Crunch Crunch. The sound of leaves breaking underfoot echoed through the towering mountains. Michael breathed out a puff of warm air. These 5 mile hikes do clear up the mind, He thought. Then all of a sudden, his foot hit a hard box.

“OOWWW!” He shouted in pain.

Michael looked down. There was an antique old chest covered in soot. Huh, he thought, and kept walking along, not thinking much of it. When he had walked just two steps after seeing the chest, he felt a jerk as if someone had yanked the back of his shirt. He heard a voice from behind. It said,

“Come with us. Come with us.”

He then felt as if the person behind him pulled him by the back of his shirt through maple syrup. Michael began to shout “WHO ARE YOU! WHERE AM I!”

The same voice responded, “I am Jin Kiyora.”

“And I am Ranze Kurona,” a second, more energetic voice responded.

“This is the future,” said Jin Kiyora.

Michael opened his eyes, and he saw earth from a birds-eye view. He saw a blazing meteor crash into earth. The marble blue planet exploded.

“This is the future in a week if you don’t intervene. The destruction of the world,” murmured Kurona.

“Let’s go back to the present,” said Jin Kiyora.

Michael felt again as if he was being dragged through maple syrup by the scruff of his neck. He opened his eyes and saw a red-haired 18-year-old boy and a 19-year-old dark-haired man. Both were wearing masks that looked like wolves. From their voices, Michael could instantly tell that the redhead was Ranze Kurona and the black-haired man was Jin Kiyora .

“To save the world, you need to extract the stone from the chest and create a shield. I will teach you, but you need to make most of the effort. You will train everyday with Kurona. If you were thinking why you need to split the chest, well, the destruction is near. We can’t afford to wait anymore,” said Jin Kiyora.

Ranze Kurona gave him a katana as black as night.

“That will be your weapon, to slice open the chest. It is locked in case you didn’t know,” said Kurona.

Michael picked up the katana and attempted to slash open the chest, but the katana just clanked against the dusty chest.

“You will need much more training than that,” said Kurona.

From that day on, Michael began to train in the mountains, training day after day until he thought he would die. After one especially tiring day of training, Michael sat down under a tree which is where he usually slept.

“What if i just quit?” he thought. But then, he spotted a bird and there was a wild cat clawing at it ferociously at it. the bird was so desperate to protect his family.

“Yeah, that’s what I’ll do,” he thought to himself. The next day, he met Kiyora, for his training had come to an end. Kiyora had told him the procedure earlier. If he could defeat Kiyora in battle, then he was strong enough to split the chest, and once it did, the gem inside would cast an invisible shield over the world. Michael drew on all the practice over the past week and swung the dark sword at Kiyora. The sword sliced right through Kiyora’s mask and he smiled. His face, twisted into a smile, and he said, “You did it, you really did.”

Then, both Kiyora and Kurona dissolved into smoke. When Michael looked down, he realized that his sword had not split Kiyora’s wolf-like mask, but had cut open the chest. A glowing blue gem floated out of the chest and into the air.

“Huh,” Michael thought. And he picked up his bag and walked off into the horizon.