She slowly opened her eyes and let out a soft tired groan as she sat up. The room around her was small, it could only fit her bed, a small nightstand with a drawer and nightlight on it to the left of the bed so close it was basically attached, and a standing fan in the corner of the room opposite from the bed. She reached for the metal plates to her right and pushed them in to open them up and let in some fresh air, the metal groaning as it struggled against the worn-down concrete around it.
She stood up as she yawned and felt a slight airy bump in the ground, "I'm going to have to replace those tiles huh? That's such a pain though..." She shook her head and put on a white dress shirt and tucked it into a tan skirt before neatly tying a blue kerchief around her wrist. This kerchief was pretty trivial though as she no longer needed to wear it, but it was something similar to a memento to her. She then pulled a revolver with a fancy thorn design on it out of the nightstand and hid it in her cleavage, or she tried as the grip was still slightly visible. Luckily it just seemed like a wrinkle, so it wasn't too obvious.
She pushed the curtain which acted as a door out of the way and went into the kitchen which was connected to the mud room and living room. The only thing keeping the kitchen as its own room being not just the fridge, oven, pots and pans, but also a counter where she'd placed 350 merachi to buy a bag of bread. She grabbed the money and put it in her pocket as she opened up another door that led to a sort of yard, although it was nothing like that. It barely had any living room as it was walled off to the rest of the world, and it had the gas and water tank in it. She leaned down and picked up one of the sacks of rice and took it inside before coming back out and taking another bag off of the water tank.
She set the bag on the counter, which gave her a nice view of her living room which contained a vintage wine-red sofa with a small coffee table in front of it that held a box TV on top of it with only one of the antennae attached. She went back to the sack of rice and cut it open with a pair of scissors before carefully pouring half of the bag into a large container with a teal lid. She then rolled up the opening of the sack and holding it closed with a clothe snip and placing it in her bag before leaving her house.
She got up earlier than usual today as she had someone that she needed to give this rice to for a rotisserie chicken, and on top of that, she had to go to the bakery and get some bread nice and early so that she'd have enough food for the week. After all, she'd barely managed to scrounge up enough money for both of food and bills, so she had to work with what she had.
She stopped at a house with a chicken pen around the back and knocked on the door. After a solid 5 minutes someone answered the door with a rotisserie chicken in their hand. Hirune put the bag on the floor and started to take out the sack. As she did, the person chuckled and called out to whoever else was in the house that they owed them money because the witch was the first to arrive. Of course, the witch they were referring to was her as she'd always looked like the ancient evil witch Namulenza with her half black half white hair and purple eyes.
Hirune handed them the sack of rice, and they handed them the rotisserie chicken in a Tupperware bin. She took it and promised to return it once she was done as she headed off to the bakery. She looked at her watch as she walked as the streets had gotten busier, there were more bicitaxis, wagons, and people walking and moving about. It was already 6:30, she only had half an hour left to get to school. Luckily, she'd just arrived at the bakery.
She walked in and put the money on the counter, "All of the soft bread balls this can get me."
The baker smiled at her, "Would you look at that? Our number one customer is here! Here, I already have yours ready. And I know you said you don't like me messing around with your food by adding any extra ingredients but, I know how much you like sweets, so I added a little something into the one that looks a little purple that would make it sweeter."
Hirune took the bag and thanked them for the extra special treat. As she walked, she opened up the bag of bread and took out the one that was slightly purple then closed the bag back up and put it in her larger bag. She ended up finding herself leaning on some docks at a beach, she was surprised by the view of the part that separated the Blood Ocean and Catastrophic Ocean. Surprisingly enough, the blood just suddenly stopped as soon as it hit the harsh waves of the other ocean.
She looked at the loaf of bread and raised an eyebrow. She didn't believe for a single second that this would make the bread sweeter, if anything, it'd poison her. Though it's not like she had any other choice. So, looking out into the oceans, she took a bite out of the bread and swallowed hard. At least if she died from food poisoning, the last thing she'd see would be beautiful.
And it seemed as though her suspicion was right, because nearly as soon as she took a bite out of the bread, she dropped the rest of the loaf and started coughing. She leaned over the railing and threw up, yet whatever made that bread purple didn't come out. Her legs gave out on her, and she was left with the horrible taste of puke in her mouth, yet this wasn't the end of her pain as nearly as soon as she managed to stand back up, something shot out of the water right in front of her.
To her surprise, she recognized them, "Kala?"
A classmate of hers from school had just suddenly flown out of the water, but she looked different than before. Sure, she'd always had blue hair, and her eyes had always been an unsettling shade of orange, but now her teeth were sharper, and she had a shark tail.
Then Kala fell on top of her. She herself seemed surprised to see Hirune here but she seemed to be running from something or someone as she grabbed Hirune by the arm and started dragging her along.
"Hurry we've got to go or we'll die!"
Hirune didn't question her and just kept running until they reached a narrow and dark alleyway to hide in.
Hirune dropped down on her knees and started panting while looking at Ellen, "Why were we running?"
"I stole the volcano artifact from The Lady of Volcanoes, something lite," Kala answered simply then she gasped. "Oh, you don't know what an artifact is! Well too bad I'm not explaining anything to you you'd have to meet Ellen for that."
"Ellen? Artifact?" Hirune raised an eyebrow as she stood up, "Well I don't have the time--"
"Wait," Kala stopped her. "Karaya send one of your crows here! I need to know if she's truly a witch, not just that, but if she's consumed a fraction of the artifact yet."
Hirune raised her eyebrow again and frowned before trying to walk around her, but Kala just shoved her back onto the ground.
Then a crow with 4 eyes on either side of its head flew down from the sky and circled around her a couple of times before speaking, "Hirune! Hirune! Descendent of Namulenza! Witch! Witch! Consumed a piece of Namulenza's artifact just a couple minutes ago! Just a couple minutes ago!"
And then it flew away as if nothing had happened. Hirune just stared at Kala for a moment trying to make sure she wasn't drugged by that bread and that she didn't just imagine a crow talking.
Kala nodded, "No, you didn't imagine that. And also, you're coming with me." And just like that Kala slapped Hirune with her tail and knocked her out.
She slowly opened her eyes and found herself somewhere else, in a completely different place than before. She sat at the head seat of a long table with a chandelier hanging above it. The chandelier being lit by 7 red flames and 1 gold flame in the middle, all of the other seat around the table were neatly positioned to either side of it, and a dim red light came in from outside the many windows, each window lining up with its own seat.
Then suddenly a lady appeared to her left. She had white hair with some black highlights in it and purple eyes, surprisingly enough, for the color of her hair, she seemed to be in her prime, with her dress showing off her bodacious features. Hirune looked at her in the eyes and tilted her head.
The lady smiled brightly, "Yes! You've finally consumed a piece of my artifact! Okay, you're probably wondering what an artifact is right? Well, it's an item that appears whenever someone wants the ability to do something. So, someone wants to be able to throw fireballs out of their hands, boom! An artifact that allows that will show up, but then other artifact revolving around that artifact will show up. There are exceptions though, were if someone is powerful or impactful enough, an artifact containing that person's soul will appear."
Hirune nodded, "Well, thank you I guess but, where am I?"
"You're in the Fixed Forsaken Realm. Anyways, let me go tell my chefs to make you something," Namulenza walked off somewhere, and as she did, Hirune suddenly lost consciousness again.
Now when she opened her eyes, she found herself in the middle of a room laying on a couch, surrounded by four people, three out of the four holding weapons and pointing them at her. One of those three including Kala.