Pruned Trees Re-Sprout!! ~ Ragazza Volpe Magica ~

Riva Solare, 2010AR

The final school bell rang for the day and with it, hundreds of children (both Maestro and Resonator alike) escaped the confines of the public educational system. Among them were two particular children – a blonde girl, and her brunet brother. They lived close enough to the school to be amongst the “walkers”, those who couldn’t partake in standard bussing to and from school. They had to, as the name implied, walk to and from the campus each day.

It wasn’t grueling labor, maybe a twenty-minute walk if they hustled. But on this Friday afternoon, the pair were taking their time.

“Sucks that everyone’s busy this weekend.” A much younger Aura let out a sigh.

“Yeah. Boring weekend,” Shouri replied, adjusting the bag on his back while he walked. He glanced at his older sister. “You’re almost fifteen though,” he noted suddenly.

“Why do you bring that up?” The sister raised a brow.

“I was thinking about it and maybe you’d be able to get Mom and Dad to let you get a Resonator.”

The pair came to a stop on the sidewalk, cars passing by as the background tracks to their conversation. “I was thinking that too. Some of my older friends say they get some serious cash being hunters,” the girl told her brother, her eyes following a Maestro and their Resonator chatting with one another as they walked down the street.

“How much?” the younger brother inquired, snapping his sister out of her thoughts.

“On a good night, a couple hundred notes,” she replied.

“Couple as in like two?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow, two hundred notes.”

For a ten and fourteen-year-old, that was quite a bit of money, even coming from as wealthy of a household as theirs.

The pair resumed their quiet trek home. Another boring day it seemed.

Or was it?

They passed by a park where the siblings played with their friends. Shouri came to a stop while his sister kept walking. Something felt strange. It was a feeling he had never experienced before.

There was a pull on his very being, the essence of his soul, his rhythm. Wordlessly, the brunet-haired boy followed his sixth sense, moving into the park. Guided by an invisible string that tugged him along, ignoring the protests of his sister who had found her brother walking deep into the park.

By the time Aura caught up to him, she found him standing near some bushes, gripping the straps of his bag tightly.

“Shouri, what are you doing?” Aura asked her brother, resting a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t give a verbal reply but simply pointed to the bushes.

The shrubbery began to rustle of its own accord and suddenly a head popped out.

“Ah!” Aura yelped, jumping back at the sudden third child.

They were a Resonator, a red-haired cat-girl. As she stepped out of the bush, she dusted herself off. It was clear her clothes were well worn, a dirty blue t-shirt and shorts, but she didn’t enjoy the leaves and twigs that attempted to hitch a ride.

“Who are you?” she asked, her eyes squarely on Shouri.

“I’m Shouri, this is my sister Aura.” He motioned to the taller girl next to him.

The cat-girl looked the two Maestros over. “Okay?” She furrowed her brow.

The young boy just stared, seemingly awestruck by the red-haired cat-girl standing before him. “You’re a Resonator,” he blurted out.

The girl couldn’t help but smirk. “That’s really what you’re going with?” She put her hands on her hips. “You gotta ask a girl her name first,” the cat proclaimed.

Aura rolled her eyes, but Shouri took the bait. “What is your name?” he asked as demanded.

The cat girl giggled. “My name is Mila,” she spoke the truth. “Why did you come sniff me out?” she made the relevant inquiry.

Shouri shuffled uneasily, adjusting the bag on his back. “Well, I...” he mumbled some things under his breath. “I dunno.” He lowered his head.

“Ehhhh?” Mila smirked. She reached out and poked the boy’s chest. “I know you’re a kid, but come on, can you at least say something like ‘I felt something right from you?’.” Poor Shouri couldn’t manage any words and lowered his head, curling up ever so slightly in shame. “Or maybe you want to say ‘Can I be your Maestro?’,” she made the bold claim.

“Eh!? I-I never said that!” Shouri yelped.

Mila’s smirk approached dangerous levels of smugness, as she had a total read on the boy. “Oh yeah? Well, first-” She drew close to the young Maestro. “-you gotta catch me!” she shouted before bolting off.

Not expecting any of that, poor defenseless Shouri ended up falling on his rear as Mila rushed away.

Aura couldn’t help but laugh at her brother getting played. But he wasn’t having any of that. Shedding his backpack, he gave chase. “Oh?” Aura raised a brow, watching as Mila easily toyed with the boy, dodging his attempts at catching her.

He wasn’t the type to play like this. What was with that cat?

Time passed and Aura watched Shouri trudge after Mila from her front-row seat on the swing sets. “Is... that all you got?” the chased in question huffed, walking backward away from her pursuer.

“Not a chance.” Shouri breathed hard, coated in a thick layer of sweat and dirt. “Cause you’re about to fall for it.” He suddenly smirked.

Mila was nothing but on guard, and trod lightly. She felt the soil she was stepping back into was weak – one of the spots Shouri had fallen onto earlier?! Pivoting around she stepped away from that tiny pitfall, only to hit a second pitfall he had dug into the dirt to the left of his first one.

“WHAT?!” she shrieked before hitting the ground hard. She didn’t even have time to process what happened, as the next instant she was tackled and pinned to the ground by the Maestro she had spent the last hour or so tormenting.

“GUH!” Mila yelped, being winded by the sudden attack.

Aura just slowly clapped from her position on the swings.

Shouri pushed himself up, keeping Mila under him. “I got you,” he wheezed.

Mila stared up, now the awestruck one. “Y-you did,” she whispered.

