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“There is one thing I cannot be convinced of, Captain, and it is that a child should be abandoned on unproven charges.”
Cyllene says nothing for a long moment, simply observing Professor Laventon. It is very rare anyone has the privilege to see him furious, and it is a sharp reminder of certain facts. To most in the village, the Professor is not one to be taken seriously. He is a slouching man with a ridiculous hat he rarely takes off and a vocabulary that includes such things as “Jolly good!” and “Splendiferous!” He can barely throw a thing and treats his assistant like his own son. He is not intimidating.
To see him now, standing at her desk with a straightened back and a grim scowl, hat placed somewhere else, is it much easier to remember that he is a man who looked at hoards of beasts who could kill him at every turn and decided to dedicate his life’s work to them. If such bravery is foolishness, it has yet to cost him his life like so many others before him.
That must mean something.
“I think you’ll find, Professor, that I hardly agree with our Commander either,” she says dryly. “But you will also find that he is still our Commander. There is very little to be done when he makes a decision.”
“Little to be done officially, you mean.” The Professor has not lost his scowl.
“Are you suggesting treason to me, Laventon?”
“Of course not. If I was thinking of treason, I wouldn’t tell anyone.” Cyllene is not comforted by such an admission. “What I am suggesting is that our Commander has neglected to declare either way if the people in the village are allowed to assist the banished or not. And as long as no one seems to, he’ll never have a reason to disallow it.”
Cyllene straightens a stack of paperwork on her desk. “I see. And you believe there are those who will assist?”
The Professor holds her gaze. “You will recall that for just as many people who came to this village for a sense of adventure, there are those who came because they believe there is no other place for them to go. Do you not think they might find Akari’s immediate removal familiar?”
She looks down at the report she had been reading through just as the Professor came in. It was a sighting of Starlys near the farm that a worker had noticed and wished for a surveyor to check in on. The last lines read, One of the younger in the flock seems to have trouble flying. I think it might be hurt. Please have someone take a look.
Lugia drown them all. She wasn’t looking for cosmic hints.
When she looks up again, all she says is, “I expect you to conduct this discreetly. Keep me informed.”
Laventon smiles, his slouch returning somewhat. “Naturally.”
Even as he turns to leave, the sharp, calculating look in his eyes remains.
Ress is the one to escort their young exiled out to the Fieldlands. The first few minutes of their acquaintance are completely silent, the girl—Akari, the Professor had called her, he thinks—staring down at the ground. She had tried to argue back in the village, shouting and swearing as the Commander ordered for her to be removed. Her body had been shaking even as she screamed.
She shakes as they walk. Once they’re around the bend that hides the village from view, she begins to sob. Little heaving gasps, nothing more.
Even when she cries, she’s quiet now.
Something dark and noxious curdles in the back of Ress’s throat. He thinks of his sister, who could only be a few years younger than this stranger. He thinks of being on a rocking boat, in the darkness of its interior, listening to the sotto voices of his fellow travelers.
Do you think Jubilife will be good to us?
It doesn’t matter if it’s good to us. We have nowhere else to go.
Before he can think the ramifications through, he reaches an arm up to curl it around the girl’s shoulders. She sucks in a deep breath, as though afraid. Of course she’s afraid.
“What the Commander’s done isn’t right,” he tells her, lowly. “I can’t let you back in, but I can teach you a few things to keep you safe. I’ll talk to the others in the camp.”
Akari looks at him for the first time. Her eyes are wet.
“Please,” she says.
When they make it to the camp, all it takes is seeing the disbelieving look in North’s eyes to know that he can make this work. He convinces Akari to lay down in the sleeping tent for a minute to clear away her tears. The second the cloth flap is tied down, North drags Ress to the far side of the camp.
“ She’s the dangerous faller the Commander banished?” he hissed.
“How’d you get that information already?”
“The Starly system is up and running,” North says dismissively, which means nothing to Ress, “That’s not the point here. All things good, Ress, she’s not even an adult! What could she have done to earn banishment?”
“Be unlucky enough,” Ress tells him, because that’s the only reason he can find.
This doesn’t appease North. He had hoped it wouldn’t.
“So, we’re going to teach her how to survive, right?” Ress asks.
“I— of course we are.” North sets his jaw. “The oath of the Security Corps is to protect all who need it. And that girl needs all the help she can get.”
“My thoughts exactly,” he agrees. “Ann’s still at her post right now, isn’t she? Go get her and see if she has a spare set of clothes like she’s supposed to, Akari will freeze in a stiff wind as she is.”
