9 years ago.

He distinctly remembers that it was a rainy day and that he was called by his teacher for something important. That was the day two people entered Ymeno’s life. Two people that would forever change the trajectory of his path in life.

Rain was tapping on the window of a room where 4 people were in. There was a girl sitting in a chair, with a boy standing behind her. Similairly, Ymeno was sitting in front of her, with a very tall, muscular man behind him.

A clock was ticking, as besides the rain, it was totally silent. That was until the girl began speaking.

“Greetings, my name is Muri.”

What instantly caught the attention of Ymeno were her crimson red eyes. Her black hair was in a neat ponytail, and her face was softly resting with a smile.

Her brother stood behind her, wearing an orange hoodie, there was a cut in his left eyebrow. He had short, black hair.

“Name’s Suke, what about you?”

“It’s Ymeno. What are you two doing here?”

A blow was delivered to the back of his head, causing the boy to have to readjust his glasses.

“These 2 are important to a dojo nearby from here, show some manners!” The large man scolded.

“Stop punching me, old fart!”

“Learn manners!”

The girl let out a soft giggle.

“Mr. Grablod, our family is grateful for all the things you’ve done for us. We just wanted to see the orphanage. Thank you.”

She stood up.

“Suke, shall we go, now?”

“Sure, sis.”

They quickly left, but Ymeno dashed after them. A gigantic grin was plastered on his face as he jumped out of the window of the room.

Catching up, a quick catch of breath was needed as he stood in front of the two. The rain was making his outfit wetter every passing moment.

“What do you want?” Suke asked.

All Ymeno did was point in response.

“Famous dojo, huh? Wanna fight?” He smiled cockily.

Suke laughed, closing his umbrella.

“Come on, then!” He raised his arms in the air.

Ymeno dashed towards him, rain splashing with every step, but instead of punching Suke, Muri had swiftly jumped in front of him.

“Hey, wai-“

“I got ‘tis!” She grabbed Ymeno’s arm, and as his back was about to be thrown to the wet ground, he woke up on a familiar couch.

The feeling of somber reminisce weighed heavily on his shoulder. Once again, an invasive memory of the past reared its head. Soon enough, the feeling was brushed away, as he stood up, still feeling a bit dizzy due to the alcohol.

Not wanting to remain in the past for too long, he looked at his phone, 10 am. Quickly making a decision to go jogging, after all, that would probably get that tiny bit of remaining alcohol out of his system, and the fresh air would help. After putting on his sport clothes and going outside, the peaceful morning greeted him, as he began to go to that familiar park.

Along the way, he ruminated about last night. Feeling a bit conflicted about how much he folded, and how little he contributed to the conversation. Then again, it had also been quite a while since Ymeno had done such a thing.

Before he knew it, the entrance of the park was already greeting him. Listening closely, he heard some grunts coming from afar. After standing still, trying to pinpoint the location, it became clear that the sound came from the place where the gigantic tree stood.

Walking towards it, a familiar face popped up from behind a tree next to the great tree. It was rick, also wearing sport clothes.

“Yo, Ymeno!”

“How is it going? Are you exercising?”

“Doing good, and yeah!”

It made sense, this place was a very popular place for people to exercise. It was a large grassy field where a lot of people could be at once, and the trees could be used to hang up potential exercise materials.

Rick expressed some concern about if Ymeno came home fine and if he slept well, to which Ymeno reassured him that it all went well. The tall man plopped down on the grass afterwards in exhaustion from all the training.

Patting the grass next to him, Ymeno sat down next to him, feeling a bit exhausted from the jogging too. They were both looking at the beautiful blue sky.

“Do you train here often?” Ymeno asked, finally breaking the silence.

“Mhm! I try to go every day.”

And then Ymeno didn’t know what to say anymore. There was still a slight bit of hesitation, because it was Rick, and he felt that if he said too much, he might find out about Ray.

“What about you, do you train?” Rick asked.

