Pruned Trees Re-Sprout!! ~ Ragazza Volpe Magica ~

As they made their way out of the hotel proper, Taika’s mind was ablaze with curiosity. She had distinctly overheard Shouri’s mother ask why it seemed Shouri and Aura took in strays. She posited that she was technically a stray given she had no tuner or Maestro assigned to her. But what about this Damian character? He was a canine, but that lack of tail…

Her eyes lowered to his backside, and that’s when she caught a glimpse of it – where a long, thin tail should have been poking out from there was only a little stub that could barely be called a tail. Glancing up at his ears too, they just seemed unnatural to be pointed up like they were, it was so strange to her.

The last thing of note was what she could feel with her sixth sense. He was a fire element, there was that distinct feeling of heat coming from him. He really took that fire element thing a bit too seriously, given how heavily he smelled of smoke.

“So, you picked a weird one, huh Shouri?” Aura asked.

“How so?” The brother glanced over at his elder sibling.

“Went with a Lunar,” she noted.

Taika lowered her head in shame. Her element was something she was born with, it’s not like she chose to be this way.

“That doesn’t matter to me,” Shouri spoke up, much to Taika’s surprise.

“I mean, I know that; but you know how people are gonna be,” Aura warned.

“Don’t remind me,” Shouri scoffed. “I’m not changing my mind. I’m going to be her Maestro,” he asserted.

The fox girl couldn’t help the big dumb grin she wore. Chasing after him was the best decision of her life, bar none. Aura didn’t seem too bad herself. The parents however concerned her, but perhaps she could grow on them.

“Anyways, here we are!” Aura announced.

Pulled out of her own head, Taika took in her surroundings. The facility they had been brought to was a decent-sized one, a large building on an equally large campus. A sign stood just outside of the entrance to the property.

“East Nevepunto Maestro Affairs Office”

Taika had never been to one of these before. In fact, she had seen very little of the outside world except for the property that she was found at. The greater world was so overwhelming, it was dizzying.

However…

Where things were different, an equal measure stayed the same. Immediately upon stepping foot into the campus people started staring, specifically at Taika. She wasn’t stupid either. She knew what kind of stigma her element had. Her previous caretakers were quite meticulous (perhaps maliciously so) in educating her on her position in society.

The poor Resonator flattened her ears, tucking her tail between her legs as she tried to appear smaller than she was. Her lunar element wasn’t something she could just hide; rhythm, outside of being a source of power was also a sense in its own right. Resonators exuded their element which could be easily picked up upon by anyone with normal, functioning rhythm.

And these people at the MA Office, they certainly had sniffed out Taika’s element. The muttering, the pointing, the suspicious stares all cast in her direction made her feel awful. What was she even doing here?

Aura looked to Damian who was on alert, waiting for some brave fool to come try something. The brave fool who did do something was not who anyone expected though.

“WHAT?”

Attention was drawn to Shouri. “YOU GOT SOMETHING TO SAY?!” he shouted. The people staring averted their judgmental gazes and remained quiet. “ANY TAKERS?! COME ON! YOU ALL WERE RARING TO GO A MINUTE AGO!” he continued. After another moment of silence, he nodded slowly to himself. “That’s what I thought.” he huffed, turning to Taika. She tried to make herself even smaller but relaxed when she caught him smiling at her.

“Come on. Let’s go make this official.” His gentle tone made her almost swoon as she followed him closely. She wasn’t trying to immediately fall for her Maestro, but Shouri was making it so difficult by not being human garbage and actually standing up for her.

Damian and Aura meanwhile exchanged confused glances, trailing behind the pair so they could speak in relative privacy. That outburst was so unlike anything that they had seen from the boy prior. “Is he already etuding with her?” Aura muttered.

“Probably,” Damian whispered back to his Maestro.

“Do you think they’re a duet?” she asked her Resonator.

“We’re gonna find out.”

Taika took in the interior of the Maestro’s Affairs Office in awe. It was so clean and shiny. There was a main counter with a smiling attendant behind it. Different boards provided a variety of information the little lunar Resonator couldn’t hope to decipher. Many Resonators and Maestros loitered about the lobby, just relaxing away the afternoon.

Shouri was just as dumbstruck as his Resonator, having no idea where he was supposed to go. Fortunately, they were in the company of someone who did know what to do. “This way.” Aura took the lead, guiding the lost souls to the front counter for processing.

“Good afternoon and welcome to the East Nevepunto Maestro Affairs Office. How can I help you today?” the attendant asked with all the pep and cheer they could muster.

“My brother would like to register his new Resonator.” Aura stepped out of the way for Shouri.

