"Blood Sign: The Heiress"

Chapter Four - Gift.

After the battle with Ray, the guys realized that they would not be left behind and found shelter. Some kind of depression in a huge mountain, a cave in which they decided to stay, at least until Kasaki's legs recovered. A week later, Kasaki could already stand comfortably, but he still had problems with running.

"We wasted a week." Kasaki said with a sigh, leaving the cave, the sun's rays blinding him.

"Well, why was it..." Iona thought about it. "It's terribly boring." Dropping her hands, she shook her head.

"That's right, we could have done so many things." Kasaki nodded.

"Well, nothing, the main thing is that you're okay!" the girl grinned, hugging Kasaki.

Over a week in a dark, damp cave, they became close. Iona saw Kasaki as a father; the guy in her was a younger sister, whom he cared for as if he were his own. All week, Iona complained that she didn't have her special, only weapon. The desire to help Kasaki has reached a whole new level, Iona is obsessed with her new guardian. Remembering this and feeling a strong embrace, Kasaki looked at his feet and said:

-Close eyes.

"M?" Childish naivety won, Iona immediately slammed her eyes shut.

Only hearing, not seeing anything, the girl tried to understand what awaited her. Counting, like any child after such a phrase, on a gift, Iona went through the options in her head for what she could get. Any, even the most incredible fantasies, were interrupted by the rustling and subsequent landing of Kasaki's cloak on Iona's tiny head. Opening her eyes and lifting her cloak, Iona, realizing what she had gotten, began screaming with joy and running around Kasaki. He, smiling warmly, watched the baby.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she squealed.

The cloak was on her like a curtain on a cat, so huge and uncomfortable that after a couple of seconds Iona fell to the ground, entangled in the gift. Laughing, she sat down straight on the cloak. Squatting down next to her, Kasaki, patting the girl on the head, said:

-Sorry, it's too big, I didn't think about it.

"Nothing, nothing!" Iona waved her hands. "It's just right for me, you'll see!" Jumping up, the girl somehow thrust her tiny hands into the giant sleeves of her cloak.

As soon as she buttoned the top button, the cloak stuck tightly to her and instantly turned gray. Looking at Iona in surprise, Kasaki waited for the continuation. He didn't have to wait long, turning gray, the cloak immediately began to shrink until it became the size of Iona. Now it seemed that the headdress was sewn for her, it fit so perfectly on the baby. But what was more surprising was not this, but what actually happened.

"Iona?" Kasaki whispered in surprise.

Spinning around her axis, the girl looked at herself.

"Oh my!" she squealed. "What beauty, have you seen, Casa?" The girl smiled.

Kasaki, still not entirely sure what had happened, tried to figure out if Iona was okay.

-Are you okay, is everything okay?

-Yes, more than that!

"Hmm... it's all strange..." Kasaki thought.

"Her body... after touching the cloak, it covered it with the girl's karma. Then why doesn't her karma cover everything she touches?"

Kasaki went into the cave and took out a small piece of flesh from the hiding place, which he cut off while she was sleeping. The piece became noticeably larger, it wriggled and seemed to be reaching out to its owner.

"What are you..." Kasaki whispered, looking in shock at the piece of flesh in his hands.

"Kasaki!" Standing at the entrance, Iona shouted.

Immediately hiding the piece of flesh back, the guy turned towards the voice.

-Thank you!

Iona laughed so warmly, smiled so carefree, Kasaki was so lost in thought that he almost lost his balance. Having come to his senses, he stood up and said:

-Well, since you now have my cloak, and I don't have it, we'll have to train!

"Hurray!" Iona screamed.

"Let's go." Kasaki grinned.

They came to a large, spacious field. While Iona was jumping around and waving her arms like a witch at a sabbath, Kasaki stood peacefully in the shade of a large tree and thought, looking at the girl:

"Has the cloak become one with her? Or no, maybe she covered him with her karma and appropriated him? Why can't we, ordinary Youmas, do this? How does her karma work... and why is it gray?.. Argh, so many questions!"

"I knew you couldn't handle it." Daku noted coldly.

Ray growled something displeased; after the skirmish with Kasaki, all that was left of him was his head, from which he slowly regenerated.

"Ray is much more important to me than you are to Daku," Lee came out of the shadows.

The girl tsked displeasedly and asked:
-Are they really that strong?

"The girl is useless." Ray barely growled. "She just stood aside, and..." He suddenly remembered how Iona gave Kasaki a cloak.

-And?

"In a real fight, she's nobody," Ray summed up.

-Okay, we know at least something.

"What tore you apart?" Doku didn't understand.

"A huge, dark paw." Ray growled.

"Suzuki?" Lee thought. "It looks like he took one of the hundreds of eyes on his body after he was killed...

-And? "What do we do now?" Doku asked, ignoring Lee.

-Since Kasaki is so attached to the girl, and she, according to Ray, is a nonentity, we can forget about them.

"Seriously?" Daku shouted in fright.

Lee chuckled and left the room.

-Yes... Well, it tore you apart... - After a short pause, Daku noticed.

"Yeah..." Ray growled.

-How did you even survive this?

"It's all about the wolf cells that I implanted into myself," Ray answered. "They have incredible regeneration."

-What?!

- Eh... - Ray sighed. - It would be easier to tell everything from the beginning...