• ÿPrologueÿ

    The monstrous waves slammed down into the shore then retreated, dragging debris with them.
    People ran for safety, screaming warnings and yelling in fear and confusion.
    “Tsunami!” they yelled, desperately trying to outrun the speeding water of the flood.
    The water frothed as it overtook building and people, dragging them back out to sea to drown. It turned murky, rushing through the streets with deadly force.
    A couple clambered onto their roof, clutching their newborn child. They saw the towering, frightful wave in the distance, then watched as the flood raced faster and faster towards their home.
    “We are doomed!” cried the mother, tears slipping down her cheeks, sleeping child in her arms. “Our child shall never see her first moon!”
    “No,” said her husband, wrapping his arms around her. “There is still hope—our child may still survive.”
    “How so?” asked the woman desperately, turning to her husband.
    “We pray to our goddess—Amaterasu,” the man sobbed.
    The couple sank to their knees, holding the child between them, praying desperately.
    Then the wave took them away.



    ÿChapter 1ÿ

    “Tsunami!” yelled a girl. “Tsunami!”
    The sleeping girl jolted awake, then went bleary-eyed and looked at her sister. “What it is, Megumi?”
    Megumi’s cherry lips twisted into a scowl, and sunlight shone behind her frizzy blond hair, making it look as if she wore a halo. “It’s nearly noon, yet you’re still sleeping, Tsunami,” Megumi scolded, blue eyes flashing angrily.
    Tsunami sat up slowly, her intelligent green eyes focusing on Megumi. A pile of her straight brown hair fell into her face, slightly obscuring her vision. She didn’t bother to move it.
    “What time it is?” Tsunami yawned, arching her back and stretching her arms behind her head.
    “…It’s noon,” Megumi replied pointedly. “Now, get dressed already.”
    Tsunami let her arms slump back down to her sides and shook her head to clear the hair and sleep from her well-defined face. “What’s wrong with what I am wearing?”
    “You’re in your bra—that’s about it, isn’t it?” Megumi sighed.
    Tsunami stared up at her for a moment, then turned her head away with a scowl.
    “I knew it,” Megumi gasped. She turned and walked to the doorway, then paused. “If you’re not ready in ten minutes, I’m going to beat the sense into you!” Then she slammed the paper door shut.
    “What a dork,” Tsunami sighed. She waited until she could no longer hear her older sister’s footsteps receding, then tossed off her blankets with a flourish and jumped to the floor.
    She smoothed out the soft black fabric of her pants and slipped on her short, ocean blue kimono. The fabric of the kimono had enough sheen to it that it looked as though it was intricately embroidered, which is why Tsunami had chosen it. Why spend thousands when you could get an even better look for much less?
    Tsunami poked her head out of her door and looked both ways down the dim hallway. No one in sight. She grinned and padded on bare feet down to the right, carefully tiptoeing past Megumi’s room. She turned outside and stood on the walkway for a moment, again checking both directions for signs of servants or family.
    Then she stepped out into the open and slipped her dainty shoes. She paused, then decided against them, slipping them back off and replacing them. If they were still there, the servants would suspect she was hiding in the palace grounds somewhere.
    To the river! Tsunami cheered inside, sneaking to the side of the garden , where tall, clustered orchards grew tall and mighty. Enough duties for me!
    She made her way through the bumbling city, skipping merrily. She never once felt out of place—as if this is where she should have been born, not to her royal family. Often she thought that she was adopted from a family here, or left on the palace steps by someone who did not care for her. It never bothered her; they were just thoughts that ran through her over-imaginative mind.
    Finally, after a while of walking in the gentle shade of the trees that lined the path, Tsunami reached her destination. There was a small bend in the river that she had made her haven; no fishermen went near it, for there were no fish easily caught there.
    “Free at last,” Tsunami sighed to herself. “Not a care in the world for me—nope, I could live here contentedly.”
    “Who’d you be?” said a suspicious boy’s voice suddenly.
    Tsunami jumped, startled. “Who there?” she called.
