Without a word, not even a thanks, Illorex took the scythe. He didn't snatch it out of Eld's hands or anything, but he took it without even a single thought. It was only when he had it that any degree of thought was devoted to the issue. For almost a minute, he didn't even move; he simply stared at the scythe, watching the blade just like he did Eld's face, Eld's heart, and Eld's soul. What he concluded was unclear--from any of it, what could have been an examination of Eld, Etsu, and now this blade, with Eld wished to trade for the lives that Illorex had tampered with.

Illorex said nothing at all after that minute. He simply started down the hill again, ignoring both Eld and Etsu, who still stood at the mid-point of the hill, watching helplessly, shocked, even a little appalled, at what was happening. Eld had no plans of tricking Illorex after all. He was just going to give Kageko away, as if she were truly nothing more than a scythe, a weapon of death, something easily replaced.

However, once at the bottom of the hill, there'd be a change in Illorex. For a brief moment, he'd flicker; a single frame of movement, where in one, he was there, and the next he was not--and then, again at the bottom of the hill, still walking away--

And then he was gone.

"Ah...hey..." But it was too late, and Illorex was gone, vanished into thin air. His sudden absence left Eld with mixed feelings; anger at the fact that he seemed to have left without keeping his end of the bargain, but also relief that he was gone. For some reason, being around him brought out a wide variety of feelings in him, he wasn't acting consistently like he should be.

Making a fist, he punched the ground underneath him. "Damn..." He was frustrated, both by his failure and his own powerlessness. Even as strong as he was, Illorex was at least his equal in terms of pure spirit pressure, if Etsu's reaction was anything to go by. And while he was willing to risk bodily injury, being turned into a living doll was a fate that frightened even him. Even if he went to Galaens to try and force him, he wondered if he truly had a chance of succeeding.

He was also tired, now; he still wasn't very used to using Qi, and keeping up a constant effect like that was new to him. For the moment, he decided to just sit and recollect himself.

Eld would be reminded of his surrounding when the probational Reaper speak to him at last, ". . . E-- Er-rd-kun . . ."

Etsu didn't sound happy. Not at all. She didn't sound angry, though--just upset. Her constant stoicism had faltered constantly while she stood in the presence of Illorex, but in the end, it wasn't Illorex at all that shook her to the core, it was Eldridge Tsukimono, a man with whom she once, at the very least, claimed to be in love with.

"You . . ." Etsu whispered, pausing for a long, difficult moment, "You . . . just . . . you just gave Kageko-sama a-way? No . . . no trick? Just . . . gave her a-way?"

She still stood at the middle of the hill. Her hand was still extended somewhat, and she slowly pulled it back, folding it upon the center of her chest. She didn't know how she truly felt about this--only that it was bad. Horrible, even. Etsu felt guilty, angry, and depressed--all at once, and perhaps there was more, but she couldn't even begin to name those.

"You-- you said--"

Etsu paused to look away from Eld. She was upset with him, both audibly and visibly. Etsu furrowed her brow and narrowed her eyes; her hands balled up into loose fists, as she looked into the trees as her only comfort in the situation. What if she'd been wrong about Eld all along?

"I thought she was you friend . . ."

Eld felt a distinct pain in his chest. Even if they were unfounded--even if he knew why she was saying them, had counted on that reaction--he still found the girl he loved saying those things, and looking at him like that to be very, very painful.

Was this really the right thing to do? Ultimately his plan had failed, but he couldn't think of another way at the time; trying to attack Illorex would have been even more risky, he felt, and there was no way Etsu would have stayed out of a fight even he'd ask her to.

"Etsu..." He found it difficult to look at her, but he forced himself to. He needed her to know that what he was about to say was true, and he always felt that if he looked someone in the eye they'd be able to tell he wasn't lying.

"No, it was a trick...it was just a...trick on you too," he admitted finally, even though now he was rather ashamed of it. "That wasn't Kageko...it was just the scythe from Krigenson's barn."

She kept her eyes averted from him, not intentionally making it difficult for Eld to start eye contact with her, but the difficult was there all the same-- in the beginning. Once Eld explained that it was a trick, her eyes were on him again.

Though, it wasn't a favorable stare. Rather, it was shocked and appalled once again, almost as wide as Etsu could open her eyes (after all, one was permanently damaged, and could open only half-way at most). This time, though, there was no sadness or regret. It was entirely shock and appall, and nothing more.

Anger crept its way into the mix, but she couldn't recognize it-- not yet. She was still too surprised, genuinely shocked by the fact that Eld would actually try to trick her, regarding something so important, too! What, did he want her to react that way? Was he trying to make her doubt he and herself both? By not telling her a thing, was he genuinely, truly trying to make her feel horrible? What . . . what the hell kind of good could that do?!

