The four of us drift down the river, sitting idly as we cross over the walls on a shabby ferry. The wind blows softly, the sun shines comfortably, it was just as perfect as the weather can get, it was like I was in an idyllic landscape painting.

"So you actually have friends huh?" I comment to Shaz with the intent to annoy him.

"Yes, you could call him a good friend." Shaz doesn't even glance over at me. "Bet someone like you has tons of friends as well." He then says.

I lean back and retreat back into the shade where Polly and Avery were talking side by side. We were headed for a nearby river town, where Shaz knew a guy that we could get materials from. I plop down right on the middle of the deck, no seats or anything. There were two other larger boats in front and behind us, drifting along at around the same speed. The sun passes over a cloud, casting a temporary shadow over the land, a couple seconds later the tarp ruffles and flaps lightly from a slight breeze.

"Is this our boat by the way?" I call out to Shaz.

"Kinda hard to own a boat, or anything in general when a major criminal organization is searching for you." He says.

…

"So is this our boat by the way?" I repeat myself.

…

"No, it’s a rental.” He admits.

“From money we don’t have I’m assuming.” I murmur.

“What? Do you want me to steal one or something?” Shaz overhears me.

“Don’t you already fake your personal record? Just take it mate, nobody is going to be able to track you down for it.” I say.

“I’m not a criminal, you know. I operate within the law. Plus, I’ll have to completely remake everything from scratch if I do.”

“I don’t think your plan to smelt off a bunch of coins is very legal.”

“Well, it’s only illegal if you get caught.” Shaz says in a low voice.

“Yea, true.”

The two of us go quiet as we stare off into the countryside, quietly floating along the river, the voices of the girls behind us talking away.

…

“So, how did you find Shaz?” Polly asks.

“I didn’t really find him; he found me… It’s a pretty long story.”

“Oh. Then uhh, be careful around him for me won’t you? Men like to take advantage of shy girls.”

“Oh no no no no! It’s not like that!” Avery waves her hands wildly. “He’s just… We’re just working towards a shared goal.”

“Crossing over the rift right? I mean, I understand why you want to do it, to see your family, but I don’t know why an Anku local like Shaz would want to do it.”

“Shaz is very interested into our Tetsu stuff. Most of his research aligns with the Tetsu I learned in school about the world and its energies. Although, you Ankudos seem to know a lot more about the human body than us.”

“Mmm, I don’t buy it. I can sense that he’s a weirdo, not someone who has a lot of friends”

“I feel like this conversation should include me.”

“Polly didn’t you have zero friends growing up either?”

Shaz and I interrupt at the exact same time

“Well… I had a couple…” Polly drifts off.

…

“Look, I’m just trying to prepare her for the dangers of the world.”

“Like us?” I say incredulously

“I mean, I don’t want to say it out loud.” Polly says with a slight grin. Not sure what else I expected her to say there.

Although we were still bickering, the tense atmosphere from before had vanished. It is more aligned with banter rather than real anger. The nice weather was making all of us chirpy in a way.

“By the way, why do you still have that cloak? I thought I told you to throw it away.” Polly walks over and tugs my sleeve.

“You just don’t know how it works alright? I’ve used coats all my life to help me fight, it helps.”

“Orrrr, you think it looks cool?” Polly stares right into my mind.

“I think I preferred you when you didn’t talk very much.”

A couple hours pass, twenty minutes away from the river town. It was known as Riverlong, a large stretch of land of unassuming buildings and housing. Naturally, being so close to the river, it was a hub for the transport of commerce and goods. That was where we were going to meet Shaz’s supplier.

“Hmm…” Shaz suddenly looks up into the sky, I glance behind my shoulder curiously.

“It’s going to rain soon, which won’t be good for Avery’s detection abilities.”

I put on my mask and squint into the sky. “How do you know? The sky looks clear.”

Polly closes her eyes and extends her fingers. “Hmm, looks like it’ll arrive in one hour.” She then says.

“What?”

“Air pressure always begins dropping steadily before a storm hits.” Avery explains to me. “Air always travels from high pressure to low pressure, which usually causes winds, and it also causes the air to rise, which causes the water trapped in the clouds above to condense and fall to the earth.”

What the hell did she just say?

“There’s water in the sky? And how does… Air work? How can air have pressure when it’s made of… nothing?” All of that sounded incredibly confusing to me.

“Eh? Uhh…” Avery stutters, not prepared for my questions.

“If it were truly nothing you would never feel the wind blowing against your face, or really feel anything, or really be able to live.” Shaz steps in and answers for her. “Birds wouldn’t be able to fly either, cause they don’t have the air carrying them.”

“News to me as well, the water part, not the air part.” Polly exclaims. “Though that does make sense as to why it rains.”

I scrunch my eyebrows as I try to understand his explanation conceptually. I’ve always been interested in the sciences but never really knew how to get into it. For normal kids they would have gone through school to learn it, but well... I didn’t have a very normal childhood.

