Suzume squinted down at her new clothes.
What.
The fuck?
She looked back over her shoulder at the great gate she had just walked through, and realized that she could no longer see the skyline of the city behind it. The faint sounds of the city, carried and muted on the wind, were gone. The taste of the air was sweet and clean and not at all like she was used to.
So. A pocket dimension? Or, what were they called in Fate Stay/Night? Reality Marbles?
Suzume isn't sure how much she likes this. But the path only leads ahead, and as the sun starts to die in the west she continues her long march. She had been told to reach the top by sunset, and she had, but the air was rapidly cooling and stars were starting to flicker to life above her now. And she wasn't totally sure where she was going.
West.
She was going to the west, because that was where the path now led, with a crimson sun glaring into her eyes as it slowly guttered out in the distance.
The sandals were surprisingly comfortable and sturdy, but she still would have preferred her actual clothes to what she was now wearing. The gi was stiff and needed to be broken in, and her hair felt unnatural like this.
But it would do.
She could move, and the sandals were flexible enough with a decent grip that she should be able to climb if need be.
For now, though, she walked, following the trail into the far distance.
It felt like forever and only a few moments before she was approaching a mountain. The trees around her grew thick and difficult to navigate, with thickly crowded date trees, ginkgo and chestnuts, and catalpa's with fat worms clinging to the underside of the leaves.
Coffins made of this rot very slowly. And the roots are highly poisonous, compared to the rest of the plant.
She had to stop when she saw the distinct white flowers of a dove tree.
The long stamens puffed like black dandelion's inside an elegant white petal like a tissue hanging from the plant. It wasn't the plant that stopped her. It was the mountain that rose behind its heavy blossoming branches.
But it wasn't like the mountains she had known in this life or the last. This was not a great behemoth that dragged itself slowly from the earth to and stretched its spine up to the sky. It was not the bloated remains of a giant of magma and destruction, cooled over eons.
It was a sheer cone that jutted into the sky, where the sides had been worn away by water and time. More trees topped them like tufts of hair. They towered in the air, high above.
She had seen them before in pictures.
The Zhangjiajie National Forest Park rose up around her like a painting come to life. Mist rolled in under the cover of the glowing stars and Suzume had to take a step back.
Who-ever's quirk this was, it was incredible. The only thing missing was the buzz of insects and the chirping of birds or small animals.
She might have even been jealous.
And she was starting to get an inkling of what might be required of her here.
Stain had only lasted a few days.
She was going to last an entire week.
Suzume gently pushed the dove wood aside and stepped past it, down a soft incline to a river flowing gently below. The deeper she went the more real it all felt, down to the humidity in the air gathering on her skin.
The soil slid under her feet, damp and earthy as she approached along the path. A bridge spanned ahead of her, stretching long over the wide, slow moving water. Lilies and lotus' dotted the water and bobbed gently.
Suzume took a few steps before she was stopped by a weird sound from her right.
It was faint, a thumping that she didn't think would have been heard if there were insects chirping.
Like someone beating against a stone.
Or the base of a mountain.
Suzume eyed the bridge, before she turned back to the towers of stone and greenery behind her.
Curiosity, meet cat.
It only took her a few minutes to pinpoint where the sound was coming from, although by then she had leaves sticking in her hair and new scrapes along her forearms. Some of the plants were prickly, but she didn't recognize any as poisonous. The thick foliage parted to reveal a thick bamboo forest in the midst of the regular forest, with high reaching stalks that all seemed to be the exact same height…
The thumping, slow and subdued, was coming from the base of one of the mountains, behind a huge slab of stone.
Suzume considered the stone. She considered her options.
It was about twice as wide as she was tall, and lifted over her head a good ways. The side was as sheer as the rest of the mountain, and if it wasn't for the thumping she probably wouldn't have noticed. And for someone who paid as much attention to their surroundings as Suzume did, that was saying something.
If jesus christ came out from behind that rock…
Suzume rapped her knuckles on it solidly.
"Hallao there! Below there!" she called in her most morbid 'I just finished reading something other than a christmas carol by charles dickens' voice.
The thumping stopped. Then redoubled, growing stronger and persistent.
"Hello!" Someone inside screeched. "Let me out! Hey, are you listening?!"
… why does he sound like James Sie?
"I heard you, I heard you."
And I'm pretty sure I know how this genre is supposed to go.
"Hold your horses."
Suzume left the rock, which was now thumping with frantic pounding from the person inside, and started looking around for something to use as leverage. Something shiny caught her eye in the trees she had first left, and she parted thick foliage to find a quarterstaff with brass capped on either side covered in creeping vines.
She tore the vines off and inspected it. It was warm in her hands, and in good shape despite having been in the elements long enough for plants to over take it. Suzume made her way back to the rock. With one hand holding the staff she scaled up the side of the rock. It was honestly easier than scaling the side of a building.
At the top she found an oh-so-convenient air pocket that she wedged the staff in.
She was either about to unleash some horrible evil, or a companion.
Maybe both?
Suzume pressed her weight against the staff and used it as a lever to push the slab away from the stone wall of the mountain. It moved slowly, and she had to plant her feet on the rock wall and push hard to get it to move. Vine that had climbed over it snapped one by one, and the earth groaned and crunched beneath the shifting weight. The person inside began to hoot excitedly and shout for her.
