"Hey! Give it back!"
"Suck it, Obi!"
"Don't call me that!"
A young boy and girl ran across the humid fields west of Le'Lau, the capital of Kokoronashi. The skies were overcast but didn't rain, blanketing the island in warmth.
Obai was chasing Riruka, a girl whose family lived at the same farm as them. She was ten years old, just like Obai, and tended to tease the boy whenever she grew bored.
Now... was one of those moments.
"It's my sword!" Obai shouted.
He lunged at her, wrapping his arms around her waist and tackling her to the ground. The stick Riruka had carried slipped out of her grip and rolled away as the children tumbled across the field.
"Get off me!"
The two wrestled and rolled around, shoving, kicking, and grappling each other. The two completely forgot about the stick as the anger flared through both of them.
Eventually, one little kick to the groin does it all, and Riruka lifted herself up from the grass victorious.
"Haha! You can't even win when I'm caught off guard, Obi!"
Obai groaned as he hunched over, planting his face into the grass.
"That's... unfair."
"Sucks to be a boy then."
Riruka giggled and skipped back towards where she dropped the stick, leaving him to wallow in pain. After picking it up, she hopped back and tossed it over him.
"You can have your sword back, Obi. We gotta leave soon anyway."
Obai slowly recovered from the damaging finisher as the two children nagged each other all the way back to the edge of town, where the back of a small market stood.
There were many markets throughout the capital, but Riruka's family had lots of connections around the western section of the city, so their house always sold the surplus of the harvest there.
Up ahead the adults were slowly packing up the leftover products and pushed them onto the wagon, ready to return home. The journey wasn't far, but it certainly took a while to carry all the cargo.
Eventually, they took off down a large dirt road. The kids and mothers sat in the covered wagon as the fathers drove. The mix of horse hooves and the sudden rain covered the sounds of the outside.
"I won again today!"
"You cheated!"
"Mom, can I take fighting lessons?"
"Mom! I need fighting lessons!"
The women laughed at the silly banter of their children, and they all continued on their way.
Slowly, the sky grew darker, and the clouds poured harder. They were only about an hour out from their house, but their pace slowed.
Water continued to fall harder and harder. Puddles splashed as the wheels of the wagon rolled through them, splattering mud onto the horses legs.
Outside, the men squinted, doing their best to navigate through the rain. The road had grown thin a while ago, and the visibility only grew worse. And suddenly, they came to a halt.
"Ah shit! The bridge's collapsed!"
In front of them was a small river that flowed to the coast just north of their position. The added rain made the water level swell, flooding up to where the road lay above.
A narrow wooden bridge had crossed the gap before, however, sometime during the storm, the water had warped the wooden supports enough to bring down one of its sides.
The two men hopped down to the ground, walking up to the edge of the river.
"There really is no way around right now, and the rain's still looking to get stronger."
"There's another bridge closer to the beach, but that one won't support the wagon, and I'm not sure how long it'll take now that the sun is going down soon."
They continued to discuss what to do as the family sat tight inside the wagon.
Riruka kept herself calm. She was better than most at controlling her emotions, but it was difficult to stay focused all the time when there was someone as devilish as Obai living in the same house as her.
She sat in a crisscross as she let her mom braid her straight, dark hair.
She didn't understand why, but she felt a sudden urge to go outside and see what her dad was up to. She didn't want to get her nice dress dirty, though. It was made by her mom after all.
"Hey Obai, can you hear what they're saying outside?"
He had unusually sharp senses, so she always relied on him whenever she grew worried. Thankfully he didn't know how to use them in a fight.
Obai was lazily lying on the ground.
"They're arguing about what to do now. My dad wants to head back to Le'Lau."
His mother looked down at him and sighed. "Really? I'm ready to get to bed."
She glanced at the lady braiding the little girl's hair.
"I may have to agree with your husband," she laughed.
The rain continued as the wagon grew silent.
Obai's ears perked up as sudden sound burst through the drowning world. A large yelp had come from the direction of the arguing men.
Obai jumped up from the wooden boards and rushed out the back, disappearing in just an instant. The others didn't even have time to reach out to stop him.
The little boy splashed his way through the mud, his blood pumping fast as he desperately reached the edge of the river where he'd heard the yelp.
Just moments before, the water had finally dug its way into the sides of the road, collapsing the ground beneath Riruka's father. Obai's had just enough time to grab hold of his arm but was struggling not to slip into the river himself.
The current was too strong.
They wouldn't be able to pull him to safety.
The world slowed as calls of help resonated from the two endangered men. The wind began to shift as the water ruthlessly pelted harder against the world.
Then, an invisible slice of energy split the world. Just a second later, the water disappeared. The flooded river that had just been there before had been replaced by nothing but air.
'Where...'
Before Obai could finish the thought, his eyes darted up, noticing a towering object climb into the sky. A long, fluid object.
The river hadn't disappeared. Before, it may have wanted to flow north towards the sea. That's perfectly natural. However, the grand miracle that stood before Obai couldn't be explained by natural means.
The river started flowing up.
As Riruka's father slowly got pulled out of the now trench of mud, Obai's eyes widened as he looked beyond the miraculous tower of water.
A small silhouette appeared downstream through the rain. The air that had once been warm suddenly grew icy, as what appeared to be a vengeful ghost floated towards the troubled family. Her long white hair seemed to glow as it floated above the ground, never allowing itself to be dirtied.
And her gray eyes swirled like mist.
"Nova!"