Check Mate
Chapter 1
'Alice!' i shouted running upto my best friend on the hikari gawa ( light side). Standing next to her is her friend and my enemy, Danni-Marie Kurusagi. 'What took you so long?' Alice asked putting an arm around me and walking me away from the large water fountain in the middle of the courtyard. 'OH, I had to explain to my Aunt Luna why the house was a mess after the séance.' Alice looked up at me with a guilty expression on her face.' Oh yeah, sorry about that, Ivy.' She replied guiltily. I looked back at Danni to find her laughing her head off. ' I cant believe I wasn't there and it still went absolutely wrong!' She blurted laughing harder. I decided to ignore Danni for the rest of the day, and I felt a splash of rain on my cheek. Oh, great its raining, I sighed and looked up to see large black clouds forming and blocking out the sun. 'Oh, yay!' Alice cried throwing her hands up in the air. 'Come on, lets get inside.' Danni said walking off towards Sakura Café. As usual we picked the table next to the window, so we could watch people walk by in the rain. Out of nowhere, Tora Tsume appeared and pulled me out of my seat. She dragged me over to the store room where she was sure that we were out of ear-length. 'WHAT are you doing hanging out with them?' She asked peering over my shoulder to look at Alice and Danni, who were talking quietly to themselves. Stunned, I tried to think of an excuse quickly. 'Oh, well, after I had ordered my food, they came and started talking to me for no reason at all.' I replied confidently. 'Sure. Whatever you say Ketsu.' Tora said rolling her eyes at me. 'You can go back to your "friends" if you want.' I sighed and walked back to the table by the window.' What was that all about?' Alice asked leaning forward over the table. I looked up and faked a yawn before replying. 'Oh, that? Yeah she was just jealous or something.' Acting as if she was a fly I could shoo away. Alice looked disbelieving and Danni snickered before returning to the book that she had just pulled out of her bag a few minutes ago, while waiting for our food to arrive. Its weird, I thought, Danni thinks that I don't know that she is a psychic.
Its weird, I thought, Danni thinks I don't know that she is psychic. Which obviously, I do. Alice thinks I am on the Hikari Gawa (light side) with her and Tora thinks I am on the Kurai Gawa (dark side) with her, but I'm not. I haven't found my place in the world yet, I don't know if I'm evil or not. I will someday. Most people don't know Tora's real name, they just call her the "Dark Sorceress" which is a pretty lame name since she isn't a sorceress yet. Everyone calls her that because a fake psychic at a festival read her palm and "foretold" that she will become a dark sorceress. I thought that was completely made up. I, Seiketsu Ivy Kasumi, only found out I had powers about 2 months ago. Finding out about omnipresence was weird and it really freaked me out at first but now I think its pretty cool and useful. Omnipresence is when you can make duplicates of yourself and be in many different places at the same time but, making solid forms is hard and it takes a while to get it right. Its useful to me when, like last week, I promised that I would go to two different places with two different people on the exact same day. So I used omnipresence and it all worked out fine. The good thing is that everything that your other self says, does or experiences, goes directly to your head. When I'm bored, I practise making as many solid duplicates as I can and then I pull them back into myself. Which is very painful at first, but you get used to it after a while. I also have a power that is very rare, and is able to be used only by the descendants of the Shizen, meaning nature in Japanese. That power is called Stormgathering. It is a very hard thing to do. Stormgathering is the ability to conjure up any type of weather related thing. But over the decades, Stormgatherers and stormgathering has been hated and banned. Only a maximum of 5 Stormgatherers are left in the world, including me. The most a normal storm gatherer can conjure is a small shower or a heavy mist, but the rarest type of Stormgathering is the type I can do. That rare type of storm gathering is the hardest, the best I can conjure is a large tornado. Only two of the five storm gatherers alive can do this.
'Miyuki!' Alice cried snapping me out of my day dream. 'Long time no see!' I looked up to find a short, purple-haired girl hugging Alice.
'Ivy, aren't you going to say hello?' Alice asked nudging me.
'Oh, yeah. Hi Miyuki.' I replied turning to her.
'Hey! How are you?' Miyuki greeted smiling like a fool. I don't know why Danni doesn't like Miyuki, she's really kind and caring. I've had a lot of sleepovers with her over the years. We used to be best friends until she started hanging out with Echo. Echo, she also used to be one of my best friends until her mum left her and her dad. She got all depressed and didn't talk to anyone but the teachers for a few months. Until Miyuki decided that she would help her out and get her back on the right track. I was really surprised that it worked, after about 2 months; Echo was actually talking to everyone again. Even though she only had one friend, she was a lot nicer than before. Miyuki kept hanging out with her and keeping her on the right track even after a year. But then Miyuki got depressed when her little brother died from choking on a gummy bear. Not the best way to die is it? Miyuki eventually got over her brother, Noda's, death, only partly though. I heard from Echo that she still has dreams about Noda when he was alive.
'Okay, the rain has stopped.' I said standing up. ' I'm going to go home now, okay?' Alice and Danni looked up and nodded. 'Bye, Ivy.' Alice said. Miyuki didn't say anything and neither did Danni. Of course they wouldn't. Hoping to get home before the rain started again, ran out of the café to my Aunt Luna's Orange Porsche Carrera 911. I rapidly sat in the drivers seat and started up the engine. Backing out of the café's parking lot, I drove down Grindle Way, towards my 3 story house on May Street.
-Alice's POV-
'Nastume! Where are you?' I cried not believing that I have her soul inside of me. Natsume is- was my best friend. She was one of the angels that I had to protect from getting their souls sucked out of them by the other soul keepers. I was the only one who she ever told what her biggest secret is, she has trouble with pens, whenever she picks one up, it always starts leaking straight away. So that's why she only uses her laptop for writing things. Just then I saw a flash of pink go straight across my vision and disappear behind a bush. 'Hello?' I called. 'Is anybody there?' No reply. Who was that? I thought. 'Natsume, is that you?'
I walked forward only to find myself falling helplessly into a pit of darkness. I cried out for help but it didn't help at all.