The gateway deposited Satoru into the familiar, incense-laden air of Kamar-Taj.
Despite the hour, the periodic whoosh of eldritch whips and the crackle of sparks echoed from the training grounds.
As Satoru strolled through the archway, several apprentices paused mid-form, their eyes catching him entering the area. A wave of hurried bows followed him as he passed.
"Master Gojo! You've returned!" one of the younger disciples greeted and bowed.
Satoru gave a lazy wave, not breaking his stride. "In the flesh. Try to keep your wrists firm, kid, you're leaking energy at the elbows." He stopped and tilted his head. "Has anyone seen my interdimensional big guy? Rintrah?"
The apprentice straightened up and pointed toward the secluded north meditation gardens. "He's by the old bodhi tree, Master Gojo. He said he wanted to practice his spatial threading away from... well, away from everyone's staring."
Satoru chuckled. "Thanks."
He headed in the direction of the gardens, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. As he walked, his fingers brushed against the smooth, cold surface of the Mind Stone. Then, he remembered the Ancient One's words earlier.
'Yeah, she got a point. A pocket is a bit low-rent for an infinity stone,' Satoru mused, rolling the gem between his thumb and forefinger. 'I should probably get someone to craft a brooch or an amulet for this. If Agamotto could have a fancy eye, I can definitely pull off a custom piece.'
The thought of designing a high-fashioned housing amused him enough to make him smirk at the thought. He'd have to ask the Ancient One — or maybe if he ever got around to Thor's invitation — about materials that could house the stone without melting and someone that's able to forge the piece for him.
'Asgard should have skilled blacksmiths, right?' He wondered. 'And when Stark eventually calls, which I know he will, I can ask for some rare alloys for 'research purposes'.'
He smirked, his mind settled. It was a solid plan, killing two birds with one stone.
The path narrowed as he entered the meditation gardens. Up ahead, beneath the sprawling, gnarled branches of a massive bodhi tree, Satoru spotted a large, green-furred silhouette.
Rintrah was hunched over, his massive, hoofed feet planted firmly on the stone path. He was intensely focused on a small, shimmering loop of orange energy between his hands. It was unstable, flickering like a dying candle.
'This disciple looks persistent,' Satoru leaned against a nearby stone archway and nodded at his observation of his newly assigned disciple as he watched in silence for a few seconds.
He didn't need his Six Eyes to see that the minotaur was overthinking it.
"You're thinking too much, Rintrah," Satoru called out, his voice cutting through the silence of the garden.
Rintrah let out a startled bellow and the orange loop instantly shattered into harmless sparks. He spun around, his large eyes widening as he recognized the figure.
"Master Gojo!" Rintrah exclaimed with his deep and resonant rumbling voice. "You are back!"
"Yes. Yes, I am," Satoru strolled closer. "So, I heard you've been hiding out here. What's the matter? Afraid you'll accidentally sit on another apprentice if you train in the main square?"
Rintrah was an eight-foot or something tall R'Vaalian and pretty buff to boot. It would be funny if that was the case.
"The others... they stare," Rintrah admitted, his large ears twitched as he looked down at his four-fingered hands. "Like I am an animal in a zoo, and that makes me lose my focus. I do not blame them, though. If I were in their shoes, I would be doing the same if a member of my herd looked as they do."
Satoru hummed, kicking a loose pebble with the toe of his boot. "People are naturally curious. Get used to it, Rintrah. Being the center of attention isn't so bad."
He tilted his head, his baby blues scanning the air where the formation of the portal failed. "But why the rush with the Sling Ring? You're skipping steps. You should be mastering your foundational arts and forms before you tackle the Sling Ring."
Rintrah looked up at the darkening Himalayan sky, his expression softening with longing. "The people here, they have been very accommodating. But I miss my world, Master. I miss R'Vaal. I miss my herd. I want to master the Sling Ring so I may go back and forth as I please."
Satoru's smirk softened just a fraction. He knew what it felt like to be the only one of your kind in a room.
"Homesick, huh? Fair enough," Satoru said, strolling toward him until he was right in the big guy's personal space. "But here's the problem: Dimensional travel isn't about strength, even if you've got plenty of it."
He gestured for Rintrah to hold up his hands again.
"Listen up. To reach R'Vaal, you aren't just moving across a map; you visualize and focus on the destination. Your home has a specific 'scent' in the universe. You're failing because you're thinking about the distance." Satoru tapped his own temple. "Stop measuring how far away it is. Instead, visualize the destination so clearly that the air in front of you has no choice but to become it. You don't create the path, Rintrah. You just have to realize that the path is already there and you're just stepping through the curtain."
Satoru gestured at the open field in front of them. "Try again. Focus on the 'scent' of R'Vaal."
Rintrah took a deep breath, his massive chest expanding as he centered himself. He held his hands out, fingers interlocking into the necessary mudra, and began the circular motion of his left arm.
For several seconds, only the sound of rushing air followed his movements. The big guy didn't let the frustration win this time. Instead, he snapped his eyes shut. He stopped looking at the garden and started looking for that 'scent' Satoru mentioned.
He visualized the great amber plains of R'Vaal, his herd, his friends and family.
Sizzle.
The sharp crackle of orange energy bit the air. Rintrah kept his eyes glued shut, focusing every ounce of his will on that mental image.
