12. Rekachev Circus School Trial (12)
12. Rekachev Circus School Trial (12)
After the meeting, the Monster Circus Troupe returned to their quarters and threw themselves into training in earnest.
Ella hoped the others wouldn't overthink the strategies and tactics they'd just discussed. Laying out countermeasures for various scenarios was all well and good, but growing too accustomed to a god's-eye view of the stage would inevitably dull their instincts in the moment.
This wasn't a performance spanning months—it was a one-shot, 180-minute match. No matter how many tactics they cooked up, they'd never be able to execute them all in a window that short.
"One head is enough. No! That's not what I meant, Trimery."
For the search team, Ella had them memorize only the interior layout of the school and how to use the items available, then focused her instruction on navigating the terrain. What laymen called parkour.
It had begun as a way for jungle-dwelling natives to move by mimicking the animals that raced through the undergrowth, eventually evolving into an acrobatic art. Aided by the growth of cities and architecture, modern parkour acrobats made a spectacle of bounding between the high buildings of the great cities. Their techniques would undoubtedly prove useful in this Box Search.
Mastering parkour in a short time, however, was a tall order. The three members of the search team—Maya, Sven, and Gaston—already ranked at the very bottom of the troupe in stamina and technical skill. Even with days of intense effort, they'd be lucky to pick up a few basic jumps and landing techniques. The high-difficulty obstacles where treasure chests were most likely to appear would probably have to be broken through by Ella alone.
Fortunately, the physical abilities and fundamentals of the members taking part in the acrobatic showdown were second to none, even compared to other troupes. So, for the auditorium team, Ella imparted tips designed to spike their records upward in a short time.
"Right, like this... and then this... and, ta-da! Easy, right?"
The methods she taught were astonishingly efficient but so hard to copy that the phrase "genius's approach" fit them perfectly. When she first demonstrated a technique, its sheer complexity kept the troupe members from even wanting to try it.
Not that she was asking the impossible. If they worked through it step by step, they were all perfectly capable of performing the movements, and if they followed her instructions, their scores would undoubtedly rise. Her prescriptions were, in her own way, tailored to each member's physical traits and limits.
What was missing, however, was the process of getting them to understand why.
Her style boiled down to: this will make you stronger, faster, better balanced—so just do it.
It wasn't that she was insensitive or overbearing; she wanted to explain, but she herself didn't know why it worked. Her eyes simply showed her that moving a certain way improved the efficiency of the action.
"Reina always explained things so kindly..."
Ella's eyes snapped up at Umon's grumbling.
"What? What did you just say?"
He flinched at her furious voice and clamped his mouth shut. Yurakne swiftly stepped in to soothe her, but Ella wasn't so obtuse that she missed Yurakne's quiet sympathy with Umon's sentiment.
"Tch. How long are you going to keep thinking of Reina as one of us?"
Ella knew perfectly well that Reina was a good teacher. Similar remarks had surfaced while practicing "The Five Acrobats." Reina's eye for watching a performance was clearly inferior to her own, but when it came to guiding friends in the right direction, Reina surpassed her. Even Maya, an expert at letting advice go in one ear and out the other, tended to follow along when Reina spoke.
The difference in their teaching styles was rooted in their formative backgrounds: Ella, who had trained freely and flaunted her talents to her heart's content as she grew; and Reina, who had kept questioning and refining herself under harsh scrutiny.
It stung her pride, but Ella had to admit it. Reina was, by nature, the better teacher.
"Your dear, kind Teacher Reina isn't here. You saw her this morning in the auditorium. Ignoring the Troupe Leader and me. She's our opponent now."
That said, Ella nonetheless urged them to follow her instructions.
The tips she devised truly did boost their scores. Even the members who had grumbled about her coaching couldn't hide their astonishment when their records, stagnant for days, shattered all at once. They marveled at how she had come up with pointers so perfectly suited to their unusual physiques.
"Don't push it too hard. Injuring yourself in practice would be a waste."
