He ca out of the house and looked right, left, and up to figure out what was going on. That’s when a man standing from a distance shouted, "Let none of them escape!"
Haji looked at where the man was standing when he heard sothing that sounded like gunfire, and people who were nearby started falling one by one.
"What’s happening?" He asked himself as he looked at the people who fell bleeding and straggling to get away, while so of the people who fell from the ground stopped moving entirely.
Haji took a step back and fell to the ground. His legs started to shake with fear.
anwhile, at the training ground, Reiko and Rica were. no one knew what was going on in the village, and there were a lot of people training than on the day Haji was there.
While training with Rica, Reiko winced as a sharp ache pulsed in her head. She stopped and said to Rica, "Let’s take a breather for a mont." She started walking to sit down by a tree nearby.
Rica followed her as she looked at the others training with curiosity and confusion in her stare.
"Hey sis. Why are there so many people training here today?" She asked while still keeping her eyes on the others.
Reiko looked at Rica and then looked at the others training and replied to her, "I don’t know? Maybe they train here all the ti, and I just don’t notice them-" As her head started to hurt even more.
She touched between her eyes and wondered, "What’s going on?" while she raised her face slowly and looked at the barrier around her.
Every ti Reiko goes to the training grounds, she always puts a barrier up just in case sothing bad happens inside it, and the barrier prevents all fatal damage taken inside it.
"...Is everything alright?" Rica asked, her voice filled with curiosity, while Reiko turned her head gently to face her.
She had not yet replied to her question. But wondered what was going on with herself that her head started hurting so suddenly while standing up from where she was sitting down, and looked at the other people training by.
"Is it because of them that my head hurts this much?" She thought silently while still looking at the others as she tried to hold off the pain.
Rica’s facial expression changed from curious to worried while she looked at Reiko, who turned to face her.
"No one else is using up my mana, except for Rica. Then what’s making my head hurt right now?" She wondered with curiosity as she turned and started walking towards her barrier when Rica suddenly asked again, "Are you okay?"
"I’ll be right back. Stay here, okay." She said she kept walking towards her barrier while she turned for a second to answer Rica.
"Then I’m coming with ya," Rica said, but Reiko did not respond to her; she just kept moving forward and focused on finding out what was making her head hurt for no reason, but her not answering Rica just made Rica follow her anyway.
She reached where her barrier was, she approached it and touched it, Rica, who was behind Reiko, was confused because in her eyes, there was nothing in front of Reiko and she wondered what Reiko was touching while staring at Reiko’s right hand which was the hand she was using to touch her barrier.
Reiko closed her eyes while touching the barrier. Suddenly, a green-blue light that looked like a long thread of wool passed by while drifting in the air. Rica still saw nothing, then more and more threads of the sa color as the last one started passing by as they also drifted through the air.
’The strings were being produced by Reiko’s barrier, and they ant that everything was alright and there were no threats inside it. These threads only read the inside and not the outside.’
"Then what’s making my head hurt?" Reiko wondered as she let go of the barrier, then she heard a loud sound coming outside the barrier, which was so familiar to her, but she was the only one who heard it from the inside.
"Hmmm." She uttered as she looked up at the barrier.
"What could be going on outside? Is soone attacking the village?" She wondered.
’The barrier blocked all sounds and any ans of communication, so there was no way to know what was going on the other side of the barrier without leaving it. And the barrier covered every corner of the training grounds, and it made everyone inside it think that it was normal outside, even if it started raining.
"Hey Rica, stay here and wait until I return," Reiko said as she turned to face Rica, who was still confused about what was going on with her sister.
"Where are ya going?" Rica asked.
"Just wait for here?" Reiko said as a part of her barrier opened up to allow her to pass through.
"Huh?" Rica uttered as Reiko started to move forward out of the barrier.
"Wait, are ya going to fin-" Before Rica could finish her question, the barrier closed, and in Rica’s eyes it was like Reiko had just disappeared into the fin air.
"What? Where did she go?" Rica asked while looking at the point where Reiko had vanished.
Back in the village, Haji locked himself inside the house to try and hide from the calamity that was happening outside.
More and more people were screaming and running while in a state of panic. So of them started getting together in groups to go and stop the people who were shooting at them, while the others were busy retrieving corpses and putting out fires.
Most of the people hid inside an old building that used to be the house of so noble who died centuries ago. Most of the people hiding in this building were kids and won who were pregnant or had already given birth recently.
"Who would attack a village during the day?"
A group of n standing outside the old building were discussing who had attacked the village and where they were, but they had no idea who it could be.
"Was the barrier around the village breached sohow?" A man nad Xou asked with crossed arms while looking at the others.
"No, at least we don’t think so," another of the n in the group replied as he touched his jaw and started stroking it.
"Where’s Reiko? She might know more about the barrier than we old n can." Zuo said as he looked at so of the n behind him. Then he added as he turned to face the n in front of him.
"Let’s focus on how we should handle the situation and protect as many souls as we can... speaking of souls, where’s Nanako’s son?"
The other n started to look around the group of children who were inside the building with the won, but one of them rembered that Haji was staying at Reiko’s house. "I think she is with Reiko?" He said as everyone turned towards him.
"Then where’s Reiko as of now?" Xou asked as Reiko passed behind them from a distance, but no one saw her pass by.
She was rushing to her house to see if Haji was okay because the mont she saw that there was smoke coming from the village, all she could think of was whether Haji was still safe.
As she got closer to her house, she found the baby dragon standing in front of her house’s door. The mont the baby dragon saw her coming, it quickly rushed towards her. Reiko imdiately noticed it as it was coming towards her and stopped while looking at the baby dragon’s neck.
The dragon jumped after her, and she received it with open arms while she started to look around.
"Who released her?" She wondered as the baby dragon shook its tail with excitent at seeing Reiko.
She approached the door. At first glance, it looked open, but Reiko didn’t panic; she stayed calm and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.
She felt relief on finding the door closed, and she released the deep breath she had been holding in ever since she saw the smoke from the training ground.
She assud that maybe Haji was still in the House as she took out her keys to open the door.
The mont she opened the door, she found that the house felt like there was no one inside due to the silence that was inside it, and without wasting any ti, she headed straight to the room where Haji was staying.
"Haji! Are you there!" She called out as she approached the room whose door was open.
She reached the room and found that Haji was not in it while she entered it. She saw that the daggers she had left for him were still where she had left them, and there was Haji’s footprint on the floor heading out of the room.
She put the baby dragon down and observed the footprint closely while the baby dragon slled the print and started following it out of the room.
Reiko quickly stood up straight and watched the baby dragon do its work. The baby dragon rushed while slling the floors of the house and stopped at the window where Haji had fallen earlier.
"Huh?" Reiko murmured, her tone curious as she went near the window.
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