Shisen Mura

By Moeru H.

This fic is dedicated to Joy and Geline. Hope you’ll have fun reading this. You two are very much missed. Here’s to our adventures, manga/anime style… so its a little exaggerated too. ;p

---

Chapter One: Replacement

Wandering from place to place, to discover things they didn’t find in their birthplace, two sisters traveled, unknowing of what lies ahead of them, taking chances to survive. For the most important stuff, they would stop at any spot, indiscriminately, not thinking of what might happen, or who might cause them threat. Tending to one of those important stuff, today, they stop. But unlike any other, a stop that would change their lives forever.

“Is it not done yet? What’s taking it so long?”, a girl screamed in a very desperate and weakly voice. She looked impatiently at something that released smoke and to her sister who was fanning it. Her sister, really looking annoyed, thought that it wouldn’t be enough for the both of them. But times were hard, and they were even lucky to scoop anything worthwhile in that rundown village. With the two of them hungry, for not eating two days straight, no one knew if either of them was willing to be pleasant with each other in devouring that little fish they had.

With blurry vision, caused by extreme starvation, as they would consider it, the previously screaming girl luckily didn’t notice how small their meal was. Waiting for that fish to get cooked, with her back facing the roughly cemented floor, she stared at the sky wondering why the village was empty of any person, at least the ones living. Not far from her left, a cemetery could unmistakably be noticed. So, definitely, there were people who lived here, just where they are now, she didn’t know. Must be an epidemic, or some natural disaster like tornadoes or really strong typhoons, that caused this place to be abandoned. If only there were people here, she thought, they wouldn’t have any problem with food or shelter. Wherever they went, there were always nice folks to inconvenience themselves just to help inconspicuous strangers like the two of them. Inconspicuous. The word made her twitch. How would they know? Maybe because they were young and female. Not much rumors on naughty young females, as some of the villagers they previously met would say. The two would chuckle from the comment. They don’t know if it was because they know they could cause harm – but only on desperate occasions, or the fact that where they were from, there had been a lot of naughty young females!

“Strange,” Aikyo, the girl watching over the fish, suddenly whispered, loud enough to be heard by her sister, whose thoughts quickly flew away. “There’s definitely something wrong here, I can feel it! Don’t you feel it? We have been traveling for a long time now and when places are abandoned, you just know there’s something bad that has happened.”, she continued in an assuring tone.

“But what could it be?”, was the only reply she got from her little sister, Mizumi.

Silence captured the entire scene, as the two try to chew on their not-so-minor speculations on the distinctly terrible plight of the village. But that silence was cut short by another high- pitched shout heading their direction. The words were unintelligible to the two, the person making the noise was probably two miles away from them. But at every second, the voice got clearer and clearer. The voice was saying something about ‘smoke’ and ‘doomed’. Whatever it was, it got their attention.

It was not long for them to see the silhouette of what looked like a young girl not much younger than Mizumi. The girl stopped in front of them. She had a dark black hair with softness like silk mostly visible when she ran. Her complexion was a little dark but beauty can be seen with her smooth skin. She kept on yelling ‘hurry up, nechan!’ at the direction she had been. After some time, another figure appeared. It was also a girl who seemed to be as old as Aikyo. She was tall and slender, just like Mizumi. Her hair was not black though, it was more of a dark brown. She walked with finesse, not wanting to lose her composure even when she needed to move faster. “What are you in a hurry for?”, she finally retorted.

If the other girl didn’t say ‘nechan’, no one would have guessed that these two were related. But with Mizumi and Aikyo, this didn’t come as a surprise either, for they too didn’t have anything in common, at least physically. People only notice their relation through their actions. The two acquired some identical mannerisms that only others could detect.

When the older girl finally reached where her sister had stopped – in front of Aikyo and

Mizumi – the younger girl started the conversation.

“I saw the smoke coming from that…”, pointing at the now burnt fish, “and we– ”. She was instantly interrupted when the two saw what had supposed to be their breakfast. The incident didn’t sink right away through their excited minds of seeing alive people in their midst. They didn’t know what to feel. Anger towards the two, who just destroyed their only meal, pity for their unfortunate stomachs, that hadn’t had the chance to enjoy the tiny fish, or sheer delight, for just the presence of the two strangers in front of them.

Their thoughts were completely cut when the girl, who seemed to have noticed the two’s pain, spoke again. “Oh, Sorry about that. But don’t worry, we have many of that where we came from. Come with us and we’ll be glad to replace your food. Right, nechan?” Her nechan just nodded. “But first, we need to know each other’s names, ne? I’m Geirin” said with a friendly smile and a wave of her hand, “And my nechan over there is Jiri” directing their gaze at her who simply nodded in response. “How about you?” Aikyo was the first to speak. “I’m Aikyo.” “And I’m Mizumi”, her younger sister added, wearing a big smile on her face.

This was great, Mizumi thought. Maybe in the village this girl was talking about, they could at last eat a substantial meal which was severely deprived from them, more often than not, the moment they started their traveling. She loved food, especially delicious ones in large servings. A glutton, that’s what she was. She was somehow grateful that she didn’t get fat whenever she ate large amounts of food. With being genki and all, the fats just didn’t think that it was a good idea to stay.

“Now that’s settled,” Geirin continued, “shall we?”

“Hai!”, said Mizumi bearing a goofily excited face that the other three just couldn’t withhold their laughter.

tsuzuku

A/N: Wow. This is definitely a surprise. It’s really weird. Whenever I think hard of what to write, I hardly succeed in having what I like to see. But when it’s all in a spur of a moment, everything just comes out fine. Maybe that’s because nothing is expected. It’s random after all. Oh well.

This chapter seems to be very trivial, nothing very interesting happened, to say the least. I don’t know if this will be a light fic or something dramatic. In time, it will come out. I’m working on another fic, a fan fic, which means harder (I have to stay on the characters so not to have OOCs. I hate those!), so please don’t expect anything great. But this fic will have some OOCs. As some of you might know, the characters here are based on real people. So for those who know, just to feed my fantasies, a little OOCness wouldn’t hurt right? But I assure you, no one would be turned in a negative way. I’m an optimist when it comes to my writing… lol. Oh, and don’t forget to review! ‘til the next chapter, ja ne…

Japanese Terms (just in case you didn’t know…)

Nechan: sister in a familiar form

…ne?: …right?

genki: cheerfulness

hai: yes