Chapter cover: Phantom holding an Ace of Spades between his ungloved right hand, facing forward with an amused smirk on his lips.
...
Location: Ariant
Date: 5/11/ X643
It was supposed to be a nice day, except the desert of Ariant was never kind to travelers – with the scorching sun beating their backs, forcing them to hydrate themselves almost every ten minutes.
Yes, there is a kind of beauty in the desert, both day and night.
But underneath that beauty, there was a great darkness swallowing the city.
Phantom knew it firsthand. He watched the life of the slums along with his silent companion, their face was partially covered by the shadows of their hood and waited underneath a shade. Nobody took notice of them.
Children wore rags, and were kicking up sand, some running around, laughing cheerily, but their bodies were pitiful. They were all skins and bones, their cheeks were sunken – clearly malnourished. But their eyes were bright as if they were determined to survive in this hellish paradise.
Lea was sitting on a sandy crate – still like a hunter, leaning against the smooth wall of a poor house as they waited for something – her eyes kept darting around, but her head didn't move. On the other hand, Phantom hummed a tune, a lullaby.
They were waiting for their contact – or more specifically, Lea's contact.
It was only when the sun began to set when a sudden heat wave came. The humming stopped.
Phantom wanted to move and almost did until Lea grabbed his wrist and shook her head, a small one. Phantom stood still and endured the heat and didn't notice Lea had released him.
Minutes later, they saw another hooded figure approaching them. Since most of the people of the slums were inside, they didn't have to worry about being spotted. Phantom's felt the back of his hair stand as he felt the foreboding aura emitting from the hooded stranger. For a moment, he saw something golden in the shadows of the stranger's hood – then it was gone and replaced by gray, blending easily with the shadows.
Lea offered her bandaged hand, and a greeting in another language in a strangled whisper. The hooded person took it and returned a greeting – fortunately, this time in English. "Likewise, squad leader of the 6th squad." Her voice was…sharp, and serious.
A female…Phantom noted.
"Phantom, meet Aozaki." Lea said in a raspy voice. Aozaki chuckled before offering a bottle of fresh water to Lea – which she took it gratefully. Phantom could only eye on the water, feeling pathetic.
The heat wave was gone. Then, it clicked.
"Your spell?" Phantom asked, almost equally raspy as Lea. Aozaki looked subtly surprised and nodded before offering another bottle of water, thankfully. However, Phantom struggled to open the bottle of water – and earned sympatric looks from the two women.
"I am an expert with fire magic, and runes. As you know, most spells we normally use will leave a trail. But I modify mine, until they cannot be traced too easily." With that, Aozaki pulled out a packet of cigarettes and pulled one stump out and lit it up with a lighter and offered Lea one.
Lea made a noise of disgust. "I don't smoke. And give me that." She snatched the plastic bottle away and twisted the cap easily with her right thumb, the cap flew off from sheer force and it went towards the house opposite them, somehow sailing through the small opening of the sandy curtain, and clang against a metal. He felt something thrust into his hands, ah the bottle.
Phantom blinked, but pretended he didn't see that and drank the water. Partly because of the dark gloom surrounding Lea – and partly because he can sense a trace of mana from Lea's right hand.
Aozaki shrugged and huffed out a perfect ring before placing her packet of cigarettes back. "We should get going – to Magatia, once in my lab, we can talk without a worry about eavesdroppers.
Then, she reached for something else. Lea and Phantom exchanged looks – one pissed, another amusement.
For a good twenty seconds, they watched Aozaki's hand moved underneath the folds of her travelling robe. Finally, she pulled out a rune rock, humming a happy tune. "This is a prototype – want to risk it?"
Lea snorted – an unladylike thing to do. "If we use the camel taxi, a good chunk of our time will be gone."
"Half a day if you're lucky," Aozaki nodded. It was only then Phantom realized he had not seen Aozaki's face, even if her pink lipstick stood out. "What'da ya wanna do?" Aozaki said in a thick accent of Edelstein. A soft breeze came.
