Novel Full Chapter 262 - 262 What Is This Guy Wearing?
In the early morning Kat felt the currents that dictated her slumbering state bring her consciousness back together. This placed her in a strange half state of awareness, with a greater capability for thought and decision making than being lost in the waves, but not completely awake either.
Kat decided to see how long she could stay in this strange state. That turned out to be a waste of time, or at least, a mistaken assumption. Plenty of time passed, and Kat could feel it wash over her, something that could be ignored as she chose, and choose she did.
Even when she saw ripples nearby signalling Sylvie's awakening Kat stayed in her floating dream state. She considered getting up properly with Sylvie, but Sylvie simply decided that breakfast was less important than staying cuddle against Kat. So her drifting thoughts continued…
Until Vivian opened the door. Kat wasn't sure how she knew either of those things, just a strange certainty that she was in no danger and that Vivian had entered her abode. This was followed up by said person jumping in bed with them.
When Vivian started to speak, in hushed mumbled tones, Kat couldn't hear what was being said but she could feel the concepts being spoken. It was a strange thing. Vivian 'asked' "If the entity widely known as Kat should be left to her slumber" which to Kat's mostly coherent mind seemed like a rather long-winded way of asking.
So Kat opened her eyes and grabbed Vivian and pulled her in close as well. "I can't stay long" whispered Vivian as she was brought into the hug "I managed to take yesterday off because I worked over the weekend, but I have to get back to work today. I'm sorry I won't be around to see you leave"
"Don't worry I'll be fine. I have the other two, or maybe other three to worry about me" said Kat
Vivian smiled and gave Kat and Sylvie a quick kiss on the forehead before wiggling out of Kat's arms and bolting down the stairs. Kat and Sylvie stared after her confused. "Why did she leave so fast" asked Sylvie
"I have no idea" said Kat
"Because she's already thirty minutes late" said Callisto from the doorway. Kat and Sylvie jumped slightly, not noticing when Callisto had even arrived, distracted as they were by Vivian's antics.
"That makes sense. I hope she gets to work on time" said Sylvie, recovering faster from the shock then Kat did.
Kat just nodded along in agreement as Callisto managed to gently coax them both out of bed "Come on we can have some leftover fruit before it goes bad" said Callisto.
Kat followed her downstairs, carrying Sylvie with her because the little girl had grabbed onto her waist and clearly wasn't planning to let her go just yet. As Callisto brought out leftovers Kat found herself… feeling… full wasn't the correct descriptor but it was close. Her energy levels were full, felt serene, and she had a sense of… something more like when you know your equipment is all in peak condition.
She felt no desire to eat, or revulsion, just a feeling that it would be pointless. When she explained as such to Callisto, she just pulled a notebook out from somewhere. *Seriously where? I can see the pockets on that dress and the notebook did not come from any of them.* And got Kat to repeat her description before writing it all done.
It was about halfway through the meal when Kat got the message.
User Kat is being summoned. You will be summoned within ten seconds.
Kat nodded, about to relax, when she remembered she didn't have her weapons on her. Quickly sprinting back towards the stairs, Kat leapt straight up them without stopping, then spinning on the carpet and heading straight to her room, thankful the door was left open. She just barely made it in time to through open the closet and place a hand on her fans before the light engulfed her.
Entering the vortex of flames, Kat let herself calm down. The mad dash for her fans was rather tense. *Even if I don't know how to use them, it's still better than nothing. I don't want to take the risk that I need them and don't have them. It was probably silly to take them out of my sash anyway.*
As Kat was floating in the flames, she felt something new. These flames were different somehow. Kat didn't have long to investigate before she was thrown out of the vortex. Planting her feet to either side, Kat flared her wings to stop her momentum and allowed herself to stand tall as she examined where she had ended up.
The first thing to catch her eyes, was the barrier directly in front of her face. While other summonings she had partaken in may have had barriers, they were nothing like what lay before her. It was an intricate thing of see-through gold. It had strange things that didn't look like the runes she had come to know floating in the surface.
And the whole thing thrummed with power. Kat could feel it pressing into her skin even as she stood in the centre of it. The barrier giving of an utter certainty that it was unbreakable, which seemed to almost declare war at Kat, daring her to try.
Kat pushed that feeling down. Just looking straight at the barrier was causing her energy to roil within her. It was a strange feeling she wasn't used to. It was as if it was trying to break free of her skin, but flaring her aura slightly around herself seemed to cut off the strange influence of the barrier.
When she did so, the barrier seemed to shiver and weaken significantly. *What? I didn't even touch it with my aura? Why does it seem so weak now?* The pressure on Kat had almost vanished, and the gold colouring lost its lustre.
Looking past that, Kat saw grey carved stone, that might have once held spectacular murals. Now it was chipped and cracked with vines growing over it. There were even places where light leaked in slightly scattered around the roof of the room, letting in the slightest shafts of light.
Following one of the lights down, Kat found more moss, clearly clumping together to bask in what little light it could manage. The floor was made of the same cracked stone and seemed only to be in slightly better condition when compared to the roof. Before Kat could really investigate it properly though, Kat found her eyes drawn to a small figure.
In front of her, kneeling was a young man… or a boy? It was hard for Kat to tell. The figure was clearly short even without the fact they were crouching. Kat was sure that they wouldn't even come up to her chin, maybe just barely the shoulders, and with them crouching down, it didn't help this image.
The counter to this however, was that the person was a series of harsh lines. Their black hair fell around their face looking like it was cut with sword rather than any care. This might have even been the case, as on his hip was a sheath with a sword handle sticking out. Kat was unable to say what kind of sword it actually was,
To her very untrained eyes it was merely a simple sword that was rather short, but when you accounted for the young man's height, it seemed to fit him rather well. The sheath itself was just plain leather, with no markings to speak off, and the sword handle simple in the same way. Wrapped leather handle with a clean steel orb marking the end.
His clothing however, was anything but simple. It was an overly complex set of layers that Kat seemed to instinctively dislike. He had a gi that sat over the entire ensemble marked with a very artful rendition of a smoking mountain that had been cleaved in half.
Under that was a leather chest piece that seemed plain and functional, but under that was another set of intricate designs on a shirt Kat couldn't see properly to evaluate. The pants at least were simple, but rather ugly.
They clearly once had intricate designs like most of the other outfit, but they now had leather pieces sewn over them, blocking them from view, but clearly without proper forethought as the plates didn't even end up symmetrical from one leg to the other.
And then, as if to ruin the already bizarre image, the boy had no shoes. None whatsoever. It made Kat think it more likely that the care and attention afforded to the gi was more that it had only recently been stolen, considering how the rest of the outfit clashed.
Then, when the boy spoke, Kat felt even further confusion. He spoke with a deep baritone, much lower than anything a boy that size could produce and he said "I want you to help avenge the honour of my clan"