As Lù-Qímiào listened to Chidi's story, she showed a rare side of her she rarely displayed: empathy. She felt Chidi's pain. Because she had been there. But for an elite warrior of the Shinobi Order, showing empathy was rare.
"Oh, that's... traumatic," she said, truly moved.
"It was at the time. But I'm over it now," Chidi lied. Truth was, the memory of it all still made him feel guilty. Guilty that he was responsible for his father's death. "You want me to share the details?" he asked.
"If you feel it's okay to tell," she responded.
"Okay, here it comes..." he said.
~~~
They had been in the forest. Chidi was ten. It was supposed to be a simple training day. Okoli, his father, had taken him out to learn the art of hunting: to read the wind, to feel the earth, to listen when the forest spoke.
But Chidi wasn't listening. He wasn't paying attention.
His eyes wandered. His feet dragged through undergrowth he was meant to tread lightly upon. His fingers fidgeted with his hunting gear instead of feeling them with hunter's intention.
As a result of not paying attention, he had stumbled over a root and had fallen, tossing aside his bow and arrow in the process. His father had turned back to correct him when something stirred within the forest's distant veil. Something swift. Ominous. Shadowy.
Okoli's senses snapped into focus like a taut bowstring as he ducked, pulling Chidi down with him, signaling Chidi to stay still and make no sound. Absolutely no sound.
The forest fell into a sudden hush. Even the birds stopped their chatter.
Then—a rustle.
Chidi turned sharply toward the sound. Then froze! His breath caught in his throat, his eyes dilating wildly with raw fright. The beast was just a few feet away from him, two golden eyes gleaming low with taunting interest. From the look on the beast's eyes, it would have attacked since, but something seemed to make it pause. And observe.
From the Beast's perspective, it had been watching them. Waiting. The elder was seasoned; his movements careful, deliberate. The boy-cub, however... reckless. Untrained. Weak. Perfect prey.
The beast, cloaked in muscle and silence, slinked through the underbrush with the elegance of death itself. Its breathing was steady. Its eyes locked on the boy. Every sinew of its body coiled for pursuit.
A low growl rumbled.
Panic overtook Chidi. He spun. And bolted.
Branches whipped against his face as he darted through the forest, leaping over roots, crashing through shrubs, breath shallow and frantic. The forest blurred around him. He didn't know where he was running to. He just knew he had to run away.
Then the beast gave chase: exploding into motion, swift and fluid. Trees blurred past. Leaves parted. Every bound narrowed the gap between predator and prey.
And then, with lethal grace, the beast launched into the air, a blur of spotted gold and black.
But before the final lunge could land, an arrow whistled through the air with a *thunk*! The shaft drove into the beast's back, just under the right shoulder blade. It yowled in fury, body twisting mid-air, narrowly missing Chidi and landing hard on its side.
It rolled, sprang up, its golden eyes now flaring with rage; the stuck arrow's shooting pain notwithstanding.
"Not my son, you bastard leopard!" Okoli's voice thundered with greater rage.
Chidi stumbled, wide-eyed and unharmed, stood up and fled once more without looking back.
The beast ignored him. The boy-cub was no threat. The hunter was. This was no longer a meal service, but a game of death between two predators.
Snarling, blood seeping into its fur, the leopard turned. Okoli stood several paces away, bow raised, eyes steady, a second arrow already nocked.
The leopard circled, its breath rasping, legs ready to strike again despite the wound.
It sprinted like the wind and leapt: a final burst of fury and dying will.
Okoli exhaled. The arrow loosed with a twang! It sliced through the air, striking the beast square in the chest. But at the same time, the beast's death-dealing fangs made contact with his neck as its flying body smashed against Okoli: both predators savagely crashing to the ground and tumbling over.
~~~
"And that was the last I saw my father alive," Chidi concluded, acting tough. But crushed within.
Lù-Qímiào knew otherwise. Lungs don't fake calm. But she gave him an encouraging smile. He's only being brave, she silently noted without judging him.
She knew he was silently remorseful. That he felt responsible for the death of his father. Even though his father had saved his life on that fateful day, Okoli paid the price with his own life.
She also knew something she wasn't supposed to know. Something personal to Chidi. She knew, from his sad smile, that the late Okoli was celebrated all over the village as a hero. But to Chidi, his father was more than a hero: he was a legend. And that was the more reason he felt his father's loss the most.
"I can only imagine what you're passing through without your father," she consoled.
He shrugged. "Well, such is life." Then he suddenly changed the subject. "You want to hear about the day the Boom-Stickers attacked my village?"
Momentarily lost, she frowned. Boom-Stickers? Then remembered. "Oh, gunmen."
"Yes!" Chidi affirmed.
"Go ahead," she urged him.
"It happened five years after, just less than two months from today, one night while I was sleeping," Chidi began. "Then, a sound like thunder, but different from thunder, boomed!"
The story unfolded in Chidi's memory as he narrated it...
~~~
"What was that?" Chidi rose from his bed, the fire in his eyes simmering.
The distant rumble rolled again across the horizon. Again, it sounded like thunder. But Chidi's ears caught something else—something sharper, foreign.
A high-pitched whistle. Then a bang. Then another. Louder. Closer. Each one shattered the calm like a hammer to glass.
He froze. His heart pounded. What was that?
It wasn't thunder. Not the kind that came from the sky.
His legs moved on instinct, carrying him toward the village square. The path was dim, the lanterns flickering like frightened stars. In the distance, firelight danced wildly, and voices shouted in panic.
He reached the clearing: and what he saw seized the breath in his lungs.
They stood like shadows forged in metal and nightmare. Strangers. Faces hidden behind obsidian masks. Cloaked in black. And in their hands—long, sleek weapons that glinted like predators under moonlight.
They didn't shoot at the villagers. Not yet. Instead, they fired into the sky: loud, shrieking cracks that split the night wide open.
Chidi's knees nearly buckled.
Weapons. Real ones. Like the tales. Like distant rumors whispered around the fire. Metal beasts that killed from afar.
Terror, awe, and wonder clashed within him. As the invaders moved with mechanical precision, his throat tightened. And as realization hit him like a thunderbolt, the word escaped him, breathless and raw:
"Thunder-sticks!"