It was several minutes of walking, deep into the woods, and for awhile Eld wondered what the point of this was. What was out here that she had to show him? He doubted the answer to his problems lay out in the middle of the woods...

But when they came into the clearing, it dawned on Eld what it was almost before Emma said it. The lamps, the arrangement of the rocks and trees...someone had definitely set this up deliberately. It was like a little sanctuary...a place to get away from the rest of the world, and it had everything he'd need. A personal sanctuary, and it surely served a similar purpose as the hill did for Eld.

"You mean you did?" he asked Emma; he was still surprised, but not quite as much as Sarah. After all, he had seen Remmy train, though admittedly not here. He'd also seen him fight...and he knew enough about combat now to know just how much Remmy must have been holding back to not kill any of the bandits...how very strong he must have been.

More than anything though, he was drawn to the notebook...he examined it, but was almost afraid to touch it. Remmy's words would be written inside...just what did he write in here? Did he organize his thoughts, write creatively, or maybe make notes on his training? He wanted to know, but at the same time it felt like it would be a violation of something sacred if he did. Perhaps whatever was here, Remmy never intended to be seen.

"Yeah," Emma replied, almost nostalgically.

The place was filled with long repeated, yet fond memories. Just running your fingers across one of those tall boulders could make you think of him, Remington Vaerbond, with hair perched up like a flame, even with the color of some sort of deep fire, shirtless, raining jabs into the boulder, slowly but surely chipping away at it with each and every punch, bloodying his knuckles, rearing open old scars from the same repeated exercise, staining his own blood, sweat, and tears upon the rock formation-- blood that remained to this day, with dark stains and splotches and dotted each of the rock formations, but never any of the trees. Wood wasn't hard enough to break Remmy's skin.

Sarah and Mayako both silently moved from tree to rock to tree again, each running her hands over it, feeling the grooves and wounds upon trees and stones alike, from just one man using them as a training exercise. Mayako started clockwise, while Sarah started counter-clockwise. Emma, on the other hand, approached the stump, and plopped down in front of it. It was tall enough to be like a table, but short enough to be like a Cizokian table-- the kind that didn't need chairs.

"I used to come out here all the time, when I knew he was out here. I first followed him out here was I was very, very little; watched him just go at it over and over, until he heard me moving, and yelled at me, thinking I was someone else. He ran out, ready to seriously hurt someone, but then he saw me, like . . . just a five year old girl, pinned up against a tree, scared for her life-- he felt so bad that he took me home, and promised to let me come out here anytime I want, but only if it was just me."

Which would have been betraying Remmy's trust a little, if it it weren't for something else . . .

"I think he'd be okay with this-- no, I know he'd be okay with this. It's in his notebook, after all!"

Eld had to admit he as a bit jealous of Emma. What it was like to see Remmy train? Depending on what he did, she may have been the only one of them that had seen Remmy's full strength. When this was over, he decided he'd have to ask her about it.

Assuming I make it back.

He nodded in agreement; whatever Remmy wrote in here, if there was something that would help him save Etsu, then he was certain he wouldn't mind them rummaging through it.

With a bit of reverence, he took the notebook out and placed it on the stump, before sitting cross-legged beside Emma. "Do you remember where it is?" he asked. As curious as he was to what all Remmy had written down, he didn't have time to read the entire thing just now.

"Hey you two, get over here," Emma called for Sarah and Mayako, both still a little shocked by the existence of this place, and Emma's seven year knowledge of it.

Mayako simply jumped a little, before scurrying awkwardly over to the stump, to sit across from Eld. Sarah, on the other hand, shrugged her shoulders and stuffed her hands into her pockets dejectedly. Now wasn't the time to get jealous, so she'd have to save it for later, but still. It was the principle of the matter.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm comin'."

Sarah sat down cross legged across from Emma. Like a clock, they sat with Emma at twelve, Eld at three, Sarah at six, and Mayako at nine. The stump was big enough for all of them to fit like that, too. Hell, if they had four other companions, they would have fit comfortably all the same!

