look at her wristwatch and the answer was 05:51 AM.
    "I'm not sleeping." he mumbled.
    "Thanks for taking care of me." Kasumi smiled.
    "Don't mention it. You've been passed out cold the whole night. I wish I could've slept that well."

    Kasumi sat down next to him. "What's bothering you?"
    "I'm still not sure about what I've seen the other day. I can't believe no one else saw that, and I'm convinced it's real. Maybe I'm going crazy."

    It was quite the difficult situation for Kasumi. She decided to at least show him that what he saw might have been true.
    "Kou... you're not crazy. There's a change going through heaps of people right now."
    "A change?"
    "What you've seen were souls. Souls that are able to leave their bodies. I can't tell you why you see them, but I've seen it too. I've seen such a crazy monster coming out from a normal person's body."

    Kou looked at her with a skeptical look on his face. "You're just saying that to comfort me."
    "I'm serious. That's the reason why I asked you not to ask any questions. I'm ready to defend myself if these monsters come to me."
    "You know... I'm not that scared of being crazy anymore. At least I wouldn't be alone with it."

    They spent a while sitting there on the floor, and Kasumi was happy that she found someone to share home with her. Calm days were about to come, she decided to visit the clocktower this evening again and tell Mina about the battle, and while she was at it, she decided to take a break from the Alliance. Mina would understand that after a fight with a general Kasumi wanted to rest.
    "Oh, Kasumi... by the way." Kou cut into her thoughts. "How come you live in such a big house by yourself?"
    "My brother lived in this place, but he recently travelled to Europe. I was looking for someone to take his place here anyway."
    "What's he doing in Europe?"

    Kasumi's eyes looked into his, and she sighed. "I wish I knew, Kou."



    Meanwhile, in the outskirts of Berlin, Germany...

    There was a little warehouse just five kilometers outside Berlin next to the highway that connected the capital with Cologne. There were a lot of old, rusty containers around it and it looked abandoned. Two policemen were standing right in front of it.

    "So the woman claims some homeless people live in here now?"
    "Yeah, we just got the call earlier today. Apparently they're also making quite a noise, but who would actually care in a countryside like this?"
    "I found it weird from the beginning."
    "Yeah, but someone's here. Look, there's a car parked right next to the warehouse."

    One of them drew his gun and held it behind his back as the other one knocked on the door. Yet, nothing happened, the silence didn't get blown apart.
    Then, the other policeman drew his gun as well. A bunch of homeless was able to attack them out of desperation, after all. After breathing in deeply, he kicked the warehouse door in to find an empty warehouse right in front of him. A shockingly blunt sound to his left interrupted his thought process as suddenly a very cold sensation at the back of his head told him not to move.

    "Do you have family?" a cold, determined, young male voice asked.
    "Yes... a wife, and a wonderful daughter..."
    "You haven't seen anything, or anyone. Your friend tripped and hit the back of his head. You're going back to your car and you are taking him to the hospital. It appears as if whoever reported activity in this warehouse just wanted attention."

    The cold sensation on the back of his head disappeared, and the cop felt the urge to turn around, but he knew that if he saw the man's face, it would probably be over for him. He decided to wait, and after what felt like an eternity for him, he knelt down and picked his comrade up, going back to the police car. What a bad day.

    "That was harsh, Kyland." another male voice said. It belonged to someone who came out of a corner in the warehouse. He had chin-length brown hair, brown eyes and wasn't from the region, judging from the way his eyes looked. He wore a white blank shirt and blue jeans along with white sport sneakers and held a bottle of water in his right hand. He lifted it up and drank from it.
    "Don't be ridiculous, Daisuke. You don't know the police around here, if they ever find the slightest thing, they return over and over. I'm actually pretty convinced I'll hear of this one again - justice prevails, you know what they all think." Kyland replied. He was a bit taller than Daisuke, but looked pretty similar to him. They both had brown, chin-length hair, but Kyland's was more shagged and messed up. Both of them had brown eyes, yet, Kyland's face looked way more western. Aside that, Kyland usually wore black clothing, and there usually wasn't a problem telling them apart.

    "Yeah, I suppose I'm not used to that. In Kyoto, pretty much everyone disappeared. I'm not used to healthy places like Berlin."
    "You don't have to, Daisuke. Once Julian and Sarah get back, we're almost done here. Just one more expedition to the city, and then we're heading to whatever clues we get."

