GO WILD

Chapter Seven: Fears x Feitan x Phinks

I am introduced to the Phantom Troupe as Safra Jung.

鄭 红花 in Old Gortese kanji.

As Gortese, our myths say we descended from demi-gods, but Safra was a name reserved for a real god. Not just any god but the bringer of light to Earth, to all that is seen and all that will be. Adorned on her head she dared to wear a gold crown even more ornate than the King's and every strand of her hair glowed like wisps of flame. It was by her light that the King conquered the three realms. But she was a spiteful goddess.

When the King snubbed her after his victory, she expelled him from his throne. By what authority of yours he decried and she banished him from the light. He'd wallow in darkness for eternity. When asked if she would take the throne she declined and said, what power would I gain that I don't already have?

When asked if she would grant the throne to another of her kind, she spurned them all. Out of spite, she chose a mere mortal and deemed the first Gortese Emperor worthy to rule the lands of mortals. She chose him as her first husband and from her body, came Gortese people. Again, as the myths say.

Literary terms, Safra means the color harmony in the sunrise. The vibrant reds, oranges, yellows that bedeck the sky after the world had plunged into darkness. It means beacon, the flash that stings your eyes at the end of the tunnel. That no matter how difficult, darkness never lasts forever. It means the moment you awaken, awash in pure sunlight, and you take a blissful breath thanking the world you are alive. It's uttered in many Gortese songs, poems, as a metaphor for endurance and the beauty that stubbornly blossoms even in turmoil. We will see Safra on the end of this arduous famine if only she deems us worthy, Gortese people used to say during the famine of my youth. Safra is such a Gortese name.

When I was born with my full head of copper hair and gray eyes my mother knew that for the rest of my life, I would hear remarks about how non-Gortese I looked. So she named me one of the oldest, most Gortese girl names in existence to assert my heritage forever and always. It is an ambitious name to give to a child, a tall order full of expectations for a half-blind bundle of screaming joy. It's risky, like naming your child beautiful when they could grow up looking like Quasimodo. Apparently, my grandmother and mother had decided on a more dainty name for the second daughter. But when I arrived, hair the color of 'sun rays' after what had been a difficult pregnancy for her, my often whimsical mother named me after grandiose morning twilight who rebuffed authority.

If my mom thought I was a pain in the ass to raise, she only had herself to blame. Plain and easy to contain like the ideal Gortese girl, I could never be.

I face the ten PT members and I can't even begin to reduce into words what the name from my late Gortese mother means to me. I hear Chrollo kindly try to say my name but with a hard stop at the f when you're supposed to blend it all together like a gentle ocean wave that softly crests in the middle. It affects nothing in the ten.

My name means nothing in Meteor City.

"It sounds like the word for 'sunflower oil'," says Blondie. And just like that, the intricate tapestry of my name is unraveled by the tiniest snip.

The exiled nine file back in with less fanfare than when they exited. Instead of glaring daggers (or gnashing their teeth) at me, they see Chrollo's poised, contemplative expression and are seemingly calmed by him. Even with less tension, their auras pool into the chamber and I am a penny in their midst.

Shalnark thumbs his phone and says, "Must have been interesting. Talked for more than an hour, ne?"

Machi surveys the chamber before pointing to the trickle of water from the pipe with a glacial blue eye curiously on me. "Is that your doing?"

Before I answer, Chrollo interrupts.

"For now, she's going to rest in her room until the sandstorm passes," he says.

"Wait," I say, pressing my palm to my bare neck. "What about my things? My wrench, my map, and my chain."

"Those will be returned to you," says Chrollo.

I take it upon myself, as a placating gesture to everyone, to wear Feitan's gloves again. My left hand is no problem, but working my fingers through the grooves of Feitan's heavy gloves agitates shooting pains in every joint.

"Don't you need those off to remove the nen from Phinks' wrist?" asks Pakunoda. I notice her revolver isn't conspicuously held in her hand now.

Once again, Chrollo saves me from answering.

"We'll sort that out later," he says. There is a distinct but why lingering in the air, but coming from him, they don't ask for clarification. "For now please take her back to her room, Phinks."

The cascade of cracking knuckles behind me makes me sigh.

Blondie (named Phinks—Don't worry, I think your name is dumb too) once again spares me no dignity as he grips my upper arms and hoists me up with no effort to transport me back to my room. He's not as large as Uvogin but his grip is like the jaws of a construction crane.

