Illusions

Chapter 1: Sweet Sixteen

Rubbing my eyes and yawning, I sit up in my bed, stretching out my cramped muscles, and I see Yoru on the floor. Confused, I ask, "How'd you get down there?"

"It's not my fault, meow! You had another weird dream, meow, and you kicked me, meow, then proceeded to make-out with the wall, meow!" she explained, standing and shaking herself. Ice died from old age when I was nine, but nearly immediately, I found a little black kitten wandering around outside the Order in the snow, crying for help from the cold.

"Sorry," I apologize. Then, I remember what today was. Yes, I'm finally sixteen! Hopping up from my bed, I scoop up Yoru in my arms and carry her into the bathroom along with the outfit Daddy picked out for me. After putting the cat on the vanity, I begin to change into the black tank top and matching knee-length skirt, complete with leggings.

My room and bathroom were the exact same as Daddy and Chichi's except it was flipped, so our beds were side-by-side, plus the wall in the middle. Once I was in the new outfit, I look at Yoru, "What do you think?"

"Allen needs to be a fashion designer, meow. You look smoking hot, meow!" she replies. Smiling, I begin brushing my hair and put it up into the French braid that Daddy likes so much. Kurohana used to wear one, so he thought that it would be a good reminder of her, even if Cross and Tiedoll both are never here. Even in the braid, my piano hair still fell past my butt, and it aggravates me that I have a tendency to sit on it. After brushing my teeth, I go to my make-up.

Since I was born, Daddy wanted me to express myself however I wanted, as long as that didn't mean I slept around and walked through the Order in clothes that made me look like an advertisement, and I do just that. Express myself, that is. I've had people ask if I'm emo, but no, just Goth. It's not that I wear nothing but black and have vampire fangs. No, I wear heavy make-up, like eyeliner, black eye shadow, no blush, and black lipstick. Everything about it outlines my red eyes, and I've scared people before because of my eye color.

Slipping on my ebony boots, I slip out the door, quickly knocking on Dad's. When it opens, his hair is fuzzed up everywhere and his chrome eyes are tired and drooping, but he brightens when he sees it's me. Throwing his arms around me, he says, "Happy birthday, Kiseki."

"Thanks, Dad. I'll be back later. First, I've got to finally prove I'm better than Chichi," I explain, pointing towards the training room.

Rolling his eyes, Allen nods, "Okay. Remember what we talked about."

"I know, morph," I say, walking towards the training room. When I see the doors opened, I leap up, coming back down as a snow leopard, and I slowly creep closer to the door, ears perked. The first sound I hear is metal slicing through the air and footsteps, and I move to the entrance, eyes narrowing to target my blindfolded father.

The training room had been altered slightly to involve things dangling from the ceiling and platforms on the walls, and as I crept around the corner, I jump onto a ledge a little over seven feet up and change into human form again. Moving to the next ledge, I have to morph my hands into paws, digging my claws into the edge of the ridge so I could pull myself up, and now I'm a good eighteen feet off the ground.

Kanda had stopped slashing invisible enemies and was now facing me, "Aren't you going to attack? An akuma won't give you time to play with your tail."

"Yeah, then take off your blindfold and watch me kick your butt," I growl, waiting for him to do just that. When he looks up at me, I take a deep breath and begin the maneuver I've been practicing for weeks, but I've never been this high. Leaping off the ledge, I begin to run as fast as I can across the wall, moving around platforms as I burst from the wall, and I bowl myself into Chichi, for the first time getting him on his back. Mugen is still in his hand though, and I duck and avoid numerous attacks, blocking a few with my tail after changing it to a blade.

While I'm trying to disarm him, he sweeps my legs out from me, but I change it into a backhand-spring. Trying to straighten my mind, I don't react quickly enough to block the hard punch he sends to my stomach, sending me staggering backwards until I hit the wall. Luckily, I jump a good three feet to grab the bottom of a ledge, swinging off to land squarely on his chest, and as I stand on top of him, he attempts to unbalance me with his forearm.

Jumping off of him, I crouch in a feral position a few feet away, hissing, and Kanda quickly recomposes himself, standing before I dart forward. After I dash between his legs, I go from on all fours to a handstand, trying to fall backwards, but he grabs my ankles, flinging me into the air. My landing was very ungraceful, even if I came down on my hands and feet, and I let out a loud, "Nya~!"

The cry wasn't loud enough to hurt him, but he definitely did not like it as he clutched his ears, spitting curses. Smirking, I snarl and collide with him hard, finally pinning his arms and straddling him with my knees beside his hips and legs across his thighs. Happiness welled up inside me as I squeal, "Yes! I beat you! Yu Kanda, age thirty-five, has been beaten by his sixteen-year-old daughter, Kiseki Walker!"

"People might hear you!" he growled, shoving me roughly to the side.

