Warning: Beginning includes talk of death. Once again, the beginning section is set in the past and the following parts are in the present.

GO WILD

Chapter Ten: We x are x Thieves

So, my mother was a mortician. She was the eccentric funeral home lady of our bay town, which people thought was a somber and morbid profession for a young married woman with children. She was considered too energetic, too young and too pretty to be an undertaker. "Why not a school teacher? Or a nurse?"

She'd scoff at that with pert lips. She loved talking about death. How the body decomposed, the gases and excrement (random strangers always asked about corpse poo), and also death and spiritualism. Though Gortese shed foreign influences and religions, they're surprisingly open-minded to death of various cultural conceptions as a means of appeasing all to cover bases.

The only thing that can outdo Gortese pride is Gortese weakness for superstition.

I didn't understand the disapproval of my mother's choice of work. She would take a keen interest and open her mind to others and their idiosyncrasies. "Breathe life into death," was her mantra. "It's a purification."

An avid reader, she'd jabber for ages to us about death, the metaphors, the similes, the Gortese symbols and how they differed from the other Balsa islands and the Northern Continent. Human souls, ghosts, the undead, how the dead sometimes refuse to move on and never find peace. She liked being a mortician because she said it helped their peaceful passing. Respect the dead and respect their bodies lest they haunt the rest of your days.

She reveled at the living side of death. She'd assist grieving families write their eulogies, she'd watch the family politics unfold, whispered in the corners of the hall. She loved the weird requests and questions. An abiji had her foot amputated and approached her about having it buried—she said yes, got a nice casket for it and everything. A widowed man asked that she take out the unborn fetus of his dead seven-month pregnant wife and simply place it in her arms, upright. So their heads would be upright when they were cremated together. Said she wanted more than anything to hold and meet her baby. It was a very intrusive request but my mother obliged. She asked if he would like to hold his unborn baby wrapped in a onesie and set it in his wife's arms himself, Amari and I, in the next room, heard the man's choked weeps. A shy woman tried to bribe my mother to 'accidentally lose' the ashes of her mother-in-law—mother said a polite no to that one.

I've seen my fair share of dead bodies. Amari and I often helped dress the dead. Mother told us how the chamber works, how columns of fire dry, contracts and chars the skin, muscle and hair and calcify bones. The remnants of tooth fillings, screws, hinges, and metal implants she'd find on the chamber platform. We learned some body restoration techniques (molding fake ears and noses with latex) and even how to sew gaping mouths shut before family viewings. When things were quiet, we'd pretend to be the fanged undead rising from our coffins.

Looking back, that upbringing was so odd but I wouldn't have it any other way.

While my mother had reverence for the dead and the patience for the chaos of the living coping with dead that could rival a saint, she would spare none of that for us. Her dark, sarcastic sense of humor would come out in full force for her children. When she was shaky with fury at Amari and me for yet again disobeying her orders to not do something stupid and dangerous, she'd repeat her threat that if we died doing something dumb "No eulogies or funeral services for either of you. Straight cremation and I'll throw away your ashes with the chicken bones and corn husks. In fact, I won't shed a single tear."

Thanks ma.

May she rest in peace. She left far too soon. Among her final words she said, "wallahae, though I do not wish to die so young, I never feared death."

When she passed, we did the cremation. We literally ran the machine ourselves. Amari tied the sleeping Huan to her back and together we cleaned her corpse, clothed her in the traditional white linen. Instead of invasive sewing, I closed her mouth by tying a scarf through her hair around her head.

It is traditional for men to lower the body into the casket, but our father was mourning. He sat in our home, unresponsive to us as if he were dead himself. While men in our building offered to help, we refused. So as two little girls with no adult supervision or help we carefully lay our mother's frail body into the casket. (Well, Huan was technically there but he snoozed through the whole thing.) First her legs and then her torso. We took frequent breaks carrying her casket to the cremation chamber.

The cremation process took nearly two hours. Amari handed me Huan and she swept the ashes. She sealed them in a black matte brass urn. As a final token, Amari unveiled three precious pieces of mother's jewelry: a gold ring family heirloom, the laurel leaf crown she wore on her wedding day and the necklace she never took off.

"Keepsakes. One for you. One for me and another for Huan for when he gets older," said Amari. I saw Huan's blackhead of hair nuzzle into her shoulder. He snored gently.

"You should get the ring, Amari," I said.

