Currently, the 2nd Lumi Festival, an event held once every four years by the empire, was in full swing—people from all over the world were attending! Becaause of the Shattering, it was postponed until now.
Rai, Tanabe, and Milu were wrapping up their training in the woods outside the festival grounds. Takara, Rai’s little sister, and Hanabi were there as well.
Hanabi, having discovered their secret meetings, insisted on joining or threatened to spill the beans.
“I can’t believe they kicked you out for a couple slices of bread,” Tanabe commented.
Rai, hands in his pockets, kicked the leaves beneath him. His sister had made a snack for him ‘without permission’, so the orphanage kicked them out, but, it also didn’t help that he was caught sneaking out numerous times. “Taka!” Rai hollered.
“Something wrong?” Milu asked.
“Taka and Hanabi have been gone for a while,” Rai replied.
“Perhaps they went back to the festival,” Tanabe suggested.
Returning to the festival, they still couldn’t locate them.
“That’s it, I'm going back out!” Rai declared, stomping off towards the woods.
“Empire law prohibits forest entry past dark,” Tanabe warned.
The sun would be setting soon, and the festival had guards everywhere.
“Yeah yeah,” Rai dismissed. He cared little for the empire’s laws.
Stumbling out of the forest, a bloodied man grasped everyone's attention. He looked terrified.
Gazing into the forest behind him, the atmosphere had changed. The sound of footsteps steadily built, initially a few, but more followed suit, until many people emerged from the forest, running in fear.
“M-m-minus! Call the Elites! Minus in the woods!” someone screamed.
Rai took off into the forest with Tanabe and Milu trailing beside him.
Inside the forest, they stopped at a pile of backpacks.
“Hopefully they got out with the rest of them,” Tanabe said, looking around.
Drops of blood landed on the bags in front of Milu, causing him to look up. “I don’t think they did.”
Tanabe and Rai looked up, before quickly shifting their eyes back to the ground.
“Brother!” Takara’s voice resonated nearby.
“Taka! Where are you?!” Rai responded, alerted by the sudden call of his sister.
“Over here!” Hanabi screamed.
“There!” Milu said.
The girls were hiding in the gap of a giant tree stump.
Rai sprinted their way, but a creature descending from the trees high above their hiding spot, caused him to stop in his tracks.
Hanabi muffled Takara’s mouth, hoping to avoid detection.
Covered in purple vines, the figure slightly resembling a woman, desperately searched for its prey.
“Minus...” Tanabe whispered, appearing beside Rai. “I’ve heard of this breed, it’s a Slaevine. Better to wait it out and sneak in after it’s gone.”
“That’s not an option right now,” Rai said.
Hanabi, securing the much younger Takara, remained silent, that is, until she felt something crawling around her ankle. She noticed a giant centipede inching up her foot, “Eep!”
The Minus, alarmed by the sudden cry, wrapped the tree stump they were hiding in, partially yanking it out.
Hanabi and Takara ran for their lives, drawing the Minus’s attention, but hindered by the stump, it couldn't snatch them up.
“Over here, tall purple, and ugly!” Rai shouted, carrying a backpack as he charged the creature.
Unraveling a vine, the Minus attacked Rai, but by using the backpack, he was able to avoid a fatal blow. The attack, however, carried Rai and the pierced backpack, high into the trees.
The trees surrounding the area were hundreds of feet high and the branches were as thick as a train.
Appearing before the vines, Tanabe swiftly severed it, rescuing Rai from his upward ascent while drawing the Minus’s aggression towards him.
Rai flipped over onto a branch the moment the upward momentum died. Peeking over the edge, he punched the air realizing how high up he was. “When I get down there, you’re gonna regret it!”
As Tanabe dodged a stabbing blow from the Minus, he grabbed its limbs and sent it flying into a tree opposite him.
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Milu was in awe of Tanabe’s strength. He knew he needed to step it up! Infusing small black shuriken with flux force, he threw them at a pair of strangely colored fruit right above the creature's head. They burst, splattering a liquid all over the creature, burning through its roots. “Flupies, harmless to humans, but deadly to Minus,” Milu stated.
Writhing in pain, it jumped into the trees, remaining hidden amongst the leaves.
“All living things that can utilize flux force, have a core in which flux flows through, even Minus. Destroy the core and you kill the Minus,” Tanabe explained, huffing. “But slaevines shift their core throughout their entire body, making them trickier than your average Minus.”
“How do we find the core?” Milu asked.
“I was taught that Minus are creatures of negative flux force. You can sometimes sense where the core is if you concentrate on where the negative flux resonates strongest,” Tanabe said, closing his eyes, even with danger looming nearby, he searched diligently. “Try to differentiate the positive from the negative flux.”
Milu, mimicking Tanabe, did as instructed, closing his eyes. He felt its presence, but it kept shifting around above. “This isn’t helping...”
Suddenly, the Minus lunged from the trees.
“Watch out!” Hanabi shouted.
Tanabe and Milu opened their eyes simultaneously, barely avoiding the slaevine’s attack.
Hopping along the branches, Milu attacked a lump of roots, causing the Minus to stare directly at him.
“A little more to your left!” Tanabe said.
“I'm trying!” Milu replied.