As soon as Eld opened the first page, he'd see what Emma had mentioned just a moment earlier. Written in his handwriting on the very first page, printed very neatly--

To whom it may concern,

What the hell are you doing here? Goddamnit, now I need to go find a new training place. I'm not sure if you can appreciate the difficulty involved in finding this place. Do you know how often trees grow in a circle? For forcing me out of here, I have to say that you are a dickhead, and I hope you break your big toe.

Unless, of course, you're one of my little sisters. In which case, what the hell are you doing here? Go home!

Or if I've moved out of Algeroth completely, or up and kicked the bucket or something. In THAT case . . . well, you can have the place. There's everything a person would ever need. There's a well up north a bit, a cooler behind the north tree, and oil lanterns for the night. Just don't screw it up or anything. This place has been my little getaway and training spot for damn near ten years. If you screw it up, I'll come back and pound your face in!

Sincerely,

Remington Vaerbond. It was signed in cursive, and very beautifully written, for that matter. When Remmy told Eld long ago that he was smarter than everyone else gave him credit for, he wasn't lying.

"Well . . ." Emma thought aloud, "There are a ton of things, really . . ."

And flipping through would give Eld more than enough proof of Emma's statements. For at least fifty pages, there were sketches, times, and dates. Sketches generally comprised body sketches, somewhat anatomically correct bodies shown hitting something in a certain pose, punching, kicking, headbutting, even jumping in some cases! A lot of the time, there were times-- average times. Averages for himself, and averages in general, for what he considered the proper time to pull certain things off and maintain effectiveness.

The last five pages or so had nothing to do with training. Instead, they dealt with the bandits. Maps were drawn out, with formations and directions, all moving around, some scribbled out and redone. Numbers of his people, Theleaus's people, weapons, available money horded for their sake, for buying new weapons and such-- numbers that were done and redone quite a few times.

Even over the sadness that being reminded of his friend's death brought, he couldn't help but smile at his writing. He could practically hear his voice speaking the words aloud. "So...it's alright to use this place, then?"

He flipped through the notebook, and could only look on in wonder. There were notes on literally everything, from different techniques he used, to training methods, to records for some of his different exercises. "You're such a liar, Remmy," he whispered, but with a smile. He recalled when they started fighting the bandits, Eld had asked Remmy to train him, but he'd basically denied him, stating that he fought mostly on instinct. All he could teach him was guts; how to keep from letting fear drive you, to remain unflinching before countless foes...

And then there were the last few pages. These were filled with notes about the campaign against the bandits, and they brought back mixed feelings. Throughout the whole thing, Remmy had been studying, taking care of every little detail. This was why he was the hero, not Eld; it had taken all of his will just to fight, and here Remmy was organizing everything.

Upon seeing the very last two pages, his breath caught--it was a diagram for the very last battle with bandits, or rather two separate ones. The first one showed the formation of the bandits, and a single circle, representing Remmy himself, with notes on how it was best that he stay behind while the rest of the village fled from Theleaus and his bandits.

And then there was the second one. It was nearly exactly the same, except that behind Remmy was a line indicated to be the villagers, and beside him was a single other circle, with a line leading out to the name of the person so represented. The notes for evacuation were replaced with a single statement, circled and underlined: We can win this.

Overcome by a sudden flood of emotion and memories, Eld stood up, moving a few paces away and keeping his back to his friends. He didn't want them to see how he had to fight tears, and how it was a losing battle...

"Hey, Eld, come h--" Emma was about to call for him, but Sarah stopped her.

All she did was lift her finger, though, a way to suggest that Emma should wait a second. It was hard to tell with his back to them that there was anything wrong, except for them: Sarah, Emma, and Mayako. Emma had gotten wrapped up in all her thoughts and she nearly forgot what Eld looked like when he was feeling emotional. Even with his back turned to them, he couldn't hide the truth of the matter-- but those were feelings he wanted to have for himself, it seemed. As much as Mayako wanted to spring up and go over there and throw her arms around him, she refrained from it.

