Chapter 9: Chapter 9: Nakiri

Chapter 9: Nakiri

 

Parth watched as the lady doted on the three kids. There seemed to be a genuine affection between all four of them. All doubts in his mind were gone. There was no way that she would stand by and let the girls go to separate teams. He could see it in her eyes.

Just like Parth, the male D’Raac also looked at the scene with a soft smile on his face.

“Ms. Nakiri, big bro was teaching us how to fight,” said Amber proudly as she took a basic stance and began showing off to Nakiri.

“Oh? Did you ask him to teach you?”

“No ma’am. I helped him with mana manipulation. He taught us to return the favor,” said Opal.

“Opal, stop taking credit. We taught him together,” said Amber as her face scrunched up in annoyance.

Nakiri just smiled fondly at the two of them and turned toward Zircon.

“Little Zirc, are they telling the truth?” she cooed as she bent down to Zircon’s eye level. Instead of drawing into herself as Parth expected, Zircon instead stood straighter.

“Opal gave him some tips. We didn’t do anything else mo-Miss…" she stumbled on the last word.

Nakiri just chuckled in response and pulled the three girls into a hug.

“Go and thank your… big bro is it? Go and thank him. We will then go out to do some shopping,” she said as she let the girls go.

"Thanks, big bro. Will you teach us tomorrow as well?" Amber asked eagerly.

Before he could answer, his ring beeped. He could already guess what it was, as Opal had her screen out and was meddling with it.

“Sure. I’ll let you know if something comes up. Otherwise, I’ll teach you. In return, will you all let me know if I am doing anything wrong with my mana?” he asked as he pulled up his own holo screen. True to his guess, Opal had sent a connection request through the proximity feature. As he accepted it, two more requests popped in, and he accepted them all with a smile.

Now he had six contacts. Opal, Zircon, and Amber Redwood joined Roul Z’Chi, Old man Gyn, and Viggo Vang in his burgeoning list of connections in Viz.

“Alright girls, you have to go and get ready. Go on ahead. I will be right behind you,” said Nakiri. 

The girls all bid him farewell and were escorted outside by the D’Raac that had come in with Nakiri.

The lady in question though stood in her place, scrutinizing Parth. All the expressiveness that she had around the kids vanished. Right at that moment, she stood poised with a perfect poker face.

“I am Nakiri Tetsuyumi, governor of sector seventy-seven. With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” she asked with an air of formality.

“Greetings, Lady Tetsuyumi. My name is Parthasarathy Parandhaman. Please call me Parth,” he spoke, trying and failing to emulate a proper formal demeanor. The Governor of a sector was a big deal after all. He didn’t want to make a bad impression.

“Greetings, Voyager Parth. Likewise, my given name would suffice. After all, you’re now the friend of the children. You don’t need to be so formal with me,” she said, still looking at him as if she was measuring his worth.

“Of course, Lady Nakiri,” he responded at once. A part of him remembered a second too late that the Japanese placed their given names after their family name. Then again, people here generally said their given name first regardless of heritage, so he couldn’t really tell.

She nodded and he let out the involuntary breath that he had been holding.

“Are you planning to spend more time in this training hall?” she asked.

“Not really. I was just about done.”

“Splendid. Would you please accompany me on a short walk then?”

“Of course.”

 He then followed her as they left the training arena.

“Forgive my presumption, but I wanted to get a measure of you,” she finally broke the silence.

“There’s nothing to forgive, milady,” he said.

She hummed in acknowledgment. She then glanced briefly at his forearms and focused back on the path ahead.

“You are the Pygilist,” she stated.

“Yes, I am,” he replied. The tattoos were not really hidden.

“I also see a signet ring, albeit on the wrong hand and the wrong finger. It does mean that your patron used their entitlement,” once more, she stated facts. 

He didn’t have anything to say to that. He did wonder where she was going with all this.

“Makes me wonder why your patron did so. The Pygilist is a powerful artifact, but it is not strong enough to warrant using an entitlement. No matter, we'll all find out once everyone has finished their selection."

"I haven't met my patron yet, so I can't tell," he said.

"As is the norm. Alas, my case is a tad different," she said. Throughout the walk, he had observed her, and not once did he see her expression changing at all. She kept a tight leash over it and gave nothing away. It was both intimidating and impressive.

“The girls?” he guessed.

“Indeed. The triplets. Their arrival changed everything,” she said.

"I might be out of line. But since the moment I met them, I thought that they were all on the same team. That was the only thing that made sense, given that they already have their… signet rings."

He didn't even know that they were still called signet rings. Colloquially, everyone just called them rings, so he had gone along with it. Just what sort of formality was this?

“Fret not. You are making informed guesses, just as I did. Moreover, you are correct. I am their patron. That is my team.”

“So, I thought that every patron had only one entitlement that they could use.”

