Prologue
Beep! Beep! BEEEE-
The alarm clock was thrust across the room and into a small pile of clothes before a man in his mid-forties with a mustache and shoulder length brown hair strut in.
"AKANE! WHY ISN'T BREAKFAST DONE YET! GET YOUR BUTT OUTTA BED, ITS NOT LIKE KASUMI'S HERE TO DO IT FOR YA!" With that he stormed back into his room, but not before slamming the door shut.
A groan could be heard from the futon on the floor of the nearly empty room. A feminine figure brought up two fingers to rub her temples and shut her chocolate brown eyes to try and stop the rising headache.
'He's in a good mood today.' she thought as she dragged on her new school uniform. 'Otherwise he would've hit me.'
She looked at herself in the mirror. Her long (yes long) blue tinted brown hair was all over the place, which she fixed with a few strokes of her brush. Purple and blue bruises decorated her upper arms, though her sleeves covered it from others. Her uniform consisted of a white dress shirt which sleeves dropped to the elbows topped with a red vest. A yellow tie was hanging undone around her neck and would remain undone if she had anything to say about it, and red pleated skirt stopped an inch above her knees.The ankle high socks she wore barely covered up a colorful bruise she had gotten from her 'father', Soun, when he had twisted her ankle to stop an escape from one of his beatings. Her brown loafers were downstairs.
She let out a sigh as she forced her legs to move. She never used to be confident about her cooking, but when her odest sister, Kasumi, went off to colege, Soun had forced her to take classes until she surpassed her sister in skill (Which took many, many classes). Now she makes all his meals. She learned it would be best NOT to be there when he ate 'cause if he didn't like it, she would have it shoved back in her face and have to start over again.
While she whipped the flapjacks into the air, she thought back to happier times. Beforeher sisters left, Soun hadn't beaten her, or put a hand on her for that matter. She used to be the perfect example of 'daddy's little girl' though she was a bit of a tom boy. He had supported her when she started martial arts. They owned a dojo and he wanted one of his girls to marry a martial artist to be an heir to the dojo. Kasumi was the perfect picture of a house wife, since their mother died while they were young, and cared more for doctors than martial artist. Nabiki, the middle daughter, was in love with money and could care less for the opposite sex unless it fattened her wallet. Akane herself had become the self-appointed man hater when an old crush, Lucia, broke her heart.
Everything changed when Kasumi ran away to marry some Doctor Tofu guy and went to colege. Soon after, Nabiki turned eighteen and left with her big sum of money and flew to America for learning. Soun was overridden with depression and had accidentally hit Akane while they were sparring. He found that when he did this, the depression had left him and continued to do so until it became something Akane woke up to.
Akane gently placed the five pancakes in a heap on a plate next to the syrup and tea where her father usually ate. She threw on her loafers and dashed out as fast as her injured leg would allow her, heading to the one place she felt remotly safe...
School.