My Normal Life Now Has A Journey Ahead

Even with all they had to risk, Tama couldn’t bring herself to check more than a few inventory records without wanting to give up and let her tired body feed the soil. Luckily they brought a bookworm scientist with them to do the hard part.

Izumi cranked out a plan of action fueled by her theories, applied sophisticated survey methods, and after hours of work, figured out what was stolen and when; she rushed off, leaving Sarine and Tama in the warehouse while she consulted the most available clairvoyants she knew.

“Psychic abilities…Is that even, like, real?” Tama said.

“Isn’t it a little too late to be doubting that!?”

“I mean, magic comes from Gods, okay sure, but mind powers? Where did we get that from?”

“Probably like…mutations, or something.”

“See? You don’t even know.”

“Give me a break, I've barely been in your world for a couple months!”

“You don’t have psychics in Faerie Town?”

“It’s the Faerie World, and no!!”

“Really?”

Sarine sighed, hands on hips. “Is that really so weird? We’re magic. There’s all kinds of different weirdness flavors out there.”

“I…guess not,” Tama said. “But you’re supposed to be the guide here. I thought you’d know all kinds of general shit to keep your Chosen alive. You sure you weren’t born into some kinda guide fairy pyramid scheme?”

“C’mon, I’ve never even been to the desert.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Ladies, ladies! I’m sure you guys are having an awesome time yapping about…whatever it is you usually waste your time on, but I’ve got plot info to give ya!”

Izumi kicked the doors open, waving a map in Sarine’s face. The faerie snatched it from her, finger jamming against a small, precise circle, before she showed it to Tama.

“Do you know where this is!?” Sarine shouted

“Uhhh…” Tama frowned. “Do I look like I’d know?”

Sarine sighed, turning to Izumi. “Sorry for my useless Chosen. Can you give us some coordinates and info?”

“Useless!?” Tama swatted at Sarine—she dodged, throwing the map at her. Tama caught it, tucked it under her arm and stuck out her tongue.

Izumi stifled her laughter. “Even now, you two are something else. I’ve never seen so much chaos from a Chosen pair we barely just met!…In good and bad ways. Not that I mind—it’s more research for me!”

Sarine looked down, while Tama rolled her eyes, stepping in front of the faerie. “So, the base?”

“Not a base—in fact, looks like my initial theory was completely off the mark.”

“…What?” Tama said, and Izumi stuck a finger in the air, pushing her glasses into place before they fogged up from her hot, excited breath.

“You see, my traitorous former mentor hasn’t stayed the flashy and attention seeking genius I remembered her being. Even if she put on a show staging Chiho’s public execution, she’s managed to reel herself in on stealing some beautiful piece of architecture to concoct her creatures in.”

“…Soooooo…”

Izumi grinned. “C’mon, we still have internet here.”

With some more nudging, Tama pulled out her phone and ran a search—the results brought up nothing but a large expanse of snow in the middle of the mountaintops. Though the warming weather would break the shield of frost within another month, for now it lingered at the peak.

“—I hate the cold,” Sarine spat. “She’s really living all the way up there?”

“Yup,” Izumi said.

“And we gotta go up there if we wanna get her ass?” Tama said.

“Double yup. C’mon, like she’d made it easy for you.”

Tama put her phone away. “I know…but, seriously. Guess we’re gonna have to hike—unless Society Prime is gonna help us instead of sitting on their ass and assuming Chiho’s gonna fix everything for them?”

“Weeelll,” Izumi said, gesturing to Tama’s hands—to the sword invisible to all, as of now—“Technically, she’s still fixing this for them. But there’s a lot going on behind the scenes you guys don’t know about. I know it’s easy to lay blame on the authority, I’ve done it plenty of times, but the world’s a big place, you know? A lot of magic, so much mystery—you’re both just a small part of it.”

Izumi put a hand to her heart. “But we’ll still be there to help. However we can—especially when it comes to amazing, better-than-magic equipment. For example, anyone order an automated sled? Because I’ve got a prototype sitting around here somewhere, if you’re both looking for one.”

Sarine nodded several times, zipping around the room before Izumi blinked. Tama turned to join her, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her. She turned around and saw Izumi, as serious as she looked when asked about Pleasa.

“C’mon,” she said, holding out a set of keys. “Show that asshole who the real genius is for me, will you?”

“When’s the last time you went to school?” Sarine said, throwing another pack of food into the back of the snowmobile before tying it tight into place. The sleek red vehicle offered decent snow protection while not skimping on being sturdy, but it’d still be a long, painful journey against the cold and Pleasa’s traps. They had to do everything they could to prepare before they committed.

Tama paused—and when she had to do that, she knew it’d been a while. “You know I didn’t stop going entirely. Just…skipped here and there. I’ve done the math—I’ll definitely need to cram in remedial classes, but I won’t get expelled, even with this trip.”

“There’s no way a university’ll be happy with that.”

“Who gives a shit. Not like I have plans to go to one.”

“Do you have any plans?”

Tama sighed. “Take a guess.”

Having nowhere else to put the snowmobile, Tama smuggled it back home and stuffed it in the bushes behind her apartment complex. Considering this direction faced a concrete wall tucked in front of an ugly, windowless building, she didn’t expect anyone to be snooping around back there anytime soon.

“…I guess I haven’t been paying much attention,” Sarine said. “Sorry.”

“’S cool. Better you save your energy so we can shred Pleasa—you got a better chance than I do, so do what you have to do.”

“Uh—right. Right…”

“Whatever it takes.” Tama raised a fist, and Sarine, hand trembling, placed her own upon it.

“…Yeah.” She let her hand drop, staring at the wall. In those meaningless sights Sarine knew not to search for anything else—but in Tama’s words Sarine had to try not to see the emptiness, and it ate at her.

Though she’d be the one to consume Tama, in the end. As she wished.

Sarine blinked to life as Tama began to trudge back to the apartment. She gasped, grabbed Tama’s shoulder, shaking it as much as she could. “Ow, hey, what the fuck!?” Tama grimaced, though that didn’t throw her off as it did so many times before. “Seriously, what’s the emergency?”

“I…” Sarine dug her small, thin fingers into Tama’s shoulder. It left no mark. “I wanted to…ask you something.”

“What. What’s so important?”

“It’s not—important, I guess, but I never got the chance to ask. So, like, let me finish.”

“Fine, fine, go ahead.”

“…Where’d that nightmare come from?”

Sarine couldn’t talk about it before. With everything that happened—she just couldn’t. If Tama wanted to say anything she would’ve brought it up on her own. Then again, Sarine figured Tama had a lot she needed to talk about but never wanted to, and so she wouldn’t, puffs of air in the frigid wind, burning bright white before disappearing.

Irrelevant. Nonexistent.

But Tama replied readily, albeit faced away. “Oh. Pleasa messed with me. She somehow got my mom’s SIM card and sent me a text as her saying I needed to move in with them. I should’ve figured it was fake from the start, but…I was tired, and dumb. It wouldn’t’ve happened if my damn parents just used an app like everyone else.”

Right.

That made sense. If Tama had to go, she would’ve been dragged away by now. Sarine didn’t doubt that.

She just wished Tama would see her—just this once. See Sarine as her partner again, and her own self as someone, not kindle to a fiery revenge scheme.

But she never said that.

She just…couldn’t.