Rebecca awoke on the seventh of August, particularly unrested. The day prior she had committed to helping the water element of their party in basic combat exercises. While the fire vixen was proficient in battle herself, she only knew it from the lens of her element and attribute – Fire/Null. Not only was Pacifica one of the “Noble Attributes”, being Piercing, but her element was Rebecca’s opposite.

Shouri had the theory down pat – his command of her was masterful. Anything he didn’t know he learned. Any mistake was quickly studied, scrutinized, and corrected. All without a word to anyone.

Taika didn’t have theory, but she didn’t need it – she was a natural-born fighter. Her instinct served her well and matched with her stubborn willpower… well it was no stretch of the imagination to say she was a hell of a force.

Pacifica though… she was just some city girl – by her own admission.

This was going to be tough.

The fire fox ruminated on this problem, sticking close to Shouri to get a more direct etude through everyone waking up and breakfast.

Finally, she left her mind palace when it was time for them to split up for the day.

“Relax Rebecca,” were Shouri’s parting words to her.

“Rebby, are you okay?” Pacifica asked, her brows turned up with worry.

Looking around, Rebecca got a grasp on where she was and had been doing. Her gaze fell back on the concerned otter. “Er, yeah I think,” she mumbled.

She studied her counterpart, her eyes tracing the otter’s silhouette. “Hmmm,” Rebecca hummed, stroking her chin in thought. “Hold still for me.”

Without elaborating, Rebecca closed the distance between them, running her hands down the other girl’s body.

“H-hey!” Pacifica squeaked, squirming from the sudden sensitive touch.

“I said hold still!” Rebecca snapped. Pacifica obeyed.

“Hmmm, you’re definitely a Piercing attribute,” Rebecca mused, running a pair of fingers down the other girl’s thighs.

“Why do you say that?” the otter asked, whilst biting her bottom lip in an attempt to distract herself from twitching too much.

Rebecca stood up straight, stepping back (much to Pacifica’s relief). “The Noble Attributes – Slashing, Piercing, and Crushing affect not only your spellcraft but how your body is built. Since you’re a Piercing attribute your body is smaller and nimbler. You get a little bit of speed in exchange for attack power,” the fox informed the otter.

Pacifica nodded. “I remember you saying something about that when we watched that snake guy in Kalanichi,” she recalled.

“Right, it’s a bit of a crafty trick, but you can sort of fake other attributes by either having a Resonator lose or gain weight and muscle mass. It’s usually not worth it, but in some instances, you can fake it to the point where your Resonator appears as a different species altogether,” Rebecca explained. She furrowed her brows. She knew the theory but had no idea where to start in actually training a Piercing attribute for battle.

It was the problem she had been ruminating all morning.

“Let’s go back to that room,” Rebecca suggested.

“Okay,” Pacifica easily agreed.

The pair made their way back to the training room they had used yesterday. Nina and Talys were there waiting for the duo.

“Shall we pick back up where we left off yesterday?” Nina asked.

“Perhaps your efforts will bear fruit today,” Talys chimed in.

“Nah, get you two.” Rebecca waved the two Ethereals off. They stared back like the Renard was an alien. “I’m serious,” she asserted. “I need to train her myself. Thanks for your guidance, I’m gonna do it myself.”

Before the Ethereals could argue with the mortal fox, they were pushed out of the room, the door being slammed behind them. “Don’t call us! We’ll call you!” they heard Rebecca shout from the other side.

“What say you, Nina?” Talys asked his counterpart.

“I say they gave us a vacation, Talys.” Nina smirked.

“Oh goodie! When was the last time we had a proper vacation?”

“1952 I believe.”

“Ah yes, we should certainly take advantage of this situation.”

And with that, the pair of five-tailed foxes were off to plan their own little outing.

Back in the room, the new trainer stood before her student. “Alright, first thing’s first, let’s establish a baseline in what you can do,” Rebecca began.

“Uhhh, was that a good idea, Rebby?” Pacifica’s focus was locked on the door where their teachers had been thrown out. She didn’t get any more time to consider the fate of the two small fox Ethereals, as Rebecca grabbed her head and forced her to pay attention.

“Focus,” Rebecca said. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” she warned.

Pacifica averted her gaze, unable to move her head her eyes retreated to the corners of their sockets. “I knew it,” she mumbled.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Rebecca said bluntly. “But if you’re our weakest and stronger than most people, that doesn’t matter,” she continued.

The otter slowly nodded. “I don’t really have dreams of being better than you or Taika,” she admitted, gripping the trim of her vest, her fists trembling. “I just want to protect Sho. I just want to keep up,” she spoke quieter.

“That’s the plan.” Rebecca released her captive. “And we’ll start with some basic forms. Punches, kicks, grabs – your goal when someone gets close to you is to immediately make distance. You’re a piercer, so you want to keep your enemies as far away from you as possible,” the fire Resonator explained.

Pacifica frowned. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for that,” she whimpered.

“Nah, you got the muscles for it,” Rebecca assured her. “Again, your game plan should be to keep people away from you. Unlike me and those other people you saw at Nationals, you should either run or if you end up in a grapple, toss them away and maintain distance,” she continued.

The otter shook her head. “I don’t really get it,” she admitted.

Rebecca was growing tired of the pity party. She took in a deep breath and released it. “Okay you, I’m not wasting my breath. You’re going to learn this shit. I know you have potential; you got the rhythm sense for it.”

Pacifica ceased her protesting, succumbing with a nod.

