Half-paying attention to what was going on around, Keane would catch Aya's comment, referring to the water double he'd made. he would smile sincerely and reply: "One of several, today. I would never have thought that on the same day I was ranting at trees and yelling at the sky, I would be enjoying such a great storm with such great people."

With that, Keane would drop off the platform into the mud (easily washed off anyway) and dispel the water copy so that he wasn't keeping too many spells going at once. Turning to Yoshi as he asked the question he would respond in an apologetic tone: "No, I'm sorry Yoshi-san. I would, but this art requires a good deal of time and natural talent. Not to mention it would involve traveling around the world, as my school and I move around a lot. I will make you a deal though. Wait a few years, and if you an teach yourself to manipulate an element, come find me."

With that, he would turn back to the spell he had been gathering strength for. With a good deal of water, gathered from nearby puddles, he would form the shape of a large spade in midair. With a great downward motion in the professor's arms, the spade would begin excavating in an open area, near the trees and away from the camp. After a few minutes, a ten foot square and five foot deep hole would be created, and the water used to make the spade dumped inside. At the current level of rain, it would not be long before the hole became a tiny synthetic lake. Happy with his handiwork, Keane would walk under the umbrella to rest a bit. He would say, half-jokingly: "Voila. Defending this camp should be no trouble now."

Ayameko was impressed by the Professor’s ability to create such magnificent works of art, seeming almost effortless, and within the same moment easily squash their existence light-heartedly and begin anew. Once young Yoshi arrived and the two began conversing, Aya took to herself under the umbrella and took appreciation in the thrumming sound of the continuous rain connecting with every different object it came into contact with. Everything made its own unique noise just as everything had its own unique signature and she took joy in differentiating between each.

Yoshi frowned at Keane’s reply to his request, but it wasn’t as disappointing as he might have first thought. The man did promise to take him under his wind and teach him all the things he needed to know if he could succeed in the first steps on his own. He’d surely try his hardest, this was sure! The boy beamed momentarily at the prospected thought of one day being as talented of a water manipulator as Keane seemed to be.

Both Aya and Yoshi watched in ongoing anticipation as the man with the ability to manipulate water created his own personal mini lake before them out of the rain water that continued to ceaselessly fall around them.

Yoshi thought the storm would never stop.

Aya hoped the storm promised change.

When the Professor took cover under the umbrella with her, Aya smiled simply at him as he offered his assurance on the protection of the camp. “Ah, Professor- if ever a time comes when we cannot run and we must stand and fight, there is no doubt in my mind that you will do everything in your power to protect us.”

Yoshi stubbornly stood in the downpour, refusing to seek cover under the umbrella even after Keane himself had caved and had given in to the shelter of the umbrella from the rain. Imitating a skilful fighter, the boy threw a couple air punches with his small fists, hopping around on the balls of his feet. “Keane and I can take on all those mean soldiers without a problem! Right, Keane?” After his air punches seemed to not destroy every single imaginary soldier, the boy resorted to an invisible sword in which he swung with great effort; after all, a sword-invisible or not-would surely be very heavy!

Looking out into the rain, slightly panting from the spell he just cast, Keane would answer in a dead serious tone: "Absolutely, miss Aya. Everything in my power. I have found a new home, no matter how temporarily. But if I were to leave even tomorrow, I would risk my life to save this camp until then. Needless to say though, I hope it doesn't come to that."

After listening to Yoshi's zealous comment, Keane would descend again into an air of levity. "Ha ha, I'm sure it won't have to come to that. But if it does, you have an even more important job to do than defend the camp. Yoshi-san, you have to survive. As long as you survive and have a cause with you, then there is still hope for a new age. And don't forget, you can't be too quick to fight. Words and diplomacy have ended more wars than any bloodshed, and have sometimes done so before the wars even began."

He would accompany the second part of the speech with water sculptures, something he did not tend to do very often. He began with two faceless humanoid shapes beginning to fist fight, only to be stopped by an intervening third sculpture. Fairly certain the point got through, Keane would drop the spell and begin to enjoy the rain again.

It went without saying that Professor Keane’s words of wisdom and his spoken dedication to the camp did not go unheard. Both people who sat with the man at that moment each took his words separately and respectively. For the while more the three remained out in the rain, the downpour continued until it tapered slowly off and gave wake to night skies. They’d spent the better part of the day out in the elements, but exhaustion was overtaking them inevitably.

