"Probably at least another twenty minutes, she doesn't have the best endurance after all... And that is a long distance to run, no matter how you look at it." Najiko observed.

"Alright, then you can ask me a truth in the meantime, K?"

Najiko decided to ask him... "How did you and Jess meet, anyway?" It was her way of getting over Jess's death quite clearly, finding out as much about Jess as she could so she could honor the Earth Mage's memory properly.

"...hehe... y'know that's a funny story actually. The first time I met your mother... it was on the battle field when I was helping Umi to destroy Everlast Magic School. During the battle... Kitty, a former tryst of mine, tried to kill her. But you see I was working within the attack force in order to minimize casualties. So when she was seriously hurt I decided to patch her up... She managed to get back to the mages defending the school somehow and eventually our paths crossed again."

"Quite interesting... Who is Kitty? Tell me more." Najiko's curiosity knew no bounds, and by now Mortimer knew that once she'd asked a question she wanted the whole truth and nothing but the truth then and there.

"Kitty... you could call her... kagami's...rival. Yes she was kagami's rival. She was a vampire, one hundred years old, her special power was to transform into a wolf... you know, all vampires to some extent have some kind of strange power. Kagami could utilize an extra-demensional area known as "mallet space" where she could store weapons... though whether that was her vampiric ability or just her power as a woman I'll never know..." Although he maintained his happy expression his eyes could not have been sadder.

Najiko hugged Mortimer, she knew how it felt to lose loved ones. She was still bitter over the loss of her old family, especially her Father... And now she'd lost her Adoptive Mother and Father too, the Mother dying in the course of adventure with Kagami and Emi, and the Father commiting suicide because of it.

"....Thanks Najiko... hey how about when Marie gets ack we all go out for ice cream, waddaya say?

Najiko nodded. Really they needed it, it'd help them get past what had happened... "... I... I still miss Father William so much!" she added in, even though she'd only know William a month or so she'd come to truly think of him as a Father.

Sooner than expected Marie was back. "Hey you two... What's wrong little Ninja? Why you crying?"

Najiko could not say, she just wiped her nose and continued to cry, hugging Mortimer's leg.

"Dun..*snif*... dun worry Marie... we're just going to all go out for ice cream." His eyes were moist but he managed to hold it back. He had responsibilities now that they were gone... He was an uncle... and he had to take care of his nieces.

Marie clearly still wondered what was going on, but had decided to leave the topic alone as Najiko walked over to her after wiping her tears away. "Well, let's get the ice cream then."

Both of them climbed down the ladder when Marie noticed the new flowerpots on the treehouse. "Najiko, did you make those flowerpots?" Marie asked, to which Najiko nodded. "Oh, you're such a clever lil' ninja..."

Najiko found that she couldn't stay sad when Marie was complimenting her. "Um, thanks."

Rewards:

JKDragon: 4 SP, 4 MP and 300,000 Drachma
Alberio: 4 SP, 4 MP and 300,000 Drachma
Pyoh: 3 SP, 3 MP and 210,000 Drachma