My phone vibrates for three minutes, the buzzing like swarming flies.
"Danchou?" asks Feitan, his chin nudging upward to slyly glimpse the caller ID.
"Not Danchou." I wince at the 4 missed calls and blinking voicemail notification. "Don't worry, it can wait."
Feitan, his cloak undulates like crow wings when he runs, and running in front of him makes my neck burn.
Feitan doesn't peer up from his book when I cross the line after my fourth and final lap, legs trembling so bad I almost nose-surf the rubber track and my tongue rolls out like a thirsty dog. "Tsk, no pigeons in Gorteau to eat, but plenty of pigeon toes." He throws me a water flask.
As a youngster, I chased my siblings. I played wild cat in the jungle, swerving around palm trees in my path. After Huan's accident, I no longer needed to run. It wasn't a conscious decision, today I'm starting a running-diet. One day I just stopped.
"But—" He shuts his book. "You have one advantage you shouldn't take for granted: not being Franklin or Uvogin's size. Bulk is expensive and theirs came at the cost of speed. Why do you think Phinks, cocky as he is, settles for being only the second strongest when he could become as bulky as them?"
"Right, poor thing, only the second strongest Spider," I mutter. A replay of Phinks discarding his tracksuit jacket flashes over my mind's eye and my neck burns again.
"You're light," says Feitan. "That's a good place to start." The book disappears in his pocket.
"My pigeon toes won't be a problem?"
"When pickings were slim, I chased pigeons." He poses his index finger and thumb into an O shape. "Take the neck, quick pop! Pluck. Easy meat."
I make a face.
"Pigeons are fast," he says. "You can be fast too."
Rude awakening, but the comic books I've read were dead wrong. Superheroes don't have to worry about mindfully accelerating and decelerating properly. We exist in reality and according to Feitan if I don't watch my changes in velocity, hasten my field of vision, shield my bones and vitals, all with careful application of Enhancement, it will spell mortal disaster. "Ever see a bug go splatch on a windshield?" he says because he can't resist seeing me squirm.
And no, apparently I will never outrun instantaneousness itself.
"Sorry to dash your hopes," he says, as we sit on the track shaded from the setting sun under his red umbrella, zero 'sorry' to be found in his voice.
I don't give him the satisfaction of reacting to his pun. "But I can be fast enough to dodge bullets, right?"
"You're lucky," he says. "You get to enjoy my insights and discoveries without my regrets."
"What are your regrets? Like injuries?"
He pauses, perhaps deciding if to tell me at all. "How long it took. When I wasn't fast enough," he says, a rueful sigh blowing against his collar. "Funny, you mentioned meat and the high cost earlier. I figured that out too and used it to my advantage."
Feitan tells me how in Meteor City, kids stole from vendors, but he, the opportunist, snatched wallets. Not just any wallets but the Mafia. He explained at ten jenni per kilo, it was wasted effort targeting cabbage customers. Meanwhile, meat customers, usually mafia, swaggered in tailored suits. "I got so good I could steal without even dislodging their hands from their pockets. I was gone before they'd have the wit to reach for the gun at their holster."
His eyes smile, little sneaky crescents above his collar, acute nostalgia coloring his voice.
"I didn't have to steal," I say. "We had stable electricity so when the local Abijis wanted to bake, I took a handsome cut. You would think they knew I had all the leverage yet they cursed me out. Over some acorn bread."
Huan's scorn was worse than their curses. Do you have to take so much? They're just mothers and grandmas trying to feed their kids. This is not how we were raised. How lucky of him, being the youngest, he could play the sympathetic one, while I played the ruthless nasty who made sure he had enough to eat. I wish we hadn't argued so much.
Feitan's gaze measures me. "You didn't grow tall on acorn bread," he says.
"You didn't grow tall on pigeons," I retort.