The stone finally fell, and Suzume with it.
She twisted, and managed to land on her feet with the staff held firmly in her hands.
From out of a cavern came a man, blinking in the dim starlight.
He wasn't much taller than her, maybe five foot six. He had light hair tied back and pinned under a gold crown, and unkempt mutton chops fluffed on either side of his face. His nose was a little too flat, his mouth was a little too full. A fuzzy tail coiled up over one shoulder.
Suzume stared at the monkey person that she had just freed from a mountain with a magic staff.
Sure.
Why not.
"So. You're freed now," she said slowly, trying to figure out how to proceed from here.
This was weird. Even for her. Even for this life.
She was kind of having fun.
"Yes! Yes, thank you for that," he swaggered towards her, and a grin split his face. "You even found my staff."
When he reached for it she stepped back, swinging it behind her back with a flourishing twirl that ended with a bow.
His eyes brow twitched and he cocked his head at her.
"That would be mine."
"And you would still be in the cave if I hadn't used it to free you," she pointed out lightly. "I'll return it."
"In return for?" he sounded long suffering. As if the whims of humans were so, so far beneath him.
Maybe they were, if this was the great sage of the heavens.
Suzume leaned back on her heels with a crooked smile.
"Well. I'm on a quest, you see, to find a great and powerful master to train me."
"Aha! So that is why you freed me, to train a child like you?" He grinned, showing off sharp fangs and his tail lashed in pride.
"Perhaps, if you are the master of all these lands. But, why, then, were you trapped just now?"
His face fell before his nose wrinkled.
"Of these lands, no, but I do far surpass her."
"I see, I see. Then you would know where I would find her as well? To the west, I understand."
"To the west, yes, she's there," he flapped his hand dismissively towards where the sun had sunk some time ago. Across the river.
"Anything more specific?"
"She dwells upon the heights of a mountain beyond that river."
"There are about fourteen mountains."
"... a southern one."
Suzume gave him a flat look.
The monkey king, great sage of the heavens, glared back at her.
"I am Kono Suzume," she said formally, "I seek the great master of the paifang gates. I have retrieved your staff, freed you of your prison. I believe that earns me a guide, sir."
He narrowed his eyes even further, and slid towards her so smoothly and silently even she barely heard his footsteps whisper on the grass.
"Kong Wu," he declared. "Master of all arts, disciple of no one… but I will help you, acolyte, to find your master. As payment for my freedom and my staff. If- " he added ominously. "You can keep it away from me."
Almost before she can react he's upon her, his hands reaching lightning fast for the staff behind her back.
Suzume ducks and side steps him, spinning out of his way. He grasps only open air.
He's fast.
When he turns on her again, his tail twisting irritably behind him, she's ready.
Suzume dodges him again, ducking fast and rushing to evade his every move. He leaps into the trees and comes at her from above, his monkey feet giving him perfect purchase where she could find none. Suzume steps into the bamboo, using the tight fits and her own training to her advantage.
While she whirls through them, he's forced to drop briefly from the trees to climb into the dense foliage, but then he's above her again, swinging and swiping from all directions.
He has the high ground, and she can only duck so many times.
Suzume's blood rushes in her ears.
She doesn't have a tail, or opposable toes.
But she has hands.
She flings the staff as hard and as high into the air as she can, sending it spinning until it vanishes into the moon light.
Kong Wu scrambles up the bamboo, racing for his staff, and she lunges up.
Suzume grabs one trunk, then the other, and swings herself between them fast. She jerks her hips, giving her extra boost to lift up and up until she crests the top of the thick stalks. Each one is as thick as her hand, and when she reaches the top they're cut perfectly even with eachother.
The staff is falling fast, to the waiting hands of Kong Wu.
Her sandals bite into the sliced tops and she leaps from behind the monkey king, grabs the staff he was reaching for, and lands in front of him. Her balance is precarious, and her legs protest the way she has to stand.
But her heart is racing and the moon is high and her strange quirk created person bares his fangs and lunges at her.
She can't call it a game of monkey in the middle, no matter how much she wants to, but it feels like a game to her. Then he moves.
He's so fast it's hard to even keep her eyes on him.
She had to rely on everything else. On the sound of the air when he moves, on the creak of the bamboo beneath them, on the change in the air pressure and the barest touch of wind that comes before his hands, tail, and feet.
Suzume drops without warning, between two stalks, and swings herself back up to lash a kick onto his back that sends him tipping forwards. His tail wraps around her ankle, and he throws her hard to the ground.
She lands on her back, and the air goes rushing out of her lungs. Black spots fill her vision, and when they clear her's standing over her. He's holding one end of the staff, but she hasn't let go of the other.
He tugged, and she refused to let go.
"Don't push your luck," he added, glaring at her.
Suzume gulped in air and struggled to her feet, half using him as leverage to do so.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Suzume ignored his warning and gave him a crooked grin. She stepped back, keeping her grip on the staff.
"A pleasure to meet you. Do lead the way."
She gestures with the monkey king's own staff back towards whence she came, yanking on his hand still holding it. At this point its a battle of wills. Who is more patient. Or more stubborn.
He passes her by, rolling his eyes as he goes, and she trails behind him, still holding on end of the staff.
It's strangely hard not to tug on his swaying tail.
… she caves and pulls it after twenty feet.