“Certainly!” The attendant grabbed a tablet and placed it on the counter for the new Maestro to take. “Just fill this out and-” It was at this point in the spiel that the attendant caught sight of Taika. “-we’ll take you into the back,” the cheeriness from their voice noticeably fell off.

Shouri glared back, snatching up the tablet. “Sure.”

The four sat down in some chairs nearby. “I didn’t realize it was this bad,” Aura whispered to Damian.

“It’s not that bad on the streets. We take care of our kind. You get higher up on the food chain; they get picky,” the man mumbled quietly.

Aura rolled her eyes, frowning at the attendant they just walked away from, who was trying their best to not stare.

The form Shouri had to fill out was relatively simple. Basic info about himself and then some basic info about Taika. “What’s your birthday?” he asked her.

“July 16th, 2000.”

“Hey, I’m only a couple of months older than you.”

Aura watched her brother and his new partner talk warmly. There wasn’t anything wrong or weird about Taika. She was just another normal Resonator. It was honestly annoying to her that people seemed to have a problem with the Lunar element.

“I think that’s everything,” Shouri spoke up suddenly.

Aura watched her brother get up with his Resonator and walk to the counter. She watched a small exchange and then her brother and his Resonator be led into the back. She sighed audibly.

“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Damian told his Maestro.

“I’m not worried about Shouri,” Aura retorted.

Shouri and Taika’s curiosity ran amok as they were led into the far back reaches of the Maestro Affairs Office. It was a lot like a typical doctor’s office from what Shouri observed. Many open rooms with examination tables and complex machinery inside. Taika, being far more sheltered, had no frame of reference, making it all alien to her.

“So first one huh?” the technician asked Shouri.

“You could say that,” Shouri replied curtly.

“Hell of a choice for a starter,” the tech noted.

“Sure.”

Sensing Shouri’s unwillingness to continue the conversation, the technician led them into the room in question. “Up here.” He motioned for Taika to sit up on the examination table.

She complied with the demand after a moment. The tech opened one of the drawers in the counter space the room had and pulled out a small, wand-like device. Walking over to the Resonator, he turned on the device. “Head down,” he ordered. Shouri glared at the tech, resisting the urge to snap at him. Taika however quietly complied.

Waving the wand near the back of the Resonator’s neck yielded no reaction from the device. “Looks like we’ll need to install a chip into this one,” the tech noted.

“That’s why we’re here,” Shouri grumbled, rolling his eyes.

“Hm?” The tech looked to the newbie Maestro, not catching what he had said.

“What does that involve?” Shouri spoke evenly, deciding to mind his manners for now.

“It’s a pretty simple procedure. The chip is inserted behind the head. It’s very quick, maybe a minute at most,” the technician informed the newbie Maestro.

Shouri looked at Taika, who stared back with wide eyes, gripping her well-worn pants with trembling fists. As she locked eyes with her soon-to-be Maestro she slowly nodded, her tension fading; a gesture missed by the technician. “Go ahead,” the new Maestro conceded.

“We’ll go ahead and get started then.”

Turning around, the technician unlocked one of the cabinets and pulled out a container. Upon closer inspection, the container in question was packaged like something one might see at the store. Tearing open the plastic container, the tech pulled out two items of interest. The first was a clear-bodied device that showed off the electronics inside. The second (and much more frightening) object was a pre-loaded syringe. Shouri gulped, eyeing the syringe carefully as the tech tapped it a couple of times.

The tech walked behind Taika and forced her head down, holding it in place. He quickly disinfected the soon-to-be injection site with a sanitized wipe. Then as practiced as one would be with cutlery at dinner, he swiftly made the injection at the base of her skull and released Taika before she could protest.

Instantly the girl began to sway. “Lean forward,” he told her. Doing as instructed, she hunched forward, remaining sitting up.

Shouri rushed over and helped steady his Resonator. “What did you do?” the new Maestro questioned hesitantly.

The technician went about business as usual, not seeing anything amiss about his treatment of the Resonator or her sudden loss of coordination. He grabbed the clear-bodied device from the counter he left it resting on and walked it back to the new Maestro and Resonator pair. “Hold this at the back of her head until you hear a beep.”

Shouri stared at the device. He had seen plenty of tuners in the past, given their prevalence in modern society. One had to have a Resonator to have a tuner though. It would not activate unless it was paired. That was simply how this world functioned. Reaching out, Shouri took hold of the device. The strange material that composed the shell of the device immediately drew upon his very essence, his rhythm. It lit up but didn’t display any information; only the backlight of the touch screen was illuminated.

The activator rested in Taika. Shouri gripped the device and held it over the back of her head. Sure enough, after a moment, the device beeped. Pulling it away, he watched the shell slowly darken into a purplish-black color, losing its previous transparency. As this was occurring, the screen began to show various pieces of information as it began to start up for the first time.

