I regret on not keeping my body in shape, but that's saying I've had at one point.
Anyway, this body can go to hell. So much for the undying part. Through the hard way I found out fatigue is not something it can deal with, and so with trembling legs I fell. Coldness. The skin on my face screamed from the raw, hardened snow, and I felt more piling up my body.
No. Not yet. I can't stop here. I have to reach that place. Rinnosuke said it was up in the clouds, so I'll find a way to get in there, somehow.
But it's no use. My arms were frozen stiff, and my legs felt prosthetically lifeless. Am I going to be buried here? My body wants to lose conscious from the numbing, protruding pain, but the coldness of it kept me awake. This is torture.
Who knows how long I've laid there, but eventually I heard the snow nearby getting crunched. Footsteps. Was someone there? Whoever they were, the lack of further sounds indicated that they chose to do nothing over my presence, if they could still see a part of me from getting buried.
Without warning they lifted me up and flipped me over. My head sunk into the small pit where my face made contact, and my eyes struggled tp stay open. A face loomed over me. It was a girl, with short, spiky hair in the shape of horns. Or was it cat ears? She wore a pair of purple earmuffs, and I have to say, they must be nice. I want one...
"How pathetic. What are you doing here, human?" the girl finally said after we stared at each other. She had a wooden stick with an arrowhead tip by her hand. "You don't look like you are from the village."
"Do you know," my eyes, more interested in the clouds, shifted away from her and gazed at the gray sky, "where the Hakugyoukurou is?"
The funny haired girl said nothing. She narrowed her eyes, her wooden stick pointed at her lips, studying me. Eventually, she chuckled, as if she realized something ironic.
"Why yes, I do. I am heading over there now. Do you want to join me?"
She extended a hand to me. I managed to lift one of my own and grasp it without hesitation. Finally, some progress on this pointless quest. As soon as our hands met, however, a surge of warm, sweet vitality rushed through me, and seconds later I found myself standing, feeling invigorated.
The girl wore a smile that is more suitable when dealing with business as I inspected myself, flipping my hand over and over again. Was it me? No, she did something, didn't she?
Oh well, it doesn't matter now. The girl, without a word, turned around, her purple cloak fluttering wildly in the wind.
"It's this way."
It goes without saying that I followed. I do hope that she has a plan to get us up there, but god damn, I've been taking the wrong way this whole time.
