The Dream Shifter

Chapter 161

Hours later Ayumi still mumbled words to herself left barely able to function enough to keep her field up. Everyone had found places to spend their remaining time until Yuki took back over. The boat was not nearly as fancy or over the top as Yuki, but it still functioned as needed.

At the rear of the boat Yuki leaned against the railing staring out into ocean. Saki arrived back having changed into a more summer wear, as the equator started to arrive for them. She stuck to something comfortable and certainly less feminine than the other girls were wearing for their summer. It was a simple long white shorts and pale blue tank top with an off white jacket. "Hey Yuki you going to get some sleep? Your shift starts in six hours."

"Uh?" Yuki coughed absentminded. He turned back to look at Saki for a moment, but returned to the view. "Yeah, I'll sleep soon…"

Saki stepped up next to him placing her hands out in the air playing casually with the breeze between her fingers. She tilted her head over towards him. "Thinking about it?"

"A little…" He shifted his weight on his legs suddenly feeling the awkward stiffness crawling up his knee. "…a lot… I feel like I'm just running away from all of the hell I brought down on them."

"I'm not so certain it is hell to them. It might have seemed like that at first, but people are adjusting. I think it actually brought all of us together. We wouldn't all be here now if it hadn't happened. They have a way to be able to achieve what they want now because of what you did."

Yuki thought about it having not considered Saki's perspective. "So you think it's a good thing that happened?" He saw her giving him an encouraging nod to keep going. "I guess it does depend on how you look at it…and things did seem to be settling down when we left. Yeah! By the time we get back life will be back to normal again and they'll be living happily and normally!"

"Exactly! So don't let it worry and weigh you down! They'll be fine while we take care of this!"

Late evening arrived on the ship. Yuki had already replaced Ayumi, who slept mostly peacefully. The switch left everyone very much on edge and unable to sleep immediately. It was partly the reminder that they were not something real that could be easily lost with a single careless thought. The other half proved less plain and more racking on their bodies. None of them had ever been away from Japan before and some never even out of the town. They watched as they sailed away from their home and found foreign skies above them that gave less comfort to a sore soul.

Like the rest, Yumi wandered the halls of Yuki's cruise ship unable to sleep. Her restlessness came less from the uncertainty of falling into the ocean like the rest. She trusted Yuki and that gave her strength against such fears. However, a different matter troubled her far more deeply. It kept her from being able to concentrate on anything. She tossed and turned before when she attempted to rest. Her mind stuck on one matter, Ayumi.

She could not escape the thoughts in her mind and the squeezing pain that wrapped around her heart. It tormented her steps as she strolled through another random hallway. 'What's wrong with me? Why can't I stop thinking about it?' Each time it rose within her images of Yuki and Ayumi flashed through her mind.

In the next hallway Yumi found that she approached the ballroom where Yuki focused on keeping the boat together. She did not know what had brought her to his door. Even if she left she knew that the thoughts would not stop coming. She needed a few moments of peace that perhaps Yuki could grant her. 'Maybe talking to him would settle everything down enough to sleep…but what about?'

Yumi hesitated before the door not certain if she could make it into the room. Even her recently discovered strength was not enough to keep her heart from faltering upon the threshold. She had thought that she had changed to be able to not become nervous at the single thought of speaking to him. Yet it seemed that nothing had become different. It saddened her, frustrated even. She forced herself to look up into the room to find him, even if she might not enter. 'I-I just need to see…Yuki…I—'

A deep penetrating weight fell upon her heart dragging all of the air out of her. She had not been able to react. Yumi simply stood in the threshold frozen in a paralysis of her own emotions. There were no thoughts just the pounding in her chest that she heard making her go deaf from listening. Soon her arms began to shaking along with her legs. She felt ready to collapse at any moment. All Yumi managed then forced her to flee the scene until she made it to her room. In her room she fell to the floor still feeling every part of her shaking violently. A hot boiling sensation started to grow within that converted the shaking into spontaneous anger.

No thoughts controlled Yumi. Only simple emotions fueled her as she threw things across the room that decorated the space. Value or preciousness did not matter to her. She demanded a vent to release the consuming emotions inside. Yumi froze in the middle of throwing a glass statuette at the wall. 'What am I doing?!' She jerked back as she looked around the room to see the shattered pieces of what she had destroyed strewn everywhere. 'What did I…'

As her mind traced backwards through the hazy it became clearer to Yumi. "Ayumi!" It had been far worse in implication than in the actual scene she saw. The image became etched into her mind left to fuel the aching that chipped away at her. "Ayumi was…she was sleeping next to him! Yuki was just letting her!" He meditated on his powers, but rolled up peacefully and defenseless was Ayumi on her side. She looked exhausted from holding together for half a day.

