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Everything was perfect. The sun had just broken over the fluffy white clouds, bathing them in vibrant colors; the birds were singing their morning songs. All that could be heard was nature.
“SHINY!” A shrill voice broke the natural beauty like a knife in butter. “MY SHINY!” The newly awoken sun gleamed off of a… quarter? A figure was hunched over it, greedy blue eyes taking in the bright silver coin, fiddling with it in her fingers. Eyes darting every-which-way, she scrambled into the brush with her prize.
“Of course not, Sachi.” Akio scanned the area with his brown eyes, avoiding his sister’s identical ones. He had a much higher viewing level than Sachi, considering he was ten years older than his sister.
“Hmph. I think you’re lying.” Sachi sulked silently, ignoring her brother completely.
Awkward silence enveloped them, with the occasional chirping of a cricket interrupting said silence. As soon as the crickets began to voice themselves, something that sounded like a herd stampeding elephants started coming toward them at an alarming speed. Sachi latched onto her brother’s arm, forgetting about their disagreements, while Akio braced himself for whatever was coming.
A blur of blue appeared out of the left side of the clearing, and it sped toward them, then stopped. Once their eyes focused, they could see it was a girl, about the age of fifteen. Her blonde hair came down to about halfway down her back, and light blue eyes were visible behind long bangs. She was wearing a light blue shirt that was a bit too big for her, and the long sleeves billowed out around thin hands. Her pants were the same color, and came down to her white sneakers. Ignoring the humans, her ears twitched as she located the crickets and suddenly ran at the insects. Once she found them, she began shoveling them into her mouth.
By now the two mortals were watching this inhumane behavior with wide eyes. After about five minutes, the strange girl wiped her mouth and stood up, grinning. Seeing them, she tensed, as though she just acknowledged that they existed. Akio also tensed and put his sister behind him, ready for anything this strange person could do.
A huge smile lit up on the girl’s face and began talking a mile a minute. “OH MY GOSH! Are you real humans?! I’ve never seen them before! I mean, I’ve heard of them but I’ve never SEEN one!” She took a deep breath and continued, “Oh, by the way, my name is Nanashi! I know it’s weird. It confuzzles myself sometimes because ‘Nanashi’ means ‘without a name,' but if Nanashi’s my name, doesn’t that mean I have a name? Do you understand it?” She stopped abruptly and waited for them to answer.
Blinking to put together this jumble of information that was just given to him in about ten seconds, he left Sachi to answer this strange girl. “Hi!” she said, smiling brightly, going on to talk in a slightly slower speed than Nanashi, but still at a faster speed than anything Akio would be able to use. “My name is Sachi Masumi! This is my brother, Akio! Why are you out here, anyway? We’re lost. Well, at least I think we are. Akio won’t admit it, but we are.” The last sentence she said was more of a statement than an opinion.
“Can you all please just talk slowly?” Akio asked, clutching his head at this new flow of information, thinking, Are all girls able to talk this fast? I don’t think I’ve ever heard Mom talk this fast. Shaking off the thought, he finished deciphering the information.
“Sure!” Nanashi said, smiling. Suddenly, she frowned and quickly dug into her pocket, then sighed in relief as she withdrew a quarter, hugged it to her chest, and returned it, leaving the humans perplexed. Seeing this, she shrugged. “I found Shiny this morning. I thought I lost him.” Sachi nodded, seeming to understand this strange behaviour, but this only confused Akio even more.
“What else do you have with you?” Sachi asked. “Do you have another shiny?”
Nanashi turned and walked back into the woods, returning with a backpack, and she dumped its contents onto the cushioned forest floor. Then she placed a bow and a quiver of arrows next to her possessions and stepped back, content.
“Can I-” Sachi didn’t need to finish her sentence, because Nanashi’s nodding gave her permission. Grinning, the girl dug into the mountain of stuff zealously. Akio joined her, carefully delving into the pile of random items. Frowning at the sight of slates of rock and the hammers and nails, he started unrolling an odd rug. The rug was a reddish color with many details in almost every color imaginable. The strange thing though was in the middle was a huge image of… a fork? Almost finishing unrolling the rug, something glinted within the folds. Curious, Akio dug his hand into the fabric. Unknown to him, Nanashi had tensed up as soon as he had begun to examine the rug. Now her eyes blazed, and the outer edges of her carefree blue eyes were becoming a hard red.
