Kusinagi looked around from his perch in a tree. "I don't see anything but trees and a lake from here." He yelled down as he hopped to the ground.
The rest of the TAC exchanged worried glances. They were investigating reports of a blue-skinned rock-man that had been seen often in the Izuma area, not far from the Fujimiya family shrine. Normally they would have had only a few members of the TAC scout something like this out, but Momiji's grandmother had called to say she had talked to the strange man in the family's mountain shrine. He had wanted to know the story behind the shrine and had known nothing when she asked him about the Aragami.
Momiji asked Kusinagi,"Are you sure he went this way?"
"I'm sure!" He snapped, scanning the woods warily.
"But this doesn't look at all like my family's woods. And there definitely wasn't a lake nearby!"
"I'm sure of it!"
Matsudera suggested, as Takeuchi and Yoshiki exchanged worried looks,"Maybe he went over to the lake? We still know very little about this creature, Momiji, are you positive he's not an Arigami?"
"My mitama didn't so much as twitch when Kusinagi ran into him."
Momiji giggled, thinking of how they had really ran into each other. The look of shock on both Kusinagi's and the strange man's face! The man had run off before they could say anything, but not before they had seen his strange blue skin with it's greyish ... pebbles, there was no other word she could think of.
Kusinagi scowled. "There was something strange about him, his skin felt like, honestly, rock."
"Are you sure about that? Hmmm..." Matsudera considered that, her finger idly tapping her left cheek as she thought.
Kunikida stood up with a grunt. "Well, we had better keep moving, or we'll never find out anything."
Everybody groaning at the thought of more hiking, and Kusinagi, with a smirk on his face, took the lead towards the lake. Upon reaching the lake, they spread out, looking around at everything. Quite suddenly, a ivory-colored blur, sped between Momiji and Kusinagi, ran a circle around the group and dashed away down the lakeside. Kusinagi was after it in flash, but soon came trotting back. "He is much faster than I am ... well, on level area, at least." He sounded grumpy about that.
"Are you sure that was him? Yoshiki sounded skeptical.
"It was him. I managed to pull ahead of him long enough to get a good look." Kusinagi suddenly sat down on a boulder. He leaned back, and closed his eyes.
Momiji stomped over to him. "What are you doing resting?!? We need to find out who and what that guy or ... or whatever is!"
"We're not going to be able to catch him so we might as well rest and wait."
"But he's getting farther away!"
"He'll be back."
"How can you be so sure of that?!?" Momiji was beginning to sound really annoyed.
"How can he be so sure? Because I want to know why you are following me."
She whirled around, lost her balance and would have landed on the rocks if Kusinagi hadn't caught her arm. The strange man, wearing clothes the color of ivory, was standing on a large rock nearby. He hopped down, pulling down his hood to reveal violet-blue hair that gleamed oddly, almost as if it was formed of ... metal?
"My name is Zelgadis."