The man sitting in front of Dyenes laughed hard at her statement. It was a horrible wheezing sound broken up by intermittent dry coughs, but the grin on his face revealed no hint of pain from any of this. With a long gulp of water and a clearing of his throat, he was ready to begin his story. "Before the war, my family was from the motherland, like you. We came here as part of the pact. There used to be woods in the motherland, places with thousands of trees and... other things. The forest folk. Our kinds stayed away from each other until we knew our fate was mutual." A pause was given to drink the rest of his glass with a relieved sigh afterward. It did little to smoothen his voice. "People from the smaller villages who hadn't forgotten the old ways promised to guard the essences of the forest folk, letting their magics guard us from within until they were ready to come back into the world." He then makes a theatrical gesture of shaking his hands out in front of him. "Well, we're back!"<br/><br/>The cold metal is removed from Hagetaka's body as soon as she makes her demand, the doctor putting the tool away to pull a tongue depressor and a small flashlight from his medical bag. "Okay. Now open wide, tongue out." He holds them out, ready to examine, looking for signs of apprehension in the soul collector's face. "Oh, don't worry, it's perfectly clean. Would you believe nobody loots these things?" The thought of it gives him a small chuckle, as though remembering some in-joke only he is party to.<br/><br/>Mai's warning is met with a small nod. "Yeah yeah, I know what I'm doin'. Let's see, weapon systems..." He presses a few buttons, causing her hand to take cross form. "Check! Hellizat thing, though? Okay, languages..." His eyes widen after a few rapid taps of the keypad. "Wow. Lotsa dialects of Japanese, Russian, English, 'n Chinese." A small laugh rumbles out of the haggard man. "Let's setcha to Osakan for a while."