Inside the Cave.

"Are you okay?" Haiiro called down to me before he jumped in as well, landing with a huff and reaching out for my hand as I caught and helped him to stand upright; I could already see his face, he wanted to say something. "Not now," I shook my head at him, resulting in the boy biting his lips and keeping quiet on the subject at hand. "Let's focus on what we came here for in the first place, we can deal with everything else afterwards. "Do you think that is a good idea?" Jason asked stepping off the crumbling edge and landing next to us, as did Tori who helped Gregory down and then Cidelle who used his horse again to walk along the walls like a spider. "Clearly I am no expert at relationships but-" Tori started as well. "Please just stop, all of you," I snapped softly. "It happened and yes, it is bad, but lecturing me about it right now is going to accomplish nothing; my mind is set on a single goal." "I think you're missing the point here-" Jason started again after a few seconds of silence and I felt my nose and eyes twitch as his words bore into the back of my head like a sabre, he seemed to notice my delirium just as much as I felt it because he stopped and went silent for some tie as we went toward where I was sensing the people and the Kitsune, it was likely a byproduct of the link e still had, but just as I could feel Justin's uneasiness from all the way up here from the town I could also feel Jason's concern like a small wave of wind pressing against me ever so slightly pushing me, and I was pushing back. I was no i***t, I needed to do something about all this, if I didn't fix it somehow then I would end up pushing everyone away, a thought that allowed me to reminisce on the utterances that Shiro had repeated to me several times already, as well as her warnings; it felt like I made everything worse every time I failed to listen to or conform to her instructions, and that was both humbling and unnerving at the same time So far she was always right about others, whether it was someone I met from years prior or one that I was meeting for the first time, like June, whom I was warned not to be too open with or trust, I almost died, so ten what of Justin, she wanted me to kill him at one point, and she even tried killing Jason through me, so what of those two, are they to be trusted as well?" "Mikayla are you okay?" Jason called to me, breaking me from the intense focus I was trapped in and alerting me to the fact that I had turned to all of them with an askance expression. "Don't answer that too quickly, give it a little bit of reflection before you answer; are you okay, do you need to take a break?" He asked softly, devoid of any accusation or emotion other than concern, it was like the world was upside down and I was on the wrong side of the inversion. "Sorry, I lost focus for a second." I turned and started walking again. "The sooner we get this over with, the sooner everything will be fixed right, so let's just…" I slowed down and looked back at them, greeted with nothing but concerned glances and hesitant footsteps, it felt wrong dragging them along like this; aside from Haiiro who had the same goal as I did nobody else needed to be here, this was my goal, my dream, they simply followed because they wanted to help, to support me, but it was starting to feel as if they were being ordered around. "Sorry." I stared at them, conveying through expression the words that were so hard to say out loud; until that moment I always thought of myself as expressive, but it was blinding how closeted I was when it came to expressing myself, and how much I needed to not be alone. "Fret not child, they understand; they are not confused as you are, nor do they see you as anything other than the leader, mate and fried that they first knew you as, have faith in your comrades, lest you push them too far and wind up alone." Shiro rested her hand on my head while I was looking past them at Justin who had arrived late but showed up regardless. "Let's get this over with, your kin has waited long enough." Justin alerted everyone else of his presence as he silently approached us. "Okay," I turned again and looked to the dark of the tunnel. "Haiiro, this time you take lead, take down anything that is before you, we will be right here if they try anything out of sorts." I pat him on his shoulder as he raised his hand forward and started walking cautiously ahead of us. "Don't worry, we have your back." I nudged him to walk a little faster. "... About what happened earlier-" I looked behind me but the lot of the perked up while Jason shook his head with a smirk. "Water under the bridge," Tori answered. "Remember, focus until we are out of the cave." She reminded me of what I had stressed on before and I nodded and looked ahead as the first person came into view, it was a woman with what looked like a grenade in her hand, the pin was pulled already and she was holding down on the trigger with a terrified expression. "What the hell is this supposed to be?" Gregory seemed more annoyed than he was surprised. "If you do anything to me the grenade goes off, the cave is lined with explosives all the way to the shrine." She stared at us with sweat dripping down her face despite the cave being a cold one because of the wind rushing through. "Are you stupid?" Jason started laughing at her causing both shock and confusion as she looked past Haiiro and myself at him. "If you blow the cave to bits, the shrine will break because those things were not meant to withstand pure brute force they are designed to repel supernatural elements, specifically Kitsune, and the Kitsune will be released regardless, all of us here would survive as well, was this your big plan?" He asked, and she bit her lip and looked at the grenade in her grasp more terrified than she was before. "You and your friends are the only ones who are gonna die if that thing goes off." Jason added. "Y-You expect me to believe anything you say?" She stuttered taking a step backwards from us. "The tunnels are lined with enough explosive power to capsize a mountain, you can't survive that." She argued back at us, but Jason laughed again and pointed at me. "This woman before you is the one that set off the explosion that obliterated Hollow Valley in Europe, I was almost at the epicentre, my lookalike was there next to me, and the old man was there as well, the hick chick with the ripped muscles can live in a volcano, that boy is the same as her and this dude survived being attacked by all of us." He pointed to Gregory last and continued chuckling as he stripped the woman of all her confidence. "There's no way any of that is true…" She continued backing away while we continued walking forward. "Throw it then," Tori called at her. "If you are so sure that this will kill us then throw the grenade." She taunted the woman holding out her hands and walking past Haiiro. "Come on lady, that was your intention in the first place right, to blow yourself and the rest of us to kingdom come right?" She asked clapping her hands in readiness to receive the grenade. "Come on!" She snapped in a distinguishingly dark voice, I could not see her face but I was sure that she was morphing into something else as she suddenly sprung a tail and horns pierced the sides of her head, I had no idea how she was caught in the first place and held in a Bureau prison with the kind of power she had; she was basically a weaker version of Kira, minus the scaly feathers as her wings were typically more bat-like. "Better yet, I'll throw a grenade of my own and send you straight to hell where you belong!" Tori softly spoke, but her voice carried so much consequence that Haiiro in front of me shook, and the woman fell to her knees wailing and embracing the grenade with both hands. "Please, please don't, I want to live!" She cried out dropping her elbows and pressing her face on the floor. "Help me please, I can't do anything like this." "That's much better." I walked up toward her and stooped in front of her, taking her hands slowly and carefully reeling her fingers from around the explosive and replacing them one after the other with mine. "Do you mind a bit of injury, if we leave you as you are there is a high chance you will be blamed for what happened here?" I stepped away from her and held up the grenade, much to Gregory's relief. "Please, anything is better than dying." She kept her eyes closed and her head on the floor, and taking that as an incentive, Tori walked up and punched her in the back of her head knocking her out. "And the grenade?" Justin asked from the back. "I'll take that," Tori took the grenade from my hand sloppily causing the trigger to fly off as her mouth split open and she shoved it down her throat, a few seconds later she burped up a piece of shrapnel and then turned to everyone again while she used it to pick her teeth before tossing it to the side and burping up another puff of smoke. "Shall we get going?" "What the hell just happened?"