I don't know how long I've been in bed, but I keep drifting in and out of sleep. I just know that I'm drenched in sweat and exhausted.
When I finally wake up, I feel awful. But Seria is there, and she's dotting my forehead with a cloth.
"Morning," she says. "How do you feel?"
My mouth is dry—but I'm trying to ask what day it is. Last time, Aki said I slept through a whole day, almost two. I can't miss the rest of the tournament, not with what just happened to me… There's only one thing on my mind right now. It's been there, slipping in and out of my nightmares, haunting me for however long I've been out.
"I've got water, it's all right." Seria coaxes me up into a seated position and puts a drinking glass in my shaky hands.
After taking a second to down the entire glass and catch my breath, I wheeze, "What day is it?"
"It's only Tuesday, relax. Divine and Aki just left, maybe ten minutes ago. It's early, you should go back to sleep after you drink a little more."
"I can't," I croak. "I have to go back there."
"C, you're not going to bounce back in a few hours—"
"Someone there knew me, Seria!" I manage. She goes silent. "S-Somebody… some boy, some competitor there, he recognized me!"
"Somebody recognized you," Seria says, like she's testing the words. "How can that be?"
"I-I don't know, but I… I have to go see him. I have to see what he knows. I-I didn't think I had anywhere I came from, but this could be… somebody knows about me! Somebody knows where I'm from!"
Seria sits in silence, the glass in one hand, the rag in the other. Thinking. Saying nothing.
"I wish I had more time to plan this out," she mutters to herself. "Okay. I'm going to fill this up again, and you're going to take as much time as you need to stand up, move around, try to get all of your muscles working. Get dressed in whatever you have. I'll be right back."
She refills the glass with the tap and sets it on my desk, amidst all of the clutter, then rushes out of my room so quickly that it takes me a second to realize that she's gone. I don't know where she went, or what she's planning on doing… but I'm gonna listen.
The pain is dull in some places, excruciating in others, and it takes me what feels like forever to roll out of bed. I go in little parts, taking breaks between movements, first wrenching myself toward the floor, then putting my feet down, and urging myself into putting my weight on the floor. I take a couple extra minutes to shuffle to my desk to slam the water Seria left for me.
Divine, I think (as usual), burned the clothes I was wearing the last time I went outside. I have only one more set of street clothes in a case under my bed. It's surrounded by books to keep it hidden: dark pants, a violet and magenta top that bares my arms and a bit of my belly, and tall black boots. I'm struggling to pull my boots up when Seria reenters the room.
"Let me help you," she sighs. She kneels down in front of me to yank the boots up my calves, then ties them off for me. "How is it moving?"
"I'm—in a lot of pain," I confess.
"I'll see what I can do about that, too. Come on, this way. Do you have a coat?"
I scramble to pick up my dark denim jacket out of the case, and Seria helps me pull it up over my aching shoulders. Then the two of us ramble out of the room, me half-stumbling behind her as she starts a brisk walk toward the elevator.
"W-What are we doing?" I manage as the elevator door slides open.
"We're going down to the mess first," Seria states. She punches the button to the second floor, and the elevator jerks downward, rattling my bones. "You're going to eat something and drink a little more, and you're going to take some aspirin to start. After that, you and I are going outside and Kawasaki is going to take you to the Memorial Circuit."
"W-What?" I blurt. "Who's Kawasaki?"
"A friend of mine. He works outside, regulating the riding track and organizing any type of Movement authorized transportation. He put together the truck and the team that took Aki and Divine to the Circuit today."
The elevator opens on the second floor, and I limp after Seria toward the mess hall, at the south end of the floor.
"You're just… letting me leave?" I ask hoarsely.
"I would have let you leave ages ago, but you've had nowhere to go. I like to assume that you've had the same sort of thoughts." She throws the door open to the mess and I follow her in. "Divine told me that he found you. That he didn't know where you came from, and that you'd been given no name, so he named you…"
"I still don't know about the name part," I say. "It wasn't a long conversation. He just… he said he recognized me. Divine saw me after that, and…"
"You don't have to go on." Seria shakes her head as she rifles through a cabinet. "I should have known. If you have a place… a family—"
"You're not suggesting I leave Arcadia?" I remark.
"Don't you want to?"
