City of Light, City of Magic [Joli, Mura]

Huh… maybe the Vandenreich wasn’t for everyone. Mura saw it as a sort of huge, ginormous conglomerate in his fantasy-full, little head, but obviously – he’d just arrived. He had many things to learn about the Vandenreich…

But this Joli girl, while faint, still possessed Spiritual Energy… he saw it. Not really ‘saw’ it, it was strange to explain, but he ‘felt’ it. Maybe she wasn’t the combative kind, and that was fine and all – he shouldn’t push his desires onto others. “I was told only few humans developed spiritual powers… if you end up developing some yourself, you got a nice place to learn from,” he expressed, glaring back at the large complexes in the distance, “Not sure if you’ll be able to do… uh, what was it called again… yeah, just Quincy things, but who knows? You could, one day, develop your own powers.”

…

“Wait, she can see me?”

“Yup.”

“Fuck…”

Kyūken immediately began floating away from the scene, only stopped by the length of his Chain of Fate wrapped around his sword. “Don’t take him personally, he’s like that to everyone… so uh, your sister’s a member, right? Do I need a recommendation to join?”

Oh… so the Vandenreich wasn’t exactly one, giant body… but a sort of con-con-conglo- what was the word, again? Conglomerate? Yeah, that must’ve been it…

Kyūken looked like he was dying out in the background, just fading into dust. It was, at least, better than talking shit to strangers, so Mura tolerated the uncharacteristic silence from his ghostly burden- I mean, companion as his focus returned to Joli. She managed to give him some good pieces of advice that kind of reminded him of when he graduated from high school – the job market was tough on the high school graduate whose greatest strength was his physical one… but maybe it was because he just really didn’t want to become a militant. Athletes, though… mhm, but did they have any Kenjutsu disciplines in the Olympic Games? Fuck, no.

Oh well, he was here now – even if he had some dream, being stranded for 10 years in Tibet meant he possessed 10 years of unemployment… so, yeah, ouch. It made him sweat heavily, almost comically. “Hmh… guess it’ll take more than a few days to join, then. I heard about Africa, though – sounds worse than I imagined. And the hole… it's a bit creepy, like if the Earth's going to blow up or something-”

If he had a left wrist, he’d stretch it right now. The situation with Arica sounded like a huge loss in the news, and he was open to hear more about it. Truth be told, there was an eerie, terrifying nature in the situation, coupled with the fact that it happened so far away, yet felt so close. Even from here, if one looked over the aquatic horizon, there was a flicker in the air. Like echoes of the tragedy.