Kazuki's plan of action was very simple at this point. If falling asleep meant that he would have to endure a nightmare then he would simply not fall asleep. He's done it many a time, after all, he was a student at some point, how hard could it possibly he to not sleep for a few days? With this new plan in mind he gazed peacefully at the moon which was full tonight, for whatever reason, Kazuki felt a certain warmth emanating from the moon as if the light from the moon was cleansing him of his curse. Though, a quick look in the mirror would probably disprove that theory. He looked down at Tompah who was sleeping soundly just under him. Considering the time of night, Kazuki's watch would be long and arduous, this already made his plan of not sleeping a near impossibility. With the forest right behind them it would make sense to go further into town to avoid any crazy animals, but trying to drag Tompah across the road would probably be a bad look to the people of...uhh.

it had only been thirty minutes into the watch and yet Kazuki's unfortunate curiosity forced him to climb down the tree he was on and start walking away. He didn't get much further than 15 feet before hearing one of Tompah's snores and remembering he was supposed to keep watch. The agony of not finding out where he was or at least the name was overbearing. Yet he didn't want to lose Tompah's trust, at least not like this. Kazuki croaked thinking to himself, "what if I try to disappear him?" he thought allowed, he hadn't done magic tricks in quite a while though so it probably wasn't worth the trouble. Kazuki sighed heavily and sat in front of Tompah turning his back to the town in an attempt to ignore its existence.

Eventually, Kazuki's attention was stolen from him he heard the sound of a train coming into the town. The constant chugging made it more and more difficult for him to not get excited. It surely wouldn't have been the first time he's seen one before, but the thought of getting to ride inside of one for the first time was, exciting to him, to say the least. Though the fact that a train was coming into town was at least an indicator that his watch was soon to be over. In fact, as the train came into town Tompah started to wake up, and when he saw Kazuki horizontal pupils staring at him he jumped awake.

"Kazuki? why are you looking at me like that?" Tompah seemed nervous

Kazuki was confused as to what he was talking about "because if I look at anything else I wouldn't be watching you wouldn't I?"

"Kazuki did you just sit and watch me sleep all night?"

Kazuki sat still and stared at Tompah "Yeah you sleep like a bear."

"That's not what keeping the first watch means idiot" Tompah joked

"Why would you wake up and immediately insult me like this" Kazuki cried comedically. "Actually why are you even awake its still late-night, and you sleep like a bear" Kazuki's head tilted in confusion.

"Train"

Kazuki sighed "right, fair enough, anyway, are we getting on it now?"

Tompah nodded his head "yeah we have to, this is a cargo train so we gotta go"

"This isn't a passenger train?"

"Nope, we don't have the money for a passenger train"

"can't argue with that, so what do we do to get on?"

"Kazuki how good are you at stealth?"

"Uhhh I think frogs can camouflage but I'm still human I think so, maybe better than average?"

"ok cool, so this should be super easy," Tompah said confidently as he stood up. "alright let's go steal a train"

"Odd wording for hitching a ride but yeah let's steal a train"

both of them made their way into town, making an immediate beeline towards the small train station for the small town, eventually, Kazuki found the answer to his question and found out the name of this town was called "New Doobie." Though the answer ended up being not as exciting as the question was, it did raise his curiosity by a bit. As they made their way to the train station Kazuki spotted a library on the way and stopped Tompah.

"Hey, do you think we could pick up some books from here?" Kazuki pointed to the library with a certain excitement that Tompah didn't understand.

Tompah sighed "we technically have time before the train leaves so yeah but, how are you gonna hide them?"

"hide them? I have a library card I'm just gonna check them out" Kazuki pulled his wallet out of his pocket, one of the only things that he had from his past.

oh, well then ok but we only have like 2 hours at best

I need less than that to pick up what I need.

the two of them walked into the library, and immediately Kazuki felt a sense of safety and relief. It was almost as if he was back at home again with his daughter, and the thought made him crack a small smile.

Tompah followed Kazuki around the library, who somehow already knew how to navigate a place he's never been. "Hey, Kazuki if you can't walk 20 feet without getting lost how is it that you can navigate this place?"

"Tompah, I told you I can read a map, but I can't read a map, and you told me that you can't read a map but you can read a map" Kazuki walked into the children's book section of the library and started to look around for a book that Tompah could possibly learn how to read.

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"your point?"

"Tompah I'm reading the signs all over" Kazuki tossed him a book by the name of froggy goes to school.

"Ooh, ok now everything is making sense" Tompah replied.

"do you wanna know how?"

"Yeah actually, can you do that?" Tompah caught the book and looked at the cover. "are you giving me this because you're a frog?"

Kazuki's head throbbed "No, I'm giving it to you because it's one of the books I used when I was a grade-school teacher"

"you were a school teacher!?" Tompah yelled excitedly.

Kazuki tried to shush him but what came out of his mouth was more of a hissing sound than it was a shushing sound.

"right library got it I'm sorry" Tompah whispered "you were a school teacher?" he persisted.

"At one point yeah" Kazuki continued looking around for kid's books, as he did, revisited past memories of him picking out books for Nyx when she was 4, he remembered how adorable she was holding her first book, and how she would sit in his lap turning the pages for him as he read the words aloud to her.

As Tompah followed behind him he began to see a little girl with white wavy hair and pale olive skin flicker in and out of existence light a dying quartzlight. The girl looked like a ghost to Tompah so much so that originally he couldn't believe his eyes and rubbed them thinking this was a sleep-deprived hallucination.

