(GS3) Home Field: Espoir Mansion

[Cherry]

Driven mad by her famished state, when Satoshi said a surprising in the dining room, she wasted no time at all. Zipping to Haruka almost like a blur, the queen took him by the hand, and yanked him in the right direction to whatever food that was in there. Yugure needed to eat, but if she ate regularly in the first place, this wouldn't happen.

[Jello]

It only took a moment for Haruka to realize he was suddenly being dragged at Mach 5. "H-Hey, slow down! Where are we going!" He can't really see in front of him at this panicked state. All he realizes is that he's moving at an incredible pace down some stairs and through hallways until-

"So. Much. Food." Haruka was in a state of absolute awe staring at the banquet laid out upon a long white tablecloth. "Where... Where did this come from?" Haruka pointed to all the food on the table.

[Beryl]

Satoshi grinned from ear to ear as he saw Yukino run up, dragging a rather nicely dressed Haruka by his dress shoes' heels. No need to be so fancy, but...he did look pretty good, albeit just a tad goofy given who he was.

"Well, welcome to...the greatest Kurosaki Farms feast ever created!" He opened the double doors of the dining hall to reveal...

Tables of food. So many tables of food. There were tables devoted to the meats: chicken, turkey, ham, steak. Tables for fruits: melons, apples, bananas, grapes. Tables for vegetables: carrots, potatoes, corn. Tables of cheese, homemade noodles...and of course, a table in the back with Satoshi's favorite frozen delight: homemade ice cream.

All of this, gifted to him by his father after finally receiving his letter about what had happened in the first few months of being on his own. The funny part was that there was so much food here, and yet, he hadn't even brought it all; he still had enough small portions left to eat another week without buying food back at Haruka's place. He had his own personal fridge; that was one of the more recent accommodations he acquired.

He extended his arms, showing all the food. "What do you guys think? This is complement of my family, since I never got to bring you guys down over the past couple months." He adjusted his glasses, then gave a wink and a grin with a thumbs-up. "All-natural and homemade. I guarantee it's all good."

[Jello]

"Don't tempt me like that man-" Haruka's stomach became a rolling thunder, producing a sound similar to a roar. "I-uh." Haruka looks around nervously before proceeding to awkwardly grab one of the turkey platters and a soda. "I'm just gonna.. yeah" Haruka starts to nearly shovel food into his mouth, curing the hunger pangs brought on from drinking coffee without eating anything with real sustenance that day.

"Mmmm, dis is SHO good!" Haruka praises Satoshi and his family for the good food. He sits down in a chair at the end of the table almost, digging in to his heart's content.

"Oh..." Haruka stops for a moment, embarrassed, and swallows his food. "Thank you for the food!" He then proceeds to devour his body weight in meat and mashed potatoes.

[Cherry]

Yukino pushed Haruka out of her way before he gets started. Manners be damned, the queen was starving. Practically drooling over everything, she horded meat like it was her job. The snow woman even hissed at anyone trying to stop her or call out to her. Nothing the Espoir servants could do except let her rampage... At least the maid that scolded her a few minutes ago pulled out a chair for her.

Yugure then proceeded to half-ass grace and thanks, immediately digging in. A ravenous queen gave up on thought process and nearly choked a few times trying to devour everything whole.

Garmore and Ezel wanted some of that... but she would probably kill them too...

Dad Espoir entered the dining room and sighed at the sight of his daughter's lack of class at this moment. He gave greetings to all his guests.

[Beryl]

A sweatdrop formed behind Satoshi's head. They certainly were...hungrier than he expected. Good thing he brought plenty. In fact, it was actually enough to share with more people, too. He gestured over to the servants. "C'mon, there's plenty. No matter how much these two eat there's still going to be a lot left over, so feel free." Some of the servants still remained a little reluctant, but others turned to each other, shrugged, and got themselves plates.

With a firm smile on his face, the farmboy who made it all happen got his own plate of food and began eating, thanking his parents for the blessing of food to bring everyone together once again.

