[Flings myself back into the Tsubasa fandom after 84 years]
03 - Kudan
The yawn pushed past Avis's lips as Sorata continued on his farewell for the day. The sun had risen a few hours after she and Syaoran had fallen back to sleep, the window left afar so that the cool wind could hit Avis's face, and in the end he had been right—she'd woken up feeling chilled to the bone and on the verge of the cold. Despite the vague challenge of sickness she faced, she decided that for now she was well enough to continue her search for this world's feather.
Sakura was still sound asleep as Arashi saw them out alongside her husband, who still droned on and on about how reliable and beautiful his wife was. Avis stretched, doing her best not to tear the dress and let her wings pop out, and felts the contents of her borrowed cardigan shift with the movement. She'd taken a what Arashi had called a notepad and pen, given a quick demonstration on how to use the pen, and decided to record not only her findings on clues that could very well lead them to a feather, but also record information regarding this country.
Arashi reminded her husband that he'd be late for work—(Avis cannot believe that this man teaches people)—and Sorata was quick to throw what looked to be a wallet in the shape of a toad at Syaoran. Kurogane protested and demanded to know why Syaoran, a child, was in charge of their money—to which Sorata deemed Syaoran to be the "least suspicious" of the four of them whilst making a break for the streets.
"Remember to keep a close eye on Mokona," Arashi told them. "Finding the feather will be easier if you pay attention to any reactions."
Mokona, having proved itself to be a particularly bouncy and energetic member of the group, was perched gleefully on Fai's shoulder as Kurogane further complained about Mokona needing to stay with them. Avis huffed at their immature exchange. As soon as Arashi disappeared back into the house, Avis reached into the cardigan's pocket and pulled the notepad out, searching through the notes she had so far. Arashi had been kind enough to show her the language of the area once they'd figured out how they were going to tackle finding the feather, copying names of streets and buildings onto a page at the very end of the pad and saying them out loud to each of them. Kurogane, for the most part, was the most familiar with the words and symbols, while Syaoran and Fai did well enough to mimic the sounds and recognise a select few.
Learning the new words had been a challenge for Avis. She'd never encountered a language in which the same word could be written in different symbols, taking on a different meaning and making entirely different words when combined with another unrelated symbol.
Everything seemed to fall into an organised pace after they were seen off. A good few areas on Avis's list were crossed off before they'd arrived at a bustling area filled with people rushing towards their workplaces and schools. A young girl with a piece of toasted bread balanced between her teeth almost barrelled into Avis, causing the tanned woman to shrink in on herself and let out a small grumble. The boys were all amazed by the high towers and small buildings bundled into blocks around the towers, but Syaoran at least took notice of her discomfort.
Mokona hopped from Fai's shoulder to Syaoran's as the brunet boy looked to Avis with a worried glance. "Are you okay? This isn't too much to take in, is it?"
She shrugged and returned her attention to the notepad again. "I'm fine," she dismissed. "It usually doesn't take a toll if I don't pay too much attention—I just don't really like people bumping into me right now."
An understatement, she thought sarcastically.
Syaoran nodded and put a short distance between the two of them, looking to her cautiously to confirm he'd done the right thing. She threw him a small, appreciative smile, and left it at that.
Almost immediately after their exchange, Fai skipped ahead and pointed to a clear view of buildings of varying height, all lined up in a row, and remarked, "All these small ones bunched up next to big ones! Syaoran, have you ever seen this kind of thing?"
"No, never. Have you?"
Fai dodged his question and turned for Avis and Kurogane. "Vivi, Kuro-tan! Have you?"
Unlike Kurogane—who not only graced Fai with a loud, angry answer but also demanded he stop calling him cutesy nicknames—Avis huffed again and sped up her pace, keeping an eye open for signs that had the same symbols as the ones on her notepad.
They continued to pass people and the morning rush seemed to calm down somewhat, the people who had been panicked over the time they had left outnumbered by those who didn't have a care in the world. Many groups of young, teenage girls passed by—all of them dressed in strange uniforms that varied, from jackets to sashes to uncoordinated outfits—and with each passing, the majority of the groups would look in Syaoran's direction and giggle amongst themselves before continuing on.
It wasn't until one particular girl, whose long brown hair was clipped out of her face, remarked to her friend, "It's so small and cute!" that Avis figured out it wasn't Syaoran they were all getting worked up about.
"Someone's popular," she muttered, just loud enough for the others to hear. Kurogane was quick to join in, teasing the small creature.
"They're laughing at you," he snickered.
Mokona's gem practically gleamed joyfully as it posed proudly on Syaoran's scalp. "Mokona has many girlfriends."
