"Alright, so you want to wield a sword, huh?" Mikuo asked Rin, in an authoritative tone. Rin simply nodded dutifully, fully alert despite it still being early in the morning. "Well, you're gonna start with an axe!"
Rin blinked, then looked up at Mikuo strangely. "What?"
All-business, Mikuo nodded. "That's right! You're gonna chop up firewood! If you can't even do that, you certainly won't be able to fight with a sword! For now, the priority is to build up them muscles!"
Rin almost wanted to complain, but he had a point, so instead, she set her jaw, and marched over to the place in the yard that Mikuo pointed to, where an axe was stuck in a chopping block. Placing both her hands on the handle, she yanked up the axe with a grunt, letting the heavy tool drag on the ground. It was heavy, but Rin didn't let go. If she quit just because it was a little difficult, she'd never accomplish anything.
"Don't hurt yourself," Mikuo said half-jokingly, watching the blonde girl place a large chunk of wood on the chopping block. "You need help?"
Rin huffed loudly, frowning proudly. "I can do it!" She lifted up the axe, with great effort, and swung down, hitting the wood off to the side.
"You need to learn control, too," Mikuo added. "Try and hit it right in the centre."
"Got it," Rin muttered, working on tugging the axe up again. She swung at the wood again, and she hit it on the other side, no closer to the middle; no closer to actu4lly splitting the wood. Again, she ordered herself. With a groan, she pulled out the axe, only to strike at it again.
This one was closer to the centre, but not quite. Again. The next one sunk into the chopping block, not the wood she was trying to cut. Again. This one hit the wood, no closer though than the first strike. Again. She keep chopping away at the surface of the wood, doing it over and over with increasing fatigue.
She was at a disadvantage, she knew, because she was smaller than most. However, that was precisely why she wouldn't give up. She needed to become stronger, so that she could match people who were bigger than her. That's why she kept going, chopping at the wood over and over, even when her muscles burned and her breath came out in ragged pants. She hadn't hit it in the middle even once yet, but she wouldn't stop till the log was split in half.
Mikuo watched her work herself further into exhaustion, with a feeling between concern, amazement, and apprehension. Didn't she feel tired? "Hey, don't you think you should take a break?"
Rin stopped only to shake her head slowly, then she was hacking away at the wood. "...I haven't split it yet."
"I don't really expect you get that much done the first time," Mikuo said, raising an eyebrow. "And you've been working hard at this for a half an hour straight. You'll tear a muscle if you work too hard."
"I'm fine," Rin replied, still repeating what had become a routine: lift, swing, pull out, repeat. Keep repeating until the log was split. She would see this out to the end.
Mikuo grabbed her arm, taking the axe without any effort. "No, you're not. You're not just gonna chop wood all day."
Rin scowled at him, but he could see how tired she felt. She rubbed her right arm tenderly, which ached from the work most. "I could've kept going."
"You could've," Mikuo agreed, "But you're not allowed. We'll pick up later in the day, understand?" Rin pouted, but Mikuo just took the axe, sinking it into the chopping block with one easy swing, and lead Rin into the house. "Don't think this means your work is over, though. Dad's going to look into getting you a job to pay for your keep and the sword he promised you, and you're gonna help Miku with the cooking and cleaning. Okay?"
"Yeah!" Rin replied, pumped again. She just wanted to work, at whatever it may be. If she wasn't working, she felt like she was wasting time, and a little voice in the back of her head nagged at her that her brother likely wasn't just waiting around for her; he could be—was probably—in real danger.
In Mikuo's opinion, though, there was something worrying about how singularly determined she was to carry out her self-appointed mission. He'd known of having a one-track mind, but if she shrugged off her own exhaustion or pain like that just to try and reach her goal faster, she'd quickly work herself into a serious injury, or an early grave. He understood she was worried, but she'd be no used to Len dead. Maybe he could teach her to not do everything with such a one-track mind...
"Mikuo, what's next?" Rin asked, looking up at Mikuo expectantly.
