Not too much to say before this chapter! Thanks for the great reviews as always guys!
~Tiruneko ;3
X~25~X
The short and sharp blade glistens in the setting sun that illuminates the sky with a crimson red. It twirls in the air, performing a flip, and lands gracefully with a soft thump in a calloused hand. The handle of the knife is fitted with four holes for slipping your fingers through. The hand twirls the weapon skillfully, sliding it into the proper attack position and relaxing their muscles, their feet slipping across sand, but the stance holding strong.
With a swish of golden blonde hair and a flash of a white ribbon darting through the air, Rin has began to make sharp, pointed, and forceful jabs into the air. Her red eyes glaring and narrowed, her head tipped just barely downwards, uttering small grunts at the exertion of her power. With a burst of energy Rin surges forward, making Miku swear she had been levitating through the air the whole time. The blade once again flies through the air, spinning, flipping, and turning, eventually beginning to rapidly sink.
Rin straightens up immediately, into a normal, relaxed, and standing position, her side facing the knife as it hurdles back to the ground. At the last second her right hand shoots out, and using only her peripheral vision to see, her index finger grazes the tip of the blade, sending the knife spiraling powerfully in the opposite direction. To the untrained eye it would have seemed that Rin barely applied pressure to the blade, when actually she had done the equivalent of smacking it, sending it dancing and sliding over her knuckles. Within a mere second all four of her fingers are placed perfectly within the holes on the handle, and her body has snapped back into a fighting position.
Miku watches, barely able to follow Rin's movements with her eyes. The sound of waves crashing against rocks behind them add to the nearly unbelievable fantasy moment. How could anyone move like that, the teal haired girl will never know.
Once again the blade is thrown up into the orange sky, and it thuds into Rin's open palm as she relaxes once again. She sighs loudly, breaking the mystical silence Miku had been gripping too in anticipation of Rin's next graceful move.
"Looks like I've gotten a little rusty." Rin sighs with a slight cocky smile, staring down at the small cut across the tip of her index finger.
"Are you kidding!" Miku shouts, startling Rin immensely. The considerably timid girl tries hard to refrain from talking, let alone shouting.
After leaving the subway station, the group had walked down to the beach, and hidden themselves quite well among the large black rocks dotting the beach. IA stands on top of one of the massive rocks, chucking shells as far as she can into the salty ocean water. Rin had decided to pass the time, she should try to teach Miku some basic self defense.
While the two girls chatter about Rin's fighting skills, IA hikes up her skirt, splashing down into the water bellow the rocks. The fall was harder than she expected, and the girl nearly ends up making a complete face plant into the water and sand bellow. She stands slowly, and by the tone of the girl's voices, IA realizes they haven't realized she jumped off. With a sense of mischief, in her small mind she makes up a game. She kicks her feet in the water, creating large splashes. The salty water tastes peculiar on her tongue, and she bends, taking a long swig of the water. She inhales sharply, spewing out the water all over her already damp clothes. IA spits into the water, trying to clear her mouth of the vile taste. Recovering fast from her bout with the ocean, she wanders further to the right of the rocks, going deeper into the water, now a little past her knees.
She begins to sing a song she had heard passing a woman with a baby earlier by the park they passed through to find the beach. "I-I-I'm go-i-i-ing to fi-i-i-n-d something-g-g I-I-I lo-o-o-st! Hide-ing in the clouds! I-I'm going to fi-i-i-n-d the castle from my dre-e-e-ams, because I know-w-w-w somewhere-re-re beyond those white-and-fluffy-clouds up there-e-e is where you'll be wait-ing, for me! And I will hold your hand! And walk with the flowers up there! La-la la la la! La la, la la, la la. La la…" The song drifts off from her lips, fading into just a soft melodic hum paired with the plunking of her feet into water.
"I like your song!" A voice says from just a few feet in front of IA. The owner of the voice is a short and bubbly toddler just about IA's age, standing before her with brown pig tails on either side of her head held up with yellow ribbons. The girl has on a red one piece swim suit with a picture of a bunny on the chest. In her hand is a bucket full of shells covered in wet sand.
"It's not my song, it's the lady-on-the-street's song! I heard it and sang it just now. It's her song you like." IA asks, perky and happy as ever, smiling and bounding over to the girl.
