- # # # 1 # # # -

Though Ryuto had told Rocko they would discuss it, the Morning Harvest came first. Ryuto didn't let Rocko join that day, so Rocko remained behind on the Administrative Level as everyone else went to the forest.

There was no time to discuss when everyone returned from the Morning Harvest, either. Upon returning, the villagers brought their hauls to the Residential Level, where Ryuto and Ramento collected them in baskets and took the baskets up to and down from Ramento's Hut in the Administrative Level, where Rocko was stationed to prepare as much of the food as he could before they'd eventually join him.

Not even Ryuto and Ramento got any chances to speak, as they were consistently carrying through opposite tasks. If Ryuto was carrying a basket up, Ramento was carrying one down. If Ryuto was putting a basket in the hut, Ramento was collecting one from the Residential Level. This was no coincidence or accident, but a matter of efficiency.

However, once all that settled down, and it came time to prepare the food properly, they finally began their discussion.

Unfortunately, Ramento was first to speak, “You went overboard, but it’s impressive you actually did it.”

“What?” both Rocko and Ryuto asked in turn.

“You did as asked and destroyed the stupid thing.”

It was exactly as Rocko suspected.

“Oh. That,” Ryuto said. “I actually wanted to talk about that.”

Ryuto wasn’t denying it. Rocko must have been right. Ryuto was even speaking of it casually, as if it meant nothing. It made Rocko’s blood boil.

“About repairin’ the Watchtower?” Ramento asked.

“What?” Ryuto asked. “No. Well... that’s important, too. But, no, that’s already being taken care of.”

“How’d that even happen? I told you to destroy the abomination he made, not the Watchtower!”

Rocko threw a fish at Ramento’s face. Ramento threw it back, but it combusted mid-air.

“Whoa!” Ryuto used his shelled fist to knock the fish away from Rocko. The fire, despite landing on an uninsulated wooden floor, did not spread. It actually extinguished in an instant. “Ramento! What in the name of Ruter do you think you’re doing?!”

“Teachin’ the ill-mannered boy a lesson.”

“Okay, hold on. Both of you, just stop.” Ryuto sighed.

Rocko threw another fish at Ryuto.

“What was that for?”

“For destroying my Stargazer!” Rocko said, teary eyed with a pout. He already exhausted himself of most of his tears in the Void, so it wasn’t much. He was also more depressed than he was angry, so the energy put in everything he did — from his throw to even his voice — was far weaker than usual.

Ryuto sighed. “Okay. For one thing, I didn’t destroy your Stargazer.”

“Then who did?!”

“You did.”

Ramento raised an eyelid. “‘Scuse me? Run that by me again? He what?”

“That makes no sense!” Rocko shouted. “I’d never do that!”

“Neither would I!” Ryuto loudly said.

“What?!” Ramento shouted. “You said you’d do it just last night!”

“Well, I lied!” Ryuto had begun shouting with them.

“To who?!” Rocko and Ramento shouted in unison.

Ryuto’s eye twitched. He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Calm down, you two,” he calmly said. “I can explain.”

“Whatever you have to say,” Rocko said, “it won’t change anything! You’re the only one who could have!”

“Actually, it will. Rocko, didn’t you notice the big hole in the floor by your Stargazer?”

“Big... hole?” Rocko shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

“I guess compared to the shock of your Stargazer being destroyed, something like that wouldn’t mean a thing to you. Well, there was a hole by it, to be clear.”

“How does that change anything?!”

“When you teleported earlier...”

“‘Teleported?!’” Ramento questioned with alarm.

“...you left behind an almost identical hole,” Ryuto continued without any heed to Ramento.

“What?” Rocko asked with a curiously high tone.

“H-hold on!” Ramento demanded. “He teleported?!”

“Y-yeah...” Ryuto affirmed. “One moment he was with me at the Watchtower, the next he was in the Residential Level.”

“Huh?” Rocko tilted his head. “No, that can’t be right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was... I was in this weird empty place for what felt like hours!”

“Seriously?”

Rocko nodded.

“Can you describe what happened?”

