Floating around

Kamachi Aoi observed her surroundings. Ocean, everywhere. Though she could spot a few silhouettes of what could have been islands in the distance.

Aoi herself was on a raft. If it could even be called that. It consisted of only a big wooden plank and looked like it would break at any moment.

Either way Aoi was pretty screwed wasn't she.

Aoi died a long time ago. The details of how her life ended weren't clear to her. She also had trouble remembering many details of how she lived.

Aoi did have a suspicion as to why her memory was so spotty though. The reason was probably because after her death Aoi spend an eternity just existing in a black void unable to do anything but think.

It was pretty boring just floating about and there where many points in time where she was just barely sane, but the time also served as time for her to just think. She had done that a lot.

It was her only way to distract herself from the loneliness.

On a day she remembered being particularly calm on, Aoi was suddenly overwhelmed by sleepiness. Even if she had tried to resist it, she wouldn't have lasted a minute, but Aoi let herself fall asleep without any trouble. Why would she resist after being unable to rest for so long.

The next thing she knew she was waking up on this Raft.

After all that time she was unable to do anything, Aoi got pretty excited to again have a world to explore around her. Her first need was to get to an island. On her raft Aoi wouldn't be able to survive long. And dying was a thing she definitely wanted to avoid.

Aoi didn't want to return to the void. Never.

Unfortunately she couldn't really do anything to steer her raft and the nearest island was really far away. The best thing Aoi could do was to wait and hope.

-an unidentified amount of time later-

Aoi was startled awake. After spending some time on her raft waiting, she was getting exhausted so Aoi decided to get some sleep.

She rubbed her bleary eyes and sat up. Looking around Aoi noticed a shore before her. Behind it Aoi could make out a dense forest with lush green trees. On their peaks she could even spot some fruits.

It only took Aoi a second to stand up and jump of her raft abandoning it.

-Day 0 on the mystery island-

Aoi walked into the forest a bit. Everywhere around her were plants in all colors and forms. Being one of the first things Aoi had seen in a long time only made it more beautiful.

Aoi was snapped out of her musing by her stomach loudly telling her to eat something. She had forgotten for a moment, but she hadn't eaten anything since waking up on the raft.

After looking around for a moment she spotted fruits on the top of a nearby tree. Aoi walked to it and started trying to try to climb it.

She fell down a few times but at the end Aoi finally got herself a few fruits.

She found another problem though. Aoi had no idea if these fruits were poisonous or not. While she was debating about what to do Aoi heard a sound behind herself.

Whipping her head around Aoi's sight fell on a group of monkeys in the treetops. They were eating something and speaking with each other in monkey language.

Upon closer inspection Aoi saw that the thing the monkeys where eating was actually a fruit like the ones she was holding.

While that wasn't a 100% assurance that the fruits weren't poisonous, it was the best Aoi was gonna get without some kind of laboratory. So she took a deep breath to prepare herself and bit in the fruit.

A sweet taste filled her mouth.

"Delicious."

The words came out of Aoi's mouth before she knew it. In reality, the fruit wasn't even that good. It wasn't much tastier than an apple, but after the eternity Aoi was unable to feel anything, even that simple taste was enough to make her shed a few tears out of happiness.

It took Aoi a bit to calm down. Before she knew it, all the fruits were already devoured by her.

After a bit more resting, Aoi felt ready to do some exploring. She stood up and began walking in one direction.

The dense forest made it hard to go straight through it but a while later Aoi managed to come out by a beach on the other side of the island.

While walking, Aoi found out a few things about the island.

First off the island wasn't that big. The whole trip only took her a few hours to make.

What stood out to her was the mountain in the middle of the island. On its top Aoi could make out a gigantic sakura tree. Even from a distance she could tell how big it was.

Way bigger than she thought was possible

Though Aoi would have liked to inspect it, she didn't have the stamina or strength to climb a mountain just to ascertain her curiosity.

The next thing she did was look for a shelter. Luckily she already had a place in mind.

While Aoi walked around exploring the island she found a little cave that she thought was a good place to make her base in.

It was not too far away from the sea. And even closer to it was a lake with clear water she could drink. Since it was a cave, it also shielded her from any rain that might come.

After Aoi stored a few fruits away in her new home, she sat down to think.

With her basic needs secured and her life not in any direct danger, she could finally take the time to think about her future.

While just continuing to live was fine and Aoi had no plans on dying and going back to the void, just living for the sake of it didn't sound like a happy future for her. She needed to have a objective with the same priority as surviving or she would lose her drive an empty shell just living.

And for Aoi that was just as bad as dying.

With her goal in mind Aoi sat down and searched for an objective in her blurry memories.

While Aoi meditated, she noticed something odd with her memories.

When comparing some memories to others Aoi found out that certain ones were a lot easier to recall.

These memories all had one thing in common.

They were all about swords.

The moment Aoi noticed that, she remembered.

While she was alive, the one thing she was the most passionate about were swords. She loved everything about them.

Looking at them.

Fighting with them.

And also making them.

While Aoi was able to look at them in a museum and fight with them by joining a dojo, she never found the opportunity to make one.

She finally found an objective.

To make up for being unable to make even one sword in her past life, she would dedicate her new one to making not just any, but the best sword in the world.

Author's note:

First of all thank you for reading this far. I hope you had fun reading this first chapter.

I would appreciate it if you gave me feedback to improve, since this is my first story and I would like to get better at writing.

Also ask any question you might have.

For those interested, the next chapter will probably come in the next two to three days.

Again thank you for reading. Bye.