Hello everyone. I'm not sure if anybody is reading this as it is super old, but I'm re-writing it. I hope you like the new version.
Some events are based on studio Ghibli films. Such as The Cat Return. Toru is loosely based on Haru. My old character was named Ayumi, but I have changed it to Toru. Toru means a vast and huge sea of water. I thought it goes.
I'm trying to update all the chapters I have. New chapters from chapter 4.
Hope you enjoy. Thank you so much reading.
Chapter 1
Introduction
The sun was blazing this day; beating harshly down on the travellers that wandered around underneath it. Sweaty villagers worked at their crops in the countryside.
The country land itself was beautiful; long rolling green hills, where nature can live freely without any dirty humans to destroy it. Green stretched as far as the eye could see. Lone deer and sheep stood in the fields and jungles and mountains littered everywhere.
A lone moving bus drove down one of its many rocky roads towards a cut off from the outside by mountains.
This village stood in the middle of nowhere. The villagers themselves were almost backwards. Instead of the normal fashion stores and supermarkets, they had small food markets with hand-me-down stores.
A woman stared out of the moving bus window. She wore a plain summer dress and a straw hat that sat on her head.
She sat alone in the middle of the bus. There was an old couple near the front with two teenagers at the back. She sighed against the bus window. Her eyes stared at the moving road with uncertainly.
Eventually the bus came to a stop with a loud roar of its old engine. She waited a few moments before grabbing her hand-down and beaten up suitcase. She had to hold it with both hands as it looked like it would fall apart at any given moment. The last thing she wanted was for her belongs to be spilled out across the bus floor.
She stepped out of the bus without any problem. When the bus made a loud 'clank' and erupted a black puff of steam as it went, she stepped back while waving her hand in front of her face. It was just her luck.
Her surroundings was just as she expected from the country side. The mountain was just as she remembered from her childhood. Trees of all kinds spread out around her, all ranging from brown to green. Bright or dull coloured leaves with thick trunks.
Some was familiar to her, while others wasn't.
It was just as she remembered. She could even hear the familiar song of crickets. Unseen animals scattered about with only snapping branches as evidences of their presences.
It was hot. So hot that her skin felt sticky.
She kicked an innocent stone from her annoyance. She groaned deeply and hitched her suitcase higher up before she began the long journey to one of the few villages around the base of the mountain.
She thought an animal must have fallowed her part of the way as she couldn't shake off the feeling of something watching her. However when she tried to check, she couldn't see anything. She decided her brain must be fried underneath the hot sun.
The pathway through the village was easier then making her way to the village from the bus stop. At least there was nothing to trip on. Only a few whispers and glances from the other villagers. One or two had greeted her.
"Grandma!" She called.
She finally reached the small house at the back of the village. She pulled the sliding the doors open and peering inside.
"Grandma! I'm here," She said.
She closed the door as she entered and brushed off the dirt from her dress. The family home looked small on the outside but was actually pretty big on the inside, with polished brown floors and white walls. An old grandfather's clock stood at the end of the hallway. A white china dog stood at the foot of the door with shoes circling it.
"Ah," A soft voice hummed.
A somewhat old looking woman stood at the end of the hallway. She was taller than the woman with grey hair. Her skin looked dark, most likely from spending many hours out under the sun.
A kind smile slid across her face as she walked up to the younger woman. She placed her old hands onto her shoulders.
"My-My. Toru. Look how you've grown," She smiled. "Last time we spend time together, you was this big."
Last time Toru had visited her grandmother, she had just turned 13 years old. Now it seems like it was such a long time ago.
She'd come out to this backwards village every summer when she was a young girl to see her. She found it depressing that the only way her mother could handle her was to ship her off to her grandmother, despite the fact that she hadn't done anything.
After high school, she had kept to herself. She locked herself way in her bedroom and only coming out for food or drink or to go to work.
...Really, her mother always was a drama queen.
"Sorry Grandma, I would have come, to visit you before, but I was too busy with High School," She half-lied.
She had been busy with school, but she also didn't really want to return to this boring village.
For 13 years, she only had one friend: Megumi. Megumi asked Toru about her summer. Toru had told her about spending the summer with her grandmother up in the mountains.
Megumi thought it was babyish for a girl her age to spend endless summers with her grandmother. She thought it was stupid.
Toru thought it was normal to grow up spending time with her family.
Toru lost her only friend over it...Megumi thinking it was lame and uncool. Because of it Toru never was able to make friends. Megumi had her labelled as a loser. A freak.
Soon after leaving High School, Toru's mother thought it was best that she'd go live with her grandmother.
…..
Toru rolled over in her bed.
She had been there almost a month now and she found herself thinking back on her first day arriving in the village. It had been a strange day.
Eventually Toru looked over at her alarm clock on the bed side.
"Not again!" She screamed.
Toru kicked the blankets off her body and practically through herself off the bed. Her blankets going everywhere as she ran around the room like a headless chicken.
A week after arriving back in the village, Yaya, Toru's Grandmother had taken her to see the Aiko family. They lived down the road from them, and the Grandmother of the Aiko family had been friends with Toru's Grandmother since they, themselves was children.
She remembered visiting them when she was a small child. Cho Aiko was a beautiful young woman who worked in the nursery in the village.
Cho had offered her a job working with the young children of the village.
