6
Afterwards, Tyson showed Kai his old Dranzer blade that he had been able to dig out of the coals. The metal had been twisted and warped, and the yellow bit was not only blank of any phoenix, but shattered from the heat. This blade would never spin again.
Ray and Grandpa Granger returned with empty hands, though not exactly dampened spirits. The old man nearly had a small party on seeing Kai up and about (sort of, since when he wasn't eating he was sleeping), and Kai had to put up with another Granger poking at his weak wings and making stupid obvious comments. After a night of heavy sleep, broken by binges of food which he ate in the pantry doorway, watching over the humming egg of Ayah, dawn broke over the Granger household ready to head out on another heavy search for Max. Ray and Tyson decided to trade for the day on Kai/Ayah watch (which annoyed Kai, as he had gained enough strength to walk just fine, thank you), when they were interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.
Max's blond American mother stood at the doorway, accompanied by Max's father, who had deep circles beneath his eyes.
"Where is he?" she asked.
Grandpa Granger blanched. "Max, ma'am? Uh-uh, that's what we're trying to find out—"
"Not my son. Kai. The only sense I can get from my husband is that Kai is somehow the reason you all know my Maxie is still alive."
Kai, who had been in the kitchen when this happened, quietly closed the pantry door along with the little chain lock on the front. He barely understood the onrush of protectiveness that rose in him and made him want to push Max's parents back out the door.
He had managed to somehow pull up his wings to his back when she walked in, all frazzled mother nerves and cool professionalism in one. She raised an eyebrow at the shirtless teenager who stared broodily back.
It took her a full five minutes of pointless chatter for her to figure out that Kai had wings and a tail. Kai couldn't help but wonder what else she had thought the mass of red feathers was. Some pointless cosplay? Because Kai Hiwatari was so into cosplay when his teammate and friend was lost at sea and his worried parents were over. Honestly.
When she reached out to touch them, however, he recoiled. Tyson, Ray, heck, even Grandpa Granger he could stand, but this woman he barely knew, half of the time of which she had been on an enemy team. Add to the fact she was a scientist who spent most of her time overseas studying sport rather than being a mother for her son or a wife and Kai seriously didn't want to see what she would do with this discovery.
"They're real," he said lowly. "Get over it."
Tyson and Ray fluttered in to explain between muttered affirmatives of her husband, but her eyes never left Kai. He began to wish fervently for a shirt—and for everyone to get out of the kitchen and away from the pantry. He didn't like people, and he avoided being around lots of them, more especially in close quarters. But he couldn't very well leave Ayah. What if the woman tried to stick her nails in or break it open? What if she tried taking Ayah with her for experiments or even try to get to Ayah to demand what she did to her son?
"So a girl sings," she said, one eyebrow as high and skeptical as an eyebrow could get. "And suddenly your team captain grows wings?"
"Not exactly—"
"It's a theory—"
But she broke over all of them with a low, closed mouth yell. She whirled on her heel, fists clenched. Her husband flinched horribly.
"This is—we could have been looking for Max. I can't believe you…"
And without another word, she stomped out of the kitchen and out of the house, her husband scrambling to give apologies to them and keep up with her at the same time.
Kai let out a breath as he heard the front door slam.
"Well, that could have gone worse," said Tyson, throwing his arms behind his head and leaning against the doorframe.
"Oh really? How? She might not even let us have anything to do with Max once we find him."
Grandpa Granger, who had been unexpectantly quiet during the whole exchanged, frowned. "Can't say I know what to expect in the wack you lot are in. I'd say we're on the beach team today, little dude."
Tyson wilted, but shrugged. "Better than nothing. Let's get going, Gramps. Got to find Max before she does, or else she'll call him the monster of the lagoon and toss him into a tank!"
"Uh, I find that unlikely, she is the Max-dawgs mom," but Grandpa Granger as he followed Tyson out the door.
Which left a very relieved, almost happy Kai and a quiet Ray alone in the kitchen. Kai returned to the searching of the bare fridge for food. Ray went to unlock the pantry door, not questioning why Kai had done it. Kai figured that, out of all the people who would understand why Kai had done something, it would be Ray. Though what that said about his feelings for Ayah, he didn't care to know. It wasn't like it mattered.
The quiet went unbroken for some time as Ray sat in the pantry, staring down at the metallic silver cocoon, and Kai munched on whatever he could find and thought about strategies of getting more food to the house. His wings were holding up to his back well enough. The bones of his wings seemed to have grooves or curves in them that made it easier to hold them up and folded, which did wonders on easing how he got around.
At one point, he turned to see Ray still in the same spot without moving an inch. That stilled something in him to something unpleasant and chilly, but he didn't know what to do about it, nor did he want to know more. So what if Ray was besotted with her? The whole team was. She was gorgeous, they were immature boys, and she made the perfect sympathetic tragedy. Some guys liked that.
But even Ray wasn't usually this quiet for this long. Kai sighed. He should probably say something. But it could have been Drigger too. Ray had two lost friends to worry about. Maybe he was just taking comfort from the knowledge that the pretty girl he liked would come out eventually.
"Hey…" he started.
But before he could think of what to say, Ray spoke up. "Something's wrong."
Frowning, Kai crossed the room and crouched in the doorway with Ray. The pod looked just as silver as before. Colors still played across the surface with each move of his head.
But then Ray rapped a knuckle on it, just as Tyson had. Instead of a clear ring, though, there was just a solid, dull tap. He rapped in several other places, but with each tap just made Kai tense tighter and tighter.
