God Of Rain

“... What? Me? What are you talking about?” I asked.

“I figured you’d say that,” answered the young man. “Let me continue with my explanation from before, then.”

Waving his hand in the air, he called forth a ball of fire. As his fingers spun around, the fire ball spun along, reminiscing of a geography teacher spinning a globe for his lecture. And my analogy was spot on, seeing that the ball of fire soon separated itself into two distinct pieces.

“Our world was once whole,” the young man said, “until something from long, long ago separated us into two nations — what we call now as Drought and Drizzle. As for the names…”

He waved his remaining hand above the fire presentation. From his movement, a long line formed, swirling and twisting around as if having a life of its own.

“There was once a great serpent, Vritra. It sucked all of our world’s water dry and stored it upon itself.”

With another flick, on both of the lands spawned an ember. The two merged together to form a mighty warrior, his hand carrying the same rounded sword that I had seen before from the woman called Kana.

“Until one day, a great warrior, our god Indra, emerged. Carrying the strength of Drought and the sacred vajra of Drizzle, he vanquished the serpent and returned water to the world…”

“So it’s a happy ending?” I asked. It sounded just like some of the creation myths that I had gotten the pleasure to know. Japan had one as well — about another snake-god pair, even.

“That was just the beginning,” shook the young man. “What Indra had not expected… was that his and Vritra’s power struggle left a lot more consequences to the planet.

All of the water that Vritra had stored returned to the world, but as a singular, giant river to separate the two nations. Said river, as of right now, has all dried up to the desert that you found yourself in.

You might ask where that water had gone to, if not in the river. Well… that’s why the two nations are named this way.

For some reason, Drizzle has received all of the water in the form of perpetual rain, whereas we in Drought has only known the harsh sun for all our lives.

Needless to say, both sides are miserable. And so, have you figured out what happens next?”

“Uh… You two established a diplomatic relation and asked for each other’s resources in a civilized manner?”

“Haha, of course not,” the young man chuckled.

I figured that would be the case.

“We go to war, naturally,” he answered, flicking his hands to transform the fire warrior and snake into two different armies. “But it’s not because we just want to, of course. There was one final prophecy that Indra had left us before he passed away.”

“And what’s that?”

As if waiting for that question, the young man let out a smile. All of the flame floating above his hands gathered into one orb, then into the same serpent as before, but much longer, much larger, and much more alive.

“One day, Vritra shall return. Only when an heir to my legacy unites the people and slay the serpent once more can the planet prosper again.”

Hearing this, all of my cells reacted at once towards the danger exuding in the air. My eyes narrowed as I lunged forward with my clawed hands almost instinctively. But before it could reach the young man’s throat, he had already grabbed my wrist with one of his hands, tightening his grip to the point of making me wince in pain as I felt the burn on my flesh.

“Easy there, tiger,” the man chuckled. “At first, we went along with the idea. After all, Kana was originally a Drought child, like Indra was before. And the vajra she held was indeed Indra’s, forged on Drizzle as the prophecy had foretold. But…”

“But?” I repeated, still gritting my teeth from the pain.

“Drizzle doesn’t want to unite the two nations. They want to assimilate us. Rule over. Invade. Pick whatever word ya like.”

His teeth gritted in rage. It was the first time I had seen the young man angry like this.

“Somehow,” he continued, “they had successfully brainwashed Kana to join their side completely. Now with her Indra stigma and their vastly superior summoning ritual, Drizzle is organizing a large-scale attack into Drought in the near future.”

“Wait, hold on,” I interrupted. “What do you mean by ‘vastly superior summoning ritual’? And aren’t you plenty powerful already? I mean, you can do all these tricks with your fire.”

“This? This is just some parlor trick,” the young man let out a bitter laugh. “Kana is the real deal. Her assimilation with the Indra stigma has reached almost critical levels. You can even say that she’s more ‘Indra’ than ‘Kana’ now… unfortunately.”

A sudden idea flashed in my mind. If the woman named Kana was, for some reason, housing something related to Indra. And if I was what this man called “Vritra”, combined that with my conditions right now…

“Hold on. You said earlier that I was the Great Serpent. Then that means… Vritra is me, right?”

