The Dream Shifter

Chapter 51

The restaurant had become busy and they had spent their time talking long enough. Hiroshi and his friends left at the door to go home or whatever they normally did after school. Saki and Ayumi cautiously looked at each other in front of the building as though they were acting like strangers figuring their way home.

After several minutes of almost blank stares, they turned towards the street seeing the busy evening traffic.

"So… Ready to go?" said Saki deciding to start up the conversation.

"…Yeah…"

Saki turned in the direction that they needed to go and began walking knowing that Ayumi would catch up on her own pace. Her mind was filled with worries still thinking about Yuki and Seiji being together. She knew that she should trust Yuki to be alright and that he would not get into any fights, but knowing their history she could not help herself.

Most of the thoughts were started anew after they left the restaurant where they had managed to be suppressed through the chatting.

However, Saki was now bombarded with every fear that she had. She wanted to know what Seiji's motive was for suddenly appearing after school after leaving with hardly a goodbye last time. They had little in common besides fighting to leave Saki to return to her fears repeatedly.

'Wish I knew what they were doing now.'

While they walked in silence Ayumi watched Saki's reaction and gears visibly turning. The way that Saki was acting made it pretty clear to Ayumi that she was concerned for Yuki (anyone passing by could tell). Ayumi kept her cheerful persona on the busy street but spoke with her deeper voice towards Saki.

"What sort of person is this Seiji?"

It took a moment for the words to sink into Saki and even longer for it to even connect with her. There had to be further prodding from Ayumi before Saki looked towards her to make contact.

"Seiji? Well like I said before Yuki and he would get into fights a lot."

"You mentioned being a Shinto priest-in-training, I assume that supposed to mean something. I'm not versed in all of your cultures yet."

There was a lot that Ayumi was still studying about the world outside of her homeland since it was generally ignored and not taught in schools. She had been learning as much as she could, but her cover story of being from America helped to smooth out most of her mistakes.

"Oh right, I forgot you aren't from around here. Let's see, I guess in a simple way Shinto priests are sort like umm…really…good people? I guess that isn't clear either. Um… They are divine practitioners that follow some sort of code or guidelines I guess. Does that help any?"

Saki was sweating a little from her stumbling through her explanation, but it ended up getting the point across to her.

"I see. Hmm…"

"Why you ask?" Saki said finding Ayumi's curiosity in Seiji to be a little sudden if not strange.

Ayumi struck her as a person that did not do anything without purpose and if it was concerning Seiji she wanted to know.

Ayumi paused in her response leaving Saki staring her until it started to bother her.

"I've seen him before today I'm fairly certain. I think I've seen him watching us from the edge of the school."

They turned into their neighborhood taking to the road now rather than the sidewalk that was soon to end.

"What?!" Saki came to an immediate stop in the road after she finished speaking.

Whether Ayumi meant it or not increased fears were blazing through her mind trying to understand what he was up to watching them.

"For how long?"

"Since I've been attending your school and I suspect even longer. At first, I thought he was an assassin, but he never made a move so I waited. I guess he was waiting for a chance to meet with Yuki."

Ayumi could see that Saki was spinning into overload on thoughts and hoped that she might be able to temper some of it with more rational logic. Unfortunately, it did not seem to be working on Saki as she walked ahead of Ayumi beginning to ignore Ayumi lost in her world of growing concerns.

Saki did not remember walking the rest of the way home or even opening the door to her room. She just simply ended up there when she finally snapped out of her trance.

'He's been watching us, Yuki… Has he been planning this the entire time? What's he up to? This wasn't random… Yuki…'

Saki collapsed on her bed rolling over on her side dropping her arm over her pillow that she drew in against her.

…

..

.

Seiji made good on his promise with Shoji to show him something, which was a Shinto technique that Shoji had been interested in, but their grandfather refused to teach him yet.

When their grandfather found them in the back practicing Shoji got scolded as well as Seiji. However, Seiji had managed to smooth things over with his grandfather a little due to Shoji pressuring, but it was not going to be something that was fixed overnight.

He knew how his grandfather was about tradition and Seiji hated the whole idea. Those opposites were not going to be changed, but he could at least put on a good face for his little brother. It made dinner go a little better without being ganged up by his father too about his lack of progress in his training.

The shrine was huge, but walking the halls Seiji always felt like he was being choked at each step. He walked out onto the back porch around the shrine leaning at the wood railing looking up at the stars that began to appear in the sky through the heavy city lights.

'Yuki… I'll try again tomorrow… I can't just keep watching you from a distance…'

Yuki had made it back to his house without incident, though Momoko was staring at him like she was ready to knock him through a wall for being so late. She ran through the usual recycling of her old material that he had heard before. Once she was done with him a plate of food was thrown at him and things returned to normal.

