Once the ride was over, Kiara stepped off of the train with the rest of her class, getting a breath of fresh air. Throughout the ride the air had been heavy with the fear from some people in her class as well as a few exorcists. The fear still swirled around her, but now that she was out of that crammed train car, it spread out a bit more and Kiara felt like she finally had room to breathe.

"Over here folks!" Someone called and Kiara looked over to see a tall blonde man holding a sign that read 'Order of the True Cross Japan Branch' on it.

Kiara, along with the other exorcists walked over and gathered in front of him. It wasn't long until everyone piled onto the bus and they started moving towards their destination. As they were moving, the man who was holding the sign stood at the front of the bus with a microphone— almost like a tour guide.

"Okay, so, I'm Shima Kinzo and I represent the local field office. Welcome to Kyoto!" He performed and over exaggerated bow and smacked his forehead against the microphone he was holding.

Is he Shima's brother? Kiara wondered, looked from Kinzo so Shima, who had fear wafting off of him as he stared at Kinzo with an expression full of dread. I'll take that as a yes.

As he was rubbing his forehead, he continued giving everyone the rundown. "First things first, we'll be taking you to the inn you'll be staying at. And once we've gotten you sorted and your bags dropped, you guys are going to help us with the temptaint victims. We appreciate your support!" He said, once again performing an overexagerated bow and slamming his head onto the microphone.

The rest of the ride was relatively quiet— other than casual chatter or Kiara's quiet curses as she falls of rainbow road or gets blue shelled.

***

The bus slowed to a stop and Kiara looked out of the window, seeing the inn that they would be staying at, and judging by Bon's small spike of fear she assumed that he had some sort of connection to it. Once they had all gotten their bags all of them walked inside, being greeted by a few men in the lobby. They directed everyone to where they needed to be, stopping in their tracks when they saw the cram class walk in.

"It's Bon! Look!" One of them men called.

"You're right, it is Bon!" The other exclaimed.

"Oh ho! Welcome home Bon!"

Bon waved his hand in the air, a panicked look crossing his face. "Chill out guys, I'm not here to visit!"

"Bon?" Kinzo asked, looking at the teen with a shocked expression." I didn't even recognize you, man! I'm sorry! Oh wow, todays a special day!" He turned and called towards the back of the inn, "Oh ma'am!"

Bon flinched, his fear spiking. "No wait!"

Kiara watched to see a woman run up from the back. She had on a pink and purple kimono, with her brown hair tied into a bun. Looking at her, she had a very motherly appearance to her.

"Oh Ryuji!" She exclaimed, starting to walk up to the group. She stopped in front of Bon and sighed as she looked up and reached towards him, "My boy." Kiara assumed she was going to cup his cheek or do something motherly like that, but instead she was proven wrong when she grabbed onto the yellow streak in his hair and started shouting. "What the hell you'd go dye your hair for? What do you think you are? Some kind of rooster?" She shouted, pushing his head down harshly.

Wow. Intense. I like her already. Kiara though, a small smile making it's way to her face as Bon tried to explain that it was for motivation.

"Motivation my ass! Change it back now!"

"I knew she'd flip out about the hair." Shima snickered, holding a fist over his mouth to muffle the sounds.

"Should we... go?" Izumo asked.

Bon's mom looked from her son to the rest of the group, placing her hand on her cheek as her previous anger disappeared. "Oh my, where are my manners? Nice to meet you. My name is Torako." She bowed her head, "I'm so happy to finally meet my son's friends."

Besides Kiara, Rin, Izumo, and Sheimi all looked at her in surprise. Kiara just looked off to the side, her hands on her hips, I wouldn't say I'm his friend— at least at the moment.

"No way, you're his mom? I thought you'd be more... rough and angry?" Rin said.

"Yup. This here is Bon's family home." Shima explained.

"I thought Suguro's house was supposed to be a temple."

"It was, but the temple couldn't make ends meet anymore. Luckily I inherited this inn from my family." Torako said.

Izumo suddenly started snickering. "I just thought of something, since it's always Bon this, Bon that, they should call him Bonbon."

