Now that Eld was focusing on it a bit, he'd find that, in actuality, it was difficult-- if not impossible --to tell when the temperature around the man changed. Just being in his vicinity was painfully cold, and that was without the use of any particular skill. Perhaps he could make it colder, but there seemed to be a default, a minimum air temperature around him at all times. The grass around him was frosted by then. He didn't even have to think to cause it. It was just nature-- perhaps even biologically built into him . . .

Even if he were to make the air temperature around him colder, it was unlikely that anyone would notice at first, even Eld. Just like it was difficult for him to feel out massive amounts of attacks at once, it would be difficult to feel a temperature increase or decrease around this man-- at least until it was too late, probably.

"I am . . . not Gestahl," he groaned, "I do not take pleasure in killing you people."

M-- Master, RUN!

Kageko sensed it coming before Eld did. Eld didn't have the chance to knock the man unconscious. The opportunity wasn't provided. He'd feel Kageko's intuition suddenly-- run or die. Even if death wasn't a risk, significant injury was . . .

Without further warning, the air temperature plummeted in an instant. He could control it, and he could drop it instantaneously, and even concentrated: the risk wasn't frostbite or hypothermia, it was impalement. In the direct and normal interpretation of time, the action was wholly instant: shards of ice grew from the ground all around him, like knives jabbing out from the earth, growing out in a flash of a second, stabbing out in the air, but always avoiding him. If Eld lingered, he would have become a refrigerated shish-kabob.

Etsu, fortunately, was still a little distant. She didn't see it coming, though. It was too quick. Even Kageko was sensibly late. Etsu Hikane's eyes widened as she stopped instantly: a long shard of ice passed directly by her face, missing her by inches.

"But after that?" he paused, taking a moment to pull himself up and recollect himself, before growling under his breath: "I am going to freeze you solid."

"Run!" he yelled to Etsu, repeating what he heard in his head. Instantly he was on the move, but unfortunately for the man on the ground that meant using his neck as a springboard. He was lucky he didn't decide to crush his neck by adding to the force, a decision Eld would probably regret later.

He leaped forward, away from the attack, and kept moving until he didn't feel the chill of simply being around the man anymore. It seemed that getting his face planted in the grass aggravated him; now he was ready to kill...

Thanks, Kageko, he told her, knowing that she'd probably just saved his life.

Eld wanted to avoid it if possible, but if he was going to try and take their lives, he couldn't afford to hold back. Turning around to face his opponent as he stood, he said, "Twice now I could have killed you, but I didn't. If you come at us like that, I won't hold back a third time." It was something for the man to consider; angry as he was, he wasn't proving very effective against them thus far.

He shot a warning glance to Etsu, and while he didn't say anything, the message was clear: back off. If his attacks were so quick even he could barely detect them ahead of time, there would be nothing that prevented him from skewering her if she got close.

Still shocked by how close she was just now to dying, Etsu gulped and stared at Eld. She was somewhat in the man's vicinity. His back was towards her, but it seemed he knew that she was there, otherwise he wouldn't have specifically attacked her. He missed, probably because he wasn't paying attention as much to her as he was Eldridge, but that didn't mean he wouldn't miss again. Etsu took one step back. It was careful and she tried to be as quiet as humanly possible, but . . .

With that step, she was forced to stop. The long blade of ice next to her face chipped and grew around, wrapping about her throat like a ring-- a ring with a very sharp surface. Etsu let out a small cry of surprise, followed in short by very subtle trembling. She didn't say anything, but she wanted to. She wanted to reach up just the same and try and break the ice off, but she knew it would have probably ended with her life if she even tried . . .

"I do not much care for your sympathy," the man declared openly, "Sparing my life was a mistake. I am done playing with you. However, I will give a second chance. If you set the blade down and walk away, I will spare her life. If you do not, this ice will run red with blood. You are in no position to negotiate."

For several moments, Eld was silent. His opponent would not be able to tell why, but Etsu might; in dire situations, a change overcame Eld. Not a physical one, but a mental one--his voice would get colder, his expression became stoic, and emotions were suppressed. In this case, the sudden panic and fear Eld felt at the thought of the girl he loved being hurt subsided, replaced by a calm, deliberate voice which made him devote all his mental faculties to finding a solution to the problem.