With a sigh, the young man answered.

“Correct. See that tattoo?” He pointed towards my arm. “That there is called a ‘Stigma’. Since ya have Vritra, ya can see its progression by the color black. Right now it’s about half yer arm, which means that yer about 50 percent synced with the serpent, give or take.”

I reflexively gulped.

“What happens… when it’s 100 percent?”

“Well…”

With a flick of his hands, the fiery serpent floating before the young man curled around and opened its giant mouth, ready to swallow anything.

“Yer gonna destroy the world, I guess. Or Indra will kill ya, pick yer poison.”

“I…”

Even if it was the obvious answer, I didn’t want to believe it. After all, what had I done to be in this situation? I hadn’t done anything wrong! All I wanted to do was to find my sister! Why was I dragged into this whole mess of a world?

A finger flicked on my forehead, along with it sounded a loud smack. When I came to, the young man was already grinning before me.

“Relax. Yer not gonna turn into Vritra. For one, yer with us, Drought, now. We can help ya with controlling yer power.”

“... You will?” I asked, still doubtful. Sure, the man might have looked like he meant no harm, but I couldn’t exactly take every word he said for granted.

“Of course. After all, I told ya that yer our solution, remember? If Vritra controls water…”

Immediately, I could see what his intentions was.

“Then if you guys help me, I could return the water of the world to normal.”

“Exactly. But…” pausing for a moment, he continued. “That’s just ‘us’ speaking. As for ‘me’, however…”

The man then took out a small picture. On it were two children smiling happily outside a Japanese-style house. In other words, me and Reiko — that picture was mine.

“I found this in yer coat,” the man continued. “Now, tell me… what relationship do ya have with Kana?”

“Huh? Kana?”

Only after the words came out of my mouth did I realize his mistake. Like me, he also couldn’t distinguish between the woman in armor and my sister.

“That’s not Kana. That’s my big sister, Reiko,” I answered. “In fact, the whole reason why I’m stuck here is because she disappeared two years ago, and I met this ‘Kana’ of yours on Earth.”

“On Earth…” the man mumbled, before his eyes lit up as if picking up a clue. “Of course. I can’t believe I missed that possibility…”

“What do you mean?”

“Hey, so ya sister disappeared right? Two years ago?”

“Yeah, why asking?”

“That was around the time when Kana received the Indra stigmata… Okay, change of plans: I’ll help ya find yer sister.”

“... Huh? Just like that?” I asked in confusion.

“If they’re so similar that both of us mistook one for the other, then there has to be something involved, ya with me?”

“I… guess.” It wasn’t a bad deduction of course. After all, my first reaction when I met the woman was to ask about my sister as well.

“Then we can help ya with Vritra as well. Killing two birds with one stone!” The young man snapped his fingers and let out a grin.

At this point, there was no reason to refuse him.

“Sure,” I raised my other hand forward, while instinctively drawing the gripped hand back. “By the way, we never got to properly introduce ourselves, right? I’m Tatsumiya Renji.”

“Tat…su? Eh… Ren! How about that?”

“Suit yourself,” I let out a sigh. This man was strangely outgoing once he decided to trust someone. I wouldn’t want to say he was dumb, but the word came pretty close.

“I’m Arja, by the way. And I’m…”

Before he could say the rest of his introduction, however, a voice echoed from outside:

“Your Highness! Drizzle has sent in another wave of Stigmata!”

“Huh? Already? Is Indra there?” Arja shouted, his face turned tense all of a sudden.

“No, Sir! Just a wave of a few dozen!”

Just a few dozens? Then how bad could it be?

“Perfect,” grinned Arja before grabbing my hand again. “I couldn’t ask for a better practice. Ren, yer coming with me!”

“... Huh?”

As I was still stunned by the sudden turns of events, Arja had already raised his arm forward and rolled back his sleeve. And it was right there that I finally saw it.

On his arm was a similar mark to me. The only difference was, instead of a serpent, it was a transparent mark of a winged dragon.

“To what is One, I am the burning fire! Agni, unleashed!”