The Search for the Legendary Gems: Ruby

After he finished his solo mission, Arthur returned to his guild. "Hello Everyone! I'm baaack!" he said in a cheery tone, but nobody was there. I guess I came a little early... Oh well he thought as he checked the dining room. He looked at his pocketwatch and realised that everyone should be here any minute. He decided to go to his room and leave his stuff. As he put his backpack on the ground he heard a fammiliar voice,

"We're home!" said Juliet as she entered the guild headquarters. She was in the escort of her older sister, Emily. After hearing her voice, his heart started to pound harder. He ran downstairs to see them.

"Juliet, you're here!" he said happily as he ran towards them. He was gonna hug her, but he thought it was innapropriate.

"Oh good, Mister Know It All is back." said Emily in a sarcastic tone.

"It's nice to see you too, Emily." he said.

"So how was the mission?" asked Juliet curiously.

"It went well." he said as he took a shiny yellow gem out of his pocket. "Fourth Legendery Gem, Topaz!" he continiued. As he said it, he heard footsteps coming from behind him.

"Welcome back." Sakura said as she and Ryuunosuke were walking into the room. "With this, three of the 7 gems have been found. Good work."

"Thank you!" said Arthur as he put the gem around his neck. "Would you mind if I keep it? It has a great sentimental value to me... The previous owner and I were really close, even thoe we knew eachother for only four weeks."

"What do you mean by knew?" asked Juliet.

"Well, he's kind of, um... Here." he said as he took a yellow key. "He was about to die, but when our gems touched, he became a spirit. This is his key." he said in a sad tone.

"Well he's alive ain't he?" Shana said to comfort him as she came into the room. "It's not like you won't be able to see him again since you have his key you know. If you let the past haunt you, you'll be one of the first to be taken down in a battle."

"Yeah, well... I guess you're right." said Arthur as he clutched the key.

"So what wa- Is his name?" asked Juliet who was trying to cheer him up.

"Zaha. Well, it's not his real name, he lost all his memory, but he likes that name, so he named himself Zaha" he said as he tried to smile. "Anyway, I haven't eaten anything homemade in like five weeks" said Arthur as he put the key back into his pocket.

"Then let's have lunch." Eriko said as she was bringing food to the table. "You must be hungry from your trip."

"Yes ma'am!" said Arthur as he sat on his chair.

"After this, get some rest before we go looking for the next gem I've located." Ren said as he was tinkering with the device he had given Arthur to track down the gems. He was currently improving it.

"Mr. Know It All just became Mr. Gem Finder... No comment." said Emily sarcasticly, but Arthur didn't even bother to answer.

"What do you mean by 'we'?" asked Arthur who was confused. "I'm having company?" he continiued in a bit more excited tone. "Who's it gonna be?".

"I'll be helping you out from the base." Ren replied as he pushed his glasses up. "Emily and Juliet also insisted in coming with you. Kurogane will be on standby for this as well. Shana will be sniping for you and Eugene... Wait, where is he?" Ren asked confused

"I'm right here." Eugene said seemingly having appeared out of nowhere, causing everyone to jump in surprise.

"When did you get here!?!" Shana exclaimed in surprise.

"I was here the entire time." Eugene replied calmly furthering everyone's shock.

"Do you guys ever get used to this?" asked Arthur refering to Eugenes mystical appearance. The Nakamura sisters shook their head. "So you insisted on going with me? Why?" asked the young celestial spirit mage.

"Well... Um..." said Juliet as she began to blush. "I wa-We were worried about you." she continiued.

"Well it's gonna be a lot easier with you guys." said Arthur. "What gem did you find? And where is it?" he asked Ren.

"The ruby gem has been located in the city of Aino." Ren replied as he finished improving the radar. "The exact location and owner is unknown but we've pinpointed it down to a private school in the area."

"So when are we leaving?" asked Arthur excitedly.

"You just came back from a mission, you should be resting." said Juliet in a worried voice.

"Pffff I'm fine... The last two days I didn't do much." said Arthur as he finished his meal.

"We probably won't be doing much for the first part of this so I think we should be fine if all we're doing today is searching for the owner." Kurogane said with a kind smile to reassure her. "How about this? Arthur won't be involved in any combat today if there's any?"