Amusement in Feitan's snort when he lowers his collar. Light filtered by his red umbrella casts warmth onto his skin, flattering the boyish features I remember from Paku's memory bomb. Sitting side by side, I remember that rainy day in Meteor City when I clung to him and he smelled of warm blankets and wood crackling in a fire den.
He takes a drink from a flask, bottom lip puckering on the lid. I snicker. Feitan lets you forget he's handsome. Surely I'm not the first warm-blooded girl to notice? Imagine, some sap with heart-eyes, ogling at handsomely aloof Feitan.
"Random question…" I say. "You date much, Fei?"
"Heh?" he croaks, licking his wet bottom lip. Shadows butterfly across his nose bridge, framing his eyes.
"You know—dating. Not a foreign concept. Dating happens in Meteor City. So what's your type?"
"Was your ma, the undertaker," he says, readjusting his collar. "Also a part-time marriage broker?"
"Just curious is all! What's your type? Be specific, like what makes you melt?"
He draws his pupils upward with a vexed sigh. "Speaking of regrets, not killing you on that first day in the dunes was a mistake."
Months ago that would have disquieted me, now I fight a chuckle and urge him by the shoulder.
"Come on! We're going to West Gorteau and your look reminds me of Paeng Seong-Gi, a heartthrob actor whose name was swooned on the lips of every young woman when I was in Zeoul. Gortese girls are going to devour your devilish good looks. I can picture it now when we go to Nangnam Plaza. I'm gonna have to beat them off with a stick. That is…" I playfully bat beguiling eyes. "Only if you want me to."
Heat licks my glove when Feitan shoos me away and I chuckle kicking away.
"I'm teasing and warning you," I say. "You'll have some gorgeous prospects when we get there. Mark my words. How's that for a bet, Phantom Troupe?"
Imagination, go wild. Physical contrasts, like height differences, are adorable so I half-want Feitan to end up with an Amazonian. Almost six feet tall, all knee-high boots, swinging hips, razor-sharp hair and wit.
Or maybe Feitan prefers to corrupt the demure ones crowned with halos, who promise their hearts to piety but their crucible is the ache of a boy so bad he feels good. He would draw on their supple bodies with a hot fingertip, taunting their dueling desires... OK, that's enough, Safra.
Looking at Feitan, I remember I'm no longer a teenager and no longer dealing with boys, but men.
"Talk to Uvo about that, not me," says Feitan. "Now start running and stop running your mouth."
Jogging with Enhanced Nen, again, as had happened during training with Phinks, god-like power surges through me; I could charge every nation on this Earth and conquer. I could dash across the equator and watch five sunrises. At each step, my heels spring like fireworks. Superspeed is being clued in on a secret and the world drones on, too slow, too oblivious to understand what they're missing.
Only when we pause do I smell the rubber burn. My heels are hot to the touch and heat haze curls in our wake on the track.
"Well?" says Feitan.
My heart pounds and the fireflies roaming in my limbs are like being joyfully drunk. Or being manic.
"I like running...I think." I pant. My core muscles ache but can't stop, they want more. "I want to try running even faster—"
I go cross-eyed Feitan wags a finger at my nose, a sharp exclamation point. "Run only as fast as you can react. In real life, it's rare for your path to be as clear as this," he says about the open-aired track. "You know why he's hiding there?"
I survey the landscape, Phinks' blond head a bright lightbulb among the earthy hues. "Trees, uneven ground, jagged rock, mud, pond water, drains. He wants me to break my ankles, doesn't he?"
Another sigh. "It confirms my suspicions. He expects us to double-team him. Pummel him, overwhelm him at the same time."
"How Enhancer of him. Too bad that's not my plan. Well-ERP!" I yelp as Feitan yanks my shoulders and twists my body towards him.
"Stand facing me," hisses Feitan "He can read lips."
"But...we're not speaking Japanese?"
"Just precaution," he says, shutting his eyes briefly and I sense a tiresome story behind this. "I taught him some Mandarin a few years ago."
