• A young girl and boy run through the deep underbrush. The worn path is lined with ancient tree roots and bushes that scratch and slow the sibling’s journey to their destination, that are even unknown to children. The small boy stumbles and trips. His small and non-athletic body is not made for the ruggedness of the path that his sister, the girl, is pulling him along. He is small, but looks intelligent. His hair and eyes are dark, despite his pale skin, but there is nothing that makes him stands out. She scrambles to pull him before the beast that killed their mother reaches her brother and herself. The Kelsher.
    The Kelsher. The most evil creature in this world, no matter where you go you will hear of it’s evil. Whether it is the swimming water Kelsher that drowns sailors, the cave dwelling Kelshers that snack on inobservant travelers, to the most feared Kelsher of all. The huge monster, the rare, blood-induced insane, and powerful forest Kelsher, bent on only the killing of the few people whose souls might satisfy it’s unstoppable hunger. The Kelsher lives only to steal and ingest the souls of the truly pure and born without the spark that causes humans to commit acts of evil.
    “Dini-sho…please gets up! You must hurry up. The monster will get you too! I cannot lose my only brother and mother in the same night,” the small girl gasps as she hoists her brother up on his feet. She is tall and long, with silky, black hair, that is held together by a small bead near the small of her back and lightly tanned skin. Her bright amber eyes are sad and worried. She is tall, but anorexicaly thin, and very fast and strong. But looking at her confused glance you would know that studying and books are not her specialty. She listens to here if the monster is coming. To her it has no name, for she has never heard of terror this great in her seven years of life.
    The siblings run to the tattered remains of the village they grew up in. The monster had ravaged it before anyone had even known what was going on. It was miracle they were still alive. Everyone else had been killed. They were the only survivors of the Chapin Valley village, the Yon, of the Tromania territory. The monster, a Kelsher although the girl and boy do not know this, is stalking around the carcasses of the dead villagers, looking for the one with the pure soul that can satisfy its hunger. The twin siblings try to mask their scent but the creature finds them. As it slowly stalks toward them the boy, Dini-sho, is paralyzed by fear. The girl, his sister, picks up an old rusted spear and stands in front of her only living family member.
    She hisses to him ”Dini-sho… run…go into the forest. Get to a new village. Stay there. I will buy you some time. Run!” The moment she says to run he scampers away. He ducks into the forest. He doesn’t look back. His sister was a fool. She would die and he would live. Dini-sho had always lived by only law: take care of yourself only. The girl is holding the spear ready to die if it means that her brother will live to see tomorrow.
    She quickly observes her opponent, looking for a weakness. The huge beast that she has no name for was as large as the large, medicine hut her family had lived in. It had bright red brown hair that glistened in the light of the crescent moon. It had small black eyes that seem to always be staring straight into her soul. It resembled, in body, a large child whose arms were a foot longer than the leg. Its hair was mattered together in clumps held together with dirt and other naturally sticky substances. She realized she was no match for this beast with only a discarded spear.
    Suddenly an unknown person, of whom the likes had never been seen in the village, clothed in deep red robes appeared with a sword. He was tall, with tanned skin, broad shoulders and had dark long hair that he kept in a short ponytail at the nape of his neck. He held his dyed blue broadsword at the same level as his amber eyes. He lunged at the Kelsher with the quickest of human abilities.
    In this, world children with exceptional souls of purity and skills that surpass the normal are recruited to become the international police force, the Karin, which is responsible to destroy the dangerous Kelshers. Some places like, remote places in Tromania, have never had a Kelsher and so they no nothing of the Karin, Kelsher fighters. The Karin is trained to be stronger, faster and smarter than the average man, women, or child. They were unbeatable by other humans except against each other. They traveled the world destroying the Kelshers in order to allow others to live.
    The lung missed as the surprisingly agile beast swerved the robust lung. The unknown man then jumped high in the air to land a hard strike on the Kelsher’s exposed neck. The Kelsher knew he was coming…It swatted its’ hand in the air, like we would a fly, and sent the man flying into the house closest to the small girl whom had been mesmerized by the display of skill and courage.
    She quickly picked up the sword that the unknown man, a Karin, had been holding and decided that she would protect him to protect her brother and honor her late mother’s spirit.
    * * * * * * * * *
    My name is Iruka. I am a Karin assigned to protect the remote regions of the secluded Tromania, a territory near my home. I do not know anything about the local customs so I have been staying away from the towns. Bad idea on my part, because of this I was unable to save the village that was attacked a few days ago. There is only one survivor. I will now tell how this only survivor saved me.
