Mutual Understanding

“How about a temporary alliance?” Toki offers his hand towards the boy, waiting to see if he will shake hands with him.

The boy extends his hand, meeting Tokis. “I'm Kazu hoi. What about you?”

“Toki Kojima”, they both shake their hands, forming their temporary bond, with a slight turn of his hips. He waves his other hand up in the air to signal that they can come out now.

Shina steps out first, followed by Hiwo and Ayuri, who walk towards the camp until they meet face to face with the boy.

Ayuri looks across her face, meeting his brown eyes before exclaiming energetically, “This is Hiwo and Shina, and I'm Ayur, just use those names. Nice to meet you!”

Kazu nods. “I'm Kazu hoi. Thank you for allying with me. I apologise if my music power affected you in any way.”

“Where is the rest of your group?” Shina doesn’t waste time; her red eyes were already scanning the area, noticing the absence of anyone around them.

With a hint of fear, hesitation and complementation, Kazu's voice weakens down to a lower tone. “They left for the forest where you came from for the last two hours when I started seeing those creatures. I haven’t spotted them once yet.”

Seriously, they haven't even summoned their deity to attempt to gain their support, either.

Toki asks nonchalantly, “Are they strong? What deity are you all from?”

Kazu lowers his gaze clearly; the barrage of new people and various questions strains him in this current moment.

“Toki… Relax a bit.” Ayuri shakes her head in disapproval at his continuous efforts.

With a bright smile, she takes Kazu's hand before leading him to the tent they had in the camp and closing it from the inside, the darkness flooding their vision with a subtle grey shadow all around them, masking their faces. Ayuri's white hair was the most visible thing inside the enclosure.

“I'm sorry for the pushiness. Your violin playing was beautiful. It made me cry like crazy.” She points to her red cheeks, which reddened from the crying, trying to lighten the mood.

Kazu looks towards her, feeling guilty not even being able to meet her eye. “I'm sorry; I didn’t mean to upset you.”

She shakes her head. “No, it's fine; we're quite similar, you know. Both too weak to fight, yet our abilities provide a supporting role.”

“It hurts, however, seeing everyone trying to fight to protect me.” Kazu’s mouth shakes with anger.

Ayuri nods, affirming his thoughts. “That's why we should work harder to support them more. Your power is great for scaring off those creatures. If you survived for two hours by yourself, they must have faith.”

“My music affects them entirely. I could feel it spreading all around them. They are most likely fully composed of magic,” he remembers back an hour ago when he spotted one of them trying to go towards his camp.

Ayuri scans his body. He seems sad still; the worry of his teammates must be eating him up.

“They are going to come back. Focus on yourself for now! Believe in your deity's power,” she gives a soft, reassuring smile.

Kazu sees her trying to light him up and smiles back, not wanting to hurt her kindness she's trying to portray.

“We actually decided not to use the symphony's power. Our symphony didn’t really consider our taste, so talking to him is rough.”

Ayuri sighs outwards, “Deities are always so full of themselves when it comes to us, even Falsity. Our goddess decides to be rude to us, always mocking us!”

They both let out a soft chuckle at their predicaments.

“So, what's your power? If you don’t mind, answer,” his tone was clearly trying to express that her privacy could be kept, but it came out as shaky.

Ayuri smiles grimly. “I can get rid of any person's power until their elimination. That's it. I'm basically an equal trade-off.”

“Do you carry a weapon? Other than the spear the blonde guy had, you all seem empty-handed.” His concern was evident, especially considering what could be lurking to kill; being underprepared was a bad sign.

The inside of the tent started to shift hues; it became much darker once again, and there was a mixture of colours trying to penetrate the tent, mixes of pale yellow and silver hues, making it instantly apparent that the next interval is about to begin.

Ayuri notices the darkened tent instantly, offering a solution, “You can use that power to keep us safe, Kazu. We're relying on you.”

Kazu softly nods before opening the tent back. Shina pushes him aside before going straight to Ayuri. “Are you fine? Going into a closed chamber with an enemy could get you killed.”

“I'm fine; we're allied now, actually, so don't be so mean.” Ayuri steps out of the tent, her eyes taking in the sky shifting back to its mixed state. Kazu follows soon after taking a glance at his violin.

“I can play for the next two hours, but I need to rest after. Take some headphones from the tent,” he points over to the other tent.

Hiwo leans down, going inside, scavenging through everything they had put in there, and he finds three pairs of headsets, exactly the amount they needed, considering Toki's immunity.

“If someone attacked, they would be doomed without these things; making only three makes it so the enemy can't ever be fully protected.” A dark chuckle escapes Hiwo.

They put on their headphones, readjusting them as needed; they were all brown in colour, reflecting off the violin's colour and its bow wood texture.

Kazu walks over to the log where he left his violin to lie; his footsteps had a new will powered into them, for the first time knowing he could keep someone directly safe from any threats, even if it was someone other than his own team.

Ayuri gives a thumbs up towards him. “Begin whenever you sense something.”

Around fifteen minutes had passed until the first shadow started moving towards them from the forests. They seemed to take pride in hiding in the dark surroundings, Kazu sending the nearby presence to start playing the dreadful, sorrowful tune that reminded everyone of their worst moments.

The headphones for the team were too efficient; there wasn’t any sound going through them at all. It completely blocked out his power, but at the cost of communications, Toki stands near Kazu, unaffected, making sure to keep watch for the current creature lurking around the forests.

Ayuri, looking over towards the forest, sees the creature's diminishing hunger as it doesn’t clearly want to move towards the camp; joy spreads throughout her body. The violin's effectiveness proves to be insanely overpowered in this scenario; they hit a gold mine by finding someone like this.

I understand you, Kazu. Prove to me that we, as supporters, aren't just pieces to be used and discarded.

Ayuri's face shifted to one of determination to prove to herself and Kazu that they weren't completely defenceless.