In which Juan's morning routine is interrupted by a certain distraught teleportation mage.

In honor of my former arch-nemesis Kenken, I hope you are well and never lose your creativity.

Four laps around the race track. Fifty pushups. One hundred jumping jacks. All part of his early-morning warmup routine, and typically the prelude to a warm bowl of baked oats followed by a nap in an unoccupied corner of the Budehuc library. And the nap was assuredly going to be a cozy one, given the light snow falling from the sky.

All things considered, it should have been the start of a perfect day. Yet sixteen jumping jacks in, and Juan was thrown off his routine by the sounds of sobbing. He paused and craned his neck towards the sound.

Cecile?

Nah. She's still traveling. And she blubbers when she cries. This is too soft.

He picked his ear. Maybe he was hearing things.

Nope, still hearing it.

Certain birds were known for making sounds very similar to crying humans. And birds didn't require intervention. They were capable of solving their own problems. Which meant he wouldn't have to break his routine to investigate.

Five more jumping jacks. The sobs continued. It was definitely human.

Juan sighed. "Okay, I can take a hint," he lunged forward and stretched his hamstring before bouncing on the balls of his feet. "So much for my morning workout…I'd never hear the end of this if I let something slide while 'patrolling' anyways."

The race track was deserted, a light coating of snow covering the ground. If anyone had come by, their footprints would still be visible, but none were to be found, save for Juan's own. He scanned the perimeter, but the sounds were too close, almost as if they were directly above him instead—

Something landed on his head with a soft thud. Juan immediately twisted into a defensive pose, ready to strike at his unknown assailant, then lowered his arms with a slow exhale. "Ah. Just a boot," he mused as he crouched, retrieving the shoe. It was small, its design similar to the moccasins worn by the residents of Chisha Village, and made from a buttery, suede-like material. Clearly its owner didn't do too much travelling by foot judging by the condition.

"Oh, oh no, I'm so, so sorry! Are you okay?!"

"Eh?" Juan looked up, then immediately looked back down again with a red face. Atop a nearby tree branch sat Viki, one foot bare and dangling over the edge, her staff balancing across her lap. How she managed to sit herself up so high was a mystery in itself, but looking up at a girl in a skirt was always a recipe for disaster. "W-what the heck are you doing up there?!"

Viki sniffled. "Sitting," she answered with an unsteady voice.

Welp. Looks like I found my crier.

"Everything okay?"

She sniffled again. "I should be asking you that! I didn't mean to hit you with my shoe…"

Juan sighed. "If you did, I would have commended you for your good aim," he quipped and scaled the tree with ease, taking precise care not to accidentally glance up her skirt. He hoisted himself up and sat atop a neighboring branch. Climbing still counted as exercise, so maybe missing out on those extra jumping jacks wouldn't matter. "So. You birdwatching or something?"

"Birdwatching?"

"You're in a tree," he responded plainly as he handed her the missing shoe, then paused, "uh… crying in a tree, that is."

Viki pulled her moccasin back on and rubbed the tears from her eyes. "W...well…"

The dojo master rested his cheek in his palm and did his best to stifle a yawn. This really wasn't his forté, but it didn't feel right to leave someone crying alone in the cold. And Viki truly did look miserable. "You uh… need to talk about it?"

"It's just… everyone is so mad at me!"

"Hey, I'm not mad about the shoe. Seriously."

"N-no, it's not that," she hiccuped. "People keep saying that I'm teleporting them here, but I promise, Juan… I don't remember any of it!"

Juan wrinkled his nose in thought and dusted the snow off his shoulder. There certainly were some new faces hanging around he wasn't familiar with, but that was par for the course. He didn't make it a point to pay attention to all the comings and goings of residents. After all, that required a lot of waking energy, something he was careful to dole out sparingly, and only for worthwhile ventures. "I mean, if you're teleporting a lot of people, maybe you just don't remember because you've been so busy?"

"I don't remember any of it!"

"Okay, like who, for example?"

"Well, for starters, there's… um... Clive, and then Kinnison, not to mention Tai Ho," Viki began to count on her fingers, growing increasingly distressed with each name, "and even Luca is here! I definitely would've remembered teleporting someone as awful as him!"

