Chapter 4

“This isn’t so bad.” Shugo said as he trekked forward through the tall grass.

It didn’t take them long to get suited up and on the road. Rei had spent many days here on the exact same route and found the bugs and other wildlife to be an inconvenience at most. It was one of the ‘easier’ routes—for lack of a better word—and one she looked forward to every so often she was assigned to a patrol. A week in the beyond was not the worst way they could have spent their time. Whilst making a steady pace, they slowly walked up a small foothill overlooking the valley.

“If it was Dan leading the way, he would’ve travelled this way.” Rei said as she made her ascent.

“Good to know, I’ve been trying to sense for the two and I haven’t had any luck.” he replied after getting perched upon the tiny peak to gaze at the rest of the valley shimmering beneath the sunset. The light tore through the fading clouds, one last hurrah at dusk. Shugo had been wrapped up in the moment.

“I think we should set up camp here tonight.” Rei declared while lowering her arms, dropping her pack to the ground with a loud thud.

“Right out here in the open?” Shugo asked her hesitantly. Rei had already begun shuffling through the contents of the bag to locate the tent.

“Yeah, we sleep in shifts. They can see us, but we see them.”

“I didn’t think that would be a good idea, but if you insist.” Shugo said back. He stepped over to her and took a seat just across a tiny patch of dirt. After observing it, he glanced back over before telling her, “I can try to make a fire.”

“We will get around to that.” Rei always hated setting up and breaking down the camp. With Shugo giving her help, she managed to set the tent up much faster than usual. She spoke again, “The other night when we chased that guy, how did you know where he was? How did you even do that? I know you’ve been practicing on your own, but that’s advanced.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah,” Rei started to pull back on the enormous collection of pelts that was the tent. Each foot of the canvas had fur from a different animal. She gave it a light stroke instinctively. “It’s not something I’ve learned.”

“There’s a lot you haven’t learned yet.”

“I know, but that’s beside the point. If you figured that out, I should be learning from you.”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do!” Shugo quickly shouted back.

“Not with the writing, I meant fighting!” Rei laughed. The simple gesture made him light up inside. As he grinned, Rei had already laid the tent outwards and over a piece of line she had fastened between two trees. “I would like to learn how to do that. I figured that if everybody else knew about it they would do it.”

“That’s not how it works out.” Shugo placed one of the first mounting sticks directly across from her. With just a little force, it went straight in. After making sure the two sticks were lined up, he peered at her. “The Rising is another one of those things everybody should know.”

“It’s hard to learn that one,” she interrupted him. “It would take me my whole life to learn it.”

“Have you ever done it before?” he quickly asked.

“No.”

“How do you know it’s hard to do?”

“Can you do it?”

“Maybe.” Shugo uttered before turning his focus back to the tent.

“Maybe sounds like a big ‘no’ to me.”

“Well then maybe I can show you sometime.” he said, making Rei snicker.

She had seen Shugo do things already beyond what was expected, but the Rising was at its peak. Only a handful of people in the village managed to learn it. The small talk had come to a halt and slowly, but surely, the two had managed to finish setting it up. Before the sun had set, they had a fire, tent, and dinner prepared. The first day had been rocky enough as Shugo found himself fighting sleep.

“This is your first time, right?” Rei asked.

“Patrol? Kind of. Camping? Definitely not.” he replied. She had become slightly intrigued.

“I thought you were just working the fields your whole life.”

“I did,” Shugo lifted the last half of his dinner to his face and took a small bite. “When I was younger, we lived out here in the valley. I learned a little bit about hunting from my dad.”

“I didn’t know you were an outsider.”

“I’m not one, we just didn’t have the option of living inside the village,” he took a sip from his waterskin pouch to help push the last bit of his dinner down. “My dad was a warrior, and my mom was the librarian.”

“Wait, what is that?”

“It’s an old job that the elders did away with.”

“Why did they do that?” she asked, leaning in slowly.

“I don’t know why. There was a reason for them, but the elders had certain goals for everybody. My mom retired to the field after they shut it down.”

“We don’t have one.”

“Not anymore, we don’t,” The thought of it made him sigh. “Hideo and the other elders ended up destroying a lot of past knowledge. I can’t say it’s surprising because that’s just the way it’s always been.”

“Seems like a waste.”

“Before we were here, the world was a lot more advanced. My mother said that in the ancient days we had endless knowledge at our fingertips! There were marvels that we couldn’t even comprehend,” he had become energized, “and we somehow managed to burn it all to the ground.”

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The thought swirled through her head of a past world. To think that mankind could assemble a civilization above what existed now was beyond what Rei could comprehend.

“If that happened, where did all of that stuff go?” she questioned once more.

“I don’t know, they covered it up.”

“There’s no cover up.”

“They sure had no problem covering up the shrine. Things don’t make a lot of sense around here, but it’s really the norm. They even sent us alone to find two missing villagers!” He began to get fired up again. “We could’ve had a bigger search party. If those two were ambushed, I think we’d be in trouble.”

“I know, but they weren’t equipped like us. They don’t carry the same stuff we do. I think we’re just shorthanded and in this because we’re the only ones who can help.”

“I guess so.” Shugo said quickly, shrugging off the thought. Everything about the village was slowly starting to bother him. In the last month it seemed like everything was starting to fall into place. The chaos had slowly become something he could comprehend. Rei reached down towards a small pile of sticks and grabbed a handful before tossing it into the flame. The embers rattled as they accepted the fresh wood. As the stems began to crackle, she began to feel uncomfortable as the silence that she once would have yearned for was now something she found unsettling.

