They make it out of the marsh, approaching commercial buildings that accent the road that threads through them. They gladly step back onto it as they turn and continue on towards the city. The swampy environment encroaches on their pathway periodically. Waterlines approach and then overlap some of the roadway before receding again in varying places. While they have to tread through some of the submerged roadways, the trek does not dissuade them. Sloth occasionally complains but gets distracted by the rising terrain ahead of them. It looks as though the terrain had once passed under a seismograph needle. A rumbling registered, the terrain rose, and the dancing needle carved the jagged ridge-line that stands above them now. The road leads them to a pair of tunnels, allowing them to pass through the terrain without issue. The tunnel exits into EV and Sloth’s first encounter with an other world city.

The terrain descends back down ahead of them, much of it submerging back into the water. Suburbs mark the outskirts of the city ruins. Most of the foundations are below water with only a few houses perched on hills like survivors in lifeboats, staring out in disbelief at a place their ship had been just moments before.

Sloth looks around and scrunches his nose. “People actually lived in places like this? It looks like a dump.”

Pride chuckles. “That’s funny considering I thought something similar where I found you.”

“What’s that supp—hey, that’s not very nice you know. No one asked you to come by.”

Pride continues to chuckle. “Let’s just keep moving. Some of this might be tough to get through and I don’t want to spend more time here than we have to.”

The terrain begins to rise again as the party begins crossing a bridge. EV stops and places his hand on the rail, looking at another raised area from the water below. Gluttony notices him stop and looks back. He walks over to stand next to EV and tries to focus in a direction EV is looking. He finally shakes his head when he realizes that it’s too far away. “What is it,” Gluttony asks.

EV looks over, only just noticing him there. He turns back and leans forward on the railing. “It looks like an old cemetery of some sort.”

“Ew. Why are you stopping for that?”

EV shrugs. “They had secrets. Things about our past that I’ll never know—so I guess I’m a little jealous of them.”

“Of the dead,” Gluttony asks with skepticism.

“Sure. Why not? Whatever knowledge they had went with them so it’s something that will forever be out of our reach.”

“You’re a weird one. Have I mentioned that lately?”

“Hey,” Sloth yells back. “You guys are getting left behind.”

The two catch back up as the long bridge begins to level and lead into the city center. The buildings get taller and leer over them as they approach. The bridge had crossed onto a higher elevation, leaving the suburbs to form something of a moat around this part of the city. While the standing waters of the swamp were kept away, that didn’t stop nature from sending in raiding parties. The streets are scarred from battle. Cracks run along the streets, allowing undergrowth to transition into overgrowth. Structures all seem to be donning some sort of camouflage as vines and green things grow to crowd out whatever they were before.

“Yep,” Sloth says. “Still a dump. Most of the party look around with a mild neglect and don’t show much interest but EV doesn’t have the same experience. His eyes pass to each new structure as if to be the first one to see any of the individual things. He struggles, trying to imagine them before. He might know useless trivia things but he can’t visualize how these things must have looked before. He might as well be looking at a lost language, something elegant but unknowable. “It wasn’t always like this,” EV says.

“What happened,” Sloth asks, looking over at an overgrown gas station.

EV looks over at it with him. “I’ve never met anyone that knew so I don’t know that we’ll ever know.”

“We need to keep moving in that direction,” Pride says, pointing. “Be sure to keep an eye out for springs and running water. If we find one, it will lead us right back to a Yoi.” He looks back to see Mezameru overhead and that the day is marching into evening. “Let’s be on the lookout for a place to take cover as well. I doubt we will be getting out of the city before nightfall.”

The group continues to make their way in a general direction. They travel through the city blocks, seeing various landmarks being reclaimed. EV walks past a utility pole and traces his finger along the handle of a motorized scooter that is merged with it. The vines growing over the two of them make the scooter look like metallic and rubber blossoms emerging from the overgrowth.

He walks past and looks back, where he does a double take before stooping in his tracks. He walks back over and stoops close to the curb as something protrudes from the busted concrete there. The others had walked around the opposite side of some cars parked along the street but Gluttony notices EV turning back. He goes back to see what EV found this time and others take turns stopping to look back.

“What is it,” Gluttony asks as he bends down with EV.

EV shakes his head. “It’s grass,” he says with his words sounding awestruck instead of dismissive.

