Guardian of the Angels
Chapter 2: Purpose, Undefined
Class went along smoothly enough, outside of the looks being thrown at the girls by, well, everyone. Kaede was indeed incapable of speaking, but she possessed two methods with which to get around these disabilities.
The first was sign language. She signed a question to Kanade, and she quickly whispered the answer back in a hushed tone. How do I know sign language? I've been around for several of your lifetimes, don't forget, and I do have an interest in learning.
Anyways, when a question or concept is too complicated or difficult to put into signs, she uses a small tablet computer that sits on her desk. She is an incredibly fast typist, displaying multiple lines of text on the device within seconds. For these, she would pass Kanade the tablet, who would type her reply back onto it, and pass it back. From what I could see, these questions had little or nothing to do with the subject matter currently being taught.
The most recent time they passed the device between them, I used some of my special "abilities" to see the entirety of what was being displayed.
It was a hypothetical question concerning cutting objects with blades that were only a picometer wide.
That's not something you see every day, but the response from Kanade was filled with complex graphs and references to several scientific journals.
My, my, these girls are just full of surprises.
...
After the lunch bell rang, I exited the room with the rest of the students, heading down to the lunchroom to purchase the same lunch I ate every day. It was funny, really. It was an old favorite introduced to me by none other than Kanade herself.
As I sat down at my preferred table, in the far corner of the lunchroom, with my bowl of mapo tofu and my laptop, I saw the Angels enter the lunchroom from the entrance nearest to me. Well, at this point, it is more accurate to call them the Angel and her sister, but I'll eat my shoe if that girl isn't an Angel as well.
The girls looked around the lunchroom as I opened up my "laptop" and began navigating through menus and entering information into the correct dialog boxes.
Sure, it was a desktop replacement laptop on the outside, but it's actually my link to the Guardians residing back home in the Plane of Solitude. It functions like a laptop, but because of that connection, I can send my reports back to the ruling Guardians concerning the arrival of the Angel I preside over, as well as any additional information about the situation.
In past times, I had to send these reports manually with pen and paper, but since the humans finally caught on with computer technology, no doubt leaked to them by an errant Guardian, I have been able to send these reports electronically.
"...Your mapo tofu is going to get cold if you don't eat it." I had been so intent on looking at the screen and entering the data necessary that I had developed a terrible case of tunnel vision and had failed to see the two girls standing in front of the table, both holding steaming bowls of food.
I stuttered for a few seconds before I was able to correct myself.
"I-I-I-I-I was going to, not to worry! I just had to write a few dozen something or others' in my laptop..."
Both of them raised their left eyebrow at the same time, and I almost laughed despite myself. They were still standing, looking at me, before Kanade gestured to the mostly-empty table.
"Do you mind if we sit here? The other students don't seem to take very kindly to us, for some reason..."
I nodded, not only in confirmation of her request, but also in the other student's distaste for them.
You see, Angels are different from humans because of the energies around them that are present in all living things and everything in every realm, plane, and dimension of existence. The energies an Angel emits and absorbs are able to be controlled by said Angel. Controlling this temporal energy allows an Angel to wield a variety of enhancements and abilities far surpassing any human 'magic', which is a mere mockery of this type of power.
But how does this affect a normal human's perception of an Angel? They can still feel something different about an Angel, and in most cases, this constant energy exchange occurring around an Angel puts normal humans in a negative disposition. They can feel the energies passing through them, around them, and everywhere, because an Angel's subconscious manipulation of that energy causes different movements than naturally occurring energy.
As they sat down to eat, I noticed their meals were not identical, as I had half-suspected them to be.
Kanade was eating mapo tofu, as to be expected, but the other girl, Kaede, was eating miso ramen slowly, her Adam's Apple bobbing noticeably when she swallowed.
"So why do you like mapo tofu? It's not a very popular dish; I was pleasantly surprised to discover this school even offers it."
Kanade was making small talk after I had finally closed my computer after finishing my report and turning my attention to my food.
I couldn't reveal anything just yet. Well, I could, in theory, but that would make a lot of people mad. Important people, high ranking Guardian people. So I played it safe, in a witty sort of way. I stirred the thick red tofu before taking another bite, savoring the intense fire it created in my mouth.
