The Shadows Live (Iniki's Intro)

Iniki seemed to have wandered aimlessly through the world, she was searching for her sisters who happened to have abandoned her in a guild with a stuckup guild master and a bunch of really weird people. The worst part about Tartarus wasn't that it lacked people but that they people there happened to all be humans which annoyed Iniki to no end. As she wandered she had managed to get caught in several trees which ruined her dress, and there was a small run in with some wild animals which was no big deal to her besides the fact that it was rather harsh on her body. "Izayoi, Itori, why did you have to leave me behind." She cried to herself as she wandered, her long journey and the excessive use of magic actually burned away the Tatarus guild mark long ago leaving on a few hints of maroon where it once was. Perhaps abandoning the old guild was a good thing for Iniki, though joining another guild with more people may also be a bad thing considering it would probably mean more humans. She claimed to hate humans though her actions showed more than her words, it was quite clear that what she claimed was not as true as it seemed.

After a long journey seeming to wander Iniki found herself outside the walls of what appeared to be a village but she did not concern herself with that as instead she was looking straight up into the sky. She had seemed to wander aimlessly but in truth she was following the spiritual connection between her and her sisters and now she seemed to have found Izayoi except instead of being right in front of Iniki she was almost straight up. "Izayoi why you got to hide in places I can't find or get to." She frowned as a pure black butterfly attempted to fly up to wherever Izayoi was only to stop about 10 meters above Iniki's head. An instantly later had vanished and appeared where that butterfly was just moments ago and began falling. "KYA!" Iniki screamed as she fell awkwardly to the other side of the wall. "IZAYOI!" She cried out as she started to crying a little in a random alleyway inside the towns walls.

Mashyuu had been sitting in the Ace of spades, sipping a beer slowly while going over the spoils of his last few jobs and reflecting on things he had done right and things he and Rocky could have worked on as a team. As always the Ace of Spades was alive with the soft buzz of chatter around the bar. Mashyuu looked up from the table he was sitting at from time to time, scanning the area when the Slayers nostrils flared, a new scent caught his attention first followed by the sound of a female cry. At the same time Rocky stood from his seated position and started to look around for the source of the cry.

Swiftly Mashyuu started to follow the scent in the air until he came upon a dark haired woman. "Hey, everything alright?" The brown haired wizard asked and walked to the woman's side. "Lost? Come on I'll buy you a meal." Mashyuu offered while extending his hand towards her. "I'm Mashyuu and this is Rocky." With his free arm he motioned towards the rock elemental at his side.

From the distance, a strangely dressed man watched the woman move towards the village, and the man come out to check on her. He moved, not following her, but instead moving towards the Ace of Spades, taking a small detour to see the newcomer talk with the woman.

clad in flowing cloak of purple, black pants and undershirt, and dark green gloves, not a single inch of flesh shown on the strange man. His wide brimmed, flamboyant hat tilted just over his eyes, showing only a wooden, ivory smile on where his face may be. As he heard the man speak kind words, offering the woman sustenance, he stalled, just a few yards away from the pair, completely un moving as his cloak hid anything he may cary from view.

Finding Izayoi had been quite the task, seeing how her sister had also spent a lot of her life travelling. Two Kumiho who both were very familiar with moving across the land, knowing how to cover ground fast and survive under harsher circumstances. Itori had been able to catch up because her magic also helped her out and she had always been the most vulpine of the sisters. They all had the Kumiho traits, but Itori was the one who focused on learning the basic magic that each Kumiho was taught instead of redirecting her focus towards her own specific type of magic. Beyond that she was also the one most inclined to actually use her nose when searching, which had allowed her to track Izayoi, her sister's smell too familiar to her for her to be able to miss it.

Catching up with Izayoi had also been a hassle once she had actually managed so, because Izayoi had ended up in a completely different location, standing in front of one of the country's largest legal guilds for some reason. That had been a real shock for Itori, since she and her sisters had been part of a dark guild for all this time. To show themselves so openly was extremely risky, and she didn't know what Izayoi was planning. Her sister had made it clear through her note that she could not longer affiliate herself with Tartarus, but was walking straight towards Sabertooth the best way to deal with that? Luckily enough they hadn't been executed, instead being allowed to join, albeit with some difficulty.

