Doodle Champion Island Journeys!

17.

Ume Inari opened a wooden box. It was filled with steaming cooked rice and paper seaweed in perfect rectangles. She tossed the content in the box up in air without hesitation and calmly watched as the rice and seaweed were reaching the height of the branches above yet touched none of them, while the group of athletes eyes the scene in shock.

"A-are you crazy!?" one of the teammates cried and attempted to "save" the thrown food though knew all effort would be in vain: rice was soft and could easily be scattered if grasped even only the slightest bit tighter or looser than the force needed, and seaweed papers would be blown away upon a small indirect impact in the air, a gentle breeze for example.

"Hold on, she got this," Lucky stopped them from standing up. Ume's face showed absolute confidence as if having the occurrence planned, and the feline believed that the one Inari that Kitsune talked so highly about would not disappoint by any means.

As the food halted to a free fall, a gust of wind picked up. The rice was circled and mounded into identical balls, wrapping each ball with a piece of seaweed to form dozens of onigiris. Then she continued to use the wind to gather them and caught them with her chopsticks so rapidly that her right hand was merely a windy green blur of her haori sleeve, arranging them neatly on a wooden tray that she pulled out without anyone noticing.

Ume placed the tray in front of the stunned athletes, smiling brightly:

"Serve yourselves! Don't worry about the seasoning, the wind did everything. Oh, and please do tell me if you want extra fillings or more food. I'm glad to help."

"Wind powers!?" the athlete before exclaimed, "I know there are elemental manipulators out there but at this perfection, making rice balls using wind alone? How is this even-??"

"Shhh~ Looks like you've spotted something intriguing about us! But my bad, we're not the Karasus. We are the Inaris," Ume put a finger on her chin, "And our secrets shall be sealed. Find it out yourselves."

"Fine," they huffed and picked a ball, "Not like I'm that interest to bug into anything that's not related to the contest anyway."

Lucky took a rice ball for herself, too. It was quite hard to catch the whole thing in sight, really. The wind smelled of salt and lilies. Its flows rolling the rice as if each had a life of its own, but that was actually just the art of a skilled, multitasking mind. Compared to Kitsune, Ume was on an entirely different level.

The cathlete munched on her breakfast portion, the warm taste spreading on her tongue. Ume was clearly watching over them, though her look brought more comfort than just holes on their head, like that of a mother watching her children, humming a soft tune, which later turned to a song of a language no one could tell. Strangely, it felt both familiar and foreign to Lucky, something she'd expect herself to know yet an invisible barrier of sort had prevented her to put a finger on. She got herself the fifth onigiri. Her head unconsciously played along to the rhythm. It was somewhat enchanting, the air felt so light of a peaceful land void of fear and arguments.

The fox was sitting atop a branch, her feet dangling. Whenever an athlete ordered for more food, she didn't showed a sign of hearing the request, she didn't move at all, but a wind picked up and carried another serving of onigiri in a greenish cocoon, like the one which Ume had showed up yesterday.

Lucky stuffed herself with the nth ball. She needed a lot of fuel for the day. Never, ever run with an empty stomach. Her experience was anything but pleasant. She was planning to take on Archery next before re-challenging Kou, and there's the saying that hunger made your eyes blurry. Though that couldn't stop her head to keep thinking about the huge difference between Ume and Kitsune: Kitsune was barely able to manifest the winds she created, merely using them as a booster for her physical strength, taking form of a gust of wind; while Ume could, well, Lucky found herself lost of words to clarify it - Ume made it seem so simple and easy, the winds were like her extra hands, she could even teleport with it!