Fate's Direction (Invite Only)

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Palette raised an eyebrow at the curtsy. Geez, this kid (she scoffed a bit at herself at that thought. Kid. Right. She was probably the same age as blockhead over there.) was really laying it on a bit thick, wasn't she?

"Well, this ain't the same place I went to bed last night either," Palette said. "But it's Canopy City on the Dimensional Island."

Yui nodded. "Miss Palette is correct. This area is Canopy City, located in the Dimensional Island's natural rainforest."

[mugenginga]

Shinku straightened up from her curtsy as Palette spoke. The animal-like creature had quite the tongue on her. She gave her an emotionless look at the response to the question. With Shinku that meant the look was a bit scary and unkind, at the very least harsh. She saw no reason to doubt the creature giving the circumstances, but it was a bit problematic. She looked towards Yui as he responded with a similar expression.

"Then this location is not the N Field. I can only assume someone kidnapped me and brought me here. Have either of you two seen a Japanese teenager going by the name of Jun Sakurada?"

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Yui and Palette both shook their heads.

"No, sorry," Yui stated. He suddenly turned as he heard footsteps. Eriol was walking back, and he seemed to be much calmer than before.

"I'm sorry about before," Eriol stated. He looked down at Shinku before looking up again. "If I can suggest something, we should find lodgings of some sort. The people here seem nice enough; they should be able to help us out."

[mugenginga]

Shinku seemed lost in thought for a moment. So Jun was nowhere nearby, and her sisters were likely not as well. She still felt the link with the teenager that served as her Medium, despite how weak it seemed to be. Weaker than Shinku could figure out how. She replayed what had been said. Dimension Island...

"I am quite certain that annoying rabbit has not ended things for this era," Shinku stated, "Therefore, I need to find Jun. That servant is likely to hurt himself if left alone in a place such as this. Do you suspect someone in this town will know of his location?"

[Firebreath Fishslap]

"Probably," Palette said. "If not someone here, someone in Void City might be able to help. Though I don't know how far this place is from Void City; I don't think I ever left town..."

Left town; hell, she hardly ever left that shop, except to do errands. She cursed that damn hedgehog once again.

"We could help you search for him," Yui offered. Eriol didn't say anything.

[mugenginga]

Shinku seemed... distant. Not so much annoyed as lost in thought. She didn't say anything as she walked over to the box. It was still hanging open. She carefully stepped inside, once again being careful with her skirt, and took a sitting position. She grabbed the top of the box and pulled it a bit closed before she finally spoke.

"If it is the only option available to me, then I suppose I shall have to take it. I will follow you from above until I know more about this place I have come to."

And then she closed the box. Which then floated into the air, literally flying. The box flew over to where the two dolls and Palette were. It popped open revealing an mildly annoyed Shinku.

"You may leave at any time," she stated.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Palette blinked a bit at Shinku's flying box, but she shrugged and started walking. This island was weird, but by now she was used to these kind of weird things.

Yui and Eriol exchanged a glance before Eriol pushed Yui back and ran up beside Palette. Like hell he was going to let Yui take the lead. Yui tilted his head before following behind Palette, Eriol, and likely Shinku.

[mugenginga]

Shinku didn't go ahead of Yui. She had no intentions of being anything but the last one to leave the hut. Once she got outside, the box would shoot into the air and conceal itself among the leaves. It was as like as not that the group would lose track of her, but she'd be observing them.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Palette blinked as Shinku's box flew into the air and threw the canopy once they got away from the hut. She scratched her head, and then continued walking until they got to the town square.

"So, you guys want to split up and ask around for this Jun guy?" Palette asked. Yui and Eriol both shrugged. Palette facepalmed.

"Can you two make any decisions on your own?" Palette asked with a more annoyed tone. Without waiting for a response, she added, "You two need some brotherly bonding time. Go ask around together. No fighting each other, no killing anyone, and I swear to fucking god, anyone comes back with any more limbs missing, I will kick your ass. Got it?"

"Yes'm."

"Yes ma'am."

"Good. Now get your asses moving. I'll be waiting here," Palette said. Yui and Eriol glared at each other before walking off together.

[mugenginga]

Shinku chose to follow Eriol and Yui. The names seemed oriental, something she might expect to run into in Japan but not necessarily Japanese. Palette would hear the leaves rustle a bit before dying back down. While Shinku was keeping track of the two male dolls, she was also looking at her left hand. While the Ring was not visible except under specific circumstances, the link was one she could sense. The link was there, but she couldn't sense Jun. This was problematic.

The two dolls would have no luck with their search. Once they'd find a person who know someone named Jun, but the surname wasn't Sakurada. Shinku stayed hidden, but no matter how long they searched, they wouldn't have much luck...

(OOC: Um... you can get them back to Palette. If you want to move time forward a bit, we can jump to Xiu's entrance if you're ready to bring Kerro back. Lemme make the first post of that. :3)

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Yui and Eriol had ignored each other for much of their search for Jun. They'd managed to find someone who knew a Jun. But he had a different surname. After about an hour, they finally gave up. The two of them walked back to where Palette was waiting, finally having degraded into not-so-politely disagreeing with each other.

"If Kerro was here, maybe we would have been able to find that Jun person..." Yui grumbled.

"Don't you start about him with me," Eriol said in a rather wooden tone. "It's your fault he's dead."

"You're the one who killed him."

"I wouldn't have had to kill him if you had just been there," Eriol said. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he'd long felt regret over killing Kerro like that. There had been a period where he'd finally lost what "mind" he had and gotten so attached to Kerro's corpse that he couldn't bear to be separated.

Of course, now he didn't even know where Kerro was...

"Shut up. You threw away your hat, didn't you?"

