Chapter III.IV (3.4) - Spring Break Begins

Kizu ended up checking out an advanced theory book on spatial magical displacements from the Living Library. It was technically the last book he’d be able to check out from that library now that his spatial final project was complete. He had to keep it inside a special book carrier or risk it popping out of reality. The ward enchantments embroidered into the bag’s fabric acted as a uniquely designed beacon to draw the book back into it whenever it attempted to leave their current plane of existence.

“Here, I designed this for Anata last night,” Basil said, passing him a strip of cloth.

Kizu lifted and examined it for a moment. An eyepatch with elaborate black needlework.

“There’s nothing wrong with her eye,” Kizu said.

“Her heterochromia will attract undue attention. This will keep people from asking questions. Paired with her being mute, most people will leave her alone. I’m going to stick to this body for the next few weeks to avoid attention as well.”

Kizu looked over to Anata. They stood in the foyer in front of the transportation rooms. Other students shuffled around but nobody spared him and Anata a second glance. Many of them had seen her before on the excursion.

“Do you want to wear this?” Kizu asked, kneeling down next to his niece.

She took it and looked from him to Basil to Aoi, who was happily chatting with her roommate off to the side. Then she nodded.

“You’re sure?” Kizu asked again. “Only wear it if you want to. There’s nothing wrong with your eye and no need to hide it.”

She nodded again and Kizu helped her slide it over her head to cover her red eye and scar. Tucked under her bangs, the black patch fit snugly, looking fashionable while still remaining unobtrusive. The removal of her scarlet eye made her look meeker and more fragile.

“Very chic!” Basil praised her, grinning. “I’m extremely glad you two are joining. There is nothing worse than meeting parents alone.”

“Sophia is joining us as well,” Aoi said, interrupting them. “Her parents are overseeing a campaign in Ilosin-Don. So I offered to let her stay at my place for the break.”

Sophia was a short Tainted girl with brown scales contouring her cheekbones. When Kizu had last seen her, he’d accidentally woken her up while sneaking out of her room. Thankfully, his camouflage had worked well enough to keep her from remembering the occasion.

“What are they doing in Ilosin-Don?” Basil asked, eyeing Sophia.

“Reclaiming some land from the oozes,” the Tainted girl replied in a nasally tone. “They’re hoping to set up a coastal outpost for Edgeland.”

“Sophia’s parents are commanders of Edgeland’s Vanguard Unit,” Aoi explained. “They’re some of the best warriors in the nation, trained to lead and destroy monsters from the World Dungeon. With how frequently denizens crawl up across the continent, they’re invaluable.”

“Trained to kill monsters?” Basil said, a fake smile on his face. “That’s nice. Very useful.”

Sophia scowled at him, as if unable to determine whether or not he was mocking her.

“Thank you again for the invitation, Aoi,” Kizu said, trying to break the rising tension. “It helps us out a lot. Especially due to our, um, temporary eviction.” He glanced over to Sophia, not knowing how much to tell her.

“Yes. I heard about that,” Aoi said. “Really unfortunate. That’s totally the reason I invited you to come visit for spring break.”

“Am I missing something?” Sophia asked.

Before anyone could answer her, they were ushered into the transportation room connected to and powered by the World Dungeon. The room was significantly less occupied than the one Kizu had arrived at Shinzou Academy in. Most of the occupants had changed out of their academy uniforms and wore traditional kimonos and yukatas.

“Kyonaka is a smaller city than Daitoshi,” Aoi said, after he commented on how few other students were traveling with them. “Mostly just nobility and politicians. And a lot of them prefer to send their children to Yamagako Academy. So there aren’t too many of us traveling.”

“Yamagako Academy?”

“It’s on a mountain not far from Kyonaka. Decent education but very insular. They have a lot of the old Hon values. Which isn’t great if you need to interact heavily with other nations. Some of my cousins have attended there. Only one right now.”

They split up, Aoi and Sophie taking two chairs off to the side while Kizu sat on a couch, Anata between him and Basil. Mort hopped down from his head over to Anata’s shoulder and began messing with her new eyepatch.

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“She already hates me,” Basil reflected, looking over at the girls.

“Sophia?”

“Yes. I think she recognizes my name from Aoi’s first…ah, experience with me. Like, you know, from years ago when she thought I died. This is such a pain. I’m already committed to this appearance for the entire month, so I can’t use my normal technique of changing who I am and refreshing the first impression.”

“How terrible,” Kizu said dryly.

“I know. How do you normal people do it? Any strategies for escaping responsibility?”

“Maybe become a hermit? It worked for the crone. I’ve noticed that the less people you’re around, the less responsibility you accrue.”

Basil grumbled.

“On the subject of responsibility, you should know I still haven’t totally forgiven you for bailing on our final in Enchanting C.”

“I helped save your life!”

