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

Warm

Comfy

There was some sort of soft heat source within Taika’s grasp. “Oh,” she let slip from her breath. Fiery red hair with face framing yellow bangs, velvety fox ears folded back, and a content smile.

Slowly her red eyes opened, and Rebecca’s sleepy gaze met Taika’s.

THUD CRASH!

“OW! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!”

“P-PERCHÉ ERI DORME CON MI?!”

Taika had ejected them both from the bed and sent them to the ground, putting the bed between them. The Lunar fox trembled with a bewildered glare and a splash of red on her face.

Rebecca refused to reciprocate the confused glower. “Y-you looked lonely; I-I thought you could use some warmth,” she mumbled under her breath, seemingly forgetting she was talking to a fellow canine who could hear that as if she was shouting it.

THUMP THUMP

“Ch-che?” Taika squeaked, hand over her pounding heart.

Pacifica’s door slowly opened. “Whaa the heck is goin on ouhere?” the water element said through a yawn, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Are they dead?” they heard Shouri inquire from the depths of the otter’s bedroom.

“Are you dead?” Pacifica relayed the question groggily

“W-We’re fine… I think,” Rebecca decided slowly. Taika remained quiet but nodded in the affirmative.

“Good.” And with that, Pacifica turned and retreated into the bedroom.

Pacifica snuck a peek at Rebecca who was bundled up in a blanket on the loveseat separate from the main couch. The quartet was watching a movie together in the living room. Shouri and Taika shared the couch with Pacifica.

The social-savvy otter could sense tension between the two fox-girls; however, it wasn’t the usual animosity that they typically shared.

“Hey,” Rebecca spoke up, drawing the group out of their movie experience. “You should go hunt tonight,” she told them. “You’re probably stir-crazy from taking care of me for the past couple of days.”

“We’re fine.” Shouri shrugged. “Besides you’re still not feeling well,” Shouri pointed out. Checking her tuner, Shouri found her status was still marked as “Illness”. It was convenient the tuner tracked her physical condition to such an extent, but it did concern him that she wasn’t in fighting condition.

“That’s what I’m getting at: go without me,” Rebecca urged. “You, Pacifica, and Taika got along fine before I came along. I’ll be safe here,” the fire Resonator pointed out. Though she was pushing them, the fire fox was frustrated with her current ailment.

“I don’t want to leave you alone,” Shouri insisted.

“I’ll be fine. Pacifica’s parents will be here by the time you leave,” Rebecca added.

“Let’s go Sho,” Taika chimed in.

The other three present looked at the lunar fox. “We should trust her,” she added, quieter.

Rebecca didn’t say anything further but raised the blanket she was wrapped up in above her nose.

Shouri’s eyes were locked onto his waist, only two tuners at his side. Pacifica and Taika flanked either side of him as they waited in line at one of the western hunt sites set up outside the city limits.

Pacifica, sensing her Maestro’s heavy heart, placed a hand on his shoulder. “She’ll be okay.”

The Maestro in question balled up his hands tightly. “I hope so.”

Taika mimicked her fellow Resonator’s gesture, gently resting a hand on the opposite shoulder. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

All he could muster was a slow, short nod.

“Next!”

Snapping to, Shouri approached the makeshift stand set up for check-in. “Tuners,” the attendant demanded. The Maestro handed the black and blue devices over, where they were quickly scanned in. “You’ll be in the main group tonight.”

“Huh?” Shouri and his Resonators stared blankly.

“It’s not full?” Pacifica asked.

The attendant motioned to Taika. “You’re the first group today with a healer.”

Shouri furrowed his brows. That was certainly odd. Healing attribute Resonators weren’t rare by any means.

Pacifica picked up on her Maestro’s curiosity and spoke for him, “Where are all the healers?”

“There’s a big Scherzando hunt at the north site, a lot of the healers in the area went up there to help. Heard it’s a nasty one that came down from Mobina from what I’ve heard,” the attendant informed them.

Looking around it did seem like there were much fewer people here than the southern hunter base camp they had visited a few days back. “Well, thanks.” Shouri nodded, moving out of line with his Resonators.

“Where’s Mobina?” Taika asked as they walked down to the hunt. She took hold of Pacifica’s hand, noting how dark it was starting to get.

“Oh right, Rebby isn’t here,” Pacifica whispered with a tinge of sadness. She shook her head, to clear the intrusive thoughts. “Mobina is a city to the north of Lake Lagrand,” she told her fellow Resonator.

