I've recaptured my groove, so expect to see more Mani in the future. Really! This is just to set up a few things for chapter 12, which will tie up some loose ends for me. Enjoy!

--Mani

* * * * *

Mani didn't like alcohol. It wasn't the substance itself that he had problems with, but more with the stupid things that it made people do. He had seen it cause good people to do bad things, and he had listened to their excuses, their apologies, for having lost control. Losing control. He didn't like the idea of not being in control of his own body, his own emotions, of not being in charge of his own life, even if was for the briefest of moments. It could take only a second to do something that would be regretted for life. If he was going to make a bad decision, then he wanted to at least be of sound mind doing so. If he had nothing else, he always had peace of mind.

That was before his life had gone down the proverbial crapper in a haze of bloodshed, unnecessary deaths, and a growing hatred for Milon Gandeus of Brightsand. The incidents in Shinkyo had done nothing to improve his life, his situation, his dwindling hope in humanity. There was so much that was wrong with his life -no matter what he tried to do, regardless of how much good he tried to accomplish, it seemed that he would always end up with a worse situation and a new enemy. It had happened back home, and it was happening on Nu. Helping Cori had landed him a pack of bounty hunters on his tail, and a fight with a cross-dressing mage and his/her/its pet dragon. Trying to save what he felt was a friend back home had not only landed him on the crap-list of Lady Idolsa Vakaal, one of the most influential individuals among the growing 'dark elite' of Second Realm, but had also netted him a relentless enemy by the name Phantom. Shinkyo not only battered his body in ways thought impossible, but it had succeeded in practically destroying his faith in humanity. And to top it all off, his return to Brightsand had been made a lot less favorable by Milon changing the terms of their agreement at the last minute, knowing that he would be powerless to do anything with Lily in his possession.

For once in his life, getting savagely drunk didn't seem like such a bad idea.

He and Eric had been at the bar for several hours now. His younger friend didn't drink too much, but Mani was more than making up for the little guy's slack. Mani knew that he wasn't quite drunk yet because he was still capable of coherent thought, and whenever he took a moment to do so, he realized that things still had not gotten any better. "I just dunno, Eric," he began, noting that he had begun half of his comments that evening with that same statement. He absently took a look at the dark liquid in his glass, swirling it around slowly as he collected his thoughts. "I just want to know where I went wrong..." He sighed. "I mean, my intentions are generally pretty honorable... I don't go out of my way to piss people off... I just seem to run into every friggin' idiot on a realm... Paradox, Vakaal, freaking Phantom, Maxis Vandola, his horde of freaks... stupid woman uppercutting me... Takamoto, that Yagami prick, that jackass that kicked me in the head... _every_ jackass that has ever kicked me in the head... and that... that..."

Eric merely nodded as Mani went into an obscenity-laden tirade in regards to Milon Gandeus, reinforced by the alcohol in his system. He knew what his friend was going through. Not being able to do anything to change it, however, was the worst part. Milon was using Lily to keep his friend in check; a coward's method, but effective nonetheless. It concerned the young man, knowing that Lily wasn't quite well, and absently wondering from time to time just exactly what was his friend capable of. Eric took a slow sip of his own concoction, wincing noticeably as he felt the liquid burning on the way down. He placed the glass back down on the bar and sighed, slowly gathering the courage to try and drink it again. For the first time that evening, Mani suddenly stopped talking, and Eric felt the presence of several individuals standing around behind them. He and Mani both groaned simultaneously as they turned around.

It had been quite some time since Mani had run into Dunne, the green-skinned commoner Thadeus, and that blonde bastard Randal, though he would have been content to go through the rest of his life not doing so. Their last meeting ended up with each of them being a part of a horrendously large bar fight, and Mani imagined that they had not forgotten. His dislike for The Guild and its employees was slowly reaching levels previously thought unobtainable. "My mother said I can't play with you three anymore," Mani remarked, taking another shot of his drink. "Go home."