Finally, after a moment, anger took hold. Her expression tightened up, her eyes narrowed, and lips curled into a very faint frown. It was slight-- so small, but Eld would notice. Eld always noticed.

"Doushite?" she demanded, a very slight tone of anger--or perhaps aggravation? or disappointment?--tainting her stoic tone. She didn't even bother to voice her inquiry in Common.

Etsu was...clearly not much happier about his explanation. And the reason for it was a pretty terrible one to boot. He actually blushed a bit, knowing it was stupid, but he wasn't going to lie to her again, so he told her.

"Well...you know I'm not a very good liar," Eld explained, rubbing the back of his head. "I thought...if he got suspicious, your reaction would make up that."

And that was it. Just because he wanted to increase the odds of his deception working. But in the end, and it hadn't even mattered; Illorex never seemed to question that the scythe he carried was the real one, and he ended up disappearing with it before saving the villagers.

"It...was a terrible thing to do. And it didn't even work, either...I'm sorry." Having finished his explanation, he hung his head, unable to look at her anymore. All he could do was hope she'd forgive him for it; in retrospect, the added layer of deception wasn't worth tricking her and making her worry like that, but though hindsight was always much better than foresight, Eld couldn't help but blame himself for being an idiot.

"Sou . . ka," Etsu whispered, so quiet and meek a whisper that Eld would likely not even hear it.

For another moment, she was silent, saying nothing, doing nothing. She didn't even start walking down the hill until a cold wind told her it was time to go back to Eld's house. Maybe. She had it in her right mind to go to Mayako's house, actually.

"Then . . . Kageko-sama is safe," Etsu concluded as she started to walk down the hillside, "That is good."

She said nothing else about Eld's trickery or his deceit of both her and Illorex. Tricking Illorex was one thing, but purposefully tricking her was another. Part of her didn't even give a damn if there was a good reason for it or not. She was just a little miffed, and while she didn't say anything else to suggest it, the very fact that she walked by Eld and continued on without looking back to him or waiting for him to catch up, or anything of the sort, may have suggested that more than anything else.

Or, perhaps, the fact that she reverted back to a cold stare again-- completely detached, entirely empty. It was much akin to something Mayako did sometimes, smiling despite how sad she might be. In Etsu's case, though, it was a veil of apathy. A stoic expression and uncaring eyes--because sometimes, it was easier to try and not give a damn.

Eld looked up as Etsu walked by, saw her expression, and immediately looked back down again. Ah...she's really mad. I guess she has every right to be, though. Normally, Etsu's stoic expression came from simply not being able to express herself well. However, when she was especially upset, she intentionally masked her emotions...the average person might not be able to spot the difference, but Eld could.

He followed her silently back to the house, but didn't not go inside. Instead, he said, "I'm going to go check on the Krigensons...I'll be back in a little bit." Normally, Etsu would probably accompany him, but this time he knew she wouldn't want to. It was for the best if she had some time to cool off before he tried to make it up to her.

Mr. Krigenson was stable but unconscious at the moment, and his son was sleeping on one of the beds. He didn't say in the clinic long, for fear of his parents cornering him and making him explain what was going on. Instead, he made his way up back up to the Krigenson farm.

As he suspected, there was indeed no change in Mrs. Krigenson or her daughter...but at least neither of them were wielding something sharp with abandon this time. There was nothing more he could do for them at the moment--that would be a problem to tackle the next day, more than likely. For now, he was exhausted.

It was night by the time he returned, the sun having fully set. Most everyone else was getting ready for bed, too late for a meal, but with the schedule he and Etsu followed it was getting close to dinner time. He spent the next nearly hour or so cooking. She should have cooled off, at least a little by now, so he could start to make it up to her.

"Etsu...I made dinner," he informed her eventually. When she joined him in the dinning room, she find the table all set already, with two plates of curry and rice and sitting out.

Indeed, Etsu opted to stay at the house, rather than go check on the Krigensons with Eld, and she made that decision without a word. She hadn't even looked back at Eld, as if it didn't really matter if he was walking with her or not at all. She was going back to the house, and if he was following her, then so be it. She just wasn't going to acknowledge him. However, a hint of acknowledgment was the fact that she stopped at the door after he declared his intentions, and waited for a moment, perhaps subconsciously to see if he was really going or not--or perhaps it was a brief moment where she was making a decision without even realizing it.

And that decision was to go back to Eld's room. If she was going to stay there this evening, she didn't know. She'd decide that later, whenever Eld came back. Mayako and her family were probably going to be asleep already, but if she explained that she just didn't want to stay at Eld's place tonight, then they'd probably understand.

But all that was arbitrary once she reached Eld's room. Her naginata was left in the same corner as her clothes, which she removed, expecting no one else to be around to walk in on her. She replaced her bra and underwear with a comfortable and loose sarashi, followed by a white kimono she liked to wear to sleep in, usually kept (carelessly) folded on top of Eld's dresser.