"...If you're after my scythe, then you know what it is, right?" he asked. "I can't let you just have it; that person is also important to me." He would give any weapon up without hesitation, but this was more than a weapon; it was Kageko, and handing her over to him and letting him go, likely to never see her again, wasn't an option.

"So, let her go, and take me as a hostage instead. I'm the only one that can use this anyway; it'll do you no good without me." Well, he didn't know that for sure, as he didn't know much about Gaiasouls, but it was a good assumption, considering how he came into possession of her.

He could only hope the man would be reasonable, for both their sakes. While he was calm on the outside, there was also a small part inside of him that suggested entirely different courses of actions...and if something happened to Etsu, he wasn't sure he could continue to ignore it...

W-- Wait. Master? Are you . . . are you really going to give me to him . . .?

"I told you, you are not in the position to negotiate."

The man was surrounded by ice. It was a veritable fortress of frozen moisture collected into smooth, glacial surfaces. It surrounded him on all sides, now, various pillars of blades of ice jutting forth from the earth, all at waist height to him, all weapons of death that could potentially put an end to anyone that came close enough to him. They'd just have to grow a little, and the skewering would be instantaneous. A foe would perhaps not even see it coming . . .

"You are either going to place the scythe down right where you stand, turn, and walk away, or I am going to take this girl's head off of her shoulders. Where in this situation do you see an opportunity to neg--"

A shatter cut him off. A sliver of ice had been broken off like a limb. Quickly, he passed his gaze to the side, to Etsu, who free. She had smacked the ice as hard as she could when he had his attention diverted, apparently. Before he even turned his head to her, she had jumped back, away from the man's general vicinity. He narrowed his eyes and grit his teeth together, immediately reaching out with spears of ice, but she was beyond his area of immediate control. The spears moved slowly, slow enough for her to simply step to the side to avoid them-- step to the side, and bend over quickly, to lift a medium sizes rock, and throw it as hard as she absolutely could at his fortress of ice.

It pierced through the layers and passed him by-- and just like glass, the waist-height blades like pillars cracked all around, webbing out from the initial holes and scattering throughout, until finally falling into dust . . .

The man was practically dumbfounded. All he could do was stare and whisper, "You . . . . bitch."

For a moment, Eld simply stood still and stared, just as stunned as his opponent was. He had not expected Etsu to just get out of it like that, and the shock was enough to bring him out of his darker state, at least for the time being.

And then he was moving again, this time charging forward and simultaneously gathering Qi into one hand, the scythe held at the ready with the other. There were no more offers to negotiate, not from him, and thus he had no witty comeback or quip about the timing of his opponent's claim.

When he reached the edge of the ice field he'd let loose the Qi blast, mimicking an underhand throw as he let it go close to the ground. He aimed at the ice-wielder, but the blast's true purpose was to shatter the ice on the ground just as Etsu had shattered the spikes, and deprive him of a means to assault.

With his opponent currently watching Etsu and having no way to detect Qi, it was unlikely he would avoid it, and this blast--unconsciously, because part of Eld was very angry--was stronger than the previous ones. Regardless of how hard it hit, if it did at all, he'd continue forward to slash at the man, and this time his blade wasn't stopping out of mercy.

He had it in his right mind to kill Etsu Hikane. He hated her. He genuinely despised the girl. She screwed more things up for him in this battle than Eld did-- and he was fighting Eld! Comparatively, Etsu had little part in the battle, yet she managed to always leave Eld the perfect opening to rush in and attack him for what could potentially be a lethal blow.

Oh, shit.

The realization was too late, though. As soon as he swung back around to face Eld, a blast of Qi took out the ice upon the ground surrounding him. It shattered into pieces and spread out around the area, but the blast didn't do just that. It likewise knocked him back. He threw his arms before his face to try and block the invisible blow, but to little avail. It throttled him, launching him back, throwing him off of his feet, and beyond the shards of ice left upon the ground. He landed upon his back first, hitting the ground with a pained groan

Eld's continued approach, however, would be stopped in an instant. An arrow hit the ground, sinking into the earth just a foot in front of-- a warning shot, for all intents and purposes, something to make him stop running for the ice-wielder.