"That should be good enough." Eugene agreed.

"But... I'm perfectly fine." said Arthur, but Juliet gave him a serious look. Arthur sighed quietly. "Fine, I'll just sit and watch." he said.

Juliet felt relieved. "Now if you'll excuse us, we need to pack for the mission." said Juliet quietly as she went upstairs, towards her room. Emily followed her. After five minutes, everyone was ready. "Shall we?" asked Juliet shyly.

"Let's get going then." Eugene said as he activated the Dokodemo door which was set to their destination. After walking through the door, they found themselves in the private school that Ren pinpointed it to. "Ren, why'd you set the door to be in the bathroom?" Eugene asked through the communications device as the door already closed on them.

"To be logical, nobody would really check in here." Shana said calmly being the cool minded character as usual.

"I don't think that's the real problem here." Kurogane said with a somewhat nervous smile towards the situation at hand. "Anyway, we should get out of here quickly."

"Wait here!" said Juliet as she went outside. She bumped into some randoms students. They were wearing special school uniforms. The uniform consisted of a white shirt, red tie, knee lenght blue skirt for girls, blue panths for boys and a blue jacket with the schools logo on it. She entered the bathroom again and took her paintbrush. ''"Pict Magic: Uniform!" ''recited Juliet as three male and three female uniforms appeared in mid air. "Put these on, just so we don't stand out." she said. Arthur began to take his shirt of, but Juliet stopped him. "In there!" she said as she pointed at the stalls that were on the end of the room.

Eugene and Kurogane went into their own stalls and changed into the uniforms. "But now where do we put our clothes?" Kurogane asked as he carried his kendogi in his hand.

"Ah right, that thing weighs a lot." Eugene said remembering how heavy it really was despite it's soft appearance.

"I've got a portal box so let's just put our stuff in there." Shana said having already changed into the girls' uniform, her beloved sniper rifle nowhere to be seen. Most likely, it was already in the portal box in question.

"Our turn now." said Arthur. Juliet, Emily and Arthur entered the stalls and came out. Emily took her Dimensional Card and stored their previous outfits within. "Thanks." said Arthur who was looking himself in the mirror. "I look good in this." he said.

"Dream on..." said Emily sarcasticly. "Now, I think we should seperate in two groups. That way we'd find the owner faster." she said.

Arthur nodded and said "How about this... Boys on one team and girls on other? That way we won't be suspicious."

"That sounds good." Eugene replied. "In that situation, we'll have at least one person with good senses in each group. Shana has better eyesight and hearing being a sniper and my senses are already inhuman being a Dragon Slayer. Let's move out. The guys will search the northern part of the school and the girls will search the southern part of it." He said as he handed a map of the school to everyone.

"Hey, Mr. Gem Finder, take this." said Emily as she gave a card to Arthur. "This is a Call Card, we wil be able to comunicate through it. Also, I'd be able to track you with it, so don't lose it." explained Emily. Arthur took the card and put it in his pocket. The two groups seperated.

"You're prepared for anything." noticed Arthur who was talking to Eugene, refering to the maps. "So, what happened while I was gone?" he asked curiously.

"A bunch actually." Eugene replied. "First off, Juliet got herself a boyfriend." He said jokingly knowing about Arthur's romantic situation. "I'm kidding." He said after seeing Arthur's shocked face. "Actually, we just carried on like normal taking down dark guilds." He then stopped in his tracks. "I hear music a bit away from where we are, let's check it out." He said before going off in a certain direction with the two others following. Following the music led them to a room where through the window, a girl with scarlet red hair was playing piano and singing.

"Beautiful... Voice..." said Arthur who was stunned by the melody even after it was over. He then noticed something strange about that girl. He felt a weird presence of magical energy radiating from the girl. "A beautiful voice you have there." said Arthur as he entered the room.

Upon hearing Arthur's voice, the girl quickly looked up from the piano to see Eugene, Arthur, and Kurogane standing in the doorway and her body began to shake upon sight in fear. "I-It's a guy!" She stuttered in fear.