[Jello]

It only took Haruka a few seconds to notice the breakneck speed Yukino was eating. He stopped and stared for a moment as everything from her plate went to her mouth without as much as a second thought. He turned to Satoshi, pointed silently, then looked back at her. She could be scary sometimes. This is one of those times.

"It's not going anywhere Yukino... You have time." Haruka tilted his head. "Uh, err-" He shook is head, starting to take his meal a bit slower. He found his hunger pangs had decreased, so he went ahead and snagged the ice cream that Satoshi brought. Supposedly it was really good, but he had to taste it himself. Let the judgement begin.

Hmm.... hmm..... mmmmmm...

"This. Is. Amazing." He gnawed down his bowl of ice cream in seconds. So much for savoring the meal...

Despite such an amazing feast and such, Haruka was a little upset that the charm from the suit seemed to be weak. No response was elicited from anybody it seemed. Well, it was a worth a shot. Haruka rolls up the sleeves of the shirt, loosens the tie up and heads to the dining room door, stuffed. "Hey guys, I think I'm gonna head to the guest room. I'm actually pretty beat after all this and need to relax a little." Haruka waves to Mr. Espoir with a sincere smile.

Less tension equals less pressure. Haruka walks out, breathing a sigh of relief. He ruffles his hair up a bit and heads to the guest room, a little disappointed. The evening was nice, and he was full. "Maybe next time or something." He ends up shrugging the entire thing off and heading to the bedroom, lying down on the mattress. It was his turn this time after all, Satoshi took the bed last time.

"Yeah.. maybe next time." Haruka begins to peacefully rest on the bed, eyes closing, dozing off rather quickly.

[Azuki Frappé]

"Hello Mr. Espoir. Nice to meet you, my name is Ighanna R. Colberg, I hope you remember me because my father, Mr. Colberg, was your friend. I even came here long time ago" Ighanna stood up as she greeted the figure.

"If you don't mind, I'll join in on this dinner, theres a lot of food and it'll be a shame not to finish it" Ighanna turned around and said to Yukino, however she was actually hungry, as spoilt as she is, wasting food isn't quite the priority here. Asides from that the luring scent of the deliciously cooked meat drew her in, along with the colorful assortments of sauces, fresh ripe fruits and other several emerald green garnishes which acted as a rope tied to her stomach, dragging her towards the food. Finally she sat down and with her utensils ready, she dug in as swift as leopard.

Her silver fork pierced into the golden brown flesh of the meat, spilling an overflowing amount of juice. The second later she flung her wrists, pulling the piece of tender beef onto plate with some of the excess juice and oil sprinkling around in the air, she could see a rainbow for a split second. She then closed her eyes and scaled her nose through the selection of sauces like how a pianist would scale his fingers across the piano, suddenly she stopped and then used her butter knife to scoop the golden, aromatic cube which looked like a bouillon and slathered it across her piece of juicy meat. Soon the cube melted down like butter and a waft of parsley diffused in the air in front of her. It was Cafe de Paris! A sauce made of butter mixed with herbs and flavored with a hint of curry powder. Then she took her sharp meat cutting knife and sliced through the meat in order to bring out a perfectly bitesized meat, however just before cleanly slicing through she began to tear it instead to prevent the supremely annoying sound of knife slicing on a ceramic plate. The insides of the meat are perfectly crimson red, the flesh inside is still intact, this is indeed the perfect rarity of them all, Medium Rare. She tested it by poking her finger onto the meat then her palms and nodded. Before entering the wide cave of her mouth, she dipped it in the excess sauce and it nearly melted in her mouth.

