Chapter 10: Picnic Part 2
I whipped around at the sound of my name and my pole flew out of my fingers in my abrupt movement.
"Ginkie!" the voice repeated, "What're you doing out here, huh? Wow, it's so cool how we're always bumping into each other! We've probably set a world record or something!"
Yu? What was he doing here?
The small blond rushed forward to give me the usual: a suffocating hug, endless giggles, and plenty of rambling.
"Wow! Yo-Yo, Ben Ben, and Masumoomoo are here too! Oo and there's Madoka!"
Masumune and Madoka had joined us by now to greet the hyper blader. The reactions to Yu's infamous nicknames were varied: Kyouya growled, Masumune didn't look any different, and Benkei just appeared plain confused. Dad's face was the most priceless though; he was absolutely shocked to find a four-year-old alone in the woods,
"Young man, what are you doing out here all alone?"
Yu just smiled ear to ear,
"Isn't it obvious? It's because we-"
"We came to fish," a voice interrupted.
The seven of us turned to our left to witness Tsubasa standing high in a tree above us. His nearly glowing eyes shone emotionless and his long hair blew softly in the breeze that wafted by in our silence. As if on cue, he flipped forward and landed ninja-style on the ground in front of us, not crunching a single leaf.
It was as if he had been doing it his whole life.
"Sorry about the confusion," he continued, facing my father, "Yu tends to wander off sometimes," he turned to Yu, "do that again and there's no ice-cream next week."
"Oh man!" Yu crossed his arms and sulked openly, "I blame Ben-Ben."
Benkei, offended, narrowed his eyebrows at the younger blader,
"Huh! What did I do?"
"It's more like what you didn't do!"
"Wha-! Bu-bull, what didn't I do? Man, you're such an annoying kid!"
"And you are the reason I probably won't get ice-cream next week!"
Father just gaped at Tsubasa and Yu both like they had gone mad,
"And you are-what, six years old? What are you two doing out here alone?" he threw his hands up in the air, "Whatever happened to adult supervision!"
"Well you see Mr. Hagane, in the early 20th century-" Masumune began.
"That was rhetorical," Dad face-palmed.
Without answering my dad's question, Yu jumped forward and pointed excitedly at my fishing pole,
"Are you guys fishing with poles? That's so cool! It looks a ton easier too. Can I try? I wonder what it's like."
"You don't fish with poles?" I looked over both Tsubasa and Yu; neither was carrying a fishing pole, "How do you fish then?"
"With our hands of course!" Yu laughed as if I was an idiot, "How else would we fish!"
"I'd like to see that," Dad had regained his composure, "Because we don't have any extra poles, unfortunately."
"That won't be necessary," Tsubasa calmly told him, "Let's show them Yu."
"Okay!"
"Necessary?" Father said to himself, "What six year old uses that word?"
The twosome pulled their shoes off and left them at the trunk of a nearby tree before rolling up the cuffs of their pants.
"You need to roll up your sleeves too," Tsubasa instructed Yu, "I don't know why you wear long sleeves in the warm weather anyway."
"They're trendy!" Yu argued, but he compiled to let Tsubasa roll his sleeves up to his elbows. After they were all suited up, the older lead the younger straight into a shallow part of the creek where they stood as still as time itself.
"How are they going to catch a fish like that? Are they pretending to be statues?" Benkei whispered in my ear.
"I don't know, maybe they're waiting for the right moment," I responded, eyeballing the two young fishermen.
Madoka had pulled out her computer, recording the event with the built in video camera. I thought she only recorded bey battles, but apparently she studied other science related things as well. Crossing his arms over his chest, Kyouya watched in a quiet attentiveness, while Masumune and Dad had their hands on their hips, equally interested.
Without warning, Tsubasa's head jerked to the right and he reached into the water with nearly inhuman reflexes and speed. With a splash of crystal water, he pulled out a handsome sized bass about the length of Father's arm. Likewise, Yu swiftly reached down and pulled out a small trout around the length of Dad's hand.
"Aw! I only caught a dinky one!" he complained, making a displeased face at his catch, "You always get the big ones, Tsubasa!"
Ignoring his companion, the older held his large fish by the tail and inspected it carefully before holding it out to us onlookers,
"That's how you do it. This bass is good for cooking too."
"Amazing!" Madoka remarked, fingers flying over her keyboard, "They were both able to pull a fish straight out of the water using only their senses!"
Astounded, Father's fishing pole slipped out of his hands and he froze in amazement,
"H-how did you two-"
"I wanna learn to fish like that!" Masumune tossed aside his pole, threw off his shoes, and joined the more experienced fishers, "I'll bet that I can catch a bigger fish than all of you too," he added, smirking.
"Oh no you don't!" Benkei's coffee brown eyes lit up at the competition, "Kyouya'll crush you easy! Right Kyouya?"
The older blader was quiet this whole time, but now his eyes glowed with the same excitement as Benkei,
"You're on, Masumune."
"I-I'd like to learn too," Madoka timidly spoke up, standing next to me, "There's nothing sharp involved."
"I second that!" I joined in.
