Even though it shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise to them, it still left the entire cabin in silence.  Several of them could only stare out at the fighting, not completely focused on it.  Shock ran through them all.

If the UN presence was as Chiharu surmised, then the world or at least the most powerful countries in the world all saw them as a threat.  They were potential enemies to something far larger than they could possibly comprehend.

Yuki was the first to break the silence with awkward laughter.  It seemed completely inappropriate, especially as it drew everyone’s attention.  They didn’t know what to think of his reaction.  “And I thought making enemies of the Council of Atlantis was the biggest problem.  What ever god is looking down on us as play things must to be having quite the laugh right now.”

“…Yuki…”  Yori’s sister stared at him, not sure what she could really do for something.  None of them could do anything.  She understood how impossible their situation was.

However, there was one that didn’t.  Seiji made his way to the door planning to make for a stupid action.  “I’m not one for fate or destiny!  Only what I can hold with my hands!”  It should have been a good and possibly inspiring little moment.  However, Yori and his sister already moved to hold him back.

Struggling with Seiji’s strength, they needed help.  “Saki!  Help us stop Seiji!”

“What the hell do you think you guys are doing?” barked Seiji, trying to get them off him.  “I’m going out there and put a stop to this!”

Saki didn’t make any movement to help them.  Her arms crossed over her chest as she stared at the fighting.  She could see very clearly the looks on the faces of the Japanese.  “I’m with Seiji on this.  I won’t stop him if he wants to help them.  I don’t agree with this.”

“Saki?!”

It was actually Yuki that stepped forward to stand in Seiji’s way, despite him being the least likely to succeed.  The only thing that would stop Seiji was great strength.  He had the determined look in his eye.  “Seiji!  We can’t intervene here.”

Seiji ripped free from Yori’s hold and quickly escaped his sister as well.  He stared down at Yuki.  “There’s people out there that did nothing wrong!  They just want to be free and you’re saying it fine just to have the UN walk all over us?  Because they’re afraid of what we could do!?”

“You’re making assumptions!  Besides not understanding the situation fully, this isn’t on the same scale of things we’ve dealt with.”

“In Atlantis—“

“That was different!  And at the end all I managed to do was delay things to another day.  The problem hasn’t been resolved!  This isn’t going to be something that ends pretty or happily.”  Yuki threw his hand up against the glass of the door out to the deck.  “You don’t think I want to go out there and help them?  I do!  But if we make any action in that fight we’ll be facing the UN.  You know what that means?  That’s the world’s arm swinging out there!”

Yuki stepped up getting right into Seiji’s face.  “Strength isn’t going to solve this!  We got lucky with Atlantis and my position solved a lot of our immediate problems.  But Atlantis never had any plans to do anything beyond keep hiding.  This is the world stage out there.  If we make a move it’s not just affecting us.  This affects our families, friends, our town, all Japan!  They already fear us, what do you think will happen to the people that are unable to protect themselves if we retaliate right now?  How much suffering could we cause to countless unknown innocents from our selfish actions?!”

Everyone watched to see how Seiji reacted.  Like him, none of them felt good about watching what happened beyond their safety.  But they knew that Yuki was right.  The risks of making any sort of move were too high.  They couldn’t foresee what course the world would take if they acted.

Slamming his fist through the wall of the cabin, the boat rocked a little from Seiji’s anger.  He seemed to understand what Yuki said.  It was the only outlet to vent his frustration.  Things greater than him tied his hands.  “Dammit all!  Why does this have to be happening?!”

Relieved, Yuki walked back to the center of the room.  After they cleared through the blockade, it was mostly just a straight shot.  However, it didn’t mean that the boat was going the way they wanted.  The waves created from the fighting threw off their course significantly.

He hung his hand down with his eyes disappearing behind his hair.  “I should have seen this outcome.  It’s a classic case of those that thought they were on top suddenly seeing there is someone higher up.  Societies become afraid and are prone to violence when it happens.  We see it all the time in those sorts of movies.”  An awkward grin came across his lips.  “I thought art was supposed to imitate life, not the other way around…”

Chapter 287 – False Normalcy

No one could be happy anymore.  Despite the gloom that existed over everyone’s head about Yuki’s potential condition in the future, everything seemed to be better after Atlantis.  Not everything was perfect, but they were headed home.  If they just saw their families again, maybe they could forget everything bad that happened.  Maybe it would just be like a bad dream.  And they could continue with their life.  In the future, they could laugh and tell stories about what happened in a more fond light.

None of that was possible anymore.

The docks crawled with UN soldiers at every corner.  They were likely there to enforce the blockade and prevent anyone from stealing boats to try to escape.  It was just another reminder of how much things had changed in the short time they were away.  It didn’t even feel like home anymore.

Once they had a moment to move, Yuki swapped out their protection on the boat for personal invisibility.  They still had the same intention of just avoiding any sort of encounter.  While still on the docks, the noise in the distance came to an end.

They stopped between two moored freight boats.  The gap gave them a good view of the shoreline.  “I don’t see them fighting anymore,” reported Saki.  “I guess the UN won.”  It seemed safe to assume since the blockade held.

Yuki looked in the distance at the numerous patrols by the UN.  They weren’t messing around.  A sign of how much they feared them.  While he couldn’t see it, the others told them that there were vehicle checkpoints and fortifications locking down the entire dock.  “Chiharu.”

“Right.  On it.”  She immediately disappeared from the group into her shadows.

The others looked around and then focused on Yuki.  Saki made the first move in front of Yuki demanding an answer.  “What are you planning?”

