Strong hands pumped my chest and a mouth on mine blew air into my waterlogged lungs. It itched. It hurt.
I convulsed and coughed, vomiting up water. My eyes streamed and snot dripped. My coughs turned nasty, as if I was going to hack up my lungs. It hurt. Man, it hurt. And I was tired. So, so tired. And cold.
I never wanted to drown again. It really wasn't worth it. It had hurt last time and it hurt this time too.
"She's alive. She's awake now," an exhausted voice spoke into a phone. "At least, she's throwing up all the river water she swallowed and coughing up the water in her lungs. Please tell Shigure-Kubo-kun that his wife has made it back. You can all probably let him go. Please send him my deepest apologies. It was my mista- oh."
Shigure's voice was suddenly on the phone blasting through with great anger and strength. He berated, he scolded and even cursed a little bit. Suzuki Sensei accepted it all without a word.
Feeling that I was awake and wanted to reassure him but was too weak to speak, Shigure suddenly stopped talking. In the silence, Suzuki Sensei stared at his mobile phone while shivering in the cooling sunset breeze and then at me, while I finished coughing and throwing up for the moment to lie down on the uneven and uncomfortable river rocks to try and catch my breath.
In that moment, Shigure had dashed over from his side of the link to mine. I tried to put up a weak shield, but Shigure dismissed it.
*"Let them sense us,"* he snarled, throwing his arms around me and hugging me tight. *"I'm here risking my life for them and they can't even keep my wife safe. They threaten and scare her instead."* Sounded like he had gone through my memories while I had been unconscious earlier. *"I don't blame you either, Uki-chan. I'd probably have made the same conclusions in your place,"* he said, *"but don't you ever dare try to leave me behind like that again. Never, ever again."*
He shook me hard and then hugged me tight. Limply, I hugged him back, crying with some relief that it wasn't time to die yet. That he was here. At least, he was present with me through our link even if he couldn't physically be present.
While he hugged me and reassured me through our link, making sure I was alright, he began scolding Suzuki Sensei once more over the phone.
"If you ever make my wife scared or cry again, I will hunt you down and teach you a lesson myself," he growled through the phone. "How dare you threaten her?"
Through me and using my ability, Shigure put a lot of mental pressure on Suzuki Sensei until I felt Suzuki Sensei's mind straining and creaking under the weight. Suzuki Sensei's pale face grew even paler and his nose started bleeding. That was when Shigure stopped.
"If you people can't look after my wife and uphold your end of the bargain, don't think I'm going to uphold my end either. I'll just take her and leave. If you want to talk to learn anything. Ask me. Don't try to come sideways at my wife. If she ends up in hospital again because of you, you can wait to see what I'll do next."
"Don't the two of you still need protection from international eyes?" Suzuki Sensei asked through gritted teeth. "Do you still want that protection and the safety of those new identities or not? Do you think you can trust your old country's government? They're the ones who have released the information on the both of you and blaming you for a lot of events."
"What?"
Both Shigure and I were angry and astonished upon hearing that.
"Cooperate with Ietsugu-kun," Suzuki Sensei told Shigure in a cold tone through his gritted teeth, "and perhaps he'll tell you what you want to know. But in return, the two of you need to stop playing games with us. We need to know what we're dealing with and whether it's worth it to protect two risky people like the two of you, or whether you are dangerous bombs just waiting to explode."
Shigure and I clutched each other in my mind space and flopped on my bed in unison. We had been exposed? By our own government? How much did the Nihon government know about us now? How much danger were we in now?
I closed my eyes while Shigure and I brainstormed. In the end, we came to a conclusion.
*"We don't have too much to hide,"* Shigure said. *"Nobody knows about the majority of your abilities anyway because Director Worth was helping us keep them secret. Even the ability sensors back home weren't too clear when they tried to get more information. Some of your abilities aren't easily defined. Stick to the official ones and the ones we almost have to admit. The leaping, the mental abilities with your ability to extend mental communication range and a measure of interpretation and translation. That's it. Oh, and the Shigure inheritance and healing because they saw it happen in the hospital, but that's it. You know yourself what should and shouldn't be said. Don't mention the healing too much, so they won't force you to use it too much. As for that other unnamed ability, we can admit that being in close proximity with you can increase the chances of waking abilities or strengthening abilities, because it's true. It's effect is not as strong as if… but we don't need to mention the rest. That should be enough for them. Add to that, the two of us can help open up mental abilities or other abilities in most people with the Creator's help. Like how you laid your hand on Andrew and opened his mental space. That should be enough for them."*
I nodded at Shigure.
