The next day around dusk, the sky had a soft glow as Ray and Jiro stepped out of a car to a green scenery. In Front of them was a huge wooden mansion.
"Are you sure this is the place..?" Ray asked, staring at the mansion.
"No the driver we were given for this dropped us off at a haunted mansion " Jiro said sarcastically. "This is definitely the place, Reinscorn mansion"
"Fancy…" said Ray, his gaze not leaving the house."Who knew he lived in this kind of place."
"Actually, I heard he left this house as soon as he turned Eighteen." Jiro corrected Ray, as he walked towards the doorstep. "Lived in his own little cottage apparently, he kinda sounds like you" Jiro chuckled.
"Huh in what way?" Ray questioned as he caught up with Jiro, which Jiro ignored. They reached the doorstep and knocked gently.
The door opened and in front of them appeared Yuriko.
"Oh hello!" said Yuriko, smiling. "Come in"
They walked through a corridor striding along the carpet. They passed many doors but finally turned to one on the right and walked into a sitting room. The room was huge and had comfortable chairs set around, the walls were all hidden with bookshelves with tons of material. The wall to the furthest of them was sliding glass doors letting in a faint light. There were three other people in the room sitting in the chairs, Dyré, a boy with scruffy brown hair and what seemed to be real cat ears and a girl with long black hair and red eyes wearing full black clothes with no sleeves.
"Woah a cat" Ray exclaimed to which Dyré chuckled.
"Yo, My name's Yachine nice to meet you Ray and Jiro" said Yachine shaking Ray's hand smiling looking at Ray as if he was frozen. His eyes were big and yellow, pupils narrow.After a moment of awkwardness Yachine let go of Ray's hand.
"Hmmm.. I really can't seem to get it Dyré" said Yachine sinking into thought.
"Get what…" said Ray confused making a weird face.
"That's cause you're an idiot," said The girl behind him.
"You're merciless, you know that Toki…" said Yachine awkwardly scratching his head. Toki threw an irritated look at Yachine before turning her attention toward Ray and Jiro.
"Ah my name is Toki, Nice to meet you" said Toki, both parties smiling.
"Well let's head on out." said Dyré grunting as he stood up from his chair.
Everyone walked out to the back of the mansion to a garden. The garden was huge with fountains and trees and flowers of any kind. They reach a path made of bushes with many blooming flowers that led to a circle with a gravestone in the middle of it.Everyone paid their respects. Jiro stood behind Ray who went forward with a bouquet of sword lily flowers and kneeled down placing it in front of the gravestone. It read:
Parser Reinscorn
2038 - 2070
"Till the world falls and my sword shatters,
I will protect you"
'cheesy…heh guess I never really got the chance to know you properly,our time together was short lived… but even then everything that's been said and what I've seen myself.I can tell you were truly a kind person.'
Ray thought to himself, staring over the gravestone. 'Till the world falls and my sword shatters huh… I'll keep that in mind.'
He stood back up and turned around to everyone talking to one another. The atmosphere had become a little lighter.
They all head back in, but before Ray can enter back into the house.
"Ah where did I leave my bag?" said Yuriko looking around. Ray turned around looking around the garden to find Yuriko's bag.
"Ah it's over there." said Ray pointing under a bench. Yuriko picked it up and both of them headed into the house.
As Ray and Yuriko walked through the hallway they bumped into a Tall man with light skin and long wavy blonde hair. His green eyes gazed over Ray as he wore a cold expression.
'Who's this he's giving me the heebie jeebies.' Ray thought to himself, completely creeped out.
"Ah hello there.." said Ray nervously as the man gazed over him.
"oh he's just coming back from visiting Parser's grave Uncle Kayder." explained Yuriko quickly stepping forward into the awkward encounter.
"Huh uncle?" Ray stood confused.
"Parser…" said Kayder grimly.
"What a pitiful end for him," said Kayder calmly, stepping closer to Yuriko who had her head down, her joyful expression completely gone. "Running into a losing battle just to buy time for some useless city folk-"
"Hey…" Ray interrupted, clenching his fist. "How can you say that about someone who gave their life for millions…"
He said scowling at Kayder.
"Do you see him as a hero?…" said Kader, scarily calm. "Tell me boy… what will that Hero do when Ronald comes back?"
Ray stood in front of him speechless, Yuriko behind him head down.
"Yes if one of ours can expend themselves for some extra time maybe it wouldn't be meaningless…" said Kayder as he walked towards Ray now side by side facing opposite directions. "But make no mistake boy, Parser was anything but expendable."
After a pause Kayder began to walk away.
"Hey-" Ray stopped as he felt a hand grab his arm. He looked back to see Yuriko with a gloomy expression.