I feel like I'm going to swallow my tongue. "I… If Divine finds out—"
"This isn't about Divine, C, this is about you. If it turns out this person knows you and where you're from, are you going to go find out where that is?"
I don't say anything.
"I would." She finds what she's looking for, a little bottle of pills, and slams the cabinet shut. "I'd do it in a heartbeat."
"W-What?"
Seria wrenches open the fridge and rifles through one of the shelves. "Divine has conditioned you to be too frightened of consequences. The probability of you getting caught going outside is lower than the probability of you getting caught leaving, but you can't stay here. You need to admit to yourself that Divine abuses you. This is the universe dropping a chance for you to leave in your lap, and I think you should take it."
"I-I…"
"Sit. Eat this." Seria wrenches out a chair at the table in the middle of the hall and sets down a banana, a cup of yogurt, and a tupperware of rice. "I'll get you utensils."
"Why are you… are you going to leave?" I blurt.
"I told you, I'm not going to leave until there's no one else Divine can destroy."
"But why—"
"You need to listen to me." She sets down a spoon and a pair of chopsticks. "I grew up with Divine, C. I saw him become the man he is now. Whatever he wants from you… he hasn't gotten it yet. He's going to keep treating you this way until he gets what he wants, whatever that may be. It's not going to stop, it's going to get worse. You're going to get worse unless you get out. Scope out this situation and weigh if it's safe, if this person really does know you."
"W-What if he doesn't?" I squeak, peeling the banana out of unease, eagerness to please, rather than hunger.
"Wait for the next opportunity. And the next, and the next, and the next, until you can finally go somewhere that'll help you instead of hurt you." She beelines for the fridge again to fill another drinking glass with water.
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"He'll… will he get angry with you?"
"Probably. But that's a small price to pay. I'm the only one who can keep him in check without ending up dead."
Without ending up dead. The suggestion sends shivers down my spine.
"Eat." She fiddles with the pill bottle until she gets it open, and empties two little white pills onto the table. "When you're done, take those."
It's the first uneasy silence I have with Seria, as I try to down as much food as I can without feeling like I'm going to vomit. When I take the pills, she pulls up a chair next to me and sets down a box of tissues between us.
"Hold still."
"What are you doing?"
"Just trust me." She lays a hand on my shoulder, and a sharp heat runs up through my neck into my skull, then bounces down into my spine.
My knees hit the table as I jerk upward, but Seria puts her other hand on my arm to keep me from moving. "Still, C."
Suddenly it's… this beautiful warmth. It spreads outward from my center, down toward the tips of my toes. When it's gone, Seria pulls a wad of tissues from the box and squishes them against her face—against her bleeding nose.
"Are you okay?" I exclaim, jumping up out of my chair.
"Fine," Seria says, sounding tired. "I'm fine."
"Wait." I roll my shoulders up and back. No pain. "What… What did you do to me?"
"It's one of my subclasses," she states. "It's called Naturalism. It's biologically-based telekinesis."
"What does that… even…"
"It accelerates cell growth. I can heal." She checks for the amount of blood in her tissues, then adds a few more to the wad in her hand. "It's a rare class, and it takes a physical toll on me, but it works."
"Why didn't you tell me about this before?"
"I only use it in emergencies. I would use it on you every time this happens to you, if I could, but I have to take a recovery time, too. And Divine would be suspicious of me using it on you, if you bounced back too quickly. Knowing him, he'd make your punishments worse. It's the worse injuries I can't mitigate."
"Thank you," I manage.
"You're welcome. If you feel a little nauseous or drowsy, it's normal. It's your body adjusting to the accelerated growth. Having eaten beforehand should help you, though, it'll feed your bodily functions." She stands and wrangles the box of tissues underneath her arm, a wad of bloody tissue still clutched against her nose. "Now, come on, no more wasting time."
We take the stairs down to the ground floor. Today, I've had a reason to be down here on the ground level three entire times. That I remember, at least.
I follow Seria around to the eastern side of the building—I always go out the western side—until we reach this big open area that's gated all around. We keep walking, and I'm feverishly craning my neck up to catch the sunlight on my face, until we reach this flat-roofed house-looking building.
There's someone already there waiting for us—a man in Arcadia robes, definitely older than me, but probably younger than Seria. Brown eyes, tousled teal hair, angular jaw.