Feitan's tonal melody...out of Phinks' non-Azian mouth. I know I know it's a product of my homogeneous upbringing, but the first time I saw a very non-Gortese speaking perfect Zeoul dialect on a news bulletin jumbotron in Zeoul, my eyes were bugging and my brain short-circuited. To me, it's jarring, like seeing a dog meow.
"Phinks has been understanding us this whole time?! And WHEN were you gonna tell me he could spy on us?!"
"I said I taught him some. He understands better than he speaks. He can sus the meaning if you're using Sino-Gortese vocab."
"Well..." I say. "Remember how Phinks said I can't use my ability? Well, he didn't say we couldn't use yours." I point a hidden hand toward the pond and explain.
"Are you sure?" asks Feitan. "People tend to become clumsier when their sight is compromised. You? Balance is already not on your side."
"If my sight will be compromised then, so will his."
He ought to point out my assuredness is baseless. If Phinks really wanted to keep my keepsake away from me, he could do it one-handed, blindfolded, hopping on one foot.
"Then how will you find him?" he asks.
"The old fashioned way." I position two fingers at my lips, pretending to take a drag.
Before I can dismiss us, Feitan stops me.
"I do you a favor, but what will you do for me?"
He wants a favor? My cynical side asks is this why he volunteered in the first place? To pin me in a position where I would owe him? "Well, what do you want? It must be something I'm capable of doing now."
"Of course," he says, a little too easily for my liking. "I already know what I want."
I half squint, hold my breath, and drum my fingers at my sides.
"Next time, when you, me, Franklin, Shalnark and Phinks are together."
"Mhmm?"
"When Phinks lights up a cigarette, ask him to not smoke in our faces."
I don't exhale, waiting for the real answer to drop, but it never does. I wiggle my finger in my ear canal and ask him to repeat because surely I misheard the first time. "Wait...what? That's it?"
No devious narrowing of his eyes, no croaky laugh, no mischievous aura that makes my skin crawl. Nothing but a simple nod. And yet everything inside me is on red alert, THIS IS A TROJAN HORSE.
"And what happens when Phinks tells me to kick rocks?" I ask.
"Doesn't matter."
"All I have to do is ask?"
"Ask."
"And when he barks hell no?"
"I already told you."
"But then what's the point?"
"Then I'll explain," he says. "I'm testing his sensibilities."
"What sensibilities?"
"He's too natural around us whereas you're an outsider. Also to state the obvious… you're a woman. He might be more self-conscious if you ask."
Makes a tad more sense...but Feitan must be running a fever. "Are you..." I find myself parroting Phinks' earlier accusation. "Up to something?"
A hot blow of air against his collar. "That's Phinks projecting."
And I'd bet my obi sash Phinks would say the same thing about Feitan. "His going behind your back must have really pissed you off."
"You're gonna have to think of something more creative than jump-scares to get a rise out of me, Feitan?" he says, matching my intonation with eery precision. "Rising to your challenge was my initiative. He joined for entertainment. He usually understands loyalty."
"What's different about now?"
A noncommittal shrug that's more evasive than uncertain. I want to pry. They've been pecking at each other more than usual, since Yorknew.
"You don't think it's an unfair trade?" I ask.
"What you asked of me, I can do blindfolded. Fair to me."
"I guess when you put it that way… I'll do what you ask." But I suspect you'll be disappointed, I don't say.
"Shalnark and Franklin," says Feitan. "Will also be appreciative."
What I know: My gold is in his left hand. His smoking hand is his right but his left has stayed in left pocket this entire time. And he won't risk changing hands. Too risky. So I will aim for his left.
What Phinks doesn't know: I can use Zetsu. One of the last things Machi taught me in Meteor City. Hey, he keeps barking at me to keep a low profile.
With Zetsu, my presence evanesces, as vapory as the fog I ordered from Feitan. Phinks proffered himself as bait to chase, yet I tiptoe, lest a branch snaps under my weight. Phinks' guard should be up for Feitan, not for me shrouded in Zetsu. Masked in gray, the unmistakable tchit! tchit! of a turned lighter, then a satisfied exhale.
