"Good morning, Hino-san."

Rei, having seen nothing untoward in the flames of last night's reading, bowed courteously to Nolan Connelley and his sarcastic looking friend.

In the daylight they all had a much easier task of identifying each other. As Nolan and Jaden had climbed the last step to the shrine, they had both stopped still at the sight of the graceful, dark-haired woman dressed in white with red ribbons in her hair.

Nolan considered her porcelain face smooth and remarkably beautiful, but rather cold.

Jaden, unnoticed by Nolan, paused a moment longer than his friend, when he saw the priestess' face. There was something almost tangibly familiar in an achingly sweet way when he looked at her schooled features. Her long hair swished over her shoulder like a waterfall – she was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Her eyes were mysterious, but that only made him want to plum their mysteries. He was surprised at his own reaction toward her and decided to chalk it down to his libido – which saved him considerable effort in introspection.

Rei was no less affected by him, though she hid it slightly better. When she'd heard his voice last night, that feeling of deja vu had been weak at best – but now that she could seem him properly, she was surprised at how fast her heart and mind reacted to his presence. His light blue eyes were playful, but there was something unfathomable underneath that playfulness that set her on her guard. Unlike his companion's eyes, which were a midnight blue and equally deep but very open, Jaden's eyes were secretive.

There was something about the way the wind blew his short, honey colored hair, that seemed familiar to her. It made her feel, for a moment, as though she was in a dream.

Then he opened his mouth.

"So this is your convent, huh?" he asked, his tone bantering and pitched just at the right tone to annoy her.

Rei fought to keep a smile on her face.

"This is a Shinto shrine," she explained, politely, "Not a convent. I'm afraid you have us confused with the Catholic school down the street, Jaden-san."

"Call me Jade," he said, immediately, guessing correctly that the familiarity would provoke her calm detachment.

"Whatever you would prefer," she said, between her teeth. He was foreign, she reminded herself, and probably unaware of his impolite behavior.

Jade smirked at her icy attitude – he didn't know why it amused him but he was enjoying correctly guessing her pressure points.

"May I speak with you for a moment?" Nolan asked Rei, swiftly, tensing at the friction in the air between the priestess and his best friend.

"Of course," Rei inclined her head, then motioned to the two girls standing at the wall of rolled papers.

"Jade-san," she said, wincing at the impropriety of calling him so familiarly, and not losing the satisfied smile that it made on his face, "Perhaps you'd like to ask one of my miko for a tour of the shrine?"

His smile widened almost wickedly as he caught sight of the two girls.

"Looks like fun," he replied.

"On second thought," Rei began, frowning. But Nolan had already grabbed her attention.

"Please don't mind him, Hino-san," he pleaded, his low voice rumbling a bit like thunder as he tried to keep his tone down.

"Jade's always like that – he loves to tease people, especially when they're - " he stopped, realizing that telling Hino-san to her face that she was 'easy to tease' would probably be taken as an insult. So instead he simply stopped talking.

"It's alright," Rei murmured, "Jade-san – excuse me, what is his last name?"

"Izumi."

"Izumi-san -" Rei stopped again, dumbstruck. The arrogant, blue-eyed blond with an American accent, however slight, was Japanese?

Nolan recognized her shocked expression for what it was and replied:

"Ah, oh – well, Jade doesn't look Japanese – ha - his step-father is a Japanese businessman – we're staying with his extended family," Nolan explained, "So that's why..."

"I see."

Rei felt suddenly embarrassed that she had let her ill-manners show so visibly. It didn't matter what he looked like, Izumi-san could be Japanese if he wanted to be. But then it hit her: if he'd grown up knowing what was polite and what wasn't ...(she frowned)... His familiarity had been intentional and his ignorance feigned – which meant he was deliberately trying to make her uncomfortable. Rei's opinion of Jade dropped even lower.

"But, I was wondering," Nolan continued, "If you wouldn't mind talking with me about your religion."

"Oh," Rei shook herself, "Not at all. What would you like to know?"

"Well," Nolan began, excitement battling with his limited command of Japanese, "About kami – can you explain the concept to me?"

Rei let a small, wry smile play across her face while she considered her words. In truth, she didn't strictly adhere to the Shinto religion – or rather, her view of the spiritual world in general was a little more complicated than any religion she had yet come across. But having been a priestess in her last life – and being the avatar of a god currently – her outlook required some new definitions of spirituality. She had adopted the Shinto faith because her grandfather embraced it – and it allowed her to commune with the spirits she knew were there – regardless of what they happened to be called in this day and age, or country.

"Kami are spirits. Traditionally they were looked on as something like gods – similar, in some ways, to Greek or Roman mythology – you're familiar with that, I suppose?"

