Play of Spirits
Chapter 11 - Winding Roots

Izumi felt strange, being the only one still looking like a human.

As for the other two, they couldn't look more different. Warriors of a sort, the both of them, but so different… If they were in one of those action games, then they'd be different warrior classes. Or maybe not: maybe just different specialties. Earth and fire, she thought. That was pretty obvious, with the way Tomoki had managed to light himself on fire –

And it really was amazing he didn't set the entire forest aflame as well. Even if it wouldn't have been his fault if he had. He'd been screaming in pain and rolling on the ground like they were taught to when there was a fire… But it didn't really help when the source of the fire seemed to be from within. The water helped, though, even if in their panic it had resulted in Junpei hitting him in that direction with his hammer like a croquet ball.

Not hard enough to break any bones, at least. And Junpei seemed a little more relaxed now for that.

Maybe he'd been scared before: scared because he was suddenly so different: an earth dwarf carrying around a hammer that had split water and looked solid enough to split earth and rock as well. And what were brittle human bones when faced with solid rock?

It didn't matter, at least. Junpei had managed it which meant he had an understanding of his newfound strength – or a better understanding, at least.

And Tomoki's main problem at the moment was dealing with being over twice his original height, making him the tallest amongst all of them. The sparks coming out of his fists weren't a problem if he didn't move them suddenly.

So they walked slowly… which was okay because they weren't in any particular rush and Izumi found her legs still felt a bit like jelly. But they weren't going to comb the forest on their own for food or wood after last night (or she assumed it was night anyway), so they'd just have to hope they found something along the way.

They did, eventually. Strange apples hanging off a large tree and Tomoki's height came in handy there, even though he did wince as he stretched. Izumi winced as well. She couldn't see anything beneath the armour but with the fire they'd seen before… There could be burns underneath: raw patches of skin the water had cooled but they were far from the water now. But Tomoki didn't complain.

Still, she had to ask. 'Are you feeling okay, Tomoki?'

'…still hot,' he admitted. 'Like we're walking in a desert in the middle of summer without water.'

It wasn't that hot. She could even feel a slight breeze threading between the trees.

'I'm a little hot too,' Junpei added, 'but I figured it was more dragging this thing around.' He gestured at his long-handled hammer.'

'Well, I'm not.' Izumi blinked. 'I'm absolutely fine.' Of course, she was also outvoted. That was the problem, wasn't it? Always the problem…

They stared at each other. 'Well, you are the only one of us who still looks normal,' Junpei said, after a pause. 'We're suddenly bigger and bulkier and doing weird things…'

Tomoki blinked as he charred the apple he'd been trying to twist out of the tree. 'Whoops?'

Though when they bit into their apples later, they realised they were supposed to be cooked, and so Tomoki shook his fists and fried them all.

.

They were closing in on one of the remaining spirits, and this one they'd set up purposefully because it marked the end of the second round of trials.

Or it should have. It didn't quite. Humans sometimes found the middle ground between a pass and failure and these ones had.

To be fair, they hadn't known they had to fight.

The child of fire with a water spirit had gone off to fight on his own, and he had won.

But the child of darkness with the spirits of light would have to fight as well.

And these other three… Thunder with the spirits of earth, and ice with the spirits of flame… Their fight was approaching but she held it off, held them off, because they needed their third spirit as well.

She didn't think the same circumstances would arise with this one, but it didn't hurt to make sure.

And as for the other child… He was the one who died most often in the futures that she saw. He was the one she needed to push the least, and also the most. And it hurt him more. She didn't know why but the spirits of light burned him far worse than the spirits of flame burned the child of ice. Why was that? What was different? Was there just a larger hurdle to overcome, or was it something else? Something more?

Either way, he would have to overcome that hurdle before they could move on.

And with what she'd seen so far, alternating between darkness and light, there wasn't going to be a good scene for them to fight together so he'd have to do it on his own.

But not now. She wasn't cruel. She wanted them to succeed and she didn't want them to suffer needlessly for it, either. For now they could rest… and maybe rest would heal this problem: the pain that came with the light. Even if she'd never heard of such a thing, being light herself, there were humans like this. The proof was right in front of her. But he needed to overcome it, anyway. He managed in the human world, after all. The spirits of light hadn't birthed it; just increased his sensitivity. He could overcome it. He would.

And if he wouldn't try on his own, then she would have to push him to try.

But first, the other three…

And this time, they would all fight.

It was also the only way for them to return to their human forms, until they learned.

.