"Huff, huff, but y'know."
"If we master all this."
"Do you think we can place in the top three?"
The three brothers' specialty of flowing one sentence seamlessly across all three of them never ceased to fascinate her. Pity there was no event that tested a talent like that, Ella thought, as she mentally replayed the moves they'd just performed. Then she shook her head.
"Mm, I doubt it. Seems tough. Clara scouted the kind of talent other troupes are likely fielding, and they're all seriously impressive. A lot of faces I saw at the New Student Selection Test, too. And if the rest are on roughly the same level... I'd say fifth place is about our upper limit."
"Fifth?"
"That's harsh."
"It can't be helped. The miscellaneous tricks we're cramming right before the test are things that those people have had in their bodies for years. The saving grace is that the test only has you perform set techniques within a minute and change, so fifth place is still worth aiming for. Alright, alright, keep practicing what I just taught you. I'm going to check in on the search team."
Yurakne glanced after her, catching the thought that Ella had wrapped up her remarks a little too quickly. But Ella strode out of the annex with her usual gait.
Was I imagining it?
Yurakne tilted her head once, then refocused on practice.
Once outside the annex, Ella didn't head for the search team's practice area. Instead, she made for the rear garden. Somewhere out of anyone's sight.
"Hoo-ah."
Once there, she let out a heavy breath. All at once, the strength drained from her body, a sensation like sinking into the deep sea. She pressed a hand against the wall to prop up a body that wanted to slump. Large beads of sweat welled on her forehead and down the back of her neck. She wiped a cold trickle from her chin with the back of her hand.
"Sick of it. This, too."
Those memories again. Dead friends, this time. And not peacefully dead—their flesh and skin twisted and tangled at random.
From her bosom, she drew out the pills Gaston had made for her and took one. The medicine that blocked memory-induced seizures was something she'd been taking more often, and in larger doses, lately. Still, its effect, miraculously, was immediate. She steadied herself, feeling the trembling subside.
"I can do this."
She murmured it to herself.
This was a battle against her past self. That past self had hated Wonderstein, yet synced her breathing with his on stage and won the preliminary round.
If the Ella of back then had earned a star, then the Ella of now could do it too. Only a few days remained until her memories returned completely. Plugging the dam with medicine would probably hold only until the day after the exam, or the day after that at most.
She tightened her fist.
Almost ninety percent of her memory was back, yet she still didn't think Wonderstein was a bad man. Seeing the faces of the dead villagers and her dead friends had only reinforced that feeling.
Their appearances were identical to those of the people afflicted by the Curse Plague she'd seen in Dvalchev. She recalled how they'd had to flee Dvalchev as if escaping, despite having healed the plague and even destroyed the demon.
The Troupe Leader must have been trying to do good for my village, too.
He must have tried to help us and been misunderstood somehow.
He must have.
The exam was five days away now. A thread of anxiety was probably why she was throwing herself at this exam as though it were the last one she'd ever take with him.
The question of—what if she hated him once her memory returned...
"I can do this."
She murmured it with a little more confidence than before and moved to her next practice session.
Elsewhere, at that same moment, Wonderstein sat alone in his room. Eyes closed, silent in his wheelchair, he was waiting for someone to arrive.
He heard the window rattle in the wind. Scents of flowers and fruit drifted in, tickling his nose. He smiled faintly. A familiar smell, one he often caught in Wonderland.
He knew his guest had arrived, but he kept pretending to be asleep. Maybe it was a playful, fairy-like impulse that had stirred in him to match his visitor. After a pause, hesitant footsteps approached him with care. The flower-and-fruit scent deepened. Soon, warm breath brushed his face.
He opened his eyes a sliver. A silver-haired fairy had propped her arms on the wheelchair's handles, rested her chin there, and was gazing up at his jawline. Her eyes traveled upward, skimming his lips, then his nose, until they met his directly.
"Wah!"
A startled look on her face, she lurched backward.
"Did I startle you?"
