Wind

"Hey, Ethel," Marisa gestured to the third door on the right. "If you're going to stay, you should stay in Alphonse's room."

"Uh, I wouldn't want to—"

Tsuruko was effectively silenced by Excellen covering her mouth with her hand. "Perfecto! We'll take it!"

---

What Tsuruko saw in front of her was a luxurious suite with royal scarlet curtains draping down and a soft red carpet covering the floor. The windows gave her a clear look outside, into the murky skies as thunder crashed down from the heavens. The room was exquisitely constructed, adorned with a fine engraving of geometric patterns. Reflecting the moonlight from the twin moons, the walls shone brightly, providing a fantastic view.

Despite looking antique, it had no semblance to past designs. Tsuruko was overwhelmed by this scene that could only be described as fanciness as she remained stunned. The Sejren family too had an antique feel, but it was different. It gave her goosebumps. Tsuruko did not feel fear or uneasy, just weird as she stared at the anomaly sitting right in front of her.

"It feels kinda weird..." She scratched her head. "After all this time, I'm finally learning more about Dad."

Excellen, on the other hand, began snooping around for clues. "I just know they're up to something."

"Will you stop being so paranoid? Family's to be trusted!" Tsuruko argued back as she herself began to look around.

"Something's up," Excellen was taking numerous books out and reshuffling them; going through the contents in half a second each. "It's like they're hiding something. The council wouldn't cut the trade routes off just out of jealousy."

"I dunno," Tsuruko simply replied as she began to dust a desk off. "Deen did say his boss was a jerk."

"Still!" Excellen countered, "There's gotta be more to this."

"...What's this?" Tsuruko's keen optics took notice of a piece of cardboard cleverly stashed away on the shelves, sandwiched between a dictionary and what seemed to be a phone book. "Hey Excellen," she mentioned to her close companion. "Mind giving me a lift? I'm too short and I see something up there."

"You're too heavy." Still snooping around herself, she dismissively told her, "Besides, you know I can't lift twenty tonnes of pure metal. Last time we tried I put my back out."

Tsuruko's cheeks became a flushed red at the remembrance of such a thing. "Got a stepladder, then?"

"You know for being the most advanced piece of technology in existence you really don't know how useful that can be. Just extend your arms like you do when you use Rocket Punch or something."

Everytime she remembered that advice, she seemed to promptly forget it. The purple-haired young woman focused upwards, closing one eye and aiming her right fist at the delicate opening barely visible- in an instant, Tsuruko's forearm shot forth like a bullet, grasping the cardboard wedged between two doorstoppers—

"EHHH!?" —and going straight through the rest of the bookshelf, smashing through the walls like her punches did to damn near everything. As Tsuruko's hand retracted back onto the stump, the chains connecting her rocket fist and rest of her arm hastily retreating, what she saw was a fist-shaped hole in the wall that seemed to echo on forever.

"I'm going to ask you to pay for that later." A hazel eye spied on Tsuruko and Excellen from the hole formed through the impact on her fist. Laughing lightheartedly, Marisa quipped, "I guess the rumours are true—you're only good at breaking things."

Tsuruko glanced down at the ground momentarily, a bit put-off by such a comment—even though it was a joke, maybe Marisa was right; she had a point. Tsuruko was bad at everything except fighting. Regaining her composure, Tsuruko still stared at the piece of cardboard she had retrieved—this object was pure yellow, with white tips; it invoked the duality of gold and silver. "...Huh?" Grasping it with her left hand, Tsuruko's clumsiness caused the cardboard to split from a straight edge into a four-pointed one. "...A boomerang?"

Excellen, barely paying attention, "answered", "Guess so."

Tsuruko herself stood up, passing Hikari –who had just entered the room-, and began to run towards Marisa.

"Huh, that old thing?" Tsuruko's relative of an indeterminate origin –Marisa- explained, "Alphonse was the previous user of the Phoenix Driver; and he could summon Gaiki to act as his Soul Armour."

"...Yeah, but what does a boomerang have to do with punching and kicking things?"

"Gaiki is the Soul Armour of the Heavens," Marisa's exposition seemed a bit different than normal. "It feels most at home when in the air. Victorize Kick is based off a boomerang in the general motion pattern- minus the spinning part, of course. For the true power of Gaiki to be awakened, you have to follow the path of the wind."

"Eh?" Tsuruko scratched the back of her head confusedly. "...I don't get it."

