Etsu Hikane sat before her "adviser" of sorts, the only person she knew this well that specialized in giving suggestions and advice. Scott Thompson was in no way a clinical psychologist, but he knew how to advise someone towards the greater good. It was a required ability of all Operators to be able to advice their field agents--just known as Reapers, for sake of ease. He was especially ignorant to the psychology of a teenage girl, but he had studied anthropology--this was a situation in which he could at least be of some assistance.

The young Cizokian Reaper stared at Scott's desk, unconsciously avoiding looking up at his face--she always did that. Sometimes, she still even did that with Eldridge Tsukimono, her boyfriend in all respects. Her azure toned hair had grown out over time and was now just a little below her shoulders; she had it tied back, but still kept her bang undone, a conscious decision to hide the left side of her face. She kept a casual dress, just a button down white blouse and a long, dark skirt.

Scott, too, maintained casual attire, as always. His usual style of dress entailed a toboggan, a jacket over a t-shirt, and shorts--and that rarely ever changed. For Etsu's sake, though, he refrained from smoking. She hadn't asked, but she'd have a coughing fit each and every time he lit up a cigarette. He barely even needed to smoke the thing to send her into a near asthmatic fit.

"I don't know, Ets," Scott shrugged his shoulders, "If it's guy trouble you're having, I might not be the best person to ask. Addison, though--yeah, you might want to ask her. She'll probably tell you a thousand and one ways to make Eld bleed, but if that's what it calls for . . ."

The girl quickly shook her head. "That is not what I want."

"All right, all right--what is it, then?"

"I-- I want to have famir-ry."

Scott furrowed his brow. Family? "You want to see your parents again?" What's that got to do with Eld?

Etsu shook her head.

This confused Scott for at least another second. "What do you mean by family, th------ ohhhhhhh . . ."

Scott was prompted to give this some thought. Etsu didn't say anything just yet; she just kept her hands folded in her lap and continued to stare blankly at Scott's desk. No rush, I suppose. It wasn't like they had anything to do today, anyways. Scott and all his Reapers were off duty for the next day.

Nonetheless, giving it some thought, Scott had to consider Etsu's background. She was the daughter of a Daimyo, the Cizokian equivalent to a General--except with much stronger political sway over all of Cizok, and they may as well have been the kings of their home towns. Granted, Etsu's father was forcibly retired from his position, and became reclusive--but that didn't change their social status. They didn't bring in the same amount of money as before (and were, in fact, obscenely poor), but that was the way of their world. Class wise, there was very little change. Etsu's father could still have likely walked (limped) into his home town and still be treated as a king.

Women, in Cizok, were bound to a number of expectations. They were supposed to marry and have children, they were supposed to care for the home and raise the children while the husband worked, and they were to follow the husband's doctrine as if it were law. This was ingrained into almost every Cizokian girl since the day they were born.

A higher classed woman, though--like Etsu Hikane--had a bit more leeway. They still had to follow their father's (and, if married, husband's) wishes, but they were to be treated with a respect that most commoners did not receive. They were supposed to know what it's like to be a lady, they were supposed to be a bit more educated than common women, and if a nobleman only had one child--a daughter--that daughter was expected to marry in order to provide an heir to the father's estate. In that case, the father specifically had the choice of who the daughter married. Then, the daughter was expected to have children, to provide her husband an heir early.

This all evolved from Cizok's bloody history, prompting a need for early family establishment. It was in no way unheard of for a fourteen year old girl to marry and have children. In fact, it was a little uncommon. Usually, girls were married by twelve. An eighteen year old girl that wasn't married rarely ever got married, if only because--being so "old" and still having no suitors--suggested to society that there was something wrong with her. Nonetheless, because of the many wars in Cizok's past, warriors often died young. Women married to warriors inevitably had to produce heirs early on, just in case the warrior husband fell--that way, someone would inherit the estate. More often than not, a woman could not inherit property of any sort. Only a high class woman, like Etsu, could do that. Property "inherited" by a lower class woman could literally be absorbed by a completely unrelated commoner, whether or not he be of higher or lower social class.

It was all finer details, really, but necessary ones. Certainly Hikane never gave it as much thought as Scott was. The morals ingrained into her were second nature; she didn't have to give them any thought at all.

But the fact remained that they weren't in Cizok, and Etsu's significant other didn't subscribe to any raw Cizokian beliefs. Etsu's problem, Scott had concluded, wasn't that Eld didn't respect Etsu's culture (and her unwillingness to fully adhere to the iconoclast Reaper culture), it was that Eld didn't understand her culture well enough to respect or disrespect it at all. It didn't help that she could barely explain it, though.

She's too young to understand the rest of the world, too.

It was a tougher situation than he thought. "Ets, look . . . Eld may be half Cizokian, but he was raised strictly with Algerothian morals. He's fascinated with samurai, sure, but he doesn't understand most of Cizokian culture. You have to understand that, well . . . he's not going to understand."

This unfortunately made more sense in his head than it did when spoken.

Etsu frowned.

"Have you ever really talked to him about it? You--and your beliefs, that is."

She shook her head.

"You should." Scott nodded sagely, "You do know that the number one reason relationships fall apart is a communication issue, right? Two people that can't communicate can't truly love each other--and therefore, their relationship is doomed to fail."

"But can they not r-rearn to r-rove eachother?" the girl meekly inquired, faster than usual.

Damnit! Here I am talking about how Eld doesn't understand her culture, and I go and-- ugh . . .

"Is that what you want, though?"

She didn't respond.

