“So how does this involve Yuki?” the rough boy said, stepping forward demandingly staring at the fairy. “What the hell trouble has he gotten himself into?”

The fairy spun around in the air to face him, not looking too impressed. “Figured you’d be the first one to speak up when it came to the girly boy. But I doubt I need to explain too much to you, wannabe Yakuza Priest.”

“Yakuza?!” a few of the others whispered becoming concerned about their company.

“You’ve got quite the noisy mouth on you, damn midget!”

“Easily provoked as well. You’re not going to last long against them…” The fairy hovered away from him, having become bored. She planted herself towards the far end of the knoll.

He pushed through the crowd to get up in the fairy’s face again. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? I’m not letting you off so easily!”

Yori’s sister rushed forward to stand flanking the teen while still partially getting between them. “Please don’t fight! You want answers right? This fairy seems to know us somehow and it would be good to know why she’s doing all of this. If you can calm your anger for the moment.”

“Tch!” He reluctantly dragged himself back in line with everyone else, taking more of a back seat.

Chapter 90 – Decision Time

Once she averted the situation, she looked around to everyone. “Perhaps we should introduce ourselves first and how you know Yuki. It might begin to shed some light on the reason. I’ll start…I’m Yumi Mizuno and I’m a classmate of Yuki.”

Everyone seemed hesitant to speak up. There was still some awkwardness in the air from the arrival of the fairy and trouble that she brought. Yori saw his sister staring at him after a few seconds getting the impression that she wanted him to pick up her lead. “I’m Yori Mizuno and I don’t really know Hayashi, but through Yumi. I’m here because she is.”

“Fumiko Terauchi. I’ve only met him briefly when the school was attacked.”

Fumiko stared down the black clothed ninja girl with the expectations. She grumbled a little, still considering it. A small sigh exhaled from her as she gave in. “Chiharu Chinen and I don’t want to know about that weakling.” She turned her head away in a huff having given all that she was going to give.

“Haruo Yoneda…classmate.” The reasons for him coming still remained a little uncertain for him as well. So he did not feel the need to provide a long answer to explain himself.

After a long pause from Haruo everyone looked behind at the last remaining undeclared boy. The eyes locked on him made him aspirated. “Seiji Tsuji, an old friend.” Seiji looked back at the rest with annoyed eyes, still bothered by the fairy.

“Well then, I guess you’re wanting me to explain in more detail the purpose of this. You all know Yuki through some means and some of you even know the trouble that he is in currently. You may not understand it fully, but you know there’s trouble. Simply put, Yuki is leaving in the morning to confront what he faces. I’m giving you the decision on how you want to use this information, whether it is to give your goodbyes, try to stop him or join him.”

“Is he going alone?” inquired Fumiko.

“No, Ayumi Nishimura and Saki Furukawa will be going with him.”

“What is he confronting? Is it dangerous?” Yori’s sister asked. She began to see the pieces coming together. Parts were still missing, but the way that Yuki had been acting recently could be explained. She had always suspected that the man that attacked their school had something more to do with Yuki.

The fairy lowered herself a little in the air. “Very dangerous. It’s likely that he’ll have many battles where he’s going before he can resolve it.”

Yori took a step forward ignoring the feeling that he was the odd man out. “If it’s so dangerous, why's he going?”

“Because it’s something that he’s decided he must do.”

“What the hell? Did he send you to ask us to come with him rather than doing it himself?”

The fairy smiled a little smirking to herself. “No, he doesn’t know I’m doing this. It’s likely that he doesn’t even know that you all have powers as well. I’m doing this on my own.”

“Why are you doing this?” spoke up Haruo for once.

“Because I like to screw up what he had planned. Simple as that!” The fairy seemed a little rushed and cornered responding to Haruo. She floated back up a little putting some distance between them. “Well I answered your questions and gave you what you needed to know to make your decision. I’m leaving now!”

