Pruned Trees Re-Sprout!! ~ Ragazza Volpe Magica ~

Shouri sat up with a start. The room was dark, but he could still see perfectly fine. His awakening and continued vision were thanks to the intruder in the room: Vii.

“Where were you?” he immediately asked the false lunar fox.

“Recon. Needed to be sure of our next moves,” she replied as a matter of fact.

“I see.” He knew she wasn’t telling the truth, but also knew probing her further was meaningless – she’d just keep lying.

Vii stepped around the bed and scooped up her tuner. “Gonna take a shower since we have the opportunity,” she said, waving the device as she spoke.

“Okay,” Shouri replied.

As soon as Vii had taken her departure, Shouri hummed in thought. Kind of a strange turn of events. Why did she take her tuner to bathe?

Focusing on his weak connection to Vii, he felt a strange shift in their bond. His eyes widened as the dark room grew dim. She must have changed forms again. So there was something on the tuner that gave away what Vii really was. That was the only reason he could come up with for her reclamation of the device.

Now… what was going to happen when she got out of the shower?

It didn’t take too long to find out, as about ten minutes later, the bathroom door swung open and Pacifica stepped out, or at least Vii using her form did.

Just as he had thought, Vii specifically waited until she wasn’t being watched to change her forms. Interestingly she changed forms to shower. Since he gained the traits of the transformations she went through, she must have used Pacifica’s water-healing to recover her rhythm while bathing.

“You should probably shower too. Will be good for you.” Vii tossed the now blue tuner onto the bed.

“Sure.” Shouri didn’t disagree with that. It had been a few days since his last shower and between running around in the desert and now Subterris, he could use one.

Slipping out of bed, he changed places with the fake otter and closed himself off in the bathroom.

This sucked.

His heart throbbed as he disrobed and stepped into the tiny shower. Though Shouri kept his breathing under control, the tears he could not - they flowed freely. All was washed away under the cover of water.

It was taking everything in his power to not lose it. He had no reason to believe Taika and the others were okay. He was knocked out before he saw what happened to Taika or Pacifica. They could have been killed for all he knew. He knew they would fight to their last breath to try and save him. What was worse was that he didn’t have their tuners, so someone removed them before his awakening on the plane.

He had no way of checking on them. Vii’s tuner being a fake was immensely inconvenient. If she used a real one calling Colette, Elijah, or even Emily would have been a snap.

Naturalian society didn’t interface with Riterra either, so none of the places they were going through had any way to communicate with the outside world.

It was so scary and frustrating. His rhythm pounded in his head. He had to KNOW.

Sleep came easy, but it didn’t stay that way. All night Shouri was plagued by nightmares. He was so mentally exhausted from all that had happened that even if he wanted to wake up, he continued to be stuck in the nightmares. This left him tormented by whatever horrible scenarios his brain dreamed up with no reprieve.

Finally, he was shaken awake.

Pacifica’s face greeted him, though he knew it wasn’t the otter he missed so dearly.

“Morning,” Vii spoke with her stolen voice.

Shouri remained quiet as he rose, thick, dark bags under his eyes. He excused himself to the bathroom without a word.

It didn’t take long before he completed his morning tasks and left the room with Vii in his shadow. Miro awaited them outside their room. “I will return keys and get breakfast,” the fox spoke.

The Maestro nodded and handed over their room key. Miro raised a brow but quickly rushed off. “Meet outside!” he shouted before descending the main staircase.

Once more, Shouri walked away without speaking. Vii simply followed.

They met up with Miro who provided the breakfast for the morning: some traditional flatbread common in the region, eggs, and a bean soup endemic to the area. Had he been in a better mood, Shouri would have been quite interested in the local cuisine.

As it stood, the food was simply fuel to keep his body moving to their next destination. Nothing more, nothing less. Miro was unnerved by this but kept to himself. At the very least he led the Maestro and Resonator up town.

The industrial part of Southern Subterris surrounded the northern border wall. A massive hole in the rock wall was the only thing connecting the different parts of the cave system. Even then one could not help but imagine being sucked into a black hole as the inky darkness of the tunnel entrance bore no light and seemed to swallow anything entering its depths.

Thankfully they would not need to navigate the darkness on foot. As it turned out, the segments of Subterris were separated by a train network. A vintage steam locomotive idled in place while the passengers boarded. However, the Naturals still on the platform tensed up upon Shouri and Co’s arrival to the platform. The citizenry was visibly unnerved by the presence of the Maestro and Resonator, keeping to themselves and hurriedly getting on the train if they could.

