Fire Hunter Series 1: Fire in Spring
Hinata Rieko
Part Two : Animal Trail
Hinako was singing in the garden, her voice as bright and high as a chirping bird. Hinako's health had improved, so she'd started playing in the garden more often. Her new clothes made her look like a miniature version of Hibana.
The gardens of the Okibi Estate were vast. They were seeded with many kinds of flowers and fruit trees, and there was a wide field that contained only vegetables. Koushi looked down at the garden from a study room on the second floor. He was taking a class with Kira today.
The garden sparkled with morning dew. Hinako bounced on her heels, chasing after butterflies over the vegetable field. Koushi had never seen fields for growing food before coming to the estate, though he knew that many villages were agricultural. In the capital, people mostly ate artificial meat and vegetables made in factories.
"Now, then, Miss Kira, let's begin by having you recite the poem I taught you yesterday."
Kira acquiesced, getting up from her chair. Without looking at the book open in front of her, she recited a long poem in a foreign language. Kira was a radiant student: it didn't matter if she was reciting history or poetry or reading out a mathematical formula; she always gave the pursuit of knowledge her all.
Koushi looked out the window again. Hinako wasn't there. Had she already run back inside? As Kira kept reciting her poem, Koushi leaned forward out of the window.
Then Hinako ran back into the garden again. She waved at Koushi as she noticed him watching. He wondered if she'd gone to get a toy or something. He sighed in relief when he noticed that she was clutching a small object in her hand.
Koushi straightened up and moved away from the window, catching Kira's attention. She paused in her recitation. The teacher also looked his way.
"Koushi? Is something wrong?" the teacher asked.
Koushi barely heard him. Hinako was holding an egg-shaped glass container, and there was golden liquid trapped inside. A bottle of lightning fuel--but why did Hinako have it? The study and the basement were locked, and there was no way Hinako would have been able to get in without permission.
Alarmed, Koushi opened the window and called down, "Hinako! Put that down! Don't touch it!"
Hinako didn't seem to hear him. Impossible. Even when the windows had all been closed, Koushi had been able to hear her singing in he garden. Hinako admired the golden liquid in the bottle, holding it over her head toward the sunlight.
And then the bottle exploded.
A bright flash of light from the sky. A blast of hot air hit Hinako, who held on to the bottle. With his hand on the window pane, Koushi watched as Hinako's body disintegrated from the extreme heat. Her skin ruptured; blood and flesh vaporized in moments. Bones and organs scattered in all directions. All that was left behind was a red stain on the ground that had lost its original shape.
When Koushi looked back into the room, Kira and the teacher had been reduced to bloody smears. The walls and cieling were stained a terrible red, like horrible paint. The room steamed with sudden heat.
Koushi should have screamed. But he didn't. He groaned and sat up in his chair.
"Are you all right?" Kira asked from the doorway.
Koushi was in a study room, alone since classes were over. He'd fallen asleep. It had all been a dream. Just a dream, but his heart wouldn't stop pounding. It had all seemed so real. Kira looked just as she had in the dream, though she wasn't performing a recitation now. She had a pen and a notebook clutched in her hands.
"Would you like to take a break?" the teacher asked. He peeked into the room, smiling. Mr. Kohachi was an older man with a slightly crooked back. Surveying his students indulgently, he held up the textbook that they were learning from.
Koushi had forgotten which class he'd gone to last, but he understood that he'd fallen asleep in the middle of it. "Oh. I, um, I'm terribly sorry. I don't need a break. Can we keep going with the lesson now?"
In the academies, students who were deemed to be disrupting class could be expelled, depending on a teacher's recommendation. Koushi stood up and bowed his head, sweating bullets.
The elderly teacher tilted his head slightly, appearing calm. "Very well. If you're feeling better now, we can continue with the lesson. Please take your seats. Oh, and keep in mind that this lesson may overlap with the things you've learned at school already."
Koushi tried to interrupt, to say that this wasn't the case, but Mr. Kohachi waved his hand away.
"Let's do this. Mr. Koushi will teach us today's lesson. In his place, I will be a student with Miss Kira. Teaching others is a very effective way of learning, you know."
"Ah, uh... but..." Koushi looked around awkwardly. Kira caught his eye. The tension in the air was too thick for words, so Koushi forced himself to move. He picked up his textbook and moved to the front of the room, standing in the place where Mr. Kohachi usually taught. Mr. Kohachi sat in Koushi's chair, a twinkle of amusement in his eyes.