"You must be C," he remarks, his voice a lazy sort of drawl. "Good to finally meet you!"
"Are you… You're Kawasaki? Right?"
"That'd be me," he states, sticking out his hand for me to shake. "A little sheepish, isn't she, Ser?"
"Try not to tease her too much, please," Seria exhales, sounding muffled behind all of her tissues.
"Nosebleed, champ?" Kawasaki asks.
"Don't worry about it. Thank you for helping with this."
"Hey, no problem. Anything to ruffle a few of Divine's feathers."
Seria puts her free hand on my shoulder. "Be careful, C. Get back before Aki's duel is over. It'll keep you from having to repeat yesterday over."
"Thank you," I murmur.
"Good luck, both of you." Seria turns and beelines back for the front door of the Movement. I can't fathom how so much power can live in such a little woman.
"All right, C, let's get going." Kawasaki shoves open the door to the building and goes inside. "Seria caught me up on the need-to-know. I'm gonna get you in and out to do what you've gotta do as quickly and easily as possible."
"A-Are you… like Seria? When it comes to Divine?"
"Every crusader has to have a following of their own, don't they?" Kawasaki throws something toward me, and I fumble with it to keep it from crashing to the ground: a helmet.
"What's that mean?" I ask.
"Let's just say Seria isn't the only one who doesn't like how this ship runs." There's a frown in his voice. "Pull that door open a little wider, would you?"
I clutch the helmet in one hand and wrench the door open with the other. Kawasaki suddenly comes rolling out of the shed with a sleek black duel runner that glistens dully in the early afternoon sun.
"Oh," I breathe. "You're… We're going on that?"
"Yep. And the best part is that you're driving!"
"What?" I exclaim. "No, I don't know how—"
"Don't be modest, Seria said you built yourself a simulator."
"Y-Yeah, without a physical component! It was like a video game, it wasn't—"
"Seria asked me to teach you to ride, kid," he interrupts. "And you've got a really limited time frame to learn how. You're sitting in the front seat, and I'll talk you through everything. Deal?"
"I-I don't…"
"Come on, no fear. I'll keep you from falling, too." He rolls it the rest of the way out of the garage and slips a helmet on. "Helmet on, driver's seat. We're wasting time!"
I swallow a lump that's formed in my throat and yank the helmet on. Kawasaki guides me into the driver's seat, where there's a screen and a place for a wrist dealer to disengage a duel disk, but it's empty. I recognize the patterns and the divots where things should go from all of my books and the program I ran in my simulator.
"Keep your hands here at all times," he says, directing me toward the handles on both sides of the runner. One of them is disengaged upward to let us climb onto the seat. "You only have to let go of one if you're turbo dueling, and it has an autopilot function for that, anyways. That's a future sort-of lesson that I'm not going to have time to go over with you."
I close my hand around the handle to my left; my fingers sink into the grip.
"The accelerator is a dual-action system," he explains. "That handle turns. The thing won't move unless you turn it clockwise while tapping the ignition—" he taps the brake-looking pedal by my foot, "—here. The further clockwise, the faster you go. Likewise, turning the handle counterclockwise while hitting the brake there will slow you down. That button there is to engage duel protocol, don't touch it." Kawasaki climbs onto the runner behind me and disengages the other handle to lock in to our right. "That button next to it turns it on, it's keyed to thumbprint recognition. My thumbprint, right now."
He reaches around me to click the button, and there's a clear little 'ding' noise as it recognizes his thumbprint before the runner roars to life underneath me. My heart feels like it's leapt up into my throat.
"You know the rules of the road?" He asks over the rumble of the duel runner.
"M-More or less!" I stutter, hoping road manuals count as 'rules of the road.' I've read up on some traffic laws and rules, but I'm not clear on them in execution.
"Great! Don't take your eyes off the road, maintain following distance, pay attention when you're changing lanes, all that good stuff!" He puts his hands on my shoulders. "And, rookie mistake, you have to turn with your whole body. I'll help you with that part, and I'll tell you the way to go. Okay?"
"O-Okay!"
"All right! Time to go!"
I'm still wondering how safe this is, but there really isn't any going back now. I tense my entire body and rotate the left handle; when I tap the foot brake, the duel runner jumps forward, and I feel like I might spontaneously combust.
