What kind of girl settles on a farm, far in the hills, all by herself? How does she deal with the paralyzing realization at night that she is alone? Discussions and rumors about this enigma resounded throughout Waffle Town and beyond. Without question, this enigma concerned a very weird girl named Akari.

"What if a bear comes down from the mountain? And eats her?" Colleen fretted that afternoon, removing stains from the inn curtains with a citrus peel––as she often liked to do. "At the very least, we should make her board with us during the night."

Maya dropped her broom in excitement. "We should," she agreed. "In fact, let's adopt Akari and have her board here permanently! Then we can both share a room and talk nonstop, eating lots of cake in the midnight hours and––"

"––Oh, but you've been eating quite enough cake in the midnight hours," her father Jake interrupted. "And your grandmother is far from pleased."

Maya covered her mouth in shock. "But last night, I only had one itty-bitty slice," she admitted.

"So that was you!"

"Oops..."

At the carpenter's shop in the Mining District, one was even apt to believe that Akari wasn't a girl at all.

"Akari is a girl's name," Bo insisted for the umpteenth time. "Look. Isn't she too soft-featured to be a boy?" As he said this, he carefully sanded a newly built birdhouse.

Not being versed in such fine arts––despite being the star apprentice––Luke instead splintered an entire tree stump right in the middle of the shop floor. How the stump even got inside there was an enigma in itself. "Akari, Hikaru, Akira, whatever!" he said. "Anyways, Akari doesn't seem that soft, 'cause he's around your age, right? If you look at it, he even has more muscle than you!" Throwing back his head, he laughed heartily, driving this insulting point home even further.

Bo just about exploded. "That's because Akari," he said; "is really MUCH older than me." He knew that this was his only legit defense for being so weak.

"Ha! Maybe you should ask HIM to train you."

Bo turned away. "So stubborn. Since you don't believe me, or Owen, I think you should ask Akari and find out the truth yourself."

"I guess I should," Luke responded cheekily, wiping his brow.

"Though I think," Bo said, "you'll deny the truth no matter what. Because you're pigheaded and don't want to accept a girl as a rival."

"Yeah?" Luke picked up his axe, stalking away to the window and stopping. "What's so wrong with that?"

"I can't believe you just admitted it... You're really something."

"I don't know what you're thinking, but I'm thinking this: I don't want to meet my one and only rival but then be held back by my primal self." Full of conviction, he clenched his fists. "Man's still an animal, right? Any man of awesome breeding has evolved to be protective over women, children, and the important future those two make." He then held a fist up high, shouting at the ceiling. "It's the ultimate destiny of the human legacy!"

For a stunned moment, Bo opened his mouth and held it agape. "That has to be," he finally spoke, "the most philosophical thing you've ever said."

"I don't know. I liked that theory I once made about Invincible Ultror's power source."

"Ok. The most philosophical thing you've said yet... that doesn't involve Saturday morning action cartoons."

"What do you mean?" Luke exclaimed; "I say awesome things all the time!" Ignoring Bo's frustrated retort, he turned to the window instead. Catching his eye on the street outside were two familiar figures––one of them tall and muscular and the other childish and gaunt. Owen and Akari. Side by side they walked past, engaged in conversation. Though Owen was preoccupied with the road ahead, Akari was gazing up at him, her eyes glistening and her lips smiling pleasantly.

For a moment, Luke's senses blurred and he couldn't recognize anything. All that was noticeable was the hostile weight in his throat and the increased pounding in his chest. He dropped his axe.

"––are not alike," Bo finished his unheard rant, finally noticing his partner's zoned-out state. "Luke... Luke?"

"Ah, wa-woah," Luke muttered, shaking his head. "What were you saying?"

"Goodness. Are you okay? Your face is all red. Maybe you should go out and get some fresh air."

"No. That's okay." Luke held his head, stumbling around. "I don't want to go outside right now. I'm just... going to lay down now. Alright?" Disoriented, he left for the back of the shop, confused by his powerful spell.