It leads me ahead and floating in the fog is the fiery rosebud of Phinks' cigarette, hovering the approximate height of his mouth. One chance for the surprise. One chance to go for his left hand.
I strike forward, to catch his arm, but catch a branch. The cigarette sits perched between the fold of two branches, puffed once or twice, then left to lead me right to it.
"Seriously?!" says encroaching footsteps behind. "How stupid do you two think I am?!"
My right punch hits air then he gives chase down a twisted dirt path. My vision blurs chasing too fast after the smearing green and red of his tracksuit, all against Feitan's explicit warning, but I don't care. Swerving around trees, it's almost like I'm in the jungle again.
He skids in mud deep enough to twist his ankle. He curses his soiled shoes and the brown splatters on his trousers, distracting him for one dire second. I seize his left elbow and I vice-hug my arms, tight against my torso, every whim of my being. I work with all my might, Enhanced Nen and all, to wedge apart his iron fingers. I touch gold squeezed in his palm—the round charm familiar even with Machi's gloves— and almost drag it out by my nails—
He cracks his arm like a whip and it's enough to knock the wind out of me, but through pure instinct, Machi's gloves do not let go.
He's stronger than me and faster than me, but he is facing wrath.
My armature wedges open his grasp—I will use my teeth if I have to—the gold jiggles loose, so miraculously close to being mine again—
He hurls us up, out of the mud, and my gold chain flings away from us. Through a break in the fog, I watch it in slow motion as the gold floats in free fall, right in my sight but hopelessly out of reach of my outstretched hand, then slowly, my precious keepsake falls perfectly between the metal teeth of a storm drain.
I haul myself to the frame. I peek through the bars into darkness the fading light of the sun doesn't reach. I squish my fingers, trying to poke them through, nearly losing a knuckle before attempting to lift the frame myself.
Feitan hovers beside me. "Are you trying to lose another hand?"
My back muscles cry when I lift wrong, the frame creaks in its holding but doesn't shift even an inch.
"Move," says Phinks sweeping me away. The metal frame whines but soon gives. We three peer down into the hole, its murky bottom we can't see.
"It's gone," says Feitan, because he has no idea how thoughtless his words are.
I shove Feitan aside with a flat palm against his sternum. "It's not gone. I can find it."
I vaguely sense aura as putrid like a gutted pig wafting in my direction—Phinks halts Feitan by the bicep. They do that thing where they communicate without speaking and I don't give a flying fuck unless it has to do with obliterating this drain. Feitan's aura heels and I crouch. My arm, down to the shoulder socket, rotates in the mouth of the drain, testing its depth.
"You can't just worm your way down there," says Phinks.
"I'm not worming my way," I say.
"That's several feet of concrete," says Phinks.
"I'm ticking time bomb remember? Maybe you can't clear it. I can." Power courses through me and burns in my eyes.
"Pft. Go ahead," says Phinks with a cynical sneer. "And try what you're thinking and then even if it is still floating down there and not half a mile downstream already—"
How I wince at his words!
"You'll bury it under a mountain of rubble. Then you'll never find it. Is that what you want?" he says. His hand lands on my loosening glove, careful to not touch bare skin. "Calm down."
I take a deep, trembling breath.
He points down the road. "See that stormwater manhole there? Hold your nose."
My phone as my makeshift flashlight in one hand and Phinks holding the other, he lowers me down into the tunnel. Reflexively, I jerk when my body dangles weightless and cold water soaks my shoes and pants. He squeezes my glove tighter. "I got you." He promises.
By the time my feet find solid ground, the water soaks the hem of my uwagi. My phone illuminates the circle tunnel, but light doesn't penetrate the murky water.