North nods, and immediately turns to set off. It’s not a very long trek, but Ress can probably teach Akari a thing or two during the wait. Fire-starting is simple enough.
He approaches the tent, stomping his foot on the ground the way one might knock on a door. Akari rolls the entrance back up, peering up at him as she emerges. Her face and eyes are less red than before. It’s a minor improvement.
“North—that’s the other guard— is getting a female guard who might have clothes for you,” he tells her, and the mention of clothes has her looking relieved. “It gets cold at night, so I’m going to teach you how to start a fire.”
And so he does. Ress tamps out the current fire, digs up an extra standard-issue fire kit from the trunk, and they get to work. Akari watches with keen eyes as he shows her the flint and stick methods before he lets her try them herself. She picks it up with surprising speed, and by the time North comes back with Ann in tow, she’s lit and put out the fire several times.
Ress is still going to give her his pack of emergency matches. But it’s good to know she’ll be capable even once they run out.
Ann takes to the girl instantly, swanning around her with a concerned knit to her brow. “Dear, those thin things won’t protect you from a Wurmple. It’s a good thing I packed a spare—you’re a little shorter, but I can hem the pants later.”
Accepting Ann’s hands on her shoulders with wide eyes, Akari allows herself to be steered away from the camp and around the small set of cliffs. To change, Ress presumes. He makes sure to step away from the slope of it, for privacy’s sake.
In short order they return, Akari in a fresh set of guard clothes, the pants indeed a little long. She seems much happier with her thicker layers nonetheless.
“North, Bagin taught you how to pack really well, right?” Ann calls out, “Teach Akari whatever he told you, she needs as much on her person as she can get.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” North says immediately.
Once Akari has her head bent with North over an extra pack, Ann slides up to Ress with a frown.
“I wish we had some surveyor clothes,” she confides, “they’re even better than ours against Pokémon, and right now that bright red is going to make her stick out like a sore thumb. Someone in surveyor blue could be mistaken for a Diamond Clan member at a distance.”
Ress worries his lip. “I’ll see if I can do something. The Professor was the one to bring her from the beach, so he might help. If he doesn’t, I can try and swipe a set.”
“Keep me posted on that.” She pauses, for a moment, then leans closer. “Also—and this is probably nothing, but— when she was putting her top on, she put it on right over left before I corrected her. I hope that isn’t an omen…”
He claps a hand to her shoulder, promising, “We’ll make sure it won’t be.”
Ann takes a deep breath, and manages a smile. “We can try, at least. You’ll need to head back soon, by the way. Chasing her out isn’t supposed to take long.”
“You’re right.” Ress grimaces. He thinks Zisu can be persuaded to Akari’s side, but he’ll probably have to report to the Commander first. “I’ll figure out how to spin it. Zisu won’t buy it, but I’ll talk her into secrecy if I can.”
With a nod, Ann walks up to Akari, and Ress follows after.
“I’ll be heading back now,” he tells her. Then, to his fellow guards, “See if you can’t find a place to set her up with a tent? It’s impossible to know when someone will come to camp.”
Akari stands up. For a moment it seems as though she is about to step up to him, arms raising slightly. But then they drop. A look of vague embarrassment flickers on her face.
“Thank you for helping me. I don’t know how to repay you,” she says instead. Her voice is clear and steady, if subdued from the high volume she took to in the village.
“You don’t need to, kid.” Ress says. “I’ll be going, then.”
Before he goes, he takes out his matchbox and passes it on to her. She accepts it mutely. As he starts down the village path, a frown settles on his face.
He’s not going to enjoy this at all.
Ress does not, in fact, enjoy the meeting.
It is easy enough to feed the Commander a story of casting the girl out into the vast fields, out past the bridge to the middle reaches of the area and telling her to never come back. It is just as easy to claim he had set Ann and North on keeping her away. Resisting the urge to punch the man in the face, as well as keeping that desire off of his own face, is much harder.
But Ress is a very good guard, and his silent acceptance of his job to remove Akari in the first place means the Commander has no reason to suspect any disobedience. He is dismissed in short order.
Zisu, who had been along for the meeting as the Security Captain, nails him with a knowing look once they’ve escaped the top floor.
“I’ll need another report for my own files,” is all she says.
“Could I speak to the Professor beforehand?” Ress dares to ask.