It came from the side of the barn, from someone who hadn't been there before. No, she definitely wasn't there before. Even Etsu was surprised-- and she could still feel spiritual energy. Eld, who could feel it, too, but not as detailed, wouldn't notice until now that there were two other bodies of energy. Alone, they were weak-- but in the vicinity of each other, they resonated, giving off the air of something impossibly strong.

A girl stood at the side of the barn, a crossbow in hand. She didn't seem outlandish, though-- not like the ice-wielder or Illorex. She wore a sleeveless red shirt, spaghetti strapped, almost dressy, with tan skirt covering her legs. She had long, dark hair, and didn't look any older than fifteen or sixteen. No, she was right around Eld's age. She had a pleasant face and, when she let her crossbow down enough to cease aiming, an almost apologetic smile.

The second approached the ice-wielder from behind, and like the girl, seemed to have come from absolutely nowhere. He had dark hair, short but bushy, and a young, boyish face. He, too, was no older than sixteen. A blue jacket covered a black, button down undershirt, with a pair of blue jeans upon his legs. He appeared to be unarmed. The both of them wore necklaces. The girl wore a heart at the end of her necklace, and he wore a crucifix at the end of his.

"Toushikyo, Gestahl wants you in Galaens immediately . . ." the boy remarked as he bent over to the ice-wielder, apparently named Toushikyo.

Toushikyo refused the offer to help. He got up on his own instead. With a faint smile directed to Eld, the boy shrugged his shoulders. Some people just had pride issues, and couldn't deal with experiencing any blows to it! Oh well . . .

"Fine," Toushikyo grumbled.

At which point, the boy addressed Eld directly. When he spoke to him, he sounded . . . pleasant, "I'm really sorry we had to interrupt you guys."

And it sounded like a genuine apology, too . . .

Eld stopped short, sensing the incoming arrow just before it landed, preventing him from running headlong into it. Rather than focusing on the ice-wielding man, he opened up his senses, and within the flood of information he received he saw that there were two more people.

Even before they talked he hesitated; if they were to join the fight, he and Etsu would be outnumbered, and they already had a moderately difficult time fighting two on one.

Fortunately, after a tense moment, it seemed that the two newcomers had no intention of fighting. He glanced at Etsu, giving he a confused look before turning back to the two to answer.

"That's...alright. I didn't really want to fight him, but I have to ask you guys the same thing: please have--Illorex, I think?--undo whatever he did to the Krigensons and the Lattes, and the merchants in Galaens." He dropped his aggressive stance, hoping these people would be more reasonable, but he remained on guard. He found out too well recently that a person who was all smiles could still be a very dangerous person, one not to be trusted...

As he started away, Toushikyo passed a glare to Etsu. She was the bane of his existence. He couldn't yet explain why she was able to damage him so-- and so indirectly! Etsu caught the glare, and oddly enough, returned it. She watched him until she blinked once and couldn't see him anymore. She couldn't even feel him.

But then again, once these two were there, she couldn't feel anything else. The resonating spirits were loud. It felt like every hair on her body was standing upright, even though it wasn't. It was just . . . tense. Extremely tense, but they didn't seem the part of bad people, not Toushikyo-- or Illorex, apparently. Feeling no apparent threat, she started towards her naginata. It was still cold, but she could hold it without it hurting her. Out of habit, she stood by Eld's side and observed silently.

The boy's smile became a regretful one. "I doubt he'd listen to me. I'm sorry . . ."

"Hey-- Hugh?" the girl interrupted.

She was standing by the barn window, her crossbow no longer on her person, it seemed. She didn't have a place to hold it on her, and it wasn't by her feet or anything. It was just . . . gone. The boy, Hugh, started towards her. She stood at the window, looking it, practically leaning in. Perhaps she wanted to go into the barn, but it didn't seem that she was going to.

"Yes, Kyla?" Hugh asked as he stopped beside of her, long enough to put his arm around her waist.

The girl, Kyla, pointed into the barn, asking, "Is he going to be okay?"

