The HiME of Zero
Chapter 2: The six headed CHILD
"..y w..k.. up."
No go away, sleep is good.
"I ..id g.. .p!"
Whose voice is that, I don't remember a voice that grates on my nerves just by speaking.
"YOU DAMNED FAMILIAR I SAID GET UP!" There's an explosion followed by me hitting the wall again. "Gah! The hell was that for!" I yell rubbing my head after it bounced off the wall, again. Honestly, I'll die of head trauma before anything else kills me. "You're going to make me late to breakfast." My master has her arms crossed and she's tapping her foot impatiently, "And…" She points her finger straight at me neck, "You somehow cut through the chain that was suppose to keep you from running away!"
I think she forget about my ability to summon a weapon. I stand up and brush off the invisible dirt of my clothes, then stretch feeling my joints pop. Sleeping on a stack of hay is not the best way to sleep, it might as well as been the floor itself. After looking at my master again, she is already dressed in her uniform. I can't help feel some pride in the clean clothes; it took me forever to find a place to wash them.
"Familiar are you going to stare all day or can we leave now?" Louise's patients finally gives out, "Lead the way master." I bow to her mockingly she huffs and flips her hair over her shoulder. Her face suddenly softens as she looks at me she opens her mouth to say something before quickly closes it and shaking her head.
"Is there something you are unpleased with?" Louise huffed and her angry face reared again. If that's her normal face she's going to wrinkles by the time she's 20. "You mean besides everything that you do?" Oh now I'm a scapegoat, "I don't suppose you could take this off?" I point to the collar and what is left of the chain. Louise thinks for a moment before fiddling around in her pockets fishing out a key. She unlocks the collar and lets it fall to the floor.
I rub my neck, with me hand trying to get the soreness from the collar to go away. "If you try and run again, I'll cut off your food for a week." "Don't worry I don't want to go on another 'Let's spin Kuga in the air till she pukes' ride again." I answer my master worries, besides were would I go? I would need Kiyohime's help to get anywhere, and I doubt that a flying, sixheaded, Hydra would be inconspicuous.
"Then let us leave before breakfast is over." She turns and I follow her down through the corridors and into a large dinning hall. I try and remember the way to get here just incase I ever got lost. I'm almost stunned to see how big the place was for just a dinning room. I whistle in amazement, there are three huge tables and just about all the seats are filled too. Then the whispers came, "Hey there's Zero and her run away Familiar." "That's them right." "Yea, though her Familiar is hot." "Hell yea man, if she were my Familiar..."
It took everything to keep me from brandishing my naginata right on the spot. Another reason I hate rich, spoiled, brats. I look down to my master and see she simply keeps walking. 'Either she didn't hear them or chose to ignore them.' We arrive at two empty chairs that have meals already placed in front of them. They look like meals you would order from one of those high class restaurants that Shizuru once took me to for my birthday. Sudden my cheeks feel a lot hotter when I remember that night. "Are you going to stand their or are you going to pull the chair out?" Louise brings me out of my happy thoughts.
I pull the chair out for her she sits down like an elegant lady, though that's probably the only thing 'elegant' about her. I push the chair in the table and go to take the seat next to her, before I even sit she's already trying to scold me again, "What do you think you're doing Familiar?" "Well I was going to start eating before you stopped me." What else does it look like? Maybe she thought I was going to stare at it until is floated into my mouth. Her right eyebrow twitches in what I guess is annoyance as she points at the floor, where a dish with a few cracks and nicks in it, lays.
"Yes, it's called a plate." I respond with a smart-ass answer, Louise growls at me. "Only nobles can sit at the table. Commoners sit on the floor." If I where an anime I bet I have one of those giant sweatdrops on the back of my head. And so I'm sitting on the floor cross-legged with only a piece of bread and a glass of water. These kids know nothing about how much food a person needs to survive. "You know I need a lot more than this piece of bread to survive." Louise glances at me and ignores me. She and the rest of the student say a small prayer thanking someone for the 'small breakfast.' I bet my left arm that these people have never really been hungry in their lives.
