Two days, neither long nor short.
With a sliver of breathing room at last, Hikaru spent them visiting Atticus and catching up with friends, people from the Funglow Corp, Celina, and folks from other corners of the city.
A few reporters even sought him out, but Hikaru turned them away. Reporters could boost his name, sure, but he wasn't interested. Time with friends mattered more.
The Funglow Corp had come specifically to see him. To support him, they'd splurged on those pricey Nexus Dimension travel passes and seats for the finals. The deeper Hikaru pushed into the bracket, the more excited they became. Word was, they planned to hand the regular-season footage to a newly formed in-house editing unit, compile it into a highlight collection, and release it as a company promo.
"Hmm… hmm-hmm. I think it's very good, Amagi," Tierra said, swirling a cup of Easy Fusion instant noodles with a fork, that mysterious smile in place.
Several staffers watched her eat as if it were an unveiling. They asked about the flavor; she critiqued noodle texture and broth with the same cool precision she brought to circuits, compression issues here, seasoning ratios off there, maybe swap to a different oil at the same price point. One sip, one bite, and she'd already mapped out the fix.
She didn't even need "divine power", just that terrifying computational bandwidth of hers, far beyond anything "mortal."
In the end, she gave the noodles a 9.5. "Very, very close to what a Magical Scientist would make," she said.
Hikaru had brought a limited stash of Easy Fusion to the Nexus Dimension, but stock was low, and Tierra didn't really "fill up." When bored or in the mood for a show, she'd make a cup and snack on it like chips. With her power growing back, she could even keep the noodles perpetually hot and springy, no cooling, no sogginess, which encouraged… indulgence.
Still, supplies were thin. Aside from a re-up from the Magical Scientist at the Magic Tribe Village last month, Tierra mostly had to watch. With the company shipping in new flavors, though, their "technical consultant" had to test.
Naturally, they took the word of a bona fide Duel Spirit seriously. More importantly, even if Tierra didn't particularly care what ordinary people thought, when it came to materials and cost, she always gave clear, fair equivalents at the same budget. She never made things difficult just to flex.
In its way, that was her creed as a machine-faction deity.
Later, Celina dropped by the players' lounge to find Hikaru. She cheered him on, and asked a few sharp questions about alchemy.
Hikaru was delighted. If Celina learned alchemy, she'd gain power to protect herself. And if he were the only one studying, it got lonely, plus, having another mind at the table exposed blind spots, let them cross-check, and pushed his own practice higher. Just like trading notes with potion specialists at the Magical Academy.
And after getting the answers, Celina had a sudden realization.
"Thank you so much, Master!" Celina punched the air, then caught herself, bowed quickly to Hikaru, and hurried off.
Watching that bright, restless energy vanish down the corridor, Tierra slowly frowned. She ran the numbers in silence for a moment, then spoke. "Hikaru, those questions she asked you… they were odd, weren't they?"
She didn't know much alchemy, but her memory and computation made up the difference. Even if she couldn't trace every inference, she could tag the domains. "Those were tied to Mind Probe and Dimensional Transfer, weren't they? Is that… safe?"
Mind Probe, the same family of self-suggestion, mirror-based alchemy tools as the one Jaden once used: an auxiliary device for examining the inner state of alchemical reagents.
And Dimensional Transfer.
That was Dimensional Door work.
Celina had tried to hide it from her master and from "Sister" Tierra, but she wasn't a conniver by nature. She acted straight on her impulses; even when she wanted to conceal something, it showed.
Tierra worried anyway. Celina was Hikaru's disciple.
She had talent in Dueling, in luck, in affinity with spirits, she excelled at all of it.
But she was too naïve.
A girl who'd had little contact with people, who had lived in a lab once she found her father, she had no defenses against many things.
Now she was moving on her own. If danger found her, how would that mind of hers handle it?
Tierra could rush in headlong because she was strong enough to erase threats physically.
Celina wasn't.
"It's fine," Hikaru said, not taking the bait of her worry. He shook his head. "She's… different from me. Different from everyone."
He said it softly.
Tierra blinked, honestly puzzled.
'Different? Because she had a questionable father?'
Plenty of Hikaru's friends had grown up with or without parents and still stood on their own feet. Compared to many of them, Celina had it better, Hikaru and the others were right here, teaching and watching out for her.
And Hikaru's own alchemy master hardly counted as "human" anymore.
Hikaru didn't elaborate.
On the surface, Celina's problem looked like only her father.
In truth, it wasn't simple at all.
Her ties with her other selves, her ties with Yuri and her counterparts, and, above all, her tangled connection to her prior life and to Zarc were all a knot. One day she would have to face more than this.
Some things, Hikaru could shoulder for her. Others, if Celina didn't take them on herself, she'd never reach the truest culmination of her life.
Now, though, she'd noticed something and begun to move toward it of her own will. To Hikaru, that was the best possible beginning.
"I see," Tierra said idly, as if it were of no concern. She nudged a small box toward him. "Want to try these? More snacks your company people sent. Pretty good."
...
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