Author's Note:
Ah yes. How dare I. I've already got way too many projects on my hands, and I'm dashing off into another!
…I don't care.
xD
I've got lots of plans for this one, and I'm going to have a blast writing it.
Enjoy and please review!
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Full Metal Alchemist or any of the characters. I don't even own the main characters or the plot of this ff- they belong to 'Nightengale'Serenade'93 who entrusted them to me. (That's right, I get no credit! Credit Sibi-chan with the epic OC and plot :D)
LOSGAP =D
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"MOM! Kisa pulled my hair!" Kaori Nakamura wailed, racing away from her two sisters to the vegetable garden her mother was working in.
"Kisa, apologize to your sister!" Paige Nakamura ordered sternly, sweeping her eldest daughter of ten years into a comforting hug.
"But she tripped me!" Kisa protested, staring at Kaori with accusing blue eyes. Kaori stuck her tongue out at her and their mother sighed. She loved her triplets dearly, but they fought like cats and dogs.
"Both of you apologize to each other." She ordered, releasing Kaori. Yuuki, the second youngest of the set, nodded firmly, crossing her arms. She always got upset when Kaori and Kisa bickered, but she was no push-over- Kaori still had a bruise from that time she tried to steal Yuuki's dessert.
"Sorry." Kisa muttered, scowling at the dirt. "You should be!" Kaori snapped, then quailed under her mother's icy brown-eyed glare. "Sorry." She whimpered, then darted forward to smack Kisa- gently- on the shoulder. "Tag! You're it!" She cried, taking off at a dead run.
OOO
"Mama's been working so hard lately." Yuuki commented as she sat down on the bed beside Kaori, frowning at the door behind which their mother slept.
"Too hard." Kisa agreed from where she sat on the floor- Kaori was braiding her thick black hair for the night.
"We should help!" Kaori said firmly, finishing Kisa's hair and turning to do the same to Yuuki's. As the eldest triplet, she always made sure her sisters were fully ready for bed- the duty had not always been hers, but their mother had been going to bed earlier and earlier lately.
"Ever since Papa died she's worked twice as hard." Kisa said, sitting down behind Kaori to braid her hair, forming a small chain with the three girls.
"All the more reason for us to help." Kaori nodded, refusing to think of her father. He'd died almost three years ago in a tractor accident on their little farm- Mama ran the farm now, without any help.
"But how can we help?" Yuuki asked, glancing over her shoulder at Kaori. Kaori grinned. "Alkahestry, of course." She replied.
"Alchemy." Kisa corrected her. "Dad called it alkahestry though." Yuuki pointed out. "So we should too. We're Xingese too."
"But we're also half Amestrian, like Mama, and they call it alchemy!" Kisa protested. She was so determined to be a full-blooded Amestrian- Kaori felt a flash of annoyance, how dare she turn her back on her heritage?
She calmed down after a moment and brightened, remembering her plans to use alkahestry.
"But how would it help?" Yuuki asked as Kaori finished, turning to regard her curiously. "Alkahestry can fix anything, why can't it help farm?" Kaori pointed out. "So what do we do? Run around the farm, drawing circles in the dirt and magically make it all better for mom?" Kisa demanded. Even though she was the youngest, she seemed to be the one who tried to be the most practical.
"Pretty much." Kaori shrugged.
OOO
"Come on! Sprout beans- sprout!" Kaori wailed, slamming her muddy hands into the dirt, a fierce scowl on her face.
"I don't think it works quite that way." Kisa sighed, shaking her head. "Maybe we're just not cut out for plant alchemy."
"Apparently not." Yuuki agreed, getting up and dusting the dirt off her pants. "Let's go inside- I'm hungry." She said and after a moment Kaori followed, frowning in annoyance. Alkahestry was supposed to fix everything- she just needed to learn more before she could help around the farm, that was all.
"Mama! We're back! What's for lunch?!" Kisa called as they entered, kicking off her muddy boots.
"Mama?" Yuuki darted ahead, calling for their mother. "She must be out in the garden- I'll go get lunch started." Kisa decided, heading to the kitchen.
Kaori turned to follow, then jumped when she heard Yuuki's shriek.
OOO
Paige Nakamura hadn't gotten out of bed that morning.
She never did.
The doctors told them it was a peaceful death, gone in her sleep- probably from over exhaustion and from sickness; Kaori couldn't believe she hadn't noticed Mama was sick.
"What do we do now?" Yuuki whispered from behind Kaori as she stared down at her mother's grave. They'd been there all day.
"We can't live by ourselves!" Kisa wailed, burying her face in her hands. "We can't survive without Mama!"
Kaori clenched her fists, staring at the headstone. "We're not going to." She whispered fiercely. "We're going to bring her back."
OOO
"Are you guys sure about this?" Kisa whimpered, staring at the transmutation circle.
"We've studied for a year, and you want to go back now?" Kaori hissed, pulling out the knife from her pocket. "No!" Kisa protested. "But- what if Mama doesn't want to come back? What if she's happy… with Papa?"
Kaori winced. She'd thought of that, but how could her mother willingly abandon her daughters?
"Mama always said, she was happy whenever we were with her." Yuuki pointed out. "I don't want to keep her waiting for us."
"Them waiting for us." Kaori corrected. Kisa bit her lip, a frightened whimper escaping her. They had made the decision to try and bring both parents back; the thought of separating them again was too painful. Mama had been miserable for so long after Papa's death that bringing her back without him would have been like killing her all over again.