I grumble at the inconsideration of another human being as they eat breakfast but I'm left with a piece of bread, but I let it go for now. No need to draw to much attention now, but for the sounds of the whispers I can hear we're already the talk of the whole school so far. I eat the bread that I was so luck to get, but I'm pretty sure that it's stale as it's hard to eat. "Here." I hear Louise call to me and sure enough she's got a piece of her breakfast on a plate and is handing it to me. I'm actually stunned for a moment before taking the plate out of her hands.
"Don't get use to it Familiar I just felt sorry for you that's all." 'Yea you're a real saint.' I keep that thought to myself and simply give her my thanks, "Thank you Louise." She turns her head back to her breakfast so fast she should had whiplash from it. Maybe it was to keep me from seeing that her cheeks were tinted a very light pink. I say my own thanks and eat the food, sure I wasn't full but it was better than a piece of stale bread that's for sure.
Next we're headed outside again; Louise goes off explaining the rules about Familiars being left outside during meals and how she was nice enough to make an exception with me. Boy, my master is just the nicest there is isn't she, though I could do a lot worse with all the things I hear the boys saying about how they'd 'wipe me into shape.' I'm really starting to think I should pick a fight and whip someone's ass just to get them to shut up.
After getting around the corner I noticed that a lot of students are sitting at the tables outside the school, a couple maids walking around taking orders of food and drink most likely. "What's going on?" I wonder out loud, my master responds after a short while maybe wondering if she should even answer. "Second years don't have class today." She's a second year? I wonder if their grade scale is anything like it is back home. Then I notice that all the kids have an animal of some kind next to them or in their arms.
"We're supposed to be building a relationship with our familiars." "Sounds just perfect for us…" I add sarcastically, Louise mumbles something under her breath about a 'proper familiar.' Then a new voice pops into the conversation, "Well a real familiar would want to get to know its master." Both Louise and I turn around to find the red haired woman from last night. She was petting a very large lizard with a flame on its tail and the first thing in my mind was, 'If only I had a pokeball…'
"What with that attitude!" Louise growls with as much animosity as she can muster. Obviously the two girls can barely stand each, "Well only Zero would fake a summoning ritual." My interest perks up at that name again 'Zero' I've heard that a few time always in the two days I've been here. By the way she's used it, it wasn't a cute nickname. I'll have to ask the meaning of the name later, the two girls are going at each others throats.
"I definitely did the summoning right, and she was just there! You saw it yourself!" Louise punches back that the red haired woman. The red head counters with a hard right, "How do we know you didn't just pull off some commoner off the streets and pay them?" And an unexpected blow to Natsuki, "And you think I'm such a cheap person to go along with such a stupid stunt?" If you're going to throw an attack I will attack you back. She stares at me and studies me for once, dragging her eye up and down like I'm something on display.
"Don't all commoners follow orders if they're paid?" Did she…I think she did. Now it's on, no more pulling punches, "I'm sure you know all about that, how else would anyone listen to you talk," and Natsuki throws a devastating uppercut! "Or maybe showing your cleavage is the only way to get people not to notice your terrible personality." And she follows up with a body blow! Both the red haired woman and Louise are staring in shock at my attack, but the red haired woman attacks back. "Well at least I have something to show."
And she's counters with a double heavy uppercut! I can tell Louise is down for the count, I know that now is the time to fall back and fight another day. A smirk comes to her face as she knows she won this battle, she walks off laughing like a stuck up noble her lizard following her. "Tsk, I let my guard down." I click my tongue in annoyance. I can feel Louise radiate with anger, "That damn woman!" Looks like we now have a common enemy. "Don't stand there go grab me some tea or something!" Louise walks off in anger, great now I'm her mental punching bag.
Walking through the tables, I have no idea were I would get tea out here. Maybe I'll just ask a maid, I see a maid that's delivering cake and I call out to her, "Excuse me." She turns in a hurry with a smile on her face. "Yes?" She has short dark hair and grey blue eyes she wears the normal maid outfit that one would find on a real maid. "Could I get a glass of tea?" I ask nicely not letting the angry from the confrontation with the red head from earlier effect me.
