The circumstances of how Kitahara and Rice Shower first met were, broadly speaking, about the same as with Doto.
To sum it up simply: for one reason or another, the still-young Rice Shower had also been swept up in an Umamusume Hunting incident.
And Kitahara just happened to be passing through that area at the time, got dragged into it, and after a fair bit of trouble, managed to rescue her.
But unlike Doto, while Rice Shower was somewhat timid and lacking in confidence, her destructive potential wasn't nearly as strong by comparison, and the situation back then also hadn't been as absurd as Doto's, so the rescue itself had gone relatively smoothly.
Even so, no matter how smoothly it went, for the child Rice Shower had been at the time, being kidnapped was already terrifying enough on its own.
Not to mention that Kitahara had already been involved in many such incidents by then, and had long since grown used to all kinds of situations. Things that seemed unremarkable to him could very well become lifelong psychological scars for someone else.
And at the time, on the one hand, he had noticed the lingering shadow in Rice Shower's heart. On the other hand, Eclipse's rations really weren't all that sufficient.
So after giving it a little thought, Kitahara stayed in the area for a while, kept Rice Shower company, and tried to help her work through her psychological issues while he was at it.
Because he had only recently tried something similar with Doto—and the results there had been... somewhat delicate—
Kitahara learned from that experience. This time, rather than trying to direct Rice Shower's actions the way he had with Doto, he focused more on encouraging her emotionally and personally, trying to build up her confidence that way.
Keeping her company, comforting her, praising her...
Talking with her, guiding her, commending her...
Maybe it was because he had enough experience by then. Or maybe it was because Rice Shower's situation had been comparatively milder.
Whatever the reason, during that first stretch of time, Rice Shower's lack of confidence improved far more noticeably than Meisho Doto's had, and there was none of that human-machine disconnect Doto had shown, where her mind couldn't keep up but her body still moved.
At the time, Kitahara had found that deeply reassuring. For a while, he had even thought he'd finally figured out how to deal with Little Ancestors like these, and that if he ever ran into a similar situation again, he wouldn't need to worry too much.
Then the very next day after he'd thought that, Rice Shower disappeared again.
Kitahara had immediately been hit with a bad premonition, and after a brief investigation, that premonition was quickly proven right.
Rice Shower had once again been dragged into an Umamusume Hunting incident.
Honestly, even though Kitahara himself had already lived through many such incidents by then, to this day, the number of people he knew who had been caught up in two separate Umamusume Hunting incidents could be counted on one hand.
Because if you thought about it carefully, this was, after all, a world where real gods existed.
And on top of that, the outside world adored Umamusume. The sort of work that Umamusume Hunting involved was something only the most deranged, desperate criminals would even consider in the first place. The chances of it happening were already low to begin with.
Besides, not long before that, an Umamusume Hunting incident had already taken place nearby. Even if it hadn't been publicized on a wide scale, vigilance in the area would definitely have been heightened.
Under those circumstances, with one group of "predecessors" already serving as a cautionary tale and the environment having become even harsher, you ordinarily wouldn't see multiple Umamusume Hunting incidents happen in the same region.
Much less with the same victim.
But it happened anyway.
And the team that came the second time was even more professional than the first.
On top of that, after helping deal with the previous incident, Speed had figured there probably wouldn't be much entertainment around for a while and had gone back to the Symboli family, which meant Kitahara was down one teammate and the difficulty of handling things shot up all at once.
Even so, after paying a few minor costs, Kitahara still managed to take out a few lookouts, sneak into the kidnappers' camp, and find the place where Rice Shower was being held.
"Shh. Don't make a sound. I'll get you out."
Thanks to his wealth of rescue experience, Kitahara had a fairly deep understanding of lockpicking and sneaking around. He pulled out a bit of wire, twisted it a couple of times, and easily undid Rice Shower's restraints.
"All right. Let's go."
He reached out and took the hand Rice Shower offered him, then slowly led her out while softly reassuring her under his breath.
"Onii-sama, your face..."
Only after they had gone some distance and Rice Shower had calmed down a little did she notice that there seemed to be blood on Kitahara's face, and that his clothes were a bit torn.