“I used to.”

“I see. Your posture already told me so much, good thing my intuition’s still sharp.” A grin appeared on Rick’s face.

“Your intuition?”

“Yep! I can feel when someone trains, or when someone is strong, haha!”

“Really?”

Rick nodded heavily. There was something infectious about his energy, Ymeno couldn’t help but smile.

“Do you know how to fight?” Rick asked.

“Fight?”

“Yeah, fight. Raise both your fists, punch or throw until someone goes down, a fight!”

When Rick said throw, there was a bit of resentment in his voice.

“Yes, I can.”

“Oh man, do you maybe want to spar?”

“I’m very rusty, though.”

“No worries, I’ll make sure to go ea-”

Before he could finish his sentence, Rick’s phone began to go off. He picked up really quickly.

“Ah, Fari? …Yes…Oh…Yes…I’m coming!” Beep.

“Is everything alright?”

“Fa drinks a lot of alcohol, but she seriously can’t handle it. I have to go and help her. Sorry, we’re gonna spar another day~!” He sprinted off at the last part of his sentence.

Sitting down in front of the tree, Ymeno just hoped that everything was going alright for the police prodigy. He never would’ve imagined getting into contact with the both of them. Yet somehow, he didn’t mind it. After sending a message to Fari wishing her well and standing up, he saw a small object behind the tree. Picking it up, it appeared to be a necklace with small rabbit ears on it.

‘That definitely belongs to Rick’

He put it in his pocket, but looking in front of him, his eyes widened.

The tree had clear marks of being punched. Some were old, some were very recent. Outlines of fists were seen everywhere.

‘There’s no way, right?’

Is that why he heard grunting? And then another realization flooded over him as he gulped.

‘How long has he been doing this? If I ever got hit by one of his punches, would that be survivable?’

There was nothing but respect from Ymeno towards Rick. It didn’t take much to know why he did all this. Rick really cares about her, and takes his duties very seriously, even if he doesn’t look like it.

After seeing that, Ymeno walked towards the benches near the butterfly garden to rest some more, where he was met with two more familiar faces upon arrival.

From a distance, Magnolia was busy swinging a net, her star sprinkled umbrella resting on her back, while Zeki was laying on his side in the grass with a book on his face. The little girl was absorbed in her own world, swinging her net all around, sometimes stumbling a bit. There wasn’t a sign of movement coming from Zeki, though.

Magnolia eventually spotted him while turning around, waving at him to come over. She was jumping due to her excitement, saying something that couldn’t be heard because she was too far away from Ymeno.

She jumped over the still lying down Zeki, skittering towards the gardener. Ymeno was also walking towards her. Exchanging the usual greetings, Ymeno was curious about what she was doing.

“I’m currently busy catching butterflies!”

Her hands quickly shuffled through the pockets of her white-pinkish jacket, pulling out a piece of paper afterwards, with a small ‘tada!’.  It was a large checklist of all sorts of different butterflies that could be found in this park. Some had a small checkmark next to their picture. She had 11 out of 20 butterflies already.

“Some are not showing up, but they can’t stay away from me for too long!”

A large grin rested on her face. That was one question answered, but now another one was still present. Zeki still didn’t show any reaction. He was just laying in the same place the whole time.

“Is he alright?” Ymeno asked.

Snore.

He was just sleeping the whole time.  Ymeno felt stupid for not even thinking about that possibility. Magnolia turned around and began heavily shaking Zeki, saying “wake up” continuously. The boy soon shot awake, but Magnolia didn’t stop shaking. The book fell off his face.

“NOLIA STOP PLEASE I’M GETTING DIZZY.”

Magnolia giggled.

“You don’t sleep on grass, silly.”

“But it feels nice.”

“But you shouldn’t!”

While they were bickering, Ymeno glanced at the book that previously rested on the boy’s face. To his surprise, all the text wasn’t written in any specific language, it looked like random gibberish.