    Daisuke nodded and drank from his bottle of water again. Kyland had always been a weird person in his eyes, but a good-hearted. He came from another corner of Germany, the south-west. He was merely seventeen years old, but as it seemed, tragic events in his life had caused him to grow up faster than he had wanted to. Probably he hid a lot of personal problems and bad feelings beneath the barrier he seemed to hold up towards everyone except his childhood friend, Julian, who was another member of their four-man operation.
    Julian was one year younger than Kyland and had short brown hair. He was dutch, and that was pretty much all the information Daisuke had about him. He didn't seem to confident about himself, and though he was a person to have a lot of fun with, his personal life seemed like something that hurt him in a way.

    Sarah was the last person in the operation. She was nineteen years old, had shoulder-length, blonde hair and her home was France. She was a very optimistic, yet naive person, and probably would have died five times by now if it wasn't for Kyland taking care of her. Still, she was the driving force behind the operation, especially since as a medical student her abilities had often been irreplaceable. Her positive nature had often been the core of Kyland and Julian's motivation.

    "What's the matter with Julian?" Daisuke asked out of curiousity. He had been with them for rougly two weeks now, and had travelled through Spain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, but still hadn't gotten to know much about both Kyland and him. "What should be wrong?" Kyland replied. "I know he's not the best fighter, neither in his body nor in soul form, but he's the only one I trust. He's also becoming stronger faster than he thinks, it's just that everyone else around him also gets stronger, so he doesn't even notice that he's catching up."

    "That's not what I meant. I wanted to ask how you two got to know each other, and why exactly he is the only one you trust."

    Kyland closed his eyes. "Long story, Daisuke."

    "Ooooh, have you two been arguing again?" Sarah yelled from far away. She was running back towards the warehouse and Julian was right behind her, both of them ended up panting as they arrived. " 'ello, you two." Julian smiled.

    "Did you bring the guns?" Kyland asked.
    "Yeah, they're in my backpack. It was hard to find a dealer here in Berlin, but Sarah's charm works everytime." Julian opened his backpack and passed a Desert Eagle pistol to Kyland along with ten clips of ammo for it. Kyland attached them all on the inside of his belt and then hid the gun in his jacket. Then Julian turned to Daisuke and gave him an MP5 and ten clips for it as well. Daisuke didn't know where to put the clips and ended up stuffing them all into his pocket pants, hoping he'd be able to take them out in time if he needed to. Sarah received an M9 handgun, five clips and four grenades, two of them being smoke and the other two flash. She hid all of them on the inside of her zipped, grey sweater.
    Then Julian took another Desert Eagle out and stuffed the clips into the pockets of his black leather jacket.

    "Alright, let's go. Sarah, Daisuke, go ahead and argue which one of you will drive."
    "I'll let Sarah do it." Daisuke smiled. The four of them got into the car that was parked next to the warehouse and drove up onto the highway. After a drive of about twenty minutes, they arrived in front of Berlin's linguistic research and historic translation building. Sarah shut down the car's engine and Kyland checked the knife in his other pocket, then opened the door and looked around. A guard was standing right in front of the research facility's entrance and Kyland walked up to him as the others got out of the car.

    "Aye, sorry that we're here practically in the middle of the night, but there's something I couldn't get off my mind. Can I ask you a question?" Kyland smiled towards the guard.
    "Yeah, what's wrong?"

    "Is this where the maya calendar was translated that ended on the 21. December 2012?"
    "Yeah, why?"

    Kyland rammed his fist right into the guards face, and then knocked firmly on his throat with the side of his hand, making him faint.
    "This is the right place, guys. After all, who would guard a linguistic research facility? Take out your guns, we're going in. Remember, we don't want to shoot uninvolved people, but the Alliance knows we're here, it wouldn't surprise me if it's stuffed with their dogs right now."

    Kyland grabbed into his pocket and took out his gun, then reached for the knife in his other pocket and took it into his left hand right before kicking in the door to the research facility. His arm was stretched and his finger was ready to twitch, sending one of his enemies to hell, but he quickly put it back into his pocket again. "Someone was here before us, guys."
    The whole entrance hall was filled with blood and corpses of two scientists were laying on the floor. Sarah quickly ran up to one of them, and as a reaction, Kyland jumped forward and made sure no one besides them was in the hall.