The lesson wasn't poetry or recitation, like in his dream. He was teaching math. Mr. Kohachi had implied that Koushi had learned it in school before, but the lesson was brand new to him. He supposed that this was a mild punishment for falling asleep in his chair.
Koushi scanned the textbook quickly. "Uh... In applying the law of sine, it is important to first identify the unit circle in the diagram."
Koushi had discovered something new during his work with the lightning fuel, but he hadn't told Yuoshichi yet. If a Spider was going to attack, then people would need some kind of defense. They had to make sure that ordinary people didn't get caught up in the battles between the Guardian Gods and the Spiders.
But were lightning fuel bombs really the right response for this problem? Was it even possible to fight against the Spiders without using lightning fuel?
Those worries and others were the source of the nightmare he'd suffered. Calm down, Koushi told himself. It was just a dream. I haven't done any experiments on people... I don't know if things will actually happen like that.
"Draw an angle in the unit circle to determine the sine..."
Koushi hadn't made a lightning fuel bomb in the basement. Instead, he'd asked Yuoshichi for permission to rent a factory's cold room.
Yuoshichi was surprised by this request, but he granted it. Koushi rented a cold room that was usually used to store meat for a day. He felt a little bad about wasting factory resources, but Yuoshichi was the one who'd told him to use whatever resources were available.
With a cooling device, Koushi had tried freezing the lightning fuel. Since it was a liquid, he thought it might turn to ice. The facilities in the factory were designed to process meat, so the result was frozen lightning fuel cut into precise cubes for easy storage. Koushi had gathered up the frozen fuel and brought it home in a small refrigerator.
Lightning was never confined to bottles. It fell from the sky. Koushi was thinking along those lines when he froze the fuel. Lightning became electrically charged via the atmosphere, turning into a powerful strike. The illustration of the Fallen Beast seemed to depict a similar phenomenon. What would happen if someone shot frozen lightning fuel into the sky using a crossbow or industrial factory equipment?
One problem was aim. He didn't know how large the resulting strike would be, and lightning tended to seek the ground. It would be difficult to truly aim at a precise spot and not cause collateral damage. But unless he actually tested it, he couldn't be sure that his hypothesis was correct.
Of course, Koushi hadn't tested the frozen lightning fuel yet. He still didn't know how powerful it was, and he was afraid to hand over a weapon of such untested potential over to Yuoshichi. The refrigerator containing the lighting fuel was stored surreptitiously in the corner of the basement. Even if Yuoshichi found it, he might not be able to identify the lightning fuel. He certainly wasn't privy to Koushi's ideas for using it. Koushi hadn't written any of his new theories down.
He should probably tell Yuoshichi about his findings, but Koushi was of two minds on the issue. Hibana usually smelled of asafuyou these days. Yuoshichi hadn't even told his own family what Koushi was doing in the basement. Kira displayed modesty and politeness toward her parents, but no affection. Maybe Koushi's family had been abnormal in that regard. His family couldn't be considered truly normal, given that his father was a Fire Hunter.
When Koushi reflected on it, he realized that his father had trusted his hunting dog far more than his wife and children. Their mother hadn't told them things before she died--important things. But at least she'd tried. Even after falling ill, she'd tried.
Koushi trusted his own family and experiences over Yuoshichi's, despite the fact that Yuoshichi had assigned Hinako a good doctor and that they now lived in wealth and luxury.
Kira took notes as Koushi lectured, her expression serious. The old teacher sat and watched, seeming at ease.
Koushi's conflicting priorities and desires made him frown. What was he supposed to do?
Class ended. Koushi ate a hurried lunch with Kira and Hinako, then went to his room. He read over his textbook, making sure he hadn't said anything wrong earlier. Yuoshichi would be going to a factory in the afternoon, so the basement would be locked. Koushi was thinking about going to the Central Archives again when Kira burst into his room.
"Koushi, come on! That dog is in the garden!"
"What dog?" Koushi asked. Ever since the night of the banquet, the two had only been able to have a minimal, formal conversation, so Koushi was taken aback by Kira's sudden brightness.
"The one we saw in the garden! Oh, let's go and get Hinako, too!"
Kira tried to drag him by the hand, but Koushi stopped her. Her wavy hair hung loose around her face as she turned back to him in surprise. Koushi stared at her for a moment, then looked away in embarrassment.
