DISCLAIMER:Mawata and company belong to Asuka Comics DX . I'll return her (very reluctantly) after this is done, though Sasame might be a touch late. Spoilers for Pretear. Pretear and all original characters and plot copyright 2002 by Quicksilver/Aishuu. Please ask permission before reposting.
Aishuu Offers:
Himeno's Legacy
A Shin Shirayukihime Densetsu Pretear Fan Fiction
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Chapter One: Aftermath
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was Kei, of all the Liefe Knights, who said what none of them wanted to acknowledge. "We need to find a new Prétear." Kei was the most coolly practical, and also the coldest. He hadn't known Himeno that well.
Sasame just looked at him for a second before nodding quietly. Goh looked angry at the idea of replacing Himeno so quickly, but muttered agreement that protecting the world took precedence over their feelings, and the three youngest knights agreed easily enough.
Predictably enough, it was Hayate who refused. He had been half in love with Himeno, and Takako had been in love with him, so his track record with Prétears wasn't the best. "We can handle this by ourselves!" he insisted. "Himeno shouldn't be replaced like a space tire!"
The Knights waited for Sasame to intervene, since Sasame was usually the only one who could argue with the Wind Knight and win. Sasame, though, remained quiet as Hayate vanished. "Aren't you going to reason with him?" Kei asked, knowing that of all of them, Sasame was the only one likely to get through to the moody Knight of Wind.
"Why should I?" Sasame asked. "When I'm not even convinced he's wrong?" He looked quietly at the others before vanishing as well.
Goh looked at the place where the melancholy silver-haired had vanished. "This is not good."
Kei seemed thoughtful. He raised a slender hand to his chin and tapped it thoughtfully. "Shin, Hajime, Mannen… you three start looking for the new Prétear. She should be in this town, still. Prétear is always near where she is needed."
"But-" Mannen began to protest.
"Is it too tough for you children?" Kei asked, his tone slightly condescending.
"No!" Mannen said. "Come on!" The three youngest Knights vanished with traces of ice, water and the scent of flowers.
Goh looked at the blonde knight. "You're so cold. Was that really such a good idea? Without Sasame and Hayate cooperating…"
"They will. They know their duty."
Goh's temper, never far from the surface, reared its head. "Is that all it is? DUTY?" He grabbed Kei's shirt and lifted the smaller Knight off his feet. "Himeno just died! And you're trying to force another Prétear onto all of us! Mannen is right- you should be the Knight of Ice..." he said, disgust audible in his voice.
Kei's amber eyes suddenly lit, and burned like lasers. Goh found himself setting his friend down without knowing why he felt a surge of fear. "You think I don't miss her?" he asked. "How can I not? How can you Prét with a girl and not love her? Especially someone like Himeno, who was so full of life and joy? But Saihi destroyed her, and there's no time in this battle to stop and mourn for the fallen! We can mourn later, when we win."
"When?" Goh whispered, for once allowing his own depression show.
"When. For Himeno, we must win. For if we don't…" Kei trailed off. The thought was simply too horrid to say aloud.
~*~*~*~*~
The sun continued to rise and set, for now.
For now, Saihi Fehnrir was held in check, but he knew that it wouldn't be long until she managed to break through, and perhaps, perhaps… They had defeated Prétears who had gone bad before, but this time was different.
He hadn't loved the other ones.
Sasame looked around the station, nodding at the people who waved to him. He had taken a few days off work because of injury, but he couldn't avoid it anymore. A radio personality had to keep up regularly, or else lose their audience. He also had the pressure of being the station's prize draw, and there was currently a deal for national syndication in the works. It was the last thing he wanted in the world he wanted, but he hadn't been able to come up with a reasonable explanation on why he was against it. Sometimes he wondered why he gave advice, when all he was able to do was be pushed around.
"Sasame!" a cheerful voice called.
He turned around to see his assistant Junko hurrying up to him. "You're doing a four-hour special, instead of your usual two," she informed him. "And great news! You've been picked up by at least twelve stations, and two dozen more are interested in you! We go nation-wide next week!"
He blinked, feeling like he'd been hit by a fast-moving car. "That's… great."
She frowned at him, placing her hands on her hips. "Sasame? Are you okay? Are you still ill?"
He shook his head. "I'm fine, Junko," he assured her. "Just a little tired."
