Chapter 1: Sister of a God
Riiko heaved a heavy sigh and panted. Despite being from a back land, cities were just so damned BIG!! The streets were an impressive Heian Period style, bringing her a strange sense of nostalgia that she shook off. She needed better control of herself!! The buildings though beautiful and immaculately kept made her shudder as how cold they felt. A dark cloud seemed to loom over the buildings, like a curse... She shook her head adamantly. Now she was just being stupid!
The front gate finally loomed before her, a true fortress; obviously this was a secretive family. Riiko gathered what audacity that she still had left in her and pushed the button. She didn't hear anything and wondered if they heard. She made to press it again when a clear, booming voice crashed loudly out of the speaker just next to the button onto her sensitive ears. Riiko jumped as the voice snapped, "Yes, what business do you have here?"
She stood upright and straitened the front of her outfit. "Um, I'm here to see Soma Ren. Is she here?"
The voice paused. "Ren-san? What business have you with her?"
"Legal matters! Please, this is very important!" The voice paused, as if in thought of the consequences of letting her in- or locking her out. The heavy wood gate swung open then; it was the only answer she got. Riiko hesitated a moment but continued in to find that beyond the gate was an enormous court yard. It was bare of grass, totally done in sand and stone. The walk way went strait forward towards an ornately decorated door that lay at it's end some 30 meters away. The house was raised, she noticed and glanced from her right to her left, looking at all the locked up windows. Weird how they do that, seeing as there's no need for privacy with a gate like that... she thought, just before her eyes met another's. A sickly person, from what she saw, a sickly young man, leaned tiredly out of a round, open window, lazing there staring out into the courtyard. His eyes were anything but bored and lazy though. They were full of angry fire. The hair on the back of Riiko's neck stood up. She had seen those same kind of eyes before, back home: they meant death. Despite her eyes being locked with his, she noticed that his hand began to ball up into a fist. His nails dug into the soft wood of the frame as his fingers closed. The more his hand closed, the more fire his eyes came to hold. She glanced momentarily and noticed the scars in the wood. This person... she thought, but that was all she thought. A hand grabbed her arm and pulled her down the walkway. A stern, moody looking man was leading her to the housing on her right, the opposite direction of the boy in the window. Riiko was stunned for a moment, but she shook it off and followed him. They went up a set of steps onto the wrap around terraces. They walked backwards a ways, then she was tugged to take a left, getting farther away.
"Uh..."
"Ren lives this way. I'm here to keep an on her while you speak to her. I'm sorry to say that she's not in the best health."
"I see... her too then..."
The man glanced back at her and she simply stared ahead. "'Too'?"
She smiled ironically and said, "Misery's company." He didn't respond, just kept leading her. He released her hand after a few moments when he was sure that she was following him. The same cold, dead immaculate landscape was in place over the entire system of houses. As she passed a house, she could have sworn she heard a violin playing from one of the rooms. Her escort briefly glanced at the house, only confirming her suspicion. She listened closer: it was the most tragically beautiful melody that she had ever heard! "That's incredible music," she mentioned to her escort in a breath of awe.
"Ren's house is just a few more buildings away," he told her coldly, not even acknowledging the comment about the music. She blinked. Why would ignore something so beautiful? Even though she was the type that enjoyed heavy metal and alternative rock, she could still hear talent and true genius when she heard it. She let it go, deciding that it didn't really matter. Though it did bug her.
The house they arrived to was beautifully ornate and looked just as expensive as the main house of the great Soma fortress. It seemed too indulgent for Riiko's taste. Her escort halted her with a slight motion of his hand and walked up to the front door. He didn't even need to knock on it; it swung open, much to both of their surprises. Riiko froze. This woman looked almost exact to the boy she had seen earlier! Her hair was an amazing length of black that went all the way to the floor, though it was thin from it's length and her age. She appeared very thin, but it was obvious that she was well endowed. In fact, she wore a long, slightly form-fitting cotton dress that had a "V" go down almost to her bust line. A long robe hung off her arms like a mantel and she smiled with a horrible arrogant smile. Riiko immediately disliked the woman.
"Ren-san, how did you-"
"I was called by that old fool housekeeper. She mentioned that a young woman was here to discuss business with me." Her coldly amused eyes lit on her. "Well, little girl? What 'business' do you have with me?"
Riiko immediately knew that the woman was toying with her: she knew who she was already. "No point in pussy footing around it..." she muttered, starting to pull out the papers from her ragged old bag.
"Ah, lets go in and have some tea, shall we?" Ren suggested, suddenly honey and roses. Riiko shrugged and stepped up to the door; it made no difference to her where it took place. Her escort on the other hand looked uneasy. "Oh, Hari-kun, come and join us! Akito keeps you all to himself as it is. You should come in for a short bit."
The man seemed to really struggle with the desicion. Something was really bugging him. Finally he sighed, "All right. But please make your visit brief, I have more work I have to do."
"Don't worry, I won't take long," Riiko muttered as she moved past Ren into the foyer of the house. 'Hari' followed her. Hari took off his shoes inside and Riiko clumsily followed suit. Their shoes set aside, she opened her jacket and stood on the tatami mats. Ren walked into a small room where a servant in kimono was laying down a tray of ordurbs and tea. The woman bowed to Ren upon seeing her and fled the room inconspicuously. But Riiko noticed her movements. Ren set herself down gracefully on a mat. Hari just as gracefully knelt. Riiko just let her legs fold out beneath her and she plopped herself down.
