We set out on the forest path to Yubiyubi, twin city of the west. After meeting with Kahokayo and Yodomi, they agreed for me to accompany them. Or at least, Kahokayo did. Leaves and twigs crunched under my feet, as the wind carried the smell of strange flowers and beautiful trees. Branches rustled under small critters rushing above us, while birds cawed their morning whistle. Somehow I felt a luminescent glow, amazed at the sprawling life in Koroné’s forests. It calmed me for just a moment.

To be honest, I found myself scared. Even though I had a plan to increase my chances of survival against Dantë Biyu, it couldn’t guarantee success. My confidence was just a mask for my ambiguity. Maybe I lied to myself thinking I could face the officer, knowing how a mere Level 0 couldn’t fathom to dream of a victory.

The twin city of the east, Mogumogu, lay in the distance while we spent an hour trekking. The three of us never said a word to each other the entire time. I guessed it was awkward for complete strangers to travel together.

I took the initiative to talk. “Brother—”

“Don’t call me brother.”

“Okay…” What was his problem? I’d called him that growing up. But ever since he and I went off to university, we became a bit..distant. I didn’t talk with him for months at a time back in the real world.

Some silence followed. He sped ahead of Kahokayo and I.

We walked across logs over bodies of water. My feet became slimed with a mossy texture, nearly slipping around an occasional boulder. I witnessed small waterfalls gushing from the Sanpu Mountains in the distance, while taking a brief stop for a respite. At one point I could not tell if my sweat was condensation from a humid climate.

“Mister Kaizenji?” Kahokayo called down from below while I stood on a hill. I slapped myself and panted. The grass seemed so comforting to lay down upon.

“I’m coming down, don’t worry.”

“Be careful now. There is civilization up ahead.”

I lifted my head. The faint sound of idle chatter entered my ear, like the billowing smoke rising from the trees ahead. Yubiyubi was a day away, was there a small village here? Soon enough I slid down the hill with muddy feet to join the two.

In the forest ahead silhouettes of people moved about. I noticed stumps of trees recently chopped, and wooden poles in the ground displaying tattered, yellow banners. Tents and huts littered the land. The strange residents stared at us while we entered the camp. Children lifted the flaps of their huts. All of them wore scroungy clothes, colors dull and muted, their pants shredded and their shirts revealing. It contrasted with their azure hair that shone so brightly.

A foul stench of human feces permeated the area, only masked by the constant scent of fire. Skinny sticks held the dilapidated tents upright, packed into hundreds of units across. It was a site I could only imagine in third world countries.

A man grabbed my sleeve. “"Sei di Wachwach? Per favore, aiutaci! Abbiamo bambini che stanno morendo, quindi per favore..."

My eyes tensed for a second. He was pale-skinned, skinny, and had shrunken eye sockets. I looked past him to see a kid lying on the ground, as a Koronézuki tended the child’s wounds. What was going on here?

“Let go.” Yodomi grabbed the man’s wrist. “We—”

“Yodomi.” Kahokayo said calmly without turning around. Her hands balled into fists, with no slight tremble. Yodomi obeyed and loosened his grip on the starved man. “We’re obliged to help these people.”

I rubbed my arm and called out to her. “Just what is this place?”

“Il Campo Profughi, which houses Straniero refugees from the west. What a horrible sight…” She continued to survey the area, consequently gathering attention towards us. I could see more and more Stranieros huddling to us outsiders, with some face mask-wearing Koronézuki approaching as well. With curious eyes they observed us just a couple strides away.

“Miss Biyu, you always do this…” Yodomi facepalmed, trying to keep his composure.

“Tutti, desidero aiutarvi, poiché io sono una Coronese familiarizzata con la Classe Filiale,” she began to speak in another language I didn’t understand. But the people around us did.

"Lei parla la linguapatriana?"

"Ma ‘va... davvero?"

"La grazia di Durata ci ha finalmente benedetti?!"

What were we getting ourselves into? We use time to travel to Yubiyubi, not to assist the refugees here. Although I could understand her stance a bit. I remembered Arbitrator D’Émori’s words from when we first arrived in Koroné.

“Aquitaine committed a Straniero massacre in Città d’Onde.”

To see people suffering made me frustrated. I’d never seen a place so deprived of necessities and supplies, malnutritioned and dying. I felt as if a hero complex compelled me to do something. But we had our priorities.

“Do you know why Miss Biyu loves helping people?” I hung back with Yodomi, who stood in the back. He scoffed at me and looked away. “Yodomi…”

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“It’s how she is. Miss Biyu has been that generous. This isn’t the first time she took part in humanitarian aid. ‘As the second heir to the Biyu family’, Mister Gayuo told me, she wanted to solve instability in the southern regions.”

“Gayuo?”

“...”

I couldn’t read his face. But all I knew was that he and ‘Gayuo’ had some history. How long did Yodomi stay in this world prior to me? I never questioned how he had gotten here, nor how any of this made sense. I acted impulsively on our first encounter in Gariyuchi Terrace. I didn’t ask the real questions—like why he and Kahokayo didn’t tell us about Dantë. Another assumption…

“Alright, tell Miss Biyu that we will stay here for the night.” I clasped my hands together, taking a deep breath. “It’s past the afternoon already, and there might be monsters lurking at night…”

Yodomi sighed and turned without a word. Before I knew it the sun began to set. Kahokayo spent the rest of the day taking care of the refugees, healing and consoling them. I could only wonder what journey the Stranieros must’ve taken, what they experienced in order to arrive in Koroné.

When darkness fell the Stranieros offered us three one of their pristine huts. While I hesitated, Yodomi and Kahokayo just went in and set their stuff down. I lifted the flaps of the tent to reveal three makeshift beds. Yodomi layed down on the nearest one.