Given the warm reception, Miro handled getting tickets, spotting the stink eye Shouri and Vii were receiving from the ticket vendor.

“I got tickets for the back car, less people there,” Miro told his traveling companions. Shouri again nodded.

The trio made their way to their designated car and boarded. As the earth-fox promised, the caboose was empty. The three took their seats and with time a goat-headed man entered the back car. He didn’t bat an eye at the foreigners and did his job with the utmost professionalism.

“Si prega di esibire il biglietto,” the goat requested.

The group handed over their tickets, which he punched and handed back to them. “Goditi il tuo viaggio.” The goat bowed before departing the car.

It wasn’t too much longer before the whistle of the train reached the quiet trio’s ears and the transport began to lurch forward into the abyss.

As the train began to pick up speed, Vii rose to her feet. “I’ll be back.” She made it to the door of their car before speaking again. “Recon,” she added before leaving the two boys alone.

The trio reduced to a pair; Miro found his conviction.

“Shouri, what is wrong?” the Fox Natural asked.

“I miss my Resonators,” the Maestro replied, his head lowered.

“Your Resonators?” Miro questioned.

“The forms Vii has been taking, that’s what they look like,” Shouri informed the Natural.

For a moment, Miro considered what to say next, and finally, he decided. “Could you tell me about them?”

Shouri perked up at that, turning his attention to the Fox. “Sure, if you don’t mind me rambling.” The Maestro averted his gaze.

“I have not met many Maestros, I am interested in what you are like,” Miro clumsily stated.

With a lungful of air, the Maestro began to speak.

In the short train ride, Shouri recounted everything about how they all met. Even if some of the words were beyond Miro’s understanding, it was abundantly clear to him how much Shouri cherished his precious Resonators. Every word sang their praises and showed his affection for the three.

There was a peculiarity to Shouri’s speech that the non-native speaker was able to understand. The three Resonators that he spoke of, didn’t belong to Shouri. No, they belonged to each other. They were Shouri’s Resonators, and he was their Maestro. The street went both ways.

As he had admitted before, Miro had not encountered many Maestros. But this one. This Maestro was the oddest of the bunch.

And he wanted to see the real Shouri – the Maestro who cherished his precious Resonators… no his precious partners above all else.

“Il treno che si sta avvicinando al binario cinque è il servizio delle 11:45 per il Sotterraneo Centrale,” played from the overhead speaker as the train grinded to a halt at the terminal.

“It’s just the announcement that we’ve arrived,” Vii told Shouri, having returned just a little bit before their arrival on the platform.

After sitting for a moment at the terminal, the doors opened and the trio were allowed to disembark.

The foreigners were not prepared for the sight they saw upon exiting the train car. Southern Subterris was mainly a residential and industrial sector, with many homes and businesses serving utilitarian functions – not much to see or do outside a park here and there.

Central Subterris was like an entirely different world.

“Oasi…” Miro gasped.

Unlike the reds and browns that made up the brickwork of South Subterris, almost the entirety of the much smaller Central Subterris was made with white stonework. Crystal-clear water flowed nearly everywhere, adding to the shimmer of the bright cave.

There were three other openings in the cave walls, presumably to the North, East, and West branches of the underground.

“Have you ever been here?” Shouri asked Miro.

The earth element considered his word choice. “Si. Not much. Very… ricco,” he decided on.

“Wealthy,” Vii chimed in.

“Si!” Miro nodded.

“I see,” Shouri mumbled.

The trio set off for Northern Subterris. The Central section was just something for them to cross after all.

As they walked Shouri finally figured out what all of the white stonework was: marble. Tons of it, all on a scale he had never witnessed before. Everything was made of the stuff. The homes, the many fountains, and even the roads and sidewalks were constructed in pure marble. It was dizzying to think how much a city like this was even worth given what the material cost on the surface.

The other stand-out feature was the water. It almost seemed wasteful how much water was dedicated to running rivers and fountains throughout the town. Especially given that just above their heads was one of the largest, hottest deserts on the planet. To think right below that hellish land lay such an abundance of water, it was ironic really.

Walking through town was another experience entirely. The sidewalks were textured in such a way as to prevent pedestrians from slipping. The high humidity made the marble buildings shimmer in the light more than they already did. There was also an unintended effect that the already cooler environment of the underground was being made chillier by the high water content in the air.