Her eyes narrow, but he is allowed a minute. He strides into the Professor’s office as quickly and casually as possible, aware of Zisu’s eyes on his back.
Professor Laventon is sitting at his desk, flipping through piles of papers in various states of disarray, and it takes Ress awkwardly clearing his throat for the man to notice him in the room at all. The giant pom-pom on the Professor’s hat bobs when he looks up.
Don’t you dare laugh, he tells himself. “Er, I wanted to let you know the exiled has been escorted out, Professor.”
The man’s eyes harden. His voice is cold. “So she has been.”
“Yes, well.” Ress edges closer to the desk, and bends to murmur, “She has a fire-starting kit on her now. And clothes.”
“And she came by them through…?” the Professor leads.
“The answer depends on who asks, sir.”
Professor Laventon sits back, looking at Ress in a new light. “Does it now? Thank you for informing me. In fact, I’d like further updates if she’s seen again. Her presence might disturb the local Pokemon, you see.””
“I and the others will do what we can.”
“Nothing less to be expected from the Security Corps. Give Zisu my regards.”
Ress dips his head and exits the room.
The minute he’s in grabbing range, Zisu hauls him out of the building and off to the training grounds. Ress barely has time to see the sympathetic smile Beauregard sends his way before they’re halfway there.
Once they’re in the training building and the door is firmly shut, she flings herself into a chair.
“Alright, knock that hard-ass look off your face and tell me what really happened,” she orders.
“Captain,” he starts.
“I don’t give a shit if you helped her, Ress. Great Ho-oh knows the only reason I’m not arguing with Kamado about his stupid ideas is that he’ll only dig his heels in further. What did you do?”
That was exactly what he hoped she’d say.
“We helped her,” he admits. “Fire-starting, clothing, a pack, I think North was talking about a lean-to when I was leaving. We’re going to keep helping her, if she lets us.”
“And if she survives long enough for you to,” Zisu says darkly, and huffs. “If you ever need someone to teach her some combat, get me out there. It’s a stupid move to go punching those beasts, but if she can’t run from a Pokémon it’ll be better than nothing.”
“Pokémon aren’t the only thing she has to worry about.”
She frowns. “That too. We’ve got some knives no one’s using, right? A bow takes time to get used to…”
She trails off, and shakes her head. “Later. In the meantime, I’ll scope out who in our Corps might be trustworthy with this. Maybe we can get her some proper camping equipment, the carryable things.”
“Thank you, Captain.” Ress says, because this is truly the best response he could have hoped for.
“She’s a kid, Ress. It’s the least anyone in this damn village could do, after Kamado kicked her out.”
“Not everyone will think like that, ma'am.”
Zisu sighs. “No, not everyone will.”
Gossip and conversation flies around the town the night of the exiling. How could it not? A young girl, not yet a woman, found cast out from the sky and banished from Jubilife just moments after she had arrived. It would be impossible not to discuss it.
“I have no idea what the Commander is thinking,” Radisa declares, her usually soft voice harsh in the comfort of her own home. “That girl, responsible for the rift? She was terrified out of her mind!”
Anthe frowns into her tea. “But there must be some reason to not even allow her to prove herself. Could she have been a Zoroark in disguise?”
“In disguise of whom, Anthe? The closest match is that surveyor boy, and surely you must know no one here wears clothes like that. Zoroarks aren’t clever enough to come up with new people.”
“Perhaps this one was!”
Radisa sips her tea irritably. “Don’t be a fool, if it was a Zoroark they would have announced it. Why would one be so far from the Icelands?”
“I don’t think the Commander was thinking at all, Radisa dear,” Canala grumbles, nearly slamming down her cup. “What about that Warden man, the one with the Pearls? He showed up with no warning, and there’s been no trouble with him that I’ve heard.”
“I’ve spoken to a Pearl or two in trade, they say he’s odd. Strange eyes.” Anthe says.
“But do they say he’s cruel or monstrous?” Radisa challenges. “Have they taken back his title of Warden? Do they think he has anything to do with the rift?”
“Well, no—”
She scoffs. “There you have it, as far as I’m concerned. If the man can be taken in and turn out as a worthwhile member of that clan, then why on earth couldn’t we take in a frightened girl?”
Canala nods along, clearly on the same trail of thought. With a sigh, Anthe worries at her nails and tries to come up with a counterargument. There must be some reason for the Commander’s decree— she’s just a girl, yes, but there must be some cause to think she could be behind the rift. Something she said, or did, or had on her person. There must be a clue they haven’t informed the village of.
