Spark in Darkness: Unworldy encounter/Prototype

Spark 50: The refugees

Haruki realised his body was not even hurting that much when he came to. He looked down to see his body bandaged, but it did not cause too much pain when he flexed his muscles or moved his body. He was lying on the ground with a thin piece of cloth to cover him.

"What's going on?" Haruki muttered to himself. He vaguely remember seeing Rinya and the rest after the fire blasts took out the area of the Tree of Life he was in, and then he tried to stop her from attacking Leonard before losing consciousness.

He looked around and found himself in a small, dark room. A small gap near the ceiling allowed some faint light to shine in, but it was still too dark to make out most of the features in the room. Haruki thought it was maybe sometime in the night, and made his fist glow, and almost jumped when he saw somebody lying beside him. But he could see that it was Rinya, her eyes closed and her body heaving slightly as she breathed in and out. Her hair was let down, and her usual uniform was replaced by a jacket and a pair of pants.

Haruki shifted his lighting to the other places of the room. In front of him was a shabby looking door, and there were a few dirty bowls lying near it. Other than that there was nothing much in this old wooden room. He threw the thin blanket to his side and stood up, ready to explore his surroundings. He gave himself a good body stretch before stepping towards the door, but the floor creaked under his weight, and caused Rinya to stir.

"Haruki? You're awake?" Rinya said sleepily.

"Err...yeah, sorry for waking you up." Haruki replied apologetically.

Rinya shook her head. "Uh-huh, it's okay. I slept pretty late...in the morning, so I guess it's about time I woke up. You aren't in too much pain, are you?" Rinya asked, concerned.

Haruki sat back down to face Rinya, who was already sitting up and tying her hair into a ponytail. "Nope, but what happened? I was surprised I healed so quickly.

Rinya smiled. "Master Nimira went to get some herbs she planted and rubbed them over your wounds. Said it would help with the recovery. I'm glad to see it worked out well. But afterwards she said she had done enough and didn't want us to cause anymore trouble for her, so she kicked us out."

"How long have I been out? And where are we?"

Rinya looked grave. "You've been out for a day. It isn't too long, but we're in a complicated situation right now. We're in some abandoned hut at the outskirts of the Capital, but it won't be long before we are found. So I hate to say this, but if you're good to go, we have to move."

"Sure thing. So I guess we're going to talk about our situation as we go?"

***

As Haruki and his group, now with a new addition of Hak, escaped the Capital with the cover of the night, Rinya filled him up on the information about LeFolia as it was.

Haruki could not quite believe his ears. It was as Leonard said, Haruki's group was blamed for the deaths of the innocent victims of Cynthia, and even she was announced innocent. While they were training, time was twice as slow outside, and in this month the Nayshards had started to take action against the Sparks who were fighting back, quelling their rebellion and purging them. While the Nayshards did this behind the scenes, they used the Royal family to blame it all on Haruki's group, which was hiding Rinya, a powerful Nayshard, and was doing her bidding and slaying their fellow Sparks.

While outrageous, the public actually believed the lies and more Sparks were coming out to hunt for Haruki and his group, only to be exposed to the Nayshards and hunted down.

"Those idiots...!" Haruki muttered under his breath as they entered the forest near the Capital. The group had decided to steer off the desert where they had came from and instead travel in the opposite direction, towards Britonnia.