Cloudy birthday morning (3)

As Raiko hit the road once again she figured she could visit Shizune, whom she knew wasn’t fond of parties. Being a store it was not particularly far away from the bar either way.

Her eyes wandered to the menacing clouds again, “don’t you dare” she thought, but they didn’t look like they had any intention of letting the water go either. Distracted with this she almost tripped on a dog with barely any fur. Fortunately the dog was friendly and she stopped before stepping on it, so nothing else happened, she watched it go back to a group of kids before getting back to her business.

A couple minutes down the line Raiko arrived at the firearms store, the Voruzhin clan household. It was a two story brick building, particularly luxurious for the region's standards. It even had a chimney, a stone wall on the perimeter and a warehouse, a subterranean workshop and stone tables in the backyard.

The upper floor was destined for rooms, while the lower floor allocated the store in the front and the kitchen behind. Raiko entered the store as anyone else would, without paying much attention to the various revolvers, hunting rifles and shotguns lining up on the walls.

“Welcome, ah... Raiko! Happy birthday!”

She was received by the store's owner. A woman in her thirties, physically sturdy, with long silver hair and green eyes. She was a well-tempered person and usually kind, being the fifth in her family to run the store.

She also was the first in her family to start the local manufacture of firearms, before that her family only produced ammunition and imported weapons from larger cities, such as Byzantium.

“Good morning miss Hana, and thank you.”

“How are you doing?”

“I’m just walking around the village, my dad almost kicked me out of the house.”

“Well, the fifteenth birthday is a special day, from now on you'll be an adult member of society.”

“You're making me look old.” Raiko laughed.

“I don't know what you're talking about, we're young, both of us.”

“It's just that the way you said it sounded like a granny.”

“Very funny, but yes, I am happy to know we can count on you, even if the sales will decrease a little.”

“Eh…”

Raiko didn’t put any thought into the topic up until this moment. If she becomes a purifier and fights apparitions, then the demand for firearms will drop, she doesn’t know by how much, but that could mean bad news for the Voruzhins. She wanted to say something nice, but wasn’t sure about what to say.

Fortunately, Hana got a step ahead of her.

“Don't get me wrong, knowing you'll be here for us brings me more calm than any money. By the way, you're looking for Shizune, yes?, she's downstairs, in the workshop.”

With that she was allowed into the basement, which was on the back of the house. Stone stairs led to the workshop itself, it was located ten meters underground to isolate the noise of work and test fire. There, Shizune was finishing putting together a model Raiko has never seen.

“Shizune, good morning!”

Shizune put her creation down slowly and turned her gaze. Given the situation, she was fitted with working gear, but otherwise had the same aura around her as she would anywhere else.

“Hello. “

Yep, as lively as ever. But that was just good ol’ Shizune and Raiko was used to it. Something else drew her attention, and that was the new, unknown firearm on the working table.

“What's that?”

It was very different from other firearms being sold in the workshop, it had a pipe on top of the barrel, connected to it, in front of the trigger guard there was a strange metal slot and the bolt looked too small to introduce a clip or to be properly operated. The design simply made no sense to her.

“This is an assault rifle, I copied it from a group of stalkers I met in Rome. “

Shizune began to talk about what an assault rifle is, how it works and this particular model’s specifications. The cold hard truth is that Raiko lost track of her words pretty much at the beginning, so she limited herself to nod every now and then.

“You’re not listening, are you?”

“I just think it’s a weird gun for a weird girl.” Raiko laughed.

“Oh? Do you offer yourself as a test target?”

“Come on, it was just a little joke.”

But Shizune did not answer, she turned her back towards Raiko and walked to a nearby shelf, moved a few wooden boxes here and there until she found the one was looking for, once taken she walked back with it towards the would be purifier. Seemingly uninterested, she tried to change the topic.

“So, your designation is today.”

“Yeah, I can't wait for the night.”

“You'll be condemned to fight in front of everyone wearing silly colorful clothes. Forever. “

“You couldn’t possibly be jealous of that, could you?”

It’s been seven years since then, but Raiko still remembers Shizune’s endless monologues on how she would become a great purifier and protect everyone, then when Raiko became one, she would back her up. Now that she thinks about it, she began behaving this way after she became ten, when the kingdom’s inspectors deemed her unfit to become a purifier.

“Don't talk nonsense, those are matters of chance, and I prefer certainty. “

It was hard to tell how she was feeling at any given moment, but Raiko thinks she is indeed jealous. Or maybe she made peace with it, but she will never tell her, Shizune’s mind was a black box. Then, Raiko remembered there was something she wanted to ask.

“Speaking of apparitions, you were there when the last one showed up a few years ago, right?”

“Ah, that day.” Shizune was looking for something in a box. “I went with papa on a hunting trip, I remember I was nervous because it was my first time with a shotgun, then the thing showed up.”

“How did it go? was it big?”

“About as tall as papa, it had a weird shape but it didn’t seem to be a big deal, I didn’t think back then, just pointed my gun at it and pulled the trigger, that was it.”

“Don’t think, just act sounds unusual for you.”

“Either way you know that if it gets out of hand I'll be there to back you up.” Shizune picked a revolver out of the box and presented it to Raiko. “Here, it's your birthday present. “

“A gun, huh… It's good to count on you even if you're so bitter.”

“One of us has to do the thinking after all.”

Even if Raiko didn’t need a gun, it was still a present. She even noticed that her name was engraved on the barrel, so it wasn’t just any gun she picked out of a bunch, but one Shizune worked hard to make, just for her.

“Thank you.” She said with a smile.