The home was in flames. Everyone trying to find an exit that had seemingly disappeared. A little girl named Hirune, bawling her eyes out as she got into a crawlspace that she had learnt the location of merely minutes ago, not knowing this is her 100th time going through this.
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in the continent of Hispaniaca, on a lower state known as Luzca, in the small coastal town of Triste, we follow the heroine of this story, Hirune. Hirune is an incredibly despondent girl that has no family or friends to speak of. She has many mysteries behind her, and some of her physical features make the townspeople think she's a Wichuza due to her half-moony appearance of half black and white her from her roots, heterochromia lavender and gold eyes, and a pitch-black star mark with 4 endpoints that's roughly around the middle of her clavicle.
Hirune is walking through the town, taking in the lingering salty, yet bloodied smell of the ocean. She's always been curious about that smell. Sure, she understands the saltiness, but where does the blood come from? She didn't have time to think about it as she stopped at the local bakery. The owner of the bakery is the only person that seems to accept her. let it be for her being a loyal customer or out of pity, she appreciates it either way.
the owner turned to her, "Ah! There you are. We baked you something special today! New recipe, and completely for free." Hirune stared at him for a bit, wondering why it's free. He always charged her 25 cents extra she's sure of it. So, why's he so generous all of a sudden? "Excuse me sir, but did you hit your head?" He laughed it off as he gave her a loaf of bread that was glowing purple for some reason. "Well, this recipe is from very far out. We thought that a loyal customer such as yourself should be the first one to try it, and since we don't know if it's good or not we're giving it to everyone for free." She didn't really buy it but, it was all the food she'd get.
***
She instantly regretted trusting the owner as she barfed over some railings on to the edge of the beach. She took a deep breath trying to compose herself. Whatever purple thing was in that bread certainly didn't come out though because she's certain she isn't colorblind. She looked out into the ocean. Not really knowing why because she has to get to school in an hour or so, but it helped her calm down. Then she saw a fin. It was extremely rare to see any form of life in the ocean, but there she was, seeing a fin, specifically a shark fin. She stared for a while before realizing it was rapidly approaching her. Then suddenly the fin jumped out of the water revealing a human. Then Hirune's eyes widened recognizing the figure, after all that ocean blue hair was the only defining feature of her classmate kala, but why did Kala have a shark tail?
Kala lands and stumbles onto Hirune knocking her over, but Kala quickly grabs her hand and starts running. Hirune questioned following her but, Kala's breath was shaky, and she sounded exhausted.
Eventually they reach an empty alley, and they stop. "So... Why were we running? And from what?" Kala took a moment to respond catching her breath. "So, I was getting chased down by a lava lady because I tried to take the volcano artifact to avoid anyone else getting it." Hirune stared at her for a while. She was expecting her to elaborate but she didn't seem to catch the hint that she has no clue what a single word she just said means. Kala then looked at Hirune and panicked into the cobblestone wall, "It's you! The Wichuza!" She sighed, "First, I have a name and it's Hirune. Second, why do we use a different word just to talk about something that's basically just a fancy witch? And lastly, I didn't catch a single thing you said?"
Kala stared at her for a second. Then she whistled. The whistle was weird, it kind of sounded like a raven call combined with a dying animal of any sort. Then suddenly a crow that has 8 eyes and very fluffy feathers glided down and landed on Kala's shoulder. "Check her for powers." The crow squawked and flew around Hirune a couple times. Then it started to squawk rapidly. "Well...That's something, she says you're half-wichuza." They stared at each other for a moment as the crow flew away. "So, you're just going to ignore the questions? Also, WHA-" "la la la la la."
'Did she just "la la la la la" me?' Hirune thought before sighing. "Well, whatever you're doing we have to go to school." As she turned around to get on her merry way, she suddenly loss conscious.
Hirune suddenly found herself in a familiar place, a place she had seen far too often for her liking. A room with a destroyed dinner table that reminds her of medieval telenovelas, and chairs littered all over the room, a large pair of dark doors at the front of the room. The only source of lighting being a chandelier that has 8 golden flames around it and 1 red flame in the middle. Hirune stood up from the black marvel throne decorated with purple and red glass that she was sitting on. She then peeked her head behind it to see a woman with fully silver hair that has black highlights in it and purple eyes. She's wearing a black tiara with purple diamonds in it and is wearing a black short dress.
The woman looks up at her, "Oh, welcome back Hirune," Hirune's back slid against the freezing cold throne as she sat next to her, "Long time no see Namulenza. Have I died again?" She giggled darkly, "You coming to this realm doesn't always mean death. You just got knocked out."
Hirune sighed, Namulenza, understood that sigh perfectly, "Do you want me to explain everything Kala said to you?"
"It would certainly be appreciated," she said turning her full attention to her.
She cleared her throat before she started explaining. "So, the artifact thing is a little complicated depending on how much background knowledge you have on the magical half of this world, which you only barely understand death loops. But artifacts are things you can consume to gain magic if you're not born with it. Thing is that artifacts are very rare and powerful, not only that but many have entities living within them. Kala was trying to regain the volcanic artifact because that would let someone control, well, volcanoes and magma."
Hirune nodded understanding what she's saying, "So, did I get you and this realm from an artifact?"
"When you were just 4 months old, you we're crawling around in your backyard because your mother was getting a bottle of milk from the kitchen, and while she left you unsupervised you ate a small fragment of my artifact."
"A small fragment?" She said raising an eyebrow.
She sighed, "Well my artifact was shattered to smithereens... But that bread you ate contained another fragment! The owner of the bakery thought it was bad luck and wanted to pass it to you, so we got super lucky!"
'We got lucky from someone thinking they were going to be unlucky? That's ironic.' She thought before asking "So why does Kala have a shark tail?"
"Well, I'm not sure either. But you can ask her now. You're about to wake up."
Hirune could feel it, but she had to quickly ask one more thing, "Really quickly, what did me consuming that second fragment of your artifact do?"
"It gave you a small fraction of my powers, but it's up to you to figure out how to use it."
Hirune woke up on a couch. She looked around and saw Kala holding a spear, and three strangers standing around her in what seemed to be a secret base. All she could think right now as, 'Why couldn't she have given me pointers as to how to use her powers?'