Chapter 7

The burning in his chest was less brutal than the knowledge of having no control over his movements despite being in his present crisis.

Defenseless, Hoku could only focus on preventing his fear from shortening the amount of time he could hold his breath.

Did I fall through the ground? H-how did I get myself into this?

Even amidst the danger, Hoku's mind could wander.

Thinking was a mechanism he could not inhibit.

However, he understood that most panic-stricken people would be questioning whether they were going to survive, in contrary fashion his mind would search for logic.

It was a trait he didn't quite understand about himself.

Why does addressing his own well-being something that appears to naturally always come second?

Even in the manor, he didn't think to leave after falling unconscious, instead, he took his chances with a half-witted man to find answers that hadn't been a necessity.

I'm such a damn fool…

In the moment Hoku chose to despise himself to such an extent he forced his internal viewpoint into a blank space.

"Wander Feᝰ෴yu."

A sharp pressure slipped into his ear. A lulling female voice spoke from inside his mind, but after the first phrase, the rest resonated like static, strangely making it feel like something in his ears contracted.

"Let your mind wander. Dream…"

There was a hesitation in the voice.

"You must allow yourself to dream"

Without realizing Hoku had begun to open his mouth, though before he was able to react to the substance that poured down his throat, another sharp, and immeasurably more painful sensation transpired on the left side of his face.

"Not your mouth idiot! Your eyes! You'll kill yourself if you sleep here!"

The right side of his face collided with something solid, and Hoku's eyes shot open from the discomfort expelling throughout various pieces of his body.

The new female voice sounded more present outside of him and yielded a manner of less ease.

Two hands abruptly grabbed the sleeves of his clothes, propping him forward so that he could release whatever had seeped into his windpipe.

A warmth in his throat and he began coughing with a frantic expression.

Eventually, he pathetically stumbles forward entirely so that he can throw up.

The figure behind him merely watches in silence.

Hoku's face was profoundly pale, but fortunately, the humiliation that followed once he regained enough composure to acknowledge the girl shed a crimson tint back into his cheeks.

Though his left cheek was turning violet around the reddened outline of a hand.

The corner of his mouth twinged when the aftermath of the pain registered, and he used a few fingers to caress the inflamed area.

The young female closed her eyes apologetically, she was very reserved and had a polite posture that contradicted her impolite technique for introductions.

"A small bruise is sounder than the pain you would've endured in that dream."

Her voice is deeper than one might expect from viewing her appearance but smooth enough to be a discernible woman.

Like a slow stream pouring into a waterfall.

Hoku gawked at her with a half-puzzled-half-disgruntled expression.

"...What?"

"I'm Juno Mirai, and you?"

The most notable trait about her so far is her passiveness.

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"Hoku…"

"Hoku what?"

Hoku glanced at the white rock hanging from a black string around her neck.

He pondered giving her his uncle's name or telling her the truth so that he could move on and find out what had just happened.

"I don't know," he answered.

"You don't know?" she squinted her eyes, repeating his response in a dramatic voice.

"I-uh have a brain injury, so I can't remember. Is my last name important?" Hoku tilted his head further as he spoke.

"No. I was only curious… there stood a chance I might recognize you, I remember names better than faces," she says, subtly swaying her legs which diverted the constraint in her stance.

Hoku takes it with an initiative to ask a personal question, in hopes he could build trust with yet another weirdly perceived stranger.

"I see, perhaps I could guess, but what's your ethnicity?"

Her ethnicity conveys the impression that she possesses descent from somewhere in the northern hemisphere of mainland Asia.

Her mug bore features congruent to his own, but differently, Hoku's ethnicity comes from two countries separated by a relatively narrow stretch of ocean.

His mother is a foreigner from Japan, and his father was a citizen whose parents were foreigners who migrated from China.

"I was born in Shandong China." Juno adjusts something under the black mantle she wore, shifting forward upon resting her arm back at her side.

She left a trim opening in the mantle, revealing that she wore a white underneath.

