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"Tahblo."

After visiting Totshigui’s home, I decided to stay at his place for a couple of days. The Totshiguis were welcoming enough, but I still felt guilty staying at someone’s place after sleeping in the forest for some time now. Not to mention staying in an apartment with my mother in the first place. Qawasumi dropped by a couple of times, covering up her real intention of checking where Totshigui was. However, each time she was here, he was nowhere to be found. 

“Sister Ruri is here!” One of his brothers ran from upstairs and down into the kitchen. The whole place smelled of food, redolent of the local mom-and-pop shops I’d frequent back in Ginza or Mejiro. Missus Totshigui, the mother, busied the stove with pots and boiling water coming to a sizzling pop once in a while; Albeit I didn’t know what she was cooking. 

“Lyo, how are you doing? Fine?” Qawasumi bent down on one knee, speaking with a light voice. Something I would never hear her speak with to me or Totshigui. 

The brother ran into her arms as they hugged each other. “Brother Kaizenji is here! He told me that in his country there are buildings that chase the clouds! Can you believe that?”

“Hm… I don’t know if that’s possible.” Qawasumi jabbed a glance at me, while I had no rebuttal. There was no way of proving to them that skyscrapers were real. “Are your other brothers here?”

“Yuqui and Asya? They’re still upstairs. Big bro is… um…” 

“He’s been out doing some important things.” Missus Totshigui answered for Lyo, setting down plates on the rectangular dining table. “You know him, Lyo.”

I stepped into the conversation myself, with my urge to inquire. “Where does Mister Totshigui-”

“You can call him Sorah, Kawari. Totshigui is my husband’s name as well.” She smiled soon after, giving consent for me to use his given name. I guess it would be confusing if I referred to his family name. 

“Well… What does Sorah do when he goes outside?” 

Qawasumi turned her eyes to Missus Totshigui with Lyo in her lap. The fact that Sorah Totshigui would miss dinner with his family in favor of going outside was strange. His mother curled the ladle in her hand, tasting the broth in the pot. 

“He never tells anyone, not even me or his father. Lately he’s been getting home later each day, and I just don’t know what to do. He carries that charm thing around his wrist for years, and never told me what it signifies.” 

A person that does private activities without informing their parents… Perhaps if I could piece everything together then their worries would be dispelled. The mood instantly flooded the kitchen with silence, as Lyo looked up from Qawasumi’s lap. 

“Brother Sorah is not doing anything bad!” Lyo broke the still household with a sentence, “He’s not doing anything bad.” 

“Y- you’re right! Sorah probably studies at the local tutor or something.” Qawasumi backed the child up, ruffling his hair. Then soon after Missus Totshigui set down the last plate on the table. 

“Alright, everyone time to dig in! Honey! Yuqui! Asya!” 

Footsteps thudded from above, as I looked to the ceiling. The complete Totshigui family trickled in one after the other in a few minutes; The husband and the two other brothers came down the staircase. The patriarch of the Totshiguis scratched his back as he lousily let himself collapse onto one of the chairs. He sloppily took a two-pronged fork and started eating. I deduced that he would be difficult to talk to.

I turned to one of the other brothers, who calmly held his hands together. I hadn’t seen him since staying here, so I introduced myself. “Nice to meet you, I’m Kaizenji Kawari. And your name is?...”

“...” The boy turned away in fright as my approach had the opposite effect I’d intended. My head tilted as I pondered why he was scared. 

“That’s Asya. He can’t talk.” Yuqui, the other brother that came down with him explained, “But you can understand him if you read his lips and face.” 

Reading my lips… Now it made sense why Sorah was able to understand me when I first met him in this world. He so easily understood my requests and things I wanted to say when I couldn’t speak the language, so it was likely he could read my facial expressions as well. Until I thought about Qawasumi, and realized that was impossible. 

Qawasumi and I ate with the Totshigui family without Sorah. I’d gotten quite used to the food served in this town, and therefore I had the courage to gobble down any sort of thing they gave me, although my stomach didn’t appreciate it very much. As time flew into the night, the wait for Sorah became increasingly worrying. This was perhaps the longest he hadn’t been back, so I took my chances to stand and wait outside. 

Wooden stilts held up the Totshigui household’s second floor with various metal boards forming the walls. Sorah’s desk was just outside while I approached his chaotically organized space. Each one of the Japanese picture dictionaries I gave him had bookmarks. I opened one up and skimmed through it; Loads of notes in Wawaqi were scribbled in small, neat handwriting. Another stack of books sat on the desk without a speck of dirt or dust, but since I was illiterate in Wawaqi they were of unknown content to me. 

Sorah, Yuqui, Lyo, and Asya were brothers in order from oldest to youngest. I imagined how tough it was to be under one roof with three other siblings, until my own older brother slipped into my mind. I immediately stopped that train of thought. If Asya couldn’t talk, then his growth with the world’s system would be stunted. A hard road that was. 

Then a certain footstep interrupted my senseless drivel of monologuing. I lifted my eyes to the darkness, as a figure slowly came into view. Sorah Totshigui walked with hands in his pocket, his double-sided axe strapped behind his back. His talisman charm twinkled in the moonlight as he raised his hand at me. 

“Hey, Mister Kaizenji! It’s weird that you’re standing out here alone. You know it’s pretty dangerous around these parts.” He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Have they eaten dinner yet? I hope they saved some for me.” 