"I can hear you!" Bon snapped, looking over at her.

"Cool your jets, Suguro." Kiara said, not even turning her head from the painting she was looking at.

Shura exchanged a few words with Torako and gave her a 'thank you' gift. After that she turned to the class. "Suguro, Miwa, Shima. You guys haven't seen your families in a while, so go spend some time with 'em."

"Thanks." Shima and Konekomaru said.

"Moriyama, Kamaki, Takara, Okumura, and Phel— sorry, Hoshino, tend to the wounded. We good?"

"Yes ma'am." The class responded.

"Follow me guys, I'll take you to 'em." Kinzo said, leading the five of them through a back hallway. After some walking, he opened a door to reveal a large amount of people laying in futons throughout the whole room. From the groans and the fear swirling around, Kiara assumed that they were in large amounts of pain.

"There's so many..." Izumo muttered.

"And there's another fifteen or so back in the guest house." Kinzo said.

Mr. Yunokawa spoke up, getting the classes attention. "Okay everybody, here's the plan. They're making an herbal antidote int he kitchen, so they're going to need you to hand it out. Oh, and if you see any empty IVs, replace 'em."

"Right." The class said, and started to spread out among the people in the room. Kiara was about to walk forwards until the collar of her shirt was grabbed.

"Not you two."

"Not us? Is it because we're related to demons? And have tails? I think that's technically discrimination—" She started, looking back at Mr. Yunokawa.

"Calm down, Hoshino. You two will be doing something different."

"Like what? Rin asked.

Mr. Yunokawa placed his hand on his chin in thought for a moment, "Oh, I know. Why don't you pick stuff up."

Rin tilted his head slightly in confusion. "Like what?"

"Like trash?"

"Oh, okay." He turned and looked at Kiara, a smile on his face. "Come on, Kiara, let's make this place trash free!"

Kiara watched as he walked out of the room, and she let out a small sigh, stepping out of the room and turning the opposite direction Rin had gone, looking around for any trash that was laying on the floor.

She had been walking around for a while, not spotting a single piece of trash. Of course there wouldn't be trash laying about, this was an inn for hells sake. They most likely had someone who picked up trash already. As she was walking, she came across Rin holding two trays of sliced watermelon and looking into the room, where there was some shouting. She peeked into the room to see a man with dark brown hair sitting across from three women who looked almost identical with a few snake-like features.

"Don't you dare put this on us! You bunch of butt ugly snake faced hags!" The man shouted, lifting his K'rik and slamming it forwards— the woman he was attacking just barely missing it. Across from him, the woman who had just been attacked chanted something and her hand turned into a white snake.

The man chanted something as well, and his K'rik started floating. In the blink of an eye, both of them lunged towards each other, though before either of them could make contact, Kiara moved forwards and stood between the attacks, grunting as the snake bit her forearm and the K'rik jabbed her side, making her feel sure that she probably fractured some ribs that had literally just healed. She grunted as pain shot up her arm and side, but stood tall and watched as the snake reeled back and the woman's hand turned back to normal and the K'rik clattered to the ground.

"You two are really stupid enough to start fighting now? When you're both laying injured? You can't waste time having petty argument amongst each other like who's more at fault for the attack. I just got here, but this infighting might be the reason your defense failed and someone got as close as they did to the eye!"

The people in the room looked at Kiara, the woman who had sent the snake glaring while most of the others looked at her with concern— she did just take both of those attacks head on. Her arm and side were on fire, and each breath she took in hurt like hell.

"Ki- Hoshino is absolutely right!" Someone shouted, and Kiara turned to look to see Bon tapping into the room, Shima and Konekomaru right behind her.

"Bon/ Master Ryuji." The man and the woman in the middle muttered. The man had stood up in shock.

"With the enemy right outside our door, now's not the time to be fighting!"

"Hmph, if you really feel that strongly about it, Master Ryuji, go tell that to your father. The so called 'master'. Instead of behaving as a high Priest should, he's a drunk and the butt of everyones jokes." The woman said.