"I renounced my allegiance to the Creator. I don't need a dead man's approval anymore."

"That's not what you were saying earlier."

"Some of my parts got mixed up."

"No... you just can't admit you're still attached to him," Yui said. Eriol grabbed Yui by the collar.

"Shut the hell up, you broken failure. At least I'm all in one piece."

"It's nice to see you two getting along so well," Palette said. She walked up to Eriol and Yui and very roughly forced them apart. Well, I wouldn't call it getting along... but it's a start. At least they're actually talking to each other. "How did the search go?"

Eriol and Yui looked at each other before stubbornly walking to opposite sides of the square without answering Palette's question. She managed to guess from their reaction.

"...Not well, then. Great," Palette said. She hoped something would happen. Even a vision would be great now... but she hadn't had any since Keiji first appeared at the shop. She wondered how the kid was doing now. She could have sworn she heard his voice before... before Himitsu got killed. And someone with a similar voice to his had ordered him out. And then Palette had soon after regretted her decision to eavesdrop on what was going on outside her room.

[mugenginga]

There wasn't really all that much to do for three living dolls and a anthropomorphic girl. The most logical choice would have been to find transportation out of the area, perhaps headed to Void City. Then again, there was the danger Himitsu had spoken of in her letter. Palette was still being targeted for a reason only she and a select few from her home world knew. So the group pretty much stayed there, twiddling their thumbs. It was all very annoying to Shinku, in matter of fact.

She would have never admitted it, but she was still quite worried about Jun. The link between she and her medium was still there. Even had she wanted to, she could not cancel it without knowing his location. To break a contract required her to kiss his ring. The other option was not one she had ever been willing to take, even in the earliest days of the Alice Game. She would not break the contract by drawing on enough power to kill him.

At just before 15:00, her annoyance reached a peak. She had been observing the situation between the creature that called herself Palette and the two dolls of the same series. It had been going nowhere, and it was almost three in the afternoon. Shinku at least had the posterity to check to make sure no one was around before she sent her box directly in front of Palette's face. It was at a high speed, and had it not been coming down the artist would have likely thought it headed straight for her head. The top popped open and Shinku gave a miffed look towards her.

"Is it too hopeful for me to assume a decent place for tea was discovered during your earlier failures?"

(OOC: Shinku does have a thing for tea in canon. No specific time is ever given for it, but she does mention her tea time is "inflexible". Considering three in the afternoon is the stereotypical (I don't know the accuracy) British tea time, I went with it. FF, you might want to get Abel into the general area as its 16:00/4PM that Xiu is due to show up. I'm headed to the main RnK plot now to sort it out and figure out if we need to play catch up. )

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Palette jumped as the box started flying toward her. Once it stopped, though, she moved back to glaring at Shinku. Man, this doll pissed her off. Palette was sure she pissed the doll off too.

"This ain't Fortree City with a Pokeemon Center with a cute little cafe," Palette retorted. She even mispronouced Pokemon. Most likely, she'd heard some out-of-towner compare this place to Fortree earlier.

"Actually, I saw a cafe a few blocks that way," Yui stated. Palette glared at him next.

"Fine. Let's go... drink some tea." Palette groaned as Yui led the way.

--------------

Abel really had to wonder what was wrong with him.

Oh, it wasn't like it had taken him too long to get there. A couple hours on foot. He wasn't too exhausted. He was exhausted, but he wasn't gasping fir breath.

Yeah, he was confusing himself too.

But he had to wonder what was making him come here. That nagging feeling that Himitsu wasn't really dead? The Laplace Mail? The girl named Xiu and the mention of living dolls? Maybe it was the fact that he was tired of his demonic instincts and the pain they caused. And it was entirely likely that the only person who could do anything about them was the same person who caused this reaction to start overcoming his senses in the first place. And it wouldn't do any harm to just check, right?

[mugenginga]

Shinku regarded Palette with a flat stare as she made her jab. She was remaining hidden for a reason. Even if this... "dimension" accepted Eriol and Yui, they were normally proportioned. She was the size of a large collector's doll, and likely to draw far more attention. She glanced towards Yui as he spoke, her box turning to allow a better angle. She turned back towards Palette as Yui began to walk.

"I am afraid to inform you that is unacceptable," she stated, "Humans do not react well to my presence, and I have no desire to be locked within my box."

That hinted something...

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Palette groaned as it hit her what Shinku wanted her to do. She put one hand on her head. "Ugh, alright, alright. I'll go buy you some tea... then..."

Palette let out a strangled noise like a cornered animal before taking a step back and dropping the paint set Himitsu had given her. Standing at the other end of the platform they were currently on was that K1 kid Himitsu had been taking care of before. The person who had woken up and nearly killed Himitsu in his anger. The guy who had disappeared totally after leaving the shop to go rescue that Keiji kid. The person whose voice she'd heard through her bedroom door when Himitsu was killed. Himitsu had told them they might think these were the same people. They weren't. And after the scene Palette had overheard, she believed it.

That wasn't what was freaking Palette out the most. What was freaking her out was that he was staring at her with those horrid, dead eyes. That's what they were, they were the eyes of a dead man. If it weren't for those eyes, he'd look almost human. But she knew he wasn't. She'd heard every word, every bit of what went on in that other room.

Eriol stopped walking and turned back toward Palette. The doll's face didn't change, but he still recognized the man over there. Be hard not to with those headphones of his.

"Who are you?" Eriol asked.

"...You already know," Abel stated. "Where's Himitsu?"

Eriol felt a little stupid. He'd gone over there without a weapon. Yui was standing a little to the side, having noticed something was wrong after Eriol did. "You killed her."

"She's not dead. I'm sure of it," Abel said. He repeated his question. "Where is she?"