Chapter 2.11 - Voice of Instinct

                                    

                                          
"A pendant depicting the Day?" Kentaro repeated as he helped his wife with the dishes. After dinner, they had told Yumi that they had something to talk about, and allowed the girl to do as she wished for the rest of the night. "Are you sure it's the same design as the one on Mom's sword?"
                          
	"The one you handed over to the fellas at city hall? Yeah," replied Christine. "No way I'd mistake it for anything else." She paused. Her hands stopped moving. "You think she found out?"
                          
	"About her heritage? I don't think so, Christie. She's an honest girl, so she'd let us know. But we may have to tell her eventually anyway. It is part of her heritage, and whether or not she inherited what Mom had, I'd trust her to do the right thing with the knowledge. That doesn't mean to say we won't step in if she's going to get too in over her head," Kentaro said seriously.
                          
	While her parents had their discussion downstairs, Yumi's amber eyes scrolled over the last few pages of one of her favorite novellas, one which she was just about to finish for the third time. Touched by the emotions imparted by the final chapter, the girl kept a satisfied smile all the way up until the final paragraph.
                          
	Upon shutting the book, she let out a content sigh. She really enjoyed reading stories like that, even if they were a little sappy. But now she had completed all of the books in her collection at least once, except for the horror story a friend had given her for her birthday; that one had kept her awake for hours once she reached the midpoint and she never got around to finishing it.
                          
	"Maybe I'll look around the bookstore next time I hang out with Kylie," she mused. She silently admitted, however, that chances are they were going to get some new videogame too.
                          
	Kylie, that close childhood friend of hers had mentioned something about her pendant maybe having something to do with temperature. Could that be why she had felt an unexplainable warmth from the antique?
                          
	She picked the pendant up from her desk. Nothing had changed since the last time she felt it; it was a regular piece of limestone with some etchings. She studied it more closely this time, rotating it in her hand. What did those crooked lines under the sun mean anyway? They were too jagged and inconsistent to represent the sea.
                          
	Heat.
                          
	That word surfaced from the back of her mind as though she should know it, and suddenly the amulet began to feel warm again, just like that time. Her eyes widened. Was her mind playing tricks on her now?
                          
Besides that, she didn't understand why she had thought about the word 'heat' to begin with; she wasn't even close to coming to that reasoning, although now that it was out there, it seemed to make sense. Given the nature of the sun itself on a hot day, the air might appear wavy, but did the people who carved this out understand that? Maybe there was more to it than just that. The crooked lines might have another meaning to it, but what?
                          
	Fire.
                          
	That one came out of nowhere as well, but now she could see it in full clarity. She could visualize the crooked lines turning into flickering, beautiful flames burning brightly in the night.
                          
	She could feel the heat in her hand even more now. But it was different from before. It felt hotter, more real, and it hurt.
                          
Releasing herself from the image of fire in her head, she was shocked to discover that the amulet still in her hand was shrouded in a bright red flame. 
                          
She dropped it in a panic and stumbled backwards, her heart pumping rapidly. That only served to make things worse. As soon as the burning stone made contact with the surface of her desk, the flames burst and began to spread, threatening to engulf her home like an angry, awakened beast.