“I’m gonna swim it,” Natsuko said.

“You’re not swimming that,” Sofiane replied.

“I’m gonna swim it,” she said.

“It” was the strait between the Shikijima main island and the island of Toumaguro. Without a map, none of them knew the distance, but Natsuko insisted she was a “good swimmer” and could “probably make it.”

“You’re not even shaped like a swimmer,” Harald said and then flexed his large arms. “This is a swimmer’s body.”

Natsuko snorted. “Y’ever seen a plank sink?”

Everyone looked around, checking to see if anyone else had seen a plank sink. Not one of them had even put a plank in a body of water in recent memory.

“Exactly,” Natsuko said, waving an arm down her body. “I’m made to float.”

“You’re made to cramp up and drown like an idiot,” Sofiane said.

They were having this argument on the closest point between the two islands they could find, which was about an hour or so of northward up the coast from where they had rested, curving around towards the backside of Kazan-to. A shoal protruded from the beach which made the difference of all of 100 yards distance. Toumaguro looked hardly any closer.

“Let’s just find a Boat Summon,” Faisal said.

“No, no, I think it’d be much funnier to watch her drown,” the raccoon girl said.

“Shut it,” Natsuko said, “we’re not friends enough for you to be busting my balls yet.”

“We’re not friends at all, you still got Margaret killed!”

Natsuko waved the raccoon gril off and stomped into the ocean. Ignoring her, the rest of them spread out looking for a Boat Summon signpost as Natsuko dove into the ocean and gasped at the shock of the chilly water. But a moment later she was front-stroking her way across the ocean.

Harald walked alongside Sofiane. “D’ya think she drowns?”

Sofiane sighed. “I assume we’ll rescue her before then, if we can find the damn Boat Summon.”

“Is she usually like this?” Harald asked.

“Like what?”

“Insisting she can swim across the ocean.”

Sofiane shook his head. “No. Usually she’d say it’s hopeless and we should go back to Kazan-to and drink Plum Rum until we pass out.”

“A little less belligerent, but this is what she used to be like,” Shuixing said, picking her way delicately through the underbrush. “You’ve seen her like this couple of times, actually. Like after…”

Shuixing dropped the sentence before it arrived at, “after Margaret was killed.” Although they were allies for the fight against Xiuquan’s team, the status of Harald, Faisal, and the raccoon girl was still up in the air. She left the others to worry about it. Her brain was mulling over yet another strange physics inconsistency, this time the ability of a signpost to instantly summon a boat from nothing.

These uncomfortable observations had been increasing in frequency. Shuixing had even started to have dreams where she was dimly aware that the dream was acting upon strange, artificial logic which reminded her of the physical anomalies. She had a niggling sense that something tied all these observations together. Walking, eating, resting, whatever Shuixing was doing, an embryonic theory of physics which unified dimension jumping, dissolving bodies, and re-summoning threatened at any moment to burst out of Shuixing like a case of food poisoning, and just like bad food, it refused to discharge in a timely manner.

“Aha! There it is. I knew there was one around here,” Harald said.

Hidden behind thick vegetation was a small, sandy inlet with a squat plinth and a thin metal sign protruding from it with an anchor resting atop. They called for the others and Pechorin, Faisal, and the raccoon girl came running over. Harald tapped the plinth with his halberd and a sailing skiff popped into existence in the inlet. There was just enough room for six people to sit comfortably, with a seventh bringing the boat close to the waterline.

Harald hopped aboard with a heavy thump and the jingling of his metal equipment. “Might be safer to make sure Natsuko is closer to Toumaguro and then let her drown so she respawns on the other shore.”

“I would prefer it if we did not let Natsuko drown,” Pechorin said.

“If we pick her up and start sinking, you go overboard instead,” Harald said.

Pechorin shrugged. “Another chance to show my sacrificial devotion.”

Harald and Faisal rowed the skiff out of the inlet and onto the open ocean before hoisting the sails, propelling the skiff south and east on fortuitous winds. From there, Natsuko was a tiny, flailing dot several hundred yards from shore. It took only five minutes of sailing to catch up with her.

Sofiane leaned over the short railing as they pulled up alongside. “You doused yet, firecrotch?”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Natsuko, sucking down air in-between strokes, still made the effort of gulping a bunch of seawater and spitting it out of her mouth at Sofiane, spattering his face.

“Get—huff—fucked—huff—puffball!” Natsuko said.

Harald chuckled, watching the exchange from the helm. Faisal was sitting on deck with his arms splayed to either side, enjoying the roll of the wind. The raccoon girl, meanwhile, was keeping as far from the water as possible.

“Is being afraid of water one of your personality traits?” Shui asked.

“Well, yeah, but I actually am afraid of water. I’m not faking it for my archetype. Raccoons can’t swim, you know,” the raccoon girl replied.

“I thought all Heroes could swim.”

“Not raccoon ones! I might not look it, but I’ve got the instincts of a raccoon. I just lean human-looking because otherwise it might lower my… uh, art numbers. And for another thing, getting seawater in my nose is absolute hell!”

