FALL SEVEN TIMES

by Ulquiorra9000

Chapter 5

As she stepped out of the Blind Eternities and set foot onto Kamigawa's soil, Mizuki braced herself. For whatever was waiting, whatever twisted freaks, whatever darkness loomed over her...

The familiar nighttime streets of Juka-no-Nadachi surrounded her.

Life as usual.

Home.

Azrael stepped out of his planeswalking gate next to Mizuki and dispelled it. He looked around, then at his companion. Concern crossed his face. "What's wrong, Mizuki? You're so pale."

"I..." Mizuki ran a trembling hand over her face. Her backpack felt heavy. "It's nothing. I just thought..."

Azrael put a gentle hand on Mizuki's shoulder. "The Phyrexians... of course. But they're clearly not here yet. I've grown familiar with their taint, and I sensed none of it in this town on arrival. All the same..." He puffed out his chest and steeled his eyes. "Let's keep our guard up."

"Yeah. I know." Mizuki watched as a trio of glowing kami drifted casually past a butcher shop's sign. "So, uh... have you been to Kamigawa before?"

"Just once, while searching for the shards of my Sphaera Vitae."

Mizuki blinked. "Oh, yeah. That whole adventure."

"Speaking of which," Azrael said firmly, "we've had enough adventuring for now. Let's find an inn and rest for a few hours. The sun should be up soon, and we can start scouting for Phyrexian infestation sites."

"You got it. Follow me." Mizuki loosened her hair, tossed it casually, and set off with Azrael right behind her.

Childhood memories overlapped with the familiar streets and shops, and Mizuki found herself tempted to forget why she was here with Azrael. Humans in commoner robes and straw sandals crowded past, some with wide straw hats, some with buckets of water or grain, and some in green monk robes, their heads shaved bald. Kitsune, the fox-people, appeared here and there, most of them either traveling monks in silver robes or samurai-for-hire with katanas sheathed at their belts. Mizuki even saw a few orochi, the snake-people, making their way through the crowds.

She'd always seen these crowds before. And the jewelry stands, the produce shops, the weapons store, the tanner, the weavers...

Mizuki pointed. "See that art shop?"

Azrael glanced over. "Yes."

"I went there once two years ago," Mizuki said, unable to fight a smile. "I told Morrel this story once... I went here with my dad, Keito, to buy a birthday present for a boy in my village nearby. I bought a wall scroll in that art shop, but the owners had mixed up their stock and I wound up buying an erotic scroll! Everyone at the party saw it."

Mizuki's chuckle died in her throat when Azrael failed to laugh. "Uh... did I offend you or something?" she asked.

Azrael blinked. "Oh! I'm sorry." He smiled, but it was too late.

Mizuki humphed. "Even Morrel had a better sense of humor than you..."

"But I'm not that Morrel boy." Azrael shrugged.

Mizuki rolled her eyes. "Ugh. Never mind. Look, we're almost there."

She brought Azrael to a two-story inn and drew back the sliding front door, then paid the clerk for two rooms. A nakai woman approached, bowed politely, and escorted her guests two adjacent rooms. Azrael set foot in his.

"No! Wait, sir!" the nakai cried. She pointed at his boots. "You cannot..."

"Let me." Mizuki stepped forward. "Azrael, you're supposed to change into house slippers here. Your shoes are only for traveling outside. It's meant to keep things clean and all."

Azrael bowed his head. "My mistake." He made the change and entered his room. "I won't need further service. Good night."

The nakai glanced at Mizuki, then shuffled off with a disappointed air.

Mizuki grinned and kicked off her straw sandals. "You're worse than Morrel at this. You didn't even let the nakai change you into your yukata."

Azrael's brow creased. "My what?"

"A nice robe you wear while staying at the inn... whatever. We won't be here long anyway." Mizuki hesitated, then joined Azrael in his room and slid shut the door.

She turned to face Azrael. "Look, if this quest is gonna work, we ought to have a better understanding. You're so... uh..."

"What have I done wrong?" Azrael asked.

"It's more like... Morrel listened to me when I told him why I had a curse in my arm," Mizuki admitted. She held out her left arm and flexed the fingers. Her heart felt heavy. "I could tell him anything, and he accepted me for who I was, and he... he even held me. Starting at that point, I knew he was someone I could rely on, someone who cared about me. I owed him."

By the spirits, I miss him so bad. Mizuki fought to keep it off her face.

Azrael's face softened and he made a helpless gesture. "I'm sorry, Mizuki, but as I said, I'm not... I'm a stranger here." He looked around the room, from its low table (complete with a tea set) to the koi fish-pattern wall scrolls to the futon bed.