As she had so many times before, Etsu sat upon Eld's bed, arms draped around her knees--not quite close to her chest, but elevated all the same. Usually, she simply gazed outside, and could do so for hours on end if she so desired, simply staring outside without a word, left alone with just her own thoughts and observations. Sometimes, at the end of the day, it was nice. She could make better sense out of things that way--especially people. She could make much more sense out of other people if given the chance to sit alone and think on it. Other people were senseless creatures, so difficult to understand, so difficult to put 100% faith into-- and while blind trust existed more often than not, when given the time to think on it, Etsu often questioned why she trusted the people that she did. Indeed, there was as much self-questioning as there were reflections on those around her.

But at first, she didn't do that. Rather, the scythe on the floor, once more just an average (albeit very sharp!) farming scythe, caught her attention. It was in the same place that she left it. Seemed Eld hadn't even touched it. She had placed it next to the bed, between the bed and the window. Etsu leaned over to pick it up. It was heavy and unwieldy . . . it was a wonder that Eld could even be efficient with the thing. That, too, was arbitrary, as she held it partially on her lap, the with blade hanging down beyond the bed. Unlike the last time she held it, Etsu wasn't really concerned with the condition of the weapon.

For awhile, she examined it. Was this what it was like-- for people like Illorex? To try and see through something, to see the person underneath all the knives out. She ran her hands across the wood. It might have been bent a little throughout, but it was well carved and sturdy; the wood alone could probably last against a steel blade for at least a few strikes. As far as wood goes, that was fairly significant for a pole. Etsu reached her hand over to the blade, gently running her index and middle fingers across the flat side of its blade. It was almost perfect. No blade in the world could ever boast true perfection-- only almost. And this had it. It was perhaps sharper than her naginata, and much, much sturdier. It held no bend in the middle, just a near perfect flat horizontal sickle, long and arcing downwards ever so subtly.

Perhaps she should have seen the difference between scythes. The dupe Eld had was meant for farming. But this . . . this was meant for much, much more. It was meant to destroy, and destroy efficiently. Even without the spirit of another creature inside, this was not a weapon that was to be bartered or given away without the slightest bit of thought. It was something to be respected, for both its purpose and its quality. And in the same vein, it was not meant to sit on a display, useless-- it was meant to be used for its purpose in life: for battle.

And no matter what, he who was cut down by such a blade, or he who was cut down holding such a blade-- would die a beautiful death.

Sometimes, that was all you could hope for.

"Can you hear me?" Etsu asked outright.

She didn't know if she'd get a response or not. Eld did, whenever he spoke while holding this beautiful weapon. It was always implied that he was off somewhere else, thinking, speaking to someone else with thoughts alone. Kageko, the spirit of this murderous and glorious weapon. Etsu had called out to her. She wanted to hear her voice, too. She wanted to know what it was like to speak to someone who, in their own right, was a spirit of warfare and battle.

Etsu . . . was envious. She could never be that beautiful, she could never be that useful. She had no utilitarian use mixed with an emotional investment. She was complicated. Everyone around her was complicated. She was trouble for all of their lives. If she were a blade, she'd be one divided and stretched across a vine, cutting everyone around her and whittling away at her own stability all the same. She wasn't Kageko. She wasn't merciless and beautiful all the same, kept in check by form and function, truly separated from the rest of the world, cutting only when it came time for utility--never on a personal whim.

For a moment, she thought she heard something. Something faint, something buried somewhere deep with the recesses of her consciousness. The wind. It was merely the breeze that flooded the room and flapped Eld's drapes around.

Etsu sighed. She propped the scythe up against the corner and let it stand there for now.

The probational Reaper was still lost in thought when Eld came back to his room to announce that, not only was he back, but that he had cooked dinner for the two of them. Etsu broke away from staring out of the window and passed her gaze onto Eld, whom she regarded with a nod of her head. She didn't really know if she was hungry or not, but now that he mentioned it, she smelled something. It was familiar. At the very least, she figured it was necessary to go out and see.

And after she got up and left Eld's room, she was treated to quite the spectacle of food--or, rather, her absolute favorite food in the world. Chicken curry and rice. Odd. Eld had never made that before. It took so long to make, too . . .

She wanted to say something-- something like you did not have to do that, you could have just made rice, you did not have to spend that much time cooking, or anything along those lines, but Etsu couldn't actually word any of it out. She simply remained standing before the kitchen table and staring, with a look of subtle bewilderment upon her face.

Etsu was clearly surprised that he'd made this particular dish; well, to Eld her surprise was clear, anyway. Whether this was a good sign or bad, however, he didn't know. Truthfully, it was his first time making the dish; he knew how, of course, and he had a recipe to follow, but sometimes that wasn't enough.

