A Samurai In The Snow

When I awoke, I was nearly covered up by snow. It resisted soaking into my clothes because of the cold, and my skin felt like stone. I did not know why I was sleeping outside, but I could not recall much of where I had been before going to sleep. I knew but two things, my name, and the name of my trusted sword.

”My beloved, lend me your strength,” I spoke, trying to brace the cold threatening my life. I pushed my being into my arms, feeling the heart pounding in desperation. When it got to my hands, the energy of my body shared itself with the steel, casting alight in the namesake. “Nastu no Atsusa.”

The outpost of heat from the blade huddled my body around it, keeping a stance of my arms tightened to channel energy into it that warmed beside me. It felt less to me like the summer heat the sword was named after, and more like a hot iron bar that could burn me if I was not careful. It melted some snow around me, and I could stand, still sinking into the packed snow below.

The first thing that took my breath away when I could look around, was the sky. I knew it to be filled with stars on a clear night, but with the clouds, it would only look filled with snowflakes, reducing visibility. Instead, I saw a giant red flower spanning the sky. It was some sort of lotus, and it did not matter that snow clouds obstructed it. It was bright red, glowing in the milky gray above, and I felt the chill of wind break my resolve to feed my blade energy.

I could move, though I was not prepared for this weather. I wore a robe, and another robe underneath it. My legs were bare to the elements, with only a wooden pair of sandals to dig into every step in the snow. My feel were numb, and I had to channel into Natsu again to thaw their cold snap. I needed them to get myself out of the snow. The flakes of white kept falling in the strange blooming flower of sky.

The horizon provided little to no direction, but a small bump ahead suggested a mountain, and I headed for that in search of a reason for why I was there. The red glow left an ominous tone to the gray light. I feared for my life over what it could mean, if the glow was to be there to help me see, or if it meant the coming destruction of this world from the gods.

The bump on the horizon grew slowly, but snow was no longer falling gently. Instead, gusts of wind carried a blizzard against my body, ripping at the robes that did little to protect me from the pelting snow. I had to call on my friend, through my energy, and hold the heat at the ready to withstand the shifting winds.

By the time I could see the mountain extend above, my life essence felt drained. I felt the cold take me, pleading for my beloved weapon meant for war to keep me alive a little longer. If I had used the essence sparingly, maybe I could have made it to some form of shelter. I dreamed of warm hands upon my face, and wondered who it was I felt as tears streamed out only to freeze on my face.

I set Natsu down into the snow, kneeling against the back of my friend for just a moment, before falling over into the snow. The last thing I saw was the flower above me, the lotus of red petals open in the sky, glowing an eerie red through the clouds. I smiled to be able to see a flower as my final breath left me frozen beside my summer friend.

When I awoke, I was nearly covered up by snow. It resisted soaking into my clothes because of the cold, and my skin felt like stone. I had no idea why I was sleeping outside, or when I went to sleep for that matter. I remembered only two things, the name of my beloved weapon, and my name, Chikara Jinsei. When I looked up into the sky, I saw a vision of a familiar flower.

”I’ve been here before, Natsu,” I said, channeling heat into my trusted sword to warms myself. I remembered the whipping winds and leaning up against my friend before falling to the ground again. I knew the way to the mountain was filled with blizzards that stole what precious heat I had left in me. I decided to instead follow the giant flower in the direction away from the mountain.

I should have dug in the snow, but by melting some of it, I found the ground was frozen just below a meter of densely packed snow. There was nowhere to build a shelter in the snow. I had to walk.

Winds picked up again as soon as I exited the calm spot of gently falling snow. I tried my best to hold onto heat, but wind did away with it just as quickly. The giant flower in the sky did not shift, only glowers, and did not move. I kept going in that direction until I came upon some bump in the horizon much closer, a small protrusion in the snow.

Delighted to find some sort of marker, I melted snow around it, only to find it move. I stumbled away, clutching my beloved as the creature stood, towering over four meters. The fur on the surface would make a good warming cloak, so I decided to fight it. It roared at me, opening three separate mouths. It was such an odd creature, but all I could think of was that once defeated, it would provide me fur and food.

