Rising War

Chapter 3: Family

(Narrated by Aven)

At first, I figured it was a minor problem. Maybe the kids burnt dinner again, or Drake broke another window practicing who-knows-what. Both have happened before- I wouldn't put it past them to do it again. The look on Ebony's face, however, tells me otherwise. Something serious has just happened.

"What's the problem this time?" I ask.

Blaise tilts his head. "Is everyone okay?" His eyes are full of concern.

She glances behind her. I try to see what she's looking at, but can't tell. "You guys should come inside. We need to talk about it as a group."

I look over at Blaise. He seems to be as confused as I am. What possibly could have gone wrong this time?

"Alright, then." I say. We head inside. The kids have already started eating dinner at the dining table- it looks like we're having pizza. Fantasma sits with them, trying to hold a conversation. Delta flings a piece of pepperoni at Fenn. It sticks to his forehead and he laughs.

The rest of the House members are in the living room. Wynter and Jackson are sprawled across the couch. Asher is seated on the bean bag, looking on his phone and eating a slice of cheese pizza. Drake is lying on his stomach on the carpet, with a stack of five pizzas in front of him. Aisley is on the carpet next to him, chatting with Faith and Umbra.

I immediately notice something off. "Uhh... where's Kusinagi?"

Faith stands up and sets her plate down. "That's what we wanted to talk about. We can't find her."

"Have you checked everywhere?" Blaise asks.

"Oh, we completely forgot to do that!" Umbra pretends to facepalm sarcastically. "Of course we have."

"I'm just asking." He puts his hands up defensively. "Kusinagi's not the type to disappear without warning. She'd tell us if something was wrong."

"Who was the last person to see her?" I raise an eyebrow.

Drake raises a slice of pizza in the air. "Umbra, Wynter and I were. We started to clean up the basement, then she offered to do so herself. When I went back down to get her for dinner, she was gone."

"None of us saw her come back upstairs, either." Jackson adds.

I sigh. "What is with this house? We can't go a few months without someone going missing..." First Kiti, then Blaise, then all the kids... we can never seem to keep everyone in one place.

"It's probably cursed." Wynter mutters with a shrug, a slice of pizza still in her mouth.

"Do you think it was..." Aisley starts, but doesn't finish her sentence. We all know what she means, though.

Is this Tsume's doing?

It's been four months since we last heard from him. Four months since the battle of New York, where we took down Kako and learned it was Tsume behind everything this whole time.

"Tsume mentioned in his note that he'd be seeing us again soon." Ebony explains. "What if soon means now?"

After Tsume had disappeared (and pushed me off a building, which I didn't appreciate,) he had left us a note. He had returned Blaise from Kako's Dimension, as promised. But he had also left an eerie parting message: "I'll be seeing you again soon. :)"

The smiley face didn't make it any less creepy.

"If he has Kusinagi, he'll be contacting us himself soon." Faith frowns, clearly not happy with the thought of this. "He's either called us or left a note every time this has happened before."