Chapter 1 – Arrival

The sun was high, middle of the morning, temperature of 32ºc. Jack Snyder was riding his company car to visit another client. His phone rang over the radio, connected by Bluetooth. He pressed the small button on the lever at the right of the steering wheel and smiled at the name of his wife on the car radio display, "Hello, pretty girl. Miss me already?"

"Nah, just to remind you that I will come out late from work, and you have to go get Mia from School. Peter has an exam in the middle of the afternoon, so you can’t count on our older son to go get his sister, it has to be you."

"I know, don’t worry. I have one client before lunch, and two more in the afternoon but they are all routine services, it won’t take long. Do I need to take care of dinner as well?"

A small chuckle made Jack Snyder frown, "Heheheh! Yeah, right, good luck defrosting the meat that we don’t have in the fridge. You forgot to go shopping yesterday, remember? Don’t worry, I will go buy some groceries before going home. You can set the table and help Mia with homework if she has any. If she doesn’t, play a game with her, for example, I don’t know, you figure it out. See you later, dear. Kisses!"

"Bye… she hung up already. Like usual, she must always have the last word. Okay, where is that street, anyway?"

When Jack Snyder made a turn to the perpendicular street at his left, a truck appeared right ahead, driving at full speed with no breaks. Jack tried to avoid the collision, but it was too late. The truck collided with his car, crushing him between the steering wheel and the back seat, and everything went dark for him, immediately. He didn’t have time to think about his family or feel any pain. Luckily for him.

…

After so long, or so little time, Jack Snyder felt a pain on the left side of his head, and a faint light through his closed eyelids. A girl’s voice kept shouting near him, and he had some trouble focusing on her words, because of the pounding on his head.

Then, he understood what the voice was shouting, but it didn’t make sense, "Nozo! Please, open your eyes! Please! Nozomu Shinchaku, wake up!"

Jack Snyder slowly opened his eyes, and blinked a few times, trying to get used to the light. He then saw a girl looking at him with her face covered in tears, and he strongly closed his eyes again, because everything about her felt wrong. As the girl was caressing his left cheek and sobbing, Jack Snyder opened his eyes again, and looked at the girl in front of him. Long blue hair, yellow eyes, cat ears instead of normal Human ears, dressed in a tight top that only covered her big breasts, and he could see her shaped abs and muscular forearms. Jack glanced at her hand and saw sharp and long fingernails caressing his face. A fluffy blue tail was trembling behind her, signalling her worries.

He gulped, and she hugged him tight, making him frown from the pain in his head. "Nozo! I thought you were dead! Don’t scare me like that, geez! I couldn’t stop the blood that was coming out of your head with my Magic, I had to rip my blouse to make a bandage and I spent the last few drops of my Healing Potion with you! You were not even swallowing! I even had to help you with that!"

Jack Snyder looked around, puzzled by the words that were coming from that unknown girl, and he looked at where she was pointing. A rock was there, covered in red and with so much blood around that it was impossible for someone to be alive after so much blood loss. He touched the left side of his head and frowned at the pain he felt.

He faced the crying girl and asked, "What happened? The last thing I remember, is…"

Jack Snyder stopped talking. He remembered crashing his car, but that girl was not a normal girl. Even the light around was different, it was brighter, and the grass beneath him was strange. It was soft, and brittle, light green instead of the normal green that he was used to.

He faced the girl again and asked, "I… don’t remember much. Who are you?"

The girl slowly opened her mouth and placed one hand over his right shoulder with a worried look, "What do you mean, who I am? It is me, Taisetsuna Kawa, you call me Suna for as long as I remember. Are you alright? You… don’t remember me? At all? Really? Such a lovely Cat-kind as myself?"

"I… am not sure. Maybe I lost some memories because of the blow on the rock. Or it is because I lost so much blood. I think I will recover over time, but in the meantime, I may need your help. Everything is a bit strange for me. Where are we? And what were we doing, for me to hit that rock? Did I fall? Don’t tell me you pushed me!"

The Cat-kind girl bit her lower lip and held his hands, "You were helping me practice my Magic, like we always do in the afternoons. I threw a huge Fireball at you, and you jumped to the side and rolled on the floor to avoid it. Not that you needed to avoid it, because we both know Magic doesn’t work on you, but you always do that, to practice your evasion skills and to make me work harder. That was when you hit your head on that rock. I tried to pour some Healing Magic on you in a panic, and I lost precious time before I remembered it had no use on you, and I ripped my blouse to make a bandage to stop your bleeding and I then opened the vial of the Healing Potion the Priest gave me and made you swallow it."

