Play of Spirits
Chapter 5 - Winds Come Together

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Someone pulled out their phone, and Izumi approved the idea. Now she knew where one of the other two was, and she pulled out hers as well.

Now there were two solid lights and her own. Their three phones. The only way they could communicate with each other.

She wondered if either Tomoki or Junpei knew Morse code.

She tried something simple, flipping her phone cover open and shut. You okay?

Nothing. Just the solid lights and now her vision was adjusting to the limited light she had – or maybe they'd drifted closer. It wasn't like they had any ground to hold them down, after all. They were floating three dimensionally and she doubted any of them had aerodynamic training. Would've been useful – but really, how often were they going to wind up in situation where they'd need it? How often would there be winds so strong it could toss three pre-teens into the sky and then hold them there? Or maybe they were moving about but they had no landmarks aside from each other…

Yeah, the dots did look like they were getting bigger, and closer. But, again, that might just be her eyes getting used to things – yet how they managed that when she was blinking like mad

But since Morse code wasn't working, she'd try yelling next. 'Hey, guys! Can you hear me?'

Nothing, except the wind howling. She sighed to herself and the wind snatched that up too. Were they going to flop around like balloons and go to wherever balloons go? It was uncomfortable (and she was lucky her stomach was made of strong enough stuff to not have her throwing up already), and embarrassing as well. Even if no-one was there to watch. Especially if no-one was there to watch – because people already watched her and said things about her she couldn't help or else didn't care to help, but her own opinion about herself was a different matter. That mattered.

Which meant that she needed to find a way down, preferably before she lost her lunch or her company. And that meant trying to find direction in this three dimensional space that had no stationary flags and nothing visible at all, really, aside from each other.

They didn't even know which direction the ground was in, and honestly, it all sounded rather ridiculous in her head. What they needed was the wind to settle down, and settle slowly so it didn't just drop them because as much as the wind was keeping them from the ground, it was also the only reason they weren't free-falling and finally going splat like dropped eggs.

And she really didn't want to crack and go splat like an egg, thank you very much. But the wind was a force of its own, wasn't it? Like all forces of nature, doing its own thing and never listening to the pleas of the people – or maybe that was because people were so fickle and so different that they'd never be able to agree a hundred percent on any one type of weather to enjoy. Those who followed after the majority and those who rebelled against it and those who were indifferent to it and simply made their own choices regardless to others… And it was impossible for the entire world to agree on something, because that was their nature as a species. So why should nature listen, then? How could it when people wished for conflicting things? Perhaps even now one of them wanted this wind to toss them about like balloons cut from their strings.

At least they'd only tumbled for a bit and then straightened out. Trying to keep an eye on each other while they tumbled would have been impossible, or nauseating, or both. But now her heart pounded in her ears between the howls of the wind – because, really, they could fall any minute, the wind letting them go…

But at least it would tell them which way was down, assuming they didn't drift off course before they could do a thing with that information.

But she could do nothing about any of that, however dire the need. She closed her eyes. Looking at those bright lights from the cell phones was really getting her nowhere and it was always easier to take a deep calming breath without distractions.

She took one. Then another. The wind howled – no, it sung. It was singing all this time, she realised, and she breathed deep and slow to keep her hear quieter so she could listen. It was singing, and it had a tune. Up and down, up and down – and the wind dipped and spiked in turn. It was just a matter of keeping up. Up was up and down was down. She balled up in a trough and straightened out in a peak and then she opened her eyes again. Yes, she was a little lower than the others now.

They really could ride the winds back down. That was all kinds of strange but she'd take it. But now she had to reach the other two and explain it and she was even further from them now. 'Hey!" she called again. But nothing changed.

She could try to ride the wind up to them instead – but no. She could make herself more compact to sink but she was already as flailed out as she could go; she couldn't make herself go up without wings and she was a human and not even a social butterfly to own a metaphorical pair.

And it wouldn't be fair to leave them right now, when they hadn't done anything to her (or rather, anything she could hear but of all the things to curse right then and there, she was a bit of a long stretch, really). If they were her classmates, she'd have no problem leaving them –

No, that was a lie, wasn't it? She'd have less of a problem leaving them and maybe she would actually leave them, but she'd regret it after her feet touched the ground. Or was that just pretentious of her, her wanting to take the kinder, more humane, path? Less reasonable too, because now she had a way down and no way to communicate it to them, and she'd be better off leaving them behind except she couldn't.

Though she was glad she couldn't, because often people talked a good game but couldn't back it up and here she was, actually doing it, actually walking the walk.

Or hovering in the air because she couldn't walk, but that was beside the point of the metaphor.

