Finding Natsuko in Tianzhou City wasn’t going to be easy. It was basically a giant game of hide-n-seek, but there was one person hiding and about 50 Heroes seeking, any of whom made Daisy lose if they found Natsuko first. Her one advantage was that she was the only one among them who knew about the forgotten Hero Natsuko. While the others were starting from scratch, combing through every hiding place and hidden spot they knew of in Tianzhou, Daisy at least knew where to start looking.

The first liquor store Daisy found was Linfei’s Liquors which was closed and dark, like all the other stores at just past four in the morning. She rapped on a glance window and peered inside. After giving it a minute, she decided Natsuko probably hadn’t fled to this particular liquor store and so she moved on to the next one.

Covering her own tracks wasn’t too difficult. The Heroes trailing her couldn’t sculpt stone, so all she had to do to lose them was make her own underground tunnels before popping back up.

She had more luck at the next stop, an upscale liquor store called Kong’s Wine & Meats. Again, she tapped on the door. This time, an older gentleman answered, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

“I’m sorry, this is my cousin’s store. May I help you?” the man asked.

“Do you have a Natsuko here?” Daisy asked.

“A what? Ma’am I don’t know—”

“Yeah,” yelled Natsuko from the back, holding a bottle of whiskey in one hand and looking fairly inebriated. “Took you a while.”

“You’ve only been re-summoned for half an hour sweetie.”

Natsuko burped. “Really? Felt like hours, I’ve been so bored! No offense, Kongy.”

The liquor store owner’s cousin seemed relieved to get Natsuko off his hands.

“How much does she owe you?” Daisy asked.

Kong waved his hands. “It’s fine. I know she’s good for her debts.”

Daisy blinked. “I don’t know what she’s been telling you…”

“Hey! I’m good for it! Kongy and I are tight!” Natsuko said, stumbling up the aisles.

“Either way, we might not be back for a while, so I’ll settle her up now.”

Daisy pulled out a hefty sum of Ying that could have paid for the entire top shelf of the store and handed it to Kong before grabbing Natsuko and pulling her out the door.

“Jeez, not so rough,” Natsuko said, rubbing her arm. Daisy hadn’t been trying to hurt her, but she was in a hurry, and Natsu didn’t seem to appreciate how much danger she was in.

“We gotta go, no dilly-dallying,” Daisy replied, spawning Peng from the cobblestone outside Kong’s shop.

“Hold on, I still don’t even know what happened! I was there when Shrike was killed but—”

“Yeah,” Daisy said, grabbing her friend and tossing her onto the stone bird like a sack of potatoes. “And every Hero can see someone doesn’t exist anymore, and Harald’s gang started telling everyone about your bottle after what happened with Frederick. Now everyone thinks you force dimension-jumped Shrike.”

“I didn’t!”

Daisy jumped onto Peng. “Doesn’t matter. They think you did, and it’s gonna be hard to set the record straight unless we’ve got the real culprit to show off. Until then, you, Shui, Sofi, and Pech are murderers on the run.”

Peng beat his stone wings. They were about to have a lot of eyes on them, which was what Daisy was counting on. The night air rushed over them as Peng soared into the sky. A light blue band on the edge of the horizon hinted at the coming dawn, but for the moment, Tianzhou was still covered in shadow.

“What about you!?” Natsuko said.

“Me? I’m doing my best juggling impression,” Daisy said with a grin that Natsuko did not reciprocate.

It was maybe, possibly, just a bit unfair that Daisy alone escaped being condemned as a murderer. But being wealthy and powerful had its privileges. And, as bad as it felt to admit, so did avoiding association with less powerful Heroes.

The outskirts of Tianzhou City were coming up below them. They were flying low enough that Natsuko could see fingers pointing up at them flying Eastwards.

“Are you taking me back to Vermögenburgh?” Natsko asked.

“No, but it sure looks like I am, right?”

A searing ember shot into the sky and then exploded into a fireball as Peng banked away. More elemental abilities—ice shards and lightning bolts and once-in-a-millennia starbeams—fired up at them. Daisy maneuvered through them like they were minor inconveniences.

“I guess Yun-chan went to bed. Only the amateurs are out at this hour,” Daisy said. Natsuko was too busy fighting off motion-sickness to respond.

Once they were out of Tianzhou City and out of sight of the Heroes hunting Natsuko, Peng swung southwest towards the Bay of Sapphires. From their height over the water, the two of them watched the sun rise over the cerulean arc of the horizon. Somewhere, far off in the distance, lay the Shikijiman Archipelago.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“So, you’re having us lie low in Shikijima, huh?” Natsuko asked, reasserting control over the whiskey clawing its way up her throat.

“For right now. I gotta sort some things out with my team, and plan some other things out, and maybe wait for some other things to happen. But it shouldn’t be forever,” Daisy said.

“Good, cuz I’ve got a Vermögenburgher budget, not a Shikijiman one,” Natsuko said.

“We’ll figure things out.”

Natsuko stared down at the rippling ocean below. Papering over the awkward silence, Daisy filled her friend in on everything that had happened after her brief escape into non-existence, including Shui’s public confession, fighting off Yuna, and their escape on the ship to Shikijima. She expected by the end that Natsuko would go off on an angry cursing spree, but that wasn’t what happened.

“Daisy?”

“Hmm?”