"It's my favorite, but it should go to Huan. He can give it to his spouse one day."

"Then you take the crown, Amari. It will look beautiful in your hair."

"Oh Saf, that leaves her chain, which is the plainest. I expected to give you the crown."

I rubbed the thin gold chain between my fingertips. I undo the clasp and fumble with it around my neck until it locks. It sat in the hollow of her neck but on my young body, the charm hits my sternum. "She wore it every day and I'll do the same."

The sight of cotton candy hair and icy blue eyes stimulates my senses and work as a great focal point after Paku's disorienting Memory Bomb.

"Give it another second," Paku silkily reassures. Is it like when you're drunk but lack self-awareness of the severity meanwhile everyone around you can you see doddering about? I think I'm holding it together well but my senses are still bumping into one another: I can hear tart pink and taste a bubbly neon blue, which reminds me of carbonated raspberry drink.

I can definitely confirm standing toe to toe Machi and I are the same height, though the wild stray ends of her hair give the illusion she is even larger. She exudes a large presence, like everyone in the Troupe, it seems. I didn't notice in the chamber before (too busy focusing on the needles) that she, like Paku, has a nice figure, when you observe up close. Sure, she lacks Paku's plunging neckline. Her uwagi hides her curves well, but not entirely. She's got 'em.

Her downturned eyes, angular brows, and small mouth rest in a permanent bitch face. Still somehow made her dangerously pretty to look at.

Machi switches on the light fixture that I didn't even realize was there. The fading rainbow light from the stained glass blanches and the lengthening shadows on the statues shrink away. Finally, the color super-senses fades and I taste the after notes of tomato and green onion from my sandwich, not blue and pink is just the color of Machi's hair again.

"Sah, let's not waste time." Her eyes are level with mine. "Do you know your nen category?"

I remember Abiji's water divination test. The full cup of rainwater and the scrap of palm leaf. "Transmuter."

Metamorphose, as it more directly means in Gortese: change the nature of your nen to mimic a substance and its natural properties.

"Think of transmutation like shape-shifter beasts morphing their bones, blood chemistry to capture the image of another," Abiji said to me once. "Like Khaan the bird with snake scales and feathers who can morph his breath into ice and fire on its whim."

"I'm also a transmuter," says Machi. "As is Feitan. It should be him training you, but for obvious reasons we decided I should get you started."

I've already seen glimpses of Feitan's transmutation abilities, and surveying Machi from the tops of her spiky hair to the bottom of her cotton shoes, I wonder, what can she morph her nen into?

I think of Khaan the snake-bird, and internally giggle at the thought of Feitan 'breathing' fire, what a coincidence if Machi, glacial blues, could breathe ice?

The word 'training' gives me the urge to stretch. I give my limbs a good shake and dirt, sand, grime I don't recognize rains from my robes all over the stone floor. Sand peppers Machi's stark white shoes.

A curt sigh from her but before I could apologize for my faux-pas she says, "Or, you can go shower and change your clothes if you want."

She kicks her shoes, dusting off the dirt.

I pinch my robes and peek under my collar, seeing truly how the non-white the outside of my robes had become compared to its original prim white.

Change clothes? Before I can ask, what can I change into? Not exactly like I brought a weekend bag-Machi sizes me up with a tilt of her head.

"I can spare you some clothes. We should be about the same size."

"I'll show you a bath you can use." Paku leads me into the hall while Machi goes to fetch towels and clothes for me.

I note my room by the fracture line in the masonry near the doorframe because barring minuscule aesthetic differences, there are no signs, markings or door numbers to help distinguish which hall leads where.

Paku opens the third door to the left (in the same hall thankfully) and politely lets me in first with a slight smile that says she knows I'll be pleased with what I see.

My first instinct is to crane my neck to take in the high details but the washroom's ceiling is much closer to the ground, compared to the sky-high roofs of the cathedral and even my chamber. The grace of the bathroom suggests that it is a renovation. The azure ottoman style tiles, the checkerboard monochrome on the floor and a single person tub with a shower. In the hall, I leave a foot trail where my feet disturbed the layer of dust but in the bathroom, my feet squeak from its immaculate cleanliness.

Paku plugs the tub and turns on the hot water. "It will be full by the time you're done showering."

Machi returns with towels and two hangers of clothes. The ladies leave me be with the rushing water and the steam filling the small ceramic bathroom.