The battle was, balancing my numbness of hands and feet with heating of Natsu, while cutting into the arms and legs of the creature. The blood it spilled onto the snow was black, and I had to steel my resolve to overcome it. I felt so out of breath, than when the fight was through, I only cut the beast open and crawled inside it to rest.

I woke up to the same red sky, petals in bloom to no flower at all. I studied it closer from inside the creature slowly becoming cold. I would need to carve off the furs and keep going soon enough, but the sight of the red lotus in the sky was breathtaking. The shapes resembled flower petals, with sharp tips that expanded with a gentle curve to form a leaf shape, vanishing into the gray of sky.

When the cold started to seep in again, I slithered out of the blood and guts to start the carving process. Natsu was not a good companion to shearing fur off the beast, and I ended up wasting a lot of the skin. Even with the fur, I still needed Natsu to warm me. Heat left me slower thanks to it, and I wondered if I should try going for the mountain again. I kept going in the direction of the giant red flower, but no landmarks stood out in the snow as the gentle sprinkle changed to blizzard winds once more.

At once point, my vision was so filled with snowflakes that I could not see the red above at all, just a vague light behind the gray clouds and snow. I trudged thought the blizzard, relying on my life essence to heat a memory of summer into my sword to survive. I feared that I would not feel that sun again, that orange circle in the sky I knew the sun to be. I had a memory of hands on my face, and the heat freely given from the star above. I missed that warmth.

I found myself standing in place, looking up with closed eyes. I needed to move, but it was too late. My feet were frozen solid to the knees, stuck in the snow. I wanted to call onto my beloved to save me again, but my hands were frozen solid into tight fists. When I reached for the handle, my right hand shattered into pieces. I fell forward to my knees, leaving my legs frozen in place. There was that memory again, small hands on my face, now accompanied by laughter of a child. Did I have a child?

I awoke in the gentlest snowflakes of the same spot. The red lotus in the sky was the clearest there, and I was whole again. The cloak I earned in a brutal fight was no longer on my back, and my clothes were clean. I feared being trapped in a mental space and decided to meditate, but first I channeled life into Natsu to heat myself and melt the snow to the cold ground of beige grass, wilted.

If there was even wilted grass, that meant there was a period of time when the grass was alive and well enough to wilt. That meant there was a time when the grass was green. I ran my fingers through the wilted strands, feeling them fall away at my touch. They had been dead for a long time now, frozen. The ground beneath was red in the light of Natsu, not brown like my home. I tried to push my mind to remember anything else, but I knew only that home was where the sun in the sky warmed me and where rain fell sometimes from the sky instead of snow.

I meditated on the small patch of wilted grass with Natsu upright in the scabbard. I thought back to before I woke in the snow for the first time. I knew my name, and the name of my beloved. The ocean! I remembered the sun rising over the water, waves crashing endlessly through the night, then a glimmer of light piercing the distant blue. It arrived like a goddess, spilling warmth from the first moments of a summer day.

I heard a child laughing behind me in the memory, but when I looked back only found an empty building. Water splashed on the beach beside me as if someone was running through it, then splashed up as though someone gathered up a hand of it and threw it into the air. I only saw the water, but missed the water to the snow of my current predicament. I awoke from my meditation and heated Natsu to melt the snow that gathered over me.

I decided to face the creature again, going toward the red flower in the sky. The fight was easier now that I knew what to do. I climbed into the creature to rest, then carved up a better cloak using Natsu more effectively and started heading for the mountain I tried to reach before. The blizzards cut into me, but the fur cloak and Natsu’s heat protected me. I faced the blizzards head on, controlling where I held my beloved to minimize the winds stealing my precious life in way of stealing heat from Natsu.

The mountains expanded higher than I had seen them before, but a swipe of another creature as the one I fought for the cloak caught me in my side. I lost Natsu in the snow, tumbling out of the fur cloak I crafted as the creature roared out with three mouths. I had to avoid it as it charged, searching for Natsu by radiating my life energy outward from my body. Natsu held a special spot in my heart, and I would sense where it was if I was close enough.

The creature felt upset, more angry than the one I found and skinned before. The fur was thicker and a cloak of their skin would give me a significant boost to retaining heat. I barely dodged a charge, expanding my energy out again while walking where I thought I fell and watching the big beast pound its chest. When it ran at me, I rushed between its legs, sensing a sliver of Natsu. I circled around as the giant hand caught me. I struggled out of the grip before it closed, thanking the blood of the first creature all over me being slippery.

