Ichi opened his mouth thinking of rebutting her somehow but Myon slapped him quickly. So quickly, Ichi staggered back.

"No." Myon said.

Ichi looked at the girl in the distance and girl in front of him. What did he do to deserve this pleasure? Ichi wanted to go home very badly, but he was sure that today was about to get much worse. He looked to the moon, thinking that Grandpa would have a lecture waiting for him. If he ever got home.

Myon looked at Syon. Syon stood up, closing the distance between them, reaching the halfway point in the courtyard before pulling out a silver glove. Pulling it over her left hand, Myon jumped down from the dojo and ran in front of her spreading her arms out like wings.

"No."

"A demonstration is necessary. I can not take Ichi Danzaburo lightly." Syon said.

Danzaburo? Ichi thought, that's not my last name. At least, not my mother's. Syon knew about his father?

"Me, then."

Myon caught Syon's gaze.

Syon looked back, then averted her eyes. Looking at the ground, Syon spread out her silver gloved hand far to her left side, fanning her fingers as a wire struck out. Ichi watched light glimmer across a squiggly line under the moonlight. Then, Myon froze. Ichi saw a wire in her neck, leading back to the glove.

Ichi heart started pounding furiously as he froze, looking at Myon, even though she didn't move a millimeter. It looked unnatural, like a puppet on strings. Everything told him run away.

Syon's eyes drew his to hers from Myon's frozen form. Syon spoke out, meeting Ichi's gaze.

"Like this - I could do anything I want." Syon's even paced dull tone gave Ichi shivers.

With that, the wire snapped out of Myon's neck. Myon fell to the ground breathing hard.

Ichi's body moved before his thoughts could catch up, running to Myon, he went to grab her shoulder.

Myon knocked Ichi's hand away as he touched her shoulder.

"Go with her." Myon growled at him like a wounded animal.

Ichi righted himself from trying to touch Myon. His mind raced, as he looked to Syon who averted her eyes. \

Myon did this for him? Ichi thought that was stupid of her at first, then admirable, then Ichi's judgement reverted back to stupid. He stood, thinking he'd better at least listen to her right now or he'd hate himself later. This is what sacrifice looks like? Ichi wondered. What an idiot. Let me take that hit! That was my hit to take!

Ichi's brow furrowed.

Then, Syon leaned over, crouching a little so her right hand could reach Myon's head. Syon ran her fingers though Myon's hair. Ichi's heart leapt looking at Syon's face. A dazzling smile. It looked like Renya's when she declared war with the stick. Only, this smile, Ichi felt for sure, this is-

A real smile.

Ichi couldn't believe what his nose was telling him. His tanuki nose smelled truth, but his human mind screamed this is wrong.

Syon's fingers carefully left Myon's hair as she pulled away, and with that the smile faded. Ichi, in a daze, followed Syon up a wooden platform into the building's awning stopping as Syon stopped in front of a paper door.

A pitch dark hallway opened up like a pit in front of him as Syon opened the paper door.

Turning around fully, facing Myon who was still breathing hard crouched on the ground, Syon said "I am sorry." Ichi turned to look at Myon under the moonlight. Only strength in that face. He couldn't do anything but listen to her. However, Ichi felt that after what Syon did to Myon, there wasn't a chance he would be able to listen to Myon's warnings.

The two of them padded their feet down the hallway lit by sparsely placed candlelights. Ichi stared at Syon's back, half feeling like punching her, half like kicking.

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"Why'd you do that?" Ichi growled.

"I needed to perform a demonstration of the Silver Cross. That is the name of this glove."

Syon held up her gloved left hand, the back of her hand wavering a little. Syon pulled off the glove, storing it somewhere in her robe.

"Why."

Syon kept silent.

"For now - know that I did it for Reyna, for You, and for Myon. Your fearsome scary tanuki nose must acknowledge that as true."

Ichi's sense of truth disagreed with his instinct. Syon's statement was entirely truth to his nose. Ichi calmed down. This opponent isn't someone he should take lightly. He needed to learn how to win, those words flew through his mind. How did Syon know he could do that? Even if she can see that he is a tanuki, even Ichi knew that no normal tanuki had that kind of ability. Syon knew more about Ichi than Ichi did.