The Commander must have his reasons. He must.
Perhaps sensing they cannot sway Anthe’s opinion further that night, the other two turn the conversation to work matters. Anthe gratefully joins in, allowing herself to forget the matter of the fallen girl in favor of her trade work with plants for dying. Nothing more of the girl is said.
That is until Anthe takes her leave, thanking Radisa for the hospitality on her way out.
The minute the door is shut, Radisa turns to Canala with dark eyes.
“If I could help the poor thing, I would,” she swears. “She’s probably been dead for hours, that girl, and it’s on our Commander’s head. She won’t have had time to even start starving.”
“We don’t know that,” Canala argues. “She survived that fall, after all, perhaps she’s tougher than she seems.”
“Perhaps,” Radisa says, hunching over her cup.
Canala refills her own, wishing it was a stronger drink instead. As she twists the cup in her hands, she comes to a decision.
“I’m going out to the camp tomorrow with food,” she says. “Whatever can hold for days. I’ll need to pack it so the Pokémon don’t get to it first, but that girl needs something out there.”
Radisa straightens. “I’ll help too. Pickled things last well, I can do away with some of my stock without too much harm.”
“We can get supplies in the morning and go out in the afternoon.” Canala is already going over recipes in her mind.
“We might have to convince the guards to leave us alone when we drop it off.”
She harrumphs. “There’s only ever one or two at a time, one of us can distract them. I’ll hide the food— I didn’t live through Unova’s prohibition years for nothing, Radisa.”
“Of course. Forgive me for the slight, dear.” Radisa hides a smile in her teacup.
With a plan in mind, prospects look much brighter. They always do.
It goes on like this, the secret plans. Kamado is a man of some paranoia—deserved paranoia, in some respects, if not all of them—but he does not notice the brewing rejection of his orders. He trusts his people.
Luck has it that their only rebellion is to tend to a frightened girl.
Radisa and Canala march to the gate and make known their desire to head to the fields for supplies, and Ress grants them passage with only some puzzlement. It is not Radisa’s usual day for root hunting, but these were odd times.
He does not notice the unusual pack in the bottom of Radisa’s foraging bag, nor the new style of dress Canala has temporarily taken up, which bulks her silhouette ever so slightly. He would not have addressed it even if he had.
During the guards’ nighttime meeting around the campfire, Ann will recount discreetly following both women out to the edges of the fields’ cliffs, and watching as the women secured two packages in a nook with a scrap of patterned fabric attached.
Naturally, she will report, she had checked the contents for dangerous materials, and had only found food and cooking implements. Then, of course, she had disposed of such trash in an area that only happened to be near the residence of the exiled.
What an odd coincidence, hm?
The packages keep coming, and so to they keep being opened.
Akari’s little hide-away looks much better than it first did.
Two days into the banishment, when Rei had first found her tucked away in the upper heights of the Floaro Gardens, Akari had almost nothing to her name. A small lean-to, a campfire, as many berries as she could forage, and a newly caught Buizel. It wasn’t nothing, but it was hardly the comfort of the village and a surveyor’s lodgings she should have had if everything had gone as hoped.
Despite this, Akari had been in better spirits than Rei would have managed. She waved him into the little nook, gave him a few Oran berries, and talked about a Shinx that seemed less aggressive than the others nearby who she was hoping to catch.
“I’ve got clean water with Benji here.” Benji was the Buizel, apparently. “But it’d be nice to have a guaranteed way to deal with the Starlys and Zubats and stuff.”
“It would be,” Rei had weakly agreed.
He’d given her more Pokeballs, the bits of field rations he had on him, and told her every Pokémon species he knew roamed the area. Then, once his surveying work was done, he ran back to the Professor to tell him she was still alive.
Now, almost a month in, her camp has grown notably. She has a small carryable trunk filled with quietly donated food, a proper tent, and a lantern to spook Zubats and Driflooms away with. There is a small jug to keep good water in, a pot and cooking set over the campfire, and five whole Pokémon.
When Akari leads him into the nook for what was now a standard visit during his surveying, she has to gently remove Lucky the Shinx from his place next to the fire, and says hello to Lace the Ponyta, who nickers back agreeably from her seat beneath a tree. The others—Benji, a Beautifly named Nettles, and a Starly named Jewel—were off to do as they pleased until coming back by nightfall.