"Um... look, I'm really sorry about the other day. I didn't mean to offend you, Miss Kira."
Kira's eyes went as round as coins, and she blinked. Then she laughed. "You're a nice person, y'know. I knew you weren't trying to bully me or anything. It seems you were feeling worse about all that than I was. You didn't even relax when we were eating. Hinako was starting to worry."
Koushi found her carefree smile dazzling.
"Hey, let's hurry up and go see the dog. It's too pretty to pass up."
Kira pulled on his hand again with unexpected strength. She'd said before that she was stronger than she looked; Koushi supposed that was true.
The dog from the other day...
Did that mean the Fire Hunters had returned to the estate? He didn't remember hearing about another banquet. He recalled the unfamiliar Fire Hunter who'd lurked in the shadows during the party. Maybe that Fire Hunter had come back, though he had no idea why. The Fire Hunters followed the commands of the Guardian Gods; there was no reason for a Fire Hunter to come to the home of a factory owner.
Maybe the Fire Hunter was the one who was working with Yuoshichi--the one he had investigating the Spiders?
"Let's go!" Kira said.
In his heart, Koushi was grateful to Kira for forgiving his callous lie. He had almost destroyed the new relationship he had built with Kira, so he felt he had to make an effort to regain it.
***
As they left the room, Koushi said, "Hey, the room Hinako and I are staying in belonged to your grandparents, right? What were they like?"
Kira, who had stepped out into the hallway first, stopped in her tracks. "What?" she asked, pretending that she hadn't heard the question. She turned towards Koushi, and she was no longer smiling. An uneasy tension marked her body language.
Regretting his careless question, Koushi tried to smile himself. The corners of his mouth lifted up slightly, seemingly with effort.
"Well, that's what I heard from your father. He said that your grandfather and grandmother died last year."
Kira's expression hardened. She looked into Koushi's eyes, lowered her voice as much as she could, and said, "Koushi... sometimes, my father lies in order to make things go better for himself. My grandparents were dead before I was born. My paternal grandmother and grandfather passed away when my father was still young. They were the original owners of this house. Your room has always been used as a guest room, to my knowledge. I'm sorry he lied to you." It seemed like she felt guilty over Yuoshichi's lie.
"It's okay," Koushi said. "I understand."
Kira stopped pulling Koushi along. They headed toward Hinako's room in somber silence.
The fear of being slashed in the back by a rusty blade slowed Koushi's steps.
***
Just as Kira had said, there was a beautiful dog in the garden, sitting quietly beside the gate while waiting for its owner.
"The dog's name is Mizore," the gardener told Kira.
"Mizore. What a lovely name."
Kira wrote the dog's name in the air with her index finger. Then, just as she had done with the other dogs on the night of the banquet, she gently brought her face closer to the dog. But Mizore had a proud attitude and narrowed its eyes at her. The dog made no attempt to sniff Kira, but remained aloof. The dog was so large that it was near to the size of a small horse.
Hinako held her doll and looked at the dog from behind Kira, then turned her face to the sky. "Dr. Takimi told me to get lots of sunshine when I'm feeling good. So I should stay in the garden as much as I can."
"Yeah, that's important," Koushi said.
The doll that Hinako held was not the beautiful one from her guest room, but the one she'd brought with her from their old house. Hibana said that it reminded her of when Kira was little. She made clothes for the doll and gave Hinako more dolls, but Hinako refused to part from the one she'd brought from home.
"Grandpa Shouji will teach you the names of all the flowers in the garden," the old gardener said to Hinako. He lifted his hat and bowed to Koushi.
Koushi was surprised and looked at his sister. He'd thought that the only people she trusted were Koushi, Kira, and Dr. Takimi, but before he knew it, Hinako went skipping after the gardener at perfect ease.
Hinako was getting better at talking to people and making friends.
"Not just flowers, but vegetables too. How to grow them, the different types of fertilizer... I want to learn as much as I can and become just like my big brother and big sister Kira," Hinako said, holding the doll up in her arms and rocking it as if she wanted to soothe it. "You're studying really important things, aren't you?" she asked Kira.
"I'm..." Kira tilted her head, looking lonely, and Koushi frowned. He had been so obsessed with lightning fuel lately that he hadn't spent much time with Hinako.
Hinako didn't know what he was doing, really. Or why.
Mother's letter...