    I awoke in a strange and small house. I was in a small bed, which I could barely fit in. When I tried to sit up a side splitting pain raced up my body and I uttered a stifled yell. I must of broken several bones when I hit that house before I lost conscious. Even my throat hurt. A few seconds later a small girl with incredibly large amber eyes and long black hair came to me holding a small saucer with a hot cup of tea on it. I drank it with out hesitation due to my overwhelming thirst. The moment I drank it I felt much better. My throat was noticeably better as well. In addition, I could sit up with out aching pains all over my body.
    “What happened? Who killed the Kelsher, that monster? I need to thank them. Also who healed me? Also you may call me Iruka.” I hurriedly asked, in Tromainian (which I should add is not my mother tongue. I speak Naman so I had some trouble translating what to say) and I began to get off the bed and suddenly an even worst pain raced up my body starting in my legs. I let out a strangled cry of indescribably, horrible pain.
    The small girl helped me back into the bed and then incredibly calmly stated, “I took up you sword and slew that beast. I ran right at it and just threw it into its head as hard as I could. The sword was also given strength by the powers of the deceased villagers as I helped avenge their deaths by killing it. But the monster was strong. It was weakened by the blow but not killed. I ran to the ditch where my elder brother and I had been hiding.”
    “There was an herb there when it makes contact with eyes it leaves the one hitten with it temporally blind. I threw it into the monsters face hoping to by some time. When blind and confused it thrust as hard as I could right in the back of it’s neck. It roared in pain but did not die.”
    “I scrambled up into a tree hoping to hide and plan for a second but it was not to be. The monster charged causing me to have to leap from tree to tree to have to avoid it. I turned and yet again thrust the sword into the monster. Hitting it right in the back of the head. Instead of reflecting back, I dug the sword ever deeper. Finally, the monster fell its life and blood on my hands.
    My mother was the local healer and I healed you. This is my home.” There was nothing about her that hinted she was lying, any one could see it her eyes. She was not bragging or even taking pride in what she had done. She looked sad and disappointed. Her eyes were filled with the same loneliness that haunted the eyes of some of the Karin.
    “I’m all alone now. There is no one else you can talk to if you don’t believe me,” she stated with almost no emotion. There was no emotion in her voice but in her eyes, there was a sadness I had never even imagined possible.
    “You should sleep now. You need to heal faster and you will if you sleep. I will get you… Iruka, a sleeping potion to make it deeper and better for healing. I’ll be right back.” She left the room and went into a smaller room off to the left.
    I was amazed. A young girl, about six or seven, being so independent and honor-filled that she won’t allow herself to cry and mourn her family and village and protect her lousy guest whose job was to have protect them and failed. I was amazed by her sensibility and saddened by it. A girl her age should not be like this. If I had been her, I would have been crying my eyes out.
    When she returned I inquired of her” What’s your name?” as she handed me a warm bubbly drink that I quickly drowned.
    “Go to sleep. My name is Kimimi-Aida of the Yon Clan. You may call me just Kimi through.” She replied. I heard those last words before I drifted into unconsciousness.

    Chapin valley of Tromania forests, Day 38 of the Year of Euphoria of the Bentri Calendar

    It was a small little ordinary wooden cottage. Almost picturesque with a thatched roof, a small flowing river going past the small one-floor cottage with various flower-beds along the stone path leading into the house. It looked beautiful and yet something was undeniably wrong with this beautiful picture. Suddenly it was all to clear.
    “Yaaaaahhhhhhhhh!” the excited bawl pierced the early morning air. Inside the small cabin was a young man, in his late twenties, and rather bad and inexperienced healing girl with determined eyes that rivaled even the greatest of warriors. The man was tall with lightly tanned skin, observant amber eyes, and long black hair, that always getting in his face, when not tied up. Dressed in red robes with strange lettering bordering the cuffs and ends, his hair was tied in a small ponytail in the nape of his neck and the tip of it only ended at the tip of his broad shoulders.
    A more unlikely pair would never be found anywhere.
    The girl was small for her age and she was barely seven. She had long black hair kept back with a yellow headband a few chunks of the hair were kept in a small side ponytail, that was held together using jade beads. She had sad, yet resolute eyes that gave her the appearance of knowing the inconsolable sadness of seeing all the people and things that you hold dear being taken from you in one foul swoop. She wore a small summer dress as she dressed the man’s, Iruka’s, wound.
    “Please don’t yell. It makes this job even harder than it even already is for me.” The small girl said with a quiet tone of voice that could probably silence even the end of time if she so said to. “I’m not very good at healing so even dressing this simple wound is a challenge.”
