Chapter 117: Parade Balloon With Stunning Waist
Hikari woke to the feeling that the bed had forgotten her.
No weight on her back. No tug at her shoulder blades. Her hair lifted off her cheek like it was underwater, and the blanket beneath her had a dip in it that didn’t actually touch her. The medical tent was dim and warm: a low kettle, the generator’s hum stitching through everything.
"Easy." Raizen’s voice, close. He was sitting on a crate beside her, elbows on his knees, a tin cup in his hands he hadn’t remembered to drink from. "Don’t rush anything."
She turned her head a little. The world sloshed and steadied. She put her palm down to push herself up and met a soft, invisible resistance a finger above the mattress - like a spring too polite to be seen. She tried again. Same push, same hover.
"Since when do beds... not...?" Her voice sounded like it had been folded and put away wet.
Raizen set the cup down and held out a cloth. "You picked up some Eon residue" he said, gentler than the words. "It hangs on for a bit."
The cave. The light becoming an explosion. The room shouting. The ground jumping underfoot. The way the world had turned to chalk and bells and then slid sideways.
"How long... Have I been out?" she asked.
"Four hours and a little" he said. "You slept. You tried to sit up once, in your sleep. You muttered something and went right back."
"I did not."
"You absolutely did."
Her mouth tried on a smile and decided her head would charge too much for it, so she let it go. A little thread of her blanket floated up and refused to fall.
"What about you?" she managed.
"I had my turn." He lifted his hand and held it, palm-down, over the cot. His fingers hovered a knuckle above the sheet as if there were a pane of glass neither of them could see. "Half an hour."
"And Feris?"
The tent wall thumped. Then a muffled clatter. Then: "I hate physics!" - Feris’s voice, outraged and, somehow, pleased to be outraged.
Raizen didn’t sigh. He got up, parted the flap, and stepped aside.
Feris came in side-on, because coming in straight would’ve required cooperation from a universe that had denied her on principle. She was bobbing a handspan above the floor, both boots uselessly dangling, scraps from her broken shoulder armor still dangling. She drifted - floated - reached - touched - and pushed herself gently away with a tiny, helpless hiss.
"It’s like walking on soap" she announced. "Who decided the ground is quite literally optional."
"Stop moving" Raizen said, moving with her.
"I am trying!!" She rotated anyway. A rolling tray chimed when her hip brushed it. Forceps slid, lifted a whisper off the metal, and clinked back down. "Useless legs. It’s like they’re decorative only."
Hikari would’ve laughed if the act didn’t feel like it had fees. She flexed her fingers. The air disagreed politely and held them a little higher than she intended.
"What about the entrance?" she asked, because someone had to.
"Blocked" Raizen said, catching Feris by the forearm. His hand slowed and stopped a thumb’s width before touching, like an invisible glove on her skin. He adjusted, took her by her sleeve instead, and steadied her in the middle of the tent. "The plate shifted. She completely blew it up, and the... Second shockwave apparently made us float."
"Elegantly" Feris added.
He gently pushed Feris’s arm, which made her spin a degree, which insulted her, which made her spin another degree. Then, she finally stopped spinning, and just floated in place, defying gravity.
"Yeah, I love spinning. But not this much. This counts as standing." she declared.
"Of course it does" Hikari said. She tried to slide a hand under her cheek to soften the way her head sat. Her palm bounced off the same invisible cushion.
Raizen found a small needle dial clipped to the cot frame and gave it a look she recognized: the one he used on bad numbers. The little pointer jittered above a painted line and then thought about dipping below it.
Hikari watched his eyes rather than the needle. "Is it going down?"
"It’s thinking about it" he said.
"I am not" Feris said. "I am going up. Someone scratch my nose. If I try, I will accidentally headbutt the moon. Oh wait. Not even you can." She sighed.
Raizen exhaled. "You were the closest to the blasts. From what I’ve been told, this... Whatever this is, it’s extremely rare.
A voice cracked over the camp speakers outside: Alteea, too awake for this hour. "Status check. If your feet are not on the floor and you didn’t intend that, say something. Keep to separate tents until you stop being embarrassing to physics."
Raizen clicked his comm. "Hikari’s awake."
