It was strange.

They should have been scared of him. His anger, his palpable rage, his wrath.

Taika, Pacifica, Rebecca…

…they agreed with him. They were ready to blindly follow whatever command he doled their way. It took everything in their collective willpower to not allow their Maestro to run loose and… end that man. They just couldn’t disagree with their Maestro.

It was only Taika who remained firm and held Shouri back. Acting as a pillar, Pacifica and Rebecca were able to move.

It gave the three Resonators a lot to consider. How easily they were swept up in his feelings, especially for Pacifica and Rebecca, whose strong stave was supposed to be emotion.

“Shouri,” Elijah Klein spoke up.

The three Resonators looked to their own Maestro, who was hunched over in his seat, an empty gaze cast thoughtlessly towards the ground. The limousine the Klein heir was using for his stay in Naiza moved through the busy roadways of the mountain city. The outside was barely visible thanks to the heavy tinting on the passenger windows.

“What?” Shouri barely moved as he spoke, his voice hoarse, raw.

“You lost control there,” Elijah commented.

“So?” there wasn’t an ounce of remorse in his voice. “Hunters don’t just hunt Scherzando. They can act as law enforcement in a limited capacity.”

Pacifica spotted the flickers of a yellow glow from Shouri’s eyes even despite the tiny bit she could see of them.

“Quite true. Feroce is very much an illegal condition,” Elijah stated calmly. “Usage of its spells is a form of Resonator abuse,” he spoke quieter. Zino, sitting next to his Maestro, grunted and slinked down in his seat, adjusting his cloak around his shoulders.

“Still.” The heir uncrossed his knees. “It is not your right as a hunter to execute a criminal.”

“I wasn’t going to kill him,” Shouri countered quickly. “He wouldn’t have been able to hurt if he was dead.”

Elijah sighed, shaking his head. His gaze turned to Shouri’s three Resonators. They were unusually amicable to the situation. “That’s quite grim,” he decided.

Shouri remained silent, refusing to move a muscle. It was at that point the car came to a stop. Alfred opened the door a minute later, though none of the passengers dared to move.

“I will say this. Your crusade for revenge is a short-sighted one. If you fail, think about who you’ll be hurting,” Elijah advised. “I’m not saying it’s wrong to be angry, but perhaps you should focus that energy – perhaps to a fine point, a scalpel to excise the root of the problem rather than a bomb to destroy everything,” with his piece said, Elijah left the vehicle.

Zino remained for a moment longer. He rubbed his left cheek as if attempting to quell a phantom pain before taking his leave.

“Sho…” Pacifica lowered her head.

Taika rubbed her Maestro’s back.

Rebecca studied her heels.

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Day passed to night, the rest of the occupants of the suite returning at various points. However, everyone kept to themselves. The butler checked in on each group, taking their orders for dinner and delivering them himself as dutifully as ever. One by one the lights were dimmed and eventually turned off completely as the occupants of the suite prepared for bed.

“Shouri.”

The boy raised his head, dark bags under his eyes. The bathroom behind him, with the distinctive whooshing of the toilet slowly fading away. It was quiet and lonely, no one else strayed from their rooms. That was except for her.

Emily brushed her long tresses back and smiled at him, her eyes glowed with a vibrant red rhythm. “Can we talk?” she asked.

The two Maestros stood in silence for a moment. Her gaze never left him, though he couldn’t return it in kind. “Yeah,” Shouri breathed out.

The presidential suite was monstrously big. Even so, the two made their way up to the rooftop and sat on one of the plush benches. A little under half of the moon was illuminated that night, but even so, the bright lights of Naiza surrounded them in a warm glow.

“You know, I haven’t met a real hunter,” Emily spoke up. “You’re definitely it,” she giggled. “We were struggling with that Feroce guy today, but you took him out without an ounce of hesitation,” she told him. “It… almost seemed like your spells were like super effective against his Resonator somehow. He broke out of our trappings easily, but you lined him up and stuck him down without a moment of thought about it,” the Maestro mused.

“Dumb luck,” he mumbled.

