Surroundings Sinerman mansion

Des looked at Sito, who stood opposite her, wagging all three tails excitedly. However, she did not stop repeatedly squeezing the face of the human in her hands. It was strangely pleasant and soothing. In fact, this was the first time she had ever touched a human and was surprised by their softness and squishiness.

Aran, on the other hand, twitched the muscles around his eyes each time as he endured the strong squeeze. He could already feel the bruises forming on his face, but he was eagerly thinking of a way to get out of this situation. He appreciated Sito's efforts, but he knew there was nothing he could do against the Higher Spirit.

Squeezing, squeezing, squeezing

Sita lowered his ears when he saw that Aran's face was getting all red and swollen. "Can we... can we talk about this?" Sita spoke to the ghost, hoping that his previous words were correct, that the ghost was capable of normal reasoning.

Desmond craned her neck, intrigued. Talk? She stopped squeezing the man's face and grew nervous. She had never really talked to people; she was a little apprehensive about it. She didn't want to embarrass herself. She quickly thought about everything she knew about being a good host.

Both Sita and Aran tensely watched the High Spirit, who suddenly didn't react and looked towards the mansion. Aran moved his hand carefully, planning to form his spirit weapon, which was the only weapon that actually wounded the Spirit Beast. He thought about trying to attack the ghost to break free from its grasp. The problem was that he had no plan for what he would do next.

When Sita noticed what he was doing, he quickly shook his head meaningfully at Aran to stop. Even if the Spirit let him go and Sita used the seal to do it, they wouldn't gain more than a few seconds.

The Spirit suddenly nodded. "Talk," it said and extended one hand towards Sita. The latter was startled, and his first instinct was to run away. So he jumped into the air, but the ghost's hand stretched out like rubber, and before he could move, it grabbed him by the tails.

"Aah! Don't squeeze them! Don't squeeze them!" Sita screamed in panic.

Des pulled the fox man close to her and reached out to grab his tail in her hand as he demanded she loosened her grip a little and tried to be more gentle. Finally, she also released the rest of her body from Aran's back, who staggered after that but wasn't free for very long. Desmond grabbed him by the clothes behind his neck and lifted him easily into the air; it resembled a bit like a cat carrying a kitten.

Desmond then sped off to the estate to take them in and be a good host.

"N-no! Wait!" She hears the fox shout, but she doesn't stop. She flies through the wall, but suddenly she is jerked back and there are two tubular sounds of impact.

Dunn! Dunn!

Des looks back and sees that both her hands had not passed through the wall and remained on the other side. "Ah..." Realizing what had happened, she lets go of her guests and peeks out only to see the two slowly slide down the wall.

Desmond had forgotten that humans couldn't walk through walls. And for some reason, neither could the fox. She scratches her cheek hesitantly and looks around; the impact seemed to have knocked them both out. Des is glad no one had seen it.

She flies out again and picks them both up, this time heading for the door. She decides to pretend none of this had happened.

---

 

Aran's eyelids fluttered as he slowly regained consciousness. He raised his hand and ran it over his face, but immediately jerked awake at the sudden pain.

"Ssss..." He hissed as he felt his cheeks throb, but now he had a headache on top of it. He touched his forehead and found a large lump there.

"What happened?" He groaned, looking around. This made him immediately close his mouth and straighten his back. He was sitting in a dark room that looked like it had been abandoned for a long time.

The room must have once been opulent, with large arched windows where the night's light filtered in; the walls probably once had been blue or turquoise in color, but now they were faded and largely scratched. The walls bore the outlines of the paintings that had once hung there, and there was a lot of rubbish lying on the old cracked floor.

Aran sat in an old chair that needed not only dusting but also a brand new upholstery; in front of him was a round table with an old brass ashtray that had some junk in it. There were exactly three chairs at the table; Aran was sitting on one, Sita was lying on another, and the third chair was empty.

Aran quickly remembered the recent events, and when he didn't see the ghost anywhere, he immediately jumped to his feet and approached Sita. He didn't even try to wake him up; he just grabbed him in his arms and ran to the door.

He wanted to escape while Spirit was gone. But Spirit was probably somewhere close because no sooner had he taken a few steps than the door in front of him slowly opened, and Spirit hovered behind it, looking down at Aran with glowing eyes, making Aran feel as if Spirit was judging him.

A drop of nervous sweat trickled down his temple, and his throat jumped as he swallowed hard before offering Spirit a hesitant smile. "I was... just... going to look for you?"

Sita awoke in his arms as well, which he could tell by the way the fox stiffened and gasped quietly. The ghost said nothing, so slowly, Aran began to return to the table, mentally gritting his teeth at his bad luck. If only he had woken up a little earlier! He sat Sita down in the other chair before resuming his seat, watching the spirit warily.

The ghost flew towards them, and for some reason, a tray followed it. The spirit stopped at the table, and three old and battered chai cups flew out of the tray and were placed on the table. Both Aran and Sita were confused about what the ghost was doing and watched as a teapot, obviously not one of the cups, floated off the tray.