"Take the boomerang. Think about how you fight with Gaiki. Put two and two together. ...This probably seems a bit out of left-field, but your father was a kind man. If the world knew how much he loved everyone, then nobody would ever raise a hand in anger again." Marisa leant in closer, holding Tsuruko's hand tightly. "You may not have many reasons to trust me, but please believe what I say when I tell you that."

Marisa abruptly handed Tsuruko a piece of paper. "Oh, I got this earlier. It's for you."

"...How do people know I'm here?"

"I don't know, but it's really convenient." Marisa pointed to the letter. "It says—"

"I can read, you know." Tsuruko took the letter, and turned away. Truthfully, she had trouble reading 'big words' like 'consternation' and 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'; she wasn't really a fan of sesquipedalianism.

Tsuruko arrived at a strange, sunny field with a lone tree in the center. The field was more of an island; at the edges, it was cut off by boundless water. Most unusually, the sky was a deep crimson, and the full moon was out, despite it being sunny. The atmosphere seemed perfectly serene- serene being the word here. The wind blowed; though it made no sound. The water rippled; yet again, nada.

"This is the place from my dreams...so it exists?"

Tsuruko took precaution; quietly stepping through the luscious grass as she approached the lone tree in the middle of the island. In front of her was a mysterious figure—they were a fairly tall person; they had short, brownish-red hair that was spiked at the back with a slim forelock of hair at the top of their head, in addition to greenish eyes. They also wore dusty black robes and most odd—sneakers.

Tsuruko muttered, "So why is this here? Did I subconsciously base my dream world on this place?" Truth be told, she hated returning to this desolate island—and the biggest gripe with it was that it was always the damn same every time she appeared here. She called out to the man in a loud voice, "Why do I always return here!?"

"Yo!" The mysterious man called out. "You look surprised."

Tsuruko backed up, as she asked, "You, how long have you been here?"

"Since you got the letter," The man stood to his feet. "I can appear wherever I want, when I want, it's pretty easy. If I think of it, I can do it—that's my power." He pulled out two handheld gaming devices. "Wanna play Fight-o-mania? I'm lonely without a good opponent."

Fight-o-mania, also called Ascending Firebird Fight-o-mania, was a licensed game based on the Ascending Firebird series. While most licensed games were, to put it bluntly, trash, this one was hailed by questionable sources as "the only good licensed game".

And really, it was.

Instead of a game where the player needed to input crazy combos, it was a platform fighter—which Tsuruko considered the only good fighting game style because of the ease in which you could get into it.

Instead of a joystick, the player only needed the buttons on the machine pressed with varying intensities to move and attack.

"I'd love to." Tsuruko shrugged—she hadn't played a good video game since she joined La Pucelle.

The man hadn't even told Tsuruko his name yet; of course, if a stranger called her out here, she'd have to learn his name.

"It's awesome to have something to waste time on." The man scratched his head as his and Tsuruko's devices connected. "Technology has advanced so much in the past twenty years."

"You know, I'm really good at fighting games," Tsuruko smirked confidently. "Back in the orphanage where I grew up, I was the champ!"

"Ah...she didn't notice that, you know, you weren't dead?" He made an odd remark. "For a self-proclaimed genius, she really is short-sighted. No wonder she wears glasses now."

Tsuruko paused momentarily- a chill ran down her spine, before the man interrupted;

"...In that case, this is going to be fun. I'm a bit of a beginner, so go easy on me."

"Ehehehehehehe…" Tsuruko let out a very uncharacteristic Kirika-esque cackle; using this moment to distract herself from his words. "I'll show you the power that I learned in the battlezone I call the arcade!"

Although Tsuruko got off to an amazing start; choosing her favourite character, Vittoria, to counter the man's Kagirinai, but the man began to knock her off the stage more and more; as Tsuruko lost her overwhelming advantage.

"And match settled." The man knocked her character off-stage in the last five seconds of the match with a powerful special move.

"WIN!"

…This man was a master in two minute matches.

"Seems like it's my victory, Ethel."

"I won't give up!"

"Atta girl." The man smirked. "You do take after my kid. Want to have another match, Gaiki?"

"…Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh? …J-Just now, what did you say just now…?" A chill ran down Tsuruko's body. She worriedly asked him, "…Who are you?"

Opening his mouth, without shifting his attention from the game screen, he revealed, "Jonas Mercury; the Exalted One of Earth Land and father of Phoenix Knight Giselle Mercury. Nice to meetcha, kiddo."

His character KO'd Tsuruko's instantly…as ten emerald wings expanded from his back.