A Flash and a Clamor

Midnight Confrontation
The sprawling settlements of the West Rukongai slept soundly in the thick of the night. Clouds had begun to cover the face of the moon, diluting its light and causing the watery shadows to embrace the world below. Above the wind and through the sky two figures shimmered into view, one closely behind the other, before disappearing again. A wave of their travelling Reiatsu rushed over the ground behind them, causing dogs to bark and one lone farmer on the path back to his house to lose his straw hat and stare up at the sky in wondering dread.

But the signs of civilization ended at the feet of rolling hills that marked the fringe of the wilderness. A silvery thread of river snaked through slumbering boulders, and here they came to a stop.

The chosen location was a flat meadow of tall aquatic grass, although now it was dry and the mud hard in the late season. The river flowed to one side, the forest edged them in on another, and all about them the hulking shapes of stone stood as witnesses to the two Captains who now faced each other.

The silence was broken by the sound of dying crickets and the brush of wind over hollow reeds.

“Well then otchan. Was there something ya were wantin’ to say to me, or were ya just spoilin’ my dinner date with those scrappers back there, or such-and-such?”