91. Nowhere to be found

We waited in the lighthouse for half an hour, then took a look around the city, entered shops, courtyards, police stations… I lost track of the places we went to. When the Lightning Veil came and asked us to go back to Yuutow Island with the other trainees, we had yet to find any trace of Linah.

Zeeta and I were beginning to stress out for good. As we climbed the stairs to the Academy, I ventured:

“She could be on Yuutow Island. Who knows, maybe she has come back to the academy and we’re just doing this for nothing.”

For once, Zeeta was too focused on his own thoughts to pay any attention to me. I sent Ray a quizzical look. The young necromancer shrugged.

“It’s a possibility.”

Zeeta suddenly hissed and tapped his foot on a step with force.

“Firefly demons are used for making pills, Lei said… I swear, if something happened to her, I won’t mind if Arkifa is transformed into a pill.”

“Don’t say horrible things like that, Zeeta,” I grunted. “Arkifa saved her from the fall. Plus, you may not know her, but Arkifa is a good girl.”

“She never told you she was a demon, did she?”

“… She didn’t. So what?”

“So it’s not impossible that she actually—”

“Oi!” Noah hailed us from the top of the stairs. He began descending with Lei. “Did you find the Sunclaw girl?!”

My core trembled at the question. Linah hadn’t come back. Zeeta stopped in the middle of the stairs, looked at me sideways, and breathed out.

“Never mind. Let’s go search for Erma.”

“We’ve searched for her everywhere on this island!” Noah replied, stopping a few steps up. “Well, not everywhere, but like, we were about fifteen people searching for her, some with powers that helped us a lot, but still,” he shrugged, “nothing. I take you guys didn’t find anything on the other side either.”

I shook my head gloomily. Several hours had passed since Linah had been teleported, the sun would soon set, and yet she was nowhere to be found. Did that mean she had landed unconscious somewhere? Or… I frowned. Tch. I was beginning to think negatively. Lei clicked his tongue.

“How ridiculous. My sister would have survived the fall from that cliff if she had dismembered herself and let go of that firefly demon.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I’m not that worried. My dear sis is the kind of person that would be capable of punching the Devil’s nose and walking away unscathed. ”

I breathed in with hope, agreeing:

“I know, right?!”

“We’ll find out where she is when Arkifa wakes up,” Zeeta threw.

Surely. The problem was that, as far as we knew, Arkifa hadn’t woken up yet. According to Lizzie, it seemed that, aside from her broken leg, she was physically fine. However, her inner qi was in turmoil, and she would probably continue to sleep until she had stabilized it.

“She won’t wake any soon, if you ask me,” Lei grimaced. “That doctor, Aika Saladen or whatever, said there’s nothing we can do but wait.”

“We’ll see if that’s true,” Zeeta replied.

He climbed on, and I followed him with the others, wondering what he was intending to do. We were reaching the top of the stairs when I saw Nina sitting on the dry ground in front of the gates of the academy. By her side, Jing was muttering as if to comfort her. Nina was crying.

“Nina?!”

“Oh, she’s all right,” Noah said. “She’s just crying because she says that everything is her fault. She spouted some nonsense about forgetting a bag of green mushroom powder in the kitchen the other day, hence the explosive cake, hence her guilt and bad luck, and so that’s why the blond fat fox disappeared, Charles-Ping let go of Arkifa at the worst possible moment, and the Sunclaw girl is nowhere to be found. If the Sunclaw girl appeared inside a carnivorous cactus, Nina would be most likely also at fault.”

“At least, if the world ends, we’ll know who’s the culprit,” Lei said, amused. “Still, a carnivorous cactus, you say? Linah would definitely hate cactuses for the rest of her life if that were true. Not that a carnivorous cactus is any threat to her.”

Lei sure trusted his sister, but hey, wasn’t he a bit too relaxed? As for Nina… I shook my head, perplexed.

“…? What’s that nonsense?”

Noah shrugged.

“Don’t ask me, ask her.”

I turned to the silver-haired girl. She met my eyes. Hers were shining with tears. I sat down cross-legged, pondered for a few seconds, then said:

“Look. Bad days happen. Bad cakes happen, too. So, why still care about that accident now?”

She widened her tear-filled eyes.

“Why? You could have been blown up just like those plants in the garden, all because of those mushrooms I gathered.”

“But I’m still in one piece. Right! Maybe I am thanks to your good luck,” I added positively. “Well, I’m hard to kill, anyway. Now, if you want to apologize to someone, apologize to Linah when we find her.”

“When we…” she echoed and paused.

I just got an idea.

“Oh, Nina… do you think you could use your dice to find her?!”

“My dice? I told you my power is a selfish one that only cares about my safety.”

“Didn’t you say you came to this training because you didn’t understand how your power works? Why not give it a try?” I insisted.