"Well I still like it. Ne, where's your swim suit?" The girl asks, snapping the strap of hers.
"Don't have one! But yours is pretty!" IA is now standing beside the girl in her soaking clothes.
"Wanna pick up shells with me?" Yuki asks, her eyes lit with excitement.
"Mm!" IA cries, dropping a shell of her own into Yuki's bucket.
The two bound off down by the water, running up farther away from the sea line. Once they reach the top of the small sand embankment that drops down into the water, IA picks up a smooth white shell and throws it as far as she can. It lands gently in the dark blue water making a small splash. Yuki repeats the action, throwing more shells until the bucket is empty. The only thing that remains at the bottom is two shells. One a dark blue color with small lighter blue wisps and the other a pure white with light orange tint in the crevices on the surface. Yuki reaches in and pulls out the white shell, out stretching her hand to IA.
"My name is Yuki, which means snow. You can remember 'cause the shell is white like snow." She states simply with a small smile.
IA takes the shell and replies, "My name is IA, you can remember because my favorite color is pink, and the shell isn't pink." And she hands Yuki the blue shell.
With a strong gust of wind IA wraps her small arms around her smaller frame, hugging herself and squinting her eyes against the cold. Her clothes and hair drip water steadily onto the sand bellow, and her feet slowly sink into the moistening sand. Yuki notices.
"Stay here IA." She yells, running off past another set of brown rocks. IA flops down, sitting in the wet sand and tucking her knees up to her chin. Like those days in the darkness. Her eyes snap back open, and her hands fly to grip her head on either side, shaking her head gently back and forth. Footsteps pad on the sand and Yuki comes skidding back into the area and down the embankment holding a pink beach towel with a bunny face on the front. It is surprisingly soft and warm. She tosses it over IA's head, giggling.
"You're cold, so have this. My sister always told me to be nice to people and that if I was, I'd make friends everywhere!" Yuki cheers as IA stands, wrapping the towel around her.
"Yuki! Yuki come on! Miki's 'gonna kill me if I don't bring you back for dinner!" A male voice calls loudly.
"Uh oh." The brown haired girl whispers.
A boy a little shorter than Len walks into the clearing. His amber colored eye shows irritation in a playful way, his right eye hidden by a large bandage. He has scraggly, curly, and somewhat long hair kicked out around the base of his head. Black and damp swim trunks and a light blue T-shirt with yellow stitching around the neck and bottom are his clothes. He is holding a beach bag under his arm.
"There you are." He groans, in a semi-monotone manner, hopping off the embankment.
IA cocks her head slightly to the side. "…Len?"
"Yuki, who's that?" The boy asks the toddler, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"That's IA, Ollie! We were playing together!" Yuki says with unbridled enthusiasm.
The boy called "Ollie" bends down, whispering something in Yuki's ear. Her face becomes disappointed and a little grim, and with a sad nod she waves goodbye to IA, turning to follow the Len-Lookalike boy up the embankment and away from the shivering blonde girl.
IA tugs the soft towel around her tighter and kicks up a plume of sand.
The blonde haired boy turns down to Yuki once they're at a far distance and almost to the park. "Yuki, you know better than to talk to strangers like that. Ya' know what would happen if Miki knew I let you wander off like that? She'd flip out on me! Then I'd have to explain the slashes all over my face to everyone I see. Talk about embarrassing." He says, slapping himself in the face.
"But she was nice!"
"She was weird. She wasn't with any parents or anything, wasn't wearing a swim suit and-" He stops in his tracks feeling a shiver run down his spine at the way the little girl' s eyes looked at him. They were a bright crimson red with an almost all-knowing and haunting gaze to them. Her face seemed sunken, but at the same time vibrant. The girl seemed to radiate a mixed feeling of intimidation and empathy. Something was there in her eyes. Something that made you feel bizarrely alone and a deep sense of darkness. The look she gave him when she laid her eyes on his, it was… mild fear and a type of paranoia. Frankly, to be blunt, it scared Oliver.
"-and?" Yuki parrots. Oliver realizes he's trailed off, snapping back he places a hand on the girl's shoulder and pulls her a little closer.
The familiarity of those eyes… he knows where they're from now. Miki. She is the only other person he's ever seen with red eyes. But hers aren't as… strikingly terrifying. Her eyes are soft, but yet sharp.