    “Fine…” the Iruka stated with an obvious edge of dislike to having to keep quiet when in pain. Nevertheless, he could not complain because this small girl had saved both of their lives.
    She then continued to clean and dress the wound on his leg. She took such care in making sure it was prefect and done just right. “Okay that is it. Iruka just don’t walk too much today, that means not leaving the village limits. Tomorrow you should be able to leave. Also, don’t go into the deep forests where there are no paths. Any one who does doesn’t live in those forests.”
    “Okay… but hey Kimi do you have any maps or books that can tell where I am so that I can figure out where I am. I’m heading out tomorrow.” Iruka inquired.
    “Sure, but I can’t read them so I don’t know if any of the books we have will have what you need.” Kimi answered after a moment’s hesitation. She walked in to a small cupboard and pulled out a few books and some papers.
    “Um… here I hope that these can help. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Feel free to read, if you can or go for a walk just be here in four hours time for dinner.” Kimi stated as she pulled on her cloak and went out the door.
    Iruka began to read and thought to himself, “I wonder how that girl can keep her composure so well after the death of her mother, father and brother. Well I think she had a brother, she’s mentioned him a few times, but I don’t even know his name. I wonder what I should do through. I can’t leave a little girl all by herself in a village full of the corpses of her family, and friends.”
    “Maybe I should take her back with me to Grandmaster. He’d like to meet a girl like this. Kimi has natural ability to be a great Karin. I think that I might try to take her back to Mt. Kaki with me to meet the grandmaster.”
    He spent the next hour trying to find a map in one of the books and he eventually found one. After studying it for the next hour and prepared his supplies for tomorrow’s journey he decided to take the walk that Kimi had suggested. As he walked he could feel the pain in his leg. It had been deeply cut by the rocks and rubble in the remains of the house he had been crashed into when fighting the forest Kelsher.
    The forest along the path was beautiful. The sky was not seen through the green canopy that covered the forest creating a twilight glow that encompassed this part of the forest. There was underbrush but little of it as most, had been taken to be burned years ago during hard winters. There were few animals besides the squirrels and birds, but of these there was abundance. In ten minutes, he had seen more birds of different species than even after his four years of traveling the world. In this place where horrifying damage and death had come there was still beauty and life and no matter what, because of these birds there would always be.
    It was spring. The birds and squirrels were active than they were normally. It also meant that the trees were a bloom with flowers of all colors, sizes, and variations and wild berries and fruits lined the trees.
    Iruka reached up and grabbed a handful of wild cherries and walked down the forest’s dirt path occasionally eating one of the cherries he had procured. As he walked, he came upon the same stream that ran past the cottage, albeit upstream of the house. Here the river was much faster and swifter than back at the cottage. He sat and just rested a while. His leg was killing him. It wasn’t infected but it hurt a lot due to the swelling the cut had created.
    As Iruka sat he swore that he heard someone yell far away, but he just shoved away the notion. There was no one there but the young girl, Kimimi-Aida, and himself. He stayed sitting just soaking in the peace and quiet holding the feeling that came with it close to him. Moments like these were infrequent and far between for the Karin. Suddenly a scream of terror punched through the quiet.
    The girl, Kimi, was caught in the deep center of current! She went right past him and continued down the harsh river’s path. She screamed again. Caught in the river’s deepest current she struggled to keep her head aloft of the river. Iruka ran with the river being able to just keep up with the small child’s quick movement through the water. He grabbed a large sturdy branch of a tree and held it in his hands. Iruka held it out to the center of the river near the girl. She tried to grab it but her wet hands kept slipping on the wood.
    As Kimi tried to grab the branch Iruka saw the approaching rapids. They were huge. Gigantic sprays of white foam traveling faster than the swift water that traveled through rocks and the narrow passage of water and at the very end of the rapids was a powerful end of water going straight vertically down, a waterfall. If the girl even survived the rapids, she would be killed any way by the waterfall.
    Kimi too saw this and her successive tries to grab the branch became even more rapid. Yet, she still could not grab the branch. As her doom lurched even closer and closer the fear of her, own death showed in her eyes. The fear that gripped her and could end up destroying any hope of ever grab the branch. Kimi began to just attack the limb of the tree in order to grab it.
    Iruka saw her fear and jumped into the river. He swam out to the small afraid girl. He grabbed her with one arm and held her close to him and then began try to beat the current. The water was thick, dense, and never relenting. With one leg injured and holding the small girl it was even harder to get out of the pressure of that the water created. Iruka struggled to kick and he began to see less of a distance between him and shore.