"Um, sorry, we weren't meaning to disturb you." Eugene said as he stepped forward, gently pushing Arthur behind him guessing what's probably going to happen. He couldn't say another word as the girl had already advanced on him with unnatural speed and punched him square in the gut with full power, sending him into the wall of the hallway as the girl just ran out of the room with a scream. "Well, that was unexpected." Eugene said as he got back up after being hit. "I think you two noticed as well but I think we've found the holder of the gem. There's one problem though, from my analysis, she has androphobia, or fear of males. So we can't easily approach her or risk getting hit like how I was earlier and she packs a punch."

"Well, I guess I could summon Puella or something..." said Arthur as he reached for Puellas key, but instead he caught Emilys Call Card. "Or we could simply call the girls." said Arthur as he shook the card. "Hey, Emily. We've found the owner. You can come here." he said to the card.

Emily took the card and out it on the map Eugene gave her. "They're here." she said as she pointed at a hallway on the other side of the school.

As the girls were walking, Juliet asked them "What do you think about Arthur?"

"Just from the time I've known him, I'll honestly have to say that he's a work in progress as celestial wizard mage and a person." Shana replied honestly. "I'm not saying he mistreats his spirits but he just doesn't know how to synchronize with them. It's more like he hasn't experienced being inbetween the fine line of life and death. His way of fighting is more comparable to an inexperienced child who's never been in a real fight for his life. If the two of us went against each other, the battle would be over with one shot. That's the difference between him and the majority of our guild's strong members."

"Well, you know my opinion about him." said Emily. "I think he's a-" she continiued, but got interrupted by Arthur who was waving to them.

"Over here!" said Arthur. After they greeted each other, Arthur said "We found the gem owner, but she's afraid of me.".

"Who isn't?" said Emily sarcasticly.

"I mean, she's afraid of men in general, so that makes the three of us useless. It's your time to shine!" he said, refering to the girls.

"So how are we supposed to do that?" Shana asked. "We're not exactly buddies with this girl."

"Yeah, with Shana, she'd probably scare the girl off with her attitude." Eugene said jokingly.

"You want me to stick my gun up your nose!?!" Shana exclaimed in fury before Kurogane stopped her trying to keep the peace.

"Actually, it'll be hard for any stranger to approach her." Kurogane said. "She only fears men but she also seems to avoid other people."

"That can be confirmed by how she seems to keep to herself in that piano room." Eugene said. "I'll get Ren to do a background check on her."

"You know, it might make things easier if we had Luna here." Shana said with a slight joking tone that wouldn't be caught on except for the people already knowing the situation. At this sentence, Eugene mentally tensed up but on the outside, he kept his regular composure.

"Wait, who's Luna?" asked Arthur. He then looked at Eugene and pictured him turning into firework. "Did we recruit new members while I was gone?".

"As much as I know, we didn't." said Juliet. Emily shook her head.

"She just doesn't come to the guild very much." Shana replied. "Eugene go get her will you? Ren was already asking for help in his lab anyway."

"Fine. I'll see you guys later." Eugene said before activating a dokodemo door on the closest door to him and went back to the guild hall. 10 minutes later, another door opened and a graceful girl with long black hair came into the hallway where the group was.

"Good day to you all." The girl said with a beautiful smile.

"H-Hello. Nice to meet you." mummered Arthur.

In the mean time, Juliet created another uniform. "Here, you're gonna need this." said Juliet she gave the uniform to the girl. "I'm Juliet by the way, and this is Emily."

"Thank you." Luna said with a smile as she accepted the uniform before using her magic to turn her own clothes into the ones she just received. "I'm Luna, it's nice to meet you all, I hope we'll all get along. Beg my pardon, but I don't believe I've heard your name yet." She said directing it towards Arthur.

"Who, me? I'm Arthur. Do we know each other? You seem a bit familliar." said the celestial spirit mage as he took a closer look at Luna, which made Juliet jealous.

"Now that we know each other, let's work on our strategy." said Juliet in a pitchy tone.

"I agree." said Emily looked at her cards, trying to find out something about Luna with tarot.

"Yes indeed." Luna said. "Arthur-san, could you please not stand so close to me? I believe your girlfriend is going to have a misunderstanding." She said keeping her composure. At the same, she used a small undetectable amount of magic energy to mess with Emily's cards making it so she couldn't read anything about her.