    “Depends on who you are,” replied the voice. “You a spy?”
    “What! Of course I’m not a spy,” scoffed Tsunami. Then she hesitated. “Are you?”
    “’Course not,” the boy scoffed back. “If you’re not a spy…Who do you claim to be?”
    “I’m…” Tsunami hesitated. Should she tell this boy who she is? “I refuse to tell you until you show yourself,” she decided.
    For a long moment, there was no reply. So long, in fact, that Tsunami had begun to relax, thinking that the stranger had left. “No,” the voice finally came, but carefully and thoughtfully. “I cannot reveal myself; I am endangered.”
    “By whom?” Tsunami asked.
    “Enemies.”
    “How am I to be sure that you are not my enemy?” Tsunami frowned suspiciously. She had heard her father speak of a menace—a rebellious man who opposed him and was now on the run, gathering forces to assassinate him.
    “I suppose you can’t,” the boy replied. “You should stay cautious and take your leave. I have weapons on my person.”
    “I don’t believe that,” Tsunami replied haughtily.
    “You’d better!” the boy growled, but the reply seemed forceful, and he had hesitated before saying it.
    “Sure, yeah,” Tsunami shrugged. “So, if you don’t mind, I’m going to cool off in my part of the river.”
    She turned away from the river to climb down the steep bank feet first, as she always did.
    “No!” the boy cried. “Don’t come down here—I mean, there!”
    Tsunami ignored him and turned back around to the river. There she found herself facing a teenage boy, only a few years older than she, lying against the muddy riverbank. She shrieked and stumbled backwards, tripped over an up-turned root, and landed on her bottom ungracefully. “Who you are!?” she screamed, scrambled away from him. “What you are doing here!”
    “Hold on—shhhh!” the filthy boy struggled up onto his knees and held out his hands, soulful brown eyes pleading for her silence.
    Tsunami found herself cornered against the trunk of a rotting tree trunk, hyperventilated in shock. “Who you are!” she repeated.
    “Please, please, quiet,” the boy begged.
    “Who you are!” Tsunami whispered fiercely as the boy glanced all around them.
    He seemed to relax a bit when no one came and he leaned back against the bank again, shuddering, his head of matted curly black hair sticking to his drenched forehead. “I can’t tell you,” he said, so quietly that Tsunami had to strain to hear him.
    It was then that she noticed he held a bloody rag to his side. “Hurt you are,” she said, now worried for the stranger. She made her way over to him and reached for it, but he pushed her hands away.
    “Don’t,” he gasped.
    “What happened?” Tsunami asked. The boy was dressed in peasant’s clothes, so he must have come from one of the villages, but they were far from any. He also looked exhausted and weary, and he was covered in mud and dirt and sweat.
    “Nothing,” the boy replied curtly. “Now take your leave, please.”
    “Not until I see it to that helped you are,” Tsunami argued.
    “…You talk funny,” the boy frowned, then he laughed. Tsunami blushed.
    “No, no,” she replied, still red. “I just talk this way…’Cause I feel like it…”
    “I like it,” the boy laughed. “It’s kinda cute, right? Isn’t that why you talk that way?”
    “…No,” Tsunami replied, turning a deeper shade of pink. “Now stop with your dodging the subject of treatment! Need it you!”
    “I’ll be fine—just leave so I can wallow in self-pity and nurse my own injuries to my flesh and pride!” the boy snapped.
    “No. Come you to the palace; I’ll see it to that the family physician helps.”
    “Palace?” the boy’s face went even paler. “No, no, no, no…I can’t go to the palace.”
    “Why not? Fine it is!”
    “No, no…You really don’t understand, girl,” he said. “I can’t go there!”
    “Very well,” sighed Tsunami. “Then you stay here.”
    “Thank you, I will,” the boy replied sarcastically. “Even though I have much better things to do than lie in the mud all night while I bleed to death.”
    “My sister dabbles in medicinal practice,” Tsunami said, ignoring his comment.
    “Dabbles?”
    “Bring her here I shall, and she shall heal you beyond recognition!”
    “…What are you talking about?” the boy asked.
    “To the castle!” Tsunami cried excitedly. She jumped up and clambering up the muddy embankment, showering clumps of dirt and mud down on the boy’s head.
    “Hey, wait!” the boy called after her as she ran off the way she came. “What are you talking about?!”