Toru decided she would rather work in the nursery then the fields with the farmers. She wouldn't admit it out loud, but the girl had been worried about working out here.
"Morning Toru," Yaya said.
The old woman was sipping tea at the kitchen table. Yaya watched with amusement as Toru ran into the room.
"Oh really dear. Why bother setting the clock in the first place?" She teased.
Toru ignored her playful comment. Toru grabbed her backpack and quickly threw a few books into it before running towards the doors.
"Got to go," Toru said.
"To bad you don't have time to eat," Yaya teased, "Hmm. It's delicious."
Toru poked her head back through the kitchen door with a pout.
"That's just mean, Grandma," She said.
Toru then ran from the house, jumping over the small wall that surrounded the property. She ran down a rocky hill, her snickers hitting the ground as she went.
She tried jumping through a few bushes, only to have her skirt get snagged on some branches. She blushed at the giggling children watching her, all dressed in sailor uniforms and were making their way to middle school on the other side of the village.
"Late again, Toru-chan?" One of the kids called.
Toru smirked, "Aren't I always?"
The children giggled. They waved as she rushed passed them.
Toru grumbled after she tripped. She had to hop after her runaway shoe and then a young boy and his sister walked past her, herding the village sheep, blocking her from getting said shoe.
"Come on, come on!" She muttered, "This is just my luck!"
She grinned when the last of the sheep passed. She hopped as fast as she could, and quickly pulled her sneaker on.
"Okay," She said, "Okay!"
The nursery was a small building with a pink roof and white walls.
Knowing full well that she was late, Toru peeked her head through the doors. Children's coats hung on racks, showing that yes, she had missed the morning assembly.
Toru cursed quietly to herself. She crawled down the hallway to avoid Cho, knowing she'd get earful.
"Toru-chan? What are you doing?" A small boy questioned, "Why are you crawling?"
"Shhhh." She placed a finger to her lips.
"Toru. We all can see you sneaking in." One of the teachers said.
Toru frowned. She stood up straight with her arms at her sides. Her face flushed as the other children, ages 5 and 6, giggled and whispered about her.
"Yes," She said nervously and tried to laugh it off.
"Toru-chan sure is funny!" One of the kids giggled.
Another kid nodded their head, "She always is funny! She's always doing something silly!"
Toru cursed herself again. She stubbornly blow a loose hair out of her face.
…..
"It's not fair!" Toru cried.
"First, I have a bad morning and then everyone laughs at me in class," She huffed.
Cho looked down at her with a laugh.
"Try getting here on time tomorrow," She commented.
Cho patted Toru on the head. Cho was happily married and had a baby named Akiko. Sadly, the young woman was also the closest to her age at 23. Everyone else was either too old or too young.
Toru couldn't believe Cho was 23, married and a mother. She couldn't imagine herself married or a mother. There's that and the fact she had no luck with men.
Ever since school, she had never had much luck with men.
Most boys thought she was too plain or simply ugly, so she gave up trying. Secretly, she had been thinking of turning to the other sex but quickly pushed that thought away when she noticed she didn't find girls at all attractive.
Toru had a hard time believing somebody was out there for her. Her grandmother used to say, 'There's always somebody out there for everyone,'
Yaya liked to think that when somebody is born, another person is born elsewhere in the world, a soul mate. Toru thought it was complete and utter bull. She didn't believe in love at first sight or soul mates. She had no faith in love what so ever.
"Why me? Why is all these bad things happening to me?" She said.
Not only did she have a bad morning, she also lost her lunch and her three students had ran off more than once.
"Well. Maybe it's some kind of weird sign?" Cho offered, "Like, your life is going to get a whole lot worse."
Toru opened and shut her mouth, "Gee, that makes me feel a whole lot better," She pouted.
The two woman laughed as they walked across the bridge, leaving the main part of the village and entering the outlands. It was the perfect spot to see the mountain.
The beautiful mountain in the back of the village. It was one of the best things in the village. It had a small water fall around the rocky hill. Not only the water but the mountain also had flowers and a few trees. It stood high and mighty overlooking the village.
It's rumoured that the spirit of the mountain protects them. That it was only because of the guardian that lived on the mountain, the villages had survived for so long.
There was a total of three small, tiny villages around the mountain. Each village was roughly a full day and night journey away.
Suddenly Cho stopped. A group of village men was gathering together ahead of them.
"What's going on?" Toru asked.
Cho gulped, "I'm not sure..."
Cho inhaled sharply. She speed walked up to the group and then placed her hands on a man's shoulder. Toru figured the man was her husband.
Toru frowned. She tapped her bottom lip before walking up behind the group.
"Again?" Cho said, "This is the third time this week."
"Maybe we have a bear or something…" A man said.
A dead cow laid across the grass. Said grass was now stained a red musty colour.
Toru felt a bit sick. She could see that some of the cow was missing. It was almost like something had come along and took a bite out of it into it.
"What are you going to do?" Cho asked.
It was quiet but for the soft sound of the crickets.
"We're going to hunt it," A man said.
Toru gulped. Her throat suddenly felt dry. She looked up at the mountain and wondered what kind of animal could live up there and make suck a bite mark?
She thought the worse animal that lived on the mountain was bears...
The bite mark did not look like it was done by a bear...