Chapter 1. The Glowing Jewel

"See you later, Mom!"

"Have fun at school!"

15-year-old Kaori ran out the door, her long black hair was tied into a ponytail by a green hair bow and it was streaming behind her. She was wearing her school outfit, a green short skirt and a t-shirt with green sleeves and green collars. She was tired from her archery lesson that finished just an hour ago. As she ran out, a light near her family's tree caught her eyes.

Weird, thought Kaori, it's red-colored.

She walked over to check it out. As she approached the light, she felt a weird sensation coming from it. When she bent down to pick it up, she found that it was a ruby looking jewel. It had a hollow inside. She looked it over and thought What the heck. I'll just take it with me to school. School?

"Oh no! The bus!"

Kaori had just barely enough time to run to the bus stop and get on the bus. Luckily, she had no more interruptions, until school.

Math, her worst subject, was first. She sat next to her best friend Sayko and got ready to endure the teacher's huge lecture on who so and so was and why he was important for the development of mathematics. What a bore! Luckily, Sayko was next to her to explain all the details. It was good to have a friend like her.

Foreign Language was next. It was one of the more "enjoyable" subjects. In other words, it was better than math. Then again, everything was better than mathematics. She walked over to the very back row and sat next to Yuna. Since she didn't get this English thing very well, Yuna was glad to help her out. After an hour and a half of Inito-sama's lecture, she was glad to go to lunch.

Lunch was the only time during the school day that let Kaori talk to her friends.

"Kaori, over here!" yelled Sayko. Kaori smiled and walked over to her friends' lunch table. Too bad that lunch was only 45 minutes long.

The rest of the school day passed without much difference, unless you count Miyoge falling into the lake chasing after his soccer ball, until.

"Oh shoot!"

Kaori ran after her hair bow, which had come undone while she was walking home with her friends. After yelling to her friends to hold onto her stuff, she gave chase to the hair bow. Unfortunately, the hair bow fell on to the rim of a bucket hanging in the old, broken well.

Kaori walked cautiously over to the bucket and as she wrapped her hands around her hair bow, the wall of the well crumbled and Kaori fell straight into the well!

Oh god! I'm going to crack my head open!

However, instead of hitting the bottom of the well, as she imagined, and cracking her head open, Kaori hit a soft patch of grass.

"That's weird. I was so sure that there wasn't any gra-"

The rest of her words were cut off as she found she wasn't in a well anymore! Staying clam, she felt the area around her just to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. Then, seeing as she was not in a well, she decided to go explore this new area.