Yumi looked around the room again. It made her drop to the side of the bed hanging her head down. A tear streamed down her cheek prepared for the sorrow that welled up. "I'm losing…it… I-I…"

Near the front of the cruise ship the restless had gathered. Yori held off his uneasiness by focusing on problems that spun in his mind over the day. He had not asked for anyone to join him, but realized the continued company that he had throughout the day. Fumiko and Seiji frequently stayed nearby. Seiji reason became fairly apparently and he suspected that being alone was not something that Fumiko wanted. The others seemed to be satisfied with keeping to themselves, a poor quality for a group. He wondered how well they would do once they reached land where an entire boat was not available for them to distance themselves from the others.

Yori noted to himself how far that they had come. 'The speed that we must be going to have already passed the equator in a single day… It's very clear that this isn't a normal vessel even if it does have the appearance of one. The flexibility that they have is staggering. Will they really need us to do anything with such overwhelming abilities?' He looked back at the others that stuck nearby dwelling on the thought.

The fairy said that they all had powers, but Yori wondered what it was talking about when it had said that to them. He knew that Fumiko had at least the ability to create fire, but he had not seen anything else from the rest of the group. A little of deduction made him conclude that even without powers that Saki and Seiji could hold themselves in a fight if needed. The strangeness of the little girl claiming to be a ninja left him uncertain, but the mysteriousness of her made him feel like she might stand a chance. Haruo remained even more mysterious than the girl and he did not know if that would hurt them. The ones that he felt concerned about were his sister and himself. The ability to talk to each other was hardly anything useful. It was the most worthless ability to have when having to deal with someone that wanted to kill them. Yori knew that he would have to protect Yumi, but he knew that sounding brave to himself was not going to give him any more confidence to succeed.

Seiji shifted his weight against the wall of the deck. He looked frustrated and exhausted. No one said anything in the last few hours. He was left with only his thoughts and that could only sustain him for so long before he became bored. "Damn it all to hell! I can't take all of this silence! Are you all just asleep or something!?" The moment after he yelled the other two stared at him with an annoyed expression that made him regret running off his mouth.

"Didn't realize you were just a chatty individual," remarked Yori.

"Thought tough guys were all silent types except when in a fight."

Their critiques on him made him jerked back a little as though pushed. "How can you all be so quiet?! Don't you have anything to say or talk about?!"

"This isn't an afterschool hang out."

"I know that, but—" Seiji paused in the middle of his sentence. The words they had said before suddenly fully sat in his mind. He turned blue when he realized what was happening. 'What am I doing?! I have an image to maintain! I can't let this get to me!' Seiji straightened himself back up appearing like he had shaken off his problems, but it only became more obvious to the others.

"Is the big tough guy getting scared?" whispered Chiharu into his ear as she appeared mysteriously hanging from the deck above. She gave him a wicked grin when he stumbled backwards startled by her entrance.

He wiped his ear trying to get her out of him as his feet danced about. "What do you think you're doing? When did you get there?!"

"Only a moment ago. But I could hear your whining across the ship. It penetrates everything obnoxiously."

"You really are looking for a fight!" Seiji charged for where Chiharu hung only to find his fist in pain for slamming into the wall. Anger washed over any pain that he might have felt. He started to search the deck trying to figure out where she disappeared to. "You too afraid to fight me head on? You're just a coward!"

Chiharu stepped out of the shadows a few meters away from Seiji responding to his taunting. "I guess it would be boring to defeat you so easily." She answered his fierce glare with a simple offensive stance that left too many openings.

He read her stance and smirked to himself pleased to see that it worked. The fact that she was younger than him like a child or even a girl did not matter to him. It became a matter of pride that she mocked him so often. Seiji charged for her ready a strike with his fists, but before he could even prepare his arm he found himself flying through the air. A moment later his back slammed against the deck. He blinked trying to figure what had happened and heard a muffled laugh from the kid. This fueled his anger even more setting him on his feet to hunt down Chiharu once again.

It did not take long for him to locate her as she stood in sight taunting him. The charge he made ended in the same results. Repeating the process started to become embarrassing and painful to watch as Seiji did not show any signs of achieving ground against her. It made him tired.

Chiharu shrugged her shoulders looking bored. "You can't even give me a good exercise. Guess you're as disappointing as the weakling." The stance she had suddenly changed appearing to have had a new mood turned over with her decision.