"Yay! We have students now! Tsubasa, we're like teachers!" Yu cheered, "Can we teach them all? Please! Please! Please!"
"Alright then," Tsubasa motioned to our feet, "Take your shoes off and roll up the cuffs."
"But, don't you kids want to learn how to fish with poles?" Dad seemed a little hurt.
"Maybe next time, Dad," I assured him.
He just frowned and watched as we tried to catch the slippery animals.
"You have to be very observant," Tsubasa instructed us, "If you are, things will become clearer."
All seven of us Kindergarteners stood in the creek, watching for the fish to swim by. We had to stand as still as possible so we wouldn't scare them off.
"This is hard," I peered into the water, trying to detect any movement or color, "I can't see anything!"
"I can't either," Madoka agreed, searching as intently as I.
Just then, there was an abrupt splash and on the spur of the moment, Kyouya had caught a bass between the size of Tsubasa's catch and Yu's.
"That's my Kyouya!" Benkei gushed, "He can do anything after seeing it only once!"
The forest haired boy just shrugged it off like it was nothing and handed his prize off to Dad for keeping, before joining us once again. I marveled at his skill; what would it be like to do anything after seeing it only once? I could watch someone juggle fire and then do it with equal skill. Juggling fire! Cool! That's something you don't see five year old's doing everyday! Or maybe I could watch a professional surfer on TV and then perform at the beach or even-
"I caught one!"
Masumune had this big cheesy grin on and he held out a trout a bit bigger than Yu's. "In your face, Ginka!"
Okay that was it.
Now I had to catch one.
Putting my thoughts of fire juggling and surfing aside, I put all my energy into locating a fish-and it had to be bigger than Masumune's. The water rippled non-stop, distorting everything beneath the liquid. I reached out a couple times, but I only managed to catch a couple wet, slimy rocks. Was this even possible? Bothered, I tallied up the fish that every one had found so far. Tsubasa had caught five more, Kyouya: three, and the rest of them had caught at least one, save myself and Madoka. Having gathered my information on the current standings, I returned to the busying task of finding my fish once more. The warm sun beat onto my back through the trees and caused the water to reflect the light into my eyes. This only made it harder to see. Maybe I couldn't catch the fish with my hands after all? Dad was still willing to teach with the pole, but then again-
Wait.
The flick of a grey tail…
The sound of a small splash…
The feeling of movement near me…
Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed a trout hastily. Its multi-colored scales reflected the sunlight and cast little circles of light on my blue Bakugan shirt and the fish squirmed desperately, attempting to return to the water. I just stared at it in disbelief, until I became aware of Tsubasa standing over me,
"That's a rainbow trout," he pointed at my catch, "Their scales are really colorful and pretty. Nice work, Ginka."
Glowing, I handed my precious fish over to Dad, who put it in the bucket with the rest of them.
"Good job, Ginka," he smiled at the fish, "Wow look at those scales-how beautiful!"
At the end of it all, Masumune beat me: 2-1, but everyone agreed that I had caught the prettiest fish. Plus it didn't really matter, at least Kyouya beat Masumune with an outstanding 5 to 2.
"I let him win," the panda loving blader lied, "Even the 1# blader has to let someone else win sometimes."
"Uh huh," Benkei and I just nodded like that was true.
Together, we all caught 20 fish, with Tsubasa catching 8 more than his first, Yu finding 1 more, Benkei caught 1, and Madoka wasn't able to get one.
"It's okay," she said confidently, "I'll try again next time."
Dad nodded at the bucket that was nearly overflowing with our fish and he counted them out twice,
"I have to hand it to you kids, you had a real nice fishing session, even without my mad skills. This'll make an excellent dinner tonight. For now, though, let's leave them here in this bucket and I'll clean them after our nature walk."
I forgot to mention, Dad didn't catch one fish with his pole and he seemed a little upset about that, but he was cheerful nonetheless.
"Wow that was really fun!" Yu bubbled, "But I don't want to eat Ben-Ben's; it looks like it ate too much, I mean look at the stomach."
In wonder, I looked at Benkei's fish. It did have a bloated appeal, but that usually made for a more tasty fish.
"What is with you!" Bull Boy glared at Yu and put his hands on his hips, "What did I ever do to you?"
"Ben-Ben, you're so clueless!" Yu laughed at him, "Oh well. So! When are we going to do that nature walk thing? Because that sounds fun!"
Father opened his mouth to answer him, but before he could speak, a shadow covered the sun for a moment and we turned to figure out what had cause the blockage.
"An eagle," Dad mused, pointing upwards.
Sure enough, there was a tiny eagle, small enough to rest on my shoulder, soaring freely in the cloudless sky. The mixture of brown and white feathers contrasted attractively against the yellow of its beak and its golden eyes were intelligent and bright. Upon seeing us, it reached out his strong talons and headed our way to land. I freaked out that it was going to attack me, but to my surprise it landed on Tsubasa's shoulder and let out a tiny, but powerful cry.
"Glad you could join us," the golden eyed boy told the bird, reaching into the fish bucket to hand it a small trout. The feathered creature snapped it up in a jerkish manner and swallowed it whole, grateful for the meal. Yu looked like he was about to complain but Tsubasa assured him that he had caught the fish.