"That's the point, Chichi!" I say elatedly, standing up and wiping away any stray lipstick around my mouth. Rolling his eyes, Kanda stands and scratches behind my ear, "And as much as I hate to admit it, I'm proud of you."

Smiling, I let my purr box run wild as he leads us back toward Allen and his room. Opening the door, I announce, "Daddy! I beat Chichi!"

"What? You're kidding!" Allen says, standing from the bed. Shaking my head, I brag, "Nope! I whipped his butt across the training room!"

"Cocky much?" Kanda grumbled, plopping down on the bed heavily. Propping the pillow up so he could see me easily, he smiles, "Happy birthday, Kiseki."

"You let me win?!"

"Never said that. I didn't tell you happy birthday, though," he explained, closing his eyes.

"Should we give her her present now?" Allen asked, sitting down beside his husband.

"Sure," Chichi said. "Sit down, Kiseki."

Taking a seat beside Daddy, he motions for me to close my eyes, and I let them fall shut, my ears becoming immediately sharper as I flick them around. There's the sound of metal and metal touching before I feel something hard on my collarbone and warm fingers on the back of my neck.

"Okay, you can open them now," Allen said, and when I do that, Kanda is sitting up, too, watching me as I look down. The hard thing I felt was a piece of jewelry I'd loved since I opened my eyes, and I touch the heart-shaped, tan agate, "Your necklace?"

"You always loved it, so Allen and I agreed it could be yours," Kanda said.

"I don't know what to say," I whisper, tears forming in the corners of my eyes. Daddy gave me a kiss on my forehead and wiped away the tears, "Thank you is good enough."

"Thank you," I say, throwing my arms around both of them. It had been a long time since I'd heard the story about the necklace, but I never forgot it. How could I? I'm brain-girl, remember?

oO_Oo_oO_Oo

"Happy birthday to you!" everyone finished, and I blew the sixteen candles out in one try, smiling happily.

So I'm not a big fan of feasts. I mean, I eat three of them a day, but Daddy said that he feels that way, too. Yeah, I quickly learned what my fathers do on holidays like Thanksgiving, and I will never be able to sit on their bed the same way ever again. Who knew Allen was so flexible?

Anyways, when big meals happen, I generally just eat and go train, read, or something like that. Everyone says I'm just like Chichi, because I'm not the most social person, unlike Daddy who talks to Aunt Lena and Uncle Usagi most the time. The only one I really like talking to is Yoru and sometimes Allen and Kanda, but there aren't any boys my age that I can hang out with. Why would I want to hang out with girls? They're just too prissy and who wants to sit around talking about cute boys all day? Cute boys? Never seen one.

Of course, I do like to shop, but not for clothes like Aunt Lena and Daddy. I go straight to the gothic stores. Unfortunately, it took two years to convince Kanda to let me dye my hair green, and then when I finally did, the next day it was gone! I tried it at least three times, but it never would stay, just fade back to monochrome. Must be a Neko thing. Oh, and Kanda doesn't like it when I wear long sleeves either! Don't ask me, I don't know, but he freaks out when I wear turtlenecks for a few days straight and he makes me change. My favorite top is long sleeved, and I rarely got to wear it, but Allen doesn't like the top in general just because it's got a bloody skull with cat ears on it.

"I just don't get it, Yoru. Why are they so protective?!" I complain, doing my regular tail pull-ups off the side of the balcony. The moon was really beautiful tonight, the circle casting a blue haze over the Black Order's building.

Sitting in the chair, Yoru mews, "Well, meow, you are their only daughter, meow, and you've always been a little…off, meow."

"Off?" I repeat, climbing back up the railing to sit in the other chair.

"I mean, meow, you're the only Goth girl here, meow."

"So?"

"So you're different, meow. You're too smart to not know what that means, meow."

Rolling my eyes, I say, "I know, I know. The instinct of humans is to reject those who are different. I learned that when I was four-months-old."

"Exactly, meow. Just ask them, meow, and they'll tell you what's up, meow."

Which takes me to now, sitting on Daddy and Chichi's bed while Allen and I watch Kanda pace, obviously going crazy over something. Finally getting annoyed, the whitette offers, "I can tell her."

"No, I said I would, and I will," the samurai growled, glaring at his husband. Lying back on the bed, I mutter, "At some point. Just spit it out! It's not like I'm two."

Scratching behind my ear, Allen says, "I wish it were that simple, Kiseki, but it's not."

Falling face first onto the bed beside Allen, Chichi finally surrenders, "You tell her. I can't do it."

"Wish you would have figured that out ten minutes ago," Daddy teased. Then he leaned down closer to Kanda's ear and stroked his hair, whispering, "Do you want to go somewhere else?"

"Sixteen years, eight months, and two weeks," he said.

"What?"

