(A child knocks on a beehive)
Fujima is hassling Keiaru for his payment of coins and has been for a few hours
"Will you cut it out already, I payed you long ago didn't I?"
"You threw me at that monster and you didn't even know if I could've caught it with my net! you owe me.." Fujima started holding his hand out gesturing for a coin constantly as Keiaru smacked his hand down before speeding off to get away from his nagging.
"Can't even pay me when it's her fault SOME ROYALTY YOU ARE!" his comment stopped Keiaru in her tracks as she quickly turns around chucking a coin at Fujima's forehead
she turns to continue storming off "There! Will you shut up now!" but as she looked back so Fujima could hear her shout more clearly she saw him dramatically playing dead.
"Oh- you wounded me!"
"Really...." Keiaru was moments away from going back to hitting Fujima since it shut him up when she "recruited" him.
"I may not make it... and if I don't I only hope to reincarnate as a silver scaled fish so I! can at least give someone more than a coin.."
"Why you!" she chases Fujima keen on hitting him as Renzo is cackling at the ridiculousness of the two.
As Keiaru is wrestling trying to get one of her arms free so she could punch Fujima her eye starts aching. Her pupil turns a pearl white as she stares at the net it seemed to call to her almost reaching to her, she reached back touching it. when she touched the net her hair seemed to shorten but it returned as Fujima grabbed the net.
"Fujima where did you get that net?" A drastic change from his his previous cackling Renzo was serious, almost stern, when he asked his question.
"I don't know. I had it when I was a kid"
"Has this happened before?" she pointed at her hand while looking to and from Fujima and her hand.
"No. did it even happen when you kidnapped me?"
"No it didn't"
Keiaru touched her hair though she didn't know what happened she felt something happening still though she was relieved.
"Lets keep that net away from me alright?"
"Sure no problem."
Their walk was silent Renzo was thinking on any curse or spirit that could be within the net, Fujima was surprised his net could even do that.
Fujima turned around as question popped up in his head "Did you see anything during the trance"
"A small child and mother in poverty but nothing else." she did make an attempt to understand what she saw but couldn't. She looked back at Fujima and the net he held "where did he get that?" her thoughts were held as they crossed a bridge with two dead trees next to it.
Fujima stopped and looked back to see the very lively road they just walked but his focus is pulled back as a chill crosses over his body but as he looked forward Keiaru and Renzo were suddenly gone?
"Where did you two go?" he muttered he tried using his eyes since they were used to looking through foggy messes like water since he was suddenly enclosed by a gray fog but more surprisingly it seemed that there were people in this mess. he could spot out some fairly ruined houses he ducked under a basket hanging outside and walked around an old man carrying a wagon.
With Keiaru and Renzo however they walked through a desolate area a few scraps of wood here and there as Fujima trailed behind them now more silent than usual but they both chalked it up to him thinking till he fell over.
"Fujima? are you alright?" Keiaru quickly walked over flipping Fujima over with a slight panic
Remembering that act he pulled she playfully palmed her face silently hoping it was that "You cant play that joke twice I'm not that foolish" but as she looked at him any semblance of relief she had vanished as his eyes were wide open and faded.
She didn't shout his name she screamed it in a way she didn't know she would've "FUJIMA!!!" she knew the eyes of a dead person and Renzo would especially as she looked toward him to ensure she was wrong with her assumption but he was gone... She knew he would be alright on the surface but deep down she feared. But at the moment she grabbed the limp body of Fujima as she ran as fast as she could hoping to find any village to place him in or to run across Renzo for guidance.
Fujima noticed the fog getting thicker as silhouettes of a shop, different tents, and even stranger a man. he got more confused as it got clearer the closer he drew mid length hair with no clear style, he wore brown robes with some half sewn designs on it. he held a child in his hands that wasn't there before but when Fujima got within arms length of the man they snapped around with a startling speed their red eyes leer through the thickening fog making Fujima fall back.
He was stunned but as he was about to push himself up a woman with short hair rushed at the man with something balled in her hand. she seemed distraught trying to take the child from the man but when she swung her fist at him he shoved her to the ground walking toward her while the child was still held under his one arm. The fog covered his next action save for the sword that raised in the air but the child's crying halted and so did the mother. The man stared back at Fujima with a piercing grin while Fujima was frozen with anger the man dropped the child as it and the woman dispersed into fog before climbing out of the window but when Fujima chased him he fog surrounded him preventing him from seeing.
Keiaru found an abandoned house to place Fujima in as she sat there in silence. She was surprised she would worry so much about him since it had only been five days -maybe six- since they had been on their journey. But the silence was broken when her eye reactivated she had been placed in a different room and Fujima wasn't there.
"Fujima!" she was about to rush out of the house and run wherever or however far to find him.
"Keiaru?" Fujima was standing at the window as the fog cleared around him.
"Where were you-" he was cut off by a hug from the warrior who's reaction was far different than what he had thought would happen "You're alive!"
the words snapped Fujima back to his senses "Alive? I was never dead!"
"But you were! your eyes went pale and your body went limp and-"
noticing that her rendition of the story was vastly different he didn't leave it to chance that something weird was happening "Okay okay… I'm fine now, am I not?"
Keiaru looked up at his eyes "You aren't" as she calmed her voice and let go of Fujima as he was able to let out a breath "Now why did you go and squeeze me so hard?" he joked
"To make sure you were real o-of course" but as the two were trying to lighten the mood everything seemed to collapse around them and turned into fog that vortexed around them. but as they braced for an attack they suddenly saw some faded trees grow around them as Renzo sat in front of them with a wave of relief flooding over him when he saw their bodies start moving again as he let out a sigh.
Keiaru's eye went back to normal as she then hugs Renzo for a moment before asking "Where did you go?"
"No where, it was the both of you who were taken into a fragment of the spirit realm"
"A What?"
"Sometimes the gap between the spirit realm and our world can link like with your eye and Fujima's net"
"My net is linked to the spirit realm?"
"Is that so strange to think?"
Fujima thought for a moment before shaking his head
"Anyway, this forest was like the two of you. It linked with the spirit realm and when the two of you arrived it linked with you both and took your souls away"
"So we died?"
"Technically."
"Why didn't you get taken away father?"
"My items repel spirits, they are the furthest thing from linked as they are made from tomb stone."
"Now look ahead we shall head deeper into the dead forest to find this bandit king you are looking for"
Renzo made the two walk ahead of him while Fujima thought of what he saw before looking at Keiaru "What is it Fujima?" She stared ahead stoically but quickly widens her eyes, a silent embarrassment overwhelms her when she hears in a mocking tone; "I am real." as Fujima walked ahead chuckling loudly.