“It must be pretty bad,” Shouri suddenly spoke.

“What is?” Taika questioned

“The big Scherzando. If they’ve sent a bunch of healers to help deal with it,” he mused aloud. In his hand he was on Taika’s tuner, checking the latest local news reports about it.

“That guy at the desk didn’t seem concerned about us being here and not there, so they probably got enough volunteers,” Pacifica posited.

Unlike the situation in Riva Sranvi, all the news reports were as recent as today. It seemed the people who lived in and around Canolapra cared more about letting a big Scherzando run amok than down there.

“Let’s just focus on tonight’s hunt,” Pacifica suggested.

“Right.” Shouri returned the tuner to his side and turned his attention to navigating the brush.

It wasn’t long until they located the main hunting group, illuminated by firelight. It was a smaller group than they were used to, though unfortunately they were acquainted with two of the participants this evening.

“SHOURI TOMOSHIBI!”

“Aw fuck.”

The red-haired woman wearing the matching letterman jacket and blue jeans that had chased them out of the Canolapra Natural History Museum marched up to Shouri and his Resonators. Both Pacifica and Taika stood in front of their Maestro and raised an arm defensively, glaring down the other Maestro.

“What?” Shouri asked from the safety of his two Resonators.

“You have a lot of fucking nerve running like that!” The woman cared not for the two Resonators that stood in her path toward the Maestro.

Both girls tensed up, wondering if they were about to fight a Maestro directly. Thankfully, Amika was halted by a smaller boy grabbing hold of her jacket. “Amika enough!” The boy in question was a small thing with red hair. He had small, but fluffy rodent ears atop his head and a fluffy red tail behind him.

“Andi let me go!”

The other Maestro boy who was with Amika at the museum before ran over and also helped pull the angered Maestro back.

“Enough!”

“Leo fuck off!”

“Sorry.”

Andi, Leo, and Amika stopped their bickering and struggling, turning their attention to the one who gave the apology. “Sorry for just… ditching you all before,” he clarified.

“Sh-sho’s been through a lot,” Pacifica spoke up for her Maestro, hesitantly lowering her arm.

“Please forgive him,” Taika added, following her fellow Resonator’s gesture.

Amika batted the two boys off of her but didn’t immediately rush down her original quarry. She continued to glare down Shouri, who remained in place, returning her glower with a stoic expression. Next Pacifica and Taika were subject to the wrathful woman’s scrutinizing gaze. Finally, she turned away and with a huff spoke her mind.

“Fine,” she huffed. “Name’s Amika,” she addressed the two Resonators that didn’t know her. “I’m a geophysics major at Canolapra University.”

“I’m Leofwine, Leo for short. I’m their friend, and I’m studying ecology, same school,” He added.

“Anthony, or Andi; Amika’s Resonator. Fire-Crushing Chinchilla,” the red-haired Resonator added.

At this point another Resonator had joined the group, they had aqua-colored hair with small triangular ears atop their head and a fluffy tail with a black tip to match. “Chena’s the name, I’m Leo’s. Water-Slashing Stoat.” She curtsied for the group.

“I’m Pacifica, Water-Piercing Otter; nice to meetcha!”

“T-taika, Lunar-Healing Fox.”

With the introductions out of the way, they joined the overall larger group and began to hash out the night’s strategy.

Much to Shouri’s chagrin, he was shoved into Amika and Leo’s group, and they were tasked with taking the group of Scherzando in the center of the woods to put them equidistant away from the other groups (in case something went awry).

“Of course, they paired us up,” Shouri grumbled as they trudged deeper into the woods. Amika, Leo, and their Resonators were tailing behind, just out of earshot. Given Rebecca’s absence, it fell on Amika and her fire Resonator to provide the light for their activities (Not that Shouri or Taika needed it).

“This always happens, Sho,” Taika pointed out.

“Dunno why you’re so surprised.” Pacifica playfully pushed her Maestro’s shoulder.

“Let’s just focus on not dying or letting someone else die,” he huffed.

“Ever the optimist.” Pacifica rolled her eyes.

“It’ll be fiiiine,” Taika chimed in.

Meanwhile, Amika and Leo chatted amongst themselves while they trailed behind Shouri and his Resonators.

“A lunar and a water,” Amika noted.

