Chapter 16
Felicity had been so happy and relieved that Kiyoshi was all right. They had walked through the town with the man known as Chichiri for the day. They hadn’t stopped anywhere to eat, but Kiyoshi smelled every food she saw. Her eyes were wide and bright and her mouth hung open like that of a child with a piece of candy.
Felicity giggled as Kiyoshi ran over to a stand with freshly baked bread rolls and biscuits. The server laughed as a bead of sweat ran down his head and Kiyoshi picked it up to smell it. Chichiri happily paid the man for Kiyoshi and she stuffed it into her wide-open mouth.
It was warm and fluffy. It had a taste of butter inside, and she chewed it very slowly, swallowing the entire thing almost whole. She smiled and closed her eyes to enjoy the wonderful flavor and was soon poking her head into a basket full of strange wafer type foods. She picked up two handfuls and plopped them in her mouth. The wafer was sweet and tasted of milk and cinnamon. Sugar had been sprinkled into the food, and it tickled her tongue with pure delight.
She looked around and pulled a tan, leather bottle of a type of liquid off a shelf and swigged some of the insides down. It tasted tangy, but wasn’t very strong. It was a tad sticky, but mostly felt like water. She swallowed it and took a deep breath. Reaching into her pockets and pulled out a little gray ball. It morphed into money and she dropped it into the server’s hand. He stared on in amazement as Kiyoshi strolled happily away to other shops. She noticed a bazaar and turned direction to purchase new supplies.
Chichiri smiled but his smile faded at the sound of whistling. He dove at Kiyoshi and tackled her into the dirt. "What the... Get off me!" Tiny rocks scraped her arms, and she shoved the man off with a horrible surge of anger. She jumped to her feet and pulled her arm back ready to slam him in the face, when she looked to see an arrow sticking up out of the ground where she had been standing.
She stood there, completely dumbfounded, until Chichiri pulled her towards him and another arrow slipped its sharp end into the ground. Felicity jumped up into Chichiri’s arms and trembled. Kiyoshi looked around as everyone stopped to stare for a brief moment before screaming and dashing off with all their goods.
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Maku straightened his snowy white uniform and walked away from the body length mirror to his white bed. Everything in his room was white. He pulled a green bottle of wine off the table next to him and popped it open to pour into a glass. He drank it slowly, and set the glass down. He was still thinking about Kiyoshi.
"Sir..." A guard crept into the room and stood in front of general Maku. He saluted and bowed to the mighty general. "Kiyoshi has been located." Maku leapt up and quickly walked to the door. He opened it and paused for a moment.
"I’ll use the teleportation device. Get your men at her location as soon as possible!" Maku left the room and swept down the corridor, revenge quickened in his pale, gray eyes. "I’ll recapture her and make her pay for what she has done to my position. Maku stepped into a metal room and pressed a button. A purple light flicked on and he walked to the middle of the room. In a blinding flash of bright green light, he was gone...
Maku stepped out into the open town and immediately saw Kiyoshi sniffing and eating everything in sight. He shook his head and slipped behind a house. "What a primitive village this is... There is almost no technology, and doubtfully any electricity." General Maku looked around the corner as Kiyoshi stuffed her mouth with wafers and drank something from a tan bottle.
He looked up to the straw roof and noticed an apprentice holding a bow and arrow aiming out into the woods. He grinned and began climbing up the brown, unsteady ladder to his right. When he reached the top, he covered the boy’s mouth and injected him with a strange, yellow liquid. He passed out right away and Maku simply pushed him off the building and he plummeted to the dark alley below the house.
Maku grabbed the bow just as it was about to fall and slid the arrow into place. He turned and aimed it at Kiyoshi, whom was now walking over to a bazaar. He looked out of one eye down to the cyborg and slowly pulled back on the end of the arrow. It moved backwards with great ease and Maku held it in place.
He sighed as Kiyoshi almost reached the bazaar. He really didn’t have to kill her... He lowered the bow, but soon saw that a man accompanied her. He had light blue hair worn in a strange style, and a happy, fox-man face. Maku clenched his teeth and raised the bow once more. Taking careful to aim straight at Kiyoshi’s head, she fired and waited for the arrow to hit.
The strange man jumped at Kiyoshi and pulled her to the ground a foot away from the arrow. "Damn it..." Maku frowned and looked for another arrow. He rustled through the straw and managed to find one extra. "Yes." Maku placed it into the bow and pulled it back as he had done to the other one. He looked at Kiyoshi one more time before letting it go once again.
It flew towards her at an amazing speed, but that man pulled her away from it once more. "He may prove to be a problem." Maku jumped down the ladder and landed on the ground softly. He pulled a small lighter out of his pocket and pressed a metal slab. It slid it and the lighter grew and moved around metal until it was the shape of a tiny flamethrower.
Maku knelt down and grabbed a piece of straw. He lit it and threw it up onto the roof of the house. The straw caught fire and the burning spread rapidly across the roof. "That should coax her back into the woods, we’ll get her there. First, I must take care of that man..." The general smirked and walked off into the woods to meet his companions.
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