Going against the almighty, omnipresent forces of a supposed creator—God, or whatever term it was that language had dubbed the material concept—was no easy task for the natural world, let alone the humans whose lives seemed to revolve around it; harbour it within, locked behind bars, inside.

Would there ever be a day we see lions choose deer over species of their own and together, take on the role of a creator, new? Would a snowy owl of pure blood end up with a singer of the night, outside his window and under a tree, bracing the wind?

The natural world was formidable in its beauty and thus frightening with its rules. Granted, the floating island was never one to share its workings with the land below and yet, the parallels of it all would seem, under keen eyes, evident despite the fog. Where evidence of superior physical and mental qualities in pure-bred Winged never surfaced, belief and faith filled the gaps in knowledge; as it seemed to do with the humans down below.

The mighty hand of faith was made of steel—invented by man and his desire to believe for the sake of his heart—and truth, the stone, the rock, the still and unmoving, stood no chance against something so oddly triumphant in its creation. Faith of the heart.

How the notion of love could come close to knocking down that steel tower of beliefs, built upon time, generations at its core foundation, well, such a story had yet to be written despite the attempts of a man in his youth, struggling to reconcile his feelings for another.

He wasn't ugly, per se. After all, what was beauty without the eyes of a beholder? Even with the strawberry red birthmarks over his eyes, circling the area above his lids or the pale, cracked thinness of his lips, he'd been fairly sought after.

Still, pining for the affections of a man twelve years older than he was felt, even for lions and deer, a dream waiting for an end and its owner to wake.

What a number it was. Three was the most he'd ever heard of being in an acceptable range and at it's extreme, five; and in the past, he'd heard of ten but understood that it was partly due to tradition but twelve? Twelve was a number he'd have to hide, and he was eighteen when he'd stowed it away, right inside his cage where the shy little creature lived.

The coach was a merlin falcon, respected and admired by the flightless community for the classes he'd give for their special needs, teaching them the necessary alternatives to escaping or closing any distance they so desire. The man himself was acquainted with greater heights, having resigned from his position as deputy headmaster before conducting the private classes that were so popular with both prey and predator that he'd pulled up a waiting list for those who wished to join his classes.

Yukihina Kisaku had been one of them. He'd known perfectly well back then, what it meant to be exercising a privilege he had that others had did not, and being one of the hearts meant that he was somewhat entitled to demand a spot in those private classes of the merlin's. Except that he did not.

He'd waited for the coach outside the training hall one sweltering, cicada-filled afternoon, seeking his advice on flight for secretary birds who were known for their leg power more than anything else.

"But I remember you," the merlin had said with a smile, gathering the mats he'd laid out across the floor and rolling them up. Kisaku had helped. "You're a good flier."

The last thing he'd expected was for the ex-deputy head to remember his form but that was all before the boy reminded himself of the two prominent splashes of red across his eyes that would, naturally, attract unwarranted attention. At once, he denied the claim and told the coach that he'd arrived at a plateau in his learning, and couldn't for the love of anything lift himself higher than eight feet off the ground.

Back then, the thirty-year-old had turned him down in the gentlest possible manner, having known the amount of courage he'd had to gather in making such a request. The staff were fond of loudly exchanging information about their students in the pantry; something he never really quite approved of.

In fact, the only reason he'd eventually caved had everything to do with the pitiful begging that his student had resorted to on his fifth and final attempt, knees deep in gravel and forehead sunk into the dirt in his plea, revealing his state of desperation in quiet tears. His placement in the class of hearts had been at stake, what with the upcoming Season games, and dropping back into his previous class was apparently the last thing he'd ever want to do.

Come the third private lesson he'd agreed to conduct for the secretary bird, the merlin had began to find the time they spent together to be oddly enjoyable. Kisaku was particularly fond of hiding his face whenever a mistake had been made, a habit he'd taken to ever since frightening the kids in his orphanage was a thing, which made him look in the mirror and frighten himself too.

"It's not an ugly red," the coach had said after watching him unconsciously hide the upper half of his face by raising his forearm for the third time. "Reminds me of the strawberries my son likes."

The quiet one looked up, then down and away almost at once. He'd found it increasingly hard to stare at the face of someone who could made the creature in his cage beat so frantically fast. He also did not wish to have someone like that look at his own face for a prolonged period of time. "You're married?"