"Woah, is that your eagle?" I asked, curiously.
"This is Aquila," he explained, "he's been with me for awhile."
"You have your own eagle?" Father questioned, "Is that even legal? And besides that: where did you get him? We're in Japan for goodness sakes! Don't they originate in North America?"
Before Tsubasa could answer, Madoka stepped forward and slowly reached out to the bird,
"Can I pet him?"
"Go right ahead."
Hesitantly, she reached out until her hand made contact with Aquila's head. He accepted the gesture and bent down so she could pet him more effectively.
"He's soft!" she exclaimed happily.
"How did you do that?" Yu was fascinated with Madoka's ability to pet the animal, "Quilly hates it when I try to pet him. In fact, he usually gives me this evil stare and sometimes he snaps!"
At 'Quilly', the eagle's head sharply turned to face Yu and his eyes fixated unblinkingly on the blond for a few moments.
"See!" the young boy pointed, "He's staring at me! Dumb bird!"
In response to Yu's insult, Aquila gave a warning snap, shutting the child up, then went back to nuzzling Madoka's hand.
I tried not to laugh at the scene.
Unfortunately, Benkei couldn't keep it in and his chuckling turn to full blown chortles in seconds,
"I think he likes you, Yu! It's probably that nickname you gave him, it's just so fitting!"
'Quilly' snapped at the bull blader promptly, quieting him as well.
"Nah I think he likes you, Ben-Ben," Yu laughed.
Eventually, Aquila let out one last call before plunging back into the sky. I watched as he glided effortlessly out of view and for a moment, I wished that I could fly.
"Man, I really hate that bird," Yu announced, once the eagle was out of sight.
"Yu, I've explained this before," Tsubasa placed his hands on his hips, sighing, "Aquila doesn't appreciate nicknames. And I don't think he liked it when you plucked one of his feathers for that hat you made."
"But I asked him nicely!"
"What about the time you modeled your line of ice cream bows on him?"
"I thought he enjoyed that!"
"And when you called him a parrot, named him Polly and fed him the cracker?"
"How was I supposed to know he was an eagle named Quilly?"
"My mistake for asking," Tsubasa held his forehead in annoyance.
"On that note!" Dad interrupted, "Let's head out on our nature walk!"
He really wanted to teach us something and since the whole fishing thing had failed for him, Dad was eager to go on this walk.
"Yeah baby!" Yu jumped and followed my father energetically. The rest of us trailed after them, enjoying the nature around us.
"Alright! First, I need a little background on you lovely tourists," Dad mimicked a tour guide as much as he could, right down to fast tone, "So, would you mind if I asked a couple questions?"
"What kind of questions?" Benkei was the first to answer, "Like, our favorite color or something? Because my favorite color is red."
Oh that made sense. I remembered that bull-fighters used red blankets to attract the bulls only to whip it away. Weird…
"No, I was thinking more along the lines of whether you believed in the existence of Phoenix's or not, but favorite color's good too," Dad told him, "So, do you guys believe in Phoenix's?"
All of us said no, except for Masumune who gave a confident, "Oh course!".
"Yes! Finally some kid with common sense!" Dad fawned, high-fiving the unicorn lover, "And these kids don't acknowledge the Phoenix's existence!"
"I know right! Shun the non-believers!"
"Shun!"
"Um, Dad?" I began, pointing at something ahead.
"Son, you're not going to change my mind. Phoenix's are definitely real."
"No, that's not it-! Dad-"
"Don't even; I know you don't believe this obvious truth."
"Mr. Hagane! Look out!" Madoka cried.
"Wha-?"
"BEAR!" Yu shrieked, pointing to a huge animal three times taller than Dad, towering over us with an angry expression on it's face.
"D-do you think he believes in Pheonix's?" Dad asked, shakily.
"I d-don't think he has a b-belief on the subject," Masumune replied in a tone just as unsteady.
"Bu-Bu-Bu-Bull! It doesn't look like that's on his top ten list of things to worry about!" Benkei yelled, eyeing the beast's sharp fangs.
And just when things couldn't get more complicated, Kyouya pulled out a familiar object and pointed it straight at the bear's stomach,
"Let it Rip!"
Surprisingly, this whole picnic thing is taking me longer to write than I thought it would...
Man, there's a whole other chapter to type up! :D. Well, as usual, I have a few notes on this chapter.
1. Okay, so I know that Tsubasa directly calls his eagle, 'Eagle' once (I think...), but since they switched 'Aquila' and 'Eagle' with the name of his beyblade, I thought I just do that with his eagle so it actually has a name. Meaning, Tsubasa's beyblade is 'Earth Eagle' and his actual eagle is 'Aquila' XD.
2. Another eagle note: They really do originate in North America (at least Bald Eagles do) so I thought it was really weird how Tsubasa has a bald ealge in Japan :D, but that's really irrelevent and kinda random. Sorry 'bout that!
I think that's it for now! Thanks for putting up with this outro again :P. I'm almost back on schedule again with this story! (Yay!)
Until next chapter! :)