Sunday Summer Quarter 2016 Week 3

"You wanted to know about our past?" Kaze sparred with me in the training facility.

"I was curious about the dimension you were stationed in," I answered, blocking her punch.

"I can answer that once we finish," Kaze answered.

We headed to the rest area in the facility after showering. There was a vending machine filled with different drinks and snacks. She pointed at a table in the middle and we sat down.

"You had lunch yet?" Kaze inquired, bringing out a lunch box from her bag.

"I only ate breakfast but I feel bad taking your food," I replied.

"There's enough for both of us. I thought something like this might happen." Kaze slid over a portion of her lunch.

I cracked open the lid and a tantalizing aroma drifted. All the food was organized with the rice on the left side and main dishes on the right side. There was glazed BBQ pork, tofu, and pieces of broiled fish. I hoped Kaze didn't spend too much time just to make extra food for me.

"So it’s been bugging me, why hasn’t anyone ever brought up the place where you and everyone else got your powers in?" I accepted a pair of chopsticks from her.

"It doesn't exist anymore. Well, a more appropriate answer is that it merged with one you've been to multiple times," Kaze replied.

"Something to do with the Traveler?" I guessed.

"How astute, Yuki. An incident occurred which caused the dimension we were headquartered in to be absorbed into the Crossroads," Kaze revealed.

"What happened to everyone living there?" I asked.

"Most were safely transferred over and allowed to stay in the Crossroads. But there were casualties though. There are multiple special residential areas within in the Crossroads that take in immigrants and lost beings from other dimensions," Kaze explained after sipping her tea.

"So what about the original members of your team? I saw a picture and noticed some different people," I questioned.

"Our original leader left to go to university in a different region so leadership was transferred over to Lilith. As for the others, there are various reasons for their departure," Kaze said.

"I noticed everyone received their powers around the same time and formed a team right away. That's different from Tess' group," I pointed out.

Shoot, almost forgot to eat. It was pretty rude if I just left all of Kaze’s food untouched. For the next five minutes, we both enjoyed our food before resuming our conversation.

"We were summoned for a different reason. There wasn’t a prophet, more of a guardian. This guardian gathered us together as a task force to eradicate certain threats," Kaze explained.

"Wait, that sounds like the Special Investigation Units," I realized.

"Similar but different. We worked together with them on occasion. Starting to see why Tess and everyone isn’t quite liked?" Kaze asked.

"Honestly, most of them have terrible personalities and they’re hard to work with.” I gave my honest answer.

"That's one way of looking at it. But it comes down to this, we were opposing them. Our main job was to prevent Long and everyone else from fulfilling the prophecies in their respective dimensions," Kaze revealed.

"What about the guardian you mentioned before?" I asked.

"Dead. A casualty during the fight with the Traveler unfortunately. There should be a report on it," Kaze answered with a somber expression.

"Sorry to hear that. Thanks for filling in the blanks for me, Kaze. I know it’s not fun bringing up the past when horrible things have happened but I really appreciate your time,” I responded.

"Don’t worry about it, Yuki. I’m really glad I could help you understand even if just a little. I intentionally avoided specifics but there are some things people should tell you themselves," Kaze said.

"Tess said the same thing," I recalled.

"Let’s finish here for today. I'm sure that you want to go back home and cross-reference my information with the records," Kaze suggested, packing up her lunch box.

"Thank you again!" I headed home after cleaning up the container Kaze gave me.

Tuesday Spring Quarter 2016 Week 4

"How is work?" Tess asked as we met up in the training facility.

"Not too bad. Wait, how did you know? Only En should know." I stared at the Gatekeeper.

"It's part of my task as the Gatekeeper to know everyone’s general schedule. It helps me plan training, mission, and meeting dates," Tess replied.

"Guess you know all of our locations because of your powers," I recalled.

"I rarely ever rely on it unless you are in trouble," Tess confirmed.

"What did you want to talk about?" I questioned, taking a seat on a nearby bench.

"It's time to focus on Jen, Kuan, Lau, and Jacque," Tess answered.

"Who's first?" I asked.

"Lau," Tess replied.

"When do you want to get started?" I opened up the calendar on my phone.

"You're off on Thursday and Lau also works in the morning. Afternoon should be a viable time," Tess responded.

"Anyone else joining us?" I questioned.

"Lionel or someone else from Lilith's team will accompany you," Tess revealed.

"Sounds good to me." I nodded.

"I will establish a communication channel with Long so he can support you," Tess said.

"You sure we should bother him? He is taking a leave of absence and so shouldn’t we leave him alone so he can deal with whatever he's working on?" I marked the date in my calendar.

"I have already spoken with him. He agreed to do this out of his own volition," Tess assured me.

"If you say so, you know him better than I do," I said.

“I will provide you with more details at a later time," Tess said and left.

Thursday Summer Quarter 2016 Week 4

"Hey Zhuyu, I have a question," I said.

There was silence and I examined my earpiece. No faulty connection or any errors from my grimoire. He probably just stepped aside.

"Sorry Yuki, can you repeat that?" he requested.

"I talked to Kaze and she told me how they were trying to stop everyone from fulfilling their prophecies. Was she the one responsible for your dimension?" I asked.

"Pretty much." Zhuyu gave a light laugh. "How do you think Feng and Kaze met?"

"So, Kaze actually was your enemy at one point?" I flipped through a magazine.

"Yep, when I was just a beginner, she seemed way scarier than Feng," Zhuyu confirmed.

"Really?" I found his statement surprising.

"The first time Zhang and I fought in an actual combat situation, it was against Kaze. She was pretty damn scary," Zhuyu revealed.

I was waiting in the Crossroads for everyone else. Tess established the communication channel using my grimoire so I chatted with Zhuyu to test the connectivity. Lau got off work late so I was the first one here. Lionel was busy so Lilith volunteered to accompany us.

"Hang on, was Kaze the only one who tried to stop you guys?" I questioned.

"No, but Kaze was the main person. I had a few run-ins with Lilith too," Zhuyu replied.

"Interesting. Was Lionel assigned to Shan and Ichaival's dimension?" I asked.

"Yeah. Makes sense why Lionel wanted to fight Darryl so badly, right?" Zhuyu confirmed.

Lau, wearing a hoodie and sweatpants, arrived. He greeted me and chatted with Zhuyu after I filled him in. I checked Tess’ notes while they chatted.

"Hey Lilith," I greeted when she arrived.

"Tomo, it's been awhile. I heard Long's on support today. Can you open up a channel for me?" Lilith requested.

"You want a private channel?" I asked.

“It’ll reduce the confusion when each of us is dealing with our own thing," Lilith explained.

"Got it,”I responded.

While Lilith spoke with Zhuyu, I went over the plan with Lau. We were going into an unfamiliar dimension. According to Shane and Emily’s research, our first lead was located in a small town.

"Okay, I'll leave it to you, Yuki," Shui decided.

"Wait, uh.... never mind," I said, accepting the role of leader.

"You've come a long way. I never thought you would get to this point but here you are," Lilith said, finishing her conversation with the zero vector user.