Hugh poked his head in to investigate, and indeed he saw something a little disconcerting. Joseph Krigenson was upon his side on the floor, curled up into the fetal position, hugging his legs to his chest, shivering all over. The blue tint to his skin had gone away, but the barely conscious man was still freezing cold. Or, perhaps his body thought it was still freezing-- and was reacting to it still . . .

"Oh . . . that's-- that's not good at all," Hugh immediately became serious. He turned to Eld, motioning towards the barn, and with a sense of urgency, called out to Eld: "Hey, can you get this man to a hospital? I think he's gone into hypothermic shock. I . . . don't know how long he's been like that."

Kyla put her hands over her mouth to suppress a gasp. "Is there even a hospital here . . .? It's such a small town . . ."

That was a horrible thought to entertain . . .

"Ah!" Eld quickly ran to the door of the barn, going inside so he could see what they meant. When did this happen? It was true being next to Toushikyo made one get much colder, but he'd seemed more or less fine earlier, physically anyway.

Immediately all other concerns became secondary; as much as he wanted to get information on these people, and wanted to get Krigenson's family back to normal, but he was now in immediate, life-threatening danger.

Out of habit and practice, Eld immediately took charge of the situation. "Yes, there is. It's not far. Quick, help me carry him!" he ordered urgently. He motioned to the boy, who seemed to be in the best shape; at least, he'd probably be faster and stronger than Etsu.

Toushikyo had specifically touched the man. That was when he nearly turned blue. More than likely, the cold instilled upon him didn't go away immediately, and took too long altogether to wear off, before his body started to go into a cold shock.

"All right," Hugh replied as he, too, rushed into the barn.

Etsu walked to the entrance quickly, incidentally standing next to Kyla, who followed Hugh until the entrance. A suspicious glance was passed to the girl. Etsu didn't know her, and she seemed to be in league with Toushikyo, whom she personally wished bad things upon. Naturally, Etsu would be suspicious of Kyla and Hugh, regardless of what seemed to be much more agreeable, if not kind, personalities.

"Hugh, do we really have the time to . . .?" Kyla asked. She didn't finish what she was saying, and voiced it in a way that made her sound regretful for even needing to ask. Indeed, she and Hugh didn't sound like the types of people who'd do that to Mr. Krigenson-- and the type of people who'd feel terrible for leaving him like this . . .

"It's fine," Hugh replied as he helped Eld, taking Krigenson's legs, while Eld got his arms, "We won't be long."

For Eld's sake, Etsu started into the barn, just to take the scythe from him. He'd carry the man easier, and she personally didn't trust these two if they were to just leave it behind. Coincidentally, it still remained in the released for, and probably would for the next hour or so, even with Etsu holding it. For ease of carrying, Etsu left her naginata behind in the barn. She'd just have to come back and get it later.

Hugh's next statement was addressed to the little boy in the corner, just now peaking over his knees to assess the situation. Reassuringly, Hugh stated, "Don't worry. He'll be okay, we'll make sure of it."

Eld was grateful to Etsu for taking his scythe; he didn't want to leave it laying around, considering it was apparently what these people sought (though the two newcomers had yet to comment on it; perhaps they didn't know about its released form), and it wouldn't fit back into the makeshift holster he made in its released state.

"Don't worry, Mother and Father will have him feeling better in no time," Eld added to the young boy. Unfortunately, he couldn't assure the same for his mother and sister just yet, but he hoped the newcomers could help him with that...

Leading the way, Eld moved quickly as he was able to while carrying Mr. Krigenson, and fortunately the boy could keep up. It was a short trek, only taking a minute or two, and it was slightly downhill.

"Mother, Father, emergency!" Eld shouted as he barged through the door to the clinic. Out of two separate rooms came two different people, both middle-aged: an Algerothian woman with brown hair tied neatly back into a ponytail, thick to the point where locks of it sticking together were visible. Her face was expressive, and currently her brow was furrowed in concern.

The other person was a man, clearly Cizokian, a bit on the short side with short black hair slicked back; a few streaks of gray made his age much easier to ascertain than the woman's, and his face was more wrinkled as well. His expression was unreadable, not stoic, just seemingly always in neutral.