Whatever argument was going to start between Kurogane and his ticket out of the Republic of Hanshin was stopped abruptly by the sales pitch of a man running a stall at the edge of the path. Avis protested quietly that they didn't have time to get distracted by a food stall, but the boys all seemed to ignore her as they moved to investigate the apples the man had to sell. Avis fidgeted on her feet and looked anywhere but at the stand, refusing to let herself be distracted; in the end, she retreated to the boys' sides as a headache began to set in, her eyes darting from one place to another too quickly for her mind to register everything.
There was a short conversation on what constituted as an "apple" in everyone's worlds—which soon led to a distracted debate that the shopkeeper was quick to end. They each bought an apple to snack on, remarking what they called this particular food in their worlds was, and eventually came to a stop at a short bridge built over a river. Avis didn't immediately bite into her apple, resting it on her knee when she sat down against the rail while the boys leaned against it and chewed on their own.
None of them asked what she was doing—it become fairly obvious once she'd pulled the notepad from her pocket again and hurried began to sketch the apple with the pen. Much like the pieces of charcoal and the quills used by the nobles of Bellator, the pen was painfully difficult to get used to in regards to mistakes and pressure. A very rough image of the apple was on the page by the time she got used to it, written underneath in her own country's language, "Grape (Archiva), Apple (Hanshin)."
She barely even realised that the boys were waiting on her for an answer, biting into her apple innocently and looking to them to figure out the reason for their silence. Fai, with those big blue eyes of his, smiled sweetly at her and repeated, "How did you find yourself at the Witch's doorstep? Syaoran and Sakura were apparently sent by the priest of their land."
A thoughtful, careful response was needed for this question. She still wasn't entirely certain as to how she'd even managed to pull off such a feat of magic in the first place, now that she thought about it; sure, magic in Archiva was built and structured around willpower and emotion, but even then anger alone isn't enough to cast two things at once. She knew for a fact that she had cast a spell to practically destroy the crowd gathered at the stage, so how did she manage to send herself to Yūko so soon after?
"'How', indeed," she muttered. Avis took another bite of her apple before adding in a louder voice, "I sent myself."
Fai let out a curious hum. "Amazing—but may I ask why?"
Avis hesitated in her reply, uncertain if she could trust these people after just a day of knowing them. Syaoran seemed likeable enough, polite and respectful towards her needs and Avis won't deny she saw a piece of herself in him last night, during their conversation, but he was still just a stranger; Kurogane was too abrasive and loud, and would probably hold some kind of black and white view of the world—a horrible personality to pair with someone who was to be executed for a technical charge of high treason; and then there was Fai, her fiancé's lookalike and the most secretive of the bunch. She couldn't be sure if anyone else had notice it, but he always danced around people's questions about his world and pretended to never hear them.
Sure, Avis did the same in her own blunt way, but at least she had told Syaoran and Mokona that her own homeland was vast and wet, while Fai had left them all to assume that his was cold and covered in snow, just based on his clothing.
Avis barely got a chance to settle on a reply, let alone think of a believable one—Kurogane let out a loud, humph, and scolded Fai. "Even you should've thought of a few good reasons why, mage," he growled. "Covered in blood and looking like she'd seen a ghost? I'd be willing to bet it was to escape a war-torn land or something. Right?" he added, leaning back and smirking at Avis. He looked so proud to have figured out why she was with them, unaware that he was off the mark with his assumption.
"If I were younger, yes," she said simply. "Yes, it would've been to escape my land during its war with our neighbours. Now? You'll have to wait for me to tell you, after that smug guess of yours."
Fai pouted and complained that Kurogane had spoiled the fun, that playful smile ever present on his face as he did so. He was quick to break out of his "upset" state and soon turned on Kurogane, demanding of him, "Alright, Kuro-rin; since you made Vivi upset, you have to spill the beans as to how you got sent to the Witch!"
He rolled his red eyes and grumbled that he'd told Fai to stop with the nicknames—a desire Avis still shared, despite not voicing it these past few times they've been brought up. Regardless of his desire to be called by his name, Kurogane leaned back against the rail and announce that he was also sent by someone else—a priestess of his country, who had sent him away as punishment he saw no fairness in. Fai was quick to quip that Kurogane had been given the boot, striking a nerve with Kurogane.
Despite how secretive Fai had been yesterday and today, he was quick to answer Kurogane's question about his own methods of meeting the Witch. Fai, like Avis, had transported himself to Yūko's doorstep and asked for help in his travels—the reasoning behind, he explained shortly after, being that jumping dimensions would take everything he had, and he only had enough power to jump once.
