Page 37 of Shinji Takahashi: Into the Heart of the Storm

Guardian. This way.

Shinji froze. It wasn’t that he heard any actual words, whispering to him in his head or calling to him from the trees. It was more a sensation, a feeling, that something was watching them. He turned and caught a flash of two pinprick blue eyes gazing at him from the ferns at the edge of the jungle. His heart leaped to his throat, but before he could even take a breath, the eyes vanished.

Roux was shaking his head, and from his dubious expression, he was about to make a comment about giant spiders when Shinji brushed past him and walked toward the edge of the jungle.

“Uh, okay, I guess we’re exploring now.”

“Shinji?” Lucy called as they hurried after him. “What are you doing?”

“I thought I saw something,” Shinji muttered. As he walked to the edge of the trees where he had seen the eyes, his breath caught. A small path, barely more than a game trail, snaked away into the jungle until it vanished from sight.

“Ooh, a path,” Roux exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. “Maybe it’ll lead to an ancient burial ground or hidden temple.”

Lucy, peering over Shinji’s shoulder, hesitated when she saw the trail. “Oliver told us not to wander off,” she said uncertainly.

“No, he didn’t,” Shinji said. “He told us not to get in trouble.”

She glared at him. “You know what I mean.”

Shinji took a breath. He couldn’t see the eyes anymore, but he knew something was still watching him. Waiting for him. Only him. Because he was the guardian. The others didn’t get it; he was the one with the magic and this responsibility he still didn’t understand. He just knew when something called, he had to respond.

“Shinji,” Lucy warned as he stepped onto the path.

“I won’t go far,” Shinji said without looking back. He kept moving forward, brushing ferns and branches aside, and heard Roux immediately step onto the trail. After another moment, Lucy followed.

The trail didn’t go far, though Shinji had to duck branches and shove more vines aside to get through. Pushing his way through a large clump of ferns, he stumbled from the path into a small clearing. It wasn’t large, but it was secluded and quiet, completely isolated from the village and the rest of the camp.

Shinji blinked. In the center of the grove, lying in the dirt, covered in moss, vines, and vegetation, was an airplane. A tiny airplane, with a front propeller completely bent and rusted in the grass. A single cockpit sat behind the propeller with the glass smashed in. One wing lay snapped and broken in the dirt, and a large gash rent one side of the plane nearly in half.

“Whoa,” Roux said, eyes wide as he edged into the clearing. “Okay, that’s way better than a haunted burial ground with creepy dolls and spiders.”

Lucy walked forward as well, squinting up at the wrecked plane. “I wonder what kind it is,” she said. “It certainly wouldn’t belong to any of the villagers. How did it get here?”

“Maybe it crashed,” Shinji guessed. He glanced at the trees overhead and saw that several large branches were broken and snapped, though the destruction seemed to have taken place a long time ago. “It probably belonged to the soldiers who were here. Oliver and Mano are definitely going to want to see this.…”

He trailed off, a chill again creeping along his spine. It

was back, that feeling of eyes on the back of his neck. Something was there, in the forest. Tracking them.

Behind Shinji, a twig snapped in the trees, and the bushes rustled. Shinji whirled around, muscles tensing, and heard Lucy gasp. Something was coming, pushing steadily through the ferns and undergrowth. Something…big. Not elephant size but not squirrel size, either. Backing away, Shinji held his breath as whatever was coming paused at the edge of the ferns, then stepped into the open.

His stomach dropped. A pure-white boar stood at the edge of the trees, watching him with pale blue eyes. It wasn’t huge, but its tusks curved up from its bottom jaw, razor-sharp and deadly, and a bristly mane ran down its back. Shinji froze as the boar stared at him, those pale blue eyes meeting his own. Calmly, it turned and walked away a few steps, then paused and looked back at him once more, its gaze intense.

Shinji’s heart pounded in his ears, his stomach cartwheeled inside him. This was it! The Storm Boar, or maybe a messenger of the Storm Boar. It had finally appeared to show him what to do.

“Shinji,” he heard Lucy whisper behind him. “Don’t move. We should wait until it gets farther away and then try backing up.”

“I think you’re supposed to climb a tree if it charges,” Roux added unhelpfully. “If we can outrun it, that is. I wouldn’t try to play dead.”

Shinji barely heard them. The eyes of the boar, pale blue and intelligent, stared into his. They filled his vision, as depthless and eternal as the ocean. For a few seconds, he couldn’t look away.

Show me,he thought at it.Where is the Storm Boar? What does it want me to do?

“Shinji?” Lucy said again. “What are you doing? Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“It wants me to follow,” Shinji told them. The boar continued to stare at him, and he took a step forward. “I have to go.”

“Wait!” Lucy grabbed his arm. “You can’t just take off into the forest without telling anyone,” she hissed. “Especially after a wild pig. We should go back to the camp and let Oliver know what’s going on.”

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