Act 4: Trial of the seven islands - Chapter 3 (II)

No matter how hard he tried, Kyusaku really couldn't fall asleep. He didn't have much of an appetite either, especially since most of the food served in the park was seafood. Just seeing a fish was enough to make him feel sick again. With things like that, they decided to move on to the next island, hoping that he'd forget about this nightmare. This was supposed to be a vacation, after all; they had to at least have a bit of fun before going home!

Their next stop was the Island of Greed. As soon as they stepped foot there, they were greeted by a bustling marketplace, which had a lot more tourists than the previous island. The warmth of the sun, and the cheerful voices of everyone around them immediately put them in a better mood, and they decided to take their time looking around the various shops after heading to the hotel to drop off their belongings.
As they made their way through the crowded streets, something immediately caught Kyusaku's eyes and had him freeze in place, eyes wide, before backtracking and leaning over the items on display to make sure he hadn't seen wrong. Miyaji followed behind, then the elf tugged on his shirt to get his attention.

"Look at these, these are super rare volumes!" He exclaimed, not daring to touch the ancient books laid out in front of them. "Master had a copy of that one, I remember them saying it took years to find it. And that one only had a few copies produced! The one in the back here was published more than three hundred years ago and–"

"Oh, forget it!" Miyaji loudly declared, interrupting him. "Your pocket money can't buy these anyway."

Before he could protest, his partner firmly grabbed his wrist and dragged him away, ignoring his complaints before stopping a bit further and leaning over to whisper something in his ear.

"The second trial has already started."

Kyusaku came back to his senses, suddenly remembering that spending all of his money to grow his collection of ancient books would be considered greed. I almost fell for it! He realized, ashamed that he could have been so easily seduced by antiques and rare books.

"Now that you mention it," he said to change the subject after having a quick look around, "almost all of this market is an illusion. The only real vendors are those selling souvenirs."

Miyaji let out an admirative whistle. "I never realized you were so good at detecting illusions. Not anyone is able to pinpoint the limits of such a large-scale illusion..." He praised him. "But if that's the case, why did you fall for it?"

"Ahem. My Master was very good at illusions, and constantly changed their appearance," the elf explained, deciding to completely ignore his comment and hope he wouldn't tease him about it. "Being raised by them, I naturally developed this talent."

"Why did they do that?" His partner wondered, arching a brow in confusion. "Come to think of it, you never told me much about your Master, not even their name."

"... I don't know their name. Or their gender. Or race. Or anything else, really."

Truth be told, Kyusaku was a little ashamed of this. He was raised by this person, and could describe all of their mannerisms, list everything they liked and disliked, and recite all the adventure stories they told him – yet he didn't even know the most basic things about them.

For a long time, especially after they died, this greatly troubled him.

In his youth, he believed that they would naturally tell him more as he grew up, and so stopped asking questions after a while. He thought he had all the time in the world to learn who this Master of his really was, and that they were simply waiting for a good opportunity to tell him. Maybe they just thought he needed to be a bit older before he could understand, or something like that.

In the end, that opportunity never came, and for a long time it greatly upset him. Was he really going to have to call them Master for the rest of his life?

The two of them resumed their walk towards the hotel, and the elf told his partner everything he knew, describing how his Master had a different identity each day, only recognizable by the hourglass earring hanging from their left ear. That earring in particular was still very vivid in his memories, as it left a deep impression on him.

"It contained sand that was of the brightest, purest shade of blue I'd ever seen. Supposedly, it was natural sand from their homeland, and while I think the sand was real, I have never seen anything like it again and have no idea where their homeland was either or even what it was called."

"Well, that's certainly not much..."

"Supposedly, they were changing their identity to fool a powerful curse cast on them. I've already heard of this method; if the curse can't identify its target, it won't be able to hurt them. Most curses are only fed very basic information about their target, so changing your name is a simple way of avoiding it if you can't break it."

His partner listened intently, sometimes frowning as he seemed to have thought of something.

"I've never heard of a curse so potent that one had to change their whole identity to avoid it, though. Maybe it was a possession case, and not a curse?" He suggested. "Did your Master ever act strangely when they changed their identity?"

That was a good point, and he had never considered this before since he never doubted what his Master did tell him. He took a moment to think before shaking his head.

"No, they were always the same person, to the point that I could tell it was them before seeing their earring. But their appearance varied a lot. In the end, I have no idea what their actual face was... Sometimes they were an old woman, sometimes a young and handsome man with golden hair, other times a child with long blue hair in a braid and a look on their face like they'd seen things I could never imagine."

Kyusaku couldn't help but think that it was no wonder it took him so long to heal. There were so many things left unsaid, so many unanswered questions – how was he supposed to move on?
The fact that his Master was very much not dead – despite what everyone seemed to believe – only made it harder. If they really were dead, he could just leave it at that and accept that he'd never know the answer to those questions. But knowing that they were alive, somewhere, only posed more questions.