On a sober day, Mani would have simply come up with a verbal retort, but when he heard Randal make a comment about playing with Lily back at the guildhouse, he would have smashed his glass over Randal's head had Eric not laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. The motion itself probably would not have deterred him in his current state, but the pain that accompanied it made him wince and think twice. Eric realized that his friend had been favoring his right shoulder since Shinkyo, but wasn't thinking as he reached out to restrain him. Nonetheless, Eric probably saved the owner of the bar a small fortune by sheer accident. Cleaning and repairing after a bar brawl could be terribly expensive. "Can't a man even get dangerously drunk in the bar of his choice anymore?," Mani wondered outloud, pausing for a moment to collect his thoughts. It went against his better judgment, but deep down inside, he was feeling the urge to fight. Even in his semi-drunken state, he was certain that he would have no problem; then again, he knew that people in his state were generally delusional about their own mortality, so he figured that it was the alcohol thinking for him. He looked away from the trio for a moment, and sighed when he turned back around, realizing that there were still standing behind him. He wasn't to the point of hallucination, at least.

"I hear that you'll be spending some time in Brightsand," Randal put forth. He took a seat in the stool next to Mani's, while the rest of his horde continued to hover around and snicker. "Welcome aboard. I'm sure Milon's..."

"...kissing his own ass, for all I care," he quickly interrupted before taking another sip of his drink. "He's a whiny little sissy bitch."

Randal and his two friends laughed, a bit louder than he expected. A lot of people in their line of work would have been upset about someone speaking of their higher-ups in such a matter, but the three seemed amused. "Come now," Randal remarked, scratching his chin. "That's your new boss you're talking about."

"Like I give half a damn. Tell him if you'd like." Mani shrugged. "Hell, I left my common sense at home tonight. I'll do it for you."

He began to weigh his options. With the way the conversation had been going so far, combined with his current mood and blood alcohol level, Mani knew that the chances of his getting into a fight were pretty high at this point in time. While that voice in his head that refused to be silent seem to encourage it, his waning common sense still have enough sway to convince him otherwise. "Hey Eric, you wouldn't be too terribly upset if I decided to call it a night, would you?," he wondered.

His young friend snickered as he stood to his feet. "Yeah, but I guess I'd get over it. Let's get out of here."

Mani stood to his feet also before casting a quick glance to Randal and company behind him. "Sorry guys, but Eric here can drink me under the table," he casually remarked. Before he could take a step, however, Randal suddenly reached up from his seat and grabbed his arm.

"Come now, that's awful rude. Aren't you even going to buy your new friends a drink?"

As he felt Randal's grip tighten on him arm, Mani could feel his own expression souring greatly in response to the maneuver. He detested those that tried to make themselves look big and bad in the presence of their friends, just a teensy bit more than those that would tease a man in his lowest times. Common sense suddenly went crashing through the window with a scream of protest, and in its place was that voice that had been goading him all night, happy that his old friend Mani was finally paying attention to him again.

* * * * * * *

Eric proved to be more quick witted than the ninja had previously given him credit for. As the young man had explained to the bartender, Randal had fallen off of his stool, and the only reason it looked like Mani had kicked his out from under him was because he had turned around immediately after hearing his friend collapse out of concern for his well being. Also, and most likely due to the noise level within the establishment, it seemed as if the bartender had misheard what Mani had said as he helped Randal up, jerking his dear friend to his feet by his collar -he was simply asking about a mutual friend of theirs, a monk by the name of 'Brother Tucker'. They were allowed to leave unopposed, and Mani was quite impressed. Hell, he almost believed Eric himself.

Brightsand looked so much more peaceful from the rooftops than on the streets. It was much quieter, and was pleasantly lacking in the one thing that Mani didn't particularly want to be around currently -people. He had to get his head together, because he knew exactly what was going to occur if he didn't. It had happened once -he did not want it to happen again. The ninja took a deep breath, but the cool, evening desert air did little to calm his nerves.

He was angry. It was nothing foreign to the ninja, but this was different. Normally he could overcome it by concentrating something, _anything_ else... but no matter how hard he tried, nothing could turn his mind away from it. He had felt this all consuming anger once before; he remembered it well, as he found out what exactly he was capable of.

