Miyuki turned to Sarah to find her torn and confused. She had the body language of someone who didn’t know whether to be more angry or scared.

  Logan retreated to his bag, pulled out a ration bar and sat in the furthest seat from them.

  “I’m going to be very clear,” Miyuki said, “I recommend that you remain calm until we get some answers ourselves.” She looked poignantly into Sarah’s eyes. “Logan may have a bit of a…beastly temper and it can get the better of him every now and then.” She gave Sarah a small smile in a weak attempt to reassure her. “But you shouldn’t be afraid of him. He may be rash, crude, inappropriate, and sometimes downright annoying, but he’s a good guy. He never hurts those who are innocent and those who aren’t a threat. As of right now, you count as both. Yes, he’s angry, but it’s more at himself and the people who caused all this than you.”

  She shrank away from the shorter girl. “I just want to go home.”

  Miyuki shook her head, “I’m sorry but that isn’t an option.”

  Sarah retreated to a corner, sat down, and started crying.

  Miyuki rubbed her temples. No matter how much she was upset at the former human, she knew Sarah was a victim and this was going to be the longest plane ride Miyuki ever had. Her and Logan have been trained to get sleep whenever and wherever possible, so they can easily spend ten of the next twenty-four hours asleep. Other than that they could maintain their equipment, meditate, or practice ability control. She began going over what Sarah could be doing and came up empty. She was going to leave Sarah to her own devices until she remembered the database.

  “I have an idea,” Miyuki checked her bag. Just as she hoped, in one of the side pockets was a touchscreen tablet that had recently been issued to Most of the hunters. She remembered how Logan refused to use his due to them being, as he put it, “too confusing at best and aggravating at worst.” There was a minuscule shiver up her finger as she turned it on and it checked if she was human. With a few quick taps she opened the ‘intro’ database.

  Miyuki stood and walked over to Sarah and held out the tablet. Sarah looked at it in confusion. “You’re an academic, right?”

  Sarah nodded.

  “Here is a database of most of the basic information on the being world. There’s nothing in here that’s classified for someone in your position. You should read as much as possible before we arrive so you aren’t blindsided by anything. The critical stuff is first and I recommend you focus on beast-cursed and Hindu mythology.”

  Sarah looked at the tablet like it was a poisonous snake, shrinking away from it. Miyuki rolled her eyes. “Here, take it. If nothing else, it’ll keep you occupied.” Sarah hesitantly took the tablet.

  “Read this and you’ll get some answers.” Miyuki hoped some answers would stabilize the emotionally chaotic girl. “As soon as you’re done, which should take you a while, give it back. Got it?” She meekly nodded, “good.”

  As Sarah quickly began reading, Miyuki returned to the couch, crossed her legs and closed her eyes. She quickly entered a pseudo-meditative state. She made sure she was deep enough to have a slight out-of-body sensation while still remaining conscious of her surroundings.

  She shifted her focus within and felt all her emotions drip away. Like thousands of times before she let her consciousness fade. Like relaxing a tensed muscle, she no longer held back her ears and tails. She vaguely heard a gasp from Sarah’s approximate location but disregarded it and refocused. She felt for her magic and followed its flow. The flow began in her heart and stretched and split itself. She started with her hands. Making sure every finger was filled with mana before moving up to the wrist. After the energy stabilized, she moved on.

  Every magical being had their own advantages and disadvantages. Kitsune like her were natural spellcasters because of their tails. Each tail held a unique aspect and as her people aged and increased in power they were able to grow more. Her first tail increased how fast her mana pool refilled and acted as something of a battery for any excess she pushed into it. Her second tail works as a magical focus for any body-enhancing spells she might have and lowering the backlash.

  Annoyingly, her first tail’s supply filled at maybe 1% per hour. She couldn’t wait till her third let her store mana passively. She felt the energy enter the base of her tail and spread its way through. Every hair tingled, each one waiting to be filled with power. As the process became stable and self-sustaining her mind began to wonder.

  She never really liked how she had to sit and wait for her tail to fill but had no other choice. As she began thinking about what the Council could decide and how she would respond to them, she heard someone clearing their throat.

  She returned her mana to an inactive state. The process was much faster than spreading it out so after a few seconds she opened her eyes. In front of her was Sarah holding out the tablet.

  “What?” Miyuki asked while glancing at her watch. She had been meditating for about an hour. She was hoping she could go another without being interrupted but that was apparently impossible.

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  “I finished.”

  “Wait, what?” Miyuki’s eyebrows rose. “No way, there’s enough stuff in there to take at least a few hours.” She held out her hand in which Sarah quickly deposited the tablet and took a hurried step back.

  Miyuki looked down and skimmed the visible data. She was surprised and slightly impressed to find that it was true, she finished it. Every page was marked as complete.

