Sumitsu wept.
Goji was gone. She didn't know where he went. And when she prayed to Shinjin for guidance, there was no answer. Silence from heaven. Was she forsaken?
Naroki held her closely. His physical presence was soothing for Sumitsu. It grounded her.
While he held her, the wheels in his mind turned. The muffin girl. The vendor who sold them 'good luck muffins' was involved somehow.
She was a vendor and was there every day, even with help. There had to be organizational records; vendor permits, something tied to her identity that he could use.
"Sumitsu," he spoke to her with gravitas, "I have an idea. If I'm right, we may be able to find Goji."
Tari and Momo laughed riotously at the hijinks their peers were up to. After the depressingly lackluster ending ceremonies they needed cheering up.
There was no answer to why Kyou, the Master of Ceremonies; Goji, the Champion; and Satori, the Runner-up were all absent. The nearly empty podium honored Daraku's third place victory alone.
So to cheer themselves up, the girls were all at their silliest aboard the starliner heading back to Hogar. Their suites were conjoined to a private hall reserved for them so they could be their loudest without disturbing others passengers.
Some of the girls broke into song. They were soon joined by everyone else. It was a traditional Hogaran labor hymn traditionally used to unify laborers in a field. It had joyous rhythms and repeated callbacks as a good shanty should. It was the kind of song their ancestors would have sung while digging irrigation ditches. The tempo dictated the motion. The chorus united the hearts and made the work light with shared burdens.
Tari joined in the festivities. Most of the girls saw her as their hero among them. So occasionally vocal solos were foisted upon her without warning. She blushed bright red when she didn't know the words, which made everyone else laugh even more.
She knew it was all in good fun.
What she didn't know is why Allisyn wasn't among the festivities. She decided she would check in on her friend later.
Naroki ventured to the administrative center of the city of Luminara. This ancient building was once a library, but over the centuries, as more records of the tournaments were created, the library was gradually pushed out.
The library still exists elsewhere, in a slightly younger building.
Naroki strode purposefully to what seemed to be an information desk. It seemed to be that because of the sign nearby with "INFORMATION" painted on it in multiple languages.
Behind the counter an elf was dealing with the paperwork produced by Goji's kidnapping. She seemed stressed. Talking to her was going to be unpleasant. He had to approach her strategically.
"Hello," he began.
"Whatever it is, it can wait," she snapped.
Normally, Naroki's instinct would be to become offended. He couldn't afford to be offended. He needed answers.
He looked over this elf's workplace. "Let me carry some of these boxes for you."
The scowl marring her brow was replaced by something akin to a glimmer of hope. She put Naroki to work, getting her stacks of boxes of organized documents shelved properly. He quickly picked up on their organizational system and proved to be quite helpful to the distraught secretary.
While she braked for her midday meal, Naroki used his newfound knowledge to peruse the records. He found the vendor records. The one the muffin vendor filled out was immediately identifiable. It was the sloppiest handwriting he had ever seen. But he was able to glean from it that her name was Mai and she haled from Anahata, one of the moons of Insular.
He searched more, but could find no record of ship manifests or anything to do with the spaceport. He remembered the segregation between the two cultures and realized any records of starships would be at the port.
But at least he had a name.
Later that evening, after most of the other girls had settled down and retired to their beds, Tari was still awake. She was busying herself in a kitchenette preparing hot cocoa for the one girl who didn't attend the earlier festivities.
Allisyn heard the gentle knocking on her door and pushed a button to open it. She watched Tari step. She noticed the tray in Tari's hands. She noticed the pair of steaming mugs. She smelled the cocoa. And, for the first time Tari could recall, she smiled.
It wasn't a calculated smirk. Nor was it the grin of nobles that somehow never touched their eyes. This was a smile of warmth shared between close friends. Tari didn't think she had earned such a smile.
"Thank you, Tari," Allisyn said before talking a sip of her cocoa. It was heavenly. It was home. "Thank you for this and for everything else. I don't know what I would have done without you."
"Without me? I'm just me. I didn't do anything special." Tari was genuinely timid.
Allisyn could smell false modesty a mile away. This was legitimate, which made it all the more disconcerting. "Nonsense. I won't stand for it. I know what you are and it's high time you knew it, too."
Tari gulped and took a step back.
"Stop." The command was sharp and brokered no argument. "Sit."
Tari obeyed as if compelled by unseen forces. Of course, those forces were nothing divine or supernatural. It was merely her own instinct for self preservation and conflict avoidance. But it still felt like a compulsion.
"I know what I am. I am a flag. I am the standard which is to be held aloft for all to see and follow. I am to weather any storm and stand tall. When armies March, it is me they follow.
"But you? You are the glue in their boots. You seem quiet. You feel unimportant. But without you, there would have been no marching."
Tari felt more seen than she ever had before. She saw with crystal clarity the value she created for those around her. It filled her with a warmth that had nothing to do with the cocoa she sipped.
"What was it like to touch an Avatar's glyph?" Allyson suddenly changed the subject.
Tari thought for a moment before she answered. "It tingled at first. I could feel the magic flow through me like energy in my blood. And when I was filled, I could think thoughts that just came to me but felt more true than anything I ever thought before. Now that it's gone, I miss it."