I'm weighed down by Feitan's gloves. At least they don't itch like wool without the heavy duty gray tape. Speaking of Feitan he shadows Phinks soundlessly like a shadow himself. After lounging in the high-ceiling chamber for a while, the hall feels almost claustrophobic with the sandy winds whirling only a wall away. Only two auras instead of ten yet those two are giant heat lamps and I'm a plant in a greenhouse.

Phinks holds me, my back towards him, while I face the hall and still the heavy reek of burned tar and tobacco punches me square in the nose. He smells like he demolished a whole pack while waiting for his Danchou to open the door.

My dad used to smoke a lot too. Gortese people used to smoke a lot because it suppresses the appetite. Mother hated it and always roasted dad when she saw the hand-rolled stick between his fingers. It soon became a habit of shame that he would succumb to in a fit of frustration or, after she passed, long empty nights when he missed her. I wonder what's the trigger for Phinks. Frustration or emptiness or something else entirely?

The smarter, more survival savvy side of me begs me to not utter a meep but I try anyway.

"I can walk," I say. "Put me down and I'll walk the rest of the way to my room."

A tighter pinch at my shoulders speaks his negation to my request better than words. The pain drills down to my dangling feet and I damn my shortness.

"Just let me walk. It hurts and it's uncomfortable."

"Like I care," says Phinks.

The sand cakes like mud against the thick glass window, making the time of day seem later than it probably is.

"What time is it?" I ask and it falls on deaf ears. Fine, I'll talk to myself. The day feels super long because I didn't get to see the sun go down yesterday. "I feel like I've been stuck here for three days."

"Twenty-three hours," says Feitan with exasperation as if he were counting every annoying minute of my unwelcome presence.

Excuse me, but I didn't drag myself in here.

Is that all? I wanna say with exasperation too. Probably the only thing I'll ever agree with these two.

I lift my awkward crab hands, my focus gravitating to the red and white skull on Feitan's collar. "Do you need these back? Since they're yours?"

Phinks' tone changes when he speaks to Feitan. "She doesn't get it does she?"

"Impossible, ne?" says Feitan. "You think because you spoke with Danchou that you're safe."

"What are you saying? That Chrollo is wrong and that I fooled him?"

Feitan's face already rests in a slightly irritated expression so all it takes is the slightest narrowing of eyes to change to menacing. "I won't forgive that."

Phinks' fingers bite into my robe and biceps like teeth and I pathetically squirm. "Who the fuck are you?"

"You don't get to call him by his first name," says Feitan.

I get it. I get it. It's a disrespectful call-out to their leader and it's a Japanese faux pas to refer to a stranger directly by their first name.

The pain thunders in my shoulders but in his vice grip, I can't even manage to close my hands into fists.

"Fine," I relent. "The Danchou of the Spider. He introduced himself by his first name when he told me about the Spider."

The two pause and all I hear are the sandy winds outside. Feitan's gaze is above me, at Phinks and the shift in atmosphere is palpable. Heat in the hall, but not the sticky humid natural heat, but like the concentrated blow of an oven. No killing intent radiates with Feitan's heat, only deliberation. Like how I can feel steam out of my ears when I'm thinking too hard.

I don't use mien but even uttered words would be redundant because their questions are obvious. What is Danchou thinking? What does he see in her?

And for the second time, I agree with the two. Why is Danchou interested enough to keep me around? The heck if I know. He thinks my ability can flourish but why does he care in the first place? What is in it for him? If only my ability, he would have snatched it, done deal. Stay at least for the sandstorm is a cover to ask for more time obviously. The Phantom Troupe don't ring me as the accommodating type. They would throw someone out into the sandstorm if they so fancy. So why does Chrollo need more time?

Now I can feel the steam puffing from my ears.

"What's going to happen to me?" I ask on a whim. "You know him. What does he want? The only thing I know is that he wants me to keep my ability."

"How do you reckon that?" asks Feitan.

"Because he tried to steal my ability. To save you, Blondie, but he changed his mind. Said my ability is better in my hands."

Silence save for the winds at the wall, which to me sound downright tepid compared to before.

"Did you use your mental ability to pluck that from his head?" asks Feitan.

"That's not what mien is. It's not clairvoyance."

Scratch that. For most schmucks like me, mien will never be more than meditation and sensing surroundings. Abiji had developed her abilities and concepts so that she could use mien to mind read. But she was in a godly tier, a level I'd have to sell my soul to reach. She was a true nen-user, a nen-master. Her teachers had birthed the concept of mien and she nurtured it, discovering peaks even the concept's creator hadn't fathomed. She's why I don't feel comfortable calling myself a nen-user. I and my poor nen skills are simply unworthy.