Nina blinked, took a deep breath, then wiped off her tears, sniffed, grasped the kind of dice she was using as hair ties, and stood up.

“You are right. It’s not the time to be crying. Let’s find her, guys. I’m gonna check the back of the island once more time while you guys try to speak to Arkifa!”

She was already rushing away. A startled Jing went after her. After a hesitation, Noah followed suit with a grumble:

“Why am I running to look for a rich girl I barely know?”

I smiled and answered inwardly: maybe because you’re a good guy deep down, champ? Even though you stole my tricycle…

Turning my back on the academy, I looked at the cliff under Phoenix Neck Lighthouse. Linah had disappeared while falling from there. Did Arkifa have the time to control where to send her? Or did she just send her away? In that case…

My gaze wandered toward the dark blue ocean. In my head, I saw the Lil Witch lost in the endless Blazing Sea, breaststroking with determination, then throwing her hands away with frustration as she realized there was still no land in sight. That is, if her hands had been teleported to the same place. No, no, what was I even imagining? Or maybe…? I looked up at the sky. Since Linah had been falling, wouldn’t it make sense for her to be teleported up in the air?

“Don’t tell me you’re looking for my sister in the sky? ” Lei mocked me with a hint of nervousness.

He and Zeeta couldn’t help but look up like me, scanning the evening sky.

“What if…” Zeeta murmured, “what if the teleportation went wrong?”

I stared at him, terrified. What did he mean by wrong?

“Let’s not lose our calm,” Ray intervened. “There is a natural law that says teleportation respects the unity of a living being. That means a body can’t split while teleporting. Those cases are extremely rare.”

“Rare, but they can happen,” Zeeta mumbled.

“The Big Blend teleported away over seven billion of people and only zero point zero one percent of the deaths were caused by the teleportation itself. Another natural law says that any spatial distortion will be attracted by orange crystals and gravity, making it difficult for people and things to be teleported in the air. So, Linah should be safe, wherever she went.”

He fell silent. His explanations put my necro-heart a bit at ease. Lei pouted.

“This world is full of exceptions, though. Isn’t it said that, during the Big Blend, the Kilimanjaro fell upside down, nearly crushing Singapore?”

A frozen silence followed his words. Lei shrugged and added:

“Anyway, good luck with Arkifa. I’m gonna see if I find Axel. I’m sure he doesn’t know anything yet. He must be out there scaring people for fun, or pitying himself, or whatever. See you later!”

Lei was one to talk about scaring people… The Sunclaw disappeared climbing down the stairs towards the beach. We heard him whistle a melody then call out to the boat driver. Zeeta kicked the wall of the academy and growled:

“No wonder Erma left that crazy family of hers last year. What a pair of useless brothers.”

“Maybe but…” I muttered. “He was whistling Erma’s favorite lullaby.”

“… Really?” Zeeta paused then strode past the gates. “Whatever. We won’t find Erma by whistling lullabies, nor by using some luck dice. I’m gonna wake that demon up and ask her.”

“Aika Zarate will not let you in,” a voice suddenly said to our left.

We turned to see Yamazaki stopping by the gates. The instructor waved us forward.

“You three. I’d like to have a word with you.”

We didn’t have to look at each other to guess that we all were thinking the same: did Yamazaki suspect me to be the one that had been robbing people of their lifeforce? Dammit. It wasn’t the time for this.

“You don’t know where Arkifa is, do you?”

“…!” Come to think of it, we didn’t. We should have asked Lei before he left.

Yamazaki nodded calmly.

“I’ll tell you where, but before, please come on in.”

He was pointing to the building next to the gates. Wasn’t he just sort of blackmailing us? After a hesitation, we silently followed him in. Zeeta commented:

“Instructor. Shouldn’t you be joining the other Heroes in their efforts to find Cesarine’s whereabouts?”

The room was well lit, tidy, and rustic, with a clean desk that was probably used by the janitor of the place during the school year. Yamazaki ran a hand on the armchair, replying:

“Don’t you know, Isabella? That there are Heroes that work in the light and Heroes that work in the shadows. As a spy of your ‘friends’, you must know that, too.”

He sat. Zeeta frowned.

“Are you implying I was involved in Cesarine’s kidnapping?”

Yamazaki raised an eyebrow and looked him in the eye.

“Are you?”

“I’m not.”

For a moment, Yamazaki and Zeeta stared at each other in silence. The former sighed.

“Actually, I don’t think you are, though of course, I do not rule out the possibility.” He paused, observed Zeeta’s face, then looked at me from head to toe, at my red knit cap and my orange coverall, glanced at Ray, then finally stretched out his hand toward me: “Did you bring the stone of that necromancer?”