"Watch your damn mouth, Mamushi!" The man shouted, slamming his foot on the ground.

"No. Mamushi's right. Just stop fighting." Bon muttered, then he looked at Kiara, "You okay."

Kiara had a tight smile on her face, "I'm fine." She said, though with her voice was tight and her tail was arching and tensing they had completely betrayed how she was actually feeling.

Bon just sighed in annoyance and walked up to her, grabbing her by the wrist, "Come on. Let's get you patched up."

Kiara tried to resist, wincing in pain as she did so, which ended up in her being dragged by Bon as he stomped through the rooms, everyone watching the two. She sighed internally, casting one glance towards Rin as she was dragged away. She still hadn't forgiven Bon for treating Rin like an outcast, but the fact that he can still treat her almost the same way even after her found out about her own dad gave her hope that Rin would be accepted once again— Son of Satan and all.

Bon slid open a door, and Kiara looked in, seeing that they were walking into a kitchen. Sheimi had just walked past the two in a hurry, some remedies for the injured exorcists in her hands. In front of the two Torako was preparing more remedies. Though as the two entered, she looked up, a warm smile on her face when she saw Bon.

"Ryuji, is everything okay?" She asked.

"She jumped in as Mamushi and Juzo were about to attack each other and took both the attacks head on." He said, then looked to Kiara, "You're such a reckless idiot, you know that?"

"Not the first time I've been called that." Kiara said, giving him finger guns.

Bon's expression turned to one of annoyance and he dragged her over to a small crate as Torako walked over towards her. "Alright, now you're going to stay here and rest."

"But-"

"No buts, you have to be in top shape if you're going to be extra security for the eye." He turned and stomped out of the room, muttering and huffing angrily, leaving Kiara sitting in the room with Torako.

Torako had looked over Kiara with the help of a Exorcist with a Doctor meister, the both of them figuring that she most likely had a fractured rib and just minor puncture wounds from the snake bite. Lucky for her the snake wasn't venomous, but the wounds hadn't healed— she assumed because the snake probably wasn't any regular snake found in Assiah. After Torako had treated the puncture wounds, she quickly and efficiently wrapped it up. The Doctor advised Kiara to keep an ice pack on her side where her rib had fractured. He said that she was lucky it hadn't broken with the speed and force it had hit her with.

The doctor left not too soon after Kiara had been treated. He told her to take it easy for the rest of the day— and threatened to call Mephisto to have her pulled from the mission after she tried to complain.

So now, she was sitting in the kitchen, helping Torako with making the remedies. The woman had told her to stay seated, but Kiara was not going to just sit for the rest of the day and do nothing while her class— and everyone else here was busy on doing something. She had been sent here to help, and damn it, she was going to do just that, injured or not.

"So, dear, what are your parents like?" Torako started, obviously trying to start up some small-talk.

"Well, for the majority of my life I had no clue— but I guess recently I found out a little more about them. My dad's a total dick. I mean, he is the Crow Demon of Fear so I guess it's not surprising. Actually I found out who he was with Bon's help, though he didn't know that was why I asked him for help back then." She wrapped up the remedy that Torako handed her and placed it in a small pile with the others.

"What about your mother?"

"Well, I don't know a lot about her. She died not too long after I was born. Recently I found out her name, Hoshino Aliyah. It's hard to believe that my own mom was an Arc Knight... and that she was the one who sealed my dad away."

"Hoshino... Aliyah, you said?" Torako said, pausing with what she was doing and looking at Kiara.

"Uh, that's what I said? You okay?" Kiara asked.

"Aliyah was a dear friend of mine when I was a bit younger. I had gotten sick while I was first pregnant with Ryuji, and if it weren't for Aliyah's help in telling us it was the work of a demon, I don't know what would of happened to me. She stayed a while after I recovered, and we ended up getting pretty close." Torako looked at her hands with a warm expression on her face.

"Can you... tell me more about her?" Kiara asked.

Torako looked at her, her smile warming up even more. "I would love to."