Her face flushed bright red. She snapped at him.
"Wh-what—I thought you were asleep! How long have you been awake?"
"From the beginning."
Her antennae quivered at his reply.
"S-stupid, childish pranks. This isn't Wonderland, you know. I'd appreciate it if you remembered I'm much older than you."
She crossed her arms with a snap and snarled at him threateningly. But with that childlike appearance and childlike voice, from Wonderstein's perspective, it looked like nothing more than an adorable tantrum.
"Hoho, I understand. I'll be more careful."
"Your face says you won't."
"My face always looks like this, doesn't it?"
"You insufferable brat!"
Rumi gave his wheelchair a few kicks with her bare foot.
"Careful. You're the one who seems to think this is Wonderland, aren't you? You're barefoot—you could hurt yourself."
"Hmph. I told you. We're semi-spirits. Physical damage doesn't affect us much. Enough talk. Hand over what you promised."
So saying, she climbed onto him and plopped herself down right on his knees.
"You still think of me as a vehicle, don't you?"
"B-but this is the only way we can both check the documents at the same time, isn't it?"
Cheeks reddening, she pulled a notebook from the table. Then she opened it so he could look down at it too and began to read.
It was the tactical and strategic breakdown of "Acrobatic Rush" that Clara and Baron Dosville had drafted in the café this afternoon.
"Wow, so this is one way to look at the game. Seems you've got a decent strategist on hand."
She read through it, pausing here and there to ask questions about parts that didn't click in writing. After an hour of thorough study, she closed the notebook.
"Were you satisfied?"
"Yeah. Analyzing this will definitely help."
A confident smile crossed her face as she nodded.
"Miss Ella did warn against it. 'When an actor grows too accustomed to the director's eye, they lose immersion in their role,' wasn't it?"
"Ah, I know that one. But it's fine. We illusion mages are always used to seeing things from the director's perspective."
Wonderstein thought back to the Silver Screen Circus's shows and nodded. Their performances did have that quality.
"Anyway, thank you. For helping like this."
"It was our deal. Throw the journalists off the scent for one day, and in exchange, I'd share my tactical thinking."
Wonderstein didn't consider the trade a loss in the slightest. Bound to a wheelchair as he was, he had no choice but to rely on Ella alone for the Box Search, and thanks to her outing yesterday—where she'd been able to play to her heart's content—she'd resolved her psychological panic.
Rumi climbed down from his lap, her voice more subdued than before.
"Still, I don't know if we'll be able to pass."
The Silver Screen Circus's failure in the August exam hadn't only been because of teams using Box Search loopholes. They were a troupe composed entirely of mages. In a contest of pure physical competition, they were inevitably at a disadvantage. If they could use magic, perhaps, but even that had been banned this time around.
"If we fail again, we've decided to skip this city."
"Ah, the Silver Screen Circus received two stars from the <Christian Guide>, didn't you?"
The number of stars required to advance to the Grand Prix Finals was seven total—up to six from the Six Great Theaters, and up to three from the <Christian Guide>. In other words, a troupe that had received at least two stars from the critics didn't need to pass every single one of the Six Great Theater exams.
"I envy you."
"Mm, well, so if..."
She started to speak, then glanced at him and mumbled the rest into a mumble. Wonderstein tilted his head at her.
"What was that?"
"Ah, n-no. It's nothing."
Rumi shook her head and ran to the window. Evidently, she meant to leave.
Outside, the moon had already risen. Sure enough, with October here, the sun set early in this high-latitude region.
Her glimmering skin and thin sleeveless dress sparkled in the moonlight. Was it because she was a semi-spirit? The cold didn't seem to faze her.
Before leaving, she turned back to him one last time.
"Five days from now, right? Let's both give it our best."
"Good luck to you, too, Miss Rumi."
The two faced each other, smiling.
A chiding gust blew in. The window rattled. The sweet, lingering scent of flowers and fruit left a silver tail behind as it vanished into the darkness.