Shuixing nodded in understanding. As that conversation died away, she turned her head towards Natsuko, huffing away at a much reduced speed. After another fifteen minutes of sailing, they were still only a quarter of the way to the island.

Shui hoped Natsuko would succeed. If her friend had a flaw, it was too much optimism, not too much pessimism. Natsuko’s pessimism came from assuming the world would continue being good to her forever, and that she could always rise to its challenges under her own willpower. Learning that wasn’t the case had been a devastating blow that Natsu was still recovering from.

“You’ve got it, Natsu! Keep swimming!” Shui said.

In-between labored strokes, Natsuko flashed her a thumbs up sign. Not long after, her drenched mop of red hair sank below the waves.

“Oh dear,” Shuixing said. She turned to the rest of the boat. “Is there a lifesaver on this boat?”

Harald snorted. “Nope!”

In lieu of another option, Shuixing took some rope and wrapped it around herself before diving into the ocean fully-clothed.

Sofiane said, “uh, did she—”

“Four eyes did not tie the rope to anything,” the raccoon girl said.

Pechorin and Sofiane both grabbed the length of the rope to prevent it from following Shui into the water and did their best not to step on the glasses she laid on the deck. A minute later, Shuixing popped out of the water with a sputtering Natsuko holding onto her shoulders. Their two teammates helped pull them back into the boat, whereupon Natsuko spewed seawater all over the deck.

“Nice attempt,” Harald said, “but I guess some planks are dense enough to sink.”

Natsuko, swinging back towards the pessimistic end of her personality scale, flipped him off and sat down at the stern of the skiff with Shuixing at her side.

“I thought it was a good attempt too,” Pechorin said.

“Shut up, Pech.”

Sofiane was less amused.

“Please stop trying to do stupid stuff like that for your own ego. It’s fine when it’s something dumb like this, but don’t get us in trouble if we get attacked again, okay?”

Natsuko said nothing for the rest of the boat ride to Toumaguro other than muttering to Shuixing about needing something to drink.

As the sun was just about overhead, they made landfall on the equally lush Toumaguro island, whose distinguishments from the main island were that it had copious amounts of tuna in the waters off its shore, a couple small fishing villages, and a secret society of warrior monks who were part of some quest or another that involved the balance of power between the Empress and Yuna. All-in-all, it was a pretty empty and uninteresting island. An ideal place to hide.

“So, we have a choice here,” Sofiane said once the raccoon girl was successfully coaxed off the boat. “We can stay where we’re visible and hope to get spotted by Daisy, and not spotted by other people, or we can head into the jungle and make it harder to be spotted by either.”

Harald blinked. “You’re still traveling with Daisy Corduroy?”

“Uhh… kinda,” Sofiane replied.

Natsuko offered her opinion as well: “Stupid backstabbing blonde bitch.”

Harald grunted. “Neither of those answers are helpful answers.”

Pechorin ceased his business collecting interesting seashells to come over and explain. “Daisy went to enlist help from her teammates in defending our innocence.”

“Did she say when she’d be back?” Faisal asked.

Natsuko’s team made a face like the answer was no without outright saying it.

“Well that settles it,” Harald said, heaving his halberd over his shoulder and heading towards some wooden steps that led to a jungle path. “We’re not waiting around for someone who might not show up.”

“It should be today,” Sofiane said. He explained to them his mental math of guesstimating how fast Peng flew, how far the Sibe-Lands were, and how long it would take Daisy to cajole her teammates (the least reliable variable, by Sofiane’s own admission). The sum was that today was the most likely arrival time.

“And if she doesn’t show up?” asked the raccoon girl.

“She’ll show up,” Sofiane replied.

“Probably abandoned us, stupid, two-faced cow. Can’t trust her for shit,” Natsuko said.

Sofiane threw his hands up. “What is your deal, Natsu? What, you’re mad Daisy didn’t spell it out for you that she was working for the Yishang? All of the Top-10 are! Everyone knows it! It’s an open gods-damned secret! Daisy keeping the peace by trying to bury forced dimension-jumping was a surprise to no one but you, and only because your head has been buried in the sand for the past three years.”

Natsuko glared at him. “But she pretended like—”

“If you want to be annoyed with anyone,” he interrupted, “be annoyed with yourself for being so gods-damned oblivious. Don’t screw over Shuixing and Pechorin by offending the one and only powerful Hero you’ve got in your corner right now. I’m not asking you to like Daisy, but you should swallow your pride and tolerate her, if not for your sake than for your friends’.”

Natsuko thrust out her lower jaw and clenched her fists and for a moment seemed like she was going to fight him on it. But after a glance at Shuixing, she deflated. “Fine. But I want some time to cool down. And maybe a drink.”

While this argument had been going on, Harald’s team retreated safely to the jungle where they were holding a whispered conversation about how glad they were to not be a part of that smoldering dumpster fire of a team.

Back on the beach, Pechorin cleared his throat. “I don’t know if you’ll have time for that.”

He gestured at the sky over the Shikjima main island, above which hovered the unmistakable gray shape of a stone bird, flying in their direction.