It was all about maintaining personal order. There existed dimensions within each living being that needed to be balanced to keep one aspect from overshadowing another. It was something that Mani had been painfully aware of since his first day of training within the Clan Yugana. 'We are warriors of darkness', Master Renee constantly reminded her students. 'Special care should be taken not to let that darkness consume you. As with any weapon, it should be wielded properly, or not at all.' Mani acknowledged the fact that he did not understand what she meant at the time. It would be later, much later, when he began to comprehend his sensei's words. It was Phantom that pushed him to that brink, forcing him to embrace that darkness within.

["You doubted me, Mani. You doubted my power, you doubted my limits..."]

He tried to reason with her. He thought that maybe he could reach her. "I risked my life for you...," he heard himself say. His voice felt distant, almost as if he were speaking to himself from another body.

["I am no longer Laura your friend. I am now Phantom. I am your enemy!"]

She mocked his attempts. So much suffering, so much pain... all caused by the one he so desperately felt was still capable of redemption. Restraint, reason, balance -with her words finally registering, he lost control of it all. Something inside of him snapped. With her words, he had lost what he never dreamed of losing.

["I wanted to believe that somehow, we could still reach you. I wanted to believe that we could save you... never again will I try to reason with you... if this is how it's going to be, then SO BE IT!" ]

His humanity.

He had never been so angry in all of his life. And never, had he ever fought another creature while filled with so much malice, so much hatred...

Never had he felt such a strong desire to kill.

God, it was happening again.

"I knew that I would find you here."

Another voice in the darkness. Mani turned slowly to see Reuben standing some distance behind him, his arms crossed while one hand played absently at his goatee. He said nothing as he stared down at the young ninja for a moment, his iron gaze fixated on Mani's sitting form. A thin frown was etched across his face, and Mani could immediately sense that something was bothering the man. "You seem distressed," Reuben observed, mimicking Mani's thoughts exactly.

The young ninja shook his head, standing to his feet. "Lost in thought, I suppose. What brings you here?"

Reuben appreciated the young man's directness, because he did not wish to dance around the situation at hand. "You are needed at the Guildhouse. Urgently." There was a tense bout of silence between the two. Mani could sense something in his voice, something that he didn't come to expect from a trained killer such as Reuben. There was concern. The anger subsided for just a moment, only to be replaced by another emotion.

Dread.

"Let's go," he finally stated, turning towards the guildhouse.

* * * * * * *

The two ninja's passage was not hindered in the least as they made their way inside the Guildhouse, guards immediately stepping to the sides as they walked through the hallways within. Mani was somewhat disturbed, but said nothing -he had never been given such a berth before, and was surprised that he had not been asked to leave his weapons with a guard, as was the case with each of his other visits. He also couldn't help but notice, but there seemed to be more guards around than usual, and a number had weapons drawn. Something had set these men on edge, and Mani was a little concerned as to what that something could have been.

The two finally came a wooden door in the hallway, one with several guards standing around. The men spoke silently amongst themselves, but immediately fell silent as both Mani and Reuben approached. The door itself was shut tightly, and as soon as Reuben reached for the knob, several of the guards backed away, noticeably putting as much distance as their position would allow between themselves and the room. Reuben kept his hand firmly on the door's knob as he turned and glanced at Mani over his shoulder.

"Prepare yourself," he simply warned, before pushing the door open.

The room itself looked as if it had been the focus of a small-scale war, but that wasn't the first thing to catch Mani's attention. As soon as the door had been opened, his nostrils had been assaulted by the familiar heavy iron scent of blood, and finally being able to see the inside, he knew exactly why.

It looked as if something organic had exploded in the center of the room, as the walls, what remained of the ceiling, and floor had all been sprayed with blood. Lying just to the side of what remained of the bed appeared to be the source of the blood -the figure of a man, clad in the familiar uniform of the guards, and with a large, gaping hole where his chest used to be was lying on the floor, the expression on his face making it apparent that he died quite painfully. A large hole had been torn from the ceiling, clean through to the rooftop, which gave the impression that something very large wanted to leave in a hurry.

