[Red Sands: In Search of the Scarlet Dawn]

“You seem distracted,” Ren murmured, eyes boring into her where she sat cross-legged on the floor. He sat opposite her, looking both concerned and somehow not in the blink of an eye. “Is something on your mind?”

“You know what’s on my mind,” she grumbled, sighing softly as he continued in his determined staring – as if that would get her to spill her truths out to him. It wouldn’t, not that she was about to let him know that much. “And I don’t particularly want to talk about it, okay?” she said, having spied him opening his mouth, undoubtedly to ask her another question in regards to those dreaded hallucinations.

“Very well,” he said, something like sorrow lingering in his gaze as he stared at her. “What do you want to cover in today’s lesson?”

Sakura tilted her head. “I suppose if I ask you to teach me about demons, then you’ll say—”

“No,” Ren stated. “Though I think you had already figured out that would be my answer. So what might be your second topic of choice?”

“Mana breathing,” she said plainly. “I want you to go through it with me in practice – not just theory – and then if we have time, I’d like to learn a bit about wards.”

Her brother visibly hesitated, concern waring with practicality. “I suppose that’s fine, though I won’t be showing you our family’s wards just yet. You should learn more about wards and how to not accidentally disturb them before I take you there,” he said, tapping at his lip, hand resting on his chin as he mentally debated over something. “So… Mana breathing it is.”

“Yes,” she said flatly. “Mana breathing.”

“Then let’s begin,” Ren mumbled, seemingly more to himself than anyone else. “Mana breathing, as I’ve probably mentioned before, is a meditative technique designed to help with mana control and improve the so-called ‘widening’ of mana pathways. Or ‘clearing’ the pathways, as you might have heard it…” he trailed off, pausing for a moment, as if searching for the right words to use as he sat there, rocking back and forth ever so slightly. “That’s what we’ll attempt to do today. You need to be sitting comfortably, and you need to maintain your focus. It’s very similar to cycling your mana, only there’s a breathing technique associated with mana breathing, and you move your mana according to your breathing. Hence why it’s called mana breathing.”

“Makes sense,” she replied, nodding along with him.

“The breathing pattern is quite simple – in, hold for five seconds, out, hold for five seconds, and repeat,” Ren explained. “While holding your breath, you want to move your mana, and when you’re breathing in and out, you want to pause. Beginners often find it easier to increase the length of the pause between those breaths, since it gives them more time to focus. Intermediate stage is when you’re aware of mana outside your body, and advanced stage is when you begin to be able to recover internal mana through breathing in that external mana.”

“So for the time being I’m just breathing and moving internal mana?” Sakura questioned, pondering then on just how that technique could be applied. Was it something similar to sage mode, that external mana? She could only theorise, a mere fledgling when it came to understanding mana and magic.

“That’s right,” Ren answered, smiling encouragingly. “Do you want to try and practice while I’m here?”

“Of course,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Then close your eyes,” he replied, “and focus.”

Sighing softly, she did as asked, grasping a hold of the pool of mana she could feel in her chest. She breathed in, eyes snapping open when her mana refused to budge. A frown marred her face, annoyance swirling in her gut as she tried to push her mana through a familiar route – through her holy gate and into the rest of her body. Yet there was an odd sensation of resistance when she tried to do that. As if she was trying to push her mana through the wrong gate. “It’s not working…” she grumbled, feeling frustrated at her lack of sudden progress when it came to mana. “Something’s wrong with my mana flow…”

“Don’t force it,” Ren cautioned. “You have all the time in the world to get the hang of this technique, sister.”

“Not really, I don’t,” she muttered, frustration roiling in her belly as she tried to move her mana normally – only to encounter that same resistance once more. It was strange, what with how she hadn’t struggled with moving her mana before.

“Trying to rush things will only make it worse,” Ren said flatly, and Sakura only sighed once more. “Let’s move onto something else for now – I can teach you some warding basics.”

“Mn. ‘kay,” she grumbled, less than pleased to be moving onto something else so quickly – not least when she thought she’d have been able to practice mana breathing for a lot longer than she had. Not withstanding that she had failed at the first hurdle, and a hurdle she had been able to pass many a times before that… She frowned, doing her best to concentrate on what Ren was saying, even as something niggled at her stomach, whispering in her ear telling her that she’d missed something important and vital.