“That doesn’t exonerate you from being flaky.”

Basil continued to complain for a few more minutes until the room’s door closed and they started traversing through the World Dungeon.

Kizu scanned the room, looking for more familiar faces bound for Kyonaka. He spotted several other classmates, but not anyone he had traded more than a dozen words with in the past few months. In general, students from Hon tended to be a great deal less friendly than his peers from Tross and Edgeland. But he noticed they broke away from that stereotype when interacting with Aoi. Sophia acted like a guard dog, growling and scaring people off as they kept trying to bother the princess.

“Sometimes I forget that Aoi is royalty,” Kizu said. “Her hobbies aren’t very princess adjacent.”

“Spoken like someone completely unfamiliar with royalty,” Basil responded flippantly.

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve had a couple different members of the Hon royal line go to the academy in the last couple years. Aoi’s the only one presently attending, but let me tell you, royalty are weird. Aoi’s almost completely normal, just has a kind of macabre pastime. For example, her cousin, Taru was obsessed with bees. He would classify everyone into three groups based on their caste system- worker, drone, and queen. And, instead of remembering names, he would refer to everyone by their station. He calls Aoi, Queen 4, if I recall right.

“Her uncle, Zenchi, visited as a guest lecturer and he speaks almost exclusively in bad haikus. He’s the first warlord and perhaps the most powerful person in the nation, but he spends all his time reading poetry.

“And then there’s Aoi’s older brother, Shiroi. He likes to wear plaid.”

“Anything else I should know about her family before we get there?”

“It’ll just be her siblings and parents at the house and, based on what I saw at Shiroi’s graduation a few years ago, all of the others know how to dress themselves adequately. But her sister and baby brother are still young, so that’s a fashion wild card.”

“I meant more in relation to things like the bee caste system. Other strange quirks to look out for.”

“Hm. She mentioned her mother likes to eat chopped fruit mixed in with her rice. Nothing else comes to mind about her intermediate family. But don’t expect any of them to be normal.” He paused, as if considering something. “Also, this might go without saying, but avoid the Inari branch of the family. The only decent soul on that side of the Royal Family was snuffed out by Kusatta Inari a few years back. We probably won’t encounter them at Aoi’s place, but better to warn you now. The one our age is a sociopath by all accounts.”

Kizu nodded. He was starting to think maybe staying behind at the academy would have been a better use of his spring break. But he squashed the regret. He was already committed to this path. And it was only for a month.

Oblivious to his internal doubts, Anata played with Mort beside him. She attempted to snatch him in her hands only for him to dodge and wiggle out repeatedly. He could feel Mort’s happiness through their bond. His familiar had taken up the mantle of her protector whenever he’d been absent, and the two of them had formed a strange friendship. Mort had now spent more time with Anata than any human other than himself. It reminded him of his years in the Hon Basin.

“How old is Aoi’s sister?” Kizu asked. It would be nice if he find Anata some human friends to play with.

“Nine or ten. We’ll have graduated by the time she’s old enough to attend the academy.” Another pause. “Or, at least, I will have graduated. I’m not sure with your grades….”

“My grades will be fine. I’ll remind you again who had to carry you through that final project.”

“Oh yeah, your brother, Finn.”

Kizu shot him an incredulious look.

Basil grinned and raised his hands palms forwards in an act of surrender.

A wooden golem approached them and offered them drinks. Unlike the James golems that worked across campus, this one was a naked puppet the size of a gnome with mouth agape and its marble eyes unfocused. It had been shuffling around the room, mutely shoving drinks at people.

Following Basil’s lead, Kizu took one of the purple drinks. He sipped it, checking to make certain it wasn’t alcoholic, then passed it to Anata who immediately started guzzling it down. The juice dripped down her chin and spilled on her shirt collar. Kizu swore at himself silently. He should have seen this coming. He frantically looked around the room for the bathroom’s entrance to change out Anata’s shirt.

“Slow down,” Basil said, immediately noticing the problem. “I know a spell for this.”

He set a hand on Anata’s shoulder and waited for her to finish the drink. Then he pinched his thumb and pointer finger together and slowly withtracted the drink from her clothing. It reminded Kizu of a medic removing a long splinter buried in flesh. The liquid now removed and floating in a small orb over Basil’s hand, it left Anata’s shirt completely stain-free. Basil smiled smugly, clearly pleased with his work.

Before Basil found somewhere to dispose of the juice, Mort leaped from Anata’s lap and pierced through the bubble of liquid, splattering it all over Basil’s front.

Basil cursed at the monkey and quickly recreated his spell for his own clothes while Mort licked the juice off his palm, grinning up at the changeling.

When they arrived at Kyonaka, Aoi and Sophia rejoined them as they exited the room. Basil’s continued threats to turn Mort into a pair of socks did not appear to help endear him to Sophia.