At the base of a comically large sakura tree, it was easier to see how the winding parts of the city had been neatly divided into portions. On the horizon, Soul saw the rest of their group rejoin them, all save for Tsubaki. Kilik approached with a heavy gait and a tired expression, two tall lean figures at her back. One was an angrogenous blonde with a buzzed haircut; the other dark and mysterious with a witch's hat. Though Soul was more curious about how familiar Kilik's features were.
"The girl from the Surge adds?" Her lack of restraint was, thankfully, not taken as an insult. Kilik took one look at the red and green clothes she was wearing and shrugged.
"I guess that was where I saw her first." Kilik spared a glance behind her with her teeth between her teeth. "Listen, we've been going in circles. I've seen that iffy looking rock at least three times. There's no end to this place and these two have been less than-"
"Brother! I thought we agreed I was in charge of looking for our fairer teammates." Liz was radiating sparkles in a way that was hard to look at. Judging by the bags under Kilik's eyes, it had been just as hard to listen to. "It seems I once again must take unpleasant matters into my own hand." His posture was overly dramatic, and though it seemed he was somewhat joking, Soul had to agree the whole display was indeed very punchable.
"What are you talking about, I found twice as many people as you did!" Patty's eyebrow twitched.
"How soon you forget the little ones." Liz scoffed. "Besides, three is an odd number, it's not double of anything." Soul had the sense of mind to hold Patty by the arm before he could land a hit.
"Don't sweat the details, remember?" Soul muttered. Patty's shoulders were still squared, but he otherwise shook off his brother's ramblings all the while muttering under his breath about something or the other being bullshit.
"So Tsubaki's been tempted off the main road." Blair sighed. "There's no telling where that little minx ran off too. We should probably split-" No one expected a rogue sandal to fly straight into Blair's jaw.
"No splitting up." Black Star hopped a few paces to reclaim her shoe, just to have Maka rush ahead and give it back to her. Though his eyes were trained firmly on the ground. "Thanks Maka." Black Star took it with a confuddled grimace and leaned on him to slip the shoe back on. "We don't know the rules of this place. I last saw Tsubaki by the hot springs. All of us should back-"
"We should back track together and check the buildings along the way." Liz proclaimed, oblivious to the deadly look Black Star was giving him. "After all the trouble it was to link up, it would be a waste to part so soon."
"Has he been doing this the whole time?" Black Star asked, and Kilik hung her head in solidarity. Black Star looked up at the pink clouds overhead in a silent pray for the strength not to drag Liz's unconscious body behind them like a parade balloon. She agreed like it was Liz's idea, if only to wrangle everyone in the same direction.
The hot spring grounds were just as humid as before, with bright red flowers blooming in all the flower beds, only now it was crawling with a teenage search party. A metallic march fly crawl into one of the blossoms caught Soul's attention. Everyone was calling Tsubaki's name to no avail and the theories that had begun to surface were far from tasteful. It just didn't add up, Tsubaki took one look at Black Star and ran off, almost as if to avoid her entirely. They all were being avoided, now that she thought about it.
If she wanted to hide, where would be the easiest place to go?
Soul was drawn once more to the reception desk with low hanging potted flowers. She ducked in and spotted a doorway into the lodging for the hot spring, wide open and inviting. Without a second glance she slipped past the receptionist that gave her a rather presumptuous nod as she braved whatever lied on the other side.
"Tsubaki?" The halls were broken up by gender, though no one was there to enforce it. More of a suggestion offered to those that wanted to break the rules. Soul wasn't in the mood to cause a scene. "When I got here, the book said some pretty lame stuff to me." She said, trying to coax the ninja out of hiding. "I've been trying not to let it get to me, but... it's kind of hard when you can't control what people see."
Not much of a romantic are you? There's nothing here to work with here lust wise. You're probably more suited for a different chapter. In the meantime, I'll just recycle some old elements so you have some physical form to work with while you're here.
"Everyone's been kind of in their own head though." Soul meandered towards the girl's common area as she looked for any helpful signs. "Liz is making a real ass of himself, so whatever it is the book's done to you I doubt they'll notice."
Soul stopped short when he saw a young woman in a long flowing kimono darted with flowers and golden stars. The girl flinched, but didn't make a move to turn around, instead focused studiously on a pond of koi fish. All rationalization died and Soul begged for a single train of thought that could salvage the situation.
"Tsubaki?" Tsubaki turned toward her, eyes puffy, but otherwise a rich brown. The bluish undertones of her hair bled into an iridescent rainbow under the eternal sunset sky, like crude oil in the sun. Her makeup was light handed, but with a vibrant red lip color. Soul couldn't hide her confusion as she was bombarded by the new information. Taken by the shear amount of detail in Tsubaki's appearance, she asked the first thing that came to mind as tenderly as she could. "Are you a narcissist?"