"He told me, out of free will," I say. "If I could read minds, I wouldn't be asking you two." If I were a praise-starved person, I'd indulge their misconception that I was so powerful. Again, that would falsely put me in the same ranks as Abiji and I respect her too much.

I can't see Phinks' gaze at Feitan, but in the same way you can feel someone staring at you from behind, I can feel his intensity.

Phinks' loosens his grip ever so slightly and my soles touch the stone. He still grips my shoulders but I'll take that over dangling like a carcass on a meat hook. Still in one piece I say to myself and take slow, calm breaths. My survival side rejoices. Something in my exchange was the right thing to say. The pace of my heart just begins to tee off when I notice Feitan studying me with narrowed eyes over the brim of his collar.

"Question." Phinks nudges me to get my attention and he asks with a quiet dreading sigh. "Did Danchou talk about the legs of the Spider?"

Feitan shuts his eyes, what I feel is a brace for impact.

I say the most inoffensive thing I can think of on the spot, "How his Spider only has eight legs but will have twelve someday once he finds more members."

I still struggle to picture a spider with twelve legs instead of the standard eight.

Though Chrollo never mentioned in Meteor City if Spiders naturally had twelve instead of eight…I shake my head, scrubbing the mental image of big, hairy spiders with. Too. Many. Legs.

Feitan snits and his hands bundle in his pockets, wringing the lining fabric of his robe. Standing so close to Phinks, I feel the deep snarl reverberate in his chest. A crack of his fingers as he jolts me up again off my feet.

What in the world set them off now? I wriggle to fight his hold but a firm squeeze kills the urge. My survival side warns me to watch my temper but I snarl, damn it.

"Quiet," says Phinks.

"I'll walk to my room. Put me down!" I try to stare Phinks down but I'm already a pipsqueak compared to him and from this angle, I can't catch his eyes.

Phinks doesn't listen, doesn't so much as twitch but Feitan approaches a single pace.

"Yada, we're doing something wrong because someone is still not scared." His downturned brows sink even deeper.

"Scared? Of what?" I snap, my temper flaring. My survival instincts throw hands up in the air. Blast it! I'm about to give up. Are you *trying* to get yourself killed?!

"You should be terrified by now," he says.

"I am very uncomfortable," I say, steadying my whole body. "But I am not scared."

"Then what scares you?" Feitan's sibilant voice reminds me of the giant hirsute Pig-Eater Tarantulas in Gorteau, also affectionately known as the Smiling Spiders. They rarely attacked humans, but they would hiss with a fanged smile, a face only an infernal creature could love. I have yet to see the mysterious bottom half of Feitan's face, but the infernal glint in his dark eyes is plenty for me. It's not a question at all, but a challenge: What will it take to petrify you, Safra?

"We spent the hour thinking," he continues. "Jump-scares don't get you. Uvogin would have frightened you earlier. Pain doesn't scare you. Pain makes you scream, but pain can make anyone scream. A frightened person would have tried to escape by now. But you sat in your room. Hmmm."

"You're gonna have to think of something more creative than jump-scares to get a rise out of me, Feitan," I say and it's the first time I utter his name.

I left my true fears in East Gorteau. I fear for two people in this entire world. No more. No less.

If Feitan ever needs a second gig, he should join my former East Gortese military prison camp. They had an isolated facility for new arrivals who still hadn't admitted to their crimes. There they'd push your buttons to rip apart every last bit of your humanity. They'd break your bones, twist your joints, tear your muscles, yank out your teeth, rip out your hair, drown you in subzero water, anything until you begged for mercy. Bawling and confessing with all your soul that yes you had conspired against the state.

My father taught me the most principled among us, those too proud to steal food, those too dignified to tarnish their name to save themselves from torture were the first to die. I survived in the land of heaven and hell where the real monsters dwell. These monsters, their torture, they causing my death does not scare me.

My mind is all over the place, Abiji would say right now. How can you think straight to save yourself when your mind is in shambles? Focus otherwise your opponents won't have to lift a finger to tear you to shreds, she would say, swatting me on the rounded tip of my nose.

Inhale and exhale. Close your body off and focus. Read your surroundings and your opponents. Even if they don't utter a single word, they will divulge more in their auras.

Despite the compounding pressure and pain in my shoulders, I imagine they are no longer part of my body. That I barely have a body anymore. My nen is my consciousness.