I felt Natsu, stabbing my hand in the snow to grab hold of the scabbard once more. I drew the blade out with poise, and started the fight for real, trying my best not to carve up the skin of the monster too much so that it provided better protection from the snow. When it was over, I was barely clinging onto my life. I cut the creature open to rest, but the stomach I cut spilled out acid that burned my skin. I quickly washed it off in the snow, but felt my energy slip out.

I called onto Natsu again, feeling the last of my energy drain as I collapsed right next to the creature I just took down. I remembered the cloak that fell off my back. If only I had that in the fight, I would not need to spend as much life to heat myself in the fight. I grit my teeth and looked up at the red lotus in the sky, so still and motionless, so endless and so far. I closed my eyes hearing that child’s laughter again, and felt hands on my face so warm that I missed them when I woke up again in the gentle snow.

I followed the same path, this time expecting the ambush of the creature, and cutting it up correctly to upgrade my fur cloak. I also brought the stomach of the second creature with me, tried up as a satchel. I never knew when I would need something as volatile. I stood watching the mountain with the red tufts of the new cloak moving about in the blizzard.

I had to find some sort of cave and burn something to get heat. The winds higher up were considerably wilder and harder to gauge, but I struggled through it thanks to having both cloaks on. I hoped there were no other creatures on my path to safety, but realized that in such a climate I would have to fight something calling any cavern their home. I steeled my resolve finding an opening soon enough.

I drew Natsu, expecting a fight, but the front of the cavern was empty. The dark depths of gray stones felt ominous, but I had no time to worry. I decided to burn the old cloak for heat, finding the black blood flammable. The smell of the burning fur made made my stomach turn out, but there was nothing in there anyway. I warmed myself by the fire, always at the ready for something to arrive from the depths and attack me.

Once I was warm in the enclosure of stone holding the heat, I took a small bundle of cloth burning on the end of my scabbard to check the dark corners of the cavern. It was empty, and I breathed a sigh of relief, but knew the cloak would not burn forever. There was nothing else to burn and I would need to find something to survive. I returned to the fire to gather what warmth I could from the old cloak.

I slept, dreaming of that sunrise over the water, and someone running on the beach splashing water. I wondered who it was. I woke up fearing I would be back in the gentlest snow, but instead found myself near the burned out cloak in the cold of the cave. The snow outside was constant, and howled in the wind of the mountain. I had no idea where I should go now. Going up the mountain would be pointless, but it would give me a better vantage point on the area.

I decided to make it as far up the mountain as I could. The burned up fur cloak ended up as a black leather swath of skin. I used Natsu to cut it up and ate the burned scraps, finding the flavor horrendous, texture atrocious, but the leather was filling enough to keep going. I packed the blackened leather into my clothing to have as food for the way. I realized only after ascending half of the mountain that i would not be able to see anything through all the snow constantly falling, but the red flower in the sky was still somehow visible.

I tried to withstand the cold winds higher up, but felt my life drain with the constant use of Natsu. Not even the new cloak could hold my heat anymore. I scanned the horizon away from the mountain hoping for some sort of light or another landmark to stand out. There was nothing. I felt my body freeze still, and feared falling apart like before, so I just sat on an edge and let the cold take over.

Just as my last heartbeats tried to move blood within, I saw a piercing blue light stab the sky in the distance. It cut a pillar in the snow to the left of the red flower sky. I tried to remember the direction as my eyes froze solid on the mountain, clutching onto Natsu in my frozen hands. The darkness swam over my vision as the cold took my body over until all I could see was darkness. Then two hands of a child emerged from the dark with that same laughter.

”Wake up,” that voice said. “Wake up, again.”

I woke up in the gentlest snow falling, almost covering me. I had Natsu beside me and melted the snow that was trying to take me again. I went off to get the first cloak, pushing through the fight and carving up the cloak in a rush. I had a new destination to explore, to try to survive. I donned the cloak and slept in the creature’s warmth. I gathered the stomach testing the contents to find it equally corrosive. I headed off to where I saw the blue light stab through the gray clouds and snow of the red lotus sky.