She smiles sweetly, "Sure what kind?" Ah crap, I have no idea what the names of any of the drinks would be, so I'll try my luck with one that has never failed me. "Green Tea." "Alright please wait here while I go get some." Some times I think Shizuru would whisper in my ear while I slept, 'Natsuki will get some green tea.' That woman and her tea were going to break my wallet I was sure of it. No matter where we were she always either ordered tea or brought it with her, even on vacations to the beach or hot springs. She was addicted to tea just as bad I was addicted to mayonnaises.
In fact if I remember right one of our biggest fights ended up with her dumping my mayo down the sink. I got back at Shizuru when she discovered that all of her tea was gone from the cabinet. Somehow the incident ended with me on top of her, and our clothes on the floor. Best night ever. "Thank you for waiting." The maid comes back dragging my mind out of the past, "Ah thank you…um…" "Siesta, my name is Siesta." Siesta answers my unasked question and hands me the tea. I take it from her, "Thanks Siesta, oh I'm Kuga by the way." She tilts her head to one side, "Kuga? Oh are you Miss Valliere's familiar?" Looks like I'm famous already, "Yea, unfortunately."
Siesta opens her mouth to say something before being called by another person, "Is my cake ready?" We turn to see the blond haired ass from last night. He was sitting at a table with a girl who was also a blond, had very curly hair with a big pink ribbon tied into a bow. The ass had what seemed to be like a giant mole on his lap, I could hardly see what girl had in her hand but judging by the tongue that kept shooting out into a heart shape, I'd say it would be a frog. But knowing these stuck up asses it might be a toad.
I snicker at the thought of the beauty summoning a toad as a familiar and being horrified by the result. Siesta looks confused by my snickering I wave her off, "No it's nothing. You better deliver the cake before he gets his panties in a wad." Siesta blushed at the thought of the ass wearing women underwear.
"Do you think he would?" "You never know." I leave Siesta with that and walk back to my master with tea in hand, and then I hear another voice call out to me this time. "Excuse me!" I turn to find a girl with brown hair, a brown cape carrying a white bag walking to me. I wonder about the cape for a second before I think to myself that she might have a different cape due to being in another grade or age group. "Excuse me, sorry for imposing but could you help me find someone?" I take back what I said about everyone here being a suck up snob. She seems nice enough and she's got manners as well.
"I can help you, if let me deliver this really quick to someone." I hold up the tea and she nods her head. I quickly walk to my master who is sitting alone at a table tapping his finger on her arm. She straightens up as she notices me, "About time, what took you so long?" I simply give her a smirk before replying to her, "Making friends." Her mouth opens a little, "I'll be right back with you." I give a small wave and hurry back to the girl, "Alright now who are you looking for?" "Ah, Sir Guiche."
I tilt my head to the side and give the girl a confused look, she seems shocked that I don't know who he is. "He's tall and has blond hair and is the most handsome man you'll every see." She describes the ass; now know as Guiche, with a dreamy look in her eyes. "Hmm…well…" I look to see where he was sitting earlier, 'Looks like he saw her before she saw him.' Now I know he's a snob, an ass, and a playboy.
I catch sight of him not too far from the table. He was dragging the girl with him, 'Oh it's payback time.' "I see him." I point to him and the girl takes off running to him. "Sir Guiche!" Guiche panics and drop the other girls hand, she looks between the two with confused look but the gears in her head wear turning as she watched things unfold. "Guiche who is she?" Guiche tries to explain himself and get off the hook at the same and it might have worked had I not decided to step in.
"Oh, so she was the one you were with last night." The color drains from his face as I push him deeper into the hole he dug. "Guiche what's the meaning of this?" The blond girl demands from him. "Hey stop confusing these beautiful ladies." He tries to play the nice guy card no way I'm letting him off that easy. "So you admit to being with her last night?"
