The Dreams

Chapter Forty Seven

As soon as she saw the jail Rina did not like it. It was dark, damp and seemed to be made of inferior quality materials when compared to the rest of the city. She understood that this was a place for criminals, but she could not help feeling offended at the apparent lack of care for the people that were stuck in this place. She knew her feelings on the matter were probably being colored by the fact that she knew Hibiki was in this place.

Her kitsune friend helped her get inside and promptly disappeared. She regretted waiting to thank him as so most likely came across as completely ungrateful. Equally puzzling was the fact that he left without hearing the rest of her life story when he had made such a point of only helping her if she proved that she was interesting enough to be worthy of his time.

It left her feeling a bit unsettled. She pushed those feelings aside as she was sure that she would see him again one way or another. He had not come across as the sort of person that would forget about a promise like that. She might not have so much as a name to go with his face, but she was enough of an oddity here that she felt sure he would be able to track her down with next to no effort on his part. The realization proved to be quite unnerving.

She suppressed those thoughts. She had more urgent matters to concern herself with. A jailer was now escorting her to Hibiki's cell.

She could hardly believe it. When King Yama had been so resistant to the idea of letting her see Hibiki she imagined she would be barred from the jail house and now she was being escorted directly to his cell.

Her emotions were in too much of a flurry for her to feel much other than numb at the moment. She had anticipated this moment for so long that she did not know how to feel about it now that she would finally see Hibiki again.

It was hard for her to wrap her mind around the fact that it had only been a few days since she last saw Hibiki. So much had happened that she could easily imagine it being weeks. In her normal life, she would need weeks to accommodate so many exciting events.

She had so much she wanted to say to him, but all of that flew out of her mind when she realized she was brought to a cell containing Souma rather than Hibiki. Her mind still insisted on separating the two even though she had moments where it seemed quite clear to her that they were one and the same no matter how different they looked. Right now she was having a hard time seeing them as one and the same which led to her feelings of disappointment. After all this time waiting to see Hibiki she only had Souma to pour her heart and soul out to. She tried her best to suppress the part of her mind that associated Souma with everything that had gone wrong in her life lately before she started speaking to him.

One deep breath was all it took. She was too desperate for a friendly face to allow her personal hang-ups to slow her down.

She stepped up to the bars and greeted him, "Hello, Souma."

The shocked expression on his face convinced her that he had not expected to see her here. She knew he had told her to go back to living her life normally, but she did not think that he could actually expect her to sit back and do nothing.

"You shouldn't be here," he insisted. "I told you to stay away."

"I couldn't just leave you here," she argued. "I had to do something. Can you even imagine me being able to stay away?"

He shook his head. "It's just not safe for you here."

"Yeah. I've gathered that, but I'm here so it's too late to do anything about that now. I'll deal with a bit of danger and figure out how I can help you get out of here."