Wild Tiger Chase - Chapter 29: Chapter 29

— Léon —
Léon sliced a thick piece of his roasted cassava and blew on it until the steam was gone. "Pipo?"
The little boy accepted it and took a bite. As he ate, his eyelids weighed over his eyes and his shoulders sunk. Sometimes he stopped munching and kept very still, while others he shook his head as if to keep awake. Kids are so funny.
With a smile, Léon caressed Pipo's hair and popped a kiss on the crown of his head. Pipo was still seven, and after what had happened this morning, Léon could imagine how tired he must be. "Go take a nap, Pipo; I'll wake you up in an hour, all right?"
With a nod and a grin, Pipo stuffed the slice of cassava in his mouth and dragged himself towards Caidara's cottage.
As soon as he was gone, the atmosphere changed. Léon and the others ate in silence, sharing nervous glances and uncertain gestures that whispered about their hopes for the future or lack thereof. And while Léon could understand why Rob, Rafa, and Phillip felt that way, it was a mystery to him why Modraniht was avoiding him. He couldn't still be angry about Léon and Phillip, could he?
Things got even worse when Phillip called Anhangá by his name in one of his vain attempts to lift people's moods.
Rafa's reaction was a muted kind of anger that Léon had only seen in movies. Bulged veins in her neck, reddening face, tensing muscles. Rafa placed her unfinished plate down, got up, and invited Rob for a private conversation.
When they came back, Rob's eyes were red and puffy, and he looked more like an abandoned bear in the rain than an actual person.
Rafa hadn't looked at him once since their conversation, and Rob kept his eyes down, playing with the loose threads in his ripped jeans. Whatever she had said to him, Léon knew two things. One, it was justified; and two, Rob wouldn't forget it so soon.
Now, though, after everyone finished their meals, Rafa brushed the gloom and doom away and got up.
"All things considered," she said, "I'm glad to have Anhangá with us." Her eyes swept the faces around them and set on Modraniht. "Doctor... I'll say the same about you."
Modraniht scratched the back of his neck. He didn't look in her eyes either. "Eh... thank you, kiddo. I'm glad to see you're as energetic as always."
She nodded. "I thank Caidara, too, for letting us stay and for lending us her knowledge. And for saving Phillip, of course."
"Don't talk about me as if I'm not here!" Caidara said.
Rafa let out an embarrassed chuckle. "I'm sorry. I meant... thank you for everything you did for us, Caidara."
"Just make sure you won't die after I had all this trouble."
"I can't make any promises, Caicai," Phillip said with a shrug. Caidara raised her spoon, and Phillip flinched away, chuckling. "She's angrier than my Nana," he mumbled.
"Yeah, well... now that that's out of the way"—Rafa straightened her posture and fit her hands into her pockets—"I decided I'll leave this place tomorrow, as soon as the sun sets."
Rob jumped to his feet. "Rafa! Please! I understand you're angry with me, but if you do that, we—"
"The forest around Senibetama," she continued, cutting him off, "is thick enough to prevent NAVs, so Cae and his people will need around two days to reach us by foot. This is an extensive area, though; it's safe to assume they might need an extra day to find the entrance for this pocket dimension."
"In fact," Caidara said, "we might have less than that. That small trick of yours generated a wave of pure force that might have broken down a few of my defenses."
"Shite," Rafa muttered. She massaged the back of her neck, eyes lowered. "Yesterday, they were ready to leave Senibetama—we have two days if we're lucky; half of that otherwise." She took in a deep breath. "But do not fool yourselves. Now, more than ever, Cae. Will. Find us. It's only a matter of choosing where that will happen. Will we be in Cidade Santa, with resources from the fourth district? Or will we be in the jungle, unprotected and alone?" She raised her hands like a scale. "You decide."
Rob balled his hands against his knees and lowered his head. Frustration oozed from him in waves.
"I won't force any of you to follow me, of course," Rafa continued. "The choice will be ultimately yours as it should always be but don't expect me to throw my life away for a teenage notion that things are going to work out simply because someone wants to." At those last words, her hard gaze set on Rob, long and heavy.
She waited, hands clad on her waist like the figure of a century-old knight. No one said a word.
Rafa nodded and pinched the bridge of her nose. She reminded him of Amma when she did that.
"Léon, we will have until tomorrow to practice. I'll teach you everything I can about our powers; I expect you to pay attention and to put as much effort as you can into this. As for Pipo"—she bit her lower lip—"I'll be counting on you to help me reach him. I'm..." she crooked her lips and groaned. "I'm not that great with kids."
Léon let out a chuckle and clasped a hand on his lips to stop it. "Sorry. This is serious, I know. I'll help; you can count on me."
She gave him a half-hearted smile and stepped towards the forest. "Meet me in the thermal lake once you're ready to start. The sound of the water might help us concentrate. You too," she completed, staring first at Anhangá, and then at Rob.
He nodded, as did the other two, and the group dispersed. When Léon got up, a shiver climbed up his spine. He felt a heaviness at his back, the weight of a stare. Once he turned around, Modraniht was just finishing to pivot away.
"Modraniht?" Léon called. He wrung his fingers together, waiting for the older man to look at him, but... he didn't.
Modraniht stood facing the opposite direction, giving Léon no chance to study his face; none other than the slight rise to his shoulders, that is. When Léon understood he wouldn't look in his eyes, the weight in his chest slid down to his stomach.
