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I woke up the next morning with my head still aching. I said to myself that, finally, I’m awake. That was one weird dream. The thoughts haven’t left my mind yet when a black cat leapt to my bed.

“Good morning, Threece!” the cat said beaming.

What the… am I still sleeping? I thought.

“So, ready to listen? I’m sure you deserve some explanation.” The cat said as it spoke again.

“Err… yeah. I think…” I replied

“Good!”

And the long and winding explanation began. She mentioned that she was a guardian, and that I was chosen by a certain someone to help protect this plane from reevers, something like monsters the way she described it, and that’s what we have to eliminate. Honestly, I didn’t get a single word out of it. I just nodded every time she asked if I understood.



“Great! You’re not that bad after all. Well if you understood all of that, we’re going to be starting tonight. Don’t worry I’ll teach you everything you need to know and you won’t be alone in there. I assure you, there are others like you.” She explained, not even missing a beat.

“Starting what…?”

Twelve midnight. Muku took me to a place reminiscent of an old cathedral I saw on a magazine. In my mind, I was like “What am I doing here?” but I have no time to ask. Muku was walking very fast.

“Here we are.” Muku finally said. I noticed a few people were already assembled here. I was looking at some kind of a door when something hit me in the head.

“Raku, Stop acting like a kid, will you?!”

Huh? If Raku’s here, then that means…




There she was, standing with the group I saw earlier. Aika was listening intently to a guy wearing glasses. He must be explaining something to them.

“So, what are we doing here?” I asked Muku

“Muku?” she was nowhere to be found. Instead, a girl was standing at the place where she was a while ago.

“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. Guardians take human form in places like this. We can’t help you unless we are in this form. Raku transforms, too!”

And sure enough, Raku turned into a human. Well, almost human. His ears are a bit
“elf-ish”

“Right, so what is this place anyway?” I asked, taking a look around. It is a bit creepy.



“Oh this?” she replied matter-of-factly.

“This place is where the strongest, negative human emotions materialize. Frustration, anger, fear, envy, jealousy, depression and everything in between, they materialize here in the form of ‘reevers’. You call them monsters in your realm but in reality, they’re just emotions, emotions that took solid form.”

No matter what she said, all I understood was that these things we’re going to face are monsters, and monsters are things that ordinary people like me can’t handle. How am I supposed to deal with those?

Aika walked down to where we were standing. Looks like the briefing’s over.

“It’s time. Raku, Muku… let’s go.” She said

“Wait! I don’t know what I’m supposed to do yet!” I called after her.

“We’ll just watch for tonight.” She replied bluntly.



Is it just me, or she’s being a bit cold towards me? The guy with glasses called out to us and gestured for us to get closer. As I took a few steps towards them, the “door” suddenly opened and everyone readied themselves.

“Alright everyone, link to your guardians on the count of three...” He addressed everyone around him.

“three…”

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do…

“two…”

what in the hell..?!

“one!”

Muku glided towards me. She was shining so brightly, so as the other guardians as they united with their respective owners. I thought she’ll crash into me but as she came closer and we became “linked”, I suddenly felt warm and light as a feather. Not a moment too soon, I was wearing some kind of a robe. It was as white as snow and has wings in it. Suddenly I understood. Linking is something like a fusion. I can’t help but to think that (there’s no other term for it…) it was cool. Moments later, Muku was talking to me. I can’t really hear it but she seemed to be speaking from within me… from inside my head.




“Threece…” she said. “No matter what happens, stay close to Aika. That way, both of you wont get hurt. And also, do everything just as I told you. They say that we’ll just watch but if we need to fight, we’ll fight. Understood?”

“Got that.” I answered back.

Everyone passed by the door, Aika and myself went in last just as instructed. We haven’t walked that much when a deafening roar rang the hallways.

“guys, pick up the pace. This one’s getting stronger by the minute.” The leader told us.

I feel that we’re inside of something like a labyrinth. We were running through a series of corridors, most of them ancient looking. After what felt like forever, we finally arrived at a very dark chamber. It was too dark that I can’t even see my hands. All of a sudden, a pair of huge angry eyes appeared in the farthest side of the room.






“Sandy, lights please.” The leader of the group said.

“Right, Illuminae!” Muttered the girl called Sandy. The whole room was bathed in light.

As soon as my eyes got used to the brightness, I looked again at the farthest side of the room. What I saw made my jaw drop. There, standing in front of us, was a creature four times taller than a human being, with a head resembling that of a jackal with sharp looking horns in it. It looked at us one by one. Then without warning, it shot a ball of fire from its hand. Everyone dodged the attack but we were scattered across the room.

“alright, everyone stick together with your pairs.” said the leader.

Who’s my partner going to be? I thought.

“Stay with me.” Aika said, pulling me by the hand.




The reever attacked each and everyone in the group but they dodged it all flawlessly. The battle ended fairly quickly and in the end, everyone was exhausted. We took a little rest and headed back outside, he said goodnight to the rest and they took the hint and started to leave. I was about to follow the others when the leader held me back.