A desert traveler suddenly falling into this oasis would think they died and went to heaven.

“Of course, this place reeks of wealth,” Vii commented.

“Hm?” Shouri glanced at the false otter.

“This is where the Subterris council lives and functions out of – their central government.”

Shouri nodded. That made sense. Lawmakers tended to give themselves budget to make their workplaces fancy and ornate – a show of state power as it were. He recalled pictures he had seen of Quiretteh, the capital city of Rittera. It was very similar to this city, built in expensive material, except Quiretteh had a more ancient-meets-modern aesthetic to it that made tourists second guess where they were at.

The Naturals who dwelt in this bright city were as prim and proper as they came. Most wore fancy tailored suits, fitting the extra bits of their anatomy flawlessly. There was a certain swagger in their step that was unmistakable to Shouri.

The kind of gait that said: “I’m more important than you.”

It kind of made sense, most of the citizens who lived here must be the Natural equivalent of senators or otherwise worked in the political space.

Riterran schools didn’t teach about Natural or Lunar governmental structures, only the 140-seat senate Riterra used. That was a whole other can of worms Shouri didn’t want to think about, and shook his head to dismiss that dreadful thought.

Instead, he took notice of another prominent type amongst the citizenry of Central Subterris: law enforcement.

Unlike the sharp blues of the VdV that Riterra used, the policing organization of Subterris appeared to be clad in browns with lightweight armor. Shouri guessed that it must have been made of Vatonium or some other rhythm-dampening material.

It had to be standard issue – Naturals could cast magic freely using their own rhythm, unlike Resonators who could only use their arguably limited ad-Libs, or Maestros who needed a Resonator to get anything done rhythmically.

Though… that armor wouldn’t protect against a massive ice rock dropping from the sky.

Another head shake from Shouri. His mind was going places today. Now hopefully his body would make it to Northern Subterris so he could get back to his precious Resonators.

Unfortunately, the young Maestro would send a million curses to Sahji that day.

“Mi perdoni,” one of the police officers grabbed the group’s attention. He was a large man bearing glistening blue scales from his head to the tip of his tail. His sharp horns pointed backward, almost as if having gelled back hair. The watery vibe radiating from him gave away his element (if the coloration didn’t already) – A sea dragon, a water element of course.

“Stiamo cercando prove in un'indagine criminale.” The dragon-man towered over Shouri and company, looking down on the much smaller creatures.

“He says they’re looking into a criminal investigation,” Vii relayed.

The only thing Shouri could think of was scaring off those Naturals who tried to jump them yesterday. It was self-defense though – they kicked Miro in the face and then tried to attack them with a bunch of spells. Even Natural law should be on their side for that… right?

“Per favore vieni con me.” The officer motioned down the street.

“He wants us to go with him,” Vii continued to translate though her stance slowly dropped, preparing for battle.

“Why?” Shouri asked, keeping his wits about him and avoiding reaching for the tuner at his waist.

“Per quale motivo?” the Resonator asked of the Natural cop through narrowed, suspicious eyes.

“I crimini sono collegati a un risuonatore, e tu sei l'unico Maestro nel sottosuolo,” the Natural stated simply, still maintaining his imposing positioning – he would not be intimidated by such puny creatures.

“He pointed out that the crime was related to a Resonator and you’re the only Maestro here,” Vii relayed.

“Quale delitto?!” Miro spoke up in defense of his friend.

“Assalto.”

The Maelish and Naturalian words were so similar, that Shouri didn’t need a translation. He was being accused of assault. He hadn’t used the attack variation of Fissare la Ombra, so all it did was pin them in place. Magifiamme was only used to counter their assailant’s attack spells. Finally, Loro Formato Lunare Lago never even touched a building, much less actually having a chance to hurt anyone.

Naturals weren’t THAT weak against Maestro rhythm. They wouldn’t drop dead from just the rhythm being in the air. They were only susceptible to the direct effects of attack spells.

Something else was going on here. He shot a suspicious gaze at Vii who maintained her aggressive posturing. Now why was that…?

“Tell him we will cooperate with his investigation,” Shouri directed this at Miro.

The Fox thankfully picked up on the implicit ask of him and nodded in response, speaking up for the trio. “Noi verremo con te.”

“La tua collaborazione è apprezzata,” said the officer.