Junko was forty if she was a day, but acted more like a girl in her teens. She was Sasame's self-proclaimed "# 1 Fan!" and always had enough energy to fill a room and then some. Being around her was refreshing for him- she practical radiated spare Liefe. If she had been younger, she would have made an excellent Pretear. "Maybe you should sit? I can see about-"
Sasame raised a hand to forestall her fluttering around him like a nervous mother hen. "I need to get back to work. It'll be good for me- but thanks for your concern."
She went still for a second, seeming to wonder if she should press him before she grabbed his hand and dragged him into the room that was set up as the office for his show. Most of the DJs didn't have their own offices, but he was the most popular. It might have been a cause for rivalry, if he wasn't, as Morning Meiko so accurately put it, "so blasted nice."
"I assume I have a lot of mail?" he asked, stepping into the office, then blinked in surprise. There were flowers everywhere, along with heaping bags of mail, boxes of chocolate, and stuffed animals. He blinked again. "Well…"
"I already weeded out all the get-well cards, and the standard teenage angst, love notes, and all that. On your desk are the ones I thought you should at least read, and here," she said, handing over about ten cards, "were the ones I thought would make good material for the show."
He took them, smiling slight as he noticed a letter with familiar handwriting. It had been neatly slit along the top with some sort of letter-opener, and he put the others down to study it. "A letter? From Silk-san?" he asked. That was unusual… she usually only sent him postcards, postcards which made him ache with shared loneliness.
"You should read it," Junko said, seriously. "She's hurting. The other stations really love your relation you built with her… they want her to keep writing- think you should encourage her. Maybe make it a small section weekly, or something. About the pain of a young girl growing up, and all that."
"I don't want to use her like that," he said quietly. "I don't want her to feel pressured to write me." He pulled the note out, and was surprised that it was on ordinary paper, rather than the expensive postcards Silk had always favored before.
Then again, Silk was also Himeno's sister.
He opened the letter up, and was surprised to see how thick it was- at least ten pages of neat kanji. "Did you read this?" he asked.
"As soon as I realized it was from Silk, I read the whole thing… did you really meet her?" Junko asked, sitting down on top of a filing cabinet, which teetered precariously under her weight.
"Her sister was a close friend of mine," Sasame murmured. "The world's a small place, apparently." He adjusted the glasses that he didn't need but wore when he was "Sasame" instead of the "Knight of Sound". It helped he remember which persona he was in.
Dear Sasame,
I don't know why I'm writing this to you,
or if I even should… but you were her friend, too.
Perhaps you can help me figure out why I feel as
though a part of me is missing, when I
barely even knew her….
I was never nice to her- not truly nice, the kind
of kindness that comes from the heart.
That bothers me now, I think. She always tried
to be friendly to me, but I was never
kind in return. It's so hard to accept that I'll never
see her smile at me, and never again
have the chance to smile back.
It's as though with her death, my last chance at
breaking my solitude has been taken away…
He l ooked down at the letter, the outpouring of a lonely girl's heart, and forced himself to keep from crying. Silk had, as always, voiced exactly what he felt.
~*~*~*~*~
Mawata supposed that she should know death; after all, her father had died, and his death had left her all alone. One again, the family had been plunged into mourning, and this time, it was for a child.
Mawata rested her hand against the doorframe, listening to her stepfather whisper unintelligibly, and her mother murmur meaningless words of comfort. She knew better than most how empty those words were, how someone who didn't understand couldn't comfort the heart. How could Natsue understand what Kaoru was going through? She may have lost a husband, but she had never lost a child.
How had Himeno, of all of them, died? How could it have happened?
Her gaze lingered on the grieving adults before a hand pulled her back. Emerald green eyes met her, and she looked at Mikage. "Is dinner ready?" she asked, amazed that her voice still sounded the same, as though there was nothing different.
"Okusama requested that it be served in your rooms… she wants to spend some time alone with Kaoru-sama. I can bring it up whenever you're ready," she said. "Perhaps after Sasame's program? Or during?" the pretty maid offered.
"I'm not hungry," Mawata said softly, before turning away towards her fifth-floor bedroom. She liked that her room was so high above the grounds- it gave her a great view, even though she rarely looked out her window anymore. She hadn't found much worth seeing on the vast estates, even though she knew there was plenty out there she hadn't a clue existed.
She lacked curiosity.
Was there some fundamental flaw in her make-up, one that had been created when her father had died? Or had she created it herself, when she had become the perfect daughter when her mother and sister had been falling apart? She had saved them, but who would save her?
