"please,please,please!" Hoshi said holding the bag of candy with her red hair put up in pigtails,and her banges almost covering her sparkly blue eyes. Kieko peered in looking at all the candies and thought to herself "well she is the candy queen, what harm can it do?she's only 9" "fine"she said,grabbing the bag and going up to the counter,she grabbed her money from her purse, and slapped the money on the counter elderly shop keeper looked up with a goofy smile"is that all?", "yeah"she said,shopkeeper admired kieko's brown hair it had side swept bangs and fell a little past shoulder length, her emerald eyes sparkled like gems,she looked about 14 years old,still in eighth grade. she still had her school uniform on, it was a white polo with blue trim, and a blue skirt that came halfway to her knees, she had on bright white knee socks that had a lace trim, over the polo was a light yellow sweater vest with no design,it was slightly baggie but gave it the right amount of culture,she also had s light pink bow hang from her neck (basicly nina's uniform)
"alright then, heres your change" said the sweet older woman, kieko bowed and thanked her for her time *on the walk home.* " wow,this is so good Kieko,you should try it!" yelled hoshi "you know i'm not much for sweets" replied kieko."yeah,i know,but you bought it,so you haf to."said Hoshi."fine,if i have to i guess ill try a lollipop.","sorry,i didn't get any" "then give me the bag and let me find something." just then a pink crystal fell into the bag of goodies,kieko sticking her hand blindly into the bag ,found hold of the crystal,and pulled it out."this looks decent"then she popped it in her mouth, kieko made a face."what's wrong?" asked Hoshi "i thought candy was sweet" said kieko."not all the time, they have sweet, sour, tart..." "yeah but this is different it has no flavor."kieko replied."weird ,must be a dud"Hoshi answered just then a giant crowd of people came flying down fast,like a hawk they swooped down at the two,by instinct kieko swallowed the gem and shielded hoshi,then two of the people that were in the crowd yelled "look out" then jumped in front of the crowd.
one yelled "destruction magic"and a burst of blue light and fire burst from his hands,the other yelled "shield" and a burst of black and purple light burst from his a lardge white car droped from the sky justt barley missing kieko and hoshi"what the hell!?"cried kieko then Hoshi started to cry and yell this was too intense for a girl her age, the swarm flew back towards them and the two boys repeated their last steps and light filled the sky the mob started to fly away the two boys turned revealing a boy with blue hair, and blue eyes, he wore a sky blue pullover jacket that looked like some type of turtle neck, he also wore a pair of goggles over his head like a girl wears a headband and a slightly taller boy with brown hair , hazel eyes,and wore a dark blue t-shirt, that was mostly covered by his red button up,and dog tag that lay sprawled across his chest. kieko now hugging and consulting Hoshi,was tense,ready for battle but exhausted all at the same time."hey,are you ok?"said the blue haired boy, but kieko ignored him and continued to consult Hoshi. "LOOK AT ME WHEN I TALK TO YOU!"the boy screamed.
"Hoshi, i want you to run home,away from here,i'll take care of them"kieko said "kay"said hoshi through her sobs, the girl did as she was told and ran as fast as her stocky little legs would carry tuned around furiously, how dare they make hoshi cry kieko thought to herself "what the hell do you want?"kieko growled,she held her hands in a fist and glared at them. she was mad,she was ready to defend hoshi at any expense "i apologize,he can get a little hot headed,he's just being a bit rude for the moment,is your friend ok?"said the brown haired boy, kieko gave no answer she only glared at the two boys."anyway i'm Ichi and i see you've met my friend Zero, have you seen a pink gem by any chance?"asked Ichi holding up a less than practical picture of the gem,"why?"you thieves?"kieko asked defensively."HEY! were no more thug than you are smart"said zero,kieko ignored the comment,"well?" "as you can see we are nothing more than examinees."said Ichi. "what does that mean?","we are wizards,we are taking the wizard exam,we are in search of the crystal pearl,the pink gem we mentioned earlier?"."well,if you want to play make believe go ahead, but the only thing that seems relatable to what you described as the crystal pearl is the candy i ate earlier,if it helps it tasted bad so you might not want to buy any"she informed
zero glared at her and took out a cell phone looking device,then it started to beep"its close,its close". just then a sea horse looking creacher popped up and said"i can sense it's presence within her"."what did you do with it?"zero demanded "I swallowed it when the other so called wizards flew down at hoshi and me"."YOU DID WHAT!?" yelled zero the boy began frantically shaking her and shouting"HOW COULD YOU!"kieko let her defensive side kick in and head butted the boy, as he stumbled back she roundhouse kicked him in the stomach he fell head first into the concrete, Ichi walked over to him and tried to wake him up,but he just kept mumbling "the jewel, the jewel"kieko saw this opportunity to run, slowly she backed away from them, then he turned around and dashed around the corner. she got out her cell phone and dialed hoshi's home number, a male voice picked up the phone"kieko is that you?"it said "yes, did hoshi make it home safe?" she asked fanatically "yes, but she's crying so much i can't make out what she is saying, what happened?"asked the voice concretely.
