Himari

Himari marveled at the meadow with a sigh of contentment. For a brief moment, the warmth of this strange Realm had filled her with a sense of peace that she hadn’t realized was missing. The beautiful blue sky, the enormous fauna that jumped around the meadows, and the beautiful flora that surrounded her. For a moment, she thought she might get lost in it.

And then she heard the familiar voice of Misao to bring her out of her reverie. “Himari-san. You will have time to gawk later. We need to make use of the light as best as possible. So training shall begin immediately.”

The disapproval in their voice cowed Himari briefly, and she looked to Sakura for some support. Instead of support, she found an astonishingly serious expression from her typically flighty lover. “Misao-san is right. I have brought you here because the Realm of Spirits is a place closer to the Soul than the body. This will make it easier for you to feel your Aura while you train, but it also means that we must be efficient with our time.” Sakura approached Himari and tapped her nose cheekily, a smirk showing. “So. You need to close your eyes and focus now. We aren’t stopping until I see the results we need.”

Himari closed her eyes as she was bid. Misao spoke next. “Good. Now, just as we did in the Black Forest, I want you to summon that sphere of water.” Himari’s hands came together, and she focused on creating that sphere. Soon, she felt the comforting feeling of the water from her own Aura splashing against her hands.

“Good,” Sakura interjected. “Tell me, Himari-chan, do you understand what is happening right now?”

Himari thought about that question, refusing the temptation to open her eyes. “It feels like I’ve reached into something… internal. And brought it out in front of me. That must be my Aura? And so by focusing on it, I can manipulate it?”

“Not fully accurate,” the fox said cheerfully. “But close. Aura is not internal or external to you. It is you. So the first step is to learn how to treat it as if it is just another limb.” Himari felt a familiar pair of hands touch hers. “You showed some of that when you forced Aura into your leg during your fight with Chikao-san. Which you should not do again on a broken leg, I should note!”

Himari felt the sphere fluctuate as she was again chastised. “I don’t understand,” she said, “why? It helped bolster me to be able to continue the fight. Shouldn’t that be something that we use as a consistent tool?”

“Because,” Sakura sighed, “You are not actually repairing the muscles and tendons and bones. In the short term, yes, you can get an advantage in a fight. But if that fight had lasted longer, you could have done permanent damage to your leg. The worst case scenario, you might have lost the ability to walk, Aura or no.”

“So I wouldn’t have just been able to use Aura to walk instead?” Himari asked curiously. Not that she wanted to, but in a pinch…

“Idiot,” Sakura sighed out. “No. You could keep using Aura because you still had some feeling in your leg, even if it was pain. Get rid of the ability to feel in your leg? It is lost to you.” Himari felt a mild thwap on her forehead. “In any case, do you remember when I entered your subconscious, and we were able to expand your little sphere of water? I want you to try to do that yourself. Focus on the feeling of the water in your hands and try to make it larger. Slowly.”

Himari focused on the flow of water in front of her. Her hands pushed farther apart, and she could feel the water moving with her, increasing in size along with her hands until she felt it press against her chest and face. A gasp escaped her lips, and her eyes opened suddenly. The watery sphere hit the ground splashing on her and her tutors.

“Well,” Misao smirked. “She’s getting the basics. Now we just need her to not, well. Drop the ball again.”

“You’re hilarious,” Himari deadpanned.

“I know,” they responded. As Sakura glared at the pair, though, they continued on. “That was a good start. But you need to learn not to panic if it starts to engulf you. Your own Aura will not hurt you as long as you remain in control of it. As you are Water aspected, that means that you won’t drown in your own Aura. As an Air Aspect, by counterpoint, cultivating the air around me will not accidentally pull air from my lungs, for example. So try again. And this time, when you feel it start to engulf you, let it.”

Himari looked skeptical for a brief moment. But she closed her eyes, and started summoning the water and expanding it like before. This time, as it hit her body, she squeezed her eyes as she let the water envelop her. At first, she didn’t dare breathe, but as her arms settled in a line, she finally dared open them. What she saw was… strange. As if the world was indeed underwater, but somehow clearer for it. Her awareness of the flowers, the fauna, even the trees that seemed near a mile away had expanded. Excited for the proposition, she finally took in a breath. She found that indeed, it was not water that entered her lungs, but the Realm’s impossibly clean air. “This is,” she muttered, looking for the right words. “Amazing.”

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Her eyes caught suddenly with the slash of a clawed hand striking at the bubble. It roiled and spun until it burst, the now very real water soaking Himari to her bone. “Very good,” Sakura said with a grin, “but not good enough yet. We will need to keep working. You need to be able to hold this Aura against an opponent. If you can’t block my claws, you won’t be able to block a sword, and you certainly will not be able to stop a strike from your Usurper.”

“Is a bubble of water really supposed to be able to stop a sword?” Himari wondered aloud before realizing that she hadn’t just thought it.