"It's okay, it's okay!" Kawasaki shouts. "Lean left!"
I do what he says, only because I know I can't get through this on my own. He leans with me, and the nose of the duel runner turns outward off of the dirt path. We bounce off of the path and into the pavement of the parking lot; Kawasaki urges me forward, toward the street. I bite into the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming.
The street, thankfully, is mostly clear. I'm wracking my brain for every piece of traffic-related information I programmed into my simulator. Kawasaki shouts above the wind which way we should go, which way I should lean, and I'm too scared to do anything else but listen. At times, I lean too far, and I can feel something like wind resistance keeping us from crashing to the pavement. I dodge a few cars, a pedestrian or two a couple of times, and at some point I think I start laughing—from fear or from joy, I don't know. But when we've been on the road long enough that I'm beginning to get a feel for the leaning and the speeding up and slowing down, I'm thinking that this just might be fun.
Really different from my simulator, that's for sure. I don't think I could program something like this if I tried.
When the Memorial Circuit looms up over us, Kawasaki shouts at me to stop, and I try to gradually ease into it, but we almost crash into a barricade along the contender side of the stadium.
"Well," Kawasaki breathes, sounding winded, "that wasn't so hard, was it?"
"W-We didn't crash!" I say. Even my voice sounds exhilarated; my heart is pounding, and I feel like I've been for a mile-long run. "I-I have a question!"
"Hm?"
"Y-You're a Waster, aren't you?"
He grins.
"That's why we didn't crash," I pant. "You Wasted us that whole way? I can't Waste for more than a couple of minutes straight!"
"Telekinesis is a wonderful gift, kid, and when you're in my line of work, it's best used in protecting your vehicles from scrapes and bruises. You didn't think I had enough of a death wish to let you drive all the way here completely unsupervised, did you?"
"I'd hoped not!"
He laughs. "Go get your thing done, kid. You're driving us back, and then tomorrow morning, when Divine's far enough away so he can't see me flip him off, you're driving the track back at the Movement without my help!"
I swallow. "Okay!"
He disengages the right handle and I jump off of the back of the runner.
"Helmet, helmet," he reminds me; I toss it to him and take off toward the contenders entrance in a half-jog, rolling my jacket sleeves up as I go to let the wind reach my sweat-kissed skin.
Today, there aren't any Security agents outside, but I can also hear deafening noise, screaming, almost, cresting up over the stadium wall. There must be a duel in progress. I hope it's not Aki's.
I go in the same door, following the same path as I did before, toward that waiting room. I check around every corner I reach now, though—Divine can't see me today. Not before I get my answers.
I'm thinking of what I recall of that boy's face. The blue eyes, the yellow mark. He shouldn't be that hard to find. Hopefully.
Once I reach the common area, I look around for him. Or someone who looks like him, I guess. I'm wishing I took a longer look at his face.
There's a tall, sort of gangly-looking man in the waiting area watching one of the screens. He's in a nice suit, and he's wearing glasses.
"Hey," I say. "Excuse me. Has Aki Izayoi dueled yet?"
He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. "A fan of the Black Rose Witch, hm?"
"O-Oh," I say. "Sure. I guess. I like anyone who duels well."
He looks over me. Doesn't seem impressed. "No. Not yet. The stadium's on temporary lockdown. The last match ended with one of the contenders attacking the presidential box."
Even though I don't entirely know what it means, I say, "Sounds serious."
"Quite. Your Witch duels next." I flinch at the word 'witch.' "I won't be going easy on her."
"...you're dueling her?"
"It'll be an interesting match. Sure to be enjoyable."
"Right," I say. "...thanks." I turn tail and split down a hallway. Whoever that was… he was a creep. I hope Aki fares well against him.
The hallway is lined with doors, all unmarked, all the same. Where the hell am I supposed to start? What if Divine is behind one of these?
The only thing I can think of doing is stretching my mind out and searching for psychics—trying every door that I know for sure has a common person behind it, whether or not it's locked. For a while, I get nothing. But there are only a few unlocked doors, and even less with people behind them. It gives me hope that this'll be easier than I think.
At the very end of one hall, I open one door to find a hall full of bigger doors; almost double-door sized. There's one that I can sense has a person in it.
And, when I go to crack it open, there he is.