Satisfied with that, Rebecca began her explanation anew. “Your job on the battlefield is to play keep away, as in you need to keep yourself the hell away from your opponent.”

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“How do I do that?” Pacifica asked quietly.

Rebecca tapped the otter’s leg with her foot. “You got two of these, use them.”

There was a moment of silence between the pair. When it was clear that Rebecca wasn’t joking the otter spoke up, “You’re serious.”

“Play to your strengths. I was trained to kick people’s heads in because my body and skills aligned that way, you need to run away so you can whittle your opponent down with time,” Rebecca stated, recalling other resonators similar to Pacifica she had worked with in the past.

The piercing attribute in question considered that thought. Even Shouri utilized her that way, keeping her on the sidelines to use her spells on enemy Scherzando. “How do I even train that?” Pacifica pondered aloud.

“You need two things: aim and endurance,” Rebecca replied simply.

Aim made sense, all the positioning in the world wouldn’t help her if she couldn’t hit anything. It was the second item that puzzled the water element. “Endurance? Why endurance?”

“If you’re constantly running around and repositioning yourself it does you no good if you get tired,” Rebecca pointed out.

“Oh duh.” Pacifica felt silly even asking that.

Another shared silence.

“You’re really smart Rebby,” Pacifica managed to crack a smile.

“Nah, I’ve just been through some shit. A lot of shit actually. Too much shit.” Rebecca considered what she was saying for a moment. “God, I need a break,” complained the fox, allowing her shoulders to catch slack.

And that’s how Rebecca and Pacifica ended up doing thirty laps around the temple.

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Taika meanwhile had returned to her training for the day. Sarayul was nowhere to be seen, but she had been left to her own devices the day before.

However the difference today was Taika was armed with a new weapon: the bead Shouri gave her the day before. Drawing it from her robes, she examined the little pearl her Maestro made for her.

It was warm. Not from its storage in her pocket, but from the link Shouri provided the stone. She could feel the thinnest string of rhythm snaking from it to its maker. From what he said he was making many more of these too; an exciting prospect.

She needed to control the bead, to guide it through the air up to the paper target which hung unchallenged on the ceiling. The problem remained from yesterday – the clothing she was dressed in was suppressing her rhythm. On day two of her training, she had been successfully sapped of her body’s residual rhythm.

Put another way, she no longer possessed the shell of rhythm that dampened physical and magical attacks. If she got into a fight in this state she’d be easily overwhelmed by even low-level spells. It was a frightening idea, if not for the fact that they were on top of one of the tallest mountains in Unis-Résonne.

Taika focused the little bit of rhythm she could pull out of her body towards the stone. This was an easy-to-achieve feat now that she wasn’t bursting at the seams with rhythm. The affair was far more strenuous on her body though as she was tapping into the rhythm that made up her actual life force now.

That was to say, this training could easily kill her if she wasn’t careful and pushed herself too hard. In the same respect, failing to master this technique would end with the same result.

The only solution was to learn to properly control her powers. To master the ability to move objects with her mind.

Getting the stone to float took some effort but there was gravity. It was nothing special, just the usual amount of Riterran gravity. Even so, it taxed the fox as if she was power-lifting weights.

Clack clack clack

The bead bounced on the ground while Taika panted hard, the sweat dripping from her brow.

This was difficult.

She glared at the black shining pearl, her eyes flowing with stubborn blue Willpower as she focused on pulling it back up to her hand with her skill.

All she achieved for the effort was getting it to spin and shoot around the floor.

The girl grunted, suppressing the tears of frustration that wanted to spill.

Even so, she carried on.

Failure was not an option.

She was Shouri’s most trusted blade and she was going to sharpen herself to the finest point or die trying.

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Clack!

A sixth black pearl (the seventh total) joined the rest of the beads in the bowl where Shouri was keeping them.

“This hurts,” Shouri grunted, studying his bloody hands. His gaze drifted to the clear tuner sitting on the table nearby. While he had the process down for forming the beads, getting them to a completed state took time as well as resources from his body.

With resignation, Shouri took hold of the tuner. “La Bella Vita, Allegro,” he called out. Vienna snapped up rushing over to the table to perform the healing spell on her Maestro.

Shouri’s self-inflicted injury healed, Vienna stepped away again to allow him to resume work.

“Oh.” He shot a nasty glare at the lyrebird. “Stop insulting them,” he scolded her.

“What do you mean?” She raised a brow.

“I know you’ve been saying shit to them.” Shouri grabbed a bit of rubato clay. “Cut it out, or I’m cutting you off,” he warned.

“Mad I’m telling the truth?” she snarked back.

“I’m serious Vienna.” His gaze returned to the clear-bodied tuner, his eyes resting in the shiny red override button.

A gesture not lost on the null element. She snorted, smirking. “I’d like to see you try,” the wingless bird challenged.

His eyes remained on the button. The smirk faded from her lips. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“One day you might wake up and have no idea who Shouri Tomoshibi is,” he said, resuming work on his next bead. “Just some food for thought.”

“Hrmph,” Vienna huffed, a bitter glare escaping the Maestro’s vision. If it weren’t for them, he could be hers. This did nothing more than further drive a wedge between her and them. Revealing herself would do no good either – she knew he’d dump her in a heartbeat if she did something so foolish.

She took in a breath and slowly released it. The long game, that’s what she was after. “Fine,” she mumbled bitterly.

Shouri remained focused on his work, either failing to hear her or refusing to acknowledge that he did.