Cast:
Aki/Mikage - protagonist(s)
Aya/Ceres -
antagonist(s)
Touya - Aki's 'savior'
Shouta - Wise little
kid, half tribesman
Chidori - Shouta's sister, very bad cook, fights
with a fork
Yuuhi - Descendent of tribesman, obsesses over
Chidori
Suzumi - Yuuhi's handicapped sister, stays in a wheelchair
Everyone else plays their respective roles.
Akishi no Mikage
Episode 1
A hazy vision of a small house comes into view and two voices are heard, one of a young boy and one of an old man.
Grandpa Mikage: "And then, the Tennyo saw the reward ads for finding the mana, nailed to a pine tree near her and decided to find the tribesman to receive her reward."
Aki (child): "But what would happen if the Tribesman-san didn't have his mana? Then can he still go to the tribe meeting? Can he still be prosperous? What happened to the Tribesman-san?"
Grandpa Mikage: "He couldn't go to the tribe meeting and ended up marrying the young woman who had hid his mana after receiving her prize."
Aki: "Married? Then that means he fell in love with her!"
Grandpa Mikage: "Well, I'm not too sure about that..."
Aki: "Hey, hey, when the Tribesman married her, did he get his mana back? Did he then go to the tribe meeting? Teeeelllll meeee… do tribesman still exist?
Grandpa Mikage: "I just answered that you stupid kid! You should listen to your elders. Ok now listen up… After marrying the tribesman, the Tennyo hid it again so that the tribesman will have to depend on her. I don't know why, so don't ask. And as for whether they exist or not… THAT'S A STUPID QUESTION!"
~*~
The clear blue skies above and the hardly visible moon faded into a glowing purple crystal ball and a new voice is heard-the cackling high voice of a man:
"When the day the star and moon of sixteen meet… the fated day will come. I see money and lack of money. The decay of the equilibrium of wealth and power will crumble. Very soon you will be taken over by some dude… when light and darkness meet, your true wealth will awaken…"
The man appears in view, under a cloak. His long, neon pink fingernails are outstretched over the crystal ball.
A boy is sitting across the purple triangular table from him. The unknown boy sweat drops at the long nails and the oily, make up covered face of the old man and says to himself in a low voice, "I hope I'm not going to be any more poor than I already am. It took me a while to dig up these quarters to buy Aya this pair of earrings from the Dollar Store."
~*~
Among the noisy traffic of the city streets, two voices are heard.
"Oi! Aki, what did that drag-queen fortune teller say? Anything about you getting a girlfriend?"
"Well no… but they did say something about 'some dude'… What a waste of two cents to get my fortune told. He didn't even read my palm. All he did was stamp it with Crayola® markers and color it red. I wonder why…"
"Well speaking of money… You did manage to get me something for our 16th birthday tomorrow, didn't you? Because I got you something!"
"I did… And it cost me a lot! So your present to me better be good!"
"Well… you'll just have to see for your-" The girl's voice stopped short as she bumps hard into a scraggily-looking homeless man. Before she had time to react, the man yanked the purse from her grasp, pushed her into the railing, and started running to the other end of the bridge.
Aki stood and blinked as his sister screamed at the top of her lungs, "What are you doing just standing there, Aki! Get him! Your present is in that purse!!!" She gave him a shove towards the direction of the man and Aki soon found his feet carrying his body and chasing after the thief. His quick strides allowed him to catch up to the old man, who stood hunched over, huffing and puffing.
"Give me back the purse!" Aki screamed as he played tug-o-war with the hobo. The hobo resists for a while, but seeing that he was losing, suddenly lets go of the purse, sending Aki reeling backwards into the railing as the purse flies from his hands. Aki turns his body with quick reflexes and reaches out for the bag. His hand comes in contact with the strap and he yells victoriously, "I got it!"
But little does he know…
"Aki!!! You can't fly, stupid!"
The boy's thoughts were interrupted as he plunged head-first off the bridge and into the swarm of cars, with the purse still in his grasp. As he plummeted through the air, visions of a stone foot flashed before his eyes. The last thing he remembered seeing was the handsome face of a red-haired man beneath him, arms outstretched.
~*~
Aki regains consciousness and realizes he's being supported by the muscular arms of a stranger. He turns his head and blinks at the face of the man and discovers that it was the same face he saw right before he passed out. The man glances down at Aki from his sunglasses. A few strands of his red hair falls in his greenish gold eyes as they stare into Aki's violet ones with a serene escape.
Suddenly, the peaceful look on the man's pale face shifted as his eyebrow twitched violently at the loud honks emerging from traffic.
"Get outta the way you little punks!" A female driver yelled from her crappy, rusting blue car.[1]
The man, still with the boy in his arms, glares at the driver and marches away with a 'hmph!' The car speeds past the man, nearly running him over as the wheels screech and a hubcap flies off, nailing the red-haired man in the derrière.[2]
The stranger, in utter surprise, drops Aki in a heap on sidewalk. The painful expression on his face matches the same one on Aki's as both men cradle their own butts with both hands.
"Oi! Aki! My purse, is it okay?! Please say that my purse is not hurt!" Aya ran down the stairs of the bridge towards where her brother had landed. She pushed past the stranger, kneeling beside Aki and grabbing the purse which lay a few inches away in a mud puddle. "Aki! How could you?!" she says as tries to strangle her brother. "This was my favorite pink purse!"
"It wasn't my fault! He dropped me here!" Aki proclaimed as he looked up to where the man was last seen. "Huh? ...He's gone."