but just as she was about to answer a large owl carrying a young girl and boy hovered right above her .kieko couldn't help but stare at the girl,she had long dark blue hair with bangs in the front along with dark blue eyes, with a pink hair band in her hair with two pink bows at both sides of her head and a purple dress with white frills and a little pink bow on her chest. She wore white stockings with black Mary Jane like shoes. She carried a gold colored staff with a gold and blue color wheel shaped top,next to her sat a boy who wore a brown tux and white hat that completely clashed with his beautiful blonde hair. "our tracker says you have the crystal pearl, i don't know how a human like you got a hold of it,but either give it to us or we can take it"said the boy, kieko could not believe what she was seeing a giant owl, it finally struck her that these people were not playing make believe, they were real wizards,actual sorcerers! keiko stood there in shock, were her eyes deceiving her? was it a dream? this could not be real,it just didn't make sense, none of it did. "hello kieko are you there?" said the man on the phone,"fine i see you want to do this the hard way"said the boy and with that the owl swooped down and grabbed kieko by the arm,still too shocked to resist kieko just stood there, she dropped her phone as she was lifted off the ground.
minutes later she was brought to an old abandoned cake factory,the too sweet scent of cake was enough to make her sick,and to make things worse she was tied up,her captors i identified themselves as Forte and son,they were awkward to say the least and very energetic,"geez this girl hasn't said a word since we saw her it's freaking me out son"said forte,"she's probably just shy" said the girl,"what's your name!?"said son in a voice way too loud, "uh...i'm kieko"she said in a voice faint and wavering "may i ...may i ask you something?"kieko said"shoot"said son "is this real?" son then nodded "so your wizards?" the girl nodded again "with powers and everything?"the girl nodded once more "now let me ask you a question,where's the crystal pearl?"said the boy "i swallowed it by accident I've already established that with your friends,.. zero and Ichi was it?",the boy looked at her in disbelief, "one those guys are not my friends,two i can't believe you swallowed it,and three we'll have to extract it by force now" "by force?" kieko said worriedly "well the rules said nothing about humans, so we could easily just end it here" said the girl kieko could not believe her ears "sure, ok"said the boy, he took out a silver flute, while the girl raised her staff from earlier, the girl yelled something kieko couldn't quite make out, but seconds later a hoard of snakes appeared, now kieko is afraid of snakes, in fact she was afraid of almost all animals, in the large mass of snakes was a giant anaconda which violently wrapped itself around her, Forte started to play his flute and with each note he played the anaconda's grip got tighter and tighter, all of kieko breath was being forced out of her she tried to gasp for more but she just couldn't.
the anaconda was too strong to fight for air, keiko's sight was starting to blur and get dark around the edges of her vision, everything grew dark,she was starting to get dizzy,she could feel her lungs caving in on themselves,she had one shot at this,if any one was near they would hear this, she gathered all of her remaining strength and did her best to sound out her words,"please help mhhhh..." mid sentence she lost all her strength,she could no longer speak,she was losing conciseness,only seconds before she closed her eyes the two boys from earlier,zero and Ichi burst in,then she closed her eyes it was black,there was nothingness all around her,although she could not see any thing she heard some explosions,and some yelling to go along with it. a few hours later she woke up,she saw stars,she could hear the cicadas in the distance,and she smelled the woods, where was she?was she dead? no if she were dead she would not see the beautiful stars,she put her hand up to reach them but they were too far away for her to reach them, if it was a dream she would be able to touch them,so this was real, she kept her hand up just to stare at it, she saw some bruises it took a while but she eventually remembered what happened,she sat up and looked around,she was at a park, and realized what she was laying on, it was one of the pillars they used to divide the sand and the grass, to her right was the cream colored buggy convertible from earlier ,she looked around and saw the two boys sitting on the swing set, they were watching over her, under any other circumstances she would have found this creepy but just this once she would let it slide.