“If you’re interested in this type of stuff, I can prepare some material to teach you some more later. I wasn’t at the top of my class, but I was pretty good.” Avery offers.

“Avery.” Shaz says with a reminding tone.

“Oh yea… You aren’t going to be with us for much longer right?”

“Well…” I rest the back of my head on my arms and point at Shaz. “I won’t be with that guy much longer, I know that.” I liked Avery, in a world of crazier and crazier people, she stood out as just normal. Just an overall nice person. It was refreshing.

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“Alright, we’re going to park on this riverbank.” Shaz suddenly veers the ferry sharply to the right.

“What’s going on?” Polly asks.

“Don’t really want any record of our docking. The less tracks we leave the better.” Shaz hops off the boat dragging a rope behind him. The three of us soon follow him as he ties the rope around the nearest tree.

“Someone could very easily just steal it though.” I bring up as he was tying down the rope. “I think it’ll be better to leave it to the port authorities.” Bandits along the river were highly likely given how old this world felt culturally.

“Eh, bandits typically don’t target small boats like this, especially this close to a town. They’d mostly go for large merchant vessels, rather than this, and this town is quite affluent so there isn’t very much petty theft around here either.” Shaz explains.

“I guess… Sure, makes sense.” I nod my head.

“Right, let’s walk the rest of the way. Hopefully we can get back on the boat before the rain starts.”

The four of us trudge out the side of the river and into a makeshift path caked in dried dirt. I could tell that when the rain starts this path was going to turn into some incredibly sludgy mud that’s going to be hell to walk through, which was something I wasn’t looking forward to. I put on my mask and look around.

In the distance to the right, I could see another river flowing downstream in the opposite direction. Which would serve as our way back, it was just like a two way highway, super convenient for travel and shipment.

… “Is the other river man made?” I ask, it was simply too symmetrical and even looked more like a pool than a river.

“Yea.” Shaz replies. “It’s a canal.”

He doesn’t elaborate further.

”Hey, I’m kinda a tourist here. It wouldn’t hurt if you explained things a bit.” I say annoyed.

“About what?”

“Hahahahaha!” I laugh abruptly. “Fuck you!”

We make it to the port of Riverlong, where dozens of boats and some large ships were docked. A couple of shacks had been built on top of the water under a wooden dock. Fishing docks it looked like. Wide nets were strewn about the ground, some of them casted into the water with a person sitting on the dock monitoring them.

“It really is going to rain.” I look up and murmur. The clouds were starting to congregate above our heads, blotting out the sun and casting a dreary shadow over the town. A sharp contrast to the once beautiful and sunny day it was just a couple hours ago.

Polly looks around cautiously. “Are you absolutely sure your contact is trustworthy?”

“… Yes, I’m sure.” He responds hesitantly.

Upon hearing this I frown, didn’t he say…? Am I remembering something wrong?

Shaz steps up to an unassuming single story building and knocks twice. A couple seconds later the door peeks open.

“Huh, I thought you’d be coming alone, didn’t think you made some friends.” The door swings wide open, revealing an oldish man, probably somewhere in his late 50s, his skin was wrinkled and spotted with age, but his muscles were that of an experienced laborer.

“You got the shipment ready?” Shaz asks.

“Now hold on a second, I just steeped a thing of tea, why don’t you lot come in for a while? I want to know what Shaz’ been up to these days.” The man says.

Shaz looks at the clouds nervously. “I don’t want to get stuck in the rain before we leave.”

“Ohh, it’s not going to rain. A couple of clouds don’t mean anything, it’ll clear right back up before you know it!”

“Old man…” Shaz sighs.

“Come on, if it rains I’ll slash your payment in half, worth getting a little wet over eh?”

This feels like a trap… Polly and I glance at each other knowingly.

“Who are you by the way? How do you know Shaz?” I try asking.

“Oh, yea, let me introduce myself. Name’s Gen, I was Shaz’s… mentor? Guardian? In any case, I raised him for about five years before he struck out on his own.”

“He’s the one who taught me all I know about engineering and metalwork. Although I’m a lot better at him at this point.” Shaz says. “He’s someone I trust a lot.” Shaz then steps inside the door, taking his shoes off in the process.

There it is, that bad feeling again.

Polly and I look at each other and walk inside, leaving our shoes on.

“You’re going to track mud all over the floor.” Shaz says.

“Then I guess he’ll just have to clean it all up later.” Polly remarks cruelly.

“Stop joking around, don’t be rude.”

“I’m not joking. I don’t want to be stuck in an ambush without my shoes on.” Polly outright says what both of us are thinking.

Shaz exhales deeply, clearly getting upset. “Gen’s not like that, just…”

“Shaz, we need to be careful alright? Avery’s counting on you to get her back home.” I try to mediate it. “Polly and I can wait outside and watch out for the place, you-”

“Alright, alright, I hear your complaints, you guys don’t need to come in.” Gen waves us off. “Just wait out there a sec.”