"She's not my- We're just friends." said Arthur as he began to blush, as well as Juliet. He then went three steps back and stood next to Kurogane.

Emily put her cards in her pouch in frustration and said "So how are we gonna do this? Solo or paired?".

"Paired is ok." said Arthur. "So, do we draw names out of a hat or do we just choose a partner?" he asked.

"Hey guys, can you hear me?" Eugene's voice could be heard over the communication devices. "Because we can't have too many people undercover at the same time, I'll be helping out from the base. Anyway, I've located the girl to the roof of the school. Be careful about how you approach her. Even if the girls go there at once, she'll probably become too nervous."

"Roger that." Shana replied in confirmation.

"Pairs of two?" asked Arthur. "I'll stay here with Kurogane." he continiued. "We're gonna stay here, in case anything suspicious happens." he said as he observed Luna.

"I'll go with Shana." said Juliet quietly.

"That leaves the two of us." said Emily, refering to Luna and herself. "We'll go first. You guys, try to blend in." she said. As they were climbing the stairs, Emily asked "I know what you did with the cards. Why? What are you hiding?".

"I'm just warning you to be careful about what you try to look into." Luna replied with a somewhat sad smile. "What you were doing invades other people's privacy and you might see things you'll never want to see. I'm sure Sakura-san has already mentioned this to you, but a majority of us have gone through traumatic experiences that have scarred us for life. Are you sure you want to see something like that? If you're sure, I'm willing to show you only if you promise not to pry into the lives of others without permission."

"I'm sorry. I was just trying to see if we have anything in common, or do you like Arthur, since, you know. I try not to be obvious, but I like him." said Emily as she began to blush a little. "Now it's your turn. I won't do it anymore, I promise." she continiued.

"Very well then." Luna said before taking out a magic card which was just recently made by Ren. "Ren made this card which allows one to share memories with others. I'll be sharing with you our memories of our past along with the feelings we felt during that time. Prepare yourself" She said with a somewhat sad expression before she activated the card, creating a flash of light that enveloped them both. The next thing she knew, she was immersed in a darkness.

"Luna's" memory 

''"Please stop." ''Emily could hear a scared child's voice break through the darkness.

''"Stop, stop, don't kill him!" ''Luna's feelings of fear and anger were being tranferred into Emily as she opened her eyes now seeing the event through Luna's perspective. Emily could only watch and feel as she saw Luna's child sized arm hold a sword, cutting down people in armor to protect somebody. Afterwards, she saw how people were shouting words of hate to her, calling her a murderer and telling her to die before Emily's conciousness switched to another person's

Eugene's memory

Emily felt how Eugene felt alone in the world after his Dragon parent left him. She felt the feeling of nobody lending a hand to you in a time of despair as well as his hatred towards people who thought of him as nothing more than a wild animal needed to be rid of. After a while it switched again.

Mune and Eriko's memory

Emily saw and felt Mune's emotions during the time his parents died in a fire and his feeling of helplessness when he was crippled. She felt Eriko's hopelessness because she was deaf and bullied. Shortly after seeing a few scenes of them being bullied and such, it switched again

Kurogane's memory

Emily felt Kurogane's immense pain while he was experimented on and his feelings when he was just treated like a lab rat. Emily could feel his loneliness and feelings of isolation.

Shana's memory

Emily saw from Shana's perspective that her parents were shot down without mercy right in front of her and her feelings of wanting to shoot down their killer.

After all of the memories had been processed through Emily's mind, she found herself in the same hallway. "I'm sorry about showing you so much of our despair." Luna said with her head down. "But those are the burdens we bear so we can live for those who don't have the strength to fight on. Those memories are what make us who we are today."

After seeing all of those memories, Emily fell on her knees. A tear shed down her right cheek. As she stood up, she hugged Luna. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You smell familliar." said Emily, trying to cheer Luna up. "C'mon, let's find that girl.". The two of them continiued to climb the stairs. As they reached the top, they saw the girl Arthur, Eugene and Kurogane saw earlier. "Now what?" asked Emily.

