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The next morning, I woke up and showered before nine. I pulled on a pair of jeans I’d work on the Neivila trip and tore the knee of. The knee wasn’t completely torn though it was threadbare. I heard something hit my door as Kairi jumped on my bed and I pulled my socks and boots on. She ran to the door and opened it. She picked up a package saying,
“It’s from Phyress!”
She ran back over asking,
“Can I open it?”
“Sure I said zipping my one boot. I didn’t are the heavy-duty Twi-LIGHT boots, I decided to ware snow boots for a change.
She tore it open and tossed me the note and pulled out the item inside. I skimmed the note it read:
Hey Aki! You said it was okay I call you Aki, right? Anyway! ^.^ Celes got back in the morning, she managed to escape even before Exodus got their asses in gear. Anyway, here’s you’re copy of the T-shirt I had made!
-Phyress
Kairi pulled it out, it was an orange T-shirt that said in big, black, capital, block letters, “fear my spongy circus peanuts of doom” with three exclamation points. I smiled saying,
“She said she wanted to do this. I didn’t think she’d remember though…or get it done so quickly.’
“Spongy circus peanuts? Those things are nasty!”
“Alas, you also bear a grudge to their spongy marshmallow-y goodness?”
“They taste like cat poop.”
“How would you know what cat poop tastes like?”
“I ate those things.”
“Why don’t you go pick on the Wicked Witch of the Garage?” I asked idly referring to Rei. Kairi had also showered and gotten dressed. She also had a white dress on Megami.
“I guess. She’s fun to pick on.”
“Just tell me one thing;” I said folding the T-shirt and putting it on my dresser. “Why haven’t you asked if you could come with me?”
“Because my mommy said first dates are special and shouldn’t be messed up with other people tagging along.”
“Sounds like your mother was a bit of a flake.”
“She was a flake.” Kairi confirmed. “See you later. I’m going to go pick on the Wicked Witch of the Garage.”
She left skipping and humming “I Don’t Know Why She Swallowed The Fly”. I couldn’t remember who wrote the song, but it used to be fairly common…a long time ago.
I glanced into the mirror and shook my head picking up my cell phone saying,
“The only reason I’m doing this is to kick his ass at air hockey…”
I met him downstairs, and we headed out to an arcade.
“Alright,” He said loading the tokens into the machine as the air activated, “Let’s see who’s going to do the ass-kicking here.”
The arcade was huge, all with the carpeted walls and glow-in-the-dark equipment. It also made anything white you wore glow green.
I held the putter and got ready, the puck popped out on my end and I placed it in front of my putter and shot it forward faster than he could react and it slammed into his goal. I smiled evilly and he pulled it out and replaced it on the board, it took a few slams before I scored against him again. By the end of the game, it was twenty-one to zero.
After another ten games, I’d won all ten although the last few had only been by a few points. He was catching on to my tricks; like how I always slammed the puck right into his goal if I got it first and how I always did it from the same angle so he started guarding that angle. He also took advantage of how far I’d reach to hit the puck, and would bounce it off the side into my goal. I also slammed it so hard sometimes it’d fly right off the board, and he also took advantage of that by guarding once side of his goal instead of trying to hit the little bullet and having it fly into his goal.
After a good hour or more of air hockey, the score was twenty-five to twenty-five.
“Tie breaker.” I said placing the puck on the table with my putter over it.
He loaded it with another two tokens, and it started up.
It was a touch game, and I won the tide breaker by one point.
After that we found a candy store, but they didn’t have the spongy circus peanuts! I even asked the clerk who had no idea. We decided to get ice cream cones for breakfast, and I got a think of orange juice just to make Cloud grimace.
“You’re going to give yourself an ulcer.”
“So what? They’ve got chewable pills that’ll neutralize ulcers.”
“Ulcers are holes in the lining of the stomach, they’re not neutralized, they’re repaired.”
I licked my chocolate ice cream cone, and slugged down some orange juice saying,
“Yes, mother.”
“Now who’s the wise ass?”
“That’s crab’s ass to the likes of you!” I said with a smile, “Want to check out the bowling ally? It’s still kinda early, so there probably won’t be too many people there.”
“Sounds good, but I think you just want to take advantage of a person who never bowled before to get a hands-down victory, since my defeat in air hockey wasn’t an embarrassing defeat like you wanted it to be.”
“Never gone bowling, eh? Good, nor have I.”
“You haven’t?” He asked surprised. “I did think you were just shooting for a way to kick my ass at something.”