“Nope! Not letting you get away with that mister!” The Luna native turned the other Maestro’s head towards her. “Your skill with Resonators is unreal. You were so in synch with them it was like they were an extension of your body.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

She held him in place while he desperately tried to refuse her gaze. “Any of us duelists; you’d destroy us in a heartbeat if we gave you a reason to,” the duelist herself admitted. “It’s freaking terrifying man.”

“I told you I’m not that-” He was stopped from his self-admonishment by his face being crushed.

“I said stop that!” Emily shouted at him. “You’re a hell of a Maestro.” She released her captive and leaned back on the bench.

“Etude with me,” she suddenly demanded.

“Y-you? Why?” Shouri asked.

“You’re bottling up your emotions. I can feel it.” Their gazes met, her eyes glowing with a vibrant red.

Shouri sighed dramatically, as he was known to do, “You’re just like Pacifica,” he commented.

“Yeah, she’s got the Emotion-stave down to a science from what I’ve seen of her,” Emily giggled.

“Why do you want to etude?” he returned to the pertinent question.

“Oh, right, you terrans have to make etude weird,” Emily recalled. Taking in a deep breath, she spoke. “On Luna, we etude with family, friends, close companions as a way of shouldering each other’s pain, but also to get to know a person better,” she told him.

“If you don’t want to hurt your Resonators with your pain, then let me help you.”

“You’re saying I should hurt a person I just met?”

“Not at all. I wanna be friends with you, so let’s just think of this as two friends really getting to know each other.”

Shouri was suspicious of that claim, casting a narrow-eyed gaze at his conversational partner.

Emily frowned. “Hey, I’m not some kind of villainous mastermind! I’d like to think I’m a pretty good judge of character.” She wagged a finger at him. “You love your Resonators, they’re not things, they’re people. They’re your people, and you’re their Maestro, their person. Am I right?”

Reluctantly, Shouri agreed with a short nod.

“Right! Just like me!” Emily beamed. “Let’s etude and talk then.” She shifted on the bench, facing her counterpart. “Tell me your story, and I’ll tell you mine! Fair?” The lunar Maestro offered her hands to him.

With a sharp exhale from his nose, he pivoted around and accepted her hands.

“When I was a kid, I met this girl named Mila…”

----------------------------------------

Shouri sat alone on the rooftop, Emily long since departed back to her room. He felt bad keeping her up so late, she probably had an early game tomorrow morning. The Naiza skyline sparkled on, uncaring of his concerns. The hustle and bustle of the city below him couldn’t be stopped, especially when most of its inhabitants were nocturnally inclined.

He cast a gaze skyward, toward the Lutera Space Elevator. The moon was just passing overhead and he swore he could see a faint flickering light leaving the top of the tower en route to the heavenly body above.

Another sigh escaped his lips, a bad habit of his. With a grunt, he pushed himself up, much to the protest of his legs. The boy shuffled his way back downstairs, into the suite.

Even in the darkness of the Presidential suite at night, he managed to catch one of the two cat girl maids cleaning something. They worked hard to keep this place spick and span without bothering the guests too much.

Speaking of hard-working Resonators, he finally decided to address the problem he had caused. He shuffled towards his assigned bedroom. He took in a breath and opened the door.

The trio of girls were still wide awake as he surmised, sitting in silence with only the dim night lights illuminating them.

“Sho!” three concerned voices cried out upon catching sight of their Maestro.

Taika, Pacifica, and Rebecca all wore their worry plain as day. He crawled into bed with them, sitting opposite of his three traveling companions.

Wordlessly, he offered his hands to them. Pacifica sensed his intentions, and took up Taika and Rebecca’s hands, finally motioning with her head for them to do the same. The four were linked in a circle.

They expected him to speak, however, his words came not from his mouth, but from his rhythm.

I’m sorry for shutting you out.

I thought I should be the one to bear this pain – this was a problem for me and me alone.

That’s not right.

You care as much as I do.

You’re important to me, and I know I am to you.

I’m afraid of not being strong enough.

I’m scared of witnessing something horrible again.

I’m terrified of something happening to you.

He laid his emotions bare for them in its rawest form, and in return, he received their warmth which coursed back into him.

We’re here for you.

You’re not alone.

We care about you.

You’re important to us.

Lean on us.

Let us be your strength.

“I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” Shouri finally spoke.

“Si!” Taika replied instantly. She smiled warmly. “But you’re our idiot.”