I widened my eyes. Could it be he just wanted the binder item back? I rapidly approached, took the stone out of the shoulder bag, and lay it on the desk.

“Thank you, young man.”

Yamazaki’s hand grazed mine, and I felt an electrical spark. I stepped back hurriedly. Devils! My gloves. Why wasn’t I wearing my gloves? Oh. I had forgotten them at the lighthouse. Then I realized two things. First, I hadn’t absorbed Yamazaki’s lifeforce, which was good, because my life-lust remained stable. Second, a red line had just appeared on Yamazaki’s hand. Blood? No. A tattoo? Not either. It was more like… a barrier. Was it made with runes? Or was it his power? Did it just activate as I touched him or did he activate it before I touched him? Though confused, I felt that I had been duped.

‘That sneaky Dark Arts Regulator and his damn underhanded tricks,’ Ray grumbled through our necro-bond. As the instructor patted the stone, apparently oblivious to what just happened, my friend cleared his throat.

“You said that stone is a necromancer’s, sir?”

“Ah. Yeah. I came to the conclusion that what happened at the Holy Wind Temple wasn’t the work of nature. It is better if his wife doesn’t know about it, though, for her tranquillity. So keep it a secret, will you?”

We nodded in silence. We didn’t tell him that Yana knew already. Yamazaki went on:

“Necromancy is such a cursed path. Some people become necromancers just for the thrill of playing with death, others seek power and money, others just cannot accept that humans do not live forever.” He caressed the stone with one finger, muttering: “I wonder what kind of person you are…”

My core was beating fast, making the energy I had absorbed from Arkifa run more quickly through my necro-veins.

Yamazaki looked up at Ray.

“I mean the necromancer that imprisoned Yi’s wretched soul for four years. Did he want just to play with his soul? What do you think, Ray Styxer?”

He knew. I had no more doubts about that. But, damn, why was he being so elusive? Shouldn’t he just have warned the instructors and asked the Nyomin Heroes to arrest us for desecrating their so righteous Experimental Program for the Heroes of Tomorrow? What was he up to?

Ray swallowed, pale.

“I don’t know. But if it was just to play… then it was a devil for sure.”

“… A devil indeed.” He searched his pocket and took out a transparent pouch. In it, there were transparent shards of… glass? He put it on the table. “Do you know what this is?”

He was looking at me, so I shook my head. I sincerely didn’t know.

“It is Yi’s broken necro-core.”

“…!!”

A necro-core… I couldn’t help but take a step forward to see it from up close. It looked just like shattered glass.

“Well,” Yamazaki rectified, “the external layer is all that’s left. It was made of a rather poor-quality steel nacre. That is why… it is not so impossible that a series of lightning bolts could destroy it, since Yi was voluntarily letting the electricity through his necro-veins. It is not impossible,” he repeated.

There was a silence. I kept gazing at the shattered core. Steel nacre? Was mine made of steel nacre too?

Zeeta broke the silence impatiently.

“We ain’t got the whole day, so let’s speak frankly, instructor. Cesarine Lovecryce disappeared. Linah Sunclaw maybe did too. And we found out there was a demon hiding among us. The Nyomin screwed up big time. So will you keep silent or will you let the Nyomin be discredited even more, you who invited a necromancer of Makler Vod?”

I breathed out. Well, Zeeta sure knew where to attack. If the public were to know that the Ministry of Dark Arts Regulation not only was negotiating with one of the most powerful and infamous necromancer in the world but had also let one of that necromancer’s disciples enter the training, things could really go bad for them, or at least, for Yamazaki.

Our instructor, however, didn’t look like he felt threatened. On the contrary, he even smiled.

“Thanks for speaking so frankly, Isabella. As I suspected, you know everything. Now it’s my turn. Will you keep silent or betray the very same person that is helping your friend, destroying at the same time the relationship between the Vod group and the Necro-Haven?”

We gasped quietly. He nodded with calm.

“What happened today, I mean Cesarine’s disappearance, has definitely become the turning point many people were waiting for. I can tell that many things will change for the Nyomin in the near future. But there are things that won’t change. Necromancy has been viewed as a dark art for almost two millennia, and even before the Big Blend, when necromancy only existed in the imagination, there were apocalyptic stories of hordes of zombies taking over the world. Well, reality is always more chaotic. Everyone has their morals, everyone has their motives. I have mine. You have yours. A part of me cannot say you are guilty nor can say you are innocent. However, that doesn’t really matter. You made a mistake coming here, Ray Styxer.”

His eyes were riveted on the young necromancer.

“I’d like for you three to quit the training at once.”

“…”

Huh? Why Zeeta too?

“Just say you no longer trust the Nyomin to veil for your safety or something, do not cause a ruckus, and I’ll forget about you. For the record, is he yours, or is he your father’s? Don’t worry, I won’t write down your name in the register. But I surely will next time we meet. So? Is it yours?”

