Aya had to be the most stubborn, moody, infuriating, taciturn bastard that Yohji had ever had the misfortune to meet. The man wasn’t even prepared to be friendly. How they were supposed to work together as Vessels, he simply did not know. And yet, when he had joined them together as one being, it had felt so good, so right. He glanced across the shop to where the object of these thoughts was putting the last touches to a simple yet stunning arrangement for one of their regular customers.
Long, pale hands worked deftly and Yohji suddenly wondered what it would feel like to have those hands on his body. He shook his head, completely at a loss as to where such a thought had come from. He liked women! Uh huh, and what about that little experiment with his ninja trainer when he was fifteen? Hadn’t he enjoyed that? Yes, but this was Aya in his thoughts. Aya was The Iceberg, the Rock. He should have been Earth or Water, not Fire.
As if aware of his scrutiny, Aya glanced up from his work and looked straight at the Water Vessel. The amethyst eyes narrowed slightly before widening.
/Kami-sama, can he read my thoughts?/
/Only when you are shouting, as you are now./ Aya’s mental voice was calm if a little confused sounding.
* * * * * * *
Yohji flushed hotly and almost ran from the shop. Aya smiled maliciously to himself and finished his arrangement calmly. So, Kudoh Yohji wasn’t quite as girl crazy as he liked to pretend, ne? But why he should be the object of the Water Vessel’s lust, he wasn’t quite sure. He wiped his hands and placed the arrangement on the counter, ready for collection. His thoughts strayed back to the tall Water Vessel. Yohji was very attractive but Aya found his constant teasing irksome. He was also lazy, arrogant and loud. So why did Aya dream about making him moan in pleasure? He shook his head to clear it. There was no point in letting his quarry know his lustful thoughts were in part reciprocated. At least, not yet, not until Aya was certain that it would last for more than one frenzied night.
Aya had never had any problems at all with his own preference for men. Oh there had been a couple of girls when he was younger, but their soft bodies had not really satisfied him. Then a wandering minstrel had come to the village, a beautiful, sloe-eyed creature with brown limbs and raven hair and Aya had been besotted. They had come face to face in his father’s barn and Aya had been given precisely what he had craved. All thoughts of women had been banished from his mind forever. After the destruction of his life, however, he had ignored his libido except for odd moments when the tension had become too much and masturbation had been a necessary evil.
He was brought out of his reverie by the shop door. He glanced up, thinking it was the customer coming to call for her arrangement only to find he was staring into the jade green eyes of a tall gaijin with long, untidy red-gold hair.
"Can I help you?" he asked politely then froze as the stranger attempted to get into his mind. Both seemed equally surprised to find that he couldn’t do so.
"Who are you?" Aya demanded, his hostility apparent in his tone.
"Now, now, don’t burn yourself out," the stranger retorted with a smirk. "You are the Fire Vessel, are you not? I am here to put a little proposition to you all."
"I’m listening."
"Good. You know, of course, about the massacre of samurai on the Takatori estate. My associates and myself are concerned as to its cause. We wondered if you would be prepared to look into it for us."
"Your associates?" Omi’s quiet voice interrupted from the door into the house. "What associates?"
"That would be us. I am Crawford." A tall, black-haired and bespectacled gaijin stood at the doorway with two others, a slim boy with dark hair and dark blue eyes who was even younger than Omi and the only Japanese in their group and a platinum blond man with an eye-patch over one golden eye and an obvious predilection for knives.
"And you are?" The Air Vessel was nothing if not tenacious.
"Not dissimilar to yourselves," Crawford’s voice was smooth, "but instead of being Vessels, we are Adepts. Nagi," indicating the young boy, "for example, controls the Wind and can move things with a thought. We use the elements without channeling them."
"To what purpose?" Aya asked.
"Now there I would have to say for our own purposes," Crawford said. "At this time, however, I have foreseen that we have a common purpose. Twenty warriors dead at a stroke, killed unnaturally. We want to know what killed them."
"Why?" Ken had come forward and spoke for the first time.
"Because they worked for our boss."
Aya almost smiled. Twenty less samurai in his enemy’s army was a good thing in his eyes. "We have no interest in you or your boss," he said coldly.
"Wait a moment, Aya." Yohji had rejoined them and was now adding to the discussion. "Those men died so...strangely, so painfully. We ought to find out what killed them, at least."
Aya shot him a glare only to find Omi nodding his agreement. He turned back to the gaijin and his group.
The orange-haired one spoke first. "I felt that, too," he said, "it hurt. When you can hear the thoughts of almost everyone, twenty being wiped out so suddenly and so painfully leaves a void."
"When has your boss ever cared about the taking of life?" Aya demanded hotly.
"Such hatred," Crawford noted, "where does it come from?"