Her first thought, as Fai continued his explanation with a slowly dulling expression, was that her magic may have been used up in her last ditch effort to fight back against the oppressors of Archiva as well as her decidedly random travel to Yūko's store. A shortage of magic was not something she was familiar with—it was never used enough to get to that point, despite all the research and practice that went into her illusions.
Upon the mention of Syaoran's country's priest, her thoughts shifted to another revelation—the priest must've known that Sakura's feathers would scatter across dimensions, and had sent them to Yūko if his magic was only enough for one trip. She bit into the apple and finished the last of it, twirling the core in her hands as she chewed thoughtfully.
"So the Witch is the only one who has enough power for more than one journey?" she asked herself.
A scream rang out through the air all of a sudden, surprising them as they each whirled in the direction of the source. People were clamouring to get away from one group of men dressed in similar jumpsuits, menacing looks in their eyes as they glared up at a group of youths standing atop a store—also dressed in similar clothing, right down to the leader's scarf and goggles.
Avis groaned and rose to her feet, tucking the notepad and pen back in her pocket. "What now?" she growled. Mokona hopped from Syaoran's head to her shoulder, sneakily stealing the core of her apple and devouring it as she and the others tried to get a closer look at the commotion.
A man at the front of the jumpsuit group yelled something about taking a neighbourhood, and immediately Avis recognised it for what it was: A territorial battle. Her stomach churned and anxiety welled up in her chest—these people weren't armed with just weapons, they had kudan. The level of destruction these people could wreck would break past just casualties and building damage, and from the looks of things they weren't exactly the types of groups who took care not to harm bystanders in the midst of battle.
Avis reached for the empty pocket of her cardigan and held it open, whispering to Mokona, "Pocket. Now."
The white creature barely put up a fight, retreating into the space it just barely fit into and peeking over the edge curiously.
"They look pretty cool," Fai said. He was grinning excitedly, standing on the tips of his toes to get a better look. The men in the jumpsuits mentioned a "special kudan", and it wasn't long before a battle broke out between the two groups.
The ones on the store leapt down wordlessly after their leader threw a downward-pointing thumb at the jumpsuits, a burst of light flashing as creatures of all sizes and shapes appeared alongside the rivals. Avis was starting to see the "cool" side of this, if it even counted as such—she'd never seen such interesting creatures, much less witnessed them shoot fire and beams of light from their mouths or eyes while their masters yelled taunts at each other.
The bystanders were soon yelling at the groups as well, complaining about how reckless this fight was and that people didn't have time to navigate the streets with all the hostility. Bigger kudan entered the scene, smashing things and knocking people over, and Avis had no choice but to hold on to the bridge's rain for dear life as it trembled under the impact.
For a moment she thought that this would be the bulk of the fight—everyone would have to put up with all these creatures wrecking havoc on the streets—but her assumption was soon disproven by the appearance of one last kudan. It resembled a manta ray, composed entirely of water and glistening in the sun's light, and she could almost predict what its ability would be. Water spilled out from its body in waves, washing down the earth and knocking over people in all directions. Avis's heart beat wildly in her chest as the first wave crashed into her as well as the others, knocking them over and throwing them into the rail. She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath, feeling the wet clothing cling to her and the chill of cold air bite into her skin.
Syaoran cried out for someone to watch out, prompting her to open her eyes. Beside her, on either side of her, were an equally soaked Kurogane and Fai—both looking like complete opposites in their reactions to the first wave. For a split second she saw Syaoran sprint past them, and then another wave was blasted in their direction. This time, Kurogane and Fai huddled in her direction and also clung to the rail, preparing to stand their ground against what looked to be a tougher wave. Avis felt for the cardigan's pocket—Mokona was still in it, miraculously—and grasped Mokona's ears apologetically while one hand remained on the rail.
The wave crashed into them, knocking their breaths away, and then all of a sudden it disappeared—replaced by a strong heat that came from the middle of the bridge, turning half of the water into steam and surrounding the area with a temporary mist. Once it cleared, she could see the source of it all—Syaoran, kneeling in front of two young boys his own age who appeared to have fallen in the commotion just as the second wave began.
As he kneeled before the boys, a flame hovered above him. Avis released Mokona and rose to her feet clumsily, realising that Syaoran's intervention had done more than just prevent them all from being swept away. The owner of the manta kudan—a young man with long grey hair, his eyes hidden behind a pair of reflective goggles—stood above everyone else on the store once more, though his attention was more than obviously on Syaoran more than the rival gang.
The young man smirked as Syaoran rose, standing beside the hovering flame; with a decisive tone, he stated to Syaoran, "You have a special kudan, don't you?"
An impending sense of dread hit Avis as she recognised the tone in his voice—playful and eager, begging for a challenge.