“On its own? It depends,” Sakura answered with a giggle. She apparently spotted the embarrassment on Himari’s face. “Right now? Obviously not. Make the bubble again.” Himari nodded and did so. Then Sakura stuck her hand in, and Himari could feel the bubble start to contract against the fox’s movement. For a moment, she thought she felt the warm feeling of Himari’s Aura tickle against hers. “Misao-san,” Sakura spoke calmly. “Strike at Himari-chan.”

Misao did not hesitate. His blade drew and in one motion struck hard against the sphere. Himari felt her focus drop as she moved to flinch back, but the blade only bit slightly into the water. She blinked in surprise, before she focused on regaining control and trying to responsibly minimize the water before it soaked her through again. “What did you do?” Himari’s voice was curious and confused both.

“Oh, that’s very simple,” Sakura said, “Remember how before, I told you I can attune to elemental spirits? Well, in a more limited way, I can attune to people too. And while I cannot manipulate your Aura like you can yourself, I can reinforce it.”

“Oh. So why don’t you just do that?” Himari asked. “It seems to me as if we do not have a great deal of time to train this into something useful. Wouldn’t it be better for us to fight together?”

“Idiot,” Sakura snorted, holding up one finger. “There are two problems with that. The obvious one is that I am not a fighter. I would be a liability to you on the battlefield. Two,” her second finger came up. “It is very difficult to maintain this for any extended engagement, especially at a distance. The only reason I was able to help you when you fought those bandits was because there was a strong river spirit nearby that I could ask for assistance from.”

Himari considered. Had she helped during that fight? After a moment, her eyes widened. “When I had that burst of speed!” She said, realization hitting her like a sword. “That was you, huh? You really did save my life in more ways than one.”

“Yes yes, we can contemplate the ways in which we’ve helped each other another time,” Misao interrupted, stepping between the two. “For now, we don’t stop until you can stop my sword without Sakura’s help."

And so for the next several hours, they did little more than have Himari summon her water around her, bolstering it, and having it slashed away by Misao. By about the tenth attempt, Himari started questioning if she would ever have the control over her Aura to complete the task.

Which meant that when it finally did stop the blade before Misao could pull up his strike, the surge of joy and relief that escaped her chest burst the watery shield, soaking her two mentors in the frigid water. Sakura, hair sticking against her face as she stared at Himari, didn’t say anything for several heartbeats.

Then she leapt at Himari, laughing as she spoke. “I know you could do it, Himari-chan! It took you some time, but you finally got it!” She planted an affectionate peck on Himari’s lips, causing her to go a bit red faced.

“Yes, very good,” Misao added, their smile betraying a pride that they couldn’t quite conceal. “It will take some time to mold that trick into something you can use in combat, but we’ve built a solid foundation to work off of.”

“So,” Himari said, “What now?”

“Now, we rest,” Sakura answered resolutely. “You’ve been at this for hours. You need time to recover. Your Aura is a part of your body, remember? So just like your muscles, you have to give it time to recover after pushing it. I’ll go find us some dinner. The two of you should make a camp.”

As Sakura dashed off to hunt, Himari and Misao set off to the duty of setting a fire and making tents. Few words were shared between them until they’d finally set up a pair of logs for the trio to sit on.

“Do you think we can do this?” Himari asked out of nowhere as she stared into the flames.

“Get you to make your Aura useful? Certainly. You have made great strides quickly.”

“No, I mean…” Himari paused to gather her words. “Can we end the coup? Can we collect the support we need to be able to do more than say we put up a great fight against the Usurper and her loyalists?”

“Ah, that’s a good question,” Misao chuckled. “I think that it is difficult to predict the odds. Given that the Usurper defeated your father, at the moment I’m not sure that the three of us Chosen combined are enough to face her. But I think you’ll find that the second part of that equation is a lot more certain in our favor.”

“You think there are people willing to fight against her?” Himari’s eyebrow rose in disbelief.

“There are always people willing to fight. Even if it were just the motley crew we have put together, and I don’t think it is. The Chosen were formed to protect the Emperor from those who would rise up to fight, after all.”

Himari paused to consider this. “So that’s why you’re focusing on training me. So that I can help fight the Usurper when the time comes.”

“Half Correct. Push comes to shove, you might be the only option we have to be able to stand face to face with her when the time comes.” Misao chuckled.

“You don’t think you are strong enough?”

“Himari-san, I can confidently say that if either Shizuku or myself had been forced to fight you in the last Trial, you would still have been the Chosen. You are more like your father than you think. If you could just stop comparing yourself to him and focus on your own strength, you might just surprise yourself.”

Himari opened her mouth to say something. But the sight of Sakura carrying a trio of hares caught her off guard. As her fox Lover approached, she let the matter drop. It seemed that time would tell if Misao’s faith in her was well placed.