Laying on the deck of the ship, Kagami stared up at the stars as the rest of her team slept. She couldn't sleep. Her insides were turning just as much as the gears in her head.Taking a deep breath, she let out a heavy sigh while reaching up to rub her eyes. It shouldn't be long now. Well, that's what Baren said and she had been watching the sea since they began their journey. Gritting her teeth, she let out a frustrated groan.
Hearing someone shift around, the jadette glanced over and softly sighed. "Sorry, did I wake you?" She quietly asked.
Rolling over onto her side, Elise stared for a moment before she rolled onto her chest with a huff. "No...?" She let out a huff of air while rubbing her face against the cold deck.
Letting out a small laugh, she shook her head and moved her hands behind her head. "Well if I didn't wake you, then there's no reason to tell you why I'm still awake."
Grumbling, the brunet glanced up at her before letting out a sigh. Slowly, she scooted herself over. "Why are you still awake then...?" She half whispered.
"Because I can't sleep." She flashed a grin as she looked over. She then grunted softly, her chest being hitting.
"I'm too tired for thiiiiis!" She waved her hand around before groaning and rolling onto her back with a thud. "I haven't even slept in a real bed with a million blankets in foreveeer..."
"You will soon again, eventually." Kagami took a deep breath before looking back up at the sky. "Despite all the issues my home has, it's nice and incredibly peaceful. It's quiet. Rice fields look like they stretch on over the horizon sometimes and people trade more than they use lien. If people aren't farming, they're probably fishing. It... was a quiet life. I could have had a quiet life." She quietly thought to herself while furrowing her brow.
"Yeah but..." Half asleep, her friend reached out to lightly tap her arm. "If you had a quiet life you wouldn't have gotten to go on all the adventures we've been on. And I've had a lot of fun. The quiet life on our farm just wasn't for me."
"And living in my mother's shadow isn't for me." Kris spoke before jerking her head up with a glare. "So can we all just please go back to sleep?" She huffed while laying back down.
"Well if I wasn't awake, I am now." Cheyenne stirred a bit before lightly kicking the redhead. "You're always so loud."
"I'm loud when I'm annoyed!" She snapped while kicking her back.
"Then you must always be annoyed!" The Faunus tilted her head a bit to glare.
"Oh... okay." Kagami reached up to rub her face. "As your leader, I order all of you to shut up and go back to sleep." She lifted her head to look over.
As the two of them grumbled and grew quiet, Elise sighed and nudged her. "You get some sleep too." She mumbled before rolling back over onto her stomach.
"I'll try." She mumbled while closing her eyes. "I'll try..."
Watching the incoming horizon, Baren blinked once before she tilted her head. A look of confusion washed over her eyes. The sky was still dark, but the island they approached was far from such. It was illuminated with a multitude of colors. Rising to her feet, she walked forward. Placing her hand on the safety railing of the boat, she leaned forward. "What in Remnant..." She trailed off before taking a single step back. "Hey, Kagami! You might want to come see this!"
Docking at one of many docks, team MACE along with the old warrior traveling with them stepped out onto a long stretch of road. "What... is this?" Kagami barely managed out as she looked up and down the crowded fish market. "This can't be Vytal. Vytal is..." She turned her head to look at the large buildings that filed in towards the center of the island. Multiple illuminated signs hanging from many of them.
"So much for rice fields and peace." Elise dropped her shoulders while staring up.
Slowly looking over, Cheyenne stared up at the one armed warrior. "What... is this place?"
"This is Vytal." Baren reassured. "But this is not what I remember it being like." She looked at one of the many men walking by. He wore a pair of tennis shoes, pants and a blazer. Noticing his strange look, she glanced down at her wooden sandals and old fashioned clothes. "Is this Vytal?" Even she began to question as she looked at the name listed on the docks. This island was indeed Vytal.
"Who cares!" Kris held out her hands while walking ahead. "I am going to a hotel and I am going to take a long nap before we start looking around at this huge mess!"
"I guess... we should follow." Kagami took a deep breath as she followed after with cautious steps. "I don't know where we should even start now. This place is new and-" She grunted, barely avoiding the people that quickly walked by her. Taking a deep breath, she glanced over her shoulder at her mentor. "How are you?"
Staring at everything, the pinkette took a few deep breaths. Keeping close to the group of girls as if she was trying to hide amongst them, she clenched her jaw. "I hate this place more than Mantle." She spoke bluntly. "More than Mantle and Atlas combined." Her ears twitched. "It's overly crowded, loud and unnecessarily bright."
"Well we can agree on that." She nodded back.
"Were you expecting this?" Elise glanced over at her teammate.
"No." Cheyenne shook her head. "I was expecting dirt roads and small wooden buildings from how she talked about this place. Not... not this."
"Atlas was here before I left." The jadette followed after Kris who had a much easier time navigating as they got to the city. "Perhaps they gave my home a jump in technology. And they took off?" She took a deep breath. "This is still madness." She then jumped, the rumble of a train speeding past on a railway.
"Everyone stop complaining. For once we are in a place that I don't mind. It's not freezing. We have air conditioning. Plus, an actual decent signal for my scroll!." Kris glanced back with a smile. Reading a sign, she turned a corner before walking towards the front doors of a tall building with countless windows. "Now let's sleep! For real! My mother is buying us five, five star hotel rooms!" She grinned.
"I suppose rest would be helpful." Baren took a deep breath while pushing the girls inside. "Come on. After breakfast we can walk around and try to figure out where..." She trailed off.
"Where my parents are." Kagami finished for her as they entered the hotel.
Once the busy city had calmed down, the lights almost seemed peaceful. The soft flickering of signs followed by the occasional roar from a train could easily put someone to sleep. Well, if they were used to that sort of thing.