She had often wondered that. There were no white knights left in the world- she had wanted to believe that Sasame could be hers, for whenever she listened to him speak, it seemed as though he spoke to her heart, as though he understood exactly how she was feeling. No one else was able to speak to her like that.
Still, Sasame was a celebrity and someone far beyond her reach. He had been Himeno's friend, and perhaps more. She had seen them around town, laughing together. Himeno had been able to make anyone laugh, simply by being herself.
She missed Himeno's smile. Himeno had always had a smile ready for her.
Mawata wondered what happened to her stepsister. One day Himeno had suddenly stopped smiling, and within a week, she had died. The coroner had said it was as though the young girl's heart had simply given out, but Mawata found that hard to believe. How could someone as vibrant as Himeno die, while she continued to live? When she wasn't even sure she wanted her life?
She wondered if there was some deity who was laughing up there. Take the girl who loved life, and was loved by everyone, and leave behind the one who would have given anything to escape.
Mawata brushed a stray lock of hair away from her aqua eyes, wondering if she would ever know the truth. That bothered her.
She glanced out a window, wondering why she was so concerned for someone she had barely known. It was true that Himeno had been loveable, but Mawata hadn't known her well. Still, Himeno had been a ray of hope into her life…
A shadow of a movement caught her attention, and suddenly a wild, crazy idea filled her head. She tried to dismiss it, but her feet had her racing to the front door and throwing shoes on before she could.
Mawata raced across the lawn, panting slightly at the unfamiliar exertion. She rarely got excited at anything, but…
He was standing there, holding, of all things, a garden hose as he watered the begonias. His eyes seemed impossibly sad as he stared at the window of the room Himeno had lived in, and around him his hair swirled free. He looked more like a prince then a worker.
Mawata folded her arms across her chest and stared at the odd-jobs man Kaoru had hired. "Hayate-san," she said coolly, suddenly aware didn't know his family name, "I want to know what happened to Himeno."
END CHAPTER ONE
Up Next: The Whisper of Truth
Sorry, I know I have enough projects on my plate- anyway, I was sick of the poor showing of Prétear fanfics. Anyway, I have the next part of Mystic Eyes and a Kare Kano fanfic on my comp, I just need to format them! Anyway, feedback would be appreciated- I really feel like I'm throwing fanfic into this giant pit of no return!
Aishuu Offers:
Himeno's Legacy
A Shin Shirayukihime Densetsu Pretear Fan Fiction
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Chapter One: Aftermath
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was Kei, of all the Liefe Knights, who said what none of them wanted to acknowledge. "We need to find a new Prétear." Kei was the most coolly practical, and also the coldest. He hadn't known Himeno that well.
Sasame just looked at him for a second before nodding quietly. Goh looked angry at the idea of replacing Himeno so quickly, but muttered agreement that protecting the world took precedence over their feelings, and the three youngest knights agreed easily enough.
Predictably enough, it was Hayate who refused. He had been half in love with Himeno, and Takako had been in love with him, so his track record with Prétears wasn't the best. "We can handle this by ourselves!" he insisted. "Himeno shouldn't be replaced like a space tire!"
The Knights waited for Sasame to intervene, since Sasame was usually the only one who could argue with the Wind Knight and win. Sasame, though, remained quiet as Hayate vanished. "Aren't you going to reason with him?" Kei asked, knowing that of all of them, Sasame was the only one likely to get through to the moody Knight of Wind.
"Why should I?" Sasame asked. "When I'm not even convinced he's wrong?" He looked quietly at the others before vanishing as well.
Goh looked at the place where the melancholy silver-haired had vanished. "This is not good."
Kei seemed thoughtful. He raised a slender hand to his chin and tapped it thoughtfully. "Shin, Hajime, Mannen… you three start looking for the new Prétear. She should be in this town, still. Prétear is always near where she is needed."
"But-" Mannen began to protest.
"Is it too tough for you children?" Kei asked, his tone slightly condescending.
"No!" Mannen said. "Come on!" The three youngest Knights vanished with traces of ice, water and the scent of flowers.
Goh looked at the blonde knight. "You're so cold. Was that really such a good idea? Without Sasame and Hayate cooperating…"
"They will. They know their duty."
Goh's temper, never far from the surface, reared its head. "Is that all it is? DUTY?" He grabbed Kei's shirt and lifted the smaller Knight off his feet. "Himeno just died! And you're trying to force another Prétear onto all of us! Mannen is right- you should be the Knight of Ice..." he said, disgust audible in his voice.