"Laundry," Mikuo replied. Rin scrunched up her nose, and Mikuo said, "Come on, don't complain. Chores was part of the deal for staying. Now grab that bucket and the wash board. I'll get the laundry, you fill that thing with hot water. Don't drag it! You'll spill the water!"
Rin readily obliged, carrying the bucket of hot water out to the yard. The clothes were dropped in a pile at her feet, and she quickly got to work. Mikuo took any clothes she washed and hung them up to dry.
"Did you ever do this with your family, Rin?" Mikuo asked, watching the girl go at the laundry like she was attacking it.
Rin glanced up at him, saying, "Well, yeah. I always had the wash the clothes, and he had to wash the dishes."
"He? You mean Len?" Mikuo asked, and the blonde girl nodded. "You're twins, right? Did you look alike?"
Rin shrugged. "I guess. We both have blonde hair and blue eyes. Everyone always said we looked exactly alike. Sometimes people mixed us up for each other, but we could always tell the difference."
"Differences like?" Mikuo prompted.
"Len's hair is messier than mine. It's kind of spikey," Rin said, wringing out a shirt. "He's kind of a dork, too, always spewing random things he learned from here or there like a know-it-all, but he was nicer than that. He gave me this." She pointed to the white ribbon tied into her hair, which up to this point, Mikuo hadn't really paid much mind to, but now that he looked, he noticed that despite the ragged condition he'd found the girl in, the ribbon was still perfectly fine.
Mikuo raised an eyebrow. "Were you wearing that when I met you?"
Rin shook her head. "I was hiding it in my clothes so it wouldn't get wrecked when the Hunters attacked. Len got it for my birthday a few years ago."
"He sounds nice," Mikuo said.
Rin paused, then shrugged. "Eh. He was nice to me, but he doesn't do well with strangers. When he gets nervous he gets really crass and sarcastic, and he can be a little mean even. For a long time, he even kept his distance from Mom and Dad."
Mikuo looked at Rin with confusion. "Why?"
Scrubbing at a pair of pants, Rin said, "We're adopted. We were adopted," she corrected herself. "We never knew our real parents, but when we were six, the people I call Mom and Dad adopted us. I was happy to have a home, but Len... He was always a little skeptical. He never said it, but I think he was scared they'd get rid of us as soon as it stopped being convenient to have us. It took a long time for Len to trust them."
"You don't know anything about your birth parents? Would the people from the orphanage had known?"
Rin shook her head. "They never saw our parents either. Left on the doorstep, didn't even bother to ring the doorbell. It never really bothered me, though. No use getting all worked up over people I never knew. Besides, I have more important things to worry about." Rin handed Mikuo the last cleaned article of clothing, standing up in triumph. "What's next? Give me more to do!"
Mikuo sighed softly, smiling. "Empty out the bucket and clean it, then Miku wants you to come with her to the market. Can you do that?"
Rin grinned. "Of course!"
~oOo~
"You really want to do this again?" Mikuo asked flatly, already knowing the blonde girl's response.
"Of course! I have to keep practicing until I'm strong enough!" Rin replied, dutifully picking up the axe. She'd been working on this at least twice a day for over a week, and though she hadn't split it yet, she was getting better. Mikuo still worried she was pushing herself too hard, but at this point, there was no way she would do any less.
"Don't your arms feel sore? You've been doing this all week," Mikuo asked, sighing. He was sitting backwards on a garden chair, leaning on the back with his elbows.
Rin scoffed. "If my muscles hurt from a little wood cutting, then it means I'm not strong enough yet, so I should work harder until I am strong enough." She lifted up the axe and cut into the wood. The log's surface was totally covered in indentations from being chopped at so many times, so at this point, it was practically impossible to not hit somewhere she already had. However, one could see that Rin was hitting more in the centre as she gradually improved, as more was cut away from the general middle area. And as she got stronger, her swings became more powerful. She was not yet strong enough to cut through, but she was getting closer.
Mikuo raised an eyebrow skeptically. "What will you do when you can swing the axe around with no effort, then?"
Rin looked up at him as if the answer should be obvious. "Then I'll practice with something heavier! I'm training to get strong so I can use a sword, remember?"