“Uh... I can try.”

So Rocko tried to explain as much as he could about the experience.

“Yup,” Ramento said when Rocko finished, “that’s a specialty.”

“You sure seem a lot calmer,” Ryuto remarked.

“'Cause it’s obvious he can’t control it. What harm could it bring?”

“The harm it could bring is my entire point. I fully believe his specialty destroyed his Stargazer.”

“If it did, it’s a blessin’!” Ramento said. “That said... I swear... I swear by my mother I told you to break it to him. But you still haven’t? To think that for a second I was even proud of you. Now I find out he destroyed it himself, by accident, and you still haven’t said a single thing to him?! It’s time to end this childish dream!”

“It’s not a childish dream!” Rocko yelled.

“You have a specialty, now. You’re growin’ up, becomin’ an adult. You could even say your specialty destroyin’ that bizarre contraption of yours is symbolic of your adolescent self killin’ your childish self.”

“That’s a disgusting analogy.”

“It’s a perfect analogy, just like this is a perfect time for you to stop chasin’ after those stupid white lights in the sky and give your all to becomin’ Chieftain!”

Ryuto intervened, “Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Ramento. Even if you think it’s a blessing in that way, you need to look at the bigger picture. The entire reason I believe his specialty is responsible in the first place is because it literally tore a hole in the Watchtower and even threw a bunch of people on their backs when I first saw him teleport. I wouldn’t consider that a blessing. Would you?”

“No. That’s, indeed, not a blessin’.”

“Exactly.” Ryuto sighed. “Do you understand, now, Rocko?”

Rocko stood in silence for a moment, even halting the work he was doing. Finally, he spoke up, and said, “So... if I had just gone to nest as normal... I’d still have a Stargazer.”

“That’s... certainly one way to interpret the situation, I guess? I see something a bit more problematic here, though.”

Ramento answered, “If his specialty has the power to rip holes in the Watchtower and launch villagers on their backs... and he can’t control it... that makes him dangerous.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m... dangerous...?” Rocko’s lips trembled. His hands trembled. His knees trembled. His entire body trembled. He fell onto his knees as tears leaked from his eyes.

“R-Rocko...?” said Ryuto. Normally, this was a situation where Ryuto would get closer to comfort Rocko. However, he had cautiously backed away with relative haste.

Rocko remained silent and wept.

There was an explosive, deafening burst of thunder.

Rocko had vanished. In his place was a gaping hole in the floor that could lead to a lethal fall, as well as spilled over baskets of fish, uncooked worms, and other edible viscera.

Both Ryuto and Ramento had been launched closer to where Rocko was, almost falling through the gaping hole in the floor. Ryuto had been launched onto his stomach, his head mere inches away from the hole.

Ramento had been thrown on his side, with his arm loosely hanging over the hole, almost as if it weren’t even fully connected to his torso anymore.

It, in fact, was not.

It had been severely dislocated. It hung on by skin, muscle, and tendons, but the joint was disconnected entirely, and he screamed.

Ryuto hurriedly pushed himself up, ran over to Ramento, dragged Ramento away from the hole, and relocated Ramento’s shoulder into its socket.

“Ugh,” went Ramento once the pain subsided. “This couldn’t be a worse outcome. Now we gotta get rid of him.”

“What?! No! Are you insane?!”

“There’s nothin’ else we can do! He’s a walkin’ deathtrap!”

“Ramento, seriously, slow down. It’s a specialty. You’re right that we can’t let him near the villagers for a while, and obviously we need to be careful ourselves, but that doesn’t need a permanent ‘solution.’ Specialties can be trained. He can get it under control.”

“...with a specialty like that, if he gets it under control, he’ll just abandon us. It’s better to get rid of him entirely.”

“What kind of logic is that?! If he’s gonna go one way or another, how is killing him any better than just letting him leave?! At least if he’s alive, there’s a chance you still get what you want, isn’t there?!”

Ramento groaned. “Fine. Keep him away from the villagers until it gets under control. If it doesn’t...”

“We will get it under control.”