Instincts were pesky things like that.

Books on warding were surprisingly informative, and idly, Sakura wondered if that was why Ren had given her books on warding – if only to supply her with new material to learn in the hopes that she wouldn’t return to the library and sneak into the demon section of the library. “The demon king,” she murmured, remembering then what the basis of the world she had been dumped into. A storyline that might be played out, no matter if she was no longer a puppet dancing to the author’s tune. She flopped back in her desk chair, abruptly reminded of the truck and her untimely death, all thanks to an overzealous fan who couldn’t separate fiction from reality.

Tears bit at the corners of her eyes, frustration for what she couldn’t do eating at her vehemently until she sprang to her feet and strutted over to her wardrobe. “Angry exercise it is,” she muttered, casting the doors to her wardrobe open and surveying all her neatly hung or folded clothing. “I actually have a choice now,” she mumbled to herself, part of her grinning at the prospect of not having to wear the same clothes over and over again. The jodhpurs she had been wearing, and the single shirt she had owned prior were looking a bit more worn out than they probably should have.

Her eyes were drawn to a beige-brown set of trousers suitable for exercise, and she leafed through the neat stack of tops folded on one of her shelves until she found a suitable long-sleeved green top. There were faint patterns on the top – more than she could say for the last shirt she had owned, which would probably have to go into storage, or whatever counted as fabric disposal there, soon enough. A quick glance in the mirror told her that she looked mildly colour coordinated, and she could only tie her hair back in a quick ponytail with the green ribbon one of her brothers had said suited her before she was hurrying out of the door.

Sasori was surprisingly nowhere in sight, and Sakura only debated on which one of her relatives he was bothering instead. Though she seemed to be a favourite of his to bother, but part of her knew that was because she was relatively shiny and new. He would lose interest eventually, and Sakura could only pray that would be long before he decided to venture back to Suna. Although he would be staying a considerable length of time, what with how long the travel was between Suna and there. That and the fact he hadn’t visited them for a few years.

Afternoon sunlight hit her skin, an awkward and tense lunchtime with her brothers having already passed her by. More of Itsuki behaving badly, it had been, with a side of trauma on her behalf. Both her father and her uncle seemed to be able to avoid them at mealtimes – besides dinner, more often than not, it was.

Wind ruffled her hair, a chilly breeze in the air. A fact which had leant itself to her choosing a long-sleeved top in which to begin her usual exercises in. She started running, ignoring the prickly, uncomfortable sensation that she was being watched. A hum escaped her. Who knew if her uncle was the one behind that? Or perhaps her father was keeping an eye on her from his office? Nobody could forget how recently she had passed out thanks to a mysterious nosebleed.

Her health was one of many topics usually discussed at the dining room table, a fact she had slowly, if somewhat reluctantly, come to accept. Her father had likely already heard of her so-called hallucination. Yet something in her couldn’t quite accept that as reality. Even if it probably was. What her family had been saying about Negative Mana Reflux had all been true so far, no matter the part of her which liked to play devil’s advocate.

Feet pounded against the dry ground of the training field, herself running laps of it having quickly become a pastime of hers. It was either that or bunny-hopping up the stairs, and her relatives had been rather obvious about which they preferred to catch her doing. There was something unseemly about bunny-hopping it seemed.

She glanced at the wall, specifically the wall she knew which was out of sight of father’s office. It wasn’t the trees she had once learnt to run up, but it was close enough, Sakura decided. Her foot hit the wall, chakra ensuring it stuck, and she sighed in relief as one thing worked properly for her that day. Her next foot stuck to the wall as she ran up the wall, launching herself off and backwards as she reached the top of the stone balustrade.

Air whipped past her as gravity took hold, feet landing on the hard ground, chakra cushioning the impact as she landed perfectly. Resisting the urge to do a little victory dance, she sighed in relief, confidence in her abilities returning ever so slightly. She didn’t dare reach for the mana in her chest and disappoint herself with the frustration in regards to that.

Her shoulders sunk as she re-entered the house, clothes dirtied with slight amounts of sandy dirt and sweat. There was probably just enough time for a bath before dinner, she mused to herself, sighing softly as she wandered upstairs to her usual bathroom and drew herself a bath to wallow in for a while. Before the thought of food inevitably drew her from her room to the dining table downstairs. “What bath salts to use today?” she wondered, debating between the blue-coloured ones which smelt like bluebells, and the pink ones which smelt like roses.

