Scene 9

 

Interception

 

Late at night, when red moon stared down upon the surface of the land. there were one female and male were found striking their hands down at the water. Female was Shikihime and male was Maxias. As the night kept getting deeper, temperature in the forest got colder. Streaming water passing through Shikihime's waist down and Maxias's thigh made it harder to endure the intense weather. She was shivering so bad. Her legs started to shake making it harder to balance and her hands as well. She could barely kept her fingers altogether. On the other hand, it seemed like Maxias was doing fine. He wasn't shaking at all. He kept striking his hands at the water showing example how it should be done. Despite of all the shivering, she tried her best to imitate what he was doing spending many times concentrating. She was so immersed into her training, she forgot about the time. When she stopped to wipe off the dried sweat on her forehead, she felt the changes of wind pattern. The strong pressure became weaker to let out just small breeze.

 

This stopped leaves from getting fall on the shadowy grass patch. The ninth scene will cover the the progress in training. Maxias stopped his movement just to watch Shikihime wiping off her sweat. He then held her with both hands up in the air out of the sudden and got out of the river finally.

 

Shikihime was so embarrassed and baffled, she moved her legs up and down to get out of his arms. But this was of course, was just a meaningless tantrum for Maxias. When he got on to the ground, he threw his cloak on to her to keep her away from getting cold. Although it was too late for him to lend her a cloak, she didn't hesitate to complain back. Since her entire body was out cold, she just embraced the cloak to feel the warmth of the cloak. He let out a long sigh as he snatched handful of grasses from grass patch and threw up in the air. And when each one of the grasses were about to fall, he hastily took one of the grasses. It was thin and fragile. She had no idea what he was doing. He handed out grass as thin as a string to her as she made despondent face. She didn't know how to react to when receiving a grass. She assumed it represented something so she just received it without throwing any questions. However, he was waiting for her to ask him what it was since she was curious about everything. When awkward silence went for a solid minute, he opened his mouth.

 

"Out of all those grasses in the air, I was able to get only one. Can you do what I can do?"

 

"Are you for real?"

 

Shikihime stood up with cloak around her grabbing grasses in her hand. She then threw up in the air trying to snatch the grass. She tried, but the grasses were falling down faster than she thought so she quickly threw her hand to grab one. When she realized she couldn't get any, Maxias moved his index finger right and left to tease her,

 

"Che, che, che, learn to be patience. Patience is the key here."

 

"Hey, could you cover up your body? it's very annoying! You shameless creature."

 

Shikihime didn't have time or rather was too busy realizing he was topless, but when her face turned red like an apple once again. Maxias looked down to scan his bare upper body and shrugged it off.

 

"You know, to be honest, you just can't seem to look straight at my body. Never seen topless guy before?"

 

Shikihime lost will to say anymore. Her face turned more red with embarrassment. Thankfully, time helped her to accustomed to looking his bare body. With annoying distraction out of the way, she was now able to focus on her training. She kept throwing out grasses and tried to get one string of grass in multiple attempts. No matter how many times she did it, she wasn't able to accomplish the job. She moved her eyes turning to where Maxias was as she let go off the grass to see what he was doing. It was awfully quiet for for some time after all. However, when she did, she saw him turning back on her as though he was about to leave. Before she could say anything, he opened his mouth.

 

" I am gonna go get the bog of metals I forgot on the top of the mountain. So just keep practicing the grass training until you could get only one in your hand until I get back."

 

"What?! You are telling me you are just going to leave me in this forest? What if someone or something appears out of nowhere and attacks me?"

 

Shikihime suddenly got scared fast. Her body was trembling with fear. Despite how scared she was, Maxias didn't even bother to look back to where she was. He just waved his hand disappearing into shadow between trees. without saying anything.

 

Shikihime was now all alone. She could hear the sound of the wind grazing the trees and water rushing in the river slapping every rocks in between. She also heard the water rushing down to make a waterfall. This was first time she heard the sound of the nature for so long. Just when she was about to be immersed by the nature's melody, she was distracted by someone's voice, or rather voices.

 

"Hmm, are you sure it's this way?"

 

"Yeah, I am sure! I overheard that there are some beasts out here and they are costy. According to what I heard, their meats are served in fancy restaurants. I believe we could kill those beasts and sell those them to make a fortune."

 

As they were sharing conversation back and forth, Shikihime covered her mouth with both of her hands and wishing them to be gone. Although her body was trembling, she didn't move an inch nor made a sound. However, they could sense her  life force right away when they were passing by the river.

 

They stopped to look around trying to track down the life force energy. They went through the bushes to narrow down the distance. When they passed by the green bushes, they found Shikihime facing the opposite side covering her mouth with her hands. One of the male's voice was heard.

 

"What are you doing out in the middle of the forest? At this hours too."

 

At first she was relieved that he didn't do anything, but talk. But as she gradually turned around to make casual greeting, she saw shadowy figure holding a mace behind his head as though he was in a battle stance. When he approached closer, She could now see him. He had short blonde hair with blue eyes. He wore fancy white coat and matching white pants. With height of around six feet tall, he was about to ask again when he didn't hear her responding to his question.

 

"I said, what are you doing here?"

 

Shikihime stuttered. She spoke with shaking voice.

 

"Ah, umm, I was, umm, training, you know what they say, Mages trains better at this hour, ha, ha, ha...."

 

"Huh, really? I could barely feel the aura out of you. I can feel just a little bit.

 

Shikihime tried to change up the direction of the conversation.

 

"Umm, anyways. I am assuming you know way out of here?"

 

However, he ignored the question and asked one another question as he rubbed his chin showing that he was curios.

 

"Hmm, training, eh? That means there are probability that there is someone other than you. And you seem pretty weak. What do you think about kidnapping, little girl? We could kidnap you leaving a not right here and your friend will bring some money for us."

 

"Wha, what?! Are you crazy? Are you seriously going to cause a crime?"

 

This didn't stop the blonde man from approaching Shikihime. He raised his voice as he gripped his mace tightly as possible making swirling fire around his mace.

 

"Hmm, I would be causing a ruckus and make a crime, but you know what you forgot to say? I won't be in trouble if I never get caught."

 

Then finally, he tried to strike down with his mace as he gave a devilish smirk.