((Post here to finish this session please. Currently in the room are Kongou, Amaya, Valerie, Kai, The Caretaker Kiriko, and President/Captain Atsushi Hayami.))

"President Hayami, how are you feeling? It seems those...Phasewolves attacked you harder than we did. Do you need rest?" Valerie seemed genuinly concerned about the student body president. "Do you want me to bring anything to you Mr.President?"

Atsushi nodded. "He just subdued me when he could have destroyed my soul the same way he did with Naien..." His voice was somber, sober and almost melancholy.

"Thank you Valerie, but I'm fine. I'm glad to see all of you are alright. I'm ready to no longer be here, but the doctors insist that both Kai and I remain here for awhile longer. The ordeal of last night seems to have them worried."

He shrugs. "I heard your debriefing went well enough, beyond Takashi's rude interruption. If Lily can pull it off, that's a major step towards ending the war."


Kai looks on seemingly at a loss. "What war?"

"The one being waged by four factions for you Kai, or at least people like you."

"Atsushi what are you saying?"

"Kai all you need to know is that Satioshi Heavy Industries is one of Four factions vying for control of what you can do. The Circinus Federation is an interstellar assembly of planets hellbent on expansion through conquest. The Dalaraan Empire seeks peaceful expansion, but here for this world that was discarded for Invasion. The final Faction is the older of the two Earth-bound factions, the Kage."

"Kai looks dumbstruck at his President. "Why me though? What's so special about me?"


"Kai, you're what's called a Key. You can open gateways between worlds, even in the fabric of space and time themselves. What's more it is highly probably that you are what's known as a Skeleton Key, A Key who can open any lock, any door, any portal. This makes you very unique, very special and very desirable to all the factions."

"So what do i do now? Do I help Satoshi or what?"

"That, Kai, is something you will have to figure out for yourself. I will aid you as best I can, but the choice is yours alone to make."

"I think you should get better, first," Amaya said softly, taking his hand. Her blue eyes shone with threatening tears, and the stark relief on her face was painful. "Satoshi won't let you leave... not until you're better, anyway." And maybe not at all.

For the moment, it was enough that she was here, that she could protect him. She'd get him out of here later, somehow.

Valerie felt her grip on the SdZ, the white knuckled grip of hers she was contending with something in her mind. "I'm sorry...Hayami-dono." Valerie did a somersault backflip, landing exactly behind the caretaker who was guiding them.

"Amaya-Senpai, Kongou-Sensei, please take Kai-senpai and run." The characteristic humming of the SdZ could be heard as a 'magical blast' was launched right over the caretaker's shoulder and into the nursery's outside wall.

"No Goddamn Fucking way." It was the first time any of them had heard Atsushi swear like that. He was momentarily shocked but quickly recovered before Kiriko could send up a warning. His eyes seemed to bore into her and she slumped to the floor as he uttered the command "Sleep."

"Valerie that was the most idiotic thing you could have done. Just go look into the hole you created." As she did so she saw that there was simply another room., though it too had a hole in it. He swung his legs out of the bed and sighed.

"Things are going to happen very quickly now. They're goint to realize that I took Kiriko offline. Then the alarm will sound. Then they will lock down the base and send fully armed patrols throughout the base. Due to each of you genetics, you will all be shot on sight. The only one who will live will be Kai Morisato."

He looks to Kongou. "Do not Compound this mistake by summoning the Viper. It would crash through many inhabited rooms and in all possiblity cause the next three floors above us to collapse in probably killing us all."

Kai looked on in shock.

Atsushi looked at Kai and speared him with the same gaze he'd used on Kiriko.

His hands quickly began typing out a series of commands into his holo-noteputer and then he spoke to Kai. "First I need you to open a tunnel portal to the Mecha Hangar. We're going to get the Viper and then we;re going to the Dimensional Catapult.

"Atsushi I can't... i don't know how...."

"Kai if you do not do it then they will die, painfully. Satoshi doesn't treat enemies well and that is what they have become. I can no longer protect them. I will get you out of here, but I will need your help to do it."

"But.."

"Hiroko didn't come back to watch you and the others die here Kai, but if you don't get the hell out of here you'll probably never see her again."

That snapped him to attention. "Tell me what to do Atsushi."

"No!" Valerie leveled the Stock der Zaburei with Presient Hayami's head. "How can we believe anything that comes from HIS mouth?!"

"For two years he has been acting being a person who he was not, and has been leading us on while trying to take Kai for Satoshi's interests!" tears welled up on Val's eyes.

"He is even capable of projecting reality directly into the minds of people! For all I know we are already chained to a wall! I'm sorry President Hayami, but I will not tolerate following you for one more second."

The familiar sound of the SdZ charging up can be heard as the tip starts glowing with magical energy.