"Since I was twenty," his coach had laughed. "For breeding. It's a tradition, to have someone to continue our blood lineage. My mate is a distant cousin," he paused at once, realizing he'd said a little too much, garnering a startled look from his student. "Sorry. You must be shocked."

Kisaku corrected his stance. "U-um, I, no, I just..." he struggled to keep his feelings in check. "I thought you looked... really sad. And that made me feel sad. Too."

It was unlike the merlin to find himself cracking a smile and having to rein it in. He reached over to mess with his student's hair. "Sad is a good word. Sad is... yeah. I guess I am a little. Sad."

The secretary bird attempted to smooth over the tufts of his hair—long and dark—that had, for the first time, known the caress of gentle fingers. Strong and comforting. "Do you like your, um, your cousin?"

"We're friends," said the coach. He'd never been the kind of person who was fond of talking about himself, let alone revealing personal details about his life to a student of his. "Taking turns to nurture a fledgling we made. It's just an obligation, not really out of love or anything. You'll understand when you get a little older... but I kind of hope you don't, too." He laughed. "Let's not talk about things that make you uncomfortable."

The youth had made a mistake then, by nearly crossing the line he'd drawn for himself and the bars that he'd erected to keep his creature caged. How unfortunate it was, then, that the people he'd crossed the line to chase tended to leave him behind. "But I like listening to you, professor."

"Well, I've always wished for someone to hear me too, Kisaku."

_________________

The outskirts of the town were dense with trees and shrubs, filtering the light of the sweltering sun that seemed a little less merciful than it was back on the floating island. Victoria had had her doubts about the increasing amount of time her Winged had been spending in a place she knew not where, unable to pinpoint his exact location but downwards; beneath the surface of a land he'd long forgotten.

She'd tapped into Nox's Link for some conversation, bored from chasing a couple of rabbits for fun as they waited. The black vulture, perched on a neighbouring tree, did not appear to be in the mood for entertainment, merely acknowledging the other Avian's complaints about the rising waves of heat and the dreadful headache she seemed to be having, if birds were ever prone to experiencing headaches at all.

Seems rather cool to me, Nox had been certain. Already, she could feel her Winged getting closer to the surface. In fact, she could almost predict that they would soon be called upon to shift. Perhaps you're a little... lovesick?

Reasonable deduction, admitted the golden eagle, flapping her wings twice and readjusting her height on the tree she'd chosen for shelter, trying to catch the whisper of a passing breeze. It's been awhile since Luka and Io were apart for more than three hours. Time is so much trouble—I don't think I'd ever get a grasp of the concept.

Ugh, her knighted partner had scoffed with a sound of disgust, shivering at the thought of spending her much-appreciated alone time with a prey of some sort. Or anyone else, for the matter. Her head turned at the inkling of a distant call and she prepared for take-off, only to hear the beat of an eagle's wings and its silhouette wraith past in an earthen blur. Finally.

The pair were joined by a peregrine falcon and merlin in the sky, mere dots to the human eye at the distance they'd kept for safety purposes, lest a wandering townsman caught the four predators together as a flock and question the reality of nature. Once near and sensing the presence of their Winged, they circled the area for a glimpse of the team, in which Victoria was first to point out what seemed like a rugged old van parked under one of the trees. It had no windows.

None of those number plates they tend to have. Oh, is that a bobble head? She added for extra measure, purposefully doing so from a height and distance that the rest found impossible to compete with. It was one of the first few strange human things I'd learned the name of. I even considered tricking Luka into calling me that in the first place, but then I met Mary Poppins.

Cai's Avian was the first to land, thumping the top of the van without a streak of hesitation and snapping her head around for any sign of a trap. Nox took the hood, eyes going straight past the glass panel and into the driver's seat. It was empty.

They can't be in here.

The merlin joined her at the front of the van, scratching the glass and tapping it with the tip of her beak. It seemed to trigger the semblance of movement inside, and as though on cue, a pigeon popped its head above the steering wheel with a key in its mouth. With its head cocked to a side and innocently hopping to the panel of buttons that would roll the windows down, no one expected for the vehicle to start with a tremble. And then it was the sound of a bang or a crack, loud enough to send itself spiralling up into the air.