“And that’s how you should think.” I said crunching on my cone.
As it turned out, we both did absolutely terrible. I think the final score was only ten to nine, Cloud won by one point. After that, we ended up at electronics shop, and debated about which type of PC was better; good-old Alien Ware, or Watase. Although Watase was Nohinog, I loved Alien Ware PCs party for their name, but they were also affordable with good memory and other stats. The name and logo were my favorite parts, though. I also checked out the new Razor phone, this could record up to one hundred twenty-four hour videos and over ten thousand pictures. Although I never could father saving ten thousand pictures, somebody must be able to…who? No idea. I did like a few of it’s features, like the video camera for calling, hardly anybody had cell phones you spoke over anymore, it’s was all videoed and transferred at the speed of light.
“You should just get an Exodus phone so you can use their satellites.”
“Don’t be such an old fart, besides you need a phone and you’re only a tag along. Exodus doesn’t employ you, so statically you’d be the one to get a cell phone if anyone where buying one.”
“Yeah, but cell phone plans are a rip off and why do I need one?”
“You’re so dense, in this day and age cell phones are just used as video cameras and cameras, the Razor I was checking out is a fifty mega-pixel too.”
He shook his head saying,
“Don’t normal girls get into arguments like this over clothes?”
“Phones and computers are more fun, they do something unlike clothes. Unless I’m trudging through snow and would like a few layers, I really could care less about something as mundane as clothes.”
“True, you’d rather dump bottles of freezing cold on people.”
I smiled evilly asking,
“You’re still sour about that?”
“Not really, but I figured I’d mention it.” He replied smirking slightly as he added, “I did get you utterly flabbergasted last night so we’re even.”
I scowled saying,
“Anyway, weren’t we going to check out the time of the fire-work show at that amusement part tonight?”
“Fair enough, although I suppose you’re also going to want to buy passes to go on the rides.”
“If there’s a good roller coaster, naturally.”
The fire works were to be at nine, and we did get passes to go on the rides, and by four o’clock, we’d been on ever roller coaster in the part, there were forty-seven so it too four hours to get on them all. We had all-day passes so we’d be able to go on the freest wheel for the fireworks that night, and left to get some dinner. We ended up at a fast-food place, mainly for the chocolate shakes for desert.
“Quite the little chocoholic, aren’t you?” He asked and finished my medium chocolate shake. He wasn’t a chocolate fan, since he got vanilla.
“Chocolate kicks vanilla’s ass. Although, I’d prefer a white chocolate shake, conventional chocolate suits me, so yes I am a bit of a chocoholic.”
“If I didn’t know how much activity you got, I’d question how you didn’t gain two-hundred pounds with all the sweets you eat.”
“I eat my vegetables, you’re nobody to talk with all the caramel you slopped on your ice cream earlier.”
“Very true. At least I don’t wash it down with orange juice.”
“Orange juice and ice cream is all well and good, but orange juice and M&Ms is choice.”
He shook his head saying,
“You have a really disturbing sense of taste.”
“Arigato gozaimasu.”
After killing some time around twilight at the amusement part with the haunted house and other random rides, the water flumes, and another ride on the roller coaster that twists you around in the dark, it was nine as we got in line for a ride on the freest wheel to watch the fire works.
“Tomorrow will be fun, I get to plan the trip to Nohin with Maaya, get safe transportation over to Nohin because Kairi will be with us, find her family and decide what Exodus forces can be spares since it’s still a complete battleground around and most likely inside by now Neivila. We probably won’t have Celes and Phyress with us, since they’ll need maximum guards at Exodus HQ in case Twi-LIGHT decides to attack there too. Although Ragnarok’s wars are taking place within, going over seas will be risky if we have to go to Mazar. Nohin is our ally, but since the Mazar borders them, and we’re all Ragnarokains aside from Maaya and Rei, we’ll be in dangerous ground if we have to go north.”
He wrapped his around my shoulders and pulled me against him saying,
“Leave the Twi-LIGHT and Exodus talk for tomorrow, okay?”
“I suppose” I said resting my head against his shoulder and watched the fireworks.
As expected, Maaya ambushed me when I reported in. I’d left my cell phone with Kairi and let her run the battery down with all the games I’d downloaded so Rei and Maaya couldn’t pester me. It was charging on the dresser, and I had forty-two missed calls. I looked over the list, and they were all Rei and Maaya. I sighed and shook my head. I called Maaya back, deciding to avoid Rei because the Venerated Dragon would bite my head off and breathe flame on me.