It had been a week since Momoko had found his friends in their living looking like they had been through a warzone, minus the injures. She had not blown upon them like Yuki was expecting, but she was being polite in front of all of his friends.

The yelling and scolding happened afterward with Yuki taking the full force of a worried sister's frustration and a situation she could not understand.

When he had the time to spare he would visit with Ayumi for their training sessions, but he had not been making any progress. All she was doing was trying to cram countless years of exercises and knowledge into him as quickly as possible like she was on a deadline. It was no different for Yuki tonight either.

They were in her underground training room that had looked more or less the same as the first time, though she insisted that it was not the same. Yuki was tired and exhausted from the mental exercises that she was making him do with none of them producing the results that she wanted.

"I can't do anymore…" he said wiping away the sweat on his face holding a pencil in his hand.

Yuki stood up throwing what was in his hands at the feet of Ayumi.

"It's too much for me!"

Ayumi angered by Yuki's refusal picked up the book and pencil in her right handballing it in a fist staring down Yuki.

"It just Sudoku! It's not that hard!"

She tried to push it back into his hands for him complete, but he pushed it back against her.

"I don't even understand why you want me to do them! It's not helping me any!"

Ayumi threw the book and pencil across the room spinning around hitting Yuki with the back of her leg in his neck. The force sent him sliding across the floor roughly coming to a stop.

She marched over to him pulling Yuki up by his shirt and threw him even further until he landed against the wall at the end of the room.

Yuki staggered to his feet trying to get his bearings while Ayumi closed the distance quickly.

"Why are you attacking me now!?"

"Maybe I can knock some sense into you!" she said unable to hold back her frustration that Yuki had pushed her to now.

Teaching was not her forte and she had even less patience for someone unwilling to listen without mocking everything of their traditions.

"That makes even less sense than the stupid puzzles!"

"The stupid puzzles as you call them are important!"

"How?!"

"To test your mental capacity and flexibility. Logic problems like this require you to store information and remember it while you work the problem and sort through the facts. This is an important task that you have to master for your training."

Ayumi's face was only inches away from Yuki in their staring contest with both of them showing angry veins popping from their foreheads.

"But what does that have to do with the Kasou-ryoku?!"

"Stop calling it that…"

Ayumi said lowly under her breath only causing her eyes to narrow more. The annoyance that she was feeling was starting to change to the desire to cause pain. However, she managed to pull herself back finally realizing the composure that she had lost.

She smoothed out her dress and stepped back away from Yuki. A long drawn out breath returned her features to the blank cold expression that Yuki was too familiar with.

She turned around quickly looking like she was going to walk away, but her leg was extended in the turn catching Yuki pulling him off the wall and throwing him back to the chair that he was sitting in before.

Ayumi walked towards Yuki as he recovered himself. She came to a stop a few steps short of him and stared down at him.

"I'll explain why this is important. So listen closely since this is a very important component of our powers. The way our powers work requires us to know what we want and to remember it. If you aren't thinking about it, it no longer exists. The subconscious can't be relied upon to hold everything. Our powers work in the conscious section of our minds and everything in the field is maintained by that. Up until now you've been activating it subconsciously and that's worked, but it was only simple things. Such as your unwieldy and pointlessly large sword and ostentatious fantasy armor from when your power first awakened."

"Hey!"

Yuki said taking offense to her degrading his fashion choice when he had fought the assassin in his home.

"It should be practical and allow for movement."

"And whereas a kimono is practical?" said Yuki commenting on Ayumi's clothes that she wears during her activated state.

The assault on her wardrobe made the smooth features of her face c***k a little and twitch, but she held herself with a redirect.

"They were simple and only a couple of things. So the subconscious can keep it, but that has its limit and as such you haven't done much more than that. If you have fifty objects in a field they are only present because you are thinking about each and everyone one. If you can't, then they will disappear. Like this sword."

Ayumi had summoned up her field and was holding her sword that she used to fight within her hand.

"This is only here because I'm thinking about it, once I stop thinking about it, it will vanish. That is why it is important to retain information. A Meso Prosecho user's worth is judged heavily on how many objects they can maintain in their field at one time and still be able to function."

The field suddenly grew several swords from the field to demonstrate her point and then disappeared. While she had her field up she decided to bring up another matter that important as well.

"On the subject of remembering things, you need to understand another important part of our power. It is the Agros Nomos or Field Law."

Yuki was already staring at her confused when she made an immediate translation for him.

"Field Law?"