"Of course not," Mikuo responded, furrowing his brow. "But doesn't that seem like a sort of endless goal?"
"It ends when I find out what's become of Len," Rin retorted. "I won't have any need to fight, then."
"If you say so..."
"I do!" Rin replied, and with one final swing, the log toppled to the grass in two hacked-up, nearly equal pieces. She grinned at Mikuo triumphantly, and said, "Well? Hand me another one!"
~oOo~
Len didn't know how long he'd been trapped in Gakupo mansion for. All he knew what the number of times that black demon of a shadow had latched onto him, and submerged him into a world. He'd been pushed inside that machine at least fifteen times, he figured. He was still fairly certain, but the edges of his mind felt just a little fuzzy, an effect, he suspected, of the shadow monster.
What it was like, connected to that monster, was difficult to describe. Part of that was because it was a strange feeling, unlike any other, but part of that was simply because Len didn't like to think about it. He wasn't asleep; he had the vague impression of seeing things in there, flashes of terrifying scenes, though he could never quite piece the images together. It was like waking from a nightmare, and instantly forgetting what had happened. But as it was a repeating nightmare, every time he went back, he remembered more, and the more he saw, the darker that world became.
At first it was black. Pitch black, just like the shadow creature itself. Just the endless abyss, the quiet terror, and one small child in the centre of it all. He could hear murmurs all around him, the strange whispers of the beast that he'd heard before, but here, it was no whisper. Voices as clear as if they were all around him, but he was alone still.
He couldn't remember what they said, but it didn't matter, because the tone was enough to scare him. They echoed in his ears, some a breezy hush; others a demanding bellow; more still a raspy whine. All of them, repeating something, over and over.
Len opened this mouth to speak back, but suddenly his throat tightened—an invisible object, wrapped around his neck. He couldn't breathe, let alone speak. The voices sounded distinctly angry, now. They spoke faster, louder, like they were getting impatient. His throat burned, his head felt blurry and the pain seemed to build most in the space behind his eyes.
He tried to pry away the thing strangling him, but he found nothing with his hands. He felt the pressure tighten around his neck, but to his hands, there was nothing there. The voices where all yelling at him, hollering right in his ears, making his head pound. Light-headed and confused, his vision slowly turned red.
Plip. A warm, dark liquid dripped onto his cheek. When he wiped it with his hand, he saw it was a deep maroon colour, like blood. Then the coppery smell hit his nose, and he realized it was blood.
And suddenly the whole world was red. He fell, the invisible force choking him slipping away, and he found himself on the blood-red ground. The voices were screaming, and there were no words anymore. They were simply screeching at him mindlessly, perpetually. When he looked down at his hands, they were dripping red.
Then the multitude of inhuman shrieks morphed into the screams of but one individual. It was a voice Len would have recognized anywhere, ever here, screaming so wretchedly. Rin, he thought, though his voice still refused to work. What was she doing here?!
He thought the voice sounded like it was coming from his general right, so he tried to stand and move towards her voice, but he could not. Something was grabbing his arm, and when he looked down, this time it wasn't invisible. It was a hand of pure black—the shadow monster. It gripped his forearm painfully tight, and then there was one around his ankle. Then another hand grabbed his hair, and then more and more reached out of the red to drag Len into it. As they pulled him down, the ground became sea; a sea of blood, and Len was quickly drowning in it. It was there that the real nightmare began.
The shadows were clawing at him, tearing away at his skin, pulling him, crushing him, and burning him all at once. He tried to scream, but then his tongue was torn from his mouth, and then he was choking on his own blood. The voices were back, screeching again as they tore at the blonde boy's chest. His arms felt like they were ready to be ripped off, and his whole body was a bloody mess. Then, a bloody black hand ripped into his chest, and his heart stopped and his ears rang, and the voices and the pain and the fear all blurred into one—
And then it stopped, in a single moment. And then everything was pitch black again; nothing but the endless abyss, the quiet terror, and one shaking, sobbing child, alone in it all.