Koushi wanted to show his sister the letter. They were her last words, and she'd written them while wracked with pain and illness. But if he let Hinako read it, he would have to explain what he was doing now. He'd have to expose Yuoshichi's secrets. And if he did that, they might not be able to stay at the estate anymore.
"Um... does this dog belong to the Fire Hunter who came to the banquet the other day?" Koushi asked the gardener. "He has long hair and dark skin."
Shouji the gardener was cutting the bottom leaves from a flower bed with scissors. Hinako crouched down next to him, intently examining what he was doing.
"Ah, yes, that's him. He's in the reception room with the lord now."
Before the old man could say more, another voice interrupted him.
"I came here to discuss business with the master of the house, but I was turned away."
A tall Fire Hunter in uniform stood in the garden. He carried a heavy satchel in poor condition on his back. Perhaps he had refused the servant who offered to accompany him to see him off, just like on the night of the banquet. Since he had been shown all the way to the reception room, he couldn't have been turned away at the door.
The hunting dog was distracted by being petted by the gate and was not aware that its owner had returned. The dog sat there calmly, not even wagging its tail.
"Since the master here seems to be a bold man, I asked him if he could buy lightning fuel. But he's a businessman, and lightning fuel is dangerous stuff. It would be more profitable for me to sell to him than to the Guardian Gods... such a shame." He sounded strangely cheerful.
The Fire Hunter clicked his tongue and called out to his dog, who ran over to him. He bowed to the gardener, then moved toward the estate's front gate. The Fire Hunter greeted Kira as he passed through the wooden gate.
Koushi thought about what the Fire Hunter had said with a small frown on his face. His heart pounded loud in his ears. The inside of his skull buzzed with energy. There was something he had to do, now.
"Hey, where are you going?" Kira asked.
"I need to go to the library," Koushi said. "I'll be back before dinner." He wasn't sure if this was a good excuse or not, but he absolutely had to follow the Fire Hunter right now.
Kira and Hinako returned to the estate. Koushi left through the front gate and looked around.
The streets outside the estate were a maze lit by intermittent fire fuel lamps. He'd lost sight of the dog. Where could it have gone? His breathing quickened as he walked faster.
That Fire Hunter is carrying lightning fuel. Where? In that beat-up satchel?
Fire fuel and lightning fuel had to be given over to the Guardian Gods first. Breaking this rule would result in punishment. But the Fire Hunter had come here to sell lightning fuel directly to Yuoshichi. He might be the same Fire Hunter that Yuoshichi was using to investigate the Spiders.
Koushi decided to follow the road to the city, heading down the hill. Most of the Fire Hunters lived inside the city limits. As Koushi saw it, the Fire Hunter would either leave the city or go to his residence; it was hard to imagine him heading straight to the shrine of the Guardian Gods even though the deal hadn't gone through. Or would the Fire Hunter try to give the lightning fuel to the Guardian Gods now?
Impossible to know. He needed to find the Fire Hunter. His first assumption was that the Fire Hunter would go home. He saw an opportunity here. Fire Hunters were skilled enough to hunt Fallen Beasts and bring back lightning fuel. They had information from the Guardian Gods. This Fire Hunter would know lightning fuel and fire fuel on a more fundamental level than he did. They might understand the true nature of the fuel--the reason why people had to use it and why they'd lost control over natural fire. He had so many questions about lightning fuel and Fire Fiends that only a Fire Hunter could truly answer.
Clinging to the ideas of certainty and answers as his feet ate up the ground below him, Koushi followed the Fire Hunter and the dog down the deserted road.
"Hey."
Koushi instinctively jumped back and hit his shoulder against the wall of a house.
The Fire Hunter stood in a shadow between two houses--an unusual place for anyone to stand. His slender figure cut through the darkness like the point of a sword. "You're an interesting one. Seems like you're trying to hide something and calm your breathing. Why are you nervous, kid?" He grinned wryly, adjusting the weight of his satchel over his shoulder. Behind him, the fast-footed dog stood there with a bored look on its face.
"Just now, at the estate," Koushi began. Before he could say more, the Fire Hunter interrupted him with a firm headshake.
Koushi's mouth snapped shut. He looked around and saw a shadow moving on the roof of the house next to him. The shadow was large enough to be a crow or a stray cat, and that was what Koushi would have assumed it was if it hadn't disappeared a split second later.
A tiny piece of paper fluttered across the roof.