Aya would be the one to volunteer the idea of retiring for the evening, and would lead the other two back towards the main parts of the camp and into tents to sleep. It’d been an eventful time this day and many things had transpired. Before sleep overcame her eyes, while the outlines of the world around her remained fuzzy and blurred in her drowsy sight, Aya wondered what new beginnings the rains today were foretelling.

With that, she drifted easily into a deep sleep that would last undisturbed until the rays of morning light sprinkled her closed eyelids. Even though she’d received a peaceful night’s sleep, something stirred in a draining way within her and she had to forcibly work her eyes open. With each passing moment, every level of awakening and awareness that she climbed helped things to become clearer for her.

Soon enough, she was rising from the tent and making her way out into the crisp morning air from the rains before. Rubbing the remnants of sleep from her eyes, Aya’s eyes cast over the other tens where other sleeping citizens remained and she kept on the look out for the Professor and the young boy.

When Aya suggested sleep, Keane found it as more of an attractive propostion then he figured he would, between his lack of sleep recently and all the casting he had been doing. Wordlessly, he followed out from under the umbrella and released the spell on it, sending it crashing to the ground. When he parted ways with his companions, he would cast one last time with a wave of his hand, causing the water from the storm to fall harmlessly off of the group, then adjourn to his tent. He barely had time to notice the decor before he passed out.

When he woke up birght and early, the professor would quickly come to his senses and realize that almost all of the camp didnt know he knew how to cast, and might be suspiscious of the new lake on the outskirts of the tent city. quickly opening the side of the tent, he would dash back to the place of yesterday's leisure and find the lake, filled to the top as expected. He would hurriedly, with about five minutes time and a little aid from his magic, coat the top of lake with dirt, rocks, leaves and sticks, to the point that it looked like a normal, if cluttered, patch of land. He even added the finishing touch of using his magic to keep the surface perfectly still and to increase the surface tension to the point that it would suspend the heavier debris.

Knowing that he wouldn't be reasonably able to keep the magic up on the lake if he left, he would sit on one of the larger floating rocks to keep himself in proximity. Nervously, he would wave to any passersby that happened to notice him. Franbitcally, he would wonder what to do about the lake.

Offtopic: Sorry for the wait, originally wanted to write this on Saturday.

Tracking them had actually been a little time consuming. Large groups didn't move long distances, but this one had definitely succeeded where many before them had failed. They had moved a slightly longer distance than most, considering their situation, and hadn't been captured by enemy soldiers of any sort at all. It was commendable--admirable, even thouh it cost the two trackers almost an entire day of searching for them.

Fortunately, though, it was an "uneventful" day for the both of them; they didn't encounter any enemy resistance, or any scouting parties at all--which specifically had the leader of the two man expedition worried, at least until they saw tents and moving bodies.

Chujutsu Raikou and Jin Kazamika--who by this point would be completely recovered--would be seen at a distance by the few that were waking early in the morning, a man dressed in the garb of an oversees politician, suit and tie, albeit dirtied and a little rugged, and one who bore the appearance of a Samurai--of a Kensai, to be exact, though it was unlikely that anyone would make the distinction between them. It seemed standard Kensai wore a modified kimono from the traditional Samurai, and the differences, aside from color, were too minute to notice.

Raikou didn't say anything as he approached the camp; they were still a good quarter of a mile away, but that certainly left those within the camp the opportunity to react, if they saw fit. The only person here who might recognize Chujutsu, after all, was Keane Sigmund--and he was currently elsewhere . . .

Jin’s swagger had been revitalized. The minutes immediately following Raikou’s use of the arcane, it felt like his shoulder was on fire. But quite a time had passed between then and now, and Jin felt as spry as ever. A brazen fire tempered by the steel of prudence. Now that he knew that people like the Chameleon, and perhaps the Chameleon himself, were out there waiting for him, the Kensai grew all the more attentive. Senses on fire and alert.

Nothing was said when the tents and moving silhouettes, framed by the distant horizon, flitted into their respective fields of vision. But Raikou, though he remained tacit, continued to walk forward and this was all the motivation that Jin needed. He brought his left hand to grip tight his scabbard, his right arm to swing lax but ready, and kept his eyes forward. His gait changed from the brisk pace of an adventure to the slinking steps of a predator.