“You just said you wanted to get out of here before the rain hit. What's going on now?” I ask.

Shaz looks around haplessly, like a child pouting. “Can we just stick around for a while? I haven’t talked to him in years, he’s… He’s special to me.”

“You’re the leader Shaz, I don’t know why you’re asking me, but whatever decision you make, it’s in your hands.” I didn’t want to argue like last time, to keep tensions low. But… Just to be safe. I take out my mask and bring it to my face.

Shaz gives me a stinky gaze but doesn’t complain further.

“Alright!” Gen comes out with a large blanket on one hand, with some cups wedged in his armpit and a teapot in his other hand.

“Oh, you brought it out?” Polly glances at Gen.

“That’s right, I want to get to know the type of person who would willingly be this little rascal’s friend.” Gen lays the blanket on the porch and begins pouring out the tea. Gen’s hand tremors as he spills some tea on the blanket.

Both mine and Polly’s eyes briefly flick towards the stain on the ground.

“Shy about your face friend? No need to worry, you are a handsome fella, just need to squint a bit less.” Gen jokes.

“Thanks…” I say hesitantly. “But it’s for other reasons.”

“Ah, gotcha.” He doesn’t prod further.

“Then the young lady, you haven’t talked very much. What's your name?” Gen looks at Avery.

“Oh! I’m uhh, Shaz’s research partner.”

“Hmm? What type of stuff do you do?”

“Well, with the recent arrival of the Tetsudo we’ve been trying to further our understanding of how their powers work, it sounds fun but it’s actually pretty boring stuff so…” Avery also keeps things vague.

“Hmm…” Gen begins scooting a cup over to every one of us. “ You drink tea? Man this stuff is good! You know we’ve recently begun trade with Zlitia overseas, and their tea leaves are just… Mwah!”

I sniff my cup. Hmm, it smells like mint.

Gen raises his cup and gestures at us. “Come on, try it.”

“Ah, my mouth is pretty sensitive so I have to wait until it cools down a little.” Polly lies and pushes her cup forward.

“Eh, tea ruins my sleep if I drink even a little of it so… I’m a pretty light sleeper.” I also scoot it forward.

Shaz glares at the two of us before taking a sip himself. “Mmm! You’re right, that is a good leaf!” Shaz looks at the liquid appreciatively.

“Hehe, good friends you got there Shaz.” Gen takes a sip and leans back. “I got married.” Gen covers his forehead with his arms.

“You did? When?!” Shaz says with genuine surprise.

“Two years ago, and oh how wonderful she is.” Gen chuckles weakly. “I thought I would’ve been stuck hammering metal until the day I die, I thought that that would be all I cared about, but... She changed all of that. So, I guess I understand now why you ran away from me now little Shaz.”

…

Polly

I look up as the first raindrop falls, Pap- Pap- Pap- soon the pitter patter of the raindrops turns into a constant wave of noise. Thankfully there was an overhang above where we sat to prevent us from getting soaked.

Gen looks at the rain as well. “I lost the bet huh, I said half but guess I’ll make the iron free.”

When it rains Avery loses all of her detection abilities. The rain interferes with Avery’s water vapor suspended in the air, making it impossible to tell when something is brushing against her water. I look behind my back.

“You can drink the tea Shesuan, I genuinely didn’t spike it with anything unlike what I was supposed to do.” Gen soullessly looks at me.

Wha- I immediately whip around to find Shaz, Taiga, and Avery all slouched over unconscious. I immediately launch off the ground and bring out my seks.

I stare wide-eyed, rain dribbling down my face as a shadowy figure emerges from out of the house.

“I did what you asked, please return Abby and leave us alone.” Gen chokes up as he begins talking to the man behind him.

“Okay. You’ll see her soon.” The figure responds.

Gen’s nose begins bleeding. “Wha-“ His eyes roll up into his head as blood begins oozing out of all of his pores, dying instantly.

I have to do something. Right now. I need to change this future. I rush forward brandishing my blades without any concern for my safety.

“Who are you?” The figure asks. I focus all my Anku to my eyes, bringing time to a standstill. What’s his next move? Where is he looking? What is his body telling me? He raises his arm far before I’m within range to strike; it’s covered in blood. Before I have a chance to register the situation tiny droplets of his blood splatter all over my face as he swings his arm forward.

Gradually the pieces click together in my mind. It was somebody Torika told me about long ago, a person who learned how to turn Sananku, which was an art of healing, into an art of death and destruction. The person at the center of the event that caused her to split off from her old life.

Yeluh of the Red Division.

Slowly my world fades to black as his blood seeps into my skin, infecting my body, telling all my cells to tear and rip each other apart, destroying me from the inside.

Polly trips over the stairs and tumbles against the ground, inflicted with dozens of thousands of diseases. Dead within an instant.