“You were not mistaken. Every patron has only one entitlement. I did use it. Fortunately, other resources can also be used if you have a working plan or a relationship with other patrons,” she said.

Parth nodded in agreement. He himself had been allied to Roul’s team now after all. His original patron wasn’t the one who was in charge of him anymore.

“How did you come across the girls?” she asked abruptly.

“I was trying to get my mana under control. Trying to use it more efficiently. They came over and told me that I was doing it wrong. I offered to help them in return. It didn’t sit well with me; kids like them having to fight.”

“The dungeon doesn’t differentiate between the young and the old. All it wants are its sacrifices; it’s food. A vile creature. Worse than the monsters it summons alongside the voyagers,” she spat, her face finally displaying emotion once more. This time, it was fury.

"You will hear all this from your patron, but for the sake of convenience, let me tell you. Our main goal is your survival. All of yours. The competitive aspect of it comes after the worst comes to pass. After the dungeon is forced back into its century-long slumber," she said.

“Wouldn’t it be easier for our survival if all of us stuck together?” he asked.

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“A valid question. Some of the patrons of old had a similar question. We were told time and time again that having smaller teams and alliances was the easier way for you all to survive. So, some questioned it just like you did now. Care to venture a guess how it turned out?”

Just the fact that she was asking him that question meant that it did not end well.

“It didn’t go well?”

"An understatement. A few times in the distant past, the patrons went against Emperor Byrone’s edicts. They pooled everyone together. It was calamitous. Each and every single time they attempted such methods, it ended in calamity. Sometimes it was a trap set by the dungeon that killed them in droves, sometimes it was a massive creature that bested everyone in a single vicious battle. Such a large group was slow and had a lot of personality clashes. It was only as strong as its weakest link. Unfortunately, there were a lot of weak links. It is also known that the longer you stay in the dungeon, the faster it kills you. It is a contradictory statement, but it will make sense once you go through your briefings."

It was sound logic, but it still didn't sit well with him.

“How did they stop the dungeon then?” he asked.

“Our history books are filled with Centurions who rose above the rest. True warriors who survived such calamities and came out victorious. Alas, such voyagers are few and far between. The circumstances of their victories over the dungeon could be called miraculous.”

Parth nodded solemnly in response.

“All this advancement in technology you see is something relatively recent in our vast history. The synthires punched through their barrier of technology in the last millennia. Their growth slowed down when they satiated their nutritional needs. We didn't stay stagnant though. We benefited greatly from the scraps of technology they initially dragged along with them during the transport. We built better technology from that.

"Before that, all we knew were painstakingly physical records and limited surveillance. The aid we could provide was limited. We had Byrone's ingenious designs, but the people on hand who could interpret and implement them were minuscule. We used to depend solely on magic; magic, which we were not the masters of. It was also a limited resource. Magitech revolutionized our way of life. We overtook the synthires within a century. The number of survivors from the dungeon was catapulted due to the rise in technology. All that; all that, and I still have to send three little girls to fight for their survival," her face exuded a cold fury by the time she stopped talking.

He silently listened as he figured out that she had more to say.

"We all learned to obey the King of Kings' words without question. Making efficient teams is the best way to ensure maximum survival. That's why we trade and expend favors to make the best team possible. The primary goal is survival. Once they survive, we can put on a little show and find out who stands atop the rest. Once they survive…” she trailed off. 

They kept walking in silence as a heavy mood loomed over them.   

She lifted her hand, and the screen appeared in front of her. Instead of using her other hand to navigate, she used her thumb to touch the base of the ring and made gestures on the button located in that place. He had seen them in the tutorials but never used that feature. It did seem incredibly convenient, and equally difficult.

Nakiri quickly clenched her fist and twisted it as if she were opening a door. Now that the crystal was facing him, the screen zoomed and came to a halt in front of him.

“Cool,” he muttered and froze as he saw the screen.

On the screen was a picture that looked like a family photo. It was of Nakiri, a man, and a child. The man- presumably her husband- had green eyes and green hair. He looked happy, at ease, and had one of his arms over Nakiri’s shoulder. His other hand was poking the cheek of the child. Nakiri herself was looking content. In her arms was the child. The child was what had shocked him. Green eyes, green hair, and a face incredibly similar to the triplets. The child resembled both her mother and her father. Yet, if placed alongside the triplets, they'd easily pass for quadruplets.

The resemblance was uncanny. 

“My ancestor came from Funar’s version of Japan. She came here several centuries ago as a voyager. My line has always had blue hair and blue eyes. My husband’s family didn’t have green hair and eyes until a few generations ago. It may be a massive coincidence, yes. Funar has a lot of mixed heritage since people travel more often with their own wings. But even then, nobody in our lines looked so similar to these children. I checked."

“Is it possible that you had a common ancestor at some point?” he asked.

