Lost

Kai froze as Haru's words sunk in.

"Gone? What do you mean, gone?" He asked suspiciously.

Haru took a step back, looking away from Kai and facing the faint light of the sunrise out the window.

"Rin's not home. I was having my morning coffee and passed by Rin's room. When-" Haru's voice broke. "When I opened her door, she wasn't there. Her window was open... but no trace of her."

"We'll just need to find her then," Kai hissed, standing up quickly, but Haru shook his head; his face set in a grim frown.

"I've already looked everywhere, out in the fields, the town, her favorite spots to relax... she's nowhere to be found."

Was Haru giving up on finding her? Was he seriously giving up? He was her 'father,' and he was supposed to do everything in his power to find her. Kai's eyes narrowed, as he looked at his step-father in disgust. Weak. That's what Haru was. Nonetheless, the clock was ticking, and Rin was getting farther and farther away as the minutes passed.

If Haru wasn't going to help him look for Rin, then he'd just need to find her himself.

"I'm going to find her." He told Haru firmly, slipping his coat on.

Haru watched as Kai darted out the door. He was obviously intent on finding Rin.

'What am I doing? Rin is out there somewhere, I've got to find her...' Haru thought, slapping his face with his right hand.

'Some father I am.'

Hurrying out the door, Haru went to go catch up with Kai and help him find their lost family member. They were going to find her no matter what. Running up to Kai, Haru took a moment to catch his breath, as Kai stood atop the hill their house stood on. He scanned the grassy area beneath them briefly and dashed down the hill. Trees were scattered through the field, making potential hiding spots for Rin to lie under. Haru had said that he'd already checked the fields for her, but Kai didn't trust his judgment. So, Kai ran through the grassy fields with Haru on his tail, trying to find his missing sister.

'She can't be far...' he thought, as his eyes scanned the fields around them.

Thirty more minutes of searching passed, with no evidence of Rin's disappearance. Time was slipping away quickly, and the two got more and more desperate with each passing moment.

'We should split up and search for her, it'll be faster...' Kai thought to himself.

He didn't trust Haru, but splitting up and searching for Rin was obviously the most efficient way to search for her. Narrowing his eyes, Kai turned towards his step-father, who was busy biting his nails with worry.

"Haru, we're splitting up. You can continue to search the fields and the surrounding areas, while I'll go to the town and see if she ran off somewhere there."

Haru, with no reason to object, nodded his head and hurried off to look for Rin. Kai, on the other hand, headed in the opposite direction and dashed towards the bustling town. It would be difficult to find her in such a big place, but he knew he'd find her if he looked hard enough.

When Kai approached the town, some people along the streets greeted him, recognizing him as he walked by. Most of the older village elders had known his mother. After all, she was renowned for her work as a weaver. She had made a name for herself as the 'Rainbow Weaver;' able to create beautifully crafted clothes and fabric of any color on the color spectrum. She was truly amazing, however now, Rin was his prime focus. He needed to find her and bring her home.

Pushing past the people hurrying through the streets, Kai asked the villagers around him whether they had seen his sister, describing her to the people who stopped to listen to him.

"She's a little 10-year-old girl with short black hair, and hazel, gold eyes... last time I saw her, she was wearing a pink and white yukata with sakura blossoms on it... She also carries around a white stuffed rabbit, with a ribbon around its neck. Have you seen any one of the sorts?"

However, despite Kai's efforts, nobody he'd asked had seen his sister.

Desperate to find her, Kai suddenly remembered the village guild. Elite warriors, assassins, merchants, and people of all sorts would gather at the guild, seeking missions for coins. There were all sorts of missions that anyone could take if they were up to the challenge. Missions were categorized based on their difficulty.

There were 7 levels of difficulty in total, with level one being the easiest, most basic missions such as hunting for wild animals or helping a villager who had put up a request, commonly asking for someone to help them fix something in their home; then there were the level seven missions, tasked only to the people with the utmost experience and bravery.

Those types of missions were rare, involving anything from assassinating a powerful enemy, to searching for lost artifacts or mythical items. However, the thing with the missions though, is that the longer the mission stayed unresolved, the higher the rank of difficulty grew. This meant that the longer it stayed up on the guild's mission bulletin board, the more eyes would see the request, giving the mission a higher chance of being recognized and sought after.

But alas, Kai's only intention was to find his sister. If he wanted decent help, he'd need to post a mission request up on the bulletin. As Kai approached the guild's headquarters, the people around him seemed to change. Instead of common villagers brushing past him, he started to feel the air grow a little tenser, as people of experience started to appear in the streets around him. Assassins and fighters were hidden among the crowd, going to and from the guildhall.

Setting his jaw in grim determination, Kai marched up to the guild's mission bulletin, taking one of the request tickets found at the side of the massive board. Kai wrote down his request, asking for someone to find his sister, and held the slip of paper up to the bulletin board, ready to pin it up. However, something caught his eye. A small slip of silver paper hung tattered on the bulletin, easily hidden behind all the other tickets and requests pinned up.

Yanking the silver slip of paper from the board, he flattened it out, and his eyes widened in shock. It read:

Rank 7 Difficulty, details confidential. Ask Guildmaster for more information.

However, the fact that the mission was ranked 7th in difficulty, did not faze him as much as what he read next.

Reward: An audience with the King.

There's no way this was real, was it? The reward was an audience with the King... King Katsu. He could easily find Rin with a snap of his finger if he so wished. Putting up his own measly request for a lost person would definitely be overlooked and forgotten, as it got covered by the requests that piled up on the bulletin.

Clutching the silver mission request in his hand, a thin smile tugged at the corner of Kai's mouth. He'd simply need to talk to the guild master, complete the mission, and get an audience with the King to find Rin for him. It sounded much more efficient than simply waiting for someone to see his request and take it. Who knew how long that would take?

Kai turned away from the guild's bulletin board, heading towards the guildhall. The guild master should be somewhere in this building... he just needed to find him.

Honestly, though, that was easier said than done. With this massive building and people at every corner, how would Kai ever pick out who the guild master was, and who was dangerous or safe to be around? Stifling a sigh, Kai slipped the mission request into his pocket and headed into the hall, determined to find the guild's so-called 'master.'

His train of thought was interrupted when he crashed headfirst into something large after rounding a corner.

"What-"

"OY! WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING, BUB!"

A large man with a plump belly bellowed at Kai, glaring at him with beady black eyes. A large machete sort of thing was strapped to his back, along with a bag filled with things like coins and weapons inside. Stumbling back to his feet, Kai quickly looked down at the floor and bowed in apology.

"I-I'm sorry, please excuse me." He stuttered.

Kai was certainly not one to pick a fight in this situation, especially against a man the size of a gorilla with all kinds of shiny terrors strapped to him. To his relief, the man accepted his apology with a coarse grunt, staring Kai down once more before moving along, pushing him aside.

Kai's eyes narrowed in disgust when the large man was out of view. If only he were a bit bigger... a bit stronger, maybe he'd have had the guts to stand up to a bully gorilla such as that man.

Straightening his back, Kai brushed off the non-existent dirt off his shoulder and continued making his way down the hall, keeping his eyes and ears out for any other unpleasant strangers. Maybe this wasn't going to be as easy as he initially thought it was... but nonetheless, Kai's mind was already dead set on bringing Rin back home.

"I'll find the guild master and bring you home, Rin."

"Just wait for me."