When it happened, I was near it. The blue glowed with the intensity of the summer sun, but blue in light, and only for a moment. When I stepped on the marking it left behind, I felt myself thrown into the sky, tumbling through clouds as Natsu left my grip. I would not survive the fall, and hoped whoever kept bringing me back could do it again.

Another thing I found from the height I reached before the fall started, was a light in the distance. It was just one lone light, but the yellow hue made it feel like home, like the sun I wished to see once more rising over the ocean. That lone light was in a brand new direction I had no idea how to remember. I kept looking at it as I fell, trying to remember it based on the red lotus in the sky, and the place where the blue stab of light left a marker similar to a five-sided star.

I felt the impact on the snow, piercing right through the layers to meet the cold hard ground with a sickening sound to darkness. I opened my eyes for just a second to see Natsu in the distance, standing tall. I smiled. Maybe if this was the real end, someone would find Natsu and use it again. I smiled, closing my eyes, and felt the hands tap my face again, warm and small.

”Wake up,” she said. “Wake up, again. Good morning, daddy.”

I awoke with a start at the memory. I had a daughter, somewhere, sometime. I felt that certainty as the memory of someone running on the beach and splashing water filled with her face. I sat there in the snow, freezing to death already, remembering. I took out Natsu just in time to save myself by channeling life into my beloved, but not the only beloved. I had a daughter. I remembered her hands on my face, telling me to wake up, watching as the sun came up over the water, and her running in the waves.

I smiled, then grit my teeth with a new drive to reach whatever the light was in the distance of the vague direction in the snow. I got the cloak, bringing the stomach acid with me. I headed for the mountain, to fight the other creature, and collected both. I burned the first cloak at the cavern to make food, and descended the mountain toward the red lotus again, but did not make it in time for the light to pierce down.

By the time I got to where the marking was meant to be, there was nothing but snow covering it. I could not find the starting point of the path, but tried to guess and went off hoping to see the yellow light in the distance soon. I ate up all the rest of the first cloak, and burned with new determination, but it was not enough. I spent every drop of my life essence to continue, finding myself walking into a whiteout with determination, only to find my feet had frozen off a few paces back, and I was now walking on stumps.

”Please,” I pleaded to the red lotus above my head. “One more time.”

I collapsed in the snow, in the whiteout of snow howling around me and was buried in seconds. I saw the snow cover my eyes until it was just darkness, and felt those warm hands on me again, waking me back up in the gentlest snow.

I knew the way now, repeating the fight to carve the cloak and walk to where the blue light would arrive. There was no indication on the snow, but I spun slowly until the blue graced my vision. I walked over to where the symbol etched itself in lightning running into the snow, and plotted my course for the glowing yellow light I saw from on high.

I almost expected more creatures to attack me, but instead felt I would not have enough life to make it to the light I saw in the distance through the blizzard. I melted snow in one spot, and burned the cloak instead, eating the hot burned leather that turned my stomach to have some kind of energy to continue. I remembered her, my daughter, but nothing else of how I got to the snowy world with the red glowing lotus in the sky.

I saw it, the light I saw from the sky. It was rectangular in shape, still too far to tell what it was, but it felt so comfortable in a place otherwise filled with only red and blue lights over white snow and gray sky. I fought blizzard winds while maintaining the heat I got from pouring my life into my beloved sword, Natsu no Asusa.

I remembered my daughter naming it, so that I could always carry the warmth of a summer’s day with me wherever I went. Those hands, warm as the sun, have woken me up from sleep many times. I remembered smiling sometimes, and being angry other times. Occasionally I pleaded for more time to sleep, but the hands did not relent, tapping my face and mushing it until I got up much to her smile and laughter.

I shook my mind out of the memory to focus on staying awake to reach the light. When it was within reach, I saw the ocean through it. The sun was bright inside, casting a yellow glow out of the square onto the wild blizzard of snow I stood within. The opening was not large enough for me to fit through. I clung to the opening, holding my arms through it to warm them in the sun on the other side, then my feet. The difference in temperature was instant, but none made it through the opening.