Unless stopped, word spreading back to the camp likely by way of scout, they would make it to the very fringes of the camp unhindered. Jin had nothing to say. He did not know these people. As it was to be in the camp before this, Jin would have to stick close to Raikou if he had any hope of cultivating proper respect and trust. That he still donned the kimono given him when a functioning member of Almaster’s kensai brigade likely would not help matters much.

After Aya left her tent, she began glancing around for any sign of the Professor and the young boy, but when she didn’t see either of them, she assumed they must both still be sleeping soundly in their tents. The few citizens that did stir this early in the morning as she did were either by chance or by duty—there was always shifts taken throughout the night, posts that had to be filled, and it had turned out to work so well for their little community—but no one complained. After the fresh rains from the day before, the ground beneath her feet cushioned her soles with a squishy-mushy feeling that almost had her wanting to curiously jump up and down; but she resisted.

Rather, she stretched her arms high into the air above her and finished awakening in the morning sun. Her plan was to gather up Yoshi and the Professor and continue with her normal tasks. Maybe she’d even take Yoshi with the two of them out on one of her scoutings, but on second thought maybe she wouldn’t. The way the shards of light poured down from through and between the leaves and branches of the trees around them, scattered everywhere along the ground and left small places of warming spots if one were to stand in it.

She was growing impatient with waiting for her friends to arise, and began pacing back and forth in front of her tent before beginning to make her way casually walking past other tents and decidedly heading back toward the area the three of them had been yesterday. Unbeknownst to her, she was headed in the same direction the Professor had taken not long before her.

In hindsight, it was luck--she’d believe--that had her deciding to go in the direction the three of them had been yesterday, where the Professor happened to be now. Since the death of her father, she couldn’t bring herself to believe in anything larger than her anymore, no grand scheme of things. There was no magic except for the kind the Professor seemed to know through study, practice, and skill. It would also be luck that young Yoshi did still in fact just so happen to be fast asleep in his tent, totally depleted from the prior day’s events that proved too much for the young boy. The woman Yoshi had arrived with had in fact found a comfortable position with some of the other younger ladies of the camp, and during this present time had, as well as many others, still been asleep in her tent. Ayameko would later learn that Yoshi and the young woman had no relation, but had formed a kind of quicksilver bond for their mutual survival.

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Outside the limits of the camp, the duo’s approach had been spotted quickly, was noted, observed, and followed in secret. The scouts in the tree lines had managed to execute their duties well, documenting the moves the two strangers made; not preparing to fight, but flee if they must. Since there were only two, they assumed it was some kind of scouting party out to get information of the camp’s whereabouts. The two would bring several, which would bring multitudes. Countless faces of trouble with their murderous blades and controlling rule. If the fleeing citizens of the camp were going to make it through this, they’d have to get as far away from these soldiers as was possible. While the scouts continued to watch and follow from the trees, a messenger had been sent racing beyond the limits of sight, outside the bordering parts of the camp, and then intersected by other awakening members of the camp as the news was spread. As was assumed by the majority of them, soldiers were coming and this was only the beginning!

A couple had been sent to survey things out, get a feel for what they were up against, and then all the rest of them were going to come without mercy. Before long, people were scurrying about, leaving their tents and belongings behind and frantically gathering essentials and the children in an attempt to flee the area. At first, they tried to stay quiet and calm. But the attempts gave way to panic and fear after the first spontaneous screams and shouts began. Citizens scattered in all directions, and not was as it had been planned to be.

If any good could come of everything that was happening, it was that the scattering citizens in their retreat were managing to keep a somewhat close cluster to each other, while the heading men of the camp and other ‘fighters’ of the like hung back, still retreating as the rest were, but keeping up the tail end as would be expected. If the two continued to advance even after their flee, then maybe action would have to be taken.
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Aya caught a high octave of sound on the wind and at first decided it to be a shriek of laughter from a child, or a delighted yell from someone as she wandered more down towards where they’d been yesterday. Spotting the Professor, she gave a wave and noticed him perched uncomfortably on a rock. What was he doing all the way out here? And alone? Another scream. And then another. Sharp alert overtook her and she shot a desperate look to the Professor, he’d know what her expression intended; they had to go, get back to the camp, and they had to do it now.