"Very much so," Nolan nodded.

"But kami can also be the...'god'...in everything. In other words, every rock, tree, pebble, bird, or person has a kami or is one in a way. Does that make sense?"

"I believe so," he answered, thinking it through, "Rather similar to some parts of Buddhism?"

"From what I understand of it, yes."

"Do you believe in kami, Hino-san?"

Rei took a deep breath.

"I believe in a spiritual world."

Nolan seemed to consider her reply.

"Do Shinto priestesses communicate with the 'spiritual world'?"

Rei shifted uneasily. Part of her was enjoying the fact that an intelligent person wanted to know more about the world she understood – but another part of her was wary.

"You know about oracles?" she asked after a moment.

Nolan's face lit up.

"Yes, like the Oracle at Delphi? A virgin who allows herself to be a medium through which the gods speak?"

"Something like that, yes. We have oracles too, but we have a variety of different ways in which we access the spiritual world. For instance, do you know anything about pyromancy?"

"Divination through reading the shapes in fire?"

"That's right," Rei answered, surprised and a little alarmed at his knowledge.

"We practice that to some extent and also a form of fortune telling."

She motioned toward the wall with the scrolls stuffed into it.

"And of course we purify and bless events, places and people."

"And how do you purify something? What indicates impurity?"

This was the tricky part. Of course, to many of the priests this purification process was merely tradition, but to others, and to Rei especially, it was quite real.

"Impurity can be caused by a number of things – it isn't really badness that we attempt to remove. For instance, if an act of violence occurs on the temple grounds, or if someone were to trip and hurt herself – I would purify the spot in which it happened."

"I see," Nolan nodded, his eyes sparkling with curiosity.

'And if there's a youma I purify it's ass back to hell' she noted to herself with some satisfaction.

"The spiritual world is a complicated thing to understand," she concluded, "I hope that I have answered your questions satisfactorily."

"Yes, thank you, Hino-san. Would it be an imposition to ask to come back again and pester you with more?"

Rei actually smiled at his earnestness.

"I'm very honored to have a visitor so genuinely interested in understanding the Shinto way. Please come back any time."

She looked a bit askance at Jade, who was making the younger girls giggle about something – distracting them from their duties, she told herself.

Rei held back a disapproving frown, but Nolan caught her animosity.

"Uh, perhaps next time I should come back by myself." He suggested, humbly.

Rei smiled stiffly as Jade approached them, the little girls tagging along behind him.

"No, no," she minced, "Everyone is welcome."

Nolan bowed, but Jade merely looked from Rei to Nolan and smirked.

"He's talked you to death already, Hino-san?" he asked, cheekily.

"On the contrary, I enjoyed our discussion. It's been a long time since I met anyone so well informed or so courteous," she hinted, sweetly.

"Is that so?" Jade smiled at her barb, "Wonderful. It must be hard to live cloistered away from the real world. But excuse me, you don't like Catholic comparisons."

"I don't mind it at all," she replied, her cheek twitching.

Had Jade been thirteen years younger, she could imagine the look he was giving her now would have been accompanied by mocking laughter. As it was he simply smiled at her with smug amusement, content in the knowledge that he was getting under her skin.

"Yeah, I can see that," he remarked.

"Time to go, Jade," Nolan muttered. Rei was starting to lose some of that coolness, and not in a good way.

"Right, sorry. I was having so much fun with these beautiful young ladies," Jade winked over his shoulder, and the girls giggled, "I forgot about you two."

"Haruhi, Kaoru, time to sweep," Rei all but barked out. The little girls, more than acquainted with that particular tone of voice, bolted for the brooms.

"Thank you for coming," Rei said to both of them, "Please come back, Connelley-san, Izumi-san."

She said his name with particular pleasure and watched as his smile faded somewhat. Jade threw an accusatory glance at his friend, and Nolan shrugged.

"See you tomorrow, Hino-san," he said, neglecting to bow, and walked away.

Nolan bowed again, as if to make up for Jade's rudeness.

"I'm curious," Rei asked, watching Jade's retreating figure with narrowed eyes.

"What is Izumi-san's major, exactly?"

"Psychology," Nolan answered.

"Naturally," she commented, her tone flat.

Nolan bowed again and ran to catch up with Jade who had already disappeared down the steps.

The crows began to caw loudly as the men left. Phobos and Deimos settled on Rei's shoulders and ruffled her hair with their flapping wings.

"You don't like the cheeky bastard either, do you?" she asked them.

"Hey! Fireball!" A familiar voice called.

Rei groaned and the birds flew off her shoulders to greet the approaching figure with happiness.

"I thought you had school today?" the priestess asked.