Hoku briefly glimpses below her face, heedless of the lack of disclosure regarding what she was wearing.

"Oh! Your English is fluent and well-spoken."

"So is yours."

A long silence suddenly befell the friendly conversation that Hoku initiated.

She appeared to be lying in wait for him to catch on.

"By the way, is this another epoch—why are you dressed like.. that?" Hoku waved his hand over the attire she presently wore.

A smirk crept onto her lips as she observed Hoku, whom she had already addressed to have a dull skill for assessing the surroundings before carrying off into chitchat.

"Like what, like yourself? Had you stood up from the grass sooner, these questions would reasonably be shorn of their contemporary casualness." Juno spoke with a very elegant word choice, and Hoku was taken aback by it sooner than he could process her remark.

Hoku had retained a sense of deja vu as he stood on his feet, but it was quickly gone when he discerned what Juno was referring to.

How did I not feel a difference in these clothes? More importantly, where the hell am I?

"Qi Li calls it the Chameleon's Veil. He and an early organization from his third sequence in the third 'world' created a list of corresponding names for phenomena that weren't given titles in The Memoir. Your randomized appearances are unconventional to the timestream, therefore, it is unknown to The Memoir because only the stream's navigator can acquire and pass it on."

Hoku's head bitterly ached. He was sure the pain was provoked by several factors, starting with the infliction he endured before waking up in a forest devoid of any oceans or streams.

He was also undergoing a lot of mental tension.

Juno Mirai and Polaris were somehow given the impression that he understood the concepts of an entirely different universe.

Hoku delicately rubbed his temples respiring softly, urging his composer to uphold until she confided in his ignorance.

Though as he spoke, he subtly cringed at his choice of words. Although he spoke earnestly, there was overwhelming displeasure in his response.

"Who the hell is Qi Li—no, actually I've barely understood anything that's left your tongue."

No one said anything for a while.

Hoku was taller than Juno though the maturity of her voice and facial qualities implied that she is most likely older.

This made Hoku feel more regretful of his impression.

He relaxed his shoulders and made eye contact with Juno. He instinctively considered depicting less reserve before saying anything more.

Juno Mirai is a beautiful woman with fine strands of black hair reaching near her collarbone, and a peculiar chunk of silver hair flaunting in front of the other strands tucked behind her ear.

Her eyes were pure white encompassing an otherwise heavy pigment of brown. Her eyes made her features appear much brighter.

Her jaw is sharply sculpted and angled at her earlobe, framing feminine traits, such as her delicate lips and thin nose.

She had bangs that extended to the edge of her brow shadowing her eyes, and casting a mysteriousness into her image.

If beauty looked cruel she would be the epitome.

"I didn't—not– what I meant—" Hoku began sputtering anxiously, but Juno's expression did not seem angry or annoyed.

Rather, the right corner of her mouth was curved while the other corner was flat, and the portion of her eyebrows that Hoku could see was furrowed, forming wrinkles in the space between.

She looks puzzled.

"The existence of your old life is doomed to end here 'Hoku.' Hoku's eyes widened. Her tone suddenly turned grim.

"Li is your companion, but he is also your foe. Remember that as we return to the nucleus of this forest, and try to keep a nicer impression. I understand you're confused, but if anyone will give you decent answers it will be him."

Hoku swallowed, his throat felt sticky, and his saliva thickened alongside the sensation of thirst.

Juno Mirai walked in the direction behind her, staying quiet after assembling her remark.

In contempt of being told his world was ending, and that his old life had been doomed, Hoku procured a notion founded on his own emotions.

I will either die here because I have nothing to return to, or I will live as long as the mysteries in this 'outer universe.' From the answers I've received so far, my fate is prone to end earlier than I would prefer.

Rule 9

You mustn't dream in certain mantras of the timestream. Doing so will trap your soul in a never-ending spiral towards death. Your senses will become inhibited, but your mind will remain conscious… for eternity.

-The Memoir Chapter 4 end-