The second thing Ighanna wanted to try was the cold platter; ham. From Jamon Iberico to prosciutto, there was everything. Salami, parma, Ighanna could not resist herself and grabbed some of the mouthwatering processed meat from the ebony stone cutting board. Aligned next to it was a wild selection of high quality organic cheese, from cheddar to brie, however her favourite combination had to be Blue Cheese with orange blossom honey, the hard yet chewy texture of the blue cheese along with the smooth honey combines perfectly not to mention the slightly salty and sweet contrasted by the distinct aroma of blue cheese with unique honey extracted from honey blossom. The prosciutto with fig jam was also surprisingly delicious, even though most people call it jelly, its jam you guys its jam. The truffle infused scent of the prosciutto along with the light salty flavor goes very well with the soft yet cooked type of ham, with the jam contrasting the temperature making it a very light dish after her heavy meat.

She still wasn't satisfied and tried some more main course, this time being the lamb, which is a meat famous for its distinct smell of rawness which some people dislike. However this baby lamb was cooked perfectly medium rare, garnished with rosemary to partially remove the smell. Despite this Ighanna thinks that it is what makes the lamb a unique type of meat, the warm juice flowing from each bite lures her to try more. The sauce to counter fatigue from eating lamb has to definitely be the mint jelly, yes this is jelly not jam. The refreshing sweet and sour along with aroma of mint contrast perfectly to cover out the smell a bit meanwhile the cold jelly melts as it fuses with the warm meat. Personally this was Ighanna's favourite sauce as it is extremely refreshing, to the point that it might as well be in a dessert, so this makes it lighter compared to the heavy Cafe de Paris. As a side dish for this she had baby carrots and corn dressed with gravy, however it was a little different. This gravy's smell is very recognizable, they must have used the earlier meat bones to simmer beef stock for this special brown and creamy gravy. It was supposedly to be eaten with the squashed butternuts for the pure white turkey breasts however it wasn't Christmas so she didn't feel like it.

For the homemade noodles, it tasted like homemade fresh, cold angel's hair pasta, and was cooked with fresh abalones and topped off with caviar and truffle oil. Despite being noodles, this dish tasted more extravagant than the other as the noodles itself was cooked al dente, meaning it wasn't too soft or hard, perfectly chewy yet slightly soft. The cold temperature of the dish along with Abalone and truffle oil's unique texture and smell made it extremely mouthwatering, as you chew the noodles and abalone away. Meanwhile the caviar was of perfect quantity and quality, the black pearls have a distinct salty flavor to the dish to contrast the abalone's natural seafood sweetness. After finishing half of the noodles, she was quite full and decided to proceed to desserts and fruits.

As a typical multiple course meal, Ighanna ate some ruby roman grapes, one of the most expensive and rare grapes grown with perfect glucose content level and temperature, moderated to the perfect size, she was surprised Satoshi's farm grew these. To pair these grapes would have to be the same selection of cheese, combining them together makes it both a dessert and a main course, perfect to shift her palette. Along with that she ate some bright yellow bananas, dipped with the organic homemade peanut butter and some freshly cut melons which flooded her mouth with sweet melon juice, this was extremely delicious and the flesh was of perfect hardness. The banana, melon, grape and cheese kind of acted like a petit-four dessert for her.

Finally to end her course was the ice cream, which was laid on top of some crumble and sided with a raspberry sauce, topped off with a swirl of caramelized yuzu skin. The ice cream was scooped into a quenelle, an extremely unique shaped, sort of like a rugby ball, which is mostly used in high-class meals. Despite being full, her stomach seemed to separate allowing her to fully consume the creamy ice cream that melts in her mouth. That was the end of her gourmet food meal, she thanked the Espoirs and Satoshi meanwhile said good byes to the others. Too bad there wasn't a sommelier present so she couldn't have wine pairing, different wines go well with different food after all. However she thought it would probably be a better idea as wine pairing gives you quite a lot of alcohol so she could possibly get drunk from that. After that her chauffeur picked her up and she headed back home, wishing she would meet the group again sometime later. Chauffeur-san was probably tired after sending the others home too so better give him some rest.