“He better.”

Ryuto sighed. “That said, is this really teleportation? I’ve never heard of a teleporting specialty with all of this... weird extra stuff.”

“Specialties are almost always unique, even when they’re the ‘same.’ If you ever met another telepath, you’d find their telepathy works different from yours.”

“Is that so?”

Ramento nodded. “If you’re gonna train it, you need to start by understandin’ it.”

“I never expected to hear a statement like that from you.”

“How’d you think my specialty got to where it is?”

“Ramento, I barely understand the first thing about your specialty. I have absolutely no concept of how developed it is because I don’t even know what it is. You can’t expect an example like that to hold any weight for me.”

Ramento sighed. “Keep it that way.”

“But still... where do we even begin?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“No, I thi—”

“Stop worryin’ about that and go find him already!” Ramento shouted.

“Oh. Right. That could be trouble.” Ryuto carefully stepped around the hole and hurried out of the hut.

“Moron,” Ramento uttered under his breath.

- # # # 2 # # # -

As Rocko kneeled in tears, the world went completely dark. Everything surrounding him disappeared entirely, turning into pitch blackness. Yet, he remained perfectly visible. Even more visible than he was moments ago when there was light, as there were no shadows on him. He was back in the Void, back in that time-frozen safe zone where he could keep to himself, for as long as he needed, and could think about everything that had been happening.

There never seemed to be a shortage of misfortune in his twelve years of life so far. Between the insane expectations the villagers had for him, the way other kids would bully him, the repeated failures of his past, the constant nagging and requests he’d receive over things he was blatantly unqualified for — even to the point of interrupting his time with Ayo, it just never seemed to end.

Now, his own specialty, the one thing that could have been his way out, the one thing his best friend always touted as something worth waiting for, as something worth having, as something useful, turned out to be nothing more than another disaster for him. He’d become... dangerous. Not to himself — not this time — but to others. He’d been recognized as such, too, and it wasn’t another baseless accusation Ramento jumped to, it was a very logical conclusion Ryuto immediately understood and sought to address, no doubt with the hope of fixing it somehow.

Historically speaking, Rocko didn’t believe there would be a way to fix it. The only way things ever got ‘fixed’ in the past was when they disappeared or changed entirely, usually into another, different problem. But it was his specialty this time, that was something he’d be stuck with for life. As far as he could tell, he himself had become a new form of misfortune.

Once again, he cried. He stayed in that place for a long time, and cried.

When he finished, he finally opened his eyes. Just then realizing he had returned to the Void.

“This place again?” he asked himself out loud. “So I can speak here. What is this place, exactly?”

Before he could explore the nothingness, he gasped. He finally noticed it: the change in his body that came with his specialty. Just as Alita's stripes had become green when she got her specialty despite once being black, his spots were no longer the same red that Ryuto's spots were. They were, instead, a very deep blue.

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He didn't notice the first time in the Void because he was too distracted by the Void itself. He didn't notice elsewhere because he never looked. This was the first time he actually looked, and his first time seeing them was as their true, untainted colors. With no shadows. With no light or dark. A pure, flat, deep blue.

Though he could only see the spots on his hips, he had to assume all the spots on his body were like that. Furthermore... when he thought about it, the upper stripes between his eyes and ears were always the same color as Ryuto's, too, but Ramento's were different. Did... they change, too?

Without warning, a sensation of great force overwhelmed him, as though he was hurdling through the air and about to make a great impact.

With a jolt, he found himself back in a hut, but it wasn’t Ramento’s hut.

Behind him was a desk, a shelf with paper scrolls, miscellaneous measuring scales in a corner, and a massive overcomplicated model in the center.

He was in his own room.

In front of him was his nest. Once again, it seemed even more water had spilled out somehow, and it looked like it might fall apart any moment. Fortunately for him, there was still enough water in the nest to provide a reflection.

When the reflected image was no longer distorted by the water's ripples, his fears were confirmed. Every spot on his body had turned blue. The upper stripe between his eyes and ear had turned blue, as well. Though the lower one remained lime green, and as expected, the rest of his skin remained red.

