Chapter 22- Sharp Shooters
Every one of Riku's senses were on high alert as he took each step as quietly as he could with the extra weight of the kid. The buildings around him were the same style as those in the old man's village, and almost equally as run down. The mountain's shadow fell across the houses blanketing them in evening, even though it wasn't time for stars yet. Not even the rustling of animals could be heard.
Something wasn't right.
Riku carefully used his foot to push at the door of a more stable looking house. It creaked open to reveal a one room cottage with a table, lopsided because of a broken leg, and a single bed. Stepping inside, Riku could smell a layer of dust covering the surfaces of the furniture. He closed the door gently behind him and spotted a kitchen with a wood fire stove and a kettle on top. He placed the kid gently on the bed, noticing that his sweat had increased dramatically.
"Hey," Riku said, nudging the kid in the cheek. It felt hotter than one of Natsu's fireball "Hey, wake up. What's your name?"
The kid moaned in response, turning over to face the wall.
"You're sick, kid, I don't know how you managed to avoid that guy," Riku said, standing and stretching as he looked around the cottage. He didn't like the idea of staying so close to where they had just had a confrontation, but this kid needed rest and there was a bed here, even if there wasn't much else. A stove, a bed, a broken table, and a cupboard above the sink. That was all the cottage had to offer. Riku sneezed. And dust, he thought as he moved over to the sink and turned the tap slowly. It creaked to life, spluttering out a few drops of water at first, before running a clean stream. Riku leaned in and watched it carefully before sniffing it. It was clean.
"Maybe there is underground water," Riku muttered to himself. He looked back at the kid who hadn't moved or made any noises. With a sigh he opened his bag and dug around for his first aid kit. A wellness potion would be nice or maybe some kind of cooling pack. There it was! His finger caught on something as he pulled at the cooling pack, out came the satchel filled with always-frozen ice and with it came the bag of peppermint tea.
"Okay kid, I'm Riku," Riku said gently taking hold of the kid's shoulder and pulling him onto his back. The kid's eyes were closed, his skin pale. Riku placed the cooling pack on the kid's forehead, who shivered at the change of temperature before letting out a sigh of contentment. His breathing deepened as he fell asleep.
"You're way easier than some of the other patients I've known, that's for sure," Riku observed with a chuckle.
He moved to the window and pulled the curtains closed, just to be safe, then went to the table. With a swift kick he knocked the lopsided leg & a sturdier leg off. With some quick movements of his sword he smashed the lopsided leg into smaller piece, chucking them into the stove. He lit it with some flint in his bag and filled the kettle with water and peppermint leaves. It took a while to heat, but it was enough time to find that the cupboards had some cups and to use his magic to whittle the sturdier leg on one side, creating a slope. He jammed the bottom under the door and lightly pulled at it. That would give them some additional security on the off chance that the troll returned. He heard the water bubbling and poured it into one of the cup he'd found before bringing it to the kid.
The kid accepted it silently, his eyes unfocused as he sipped the tea. Then, he handed the cup back to Riku and fell back on his back, asleep almost instantly.
Riku leaned against the bed, his head falling back, feeling his own sense of exhaustion from the travels of the day begin to weigh on him. He let his eyes trace the ceiling lazily, sword next to his hand (just in case) as he contemplated the few times he'd had to play nurse. There was the time Mystogan got food poisoning from a client's cooking. Riku had warned him that the food didn't smell right, but Mystogan had insisted it was impolite not to take it. Luckily, he could make the clients fall asleep long enough to use their medicine, but running around the client's house trying to find everything they needed to make the mage comfortable in the restrooms was not easy and cleaning up after was worse. When they were fifteen Erza caught the flu, which was a surprise. She was only obnoxious because she refused to admit she was sick at all until a punch from Natsu made her stagger back (much to Natsu's joy). She'd knocked him silly after that, but at least it forced her to accept the soup Riku was trying to convince her to eat (as well as the medicine he dropped by Fairy Hills later via Cana). He offered to sneak in, but she was always such a stickler for the rules. The worse was definitely Laxus, even with just a cold he was such a cranky baby about it! It took Mira, Riku, and Erza holding him down for Master to give him the medicine he needed. Of course, that was all a long time ago. None of them had gotten sick for a while now.
Riku's eyes flew open at a sound outside.
Looking quickly around he realized he'd fallen asleep. For how long? He wasn't sure, but the empty village suddenly had life in it- Riku could smell and hear it, very faintly. He moved silently to the window, tilting his ear up to hear anything he could, but it was still too distant for him to catch anything other than a few words: mage, kid, some cussing. There was the sound of a crash as a window a few houses down was broken. Who ever was here was trying to be heard now.
Riku looked back at the kid. He was sleeping soundly, his empty cup dangling from his hand off the bed. Were they here for him? He was causing Riku a lot of trouble for such a small fry.
Riku froze as he heard the voices approaching now, loud enough to be heard.
"Doesn't look like anythings here," sighed a female voice. "Another wild goose-chase from Feco."
"No one's lived here since the Great March," agreed another woman's voice. "Even less likely that they'd be a mage. All the mages are accounted for and either work for us or have fled."
"I swear on my life," Feco growled.
"He swears on his life," the first woman repeated, a smile in her voice.
There was the sound of gunfire and the iron smell of blood filled the air. A body fell to the floor.
"What a waste of magic bullets, Solita."
"What a waste of time, Anya. I'm bored, let's go find some fun."