Léon's voice was low and uncertain when he said, "Are you angry with me? Do you... resent me for something?"
For a moment, there was silence and nothing else. Modraniht pushed his hands deep into his pockets and turned around.
There was a smile on his lips, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"No, kid. Don't worry, you did nothing." He bit his lower lip, an almost-angry crease forming between his eyebrows. "Absolutely nothing."
Modraniht's words still weirded Léon out as Anhangá turned the amethyst this side and that. Different from before, a web of cracks now covered the triangular gem, making it glisten under the sun.
"I assume this gem somehow facilitated the connection between you two," Anhangá said. "I don't know how Cae discovered about this—nor how it works—but if this really fuelled an anima weld between you two, there's a chance Léon managed to give Rafa something."
A crease formed between Léon's eyebrows. Before he or any other could ask about it, Anhangá continued.
"An anima weld—and anima is just another word for Lifeforce—was something pretty common in the first druid tribes, way before people started to properly develop their powers. As time went by, the knowledge was lost." He offered the amethyst back to Léon. "Or it was lost until you two rediscovered it."
Rafa and Léon shared a look. The first stretched her hand in a silent request and Léon placed the gem on it.
"It feels different somehow, doesn't it?" Léon said. "Lighter or... emptier, I don't know."
"Yeah." Rafa raised the gem against the light and studied it from up close. "I wonder what happened to it."
"I can't say for sure, but I can guess." Anhangá crossed his thin arms and took in a deep breath. "When a cosmic trace wielder uses their powers, they collect, rearrange, then liberate the cosmic trace to create whatever they want. Léon used to summon massive claws, part of an even more massive creature."
"Wait, what do mean?" Léon asked. "What massive creature?"
Anhangá ignored him. "Rafa, if I'm not mistaken, used to keep the cosmic trace inward most of the time as a way to fortify her body." He smirked. "Although you quite liked those crystal feathers, didn't you? Those very sharp, very resistant crystal feathers?"
Rafa lowered her eyes. She nodded.
"Both of you can do so much more than that, of course; you just don't know it yet. In an anima weld, the cosmic trace wielders share, visit, or invade each other's undimensions. The wielders of old used this bond to share their powers, memories, and experiences. When there's mutual respect, the undimensions don't merge, they touch—it's what happened to you two. It was hurtful in the beginning because Rafa's connection with her undimension is severed; reaching it was painful for her. It could've ended badly if Phillip and Rob hadn't helped."
Anhangá stepped back. He looked from Léon to Rafa as if studying the impact of his words.
And truth be told, Léon was terrified; he didn't need yet another reason to want his powers gone. His head was fucked up already with the thoughts about all the shit he did when he lost control; he didn't want to think what other horrors he could cause.
"Undimensions can also be blended," Anhangá continued. He paced right and left, his hands clasped at his back. "In this case, they coexist in the same space; they add to one another, doubling their wielders' strength. This requires absolute trust." He paused. His shoulders tensed and raised, and for a second, not even his smaller frame was enough to hold the amount of power and wisdom he hid.
"And finally, they can be merged by force if one wielder is stronger than the other." He took in a deep breath. "This is violent, painful, and sometimes fatal for the weaker wielder." His expression turned grim. "This is what Antônio McCockay did to you two. And this is what Rafa had to do to stop him, four years ago."
"I felt disgusting," she murmured.
"You won't have to do that anymore, dear girl." Anhangá narrowed his eyes. "Have you tried using your powers after the anima weld?" He placed a hand on his waist. When Rafa didn't answer, he raised a single eyebrow. "You should." A faint smile covered his lips. "You should also tell Léon how you lost your connection to the cosmic trace flow."
She opened her lips but closed them again. "I... I don't think it's relevant."
"Don't you?" Anhangá's voice hardened. Until now, he had been nothing but gentle to Rafa, but since Phillip let his real identity slip, Anhangá didn't seem as intent on playing the part of the kind intern. "I insist, Rafa," Anhangá continued. "It'll be highly informative for him. For all of us."
"Bloody hell—I knew you'd do this," Rob said. His voice was barely louder than a whisper. "Please. Don't make her."
"Why?" Anhangá let out a mirthless laugh. "She was careless enough to let it happen, and her mistake will now work as a warning for Léon. What's wrong with that?" He set his eyes on Rafa. "What say you?"
She was silent for a heartbeat, staring at him.
"I say it's scary to think I know nothing about you, Fofo. I thought I did, but I don't." Rafa scoffed. "I'll need some time to get used to this." She gestured towards Anhangá's smiling face and sighed. "I thought we were close, even if just a little."
Anhangá scoffed and schooled his arrogant smirk, pretending to clean the corner of his lips with a thumb. "We are—a little."
Rafa nodded, rubbing her earlobe while staring at him. In her body language and in the stern way she looked at Rob sometimes, Léon could see she wasn't comfortable; Rafa was furious, but she seemed determined to keep her feelings in check.
Her face grew serious. "I... think you're right."
"I always am," Anhangá whispered.
Rafa didn't smile. She pivoted around to face Léon and placed her hands on her waist.
"All right, I'll tell you about the one day in my entire life I'd rather forget. But you'll have to earn the information. C'mon, Léon. Let's start our class. Throw me down—if you can."