The Silver Puff

by Dee Eon

Foreword: This Powerpuff Girls Z take-off was a long postponed time coming. Even more than Bunny-Z, it's set in a more earthy grittier reality tone, but once through Chapter One's necessary heavy groundwork, subsequent chapters will be brisker and action packed but not as frequent due to school and internship. As all my other works, I write them on my iPhone as a commute time-killer, so ruefully it might have errors which can't compete with my vital academic time to pick corrections through (though I'll do so now and then), but I hope that doesn't take much from the general joy of the read. This is meant as an exciting non-canon (though I try to toe PPGZ rules) story and I welcome friendly feedback in that light. Always peace.

Chapter One: Beginnings

Prelude

The stretch limousine pulled up across from Yamamoto Hospital and the rear dark window slid down and a wizen face peered up at the graying but husky fifty-five year-old gentleman sauntering toward him and, as the chauffeur crisply opened the limo door, he ducked into the rolling mansion.

"Their lawyers and business reporters are camped out the waiting room. It won't be long now, father," Tadao Tanaka grimly uttered. The ninety-three-year-old man across his facing plush leather couch looked like a withered turkey in an oversized pricey suit. "The doctors all say only a few days if then."

Mako Tanaka snickered. "Hang that!" he blurted with a gravelly but forceful bark belted from a shriveled turkey neck. "They've been saying that the last twenty years! The damn bitch has more lives than a cat! Hell! She should've been nuclear ashes twice seventy years ago!"

"The doctors are really adamant about it now, father. They already had to jump start her heart her three times this week, but there's total renal and cardiac system failure now. Com'on! She's well over a hundred! Even life support isn't going to help. Give it another week, easy."

Mako mulled this then with a sharkish smile took a bottle of sake out of the tiny refrigerator. "By then. you'll be heir to Dawn Corporation – and all its priceless patents, my son. The moment Hiyori expires, the helm is automatically mine -- and you my deputy and successor."

Tadao wryly grinned as he popped the bottle cap and poured a glass for the elder and toasted. "A sham-dunk IF I'm indeed at the head of the line, father."

Mako snickered. "There's no dispute of that! Your birth was witnessed and documented by priests and magistrates, even during the chaos of that war. Besides, your DNA is a shoo-in. Hiyori might deny your heritage but not your genes!"

"Still, what if you missed someone and I'm not sole heir. I still might be contested with one in her will's favor."

"Bash that! Granted, you're just one pup out of her litter from three husbands, but her number one and their first batch died after that earthquake's plague, and after you, all her other ensconced scattered runts don't even know they're related to her."

Tadao shook his head in sober awe. "Siblings – adopted away even before reaching ten! Mother was really that terrified of your 'ninja' club 'clearing' my path to her legacy, wasn't she?"

Mako slyly chuckled. "An idle threat to relating my – sporting pursuits – which she took all too literally. Your mother turned as paranoid as she was eccentric, but rest assured you're her sole wholly acknowledged firstborn. Her mental decline since's even estranged her other relations, so with all direct blood lineages severed long ago, there'll be no calls for any challengers to your due."

"No small thanks to yourself, father," Tadao dryly quipped, sipping sake and notions. "I saw your old wedding pictures. She was really what – thirty then?"

Mako grinned and rested back in savory reflection. "Thirty-one going on thirteen. It was incredible. Such preserved youth and comeliness. Classic perpetual Japanese beauty. Granted, I was but twenty-seven, but still I almost felt like a pedophile at our wedding!" He chuckled with a raspy cough. "Incredible how despite her previous marriage, Hiyori was as virginal as a spring bride that night, even while the American's bombs rained lightning on the horizon."

"Sounds the perfect loli-bride!" Tadao enviously clucked. "Well, if you're right when she passes, all the legal locks on Dawn's helm that her father insisted she install go with her."

"Not quite yet, my son. Not quite yet. Not until the witch's breathed her last before mine," Mako impatiently muttered up at the hospital, and very gingerly Tadao put down his cup.

"I vaguely recall, while you were sake drunk our night out after my high school graduation, how you were lamenting that – your pillow hadn't snuffed her flame one night before the maid walked in."

Mako shot a look at his son as though sacred ground were trespassed then shrugged and sipped. Emboldened, Tadao continued; "I was just thinking how all this could've been avoided long long ago had your wife – and corporate partner – suffered a stroke one night."