The following morning, Kris happily sat at a table inside the hotel's restaurant. "I was looking on my scroll earlier for some places where we could start looking for Kagami's parents and I think I've found a pretty good start." Swiping on her scroll, she turned it around and pushed it forward. On it, a picture of a small restaurant placed between two larger buildings. "Monomane's Bar & Grill. A lot of people mention how it's the steakhouse of Vytal."
"A restaurant?" Cheyenne raised an eyebrow before glancing at her leader. "Does that sound like your parents?"
"Maybe?" Kagami shrugged back. "If they needed to make lien once whatever happened here happened, I guess they might. My mom is an exceptional cook like how Baren is."
"I guess that's where we're headed then..." Elise yawned while swiping through other images on the scroll. A blanket draped over her shoulders and wrapped around her body. "Any idea how to get there from here?"
"That's... the confusing part." The redhead mumbled while snatching her scroll back. "It says we can take a bus at ten to this train station, take the train to a different station, wait twenty minutes for another train, take that train to another station and then we should be within walking distance of the place." She blinked with a small sigh. "I don't get why it has to be this complicated."
"Well alright then." Baren sat up straight as she eyed each of the four girls. "Let's hurry and order our food then so we can eat and head out." She rested her arm across her chest. "We have a very big day." She took a deep breath and eyed the jadette next to her. "Are you ready?"
She nodded with a smile back. "Absolutely."
"Not..." Kagami let out a breath of air as she stood close to her friends on the crowded train. "I'm not liking this." She muttered quietly while watching the countless men and women, and Faunus, in work attire all talking on their scrolls.
"It... could be worse." Cheyenne mumbled while tightly gripping a handle hanging from the roof. At the moment, that was the only thing keeping her from falling down as the train took several quick turns. "We could... I don't know." She sighed in defeat while lowering her head. "We've done crazier things. This is just new and a bit weird."
"Really weird." She corrected her while clenching her jaw. "I just wish there could be fewer people." She pulled away slightly as the train stopped and let more people on. "Please tell me we're close. I already feel incredibly nervous. I'm not in the headspace for this many people."
"You? Nervous?" Kris let out a small laugh as she swiped against her scroll with one hand. "Our stop should be the next one though. So it shouldn't be too long." She glanced over for a moment before lightly smiling. "Everything will go fine. I promise." She reassured her.
"I hope..." She trailed off while biting the inside of her mouth. Shifting her weight from one leg to another, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"Hey." Letting go of the safety bar she held onto, Elise wrapped her arms around the jadette's. "We'll be right here beside you. Everything's going to go just fine."
"I know it is." Kagami breathed in while nodding. "But that still doesn't help the feeling of anxiety building up inside my stomach and making me want to throw up." She flashed a smile to hide behind the overwhelming amount of fear and anticipation inside her.
"Yeah, well..." The dark brunet pouted while clutching onto her a bit tighter. "Just know- EEP!" She let out a loud yelp as the train jerked. Slipping from her hold on her friend, she stumbled and fell to the floor with a heavy grunt.
Blinking, she stared down at her for a moment. As the train came to a stop, she shook her head with a smile and reached down to help her up. "Come on. Up you go." She patted her shoulder off.
"That hurt..." Elise swayed a bit with a hand on her head. With swirls for eyes, she shook her head before walking forward as the doors opened up. "Where are we going exactly?" She tapped her head with her Palm a few times while glancing over her shoulder.
"Up the stairs and out onto the street." Kris pointed ahead. "Then we take a right and walk through this little shopping area. Or a big shopping area really." She blinked while staring at her scroll. "There's a lot of electronics stores and places with animations and comics. Video games and trading cards too." She grinned. "We should come back here later."
"Or we could not." Baren placed a hand on her back and pushed her to walk a little faster as they got to the busy streets of Vytal. She did not want to be here anymore. But she had a quest to complete. She was going to see this one through despite the mass overflow to her senses.
Taking a deep breath, Kagami reached up and firmly gripped her arm. Watching as they passed by several lit up buildings, she began to rub it. With each step she took and the closer they got, she could feel her heart thudding harder and harder inside her chest. It had been over five years since she was home and she couldn't even recognize it anymore. Everything she knew about Vytal was now gone. She swallowed heavily while feeling her hands begin to sweat.
Noticing the change in her leader's demeanor, Elise slowed her pace to walk beside her. "We're almost there. Do you um..."
"It's fine. It's fine." She let out with a shaky breath. "I just... there's a lot going through my mind right now."
Going quiet, she nodded back. Nothing she could say would help anyway. All she could do was be there for her. That's all any of them could do.
"It should be right up here." Kris announced from the front of the group. Sliding her scroll away, she glanced up and began to look for a sign.
Doing the same, Cheyenne furrowed her while sliding her hands into the pocket of Kagami's hoodie that she wore. Noticing green neon words glowing, she took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders back.
Clenching her jaw as she stopped in front of the restaurant, Baren balled her left hand into a tight fist. Turning her head, she eyed the young girl she trained all those years ago.
Staring up at a sign that read Monomane Bar & Grill, Kagami lowered her shoulders and gulped. She took a deep breath while narrowing her eyes at the simple looking place. It was now or never. Taking a step forward, she held out her hand to grab the door. "Let's go." She quietly let out.
And with that, it's time to start a new arc. *cracks knuckles* No one is ready for this.
Also, oh hey, I posted the start of an original story on February 1st for no specific reason. Maybe check it out if you have time. It's on Wattpad. Look up my profile (Jordyn_Taylor13) and it should pop up. It's called Light in Darkness. I would send a link but FanFiction doesn't like that.
Tell others who might like it. I'd appreciate it.
And remember to be nice to everyone!