Reunion
A New Life

Key
'Let's' - Thoughts
"Start" - Speech
"Another" - Nexus/Voices
Arc! - Breaks & A/N's

~ BTYB Silver chasing Umbra ~

Enjoying the early afternoon of Ultima, Kaida walked around with satisfaction clearly displayed on her face, all due to completing her latest mission. Though it was a relatively simple mission dealing with construction work, it still paid well. And alongside her were Umbra and Silver, both slightly tired from helping their tamer with heavy lifting, but they were also waiting to have lunch in the Adventurer's Hall.

While the three were walking or riding on Kaida's shoulders in Umbra's case, the silver-haired girl reflected on the past month since she's been reincarnated. 'Let's see, a month's worth of hell has brought me nothing but useless skills and two new pets.'

"Useless skills? Those skills can very well save your life!"

'And a voice in my head.'

"Hey! You're in my body, Ashura! If anything, I've been through more hell than you!"

'Really now?'

"Let's see, you took my name and now I'm Arienne and you've taken my body!"

'Okay, I see your point now.'

By the end of Kaida's mental argument with Arienne, the small group had arrived at the Adventurer's Hall, which remained the same as it had for the last month, although some of the adventurers were becoming more active as the Spring progressed. Nonetheless, the three entered the building and sat down in the tavern portion of the Hall.

Quickly, Kaida ordered food for all three of them and finished her meal rather quickly while her beasts continued to devour the pile of meat they were given. Meanwhile, she ventured away from the two animals and found herself going back to Laurentia to give her report.

As soon as Kaida reached the redhead's desk, Laurentia said, "Your mission's done, correct? Any problems to note?"

Somewhat deflated, Kaida stood in an orderly fashion in front of Laurentia, even if the woman didn't even bother to look up. "Yes, my mission was completed with no complications." She reported almost robotically, especially having said the phrase several times.

"Good, then would you finally like a quest out of the city?" The receptionist asked, still completing paperwork. Though she did raise an excellent point. Ever since Zach and Zeke left to prepare for the C-rank exams, Kaida had only taken safe missions within the city walls. "I've found a mission that may suit your particular skill set."

With a mental sigh, Kaida could only ask, "What is the quest?"

"It's a capture quest. Your job would be to capture a Spirit Rabbit in the forest to the east. Once you capture it, you need to bring it to the Ultima Research Foundation and allow some of the lunatics there to study the rabbit before you come back for your reward." She answered, putting down her pen to look at the quest paper and still had yet to look up at the young woman. "So, you can tame the rabbit and keep it if you want to."

Thinking about the quest for a moment, Kaida's mind filled with a voice telling her to take the quest and several questions, most of which were answered until it dwindled down to just one question. "Miss Laurentia, what's a Spirit Rabbit?"

"A rabbit that can travel between the Physical and Spiritual Realms freely." She answered bluntly as she grabbed her pen once more and started to write after she placed the paper for the quest on the edge of her desk so Kaida could freely look at it.

Conversing shortly with the voice in her head once more, Kaida grabbed the quest paper gently and skimmed over it, inspecting any other loopholes that she might be able to exploit. "I'll take it." She said before putting the paper into her barrel bag as neatly as she could.

Getting no response from Laurentia except for a sigh of relief when she finished the last of her paperwork, Kaida left to collect her pets. Once she had done so, she made sure she had everything she might need before leaving the busy building and heading toward the east gate, which just happened to be the least busy gate considering the countries in that direction.

Fairly quickly, the group reached the gate while Umbra curled himself up around Kaida's shoulders, though Silver was left to walk closely by their side side, scaring some of the civilians from his mere presence. But that gave them a relatively smooth trip out of Ultima with the guards only hesitating to let Kaida out of the city for a brief moment. Once out of the big city, Umbra flew freely into the small forest and only stuck close to Kaida again as the forest started to become denser and the dirt path became rougher.

"Silver, make sure are ready for anything," Kaida ordered her canine pet before grabbing Umbra and cradling him in her arms for a moment. "Umbra, I want you to find a place for us to make a camp for one or two nights." Obeying her orders, Umbra wiggled out of Kaida's arms before taking off and looking for a small clearing that would be adequate for a temporary camp.