"A friend got me hooked on it a long time ago. She isn't around anymore though...anyone who eats it is a friend in my book, because they remind me of her." More flashes of recognition showed on her face, but none of it was conscious; she might have thrown the bowl of scalding hot, delicious tofu at my head if it had.
"...I see." She was never one for many words, and she continued eating without making a sound. Kaede made a few coughing sounds throughout the lunch period, and constantly rubbed her throat, which after a while I could not help but stare at.
She saw me staring and poked Kanade as she finished her bowls' last dregs. She signed something with wide sweeping signs, but after a millisecond I determined them to not be of the same sign language that I was versed in. Perhaps it was a code of their own creation.
"You were staring at Kaede's scars." Her voice hadn't risen in volume, nor in tone. But it wasn't a question; it was a statement. Both sets of bright eyes were on me, and feeling slightly put off by this coordinated assault of blank, dead looks, I just nodded.
"I'm just curious as to how she got them. Judging from the size and shape of them, she wasn't born with them, right?." Kaede looked to her sister, before back at me, and nodded.
"So what harm is there in telling me? I'm just as much of an outcast as you are, so who am I going to tell?" Kanade looked around the room quickly, her silver hair swishing slightly as she did so, but her worries were unfounded: we were in a secluded corner of the lunchroom, made even more secluded by the attitude of those around us.
She sighed, before moving her bowl away from her and setting her hands on the table, folded neatly.
"Alright, I tell you a little bit about it, but only because Kaede doesn't see any harm in it, and because you're the first friendly person we've met in this school." Probably the last, girls, probably the last. If we're lucky.
She pressed her index fingers together, before sighing and fixing the lace on her white uniform. Then she gave me a deathly serious look.
"I don't expect you to believe most of this, but this is what happened."
Kaede shuddered and her hands went to her throat. That traumatizing, huh? I need to know, more out of my human body's desire to know than my own requirement to obtain this nugget of information.
"Well, about six or so months ago, we were going back to our apartment after school. We had been attending a school far away from our parents, who are always away on business, but they paid for a studio apartment close by where the school was located.
It was shortly after dusk when we were walking down the side street our apartment was on. The lights were on in our third floor apartment as we approached, which struck us as odd, because we always made sure to turn them off before leaving in the morning.
Entering the building and beginning to climb the stairs, we heard voices coming from our apartment. It turned out to be a pair of thieves, but we didn't know this at the time. We rushed into our apartment to see them going through the jewelry box in our living room.
Kaede rushed at the one who was putting a pair of diamond necklaces our mother had given to us long ago, but he pulled out a knife and, well...
He sliced upwards and caught her throat, giving her one cut. She fell to the ground and they fled out the window when they saw the pool of blood on the floor. I called the police and the ambulance, but the police never responded.
Kaede almost bled out in the hospital, and the other scar on her throat is from when the doctors were sewing her throat up; it's actually a line of interlocking stitches that keep her jugular from falling out.
A week after Kaede was discharged our parents were informed, and promptly moved us to a different city, almost 6 hours away from that apartment. They attempted to find the assailants, but were unsuccessful in doing so.
"So now we're here." She finished with...finality, and I couldn't detect any lies in that retelling, which was shocking to say the least.
Not that she would have any reason to lie, except to protect themselves. But they did not; still as truthful as ever...at least, Kanade was.
The rest of the lunch period was quiet, as I finally tucked into my own meal, savoring the intense spice and the delectable aftertaste. Humans do have the sense of taste, after all.
A/N: Wow, what a crazy coincidence! Guest reviewer Truna said that people still read this, and later on today, I stumbled upon this chapter in my Google Drive while scrolling through my writings, and decided to finish it/ continue to work on it; it's one of many stories that I've started and never continued, and one of 2 that I haven't ended up deleting after 1 chapter: The other being Team Beats! 2, but that's staying on hiatus for a while yet.
So thank you Truna, and may I say that you should totally just make an account, so I can talk to you via PM? Saying this in an author's note is weird.
Ciao~