“They’ll probably bring some things back, like wood and berries,” Akari explains, flopping down next to the fire and leaning against her trunk. “Usually the berries are half-eaten, but they’re trying. Lucky’s lazy, so he just stays here and sleeps.”
Even as she says that, her hand is reaching out to scratch Lucky’s chin.
Rei could barely get his Pikachu to pay attention to him sometimes. Other times, it’d shock him if he got too close. That Akari has managed to get five Pokémon on her side and willing to fight for her seemed like nothing less than a miracle. He tells her as much.
She tilts her head, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “I don’t think it’s that special. I treat them with respect and try to help them, and they help me back. Simple.”
“I suppose,” he says, and does not mention how very remarkable she is further.
Instead, he talks at length about how much trouble the Bidoof he had caught were giving Professor Laventon while he tried to measure and weigh them, the extremely public trials and tribulations of Choy’s attempts to get more wares, and anything else he could think of. Akari listens along with a smile, laughing and joking.
In time, though, he has to leave. The Professor expects him back for dinner at the Wallflower (and, away from Beni’s keen ears, updates on Akari’s continued survival) and Captain Cyllene needs his progress reports.
“Oh! I almost forgot,” Akari says as he moves to get up, diving into her trunk.
When she sits back up, it’s with a bundle of rough paper and a cloth bag with suspiciously Pokéball-sized bulges distorting its shape in her grip. With little ceremony, she leans forward and drops the gifts into his hands. Rei nearly fumbles them. When he looks inside the bag, he finds that it does indeed hold a comical amount of Pokéballs.
Flipping through the papers reveals drawings, diagrams, and scribbled notes marking the rough weights, heights, and attacks of each Pokémon illustrated, plus miscellaneous anecdotes about the personalities and habits of each species. It’s very detailed work, and Rei can guess how she came about it by the burned and stained edges of many of the pages. The Pokéballs, then…
“They’re for the sample pool! You need a bunch of the same Pokémon to tell what’s normal about their species, right?” Akari beams, smile wide.
A strange emotion clogs Rei’s throat.
“Akari,” he begins, uncertain. “You know you don’t have to do this, right? You have no obligation to Ju—”
Her expression darkens. “Oh, trust me, I know. Kamado can choke.”
Rei chokes, himself. Getting used to the blunter side Akari had begun to show is… a process.
“--but! But, I’m not doing it for him, or for Jubilife. I’m doing this for Professor Laventon.”
Peering down at the notes again, Rei finds himself relieved. Wanting to help the Professor is an emotion he can understand perfectly. “Well then, he’ll love it. I’m pretty sure he’ll cry when I give this stuff to him, honestly.”
“Oh, man, he really does seem like a happy crier sort of person. You have to tell me how long he goes on for,” Akari giggles.
“No promises.” Rei examines the bag of Pokéballs again. A thought strikes him. “Actually, you know what? Surveyors get paid for each Pokémon they catch. You should be getting paid too.”
“What would I spend Jubilife money on if I’m not allowed in Jubilife?” There’s less hurt in her voice than there was before, saying the village’s name. That doesn’t mean there’s none at all.
He hums. “Well, the Ginkgo merchants take our money, and not all of them hang out in just the village. Some trade with the Clans. If you catch up to those ones while they're out, they probably won’t say no to a sale. They won’t say anything if they keep getting sales, too.”
“And how are the Survey Corps going to pay an exiled girl, exactly?”
Rei pauses at that. “Well… I could just pretend I caught them, and give you the money? I’d have to spread the caught Pokémon out, though, this is maybe two weeks of catching for me.”
“Oh, really? That took me four days.”
“I—excuse me? Four days?” Rei’s jaw drops. “Akari, how ?”
She burst into laughter. “It’s not that hard! You just hit them with the ball. Click! The Pokémon is caught!”
“Yes, just hit the sprinting, angry Pokémon with a tiny ball, that’s soooo easy!”
“That’s literally what I’m telling you!”
Despite himself, Rei dissolves into laughter with her. It takes them far longer than it should to pull themselves together and sit up properly again.
Once he shakes off the lingering giggles, Rei says. “Really, though, I’m going to figure out some way to get you some money with the Professor.”
“It’d be nice, not having to rely on foraging and the village ladies for food all the time.” Akari’s eyes are alight with interest.
“Yeah! And…” Rei hesitates for a moment. Technically, they tried to not tell Akari about help until they were sure, but the Professor was confident, “...we’re trying to see if the Shopkeep in town will keep his mouth shut if you come to buy from him at night, when the Commander’s asleep. Even if he won’t, I could buy things for you and pass them along just like the money.”