Jack Snyder had his eyes wide open. Everything the girl said was impossible, and he thought to himself,"||… I died for sure, and I was dead for God knows how long. She called me Nozomu Shinchaku. Judging by all the blood on the floor, Nozomu died, and my soul, or my mind, whatever, came to his body. She talked about Magic, Healing Potions. Magic doesn’t work on me? She helped me swallow a Healing Potion! And she has cat ears and blue hair! …||"

The faces of his family flashed before his eyes, and as he was trying to hold back the tears from the realization that he was never going to see them again, the faces faded while smiling and waving at him, as if they were leaving for somewhere. He closed his eyes and saw them again, in their kitchen, talking and eating, with his seat empty, as if he wasn’t there anymore. They seemed at peace, and he took one slow deep breath while thinking that he should do the same, live his new life without them near him.

Jack tried to disguise the sadness in his voice and asked, "Help me out with this. What do you mean, Magic doesn’t work on me? And can you use Magic? I suppose Fireball is Fire Magic, but can you also use Healing Magic? How did you help me swallow the Healing Potion? The Priest gave it to you? What Priest?"

Taisetsuna Kawa became redder and redder as she was explaining, "This is not possible… you don’t remember at all… You can’t use Magic, and Magic doesn’t work on you. Only you, the Priest and I know about this. We never told anyone and no one can know, because everyone can use a bit of Magic, but someone that can’t use and that completely disturbs or is unaffected by Magic like you, is unheard of. We are both orphans that the Priest found near the river, in two small baskets. We have been living in the Orphanage for the past fifteen years, and we have been training since we were little. In a few days we are going to be sixteen, and the Priest already has a job for us, for when we leave the Orphanage and start to live on our own. I… helped you swallow the Healing Potion… using my mouth… on yours… I couldn’t think of anything else, and you weren’t swallowing on your own! I panicked, okay?"

She went silent, and Nozomu Shinchaku asked, "I understand. Thanks for helping me. Judging by your embarrassment, you wasted your first kiss on me, didn’t you? I won’t tell anyone, and we can pretend it didn’t happen and like that, it doesn’t count, right?"

Taisetsuna Kawa vigorously shook her head, "Yeah! It didn’t happen! It doesn’t count! So, how is your head? Do you think you can get up?"

"It’s still pounding, but it is way better. I suppose the Healing Potion is kicking in. You… I mean, is that your underwear? Do you need my shirt?"

Taisetsuna gently pulled Nozomu up and answered with a slight smile, "It doesn’t matter, this is my training bra. I normally only wear this when we are training."

Nozomu Shinchaku looked at his hands. They were smaller than when he was Jack Snyder, and had leather gauntlets protecting his wrists and the back of his hands. He was wearing a light brown shirt with three laces instead of buttons, dark brown trousers with a dark belt and leather dark boots. He grabbed the small shield that Taisetsuna gave him, and a sword. The shield was nearly forty-five centimetres in diameter, gripped in the fist with a central handle behind the boss.

Nozomu looked at the sword and frowned, "Weird… Do I normally use this? Because it feels strange, I am not even sure how to hold these weapons."

"Poor thing, you are really messed up… Normally you don’t use a sword, only the buckler, it is the shield’s name, and your gauntlets. Because Magic has no effect on you, when someone fights you, it has to be in close range, and the Priest made sure that you learned all sorts of blocks and joint locks to defeat an opponent. He always tried to get you used to fighting with a sword, but you are awfully clumsy with that. You can defend yourself, but you are way better with the shield and the gauntlets that you use to deflect weapons and kick, headbutt or punch your opponents. I was never able to beat you in a fight, but I am getting better with the years, and one day I will defeat you."

Nozomu looked at Taisetsuna Kawa and couldn’t help widening his eyes. With her colourful hair, eyes and cat ears, came along a pretty face and a nice muscular figure. Not too many muscles, she was more fit than anything, but more than enough to make him swallow with a dry throat. She was wearing a tight and short blue training bra, dark trousers and leather boots open at the front, leaving her toes free with her sharp threatening toenails in plain sight, with a sword in a sheath hanging on her dark belt and a matching dagger.

Nozomu stared at the waving and fluffy tail of Taisetsuna and smiled, "You are, indeed, a very cute Cat-kind. Can you control your tail, or does it have a mind of its own?"

"You never once told me that I am cute! The blow did a mess with your brain! I can control my tail when I want to, but most of the time it moves and acts as if it indeed had a mind of its own. Why do you ask?"

Nozomu pointed at the dagger, "Did you ever try to grab that dagger with your tail and use it as if it were a third hand? If you can fight with a sword and a shield, a tail armed with a dagger would for sure be a deadly surprise attack."

Taisetsuna used her tail to pull the dagger from her belt and made a few movements with it.

She pierced in front and did a few side slashes and spoke while staring at her tail which was now making circles in front of her, as a distraction to an invisible foe, "Yeah, I never thought about this. It can be useful. I never paid too much attention to my tail except grooming it or washing it. Most of the time, I use it to slap your butt or your head when you annoy me, but I see what you mean."

Nozomu scratched his chin and asked, "Taisetsuna… I mean, Suna, we know each other since we were babies, we are like siblings, friends, or are we something else?"

"What do you mean, something else? We are friends… aren’t we?"

"Yeah, no way such a cute Cat-kind would choose me as a boyfriend."