Kaori gritted her teeth, slicing her index finger and passing the knife to Yuuki as she held her finger over the enormous pile of human ingredients, watching her blood drop onto it. Soul information- it would help lead her parents back to them.
"Are you ready?" Kaori asked, kneeling down beside the circle. A tremor ran through her as she looked at the scared but determined looks on her sisters faces- they were ready.
Fighting an excited grin, she pressed her hands to the edge of the circle.
The familiar warm tingle of alchemy ran through her and she looked eagerly at the bright yellow light swirling around them.
"It's working!" Kisa whispered in excitement.
"Mama!" Yuuki cried, her eyes shining. "Papa! We're here!"
Kaori raised her head, looking around- any minute now, Mama and Papa would walk out of the light, hand in hand, smiling warmly at their daughters.
"What's happening?!" Yuuki's shriek tugged Kaori back to reality and she blinked, watching the light turn to a sinister purple.
She cried out in shock as long black arms snaked around her, eyes shining at their ends.
"Kisa! Yuuki!" Kaori turned to where her sisters had been, and discovered they were tangled as well, being dragged away from her into the center of the circle.
"Kaori!" They cried, reaching out to her. She fought forward, stretching her hands out towards her sisters just as they vanished.
"No!" Kaori shrieked. "Kisa! Yuuki! Come back!"
And suddenly, she was standing before a gate.
She looked around wildly at the white expanse, trying to figure out where she was. Where were her sisters?!
Her eyes landed on the gate in front of her and she shrieked, running at it. "Give them back!" She screamed, dragging at the heavy doors. "Give me my sisters!" She pounded on the door, sobbing as it refused to budge.
But suddenly it opened, and the black tentacles were around her again, hissing as they coiled around her, dragging her into the gate.
Information. Knowledge she had never dreamed of was forced into her head and she cried out in pain as her head throbbed in agony. "Make it stop!" She begged. "You're going to kill me!"
"Foolish child." A voice whispered. "Did you really think you could bring your mommy and daddy back? Did you really think you could bend the laws of nature to your selfish will?"
Her eyes widened in panic as she stared at the black mass of swarming tentacles, trying to find a face.
"You must pay your toll." The voice whispered, the arms curling around her head. "No!" She shrieked, beginning to struggle anew.
She was cast into darkness.
OOO
She woke up slowly, keeping her eyes shut tight. A bad dream. Yes. A horrible nightmare. One she would never forget.
"Yuuki, Kisa, I had the worst dream…" She whispered, opening her eyes. She saw only blackness.
The pain set in then; her eyes felt as though knives were being jabbed into their sockets, but they felt so empty as well- what had happened to her?!
"Kisa? Yuuki?" She called, her voice quaking with fear. She tried to hear something above her pounding heart and her terrified sobs. "Anyone?"
There was a faint gasp and she stiffened with hope. "Who's there?" She begged. "I can't see!" The single gasp turned into two desperate gasps for air, and Kaori's blood chilled.
"Mama?" She whispered. "Papa?"
The gasp turned into a choking, gurgling sound and Kaori whimpered in fear, crawling away from it. Her hands slipped on the wooden floor, suddenly slick with a liquid that left an iron taste in her mouth. Blood.
On her hands and knees, she found the door, and climbed to her knees, stumbling forward into the mud. It was raining- the pain it brought her eyes was excruciating.
"Someone help me!" She cried, stumbling off in a random direction- she would find help, and they would help her see, and save her sisters. They had too.
OOO
She eventually made it to her neighbor's house, the Johnson's- by the time she finally made it there she was so hysterical with terror and pain that they could barely get a word out of her- the husband, Marc, went to her house to see what had happened while the wife Joan carried her to the doctors- Kaori blacked out before they arrived.
OOO
When she awoke, she was told what had happened. Yuuki and Kisa were nowhere to be found, but there were two monsters in her home- Marc had shot them on sight, then burned the corpses.
She understood now. She had created those monsters- they were her parents. A shudder of cold terror rippled through her as she remembered the gasping, choking noises from the room. They had been in pain, and it had been all her fault.
She had killed not only her parents all over again, but her sisters as well. They couldn't even bury them- the Gate had stolen their bodies.
She wanted to weep, but she would never cry again. The Gate had taken her eyes as their toll.
OOO
For the rest of her youth she lived with Marc and Joan, and she learned to love them as though they were her own parents as they helped teach her to turn her blindness into her strength.
Her other senses improved dramatically- she began to pick up what she felt was a sixth sense, or in her case a fifth, as she began to "feel" what was around her. People became lights- some dull, others bright, all of different colors, but mostly shades of yellow. Marc was a bright gold, Joan a pale pink.
Animals and plants had colors as well- some objects did, but only if they had pure substances in them, such as metals and woods. She could feel the molecules in the air as well, but not as clearly as people. They were faint pulses of energy all around her, and after a few years she began to understand how they worked. She identified ones that made up light and she could destroy them, casting everyone around in darkness.
Not that she could tell, but experiments with other people taught her that they couldn't see a thing- it was a talent she considered a bit useless- what use was blinding farmers working in the fields?
She started to feel restless- Marc taught her to fight, but that wasn't what she wanted. She wanted adventure.
And when a soldier came to their village on leave when she was eighteen, she realized exactly how she could get it.
OOO
Author's Note:
Oh yes, another blind character. This one won't gain her sight back though.
I've always been fascinated about working with characters with disabilities- it's a challenge, and super fun.
I'm twisted like that. :D
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Serendipity- please review! :D
LOSGAP =D