To A Thief - Chapter 30: My Little Summer - Part II

~An Hour Later~

"Urgh... my legs are killing me!" Stiff exclaimed as he slumped back against a tree in defeat. "I don't think I've ever ran that fast before in my life." 

"Aww, don't feel so bad, Stiffy! It coulda been worse, worse," Okina giggled as she sat down beside him. "You coulda ended up like Flint, Mel, and Anners... ouchies." 

"Yeah, you got that right," He groaned in response, rubbing the back of his neck. "If it hadn't been for you, we would've been kabobbed onto those giant horns..." 

Stiff winced as he thought of that image. Being struck through the back and out the gut by colored longhorns... not that it happened to Flint, Mel, and Annie though. But it might as well have. 

~Flashback!~

"INCOMING!" A random contestant's voice tore through the air as multiple people, both from the Ravaging Rarab's and the Malicious Mandragoras' teams shot through the air and landed left and right among the grassy hills of Rolanberry. 

"This is crazy!" Stiff shouted as he dove all over the place, just barely dodging falling contestants who landed either unconscious or too weak to get back up. "How the hell can these toros launch people so high up!?" 

"UNFH!" Annie tripped over an unconscious galka who landed before her as she ran, but caught her balance before she could land flat on her face. "Grr! Just keep moving! As long as we have them after us, we can get them back to our corrals!"

"God damn, Stif! You really pissed these things off!" Flint croaked as he ran up beside the others. "They're too fast, we can't outrun em'! BODY!" He shouted abruptly as another contestant dropped from above like some kind of stone.

"Okina! Where's Okina!?" Stiff looked behind him frantically as he ran. He couldn't see her anywhere. All he saw behind him was the crowd of torrofied contestants running with all their might from the chaotic herd of toros- blue horned toros. 

One by one, the contestants were mowed down like tall grass and sent flying over the rest by the sheer force of those blue horns, landing in front of everyone and becoming another unconscious obstacle to jump over. Many who tripped over them didn't make it...

"YAAAAAAAGH!" A raspy, odd screech shot through the air as a tarutaru with a cowboy hat went flying through the air after being struck, landing on top of a tree and tumbling down branch to branch until he hung over one by his shirt.

"I can't see her either... Stiff, it's too late. Okina's gone," Mel gasped for air as she struggled to keep up. Unfortunately, she was falling behind. "Mages aren't meant for this kind of cardio!" She cried. 

"Oh no! Mel's falling behind!" Flint said to himself. "We can't afford to lose all the cute girls! That would be hell for me... it looks like it's up to me." He thought as he suddenly put on a serious face and turned to the others as he ran. 

"Alright guys! We won't make it at this rate. They're way too fast... you guys keep going! I'll slow them down to give you time to get some distance! If they get you before you get them into the corral, all our efforts will have been in vain." 

"Don't do it, Flint!" Stiff looked back at him as he read his eyes. "We can still do this! Maybe I can-" 

"NO!" Flint cut him off. "I must do this for the ladies!" He said, giving a sly wink at Annie and Mel, who looked at him with unfazed stares. "Well, here goes nothing!" 

Reaching into his satchel, he pulled out a handful of round rubber marking pellets, red in color that he would use in his rifle to mark specific targets. Crushing them in his hand and smearing the red paint all over himself, he stopped and turned around to face the incoming toros. They all immediately switched their gaze to him the moment they saw all the red dripping paint. 

"Alright, blue horns! GIMME ALL YA' G---AAAGGGGH!" 

A series of high pitched screams cut into Flint's speaking as the toros herded around him, kicking up dust and trampling around all over. 

"FLIIIIINT!" Mel screamed dramatically, stretching out her arm towards his general direction... but sure as hell not stopping, of course. 

"Holy crap!" Stiff stumbled back as he saw streams of red shooting out from the center of the herd. 

"I can't tell if that's red paint from the rubber marking rounds or if it's actually blood..." Annie blinked as the group looked back while running. 

YEEEEEE! EEEEEEK! AYYYYYY!! RIEEEEHIEEHIEEHIEEEE!

Flint's womanly screams eventually stopped and after the dust cleared off, the toros turned to face the fleeing contestants once more. Flint's little act of stupid bravery hadn't done much, but they had gotten a bit more distance from the herd since they had stopped to... ravage him. 

"Keep running!" Stiff screamed at the top of his lungs as the herd began the goose chase once again. 