At once, the birds had their heads snapping towards the sound before slowly, carefully, craning their necks.

"Mm, nice timing," came a voice emerging from the darkness of the interior and out into the light, knuckles cracking and arms stretching into the air. Perched atop the back of the van was an Andean condor, tipping the vehicle in its favour as one by one, members of the team stepped out in a dazed and groggy manner.

Displeased, the pigeon in the driver's seat cooed with a hint of spite—tossing the key aside and shifting into a lady dressed in a kimono behind the wheel.

Mission somewhat accomplished, the Avians promptly lost all interest in the once-suspicious-vehicle and took to the sides of the Winged. Unlike the birds of prey, these human beings appeared fairly dull, down and disappointed. Left in the dust of the van driven away by the mysterious lady, Viktor started in a general direction led by his Avian who'd taken off first in a hurry.

So, Victoria had always been particularly fond of gossip and tales of interest. I'm guessing it didn't work out, judging by the look on your faces. Was he mean? Was he sly and all? I've never crossed paths with an assassin. Unfortunately for the golden eagle, her Winged hadn't exactly the most talkative mind; Gossip and tales of interest slipped through his fingers like sand and god knows if he knew what the words even meant.

Naturally, Vaughn was the one who had answers. He was neither. It felt like... it felt like he was really mad at us, towards the end. It must have been something Viktor had said. Something about the question he'd provoked their host to ask and the look on his face that surfaced—Vaughn had struggled to imagine a person so masked with such an expression. Briefly, he'd even reminded him of himself.

"Sir." Up ahead, Zijun had caught up with the professor with a double beat of his wings, shifting in and out of his Avian form after giving himself a quick boost with a burst of speed. "Sir, we are, uh, not going back? Will he kill us? I think you make him very angry."

"We're moving on," Viktor sighed, picking up his pace after checking that the rest of the team was right behind, leading them deeper into the forest. "I'll think up of something as an apology but we're not done here just yet. Crime scene, remember?"

The merlin boy was not having a good time putting two to two and after looking at his fingers in confusion, turned over his shoulder to give his partner the usual. His look of confusion. Rolling his eyes, Cai had made the vague gesture of a rectangle that somehow referred to the folder of deaths from before. Finger-guns were due only because Zijun had the heart of a child and, like Dmitri Ford, never thought of correcting his concept of what he'd considered cool.

"Okay, but he will kill us? The mei nan? Pretty... guy... thing."

Viktor proceeded to assure him that it was the last thing Kiku would do, since taking a life for no proper reason (in their case, anger) was out of the question. Relieved, the boy fell back and into his zone of comfort, which was away from the condor and by the side of his friend, where he could continue to spout a rainbow of curses in mandarin Chinese.

It wasn't long before the team of five arrived at their destination—a place cordoned off and guarded by a pack of Avian ravens, nesting in the trees around the area and out of sight and suspicion. Victoria on the other hand, had spotted them a mile away, even among the forest canopy.

A shrill caw was the only warning they'd received before being surrounded by a flock of diving ravens, who at once shifted and demanded for papers. One of them appeared surprisingly familiar to Luka, who stared openly and conjured zero recollection of where he'd seen her before.

"Oh, it's just Viktor," someone up front soon recognized, waving the rest of his crew elsewhere. Slightly disappointed in the false alarm that they had seemed so enthusiastic to embrace, most of the flock shifted back into their Avian forms and dragged themselves up into the trees.

"Sorry we're late."

"It's fine. All I heard was that you were coming, but we weren't sure about exact details anyway. And uh... this is the team?" The middle-aged man, dwarfed beside Viktor's frame, gave the rest a quick scan. Several ravens had stayed. "Hey hey, you can go back to your post now."

But the one that Luka continued to stare at did not seem to hear him, and fortunately for him, Vaughn possessed a memory good enough to recall seeing her at the flight facility in the Philippines—which meant that she must have been a member of the youth council, along with Reux.

"I remember you," said the raven after a pause, holding the eagle's gaze. "I wanted the sparrow. You didn't let me."