"Nope," Mina answered, brightly, holding out an arm for Phobos to perch on.

"You're glad to see me, aren't you?" she cooed to the bird.

"Unlike some people."

"Maybe I'd be happier if you wouldn't bring an entourage with you every time you come here. You know how hard it is to keep guys away in the first place." Rei complained, watching the daunted young men who'd followed Mina to the shrine. They balked at the sight of the imposing priestess.

"I can't help it if stupid boys decide to follow me," Mina replied, tossing her golden hair over her shoulder, "It's not like I do anything to encourage it."

'You don't have to.' Rei thought, glancing at Mina's casual apparel which consisted of a pair of form fitting jogging tights and, despite the cold, an orange tank top that managed to hug her curves perfectly. With her hair pulled back in a long blond pony tail to reveal her radiant face, it wasn't hard to imagine what had attracted the followers during Mina's morning jog.

"It wasn't like this in high school." Mina sighed.

"That's because you didn't look like that in high school," Rei muttered, turning to walk back into the Shrine.

It was true. The girls had all been pretty enough in high school – but as the years went by and they matured – nature was having her way. Mina, who had once been a little on the uncoordinated side, had grown into her alter-ego's name sake with a vengeance. Now just turned twenty, she had put aside a great deal of her messiness and youthful gauche, and was fast becoming an enthralling beauty (most of the time). Most men were intimidated by her good looks now, but those who had enough confidence in themselves to approach her also had a tendency to be egotistic jerks as well. Mina lamented the fact that she didn't yet have a boyfriend, but Rei privately thought she only complained out of habit.

Rei couldn't really speak for herself, but even modesty had to allow that once she'd graduated high school and officially took over the Shrine from her grandfather, there'd been a marked increase among young male visitors. She found it extremely annoying.

"Speaking of looks," Mina interrupted her thoughts, "Who were those hotties I met on the way up here?"

"What? Oh, those were two ex-change students who wanted to know about the Shrine."

Mina blinked.

"Really?" she asked, her tone of voice growing more excited, "What university do they go to?"

"They're grad students," Rei snipped, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes.

"Even better."

"You're hopeless," Rei said, shaking her head with well-disguised affection as she led the way back to the room which held the fire.

"No, I have hope," Mina countered, following her, "I have hope that someday, despite the odds, I will find someone as wonderful as Mamoru-kun and he'll fall head over heels in love with me."

"Good luck."

"You sound like Artemis."

"Then he must sound smart."

Mina stuck her tongue out but bent to help Rei stir the fire.

"Are you doing a reading this early in the morning?" she asked, surprised.

"There's something I'm curious about."

"Does it have anything to do with those hot grad students?"

"Yes," she answered, flatly.

"Really?"

"Yes, I'm going to find out if they have girlfriends."

"Really!" Mina's eyes grew large for a moment before she noted Rei's expression.

"You're such a jerk," she declared, giving the priestess a half hearted shove.

Rei smiled to herself.

"Be quiet," she warned, "I can't concentrate with all your blond energy bouncing around."

Mina huffed a lengthy sigh and settled down in the corner to wait.

Rei began her preparations and then her meditation. Suddenly her eyes snapped open.

"What is it?" Mina asked, instantly alert and on her feet.

"I – I'm not sure," Rei blinked, as if trying to focus her vision. She calmed herself and stared into the fire again.

Mina watched her more closely, noting the way the fire made her eyes dance – and then Rei blinked and jerked back.

"That's so strange," she murmured.

"What is?"

Rei turned around to stare up at Mina with a puzzled expression.

"I can see something – almost like a red thread – when I look into the flames -"

Mina placed her hand on Rei's shoulder, unaware of what she did. The moment she touched the other girl, Rei gasped.

"There's a string on my finger, and one on yours," she cried, pointing at Mina's pinky finger.

Mina held it up to her face for inspection.

"I don't see anything," she argued, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I see it right now."

Mina pulled her other hand away to look at it. Immediately Rei paused.

"It's gone," she said, confused.

"You saw a red string?" Mina asked, "Was it tied on my finger? How long was it?"

"I don't know – I just – wait!"

Rei grabbed Mina's hand, to Mina's intense surprise.

"I can see it," Rei declared, excitedly, "It's attached to your pinky and it leads off -"

With her eyes, she followed something invisible along the ground all the way out the door and down the temple steps.

"I don't know where it ends," she finished, staring off out the door.

"That's a little weird, Rei-chan."

"But I can only see it when I touch you," Rei commented after a moment, releasing Mina's hand.

"Again, weird."

"It doesn't make sense," the priestess murmured.

"Well, not to burst your bubble there, but nothing in the mumbo jumbo spirit world of yours makes sense," Mina observed.