Why didn't they come back? Why didn't they come back to see him?

He shook his head and let out a sigh, tired of this line of thought that he had forced himself to suppress countless times before.

"Let's go buy some souvenirs," he said all of a sudden. "It's my first vacation ever, I can't come back empty-handed!"

Miyaji smiled and followed him. "Will your pocket money be enough to buy one?"

"Oh, shut up!"

As they walked through the crowd, they spotted a few stalls with games similar to what he often saw at the local festival. There were some prizes to earn, and Kyusaku got curious. Approaching one of the stalls, he glanced at the prizes, his eyes stopping on a stuffed animal in the shape of a bird he had never seen before; it had a black body with orange and red wings and feet, a huge beak with the same colors, and large eyes with a white rim.

"What's this bird? I keep seeing it everywhere in the souvenir shops."

"This is a maawup, sir," the man behind the stall answered, rubbing his hands. "It's everywhere on these islands, so the park made it its mascot!"

"Hmm..."

"Why not play a round? Then you can get some maawup merchandise," he offered, gesturing to said merchandise – shirts, hats, keychains, and more. "They say the maawup is a symbol of good luck and protection!"

"Well, sure, why not."

The game was simple enough: coconuts that had been cut in half and painted in different colors were positioned in a circle. The participants had to throw rocks in them and would earn a different number of points depending on the color of the coconut the rocks landed in. Of course, the ones worth the most points were the hardest to reach.
The man mentioned that this was a game played by the local children, but Kyusaku knew from Miyaji that the islands and surrounding area had been mostly uninhabited since the war due to the magic that poisoned the land, until the owner of this theme park arrived – they were completely unimpressed by this marketing strategy.

Kyusaku threw the first rock.

"Don't laugh, I know my aim sucks..." He lamented as the rock landed way off mark.

"Let me do it," his partner said all of a sudden, grabbing the remaining rocks before he could say anything.

The four rocks all landed in the same coconut, far at the back of the circle – and worth the most points, of course. Astonished, the man congratulated him and praised his skills, saying he had never seen such an adept customer before.

"Sometimes you annoy me."

His partner chuckled, then looked at the prizes. "So, which one do you want?"

"... That one."

He pointed at the bird from before.

"I didn't know you like plushies," Miyaji commented, handing it to him.

The elf observed it for a while. "When I couldn't bear to look at the trees, Master bought a whole bunch of them to keep me company while I was bedridden. They'd bring me a new one every time they went out to town."

When he saw that bird, with the conversation they'd had just before, he couldn't help but be reminded of this.

"It has a silly but endearing face," he commented. "Kinda like someone I know."

"... Are you talking about me?"

"Do you consider yourself to have a silly but endearing face?"

Miyaji did not reply, only pondering the question with a complicated expression.

Kyusaku flopped on his bed with a sigh, feeling more exhausted than he did after a long day – and night – of endless, frustrating research that led nowhere. I thought this vacation was supposed to be relaxing... He lamented for the umpteenth time. At least today wasn't too bad. He realized he'd rarely had this much fun before. Of course, he loved his research, but it had frustrating sides to it.

He hadn't talked this much about his Master in a long time either. He never told Miyaji about them, but it was the first time in years that he had reminisced about his childhood and now he felt like he should tell him everything.

He was too young and traumatized when his Master took him in to remember much of his parents; the only parental figure in his life was his Master, who raised him on their own. He remembered which kind of tea they were always drinking; how messy their handwriting looked but how soft their voice sounded when they told him stories before putting him to sleep; that they had a terrible sense of direction, and seemed to always lose track of time...

Then they died when he had just turned twenty. They left for a job, and never came back. He couldn't remember, nor could he find the details of that job after looking everywhere in the Archives. He just knew that it didn't seem particularly dangerous, that they should have been back after a few days, but that there was an accident and that their body was never found.
This event was what Kyusaku had been researching for the past eighty years, on top of other related things such as illusions, curses, and mysterious and unknown lands, in hopes of finding even the slightest clue regarding his Master's death or whereabouts. With how mysterious they were, that they were still alive somewhere was a pretty huge probability.

After all, their ability with magic was far beyond ordinary.

With a sigh, he slumped on his bed, his mood soured and realizing he was getting stuck on this again. Maybe I should think about the things I know about Miya too... After all, Miyaji was very much like his Master: he knew everything about him, yet he knew nothing.
He started mentally listing everything he did know about his partner, like how much of a glutton he was, eating like he was always starving; he loved seafood in particular, and also had a sweet tooth. But even if he ate a lot, he never spent a lot, even making an effort to get everything he needed at the cheapest price he could find.
It wasn't like he lacked funds, since he lived at the Archives and didn't have any hobbies that required a lot of money. The only thing he regularly spent money on were romance novels. He's always reading a different one, I can't even remember their titles.

Then Miyaji's favorite color was... He actually didn't know that one. I'll have to ask him tomorrow.