"That's something you might want to seriously think about. You know better than anyone else what a truly loveless marriage looks like. I know you're an only daughter, and I know you always expected your father to bring you a husband--but here, your father has no sway. Here, you can decide if you want a loveless marriage or a loving marriage. It's a risk, either way."

"Sou . . . ka," the girl sighed.

It wasn't what she wanted to hear, obviously. Scott deduced that she was looking for someone to tell her what to do. That wasn't his job, though--not even by Cizokian logic. Technically, he was of a vastly lower class than she (Scott, in life, was a teacher, after all; a commoner in all respects), so he had no right telling a former Daimyo's daughter what to do.

At least it's something that'll make sense to her.

"Sleep on it, Ets--and let me know how it goes, okay?"

And sleep on it she did.

Etsu had actually made it a point to not spend any time with Eld after her talk with Scott. Ideally, it would have only clouded her judgment. Truthfully, it wasn't something that required a great deal of thought, but to Etsu, it felt like a big deal. Big enough that she didn't even get on Scott's case when he was talking to her and calling her by a nickname she really didn't appreciate, "Ets." The -oo ending to her name was not silent.

Nonetheless, she spent her day off in her room, not so much ignoring or avoiding her boyfriend, but spending some time to herself. It was rare that she got that, anyways. Even if they didn't talk all the time (truth be told, Eld and Etsu didn't have a whole hell of a lot to talk about--which was fine by her), they were still conjoined at the hip. She simply explained to him that she wanted a day to rest after a stressful work week--on her own. Initially, she had felt the urge to say that he could use the time to train with Kageko, but . . . that might have created some tension between them . . .

She went to bed early, too--earlier than usual--hoping that a good thirteen or fourteen hours of sleep might help her feel better about things. In the end, though, she wound up sleeping for only four. Much of the night was spent tossing and turning, half because she had things on her mind, and half because she was in bed alone.

A noise awoke her in the end; a pounding on the door, fairly early in the morning. In their time, it was about seven o'clock, far earlier than anyone ever roused her from slumber. Groggily, the girl pulled herself out of bed.

Her hair was a mess, just flopped over everywhere, her eyes half-shut from sleep, and her clothes inappropriate for public display. Her blouse was completely undone and she lacked pants, but these were detailed that the girl just didn't pay any attention to this early in the morning, and whoever was at the door damn well should have known that.

The pounding on the door continued even after she got out of bed, and just as she prepared to open it, the young Reaper called out--groggily--as loud as she could muster, which was, inevitably, a bit of a failure. Softly, she called out, "One second pr-rease."

It got the knocking to stop, at least.

Etsu unlocked the door from the inside and strained to slide it open.--

During her brief stint of actually making a salary in the Dirige, Etsu had saved up enough money to purchase some additions to her room, to make it feel more like something that she was used to . . . and, well . . . liked. She really didn't like Algerothian, Sythinian, and New Xexorian architecture at all, and that primarily what made up the home of all Reapers. So, a few additions were made to her room to give it more of a Cizokian feel. She added a few ornate lamps, got the floor overhauled and mats laid down, and had her door redone to become a sliding door. Unfortunately, the sliding doors all cost far too much, and not having Scott, Addison, and Eld around to help her with that purchase, she bought the cheapest one. This, however, was ridiculously heavy, and she had to strain each and every time she opened it.

--And there stood Scott, rushed, with an anxious expression upon his face. Etsu stared up at him and him down to her, Etsu not yet realizing her indecency (undergarments clearly visible and all--but that was it, fortunately), and Scott, for once, not genuinely giving a damn.

"Hey, Ets, you have to get ready."

Tiredly, she furrowed her brow. "Nani?"

Scott glanced down the hall. He felt even more rushed than before. "Just get some clothes on. Warm clothes."

This, of course, prompted her to look down and finally realize her visible indecency, prompting the girl's face to suddenly take a beat red tone, as she frantically grabbed the sides of her blouse and pulled it back together.

"You're on assignment. It's non-negotiable."

On the other hand, this was a little more imperative than decency. Etsu was supposed to have the day off. All last week, she was stationed in this big city where people died every day, and she had to run around town--in Purgatory, no less!--to pass all these souls, and people almost always died on the other side of this huge place. She was supposed to have a few days off after that.

"Wh-- why?" Etsu whispered quickly, stress already building. She was still tired from last week!

"The higher ups want you more active in field work."

"But-- but I . . . r-rast week, I . . ."

Scott shook his head. "He wants you to have more combat experience."

"He?"

"The Big Man."

"Sh-shinigami-sama . . .?"

Scott nodded.

Etsu gulped. Did that mean that he was going to be looking over her performance? All previous shady missions and raw combat missions, Etsu had failed miserably. If she was just dealing with passing souls . . . well, she was great at that. Sending someone to Hell was still unnerving, but it no longer inspired her to have a panic attack. She was good at sending souls, now. Combat related missions, though . . .

"Someone read a report to him about the status of post-recruits," Reapers that aren't amateurs anymore, but were still recruited just recently--post-recruits usually had a good four months of service behind them, "And your combat performance was declared the lowest of the whole batch of post-recruits. He was adamant that you take on combat missions and extra training to fix that."

". . . sou ka."

"The report about this incident has it isolated in the upper mountains of Cizok. Four weak Ame Voleur have been located. Compared to what you've fought before, they shouldn't be too hard--but it's still life or death combat, so don't let it get to your head. Now, get some warm clothes on. You should expect snow."

Etsu focused her eyes on the center of Scott, looking straight forward without her head up or down any extra degree. Meekly, she replied--like a doll--, "Under-stood."

Orders were non-negotiable, after all. It was best to suck it up and take them without question.

Offtopic: Continued in [link].