Just taking off my robes and untying my hair covers the black and white tiles with a layer of dirt and sand. I promise to sweep it up later. I cleanse with zeal three times, my skin and scalp tingling from minty soap. The spraying hot water feels like purification of the traumatic day. The water and suds discolor, murky as it whirls down the drain.

I soak in the tub and if the shower purified my outsides, resting in the hot water cleanses my soul and mind. The heat seems to sink into the marrow of my bones, softening my muscles, organs, and blood. Wallahae, I haven't relaxed in a tub like this since I was 17.

I eventually tear myself away from the tub, wrap myself with towels and gander at the clothes Machi brought. An uwagi but with sun yellow trim, long black trousers, and a burnt sienna obi belt. I can't stop petting the silk, watching the light cascade on the iridescent threads, scarlet in some angles, true orange in others.

I walk to my room, dressed but with my hair wrapped into a towel-beehive. I carry steam and the scent of evergreen mint shampoo, the closest I've smelled of real winter.

"Had a good bath?" says Machi without a hint of impatience. I still feel guilty for keeping her waiting. "Fix your uwagi."

My hair drapes like a curtain over my face as I unravel the towel. I flip the damp tresses over and finally peer down at my belt and uwagi. "Am I wearing it inside out? What's wrong with it?"

"Your sides are mixed up. Left goes over right unless you're attending your own funeral."

Truth be told, I had wrapped the right side over the left. I turn my back to her and fix it. "Is this a Japanese thing?"

Soft steps approach from behind. She pinches under my armpit at the excess of fabric. "Is it too loose? I can fix that."

I don't want her to go through the trouble. "I wouldn't call it too big. It's...breezy."

Her mouth refines to a pert dot. "Let me fix it. Hold this."

I obey and hold the extra fabric. There's a fingertip worth of excess.

Nen shrouds her whole body and as she runs her finger along the extra fabric, her warm vapory nen glides along my exposed arm, like a layer of steam. Her pupils shrink and she captures the image like a camera shot.

"Now hold still," she says. I hold but naturally become breathless as a statue as I watch the transmuter. From the pincushion with needles I likened to porcupine stingers earlier, she fabricates with a needlepoint a thread as neon blue as the street lights in downtown Zeoul.

"Nen stitches," she says, her nen charging in power, and she begins.

By the time my brain realizes the inhuman speed of her arm motions, the poking of the needle and the spirals of nen thread weaving into my uwagi she calmly says "there, done. Now for the other side."

With a resolute tug, she secures the spirals of thread into my uwagi, creating a flawless seam. Wait, where is the extra fabric? Did her nen eat it or what?

I hold my questions, figuring it best not to disturb her. I pinch the other side, determined not to blink and watch her work.

Blue flashes, like lightning, and the garment cinches into my waist.

"There, I'm satisfied with that," says Machi.

I awkwardly run my gloved hands along the new seam (seriously where did the extra fabric go?)

"What about those?" asks Machi, tilting her head again. "Your hands look like they're trapped in red bowling balls."

I don't doubt their bulkiness or their weight but they work. "Feitan wears them."

She gives a slight shudder. "Right. It's never a good sign if he conjures them. He can make the world burn."

I don't doubt that either.

"I'll make you new ones. Lighter and better fitting."

I let Feitan's gloves drop like bricks.

I just witnessed her use nen to sew but I hesitate to think just how she's going to make gloves out of thin air. After everything I've seen today, am I really that hard to convince that anything is possible?

"I know you don't like your hands touched, so," Machi says and extends her arms out and flares her fingers. "Hold like this and I promise I won't touch you."

I trust her and do as she asks.

Her perma-bitch face is compromised when she notices my livid right hand.

"What happened there?" Thanks to the shower and tub, my yellowy-purpley hand is also wrinkled which doesn't beautify its bruised state one bit.

"Blondie," I say.

Unlike Paku she understands the reference immediately. I appreciate her fatigued sigh.

"Anyway, hold still so I can start."

Once again I'm treated to the marvel of blue lightning flashes circling around my wrists, extending up the length and natural curling of my fingers, the threads taper around my fingertips and pad my palms. I watch hundreds or thousands of threads weave into zigzags, creating fabric literally out of thin air.

The neon blue burns my eyes but I don't blink once.

"Hai, there," says Machi. My hands are molten blue and the seams melt together and the nen seems to cool like smelted iron. The blue cools off into a matte black.

