The Dream Shifter

Chapter 27

"…real world…" said Yuki softly while he was still staring at Ayumi. The thought had almost made him laugh knowing how much of a strange and ironic statement that was to be said. 'Most wouldn't see it as a real-world and until yesterday it was just a fake world to me. Strange to think my fantasies could be in the real world.' He stood up from the grass looking straight at Ayumi smoothing out his uniform. There were questions that needed to be answered and he did not have a lot of free time. "We need to talk."

"Yeah, you said that already. What is it you want to talk about?" Ayumi had dropped all of her facades that she wore for the public. She was not in the mood for wasting time.

Yuki knew that he had countless questions for her, but he had to pace himself. There were things that he needed to know more than anything else. Those things were not something that he could not ask before when his family was around him. "Why can't my family remember the assassin and what happened last night?"

Ayumi began to walk around Yuki coming to the edge of a tree on the school grounds. She leaned back against the tree while keeping her eyes on him. "This is an easy answer. I did it. It would be rather difficult if your family learned about your problems."

He turned around completely to face her not completely satisfied with the answer. "What do you mean you did it? I already figured that much out. How did you do it?"

"That is more complicated than you can understand." Ayumi was going to leave it at that, but she could see how frustrated it was making Yuki. "I did it while I was cleaning your house. I made them forget what happened through a special chemical I created in the air."

"Made them forget? You're talking about your power. Your Kasou-ryoku."

Ayumi tilted her head up suddenly at the strange word that Yuki had just used. "Kasou-ryoku? What is that?"

"Well, I'm always just saying 'this power' 'your power' 'my power' I felt that it needed a name. What you think?" Yuki had been very excited about the idea. He had wanted to tell her sooner, but there was not a good time during class. Most of the time at night had been spent thinking about it and he was very proud of it.

Ayumi was left without words feeling that she was sweating a little by his reaction. She could see the barely contained excitement. "Kasou-ryoku…I prefer Meso Prosecho."

"M-Meso Proshesho?" he said roughly having trouble speaking it seeing as it was not Japanese and not even English. "What is that? Sounds like Latin or something."

She looked back at him suddenly angry for reasons that he would not understand. "It's not Latin, it's Greek. And it means a way of the mind. It's what we've called it since ancient times."

"Well I'm not Greek and it sounds hard to say. I'm sticking with Japanese, besides it sounds cooler in Japanese." Yuki was still looking very proud of the statement ignoring or, perhaps, not noticing the frustration that was developing as a pulsing vein in Ayumi's forehead. He went on leaving the issue behind as he had other things he wished to know. "Did you use your Kasou-ryoku at school too to make them forget?"

"Are you going to keep saying that?" she said flinching her eyebrow at the word. She was not certain if he was saying it just to annoy her or because he liked the word.

"Yes, it needs a name."

"Fine…and no I didn't do that here. No one else saw us and apparently most of the students were oblivious the whole matter."

"Really? All of the noise. I would've thought someone would have seen something." It was a relieving thought for Yuki to know what he was safe. None of his friends had asked about it once he started to think more about the matter. It all seemed rather strange to him, but if no one found out then it did not really need him to press the issue further. However, he then thought about something that did not fit in. "What about Saki? She knows and you haven't erased her memories. Won't she be a problem?"

Ayumi leaned away from the tree before pulling herself from its support walking to Yuki. The matter of Saki was certainly a problem for her, but this was a calculated risk at this point. It was unavoidable seeing how close the two were. "It would have happened eventually. Better now than lying to her and then having more problems later."

"I guess you're right. You thought this out pretty far, huh?"

"Of course, I planned on taking you back. I wouldn't have gotten very far without planning ahead." She began to walk away from Yuki. Their time was coming to an end as she was satisfied with the number of questions that he asked. It was not time for him to understand everything. He would not have been able to comprehend it all yet.

Yuki turned around rushing after Ayumi taking her wrist in his hand to stop her. "I'm not done! I have more questions. You keep saying that you need me, but why is it so important that it is me? I know nothing of your people or what to do to save them." He could tell that she was pulling to get free while making it look like she was not struggling. This was important to him; he needed to understand completely what she was trying to get him to do. It was all still so fantastic to him. He felt so small in what seemed larger than he could deal with.

Ayumi found Yuki's grip to be surprisingly strong. She had thought that he was just some weak child that stared too long in front of the TV screen and read all the time. 'Why can't I get free?' She looked back to Yuki seeing his determination in his eyes. 'There's more to him that I haven't seen yet.' This was a point that she wanted to deal with at a later time. She knew that the longer she stayed the sooner it would come up and she had not chosen her words as carefully as she liked. The casual conversation had distracted her. "Let me go."

"Not till you answer my question." He tightened his hold on her wrist to enforce his point.

She grew tired of Yuki's thinking that he was in control of the situation. Ayumi drew back towards him and took her other hand to grab the arm that Yuki was holding her with pulling him over her in a single fluid motion. When she was finished he was laying on his back staring up at her confused at what happened. "Just because I'm not using my powers doesn't mean I'm weak. Come to my house tonight so we can begin your training immediately." Ayumi walked off leaving Yuki to stare at the clouds in silence.

Yuki blinked slowly staring up at the blue sky barely acknowledging that Ayumi had left. The moment eventually caught up to him and he stood up dusting off his uniform. Once he finished he raised up his fist to the air with the annoying angry vein popping out of his forehead. "You didn't answer my questions. Ayumi, I'm going to…"

When he released his anger to the void and grew tired of nothing but the wind replying back to him he lowered his fist. The school was over for him and he was late getting back. If it was another day Momoko might have yelled at him for being late, but those days were far between. Jun and Ken were waiting for him to make them a snack. However, Yuki was not in the mood with how Ayumi left him. 'Why didn't they just do it themselves when they came home. They don't need me.' There would be no amount of pulling on Yuki that would convince him otherwise, much to the disappointment of his younger brothers.

Ken stuck his tongue out at Yuki's back before running away. He disappeared into the kitchen starting to make a worrisome noise. Jun walked around Yuki looked up at him as though he could tell that there was something off from his brother's usual anti-social personality around his family.

Yuki tried not to look at his brother, but Jun made it difficult to be ignored. He gave into Jun after some frustration and looked down at him. "I'll be fine. It's just been a long day." The reassurance did not seem to give Jun comfort as he still hung around Yuki keeping a firm hold on his uniform in his hands. Yuki let out a small sigh and knelt down to look at Jun closer. "You don't need to worry…" He took a pause trying to figure out what he should say to get Jun to release him. Yuki knew too well that if Jun was concerned about someone he followed them around silently in their shadow until their mood changed (he knew that because it was generally himself that was caught). "How 'bout this. We'll see what noise Ken is making and fix up some snacks before Momoko comes home?"

Jun gave him an eager nod adding a little leap in his excitement. Yuki grabbed up Jun quickly with little effort and placed him on his shoulders. The house was tall enough and the two of them short of enough that they fit through without troubles. He knew how much Jun liked riding around on his back when he was younger and though he was getting older Jun was still very much a child at times. When they came to the kitchen doorway Yuki had to bend down a little to get through, but Jun seemed to be in a better mood now as well as Yuki. The mood had lasted until he saw the mess that Ken was starting to make. "Ken! Momoko's going to kill you if she sees this mess."