"Hey, Kazuki how are you so active right now? you didn't even sleep right?" For whatever reason Tompahs eye rubbing didn't make the girl go away, the small girl was still flickering in and out just behind Kazuki. It almost looked like it was watching him.

"I've spent nights grading paper and went to school next morning no problem, I think ill be fine...I hope" As Kazuki walked around to look for other books Tompah watched as the small flickering child walked behind him.

"Kazuki what's that behind you?"

Kazuki turned around quickly to find nothing behind him but Tompah "You buddy, why?"

"No Kazuki there was something behind you but then it disappeared when you turned around" Tompah insisted.

"well I don't see anyone behind me, you aren't messing with me are you?" Kazuki scratched his head and croaked.

"No, I promise I'm not there was actually something weird behind you"

"Hmmm ok Tompah I'll believe you this time, but I'm gonna go to the comic section real quick, wanna come with me?"

"Sure I guess, I dunno what a comic is though"

"oh their like cool picture books but for adults"

"Why would adults have picture books?"

"Cuz these ones are cool" As Kazuki turned into the comic section he started to remember having close to if not the same conversation with his daughter. The comic section of the library was as always bare "so cool that apparently libraries universally never have them."

Tompah chuckled at Kazuki's remark, and as he watched him pick up a book about a spider person, he saw the little girl watching Kazuki with her hands behind her back holding on to the same froggy book that he had, flickering in and out light a dead lightbulb. This time he saw her more clearly, but she still seemed... ghostly.

"Kazuki? It's behind you again" Tompah pointed looking almost scared. When Kazuki turned around the small girl disappeared again.

Kazuki raised an eyebrow at Tompah "Tompah this is the second time tonight that you've looked at me with fear, are you ok?"

"Kazuki I swear it was there again it looked like a ghost or something" Tompah pleaded.

Kazuki rolled his eyes "Tompah are you referring to this "ghost" in the same way that you would refer to "spirits"?" Kazuki made air quotes around both words as he croaked them out.

Tompah shook his head "No, ghosts don't exist silly"

"Ah ok, ok, I see" Kazuki pulled the spider-woman comic from the shelf in front of him. "Alright Tompah one more stop before we go"

"You need more books?" Tompah wondered how a man can read more than one book at a time, or any at all.

"Yeah, I do, I have to practice my magic"

"you do magic tricks?"

"I try my best Tompah, that's all that counts, now c'mon just one more and we'll hit the road"

As Kazuki walked and Tompah followed Kazuki started to think about the awful magic tricks he used to do for Nyx. No matter what it always seemed as if Kazuki had found some way of messing up the magic trick, he could see himself trying to make a coin disappear but never being able to find it afterward. As Kazuki reminisced and walked Tompah could see the girl clearly walking behind Kazuki, like a duckling following its mother. When Kazuki turned the corner she stood behind nearby shelves and ran zig-zags between them, behind him as if she was hiding from him.

Tompah tried rubbing his eyes one more time to see if it was a hallucination, unfortunately for him, she only went from looking like a ghost to looking like a real girl, a flickering one but a real girl nonetheless. Tompah knew that at this point Kazuki would probably disregard him again if he tried to bring it up so he devised a plan. A simple approach truly, if she would disappear when Kazuki turned around, he would simply...

.

..

...

Oh shit, what could he do? He knew he Kazuki probably stopped believing him after the second time. So what if he just tried catching her while she's still visible, Tompah patted himself on the back for having such a good idea and prepared himself. As Kazuki picked up a small book no bigger than a notepad, the girl stood behind him looking up at him with her sea-green eyes. Tompah took the chance to walk up and put his hand on her head but when tried, his hand fell right into her head and he lost balance falling and pushing Kazuki into the shelf he was in front of.

Kazuki having had enough of this turned around, put a hand to his forehead, and croaked "Tompah"

"Kazuki wait I swear I'm not messing with you there was a girl behind you with white hair and green eyes she was right there I was trying-

"trying to fuck with me?" Kazuki interrupted "Dude. if you don't want to be here you could've just told me, fine we'll leave"

Kazuki I'm not trying to-

"Tompah, I'm already dealing with enough bullshit between the curse and the nightmares, I don't need a third thing, or person to mess with me right now." Kazuki wiped his eyes of tears that were starting to form in his eyes.

Tompah slumped his head and quietly followed behind Kazuki who walked over to the front desk to check out the books he was getting with the librarian. He allowed Tompah to scan his own book and then gave her his card.

"Wow sir, this card has definitely seen better days, would you like to replace it?" the librarian asked.

"No thank's I'm kind of in a hurry, maybe next time." Kazuki smiled innocently.

She scanned the card "Ok thankyou please put in your passcode and you'll be all set"

As he punched in his code he realized that the librarian was changing her gaze between her computer and Kazuki's face.

"You know your name is very familiar," she said pensively "I could have sworn I've heard it somewhere."

"That's the first time I've heard anyone say that about me" he croaked, anyway I'm done on my end, could you give me my card, please?" Kazuki noticed her face go into shock as if she had come by some kind of relevant information.

"You're from Rolent?" she said nervously

"Yeah, I am, what of it?" Kazuki scratched his head again. "Can I please have my card?"

before she could respond Kazuki and Tompah heard the sound of the Train whistle go off.

Tompah looked at Kazuki "Kazuki we have to go if we are gonna make it on time"

"Sorry I really have to go" Kazuki shot his tongue at his card grabbing it out of her hand and putting it in his mouth before looking at Tompah and nodding.

As Kazuki walked away with Tompah however, the librarian came out from behind her desk to try and stop them which prompted them to start running.

"Sorry lady we gots places to be" Tompah yelled before they both shot out of the library and ran towards the station.