They ate the fried apples that tasted like different kinds of meat, and then they rested, and then they set of walking again towards the glacier. They were more comfortable now, and Izumi didn't know if it was because of the food or the rest or because the other two weren't using all their energy to keep their new bodies in check and she wasn't as tense around them…

She didn't really care, honestly, how they looked so long as they were comfortable and in control of themselves but that was the thing. Tomoki, burning up like that. Junpei looking positively miserable when she'd woken up after almost drowning…

She shivered. And not one of them had a clue as to how it had all happened. Except Tomoki's clue. With him having seen a fire that wasn't their little camp fire and then it had gotten sucked inside. But that didn't really tell them much either. Didn't tell them anything, really, except they had to be more careful following lights and fires and things.

And at the moment they were following a glacier. Because, really, they couldn't wander around without any sense of direction, now could they? The trees were different sizes but they all looked the same. Some had apples on them. Most were bare.

'Ooh, cherries!' Junpei cried suddenly.

Izumi blinked. They hadn't seen anything but apples until then but Junpei was right. There were cherries.

Except when Tomoki tried to pick one, a root rose up and tripped them all.

'Hey!' the tree yelled at them. 'How dare you go pulling my cherries?'

'I'm sorry?' the three of them said together – because none of the other trees had talked. Or complained. And really, in what world was a talking tree something they should have expected? But saying "sorry" seemed to be the sensible thing to do.

Even if it didn't appease the tree at all. It groaned and stood up straighter, pulling its roots from the ground. 'You want cherries so bad? Cherry bomb!'

And they scattered as the cherries burst out and exploded on the ground. Junpei and Tomoki were bigger and slower and Izumi slipped past them all and into the trees with only a single burn. But it throbbed. Junpei stopped running entirely when he realised his thick skin saved him from it all.

Tomoki shook his fists, but very little sparks came out to counter those cherries. 'Come on!' he cried, shaking them harder. When he slapped them together, a swirl of fire came out. 'All right!'

But the talking tree was still going strong. It singed him, probably, but he hadn't lost even a single branch yet.

Izumi really couldn't do anything except hide in the trees, because if fire wasn't going to bring a tree, then what could a little human girl do? But it irked her, because she was playing right into the roles of the damsel in distress – but she was reasonable too. She saw the cherry bombs strike Junpei and Tomoki and she felt the one that hit her. The best she'd be with those odds was a distraction, and was she going to be any good at all as a distraction? Tomoki seemed to be handling that well enough himself…

No, that wasn't true. Tomoki wasn't being the distraction. He was dealing with the branches. The vine whips, to be precise. And Junpei was trying to duck underneath them and aim for the trunk but he couldn't quite manage. Couldn't manage it because he did need a distraction and she was here and doing nothing…

She must have been blind, to not see how the battle was turning.

She sighed, swallowed, and stepped out from behind the shade of the trees and took a deep breath in, ready to shout.

Something swallowed her instead. Something brown and green. Sticking to her fingers and then spreading like she'd pulled it off the tree but she hadn't seen it at all. Whatever it was was stiff, and slightly deaf: she couldn't hear as well anymore. But it didn't matter. Because her arms were longer now (and maybe her legs as well) and she could fell their stiff springiness as though it was a slinky she could throw and get back again. And that felt weird, because she was used to knowing where every part of her body was but she tried it anyway.

It hit a newly thrown cherry bomb and the bomb exploded. Whoops. But she barely felt it and when her fist came back, it looked fine to her. Maybe a little scorched. Or maybe it would wind up a little scorched. Weird was how she could extend it that far and still have a semblance of control.

'Izumi!' Junpei yelled.

Whoops, they were still fighting an angry talking tree, weren't they? But now there were three of them and she dove into the vines, stumbling when she realised her legs were as extendable as her arms and equally stiff at the joints. It was like walking on stilts and she could manage that. She loved doing it at the circus because she'd be so far above the world, she could almost pretend she was flying… But she wasn't flying, here. She was stumbling about on the ground and she had to keep her feet on the ground because if she stepped on a root instead, she'd go flying and if she got tangled in those vines, she'd go flying too.

Her heart hammered in her chest as she dodged them all and Tomoki burnt the edges and made the tree roar in pain and Junpei could concentrate on getting closer now. It was wobbly and dizzying but she kept at it because the only other choice was to slip up and fall and she didn't want that. She could free-fall through the air but only when she knew where she was going and she couldn't explain how she'd known before but she had. This was just randomly dodging things. There was too much going on. The vines. The tree. The cherry bombs. The three of them. And the floor beneath their feet they had to contend with as well.