His heart couldn't help but ache. Just a day earlier, and for most of his life, he held close the connection he and his father held through their shared red spots. But now, only Ryuto's spots were red. Rocko's had become blue. That connection had been severed. Yet, it didn't bother him as much as he thought it would. Maybe that was because it was little over an hour earlier that he suspected Ryuto betrayed him, and even though that suspicion turned out false, a part of the hastily born resentment he held then still lingered. In a twisted way, that was probably a good thing, as it saved him from worse heartache.

Rocko idled in contemplation and deep thought, but it didn't take long before Ryuto found him.

- # # # 3 # # # -

Rocko and Ryuto sat down in the main room of their hut.

Ryuto started the conversation by telling Rocko, “If we want to get your specialty under control, we need to understand it better. So, to that end, what happened when you disappeared this time?”

“What do you mean?”

“You had a difficult time describing that place last time, didn’t you? What about now? What was it like when you entered? What was it like when you left? How long were you there for?”

“O-okay... um... that’s a lot to process. Uh... as for when I entered... it wasn’t until I stopped crying that I even realized anything was wrong, that I wasn’t in the hut, so I... don’t know.”

“I guess that means you don’t know how long you were there for, either.”

Rocko shook his head.

“It must be your emotions that trigger it,” Ryuto deducted. “The first time this happened, you were in emotional distress. This time, you broke down crying.”

“So, strong negative emotions?”

“Yes. You said you only realized you were there when you opened your eyes. I assume this means you saw how you got back?”

“Uh, sort of. It was really scary. Both times, actually.”

“What happened?”

“Well, you know how it feels when you’re climbing up to the forest and you have to swing from the upside-down trees and the sideways trees? The feeling of the air hitting you with each swing?”

“Yeah.”

“That was sort of the feeling I had. I mean, there wasn’t anything I could actually feel, but it was somehow a strong feeling at the same time. Actually, it felt a lot stronger than that. I thought I was going to die.”

“That’s... a bit difficult to understand, but I think I get it. Did anything else happen when you left?”

“No.”

“Was there anything in particular that might have caused you to leave?”

“Calming down, maybe? Except no, that can’t be right, because the first time I left I was actually terrified of where I was.”

“Was there anything else? Thoughts, maybe? Maybe you moved in a certain way?”

“It’s really difficult to move at all there. I was able to talk out loud this time but to move seemed like it would be impossible.”

“It seemed like that? You didn’t actually try?”

“I couldn’t bring myself to.”

“I see.”

“Uh... as for thoughts... I can’t remember.”

“One thing I noticed is that you ended up somewhere different from where you started both times. Additionally, to us it seems to be instant, but for you it lasts hours.”

“How does that even work?”

“I don’t know. One thing I do know is that this specialty of yours is dangerous. First your Stargazer in the middle of the night, then with the villagers earlier today, and now with Ramento and I. On the surface, your specialty seems to be teleportation, since you can instantly go from one place to the next. I’m not sure what to make about that dark place you go in-between, or about the nasty side effects it seems to have, though.”

Rocko nodded with his head down.

“Lift your head, Rocko. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. This sort of thing happens with most specialties.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I had a lot of trouble with mine when I first got it. Even your mother had a really difficult time, you know?”

“My... mother, huh?”

“Y-yeah...” Ryuto turned his head downward.

“O-okay! Um! Well, what happened with your specialty?”

“R-right. With mine, it used to be way out of control. When I first got it, I could hear everyone’s thoughts, but nobody could hear mine. It took a long time for me to learn how to get it under control, and for a while it was simply maddening.”

“Oh, wow. That sounds awful. I’m glad I didn’t get something like that.”

“It was, honestly. I’m glad yours seems to be a lot simpler... then again, you’ve already done it twice — no, three times, actually — and don’t seem to know how.”

“Y-yeah.”

“On the topic of control, I noticed something else interesting about where you ended up.”

“What’s that?”

“The first time, you were in your room. The second time, you were by Ayo. This third time...?”