"You did it! You actually opened a portal!" Satoru's voice rang out, sounding genuinely impressed. "Step forward, big guy. Keep your eyes closed and stay focused, we don't want to cut ourselves in two now, do we? That'd be a messy first lesson."
Rintrah felt the sudden shift in temperature against his fur.
He took a heavy step forward, his hooves sinking into something that felt like brittle shale rather than grass. He heard the light footsteps of Satoru following him through.
"Woah," Satoru exclaimed, his voice echoing with a touch of wonder. "Is R'Vaal this red and rocky? I thought it would be filled with greens like you and grassy, not this... but, who am I to judge? Maybe you're the only green thing your world has ever produced."
Rintrah's heart sank. 'Red and rocky?'
That didn't sound like the amber plains. That didn't sound like home at all.
He snapped his eyes open and exclaimed in surprise at the world around him. "By the warp and woof of the woven world!"
The golden circle of the portal behind them flickered and died, leaving them. Rintrah didn't see his herd. He didn't see the familiar sky of R'Vaal. Instead, they were standing on a jagged plateau of blood-red stone.
Above them, the sky was a bruised, swirling purple, choked with thick black clouds that pulsated with an eerie light.
In the distance, twisted obsidian-like towers rose toward the skies, and the air itself felt heavy with a malicious biting cold that contradicted the heat of the ground.
"Master Gojo..." Rintrah's voice was a low, fearful tremble. "This is not R'Vaal."
Satoru nudged a nearby rock with his boot, watching it crumble into glowing dust. He adjusted his blindfold, his Six Eyes processing the distorted flow of energy in this new dimension.
"Oh? It isn't?" Satoru hummed as he looked around the place, not finding any minotaurs around. "Well, it looked like we took a wrong turn then."
"Let's get out of here," Satoru said, his voice flat as he took in the jagged horizon. "Lest we disturb something that doesn't want to be disturbed."
Rintrah nodded frantically, his green fur bristling in the biting cold. He fumbled with his pocket, pulling out his brass Sling Ring with trembling fingers.
Just as he raised his hand to begin the circular motion back to the safety of Kamar-Taj, the sound of what seemed to be an ongoing battle sounded from a distance.
The clanging of metal on bone and the guttural roars of a beast echoed from just over a nearby ridge.
Satoru's hand shot out, catching Rintrah's wrist. "Wait. Let's check that out."
"What happened to 'let's get out of here'?" Rintrah bellowed in a hushed, panicked whisper, looking left and right at the eerie obsidian towers. "Master, this place smells of old blood and malice! We should not be here!"
"Curiosity killed the cat, but I'm not a cat," Satoru chirped, already moving.
Not wanting to be left alone, Rintrah followed Satoru closely behind.
They scrambled up a steep, shale-covered slope. Popping their heads over the crest, they both froze. Below them in a hollow of cracked earth, a massive, multi-limbed demonic creature with an outer shell made of all bones, horns, and dripping ichor was thrashing on all fours.
But it wasn't the monster that held their attention.
Standing over the beast was a girl. She looked to be around Satoru's age, her blonde hair matted with grime, clutching a massive black broadsword that seemed to glow with a light of its own.
She was dressed in little more than blackened rags, but wrapped around her shoulders was a soft, misplaced contrast: a familiar blanket that made Satoru's eyes narrow behind his blindfold.
With a final, desperate roar, the demon lunged. The girl didn't flinch. In one fluid, brutal motion, she stepped inside its guard and delivered a heavy slash across the nape of its neck. The creature collapsed, dissolving into black ash before it even hit the red stone.
"That blanket…" Satoru whispered, if his mind wasn't playing tricks on him…
"I just gave that away earlier…"
Driven by a sudden, intense curiosity, Satoru didn't bother with the path.
He activated his technique, his body becoming weightless as he levitated off the ridge, gliding silently down toward the girl who was currently wiping black gore from her face with the edge of the blanket.
The girl sensed him before he even touched the ground. She spun around with a predatory motion that didn't belong to a child, her jagged broadsword leveled at the ridge where Satoru was descending.
Her eyes were narrowed and cold, radiating a deep-seated hostility born from years of surviving in a world where everything was a predator.
She tightened her grip on the hilt with one hand, her muscles tensed to lunge. In this hellscape, there were no allies; there were only things that hadn't tried to kill her yet.
But Satoru didn't stop. He drifted closer, his hands casually shoved into his pockets as his feet finally touched the blood-red stone a few yards away. He tilted his head, scanning her with his eyes behind the crimson bands of cyttorak.
"Are you... that little girl?" Satoru asked, his voice calm and out of place in the screaming silence of the dimension. "What was your name again... Illyana?"
The girl visibly faltered. The sword tip dipped as her entire frame trembled at the sound of a name she hadn't heard in an eternity. She frowned, squinting through the grime and the dim light at the boy with the familiar white hair.
Memory flickered behind her hardened gaze—a hangar, a mother's voice, and a blanket that was now a tattered rag on her back.
"Magic man?" she uttered, her voice a cracked, disbelieving whisper.
...
[Author's Notes]:
Daily chapter drop (One each): Monday → Sunday.
Powerstone Goal (When including the DCD and this goal is met, there'll be two chapters released when Sunday arrives): 1,000 Powerstones
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