Zeki quickly grabbed the book before Ymeno could make anything of it, though. Placing it in a small book holder on the right side of his hip. Sitting down on the grass afterwards, still a bit groggy from his nap.

Ymeno sat down next to him, as Magnolia resumed catching butterflies. Every swing she did had a lot of power behind it.

Zeki ruffled throughout his bag, pulling out 2 cups and a thermos bottle. He had a gut feeling that his book companion also liked coffee, so he filled the cups with just that. Ymeno gladly accepted it, and they both began drinking.

It tasted really good, to Ymeno’s surprise.

“Did you make this?”

Zeki snorted.

“No. Miss Fuego did. I don’t know how she does it, but her coffee making skills are amazing. I tried asking her how to make it, but she just smiled and said that it was a ‘fuego secret’. I don’t even know what that means.”

Miss fuego, Ymeno heard that name yesterday too. He didn’t have a clue who that was, but he did connect the pieces that she was Kane’s wife.

“Has there been anything interesting you’ve read, recently?” Zeki asked, while sipping his coffee.

“I’ve been a bit busy to really take the time to do that, what about you?”

 A smile appeared on Zeki’s face.

“There is this book about weapons. Mostly documenting sacred weapons from various dojos and people. Some are folklore, but some actually exist!”

Zeki sounded really excited explaining all this, Ymeno just listened and nodded, not minding the boy who was talking his ear off, quietly sipping away his coffee.

“The weapons that really intrigue me are the two katanas forged in the sun and the moon.”

Ymeno nearly did a spit take, quickly looking at Zeki, and then at the ground.

“Have you ever heard of them, they’re so cool! Their blades are red and blue respectively. I would give a lot of money to just see them, ah, but I’m broke, that kinda dampers that idea, huh?”

Ymeno was internally debating with himself. Zeki was talking so enthusiastically about these katanas, not knowing that Ymeno knew so much more about them, because..

“I’ve seen them.” He quickly said.

“….what?”

“I’ve seen both those katanas.”

Zeki choked on his coffee, shocking both Ymeno and Magnolia, who came dashing towards him. Ymeno kept patting on his back, until he finally caught his breath.

“You.. You’ve seen them?!” Still gasping a bit, his eyes had stars in them, his voice trembled with excitement.

“What are you two talking about..” Magnolia tilted her head.

Zeki grasped Ymeno’s shoulders, the grip was very soft, though. But Ymeno didn’t put up any resistance. All he did was nod.

“How much do they weigh, how pretty do they look, who’s their wielder, where did you even see them, why did you even see them, how did you even see them.” He just kept piling up the questions, without even giving Ymeno a chance to breathe.

Ymeno removed the overjoyed boy’s hands from his shoulders, and Zeki finally sat down, returning back to his usual self, although his eyes still shone.  One by one, Ymeno began answering the barrage of questions. Magnolia laid down on her stomach, her hands resting on her cheeks, her shoulders in the gras.

“They’re not wielded by anyone, they’re a sacred treasure of a dojo that has long since moved away. I used to know two people from that dojo. They showed me it because I was curious. They weigh like a standard katana. I thought they looked very pretty.”

Zeki’s excitement couldn’t be contained. He believed every word that Ymeno said, after all, his book buddy wouldn’t lie. Magnolia liked to listen too, even if she didn’t really know what was going on, she found it funny to see Zeki this excited, as it doesn’t happen often.

Ymeno didn’t notice it himself, but his usually neutral face was disappearing more and more as he talked with these two. Normally, he didn’t talk about his past, preferring to let those memories be just that, memories.

However, due to the constant dreams that he’s been having, and the excitement of the two in front of him, opening up felt easier than normal. There was another reason, though. He looked at Magnolia, her crimson red eyes specifically.

Those eyes are the same as the person who he was closest with. And every time he sees them, it reminds him of a time where everything felt easier. Who is this girl? It can’t be, right?

‘..Are you still out there, Muri?’

To be continued