He looked up at Allen, "That's how long it's been since it happened. I got over it."

"No, you didn't," Daddy said. With that, he turned back to me, reaching for the hem of his shirt, and he pulled it over his head, revealing a pale chest and stomach crisscrossed with fading scars. The bluenette on his other side still had his face buried in his arms, and I scanned Allen's body, shock overwhelming me.

"You cut?" I whispered, reaching out to touch one of the ashen lines.

"Used to. Emphasis," Kanda answered, not looking up. The facts began piecing themselves together in my brain and I ask sadly, "Why?"

Allen looks down, "Well, it was when I first got here, and the life-style was really hard to cope with for me. Even having the experiences of my apprenticeship with Cross, I still just couldn't adjust. After about a year, I got in a fight with Lenalee, and I still can't remember what it was as pathetic as that it―"

Kanda had slipped a finger through Daddy's belt loop and jerked hard when he heard the word "pathetic".

"Sorry," the whitette apologized. "Anyway, for whatever reason it was, it upset me so bad I tried to kill myself, but I didn't take enough pills. Then about a year after that, Kanda and I had been forced to share this room together and we began dating. I had been having really bad nightmares, and he let me sleep with him, so they stopped. One night, I pulled off my shirt because I was hot and didn't realize what I had done until Kanda brought it up. He left, and I was certain that he wasn't coming back, and I tried again. Luckily, he ran in just in time to stop me.

"The reason we never told you about the night I got pregnant was because that was the night. Lost my virginity, too."

"Didn't need to know the last part," I say, giving him a huge hug.

"What's this for?" he asked, embracing me back. Shrugging, I reply, "For telling me, even if it ticks me that you waited this long."

Laughing, he says, "I wasn't the one who decided it. I wanted to tell you when you where five, but―"

"But we agreed before you were born that we would wait until you turned sixteen," Kanda interrupted, wrapping an arm around Allen's waist and pulling him down to him. Rolling my eyes, I swat him in the head with my tail and lay my ears back, "That was before you found out that the Innocence screwed with my brain."

Possessively holding his husband, Chichi muttered, "Regardless, we agreed to it, and I held him to it."

"You hold me to a lot of things, including you," Daddy teased, but didn't attempt to wiggle out of the grasp.

Oo_oO_Oo_oO

"Hyō! I've missed you!" a blue-haired girl exclaimed, throwing her arms around me. I remember this girl from my dream when I was one, the night Chichi and Daddy got engaged. Pushing her off me, I crouch down, tail thrashing and ears laid back, and I bare my teeth at her, "Who are you?"

The girl looked hurt, childishly pouting with her lollipop in her mouth, and she replied, "How do you not remember your lover?!"

"Lover?" I spit in confusion. Sure, I may like girls instead of boys, but I'm still a virgin, thank you very much! Besides, what age is this girl? Twelve? Thirteen, tops?

"Yes, Hyō. Sheesh, for the Noah of intelligence you sure sound stupid right now," she said. Stalking on all fours around her, I growl, "My name's not Hyō. It's Kiseki. Kiseki Mana Walker. Now, what's yours before I find out through your casket?"

"Walker? As in Allen Walker?" she gasped in disbelief.

"He's my father. So is Yu Kanda, so don't think I'll hesitate to attack you."

Immaturely, she huffs, "Two dads, huh? That's new. Fine, my name is Road Kamelot. Remember?"

"Road? The Noah of dreams? The one that disappeared a little before Neah died?"

"Yes, but I obviously didn't disappear, now did I?"

That would explain how she got here, in my head and dreams. Though, another thought comes to mind, and looking up to glare at the deadly sharp candles, I growl, "Drop the candles."

"What? You used to love my candles!"

"Drop. The. Candles. Now."

"Fine," she mumbled, and the wax and fire disappear. Moving closer to her cautiously, I order, "Stay still."

Amazingly, Road put her hands to her side with a little distance between them and her hips, and I gave her leg a sniff, drawing back quickly, "You don't have a scent."

"Sorry to disappoint. Noahs don't have scents, in the exception of Tyki and his cigarettes and Lulubell and her…seduction smell, if that's what you call it," she explains. Continuing my inspection, I once over her face and ask lowly, "Where's your stigmata, dark skin, and golden eyes?"

Plopping down on a couch that appeared out of thin air, Road sighed, "Well, when I disappeared, I started wandering through dimensions, and when I finally found this one again, those things were gone. I can still control going into people's dreams and my candles are the same, but nothing else. I don't even know where everyone else is."

It was obvious that she was upset, but this was the enemy. Even if Neah and the Earl were dead, the rest of the Noah family was still out there, and they were dangerous. I can't go off prancing with one of them, regardless of whether it's in my dreams or not.

But destiny never really plays by the rules, does it?

As always, please, Please, PLEASE R/R!