Hajime came out of the house and looked right, left and up to maybe figure out what was really going on that's when a man standing from a distance shouted, "Let none of them escape!"
Hajime looked at where the man was standing when he heard something that sounded like gun fire and people who were nearby started falling down one by one.
"What's happening?" He asked himself as he looked at the people who fell down bleeding and straggling to get away, while some of the people who fell of the ground stopped moving entirely.
Hajime took a step back and fell. His legs started to shake with fear.
Meanwhile at the training ground were Reiko and Rica were, no one knew what was going in the village and there were a lot of people training than the day Hajime was there.
Reiko while training Rica, her head started to hurt a little bit for a moment. She stopped and said to Rica, "Let's take a breather for a moment." While she started walking to seat down by a tree that was nearby.
Reiko followed her as she looked at the others training with curiosity and confusion in her stare.
"Hey sis. Why are there so many people training here today?" She asked while still keeping her eyes on the others.
Reiko looked at Rica and then looked at others training and replied to Rica's question, "I don't know? Maybe they train here all the time, and I just don't notice them-" As her head started to hurt even more.
She touched in-between her eyes and wondered, "What's going on?" while she raised her face slowly and looked at the barrier around her.
'Every time Reiko goes to the training grounds, she always puts a barrier up just in case something bad happens inside it, and the barrier prevents any and all fatal damages taken inside it.'
"...Is everything alright?" Rica asked, her voice filled with curiosity while Reiko turned her head gently to face Rica.
She did not yet reply to Rica's question but wondered what was going on with her that her head started hurting so suddenly while standing up from where she was seating down and looked at the other people training by.
"Is it because of them that my head hurt this much?" She thought silently while still looking at the others as she tried to hold off the pain.
Rica's face expression changed from curious to worried while she looked at Reiko who turned to face her.
"No one else is using up my mana, except for Rika. Then what's making my head hurt right now?" Reiko wondered with curiosity as she turned and started walking towards her barrier when Rica suddenly asked again, "Are you okay?"
"Yes, everything is okay. just wait for me here for a second." Reiko said she kept walking towards her barrier while she turned for a second to answer Rica.
"Then I'll be coming with ya.' Rica said but Reiko did not respond to her, she just kept moving forward and focused on finding out what is making her head hurt for no reason, but her not answering Rica just made Rica follow her anyway.
She reached where her barrier was, she approached it and touched it, Rica who was behind Reiko was confused because in her eyes, there was nothing Infront of Reiko and she wondered what Reiko was touching while staring at Reiko's right hand which was the hand she was using to touch her barrier.
Reiko closed her eyes while touching the barrier, suddenly some green blue light that looked like a long thread of wool, passed by while drifting in the air. Rica still saw nothing, then more and more threads of the same color as the last one started passing by as they also drifted through the air.
'The strings were being produced by Reiko's barrier, and they meant that everything was alright and there were no threats inside it. These threads only read the inside and not the outside.'
"Then what's making my head hurt?" Reiko wondered as she let go of the barrier, then she heard a loud sound coming outside the barrier, which was so familiar to her, but she was the only one who heard it from the inside.
"Hmmm." She uttered as she looked up the barrier.
"What could be going on outside? Is someone attacking the village?" She wondered.
'The barrier blocked all sounds and any means of communication, so there was no way to know what was really going on the other side of the barrier without leaving it. And the barrier covered every corner of the training grounds, and it made everyone inside it to think that it was normal outside even if it started raining.
"Hey Rica, stay here and wait until I retain." Reiko said as she turned to face Rica who was still confused with what was going on with her sister.
"Where are ya going?" Rica asked.
"Just wait for me here?" Reiko said as a part of her barrier opened up to allow her to pass through.
"Huh?" Rica uttered as Reiko starts to move forward out of the barrier.
"Wait, are ya going to fin-" Before Rica could finish her question, the barrier closed and in Rica's eyes it was like Reiko had just disappeared into the fin air.
"What? Where did she go?" Rica asked while looking at the point where Reiko had vanished.
Back in the village, Hajime locked himself inside the house to try and hide from the calamity that was happening outside.
More and more people were screaming and running while in a state of panic. Some of them started getting together in groups in order to go and stop the people who were shotting at them, while the others were busy retrieving corpses and putting out fires.
Most of the people hid inside an old building that used to be the house of some noble who died centuries ago. Most of the people hiding in this building were kids and women who were pregnant or had already given birth recently.
"Who would attack a village during the day?"
A group of men standing outside the old building were discussing about who was it attacked the village and were they were, but they had no idea about who it could be.
"Was the barrier around the village breached somehow?" A man named Xou asked with crossed arms while looking at the others.
"No, at least we don't think so." another of the men on the group replied as he touched his jaw and started stroking it.
"Where's Reiko? she might know more about the barrier than we old men can." Zuo said as he looked at some of the men behind him. Then he added as he turned to face the men Infront of him.
"Let's focus on how we should handle the situation and protect as many souls as we can... speaking of souls, where's Nanako's son?"
The other men started to look around on the group of children who were inside the building with the women, but one of them remembered that Hajime was staying at Reiko's house. "I think she is with Reiko?" He said as everyone turned towards him.
"Then where's Reiko as of now?" Xou asked as Reiko passed behind them from a distance, but no one saw her pass by.
She was rushing to her house to see if Hajime was okay because the moment, she saw that there was smoke coming from the village all she could think of was Hajime if he was still safe.
As she got closer to her house, she found the baby dragon standing Infront of her house's door. The moment the baby dragon saw her coming, it quickly rushed towards her. Reiko immediately noticed it as it was coming towards her and stopped while looking at the baby dragon's neck.
The dragon jumped after her and she received it with open arms while she starts to look around.
"Who released her?" She wondered as the baby dragon shook its tail with excitement of seeing Reiko.
She approached the door and at first glance the door looked like it was open, but Reiko did not panic, she kept her cool as she tried to open it, but the door did not open. She felt relief on finding the door closed that she released a deep breath she had been holding in ever since she saw the smoke from the training ground.
She assumed that maybe Hajime was still in the House as she took out her keys to open the door.
The moment she opened the door she found that the house felt like there was no one inside due to the silence that was inside it, and without wasting any time she heads straight to the room were Hajime was staying.
"Hajime! Are you there!" She called out as she approached the room which its door was open.
She reached the room and found that Hajime was not in it while she entered it. She saw that the daggers she had left for him were still where she had left them, and there was Hajime's footprint on the floor heading out of the room.
She put the baby dragon down and observed the footprint closely while the baby dragon smelled the print and started following it out of the room.
Reiko quickly stood up straight and watched the baby dragon do its work. The baby dragon rushed while smelling the floors of the house and stopped on the window where Hajime had fell earlier.
"Huh?" Reiko uttered, her tone curious as she went near the window.