Still, he gave her what he hoped was an amused smile. "It might not be as good as Mayako's, but it should still be edible. And we haven't eaten anything all day, so I thought a nice big meal was in order." Earlier, before they'd gone to the hill, he'd been too nervous to eat, and he suspected it was the same for Etsu.

"Oh, right! Umm...here." Eld quickly returned to the kitchen to procure the one thing he'd forgotten: chopsticks. The months since Etsu arrived wasn't quite enough to erase the habit of setting the table with just silverware.

". . . a-ano . . ." Etsu whispered under her breath, so meek Eld probably couldn't hear it, the sound she made when she was confused or at a loss for words-- or, at the very least, something that replaced the Common "word" um.

She watched Eld as he went back into the kitchen and retrieved a pair of chopsticks. That was also extremely nice of him. Truth be told, while Etsu had gotten used to eating with a fork and the like, it was completely against her own will, and if she had her way, she would have never learned at all. Chopsticks, skewers, and spoons were all she really needed to eat, if she wasn't eating finger-food.

With a slight bit of hesitation, she finally sat down, across from where Eld had his plate. This smelled particularly delicious, and she couldn't justify turning it down. Eld had found her weakness and exploited it smoothly, even if this was the first time he'd made it.

Etsu didn't know what to do or say. Eating was perhaps the best of those options, but that still didn't explain why Eld did this for her. Nonetheless . . .

"Itadakimasu . . ." Etsu whispered meekly as she placed her hands together and bowed her head ever so slightly. It was sort of a custom in her family, more religious than anything else--even though Etsu didn't really subscribe to any particular religion of the world.

She'd wait, though-- for Eld. Once he started eating, she'd feel a little more comfortable . . .

"Itadakimasu," Eld echoed as he sat down; he tended to make use of some Cizokian customs around Cizokians, a habit he had formed around Mayako and that carried over to Etsu when she arrived.

Seeing that Etsu seemed hesitant, he figured it was because this was the first time he'd made it. There was no guarantee that it turned out well, so he did taste it during the process when appropriate. Spearing a bit of chicken with his fork (his own attempts to use chopsticks were pathetic at best), he popped in his mouth and discovered that his fears were unfounded. It was pretty decent, he thought.

After taking his first bite, he waited for Etsu to take hers; he wanted to see her reaction, knowing that if he were to ask her for her opinion she wouldn't vocalize a bad one, even if she was angry at him.

Etsu watched Eld take the first bite. She furrowed her brow in wonder--almost curious about his own reaction. Curry was a difficult dish to make. He'd gone so far as to make this for her, so of course she was going to eat it, but deep in the far recesses of her mind, she was partly curious if this was going to be an enjoyable meal or not. It certainly smelled good, but smell could only influence taste so much . . .

Seeing his positive reaction, she looked down to her plate. With chopsticks in hand, Etsu reached down to pluck one small bite of chicken from the muck. Curry never looked appealing. It rarely had to. It's taste usually said enough for it than its look. At least . . . if it was prepared right.

And after chewing for a bit, Etsu had concluded that this was, in fact, pretty decent. The chicken was a little chewy and could have softened with a few more hours of cooking-- but that was fine. The sauce turned out well, and that was the hardest part, after all.

"This . . . is ve-ry good," Etsu quietly remarked.

--and all the while, she started to mix the steamed rice on the side with the soupy curry, a habit she had ever since she was little, mixing any and all soupy dishes with rice, if it was at all available. She didn't even think before doing it anymore.

Ah, good, I guess it turned out fairly well. Etsu's initial reaction told him more than her comment; next time he made the dish (hopefully under better circumstances) he'd have to ask her for some help cooking it, or at least advice. She didn't know much about cooking, but the few things she could make she could make very well.

"Thanks, I'm glad you like it," Eld replied. He'd always considered himself a fairly good cook, so it was a bit of a blow to his ego when he'd found out just how good Mayako was. It was good to know that people still liked his food, even if it didn't compare.

He spent the next few minutes eating, until he remarked to Etsu, "Ah, it's pretty good this way, isn't it?" Were she to look, she'd see that he was mimicking what she did, putting his rice in the curry sauce.

At first, she looked at him-- a little confused. She didn't know what he was talking about at first, until she looked down at his plate. Immediately thereafter, she looked down at her own plate. She hadn't actually noticed that she did it. She just enjoyed it this way, to the point where it was the only way she ate curry. Thinking about it was completely unnecessary.

"Hai," she replied with a nod.

Eld might have had an uphill battle ahead of him, if he wanted to get Etsu talking about something-- anything. But then again, she was always like that, and he could usually take solace in the fact that she enjoyed a comfortable silence, by virtue of having little to say anyways.

However, when trying to make amends, the difficulty in getting her to speak conversationally would probably work against him . . .