Fate of Pandora - Book I

Strange Phone Calls

The situation was bizarre in its own way. Yuko, who had never liked the other kamikas, suddenly appeared and threw a tantrum because of the missing Arika. No one knew how to help her because they were waiting for the girl as well.

"Pl-Please, calm down, Miss Yuko." Jasmet tried to help the others to contain the woman's fury. "Maybe she went somewhere before coming here. Perhaps she's buying a present to thank us. Let's wait a little longer and she'll probably appear."

The tall woman breathed deeply and ran her hand through her short hair. "I will wait here." She sounded like she was defeated since there wasn't much she could do at the moment. The teenagers all thought that she was overreacting; she had only missed a phone call.

"Don't worry. We have been more cautious after the last incident. Arika won't fall for the same trick again," Lukas reassured Yuko. As an answer, he received a cold glare from the woman, which could be clearly translated for him to keep his mouth shut.

After some long awkward minutes in silence, they heard quick footsteps outside.

"See? She's in hurry because she's late. Everything will be fin–" The door bursting open interrupted Lukas. At the entrance wasn't the cute girl with curly, pink hair, but a sweaty boy breathing heavily after running like crazy. "Oh boy... this doesn't look good."

"What is going on here?" Luna exclaimed, getting to her feet in surprise at Coalt's sudden entrance. "And where is Ayame?"

"She- Aya- she left-" Coalt coughed as he recovered his breath. He didn't realize how far away the orphanage was before. "It's okay...sorta. We visited a friend of Ayame's, and Arika appeared out of the blue," he finally managed to say.

"Arika? You know where she is?" Yuko jumped in front of the young man. Coalt rarely had to look up at someone, but Yuko was one of those cases. She was taller than him and her slim figure might fool you to believe she's delicate – however, her nasty personality compensated for it.

Coalt knew that Arika wanted to avoid Yuko because the woman might stop her, and she was right when she predicted that her tutor would look for the girl at Luna's house, their meeting point. Unfortunately for the Japanese girl, he didn't agree with her rushed and dangerous plan.

"Arika followed us to the orphanage and asked for Ayame's help to travel somewhere." The room was quiet: everyone was paying close attention to his story. "She told us that while she was kidnapped, they asked about her mother."

Yuko already knew about that, but she froze when she heard it again, suddenly realizing that she may have underestimated Arika's attachment to her mother.

"This incident motivated her to run after her mother. She wants to find her as soon as possible. She found a map at her house and it looks like it has a clue for where to find her mother, or something to do with the rings." When he finished, he stared at Yuko. He knew she had been hiding something from Arika, but the woman didn't seem bothered to justify herself to someone like him and said not a single word.

"What? And you let them go?" The little girl, Risa, was small, but she was never afraid of facing the older boy and his stare.

Coalt knew this question would arise and the odd thing was that he wasn't sure why he let them go either.

"It's complicated. Arika was determined to go – be it with us or not. She wanted Ayame to go with her so she wouldn't be alone. I tried to convince Ayame not to, but she wanted to go along with that crazy girl's idea!" Coalt said in his defense. "She said she will keep an eye on Arika and keep in contact with us."