The first thing she noticed when entering into the forest was long and thick thorned ivies wrapping around the trees. They were everywhere on the ground of the forest outside the path, between the trees. It wouldn’t be easy nor harmless to go anywhere beside the clear path she was going through. “Ibara… indeed it is a good name for this place: thorns are a perfect symbol of pain”, she thought while walking restless. She also thought that, perhaps, those ivies where there to forbid her the pass through the forest, forcing her to take that path. She has indeed no other option left.

It took her a while to notice that, besides the shady look of the trees and the omnipresent ivies, there was something else that was strange about that place: beside the rumor of her steps, no other sound could be heard. No birds, no animals, even the wind that woke her up before was totally gone silent. She wanted to confirm this, so she stop her walking and, motionless, tried to catch any sight of anything beside her.

Nothing.

It was the first time in her whole life she experienced that kind of silence. More than making her calmer, that make her more uneasy. It was so silent that she clearly could hear her breathing, the beating of her heart. She even thought she caught the sound produced by the flow of her blood. “Well, I’m totally alone in here, no doubts about that”, she thought. She kept walking for quite a while without her surroundings changing around her. She even thought she was walking in circles. It was a good thing to her being alone, in a sense. She didn’t know what would her do if some kind of monster or inhabitant of that bizarre place appear. The ‘shadow’, as Shinkuu called the being met some time before, told her that the Ibara was a place of pain and sufferance, but until that moment the only pain she felt was on her feet. All this monotony was starting to make her mad and nervous, when she finally walked out of the forest into another clearing. “Finally something different! Kind of.” Looking around her, she noticed something strange standing near to a big dead tree in the middle of the clearing. As she got closer to the tree, she realized it was a white mantle, which was wrapping something. Shinkuu got even closer, full of curiosity over the little thing near the tree. About five meters away from the tree, the girl started to hear sobs, coming from under the white mantle. “It sounds like… a crying little girl!”, she thought. “But… what is a little girl doing in a place like this?”

- Please, don’t hurt me! - said the anguished little girl.

- Don’t worry! I- I don’t want to hurt you! – answered hastily Shinkuu, surprised by the sudden demand of the child.

- Please, stay away! – cried again the poor thing, shutting herself more inside the white mantle – Please, don’t hurt me!

- Really! I have no intentions of hurting you! – insisted Shinkuu.

- She always said that! Always said “he doesn’t want to hurt you”, but then he… he…

- “He”? Who are you talking about? Who is this person?

- He… he…

As Shinkuu was pondering what could it be happening to the little girl, she saw a black bird, coming from nowhere and descending on a branch of the dead tree. The vision of a bird in such desolated place was as bizarre as the presence of a little girl in such a dark forest. Then, suddenly, a strong screech echoed in the air. It was the little girl, screaming with inhuman strength, forcing Shinkuu to cover her ears. Even so, she felt her head was about to explode for the intense noise. The earth shook, making the girl fall in her knees, still holding her head. The scream was intense but, fortunately, didn’t last for too long. Shinkuu slowly stood again, still feeling nausea and a strong headache. She searched for the terrorized little girl, but instead she found something else. And she was terrorized by it. Where the little girl in white stood before, now there was a huge figure wrapped in a pitch-black mantle, tall almost seven meters, perhaps more. Whatever it was, slowly turned its attention towards Shinkuu. The girl clearly saw the face of the enormous creature that was far from being the face of a child. It had a suffering expression, and while the left side of its face was covered by the hood of the mantle, the right side was totally covered by a huge burn, one that deformed half of its face in a horrible way. Its right eye was missing, leaving just and empty and dark void. Without stopping his grief and lament, the creature rose its left hand, the closer hand to the astonished girl, who grasped the intentions of the creature and then, finding again the ability to move, jumped away from the blow. Without moving so far from the tree, the giant tried again and again to squash Shinkuu, but she was fast enough to evade every attack. One mistake, and she would be like a crushed fly. After the fifth blow, Shinkuu lost her balance, falling to the ground. She was so tired she couldn’t move her legs anymore, the arms too weak to rise her body. Then, she accepted her fate, closed her eyes and waited the final blow to put an end to her life. If she was alive to begin with. “Alive or not, the pain I feel in my entire body, the fatigue… it’s like when I was alive, even if I’m not sure of being dead. But, as Ibara is a place of pain, I’m pretty sure this is going to hurt a lot!”