His eyes narrowed and the lines of his face hardened significantly.  It wasn’t the same Yuki that Saki knew.  “Recon.  I don’t plan on fighting them, but we need an escape strategy from here.  She’s the best for scouting thanks to her powers.”  Once he finished explaining himself, he started moving again.

The others followed along with Yuki, but Saki hung back for a bit.  She stared at his back.  ‘I don’t recognize that face.  It’s not the sad depressed one that he’s always hiding from everyone and not the fight starved one that seemed to be appearing lately.  This is something completely different…  What’s going on Yuki?’  However, she couldn’t keep staring for long.  She forced herself to keep up with the others.

With the aid of Chiharu’s investigations, Yuki guided them through the docks.  He ended up taking them to an isolated room in the docks.  Chiharu popped back into the room with the others confused why he led him to a dead end.  “And this is it, right?”

Chiharu nodded to him.  “Correct.  There’s about a third of a meter of building or wall, but it is the best location in the entire docks.”

“Good.”  Yuki dropped his Field for a moment before bringing it back up.  A door suddenly appeared in front of them with a very inviting look to it.  “I picked this little trick up from Eudokia.  It’s a lot easier than forcing a hole.  My power is still too much of a nuke rather than a cruise missile when it comes to precision.”  To encourage them about his plan, he opened the doorway into the room.

Through the threshold they all saw a short tunnel to another door.  Yuki welcomed them through it.  Seiji accepted the challenge as though they were needing muscle for something.  He opened the other door only to be a bit disappointed.  “It just goes outside,” he called back.

“Well of course, what did you think it would do?  This is how we’ll get out of the docks without the UN spotting us.”  Seiji wasn’t the only one that seemed to expect something a little more climatic than just walking through a door.  He could see it in their eyes as he panned around to his friends.  However, he wasn’t going to hold things up.  Yuki joined Seiji outside.

The difference between the inside versus the outside almost seemed like night and day.  While the presence of the UN still ran throughout the city, it no longer looked like a military state as the docks appeared.  None of them could shake off the feeling of being watched.

Once they were all out, Yuki shutdown his Field for the last time.  He sighed finally able to rest.  His mind suddenly felt fuzzy and light.  “…oh…I…”  Yuki fell over in the street completely unconscious before he even hit.

“Yuki!” everyone shouted trying to call for him.

Yori’s sister and Saki moved the fastest.  Yori’s sister checked immediately for his vitals.  When she found them, it gave her a bit of relief.  “He’s fine, just feels like his heart is racing a little.”  She stared down at him realizing how much he had been working for them all.  “He’s probably just exhausted from using his power constantly for so long.  Plus…”  The following thought stopped before she could finish it.  They had the immediate thought about it.  None of them wanted to consider it.

Seiji already picked up Yuki to toss him over his shoulder.  He looked over at the rest of them.  “It’s just a little further.  Let’s stick together just to be safe.”  It came out like a sound decision, considering Seiji’s personality.  However, none of them were really in the mood to comment on his slightly out of character remark.

Once they reached their neighborhood, Chiharu broke off from the group.  “This is where we part ways.”  She caught the look from Seiji, who seemed like he wanted to walk her all the way back to her mansion.  “I’ll be keeping to the shadows.  I’m not interested in fights right now.”  The comment went out to no one in particular, she made sure of it.  Though they all seemed to see that she was covering up for something.  Before they could say anything she disappeared into the ground.

Fumiko was the first they dropped off, a little out of their way along with the siblings.  Yori’s sister wished to go all the way with Yuki, but Yori insisted on them seeing their mother quickly.  The amount of time that they had been gone was longer than planned.

Along the way deeper into their neighborhood, Haruo disappeared without so much as a word to them.  They just realized he was gone one moment.  Saki and Seiji could do little about him.  But they trusted he would be fine.

It left them at the steps of Yuki’s house with an unconscious Yuki in their hands.  They looked at each other trying to figure out what to do about their situation.  It wasn’t exactly the most ideal position for them.  Saki was reminded of Yuki’s comment of how he left his family.  Such a scenario only made things worse.

Pushing him forward, Saki threw him into the fire.  “You knock.”

“Huh?”  Seiji turned back around to look at Saki.  “What do you mean?  Why aren’t you knocking?!”

“It’s complicated.”

“And it’s not for me?”  He threw his hand up to point back at the house.  “They don’t exactly have the best opinion of me.  And I can’t even remember the last time I actually met Momoko.  I just remember the glare she gave me when she found out who I was.”

“Afraid of his sister?” Saki teased.

“Damn right!”  He caught Yuki from slipping off his shoulder in all of their arguing.  “And you’re not?”

She backed a step away from Seiji with her face turning a little blue.  “Well—“  Everything in her face went pale suddenly.  Sweat started to build up over her face.

Seiji leaned forward trying to figure out what had Saki so frightened.  He just lightly mentioned Yuki’s sister and didn’t expect to get such a reaction for him.  “Saki?”  However, she wasn’t answering him.  Approaching her more, Seiji tried to get her voice working, but all she did was point at him.  “The hell’s wrong with you?”  She just kept pointing with her face getting worse and worse .

Then Seiji felt the presence.  The ominous overbearing presence that seeped into every pore.  The one more frightening than any of those that he fought in Atlantis.  It made his whole body sweat and lock up.  Seiji turned, as if he was rusty, behind him towards the door.  The door was open and it was filled with the most terrifying image any of them had seen.  “Oh crap…Momoko…”