She stared at her cell phone. The last message was still on the screen but it didn't help her at all, and she didn't have either of their phone numbers. One day there'd be internet on their phones and this would be much easier, but for now…

Then she blinked. She had another text message and this one said it was from Junpei.

How the hell did he…

The message only said: Did it work?

If it is you messaging me, it worked – Izumi, she typed back, and she didn't know whether to be relieved or annoyed or scared because he must have hacked into her phone somehow. Remotely at that. While tumbling through the sky. What eleven year old could do that? Or maybe he was a little older than eleven, but he was still a kid. What kid could hack into cell phones?

Cool, came the next message. This is going to drain our accounts so if you're okay, just message if you figure out a way out of this mess.

Which was great, because she had exactly that.

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They were clever children, tapping into their elements already without a hint and with only due cause. It was all the more amazing because they were humans and not digimon, humans who didn't know of these possibilities and yet they were still able to see them, and use them.

Amazing, but not unexpected. She'd been looking for exactly that, after all.

Of course, if they couldn't, she would have let them down but now she didn't. She didn't because now two of the three had showed their promise and their combined efforts would get the three of them down – and then it was up to the last.

She still watched them because, perhaps, their finding each other on the carriage had been fate and not coincidence all along.

So now she had four, and she had her eyes on a potential five and six out of the sea of children she'd summoned and who now faced their trials. Cruel trials. Harsh trials. But it was unavoidable because they were human and those instincts are far too deep to dig out otherwise.

Once fear fades, they try practical things. Once practicality fails, the fear returns. And in that fear is the possibility of things they didn't even think were possible…

And if they did become possible, then they could wake the spirits and the key to their survival.

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It took a long time, but they had that time… along with the impending sense of freefall if the wind decided to let them go before they reached the ground. Tomoki was the most difficult because he was the smallest and so fell the least, and neither of them had their backpacks to help add to the weight. So they all fell at different rates and the blinking of their phones was the only thing that kept them together –

And whatever would they do if any of their batteries ran flat?

Izumi could only pray to gods she didn't believe in that that didn't happen, because while it was listening to the wind that started it all, it was the phones that were their lifeline. The wind didn't connect them. It just held them, and as they changed their concentration of mass, it lowered them down. But it was technology that lassoed them together: flagged each other in the dark expanse of the sky and let them communicate –

But it would also be technology to plunge them into isolation if they failed. It was a race but they couldn't rush. They couldn't afford to rush because they'd be tossed up again and their hard work would be for naught.

So they made their way painstakingly down and waited until Junpei hit the bottom or until the wind gave out –

And then Junpei did hit the bottom.

His next message said: I'm cold.

Izumi didn't know what to make of that, because the wind was chilly too: skin-numbing and she was barely managing to cling to her phone with both hands when she had to type a message back.

Then her sneakers touched something and she felt it as well. That icy feeling that shot from her feet right into her skull, like she'd been thrown upside down into ice water. She didn't feel wet though. But her entire body was numb so maybe that was a non-issue. In any case, that made two out of three so there was only Tomoki now and she'd have to stay where she was to get him down safely –

But then the wind broke and she plunged into the ice cold water – and she only knew it was water for sure because it flooded her nostrils and her mouth and she choked on it.

She could breathe air. She couldn't breathe water. She couldn't see her phone now either and, for all she knew, she had let go of it.

Panic seized her. That phone had been her one connection to the other two. And Tomoki – Tomoki was still up there, with no idea when he'd hit the ground. For all they knew, he'd seen their lights disappear and he'd thought the ground had quite literally fallen away from him.

Or maybe the wind had dropped him as well. But she hadn't heard a splash. Water was clogging up her ears as well. And her mind. There was nothing to hang on to. No wind to listen to. She flailed as best she could but her limbs were heavy and numb and tired from all she'd already done.

She was a decent swimmer but this was too clumsy, too slow. Move! she screamed at her body, and her lungs screamed too. They wanted air and she knew which direction it was in and all she had to do was swim up there and taste it but her body didn't want to obey.

Her mind screamed. Her lungs screamed. Her body just didn't seem capable of acting on that. Come on! But her limbs were still so heavy and she couldn't make sense of anything…

It wasn't like when she'd been hostage to the wind at all. Or maybe she just lacked that one moment of clarity that would make it all bearable, or the air movement to and from her lungs that meant she still had time –

And then she was waking up, cold and wet but no longer numb and in a puddle of water and something soapy and in front of a campfire. And she blinked, slowly, because none of that was really coming together. Soap water and camp fires didn't go together, and neither of those things went with a tornado-like wind that had tossed them from the carriage of a train and into the sky and then held them there, or whatever ice cold water they'd stepped into because they'd found no land instead. Was this the shore to that ocean? Perhaps. But that still didn't explain the soapy water.

'Oh good,' said Tomoki, sounding relieved. 'You're awake.'