"Hiyori knew the consequences of such a grievous offense!" Mako defended before a bitter sip. "She confronted me in the boardroom earlier that day. Decried my new projects and programs and called me a cheater before all my male peers. Such insolence from a lone female was – totally intolerable."

Tadao muffled a tweak of conscience. "So why didn't she file attempted murder charges on you instead of just handing you full custody of me and moving out?"

Grudgingly, Mako admitted as though it was the way of the world; "Her perfectionist streak and female pride felt there was far more shame in reporting and admitting public failure in selecting a mate."

"Crazy!"

Mako sighed and rested back. "My son, it was a different world between worlds back then. Between the old and new Japan, betwixt living and breathing ancient traditions and this new westernized liberal mindset. If you think groping young girls on packed trains today is a relatively benign infraction, it is nothing compared to how you could treat a wife or concubine back then. Even today, most young groped things don't report or even protest the violation in progress because it is most dishonorable to do so to admit you somehow deserved such treatment by your past or karma."

"Why didn't she simply oust your chair at the company and take back her first husband's firm?"

"Because the board would've never sanctioned it. They'd still had enough balls for not being subservient to a female, unlike these days. Only reason they didn't vote her out was out of deference for her husband and her father -- an oddball maverick, just like her!" Mako sourly reflected. "Fortunately, that brilliance he passed on to her wasn't shrewd enough to shut the door on my foot to begin with!"

Tadao wryly chuckled. "She failed to see the true reason you married her, didn't she? No wonder she had nervous breakdowns afterwards."

Mako shrugged. "It was business, not personal, son...though a young upstart as myself sacking an older but youthful trophy wife and partner as her brought me it own prestige and recognition. In her heyday Hiyori was a stunning gifted woman. As one American newspaper put it, 'a geisha mix of Marilyn Monroe and Madame Curie', but those days long passed. Since then she's only been a thorn in my ambitions by refusing to dutifully pass me her half of Dawn Corporation, and instead usurping my management to the end, which made me seen as half a man to my peers!"

"Well, didn't her last husband try too?"

Mako snickered. "Kuroda was a dolt. He had the nerve to woo her rebound over me to gain control of her half of the company ahead of me! Only he made her a widow for trying! But soon, this legal limbo will pass and my name will be rightfully seated "

Tadao wondered; "I wonder if she's ever thought of me – her number one child – or has she totally shut out my existence along with yours. Is her spite toward you that powerful?"

"Under my wing, you became me in her eyes – and for once her female intuition was keen of that about me!" Mako chuckled and looked up the glass tower. "It's probably her disdain for me that's kept her alive this long. If I showed up at her bedside right now my fortunes might reverse!"

Tadao grunted, glancing his watch. "So what's the point being here?" he muttered. "Some sentimental death-watch that could drag on for a couple of days?"

Mako chuckled then fell quiet and turned a dark visage to his son. "Next Monday the deadline is up for that Monsanto takeover offering, and I've no company totally under my control to play in the game!" He lugubriously sighed. "If only – 'fate' – would speed this complication some."

"Huh??" Tadao quizzically blinked then frowned aback. "You're not serious!"

"Forty billion yen in your hands by tonight, son," Mako said with a sharkish grin. "Be creative – and stealthy. It shouldn't take much, being so close to the edge already..." He tossed Tadeo some leather gloves and motioned the other's puzzled look to don them then reached into the refrigerator and took out a tiny capsule and tossed it into Tadao's catch. "Borneo tree frog liver serum. The old ninja's most prized venom. Just a tenth of a drop squirted on bare flesh. In five seconds paralyzes all muscles and in ten the heart. How ironic that such gives the tiny creature incredible regenerative abilities yet is so lethal to others!"

Tadao felt another almost bridling tweak of conscience. "Don't you have 'agents' who can do this -- like back 'helping' Kuroda over his penthouse rail out of humiliation from being caught embezzling Dawn?"

"This is a measure of your guts and guile, son. How are you going to run a company in a world of sharks if you can't face down your greatest ghosts? Shouldn't take more than thirty seconds. Less time than farewell kiss. Don't forget -- I wasn't the one who abandoned you, correct?"

Tadao opened his mouth to protest or scold but reflected and stuffed the capsule in his suit's breast pocket and wryly stated; "Then...it's considered merciful these days to put the elderly out of their pain and suffering, isn't it, father?"