I decided to look through the opening, afraid it would somehow close over my neck. It was warm inside, and it was outside somewhere by the ocean. I could hear the waves crash in a constant ebb and flow of the water over the sand. The sun was high in the sky. I did not want to pull my head back out, but did so eventually. I warmed my hands and legs inside one more time trying to fit through the opening in some contorted way, but nothing worked to expand the opening.

I drew Natsu, made it glow with heat until the blade started going red hot and slashed at the floating rectangle with the hopes that it would widen it so I could go home. The second the edge of my beloved touched the edge of the opening, the path closed, shattering like glass at contact. I panicked, picking up the pieces, but realized the force pulverized it beyond putting back together. I held a piece of the broken glass and looke into it hoping I could still see through it, but it was just a yellow pane of glass now, butting into my hand as I squeezed it in anger.

”I will find my way back,” I said, bleeding red onto the white snow in the blizzard that stole my breath. “Please, Nikkokuma. One more time.” I looked above into the red lotus flower over the sky, the endless petals of red disappearing into the gray of the sky. I closed my eyes and felt warm hands upon my face just like my daughter’s. I froze in that pose, with eyes closed to the sky, pleading to have another chance.

When I woke up, I was nearly covered up by snow. It was the gentle snow again. I thanked the sky for the chance, and made a new plan. When I killed the first beast, I took the stomach and packed pieces of the creature to cook. I made the cloak almost masterfully carved by this point, and ventured out to the mountain cave. I used the stomach acid of the first creature to beat the second creature faster, carving it up for stores of meat. It would be black because of the blood, but I could eat it.

When I got to the cave, I saw the blue light go off, but I had other plans. I stored the meat deeper in the cave where it was cold, and used the first cloak to make a fire to cook some and recover energy. I slept by the fire until it died, then woke up and ascended the mountain with cooked coal black meat at the ready to regain strength. The good thing about the snow was that it was water. I would never die of thirst, just of cold.

I saw a weird aura of orange light from a cave higher up, but when I got closer, there was a creature asleep at the entrance. This was nothing like the other creatures. Those walked on two feet and had powerful arms and bodies. This was something of an animal that walked on four legs, but nothing I had ever seen before. A blizzard caught me from the back waking up the creature which expanded out of the cave on countless furry legs of brown fur. I could not count them, but know it was time to leave as the circular maw lunged in my direction out of the cave.

I did see orange light within that cavern, but for now had to find my way back down to my cave where I could eat and sleep. I unpacked some of the meat, and burned fat from the second creature, seasoning the meat with the stomach acid before roasting the dark flesh over the fire burning thanks to the fat from the same being. It was nothing I would ever consider eating unless I had to, but the stomach acid made it tolerable.

I tried to remember any other food I ate with my daughter, but something about my mind was locked. I slept in the holding of the blizzard and woke up to a strange gentleness of snow. I ascended to the other cave ready for a fight, but the creature was gone from the front of the cave. Instead, I found a broken pane of yellow glass that would have been large enough to pass through on the stone, cracked into countless pieces.

I fell to my knees in realization that I was so close to escaping, but knew I would have died fighting the strange creature after the trek up into the mountain. I explored the rest of the cave, which had some glowing rocks that i took back with me to have light in my cave, and returned to eat and sleep. When I woke up, I gathered up the leftover meat I had and decided to move to the higher cave and keep exploring up to the summit as far as I could go on the supplies I gathered from the two creatures.

The furry brown caterpillar was no longer occupying that hole in the stone path, and I took up residence there, eating, and sleeping just like before. I was running out of things to burn, and decided to start cutting off pieces of the second cloak for it. I got used to the stench it created, and even ate the leftover leather dipped in the stomach acid for flavor. I was just about to go to sleep when the furry caterpillar returned.

I readied Natsu, my beloved, and had the high ground against the beast. It attacked, and I cut what i could but it got past me into the cave, coiling wildly like a snake. I had Natsu heat up so I could cut through it, but that act stopped the being dead in its tracks. For the first time I saw eyes on the sides of the circular mouth, and they looked human. I fought the urge to kill it, and set Natsu down as the creature coiled around the heat to rest. Much to my surprise, the giant caterpillar snake thing was calm, even after I cut it a few times.