Mizuki saw her chance. She smiled. "Not too late to change that. Come on, we're safe here. Let's have a seat." She knelt at the low table, and Azrael reluctantly joined her, seated opposite her.

"Look. I can make us a drink, see?" Mizuki got her hands on the tea set and poured herself and Azrael two mugs of jasmine tea from the teapot (which was enchanted to keep the tea warm). She took a savory sip, and Azrael did the same.

"It's... quite good," Azrael commented.

"Isn't it?" Mizuki said. "Y'know, this is called a ryokan, a basic inn found all over Kamigawa. Never been to one before, I'm guessing."

Azrael shook his head and looked curiously at a wall scroll's painting of a tree spirit.

"I've been to a few," Mizuki said, "with my family. My dad Keito, my mom Azashi, and my little sister Hana. We couldn't afford many trips, but sometimes my dad saved up enough. When I was little, he carried me on his shoulders and pretended to be some stone kami taking me on adventure!"

Azrael took another sip. "You must miss him."

"Yeah." Mizuki tried not to remember that day when Haijin-no-Imari had attacked... "What about you?"

"Me?"

"Uh-huh." Mizuki leaned across the table. "C'mon, who's the real you? You're a nice guy, now that you're not doin' your Sphaera Vitae scheme. I like getting to know people, even when I was a kid. I met all kinds of folks on those trips with my family..."

Azrael drummed his fingers on the low table, staring at the teapot. "Well..."

Mizuki's stomach twitched. "Uh-huh?"

"I grew up on the island nation of Ezig Natum on Dominaria, as I once told you," Azrael said, his tone conversational. For a change. "When I was a boy, my people were at their historic height, even rivalling Tolaria Academy! It was a place of learning and artifice, even for the lower classes. We built all kinds of wonders and filled our libraries with -"

Mizuki waved a hand to cut him off. "Hang on, you sound just like Veldor!"

Azrael finally chuckled. "Esper, Ezig Natum, Kaladesh... everywhere you go, people want to push the boundaries of knowledge, Mizuki. That doesn't turn you off, does it?"

"What the..." Mizuki scowled. "Are you teasing me?"

Azrael looked shocked. "No, not at all -"

Mizuki laughed and took another sip of jasmine tea. "Actually, that's a good thing. Means you're opening up to me, and not being all stiff and cold all the time."

Azrael looked faintly ruffled. "Yes. At any rate, right out of my mandatory schooling I enrolled at Jala-Zen University, one of the better colleges back on Dominaria. My sister Kaida was there too, and she was the student government's vice-president, so I had something to live up to."

"Oh boy, college life," Mizuki said with a growing grin. "Those places aren't nearly as tame and dignified as people try to make them sound."

"Indeed," Azrael said, wincing. "On my very first day, I joined the whirl-ball team, which was rated #1 at Ezig Natum, and among the best in all of Dominaria. I passed the tryouts with no problem, but..." He faltered, going red.

Mizuki stifled a giggle behind her hand. "Uh-huh?"

Azrael went pink. "You probably guessed it already: they mercilessly hazed me and three other boys who joined the team. The team captain, this elf named Ghan-Bo... he was a senior student. Transferred from some other college in Elfhame. First, Ghan-Bo made the four of us run around the track until we collapsed. One boy actually threw up."

Mizuki couldn't fight back her giggle. "Oh, no!"

"I certainly didn't give Ghan-Bo the satisfaction. I didn't throw up... until I made it back to my dorm," Azrael admitted. "But that wasn't all. For the first team practice, he forced me and the three other newcomers to arrive in only our undershorts, despite the cold weather. I kept a dignified air, though, acting as though nothing was wrong. The girls on the team were rather distracted."

Mizuki thumped the table with her open palms as she fought not to laugh at him. She didn't trust herself to open her mouth.

"And after practice, one of the other new boys asked for directions to the bathing rooms," Azrael added. "Ghan-Bo gave us the directions, and we followed them... into the girls' bathing rooms. There was a good deal of screaming and excuses going back and forth."

Mizuki felt herself going red from trying to keep quiet.

"One of the girls punched my fellow on his face and shoved him to the floor," Azrael went on, "and I rushed over to help him, but another girl tripped me. But she didn't mean for me to fall into another girl, and she and I ended up on the floor together, me on top of her!"

Mizuki gave in and threw back her head as she burst out laughing. She heard the other guests fussing at her through the walls to shut up.

"It was rather mortifying, Mizuki," Azrael said, sounding hurt.

Mizuki forced herself to settle down, but she couldn't stop her teasing smile. "Sorry, sorry! But that's..."

"For the rest of the semester," Azrael added, "everyone teased both me and that girl about it, imagining us as romantically involved. Which we weren't!"