All they could do was wait. He was going to be okay. In fact, he was probably going to be more okay than he ever had been.

While Eld had his back turned, Emma slowly slid the notebook over so she could have it for now. She unclipped the pen from it and blew the dust off-- and turned the page, now over to a blank page, open for anyone to jot down notes and tactics as needed. Which was exactly what she planned to do.

It wasn't long before Eld returned to the table. He was still feeling a bit emotional, but time was of the essence so sacrificing a bit of his pride was necessary. It was funny, though...perhaps pride was the most important thing Remmy taught him, to believe in himself and be confident. It was something he'd have to keep in mind.

"Sorry about that," he said as he sat down again. "When this is all over, remind me sometime to tell you guys about some of this stuff." While they probably heard things here and there from other villagers, Eld had never spoken much to them about the battle with the bandits. For a long time, that part of himself that fought and killed was something he was ashamed of, something he didn't want others to see. But amidst that were some of his best memories of Remmy, who had treated him as an equal leading up to that last battle, and those were worth sharing with his friends.

"Anyway, what were you saying, Emma?" he asked, hoping they could continue.

"I will," Mayako chimed with a smile.

If there was anyone amongst their original group that could pull off a smile that could melt a man's heart, it was Mayako. Sometimes, she could smile in a way that might say to a person that everything was going to be all right. Those were the real smiles. She could pull off a good facade, but this one wasn't that. It was real.

"Well . . ."

Emma paused to click the pen and try it out on the page. Still worked. Odd. It hadn't been used in a month or two at least. It'd probably have to be replaced soon enough, though.

Content with the fact that it still worked, she put on her serious face. Now it was time to work out a strategy. First, they needed all the information they could throw out here-- all the little nitty gritty details, from beginning to end!

"The way I see it, we can spend tonight coming up with strategies. Tomorrow can be spent practicing those strategies-- and then a rest before heading off to battle," Emma narrated, "So, first off, we're going to have to have all the details available. What can he do? What's the range of what he can do? All those sorts of details . . ."

Indeed, Mayako's smiles always cheered him up; her genuine ones, anyway. It was one of the reasons he once told her she should stop faking smiles so much, because being able to see her smile for real was easily worth whatever effort it took to cheer her up.

"Well...he made a pillar of earth appear under me, and it hit me like...well, I imagine that's what it would have been like to get punched by Remmy, let's say. He also made that wall we had to jump over...oh!" Eld exclaimed, suddenly realizing something. "He must have tripped me, too! I mean, I know I can be a bit of a klutz sometimes, but I'd never trip in the middle of a battle like that."

"Hey, Sarah...how far away were we after we jumped that wall? He must not have been able to do anything from that distance."

"Hm . . ." Sarah thought to herself.

She adjusted her glasses for a moment as she thought about it. Really, the whole situation had come and gone so quick that she didn't think about it much, but she could guesstimate well. She needed to a lot of the time. A horse was at a distance-- what was the distance? The specific distance was everything most of the time. That was how to justify how to call the horse in. If it was going to run away, but it was close-- then there were different tactics involved. But if it were far away, then the tactics were completely different.

"About sixty feet, I'd say," replied Sarah, "And that was when we stopped. I'd say we jumped a good ten feet over that wall. It moved awful slow 'round that time, too."

"Lifts the ground. Okay. Fifty feet threshold? Slower towards the threshold, maybe?" Emma thought out loud as she continued to take notes. "How close were you when he got you, Eld? And how fast did it happen?"

"I couldn't have been much further than five, maybe ten feet from him. And...well, I'm not sure how fast it was, but it felt like someone punching me, and I didn't realize what hit me until after I'd already landed. So pretty fast, I guess." He was a bit bashful; he didn't like to admit that he'd essentially got his ass kicked, but he needed to get over that if he wanted to figure out how to beat Gestahl.