"Good" Alteea said, and Hikari could hear her building three more sentences and choosing none of them. "Do me a favor: don’t make sudden moves. Your little fields get bigger when you’re dramatic." A pause, dry. "Tie Feris to something that won’t sue you."
"What you’re asking is ridiculously close to "no can do", so please don’t request impossible stuff" Raizen said.
Hikari let her eyes close. Behind her eyelids there was a shape of darkness that didn’t belong to the tent - soft, tall, standing in a place where light should be. No face. Only the suggestion of someone. It tugged at an old room in her chest and then slipped, like a dream that refuses to be held.
"What?" Raizen asked, too quick, then stopped, catching himself. "Sorry. That was a question."
"It’s fine." She rubbed her temple and felt a bump under her hairline, tender to the touch. "I dreamed. Not... anything useful. Just -" she moved her hand in the air and the invisible layer pushed back - "a shadow. Familiar. Blurry."
He nodded once like that would be the best answer.
Feris made an interested noise. "Did I dream?" She squinted, searching. "Nothing. That’s unfair. If I’m going to float, I should at least get a vision."
"You got to break a door twice" Raizen said.
"True." She rotated again and glared at the pole like it had chosen this for her. "If gravity had a face, I’d punch it. Hard."
"Don’t" Hikari said. "It would let go."
The generator’s hum deepened a half step. The air in the tent prickled, a static crawl along canvas and hair. On the tray, the forceps lifted the width of a whisper and rattled back down again. Nobody breathed for the space of three heartbeats, which was ridiculous and human.
"Okay" Feris said brightly to kill the moment. "Someone tell me something nice. Or make fun of me. Either works."
"You look exactly like a very angry parade balloon" Raizen offered.
Hikari almost smiled for real. "A tiny one. With a stunning waist" she murmured.
Feris put a hand to her chest. "At last, a compliment."
Raizen dragged a crate closer, sat again, and opened his mouth - then shut it, catching himself before another check-list escaped. He poured water and passed Hikari the cup, keeping his fingers under the rim so the field would allow it. The cup took a delicate extra second to reach her hand, like the air needed to negotiate terms. She sipped. The world in her head shifted, not better, but truer.
"You carried me?" she asked without looking up from the cup.
"Yes" he said, as if there wasn’t a version of the world where he wouldn’t have.
"What if I’d floated away?"
"How would I know? I would have floated away, too! You got lucky, though. The road back was more than half an hour. And this field is making you impossibly light. But going through snow, while levitating... Wouldn’t recommend. Don’t try it." he said, and left it at that.
Outside, voices moved past - boots in snow, the low, embarrassed jokes of people who refused to be impressed by physics. "She’s not floating" someone insisted. "She’s... Auditioning for altitude." Another voice: "Shut up, Jin." Laughter. The relief kind.
Hikari let the tent come in and out of focus. The kettle hissed and rested. The lamps throbbed softly. She realized she was breathing shallow and tried a deeper breath; the invisible spring at her back yielded, then pushed her gently up again. She surrendered and let it.
"Head?" Raizen asked, softer than a question.
"Drawing circles. Annoying ones" She tried to pinch the bridge of her nose. "It’ll go."
"I can go yell at Alteea for you" Feris offered.
"Please don’t do that" three people said at once, including Alteea, who had apparently never left the line.
"Everyone in that tent take smaller breaths" Alteea continued, the sound of keys and a dozen windows moving under her words. "Yes, I know that’s not how breathing works. Humor me. If something starts slowly climbing again, tell me before it thinks it’s a game. I’m trying to come up with a solution... Hikari’s dropping, little by little. I’m afraid that Feris, your numbers don’t show signs of stopping."
Hikari closed her eyes and drifted a whisper closer to the cot. The blanket kissed her shoulder through the field, then withdrew as if remembering a rule. "What do we tell the others about the shaft?" she asked. The words came out without agenda, only shape.
"Later" Raizen said. "Safe, or not at all."
"Copy that." Feris rotated, thoughtful, which was new. "I still think rocks should come with labels."
"These did" Raizen said. "We ignored them."
"Turn Back isn’t a label" Feris said. "It’s a dare."
Hikari exhaled a breath she hadn’t noticed she’d been holding for some time.
Outside, the mountain said nothing at all. No voices, no illusions. Thankfully, nothing blew up, with Feris now floating, higher every second.