"What are you waiting for?" says Machi.

I flex my hands. What should I call this? Nen? Fabric? Whatever it is, it is softer than dough yet it flexes with my hands as smoothly as new skin.

Like with Feitan's gloves my nen nodes feel opened up until my wrist bone and from my wrist to my nails, the nodes are swept shut.

"Your nen nodes aren't shut, but forced into a state of zetsu."

I've heard that word before and can sort of guess what it means in this context. I figure it can't hurt to ask. "What's zetsu?"

Machi must have been thudded in the gut judging by the abrupt release of hot air. "Danchou wasn't joking. How well do you know your nen concepts?"

More perforated with holes than Swiss cheese. The annoying part is that I don't know nothing, Abiji gave me a start on all the concepts but to her dismay could not lead me to mastery. With nen a broad knowledge of all but mastery of none is virtually useless. "Spotty at best."

"Well, I knew what I was getting into."

I gather my hair into a damp ponytail and my gloved hand runs along my bare collar as I move my hair away. "Oh, Danchou said my things would be returned."

Machi nudges her chin. "Over there."

Set on the table next to my water pitcher and half-eaten sandwich are my things. I see my map, riddled with pen notes and my wrench and my neckcha—wait.

Nerves in my stomach, but I check the pile again. My map and my square wrench. No chain.

I check a third time and shake my map and wrench, hoping the chain would drop with a metallic plop. No chain.

Painful nerves and jitters drill all the way to my arms.

Machi's spiky shadow looms over. "Something wrong?"

I hold it together and take a composing breath, all marvel and relaxation, the good feeling I had spent. "Did Danchou give you these?"

"He gave the items to Feitan who then entrusted them to me, said I might as well hand them back."

Even as malleable as Machi's amazing nen gloves are, they still crack from how tight my hands ball into fists.

I'm not fast and I hate running and yet I flew across the structure. They are not in the grand cathedral but despite holy structure's vast size, I find them by their voices in the southern end. The halls and ceilings narrow the further you get from the grand cathedral, like arteries narrowing to capillaries. I face a shut door and all but kick it off its hinges.

My juncture with Pakunoda was for the purpose to demonstrate to her and everyone in the troupe that I am NOT a parakeet to upset in a cage so that I'd go careening loosely and yet now all I'm missing are the beak and feathers.

The chatter doesn't pause but the atmosphere changes, I know it, when I trudge into the lounge. A circle table with Nobunaga, Uvogin and Phinks reclining with a bored leisure I hadn't yet seen of them. A plethora of empty green cans that reek of cheap beer.

My new gloves crack when my fists tighten. "Where is it?" My Gortese inflections creep in with my emotion and the Japanese vowels and consonants roll like boulders down a steep hill.

A braying sound from Nobunaga that reverberates in his half-empty can, and a whoop from Uvogin, his plump lips rounded into an O shape.

"Where is what?" asks Blondie, throwing his arms behind his head.

"My chain."

"Beats me." A lie. Blondie is a horrid liar. And he's not trying to lie well.

"Do you even know what she's talking about Nobu? I sure as hell don't," says Uvo and I can't tell if he is being sincere, the way he scratches his chin looks genuine. "Why is she dressed like Machi all of a sudden?"

"One of you took it," I say.

"So what if someone did?" says a ghoulish voice behind me.

We're in an enclosed space so the rush of wind at my feet I recognize to be Feitan's superhuman gait. I turn around and meet poison purple eyes and his trademark skull and crossbones collar.

"Heeeeh," hums Shalnark, haphazardly balancing a fresh batch of green cans that could tumble from his arms at any moment with the slightest mistake. "Someone's angry and exuding some intense murderous aura. Ohhh, Safra is that your murderous aura? I didn't recognize it but wasn't sure, ya know? Your face is still quite stoic despite your pungent bloodlust."

Have you ever been told to never tap the glass of a fish tank because it's torturous for the fish swimming inside? Shalnark is that asshole kid rapping on the glass, observing the disturbance from his bewildering tap.

"Where is it, Feitan?" If he so chose, my head would be rolling on the ground before I see him untuck his pocketed hands, yet my feet are rooted with conviction to the ground.

Only the slightest indication of movement comes from his words billowing like velvet against his collar. "We are thieves. We steal. When we want something, we take it."