Crouching over the forest floor, Akari plucked a green herb up and examined it in the light before sighing in pleasant relief. She had picked enough herbs to last Jin for the next few days.

"You really seem to enjoy gathering," Owen said.

Akari nodded her sloshy head, her mouth a flat line throughout. Pensively, she recalled the fact that Owen had been with her when she had gathered all those toadstools last time, so understandably he had a skewed perception about her likes.

Just an hour before, when Akari had gone into the blacksmith's for the first time, she had met Owen's tiny cousin, Chloe, and Owen's austere Grandfather, Ramsey, who both loaded Akari with gifts despite the fact that she had only entered there for a simple door lock. Upon hearing that one should already be in her door, SOMEWHERE, Owen next suggested checking the carpenter's for a solution. This of course pulled Akari into an uncomfortable bout of silence, but Owen thankfully realized that she was afraid of getting into another axe battle with Luke.

And that's what lead him to watch over Akari as she foraged in the forest.

"Traveling around the island all day in search of grub sure sounds troublesome," Owen said, unaware of Akari's reasons for doing so, "so you should look into having a barn or chicken coop built. Daily eggs and milk. Try it. I think you'd make a good rancher."

"I should start building, huh," Akari said. "But I don't have any building stone stored up or chopped––chopped wood." Just the word 'chopped' alone sent shivers up her spine.

Right away, Owen understood her simple fear. "I'll go with you to the carpenter's," he offered. "Just so you can take a look. Don't worry, everything will be fine!"

And when Akari went to the carpenter's, everything indeed went smoothly. With an understandable amount of reservation, she met Luke's father, Dale, who gave her a warm greeting and showed her a catalog of fixtures, paneling, roofs, and all the buildings he was capable of building––even giving her a manual to refer to later if she had more questions.

As Akari and Owen left the shop and strolled down the street, he stopped and faced the mine. An aura of darkness formed over his rust-colored hair.

"Are you anxious to get back to work?" Akari asked him, sensing that his mind was somewhere else. She looked over at the strange stone blocks alongside the smithy, the ones she had seen Owen crushing the day she first met him. Hadn't there been a wooden handle buried in one of them? It was now gone. Come to think of it, what was that all about? she wondered.

"Ah, I guess you noticed it, then," Owen answered, greatly startling her. Could he hear her thoughts? Anxiously, he rubbed the back of his head in delay. "That I'm a bit of a workaholic," he finally admitted, squeezing his eyes shut and laughing carelessly.

Amazingly, Owen both relieved and troubled Akari, all at the same time. "You normally work in the mine all day long, don't you?" she went on, eager to get some sort of clue from him; "But what is it that you do there?"

"I just mine and gather. That's what you do in a mine." It was quite a blasé answer, but he also seemed eager to leave.

Afraid of being cut short, Akari rushed her questioning. "What do you gather, though?" she asked, sticking close behind. "Anything to do with those weird blocks you were crushing that day? Is there something in them?"

Facing her with strained silence, Owen scanned her with a simple smile on his face. "You really ask a lot of questions," he said. "And you're very curious. I guess that's why you're so smart."

"Huh?" Flattered by this unexpected compliment, Akari felt her face become unbearably hot.

"What I'm about to tell you... I'd appreciate if you kept to yourself." He leaned over and brushed the bangs from Akari's forehead. "That I'm playing a game with my grandfather. You see, a scavenger hunt. With things that don't belong to him. Things that instead belonged to my parents."

"Those things." Akari had an inkling of what they could be. "Were they special tools?"

Before she could ask further, Owen grinned and answered, "That's all I can say for now." And at this, he walked away.

Enthralled but baffled, Akari watched him leave, and for a moment wished to chase after him. Yet sensing his urgency, she let him be. With a rapidly beating heart, she touched her forehead––the place where his fingers touch and had left their trace. He's looking for his parents' tools? she wondered. But why did his grandfather hide them on him?