“DO NOT DEFILE THE HOLY HOBO FORK!” Nanashi leapt beside Akio and tore his hand out of the garment, then grabbed what he was attempting to find and cuddled it to her chest.
He stared at her in amazement at her sudden ferocity, and his eyes grew bigger as he saw that her eyes were mixed with red and her hair was getting a black tinge. “Holy Hobo Fork?” he asked, pushing his fear into the back of his mind.
Nanashi’s eyes grew at the question, and, to Akio’s relief, returned to their normal colour. “You’ve never heard of the Holy Hobo Fork? THIS IS A SIN! The Holy Hobo Fork is the all-knowing fork. To do well in life you must pray to the Fork everyday.” To prove this, she took the Fork and set it on a stand, and unrolled the rug in front of it. She proceeded to bow Islamic-style in front of the Fork.
“Um… How is it a Holy Hobo Fork?” Sachi came over, watching Nanashi repeat her worshipping.
Sighing at their ignorance, Nanashi replied in what to her probably made the most sense in the world. “Well, as you can see, it is a fork, it was a hobo’s, and it is holy.” Leaving her two friends blinking and trying to figure out how this fork could ever be holy, she began constructing shrines: they were made of stone and she engraved a carving of a fork on each one carefully.
Taking advantage of this time alone, Akio commented to Sachi dryly, “She acts like it makes the most sense in the world.”
Nodding, Sachi replied, “Like how two plus two equals four.”
“TWO PLUS TWO DOES NOT EQUAL FOUR, YOU ILLITERATE MORTALS! TWO PLUS TWO EQUALS FISH! EVERYONE KNOWS THAT! IT’S JUST LIKE HOW COWS GO QUACK!” Nanashi yelled at them and hit each of them with a herring, leaving the two siblings flabbergasted.
Seeing what Sachi found, Nanashi broke into a huge grin and started singing in a slight English accent. “Oh, I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts, dee da la dee, here they are all standing in a row, bum bum bum! Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head! Give 'em a twist, a flick of the wrist, that’s what the showman said!” Suddenly she changed her accent slightly and said, “Those aren’t horses, they’re coconuts!” Smiling broadly, she continued the coconut-related quotes as Sachi and Akio watched with their eyebrows raised.
Sachi’s face showed complete and utter confusion. “What’s a coconut?” At this question, Nanashi’s eyes fittingly grew to the size of said coconuts.
“You don’t know what a coconut is?” Nanashi asked, amazed as Sachi shook her head. “WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO!?” Nanashi yelled into the sky, scaring a few birds into flight. Taking a deep breath, she sat Sachi down on the ground and began to explain the history of the coconut.
After the entire city was checked, they made their way back into the woods, ready to destroy their next town. Squirrels dropped down from the trees and joined them, all happy with their tails flagging as they scampered through the forest to the next war-ground.
Sniffing the coffee warily, Akio asked the question his sister was thinking: “Will this stuff make us as uh… hyper… as you?”
Chuckling, Nanashi answered, “Of course not, but then again, I’m not hyper right now… Why did you think I was?” She cocked her head to the side like a dog.
Once the two cups were drained, Nanashi whipped them away and dropped them back into the pile. She turned to go talk to her friends, but then whipped back around to her stuff. Digging her arm into it, she grinned and pulled out three white garments. “Who wants one? I have too many.” Holding the clothes out, she showed the two mortals that they were all straightjackets. Akio’s eyes widened along with Sachi’s and they both shook their heads emphatically. Shrugging, Nanashi put them back where she got them. “Your loss… Hey, do you guys want to see where I live?”