Kei's amber eyes suddenly lit, and burned like lasers. Goh found himself setting his friend down without knowing why he felt a surge of fear. "You think I don't miss her?" he asked. "How can I not? How can you Prét with a girl and not love her? Especially someone like Himeno, who was so full of life and joy? But Saihi destroyed her, and there's no time in this battle to stop and mourn for the fallen! We can mourn later, when we win."
"When?" Goh whispered, for once allowing his own depression show.
"When. For Himeno, we must win. For if we don't…" Kei trailed off. The thought was simply too horrid to say aloud.
~*~*~*~*~
The sun continued to rise and set, for now.
For now, Saihi Fehnrir was held in check, but he knew that it wouldn't be long until she managed to break through, and perhaps, perhaps… They had defeated Prétears who had gone bad before, but this time was different.
He hadn't loved the other ones.
Sasame looked around the station, nodding at the people who waved to him. He had taken a few days off work because of injury, but he couldn't avoid it anymore. A radio personality had to keep up regularly, or else lose their audience. He also had the pressure of being the station's prize draw, and there was currently a deal for national syndication in the works. It was the last thing he wanted in the world he wanted, but he hadn't been able to come up with a reasonable explanation on why he was against it. Sometimes he wondered why he gave advice, when all he was able to do was be pushed around.
"Sasame!" a cheerful voice called.
He turned around to see his assistant Junko hurrying up to him. "You're doing a four-hour special, instead of your usual two," she informed him. "And great news! You've been picked up by at least twelve stations, and two dozen more are interested in you! We go nation-wide next week!"
He blinked, feeling like he'd been hit by a fast-moving car. "That's… great."
She frowned at him, placing her hands on her hips. "Sasame? Are you okay? Are you still ill?"
He shook his head. "I'm fine, Junko," he assured her. "Just a little tired."
Junko was forty if she was a day, but acted more like a girl in her teens. She was Sasame's self-proclaimed "# 1 Fan!" and always had enough energy to fill a room and then some. Being around her was refreshing for him- she practical radiated spare Liefe. If she had been younger, she would have made an excellent Pretear. "Maybe you should sit? I can see about-"
Sasame raised a hand to forestall her fluttering around him like a nervous mother hen. "I need to get back to work. It'll be good for me- but thanks for your concern."
She went still for a second, seeming to wonder if she should press him before she grabbed his hand and dragged him into the room that was set up as the office for his show. Most of the DJs didn't have their own offices, but he was the most popular. It might have been a cause for rivalry, if he wasn't, as Morning Meiko so accurately put it, "so blasted nice."
"I assume I have a lot of mail?" he asked, stepping into the office, then blinked in surprise. There were flowers everywhere, along with heaping bags of mail, boxes of chocolate, and stuffed animals. He blinked again. "Well…"
"I already weeded out all the get-well cards, and the standard teenage angst, love notes, and all that. On your desk are the ones I thought you should at least read, and here," she said, handing over about ten cards, "were the ones I thought would make good material for the show."
He took them, smiling slight as he noticed a letter with familiar handwriting. It had been neatly slit along the top with some sort of letter-opener, and he put the others down to study it. "A letter? From Silk-san?" he asked. That was unusual… she usually only sent him postcards, postcards which made him ache with shared loneliness.
"You should read it," Junko said, seriously. "She's hurting. The other stations really love your relation you built with her… they want her to keep writing- think you should encourage her. Maybe make it a small section weekly, or something. About the pain of a young girl growing up, and all that."
"I don't want to use her like that," he said quietly. "I don't want her to feel pressured to write me." He pulled the note out, and was surprised that it was on ordinary paper, rather than the expensive postcards Silk had always favored before.
Then again, Silk was also Himeno's sister.
He opened the letter up, and was surprised to see how thick it was- at least ten pages of neat kanji. "Did you read this?" he asked.
"As soon as I realized it was from Silk, I read the whole thing… did you really meet her?" Junko asked, sitting down on top of a filing cabinet, which teetered precariously under her weight.
"Her sister was a close friend of mine," Sasame murmured. "The world's a small place, apparently." He adjusted the glasses that he didn't need but wore when he was "Sasame" instead of the "Knight of Sound". It helped he remember which persona he was in.