“Uh, say what now?”

“It’s grass but it’s really bright grass.”

“So you’ve been distracted by both a cemetery and by grass? Hmm, I may have been being too lenient when I only called you weird.”

EV smiles and looks back up to him and then remembers Gluttony’s predicament. “Sorry, I’m still not use to the only seeing physical thing. It’s not just grass, it’s the color.” Gluttony just stares at him as if expecting more. Oh gosh, EV thinks. How in the world do I describe color? Everything they had seen up to this point had been the similar shades of green, brown and gray. This is different. It is exceptionally vibrant and to a point that EV hadn’t felt like he had seen color until just now. “I’m sorry but I just don’t know how to describe it in a way that you would understand—You can only see physical stuff? Like shapes?” Gluttony nods. “Well imagine you’ve only ever seen straight lines and corners. Everything and everywhere was always blocks, even people. Then imagine seeing something curved for the very first time and not being able to comprehend how it wasn’t a line or a corner.”

Gluttony seems to think about it. “So the curve is color?”

EV shakes his head and starts to smile. “Not quite. But if you could take that curve, turn it over, and use it to slide really far, really fast—that would be something like color.”

Gluttony nods. “That does sound like it would be something neat.”

The others walk up to see what the two are focusing on. Pride looks over and glowers when he sees the grass. “We’re getting close to a Yoi,” Pride says. “Get ready to see a lot more of that.”

Sloth walks over and sees the grass as Pride begins to speak. “Why would grass be related to the Yuffies?”

Pride exhales, pausing for a moment. “This is only found around -Yoi- and becomes more abundant as you get close.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait—you’re saying we came all this way for something that changes the color of the grass?”

Pride looks at the deteriorating cars next to them and then over to nearby buildings that are almost completely obscured with overgrowth. “I’d say it’s doing a little more than just affecting grass. Look around,” he says, gesturing with the flat of his hand. “Why do you think any of this is the way it is. Look how everything even remotely close to it is drained of whatever life once inhabited it. Do you really think something like this grass is going to thrive where everything else has died? It’s not difficult to understand that the Yoi are the reason those things died. The Yoi thrive because they feed on all the life around them.”

EV looks around at the vines overgrowing the buildings. “But all of the buildings are overgrown by something other than these Yoi so aren’t they thriving too? How would they take over everything if they weren’t? Maybe the opposite is true and the Yoi are just getting cut off and drowned out?” EV continues talking but mostly to think out loud and not expecting a response.

Pride shakes his head. “Look, you’re new here and apparently haven’t even seen a Yoi before so you’re going to have to trust me on this. We have been doing this for a while so I’m sure you can understand that we know a thing or two about what’s going on here. Would there really be a guardian for the tree if it wasn’t necessary to keep it locked down?” Pride looks over to Greed and taps him on the shoulder. “Keep an eye out here. I’ll go scout around and see what I can find.” Greed nods and Pride takes a couple of steps away before leaping into flight.

Sloth raises his hand. “Holdup, did he say a tree? What tree?”

Gluttony elbows Sloth. “The Yoi,” Gluttony punctuates. “The Yoi is a tree, dummy.”

“Say what now? A tree?” Gluttony nods. “Are you seriously saying that, not only are we fighting impossible monsters, but we’re fighting nature too?! Like when are we stopping with all the reveals? We might as well add weather to our plan of attack—wait, you know what? Yeah, I think I want that on my bucket list so let’s try to work in some weather when we can, yeah?

Greed crosses his arms and purses his lips while Sloth finishes his rant. “Are you finished?”

“Why would the guard attack us,” EV asks. “If they are only keeping the Yoi locked away, why would they attack us?”

“It’s not surprising,” Greed says. “Any prison guard would do the same if you tried attacking who or what they had locked away.”

“So they preserve them then,” EV says. “A prison isn’t intended to be a place of destruction. It’s more likely that it’s a quarantine of some kind—but why they would need to be quarantined is only another question and not an answer.”

“So there’s not really a point in worrying about any of that then,” Greed says. “I’m just repeating what I’ve heard but there’s definitely something off with them.” Greed looks down the street and sees Pride circling in the distance. He beacons to the group. “Let’s head down this way. Looks like he might have found something. The party begins moving again and Sloth kicks the tuft of grass as they move on.