Finally, he stood. "I'm getting the hoe."
"What if we hurt her?"
"You think I like being carried naked and bathed by you lot? If I was that exhausted without having spent all my energy healing everyone, how do you think she'd be?"
Ray's eyes widened and the corner of his mouth pulled back and paled. "I should get it then—"
"I'm already up. Stay."
Even so, Kai hesitated at the back door. It would be the first time the light of day touched his new body. The dojo walls were high, no one would see him. But would it make it more real to feel the air and sunlight on his feathers?
Shoving those thoughts aside with his anxiety, he opened the door and marched out and around the house. A dull layer of clouds had drifted over the sky, devoiding the world of shadows. He found the short handled hoe not far from the remains of his own coal bed and headed back inside with it. He didn't hand it to Ray, though. The tiger had an injured arm, after all. Even weary as he was, his hand would be steadier.
Neither had to speak their apprehensions. They both knew they didn't know what they were doing. But they also knew they couldn't do nothing.
When Kai spread his hand out on the cool surface of the cocoon, the lack of vibrations reaffirmed his decision. Adjusting his hold on the hoe, he pulled it in and tapped the surface. It didn't break. He gave a heavier whack until he was sure if he hit any harder he risked chopping straight through, but it cracked. He gave a few more ginger knocks before Ray's arms darted in to pull away the shell fracture. Clear goo pulled back with it, revealing a plain of unmistakable pale skin.
They pulled at the rest of the shell with their hands. The odd substance started to liquefy once it hit the floor and eventually vanish.
Before long, wet hair and white feathers were revealed. His heart gave a painful jerk as her unconscious face was finally revealed.
"Ayah," gasped Ray.
Together, they lifted her up and out. Long white wings trailed out after her like a long cloak. As Kai had noticed in himself, she looked to have lost considerable weight. Seeing her ribs and the jut of a hip gave Kai something like physical pain.
And she was naked.
Ray's face went beet red, and even though she had gotten so thin, Kai couldn't ignore her still round, ample breasts and the round curve of her hips and rear.
"Oh…oh my…"
"Get a hold of yourself," Kai snapped, his own face hot. He told the same to himself. It was just a naked girl—a naked girl who need him to not act like a teenage boy for the first time in his life.
Since Ray didn't look like he couldn't decide on whether to keep staring or run for it, Kai was the one who pulled back the sticking strands of her slimy hair and felt at her white neck. A steady pulse pressed back, but even her neck felt like ice to the touch.
"She's alive, but freezing. I think I can see her chest moving. Best we do for her what you guys did to me. I'll help you get her to the bath, then I'll head out and start a fire—"
Ray was too scrambled to even protest to that. It took them both longer than it should have to figure out where to put their hands as they lifted her limp arms over their shoulders.
"We say nothing to Tyson or Max," said Ray.
"I thought that was a given," muttered Kai, staying very focused on the floor to the elder Granger's room.
"How can she look so appealing even covered in slime?"
"Are we really going to have this conversation?"
"Uh, well, I, uh…" Kai thought that would be it. On reaching the bathroom, though, Ray gave a funny little moan. "Oh god, it's getting hard to stand."
Kai stared at him incredulously, but instantly regretted it as it put him once more into the line of sight of the very naked pretty girl between them. So, instead, he snapped his teeth hard and stomped forward, forcing Ray into the cramp space and all but throwing the poor girl into the bath.
"Don't you dare do anything stupid," Kai snarled.
Ray's brilliantly red face twisted with insult. "Who do you take me for?"
"A teenage boy. You don't know how conscious she is, so just don't." Kai didn't add that he'd bash his face in if he even got a whiff of him touching Ayah inappropriately, but since that was an empty threat due to the fact that, unless he walked in on Ray in the act, he had no way of being able to tell if Ray had done anything nefarious.
It wasn't till he was outside on his way to the now very familiar wood pile that he realized he had no idea where the Granger's kept their matches. Instead of heading back inside straightway to start the search, he followed the sounds of splashing water to the outdoor stone oven that sat beneath the tub. Some wood had already been set up in a clean tower against the dojo's wall.
Kai crouched down, eyeballing the coals inside. Last time he didn't have matches, he had used his blade to start a fire. Dranzer was a spirit of fire. Didn't that mean he had become one as well?
He threw a log in, then hesitated. So…what now? And if he did do something, he wouldn't accidentally burn down the Granger dojo, would he? But if he could manage fire, it would be a lot quicker than searching for matches in the house that he may never find.
So, with a sigh, he closed his eyes and felt out himself mentally for any clue as to where to start.
It didn't take him long. A heat burned within him, spreading through his blood in a warm, steady thrum alongside his heartbeat. He recognized the touch of power that he felt whenever summoning Dranzer.
Breathe…
Practicing an old breathing training they practiced in the Abbey, Kai narrowed his focus and breathed all the way down to the depth of his gut.
Then he breathed out—
And tasted flame.
Side note, I wanted to hear your guy's opinion on something: would you care for an audiobook version of my fanfictions? I got a pretty sweet recording set up and I'm actually not that bad at reading out loud. I got loads of practice in reading to my 10 younger siblings and my husband. I could do it as a youtube channel or a free recording upload thingy on my blog or whatever.
Let me know what you think! You can send me a PM or just review to this. I plan on deleting this note once I've gotten your opinion.