"The bigger problem is that...uhh, I can't remember if I ever told you, but one of the things Kageko can help me with is sense movement and incoming attacks. And I can usually sense just about anything, even Qi, but I couldn't sense this at all." It was the same with Toushikyo's ice; at first, he thought it was just because the temperature changes were too abstract, but the more he thought about it the more he thought it likely that there was some kind of connection why he couldn't sense them.

"Oh, that reminds me...Kageko, speak up if you think of anything to add, okay?" She'd been silent for some time, and it was possible she'd noticed things that he missed.

"Really?" Emma asked as she set the pen down for a moment.

That was a whole new problem. Yes, she knew what Kageko let him do. She told the others, too. That was sort of a thing that didn't need to be kept secret.

"That's . . . th-that's really weird . . ." Mayako thought aloud.

Oh-- I-- I am sorry, Master.

For what, she didn't say. She only said she was sorry, and didn't say anything else after that. Likely, though, if she had anything that might come to mind in the future, she'd say it for Eld's sake. She'd pay attention.

Mayhaps Eld didn't feel it at first, but once she did start to pay attention again, there was a whole different feeling about her. The two had an emotional synchronization; they could feel what each other felt to a certain extent-- and until now, Kageko might have felt . . . distant, as if she were little out of it for some reason or the other.

"What else can you do with Kageko, again?" Sarah asked, in light of it all, trying to think of maybe something he could do with Kageko that might help, but she was drawing a blank. She couldn't think of anything that hurt or helped him all that much at all.

Eld sent Kageko the equivalent of a mental question mark, but otherwise didn't say anything. He made a note to talk to her later and find out what was bothering her, but right now he needed to focus; he had yet to master talking in his head and aloud simultaneously.

"Well, I can "see" super well...it's not really sight, I think I'm technically blind, but my other senses more than make up for it. It lets me read movements real well, and I can easily figure out where to move avoid being hit. But it hasn't been working against these people's abilities," he noted. "Which is weird, because I can feel them like they have strong Qi, but their abilities don't use Qi--and one of them had no idea what was happening when I used Qi, either."

"Also, if I focus on a single person, it should make them weaker, at least physically. Other than that...well, there's the advantage that the scythe becomes a double-ended weapon, which gives me some advantages but means I lose a bit of range."

"And...well, I don't really like it, but about half the damage I take is transferred to her," he added. It was probably the one ability he'd drop if he could--as useful as it was, he'd rather spare her the pain, especially the way most of his fights seemed to go...

"Am I forgetting anything, Kageko?"

"Hm . . ." Emma hummed in thought.

All very useful information. Sure, she heard it at one point or the other, but now it was like refreshing her memory a little, which always helped in every situation that could possibly be imagined. A refresher was just useful, and she marked this information down accordingly. Likely, she wouldn't have if Eld didn't say anything.

Master? You cannot see in the dark?

It was a means of suggesting that Kageko herself saw things that way-- but that she still saw perfectly fine. Then again, Eld and Kageko were definitely not of the same species. Her ability to see in the dark as if it were daylight did not correspond with him. Likewise, he had a bad perception to boot. Not only was it dark, but it was as if he was struck with tunnel vision, capable only of seeing the other person.

"Hm. Eld, you can use bursts of strength, right?" Emma asked outright.

Promptly confusing Mayako, "What?"

Which Sarah corrected accordingly, "None of us really know. He just can."

"Oh . . ."

"No, we humans can't see in the dark that well. But like I said, the other senses make up for it," he replied to Kageko aloud, which the others may or may not have been used to. He didn't carry his scythe around much anymore, so possibly not.

"Yeah..." he trailed off about his strength bursts. In truth, he had an idea now of why he could use it, but it wasn't something he was willing to share, not even with them. The only people who knew about that were Etsu and Kageko.

Instead, he went on. "But when I use it, I can't do it again for a bit. It's pretty straining; if I use it too much, I get really sore afterward."