The teapot leaned over each of the mugs, but nothing came out, yet the teapot continued to pretend to serve invisible tea. Once it was done, the teapot was placed on the table, and the ghost smiled encouragingly at them. Aran and Sita exchanged glances.

Sita then sighed, and his body turned into a cloud before he grew larger and transformed into his partial form between a human and a fox. He then grabbed his teacup and nodded to Aran, who mimicked him.

Desmond didn't have many options. As she put her guests to bed, she began to look for something to treat them with. She searched for a while but knew she had seen it somewhere in the mansion. Eventually, she found an old tea set. She knew a little something about being a hostess, and this was the only thing she could think of. The problem was, she didn't have tea.

So she thought she could at least pour them some water, only when she tried to turn the tap in the kitchen, all she got was a clatter of pipes and a flush of brown sludge. Even she knew it wasn't something people could ingest. She agonized for a moment but finally gave up.

She returned to the reception hall where she met Aran and examined him carefully. He seemed fine, except for the purple bruise on his forehead and his swollen cheeks.

Des gave them a tea ceremony, and was about to explain that it was only symbolic because she hadn't had any real tea at the mansion when her two guests had done something strange.

The fox man who had transformed into some sort of hybrid of man and fox suddenly grabbed an empty teacup, put it to his mouth, and pretended to drink.

Desmond was impressed; were the two pretending to have real tea to make her happy? She lowered her body into the last chair and then brought the teacup to her mouth as well to pretend to drink.

"Hmm... lemon," she commented, looking expectantly at her two guests.

"Hahaha. Yes. Lemon tea is very refreshing," Sita pressed his hands together and laughed nervously. Although Aran understood what Sita was trying to do, he still couldn't help sending a doubtful look towards him. He wasn't sure what was worse: pretending to have a tea party with a spirit here or rather getting killed? He really couldn't decide.

There was a tense silence between the three of them, Sita and Aran waiting to see what the ghost would do, Des again waiting for them to speak first. Eventually, the moment stretched into an uncomfortably long silence.

"Hm... talk?" Des finally said.

Sita nodded. "Yes! Yes. What do you want to talk about?"

Desmond looked at the fox man doubtfully. Weren't they the ones who wanted to talk? But then she got excited about the idea and turned her gaze toward the window. She could learn a lot from them about the world outside the mansion!

"Gulp, gulp, gulp... aaahhh. Very good tea. Great!" Fox praised, forming a weak smile.

Des blinked and then looked at Aran, who looked angry and embarrassed but did the same as Sita. "Yum, yum, yum. Yes, great tea." He set the teacup on the table a little more sharply.

---

City - Yunos

Velica ran home. When she reached the first houses, she allowed herself to slow down a little, but she kept going. She mentally cried over the fact that she had no Spirit Beast to help her travel. She was now envious of her older brother, who had just such a Spirit Beast that turned into a flying broadsword.

Her first thought was to take public transportation, but as the daughter of a prominent family, she never really needed to carry money, so she had no way to buy tickets. Thus, she had no choice but to walk on her own.

It took some time to get to the residential part of the city, but the fact that she could already see their mansion from afar gave her the strength to start running again. Her scruffy face lit up with joy when she saw the gate of their mansion, and the guards who had already spotted her began to call out urgently.

"Young miss!"

"The young miss has returned! Report it to the master! The young miss has been found!"

The guards made their way towards her, and it was only when she was right in front of them that she stopped and fell wearily to her knees. At last, she was home. Tears of joy and relief began to flow from her eyes.

"Young miss! Are you hurt?" worried the guards.

Velica looked up to answer, but then she saw someone leap out of the manor window and a silver light appeared under his feet, upon which he landed and then headed towards them at full speed until he left a silver line behind him.

"Veve!" The young man called as he raced towards her.

It was her older brother Liam, who was turning nineteen this year. Liam was a great brother, but the problem was that he was somewhat dramatic in nature. He had a habit of making dramatic gestures and was rather pompous. My father said it was a heroic phase.

Liam had short, slightly wavy brown hair, and his eyes were blue. He appeared slim and elegant, or seemed so until he opened his mouth.

Still in mid-air, Liam jumped off the flying sword, did a flip in mid-air, and then landed smoothly on the ground in a crouching position. He immediately jumped up again and ran over to Velica, whom he grabbed in a strong hug. "My sweet Veve! Little sister! You're alive! And healthy!" he shouted loudly. Velica was suffocated in his embrace.

"Liam... air..." She moaned.

"Don't say another word! Big brother will take care of you!" He lifted Velica into his arms; normally she would have protested, but not this time.

"Out of the way! Out of the way!" Liam shouted as he ran with Velica in his arms back to their family mansion. Velica endured the tremors of being carried and wanted nothing more than a bath and a warm bed.

But she was still a Spiritualist, even if only a novice. She needed to warn her family about the feral High Spirit. She honestly didn't care what happened to Aran. He could very well be dead, and she wouldn't shed a single tear or give him a sympathetic thought. But the High Spirit was a big problem.

Velica grabbed her brother by the clothes on his chest to get his attention. "I need to talk to Father," she told him.