Allisyn nodded and began to respond three times but fell silent each time. Something weighed on her, and Tari noticed.
"Tokimi let me touch one of her glyphs," she finally stated. "And I felt nothing."
Tari remained silent and attentive.
"You touched a glyph on a ring belonging to the Avatar Okomikeruko. His power flows into him through Chie, The Goddess of Wisdom. So what you felt was divine Grace from a Goddess channeled through an Avatar and focused into a specific spiritual gift.
"Tokimi can't do that, because Kamoshami is truly dead. The source of her power, the Grace that flows through her to everyone on our planet is gone."
Allisyn could no longer hold back her tears. She sat stoically and strong, but her eyes watered and her cheeks glistened in the dim light.
"I am a descendent of generations of noble men and women who devoted themselves to the ideals of Benevolent Dominion. I have studied countless journals of their lives and duties. Each one describes exactly what you said. They felt endowed with a sense of truth that was more true than their minds alone could conceive.
"And now that is gone from us. I must do my best to lead us blindly without any guide to follow."
The two of them sat in silence for a long time. The steam from their cocoa slowly vanished.
"You must not breathe a word of this to the others. I fear it would tear us apart." Allisyn admonished, and Tari concurred. "It's not as hopeless as I may have led you to believe."
Tari turned to the older girl who now exuded a confidence she was missing a moment ago.
"The reason we could be filled with Green and Violet magics was because we all ate those sunberries as babies. And as such, we are filled with pure white light, from which Indigo may be extracted. Our lives may be bleak, but when we pass on, the magic trapped in our spirits can help Tokimi complete her ascension to the Indigo Throne. We are the hope for the future of our world."
Tari grasped the depth of Allisyn's revelation. Their lot was to walk in darkness so the generations that followed them could walk in the light. It was a calling that weighed heavily on both of them, but she was glad to share this yoke with her.
She quietly gathered the mugs and bid her friend good night. They would reach their home tomorrow.
Naroki and Sumitsu entered the spaceport offices together. Interplanetary diplomacy was usually more pliant when an Avatar was involved.
The hustle and bustle of the Insularan engineers and administrators seemed truly chaotic. It was a cacophony of blame shifting and miscommunication across the entire building. But underlying it all was a steady thrumming of electrical energy flowing through the building.
Sumitsu closed her eyes and tuned in to the thrumming. It was a low, rumbling sound that she could feel in the soles of her feet. She blocked out the rest of the noise and began moving her head to the slow and steady beat.
Naroki noticed her bizarre behavior and wondered if he could sense what she felt. It took him longer than he'd care to admit, but he eventually found the same deep thrumming Sumitsu synchronized with.
She hummed. He hummed a harmonious pitch to hers. She opened an eye and smiled at him. She took hold of his hand. She enhanced their humming to a resonance that shook the foundations of the building they were in.
Silence. The pair stopped humming. The Insularans stopped shouting. Everything was still.
After getting a nod from Sumitsu, Naroki approached the desk and politely requested access to flight logs and landing permits.
He was sat at an engineer's terminal. Over his shoulder the engineer guided Naroki to the information he wanted.
They found the information about Mai's ship. They found images, schematics, and a history of the ship's existence. They confirmed it was the ship they were looking for.
They found the transponder data. With this information they could track down the ship. It was scheduled for a flight to Sagesse.
But it never made it.
"Then where did they go?" Naroki asked.
"It appears they were shot down and crashed on Hogar," the engineer explained.
Naroki and Sumitsu shared a panicked glance at one another.
They immediately booked the next flight to Hogar.
The Sunberry Girls chattered and gossiped amongst themselves as their shuttle took them from their starliner to the only spaceport on Hogar. Each one was strapped into their own seat. Each one held securely like the precious cargo that they were.
When they landed and disembarked, they quieted themselves and held their heads high. They followed behind Allisyn in two columns like they had before on the Colosseum grounds.
Tari looked all around for her family. She was surprised by their absence. Instead of throngs of families welcoming their daughters with open arms, the only ones nearby were a crowd of monks in dark indigo robes, led by the High Priest Father Gaias.
"Welcome home, girls. I trust your journey was comfortable." He spoke warmly, his arms outstretched.
"We were well taken care of, Father Gaias," Allisyn answered and bowed her head to the proper angle for their positions.
"Good, good. That's very good." He was stalling. Why was he stalling? And why were the monks closing in?
Tari's eyes glowed yellow as she mimicked Sumitsu's sight. There was something fundamentally wrong with these monks. Their spirit rings had been refilled but the color wasn't indigo. It was some kind of murky color pretending to be indigo. And the rings didn't glow. They smoldered.
Tari tried to cry out but her mouth was covered suddenly. Two of the monks had grabbed ahold of her. And she wasn't alone. Each girl had at least two monks seizing them and binding their wrists with cords.
"Unfortunately, you are all guilty of blasphemy against our Beloved God, Kamoshami." His words may have been remorseful, but his voice carried a tone of gleefulness. "You all must be purified."
"Kamoshami is dead!" Allisyn protested truthfully and was met with the back of the High Priest's fist against her face.
"You still profess your blasphemous lies? Take them away."
Each of the girls was roughly taken to a caravan of cages on carts and locked up.