Like how Chrollo and how his tome yields to his will, the four walls, and their auras speak to me. They're cross with you, but they cannot kill you. You are at risk of bodily harm, but your life is in no danger.

Phinks' warning gruffs yanks me from my introspection.

"Oi, don't you dare try anything!" gruffs Phinks.

Exhale.

While I am good at mien 面 I'm no master. Abiji would be able to take double the physical onslaught, shouts from all ten of the PT and not flinch. She'd be able to read all those nen users like she could easily read a children's book.

"Is that the ability she used on Paku?" asks Feitan to confirm with Phinks.

"It's not an ability," I say. "It's a concept."

"Whatever you call it, don't start any more trouble," says Phinks.

"I didn't start any of this," I say. "You broke my hand and wrist."

Phinks flaps his lips. "I would have known if I had broken something."

"Sometimes you don't know your own strength," says Feitan.

"If she wasn't a Nen user, she would have lost her hand," says Phinks.

Feitan shuts his eyes as the shadows curtain over his features and I can't decipher how much he buys the explanation. Are they doing their thing again where they talk without speaking?

"Does that mean it was a test, Blondie?"

All he has to do is jab his pinkie fingers into my biceps to deliver his message. Understandably, he isn't fond of his nickname that I had accidentally uttered again.

"I wouldn't speak another word if I were you."

I am more livid than I thought. I'm antagonizing my captor and he's one flex away from his fingers skewering my flesh like a shish kabob.

"I wouldn't light a cigarette with that arm for a while if I were you," I say, half a warning, half a jab.

Phinks huffs like a teased bull but he sets his jaw.

Feitan slinks in front of us. A beam of burned yellow light from the window highlights green hues in his hair. It's not crow black like I originally thought, but a deep midnight green as if his tresses were sharp splits of fan palm leaves.

"Feitan," I say, peering down at someone for a change. I know enough Japanese to notice his grammar mistakes. Or at least he makes some of the mistakes I do. "Where are you from? The way you speak isn't quite like how others talk in Meteor City—"

Phinks digs his fingers in again and I picture the flesh separating from bone. "Don't ask him questions."

"Get it out of your system now," Feitan says to Phinks. "If we're right, you may not be able to snap at her for long."

"What is that supposed to mean?" I ask and Phinks enforces his demand that I do not ask Feitan any more questions.

My feet dangle. I could point my toe and still not touch the floor. This is super uncomfortable and at my every fidget from discomfort, his fingers press into my arms. "I can walk, you know?" I say. "I'll go to my room just let me walk on my own feet."

"Make another sound or fidget again and I will kill you," says Phinks with killing aura radiating off him so thick it could be sliced with a knife and served on bread.

Again, I blame the dehydration and hunger, but something stupid possesses me. Before I think twice, I lift my leg and then whack my heel hard into his shin. No matter how muscular or burly he is, human shins are all thin skin and bone without any muscle or soft fat to protect it from brute force.

He grunts sharply and I wriggle loose from his grasp. I lurch forward almost tumbling, but before the weight sinks into my foot, he captures my right elbow. Why did I think I could do this? I know how fast they are—

My fist clenches so hard my body shakes. I swing my loose arm to his face with all my might, a blur of red from Feitan's glove. Phinks doesn't blink or flinch. He reacts with precision as if he already foresaw each of my motions. This is all child's play to him. He captures my punch with ease too, with an arrogant whistle. The impact ripples through my arm before stopping in my chest.

My brain catches up. I'm still dangling. My right elbow in his left hand and my left fist in his right palm. I don't care what my mien said. He's gonna laugh at me, or kill me, or worse, laugh while killing me—

Phinks sets me down and I can't read what he's about to do next from his deadpan. He pulls on Feitan's glove and my breath hitches in my throat. My perspiring skin feels sticky in the warm hall as the glove slips off.

"What the hell are you doing—"

"Make a fist," says Phinks. "Like the one you just threw."

My fingers curl from years of practice into a firm fist.

I look ridiculous, posed with my arm aimed for his cheek. He notices the scar on my middle knuckle, the curl in my arm, the muscles tight in my bicep, my shoulder and hip turned into the swing.

"Who taught you how to punch?"

The portrait of the person plasters my mind but I shake my head. "Not telling."

"Mah, have it your way." He merely flicks Feitan's glove at me but to me, it's like catching a fired missile.

I hit the stone floor right on my tailbone. Despite all my restraint to not squeal earlier, I squeal like a pup from the pain. My vision bubbles from hot tears I immediately blink away.

