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Mia and Anubis sat at the waiting room. They had arrived and asked to see the Inspector so they could clear up what they can. The receptionist went to the back. A few seconds later, she motioned for them to follow her in. They now sat in front of the desk of a rather old gentleman. Plaques or recognition as well as pictures of family decorated the walls and the desk.
"What can I do for the two of you this night?" he asked, his voice calming and soothing. Mia couldn't help but think that he looked a lot like Colonel Sanders.
"You arrested a girl tonight," Anubis answered. "We wanted to know why and to bail her out."
"Oh! So, you're the ones claiming her. She keeps babbling about a lot of things but those I want to hear." He looked around his desk for a piece of paper with the report on the girl. "It was hard enough to get her to dial your number let alone tell us anything about her."
"We know about those. She had just moved in with us two weeks ago from the mountains."
"Really? I thought she was from down south. Was she from Koya?"
"We don't really know, Inspector," Mia said. "She hasn't been very open with us, either."
"Anyway, there doesn't seem to be much else to discuss." Inspector Ichiro looked up from his desk after finding the police report. "As far as we know, she's clean. Although, she does have a long list of detention from school."
"Those were for talking in class, sir."
"Very well then, I don't see any other reason to keep you. I just need your name and phone number so I could contact you quicker."
"My name is Mia Koji and..." He interrupted her.
"Koji? As in Prof. Koji's granddaughter?"
"Yes, how did you...?"
"Oh, your grandfather and I used to go to school together. We sort of lost track of each other after graduation. How is he?"
"Well sir, he died during that attack a couple of months ago."
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked that."
"It's okay really. Can you tell us how much the bail is for the girl?"
"Nothing." Mia opened her mouth to say something but Ichiro stopped her. "It was nothing really big. Just small stuff. Just tell her not to do it again or I will lock her up for a longer time."
There was a knock on the door and they all turned. Reva entered slowly and almost stopped when she saw Mia and Anubis there. Both of them stood up and shook the inspector's hand and said their good-byes. Reva followed them out quietly to their car. She sat in the back seat of the jeep without saying a word and that got both of them suspicious.
"Reva?" Mia asked. "Are you alive back there?"
"Not for long if we continue this way," she answered.
"What do you mean by that?" Anubis looked up at the rearview mirror. He had learned to drive the jeep as one of his projects.
"Royda is going to kill me. Unless I can die before I get there."
"Why would she kill you?" Mia turned around in her seat on the passenger's side to look at the girl. "The inspector said you didn't do anything major."
"I don't care what he said. You can take him home and let him explain what happened as long as I don't have to see Royda again. She is going to be so pissed."
"I still don't understand why she would be."
"Remember two weeks ago when we went out for that little walk that I wanted?" They remembered the day after they all came back from the mountain and nodded. "The only reason I ever came back in was because Cye took me back. I knew that Royda didn't like my suggestion and I was afraid to go back in because of that. Can you imagine how she'll react when she already knows that the police are involved?"
"Well, from how the way things looked when we left, she didn't seem to be mad at you." Anubis glanced up again a the rearview mirror. "She looked like she was about to bore a hole through the Ronins' heads."
"Really?" Reva moved up to the place in between their chairs. "You mean to tell me that she was going to blame somebody else?"
"That's how it looked like. Why...Ah!!" Mia had turned to face the girl again and found that she had one black eye. She hadn't noticed that before.
"What?" Reva looked down at herself and finally guessed that the black eye was very visible.
"I didn't know that you had a black eye." Mia reached a hand up to her face.
"Don't worry about it." She pulled her head away from her touch. "It's nothing. Another reason I don't want to go home. She won't way anything to Kala if she's involved in a fight but everybody has to tell what happened. Which I don't want to do."
"Then tell us."
"It was just a little fight. No big deal." Reva sat back down to her seat again.
"He dared you to do something and when you did it, he wouldn't give you what he promised," Anubis said. Both women looked at him. He told them that like he had always known it. "Am I right?"
"How did you know that?" Reva was between them again. Her brown eyes turned a little worried.
"I don't know really." Anubis shook his head. "The more I'm with you girls, the more of my memories about you I remember. Just now, Mia said something about a black eye and I remembered when you got one for starting a fight with Kala on the first day of camp."
"I remember that." She winced. "I've got the marks to prove it, too."
"From the fight?" Mia asked.
"No," Anubis answered for her, laughing. "Royda got a hold of both of them and took them away. Nobody really knows what happened except for those two."
"And I just remembered what happened myself," Reva said. "Let's not dig up more painful memories, shall we."
"I thought Kala was the one that would do something like that," said Mia.
"She would do it without even thinking, believe me." Reva rested both her elbows on their headrests. "I'd think whether it's good for my health or not before jumping in."
"And you didn't think about this one?"
"Not entirely. I was tired already and wanted to go to sleep. That guy was just asking for it."
"Then why not tell her that?"
"And have Royda breath down my neck for being a smart-ass? I don't think so! I've tried that and it doesn't work."
"What haven't you tried?" Anubis asked.
"Very little apparently," Mia answered for her, smiling.
The jeep came up to the house and slowly stopped. The lights were still on even though it was way past midnight. Mia and Anubis stepped out but found that Reva didn't follow.
"Come on, Reva," Anubis told her. "I don't remember you backing down from her like this."
"Well I'm trying something new then."
"You can't run away from her forever, you know?" Mia asked.
"I know that. I've tried it before."
"See? And it didn't work." Anubis opened the door for her. "You're just delaying all of this."
"Fine." Reva got up. "But when she kills me, it's on your hands."
They walked in with Reva slowly following. When they got to the living room, all they found were the Ronins and Cale, lounging around on the sofas. They could hear a sigh of relief come from Reva.
"Reva?" Cye asked, sleepily. He got up from the couch he laid on.
"Hey, tough guy!" She quickly went over to him. "At least you won't lead me to slaughter." She rested her head on his shoulder.
"Slaughter?" Cye looked up at Anubis. "What?"
"She's exaggerating," the red-headed man answered. "She thinks Royda is going to kill her. Again."
"She won't kill you." Reva lifted her head form his shoulder and smiled at Cye. "She'll kill us first."
"What?!"
Just then, the door to the kitchen opened and Reva quickly stood up to attention. A look for pure fear was on her eyes, nothing like Cye had ever seen before. She held out her hand to him. He took it and her grip was like a vice.
Everybody else turned to the door and found Royda there. Her eyes looked around and settled on Reva. It was all the other girl could do to hold her position and stare at her leader. She would have been shaking if she didn't know that would irritate her even more.
Royda slowly walked up to Reva as the rest of the girls burst out of the kitchen. They stopped when they found that they were too late. Everybody held their breath as she got closer to her. Cye stood up and still held Reva's hand. Royda looked from her to him then back again.
Reva closed her eyes and turned her head away as Royda lifted a hand up to her face. Cye almost caught her hand then he realized she wasn't going to slap Reva across the face like everybody though she would. Her hand came up to the other girl's chin and turned her head around. She looked at her black eye for a few seconds before dropping her hand.
"You're not going to school tomorrow," she told her before turning around and going up the stairs.
Everybody turned, surprised at what she did, or rather didn't do. Reva all but collapsed on Cye and relief went through her. Royda was already in her room before anybody could ask her anything.
"Okay, everybody better do the same thing," Mia told everybody. She started to herd the girls up the stairs. "The rest of you still have school tomorrow."
"Do we have to if we have a black eye?" asked Kento.
"You've gone to school
with worse than that," she answered.