"A whole village snuffed out at a stroke," Aya retorted. "Did you feel that? Did that leave a void?"
"Deaths in battle are not the same," the telepath responded, "What I felt was not death in battle."
"Battle?" Aya was incredulous. "Do children do battle then?" The telepath merely shrugged.
"This gets us no further forward," Crawford snapped irritably. "Do the four of you want to know what is going on or not?"
"Yes, we do," Omi said quietly, "but whoever is lord of that holding must have been a willing participant." Crawford’s hazel eyes widened in shock at his words.
"Why?" he demanded.
"Obvious really," Omi said. "If he wasn’t, then he would be amongst the dead. Perhaps you should tell your boss that."
A distinctly wary look came into Crawford’s eyes. He cursed softly and strode out of the shop. The boy and one-eye followed him, leaving the telepath alone with the Vessels.
"Our boss won’t like that piece of news one little bit," he said. Then he smirked at Aya. "What a shame!" Then he too was gone.
"Well! What do you make of that?" Ken asked explosively. Omi was staring at the door then he turned to Aya.
"Your village?" he asked quietly. Aya nodded mutely his head bowed.
"We still need to know what did this, Aya," Omi said gently, "even if it does help Takatori."
"Wait a minute," Yohji said suddenly. "If his son was involved in this that’s got to hurt him." Aya turned to stare at the Water Vessel. His words helped, just a little.
"There’s something else, too," Omi said. "Why do you think our stones were attached to weapons? The elements obviously intend us to fight at some point." Behind him Ken made a satisfied sound.
"The question is," Yohji said, "just who or what are we supposed to fight?"
"Takatori, of course," Aya spat out.
"Not necessarily, Aya," Omi said quietly. "I think our first battle may well be with who or what killed those samurai."
Aya made a disgusted sound and strode through the back of the shop and into the house.
"Uh oh," he heard Yohji say, perfectly serious for once, "I think we may just have a problem, chibi."
* * * * * * *
"Ah, my beautiful girls!"
Takatori Masafumi was well pleased with the successful annihilation of twenty of his father’s spies. He had gathered the perpetrators around him, four beautiful young women or so they seemed.
"We need to move on to the next stage," Hel, a raven-haired beauty said quietly. "You need far more land than just this patch of wilderness if you are to be a powerful warlord in your own right."
"Yes, yes! You are, as ever, perfectly right, Hel," Masafumi agreed. "Who is our nearest neighbor?"
"That would be your brother, Hirofumi," the blonde girl, Schon, said. Masafumi grinned evilly.
"Never did much like him anyway," he said quietly and laughed.
* * * * * * *
"According to our sources, Takatori-sama, your son would have needed to either be aware of what was happening or be one of the dead."
"Indeed?" Takatori Reiji was a thickset man in his early fifties. His hair had faded from its original black and his temples were almost white. None of these signs of age detracted from his obvious strength and skill as a leader.
In Crawford’s opinion the man’s only weakness was his sheer stupidity in making enemies of so many people, especially one of the Vessels. Keeping his reflections to himself, he bowed and nodded.
"And is he dead?"
"No sir."
"Then get him here. I wish to speak to him."
"I will arrange a messenger at once." He turned to leave.
Takatori sat forward in his chair and called him back. "Crawford! What killed them?"
"That I would be hard put to tell you sir, but rest assured, I am still endeavoring to find out."
Takatori nodded. "Thank you," he managed.
* * * * * * *
The meeting between father and son was not a happy one. Masafumi was full of false bravado whilst Reiji demanded to know what had happened to his samurai.
Nagi stood behind Reiji with Crawford, Schuldig and Jei. Ranged behind Masafumi were four women. Women that Jei had written off as tawdry dolls. Nagi wasn’t so sure. There was something about them and their master that seemed off somehow. He watched them carefully, the youngest especially. She seemed less…tainted than the other three and he felt a strong desire to get to know her better.
At a mental prod from Schuldig he turned his attention back to what was being said. Masafumi was assuring his father that he had no idea what had happened to the samurai.
*He’s lying, of course.*
*Well, yes, he’s going to isn’t he? Schu, is there anything odd about his mind or those of the women with him?*
*Nagikins, I think you might just have a point there.*
Frowning slightly at the pet name, Nagi went back to his observations.
* * * * * * *
She was drowning, wanting to grow, to be whole. How she hated this. Masafumi was much kinder than her abusive Papa had been but he still touched her causing her mind to retreat into childhood, a childhood she had never actually experienced. Her eyes were drawn to the boy across the room. He was cute, she decided, though much too serious. She giggled.
Reiji stopped speaking and glared at her. "Can’t you shut that half-wit up?"
Suddenly afraid, she stopped giggling and gazed at the floor.
~TBC~