"The Shikke are commonly known as the String Ninja," 

Ray told her children, swirling white, glowing threads from her fingertips as she wove into a tear in the blanket, "our Chiryouito originates from a land at the edge of the Grand Line-- we keep it hidden even here, because it cannot be shared with the outside world."

"I thought sharing was nice?" Luz whined, the child complaining to his mother, "why can't we share it?"

Ray chuckled, pulling the last thread to place-- "the Chiryouito is only inherited by very, very little of us. So if we married someone outside our clan, the amount of people that can perform the Chiryouito would decrease even further. Do you understand?" 

"Nope," Luz mumbled.

"I didn't get it either," Visul pouted.

Ray laughed. The fabric in her hands began to mend itself, the broken portions of the seams joining together slowly as the white, glowing threads held them together, binding the pieces.

"Both of you can do it, which means you're both special," she smiled, "to the Shikke and the Yun, the both of you are the only hope for coexistence."

At the time, neither Luz nor Visul understood a thing their mother was trying to imply. 

The rain simply poured over the world today, too, on the island the sun never shined on.

  ー  

"Did you really think you could win against me?" 

Elder Yun was exasperated. His hand on Visul's neck, holding the girl up by her collar.

Visul's arm hung down the side, limp-- her other shoulder was burned through her clothes, bright red skin contrasted against the black of soot and the white of her paleness. A trickle of blood ran from a broken lip, a ringing in her head spun around by the feverish environment.

"Your pathetic string-- you're just a weak, tiny spider trying to fight against an inferno," Elder Yun snorted, "did you resist without that understanding?"

Visul clenched her fist.

The Yun clan are well known as the Yun of the Blue Flames, her mother used to tell them, they reigned as a strong clan outside-- but now that they've rendered runaways to this country, they're frustrated and want nothing but to dominate again, being high up again because they can't handle being pushed down from their pedestal.

"This is my country," she seethed, "and I fight to protect it."

She was hurled into a bookshelf.

Her back crashing against wood, her breath was caught in her throat as her air was knocked out of her-- burning books pummelled in a landslide onto her, and she was buried under.

"You are surrounded," Elder Yun raised his tone, "why do you still hold on to your pitiful ambitions? You're too weak to protect your nation, you couldn't protect anything! It is high time you let it be and go."

Elder Yun swerved aside quickly to avoid a kunai.

Luz broke in from the burning door, burned in some part of his clothes and breathing heavily from the lack of oxygen in the area. 

"Home, it's our legacy," Luz seethed, "why don't you go home too?"

"Luz?!" Visul lifted her head. She pushed herself up-- flinching at a sharp pain in her ankle. Biting back a swear at the back of her breath, she struggled to her feet.

The siblings eyed each other with only deep consideration-- there were no words exchanged between them. They hadn't met in ten full years-- so they had no words to share.

"What great timing," Elder Yun only simpered, spreading his hands in welcome, "both of you are here now. That saves us all the time."

"Ray told us," Visul murmured, "the Yun fight with Fire; the Shikke fight in a cluster."

"In this country of rain; with not a Shikke left alive aside from two..." Luz continued, "...I'd say we are in the same degree of a disadvantage, Elder Yun."

The building roared in burning blue flames, setting the stage for a battle of two children against one old man.

  ー  

"Visul, remember to not leave the house," Ray reminded her child time and time again, "we'll be back as soon as we can, so don't worry, alright?"

Visul was downcast, sitting on her bed sadly as she obediently nodded to her mother's words. It was always the same-- she was never allowed out of the house, no matter what and any situation. Luz was allowed outside, but somehow Visul was never. She didn't understand it at all.

Luz and her mother went out to hunt today-- and her father was in town, at work. 

She was alone today.

So she threw on one of Luz's hooded raincoats and scurried out of the house almost immediately after her mother was out of sight. 

She was a lively, mischievous child that hated to be cooped up.

She held an uncanny resemblance to her mother, and loved to show off the strings she so-loved to control-- so her mother hid her from society, and apparently Luz was never to mention he had a twin at all.

The family itself lived away from town, so it wasn't as if she was missing out much. But Luz had friends from the slums-- Ray had acquaintances in those sketchy shopkeepers. Dad was a proper member of the city-- but here Vizul was, apparently nonexistent to them.

Visul made her quick way into the slums. Running euphorically, drunk in joy, Visul tripped over a lifted brick and fell. Her hood flew from its place, her knee crashed and rubbed against the pavement--

"Are you alright, kid?"

A man from the side of the road called out jokingly, jest in his tone. The girl wasn't crying, so it probably wasn't a serious wound.

"I'm okay!" Visul assured, her smile bright and beaming.

Eyeing her scraped knee, a split wound right down the side, Visul did not fear the blood that ran down her thighs, nor did she cry from the pain that burned and flared up her senses--

She strongly held back the tears with a smile, reached out her hands-- and drew out the sacred strings of the Chiryouito from her senses-- making her blood take the form of long, thin threads that began to wind back into the wound.

Threading each piece through broken flesh and joining it back together, the wound was mended in no time at all-- and she stood up, satisfied. 

The crowd around her flinched, stepping back in utmost horror.

Visul didn't know why they seemed so mortified.

"G-Girl," a man stuttered out, "what did you just... do?"

At that, Visul seemed to understand-- oh, they were just so in awe at this thing Mom taught me to do! She brightened up so happily.

"It's called Chiryouito!" she proudly declared, "Mom taught me how to do it!"

Perhaps this was a mistake on Ray's part-- but now, that regret can never be amended. She was stupid to hide a child from the world like this-- and she never realized her mistake until it was too late.  

Visul was a curious, innocent, naive and gullible child.

Curiousity killed the cat; but this time, satisfaction only brought tragedy back.