The next thing Yuzuki learned about Menchi was that she traveled like someone who believed comfort was a human right.
He found that out the moment they reached the private airstrip.
Yuzuki stood there with both hands in the pockets of his jacket, staring at the aircraft in front of them.
It was sleek.
White.
Far too expensive-looking.
And very clearly not something an ordinary person simply boarded on a casual Tuesday.
He looked at the plane.
Then at Menchi.
Then back at the plane.
"…What is this?"
Menchi didn't even look embarrassed. She just adjusted her bag on her shoulder and said, "Our ride."
Yuzuki stared at her. "This is not a ride. This is a statement."
Menchi scoffed. "Don't be dramatic."
"I'm not being dramatic," Yuzuki said. "I'm being observant. This thing looks like it belongs to someone who sends handwritten insults to poor people."
Menchi let out a laugh despite herself and started walking toward the stairs. "Come on."
Yuzuki followed, still looking around with visible disbelief.
When they stepped inside, his suspicion was confirmed immediately.
The interior was ridiculous.
Soft leather seating. Polished wood trim. A small lounge area. Built-in refreshments. Enough space to stretch properly. Actual legroom. Warm lighting that made the whole cabin feel more like an expensive hotel than a plane.
Yuzuki stopped in the aisle.
Then slowly turned toward Menchi.
"You have this?"
Menchi tossed her bag onto one of the seats and sat down with all the ease of someone who had done this many times before. "I rented it."
"That is not better."
"It is to me."
Yuzuki slid into the seat across from her and looked around one more time. "You're rich."
Menchi crossed one leg over the other. "I've made decent money as a Gourmet Hunter."
"Decent?" Yuzuki repeated. "Menchi, this is not decent money. This is 'I laugh at poor people' money."
She smirked faintly. "Maybe."
Then, after a second, her expression softened just a little into something more practical.
"Besides," she added, "we're heading into a dangerous place. If we're going into a death trap, it's better we get there as relaxed as possible."
That made Yuzuki pause.
Then nod.
"…Okay," he admitted. "That actually makes sense."
"Of course it does," Menchi said. "I'm smart."
Yuzuki leaned back into the seat. "You are. You're just annoying about it."
"And you're poor and annoying about it."
"I'm not poor."
Menchi raised an eyebrow.
Yuzuki thought about the state of his finances for a second.
Then amended, "Not that poor."
That got a laugh out of her.
The plane took off not long after, lifting into a clear sky with the kind of smoothness that made ordinary travel feel offensive by comparison. Yuzuki had flown before now, but this was different. There was no crowding. No noise. No one kicking the back of his seat. No crying babies. No feeling like he was being compressed into a container designed by someone who hated comfort.
This—
This was flying correctly.
Yuzuki looked out the window as the land below became smaller and smaller, then finally said, "I understand luxury now."
Menchi opened one eye from where she had been reclining. "Told you."
A staff member came by at some point with drinks and light food, and that only made the whole thing worse in the best possible way.
Yuzuki accepted a glass of juice and looked genuinely offended on behalf of all previous travel experiences. "This is evil."
Menchi sipped from her own glass. "Why?"
"Because now every normal trip I take for the rest of my life is going to feel like punishment."
"That's not my problem."
"It kind of is, because you exposed me to this."
Menchi only smiled and looked out her own window for a moment.
For a while after that, they were quiet.
Not awkwardly quiet.
Just… quieter than before.
The kind of quiet that only really happened when two people had already argued enough to stop performing around each other for a little while.
Eventually, Yuzuki asked, "So how long have you been chasing this fruit?"
Menchi glanced at him. "A while."
"That's vague."
"I know."
Yuzuki waited.
Menchi sighed and leaned her head back into the seat.
"Ever since I found Renkai Voln's notes," she said. "At first I thought it was just another dead-end legend. But the more I checked his records, the more serious it became."
Yuzuki listened.
"He wasn't some reckless amateur," Menchi continued. "He was respected. Careful. Talented. If someone like that left notes the way he did… then he believed the thing was real."
"And that was enough for you?"
Menchi turned the glass slowly in her hand. "No." Her eyes sharpened. "But the sketch was."
"The sketch?"
She nodded once. "You can tell when someone draws from imagination and when someone draws from obsession. That fruit wasn't imagined. It was remembered."