For the first time since entering the chapter, Tsubaki smiled. She was even more amused by the way Soul's face scrunched up as she tried to recall what Tsubaki had looked like before they entered. Pretty and nice were all that came to mind, which was ridiculous, as nice in this instance wasn't referring to her appearance at all. It didn't nearly come close.
"No Soul." She said and stared back at the overly intricate reflection on the water's surface. "Did Black Star say anything?" Long delicate nails picked at the layers of silk like shuffling a deck of cards.
"You know she's been weirdly quiet." Soul's features went blank as the last few hours played in her mind. She'd been too quiet, like she'd been listening to other people before speaking. Failing to notice this sooner may come to bite her in the butt later down the road. "She definitely hasn't mentioned what you looked like. It didn't even occur to her."
"Is everyone else, you know," Tsubaki waved her hand in the air, "flipped?"
"Yeah." Tsubaki's shoulder's sank.
"I thought so." A curious koi swam up to her fingers as they breached the water's surface. "When I saw Black Star I panicked. I..." She had many reasons for keeping quiet, her peer's immaturity the least of them. While things were a little laxer in the states, it didn't change that she still routinely had to go home. She had wanted to preserve the familiar aspects of her life until absolutely necessary. Black Star had done wonders to stave off prying questions for the time being, even without knowing it. Once that was called into question, it'd be difficult to deny, especially now.
"You don't have to explain yourself." Soul broke the silence and looked over her shoulder toward the entrance. "I have an idea." She hesitated. "I'm not the best at having those right now, but I have one. Wait right there." Soul came back rather quickly with a black cat in hand. He hung over her arms like a fur stole utterly bewildered. "If you don't talk this might work." Soul looked down at Blair. "We're going to need your clothes."
"Where did she go?" Stay together; it seemed like a simple enough request and yet the moment Black Star's back was turned Soul and Blair had disappeared. "Oh my god, I'm going to be repeating myself all day." This whole 'asking' people to do things was getting them nowhere. People were bickering amongst themselves again or distracted by other flights of fancy. In the center of a peachy, dream like scene, Black Star stood out like a neon blue thumb. "Did none of you pay attention during our unit on the Odyssey!? You don't go messing around in magical realms. Don't eat anything here, or fall asleep, or make deals with the things in here, or go running off on your own. For all we know, one hour in this place is a month out there. The whole goal is to tempt us into forgetting about Kid. That includes us not getting along!" Winded after shouting at the top of her lungs, she closed her eyes. Too many of them were more interested in the sounds of their own voices. Kilik and Patty shared a look before approaching the short, fuming girl like one would a wild animal.
"Did you just reference school stuff?" Kilik asked.
"I had to. Most of the monsters in here are Greek or biblical. Given the deal we made to get in I'm assuming the trials are more Grecian than Roman, but there are tons of conflicting versions of those legends." Black Star rolled her eyes. "There's other fairytales that involve walking into other worlds, or modern takes like Narnia, but we were all forced to sit through the Odyssey so I figured referencing that one, everyone would kind of get it." She felt remarkably like a bug under a microscope.
"You're smart?" Patty asked in disbelief. "Like, book smart."
"I guess?" Black Star scoffed. "Is that really so hard to believe?" The silence was deafening. "I'm also probably the strongest girl here, I don't see you puzzling over that." She turned away with a pursed frown. "The point is, I'm trying to help but no one is listening! As soon as we got here, I scouted the area and found the exit, but I have no idea if we all need to be there to cross, or worse, if the exit closes behind us. I'd really like to avoid people getting trapped just because one of us charged ahead blindly."
She was well aware that in normal circumstances, that would be her. It was all the more reason to get everyone on the same page now, since their best argument in the coming chapters to proceeding with caution, was that it was her idea in the first place. Given how wildly their personalities had been shuffled, she could only dread what would happen when they rolled the dice six more times.
"It's trying to sort us." Black Star pointed up toward an absent god. "That's what indexes do. It's trying to find which chapter we belong in and keep us there." Divided, it would be easier for them to be pulled under by phantasms and other wandering thoughts. Personal delusions were harder to maintain when someone else was present. Maka's failure to recover from Soul's comments was evidence enough of that fact. It was their best strategy to make it through to the end. "So, did anyone happen to catch which way Soul and Blair went?"
"We're right here!" Soul jogged ahead with Blair in hand. Trailing behind her, was Tsubaki with a low ponytail, and Blair's clothes fitted loosely around the waist and chest. Maka sharply inhaled, and before he had a chance to stick his foot in his mouth, Black Star elbowed him in the gut.