And if one looked more closely, one could also see several fresh cuts on the hand not holding hers, and hear that his voice was slightly hoarser than usual.
"It's nothing. Just a few minor injuries."
Honestly, Kitahara truly didn't think much of it. Compared to the things he had dealt with before, this operation had gone pretty smoothly, and the injuries he had taken were all within expectations.
But even if he saw it that way, that wasn't how it looked in Rice Shower's eyes. Looking at his battered appearance and the blood on him, her ears slowly drooped, and a trace of tears entered her voice.
"I'm sorry. It's all because of me..."
"This has nothing to do with you."
Kitahara smiled and patted her head, explaining as they walked,
"You didn't do anything wrong. The ones at fault are those lunatics who lost their minds."
"I'm not just saying that to comfort you, either. Think about it yourself—if a trafficker kidnaps a child, would you say the child is at fault? Or the trafficker?"
"But if I'd just been more careful..."
"That isn't something you should have had to be careful about."
Kitahara's voice stayed as gentle as ever. Looking her in the eyes, he spoke seriously.
"For a child your age, you already did more than enough. Not only did you leave behind the necessary clues the way I taught you, you also managed to stay calm even in a situation like this... There are a lot of people who couldn't have done that."
Hearing Kitahara say that, Rice Shower seemed a little better, but her ears still drooped, and her eyes were still full of self-reproach.
Seeing her like that, although she said nothing more, based on how she usually behaved, Kitahara could more or less guess what she was thinking.
"Are you thinking that you brought bad luck with you, that I got hurt because you dragged me into this?"
Rice Shower didn't answer. She only lowered her head even more.
"Then you've got it all wrong, Rice Shower."
While speaking to keep her attention occupied and stop her from growing too tense, Kitahara also kept watch on the surrounding terrain.
"Even if this isn't exactly the right thing to tell a child your age, I can tell you this: I've already been caught up in more than a dozen incidents like this before."
"I'm not trying to comfort you. If you ever have the time and the means, you can go look up the records at the URA. There should be plenty there to prove it."
"By your logic, you've only run into something like this twice, while I've run into it more than a dozen times. So if anything, that would mean I'm the one dragging you down, not the other way around."
"In fact, I think my luck actually got better after I met you. When I used to run into this kind of thing, I ended up in much worse shape than this. But both times I came to find you, things went quite smoothly..."
"So compared to you dragging me down, I'd say you brought me luck instead. Because you were there both times, I was able to handle them so easily."
"You're my lucky star, Rice Shower."
As he said that, Kitahara led Rice Shower to the edge of the woods. A little farther ahead was the rendezvous point he'd agreed on with the others. Victory was practically within reach.
By that point, even if Kitahara wasn't relaxing his guard, he did feel somewhat more at ease inside.
And seeing Rice Shower keep her head lowered the whole time, he thought he'd try to lighten the mood, so he spoke half-jokingly.
"Of course, our adorable little lucky star doesn't shine all the time. There really are moments when you give me a headache too..."
"But if you could be a little more confident, stop blaming every bad thing around you on yourself, and lift your head a little more when you talk—smile a little more too—then I think our little lucky star would shine even brighter..."
Rice Shower knew exactly what Kitahara meant.
Because before that, while he always tried to avoid being cruel, he had never hidden his dislike of her overly self-deprecating personality, nor had he ever fed her empty, polite lies just for the sake of appearances.
Because he knew that Little Ancestors with that sort of temperament could tolerate anything except deceit. Once they realized you had lied to them even once—even out of kindness—then no matter what you said afterward, they would always doubt it.
And precisely because of that, Kitahara's words carried extraordinary weight with Rice Shower.
Lucky star. Confidence. Smile...
Hearing those words, Rice Shower raised her head just a little, though her expression was still impossible to make out.
"Onii-sama, do you really think... I can bring people luck?"
"Of course. If you don't believe me, I can dig up the records for you when we get back. There should even still be a few miserable-looking photos of me in there."
After a pause, he added, "Though I'd still rather wait until you're older before showing you that kind of thing. It's not really suitable for you to see right now."