And her flailing limbs. Good thing she was far enough away from the others that she didn't need to worry about accidentally hitting either one of them. She was understanding Tomoki's and Junpei's problem a lot better now: how difficult it was to move like this, and how strange it felt. And it felt kind of useless too, punching cherry bombs when they didn't accomplish much now that all three of them had thick skin –

But she'd chosen the role of the distraction, hadn't she, and wasn't it better that she could do it in a skin that wouldn't get her hurt at the end of it?

But was that also all she'd be capable of with her newfound armour? No hammer that could be used as a weapon. No fire that bled from her fists. Just fists she could throw around herself and they still felt like fists. She doubted they'd splinter would if she threw her entire strength into it. Was less likely to than her normal fists because of how she could stretch the limbs. And what was the point of being able to stretch her feet as well if she couldn't walk on them? They collapsed when she tried (even if that hadn't been a smart idea anyway, since she could barely control the height she was already on). The stilts at circuses at least had things to hold on to. Here, her hands were doing other things. Punching cherry bombs out of the air.

And finally, there was a scream and the sound of splintering wood that said Junpei had made it through the vines and slammed his hammer into the other's trunk, and the vines went wild as the trunk split. Junpei drew his hammer back and struck again and the crack widened even further –

And blue light bled out. What in the world..?

But by that point she couldn't hold her balance any more and fell to her knees, and Tomoki did too… Looking like Tomoki. Oh. She looked at herself. Her hands were normal again. Only Junpei was still holding his hammer and looking like a dwarf and he pulled his hammer free and stumbled back… And fell on his backside, the sixth grader in the blue jumpsuit again.

And the tree was all blue light now. Probably a good thing otherwise that would've been their loss. The shakiness was back in her limbs and she wasn't sure the others were holding up any better right then. But the light wasn't attacking them like the tree did. Just splitting into three ribbons and… disappearing into their pockets? No, their phones.

She pulled hers out – and god, her wrists felt weird but she managed it. Except her phone didn't look like a phone anymore. It was bigger, and fatter, and purple and lavender with a smaller screen and the blue light was getting sucked into that screen.

And there was something flashing on it. It looked a light brown, with darker markings. The middle of a puppet doll? There really wasn't much shape to define it; it looked really circular. And it didn't tell her what it was at all.

The other two were looking at their phones turned odd devices as well, equally lost.

'That's the thing that the fire was,' Tomoki said, after a moment. 'So they've in here now?'

'Guess so,' said Junpei, 'but boy am I glad to be me again, you know?'

Izumi might've not been herself for only a little while, but she was in complete agreement.

.

They didn't wind up taking more than a couple of steps past the three where Izumi had been hiding before their strange new devices beeped.

'Congratulations…' the voice floated out. 'You've passed the second task.'

They stared at each other. 'Task?' they echoed. Becoming those weird sub-human things and fighting a talking three was their task?

'Now proceed to the Forest Terminal and board the Trailmon there.'

The screen blanked at that, and they stared at it and each other some more. 'Forest Terminal?' Junpei repeated. 'Trailmon? Anyone else know what she was talking about?'

Izumi and Tomoki both shook their heads. They had absolutely no idea at all.

Luckily, their strange new devices decided to take pity on them and showed them a three dimensional map with a blinking dot. Because that was better than wandering around blindly.

And they managed to make it to something that looked like a train station without too much trouble. 'There you are,' the pale blue train yawned. 'I was falling asleep waiting, you know.'

They stared. 'Aren't you the train we were on?' Izumi frowned. 'You know, before we found ourselves floating in mid air?'

'Who knows?' The train yawned again. 'There were a lot of us and a lot of you. Can't expect me to keep track of that many humans, can you? Least there's only three of you this time. So who's who?' It blinked at them, headlights flickering.

'Uhh… I'm Tomoki,' Tomoki offered.

'Angler,' said the train proudly. 'So you're a Tomoki, huh.'

'Just Tomoki.'

'Just Tomoki, then.'

Junpei and Izumi exchanged glances, but figured simplicity was the easiest way to go.

'Junpei.'

'Izumi.'

'So a Junpei, an Izumi and a Just Tomoki. Okay then.'

Tomoki made a noise that seemed like a cross between a giggle and a groan.

'Hop on, humans. It's a long trip to Flame Terminal but I've got loads of stories.'

'How about starting with how a train can talk?' Izumi suggested, impatient.

'Oh, all digimon talk. And humans too, apparently. Do they all talk like you?'

…what in the world was a digimon?