“...I went to my room, again,” Rocko said with widened eyes.

“That seriously can’t be random. Do you have any idea why that would happen?”

“Hmm... that’s a good point. Obviously I don’t know anything about the very first time, and I can’t really remember much from the last two times, honestly.”

“If only I could see memories, too.”

“You can’t?”

“No. You thought I could?”

“Well, no, I never really thought about it. I feel like you’d know if I did, anyway. I just assumed you could, I guess.”

“Ah, yeah, that makes sense.”

“What about dreams?”

“No.”

“Feelings?”

“No.”

“Desires?”

“N— Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Maybe? That’s a good question. I don’t know.”

“All I can do is see other people’s thoughts and share my own thoughts. I can target specific people or share it with everyone around.”

“‘Around’ being?”

“Probably up to roughly twice the size of the village.”

“Oh, dang. Wait, that means there’s a range to your specialty?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh... I never knew that. That’s interesting.”

“Anyway, returning to the main topic, you really don’t know why you’d end up in such oddly you-specific places?”

“Maybe because it’s my specialty?”

“Well, yeah, but then why would it be different each time? If it was something so simple, why wouldn’t you go to the same place each time? Are you sure you didn’t feel anything or think anything that might have led you to those places?”

“I can’t remember much. I already said that.”

“Can you try?”

“It’s seriously a complete blur. I remember what the place was like, but that’s all.”

“I see.” Ryuto stood up. “I’m sure there’s some connection, there. Next time, try paying more attention to things like your thoughts and feelings whenever you leave that place.”

“Oh... right. There’s... gonna be a next time.”

“It’s your specialty, after all. It’s gonna stay for your whole life, so you’re guaranteed to go back eventually. That’s the issue, too. Your specialty is dangerous, so we’re gonna have to figure out how to control it before more people get hurt. Which also means you need to stay up here, in the Administrative Level, until then.”

Rocko sighed. “I’m being grounded,” he sadly joked. “When will it happen again? I don’t really like being in that place.”

“Well, we already know — or at least assume — that it’s activated by strong negative emotions. So, I guess part of this would be to prevent it from being uncontrollably activated like that, and to figure out how to activate it without those emotions.”

“Even though it’s a useless specialty that’s only done harm?”

“That’s just how it starts out. Your specialty might actually end up being one of the most useful specialties to be seen since the village’s inception.”

“Wha— Really?”

“For all we know, you’re able to use that to go anywhere. That’s pretty useful if you ask me.”

“Wait, anywhere, you say?”

“Th-that’s just an assumption, Rocko. We don’t know that for sure, and I don’t have to look at your thoughts to know what you’re thinking right now. Don’t go trying anything crazy. We still don’t know enough about them to just teleport there and expect everything to be fine.”

“That’s... true.”

“You need to be careful until I figure out a plan. Make sure you don’t get into another situation where your emotions go out of control.”

“Okay...”

- # # # 4 # # # -

Rocko went to the Watchtower for the first time since that morning. He observed the holes caused by his specialty. They had apparently already been repaired to an extent, or so he heard, but they were still there. The Watchtowers were filled to the brim with water, so he stared at the water’s surface. He looked at the broken pieces of his Stargazer, still lying around on the floor of the Watchtower. Surprisingly, not many of them fell into the water. He clenched his fists, with a shell closing over one of them, and punched the shelled one into the ground.

He looked at the pieces once again. Most of them were large, wooden splinters, but some were like shards of glass.

He reached for the largest wooden splinter, and held it up to his eyes. He stared at it like that for a few moments, before launching it into the distance, never to be seen again.

He picked up another piece and threw it out to the distance as well.

And another.

And piece by piece, he chucked the remnants of his beloved device out into the world, erasing all evidence of its existence from the village.

The remnants might hit an animal from a lethal height, but he didn’t care. Though the odds of that were unlikely, it was on his mind as he threw them. Maybe he just hoped something else would suffer with him?

As soon as he picked up the first glass piece, it sliced right along his finger, and drew blood.

He instantly withdrew his hand at the pain, and placed his finger in his mouth, looking down at the perpetrator with narrowed eyes.