I don't ask him to join me, his Nen is ill-suited for searching, yet he hops down with a splash, gritting his teeth that his tracksuit now smells like 'ass and alligator swamp'. I don't tell him the darkness in the underground tunnel is too alike crawling out of Fisherman's den, how his offhand remarks, sloshing in the water keep me from returning there.
My Nen licks, like a tongue, the concrete wall, the rainwater, seeking any alloy to bring to the surface. The same way metal detectors can't distinguish what they find, my Nen finds every wayward knickknack lost in the drains.
"Safra..." says Phinks and I know what he's going to ask. "What if you can't find it?" he says after I find a bottle cap, a ring, house keys, coins, so many coins.
I ignore him and dive into the water. I emerge with a 500 jenni coin, minted year 45.
"It's almost dawn. You're gonna miss your match if you don't leave right now," said Phinks. "And if you don't show up, it's an auto-forfeit."
Nen-hand to the wall, I ignore him again.
The beam of his flashlight approaches yet I start when he palms my soaked shoulder. "Look...there are...goldsmiths in this town that can forge you something identical if not better."
I try not to be upset at words he means to be soothing, a way he can help.
"What is more important?" he asks. "Your chain or facing your father?"
The weight of his question, an anvil he didn't know he dropped. Between ma or paba, I would choose ma, a million times over.
"That was my ma's keepsake." I fill his head with the vibrant image that is clearer than my vision, of me, my baby brother, my sister, after her cremation. How we children, too young, parted with three pieces of gold, one to each of our names. "Go to Zeoul without me for all I care. Tell Danchou I'm not leaving without my keepsake."
A childhood gift now shackles me to this storm drain, this city.
Scars on Phinks' knuckles from a million punches, cut through persistence, mirror mine on my natural hand. He gives me the same face he did when I punched him.
I'm not psychic but I know he recalls that moment now and I don't know why it left such an impression on him, an indent on what he viewed in me as a person.
He doesn't repeat the word goldsmith again, but instead, "Give it a rest for now."
"But—"
"We'll come back for it later." He promises. "Not right now, but you'll get your keepsake back."
I win my first match of the day and the crowd's applause doesn't stir me. I shower before my second match, scrubbing off a thick film that browns the suds and water. Unfortunately, my uwagi, the only damn garment I own, smells like an "alligator swamp."
Even as exhausted I am, as shocked as I am that my precious heirloom is in murky depths, I'm not fretting, no, I'm determined. I'm infallible. I'm on fire. I am getting my keepsake back.
I'm furiously searching on Baiba with keywords "jewelry lost in storm drain-how to retrieve?" Forums full of people who have lost keys, rings, dogs down storm drains appear. Apparently Heaven's City is a metro of greasy-fingered folks and with a sigh of relief, suddenly my predicament is less dire. I stumble upon Heaven City municipal services website and some forum members reported having good luck with that. Searching that drain would require a lot of hunting—
Shoot, maybe even a hunter could perform such a job. I open a new text window to ask Shalnark to browse the hunter's website—
"Excuse me?" A butler's voice. A white-gloved hand taps my shoulder.
Behind me, dressed in a tuxedo, adorned with two H brooches is a bald noseless, green-faced man. I don't mean to be startled because of his candid round eyes and a kind smile, but his head is literally formed and colored like a lima bean. No, greener than that. Like green marker green. He has the worst case of green-sickness I've ever seen…
"Are you Nanashi…Freecs?" His voice scratches like a record and he clears his throat.
I eye his two brooches. H for Heaven's Arena or Hunter? "Are you with the Arena...or the Hunter's Association?"
He touches his chest brooch with a hint of embarrassment as if I spoiled his introduction. He clasps his gloved hands behind his back and composes himself, albeit the side of his bean-head glistens with anxious sweat. Though I'm sure I'm not the reason, this green bean is a ball of nerves.
He clears his throat. "My name is Beans, personal assistant to Chairman of the Hunter's Association."
He recites with such dutiful delight it's adorable.
He hands me with two polite hands his business card. "Ms Freecs or Mrs…?"