I left the cave once it fell asleep and went up to the summit in hopes of finding another portal through, but there was nothing up there except high winds and clouds. I still saw the red lotus flower in the gray sky. I could see the full horizon from on high, and it was just pure nothingness from up so high and clouds. It was snow as far as the eye could see, and the strikingly red flower of the sky, so out of place in the sky.

”I’ll find my way back!” I shouted into the sky, brandishing my beloved Natsu up at the sky. I saw a flicker of blue light in the clouds for just a moment before I realized my mistake. Lightning called to me, and I saw it turning purple as it touched down on the metal of my sword. I expected to get shocked, but the lightning ran over the length shifting in color as it tried jumping out only to jump back into with another color of light.

By the end of the spectacle, I held my beloved coated in a lightning pattern that pulsed with energy. I called onto heat with a little bit of life energy, finding myself holding a blazing sun coating the surface of Natsu. I stopped giving essence and watched as the steel cooled in the snow and wind, from white hot into red. It still radiated heat, and I used that bubble of heat to get back to the top cave. I hoped the creature would also be happy to feel this warmth, but it was gone again.

I sat with Natsu as he cooled, heating up the whole cave in the process. It felt like an upgrade, even if it felt as though I destroyed my Natsu. I ate, and I slept, waking up to the caterpillar snake around my body in warmth, but not life-threatening. It was asleep near my face, and even if it looked scary, it felt like a nice creature compared to the two that wanted to kill me right away. I wondered if I had to go back again and kill this creature before it destroyed the portal in the cave.

I woke up alone, checking Natsu with a very small flicker of life essence casting it red hot in an instant. This was no longer summer heat, it was a heat wave at the end of summer. I was happy about the upgrade but worried about what the lightning did for the strength of my beloved. I thought to my daughter, the warm hands. The warmth of another was calmer than the summer blaze of sun. I ventured down to the other cave, finding it empty. The snow falling felt gentle down the mountain.

I had no plan after finding the pane of glass shattered at the higher cave, but circled the mountain with more heat protection now. I descended the other side, looking over the horizon from the ground level with less clouds in the way for any landmarks and realized a strange object hovered in the distance. It looked like a metal plate, reflecting some of the red from behind me of the red flower, but looked faint.

I ventured towards it, but it spun in the sky high above. I could not reach it unless I had the blue marker of light called down. I tried to remember the shape it left behind. It was a five sided shape with something in the middle, but I could not remember what it was. I stomped a five sided star under the spinning metal plate, and tried to remember the time I was thrust into the sky after stepping on it.

”A circle!” I stomped a circle in the center of the five-point star, and felt myself rise up instantly. I turned in the air just in time to grab the metal spinning plate, but I had no way to get out of the force taking me higher until snow blew a chunk of snow onto the marker removing the force pushing me up. I started falling, and grit my teeth trying to spin into a tumble. I rolled out of the sky, but felt my left arm snap from the initial contact. It was the price of surviving.

The plate was large and when I held it, but I could not support it with one hand. I called on Natsu for heat and realized the red hot sword came in contact with the plate which heated up just the same. I dropped both, burning myself. I put the burn into the snow instantly, but it was too hot to prevent damage. I sighed. When I looked over into the plate, there was a fresh cooked meal on it. I was shocked for a moment, then I devoured it as fast as I could. It tasted so much better than the black flesh of the creatures trying to kill me, but I wanted some of that stomach acid for the flavor.

I sheathed Natsu and bound him to my broken arm to keep it straight. The break was in the forearm and the scabbard was the only thing I had to keep it secure. I put the plate inside my clothing on the back. I looked behind me just in time to see another creature like the two before charging at me, but when I drew Natsu to defend myself the blade fractured into a thousand pieces. I watched it scatter right before another hit dropped me to the snow. I closed my eyes and felt warms hands upon my face again.

”Daddy?” I heard in my ears. “It’s time to wake up.”

I opened my eyes to the same snow eternity under a red lotus of the sky. The flakes fell over me gently, but I no longer wanted to get up. I closed my eyes again as the warm hands tapped my forehead.

”I’m sorry, Nikko,” I said. “I’m so tired. A few more minutes, ok?”