"What is it?" they both asked simultaneously, as though this wasn't an uncommon occurrence.

"Hypothermia," Eld explained, which caused both of them to give him a funny look, as it wasn't that cold out. Still, they didn't ask, nor did they question about the boy who was certainly not from around here. Rebbecca and Urikuse Tsukimono knew saving Mr. Krigenson's life was the priority, and knew that their son tended to get involved with things he couldn't talk about.

Rebbecca opened a door to one of the emergency rooms, checked it quick, and motioned for them to follow her inside. Unlike the regular clinic rooms, which were mostly bare, this one consisted of a single "bed" that was more like a table, surrounded by cabinets, drawers, and the like full of equipment.

"Okay now, we need our space," Urikuse told them after they set the patient down on the bed, and Rebbecca made a shooing motion at them. Eld quickly pulled the boy out of the room so his parents could work.

"Let's talk outside," he motioned; he didn't want to disturb the patients or risk being overheard.

Etsu followed Eld until they reached the clinic-- after which she went around the side, to stash Eld's scythe in his room. His parents would have asked questions if they saw her carrying around such a strange looking weapon. It wasn't even a farming scythe. It was some bastardization of it, a black looking weapon with two curved blades-- about as exotic as a Reaper, and keeping people unaware of that kind of supernatural was just best.

Kyla followed Hugh the whole way, and Eld by extension, but waited outside of the emergency room once they were there. Once they'd deposited the older man for the Tsukimonos, Hugh left the room alongside of Eld, happy with a job well done. Now it was up to the doctors, but he had done his part, and that visibly contented him.

Etsu arrived just before Eld could get his question in, still visibly distrusting the two, and sticking close to Eld-- both defensively and, to an extent, clinging for her own comfort.

"Sure. We don't have much time to stick around," Hugh replied, adding in that issue of time to keep Kyla from protesting, "but we can talk for a bit, if you want,"

However, Etsu promptly grabbed onto Eld's coat before Eld could have the chance to say anything else, or even leave the clinic.

"May I tar-rk to you first Er-rd-kun?" Etsu asked.

She wasn't a forceful person, but by the way she looked at him (in absolute seriousness) and grabbed onto his jacket, it wasn't like he had an option . . .

As if knowing what it was like to deal with a woman who wasn't going to take no for an answer, Hugh added with a knowing smile, "We'll wait outside then, okay?"

It was an odd situation for Eld; the two had arrived to aid a man who had tried to kill he and Etsu in earnest rather than talk, and yet they themselves had yet to show any aggressive behavior, the closest being the warning shot to keep Eld from finishing of Toushikyo. They even helped him (hopefully) save a man who'd been hurt by their ally.

And now they were offering him the convenience of talking with his own friend while they waited. It made him hopeful that perhaps he could get the man named Illorex to restore the people to normal without bloodshed.

"Err...thanks," he replied to them a bit awkwardly.

Once they were gone he turned to Etsu, being a bit concerned, as while she didn't speak up much of the time, when she did--and especially when she was insistent about it--she usually had something important to say. "What is it?" he asked quietly, not wanting to disturb the other patients--or his parents for that matter.

The probational Reaper initially glanced from one side to the other, suspicious that patients, and Eld's parents, might also hear them. And so she tugged on Eld's shirt, and whether he wanted to or not, she'd lead him back into his house, where she could speak with him in private.

"Pr-rease do not tar-rk of scythe," Etsu finally declared. "If they f-riend of Toushikyo-sama, then they ar-rso r-rook for scythe. I do no think they re-cog-nize it rer-rease."

Etsu didn't care if they were going to be more reasonable. It was just a conflict they didn't need. They were close to evading a potential threat, and that's all that mattered to her: minimizing casualties. The more threats, the greater the risks.

She didn't ask him to promise her that he wouldn't or anything-- she instead just stared up at him, still holding onto his jacket, not willing to let go of him until he agreed. Etsu wasn't the type to ask for swears or promises. She was much more to the point-- the type to hope only for understanding and cooperation. That was the best one could ask for, anyways.