“Shouri! We gotta get going!” Aura’s shout snapped the pair out of their locked gazes.

“G-get off!” Mila pushed the boy off of her and scampered away.

Shouri sat on the ground, still processing what exactly had happened. “Hey!” Mila shouted. “I want a rematch! You best come back here tomorrow!” she demanded.

In a strange turn of events, he returned her demand with a reply: “Sure!”

Back in the present, Shouri’s current trio of Resonators digested the meeting of their Maestro and who could be considered their predecessor.

“Mila was a cat you said?” Pacifica asked.

“Mhm, Fire-Shielding.” Aura nodded. “She also had pretty strong rhythm for her age,” the elder Maestro noted. “Shouri could always feel her presence from a considerable distance away.”

Taika lowered her head. “Like me,” she muttered.

Rebecca and Pacifica looked at the lunar fox. They didn’t really know the exact specifics behind Taika and Shouri’s initial meeting, but where she differed from them is he sought her out instead of the other way around, all despite his weak willpower suggesting that he’d do anything but.

And it sounded like his meeting with Mila went the same way as Taika’s initial encounter with him.

“Anyhow,” Aura began once more. “We did go back the next day.”

Shouri returned to the park where he had met Mila the day before. Aura was with him, mostly out of a lack of anything better to do with her own Saturday.

“Is she even here?” the sibling asked of her brother. He replied with a quick nod.

Walking into the park, there were far more people here today than the day prior, it being a weekend and all. Either way, Shouri was already wordlessly walking to his destination. Notably, he was going a completely different way than the first time they had met the cat-girl.

“Where are you going?” Aura asked, noticing the discrepancy.

“Mila is this way,” he insisted; his eyes focused forward.

With some trepidation, Aura followed along. Sure enough, he was right on the money and as soon as they approached a different set of bushes, Mila popped out.

“You came back.” She was surprised.

“Of course I did,” Shouri replied as if it should have been obvious.

The cat seemed a bit flustered, looking around before focusing back on Shouri. “G-good! Now I’ll definitely win this time.” She nodded to herself, confident in today’s victory. “We're playing hide and go seek,” she announced. “And you’re gonna play too, lady.”

“Me?” Aura pointed to herself, surprised at being roped into the festivities.

“You’re it.” Mila poked Shouri in the forehead, pushing him back. “You have to find me and her. Count to a hundred!”

Shouri frowned. He wasn’t the best at these types of games but just went with it. Turning to a nearby tree, he kept his eyes closed and began to count aloud.

“Ah fuck,” Aura cursed under her breath, trying to decide where to go. She watched Mila bolt off at an impressive speed. “He’s never going to find her,” Aura chuckled before jogging off to find a hiding place of her own.

“Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, One hundred.” The boy turned around to find himself alone. Well, alone in the social sense. There were tons of people around, but nobody he actually knew. Even so, he was drawn in a particular direction.

Mila had decided to climb a tree on the other side of the park, figuring that Shouri would never find her there. However, when she poked her head through the leaves to see if she could spot him wandering around helplessly...

“What the heck?!” she hissed to herself. Shouri had finished counting and was walking directly towards the tree she was in. Surely, he couldn’t have figured her out, right? No no, he just happened to be walking in her direction. There’s no conceivable way he could find her so easily.

However, he marched on to her hiding spot. She ducked back into the tree proper and pushed her back against the trunk, trying to keep herself small. If nothing else he wouldn’t be able to find her up on the branch she was sitting on.

“I found you, Mila.” Her ears twitched as Shouri’s voice reached them. She squeaked in surprise and lost her balance, falling right onto the boy who startled her.

“You cheated!” She immediately was on the defensive.

“Ow... how did I cheat?” the boy questioned, still pinned to the ground by Mila.

“You didn’t even look! You just walked straight to me!”

Shouri averted his gaze. “Yeah, I did that,” he admitted nervously.

“Aha! So you did cheat!” the cat-girl exclaimed.

“I couldn’t help it! There’s like this weird feeling like I just know where you’re at!” he shouted back.

Mila was thrown off-guard by this. “Is that a thing?” she hesitantly asked.

“I dunno. I haven’t met too many Resonators,” he replied.

The fire-cat was dubious of Shouri’s claim. “Another match!” she declared.

“Wha-?”

“I don’t believe that you can just ‘know where I’m at’! I have some killer hiding spots – I bet I can stump you.” She smirked, still holding the higher position physically as she sat atop him like he was her throne.

“But I-”

“Another match!” she repeated.

And so, the contests were had and poor Mila was found every single time, without a second guess in Shouri’s step. She even tried to stay on the move a couple of times, but no matter what, he followed her like a bloodhound, seemingly able to sniff her out no matter where she went.

Eventually, evening fell on the park and the cat girl collapsed onto the ground, covered in sweat and just plain exhausted.

“I give up! You’re so weird!” Mila shouted, frustrated by her sound defeat.

Shouri frowned, hurt by that comment.

“Ah, I-” Mila realized what she had said and sat up. “W-wait, I didn’t mean that!” she fretted, her ears folding back. “I just... it’s so weird to me how easily you can find me,” she admitted.

The boy wilted – there was that word again, weird.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. Turning to leave, Shouri was grabbed by the cat-girl.

“I said wait darn it!” she cried out. “I just never had anyone play with me before. I’m just a dirty cat.”

He turned to her. “What do you mean?”

“Have you really not figured it out yet? I’m a stray.”