"Can I see her again?" Yuki asks. "IA?"
"I don't know." Oliver responds with a sigh, turning back to look at the beach.
IA reaches a small hand up to grip one of the black and slippery rocks. Miku and Rin's voices are still there, talking and chatting about "stance". With a small, nearly silent "oomf", IA pulls herself on top of the first rock. The next one is easier, using both arms she pushes herself on top of the rock she jumped off earlier, reaching over the edge to catch her towel before it falls into the salty water.
"No like this!" Rin scolds, moving Miku's arms closer to her center, and turning her slightly sideways.
"But it feels… weird!" She groans, moving the hand with the knife closer inwards to her chest like Rin commanded.
"Because you're doing it wrong." Rin groans, pulling her arm out wards by the wrist.
"But you said-"
"Let's just forget it!" She screeches, snatching the knife away and throwing it back into her back pack with an angry grunt. "Where the hell is Len with the car? He was 'suppost to be here a while ago." Rin spits on the ground and cracks her knuckles against her neck, then flopping onto the sand and leaning against the black rock.
"Where'd ya get that?" Miku asks IA, pointing at the pink bunny towel wrapped around her shoulders.
Rin opens one eye, glaring at the towel with her peripheral vision.
"Yuki gave it to me!"
"Yuki?" Rin questions, standing and ripping the towel off IA's shoulders.
"Give it back!" IA whines, reaching up for it. Rin ignores her, looking over it. Without any warning, IA lets out a shrill and blood-curdling scream at the top of her lungs, sending Miku into a fully fledged panic. Miku drops onto her knees, gripping her ears to the point of making them red and shakes her head back and forth muttering to herself hurriedly. Her eyes widen with terror, and she flops onto her back, withering there in the sand like a dying fish. Her breath sputters like a car engine, as she kicks furiously, sending up large plumes of sand into Rin's lungs. Rin coughs, dropping the towel in the sand. IA keeps screaming.
"SHUT UP!" Rin tries to yell over her voice, but it is drowned out by Miku, who is also screeching at this point. The angry blonde stalks over to IA, pulls her in by the collar of her wet shirt, and slaps her across the face. The scream is immediately cut off, and Miku even stops.
The silence that follows is painful, even more painful than the loud and piercing scream. IA's red eyes seem to dull, as if someone was adding grey paint to a vibrant red paint. Her eyes soften to that glossy look they had before Len ever came to her. No tears flow from her eyes, no words escape her lips. Miku sits up from her position in the sand, inching backwards slowly, the only sound the crashing of waves, and Miku's short and raspy breaths. With no warning IA yelps, pushing Rin off her, and falling backwards into the water bellow. Rin watches IA scramble to her feet, and run, head first, away from them, leaving the pink bunny towel behind.
As if a startled animal, IA runs and runs, and doesn't stop. Her heart pounding in her chest, the toddler runs as fast as she can on her short and small legs, even stumbling over them multiple times. She smashes into a solid surface, and lingers there on the soft object. Something wraps around her upper back, pushing her further into the thing. With a sharp intake of breath she begins to rant uncontrollably, speaking in a tongue of sorts, rambling on and on about shadows and the rats.
The feeling in a TV show, where the plot twist is solved, the feeling in a song after the long break of silence, the feeling in a bike ride after breaking the top of the hill, the feeling of finally snapping a large branch off a tree comes. The scent of the object lingers in IA's lungs.
"Wha-?"
"LENNY!" IA screams, wrapping her arms as tightly as possible around him, burring her face into his stomach and sobbing uncontrollably.
Rin and Miku jog up to where the confused blonde stands with a sobbing and hysterical toddler. Miku looks concerned, but at the same time relieved Len has returned. The teal haired girl walks over to Len, wrapping her arms around him and smiling.
"Thank goodness." She whispers to herself, holding back tears of relief.
Len stares across at Rin. Her arms are folded across her chest, her eyes narrowed and burning with fury. In her hand is a pink bunny towel. Her hair is plastered to her face with a mixture of sweat and ocean spray. Rin's head is slightly tipped downwards, casting a shadow over her forehead. The sky has just begun to get dark.
"What did you do?" Len asks angrily.
"Don't give me that look. I did what I always do." Rin hisses bitterly, walking past Len to the car parked not too far away. "Make things hell."