"That's great!" Black Star's voice was syrupy sweet, but the other's shivered at the warning glare that was discretely cast at them through fluttered lashes. "Now that we're all here, we can go to the forest leading out of town." She bullied a rousing cheer from the group and a weak groan from Maka still doubled over on the pavement. He'd thank her later.
What Black Star referred to as a forest, did have reddish brown trunks that twisted up toward the skyline like a forest would. However, the ribbon like formations stretched up into a misty void without branching and hovered a foot or two off the ground. A curtain of bookmarks that marked the end of the chapter.
"Is this it?" Soul was immediately reminded of muscle and sinue looking at the shiney faux trees. "Do we just..." With her palms pressed together the she pushed forward, as if to dive in, though her feet stayed rooted to the ground. Tsubaki offered the most helpful shrug she could.
"Seems a bit too easy." Patty said, even though pointing this out tended to tempt the universe into reaching out and batting fate around like cat with a new toy. The others braced themselves for some great evil to erupt from the ground in front of them. This didn't happen, though there was a polite cough from behind them.
"Leaving so soon?" The stranger asked with genuine disappointment. A shadow, broken up and twisted by the grass at their feet, stretched out to the approximate shape of a lopsided marionette. "I know the denizens here are often busy with their own things, but once night falls it gets more lively."
"Soul!" Maka held out his hand and Soul looked at it with mild disgust.
"Do I have to?" The question was almost a whine. Just the thought of having to explain why Soul found the idea unappealing to Maka while he gaped at her like a fish, was exhausting. Maka's hand was frozen in the air, the thought of not fighting having never occurred to him. He looked to the others for a lifeline.
"Don't turn around." Black Star snapped. Maka let his arm drop loosely at his side childishly. "Don't even look at it." At the mention of looking, his eyes drifted away from her face. A steady stream of blood trickled down his chin followed shortly thereafter.
"You really are trying your best, aren't you?" Soul muttered as Maka hid the evidence on the sleeve of his inner shirt. A string of incomprehensible attempts to deny the obvious fell from his lips.
Right, they could still transform her.
Slowly, Soul looked up at her shoddy attempt to butch Tsubaki, cheeks glowing with embarrassment. She could have just transformed and had Soul carry her out. There would have been questions, but it would have been easier to pull off. Tsubaki nodded with a hand on Soul's shoulder, knowing had they not been in a hurry, one of them would have thought of it.
"It's the oldest trick in the book." Black Star said. "If you're about to leave a magical place, looking back can get you sucked in by evil things forever."
"I can hear you." The stranger said. "I'm just doing my job, no need to be so rude." Charming it may be, a demon was a demon, and they shouldn't lend it an ear. Black Star really didn't want to stick around long enough to see if Incubi had also been collected into the book. She braved ahead and barked for the others to follow suit.
Very interesting.
The index was not surprised in the slightest that the group had more or less, skimmed the chapter. Lust made for a zesty hook, but very few lingered in it, least of all children. What it was good at, was lowering people's defensive when they least suspect it.
While distracted, the index had been able to riffle through the emotions of it's new entries and was able to pick out a few choice vices to better personalize their experiences. In Gluttony, it'd be able to dig through their personalities to it's hearts content and really sink it's teeth into inspiration.
Not that it had teeth, or a face for that matter. It was a humble collection of bones wrapped in ornamental silk and doodled on by a long deceased god. In it's entire non-life, it had aided this god in understanding the great questions of the universe. The biggest among them being, if living things were inherently good.
After Asura followed in the footsteps of ancient evils and started consuming souls of all kinds left and right, it had left a sour taste in the mouths of anything that predated him. Especially, given how regrettably mortal everything was now and that being mortal came with implicit bias. Everything that was alive tended to want to stay in that state, and deemed it a good thing to strive to do so. With so little Earth to go around, who gets to stay alive the longest quickly turned it into an unfair battle ground. Which may be fine when it comes to weeds or beetles, but when the gods argue amongst themselves everyone suffers.
There was still no right answer. Eibon had collected all knowledge from humans and witches, only to find a wealth of conflicting information. Human beings couldn't agree amongst themselves about whether dogs or cats were more deserving of love and care, let alone witches or gods. The book was forever without an ending, the author died before coming to any monumental conclusions.
Weapons, the non-sentient kind, were good; but only to the things that used them.
Humans were good, but their goodness was incredibly fragile and never as good as they thought themselves to be.
Dolphins were evil.
But here, the index had a diverse sample to test all the theories it had brewing in the years it spent floating in an endless void. Amongst whom, were demi-gods and demons of varying degrees of power. It's rotate them around like diamonds in it's hands.
Very interesting indeed.