"We're next!" Mel shouted after him. 

~End Flashback~

"Poor Flint!" Okina gasped as she looked at Stiff, but ended up pressing a hand to her mouth and letting out a muffled giggle. "Did he really scream like a girl?" 

"Yeah... it was one of the scariest things ever." Stiff muttered in a traumatized state. "We couldn't see anything but a bunch of horns swinging all over and huge clouds of dust... and red... stuff."

"Aww, then what happened!?" Okina asked him intently, scooting closer to him and tilting her head in a curious manner as she wanted to hear more of this wild chase. 

"Annie and Mel..." Stiff whispered, covering his eyes as another flashback engulfs you- the reader. 

~Ey fiyew minootz eurrliyurr~ <- o.0?

"Guess it can't be helped." Annie muttered as the toros once again caught up to the remaining three. They could see the corral in the distance, but it was still quite a ways away.

That's right. All contestants from the Ravaging Rarabs had been eliminated... it was just them three left. Altana knows what happened to the Malicious Mandragoras. 

"There's no getting away from the herd. Not like this. Stiff, I can't believe I'm saying this, but it'll be up to you now. I'm going to stall these things for a bit... once they start chasing after you again, I want you to flee towards the corral. You're the fastest guy in the linkshell, so you should be able to make it from this point on." She narrowed her eyes, turning her gaze to Mel, who looked back at her in disbelief. "Mel, you warp out of here the moment you get the chance. I'm comfortable with risking Stiff's life for this win, but not yours."

"W-what? I'm not going anywherrre!" Mel whined, coiling her tail around her waist as she pointed harshly at Annie. "And neitherrr are you!" 

Annie simply smirked, unsheathing her great katana and closing her eyes. "You underestimate me, Mel." Without another word, she skidded to a halt and turned the end of her blade towards the incoming toros. "Keep moving!" 

Clutching the hilt of her katana with both hands, she began to swing the blade left and right at the air in front of her erratically. She swung faster and faster, increasing this wavy pattern of swinging until so much air was being shot outward at great speeds that it began to create what looked like sonic booms. Small cyclones of wind flung themselves at the herd of toros, unable to cut through their thick, leathery skin but strong enough to push against them which in turn slowed them down. With the toros in the front lines slowing down, the ones in the back would have no choice but to do so as well. 

"It's working!" Stiff shouted as hope twinkled in his eyes. "She's slowing them down!" 

"Don't throw a party just yet." Annie grunted as she struggled to keep it up. These things were slowing down, yes, but that doesn't mean they were stopping. She was fully aware that she would have no chance in stopping them, and only meant to slow them down anyway. "Guess this is it." Closing one eye, she prepared to be trampled. 

"Not so fast! MRROW!" Mel jumped into the fray, landing beside her friend and bearing her feline-like fangs as she held out her staff. "Telling me to warrrp out.. hah! Don't make me laugh, you silly girrrl... now watch this!" 

Mel clutched the upper section of her staff in both hands, closing her eyes tightly as she concentrated all the magical energy in her veins into her staff, uttering a spell in a whisper.

"What the hell, Mel! I told you to get out of here!" Annie growled at her. 

"Hrrrah!" Mel screeched, ignoring her friends protests as her eyes shot open and down came the base of her staff to the ground. The moment it made contact, the earth before the two girls began to roll about and rise up, creating a sort of "earth wall" that blocked passage from the toros. 

"Heeee... and you wanted me to go away." Mel grinned smugly at Annie, who just looked back at her through irritated eyes of defeat. 

"Whatever. Congratulations, you cheated your way over my true ability. Woohoo." Annie rolled her eyes. "Let's just hurry. This wall won't last too- what the?" She looked down at the ground as countless wide shadows from above suddenly engulfed their own. 

Looking up, the two girls' eyes widened as a metorro shower of toros rained down towards them. The damn things had jumped over the earth wall! Somehow, someway, they had launched their own bodies over it.

The two girls stopped their pestering and at that same moment, threw themselves in each other's arms and screamed frantically- hard enough to launch their hearts into their throats. 

SMASH! POW! OOF! PIFF!!

~End Flashback~

"What more was there to do? I ran. It was over for them. I was left... I was the only one. So I snapped out of it, and I ran... I ran so far away. I just ran. I ran all night and day... I couldn't get away." Stiff muttered, leaning his head back against the tree. 