Keane started to panic when a scream echoed through the makeshift village. He had sworn to protect the camp, but he also had promised himself he wouldn't make his magic so apparent, as he tended to normally. He then noticed Aya a good distance away and nervously waved back. He had to concentrate right now, both on the problem at hand and on the spell he had cast. He eventually (after about five seconds) came to a decision. He could technically both keep the spell up and help the camp out, but would do both at half efficiency. Slowly and carefully, he got up from the rock and got off of the lake covering. Looking back, he would halt the majority of the spell on the lake, instead opting to just bolster the surface tension to an even higher amount. This would have the visual effect of a normal chink of ground, but would come at the cost of such malleability that if anyone were to step on it, they would immediately fall through.

Then, wordlessly, the professor would dash over to Aya, ready to follow wherever his services were required. If he had to defend the camp with his life, negotiate with some enemy or even just check the situation out and make sure things were under control, he would do so with all the gusto he could muster. Keane would check his water containers in his robe to make sure they were full, and after finding that they were indeed, he would rush off wherever he had to.

We've been followed for some time . . .

Chujutsu hadn't said anything to Kazamika about it, but he was sure that Jin knew just as well as he did. It was pretty obvious they were being followed. The camp's trackers and lookouts weren't on par with Gardini's trained soldiers at all; though, they had the potential. They could stay in the trees, but they made too much movement. Too much movement in a tree gave one away; but Chujutsu didn't attack, and he didn't expect Kazamika to, either; not without him leading it. As it was, Chujutsu had the greatest perception there. If he needed to, he could see the warmth of their bodies . . .

But in this case, he didn't need to. They weren't amateurs, but they weren't perfect, either. Not like Gardini's Kensai. Those were the ones that stuck to the trees while scouting--at least, those that specialized in scouting. Chujutsu would've had to walk with his eyes shut to find them.

No, these weren't professional; they weren't blatant soldiers, but they'd be great trackers if they were trained. Maybe . . . maybe someone could train them, someday. Someone like Jin Kazamika.

Chujutsu continued to approach with Kazamika, and would stop as soon as he reached the edge of the make-shift village; a camp so large that all the tents together truly looked like a mobile town. These people had a lot to lose--and unfortunately, Jin and Chujutsu, unless otherwise halted, standing just where the clearing for the camp started, would appear as absolute threats to every single one of them--except one. Professor Keane Sigmund was the only one here who'd actually recognize Chujutsu Raikou . . .

They came upon the stopgap village soon enough, and Jin was unsurprised at the frenzy that surged through their ranks. To properly broadcast his intent for peace, if not by the fact that they walked proudly through a pathway without subterfuge, then Jin moved the scabbard from his silk sheathe and laid it solemnly on the ground. He rose again, his arms pressed to his side with his palms facing outwards into the group, and he stood as still as he could.

"They're skittish. But they can't really be blamed, can they? I would be too, if I were in their position."

There was something in Jin's eyes. Not pity, but something like it. Empathy; an understanding of what it must have been like to walk ten miles in their shoes. But the understanding could only ever be superficial for someone like Jin. He could only look on at their fear and consternation at arm's length. He could never really feel it, not with such intensity and pervasion as these rebels did.

They may not have been able to recognize the man's face, and it was not surprising given how high profile Chujutsu was, but Jin was absolutely certain that more than one of them had heard his name. Raikou was an important figure in the movement; he was their voice, along with one other man ideally, and when the man spoke it was likely heard throughout all the rebel camps. It was just a matter of time.

Hopefully.

"This is Chujutsu Raikou!" Jin's voice, lungs and throat trained through years of yelling out commands and the kai that his martial arts dictated, carried clearly in the still emptying camp. "We have come to help. Please do not run, or else we'll have wasted another day."

When young Yoshi had been roused from deep sleep in his tent by screams, the panic outside drew him to peek out from his sanctuary. In a blur, a scared woman raced past him, nearly taking his head off. With a gushing breath, the young boy retreated back into his tent until his intuition insisted that he leave it again. Something was happening, and although he couldn’t be sure just what it was, the danger and fear in the air buzzed with an electric charge, making it nearly impossible to deny. Poking his head out again, the boy caught sight of his small community fleeing yet again, and images of déjà vu sprung into mind from when he’d fled the city walls.



But Yoshi knew that things such as panic and fear only led to mistakes and defeat. He may have been young, but he’d taken Keane seriously and was already intent on becoming as great a man as he. With an acute awareness about him, the boy left his tent and stepped foot onto the battle field. Citizens were racing all around, children screaming and crying, there was shouting but he couldn’t distinguish any clear words in all the chaos. Where was Keane and Aya? Yoshi tried to keep his wits about him, pushing away the frantic pangs that threatened to swallow him in its flame, and he began to seek out his friends.