“You would do that?” Akari asks.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Akari’s resulting smile is as bright as the sun.
Adaman frowns at the guard sent to speak with him.
Slowly, in a fashion he rarely speaks with, he says,”...you must understand how telling me that your Commander has banished a young girl with no evidence may hurt our relations, yes?”
The guard—Ress, he’s mostly certain, the gate-guard with the Bidoof—is just polite enough not to frown back. Instead, he dips his head in acknowledgement of Adaman’s point and replies, evenly, “We had hoped you would know Kamado well enough now to understand his issues with unprecedented events, and to see that even when our Commander cannot be reasonable, the people of Jubilife will still act.”
Adaman does know the Commander well enough to understand the banishment, if not enough to agree with it by any means. In this, he and the guard are in accord.
Still, there is much Adaman could say about lack of trust between leaders and people, about how the village’s ease in ignoring and supplanting their Commander might reflect poorly on all involved. He does not. For all their strangeness and the quiet tension hovering between the three peoples of Husui, the village is respected. They are, by-and-large, agreeable people. Most of all, he doesn’t wish to give Jubilife any reason to prefer the Pearl Clan to his.
“By informing me of her presence, are you asking for her to be taken in by us?” he asks. “I would like to oblige, but that does not mean I can.”
“We’d like it, but we don’t expect it. And even if you agreed, that does not mean Akari would.”
That's a fair remark. If Akari could manage herself almost completely alone in the fields like Ress described, then Adaman is sure that Akari could not be made to do anything she didn’t want. Five Pokémon, at least—she could deal a serious blow to any who tried coercion. He hasn’t met the girl yet, and might not ever meet her, but already he respects her.
To Ress, he says, “Then what do you want?”
For a moment, the guard says nothing, and Adaman taps his fingers along his crossed arms irritably, crushing his impatience with difficulty. Ress is most likely choosing his battles, and it is a wise practice Mei would complain about him never truly learning. He can at least respect those who do manage it.
Finally, he says, “Above all, we wanted you to be aware of her, so that she didn’t alarm your clan and give reason to attack her out of confusion. She’s striking farther to the Mirelands as she studies the fields, and we’re figuring she’ll get through the overpass and come across you soon.”
Adaman nods, already turning over the thought of Akari’s approach in his mind. It was a very sensible precaution to warn him, and a courtesy to the Diamond Clan as much as to Akari. Five Pokemon in such little time. A prodigy, really. She could ambush someone very easily if she wanted to.
“I’ll tell the others to keep watch for her, and to be polite unless provoked,” he decides. Then, because he can not quite help himself, he continues, “Have you told Irida of her as well?”
“No.” The answer is swift. “We see no reason to tell those who don’t need to know about Akari until it is necessary. When she starts making her way to the coast, we’ll certainly explain things to the Pearl living there. Perhaps she’ll tell Irida, we could hardly stop her. But otherwise…”
Ress shrugs, and at last smiles. “We’ll wait until she makes it to the Icelands. So, a few months, give or take.”
Adaman shakes his head in bemusement, and wonders once more about the remarkable girl apparently running free through Husui. Times, it seems, were only ever getting stranger.
A part of him is excited about it. The rest dreads.
Rei stares at the deep trenches dug into the ground from the striking blades of Kleavor. He is as deeply, terribly grateful that he wasn’t the one to scramble past the blows as he is deeply, terribly horrified that Akari had. It should be easier. He should be calmer. The battle is done and over with.
Somehow he feels worse than before. The only thing keeping him upright is his focus on Akari as she breathes through the last of the adrenaline.
“Guess we’re gonna have to say you did it,” Akari giggles, eyes wide even with the giant bruise on her face. She almost seems punch-drunk. “History books are gonna loooove you, huh? Surveyor extraordinaire, Noble-soother. What next! Fighting a god?”
Rei’s heart clenches unpleasantly at the thought of his valor-theft reaching history books. Before he can stop himself, he reaches out to grasp her trembling hand. It’s sweaty and clammy.
“The Professor and I will write it all down,” he swears. “Every last thing you’ve done. Even if no one can know now, they’ll know in the future it was all you. Not me.”
Akari almost crashes into him with how hard she leans over. “You don’t have to.”
“Why wouldn’t we?”
Her smile is wincing, but it’s there.