Victoria had straightened up at this, feathers around her neck erect and wings slightly open, as though baring them in a display of threat. She'd taken one look at the eagle and scoffed, hiding her eyes that were fazed on instinct.

"Okay, okay, enough. You're here to guard your post on a summer job, not confront random strangers," her superior reminded, dismissing her with a wave before turning back to Viktor with a nod. "Past these trees and within a fifty-meter radius. I'll get someone to take you around but just be careful where you're stepping. If you hear us calling in flocks, it means humans are approaching. They've gotten cautious recently, since we drive them away with the usual tactic, you know. But still, keeping your guard up's better than nothing. Just shift whenever you hear something suspicious."

Viktor acknowledged this with a nod, thanking him for the brief run-down and turning to check if everyone had this in their heads. He'd turned to Zijun twice for confirmation.

Their guide turned out to be a tempered raven girl who, unlike the rest of her flock, seemed to prefer her stationary spot up among the leaves to the dense forest floor, cursing every now and then at the undergrowth clinging to her pair of unfortunate sneakers, swatting at the flying creatures around her head every now and then. Regardless, she seemed to know her way around fairly well despite a lack of landmarks, pointing out the exact location of the bodies where they'd found them and the separate body parts strewn across the area, if applicable.

For more than a century, humans had assumed a bird's sense of smell to be poorly developed or even non-existent, and while it was, indeed, the least developed sense for most of the avian world, their guide seemed to demonstrate otherwise. Having split themselves up in comfortable numbers (and by that, the author would mean going in solo), each began combing an area for additional clues—scouring the forest floor for anything that could fill the gaps of knowledge in the profiling of the victims.

Where do bodies go when they die? Victoria had made from tree to tree after her Winged, observing her vulture friend from afar. A hole in the ground like it was with Slayne?

Luka was not in the mood to entertain. The blood in his temples pulsed at every step and the stench of died blood, mixed and seeped into the forest floor was all-too-familiar for his sanity.

In fact, the events of the day were beginning to weigh upon his shoulders and hinder his ease of breathing. Seated on his chest was a rock that seemed to thunder every now and then; trembling like an egg ready to hatch and it felt to him almost as though there was something inside that was calling and waiting for its freedom.

His mind went at once to Papercrane, whom he'd left on the island with Jiro and hadn't checked in since early this morning. Either way, it wasn't physical pain that he was experiencing at the moment and so warranted his attention elsewhere, on the task at hand.

Across the clearing and about fifty feet away was his partner, Vaughn Alekseyev, lowering his head to duck under a branch before turning around to frown at its length. Slowly and carefully, he was piecing this information together with the many others he'd laid out in his head.

What happens when a cemetery isn't big enough for the dead? Nox had posed the question in private, out of a certain Avian's earshot. Her Winged found no reason to ignore her and had, initially, come up with something along the lines of 'that never occurring in the near future and would henceforth be none of his living concern' when he'd felt something hard and pointed underneath the base of his boot.

A vial.

There was no telling how he'd known this piece of information since he, very much unlike Io and Jing, had no such ability to glimpse into the future, but somehow, he did. Lifting his foot, he'd uncovered the top of something poking out of the dirt, somewhat caked in a moist, deep-seated mud that had no reason for existence. The last he'd checked, rain had been a rare occurrence over the past couple of weeks.

The vulture removed it from the forest floor and, upon dusting the dirt and soil stuck to its cap, picked it up with his gloved hand and dropped it inside a clear plastic. This all, he'd been about to report to their raven guide when something else—something more curious than a vial of luminous blue liquid—caught his eye.

Among a forest of trees was a single tree, bare. Striped of its leaves and left naked, standing in the middle of others that were warm and clothed in a luscious green and as far as he knew about natural seasons, they were, at present, experiencing a midsummer afternoon.

His first instinct had been to glance over his shoulder and give his partner a call but having curiously drawn closer to the tree absent of leaves, he'd noticed another. Fifty feet away and apparently of the same species, as though it had by some nightmare, undergone the exact same thing that happened to the tree he was looking at.

Vaughn was not feeling very safe at present and his solution to that had been to call on Nox for her form, shifting and taking to higher ground for a better look at the empty trees. He could, from a higher point of vantage and as he was circling around, observe a seeming trail of leaf-less trees leading to something in which Nox's vision did not allow for an acute picture.