"That's the spirit, son!" Mako said as Tadao smirked and left the limo and sauntered into the hospital. Mako grinned to himself;

Yes, my son. It helps when you've never met nor heard from your own mother all your life. She'll just be another bag of bones in a death house ward to briskly dispense with. Soon I'll pass my mortal coil myself, but secure that my final triumph over Hiyori has been done.

A soft distant boom issued overhead and quizzically, Mako's head craned skyward. 'Hell was that? Sonic boom – or another construction demolition accident? Damn better not be one of mine!"

He squinted and at first thought he saw a shooting star against the clear blue sky, except with a inky dark trail arching high from behind skyline to an zenith just before him then it was as though it had stopped in its tracks, only thing that the point of its end seemed to be a black dot then a ball growing larger and larger and larger....

It took several long moments before Mako's rusty wits realized what was happening and he shouted to his chauffeur to wheelie the hell out there, but too late.

ooOoo

Five Minutes Prior:

Yuji Batta steered his great grandmother's wheelchair through the sprawling rooftop sun garden of Yamamoto Hospital before Tokyo's surrounding skyline.

Under oxygen mask and intravenous a cadaverous woman coughed over shriveled spittling lips and he briskly wiped her chin and feebly her head struggled to raise wizen eyes grossly clouded with cataracts.

"Yuji?" her strained low voice was almost a ragged whisper, "Grandson, you...should...go..."

"Not yet, grandmother!" Yuji staunchly answered with a catch in his throat since it was finally obvious even to his long denial that Hiyori Yamiori was undeniably finishing her final autumn – indeed, wouldn't even see winter according all the doctors. More resembling the skin of a dried prune covering a stick skeleton with dull silvery strands scattered a nearly bald skull like scraggly weeds in a lot, Hiyori looked like a wasted refugee from a morgue, a detached part of Yuji admitted. It most likely explained the reason why of dozens of Hiyori's known relatives, he was the only one regularly at her side now instead of paying courtesy calls.

The irony was that, considering her past, Hiyori should've looked a lot worst than she did – if such were possible in Yuji's eyes.

"You must – live your – life..."

"In two more years I'll be able to be on my own, grandmother ? but I'll still be seeing you!"

Her head tried to shake, but only weakly as her wavering pruned lips. "My – time – has come, grandson. I – welcome it..."

"No!" Yuji asserted jumping to kneel before her wheelchair and grappling her bony claw-like hand. "You're still important to me – to lots of others too! Everything you've done and invented to help people is what got me interested into science to start with! It's because you pushed my uncle to let me stay in high school instead of running his shushi shop that I've a real career to look ahead to! I mean, you cared more about me than the people who adopted me after dad and mom's car accident!" he retorted with a bitter edge.

"Huh??" Hiyori muttered, weakly turning her ear toward him and Yuji repeated verbatim and she feebly frowned.

"They – are – blood cousins."

"They're vultures!" Yuji nearly spat, sheepishly pausing from the dishonor of his impulsive feelings but then hanging that and continuing on. "They didn't take me in out of any family obligations, grandma – not while I'm working two and a half jobs so they could stuff themselves at the Hawaii Hilton every two months! I mean how many times have they ever seen you? All of them? The only reason they took me in is to get on your good side so that they'll have a cut of your will –!"

Yuji instantly gnashed his tongue at the minor sin of disparaging family, but Hiyori kept silent and for long moments Yuji thought she nodded off again, only her head hadn't drooped but was still valiantly erect, almost like some decrepit but proud eagle scanning the cityscape. She was far too polite to even comment on another sad bitter truth – that age in Japan wasn't as revered and regarded any more, and that dredged a swell of admiration in Yuji's heart that this dying true lady was still proud even after more than a century.

Her grossly clouded eyes turned to him with a grim deciding reverence that shone through. "Yuji...you would...have found out later in my Will...but I shall announce it to you with my dying breath. You are not my great grandson by mere favoritism, but... in fact."

"Huh?"

"You are -- my blood, Yuji. My blood runs true in you. Like -- my legacy."

Yuji blinked aback, stunned. He long suspected he was in her will, but not to this extent. Everyone knew all of Hiyori's children from three different husbands died before they reach ten by some weird congenital failing. It was a sad fact kept discretely buried in the greater family. Maybe she was delirious – which went with her decades of dementia.

"But how can that be, great grandmother? I'm just a third cousin."