Unsure, Akio went to ask a question, but was cut off by Sachi’s reply: “Of course I want to see where you live! What’s it like?” Sachi immediately began bombarding Nanashi with questions. Smiling slightly, Nanashi walked over to a place in the clearing and fiddled with the ground until she found a metal handle. Bracing herself, Nanashi heaved and the ground opened up and she flung the door out on its hinges. As soon as the door was exposed, Akio began examining it.
“Um… why is it metal? And why is it padded?” He frowned at Nanashi but she ignored him. She climbed down a ladder and Sachi immediately followed. Rolling his eyes, Akio followed obediently, if not more wary than Sachi. I guess I should tell Mom that Sachi needs more lessons about trusting strangers. She just followed a total stranger down into a dark room! I mean, we do know Nanashi’s name, but we don’t exactly know anything else about her! Shaking his head, he went to go into the underground room when suddenly light exploded out of the doorway. …Ow… Blinking to adjust to the sudden light, he clambered down the ladder and landed lightly on a padded floor.
“GET OUT!” Nanashi yelled, pointing toward the ladder. Akio turned to leave, but then he noticed that the entire room was filled with fluffy, purple rabbits. The walls, floor, even the ceiling were covered with them. “GET OUT OR I WILL GET THE SPORKS IN HERE!” Audible gasps were heard throughout the room and the rabbits started floating quickly out of the door.
“Ahem… Welcome to my padded bunker!” Nanashi yelled proudly, standing in the middle of the room. Akio blinked again and looked around. Absolutely everything was padded, and in the corner there was a built in refrigerator. In another corner there was a fold out bed, with a nightstand that was built into the floor. A built in table was in the center of the bunker. All of the lighting was somehow built into the walls as well. Nanashi then moved across the room and slid back a portion of the wall to show a TV with a built in VCR and DVD player.
Akio could feel his jaw hit the ground and saw Sachi do the same. Nanashi just sat there, loftily watching their reactions. Forcing himself to close his mouth, he started testing the padding. It was like a trampoline, but it didn’t burn and it didn’t hurt as much if you hit it hard. “It seems as though you could just bounce right off these walls,” he commented, punching the wall and almost falling back as his arm was pushed back.
“Yup!” Nanashi slid the cover of the TV back and backed up to the opposite wall, then sprinted and hit the wall like a truck, and was ricocheted back. To Sachi and Akio, she was just a blur. It reminded both of them of pinball. Sachi’s eyes widened as the blur rocketed toward her and she braced herself for impact… but it never came. Somehow Nanashi had stopped herself from hitting the young girl. “Oh my gosh, Sachi, are you ok?” she asked, eyes wide and worried.
“I-I’m fine… I think,” Sachi stuttered, shaking slightly. “H-How about we leave?”
“That’s a good idea,” Akio said, shaken as well. Nanashi nodded and gestured towards the ladder. Once her two friends were up it, she scrambled halfway up, clapped twice so the lights went out, and finished climbing up the ladder.
When she came out of her bunker, she closed the door and turned to see total chaos. Squirrels had invaded the clearing, destroying everything in sight with acorn grenades. Penguins had their guns pointed on Akio and Sachi, who were pinned against a tree. She stared at the chaos but the thing that caused her to move was the fact the squirrels had found the Holy Hobo Fork.
Nanashi’s eyes widened, then narrowed. Her hair became completely black, and her eyes turned blood red. Her fingernails hardened and grew, and her clothes turned black. Once the transformation was complete, a smirk graced her lips in the place of her normal carefree smile, and it showed two fangs. “You will regret doing that.” She spat at the squirrel, and sauntered over to her bow and arrow. Eyes flaming in anger, she grabbed two sheathes that were lying by a tree. Grabbing the hilts, she bared both of the blades: they weren’t as long as a sword, but a mix between a curved sword, known as a katana, and a short sword. Smirking wider, she walked toward the squirrel. “Die.” She thrust a kodachi into the squirrel and with a flick of her wrist cut it in two. She brought the blade up to her lips and licked the blade clean. “Let the blood bath begin.”
TO BE CONTINUED (BUT PROBABLY NOT!)