“She’ll be uncoordinated for a bit. For full functionality, there’s a particular part of the brain stem the chip is injected into,” the technician explained to the new Maestro.

“That seems kinda dangerous,” Shouri pointed out.

“Nothing to worry about kid, I do about twenty of these a day on average. She’ll be able to walk with some help in like twenty minutes.”

The boy frowned at that answer. It all seemed unnecessarily rough to Shouri. Then again, he didn’t just have a piece of silicon forced into his brain, so he couldn’t talk. “Thanks,” was what he decided on.

“Since this is your first Resonator, you’ll want to read the manual on that tuner there,” the technician advised. “Feel free to leave at your leisure though, we’re pretty slow today.”

And with that, the technician left Shouri and Taika alone. “Are you okay?” Shouri asked.

Taika lifted her head, managing to flash a weak smile to her new Maestro. “Yea… jush really dishy Sho,” she slurred her words ever so slightly.

“Come on, lay back for a little bit,” Shouri urged his new partner. She wore a smile as he helped her lay back on the examination table. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, but it had a little padding on it, so at least she wasn’t lying on a hard, flat surface.

In the intervening time, Shouri grabbed that manual the tech was talking about. He began to skim through the pages. The first couple of pages talked about post installation care, pretty simple stuff from his own admission. It first talked about the lack of coordination directly after, then followed up with instructions about keeping the installation site clean and to avoid showering and bathing for some time after (Shouri noted that the opposite was advised for water elements, a fact he filed away for later use). Lastly, it said to bring the Resonator to an MA Office should a fever develop.

Flipping through some more pages, he got to the part he really wanted to dig into: the technology. He knew a lot of the functions of the tuner from when his sister got her tuner and Resonator. He knew he could talk to Taika whenever he wanted and could listen to anything she was saying as well. It also monitored her vitals and rhythm, in addition to providing a spell list for him to be able to read off. It was very handy. He continued flipping through the features. Web access, clock, phone. The little device seemed to have it all.

However, his zeal for the new electronics died as soon as he reached the last section. It was regarding the bright red button on the lower right-hand side of the device. The red button was referred to as the “override function” and the further Shouri read into it, the more ill he got. In essence, it allowed the Maestro to remove the Resonator’s free will whenever they wanted. The book put it in such clinical terms that he couldn’t believe what he was reading. Glancing up, he stared at Taika who remained lying on the examination table.

At any time, he could just press a button and she’d do whatever he asked of her without any input from her at all?

It was awful. Why did nobody ever talk about this? It seemed like a huge deal to just ignore and sweep under the rug. He quietly pondered if Aura had ever used that button on Damian.

“Are you okay Sho?” Taika asked, pushing herself up to a sitting position.

Shouri looked up from the book, and failed to hide the mortified expression on his face.

“Sho?” She pushed herself off of the examination table, but as soon as her feet touched the ground, her legs refused to obey, and she plummeted to the ground like a rock. Shouri rushed over and caught her before she crashed into the tile below.

“Sh-sho…” Her face reddened as she realized she was in her Maestro’s arms.

“Are you okay Taika?” Shouri asked.

“I-I’m fine! Are you okay?” she turned his question back on him. “You looked upset,” she fretted as he eased her to the ground. He shot a glance towards where he had tossed the book when Taika fell. “What’s wrong Sho?” Taika continued to worry.

With a sigh, Shouri sat her up against the exam table. He held out the tuner for her his thumb pointed at the red button. “This button here lets me take control of you,” he spoke quietly.

Taika’s eyes widened. She had heard of such a thing from novels she had read but didn’t think it was real. The way Shouri had reacted and the tone in his voice spoke volumes. “Wh-why are you telling me this?” she questioned.

“I don’t want to be your Maestro under false pretenses. I didn’t know about this. People don’t seem to talk about it,” Shouri laid out his thoughts. “So if you want to leave, you can take this with you,” he offered.

Taika stared at the tuner before her. It hadn’t even been half a day and she was already being given up? No, this wasn’t Shouri having cold feet about their partnership - he was being considerate of her feelings.

“No.” She reached out and wrapped her hands around his. “I appreciate you being honest, but I don’t have a choice in the matter. I would rather be controlled by you than go back there.” She smiled.

What she had said to him was alarming, to say the least. He found her sweeping the sidewalk on the side of the road, and that was much worse than the possibility of becoming essentially a meat puppet? His curiosity itched something fierce. Where had she come from that was so bad that she’d take this risk?

“If you’ll still have me knowing all that, I guess I don’t have a choice now do I?”