*"Be careful with this Suzuki guy. There's more to him than meets the eye and he gives off the sense that he can manipulate a person's psychology not because he has an ability, but because he is just that good and that experienced on top of having a strong sensor suite of abilities. Stay shielded. Stay guarded. Try and find out whether our government thinks we're dead or alive."*
*"We died in the bombing,"* I told Shigure. *"Those people are dead now anyway."*
Shigure nodded, understanding my meaning.
*"We'll do it that way then,"* he told me. *"I have to go. Stay healthy. Stay safe. Don't do anymore stupid things. I don't know if my heart will be able to take it otherwise."*
We exchanged kisses and Shigure left after seeing that I was recovering and regaining my strength.
When I opened my eyes, I found that Suzuki Sensei and a few other people had built a fire nearby. I had been covered by a blanket.
"Awake?" Suzuki Sensei smiled at me. "How are you feeling?"
"Awful," I croaked.
"Have you and your husband finished deciding what you can share with us? Then good. We still have a long way back to the courtyard and we have no vehicles besides our own legs. Otherwise we can camp here for the night."
I glanced upriver, silently wondering if it would be safe to camp here or whether it would be better to continue on to the Five Colour Courtyard. The question was pushed to the Creator Father who recommended I get moving. There would be a thunderstorm in the mountains tonight leading to a flash flood reaching this part of the river in the early hours of the morning.
"We'd better walk," I shivered and sneezed, carefully getting up and hugging the damp blanket around my shoulders. "There's going to be a thunderstorm in the mountains with a flashflood tonight or rather, early tomorrow morning before the sun comes up. It won't be safe to stay here."
"A flash flood? Storm?" Suzuki Sensei looked at the only female colleague of his and she looked skeptical.
"There's no such thing in the weather forecast," she shrugged.
"I'd rather a real bed and dry clothes tonight," Suzuki Sensei shrugged back. "Let's go then."
The fire was put out. I was helped up onto my feet. We were going to walk to wherever this out of place Five Colour Courtyard was. From what I had overheard, walking there would take us a few hours. In fact, it might be close to midnight by the time we arrived. I wasn't sure I was going to last that long. I had pretty much used up all my energy for the day.
"Nodoka-san," said Suzuki Sensei, as if he had forgotten about being frank and open with each other earlier, "do you have the ability to divine futures or to tell the weather? How come your prediction is so specific?"
"It's not a prediction," I told him with a frown that he thankfully couldn't see in the dark. "I asked the Creator Father for advice on whether I should camp here like you suggested or go to the courtyard. He told me to go to the courtyard because of the storm and flash flood. If there's going to be a flash flood, should we perhaps warn anyone who lives downstream?"
"This Creator Father is the god you serve, yes?" Suzuki Sensei asked while we walked. The others had powerful torches that shone enough light for us to see and so I only had to focus on where to take my next step and to keep putting down one foot in front of the other. Suzuki Sensei was stabilising me via one elbow, although I found the fact that he was touching me at all somewhat distasteful.
"Yes," I agreed.
"What is the domain or territory of this god then? Now that you are outside your own country, how is it possible for you to still communicate with this god of yours?" Suzuki Sensei asked.
"He's not bound by land or territory," I shook my head and then had to stop still for half a moment when that movement of my head had made me dizzy and Suzuki Sensei held me tight to him for a moment until the dizziness passed and I had found my balance again. "He's the god over all gods and spirits. The judge over all judges. His domain is all of creation. He is sovereign over the entire universe, outside of eternity, inside and outside all of time and space. It's far better to worship Him than any of the land spirits, demons or lesser things. That way I have authority over all things."
I heard the scoffing laugh of the two people walking in front and behind us, leading and lighting the way, as well as being out rearguard. I ignored them.
"Interesting," Suzuki Sensei mused. "So you don't need a shrine, gifts or sacrifices? How did you meet and come to be in service to this god?"