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Chapter 4
Days passed into months and soon enough the whole house settled down into
the new routine of everyone in college and having one more person in the
house. Cye and Mia were glad for the extra help in the kitchen, and Kento
got to taste new foods on the nights that Aideen cooked. He liked it all
and sometimes he would try to over eat, but as she followed Mia and Cye's
example with the muscular member of the group he always got just enough to
fill him for the night and more than enough jibes from the guys about it.
The only times she really shocked them any more was when she would join in
the fun and her whip snap humor showed leaving them all in the dust and
gaping at her as she would calmly continue eating.
The one evening when she was asked where she got such a winning humor she
smiled and pointed to Kento. "I have a friend back in Ireland who eats like
he does, he is like a brother to me and we have been trading insults on the
level since we were both old enough to understand the fine art of the
insult." She would grin an apology at Kento and everyone would settle back
into finishing another excellent meal.
Aideen soon found out however that no one in that household was exempt for
long from the insult slinging that occasionally happened at various points
of the day, and when she proved to them that she could give as good as she
got, if not better. She was soon getting nailed by everyone at one point or
another. When the battles started usually it was one or two of the guys
siding with Aideen against the rest of them and when the war was over they
were usually all laughing at some of Aideen's attempts to translate some of
her native insults into the Japanese culture. Sometimes she was successful
and the battle would end quickly after the point was gotten. Other times
they usually were all on the floor laughing till their sides ached.
In the end however the title of master of the insult, be it rude, crude,
obnoxious, or subtle, was passed to Aideen from Ryo and Kento. Aideen
however could tell that they were going to learn from her and try to take
the unspoken title back. Aideen was a bit surprised however one evening
when Mia came up to her. "Aideen, Can we go for a walk?" She was a little
puzzled but as she extended her senses she could feel the need to talk to
her and so she got her tennis shoes on and met Mia out front.
As they walked down towards the lake they both looked back only to find that
the Guys were watching from the window and White Blaze was following them at
a discreet distance. They smiled at the guys who disappeared from the
windows and then called White Blaze up to them letting him know that he was
welcome to follow them this time.
Aideen's first encounter with the great cat was not funny to her for a while
after the incident happened but after a while, even she was able to laugh at
the situation. She had been asleep for almost 35 hours after she had gotten
to Japan as her internal clock reset itself to the new time set and as the
guys could not be there all the time to wait for her to wake up so that she
would not be to disoriented when she did awaken, they left Blaze behind when
they left the house for their one joint class to watch her and make sure
that no one bothered her until she did awaken.
Aideen had been so deep asleep that she did not feel the energy shift in the
house when the guys left but when she did wake up hours later she was met
with a furry black and white striped face. As her brain kicked in as to
what the face was she cut loose with a scream of surprise that brought
everyone to her door way in time to see White blaze backing away from a wild
eyed redhead bearing a long and very sharp kriss bladed dirk that she looked
like she could use in her sleep.
Ryo called to Blaze and got him out of the room and then let Mia and Sage
handle the half awake and still dangerous girl. As Ryo, Kento, Rowan and
Cye left the area they could not figure out why Sage wanted to stay and help
even though he would have been the best choice since Aideen was bearing a
blade.
As Sage and Mia approached the still not halfway awake young woman Sage took
the front position and Mia did most of the talking trying to wake her newest
boarder up. Before he had entered the room Sage had donned his sub armor
knowing that if she were to actually use the blade he was going to have to
be able to move very quickly since he remembered from his training that
scared witless half awake people were the most unpredictable in the manner
of their attacks, and he did not have any idea what kind of training this
girl may have had in fighting or with the blade, but the ease in which she
held it was enough of a warning for Sage to be careful.
"Who are you? What was that beast doing here??" Aideen hissed out in
Gaelic. Sage may not have been able to understand what she said, but he
could feel what she meant through the Healers abilities that she had
encouraged him to use. Mia and Sage nodded to each other in silent
agreement that English would be the best language for this situation and he
spoke up after Mia tried to calm her and was unsuccessful.
"Aideen, you need to wake up all the way and remember where you are. You
are not in Ireland, You are in Japan and you are at the house of Mia Koji.
I am Sage, you helped me the day before yesterday when I was in
pain.Remember??"
As he and Mia switched talking to her Sage soon was close enough to the
listening Aideen that he could grab the knife but as he moved towards the
blade, he was rewarded with a sharp slash across his upper arm between the
green plates of his sub armor. As he backed off in haste to inspect the
deep slash he wondered at how this half awake woman could be that deadly.
Cye and the others could hear the two talking to Aideen upstairs when they
all heard Sage's yelp of surprise and pain. As they jumped up to get up the
stairs Kento beat them all to the room. Since he changed into his subarmor
on his way up he knew that he was going to have to be fast to help them. As
he got to the room he saw the white of his buddy's armor stained red with
blood and the edge of Aideen's blade had the traces of it marking it as the
cause.
Through the armor link he told Sage to distract Aideen and as Sage made the
overt move towards her Kento moved swiftly behind her on the bed and wrapped
his arms around her slight body effectively pinning her arms and then moved
her off the bed. As she struggled to get out of the hold Kento felt the
back of her head connect with his forehead. It hurt but he could not let go
until Mia woke her up. As Mia was now certain that she was not going to get
scored with the blade that was now pinned down she walked up to the girl and
slapped her sharply across the face. Aideen sagged in Kento's arms before
straitening up again.
"You can let me go now Kento, I think I am awake now." He let her go slowly
making sure that she was not going to do anything more with that knife in
her hand and when he was reassured that it would not happen he let her go
all the way and they all watched as she cleaned the blade, sharpened it and
then oiled it for replacement back in it's casing.
Only when she was done with this did she look up at the dressed Kento and
Sage and noticed Sages bloody shirt. "Oh shit, Sage I am so sorry. I
should have warned you all about that." She stood up and rummaged in one of
her bags until she came up with a small first aid kit. She looked at Kento
and noted the goose egg that was now showing on his forehead where her head
connected with his and she felt her own head and winced. I am sorry about
the head bashing Kento. She handed him an aromatic compress and told him to
put it on the goose egg while she tended to Sage.
Kento looked at Mia questioningly, but when she shrugged he shrugged back at
her and did as he was asked. The compress felt cool even though it was the
same temperature as the room, and as he let it set he could feel the ache
and immediate pain of the injury go away. He was surprised and as he looked
at Sage he wondered why he did not just let his armor heal him until he
noticed that she was using an infusion of what smelled like Cye's cooking
herbs on the wound. As they watched Sage did not show any sign of being in
pain from the gash until she physically touched the wound. He winced but
held still at the look he got from Aideen.
Aideen looked at the knife wound and wondered how he could have gotten that
close to her in her wild state to have received this from her. That was for
another time though as she gathered her herbs and other medicane she noticed
then the strange looks she was getting. She did not explain but simply went
to work flushing the wound of any potential toxins and as she touched the
wound to hold it closed she could feel him wince. She looked at him
reassuringly and then set her focus on the wound. As she released it
certain that he ways knew what was supposed to happen she held her hands
over it and heard several gasps as a white iridescence radiated from her
hands and closed and healed the knife score.
As she finished she swayed a bit and then regathered herself to look around
at the amazed faces that were all staring at her. Her only reply to the
questions in their eyes before she grabbed her towel and bath things was,
"What, have you never seen a healer at work??"