Lowering himself onto a branch of an empty tree, he tested the strength of it by attempting to break the ends. He could not; it was sturdy. And as he registered this piece of information and struggled to eliminate the possibility of some disease or attribute it to something scientific, the vulture narrowed in on the dead, fallen leaves gathered in piles by the roots of the tree he was perched on. Well, they could have just fallen out of the way and perhaps it was merely a work of nature in that some trees shed in summer—

They weren't leaves.

At once, he'd known something terrible had happened to a thing of such harmless nature and he could not, for the sake of his sanity, even begin to form ideas of relation.

He called on his partner at the back of his head to join him, tapping into Viktor's Link which he soon found slightly beyond his reach before taking off. Back in the sky, he circled once for a quick survey and then glided low, over the forest canopy as he followed the trail of barren trees and felt Luka's presence gaining on him from behind.

They did not exchange a word; careful as they approached what seemed like a large clearing at the end of the trail. What the empty trees had led them to was not something of vile, corrupt nature, diseased and as frightful as Vaughn had made it out to be in his mind. The clearing was littered with people of the village, dressed in a pale grey uniform with heavy belts around their hips that were loaded for extra measure.

Their hats tipped backwards at the raising of their heads, eyes following their unannounced visitors as they did.

"Just'a vulture."

At the glint of their badges reflecting the light of the merciless sun, Vaughn knew that he'd stumbled into death's arena. Cordoned off by yellow tape and decorated with what looked like number signs from spot to spot, the vulture found himself landing on the safest vantage point. A low branch just beyond the clearing.

He felt eyes.

They came from a man standing below a monstrous barren tree nearly ten times the size of the ones from before, right in the middle of the clearing. It, too, had had its leaves shed and its branches naked and cold in the heated breeze; a creeping crawl of its roots running far and its arms in seeming reach of an eerie sky. On the forest floor surrounding it was the very same brown crisp. The shade of fallen leaves.

"How long till 'yer give it up, inspector?" The man was speaking to a woman, knelt beside a number sign. Across, a golden eagle had landed on one of the cursed tree's branches and peered below.

"You're starting to annoy me, Chief Ross. I didn't ask for your opinion." She straightened up whilst removing her gloves, shoving past the man in the uniform and drawing the attention of everyone else in the clearing. "It started with one, but twelve people—now that's not a small number is it?"

The inspector made her way to the next set of numbers on her right, and then, to the next, and the next, and the next and it took this much for Vaughn to register that the numbers had all been placed in a circle. One that surrounded the tree.

"Hey," the officer tapped the bark of the tree with his baton, shouting at the golden eagle perched above him on the mammoth tree. Underneath his feet were crisps of brown. Shards that were once, wings. "Get outta 'ere. Shoo. Leave."

It was according to Victoria's experience in the human world that Luka had proceeded to appear unfazed by the threat, merely staring at the man shouting up at him as though trying to make sense of whatever it was he'd tried to convey. The kind of reaction that birds tended to give upon observing a silly member of the human race.

"Get," his baton hit the tree and sparks of bark fell apart, "out," hit, "ya," hit, "stupid," bird—but no sooner than the word had left his lips and his hands reached for the pistol at his hip that a sound, blood-curdling in its nature, rang throughout across the tree tops and into the sky.

The call of a hunting horn.

_______________________

A/N: Ah! It was supposed to be so much longer and I wanted so much to include the aftermath and the team resting up for the night for some needed interaction between Vaughn and Luka but I wasn't able to finish it on time. I guess it'll have to come next week then! I'd also intended to include a scene with Io which is important to the plot and I wished it would have come earlier for you guys but alas! Time is so limited.

I'd initially thought I would just put this off and update next week instead but I felt that putting this up wouldn't do any harm either way since I would (hopefully) still be updating next week.

I'm really excited for this and I'm hoping you can guess (to some extent) what's going to happen soon!

Also, Kiku (whose real name is Kisaku) means 'to hear' in Japanese. He's definitely re-appearing in the near future, and I mean, if you haven't picked up the clues in the chapter and realized how Zijun is related to him, then more will be made clear in the coming chapters too :>

-Cuppie