A shiver ran down Subaru's back as he heaved again, but was able to keep the contents of his stomach inside himself. He shakily lifted his hand and pinched the skin under his shirt.
Nothing.
No scarring, no blood, not even a sign of a laceration.
Yet what just happened... It was too real... it couldn't have been...
His conscious mind struggled and tore at the seams, trying to find a logical explanation to an illogical problem, meanwhile his subconscious seemed to have devolved to its very prime instincts as he physically gagged, wheezed and shivered on his knees, fighting back a death that already happened. He focused on the feeling of his lungs filling and emptying, his eyes blinking, his heart-rate. That which was supposed to be gone was back in its place.
He closed his eyes, sinking into peaceful darkness, blocking out any possible noises with his own thoughts.
one...
two...
three...
four...
The hammering of his pulse in his eardrums slowed to an uncomfortable, heavy pound, his lungs slowly started expanding out, giving him more oxygen to work with. The panic, slowly but surely, began to subside.
He opened his eyes again and lifted his gaze. A small crowd has already formed around him, from worried Good Samaritans to bored youths.
"What's up with HIM?"
"The guy drunk or somethin'?"
"Is he alright? Maybe we should call the guard?"
"If he passes out, I take anything in his pockets."
He quickly pushed himself up, the world swinging on its axis as he almost fell again, and scooped up his school bag. He looked around for an opening in the crowd and stumbled blindly in-between a group of rough-looking humans and someone who looked like a Victorian maid.
"Sorry, excuse me..." He murmured as he tried to dissipate into the crowd, accidentally pushing some of the mid-day shoppers out of his way. For all his regained composure, he still felt like someone hit him over the head with a sledgehammer, the sunlight being too bright, the noises too loud, the smells too fragrant.
Subaru's legs failed underneath him, causing him to hug the wall and start wheezing again, the school bag falling out of his hands. He almost crawled into the next alley, leaving the bag behind on the street.
"Shit..." He slid down the wall into a sitting position, his cheek up against the granite slabs, the cold coming off of the stone wall calming his headache slightly.
He still had no answers to any of what just happened, not only to his situation but to why wasn't he DEAD. He checked his stomach again and came up with the same unbroken skin. "Goddamnit." Strangely enough, there was a disappointment. In that one second of his non-existence, he felt calmer than he ever did and being dragged back felt... it felt terrifying. Subaru shook his head and slowly lifted himself up, shaking off the dust.
"Get yourself together Natsuki, not the time for existential crises." He felt the hammering of his heart finally subside and his breath return slowly to its original calm state. "Now..." He needed to think of the next steps. He was in a foreign land, unable to read or write, penniless and right now his bag was being stolen... WAIT HIS BAG WAS-
Subaru ran out of the alley only to notice a black-and-red streak disappearing into the crowds, carrying his book bag away into the unknown.
"Hey! You thief!" He started into a sprint. "Give that back! THIEF!" Even with his desperate shouting no one seemed to neither care nor stop the book bandit who was rapidly extending the distance between them and their pursuer. Even as Subaru put every ounce of strength into his run, pushing apart several confused workers and jumping carts, the streak seemed to get farther and farther away.
However, his luck seemed to turn as the streak whizzed into the space between what looked like a fresh produce shop and an abandoned building. Subaru dove after it, nearly grazing the apple-seller standing outside.
Dead end. The figure of the thief froze and turned around at the sounds of Subaru stomping into the passage.
"Dead *huff* end! Now fork it over!" He only then noticed that the thief was... a child?
The blonde kid looked at him like a rat in a trap, her eyes darting left and right as she scanned any paths to escape. The student took a couple of careful steps towards her.
"*huff* Just give me back my bag, and we can leave each other alone, how about it? Hm?" He put on a low, diplomatic voice, trying not to scare the urchin into any more running... or anything more aggressive, considering the dagger strapped to her belt.
The kid's grasp tightened on the bag. "Yeah right!" She backed away a few steps. "And what will I eat this evening, huh?"