Itori sighed as she slowly walked towards the teleportation lachrima stationed at the main guild hall, trying her best to ignore the fact that there was only open skies around her. She wasn't used to heights, and she had to admit that being placed in a building hovering two thousand meters above the ground was not something she had ever thought of or wished for. She wasn't going so far as to have a real fear of heights, but she definitely didn't feel too comfortable up here. It would have been different if she had been flying using magic, or riding some kind of large flying creature. But this was just a building which acted as if it was right for it to hover all the way up here, as if there was nothing strange about that. The fox girl shuddered as she tried not to think about the possibility of this guild hall suddenly realizing the issue and quickly deciding to fix that issue. It was a stupid idea, of course: this guild hall was kept all the way up here with powerful magic that wouldn't just fizzle out without a warning. The mages of Sabertooth wouldn't be all living in this place if they didn't have trust in that magic. They weren't afloat merely because the guild hall might have some strange ideas that it could lose any second. It was just her discomfort trying to make itself heard.

Standing in front of the teleportation lachrima Itori changes her appearance back into the elegant noblewoman she always looked like when mingling with humans who she didn't want to show her true nature to. Up here amongst these mages she couldn't exactly do that, especially since Izayoi had already revealed herself from the very beginning, which had put Itori in the awkward position where she would either have to compromise her own identity or help her sister out. The choice hadn't been too difficult, since her sister was a lot more important than Itori herself, at least from Itori's point of view, but that didn't make her any happier about immediately having to show all her cards to people of which she didn't know whether she could trust them. Sabertooth was a legal guild known for valuing the virtues that heroes were supposed to always possess: the strength of will to put the needs of others above their own, the determination to keep trying even when the challenge was a rough one, and the ability to trust and be trusted. Apparently all their guild members were supposed to uphold these three virtues, which gave the impression that Sabertooth at least was a guild of which the members earned a certain amount of respect in their attempts at being better people than most. However none of their virtues seemed to be about forgiveness for the wicked and the dark mages. In fact usually heroes had the tendency to be merciful and kind towards the good people, but eradicate all what is evil without remorse. They would be called stalwarts against the filth that would try to corrupt and taint the world. In which case a dark mage really shouldn't just be showing up at their doorstep and reveal themselves. The fact that things worked out so well was more luck than anything else.

So she couldn't hide her nature as a Kumiho up here, but that didn't mean that she would just flaunt herself to the entire world. She was now living in the main guild hall, because Izayoi wouldn't leave this place and most certainly wouldn't go back to Tartarus, but Itori herself had yet to openly become a part of the guild. She had joined and managed to replace her guild mark without showing anybody that she used to be part of Tartarus, but for now she was mostly just hiding as she tried to think of what to do next. Izayoi seemed to be happier here, not having to deal with the troubles of being a dark mage, especially in a guild which apparently was a lot more brutal and cruel than Izayoi had expected them to be. Itori herself didn't care too much about what the humans did to each other as long as her sisters were okay, but one of those beloved sisters apparently didn't want to try and stomach that kind of thing any longer. So she had left, dragging Itori with her. And now Itori was finishing her disguise before touching the lachrima and feeling herself disappear, only to reappear in the town far, far below in the ballroom where the sister of the upper teleportation lachrima was located. Down here she wouldn't let herself be seen as anything but a wealthy foreigner, looking like somebody carrying noble blood in her veins. The people down here wouldn't bother her as long as she looked like this, since anybody who tried to accost a woman who quite obviously hadn't done anything wrong while the Sabertooth guild was right above them (literally) was asking for trouble. Using countless of years of training Itori stepped out of the ballroom with her usual elegant and swift movements, her tall form making its way through the crowds.

The biggest problem right now was the last sister, or rather the first. Iniki. She was still the most important one out of the three, and Itori and Izayoi were both supposed to take care of her. However Itori had hoped that she could finish her business with Izayoi quickly and bring her back to Tartarus, or otherwise be able to quickly return to that dark guild and explain to Iniki what the new situation was. However she hadn't been able to, instead being stuck...here. If she tried to return to Tartarus right now she might be followed by other mages from Sabertooth. Itori had put on her usual mask of subservience and cooperativeness, but she couldn't risk betraying herself and her sisters. Any risk was too big, since if they knew about Tartarus and the triplet's relation to it it could lead to all three of them being captured and even killed. Itori had spent most of her life looking for her siblings so she could keep them safe, so that wasn't something she could even consider risking. She would have to wait a bit longer until she had gained more trust and then while going on a job on her own make a detour. The disguised fox girl carefully avoided everybody on her path as she walked through the town, her gaze looking over the heads of many as she looked at the buildings. If she was stuck here she would at least get a good grasp on where to find ingredients for her meals. When she was in Tartarus she had been able to take ingredients from every location, since nobody cared how she acquired them as long as she had them, but here in Sabertooth they would expect her to be a bit more civilized and innocent in her methods. That meant buying them and performing tasks to gain the more exotic ones. Using deception to take them for less than they were worth wasn't something she could do around here without the fear of being caught. A guild of heroes definitely wouldn't approve of such trickery.

