Chapter 20: Bird Brain

Chapter 20: Bird Brain

Naru stumbles backwards, clearly stunned. It's not like I've done any actual damage to him the raw Firmament pumping through him is enough to deflect my fist, and it's only the use of Barrier that prevents me from breaking my fist again.

It's satisfying, though. Especially the look on his face this combination of stunned and outraged, his feathers puffing up around his face in a way that looks utterly ridiculous.

The Firmament I tried to inject into him is, unfortunately, useless. I blame it on him having a thick skull; I might as well have tried to puff air aggressively at him, for all the effect I had.

Still worth it. What an absolute ass. I'll have to practice more if I want to get that technique working.This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.

Naru smooths out his expression after a moment, doing his best to look unruffled and unbothered. "Interesting," he says.

I don't like interesting. I didn't punch him to be interesting. Naru gestures in the air, like he's pulling up his own version of the Interface, and frowns at it.

"It's been eleven loops and a few days... You're stronger than I would expect for that amount of time." Naru frowns. "But it's not that impressive," he adds, like he needs to make sure my ego stays in check. I try not to roll my eyes, and he makes a noise not unlike the sound of a human clicking their tongue.

When I don't respond, he continues. "This must be the first time we're talking, or you wouldn't have punched me. Or I suppose you could be very stupid. Not unlike some of your fellow Trialgoers. One of you died on the second day of their Trial, can you believe that?"

He gives me a glance, like he's trying to bait a response out of me. I stare at him, keeping my expression carefully blank.

Inside, my mind is racing. Whether he's aware of it or not, he's given me a crucial piece of information the time loop is restricted in its scope. The rest of the Trials are still running, and people are dying.

I don't have as much time as I'd hoped.

Naru seems to misinterpret my silence as fear. He laughs a single, short laugh, and then waves an arm dismissively. "You are, at least, clever enough not to respond to that," he says, and then a note of something more serious enters his voice. "But I do need answers. Why don't you tell me about how this Hotspot appeared, and we'll pretend you didn't try to kill me?"

It's not like I know. But I don't tell him that. It's the one piece of leverage I have over him.

"Why don't you tell me why the Integrators are targeting Earth?" I challenge him instead. "You can't tell me the Interface is actually meant to reward us, and frankly, I don't believe that they're testing us with the Trials. They want something."

"I don't know, and I don't care." Naru shrugs. "I was rewarded enough."

I suppress the wave of disgust at that statement. Tarin and Mari are both wonderful people. What happened to Naru to make him this way?

He's not the only person on Hestia that passed their original Trial, either; that's something I'm going to have to be wary of. Tarin told me as much, and I wonder now if he'd meant it as a warning. There are others here, likely working for the Integrators, likely to be just as or even more powerful than Naru himself.

Though whether they feel the same way about the Trials as Naru does remains to be seen.

"Why was I chosen?" I ask instead. The original message from the Interface claimed we were randomly selected, but I don't believe that, either; if the selection was truly random, something like a quarter of us Trialgoers would be children. They'd end up with infants in the pool, even.

Also, I'm just lying to see if he'll slip up. It's entirely possible it's a random selection from a limited section of the population

"I'm not in charge of Trialgoer selection," Naru says, and I resist the urge to smile. "Besides, you should be grateful. I started my Trial nearly being eaten by a large cat."

I got stabbed by a giant mantis four times in a row, but you don't see me complaining about it.

"Now, are you going to tell me how you activated this Hotspot?" Naru glances around. "I don't really want to be here for too long. The air makes my feathers itch. And it's too close to home."

"Why aren't you worried?" I snap. "Tarin's your father! Mari's worried sick over him!"

Naru gives me a flat look. "I don't owe you any answers," he says. "If you aren't going to cooperate, I'll just take you with me. We need to investigate why exactly you're so strong, anyway, so I guess I'm going to have to do that anyway. Don't worry we'll make sure you don't remember a thing. Gotta keep to the spirit of the trials, after all."

He smirks at me.

I leave a flower in the spot where I buried him anyway, and then think about what to do next.

The obvious next step is to talk to Mari again, and see if there's anything she can tell me about her son. I'm early enough in the cycle that I think she might not even have checked on Tarin yet it gives me an opportunity to get to her and talk to her before she does.

As for Naru... he's an asshole. That much we've firmly established. But I'm going to need to get past him. Either I wait him out and I don't know if that will work; it depends on whether he's waiting for me or not or I find a way to bait him into leaving.

There's more I need to understand, too: he'd said the color-pooling Hotspot was used in the fifty-seventh Trial. How many Trials have there been on Hestia?

I know someone that might know the answer to that question.

Ahkelios springs up as I activate Temporal Fragment, his mantis-form balanced steadily on my shoulder. He hops up onto a nearby log as I try to find the right words to broach this topic.

"You recognized him, didn't you?" I say.

Ahkelios nods, but it's a restrained nod. He's not as eager to speak as he usually is. I'm no expert with mantis body language, but the feeling of fear resonates down through our bond, followed by a complicated feeling that translates roughly to 'really doesn't want to talk about this.'

He does anyway, after gathering himself for a moment. "I don't remember the specifics," he says. "But I think he hurt me. A lot."

I'm not surprised, but I feel something in my chest tighten in anger anyway. "Do you remember that particular Hotspot?" I ask. "He said it was supposed to be from the fifty-seventh Trial. Maybe that was yours?"

"If it was, I don't remember it." To his credit, Ahkelios gives the topic serious consideration, but eventually shakes his head in frustration. "I'm only a small piece of myself."

A fragment. He doesn't say it, but I hear the words anyway.

"Are there others like Naru?" I ask instead. "He said he was the seventh successful Trialgoer. There have to be others on the planet."

"There are." Ahkelios pauses, straining to recall something, and I give him the time he needs. "There are... ten in total, I think. Naru is the physical one. There's one that can fuck with your mental Firmament. She's terrifying, but she doesn't usually show up unless you do something that really disrupts the loop. That's all I remember."

Shit. That's important information. "You think Mari will know more?"

"I don't know who that is?" Ahkelios tilts his head at me. Right. I haven't introduced him to the crows yet. "Are they a local?"

"She is, yes," I confirm. "I uh... I think she's Naru's mom."

Ahkelios visibly winces. "Oh."

"She's nice, don't worry." I give the mantis an encouraging smile.

"If she's a local, she probably knows a bit about Hestia's Trialgoers, but the Integrators aren't very public about what they can do," Ahkelios cautions. "Name, species, appearance stuff like that is pretty public. But their abilities are locked up pretty tight."

"Right," I sigh. "That would be too easy."

Ahkelios gives me a smile. "You'll figure it out."

I raise an eyebrow, and I don't think when I speak next. "Is that really you speaking, though? Or just the Interface?"

Ahkelios falters slightly, and I see something that looks like genuine pain and worry in his eyes. "...I don't know," he says.

I feel a bit like an asshole when he cuts off his own connection, there, his Firmament fading into atmospheric noise. I shake my head and force myself to my feet. I'll find him some cool plants or something to apologize I'm clearly still shaken from my encounter with Naru.

But first, I want to talk to Mari. Let's see what she can tell us about her son.