  “You did more than just skim everything, right?” She looked up from the tablet.

  Sarah actually looked offended. “Of course I did.”

  “So, what do you think?”

  Sarah was hesitant to answer. “I-I’m not sure what to think. So much history and facts I always thought were true turned out to be false. I mean, God and the Devil actually exist. Also, in World War Two beings helped the allies because the Nazis were trying to perform forbidden dark magic.” She shook her head.

  Miyuki smirked at her exasperation. “Yea, over the decades I’ve learned that the truth is subjective and ever changing.”

  Sarah gave Miyuki a confused look. “Decades? Aren’t you my age?”

  Miyuki smiled. “Nope, the life cycles of many beings are different from that of humans. I happen to be one of the longer-lived ones. How about this, I’ll give you a chance to guess my age and be accurate to within five years. If you get it right, I’ll answer any question no matter how embarrassing.”

  Sarah thought for a moment before accepting. “Alright.”

  She donned a thoughtful expression while she began to examine the clues and piece together a guess. Miyuki was relieved that Sarah wasn’t acting like a beaten dog anymore. Maybe the little amount of information she was given helped calm her mind.

  While Sarah thought and pondered, Miyuki stretched and glanced at Logan. He was sitting in the same seat he was an hour ago, although now his head was back and was breathing slowly. She wished she could get some sleep like Logan but knew she had to keep an eye on Sarah and make sure she didn’t hurt herself or do something stupid.

  “Sixty.” Sarah said confidently.

  Miyuki smiled knowingly. “Nope. Not even close.”

  Sarah frowned while saying to herself “damn, I knew I aimed too high.”

  Her smile grew. “Actually, if you add another thirty years, you’ll be in the ballpark.”

  Sarah’s eyes grew. “You’re over ninety years old?” she asked in a mix of amazement and disbelief.

  “Yup, I look good for my age, don’t I?” she responded while striking a quick pose.

  Sarah was clearly stunned. “Uh, yea you do.”

  “The longer you stay in our circles the more you learn not to judge a book by their cover. The little girl you think is lost may very well be almost a millennium old or the wrinkled old man is barely breaking his thirties.”

  Sarah entered a contemplative state once again. “But, if you’re that old, why do you talk like someone my age. Wouldn’t you be using old terms and speech patterns?”

  “Oh that, we learned a long time ago to keep up with the ever-evolving nature of language. Every ten or so years we are retrained and change up our patterns to fit the time. Can’t really fit in if we’re calling people jive turkeys.”

  Sarah turned to Logan. “If you’re that old, what about him?”

  “That geezer? He’s over 200.”

  Sarah’s eyebrows jumped up. “How?”

  “Beast-cursed don’t age. Or at least it's so slow as to be negligible.”

  Sarah nodded before freezing with eyes widening.

  “Yup, you are now ageless. Welcome to eternal youth.”

  Sarah blanched and stumbled into the opposite couch.

  Miyuki sighed. “How about you get some sleep like the big lug over there,” she motioned to the still sleeping Logan.

  Sarah shook her head. “Seriously? How am I supposed to sleep now? I just found out I’m immortal.”

  “Ageless, not immortal. You can still be killed.”

  “Whatever,” Sarah’s eyes went distant. “Does this mean I’ll live forever?”

  “Potentially. The only two ways a beast-cursed dies is in a fight or by their own hand.”

  “Why would they-.”

  “Think about it,” Miyuki interrupted. She knew she had to get this lesson into the girl’s head as quickly as possible.

  “Humans can get tired of living after just eighty years, imagine living hundreds if not thousands. No matter how strong someone is mentally, everyone has a breaking point. Sure, some never lose the want to live but that’s a minority.”

  “Does that mean i’ll…” Sarah stumbled.

  “I don’t know. Not my specialty. All I know is stuff I’ve picked up over the years.”

  Miyuki became slightly worried as Sarah disappeared into her own thoughts. She looked for a distraction before wincing.

  “I can’t let you have free reign on the internet in case you contact someone and put both us and them in jeopardy.” Miyuki went to the tablet and pulled up her cloud files. She had uploaded a couple movies that should distract her for a few hours.

  “Here,” she pulled a pair of earbuds from one of her pockets and held both them and the tablet out to Sarah. “distract yourself.”

  Sarah took the tablet and read the movie list. “There’s a lot of rom-coms in here, and pretty sappy ones too,” she said absentmindedly.

  Miyuki clenched her jaw and released a growling whisper. “Shut up. I swear, if you say anything to anyone about this I’ll burn you.”

  Sarah nodded hurriedly. Miyuki fervently hoped this wouldn’t come back to bite her. She had worked hard to get the bad-ass goth persona going. If Logan found out he'd never let her live it down. After handing over everything Miyuki returned to her meditative state.