Dear Sasame,
I don't know why I'm writing this to you,
or if I even should… but you were her friend, too.
Perhaps you can help me figure out why I feel as
though a part of me is missing, when I
barely even knew her….
I was never nice to her- not truly nice, the kind
of kindness that comes from the heart.
That bothers me now, I think. She always tried
to be friendly to me, but I was never
kind in return. It's so hard to accept that I'll never
see her smile at me, and never again
have the chance to smile back.
It's as though with her death, my last chance at
breaking my solitude has been taken away…
He l ooked down at the letter, the outpouring of a lonely girl's heart, and forced himself to keep from crying. Silk had, as always, voiced exactly what he felt.
~*~*~*~*~
Mawata supposed that she should know death; after all, her father had died, and his death had left her all alone. One again, the family had been plunged into mourning, and this time, it was for a child.
Mawata rested her hand against the doorframe, listening to her stepfather whisper unintelligibly, and her mother murmur meaningless words of comfort. She knew better than most how empty those words were, how someone who didn't understand couldn't comfort the heart. How could Natsue understand what Kaoru was going through? She may have lost a husband, but she had never lost a child.
How had Himeno, of all of them, died? How could it have happened?
Her gaze lingered on the grieving adults before a hand pulled her back. Emerald green eyes met her, and she looked at Mikage. "Is dinner ready?" she asked, amazed that her voice still sounded the same, as though there was nothing different.
"Okusama requested that it be served in your rooms… she wants to spend some time alone with Kaoru-sama. I can bring it up whenever you're ready," she said. "Perhaps after Sasame's program? Or during?" the pretty maid offered.
"I'm not hungry," Mawata said softly, before turning away towards her fifth-floor bedroom. She liked that her room was so high above the grounds- it gave her a great view, even though she rarely looked out her window anymore. She hadn't found much worth seeing on the vast estates, even though she knew there was plenty out there she hadn't a clue existed.
She lacked curiosity.
Was there some fundamental flaw in her make-up, one that had been created when her father had died? Or had she created it herself, when she had become the perfect daughter when her mother and sister had been falling apart? She had saved them, but who would save her?
She had often wondered that. There were no white knights left in the world- she had wanted to believe that Sasame could be hers, for whenever she listened to him speak, it seemed as though he spoke to her heart, as though he understood exactly how she was feeling. No one else was able to speak to her like that.
Still, Sasame was a celebrity and someone far beyond her reach. He had been Himeno's friend, and perhaps more. She had seen them around town, laughing together. Himeno had been able to make anyone laugh, simply by being herself.
She missed Himeno's smile. Himeno had always had a smile ready for her.
Mawata wondered what happened to her stepsister. One day Himeno had suddenly stopped smiling, and within a week, she had died. The coroner had said it was as though the young girl's heart had simply given out, but Mawata found that hard to believe. How could someone as vibrant as Himeno die, while she continued to live? When she wasn't even sure she wanted her life?
She wondered if there was some deity who was laughing up there. Take the girl who loved life, and was loved by everyone, and leave behind the one who would have given anything to escape.
Mawata brushed a stray lock of hair away from her aqua eyes, wondering if she would ever know the truth. That bothered her.
She glanced out a window, wondering why she was so concerned for someone she had barely known. It was true that Himeno had been loveable, but Mawata hadn't known her well. Still, Himeno had been a ray of hope into her life…
A shadow of a movement caught her attention, and suddenly a wild, crazy idea filled her head. She tried to dismiss it, but her feet had her racing to the front door and throwing shoes on before she could.
Mawata raced across the lawn, panting slightly at the unfamiliar exertion. She rarely got excited at anything, but…
He was standing there, holding, of all things, a garden hose as he watered the begonias. His eyes seemed impossibly sad as he stared at the window of the room Himeno had lived in, and around him his hair swirled free. He looked more like a prince then a worker.
Mawata folded her arms across her chest and stared at the odd-jobs man Kaoru had hired. "Hayate-san," she said coolly, suddenly aware didn't know his family name, "I want to know what happened to Himeno."
END CHAPTER ONE
Up Next: The Whisper of Truth
Sorry, I know I have enough projects on my plate- anyway, I was sick of the poor showing of Prétear fanfics. Anyway, I have the next part of Mystic Eyes and a Kare Kano fanfic on my comp, I just need to format them! Anyway, feedback would be appreciated- I really feel like I'm throwing fanfic into this giant pit of no return!