“They have. And they’ve been waiting for you.” My body tensed up as I wanted to say some things. But I remembered the conversation he and I had a few days back, how I interfered with people’s relationships again. I wanted so hard to avoid voicing these words in my head, though I knew that I had to say them. Since, it was genuine worry from me myself, as a ‘friend’ of his. “Your family has been telling me. That you’re always going out on your own. I think you could explain to them a bit about what you’re doing.” 

Sorah barely passed by my shoulder, his hand still on mine. I did not see his face. “... Like I said before, it shouldn’t concern you. It doesn’t matter how, but all I care about is getting my family to La Plage, where their worries will soon be gone. Soon.” 

“That’s right, Mister Kaizenji, it shouldn’t concern you.” Someone voiced from the night. My eyes immediately narrowed as Sorah’s shoulders perked up. I recognized this voice, this dark tone that had left me feeling setback in this world. The only person in this world that I knew I’d hate. 

Guiral appeared from the shadows, along with two other men in white. His face spared no emotion but an overwhelming authority that radiated from his build and white symbolism. My chest tightened, as I curled my hands into fists.  I hadn’t even noticed Guiral until he spoke. 

Sorah turned around slowly. “Officer Guiral, what brings you here?” 

“You. I have an arrest warrant for Sorah Totshigui, on account of being a part of the Kokmin.” 

Sorah waved his hands as he came forward, forming a smile. “Sir, I believe you may have the wrong person. Is there a chance that you have falsely accused the wrong-”

“Bring him out. And make him show his wrist.”

One of Guiral’s men tossed someone down to the floor. It was a man that resembled the bandits that had attacked Sorah, Qawasumi, and I from way back when. The man resisted, until Guiral’s men stomped him thrice and forced him to show his wrist. A red charm hung by chain on him, almost exactly the same as Sorah’s. 

“Hold on,” I also came forward, throwing out my hand. I had to defend Sorah no matter what. “You can’t just accuse him on the basis of-”

“You’re one to talk, Devil of the Apocrypha.” Guiral fixed the gloves on his hands, not once looking me in the eye. 

“‘Devil’?”

“Yes, I’m talking about you, Kaizenji Kawari. You’re just as suspicious as Sorah Totshigui here.” 

“How can you call me a devil?”

“You are ignorant of this world, expected as someone not from it.” Guiral’s silver pupils struck me in place, fear planting my feet into the ground. “You are an adult yet are Level 0. You are alive and yet you have no selected Branch Class. And by the dictation of the Royal Marshal, you two are as equally guilty.” 

He knew I wasn’t from here? Well, it was obvious but I didn’t expect this to develop. Actually, I never anticipated any of this. I cursed myself, as my own wrongdoings placed Sorah and I in deep trouble. Why was I stupid enough to give away my origins? Why didn’t I figure it out sooner?

“Mister Kaizenji, you better watch over him now. He’s got a record for hiding his problems. Just like that one time he cleared my debt suddenly when the Kokmin were after me.”

Sorah had been colluding with the ‘Kokmin’ the entire time. When Sorah and Qawasumi saved me from those bandits, he was able to shoo them away and only killed one or two. That charm he’d been wearing on his wrist, to being always busy most of the day. 

“I’m sorry, Kawari… But I shouldn’t have sent you to the Guild on that day.” Sorah reached for his axe, as his feet drew his stance across the dirt. “I’m so sorry… I just wanted you to get acquainted with this world.”

“No, you haven’t done anything wrong… I-” 

Sorah pushed me back as he brought his weapon in front. My eyes widened while my body resisted. “Go, Kaizenji Kawari, and take my family.”

“Sorah! If we can somehow get out of this together then I’ll take that route.” I tried to bring myself forward, but Sorah slowly shook his head. He gave me a smile that I’d always known from the start, standing as the barrier between me and Guiral. I knew what he wanted to do, but I opposed it. My fist dropped and I let down my arms. 

As I ran inside the house, I could hear him chant ‘Zuhyo’ as he pressed various things on his screen. My anxiety broke the door down by accident as my voice flooded into the dinner scene. Qawasumi and her family turned to look at me with surprise and confusion. My heart pounded in my chest as I blurted out errors and strange parsing of sentences. But with my broken sentences, they understood the situation. Qawasumi stood there as the parents grabbed the children and went upstairs. 

I had already made my choice. 

My feet took me back outside as I collapsed onto my knees. “I’m going to fight with you, Sorah,” I panted, taking out the dagger I had stuffed into my pocket for self-defense. He gazed at me with wide pupils, an expression of shock and emotion that words couldn’t describe. 

“Kawari… Is my family escaping right now?...”

“They are.”

He skimmed his stat screen and pressed a button. His axe glowed into an intense white as frost gathered around the heads. Sorah whispered a few lines while Guiral stood before him, unfazed. 

The cutting edges of his axe froze with ice, as the air chilled around him. His hair glittered within the crystals, removing any sweat from his headband. Sorah then reached for his pocket, and took out the hachimaki headband I’d given him. Tying it around his old one, the rising sun showed proudly on his forehead as he slammed the axe’s end into the ground. 

Icy mist burst forth from his weapon. Icicles formed into the air and a wave of them aimed themselves at Guiral. Soon everything became shrouded in fog.