It ended up being blue, and she could only sigh softly as she all but dived into the warm waters. The insidious feeling of being watched was gone, much to her own delight, leaving only mellowness and serenity behind.

Part of her wanted to think it odd, how that feeling had vanished, but she supposed nobody would really spy on her in the bath. Not her family, at the very least. Which only leant credence to the idea that she was simply being paranoid and hallucinating about gelatinous black blobs which rained down upon people. Yet another sigh escaped her at that, frustration clawing at her bones at the thought that she was wrong and that there was something wrong with her.

The idea that she could no longer trust everything she saw, and that in itself was a very dangerous thing. She gritted her teeth, long since having finished washing out her hair and scrubbing every inch of skin. There was a splash of water as she exited the bath, wrapped up in a fluffy towel.

A sudden crack rang out in the air, and Sakura froze at the sound, tracing it back to its origins: a mirror. Once a whole and unblemished surface, yet right then it was a mass of uneven cracks radiating from a single point. As if something had punched the mirror, going by the impact and the way fragments of mirrored glass fell to the ground.

She certainly hadn’t punched it, and she knew that for a fact.

Idly, she wondered if anyone would believe her if she told them a random, rather large mirror had cracked on its own, seemingly of its own volition.

A creeping, repulsive shiver curled down her spine, and she shuddered at that, turning her back on that cracked mirror and walking back to her room without a second thought or glance back.

There was a murkiness in the air, she found as she stood somewhere she couldn’t quite remember going to. Shards of rock littered the ground, spiked up haphazardly, creating a little maze of sorts. Part of her wanted to say that she was on top of a mountain, for all the shades of grey and reddish-orange which decorated the landscape. Yet the lack of wind was making her hesitate, a jarring sense of inconsistency to that odd place.

A dream, part of her seemed to whisper.

A crow cawed, the bird perched on a tall plinth of grey rock which looked like a jagged tooth. Black eyes stared into her own, a loud caw piercing the air before the bird took flight with a flap of its wings.

An omen, that same part of her whispered, and something told her that she would be a fool not to listen to that part of her which was so intuitive. That was what she needed, after all, to survive in that strange place: a mix of logic, learning, and intuition.

She stepped forwards, knowing she was on a path out of that maze of jagged stone. Her foot sunk into the black liquid she hadn’t seen, an awfully loud splosh echoing through the still air. It was almost eerie – how quiet things were, and a part of her was so infinitely worried about that fact. Too quiet meant there was a large predator afoot. Sakura wanted to think that was herself, yet that same part of her which whispered of dreams and omens told her there was something more to it. Something which lingered just out of reach.

Her other foot stepped into that black liquid, knowing then that it lined the path to outside – wherever that might be. She needed to go there, she knew, pulled forwards into that deepening pool of inky black liquid. It was freezing, the cold almost enough the burn her skin, but she could only step forwards, transfixed by the lure of the outside.

She was waist deep in that black liquid before she knew it, hands dripping with gelatinous black liquid like treacle as she glanced between them and the structure she could see faintly in the distance.

A gate.

A way out.

Something grabbed her ankle, the rocky ground beneath her feet seeming to vanish as she was pulled under. Darkness closed over her head, cold and icy—

Sakura shot up in bed, heart beating frantically as she woke up from the strange dream-turned nightmare. Or had it always been a nightmare? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she was awake and terrified. Her heart throbbed beneath her fingertips as they scrunched up her nightgown, dimly trying to reassure herself that it was only a nightmare.

Movement caught her eye, heart faltering beneath her hand as she stared at a pool of inky black liquid spreading out from underneath the door to the corridor. She gritted her teeth, part of her trying to remind herself that it was a hallucination. According to her brother, in any case, and yet…

As quickly as that inky black substance had spread, it seemed to stop, its growth stagnating before shrinking back. It was as if someone had made it a film and then hit the rewind button. The darkness receded back out into the corridor, and Sakura could only stare at the doorway, heart beating ever so frantically at the thought of what was out there.

Nothing, if it were just a hallucination.