"Mhm."
Rice Shower nodded obediently, her face hidden in shadow.
Confidence and a smile...
She repeated those two words in her heart, trying hard to curl her lips upward, but no matter how hard she tried, all she could manage was a strained smile that looked forced at a glance.
The rendezvous point was getting closer and closer, and as they approached, the light coming from it grew brighter and brighter, shining over the two of them and drawing out long shadows behind them.
With her head lowered, as her view improved, she could see more and more clearly just how battered he was, how much blood there was on him, and the feelings inside her only kept building.
If only she had been more alert. If only she had been more confident. If only she had been more useful...
But there was no if.
Even if Kitahara said she was his lucky star, the reality right now was that she couldn't do anything except cause him trouble. She couldn't even force out a smile that might make him feel a little better.
The hand pressed against her chest unconsciously curled into a fist. The emotions inside her kept piling up. Even though safety and light were right in front of her, Rice Shower felt worse than she had while being held captive.
Because they were so close to the rendezvous point, and because his attention was fixed on the surroundings, Kitahara didn't notice that something was wrong with Rice Shower.
It was only when she let go of his hand that he finally turned back and looked at her.
"What's wrong, Rice Shower?"
After a brief silence, she seemed like she wanted to say something to him, but after her lips trembled a few times, no sound came out.
"Rice Shower, you—"
Kitahara had been about to tell her to wait, that whatever she wanted to say could wait until they were safe—but before he could finish, Rice Shower suddenly turned and ran back the way they had come.
Kitahara froze for a moment, then immediately chased after her once he came to his senses.
Unfortunately, although Rice Shower had not yet undergone True Awakening at the time, her legs were still far beyond what Kitahara could keep up with, so he failed to catch her right away.
Still, thankfully, even if he couldn't catch up, the sheer force of her running left a clear trail, so Kitahara was able to follow her footprints easily. It took some time, but in the end, he did find the Rice Shower who had run off.
"Rice Shower, what happened...?"
Pushing aside the bushes and seeing the sight in front of him, Kitahara went still.
The small Rice Shower stood there in the shadows, head lowered, her bangs hanging down and hiding her expression.
And in front of her lay a corpse, its entire throat slit open, its head almost severed, with a clearly visible puncture wound through the chest, warm blood still spilling out.
Kitahara remembered this man. He had been one of the lookouts among the Umamusume hunters, but because he hadn't been on Kitahara's escape route, Kitahara hadn't wanted to complicate matters and had left him alone.
But the biggest problem wasn't the corpse.
Kitahara slowly lowered his gaze, his eyes finally coming to rest on the dagger in Rice Shower's hand, still dripping blood.
Where did she get a dagger?
That was Kitahara's first thought.
Only then did he speak, asking her whether she had done this to the man in front of her.
Rice Shower stood there. When she heard his question, her ears twitched, and then she slowly turned around.
And then Kitahara saw something that shook him to his core.
She was smiling.
Not the strained, timid smile he knew. Not the kind you could tell at a glance had been forced out. No—this was the kind of smile that had never once appeared on her before, a smile bright and confident from the inside out, radiant like sunlight.
If it had been anywhere else, then seeing her show a smile like that would have made Kitahara deeply happy.
But here, in a pitch-black forest, with a corpse lying nearby, and her smiling that happily, that brightly...
Even Kitahara didn't know how to describe what he had felt at that moment.
But although the sight hit him like a mental shock, his first reaction still wasn't fear. Instead, he hurried over, intending to take her away from there and bring her to the rendezvous point.
But this time, Rice Shower didn't go with him. Instead, she took his hand of her own accord with the one still stained with blood, looked him in the eyes, smiled with sunny confidence, and spoke as if she were discussing where to go on an outing.
"Onii-sama."
"How about we go kill all of them?"
---
T/N: oh fuck
4 chaps meeting this weeks quota, i was toooo lazy and slept allllllllll week sorgee
bonus chaps
200 stones -> 1 chapter
400 stones -> 2 chapters
600 stones -> 3 chapters
and so on
discord.gg/wisetl
patreon.com/wisetl