"Maybe, maybe not. I can't bring myself to care at this point. The temporary allotment of advisors is random. What are the chances of my advisor being assigned three children that exactly look like my daughter? It shook me to my core. Then they bonded to the three artifacts that completed a set. With a precognitive like Emperor Byrone at play, I can only consider it a sign of fate,” she said emphatically.

“It’s possible,” he said, not agreeing completely.

Pragmatically speaking, there wouldn’t be any teamwork issues with these three. All three of them getting artifacts from the same set could also influence their performance greatly.

Parth had quickly learned that most people here put a lot of stock into Byrone’s foresight, and triplets getting all the artifacts of a three-part set sounded right up a precog’s alley. It could be a coincidence, but he knew that most D’Raac didn’t believe in coincidences. They fervently attributed most things to Byrone’s grand plan.

It was not just D’Raacs. Many of the long-time natives of Tava were like that, but some D’Raacs took it to another level.  He could see that much in the media and literature he had consumed so far.

He personally believed that Byrone foresaw many accurate things, but the culture over here had grown to a point where they chalked up everything to the dead emperor’s visions. It was not healthy to fixate on coincidences like that, no matter how improbable it was.

"I lost my daughter and my husband. Now, fate has seen it fit to give me three more daughters. They even look exactly the same. I won't allow them to die under any condition. My alliances are there, but I don't care for a victory. If you can help them, please do so. In the dungeon, outside of it, whatever is in your power, please do so. I implore you. I will reward you with anything you desire. All that matters is that they return to me alive," she said as she turned around and gripped his shoulders. Her eyes were a little wild as she tightened her grip.

He could understand her anguish. He could empathize. She had lost her family, and she was now responsible for three girls who looked like her daughter. It was not a good place to be in.

“I will help them. They are good kids,” he said.

She smiled and nodded her head as he let him go.

“Thank you for understanding. It has been a stressful time for me. I just can’t bear the thought of losing them again,” she said.

By that time, they had almost reached the quarters once more.

“It’s no problem. As you said, survival is the primary goal. Although, I was curious about how you got them all in the same team,” he said.

“Politics. I made several concessions to two other patrons. Their sectors would benefit from those concessions. It was not like that would adversely affect my sector as well. Any issues can be mitigated with the excessive wealth my family left behind. I could part with that easily.”

“So, they used their entitlements to lock onto a triplet each and then traded to your team in exchange for the favors?”

“Just so. Of course, that means that I am allied to their teams as well. Given that your patron has already used the entitlement, I would wager that they too have a strong alliance if they can afford to use the entitlement this early,” she explained. 

As they neared the quarters, he could see that a sleek machine was parked out front. The D’Raac that initially accompanied her stood outside the car in wait.

“It is rare to get multiple people from a single locality. We have never seen voyagers who have been triplets. Rarer still, that all three of them completed an artifact set. I could see the doubt in your eyes when I was talking about fate. I am not swayed as easily by things such as fate. Alas, all of these improbable factors add up to something that can no longer be called just a mere coincidence. So, I believe,” she said with a smirk.

“It’s not that-” he began in a flustered manner.

“At ease, Pygilist. It is ironic. I joined with dreams of winning it all. But the moment I saw the three of them, I couldn't hold onto that dream. I will do anything for them to survive. When they do, they will return with me to my sector. If they allow me, I will adopt them. I know that I only met them a little while ago. But they remind me too much of my daughter. I couldn't help but be involved in their wellbeing the moment I saw their files," she finished as they reached the vehicle at last.

Right on cue, the girls ran towards them from the quarters in a hurry.

“Gaining three daughters was more than I ever bargained for. I would have been happier if I had a boy to raise as well,” she said the last part as her eyes lingered on Zircon. “Yet, I won’t do anything to change what I have now. My greed has no place here. I am happy with what I got.”

“I could see that you care for them deeply. Even before you told me all this. I could also see that they’re attached to you,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said with a genuine smile. “They led a lonely life back on Funar. They told me that they lived in a mining town, and had lost their parents long ago in a cave-in. Their life here will be different. I guarantee that.”

He could do nothing but nod. The entire conversation had been pretty much one-sided. But he realized that she had things to say, so he didn’t speak much.

“I don’t expect you to sacrifice yourself to help them. I only ask of you to give them aid if they require it,” she said.

“As I said, I’ll help them, Lady Nakiri.”

“Thank you for your kindness, Voyager Parth. If you need anything, please don't hesitate to ask me. I am glad that they found a good friend in you," she said.

Parth didn’t know the specifics of the trade, nor did he think that he’d ever be told. What he knew was that the triplets were not in it to win it. Lady Nakiri was more than fine with it. All she wanted was for the triplets to survive. He could appreciate that.

In comparison, his goal of winning to sate his bruised ego seemed downright childish. Alas, a man must do what makes him feel alive.

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