“Hello there, Threece. I wish all these didn’t scare you. By the way, my name’s Rick and I’m the appointed leader of this group, well at least for now. I’ll be requiring your assistance in the future.” He told me, and he then turned to look at Muku, who was back at her cat form. “I expect you to teach him everything he needs to know. I want him prepared next time. Besides, reevers not only appear in here, they can be anywhere, and I want him to be ready if ever he faces one alone. Do you understand, Muku?”

“Yup, you can count on me, Rick!” Muku answered.

“Well then, I’ll be seeing you sooner or later.” Rick told me then he headed to speak with Aika privately.

Sooner or later, eh? When would that be? I just hope it’s later and not any sooner.






That night was exhausting. In fact, I was too tired that I slept way later into the afternoon the next day. When I woke up, it was to find Muku eating the food prepared for me.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?!” I shouted.

“Ah, you’re awake! Well I was starving so I ate this up. Besides, you can always get food from the fridge anyway.” Muku replied lazily.

“Oh and I almost forgot, Aika asked me to tell you to come over to her place once you wake up. I guess she wanted to discuss something with you.” She added as an afterthought.

I rang up the doorbell at Aika’s house fifteen minutes later and she opened the gate for me then told me to head straight to her room. I did as I was told and soon found myself waiting for her, sitting at her bed. To my surprise, Raku was playing with some of the dolls.

“These things really fascinate me.” He said when he noticed me watching him. “I mean, don’t they need to blink? I never saw them blink even once!”





I had to put my hands over my mouth to stifle my laugh then told him that they were merely dolls, and they are, in any way, unlike humans who need to breathe lest blink. At that moment, Aika entered the room carrying a tray of cookies and other refreshments. She sat down at they table and turned to face me, her expression was hard to tell.

“I’m going to be straight to the point.” She said, looking at me intently. “You should never tell anyone, and I mean anyone, about the things you saw last night, not even the nature of our work. Besides, who’ll believe you if you did? Anyway…”

There was a moment’s hesitation, and then she continued.

“Rick told me last night that you’re going to be my partner.” She said, her eyes rolling. “So stay close to me as much as possible. We are to go to school together in the mornings and do the same when going home. Get it?”

“Err… right, about those things last night…”

“Kaira, or should I say, Muku will explain everything to you.” She told me without even looking at me.





“Right...” I mumbled.

I can’t help but notice that she was more beautiful up close. I feel myself blush just by looking at her.

“What? Do you have any questions?” She asked. She might have noticed me staring at her.

“N-no, it’s nothing”



The week passed but nothing interesting happened. I also failed two of the surprise quizzes given to us. to make matters worse, some seniors keep on ambushing me on the corridors asking me why the hell am I going home together with Aika. But she was as distant to me as ever and she’s not even talking to me when we walk home together. She seems to be thinking about something but I dare not ask just in case it will irritate her.




Saturday morning. Faust called me up the night before telling me that he and Ryan will come over. I looked around my room, and it was quite a mess. I hurriedly cleaned it up and hid some things (Muku, for instance…) so they wont find it. They arrived at around lunchtime and headed straight to my room. As expected, Faust raked through my manga collection while Ryan started browsing the net with my computer. An hour later, Faust spoke from behind the manga he was reading.

“So what’s up with the two of you?” he asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh you know what I am talking about. And I know that you know who I meant.”

“What? Are we going to talk about me and Aika here? Is that what you two came here for?” I said. I’m already getting nervous.

“Exactly!” Ryan exclaimed, taking his eyes off the computer.







“What about it? Why are you guys bringing this up?” I asked suspiciously.

“Well, you two seem to be a bit ‘close’ to each other lately. Walking home together and all…”

“And the point is?” looking at Faust through narrowed eyes

“The point is, the two of you became quite a hot item in the school because everyone seemed to think that the two of you started going out” Faust explained.

“Just like a real couple!” added Ryan.

“look, I don’t know where you get all of these nonsense and I’m telling you, you’re getting the wrong idea.” I said bluntly.

“Oookay~ if you say so…” Ryan said in a sarcastic manner.

“Drop it, alright?” I shouted.

“Whatever…” they said in unison.



The rest of the day was rather dull. Ryan and Faust left at around four in the afternoon. Muku emerged from my cabinet moments later looking scratchy. After all of what’s happened, I still can’t bring myself to believe a single thing of it. Yet here I am taking instructions from a talking cat. She was just giving me a few more instructions when mom yelled from the kitchen.

“Threece, you’ve got a phone call!” she shouted.

“Okay!”

I was wondering who it could be but my question was answered immediately when I picked up the phone. Rick was already shouting commands on the other line…

“Threece, we’ve got company! Head to the park right now, we need both of you here!”

“I’m on my way.

Finally… a chance to exercise everything I’ve learned so far