While Umbra looked for a camping spot, Kaida ruffled the fur on Silver's head before bringing up her guard as well. But the only that had piqued their interest was the ruffling of a bush's leaves and a blue blur that left Kaida's and Silver's field of vision as quickly as it entered it.

Ignoring that, Umbra returned and lead the other two to a small clearing with many stray branches on the ground in case the group needed a fire. Though Umbra could easily create a fire whenever he wanted, so the branches were only needed to keep the fire going. Focusing on setting up camp, Kaida set down her bag and gathered a few rocks and branches to make a fire pit for later while she had ordered her pets to find some meat.

By the time both of them had returned, she had food to cook and Umbra lit the fire pit, allowing Kaida to cook dinner for all of them. Starting to cook the meat over the open fire, Umbra perched himself on a branch and hung from it by his tail while using his wings to make a cocoon for himself, allowing him to sleep like a bat, but Silver simply curled up near the fire to nap peacefully.

"Arienne, the two are sleeping."

"I can see that. Now, what do you want?"

"I want to know everything you know about the Spirit Rabbit." She said calmly, making the order seem like a polite request more than anything.

"They're a peculiar bunch. Easy to spot, hard to capture." The voice responded, making Arienne seem like she was already bored. "If you spot one of the rabbits, you'll know even if I didn't tell you what it looks like. Just be careful and don't attack it, otherwise, you'll never get the chance to capture it."

"Okay. Thank you." She replied as she turned the branch holding ordinary rabbit meat that Silver had caught.

"What are you thanking me for?" Arienne sassed back to Kaida. "If you tame one of these things, you have an easy escape route for any situation. All you have to do is touch the rabbit and you can travel to the Spirit Realm too."

"That would be rather helpful." She commented, turning a branch with a fish on it which Umbra had caught. As she continued to cook the fish and rabbit, Arienne's voice seemed to fade away, leaving Kaida alone with only peaceful ambiance, giving her some time to concentrate as well.

By the time she had finished cooking, she stuck the sticks holding the meat into the ground while her beasts continued to sleep the afternoon away. Walking away from the small campsite, she started to look for a river, hoping there would be one nearby since Umbra had to have caught a fish from some body of water in the forest. But yet again, a blue blur entered and left her vision.

Ignoring it once more, she followed the sound of flowing water until she reached a small river, about two meters wide if she had to guess, but only knee-high. Sitting on the edge of the river, she used her hands to bring water up to drink while keeping her gaze focused on the forest.

Suddenly, another bush rustled and Kaida turned around to see a completely blue rabbit that seemed to be made of mana or another energy source. It was also transparent, making it harder to spot if not for the light its body had radiated.

"Hello there," Kaida said, not having anything else to say.

Instead of running away like Kaida had expected it to, the rabbit remained in place and stood on its hind legs while it observed Kaida. Slowly it dropped onto all-fours again and hopped toward Kaida cautiously. Watching it, Kaida would've moved to pet the rabbit, but Arienne's voice ordered her to stay still and she listened despite her own judgment.

Once the creature was barely within arm's length, Kaida moved her hand closer with her palm facing the sky, only stopping her hand when the rabbit seemed to tense up. Remaining there, the rabbit didn't move and just stared at Kaida with glowing eyes.

Seeing this, Kaida turned her head away and just waited for the rabbit to move. After a few seconds, the rabbit nuzzled into Kaida's open palm with its oddly soft body. Turning her head back around, she started to scratch the little creature's head, making it put down its guard around her.

Remaining like that for a few minutes, the spirit still didn't quite nuzzle up against Kaida but continued to enjoy Kaida's scratches and pets. Then, out of nowhere, a squawk and a howl were heard in the direction of Kaida's camp.

Frightened the small rabbit disappeared in a swirl of blue, but at the same time, Kaida's body was surrounded by a similar swirl of blue before she disappeared from the physical realm entirely.

~ BTYB RAABT's New Mascot! ~

A/N: (If you didn't know RAABT is the acronym for this story's title). Anyway, this new story arc will feature a special character that readers of the original will recognize.

Also, did anyone realize that I modeled Kaida and the Rabbit's meeting after Hiccup and Toothless? No? Makes sense...