I hear mumbles and whispers as a crowd gathers around us. "T-That's not the point!" He shouts, "Then the point is that you're double dating two girls at the same time?" I counter hard and fast; the two girls quickly gang up on him. "Please Katie, Montermorency." "You're horrible!" They say together and the blond smacks him in the face, he lands on his ass as the girls leave him in an angry storm.
Everyone is laughing at him and a boy points out, "You got dumped." He sighs and looks straight at me, his eye burning with rage. Alright maybe I'll see some action finally and get to whip some ass. "I was being nice to you yesterday, but it looks like I should show you how to act around nobles." I smirk at him, "Lucky for the both of us, I just don't care."
"You made two girls cry and you don't care." He says darkly, 'No I'm very sure that's your fault.' I deadpan at his accusation, "Well if I were a noble I sure in as hell wouldn't date you." Everyone laughed and oooo'd at Guiche, "Well since you want to anger me so. I challenge you to a duel." Alright now I can have a look to see what these fights look like. Plus it would be good to learn how to use the naginata before I go into the real battle. "Alright, when and where?" I ask as I cross my arms and smirk at him, "At Vestry field, I'll be waiting." He turns at walks off with some dignity.
This will be fun, hopefully I can avoid calling out Kiyohime; the best kind of weapon is a secret weapon after all. I start to walk after him before I'm stopped by a hand. I turn to find Louise has stopped me, and she looks pretty angry too. "The hell is wrong with you!" She demands, I tilt my head again, "What do you mean?" No doubt she thinks I can't win against that pompous ass, "You can't win against Guiche! He's a noble and you're just a commoner." I guess I need to remind her just what she summoned, "You forget master that I am a HiME."
"I don't care, you still can't beat a noble, just apologize to him." She shoots down that I can even touch him, "Hmm that's a good idea." Now she looks at me in confusion wondering if I'll take her advice. "When I win I'll have him apologize to those girls." She drops her head in defeat.
He's waiting for in the courtyard next to the one we where just in, he glares daggers at me. So I shoot him my glare, which makes him shiver and stop glaring. I smirk as he realizes that he lost the first battle already, "I'm surprised you even showed up." The ass says trying to save face again. I wave him off "Yea yea, I'll fight you on one condition." He perks up at hearing me say that, "And what is that." "You'll apologize to those two girls who stormed off." I hear him click his tongue as he adds his own condition, "Then when I win, and I will, you have to be my servant for the rest of the day. And I'll teach you some manners."
I shiver at the thought of him ordering me around, 'Ok Kiyohime is a defiant fallback plan.' "Alright I accept." "You damned Familiar!" I hear my master shout as she run toward him, "Guiche stop this duels are forbidden." I hear her plead with him, and I notice the circle of people from earlier had followed us. I make a mental note to keep the naginata chain short to keep from hitting them. I don't need someone uninvolved getting hurt.
"It doesn't matter she's a commoner so there is no problem." He takes out a rose and throws a pedal to the ground. 'Oh scary.' Then a suit of armor rises from the ground and stands in front of Guiche. Well that's new, but my naginata is already in me hands, by the time the suit is fully summoned. My hand is on the handle part that turns the blade into a sharp whip, I turn it twice, and a click tells me that the blade is ready. Something else I notice is that the writing on the back of my left hand is glowing softly. My body feels light and I can judge the distance between me and the suit of armor is.
The odd thing is that I couldn't do that before, but now it was almost second nature to me. I mentally make a note to find out about these along with Louise's nickname. I turn my attention back to the suit of armor, and Guiche who's just standing their not even giving orders. "Cocky asshole." I say to myself. "I am Giuche the Bronze, and this bronze golem Valkyri-!" A sound stops him as my whip blade pass through the golem, the sound was my whip blade cutting through the air, and it was barely audible, how he heard the sound over his own voice I'll never know. I retract the whip back into a blade, and the sound of metal hitting metal is heard and the golem is split in half, the top half falls to the ground.
