The brisk march over the grasslands of Atlantis continued on with a slow history lesson. Eudokia explained the details about the barrier and Atlantis. Most of it probably unnecessary, but once she got started it seemed difficult to stop her from going on. A glow in her face and eyes sparked when talking about old traditions.
After more than an hour of constant walking those required to be the pack mules of the group got tired. Seiji was the most vocal, physically halting, forcing the rest, helping to stop as well. “Why the hell am I still carrying this damn boat of yours?!” Along with Seiji, Yuki, Haruo and Saki spaced out along the length of the boat carrying it over their heads. Most of the fatigue came from holding their arms above their heads rather than weight. Saki managed most of the weight effortlessly, the rest ended up being around most for balance (though Seiji was a matter of a male pride and not wanting to be shown up by a girl).
She tilted back over her shoulder to meet with Seiji. “I have a place to leave it. It’s further ahead.”
“How much further?”
Eudokia searched around the area, acting pensive for a while. She stayed silent seeking out landmarks. Eventually, she knew their position exactly. “About fifteen minutes.” After those words she continued her lead, not giving them further chances for pause.
Chapter 101 – Uneasy Greetings
The arrival of a plain location unremarkable left everyone confused. Seiji gladly got rid of the boat, but still had his questions. “You just going to leave it out here in the open?”
“No, I’m going to be burying it.”
“We’ll be here for hours! I thought you said we didn’t have time to waste on shit like this!”
“I’m not. Just watch.” Eudokia closed her eyes and focused on drawing out rings of light from her feet. As her Field came alive her clothes floated in the air uninhibited by gravity. However, their surprise came when the ground under her began to crater. The boat rose up followed by her command and lowered with her as a clean invisible sphere cut into the earth making it all disappear. Before she left their sight a couple of them leaned over curious.
In the bottom of the crater dug out revealed a metal case. The sphere carved through the case letting the empty space inside breath out. The boat they carried became positioned over and then in the opening. Once allowed to rest, she rose back up with the grass returning in her ascent. Eudokia exhaled shortly when she finished. “It’s stored now.” She received several blank stares in response to her method.
Yuki watched the whole event carefully trying to understand how she managed it. He still felt confused by what she achieved. “Hey, Ayumi… I thought our powers couldn’t go into the ground like that. I would have fallen through the Earth probably!”
“Or suffocated. It takes a certain level of concentration and focus to be able to achieve that. By default the surface of the Earth is where we stop.”
The rough remark from Eudokia made Yuki swallow a little rough. He tried to ignore the thought and pass on casually. “I sort of feel like that was all a little random. But that’s all pretty convenient to work out that way for us, huh?”
“…yes…” Eudokia focused back on the horizon barely catching the light of a village. ‘Almost there… It’s a huge risk, but we don’t have a choice. The capital’s still more than a week away on foot…’
Bordering on the evening hours, the sun remained holding out for just a bit longer to give them the time they needed to reach rest. No more than a few minutes away from a small village, Eudokia stopped them. She looked more serious than previously, a difficult feat for her. “Listen carefully, this is very important. When we enter the village speak to no one and look at no one. Don’t linger. Just follow me to the inn.”
“Is something wrong?” Yuki searched around at the others. “Why can’t we talk to anyone? Shouldn’t we be friendly?”
“Do you speak Atlantean Greek?”
“Of course not!”
“Then don’t speak to anyone.”
“But my powers—“
“Don’t speak to anyone! Stay in the inn and let me do all of the talking.”
The rest of the group started to become uneasy and restless hearing her talk to them as she did. Yori leaned forward a little to get her attention. “Is there something we should know that you haven’t explained to us?”
She sighed not waiting to have to explain the obvious. “You’re all Japanese. It’s very clear you don’t belong here. Between not speaking the language and your appearance, you’re only going to cause trouble in the village. We need to keep a low profile.”
“If we’re going in I assume you have a plan for them not to be scared of foreigners entering their home?”
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“I was getting to explaining the plan. I’m going to be using my power to change everyone’s appearance. So long as it is up you’ll look like an Atlantean. We’re just going to be a vacationing group of friends from a nearby town.” She motioned to the entrance of the village, a modest gate lacking any walls. A simple road ran through it under the column and archway that made the gate. Further inside, the inn waited for them. “I’ll only leave it going until we get a room. After that you stay in the room and out of sight. I’ll take care of the work of getting supplies.”
Yori’s sister took a step forward out of the group. “That’s a lot of supplies for our group. You’ll need someone to go with you.”
“It’s simpler if I go alone. There’ll be fewer problems.”
“Won’t it look strange that only one person from a visiting group is going out? I’ll go with you.” She caught the look from Yori wanting to protest her going alone with Eudokia. “There won’t be any danger in the village, Brother. I’ll be fine.”
Eudokia wanted to refuse, but knew that a further debate would delay them. “Stay close to me. I won’t be able to make it last for long.”
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The South Gate Captain paused in the middle of the field viewing the terrain. He knew the region well. All of the hiding places and shortcuts were no secret to him. Yet he remained cautious and concerned about his new prey. The enemy left the entire search party relatively unharmed and yet executed action quickly. ‘They eluded my men for hours before making a move. An odd decision considering their success. What changed their tactics? Were they discovered?’
While on their march he tried to get inside the mind of his prey to know the next move. Unfortunately, he found contradictions within his information. He lacked the whole picture of what happened, that he knew. However, he expected each action to follow a similar flow. ‘We know it was a group of individuals. None of the researchers from the bases ever stumbled in such large groups. The actions make it seem like there isn’t a leader or perhaps they don’t have unity. That could be our advantage.’ He rubbed his chin keeping to his statuesque figure.