He closed a shell over his right foot and stomped on the pieces, breaking them into smaller and smaller fragments, until they were as close to powder as he could get them, and swept them off the edge of the Watchtower.

He ended up skipping lunch.

The first stars of the night sky shone in the twilight. He had been idling at the Watchtower all day.

He didn’t help out with dinner, either. He wasn’t even asked to.

It was a strange feeling. The isolation. The doing nothing. He had been in a similar situation once before, also mostly against his will, but not because others wished it of him, but because he physically couldn’t move. This was different. He needed to stay put, for the sake of others. He didn’t like it, but it was what it was. After all, if that was the trade-off necessary to be free of Chieftain-related duties, then he was oddly happy with that. The only things that truly frustrated him were his inability to use his Stargazer, his inability to request things from Ranoiko, and his inability to play with Ayo.

But even without his Stargazer, the stars were a wonderful sight. If they hadn’t been, he never would have made the Stargazer to begin with. So he couldn’t complain at the sight before him. It stunned him.

He was broken free from his tranquility when he was given the offer to collect his own food for dinner. So he did, and he ate at the Watchtower.

He continued his observations for a while past dinner.

As would always happen when he stared at the stars for too long, the inevitable thought of just how much he wanted to go to them occurred.

A strange sensation overtook his body. The canvas of stars abruptly transformed into darkness.

It was the familiar Void he had encountered twice before. This time, however, he didn’t feel the need to cry. He didn’t feel sorrow, or anguish. He was angry, but not furious. This was something else. An emotion so strong it washed all of his negative emotions away: curiosity. A dangerous curiosity.

Unlike the last two times, this time, he felt free to move around. The instant he tried to move, however, the darkness of the Void lit up slightly and the sensation of ground beneath his feet had vanished, as though he was floating.

There was a sensation of flying. It was intense, as though he had been launched straight into the air and was only gaining speed. Instead of being fearful, he was unwittingly overjoyed.

Above him, a white glowing fissure opened in the Void. He flew through the fissure and found himself in an unfamiliar place. At a glance, he was surrounded entirely by stars.

Above him was the world of stars to be sure, but below him was a blue bioluminescent forest. To his right was a colossal arch, reaching far above the forest, with its own forest on top. There were many other arches among the landscape, all of them pointing toward The Mother Tree.

Before he could fully grasp where he was, the fact there was still no ground beneath his feet made itself known to him, as he fell.

All his curiosity transformed into fear. The ground rushed towards him, threatening to take his life.

He instinctively shut his eyes as he passed straight through the ground, as though it was a mere hallucination. He continued falling, eyes shut the whole time, and gradually came to a halt. He refused to open his eyes as he shook. He trembled. Nauseous and disoriented, he shook to his core. He had the urge to vomit, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. It wouldn’t even gag for him. Was he actually dead? He didn’t know, but the thought was too terrifying to open his eyes and find out.

Finally, he gagged. A hot clumpy sensation rose through his throat. Bile spilled from his mouth, and not long afterward did the resulting puddle spread to his knees.

With this sensation, he finally opened his eyes. He was not in the Void, nor was he dead. Rocko was in the room of Ryuto, who was standing in his nest, clasping his ears.

With a pained grunt, Ryuto turned to see Rocko kneeling in a puddle of vomit. “R-Rocko? What happened?!”

Forgetting the pain, Ryuto quickly climbed out of his nest and hurried to Rocko, who continued to vomit. Ryuto maneuvered around the puddle to get behind Rocko, and — linking his arms with Rocko’s — helped Rocko up on his feet.

Ryuto carefully escorted Rocko out from their hut with haste and across the bridge to the dropoff, where Ryuto stood Rocko at the ledge and supported him as he regurgitated off the edge.

Ryuto pat Rocko’s back gently, unsure of what else to do. The entire time, Ryuto never spoke a word.

After a minute, Rocko seemed to be finished. Rocko’s breaths were heavy and irregular, but gradually calmed down.