"'Two Houses become One, and from that One shall rise Another,'" Reuben suddenly quoted. Upon seeing Mani's attention immediately turn away from the ceiling, and back towards him, he knew that the young ninja understood something.

"Where did you hear that?," he wondered.

Reuben turned his gaze towards the body lying on the ground, motioning towards it with a slow nod from his head. "Despite the fact that his heart and a quarter of his chest was missing, Falkirk here was quoting it repeatedly when he was discovered. About ten minutes later, he died like he should have at the time. Something was keeping him alive."

Mani nodded. "Dark Magic." His eyes began to take in the surroundings of the room once again. "Lily was held in this room," he remarked. It was a statement, rather than a question. Reuben nodded.

"She was."

Mani cursed to himself. His mind immediately raced back to the letter written to him by his beloved, the words still burned onto his mind. Alhazalria, the demon bonded to Lily by Phantom; it was no longer being nurtured. Seemed as if it had moved beyond that point. "I imagine that Milon would like to speak with me," he quickly noted.

"As soon as possible, he would prefer."

"Where is Eric?"

"He's already here. Safe, I can assure you."

Mani took one last look around the room before carefully stepping over the body of the guard. Reuben stood poised as always, but slowly turned his head as the young ninja made his way by. "We've gotten involved with something more than we previously thought, that much is obvious," Reuben remarked, taking care to keep his voice low. "You seem to know more about this situation than myself -no doubt that this will affect us all. Tell me -what sort of... circumstances... are we dealing with?"

There was a hardness to Mani's demeanor that Reuben had never seen before, even during the events of Shinkyo. The young ninja hid his emotions well, but his youth would often times work against that skill, he had observed. No amount of training could mask the emotions that come about when a situation becomes this personal. "We are dealing with evil," he remarked slowly, a definite edge present in his voice. "The kind that holds a grudge."

* * * * * * *

Milon Gandeus was already on his feet and staring out of the window when Mani made his way inside of the office. The young guildmaster cast a glance over his shoulder at his arrival, slowly turning around and making his way over to his seat a moment later. Knowing that he would probably be there for some time, Mani decided to take a seat as well. He could easily see that Milon was very uneasy, though he constantly made an attempt to appear somewhat more focused than he really was. He didn't envy his position -Mani knew that he'd also be fairly distressed if he had been placed in the same bout of circumstances. Milon fixed his stare on him for quite a bit of time, his hands crossed before his mouth. Mani was content to remain in silence -he didn't exactly know how he could explain the situation, himself. "You know more than you've told me," Milon finally put forth. His expression didn't change in the least.

Neither did Mani's, for that matter. "Likewise."

The staring continued. "We have a serious problem here," Milon began. "And the more we withhold from each other, the worse it's going to get. I am not a totally unreasonable man -I just want to some answers so that we might remedy this situation."

"We withhold no information."

"Agreed." Milon took a deep breath and brought his hands down from his mouth, placing them upon his desktop. "First question," he began, crossing his hands before him. "What the hell did that?" He glanced in the general direction of the devastated room.

"Possession. A lower-level demon, to be more specific."

Milon continued to hold his gaze, never flinching even in the face of the answer. "When did this possession happen?"

"Quite some time ago. I just found out myself, truthfully." Mani adjusted his position in his seat for a moment. "My turn," he addressed, to which Milon held out a hand, beckoning him to continue. "Was Lily placed in a great amount of stress recently?"

Milon raised a brow, a little unsure as to how to respond. "Not to my knowledge," he began. "Though, I can assume, Falkirk might have had something to do with it. He's the unfortunate guard I believe you saw earlier this evening. He has a tendency to be rough with guests here, and might have made some unwelcome advances towards the young lady during his patrol. If so, it looks as if he paid dearly for his crime."

"What did you see?"

"Nothing conclusive. I only heard the screams, and felt the entire guildhouse shake as something tore through the ceiling of the room. But I will say this; I immediately ran to a window, and saw... something... flying away."

Mani averted his gaze for a moment as he began to contemplate what had been said. Extreme amounts of stress could have easily brought about the change, as he had seen it occur in the past. "I have one more question," he put forth, returning his gaze to Milon's level. Milon nodded slowly, sensing that the ninja was about to ask him something that under normal circumstances, he might be hesitant to reveal. "Why was Lily here to begin with?"