Rei sighed.

"I don't think it's a sign of danger," she went on, "I just don't know exactly what it means."

"Well if it isn't dangerous then I'd say don't worry about it!"

"Easy for you to say."

"I wonder if you can see it when you hold someone else's hand."

She leaned her head out the door and beckoned to Haruhi. The little girl came running and stopped, panting, inside the shrine.

"Hold Rei-chan's hand, Haru-chan," Mina requested.

Haru did as she was asked, though she was a bit confused.

Rei took her little hand and peered at it.

"Nothing," she said, after a moment. Then she grabbed one of Mina's hands.

"I can see it again," she exclaimed, "I think it's you, Mina."

"Me! But I don't have any powers - I mean besides the -" she caught herself, remebering Haru's presence.

"Besides being the love goddess, of course!" she finished cheerfully.

Haru and Rei gave her varying looks of confusion and exapseration.

"Does Haru-chan have one?"

"Yes," Rei answered, surprised. There was a little red thread tied to Haru's pinky leading off out the window.

"What could it possibly be?"

Rei continued to stare at the thread on her finger which ran the length of the floor and drifted gracefully down the shrine steps.

"I have no idea."

---

"Did you have to provoke the priestess quite so much?" Nolan asked, wearily, as he and Jude made their way through the streets of Tokyo.

Jade smiled to himself.

"It was too easy," he laughed, "I couldn't help it. With that frozen-lily attitude she was just begging for it."

"You're going to get us kicked out of Tokyo."

"No way," Jade chuckled, patting his friend on the back, "I promise I'll only tease Shinto priestesses who don't have a sense of humor."

Nolan sighed and noticed for the umpteenth time that he was head and shoulders taller than everyone else around him.

"So did you find out everything you wanted to know about Shintoism?"

"Not yet, but Hino-san did answer a lot of my questions. Did you know, for instance, that part of her duties as a priestess is to divine the future?"

Jade snorted.

"Really? Then you'd think she'd have kicked me out the minute she saw me coming."

Nolan frowned.

"You may think it's silly, but there's definitely something more than this tangible world. The Oracle at Delphi had an unusually high rate of accuracy in her predictions."

"Which were vague and ambiguous and probably methane induced."

"Scoff all you want, but there is something in it. If you'd ever studied the stars for instance – what about the star of Bethlehem, do you think that was coincidence?"

"I don't know," Jade waved his hand, "I'm not really interested in fate. But I am interested in lunch – so..."

They turned into a small fast-food place off of the street.

"It's not fate that I'm interested in," Nolan mused as they stood in line.

"Beg pardon?" Jade asked, not really paying attention as he decided what he wanted to eat.

"I'm more interested in destiny."

"Same thing, last I heard."

"Not really. You see it depends on how you look at it. If you look at events from the past, and in the terms that you have no control and something else is determining the path of your life – that's fate."

"Uh-huh, sounds like the same thing. I think I'll have the udon noodles."

"But destiny includes you – you participate in your destiny. That's the difference."

"Yeah, still don't see it. Do you want to share some onigiri?"

"Like soulmates, for instance," Nolan interjected, suddenly finding himself facing the waiting cashier with no idea of what he wanted to order.

"He'll have the miso soup," Jade told her.

Nolan sheepishly pulled out his wallet to pay.

Together they moved to the side of the line to wait for their orders.

"Soulmates, eh?" Jade mused, filling his cup with tea.

"Dunno, Noles, seems really impractical. I mean what about people who don't end up with anyone?"

"Maybe not everyone has a fated, destined partner."

"Do you think that you have one?" Jade asked, his eyes twinkling in amusement as he stared up at his serious looking friend.

"I don't know," Nolan answered, "I'd like to think so."

"Well, I hope it isn't that priestess," Jade replied, "Because I don't think she'll be able to stand your best friend long enough for you to pop the question."

Nolan laughed.

"Probably not," he admitted, "But then, I could always get rid of you."

"Bad deal," Jade shook his head, "You'd be better off with me. At least I have a sense of humor."

"A sadistic one."

"It's required in my profession."

Nolan chuckled, then picked up his tray with a thoughtful look.

"She was beautiful, huh?"

"And proud as a peacock," Jade shuddered, "I know the type."

"I thought that was your type."

"I don't have a type. Single life is much too pleasant and women are much too complicated."

Nolan gave his friend a look.

"Well, it could be worse," he said.

"How's that?"

"She could be your soulmate. "

Jade smiled slowly to himself and shook his head at his friend.

"Surely fate wouldn't be that cruel to the poor girl."

"Destiny." Nolan corrected.

"Destiny," Jade repeated, toasting the deity with his cup and a chuckle.