The woman began to pour tea. Riiko was restless. Her leg started to bounce slightly on her knee, growing more vigorous as the time moved on. Despite not wanting to be rude, she wanted to spend as little time in the presence of this woman as possible. Hari seemed to notice her movement because he coughed a couple of times. Riiko ignored him.
Riiko began to realize that Ren was staling for time on purpose just to piss her off. It worked. "Damn it, you know who I am already! Why aren't you saying anything!?" Ren didn't speak, just handed Hari a small plate of ordurbs and then his tea. Riiko ignored the growing look of anxiety on his face, the look of someone caught in the middle. "Might as well just get to the point then..." she snapped, pulling out her papers now and slapping them down in front her on the table. Ren simply stared at them. "Sign it."
Hari looked worried. Ren kept that look of calm chill on her face as she picked it up to read. After a few fluid flicks of her eyes, a slow, Lucifer's smile spread across her face. Riiko immediately knew that she had something in mind. "So he's dead now is he? How did he die? Oh, no, let me guess! He went out with a safari crew and caught a cold! No, maybe he was bitten by a fly and died that way!! Ha! That poor pathetic man. Never could handle anything too dangerous-"
Riiko slammed her hand down on the table. Ren stopped laughing as the tea poured over. Hari glanced back and forth between them, worried. "You have no right to laugh at my father, you cut throat bitch!! He was as strong as any man that ever lived!! You're the one who's weak!"
Ren's eyes gazed coldly upon her, the smile coming back to play on her face. "You're an orphan now... and you need me to sign these off so you can live out on your own. That's not a smart way to get what you want."
"I never held any value in your eyes, why should I think that you would want me as a daughter now? Besides, I'm not an idiot. The head of the estate here wouldn't put up with an outsider living in here."
Ren's smile froze. Hari went very still. "Akito you mean..." she replied crisply.
"I can tell from this place that this family is very secluded, most likely because of it's great wealth and influence..." both continued to listen to her. "And Father used to do business with the old head of the family. I have no doubt that Akira and Akito are much alike in their tastes for privacy..." Ren didn't move. A few moments of silence went by as Riiko took a small sample of food. It was okay. "Guess I found the reason why you didn't want a daughter around you." Ren seemed to straiten as she continued. "I think I should go meet my older brother later, if he gets to be in a better mood." Her eyes drooped low, a calm spread over her face. Riiko knew when she had struck a nerve. "Having a child out of wedlock when you are the wife of a rich Soma... had anyone found out, you would have been divorced before you could even try to argue. Then there would be no cushy little trust fund for you, would there?"
Hari glanced carefully between Riiko and Ren, waiting to see what would happen next. Ren smiled then, shocking Riiko. "Wrong. My beloved died before I even conceived you. When I found I was pregnant, I believed that perhaps that I would have another chance! To have a good son. But then you came. I told that pathetic father of yours and he cleared out all together, taking you to Africa of all places!" The woman snorted. "You pitiful hick!! You think you know so much-"
"I don't care what your reasons were, hag, I just want you to sign those and get out of my life!!"
Ren stopped laughing, suddenly looking gleeful, a look that sent a shiver of disgust down Riiko's spine. "By law, you have to have a guardian until you turn 18, here and in the US. If I were to refuse, you would, by default, come live with me, unless I refused and you would be sent to a foster home from there..." Riiko paused, leaning forward slightly. She wasn't... "I refuse to sign! I'm claiming my rights as your legal guardian!!"
The door slammed open suddenly as a raspy voice just like Ren's snapped, "HATORI!!"
Simultaneously, Riiko had smashed the tea pot with her fist. The side of her hand was bleeding from the shards of expensive china in her hand. Ren cried out and stood up, the front of her thin dress dripping with tea. Several servants stood outside, gaping in shock at the scene. Hari had leapt to his feet in disbelieve and saw the blazing anger in her eyes. Riiko was beyond furious: she was homicidal.
"You bitch!! I've had nothing to do with you for almost 16 years now!! You were never there for me when I was a child, you even shunned me at birth because I was female! Now you want to force me to live with you!? Fuck you!! Never in this life OR the next!!"
Riiko shook herself, realizing that if she didn't calm down, she really would lose control!! She shook slightly as she pushed past the boy she had seen earlier and slid into her shoes. She paused though to snap, "Sign those papers or you'll regret having ever seen my face!"
She stormed out, leaving the young man a little overwhelmed. From the girl's words... His eyes snapped onto Hari. "Hatori, we're going back to the main building!! Come on!" Just as Hari started to follow him, Ren suddenly very quietly began to chuckle. Her voice grew until she was laughing hysterically and Hari stood still. The boy didn't. "What is this?" he demanded.
She smiled at him smugly. "Oh, Akito, what fun this little Riiko will be! I think you'll get along famously with your sister!!"
Her words stunned him but Hari pushed Akito out of the room and got him to head back to the main house. Akito's eyes bored on Hatori as they walked. "Hatori! I want a full explanation!! Who was that girl?"