"No...you are my direct -- line, my Yuji. Your father was my grandson, yet he was unaware, like his father, that we were related. Like many others from children I begot long long ago."

"I – I don't get it, great grandmother. You made all your grandchildren believe that they're just cousins? Why hide such a close family relation? They could all be here with you!"

"I did it to -- spare their lives. My diary will explain it all to you – and why you must be vigilant when you take my place, Yuji. After me, soon Mako will pass and Dawn shall be your bequest."

Yuji's heart crimped. Oh man, she's losing it fast. And to think that once she was one of the sharpest minds in Japan!

The fourth daughter of a somewhat eccentric widower-physician, Hiyori's early experience at eagerly serving his grisly rounds after the Tokyo-Yokohama earthquake in 1923 piqued her to serve as young nurse at the new hospitals and clinics that quickly sprung up. Thanks to the steady influx of wounded soldiers from Manchuria and Indonesia, Hiyori found fodder to expand her forensics and radiology acumen which made her more than a talented assistant to her impressed male superiors. Just before WWII she became assistant head X-ray technician at Nagasaki hospital before taking the social shattering step of co-founding a medical radiological equipment firm with a charmed med school professor turned husband, who was died of measles along with their two children only two years into marriage. Defying female convention of acquiring a hubby replacement – of which there were countless contenders, Hiyori assumed full control of the company and expanded, It made her a novelty of novelties in a culture and era where most all women were subservient bed-warmers, though even that fame was soon surpassed by a seemingly miraculous episode during the war.

Besides for her unsung intellectual and business accomplishments, Hiyori's best claim to faded fame of sorts was as the sole hibakusha, or radiation surviver, of the Nagasaki 'A'-bomb at ground zero.

AT Ground Zero.

While it seemed impossible, even Manhattan Project scientists weren't totally astonished given the unique circumstances; while the steel tower that held the test Trinity bomb in New Mexico was utterly vaporized by that awesome explosion, incredibly its concrete post was only reduced to a broken stump of rubble in a wide depression of earth fused into glass.

Rubble yes, but still existed.

Just like charred but still standing telephone poles and shattered buildings directly below the bomb's mid-air detonation high above Nagasaki. Something to do with an explosion's pressure waves immediately bouncing off the ground and almost totally counteracting the main explosive force and thermal energy at that focus. That discovery was even the heart of the insane-sounding but feasible but discarded Orion interstellar nuclear pulse drive concept after the war. Of course it ironically helped that Hiyori was deep her clinic's concrete-lined X-ray subbasement room and inside its lead-lined darkroom as well at the time, though the gamma flash that managed to zip through meters of earth and shielding severely injured her as well as the muted shock waves that rattled her around like a mouse in a shaken can. Bloodied, terribly scarred, she was only found a week later by startled American servicemen examining the unique atomic debris. She was expected to die along with hideous scarring but squeaked through with only broken bones and sickliness and rapidly withering beauty to show, but at least she'd still her talent and brains.

"Providence has spared me for a greater role," she would answer anyone, almost as though miracles didn't exist. And it seemed that destiny bore her out. What was almost as remarkable about Hiyori's unorthodox pre-war career was her total humility about it, as though her advances were simply a natural evolution to excellence no more bold or strange than a homely seed developing into lovely cherry tree. Indeed, "Geisha Boss" was her apt nickname for that literal appearance she posed in public, and many suspected that it was that demure demeanor that engendered her favor and tolerance and advancement through otherwise intimidated male peers. Because of this, Hiyori's traditionalist detractors, rather than directly attacking her "stray from womanhood," blamed Japan's ill-fated forays into China and the East Indies for creating the manpower shortage and brain drain which the empire was increasingly desperate to replace, even at the expense of tapping women-power. And being a stunning ageless "China doll" didn't hurt to help mollify her social critics and jealous male peers.

Yuji had many times seen Hiyori's faded sepia family pictures in her ancient keep chest, and with uneasy awe he saw that Hiyori was truly once a striking delicate beauty well into her fifties. Whether she willfully wielded her beauty for strategic social and business advantage or not, it was often cited for her success and fringe acceptance in a male world. Men might askew a haughty suffragette trying to muscle into their ranks, but it just wouldn't be polite nor manly to abuse such a gracious delicate lily who managed business meetings with all the grace and pomp due a tea ceremony. Of course, such only sweetened the pot of business clients who secretly longed to acquire her firm – with Hiyori as the cherry on top. There was especially one younger rival who longed Hiyori herself in the very worst way.