"There's a guard on duty. It's inconvenient to be a Fire Hunter in the capital. Officially, they're only on guard duty. Unofficially, you never know when or where they're watching. They're secret agents of the Guardian Gods. Boy, if you get too involved, you'll attract attention. That could cause problems for your foster parents."
At first, Koushi didn't know who "foster parents" referred to. But when he realized it was Yuoshichi and his wife, he was angered. "They're not my parents. I'm just staying at the estate." He felt like the air had been punched out of him and tried to calm himself.
Koushi raised his eyes and looked straight into the shadowed face of the Fire Hunter, who stood a head taller than him. There was a scar over one of his eyebrows; the skin underneath was completely hairless. A simple earring with a patina of age dangled from one earlobe. Koushi had never seen a man wearing an earring before. Only women commonly wore such accessories in the capital.
The Fire Hunter's attire and speech marked him as an outsider. It was likely that he hadn't been born in the city. Was he from one of the villages, or was he simply a wanderer with eccentric habits? Koushi wasn't sure, but the number of unknowns regarding this man made him uneasy. The Fire Hunter wasn't under Yuoshichi's control, and was capable of anything. He had lightning fuel with him!
Koushi resolved that he would ask the Fire Hunter about lightning fuel for the sake of his research, but he wasn't about to tell Yuoshichi anything about this. The pieces here were as reactive as the components of the weapon he was making: safe when kept apart, but explosive when mixed together.
"...I want to know about lightning fuel and fire fuel," Koushi said. "Is there anything you can tell me?"
The skin around the Fire Hunter's mouth creased in deep lines as he smiled. "I can't just tell people things like that. It's my job. You should know the consequences of sharing forbidden information better than anyone, boy."
Koushi looked into the man's deep dark eyes and felt like he'd been seen through--like the last two weeks of his life were uncommonly transparent to the Fire Hunter.
The corners of the Fire Hunter's mouth twitched upward. He folded his arms and gave Koushi a once-over. "My name's Roroku. I'm from the islands, not from here. If you really want to know more about that stuff, why not go hunting with me? Seeing is believing, as the saying goes. If you're interested, meet me at the tunnel this evening and I'll take you out into the forest."
Koushi was stunned. Roroku would take him to the forest? He didn't know how to respond.
Roroku turned on his heel and walked silently down the narrow street. The dog, Mizore, followed behind, wagging a white tail. The Fire Hunter and his dog vanished into the city like a mirage.
Koushi stood there trembling, feeling tension in his whole body. He was trying to think up plausible excuses for leaving the estate tonight.
***
The industrial area that Koushi passed through that evening was warmer than the coastal part of town where the sea breeze blew. In an industrial zone overlooking the Guardian Gods' shrine, three large metal tanks were installed. The fire fuel there allowed the machines and lights that operated all over the city to keep working continuously. Lights were brighter and more complex in wealthy areas. The network of metal and twisting wire made the tanks and their infrastructure look like a giant living behemoth.
Koushi had eaten dinner that night at the estate and waited for awhile before leaving. He'd told Yuoshichi that he had been spending too much time cooped up underground and that he wanted some air. Yuoshichi appeared dissatisfied with this request.
"If all you want is some fresh air, the garden should be enough for you. It's dangerous to go outside alone at night in the city. There's been a lot of theft reported lately."
Koushi pretended to think it over. "I see... well, then, would it be all right if I took some of my notes on the lightning fuel to my room to read over? I think that what I really need is a change of scenery. Doing research somewhere else might give me some different ideas."
Yuoshichi nodded slowly. He didn't look too enthused, but he didn't insist that Koushi work in the basement, either. Koushi brought some notes to his second-floor room, which faced west. Outside the window was a large fir tree.
Koushi said good night to Hinako and Kira. They were going to read a book together before bed. Koushi closed the door to his room and spent some time measuring the distance to the nearest branch of the fir tree with his eyes.
He turned his lights down low and arranged his research materials neatly on his desk. Then, in stockinged feet, he jumped into the tree and shimmied down. He worried about spraining his ankle as he jumped from the wall to the alley, but he managed to land without incident. The impact sent a shock through him. He tested his limb movements and understood that he wasn't hurt. He could still run if he had to.
Koushi had chosen to come out without shoes because shoes made noise, and noise would attract the attention of police and guards. Police patrolled all the residential areas of the city at night. Koushi had tied his shoelaces together and hung his shoes around his neck so that he could put them on once he was past the patrols.