"We'll take the risk," Lea answered, and Phantom froze.
"What if it fails?" Phantom asked, earning him an exasperated look from Lea and a smile from Aozaki.
"We die." Aozaki answered bluntly, she dropped the remaining butt and squashed it under her feet. Phantom winced – Aozaki said it so easily, as if she didn't care about life at all. But they pressed for time, with no other choice, the duo allowed Aozaki to use her prototype on them and on herself.
If anybody looked outside, they will find almost no traces of the three people except for an odd colour of fine sand and pieces of small stones. The cigarette butt was buried underneath them.
XXX
Phantom felt sick, his sense of balance was completely shut down. He felt as if he had some sort of motion sickness – except it was space sickness. He was spinning wildly, and then he felt weightless – until gravity took over and crashed onto the marbled floor.
His stomach churned uncomfortably, his bile rising, but he swallowed it. He blinked a few times, and supported himself with one of the messy tables – paperwork were scattered everywhere as his body slumped across the table.
The ceiling was tall, and unless he was seeing things, there was a chandelier right above him.
How green…
With a few minutes, his bearings will return and until then, Phantom rather not risk falling without any support.
His ally was not as lucky as Lea's face turned green, sickly green, and ran as if hell was on her heels, but her movements were clumsy and she kept bumping into things ranging from experiments – they didn't fall at all! – Phantom shuddered from the memories of Freud's experiments – to papers and blackboards. Eventually, she managed to bump onto the nearest bucket – and retched.
Aozaki sat beside Phantom, and looked calmly at the duo with a sinister smile on her face. She was clearly unaffected.
Halfway during their space-travel, Aozaki's hood was pushed down, revealing her ponytailed ashen white hair and her tanned skin. She blinked her stormy gray eyes and chuckled at Phantom before playfully poking his forehead.
"Silly hero." Remarked the alchemist. She got up and turned her back before the two unfortunate people and went somewhere.
Even with Lea's barfing noises, his trained ears could hear the clinking of glass and metal – is Aozaki making drinks for them?
"You okay there? Lea?" Aozaki's voice called out, somehow her tone sounded different.
Cheery is the word.
Why the change?
Lea groaned in affirmative. "Great…wait…are you wearing your glasses?"
Phantom sighed inwardly, another weird person to meet – not that he could complain.
"Mmmhm. Hon, I prefer if you called it by its proper name." Aozaki came back, holding two beakers in her hands and placed one down beside Phantom before taking the second for herself as she took a long draught from the whatever yellowish substance.
The glasses made her look nerdy, smart even with her white long-sleeve shirt and coffee brown pants. She discarded her travelling robe onto a chair, hopelessly stacked up with other dirty laundry.
By the Transcendents, was that moss growing?!
Phantom felt sicker than before, but forced himself up only to be assaulted by a headache. The female alchemist gave him a sharp look and pointed the beaker with her chin. "Drink up." She smiled once more and finished the rest of her drink.
She smacked her lips. "Good stuff, chrysanthemum tea."
Light footsteps came and Lea looked better, and there's a scowl. "I hate portals – they make me sick."
"A necessity, hon." Stated the alchemist. "Want some?"
Lea nodded and glanced at the groggy thief. "I don't think we will be exchanging information soon…" The other female lit up another cigarette in response and tapped the remaining ashes onto the tray, full with many brown stumps of the cigarettes before fetching another drink for Lea.
When she came back, there was a little umbrella in it and by the time she came back, Phantom was leaning on Lea's shoulder, his hands around the beaker, taking a sip as it was hot enough to scald his tongue.
"Cute." Aozaki remarked once she passed the drink to Lea. Lea scoffed and gestured the glasses. "Take it off."