"Metatron I feel bad that you can't eat hehe" Ighanna mocked Metatron as she pouted. It was a tiring day after all, Ighana abused Metatron's knowledge quite a lot so she would have felt tired. "Sorry, maybe next time" she continued as she laughed off a little bit.

"Good Night" Metatron said sarcastically as the card went to rest.

[Cherry]

Yugure... ate so much she not only put on a few pounds but she completely crashed. Not only that, but this food-induced coma left the queen out like a light for the entire day. Everyone had been invited to different Guest Rooms, and she specifically requested Haruka and Satoshi stay in the same room with her like before. While Dad Espoir growled violently, he let it pass. The thought of speaking with Seph crossed mind, but the girl wound up clocking out before Satoshi did. It was only in the evening when she finally got up.

"Oh, damn!" Yukino shouted, realizing her plan to speak with that spirit might be gone. Not only that, but the whole day was gone!

[Beryl]

Seph materialized behind Yukino and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Mornin', sleepyhead." He chuckled. "You all ate so much food yesterday. Hard to believe you're still alive, let alone awake."

He floated over to the couch and touched down, laying on it. Haruka and Satoshi had both passed out on the floor like she had.

"So, let's get down to business. What is it you want to know?"

[Cherry]

Frankly, he was right. Last night, Yukino became more meat than human. Stifling a small burp left behind by yesterday's feast, Yugure rose up. She sat with her legs together, leaning toward the side casually, rubbing her thighs together. Pupils morphing into blades, she was ready to get down to business. Where to even begin was the first thought. Everyone's lack of knowledge of other clans? The beast that took away everything during the rallying of Paladins, including almost herself as Exculpate? Cray's state of affairs were bad enough as it was, but it felt like specifics and details were complete unknowns. There was just too many places to start with.

"What exactly is going on?" Was simply something she blurted out. Having to think of a follow-up quickly since that isn't specific, she picked a random topic. "Why is it no one, including Satoshi, remembers anything about certain clans?"

[Jello]

The morning had come and gone, meaning the evening sun was just now starting to come around. Haruka woke up with back pains and a splitting headache. His dream last night was rather interesting. Except Haruka would never tell anybody about it.

Too embarrassing.

Hmm... why is Satoshi in my room?

Haruka completely forgot that he had slept over at the Espoir Household, and still believes to be in his own room.

His perception is unfortunately very dulled out from last night and a lack of caffeine in his veins. "Mmmnhh... Wha..." Haruka stretched out his legs and arms across the bed, making a weird moaning sound as if he's in pain but also not. He then rubs his eyes and sits up. Satoshi is passed out nearby. His first idea would be to get out and go find a cup of coffee, until he realizes Yukino is awake too and in the room.

"Uh..."

Wait. What.

"... Y-Yukino..?" He reaches out.

Maybe I'm still dreaming. Before his hand reaches her, he finds himself falling off of the bed and hitting the floor with a solid thump.

"Hoh.. Not a dream." Haruka says, hanging off of the bed.

[Beryl]

Seph gave a slight half-smile before issuing a more stern look. "Fancy that being your first question. Albeit, it's one of the more important ones." He sat up, folding his arms.

"Well, the answer to that question is tied to a more important one, which is how all of this happened in the first place. From what I understand based on Ezel's contributions to the council, Yugure, you're well aware of what happened to Alfred, Ahmes and Yunos, and by proxy Pacifica and Dragonic Overlord. They were all locked away from Cray by a powerful being whose abilities were not exactly the most comprehendable."

He gave a slight smile. "If you're curious how we know this, it's because your father has some interesting ties to the Oracle of the Council of Cray, also known as the CEO of the clan Oracle Think Tank, Amaterasu." He gestured to Haruka's sleeping body. "She told us that you and the one they call the Seraphim here would be aware of the the changes in the universe due to your ties to the most significant role-players in Cray's existence, the ones who forever shape and reshape the world as we know it. Normally, I'd doubt her just a little, but..." He scratched the back of his ponytail-bearing head. "She was right about the revival of Aqua Force and the Dragon of Hell being shaped as one of the Rift's mighty forces."