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Ayameko spun on her heels once the professor reached her and began a mad dash back towards the camp. It didn’t take long before she and the professor were met by the people running away from the danger that approached. And although a few of them shouted out what was taking place and hurried the others along, Aya weaved in and out through them, her direction still heading from where they came. Through the numerous faces she encountered as she ran, she didn’t spot Yoshi and this made her worry. Would the boy have thought himself brave enough to take on the threat? The boy was young, naïve even, but she knew he couldn’t be that foolish.



That thinking would surely get him killed long before his time had come!

With this revelation, Aya glanced to where she assumed the professor might be in following along with her, and she knew they had to find Yoshi and confront this danger that came knocking on their door.

It was the men of the camp who they met up with next, having taken the duty of the back of the fleeing crowd, laying down their lives in an attempt to allow the others more time to escape if that’s what the situation came down to. She admired that about them, and it was probably that admiration that fit her into their position as well. In quick shouts, Aya learned it was assumedly two soldiers scouting their camp and soon enough more would come to kill them all. Their own scouts, who had followed them soldiers since then first crossed the area, had swung around a wide surrounding proximity of the approaching soldiers like the alerter before had done, and had scurried along to help the others flee, but some of them added to the group that carried up the back.

Ayameko was prepared to stand her ground, and it was also then she spotted the familiar lanky frame of Yoshi, still a good way from them, still back nearer the tents. Was he crazy?! He seemed to be mimicking the follow-up movements the other men did, except at a much slower pace. She wondered why none of the adult men had ran to snatch him! She was about to start yelling at the men before she realized her shouts would be much better aimed at the boy. “Yoshi! What are you doing! Get away from them!”

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When the boy failed as finding his friends, he began to slowly make his way, backwards of course, after the fleeing crowd, much the same as the men of the camp had been doing, except he wanted to take more time to find his friends. Little did he know until it was much too late that by doing so, he had managed to create a good distance between himself and the other citizens, thus leaving himself an open target, a juicy steak for hungry mouths—or swords. He refused to panic, knowing fully well that if he wanted to be a man, he couldn’t be scared.

Bravely he stood his ground, only taking small steps back in retreat, eye narrowed at the two men. These soldiers, in their proper kensai garb, were seen as pure evil to him. An evil that had to be stopped. Yoshi couldn’t allow everything that these people had worked so hard for to just be trampled on time and time again. Aya’s shouts reached him, but there wasn’t much he could do about it; he wouldn’t turn with his tail tucked between his legs like some passive dog and retreat to the safety of the others.

When one of the men began to shout, the young boy didn’t know what to make of it. So surprised was he by the sudden noise in the tension and silence that he froze solid in his place, feet welded to the ground beneath him as he gawked at the soldiers, his jaw slightly gaped. He knew not of the name the man spoke, so had instead dared a peek from the corner of his sight back to Aya and Keane, wondering if maybe they would know what to make of it.

______________________________________________________

She swore she saw red when looking upon the soldiers in the distance, and she felt her hatred from her father’s murder finding its way back into her veins. If she didn’t have anything to lose, she would have stormed across the distance between them and would have contributed her very last breath to ending the men’s lives.

A name struck her curious when one of the soldiers spoke. A name that her father had murmured to her many-a-time, a name that had circulated its way through some of the camp, but hadn’t been spoken loudly of.



But this curiosity, and this name, had Ayameko studying the faces of the two men now more closely, and the other men of the camp around her began the matching look as well. Who knew what they could believe, or if this was a trick of the soldiers. They spoke of providing help, but what business did kensai have coming to the aid of fleeing citizens of the city they helped tear down?

Throwing the worries of the hastily upkept lake covering from his mind, the professor would dash rather quickly alongside Aya. However, once the crowds came and ran opposite them, Keane had a harder time. He was used to running along forest paths, and the trees and rocks tended not to run the opposite way. When Aya glanced over, she would not see the professor, as in an effort to combat his relative slowness due to crowding, he would use some of his water to lift himself to the rooftops and run along them. As he bounded, he would use the water both to carry him from roof to roof and to lift him slightly, lightening the load on the weaker buildings. Keane was moving at full blast to save his current residence.

