Fifth month

She could fully sit on her own! And she could maintain the position! Even better, she could sustain her own weight on her legs when someone was holding her. It was Nawaki's girl friend who tried that on her one day. The look of pleasure in the boy's eyes became utter despair when he understood how much of a nightmare she ought to become.

She quite hoped someone would find her this toy where the body of the baby is encased in a plastic vehicle with four wheels to get around neatly and bump on things. But either it had not been invented where she had been, or they thought she couldn't handle it yet. They might have been right about that last statement.

About language, she could say stuff like dadada (or was it bababa?), or it's variation with the e vowel. But the best thing she had managed was to sing along with Nawaki. She had quite liked singing and doing music in her previous life, never able to make a band, always imitating the existing music pieces. At least she could try for something better in this life.

Starting with the singing, she had managed to produce quite a good imitation of the new song Nawaki had taught her. They were still in autumn, so he had decided for a song with the same thematic. It was one with a simple melody called Donguri Korokoro. To put it in a nutshell, it was the story of an acorn falling into a pond. He would meet fishes and have fun with them. But in the end, he wants to go back to its branch but his new friends can't do anything. Quite a bittersweet end for this song…

Like always, Nawaki had decided to explain the story to me with illustrations. His doodles were horrid. He had tried this sort of round-shapes for the end of the fishtails. Maybe it was how they really looked like in reality, but here it just seem to her that quite an amount of penis-shaped fishes had decided for a bath in the pond.

But in the end, she had managed to imitate the melody with the limitation of sounds and syllables at her disposal. She had been quite proud of herself in that regard. And so had been Nawaki. He seemed like a peaceful one to her. Full of joy and creativity, and quite enthusiastic at the opportunity to fight one of his friends, but calm enough to her.

Well that is what she thought until he actually vomited a wall of rock and almost made her faint. Yes. Nawaki actually threw up the equivalent of twice his weight in rocks as Kazakaya and Haruka had cornered him in the last fight they had. Suddenly I had seen the outcome of their fight: Nawaki would lose at 2 versus 1, but he would have thought well. But instead of forfeiting or even backing up, he had lifted his hands to his chest and made hand signs. At the same time his chest had filled with air, I had felt Nawaki's presence growing, and my body had started to itch.

Not all of a sudden, it was like this physical aura coming out of the boy's guts reaching me. As if I had been always aware of everyone and everything's presence around me, but without hearing, or seeing or touching them. Some sort of esoteric sixth sense.

And suddenly a wave of energy reached me, and I saw black dots crawling in my vision. Nawaki vomited a wall of rock, effectively blocking the kicks aimed at him. Nawaki's presence came to her like waves rolling on the shore, violent and uncontrollable. She felt like drowning far away at sea, each wave sending pricks of pain in her body. She heard someone shrill in pain and someone called her name. Everyone else angrily called Nawaki's name.

Then someone asked if she was all right (daijoubudesuka?). She felt the pain recess almost as soon as it had come to her, with the sound of rock crumbling to the ground. Stones rolled on the grass with a soft noise and she was prodded again. The older woman was checking her temperature and her pulse, muttering things in her language Honoka didn't get.

She was asked if she was all right again, and she nodded. Then they asked another question she couldn't give the answer to. She fluttered her eyes open to the voice of Nawaki. He had been asking this question with quite a worried tone. So she tried to say everything was fine, but the daijoubu never rolled on her tongue. But her gibberish seemed closed enough to the original word for him to sigh in relief, so the question might have well been something akin to the daijoubudesuka asked earlier on.

After that incident, Nawaki was made to sit on the floorboard with a weight on his knees. Quite a harsh punishment. But it wasn't over, because it went on even after the other brats were send back to their respective homes. When Torifu and Suki made it home, not at the same time, the teacher had stayed to explain what happened. Nawaki seemed guilty, and even though he had been the cause of my pain, I had this nagging impression that his action had been a reflex. Which meant using this magic (I still couldn't believe that, but it seemed so real) was natural to them. It explained why her father hadn't been able to approach her until he diminished his energy, why the healing spells had gone wrong with her, and why Nawaki's defense had made her feel so wrong.

But as they were all screaming, and her father looked quite angry at them, she tried her gibberish again. Something like Honoka daijoubu since she hadn't had the faintest idea how to form sentences yet. Everyone looked at her as she was perched on her high chair, and she tried again, distinctively forming the syllables with her soft mouth. Her muscles were so weak she couldn't form the sounds correctly, but it would do.

Right, now that she had their full attention, she had an idea. Her father had gotten close by diminishing his aura, or whatever it was. Nawaki had never changed his, only to concentrate to make his attack. But this time, even if it had hurt, she hadn't fainted. Which meant that either she was getting pain resistance, or she was getting used to this energy. It meant that in either cases, if she could get used to it, by adjusting the amount, she could get better and better at handling it. She should be the one doing the efforts, not them! People around were always too cautious about her, but how about they let her live a little?

Having a goal was good, but really she would need the language to communicate fully this concept to these people. So it was a long a complicated evening where she would hit herself with one hand and show her fingers like she was rating the pain on a scale from 1 to 10. Then she would hit herself again and lower the scale. But whenever they would try to ask for precisions, she wouldn't understand them. If she could at least say the words for "pain" or "time" it would have been easier.

She was brooding when they put her to bed with an apologetic smile, dismissing her acting for baby talk.