    "They're dead for a while already, Kyle."
    "Let's hope we'll get our questions answered anyway." Kyle sighed, turning around to the others. "Sarah, Daisuke, you two take the south wing. Me and Julian are heading to the north wing. It's 04:14 AM, we meet here again at 04:44 AM, if you spot anything promising, do not go in unless you have to in order to save a life. I'd prefer if we headed in altogether."

    As Kyland and Julian left the entrance hall through the north wing gate, Daisuke heavily sighed. "Do you think these things actually don't touch him, Sarah?"
    "You should ask Julian about that. I don't know Kyle as well as he does, but I think he's just hiding it so we don't lose our focus."

    "Do you want to lead, or shall I take the front?"
    "I'll stay back, you've got that submachine gun."

    Daisuke took the lead and snuck towards the door that opened the south wing to find a disgusting view of more dead scientists scattered across the floor. The south wing was long and shaped like a square, but luckily only had one floor, and about seven rooms. Sarah was shocked from the sight and Daisuke decided to show determination in order to keep her going. He quickly walked up to one of the doors, kicking it open. A library. Nothing of interest. The next two rooms were toilets, and the fourth room was filled with books again. Number five and six were storage rooms, and number seven was filled with devices that they couldn't properly identify. Of course, there was the occasional corpse here and there, but nothing they were looking for. "Let's go back, Sarah."

    "Daisuke, why do you think they killed all these people?"
    "You know why we're here. We're trying to find out whether someone forced these people to change the facts, whether the twentysecond of December is a lie, and if we can confirm that, the next step is to see what purpose it had. We're done in this wing, let's wait in the main hall until Julian and Kyland are done."

    Sarah nodded.

    -------

    The surprise was quite easy to read off Mina's face expression.
    Three days had passed since the battle against Medusa, and Mina already had been worried about Kasumi, visiting the Clocktower every evening. She hadn't been able to put her absence into any context as the illusion created by Medusa hadn't left a single opening, and now that she heard Kasumi's version of the story, the fact that Medusa had not been seen after the battle made a lot more sense. The illusion that Leo, Cricket and her had been under served as proof that it was Medusa who attacked Kasumi, so no charges were made against her.

    The fact that one of the Alliance's General was dead meant that there would be a replacement necessary, and usually these things were solved in a tournament competing about who is the currently strongest person one rank under General. However, since Kasumi herself had defeated Medusa, the result was an instant promotion of hers to General after she would leave the state of being Mina's pupil. It would be one of the fastest careers in the Alliance, and nothing else was expected of Mina's pupil. It looked like she was proud, yet Kasumi was worried - it might mess up her plans. Who would, if not her, be accused if any murders were noticed?
    Anyhow, the promotion also had its advantages, Kasumi would be on an equal level with the highest of Kyoto's Alliance, and it would be way easier to find the identities of the other Generals.

    By clearing her throat, Mina pulled Kasumi's attention in again. "General Leo will give you the mark of the General once I release you. Have you heard about that already?"
    Kasumi shook her head.
    "Leo, as our oldest general, possesses the Marking Knife. It's a knife whose blade can cut the body by touching the soul. With the backside of the knife, he will touch your right eye, and your body's right iris will change to a pale, yellow color. That way, if in danger, any Alliance member can entrust themselves by you after they recognize you."

    Kasumi nodded. She expected something like that to happen, a mark that would show she was an Alliance General... and she was willing to take it. It actually benefitted her plans - she could contact her victims easily, and take them by surprise. She smiled, and her smile gave a positive reaction to Mina.
    "Are you happy with all of that, Crow?"
    "First of all, I'm glad I survived the fight, and that I've already regenerated... Being a General seems like a heavy burden to carry, since I'd prefer playing a defensive role in the Alliance, but I'll do my best."

    "Alright. Then I'll dismiss our meeting for now. Tomorrow at 8 o'clock in the evening, come to the University. We'll pick you up at the entrance."