None of those names really registered on Juan's radar, meaning none of them had made the time to stop by his dojo or interrupt his naps. This time he was unable to stifle a yawn. "Okay, so? They're mad at you, right? You've accidentally teleported us plenty of times. Sure, it's a hassle, but we manage. Why don't they just go back home themselves?"

"Go back home? Juan, Luca Blight's supposed to be dead!"

Oh. Well that's problematic.

"You teleported a corpse to Budehuc? We can deal with that. Twaikin left behind plenty of holes—"

Viki sobbed and buried her face in her hands. "N-no!" she wailed, "he's not dead anymore! He's alive, and he's here, and now...now… I don't know what's gonna happen! And Little Viki is mad at me too!"

"Ah," Juan relaxed slightly. Explaining to Thomas why he was assisting Viki with burying a dead body in the Budehuc cemetery wasn't a conversation he really wanted to have. A living resident was easier to manage. "Look, your… littler self has always been kind of cranky. Why is this time any different?"

"She's really mad, Juan," Viki whispered, her fingers curling tighter around her magic wand. "She said… I might break the whole universe if this keeps up."

"Break the whole universe? What's that supposed to mean?"

"She said they're not supposed to be here," Viki swallowed back another sob, "and… and a lot of other complicated stuff. I didn't really understand it all, but she sounded so upset! And Luca isn't even the first dead person! Yun is here, and she died before too!"

Juan bit the inside of his cheek. The Alma Kinan shaman seemed sweet enough, and she was quick to endear herself to the locals with little effort, maybe a little too quickly in some regards. But he knew from Chris Lightfellow's stories that she was definitely dead. "Okay, so there's two formerly dead people. Isn't this a good thing? I mean, who wouldn't want another shot at life, right?"

"But it's not supposed to happen!"

"But it did. So we just have to run with it, right?"

Viki sniffled again. "How am I supposed to do that if it's all my fault?"

"Look. The way I see it, even if you did teleport them here, can you send them back?"

"N...no…"

"Then what do they expect you to do?"

The young mage blinked. She pursed her lips in thought, looked back down at the ground, then up at him with a quizzical expression. "I… I don't really know, actually."

"Exactly my point. Sure, they're mad, but if there's nothing you can do, then it's pointless to fixate on it," Juan stretched and yawned a second time. "It's just a waste of time you could be spending on more important stuff."

Viki rolled the staff of her wand across the palm of her hands in pensive thought. "But Little Viki says this is important stuff…"

"Okay, and do you know how to resolve it?"

"I…"

"Right. So if it's that important, and you have no clue, let her figure it out," Juan reached over and ruffled her hair, then awkwardly pulled back after a moment in embarrassment. This wasn't Cecile he was comforting—it was one thing to rumple the hair of a childhood friend, but a completely different matter to do it to someone else. He coughed. "So… I guess what I'm saying is, just keep doing whatever you're doing and try not to worry so much."

"Wow, Juan," Viki's eyes were shining. She stared at him with breathless adoration. "That's… that makes me feel heaps better! Oh, I'm so glad you were here!"

"I uh… you are?"

"I am!" she nodded. "You're right, I'm just gonna keep doing my best!"

Juan offered a sheepish thumbs up. "That's all you can do, right?"

"Yeah! That's ri...ah…" Viki suddenly froze and sneezed, blinking out of sight with a soft pop.

The branch she was sitting on moments earlier rustled at the abrupt loss of her body weight, sending a drift of snow down to the ground. Juan reflexively gripped his own branch tighter. He was no stranger to Viki's sneezing fits, but it never got any easier to witness her vanish into thin air.

"Heh...guess it's back to training then," he hopped down from the tree with a smooth landing. Even if it did interrupt his morning, there would be plenty of time for catching up on the rest of his routine. It was impossible to stay irritated, especially knowing he was able to reassure Viki somehow.

And the look of gratitude on her face was enough to make Juan feel warmer inside than any bowl of hot oats and a nap in the library could. The bujutsu teacher smiled to himself and resumed his jumping jacks.