"Nanashi, please."
I read the card with the same double X symbol as Shal and Ging's licenses. "You watched my earlier match I presume? Are you here to tell me about the association? Or the exam?"
The other side of his head glistens with anxious sweat that he quickly smears away. "Not exactly—"
I grip the railing—a glaring presence, Nen like typhoon winds scream through my core, my Nen. Viscerally, physically—my wisdom teeth tremble deep in my gums. My vision blackens for a split second like it did in the phoenix temple and had I not been grasping the railing, my consciousness would have lost like debris. As quick as it hits, it's gone.
Other arena fighters, on a different frequency, still converse unbeknownst of what transpired. Even Beans stood as taciturn as before.
My Nen still unbalanced, I swivel around, the presence beckoning me to please turn around. A man, but surely not a mere man, because nothing less than a force of nature incarnate could have expressed that tremendous Nen. I don't say this easily after meeting the Spider or Ging, barring the omnipresent Nen at the phoenix temple, this is by far the most profound Nen that has ever traversed through me.
Even non-Nen users must have felt that. Unless it was targeted—
His blue-trimmed white kimono billows, sleeves loose and nearly floor-length at his sides—either for comfort or to conceal something. His long face and long beard, curling upward at its grey point, gives his profile the shape of a crescent moon. He strides towards me, his gait weightless on stilted sandals, inaudible even in the echoic corridor. I've seen those shoes before, they should be clacking like Dutch clogs. His bald head is as reflective as a waxed car, save for a tail of cloud-white hair. His brows are so over long, the hairs frame his sunken eyes, colored like cinnamon.
Droopy eyes find mine. For a long moment, we stare at each other like we're the only two people in the large corridor. Even if he were trying to play innocent, a glint of something, mischief, or menace gives him away.
I have never seen him before and yet a deep part of me recognizes him. But how—
"Ah, how interesting," he says with a thrilled voice as if the recognition were mutual for him. "It is true. My hopeful guess was right and worth the detour to confirm."
A sigh from Beans.
"She taught you well," he says. "Otherwise you would have blacked out."
She? "Have we...you are...?" Redundant asking someone I recognize but I don't know his name.
"Oh!" he says, as if he forgot where he stood for a second. Bidden by something unseen, I see Abiji Nha's face. My vision splits, one image over each eye. One sees how I best remember her, an abiji with cobweb hair and water-colored eyes that gleam. The other eye sees a young woman with knotted black hair with the same water-colored eyes. Somehow I hear her voice and even in her youth, her voice was as soft as a butterfly's wing flutter. Are these memories?
Even before he says it, a trusting murmur inside, instinct or deja vu, knows its true—
"I'm Chairman of the Hunter's Association, Isaac Netero. I'm a former kung fu associate, council colleague, friend of your Nen master."
AN: Happy Mayday readers! Well, that's one of the consequences of borrowing a famous/infamous Hunter's surname, cameos happen. Writing that last part I was getting YYH young-Genkai vibes and my heart flutters for it. And cameos we're not done yet B)
Poor Ging LOL Oh the delicious irony. The untamable vagabond being furious at being left 'on read' (LOL! Thank you WormwoodSand!) And the plot thickens more for Safra and her keepsake, but she's not as worried as I thought she would be, but she means it when she says she's not leaving the city limits without it. And poor Fei, being warned and teased by Saf for his devilish good looks, and she wants to ship him with someone.
Bisque-ware, albany. sr, WormwoodSand, LinisSleepy, Bioyoshi, StandUpKeepMovingForward, xxANIES, and AwkwardBlackCat. Seriously, you keep blowing me away ._. your sweet words brought some much-needed joy to a rather anxious April. It seems a lot of people are turning to fanfic for escapism, (including yours truly) so I hope this chapter helps make your day a little easier. I'm still replying to reviews, but it's late so I gonna post this and will return to replying tomorrow morning. Hope you enjoy it!