She stared at him. He looked drier than she did, sitting close to the fire. He patted the trunk next to him and she sat down there as well and it was instantly warmer. Junpei wasn't there. 'Junpei?' Her voice came out a croak.

'Uhh, before that.' Tomoki sounded sheepish, or worried, or a mix of both. 'Are your lungs okay?'

My lungs?

'You were coughing out that stuff.' He pointed to the other side of the fire, in the puddle she'd lain. 'I mean, I get the water but that white foamy stuff… Junpei-san said it was because the water got into your lungs.'

So he was out of that hell-hole, even if he wasn't in sight. That was a relief.

And the water had gotten into her lungs? 'It did feel like that,' she admitted. 'My lungs were burning and I couldn't breathe, and even though I knew where the surface was and how to swim, I still couldn't reach it.'

'It's ice water,' Tomoki explained. 'We've landed in a glacier.'

'A glacier,' Izumi repeated. Now that he mentioned it, he was looking pale… And shivering despite the fire. She was warmer though. 'Great, don't tell me I had hypothermia too.'

Tomoki shrugged. 'None of us are doctors,' he said. 'And we don't come from Hokkaido, either.'

'Guess that's true…' And Italy's winter had nothing on Japan. She flexed her fingers. They were still stiff but now there was a pricking sensation in their tips. Hopefully that meant the numbness was fading. Hypothermia could mean frostbite and lost fingers and toes and even if that was more a horror tale than practical advice from the camp counsellor at the time, it was all she had to go on. She didn't like the cold. No-one in their family did and they always stayed warm. She always had her hoodie –

No, she wasn't wearing it now. It was just her striped t-shirt. 'My hoodie?' she asked.

Tomoki passed it over and she put it on. It felt snug and warm over her still soaked things… And maybe that hadn't been a bright idea. It was going to get wet again. But she'd dry out, eventually. Or wouldn't, if it really was a glacier and really was cold. And it probably was.

No way any of that had been a dream, or a nightmare.

'Is our luck that rotten?' she groaned. 'What is all this, anyway?'

In answer, Tomoki held out her phone and she grabbed it – probably too enthusiastically, considering the startled look on Tomoki's face, but she couldn't help it. It had become her lifeline – their lifeline – and now that it was back in her hands, she felt calmer.

She hadn't even realised her heart had been so loud until it quietened.

She just held it a moment. It wasn't particularly warm, nor particularly cold, but it was comforting and that was all that mattered. And then, finally, she flipped open the phone and stared at the new message. Unsigned, and an unknown number.

You have passed the first of the trials you will face. I pray for your continued success.

'W-what..?' she stuttered. 'A trial? Is that what they call it?'

Whatever possessed her to listen to that stupid text message in the first place? She prided herself as being someone who didn't follow the crowd and yet she'd done exactly that. And now there was this. In a glacier who knew where (because were there even glaciers anywhere in Japan?) after bouncing in the sky and skinny-dipping in ice cold water was summed up as a trial, and the first of many to boot, then what had they gotten themselves blindly involved in?

'This has got to be several layers of illegal,' she muttered, after she reread the message a third time. 'Technically, we didn't agree to anything. We just came to check things out.'

'I didn't,' said Tomoki quietly, and Izumi was suddenly reminded of how he'd protested his presence on the train. But what could she say? A meaningless apologise or promise? But before she could think of anything, he spoke again: 'I couldn't do anything earlier. I'm sorry.'

'You're sorry?' Izumi echoed. 'If Junpei hadn't hacked our phones, we'd have been goners.'

'Not you,' he countered. 'You worked out how to get down, even though we couldn't. You didn't have to stay.'

'Of course I did,' she protested. 'Okay, I did go through the whole argument in my head but the truth of the matter was I couldn't just leave you two up there. I'd never have been able to walk away even if I did. Even if I didn't know you, or worse, if I hated you.'

He half-smiled. 'If you hated us and still saved us, then you would've saved anybody, I guess.'

'I didn't mean I hate you.' Izumi waved her hands in a placating gesture. 'I was just thinking out loud… Of people I could've been with and wouldn't have felt so inclined to save. But you and Junpei haven't done anything to make me hate you, yet. And one of you dragged me out of the water, right?' Because she certainly didn't remember doing it herself.

'I did,' Tomoki confirmed, and she stared at him in a little surprise because he was so slim and small… and maybe that was why. The heavier two had sunk faster. Or something. 'But Junpei-san saved himself, and it was because of him I could find you. See, there was this bright flash of light and then –'

'And then this,' Junpei grumbled from behind her.

She half-shrieked and spun around on her stump – and then she gaped.

Junpei was either behind the weird looking dwarf with the long nose and the hammer, or he was it.