The next moment the fairy flew up the massive tree disappearing out of the field of the light. The group tried to call out to stop her, but it was far too late. They could only stare around at each other feeling a little lost being given only twelve hours to come to a decision that would affect their lives possibly.

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Yori’s sister searched the sky a little trying to find the fairy before giving up the hope. She looked back around at the others. “I think it’s more than just trying to mess with Yuki’s plans. She must be worried about him if she’s asking us for help.” She knew nothing about the others, but hoped that she could convince them to seriously think about assisting Yuki.

Fumiko nodded in agreement with her. “Considering how much of a mouth she had on her and antagonizing others. Showing weakness or caring about what happens to others is not something that she would want to expose.”

“A denial to protect herself,” thought Yori out loud. “Even still, we don’t really know what he’s gotten himself into.” Yori looked over at Seiji recalling what the fairy had quickly thrown out during the brief conversation. He hadn’t made much of it at the moment, but realized there was possibly additional information within the group. “You know something about the trouble he is in don’t you?”

“I don’t know a helluva very much, just what Yuki told me when I asked him. It didn’t seem like he knew much about it, some girl named…Ayumi told him all of this.” When he caught the knowing looks of a few of them he realized that they actually knew who Ayumi was. “I take it you’ve met her. From what I understand Yuki is the heir to some place that lost their leader. A group of bastards that want control of the country for themselves are sending assassins to remove Yuki from the picture so there’s no one that can take over. So I’m guessing that Yuki’s going to face them and more than likely take the position.”

Panic struck Yori’s sister upon hearing Seiji’s words. ‘He’s leaving and not coming back!?’ She took a step forward at Seiji with her eyes lighting up with fire light. “He’s planning on leaving us behind and everyone he knows and not telling anyone? How could he do that?!”

The demanding stare from her set Seiji off balance a little. “Hell if I know! I don’t know what’s going through his head! I’m just figuring that if he’s going there he’s probably going to be staying! There’s not a lot of point in going there if he’s not planning on staying around.”

“Not necessarily.” Yori stepped into the conversation. “If he stayed behind he’d still be attacked by assassins if they saw him as a threat to their power grab. So he could be trying to go to the source to stop the attacks and hand off his position to someone else.”

‘Could he just be doing it to end the fighting? And he’s planning to come back?’

Fumiko joined the group realizing that they still had a problem. “Regardless of what Yuki’s planning on doing, we don't know where he’s going to be leaving from or how he’s getting to wherever he needs to be. The fairy didn’t give us that information.”

“I know where his house is,” said Seiji. “We can just get him there.”

“If he’s determined to go this alone without telling anyone then it’ll be too easy for him to just lose us at his house.”

“We can follow him then until it’s too late for him to say no.”

“With this many people?”

The debate going on behind Yori’s sister finally reached her ears and broke through her own worries. She turned around to face them directly to settle their concerns. “I know where he’ll be! We just have to wait for him to arrive and force him to let us come!”

“How the hell do you know? Did the fairy tell you earlier?”

She shook her head at him. “I’ve known somehow for a while. I can’t explain it, but I know where he’ll be. There’s still some time before morning. We should take care of anything that we need to before then and meet back here at five in the morning. It’ll take some time to walk.” She figured that everyone was going to need to sleep and pack anything that they might for the trip. None of them knew where they were going and there remained much to consider.

Chiharu shifted forward unnervingly for everyone like a shadow. “What makes you think we’re even going? You’re making assumptions that we even care about that weakling.”

“You’re right. I didn’t mean to assume. There’s still time to make your decision on what you’re going to do about what we’ve been told. Anyone coming can meet here at five.”

A slight begrudged nod came from Chiharu before she stepped down. She hadn’t expected the teen to handle her so smoothly as to fix and avoid the conflict all in one sweeping motion. Chiharu didn’t like watching the frail girl acting like she was in charge. She hoped to expose the weaknesses that she saw in her as a poor leader, but was forced to retreat.

Everything seemed to be settled with the group. She nodded to herself mentally checking that all was right before joining at Yori’s side. “We should be going now before our mother finds out that we’ve been out!” She gave a quick wave to the stunned group and disappeared out of the light pulling Yori along with her.