    Suddenly Iruka’s body crashed into a large rock. Holding Kimi tightly in his arms Iruka used the rock as an anchor to make it easier to swim through the hard rapids. The rock was watery and slippery and the river water constantly bombarded it. The water threatened to separate Iruka’s hand from the only anchor he and Kimi had. He launched himself from it propelling him far away from the rock and from the center of the current. He slowly began to swim back towards the shore.
    He continued the hard swimming and until he could stand and not be pulled back into the current by its force. He went up onto the shore and lay down exhausted. Kimi had fainted he saw. When she was asleep, she looked so tiny and fragile like any other girl her age should be. Kimi was a seven-year-old girl and fate had teased and tried to destroy her for nothing. Iruka realized that she needed to come with him. She was still a child. She would die without the help and guidance of others. There was no future for the girl here anyway; at least that was what he believed. Iruka would soon learn that there was more to the girl then met the eye. He would try to get Kimi into the Karin apprentice selection process.
    He picked her up very gently and began to carry her back to the cottage. Kimi needed sleep. This was not a good day for her, not with nearly dieing and all.
    When they had nearly gotten back to the cottage, Kimi awoke and her first thought was only that Iruka would be nice to have as a father. He was gentle, kind, and a good worker. He would make a great father if he wasn't already one. He carried her back to the cottage with such care and kindness. He had even risked his own life to save her. Kimi then proceeded to fall back into her slumber in his strong, caring arms. Right before she fell asleep, her last thoughts were if I ever meet my own father I hope that he is like Iruka.
    When Iruka reached the cottage, he laid her on her bed and then prepared extra supplies for tomorrow and rekindled and fed the fire. Iruka then fell asleep.

    Kimi’s home, Day 39 of the Year of Euphoria Bentri Calendar

    The morning came early with a rushed dew on the wild grass still wet with dew as the soon to warm sun just rising above the mountain peaks in the distance. The air was light and there was nothing suturing in the morning calm. Back at the picturesque, the quiet and quick movements of young Kimi collecting water and firewood for the day greet the rising sun. Inside I, Iruka, am just awaking.
    “Yawn,” I murmur to myself as I pulled on my boots. I have only planned to grab a hurried breakfast then head out to the Karin headquarters on the Ramana, Bentri and Naman borders. Ramana is a small territory but with lots of trade and rare items, the small area warrants much respect from its larger neighbors. Bentri is a rich territory that is near the ocean of the large territory that the Karin protects. Naman, my mother territory, is one of the most influential territories in the land. We’d also have to pass through Romainia which was small but had good trading and skilled diplomats. I finished lacing my boots and went outside to look for Yon clan member, Kimi-Aida.
    “Kimi! Kimi!” I called out into the slow winds that accompanied the early morning. The small girl rounded the corner of the cottage and came into view. “I need to leave now Kimi, but it isn’t safe for you be here by yourself. Therefore, I’m going to take you with me to the leader of my organization, the Karin. Go and pack a small bag of supplies. Okay?” I inquired of the young, serious child.
    “Yes sir,” Kimi answered quietly with her head facing down. She went quietly into the cottage and came out only a few seconds later clutching a small knapsack and surprisingly enough a long, thin, but well designed metal sword.
    Swords were an expensive and rare item to civilians. Karin automatically received swords or whatever weapon that they were best at, at the end of their training. Even then, most Karin didn’t have swords or had to help pay for themselves or in some cases buy them for themselves. Swords were expensive due to the lack of pure enough metal to forge the powerful weapons. Swords that existed outside of the Karin were stolen and than used by the new Karin. The few swords left belong to small families that have managed to hide the swords sword raids hundred of years of go or those bought over the black market for millions of seritsi. The few swords left showed that the family had once had power and respect even if they have none now.
    Any sword of good quality could have easily gotten this girl and any family she may have had into the greatest and most luxurious homes in the largest cities in all of the Trom, short for Tromania, Bentri, or Naman. I thought this through as we walked through the long endless twilight forest of Tromania, as the rest of the world calls it.
    On the first two days, we walked without anything happening. We slept outside under the trees and nature. Around the end of the third day, nearly dusk, we came to a small village on the border of Trom and Naman.
    “Are you coping well?” I inquired of young Kimi-Aida, “So far you haven’t said a word.” She just looked up at me with her large, dark amber, and serious eyes, eyes that betrayed no emotion. She nodded slightly, at least I think she did, she might have not.
    “We’re just going to cross the border into Naman and there’s a good inn there. Well, actually my parents own it so I’m love going there. I never get to see them otherwise. Come on if we hurry we can get there within a half hour. Let’s run!” With that, I began to run as fast as I could, which is a lot faster than most people can. Kimi too tired to sprint just kept on walking.