Seph stared into Yugure's bladed eyes, stern look resuming. "The reason no one remembers the clans Royal Paladin, Kagero, Shadow Paladin, or Bermuda Triangle is entirely to do with one of the Rift's powerful generals. Because you and the Paladins were destined to break the order of clans by combining into one, unified force against the Dragon of Hell, the Rift has made its according move on the warpath chessboard. One of its generals has awakened alongside Aqua Force, due to the failure of the Dragon of Hell, and sealed away the forces most able to protect us." He shook his head. "And it is most unfortunate that this happened. The end result is that while Cray recognizes the existence of such heroes and has thus turned our normally peaceful Council of Cray into a War Council, those on Earth...are made oblivious by the sheer magnitude of power."

Seph stopped for a moment and rolled his eyes. "Well, that and most of us were told to not tell our champions because if we did, bad things were predicted to happen by Amaterasu. Things such as the sealing of even more clans." He narrowed them again. "We can't have that happen, and thus we swore to secrecy, except to the champions of those sealed away. That means that you, the Chosen Sword, Haruka, the Seraphim, your sister, the Princess of Cray, and..." He shook his head a bit at the last one. "Jellal Kisaragi. Those four, alongside your father, are the only ones completely aware of the changes in the world."

He shrugged. "At least, that's what I'd like to believe. I'm not certain all the heads of organization have kept their word. Take Metatron of Angel Feathers, for instance. I heard a rumor that she already told her champion everything. Whatever. If she's asking for another clan to get sealed away, that's her burden."

He leaned back a bit. "Anything else? I'm sure you're wondering about Limit Break, no?"

THUMP!

Seph looked over. "Oh, the Seraphim rises from his slumber, too. Good timing."

[Cherry]

As Seph explained the initial ground of the situation, the memories of that cyber terror kept flooding back. Visibly cringing, a lot of the past two months greatly bother her, and constantly at that. Remembering Ahmes and Yunos throw themselves in harm's way when she couldn't move was one of the more painful. Of course, she wasn't surprised by Father Espoir's connections to Cray's Megacorp. Amaterasu and those of the clan with foresight concerning suggestions of the future was frighteningly strong, especially Sakuya's.

Wait, did he just say Aqua Force awakened?!

"Hold on, what?! How is it possible Aqua Force was revived?! Jellal and I haven't done anything yet!" This promise was important, it was the driving force behind her getting to Jellal in the first place. If the Rift went ahead and did it anyway, whilst warping time-space by eliminating Cray's most prominent leaders from the chessboard... Did anything in the past two months even matter? The thought that everything was for naught made the queen feel nauseous. Of course a War Council was prepared, the planet was still going to have to face the threat of whatever was coming eventually... Even still, she looked like she would cry.

Angel Feather... and only four people remembered anything... Metatron breaking the rules didn't seem like a pressing matter, but Limit Break was-

Yugure stopped and just sort of stared at Haruka and his reaction. This doof forgets where he is, thinks this is a dream, then rolls off the bed, hits the ground, and just calmly understands this is real. That was an impressive feat in itself. "Hey... We... need to talk", she greeted the awaking dork. Hopefully he can see Seph, but more importantly, she needed to talk to him about Kagero. Motioning him over with a finger, he was invited to the chat.

[Jello]

Haruka rubbed his eyes with the remaining hand that wasn't already supporting his body. "Hm? We need to talk?"

Those words usually spell out bad news, no matter the situation. Haruka rubs his now splitting headache and climbs off of the bed. Sitting down cross-legged, Haruka looks around the room. "What is it? Er, did something happen?" Haruka attempted to play everything off coolly. When he turns his head back to Satoshi, he picks up on something.

"...?"

What was that?

He turns back to Yukino, waiting for her to explain "what they need to talk about." He sweats nervously, dismissing the presence just a moment ago.