"We must approach her carefully." Luna replied. "Luckily, she hasn't met us yet so we have a clean slate with her. Let's go greet her first of all." She then opened the door to the roof and walked outside. Upon hearing the door open, the scarlet haired girl turned to see who it was, fearing it was a guy but she relaxed somewhat when she saw that it wasn't. "Oh, I didn't know anyone was up here. Mind if we join you?" Luna asked with a smile.

"I don't mind." The girl replied.

"Mind if I ask what your name is?" Luna asked as she sat down next to the girl.

"Atsuko, Atsuko Himura." The girl replied shyly

"What a warm sounding name." Luna said with a smile.

"And you two are?" Atsuko asked.

"Oh pardon me, I am Luna Hisakata." Luna replied.

"Emily Nakamura, it's a pleasure to meet you." said Emily as she streched her hand towards Atsuko. "So, what is a beautiful girl like you doing out here all alone on such a beautiful day?" asked Emily as she faked a smile.

"You know that sounded like a pick up line right?" Eugene said with a bit of a laugh in his tone through the communication devices. Luckily, Atsuko couldn't hear his voice or else she'd panic and this chance would be ruined.

"I just like being up here." Atsuko replied. "Also, there are too many guys inside the building and I don't feel comfortable around them."

"I don't want to violate your privacy, but if I may know why?" asked Emily. "I think we'll be good friends!" she said as she patted Atsukos shoulder. Besides, there are some pretty cute guys down there!"

"I don't trust any of them." Atsuko replied as she sat down and hugged her knees to her chest. "All guys are wolves who try to look like innocent sheep on the outside." As she said this memories of the incident came back into her mind.

"Well, as much as I respect your point of view, I dissagree with you." said Emily. "There are some pretty nice guys in this school, you just haven't given them a chance to prove themselves." she continiued.

"Oy, don't say stuff that only scratches the surface." Eugene said in a low tone into Emily's communication device, knowing about this kind of thing from experience. "I know that Luna showed you our memories so you should know that saying something generic like that will only scratch the surface of a person's heart." At this, Luna then stepped forward.

"Something happened in the past didn't it?" She asked. "I'm sorry, but we don't understand your pain because we probably haven't been through what you have been through. But all you're doing is running away from the problem. If you can't break free from the past, you won't ever be able to move on!"

"I know that, but I just can't stop shaking whenever I'm in front of a guy." Atsuko said with fear. "How am I supposed to face that?"

"Well just do what we do!" said Emily with a smile. "I don't want to force you to do anything, but the only way to overcome your fears is to look it in the eyes and say 'I'm not scared of you!'." said Emily, trying to encourage Atsuko. "That's what I did with my bizzare fear of clowns. I did get banned from the circus though, but it was worth it." said Emily as a joke. "Now, are you coming with us?" she asked with a smile.

"Um, Emily she already does that as I';ve experienced first hand." Eugene said through the communication device. "She already sort of faces the problem head on by hitting them with a full power punch. Perhaps we should focus on making sure she doesn't do that first."

"What's wrong? Little Mister Dragon got hurt? Anyway, I'd introduce her to Arthur. He could use some punching." said Emily to Eugene via the communication device quietly.

"Hey, I couldn't use any of my magic to protect myself or else she'd be hurt." Eugene replied.

"Who is she talking to?" Atsuko asked not being able to hear Eugene.

"It's nothing, Now, let's pretend that I'm a guy. I'm gonna say hello. What do you do?" asked Emily as she looked at Atsuko.

"Well, I guess I'd say hello back." Atsuko replied. "But you don't look like a guy at all so my body isn't really reacting at all."

"It may be wise for her to practice with real males." Luna suggested to Atsuko's fright.

I could use Sexy Men Card thought Emily to herself as she blushed. "I think I know the right guy." said Emily with an evil look on her face. "C'mon, let's find him." she continiued. As the girls were climbing down the stairs, they heard Arthurs laughter. "That's him!" she said as she pointed at Arthur. She then took a card from her pouch and said "Say hello to her."

After hearing Emily's voice and seeing her, he approached Atsuko, leaving a ten meter distance between them. "Hello! Nice to meet you!" he said with a smile on his face. "I'm Arthur!" he said as he stretched his hand towards Atsuko.