“Akhy!” Maaya said brightly picking up on the first ring, “How was the date?”
“How the hell-”
“Kairi told me.”
I scowled and put it on speaker phone saying,
“Do you want to start planning the trip to Nohin tonight? I was thinking taking a normal passenger boat might be best, it’d be a less likely target for Twi-LIGHT. A Exodus jet, even undercover, would be target practice for them.”
“Mmm, it’s not a bad idea. Have you done any searching for Kairi’s family in Nohin?”
“Not yet, she hasn’t given me her last name.”
“Best you ask, she wouldn’t tell anybody else. Anyway, have fun on the date?”
“I was also thinking we should only take two guards like we did with Celes and Phyress, I doubt they’ll want to accompany us again, but the smaller of a group we are the better.”
“They already both decided to join us to Nohin, so that won’t be a problem. What did you do today?”
“Although I’m sure Niketa will insist upon coming, you might want to hang around here since the Blood Crystal might bring us to the Mazar border.”
“I’ll blend in, I’m Nohinog after all. Rei is half and half, so she’ll do fine too. Did you kiss yet?”
I opened my laptop and placed my cell phone down on the night stand saying,
“Mmm, Rei and you will do fine. I really wish Niketa wasn’t so hell-bent on tagging along, she’s a civilian with beside no combat skills.”
“Is the fact she’s a civilian the part that bothers you, or is she too good of competition?”
“Having another fatality waiting to happen is what bothers me.”
“Sure it’s not because you’re intimidated by the competition of a normal girl without big shoulders and callused hands?”
“The Blood Crystal is located in the temple half in Nohin and half in Sivla, right? How’s that analysis on the sword coming?”
“Yes, the last record of the Blood Crystal from three thousand and eight-two years ago said it was in the border shrine between the two old warring countries in the center of the Scar. We’ve analyzed the sword, it’s genuine. It has the exact same pulse and aura as Skyevi’s other relics. Anyway, if you’re not going to talk about your date why don’t you come down and we’ll discuss the trip in person.”
“Sure. See you then.” I said hanging up.
I decided not to take a shower and let it wait until morning, since Maaya might not bother me tomorrow if we took care of a large amount of the trip planning tonight. I flipped open my cell phone and looked at the maps of the building Maaya had downloaded. I was pretty sure when she said “come down” she meant her suite room ten floors below my room. I took the stairs, as usual, and left my weapons in my room. I did bring my laptop in its little bullet-proof case though. I knocked on the door of her room, and it swung open as Maaya said,
“You’re key will work on this door.”
I raised my eyebrows and closed the door behind me saying,
“Are you sure that’s safe? I’m a total newbie to Exodus life after all.”
“You’re my friend, it’s fine.” She said plopping down on the sofa. The room was mainly dark purple, carpet and furniture that is. All the material on the furniture was velvet. Maaya had always liked velvet, and owned a lot of velvet clothes. She wore black velvet pants and a velvet sleeve-less shirt to prove my point.
I sat down next to her on the sofa and opened the suitcase and placed my laptop on coffee table and opened up the maps of the ports of Nohin I’d saved, and singed on to get more information on passenger ferries.
After I gave her the information, and suggested we take one that left at ten to blend in with the rest of the crowd, it’d be best not to make any elaborate entrances. I’d have to get Kairi’s last name before we decided which ferry we’d take, which ever was closer to her possible grandparent’s address would be recommended.
I was about to go into what weapons we’d been to sneak on to the ferry when I heard a knock on the door. Maaya jumped up and answered it, greeting the visitor happily. Niketa poked her head in asking,
“Is Doomsday here already?”
I scowled saying,
“If you’re looking for me, name’s Zahra. Akhyu Zahra.”
“Doesn’t matter what name you’re living under now, you’re still Akhyia Doomsday.”
“Ragnarok!” I snapped.
“You do know ‘Ragnarok’ is the battle before the end of the world between Asgard, realm of the gods, and Midgard, the realm of the humans, right? I believe there were only to be two survivors, that hid on branches of the life tree Yggdrasil.”
“Next you’ll talk about valkyries and Odin.” I said with a scowl. “I bet you just researched that before coming. Norse Mythology isn’t hard to learn about.”
