11 Chaotic Developments

"I am not here to fight." The female Soul Reaver said to him. "But only to talk." She continued.

Osiris was having none of it. He tried to conjure his weapon but it was of no avail. The flow of his Youkai pressure still was not replenished.

"It would seem that your Youkai has not yet returned to fighting shape." Samara replied to him. The female Soul Reaver walked closer and was now standing right beside the black-haired Soul Reaver.

"What do you want?" Ozi asked. His eyes had an intense anger that would not disappear.

"Answers." Samara replied. "You know you have violated the rules of Fate." She began. "When you saved that girl from her death." She added.

The memory of Osiris saving Elle from being run over was still fresh in the former's memory.

"Soul Reavers are agents of Fate. You forget that our duties are 3-fold." She explained to him. "First is that we guide the lost departed souls to their appropriate destination, second is that we are the arbiters of balance in this world, in the Netherworld, and in the Paradiso Eternal." She continued "Third and finally, we are not allowed to interfere to what Fate has decreed." She concluded.

Osiris looked off to the distance. He knew the duties of a Soul Reaver and he was tired of listening to the female Soul Reaver nag.

"And yet you violated the third of our duties." Samara said. "Now I want to know why before the Jushiomo Council passes judgment on you." She said.

"The Jushiomo Council passing judgment? I thought the judgment has already been decided when Fate sent Cereb and Arawn to attack her?" Ozi replied with a bit of coldness in his voice.

"Stop deflecting." Samara replied to him, her voice sounded stern. "You evading the question does not solve the problem we now face." She added.

Osiris heard her say such things and he knew that she was right. The longer he draws out this charade, the more the other Soul Reavers will come to take Elle and her soul.

"Ozi." The male Soul Reaver heard in his thoughts a female voice call out to him in his memory. A voice he had known for a long time.

"It's always a long-standing question to the humans on where they go after death." Osiris began to say.

"It's their dilemma due to their limited existence." Samara replied to him. "What is this about?" she then asked.

"What about Soul Reavers? Where do we go when we begin to wither away and die?" the black-haired Soul Reaver asked her in response. "Do you not even wonder on that concept?" he continued to ask.

The question took aback the Jushiomo Council member. She knew that he had a point about the question raised.

"You have been thinking quite a lot Osiris" she said to him. "You know that we Soul Reavers are part souls as, well right? We only wither away when we are killed in battle." She explained to him.

"Just the same, we are not immortal. We are just born in the different world that humans live in." Osiris replied. "When you saw Elle, you did not recognize who she was?" he asked her.

Samara again was taken aback. She was so sure that she had never seen that human before.

"No. I regularly do not mingle with humans." She added. "You know that being a member of the Jushiomo Council, I and the other foresee the activities of the lesser Soul Reavers such as yourself." She replied.

"Geez you sound so condescending." Ozi joked at her. Samara remained unfazed to his attempt of humor and sarcasm.

"Get to your point." She said sternly.

"You really do not recognize her?" Osiris asked her once more.

"I told you I don'-" Samara tried to reply but she then realized something. An image of Elle popped up in her head or at least a girl who looked similar to her but she was wearing the garb of the Soul Reavers. "No way…" she said.

"Saaya." Osiris said to her in response.

"Impossible. Saaya is dead." Samara replied to him. "Maybe it's just a coincidence that this human looks similar to her." She added.

"Maybe." Osiris said in response. "But I feel faint traces of her Youkai in that girl." He added.

Osiris realized this during the time that he saved the blonde-haired girl. She had bore resemblance to a fellow Soul Reaver the two others knew as Saaya.

"Saaya." Samara said. "She was the Soul Reaver partnered to you right?" she then asked.

"Yeah." Osiris replied to her. "It's been a while since she had died." He further stated.

Samara was going to ask on how Saaya died but then she remembered the specific incident which led to the latter's demise. The female Soul Reaver did not question the male further.

"The Akumajunin." Samara said. Her eyes looked intense as she looked far off to the horizon.

Osiris looked at her and immediately he remembered the same incident.

"Demon Dwellers." He said. "Deep beneath the levels of the Netherworld." He further said.

"It was that mission that you and her took prior to the incidents we are having now." Samara replied. "You two succeeded in stopping the breakout of the Daimyo-Akumajunin, (The Great Demon Dwellers)" she added.

"But at the cost of Saaya's existence." Osiris said in response.

"At the time the council thought that if you had stopped the Daimyo-Akumajunin, the balance between the worlds will be retained. And yet.." she began to explain.

Osiris looked at her intently. He listened to the state of affairs of the Netherworld.

"There have been outbreaks. The Akumajunin are traversing through the three worlds freely. We have gathered intel that prove that some of them are here in Tokyo as well." Samara said.

"That's a bad look for the agents of Fate and the Soul Reavers in general." Osiris replied to her.

"You do know that the Youkai pressure of an Akumajunin is different from that of a Soul Reaver right?" she asked him.

"Of course. What type of a question is that?" Osiris said.

"Then you would know that some of them have already invaded this area. Your duties as a Soul Reaver had just been doubled by that reason." The female Soul Reaver said to her.

Osiris sighed. He then looked again at the people bellow on the street.

"Damn. All that work for nothing huh. Saaya died for nothing then." He said out loud. "If it is as the council says, then why do I not feel their presence in this town?" he asked.

"Well you were too busy picking fights with fellow Soul Reavers and Fate's guards." Samara replied to him. "The minute pulses of the Akumajunin Youkai cannot be felt when there are other Soul Reavers and other strong entities present." She added.

"I presume the Council is looking into this phenomenon?" Osiris asked her.

Samara shook her head slowly and a stare of disappointment could be seen in her facial expressions as she did this.

"Unfortunately, Fate has ordered otherwise. He said that the Akumajunin presence in the human world is only of minimal danger. He has prioritized more in gaining the soul of the one you saved." She replied.

"Strange." Ozi replied.

"Indeed." Samara replied. "Fate has been acting weirdly as of late." She said.

"How weird?" Osiris asked.

The female Soul Reaver couldn't really put her finger on how she will explain the sudden change in action of their commanding officer.

"I can't really say. It's just his decisions these past few months have been, odd." She said.

Ozi felt a cold wind blow behind him, Samara felt the same. The two of them concluded that it could be a sign of things to come.

"I digress. You are the only one I told this information to as of late so keep it to yourself." She said to him.

"What about Samael?" the black-haired Soul Reaver asked.

"He was the first one who had began doubting Fate's decisions. He told me to pass this intel to you." She replied to his query.

"Never knew he still cared." Ozi replied.

The female Soul Reaver walked back a bit and conjured another black teleportation portal in front of her this time.

"You know with your skill; you could be part of the Jushiomo Council. You continue to waste your potential with meager level Soul Reaver work." She said to him as she walked through the portal and disappeared along with it.

Osiris then took a last look at the sky and felt the wind blow against his face.

"What the hell is Fate up to?" he asked himself.