"Both of you get it out of your system," says Feitan. "You won't be able to later."

I wince as I turn around and face Phinks and Feitan. Feitan, even on the shorter side, can loom over you as if he glowered from great heights.

"Well? Go ahead," says Feitan, hands lodged in his pockets. The veins swell in Phinks' jaw and I keep my pie-hole shut.

I slowly stand watching them, as if it would make any difference. By the time my brain processes them charging and cracking my head like an egg, I'd already be dead. I walk, albeit awkwardly, to my room, trying to mask my pain and embarrassment.

"It's still not too late to accidentally kill her," says Phinks, with humor I reckon.

"Dahmeh, no," says Feitan like he was swatting a child's grabby hand away from a plate of sweets. "If we were going to do it, we should have done it in the fields."

Only when I shut the door do I rub the smarting pain in my tailbone. I heave a heavy sigh and I never imagined I'd be so happy to be back in this dusty room. They, the Phantom Troupe are so exhausting to interact with. Even if Chrollo is bearable (and very pleasant to look at) those two alone are making me wish I could go and drown myself in the sand.

Sand blasts against the walls as if to say, don't even think about it, ya fool.

My survival side knocks with a vengeance and I hear the common voices of authority I disobeyed in my life, the loudest being my mother and elder sister. See? This is what happens when you, don't, listen to the voice of reason.

The door clicks, locking with a bolt as if that were capable of keeping any of them out.

"You don't think Danchou is going to ask her to join?" asks Phinks.

Feitan had kept his eyes peeled when she divulged some of the details from her talk with Danchou and could not spot a shred of evidence that she was lying. "It seems likely."

"But you saw," says Phinks. "She struggles to use her nen."

"I know," says Feitan with an irked tone of 'you're preaching to the choir'. The mask of nen that surrounded her face like a kendo mask, only visible when they used gyo, is undeniably one of her strongest points. Yet in the fields, her ten, the most basic of concepts, flickered like a bad light bulb. It was luck and spite that she managed to get Phinks' wrist in the way she did.

"You think Danchou knows that?" asks Phinks.

"You think he doesn't know that?"

"But then what is he thinking?"

Feitan didn't know. "What were you thinking?"

"Huh? Oh, you mean her punch? I can tell who was taught how to throw a proper punch, is all."

Mr. Hand-to-Hand Combat would appreciate something like that. If given the choice, Feitan would always choose a sword over empty-handed fighting. Though when they were younger, Phinks wouldn't relent in making sure Feitan at least knew the proper techniques to jab, straight punch, curl his arm, body stance, etc.

"And what are you thinking? About the challenge she issued?" asks Phinks.

You're gonna have to think of something more creative than jump-scares to get a rise out of me, Feitan. Whether she meant it as a challenge or not, she doomed herself to learn one of the core principles of the Spider the hard way.

"Do you have to ask?" says Feitan with a sly look of you already know where I'm going with this. "We are thieves. We steal."

"Ahhh." Phinks' chest swelled with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Jah, hurry up and fill me in before we get back to the chamber."

I had other plans for this chapter (sorry outline) but I absolutely *love* writing Feitan and Phinks together. I head-canon them as best bros that bring out the worst in each other and sheesh even during the short walk to her room they can't let up even the slightest. This scene was supposed to be much shorter but I couldn't resist. Geez, I've been so mean to Safra so far, but only because I think it's in character for various members of the PT to give her a hard time. I hope the boys are in character and I'm glad we could close on a mischievous note. They're currently colloguing to get a rise out of her and they're going to do it with one of the most fundamental principles of the PT, which I can't wait to write XD

Yep, the fable in the previous chapter is a real one, though less commonly known. I found it in one of my books and thought it would be a fun addition to the other chap. I'm enjoying adding tidbits in the opening of the chapter to touch on things very personal to Safra, before it was the fables and now it's her name and on the touchy subject of ethnic homogeneity in EG. The concept of 'foreignness' and feeling like an outsider I will write about in this story so stay tuned!

ALL MY THANK YOUS go to Wavywavy and Luminaaa for reviewing the last one! Week to week reader comments bring me so much joy and thank you for taking the time to tell me your thoughts! I loved reading your guesses on who is going to begin coaching Safra. Chrollo has one more thing to handle before Safra can begin her training montage. All will be revealed soon :D Your reviews provide a great litmus test for me to determine what you are noticing, what's overt or too subtle, who is shipping who and so on. I ask you to keep those eyes peeled dear readers! Again, pardon the long wait on this one and I hope it was worth it!