A Saniwa's Duty

Arrival

A/N: This is going to be quite a lengthy chapter. You've been warned.

★★★

Disembodied voices echoed around Chiaki as she continued to fall, bits and pieces of conversations whirling past her ears. She squinted against the motley of colors that swirled past her, and saw hundreds of thousands of different streams branching off from the one she was currently in. Some streams, Chiaki noticed, had with large, glowing crimson arcane circles embedded vertically, while others branched off midway, but they all met at the end of another glowing arcane circle, this time a brilliant white color.

If I remember correctly, the white ones lead to the destination while the red ones transport you to a different time period of that same destination.

The redhead casually swam side to side, unafraid that she might accidentally fall out of the slipstream. The current taking her to her destination was a strong one, so it'd require a great amount of force to push oneself out of the stream.

How much longer does this take? Is it really that far?

After a while, an arcane circle appeared before Chiaki, looming over her stream. Suddenly, an orchid pink orb of light shot out of the circle and zoomed its way to the girl, with no apparent intent of stopping. No matter how much she veered or used her photokinetic abilities to control it, the orb remained unaffected, destination set. With a resigned sigh, she let it smack her in the face and felt a warmth trickle down her whole body as the light enveloped her form and vanished.

The girl didn't notice that the orb's momentum and force caused her body to change position, so she fell rear first out of the portal and into a fresh setting. Fortunately, the portal opened above a forest and so she landed in the safety of the branches.

Oh man, I'm glad aniki isn't around to see that, Chiaki thought as she blew a leaf off her face. Then she shook her head to get rid of the other leaves and twigs that decorated her hair. She peered down to see how far off the ground she was. About several meters. Won't kill me if I jump but I'll get a few broken bones in return.

The girl opened her Index, holoscreen projection emanating from the earpiece she had worn prior to leaving the mansion earlier that day. The menu's appearance was reminiscent of inventories in various RPGs she had tried previously. She opened the search box and typed in something, then an icon appeared and she clicked and held onto it. As the icon vanished, a pair of futuristic looking boots materialized in midair above her before falling onto her lower torso.

Chiaki carefully reached over and removed her running shoes, then she held them up before they vanished. The girl exited the search box and went through her menu to the Footwear tab, marked by an icon of a pair of boots, and saw that a new icon appeared, taking on the form of the shoes she had taken off.

She picked up one boot and examined it. The Index screen changed, now showing her boots' various current statuses. One stat showed that in each boot, there was still 1 Crystal in the main slot, with 3 spare Crystals, all filled with Gale magic, which enabled her to fly. 8 other Crystals of varying colors were in the subslots, allowing her to cycle through and utilize them for various bonus elemental magic. Chiaki hummed in content and put them on, branches shaking beneath her, dropping leaves down below.

Once the boots were snugly fit and the status changed from Inactive to Active, the blonde pushed herself up, branches shaking violently and dropping more foliage onto the forest floor. When she was sure no fabric would get snagged, Chiaki pushed herself off and fell. Immediately, the boots activated and the redhead felt a brief weightlessness before steadying herself onto her feet. She gently controlled the rest of her descent and once both feet were firmly planted on the forest floor, she opened he Index again.