Sakura wondered why she couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t.

“Those are some impressive eyebags,” Ren remarked conversationally at the breakfast table.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she mumbled, feeling generally awful and not in the mood for Ren’s cheery demeanour. It made her feel oddly jealous for some reason. Because he could sleep – not having to worry about whether or not his mind was betraying him. Her teeth clenched, the worry that idea brought to the forefront of her mind making her stomach curl, even as she shovelled in another few forkfuls of breakfast. Something told her she needed all the strength she could get to face the oncoming day.

“Nightmare?” Ichiro asked, blue eyes boring into her green ones seriously.

“Of a sorts, I suppose,” she answered, shoulders sinking as she thought on the dream which had stuck with her in an annoying permanent fashion. It was as if the details of that dream had been engraved into her retinas. It made her feel scared to go back sleep.

“Hallucination?” Ren questioned, and Sakura sighed deeply, burying her face in her hands.

“Not everything has to be a hallucination, brother,” she grumbled, closing her eyes and wishing she could go to sleep. Yet it was nighttime that she wanted to sleep through – if only she could ignore the image of gelatinous black liquid which seemed to want to haunt her. She couldn’t seem to escape it, not even in her dreams. Wistfully, she longed for the days of sleep where she couldn’t remember her dreams.

“I can help you get to sleep again,” Ichiro said, and that offer brought a full body shudder coursing through her. Pain pulsed in her temples, part of her demanding that her brother kept his hands to himself and nowhere near her forehead. The want was a strange one, almost feeling foreign in nature. Yet that idea made no sense. How could thoughts be foreign? Pain pulsed in her head again, sharper that time.

“’m fine,” she said, wincing visibly then as her newly formed headache assailed her with vengeance.

“Come here,” Ichiro spoke, and she could see the pulsing white light trapped beneath the skin of his right hand. “You’re in pain,” he said flatly, and Sakura could only stare at him and that white light which repulsed something within her.

“I’m fine,” she repeated, staring at that white light and wondering exactly what it was she was seeing. She had never seen something pulsing under another’s skin before.

“I can heal you,” Ichiro said, standing up and advancing on her. “Even if you seem to be intent on attempting to tough it out, it does no good to deny—”

It was instinct that had her moving, cartwheeling over the table and into a chair on the side she usually sat in for meals all in an effort to avoid her eldest brother and his healing hands. She swallowed at that, something telling her that she needed to move and get out of that room.

The door shut behind her with a distinct click.

“Why are the two of our siblings behaving so strangely?” Ichiro asked, voice muffled by the door. Sakura could only wonder if she was behaving strangely. Then pain pulsed in her head again, a quieter part of her whispering why? Why had she run away from healing magic when that could take care of the pain in her head and allow her to think clearly? She winced, eye twitching as pain throbbed behind it then, moving down from her temples to bother the rest of her head.

“Puberty, perhaps,” Ren offered.

Sakura liked to think she could feel the unamused look that Ichiro was undoubtedly giving their cheeriest brother behind closed doors. A smile curled at her lips, feet moving then to carry her back to her room where she could ride out the rest of the headache currently assailing her. Perhaps with a good book to pass the time, given how she wasn’t about to try and have a nap.

That sounded like a plan, she mused to herself, hurrying along the corridor and back to her room. She paused a couple of steps into her bedroom, wavering in her decision to read as the prospect of a bath came to mind.

A bath sounded good, she decided. It also sounded less like it might exacerbate her headache.

Yawning, she went to run a bath, choosing the lavender bath crystals to soak in from the get go. Steam filled the air, humidity soaring in the room, and Sakura only sighed at that, silently reminding herself that falling asleep in the bath wasn’t a good idea.

It would likely only bring back memories of that dream where that cold, inky black water had closed over her head and woken her up. She shivered at the memory of that, catching sight of her reflection in that cracked mirror she had yet to report to her father as needing replacing. She hardly wanted anyone to think that she had destroyed a mirror. Not when Ren already believed her to be hallucinating. She could already see the picture that might paint in their eyes.

Though she supposed it was only a matter of time until one of her maids came to clean the bathroom and noticed the cracked mirror.

The same mirror which was currently showing many fractured reflections of her.

One of which was staring at the ruined mirror with blank white eyes.