Silence is the sound of the crowd and of Guiche as he looks down at the sight of his golem on the ground in half. I click my tongue in annoyance as I could have taken his head off by now. He shakes his head and throws out three more pedals and three more golems stand in front of him, "As I was saying, these bronze golem Valkyries will-!" While he talks, I turn my blade back into a whip and swing it through his golems again, but this time I make sure the golems are in pieces. He stops again after my blade makes his golems into pieces they break apart after I retract my whip again. He looks scared at first then he gets mad again.
"You!" "Oh no please continue, I'll just destroy only one while you talk this time." I smirk and lazily rest my naginata on my shoulder. I can't help and think this would be so one sided if I had my pistols on me instead. The crowd is still silent in awe, Guiche now throws out six pedals this time and they immediately charge right at me. I place both hand and get into a stance I didn't even know, waiting for the golems to come straight at me. But they don't in the middle they split up and come from all sides I quickly get a look at Guiche face, whose smiling thinking that he'll easily win this time. The first two come from my left and right, the both throw vertical slashes.
I take a step back and slash at the golem on my left, the naginata cuts through it like it was made of butter. Then I plant the pole end of my weapon into the throat piece of the golem on my right which, to a normal human would make him drop to the ground, however there only suits so it's only pushed back. The next attack comes from a golem who jumped at me and also swung a vertical strike at my back, I turn on heel on roll around him and swing as I come face its back. It jumps forward to avoid my swipe across its body, sudden an alarm goes off in my head as I duck in time for a sword to pass over my head in a stabbing motion.
I swipe my foot at its feet hoping to knock it off balance, it jumps over my leg with little effort and slashes at my head and I'm force to bring my naginata up and block the attack. I throw the attack to the side and round house kick the golem away, and I'm facing Guiche again his face twisted into annoyance. I smirk at him, turn around and swipe at the charging golem, it somehow stops itself before getting hit with the blade and it throws a punch at me hitting me in the chest. Suddenly it's hard to breath, but I'm more worried about it crushing my pendant. I slash at it again forcing it to retreat and I quick throw hand to my chest and find that my pendant is on the outside of my clothes and that it's in one piece.
I breathe a sigh of relief before I'm forced to step back keep a sword from cutting into my chest. However it does cut through the chain of my pendant, the golem grabs my pendant with its free hand and all five of them jump back to guarding Guiche. Guiche takes the pendant from the golem. I can feel my anger start to boil, "Hey that's not yours give it back." I shout of him, he says nothing and opens the pendant. He looks with interests at the picture on the right which is a picture of Shizuru's smiling face. My anger boils more as his looks at the picture on the left which is a picture of me and Shizuru on our third date. It has Shizuru kissing me on the cheek and my face lighting up like fireworks on new years.
"You know, when I make you my servant I'll have you tell me all about this woman." Guiche says smirking at and really pushing my button, "I'm sure she's in need of some company." My anger topples over at what this asshole is saying about my Shizuru. No-one and I mean no-one talks about her like that and eats without the help of a straw. I glare as hard as I can at him, I can see him stiffen up. I hope he peed himself, "I'll say this once give me back that pendant." I demand from him. Guiche smirk and closes the pendant, "Make me." Fine, it's his funeral. I take a deep breath and force the anger to leave me as I call up my partner. I lower my naginata to my side as she comes to my call extremely fast maybe she heard Guiche talk about her HiME and wants some payback.
She's comes to the surface, and I whisper her name bringing her into reality, "Kiyohime." As she materializes into this world, I'm lifted into the air standing on one of her heads. Kiyohime comes into this world with a hiss, the students take three steps back and some even probable pee themselves.
She's not in her giant form, but no doubt seeing a hydra just come into the world will leave a lasting impression on the ass in front of me. The color drains from his face, and he takes two steps back from the hydra in front of him. "Kiyohime," I say her name again, and she responds to me hissing at the boy in front of her, "Spit." I give the order and her mouths open and sprays its acidic poison at the golems.
