Everyday was going great for Ayame. She could learn from all her brothers due to her stone being able to use all powers she sees. Although she is a disaster at using it, they keep helping her learn in order to get better... But does it get better?
There are some particular days when everyone leaves for missions and she is left all alone in the house. However, Ayame does not feel lonley, but instead enjoys solitude and explores the house, the beach, the forest and it's weird animals.
The forest behind her house is feared by everyone and they warned Ayame to not go in too deep, or else she can get lost. Keeping in mind everyone's words, she just walks by the edge of it, never wandering in too much.
One day, as she was exploring the forest, she heard an animal a little further inside. She thought it's something small and cute and stepped in to see it better. It was a small squirrel that was injured but got scared when Ayame got close to help her and ran away. The girl chased after the wounded animal but stumbled on a stone and fell on the ground. As she fell, her hand got injured and started bleeding. Thinking that it should be better to head back, Ayame dusted herhelf off and started walking back to the edge of the forest. As she walked, a drop of her blood fell on an unusual shaped rock and suddenly it started shining with magic symbols. She leaned over the rock and put her hand on it.
The next thing she sees when she opens her eyes are big trees, just like the trees she saw before, but bigger.. and blue? Looking around more she realises that somehow the stone transported her some place else. Quickly she starts looking for the stone that got her here, hoping to make it get her back.
Her search was intreruppted as a voice greeted her: "Hello! I am Kiki. What are you doing in this place?"
Scared, Ayame jumped back and fell on the ground. Looking around she could not see anyone.
"Up here!" Said Kiki.
In the air, she saw a small creature, looking like a human but her head was bigger and her eyes were so big that occupied half of the cute face. She flew down, next to Ayame, studying her with those two curious big green eyes. Her long dark green hair was as long as her height and she had a cute little green dress.
"I-I-I am Ayame and I would also like to know why I am here, but the last thing I did was touch a weird glowing rock that got me transported into this place. Where is here?" Stumbled the girl on words after accepting the small human is real and talking to her.
"Well... Here is on the bottom of the ocean and this is what we call 'Blue Forest', or what is left of it." Replied Kiki with a sad face.
Ayame stoped blinking and open her eyes wide, looking around once more.
"Never heard of anything like a blue forest, even more of it sitting on the bottom of the ocean. There is no way I would be able to breathe in here... What kind magic is this? It is incredible to cover such a huge area.." murmured as she started analysing.
"Indeed, it is somehow mysterious even to us, but somehow we all survived and the island looks fine, but we got turned into this small creatures and are unable to leave this place. Also, we never die. No one knows why, but we think this is a curse rather than a blessing." Explains Kiki
"So there is no way out of here???" Cries Ayame terrified
"For us, no, but for you, might be the transportory stone, which is activated by blood. Unfortunately we cannot bleed either. Come on, I will take you to the tribe leader."
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After walking for a while, the forest ends and they end in a large fileld with blue grass and a large stone temple was right in the middle. To the left of the temple, smaller stone constructions were alligned in a straight line.
Kiki flew towards the small constructions. Ayame stood and watched the majestic temple for a few more seconds before catching up to the small human guide.
Upon reaching the stone 'houses', Kiki is greeted by other small humans but the second they saw Ayame behind her, they froze. Kiki then sighed and passed by them, telling the girl to do the same.
At the end of the village, there was a different kind of house, standing alone, separated by the others. Kiki few inside, letting Ayame to wait outside. As she waited, she could feel the gazes of all those she passed by. They followed her and hide behing the walls, taking sneak peacks at her.
Not long has passed and Kiki was back with a small elder. He took a long look at her. After the prolonged silence he just said: "Get her!"
From behind the house, multiple wooden gigants arouse and marched towards Ayame, reachig their enormous wooded hands to catch her. She evaded the grips and kicked down one of the gigants.
"What are you doing? I just need the location of the transportory stone! I want to leave here. Just let me go there and you'll never see me." Shouted Ayame towards the old cheif.
"You are wrong. We will use you to get out of here! We need your blood to activate the stone." Said the geezer smirking to his grand plan.
Ayame looked at Kiki but she averted her gaze. She was shamefully hiding behind the tribe leader.
The gigant tree creatures surrounded the girl. She closed, her eyes, put a hand on the neclace around her neck and raised a hand in front of her. After a few moments of pause, Ayame opens her eyes and shakes her raised hand a little. Still nothing.
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As she understood there is no reason to talk to any of them, she decided to retreat into the forest. The gigant wood puppets followed her up to a point and then stopped as she continued to go deeper in the forest, jumping from tree to tree.
After some time she reached another end of the forest, but this time she saw the end of the island too. At the border between the sea botton and the ground there was a kind of glass to prevent the water from flowing inside. She got closer and touched the glass, scaring all fish that were swiming near it. Just from a touch, she could feel a strong magic infused in the protection of the isle.
She decided to try and search for the transportory stone on her own. After climbing at the top of a tree, she looked around, thinking where to start looking. All around the island were high blue trees but there was one building taller than those trees. It looked familiar. Somehow similar to the temple she saw in the tribe from before, but more majestic and decorated.
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On her way, she saw the wood puppets again, they were probably looking for her, but she evaded detection and reached the plateau where the great temple was seated, waiting for her.
"I never imagined that it's so hard just to climbs some stairs. After I passed the buttom half I feel like there is no end to this.." says Ayame gasping for air with each step.
At the end of the stairs laid a big entrance into a pretty empty room. Only a rectangular structure was placed in the middle.
Ayame approached the stone pillar, watching it carefully. When she was at a certain distance, it started emitting a light from inside, lighting the cracks on top, that seemed humanly craved, with a lot of straight lines and perfect circles, very similar to a magic circle.
The girl fell on the groung as the top 'lid' had opened and something shiny came out of it. Nothing was moving anymore so she stood up and wanted to see the shining object. It was a beautifull crystal shaped like a quarter waxing moon.
Something moved outside the room and startled Ayame. As she was raising her guard and watched around, her hand touched the pillar. This seemed to activate some alarm system: from the ceiling came multiple blades that stopped after stuck inside the floor near the spot she was standing.
Not finding anything similar to the transportation stone, she just avoids the traps on the way out and retreats at the foot of the temple.
While catching her breath, something felt strange.. her neclace was kind of extremly cold on the skin. Taking it out of the blouse, Ayame noticed that on the round silver setting whitch held her crystal, now could be clearly distinguished a moon engraving all around.
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