“What happened to your parents?” Rei asked him. The question caused his eyes to perk up.

“Mom got really sick when I was eleven and my father passed away when I was really little.” Shugo muttered back with a somber tone.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s alright. I don’t really think about it at all anymore. I try to think about what my parents did rather than what happened to them, you know?”

“I guess so?” The almost poetic answer was perplexing to her.

“Mom taught me to read and write when I was young. She didn’t want me being some meat head like my dad, but I feel she didn’t want me to spend the rest of my days in the field.”

“Can’t you become a cook or something?”

“No thanks,” Shugo said with a quick laugh. He smiled at her once more. “Why don’t you become a cook?”

“Because I’m not a cook.”

“I agree, whatever you cooked earlier was pretty bad.” He said again. Rei lit up in shock as he immediately raised his hands, quickly shouting, “That was a joke.”

“Oh.” She was silent again. This concept of a joke had flown over her head.

“They really don’t let you guys live, huh?”

“I am alive, thank you.” she snapped back arrogantly, leaving him to chuckle. As much as he wanted to continue the banter, he worried that she may take it the wrong way. She was quite the character.

“I was hoping at the monastery you would have more friends to talk to.” Shugo spoke again.

“They don’t really talk to me that much,” Rei said as she pulled her knees toward her chest. She wrapped both of her arms around her shins while starting to sulk. “I’m a little too weird. It's like I try to talk to people but they don’t understand me. Sometimes, I get frustrated talking.”

“That can’t be the only reason. We’re talking just fine now. What happens when you train?”

“The hardest thing about training is learning how to tune people out. There’s so much focus that goes into learning these techniques that it’s hard to focus on other stuff.” She said again.

Shugo leaned forward and asked, “Do you ever feel like they are pushing you too hard?”

“Everything about training is hard.”

“But do you think that you’re being pushed to be something you don’t want to become?”

Rei paused. This gesture really struck deep. Ever since birth, she had felt that every day was out of her control, as if she was being trained for something bigger.

“I don’t know,” she muttered as she started to feel cold. Shugo was starting to have second doubts about this conversation. The events of the day had been enough to stress them both out. What should have been a lovely afternoon writing poetry turned into this. Being stuck out in the woods wearing armor that barely fit would drive most crazy. The luminous aura from the fire began to dwindle. Rei lifted her head from her legs and said, “I don’t really know why things are the way they are or what I’m supposed to do with my life. When you’re in my world, you don’t really worry about the world.”

“That’s pretty deep,” Shugo said to her as he started to lean away from the flame. It seemed like a bleak outlook, but as dark as he thought it sounded, he felt it to be relatable. “I think you’re a great poet even though you don’t write.”

The two sat calmly. Rei continued to feed the flames with what little debris was left. Shugo was already starting to doze off. The first shift would go to Rei, by default.

◆◆◆

It was a few weeks earlier—Rei had spent much of the day over by the gate. Both of her hands had been completely covered with dirt from grinding characters into the ground. It wasn’t much for now, but she had managed to write a few lines. The small accomplishment had felt massive.

“Can you recite it?” Hideo asked her. Rei, unaware of his presence, had already given up on trying to hide her work.

“Do you want me to?” She replied with a smirk. He began to approach her with his eyes fixed on her work.

“No, I would rather know who taught you this.”

“It was one of the workers from the field. I just thought I would use this to express myself.” Rei said while slowly retreating from her work area.

“This is definitely new,” he said after finally taking a seat across from her. Rei remained silent as he began to run his fingers through the dirt. “In this world, it is extremely hard to take time on this. However, if you focus on this, someday somebody will cross paths with us,” Hideo dragged his pointer to the edge of the first line and across the first characters, “these people don’t want us to leave anything. If we can’t fight for ourselves, then they erase it all.”

“I’m sorry.” Rei said to him as he continued to run his fingers over her work. She had not been sure what he had been referring to as Hideo was always one for equivocal ramblings and phrasing.

“If I had no hope for you, I’d let you write now,” he said as he continued clawing away. “You’re the best chance we have. I know one day you’ll take my place and when you do that, you can write.”

◆◆◆

Rei stared into a haze that lingered over the valley. The morning sun had already begun its ascension to the clouds before piercing through the darkness shrouding the forest. As the rest of the scenery came to life, Shugo began to tumble.

“Is it my shift?” he groaned whilst crawling towards the front of the tent.

Rei had completely tuned him out. Again, he called out once more while he stumbled to his feet.

“I’m not tired right now.” Rei said to him. Shugo took a glance at her. She had started to drift away as her encounter with Hideo played over in her head.

“What’s up?”

“Do you think writing is a waste of time?”

“Of course not! Who told you that?” Shugo tried to keep calm.

“Hideo-Ni told me that it would be bad for the village. If I don’t focus on my training and on writing, then I won’t be able to protect everyone.”

“No, that’s not right. You help protect us, but you can’t just bottle yourself up for everybody else. If you can’t express yourself or be happy, what’s the point?”

Rei stared back at him with another blank face. She shrugged back while Shugo started to get heated.

“Don’t ever let him tell you that you can’t do something.” he quickly spoke. The two were now getting into unfamiliar territory.

“I don’t know if they will like that or not.”

“I don’t care!” he shouted. Rei pulled back for a moment. “We don’t have to live like this! You can be anything you want, and I think if you care about something you can do it.”

The positive reinforcement had managed to land. Rei smiled at him before shaking her head and muttering, “Thanks, Shugo.”