The Great White Fox

Chapter 3: Not So One and Oni

The Traveler ran and ran, like the wind. Still somewhat close to the city, the storm hadn't quite picked up yet. They didn't get far though, before they heard a familiar voice. 

Behind them, napping against a tree, a certain someone woke up at the sound of someone running by, and was clamoring to pull themselves to their feet, calling out "Hey hey, wait up!". The large man ran after The Traveler, catching up after a short period of running. "Hey, where are you rushing off to huh? You... do remember me right? The One and Oni? Arataki Itto- hey you kind of got that serious look on your face. Take it whatever you're running off to do is pretty serious!"

The Traveler eventually stopped to catch their breath, turning to look at the Oni. "On a mission I guess, off to investigate something that might be causing the storm. Or, well, not sure what exactly I'm looking for, but I was told to investigate an island." They took out their map, and showed it to him, pointing at where the island was.

Itto leaned in to look at the map. "An island huh... you mean... yeah yeah, i've been there before. That was years ago though, wasn't much to see. I remember it was kinda barren, kinda flat... it had a little shrine of some sort on it, but that had eroded away. Who knows what state the place is in today, I doubt anyone went out and fixed the thing up."

The Traveler tried to imagine what any of what was just said might have to do with their search, but something else clicked in their mind instead. "Wait, you've been to the island? Could you show me where it is?"

The Oni perked up and puffed out his chest, planting his fists on his hips with a big grin. "Of course I can! If it's for the sake of Inazuma, I'll consider it my responsibility to lead you there and give you the grand tour of all the nothing that I saw last time. Of course, if there is something there now, well, we'll just have to figure that out as we go." He gave a thumbs up, before he pointed off down the road. "Gotta go this way! Hey, how are you at swimming, I don't got a boat or anything."

The two ran off together, The Traveler laughing at that. "I have a little trick for that, we won't have to swim any... at least, I hope not." Looking up, they saw that the further they ran, the more the storm was picking up. First they headed into the rain, everything getting darker and darker, until the wind was blowing so hard they could barely hear each other. "Alright, I take my confidence back, we may have to swim a little at this rate... but we have to get there."

When they reached the shore closest to the island, The Traveler looked around for a place to summon their Waverider. Finding the shrine, they placed their hand on it, and the little boat appeared, splashing into the water... though it was immediately pushed up onto the shore. Itto was fascinated by this, giving the boat a look over. 

"Whoa, never seen anything like that... always wondered what these things do, but it never did anything like that for me. Guess you really are something special." He leaned over to take a peek inside, calling out "Alright, won't be a very comfortable ride but this will work. Just going to have to get through that..." He pointed out to sea, where the waves were rising high, breaking over themselves, crashing onto rocks... it looked like some sort of horror story about sinking ships. "Yeah... whew, we got this, no problem... I got an idea at least."

They climbed into the Waverider, and Itto concentrated for a moment, before a stone pillar pushed out from the ground, shoving them back out into the water where they were able to get moving. It seemed as though they were heading directly against the storm, and the Oni focused again, this time doing all he could to form a Geo barrier around the ship, to at least protect them a little bit from the crashing waves. At the same time, he had to direct The Traveler this way and that way... to say it was difficult to navigate a storm like this was an understatement. 

The boat went up and over waves, only to come crashing down as it rode them all the way. It felt like they were going to flip over so many times, and it seemed impossible they could find an island in this. But Itto seemed confident, as he kept his focus.