Kokoro was the last one to wake up, but she might as well as been the first, everyone was so silent. Shura, amazingly, tried to start a conversation a couple of times, but no one seemed up to it. They all went through the motions of washing up and eating in complete silence, not looking or speaking with one another.
Finally, Shura put his plate to the side carefully and stood up irritably. “Hello! What are you all, mute? None of you have any excuse not to speak, besides you Yumi! And you’ve always managed to communicate SOMEhow! I’ve had enough of this! Anymore and I’ll go crazy.”
The girls stared at him. Yumi was the first to ‘speak’, so to speak. She signed, “I think you already have.”
Kokoro just stared at Shura. “That was the longest string of words I’ve ever heard you say.” She remarked. “Heck, that was probably a lecture, or a speech!”
Maiko shook her head slowly. “Amazing!”
Shura’s cheeks turned a deep, bright red. “Augh!” he said, throwing his arms up in the air as they began to giggle, then laugh. He sat himself down with a huff, thinking, ‘at least the tension broke.’
Luna, who was back in cat form, stretched lazily, rubbing against various people and getting fed. “Luna, you already had your food.”
Luna stretched, meowing prettily. “This way I get the tender pieces from EVERYbody.”
Kokoro rolled her eyes, and Maiko asked, “What did she say?”
“Believe me, you don’t want to know. You’ll feel like you’ve been betrayed.”
Everyone finished eating, and they began the hike back to the path. Kokoro mind-asked Luna, ‘Is it just me or is Yumi avoiding me?’
‘I’m pretty sure everyone noticed, Kokoro. Think yesterday thru thoroughly. You might find the problem.’
‘Luna, that’s impossible. WAY too much stuff happened yesterday for me to mentally shift through it all under an hour.’
‘When you were berserk? And Hawk and Yumi?’
‘I was only ‘partially’ berserk. And…’ Kokoro thought for a few moments, then realization dawned on her. “Oh My.. Shit, no wonder Yumi’s avoiding me! I can’t believe I did that!”
She had remembered the moment when she had so cruelly ordered Yumi to shut up.
‘Aaah!’ Kokoro felt like hitting her head against the tree. ‘I’m so stupid! I’m so stupid! I can’t believe I did that.. I- ughhhh!’
Luna sighed. ‘When you are done berating yourself for you stupidity, you might want to apologize to Yumi.’
Kokoro sighed.
“Let me borrow Yumi for a sec.” Kokoro said, slipping the little girl off of Shura’s shoulders.
Kokoro let herself and Yumi fall back. “Yesterday.” Kokoro began, gulping slightly. “I- I probably scared you really badly. I- I’m sorry I was being so callous, Yumi. I don’t have much experience with children.”
Yumi carefully tapped something out on Kokoro’s head. “I wasn’t’ scared.”
“Of course you weren’t.” Kokoro said quickly. “I’m sorry Yumi.”
“I forgive you.”
Kokoro smiled. “Seriously? You mean it?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool!”
---
By the time they reached the path the first coolness of morning had begun to dissipate. They found, upon arrival at the path, that they’d showed up a while ahead of where their battle had taken place, and so the bandits were nowhere in sight.
“Let’s check the map.” Maiko said suddenly. “I want to check the map.”
“Huh?” Kokoro said. “Uh… Ok, I guess.”
Kokoro knelt down in the dirt, spreading the map open on the gravel. “Hmmm. Here.. Is that right? Yeah, this is where we are. And this is our destination, and this is the bor- Woah! Hey, wow, we’re close to the border! The border into the Land of Lightning, Guys, we’ve almost made it!”
“Hey, really?” Shura said, leaning down eagerly to stare at the map with Kokoro. The rest of them crowded around, trying to catch a glimpse of the map.
“Yeah, in fact.” Kokoro laughed. “The border is just a little while away!”
----
The five of them stared at the little building and the man inside it. They were hiding behind a bunch of bushes.
“Ok.” Kokoro stood up, brushing dirt off of herself. “Let’s do this!”
“Wait.” Maiko grabbed at Kokoro’s sleeve, looking at her. “Do you really think we should? I mean… We’ve been avoiding officials until now.”
Kokoro reached down to pull Maiko up. “You are a citizen of the Land of Lightning. You were born there! Nothing will happen, I promise!”
*
Maiko looked pointedly at Kokoro. They were in the back room of the building, facing the police officer. “You were saying…?”
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Chapter notes: Hey guys! I probably say this every chap, but, sorry for the long time no update! ^^ and sorry for the short update.....
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The gang have finally come close to their destination! But..?