“Yodomi, Mister Kaizenji, I will continue coöperating with the other Koronese medics here. You two please go ahead and sleep.” Kahokayo smiled before walking back outside, leaving us alone.

Yodomi turned to one side of his bed. I decided to take the farthest one in the corner. Another moment of awkward silence…I should try to alleviate it again. Even if we end up arguing. My brother and I were opposites, after all. I laid down and turned my back towards him.

“Yodomi.”

“What?”

“Why did you keep quiet about Dantë even when you were aware that he was an officer?”

Yodomi mumbled, “Tch. Why do you ask?”

I stared at my hand, my body curled up. “Well…I’m just confused why you would side with the Royal Marshal.”

“I don’t think the Royal Marshal is necessarily evil.”

Wasn’t evil? How did he come to the conclusion that the Royal Marshal wasn’t? This entire journey, from Waqwaq to Koroné, was directly caused by Officer Guiral, Officer Châtelier, and Officer Biyu. The skirmish at Wakh’an Pass proved that they resented my stay in this world.

“Then why did Dantë force us into this mess? Why has Miss Biyu remained silent?”

“I don’t know, but I trust their word,” Yodomi sighed and rustled in the bed. “The surviving members of the Biyu family are Lady Biyu and her older brother. No parents, no relatives, no one else to support them except them. Yet they remain ambitious in their ideals. The brother has to pick up the slack and provide for him and his sister. With that in mind, do you still think he, Officer Biyu, is inherently evil?”

“That’s… I didn’t know. I’ve never thought of it before. But the Royal Marshal has been the reason why we’re on the run, and the rest of us can’t deny that.”

“Then your viewpoint won’t change. I’m going to sleep,” He pulled a blanket over himself, murmuring under his breath, “I don’t know but…you’ve changed, Kawari.”

“Huh?”

“Tch. Nothing.”

No way, I thought. There was no way my brother would ever acknowledge that. Knowing that he clipped our conversation short, I sought to sleep myself. Listening to the idle buzz of the dense forest gave me the ambience. Tomorrow, we would reach Yubiyubi.

I closed my eyes, unable to curb my restlessness. My mind wrestled with Yodomi’s spout about the Biyu siblings and tried to put two and two together. Yodomi was transported to this world, and they took him in. How it correlated with Dantë, and why Kahokayo wore a red coat. Whatever. My body fell asleep.

Kahokayo woke us up in the first sunlight. She had dark spots under her eyes, and her wavering voice didn’t suit her demeanor. Yodomi and I packed our stuff and fixed the beds while she stood outside the tent.

“Did you stay up the entire night?” I lifted the flaps open and walked out. Yodomi followed.

“Oh, well…yes, I did. However I believe I saved more lives because of it, so surely the medics here have been partially relieved of their burden.” The demihuman fixed her red coat. “In every part of the world comes strife. We as humans die easily, and there is a never-ending demand for healers.”

“...I see,” I coughed. The refugees in this camp had experienced something I didn’t know. Escaping from Regione Straniera and making the journey all the way to Koroné…it reminded me of certain events in my own world.

Kahokayo glanced at the ground. “I apologize for bringing down the mood so early. Yodomi, Mister Kaizenji, let us leave this settlement.”

At the edge of the camp, the Stranieros had gathered to see us off. From their rundown huts they stared on with soulless eyes, like ghouls watching in the night. Their malnourished look had slightly improved, possibly from Kahokayo’s assistance and raising their spirits. The man’s family from yesterday waved with a tough smile as he patted his children’s heads, who’d been put in fresh casts.

I felt a bit ashamed, in a sense. I didn’t really know how to help these people, nor how to solve their problems. The geopolitical situation between Regione Straniera, Aquitaine, and Koroné seemed to grow worse, and I didn’t possess the knowledge about the history between the three nations.

While walking through the crowd, I noticed a short-haired boy sobbing alone. He covered his face with his arm, his arms and legs wrapped in bandages. No one wanted to console nor approach him. I came past him for a second, and hesitated. Kahokayo and Yodomi already went ahead. But I trusted my gut and dug into my travel sack.

My hand extended out to him, holding a felt-tipped pen from my world. I’d brought it with me from Hakone for some occasion. The Straniero child didn’t notice. I tapped his shoulder, and he lifted his head to me. He noticed the marker in my fingers. I took off the cap and drew on my hand, showing it to him with a grin.

“È una matita. Perché?...Why?...” the boy asked, but I placed the pen in his hand.

Not understanding the language, I made a rectangular gesture. “Use it to draw. One day, we’ll come back to this place to visit.”

Even though these people—whom Maîtresse identified with—had experienced some sort of hell, their light blue hair did not dull.

After a few more hours, Kahokayo, Yodomi, and I arrived at the frontal gates of Yubiyubi. We’d traversed at least a couple hundred li on foot in a day and a half, nothing compared to the trip from Great Zhou to Koroné. Dominated by towering stone walls, nomads approached the massive city gate in a line. Thanks to Arbitrator D’Émori, I pulled out a visa required to enter, and the other two did the same. A half an hour passed, and we managed to see the person in charge of checking for the gray armbands. I placed my bets on this moment.

A woman with a gray cloak neared us with an aggressive gait, and held out her hand. “Please show your visas.”

“Hey.” I reluctantly raised my hand, with the armband wrapped. Her face changed in an instant. Kahokayo and Yodomi glanced at each other confused. What I hoped would happen did happen.

“Kaizenji Kawari?...” Rosentine d’Émori recognized me and set down her arm. If I met up with her, an arbitrator, then I had a real chance of turning the tide against Dantë.