Knowing its life was in danger, the Minus grew much more violent, tossing large branches and rocks at them from wherever it could.
Dodging skillfully, they pressed on in search of the core.
Landing on a branch, Milu immediately jumped from it as a swamp of vines smashed through the spot he just left. His legs were numb from the constant maneuvering. “Check mate,” he declared, turning to watch.
Tanabe, anticipating the Minus’s movements, appeared before it, slamming it straight into the ground. Dashing down towards the core, before he could destroy it, he caught sight of purple vines slithering towards Hanabi and Takara. “Look out!”
Hanabi shoved Takara aside, and took the brunt of the upcoming attack, launching her away where she lay motionless.
The Minus aimed another attack at the motionless Hanabi, but Tanabe swiftly chopped them down before it could. He let out a sigh of relief. Though unconscious, Hanabi was alive.
Seeing the chance to escape, the Minus fled.
“Checkmate means game over, idiot,” Milu mocked, watching as it departed.
“Try this!” Descending from the sky, fists charged with flux, Rai smacked the Minus’s core, obliterating it.
It disintegrated into ash, leaving only traces of dead vines behind as its remaining flux dispersed into the air. From its remains, a seed emerged, small and oval, colored purple and green with a black zig-zag design.
Milu rushed to Hanabi, realizing she needed medical attention. He picked her up, ready to take her back to the village, but Tanabe stopped him.
“Let me, I can get there faster,” Tanabe offered.
Milu nodded and Tanabe sped off towards the village with Hanabi.
As time passed, torches appeared in the distance; they were coming from the festival - a search and rescue party no doubt. He decided to take his sister a different route, to avoid any potential trouble for her sake.
Back at the village, the doctor assured Tanabe and Milu that Hanabi would be okay.
“Sorry to have troubled you,” Hanabi said, lying in bed.
“We’re just glad you’re okay,” Milu responded.
Guards watching from outside the room were impressed by the boys defeating a Minus, but, bound by the law, they had to be held at the station for being out past dark.
At the police station, Milu and Tanabe waited patiently in a cell to be released.
Outside, Han was causing a scene, demanding the whereabouts of the little brat.
“I’ll be grounded for months,” Milu sighed.
“I’m here for Tanabe,” a deeper voice spoke.
“G- General Kur,” Han said.
Tanabe slumped over, “Try grounded for life...”
***
Journal Entry:
After the Minus incident, Tanabe was locked down to focus on his training until he became an apprentice. I have no doubt he’ll become strong. Milu is back home in Aurahelm but got busted for porting. It's nearly impossible to see him now. We agreed to meet at the 5th Apprenticeship Exam in six years. Until then, we must continue training to grow stronger.
Closing the small golden notebook, Rai caressed his sister’s head. She was asleep on his lap while they lay under a big cardboard box in an alley of Nitehood. He was trying to rest, but a block away a crowd was steadily growing louder. Soon, Rai even noticed people running over to join. It garnered his curiosity enough, so he woke his sister up, that way they could go check it out.
“Brother,” Takara asked, rubbing her eyes.
“What is it?” Rai replied.
“Are you and Hanabi getting married?”
Rai’s face lit up, “What makes you think that?”
“She’s pretty.”
“Yeah,” Rai said, not knowing how to reply. He was sure Milu had a crush on her.
Two siblings made their way to the front of the crowd where everyone was huddled around a radio. Thankfully, a man sitting on a box waved them in.
“Have a sip,” a man said, passing a bottle to Rai, but he declined. The man then proceeded to pass it to Takara who reached out to grab it but her brother placed his arm in front of her, stating, “She’s only 5.”
“Hell, I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t need two after you hear what’s going on in Crystal Heralds,” the man replied.
All of a sudden, the radio transmitted what sounded like an explosion, before completely cutting out, leaving the crowd in an uproar. A struggle to fix the radio ensued, until eventually, the same voice remerged, announcing the unimaginable.
“I can’t believe it… Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know how to say this, but Crystal Heralds... is gone.”
“Gone?” a man near the radio questioned.
“…reduced to nothing. There are no survivors,” the radio reaffirmed.
“How’s that possible?” someone said.
“They were be inducted as an official kingdom under the empire today,” an old man with a newspaper interjected.
“Wait! Unless my eyes deceive me… No, it’s him. The Knight of Excalibur, he’s alive!” The crowd erupted in cheers. The radio continued to report, creating an atmosphere of anticipation. “Our hero has engaged the creature once again. The fights ab—” The radio cut out, prompting Rai to grab and aggressively shake it.
“Hey, be careful, that’s my only one,” a man stated.
The battle had everyone on the edge of their seats, but as it came to its climax, there was a dead silence.
Rai’s toes curled from the anticipation. He can’t lose. He won’t!
“...the smoke seems to be clearing,” the radio fell quiet for a moment. “He’s won! Our hero, the number one elite, has defeated the plague!”
“Yes!” Rai said, jumping into the cheerful crowd. Picking up his sister, he swung her in a circle before placing her back down.
Giggling, she asked, “Do you think I could become a hero?”
Rai smiled, covering her eyes with the palms of his hands. “Outside of these hands,” he spoke softly, removing it, “you can be anything.” Takara squished into her big brother’s embrace. “Come on squirt, let’s get going.”