Riku waited until the sound of their footsteps and smell of their scents left the village entirely before sliding down the wall and staring at the kid asleep on the bed. He rolled over as if nothing had occurred. Was this a normal situation in the Kingdom of Seven? Riku gulped. They'd leave tomorrow, even if he had to carry the kid the whole way.
...
The next day, Riku woke up to water splashing on his face. Spluttering in response, Riku grabbed his sword and leaped into a fighting stance, only to find the sandy haired kid looking at him, the cup still in his hands. At least he was well enough to get up and get water, as well as look embarrassed at waking Riku up in such a manner.
"I'm Gabriel," the boy said, moving to the sink and filling the cup again, this time using the water to rub the dirty off his face.
"Riku," Riku replied. "You lived here?"
Gabriel refilled the kettle and put more peppermint tea in before turning to Riku and nodding. "I did before the Great March."
"That's the second time I've heard that name. Mind filling me in on what this Great March was and why this village gives me the creeps?"
"Well, from what I always heard from my pa, we use to live in the valley, but when the current ruling family took over we got chased into the mountains because they saw us as enemies of the state. This village and a few others helped house people like us, but then the soldiers found us and they took everyone on a Great March all the way to the capitol without food or water. If you fell down, they killed you. If you lagged too far behind, they killed you. If you cried, they killed you. A bunch of other people were executed when they got to the capitol."
"What made you enemies of the state" Riku asked, pulling some snacks from his bag and handing them to Gabriel. Gabriel blinked, confused. Riku smirked, asking, "you never had a snack before?"
A grin broke across Gabriel's face, showing a gap in his front teeth. "Some of the villages up here had mages and after the civil war any mage was either with the new ruling family or against them as enemies of the state. A bunch fled and even more got killed."
"Yeah, I guess people who want to keep power don't normally like other people who could be a threat. Did you go on this march?"
"I didn't go, my pa and I have a friend near here. He hid me."
"So why'd you come back?"
"I was looking for someone for my friend."
"I'm looking for someone in these mountains too,"Riku said. "Have you heard of a Master Rikyu?"
Gabriel's face lit up. "Sure, that's my pa and my friend!"
"Will you take me,"Riku said, putting the rest of his supplies back in his bag and throwing it over his shoulder.
"Of course," replied Gabriel, pouring the tea into the cup and drinking it. He made a sound of enjoyment before putting the cup in the sink. Then he turned and clapped his hands. "I'm ready if you are!"
Almost effortlessly, Gabriel grabbed the jam and tossed it over his shoulder before rushing outside. For a moment, Riku stood surprised. A kid pulled out his jam? That kid had to have super strength or something! Riku moved outside and froze, coming face to face with the man who looked like a troll, slumped on the ground, a pool of blood beneath him.
Gabriel's smile had disappeared as he stared down at the man who had attacked him yesterday. He turned to Riku and whispered, "did you do this?"
"No," Riku said, pushing Gabriel gently away from the body and averting his own eyes. "But we almost had some trouble last night with some women with guns."
Gabriel's eyes furrowed for a moment in thought, but then his smile broke across his face again. "Oh, I see! Follow me!"
Gabriel took him off the pathway into the bushes and trees along the edge of the mountain for half the day. A few times he paused to make sure Riku was still following and once or twice he scratched his head in thought. Riku was starting to think the kid was more lost than he was when they found a path. The noon sun was high in the sky and the day was heating up without the mountains shadow to block the light.
"There," Gabriel said, pointing. Following his finger, Riku could see a small solitary hut further down the path. A sign outside read "Master of Tea." Riku gave Gabriel a skeptical look, but Gabriel ignored it, rushing towards the hut.
"Hey," Riku called after him. "Wait up, you're not one hundred percent yet!"
He moved to follow, but froze. A shot rang out and Riku felt a bullet zip passed his neck, skimming the hairs there before hitting the dirt path before him. The magic energy remained in the air even after the bullet passed.
"I woulda got you if you'd kept going," the female voice said. "You must have sensed me or you'd be dead."
Turning, Riku found himself faced with two women dressed in skin-tight pantsuits, the crest of the Kingdom of Seven on their shoulders. The first, who'd spoken, still had her gun pointed at Riku, her dark hair pulled back in a bun with a few strands of loose hair artfully framing her olive face. The other was holding a a two barreled magic gun, with a sash of shells on her torso, her purple hair down around her face. He recognized their scents.
"You're the women who shot Feco," Riku observed. "Anya and Solita."
"He was a waste of time, I don't want to be known for that," said Solita, a smirk pulling across her face as she tossed her purple hair to the side. "We're the women who are going to capture ourselves a mage."
Seriously, this kid was too much trouble for such a small fry.
First of all, thank you do much to Arkham Knight22 for your message & to all the people who have favorited or started following this story! It's super exciting to see those notifications! Second, I was writing this chapter and sort of realized maybe I should give a bit of a disclaimer that this chapter (and maybe this Book III) might get a little more dark and violent since it will include some aspects of the Tartaros arc. I mean, I figure at this point we've all seen Fairy Tail (if not, sorry I did not give you spoiler alerts in previous chapters...yikes...), but this is your warning that it may get a little darker moving forward. It won't be dark enough to change the rating and I don't anticipate it getting any darker than Tartaros. Also, since we're here, later on there will be spoilers for Tartaros arc. Also, just to cover my bases: I don't own Fairy Tail (Hiro Mashima does). Don't forget to review!