The capital's residential and industrial areas were connected by a number of bridges across a wide canal that flowed into the sea. After crossing one of them, Koushi put on his shoes in the shade of a building and walked toward the tunnel.
He had never come this close to the tunnel that cut through the cliff and into the forest before. Fire Hunters passed through the tunnel, of course, but it was forbidden for anyone else. If Koushi were to pass through the tunnel alone, he would surely be devoured by a Fire Fiend.
He was still surprised at himself for going to such lengths just to understand lightning fuel.
Koushi hurried through the maze of factories and machines on his way to the tunnel and asked himself why he was doing this.
Overhead, a black metal transport basket moved along a rope. Smoke and steam, the smell of oil and waste. Machines lifted things by using the laws of physics, repeating a never-ending cycle of production. Lights floated out of the evening's darkness, lightly obscured by steam. Rugged metal towers rose up and twisted overhead in a darkness thicker than that in the night sky, set alongside large trees that towered like gods.
"The factory district is nicknamed the Garden of the Gods." That was what Yuoshichi had said. "It generates products and revenue and secures the guardian gods' economic position. We are, all of us, a controllable and replaceable resource. A commodity, no different from gemstones or plants."
If Koushi entered the Black Forest with Roroku, he didn't know what would happen. He didn't know if he could trust Roroku or not. But that mattered less than the knowledge he could gain. Why did fire fuel and lightning fuel even exist in the first place? What were they, really, since Fire Fiends could contain it without bursting into flame? Why was the world the way it was?
Lightning fuel shone like gold under the right circumstances: Koushi had seen it so many times in the basement. He wanted to understand lightning fuel's true nature. Was it really all right for him to use it to create a weapon, like Yuoshichi wanted? What would he create? Could the weapon be used for protection, or only destruction?
Koushi arrived at the southern end of the industrial area, where a steep black cliff separated the city from the wild black forest beyond. The tunnel carved into the cliff was lined with white gates and sacred rope infused with the power of the Guardian Gods to ward away Fire Fiends and Fallen Beasts. Near the tunnel, there was a large blocked-off area where black carts would park after returning from the villages.
The darkness within the tunnel was fathomless. Koushi could see nothing else inside the tunnel at all. He shuddered, sensing evil lurking on the other side.
Roroku and Mizore stood in front of the tunnel's yawning blackness.
Koushi didn't see any guards anywhere. Where had they gone?
"You came sooner than I thought you would," Roroku said. He stood with his arms folded; Mizore didn't even glance at Koushi. There were no other Fire Hunters or dogs around.
Koushi was out of breath from running through the industrial area and couldn't respond right away. He sucked in a breath, inhaling stale air that blew in from the city's slums. A row of shacks clung to the side of the cliff near the tunnel. He'd never noticed them before. There was a single light shining in the middle distance.
"Is that a guard?" Koushi whispered.
Roroku barked out a laugh. "I knew you would come, so I prepared this place. That's not a guard, per se. It's a watcher animated by magic. If you remove the spell, it won't move." He plucked up a piece of paper folded into the shape of a tiny person. There was ink all over it: the writing of a spell.
Roroku was entirely calm as he tore the paper doll in two and threw it away. The small light that Koushi had seen flickered out.
"When we get to the forest, don't leave my side," Roroku said. "Don't worry, you won't die. As long as you stay close to me, you'll be fine. Are you ready? Let's go." With perfect, even calm, Roroku shook his head a little and turned toward the tunnel. He carried a sickle in a leather scabbard, just like the one Koushi's father used to wear. The scabbard hung from his belt. Mizore turned with Roroku and faced the tunnel unruffled by anything.
They ducked under the prayer rope.
Koushi's palms were sweating. Please, Hinako, stay safe. There was a chance that he wouldn't return from the other side of the tunnel. If that happened, would Yuoshichi still take care of Hinako? Would Hinako be abandoned because of him?
No, no. Kira loved Hinako. Everything would be fine.
Vaguely reassured, Koushi ducked under another prayer rope and followed after Roroku. The anxiety clinging to him was lost to the tunnel's darkness and disappeared.
"I won't make light for us until we enter the forest. Follow after Mizore and don't get separated," Roroku said.
Koushi stepped forward, imagining the golden shine of lightning fuel as he faced the fearful forest.
No comments:
Post a Comment