“Lemme ask you something. And no more games. Whose side are you on and what do you plan to do with Shui’s research?” Natsuko asked.

Damn. Daisy wished she had had the foresight to bring another bottle along for Natsuko to nurse. That way, she wouldn’t have had to worry about such a sober question. When she wasn’t drunk, Natsuko was quite perceptive.

“The Yishang’s side, I think. I want to get rid of forced dimension-jumping, and restrict people researching into stuff like your bottle. It’s better for everyone if that’s the case.”

“I figured. You don’t want any boat rocking when you’re in a first-class cabin, right?”

“I don’t think anyone should have the power to kill someone else, Natsuko. Not even you,” Daisy replied.

“Because it makes you and me equal.”

“That’s not—”

“Don’t bullshit me! If every Hero had a bottle like mine, defeating the Entropic Axis would be a piece of cake. We could do it in a week and party over the weekend. What you’re really scared of is a world where you and some forgotten loser like me are on equal footing, and all your stats mean jack-fucking-diddly. And maybe, just maybe, you’re also scared of living in a world where the Yishang aren’t telling you to go clear dungeons and kill monsters and have your numbers go up and up and fucking up.”

Daisy bit her lip. “That so? Well, maybe you’re right. But you’re also a pipsqueak who’ll be torn to shreds by the other Heroes if you don’t cooperate with me, so that sure doesn’t leave you much room to argue, does it?”

“Try me,” Natsuko said before rolling off the side of Peng and plummeting towards the ocean. Daisy sighed and tilted Peng down to go pick her out of the air. Unfortunately for the uncooperative Hero, Daisy was not going to let Natsuko kill herself to escape consequences again. Once Peng had Natsuko in his talons, she terraformed the bird’s stone body around her, forcing her into a sarcophagus of sorts with her head sticking out the top of Peng’s back.

“Hey! Lemme go! You have no right—!”

Daisy flicked Natsuko’s nose. “No, but I do have the power. Guess those lil’ ol’ numbers still matter, huh?”

“Daisy let me go! I’m warning you! You’ll be the next one to go, I swear—”

Rocks grew over Natsuko’s mouth. However, the glare she received from over there was plenty loud. After another hour or so of flying, the ship she’d put Shuixing, Sofiane, and Pechorin on came into sight as a single red and yellow dot in the middle of the blue ocean. She flew down and deposited Natsuko on its deck, still encased in rock and thrashing with the couple of millimeters of space she had.

“Natsuko!” Shuixing said.

Shuixing strode over from where she’d been staring wistfully off the stern. The stone encasing Natsuko dissolved into sand which Natsuko spat out of her mouth.

Natsuko growled at Daisy. “You!”

“Wait, Natsu!” Shuixing grabbed her friend’s arm before she could pick another fight with Daisy who was standing with her hands on her hips looking unimpressed.

“Where’s my bottle!?” Natsuko said.

“Natsu, please calm down,” Shui said.

“No! We’ve got beef now, me and her!” Natsuko said.

Daisy raised an eyebrow. “You’re gonna dimension-jump me cuz I put you in time out?”

“Yes!”

“Go get her bottle, Shui,” Daisy said.

“I don’t know if—”

Daisy turned her head and stared at Shuixing. “Get her the bottle.”

Knowing there was nothing she could do without it, Natsuko stood there fuming, fists balled, nostrils flaring at the obnoxious, arrogant, two-faced, hypocritical Hero in front of her. She was angry at the fact that she had even trusted Daisy in the first place, but the humiliation of being carried like a sack of potatoes was too much.

Shuixing returned from below deck with the bottle and nervously handed it to Natsuko who brandished it like a baseball bat.

“Well?” Daisy said. “Ya gonna swing or not?”

“You lying, slimy, double-crossing—”

“I don’t know when I did any of that, but okay, get on with it,” Daisy said.

“You were working for the Yishang without telling us!” Natsuko said, hands sweating against the neck of the bottle.

“I didn’t try to hide it either. Sofiane knew,” Daisy said, pointing at Sofiane who was currently taking a nap in a hammock strung up between two masts. “And if you had asked, I would have happily told ya the truth.”

“I didn’t know I had to ask! It was an unknown unknown, dammit! And you knew that!” Natsuko yelled.

The argument had brought the entire crew out, all of whom were watching nervously, hoping the two Heroes wouldn’t escalate to the point of destroying their ship.

“Natsu, you’re painting me as some kinda mastermind pulling strings behind the scenes. I’m not. I’m just trying to get things back to normal.”

“The normal where you never have to worry about anything bad happening cuz the Yishang takes care of you and makes sure you never go obsolete,” Natsuko said.

Daisy exhaled. “Yeah, that’s right. That’s how it is. If you’ve got a problem, take a swing.”

Natsuko’s knuckles turned white from gripping the bottle. She wanted to swing so bad. But she couldn’t. She refused to use the bottle for that, even against someone whose guts she hated. The bottle clinked the deck.

“Wise choice,” Daisy said. “Stay hidden when you get to Shikijima. Don’t do anything to tip the other Heroes off to where you are. I’ll catch up with y’all soon as I can.”

Daisy ran to the side of the deck and jumped off to land on a dripping-wet Peng made out of coral reef.

Sofiane finally woke up with a yawn and said, “alright, that’s definitely stretching the definition of “earth”.”