That answer sat with Yuzuki for a moment.
Then he asked, "Do you care more about becoming a 1-Star, or about proving the fruit exists?"
Menchi was quiet just long enough that he knew the question had actually reached her.
Then she said, "Both."
Yuzuki smiled faintly. "Honest."
"Always."
"That's not true."
Menchi gave him a look. "You want me to start lying?"
"No. I want you to be humbled a little."
"Impossible."
Yuzuki snorted.
And just like that, the conversation kept going.
Not deeply.
Not in some dramatic heart-to-heart kind of way.
Just enough.
Enough for Yuzuki to realize that Menchi's arrogance wasn't empty. It came from knowing exactly how hard she had worked to be taken seriously in a field where obsession and excellence were basically the same thing.
Enough for Menchi to realize that Yuzuki's irritating confidence wasn't mindless either. He really did think that fast. He really was that sharp. And beneath the sarcasm and sunglasses, there was a seriousness to him that didn't feel like something a child should have already learned.
By the time the plane descended, they were not exactly friends.
But they were no longer just reluctant coworkers either.
Something in between.
Which was probably good, considering they were about to walk into a vertical grave.
The location surrounding the Hollow Cathedral was almost aggressively dead.
No villages.
No traffic.
No signs of ordinary life.
Just a wide stretch of rough land dominated by a mountain that looked as though something had sucked the living heat out of it years ago and left only the shell behind.
Even from a distance, the place felt wrong.
The mountain rose dark and immense against the horizon, its surface scarred by age and collapse. Sparse trees grew far from its base but none too close, as though even nature preferred to keep its distance.
When they landed at the nearest settlement. A rough little outpost that existed mostly to support miners, transport workers, and people too desperate to ask sensible questions. Menchi rented them a vehicle without hesitation.
Yuzuki stood beside her while she handled it and looked at the car once the keys were handed over.
It was sturdy.
Practical.
Not luxurious this time, but reliable in the sort of way that suggested it had survived ugly roads before.
"That's a comedown after the plane," he said.
Menchi opened the driver-side door. "That's because this is for terrain, not for showing off."
"You were showing off?"
"I wasn't not showing off."
Yuzuki grinned and climbed into the passenger seat.
The drive to the Hollow Cathedral took longer than he expected.
The roads became rougher the farther they got from the outpost, until they were barely roads at all. Just old routes of packed earth and stone that wound around dead slopes and sharp drops. Dust kicked up behind them. The sky above remained clear, but the closer they got to the mountain, the more muted the world seemed.
No birds.
No insects.
Even the wind felt restrained there.
Menchi drove with practiced focus, both hands on the wheel, eyes ahead. Yuzuki looked out the window most of the way, taking in the dead land and the way the mountain seemed to absorb attention no matter where he looked.
Eventually, the road ended.
In front of them, the mountain opened into something that was not immediately obvious as a "cathedral" until one stared long enough to realize why it had earned the name.
The entrance was massive.
Not a cave mouth exactly, but a vertical wound in the mountain wide enough to swallow buildings. Jagged stone arches rose around it in shapes that looked almost architectural, like some impossible temple had been carved by geological violence and then abandoned by the gods themselves.
Darkness waited below.
Deep.
Ancient.
The car engine died.
For a second, neither of them moved.
Then Menchi stepped out first.
Yuzuki followed.
The air here was cooler than it had any right to be. It smelled faintly mineral, but underneath that was something stranger. Still. Hollow. Like the breath of a place that had forgotten sunlight.
They stood at the edge of the descent point together, both looking down into the vast, layered darkness of the Hollow Cathedral.
Even Yuzuki, who had seen a lot of absurd things lately, had to admit—
This place had presence.
Menchi adjusted the strap of her bag and asked without looking at him,
"Ready?"
Yuzuki smiled.
"Of course."
Then he tilted his head slightly toward her.
"I should be asking you that." He slipped one hand into his pocket. "As the 1-Star Hunter."
Menchi froze for half a second.
Then a slow smile spread across her face.
Not arrogant.
Pleased.
Very pleased.
She looked at him from the corner of her eye. "You know," she said, "I don't hate hearing that."
"I noticed."
Menchi's smile sharpened.
"Good," she said. "Then let's go earn it."
---
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