"Oh, that's a shame."

"For the record," Azrael added, lifting his chin, "I was involved with a girl named Idezza in my third year. She was studying merfolk sociology while I delved deeper into arcane artifice. We didn't understand each other's coursework very much, but we had a wonderful time until she grew tired of me and moved on."

Mizuki made a sympathetic noise. "She moved on? From you?"

"Perhaps I was too tame a person," Azrael said thoughtfully. "Some young women... they prefer men with rowdy behavior, don't they?"

Mizuki nodded. "Oh yeah, some sure do. I knew this girl named Megumi in my village who only got involved with jerks. She was a few years older than me, and every time her jerk boyfriends drove her nuts or did something horrible, I'd try and tell her to meet a decent fellow, but she thought I was too young to understand. Even when I was 15, she thought I was just some dumb kid."

"Did this girl learn the error of her ways on her own, then?"

Mizuki nodded again. "Sure did. She was with this sell-sword bastard named Hetsumon, and one day he showed up totally drunk and started groping and harassing her. She tried to fight back, so he punched her and called her a 'stupid bitch'. Then she hit him, and he reached for his knife. But she knocked it outta his hands and punched his throat!" Mizuki remembered the grisly scene clearly as she spoke. "He stormed out of my village and never came back. My sister and I watched the whole thing. And my mom warned us about being with men like him, but hey, I already knew that."

Azrael's eyes widened. "You're a tough one, Mizuki. It seems that Kamigawa women know how to handle themselves."

"Pretty much," Mizuki said with a shrug, "but some of them are crazy freaks, too. A year after that, my neighbor, Ms. Jijinshi, thought that her husband was having an affair, and he kept denying it. So, Ms. Jijinshi snapped stabbed her husband three times and kept yelling like a lunatic until my dad and some other guy got her off of him, and she was driven out of town. No one found out for sure if her husband did cheat, but he was a nice guy and he repeatedly denied the accusation, so... that was that. Nothing else we could do."

Azrael rotated his tea mug in his hands. "It sounds like you learned quickly what other people can be like, and what they can do. Quite a lesson."

"I know, right?" Mizuki took another sip, then stood up and stretched. Her bandaged wounds stung, but not too badly. Their white mana enchantment was doing its job great. "Look, it was kinda nice having this chat with you. See? It's good to have a proper friend."

"Point well taken." Azrael stood and smiled modestly. "I admit, I was a rather introverted student and artificer back home, and I certainly didn't make friends during my Sphaera Vitae quest."

"No kidding." Mizuki rolled her head to relax her neck. "Okay, I'm goin' to bed. See you later."

Azrael nodded and approached the futon bed, removing his leather armor and cape as he went. "It's definitely time to get off our feet. We'll have to be in good shape for -"

He froze when a series of loud warning bells sounded all over Juka-no-Nadachi. And even from here, Mizuki could hear the panicked shouts of the crowds and the roaring voices of the town guards ordering people to safety.

Mizuki felt her insides go cold. "What do you think? Is it them?"

Azrael hastily threw his armor and cape back on, including the brass bracers he'd obtained on Fiora. "We have no choice. Come on."

*o*o*o*o*

Minamo Academy was exquisite. At least, from the outside.

Radiah Albazan stood at the edge of a waterfall, her high-heeled black leather boots planted on the slippery, mossy rocks as she breathed in the cool, damp air. Over the thundering waterfall sat a massive school of white stone brick and wood, its pointed, tiled roof and curly eaves typical of Kamigawa architecture. Side halls, dorms, and observatories stuck out at odd places. The whole thing was three stories tall and nearly square at the base, and it probably housed over two thousand people, students and staff alike.

Most of all, an enormous bubble of pale blue mana enveloped the entire school. Even from here, Radiah could feel the pulse of arcane energy, and it made her skin tingle.

Bah.

Radiah held out her gloved right hand and channeled her white Phyrexian mana. Her three-foot-long staff appeared in her clenched fingers, crafted of steel and coated in polished porcelain. Tubes of Phyrexian oil sat coiled under the staff's plating, wrapped around the steel rod that acted as the skeleton. On the outside, Radiah's staff was tipped with a glass ball that contained wild purple electricity, dancing and sizzling in its spherical prison.

"What do you think, boys and girls?" Radiah shouted smugly at the hundreds of blue Phyrexians massed around her. "Are you ready for the first step? You'll help make New Phyrexian history!"

The assembled golems, compleat Neurok and drakes, and horrors roared, shrieked, and hissed the affirmative.

"That's great," Radiah said, beaming. "Summon the tide makers and prepare to open fire!"

The blue Phyrexians hastened to obey.