Once Rocko’s breathing normalized, Ryuto finally spoke, “All good?”

“Y-yeah,” Rocko confirmed.

“What happened?”

“N-nothing major. I nearly fell to my death, is all.”

“No, I think that’s quite major, actually.”

“I know. I was expecting you would be more freaked out by hearing that, though.”

“The fact you’re here right now is why I’m calm.”

Rocko lightly smiled, but after a moment, his smile turned into a frown. “I think I tried to teleport to the stars.”

“You think you tried? I’m not sure that’s how ‘trying’ works, Rocko.”

“W-well...! It’s weird, okay? I think I tried to, but I didn’t try to. I... I don’t really know how to explain it. Because it’s not like I have any idea how to control it, so I know I didn’t try to teleport, but I think my teleport tried to take me to the stars... eugh, I don’t know how to make it make sense.”

Ryuto nodded. “No, it’s okay. I understand, I think.”

Rocko continued, “I only ended up in the middle of the sky, though.”

“I see,” Ryuto said. “At least that tells us something interesting.”

“And that is...?”

“It’s not just negative emotions that trigger your specialty. It’s any strong emotion. You even said you were falling to your death, but here you are, alive. So that’s also probably why you didn’t reach the ground, right?”

“Oh? Oh, no. I think you’re right!”

“That just means we have to figure out how to control it sooner than later. Between the noises it makes and the threat it poses, we don’t want that stuff to happen every time you get excited, or angry, or terrified, or sad, or curious. Hey! That last one might be the biggest threat, here!”

Rocko chuckled, “Probably.” He took a seat, his legs hanging off the edge.

Ryuto joined him, and the two of them looked out at the luminescent forest far below them.

“Do you think I accidentally struck an animal with my puke?” Rocko asked jokingly.

Ryuto laughed. “Maybe.”

“I just realized I’ve never taken the time to appreciate the world below us before.”

“Yeah. You’re always so busy looking up at the stars, after all.”

“Of course I am!”

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way, you know.”

“You didn’t?”

“No, of course not. I think it’s great that you look up to them like that.”

“Then why are you so insistent on making me Chieftain?”

“I’m... not as insistent as you think I am.”

“But still, why?”

“Ramento wants me to, so I have to.”

“...Why does it matter what Ramento wants?”

“Because, whether we like it or not, he is my father. Plus, he was Chieftain before me.”

“Yeah, the keyword being ‘before.’ And some dad he is, forcing his ideals on us like this.”

“He’s... definitely something else, yeah.”

They continued to admire the glowing forest below them. From their position and angle, the Mother Root was blocking any decent view of the stars ahead of them, so Rocko was attracted more to what was below them than above.

“What’s the world like down there?” Rocko asked.

“You’re asking me?”

“Who else?”

“Right. It’s just that I’m in the same spot as you. I’ve never been down there before.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Does anyone know what it’s like down there?”

“The same person that wants us all to stay up here.”

“Ramento?”

Ryuto nodded.

“It’s always the same old guy, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?” Ryuto asked.

“He’s always the one causing problems. He’s got a lot of nerve, too, for someone nearing the limit.”

“Hey! What do you think you’re saying? Don’t let his nasty personality rub off on you like that. We have to be better than him, you know.”

“...I guess, yeah.”

“Despite that, you’re exactly right. He only has a few years left in him. We only have to put up with him for a few years. After that, we can run things how we want to.”

“That’s definitely a nice way to look at it.”

“Right?”

“That seems like such a long time, though.”

“A couple centuries is longer, still.”

Rocko laughed. “I can’t even comprehend that.”

“Exactly. The time he has left is nothing compared to how much time we have left. We just have to endure it.”

“Yeah...”

They continued gazing upon the luminescent forest in serene silence.

- # # # 5 # # # -

“Rocko...” a familiar, hazy voice called his name.

Rocko opened his eyes to see Ryuto looking down over him. They were in Rocko’s room, where Rocko was in his nest and the early sun shone in through the window.

“I got an idea,” Ryuto said with a smile.

- # # # CHAPTER END # # # -