“He had a fire Resonator at the museum,” Leo observed.

“Hella strong too, was hoping to see her here. Wonder what happened,” Andi added.

“I dunno, that otter girl is no slouch herself.” Chena pointed to the Resonator in question ahead of them.

“Didn’t Lina say she hunted with him the other night?” Leo recalled.

“Yeah, said he kept pace with her no problem, even using three Resonators the entire time,” Amika hummed. “I wonder how accurate that claim is.”

“She was always soft for him,” Leo said with a shrug.

The side conversations died down as they came across the first group of Scherzando milling about in a large clearing. The three Maestros gathered together and crouched down under some foliage for cover. The trio’s four total Resonators knelt, staying on their toes to spring to action if needed.

Andi had lowered their lights down only to one or two dim fireballs to minimize their visibility. Taika maintained the highest alertness, given her superior hearing and night vision.

“Wait, are you crazy?” Amika hissed, noting the size of the group they were facing.

“Seriously dude?” Leo added.

Shouri blinked. “Hold up, what are your spell levels?” he asked.

They both flashed their spell lists, mainly hovering around Piano rank, with one or two Forte spells. Not too terribly strong. Notably, neither Maestro had an ossia spell to their name, while he had at least two to three on his Resonators.

“Ah. We have finally become the damage dealers.” It dawned on him. Pacifica and Taika exchanged smug smirks. “How are your spells so low? You’ve had Andi and Chena for years,” Shouri pointed out.

“Sorry for not being a hardcore battle nut like you.” Amika gritted her teeth, resisting the urge to feed him a knuckle sandwich.

“We do this super super casually. This is the first time we’ve been out in a few months, school finally let up for the summer,” Leo added, more calmly than his counterpart. “Figured we could earn some spending money this way.”

Shouri sighed. “Okay, here’s the plan.”

…

Amika, Leo, and their Resonators took their positions as instructed. “So how much do we trust Shouri?” Andi questioned, noting the general feel of the Scherzando they had crept closer to. It was almost overwhelming how strong these beasts felt to him. If their cover was blown, he doubted his ability to protect Amika effectively.

“If he lets us die, I’m gonna haunt the SHIT out of him,” Amika growled, trying to keep her voice down.

“His plan seems sound to me. It comes across as practiced,” Chena mused quietly.

“At least our part is low impact,” Leo added.

They waited until the appointed time, having agreed to use the clocks on their tuners to synchronize their assault.

10:34:56 PM

10:34:57 PM

10:34:58 PM

10:34:59 PM

10:35:00 PM

“L'onda di tempesta, Accelerando!” Leo cast.

“Anello di Fuoco, Tenuto!” Amika commanded.

Chena slammed her hands on the ground, a river of water springing up from underneath and extending out to capture the Scherzando. The beasts were pushed into the center of the clearing, illuminated by the moon overhead.

Andi bolted from cover, getting into range and casting a ring of fire around the dazed beasts, capturing them within the blazing circle.

Right on time, Shouri, Pacifica, and Taika ran into place, sliding to a stop. None showed a sign of hesitation or fear. Shouri drew the two tuners of his Resonators from his side and without looking at either screen barked out his commands:

“Taika, Magifiamma, Legato! Keep them from escaping!”

“Pacifica, Loro Formato Lunare Lago, Legato! Wipe ‘em out!”

Both Chena and Andi perked up from those spells being called. Andi’s eyes were locked on Taika, Chena on Pacifica.

Seven orbs of purple fire blazed to life around Taika, beginning to hover around her. The eerie flames only completed one orbit around their caster before flying towards the ring of fire to attack and dissuade any further movement from the trapped Scherzando.

Pacifica grinned toothily as she thrust an open palm skyward. The clearing began to darken as a mass of ice began to form in the sky, eclipsing the moon. The two other Maestros had to practically pick their jaws up off the ground as the artificial space rock ballooned well above the size necessary to deal with this group of Scherzando.

With a playful wink and a giggle, Pacifica waved the comet spell out of her control, casting it toward their target. Gravity took over and the giant ball of ice made contact with the earth, snuffing out the fire ring and with it the group of Scherzando in a huge explosion of ice, dirt, and debris.

Amika and Leo sat on their rears having been knocked off their toes from the force of the impact. When the dust cleared, they saw Shouri and his Resonators standing unfazed by the chaos they had just wrought.

This was routine for them.

This was their normal.