~*~
A large house is seen through the dark of the night. The house is light by a few lights in the upper and lower rooms. A silhouette of a boy is seen through the window of the upper bedroom.
Aki lay across his bed in his yellow 'jimmies'[3] , daydreaming about his savior. He thought to himself, 'Man, a lot seemed to happen today…What a way to spend the day before my birthday! First, I almost splatted from the bridge, then I nearly got run over by some crazy driver… and now my butt hurts. Well, at least some good came out of this… the dashing man who saved my life…he seemed kind of mysterious and strange. I wonder if we're ever going to meet again.'
Flashbacks of the drag-queen fortune teller made their way into Aki's thoughts.
Fortune Teller: "Some dude will save you from splattering and traffic and lots of other things, so don't you worry you'll never run out of opportunities to meet this dude."
His thoughts altered to his flashback of the stone foot. 'Hmm… that symbol… a foot… I wonder what that's supposed to mean.' A familiar high-pitched voice snapped him back into reality as a loud banging on the door shook the walls of his room.
"Aki! Dinner! Didn't you hear us calling?"
Aki sighed and dragged himself off the bed and across the room to open the door.
"Aki… why are you wearing your yellow pajamas already?"
"…I like them. Just like you like your pink purse, is that wrong?"
His sister shrugged and walked off towards the kitchen and Aki followed immediately afterwards. They trooped into the dining room and saw their father reading his favorite book, Little Women. He glanced up from his reading and his giddy expression immediately turned serious as his eyes came upon Aki and Aya.
His commanding voice instructed the two. "Aki, Aya. When school's over tomorrow, come straight home."
The two teenagers replied with a cheerful 'okay' but their father had already turned his attention back to his precious book, letting the giddy expression wash over his face again.
~*~
A cab arrives at the gate of a large mansion and two pairs of feet step out of the car.
"Hmph! I can't believe Mom and Dad ditched us," Aya said to her brother as she rang the outside doorbell.
The gate opened and the pair stepped inside. Before long they were sitting beside each other at a long wooden table directly across from their ugly grandfather. All around them sat other members of their family, some which they had never met.
Grandpa Mikage welcomed them with a toothless smile, "Aki, Aya. Happy 16th birthday. I have a little present for you two." He motioned with a wave of his hand to a shadow in the corner of the room and a man appeared into view beside Aki and Aya, wearing a green coat and a blue belly shirt.
Aki half expected the man to start belly dancing before he recognized him as the same man who rescued Aki from the bridge the day before.
"Oooh, Grandpa! You sure went out your way for us! Even hiring a professional hula dancer for our birthday? Wow… this is really cool!" Aya exclaimed excitedly as she stared at man's outfit. However, Aki's attention was focused on the box in the man's hand.
Grandpa Mikage gave Aya a weird look from all the way across the long table as their other relatives sweat dropped. The man ignored Aya's comment and leaned over a side of the table, placing the box directly in front of the two. His arm brushes the side of Aki's cheek slightly as he steps away to sneak back and hide himself in his dark corner.
Aki's eyes were wide with surprise-firstly, at the fact that the man had intentionally brushed against his face and secondly, that the man had skittered away into his dark corner all alone.
Grandpa Mikage's voice rattled at the twins, "Open it. Go ahead Aki."
Before Aki had time to obey his Grandfather's wishes, Aya snatched away the box in anticipation. "Mine!" she hissed and tore at the wrapping paper. Without hesitation she opened the lid and saw…
"A foot?! What the hell did you give us, Grandpa? Why would we need a foot?!" Aya shoved the stone foot away from her. "You keep this, Aki. I'll take the hula dancer!"
Aki didn't answer… his face seemed to age and faded red stripes appeared on his forehead and cheeks. In the distance, a horrified wail proclaimed, "Aahhh!!! Aki, you're ugly!" Aki held his head as it throbbed with intense pain. Images of the stone foot in different poses flashed before his eyes, the same way they had when he fell from the bridge. The hair on his head seemed to stand on end as he looked down at the box.
The stone foot suddenly exploded into pieces, letting an odor of sweat and rotten eggs emerge from it's remnants. Aki looked around and noticed that everyone except him and Aya had put on gas masks-including the man in the dark corner.
"Aya! Quick! Hold your breath!" Aki exclaimed as he pinched his nose. But it was too late. Aya had fainted from the terrible smell that drifted around the room.
Grandpa Mikage had stood up from his seat and opened the windows at the back of the room. He returned to his seat, calmly as the smell drifted out through the open windows. Everyone pulled off their gas masks-including the man in the dark corner.
"Aya! Aya!" screamed Aki. "Somebody help her! Does anyone know CPR?!" His relatives stared at him, not making any effort to get up and answer his cries for help. "Why won't you help her?!" he pleaded.
Grandpa Mikage answered to him, "Aya will be okay. Get away from her. We have to make sure not to accidentally hit her if our aim is off."
Aki couldn't believe his ears. He looked around the room, searching for a sympathetic face. He finally gave up and looked towards the dark corner, hoping that the strange man would save him again. But no one came to help him.
The eerie voice of the fortune teller seeped into his thoughts:
"I see
money and lack of money. The decay of the equilibrium of wealth and power will
crumble. Very soon you will be taken over by some dude… when light and darkness
meet, your true wealth will awaken…"
To Be Continued…
FOOTNOTES:
[1] If you've read our fanfic—Fushigi Yuugi: A Mysterious PLAY WITH GUYS! You should know who the driver is =)
[2] Derrière—"behind" in French. Or literally "buttocks."
[3] Aki's yellow "jimmies" as in Episode 4.