“Valkyries are also interesting, although Ragnarok is the most interesting to me.” She said delicately perching on the armchair across from me. Maaya plopped on the sofa saying,
“No fighting. So, what do you say to spending another six days here before heading to Nohin? We want to make absolute control over Neivila before going to Nohin, and we need to get Kairi’s information to find her family, so we have a bit of work to do.”
“As long as the Blood Crystal is in the same shrine it’s supposed to be in, we won’t have to get close to Mazar. If we do though, we’ll have to be careful and make sure Kairi isn’t with us, dropping her off with her family will be our first order of business. We don’t know how long we’re going to be in Geosprit, so we should bring a lot of supplies with us, we also have to get more data on relics in Geosprit, and make sure Mazar is free of them.”
“And what if Mazar still has a relic?” Niketa challenged.
“It’d be suicide to go after it.” Maaya chimed in. “It’d be best to come to that one last, there are more than just the Blood Crystal in Geosprit.”
“Mazar will be a problem no matter what, the only reason the government was able to get the pendant from them was because they had a huge army of soldiers with the government’s forces and Twi-LIGHT’s. We’d need an entire the Exodus army to take on Mazar if trial by combat was how it turned out, but since Mazar would declare war on Ragnarok if we did that, we’d have to sneak in to get it. Anyway, we’re going to Nohin not Mazar.”
I listed off the prices of ferry passage, how long it would take if everything went as planned, that we’d want to wait eight days instead of six since there was a storm in the Arikey Ocean that stretched between Ragnarok and Geosprit, and that we’d probably want to get a rental in Nohin. Maaya stood up after I listed off the stats saying,
“Anybody want a snack? It’s eight, but I didn’t have any dinner. Anybody up for takeout? I’m on the mood for some pizza.”
“Sure, sounds good.” Niketa said as Maaya walked off into her kitchen to make the call. Niketa stared me straight in the eyes saying,
“Have fun today shunting your responsibilities, Doomsday?”
I scowled asking,
“What did I neglect?”
“Not only are you supposed to be taking care of Kairi, you’re also supposed to index your weaponry and reload your firearms, and report in when you’re going out. It doesn’t bother Maaya, but you’re ignoring Exodus code.”
“Indexing and reloading my weaponry takes hardly and hour, and maintenance on my motorcycle also only takes an hour.”
“So what about Kairi?”
“She eavesdropped the whole time, she didn’t have any objections.”
“Any objections she did have, she didn’t share with you because she doesn’t want to act like a baby, you know she’s stubborn like that.”
“It’s not really any of your business, you know? It’s my life.”
“Very true.” She said leaning back in the chair, “But as long as I tag along with you your problems become mine with time.”
I scowled as Maaya reentered the room saying,
“Pizza will be here in a half hour!”
“I’m sure Doomsday has more data to ring off until then, right?”
I scowled saying,
“Don’t call me Doomsday.”
I stood up saying,
“I’m going to turn in, I already ate.”
Maaya looked a little concerned as she asked,
“You sure? You usual pounce every chance to get pizza, I order half pepperoni too.”
I smiled slightly saying,
“Yeah, I’m sure. I have a bunch of indexing to do tomorrow and I need to make sure my motorcycle is working perfectly, and bribe Kairi into telling me her last name with ice cream and most likely a trip to the amusement part or something along those lines.”
“Sayonara, Doomsday.”
I walked to the door and Maaya hopped up and stopped me saying quietly,
“Can I ask you a question in the hall real quick?”
“Hmm? Sure.” She closed the door behind us saying,
“I figured you wouldn’t want me to ask this in front of Niketa, so is it true Nimbostratus has a replica?”
“Uhh, yeah. I fought him and he helped me escape Twi-LIGHT once. Why?”
“Well, Celes said that a person with short black hair, a scar on his right cheek about two inches long, but other wise looked exactly like Anan helped her escape. Sound familiar?”
“Yeah, sorta. I did give him the scar, but he still had blond hair last I saw him. I suppose he could have been enlisted in the Twi-LIGHT army, Trenxi said he was a failure since he acted nothing like Cloud for the most part.”
Maaya nodded gravely saying,
“Celes said he disappeared, didn’t go back to Twi-LIGHT. Do you have any idea where he’d be going?”
“Not really…he’d have no idea where we are, right?”
She shook her head saying,
“Twi-LIGHT doesn’t even know we’re here in Scixen. Celes said she didn’t tell him where she was going, so I doubt he’d be able to find you. But you’re sure there isn’t any place significant he might try going?”
“If there is, I have no idea.” I replied truthfully.