They don't even more out of the way and are hit by the sliver liquid, they melt in a horrifying way. Guiche is left stunned in horror as his golems melt into a pool of liquid, I jump off Kiyohime's head and walk toward Guiche, stepping over the pool of liquid golem. He falls onto his ass as I stop in front of him and place the blade of my naginata in his face, "Do you yield?" I ask of him and he nods his head up and down. "I yield, I yield, I yield, I yield." He cowers in fear, I hold out my hand, "Now give it or do I have to feed you to my child?" Kiyohime lowers her heads right beside me and growls at Guiche.
Guiche quickly hands over my pendant, "Here please don't hurt me!" I quickly grab it out of his hands, I place it in my pocket but keep the naginata in his face, "Now you are going to apologize to those girls earlier, understand." He quickly nods his head and I pull the naginata out of his face. I turn around and face Kiyohime, each one of her six heads studying me. I smile and pet one of her heads. "Welcome back, Kiyohime." I greet her, and she nuzzles me with one of her heads.
"Sorry Kiyohime but you need to disappear again." She whines at me wanting to stay out longer. "I know, sorry. I promise I'll bring you out and let you stretch your necks soon." I give her a smile she takes that answer and disappears. The crowd is silent, and all eyes are on me, 'Well aren't I the star attraction.' Louise starts to walk to me and stops in front of me, looking like she doesn't know what's she's doing.
"Kuga…was that your CHILD?" I smile at her, "Impressed?" "Very." She answers immediate.
The sky turns to night outside the room that Louise and I were in. Earlier someone came by with a letter for Louise, and right now she had been staring at it for at least an hour. Her brows knitted together trying to make sense of it. "What's up master?" I call out to her from the chair across from her
"This…This can't be happening." She mutters to herself, not taking her eyes off the letter. "It says my mother and sisters are coming here!" She shouts in distress, and starts pulling her hair again, "And they left today! They'll be here in three days!" I grab the letter and look at it I can't make heads or tails of the writing. "Why is that a bad thing?" I ask her and she looks at me like I'm an idiot, "If they see you're my familiar no doubt I'll get scolded." "Why you did the summoning like everyone else, didn't you?" If I was pulled here because she messed something up I'm going to be pissed.
"I did it right like I told Kirche earlier!" Oh so that's the red heads name. "I still fail to see why it's so bad." I lean back in my chair, Louise looks like she about to blow a valve. "No sense worrying about it, if they don't believe you then we'll prove them wrong."
Louise looks shifty at what I told her and sighs, "I guess your right. I'll worry about it tomorrow." She gets up and strips out of her clothes throwing them into a basket, and she puts on her night gown. "Hey master." Louise turns to me with an annoyed look on her face. "What?" I point to the hay on the ground, "Could I at least get some type of be besides that." Louise thinks for a moment. "I'd say you earned it Kuga," She says and gets into bed, "But you'll have to wait till tomorrow." Another night of sleeping on the floor.
Yay.
Louise couldn't get to sleep easily that night.
Her mind played out the fight today and she still can't believe it. Her familiar beat Guiche. Her HiME beat Guiche. She can't believe she summoned such a strong familiar, and a familiar that summons a CHILD. She felt pride in her summoning.
Another reason is that her mother and sister were coming here. Her mind played out what would happen over and over, and it ended up with her having her cheeks pulled. Why they wanted to come all the way here she wanted to understand.
Eventually Louise fell asleep, but she did not have sweet dreams.
She dreamed of the mother and child running out of the building and getting into some kind of weird carriage. The mother somehow got it to move on its own, as the child was in the back scared and holding on a real dog. The mother got the carriage moving fast, very fast.
"Mommy?" The child asks her mother for comfort, "It's ok dear I'll never let them hurt you." The mother says trying to watch where there going. Turning on the road she came to a barricade, she turn to go around them but she turned the wrong away.
And they went off the side of a cliff.
The carriage quickly dropped into the water below, hitting the water hard.
And so Louise dreamed of a tragedy involving a mother and child.