The rest of the party could not believe that she was worried about being out late considering what she was going to be doing. Once they recovered from their awe and pulled themselves back together they began departing company in their own ways.

For Seiji, the decision had been made for him. He was the last to leave the mound and the first to arrive (he never left). ‘I had my suspicions before I left… This simply just confirmed it for me… Besides, it'll give me time away from the old man and that annoying ghost…’ Seiji pressed into the grass disappearing a little in its height and closed his eyes. The starry sky offered more than enough for him. ‘Yuki, are you going to start fighting again? I can’t see Saki being very pleased about that…’

“I didn’t think they would ever leave!” a young woman’s voice said cheerfully. Aoi, the ghost woman, appeared in the light of the earth. Her previous haunting attire was no more. She wore a pure white evening kimono that would have been worn for bed.

Seiji’s eyes held tightly shut with his eyebrows shaking a little as he tried desperately to appear like he was sleeping and never heard a word from the ghost. The unfortunate matter of his fear kept it from actually being very convincing with the excessive amounts of sweat gathering on his skin.

Aoi’s lips caught a playful grin seeing the initial response that she got from him. Taking it another step further, she floated in passing through the grass silently to lie next to him. The mere proximity of her had him turning blue and red fighting over shades only to decide on a compromise of purple. She pressed towards his ear whispering delicately to him. “You don’t have to pretend for me!”

The woman’s voice sent a chill down his spine making him vibrate all around before his eyes shot open. If the tree had been closer to the ground Seiji would have latched onto it like a startled cat. He managed some cat-like reflexes to land on his feet left staring at the ghost. “H-H-How-how…how…how…”

She giggled with glee in her entertainment before her. “You never get boring, sweetie!” Aoi gave the frightened teen a little more room, but that did not improve his speech any. All he could form in his mouth was ‘how’ and even then it was hard to understand at best. “How did I find you?” She finished for him. “That’s quite easy! I just followed you! You seemed so focused on your letter that you never even realized it!”

“Y-y-y-y…F-Followed?!”

“There, there… It’s best to stick to one word for now.” She patted him on the shoulder providing mocking comfort to him. Aoi could see the hint of the fear starting to bleed out of him and return him to balance through the sheer annoyance. Her tone changed quickly, shifting the mood. “Are you planning on leaving your family behind without a word?”

“The old man’ll be fine,” Seiji said soberly. He had been glad people were no longer visiting so frequently. If they continued he didn’t know how long he would have lasted, though a part of it was the cause of the ghosts showing up. Many of them couldn’t trust going back to the shrine fearing it had been corrupted like everything else. “The business has slowed down.”

“What about Shoji? He depends on you!”

Seiji strolled across the small mound putting his back to Aoi. “It’s not like he needs a problem child like me around him being a bad influence on him.”

She quickly glided around him to look at him in the face. “You don’t honestly believe that crap that your Grandfather spouts? Do you?!”

“What the hell do you know?!” He paused for a moment staring at her. “You’re just a stupid ghost that has nothing better to do than screw around with me!”

“It doesn’t matter if I’m a ghost or not! I can see well enough as I am!”

“It’s not like I’m going to be gone for that long anyway! I’m coming back and I’ll drag Yuki back from hell if I must! When I get back I can apologize to Shoji…” His voice trailed off as he began to look away from her. ‘If I see him I don’t know if I could leave if he asked me not to go…’

Aoi read Seiji for a minute frustrated by his stubbornness. She could see in him the determination that he had fortified and another reason behind his eyes. The look wasn’t something that she could figure out, but it gave her enough to give up the fight. “…fine…” She began to float away no longer wanting to be around him.

“I can’t stop you from telling him anyway once I’m gone…”

The ghost paused hearing the words and the surprising subtext. It made her grin a little, feeling reassured. “You’re right… We’ll be waiting for your return!”

“It’s a promise!”