Michiko stood on the boardwalk, watching the waves lapping against the sand.
"Ah..."
She noticed the strength of the waves increasing. A dark shadow rippled under the surface.
"What is that?"
She didn't even want to know. It reared up, a hundred feet high, spraying a tremendous amount of water onto her. Now she knew. It was a Reaper Leviathan, it's four inky dark eyes shining in the sunlight. She had only read about these in folktales, who would know that it was real? She turned and ran all the way back to the village, kicking the warning gong, it's sound ringing out.
"What happened?"
"I don't know..."
The villagers murmured, talking among themselves.
"Little girl, what is it? You are the one who rang the gong, right?"
A burly guard towered over her, and Michiko trembled, for he was quite intimidating.
"There's something in the water. It's huge," she added.
"Hm. Show me," he said, unconvinced.
She led him to the boardwalk.
"Senior, what is that?" she said, indicating to the leviathan, now under the surface of the water, getting closer to the top by the second.
"I don't know..." he replied uncertainty.
He knelt down.
Suddenly, the leviathan swiftly went to the shallows, and pulled the guard underwater. Blood stains floated to the surface. Michiko gasped, backing away from the boardwalk, closer to the trees that obscured the village, in a state of distress. She turned and ran away, running to the village.
"A guard just died! Help!"
The other guards promptly whipped up and followed her.
"Here..."
As soon as she showed them, a guard was skeptical.
"You sure, little girl?"
She ignored this, as disrespectful it was to ignore a guard, she was sixteen. Not exactly the youngest girl in the world. The leviathan reared up from the shallows, and the guards paused in fear, then attacked them.
"Go back!" a guard ordered.
She bowed, grateful, then hurried back to the village.
"Look, there she is..."
"Where are the guards?"
"Perhaps she really wasn't lying for attention..."
She gritted her teeth and hoped for the best.
☆♬○♩●♪✧♩☆♩✧♪●♩○♬☆
A few hours later, the remaining guards stumbled out of the forest.
"Ah! Are you okay?"
Michiko hurried towards them, worried.
"...So the stories were true, huh. The Reaper Leviathan really does exist in this accursed world..." one said.
"Sixteen came, a quarter left. We will be taken by this monster. I'll start a slaying party." another said, slightly traumatized but weary like all the others.
"We'd better keep this from the public. They'll go crazy." the fourth said grimly.
"Kid, what's your name?" the third said, turning to Michiko.
"Tanikawa Michiko."
"Well then, Miss Tanikawa, can you keep a secret?"
"Of course, Senior."
The kind guard smiled, then addressed a villager.
"What was it? I'll have you know that those noises traumatized my children! They'll probably be scarred for life!" a woman demanded.
"That seems a bit melodramatic." Michiko muttered.
"Ah, a uh, shark attacked a fisher. We uh, uhm well, one of us came and uh, got eaten by the shark and uhh, a huge colony was attracted by the fish and uh, well..." the guard stammered.
"Our village guard got taken down by a flock of sharks?! Honestly, I thought our village guard was stronger than that." she said angrily.
"Sorry, m'am..."
Michiko slipped away. She should get back home. She had a little mole named Turtle that loved to be fed worms, she didn't want to disappoint it. She lived alone, at the edge of the village, near the seaside. Sometimes, she wondered what had happened to her parents- did she have a sibling?
She never knew if she did.
And she probably would never know.
A villager had told Michiko a story, her story. She had floated to the village from the sea in a basket, so nobody knew her parents. She was a miracle, and all the villagers thought of her as good luck. They combined the items they were willing to give to her or didn't need and raised her. So she was the village's daughter. She wished she could know just who was her birth parents... good or bad.
But she could and perhaps would someday.
Because with her in the basket, was a necklace. A small jellyfish necklace made of some unknown ore. It was beautiful. She wore it every day, and the ore was so strong that it still looked brand new. She could find her parents, beacuse of tiny letters, inscripted on it, were in a rune unknown to anybody in the village. Someday, she would know what it meant...
☆♬○♩●♪✧♩☆♩✧♪●♩○♬☆
"KYAAAAA!"
Michiko whipped awake at the sound of vivid screaming. She pulled on everyday clothing and headed outside, her mole looking at her wistfully. (She forgot to feed him.) She saw the kindly third guard from yesterday, looking tired and a bit annoyed.
"So much for keeping it a secret, we should have told the village not to go to the docks beacuse of a shark infestation." he told another guard.
"Senior, what happened?" Michiko asked, hurrying towards him.
"Looks like a villager found out about the legend beast." he replied.
The guards had taken to calling the Reaper Leviathan the Legend Beast. Michiko honestly liked just calling it by it's initials, RL.
"Senri!" another guard said warningly.
"What? She already knows..."
The other guard groaned, but reluctantly agreed.
"Okay..."
The guard turned to Michiko, then addressed her.
"I'm Senri Michio, a village guard." he said politely.
"Nice to meet you, Senior." she replied.
"Nice to meet you too, I hope you can help us. Now, how about coming to the beach with us?"
"Senri- You can introduce yourself, tell her about it, but this operation is way too dangerous!" he exclaimed.
"Oh come on-" Michio said.
"We've already wasted a lot of time, Senri- let's go, bring her if you must!" he exploded.
"No, I won't go, don't worry, Senior." Michiko said hurriedly.
But her curiosity of how this would unravel made her walk away, only to take a seperate, secluded path to the peaceful beach. She heard voices.
"Miss, what did you see?" Michio asked.
So the viewer was a woman.
"Guard, I saw an Reaper Leviathan. Call me crazy, but-"
The other guard held up a hand to silence her.
"We already know of this case. Tomorrow, we plan to warn the village. We tried to keep it a secret..." he said.
Through the trees, Michiko saw the woman nodding, understanding him and quickly leaving the beach.
"Where did you think this Reaper thingy came from?" the guard asked Michio.
"I don't know, but I think it's from Michiko's world." he replied.