"Syon, what do you know about me?"

Syon kept silent. Ichi continued down the hallway with her.

"Hey, answer."

"The right time - the right place, please give me a moment to rest."

Syon's tired? Ichi felt like strangling her, again, but the anger released itself as a sigh.

They entered a small room with twin lit flowing blue flames on a slightly raised section of the floor. The entire room covered itself in dim lighting. Syon motioned for Ichi to sit on a pillow on the lower portion of the floor. Ichi squatted down on it, cross-legged. Syon moved to the higher part of the floor and folded her legs under her as she placed her body on a pillow between the twin blue braziers.

Syon and Ichi's eyes met, seated far across from each other.

"Please - excuse my ru-", Syon said as a phone rang from Syon's robe. She pulled out a red phone which looked like a ladybug. Folding the flipphone open, Syon averted her eyes from Ichi's gaze.

Talking to her phone, Syon went on in a series of silences and responses.

"Ah." "Yes." "Yes." "No - there is no need to wait - we will start moving this instant." "Yes - I understand." "They will not be a problem." "Yes - I estimate the target at low difficulty." "Thank you - goodbye."

Syon pulled the red flipphone out from her face, positioning it towards one of the blue braziers, squinting as she tried to make out where the red end call button was on the phone's keypad. Ichi could see it from across the room, as Syon searched a little tapping a few numbers before the end call button. She closed the phone, and let out a long sigh.

"Tired?" Ichi said, mocking her.

"Work. Dangerous work."

"Can you see? It's not that dark in here."

"I own glasses - I do not wear them," Syon said in her even paced tone.

"Tell me, Syon," Ichi leaned his head on his fist. "Are you good, or evil?"

"Evil."

"Glad we got that cleared up. Never thought I'd meet such a pathetic villain."

"Being a good person - is something beyond my ability and station in life," Syon said sighing.

Ichi knew Syon told the truth again. It worried him, his mind raced to figure this girl out as silence settled between Ichi and Syon.

This girl, Ichi thought, reminds me of something. Renya got punished because of her behavior towards me, but why wasn't I punished by the seer council themselves for coming into town possessed with a bakeneko? Syon and Myon are their lapdogs, and they left the decision up to Myon? If they left it up to this girl - I'd be very, very dead. Why'd they let me live, after Grandpa told them about Mei's unknown high status? Mei's from the depths of the spirit world. Mei never saw a human before this.

Ichi scratched his head, grunting. Rubbing his fingers through his hair, his instinct screamed at him there was something vital here. Something he could only know, if he asked the right questions, right now. Then it came to him. The possession he did. That idiocy.

Ichi's hand shifted to grabbing his chin as he continued thinking furiously. What is Syon? Syon's like me on the bank of that rice paddy, right before I let Mei possess me. In Ichi's mind he saw the cat lifted in front of him and the expanse of the evenly placed riceplants and the muddy clay packed water. The words that came to his mind, over and over before he did it, was that this was the dumbest thing he has ever done in his life.

The girl in front of him might be the dumbest, the most dense being he had ever encountered in his short existence. Ichi got the sense he was looking into a black hole when he looked at Syon's eyes.

"Syon?"

"Is there something the matter, Ichi Danzaburo?"

"I've got a new name for you. Idiyon. Idiot Syon."

Syon kept silent.

"Perhaps - no, if it comes from the son of Danzaburo then that is the truth of what I am. I have never considered myself an idiot, even once, before this conversation, however, now I am worried because of the evidence that has presented itself. You are quite fearsome scary, Ichi Danzaburo." Syon sighed.

Ichi's focus heightened on Syon like a laser beam, trying to detect a signal in Syon's silence. His tanuki instincts rose their ability to the limit to detect a faint sniff of something Ichi didn't expect. Sadness. For a second there, Syon and Myon weren't that far apart in Ichi's mind. Only for a second.

"Son of Danzaburo?" Ichi laughed. "So, you know about my father then. Care to go on?"