I stick two fingers between the tight gap between my wrist and the hem of my glove and start to peel it off—my hand flies on its own.

Blue nen strings and a needle cut into my arm, conducting it like a marionette.

"Don't you dare take that glove off."

I see Machi. Judging by her sharp gaze, and her threads sharp as a sword against my skin, it would be unwise for me to argue.

"Drop it for now, Safra," she says.

Shalnark sidesteps Machi's threads in the door frame. Feitan, a ghoul if they so exist, breaks the standoff with me and stalks by with Shalnark.

The uncanny sensation of being watched beckons me to pause and turn. I meet gazes with Feitan and Phinks and I just know my chain from my late mother is hidden in their clutches. The jitters now drills down my thighs and only because Machi is by my side I dint turn around and break all hell.

"Don't pick fights with the enhancers," murmurs Machi once we move out of earshot. "Or anyone for that matter. It's against the rules."

"I wasn't starting a fight."

"Yes you were," she says. "You nearly broke and gave them what they wanted."

"They want to fight me?"

"Maybe on some level, but they want to get a rise out of you."

"Well, I know one of them is hiding my chain," I say. "Blondie or that ghoul over there."

"And?" she says with a harshness that cuts like her nen threads. "You expect them to give it back to you because you marched over there?"

Honestly, no but I couldn't bear to do nothing. "I thought they weren't allowed to antagonize me anymore. I may not be a member but aren't we supposed to be comrades?"

"They are comrades," Machi says dryly.

I know I'm bringing too much Gortese context to the word comrade. To me, comrade means countrymen, precious friends you cannot lose, and the family you choose. If these bandits steal amongst each other and comrades than I dare not think of what befalls those they consider enemies.

"There is a truce," she adds. "Despite some bad friction, but they can't and won't harm you."

"What about my chain?"

"Don't worry. It's the item of jeopardy. They won't destroy it or hock it. Getting a rise out of you is more valuable than the literal value of your chain."

I am still nettled from my outburst. After holding my composure amazingly well for a person under my circumstances, I show how fragile I really am.

"It's an unspoken rule that whoever you brings to the Troupe, you bear the responsibility for them. You joined because they brought you here. So they won't go easy on you," says Machi. "It may not feel like it right now, but they're treating you like an equal."

"Equal?"

"What Feitan said: We are thieves. We steal. When we want something, we take it."

What does that have to do with me? "They can't just do that."

Machi rolls her eyes back. "Those two would. I wouldn't, not to make the point."

"What point?"

"I already told you, loud and clear: when we want something, we take it. What you do with that information is up to you."

Silence, not even the sandy winds whirl outside. I touch my bare neck. So to get it back, I have to steal it back. From those two. How in the nine hells am I supposed to manage that?!

Machi must have seen the steam puffing from my ears and while I'm not feeling particularly optimistic, her following words I interpret as a helping hand offering to pull me from the slumps.

"Now, if you want some semblance of a chance, let's get to work on your nen."

AN: So that's the initiation plan. Safra has to steal her keepsake back and it's an unenviable position. Despite the chapter name, the majority of this chapter was 'look at how cool Machi is with her nen'. If she can sew nerves, muscle, and skin back together, tailoring an uwagi should be no sweat for her right? Like I did with Safra's ability, I'm gonna play around with the troupe powers. Strength is cool an' all but I enjoy how it's a power/magic system that flourishes with creativity. If I had an ability, I'd pick a non-combat ability like Ghost Writer that would take my bad drafts and edit them until they *sparkled* with Pariston sparkles. If you pick a nen ability what would you choose ;)

SINCERE THANK YOUS to WormwoodSand31033, Pat. Abreu, AwkwardBlackCat and Guest for reviewing the last update! Y'all are spoiling me and each of your comments make me giddy with excitement and I was stunned by the turnout. Reply to guest: I'm planning on at least one other troupe pairing ;) Thank you! Glad you're enjoying it :)

I asked last time about favs I worry if I share my favs it will spoil *all* so I'll just say what I like about particular members :D Machi I love for her cold but softie persona. Her power is so versatile and unique and I love her character design. I also enjoy how she cooly turns down all of Hisoka's advances XD

I'm happy no one disliked the longer length of the last chapter because buckle up readers, this story gonna be long ^^; We haven't even gotten to the Chrollo's caper and the main villain of this fic ;D But do not despair, all will be shown soon. Til next time!