Mako Tanaka.

Shortly after the war, under the altruistic pretext of a business genius helping her company restart so to help rebuild Japan, Mako made a bold suave pounce for Hiyori's favor and succeeded – briefly, and all that was publicly known was that there was some tumultuous falling out that seemed to also take her tender nature because her attitudes quickly turned firm then hard and aloof, some said Scrooge-like, which over time evolved into 'buzzard' to match her recluse declining form.

"I lost my husband's company and honor, but at least I kept my mine," Hiyori would wryly comment to Yuji's curiosity while she was still able to complete whole sentences and she deigned a bitter shrug; "Since the war...honor has joined dung in the fields, great grandson. The Japanese people rebounded humiliation from the war to embrace the hollow joys of delicious decadence and the 'quick fast yen.'"

"Great grandmother, there is so much rumor and guessing, but might I ask – did you lose or leave your company?" Yuji had once very innocently inquired, unwitting springing a tripwire of raw sore points hidden under Hiyori's polite silence. He remembered how her face hardened like her jaw then slackened as though unoffended by his ignorance.

"'Left'?" she tartly sniffed. "That would be like leaving my wedding's pearl necklace on a train and watching it go."

"So what happened between you and Mako – forgive my impolite?"

"When the lamb lost its sheepdog and charm, the wolves finally pounced," she bitterly breathed, reflecting. "Despite all my years, I was – naive to assume that my husband's board would honor his legacy and my position...but it was not to be. All they needed as an excuse – and ringleader to abandon me."

"So that's how he took your company away from you? Man. I'd be pissed!!"

"The dishonor of it pains far more than the theft."

"I don't understand."

"That's why there's woe on your generation and sadly ever after," she rued, a relic from another age. Later Yuji came to sadly understanding part of her bitterness; that ironically in a much more intolerant past, Hiyori's novelty and beauty would've shielded her from the abuse she received by men on her own company. Heck, people today don't even know she built it!

"That's why ? I like...your first...girlfriend. Such a ...honest, sincere, traditional girl. What is, her name??"

Yuji chewed his lower lip. "Aki, grandmother."

"Ah, yes, Aki! She must...be as...lovely as...her voice too."

Yuji blushed. "She's – just a friend, grandmother."

"You should...be with her now, grandson. She must be...jealous of...the time you...spend with me," Hiyori uttered with a coy edge. Yuji felt uneasy, treading the eggs of insult.

"Naw, she's – kind of like a sister. Besides, if she's jealous of anyone it's maybe Kanata?" Yuji said, instantly regretting and chiding himself as Hiyori struggled to weakly face him, a haunting concern seeping her crinkled expression.

"Don't be...beguiled by...beauty, Yuji. Or her father...or grandfather," she added with a gritty admonishing that defied all her other weakness.

Yuji stifled a frown; Damn! Why's she bringing that up? Just because her grandfather's one of the guys who – er, used to be on the board of her company who turned his back on her....

Aw, can't blame Kanata for all that!

"Kanata's alright, grandmother. Sure, she's kinda pushy, but she's okay." Actually a freak lot more than 'okay', Yuji inwardly clucked. My first trophy G-friend when most my buddies are still trying to grab a pooch! Like, I'd be a ditzoid if I lost her!

"Grandmother, I promise you, there's no way he's going to get me through Kanata! Just not!" Yuji asserted, reflecting how he barely steered cleared of saying 'inheritance', even though he knew nothing like that was in his future before Hiyori brought it up a year ago. Hiyori's inventions and shrewd investments made her a substantial sum that her family could only speculate, and her increasingly miserly attitudes in the face of ever her aloof ambitious children only fueled that notion throughout the family. Yuji likened it to sharks waiting for blood in the water, only now he felt like a drop.

Hiyori fell quiet a few moments. "You should...be closer to – Aki. She is...better for you, grandson."

"Uh...I'll – try, grandmother," he half-fibbed, more polite than promise since he'd be meeting up with Kanata right after his time visiting Hiyori was over. I mean Aki was nice, sure, but she was a country maid next to a starlet compared with Kanata.

Yuji parked Hiyori under a mirror-like awning and clasped her withered bony hand. "I'll fetch some green tea -- with honey, alright, grandmother? I'll be right back."

A faint twinkle escaped her cloudy eyes and he clenched her hand tight if in case it might be the last time.