    As Mina disappeared into the night, Kasumi felt a weird feeling of satisfaction. Jumping down the clocktower and returning home, she noticed an unknown car parked in front of her home. Before she'd enter the house through her room's open window, she decided to check out the car and cracked its front window open, crawling in and checking all the sheds for a hint about what the person was after. Was it a friend of Kou's visiting him, or was it something potentially dangerous? If it was, her body wasn't in danger - after all, she would be dead already if something had happened to her body.
    Looking for any clues, she opened the glove locker and found a little photo album. The pages were all made on the same scheme - on the left side of each page, there was always a single picture, and on the right side, there were multiple pictures lined up. Some of the pictures, on each side, on some pages, were crossed out with a black pen. Then, on one page, on the right side, she saw a picture of Daisuke and her pulse quickly grew.

    On the right side, there were two pictures.

    One of them was a picture of her parents, crossed out.

    The other one was a picture of herself.

    Almost in panic, Kasumi jumped out of the car, running to the windows to see what was happening. She wasn't sure whether the unknown stranger was able to see her in her soul form, but she could see Kou sitting in the living room. He was talking, his mouth was moving, but his conversation partner was in a corner where she couldn't see him - but it meant that both of them were in the living room. She ran on and jumped through her window, entering her body. Her hand instantly reached for the AK-74u nailed behind her bed and two clips in her closet, and then she kicked her own door open, pointing her gun at the stranger in her living room.

    He was a tall, muscluar, blonde man with glasses on his eyes that kept her from seeing his eyes. He was wearing a black tuxedo and black dress shoes. When Kou saw her pointing the gun at him, he panicked. "What the hell is going on here?" he yelled.

    Kasumi's trigger finger itched, but there were too many questions in her head to shoot. "What the hell do you want from Daisuke?" she snarled.

    "Daisuke? I've made him an offer, because I really needed his help, but he refused. So after a while I came again, I really need to convince him."

    Kasumi's eyes moved to Kou, and it seemed like he had no idea what was going on around him. "Who's the guy, Kou?"
    "It's a police lieutenant from around here... he was the only one who believed my story, and when I saw him come here, I wanted to talk to him."

    The submachine gun's ironsight quietly rested on the police officer's forehead. "Make a move and I'll pull the trigger. I'll ask again. What do you want from Daisuke?"
    "I want his help. He's a good man that I could need in my department."

    "Your... department? Isn't it quite corrupt to kill his parents and threaten to kill his sister in order to put some pressure on him? Or have you already come to kill his sister?"

    When Kou heard what she said, his face expression turned from shocked to fierce. "Is that true, Lieutenant?"
    Kasumi was certain that this person in front of her had something to do with either Resistance or Alliance. All in all, he would have a soul. She knew exactly she would be unable to pull the trigger here, in her home, against a person that Kou had a friendship with - but if she just managed to beat his soul out...

    She reminded herself of how she first left her body when Daisuke was with her. A blunt release that threw her on the wall, and this time, it had to be the same to use the surprise effect. All of a sudden, she dropped the gun and released her soul as her body collapsed and fell to the floor. With her claw pointed out, she directly flew towards the Lieutenant, pressing his soul out of his body and against the wall. When she saw who he was, the moment of surprise was enough for her to be pushed away.

    "Crow?!"

    "Droth?!"

    Droth was standing right in front of her, and she saw the Lieutenant's body collapsed as well. Her eyes fell on Kou, and she remembered she had her hood on - she put it down so Kou could see it was her. "Don't worry, Kou, this is really happening." she muttered to him, feeling guilty that she hadn't told him the truth from the very beginning.

    "This is just too delicious! I'd never have thought Crow is Angel's sister!"

    Kasumi turned her eyes on Droth. "You've fought me in my very first battle. My powers have drastically increased. I've taken down a General by myself, and I'm the replacement for that very General. I might even let you out here alive if you tell me what exactly you are plotting."

    Droth started to laugh manically. "Tell you?!" When he raised his head, Crow was gone. Where was she? Suddenly he felt an explosion of pain right in his neck and knew that she had attacked him - how could she be so fast?
    "That was unnecessary, Droth. I can just press it out of your body. You could have lived on."

    Droth wanted to grab her and throw her off his neck, but suddenly he felt another explosion of pain on his left temple, and it advanced towards the middle. In a split second, his vision turned to black and he couldn't even finish his last thought. Kasumi had stabbed through his head.

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