He knew that he had struck a sensitive subject, as he saw Milon's brows drop, ever so briefly, before returning back to normal. There was a moment of silence, in which Mani never turned his gaze away. "Our employer showed up here a while back, and paid us a handsome sum of money to detain a certain girl that would be passing through. We were given half, and told that we would get the rest when she returned."

"What did she look like?"

"The woman our employer described was Lily..."

"No, I mean what did she, your employer, look like?" Milon shifted his head slightly in the face of the question and paused. "Maybe I should take a guess," Mani added, taking a deep breath. "A tall young woman that probably turned several heads as she came in? Long, brown hair? Enchanting green eyes? A much fairer complexion compared to most people in the city? Well, at least that probably the form she took."

Milon nodded his head ever so slightly. "You know her."

"I do. It's the least of your concerns now, but I wouldn't be expecting her to pay the other half of the money she owes you."

It became painfully obvious that Milon was truly more concerned with the current bout of circumstances than his money, because he did not even flinch in the face of the news. "Who is she?," he wondered.

"Her name is Phantom. From the looks of things, she set us both up. She sent me here to find Lily, and had your guild keeping her away from me as Alhazalria manifest itself. We've both been screwed."

"Alhazalria -the lesser demon that you spoke of earlier?"

"Yeah. Her House is relatively weak compared to some of her kinfolk, but you've seen what she's capable of, regardless."

"What about Falkirk's words? 'Two Houses become One, and from that One shall rise Another'?"

Mani paused for a moment, giving it some thought. "Honestly, I'm not certain, but I can venture a guess." His hand reached up and began to absently scratch his chin as he contemplated. "Phantom is of the House of Asmodeus, which has been active in human affairs for quite some time. Alhazalria's House had been banished, and hence hasn't had much to do with them. I just think it's symbolic, signifying the union between the two now."

Milon sat in silence once again, seemingly contemplating the ninja's words. "You seem to know a lot about these dark affairs."

The ninja nodded. "My Clan are demon hunters."

"Then that means you can stop them."

"Not alone. I'll need some help."

"Name your terms."

Mani suddenly stood to his feet, placing both of his hands upon the desktop. "I'll need at least two other warriors to assist me." His eyes narrowed slightly. "I'd prefer ones that don't go by the names of 'Randal', 'Thadeus', or 'Dunne', if you don't mind."

Milon nodded. "There are others that can assist you. Done."

Mani continued. "I want whoever it is to follow my orders exactly. If someone doesn't listen to me, then they're bound to do something that gets us killed."

Another nod. "What else?"

Mani slowly dropped his head, keeping his gaze fixed on the Guildmaster. Leaning in closer, he dropped his voice a few levels. "Once this is said and done, I want you to understand that I intend to leave on my own terms. None of that 'stick around until we can get some more members' bullshit. If I want to leave this city with my friends, I want to be able to do so unopposed. That is my final condition."

A deep sigh came from Milon as the ninja's words began to sink in. If he was indeed capable of averting this sort of crisis, then he was definitely someone he wanted working for the Guild. Even so, he realized that he wouldn't be able to even solicit his help should he refuse the final condition. "I would hate to lose a talent like you. But if you can stop this thing before it decides to come back, then I would be most grateful. Done."

Satisfied with the answer, Mani took his seat once again. "Where did it go?"

"Due north. It landed some distance from the city, and reports have indicated that it hasn't moved since."

Mani nodded, then stood to his feet once again. "I'll need a moment to prepare," he made known, backing away towards the door. "Please see to it that my assistants are ready when I return." Without so much as waiting for an acknowledgment, Mani was back through the door and making his way back outside of the Guildhouse. He took a few steps before suddenly stopping in the hallway. Guards continued their frenzied patrols around the house, but for the most part, it looked as if he was alone. Taking a deep breath, he slowly ran his hands over his short, black hair.

"All right Phantom," he remarked outloud, exhaling deeply. "Just remember that you're the one that made this a dirty fight."