"And then? AND THEN? That's when I showed up! Right, right?" Okina smiled wide, leaning so close to Stiff's face she had her nose pressed up against his. 

Stiff looked at her with their faces pressed together like this with a stumped expression. She just couldn't wait to hear the part where she happened to come out of nowhere and save the day.

"Fine... you could act a bit more worried, you know! Anyway, it went a little something like this:" 

~Another God Dang Flash Back~

"I'm so close!" Stiff groaned aloud as he saw he was literally a few hundred feet from the corral. But he could feel the heavy breathing of the toros right against his back. Unless there was some kind of miracle, he didn't think he could make it. "Just a little bit further!" 

Suddenly, he felt one of the toros nab him right in the back with its snout, the force sending Stiff tumbling forward as if he had just been whacked in the back by Veronaut's axe. 

"Ahhh!" He screamed, tumbling nonstop until he came to a halt in a sitting up position, facing the toros. That was it. He was finished. Throwing his arms over his face, Stiff braced himself. 

A few seconds passed, but he didn't feel the force of thousands of pounds trampling over him. Hell, he couldn't even feel the ground under him anymore. Upon lowering his arms and realizing what was going on, his eyes went wide. 

"Okina!?"

"Hi, Stiffy!" She waved casually at him from atop one of the front line toros' head. She had apparently snatched Stiff up off the ground with her monkey-like tail at the last second and pulled him out of harms way. 

But his current position wasn't much better, either. His body was now latched onto the front of the toros face that Okina had hauled him onto. It roared and shook its head fiercely, wanting to chuck the little hume off its face. 

"Agghhh! D****t, Okina! Have you been riding this thing all this time!?" Stiff wailed as he was flung left and right, holding onto the toro's ears and Okina's tail around his neck, nearly choking him as she steered the beast by its very horns. 

"Yup, yup!" Okina giggled, laughing at Stiff as he held on for dear life. "This is so much fun, Stiffyyyyy~" 

~And into the corral they all went. End Flashback.~

"Mhm!" Okina nodded matter of factly, wrapping her arms around Stiff and resting her head against his shoulder as the two sat under the tree. "I'm so happy. I feel bad for Annie, Flint, and Mel... but at least everyone's okay! Just hurt really bad, heeee. But I'm happy!"

Stiff shifted his gaze towards her as she leaned against him, snorting a little in disbelief at how upbeat she was even though they had lost. "Is that so? You're not bummed that we lost? We went through all that trouble... and we lost." 

"Nuh uh!" Okina shook her head. "I'm happy because we were finally able to take a break from all that training, training. I was beginning to think I wouldn't be able to have fun like we used to anymore." 

"... Used to?" Stiff suddenly turned to her, wondering if she knew about that. 

"Yuh! You know, like when we first met in the jungle~" She smiled, looking up at him with those big, adorable eyes of hers. They always looked so innocent. 

"Oh." Stiff gave her a pursed smile. "Yeah, you're right. It has been a while since we've had fun, hasn't it?" 

"Yuh. Hmph!" She nodded aggressively, then rested her head back against his shoulder and giggled softly. "How did the other team beat us anyway, anyway?"

Stiff slumped his shoulders and hung his head low, sighing dejectedly. "They poked the toros in the a*s with their shinies. That happened to be the golden tip that the toro master gave us, even though he told us specifically not to do it. But I guess it's not so bad. Annie, Mel, and Flint are going to have to sit the rest of this festival out, though." He chuckled. 

"Okay!" She nodded, completely okay with the fact. Turning to him and scooting up against him a little more, she gave him another sweet and innocent smile. "I like being with Stiffy. So it's okay, okay." 

He could feel his face flush as it became warm. He didn't realize until now how close the two of them were against each other. They had just been so distracted by those crazy flashbacks. But at the same time, neither seemed to mind too much...

"Um... uh." Stiff stuttered as he looked back at her. Her body felt so delicate and soft despite how agile and limber she was. As he looked at her a little more, he began to see the little blonde girl from his past. She was the same girl, after all... but she didn't seem to realize it. Was that good or bad? He wanted to tell her. 

But before Stiff could say anything else, Okina finally giggled and pressed her finger against the tip of his nose, flattening it against his face and then jumping back onto her feet. "Come on, Stiffy! You remember my mission, don't you, don't you? We've got to get to those food stands." 