Subaru froze up, unsure of how to answer such a basic question. "T-then... What about I help you o-"
"There you are! Return my insignia!" An icicle sliced through the air, right past his right ear, hitting the ground next to the kid's foot, the tense situation collapsing instantly. The urchin's eyes widened as she threw the bag at Subaru, freeing her hands to climb, and turned on her heel. What happened next, Subaru was unsure of how to explain.
The thief, now surrounded by a greenish aura, the wind suddenly rising up around her, simply ran ("RAN!") up a wall of one of the houses, as if propelled by some invisible force and disappeared behind the rooftops, leaving Natsuki at an amazed, yet furious, stand-still. If he had not already experienced an un-death and jumped realities, this would be the strangest thing he'd ever witnessed.
The young man stood, mouth agape, book bag in hand as he watched the kid disappear behind another street.
"Oh, well, I guess that is to be expected..." He really was too blindsided by reality at this point to not even question the magic or illusion or drug-fuelled fever dream he experienced right in front of him.
"Oh no!" He looked back at the new arrival. A young woman in white and purple robes stood before him, hopelessly staring off in the direction of the disappeared mouse-sized mugger. "My insignia!"
There was a knock at the door, pulling the revolutionary out of his memories. In the end, it's all pure nostalgia, he should keep his eyes on the prize. He slid the unfinished draft of the document to the side.
"Come in." He pronounced in a clear voice, automatically jumping to the usual speech style he developed during the Revolt instead of his old mumbling. The door creaked open and a young Guard marched in, his motions mechanical and stiff.
"P-permission to-"
"Permission granted soldier, at ease." The young officer relaxed a bit. "So, what news from beyond the walls?"
"Hussar Astreus wanted to notify you that Jukuulius did decide to disclose the locations of the 'mark'..." The soldier fell silent, and Subaru felt a migraine coming on.
"I sense a 'however', Infantryman..?" He left a questioning pause.
"Infantryman Cain, sir. A-and yes, there is a 'however'. He set some demands, though Hussar Astreus was not at the liberty to disclose them to me, he requested to meet you sometime today." The soldier seemed to stiffen with every word, it must be nerve-wracking to be the bearer of bad news. Subaru felt a little sympathy and withheld his disappointment.
"Anything else, Infantryman Cain?"
"Y-yes, actually... There has been an incident with a publication..." He passed a black-and-white print to Subaru, a newspaper printed on the cheapest paper one could find. "The publishers were attacked by several drunk Guardsmen yesterday and caused a huge commotion."
Subaru looked at the paper. Even now, he still couldn't get used to the Lugnican script, no matter the time he spent on books and literature, he still read slowly. Though here, that wouldn't be required. A huge menacing eye stared back at him from the front page. I took him a second to recognise himself, or at least the cartoony madman that was intended to represent him, with long black hair which he was pulling out, huge shadowy eyes and lines of paper unfurling from his mouth covered in words like 'Freedom, Revenge, Rights, the Sword, Workers' and other terms he tended to use in his speeches, with the caption, 'Bug-Eye Brutally Buzzes at the Big Bads'. The usual pro-monarchist swill.
He wasn't devoid of humour, but 'Bug-Eye' just felt like a petty nickname. "So, several soldiers attacked a publication. Anything out of the usual?"
The Infantryman huffed. He seemed to be settling into the much more relaxed style of discussion Subaru had, unlike some of his officers. "Not really, no. The two got punished as per usual, the publication got shut down, but the picture moulds we found for this publication is the most important." He gave Subaru a meaningful gaze. "Sir, they were foreign. They were still in shipping containers when we arrived on the scene."
Subaru nodded, he should have expected this. Slowly but surely he was losing the technological edge, even in such basic things as printing book and newspapers. He dreaded the thought of the musket escaping into foreign lands, but it was inevitable. No one can completely stop an idea if it's in wide use. "Well, if you find any more, burn 'em." He placed down the newspaper and stood up. "Dismissed, Infantryman."
The soldier saluted, still slightly nervously, "Thank you, sir." and departed.
Subaru straightened his jacket and looked at the caricature on the newspaper before chuckling softly. "Bug-Eye... my eyes aren't that big." He reassured himself jokingly, before forcing his facial expression back into its usual state of menacing neutrality.
There was, yet again, more work to be done.