If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

[FONT=Arial]Rain wept down the glass, adding to the distorted world of lights glittering beyond the cab’s window. Within, a jade statuette carved into the exquisite features of a woman stared straight ahead as the cab driver prattled on incessantly. Hands clasped around a small envelope in her lap, the only motion betraying life in the figurine was the rapid flicker of the soft pink light she called eyes as she drifted deeper into thought.[/FONT][INDENT][FONT=Arial]Twenty-two Hours Earlier[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]((OOC Note: the following conversation held in Japanese.))[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]She arrived half past midnight to find her modest downtown Tokyo apartment completely empty save a tall svelte figure silhouetted in the far window.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]“Takeshi?” Though barely a whisper, her soft voice echoed off the bare walls.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]There is agony in loneliness, and comfort – for isolated, no one can ever take anything from you. With the utterance of his name Takeshi emerged from the shadows, predatory power loosely veiled beneath graceful elegance; her handsome fear.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]“Yuki,” his voice rolled off his lips and stirred up the stillness, “we… you have to go now, the plane is waiting.” The urgency in his voice muted hers. He pushed a large envelope into one hand and a small backpack into the other. “Take these,” his tone was growing more insistent with each passing moment as he led her out of the apartment and down to a waiting car, “look at them on the way.”[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]“…on the way…where?” She’d asked, suddenly feeling a swell of panic as he’d pushed her into the backseat of the car and started to close the door, his fingertips brushed all too briefly across her cheek.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial] “The United States.” [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]Her attention whipped to the front passenger’s seat, time stood still. It had been nearly a century since she’d last seen her danna. Tatsuo met her gaze as a slow smoldering smile painted its way across his cheeks. [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]Pale lips parted as she began to speak, silenced this time by the slamming of her car door. She turned in time to see Takeshi melting back into the shadows of the night. How many had come and gone over her lifetime? How many more would? [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]A malignant silence hung in the air, cauterized by the honey blunted razor’s edge of Tatsuo’s voice, [/FONT][FONT=Arial]“You both knew he could not go with you, Yuki.” Just like him.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]“Yes.” Her head dipped in respectful acquiescence; it was all she could manage. Once you learn that all things change, then there is nothing you will try to hold onto.[/FONT]
[/INDENT][FONT=Arial]During her waking hours on the flight, she committed to memory the contents of the large envelope, complete with papers and details of her new life history as a former diplomatic translator in Washington, DC – despite having never set foot on American soil before.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]Something in the driver’s monotonous soliloquy finally sparked her interest. [/FONT][FONT=Arial]“This is it, Ma’am.”[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]As she stepped out of the cab, thunder rolled in over the city of Nachton, oppressive and inexorable as fate itself.[/FONT]