It took me some time to understand he was talking about me. The question clearly annoyed Ray.

“Mind if I don’t answer? Anyway, I’m fine with leaving at once.”

“…! What about Erma?” I protested. “I won’t leave until we find her.”

“By Erma, you mean Linah Sunclaw, don’t you?” Yamazaki intervened. “Does she know? That you are not human.”

His statement was so brusque that I remained silent for an instant; Zeeta hissed; I cast him a pacifying glance before answering:

“She doesn’t.”

“Nobody else knows in this training,” Ray lied. Lei and Axel did. He cleared his throat. “To my knowledge, at least.”

“Well, that’s a good thing,” Yamazaki approved. “I must tell you, Ray Styxer, that I have lost count of the necromancers I have registered and then heard of their deaths. I trust that, given your family, you have more experience than other crazy fools, but even so, if Armen Moon is your familiar, you chose a very dark path. A path that I cannot approve of.”

“I do not expect your approval, sir,” Ray replied and added: “Some months ago, I would have probably agreed with you. But I’ve changed my point of view since then.”

“Hmm. People often change their points of view to live in accordance with their own actions. Anyway, this conversation is pointless. As I said: I have my motives, you have yours. Just make sure you leave Phoenix by tomorrow.”

Both looked at each other intently. I raised a finger.

“But, instructor, why does Zeeta have to leave too?”

“… A hunch.”

“A hunch?!”

“Well, now that he became suspicious after lying about his power, Cesarine’s bodyguards will make his life hell.” I huffed. Wasn’t he the one who had tricked Zeeta into using his real power in front of everyone? He went on: “In times of turmoil, not having a powerful family to support you means that you become an easy target. So why stay in the dartboard?”

So he was telling Zeeta to leave for his sake? I didn’t quite buy that.

“I’ll leave anyway if you leave, Straw Head,” Zeeta said. “But not before I’ve taken care of some matters. And talking to that demon comes first. So? Where is she?”

Yamazaki shook his head softly, looking thoughtful, then stood up.

“She was sent to the nurse’s office.”

Such an obvious place.

“Believe me, the other instructors won’t treat you with as much understanding, so stay out of trouble. Off you go.”

Zeeta cast Yamazaki a glare before turning on his heels and walking out of the small building. I followed him, but then stopped at the door, hesitated, and let out:

“Instructor. Why do you say I am not human? Is it because I am physically different than a human? Or is it because I am mentally different?”

Standing beside the desk, Yamazaki gave me a pensive look before answering:

“Both, obviously. Scientifically, you are not human. Your cells are necro-cells devoid of white energy, the quintessential energy of life. Your mind is limited by a core and not a brain. And you do not have an inner soul. In that, a lizard is closer to a human than you are. Nevertheless, everything has its reason for being. You have your own Unity Tree, as everything in this universe, and I value and respect your existence.” He smiled. “But I also value and respect my job, which is to keep you guys in check and fight dark arts abuse.”

I stared at him, bewildered at his detailed response, then grinned.

“It’s been a short week, but thanks for your lessons, instructor!”

Smiling back, he replied:

“I hope we won’t meet ever again.”

My grin broadened as I ran after Zeeta across the main square. Well, at least, my feelings were reciprocated. The fox to its earth and the bear to its cave, as my grandpa would say.

“Ray,” I whispered as we entered the main building, “is my core also made of steel nacre?”

With a shiver, I had just remembered the glass-like shards of Yi’s core. Ray snorted, offended.

“Steel nacre? Yours is made of the finest nixflyder cobweb! One of those cores can cost up to half a million.”

“…!” I lowered my eyes to my body. No way… I was carrying half a million Corns in there?! “Hold on a minute. What’s a nixflyder?”

“A sort of big, green creature that lives in the swamps. It levitates super slowly, builds its cobwebs, and eats big bugs, birds, and the like. It basically can only be found in the Hydracian Continent, in the Mistland, around Mumbai. Sure, it is already hard to come by those cobwebs, but what makes the core so expensive is the making process. It takes up to five years to make one of high-quality…”

He fell silent then looked up at me with a shocked expression:

“Damn. I just started rambling like my dad.”

I chuckled.

“Don’t worry, Ray, I’ll warn you before you become a freak like your dad. Well. At least, our negotiation with Yamazaki went better than we thought, didn’t it?”

“Mm. I still don’t know what I should tell my mother, but at this point, I don’t really care. She will discover the truth sooner or later, anyway.” He shook his head and pointed at Zeeta climbing some stairs. “Let’s worry about what we can do for now.”

I nodded and hurried upstairs with him, thinking: Please, Arkifa, wake up. Please, Erma, be safe…