she slowly stood up and walked over to them. she was about 4 feet from them when she started to talk."did you save me?"she asked in a hush voice,"yes"said ichi in a firm voice "both of you?" zero avoided eye contact clearly mad about earlier kieko then dropped down to her knees, it must have been a bit fast because both of the boys flinched at it,"i'm..so sorry,i didn't mean to be a bother"she hung her head so her face was not visible"i...i am deeply sorry for hurting you zero"her voice was now trembling"i was so mean to you, and still helped me,why,why did you do that?" her whole body was shaking now"thank you"she said and with that a single tear fell to the ground. she now felt a warm hand on her shoulder,she looked up to see it was zero"it's okay don't worry about it" after about 10 minutes of calming down kieko stood up,"can you tell me more about what's going on with this crystal pearl thing?"*one explanation later* "do you have somewhere to stay?"she asked both of the boys shook their heads. "i can offer you a place to stay but first do either of you have a phone i could borrow?"kieko asked,Ichi reached into his pocket and pulled out a black cell phone and handed it to her,"thank you" kieko dialed the same number again, and the same man picked up the phone "Kieko is that you? are you ok? where are you?"the man asked frantically.
kieko had to think for a minute, she knew if she had told him the truth he would not believe her,"yeah it's me,when i was talking to you earlier i was standing in front of a subway opening and was caught in the crowd,one guy bumped me so hard i dropped my phone,but i was so caught up in the traffic that i got pushed in to one of the trains then it left i spent the remainder of the day getting back into town, just now i bumped into a few friends i'm calling from his phone,they'll give me a ride home so don't worry" she explained "thank god "said the man"but what happened before?" how would kieko explain that?"they were shooting a movie, one of the scenes included a robbery,i didn't know it was fake so i told Hoshi to run home but before i could go with her the director asked me to sign a release form" kieko lied, kieko hated lying but she had to reassure him everything was alright."ok,i'm glad you're safe, hoshi made you a care package,she dropped it off at your house, do you need me to bring anything for you?" he said"no i'll be fine, tell hoshi i said good night." and with that kieko hung up the phone "who was that?" asked zero "it was hoshi's dad"kieko then gave the phone back to Ichi, Ichi gave her a concerned look in return,"why did you call him?why not your parents?" kieko slowly turned away from them and looked up at the stars, she gave no answer she then walked up to the car and said "come on lets go"
less than two minutes later they reached kiko's house, it was kind of remote in a way, hidden by lots of trees,it was definitely closer to the countryside then the city,but they finally found house,it was slightly large. it was a tan colored house with brown accents it was very well kept,next to the door was a package,kieko picked it up gingerly and unlocked the door and went into the living room,kieko set the package down on the table,then walked into the hallway,she showed the two boy their room "this quite a large house where is everyone?zura"asked Zura "miroku is studying abroad in america,and i was just about to let ran in" she said "who's ran?"asked Ichi,and just as he said that kieko opened the back door, a small white cat hopped in blissfully rubbing up on kieko,"a cat?"all three said in unison "you live here alone?with a cat?"asked zero"well...yes" kieko answered vividly zero burst out in laughter "that makes you a lonely cat lady, ha ha"
the cat walked over to Ichi and started rubbing on him,Ichi then picked her up and petted her "I like this one,kieko" said the cat all three stared at it in shock "a talking cat... here in the human world!?"kieko tilted her head slightly "you can hear her too? i thought i was just going crazy"the cat jumped down from Ichi's arms and pleaded itself into keiko's arms,"the green thing is cute too" "aww,thankyou, zura" ran said she turned her head to zero"but the blue one ,make's kieko unhappy, therefore the blue one is a trespasser, be warned trespasser, if you make kieko unhappy again i'll kill you"ran threatened,"that's some tough talk coming from a cute little kitty like you" said zero teasingly,then he tried to pet her, the cat gave him a death glare while his hand still lingered in her face, "do not under estimate me"she said then bit him anime style,then for about fifteen minutes they ran around the house anime style, about half an hour later when everyone was asleep kieko went in to the living room to open the care package " hoshi is just too sweet"kieko said under her breath. as she slowly took out the purple tissue paper, ran jumped in her lap,under all of the tissue paper was a few lollipops and a colored page,the picture was of two princes a tall one with brown hair,and a shorter one with blue hair,they were falling from the sky and looked as if they were going to land in front of two stick figures that looked like kieko and hoshi."Ichi and Zero:the princes who fell from the sky"she thought to herself.