"Countermeasures Activate, unknown Wanderer, Kage times two." There was an audible click and the room seemed to go fuzzy for a moment, then everything was normal.

"Valerie I suggest you stop before you do anything more foolish than you have. If I truly wished for Kai to be a member of this organization, why have I waited years to do it? I've always known he was a Key. Why was I prepared to help you ALL leave from here?"

He shrugs. "It's somewhat understandable that you don't know Who and what these two really are, but there's a limit to my patience."

"If you need proof of my good intentions then know this. "Amaya and Kongou are not as they seem. They both hail from the Kage Clans. The same Clans We have fought for centuries. Kongou is of the Seeker Clan, he finds the Keys of Earth for the others. Depending on his findings they then send One of the others to retrieve the key, or as with Amaya here, they send an assassin."

He spears Amaya with his gaze. "You've been asigned to protect Kai until the nature of his power is determined. Considering he's opened the Black Gate of Bazaroth, I already know what your next order will be. You will be told for the good of Earth he cannot be allowed to live, and your love for him would mean nothing then, you would kill him out of duty to the Clans."

His face darkens considerably. "You Kage have wasted so many chances, so many offers of peace, now here you are presented with a young man who may be The Skeleton Key. Lily and the others are going to turn the tide of this war, and in the end Kai will be the Key to that as well."

he looks over to Kai with the same elder brother expression he wore when dealing with him. "Kai, You have so much potential I don't want anyone to take it from you. I want you to shape what you will do with it, for better or worse. You asked me what you should do, I'll give you one idea. Speak to another person like you, one with all the weight of the cosmos braced on your back. Yuna Misamaru. Focus on that name, and you'll find her."

He looked at Valerie. "If you still wish to resist you will lose your only chance of escape. Now Choose."

Kai looked to the others and they could each feel his eyes focusing on them, reaching within, staring and touching their very souls.

Kongou moves over behind Valerie, gently placing his hand upon her right shoulder, "Valerie, please calm down... the situation right now calls for diplomacy and reason, not anger and violence. Some of what he says is true. However, keep in mind that people are not automatons. We do not just blindly follow orders. We also choose how to follow out those orders. If one is given an order to remove a threat, there are many ways to do that. Not just with violence."

"Bu...But Kongou-sensei! This...man, He tricked and deceived us. He sees in us what he wants!" Valerie tighthened her grip on the small rod, and slowly the humming subsided.

She slowly lowered the SdZ. "But...that's what all of us have done so far..." tears welled in Val's eyes, the SdZ dissapearing into her sleeve. "Make no mistake Hayami-dono, I have not forgiven you. This is just...a temporary truce." Valerie wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Kai-Senpai, I know you can get us out of here!"

"Yes, Kai," Amaya said, speaking for the first time. She'd been tense and waiting, her blue eyes drilling into Hayami with an intensity that could have been many emotions. None of those emotions would be good ones. "Please get us out of here. Then we can talk, all of us."

Amaya reached out and put a comforting hand on Val's hair. Oddly, she didn't address the young woman. "Hayami, don't presume to know what I would do. You don't know me half as well as you suspect."

Hayami nods. "We can discuss the truth another time, now we must leave."

Kai looks to him. "Atsushi..."

"Kai, draw a circle in your mind, and focus on the location you want to go. The portal will open and we can all go there."

Kai focuses on the Mecha bay and draws a large circle in his mind. In the room a large ring shaped portal opens. "Alright everyone through." Atsushi leads the way and immediately blankets the entire bay with a wave of deep sleep. "We have Five minutes." He calls up a terminal and punches in a series of commands.

He stopped satisfied and made his way to the cockpit of his machine, the S-Freedom. Once safely inside he contacted Kongou. "Follow me to our ticket out of here."He lowered his hand and called to the others. "Climb on all of you. If the worst happens they won't fire at me."

Kai climbs on and offers his hands to Amaya and Valerie. "Come on. We don't have alot of time. I know neither of you likes him at the moment, but Atsushi is our only ticket out of here right now."

Valerie held onto Amaya. "Let's go Senpai, we need to get out of here as soon as possible." Jumping onto the hand, and from there into the shoulder of the Mecha, she left Amaya to hold onto Kai to get inside the mecha.

Sitting on the Freedom's shoulder, Valerie put her hand on the side of the head "But one wrong move Hayami, and you will prefer to never have been born."

Amaya claims one of the proffered hands, pulling Kai up beside her. Calmly, she waited for Hayami to get them out of here in one piece. She knew he would, despite the fact that she didn't trust him in the slightest. Kai was valuable enough to Hayami that she gambled his life and hers on that knowledge.

Atsushi carried them close to the Freedom's chest as he led Kongou through the hangar to the giant doors guarding the Dimensional Catapult. "I only hope things will continue to go this well."

[End Session 2 Earth group 4 cp awarded]