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She'd peered curiously at the cards within Mitsu's hands for a moment, looking at them strangely when the images began to appear. "Ooo, that's a neat trick..." She murmured, staring at the Devil card intently. "I wonder what it-" Before she could finish with means? the gypsy had stepped up behind them. She turned quickly, startled, thinking as Mitsu had that they might have been in trouble for looking through his things without permission. Though, the fox seemed not to mind, and she simply stepped away from Mitsu to be out of his way.

When Mitsu looked at her questioningly, Hitsu blinked. Was she supposed to agree or disagree? Obviously, she had no idea why the girl wasn't certain of her answer. However, Hitsu offered a nod. She smiled, "Maybe he could tell you what that card means, since you've already got that one?"

-----

Yuki only gave a short laugh in response, though more ridicule had been on the tip of his tongue. He sat upright once more, and scooted his chair backward to rise. Skye's company was suddenly irritating him. That, of course, was reasonable in his mind. He looked toward the door for a second, and then back to the bard. As the only person he knew in the tavern, even then only barely, he might as well ask. "If someone can tell you where we are, would you happen to know the direction to the next town?" He wasn't sure how much time he'd spent here, but it was certainly too long since he'd originally merely come in to ask directions. "I need to find out, so that I can meet up with the rest of my party."

The two headless corpses on the ground were riddled with small holes, and looked as if they had been set upon by a pack of rabid wolves. Two bleached skulls lay discarded to either side of them. The gaping holes where teeth once set were charred and burned.

"Damn." Kaine muttered. They had been travelling mages and had put up a bit of a fight, he had to use both of his skulls. He had taken the replacements from their mutilated bodies. The brains would serve an interesting purpose should he have to resort to it. The jawless heads were smeared with a preservative to stifle the smell of rotting perfectly. All of the work made him hungry... again. After temporarily quelling the endless hole that is his stomach, he decided to have a bit of fun in town.

He walked through the streets, peeking into windows. When he found what he was looking for, he slipped into the bar. Some of the patrons stopped what they were doing to give him the long hard stare. He ignored them, and made his way to what he had his eyes on. His footsteps never made a sound as he slithered up to the chair.

Kaine leaned over and ran his fingers over the contours. He inhaled deeply and let out a powerful gust through his pursed lips. Dust kicked up and swirled in the murky air. He lamented at this, the combination of dust and murk would play hell on his vocal cords. With a click and a groan the cover slid open, exposing the pearly white ivory keys. Kaine purred as he sat into the seat. He knew he had everyone's attention without even turning around, which made his perma-grin widen ever so slightly. "I'm such an attention whore." He thought to himself as his nimble fingers began to dance across the piano's keys, testing each one to see how badly it needed to be tuned. "Hmmm... not too bad." He said aloud.

The music he had chose to kick off his merry-making was a well-known tune "Hey, Dude" as sang by the travelling bard group the Dung-Beetles. At first, the crowd seemed to be kind of annoyed with the noise. This added to his suprise when he reached the chorus of 'na-na's' and most of the bar chimed in along with him. He came to the conclusion that this was going to be a fun night.

Glancing back and forth between the two, Blade just watched them warily. Things really weren't going too well from what he could see, and they weren't exactly in a good location to be having internal issues. For all he knew, someone might be wandering by any moment. Though something told him that whoever it was, they would have more trouble than they would...

"Hey... guys..." he started, not really sure how he was going to quell the situation.

Noticing the creature that formed from the strange substance, he kept an eye on it for now before stepping a little closer to the both of them and continuing on, "I don't think this is a good time to be doing this... "

As Blade approach Neko held up his hand too hopefully make him stop. He didn’t want to intimidate Riyo and make her do something foolish, though he wasn’t exactly sure what brought this all on to begin with. When she suddenly collapsed in mid sentence Neko rushed to her side. “Riyo?” As she turned her pleading gaze toward him and told him to kill her Neko’s brow quirked. “How about you sleep on that. Besides, I don’t think Hitsu and Mitsu would forgive me.” He tried to coax her closer toward him to maybe comfort her but noise at the foot of the stairs caught his attention.

“Hartril? Are you having some trouble? I heard some odd noises.” It was the senior officer again, and from the sound of it he was ascending the stairs.

“s**t.” Neko hissed. They had no time for this. Something needed to be done fast. Stepping closer to Riyo, Neko made to lift her up by her arms and guide her toward Blade. “Take her I’ll distract them. Just get her somewhere safe.” The stern look in his eyes as he looked at Blade’s face promised punishment if he did otherwise. “Now go!”

"N-neko..." She looked like she was going to beg him again, but didn't. Her breathing seemed.. Rough, to say the least. The headaches were now at full capacity, and her body felt as if it was ripping itself apart.

She flinched as she was lifted up, biting her lip slightly. Oh, it hurt to even move... But she managed to stand on her own two feet. She frowned and looked back at Neko as panic seemed to ensue. She'd ruined the game. She'd ruined everything.

By the time the officer reached Neko, Blade had managed to duck into the nearest room with Riyo. Once inside, he closed the door and tried to listen as carefully as he could. There really wasn't any way for him to tell if trouble had gone and passed, unless Neko found them afterwards.

Though, fortunately, this wasn't a problem. Jumping back as the demon stumbled in, the thief blinked and peered out into the hall again to see if the officer was anywhere nearby. It was dark in the hallway, but no one was hiding out in the shadows from what he could tell.

Still, it concerned him a bit as to why Neko seemed to be so fatigued at this point.

"Are you ok man? You look even more exhausted now..."

Somehow or another, Riyo had managed to sneak away into the corner of the room. Her head was leaning against the wall, her legs were folded up in front of her, and her eyes stared blankly at the floor. It was obvious that something was wrong. She looked like the life had been drained right out of her.

"You can't hide it for much longer, you know." The man commented, sitting directly in front of her and mimicing the way she was positioned. "You are what you are, and nothing can change it."

Riyo shook her head ever so slightly. She didn't believe it. Didn't want to believe it. She wasn't some kind of monster... That substance... It didn't come from her... These memories. They were fake.

"Deny what you want. In the end, your fears will be realized. The dreams will come true. But the best part is... You won't regret any of it." And with that said, he faded out again. Disappearing to God knows where.

Riyo's frown grew bigger as he left. She'd found what she was looking for in the world of the living. The emotions she hadn't been allowed to experience in her lonely childhood. And oh, how beautiful they were.

But would they be enough?