”Wake up, lazybones,” I heard another voice, angelic and sweet, older. My eyes darted awake in realization. I had a wife. They were both waiting for me. I grit my teeth, pouring life into Natsu to heat my body up and melt snow around me. I could do it this time. I could get to the portal in the second cave and get home. I looked up into the red flower of the sky and basked in the red light that gave so little.

”For Nikko, and Amai,” I said, venturing out for another time, the last time.

I fought the first creature, carved the cloak, carved up the body. The second creature was much easier the second time using the acid. I warmed in the cave, burned the old cloak while cooking the black meat to eat quickly and recover my strength with sleep. I ascended the mountain to the other cave, and walked past to the summit, gathering lightning into Natsu. I brought the red hot Natsu down before the creature woke up, and found the portal out intact, but buried under the furry caterpillar snake.

I pet the beast into slumber and tried to pry it off, but told myself I would get through when it left in the morning. I woke up to no furry caterpillar, but the pane of glass was no longer there. There was no pieces of it anywhere on the stone of the cave, so it was still intact, but I panicked in search, checking the whole mountain only to find Natsu’s heat waning from lack of life essence. When I poured the standard amount of it from before, my beloved blazed like the sun, burning my hand and scorching my eyes.

I saw nothing but darkness, gathering snow into my eyes only to realize they were burned out. I fell to my knees in realization that I could not wait for the creature to leave. I had to kill it when I first saw it, before Natsu was treated with lightning. I let the cold take me, darkness becoming even darker still until I felt her hands on my face again. They tapped two more times.

”Wake up,” I heard Nikko whisper in my ear from a memory. I got in late from partol, and usually slept in until noon, but Nikko had school and woke me up so I could see her before she left. I smiled, tears escaping my eyes in the gentlest snow of the start. I wanted to get back to her, to them. I grit my teeth and leaned on Natsu no Atsusa, my beloved, named by my most beloved, to protect my family.

I pressed through the longing, going through the motions of getting cloak and food, second cloak and more food, going to the first cave to sleep. I then went to the spinning plate, and drew the five pointed star to retrieve it, only tumbling through the symbol to get enough lift to get the plate and land safely. I went back to the mountain, burned the second cloak and ate a full meal created by the metal surface.

I set out in the night. I had to kill the creature or ir would steal my only way home. I got to the second cave, and watched as the creature crawled out on the furry clawed mandibles, holding the glowing pane of portal glass in the bad few, in the air. I rushed after it, trying to catch up to jump in, but it was much faster.

I followed the trail of the creature to the summit where I hesitated over gathering lightning into Natsu, but still did it. I planned to take the creature down with one cut of a summer scorch, even if it cost me my beloved sword. The trail was getting harder to follow, but I came upon a large cave I missed in my rushing about the mountain.

I walked into the large opening, finding another of the tall creatures waiting. I knew Natsu would splinter, so I made him glow instead, trying to scorch the creature’s eyes like I did to myself. It worked, but only served to make it mad. I dodged the attacks trying to sniff me out while looking for the caterpillar snake. It clung to the ceiling, but walked down when it sensed the red hot Natsu.

I wanted to be friendly with it, but I could not bear another memory of family I was trying to find. I blazed my sword into fire when it got close, and slashed, cutting the first four mandibles off as the ones holding the portal pane dropped. I jumped into the air heading right for it as it headed for the stone ground. I pushed everything I had into Natsu, bursting it from the inside, pushing my body from the explosion into the glowing yellow rectangle. I shut my eyes in fear that I would crash through it and get splattered on the wall from the explosion.

I felt hands on my face, and almost broke down, but then opened my eyes. Nikko was right in front of my face, tapping my face to wake up.

”It’s time to wake up,” she said.

”Let him sleep a little more, Nikko,” Amai’s voice said. I closed my eyes, then opened them wider.

”Good morning, daddy,” my daughter said.

”Sorry, I tried,” my wife said.

I sat up and held her so tightly that she complained about it, but giggled at the warmth. I wanted to say that I missed them, but to them no time passed at all. I was glad to be home. I kissed Amai and looked out over the beach where Nikkokuma was already running in the yellow sun over the water. I just looked into the sun and closed my eyes to bask in the glow of the warm star I missed so much.