Aozaki relented, and her gaze was sharper than usual. "So…you used the information wisely…to help the Empress," Her voice was back to normal. The alchemist paused and tapped the beaker with her long, red painted nails, her other hand waving the pair of glasses accusingly.
Lea laughed, but there was no humor in them. "I don't have much choice, especially when the Black Mage is breaking his seal."
"Are you the Heroes' ally or enemy?" Aozaki shot another bullet. Phantom felt Lea's body tensed and he began to worry for her wellbeing.
The silence stretched until Lea chose to drink instead of answering much to Phantom's confusion.
Aozaki started laughing. "Interesting, you choose neither – neutrality? And yet your recent actions say…otherwise." She injected the word with amusement. Was this conversation a game?
Lea made a noise with the back of her throat – inhuman noise. And Phantom leaned away from her, hoping she would calm down.
Aozaki shook her head. "Hmph. Half the time – I am stuck in this lab, crafting my own dolls – doing my experiments and paperwork all on my own. You and I know, there is no place for people like us." She looked up the ceiling. "Forever living…forever watching, even under the eyes of both heads of the alchemist organization, they never noticed."
Phantom felt they were talking about another thing entirely, and Lea looked somber. His drink was long cold by the time he took the next sip.
"I am sure you are aware of my research…" said the alchemist, still looking at the ceiling.
"Origin – of physical body." Lea replied sharply and she tugged his robe lightly, as if asking him to pay attention.
That is the first time Phantom about it. The word Origin and the principle behind it.
The other lady nodded eagerly. "Our little friend is lost, let me explain. All sentiment beings have their own origins. Look at this doll," She reached out for a Russian doll and passed it to clueless Phantom. Phantom stared at it, but accepted it after he placed the empty beaker away from their reach.
"Now, open it."
Phantom did what he was told and saw another doll, exactly the same image, but different size. Under the expected glance of Lea, he continued until he reached the tiniest doll, barely the height of his thumb.
"He's done!" Lea called out a bit too loudly. Aozaki had wandered off when Phantom was concentrating on opening the dolls.
The devil appeared from a blackboard with runes and waved in return before hopping down to their side.
"Try opening the last doll."
Phantom opened the doll for the last time and let out a sigh of relief when there was nothing.
Wait…nothing?!
He checked every corner of the doll – and relaxed for a moment.
The alchemist slid a hand across her face. "You really should get rid of your nothing thought, Phantom. That nothing is actually something."
As Phantom was still confused, Lea translated the alchemist's words. "We came from something. It can be an energy, but origin goes further than that – think of it as our soul and what makes our soul."
Lea waited for the information to sink in before she continued, "For example," Lea pointed at the alchemist who was writing the air with a chalk. "Aozaki's origin is 'conversion'. Because of that, she can change her physical body, although it still looks the same. No offense." The younger girl added.
Aozaki merely shrugged and the word she was writing turned into a small tornado, sweeping up the dust from unwanted places and later deposited them outside. "It's not far from the mark, and my origin is not conversion. It takes a strong mage to find their origin or other people's origin." She huffed two perfect smoke rings.
"Lea, yours is probably 'acceptance' partly because you accept things very easily – energy…people which most wouldn't go near…and you are also very self-sacrificing. Your gentleness is your weapon and also your weakness."
She crushed the orange stump with her hand. "Is it what you came here for? A theory lesson for the master thief?"
Lea narrowed her eyes at the thief. "Partly, how's Hilla?"
"She's still going strong. Even if Neinheart is the best in tactics – they are useless against her undead army. The best way to defeat her army is save the soul within them – and it requires a shaman. Preferably stronger than Hilla." She glanced at the melting candles which indicated the time and then, stared at the duo.
"It's already tea break – do you want to stay?"
Aozaki is inviting them to stay for the night. Instead of answering, Lea tucked her arms and stared at the experiments and also at Aozaki's crafting of dolls – they looked realistically human.
Phantom tipped his hat to her and put on a bright smile. "We'd love to."