"It's fine…" said Yuriko hesitantly. "He means well…"
**
"WHAT KIND OF HEARTLESS MONSTER SAYS THAT! He was making good points and all but he could have been nicer about it" Ray complained as he sat in one of the chairs in the sitting room along with Yachine, Toki and Dyré. "That guy pisses me off."
"I've heard stories about how cold he is but that's really awful." said Toki as she fidgeted with her hands on her lap.
"Yeah…" Yachine agreed, sitting with his legs crossed on a chair.
"Ehh, different people have different ways of things." Dyré interjected. "He's a nice guy if you get to know him really… Like he's letting us use this place to stay for a while."
"Huuh, isn't this just Yuriko letting us stay?" said Ray, picking his nose unimpressed.
"Nope Yuriko doesn't live here." Yachine replied."She and Parser lived in a small cottage in the outer city of Nadir, the same as the other special ranks."
"What but I thought we had the little rooms in the castle," said Ray, slightly confused.
"Well the eleven of us do have rooms there but you're not forced to stay," Toki chimed in. "Gamman village is where we train so spending most of our time there we grow more comfortable… plus takes away the travel time."
"So this Gamman village is the outer 'city' ?" Ray asked, somehow managing to squeeze his face completely without the use of his hands. Toki and Yachine looked concerned but also curious about Ray's anatomy.
"Uhh… Well as much as we have all the stuff a city would have in the end we don't really call it that. These are all just villages to us, we just use 'city' to help u get the gist of things."
"I see-" Before Ray can say anything more the door opens and a voice cuts him off.
"Oi Ray! heard you already managed to get onto Kayders bad side," said Tenki as he floated his way in snickering to which Ray stuck his tongue out to him.
"Aren't you late?" said Ray with a smug look on his face.
"Yeah right, I've been here for a while now you fool." Tenki snapped back."The monoliths had met up before and we just finished chatting up a bit."
"Yeah whatever…" said Ray, ignoring Tenki as he picked his ear to which Tenki showed disgust.
"So you finished everything up?" asked Dyré as he remained seated.
"Yeah the others are gone." Tenki replied as he sat on his cloud hovering over the ground next to Ray. "I'll be off now, Toki you want me to drop you to gamman before I head home?"
"I already said I'm fine, just go already." Toki replied flustered, Yachine snickered.
"Oh oh… This is what I get for trying to be a good brother…" said Tenki as he was floating out the door dramatically.
"That's your sister?" said Ray as he compared both of them side by side, red eyes, black hair. "Ah I guess that much was obvious…"
"Dumbass…" said Tenki, face palming with a cloud hand."Hey where's that other guy you're with?"
"Huh? oh you mean Jiro" said Ray as he delved into thought."He's…"
***
"At times like these all we need is a little food to fix!" Yuriko proclaimed as she and Jiro stepped into a bakery. The building unlike the rest Jiro had seen was made of concrete and quite modern.
"These parts are quite different from the rest of Nadir huh?" said Jiro as he looked around to see ready-made pastries on display.
"Yeah That's because these parts are newly built." Yuriko explained as she pointed out the items she wanted to the worker behind the glass of pastries. "No one really saw the use of rebuilding the old parts"
"Why not? I'm sure they could use some enhancements." said Jiro.
"Yeah that's the reason," Yuriko continued, as they reached the counter. "Those cottages all have electricity, lights, air conditioning you name it.The only thing different is the outer appearance so why change it." She said as she picked up the bag from the counter.
"That's true I guess… hey does this place have a bathroom?" Jiro asks the lady behind the counter, to which she points at a door with a huge label that says toilet. "Right… Hey i'll meet you back at the truck"
"Sure be quick though." said Yuriko as Jiro went off into the bathroom. She walked out of the bakery and let out a huge sigh.
"This is fine… I just have to keep on going…" said Yuriko as she closed her eyes and felt the fresh breeze.
Suddenly a kid bumped into her causing her to yelp a little. The kid grabs the bag of pastries and runs off and at the exact moment Jiro bursts out of the toilet suddenly.
"What happened? I heard a yelp, are you okay?!" Jiro asked in a rush as he knelt down to help Yuriko.
"Jiro…" Yuriko began as tears filled her eyes. "Your pants are unzipped…"
"Ah-" Jiro looked down in an instant covering his front side, turning around trying to zip it back up. "H-hey don't look!"
Yuriko giggled as she watched the flustered Jiro.
"Well what are we gonna do now? I didn't bring any extra hieros" said Yuriko, sighing in defeat.
"Well we could get it back…" said Jiro as he looked at the ground with footprints.
end of chapter