    I soon saw that she wasn’t following and I ran back to where she was. She was trying to keep up but she was young and tired. I picked her up, placed her on my shoulders, and again began to run. She was soon calmly breathing and I realized that she was sleeping. When we reached the inn in Naman I walked in with Kimi still on my back.
    “The prodigal son returns!”
    “Iruka! Good to see you mate!”
    “Who’s that with you Iruka?”
    “Ah, my son what is new in the world of the Karin.”
    “Hey Sonnie, what’s new in the Bentri?”
    Friends, family, neighbors and more were greeting me and always asking who young Kimi was. My own mother even asked if she was my daughter. I quickly answered in the negative, but to my mother I answered so quickly I was surely guilty.
    “Hey mum, I need two rooms for the night. One for young Kimi here and one for me, we’ve been traveling all day so she’s pretty tired.” I changed the subject.
    “Well duh, I can see that but where’d the girl come from?” my mum pierced me with only a single glance.
    “I’m going to try to get her a place in the apprentice trials. She has some real skills. They’re due to start in a couple of months. I’ll tell you more later,” I said. I didn’t want the whole town to know a kid had saved me.
    “ Oh mother of the goddess! This poor child… Come along now and lets get here into bed. Poor, poor girl, such a nice looking girl too. But the goddess must have had a reason for it. It will make her stronger by far than the Karin whom have never experienced the loss of loved ones due to the monster that the other goddess breathed life into.” My mother, the only pious person related to a Karin. Most Karin tell horror stories of the battles they’ve fought that could even destroy even a priestess’s faith in the goddesses. I, like almost of my peers in the Karin Organization have lost any sense of god, goddess, deity, or any thing like that, that we may have ever had, not that I’d ever tell my mother that. However, startling enough, every single Karin believes in the devil.
    I carried the small Yon clan girl into a small room and laid her down on a bed. My mother handed me the key to my room and I left to get to my room. I lay down and began to think. What am I going to say to Grandmaster? Realizing that thinking about it would stop me from sleeping I decided that thinking wasn’t a good option. I went downstairs to have dinner. My mum placed a large bowl of Nikionisla soup. Creamy and thick with chicken, beef, beets, carrots, leeks, milk, and a different assortment of herbs and spices every time to create a different flavor in every bite.
    “Don’t forget to praise the goddess before you eat and ask her to keep that girl even through most Troms don’t believe in the Goddess. Barbarians!” I faked a quick blessing and quickly dug in. Afterwards I stayed in the tavern with the locals, something I haven’t done in years since the Nat incident. Well past midnight I went to sleep totally drunk.
    * * * * * * * * * * *
    I awoke to the sounds of train coming into the station. The loud rumbling and high-pitched screech of the whistle, and I rapidly put on my Karin robes. The robes of blood-spilled pendant it is called, by some of the local Namans and Troms, due to the red shades of the cloth. Some rumor about the blood that ancient Karin spilled of innocents in order to become more powerful. That is just nonsense through, even in the very beginning the Karin have worked to protect others.
    I ran down to the tavern to see if there was something to still my knife-like headache. To my surprise, I saw Kimi-Aida at table, I’d totally forgotten all about her.
    “Ah Iruka… you’re finally up. Miss Aida here woke up at the same time I did. She even helped my make breakfast and do the chores. It makes me wish that I had a daughter. To bad that I only had six sons, but she never spoke much to me. Just ‘yes mam’, ‘no mam’, thank you mam’.”
    “Oy” I was able to make out, barely. Why, oh why, did I drink so much last night?
    “Aren’t you a little ray of sunshine mister… here, you be drinking this herbal tea. It’ll get you out of any slump.” I took nice long drink before spitting it all out all over my front.
    “This tastes like lemon juice!”
    “It is lemon juice. No need to get angry. It got you out of your slump and now your awake, so no whining mister.” Kimi covered her face with her hand. Smiling small giggles could be heard as she ate her breakfast.
    “Well at least some good came out of my disgusting drink,” I said.
    I left the inn and tavern at noon with Kimi in tow, and went to the train station to buy our tickets to Kaki Mountain. To the Grandmaster of the Karin, to all of those trying to become Karin, to all of the criticisms that follow the smaller of the Karin-in-training and all else that goes on there.
    To the secret school of Karin that lays hidden in the mountains. To a place that ends childhoods early and destroys any belief in a greater power besides the devil and his evil works that are here to destroy it. To the place where ordinary people try to end the suffering of others, through death ancient creatures that create torment and pain.
    To Kimi’s new and undecided destiny that only, she can choose.