His team searched the area for clues to the path of their intruders. Only a few clues remained making it difficult to track and uncertain due to the high traffic from the patrols. A more important clue deduced from them worried him more than anything else. ‘Most intruders fall asleep upon entering. Yet they did not. Even being lucky or careful wouldn’t account for that. They must have had a countermeasure to it. If so they had to be aware of the barrier and its effects. This could be a deliberate invasion. But how? And who?’
He only had speculation and supposition to rely on. Nothing could be proven yet, but the unease he felt persisted. When such a feeling lingered he knew to trust it. The Captain motioned out to his team to bring them back. “We’re moving out! Send out the signal to Delta Team!”
The young soldier nodded and stiffly pressed his fist against his chest in salute. “Yes, Captain! Where should I tell Delta Team to search?”
A map of the region came out in his mind to plan his next move. ‘They couldn’t have gotten too far on foot. There’s only two villages within the time that they’ve had.’ The border villages of Skoupa and Kapni rested within range of the break-in point. Both received much traffic from the soldiers on the border. They were used to their presence, but like the rest of the land knew nothing of the outside world. Intruders never made it so far before. The panic from foreigners in their village could give rise to new problems. He had to be swift. “Send Delta to Kapni. I want to investigate Skoupa personally.”
“Captain? Wouldn’t it be more likely they’d go to Kapni? Kapni is closer to the border.”
“You’d expect that of someone panicked and scared trying to find a new hiding place as quickly as possible. But not this foe. This foe is unlike the others. My gut is telling me they went to Skoupa. They know they’re being hunted and expect us to search Kapni first. They have intelligence and calmness in their actions.”
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Seiji and Saki sneezed roughly in their room. The rest of the group looked back at them a little surprised by how loud they were. It took them a few moments to recover from the full body reaction. Saki and Seiji glanced up at each other feeling a little odd. “That was strange.”
“I’m glad we got in without any troubles” Yuki dropped himself on the edge of the bed. Their room only had two beds, but enough room on the floor as Eudokia said. They had no plans on staying past the morning. Where their powers didn’t strain and force them to remain awake. He welcomed the break.
As planned, Yori’s sister and Eudokia shopped for the group to resupply their nearly spent food. In all of the traveling and excitement, they had nothing to eat for the majority of the day. While no one said anything about hunger, everyone knew that it lingered on their thoughts. So they wasted no time going out while the rest waited. The waiting made it more difficult not to focus on the lack of food.
Fumiko hung by the window though keeping out of sight. She saw a few villagers passing by carrying farming tools back from a long day of work. “For being so legendary, the people seem pretty normal and average. …it’s a little disappointing…”
Yuki nodded remembering their uneasy walk into the village. Everything that he saw up before the village gave a fantastic appearance. A barrier protected an entire people and kept them secret. The legendary city of Atlantis turned real. He expected to find something more akin to a fantasy setting. Yet the citizens looked no different than any other foreigner. Their homes shared nothing with an unreal setting, very practical in fact. They had a rustic and ancient appearance like from history books, but nothing out of place. “Yeah I know… I know Ayumi said most of the people were normal, but being Atlantis I just thought they would be really advanced in technology or magical something…”
“Considering the powers that some do possess, it is strange.” Yori sat on the floor with his back propped against the hand carved wooden dresser. “I would have expected they would have made use of that, but I’d dare say they are stuck in the past. It’s like time stopped for them.”
Chiharu spun a kunai around her finger leaning against the wall. “I wouldn’t underestimate them. It’s exactly because they appear this way that we should remain cautious. Unlike Ancient Greece they are surrounded by the modern age. The citizens might not have much knowledge of the world, but I doubt the leaders keep a blind eye to the outside.”
“Caution is best for now. I doubt that we’ve heard anywhere near everything about Atlantis yet.”
From near the door, Seiji pounded his fist into his hand. He seemed to be psyching himself up. “Well it doesn’t matter all the hell much if they have sticks or guns. We’ll deal with them the same way. We just have to stop whoever the hell is sending out assassins!”
“Simplistic as always…” Her voice managed to be picked up by Seiji's unusually good hearing. She gave him a cold stare. The look only enraged him and triggered him to charge for her. Unfortunately, it proved impossible for him to catch her.
The words that Seiji mentioned got to Yuki. ‘…the assassins…’ He hadn’t given it too much thought since he decided to confront the problem. The focus required of him during the boat and snow plow made it slip away from him. However, whenever he saw Eudokia lately, hesitation began to build into uncertainty. ‘She takes this all very seriously… Can I tell her that I can’t be the person she wants me to be?’
Solitude wrapped around him, burrowing him further into his mind. ‘I came for my own reasons, but I don’t even know how I’m supposed to fix it…’ His reasons floated by him trying to provide strength. However, errant thoughts from the village came to him. He saw them hurrying around and most seemed to be acting normal, but he noticed a couple looking strange. When he saw them it got burned into his mind. ‘I couldn’t understand them, but they seemed unsettled and nervous… The more that I saw them the more it felt like the whole village had an air of unease…like they feared something…’
He tilted over toward the closed window. The villagers faded through his vision adding weight to his worries. ‘She said the King maintains them… What happens if there’s no King? How much do they need a King?’ Yuki tightened his hands, balling up the blanket of the bed into his hands.
Across the room he found Saki silently waiting. She didn’t meet his gaze, but it still felt like she looked disappointed with him. ‘Saki…can I abandon them? Leave them alone? Do I have a choice? Is this my fate? I’m sorry, I can’t keep my promise…’