“Alright, it’s just we want to collect as many Twi-LIGHT specimens as we can so we might be able to find a way to such the divine power from their bodies. Since the divine power is integrated with their ‘souls’ it’d probably kill them, but anything to give us the advantage over Twi-LIGHT’s superhuman army would help.”
A lump formed in my throat as I asked,
“Another words, you’re going to try using the relics to call back the power that’s within their bodies.”
She nodded and went to re-enter her room, but forgot her card and had me open the door for her with mine.
“See?” She asked brightly, changing the mood. “I knew it’d be a good idea to let you have a master key!”
I shook my head, smiling slightly as I added,
“Night, Maaya.”
“Night!”
I walked down the hall and to the stairwell, pondering going to see if Kairi was still awake, but she’d probably be asleep by now. She was only eight after all, although it was easy to forget sometimes.
I reached my room, and once again I found her snoozing with Megami on my bed. I shook my head and closed the door behind me as she jumped up, not surprised just enthusiastic.
“Have fun on your date? I woke up when I heard you entering your room when you got back, my room is directly below yours.”
“Mmm, I did enjoy myself although there’s not going to be much time for it until everything is taken care of, we’re heading to Nohin beginning of next weak.”
She eyes brightened as she asked,
“Really? To grandma and grandpa?”
I nodded saying,
“Yeah, but I can’t find out where they are in Nohin unless you give me their last name.”
She was silent a few second before saying,
“Iida.” She replied. “Haruka and Hiromu Iida.”
I sat down beside her and opened my laptop and did the search on the “Find A Person” website.
“Do they know you’re alive?”
She shook her head no saying,
“They think I died with mommy and daddy.”
I did the search as she requested, but neither name came up with elderly couples. I was starting to worry a little, I even took out the “in Nohin” part of my search so I looked worldwide, but there weren’t any Iida couples born in the same years or fit the information Kairi gave me.
“Can you check ‘Rizura Levanth’?”
“Levanth? Isn’t that a Mazarain name?”
She shrugged saying,
“Maybe. He was a friend of mine, I want to know if the family he told me about really exists or is alive. He said he had sisters in Geosprit that were learning about Ragnarok before they got visas to come over here for proper schooling. He said the only reason he was brought here was because the family he worked for came here, but died so he had no where to go.”
I did the search as she instructed, and with numerous Levanths almost all in Mazar. I clicked on the first Rizura Levanth that came up, and when the picture of a young Mazarain boy appeared Kairi chimed in with,
“That’s him! What’s it say?”
I realized she couldn’t read the profile provided, although it was in Ragnarokain.
Royal ninth son of the Mazarain emperor, Rozard Levanth, died at the age of three in the raid on the Mazar capital palace by the Ragnarok army.
I read the entire thing myself, and lied about what it said when I read it to Kairi. She didn’t question me, although she looked a little disappointed.
I tried cheering her up saying we could have fun tomorrow after I took care of Exodus stuff, even though she smiled before heading down to her room I felt dissatisfied. All I’d accomplished was crushing a little girl’s hope.
The elevator opened shortly after the stairwell doors closed, for Kairi had started mimicking me with random things like that and Cloud stepped out. I scowled saying,
“I have work to do. What do you want?”
“Is it against the law to visit you? Last I checked you didn’t have a restraining order against me.”
“Yet.”
He smirked slightly asking,
“Going to Nohin after the storms clear, right?”
“Mmm.” I nodded, “Seas will stiff be messy though, hope you have a strong stomach.”
The next day I took care of my duties, took Kairi for a walk around the part and bought her ice cream, and spend the rest of the day doing research and planning in-deep plans of where we were going, making reservations at a hotel near the port, reserving the ten o’clock ferry for Tuesday, and downloaded maps of Nohin into my cell phone. I also found out where all the large libraries were, Nohin would have numerous books about their mythology and legends. Hopefully all the “oni” or “demons” in their legends didn’t drive me crazy. I read their kanji, but got sick of translating ramblings about oni. The word sounded too much like onion, and made we want a sandwich if I was hungry.
The rest of the week was uneventful, and I was glad to finally be doing something when Tuesday came. We were standing in the crowd of people waiting to get on the ferry, and I was already mumbling curses under my breath. The ocean had white-caps popping up everywhere, I was surprised they were sailing today. I saw a movement in the shadows of the closed gift shop behind me out of the corner of my eyes, but when I looked nothing was there.
“What’s wrong?” Cloud asked noticing I got distracted.
“Nothing.” I replied.
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