She stopped suddenly as she felt Stiff's hand take hold of her wrist. He remained sitting there, looking up at her with a deep, yet distant look on his face. "Okina... wait, I..." He began to stutter some more. 

What do I do? 

Should I tell her? 

She seems so happy the way she is now... and I'm happy too. It's not like anything is wrong with her. 

She's not a monster like I am...

But if I tell her, will she hate me? Will she be sad knowing that she used to have a normal life before I screwed it up? And that I've been keeping it from her all this time?

I couldn't protect her... she was experimented on because of me. I'm the reason she ended up with such an abnormal life. I want to tell her, but I wouldn't know what to do if I was to lose that smile of hers. 

I... I need that smile.  

"Are you okay, Stiffy?" She blinked as she looked down at him, leaning forward and tilting her head in that curious manner of hers. "Huuuuh?" 

Snapped out of his thoughts, Stiff quickly shook his head and quickly got back up on his feet. Giving her an embarrassed smile, he shook his head and let go of her wrist. "Yeah, no problem! I just needed help getting up is all." 

D****t...

By the time night had fallen over the summer sky, the two of them had visited every single game, souvenir, and food stand in the streets of Jeuno. At this time, people were gathering around in there adorned summer yukatas, including Stiff and Okina whom had won theirs in one of the many event stalls. The one Stiff wore was blue and had some white cauliflower designs all over it. Okina wore a similar one, except hers was a light pink in color. 

Stiff found himself gazing at her when her attention was on something else. The way she wore her hair went so well with that new yukata of hers. A cute little side-swept pony tail. He didn't even realize he was smiling a little upon watching her until she turned to him with a giggle and grabbed him by the wrist, dragging him up the stairs heading from Upper Jeuno to Ru'lude Gardens. 

Fireworks lit up the night sky, those which could be seen from any section in the city of Jeuno, but the sight of them from these gardens was absolutely stunning. Surrounded by the white decorative architecture lined with countless hand grown trees and shrubs coupled with the various colors of the fireworks lighting up the area was the perfect farewell to the sunbreeze festival. 

"They look so amazing." Okina murmured in a trance-like gaze as her eyes followed the pretty colors. "I've never seen anything like it, like it. It's so beautiful..." 

"Yes, it is." Stiff smiled at her, watching the colorful fireworks reflect over her eyes. He couldn't really explain it, but seeing her happy just made him feel like he was on top of the world. He took her hand which hadn't let go of his wrist yet and instead had her hold his hand. 

She slowly turned her gaze to him upon feeling his fingers lace around hers, blinking. "Stiffy?" 

"Okina." He said, turning fully towards her and taking both her hands in his. "I know I've broken promises before in the past, but..." 

"Huuuh?" She rose a brow, curious as to what he was doing.

"Look, no matter what happens... I'm going to protect your happiness." He said, biting his lower lip and furrowing his own brow, scolding himself for making that sound more confusing than it should be. "Okina, when you're happy... I'm happy." 

"When I'm... happy?" She repeated after him, her voice growing softer and smaller.

"Mmnh." He grumbled at himself, feeling like he was making her uneasy. "If you could just let me see that... beautiful smile of yours every day... then I'll make sure to do what ever it takes to keep it there. When you're not around with that smile of yours, I'm just... out of it, you know?" 

Okina simply looked at him with her head tilted slightly in that sweet and modest manner of hers when she was trying hard to understand. Her eyes seemed to understand what he was saying, but they also seemed to be waiting for him to just outright say it. "Stiff..."

Aw hell with it, I can't hold back anymore...

Pulling her to him gently by her hands until he could feel her chest up against his, he wrapped his arms around her waist and planted his lips on hers, already able to taste their sweetness against his own the moment they made contact. 

As his eyes began to close once he melted into the kiss, he could see that she was a little shocked by the suddenness of it. She stood there for a few seconds with her eyes a little wide, reflecting the fireworks in that angelic way before she, too, began to close them once she felt herself melting into him. At this point, her monkey-like tail coiled itself around the two of them. He felt her arms wrap around his neck and then finally began to feel her kiss him back. 

I swear I was floating that night. 

No, I wasn't floating... I was on top of the world. Surrounded by fireworks. 

I'll never forget that particular little summer of mine. It was the most amazing one yet.

___________________________________________________________________________________

The perfect farewell to the Sunbreeze Festival. That sounds about right. 

Continued in Chapter 31: A Beginning to an End