"Weep not – good grandson. By – all rights – I should've – met our – ancestors in – Nagasaki."

"Grandma, you'll be here to see a hundred seven candles – I promise!" Yuji avowed, valiantly keeping moisture from leaking his eyes as he rose and briskly hurried off.

Yuji rued; Gods, how he was going to miss her! Beyond being intrigued by her unique experiences, her stories inspired him to look beyond simply the here and now, and for that he was kidded by friends.

Yuji sauntered over to the refreshment stand on the opposite side of the flat broad off and stood on a short line of patients and staff, the crisp smoky aroma of Takoyaki teasing his nostrils, and reminding him of the passed-down stories from his mother of how her grandmother doted octopus puffs on a stick since a child and it was her trademark right through college.

Now she could barely keep down the weakest tea.

Oh Gods! What am I going to do when – when she's gone?

ooOoo

Tadeo stuffed the lingering qualms down his throat as he came off the elevator to the hospital roof garden and quietly palmed the capsule in his glove as he ambled across the flagstone walk.

Despite himself he paused at the sight of the shriveled body in the reclined wheelchair in a mass of wires and tubes and O2 bottles and other gear. So not to be conspicuous he maintained a casual pace toward her until she was a few meters away and he forced himself to see the shriveled leathery mask of a face.

This -- crone -- gave birth to me almost sixty years ago. Unbelievable. She's already at death's door, it's just a matter of days at most. Somehow that vastly made him feel much better.

Her crinkled clouded yellow eyes couldn't see him lean near. "Farewell mother, dear," Tadeo half whispered, "I now mercifully send you to peace as coldly as you gave me up and disowned me. Farewell!"

He reached if just to touch her bony hand but instead his gloved fingertips pinched the capsule which oozed toxin from a pinhole puncture over it as he passed on. Only when he was ten paces away did he afford himself to glance back and see the skeletal form in the chair violently shake and rasp and weakly cough, and suddenly her med monitors were wildly beeping that sent alerted nurses scrambling toward her.

'Too late', Tadeo smiled. 'Much too late.'

A brilliant flash.

Damn!!

Alarm gripped Tadeo's heart and he swiveled around for a flash camera that may've caught him in the act but saw none, only the few patients and nurses were looking up at the sky and screaming and yelling and running. Tadeo glanced up and started as it looked like the sun was falling his way.

ooOoo

Yuji just paid for a cup of honey-laced green tea and a octopus stick for himself when he blinked aback at a vehement flash on the ocean rimmed eastern horizon, a flash more brilliant than the lightning of any storm he'd seen, and in his surprise and shock, for a terrible moment of horror he imagined his great grandmother's famous war experience was being replayed. A few seconds later Yuji spotted several streamers headed skyward from the same location and instantly he knew it wasn't the worst then; it was definitely some explosion, but not that kind. White-hot brilliant fragments of some kind were arcing high into the blue sky then curving back to earth like sparks from some huge fireworks. Some darker than others.

And some seemed to be soaring his way like a brilliant high-fly baseball.

Screams and yells exploded in the vicinity as people scrammed and dashed like the dinosaur killer was plummeting, though Yuji saw it was hardly so large – maybe the size of a car but then that just might've been the dazzling halo around a far smaller nucleus, like a comet. Still, whatever it really was, it was lethal enough if it fell close enough.

Make that very close.

Even closer.

Too damn close.

Like – just over there.

Where ? Where ?

Oh No!!!

O God ?!!

A cry of horror died in Yuji's throat as, stunned, he watched the small white fireball soundlessly crash into the mirror-like yawning with a splash that hurtled nearby people away from ground zero then – incredibly – bounced off like a badminton bird lobbed back high into the air and came down somewhere else deep in Tokyo park with a brilliant final flash. But Yuji didn't care where its flight ended, only to frantically run toward the oddly only slightly collapsed dented awning.

Oh God! Oh God!!!

Heart pounding in his throat, Yuji raced around, past a sprawled stunned Tadeo, before the wheel chair.

"Grandmother --?!!" he cried, his near panicked anticipation startled aback into total surprise and bewilderment because slumped unconscious in the wheelchair was a leggy young teen with shiny silver tresses tumbling around an oval angelic face and roiling over the nicely rounded bodice of a strange platinum-gray short-skirted outfit whose belt's pearl-like buckle glowed a silver-gray "P".

& & & & &

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