<span style="font-weight: bold">“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Though that was not entirely my fault. I think we were lucky the thing didn’t explode. Not that I’ve done something like that before.”</span>Translation: 'Ebisu did it. But at least it didn't explode like the last one.' The boy smiled and shook his head.<br/><br/>"Well, I don't think I've ever been in a good mood around you before," he responded. He'd heard that sharing secrets with people helped to ease some kind of burden, but he was only now starting to put stock in those words. He thanked her again and left to start figuring out the next issue on his list: What the fuck had he done to hurt Heather's cat?<br/><br/>***((Time for a time skip? !blush ))***<br/><br/>They'd been sailing for two days, and at this point they were mere hours away from Graecia. It was difficult for Ijemaru to figure out anything about his new power. He didn't even know how it had activated the first time, so he couldn't simply use it and figure out the rules from there. He'd had a few clues to work with, though. Most significant was what Heather had said two days ago. She said Snickers had been bruised. Bruising meant that the blood vessels beneath the skin had been ruptured. The next hint was the amount of pain the cat had been in. Pain meant nerve interaction. What would affect the blood and the nerves with almost no physical force? He had a sudden breakthrough when he was examining a small flower in a vase in his room to pass the time. All the rooms had some sort of foliage in them, and he wondered if the flower was real. He reached out to touch it. Before he even made contact it started to wilt. When he picked it up out of the vase it died altogether.<br/><br/>This. Was. Bad. He had a good idea now of what category his new power fit in: it was some sort of poison or toxin. Considering he didn't even know how, when or why the power activated, he was a step away from being deemed a "problem" by Heather. A poison ability wasn't something he could overlook and deal with later. If it were to suddenly get stronger before he knew how to control it he could do some serious damage. He spent most of the third day holed up in his room, running chemical tests to try and find out more about his power. Usually, the chemicals he had with him wouldn't have qualified as necessary for a trip like this, but because he'd already been running tests on himself to find out just what made a demon transformation tick, he'd come prepared for everything. He wasn't regretting his decision.<br/><br/>The elite let out a quick breath; finally, some progress. One of his various chemicals had reacted to his breath, meaning the poison was gaseous. The reaction was very small, though, so his lungs weren't the source. That was good; he didn't want to poison the air just by breathing. He ran some more tests and figured out that his blood was carrying the poison. It was concentrated to the point of being liquid, and it seemed his power worked by returning the toxins to a gaseous form and expelling it through his pores. This was a dangerous environment to be messing with airborne toxins, so his progress was further limited. However, he had figured out enough about the basics, turning the power on and off, that he hoped he could avoid incident.<br/><br/>---------------<br/><br/>The closer they got to Graecia, the less time Ebisu spent in the room. The air had been steadily getting colder for days and it felt amazing. Now, with the ice country only a few hours away, here over the "warm" ocean it was about -20 degrees. He was almost home.