When she had finally found a shop which looked like she could buy some of the rarer ingredients from it (having travelled a lot meant that Itori had a lot of different foods she wanted to eat, and some of them were quite difficult to get the ingredients for in Fiore) Itori suddenly came to a halt, nearly causing somebody to bump into her. Using some simple social skills she managed to avoid causing a scene as she made the man walk away with nothing more than a slightly apologetic expression before she turned around, staring into the distance while one of her hands reached up and trailed one of her locks of long raven black hair. Hair that looked like the kind most people of Midi possessed, beautiful in the way it looked like a dark waterfall which gleamed in the light. It wasn't her real hair. Well, technically this form and its hair were as real as any form she could take, but her actual hair, the hair of her original form and the one that she considered to be true, was shorter, and while it was also silken it was of a pure white. The exact opposite of this hair. A pure white which she shared with both of her sisters, and it looked like now both of them were nearby.

Itori stood still for nearly half a minute before she began to walk again, her step now expressing haste as her raven hair trailed behind her as her tail would under normal circumstances. Her expression was one of worry and of a woman who had no time for frivolities, people getting out of her way as she moved with decisiveness and purpose. Izayoi had already been here for a while, but how had Iniki suddenly arrived here? Last time that Itori saw her she had been in the guild hall of Tartarus, where Itori had thought her safe. Well, maybe not completely safe, but definitely safer than most people out there. Tartarus might be a dark guild, but the individual guild members were supposed to look after each other. The only danger Iniki might have been in was that she might have angered some of the stronger guild members too much and paid the price. But now it appeared that Iniki had also decided to leave Tartarus, or at least had decided to go and see where her sisters had gone. Itori couldn't blame her, since she herself had done exactly the same thing, but she really hoped that nothing had happened to her beloved sister. So far as she knew Iniki wasn't as experienced at travelling on her own as the other two of the triplets.

Rounding a corner Itori came to a halt as she saw Iniki sitting there on the ground, crying while one of the guild members of Sabertooth looked like he was trying to help her out. Iniki at least had gone through the trouble of hiding her true nature, but the Vulpine Siren still tensed a little before forcing herself to relax. If Iniki also looked like a human she could approach her and act like her sister without having to reveal her Kumiho nature. Although she wasn't sure if this particular guild member had already seen her fox form, she should at least try before once again being forced to show all her cards. Itori slowly walked towards Iniki and Mashyuu, wanting to see how Iniki would react to Mashyuu's offer and attempts at helping her but still wanting to be ready to intervene should something go wrong. If Iniki could interact normally with the Sabertooth mage it would be best, but she was too important to risk her too much just to test her current reaction to humans.

((wow, Itori, I compliment your descriptive skill.))

Iniki let tears roll down her eyes as she continued to cry about not being able to find her sister, having found a dead end that she had no idea how to overcome. Hearing voice of a man offering assistance sent a chill down her spine, she came to realize that she had been ignoring the scents of everyone else in the area all for the sake of finding Izayoi. She could pick up the mass amount of scents, though most had no apparent indication of what they were plus with them all tightly packed together it was difficult to tell them apart. Looking up at the assistance her eyes opened wide showing off just how different the two eyes were, one was golden and warm while the other was red and fierce, she did after all have issues transforming into a human form. She sat there in disbelief as another tear rolled down her cheek, she had always passed humans off as being the type of people would only help themselves and never help others, let alone help someone of a completely different race. "wh-who are you." She managed to squeak almost on the verge of fear, was he attempting to trick her with some sort of elaborate ruse. "I-I... want my sisters." She impulsively squeaked as she started to cry again as she curled up into a little ball, and at the same time the shadow of the wall around her began to come to life as if to protect something precious.