When Keane got to the space between the citizens and the intruders, he would take a quick glance to check the situation. At first he wondered why everyone was so worried, but quickly came up with the possibility that they were scouts for a larger force. However, he took a closer glance at the intruders, especially the familiar looking one in the sullied suit and tie. A grin would develop across his face, as he recalled where he had seen his face before. Waterlifting himself to the ground and beginning to pace to their postition, he would call out to the interlopers: "Well, well, what have we here? How have things been going, Chujutsu-san?"

Upon reaching a reasonable distance from the two, Keane would bow in a decidedly and intentionally Algerothian manner, while still remaining wary of the artist's companion. While Chujutsu had proven his character back during the forest meeting, the man next to him had not. Not to the professor anyway, and the warrior's outfit he was wearing didn't manage to reassure. With the same pervasive smile, Keane would come out of his bow and say: "I trust the day finds you well?"

It was . . . chaos. Chujutsu stared out into the camp. They were running as if Kazamika and Chujutsu were enemies! Well, it was hard to blame them for that. After all, none of them knew Chujutsu, and Kazamika was dressed like one of their worst enemies. Those that actually knew how the Kensai dressed knew well enough that there were to be avoided as much as humanly possible.

"Everyone, please--!" Chujutsu called out, hoping to be loud enough that they could hear.

Seemed he wasn't.

"Please, we mean you no harm--!"

Neither Chujutsu's nor Kazamika's calls out into the makeshift village was doing any good. With a defeated half-smile, he looked back to Kazamika. What else could they do? Wait for everyone to clear out and THEN try and make their case? That probably wasn't going to work, either . . .

But then . . .

"Ah! Professor-dono!" Chujutsu exclaimed as he watched the Professer--quite literally--glide towards them.

A familiar face! It was perfect! Now, they might be able to calm the crowd! If they knew that Chujutsu was here for the sake of organization, as someone who had personally spoken to Maguro in the past, they might be hard pressed to be so fearful of him. Then, he might be able to explain Kazamika, too . . .

"I have been-- um . . ." he was about to actually reply to the professor's conversational inquiry. Best not to do that just yet! Chujutsu smiled awkwardly, "Professor-dono, could you please explain to your companions that Kazamika-dono and I also support Maguro-dono?"

Things were beginning to die down and, though the reason behind the growing calm was not the message that Raikou or Kazamika desperately tried to deliver to the fleeing citizens, Jin was still thankful.

In the boy that came to them and stood his ground against what must have seemed, to him, to be two lethal enemies, Jin recognized two things. He saw intractable courage, something brass and hard-edged in the child that would not let him back down even if the situation was so hopelessly stacked against him that there was no possibility of pulling victory out from the maws of defeat. The second was a cold, fingerless grip that circled around the pit of his stomach; to think that a child felt the need to cultivate such a sense of fearlessness.

It really put into stark perspective the sad state that their world was in. More than all the blood Jin has personally shed, the people he's seen die, the freedoms he's seen stripped away from hundreds of thousands of people. The image of a single child willing to toss away his life for something that he didn't even fully understand…

It disturbed him.

"Hey." Jin calmed the power of his voice in speaking to the boy. He kept his hands at his side, his sword on the ground, and did not attempt to move forward. "We're here to he-."

Jin then caught the tail-end of a motion from beyond the kid's shoulder and noticed the woman behind him. She had a righteous anger smoldering in her eyes, and Jin worried himself with the thought that he would have to incapacitate her.

The swordsman had, perhaps, something to say about all this. Maybe his next attempt would have been to try and smooth things out a bit more, present the child and the woman with the logic that if they were here to harm, they wouldn't be standing still and waiting for nothing. Likely a futile attempt, but they had to try something. Then the Professor came, and something happened.

Jin had never really seen magic before, but just today he had been presented with two declarative instances of it. The Chameleon's ability to simply disappear, and whatever it was that Raikou had done to heal his back. Pain and adrenaline helped soften the blow, but this time neither was present and it strained Jin's psyche to have the laws of his universe twisted as such. The Professor's method of propulsion pushed Jin over the edge.

The words that Jin had swallowed came back with a vengeance. Bubbled in his stomach, surged through his throat, and spilled past his lips. He bent at the waist and turned away from them all, expelling the meager contents of his stomach all over the ground in an unpleasant slurry of food bits and bile.

Straightening his posture, and wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, Jin suddenly looked weary.

"That was unexpected."